Chapter Text
The sounds of the city were noisy and familiar. Sometimes they felt overwhelming, but that was easy to push out. The calls of shop employees advertising their goods, the passing conversations of myumons socializing by the street, and the occasional sound of another musician playing for tips by the wall of a building somewhere. Under North Zawa wasn’t the most bustling city, but it was lively all on its own, with its own routines and its own flair and attraction.
Music drowned out the sound of the usual city noises, earbuds stuck carefully in her yellow ears and the latest release from a well known all-girl rock band one of the only things she was capable of hearing at this point. A cat tail—striped yellow and pink—flickered behind her, hands stuck snug inside the twinkle-shaped pockets of her otherwise pink jacket.
This late in the afternoon, Mashima Himeko normally had any assignments she was working on done, unless she had to split it into parts. She was a far cry from a perfect student, but she didn’t like to slack too much, given it resulted in too much work to catch up on later. The number of things she had going on in her life weren’t numerous, but she liked to leave enough freedom to be available when practice came around, whether she wanted to do it herself or one of the other two texted her requesting for practice together.
She still didn’t quite understand Master’s intentions of making her play music with these two when she said numerous times she had no interest in starting a band with them or even getting too close. He still insisted, wanting her to at least humor them in their endeavors. Himeko sighed, eyes drifting up from the concrete below as she strolled.
“Ah!”
Her ears flickered, but she noticed too late. The surprised cry was quickly followed by a hard collision between the back of her shoulder and arm, and whoever was the blind idiot behind her that didn’t watch where they were going. She stumbled, catching herself quickly before she could possibly lose her footing. The other person wasn’t so lucky, as a figure came crashing down onto the sidewalk just ahead of her, the plastic bag in her hand clattering to the ground with whatever contents were inside.
Himeko bit back the impulse to tell them to watch where they were going. It looked like a young woman who had run into her. She wore a green apron over her clothes, a large and fluffy white tail swished behind her, and a pair of white fox ears, pink at the tips like her tail, flickered rapidly before laying back.
“Uuu....oof...I-I’m sorry!” She was already trying to spit out a hurried apology as she tried to pick herself back up immediately. Himeko opened her mouth to say something. Maybe say it was no big deal. Her irritation was gone as quickly as it had come around, seeing how frantic this stranger seemed to be. Accidents happened, anyway, it really wasn’t a big deal. The girl was already swiped the plastic bag and stumbling back onto her feet. Himeko caught sight of a spot of red where it shouldn’t be on the girl’s arm, but she couldn’t really get a word out—the stranger was still trying to apologize.
“I’m so sorry, really! Um, I’m sorry! I wasn’t looking and—I’m already late, oh no...” She quickly turned away from Himeko and rushed away. Himeko realized quietly that her arm had been raised to try and get the girl’s attention, but once she had run around the corner and disappeared from sight, her arm lowered back down to her side. She looked at the ground, spotting something there. A badge clip, with what seemed to be an employee ID within. It must’ve unhooked from the girl’s apron when she hit the ground.
Sighing, Himeko crouched down and picked it up gently, looking it over after brushing the dirt away.
“...Howan...Under...North Flowers?” Himeko glanced at the front, then the back. She stood back up and pocketed it, glancing at the corner the girl disappeared around. A flower shop...?
It was indeed a flower shop. About a mile off, a small shop was nestled comfortably in the middle of various other buildings and little stores, a flowery sign on top proudly proclaiming its title as the flower shop of Under North Zawa. Inside was a young man with striped hair and dressed in a similar green apron, standing behind the checkout counter and chatting with a peer donning a blue and yellow outfit and a trio of similarly colored tail feathers behind him.
The door to the shop abruptly swung open, the little bell on top ringing as it did so.
“I-I’m here!”
“Oi, you’re ten minutes late, Howan! Faa, I thought I was gonna have to take a double shift today!”
“I’m so sorry Hachin! Stella asked me to pick up some supplies before my shift started, but there were a lot of people at the hardware store today!” Howan walked over to the counter, placing the dirtied bag onto it. Hachin looked her over for a minute, frowning.
“You look rough, what happened?”
“I was in such a rush to get here that I wasn’t paying attention...I ran into someone on the way and fell...”
“Oi oi, your arm’s bleedin’ too!” Hachin abruptly reached forward, grabbing Howan’s arm and raising it a bit to reveal the small portion of reddened skin. Howan let out a small, surprised yap as Hachin clicked his tongue. “I’m the one who usually comes to work bruised ‘n beat up, not you.” He glanced at the other boy. “I’ll be out in a few, Yasu.”
Yasu nodded. “I’ll be outside then, take your time.” Giving a wave to Howan as well, he left the store, and Hachin walked around the counter only to once again grab Howan’s arm and pull her towards the back. “C’mon, let’s get it cleaned up. Can’t start bleeding all over the flowers, can ya?”
“Ah...thank you, Hachin...sorry...”
“Stop apologizing already! Damn.”
“Oh! My badge is gone too! Oh no...it must have fallen off when I fell!”
“I’ll call Stella about it when I get home. She’ll just make you another.” Hachin waved dismissively, and Howan whined. What a start to her shift. Hachin ran some warm water over Howan’s elbow, helping the girl bandage the scrape properly. Like his friends, he wasn’t so bad at dressing wounds—he usually got a lot of them himself. They were a scrappy bunch, frequently getting into fights with either each other, or other groups of guys. It wasn’t really a surprise that Hachin knew at least a little bit of first aid.
Once they were through, Hachin untied his apron, folding it and holding it over his arm before pulling his purple, fur-lined jacket. The stinger on the top of his head glinted in the light of the store as he headed back towards the front.
“Aight, I’m heading out. Try not to get yourself banged up more somehow, got it?”
“I’ll try my best. Thanks again Hachin, have a nice evening.”
Howan smiled, waving as the boy left to meet up with his friend outside. Once left alone in the shop, Howan leaned back against the front counter and sighed, raising her hand to rub her forehead. For such a quiet day so far, the start of her work shift really had to go that roughly, didn’t it? Now she’s lost her work badge, and gone and run into some stranger on the street like an idiot. Her only reprieve was that there wasn’t much that could go wrong in a flower shop that normally slowed to barely any business at all by the time the afternoon started winding down and twilight started coming around. Stella owned this shop. She normally worked mornings, Hachin mid-shift, and Howan closing. Howan closed because she was the best choice to do so—this was a two-story building, and she occupied the space upstairs as a living space. It wasn’t an ideal permanent situation, but it was meant to be temporary at least until Howan could find a better place of her own to live. Stella had been kind enough to set that much up for her, after finding out that the girl from out in the country she had just hired didn’t even have a proper home to return to yet after or before work.
Howan didn’t mind the living arrangements. She was grateful beyond what she could express, for them. She knew Hachin couldn’t arrange anything—he had his hands full enough fending for himself, really. In the year she’s worked here so far, she understood Hachin’s circumstances well enough. It was enough of a miracle he was still working here, with the concerns he started with revolving around how others would see him, a boy with a tough reputation working in a little flower shop and caring so diligently for the flowers here. He knew much more about flowers than one would assume from his reputation, and he was a surprisingly helpful and caring coworker and friend to have. Howan liked to think of him as a friend so far, at least. He didn’t get close to many girls his age—he didn’t seem good at even communicating with most of them unless he was talking strictly flowers and business with them on the job. As far as Howan noticed, she might be the only girl he could talk to in a more casual manner. Yasu seemed to confirm that much when she had brought it up to him before.
She was a little proud and flattered to know she was easy enough to get along with that even someone that shaken up around women could at least get along with her. Yasu and Hachin were both good people, despite what she always heard around the city about them. They had rough exteriors, but they were caring friends, and ultimately in her eyes, they were genuinely good people no matter how hot-tempered they were.
Her year here in Under North Zawa was a pretty quiet one so far. She’d come here to find a future in music preferably, but until she found a good foothold for that, she was doing what she could to learn about city life and surviving it, while just trying to support herself a little better. Finding independence so far away from her little village home up north was hard, it turned out.
She liked working here at the flower shop, at least. Stella even allowed her to play her guitar on occasion while on shift, as long as it wasn’t getting in the way of her actual job. Howan always had a little belief that plants and flowers thrived on music just the same as myumons did. Flowers weren’t all that different from the crops she sang for back home, after all.
Her ear twitched at the sound of the bell above the front door ringing. Her blue eyes looked over, and her usual greeting caught in her mouth once she recognized the unique appearance of the young woman who had walked in. Unusual two-toned hair put into a pair of very large, spiraling ponytails, pink jacket worn over an oddly idol-like white and pink outfit, the quiet tap of her heeled boots against the tiled floor, and the guitar-shaped case that was slung behind her. Wary magenta eyes scanned the shop for a moment, before finally stopping on Howan.
“Oh...it’s you! From earlier...” The person that she had run into like a klutz. “Oh—ah, welcome to Under North Flowers! How can I help you today?” Realizing her blunder, Howan quickly pushed her greeting out into the open, but Himeko waved dismissively and walked over. She reached into her pockets. Howan blinked. Her pockets looked like sparkles. Come to think of it, that particular design seemed to be a theme on this girl, despite her strangely quiet, perhaps cold atmosphere. Out of her pocket, she pulled a familiar badge, with a more familiar photo ID inside of it.
“My badge!”
“You dropped this earlier...” Himeko briefly looked Howan over. Her elbow was patched up. That was good. Excited, Howan reached over and grabbed the girl’s hand in both her own, causing Himeko to flinch, startled. Howan’s white tail wagged behind her as she smiled—beamed at her, even.
“Thank you so much! You really didn’t have to go through the trouble...”
“U-uhm...it’s...not a big deal. I just figured I’d drop it off on my way home.” Himeko pressed the badge against Howan’s hand, before sliding her own hand out of the girl’s grasp gently and with subtle insistence. Her hands escaped to solace within the pockets of her jacket. “You’re uh...okay, right?”
Howan nodded. “Yep! I should be asking you that, though.”
Himeko frowned slightly and looked off to the side. This was weird. Uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure why she even cared if this stranger was okay in the first place. Of course she was. “Don’t worry about it, I’m fine. Just...be careful next time.” Nervously, her feet shuffled a bit, before she turned back towards the door. Howan blinked, eyeing the guitar case for a moment, then glancing at the back of the girl’s head.
“I should get going.”
“Okay! Stop by again sometime, okay?”
Himeko grimaced and glanced towards Howan, but just as quickly looked forward and pushed her way out the door, leaving abruptly. Still holding her badge in her hands, Howan tilted her head, unsure of what to make of the other girl’s behavior. Was it something she said? Or did this place make her nervous for some reason? What a strange reaction...city people did come in all types. Maybe she was being a little too friendly for her? Well...there was no use in lingering on it now, was there? Clipping her ID to her apron, Howan turned away from the door, turning her thoughts to the next task at hand: watering the flowers.
Himeko hurried on her way home, walking faster than she really needed to. She almost felt a little guilty for feeling the way she did. That girl didn’t even know who she was. She didn’t mean any ill will. At least, Himeko was pretty sure she didn’t have reason to. Then again, she couldn’t be sure, could she?
She didn’t understand how people could act so...familiar, with a stranger. Grabbing her hands like that, acting so grateful and friendly...it frightened Himeko before she could rationalize herself into a calmer state.
Too familiar. She didn’t like it when people treated her so familiarly like that. It made her heart race and stirred a sour feeling in the pit of her stomach. She felt nauseas. She could feel her pulse in her ears. Her hand tightened around the guitar case’s strap, as her other hand rested on the handle of her front door, eyes fixed on it blankly despite the intense anxiety she felt bubbling under her skin. She can’t trust people like that. She swallowed, opening the door and stepping inside. So much for dinner...her appetite was gone, and she felt more like throwing up by the minute.
You can’t judge a book by its cover...but you couldn’t judge a book by its contents, either. Himeko firmly reminded herself of that lesson every day.
The intentions of the author weren’t always easy to see, after all.