A/N: I'm back with a one-shot! Hahaahaha… After I promised to update Days of Full Blossom I dare to come back with this? Hahahaha…sorry folks because this has been bugging me ever since. But I have a catch...this is actually the epilogue in my head for Days of Full Blossom! Actually this is the idea that first came to me when I planned Days of Full Blossom so I was actually working backwards from this and it was hard. So I decided that Days of Full Blossom will be a prequel for this one-shot. I hope this is all for the better:)

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN GAKUEN ALICE.

The Time I Became A Flower

'What is the real flavor of love?'

Young love.

Intense.

Pure.

Innocent.

That's what we were and I think that's what we would have been.

The smell of spring fills the air in the park, giving a tinge of hope in one's heart. It may not be of happiness…but seeing the leaves growing back, it gives you strength...that life may not be as hard as it looks.

At the age of thirty, most people struggle to find the love of their life, wanting to settle down and have kids. For others, they strive to make the most out of their careers, wanting to make a name in the industry, just wanting the world to take note of them at least before their own clock strikes the number of the old, and it will be too late for that then.

But at thirty, I am FREE.

I don't worry about other things such as career and love.

Maybe because of the fact that I can taste my success in my field right now and to add to that I already experienced my own kind of love…

My young love remains to be in the past and stood its ground as the best. I gave consideration to blind dates and such but I've given up seeing that it will only be useless.

You see I haven't given up to this person still.

That stupid boy got the hold of my heart and even though we went on different paths, he seemed to have been in my mind all these years. I was sixteen then.

Stupid, naive and innocent.

And my teenage self fell right into his trap.

That jerk, he broke my heart the first time I fell for him, but got me falling for him again after all his stupid apologies to me, especially that one time where he stood in front of our house and serenaded me.

To tell you honestly, that was cheesy.

But I was a teenager and me and my mom (yeah, my childish mom) fell right for it. But I have to tell you, that was sweet. Especially knowing the fact that he has a huge ego.

Oh well, it was and still is the best memory though.

I stood up from where I laid on the moist ground, fully knowing that I have a bit of mud on my coat.

But I've never been like this before.

Whenever I pull myself in the past, I always am a crybaby. I always regret. I always feel sorry that things turned out this way.

But then, I saw this girl, a month ago. Her eyes reminded me of myself when I was with him, and that time I met her, I still regretted that I've lost him.

But then it reminded me of myself, the one that didn't give up, the one who always looked towards the future with a bright smile.

A small smile formed on my lips as I started to walk towards a blooming cherry blossom tree. I pulled a small pink flower bud from a branch near me, leaving the other one, a fully bloomed flower, alone on that branch.

I caressed it, feeling the smooth, moist texture of the closed petals. It was still in its own world.

We were different persons before we experienced love.

We were at our most innocent, most pure time of our lives.

But love changed us, for the worst and for the better.

If you look through a child's vision, we went for our worst, we weren't innocent anymore, we never will be pure again.

But love, a risk taker that she is, dared to touch our own seeds, growing into a small flower bud closed from the whole world and continued to care for us until we open up to the whole new world; opening our eyes to new things, new places and gave our heart a wall of protection for the maturity of our being.

You see as a seed, we look at change as the worst because we never will be able to go back to what we were before. But as a fully bloomed flower, we realized that change is for the better.

We were opened up for a new wider world which is a nicer one compared at that cramped space underground that we used to live in. So narrow, so small.

I took the small flower bud in my coat's pocket and hopped on the first stone path leading to a small bridge over a river.

I remember one time, I asked Hotaru.

"Ne Hotaru-chan, what is the real flavor of love?"

She just shrugged and shot her Baka Gun towards me and walked away, never giving me an answer at the least.

I then asked the twins, Anna and Nonoko.

They said that it was sweet.

I believed them...at first.

I then realized that the real flavor of love is bitterness, something that can be compared to being neutral.

You see, you can't actually tell if something is sweet unless you tasted something bitter at first. The same goes to telling that something is sour.

Bitterness.

One should taste the bitterness of love first before you can tell that it's sweet, something wonderful.

One should taste the bitterness of love first before you can say it's sour, something horrible.

One will have to be heartbroken first before you can experience the true meaning of love.

When one experiences the bitterness of love, it's when the person will start to mature, to grow into a full blossomed flower, to see the whole new world with a wider vision.

I walked up the steps of the stone path, not daring to place my feet on the ground. Only then that I noticed that another person was doing the same towards me, a raven-haired guy.

I kept on skipping on the stone steps and not noticing that he was there, I bumped on him, engaging us in a fall on a muddy ground.

We were wet, messy and dirty.

My hair was splattered with mud as rain started to gently fall down. I faced the stranger and find myself staring straight into the person's crimson eyes.

I feel my eyes welling up with tears and my lips forming into a small smile as the stranger's hands found its way on my cheek, caressing it.

It was then that I remembered a quote a character in a novel mentioned.

'They say that when you and your former lover met again, and you still feel something for him, you are destined to each other'

I pressed my lips hard against his and our tongues immediately engaged into a battle. We were on fire, I can feel it. We were making out in the middle of the park and I don't care. My arms were pressing myself harder towards him if that's even possible and his hands roamed around my back.

The feeling of it all, years has passed.

I pulled myself from our kiss and stared into his eyes.

"I missed you so much Natsume."

Do excuse my grammatical errors...

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! Care to review?