Chương 1: Start Reading

The Yamanaka Flower Shop sat quiet in the late afternoon.

"Ino! Watch the shop for me—I'll be back soon." Her mother stood in the doorway, bag in hand, already half out the door. Her voice carried the easy authority of someone who expected to be obeyed.

"But Mom, I was going out too." A small girl came running from the back room—four, maybe five years old, dressed in a cream sleeveless top and a pale lavender skirt, a light blue hairclip pinned in her short golden hair. She skidded to a stop beside her mother and looked up with barely-concealed urgency.

"I made plans. With a friend."

"Dad's working, and I just need to pop over to Aunt Yoshino's. I won't be long." Her mother crouched down and ruffled her hair with a warm smile.

"Be good, okay?"

"But I promised —" Her mother studied her for a moment—the carefully chosen outfit, the slight pout—and her expression softened with understanding.

"Thirty minutes." She held up three fingers.

"I'll be back in thirty minutes. Deal?" Ino wavered. Then she let out a small, defeated sigh.

"... Fine."

"That's my girl." Another ruffle of the hair, and her mother stood.

"Back soon!"

"You have to come back fast!" Ino called after her retreating figure. No answer. The door swung shut. Ino turned back to the empty shop. She dragged a stool over behind the counter, climbed up, and flopped forward onto the glass surface, chin resting on her folded arms, staring at the door.

"Sakura's going to think I stood her up." She exhaled slowly.

"Sorry, Sakura."...... Time passed. The flowers sat fragrant and still in their arrangements. Outside, the street went about its business. Then a shadow appeared in the doorway.

"Welcome to the Yamanaka Flower Shop." Ino straightened up automatically.

"How can I—" She stopped. The boy standing at the entrance looked about her age. He wore a plain black yukata, and his dark hair fell straight to his shoulders, ink-black and perfectly still. He didn't move, didn't speak—just stood there with his hands at his sides, taking in the shop with calm, grey-tinged eyes. He's… Ino blinked. Really pretty. She slid down from the stool and came around the counter to meet him.

Up close, his features were fine and pale, with an almost cool beauty to them—like something carved rather than grown. But those dark eyes held a flatness that gave her pause.

"Um. What are you looking for?" she asked.

"Carnations." His voice was quiet. Direct.

"For your mom?" she tried.

"Yes." Ino went back behind the counter and climbed up to reach the display shelf, pulling down three bundled arrangements—pink, red, and yellow. She laid them out on the counter between them.

"These are the three we have. Pink means wishing her beauty and youth. Red is for health and long life. Yellow is for admiration—like saying thank you for everything." She tilted her head.

"Is it her birthday?" He shook his head.

"Do you have white?"

"White?" Ino hesitated.

"White carnations aren't really… a gift kind of flower." He shook his head again—not arguing, just certain.

"One white bunch. Please." She looked at him. At the stillness in his face. Something clicked quietly into place, and she swallowed the rest of what she'd been about to say.

"One moment." She put the other bunches back and reached for the white carnations kept toward the back of the display. When she lifted them down, their scent drifted up—clean and faint, the petals translucent as thin paper, each one layered soft and precise around the hidden center. She set them on the counter.

"Two hundred ryo." He reached into his yukata and produced the coins without comment. Ino counted them, and as she did, she found herself studying his face again. She'd never seen him around the village before. With a face like that, she would have remembered. He picked up the flowers and turned to leave.

"Wait—" He paused. Looked back at her, puzzled.

"Ino." She pointed to herself.

"Yamanaka Ino. That's my name." A beat of silence.

"... Shin Takami." Shin.

"We'll see each other again," she called after him as he stepped out into the street. He didn't answer. Ino stood in the doorway and watched him go, the white carnations clutched at his side. He looks a little like Sasuke, she thought absently. That same kind of pretty. She was still standing there when her mother's familiar silhouette appeared at the end of the street.

"Ino! Back in thirty, just like I promised." Her mother smiled as she approached, reaching out to pat her head.

"Were there any customers?" Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"Mom…" Ino said slowly.

"Mm?"

"Someone just bought a white carnation." Her mother paused. Looked at her.

"White ones are so beautiful," Ino said.

"Why do they have to mean that?" Her mother was quiet for a moment—piecing it together. Then she crouched down and met Ino's eyes, her voice gentle.

"There's a lot of sadness in this world, sweetheart. We can't undo what's already happened." She tucked a strand of gold hair behind Ino's ear.

"But if you ever run into that boy again—be kind to him, okay? Sometimes that's all anyone needs."

"Does he… need my help?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But kindness has a way of coming back around." Her mother smiled.

"Now—didn't you say you had plans with Sakura?"

"... Sakura!" Ino was already running. The Memorial Stone stood at the edge of the forest, a great diamond-shaped slab of dark rock etched with names that seemed to go on forever. Shin stood before it alone. He was small against it—barely reaching a third of its height. His hands were pressed together, eyes closed, posture still. At the base of the stone, the white carnations lay in a careful bundle. Six years ago, a massive fox with nine tails had torn through the village like a natural disaster.

His parents, both shinobi, had rushed toward the chaos like everyone else. He'd been a newborn then. His last memory of his mother was her arms around him—the warmth of them, the trembling—and then she'd passed him to a stranger and run toward the screaming. Neither of his parents came home. Life is so fragile here, Shin thought. The thought didn't come with grief anymore. Just clarity. He opened his eyes. Let his hands fall. What a miserable world. He turned to leave—and stopped.

A man was walking toward him down the path. Silver hair. A black mask covering the lower half of his face. His left eye was shut, and above it, a long vertical scar cut down through the lid. He moved with the unhurried steadiness of someone who had walked hard roads for a long time, a bundle of white chrysanthemums cradled in one arm. His visible eye briefly noted Shin. Then he looked away, calm and unsurprised, and kept walking. Shin stepped aside and let him pass without a word.

Two people visiting the dead didn't owe each other anything. The man stopped in front of the Memorial Stone. His gaze drifted down to the white carnations already resting at its base, and for just a moment, something moved behind his eye—a flicker of something that wasn't quite pain, but lived close to it.

"So many unfortunate people," he murmured to no one. Right, Sensei? A warm breeze moved through the grass, and the cosmos flowers nodded with it, their pink petals catching the light. Sakura sat in the middle of the field, knees pulled up, watching them sway. She hadn't meant to end up here. She'd just been early, and waiting, and somehow her feet had carried her to this patch of wildflowers at the edge of the training grounds. Next to the cosmos, almost hidden, grew a cluster of wild orchids. Quiet things.

Easy to miss.

"Hey. Look who it is. You're actually getting kind of cute, forehead girl." The voice came from behind her—a honeyed, mocking drawl. Sakura's stomach dropped before she'd even finished turning around. Three girls stood there, all older by a couple of years. The one in the middle had long purple hair and wore her confidence like a weapon. Ami.

"I—" Sakura started.

"You've been looking awfully pleased with yourself lately." Ami stepped forward, tilting her head.

"What's that?" She'd noticed the dark red ribbon in Sakura's hair. Sakura's hands flew up to cover it.

"Nothing. It's nothing."

"Move your hands." Ami's fingers were quicker. The ribbon came free in one smooth pull, and Sakura let out a startled, helpless sound—" No—" Without the ribbon, her hair fell loose across her face, the long bangs settling over her wide forehead. Ami turned the strip of cloth over in her hands, examining it with exaggerated curiosity.

"Huh. Just a ribbon."

"Please give it back," Sakura said quietly. Her voice didn't shake. She was proud of that, at least.

"She's gonna cry," one of Ami's friends murmured.

"That's from Ino," Sakura added, barely above a whisper. Ami ignored her. She held the ribbon up toward her friends with a grin.

"How do you think I'd look in it?"

"Way better than her."

"Right?" Ami started lifting it toward her own head—"You might want to give that back." A new voice. Casual. Almost lazy. Ami looked up—and then something shot past her face and landed in her mouth. She stumbled back, one of her friends catching her arm as she landed hard on the grass, spitting frantically. Three small purple flowers dropped from her lips into the dirt. Standing a short distance away, twirling a fourth flower between her fingers, was a girl with short golden hair and bright blue eyes.

She was smiling.

"Oops," said Ino.

"I saw something that looked like a very wide flower pot and just had to add some decoration. My bad." Ami scrambled upright, face red.

"Yamanaka—!"

"Aconite's a funny plant," Ino said conversationally, bringing the flower up to examine it.

"It's a ninja plant, actually—very useful, medicinally speaking. The root especially. Extremely toxic." She tilted her head.

"I hope you didn't swallow any." The color drained from Ami's face.

"What—""You should probably rinse your mouth." Ino said it with the tone of someone offering helpful advice. The ribbon hit the ground a second later. Ami and her two friends were already moving, their footsteps fast and getting faster, not looking back. Ino waited until they'd disappeared around the corner before bursting out laughing.

"Ha! Amateurs." She clutched her side.

"The flowers are completely fine, by the way—it's only the root you have to worry about. But they didn't need to know that." She flashed a grin at Sakura, who was still staring. She's incredible, Sakura thought. Ino knew everything. She was pretty and bright and always seemed to land on her feet, and people liked her—they naturally liked her—and standing next to someone like that made Sakura feel like something that had been left in a corner and forgotten. The brightness dimmed a little inside her.

Ino had already crossed the field to where the ribbon had fallen. She picked it up, brushed the grass off it carefully, and came to stand behind Sakura. Gentle hands gathered her hair back and tied the ribbon into place.

"Sorry I was late," Ino said, moving around to sit beside her.

"I got held up at the shop."

"It's okay." Sakura shook her head.

"You're always doing things like this for me."

"Hey, what are friends for." Ino waved it off. Then her eyes lit up.

"Oh! I was going to teach you flower arranging today, wasn't I."

"You were."

"Okay. Let's start by picking." Ino jumped to her feet, dusting off her skirt.

"Go find something you like." Sakura looked around. She moved carefully through the field, bending here and there—and came back a few minutes later with a small handful of wild orchids. Ino looked at them. Looked at Sakura.

"... These won't work," she said, not unkindly.

"I'm sorry." Sakura looked down.

"I don't really know flowers."

"Your name literally means cherry blossom."

"I know." Ino pressed her lips together to keep from smiling.

"Okay. Here's the secret." She held up one finger.

"Flower arranging is simple when you get the logic: you pick one main flower—your centerpiece—and everything else just frames it. The supporting flowers can't outshine the lead. They're there to lift it." She gestured toward the orchids in Sakura's hands.

"These are beautiful, but they don't anchor. They're supporting flowers."

"Oh."

"Like—" Ino turned, scanning the field, and then pointed.

"Like over there. See? The cosmos and the wild orchids growing next to each other." Sakura followed her gaze.

"If you use the cosmos as your main flower, the orchids become the accent. They frame it." Ino spoke with the easy confidence of someone who'd grown up surrounded by this.

"Cosmos is basically the sakura of autumn—it's the showiest thing in a fall field. And it's versatile too. It harmonizes with everything." She glanced at Sakura—who hadn't moved.

"Sakura? You listening?" Sakura sank slowly to her knees in the grass, still looking at the flowers. After a moment, she turned back to stare at the orchids in her hands.

"If you're the cosmos," she said quietly, "then I'm the orchid." Ino went still.

"I'm just..." Sakura's voice was careful, like she was holding it together.

"I'm always just the background part." A pause. Ino sat down beside her. She tilted her head back and looked at the sky, tapping one finger against her chin while she thought.

"Okay, but—" she started.

"You're right, actually," Sakura said before she could finish.

"That's not what I—" Ino turned to her." You're not even a flower yet." Sakura blinked.

"You're a bud." Ino's voice was matter-of-fact, not cruel.

"You haven't opened. You can't call a bud a background flower—it hasn't decided what it's going to be." Sakura said nothing.

"Sakura." Ino's tone softened a fraction.

"Why do you think I gave you that ribbon?"

"... I don't know." Ino reached out and touched the petals of one of the unopened cosmos buds nearby, her fingers careful.

"Because a flower that closes before it ever blooms—" she said quietly, "—is a waste." The breeze moved through the field. It shifted Ino's golden hair across her face.

"Who knows," she added, almost to herself.

"Maybe when you finally open up..." She glanced at Sakura from the corner of her eye.

"... you'll be prettier than the cosmos." Sakura's face went pink. She looked away quickly, at the grass, at her hands, anywhere. The wind kept blowing. The cosmos swayed. And next to them, slowly, the wild orchids nodded too.