Hello there everyone~! The letter F has finally arrived. I got this idea from somewhere online...I can't help but feel this chappie's not as well written. But oh well, I kinda like it. :D Thank you to SailorCosmicRose for the original theme word! It's interesting to note that there are other words that also fit in with this chapter that also begin with F. :)


Love Letters

F is for FLOWERS

(Fake)

(Forever)

It has been a week.

Shinku considers this as she sits on Jun's bed, mulling over the daily calendar hung up on the opposite wall where it is easily visible. She has been preoccupied with this damn, dastardly riddle for an entire week. Feeling more than a little annoyed and frustrated, she can't help but think that she wasted far more time than she would have preferred, contemplating what should be just a simple, small, insignificant occurrence.

Of course, it somewhat irritates her further, and makes her feel all awkward and uncomfortable, when she realises that this is not the first time he has been the cause of what can almost be called an obsession. Indeed, that is what Suiseiseki has already taken the liberty of declaring it to be: a maddening, exasperating and, on Shinku's side, completely reluctant, obsession.

She must look pathetic indeed, like a blushing schoolgirl mooning after the boy she has a secret crush on, thinks Shinku dryly. Trust Jun to induce the type of behaviour in her that she would never normally partake in, and to concern herself with details she could never normally even bother considering.

Honestly, she thinks, this medium is almost more trouble than he's worth.

~ One Week Ago ~

"Ahhh! Jun's home laaaate!" Hinaichigo sings as Jun walks into the kitchen carrying a large bundle under his arm. "Unyuu~ Jun bought us present! Presents!"

Jun grunts as the little doll jumps excitedly around him, squealing and clapping her hands with delight.

"Here," he mutters, dumping his load on the table.

"What is it? What's that? What is it, Jun?" Hinaichigo chatters excitedly, dancing around on her toes and trying to peek over the boy's arm. She gasps with delight and wonder as Jun turns around and hands her a bunch of flowers; strawberry flowers they are, wrapped in glittery pink paper.

"I love you, Jun! Hina loves Jun!"

"What's all this racket? Can't you two chibi's keep it down, desu?" Suiseiseki's sharp eyes fall on the packages sitting on the kitchen table. "What's that?" she demands warily. Her suspicion soon turns into delight as Jun sighs, rolls his eyes and presents both her and Souseiseki each with a half-dozen bunch of brightly coloured assorted garden flowers.

"Hmph. It seems you're not always so chibi-minded after all," Suiseiseki pouts, but her lips are curved gleefully.

"Thank you," says Souseiseki on behalf of her adamantly ungrateful twin, taking in the gentle fragrance of her gift. Likewise, Jun gives Nori her own bundle of flowers, much to his sister's greatest joy. At that moment, Shinku appears in the doorway, surveying the scene with her calm, sky-blue gaze.

"What's this?" she questions, brushing an over-excited and babbling Hinaichigo aside. Jun picks up the final gift still left on the table.

"There's a new florist open a few streets down that I passed on my home from the library, so I thought I might as well get these..." he explains, before trailing off a little awkwardly as he hands her a bouquet of a dozen exquisite red roses. "They...they reminded me...of you...kind of..."

Shinku takes the roses wordlessly, but her cheeks are faintly flushed, and the barest hint of a smile lingers upon her lips.

"Gyyaa! Jun, you know roses are symbolic of true everlasting love?" Nori gushes, much to his chagrin.

"Sh-shut up!"

"Unyuu...Shinku got one, two three...Shinku got twelve roses and Suiseiseki only got six!" Hinaichigo points out. "Jun must like Shinku a lot!"

"No, look!" Suiseiseki exclaims and points, probably more out of spite than anything else, "that one's a fake! There! Right in the middle...ohohoh, how cheap. The cheap chibi Jun shows his true colours..."

Shinku inspects the flower more closely and indeed, it is as Suiseiseki says. The rose sitting in the centre is a fake; it is made of a soft, velvety satin material so skilfully rendered to imitate the original, it could very well be a true rose. The Gardener doll breaks off into a snigger, whilst her twin silently reprimands her with a sharp nudge. Shinku, however, is far too proud to be put down in such a manner, and her eyes harden as she clutches the roses closer.

"Of course there would be a perfectly good reason why one of the roses is artificial," she scoffs, sounding more assertive than she feels.

Later that night, she privately asks Jun about it, but he just shrugs and glances away with an embarrassed blush, saying that she'll find out sooner or later. She questions him again the next day but he changes the topic, or else avoids it entirely, and she relents. Still, Shinku thinks to herself over and over again, he must have had a good reason to place a fake rose amongst eleven other reals ones, and it mustn't be because he is, as Suiseiseki so kindly puts it, 'cheap'.

He must have a reason...

~ Present ~

Initially Shinku, like Suiseiseki, was inclined to think of this whole thing as perhaps an indirect slight, but the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. Seven days from then, Shinku is still completely baffled, and the bouquet lies at this moment on top of her case, whilst she sits in front of it, a cup of tea handy beside her as she wonders.

Feeling unsettlingly restless, the blonde decides to stand up and remove all the wrapping until the roses lie in a loose bundle across the lid of her case. Carefully, Shinku takes down the vase Nori had given her earlier from Jun's shelf and painstakingly arranges the crimson flowers – even the fake one – in the vase. Though she's never shown the skill or told anyone of it, Shinku had learnt, as with all ladies, the delicate art of flower-arranging.

She sits back down and resumes just staring at the vase, now sitting on her shelf beside her other belongings and various articles of Kunkun merchandise. Only after a few moments does she realise she has spent the entire morning shut away in this room, just staring at Jun's roses. Irritated and fascinated at the same time, she can't help but wonder if perhaps she is slowly going mad.

This is, of course, entirely Jun's fault. If he'd just tell her why, instead of going about it in such a roundabout fashion...

Sighing with frustration, Shinku gathers up the wrapping paper strewn all over the floor and turns to throw it out. A scrap of white catches her eye as she watches the small scrap of paper flutter to the ground like a broken-winged butterfly, to rest amongst the fallen crimson rose petals, scarlet satin ribbon and cellophane of varying shades of red.

Curiosity piqued, she picks up the note – for that is what it is – which seemed to have been overlooked as it was probably caught up, lost and buried somewhere within the folds of wrapping.

It is handwritten in a style she recognises immediately, even though the words have been carefully written in a painstakingly fancy cursive script – Shinku supposes, in the appearance of what one would call 'romantic' writing – the kind used on love letters and such. The words are looped to perfection, every elegant stroke observed with care, dedication and an unimaginable amount of effort.

It is very short and succinct; there is only one sentence, but sometimes it is the fewest of words that mean the most.

As Shinku reads through it, once, twice, three times, for the mere first time isn't enough for her to be able to completely absorb the full impact of this one line; she finds her initial mild curiosity quite abruptly and rapidly transform into breathless wonder.

The world seems to come to a standstill, and for once, she isn't the one trying to catch up to the moment. She's the one getting caught up in the moment.

A mere eight words. Underneath, his name written out in its full sincerity: Sakurada Jun. They're just markings on paper, but they speak volumes.

Every carefully drawn stroke, every painstaking loop, every precise dot, dash and line, must have been created with effort and dedication by loving fingers and hands. The writing itself carries the essence of the writer. If she runs her fingers over the ink, can she imagine how he felt when he was writing this? Perhaps like this, Shinku thinks, in a way, she is touching him, touching his heart, perhaps touching a little of what he felt as he was writing this.

Her sight blurs slightly, and she registers dimly that tears have risen unbidden to her brimming eyes. She lifts a hand shakily to brush the wetness away, not quite knowing if she should be embarrassed for allowing herself to be so overcome with emotion.

Her fingers tremble as they reach out to stroke the remaining soft, velvety petals, and finally, the sleeker, silkier feel of the artificial rose flower in the middle. The roses around it will begin to lose their vibrancy and vigour after several weeks, but this one will continue to remain standing firmly tall and upright.

Smiling slightly to herself, Shinku picks up one of the loose ribbons that had been used in the wrapping and delicately ties the small scrap of paper that has been clutched tightly in her hand, to the faux rose stem. She can't help but read it once more, and marvel at how no matter how many times she sees those words, every time is like the first time – she'll lose her breath, forget momentarily how to breathe, and it will be as if nothing else in the world matters anymore.

A boy once gave to the one dearest to him, a dozen perfect, beautiful red roses.

Eleven were real, and just a single one was fake.

He wrote eight words upon a small piece of paper, pouring into a simple little sentence all the feelings he was afraid of expressing aloud, and placed it amongst the deep crimson petals of the divinely exquisite flowers.

Others would wonder how something so trivial could explain the significance behind this strange gesture.

It was because those perfect roses reminded him of how beautiful she was, and how beautiful she made the world, and because there was so much he wanted to tell her, yet so little he could say.

It isn't how much he has said, but what he is saying.

Shinku picks up the small fold of paper and tucks it safely into a fold in the corner of her case, where she'll never lose it. When the other roses eventually fade away, she'll take the fake rose too; the rose that blooms eternally, and keep both it and Jun's words close to her heart forever.

She wondered why.

Eleven were real, a single one was fake.

And he told her,

I'll love you until the last one dies.


I think this one was a bit shorter than the others. Hope you enjoyed it anyways~! Thank you so much everyone for reading, I really appreciate your time! :)