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It was an odd but innocent request from Hinomori-san one day before the sakura blossoms had begun to bloom into their crowd-gathering state.
"My mother gave me these tickets to the flower show in a couple of weeks, but I'm busy that day," the idol explained to her in the middle of practice. "Why don't you go and see them, instead? Maybe one of your friends could go with you, since there's two tickets in there."
She thanked Hinomori-san, then picked up her bow and aimed straight. With a moment of clear precision, the arrow thunked itself firm into the faraway target.
"Woah, Asahina-san is so cool!" One of the younger years exclaimed just a little too loudly, then quickly covered her mouth as a flush spread across her face.
Asahina Mafuyu, ever the perfect girl, just smiled sweetly at the one who made the unrestrained comment.
When Kanade found the tickets on the kitchen table that evening, she was interested—but unfortunately busy as well, when she brought up the tickets to Mafuyu.
"I promised I would help Hoshino-san with her band that day, so I can't go... Why don't you ask Enanan or Amia, though?"
Mafuyu sent off a DM to both of them on Nightcord; Enanan didn't respond for a while, possibly sleeping, but Amia responded quickly (did she skip school again?).
"sorry i can't go!! i promised an i would go shopping with her 𐔌՞꜆. ̫.꜀՞𐦯 she's been BEGGING me to go for literal weeks now"
When Enanan finally got back to her, it was a similar response.
"Sorry, I got assigned a night class at that time slot this semester."
So Mafuyu was left with two tickets to the flower show in a couple of weeks, unsure of who else to ask. But then Enanan sent a follow-up message.
"Hey, why don't you ask Aoyagi-kun? You two have met before, right? And Akito's been whining all day about how he's stuck doing something or whatever and Aoyagi-kun couldn't go with him."
Mafuyu stared at the message for a moment, then swiped out of Nightcord and pulled up her contacts. Right near the top was the contact she added long before everything had started: Aoyagi Toya.
"I will admit, I was a little surprised to get such an invite from you, Mafuyu."
One of the things Mafuyu had noticed changed over the years was Toya's voice—despite his stoic expression, it's become more full of warmth. Logically, it made Mafuyu happy to see her childhood friend doing so well after everything he'd gone through. Realistically, she felt nothing of the sort.
"Ena actually suggested it," Mafuyu replied. "She mentioned that her brother mentioned you were free today, so..."
"Yes, unfortunately, the live house Akito is working at today is too far for me, since I have an early start tomorrow." Toya's shoulders sagged a little.
"You wanted to go with him?"
"Of course. But I enjoy spending time with you too," Toya gave her a soft smile. Mafuyu nodded back slowly, then turned towards the entrance of the flower show.
"This flower show is supposedly very hard to get into, a lot of people have been excited for it. I know my mother was trying really hard to get some tickets, but once it turned up that the three of us would need to leave tomorrow, she couldn't go anymore."
Another thing Mafuyu had noticed that had changed was Toya's talkativeness. Before, he wasn't extremely chatty outside of conversations just between them, and his other childhood friends—he rarely spoke in public, especially around his family. But it seemed that now, he had the freedom to speak for himself.
"It's said that there's many unique flowers here, including the rafflesia." Toya had pulled out his phone at this point, only looking up as Mafuyu showed the worker at the entrance their two tickets and handing them two wrist bands in return. He took a band from Mafuyu and wrapped it around his wrist while still holding onto his phone.
"Rafflesia?" There were a lot of flowers in this place, of all different colors. Many of them Mafuyu hadn't even seen in textbooks or Ena's artworks.
"They're a type of parasitic plant, mostly found in Southeastern Asia. One type of rafflesia has the largest single flower of any flowering plant. They don't have many uses, but they're mostly known for traditional medicines. There's only been a little bit of research in recent years on other possible benefits."
Mafuyu hummed, mulling the information over. "Where are they?"
There was a pause, with the tap-tap of finger to screen. "Near the back of the exhibit."
"I want to see them."
"Alright." And without another word, they set off. They passed by many colorful and unique flowers, with either one of them stopping to look at the little paper signs buried into the ground beside them, and the other peering over their shoulder to see what they were looking at. But soon, they came upon the rafflesia flower exhibit. Outside of the sealed-off room, an employee stood with a basket.
"Here to see the rafflesia flower?" She smiled. "It's known for its terrible smell, so here are some nose plugs for you. If you breathe through your mouth, the smell will not be nearly as bad."
"Thank you," Mafuyu smiled at her, taking a nose plug for herself as Toya did the same. They stepped into the empty room separating the main exhibit and the rafflesia flower exhibit, letting the first door close fully before opening the second. There was no one in this room—not that Mafuyu was very surprised.
"I can smell it even with the nose plugs," she commented. The rotten flesh smell was unmistakable; even a durian didn't smell as bad as this flower.
"It's not an infallible method, but it certainly helps," Toya responded. Mafuyu walked closer to the rafflesia flower, bracing herself against the ever-growing exhausting smell.
Its petals were wide and large—easily multiple meters—covered in white spots with a large opening in the middle that held another small piece of itself.
"It's big."
Toya hummed in agreement, stepping beside her. "Why did you want to see this one?"
Mafuyu paused for a moment. "...What did you mean by parasitic?"
"Ah, it's a holoparacite of a type of vine. It basically means it cannot live without exploiting a host. You can't see pretty much anything of the actual parasite except for these giant flowers."
"Why does it smell bad?"
"It attracts carrion flies, which act as pollinators." There was a beat of silence between them. "You didn't answer my question."
"...I don't know." Mafuyu was tempted to reach out and touch its petals. Something about its sunken state called to her—not in the way that Kanade's music brought a little bit of light into her world, but more in the way that Toya's melodies resonated with her. Never capable of saving her, just enough to keep her from going off the edge. A relatability no one in Nightcord could fully understand.
"What are you thinking?" Toya's voice broke through Mafuyu's thoughts. The last thing Mafuyu had noticed about Toya was that, ever since he found out about the truth behind Mafuyu's lack of true self, he'd grown readily into a pillar of stability for her. Like a pillar, he couldn't move away from the edge nor pull her with him—but he was there, ever steady despite his own life's struggles she knew she'd gone through over the years.
She turned to her companion with curious eyes. "You mentioned you made a new track the other day."
"...Yeah. It didn't really fit Vivid BAD SQUAD's style, so I was planning to send it to you once it was done."
"Let me hear it." Her hand reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone; she quickly swiped open the near-empty document of lyrics she kept saved for moments when she didn't have her notebook with her. "I have lyrics."
Toya chuckled under his breath. "In here? Do you want to go outside and not crowd the exhibit?"
Mafuyu shook her head. "I want to see the flowers."
Toya smiled—Mafuyu blinked. "Alright. Here, it's on my phone, I'll play it here."
"I know it's on your phone." The two of them sank down in front of the flowers together, quietly breathing out of their mouths as Mafuyu furiously typed away on her phone and Toya let the music hum through the sealed-off exhibit. Occasionally, a couple of people would walk in, and Toya would quietly explain that they're songwriters and "you know how volatile creative projects can be." They would give him a fake smile and nod, then ignore them as they talked amongst themselves or kept to themselves.
They sat there for a little while; at some point, Mafuyu had taken her nose plug off and the smell faded into white noise. Once she'd completed the final line of the song—Toya's track long set to looping in the background despite him pulling out Puyopuyo and playing against anyone who would dare match with him online (which wasn't often due to many instantly quitting over seeing his high-ranking title)—she hummed to herself the song once more.
"...I'm thirsty."
"There's a couple of cafes nearby. Wanna check them out?"
Mafuyu looked up at Toya and blinked. "...Don't you want to see the rest of the exhibit?"
"Yeah, but as long as we have these wristbands we can just get back inside. There's an entrance for only those with wristbands. I want a coffee myself, so it's good timing."
"Mm." Mafuyu stood up and helped Toya off the ground; both of them tucked their phones away and went back into the dividing room.
"I'm glad you invited me," Toya said abruptly as he opened the door back into the main area, holding it open for Mafuyu.
Mafuyu stopped, an unusual sensation growing in her chest. The only thing she could really attribute to it was— "Me too."
Then she kept walking, not taking in Toya's response if he had one. He fell quickly in-line with her once more, the two of them not saying another word to each other until they'd stepped back out into the sunlight.
That night, Mafuyu quickly threw her clothes in the washer—even though she'd grown used to the smell of rotten flesh in the period of time she'd spent in that room with Toya and the rafflesia flowers, her clothes would take some time to de-stink from being in there for long.
...Something about that made Mafuyu huff.
Winterstorm (@truewinterstorm) 30min ago
「 Rafflesia; hey tell me, when will I be able to call myself loved? 」
Willow and I went to a flower show the other day. In it, we saw the rafflesia flower. It's a parasitic flower, unable to survive without preying on something else. I felt something, so we wrote a song about the rafflesia flower. Please continue to listen to us, during the third season of Winterstorm. —Yuki.
Rafflesia—17:00 JST.