Archive of Our Own

Cherri leans over the counter of the flower shop, smiling a saccharine-sweet grin that says she knows exactly what she’s doing. Like strawberry syrup—sharp, sugary, and artificial as hell. The blooms that crowd the wooden surface lean toward her as if she’s their source of sunlight. Yellow tulips bow their heads down to brush against her hair.

She looks perfectly at home there, framed by the greenery and the blossoms. Apo fiddles with the cash register to ignore looking at her and whatever stupid shit is about to come out of her mouth.

“Hypothetically,” Cherri starts, and amusement is already clear in her voice, “you could come in for a tattoo.”

Apo finally gets the drawer open and starts counting out the money inside, just to give herself something to do during this conversation. “Uh, no.”

“Uh, yes,” Cherri rebutts. “Why not? Is it the needle? Are you afraid of needles?”

“Yes, you’ve guessed it,” Apo deadpans. Yep, thirteen twenty-dollar bills. Exactly what she expected. Hasn’t changed since noon. She puts them back and moves on to the tens. “It’s definitely my deep seated childhood fear of needles and not at all that I don’t feel the need to pay a bunch of money to get something painfully put on my skin forever.”

Cherri pouts, which looks good on her. To be fair, everything looks good on her. It’s an annoying fact of the universe that Apo has come to accept: the train will always run at least 15 minutes late when she’s in a rush, Bek needs supervision to order shipments, Cherri Fire is ridiculously pretty.

She’s dressed down in a pink tanktop and black jeans embroidered with lovely little pink flower designs. The only bit of jewelry she has is a blue and brown friendship bracelet. Her hair has a pink ribbon tied in it. Golden piercings glint in her ears, the left one covered in rings from lobe to tragus and the right one holding an industrial bar and a band at her conch. Her right arm is covered in the twisting scales of a dragon, wrapping around her bicep and curling down to breath fire along the back of her hand. Her left arm is sleeved in the complex patterns of a solar chart, planets and constellations mapped out on her skin in ink. Impossibly thin lines come together to form a lunar moth surrounded by a spiderweb, spreading across her collarbone and crawling up her throat. All of it is beautiful work, the designs artfully crafted. The pale line of a scar slicing through her left eye would draw people’s attention if the tattoos didn’t.

Cherri was gorgeous, charismatic, and mysterious the day she and her tattoo parlor moved in across the street. Today, she’s gorgeous, charismatic, mysterious, scheming, disruptive, and a nuisance. She seems to get the most joy in life from coming into Apo’s flower shop at odd hours of the day and distracting her with random dares and chatter while she tries to do actual work. Apo doesn’t even want to know how terrible her tattoo parlor is if she never seems to have any customers.

It’s either that, or she ditches them all to bother Apo. It’s a wonder she stays in business.

Unfortunately, she isn’t banned from the shop, because Apo has a weakness for pretty girls with dark eyes and intriguing scars, and also because she doesn’t think it would actually stop Cherri.

Apo has been using the money as an excuse to pointedly ignore her, which works great until Cherri sighs and says, “You know, you don’t need to count the money in the cash register.”

Apo’s focus stays on the bills in her hands. Thirty-two tens, just like she knew there would be, because no one’s paid in cash since noon. “Yes, I do,” she mutters. “It might’ve changed.”

“I doubt that,” Cherri says. She reaches a hand over and taps Apo’s fingers, still resting on the open register drawer. Her touch is searingly hot, burning into Apo’s nerves. Every muscle in their body tenses and freezes up. Cherri tilts her head to one side, practically lying against the counter. Her cheek brushes against a handful of daisies.

“Get a tattoo, Apo,” she says, making her eye big and giving Apo a small little smile. “I dare you to.”

Apo swallows hard, forcing their gaze to stay on the cash register with enormous effort. It’s not that they like Cherri, because they don’t. The woman is a nuisance at the best of times and a disaster at the worst, always in the way and causing trouble just for the sake of it. Granted, Apo’s flower shop is not the most orderly place—it’s somewhat small and boxy, like all of the spaces along this strip, with a nursery tucked in the back. Neither they nor Bek nor El have any real talent or love for interior design, but El has a strong loyalty to Pinterest, and together the three of them had managed to pull the inside into something at least semi-appealing and mostly functional.

The end result is an overcrowded space filled with green and bursts of color. Flowers droop from shelves lining the walls, large houseplants sit on flats in the center of the shop, and every spare surface is crowded with pots holding even more plants. There are spots on the floor where loose soil has spilled for whatever reason, which Apo thinks adds a certain charm. Maybe. In general, the shop has a cozy, lived-in feel. It’s cozy to Apo, at least; they feel most at home when they’re here, surrounded by thriving green leaves and multicolor petals.

It’s just that every time Cherri comes in, Apo’s calm is suddenly knocked off kilter, and they don’t know what to do about it. Trying to prevent it has done nothing, as did reluctantly encouraging Cherri’s schemes in the hope that she’d get bored and leave quicker. So Apo has chosen the effective route of ignoring their problems until they go away. It’s reverse psychology on the universe. Or Cherri. Someone.

Apo’s not entirely certain what reverse psychology means.

“You dare me to?” they repeat, voice only shaking the tiniest bit. They laugh a little around their next words. “What, are we twelve?”

Cherri isn’t bothered by their snide remark. She just trails her touch from Apo’s fingers, along the back of their hand and up their arm, coming to a stop at the indent of their elbow. Her voice is low, almost a whisper, as she repeats, “Get a tattoo, Apo.”

Apo’s throat is dry. Their skin sparks where Cherri traced it. They’re hit with the thought that Cherri is really, really pretty like this, looking up at Apo with the pleading eyes she’s giving them, framed by the flowers that crowd around her. Almost unfairly pretty. And quite close as well, considering the counter isn’t that wide and Cherri’s practically leaning her entire top half across it to talk with Apo. Their heart pounds in their sternum.

“W-what would I even get?” she manages to say.

Cherri brightens as if she was expecting this question. It is, unfortunately, an attractive look on her. Apo’s fine with this. They’ve made peace with it. The universe is cruel and all of that pessimist stuff.

Cherri palms her phone out of her pocket with a shocking speed, considering Apo asked a fairly boring question. Her case was a transparent pink once upon a time, and Apo can still see the flashes of paper she has under it, but it’s mostly been covered up by a collage of stickers layered over each other, some of the edges peeling with age. The most recent one is clearly a little Minecraft axolotl near her pinky, given away by the fact that the entire animal is visible.

She has a phone charm as well, a set of little pink dice that swing wildly through the air as she flips her phone around to show Apo. The image on screen is a drawing of a bat, wings curled up in midflight and little claws holding a glass lantern with a single candle in it. Every line is carefully drawn, every detail given loving attention, and the end result is both intricate and magical. Apo knows in an instant that this is one of Cherri’s designs.

“This one would go on your side,” she reaches out and ghosts a hand over the area she means, the side of Apo’s torso, “right about there.”

Apo might’ve stopped breathing. It’s hard to tell, honestly; she feels pretty dizzy. Cherri’s hand lingers near her, and Apo wants to feel her touch again, everywhere she can reach. She’s so warm. This scene suddenly feels shockingly intimate, even though the worst they’ve done is discuss tattoo ideas.

“That’s not really a beginner spot, but I thought the bat suited you. Pretty painful, though.” Cherri swipes to the next photo, a massive, highly detailed jellyfish. “This one is meant to go on your thigh. A lot better pain-wise.” Thankfully, she doesn’t tap the spot; Apo might just pass away if she does. “Both of those would take longer, though, because they’re all pretty intricate. That’s just how my designs are. I have a bunch of flash at the shop that’s a bit simpler.”

She’s being awfully presumptuous considering Apo didn’t even agree to get a tattoo. Apo is happy to inform her as much, balancing against the counter on their forearms and raising their eyebrows. “I don’t remember actually saying I’d get a tattoo.”

Cherri’s smile stretches across her face like something sharp and deadly, a warning sign. She’s stopped pretending to be sweet for the enjoyment she gets from teasing Apo until they’re at their wit’s end. It’s a love-hate relationship between the two of them, by which they mean Cherri loves to get a rise out of Apo and Apo hates it, and her by extension.

“But you want to,” she hums with a victorious little look in her eye, like she’s already won. It’s very overconfident of her. “Come on, Apokuna. Just one tattoo? It doesn’t have to be a big one.” She gives Apo a pout, which is…really fucking cute. Apo is too gay for this, actually. She’s going to lose this argument. Great. Screw stupid pretty tattoo artists and their personal agendas against her specifically and their stupid pouts that make her heart turn over in her chest.

Cherri, because she apparently needs to make Apo’s heart do even more weird things, skims her fingertips over the skin of Apo’s arm, coming to a stop at the curve of her palm. “I think you’d look good with one. Please?”

Apo sighs loudly and continues to play up her hesitance. She really doesn’t want to agree, but she already knows she’s going to. She’s just stalling it, because the moment she says yes is the moment Cherri gets that smug little grin on her face and starts teasing Apo for caving. “I really don’t want to, though.”

“I promise I’ll pick a really nice one for you.”

“I don’t even get to choose my own tattoo?” Apo protests.

Cherri shrugs. “Maybe you can.” She swipes her thumb across Apo’s hand with another little razor-blade smirk. Apo’s brain effectively shuts down. “Depends on how good of a choice you make.”

Apo doesn’t say anything to that, and Cherri stays exactly like that, completely at ease with her hand on Apo’s. It doesn’t mean anything, but they’re still freaking out over it. Really, the silence is just to prolong her reluctant agreement even longer.

“Fine,” Apo finally bites out, disinclination heavy in her voice. “I’ll get a tattoo.”

Cherri’s smug grin bursts across their face, lighting it up like a sunrise. They retract their hand, withdrawing to the other side of the counter and sliding their phone back into their pocket as if they weren’t touching Apo’s fucking side three minutes ago. “Called it!” they nearly crow, like they hadn’t been the one to coerce her into agreeing. They’re already headed toward the exit, having accomplished their ‘annoy Apo’ goal for the day. “See you on Tuesday!” they toss over their shoulder without checking if Apo can make that or bothering to clarify what time.

Cool. Great. Awesome. Guess Apo’s getting a tattoo now, at some unspecified time on Tuesday, when she has a flower shop to run. All because she has a weakness for pretty girls.

Seriously, the universe must be out to get her or something. She resists the urge to bang her head against the counter. 

Apo made a huge and awful mistake when she agreed to get a tattoo. By no means is this a new revelation, but the scale of it is beginning to become clear as she pushes open the door to Cherri’s tattoo parlor. The storefront is brick, just like this entire stretch, and the sign simply says TATTOOS in pink bubble letters. The window has stenciled designs of horses, for some reason. Someone’s tucked a scrap of white paper in the bottom corner with a doodle of a puppy on it. She knows what it looks like, having seen it across the street for roughly three years, but she’s never actually been inside. She doesn’t even know who else works there, besides Cherri.

Apo does not want to get a tattoo. Apo has much better things to be doing with her time, such as treating a bunch of the gerbera daisies for their leaf rot. Apo would rather be in the nursery at the back of the shop right now, caring for her plants while she listens to El and Bek talking and laughing in the front room.

Despite all of these things, Apo very reluctantly steps inside the tattoo parlor and lets the door swing shut behind her. There’s a little bell over the door which rang when she pushed it open to announce her arrival. Only one other person is there, a man with curly black hair flipping through a binder. He doesn’t look up as Apo comes in.

“Be there in a sec!” someone shouts from deeper in the shop. It’s not Cherri; the voice, while not exactly deeper, is definitely male.

Apo shuffles her feet against the gray concrete floor. The interior is a weird cross between industrial and a more rustic style, with a heavy amount of pink incorporated into the decor. The walls are exposed brick, lined with bookshelves. One shelf seems to be dedicated to binders similar to the one the man is looking through, while the rest are full of plants and trinkets. A wagon wheel converted into a chandelier hangs from the ceiling. The couches have that stiff-backed Victorian look to them, pink velvet that’s almost definitely thrifted, given the scratches on the dark wood and the worn cushions. It’s at odds with the turquoise rug on the floor, faded and thin with fancy geometric designs. Apo bets it’s probably thrifted from the same place they got the seats.

The walls are covered in drawings as well, tattoo designs and other, more rendered sketches with full backgrounds. Some of them are similar to the pictures Cherri showed Apo the other day, intricately detailed and somehow magical no matter the subject matter. The others, in a different art style, are mostly horses and cowboy hats. For some reason.

“Sorry about that, how can I help you?”

Apo turns around to see a guy coming out of the little doorway that leads into the back of the shop, wiping his hands on a rag. He’s tall, around the same height as her, with brown hair dyed blue at the ends. It sticks up in little tufts all over his head in that intentionally messy style that looks cool on some people and ridiculous on others. He manages to make it look like both at the same time, which is honestly more impressive. He’s wearing a brown and blue flannel with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, and Apo can see tattoos covering his arms, disappearing into his sleeves. There’s a realistic frog near his elbow and a huge stylized cow skull up his forearm. The rest are hard to make out.

He gives them a friendly wave and they realize that they should probably…move closer. Say something. Do literally anything besides awkwardly standing halfway across the room and staring at him. “Uh, hi. I’m…here to get a tattoo?”

Great job. Very natural. The guy in the sitting area is still idly flipping through the binder, but the pages turning sounds much more judgemental. She drifts over to the register desk, painted with a hot pink and electric blue checkerboard, so she isn’t just talking across a room.

The blue-haired man sets the rag down with a smile. "I figured," he says kindly. “Anything more specific? Do you have a design in mind already?”

“Um,” Apo fidgets with her sleeve, “no. I’m, uh, actually here to meet Cherri.”

Understanding dawns over the man’s face, followed swiftly by amusement. “Apo, right?” He waves off Apo’s surprised look. “She told me you might stop by. I’m guessing she didn’t give you an actual time?”

“She didn’t.” They wince as they realize something. “Sorry, I can come back later if this isn’t a good time.” Or never. She could move her entire flower shop and avoid Cherri for the rest of her life. That feels like a pretty good option right now.

Blue Hair shakes his head, tapping the screen for the card reader—electronic, not like the flower shop’s crappy old cash register. “You’re lucky, we’re not super busy right now.” Yay. “If you’re alright to wait for a few minutes, Cherri’ll be finished with what she’s doing.” He flicks a hand in the vague direction of one of the shelves. “Those binders have our flash. Pink is Cherri’s designs. Feel free to look through them, but I think she has some specific stuff for you.”

Well, that’s not threatening at all. “Thanks,” they tell him.

He offers them a sympathetic smile as if he knows what they’re going through. It’s quite the monumental feat, considering Apo doesn’t even know what they’re going through. “I’ll go tell Cherri you’re here.” His eyes flick over to the waiting area. “Can you wait like, five more seconds?”

“I’ve already been waiting for twenty-six minutes,” the black-haired guy responds. His voice is flat, dry as a desert with the slightest drawl of a Southern accent hidden in his words.

“And it won’t kill you to wait for a little longer!” Blue Hair tosses over his shoulder, already slipping back through the doorway to the rest of the shop. Black Hair lets out a long sigh that sounds more tired than annoyed and goes back to his binder. Apo’s attention drifts to the binders, held in place with a bronze horse statue that seems very out of place. There’s a lot more horses than she would’ve expected a tattoo parlor to have. It’s exactly as much pink as she thought Cherri’s place would have, though.

There are four black binders, two pink ones, and one blue one. Apo pulls down one of the pink ones. The cover is plastered with stickers just like her phone case is; there’s a nuclear hazard signal peeking out from under a Snoopy, and a Minecraft creeper in the corner. Flipping it open, CHERRI is scrawled on the inside cover in smudged white chicken scratch. She doubts Cherri was the one to write it.

The designs are just as beautiful as the ones hanging up on the walls of the shop and the ones Cherri showed her the other day, all carefully drawn and detailed. There’s an entire page full of different kinds of stars, and another with swords and scythes and medieval weapons. They’re all super cool. Apo knew Cherri was talented, but this is…breathtaking. There’s no other word for it.

She wouldn’t mind getting any of them tattooed, to be honest, but she doesn’t see anything that she really wants. Not enough to be willing to sit through the entire process of actually, well, getting a tattoo. Maybe she can talk Cherri into getting one of those temporary tattoos. That sounds like a good compromise.

Hopefully.

They’re reaching for the second pink binder when a familiar voice comes from behind them. “Apokuna!” Cherri says excitedly, bouncing over to her. Her smile is practically lethal. Apo’s heart feels strangled in their chest. “I have so many designs for you. You’re going to love them.”

“Great,” Apo mutters, failing to sound excited at all. She crosses her arms across her chest defensively, feeling on edge. This is the closest she’s ever been to Cherri without a counter between them; the awareness of it buzzes along her nerves like a chainsaw. Her pulse is beating frantically against her ribcage. They’re in a white t-shirt with red overalls, exposing the large petals of a water lily blooming over their thigh. Everything is very overwhelming all of a sudden.

“It won’t be that bad,” Cherri says, which is a very bold claim for them to make. They turn, notice Blue Hair leaning by the doorway with a smug expression, and jerk their thumb toward the counter. “Finish your stupid accountant stuff, Horsey.”

‘Horsey’ sticks his tongue out at them and slouches behind the register desk to do what they say. “I told you to stop calling me that.”

“I told you to stay out of my business,” Cherri snips. To Apo, “Follow me.” They start walking toward the back without checking if Apo is following them. She does, of course, because she doesn’t want to be left with a guy named Horsey and that black haired man, and the fact that they clearly know each other and she’d be intruding on their conversation. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, after all.

They lead her down a short hallway and into a room on the right. The walls are covered in art in posters; a lot are Minecraft and Pokemon, some are Cherri’s own art, and there are even a handful of movie posters. She sees one for an anime called Wild Life that has sticky notes tacked to it with Cherri’s own doodles.

“Do I have to get a tattoo?” Apo asks. She doesn’t mean for her question to sound so whiny, especially not when talking to Cherri, but she really doesn’t want to. It’s not even really the money, although she’d rather not pay hundreds of dollars for something she doesn’t want that much. It’s not even the pain, although that definitely factors in as well. It’s that Cherri catches Apo off guard, trips her up and leaves her stammering, and while half of the time it’s on purpose, half of the time they don’t even seem to realize they’re doing it.

Also the fact that Apo has a flower shop to run, and Bek still can’t be trusted to place orders without supervision. If they left El and her to their own devices, there would be more kissing than actual work getting done.

Cherri’s nose scrunches up and her lips purse together, which is a really cute look on her. “Well, I’m not going to make you get one if you really don’t want to. But you did agree to get one, and if price is the main issue, I can offer a friends discount.” She drops into a pink rolly chair that was left in the center of the room and pushes herself toward the table against one wall. She grabs a tablet off of it, just as stickered as her phone and binder were, and then looks up at Apo with her dark eye glimmering. Apo feels the floor tilt threateningly under their feet. They want to ask are we really friends but that’s an embarrassing question. “I’m not going to force you to get a tattoo, Apokuna.” Her eye turns to the tablet screen, and Apo’s breath returns to their lungs. Cherri pulls up whatever she wants to show Apo and spins the screen around to face them. “But I do think you’ll like this.”

It’s a swirling belt of stars, arcing across the digital canvas as if they mean to embrace an unseen Earth. The design is done with Cherri’s usual attention to detail, wisps lovingly rendered to curl just so, little twinkles of light sparking along the edges. It’s absolutely amazing. Apo can picture it on herself, and she…doesn’t hate the way it would look. Doesn’t hate it enough to maybe sit through getting her flesh punctured with a needle multiple times.

“It’s supposed to go on your arm,” Cherri explains, watching her closely for her reaction. “Right about here.” Her fingers reach up and gently touch the place she means, just below Apo’s shoulder. Apo’s mind immediately zeroes in on that spot, the warm contact through her shirt. Cherri’s hand lingers on it for a few more seconds before pulling away. “That’s not usually a painful spot.”

“Yeah, okay,” Apo breathes. The design is perfect, really, like it was made for her. She kind of deeply wants to get it.

“So you like it?” Cherri asks, and if Apo didn’t know her any better, she’d say she sounds almost shy. “You want to get it?”

Apo weighs the decision for all of a second and a half before nodding. “Yeah. It’s really cool.” She adds, firmly, “I like it.”

Cherri’s cheeks tinge pink, and she busies herself with the tablet again. “Okay, then I’ll print it out and we can get started.” She rolls her chair over the door and stands up. “I’ll just be a minute.” She disappears out the door, and Apo is left alone in Cherri’s little part of the tattoo parlor.

Underneath all of the posters and art, the walls are painted pink (of course). The chair in the center of the room that Apo assumes is for the people getting tattoos is also pink, as is the rolling chest of drawers along one wall. The surface is cluttered with tattoo ink, Sharpies, and other things that are presumably used for tattoos.

Cherri takes long enough to print out the design and return that Apo starts reading the posters hung on the walls. When she comes back, they’re in the middle of looking at a watercolor drawing of Cherri and someone else dressed as cowboys, back to back and holding up finger guns.

“It was a gift from 4C,” Cherri explains, setting the stencil on the chest of drawers and gathering the things she needs. “He’s obsessed with horses and anything Western.” She waves Apo in the direction of the tattoo chair, and Apo quietly perches on it.

They want to know more about Cherri and the people she surrounds herself with. They’re beginning to realize they know very little; only the menace Cherri that comes into their shop at odd hours to terrorize them. There’s an entire person beyond that, one who likes anime and Pokemon and Minecraft, who hangs up cowboy art her friends give her.

Cherri turns around to face them. Apo is suddenly hit with the very real thought that she is actually getting a tattoo today, right now. Wow. That’s terrifying, actually.

“Okay, first I’m going to clean your arm and get the area ready,” she says, like she’s said the exact same thing thousands of times before. She rolls up Apo’s sleeve and pins it in place with a clothespin, and then wipes down their upper arm with an alcohol wipe. She moves quickly and efficiently, and Apo is reminded that she has done this countless times before. This is her job. Cherri knows exactly what she’s doing. It helps calm their nerves a little.

Once she’s done, she says, “And now we put the stencil on.” She catches Apo’s eye and adds, “We can change it as much as you want until you’re happy with it, okay?”

“Got it,” Apo says.

Cherri retrieves her chair from beside the door and settles onto it, working with a silent concentration. Apo can feel her exhales fan across their skin as she works, carefully holding Apo’s arm in place as she applies the stencil. She’s so close. Apo is fine with the proximity. It’s not causing any strange feelings in her chest at all.

Cherri is unfairly cute when she’s focused like this, brow furrowing in concentration. Apo forces herself to look away before she does something stupid like plant a kiss on her head. The idea of how Cherri would react if she did that sends a shudder through her. Cherri makes a noise of complaint and grips her arm tighter.

When she’s finished, she pulls away to examine her work. Apo feels the absence of her touch like she left physical evidence of her fingerprints on them. It’s unfair that one person has this much effect on them. Cherri grabs a handheld mirror from their work table and holds it up to Apo’s arm. “What do you think?”

Apo rotates her arm, watching the stars snake around her bicep in the reflection. The spiral of a small galaxy rests right on the curve of her shoulder. It really does look perfect. “It’s amazing.”

“Are you sure?” Cherri asks. “Because this is permanent. I can move it around, change the size, whatever you want.”

Apo checks the mirror again. The stars wrap around her bicep and curl gently over her shoulder, just barely avoiding her neck. They stretch down to her elbow, every line lovingly rendered to make it look magical. “No, it’s good. It’s perfect.” She looks away from the mirror to meet Cherri’s eye and takes a deep breath. “Give me a tattoo.”

Cherri is not above using flirtation to get what she wants. It’s not her fault she knows people are more willing to give her things if she pairs it with a pretty smile and a wink. It’s also not her fault that she’s completely willing to use that to her advantage. If you have a leg up, you use it; white men do it all the time for promotions and job interviews. So if Cherri wants to get a dollar off of her overpriced coffee by giving the barista a compliment, that’s her own business.

She’s a tattoo artist; it’s her job to have a natural eye for these things. She knows that a tattoo would look good on Apo. Not that that’s a hard thing, because Apo is stupidly attractive and somehow manages to pull off a canvas apron, but Cherri really wants to see her covered in ink. She wants to know what designs she’d get, if they’d be realistic or more abstract, what the subject would be, what style.

Cherri wanted to tease Apo about getting a tattoo, so she did. And if she used some minor flirting to get Apo to agree, that’s just called a strategy.

The added bonus is, of course, getting to flirt with Apo. Cherri can admit that she has a crush on the florist; she’s not too emotionally stunted for that, no matter what 4C might claim otherwise. Apo is cute, okay, in an endearingly awkward way, and pretty besides that. Cherri’s always had a thing for girls they could beat up. If flirting with her gets her to maybe cotton on to their feelings and gets her to agree to a tattoo at the same time, then Cherri will flirt.

Honestly, Cherri didn’t really expect Apo to show up. They were holed up in their room, trying to work out their schedule for next week, when 4C swung in, casual as anything, and said, “Apo’s here for you.”

Cherri had popped out of their chair at lightning speed. “She’s here for a tattoo,” they corrected him on their way past, fingers reaching out to pinch at his hair.

He batted their hand away, trailing them out. “She asked for you, though, so I think it’s safe to say she’s here for you.”

Cherri has been inside of Apo’s flower shop—simply named ‘The Orchard’—more than enough times to be familiar with the space, and how Apo looks in it. There’s something sweetly natural about her when she’s surrounded by plants, like she belongs among them. Seeing Apo in their shop, surrounded by the decor they and 4C had hunted for, throws them off a step. She has gardening gloves half-hanging out of her pocket, and her curly mess of hair is down across her shoulders. Multicolored hair ties stack up her wrist in a rainbow. The reality of Apo in Cherri’s space hits her full force.

Apo is even cuter when she’s not sure what to do. Cherri bites back a smile and decides to be nice for once, since she clearly doesn’t actually want a tattoo and Cherri still very much wants her to get one. She leads Apo back to her studio and shows her the design she made for her nervously. Apo doesn’t seem to be aware that she made it for her, which is good because otherwise Cherri might have to explain why she put a lot of time and effort into making a heartfelt design just for Apo. They still really like it, though, and Cherri feels a warm glow in her chest.

She doesn’t tell Apo about the other design she had, the one of a vine filled with flowers. That one was a more obvious confession—sunflowers for adoration, daisies for love and affection, and dandelions for wishes. In the end, it felt too obvious to show Apo, and Cherri wasn’t sure she’d like it enough. So she went with the stars.

She’s thankful she did, too, because the flower one would have been more complex, and while Apo has a shockingly high pain tolerance, she’s still bouncing her foot. “Quit moving,” Cherri tells her for the billionth time, poking her shoulder.

“I can’t help it,” Apo mutters petulantly. “I thought you said it wasn’t a painful spot.”

“It’s not,” Cherri says, remembering how much it hurt to get the fire on her hand done. Every time 4C would place the needle against her skin, the pain would make her tense, and then 4C would have to pull away and it would hurt all over again. That was a fun two hours. Apo isn’t twitching her arm at all and doesn’t have any reaction to the needle besides the foot bouncing, which is how Cherri knows she’s got a high pain tolerance. Still, the foot is shaking the rest of her body, and that’s a problem. “You’re still shoving a needle into your skin, though, it’s going to be painful.”

Apo makes a face that’s somewhere between a pout and a scowl, which is pretty on her. Cherri accepted a long time ago the consequences of Apo being constantly attractive in her presence, but doing it in close proximity is just unfair. She supposes it’s no one’s fault but her own; she was the one who wanted to give Apo a tattoo, after all.

She decides to be a little nicer to Apo. “Stop focusing on it so much. After a little bit, it settles into a burning feeling. Just breathe and tune it out.”

“Burning isn’t better,” Apo mutters, but she still tries to follow Cherri’s advice, her eyes going a bit distant as she stares into space. Then the needle goes over an already raw area, and she winces. “How did you get so many of these?” she asks, eyes flicking over Cherri’s ink.

Cherri shrugs, careful not to jostle the needle. “Sounds like a skill issue to me.” Apo flips her off with her free hand. “My arms weren’t that bad, honestly. You should try getting a rib tattoo done by an apprenticing tattoo artist.”

“I’ll pass on that,” Apo says, and then the wording of the sentence catches up to her, and she snaps her head around to stare at Cherri. “Wait, you don’t have a rib tattoo, do you?”

Cherri grins. “Wouldn't you like to know?” she sing-songs.

“You don’t. There’s no way.”

Apo’s tone is so disbelieving that Cherri laughs. “Why is it hard to believe? Are you saying I’m not cool enough for a rib tattoo, Apokuna?”

“Never,” Apo says, warm and fond. Cherri’s breath stutters at the affection in her voice. “I just…didn’t expect you to have one.”

“Well, I do. Graecie did it, all the way back when she was still a baby tattoo artist. For free, since she was apprenticing.” That had been the most uncomfortable four hours of her life—the AC was broken, and Graecie had had to squeeze her in at the end of the day since she had to finish all of the chores her mentor pushed on her first. Cherri had spent it sweating in the stifling heat, the rubber of the chair sticking to her skin, her shirt rolled up for Graecie tattoo the design in shaky, unsteady lines that made the already painful spot about ten times worse.

“Can I see it?” Apo asks curiously. Cherri nearly chokes, fumbling the tattoo gun for a moment before steadying her hands. Thankfully the design isn’t fucked up.

“Can you—no!” she yelps, heat flooding her face.

“Why not?” Apo pouts. “You could pull your shirt up.” She tugs on the hem of Cherri’s shirt with her free hand to emphasize her point. Cherri pushes her hand away, face burning. She doubts Apo even knows what she’s doing. Stupid pretty girls and their effects on her.

This is why she keeps 4C around. He’s aromantic, which means he can keep her from doing dumb shit when she gets flustered. Unfortunately, 4C is probably playing Yahtzee or talking about horses with Abolish right now, and Cherri is being left to fend for herself against an apparently evil florist.

Can someone be evil if they don’t know they’re being evil? She briefly starts to think through it before waving the thought away. Now is not the time for philosophical debates.

Unaware of the crisis Cherri is having, Apo continues, “What does it look like?”

Cherri tries to pull her brain back into the conversation. “It’s hard to explain,” she warns. “It’s supposed to be like a peek into my ribs? But there are flowers blooming inside of me.” It had turned out amazing; both she and Graecie had gushed over it excitedly once they were finished, both out of relief of being done and from how cool it looked.

A little furrow forms between Apo’s brows as she pictures it. Cherri wants to smooth it away with her finger. She resists the urge. “That sounds really cool,” she says. “Like hanahaki disease?”

Cherri rolls their eyes. “4C said the same thing when he saw it.” Well, actually he said isn’t that your weird manga flower disease? and Cherri had flipped him off, but the point stands. They didn’t mean for it to look like hanahaki; it just sort of turned out that way. “It wasn’t intentional.”

Apo hums. “I’d still really like to see it sometime.”

Cherri feels their face heat up and says nothing, focusing on Apo’s tattoo. This is seriously unfair. They come up with a whole plan to walk into Apo’s shop and flirt their way into convincing her to get a tattoo, and then Apo comes into Cherri’s shop and gets them all blushy without even trying. Fuck whichever cosmic being is in charge of the universe. 

After a while of silence, Apo speaks up. “What’s your favorite Minecraft mob?”

Cherri gives a little snort of confused laughter at the random question. “Axolotl. Why?”

“Just curious. I wasn’t going to ask your favorite color.” With her free hand, she gestures around the, admittedly very pink, room. “It’s kind of obvious,” she says drily.

Cherri feels a smile tugging at their lips. “It’s actually green.”

“Wait, really?” Apo sounds shocked, which is fair. Cherri giggles.

“No, you’re right. It’s pink.” She strokes her thumb over Apo’s skin just because she can, and they shiver. It sends a rush through her. “4C wanted to call this place ‘Cotton Candy Tattoos’ because his is blue, but Abolish and I shut him down.”

Apo’s voice, when they speak, is shaky. “Cotton Candy Tattoos sounds like a cool name for a tattoo parlor, though. Switching up the ‘doom-and-gloom’ theme you guys usually get.”

“It sounds like a six year old named it,” Cherri says flatly. “Although I guess that’s not wrong, because 4C acts like a six year old…”

Apo laughs, and giddiness sweeps through Cherri. That laugh is clear and bright, scrunching up their eyes and tilting their head back. Cherri wants to hear it again, over and over. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but the horse-obsessed thing sounds like a six year old girl.”

“See, I keep telling him that! If he wants me to stop calling him Horsey, he needs to beat the horse girl allegations.” She sighs. “I think he’s doing it to mess with me at this point. He tried to hang a cowboy hat in our shop as decor.”

“Bek and El can’t be trusted to be in the back room alone,” Apo confesses, sounding very, very tired of it. “They just end up making out, and then nothing gets done and the room’s a mess that I have to clean up. They keep denying it, but it’s, like…really obvious. And they’re both bad liars.”

Cherri smirks, an idea starting to take shape in her head. “Well, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. I can think of a couple people I’d like to make out with in the back of a flower shop.” She trails her fingers further up Apo’s arm than she needs to, resting them on the curve where their shoulder meets their collarbone.

It’s even more fun to see the red overtake Apo’s face from above her. She looks absolutely adorable like this, and Cherri feels a vindictive pleasure that she was the one to cause it. If Apo did ever offer…

Nope. Cherri shuts off that thought before it can go further. Absolutely not going to happen, ever. Just. She wouldn’t say no, that’s all.

“Right,” Apo coughs out eventually. “O-okay. Cool.”

Once the tattoo is finally finished, Cherri brushes her fingers along the skin around it one final time, taking full advantage of the free access she has to Apo’s arm before she loses it. Apo inhales sharply, and then Cherri drops her hand and grabs the mirror again. “You’re done,” she says with a grin, holding it up. “Check it out.”

It looks absolutely epic, a mini solar nebula swirling over Apo’s bicep. Cherri was so right. She looks beautiful with it, like the tattoo emphasizes a magical aspect of her that was already there. It suits her perfectly, just like Cherri knew it would.

Apo turns her arm this way and that in the mirror, enthralled with the design on her skin. “It’s incredible,” she whispers, a smile tugging at her lips. “I love it.”

“Me, too,” Cherri agrees. Her eye is fixed on the girl in front of her.

Apo looks up and catches her eye, flushing red. Cherri blushes too, dropping her gaze quickly and turning around. She wraps Apo’s tattoo in plastic and gives her careful instructions, and when Apo dutifully nods, she sighs and promises to text her them later. Apo looks relieved, which is almost funny enough to not be cute. Almost.

They exchange numbers, Apo pays a discounted price with the friends discount Cherri promised her, and once she leaves, 4C sidles up to her. Cherri can hear his shit-eating grin from over her shoulder.

“If you say anything,” she swears, “I will personally email every single horse ranch within three hundred miles and tell them that you’ve been arrested for equine abuse three times and shouldn’t be allowed on the property.”

“I wasn’t going to say a word!” 4C protests with an audible pout in his voice. Cherri waits for whatever else he’s going to add on to that statement. “Abolish just pointed out to me that you don’t give anyone a discount…”

“I do when they aren’t annoying, nosy assholes,” Cherri grumbles, and then she adds, “Jump off a cliff,” for good measure. 4C pats her shoulder, happy with the knowledge that she wouldn’t have kept him around this long if she didn’t like him. Sometimes she really hates that he’s her best friend.

“Let me get this straight,” Bek says, sounding the way she does when she tries to work out a payment in her head. Apo crosses her arms and immediately regrets it when it sends a dull ache through her tattoo. “You got a tattoo because Cherri asked you really nicely, and then flirted with you?”

Apo’s face is hot. She was really hoping to avoid this conversation. “That…isn’t an inaccurate description of what happened.” It’s exactly what happened.

“I think it’s rather sweet,” El inputs from where she’s fighting with the cash register. “It’s like a Hallmark movie or something.”

“It’s not,” Apo mumbles, putting her head in her hands. Bek had cornered her as soon as she stepped foot in the shop, demanding to know where she’d been and why she had a tattoo and why she left them alone and that also, on an unrelated note, a few flower pots in the back room had fallen off the table they were on for some reason and would need to be replaced. “Unrelated” Apo’s ass, she can see El’s pink lipstick on the corner of Bek’s mouth. Gay people.

“It is, though,” El says, finally managing to get the cash drawer open. “She’s the annoying troublemaker with a secret soft spot for you, and you’re the shy, awkward girl next door that manages to make her a better person.”

“That sounds more like a romance plot than a Hallmark movie,” Bek remarks. “Aren’t Hallmark movies usually about a stressed out businesswoman who goes back to her small town and meets a guy she has a history with but hasn’t spoken to for years and then they get married?”

Apo groans into the heels of her palms. “No one is getting married,” she grits out, face on fire. “Cherri is still supposed to be banned from the shop in spirit.”

“But in practice, you still let her come in whenever she wants and don’t try to kick her out,” Bek points out.

“It’s suspicious!” Eloise adds from the counter. Apo keeps her head buried in her hands.

The truth of it is that, despite pretty much everything she says both out loud and to herself, Apo doesn’t actually hate Cherri. She doesn’t even mildly dislike her. Most of her annoyance comes from the fact that despite Cherri getting in the way and bothering her and being a general nuisance, Apo still looks forward to it every time she enters the shop. She still wants to be around her and soak up her presence, like a flower to the sun.

Unfortunately, Apo likes girls who are mean to them.

“I’m hungry,” El is saying when they tune back into the conversation. “Can we pretty please order in?” She gives her puppy dog eyes to Bek, since Bek is a hypocrite who is also weak to her girlfriend pleading with her. Bek sighs and gets out her phone.

“What do you want?” she asks. El squeals happily and claps her hands together.

“Thank you, you’re the best, I love you so much,” she sings, bouncing over to give Bek a hug and a kiss.

Bek smiles fondly, looping an arm around El’s waist. “Yes, I know. What do you want?”

Apo doesn’t think Bek has any room to criticize her when she would kill someone if El asked. She’d probably kill Apo if El told her to. Then again, Apo is technically their boss, even if they all own the flower shop together, so maybe not. Maybe the threat of being out of a job would outweigh her girlfriend’s whims.

They end up ordering pizza, pepperoni and green pepper since El was the one to choose the toppings. They arrange themselves in a loose circle on the floor with the pizza box and a bottle of wine between them, eating over napkins. Apo shows off their new tattoo to appreciate exclamations, El goes on a rant about the rude man that runs the bookshop at the corner that Apo and Bek have heard before, and Bek starts explaining her idea for a boxing tournament with all of the shop employees along their strip, which inevitably circles back to Cherri and her tattoo shop.

“I think she likes you,” El says, pointing her slice of pizza at Apo for emphasis. “Think about it! She comes in here every other day to bother you specifically, she gave you a tattoo, she flirted with you—”

“I thought that was to get Apo to get the tattoo,” Bek interrupts.

Eloise frowns. “Well, I suppose it could’ve been, but that seems like a bit of a weird sales tactic. What if Apo didn’t like being flirted with? And why was Cherri so determined to give her a tattoo in the first place?” She shrugs. “It’s all a bit suspicious, when you think about it.”

Apo doesn’t mention what happened today, the light flirting she decided to attempt as payback for the series of events that led to her getting a tattoo and Cherri’s response to her complaints about Bek and El in the back room. “I can think of a couple people I’d like to make out with in the back of a flower shop.” Apo’s skin feels like it’s burning up every time she thinks about it.

“So getting the tattoo was an excuse to flirt with Apo?” Bek asks.

“Most likely,” Eloise says. “It’s either that or she wanted Apo to get a tattoo and also wanted to flirt with her at the same time.”

“Can we please stop talking about this?” Apo begs.

Bek turns to her. “What would you rather we talk about?”

“Literally anything else.”

“You forgot to water the peonies this morning,” El informs her. Great. Such perfect conversation topics: Apo’s love life and the things she’d messed up today. She has such fantastic friends.

“That’s not my job,” Apo says.

“Yes, it is,” Bek says.

“You’re supposed to water all the flowers in the shop on Tuesdays and Fridays,” El says. “And it’s a Tuesday, so you were supposed to water them.”

“How could you even forget about the peonies?” Bek wonders. “They’re literally in one of the most obvious spots in the whole shop.” It’s true; the peonies sit on a large table underneath a wall of shelves that hold even more flowers. The table is lined with a bunch of the better known flowers that they sell, and a little card behind each of them directs the reader to ask at the counter about more specific types.

Apo doesn’t usually skip any plant in the shop, much less any on the table. She was just distracted this morning, trying to come up with ways to get out of her appointment later.

“Why are you ganging up on me?” Apo mutters sulkily. “This is two against one. At least let me call someone so it’s fair.”

“Well, if Cherri was here—”

“She’d be helping the two of you,” Apo says.

El frowns. “You didn’t let me finish.” Apo rolls her hand in a go on gesture. “As I was saying, if Cherri was here, it’d make the teams even. One side would attack Apo and the other side would defend her.”

“Yeah, except for the part that I said, which is that Cherri would also be on the side of attacking me.”

“Maybe I’d join your side,” El says. “To make it a fair fight. Did you ever think of that?”

Apo rolls her eyes and tears off a piece of her crust. “Maybe you could just not attack me in the first place.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Bek asks. Apo sighs. Sometimes she wonders why she’s friends with them.

Eloise reaches out and settles a sympathetic hand on her knee. “At least you didn’t run away when she said hello to you. That’s what Missy did the first time she tried to talk to Owen. It could always be worse.”

Apo raises her eyebrows. “That’s the standard we’re setting?”

“It seems pretty bleak,” Bek agrees.

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Eloise pouts.

She hurriedly corrects, “I think it’s a perfect standard. Where’s your optimism, Apo?”

Apo rolls their eyes. “I feel the need to mention that I don’t like her,” they mutter. Not the way El is trying to suggest, at least. They don’t have a crush on her, they don’t think. Not that they’ve ever been a good judge of that sort of thing. Cherri just happens to be very pretty, and Apo has a weakness for pretty girls regardless of whether or not she’s actually attracted to them on a deeper level. 

Nevermind the fact that every time they’re around her it feels like they’ve been struck by lightning, and that she considers them friends, and that they know more about her now than they did before. Thinking about the little facts they compiled today, adding up to a bigger picture of Cherri as a person, does something funny to Apo’s chest. So they aren’t going to dwell on it.

El snickers. “I’m sure. I’m always being convinced to get tattoos when women I hate flirt with me. Very normal thing to do, getting persuaded to do something by someone you dislike because they’re attractive.”

Bek makes an offended sound. “You’ve been flirting with other women?”

“No, no, I would never,” El says hastily, scrambling to fix her mistake. “I only have eyes for you, Bek, they simply could never compare to you—”

Apo lets their teasing fade into background noise as they continue to pick at their crust without eating it. El and Bek are one of those couples that make other people believe in soulmates. Despite that, somehow, they’ve never made Apo feel like a third wheel. It used to be a question they got asked a lot, and they still get it occasionally now, but the answer has always been no. It does make them wonder, though: what it’d be like to have someone that you click with so perfectly. Romantically or platonically.

Unbidden, their mind drifts to Cherri, her little giggle and the nervous look she’d worn as she showed Apo the tattoo she’d designed, the lilt she has when she says Apo’s full name and the affectionate way she talked about Graecie and 4C. The little doodles she has stuck to an anime poster. The stickers that cover her phone and tablet and the binder full of her designs. Her evil smirk when she teases Apo, the warmth of her hands on their skin, the easy chatter that had taken Apo’s mind completely off of the burning on their arm without them even realizing.

She makes Apo feel like a firework is going off in their chest every time they’re around her. It’s addictive. Cherri is addictive. Each new thing they learn about her makes them want to know more, until they know her better than anyone else. They want to look at Cherri and see every part of her.

And maybe Cherri could look at Apo and see every part of her as well.

Oh, yeah, okay. That’s…hm. Apo might have a crush on Cherri, actually. El may have reached a valid conclusion after all. That’s kind of not great, considering Apo still has to interact with them on a daily basis and also just became actual friends with them and got their phone number. Okay, cool, great, fuck her life.

“If we were married—” Bek is in the middle of saying when she cuts herself off at the look on Apo’s face. “Oh, I think they’ve just had an epiphany. Eloise! Apo is having an epiphany right now!”

Apo flips her off with a glare.

Cherri (evil)

Can you come in tomorrow for your tattoo consultation

Apo

my what

Cherri (evil)

Tattoo consultation

Apo

thank you for repeating it a second time, my questions have been answered

Cherri (evil)

Happy to help :)

It’s that thing you do where you go see your tattoo artist a week or two after you get your tattoo and tell them how badly you’ve ignored their directions and what you can do to fix it

Apo

i’ve never heard of this before

Cherri (evil)

You’ve never gotten a tattoo before, nerd

It’s for little bb tattoo getters who are new to the whole thing

Veterans don’t have to do it bc they know not to fuck up

Apo

i know not to fuck up!

Cherri (evil)

Regardless

Can you come in tomorrow

Apo

fine yeah i guess tomorrow works

Cherri (evil)

See, was that so hard?

Apo

i hate you

Cherri (evil)

You love me

Apo

wait what time

Apo

cherri what time

Apo

i can see you leaving me on read

Apo

OK DELIVERED IS WORSE WHAT TIME

Apo

CHERRI I KNOW YOURE SEEING THESE WHAT TIME

Apo

why are you like this

4C is behind the register desk this time and no black-haired man in sight when Apo steps into the tattoo parlor across the street, holding two steaming paper cups. He raises his eyebrows at her when he sees her, leaning forward as she walks up to the counter.

“Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.” He smiles conspiratorily. “You here to get another tattoo? Maybe one of my designs this time? Unless you’re biased towards Cherri, of course. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”

Apo slides one of the hair ties off of her wrist and starts rolling it between her fingers in a repetitive motion. “No, I’m, uh, here for a tattoo consultation?”

4C frowns, brows drawing together. “Like for a new tattoo?”

“For an old one,” Apo says hesitantly. “Like, to make sure it’s still healing properly and everything? Cherri told me it was a thing and—”

“Oh, Cherri told you to come in.” Understanding has dawned on his face, which is a relief, because Apo did not want to have to explain what she meant to him when she wasn’t sure of it herself. “Yeah, that makes sense. She’s—”

“Horsey!” Cherri yells, choosing the perfect moment to interrupt their conversation. She storms out of the door leading further into the shop and freezes when she sees Apo standing there. “Oh. I didn’t expect you to be here yet.”

“You didn’t tell me what time to come,” Apo says flatly. It’s semi-early in the morning, half past ten, a time that Apo chose because she knew Cherri wouldn’t be expecting her. If she doesn’t want to tell Apo what time, then Apo has no qualms surprising her. It’s called tactical warfare.

She also got Cherri a coffee from the cafe three doors down, for reasons unrelated to the ‘showing up at the tattoo parlor half an hour after they open to shock Cherri’ plan. Apo can have more than one reason to do things. She’s a multitasker.

Cherri blinks for several seconds, readjusting herself, and then spins around to look at 4C. He raises an eyebrow, leaning forward to rest his forearms against the counter. Apo keeps rolling their hair tie between their fingers. “I need coffee and you promised to pay me back from last time,” she finally says.

“I don’t remember that,” 4C says as Apo’s brain unhelpfully supplies images of Cherri and 4C together at a coffee shop, sitting at a table and talking. The burn of jealousy that shoots through her is shocking in its immediacy and force. She swallows it down. “I do remember you stealing my credit card to pay and then saying it was your treat.”

Cherri hums, thinking it over for a moment. “Doesn’t sound like me,” she dismisses. “What does sound like me is being gracious enough to pay for both of our drinks because you forgot your card and you telling me you’d pay me back.”

4C sighs, a long-suffering sound. Apo sympathizes with him. “Fine, I’ll go get you your coffee.” He pulls out his phone and swipes it open, handing it to her and stepping closer at the same time. He leans in to whisper something in her ear. Cherri’s brows furrow slightly before clearing, and her lips twitch up for an instant. Apo twists the hair tie around her fingers viciously. The things she would do, in that moment, to never see them touch again are extensive. Spending an hour in a locked room with Owen isn’t not on the list. Murdering 4C isn’t not either.

“I have a coffee for you,” Apo blurts out, perhaps more forcefully than she needs to. Cherri’s head turns toward her. Apo grabs one of the cups on the register desk and hands it to them. They take it, a flush tinting their cheeks pink. “I got a caramel latte with an extra shot,” she says. “I hope that’s okay.”

Of course it’s okay. Apo knows it is, because she memorized Cherri’s coffee order when they told her the other day while doing her tattoo. Cherri nods, taking a sip and sighing gratefully. “It’s perfect. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Apo says. Her own drink is a tea instead of coffee; she dislikes the bitter taste of plain black coffee, and any flavors put in it just taste overly sweet on top of the bitterness.

Cherri takes another happy sip of her drink and hands 4C his phone back. “Thank you anyway, Horsey. You still owe me.”

4C rolls his eyes, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “No, I don’t.”

Cherri pats his hand sympathetically. “It’s cute that you think that.”

The jealousy comes back, rising up from Apo’s stomach in a roar, hot and ugly. She clears her throat. “What am I supposed to do in this consultation?”

“Yeah, Cherri,” 4C parrots with a slow grin spreading across his face. “What’s she supposed to do?”

Cherri flips him off and starts heading for the back, throwing a “Follow me,” over their shoulder at Apo. She trails after them down the hallway and into the same room from before, washed in the golden light of early morning from a small square window high on the back wall. Cherri immediately flops into their rolly chair and pushes off with their shoes. The chair rattles as it rolls across the floor to their work station.

Apo hesitantly perches on the edge of the tattoo chair since there isn’t anywhere else for her to sit. She wrestles with whether or not to ask her question as Cherri turns their tablet on and navigates to whatever it is they need.

The jealousy wins out quickly. “So,” Apo starts, trying not to sound too interested or suspicious, “you and 4C are close.”

Cherri smiles. “We’ve known each other for a while. He’s like my brother.” Their eye flicks up to look at her for a second. “Don’t tell him, but he’s pretty awesome.”

Apo feels a bit dumb. Cool, so there was no reason to be jealous. She’s just looking too far into things. She waits in silence for a minute until Cherri breaks it.

“How did you know my coffee order?” they ask, eye still focused on the screen. Apo feels her face heat.

“You mentioned it while you were tattooing me the other day,” she mutters.

Cherri’s cheeks are definitely pink now. Their eye glimmers in the blue light of the tablet. “Huh,” they murmur. “Well thank you, again. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” Apo replies. “I figured that if I was going to be coming by early, I could at least get you compensation or something.”

“Compensation?” Cherri repeats, finally looking up with a small smile. There’s nothing teasing or mean to it, just pure affection. Apo’s breath catches at it, the fondness layered in their voice. If Cherri is pretty when they’re being a menace, then they’re breathtaking like this, sweet and gentle. Apo wants to sink into it.

“Y-yeah,” she stutters out. “Compensation. For—for bothering you so early. You haven’t even been open for an hour.”

“You could never bother me, Apokuna,” Cherri says sweetly, and Apo’s heart just about explodes in her chest. And then, because they’re Cherri and they’re evil by nature, they say, “That’s my job.”

Apo frowns. “That’s a very backhanded compliment.” She kicks her foot out to catch Cherri, who backs up in her chair, giggling. “You don’t bother me, you just…make yourself annoying.”

“That’s the definition of a bother,” Cherri points out. She rolls closer to Apo again and reaches out, stopping just before she touches Apo’s upper arm. Her hand hovers over the spot. “Can I?” Apo nods, breath stalling in her lungs. Cherri gently rolls up her sleeve and pins it with a clip, tracing her fingers over the tender spot with a featherlight touch. A shiver runs through Apo. “It’s healing nicely,” Cherri says, satisfied.

Apo swallows, mouth dry. “A-and the scabbing?” she asks.

“That’s normal,” Cherri says. “Just try not to pick at it.” She glances down at her tablet. “You’ve been following the instructions I gave you, right? Washing it regularly, moisturizing, all of that?”

“I’ve been a very diligent listener, I promise,” Apo sighs.

Cherri raises an eyebrow. Oh, there’s her troublemaking smirk. Apo was wondering if it’d make an appearance. “It’s a good thing I won’t just have to take your word for it, because that’s what this is for.”

Apparently, a tattoo consultation is just an endless list of questions that require specific details Apo can’t remember. Has she been letting the area air dry, how often has she been applying lotion to it, how frequent and long her showers are. Apo gives Cherri an odd look at that one, and she explains that putting it in water for too long will cause the ink to fade and heal poorly.

Once Cherri is finished, Apo slumps forward with a sigh. “I didn’t know this was going to be an interrogation.”

Cherri giggles. “You have to make sure it heals properly. Otherwise you’ll fuck up your skin.” She gives Apo an actual fucking wink. “Good thing you’re an obedient listener.”

God, Apo is…going to pass away at this point. They’re going to die because of Cherri and her evil flirting, and their gravestone will read something like They were too gay to live. Their stomach flips a somersault. “W-well, it—I—um.” Yep, super intelligent. Apo is doing a fantastic job today. “I didn’t want to mess up your hard work.”

“I appreciate it,” Cherri says, amused. Oh, she knows exactly what she’s doing. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.” She leads Apo back out to the front of the shop, which is empty except for the two of them. “Thanks for the coffee again,” she adds. “Do I owe you anything?”

Apo shakes their head. “My treat,” they say. They reach out to tuck a stray strand of Cherri’s hair behind her ear. “I got to hang with you anyway.”

Cherri’s eyes are wide and her cheeks are bright pink. “Apo—”

“I have to go,” they say quickly, stepping back before they can do anything else stupid, like kiss her. “Bye, I’ll see you later!” Or literally never. They’re going to move their shop, it’s official. “Have a good day!” They’re already halfway out the door as they say it.

When they get back to the flower shop, Bek takes one look at their face and starts laughing. Apo flips her off.

“If you don’t stop tapping your foot, I’m going to throw you out,” 4C informs her one afternoon, finally looking up from his sketchbook. Cherri stops staring blankly at the tablet screen in front of her and glares at him. He raises an impassive eyebrow. She sighs, dropping her head into the cradle of her arms. “You could talk to her, you know.”

Cherri says nothing. She hasn’t seen Apo in a week, not since they fixed her hair in the front room of the shop and said they liked hanging out with her, and consequently made her breath catch, warmth blooming in her chest. And then they ran out, and Cherri…doesn’t know.

She’s been working on autopilot, smiling at customers and helping them pick out what they want to put and where. She keeps staying late to clean up the shop, hoping she can catch Apo leaving the flower shop, but no dice.

Cherri doesn’t know why Apo suddenly ghosted her, but she misses them badly. Like some deep sort of ache that physically hurts her heart. She wishes she could correct whatever she did wrong.

“You’re tapping your foot again,” 4C says, putting down his pencil. “Cherri.” She looks up from her arms, ready to snap at him to leave her alone, and finds him turned toward her, all of his attention on her. “Talk about it,” he says softly.

“I’ve tried to catch her,” Cherri mumbles. “She’s avoiding me.”

“I meant talk about it with me.” He reaches out his arms and she drops her hands into his, slumping forward to curl in on herself. Cherri dislikes feeling like she’s done something wrong when she cares about the person who she did wrong, and to say she cares about Apo would be an understatement. She doesn’t want to fuck this up.

“She said she liked hanging out with me,” Cherri mumbles into her knees. “And then she ran out.”

4C hums a note, rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles in soothing motions. “Did anything else happen? Before or after?”

Did anything else happen. Where does Cherri start? Apo memorized her coffee order, for one thing, and brought her coffee, for another, and then said it was her treat and she just wanted to hang out with Cherri, and tucked their hair behind their ear, which Cherri still hasn’t been able to stop thinking about. And then she ghosted them.

Their secret, underlying fear is that Apo saw the truth of what they felt in their eyes, that she heard it in the single syllable of their name, and it ruined her opinion of Cherri. That Cherri made their stupid crush obvious, and now Apo hates them because of it.

They tell all of it to 4C—or, actually, they tell it to their knees and 4C hears it because he’s right next to them. They finish it by whining, “And I don’t know what to do!”

“Well,” 4C starts, “it doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong, so you can stop worrying about that.” He taps her head. “Take a deep breath.” Cherri does what he says and inhales, letting it settle in her chest. “Good. Stop replaying it and stressing. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You don’t know that,” she mumbles.

“Oh, I wasn’t aware that this was a pity party,” he says. “If you’re just going to feel sorry for myself, then I’ll take my advice and leave—”
“Wait, no, 4C!” she yelps, holding onto his hands. “I’m sorry. Please grace me with your wisdom.”

4C squeezes her hands. “Second of all, I don’t think Apo finding out about your crush is the disaster you’re making it out to be, because I’m pretty sure she feels the same way.”

Cherri’s head snaps up to stare at him. “What do you mean?” she demands.

“She brought you coffee and flirted with you, for one,” he lists. “She got a tattoo even though she didn’t want to because you asked her to. She memorized what coffee you get after you mentioned it one time, and she gets this weird look in her eyes whenever you two are in the same room—”

“What,” Cherri says flatly.

4C lifts their hands up between them. “Cherri,” he says, like he’s telling someone that their puppy died, “her tucking your hair and saying she likes hanging out with you was flirting. I think getting you the coffee was also flirting. She likes you, dumbass.”

Cherri blinks, recalibrating that fact into her worldview. That Apo could like her is…

Maybe that’s a fact to think about later. She sets it aside and looks back at 4C. “How do I talk to her, though? She ghosted me.”

“Go to her flower shop, which is conveniently located right across the street, and talk to her. She can’t run away in her own shop.” He frowns, brows drawing into an angry expression. “And if she does, I have no problems walking in there and beating her up for making you freak out like this.”

“You will not be doing that,” Cherri tells him sternly. Then she smiles and ruffles his hair before he can dodge her hand. “But thanks, Horsey.”

“I told you to stop calling me that,” he grumbles. And then, quieter, “No need to thank me.”

So Cherri finds herself waiting outside of The Orchard on a Monday afternoon after working up her nerve all morning. Printed in neat golden letters above the door is ‘The Orchard’, and below, in smaller writing ‘flowers & arrangements’. The front window is a riot of colors, petals, and leaves. Flowers spill over each other, every single one flourishing and well taken care of.

For as many times as Cherri has been in here, she feels significantly out of her depth right now. She doesn’t even know why. Well, yes she does; this is the first time she’s seeing Apo in a week. But 4C told her she wasn’t in the wrong, so there’s no reason for her to be nervous.

She has a plan, as well, a very bold and foolish one that may or may not go over well. Either way, she’s going to make Apo aware of her crush today, or at least confirm that she knows it exists. She just has to hope that 4C’s inane theory about her feelings being reciprocated is right.

When Cherri steps inside, the first thing that she notices is that Apo isn’t behind the counter. Instead, there’s a ginger woman in a white tank top and a dusty olive zip that slouches halfway off of her shoulder. Cherri thinks her name is either Mel or El. She looks up from what she’s writing when Cherri walks in, and a slow smile spreads across her face.

“Apo!” she shouts over her shoulder. “Customer for you!”

Cherri is suddenly very grateful for Mel-or-El’s apparent supernatural intuition regarding her reasons for being here today. She plucks a single red tulip from a metal bucket of them on her way into the store.

“Why can’t you take them?” Apo yells from the back. Cherri’s heart squeezes painfully in her chest. She hasn’t heard Apo’s voice in over a week; she missed it.

“I’m going on my break!” Mel-or-El responds. She throws Cherri a collaborative smile and a wink before slipping into the back as Apo emerges, muttering something under their breath. They freeze as soon as they see Cherri, halfway behind the counter and gripping the edge of it for dear life. They look like a deer in headlights, framed by sloping stalks of lavender and leaning boughs of gardenias. The quiet music playing from an unseen source is deafening.

“Apo, hi,” Cherri breathes out quickly. Seeing her again feels like being deprived of oxygen to the point of pain, only to suddenly be able to breathe again and get dizzy from the overabundance.

Apo drifts further behind the counter. “Hi,” she echoes softly. “What are you doing here?” She realizes what she said and winces. “Not that you need a reason, you’ve shown that pretty clearly—I mean—”

Cherri decides to be nice for once and put her out of her misery, not that she isn’t cute when she’s stuttering over her words like that. “I wanted to see you,” she answers. Apo flushes red.

“O-oh. Cool.” She looks down at the countertop and back up just as quickly. “I’m sorry,” she blurts, “I didn’t—I shouldn’t have ghosted you, I’m so sorry, that was really stupid of me, I just—I really miss you, and it was dumb to avoid you because I got scared, and I—I’m really sorry.”

“You were scared?” Cherri asks, confused more than anything else. A part of her wants to scream in relief, because Apo isn’t mad at her, but the rest wants an explanation. (There’s a very small piece that tells her 4C can never know he was right or she’ll never hear the end of it.)

Apo takes a deep breath. She crouches behind the counter for a second, and there’s the sound of a fridge door opening and closing before she pops back up, holding a bouquet of sunflowers. “Here,” she says shyly, handing them to Cherri. “These are for you.”

Cherri gasps, taking them from her carefully. They’re gorgeous, cheerful yellow petals in full bloom, a pink ribbon wrapped around the stems to tie them together. “I love them.”

“They mean adoration, loyalty, and devoted love,” Apo says, and Cherri’s gaze snaps up to her. Her shoulders are scrunched up and she’s rolling a hair tie between her fingers like her life depends on it, but she continues in a mostly steady voice, “I like you. A lot. And I got scared that you didn’t feel the same way, and I really didn’t want to ruin anything with you, because you’re really cool and I just like being around you. So I kind of ghosted you, which was so much worse and really stupid, and I’m really sorry about it. This last week has sucked.” She chews on her lip for a second before wrestling out her next words. “Can we still be friends?”

Cherri wants to laugh, and they do, an insane little giggle. The room is spinning. She feels a giddy warmth rising in her. 4C was right. 4C was right. Apo likes her back.

Oh. He can absolutely never ever know about this, or Cherri will literally never live it down.

Apo is still waiting anxiously for her reaction. Well, Cherri had a plan, but it’s sort of changed a little bit now. That’s fine, though. Go with the flow. She says, “Being around you makes me feel…warm. I don’t know how to describe it. Like drinking something hot on a cold day. And I really like that feeling.” She holds out the red tulip. “I really like you.”

Apo looks speechless, staring at the tulip. Cherri adds, “Red tulips are usually a confession of love.”

It shakes Apo out of her stupor. She takes the tulip, staring at it like it’s priceless. “You know flower language?”

Cherri giggles. “I made a tattoo for you with flower language.”

Apo’s eyes light up, which is pretty. She’s pretty, surrounded by the greenery, her hair a mess of curls around her face. “I have to see that.”

“I can show you sometime,” Cherri agrees with a dangerous smile. She leans across the counter, careful not to squish her sunflowers. “But there’s a price.”

Apo raises an eyebrow, catching onto her tone. “Oh? What is it?” Her eyes flick down to Cherri’s lips.

“Can I kiss you, Apokuna?” Cherri murmurs. Apo is already moving forward, hands coming up to cup Cherri’s face. Cherri gets a fistful of her shirt, her other hand braced against the counter.

It’s at an awkward angle, and the corner of the counter is digging into Cherri’s hip, and it’s perfect. She’s thought about kissing Apo a lot, but this exceeds all of her expectations. Apo’s lips are soft, and she tastes like peppermint chapstick, and she’s kissing Cherri like a heart attack, and Cherri might be in love.

They pull back, and Apo makes a happy little one-note hum. “Price met?”

Cherri pretends to consider it. “Not sure,” she says. “I think you should try again.”

Apo laughs and kisses her again.