Chapter Text
Sometimes, Ran isn’t quite sure why, out of all professions, she chose to be a tattoo artist.
At first, it’d just been a spur-of-the-moment decision; a random whim exacerbated by her unfortunate “daddy issues” as an angsty young adult, and then a few rebellious stick-and-pokes in college that turned out surprisingly well. After being born to florists and spending an entire lifetime learning the craft, Ran realized that nothing would have been a bigger fuck you than to simply refuse to take over the family business, the second biggest one being dyeing one singular lock of hair the most obnoxious, vivid red her hair stylist had available. Pissing off her father had only been the icing on the cake, however. She finds genuine enjoyment in creative work, not to mention that she’s damn good at it. Ran loves her job more than anything, but there are moments where Ran fully regrets every life decision that had led up to her career.
Such as now.
She’s sitting across the table from two people—her client, Kaoru, and her client’s girlfriend. Kaoru had been an older looking woman with striking purple hair. Ran studies Kaoru’s face for a second, her lips drawn into a lopsided frown. She’s not unattractive . Her high, prominent cheekbones and long eyelashes don’t do her any disservices. Objectively, she’s attractive, and perhaps that’s why when Ran looks back down at the sketch on the table, it takes all she has not to keel over and bust a gut. “You gotta be kidding me.”
It’s the single ugliest attempt at an animal she’d ever seen.
“Why would I be joking? The permanence of a tattoo is a deep commitment.”
“Uh… Right,” Ran picks up the slip of paper, studying the lines. She bites her lip. Don’t make fun of it, don’t make fun of it. “And… What exactly is compelling you to get a tattoo of a rat?”
The girlfriend’s face flushes a furious pink, and the blonde whispers something as she tucks a flaxen strand of hair behind her ear.
“You are mistaken,” Kaoru says with a few flourishes of her hand, “That wonderful maquette before you is of a kitten. My dear Chisato drew it, and I found the image so fleeting I wanted to keep it with me forever.”
Ran hates her job sometimes.
It’s late in the evening now. Ran had just finished cleaning up, ready to close up shop when the bell attached to the front door gives one last lyrical chime. It swings open, and in steps a young woman about her age, donning a teal quarter-zip worn over a white T-shirt. She props her weight against the front counter, blue-grey eyes trained on Ran.
“I want a tattoo,” the woman declares. Her words have a distinguishable, slow drawl to it, but matched with the half-lidded eyes, the subtle slouch of her shoulders, and the messiness of her hair, the lazy drag of her voice doesn’t feel uncharacteristic. It almost feels familiar to Ran.
Ran glances off to the side, out the window. It’s dark, the streets outside dimly illuminated by flickering street lights. She repeats, almost mechanically, “We’re about to close.”
“You’re technically open,” an easy smile spreads across her face slowly like melting butter, “Come on.”
They lock gazes as the newcomer awaits a response, Ran being too stubborn to agree but not ballsy enough to outright refuse. She usually doesn’t turn anyone away (a job is a job, after all), but in that moment, Ran wishes for nothing more than to just close up the studio and go home. It’d been a long day full of pain-in-the-asses, and the last thing she needs is another one.
“I hear you’re the best in the city,” the would-be-client says after a moment of silence.
Stone silence. Ran keeps staring her down, mentally willing the stranger to just leave, but they’d been standing there staring at each other for the past three minutes and she’s showing no signs of budging. After enough time, Ran sighs, rolls her eyes, and fishes a binder out of her drawer. She slaps it onto the counter in between them, “Pick one.”
The other takes some time flipping through the pages, looking through each design. Every now and then, she traces a lithe finger over the lines as though redrawing them. Ran taps her foot on the floor. After some time, the odd woman shuts the binder decisively.
“Which one do you want?”
“I want a custom one,” comes the deadpan reply.
“You do realize… That those require consultation appointments, right?”
“Then let me make one.”
Ran sighs as she sweeps the blue binder off the counter, and puts a deep red one on her desk. She flips it open, and then pulls out a pen. She taps the end of it onto the edge of her desk, drums out a rhythm of sorts as she asks, “What day?”
The customer tilts her head, the point of her index finger resting on her bottom lip in thought, “Two weeks from now?”
“Would the afternoon work?”
“Can we make it around this time?”
Ran makes a face as her pen hovers over the time slot, “I guess. Why are you so set on getting a tattoo in the evening?”
“It’s convenient.”
“Suit yourself,” Ran shrugs and then looks back down at the time sheet, “What’s your name?”
“Moca. Moca Aoba.”
She’s surprisingly normal throughout the rest of the appointment-making process. Ran’s surprised, having had expected a slightly more difficult customer.
Ran jots down Moca’s name in the time slot, looking down at the array of names. When she first opened up the studio, there had hardly been anyone interested, but lately there’s more traffic, thanks to word of mouth. “Alright. See you in two weeks from now at 8pm.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Moca grins, showing teeth. Ran actively chooses to ignore the slight rush of warmth to her cheeks as the other exits the studio.
“Oh, Moca,” Ran says when Moca drops by again a few days later, again right at closing, “You’re early. By well over a week and a half.”
“This is a token of my thanks.” Moca replies with a lilt of her voice. She removes her hands from behind her back, lopsided smile as cheeky as ever, and presents Ran with a full bouquet of flowers.
Ran looks over the arrangement. The studio lighting casts a soft, warm glow over it, highlighting the individual petals. It’s an interesting bouquet for sure, for all the flowers are of uniform color, which is fairly unusual. Some of the petals are lighter in color than the others, varying in brightness and hue, vibrant violets and muted mauves, and some with lines of white encircling the petals. It’s been a while, but she can still identify a few of the flowers. Heathers, gloxinias, and lilacs, meshing together in numerous shades of purple. When she was younger, Ran’s parents taught her the meaning of each flower whenever they arranged, gesturing at the various flowers and giving her the meanings. She still remembers them.
Admiration. Love at first sight.
Her face burns crimson, redder than her dyed lock of hair. She’s blushing, she’s sure of it, but if Moca had noticed, she doesn’t comment on it, though the spark of amusement in those lidded blue eyes doesn’t escape Ran’s notice.
“You… You really didn’t need to bring me this,” she comments quietly, but she takes it from Moca’s hands anyway, admiring the arrangement. Did Moca personally pick these out? Knowing the meaning of each and every flower? Or had it been a casual gesture?
“I was just passing by,” Moca says with a wave of her hand. Ran wonders if she’s imagining the light dust of pink over Moca’s cheeks when she adds quickly, “So it really wasn’t any trouble, not at all.”
“Oh, really?” Ran gives a slight smile, “Well, thank you.”
“Ohoo,” Moca exclaims, face lighting up, “A smile. Maybe I should stop by with flowers more often.”
Feel free to stop by whenever , Ran thinks to herself, but perishes the thought as suddenly as she had conceived it.
And Moca does come by. At the same time, every other day.
One of the things about the job Ran has grown to like is the interpersonal aspect of it. There’s an interesting story to each person, and although Ran usually forgets them within the next few months, she appreciates the intimacy of it, of learning who someone is beyond the surface. After all, she spends hours working on someone and most people are only comfortable with so many minutes of silence before they feel the need to break it. While she wasn’t very receptive of it at the start, small, idle conversation is something Ran has grown accustomed to and even, at times, come to appreciate.
Thing is, with Moca, Ran gets to know her even before the consultation appointment. She learns a lot of things about Moca. She loves bread and baked goods, even brought Ran a pastry from her favorite bakery once. She has this constant air of self-assuredness and exudes confidence, though Ran hadn’t noticed this until her third visit.
On the fourth consecutive visit, Ran learns that Moca is a florist.
Moca brings a bouquet of flowers with her again. It’s red this time, with accents of whites. Frilled carnations of varying crimsons and alabasters, with a chrysanthemum thrown in every now and then, and full, fresh roses.
I love you.
Ran ignores the message this time, starts to wonder if she’s reading too much into it. Wherever Moca is getting these, it looks like the person who arranged it likes to be very deliberate with their choices. When Moca gives her the bouquet, she looks up and asks, “Where do you get these?”
“I work as a florist right across the street,” Moca looks over her shoulder and points and grins, “You should come by sometime.”
Ran blushes as Moca hands her the bouquet, weighing it in her hands. Her eyes size up the arrangement, wondering what kind of vase she should pair the flowers with. She glances back up at Moca.
Moca stares back. There’s always that sharp look in her rounded face, and a lot of the time Ran feels like Moca sees right through her. Like there’s something the other knows that Ran hadn’t been quite let in on yet. As much as she’s learned about Moca in the past week, there’s something about the florist that leaves her a complete enigma in Ran’s life, leaving her anticipating just what kind of tattoo Moca wants.
Ran isn’t the best at reading people, she does a better job of reading ink.
At random times of the day, Ran finds herself staring off into the distance during work, finds her mind straying off and looking forwards to Moca’s visits, before her attention snaps back to the moment and all sense of self-awareness comes flooding back and her pulse is racing faster than before.
Infatuation is an interesting thing, not that Ran would ever readily admit to it.
One thing Ran learns very quickly into Moca’s long-awaited consultation appointment is that Moca is offensively clueless about what it means to customize your tattoo.
“What is this?” She stares blankly at the paper. It’s largely blank, with five wobbly circular shapes labeled with indecipherable handwriting. Sharp protrusions come off the sides of the shapes, which Ran presumes are spikes. Or something of that nature. She firmly plants her pointer finger on the design as though accusing it of something, “Do you want this? On your skin? This exact thing?”
“Well, that’s just a vague sketch,” Moca yawns as she draws the sketch out from beneath Ran’s finger, “I wanted you to draw it.”
“What do these words even say?” She gestures vaguely at the scribbles inscribed on the circles.
“Oh, those are labels,” Moca turns towards the paper and squints, reading out loud (with visible difficulty), “ Camellia , Another Camellia , Camellia (but this one’s bigger) , Camellia #4 , and Last Camellia I Promise . And then I drew leaves and stems on the side.”
“Okay so they’re camellias,” Ran says after a while.
Moca nods, and then asserts with a grim seriousness, “But the middle one is bigger.”
She nods and clips back her bangs, then picking up a sketchpad and getting to work. Ran can recall from memory the petal patterns, and in a matter of time, she has the shapes of the flowers and the rest of it vaguely sketched out. As she sketches, she asks, “Why camellias?”
Moca looks up at her, “Hm?”
“Why camellias?” Ran repeats. After a few seconds, she adds, “You’re a florist. I assume that this flower means something to you?”
“Oooh,” Moca exclaims with her usual laidback drawl. Her face goes blank for a moment, as Ran notices it usually does when the other is thinking, and then Moca says, “They’re the reason I decided to become a florist, I guess. A friend of mine showed me them when I was a kid and I thought they were neat.”
“That’s sweet.” The tattoo artist replies absentmindedly, and then inquires,“Does that person mean a lot to you?” She doesn’t realize it until she hears her own voice, but her words are shaky and fast, almost nervous.
“More than they’ll ever know,” comes the unexpectedly honest response.
Ran’s pencil stops where it is.