Flowers From Above

Chapter Two

I remember being little, at least four. It was a warm day in the middle of August and the feel of the sun's rays planted themselves onto my skin through my striped T-shirt and dungaree shorts. We were all out in the garden, my mother, father and Takahiro.

My parents did the gardening, mother liked her sweet roses and father would help her plant them.

I was in-between my brother's legs sat folding one of the many scattered coloured paper that lay on the grass surrounding us. He taught me how to fold them, guiding me and finally I got it right in the end.

"I knew you could do it Misaki" He told me softly.

My brother grinned with delight when he leant down closer hovering over my shoulder. He cupped his hands under my own causing them to part wider so the small sky blue paper crane would appear and spread out it's fine wings.

"What does it do?" I asked.

"Nothing"

"Nothing..." I repeated sounding mostly disappointed.

"But you see Misaki the paper crane is believed to be a symbol of long-life as some people have said the crane will live to 1,000 years." He spoke.

"The crane will always protect you Misaki."

But as usual my brother was wrong.

The day of my death had been like most days, completely ordinary. I attended my classes at Mitsuhashi University that my brother was paying for. Since he was taking care of me after our parents had died, Takahiro never got the chance to go there and so I fulfilled his place.

In all honestly I had never really knew what I wanted to be. Though I took up the subjects Economics, Literature and English. As a child I wanted to be involved with something I loved and that was manga.

Growing up I was literally obsessed with manga, it was something I spent all my pocket money onto. When I was too young for a job I'd help our older neighbours to with their garden to earn money planting all sorts of unique flowers. Lotus, Magnolia, Spider Lilies, Zinnias and custard yellow daffodils.

The Baby Romantica were my personal favourite I used to enjoy admiring their velvet petals with their orange and pink tinted gradient.

But I remember they would never purchase the perfumed red roses my mother used to plant.

As I had been dating Usami Akihiko somehow over time I had gotten involved with the company myself.

I'd met his editor Eiri Aikawa who and still is a beautiful woman. I watch over her as well, she never seemed to change even after my death. Now mellowing with age with a husband and a daughter.

If I could I'd still thank her over again and again for getting me a work placement at Marukawa Publishing. The job was only part-time but it did give me a small sense of direction in my short life as a student. I was being spoilt by Akihiko and my older brother still saw me as that four year old he'd made origami with in the garden all those years ago. I suppose I didn't know how lucky I was at the time.

Other than my job at the store, at Marukawa I didn't actually get to work with manga as I had liked to. Instead I was assigned to offer people in different departments soft drinks, sort out the unopened mail in the post room and give them out.

The work wasn't difficult of course as Aikawa would sneak boxes of cookies and cream puffs into my bag when I wasn't around. But I was just incredibly happy I got to work in a place where I knew my favourite manga was being produced and that was "The Kan".

That morning after literature class I hadn't been in the best mood already from my earlier encounter with Akihiko. Literature just made it worse, the teacher I had always seemed to have an itch he could never scratch away.

He was always grouchy, he even threw chalk and pens at students who couldn't keep awake or text. Now I can see why, it was probably difficult to deal with our class. But back then in a teenage frame of mind I was just like everyone else and I saw, named him "The Demon Kamijou."

Now in heaven I feel low for thinking about him that way. A week after my death I recently found out that Akihiko and my literature Professor had been childhood friends.

That's the thing about my heaven I can recall a memory and re-watch it as many times as I want. I can do the same to memories of my loved ones. Watch them, the past, but never the future. You always just have to keep on going.

I've seen the recollection of their past experiences together. I never knew until I saw that my professor had been my old lover's first love. And I never knew that my first love broke the heart of the man who intimidated others.

But eventually that same man who put a lock on his heart and stopped believing in love found it anyway with a noble Doctor.

After class I realized that I was free for a couple of hours so I spent that time hanging around with Sumi. We headed into the canteen for a while, it was typical of him to make me laugh so much when I didn't want to. I could never seem to stay in a bad mood when he was around.

"I told you I could crack a smile on your face," He chuckled arrogantly.

I balled my eyes at his sufficient self while huffing at his response but we fell into another storm of splutters and giggles.

Then suddenly my phone began to vibrate so I picked it out the pocket of my hoodie and glanced at the name it read.

I felt myself become flustered.

"Text hm? Let me guess," Sumi chirped waving the spoon from his latte around in wonder. "Usami-san?"

However it wasn't but I never told Sumi that as I couldn't have him getting the wrong idea. Instead I just grinned shyly and nodded along.

"Y-Yeah" I squeaked.

"Man, he doesn't even leave you alone during school hours."

"No... But t-that's Usagi-san for you" I groaned.

Sumi took hold of his empty latte cup and I noticed he started to gather together his bag too then throwing it s strap around himself.

"I've got to get going now, I have English" He announced. "Call me later okay?"

"Sure" I said with a wave.

There was no later.

As my day went on so did my phone with the continuous amount of texts I was receiving all from the same person. I answered them as best as I could and in the end I granted their wish by giving in to them.

After my classes ended I scampered out into the grounds only this time there was no sign of a red sports car pulled up. I had specifically told Akihiko not to pick me up any more, I found it embarrassing when everybody snickered and whispered when they saw it's foreign form.

I was still angry at Akihiko, it was not as if I always needed him around.

And so I text the person back to confirm that I was heading over after all.

Thank you so much for the last reviews they were lovely!

I know I seem to be writing up chapters very quickly, but I'm enjoying all the free time off this summer before leaving for my holiday for two weeks on the 22nd of August. Also I might be working full time come end of August/September so I don't know if I'll be updating as much.

Please tell me that you think as usual I'd love to know and I have you've enjoyed this chapter.

Poor Misa-kun... I wonder who the killer could be?

Tah,

Teabags