The Most Beautiful Flower Of All… Part II: Blooming
She gave him a hot bath, washed his hair, and dried him, all along chatting lightly to him while she worked. Fioré learned that her name was Rose and she lived alone in her apartment. She doesn't have a family, but filled up the emptiness and loneliness by taking in all sorts of stray animals, even flowers. She especially loved flowers.
She had fashioned her balcony to a form of a green house, and had picked up flowers here and there. Buttercups that grew along the side of the polluted road, pansies that had grown in gravel, and even once, the flowers from a whole park that was about to be torn down to be built over. She had taken time to remove each flower one by one and replanted them in her greenhouse.
By the time, his hair was dried, Fioré was warm. Not just physically, but spiritually as well. He's beginning to feel the presence of warmth in his heart. And that tiny fire in his weak heart was started by Rose.
Rose didn't care if his slightly slanted eyes were silver-indigo, or that his ears were elfish, or that his long hair was blue and his skin pale. She doesn't even care that he wasn't human. She loves him anyway.
He's always been a sad child, ever since he could remember. But even though he was new to this feeling of warmth, Fioré realized something:
Rose was ill. She is very sick.
However, young Fioré didn't worry too much. He thought that she, like a flower, would be fine under some careful treatments. After all, good people don't have tragic endings.
So, under Rose's love and care, Fioré blossomed into a healthy child filled with hope and love of his own for Rose, without realizing the danger she lived in everyday.
Until one day two weeks later…
Rose was more different than any human being Fioré's ever met. Instead of schooling him, she taught him to appreciate the nature. They don't leave the house much, because of Rose's poor health. But they often climbed the stairs to the roof of the apartment and fed the pigeons, studying their natural characteristics. Sometimes, they'd stare up at the sky and made out shapes and pictures from the puffy white clouds. She taught him about all about plants and had even given him his own pot of flowers to take care of. Every night, they would sit outside on the balcony to watch the stars shine and sparkle. Or if it's raining, she would read out loud to him and they'd both enjoy the coziness of each others' presence while listening to the rhythm of the rain.
Fioré has grown to love Rose and her delicate and beautiful glass heart more than anything he's ever loved.
"Look, Fioré," Rose held up his pot of flowers. "Your flowers are blooming wonderfully. You've taken good care of her." She gave him a small sad smile, which Fioré had learned, most of her smiles were sad. He looked up from where he was examining the roses in the special glass bottle that Rose keeps fresh cut flowers in.
"Thank you." The nine-year-old acknowledged. Because of his inhumanity, a week on Earth was like a year of Fioré's own time and his uniform was still the same one as the one he wore the day he arrived on Earth. He never grew out of the dark uniform with the swirls of silver and gold. Instead, it had grown with him.
"Beautiful flowers turn ugly, you know," Rose sat the pot down and came through the sliding door. "When grown with a unpurified soul—" Rose broke off and began coughing violently. Fioré hurried toward the young woman,
"Rose? Rose, are you alright?" He helped her back to her bed, where she's spending more and more of her time in, and watched her anxiously with his silver-indigo eyes.
"I'll…be…fine…Fioré…" She said between racks of coughs. Then she leaned back on her pillow, her face deathly pale.
"When are you going to get better?" Fioré bit his lips. Rose hadn't been getting better, he finally accepted the truth, but worse. His eyes strayed to the glass bottle atop the table, and he somehow sensed a connection to Rose. It was only an empty glass milk bottle, but to Fioré, it seemed to hold Rose's very life. And, he had been noticing, as Rose's condition worsen, the flowers seem to follow right along. At this moment, he could see the roses that were fresh and alive minutes ago, shrivel up and drooping their heads.
"I'm afraid I won't be getting better." Rose smiled her usual sad smile and held out a hand. "Come here, Fioré. My Fioré." He went over obediently.
"I'm afraid," she sighed. "I have something in my lungs that's making me sick, and it wouldn't go away."
That was the day Fioré found out that Rose has cancer.
"But," he trembled. "You'll get better, won't you?"
"I'm afraid not, Fioré." Her eyes were filled with unshed tears and her smile was weary. "I've been sick for a very long time now, my flower, and it'll be good to leave the pain when the time has come. But," her smile brightened just a little. "Don't worry, kid. I'll be around until you've grown into a fine young man."
"And after that?" Fioré backed away. "You saw how fast I'm growing, so how long do you have to live? Another two weeks? Maybe a month?"
"Fioré…"
"No," he said softly. "I won't let you die!" he turned and ran.
Even Rose is leaving me all alone… Tears rolled down Fioré's face like two silver streams. I won't let you die. I won't let you. I promise I'll find a flower worthy of you. And when I return, it'll be with the perfect flower!
He didn't return that night. He didn't return in the morning.
He didn't return for three whole months…