[Pursuit of Diligence 3] Words

These past few weeks had been the most eventful time of Marianna’s life. Aside from his job, a surprising amount of his free time had been spent coming and going from the Heavenly Embassy. Primrose would occasionally ask him to visit; either to show him around the Embassy more, or to try various teas and foods that were not available in Burrowgatory.

At this moment in time, Marianna was in the middle of responding to a lengthy paragraph text that Primrose sent him. The uppity Cherubun had a habit of writing miniature novels when it came to texting. Marianna could also tell that he was a little bit of a grandpa when it came to technology.

“... Mary? Are you okay?”

The holy-looking Succubun looked across the table. He had almost forgotten that he was on an outing with another bun at the moment.

One of his relatively close friends, another Pride Succubun that went by the name ‘Unity’, had invited him out to Paradise Café. It wasn’t until recently that Marianna had managed to get her hooked on the specialty coffee – she was slightly reluctant to try it before she had a single sip of the smooth, caffeinated drink. Now Unity wanted to make it a date every other week.

“Ah, I’m sorry… I don’t mean to be on my phone,” Marianna apologized before locking his phone screen and putting it facedown on the table.

Unity smiled and shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant. You weren’t even moving your thumbs for nearly a minute… Like you were spacing out?”

Marianna’s brows raised as if he was just realizing. “Was I really doing that?”

Unity tried not to giggle, but a breath of soft laughter managed to escape her lips. “You did look like you typed a few words before completely stopping to think about something… Is anything on your mind?”

“Well…” Marianna bit his lip and looked out the window, warming his hands on his cup of latte before continuing, “I… haven’t told a single soul this yet, so do you think you could keep a secret, Unity?”

At the mention of keeping a secret, the other Pride Succubun’s face turned more serious. As if Marianna was about to reveal the secrets of the universe. “U-um… how big of a secret do you mean? I’m not a chatterbox, but–”

“If you don’t want to hear it, I don’t mind,” Marianna assured her quickly, waving a hand swiftly, “The problem is…” Marianna looked around and then lowered his voice, leaning over the table an inch. “I’m sure others would make fun of me or give me a hard time if they knew.”

“You know I would never do anything that would be a detriment to your livelihood,” Unity responded in an earnest tone, “Promise.”

“Okay…” Marianna took a deep breath and relaxed his shoulders. 

He still kept his voice at a quiet volume. There were not really many customers at the café, but there were still one or two other Succubuns sitting around.

“I… made fr-... acquaintances with someone new recently, and… well, he isn’t someone that anyone from Burrowgatory would befriend on a whim. He’s not even from Burrowgatory, actually…”

Unity’s expression fell to that of confusion. She definitely wasn’t following.

“You know the owner of this café, Beanny, right?” Marianna asked.

“Of course I do. Everyone who comes here does, right?” Unity responded.

“Well, yes, but aside from that… She happens to be the same species as my new acquaintance,” Marianna finally admitted.

It took a few moments for it to click, but Unity’s eyes widened ever so slightly in realization. Not complete shock, but mild surprise. “You’ve made friends with a Cherubun??”

“Shh, not so loud, please…” Marianna raised a finger to his lips; almost pleadingly.

Unity shied away and took a sheepish sip from her coffee cup before setting it down. “S-sorry…! I just– yeah, that is something that others may not take lightly…”

It wasn’t exactly news that Cherubuns were starting to pop up every now and again, but they were rare. Rare as in there was maybe 1 Cherubun for every 100+ Succubuns. Ever since the first one, Dove, crash landed here… one by one, more of them followed. 

Unity tilted her head inquisitively. “Who is it, then? Are they nice, at least?”

“I mean…” Marianna looked at his coffee, “He’s cordial, polite, punctual… Seems like he doesn’t mind my company… Even if he constantly has a resting ‘B’ face no matter what emotion he’s feeling at the current time. He could be enjoying himself but his eyes and nose and mouth say otherwi–”

“So he must like you, then?” Unity cut him off, knowing that he would not stop rambling if given the chance.

Marianna looked up in surprise, perhaps discovering that the relationship he shared with Primrose was… pretty important? Could they be called ‘friends’ at this point? He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, and Marianna did not just call anyone a friend. The same most likely went for Primrose.

Before he could answer, his phone buzzed loudly on the table. Marianna looked at it, then to Unity, who stared at him as if she was telling him to pick it up.

The Pride bun turned the screen right side up to read the notification banner. It was a rather haughtily worded text from Primrose. Marianna gasped and unlocked his screen to hurriedly message back. “Oh no… I forgot to reply. I promised him that I would help him with something this afternoon after my outing with you.”

Unity looked over at the clock on the wall near the coffee bar. “It’s almost 2:00 PM right now, and we got here about an hour and a half ago. If you need to get going then you won’t hurt my feelings!”

Marianna gave his friend an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry, I don’t normally get up and leave like this but I’ll never hear the end of it from him…”

Unity laughed lightly and playfully shooed the other Pride bun, giving him permission to go.

With that, Marianna took one more sip of his coffee before scurrying out the door. Praying he would not need to go to the bathroom on the way there from all the caffeine he drank…

“Ahem, you’re fifteen minutes late,” Primrose cleared his throat and scolded the Succubun, looking at the watch on his wrist and blatantly looking at the time.

Marianna stumbled over his long legged hooves as he finally arrived at the same garden he was at the first time they were formally introduced to one another. The Pride bun placed his hands on his thighs and bent over slightly in order to catch his breath – he had run here in his doll form in order to get to where he needed to be faster.

“Ha… hhaah… I’m sorry… I was… out with a friend of mine… and lost track of the time…! It won’t happen again…” Marianna huffed out as he stood back up to full height; nearly a head or so taller than the Cherubun.

Primrose glanced up at him with his neutral face (which of course was hard to tell from a regular peeved / displeased face), but he merely sniffed and began walking over to a wooden table near the plots of flowers. “I know. Just come here.”

Marianna wiped his forehead, following his companion. Deep down, he was relieved that the Cherubun didn’t seem all too oissed.

Primrose motioned to the supplies laid out. “If you recall what we were doing here last time… The flowers you assisted me in cultivating are finally blooming. They’re doing very well, so I ask that you take one of those watering cans and help me give them the nutrients they need. After a day or so we can apply some special fertilizer. I… would like your help with that as well. Considering your muscl… S-strength… Would be better suited to carry the bags.”

The flustered Cherubun caught himself before saying what first came to mind. To his relief, the interrupted comment flew right over Marianna’s head.

“Of course!” Marianna eagerly reached for a watering can, only for Primrose to lightly bat his hand away.

“Ah-ah, aren’t you forgetting something?” the Cherubun scolded.

Marianna simply tilted his head, feeling stupid.

Primrose pointed to the gloves and apron laying on the other side of the table.

Marianna looked like a lightbulb went off over his head. “Oh! Right… I’m sorry, it’s been a while since–”

“Could you please stop apologizing? I thought we’d been over this…” Primrose groped the bridge of his nose. He didn’t sound mad at all, surprisingly. Just tired.

Marianna let out a quiet ‘heh’ before taking the apron, tying the strings, then putting the gloves on. “Right. I’ll remember not to do that too much.”

The two buns in their doll forms began their work, going row by row of the blossoming flowers that grew out of the Embassy’s unusual soil. It was still hard to believe that all of this was sitting on top of a solid cloud… Then again, Marianna always thought (when he was younger) that you could sit or lay on them safely. The concept of an entire town resting atop of a giant cloud was remarkable. Not many Succubuns could say they’d witnessed this.

Marianna held his watering can in both hands; holding the underside of it in one and the handle in the other. There had to be just under a gallon of water in his. It felt heavy, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Primrose definitely filled it with more water knowing that the Pride Succubun could easily lift the can…

Meanwhile, Primrose’s expression as he watered his own row of flowers actually looked relaxed. Opposite of his usual scrunched up look up disapproval. He was even humming a quiet tune to himself.

“... Does gardening bring you joy, Primrose?” Marianna broke the silence by asking a question.

Of course, Primrose’s face went right back to its typical resting face, but more on the surprised side.

“Eh? What do you mean by that?” the Cherubun asked defensively.

“Pfft… Is that a personal question or something? Sorry I asked,” Marianna teased.

“N… No…? It just seemed out of nowhere. I… guess you could say it makes me happy? I would rather be doing this than filling tedious paperwork, and… stressing over other matters…” Primrose trailed off.

“What makes you stressed? I know I’m usually stressed when I don’t think I’m doing something right… Or, if I think someone doesn’t like me. It’s hard to tell when I’m in someone’s good graces a lot of the time since it’s hard for me to ‘read the room’, so to speak… Oh, and I’m also bad at catching sarcasm, so I take things too literally sometimes.”

Primrose’s attention went from the flowers to that statement. “When you ‘don’t think someone likes you’…” He gently poured water over a few more square inches of the beautiful flowers. “... Marianna… do you think I don’t like you?” The Cherubun’s tone tried to hide how disstressed he started to sound.

“Oh! No– I mean… Well…” Marianna fumbled his words and tried to act natural by picking up a nearby water hose to refill his can. “N-nevermind-”

Primrose turned his whole body to face the Pride Succubun. “Marianna! Answer me,” he demanded, stamping a foot on the ground.

“At first I did, yes…!” Marianna blurted out, “But then, I don’t know… maybe I thought otherwise…? But every time you ask me to come over or help you with something, you just seem like you’re doing it out of a… personal obligation…” Those last two words trailed off quietly, but it was obvious what he said.

There was an awkward silence. The only sounds were the ambience of the garden surroundings. Marianna was afraid that Primrose took offense. Which, for a second, that’s what it seemed like. But then the Cherubun’s shoulders slumped, and he looked down at the flowers they had been treating.

“I confess… At first… my goal wasn’t out of altruism. At least, I thought it was. I genuinely believed that I was doing this as a good deed by having one of your kind do ‘virtuous’ tasks.” Primrose sighed and looked up at the sky. “It occurred to me that merely telling someone to constantly do ‘this’ and ‘that’ just because a Cherubun told them to would only make them do it out of obligation… So, I wanted to ‘test’ you. Even by asking you to do mundane things like have tea with me. I thought you would get bored and leave, proving that you only wanted to help me because you had to, but you kept coming back… So I…”

Primrose looked over at Marianna, then his eyes widened slightly. The Pride Succubun’s face was painted with that of someone who looked like a knife was slowly pushed into their chest, and they were trying their damndest to hide it.

“I…” Primrose suddenly realized what all of that sounded like, “L-listen, I-I know that sounds truly awful, but I’ve actually been enjo–”

“Were all those things you said about me when we first met just… sweet talk, then? About me being ‘special’ and that I was different…?” Marianna interrupted. His tone took on a grave demeanor. He didn’t sound angry. Or upset. It was actually kind of scary. His kind and soft voice was gone.

The Cherubun’s ears drooped with guilt. His heart raced in a panic, but he kept his cool as best as he could. “Mm… N… no… m-maybe at first, but… not… now…” There was no confidence in his voice, so it sounded like more and more lies at this point.

More silence filled the air. Marianna idly continued his task of watering the flowers; his eyes void of emotion. “I see… Well, I... appreciate your honesty about all of this.”

The fact that Marianna didn’t throw his tools down and storm off shocked Primrose even more. In fact, it sent his heart rate into a faster pace. Was he mad…? Surely he had to be. Primrose genuinely felt like he deserved a punch in the face right about now. He welcomed it!

“Marianna… I…” The Cherubun slightly raised a hand out towards his companion.

“It’s okay. I’ll still help you finish up here. I’ll be on my way after… I need to run some errands,” Marianna stated plainly with a poker face (and voice).

“... Sure, of course…” In defeat, Primrose didn’t push it any further.

The both of them continued to empty their watering cans in complete silence. The only sound filling the emptiness were the wind chimes outside of the greenhouse. 

After they finished up, Marianna said his goodbyes formally; as opposed to his more familiar demeanor he had usually kept with his acquaintance. Leaving Primrose to sit with his thoughts and mistakes.