god thats a lot of flowers

this is getting a bit gayer

Connor Murphy is a tattoo artist, and after all, what's better than combining two of your favourite things together? Art and pain. Though it's debatable that art is pain, cause it sure seems like it. Zoe, his sister and coworker, pushed Connor to leave the mall for once during their lunch break and study flowers after an unfortunate design that included a red spider lily turning out kinda... Gross looking.

He stumbled upon a small shop and shrugged- It was the closest one and he didn't want to walk far, because even if he did study the stupid flowers but get back late, Zoe would surely destroy him. Stupid Zoe. Stupid red spider lilies. Stupid Jeremy who wanted the design in the first place.

'The Flower Pot'. Wow. Aside from the mounds of flowers squished together to make room for even more plants, there was like no one there. At least, no customers. How did this place even stay open?

Still, Connor leaned down to look at one of the flowers, specifically how the green slowly turned to white in an extremely natural yet uneven gradient with the petals having a weird texture that was also not even, curling awkwardly yet blissfully outwards. Why was he even looking at this? Couldn't he just open google on his phone or something? "I don't need 'inspiration' I know how to draw a fucking flower," The illustrator muttered to himself stubbornly, gritting his teeth a bit out of anger. "Fuck you, Zoe"

"Do you need something?" Those words which startled the artist, though not shown visibly, probably ruined his entire life. Probably the cutest boy he's ever seen who Connor accidentally snapped at, despite him obviously working there, stood awkwardly, a smile spread over his face despite his eyes screaming out for help and that he did not want to talk to Connor.

God. He was so cute. Adorable. The only dude that the teen would most likely openly share his gay-ass thoughts about. Really, really gay-ass thoughts. His hair was a darker shade of brown than Connor's, though most people's hair was darker than his, kept short and very neat, like he spends 20 minutes in the morning just to style it so it doesn't look like he spent 20 minutes, but it still looks nice. Freckles dotted his face and oh my god how Connor wanted to kiss everyone of them and even make constellations out of them.

He also looked like a complete dork. Expected, for working at a flower shop. His work apron was a nice shade of indigo, covering a lighter blue of... Was that sky blue or baby blue? Whatever, he didn't care. This guy was cute as a button. A small pin placed on the darker cloth read out 'EVAN HANSEN'. Evan. Huh.

After the strange interaction between the both of them (though it was mostly Connor's fall for being too fucking gay and turning into an actual tomato), the teen ran out the store gripping his pen and pencil, going as fast as he could without looking too obvious or weird that he was running from something, which was hard because skinny jeans really don't help with running at all and no one would ever go out to exercise in them.

"Zoe you ASS!" Were the first words he used when he burst into the tattoo studio from the back entrance, receiving a glare from Zoe for being loud and rude, but getting some snickers from Jaime and the newbie who joined like a week ago. "And fuck you too Jaime," Connor hissed, narrowing his eyes at his latino coworker.

"Yeah, what'd you want Connor? Break's not over yet, you should still be out," Giving her trademark sarcastic jazzhands, "studying flowers." Zoe finished. Her brother gave her the finger and walked away to the counter, awaiting some new customers before closing hours. Maybe one would ask for something edgy that everyone but them knows that they'll regret it in the future- It's always fun to see where that goes.

Waiting takes forever. He could look out the window and see the disapproving moms who either glare at the shop and tell their young kids not to get tattoos ever or glare at the shop and then glare at their teen who did actually get a tattoo. It was funny at first, now it's kinda boring.

Plan B: Look around at the all familiar store around him and notice every single stupid thing about it. The store looked pretty much like Hot topic but less crowded by twelve-year-olds and shirts with stolen art pieces taken from Devianart on them. It was dark with brick walls to give off a badass look. Or Edgy one, depends if you go on 4Chan or not.

There's one wall, behind the counter that's just filled with their best designs, though they also have a binder for more designs and the customer could even ask for a design that no one else has gotten- It's a stupid idea since then people (Jeremy) would get a stupid flower (red spider lily) that no one knows how to draw, but Lauren, the manager of the store, which is named Touch Of Ink Tattoos, thought that it'd at least make things interesting for the artists.

There's the counter and a waiting area, for the busy days, and the marble counter is less like a counter in the back of the store and more of a divider with some cashiers on it and a book. After the counter, there's the seats for people getting their tattoos, which currently only 2 people were interested in getting arm tattoos for now. Then there's the back, where most of the staff hang out, even when they're not working, drawing and sharing sketches with each other. It's not bad. Actually, it's pretty nice.

Not like Connor would ever say that outloud.

Ew.

No one entered the store. Dammit. He's so fucking bored.

Grabbing the pen closest to him that stuck out of the pencil holder next to the cashier, he started scribbling on his wrist until letting out an 'ugh' and tossing the pen to the trash. Dried out. Grabbing another and doing the same, except this time it did have ink, Connor got to work, doodling over his hand in a henna-like style. Pft. He should become a henna style so that his dad doesn't think he's that emo.

Something bothered Connor a lot though, while doing this. No matter how many intricate designs he drew, he kept drawing small flowers. Some looking like generic flowers drawn by kids, others looking... pretty decent if Connor was being honest.

He could not get that Evan out of his head, huh.

Well Evan better fuck off, this is gonna become a problem eventually. He could tell.