Two days had passed since the new florist met the librarian working at The Muses' Inspiration. No matter how cliché it sounded and no matter how frustrated she was with herself for being such a walking stereotype, Honoka couldn't stop thinking about her gemstone. From the first word she spoke to the last second spent in this bookshop – and even after that because she couldn't keep herself from glancing at her from the corner of her eye as she left - their encounter was ever present in her mind. She still didn't know how to process those feelings, she was so attracted to her, it was a first for her. Honoka always had doubts about her sexuality, sure, she knew she could appreciate the female body, but she never considered doing anything with a girl – except this one time where she had to kiss a girl friend during a truth or dare in middle school. It was fun.
Despite those thoughts, Honoka still managed to work efficiently in her shop, and the fact that her customers were all so nice to her helped a lot. One of them was so nice that he even hit on her, but Honoka couldn't have been less receptive.
The two days after their encounter were, as Honoka liked to call them, "chill days". No rush, she had time to sort the coins and bills in her little cash desk, she could even have some casual conversations with her customers without worrying about people impatiently waiting behind said customer. She enjoyed these moments, striking conversations with strangers was her forte, for she always was social and outgoing and had a tremendous confidence in herself. She knew all of that, she was well-aware of it, which is why she couldn't for the life of her figure out what exactly in Maki made her feel so... not in control.
During those "chill days", Honoka had taken the habit of starting her lunch break five minutes after the actual lunch break time, there was no urgency and she wasn't necessarily tired, so she could wait five or even ten minutes just in case another client was to show up. This day, after ten minutes had passed, she went to the small room where her lunch was, which simply consisted of a chicken sandwich, water, and orange juice. Her flower shop had chill days but she had chill weeks, she could go through a whole week with only sandwiches and drinks, sometimes she just didn't want to bother with cooking, except when it was for someone who is important to her.
As Honoka was about to sit down and enjoy her meal, she heard the distinctive sound of a knock on her glass door. Three knocks to be exact. She thought customers would know that it was lunch time and she wasn't expecting anyone so that surprised her, and the word "surprised" wasn't even close to describe how she felt when she laid her eyes on Maki behind the glass door. It wasn't as obvious as her stiff shoulders as she made her way to the door to welcome the ruby-haired woman, but Honoka froze a second and a half. In this short amount of time, she thought about why she decided to come during her lunch break, how she could be able to handle her presence, and why she was frozen for a second and a half in front of the glass door with Maki's blinking eyes behind it. Honoka internally shook her head and hurried herself to open the unlocked door.
"Hi, welcome to my shop," she beamed, suddenly forgetting about the shock she had earlier.
"Ah, it was open," she muttered, following the opening door from the corner of her eye. "Hi, Honoka!" She beamed back, refocusing her attention on the owner of this flower shop.
"Come on in," she said, sliding to the side of the door so Maki could cross the threshold of the shop, "make yourself at home."
"Thank you," Maki said as she walked in, with a lopsided smile lighting up her face as she looked around the shop with bemused sparkling eyes, visibly marvelled by the amount of beautiful flowers this shop had.
"At first glance, I'm assuming you like my shop?" Honoka rhetorically asked, with a tint of smug in her innocent smile.
"I love it, no wonder why you said "make yourself at home", it really feels like home," she sighed in delight. Her eyes got wider as she took a deep breath through her nose, whirling her hands towards it. "It even smells like home!" She exhaled. "No, I take that back, it doesn't smell like home... it smells home. Period."
Watching Maki unravel her train of thoughts was entertaining, her facial expressions and overall gesture were priceless. She seemed carefree, and Honoka loved it. Hot, intelligent and fun, she's really making it hard for me here.
"I like your way of thinking, I like it a lot," she said, slightly tilting her head to the right, offering her a smile of approval. "Oh!" She blurted out of the blue, "you must be hungry, it's lunch break after all! We can go in the room at the back and eat together," she suggested, pointing at the room behind her with her thumb behind her shoulder.
"Oh, don't worry about me, you can eat all you want, I didn't bring anything to eat anyway," she said, with her ever so present smile.
"No problem, I got you covered." Honoka quickly excused herself and trotted to the room. She felt more confident than before, more like herself and not this walking, talking, overthinking ball of stress. It was probably thanks to Maki's easygoing personality, even though she was still impressed by how beautiful she was, she managed to handle it. She looked through her purse and took out a bento box. She cooked everything herself, even though she had her chicken sandwich, she brought a bento just in case Maki came and didn't have anything to eat, just like herself when they met.
She trotted back out and stretched her arms out to Maki with the bento box in her hands. "Here you go."
Maki seemed irrationally moved by her act of generosity, she had her hand on her mouth and her eyes were opened wide. "You shouldn't-"
"have done that?" She finished. "Of course I had to, you did the same for me last time, it's called a payback," she said, giving her a friendly wink.
Maki bit her lip, she hadn't expected that. As for Honoka, she wondered if she bit her lip because she was hesitating or because of the wink she sent. The thought of it being the second guess drove her crazy, but she managed to keep her cool.
"Okay, I'll take it. Thank you very much, Honoka," she said, grateful. She took the the bento box from Honoka's hands with care, as if something sacred was being touched.
"Alright, let's go eat in the room then," Honoka said, all joyful because Maki accepted her bento box. She had put a lot of work into it after all, it would have been disappointing if she decided not to take it.
"Hum, a-actually," she started, hesitating, "could we eat here? On the floor?" She asked, not really making any eye contact because of how embarrassed she was.
"Eh?"
"Yeah, when you opened the door I saw that there weren't any flowers in that room, so I thought it would be nice to eat here, surrounded by flowers," she suggested, as her complexion turned even redder.
"Oh, sure, no problem, I'm just gonna take my sandwich that's in the mini fridge, I'll be right back."
Honoka went in the room again grabbed her triangle-shaped sandwich. As she was coming back, she wondered if there was a romantic innuendo in what she said, "surrounded by flowers"... I'm probably reading too much into it, just enjoy the moment you have with her. When she stopped daydreaming, the first thing she saw was that Maki sat down, cross-legged. She also noticed that the white tank top Maki was wearing showed a bit of cleavage, and the view she had from above was unreal. We probably have the same measurements, at least in breast size. Her inner self shook her head to get rid of the X-rated thought she just had, stop thinking that way you freaking pervert!
"Hum," she coughed the filthy idea out as she sat down, "I noticed that you're not wearing a yukata today," she remarked, with a slightly high-pitched voice.
"Oh, I don't always wear a yukata," she said, giggling at the idea of wearing a yukata 24 hours a day. Honoka emitted a breathy laugh, knowing that it would be so fun to do it all the time that it would become illegal.
"Yeah, I had a question about that actually. Why do you wear a yukata at work?" Honoka was curious, if she hadn't been so flustered the first time they met, she would definitely have asked her at that time.
Maki pondered over the question, trying to find the right words to express her thoughts. Honoka noticed that she would drag her pinky finger around her lips whenever she was thinking hard about something. "Aesthetic," she whispered.
"Aesthetic?" She echoed.
"Oh, was I thinking out loud again? Anyway, yeah, something like that. A yukata is beautiful and nobody can deny it, so I don't think it should only be worn only on special occasions. If you want to look beautiful, you should be able to without feeling like it's a big deal. I now consider my yukatas as casual clothes, because traditional cloths" she said, finishing her explanation with a lopsided smile.
"Oh, that's interesting!" She exclaimed, stunned by this well-thought-out reasoning. It made so much sense. "Makes me think that I have issues with clothing in my workplace too."
"Do tell," she said, giving her a nod followed by a smile of approval.
"I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but I've always been told that I had to wear clothes that did not reveal much skin for health and safety reasons. I've met a lot of florists who have been told that as well, and they just obeyed. Well, I decided to wear the clothes that I want, for that I use my old school oversized apron," he explained, pointing at her apron behind the little cash desk. "It hides most of my body so people can't exactly know what I'm wearing, which enables me to wear tank tops and crop tops and shorts light t-shirts!"
"This is brilliant!" Maki exclaimed, "you're full of ressources, you're gonna get away with it all the time!"
"I know! I'm pretty proud of myself for thinking it through."
As they were about to talk some more about their respective work, they got violently interrupted by a loud noise, an unpleasant noise, the one they used to hear when they were at school. An alarm clock.
"I'm so sorry," Maki blurted instantly, taking her phone out of her blue jeans pocket and hitting the button. "I couldn't stay for a long time so I set an alarm, because I knew I would have been too distracted to check the time," she said, smiling softly as she stood up.
"That's too bad, I wish you could stay longer," she pouted. It lasted for a couple of seconds, maybe a minute. Yet, despite all of this, she breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly a few seconds later. "I had fun," she said, "I couldn't have spent a better lunch break."
"I had fun too, I'm glad I came today," she replied, not even trying to hide her contentment in her smile. She took another deep breath through her nose, whirling her hands towards it. "I can't get enough of this smell, home."
Honoka looked around and started to think about what this place brought to her, why she loved flowers so much, why she even wanted to be a florist.
"Y'know? You were right earlier, it does smell home" she breathed, "that's why I love working with flowers so much. The smell, the scent, nature, now that is my kind of perfume. From the light vanilla fragrance of a chocolate cosmos to a jasmine that simply smells like calm and... beauty, at nighttime. The sense of smell triggers so many heartwarming memories, they could be from a week ago or even from your childhood, and the specific smell of this specific flower will give rise to this specific memory that you thought was long gone, forgotten. Of course, they can also bring back heart wrenching memories that you wanted to forget, but the scent will bring you to a more peaceful place, an accepting place that will make you embrace this memory, leave you with a bittersweet feeling. This sensation may not be the best, but it's still a good one, if the scent made you sad at the beginning and left you with a bittersweet accepting feeling at the end, you won."
Honoka was about to continue but finally noticed the bemused sparkling eyes contemplating her, the same eyes that had their breath taken away by the diversity and sheer number of flowers this shop contained.
"I-I-I'm sorry," Honoka stuttered, suddently blushing, "it's just, when I talk about my love for flowers, I tend to just talk and talk and talk without stopping, can't help it," she explained . She didn't necessarily want that to happen with her in the room, she was so afraid of how she might feel about this flower obsession. And yet, her bemused sparkling eyes did not fade.
"It's not a problem, please, tell me mo-"
She got cut off by the alarm clock again, she just realized that she hit the snooze button. Now, she seemed to be in a hurry, shoving her belongings in her purse.
"I'm sorry, I really have to go now," she said, hurriedly. "Bye, see you whenever," she said, as she gave one last smiling look to the passionate florist and walked out of the shop.
"Bye, Maki!" She exclaimed, as she waved her hand even though she couldn't see it anymore.
Honoka looked around her flower shop and whispered "thank you" to the flowers. Her passion managed to surprise Maki instead of frighten her. She could always count on her innocent spontaneity. As she walked to the other room, she noticed something in her hand, and she stopped. She stared at it for a few seconds, and smiled. She smiled at the untouched sandwich.
Maki was still thinking about Honoka's spontaneous speech, and as she got closer to her bookshop, she caught sight of a tall black-haired man. She recognized him a few seconds later, it was one of his customers, a high schooler.
"Shinichi-kun," she called, waving her hand at him.
"Ah, Nishikino-san," he said, as she caught up to him. "It's rare for you to be lat- Were you on a date?" He suddenly asked.
The question confused her, she almost choked on her saliva. "N-no, I wasn't. What makes you say that?" She asked, legitimately curious as to why he made this assumption.
"You don't usually wear this kind of clothes, it's not your type of "usual" clothes," he remarked, glancing at her tank top and brown boots.
"Wrong answer, you're reading too much into it. I just decided to dress casually because I was meeting a friend at her flower shop, we ate lunch together, that's all," she said confidently. "By the way, you should go to her flower shop," she suggested, "it's beautiful there, and my friend is lovely and really passionate about her job."
"So lovely and passionate that you even forgot to eat," he sassed, pointing at the bento box peeking out of her purse. "She must be very friendly, I'd looooove to meet her," he purred, looking all smug. Somehow, his smug face wasn't as appealing as Honoka's when she said "At first glance, I'm assuming you like my shop?".
She sighed, but wasn't able to hide her tiny lopsided smile and her red cheeks. "Don't act so clever, Shinichi-kun, I could shrink you with my bare hands if I wanted to," she said, looking down so he couldn't see any more of her red cheeks as she opened the door to the bookshop.
"Aye aye," he replied, still looking arrogant.
"After you."
"Thank you."
As she let him enter the bookshop, Maki gave herself permission to think one more time about her, it calmed her for some reason. After a few seconds, a deep breath and a relaxed smile, she waltzed in.
Honoka, it suits her. "Ka" stands for flower, obviously, it fits perfectly. "Hono" stands for flame, a passionate flame. Today, Honoka's blazing passion woke up in the most beautiful way possible. But it didn't just wake up, it spread. Maki got encircled by it, and she embraces it. Fire is catching, and she is slowly going towards it. Is she doing it willingly? She doesn't know, and it doesn't matter. Let there be fire.
A/N: Second chapter! I have to admit, I struggled with this one, so I don't really know what to think about it. Thank you so much for the reviews on my first chapter, I had doubts about my writing but I've had a good amount of positive reinforcement, which helped me a lot. As you probably guessed it, this is going to be a full story, and not a loose series of drabbles as I implied it last time.
As I said, I did struggle with this one, so some feedback would be really appreciated :)
P.S. As a reviewer mentioned it, Maki is OOC. I'm guessing she wasn't the only to notice it. Don't worry, there's a reason as to why she is like that and it will be addressed in a later chapter.