Chapter Text
I shouldn’t be here.
Ai stared as the pretty woman embraced May, the beautiful bouquet of flowers cradled gently between them. Roses and cherry blossoms with other fancy flowers Ai didn’t know the names of, lovely and fresh, wrapped carefully in red and white paper.
Ai swallowed, throat suddenly tight. She looked down at the single rose in her hand. It was on the cusp of wilting, blunted thorns sticking out along the stem. It was pitiful in comparison, yet was all she could provide.
May deserved better.
“She’s Oom’s girlfriend, not yours.” Pang’s voice rang through her mind. “She’ll never be yours."
Watching May and the mystery ex separate yet continue to hold each other close, May’s hand lingering on the woman’s forearm and a smile growing on her face, Pang's words hit harder than ever. Ai took in the fashionable, doubtlessly expensive dress of the other woman and how effortlessly her luscious hair was styled. Ai noted jeweled earrings and a nice necklace - a single earring no doubt worth more than Ai made in a year - and high heels that Ai would likely snap an ankle in were she to ever try wearing them.
Ai shifted, noting how her baggy jacket hung off her own shoulders, how her jeans - bought on discount at a second-hand store - sat low on her hips due to being slightly too large, the hems dragging slightly against the ground. Her shoes, despite being well taken care of, were scuffed up and worn in.
Standing there in the entryway, surrounded by expensive decor and seeing how May smiled at “her first girlfriend, the one she can never forget”, Ai felt suddenly and horrifically inadequate.
It was clear she didn't belong there.
Ai, for all she’d been pretending, could never replace Oom. Her sister was made for this environment; she thrived wearing fashionable clothing and loved all things stylish and expensive. She could navigate social situations with more tact than Ai, who tended to be too blunt and straightforward, and would never stoop so low as to give sweet, beautiful May a single wilting rose.
May had been with Oom for a reason, after all. May had loved Oom, not Ai. Never Ai.
As awful as it was, Ai was grateful for May’s blindness at that moment, as it meant May hadn’t noticed her arrival nor seen the pitiful excuse for a gift in her hand. She felt so silly.
Acutely aware of Ton standing behind her, Ai shifted her body to conceal how she tucked the rose back into her jacket, hiding it from view. Turning to face him, she mustered up a smile. “Sorry Ton,” she said, keeping her voice low so as to avoid the two women noticing her arrival. “I just realized I forgot something. I need to go.”
“Oh?” Ton said, a bit surprised at her sudden announcement. She’d just arrived, after all, and he’d been looking forward to getting to know more about this mysterious “Oom”, the existence of whom May guarded so closely. Ai wished he'd lower his voice. “Alright. I’ll let May know you’ll be back soon, then.”
“No need,” Ai responded, sidling past him. “I’ll call her when I’m done.”
She slipped out the front door before he could get another word in. Crossing the distance to her motorbike in two quick strides, she threw her helmet on and started the engine, not bothering with the chin strap.
Before she started driving away, she reached into her jacket and took out the rose. It’d gotten slightly crushed being tucked into her arm, now somehow even sadder to Ai’s eyes.
Scoffing at herself, Ai let the rose fall to the ground as she drove away.
She kept her visor up so she could pretend the stinging of her eyes was from the wind in her face.