A/N: This is based off of the theme “The Language of Flowers” from my 100 themes stories. I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: Don’t own. Can’t own. Want to own. Damn.

-The Language of Flowers-

She is but six years to this earth. Her light pink hair is clean and tousled, tucked out of her face in a light red ribbon; it was not yet caked with dirt and blood, sliced off in the heat of battle in means of it being her only way out alive. Her shimmering eyes of a morning sea, green and calm as she watches, as she sees; they are not yet shattered and dull from the pain of heartbreak, not yet red from the sting of salty tears shed every night, every time that no one is there.

She walks quietly through the woods in search of the clearing near the brook. She is looking for flowers for her mother who is on bed rest from a cold. She hears the clang of metal and the ‘thunk’ of an impact on wood. Curious, she peers over the bush. There she sees a young boy.

He is practicing with kunai and shuriken, coming closer and closer to the bull’s eye every time he throws. He is beautiful for a boy with ebony hair spiked like a raven with eyes chiseled from onyx. In her daze, she steps on a twig. She freezes.

He turns his head to her; she blushes and stumbles clumsily from her hiding spot of sorts. He watches her every move. Embarrassed and overwhelmed, she ducks to the ground and picks the first thing she sees. Scared and embarrassed, she squeezes her eyes shut and shoots out her hand. He stares at what it holds.

Within her tiny fist there lay a single zinnia, the bright orange petals gleaming in the late morning sun. Its stem is a humble green with a yellow hue around where it was snapped. He eyes it lazily, impassive. He takes it from her grasp. She blushes more.

She opens one eye, then the other. She watches him examine it up and down. Finally, he throws it in front of him and slings a kunai at it; the two hit the tree with a ‘thunk’. Bull’s eye. Her eyes tear up and she runs away.

The first flower she gave him he pins to a tree, his first Bull’s eye. A Zinnia, “A thought of friendship.”

Age ten, she is walking idly through the streets of her home town. It is warm and bright out, the younger shinobi from the academy on break. She smiles as she sees them all playing on the playground. She considers going on the swing that is shielded by the cool shade of the oak tree in front of the academy, but dismisses the idea as soon as she sees the familiar spiked raven hair round the corner.

She looks around hurriedly—if she does not hurry, she will miss him. She sees underneath the tree, growing at its base was a small flower, flowing with a rich purple with a honey yellow seeping into the crease in its center. She plucks it from the ground and hurries off, her long pink hair bobbing behind her as her curious green eyes scan the perimeter for the boy.

She spots him sitting under a cherry blossom tree, her namesake, eating an onigiri. She watches him, a faint blush on her face as she hands him the flower. He looks up at her with dead eyes, brows furrowed in annoyance.

He seizes the flower from her hands and throws it down to the ground, walking on it as he walks away. Tears well up in her eyes, her face stained red in shame. She picks up the flower and fingers its crushed petals.

A pansy, “Thoughts of love.”

At age twelve she is overjoyed when he is put onto her team. She sees this turn of events as a way to get closer to him. She excitedly implies, the same blush staining her cheeks that she dreams of being with him when they sit there. He bluntly states, the same dead look in his eyes that he finds her annoying.

After their first important mission, he goes to the hospital for his wounds to be treated. He stays there overnight. She takes this time to visit her old friend and now rival-in-love-and-so-much-more at the local flower shop that night. She arrives at the hospital in the morning with a flower as red as his eyes in full bloom.

Too tired to shoo her, he lets her stay and ramble on as his stress and annoyance rises. She leaves on the note of talking about something about her visiting him tomorrow, leaving the rose in the vase on his bedside. She closes the door behind her; he fingers the smooth petals of the flower as he removes it from the vase. He strokes the smooth petals gently.

His eyes darken as he crushes the blossom in his fist, scattering the petals as he tosses the crushed flower to the side. He turns onto his side and falls into an uneasy sleep.

A red rose, “I love you.”

(He truly doubts that she even understands the meaning of the words.)

He walks away from his home, no, the place he used to call home in silent remorse. He hears footsteps echo behind him, loud as life itself. She screams his name, says that she loves him more than anything. He disappears into the night, reappearing behind her. He whispers idly in her ear, ‘thank you,’ and leaves her behind. Leaves his life behind.

Just earlier that day she cornered him with yet another red flower. She had given it to him whispering something that even he could not comprehend and before he could get it out of her, she ran away with the same blush that had always seemed to have been present on her face. He fingered the plant like he did the rose as he walked home.

In his room as he packs, he sits there and stares. He stares, and he sees. He picks up his loaded backpack and the flower, and with one last look at his room. He sees the photo of his team, his family on his dresser. He sees her. With one last look at the flower, he tosses it onto his bed. He figures that he would probably never see either one ever again.

A red tulip. “Believe me; A declaration of love.”

She cries when no one looks, when no one hears. She is broken and she hides it well. Walking through the dimly lit training grounds where she first saw him, she sighs sadly and continues forward to the same destination she had that day.

She looks idly at the tree out of the corner of her eye; it is scarred with scrape marks and stabs, dull and worn out paint gracing its weary bark. Tears bud in her eyes; she wipes them away and carries on.

Reaching the clearing, she saw the field of flowers lay before her eyes. It is the first anniversary of when he left and she decided to pick some flowers to put on the Shinobi Memorial Stone. She sees the same kind of flowers she had given him that day in an array of colors. The wind blows against her back as if to tell her that these are the flowers she should pick. A broken smile on her face, she walks over and picks a few, all of different colors.

Mixed Zinnias. “Thinking of an absent friend.”

She has seen him today for the first time in almost three years. She is now fifteen, matured and strong. He stood in front of her, almost mockingly as he stared down at her with those same red eyes. She wants to cry. She wants to cry, but is too strong to do so.

They are on their way back to the village (Her comrades were exhausted and wounded and she being single-handed could only do so much) as she ponders his actions.

He held the sword to his neck, his best friend’s neck, of the utmost intent to kill him. She knew this for sure, that was not him. That was not the boy she had met all those years ago and had come to know and truly love in the time since then.

She stays up that night and stares into the campfire, wondering what he has done since abandoning his home all those years ago. Had he gotten sick? Had he killed? Had he found someone else precious to him now? Had he found someone to replace them? To replace her? The thought makes her feel uneasy. She stares up at the stars and sees a shooting star. Closing her eyes, she screams out in her heart for him to return to them. To her.

Opening her eyes again, she follows the trail of moonlight to a small flower sitting beneath a tree in the corner of the campsite. She walks quietly to it, the small flower blooming in the light of the moon. She picks it, snapping the stem gently as not to kill it.

She strokes its long white petals. They remind her of a white kimono, a beautiful gown for a beautiful person. She sighs as she stumbles saddened back to her seat near the fire.

She worries about him. She worries for his safety, for his health, for his feelings, for himself as a whole. When he was in the village, when they shared a team name, when he was there, she used to take it upon herself to see to his well-being. Maybe not in the way a mother would tend to a sick child (although she once did try to tend to him when he had caught a cold; he was not pleased with her.) but in the way a close friend would help a close friend in need.

If he needed a hug to pull him back from the darkness, she would be there with open arms. If he needed a shoulder to cry on (which he would never show, although she did hear quiet sobs come from his tent on missions,) she would be there with a dry shoulder, ready to comfort him. If he needed a hand, a touch, gossamer to bring him into the light again, she would be there. It is as simple as that.

She prays with all of her heart that her wish for his well-being will be granted. She considers throwing the flower into the fire, but for some reason decides against it, tucking it safely into her pack.

An Azalea. “Take care of yourself for me.”

She is sixteen, three months shy of seventeen. He is still sixteen; he is about five months shy. She places a hand on his icy cheek, tears that were not meant to be seen cascading down his pale face. With the last of his strength, he lifts his hand to hers and gives it a light squeeze.

They had been fighting for their lives; for him to escape and for her to bring him back. They had crossed paths with whom he had hated so much, and realizing this as an opportunity to test his strength, fought him. The man was fatally wounded but vanished into the shadows as he had so many times before, whereas he would be left to die. The only difference between them was that while he was doomed to die a death pained with loneliness, he has her.

She cries harder as she sees the blood spread, soaking both of their clothing. Sobs wrack her body as his grip loosens a bit; he makes a failing attempt to regain it. He stares up at her with clouded black eyes, his face impassive, the only clue to pain and sorrow the tears freefalling down his face.

She begs him not to leave her, that they had only just had a taste of freedom. She encourages him saying that with her knowledge of medics, he will never survive and by this time, he is dead. He had completed his first goal, and he had to live to achieve his second. His eyes close as he listens to her pleas. With a small, sad smile that breaks her heart and damns it thrice to hell, he utters three words:

“You’re still annoying.”

With that, his eyes close and she cries.

Behind all of the pain, all of the suffering, the two lives torn apart, behind it all, there is a small flower, light pink and delicate against the deep grey contrast of the sky.

A Petunia. “Resentment; Anger; Your Presence Soothes Me.”

He awakens, dazed in a white room. He at first wonders if he has died, but after realizing that he would never go above and would awake in flames if true, he concludes that by some miracle he is alive.

The room smells of alcohol and latex, the menthol-like smell burning his nose. The bright florescent lights on the ceiling blind his eyes. He feels sore and uncomfortable under the stiff overly-starched sheets of the hard hospital bed. It is dead silent except for the quiet shuffling of footsteps outside the thick wooden door and the breeze slipping in through the cracked window. He turns his head tiredly to face it.

Next to him is a small bedside table of dull dark wood, light scratches etched into the surface. Sitting atop the surface is a small clear vase, a bit of water poured inside to keep its contents fresh. Inside it is a small flower, its petals as white as newly fallen snow. Drops of dusty purple are sprinkled near the vibrant yellow core. Its stem is short but a gorgeous hue of green that can only be described as the glow in her eyes when she laughs, the sea foam on a cool summer day, the forest abloom in the deepest depths of springtime.

He picks it up as he did with the rose all those years ago. He strokes its edges gingerly, careful as not to hurt them. Unlike the slightly stiff petals of the rose, (Unlike the hardships and drawbacks that come with love,) this flower has delicate petals, soft and flexible, easily shattered and torn by the lightest of touches (Much like his happiness, much like his life and his heart.)

He hears light footsteps and the door creak open so he turns to face it. He isn’t sure if he saw what he thinks he saw, but he is almost positive that he saw a woman with locks of pastel pink, eyes of a shimmering morning sea, and a kindness that gives his dark world stars of light. And he isn’t sure if he saw what he thinks he saw, but he could have sworn that she was smiling.

A White Violet. “Let’s Take a Chance on Happiness.”

It is the time of year again, the anniversary of when he left her. She finds it strange and slightly disturbing that she always subconsciously insists on coming here every year. She always avoids leaving the village this way because she has to pass the bench. The bench that he left her on that night. It was in the midst of Summer, and yet when she awoke, she felt terribly cold.

She sighs, thinking of memories had, memories shared, memories lost, and memories never made. She feels a gust of wind fly past her and the light patter of footsteps against the stone walkway. To any normal person it would just be a breeze, but she knows better and runs ahead.

Something catches her eye and she immediately stops. The presence, the breeze and the footsteps are gone, yet another piece of a fading memory. She smiles and almost cries when she sees a single flower lying on the bench. There is a flurry of petals, a pale pink spreading into the purist of whites, overflowing into a thin sea of a hue of indescribable green. Tears come to her eyes and she smiles.

She doesn’t smile only for the fact that she knows who left it here. She doesn’t smile only for the fact that all of the years of prayers and wishes and hopes (and flowers) have been answered. No, she smiles for she is an expert in the language of flowers.

A Single Carnation. “Yes.”

-The Language of Flowers, End.-

A/N: I absolutely loved writing this. I love flowers, and I adore their language, so like in my 100 themes stories, I dedicated an entire story to the theme “The Language of Flowers”. I personally love this. Anyway, R&R! Domo arigato!

Ja ne,

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