Settle into your seat and listen up as I tell you the story of a seadweller and a mutant.

Our story starts like any other; with a simple choice. In this case, that choice was to go to an actual flower shop instead of just utilizing the flower section of a local grocery store. While our story starts with a simple choice, it also starts with a simple beginning.

A violet blood walked into a flower shop.

It was not just any flower shop, however; the flower shop belonging to Kankri Vantas and Porrim Maryam. Alas, our violet blood—whose name just so happened to be Cronus Ampora—didn't know this, so he walked in all the same.

As he walked—or rather swaggered—into the shop, he walked up to the counter and requested the "snobbiest lookin' set of flowers ya got" for a girl who had left her number and address, but not her name, on Cronus' arm. At this point, I can formally introduce Kankri Vantas to you, as he was working the counter that day—a rare occurrence in itself, not only because he didn't like it, but also because it wasn't something he was typically allowed to do—"You'll scare all the customers away, Kanny."—but since Porrim had went out to retrieve more bright red yarn for yet another shame sweater, that left Kankri the only one who could do it. Kankri turned to get their "very best bouquet" as he rolled his eyes at the type of people who came into the shop. He could not believe that someone in a ratty t-shirt and a leather jacket would ever even think to enter his fine establishment.

"That will be twenty dollars, sir," Kankri attempted to keep the condescending tone out of his voice and failed miserably, not that Cronus noticed anyway.

"Whoa, this is about a hundred an fifty times better than I thought it'd be. Thanks, chief!"

And with that Cronus snatched the bouquet from Kankri—who was holding back a rant on proper manners and customer etiquette—and ran out, almost crashing into a returning Porrim ("Sorry doll, didn't mean to bowl you over,").

This was how it was for a month and a half. Cronus would charge into the store twice a week to buy something for his flavor of the day and leave as soon as the bouquet was done. After that month and a half—well, you humans tend to become attached to people if you see them often enough—our main characters warmed up to each other and things began to change. Kankri "coincidentally" began to volunteer and beg to work out front twice a week and Cronus would stay long after his flowers were ready, leaning on the counter and grinning as they chatted away about whatever popped into their heads.

This did not go without notice, and both received a fair amount of teasing from their friends ("Kanny, your greaser is here!" "Goin' to go sea your insufferable buoyfriend, Ampora?"), both insisted that they were just friends ("He's not my boyfriend, Meenah!" "He is not 'my greaser', Porrim, and I would, as I've told you before, prefer that you did not call me Kanny!") even if Kankri couldn't stop smiling when Cronus was there and even if Cronus would come in just to talk to Kankri when he didn't get flowers.

"And besides that," Kankri had once added onto a lecture gave Porrim one day, "He must have someone to give all those flowers to, so he could never be 'my greaser, even if I wanted that, which I don't."

Unfortunately, Kankri Vantas was wrong.

Not only about his own feelings—not that he wasn't aware of them, he had spent many a day replaying their conversations in his head—but it had been a quite a long time since Cronus had had anyone to give an extravagant bouquet to. His apartment was filling up; not only with lilies and orchids and pansies and about fifteen other types of flower that he didn't know the name to in hundreds of beautiful combinations, but also with hundred or song lyrics devoted to Kankri that would never see the light of day.

And thus, the two continued to be just friends, both thinking the other wasn't interested. Cronus' house continued to fill up and Kankri continued to deny attraction and neither knew what could've been, had one of them just taken a simple chance and made a simple choice.

But they didn't take any chances.

So my story ends as it began, with Cronus Ampora walking into Kankri Vantas' flower shop.

Over and over, day after day, with nothing ever changing.