2/14: The Florist's Tale
a Weiss Kreuz fanfiction by laila

Standard Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz, it's characters, indices and any other related properties I have forgotten to mention are the property of Kyoko Tsuchiya, Koyasu Takehito, Project Weiss, TV Tokyo, Movic, and several other US companies whose names I don't know. and probably the cat. I appropriate them only for the sake of a bit of fangirl fun and promise I'll give them back as soon as I'm done. No profit is or will be made from this piece of silly Valentine's Day related fluff.

Author's Note: The Japanese celebrate Valentine's day a little differently to the way we do in the West. In Japan, it is typical for women to give gifts of chocolate to the men in their life on Valentine's Day. Giri-choko, or obligation chocolate, is given to male friends and acquaintances, while honmei-choko – true love chocolate – is spared for men they have romantic feelings for. Men reciprocate on White Day a month later. I have, in writing this fic, attempted to remain true to the spirit of the Japanese holiday while still portraying Valentine's day in a florist's, and the madness that would come with it over here, in a way that would be recognizable – and amusing – to a Western audience.

Half past six found Ken Hidaka, his hair still damp from the morning's shower, desperately hunting in the back room of the Koneko no Sumu ie for Hello Kitty's nose.

He had been up since ten past five. Even for Ken, a morning person by nature, ten past five counted as Too Damn Early – but what choice was there? He had wanted to go running, he had needed to take a shower. That and a snatched breakfast later, he had hurried down top the shop to start setting up, cursing the day that God had given him a work ethic and two damn near useless teammates.

If he looked out of the window, it would still have been dark outside. Here he was with the sun not yet up, stranded in the back room of the Koneko doing what he had been for the last half-hour: making Hello Kitty bouquets. Any other Monday and he could still have been in bed right now – of course he almost definitely wouldn't have been, but he could have been, and that was the important part. What a way to start the week.

Ken hated Hello Kitty bouquets. They were small, fussy bunches of self-conscious cuteness for self-conscious middle-schoolers to buy for their crushes. It wouldn't have been so bad if only the others had ever bothered to learn how to make the godforsaken things, but Youji had always refused to have any part in such wanton cruelty to flowers and somehow, Ken never had quite managed to work up the nerve to try and teach Aya. It was tedious, fiddly work, and Ken was sick of it already. He wished he was back in bed.

No chance of that. Not when Youji and Aya had fussily dressed the windows and the display cases with artfully-arranged bouquets in red and white, and garlands of ribbons and scattered rose petals. There was a bunch of bright red helium balloons by the till at just the right height to smack Aya repeatedly in the face and Youji in the shoulder, and their plastic points of sale were decorated with sprays of hearts he and Omi cut out of red construction paper. There were a good half-dozen orders that wanted filling before they could even open, there were wedding garlands in the chiller awaiting dispatch first thing, and a delivery roster as long as Ken's arm.

And there was a hand-drawn table stuck to the back of the stock-room door with all four of their names written in it, a thick black pen stuck to the wall next to it with sticky tack.

It was Valentine's day again.

If there ever was proof that God hated them all, this was it.

He found the plastic kitty noses in a box under the sink and, sighing, headed back to the stockroom table. The day had been far too long already, and it hadn't even begun.

The morning was showing drab and uninteresting and Ken was putting the finishing touches to his twentieth Hello Kitty bouquet as Youji, yawning, drifted in at a quarter to seven with a cup of take-out coffee in one hand. His clothing, no doubt retrieved not long ago from some office girl's bedroom floor, was slightly crumpled and smelled vaguely of cigarettes, and of someone else's heavy perfume; he smelled of a woman's unfamiliar shampoo and his hair, dark and heavy with water, hung limply about his shoulders. At least he didn't look sleepy, or no more so than usual.

"Where've you been?" Ken asked.
"Happy Saint Valentine's Day to you too, Kenken," Youji said, camouflaging a yawn behind one slender hand. "You're down early. Even for you."
"You're an idiot!" Ken spoke that one bit too loud: hands on hips, brows drawn downward, he looked the very picture of an angry housewife confronting an errant son sloping in hours after his curfew. What time do you call this, then—The blue apron couldn't be helping. "I told you to get an early night! Do you know what day it is today?"
Of course Youji knew. He gave Ken a wide, charming smile that only made the boy's scowl deepen. "Aw, you're mothering me. That's adorable, Kenken, really, but don't worry about me. I'll be there for my shift."
"You're working all day," Ken said exasperatedly. "We all are!"
"Which is exactly why I made the most of my last night of freedom," Youji said mildly.
"Yeah, well. Just don't come crying to me at half past one when you're dead on your fucking feet and we've still got four hours to go."
"I would never," Youji said, drifting over to Ken and ruffling his already untidy hair, "never do that to you. Not while you've still got all the tact and sensitivity of a brieze block, anyway…"

Ken batted Youji's hand away, and went back to Hello Kittifying a carnation.

Youji went away. Aya arrived minutes later, wordlessly, put on his apron, and vanished into the kitchen area to make himself a cup of coffee. Ken was surprised when the redhead re-emerged a few minutes later carrying two mugs. The last thing he'd been expecting was for Aya to make the coffee without being asked; normality was resumed, though, when Aya handed him Omi's usual mug, followed by the sugar bowl. For Aya to actually remember precisely how Ken took his coffee would have been too weird for words and, after an hour of Hello Kitty bouquets, Ken was far too grateful for the coffee to care.

Besides, it was Valentine's day. If Ken had smoked, this would have been a last cigarette.

"Thanks," Ken said.

Aya murmured something that could have been an it's okay or a whatever and, flipping open the order book and tugging on a worn pair of gardening gloves, started gathering the materials for the first of the day's orders. Something fussy involving roses and carnations and lilies, and a clear white vase. Any other day Ken might have teased Aya by Hello Kittifying a rose while he wasn't looking, but not Valentine's day.

They worked in near-silence for almost three-quarters of an hour. Aya lost himself in vases and lilies and fronds of fern, and a confection of roses in various hues of pink; Ken, humming under his breath, exchanged Hello Kitties for an infuriatingly overcomplicated something in a square glass vase which Omi had claimed was called a Sweet Thoughts arrangement, then three dozen red roses for a wealthy man's new bride sequestered in the glass tower that was their apartment. Three dozen – Jesus fuck, they were a bitch to get looking anywhere near attractive, and even less pleasant to de-thorn. He suspected Aya of putting these ridiculous orders aside so that he would have to deal with them, but said nothing about it. It was Valentine's day, and for better or worse they were in this together…

Omi joined them at twenty to eight, dressed for school and carrying his bag, and offering an entirely needless apology for not being there earlier.

"'S okay," Ken said with a tired smile, "not your fault it's Monday."
"I know, but…" Omi sighed, gazing about himself at the stockroom table, already cluttered with flowers and cellophane and reels of ribbon and tape. "I should have been here earlier, shouldn't I?"
"You've got school," Ken pointed out. "Can you gimme a hand with putting out these Hello Kitty things?"

There was a stuffed Hello Kitty in a pink dress already waiting on the display stand, a small hand-lettered label reading not for sale resting by her feet. Omi, arms full of bunches of kittified carnations, nudged her back a calculated couple of inches. Ken watched, hands on hips, from the stockroom door for a moment or two before turning back to his latest arrangement of roses and something, muttering a necessarily silent prayer that Omi wouldn't trip.

Finally, with the last of the morning's arrangements completed, the delivery van loaded with the wedding garlands and the store lying quiescent just beyond the stockroom doors, there was just enough time for the three of them to grab a ten-minute sit-down before it was time to draw back the shutters and open for the day. Even Aya, slumped surprisingly gracelessly on the couch with a rare cigarette slow-burning its way to extinction between his pale lips, seemed to be feeling it, and they hadn't even opened up yet…

Good morning, Ken thought, it's Valentine's Day in Hell and today we are going to be florists.

Half past eight. Aya got back to his feet, murmuring a courtesy something about the wedding. Lucky bastard, Ken thought, he's well out of this. Groaning, the boy pushed himself up from the couch and hurried into the shop, over to unlock the door. Well, he thought, gazing through the glass into the deceptively quiet streets, here goes nothing…

"I'll help you with the shutters," Omi said.
Ken grinned. "Well, you'll need to get the pole—"
"Omi-kun! Omi-kun!"

Ken had barely slipped the door keys back in the pocket of his jeans before a high-school girl with short brown hair he recognized as one of their regulars abandoned her friend on the other side of the road and flitted recklessly over to Omi, who had just stepped past Ken with the shutter hook in one hand. Blushing, fighting down a wide and graceless smile, she bowed deeply to him, holding out a box of chocolates.

"Omi-kun," she said breathlessly. "Please, I'd be honored if you'd accept these!"
Omi had colored, stepping back a pace. "Um, thank you, but… but you didn't have t—"
"Please!" The girl pressed the chocolates into his hands. "Take them! From me!"

And she hurried away, hardly seeming to notice that she had left Omi blushing and awkward and clearly wishing quite fervently that he had just stayed inside. The teenager, stranded on the sidewalk with the chocolates clasped awkwardly to his chest, simply stood and stared after her as, waving cheerfully, she darted back to her friend: another regular of theirs, but a darker, neater, somewhat primmer specimen than the first girl. She had crossed the street rather more circumspectly while her friend menaced Omi with a chocolate box and, one anxious hand over her mouth, she was now hanging back to wait for her.

"I thought you said you were going to wait until after class," she said finally.
"Winners strike first!" The girl cried cheerfully, snatching at her friend's arm. "Come on, hurry up, we'll be late!"
"Oh, Nene-chan! We wouldn't have been late at all if you hadn't—"

Then they were gone, the morning crowds swallowing them up as if they had never existed at all.

"Wow," Ken said. "She started early."

Omi nodded dumbly and ducked back inside as if for safety from stalking schoolgirls and their nonsensical hormone complexes, leaving the shutters to Ken.

And, for a few minutes, there was nothing. Just Omi and Ken and an empty store, and then there wasn't even Omi any more. Ken sat behind the register and stared out across the shop floor, listening to Omi putter about in the back rooms getting ready to leave, and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Good luck, Ken-kun," Omi said. "I wish I could stay and help, but—"
Ken grinned. "It's okay. We'll get by. Just… you better not get held up afterwards!"
"I'll try my best."

Smiling and waving a cheerful farewell Omi slipped away out the back, helmet swinging from one hand. One in, one out: the door had only just closed behind him when Momoe ambled in, as ever acting as if she simply expected her little shop to open all by itself nowadays and, as ever, a handful of minutes late. There was still no sign of spring in the air, and the old lady was bundled up in a heavy coat and scarf, and warm ankle boots; she looked for all the world like Mama Bear unsuccessfully attempting to pass herself off as a human. Giving Ken a benign smile, she pulled herself carefully up onto her usual chair and settled down there, knees tucked beneath her, her hands in her lap. Her cat took a brief detour to rub against his ankles before jumping up into her lap.

Easy come easy go for Momoe; in her eyes, he was sure this was just another day, never mind all the stupid heart-shaped crap that had cropped up about the store. Ken wondered what she was making of it all. He wondered if she could remember when all this Valentine's stuff had started…

"My, doesn't the store look pretty today?" she said.
"It's Saint Valentine's Day, grandma," Ken explained. "Good morning. Can I help you?"

The sound of the door chime might as well have been a pair of pebbles, skittering and bouncing off a clifftop. It was, or so Ken thought, the sound you heard just before half a ton of mountain ended up on top of you.

A slim, dark salaryman, his hair slicked back from his temples like a man twice his age, had stepped inside the store and was gazing around himself in bafflement. Clearly an impulse buyer here, perhaps for a bunch of flowers for the new office lady he had his eye on – it was Valentine's Day, why not buy flowers for a pretty girl? There'd be time before work, how long could it take to do that? – and had no idea that flowers could be this complicated… smiling a polite shopkeeper's smile, Ken got to his feet.

Fifteen minutes later, the store was already uncomfortably crowded and Ken, the telephone to his ear, was trying to deflect a persistent young woman who appeared to be trying to force a bunch of dahlias up his nose (I'm a legal secretary, she was saying, they're for the front desk, I've got to get to work—) for just long enough to finish accurately filling out an order slip.

"So, that's a Winter arrangement? Oh… yes, of course, Sir, I do apologize, that's like the Winter arrangement, but – I'm terribly sorry, miss, can you wait a second? – the Winter arrangement but with red roses and red ribbon. Would you still like us to go with goldband lilies? If you preferred it, we could use Japanese li—Japanese lilies are white and pink, sir. Okay. Japanese lilies. I'm afraid we can't guarantee a morning delivery at such short notice but we'll definitely be able to get it out to you by half past thr… miss, please, I'll be with you as soon as I can—!"

(Christ, he could imagine what this girl would be saying about him! I'm so sorry I'm late, sir, but you asked for new flowers for the reception desk and the stupid boy at the florist's wouldn't get off the telephone…)

Already someone was glaring at Ken like he'd ruined their day, and it wasn't even nine AM yet.

Where, he wondered, the Hell was Youji?

A dark girl, homogenized by her winter coat and high-school plaid, ducked past the angry young secretary to shove a small box of chocolate across the counter and then, blushing to the roots of her hair, scampered quickly away before he could so much as turn around. He barely even had time to get a good look at her face…

This was the only good thing about working on Valentine's Day. Sometimes, a girl gave him candy.

By some minor miracle Youji drifted into the shop only three-quarters of an hour after they opened, clean and neat and looking so suspiciously cheerful that Ken suspected him of mainlining caffeine. It was perfect timing, really: he arrived just late enough that Ken, the phone to his ear and the order book lying open before him, was too grateful to see him to care that he had left him alone in a crowded store on Valentine's day for half an hour.

(It's Youji-san! one of the loitering girls whispered urgently, tugging on the sleeve of her friend's winter jacket. The second girl bit her lip, hands white-knuckling about a box of giftwrapped chocolate. I told you he'd be here, her friend hissed remorselessly, now's your chance, give it to him—!)

"Thank God you're here," Ken said, hurrying over to Youji and handing him his apron, as if he was afraid Youji would take the chance to try and flee if he turned his back for so much as a minute. "I've got another order in, customer wants one of the winter bouquets with Japanese lilies and red roses, can you go on the register so I can get that done for the morning delivery when Aya comes back from the wedding, unless you'd rather do the bouquet and I'll watch the – no, I'm quicker, just watch the store." He thrust the order book into Youji's hands. "I'm gonna need you to do the gift cards."
"You haven't done the gift cards? Why do I have to do the gift cards?" Youji grumbled.
"Because my handwriting's crap and Aya's is microscopic crap. Just do it, okay?"

Quarter past nine and Ken already sounded harassed and sick to death of flower shops, as if he wanted to barricade himself behind the counter with a broom and a trowel and shout, look, will you all just fuck off already! to the girls and the lovelorn office workers, and the brace of old ladies passing the time of day with Momoe, and neatly blocking the door as they did…

Huh. Perhaps seeking shelter by the register wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Youji said, "Busy morning, huh?"
"God, you're brilliant," Ken muttered. "Yes, it's kinda busy in here! What the Hell kept you?"
"Hey," Youji said with a shrug, "it could be worse, we could be selling chocolate…"

It was a great line; it was only a pity that Ken wasn't around to hear him. The boy was already vanishing off into the back room, his arms full of roses and lilies and ferns.

Aya was back from the wedding at half past ten: by quarter to eleven he was on the road again, the delivery van piled with the morning's orders. Ken tucked Youji's hastily-written gift card into his last-minute Winter-turned-Valentine's arrangement as Aya carried it to the door, and called the redhead back to triple-check that the delivery address had been added to the book. Yes, Aya had his phone on him. Yes, if they called him he would be sure to answer it this time.

The morning dragged on. Youji lurked behind the register and accumulated chocolate; Ken assembled a good half-dozen arrangements and more simple cellophane-wrapped bouquets than he could count, and told a maître d' that no florist he knew of would be able to accept a rush order for thirty place settings today and got an earful of abuse for his troubles, in what he told Youji he had thought was French but wasn't sure. At midday, he announced that there was no way the roses were going to last, even with the extras they had ordered in for the Valentine's bouquets there was just no fucking way they were going to hang on until six, and then he sold a Hello Kitty bouquet to a pigtailed kindergartner and just for a moment it seemed worth being in the shop at six that morning looking for plastic noses.

Aya arrived back in time to see Ken take an order from a young man in a Versace suit of a ludicrous blue whose entire appeal, Youji decided, must have been its astronomical price tag. He had been casting supercilious glances about the store for the last fifteen minutes – and, predictably, he turned out to know about as much about buying flowers for a girl as Youji himself knew about animal husbandry.

"Sir," Youji said dryly, "she's not necessarily going to be charmed just because you've spent a lot."
"Oops, sorry, Youji," Ken said, "didn't see you there. That'll be ¥12,700, sir. Did you say you wanted it delivered? Only that'd be extra…"

No, there was no way the roses were going to last until close.

Aya took the arrangement, disappearing into the back room in search of ribbon and a vase. With his disapproving back turned, Ken took the opportunity to hit Youji with the order book again.

"What the Hell did you say that for? That could have cost us the sale, you stupid—"
"You don't think it's kind of sad that he's trying to get his girlfriend to go to bed with his bank balance?"
"That guy just gave us fourteen thousand yen, Youji, he can do whatever the fuck he wants!"

Aya, stood at the center table, was still stripping the thorns from the roses when Michiru, her arms full of library books, a sharp-edged carrier bag slung in the crook of one elbow to bang against her side as she walked, dropped by on her way home from a morning class. New haircut, new boots, a new, genuine edge to her wistful mourner's smile. She chose Youji to talk to; she always had felt easier with him than with either of the others. She grinned slightly, touching the ends of her new hair when Youji complimented her on it. She still wasn't sure about it, she said. It was strange, how odd it felt to have her ears exposed…

"It's cute," Youji said, "It suits you."
Michiru smiled. "I brought you chocolates," she said, placing her carrier bag carefully down by the register and juggling the books from arm to arm as she reached for it: Youji stepped forward, carefully relieving her of the books. "You were all so kind to me, after what happened to Masato… I hope you can accept them."

She placed the boxes on the table as she spoke: four elegantly-wrapped little cartons of department-store chocolate, carefully undifferentiated. God knew why she felt thankful, after everything that had happened…

The bag, as she picked it up again, wasn't quite empty. Youji smiled.

"Who's the last box for?" Youji asked, teasingly.
"What? Oh, that!" She colored charmingly as she hastily wrapped the last box in the carrier and tucked it into her shoulder bag, smiling rather awkwardly. "It's just obligation chocolate for Ayase-san… he's a graduate student, he's been helping me plan my dissertation. I'm thinking of doing a Master's… Could you please tell Omi I was here, and I hope his studies are going well?" Clumsily changing the subject.

She bought a pot plant from Ken, a hardy little African violet he said could survive almost anything, even life on a busy student's windowsill. It would, the boy explained as he wrapped the pot in the store's paper, need a sunny spot, and she would have to take care when watering it to make sure not to splash the leaves. No, it didn't really harm them, but they could get discolored… Of course, there'd be plenty of information on the Internet.

As he watched Michiru walk away, stopping at the shop door to turn and wave them all farewell, somehow Youji knew that they'd never see her again. He was glad of it.

He stood. Stepping out from behind the register, Youji said to everyone and no one, "I'm going for lunch."

Ignoring the still-crowded store, ignoring the angry look that Aya shot him from over fourteen thousand yen's worth of red and white roses for daring to desert him in it, Ken followed Youji out and into the back room, standing back and watching as the blonde sprawled bonelessly down in one of the break-room chairs, kicking off one shoe and reaching in the pocket of his apron for his cigarettes.

"Oh, man," Youji moaned, running one hand through his curls, "I'm going to be dead before today's over…"
"I told you to stay in," Ken said irritably. "Why the Hell didn't you stay?"

And he knew only too well what Ken was really asking him.

It made sense, couched in those terms. Ken didn't really give a damn how busy the shop became on Valentine's Day. Ken had been at him to stay home last night only because he had wanted him to stay. Cigarette poised between his fingers, Youji glanced up at him in surprise. Of all the things he could have accused Ken of, he had never imagined that being too subtle would have been one of them.

"I didn't know you were after that kind of early night," Youji said. Then when Ken said nothing in reply, simply gazed flatly at him as if he were waiting for some kind of explanation that would make his words make sense, he added, "I didn't think you minded."
"Well I don't," Ken said. "I just… well, you're you, right? And you come back after. That's what matters. But what's your Plan A, Youji? Who'd you go to first, me or a girl you liked the look of this week?"
"What kind of a question is that?" Youji asked. "Of course I—"

He got no further. Ken cut him off, raising his hands as if he were trying to direct traffic. No. His meaning couldn't have been clearer if he'd grabbed Youji by the collar, shaken him, then screamed at him to shut up. Of course: this wasn't a girl in a gaudy dress, or largely out of it, lying next to Youji in a hotel bedroom. This was Ken, he was standing in the back room of the Koneko, and it wasn't the same at all. You couldn't treat one like the other; it just didn't work.

Ken just wanted honesty. No, Youji, everything about him was saying. No. I don't want you to tell me what you think I want to hear. I want to be told what I need to know. Just tell me the truth, as far as you know it. That's all.

"Hey, I'm not asking 'cause I want an ego boost. I won't be mad if it's the girls. I just wanna know, okay? Think about it."

And, with a smile, he was gone, hurrying back into the shop to face the ire of Aya.

"I thought we were taking lunch together!" Youji called after him.
Ken didn't even stop. He called back, over one shoulder, "What, on Saint Valentine's Day?"

The irony in that statement would have been breathtaking to anyone who wasn't a florist.

(But it could have been worse. Ken could have been a chocolatier.)

He was back just under an hour later and, if it hadn't been for the takeaway bag looped over one of his deceptively narrow teenager's wrists, he would have looked for all the world like a confectioner's understudy. His arms were full of boxes and bars of Valentine's Day chocolate, which he dumped unceremoniously down on the stockroom table. The take-out containing his lunch came in for far more dignified treatment.

Youji said, "I thought you said you were waiting until I got back."
"Yeah, well. See, I was going to," Ken said, somehow ignoring the obvious retort (well, why aren't you?) and seemingly addressing the noodle box he was busily fishing from its carrier, "but Aya wants to make a start on the deliveries. I figured I'd better eat before he ran off again. Mother of God, Youji, I hate Saint Valentine. However they martyred him I hope it fucking hurt."
"Wasn't he the one with the arrows?"
"No, that was Saint Sebastian. What should I do with this?"
"Why are you asking me that?" Youji asked. "It's your lunch…"

Of course, it wasn't the ramen Ken meant. Raising his head, Youji turned to see that Ken was holding a slim white box with a gold ribbon about it up by one corner, casual as if it had been a stray Miles Davis album that had somehow found its way into his CD collection.

"For me?" Youji asked, placing one slender hand to his chest in a parody of surprise. "Oh, you shouldn't have—"

In reply Ken grabbed at Youji's apron front and shoved him back hard against the couch. Youji winced as the boy's knee dug painfully into the flesh of his thigh, and he made as if to shove Ken off him – the boy wouldn't give an inch. He held his ground, gazing angrily into Youji's eyes. For a moment, it seemed as if he would hit him; instead, Ken kissed him. The kiss was hard enough to bruise, it was angry and demanding and awkward, awkward as Ken. Youji smirked against the boy's lips, and kissed him back, practiced and passionate. You asked, Kenken, you got.

When Ken finally drew away and clambered back to his feet, he was flushed and breathing hard, and trying not to smile too much. "Fuck you, Kudou," he said conversationally, wiping his mouth. "You knew what I meant."
"Someone gave you these?" Youji asked.
Ken nodded, retrieving his chocolates – somehow, without Ken much noticing, they had ended up on the floor by his feet. He flicked a stray leaf from the ribbon, held the box out to Youji again for him to inspect. So, everything about him was saying, what do you think?
"Ken," Youji said, "just so you know… that's not obligation chocolate."
Ken blinked. Once, twice, the perfect picture of innocent confusion. He glanced down at the box in his hands. "What do you mean? Of course it's chocolate."
"That's way too expensive to be obligation chocolate. Look here," Youji jabbed at the label with one slender finger as if he were trying to give the box a vaccination. "These are Lindt. They're Swiss. Girls don't give any guy Swiss chocolates just because it's Saint Valentine's Day and he's there. What did she say?"
"She didn't say anything."
"Nothing?" Youji asked. He sounded surprised.
"Nothing," Ken said.

And, abruptly losing interest in the whole affair, Ken handed Youji the chocolates and sat down heavily on the couch beside him, distracted by the promise of soba noodles.

Youji turning them over in his hands. No matter how hard he looked, they utterly refused to turn into something by Royce' or Glico, something that was partway understandable. Some girl, some dreamy young romantic who'd read far too much shoujo manga and thought far too little about whether the things that happened in them could ever work done for real, had taken it upon herself to give Ken Hidaka truffles from Switzerland when the kid would have been just as happy, and probably far more comfortable, with strawberry Pocky. It could only have been worse if she'd stayed up all night slavishly hand-making the things…

"Nothing at all? No hi, my name is Meiko, please accept these expensive chocolates and I don't want in your pants?"
Ken shook his head, swallowing a mouthful of noodles. "Nope. She just shoved the chocolate at me and ran off, she didn't even tell me what her name was."
"Huh," Youji said. "So she didn't even try to talk to you, then… sounds like someone's read too many love stories."
"I was on the phone. Maybe she got me mixed up with someone else?"
"I don't think she can have done, Ken."
"Girls are weird," Ken said. "Should I not have taken them?"
"Don't see how you could have done that," Youji said. Finally, reluctantly, he pushed himself back to his feet, sighing heavily. Christ, he really did not want to have to go back to work this afternoon… he wondered if maybe he could fake sick. Or, if all else failed, stab himself in the hand with his scissors. "Unless you'd wanted to run her down on foot, anyway, and even then you'd probably have got the wrong girl."

Sighing again, he ruffled Ken's hair (Hey, cut that out, Youji!) and, leaving the boy to his noodles and soda, dragged his weary self back out to the store. Nothing had changed when he got there save the position of the hands on the clock, and of course the sudden lack of Ken. It was still too crowded and, worse, it was clearly still Valentine's Day.

Aya, busy ringing up an order for an older woman who'd clearly just wanted something to brighten up the living room with, had left the vase of red and white roses, wreathed with ostentatious sprays of Queen Anne's Lace and garlanded with a flamboyantly-tied red ribbon, on the central table, where it was attracting the admiring glances of a couple of the more impressionable girls. It looked ridiculous to Youji's eyes, oversized and overstated. It was an exhibition piece, really, something florists made just to prove they could and then got back to selling bunches of daffodils. It was an arrangement to display at a wedding, not take home for a girl to put on her dressing table.

"Aren't you gonna box that up?" Youji asked.

In response, Aya handed him a small white card with a read heart stamped in one corner, and a silver pen. Oh. More calligraphy. Youji got it and rather wished he didn't. Why could nobody else in this stupid shop write more elegantly than an ape with a ballpoint?

"What does he want on this?" Youji asked.
"To my darling Honoka," Aya read, his impassive tone and flat delivery bleaching the endearment of any significance whatsoever. "Forever and eternally yours. And then he wants a question mark."
"He's spending fourteen thousand yen on this girl and he wants a question ma… okay, man, whatever."

Pulling a face, Youji sat down at the central table and uncapped the pen. Writing the card left him feeling strangely and indefinably sullied. Whoever Honoka was, he wished her all the luck in the world. Maybe she was every bit as silly and superficial as her besotted admirer was, in which case they'd probably be blissfully happy together until they inevitably both got bored, hopefully before the wedding; if she wasn't, he hoped the girl had a good pair of running shoes because boy howdy but she was going to need them.

An office girl gave Youji a matched pair of truffles in a dainty white box. Ken came back from lunch, then helped Aya load the van with the afternoon deliveries. They conferred for a moment on a delivery route that would allow them to do the ¥12,700 one first – the less time it was in transit the less risk there was of it getting damaged, and of them having to give the man and his suit a refund.

"Hurry back, Aya," Ken said, and there was genuine weariness in his tone. "Please."

Youji's latest office girl hadn't gone yet: she simply hovered by his side looking – to Ken's eyes, anyway – for all the world like a little kid before the Mother Superior. She twisted her scarf, a cheerful, stripy affair in paintbox colors, nervously between her hands, her eyes darting about as she tried to find something to look at that wasn't Youji. The store, of course, was full of things that weren't Youji, and yet none of them seemed quite good enough for her. "Youji-san, are you, um…" She swallowed. "Are you busy tonight?"
Youji sighed. He smiled. He said, "I'm afraid so."

(He knew how much nerve it must have taken this girl, to ask him anything of the sort.)

The young woman relaxed almost visibly, the tension draining from her stance and her hands dropping to rest by her sides. She almost smiled. Well, why worry what an idiot she must have looked, now that the worst had happened and he wouldn't have been interested anyway? She settled for exchanging cards, telling him that maybe she'd call. Youji suspected she wouldn't – pity, she was cute – but he tucked the card into his wallet anyway, and thanked her, and gave her a dizzying smile that had her blushing almost in spite of herself.

"Youji-san!" One of the younger girls, a first-year college student by the looks of her, had overheard the brief exchange. As the disappointed secretary slipped away, she hurried over to take her place by Youji's side. "You have a date tonight? What's her name, is it anyone we know?"
"No," Youji said, offering the lie with a broad, genuine smile. "Nobody you'd know. Her name is Teri."
"Teri? She's an American? How did you meet?"
"Is she here on holiday?"
"That's so romantic! Will you write to her when she goes home?"

Ken, collecting lilies and freesias for a bouquet (it's for my wife, his customer had said with an apologetic smile, she doesn't like roses: he must have wondered why Ken looked so relieved to be told it), hid his grin behind the flowers he was carrying. Meeting Teri? Well, that was one way to put it…

The afternoon got nearer to being over. A few figures in school uniforms started to show up among the clusters of people that dotted the sidewalks, hurrying back offices or apartments. A couple of high-schoolers drifted into the store, talking animatedly about what one of their friends had said, or hadn't said, to one of their other friends.

Sakura showed up shortly after the schools let out, panting a little, her cheeks slightly yet becomingly flushed – it could have been from exertion or the chill of the evening just as easily as the box of candy she was clasping tightly to her sweatered chest. One glance at the box's clumsy wrapping and slightly lopsided red bow was enough to betray that the girl had parceled it up by hand. The chocolates inside were probably hand made, too, and probably every bit as clumsy-looking as the parcel they had come in.

She asked after Aya and, when Youji explained that Aya was on a delivery, breathlessly told him that she'd wait for him to get back, if that was okay. She said, I won't distract you. I won't be in your way, I promise. I'll just wait quietly for Aya-san, and give him these, and then I'll be out your way.

"That's no problem," Youji told her. "I'm sure he won't be gone much longer."
Sakura positively beamed. "Thank you!"

And scampered off across the store to wait by Momoe, bending to scratch her fat little cat behind the ears.

Ouka arrived five minutes before Omi got back, and then again fifteen minutes afterward.

No fluttering little sallies for Ouka. No coy blushes or sidelong glances at her friends, or whispers of do you really think I ought to—? She walked straight up to Omi and, ready-or-not-here-they-come, thrust an expensive-looking gift box of truffles into his far-from open arms, seemingly utterly oblivious to the hostile stares this earned her from a handful of the girls. She probably wouldn't have cared even if she had noticed. It was Valentine's Day: anyone, after all, could give a boy they liked chocolates if they felt like it.

"Happy Saint Valentine's Day, Omi-kun," she said, giving him a dazzling smile that clearly left him even more at a loss for how to respond than the gift box of Godiva truffles had. "I hope you enjoy them."

Twenty past four and the sun was starting to sink as Aya slipped neatly back into the frame, carrying an empty delivery crate in one hand and swinging it as he walked: an unsettlingly boyish action, and one he self-consciously stopped the minute he realized he had been seen to do it. Sakura gasped, colored, and nearly dropped her slightly battered-looking box. She followed him with her eyes as he shrugged off his coat and disposed of the empty crate, sidling over to him as he stepped back into the store, shooting him a sidelong glance from beneath her untidy fringe as she shyly handed him the giftwrapped box.

Sakura blushed furiously when Aya thanked her for the chocolates, for all his thanks sounded cursory, and his eyes were as cold as ever. She might as well have been laying candy before her Gackt posters for all the good it would do her with him.

Ken wondered if Aya even ate chocolate. Well, if he ate anybody's, he'd eat Sakura's. It was, after all, about as close as he'd get to being subjected to his sister's culinary experiments, and everything Ken knew about Aya and his foolish fondness for his sister suggested he'd have been a willing volunteer.

He'd probably told his sister that her lopsided Valentine's candies tasted wonderful too…

Youji took a cigarette break, idly tallying up the afternoon's chocolate statistics on his wall chart as he smoked. He'd had an easy lead all day, but then Omi had come back from school with a Kasumi carrier bag of candy and a slightly pained expression on his face, and now things were looking a lot more competitive. Sometimes, Youji feared he just couldn't keep pace with a cute, harmless-looking blonde who spent all day round dreamy high-school girls and their seemingly endless disposable incomes, girls with little better to do than doodle on the covers of their notebooks and gossip about who liked who. Being strictly eighteen and up did have its downsides.

At eleven minutes to five, Ken sold the last of the red roses.

By five, they were down to the last dozen pink ones.

The schoolgirl population, murmuring the usual excuses about cram school or piles of homework, or shopping they still hadn't bought, started to thin out as the after-school crowd was replaced by weary-looking salarymen in dark suits and young women in pencil skirts and impractical heels. Sakura went home, practically skipping as she left the store. I did it, her smile was saying, I really did it…

Youji shook his head as the door closed behind her, watching her through the windows as she drew her coat tightly about herself and hurried off to a bus stop or the subway. Still, someone had to be her dry run for a genuine first romance later on: a real boyfriend, real dates. Better by far that she should fall for a man she reminded of his younger sister, who kept her carefully at arm's length and did little more to encourage her white-knight fantasies aside from existing, and owning a ridiculous white Porsche. At least she wasn't mooning over some smirking date rapist from the local college, or a best friend's asshole brother.

"I'm sorry," Ken was saying to a woman in a pale, expensive overcoat. "I'm afraid we've sold out."
"Sold out?" The woman echoed incredulously. "What do you mean, sold out? You're a florist, it's Saint Valentine's Day! How can you have no more red roses?"
"They've been very popular," Ken offered. "We had plenty this morning, but—"
"Well, why on Earth didn't you order more? You must have known they'd be popular!"

Ken said, "I'm very sorry, madam."

He sounded it, if you didn't notice that he was gripping the edge of the table extremely tightly, or how fixed his polite shopkeeper's smile had become. Lady, he was thinking, do not blame me because you couldn't get your act together until ten past five on Valentine's Day evening. I've been up and on my feet for eleven hours already. I was making stupid Hello Kitty bouquets at six this morning. I've spent the entire day ass deep in roses and I'm quite glad to see the fucking back of them and it's not my fault you left it till the last sodding minute and now you want to buy a bouquet.

"That's really not good enough," The woman said. "You should have planned better than this!"
"But we—"
"Madam." That was Omi, desperately attempting to salvage the situation. "I'm really sorry, but it is Valentine's Day and I think most florists will be running short of stock, right now. Would you be okay with something else?"

Omi smiled, and looked hopefully at her; it was an underhand trick, but it worked.

Night had fallen and, with seven and a half minutes to go until close, Youji sold a thrown-together bouquet made out of the best-looking blooms they had left to a harried-looking middle-aged man, a man with wispy salt-and-pepper hair and a crumpled suit, and a bedraggled-looking Daily Mainichi tucked under one arm.

Would sir like them wrapped?

It was always the way, he reflected as he wrapped the flowers. Despite living through a blitzkrieg of Valentine's Day stuff, some guys always did manage to forget. Despite the shops and department stores and their gaudy red-and-white window displays and the girls with their chocolate, despite marching to work and around the shops through barrages of flowers and candy and white stuffed bears holding pillowy red hearts saying I Wub You, the ridiculous personals, advertisements about romantic getaways and meals out, they would become distracted by other things, or simply forget that it could really have mattered, at this late stage in the game. There would always be some man who left it too late, and had to scramble to come up with anything at all.

Anything. Even a few sad-looking dahlias and the last of the freesia, scraped into a bouquet by a weary florist who was counting the minutes until he could close the store and pour himself a strong one. Anything, to the point that nothing would have been less insulting to the woman who received it…

Ken was just about to close the shutters when a young American barreled past him and through the door and, when Omi tried politely but firmly to tell him they were closed, asked how much he'd charge for the arrangement of roses and lilies in the window. Omi quoted a price that was not quite twice its actual value and the man paid it without a murmur; Youji, taking pity on him, threw in a box of chocolates and one of the last of the heart-shaped balloons.

"I suppose I could have asked for more," Omi said in surprise as he watched Aya draw the shutters. "He would have paid it, wouldn't he, Ken-kun?"
"I think he'd have bought a Hello Kitty bouquet," Ken said, untying his apron, "if we'd had any left. I'm going for a bath."
A bath? Youji caught him by the arm. "What about closing down?"
"Youji," Ken said firmly, "I've been in the shop for twelve fucking hours. I am going to take a bath."

Youji let him go – Ken didn't know why, but he did. Maybe Omi had said something.

The tiredness hit him about halfway up the stairs, and after that it felt like just about all he could do to drag himself to his room and collect towels and soap. Moments like this, Ken could only feel thankful he lived and worked in the same building. No matter how frustrating it was that Youji could live above a shop and always be late for his shift, or how trapped a whole day spent nowhere but the Koneko could leave him feeling, it could only be a blessing that, after near as dammit half a day on his feet, he didn't have to drag his weary, aching body onto a packed bus or down into the subways just so he could get home and sit down.

Slowly, dreamily, he washed off the day's dirt; he nearly fell asleep in the tub. After that, there simply didn't seem a lot of point getting changed into his day clothes again. Sure, it was stupid to wander around in your pajamas at seven at night, but frankly, Ken was too tired to care.

When Youji walked back in Ken, his hair damp, dressed in oversized pajamas, was drowsing on the couch in front of some by-the-numbers TV drama. Something about a free-spirited wheelchair-bound woman dying of TV disease and her hairstylist boyfriend, and it was all very heartwarming and sad if only the audience gave a damn, which Ken didn't and wouldn't have even if he hadn't been half awake. Youji wondered what had been on before, and if it had been any less predictable. Probably it hadn't been.

"I've ordered a pizza," Youji said. "Didn't think you'd feel like cooking, after all that."
"Thanks," Ken murmured sleepily, and yawned.

He listened with half an ear to Youji wandering around in the kitchen, collecting a glass from the cupboard, cracking cubes of ice into it. A bottle clicked against the glass's rim, and Ken thought he heard Youji sigh slightly. Probably just smoking. The freezer door slammed shut.

Youji said, "I've got an answer."

Ken blinked, raising his head to watch his friend pad back into the living room, a cigarette held loosely between his lips. Even elegant Youji looked tired and slightly the worse for wear, his hair limp and untidy, one rolled-up shirtsleeve slipping back down toward his wrist. He was holding a glass of what looked like ice water but clearly wasn't because Youji was drinking it and it was Valentine's Day, and ice water really wasn't going to cut it after Valentine's Day in the Koneko. For a moment or two he couldn't begin to imagine what it was Youji thought he was talking about. He nearly said, that's nice for you, before his sluggish, sleep-dazed brain caught up with him.

What's your Plan A, he had asked, for no more reason than he had wanted to know the answer. Think about it, and tell me the truth as you know it.

He said, "Oh?"
"Yeah." Youji said. He even sounded tired. "I don't think you're gonna like it, though…"
"Try me."
"All right then. There is no Plan A," Youji said: simple as that. He sat, the base of his glass clicking slightly against the surface of the table as he placed it down. "Not any more."

Youji didn't know what he expected Ken to do in response: the answer, as it turned out, was nothing, or at least it was nothing remarkable. Ken simply closed his eyes, slumping back against the cushions of the couch. He might have sighed; he definitely smiled, and his smile was slow and weary and frayed, and only painfully genuine.

He said, "That sounds familiar."
"It's too different," Youji said. "I can't come back to these women. But… you're not always what I need either. I'm sorry."
"No tits," Ken said. He grinned. "Yeah. Sorry. It was a stupid fucking question anyway."
"No it wasn't," Youji said. "If you wanted to know the answer, it wasn't a stupid question… Are you sure you don't mind it? Them? The women?"
Ken just laughed. "Christ, Youji, how dumb do you think I am? If I'd wanted commitment and all that shit I'd never have gone near you. Look…" He leaned over, placing one insinuating hand on the flat of Youji's upper am. "You're you. I don't want you to stop being that just because you think it'll make me happy, because it won't. Are we going to watch the movie?"

Youji smiled and bent to kiss him, gentle and undemanding, his fingertips brushing lightly against the plane of Ken's cheeks. It was a prelude to nothing more than a night on the couch, with a pizza and a movie they'd both seen before; there was nothing behind it save for the desire to kiss him.

"Sure," he said, when he pulled away. "Let's go and meet Teri."

The movie was every bit as ridiculously '80s as it had always been. As usual, it lost Ken within seconds by suggesting that putting Sylvester Stallone in a stupid suit somehow made him look like the harmless half of an action-movie duo; Youji, while fetching the pizzas, missed the bit where Kurt Russell's character (Cash, or just maybe it was Tango; it was hard to keep them straight even while the movie was on) decided it would be a brilliant idea to interrogate a man by holding a chair over his neck. No, Youji said, you don't need to pause it, I know what happens and anyway, the plot's only important insofar as it provides an excuse for Sylvester Stallone to blow shit up…

"What about the bit where Teri Hatcher takes her clothes off?"
"Nah, they don't even bother trying to justify that. I'll be right back."
"Can you get me a beer?"

The great thing about Tango and Cash was that a guy didn't need a brain to watch it. You didn't even need to listen to it, if you didn't want to: you could just sit back and watch things explode for no reason while the male leads postured and strutted. Youji could think of no better movie for a tired florist on Valentine's Day – but they hadn't even got to the bit where Teri Hatcher took her clothes off for no reason other than it was an action movie when Youji realized that Ken wasn't paying attention any more.

Ken's hair was in his eyes. Head resting against Youji's shoulder, his eyes closed and his lips slightly parted, he clearly couldn't have given a damn about the travails of Tango and Cash. Asleep, Ken still looked like someone's son.

Sometime during the absurd San Quentin sequence – or maybe the courtroom scene, one of the few moments in the movie where nobody was being shot at, or exchanging quips under absurd circumstances, or trying to blow something up – the boy must have drifted into a doze and, from there, into a deep sleep that not even things going boom for the sheer Hell of it could rouse him from. Ken was warm, he was full, and he was tired; you really, Youji reflected, had to be exhausted when even the most bombastically '80s of 1980s action movies couldn't keep you awake. Poor kid, he thought, gazing down into Ken's sleeping face. Who'd be a florist on the most romantic day of the year?

"Happy Saint Valentine's Day, Kenken," Youji murmured, brushing the boy's hair out of his face.

And flipped off the television, and closed his eyes.

-ende-