Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

There’s a garden close to his home.

It’s full of white lilies. They’re planted shoulder to shoulder, with their leaves touching closely together. Some stretch towards the sun, already blooming, with droplets of rain clinging to their petals and leaves. Others, not yet in bloom, stand modestly in their youth, with their buds hanging low to the ground.

Streams of rain flowed down the pavement from the hill, and on the other side of the road, tall pine trees wailed when the flowers first bloomed. When everyone was huddled in their houses and the summer rain was pouring down, and thunder roared nearby. The trunks of the trees were deep black, the branches saturated with foliage of lush and vibrant green. Yet the rain weighed down. It tore off the petals and washed away the roots.

It was raining when Bachira walked down an empty road, not a soul in the decaying garden, in a corner of the earth with slate roofs, with twists and turns untouched by the bustling world, where winding alleys persevered their unstirred walls, ignorant of what’s beyond the swaying trees. Where, under the weeping sky, everything lay abandoned, hastily forsaken, and forgotten by the sands of a bygone time.

It was raining then, too, like it is raining right now. Without a living spirit to meet. Although… The rain seems gentler now, as though cascading with a softer touch, he decided, the gentle rain delicately dusting his surroundings, as Bachira walks down the road. Past the garden full of white lilies.

He walked this route thousands of times, saw the same trees and walked the same hill. There hasn’t been a garden of lilies since this early summer sun. Or maybe this spring, he can’t exactly say. Though, he hadn’t seen a tiered garden, with a forged path and lilies for a long time.

Of course, deeper into the yard, when the time comes, the sunflowers will bloom at the corner of the house! There, from the front gate, a stone path stretches across the whole garden, guiding the way. Along its edges, around the garden beds with radishes, lettuce, and tomatoes. Above the unfenced raspberry bushes planted by the unpainted fence, with clusters of unripe berries clinging and waiting. Near to the ornamental staircase with variegated begonias in terracotta pots.

But nothing captivates the eyes quite like the white lilies.

What lies at the end of the flower garden path is nothing but a dead end, with a round table and a single chair, surrounded by a gentle swaying of verbena flowers and a picturesque frame with the view stretching beyond like a timeless photograph. Beside the table, a green watering pot rests, and upon it lie abandoned gardening gloves, worn and stained from nurturing the earth.

Sometimes, a ceramic mug of freshly brewed coffee cools on the round table.

There’s often a young man who sits there, listening to birds and watching the flowers. A young gardener who tends to his garden.

Bachira’s seen him before. He took care of his garden, weeding the herbs, tending to the soil, nurturing his plants and blooming flowers with gentle care and such detail. A handsome young man, with shoulders set firmly, eyes dark and blank, with a depth that left one spellbound.

He moved through the garden with ease, plucking withered petals and trimming away shrivelled leaves; simply a man who wore his love for the earth on his sleeve. 

Bachira has seen him many times now but never caught his name. Or rather, the man hadn’t caught him.

The first time he plucks a single white lily is the day when the rain heavily pours and streams run down the hill. He walks down the same road, sees the same trees, but when the road branches off into two smaller paths, he can’t force himself to carry on. He clasps the flower tightly in his palm. Perhaps his shoulders tremble as well and memories echo of days gone by, he discards it into a ditch overgrown with grass, near an old and weathered house.

He turns around and never looks back.   

Bachira plucks a single white lily now too. But when the road splits into two, he presses ahead.

❀❀❀

Days pass.

The tomatoes have started to ripen, but they are still half-green! It’s not time yet. Raspberry bushes, lined up along the fence, among the leaves hide a cluster of unripe raspberries, dangling delicately from the branches, not yet ready for harvest. Each berry is small and plump, starting to give way to a deeper shade of red, with a slight fuzz that seems to beckon the bees.

Sometimes, when Bachira comes to pluck a single white lily, the whole garden seems to bow down to him along with the wind, as though wailing in misery, bending and swaying. But only because it is windy! And not because of anything else.

Today, it’s not raining. The morning basks in the sun. With a little bit of wind, here and there. Everything blooms.

The young gardener is already outside.

Always a busy bee, always doing something. On the outdoor table, Bachira sees a cup of freshly brewed coffee cooling. Actually, Bachira sees him being outside a lot. That is, duh. He wakes with the sunlight. An early morning bird that Bachira sees as he walks the same route. When the world is cloaked in a delicate mist, and everybody’s asleep; when the air is cool and fresh, with a hint of moisture that clings to the skin, and it isn’t enough to wear only a t-shirt, the young gardener is awake, tending to his flowers.

The young man is dressed in a button-up flannel with the sleeves rolled up, paired with a pair of sturdy jeans that have seen their fair share of wear and tear. There’s this certain rugged charm that enchants an imposing look, but all Bachira thinks is the young man misses an apron, maybe a straw hat or rye, bitten in the teeth.

Actually, the young gardener has a dog. A golden retriever, a beautiful beautiful companion. His tale wags eagerly as he comes to a skidding stop at the young man’s feet, dropping the ball with a soft thud. The dog tilts his head, and the wind ruffles his fur, tongue lolling out of his mouth in a happy pant.

They look happy.

Bachira’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He doesn’t have to check to know who it is.

Someone with whom he sat at the school desk, kicked the ball from summer to summer and saw day after day. Who said one winter that they were moving to the city and who had promised to never leave.

He checks it anyway when it doesn’t stop buzzing.

Bachira types, fingers restlessly tapping. Every little thing seems to grave on his nerves. The way the collar of his jacket rubs against his neck. The way Isagi fusses as if someone has died. He scowls. Standing on the empty road, not moving. Bitterly.

He doesn’t care for a reply, he’s not interested. Actually, Isagi can eat shit. He just doesn’t get it.

So, he jams the phone back into his pocket and carries on with his day.

❀❀❀

On the other side of the road, nestled within the woods, lies an old bench, with rotten planks and peeling paint.

There used to be a path leading there. A narrow, man-made path that meandered through the entire forest all the way to the rivulet that then flowed into the wells from which the villagers drank water. Few people knew about this place, where a newly painted bench used to stand and a path that led to it, with an even more gigantic view; with even more gigantic trees; with even more tiny saplings.

And who did know, they came back to it every summer.

Now, the path was overgrown with grass. The trees had fallen, decayed, and withered, and these saplings whose tops could be reached with the tips of the fingers now reached up into the sky, not restrained by time. Towering over the shrubs and undergrowth, they climbed their place.

Bachira could come here barefoot, on the soft forest floor, all out of breath and chest heaving, he could fall down on the same grass, by the same bench. He would fall down and look up at the sky, where the tops of the trees merged into a single canvas, where the sky and the earth mixed together.

Now everything was washed away by time, what had been there before was now decayed. No one would even think that a path once led here, if not for that old, weathered wooden bench.

It’s raining again. Well, it had been, it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

Water drips and trickles, filling the air with a gentle, soothing sound. It echoes through the forest, mingles with rustling leaves and chirping birds. Each droplet falls onto the leaves and slender branches, causing them to shiver and shake. It trickles and drips down the trunks of the trees, carving paths through the bark and moss. Occasionally, a branch creaks as it bends under the weight of the rain.

Bachira used to paint here often. With strokes bold and carefree. With colourful markers, crayons, and paints. There was never a shortage of them. In every nook and cranny, they were scattered in every corner. On the bench, in drawers, on the table. Wherever you turned, there was a blue crayon, behind it – a broken pencil.

He hasn’t painted for a very long time.

With a deft hand, he folds his woollen sweater and sets it atop the weathered wooden bench before sitting down. It groans and creaks under his weight.

Somewhere deep in the wardrobe, his drawings are still preserved. On a white sheet of paper, on cardboard, on an old faded newspaper, with curved lines, with a sun in the right corner. Blurred, coloured, crumpled. But still there. Somewhere in an old wardrobe. Stacked on top of each other, bound with a blue ribbon and signed BACHIRA.

Maybe he should have painted more often.

But he doesn’t paint now either. Just sits there in one spot and stares somewhere deeper into the forest. He can’t bring himself to pick up a pencil. He can’t sketch or draw or paint when his heart is so heavy.

He should have painted an old pine tree, an old rivulet. An old bench, now rundown and crooked. And the same sun in the same corner, and those clouds, and the summer rain. And everything that is no more. What he would give to have it all now, to remember it vividly like yesterday’s sky, with colours, with strokes, with crawling ants and buzzing mosquitoes.

Suddenly, his ears perk up.

A loud crack echoes through the forest, and Bachira snaps to attention. His head shoots up, back straightens. In the distance, a rustling of leaves and snapping of branches draws closer and closer.

Without warning, a blur of golden fur bursts into view, hurtling towards him at breakneck speed. The boy’s heart races as he realises it’s just a dog, bounding towards him with unbridled excitement. Bachira’s shoulders instantly droop.

“Hi, there.” He says sweetly. Eyes crinkle at the corners. 

The pup is beautiful, with fur gleaming in the sunlight, a rich, golden colour that seems to radiate joy. There’s a hidden collar, encircling the pup’s neck, a subtle adornment. Of course, the muddy paws just add a striking contrast, with a pink tongue lolled out; the creature shines with sheer joy. It dawns on Bachira so suddenly, and he has to ponder the coincidence.

It’s not just any dog; it’s his dog. The golden retriever Bachira saw not just a couple of days ago playing fetch with that handsome gardener whose flowers he sometimes came to steal.

And before long, he is right. He hears a whistle somewhere in the distance and a deep, smooth voice calling.

The pup’s ears twitch, listening closely, clearly having recognised the voice.

“Lottie! Where are you, girl?”

There’s some pause in between, and Bachira watches, with nothing to say. For a moment, forgetting where he actually is.

“I know the forest’s more space than our apartment but you can’t just disappear like that!”

The voice, strangely, fits the man well. Maybe better than Bachira had imagined him sounding. Deep, powerful. But with a gentle nature, with a certain richness to it. At the same time, it surprises him and doesn’t. Who else could look after flowers like this than a gentle heart?

But no one returns here, no one comes. What the devil has left behind and forgotten is rarely necessary.

“Go,” he says suddenly, “your master is calling.”

The pup, Lottie, of course, doesn’t listen to him. He is but a stranger, after all. Maybe tilts her head to one side, curiously, inquisitively, but doesn’t listen. But the young gardener calls again, with a certain sternness that’s almost urgent, and she darts deep into the forest.

And Bachira is alone again.

❀❀❀

Between the time it rains and the time the sun comes out from under the clouds, a few more days pass that turn into a week that turns into two.

Isagi doesn’t call him anymore, they’ve minimised it to texting. Sometimes even that feels too much. Bachira still picks a single lily on the same route. He still sees the young gardener tending to flowers.

He doesn’t come to the forest anymore, however. Doesn’t see the weathered bench. It’s hard to breathe sometimes, but that’s all he has left. And so, he continues with his days, with the same route, the same hill and the same flowers.

Until he doesn’t.

❀❀❀

When Bachira reaches out a hand to pluck a lily, a cool hand encloses his wrist. 

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Bachira is kneeling, so it’s a little bit awkward. Maybe not so awkward as being caught red-handed, but this has its fair share of awkwardness, nonetheless. He cranes up his neck; the young gardener is blocking the sun for him. He’s not sure whether he’d rather stare at the blinding star or gaze at those eyes.

He glances at his wrist, and the young man instinctively releases his hold. Bachira’s eyes don’t really intend that; it’s just the stranger’s hand is cold and his touch feels different than the hands that patted his back, clasped on his shoulder and squeezed. This hand is cool against his skin, it doesn’t squeeze, nor offer indifference. In the end, it is but a touch and Bachira feels nonchalant.

Normal, almost.

He struggles to his feet, a little bit more clumsy and shy. After all, it’s not every day that the thief is caught in the act by the robbed.

Lottie sits by the man’s leg, with her tongue lolled out. She’s rather amused.

Bachira tilts his chin and finds himself drawn to the gardener’s face, “Uh, hi?” he stammers.  The man is handsome, with tousled hair and a sharp jawline; his eyes are pools of ink he could’ve easily gotten lost in, if not for the hard glare fixed on him.

“Hi?” The handsome stranger repeats slowly. He crosses his arms, the fabric of his sweatshirt uncomfortably stretching taut against the bulging muscles. “That’s all you’ve got to say?” He retorts, it almost sounds as if he’s expecting more than an awkward greeting.

“I— I like your flowers—?”

And truly, maybe Bachira actually misses something here, because, for a brief moment, the young man seems taken aback, as his fierce glare momentarily falters and his composure slips. “You— what?” His mouth forms around words that seem to get stuck in his throat, and the corners of his eyes slightly waver.

Hah, he looks like a fish gasping for air. Good thing Bachira knows what he must be struggling to say. He’s good at guessing, anyway. And he’s standing in the very garden from which he steals flowers. Having a non-so-casual conversation with the robbed. Easy peasy!

“I like them,” Bachira speaks up briskly. He really doesn’t want to agitate anyone–eh, agitate him any more than he already has. “So, uh, thank you?” He says, and it’s true. He doesn’t want to be rude. Perhaps if an apology followed afterwards, it would lessen the tension, so he also blurts out, “Sorry.”

A moment of silence stretches, and the man finally clears his throat. “Right.” 

“For stealing your flowers. I mean.” Bachira explains, words tumbling out quickly. Strangely, it feels as though they’re not quite on the same terms.

But the frown on the gardener’s face only seems to harden, his eyes narrowing as he was peering through a haze, searching for something that he couldn’t quite grasp just yet, before levelling him with a hard glare again. Bachira’s heart drops to his heels. He really didn’t intend anything bad. 

He just thought the flowers were pretty. 

“I really didn’t mean anything bad—”

“You know, now you’re going to show me the special someone you’ve been harming my flowers for.”

There’s a pregnant pause before Bachira barely manages a single, “Oh.” 

The wind rustles through the trees in the distance, branches creak and leaves murmur. For a split second, it feels like his heart has leaped out of his chest. “There’s— there’s really no need.” He offers a sheepish smile, tries to, but his throat suddenly runs dry and palms dampen, and all he gets out is a stuttering mess.

The young gardener glares at him. “You know how many times I had to cut at the places where you plucked the flower from?”

I’m sorry, Bachira wants to say and doesn’t. So, he lowers his lashes and looks at the ground. He hears footsteps and the creaking of the gate to the garden, and then a soft, “Lottie, you stay.”

Perhaps, it’s the sudden change of his, that soft voice that makes Bachira steal a withering glance at the young man, and he watches him let the girl in, before securely closing the latch. He can’t help but butt in, watching the (overgrown) puppy stare at the gardener with big brown eyes. “She could come too.” He says, words just as soft and barely heard. 

He really means it as a statement. Where the road split in two, only meadows wind through, endless forests are seen and berry bushes. Nothing more is there, perhaps an occasional passerby; perhaps a passing car never stopping to take a look around. But the young man’s face is hard and his eyes sharp, so Bachira thinks it wouldn’t have mattered even if it didn’t sound like a question. And even if there were only trees.

“No,” the gardener says, that’s where he’s drawing the line, Bachira guesses. His tone changes too, becomes cold and firm, and Bachira wants to withdraw. “She doesn’t do well around new people.”

“Lead the way.” The gardener says.

The man speaks, but by the time Bachira realises, it sounds far away, like echoing from a far-off place, as though muffled by the density of the forest or swallowed up by gusts of wind. So, he doesn’t respond. Instead, he tucks his hands in his pockets and does what he’s told.

There’s never been enough words, but now, more than ever, they’re not enough.

No one will greet her, is what’s left unsaid.

They don’t rush. 

Bachira assumes the young gardener has more time on his hands than he will ever know. He watches him look around, with movements so subtle, like getting blood out of a stone. It’s as if he doesn’t want to be seen observing this world. But every now and then, he tilts his head and takes in what’s around, and Bachira sees someone who admires it, as though for the first time.   

And so, they settle at a leisurely pace. And Bachira walks the same route for the thousandth time, hands unburdened and a heavy heart.

They walk past the overgrown ditch, filled with tall grasses and a stagnant puddle from yesterday’s rain. The meadows look more alive than they’d do on normal occasions, with colour, with wildflowers of every hue, blooming and swaying in a summer breeze. Tiny seedlings poke up from the earth, reaching towards the sunlight like a child would for their mother.

“Is it far?” 

The gardener asks somewhen in their journey. 

Bachira ponders for a moment and says, “Would you stop following if it were?”

“No.”

“Then no, it is not far.”

And it really isn’t far. A right turn takes them down a path lined with majestic trees, with branches stretching high into the skies, and Bachira feels the exact moment the young gardener halts in his step.

What lies ahead mustn’t be pretty. It’s neither a vivacious lady, nor a polished bloke.

It’s a graveyard. It looms in the distance.

The graveyard stretches out before them like a vast ocean, with row upon row of headstones and names, blurring together into those who are forgotten and yet to be lost. The silence is eerie, broken only by a single breath hitching in the gardener’s throat, heavy with the scent of earth and despair, tears that were once shed and the unspoken words left unsaid.

With goodbyes said, never to be returned.

The gardener’s eyes bear into his back, searing into his skin, but many had looked at him this way, with a little bit of pity and a little bit of sorry, so it’s just a dull ache, nothing more than a passing of shadow, fleeting and turning, and numbing.

His gaze wanders, taking in what he saw yesterday and will see tomorrow, the flowers and trees that grow in wild abundance. The sun that dapples through the leaves and the wind that whispers through the branches.

He sees the same names, each stone that marks someone who’s been once loved and one day will inevitably wither like the weathered bench he once built with his mother had rotted. He moves through the forest—the graveyard where she’s buried, detached from emotion, this feeling that never stops gnawing.

“This…” The other man pauses, swallowing harshly. He feels his throat go dry as a dreadful feeling settles in. Bachira knows, has felt it before. “This is a graveyard.” He says, and there’s nothing more to add when all it’s left is just to confirm.

“It is.”

Do you think I brought you here for fun?

“A cemetery.”

“Yes.”

The silence stretches.

Bachira sees the familiar stone, the familiar name carved into it. A single white lily, placed near the stone. He comes to a stop a little way from where she lies. The gardener stands close to his side. And they stand there together. 

Bachira can’t stop his hands from trembling. He doesn’t understand why they’re shaking this much.

The man looks troubled, Bachira knows that look, the one that comes when someone is about to say sorry, to wish well-meaning condolences, but ultimately meaningless, and so he doesn’t need it, the empty platitudes, this courtesy that people offer when they don’t know what else to say. 

So, he cuts in. Albeit, too sharply, too quickly. “It doesn’t matter.” He hears himself, yet he cannot believe his own ears. This wound that is this fresh, this raw, gaping like an open hole in his chest.

How can it not matter?

Each morning, he wakes to her paintings hung on the walls. Sketches upon sketches that cover every inch of their home, strewn across her desk, arranged in neat piles and stored away. Drawings in twos, in fives, in tens, blooming or bold, each one capturing a moment, a passing time in their lives. Each one that he can’t bring himself to put away.

Paint, not yet dry, used brushes with tips of the colour of the sky and trees. The scent that still lingers in empty halls. It’s all still there, still fresh, still raw.

He sees her in his every move. In every brushstroke, every colour, every breeze. And yet, each morning, he wakes alone because she’s no longer here. Gone.

How is this supposed to heal when nothing can bring her back?

They say a loss demands time. But does this time mend the wound, this raw and unhealed? Does it stitch it back together, or put a band-aid on that doesn’t even cover half of it? Say, can this time bring back the person dearest to one’s heart?

So, Bachira goes to this graveyard. He walks past this hill and this garden where he plucks a single white lily. He sits on the bench, now weathered and worn, what lost its youth and charm years ago, where memories used to carry a happier note and where he could hear the echoes of her laugh and feel the warmth of her hand.

Everything is different now, even the trees, the sky, between what’s left and used to be. They grew, matured, just like did he. It’s so hard to comprehend. Washed by time to never be the same again.

He wants to be a kid again, belong to the time when she warmly smiled. What a naïve wish, this desperate and pitiful.

Long after they leave—and they don’t speak. Bachira doesn’t see the glare in those dark eyes anymore either, it’s gone, long long gone. Just like she is. Replaced by this look of… this look of pity, like looking at a broken thing.

It’s a look that he has seen too many times, one that speaks volumes without saying a word. They pat his back, they squeeze his shoulder, as though they’re trying to hold him together, keep him from shattering, crumbling to pieces, all the same with this softness that borders on pity.

It’s a look that says: I’m sorry for your loss, but I don’t know how to fix it. A look that says: I don’t know what to say, so I’ll say nothing at all. A look that says: You’re broken, and I don’t know how to put you back together.

So, long after they leave, and Bachira’s alone, he sinks to the floor and pitifully cries. He doesn’t need fixing, doesn’t need hands on his shoulder. He doesn’t want anyone to try and mend him back together, to offer empty words and pitying glances because he is not broken.

He lost his mum and he’s hurting.

So say, how is this supposed to heal when there’s a void inside him that refuses to be filled?

❀❀❀

There’s a black car parked close to the gardener’s home.

It looks expensive, foreign. 

People don’t drive such conspicuous cars here—in a place where everybody knows each other and strangers are rare. People live quietly, looking out for each other and taking care of their own. And while this village may not have the grandeur of a big city or the opulence of a wealthy resort, these people are modest, sincere.

They greet each other in the store and when they meet on the street. They talk over the fence, and the elderly lady asks about their loved ones and their health. Her chatty neighbour knows a heartbreaking story about Sato-san’s unlucky chickens and a fox’s full belly—only the feathers ruffled, he says!

So, when Bachira reaches to open the latch to the garden and sees a black car he doesn’t recognise parked nearby, he instantly freezes and withdraws his hand. It doesn’t belong to the gardener, either. At least, he doesn’t think so and he hasn’t seen him…

“Looking for someone?”

Bachira startles as a gruff voice pierces through the silence like a bolt of lightning. Caught off guard, he spins around, and before him stands a young man, holding a paper bag full of groceries. He’s grinning, and Batchira clutches the small cloth pouch to his chest.

He feels his throat constrict with anxiety. “I– uh,” he stammers, looking around.

The stranger stands tall, confident, as though Bachira’s blocking his way and as if not. He’s not sure. The man is… flamboyant, with dirty blond hair, accented with bright pink tips that stand out like neon against dull grey. He’s wearing a flamingo shirt and shorts that seem to defy any attempt at subtlety. With a joker-like grin on that very same face. It makes Bachira nervous.

He swallows, golden eyes flickering to the man’s face. “I’m here for… for––?” He manages to blurt out, only this time for a flush to warm his cheeks. He doesn’t know the gardener’s name.

A sense of unease washes over him. If… if this man does appear to know the young gardener, and–and somewhat they are friends, and Bachira is indeed blocking his way, and then that would explain this absolutely new to town car and… And this might just as well look like Bachira is trying to break into… Bachira is definitely not trying to break into the gardener’s home!

He’s already been caught with his hand in the flower pot. Speaking of which… Bachira’s hands unconsciously tighten on the small cloth pouch.

“I was just leaving.” He says. This does not sound suspicious at all.

The man quirks up an eyebrow. “Really now?” He disputes, tone playful, as if challenging, and he leans closer, a single paper bag of groceries in his way. Bachira’s heart thuddens in his ears. The man’s proximity feels almost invasive. Doesn’t he know the meaning of personal space?

Then, “Leave him be, demon.” Another voice resonates through the air. 

Two things happen at once. The man instantly pulls back, as though a leash snaked over his neck was suddenly pulled, eyes turning to the person walking along the stone path leading through the garden. It’s another stranger, Bachira thinks, his back straightening and breath catching in his throat. From the corner of his eye, he sees the joker-like grin turn into a genuine expression.

“Sae-chan!”

The flamboyant man—the demon exclaims, and it seems this stranger’s name is Sae. And oh, the moment Bachira turns around, there are two, in fact, two people. This Sae-person and the young gardener, who falls a step or two behind, the path too narrow to fit two. 

Indeed, they’re certainly acquaintances, at last. Or friends, regarding the paper bag in this demon’s lap. Honestly, those pink accents are like fire tongues, highly defining. The flamboyant man pushes past Bachira, one hand opening the gates.

He greets this Sae-person with a gentle kiss on the cheek, soft and tiny, while the smaller man peers inside the grocery bag with a childlike curiosity. Bachira silently watches, nervously and beyond awkwardly standing at the gates, with his heart seizing. He hears this Sae-person murmur something close to did you find me chocolate chip cookies? And suddenly this feels too tender, too precious.

He feels like an outsider looking in, prying on something that isn’t his, to begin with. It’s both pitiful and precious.

This demon that the other man called him looks indeed like a demon, with terrific clothing and a confident stance, and broad shoulders. He looks like he would pick a fight in broad daylight, if someone just looked at him wrong, and still come victorious. But he also looks like he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice the world for the man peering inside the grocery bag if he so much as asked.

Bachira clutches the tiny cloth pouch. He doesn’t want to intrude. Clearly, he doesn’t belong to this moment. He hesitates for a moment, unsure of what to say or do, and he takes a shaky breath before ultimately deciding to turn around and leave. He can come back another time. Maybe. Surely. When the gardener’s alone, and he can save some face. If there’s any left, that is.

“Did you need something?”

Bachira’s steps falter.

A sudden voice reaches his ears.

And this time, he knows this voice, directed at him, and it doesn’t come from one of the strangers. His heart skips a beat. He stops in his tracks and slowly cranes his head to face the young gardener, but the young gardener is already staring right at him, his voice is softer, more pronounced, as if he’s genuinely asking.

He still doesn’t know the gardener’s name.

Bachira’s mind races. “No, I—” and words don’t come out as he would like them to, and he averts his eyes quickly to his lap. He feels utterly and completely embarrassed, his eyes briefly focusing on the tiny cloth pouch still clutched in his grasp. “I just wanted to give you this… uh, for—for harming your flowers.” He gathers his courage and speaks, taking a small breath and looking back up at the young gardener.

He tilts the small pouch, both hands equally shaking, and then holds it out towards the taller man. The coins inside shift and knock against each other, clinking softly together. It’s not much, not really, and Bachira’s ears tint red, but it’s all he can manage right now.

But before the gardener can respond, those eyes widening ever so slightly, the demon’s voice booms out in laughter, loud and unmistakable, as if he has already anticipated this. “Hah! So you are our Rin Rin’s little flower thief!” The man guffaws blatantly, and Bachira feels his muscles tensing with shame.

Rin… Rin?

From the corner of his eye, Bachira sees this Sae-person’s face darken, eyes narrowing into slits, his expression suddenly turning sharp when his gaze lands upon him. And although the demon looks like he just solved the most intricate crime, eyes shining with a mischievous glint, on the other hand, the shorter man looks cold, almost protective, as though he had also come to a realisation about something, something that he didn’t find amusing at all.

And in that moment, a sudden realisation dawns on Bachira as well, and the weight of that knowledge settles heavily on his shoulders.

He knew… they knew. All along, the gardener knew he was stealing, but chose not to confront him. He’s just… continued tending to flowers, as though nothing were amiss. With the same care and detail, so that they just don’t wither. And Bachira’s heart sinks, guilt and shame gnaw at his conscience like a festering wound. His mum would roll over in her grave if she only knew.

Bachira can’t bring himself to meet the gardener’s eyes. “I know it might… not be enough, but maybe if you wait a little, I can…” words come out thickly, barely there, caught in his throat. He feels the weight of their stares bearing down on him.

“Look, there is really no need to…” The gardener says, voice calm, but his words trail off too, as though he’s searching for the right thing to say. Perhaps, he indeed is. Bachira took him to the cemetery, showed a single white lily placed near the stone. The flower he stole. The gardener’s heart must be beating awkwardly too.

The flamboyant man sniggers in the background. 

“Believe me when I say money is really the least of his problems, kid.” He laughs. It earns him a sharp look from the gardener.

But Bachira frowns, eyes training on the ground. He may be down on his luck, but he’s no kid, and he doesn’t need their pity. He stole and he’s going to give back, if not in the shape of money, then— he can work here then. Anything. He will replant the flowers, paint the fence, but he’s not going to run away. He will own up to it.

He’s still tightly clutching the small cloth pouch in his hands.

Sure, it’s a little bit harder now that he’s alone. But they’ve survived on less, living off the money they made from selling mum’s paintings or from his own small summer jobs. But they had each other and they made it work. And maybe one day he will have enough not to worry about tomorrow. But even if it weren’t, what would it matter?

He’d give every meagre coin, surrender every penny within his grasp, only if it meant he could have her back.

“You think you’re smart?”

Bachira’s head jerks up. His heart drops to his heels at the same time. “What?”

Sae-person glares at him. Those sharp words are directed at him.

“Sae…” The gardener suddenly cuts in, warning and eyes hardening. But the other man pays him no mind.

“Stealing flowers, playing pretend for what? To sneak a picture, sell a story? Just how much were you paid?”

Bachira swallows hard, his throat feeling tight, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“Do you all take us for fools that would believe any pitiful pretext? Have you lost your dignity completely, having no regard for the deceased?”

But Bachira doesn’t take them for fools. Rather, he feels thankful for the gardener not calling the police when he was the one caught with a hand in the flower pot and stealing. But he does, in fact, have reverence for the deceased, and the cruel words feel like salt on the wound. 

He stays rooted to the spot, but his hands tremble at his sides. For a moment, he can’t find his voice. He doesn’t try to sell a story, this grief is his and only his to bear. He just thought the flowers looked pretty, and if this is a crime...

“Aniki, that’s enough.” Rin grits out, eyes sharp. But the words are said and that’s it.

Bachira’s eyes sting, but he refuses to let the tears slip. He doesn’t look them in the eye, his heart feels too heavy like it’s been crushed, dragging him low. It’s harder to breathe, but he does and he must, and so he says through a shaky voice.

“I don’t… take death as a mere pretext.” Words falter and fail, and his fingers tightly clutch the small cloth pouch close to his chest. But he must say this, whether his voice wavers or not. “I lost my mum and I wanted to give her flowers. And that’s all there is to it.”

Saying it aloud hurts. Feels like admitting the truth. That nothing is eternal in this world, and they’re doomed to lose.

“I will pay you back for all the flowers that I picked. But please, do not mistake death for a mere pretence; it is a solemn truth.”

With the last words uttered, Bachira does what he knows best, and so he runs. He darts out, his hand releasing the small pouch of money, which falls to the ground with a thud, next to a mailbox. And Rin instinctively launches himself to run after, only to be abruptly halted by the flamboyant man’s firm grip on his arm.

❀❀❀

There are many flowers that symbolise death.

For Bachira, those flowers were lilies.

He didn’t choose them deliberately. Not at all. But one day, when the rain was pouring down and the streams were running down the pavement from the hill, and somewhere in the distance thunder was roaring, he saw a garden with a stone path weaving through and a wooden fence around it.

Lilies grew there. With white blossoms that reached up to the sky.

He walked the same route a thousandfold, his feet treaded a path familiar and old. Countless steps on the same ground he strolled and never once did he notice this patch of land, resting next to an unpainted fence. Beneath the sun and underneath the rain.

And there was nothing special about them. They were ordinary white lilies, with big blossoms and waiting. For what? No one knew what they were waiting for. And then, as the rain pounded the earth, golden eyes caught sight of a lone bloom in a corner, with shrivelled petals wrapped in a gentle form, as if on the verge of wilting and fading away amidst flowers bolder and taller.

And he picked that flower, the first lily, and the first lily that he plucked for his mum, the one he held in the palm of his hand, and the one that fell apart in the same palm. He clenched it and crushed it. Then threw it away. And he didn’t pick it because he thought his mother deserved less, nothing spectacular or more beautiful—he loved her with all of his heart, so he plucked the one that reflected this pain, this loss that didn’t shy away from the inevitable and doomed fate.

So, he leaves the tiny pouch of money behind, doesn’t turn around when the gardener calls after him, only wipes away the tears rolling down his cheeks and runs faster. Life goes on and nothing drastically changes.

After death, the morning always dawns, and a new day will come, and it will be different until you learn to live with it as it is. Without that person, without their presence. Slowly, you will forget how their voice sounds, how it felt when they touched you. There will come a time you will forget their face too. And when all that remains is a faded image deep in your subconscious, then you will know you’ve moved on.

The pain that softens into a scar, and the wounds that haven’t fully healed yet, only that you’ve learnt to live without what you thought you could not. And another morning will come, and another day and everything will be the same and not. Everything will return to its own shell.

So, nothing drastically changes. Only Bachira doesn’t pick flowers anymore, and life goes on.

It’s still hard to get up in the mornings and his heart still feels heavy. It is still painful to look at her paintings and return to the places they used to visit together. It’s hard not to see her face, not to hear her voice, her words that were spoken. It’s still difficult to learn to live without her.

The raspberries are already ripe, and he hasn’t tasted a single one yet.

They didn’t grow raspberry bushes; his mum used to plant some lettuce or cucumbers, or tomatoes in the greenhouse, but that’s it. She would bring him berries from the forest, freshly picked—blueberries, wild strawberries or the same wild raspberries. She would take a small basket and go berry picking, then bring it back full of berries and laugh when his lips and teeth turned blue from the blueberries.

Sometimes Bachira would go together when he was very small. He would be the first to run, to carry the largest empty basket in his hand, which would also stay that way, in fact, because what would he put in there when he munched all his (and mum’s) picked berries in one go?

 “Can I sit here?” The gardener asks.

Bachira briefly tilts his head to see him, but he doesn’t startle him. He saw Lottie before he could actually see him. He nods wordlessly and the old weathered bench sinks even deeper.

Bachira doesn’t look at him, he listens to the rustling of leaves and then him, when he speaks. Lottie lays down next to them, curls up into a ball and puts her muzzle on her paws. This is probably their first civil conversation.

In his hand, the gardener holds a single white lily.

“I don’t pity you.” The young man says, the wind carries his voice. “I am sorry for your loss.” He repeats once more, dark eyes focusing on something afar. “But I don’t pity you.”

The gardener speaks, and Bachira listens. Words old and new, heard and unheard. They speak of grief and loss, and so they bruise and hurt, but they don’t lay heavy on his heart, although he knows the weight of sorrow.

“What Sae said… he didn’t know. He doesn’t think sometimes. He’s just…” he purses his lips, he sounds complicated. Then settles with, “He can get really protective. I know it doesn’t make it right and I swear I knocked some sense into him, but… he didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I stole from you.” He says, almost monotonously, golden eyes unfocused.

“They were just flowers.”

Bachira stays quiet, amidst the quiet of this forest, of wildflowers and trees, and them. He knows the pain of loss, of having someone taken from him, of feeling stripped of love and left bare and alone. His heart broke when she said dad wasn’t coming home, he felt grief before he knew what it was. And he was mourning a living person.

His heart broke again when he understood she wouldn’t be coming home anymore too. He doesn’t want to hold onto the pain anymore, let it fester and grow. It just hurts more this way. But he doesn’t know how to let go. And to say, he’s been here before… Absurd.

“Sae-san…” he tastes the name on his tongue. It’s new, foreign. “He is your brother?” Bachira asks. 

He wants to live anew. In the face of loss and pain, he wants to choose to let go, to release it into the gentle breeze that carries the scent of the flowers. He knows both giving and taking come with the passage of time, and it never means it won’t hurt, but why does it have to be him?

“He is.” The gardener says, he takes a deep breath. “He’s… visiting me.” He settles upon.

Bachira momentarily pauses, he weighs the words before saying, “He cares for you.”

“He does.”

It sounds complicated, but love comes in different shades and forms as it comes with grief and pain. Bachira knows and he doesn’t pry. He shifts. The weathered bench bends and creaks. He tilts his head to look at the gardener. 

“I’m sorry for stealing your flowers.” He says. It seems terribly important.

“They’re just flowers.” The gardener repeats.

“I know. I needed to say it.”

It is. Just flowers, in the end. The flowers he picked from the garden one day. And took it to his mother, and crushed it, and let it wilter.

“Okay.”

Bachira grew up here, in the forest, he climbed the trees and bruised his knees. A forest child, they’d joke. Running in the meadows and wildflowers of all hues.

It was a family of three, at first. With broad smiles adorning their faces. Then one left, seeking something more, deeming what’s within his reach can’t fulfil his heart no more. And so, it was just two. They meandered the paths that time had erased. They painted the bench in the forest that had fallen apart under the time’s touch.

But they had all they needed.

Mum would come here and paint. See the river, see the trees, hear the birds and the flowers. She would watch him run wild, a stick in hand and mud on his cheeks. I’m a forest soldier, he’d say.

Sometimes her eyes would drift and cloud over. Become saddened, unfocusing and blurring. Out of a sudden, as if she were somewhere far away. Somewhere else, not here, gazing at a single point, as though daydreaming, only those dreams were tainted with a time long lost, with tears, glistening in her eyes.

He knew they’d go home when the moment passed, have dinner as the sun set, as though nothing were amiss, but he knew she was hurting when she clutched her arms around him tighter than usual, pressed a tender kiss atop his head with a quivering lip.

They had each other, and then she died.

And then, it was one. With a raw heart and a festering wound. In that forest, in those paths and trees where memories had lay and shaped him.

❀❀❀

When Bachira comes to visit his mum, he comes empty-handed.

The morning’s surprisingly silent, the sun shines upon him, casting dappled shadows on the ground, but there’s no wind to rustle the leaves on the trees. He sees an elderly lady gently place a bouquet of flowers at the foot of her son’s grave. He watches in silence when the woman tenderly caresses the headstone with the palm of her hand.

His steps never falter, feet softly hitting the forest floor, not a sound being made.

A figure lingers in the deep of the forest. And Bachira stops dead in his tracks, heart quickening inside his chest. There’s another man standing at his mother’s grave, with black formal trousers and a white shirt. Bachira’s eyes widen when he takes a better look. Another step, and the man turns around just that second.

Bachira knows him and gulps when he sees him. The man’s holding a single white lily in his right hand.

“You’re Rin-san’s brother,” Bachira says, or better—he mutters, his voice barely audible. There’s a hint of surprise in his words, a sense of… shock and nervousness that he cannot hide. “Sae-san,” he adds, almost as an afterthought, as if memories were brushing past him.

The other man nods slowly. “I am,” he says, voice calm, it feels like a scripted exchange within a mere business meeting, where facts were plainly stated. Which he is, actually stating facts. It makes Bachira uncomfortably fidgety.

There is no trace of distrust on his face this time, no sharpness, no glares and whatnot. But neither is there any warmth or kindliness in his demeanour. A blank stare, with a confident stance, and Bachira can’t quite place what he’s feeling.

And just then, he sees a tiny smile tug at the corner of the man’s mouth, a flicker of emotion that is almost imperceptible. It’s there for just a moment, and Sae-san tilts the beautiful flower in his grasp, as if to show, as if to display, but not so much for Bachira as for himself.

“I guess I plucked a flower from his stupid garden, too.” He says, lightheartedly it would seem. Expressing familiarity. Only that Bachira can’t help but feel as though the man in front is peering deep into his soul with eyes that bore holes into him.

Bachira unconsciously fidgets with the hem of his shirt, glancing around nervously. He knows what Rin said and he’s in no place to challenge it. Sae-san is his older brother who wants what’s best for him, and here, Bachira blatantly stole. It’s no wonder Sae-san searched for malice in his eyes and saw him with distrust. 

Bachira can’t hold a grudge against love. Not when he craves it, not when he understands it.

Nevertheless, his nervousness doesn’t go unnoticed, and Sae-san says, “Relax. I’m not here to berate you.” his voice breaking through the tension.

It helps. Somewhat, as much as it surprises him. And his shoulders droop a little with exhaustion, with accumulated emotions. He still doesn’t know what to say. Would it be appropriate to ask what you are doing here? Perhaps not.

Cemetery is a place for everyone, right? It welcomes everyone and everything, regardless of where one stands, they will end up here when their time comes. Beneath the same ground, beneath the same grass and dirt. Only the worms are different. To each their own, carrying their own cross.

So, “...” he opts for.

“But I’m not here to apologise either,” Sae-san says, and Bachira feels his shoulders instantly go tense again. “You can’t get rid of pests by giving them charity.”

Bachira freezes.

Pests…? His muscles stiffen, but Sae-san brushes it off. “Yes, yes. Rin mentioned that too. Living under a rock and all that.”

Bachira’s brows furrow together. “I don’t live under a rock.”

Sae-san doesn’t take his eyes off Bachira even once. “The fact that you say you don’t know who Rin is…” He says, voice tapering off as he heedlessly shrugs. He doesn’t try to explain, but he doesn’t entirely believe Bachira either.

It makes Bachira self-conscious; they speak of things he knows nothing about while being accused of pretending otherwise. Now, in front of his mother’s grave, too. He downcasts his eyes, heart thudding loudly in his chest, in his ears. He won’t take this.

“Look,” he begins, voice a little bit shaky, but nonetheless firm. He meets Sae-san’s gaze, it burns into his skin. “If you’re here to insult me, do it somewhere else.”

His chest heaves. Bachira can take insults. He would, has. Many times before. Just not in a cemetery. Not in front of his mother’s grave.

A memory gnaws at him like a persistent ache. The gardener had looked surprised, too, when they first met and Bachira didn’t watch him from afar. He looked almost taken aback, as though he expected something else, and it gnaws at his chest, but it’s nothing more than what it’s like groping around in the dark. With nothing to see, nothing to know.

“I get it.” The man says, but his voice runs cold. “You care about her and who knows, maybe you’re actually telling the truth. But I care about him too. The only difference is that she’s dead, and I can’t risk it.”

It’s an asshole thing to say, directed at someone in the midst of grieving. Hah, if only. Regardless of whether one is grieving or not, the words spoken, devoid of empathy and callous, pierce right through. In the cemetery, nonetheless. And when Bachira impulsively launches himself at him and lands a punch to his jaw, it’s uncalled for as it is not.

Is it really the mortality’s touch where true significance resides? Does death really make this grand difference between two people? One breathing, and one not. Is it because her body is rotting in the coffin and her flesh gives way, bones lying deep buried in the earth and her flesh fades away, reducing into nothing? Can’t a person’s worth lie in the love they shared with others? The imprints etched upon the hearts of those who knew them, woven into the fabric of time. Just because she’s dead and he’s alive, what difference does it make?

In the end, we will all rot beneath the earth.

Sure, Bachira knows he won’t be able to reach out and to caress, to hear her voice and bask in her touch, but it’s his heart that endures the memory of her. And even if this wound of loss, raw and bleeding, etches a mark upon him, time doesn’t stop to give its condolences for always taking away. The pain softens into a scar, and it aches a little less, but the truth remains until it’s no more.

And maybe his mum will come and hunt them both now. Bachira for punching someone, and Sae-san for insulting her son. She was protective that much. She would hate when he resolved to violence but would tolerate no disparagement towards him from his father or anybody else.

“You should leave.” Bachira decides, fists clenching at his sides. His eyes focus somewhere afar, now distant and cold.

Here is a thing, he yearns for one last glimpse of her, for a caress, or a simple chance to say goodbye, wishes for her to hunt him, but this, though rooted in love, is tinged with greed, he knows, and thus, he doesn’t want it. For her to hurt anymore.

“You can’t help the dead.”

Sae-san cups his jaw, the corner of his lip is split. He doesn’t wince when his fingers graze the cut upon his lip and crimson taints his skin, nor does he throw fists back. He’s decent enough to let it slip and not let it lead to anything else in the cemetery amidst the forest.

Is it enough of an excuse for the cruelty in his words, and when he’s holding the flower in his left hand? Perhaps, that was never for Bachira to decide in the first place.

“Who is he?” He asks when Sae-san doesn’t seem to be moving.

“It’s not my place to say.”

“Then what do you want from me?” His brows furrow and Bachira looks up at him, voice tinged with a mixture of frustration and vulnerability.

“The truth.”

A moment of silence passes, the cemetery comes to a still. He humorously chuckles, it sounds eerie. “I’ve already told you everything I know. Whether you believe me or not is not up to me or what I say now.” He says then. As an outsider, a stranger, whose words are met with scepticism and irony.

“You stand next to her tombstone, but you still don’t believe me.” Bachira remarks, words etching a bittersweet truth.

For a moment, Sae-san stays quiet, eyes focused on the withering flower clasped within his fingertips. He twirls it around for a little, spins it in his hand like he is in no hurry. Watching with what looks like dead eyes. The petals have surrendered to time’s gentle touch. When Sae-san turns his gaze upon Bachira again, he levels him with a hard look.

“Let’s say, someone is extremely famous. They go about their daily life, they focus on their career, they have hobbies. A family they love.” He says and he says it so seriously Bachira suddenly feels unsettled. 

“But everything they do is constantly scrutinised by reporters, paparazzi, journalists. And they follow them around, they pester them with pointless questions; what they eat for breakfast; what they do in their free time. They ask about their success or who they sleep with. The more scandalous details, the better. So, they make up stories, they take pictures and weave them with tales, they sell them.

“And then, something happens, and that extremely famous person disappears. The media goes on a rampage, they write and they speculate, and they publish the gossip. The hottest questions circle around—where did they go; what happened. But in reality, they just craved a moment of peace, some privacy like a normal human being. And so, they disappear.

“They even pick a new hobby. Days pass, then weeks. They look happier, healthier. And then,” he stresses, it’s barely there felt in his words, but nonetheless there. His eyes narrow ever so slightly. “Then someone crashes in their life and they dare to steal from him, and then insist they mean no harm. But what guarantees they’re not selling them out?”

His words linger with a tinge of irony, effortlessly seeping into the air, and Bachira’s heart beats bruises. It’s not hard to guess what the story tells and where he stands. The gardener he stole from, the person who moved here a few months back, and the one from the story are one and the same. That person is Rin-san, and the stranger is him. That’s why the gardener was taken aback when they first met, and why Sae-san took everything so heartily.

He swallows, he’d probably act the same way, he thinks.

“I wouldn’t sell him out.”

“And they took the stranger’s words for truth,” Sae-san replies. “I care about him the same you care about your mother.” Then purses his lips. “He trusts you, so I won’t interfere anymore.”

He looks from the flower to him, solemnity fills the space between them. “But if you do harm him, I’ll ruin you.” The warning hangs in the air, and, in that moment, Bachira believes him. The weight of his words and the sincerity in his eyes leave no room for doubt.

“I understand.” He says in return.

Bachira watches as the other man steadily walks to the grave and lays the flower near the stone. Perhaps this is also what he came here for. The wind rustles and ruffles his hair. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says, monotonously. “You can’t help the dead, but you can let them go.” He finishes.

With one last glance spared in Bachira’s direction, Sae-san walks away.

They’re words of politeness. Bachira knows like the back of his hand, they echo in memories of time. The ones of well-meaning condolence, loss of what to say, what to wish for. Not quite, this time, however, not quite. They don’t grip his heart as tightly as before. There’s a subtle shift when it’s been months, it’s hard to forget and learn how to live anew, but he finds himself eventually nodding.

“Thank you,” he whispers when no one else is around.

.

.

.

.

.

.

“What the hell happened to your face?”

Sae’s expression tightens, a glare etching its way onto his face. “Your little flower thief punched me.” He replies in a displeased manner, walking to the table with an empty bowl and spoon he retrieves from the kitchen counter. He purposefully avoids looking at his little brother, only for the sole goal of emphasising his feigned irritation.

The revelation leaves everyone present momentarily speechless. From the corner of his eye, Sae sees his demon’s eyes widen further, eyebrows shooting up in incredulity.

“That little guy punched you?!” 

He hears Shidou exclaim, the absurdity of the situation tugging at the corners of his mouth and threatening to unleash a chuckle. Sae glares up at him, now seated at the table. He proceeds to pour the soup that Rin made into his bowl, a scowl clear on his face. 

“What did you say to him?”

Sae swallows another spoonful of soup, savouring the flavours before replying, “What, no concern for your older brother?” he asks, and Rin quirks up an eyebrow, knowing all too well that Sae must have done something to provoke him. He isn’t quite wrong here though. “I just told him his mother is dead.”

When Rin’s eyes harden, Sae turns his attention to the demon standing close to him. “Why are you not fussing over it?”

He says it teasingly. Both Sae and Shidou know if someone were to indeed pose a threat to him, the demon very much would, in fact, fuss over it.

So now, Shidou, ever the playful one, hums, eyes gleaming with mischief as he feigns deep thought. He crouches down next to Sae, one hand gripping the top of the chair for support, the tank top revealing bulging muscles. His face hovering close to Sae’s cheek. With a gentle tone, he leans in and whispers, “I kinda like the little fella, love.” A cheeky smile plays at the corner of his mouth as he plants a soft kiss on the tiny cut above Sae’s lip.

Sae groans. “You and Rin both,” he mutters, reluctantly, and proceeds to eat his soup.