Private Finished All the Power of a Pansy Plant

Carmin let out a tiny sigh. “It’s fine, I don’t mind. And no, I haven’t really tried anything fancy with the roots. As far as I can tell, they’re just ordinary roots. Haven’t really explored how deep they go because they retract if they aren’t exposed to dirt or if I tug them by mistake. I haven’t really tried um, connecting them to plant life before either, but I do think any of those things wouldn’t be likely.”

“It’s okay. I know most people on this island seem to develop cool powers, but I don’t really see that being a thing for me. I’m not like you, unfortunately.” Carmin shrugged. It was whatever he supposed.

Carmin shook his head. “There’s no need to apologize. It’s fine, really. You didn’t do anything wrong.” As for knowing himself better than Gabe did, that was questionable. He’d been like that for six and a half years, but he didn’t know how to deal with the leaf issue Gabe had solved and he still didn’t completely understand what happened when the flower on his head was removed.

“You’re a fine friend Gabe, we don’t have to have similar powers or anything for that, we can still be friends and we still have other stuff in common.”

As Gabe grinned about calling his life a mess, Carmin remained pretty serious. “I think everyone’s lives are messes. Well, most people at least. But look on the bright side, you got this cool flower shop and you got Yuki to hold your hand through it all.”

Carmin’s face visibly got lighter when he was referred to as cool. It was a rare occurrence, it felt good to be considered cool.

“It’s really not a big problem.” Gabe’s so called antics weren’t really all that bad. Well, apart from that time he was drunk and phoned for his help. But even then, part of that was his own fault rather than Gabe’s. Definitely could’ve handled it better.

“I’m not sitting down by the way. Even if you don’t take the seat. I really meant it when I said I could hardly tell the difference.” It seemed they each had another thing in common. Stubbornness.

And so the battle for not taking that one stool raged on, probably set to continue for all eternity.

Carmin stuck out his arm and looked at the flowers. “No, they’ve been pretty normal lately. After you gave me that spray, the spots slowly started going away on their own. Now it’s all better, thank you again for that.” He pulled his arm back, moving his fingers to form a fist and release it while Gabe spoke about how he wasn’t used to dealing with sentience.

When Gabe asked again, he did think of another issue. Though he doubted Gabe would know anything about it.

“Well... um, there is one thing that’s a little concerning.” His eyes moved to the side and he wiggled a little uncomfortably. “Uh, this...” He pointed to the large flower on his head. “Most of the time when I pull a flower off, it just regrows. But recently I lost this big one and it was weird. Apparently I was acting weird and stuff but I don’t actually remember a thing.” This was probably a magic thing as opposed to a plant thing, but he figured Gabe would be able to tell for certain. “Is that something you can explain with plant knowledge?”

He frowned. "Uh, I don't know much about the oddness. It was like I was in one spot one second and in another the next. I can tell you how long it took though. It was around one hour. There was um, this guy... I'd never met before he found me and I apparently didn't have a flower when he did. But after some time it just grew back on its own. And that's when I started remembering stuff again."

He was starting to regret telling Gabe about this. Obviously he wasn't going to be able to help, this was definitely a dumb supernatural problem.