The Spider Lily Turns into a Chrysanthemum
Prologue
Tokyo Station was busy that morning, though Yoshino had spent enough time in the city that the noise no longer overwhelmed her the way it once had. Announcements echoed overhead in practiced intervals while passengers moved beneath them, weaving between platforms with rolling suitcases and briefcases, some staring up at departure boards while others hurried forward without needing to look. Yoshino Somei stood near the entrance to the Shinkansen platform with one hand wrapped around the handle of her maroon suitcase, watching people pass as she waited for the announcement that would tell her it was finally time to leave.
Her train to Shin-Osaka would be boarding soon.
It had been one year since she had arrived in Tokyo. A year that somehow felt much longer when she tried to measure it by everything that had happened rather than the calendar. She had come here still in high school, pulled into circumstances she hadn’t chosen and surrounded by people she hadn’t known, and now she was leaving with high school behind her and an entirely different idea of what she wanted from her life.
For the first time in a while, Yoshino had a plan that felt entirely her own.
University could wait. She still intended to attend the same university as Shouma, but she had decided to defer her first year rather than rush directly into school simply because that was what came next. She wanted time first; time to settle back into Osaka, time with her family, and most importantly, time to build something with Tsubaki. The business they had been talking about no longer felt like some distant idea they entertained whenever they were together. Yoshino wanted to make it real. She wanted something that belonged to her because she had chosen it, not because her grandfather, the Somei family, or anyone else had decided where she should go.
Kirishima stood directly in front of her, making it considerably more difficult to enjoy that sense of freedom.
They had been awake for most of the night talking about her decision. At first, it had been a conversation. Then Kirishima had begun pushing, Yoshino had begun losing her patience, and somewhere after midnight the conversation had dissolved into an argument broken apart by long stretches of silence. Neither of them had slept much afterward. Yoshino could see the exhaustion around his eyes now, although Kirishima was doing what he always did; wearing that strange, casual expression as if nothing affected him unless he wanted someone to know it did.
“So even after seeing me distraught,” he said, “you still think I’m a piece of shit?”
Yoshino looked at him for a moment before answering. Kirishima had a habit of reducing complicated things into ridiculous questions, as though the right answer might suddenly change everything that had happened between them. Maybe a year ago she would have let him drag her into another argument. This morning, she didn’t have the energy.
“I think you have kindness,” she said. “But we’re just too different.”
Something shifted in his expression, slight enough that someone who didn’t know him might have missed it. Yoshino didn’t. She had spent too much time studying Kirishima over the last year, usually because understanding his moods had been the difference between knowing what he might do next and being blindsided by it. He didn’t interrupt her, so she continued.
“If you were going to marry me, you’d have to stop the cheating. The lying.” Her fingers tightened slightly around the handle of her suitcase. “And you just can’t control me.”
Kirishima remained quiet.
Yoshino knew better than to mistake that silence for agreement. Kirishima could listen to every word someone said and still walk away having accepted none of it. That had been part of their problem from the beginning. He wanted her, and somewhere along the way he had apparently convinced himself that wanting her intensely enough gave him the right to decide what their relationship meant.
Yoshino tilted her head slightly as another thought occurred to her. “Anyways, the goal was to make you fall for me and dump your ass.”
Kirishima’s eyes widened.
For one brief, satisfying moment, Yoshino had actually surprised him.
Then the expression disappeared. His golden eyes sharpened with renewed interest, and the familiar grin slowly returned to his face as though she had just given him another reason to find the entire situation entertaining.
“So, in the end you wanted to hurt me and manipulate me?” He tilted his head, studying her. “How… sweet.”
Yoshino rolled her eyes.
“You try to push me away, but then you say things like this,” Kirishima continued, his smile deepening, “and I can’t help but love you more.”
“And see, there.” Yoshino pointed at him. “That’s the fucking problem.”
His smile faded slightly.
Yoshino had heard him say he loved her enough times that the words had begun to frustrate her rather than comfort her. There had been moments over the last year when she believed him, or at least believed that whatever Kirishima felt was as close to love as he knew how to get. That didn’t mean she could accept the way he expressed it.
“You throw around the word love at me, but your actions don’t match your words.” She lowered her hand, her irritation settling into something quieter. “You lie to me. You cheat. You do whatever you want, and then you tell me you love me like that’s supposed to make everything else okay.”
“I do love you.”
“I know you think you do.”
Kirishima could tolerate being insulted. Half the time, he seemed to enjoy it when she called him horrible things. But questioning the sincerity, or perhaps the nature, of what he felt for her touched something deeper than simply calling him an asshole ever could.
For once, Yoshino didn’t push further.
She looked past him toward the platform instead, watching another cluster of passengers disappear through the entrance as the departure board changed overhead. The sight brought her back to why they were standing there in the first place. This wasn’t another fight she needed to win. She wasn’t trying to convince Kirishima that she was right about him. She was leaving.
“I can’t, Kirishima.” Her voice had lost its earlier sharpness. “I want to go home, and I have a plan.”
Osaka felt different in her mind now than it had a year ago. Before Tokyo, home had simply been home, familiar streets, familiar people, her grandfather’s presence woven into nearly every part of her life. Now the thought of returning carried a sense of possibility she hadn’t expected. Renji was there. Tsubaki was there, along with the business the two of them intended to build together. There were decisions waiting for Yoshino that belonged to her rather than to the strange circumstances that had controlled so much of the previous year.
I can’t wait to see Shouma.
His name surfaced in her thoughts with such ease that Yoshino almost frowned at herself. She hadn’t allowed herself to think too deeply about what seeing him again would feel like. Shouma had always occupied a place in her life that was difficult to explain to other people and even harder to explain to herself. Before Tokyo, she had become very good at ignoring the feelings she’d once had for him, packing them away somewhere they couldn’t interfere with anything else. Distance had helped. A year apart had helped even more.
At least, that was what she told herself.
When Yoshino looked at Kirishima again, some of the tension had disappeared from his face. He seemed calmer now, though with Kirishima she had learned that calmness didn’t mean he was agreeing, just as easily as it could mean he had decided on something and wasn’t going to tell her what it was.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I’ll let you go.”
Yoshino’s eyebrows immediately drew together.
Let me?
She opened her mouth, already prepared to explain exactly why she hated that wording, but Kirishima continued before she could.
“But don’t think I’ll ever disappear.”
The irritation in Yoshino’s face slowly gave way to discomfort as his golden eyes remained fixed on hers. Kirishima didn’t say things like that jokingly. That was what made it difficult to decide whether she wanted to yell at him or simply walk away.
“I’m always where you are.”
Yoshino recoiled slightly. “Ew. I hate it when you say that.”
Kirishima smiled.
“Doesn’t matter, though,” she continued, refusing to let him have the final word. “Gramps already told me he has an extra layer of guards all around Osaka to Kyoto.”
That seemed to amuse him rather than discourage him.
Before Yoshino could respond, the announcement for her train sounded overhead. The change in her was immediate. She looked toward the platform, then down at her suitcase, and suddenly the conversation that had consumed most of the night felt finished.
“Have fun trying, though.” She reached for her suitcase and started forward. Kirishima was still standing directly in her way. Yoshino stopped in front of him, waited half a second for him to move on his own, then placed her palm against his left shoulder and pushed.
“Move.”
Kirishima stepped aside.
There was something almost absurdly ordinary about the gesture after everything that had happened between them. Yoshino had fought with him, worried about him, wanted to strangle him, trusted him when she probably shouldn’t have, and cared about him more than she intended to. Now their goodbye ended with her physically shoving him out of the way so she wouldn’t miss her train.
This is how it should be. I need to go home.
Yoshino rolled her suitcase onto the train without looking back. She had already said everything she needed to say, and turning around felt too much like inviting another conversation she didn’t want to have. Her decision had been made. Tokyo was behind her, Osaka was ahead, and Kirishima would simply have to accept that there were choices he didn’t get to make for her.
“Yoshino!”
She kept walking.
“You’ll always be my favorite love!”
Several passengers glanced toward the platform. Yoshino closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. Of course he couldn’t simply let her leave like a normal person.
She refused to give him the satisfaction of responding and continued down the aisle until she found her seat beside the window. After settling her suitcase nearby, Yoshino sat down and finally allowed herself to look outside. Kirishima was still standing on the platform.
For all the confidence he’d worn during their goodbye, something about him looked different from behind the glass. Maybe it was simply the distance between them now, the physical barrier making it easier for Yoshino to see him without immediately reacting to whatever expression he put on for her. He remained where she’d left him, hands loose at his sides, golden eyes fixed on the window where she sat. The warning chime sounded.
Yoshino watched him as the doors began to close. Kirishima’s smile slowly disappeared.
“And you’ll come back to me eventually,” he said quietly.
The doors sealed between them, and Yoshino didn’t hear him.
A few moments later, the train began to move. The platform slid slowly past the window at first, carrying Kirishima with it until his figure disappeared behind the structures of the station. Yoshino continued looking outside even after he was gone, watching Tokyo Station give way to the blur of buildings beyond it. Only then did she settle back into her seat.
Tokyo had been one year of her life, but reducing it to a single year felt almost dishonest. Too much had happened here. There had been moments she’d hated, moments that had frightened her; she knew she would eventually miss even if she wasn’t ready to admit that yet. Kirishima belonged somewhere inside all of that too. Whatever else he was, he had become part of her life, and leaving didn’t erase that.
But leaving was still what she wanted.
Yoshino turned her face toward the window again as the train carried her farther from the city. She had spent enough of the previous year reacting to circumstances other people created for her. Going home meant something different now. It wasn’t retreating to the life she’d had before Tokyo; she didn’t want that life back exactly as it had been. She wanted to build the next one herself.
Osaka, her grandfather and Tsubaki were waiting, along with empty rooms and business plans and all the work that would come with turning their idea into something real.
Shouma.
This time, Yoshino let herself linger on the thought. She wondered what he’ll be like now that she’s back. A year wasn’t long enough for someone to become a stranger, especially not Shouma, but she found herself imagining the first moment she’d see him anyway. Would he look surprised? Probably not. Shouma rarely gave anyone the satisfaction of an obvious reaction. He would probably stare at her for a second, say something irritatingly simple like You’re back, and behave as though nothing has changed.
Yoshino smiled to herself as she rested her head lightly against the seat and closed her eyes while the Shinkansen continued south, carrying her farther from Tokyo with every passing minute.
Classes had ended for the afternoon by the time Shouma stepped outside the university, joining the steady stream of students spilling out onto the walkways. Small groups lingered near the buildings discussing dinner plans, weekend schedules and whatever assignments they had decided could wait until later, their conversations blending into the general noise of campus. Shouma moved through them with both hands tucked into his pockets, paying little attention to anyone around him. His classes were over, which meant there was nothing keeping him in Kyoto anymore. All he wanted was to get back to Osaka. More specifically, he wanted to see Yoshino.
The thought had barely settled when Shouma looked toward the road and saw the car waiting for him. His expression immediately soured.
Tsubaki sat comfortably in the back seat while her personal butler stood beside the vehicle holding the rear door open, apparently having been instructed to wait there until Shouma decided to cooperate. She looked absurdly pleased with herself. Of course, Tsubaki had also dressed as though she were attending something considerably more interesting than picking him up from university. Her lavender dress had delicate lace along the neckline and sleeves, fitted neatly through the waist before falling into a softer skirt around her legs. When she crossed her ankles, the clear heels on her feet caught the afternoon sunlight, Swarovski crystals glittering across them. The entire outfit had that romantic, slightly eccentric quality she liked so much from Vivienne Westwood, softened by pale colors and feminine details that made her appear far more innocent than Shouma knew her to be.
He stopped several feet from the car. Tsubaki smiled. Shouma stared at her with passive annoyance.
“Shouma,” she greeted, her expression soft and almost dreamy, “you really should smile and be grateful that I’m giving you a ride so we can see our sweet Yoshino.”
“I can get there myself.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Shut your mouth.”
Tsubaki’s smile widened.
Shouma remained where he was for another second, considering whether walking away purely out of spite would be worth delaying his return to Osaka. It wouldn’t. Worse, Tsubaki knew it wouldn’t. She had arrived before he’d had the chance to make other arrangements, which meant refusing the ride now would accomplish nothing except make him have to apologize of Renji found out.
He approached the car reluctantly.
“I can get there myself,” he repeated as he reached the open door. “But since you got here before I could make a decision, and I don’t want to waste Renji’s logistics, I’m going to take it.”
“How considerate of you.”
Shouma gave her a flat look before getting into the back seat beside her.
The door closed behind him, briefly sealing them into silence. Tsubaki’s butler returned to the driver’s seat, and within a few moments the university began disappearing behind them as the car pulled into afternoon traffic. Shouma immediately turned toward the window, apparently deciding that if he ignored Tsubaki long enough, she might eventually understand that he had no interest in conversation.
Tsubaki lasted less than a minute. “Oh, someone’s cranky today.”
Shouma didn’t look at her.
She rested her cheek lightly against one hand, studying his profile with open amusement. “It makes no sense. You get to see Yoshino today, and she’s back for good, and yet, here you are sulking.”
That did make him look at her. Unfortunately, it also reminded him why he was annoyed. “I wanted to pick her up from the station.”
“I know.”
“And your stupid meddling made Renji demand that I show up for class.”
Tsubaki blinked at him with such practiced innocence that Shouma’s irritation immediately deepened. “I didn’t make Renji do anything.”
“You told him.”
“Well, yes.”
Shouma stared at her.
Tsubaki smiled back.
There were very few people who could irritate him as efficiently as she could. Tsubaki didn’t even need to raise her voice or openly insult him. She simply sat there looking pleased with herself until Shouma found himself wondering how Yoshino could possibly be related to her.
He clicked his tongue and turned back toward the window.
“Well, it’s not my fault your motorcycle ended up in the ocean,” Tsubaki continued. “That’s your carelessness.”
Shouma’s head turned back immediately. “Shut your mouth. You know nothing.”
“I know your motorcycle is at the bottom of the ocean.”
“You don’t know why.”
“No,” Tsubaki agreed, completely unbothered. “But I do find the result funny.”
Shouma stared at her for several seconds, searching her face for any indication that she might eventually become tired of herself. There was none.
“I’m getting my new bike soon, so thanks for the ride.” He settled farther back into the seat. “Now stop talking. You’re giving me a migraine.”
“Oh, you’re no fun, Shouma.” Tsubaki finally turned toward her own window.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke, and Shouma began to think the conversation might actually be over. Traffic moved steadily around them as they left the streets surrounding the university, sunlight passing intermittently through the car windows whenever the buildings opened enough to allow it. He rested one arm against the door and let his attention drift outside. Then something in the atmosphere beside him changed.
It wasn’t dramatic enough that anyone unfamiliar with Tsubaki would have noticed. She didn’t shift in her seat or lower her voice threateningly. The pleasant smile simply disappeared from her face, leaving behind an expression so neutral that Shouma glanced toward her before she’d even spoken.
“You know more than anyone that I have the power to make any of you change identity and disappear.”
Shouma looked at her fully now. Tsubaki continued watching the road through the window as though she had made an observation about the weather rather than a threat. The contrast between her words and her appearance was almost absurd. Lavender lace rested delicately against her skin, Swarovski crystals still catching stray pieces of sunlight near her feet, yet there was nothing soft about her expression anymore.
“So,” she continued, “you should learn how to shut up.”
Shouma’s eyes narrowed. The playful irritation between them had disappeared so completely that the silence inside the car suddenly felt different. He knew Tsubaki well enough to understand that this wasn’t another one of her games. Beneath all the elegance and teasing, there were parts of her work that most people never saw, and Shouma happened to know enough about those parts to understand she wasn’t exaggerating simply to sound intimidating.
“The only reason Yoshino can come back unscathed,” Tsubaki said, “is because I told Kirishima that I can make her disappear.”
That caught his attention in a way the threat against him hadn’t.
Shouma’s posture shifted slightly. “What?”
Tsubaki finally turned from the window.
“I made sure he understood that if Yoshino ever needed to get away from him completely, I could make that happen.” Her voice remained calm, almost unnervingly so. “He doesn’t get to decide that because he wants her, he gets unlimited access to her.”
The mention of Kirishima was enough to bring an immediate tension into Shouma’s jaw. He had spent the last year hearing pieces of what was happening in Tokyo without being close enough to do anything about most of it. That had bothered him more than he ever admitted to anyone, especially when the information involved Kirishima. Tsubaki watched the change in his face before continuing.
“The same goes for you.”
Shouma’s eyes returned to hers. There was no smile on her face now. “All I need is for my sweet Renji to tell me to.”
The two held each other’s gaze. Neither seemed particularly interested in backing down. Shouma had never been intimidated by Tsubaki, and Tsubaki had never expected him to be. That wasn’t really the point of the warning. It was a reminder of boundaries, one delivered in the peculiar way Tsubaki delivered almost everything; beautifully dressed, perfectly composed and with enough menace beneath her voice that no one sensible would mistake her meaning.
Shouma eventually looked away. He had nothing useful to say in response, and continuing the argument would only encourage her.
The rest of the car ride was quiet. Tsubaki didn’t attempt to fill the silence again, and Shouma was perfectly happy to leave it that way.
As they traveled south, Kyoto gradually fell behind them. The dense streets surrounding the university gave way to wider roads, neighborhoods and stretches of trees, with glimpses of rivers appearing between buildings as the car moved through the Kansai landscape. The afternoon light had begun to soften, warming the scenery beyond the glass as they continued toward Osaka.
Shouma rested his head against the seat and watched everything pass. He had wanted to be at the station.
He had pictured it more than once since Yoshino told him she was coming home. He would have arrived early, though he would never have admitted that part. He would’ve been waiting somewhere near the platform when she stepped off the Shinkansen with whatever luggage she’d brought back from Tokyo. He would’ve taken her suitcase before she had the opportunity to argue that she could carry it herself. She probably would have argued anyway.
I can carry my own suitcase, Shouma.
He could practically hear her saying it.
The image came so easily that Shouma looked down toward his hands before he realized a small smile had appeared on his face. Yoshino was back. The simplicity of the thought made something inside his chest loosen. Not visiting or coming down from Tokyo for several days before leaving again. He wouldn’t have to count the time until she boarded another train or wonder when he’d see her next.
She’s actually back.
For the last year, Tokyo had been where Yoshino’s life existed. Kirishima had been there with her while Shouma remained in Kansai, learning what was happening through scattered phone calls, messages, conversations with Renji and whatever Yoshino herself decided to tell him. He had become accustomed to the distance because there hadn’t been another option, but accepting something and liking it were two completely different things.
There had been nights when Yoshino called and sounded perfectly normal, and Shouma still found himself wondering what she wasn’t telling him. There had been other times when she mentioned Kirishima so casually that Shouma would spend the rest of the conversation irritated without having any reasonable explanation for why. Kirishima was part of her life in Tokyo. Shouma knew that. Yoshino was allowed to have a life that didn’t involve him. Knowing that hadn’t made hearing about Kirishima any easier.
Now the distance was gone.
They would eventually attend the same university, though Yoshino had decided to defer her first year. When she’d told him, Shouma hadn’t been particularly surprised. Once Yoshino decided something mattered to her, convincing her to put it aside was nearly impossible, and apparently whatever business she and Tsubaki intended to build together had become important enough that university could wait. Shouma still didn’t entirely understand what the two of them planned to do. He knew enough to know he’d probably end up helping.
That thought made him glance toward Tsubaki.
She sat peacefully beside him, watching the scenery pass with the same soft expression she’d worn when he first saw her waiting outside the university. Anyone looking through the window would have thought she was incapable of saying anything more threatening than asking someone to pass the tea. Shouma’s faint smile disappeared.
Annoying woman.
He turned back toward the window. With every familiar landmark that appeared beyond the glass, the irritation of the afternoon mattered less. Tsubaki had interfered. Renji had forced him to attend class instead of allowing him to skip it and go to the station. His motorcycle was sitting somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, and because of all of that, someone else would have been there when Yoshino arrived instead of him. Normally, any one of those things would have been enough to keep Shouma irritated for hours. Today, none of them seemed particularly important because Yoshino was home.
Shouma let his head rest against the seat again, watching Osaka draw closer as the afternoon sun reflected against the window. He wondered whether Yoshino had changed much since he last saw her. Probably. It would be strange if she hadn’t after everything she’d experienced in Tokyo. But when he pictured her, his mind still returned to the Yoshino he’d known before she left; the girl who invaded his space without asking, complained when he smoked too much, stole food from his plate after insisting she wasn’t hungry, and somehow expected him to understand what she wanted from a single look. He wondered if that part of her would still be the same.
He hoped it would.
The realization lingered longer than Shouma wanted it to, touching something he’d become very practiced at ignoring over the years. He pushed it aside almost automatically. There was no reason to examine it now. Yoshino hadn’t even been home for a full day yet. He would see her soon.
That’s enough for me.
A small smile returned to his face as he looked through the window, quieter than the one before it but impossible to suppress completely. He had Yoshino back. For now, that was all he cared about.
