The water cascaded out of the tap and into the watering can with a steady sloshing sound. Arms folded, Liz Thompson stood before the sink and watched diamond droplets leap playfully around the rim. The sunlight drenched the transparent stream of liquid; illuminating it perfectly and making it seem almost silver. Everything about today was nice, including the weather. As she turned the tap off once more and glanced out the window, she winced in the face of the blinding afternoon sunshine. With some difficulty, she heaved the now extremely heavy watering can up and began staggering down to the back garden.

Patty was waiting for her on the steps, her trowel balanced on her bare knees. Already her hands were coated in filth, and she was even now happily scooping still more dirt into little piles. With a sigh of exasperation, Liz tottered down the steps and cast a disapproving glance back at her younger sister.

"Patty, you just washed your hands."

"Hee!" With a gleeful gurgle, Patty leaped to her feet and followed Liz at a skip, pointing joyfully skywards. "Look how blue the sky is, sis! It's like a - " Here, Patty paused, evidently searching for something to compare the blazingly blue heavens to. " – A cake."

Liz raised one eyebrow, and set the watering can down ungracefully, causing several teaspoons of water to spill onto the dry ground. "When have you ever seen a blue cake, Patty?"

"Just yesterday," said Patty matter-of-factly, crouching next to Liz and digging earnestly in the dirt under a weed. "It was in the cake store and it looked so yummy, but Kidd wouldn't buy it for me."

"Mm hm." Liz was only half-listening. While Patty knelt in the earth and rather ferociously attacked any poor weed that had dared to poke its nose in Death's back garden, Liz had straightened up and was pruning the tree. She would never claim to be any sort of expert, but she was pretty sure that this tree was not one you'd find in any old park. The leaves were black, for a start, and round and glossy. The bark was smoothly flawless and white as bone.

Like a tree of Death, she thought absent-mindedly. The sun beat mercilessly down on her uncovered hair, and she though briefly about getting her hat out. Even as she formed that thought, Liz gave a sudden shriek and danced backwards, flicking icy-cold water off her expensive suede pumps. "Patty!"

The cheerful blonde giggled and put a hand in front of her mouth. "Woopsie!" she squealed, clutching the handle of the tin watering can.

"You don't water the trees!" scolded Liz. "And you don't water my shoes!" Miserably, she pulled them off and flapped them in a vain attempt to dry them off. If she just left them out in the hot summer sun, maybe they'd dry okay.

After that, Liz did her gardening in barefoot. Having finished the first Death Tree, as she'd come to name them, she moved on to its twin, planted (predictably) just opposite, on the other side of the path. Patty followed at a run, her flowery sun hat casting a soft pink shadow over her eyes. "Let me water the plants sis! Oh please!"

"Go on then," said Liz, smiling fondly. She knew that Patty was eager to check on her vegetable plot. Shinigami had decided that it would be good for the energetic little girl to vent her boundless vigour in other forms, like a sport, or perhaps drawing. Painting, as it turned out, had been a disaster. Not only had the results been so horrific that Kidd had vomited every time he saw them, Liz quickly got very tired of cleaning paint off the ceiling. Instead, Patty had been given a corner of the garden to call her own. Over the months, it steadily began to fill with carrots, peas, tomatoes, a few herbs and for some strange reason, two cacti. Patty loved her cacti. She would spend hours in the evenings squatted there, crooning to them and running her fingers along the vicious spikes.

Kidd had told Liz once that Patty had even named them, but Liz wasn't prepared to believe that.

Now, she pushed the hair back from her face and watched in amusement as Patty attempted to run to her plot and carry the massively heavy watering can at the same time. After several minutes of heaving with a puckered face of frustration, Patty had to accept that she couldn't run after all, and resigned herself to staggering along very slowly, grumbling slightly as she did so.

Liz threw the shears down in the soft green grass – Shinigami had a way with lawns – and pushed two hair slides into her silky blonde locks. Having them hanging in front of her eyes like that every time she bent over was really getting irritating; this was so much easier. With a distinct lack of enthusiasm, she looked at the shiny black leaves that danced in her face, asking to be trimmed. It looked just as good as the one on the other side, in her opinion, and she really could not be bothered to cut even one more twig.

Instead, she wandered through the garden, relishing the springy caress of the lawn under her bare feet. In the distance – and she really could say this; Liz had never seen anyone with a garden as big as Death Mansion's – Patty squatted over a tomato plant, sprinkling water over it tenderly with cupped hands. Liz's heart swelled with pride at the sight; for weeks now, they'd been enjoying fresh vegetables straight from Patty's undeniably skilled gardening hands.

Wiggling her toes contentedly in the grass, Liz turned to the left and spotted another familiar figure standing upright by the roses. He moved with a languid grace that reminded her forcibly of the black and white Death Trees and their glossy leaves. An amused smile curled around her lips as she realised he even dressed like them, with pitch black trousers (despite the heat) and a collared white shirt, the long sleeves rolled neatly up to reveal even whiter forearms.

Kidd took great pride in his roses, it had to be said. As always, they were planted in impeccably straight lines, each one exactly cut like the opposite. Just as Patty spent every day singing nursery rhymes to her basil plants, Kidd spent every weekend trimming the rosebushes with a pair of scissors. As Liz moseyed over to him, she saw that he had a small bucket next to him, full of rejected roses from each bush. Hell, he even counted how many blooms were on each bush. If he caught even one out of place – snip – it was gone.

It was why the vase on the kitchen table was always full of blood red roses.

Glancing up as she approached, Kidd lowered his arms from his work for a moment and surveyed the bush critically. "Tell me honestly Liz – does it look the same as that one?"

Liz looked to the right at the other bush, which was, in fact, identical. "Yeah, it does."

He shook his head in frustration, and she watched his dark bangs dance madly over his lovely golden eyes. "But it doesn't!" Accusingly, he jabbed the scissors at the bush in front of him. "I've counted the roses a dozen times – each one has exactly eight. But this bush has more leaves on the left side than the other one."

There was a pause, in which Liz glanced from left to right, trying to see the difference. There wasn't one. "They're perfect, Kidd."

"No."

Shrugging, she attempted to give him something else to think about. "When am I going to get one of your roses? I'd really like one to fill that stupid vase in my room."

He stared at her. Then he stooped and plucked one out of the bucket at his feet. "Here."

She pouted. "You're giving me a reject rose?"

"It's not a reject rose. It'll go on the table if you don't take it."

Liz balanced the flower horizontally in her hand; it was a perfect specimen. The stalk was firm and green, the petals delicately curled and a vivid, pure crimson.

But it didn't mean anything. Of course it didn't.

Kidd blew out a long breath. "Okay then. Fine."

He turned back to the roses and raised the scissors, the metal flashing in the hot afternoon sun. A moment later, he turned back to Liz and put another rose in her other hand. "Here."

For a moment, Liz was so surprised she couldn't speak. "But…now this bush only has seven."

"I know," he replied, a little sadly.

Closing her eyes, Liz inhaled the dizzying scent of both flowers.

"You don't know what to do with them, do you?"

"Huh?" Suddenly his cold fingers were sliding over hers, prising her hands off the flowers. "Hey!"

"Calm down," said Kidd, twirling the scissors again. With neat, deft movements, he trimmed both stems down until they were as long as his thumb, and then stripped both roses of any remaining thorns.

Liz held her hands out for them back, but he shook his head. "Come here."

Obediently, she took a step closer and then his hands were in her hair, gently pulling her two hairpins out. Reaching up, he fastened one just above her left ear. He did the same with the other on her right.

Feeling a little self-conscious, Liz gingerly touched one of the quivering petals. "Why did you do that?"

He shrugged, and put the scissors in the bucket. "Do you like your 'non reject-rose'?" He sketched quotation marks around the words with his fingers, his voice dripping with dry humour.

Hesitantly, she smiled back at him, mirroring his sideways smile. "But…"

He put his head to one side. "But what?"

Again, she paused. There was a good deal of 'buts' she wanted to voice. In the end, she simply asked, "Why did you have to put two in my hair? I look like a mouse!"

"Otherwise you'd be asymmetric."

"Screw your symmetry! I'm taking one out."

Abruptly, his cool hand closed firmly around her wrist, and he met her eyes. "Don't, Liz."

She puffed out her cheeks and stuck her tongue out at him. He blinked. For a moment, she'd looked uncannily like Patty.

"You don't look like a mouse, honestly. You look beautiful."

"Huh," huffed Liz doubtfully. But she lowered her arm again, once he'd let go. Kidd picked up the second, smaller watering can and began liberally sprinkling the roses. For a while Liz watched him and his smooth face, dark with concentration. Her gaze fell suddenly on the bucket, and its prickly red-and-green contents. Stooping, she put one hand in, hesitated, and brought out the scissors.

They gleamed as she held them up. Turning, Kidd gave her a suspicious look. "What are you doing?"

She gave him a mischievous grin and strolled over to the other rose bush; the one that still had eight roses. After a quick glance back at the seven-rosed bush, she leaned over and cut off a bloom near the back.

Kidd watched her, the watering can hanging limply at his side. "What are you doing?"

Coming over to him, she shortened the stem and removed the thorns just as he had done. "Make them symmetrical for you again."

He stiffened as her soft pink fingers fiddled with the collar of his shirt, making the first button fall open. Biting back a smile, Liz slotted the rose neatly into his buttonhole. "There you go."

"But…but now I look asymmetric!" he cried, gesturing at the splash of red on his crisp white shirt.

"You don't. You look - " Liz playfully pressed her finger to his nose. " – beautiful."

He stood there and watched her saunter off, the two flowers bouncing jovially against her sandy hair.