Disclaimer: The entire series for Harukanaru Toki no Naka de (including the games, various animations, and manga) is owned by Mizuno Tooko and Koei. I merely borrow the characters for a short time.
Baika
Night fell as Yorihisa stood outside the building where the Miko slept. The cooled air kept him alert as he watched this way and that for anything out of the ordinary. Any small mistake on his part to keep the Miko safe was careless at best and negligence at worst, and Yorihisa knew that even if the Miko forgave his failures that he could not.
As he finished his periodic pass around the structure and returned the the place closest to the Miko's sleeping area Yorihisa stopped. A voice in the back of his head nagged that something wasn't right. The familiar scent of plum blossoms caught his attention and once he moved from recognition to understanding his eyes widened in surprise. The sakura had already bloomed and fallen, so the terribly out-of-season scent of baika on the evening breeze startled him nearly as much as an intruder.
He could not mistake that the smell, pleasant enough to make him a little heady, came from within the Miko's room any more than he could deny that his heart clenched with a kind of blissful pain at the knowledge that she had chosen to surround herself in his favorite scent. His mind raced forward into the morning when he would see her face-to-face once more, surrounded by the phantom image of pale pink flowers, and the mere thought stole his breath. Now that the two had intertwined in his mind, he would forever see her kind face in his memory every time the melting snow coaxed the baika into bloom.
Yorihisa shook his head to clear it of improper thoughts and resolutely returned to his patrols. Even as he put his unworthy happiness from his mind he wondered how long he would be able to keep his feelings, inappropriate as they were, at bay.