Happy Valentines Day!

Flowers Aren't So Bad

Setsuna stalked sulkily home, still fuming about art class that day. Now, he normally didn't mind this subject – he was neither good not bad at it, and the teacher was pretty cool about things – but today they'd had a substitute. Apparently the woman—he refused to let himself even try to remember her name, she'd pissed him off so much—had been left instructions that their class was to be drawing landscapes that day. Setsuna had thought, "that's easy enough," and proceeded to draw a simplistic clearing with a pond and some trees in the distance. (Their regular teacher had long ago outlawed "lollipop trees" and so he simply took various green crayons and colored cloud-like blobs above brown stick trunks.)

Quite proud of himself for finishing the assignment early, He'd presented it to the substitute with a smile on his face. Instead of praising him for remembering the rule about lollipop trees, or rewarding him with a treat from the cookie jar as sensei would have, the woman had given his picture a calculating stare before saying, as she pointed to the green expanse of crayon that encompassed the bottom half of the paper, "What's this?"

Setsuna scrunched his nose, tilting his head to the side in confusion. "It's grass," he stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. What was she, stupid?

"No, it's not." The ten-year-old got an "oh really?" look on his face. 'Yup, definitely a few rice balls short of a bento box,' he thought dryly. "It's empty space that just happens to be colored green," she continued haughtily. "A real field looks like that," the woman pointed to a photograph of a field that sensei had taken earlier that month.

'No shit.' "I can't draw like that," he said slowly. "I'm only ten."

"True, but you could put in a few flowers or something to take up the empty green space."

Setsuna had wrinkled his nose in distaste and, as was his (bad) habit, said the first thing that came to his mind: "Flowers are girly." And thus had he been sent into the hallway for the remaining twelve minutes of class for arguing with the "teacher" and "being negative," whatever the hell that meant.

Feeling his ire rise once more, the boy kicked a pebble on the sidewalk and continued to abuse the poor innocent stone all the way to his apartment complex.

"I'm home!" he called, kicking off his shoes and dropping his backpack. There was no answer; not a surprise as far as his parents were concerned (they were always out somewhere), but where was his sister? "Sara? You home?" Still nothing. "Where could she be…?" As he was about to go check her room to see if she'd fallen asleep, he glanced out the kitchen window and saw her. He couldn't see what she was doing, as she had her back to the building, but he went to greet her none-the-less.

"Hey, Sara!" he yelled, running up to her. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, Oniichan!" she turned to smile at him, but he still couldn't see what she was holding.

"Wha'cha got there?" He moved to the side trying to see, but she moved, keeping him guessing as her smile widened. Finally she stood, somehow managing to move the item unseen behind her back as she turned to face him.

She looked at him seriously. "Oniichan, close your eyes."

"Huh? Okay…" He never could refuse her. No sooner than his eyes were tightly shut did he feel something being placed on his head.

His sister was giggling now. "You look really pretty, Oniichan!"

Setsuna's eyes flew open immediately, his hand flying to the object on his head. "What the—" It was a crown of flowers. Sara had made him a crown of flowers and grass weaved together. He felt his face scrunch into a pout, and heard her giggling increase; she was now doubled over, full-on laughing.

The young boys eyes travel from the flower crown to his sister's happy face twice, before he felt himself smiling.

'Maybe,' he thought, beginning to laugh also, 'flowers aren't quite so bad.'

~ END ~