Chapter Text
Yui already knew that today was not going to be a good day. She had her hands buried deep in the soil of the coreopsis she had planted a while ago. She had never had any problems with them in the past, that was one of the many reasons she liked them so much. They always looked so pretty when fully bloomed, complimenting the gardening club perfectly and earning the members lots of compliments. Now there was something very wrong with them. The petals were wilted, stripping away their natural beauty. It made her upset, she hated seeing her flowers in this state and she wanted to fix the problem as fast as possible. However, she had no idea what was causing the problem. She hoped she was able to solve it as those were her only fully bloomed coreopsis and growing new ones would take a while. If that happened the gardening club would be left without their signature flower for a while and that wouldn’t look good.
Yamada dug deeper through the pot she had planted the flowers until she reached the roots. She gently dug around them, creating an opening for herself to get a better look at the roots. She raised them to her eye level and immediately realised why her flowers were wilting prematurely. Parts of the roots were rotten which prevented the flowers from getting all the nutrients it needed. Luckily for Yui this was an extremely easy fix, all she needed were her sheers and this flower would be better in no time. Yui walked in the shed which contained all of the equipment used by the gardening club and began to rummage through the shelves.
“Where did I put them?”,Yamada muttered to herself.
After a few minutes of looking she found absolutely nothing. She told herself that maybe she left them out close to the pots she was working on. She stepped out of the shed and walked towards the area she was previously working in. Yui looked everywhere, under the pots, on the small table next to her and even in the soil but the sheers were nowhere to be found. Yamada was starting to get frustrated, where were her sheers? She looked everywhere possible and she hadn't found them. At this rate she would have to buy new sheers and wouldn’t be able to treat her coreopsis until the next day. The longer she waited the worse the rot would spread and the chances of the flowers getting worse increased too much, but what could she possibly do?
Yamada was so lost in thought, stressing over her beloved flowers that she failed to notice the girl that was slowly making her way behind her.
“I guess I’ll have time to go to the store and buy new sheers after school. There’s nothing else I can do here so I might as well go back inside”, Yamada thought to herself.
Just as she made up her mind to finish gardening for the day she felt a hand touch her shoulder from behind her.
“AHHHHHH”
Yui immediately tensed up and slowly turned around fully expecting the worse to happen to her. However, she was met with a girl she didn’t seem scary it was quite the opposite. She seemed like a nice person. She had short brown hair that framed her face perfectly and she wore a track bracelet. A large warm smile was plastered on her face which seemed to slightly calm Yamada down.
“Are you alright?” The girl seemed worried when asking her.
“I u-um yes I am”
“Thats such a relief, I’m really sorry that I startled you I didn’t mean to”
“Oh it’s okay really, I was being uh nevermind”
“ I wasn’t watching you or anything but um I noticed you were looking for something”
“ Oh yes I was… I don’t remember where I kept my gardening sheers and I really need them right now”
“Did you try checking your pockets?”
“My pockets?”
“Yeah the ones in your apron”
“My apron?”
Yamada looked down at her clothing and she was indeed wearing an apron that was covered with different species of flowers. She had completely forgotten she put it on before she started tending to the flowers. She put her hands down the two large pockets sewed in at the front. In the left one she felt something large and cold in it and pulled it out.
“My sheers!” I found them, thank you so much. Um I’m sorry I didn't get your name?”
“Kase, you can call me Kase”
“ Thank you a lot Kase!,”Yamada flashed a large smile towards Kase.
Kase’s face turned a bright shade of red as she tried to mutter out some sort of thanks.
“Kase are you alright?”
“Y-yeah of course of course why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well-”
“Oh um look at the time I have to go do something right now,” Kase said while looking at her non-existent watch. “It was nice to meet you…”
“ Oh um Yui Yamada”
“Bye Yamada!”
Before Yui could say anything back Kase was already gone.
‘Wow she really is fast,’ Yamada thought
Yamada checked the time on her phone. She had 30 minutes before class started.Plenty of time to get these flowers fixed. Yamada began trimming the roots like she had done many times in the past. Normally trimming would take her no more than 5 minutes per plant, however 7 minutes had already passed and she was still working on the first plant, she was distracted. That girl Kase, she was interesting to say the least but she seemed really nice. Yamada made a mental note to ask Mikawacchi about Kase, maybe she’d know more about her and maybe she could learn some more about her. She wasn’t being weird or anything, she was just curious about this person she just met. And maybe if she found out more about her she could explain the weird feeling she had in her chest while they were talking. Yamada had never felt like that before. She didn’t know how to explain it, part of it felt nice, really nice but the moment she acknowledged it those feelings were replaced with something suffocating like whatever she was feeling was wrong and she should stop.
Maybe it was her mind subconsciously warning her about Kase, for all she knew Kase could be a bully or something like that. She just met the girl so it could be very possible and she was surprisingly really good at reading people. But the way Kase smiled at her, it was full of warmth and kindness. A person like that could never be a bad person but if that was the case, she had no explanation at all towards whatever she felt towards Kase and Yamada didn’t like that unknown.
“Enough about Kase,” Yamada mumbled. “I should just finish off here and then I can find Mika and talk to her”
Yamada was quite proud of the plan she had seamlessly formed in her head. Just as she was about to grab another pot the bell let out a large hum signaling that it was time to make your way to class. Yamada looked at all the flowers she had left untreated, what was going on with her? She really should have finished all of this with time to spare. However, she didn’t have the time to worry about her lack of work now. Her only goal right now was to get everything put away and get to class on time.