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August dusted the soil off his hands with a sigh. The soil was fine. The water was fine. He’d checked sunlight and temperature and everything he could possibly think of a hundred times, but there just didn’t seem to be a rational reason for why his small pot of dittany was suddenly dying. He’d planted this pot of dittany himself two years ago, and ever since it had been his daily routine to check in and talk to it. It had marked a new period in his relationship with Herbology--one in which his efforts actually seemed to bear fruit. It had been an encouragement when he was studying for herbology last year. It had nearly died in December— overnight the flowers had retreated and one of the clumps had withered into dust. He’d brought it back after that though, and it had been fine...but over winter break, streaks of brittle brown started curling through the leaves just as streaks of white were starting to show in his hair. The leaves were starting to droop, and what should have been wooly gray hair was more like a yellow wax. It was dying, slowly but surely.

August sat with the plant outside as he tended to his other plants. He had a few reference texts out, but he had them all memorized anyways and was concentrating on trying to keep his other plants. They hadn’t nearly died, but they all seemed to be droopy after the break. By all accounts, he was doing everything right. So the fact that all his plants seemed to be miserable was just another drop of stress and confusion in a carefully concealed downpour of pressure and expectation.

He went back to trimming a few dead leaves away. Thinking he was alone, he gave a long sigh of reassignment. "Why do you refuse to thrive?"

August glanced back when he heard a huff and relaxed again when he recognized his friend. He was comfortable with her silence now, and found Mallaidh easy to work or write around. He noted her quiet greeting-- probably just hanging out then. If she had something she needed him for she would have said so. ”Mallaidh, good afternoon,” he greeted.

He was by no means an expert at reading people, but he felt he’d known her long and well enough to understand some things-- or at least enough to explain what he was being peevish about.”They’re all droopy,” he explained, a little listlessly himself. ”They’ve been this way since we got back from break so I’ve been...keeping an eye on them.”

That wasn’t all of it, and after a considering moment, he admitted quietly, ”It’s not just the plants. I uh...well. Have you talked to Rhea recently? How’s she doing?”

Talking to Rhea was…usually they were fine...August had been awkward about talking since Fall—he seemed to want to simultaneously talk to her and avoid talking to her. When she had collapsed from exhaustion in Winter, he’d downright broken down, crying hysterically (with the aid of Quietus) as she slept. Lizzie had locked them in a shed over Winter Break in an effort to get them to work out...whatever was going on. But Rhea was tired of his hesitation, and this semester was giving him exactly what he thought he’d hoped for: a purely professional relationship, just studying together...just quidditch announcing...just housemates. Just work. He had never realized how much life their bantering or dance ”pop quizzes” had brought. And now that August finally knew his own feelings, he was a mournful heap of brooding: this was what he asked for. It served him right.

August allowed a self-deprecating chuckle to escape as Mallaidh pointed out that she was not the best person to ask about how anyone else was doing. Objectively, he knew this. Maybe it was just worry, maybe it was desperation. Maybe Mallaidh had heard something in the girl’s dorms. Maybe she’d overheard something in the halls. Or, more likely, August was the only creep listening for any news on his former mentee, or the only person to so idiotically break a girl’s heart due to hesitating too long (That was false, he knew a handful of anime characters who had done worse. Except usually in anime the situation resolved by death or time skip; he was not letting the former happen, and the latter was getting harder and harder to bear with, not easier. ) He certainly did feel foolish— not for talking to Mallaidh about feelings--although, gah, when did he start talking about dokidoki feelings anyways?— but for getting himself into this mess in the first place.

August listened carefully, abruptly attentive when she discussed the plants. Of course he knew that plants were sensitive to the most minute changes in their environment. But he was assured that he was not lacking attention to detail, and he also knew Mallaidh didn’t speak without a particular purpose in mind. "Turmoil in my voice?" He frowned. Usually he was careful enough around both plants and people to keep his own worries off his face and out of his voice. A little exasperated recently maybe. Perhaps he had to be more vigilant--

Of course, Mallaidh was not about to let her advice be misinterpreted. August didn’t quite like being told he wasn’t letting himself thrive--he was getting straight Os and the paper and language club were doing quite fine, thank you very much-- so what else was he doing if not thriving? But the older he got, the messier life seemed to get, and suddenly thriving didn’t just mean getting good grades. He had to admit he didn’t particularly feel like he was thriving.

”You sound like Lizzie,” he commented quietly, the complaint silent in his tone but definitely there. He’d talked to Lizzie about all this before. So many times before. No, August had dug his grave with every hesitation throughout the year, insisting he and Rhea were just...just friends. And now he was sitting in the hole, trying to convince himself it was a very lovely hole as he watched earth rain down overhead. ”If this is limbo...isn’t it fine? As long as she’s not burning herself out again.” His tone wavered a little, wondering if he would be ruining everything by breathing words into his own feelings. ”I...I had a thousand reasons and excuses for why we couldn’t date or be in a relationship or...or whatever. They were supposed to protect her, but that..well, that obviously failed spectacularly.”

Serves you right.

August sighed, staring at the stubborn pots of mopey plants. If even plants could hear his melancholy, he was obviously not doing a good enough job keeping his emotions in check and concealed. ”How do I be honest with her when I don’t even know what I want? And even if I knew what to say to fix things, she doesn’t even want to talk to me now.”

August hadn’t liked it when Lizzie told him this before and he wasn’t happy now that Mallaidh was telling him, but the truth of the matter was plainly obvious: he had procrastinated on clearly discussing things with Rhea, and she had suffered for it and their relationship had suffered for it. And since he doing a terrible job explaining to even himself how things were fine, he had to fix his thinking and…do something.

Mallaidh was staring off at the horizon now, speaking deep wisdom about feelings. He hummed disgruntled agreement with her assessment that unfortunately, feelings could not be made to behave by a stern talking to. He had tried it, to evident failure.

Figure out what you want. There it was again. “I really don’t care what happens to me as long as Rhea’s actually happy and safe,” he said in prelude, but resigned himself to figuring out what he wanted out of all this. ”I promised her brother I’d look after her. so... I want her to do well in her classes of course, And I want her to do well at all the extracurricular things she enjoys, like dancing and fencing and studying Mermish.” This is what he had started with a year ago when she’d confessed seriously, but even he knew something had changed in his perceptions over the last year. August stared off into the distance Mallaidh was staring at and tried to just relax and ramble. ”I miss dancing with her in the hallways after prefect patrols again, I guess. Stumbling over steps, her teasing me about fussing over her scarf or eating enough...I miss having her company on Hogsmeade runs. She came with me a few times last spring and it was a surprisingly pleasant time to just critique the weekly tea blend at Madam Puddifoot’s with her. Hm. I hate it when other boys talk to her, is that weird? Not if she mentions them, but I saw that Gryffindor boy Shawn Berman talking and laughing with Rhea after class once and went and wasted the next hour finding out his temperament and grades and club activities. It was fine, he ended up being helpful for a Daily Dragon article this year, but it was quite out of character for me to be so nosy.” August went quiet for a moment, starting at the horizon where the late afternoon sunlight was starting to be more orange than bright. It would be hours before sunset, but the color reminded him of the “sunset room” his grandmother had painted-- a little attic with the beach horizon painted across the walls. ”I was thinking this last summer I’d like to show her the sunset by the beach in Scarborough…I think she’d like that.”

August was tired. He was tired of feeling things and then rationalizing himself out of them, he was tired of not knowing what he felt, tired of not saying anything, tired of-- as Mallaidh correctly surmised--wanting more but not knowing what more meant. He’d always thought of dating as a preparation for marriage, and he certainly didn’t want to be thinking about Rhea being married at only 15. ”You know, I always saw myself as getting an arranged marriage. My grandparents were so looking forward to the negotiations."

He felt like a mess of doki doki nonsense, like an ugly puddle off ink, like a gunk of ghostly ectoplasm, like the ucky yellow wax on the dittany leaf. Now his cousin Sonora would have sat with him for hours talking him through the feelings and giving it a name and discussing what to do, but he was being stubborn--salty, that was what Aidene had said-- about her and Middle Lane getting along too well, and who all has time to talk about feelings when they all should be focused on exams?

Thankfully, Mallaidh had a clearer head, inconvenient as that meant for him: He owed Rhea an apology, and he owed her...a proper date at least, and a full confession of all the reasons he’d tried to rationalize them apart. And if she didn’t want any of that, he would bury himself in studying and forget he was ever infected by dokidokis. He groaned at the excuse Mallaidh suggested and buried his head in his hands. "If this is what being a teenage boy feels like, I don’t want to be a teenage boy anymore. You’re saying though, that if I figure out me feelings--” he said this with audible air quotes and skepticism--”that my plants will fix themselves, one way or another? It serves me right if Rhea doesn't want to hear out all these too-late, too-rambly thoughts, but you're basically saying I need to talk them out with her and...not the plants.”