EVERLASTING BLOSSOMS, ni-ki ✓

03. Zinnia

For two weeks, the boy hasn't shown up.

I usually take the Saturday night shift only halfway through to go out with my friends, but for those two weeks, I've taken the whole shift, until closing time, and still, he didn't come. I haven't seen him in school, either.

I've been sitting here at the counter, waiting for him to show up today, but so far, no luck. At first, I assume that he's busy with school and Rinne, but now, after nearly three weeks, I'm wondering if something happened to keep him away. After all, he did say he would come by every few days to pick more flowers for her.

And yet...

I bite my lip and look at the watch on my wrist. Nearly 6 PM, the end of the shift. Just half an hour left. If he doesn't show up today, I can't wait any longer than a few minutes over. I have an alarming amount of homework that I just can't push aside anymore. Procrastination really isn't getting me anywhere.

But I want to wait for him. Knowing the situation, I want to be there for him if I can...even if it isn't exactly my place. We're not even friends. Just mere acquaintances. He doesn't know anything about me except my name, that I have two sisters, what I was to inherit, and that I know flowers.

I know nothing about him except his name, that he has two sisters, his interest in photography and painting, and that he was in love with a girl who could breathe her last any day.

I wince at the starkness of the thought. It wasn't that I didn't feel sympathy for them; I did, I really did. But still, the fact remained that few people survived cancer to begin with, and she was in the last stages and I've already deduced from the way he's so careful about his flower choices that she must be in a fragile state.

I remember the conversation I had with Eri all of a sudden, the last time Nishimura Riki had been here. It makes me uncomfortable, thinking about it. He wasn't even a friend, and still, Eri had misread the situation.

"So, Seiko-chan," she had started mischievously, "who's that?"

"A customer."

"You don't look at him like he's a customer. What's between you two?"

"I'm just helping him pick flowers for the girl he loves," I had snapped, unsure why I was feeling so annoyed. "There's nothing going on between us. There never will be."

"Sure, sure," Eri had said, looking skeptical.

I honestly don't care what she says, but somehow her declaration that I don't 'look at him like a customer,' makes me flustered more than I want to admit. I swallow and squirm in my seat, thinking about what she'd said. Alright, so he's handsome and pretty cute. But that doesn't mean that I look at him differently.

He's just one of those customers you have to pay special attention to. Right?

I sigh. It's fifteen minutes to six and it doesn't look he's going to show up anytime soon. Just as I think that, one of the guys my father hired to work the counter job walk in. Naturally, he's got the same knowledge of flowers I do.

"Hi," I greet Kei, the tall twenty-three-year-old whom I've befriended over the last few months. "You're a few minutes early. Fifteen minutes, actually."

"Fourteen," he corrects me, holding up his phone, displaying the time. The display reads 17:46. "Better early than late."

"I'll be off, then," I say, getting to my feet and swinging my backpack onto my back. I'd come here straight after school in hopes of finding Nishimura Riki here.

"Wait, Seiko," he stops. "Your father told me you're taking the morning shift tomorrow like you've done the last two weekends. Are you sure you're not overworking yourself?"