Seto Kaiba x Shizuka: Flower shop. Seto goes to buy flowers for the anniversary of his parent's death.

Hello! I originally wrote this a while back, but I finally rewrote it and decided to post it! Thank you so much

Disclaimer: I don't own the original characters or the manga/anime

Please review, thanks!

Seto cursed the muggy, rainy weather and he folded up his umbrella and threw it by the outdoor bench as he stepped under the small veranda. Why on earth had he given his chauffeur the day off? After all, the chauffeur's wedding couldn't possibly be more important than driving a multi-billionaire to a small flower shop.

Yes, flower shop.

Every year, on the fifth of May, Seto would go and buy flowers. The flowers weren't for a girl... or his brother... and of course not himself. They were to commemorate anniversary of his parent's death. Every year, at the break of dawn, he would go to a small flower shop. It was surrounded by a beautiful--but overgrown-- garden with creeping vines practically covering the sign that read "Onigumo's Flowers." It was his mother's favourite flower shop, at the corner of Tae and Whan where a beautiful boquet would wait for him on that day every year. What had it been, ten, twelve years that this ritual had taken up the fifth of May? A kind old man by the name of Onigumo Yakura would greet him, rather annoyingly, and Seto would depart for another year without a word.

But that had been before the old man had died. The flower shop was still there and the sign that had said "help wanted" was long gone, so Seto went inside. The cool air and the bright colors of the flowers filled his eyes. The fragrance of freshly cut flowers calmed his nerves a bit. A young woman with long red hair had her back to him behind the counter. A bright and happy tune from some old movie was playing on a crackling old radio and she was dancing and humming to it cheerily. She seemed to be working on a large white wedding bouquet of white roses.

Seto cleared his throat and crossed his arms. With a cry, the young lady spun around and faced him, clutching the flowers. Her face lit up with a blush and she bowed while saying, "I'm sorry" multiple times.

"You're Jonouchi Katsuya's sister." The damp billionaire stated as the redhead bowed again. He hadn't seen her since he had graduated high school.
"Yes-- Yes sir, Mr. Kaiba-sama!" she smiled weakly.

"So I assume you know of my yearly order." The stoic man said. The girl's timid smile faltered,
"Well, Mr. Onigumo didn't... well, he passed away awhile back and he didn't leave what your preference of flowers were. But, since you're here now, what kind--"

"Orchids." He said slowly, "Orchids, lilies, and pink roses." The girl grinned, bowed as gracefully as she could considering her nerves, and quickly got to work.
"You can take a seat if you like," she said as she rummaged through some standing pots of roses and motioned to a seat. The billionaire silently remained standing, but gazed out of the window, seemingly thinking of something or someone from the far past.

Shizuka had taken the job at the flower shop a few months before, when she had heard of old Mr. Onigumo's death. She was the lone worker most days; Onigumo's widow owned the shop and only had hired a few workers at most. Shizuka had gone about her job as best she could when she arrived, seeing that everything had been left exactly as it had been when the old man still lived. Orders were strewn everywhere and truth be told, when some patrons came to pick up their orders, some left empty-handed.
Plants covered everything, vines were beginning to grow over unused planters. Shizuka had quite a time trying to get everything back to order; Mr. Onigumo was a genius when it came to traditional and contemporary flower arrangement, but his organizational skills had left a lot to be desired. After about a month of so of intensive cleaning left the shop remotely accessible.
One day though, only a few weeks before, Shizuka had found something strange. Among all the senseless records and clutter, under an overgrown plant was a lone yellow sticky-note. It was written hurriedly in shaky handwriting and dated just a few days before the old man had died.

"5th of May, Kaiba Seto, large bouquet--Important"

Shizuka glanced up at the handsome man as she wove some fragrant greens into the bouquet,
"Are these flowers for someone special?" She asked. As the man's sharp gaze snapped to her, she quickly lowered her eyes, realizing how personal the question was to the famous man.

"Yes." he said after a moment. The lady's soft gaze shyly turned back to him. "For my mother and father." he said quietly; his eyebrows relaxed as he returned his stare to the window.

"Ah... what are they like?" She asked, digging some ribbons out and stringing them about the growing arrangement. All she had ever heard about the seemingly cold man was that he was... well, a billionaire, handsome, and a huge name when it came to dueling. She had never heard of his parents

"Dead. They're dead." He said bluntly. Shizuka's face fell,
"Oh!" she exclaimed apoligetically, "I'm so sorry!" the man nodded.

"Um... what were they like?" she asked after a moment of silence.

For a while, the man did not answer.
"My mother was beautiful." he said quietly. Shizuka glanced at him and found that his eyes had drifted closed and a smile had begun to show on his lips, "She had long black hair and large dark eyes... her voice was cheering." His eyes opened and the man picked up a discarded flower and thumbed its leaves gently, "Mokuba's a lot like her..." he mumbled, more to hjimself than to Shizuka.

"And your father...?" Shizuka asked. The man's lips drew to a firm line.

"He, like Gozaburo, was strictly business. He provided for the family with money and he usually kept to himself." The man said.

"Do you think of them often?" Shizuka asked as she fumbled for a scissors in a drawer.

"Not my father; no. Occasionally my mother does come to mind, though..." he trailed off as Shizuka wrapped the flowers up in some tissue paper and fluffed the bouquet once more,
"Well, here they are!" she said, offering a smile. Seto looked up.

These flowers far surpassed anything that the old Onigumo had come up with before. They almost seemed to sparkle under the sunlight that was beginning to seep through the windows. The girl held them up, "Do you like them?" She asked hopefully. The man wordlessly pulled out his wallet, quickly wrote a check and then looked back up at her,
"Yes." he said quietly. The lady grinned and skipped around the wide counter and to give him the flowers.

His eyes caught hers for a brief moment, almost causing her to drop the carefully-prepared bouquet. He reached out and took the flowers gently from her, handing her the cheque in return.

"Careful!" She said with a laugh, "They might drip on you!" Her voice rang like a clear bell in his ears. He nodded again and turned. As he had taken the flowers from her, his large hand had brushed up against her smooth hands. He felt the velvety-smooth touch of someone he had long forgotten. He managed to grunt a "thank you" as he made toward the door.

"Come back soon-- oh! And pay respects to your mother for me!" She called as he opened the door. Turning to nod again, he did a double take. For a moment, standing in the sparkling new sunlight, standing where the girl had been was a woman with raven hair and large dark eyes. He blinked in disbelief and found Shizuka right where she had been.

"Ah... yes... yes, I will..." he said, gently swinging the door shout with the ring of the bell. The stood still for a moment, the clearing clouds above his head and the last dripping of the rain hitting the ground. He stared at the door before he shook his head. Why on earth had he shared any of that personal information with her?

Oh well, he thought to himself as he grabbed his umbrella. For some reason, he sort of actually felt almost cool, not in hot anger as he had been before he had entered the shop. He had to get going anyway. After all, he had a graveyard to get to.

Shizuka smiled to herself as she went back behind the counter to work on the wedding bouquet. She unfolded the cheque to put it in the register and almost accidentally dropped it it. It was for 950,000 yen. She shakily put it in the register and went back to singing along to an old show-tune.

Well, I hope you liked it! I really love the idea of Shizuka working in a flower shop; you'll see her working there in some of my other future stories. I also really like the idea of Shizuka resembling Seto and Mokuba's mother.

Please review and take a look at some of my other Seto x Shizuka stories! Thanks!