The Spider Lily Turns into a Chrysanthemum

Ichimaku: Chapter 6

Shouma had been awake for nearly an hour before he went to wake Yoshino.

He’d given up on sleeping sometime after ten, changed into workout clothes and gone downstairs. By eleven, he’d finished several sets of push-ups and the rest of his usual morning routine, showered, and changed for the day.

Yoshino hadn’t moved.

When he opened his bedroom door, she was still asleep exactly where he’d left her.

At some point during the night, she’d kicked the sheet almost completely off the bed. She was curled onto her side in the red lingerie from the night before, one knee pulled slightly forward and her hair spread across the pillow.

Shouma stood in the doorway for a moment. She looked comfortable and he found that strangely endearing.

He walked over and sat on the floor beside the bed, “Yoshino.”

Nothing.

Shouma rested his arm against the mattress.

His eyes moved over her almost involuntarily; the long line of her legs, the curve of her waist and the lower arch of her back. His hand lifted.

For a moment, his index finger hovered just above the back of her neck.

He slowly traced the air downward, following the line of her spine without actually touching her.

The distance between his fingertip and her skin couldn’t have been more than a centimeter.

Still, he felt it. That familiar heat traveled through his arms and down into his legs.

Shouma stopped. He’d experienced some version of it around Yoshino for years. He’d simply gotten good at ignoring it.

This close, however, the space between his hand and her skin felt almost magnetic. Like holding opposite poles near one another and feeling the pull before they ever connected.

He could touch her when she was awake. She hugged him. Grabbed his arms. Fell asleep against him. Asked him to do her hair. But this was different.

She was asleep and there was only one thing he felt comfortable touching without her knowing.

Her hair.

Shouma lowered his hand and gently swept several strands away from her face.

“Yoshino.”

Her eyes flew open.

She whipped around.

Her forehead collided directly with his face.

“OH SHIT, I’M AWAKE! DID I WAKE UP LATE?”

Shouma fell backward, “FUCK!”

Yoshino shot upright.

Shouma sat on the floor with one hand covering his nose, “No. Is oly eweven-thity.”

He carefully touched the bridge of his nose, “Fuck.”

“SHOUMA.”

“Well, you didn’t break it.”

“Oh my God,” Yoshino scrambled toward the edge of the bed. She froze.

Her eyes dropped to the red lace.

Then to Shouma.

Then back to herself.

“Oh my God.”

She yanked the sheet over herself.

Shouma looked away while still messaging the sides of his nose.

“Please tell me I didn’t make a fool of myself last night.”

He shrugged, “No. You’re fine.”

“That’s not convincing!”

“You’re fine.”

Yoshino pulled the sheet higher, “I’m so mortified. I’m sorry if I made you feel any weird—”

“You didn’t.”

She stopped.

Shouma stood, “Stop apologizing.”

He walked toward the door.

“Take a shower and get changed. I want to leave soon,” he opened the door without looking back, “You have less than thirty minutes.”

Yoshino immediately sat straight. She saluted. “YES, SIR.”

Shouma shut the door behind him.

Yoshino remained perfectly still. Three seconds passed.

Then she covered her face, “Oh my fucking God.”

Because the problem wasn’t that she couldn’t remember last night. She remembered everything.

Yoshino stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.

Usually four or five drinks created the possibility that pieces of the night would disappear.

Last night hadn’t been like that and she hadn’t even drunk that much. She’d simply been exhausted.

The train. The party. Seeing everyone again. Staying up with Shouma. Everything she’d kept bottled up for the past year had apparently decided two grapefruit seltzers were enough encouragement to come spilling out.

I’d treat you right.

Yoshino squeezed her eyes shut, “Oh my God WHYYYYYY WHY WHY WHY YOU STUPID STUPID, GIRL FACK”

I’m jealous of all these girls.

She slowly lowered her forehead toward the mirror with an exaggerated crying face, “I wish I could die in a hole right now.

Then she remembered the rest.

I want your gaze to make me feel like a desirable woman.

Yoshino’s eyes snapped open, “Actually fucking kill me.”

She stared at her reflection. Her face was still warm. Then her eyes traveled downward.

She straightened. Turned slightly and looked at herself again, with a smug look, “I look fucking good.”

That wasn’t the problem.

Shouma did too and he always had. That was the actual problem.

Yoshino turned on the shower. She’d thought Shouma was good-looking since middle school.

At first, it had been easy to dismiss. She’d been young. He was familiar, and she saw him constantly.

Then she’d gotten older and so had he.

Once, she’d even decided she was going to do something about it.

She’d worked herself up for almost an entire day, only to find Shouma talking with another girl from school before she could say anything.

Yoshino hadn’t interrupted them. She remembered the feeling in her chest more clearly than the girl’s face and it hurt so much.

She hated it.

And so she found a solution.

If thinking of Shouma as a boy she liked hurt, she simply wouldn’t think of him that way anymore. He was family and her friend and she was “one of the guys”.

Every year, she reinforced it. And every year, Shouma made it more difficult.

He got taller and his face matured. His shoulders broadened. More muscle appeared beneath his clothes and his tattoos spread farther across his skin.

And so, Yoshino compensated. She became even more casual with him. More tomboyish and more willing to call him dude and punch his arm and act as though seeing him without a shirt meant absolutely nothing.

Eventually, even she almost believed it, but then Tokyo had disrupted that.

Five months into living there, Yoshino had already wanted to come home. And whenever Shouma visited, something about him seemed different. He’d always worried about her. That wasn’t new.

But after the engagement to Kirishima, it totally changed. Shouma appeared without warning. Watched more closely and stayed longer.

At the station, he’d held her in a way he never had before. Most people wouldn’t have noticed any difference, and Yoshino did. She knew him too well not to.

But she’d never asked what it meant and maybe it meant nothing.

Maybe she was seeing exactly what her thirteen-year-old self desperately wanted to see. Wishful thinking was dangerous when the person involved mattered this much.

Yoshino stepped into the shower. Twenty minutes later, she was dressed.

Black high-waisted bell-bottom jeans hugged her waist before widening toward her shoes. She paired them with a fitted black halter top, her usual black choker, and black-and-white platform Converse. Her wet hair was twisted loosely into a clip.

She stood in front of the mirror again. The more she thought about Shouma, the more uncomfortable another truth became.

She used the arrangement between them to her advantage.

Renji had placed Shouma near her and he protected her. They’d grown up together. They weren’t related by blood, but family was the easiest word to explain what they were.

Yoshino had allowed that explanation to become a shield…because if they were family, she could stay close to him. Nobody questioned why she wanted him around.

Nobody questioned why she held his arm, asked him to stay in her room, let him brush her hair, slept near him or wanted him beside her whenever she went somewhere.

Including Shouma.

As long as I pretend we’re family…

She put in the crystal studs Tsubaki had given her for her fifteenth birthday, followed by a thin silver bracelet.

As long as I’m the cool girl. One of the guys. His best friend…

She picked up her black Coach wristlet.

I can stay by his side.

Yoshino had seen how Shouma looked at people he no longer wanted: his exes, strangers.

Kirishima.

That complete absence of warmth terrified her more than rejection itself. She couldn’t stand the thought of Shouma ever looking at her that way.

I’ll lie about how I feel because I can’t bear the thought of losing him.

She took a breath.

I’m fine staying like this forever, as long as I can stay by his side.

Yoshino opened the door.

“OKAY, I’M DONNNNNE!”

The volume was deliberate.

Sometimes being loud helped. If she sounded bubbly enough, nobody noticed when she was shy. Especially Shouma; at least she hoped.

Downstairs, Shouma turned away from the refrigerator with a bottle of water in his hand, “Mkay. Let’s go.”

Then he actually looked at her. His eyes lingered for a second. He stepped closer and moved a loose strand of wet hair away from her face, “You look nice.”

Yoshino’s stomach flipped.

“Black looks great on you.”

“HELL YEAH, IT DOES!”

Shouma blinked.

Yoshino threw a hand onto her hip, “You know what they say. I look like Gramps, and he looks great in black, so obviously it makes sense.”

Shouma’s face twisted slightly, “I guess, if you say so.”

“It’s genetics.”

“Sure.”

He looked at her hair, “Did you want me to do it? The clip is fine. Just making sure you’re fully ready.”

“YES!” Yoshino immediately grabbed her wristlet, “Let’s go now because I’m hungry again, and we need to pick up your bike and then my phone.”

“And grocery shopping.”

“YES!”

Shouma took another drink of water, “For someone who was shit-faced drunk and tired as hell, you have a lot of energy.”

“I SLEPT WELL.” Yoshino stared at him, “Did you not?”

“Yeah, I did.”

She smiled and far too brightly.

Shouma stared back, “Uh…”

Her smile widened into something almost cartoonish, “WHAT?”

“You’re acting strange.”

“NO I’M NOT.”

“You are.”

“NAH.”

He looked down, “Anyways, this is the last time you walk around here with shoes on.”

He pointed at her Converse.

Yoshino immediately looked offended, “These are new!”

“I believe you.”

“They’ve never touched outside ground!”

“I said I believe you.”

“Okay…”

“But once we get back, they’re off.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Yoshino grabbed his arm, “OKAY, LET’S GO.”

Shouma allowed himself to be pulled toward the door. The kei truck was still parked beneath the townhouse. Yoshino climbed into the passenger seat this time while Shouma took the wheel.

Their first stop was the Kawasaki dealership. Then Yoshino needed a phone. Then apparently enough groceries to satisfy whatever standards she’d decided his refrigerator had failed to meet.

Shouma pulled onto the road. Yoshino rolled down her window. Warm late-morning air rushed into the truck, catching the loose pieces of hair that had escaped her clip. She turned toward the window.

Shouma glanced at her. Then again, black suited her.

The halter top left her shoulders exposed beneath the loose strands of deep crimson hair, while the bell-bottom jeans and platforms made her already tall frame look even longer.

He smiled faintly. For once, he felt peaceful.

Yoshino turned her head. She caught him looking.

Neither looked away immediately.

Shouma’s eyes returned to the road, though he could still see her through his peripheral vision.

“What?”

Yoshino smirked, “Nothing.”

She slowly turned back toward the open window. Her eyes lingered on him until the last possible second. The wind caught her hair again.

Yoshino smiled to herself. There was one thing Shouma didn’t know. She hadn’t actually startled awake that morning.

Not completely. She’d heard him the first time he whispered her name. She’d felt him moving her hair away from her face.

And she’d stayed still.

It had been selfish.

Maybe even a little conniving, but she’d wanted those extra seconds.

She hadn’t expected his face to be so close when she finally spun around. The collision had been entirely real.

So had the guilt when he landed on the floor holding his nose.

But before that…he’d been close.

Close enough that when she opened her eyes, he’d filled most of her vision. And she’d liked knowing he’d been there.

Yoshino rested her elbow against the open window. She’d also noticed what he was wearing.

Black straight-leg jeans. A black V-neck T-shirt. His familiar black leather motorcycle jacket. One of her favorite looks on him. Which was exactly why she’d chosen black too.

Maybe Shouma noticed they matched. Maybe he didn’t.

It didn’t matter.

Across the truck, Shouma tightened his hands slightly around the steering wheel. The same heat he’d felt beside the bed that morning had returned.

Yoshino felt her own version of it.

Butterflies low in her stomach and warmth beneath her skin.

Neither said anything.

They simply let the highway stretch ahead of them, the wind pouring through the windows and cooling the heat neither of them was ready to admit was there.