Chapter Text
Sawamura was very upset that morning. It was one of those situations that have us wonder about the meaning of life and the origins of the Universe because it seems impossible that such a ridiculous amount of bad luck happens to only one miserable bastard at random.
He sighed deeply and wiped the sweat off his brow with the hand that wasn’t holding his old umbrella over his head before adjusting his dust mask’s straps behind his ears.
It was a rainy July Wednesday. The rainy season had always been the time of the year that he liked the least. He invariably had a stuffy nose and sore throat for around two weeks after it started and it was horrible because it hurt to breathe. He’d always been a positive person though, so it didn’t get to him too much. It was annoying but it was something that happened to plenty of people and he really couldn’t hate the rainy season because it was important for the crops. Back in the countryside, he and his family always went to the local shrine to pray for their crops and a good harvest around that time of the year. So despite everything, he really didn’t hate it.
However, the rainy season was different in Tokyo. It was a hundred times worse. The polluted air got stuffy and unbearably humid. That was the worst rainy season cold he’d ever gotten. He could hardly breathe, his voice was raspy and his throat stung. The fact that he worked part-time at a flower shop didn’t help at all. The greenhouse effect was hellish in that place.
But that wasn’t the main reason why he was upset.
He’d woken up at 7 in the morning and he had hardly slept that night. It hadn’t been because of his health or the weather though because he’d inhaled some Vicks vapours the previous night and taken some cold medicine and that would have been enough to provide a decent night sleep. However, the absolute piece of shit that slept in the dorm room above his had decided to bring his equally shitty girlfriend and they had been having sex until about three in the morning. He could hear the backboard of the bed hitting the wall and the bed trotting rhythmically on the floor. Those fucking animals were also obnoxiously loud. They had only stopped when somebody in another room (Sawamura recognised Kuramochi’s voice) shouted, ‘EITHER FUCK QUIETLY OR STOP FUCKING, YOU BASTARDS! PEOPLE WANT TO SLEEP!’ Sawamura heard several people in the other rooms laugh and he couldn’t help snorting too. So he’d finally gone to sleep but he had classes at eight in the morning so he’d only slept four miserable hours.
Despite that being his first year and not being all that close with his classmates, when he finally got to the University and met them in front of the classroom they seemed to find it strange that he looked so upset and worried about his condition. They had only seen his happy-go-lucky side so far. That was his actual personality though so he managed to put a smile in his eyes (the only visible part of his face) and tried to sound amused when telling them about the night he’d had. They’d laughed, of course, but also wished that he’d get well soon and some of them even suggested ways of speeding up his recovery.
“My mum always made me chicken broth when I got ill.” Toujou told him “But I never learned how to make it, so I can’t really teach you.”
Sawamura snorted at how unhelpful that actually was but he immediately regretted it because it triggered a fit of coughs.
“Ugh…I know how to make it, thanks for the tip.” He said wiping the painful tears off his eyes and smiling.
“Oh, I’ve read something about onion syrup being good for your throat.” Kanemaru remembered “Maybe you could try it!”
Sawamura scrunched his nose.
“Onions? That sounds kind of nasty.” Sawamura confessed. Toujou seemed to agree.
“Well, I’ve never tried it so I don’t know. I’m just sharing what I read.” Kanemaru shrugged.
“You can also make that with carrots!” One girl with long brown hair that was standing nearby joined their conversation. She wasn’t Japanese but she could speak Japanese well. “I make it with carrots. It’s really easy. You just have to cover slices of carrot with sugar and then drink the syrup when the sugar melts. It’s delicious!” She assured.
The boys seemed to find that idea much more appealing.
Sawamura grinned from ear to ear.
“Thank you, Marie-san! That does sound a lot tastier! I’ll make sure to try it!”
“No problem!” She smiled back.
“Ah…” Kanemaru hesitated and scratched the back of his neck “You’re French, aren’t you?”
“Yes?” She confirmed with a puzzled look.
“So you don’t have any problems with French Lit., do you?” He asked with a guilty look “The teacher only speaks French and my French isn’t that good yet…”
She smiled knowingly.
“I can lend you my notes if you want, Kanemaru-kun.”
He sighed deeply and looked like he wanted to hug her. He just bowed his head.
“Thank you so much! I can lend you all the notes you want too!” He assured.
Toujou cackled and Sawamura snorted and winced before he started coughing again. Neither of the two had French Literature despite all being in the same degree.
“Seems like you’re safe, notes boy!” Toujou joked patting his back and they all laughed “Can you lend me your notes too?” Toujou asked.
Kanemaru raised an eyebrow.
“Only if you buy me dinner.”
“Ah…is it because I’m not a pretty girl?” His friend complained.
“Yes.” Kanemaru bluntly replied. Toujou dramatically shook his head as the girl giggled.
Sawamura was in a visibly better mood after interacting with his friends and nobody else asked what was wrong with him during the rest of the day despite the fact that he gradually started feeling colder and that most likely meant that he had a fever. That didn’t stop him at all.
He had classes until 3pm so, at quarter past, he opened his crappy green umbrella and walked out of his faculty to walk to the bus stop to wait for the bus that would take him to his job. At least that was what he had in mind, but of course the Universe was conspiring to spite him on that dreadfully sultry July Wednesday.
As soon as he stepped out of the building and opened his umbrella a demonic warm gale produced without a doubt by the intestines of Satan himself relentlessly attacked him from the back. His umbrella bent upwards and all the rods were destroyed rendering the umbrella completely useless. He blankly stared at it as the rain started pouring on him.
His first instinct was to run to the bus stop as fast as he could to avoid getting soaked but it was still a good fifteen minutes away and he was ill. He was wheezing and agonising in pain after about five minutes. He yanked the dust mask off his face and clutched his chest, leaning against the window of a coffee shop and breathing with difficulty. He felt so cold. His fever had gotten worse for sure. That had been a brilliant fucking idea.
Sawamura massaged his chest and looked at the hazy gray sky through his watery puffy eyes filled with regret. Shit, he had to keep it together somehow. He couldn’t die like that.
“Are you alright?” Somebody asked. Sawamura wildly looked around to see where the question had come from and saw a stranger holding a red umbrella over his head. He couldn’t see his face very well because his vision was blurry; all he could make of it was that the guy wore glasses with a thick black frame.
Sawamura got away from the window and staggered dangerously.
The stranger reached out his free arm and put it around him before he could fall and Sawamura gasped holding onto his arm.
Sawamura got away from him and swayed back onto the glass of the window and breathed heavily.
“Easy there. Do you need to go to the hospital?” The stranger asked sounded genuinely concerned “You look like you’re going to faint.” He observed, holding the umbrella over both their heads “And you’re too hot so you probably have a fever.”
“I have…” Sawamura gulped, finally managing to catch his breath and wiping his face with the back of his hand. He even regained his balance. “I have cold medicine…right here!” He patted his tote bag and looked up at the guy who eyed him in silence.
“What about water? Do you have it?” He asked.
Sawamura thought about it and realised that,
“No.”
The stranger was already opening his own bag to fetch a plastic water bottle.
“It’s still sealed.” He informed handing it to him without further argument “Take it.” He insisted as Sawamura hesitated.
“Thanks.” Sawamura said before accepting. It was weird to have a complete stranger be so nice so he made sure to take a good look at him so that he could return the favour if he ever got the chance.
He noticed that he was a handsome guy despite his old-fashioned glasses (which actually looked good on him). He was also somewhat taller than him and had broad shoulders. He didn’t look much older than him and from all the books in his bag Sawamura would bet that he was also a university student.
Sawamura opened the bottle and confirmed that it was indeed still sealed. That helped him trust the guy. He took a swig and it felt like heaven down his sore throat.
“That’s better, right?” The stranger smiled, clearly amused “Take my umbrella too.” He said, handing it to him “You need it more than I do.”
“What? No!” Sawamura protested with a frown “That’s too much! How would I return it to you!?”
The stranger shrugged nonchalantly.
“You can keep it. I can get another one.”
Sawamura suspiciously looked at him.
“Why are you being so nice? Ah, stop shaking it in my face! I’ll take it, okay!?” Sawamura complained finally accepting the umbrella.
The stranger laughed out loud at his reaction.
“Calm down. I’m studying medicine. I’m supposed to be helping people stay alive, okay?” He told him with a smile.
“Oh.” Sawamura stopped frowning and looked at him again “Oh…”
The stranger shook his head with a smirk.
“I have to go now.” He said checking the watch on his wrist “Take care.” He smiled and patted his shoulder before walking away being quickly swallowed by the crowd on the pavement. Sawamura tried to call him but it was too late.
He looked up at the red fabric of his new umbrella and huffed.
He’d met a genuinely nice person and he’d been rude to him. He felt like a horrible person who deserved to choke on his own snot, something that wouldn’t be too surprising if it actually happened.
Eventually he got to work on time. He took cold medicine while on the bus and was lucky enough to only start feeling sleepy after he had already arrived at the flower shop. He had a spare dust mask in his bag so he put it on. It made him sweat abundantly as soon as the cold medicine started kicking in but at least he was protected against pollution.
He saw the guy that worked the shift before his leave as soon as he stepped inside the shop, barely waiting to hear his ‘Good work today.’
Despite how much Sawamura actually liked working there, he kind of understood why the guy wanted to flee so badly.
Walking into that flower shop was like walking into a sauna. There wasn’t much space to walk in there because it was completely cramped with pots filled of plants of all sizes. The sweet scent of the flowers and the earth mixed with that horrific humidity made him feel dizzy. The windows were foggy from the condensation so the light inside was white and diffuse. The only ventilation in there was provided by the open door and two tall old electric fans with colourful ribbons tied to the grid. One of them clicked so loudly, it sounded like a crazy cricket and was really unnerving. Sawamura looked around and noticed that, as usual, nobody had bothered sweeping the floor and it was filled with dead leaves and petals. The plants looked like they hadn’t been watered either and he only had to feel the dry earth of one of the pots to confirm his suspicions. They also had a radio in there and it was on. Sawamura winced at the obnoxious pop music coming out of it.
“Those lazy bastards…” He complained putting his umbrella in the umbrella bin near the door. He walked round the counter and turned off the radio. He then put his bag on the floor near the chair before walking through the beady colourful stripes that led to the tiny stockroom in the back of the store.
“Brilliant.” He grunted when the light bulb emitted an unusual amount of light and died with a sad click leaving him in complete darkness because there was no window. He looked for spare light bulbs and wasn’t surprised to find none. Well, screw it. He could just use his phone to light his way. There was no way in hell for him to go out and buy another one with that rain.
His clothes were soaked and disgusting so he had to change into something else but the best outfit he could get from the spare clothes they had there for emergencies was an obnoxiously orange Hawaiian shirt and a pair of worn knee-long brown shorts. Whatever, he wasn’t too demanding in terms of fashion anyway.
He sighed and put on the green apron with his name tag on it, applying to do his job right away.
Despite his lazy colleagues and the amount of leaves piled up under the stands, there wasn’t a lot of floor to sweep anyway, so he quickly took care of that task, diligently shoving all the waste in a black plastic bag that he took outside and threw in the dumpster.
“You poor things…” He muttered sadly at the plants as he watered them “Those bastards have no heart…” He grunted bitterly, caressing the leaves to straighten them “They forget that you’re also living creatures and need water to survive…assholes…”
Maybe the cold medicine was getting to him a little too much and making him too bitter, but the truth was that he loved flowers and plants. That was the reason why despite feeling like crap because of the greenhouse effect, he couldn’t help diligently tending to them and feeling grateful for his job.
Fortunately for him, it was a quiet afternoon.
People didn’t seem to want flowers with that weather and the only customers were three old ladies and a guy who’d apparently messed up with his girlfriend. Sawamura was too weary to warn him that red wasn’t a good colour to show somebody who was mad, even if they were red roses. It was something he liked to call the bull theory. He snorted into his dust mask and leaned on the counter as soon the guy left, yawning loudly.
It was now 6pm. He still had one hour and a half ahead of him.
He’d put a Yiruma CD playing on the radio because it was said that soft classical music was good for the plants but the problem was that it wasn’t helping him stay awake at all. He drank some water and sighed, resting his head on his hand. There was a fly lazily flying over a pot filled with pink peonies and he was following it with his half-lidded heavy eyes. The drone of the electric fans wasn’t helping him stay awake either. Without realising it, he’d leant onto the counter and rested his head on his arm looking at the insect and fell asleep.
One moment he was dozing, dreaming about clouds and pink flowers and the next he was almost having a heart attack. He kneed the counter so hard that some of the empty pots on top of it fell off with a loud clunk. Something that sounded like a gunshot had echoed right next to his ears. He literally shrieked and almost fell off his chair, but something grabbed him by the strap of his apron and prevented him from falling. That only scared him even more because he didn’t know what was going on.
“WHY DO YOU KILL ME?” He shouted incoherently with a croaky voice trying to get away from the mysterious force that had kept him upright.
He heard somebody cackling and that helped him come to his senses and realise where he was and what had just happened. His face and ears got red with shame (but one could only see the ears because he was wearing his dust mask) and he bowed profusely.
“I’m sorry for being asleep! I’m really sorry!” He apologised dramatically and bowed several times “Thank you very much for preventing me from falling! I am undeserving of such noble courtesy!”
The customer bent over laughing and Sawamura dared look up. It was the glasses stranger that had helped him earlier. Sawamura widened his eyes and gasped.
“Oh boy, I’m sorry for laughing so hard.” The customer straightened up and apologised as he wiped his eyes under his glasses “You should have seen your reaction!”
Sawamura couldn’t help getting a little upset and glared furtively at him. He noticed that the guy looked a bit worn, as if he’d spent too much time awake.
He noticed that there was a 2,000 yens bill on the counter and realised that this guy had slapped it there. He also looked like he’d come running because he sounded a bit out of breath.
“Do you want to buy something?” Sawamura asked as politely and professionally as he could, wondering at the back of his mind if the guy had recognised him and decided that if he didn’t show signs of recognising him, he would pretend to not recognise him either. There was no reason for that, he just decided to do it.
The guy stopped laughing and nodded, remembering for sure that he was in a hurry.
“Yes, I need a bouquet to passive-aggressively say ‘Fuck you!’ to somebody.” He requested.
Sawamura faltered for a moment. Had he heard that right?
“Excuse me?” He deadpanned.
The guy didn’t bother repeating because he knew that he’d heard what he’d said.
“Flower language?” The customer looked kind of disheartened, probably thinking that he didn’t know what he was talking about and was just another flower shop boy working for money “You don’t know about it, do you?”
Sawamura widened his eyes and couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear. Nobody had ever shown interest in the symbolism of flowers before.
“But I do!” He exclaimed clapping his hands enthusiastically despite how shitty he felt “I do! So we need to keep it pretty, so we must stick to similar tones, but you definitely need some orange lilies for hatred!”
The customer grinned and leaned back looking impressed.
Emboldened by the guy’s impressed look Sawamura kept going.
“Maybe some geraniums for stupidity, they’re dark pink, so it should look nice.” He walked round the counter and led the customer around the cramped room pointing at the flowers as he went “Some Red Spider Lilies, to say that you don’t want to meet this person anymore. Some Orange Mocks, it’s a misnomer as you can see, because they’re light yellow, and it means falsehood. Oh, we have pink Oleander! It tells the person to be careful!”
The glasses guy was delighted.
“Wow that’s impressive!” He complimented. Sawamura swelled with pride. His knowledge of flower language (acquired after years of reading shoujo manga, mind) had finally proven useful “I’ll take some of those. See what you can do with 2,000 yens, I don’t want to waste too much money with this.”
Sawamura bowed with a smile that showed on his eyes and applied to gather the flowers around the shop. The guy watched him attentively as he brought the flowers to the old working table near the door and picked a beautiful shiny white wrapping paper from the cabinet under the table and neatly put the flowers together. He then got some green leaves to put around the flowers and tightly tied everything before putting the wrapping paper around it and tying it with a pink ribbon.
“What do you think?” Sawamura asked his customer after he was done. He was clearly impressed.
“It looks fantastic.” The customer complimented with a smile and Sawamura couldn’t hide how much he enjoyed being appreciated.
He brought the bouquet to the counter and placed it there.
“So, it’ll be…” he typed the numbers into the register machine and on that moment he remembered how nice this guy had been to him before and how rude he’d been in return so he decided that he was being granted the chance to repay the favour and had to grab it “You know what?” He said picking up the 2,000 bill and handing it back to him with a smile in his eyes “It’s on me! You don’t have to waste money with the person you hate!”
The guy reached his hand to grab what was being handed to him clearly before thinking about it. He then retracted his hand without grabbing the bill and raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
“Please accept it!” Sawamura insisted handing him the money and bowing his head.
The guy shrugged before he finally accepted it but, as he was taking it, he accidentally touched Sawamura’s hand. The static spark was audible and it hurt. He drew his hand back in shock and stared at Sawamura with a surprised look.
Sawamura noticed that he’d zapped him and he wanted to bang his aching head on the wall. Dammit! That shit constantly happened and he purposely avoided touching customers’ hands because of it. Why did it have to happen now!?
“I’m sorry!” He apologised bowing his head.
The unexpected turn of events made the guy finally take a good look at him. He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head with the tiniest smirk.
“I think I’ve seen those weird eyes before… do I know you?” He asked and Sawamura didn’t have to answer because realisation suddenly washed over his face and he grinned “You’re the fainting guy from before!” He stated, taking glancing back at the umbrella near the door to confirm his suspicions and turning back to Sawamura, definitely smirking this time “I couldn’t tell because you didn’t have that beautiful shirt before.” He pointed.
Sawamura realised what he’d done and literally slapped his forehead immediately regretting it.
“Ouch…” he winced. The guy cackled at that.
“So you’re even more reckless than I thought.” He dramatically shook his head, clearly amused “You came to work even though you had a fever.”
“If I don’t come to work, the plants will all die.” Sawamura defended, frowning and looking away. Was he being scolded? Moreover, he barely knew this guy, so why was he explaining himself!?
The glasses guy sniggered before checking the time on his wristwatch.
“I really need to go now. Take care of yourself and thank you for everything, Sa…” He was trying to read his name but the name sounded strange, of course. He clearly wasn’t sure about what he was reading. He squinted at Sawamura’s name tag which was hanging over the right side of his chest and tried to read what was written there. He finally understood it. It was, “Samuel. I’m Miyuki. I’ll see you around.” He said with a wide smile before he grabbed the bouquet and strode out of the shop.
Sawamura tried to call after him but once again he got away before he could produce any sound and he sighed looking bitterly at his name tag.
He’d read that right, the tag actually read ‘Samuel’. For some reason (he suspected that it was drug-related) the people that had made his tag had gotten his name horribly wrong and he’d ended up becoming Samuel.
After washing his face in the filthy sink in the backroom he looked at his pitiful unmasked reflection on the cracked mirror. The dim light of his phone’s screen illuminated the horrible gray bags under his bloodshot eyes. His hair was sticking out in several places and his nose was miserably red.
People had had to look at that all day. With that Hawaiian shirt he looked like a drug dealer who was using the product a bit too much and he couldn’t help snorting at the thought.
He walked back to the diffuse light of the shop shading his eyes in pain and sat on the chair behind the counter again absentmindedly thinking about his two strange meetings with the glasses guy. Well, at least this time he’d gotten a name and that was a good thing. However, he was starting to change his mind about Miyuki being a genuinely nice guy. His eyes did look horrible on that particular day, but they weren’t weird.
He wondered if the kanji to write Miyuki’s name had anything to do with luck.