Piggy-chan: I wanted to write another family-touching/humouress (later on though)/romance Rimahiko story :D

Rima: Oh God, here we go again...

Piggy-chan: Shuddup! At least I WRITE stories, Little Miss Midget.

Rima: Why I oughta-

Piggyy-chan: I DON'T own anything, except the plot of the story. Then again, nobody here really owns Shugo Chara...

-NW :3

Chalk Drawn Gardens

My Father's Garden

"So maybe somday we'll each find our own perfect garden instead."

"But how will we get there?"

"That's a good question. Maybe we can only go to our garden after we die. Perhaps that's why we're not allowed to live forever."

Quote from

~ The Garden Of Eve

I guess it all started in fifth grade.

We had the most beautiful teacher in the world. She had long, delicate violet hair which she always wore in different hair styles. She had pretty orange-yellow eyes that reminded me of sunflowers. She smelled like the delicate Wisteria flowers after a fresh wet rain and had a smile that could melt your heart. You'd have to be plain dumb to hate her. Heck, you would have to be mental to not want to be the teacher's pet.

Every kid that knew her, loved her. She was the perfect teacher. Now, I don't usually fawn over looks, so that's why I didn't like her that much. But when I was in second grade, she found me at the back of school crying. My father had died and I had thrown things in a fit of rage. I had tried to break a window, but my fist had twisted and I was in severe pain. I cried and she heard me and immediatly drove me to the emergency room. They got my hand fixed and she helped me sort out my feelings.

"I'm sorry," I apologized through tears. No one had done anything as kind to me as she had. "Mother says I am a burden. I'm so sorry."

"You know," she said in that melodic voice of hers, "I always wanted a daughter. If you want to talk to me again, I will be here."

I had loved her since then. I wished my own mother had been like her. Of course, that never happened. My mother was a real workaholic. She didn't even have the decency to make me food. I would go out for dinner and buy food at the local grocers despite the fact I was still only eight years old. Sometimes, I met up with the teacher at a local diner, and I would talk about all my problems. You wouldn't expect to find such a pretty lady at a cheap diner, one of those old fashioned Western types of restaurants. They would have checkered floored patterns and seats that looked like tall stools at the counter where you could buy beer. The waitresses used to wear roller skates, but one girl tripped over a chair leg and broke her ankle. She sued them and they stopped getting the waitresses to wear them, at least, that's what they said had happened. The four-seated tables were placed by the wall and a couch-like chair that fit two people on either side. It reminded me of school bus seats made out of that cushion like cotton stuff and you could bounce on it. The lights hung low and lanterns were strung up on the walls like it was outside as American '80s music played.

It was nice to have someone to talk to, to share and let everything out. I would tell small events to large ones and she would sit there, listening to everything I said without interrupting. She would always remember what I had said before and bring it up if it had any relationship to the subject we had been talking about at the moment. She would kindly comfort me and I was grateful.

My own mother hardly even looked at me. She worked until around ten at night and woke up at eleven in the morning when I was at school. We hardly spoke to one another, saying since dad left she had to work harder; at least, that was her excuse.

"Try not to be too harsh," Sensei would say. "It must be hard for her too. To take good care of you and herself, to work over time says a lot more than you think."

I would never argue, but I would doubt her at times. Maybe it was because I didn't know what it felt like to be in my mother's shoes. I didn't know back then. I just liked to hear Sensei's voice.

I remembered someone else's voice that comforted me. My dad had a nice, calm and smoothing voice too. He laughed when I tripped and would help me back up. His laugh, his smile, his hugs, they all felt warm and soft and full of security. It made me feel safe. He always lightened the mood of the house, even when it was cold and dark and empty, he filled it somehow. He was one of those environmental green saving people. He owned a tree and gardens business and knew about everything there was to giving plants life. That's what he did. He gave things life.

He made the house into a large jungle, at least three plants per room, and when father planted them, they would grow. He once planted a seed in the dead of winter. Mother thought it would die, and I would listen to them challenge each other playfully in the kitchen betting if the plant would grow or not. Father always won their bets.

One day, he went off to work and never came back home. He had passed away in an accident with two other cars that were racing on the highway, lost control, and hit my father's car. When he left, all that warmth and goodness left with him, and I fell apart. Not only that, but mother was never the same. To me, after the accident, I had lost both of my parents. My mother hardly looked at me, so there wasn't much of a difference to say she died too. Sometimes, at midnight, I would see a faint light from mother's bedroom and peek in, just enough to see what she was doing. I would see her looking through the photo album, turning the pages gently, like she was turning a newborn in her arms. Her eyes would always stop on the picture with all three of us. It was a picture we had taken for a family portrait only a few days before father died. He had been smiling, and in one of the many shots we had taken, he had hugged both of us. He had whispered he loved us.

Coming to think of it, I couldn't remember my own father's face anymore. Whenever I looked at his portrait, hanging in his office, I would look at him like he was a stranger to me. I had his eyes and his laugh, but he still felt so distant.

"It's not your fault," Sensei would tell me. "Young children don't usually remember such things so vividly."

But they should have. I should have. It was a big chunk of my life that had affected my me, yet I couldn't remember it.

"Don't worry," Sensei would reassure me. "Memory is a strange thing. It can make us remember things when we least expect them to."

Sensei had helped me through so many things.

I would come into Sensei's classroom and stay long hours after school to wash the chalkboards. Sensei would walk up from behind me gracefully and softly touch my head. When I was done, I would help her out with her work, and when she could do things on her own, I would sit down on a desk and do my homework. Sometimes, when I had nothing to do, I would draw in my notebook.

"Your garden is very beautiful," Sensei told me. She would run a smooth finger on the flower petals like they were real.

"This is the garden father told me about," I replied. "He said we will all go to this garden when we can't live here anymore."

"Your father is right," Sensei said and patted my shoulder. "I suspect he's there, right now, waiting until the time is right when your mother and you come to see him."

"Mother doesn't believe in the garden," I confessed. "She doesn't believe in a perfect garden and calls them stories."

"Maybe not finding a perfect garden is a story," Sensei said. "Believing is what makes things real, right?" I nodded and brushed her chalk finger marks off of my notebook.

I had spent a lot of my time with her, and when I learned I would be in her class the following year, I became excited. I thought about all the time we could talk to each other, and smiled dreamily.

But then, on the second day of school, Sensei introduced a transferred student. To make things worse, he was her son.

"My name is Fujisaki Nagihiko," he said. "I hope we can all get along." and then bowed slightly.

I mean, how horrible is that? I was beginning to think of Fujisaki sensei as my mother, when suddenly, I find out she has a son. My heart almost broke apart. I didn't know who this guy was, but he was probably going to suck up all of Fujisaki's attention and leave me in the cold. So I decided, I was going to hate him. How hard was it going to be? He had long, indigo hair and eyes exactly like his mother. He dressed like a boy, but he acted a little feminine-ish. He was a guy, who looked like a girl. Not too hard to hate him. All the girls started getting moon eyes and told him they loved his hair. He smiled in acknowledgment, but his eyes gave off a pissed vibe. The guys liked him because he could play basketball pretty well. He could even dance, which wasn't something you would see a boy do now-a-days. The only one who didn't talk to him was me. At the beginning of class, all the students would gather around him and ask him questions. When he caught me staring, I would glare at him and turn back my attention to homework, or a book or whatever else happened to be in my hands.

"You don't seem to like Nagi-kun," Amu said at lunch time.

I looked up from my food. "Who?"

"Fujisaki sensei's son," Amu said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh," I said bluntly. "Him."

"He's not as bad as you think he is," reasoned Amu. "He's actually really nice and kind. He's polite and not selfish at all! A few girls confessed to him, you know. And instead of rejecting them straight out, he told them he couldn't accept because he already liked someone else. Then he said just because he refused, didn't mean they wouldn't have another chance with someone else and wished them luck. Isn't he a gentleman?"

"Uh," I said, tapping the end of the fork against my chin. "No?"

Amu rolled her eyes. "You never get things. You should at least give him a chance," then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted that demon walking on the sidewalk with another boy.

"Hotori-kun! Fujisaki-kun!" Amu waved and started down the hill. I didn't move from my spot. Amu gave me an annoyed look and took my lunch out of my hands. "You're coming," she hissed, and I could only nod for fear Amu would start to get angry with me.

When we were at the bottom of the hill, I made no eye contact with that he-she.

"Hinamori-san," both boys said in acknowledgment. The blonde turned to me and nodded, "Mashiro-san."

The purple-headed boy just stared at me blankly, like he was thinking about something. Then he smiled and extended a hand. "I'm Fujisaki Nagihiko, who might you be?"

"Someone who wants to be left alone," I snapped and turned to leave.

"Rima!" Amu grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me forward to receive the handshake.

I glared at his hand and the mood started to get uncomfortable.

"Um," the purple demon said. "Is everything alright?"

"No," I slapped his hand away with my lunch bag. "Everything was perfectly fine until you came." Then I paced up the hill and out of sight.

Everything he did irritated me. Every smile he wiggled out of his lips enraged me. Every second he was alive gave me a reason to hate him. I didn't like this boy and that was that.

I still stayed after school to help Fujisaki sensei wash the chalkboards and things. He was never there. Did he realize he was unsupportive of his mother? Didn't he feel guilty not helping her? What a spoiled brat. He probably didn't even notice he had the most wonderful mother any child could ever wish for. What type of son was he?

"Thank you again, Rima-chan." Fujisaki sensei smiled at me with her elegant face, her lips curling into a smile.

"Glad I could help," I responded and strutted back to my desk to pick up my bag.

"Something's bothering you, isn't there, Rima-chan?"

I paused in my actions, then resumed. "No, not at all. Why would you say that?"

"It's not good to lie, my dear." Sensei put a warm hand on my shoulder. "Women have ways of understanding young girls."

"If only that was true with mother," I said with a sigh.

Fujisaki sensei smiled regretfully. "She will, I promise you that. One day, her garden gates will open, and she will come back to life."

That's how she always got me to relax. She talked about father's garden. The one mother never believed in.

"Fujisaki sensei?" I asked her without looking her in the eye. "Does your son love you?"

She seemed taken aback by the question. "W-why, yes, he does. I assume so."

"But he never helps you out?" She remained quiet. I slung my bag over my shoulder and marched out of the room. Before I went, I said, "Maybe if he knew what a good mother you were, he would adore you as much as I do." And I stalked out. As I did, I heard Fujisaki sensei's quiet sobs echo in the empty classroom.

Piggy-chan: Well, that was... a real bummer.

Rima: Wait, what?

Piggy-chan: I actually wanted to make this a two-shot, but if anyone wants me to make this longer, include all the main-ish characters and such, go to my poll on my profile, or just review and tell me XD

Rima: You don't have a plot to go with, do you?

Piggy-chan: Well, yes I do! Sort of, it's not genius or anything, but I want to continue this. If anything, maybe five chappies or something.

Rima: Hm, so I really like Nagihiko's mother here, huh?

Piggy-chan: Yup, but it felt kinda sad to leave it at this. I mean, so many things are left out, and the fact Nagi's mom is crying, well, you'll have to find out why. I feel in the mood for some family-touching stories today...

Rima: And my dad's a gardener person? Weird...

Piggy-chan: See ya! :D

-NW :3