Chapter Text
Mark shoved his hands in his pocket, trying to act as natural as he could muster before taking one out to reach for the door handle, swinging the door open and entering the small shop. The inside of the flower shop smelled of light perfume and a bit of citrus, but that was normal. Each week he entered it would always smell the same. It was a pleasant feeling, the warmth of the sunlight seeping through the glass windows on his skin, the cool summer breeze that tossed his hair once he excited the shop. Yes, it was all quite nice.
Perhaps the young boy would’ve had a clearer conscious if it wasn’t for the fact that he was intending on stealing flowers from the shop. But when did he ever have a conscious in the first place? After all, he had been doing such crimes for the past few months. By now, he knew the store owner by name (a delightful old woman from Hong Kong), but he still couldn’t shake off the strange addiction he had. It was a blessing and a curse, it seemed.
Hearing the small jingle of the bell that signified when a customer entered the shop, Mark was surprised that no one had called out from the back storeroom to greet him. From the past few weeks, a store worker or another one of the regulars would come to greet Mark, chatting to him about the weather or offering to explain the significance of the edelweiss flower. Of course, Mark would decline, but he still grinned from ear to ear when they suggested it to him.
Strolling through the empty store, Mark leaned down in one of the aisles to pick up a nice, pre-arranged bouquet of white tiger lilies and other similarly coloured flowers. With a solemn smile, Mark picked it up. If he thought hard enough, he could still envision what his mother had looked like on her wedding day, a blossoming bouquet of the same flowers held in her hand as she was congratulated by her many friends on her marriage. Setting the flowers back into the case where they were being held, Mark shook his head. No- his mother would like to see these flowers. Though he knew she would always disapprove of his stealing, he had been doing it for too long. It didn’t matter what she thought. She deserved it.
Grasping the bouquet and quickly making a break for it, Mark headed towards the door, sure that no one was in the shop at that moment as he hadn’t spotted anyone near the register or in any of the aisles. But, as luck would have it, that wasn’t the case.
“Hey, you! Where are you going?” The deep voice of the mysterious boy that was settled behind the cash register traveled out of Mark’s ears, his hands trembling so hard that he almost dropped the flowers. Turning his head around slowly, Mark took the time to examine the assumed employee. The boy was tall, his height taller than Mark who had always considered himself abnormally tall in Canada. Staring at him strangely, the boy continued. “Are you going to pay for those…?” He said in slightly broken Korean, trying his best to look demanding.
“Oh. Uh…” Mark mumbled, fumbling with his jean pockets in attempts to look like he was searching for his ‘wallet’. “Yeah. Just a second, I think I left my money on my bike. Let me go get it.” He murmured, waving a bit to the boy before heading out the door, bouquet in hand. Yet, it seemed like the mystery boy was smarter than what he had let on. Jumping up from his chair, the boy grabbed the keys on his desk, knocking over a chair in the process before running out the door and locking it behind him.
“Wait! Th-thief!” The boy stuttered over the word, trying his best to properly annunciate the word without it sounding like another. “Pukgai. What are you even doing!” He cursed under his breath, angrily shouting out the clumsy Korean words as Mark peddled away. “What a liar.” The boy groaned before hanging his head as he headed back inside.
Glad that the whole ordeal was finally over, Mark took a quick sigh of relief, though a bit disappointed that a few of the flowers had been partially crushed while he had ran to his bike and quickly peddled down the street. The graveyard was only a few minutes away from the flower shop, so it wouldn’t take long for Mark to finally reach the destination. He hoped his parents were doing well, wherever they were.
Skidding to a stop on his bike, Mark guided the clunky and old piece of metal to the graveyard’s enclosure, leaning it on the metal fence. Tightening his grip on the bouquet, he pushed open the gate that led into the graveyard, taking a deep breath as he felt tears start to well up in his eyes. Ah, this always happened. Each week that he came to the silent place, there would always be some tears shed. He had promised his parents before they had passed that he would become stronger and not cry as much, but it seemed that he had yet to reach such a goal.
Taking his time to walk past the many tombstones that littered the field, Mark came to a stop and kneeled down, placing the bouquet gently at the foot of a large tombstone. Engraved in it were portraits of his mother and father, both smiling like they always did. Willing himself not to cry, Mark bit at the inside of his cheek, the pain working to no avail as tears had already been shed. He missed his parents.
Whispering a small prayer, Mark leapt back on his bike, intent on arriving back to his grandmother’s home before she would notice that Mark wasn’t actually studying for the next Chemistry test on Friday, but rather visiting his parents again, even after she had told him not to. Absentmindedly, Mark closed his eyes for a few seconds to feel the wind move through the gaps in his hands, the crevasses in between his fingers. Forgetting that he was actually on a busy street and would be driving close to the flower shop again, Mark suddenly opened his eyes, shrieking as he almost crashed into a lamp pole, thankfully steering his bike out of the way but hitting his knee onto the metal.
Biting his tongue down as he cursed, Mark took a quick glance as to where he was now. It seemed that he had thankfully landed near the sidewalk where most of the small shops on the street were located, so he didn’t have to worry about getting run over. Looking up from the spot where he sat, all the blood in Mark’s face seemed to drown. Oh, he was in front of the flower shop.
Taking a deep breath and staring into the shop’s window, Mark wasn’t surprised to see the same boy from a few hours before staring right back at him. Scrambling to get up on his feet but wincing as he felt an acute flash of pain travel up his leg, Mark sat back down as the mystery boy mouthed something from inside the shop and ran towards the door. It only took a few seconds before the boy had grabbed Mark up by his collar, somehow propping Mark up so he was now standing (but still held on tightly to his shirt collar).
“It’s you.” The mystery boy stated, taking a good look at Mark who seemed a bit disoriented. “Without the flowers… What a shame.” He mumbled to himself, looking around to see if Mark had dropped the flowers anywhere but was disappointed to only see his bike. “Your crimes better have been worth it. Whatever girl you were trying to give them to better have been happy.” Mystery boy huffed, rolling his eyes. “Now, to tell my mom that you were the one who has been stealing all the flowers! She’s been badgering me for weeks. You don’t understand how severe she gets over stupid flowers…” The boy shuddered, probably imagining not so good memories.
“No- wait! I can explain, please. Don’t tell your mother, I think she’s really cool and I don’t want her to think I’m some kind of petty thief.” Mark pleaded, even though he really was just a petty thief. “I’ll… I’ll show you what I use them for. Please.” Mark knew that if he was taken in, he would have to compensate for all the flowers he had stolen. Too bad that he was poor, living on welfare, and had already lost count of the amount of bouquets and single stems he had stolen over the course of the few months he had begun stealing.
Giving the proposal a few thoughts of consideration, the mystery boy shrugged. “Why not. She better be pretty though. I’d hate to see my mom’s handiwork go to waste.” The boy said, the word ‘waste’ accented so that the last syllable seemed to linger on the tip of his tongue. Mark liked the boy’s accent. It reminded him of his first time in Korea.
Sighing with defeat, Mark held the leg which he had accidentally slammed into the pole. Limping to his bicycle, he gestured for the boy to sit on the back. “Come on. We don’t have all day.” Mark commented, pushing back thoughts of his grandmother screaming at him yet again into the back of his mind. Slowly but surely, the boy hopped onto the back of the bicycle, uncomfortably squirming around before finding a comfortable place to place his legs. “Wait, I don’t even know your name. What is it?” Mark questioned, thinking that if he made friends with the boy, perhaps he would let him off a bit easier.
“Hah! Why should I tell you? Now hurry up and peddle, Mark.” The boy snickered, his throat catching on the ‘r’ sound in his name. “My mom talks about you a lot, you know. Too bad you’re just a stupid thief.” Mystery boy threw out, the tips of Mark’s ears starting to redden. “It’s Yukhei. I would be surprised if a Korean like you could pronounce it though. People at school just call me Lucas. Please don’t call me that.”
Without missing a beat, Mark began to peddle in the wrong direction. “Yeah, okay, Lucas. Whatever you say.” And with those words, it seemed like the start of a new relationship had begun to bloom.