Special Thanks to My Beta Readers: Jazeoth 2.0 and Rhavia!

As he made his daily commute in his luxury car, Oshiro Masayuki found himself drawing small mindless doodles onto the foggy windows. He watched as the rain pelted his window, captivated by the streaks running past his fingertips that made the window cool to the touch. He spent many mornings like this- riding silently in the backseat as his car cut through the cold rains of spring. In its own right, it was comforting to have everything be the same every day. There were no surprises in Masayuki's life, and that was just how he liked it. He knew life wouldn't always be like that, of course, and he knew that he wanted to do something exciting when he got out of school, but those plans would have to wait until he had a job, and a house, and was financially stable, and—

Masayuki lurched forward with sudden inertia, his textbooks thrown out of his lap, and the only thing holding him in place was his seatbelt that locked, holding him tightly in place. Catching his breath and grabbing the seat in front of him to stabilize himself, he frantically looked to his driver for an explanation.

"Sorry, Oshiro-sama! Just a wayward driver is all. Are you alright back there?" His driver called back over his shoulder, concerned over the young master's comfort.

After a pause, Masayuki finally calmed himself and struggled with his seatbelt as he attempted to pick up his textbooks with shaky hands.

"Yes, I'm alright. My books just fell everywhere…" He re-buckled his seatbelt and readjusted his glasses. Adjusting his tie and floral pocket handkerchief, he checked his reflection in the rearview mirror. With a fleeting, shaky sigh, he found himself displeased with how abruptly the calm of the road was taken away from him. He hated how most people drove and was glad he didn't have to take the wheel. Whether it was rain or fog, somehow the absence of complete sunshine caused the worst drivers in Japan to surface.

"Does no one know how to drive in the rain?" He grumbled, looking back out of his window with a renewed sense of disinterest.

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Masayuki shuffled down the hallway, adjusting the textbooks in his arms to avoid making his arms cramp as he made his way down the grand hallways of Ouran Academy. It was always a hassle to get to his classes as they were so far away from the front entrance where all the students were dropped off.

"Yuki-chan! How is the world's cutest gardner doing today?" The familiar voice of Taniguchi Makoto called.

Makoto was the only person that Masayuki could consider to be his closest friend, despite the fact he was clearly not Makoto's closest friend. Rather, Makoto thought that he was an adorable pet, and made a point of complimenting him upon every meeting to show it. They had met when Masayuki briefly toured sports teams and clubs as a means of finding his interests (and attempted to make friends). Dancing, much to Makoto's dismay, was not the sport for Masayuki. However, the two still bonded over their mutual love of old books, foreign films, and classical music. Makoto was also the one who helped Masayuki come to terms with his..."alternative lifestyle," as his step-father would put it.

"Good morning, Mako-san! I'm quite well, how about you?" Masayuki grinned as his friend caught up with him.

"I'm well enough, thanks. How's the garden?"

Immediately, Masayuki's face lit up. His garden, his pride and joy, always brought a smile to his face when he talked about it. It was the only thing he could actively control, and the payoff was always there as he looked upon it. He could talk for hours about his plans for his garden, and the very thought of future plans for it excited him.

"Ah—it's fantastic. I got these new flowers—English Bluebells—and they are taking to the soil so well and also work with the whole "cool period" I'm going for. I'm also mixing in some—"

"Listen Yuki-chan, as much as I'd love to hear about all of the plans for your garden, I have important news to tell you," Makoto interjected. If Masayuki wasn't stopped early on, he would rattle off until the end of time about his garden. The phrase "important news" made his stomach drop. When left to anticipate events, Masayuki always found himself so anxious he didn't know what to do with himself—however, the phrase "important news" was familiar to him, and always meant trouble.

"Oh no… Mako-san please tell me you didn't—!"

"I got you a date!"

At this point, Masayuki felt like Makoto's test subject for his own possible partners. He knew Makoto had good intentions, but it felt more like being told by your mother to "go make friends" so she could flirt with the single dads at the playground. Masayuki never enjoyed the dates that Makoto would set up for him—it felt like the guys that he was set up with were forced into something as part of a bet.

Given that Makoto was the most popular gay guy in the entire school, and was a very dominating figure, the assumption probably wasn't too far off from the truth.

Granted, Masayuki did want to find someone. It wasn't like he didn't want a boyfriend to be sickeningly sweet to—he just wanted guys to come to him of their own volition. Of course, that wasn't accounting for the fact that Masayuki still wasn't out to his mother and step-father. Like many of his plans for the future, he would do what he wanted when school was over and he had his life settled. For now, Masayuki just had to dodge the awful dates he was set up on.

"Try not to look like I just shot your dog, Yuki-chan. I'm doing you a favor," Makoto chided, not missing the disdain on Masayuki's face, he just chose to ignore it.

"I'm not sure… I mean, even after the last one?"

"That was a fluke and you—!" Makoto's sentence was cut off as the bell rang. The teacher entered the classroom and the class of 3A began to take their seats. Talking about the last date always opened up a can of worms between the two, so Masayuki was grateful for the interruption.

"I'll talk to you after the test, Yuki-chan."

Suddenly, Masayuki remembered. He had forgotten all about the test—he had even forgotten to study for it. He paled as he sat numb in his chair, and felt as if a giant weight had been placed on his chest. He spaced out, contemplating on whether or not he was going to have a heart attack. Maybe he should ask to go to the nurse...

"Hey, relax. It's not going to kill you," Makoto whispered. Masayuki felt highly doubtful of that statement as he stared at his calculus test, not taking in any of the information from the wall of text. Frankly, it was like staring down the barrel of the gun. Biting the inside of his lip, he racked his brain for the bits of his notes and homework that he could remember and hunkered down for the worst test of his life.

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The rest of the his day passed by in a blur. Lunch was uneventful, with the same friendly bickering he always had with Makoto. His classes were unengaging—even Japanese History, his favorite subject, was weighed down by Masayuki's own self pity for his failure. The weight was only lifted at the end of the day, during club hours. He was the president of the Gardening Club, and was a seasoned expert in taking care of various plants.

As everyone settled on the plants they were responsible for that week, the many friend groups within the club sectioned off, leaving Masayuki to himself. He zoned out as he prepared the potting soil for his tulips. He had high hopes for the next year's spring blooms, and wanted to avoid the mistakes he had made in the year prior. As he let himself slip into his rhythm, the rest of the club seemed to fade away. He hadn't even noticed the commotion on the other side of the greenhouse. The unmistakable voice of Sasaki Aiko, his vice president, reached his ears as she called to him from across the greenhouse. She hurriedly jogged to him, looking nervous.

"Oshiro-senpai!"

"Ah, Sasaki-san. How are you?" Masayuki turned to her, smiling as he greeted her.

"Oh, I'm good thanks for asking," Sasaki greeted him with a shallow bow. She seemed to remember her sense of urgency as she snapped straight up. "I need your help—the snapdragons my group are tending to look concerning, could you please give me your opinion on them?"

He nodded and followed her over to the snapdragons. The plants were... drooping. The leaves were saggy and discolored, looking sad and—more concerningly—sick. He inspected one of the bunches, before lightly tugging on the base and found that they came out with ease—always a bad sign. The other members of Sasaki's group watched in horror as he pulled on the plant, as he usually refrained from such rough treatment. The vice-president began to protest but was silenced by the sight of blackened roots.

"Shit, that's what I thought it was. Those—" he gestured to the blackened areas— "are root rots. You can't fix that, only take out the infected plants. Looks like it's been cultivating over our brief break last week. This usually comes from being mishandled and put in contaminated soil and since the greenhouse is warm and humid, it's practically a breeding ground for bacteria."

Sasaki inspected the roots with a sad look on her face, as though she were empathizing with the sickly plant.

"We'll have to remove it, drain the soil, and make sure the other plants aren't also infected."

The statement alarmed Sasaki—because while she knew a lot about plants, she wasn't as experienced as the President in diseases. Masayuki empathized with her—he knew how frustrating it was to nurture something, only to see it grow and die from something so preventable.

"Remove it? But I've been working on this for the whole school year!"

Masayuki sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. It was always tiring to deal with rots, but he partially blamed himself for not seeing the sickness earlier on. He wasn't that great at reassuring people, and he searched for words to say that might make her feel better.

"Well, um…that's the risk of gardening, Saki-san. Even if you're extra careful, you always run the risk of losing it all. Kinda like life, you know? You just have to start over and hope you don't lose it all again."

That... sounded much more depressing than I intended.

"Ah… I just wish it didn't feel so helpless," she sighed. Masayuki bumped shoulders with her, offering a small smile in reassurance.

"Well, now we can learn from it. The warning signs are always there and we can make sure the other plants stay healthy by giving them new soil. There's always time to start fresh, and we saved the other plants before they became infected as well."

That seemed to make her feel slightly better and she offered a small smile with a returned shoulder bump. Masayuki turned and saw that the rest of the club was watching the exchange. He flushed, slightly embarrassed that everyone was watching him so intently. He awkwardly glanced at his watch and noted that it was around 10 minutes until club hours were over.

"Alright everyone, we need to wrap this up for today. Can I get some volunteers to help me remove the rest of the infected plants while the rest of you pack up and clean?"

Masayuki gathered a small group of underclassmen and cleared out the diseased plants while Sasaki and the rest organized the tools, put away the potting soil, and swept the aisles. Weeds and infected plants were thrown into the waste, and locked away to avoid contaminating the rest of the greenhouse. The students all hung up their aprons and changed back into their uniforms. Masayuki was the last to leave, locking up all the tools as well as the front door to the greenhouse. He turned, finding Sasaki waiting for him as usual. The two walked together in comfortable silence to the front of the school.

It was no wonder on why many students gave them odd looks— Masayuki always had a soft spot for his friend and prodigy. He knew that once he graduated, he'd be leaving the Gardening Club in good hands. He also wasn't exactly in a space to tell the rest of his classmates he was gay, so his closeness with Sasaki would just have to continue to look like a crush. He did hope that Sasaki wasn't going to be upset by that, but from what he had seen she wasn't the type for romance.

As the two arrived to the front gates, Masayuki noticed that his car had arrived, with his bodyguard standing outside it. His bodyguard, Yamashita Daisuke, was a mountain of a man. Masayuki had known him since his mother got remarried, and he always rode home with him after school. He was a comforting figure, but wasn't always the best with kids.

"I, uh... I'll see you Wednesday, Oshi-senpai," Sasaki stuttered as she turned to him, and politely bowed.

"See you, Saki-san," Masayuki replied, waving as he climbed into the back seat of his luxury car.

"Good afternoon, Oshiro-sama. Please buckle in your seatbelt," Yamashita greeted before he closed the door of the backseat. Yamashita took shotgun and, once he confirmed that Masayuki had actually put his seatbelt on, he motioned for the driver to take them home.

"How was school?" Yamashita turned his head, calling behind him to the young master. It was the same old questions, with the same old answers, but he'd ask anyways.

"Same as always, Yamashita-san. Could you move your seat forward a little?" Masayuki stared, slightly miffed that his knees were being crushed by the seat in front of him. He lightly kicked the back of Yamashita's seat, accentuating his point.

"I cannot. My legs are too long."

"That's what you say, but I know they aren't 2 meters in length!" Yamashita chuckled at the young master's annoyance and moved his seat forward slightly. Even the inch of room given to him was a relief, and he ceased kicking his bodyguard's seat.

"How was the calculus test?" Ah. So that's what today is going to be like. Masayuki slumped further into his seat, avoiding Yamashita's question. His silence was an answer in its own right, and Yamashita turned to address him face to face. He was fairly gentle when talking to Masayuki, but he was still a very intimidating man.

"Your parents are concerned about your grades, Oshiro-sama," he commented, a stern look on his face as he spoke to the young master. Masayuki avoided meeting his piercing eyes and crossed his arms as he lightly hugged himself. He wanted to explain that he had forgotten, he wanted to tell Yamashita that he didn't understand anything in that class anyway and that he felt as though he would never succeed in it.

He couldn't find the words.

"I know, it's just—"

Then it hit.

The only warning that the two got was the quick gasp from the driver a millisecond before the front of the vehicle slammed into an oncoming car, throwing the passengers forward. Yamashita's neck snapped back in a way that it was not supposed to, and Masayuki's knee was sent with incredible force into the hard plastic back of his bodyguard's seat. His seatbelt gripped him, squeezing the breath out of him as he was forced forwards, and it painfully held his hips in place. The car screeched across the road, hit from behind by cars that were unable to stop in time.

And it was over just as quickly as it began.

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By the sweat of your brow you will eat your

food until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are and to dust you will return.

Genesis 3