The joke behind Rika's flower crown is that Rika's name literally means "pear blossom," which in flower language signifies lasting friendship and hope. Rika wove a flower crown of amaranths, a plant genus named for the mythical amárantos flower, allegedly a purplish flower that never faded or died, usually symbolizing immortality because of that. Keiichi got gladiolus, which means strength of character, honor, conviction, etc. Mion had peonies, which symbolize prosperity and honor in China and masculinity and bravery in Japan, and Shion had rainflowers, which symbolize returned love, never forgetting someone, and needing to atone for one's sins. Rena had larkspur, which is also known as delphinium, which symbolizes levity, fun, generosity, ardent attachment, and joy. Satoko had white roses, which symbolize innocence and virtue, and may symbolize sorrow if dried.
June 26th, 2020
It was for a wedding, or so Mion had explained when the truckload of flowers was unceremoniously dumped on her doorstep and the others found her and Shion sorting through them. Some relative of theirs had decided nothing would do but having an extravagant wedding with a dozen different types of flower arrangement and probably dozens of different kinds of flowers, and, well, with the wedding done and the bridal bouquet preserved, the rest of the flowers really had become extraneous. Thus, they were sent to Mion's grandmother as a sort of tribute, and thus, Mion and Shion were allowed to pick them over when Batcha accepted the tribute for what it was: a cheap attempt to appeal to her that disguised the couple in question getting rid of the flowers so they wouldn't have to deal with them themselves.
Everyone except Keiichi and Satoko plunged in with squeals of glee, picking apart all the wreathes and vases and floral arrangements with glee, and even Keiichi had been persuaded by the bright colors and nice scents, and Satoko was lured in by the prospect of roses and thorny traps.
"Check this out!" Mion said, lifting a twisted, elegant branch with pear blossoms sprouting from it. Keiichi looked over without understanding, and Mion's deft fingers quickly wove a circlet of pear flowers out of the bendy branch and several of its duplicates, holding it up with glee.
"Looks nice?" Keiichi said, wondering what the significance of the admittedly pretty-looking flower crown was.
"Mew…" Rika slunk down inside her pile of flowers, but Mion grinned and plonked the crown down on her hair before she could escape.
"Mi!" Rika wailed in protest.
"Now you match!" Mion said, laughing, and Keiichi snickered too as he caught the joke.
"Hau, you look lovely." Hanyuu said, patting Rika gently on the head, being careful to avoid the twisted wreath of her white-blooming flower crown. Rika scowled at her, and then, quick as lightning, grabbed a fistful of stalks with drooping, fuzzy, purple-red spikes of blossoms, weaving them quickly together, and all but slammed that wreath down on Hanyuu's head, making sure to catch it under her horns to further complicate removal.
"There!" she said with an angelic smile and a spiteful undertone. "Now you match!"
"Hauhauhau…" Hanyuu whimpered, clutching at her horns and the drooping clumps of flowers that flopped around them. "Rikaaa!"
"That looks so cute, yes it does! So cute!" Rena chirped, smiling placidly from her place surrounded by more flowers. She frowned and cupped her chin as she studied the vase closest to her, inspecting the blossoms. "I wonder what sort of crown I should make…"
"Hah!" Mion laughed, smirking dangerously and rubbing her pollen-smeared hands. "Why don't we make it a competition?"
"Eh…" Keiichi rubbed the back of his head as he looked at the flowers. "I don't really know how to make those crown thingies…"
"Its okay Keiichi-kun." Rena said kindly, patting his shoulder. "I'll help you make a really cute flower crown!"
Keiichi paused, then slowly nodded once or twice, firming his jaw. "Alright. Damn straight we will!" He punched the air and grinned. "I'll make a crown so awesome you all bow down before me and call the flower king!"
"That's the spirit!" Mion cackled, tossing her hair back and pulling the shears she'd been using for tougher stems out from the loop of her jeans like she was unsheathing a sword. "A club challenge! Rika and Hanyuu already have their flower crowns, but for them and everyone else, let's see who can make the best! Whoever wins becomes Flower Queen or King, and the others must bow down and serve them for the remainder of our cleanup here!"
"Bring it on!" Keiichi shouted, and he and Rena high-fived.
"Mm, I don't think a clumsy boy like Keiichi-san will ever be able to make crowns as pretty as ours. Oh-ho-ho~!" Satoko cackled, holding a hand with a red rose tucked between her fingers before her mouth.
"That's the spirit, Satoko!" Shion cheered, flipping her long hair back over her shoulders with her own hand, to prepare it as much as she could for being crowned, since unlike Mion she wore her hair loose.
"The competition begins now!" Mion announced, jabbing a finger into the air. "Whoever doesn't make an awesome crown by the end of an hour gets a punishment game!"
And with that, the furious plundering of the various vases, wreaths, and other floral arrangements began, with each individual flower and stem being examined with minute attention before being either discarded, sorted, or laid aside for the preparation of a crown. And slowly, those crowns took place, with Rika and Hanyuu endeavoring to add to the ones they already had, rather than create other ones anew.
By the end of things, Rika had a beautiful, spreading fan of white pear blossoms that arched and waved on her head like a frozen spray of seafoam, and she folded her arms smugly as she looked at her nervously squeaking cousin.
Hanyuu, by contrast, had built her crown in a hanging curtain, since the sprays of flowers did not hold up well under gravity, and looked something like the European pictures of Silenus and Bacchus, albeit much smaller, younger, and cuter.
Satoko, perhaps taking a cue from this classical look, had woven a crown of white roses, gathering most of the blooms in the front of her wreath and making a point to stick out the stems in the sides and back, mimicking the thorns that had been stripped from the stalks.
Keiichi, true to form, had created a bold, colorful crown of stiff, upwards-pointing star-shaped flowers, which where held together at the top with some wire and string, creating a bishop-like pointed arch that was certainly impressive in its own way, if not particularly inspired.
Rena had woven her long stems of bursting white, pink, and purple flowers around her head in a rather ironic copy of her beloved white hat, somehow managing to create a cap of the fragrant blossoms that had several charming points and extensions where the long stems poked out of her crown.
Since peonies grew singularly on their stalks, Mion had opted for a more traditional flower crown, a thin circlet-like wreath with several of the spreading, fist-sized pink blossoms tucked behind her ear and studded over her forehead like a coronet.
Shion's flowers were on single stalks as well, but these were much thinner than peony stalks, so Shion was able to weave an elegant flower crown with evenly spaced white stars circling her brow and head, even arranging several of the flowers to dangle down on their stalks behind her ears, like earrings or chains.
Mion cupped her chin thoughtfully as she surveyed the work of her club, who were all looking at each other with equal amounts of challenge and congratulation in their eyes.
"Hmm…" she said aloud. "Hmm…"
"I won, right?" Keiichi asked, briefly gesturing to his towering crown before returning to his folded-arms position. "Mine's bigger than everyone else's."
"Ah, but Kei-chan, my flowers are bigger than yours." Mion said with a smirk, removing her hand from her chin. "Yours is the tallest, not the biggest."
"H-hau, but I have the most!" Hanyuu chipped in, squeezing her eyes shut from the effort of piping up during a club judging, hands clenched in the front of her pink jumper. "Since mine are so small!"
"Mine was made the neatest!" Shion cut in.
"Mine was the hardest to make!" Rena pointed out, waving her arms.
"At least I tried to be creative and symbolic!" Satoko said with a huff.
"Oh yeah?" Rena's eyes narrowed, and she whipped out one of the thin metal stakes that had held some of the flowers up, about as thick around as a pencil, lunging towards Satoko with a shout of "En garde!"
"Gyah!" Satoko reeled back, holding an arm before her chest with her eyes wide. "T-treachery in the Flower Kingdom?! To arms!"
"Yaaah!" Shion shouted, lunging and smacking Rena's "sword" down with a metal stake of her own. "To arms!"
"This is an insult that shall be paid in blood!" Keiichi roared, grabbing a stake of his own and hastening to the aid of his comrade Rena.
And so the makeshift club challenge devolved into a mock sword-fight with all the club members, frequently gasping and yelping in pain as the thin metal stakes thwacked down on wrists or poked into ribs. They skidded and slipped a little in the drifts of flowers everywhere, knocking the plastic vases (since the decorative ones had been placed in storage or the house hours ago) aside and spilling water and more flowers everywhere, filling the air with the scent of perfume, water, and crushed growing things.
Eventually, more than one crown was shredded and hung precariously over an ear or a forehead, but still they fought with valor and laughter, and eventually, one by one, the club members collapsed giggling into the piles of flowers everywhere, laughing up at the blue sky.
Slowly, their laughter dwindled, becoming something quieter, more content, as they looked up through the sleepy heat at the white clouds crawling across the sky, how puffy and billowing they were, how bright the blue of the sky was between them, and how wide it seemed, engulfed by the scents of crushed flowers and petals and feeling the fibrous mat of them beneath their collective backs. It was a long, long moment, the sort of seconds that seemed to become minutes and the sort of hours that didn't seem to exist at all.
Wrapped in the drowsy, contented heat of summer and of the fun that came with friendship and playing amongst true childhood friends, the group stilled, and just were for a peaceful, unending stretch of time, were with each other and the day, were together and tired and resting and just soaking in the glorious ambiance of the day and the memories this day would make.
"So," Mion said at long last, still looking up at the sky with the others. "Truce?"
"The Flower Kingdom shall not forget this treachery." Satoko murmured, flopping an arm in an aimless gesture of defiance at Rena.
"Mm." Rena agreed, eyes half-lidded and sleepy like a lizard's as she peered up at the clouds.
Their long, restful, sleepy pause was interrupted by a voice from inside the house, a loud, authoritative voice that made them all jump up in alarm and lunge for the discarded vases and buckets.
"WHAT HAVE YOU CHILDREN DONE TO THE FLOWERS?!"
12.48 PM, USA Central Time