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Strife doesn’t like attention, to be quite honest. He doesn’t want his life on display- at least, not what he can’t dictate the reporters see. He’d rather no one know his private matters, such as where he lives, or, more importantly, his sex life- not that he has one, at this moment.
But he doesn’t want any of the reporters knowing that he doesn’t live in a high rise, big flashy apartment- he was considering it, for marketing’s sake, but when he saw the price of it, and the price of utilities, he paled, and turned it down- he may be CEO of Strife Solutions, but he’s not going to waste money like that, jesus. He didn’t need to spend all that money, not when he was paranoid of losing it all.
So he looks around for a small place, where hopefully no one knows his name, and he finds one. There’s a small flower shop, near enough to his work that he can walk, and the apartment upstairs has tall ceilings, and a good enough kitchen. It’s a small place, which is perfect- he doesn’t need any more room, not if he’s going to be paying for heating, and the bathroom is big enough for his purposes.
When he moves in, the place doesn’t fill up much; really, the only thing that’s changed is his queen sized bed in the bedroom, and his desk added to the living room, as well as the state of the art coffee maker in the kitchen. The place is still sparse, and that’s just the way he likes it, because he doesn't need anything else, doesn’t need to fill the place up- it’s just some place to sleep, or work, if people suspect he’s been spending too many hours at the office.
And it’s comfortable, really- at least, until the shop gets a new shipment of flowers in. Suddenly he’s irritable, his sinuses acting up, and he's sure it’s because of that- but he doesn’t want to lose the apartment, especially when it’s so quiet, and no one’s found him yet.
So he does what he thinks is best- he goes down to the shop, and looks around, trying to see which flower is the bad one, that he’ll buy, if only to get them out of the store, and his life. He didn’t expect the cashier though, who perks up when he comes in, and has a manic grin on his face as he moves out from behind the counter, coming straight for Strife, who takes a step back, looking wary.
The cashier (he doesn’t catch his name, in the onslaught of chatter), just rambles at him, his voice pitched up and excited as he tugs Strife around the store, gesturing to multiple flowers, and before he can blink he’s standing outside the store, clutching a bouquet and blinking confusedly, not knowing what just happened- except that he’s managed to purchase these somehow, and well, he can narrow the flowers he’s allergic to down now, because these aren’t the ones that made him sneeze at least.
He guesses that it means he’ll have to go back down to the store, and buy more flowers, to see what happens? At least these smell good, and so he takes them up to his apartment, already planning on what to say next time he has to come down.
When Strife gets over the confusion of buying the flowers, his first impression is, admittedly, to toss the flowers out. He fights himself over the urge, because he paid good money for these flowers, and he might as well enjoy them- there’s no way he’s throwing away something that expensive, not when his money’s already gone down the drain.
So he goes back upstairs, grabbing the vase that had been empty ever since he moved in, and fills it with water. He puts the flowers in carefully, before carrying the vase to the living room, so they’ll have enough sunlight. And then he sits down at his desk and gets to work, only pausing to glance at the bright flowers a few times, although he quickly loses himself in his work until it’s dark.
Still, the flowers sit on his desk until he finally comes out of his work, rubbing his eyes and yawning slightly before he grabs his mug and goes to get more coffee, and his eyes fall on the flowers, flushing slightly when he remembers their existence- he needs to remember his original goal and not get caught in the cashier’s rambling again- tomorrow he’ll go into the shop and find out for certain what flower is making him sneeze and then he’ll be done with it.
It doesn’t work out quite the way he planned.
He steels his resolve before he goes into the florist’s shop, taking a deep breath (partly to gather his composure, partly to take in the fresh air that’s not tainted with the flower that irritated his sinuses), but when he goes in, the first thing he sees is the cashier’s beaming face, “you came back! What, you needed more flowers for that special someone? I can totally help with that!”
And the cashier hops over the counter and grabs his wrist, startling Strife enough to yank away from the cashier, (Parvis, his nametag reads, Alex Parvis), who doesn’t look deterred, letting Strife pull away from him as he keeps grinning, instead ushering him around the store, talking a mile a minute, “were you not satisfied with the flowers before? They weren’t your type were they, huh? Don’t worry, Parvy’s got the perfect bouquet for a gentleman such as yourself-“
And that’s how he ends up outside yet again, clutching another bouquet desperately. It must’ve been the pollen or something, that caused him to just go along with what the man (Parvy, he called himself) had told him, and it’s not like he can go back in and get a refund, so with a sigh he resigns himself to keeping the flowers again.
And it just keeps happening, until his once empty apartment is filled with them, and Strife’s list of flowers (carefully written out on a pad of paper, kept near his door so he won’t forget when he buys them) is slowly getting checked off, and it’s too much, he needs to do something with all of them.
He has way too many flowers. It’s a fact of life at this point, like how the subs are better than dubs by far, and that he wasn’t working nearly as hard as he should be for Strife Solutions. He’s actually surprised that he hasn’t had an allergy attack yet, with how many flowers he has in such a small space; honestly, it’s beginning to look like an extension of the florist’s shop below.
And there’s no way he’s throwing them out- he paid quite a bit of money for them, and he’s not wasting it all by throwing out perfectly good flowers. So he does the only thing he can do- bring them to work with him. He leaves for work at five am (surprisingly late for him, but he had to gather the flowers up), and hauls them to work, leaving them in the conference room with a note on the door for people to take them if they want. He promptly forgets about it, getting to work, until around noon, when someone’s knocking on his door, eyes still focused on his work when he waves them in.
“Well? What is it, I’m busy, so make it quick.” His secretary coughs, and straightens up, looking at him steadily.
“Sir? It seems someone put a large number of bouquets in one of our- I’m sorry, your conference rooms. Should we track down the culprit?”
“What? No, that’d be a waste of time, I did it- just make sure everyone gets one to take home or whatever, and that’ll solve the problem. Now is that all, or do I need to do anything else?”
His secretary (Devin, most definitely Not a Girl he’d been reminded, age twenty, here on internship) narrows their eyes, and doesn’t budge, “Sir, when did you last eat? And how long have you been here, because no one saw you come in.”
Strife looks away from his work at them and back to the clock, before shaking his head, “I’ve been here since my normal time- well, a bit later, and I did eat breakfast- but I suppose a sandwich wouldn’t hurt.”
They roll their eyes and leave, closing the door behind them, and he goes back to work, pleased that word will spread about the flowers and he won’t have to deal with the damnable things anymore (and he’s not thinking about the clerk’s face if he finds out about what happened, not at all, because why would he be? He- Parv- doesn’t really matter right now, not when there’s work to be done- nothing does, and with that he gets back to work.
He doesn’t leave his office for a few days, and by the time he does the flowers have been removed from the conference room, and are decorating the cubicles around the building (unrelated, but he’s been told that morale is up, and workers’ productivity has gone up nearly fifteen percent). He had to dodge various people who would have liked him to have gone home, but he didn’t need to- he had food in the cafeteria and his couch was perfectly comfortable to sleep in (not that he did sleep), and although he had to dodge quite a few people to do it, he had managed it.
He leaves the office at closing, if only because a few of his advisers noticed how long he’d been at work, and sent him off (he wasn’t pouting, that was unfitting of a CEO), and when he goes to unlock his apartment door he starts as someone taps his shoulder, and he turns around to see Parvis, bouncing on his heels.
“Hey! I was wondering when I’d see you again- you stopped coming into the shop and I was worried you’d been suffocated by all the flowers you bought. But obviously not! So, can I ask what you’re buying the flowers for? You have a few girlfriends you need to appease? Boyfriends? Date mates maybe? Or do you just like flowers?”
Strife blinks, processing the statement, “wha- no, I don’t have any ‘date mates,’ or anything else! I was- well it’s none of your business what I was doing with the flowers, or why I hadn’t been in the shop. Maybe I didn't need any more flowers, did you think of that?” He flushes, inwardly cursing himself for being flustered- he shouldn’t have snapped, but at the same time, Parvis was rude for startling him, and asking all those questions- honestly, he was in the right, doing that.
But Parv’s mood doesn’t seem to falter, grinning up at Strife, “well I mean, it /is/ my shop, so it kinda is my business, but if you don’t wanna share you don’t have to- oh! I have a gift for you, seeing as you’re one of my favorite customers. If you’d just step inside with me- I was just about to lock up, so you’re just in time-”
Strife’s immediately wary, eyes flicking over Parv to look for weapons before nodding slowly, “I’ll stay out here while you get the 'gift’ then. Or I could come later and get it- I was just about to go up-”
“Fine, you stay right here and I’ll be right back okay? It’ll only take one second, I promise!” And Parv grins at him again before bolting into the store, while Strife leans against the wall, watching the street warily until Parv comes back out.
Parv shoves a bouquet in his face, and Strife sneezes, glaring at Parv with teary eyes, “why would you do that?”
Parv blinks, staring down at the flowers, “oh- are you allergic? I didn’t think you were, with how you live upstairs and all, but if you are- huh. Do you know which flowers are making you sneeze? The red ones are tulips, these are moss rosebuds, I put some green roses in 'cause well I figured why not- are any of these ringing a bell?”
Strife gapes at him, before sneezing again, fumbling in his pocket for a tissue to wipe his nose, “I don’t know, that’s why I started buying the flowers in the first place! And why did you want to give me those flowers in the first place? They sound-” he sneezes again, and Parv snatches his keys from him, unlocking his apartment door and ushering him inside, so he’s not making a spectacle of himself, and by the time Strife’s done sneezing, Parv has left, taking the flowers with him.
He did leave a note though, and scrawled hastily on a napkin is his phone number, and the message 'call me :)’ which makes Strife blush for some reason. And he doesn’t really understand why- he has no reason to, seeing as Parv may be cute, but he nearly killed him. But he is, and that’s- well, it’s a problem, for sure.