Momoko + soft!

prompts — @duskfloret — not accepting.

It’s a weird sensation. Not unfamiliar; but it’s been long since she’s felt it brush against her skin. Momoko is not used to softness. In general, she might as well admit that with time, she’s grown to dislike it due to various reasons---two of them being that she’s grown rough, and that she’s become sandpaper. Scraping her hands against anything tender might simply ruin it. (Sticking around rotten things makes her feel less conscious about it.)     Yet, every time she walks by a flower shop, she can’t help but stop. And stare. For a good few minutes. Which is what happened just now.     All the memories---all that she remembers---which she claims to be obscured play like an old, corrupted videotape in the back of her mind: the scratchy VHS sounds and glitches keeping her from walking further away come back from the trusty drawers in which she’d closed them after the last session, and haunt her. Quite literally. Her left eye twitches, and her lips grimace. Her gaze is both in the real world and swallowed by her subconscious, not quite there. The more she keeps her eyes locked on those hydrangeas the more she can feel the corners within her sight darken, blurry, confused, fuzzy---

“Eh, Chihiro-tan, stop whining. See? We’ve arrived to your favourite flower shop!”     “Mamaaaa, but I want ice cream...”     ---Voices snap her out of her trance, making her realize that she’d been standing there since at least five minutes. Behind the shop’s window Momoko can, with enough squinting and focus, make out the disgruntled and vaguely perplexed expression of the owner, who immediately snatches his glance away as soon as he hears (ding ding ding, it’s the bell on the entrance door) and sees new customers stepping in. His expression melts, she notices, as he lays his eyes down on the child that’s being accompanied by an older woman, likely her mother.     Momoko doesn’t like this. She prefers silence. It’s muffled, but she can detect the ringing laughter of the little girl. Her eye twitches once again. A sharp inhale.     “Come on, Chihiro-tan,” the mother says, “See? Look at this pretty flower. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” (crouching down, she hands a small pot to her daughter, which hesitantly holds it goofily as children usually do.)     “Hum... it’s cute...” a picky kid, Momoko irritatedly thinks. Just talk already. “But I saw prettier flowers outside...”     “Hmmm? Like what flowers? Wanna show them to me?”     “Okay!”

Ah. They’re going to get out.     She’s still standing there. Momoko, pitifully, has become engrossed in overhearing witnessing everything this mother and daughter will end up doing in the exact spot where she’d decided to touch and analyze her favourite flowers. Even though she’s aware that this is not a place for her to claim, she feels as if they’ve invaded her territory. Thus, as such, she wants to monitor their every move, no matter how naive they might be. (You never know.)     Maybe she should step aside, leave some space for the two individuals to move; but Momoko decides against it, instead keeping her stance firm right in front of the shelf where hydrangea pots of all varieties are placed. Her hand is still reaching out to feel the petals, which are soft... tender... more tender than the others’. She tried to find good contenders, but up until now, only hydrangeas really feel this way to her.     The door’s bells chirp once again, their sound dying easily and quickly.     “Show me, Chihiro-tan! If you like those flowers so much,” the woman winks at the kid, “You can have it, okay?”     “Yay~!!” the kid seems positively excited about the proposal, but she easily sneaks a mischievously pout after her exclamation, “... but what about ice-cream?”      A drained, but defeated sigh is emitted right after.  “It seems I have no way to distract you from that, huh...” she pauses, before patting her daughter’s head. “Fine, we can have ice-cream too. But first let’s see the flowers.”     Momoko tenses. She’s still staring at the hydrangeas, but she’s also dying of curiosity. She wants to see what this girl looks like. Her voice’s not the same, it’s barely similar, but the way she acts, it’s...     “U-um,” she can hear a stutter, and that still isn’t enough to have her turn her head. “Those... those flowers...” the glee in the child’s voice has disappeared within seconds, and Momoko initially wonders why, but only for a split second before she can hear the girl mutter:

... Where the creepy lady is standing...     That’s right, is her first thought. But she still doesn’t move, not even after having been basically imputed as a nuisance. She’s not here to buy flowers, she’s just been standing and staring and breathing uselessly since minutes, now. What reason is behind her presence? The kid is scared, isn’t she? What’s her problem?     Her fingers eventually take a gentle hold of a petal, before ripping it off the flower with a swift, harsh motion. The little girl gasps when she does that, but her mother doesn’t seem to notice it, although she does look concerned (upon having noticed Momoko as well). Nevertheless, after making sure “Chihiro-tan” is okay, and after propping her upon her forearm, she stands and begins to approach. A mediocre middle-aged woman.     “Excuse me,” she politely initiates, “Could you please let us see the flowers?” there’s seemingly no passive aggressiveness in the way she talks, but Momoko’s eye still twitches. Slowly, she turns her head to face the stranger, whose expression abruptly turns grim at the mere sight.     (That’s right. I’m the creep. You better be fucking scared.)     Momoko’s eyes eventually lay on the daughter---her curiosity’s dying to know---and the breath in her throat hitches as soon as she registers that the kid has a pixie cut. No pigtails.     What a shame.     “... Ah, me?” Momoko says, slowly, faking ignorance. The woman nods, trying to evidently keep her composure. “...” her own eyes fall on the petal that she’s ripped from the hydrangea which she had been caressing since not long ago. “... This is a beautiful flower,” her croaky voice spells out, dirty nails probing at the fragile texture of the petal almost brutally, “To appreciate it, you ought to cherish it everyday.”     “...”     “...  Sorry. I’ll move.”     Politeness isn’t her strong suit, and it shows. Nonetheless, Momoko can’t stay there any more, since mantaining her presence there might eventually prompt the shop owner to step outside and confront her. She doesn’t need that waste of time. All she wanted to do was to look at her favourite flower, feel its softness, let the memories linger...     ... It’s that child’s fucking fault, Momoko reasons as she walks away, mumbling and growling under her breath as her hands are shoved inside her coat’s pockets. The petal she grabbed before is nothing more than light blue remnants scattered on the sidewalk by now. That kid, Momoko ponders, barely realizing what’s going on in the real world as she marches on, that kid...  too much. She’s too much like...

Her thoughts are interrupted as soon as she reaches the subway station.