"Thank you, have a nice day!"
"Thank you very much, you too. I'll be sure to come back every once in a while!"
Right after the last client before lunch break left the flower shop, Honoka Kousaka started to sort the money in the cash desk. Today happened to be an astonishingly busy day, flourishing you might say, so she didn't have the time to arrange the coins and bills the way she wanted to.
Honoka untied the knots on both sides of her body to free herself from her old-fashionned double sided apron and set it on the flower-patterned hook behind her little cash desk. She noticed that this definitely-way-too-large apron had the tendency of hiding the clothes she was wearing, she used it at her advantage to be able to wear quite informal clothes for an owner of a flower shop, especially during sunny days like this one. She was clothed in a short sleeved plain black crop top, exposing her skin from a bit above her belly button to her waist, revealing the bottom of a seemingly decent six pack. Her lower body was shyly covered by fashionable ripped jean shorts masking barely half of her thighs, thus displaying a nicely shaped pair of legs.
With a satisfied smile, the florist opened the door to the small room where her belongings were kept. She grabbed her purse, made sure her wallet was in it, checked if there actually was money in said wallet, and went out of the small room without forgetting to lock the door. She checked on some of the bouquets, even sniffed a few of them on the way. Before heading out, Honoka stood on tiptoe to reach a sign on the highest shelf behind the cash desk. She hung it to the glass door thanks to the chain attached to the sign, people outside passing by often smiled at it.
CLOSED (you can still admire the flowers though, it's also what they're for)
All set, she stepped outside. The sun was clearly there, it was hard to miss this giant fireball above her head and she loved it, and she was right when picking her clothes this morning. The sunlight ravished her skin and made her hair look even brighter.
"Visit time!" she blurted, before blushing in embarassment when she realized she said that out loud, causing some people to look at her whether amused or weirded out.
Honoka was new to this city, she opened her flower shop a few weeks ago. Since then, she has been rather busy with taking care of all the paper work related to the ownership of the flower shop, ordering furnitures for her new flat, decorating her room and the rest of the flat (even though her room was her priority), so she hasn't really had the time to actually visit the city. Today, she decided to sacrifice her lunch break to stroll around, to try and discover the nice spots, the coffee shops, the public garden(s), or even the shrines. She barely had an hour to spare, not enough to be able to visit it all, so she opted for some of the streets around her shop.
After a few minutes of walking and looking around, a signboard caught Honoka's eyes' attention, she found the name of this little bookshop – considering the display of some books at the window – rather well-thought-out, yet ironic, odd even.
The Muses' Inspiration.
Honoka wasn't fond of bookshops, or books in general if she was honest with herself, but she still absent-mindedly crossed the street and went for it. I'm in a new city, let's do something new!
She opened the door, and as the bell above it rang, she had the privilege to be welcomed by one of the most beautiful girls she has ever had the opportunity to meet.
"Welcome!" the woman behind the counter exclaimed, looking delighted with a genuine smile on her face.
She was stunned. Sure, it didn't take much for her to marvel over something, but it wasn't exactly the same with people, especially if those people happened to just be one person who had said only one word to her.
"H-hello," she stuttered, unable to look away for a few seconds. She almost looked ginger, but her hair was red, a rather deep shade of red, blood red... crimson. If she had to compare it to a gemstone – because let's be honest she had already reached gemstone level at this point – she would say that her hair is the result of a perfect slicing of ruby, her hair was made of millions of sliced pieces of ruby.
"Hum, I'm pretty new to this city and I noticed your shop so I thought I'd check it out," she said, giving her an awkward smile as she scratched the back of her head in an attempt to make it look like she kept her cool. It failed. She just looked like an awkward girl scratching the back of her head, but the ruby-haired woman didn't pay attention to that.
"Oh, welcome again then, to this city this time," she replied, suddenly overjoyed at the idea of having a newcomer in her shop.
Honoka noticed her beaming eyes as she said that, she couldn't not notice such a rare pair of eyes, they were purple, but Honoka preferred to use the word "violet" due to her profession. Somehow, the colour of her eyes seemed to complement the colour of her hair. Amethyst, she thought, her eyes were shining amethysts, she had never seen anything like it before.
"Feel free to take a look at some of the books here," she suggested, "there's almost every genre".
"Oh, hum, yeah, of course," she answered, nodding more than twice, more than needed.
She managed to snap out of her inner trance and looked away, and it was the first time since she entered the bookshop that she even glanced at the books, her attention earlier being entirely focused on a fusion of sparkling gemstones.
This bookshop indeed had a lot of genres, from mystery to romance, sci-fi to fantasy, even horror; this last one made Honoka cringe. She wandered around the different aisles and let herself distracted by the sheer amount of shelves this little shop contained, it looked as if it was bigger on the inside. She spotted a golden covered book at the bottom of a shelf in the romance section and squatted down to take a look at it, she didn't really have any interest in the content of this book but the shiny cover appealed to her. She looked serious, eyes skimming through the very details of the cover of this book, her thumb under her chin and the side of her forefinger on her lips.
She's hot.
This was what her mind was filled with, this was why she looked so serious and deep in thought, she could not stop thinking about her new favourite gemstone. She's so hot, she thought to herself, even though she only looked – well... stared – at her face, she couldn't shake her out of her mind. She has never been that attracted to someone she just met, and given the fact that only her face was enough to trigger the hottie alarm in her brain, it really testified as to how captivating she was.
"Did you find anything to your liking?"
Honoka's heart skipped a beat, it wasn't her question that startled her but the fact that she was so close behind her she could smell it. She could not pinpoint what she smelled like, apparently her sense of smell (and maybe some of her other senses, like the common one) was totally off, but she knew she smelled good. Though surprised, she didn't even falter, which would have been understandable considering her squatting position. She slowly turned her head around and looked up only to be awed by the heavenly sight that stood before her. Obviously, the mix between the sudden failure of some of her senses and her natural habit of blowing things out of proportion generously embellished the vision she had of her, but she was still objectively beautiful nonetheless. If Honoka's clothes were informal for a flower shop owner, the ruby-haired woman's were unusual for anyone. A yukata. She was wearing a yukata, in a city, in a bookshop, at lunch break. The main colour of this apparel was red, a red that gradually got deeper from top to bottom – it matched with her hair. The patterns on it were mostly flowers with different colours, most of them were bright, like orange, yellow, violet and even pink. A pattern in particular was fitting considering the season, spring, the cherry blossoms, a typically Japanese way of evoking springtime.
Eh? What was the question again?
Realizing that she may have gone silent for an enough amount of seconds to make the situation slightly awkward, Honoka quickly stood up and faced her.
"Hum, sorry, what did you say?" she asked embarrassed, and feeling a bit dizzy because of the lack of enough blood pressure in her brain due to her being in a squatting position for quite sometime.
"Did you find anything to your liking?" she repeated gently.
"Oh, hum, no, I don't intend on buying anything," she answered, "not right now at least!" she added hastily. "I'm kinda short on money, with all the spendings for the furnitures of my new flat, I won't allow myself to buy things for leisure for a while," she explained.
"Oh, I see, no worries," she responded, with an understanding a lopsided smile.
The simple fact that she was not disappointed relieved her, Honoka didn't want to disappoint her because she might have stopped smiling, and this was something she didn't want to witness, not at this moment. She suddenly looked around the bookshop and noticed something.
"Ne, it's kinda weird, isn't it? Why isn't there anyone?" she asked, curious.
"My customers know when I'm on lunch break, and this bookshop also has a website that displays the opening and closing schedule."
"Lun-" she cut herself off, realizing that she totally forgot why she was outside instead of eating lunch in her shop as she usually did. "Aaaah lunch break, I was supposed to stroll around and discover some nice spots," she complained, becoming aware of her airheadedness. It's not really my fault this time though, the distraction was way too strong, she wanted to add, but she preferred to keep it for herself.
Before the librarian could even try to answer to that, a third party interrupted their moment, a third party that apparently needed to be heard more than anyone at this moment.
"Was that..." the crimson-haired woman whispered in disbelief. Seeing Honoka's flushed face with shocked wide eyes confirmed it, the third party was indeed her stomach growling, crying out for help. The librarian couldn't help it, she coudn't stop herself from laughing, she laughed so hard. Maybe too hard. She even crossed her arms on her belly and bent over because of how much fun the situation apparently looked to her. Somehow, it eased off the tension Honoka made up for herself, and she started laughing along with her. It was funny, there was no denying it. After half a minute, Honoka and the librarian regained their composure, more or less.
"Sigh, sorry, sorry, I shouldn't have laughed that much," she panted, wiping a tear off her eye.
"Ah, it's okay, it was fun," Honoka admitted. "I didn't have time to eat breakfast and I haven't eaten lunch because I wanted to stroll around the city, I guess my stomach doesn't want to be a victim of my life decisions," she joked. She glanced at the clock stuck to the wall behind the cash desk, "Aaaand I don't have time to buy anything to eat because I have to go to work."
At those words, the librarian's eyes widened, and before Honoka could even say anything, she ran off to her cash desk and opened a drawer. When she turned around to go back to Honoka, she was already right in front of her, her curiosity had been teased too much. A smile naturally drew itself on the fact of the ruby-haired woman.
"Here, my bento, you can have it," she said, handing the box to a flustered Honoka.
"Hum, uh, it's really kind of you but-"
"No "but"s, you're hungry, you need to eat," she almost scolded. "Besides, it's my fault if you didn't have time to do what you wanted to do, if I had closed the bookshop you wouldn't have entered it," she admitted. "And also, don't worry, I have another bento in my purse," she added, giving her a smirk followed by a friendly wink.
"Oh, then, I... I- I guess I'll take it," she stuttered, "thank you very much!" she exclaimed, taking the bento box and proceeding to execute the traditional Japanese bow.
"You don't need to do that much, it's my pleasure," she reassured.
As she made her way to the entrance, accompanied by the librarian behind her, Honoka thought about something right away, a simple idea so that she could be able to see her again without it being weird. She needed to sound confident.
"I owe you now," she started, "I can't let you give me your bento without me giving something else in return," she said, as she emitted a breathy laugh through her smirk. "I own a flower shop not so far away from here, you could come by someday, I can even give you free flowers. How does that sound?"
"Oh, a flower shop, I should have guessed," she whispered, with a lopsided smile. "That sounds like a great idea!" she exclaimed, "I'll definitely come by when I have time."
After giving her the address of the flower shop, even though a "step out of your bookshop, first to the right and second to the left" would have been enough, Honoka glanced again at the clock on the wall and decided that she should head out if she didn't want to be late. Before stepping outside, Honoka turned around one last time.
"By the way, my name is Kousaka Honoka, but you can call me Honoka," she said, lightly tilting her head, with a wider smile on her face
"Honoka... suits you," she whispered. "My name is Nishikino Maki, you can call me Maki," she said, mirroring her smile.
"Maki, I'll definitely remember it!" she exclaimed, waving her hand, "Ja ne!"
Stepping out of the bookshop, Honoka walked confidently on the sidewalk, heading back to her flower shop. She had done it, she managed to have her favourite gemstone come back to her in the near future.
"The seed is now planted," she said. Obviously, she realized only after she said it that she said that out loud, gifting her yet again with a weird look from someone passing by. She facepalmed. Stupid flower nerd.
A/N: My first fanfic AU, I'm so excited to see what you guys think of this! Also, I don't really know what I'm going to do with this, if I'm going to continue the story chronologically with an actual plot, if I'm going to make this a loose series of drabbles and short stories set in the same AU and therefore have the possibility to add some more characters, if I'm just going to leave it at that, I don't know. If you have any suggestions as to what I should do, or if you have fun prompts to suggest, just let me know in your reviews! :)