Monou Kotori, despite what other people may have surmised, did not like flowers.
She used to. Long ago, before Kamui had left, even, her father had given her her very own space in the shrine's garden, where she could grow anything she liked. After a few rather interesting results with over-zealous radishes (which, she remembered, had sent Kamui into peals of laughter), she had decided to plant zinnia flowers instead.
The picture on the small packet of seeds, which seemed enourmous in her tiny, delicate hand, the bright flowers blooming in myriad colors. She remembered that she had decided firmly that the flowers were smiling. Her father had chuckled, and Fuuma had ruffled her hair. The golden locks only just touched her shoulders back then -- it was easier to ruffle, to toss, easier for loose curls to end up in her mouth or tangled with leaves.
She had planted the flowers, and had painstakingly taken care of them -- on her own. She had refused her father's help, and even Fuuma was rewarded with an adorable pout if he tried to interfere. They were her flowers. They were going to sprout through her hard work and love.
It was a warm day in May when Kotori noticed that they had blossomed. She had peeked out of her bedroom window, and with a squeal of delight ran outside, still in her nightgown. She knelt down in the dirt and touched the petals with tiny fingers, dew clinging to them and sparkling in the spring morning sunshine.
She felt deliriously happy, and profoundly satisfied.
In the warmth of the ensuing week, her flowers withered and died.
Kotori was horrified. She spent as much time as she could trying to coax them back to life -- fertiliser (even though she abhorred the smell and the texture), plant food, hours upon hours spent with a watering can. Nothing. They died.
Miserably, she had pulled them all out slowly, putting the dead stalks in a pile, dried petals floating off and mixing with the soil. Her father, seeing two huge tears slipping down her cheeks as she worked silently, hugged his daughter.
"Kotori-chan, zinnias are short-lived flowers," he explained softly, as she buried her face in his strong shoulder. "It was nothing you did wrong. We'll plant some more, ne?"
"No," she had sniffled, pulling back, her large eyes red-rimmed and her face wet. "I don't want flowers any more. They make me sad. They died, tousan. I loved them and now they're dead. And they shouldn't have died, they were pretty..."
Her father didn't say a word; he simply stroked her hair.
Kamui had fallen into a fit of giggles when she announced she would try and grow the radishes again, and his innocent laughter was infectious. Soon she had forgotten her misery, as a young child does when distracted with someone they love.
But she hadn't liked flowers of any kind since. Roses curled up and withered, petals falling. Daisies were crying as they died. Even the sakura would fall from the trees, like tears flowing...
As she grew, other flowers were grown at the shrine -- by her father, by the gardeners. But she did not like them. She could not stand watching them wither. In the spring, she would go outside in the early morning and snip the blooms off, arranging them into beautiful bouquets and offering them to her neighbours and friends. She could never understand their delight at being handed something that would wither and die within a few days.
She had a dream, six years after Kamui had left. She walked up to him, both of them grown, and handed him a single red zinnia.
"Gomen nasai, Kamui-chan," she whispered.
When she woke up, her face was wet with tears like spring dew.
15-09-03