The whole attempt to ease Sao into some kind of physical contact, on top of trying to get him to talk about his old friend, had been a dire mistake. Rai should have known, skinny arms made for pointy elbows. Dusk descended on Murnau and his ribs still ached from that single jab.

Maybe his pained look was what got him leniency at the rental place. The attendant who checked the car did not ask why he was returning it early, and did not mention the soggy driver’s seat. The whole town was just eager to get rid of him.

He could have driven the car to Mainline and returned it at the depot there, but Rai thought better than to risk it. The train was slow, but him driving that silent padded van would have been even slower.

For some reason, the option of the bus never came up. He and Sao split the costs for a private compartment on the next train. They were given one near the back again. Rai went on some tirade about how it was safer in the back cars, because collisions started at the front. When he started to think about that damn movie again and how the caboose could be unhooked and possibly grind to a half when the rest of the cars full of possessed passengers flew off a cliff, he managed to shut himself up.

The compartment was warm and the cushions and curtains a little askew, like the previous occupants had just stepped out for a second. Even though there was definitely nobody to see them off this time, Sao cracked open the window. Rai didn’t bother to comment.

He would come to regret it when Sao found a little golden blob tangled in the fuzz of his coat. “How did this get here?” He gave the poppy a few twirls by the spindly stem. “Must have been all that wind.” Then he dropped it out the window onto the tracks.

An ugly scoff escaped Rai’s throat. Sao looked for the source of the noise. And where else could it have come from?

“Sorry. Did you want–” Sao stopped, probably realizing how ridiculous that sounded. He smacked his head lightly and flashed a smile that could have melted ice. “I should have offered, since you gave me one of yours.”

“You fought to have it,” Rai said, determined not to do the same.

“What would you have done with two flowers?” Sao sighed.

“Pressed them. That’s what I did with mine.”

He was prepared for something snide, something cutting, but Sao looked regretful when he heard it, and shifted his gaze out the window. It was too dark to see where the flower might have fallen. Facing the darkness, Sao actually sniffled.

“Not sure what I’d do with two pressed poppies, though,” Rai muttered.

“True. I was only thinking that I’d like to try pressing too. I feel like that’s something I did back in my school days.”

Rai heaved a sigh and sank low in his seat. He almost launched back out of it when Sao sneezed. “I told you,” Rai said, pointing a glowing finger at him. “You have a cold. You’d better take tomorrow off, for real. I don’t want you sneezing all over the office. You’ve been working all weekend anyway.”

Sao did not dignify any part of that outburst. He just pulled his unraveling coat around himself and pressed his forehead - which was probably sizzling - against the window.

“You should rest,” Rai said. Which was redundant, because Sao was going to fall asleep anyway.

The train was hissing and beginning to pull away from Murnau. They would be over the river soon. There would only be a flash of it, the place where Triad had emerged from the ice, and where he and Saki had been fished out. Such a crucial point in space condensed into less than a second.

Why had he told Sao that he had so much time, more time than most? Why had he spouted any of that mush back at the Row? Contrarianism had gotten the better of him; he even ended up saying he might get married one day, just so Sao wouldn’t be right about them dying as bachelors. Like a lot of what Rai said, it didn’t mean anything.

Yeah. It didn’t mean anything, he concluded. Like that whole argument about the flowers, pressed or not, one or two, in hand or on a train track left to freeze and rot. There were lilies the size of a human head out there that fed on clean blood of romantics and revolutionaries. A flattened bud shoved between the pages of a book didn’t matter.

When Rai said to Sao that he never had to know what had happened between Skogul, Marsh and himself; yeah, those words were just as hollow. He had wanted to wring the truth out right there on the icy street. But it didn’t matter what he said, because Sao was not going to tell him.

And it didn’t really matter if Sao came in on Monday just to nap and sneeze all over his desk, either. It wasn’t as if Rai could catch his cold. It wasn’t as if Rai would kick him out.

Had the whole craze for statements, for Valentine’s, really managed to get its claws in him? It was just a single day, named after a total stranger, to take someone out. On a special date, which to Rai’s mind was just a big meal, maybe. One day - less than twenty four hours, less than twelve for normal people who had to sleep. How much could it possibly mean? Take a guy out with a hammer to the head - now, that created lasting results.

His side was aching again, a little above where Sao had jabbed him. Rai thought of what Sao had said just before his semi-vicious assault. About Rai’s abundance of commitment. It was an illusion of the long hours he spent awake, supposedly being productive. Rai knew he had no such quality. Dedication? Coherence? Rai didn’t mean any of what he blabbered. He had completely fucked over his only real romance and given up and thought himself hard for it, which was lie he told himself. Compared to someone like Saki, at least, anything he did or said was meaningless.

Just filler, just cushioning. Harmless.

He hoped Sao knew that, or would realize it once his head was clear.

The river crossing had already flown by. Rai turned off the stained glass lamp for Sao, who was already asleep, nestled into the clouds of the now-pure grey coat. By the light of his hands, pressed the straw into his slushie.

Too sweet. No, thinking that was more of his own theatrics. He wasn’t unhappy, though maybe he should have been.

It was just sweet enough.