Ingenue || Bungou Stray Dogs × Fem!Reader

3

Lies as ephemeral as flowers.

Lucy Maud Montgomery is a darling rag doll dressed in burgundy fabric bemired with the tears she collected in the bucket she had used to clean orphanage windows. In marigold dust, her body is a canvas bespattered with scarlet hues and vermillion scars, kissed with the light of a blood moon.

Everything about Lucy was red, and she was lovely.

She had cherry-dipped fingertips acquainting themselves with the fragility of ceramic and coffee. Once she was through with the last drop, she brought the cup to the girl of undiluted wishes, and awaited her criticism.

"Incomparable to manager's coffee." She said. "But it improved significantly, Lucy. You're really getting there."

"You never fail to flatter me." There was a luster of pride on her eyes upon hearing her words. "Before you know it, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between your lies and truths."

"Oh, but I always tell the truth."

"And when you don't want to, you stay silent."

The girl offered nothing but a smile. Lucy stared at her, and the longer she did, the more apparent her despondence came to be. Her face was like ceramic in the verge of breaking with the effort of her smiles, and she worried that it might. Though she also didn't want to see the listlessness of her frowns.

"See?" Lucy remarked.

"What? I didn't say anything."

"Renders me correct! You must be hiding something, (y/n)." She claimed, proceeding to sit on the cushioned chair across her. Then, she looked straight into her eyes with inclination. "Tell me."

She was obscuring something, Lucy knew, and she didn't even bother objecting against it. The windows to her soul gave away a truth that was almost painful to behold, and it made her regret taking notice to it. With a brief glance, everyone would know her heart was laden, and in silence Lucy questioned how she was able to live that exposed to the world.

"Tell me when you feel like doing so." She said. "I don't want to pressure you, but make sure you don't keep that bottled up."

"The flowers are wilting."

She claimed just as Lucy was about to stand. She glanced at the girl, though the look was unreciprocated; she had this strange habit of finding interest in vacant spaces.

"The flowers are wilting," she reiterated, "and I don't think there's much I can do."

Lucy, carrying the doubts she had on the girl's words, took the time to evaluate all the aspects her face had to offer. She had an appearance that defeated the laws of her death clock. No one could genuinely ascertain her age, but her eyes told a story of four hundred and ninety-seven tragedies.

Suddenly, Lucy laughed, therefore cutting the girl off her notion. She looked up to her in curiosity.

"You could've just said that you were having trouble with your camellias all this time," she remarked, chuckling slightly, "then I wouldn't have to go through all the stress worrying about why you had always looked so miserable."

"Do I?" The girl queried, cracking up a smile. "I never really noticed that. Thanks for pointing it out, though."

"Not a problem. You look lovelier when you smile." The honest compliment slipped out of her mouth without hesitance. Lucy then stood up, heading over the counter with the empty cup in hand. "Would you like another drink?"

She casted her another smile she claimed to be exquisitely beautiful. "Yes, please."

She discerned all the sanguine colors Lucy expressed, and wished she hadn't tainted them with her slate gray.