Chapter Text
“You know, I never really gave a lot of thought to trees,” Gaako said, legs swinging as she sat on a bench. “But I think I like this one.”
Eiko had to agree. The massive thing had sprouted out of the side of the school -- rumor had it a student had mischievously poured way too much magic into an exercise in Suzy’s class. Eiko wondered idly who it could have been. The misfit class had been in there at the time, and Iruma’s classmates had plenty of options for the troublemaker.
Not Asmodeus, she figured. Now that they’d spoken a few times, she knew him to be a demon of precise manners (and impeccable taste, she had to admit). But that still left them with a lot of options. She didn’t think it looked strange enough to be Clara, nor martial enough for Sabnock. And Iruma wouldn’t do something like that. Her money was on the short blonde one. Seemed he treated everything as a game.
Well, whatever. The tree itself was lovely. Somehow, even just sitting beneath it, letting the petals flutter to the ground around them, made her feel a little more peaceful.
Of course, then her mind wandered to sitting here with Iruma, maybe on a day.. a daaay…. an outing together. She could feel a quick flush run across her cheeks at the thought. They’d sit on a bench, and under the pretense of pointing out a particularly pretty branch, he’d scoot a little closer to her. Their legs would touch, accidentally at first, and he’d lean into her, head near hers to make sure the particular flowers were in her line of sight. But who could concentrate on flowers when someone like him was so close! And she’d turn to ask him something, but their faces would be just inches apart. And instead of a question she’d … she’d…
“Eiko, seriously. You OK?”
Her eyes popped open to find Gaako’s face, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Are the flowers making you feel weird?” she asked with genuine concern. “I don’t think the teachers would let us sit out here if they were poisonous, but you look a little feverish.”
Letting out an undignified squeak, Eiko sat up ramrod-straight, pressing her hands into her knees. “No! No, I’m fine! Totally fine!”
Gaako's eyes narrowed as she stared at Eiko for another long few seconds. She leaned closer. Her draconic features made the scrutiny feel somehow even more intense.
"Uh... what?" Eiko said, laughing nervously. "Do I have something in my hair? or-"
"Again?" Gaako asked.
"What do you mean again?"
"I mean you're daydreaming about that boy again, aren't you?"
"What? No..."
Gaako let out a long, drawn-out sight. "Eiko. I tell you this as your friend and as a person who doesn't want to see you hurt. You need to just talk to him. Please. If you don't, you're just going to get hurt."
"How could not talking to him hurt me?" Eiko asked, puzzled.
"Because I am going to hurt you," Gaako said with pleasant sincerity. "I will tie you up and drag you to see him and tell him the way you sigh when you're thinking about him, and about the way you daydream being on dates with him-"
"Gaako!"
"-and about those stories you were telling me about-"
"You wouldn't!" Eiko gasped, scandalized. "I told you that in confidence and ... and..." As she finally got angry about it a little bit, she could see the hard expression in her friend's face crack and soften until Gaako started laughing. "Ah. You wouldn't."
"Of course not," Gaako said. "But I will absolutely do the first two if you can't grow the horns to do it yourself. This is your last warning."
Eiko waved her off. "Fine, fine, I understand." Seeking to change the subject, she craned her neck and looked at the massive, flowering tree once more. "Didn't they say in mythical creatures class that humans grow and sell flowers kind of like demons do? I wonder what human flowers would look like."
"Maybe they'd try to eat people?" Gaako suggested.
"But some demon flowers do that."
"Poison them?"
"That too."
The girls lapsed into thought.
"Well, humans are weak, right?" Gaako asked. "So maybe their flowers are weak too? Like, they're small, and their colors and dull and they die fast."
"So the humans who cultivate them are just struggling to keep these weak things alive? Sounds like the sort of stupid things a human might do."
"I mean, how smart could humans be? If they would be prey animals for us, then they have to be kind of terrible right?"
And she couldn't argue with that.
She didn't mean to write in her notebook that night. She had a ton of homework to do, and the weekend was coming up, so the plan was to start her homework, then round out the night with another book from her aunt.
But when she got home, her brother had several of his friends over and they were playing dragons and the demon king, their epic battles ranging all over the house. She shut herself in the room to get away from being assigned the role of some enemy combatant and chased around herself.
It frustrated her. He should be studying -- his entrance exam wasn't far off. She remembered how hard she'd worked to get accepted. But her mother told her to leave him be for now. So she did.
But she couldn't shut out the noise. It felt impossible to concentrate on torture techniques like this.
Well, there was something that had been stuck in her head all day anyway. So setting aside the schoolbooks, she pulled her notebook from its hiding place and began to write.
"Good morning! Welcome to Flora Fair!"
The blue-haired young man waved an enthusiastic greeting to the customer who had just come in. Then, on seeing who it was, he asked, "Mrs. Lara! The usual?
The old woman made her way to the counter, nodding as she approached. "Yes please, young man. Thank you. I know I can always count on you."
"It's nothing," Irudo said, grinning awkwardly as he started pulling together the woman's order. She came in twice a week, every week, for flowers for her husband. She would place them in an empty vase in front of his picture for a few days, until they dried out, then burn them to send their souls to where he waited in the afterlife.
Eiko admittedly had no idea what the burial and mourning rituals of humans might actually entail, but she imagined them as being a bit barbaric, so she supposed burning flowers made as much sense as anything.
Irudo had been the one who figured out the perfect bouquet for her needs -- a base of yellow hopeflowers to symbolize her excitement at eventually reuniting with him, a few sprays of tiny white whiffleblooms which meant patience, so he wouldn't expect her to rejoin him too soon and faded red and orange bloofs -- the prettiest flowers in the shop, and ones that symbolized their eternal bonds.
As he pulled the bouquet together, the door chimed again. "Be with you in just a moment," he called to the newcomer, focusing on his work.
After a few more minutes making sure the flowers looked perfect, he sold Mrs. Lara her boquet, gave her her change and bid her a good day. Once that was done, he finally looked to the newcomer. "And how can I-"
He stopped. Did that woman have ... horns? As though realizing his thought process, the girl made a startled little noise and ducker her head. Irudo blinked.
The horns were gone. He must have imagined it.
Clearing his throat, he tried again. "How can I help you?"
The young woman smiled shyly. She had cute blonde hair and wore fashionable clothing that complemented her complexion and figure. She might be the prettiest person to walk in here all week. "I ... um ... I have a flower and it's dying, I think," she said, pulling her hands out from behind her back. "And I was wondering if you-"
His attention went to the flower, and he couldn't help but gasp. The flower had a dark purple stem and leaves that looked almost black. But it wasn't that that caught his attention. It was the blooms.
The potted plant had about half a dozen blooms dotting the bush, each one about the size of his fist. They all sported petals that faded from a brilliant orange to a deep bloody crimson as you went from the tip of each to the center. The pollen shimmered an otherworldly purple. The sheer brilliance of the colors made it look like every other blossom in this whole store had been left out in the sun for a week so its color could fade and dull.
"Where did you get this?" he asked, taking the plant from her and setting it on the counter between them. If she hadn't mentioned it wasn't doing well he might have missed it, but now that he was looking for the signs, he could see them -- the way the leaves drooped, the fact that even on the freshest blossom some of the petals had already curled and died.
"My mother helped me plant them in my back yard when I moved to ... here," she said, sounding nervous.
"So there are others?" he asked, trying to keep his tone businesslike and his eyes on the flower. He was worried about it, of course. The poor thing was definitely doing poorly. But so was the young woman who'd brought it in. She looked worried -- more than one normally would for a plant, even one given to them by a family member. Something else was going on. She just looked so sad, and he found he really wanted to help her out. He wanted to see her happy.
She nodded in answer to his question, still looking nervous. So he asked, "Could I come by after work to see where they're being kept? It's clear they're missing some sort of thing they need, but it might be easier to tell what if I see where they're growing."
She looked startled at this suggestion. "Um... yes," she said, blushing adorably. "That would be fine. If it's only for a little while."
"Great! I'm Irudo, by the way."
"I'm Beeko."
She gave him the address and lingered a little while longer, looking at even the most mundane flowers with an unusual attentiveness. Then she left, and he waited impatiently for his shift to be over.
At last, near sunset, he reached the address she'd given him. It was an adorable little one-story home with a tall stone wall around the backyard and an unusual purple and black paint scheme, at odds with her neighbors. He guessed she must be onto colorful things instead of the bland pale yellows and light blues. It would explain the flower.
She answered on the second knock, as though she'd been waiting just on the other side of the door for him to arrive. "Hi!" She said, blushing again. "And thank you for coming. Please, this way."
She led him through the central hallway and across the living room to a door that led to the back yard. As he followed her, he saw very few furnishings, and most of what was in the area lay in boxes and crates.
"You just moved here?" he asked as she ushered him into the backyard.
"Oh! Yes."
"Was it a long trip?"
"Quite long. Felt like I was coming from a whole other realm," she admitted as they walked into the back yard.
Where most people had an expanse of grass, maybe with a couple flower beds and a grill or something, this woman had a veritable jungle. He hadn't seen the trees from the front yard, but from back here, they shaded at least half of the yard. Their leaves were an unusual shape, something he never saw before. Maybe from the other side of Human World.
And the flowers.
Irudo liked flowers. They looked beautiful and smelled pleasant most of the time. But never in his life had he seen such gorgeous blooms. Such brilliant colors. The white ones were like snow, the blues like perfect summer skies or deep seas, the red ones like the hearts of flames.
"Wow," he said before he could help himself.
"You like it?" she asked tentatively.
"Of course," he said, stopping by a trellis covered with glittering golden flowers. "Who wouldn't?"
"I just wasn't sure people here would -- oh, look out!"
He heard running footsteps and a moment later something slammed into him from the right, shoving him to the side. He fell heavily into another of the flowering bushes. Wincing, he looked up -- and found Beeko on top of him, looking at something to her right.
"Stop it!" she said in a much more commanding voice. "You sit! This is a guest."
A dog? he wondered as she looked down, realized what she'd done and scrambled off before helping him up. Not that he'd minded. It seemed she'd done it to save him, and she wasn't that heavy or anything. As he got to his feet, he glanced over.
And saw a flower snapping at him, its pitcher-like mouth lined with teeth. Beeko stood between it and him, pointing away. After a long while, it turned and somehow slunk off into the garden, even though it didn't have feet or anything.
"What kind of flower is that?" he asked. "I've never seen anything like it!"
She whirled on him with the guilty expression of a child caught with their hand in the treat jar. "Um... um..."
It seemed illogical, but in that moment he put together the most surprising suspicion he could have come up with. The plants he'd never seen, the strange way she seemed to be trying to hide the plant when she'd carried it to her store, even the horns he thought he'd seen.
"You're REALLY not from around here, huh?" he asked.
"Oh no!" she said, covering her mouth with her hands. "I mean, what? I am from Human World! From ... West ... Human world. Near the mountains."
"You're a demon, aren't you?"
Her eyes widened. "How did you know?"
He looked around at the garden. "I mean, this isn't REALLY a normal garden. You knew that right? You wanted as few people to see the flowers as possible. Because you knew they'd get suspicious. And do you have horns?"
"You DID see!" she sounded scandalized.
"Just a little. I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. It's my fault." she slumped. "So, now what? Did you tell? Are the human police going to come and put me in a cage?"
"No, no, I just figured it out. I figure we can look at the plants still, if you want. I'd still like to help."
She peeked at him. "You don't think it's ... weird?"
"What?" He smiled at her. "No! I was a little surprised. But you're nice, and you care about your plants and you got a gift from your mom. You seem pretty much like me. So I think it's cool."
"Cool?"
"It means like ... like I like you."
As her face went a truly startling shade of red, he realized how that actually sounded. "I mean ... I like that I got to know you," he amended. "You seem like an interesting person to know, and I'm looking forward to it." He reached out and took her by one hand. She seemed startled by the contact, and he had to admit his heart gave an extra little beast as their palms connected. "Come on. Can you show me the rest of your garden?"
He tried to ignore the warmth that filled his body as she looked at their clasped hands, then nodded and smiled the prettiest smile he thought he'd ever seen.
She set her pen down and looked at her own hand. Little bits of ink stained her fingers, but she imagined Iruma's hand in hers. Demons ran a range of temperatures. Would his skin be warm like hers? Hot like a fever? Cool?
Maybe Gaako was right. She needed to talk to him.