🌠DELTA – Chapter 7; Interlude – 1995

Read from the start

Characters: Zinnia, Aster

Warnings:

None (somehow)

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Zinnia sat in the usual spot, waiting. She sat leaning against her salamence in the warm sun, impatiently tapping her foot. After a period of staring out to the lawn in front of her, Zinnia perked up upon hearing footsteps, turning to look.

“Aster!” Zinnia said as her blank expression turned to a grin. Aster’s face lit up too, as she grinned and waved with one hand as she carried a lunch tray in the other.

“Sorry I took longer than usual! When I got in the lunch line it was already super long…”

“That’s ok! I really only just got here myself because I stopped by the campus garden to grab you… this!”

As Zinnia finished speaking, she smiled widely and pulled out a bundle of 4 lilies that she had been hiding behind salamence’s tail.

“For you!”

Aster had a look of pleasant surprise on her face, before she giggled and sat down on the pavement next to Zinnia. She took the flowers and tucked them into her bag’s pocket.

“You were allowed to take these, right?” she asked, almost smirking.

“Wh- yea, of course! I figured that since it’s spring and all the flowers in the garden are blooming, I’d get you something!”

Aster put her hand to Zinnia’s face and pushed her hair back behind her ears, causing Zinnia to become flustered.

“You’re always so kind, Zinnia” Aster spoke in a soft tone. As she spoke, she began twirling Zinnia’s hair with her finger. Zinnia became even more flustered, which Aster noticed, and stopped playing with her hair.

“Sorry, am I being too much?”

“N-no!! Not at all!! Sorry I’m just… a bit of an egg? And it’s kind of hard to express my feelings.”

Aster laughed a bit. “You’re cute, Zinnia! Don’t worry about it.”

With that, the two started eating lunch together, as they would do every day. They talked a lot about various things, but Zinnia was particularly keen on the Litleonid shower that would be occurring that night. Aster sat there listening to Zinnia go on about the stars, and the both of them felt at peace – at home.

Lunch ended, and classes resumed. Aster and Zinnia shared their last class of the day, and just as class was about to end, Aster leaned over to Zinnia.

“Hey, would you wanna come over to my place instead of me coming to your place?”

“Sure! I don’t think I’ve seen where you live yet, it’d be interesting to see! I just need to call Emmy on the school telephone first to let her know I won’t be coming home.” Zinnia replied.

Zinnia went to call Emmy, and with that, Zinnia and Aster were off. The walk was relatively short and took the two through the downtown segment of Rustboro. Finally, they arrived at a brownstone that looked just like the others surrounding it. The two went inside, and up the elevator to the floor Aster’s apartment was on. She unlocked the door, and Zinnia was hit with a wave of sweet smells as Aster opened the door.

The interior of Aster’s apartment was small, very pink, and smelled of varied flower perfumes. Zinnia was almost stunned for a second, but she followed Aster inside.

“You live alone?” Zinnia asked, looking around the apartment. It seemed almost dreamlike.

“Yea, I do… my parents are back in, uh… Sinnoh” she replied. 

“Ooh, makes sense. They must have sent a lot of money with you, this place is really nice!”

“Thank you! Yeah, they… uh, they did.”

Aster moved over to a silver-colored record player and picked a record out of it’s sleeve. She set it onto the player and turned it on, and lowered the volume just a bit as some old Sinnohan music started to play.

“Do you want me to get you some tea?” Aster asked as Zinnia sat down on a cushioned dining chair.

“That’d be nice, thanks!”

The two hung around for hours, talking more, watching movies Aster had borrowed from the library, and just enjoying each other’s presence. The moment felt warm and safe, and as the sun fell, Zinnia saw Aster consistently looking out of her pink-curtained window.

“What’s up, Aster? You seem distracted by something.” Zinnia asked, putting her hand on Aster’s shoulder.

“Here, follow me.” Aster said as she got up. She walked towards the window and opened it, and jumped out onto the fire escape outside, and motioned for Zinnia to do the same. They climbed up to the roof, city lights glowing beyond the steel ladder. As they reached the top, Aster grabbed Zinnia’s hand and pulled her down softly to the rough concrete roof and pointed to the sky.

“Look!” she said, and as she did, Zinnia’s eyes lit up. 

One, then two, then three, four, and more – glittering sparkles rained in the distance. Despite the harsh lights of the city, the distant meteor shower was as clear as day. The two sat in silence, simply watching the stars – eventually, the silence was broken, but only by the excitedly hushed ‘look’’s of Zinnia as she pointed out the falling stars to her girlfriend.

“When we get out of school, I still want to be with you.” Aster said in a hushed voice.

“Of course! I wouldn’t really want it any other way.” Zinnia replied, grabbing Aster’s hand tighter.

“I was thinking… we could live in a house by the mountains somewhere”

“But there’s no mountains in Hoenn?”

“Well, I could show you Sinnoh, then. You’ve shown me Hoenn, I might as well return the favor.”

Zinnia giggled. “Sounds like fun! I guess that gives me an excuse to brush up on my Sinnohan then.”

“It’s wonderful… thinking of all the places I want to go with you. Because no matter where I am, I feel like I’m at home with you.”

“Aster! If it wasn’t so dark out, I’d complain that you’re making me blush.”

“Well, even if it’s dark, the stars are bright as ever. Not nearly as bright as you, though.”

Zinnia playfully put her hands in Aster’s face.

“Stop!! I’m gonna turn to mush at this point!”

Aster laughed, and the two sat there watching the stars until the meteor shower ended.

“Well, it’s getting cold. We should probably go back inside. You can stay the night, if you’d like.” Aster said, getting up.

“Sure! We can go and meet Emmy at Meteor Falls in the morning.” Zinnia replied as she followed in suit.

“I love you so much, Zinnia.”

“I love you too.”

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