The Flower Bloomed

Spring arrived without warning.

Cold rain had fallen the night before, but when he opened the window the next morning, the soil in the yard had already turned green. The air carried a damp, sweetly earthy scent—the smell of soil and plant roots waking up. The distant mountains were briefly wrapped in mist, and when it dispersed, the slopes were covered in pale pink wild peach blossoms.

This was the second spring after the massacre.

Shuo Ye crouched in the corridor and felt around beneath the wooden rack for a blue-gray flowerpot.

It was more than half full of soil. The surface was smooth, with a chopstick stuck into it. Beside the chopstick—something had broken through the crust of earth. Pale yellow and curled up, like a tightly clenched baby's hand.

Last year, Ino had shoved a handful of seeds into his hand.

She had said they were balloon flowers. Purple flowers that bloomed in autumn. Easy to grow—just water them and they would live. When he had asked, "Where do I plant them?" Ino had said, "Just put them in any flowerpot."

He had placed the flowerpot back in the corner of the corridor—sheltered from the wind, where few people passed. Then he watered it once a week. Not diligently, but he had never forgotten.

Now—the seeds had sprouted.

Shuo Ye crouched there for a while. Then he stood and walked into the kitchen. The sun had only just risen above the eaves, and the light was still blue-gray. He filled a cup with tap water, carried it out to the corridor, and slowly poured it into the flowerpot. Water seeped from the bottom rim, ran down the sides, and dripped onto the stone floor, leaving a dark round spot.

He set the cup beside the wooden rack, straightened, and looked at the seedling once. Then he put the cup away in the kitchen, slung on his schoolbag, and left.

Today's class at the Ninja Academy was theory, covering the history of the Hidden Leaf Village.

Iruka drew a timeline on the blackboard, marking the period from the First Hokage founding the Hidden Leaf Village to the present, along with the rough dates of the three great ninja wars. When he spoke of the Nine-Tails Incident, his voice was a little softer than usual—the scar across the bridge of his nose darkened beneath the fluorescent lights.

Naruto lay sprawled across his desk, seemingly asleep. Drool had spread into a clear damp patch on his textbook.

Shuo Ye was not asleep. He looked out the window. The row of cherry trees beside the training ground had already bloomed, pink and white mingling together, like a line of clouds from afar. When the wind blew, petals drifted down one by one, landing on the sandy ground, on the parallel bars, and on Naruto's old schoolbag resting beside the track. One petal slid in along the windowsill and landed right on the back of his hand.

He picked it up and examined it. The petal was so thin that he could see two pale green veins on its reverse side. He tucked it into his textbook and closed it.

The dismissal bell rang. Naruto jolted awake, red marks from the edge of the page stamped across his face. He wiped away his drool and asked groggily, "Class is over?"

"Class is over." Shuo Ye stood up.

"Where are you going?"

"The bathroom."

"The—bathroom again—you sick or something?!"

"Mind your own business."

Ino passed by and set a rice ball on his desk without saying anything. Shuo Ye glanced at it—the seaweed was wrapped neatly, and there was a small bulge in the middle. She had probably changed the filling to something new today. He put the rice ball into his schoolbag and went to the restroom. While washing his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror and thought of the flowerpot in the corner of the corridor.

It had sprouted.

Maybe it really would bloom.

Summer arrived quickly.

June in the Hidden Leaf Village was like a steamer. Cicadas cried in the trees all day and did not stop even at dusk. Business at the Yamanaka Flower Shop was so good that Inoichi could barely keep up—every household came to buy flowers to decorate their courtyards, and crape myrtles and morning glories sold the best.

Shuo Ye went to the Yamanaka Flower Shop. It was not planned. Ino called out to him from the entrance as he passed by.

"Shuo Ye! Wait a second!"

Ino ran out of the shop with a small paper bag in her hand, sweat beading on her face—there was no air conditioning inside, and she had been helping out all afternoon. Her blond hair clung to her forehead, and she brushed it aside with her other hand.

"My dad said to give this to you."

Shuo Ye took the paper bag and looked inside. A packet of flower fertilizer. It was wrapped in old newspaper, and an auction notice from several months ago was faintly visible on the paper.

"Your balloon flowers sprouted last time, right?" Ino asked.

"Yeah."

"You need to fertilize them after they sprout, or the leaves will turn yellow."

"They're still alive."

"Alive? How many leaves do they have?"

"Four."

Ino froze for a moment, then laughed. Not the polite kind. She genuinely could not hold it in.

"Four leaves! Only four leaves! You planted them last autumn, right? And they only have four leaves by now—you've been telling them horror stories while watering them, haven't you?!"

"..."

"I'll come over tomorrow and teach you how to care for balloon flowers."

"No need."

"There you go again—"

"Fine, whatever." Shuo Ye rolled up the little paper bag and put it into his pocket. Then he paused. "Ino."

"Yeah?"

"Your blond hair—it's brighter today."

He left as soon as he said it.

Ino stood there, and the heat in her face rose another level. Not because of the weather.

She turned and ran back into the shop, crouching behind the flower rack and fanning herself with her hand. Even after ten fanning strokes, the heat in her face did not fade. Inoichi poked his head out from behind the register, his face plainly saying, I saw everything, but I'm not saying a word.

Autumn arrived.

Without noticing, the balloon flower in the corridor had grown six leaves. They were oval, with fine serrations along the edges and a soft layer of fuzz on the surface. Then one day, a tiny flower bud swelled at the top of the stem.

Blue-green, smaller than a fingernail.

Shuo Ye bent down to look at it once every day. He did nothing and said nothing; he merely bent over in the corridor and stared at the bud for a few seconds. He noticed that its color changed a little each day: first entirely green, then green tinged with purple, then purple washed with white.

One day after the second anniversary of the massacre, the flower bloomed.

Purple.

Not the reddish kind of purple, but bluish—a cold purple, like the lingering trace of an early winter night after it had been diluted. Five petals spread open evenly in the shape of a star. Each petal was so thin that its edges turned translucent beneath the noon light, revealing the shadows of the leaves behind it. Pale yellow stamens curled at the very center of the flower, trembling slightly whenever the wind passed through. The plant itself was short—the stem was not tall, and it had only a few leaves—but the flower had bloomed whole, without missing petals or blemishes. Every part had grown exactly where it was meant to grow.

Shuo Ye crouched in front of the flowerpot for a long time.

Long enough for his legs to go numb. He had to rub them for quite a while after standing before he could walk.

He went into the kitchen and filled a cup with water, then returned and poured it onto the soil. A faint rustling sound rose as the water soaked into the surface. Several tiny bubbles floated up through the soil, then burst. He set the cup beside the corridor and looked at the flower. Then he raised a sleeve and wiped the corner of his eye.

When Ino had given him the seeds, she had said, "The flower meaning of balloon flowers is 'eternal love.'"

She had not mentioned the second meaning. Balloon flowers also meant: hopeless love.

The same flower, with two meanings, one positive and one negative. Even the person who planted it might not know which meaning came first and which arrived later. It depended on what the person standing before the flower was thinking.

Shuo Ye did not think about any of that. On some Sunday morning in the second year after the massacre, he simply saw that something he had watered himself, fertilized himself, and never given up on—had finally bloomed.