Shades of Petals

Let Me See You Smile Once More

Tucking a lock of her silver hair behind an ear, Atsushi sighed and leaned back in her chair, looking around the office. It was quiet and boring, a slow day for the Agency in a way. Though everyone was off doing something, it still seemed uneventful compared to their usual (not including the mess of events concerning Fyodor and even before that with The Guild and even with the Port Mafia). Speaking of The Guild...

The door burst open to admit the one and only Francis Fitzgerald, beaming brightly and holding up one of his bargain sale catalogs, excitedly waving it around. He immediately headed for her, barely taking a glance around.

"It's a sale! Look, look!"

She tried to bite back her grin, but it was hard to when the man in front of her was so enthusiastic over a bargain sale. Then again, being a rich bastard, he hadn't been used to the idea of sales and getting more for your money and saving.

"Atsushi, come with me to look at the store and buy this!"

Francis was also way too familiar, but she supposed that Americans were just like that. Not that she would know —she had been sheltered and had grown up with abnormal interactions and preconceptions of things and people because of the orphanage.

"Fitzgerald-san," she carefully sounded out his name, as always finding it difficult, "I have work to do."

Francis, who insisted she dispense with formalities (especially because of her difficulty in pronouncing his name, but she could only allow herself to do so in her head), sniffed and gave her a haughty look. He waved around him at the empty office.

"No one's here," he pointed out. "Just you. Fukuzawa's in his office, having tea like usual, the clerks are in and out, one of them —the one with glasses, I think? I can never remember her name —she's on break downstairs with Yosano and Edgar. Everyone else are on a case." How in the world did he know where everyone was when he just got there?

"Shouldn't you be running your new business?" she raised an eyebrow, but she couldn't help a bit of a smile.

Now that they weren't enemies and she'd gotten to know him more, his antics really were amusing.

"Miss Louisa May is handling it," he waved her off. "Come on! I'll treat you to lunch."

That perked her right up —Ugh, he really did know how to get to her sometimes. Besides, he was right. With Dazai and Kunikida on a case, and Kyouka being on her own mission to deliver several packages, she'd been left behind to work on some backlog. Ranpo had been recruited for another case, so Edgar was left waiting for him downstairs, and Kenji was accompanying the childlike man this time. The Tanizaki siblings were doing errands for the Agency, so she was just meandering around with mostly finished paperwork.

Francis held out a hand to her, splayed out, and she idly noted yet again how he seemed just effortlessly graceful and elegant with every action and movement of his body.

"Come with me," he said, voice just a tinge imperious and impatient. But when she looked at him, his clear blue eyes were twinkling and he was widely grinning at her.

She put her hand on his.

"You're incorrigible."

"And yet, my dear tigress, you put up with me."

"I don't know why," she said wryly but allowed him to pull her up from her chair and take her hand in his.

Heat rushed across her cheeks and she swallowed slowly, shoulders slightly tense. She glanced at him from under her lashes shyly, wary of her strange heartbeat drumming loudly and quickly in her ears.