Hello everyone!

Sooo I have completely abandoned Next Up! and I'm sorry but I just have no passion for it anymore forgive me!

Anywho, I have an entire outline for this upcoming story and I'm really excited. Hopefully I can actually complete this one. Cheer me on!

Without further adieu -

Chapter 1; Lilac

The bell chimed on the small shop's door, the young woman tending to the flowers in the back looked up and smiled at the customer who had walked in. "Hello!" she called, startling the customer out of their daze. Kagome laughed, the over abundance of flowers could be overwhelming for first time customers. She had flowers absolutely anywhere she could find. The blonde man who entered the store finally located where the sweet voice was coming from, and smiled a shy smile.

"Can I help you?" Kagome questioned

"Ah, yes, I, uh" he stammered, "I-uh-uh"

"Uh oh," she said " what did you do?"

"I may or may not have forgotten her birthday yesterday"

Kagome laughed, not unkindly. "ahh, yes. I can handle those - do you have a picture of your girlfriend on you?"

The man pulled his phone out of his pocket and his fingers flew over the touch screen briefly as he unlocked it to reveal the home screen depicting a sweet looking strawberry blonde with hazel eyes. Kagome took the phone gingerly and studied the photograph. She thought quietly for a moment while she decided what arrangement would fit this girl. This girl didn't seem to be the type to like gaudy over the top decorations so a simple arrangement should be perfect. She decided earthy tones, large white flowers, Dahlias possibly, big green leaves - a down to earth arrangement prepared to say 'I love you, forgive me'. Kagome began putting it together as soon as she thought of it.

The young man watched her work in amazement - the focus and was that love? that she so intently put into the placement of every single plant was astounding.

Within minutes Kagome finished and had wrapped up her masterpiece. She absolutely adored flowers, ever since she could remember flowers were her passion. Each one was different, each flower, every colour meant something different. It was just so interesting to her - especially the way people reacted to flowers. People were just as diverse as flowers and she loved matching flowers to people. She had a particular knack for this task - she could understand people, for the most part, from a simple photo. She could take that photo and know what they feel, what they like, what they want. This ability of hers allows her to have this floral shop - all she asks of people when they come in is for a photo of the one for which they want the bouquet. Her customers loved it, she loved them, she loved this business.

The blonde man paid his fees, leaving a small tip in the jar and left. Kagome sighed. She loved owning her own store, it was everything that she wanted. However, this month was extremely slow - she wouldn't let that get her down though. Flowers were her life!

He entire day went on like this - slow. She barely had any customers after that blonde boy.

It was ten minutes before the store was supposed to be closing that the door bell chimed and a man rushed through the doors, sneezing on his way in. He looked around the store with a grumpy humph, trying to find an employee of some sort. Kagome came out of the back room as quickly as she could - being held up by packing away her more fragile flowers for overnight.

"There you are. Fuck anyways what does it take to get some service around here?" The man snapped at her.

Kagome was taken aback - how dare someone speak to her that way! She had only taken seconds to get out to the front from the cold stora-damn was he attractive.

He was tall and muscular but the first thing she noticed were not his silver hair, though that was stunning, but his bright golden eyes - that were now dangerously narrowed at her. Apparently she had missed something.

"Sorry?"

"Pheh, are you stupid or something? I said I need a dozen roses for my girlfriend"

She stared at him blankly for a moment before "dozen roses" registered in her brain. As she was about to respond, he yelled "Stat!" at her.

She fought to maintain her composure as she said "I'm sorry but I don't do that"

"What?!" he yelled "Isn't this place a flower shop?"

"Yes.. but it's not.. exactly a typical flower shop, I suppose"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Well, I... I suppose it would be easier to just show you. Do you have a picture of your girlfriend?"

He stared at her like she was crazy before he felt around in his pockets, grabbing his phone and swiping furiously at the screen. He finally pulled up a picture with multiple people in it and pointed to a woman standing near the middle.

Kagome put out her hand "May I?" she asked

He humphed and placed his phone into her hand, crossing his arms as he did so.

Kagome looked thoughtful as she took in this woman in the picture. She got the feeling that this man's girlfriend was not very open or friendly. That she loved little and cared for only herself. These were the hardest people to gather flowers for. She needed more information that just her picture.

"What kind of occasion?"

"Huh? oh, she's mad at me for something stupid - roses usually cheer her up and you were the closest one, but if you're not gonna-"

He never got to finish his sentence as Kagome was gone. He looked around and wouldn't have figured out where she was had it not been for the rustling in a corner of the jumble of flowers. Kagome's shop, to outsiders, did not seem organized. In fact it looked completely random and dysfunctional but to her it was perfectly laid out. Everything had its own place and she never lost anything.

I suppose you could say she was slightly neurotic that way.

The silver-haired man watched the small girl work in front of him. Grabbing a flower from here, a bunch of leaves from there, a ribbon from up there, a different flower from - oh dear she almost fell on her face. He snickered and she looked bashfully up at him.

Minutes later she presented him with a cream coloured bouquet of flowers wrapped in a navy blue ribbon and silver-sparkle spray painted twigs.

It had to be the most plain bouquet that he had ever seen and was about to remark about how he just wanted red roses when she told him, "First timers are on the house, until you see her reaction. If it's bad, don't bother coming back. However, when she loves it, you come back as soon as you can and I'll ring you up. Sound good?" She beamed at him. His only thoughts at this point were that she was beautiful, petite frame,long jet black hair, gorgeous dark brown eyes and cute smile.

A cute smile?

What?

He pushed it to the back of his mind, picked up the flowers, huffed his thanks and walked out the door.

Kagome watched the man walk out the door and shook her head. The way she ran her business confused most, the looks she would get from some people were priceless.

Finally it was the end of the day, she locked the doors, flipped the sign, adjusted the temperature and left the store.

Fixing her scarf, she smiled as she thought about the attractive man who had just left her store.