Chapter 3: Royal Decree
The next day, the shop smelled of fresh-cut stems and resolve. Vil had arrived at dawn, overhauling the front window display into a stark, architectural arrangement of bleached branches and single, shocking-pink anthuriums. It was control. It was a statement. He was wearing a shirt so white it was almost blinding, his hair secured in a twist so severe it pulled at his temples. He was a fortress.
When the bell chimed at eleven, he didn’t flinch. He was wrist-deep in a bucket of brackish water, conditioning a bundle of parrot tulips. He looked up, his face a placid, professional mask.
Leona looked like he hadn’t slept. His usually cool demeanor was frayed at the edges, a restless energy in the way he held his shoulders. He scanned the shop, his gaze landing on Vil and sticking there.
“Hey,” he said, the word landing flat in the fragrant air.
“Good morning.” Vil’s voice was pleasant, distant. A voice for customers. He pulled a tulip from the water, shaking droplets onto the grating. “What can I do for you today?”
A beat of silence. Leona’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Did my brother come by here yesterday?”
Vil carefully blotted the tulip stem with a cloth. “He did.”
Leona let out a short, frustrated breath, looking away toward the window. “Of course he did. Nosy bastard. Can’t keep his royal nose out of anything.” He muttered it more to himself than to Vil, running a hand through his already-tousled hair.
The remark, so brotherly and ordinary, was a tiny, unexpected key trying to fit a lock Vil had already soldered shut. A faint, sad chuckle escaped Vil before he could stop it. He covered it by turning to place the tulip in a holding vase. “He seemed very kind. And appreciative of the anniversary bouquet. He said your… recipient liked it.”
He kept his back turned as he said it, arranging the tulips with excessive focus. He heard Leona take a few steps closer.
“Yeah. They did.” Leona’s voice was closer now. “Look, about him showing up… and saying whatever he said…”
Vil turned, the mask perfectly back in place. “It’s quite all right. It explained a great deal. Your… perspective. Makes perfect sense now.” His tone was civil, smooth, and utterly cold. It was the voice one used with a vaguely important stranger who required careful handling.
Leona stared at him. The restless energy solidified into something sharper, more intent. He noticed the change. Vil saw him notice. “That’s what this is?” Leona asked, his own voice dropping, losing its casual edge. “The full-service customer treatment? Because you found out I’ve got a title buried in my back pocket?”
It was the perfect out. A clean, logical explanation for the glacier now residing where Vil’s sharp banter used to be. He seized it. “It’s probably what it is,” Vil agreed, his voice light, even as something brittle threatened to crack behind his ribs. “It’s rather significant information to omit, don’t you think? ‘Just need some green things, Your Highness.’ It feels like a rather large detail to forget to mention.” The bitterness seeped through, hot and acidic, staining the edges of his professional veneer.
Leona barked a laugh, but it was hollow, devoid of real humor. “Sorry. My bad. Next time I’ll lead with my full royal pedigree and quarterly allowance. Should I bow? Would that help?”
“Sarcasm isn’t an apology,” Vil snapped, the mask slipping completely for a second. He was hurt, and the anger was easier. “It’s just rudeness with a fancier coat.”
“Fine.” Leona took another step, now only the worktable between them. “I’m sorry I didn’t formally introduce myself as Prince Leona Kingscholar, Second in Line to the Throne of Sunset Savanna, when I came in to buy my mother some apology flowers. It didn’t seem relevant. Here, I still don’t think it’s relevant.”
“Well, it is,” Vil said, his chin lifting. “It changes the context of every inane, arrogant thing you’ve said in here. Now. Why are you here? To request another expression of devotion for your newly beloved?” He infused the question with a sardonic, sweeping gesture towards the coolers. “Shall we make this one even grander? Perhaps with imported orchids that cost more than my rent? I’m sure they’re worth it.”
The words hung in the air, sharp and poisonous. Vil watched Leona’s face, expecting a smirk, a confirmation, a final, graceful twist of the knife.
Instead, Leona’s golden eyes held his, unwavering. “Yes, actually.”
The air left Vil’s lungs.
“The last one was nice,” Leona continued, his voice low and deliberate, “but I don’t think it was obvious enough in its message. It was too… subtle. I need something that shouts.”
Shouts. The word echoed in the hollow space inside Vil’s chest. He felt numb. This was a new level of cruelty, intentional or not. To commission him, to have him pour his hurt into a bouquet that would shout love to someone else. It was a punishment he hadn’t earned.
“I see,” Vil whispered. Then, drawing on a reserve of strength he didn’t know he possessed, he straightened his spine. “Loud, then. Unambiguous. We can do that.”
He moved to the coolers like an automaton. His mind, usually a vibrant palette of meaning and color, was a gray static. He operated on pure, desolate instinct. Shout. He took sunflowers, not for their joy now, but for their blinding, undeniable volume. He took bunches of hot pink gerbera daisies, their color aggressive and cheerful. He added spikes of brilliant yellow gladiolus for strength of character, and tumbled in orange spray roses for fascination. It was a riot. A carnival of affection. It was the least Vil-like bouquet he had ever conceived—there was no nuance, no poetry, only a screaming, primary-colored declaration.
He built it in utter silence, his fingers moving with swift, brutal efficiency. He bound the shrieking bundle with a ribbon of gold silk.
“Here.” He thrust it across the table. “It shouts. I hope they have excellent hearing.”
Leona took it. His expression was unreadable, his eyes on the vibrant, chaotic mass of blooms. He said nothing. He pulled out his wallet, laid the cash on the table, and took the bouquet.
He walked to the door. Vil turned away, unable to watch him leave with it. He heard the chime. He closed his eyes, focusing on the sound of his own breath, on the sharp, clean scent of the tulips, on anything other than the agony of the moment.
A minute passed. Then two.
When he finally turned, sure the coast was clear and he could finally unravel in private, he saw it.
On the corner of his worktable, in the same slender crystal vase, were two flowers.
Not one. Two.
They were from the bouquet he’d just made. A single, perfect sunflower, its face the size of a child’s hand, beaming with false cheer. And beside it, nestled close, one of the hot pink gerbera daisies, its petals a vibrant, shocking declaration.
He approached slowly, as if the vase might shatter. Two flowers. Not a pity gift. Not a consolation prize. A pairing.
His mind, the expert in floral language, raced even as his heart stuttered. Sunflower: adoration, loyalty, longevity. Gerbera Daisy: cheerfulness, beauty, a gift of light.
Together? They didn’t signify a romantic apology. They were… bright. Complementary. A duo.
He picked up the vase, his fingers trembling. Leona had paid for a shouting bouquet of devotion for someone else, and had deliberately plucked two specific blooms from it to leave behind. For him.
The confusion was a physical ache. It didn’t compute. The king had said Leona had found someone he really liked. Leona had commissioned a shouting bouquet for them. The evidence was irrefutable.
So what was this? A tip? A friendly gesture? A prince’s casual generosity with a florist he’d grown… fond of? A subtle, maddening tease?
Vil placed the vase back on the counter, next to the now-empty spot where the black rose had died. The sunflower and the daisy looked absurd together. Loud. Confusing. They beamed at him, a silent, shouting riddle.
He sank onto his stool, his pristine shirt suddenly feeling too tight. The shop was quiet, sunlit, and fragrant. And Vil Schoenheit, who prided himself on understanding the most subtle language on earth, had never been more utterly lost.
He stared at the two flowers, their message a cacophony in the silent room. Leona loved someone else. Right?
The blooms offered no answer, only their relentless, cheerful, confounding light.
The blooms offered no answer, only their relentless, cheerful, confounding light. Vil left them on the counter where they taunted him for twenty-four hours, a splash of absurd color against the cool marble. He serviced customers, crafted wreaths, and snipped stems with robotic precision, the sunflowers' implied adoration feeling like a personal joke.
His sleepless night had been a cycle of replaying every interaction, every glance, every leaving of a single flower. He was exhausted, raw, and utterly drained by the entire charade. When the shop bell chimed the next afternoon, a specific, heavy cadence he now knew in his bones, he didn’t look up from the invoice he was pretending to study.
“Back again.” His voice was flat, devoid of its usual sharp welcome. “Did the shouting bouquet fail to communicate? Perhaps we need a marching band.”
Leona shut the door a little too firmly. He stood there for a moment, a silent, brooding presence that seemed to swallow the room’s light. “You’re still pissed.”
“I’m working.” Vil finally looked up, meeting Leona’s gaze with deliberate detachment. The prince looked more rumpled than usual, his green-gold eyes holding a tension that wasn’t boredom. “Is there something you need? More green things? Another romantic gesture for your… person?”
Leona exhaled, a slow, frustrated sound. He ignored the jab, his eyes flicking to the two flowers in the vase—the sunflower and the daisy, still bright and mocking. “I left those for you.”
“I’m aware.” Vil placed his pen down carefully. “A token from the grand romantic gesture. How thoughtful.” The bitterness was no longer a seep; it was a flood, and he was too tired to dam it. “So. How did they like the flowers? Were they finally enough?”
Leona stared at him. A muscle in his jaw tightened. He took two steps closer, his movements deliberate. “Not sure.”
Vil’s laugh was short and brittle. “You’ll have to ask them, then. I can’t read their mind, no matter how much you pay.”
“You tell me.” Leona’s voice was low, rough.
The sheer audacity of it cracked Vil’s fragile composure. He scoffed, the sound harsh in the quiet shop. “You’ve got some nerve asking me that. You want a review? They were loud, garish, and utterly lacking in nuance. Perfect for a fairy tale courtship, I’m sure.”
Leona groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m taking that as a no.”
“A stellar deduction, Your Highness.” Vil turned away, his hands gripping the edge of the counter. He was trembling with a furious, helpless energy. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have actual orders to fill.”
“Clearly,” Leona said, the word laden with a new, decisive weight, “I’m doing this wrong.” He moved around the counter, not into Vil’s space, but into his line of sight, forcing Vil to look at him. “The subtle thing isn’t working. So I’ll be direct.”
Vil blinked, his professional fury momentarily derailed by the intensity in Leona’s eyes. “Direct about what?”
“About what I want.” Leona leaned against the worktable, his posture relaxed but his gaze absolutely fixed on Vil. “I want another bouquet. Right now.”
“For who?” The question was a whisper, torn from him.
“For you.”
Vil’s breath caught. He shook his head slightly, as if clearing water from his ears. “What?”
“Not from me,” Leona clarified, his voice steadying. “A bouquet you, Vil Schoenheit, would want to receive. From a romantic admirer. The kind of arrangement that would actually… get through to you. No more guessing. Tell me what it would be.”
The request was so bizarre, so utterly disarming, that Vil’s defensive anger evaporated into pure, stunned confusion. He studied Leona’s face for signs of mockery, for another layer of the joke. He found none. Only a wary, earnest focus. “You’re serious.”
“Deadly.”
A part of Vil wanted to refuse, to throw him out. But a larger, more curious part—the artist, the florist, the man starving for a straight answer—was hooked. “Fine.” The word escaped him. He turned slowly toward the coolers, his mind whirling out of its hurt and into a purely professional channel. “You want me to design my own hypothetical romantic bouquet.”
“Yes.”
Vil took a slow breath, the familiar scents of earth and petal calming his racing thoughts. He began to move, his earlier stiffness melting into the fluid grace of his craft. “First,” he said, reaching into the chilled case, “a white peony.” He held up the lush, layered bloom, its petals like crushed silk. “Not a common red rose. Too obvious, too demanding. A peony. For prosperity, for a happy life… and for bashfulness.” He glanced at Leona. “A romance that isn’t a performance.”
Leona nodded once, his eyes tracking Vil’s hands.
“Next,” Vil continued, moving to another section, “lily of the valley.” He selected a few delicate stems with their tiny, bell-shaped flowers. “For sweetness. For the return of happiness.” He placed it beside the peony on the worktable. “It’s a humble flower. It doesn’t shout. It just… is.”
His voice lost its edge, becoming softer, more reflective as he worked. He gathered greenery—dusty miller for its silvery, enduring glow, and variegated ivy for fidelity, for attachment. He chose not sunflowers, but a few stems of hellebore, its cup-like blossoms a deep, mysterious purple-green. “For serenity, and for understanding.” Finally, he added a single, flawless gardenia, its creamy petals releasing a heavenly, intoxicating scent. “For secret love,” Vil said, his voice almost a murmur now. “For clarity and refinement in that love.”
He bound them together not with a bright ribbon, but with a simple strand of natural jute, letting the flowers speak for themselves. The finished arrangement was a masterpiece of quiet intention—lush, textured, deeply fragrant, and infinitely more Vil than the screaming bouquet from the day before. It was a confession in floral form.
He held it out, the weight of his own unspoken desires coiled within its stems. “There. That is what I would want.”
Leona took the bouquet from his hands. His fingers brushed Vil’s again, a deliberate, lingering touch this time. He looked from the flowers to Vil’s face, and a slow, real smile touched his lips—one devoid of sarcasm or coolness. It was warm. It was tired. It was genuine.
“Good,” Leona said, his voice quiet and thick. “Glad you like it.”
He took a half-step closer, closing the final distance between them. The heady scent of the gardenia swirled in the air between their faces.
“Because it’s yours.”
Vil stared. The words didn’t compute. They bounced around his skull, failing to find purchase. The peony for a bashful romance. The lily of the valley for returned happiness. The gardenia for secret love.
For you. Yours.
“I—” Vil’s voice failed. The world narrowed to the flowers in Leona’s hands, to the solemn gold of his eyes. “What?”
Leona didn’t repeat himself. He simply held Vil’s gaze, the bouquet a bridge between them, every chosen stem a translation of his failed, clumsy attempts. The single black rose. The paired sunflower and daisy. All of it, leading here.
To this.
To a prince holding a florist’s own heart, arranged in petals and stems, and offering it back to him.
Vil blinked repeatedly, staring at the bouquet in Leona’s hands. The peony, the gardenia, the lily of the valley—they blurred for a second, their meanings collapsing into a single, impossible implication.
“Asked who?” he finally managed, his voice thin. “You just said it was for me. That doesn’t… make sense.”
Leona let out a soft, disbelieving laugh. He shook his head, a genuine, unguarded smile breaking through his usual cool exterior. “You really don’t get it.” He shifted the bouquet to one hand, running the other through his hair. “All of them. The first one, for my mom. Okay, fine, that was for my mom. But after that?” He gestured vaguely at the shop, at the space between them. “The ‘romantic’ one for my brother’s anniversary. The ‘loud’ one from yesterday. The single rose. The two loud ones in the vase. They were never for anyone else.”
The air in the shop seemed to still. The hum of the coolers faded. Vil could only stare.
“Every time I came in here,” Leona continued, the words coming faster now, “it was just to see you. To talk to you. To get you to look at me like I wasn’t just another guy wasting your time.” He glanced at the flowers in his hand, then back at Vil. “I bought my brother’s flowers because I needed an excuse. I asked for a romantic bouquet because I wanted to see what you’d make. I asked for a ‘loud’ one because you were so pissed and distant, and I thought maybe I needed to be… clearer. But I’m shit at this. I left you flowers instead of just saying it.”
He took a step closer. The scent of the gardenia, Vil’s own chosen secret love, wrapped around them.
“The black rose was for you. The sunflower and the daisy were for you. They were all just… me, trying to figure out how to tell you I think you’re the most infuriating, fascinating, beautiful person I’ve ever met.” He let out a rough breath. “My brother came in here bragging about how I seemed happier lately. He was right. It’s because of you. The ‘someone’ he was talking about? It was you, Vil. It’s only ever been you.”
Vil’s knees felt weak. He grasped the edge of the cool marble counter. The world, so solid a moment ago, had liquefied. All the jealousy, the hurt, the cold professionalism—it had been built on a foundation he’d completely misread. Every bouquet, a message. Every single stem left behind, a question he’d been too blind to hear.
“You’re a prince,” was all he could say, the statement sounding absurd even to him.
“I’m a guy,” Leona corrected, his voice low. “Standing in a flower shop, holding a bouquet he doesn’t deserve, telling another guy he’s an idiot for not seeing what was right in front of him.”
He held the arrangement out again, an offering. “This is me being direct. This is the only language I could think of that you’d actually understand. So. Do you?”
The question hung there, simple and immense. Vil looked from Leona’s face—earnest, stripped of its usual bored armor—to the flowers in his hand. His flowers. The ones he’d built as a perfect, hypothetical love letter. And Leona had been listening. He’d heard every hidden meaning.
Slowly, Vil reached out. His fingers closed around the jute-wrapped stems, his skin brushing against Leona’s. A shiver, warm and electric, traveled up his arm. He took the bouquet, cradling it, feeling the weight of his own heart returned to him.
“I do,” Vil whispered, the words cracking the last of his resistance. “I understand.”
He looked up, meeting Leona’s gaze. The prince’s shoulders dropped, a tension Vil hadn’t fully recognized draining away. A new, quieter tension took its place, humming in the scant inches of scented air between them.
“Good,” Leona murmured. “So what happens now?”
Vil’s thumb traced the velvety edge of a peony petal. A bashful romance. He almost smiled. “Now,” he said, his voice gaining strength, “you tell me what a prince does with a florist on a Tuesday afternoon when he’s finally finished sending coded messages.”
Leona’s laugh was a quiet, relieved sound. “He asks him for a real date. Somewhere with no flower language. Maybe just… coffee.”
“Coffee,” Vil repeated, the ordinary word feeling extraordinary. He nodded slowly, the beginnings of a real, unguarded smile touching his own lips. “I think I could translate that.”