~Flowers~

"Hey, hey, Abby!" a bubbly voice exclaimed. "What are you up to?"

Abigail glanced up from her otherwise pointless staring competition with the blank document on her laptop screen. She stared at the blonde who had materialized by her side whilst she had been preoccupied. "I can tell you what I'm not doing, which is finishing up next week's article."

"That's too bad," her friend said, plopping down on Abby's bed. "Your stories are hella fun to read. If you want, we could brainstorm some ideas."

"No way," Abby said, pushing away from her laptop and fixing her friend with a look of disapproval. "Every time you want to slide me an idea for a story, it's suspiciously always about Monsunos. You can't trick me, Cathy."

Catherine Hart was a friend of Abby's. A social butterfly and somewhat of a trendsetter, Cathy spent a lot of her time on social media and had thus garnered a rather large following. She knew quite a lot of news before they even hit the international news outlets, and as such, she was often a source of information for Abby to use when her well of scoops had gone dry. However, Cathy was also rather eccentric and full of herself and getting information out of her sometimes came with a price. Hence why Abby wouldn't just run to her every time she was in need of a story. She was always impeccably dressed, with blonde hair tied into pigtails, piercing blue eyes and fair skin. Cathy came from a somewhat wealthier family background than Abby, which explained the attire.

She waved her phone in front of Abby's face, a couple of cutesy keychains dangling from the cover. "Duh. Monsunos are what everybody is talking about right now. But by the time you've considered actually writing about it, it'll already be old news!"

"I know," Abby sighed. She turned on her computer chair to look at Cathy. "But rather than tweeting about seeing a live Monsuno fight, I'd rather be the first to report the secret about Monsunos. Where did they come from? Are they friendly? Why is the world government using a secret military branch to cover up their existence?" Abby continued, standing up and pointing a finger at Cathy's phone. "Nobody knows and I'll be the one to let y'all know. Put that in your status update and send it."

Cathy raised a brow at the last part, causing Abby to roll her eyes. "It was a joke, don't actually do that."

"I was about to say," the blonde replied. She unlocked her phone and checked a few notifications. A snort sounded. "You're just lucky you have so many good sources. Imagine if you went out to discover your story like an actual journalist."

Abby let out an incredulous laugh, nonchalantly tossing an eraser at Cathy. It struck her shoulder but she wasn't fazed by it. "Uh rude. If it weren't for the shackles of responsibilities, I'd have been all over this Monsuno coverup like white on rice. We can't all be like Chase and the others who were perfectly okay with dropping everything for Dr. Suno."

"Ohh, I totally forgot to ask!" Cathy said suddenly, turning her attention from her notification feed to the redhead in front of her. "Didn't you visit them one time? What was up with that?"

The memory of hanging out with the gang for that short period of time resurfaced to Abby's mind, along with the memory of finally meeting a certain someone. "Ah, that was just a quick visit," Abby answered, trying to hide a wide grin. "No biggie."

Cathy wasn't fooled. A corner of her lips turned upwards. "Yes biggie. You're practically glowing, what happened?"

Abby stuck out her tongue. "What makes you think I'll tell you? This is classified information."

"Aw, come on!" Cathy pressed, springing off the bed to clasp Abby's hand. "If you tell me, I'll help you write your story. And I'll be serious about it."

"Deal," Abby said with no hesitation, taking Cathy's hand in hers and shaking it to seal the deal. Cathy didn't look very amused.

"With how quickly you gave in, I'm starting to think this can't be all that interesting."

"Quite right you are but you owe me now," Abby cooed, snickering as Cathy huffed and turned around to make herself comfortable on Abby's bed. She drummed her fingers on the cover of her phone, long painted nails tapping a lazy rhythm.

"Okay, I'm all ears."

"Whoa, that sounded pretty fun! Definitely beats the boring pep rally I was attending, what the hell."

Abby had just finished telling Cathy about her meeting with team CoreTech and what that meeting entailed. The parachute jump, her time with Beyal, Jinja and Dax' mall date and the late night prank that gone wrong only to go so right. She had left the following day with a bunch of goodbyes and a souvenir. All in all, not bad for a Tuesday.

Cathy looked a tad annoyed, her hands raised. "How do you go to people who have Monsunos and not ask to take a picture with one? I swear Abigail, you're so hopeless without me!"

Abby gave her an unimpressed look. "Um, hello? I had more important things to do. Like, getting Jinja a boyfriend in less than a day. What do you say about that?"

Cathy snorted, a smug look on her face. "And yet, you came back home empty handed. I'm so impressed."

She was clearly referring to Beyal and Abby didn't like the jab. "Shut up," she said, tossing a pillow at the blonde. She crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. "I may be good but I'm not a wizard. I'm sure if I had more time with Beyal, I could get him to fall for me."

"Right, right," Cathy replied with a grin. She tapped her chin in mock contemplation when an idea struck. "Tell you what, how about we say I help you out with your love troubles instead of your writer's block? You clearly need my help."

"I'm not about to take advice from someone who watches MsMojo videos as religiously as you do," Abby said, reclining further in her computer chair. She brought her fingers together in a mocking imitation of how a mafia boss might look as they urged their underlings to confess. "But by all means, humor me."

Catherine seemingly ignored Abby's remark and leaned closer. "Okay, think," she said. "What does this Beyal guy like? If you gift him something that speaks to him, he'll think more highly of you."

Abby pointed a pencil at her. "How credible is this advice?"

"I once bought a cute girl a bunch of her favorite flowers and she loved it," Cathy said, smiling at the memory. She tapped a perfectly manicured nail on her cheek as she thought back. "Granted, they just happened to be her favorite kinds but still."

Abby perked up nevertheless. "Ohh, that could work. Beyal knows a lot about herbs. Allegedly."

"That sounds suspicious."

"Cathy, he's a monk."

"He could be adventurous."

"Cute but I think not. The flower idea isn't that bad, I might hold on to that."

"Great!" the blonde grinned. "When you two are smooching under a tree, let me know so I can say I called it."

Abby rolled her eyes but went back to her work space. The blank document greeted her eyes once more, however, while she was writing down ideas for her article, she reached out for her phone so she could browse google for flower shops that shipped internationally.

It had been an otherwise ordinary day for Beyal. Rather uneventful but quite peaceful, which was how he liked it. While he and his friends were hanging out at a coffee shop, a delivery man had approached him with what appeared to be a large and elaborately decorated bouquet in hand. Although initially surprised, Beyal had figured it might have been a gift for Jinja since she and Dax were going out. He never would have expected himself to be the recipient.

"Ah," Beyal shook his head. "Sir, I believe there must have been a mistake."

The delivery man glanced at his tablet where his electronic order was written and raised an eyebrow at the monk. "Your name is Beyal, right?"

"Correct."

"Then there's no mistake here. According to the order, this is for you."

Beyal blinked but otherwise accepted the perfectly bound and large bouquet, with all its vibrant flowers. It was simply too beautiful to look at. His face became warmer as the delivery man contently drove away on his scooter.

"Gee, I wonder who could have sent that?" Jinja asked out loud, not hiding how hard she was holding back giggles. The rest of the table seemed to be doing the same thing. Beyal tried to ignore the lingering heat in his cheeks as he sipped his coffee.