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Sumire was worried.
Being worried was not a natural state for her.
But she couldn’t help it. Hana hadn’t left her room in days, and even then it was only to go to the bathroom or the kitchen.
She never spend any more time than absolutely necessary anywhere that wasn’t her own room. There were no more trips to the library, no more days spent giggling together on the couch while watching bad comedy movies. No afternoons at the park, no trips to the pool where Hana would watch from the sidelines as she splashed aound.
There was just a Hana-shaped hole in Sumires life where her sisters presence used to be.
She didn’t like it one bit.
So she decided to do something about it.
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Step one in operation: get the flower some sunlight! (She was proud of that codename, she’d come up with it all on her own!) was getting her sister some small presents to cheer her up. She was thinking that once Hana was in a better mood, she’d be more willing to maybe leave her room for a bit and then they could go back to playing and everything would be fine.
Okay, it probably wouldn’t be just as before. Sumire wasn’t stupid.
But her sister was hurting, so of course cheering her up was a good idea!
Now then… what to get her…
Ah!
There were these pretty pink flowers in the communal gardens that hana loved to look at! Those would make a great present, wouldn’t they? Except they belonged to Makashita-san, the nice older man that lived around the corner. She couldn’t just take them, that would be stealing! And stealing was bad, her mom said so!
But maybe she could ask for some? Makashita-san was a kind person, he always smiled and waved at them when they passed each other. And mom liked him too, but mom liked most people. And most people liked mom, because mom was just awesome that way.
She went to look for Makashita-san that afternoon, after telling mom where she was going of course. Mom looked a bit apprehensive, but let her go.
(Mom was scared after… the thing with Hana happened. Sumire wasn’t allowed to leave the house for weeks afterwards. Mom told her she was scared they might try to take her too.)
She went bouncing down the front stairs and off she went, towards the little road that led to the gardens. In weather like this, she was almost completely sure to meet Makashita-san! At least 90%! Okay, maybe 85% but still!
Before too long, she reached the gardens and sure enough, the nice old man was pruning his vegetable beds. „Oh, hello there Sumire-chan! What a nice surprise“ The man smiled at her, his eyes twinkling from the deep wrinkles many years of smiling had carved into his face.
„Hi Makashita-san!“ Sumire waved excitedly, swinging the little basket she had brought along on one arm. „I gotta ask you for a favor! Nee-san isn’t feeling well so I wanna bring her some flowers! Can I have some of yours? She really likest he pink ones!“
„Oh? Well that will be doable, I think“ the man chuckled and heaved himself up. „Just wait a bit. These old bones aren’t what they used tob e“ he laughed and cracked his back as he straightened up.
Fifteen minutes and one lesson on how to care for cut flowers so they kept fresh longer and she was off again, waving back at the nice gardener.
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„Hana?“
„…Yeah?“
„I brought you something! Can you open your door?“
Sumire stood, waiting anxiously in front of Hanas room. The flowers, thoroughly cleaned and desinfected by her mom (Sumire didn’t know how to do that yet, but her mom was super awesome and could make anything desinfected so Hanas dumb quirk wouldn’t make her hate them. Sumire was so going to learn that! But mom said she was too young to handle chemicals, so maybe later.) clutched in her hand, held together by a neat blue band.
There was silence for a moment, then the sound of the key turning in Hanas locks. Sumire wasn’t used tot hat sound yet. There used to only be one lock on Hanas door and she never actually locked it. Mom just gave Hana and her the keys to their rooms in case they needed privacy – because their rooms were their space and their responsibility, because they were both big girls and could take care of their rooms themselfes now!- but now there were three. And Hana always locked them.
A lot of things were different now.
Mom said they just had to get used to it, because it would just…be like that for a while. She said that Hana didn’t feel safe anymore after what happened, so they had to make some concessions for her, just until she felt better again.
But she didn’t get better.
She just got worse.
Hana left her room less and less, and when she did she didn’t ever touch anything, her mask always on her face and her gloves always on. The smell of sanitizer wafted from her room and sometimes, in
the dead of night, Sumire would wake up to hear her sisters gentle crying through the walls. She never could get into Hanas room to comfort her though because she always locked herself in and wouldn’t open the door when she called.
Those nights were the worst. Sumire felt she was a bad sister, not doing anything to help Hana, after… after what, she didn’t even know.
Sumire knew that what happened was super bad- so bad their parents only spoke about it all hush-hush, so she wouoldn’t hear. But she knew that it had to have been something real awful and that it probably had to do with why the nice guys from corp didn’t visit anymore.
They used to come almost every week, always with some product for Hana to try, ‘cause it might help with her quirk and all. But they didn’t anymore. And when she asked about them, Hana rushed back to her room and mom told her that she shouldn’t ever speak about them anymore because they had done something bad and it would make her sister sad if she did.
So she didn’t.
But Hana was sad anyway. And Sumire had enough of it. Clearly, giving her sister space wasn’t good enough, but when she asked mom about it, she wasn’t given a good enough answer. Mom just kinda… didn’t answer and looked away, a pained look in her eyes. Nothing else was said then and Sumire decided then and there that if something was to be done, she would have to do it herself.
Thus, the flowers in her hand. She just hoped Hana would like them.
Which she’d find out now, since her sister was opening the door to her. Hana was wearing her mask again. Her eyes were flitting about, but since it was only Sumire standing there, she didn’t just close the door again. She sometimes did that when there were more than one person in front of her door.
„I brought you flowers!“ Sumire exclaimed, holding out the bunch towards her. „They’re the ones you like from the communal garden! I thought you might like them?“ The last part came out sounding more like a question, since Hana had yet to make a motion to take the flowers from her.
„I-I’m… thank you.“ Her sister said quietly, before carefully, gently, taking the flowers from her hands and cradling them in her own, gloved ones. „These are really pretty…“
Sumire smiled broadly. She’d accepted them! Step one of her plan was going great!
„Makashita-san said weh ave to put them in water and place them somewhere sunny so they’ll keep longer!“ „Oh… I don’t have a vase in my room for them. I don’t think I can keep them here…“ Hana looked at the flowers in her hands, then at the crestfallen look in her sisters eyes. Then at the floor behind her. There was a furrow between her brows and she was shifting on her feet where she was still standing in the doorway. Biting her lips, barely visible through the mask, she seemed to come to some sort of decision.
„…Or maybe we could get one from the kitchen?“
Sumire smiled at her.
Behind her mask, Hana smiled back.
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They made it a regular thing, the flower gifts.
Sumire would go to get new ones every time the old ones would die. It wasn’t that often, Hana took good care of them. Still, every few days Sumire would have an excuse to get more. And she always took care to choose the prettiest ones, Makashita-san would help her.
And then- then when she’d come back she’d always make sure to not get a vase so Hana would have to go with her into the kitchen to get one. And then they’d have to make sure to choose a nice one. And then, because it took so long to make that decision, they’d drink a cup of tea too.
And every time, they’d take longer and longer, just sitting at the kitchen table with their cups (Sumires had a bunch of colourful flowers on them, from a school project. Her friend Mii-chan had said it was ugly, but Mii-chans cup ended up looking like a right mess as mom would say, so she didn’t think Mii-chan had any idea about what was pretty anyway. Plus, she liked it and Hana liked it too!) and talking like they used to all the time before… Well, whatever it was that had happened. Sumire still wasn’t quite sure about that.
Anyway, Sumire was seeing a little bit of her sister shining through again, in the smiles that snuck onto her features for just a moment sometimes, in the way her eyes were just that little bit brighter again.
She was on the right track, she just knew it!
But before she even knew what was happening, the weather changed as autumn set in and with it, the pretty flowers Hana liked didn’t bloom anymore. No carnations, no lilies and no poppies. The colourful cosmos flowers wouldn’t bloom anymore and neither would the bright white daisies. And Hanas favourite wouldn’t be there anyomre either. She always made sure to add at least one into every bunch, because they were so pretty and Hana liked them the best! But now, they were gone…
„That’s just the way it is with them,“ Makashita-san told her, „Spiderflowers only really grow in the summer here, next year they’ll be there again.“ Sumire thought that pretty cool. The seeds would just stay there, in the earth, for almost a whole year until they’d bloom into the pretty pink flowers Hana liked.
Just lying, untouched, without that harming them. If only people were like flowers, then Hana would be okay even if she spent all her time only lying in bed and doing nothing.
But she shouldn't think like that. Hana was a human and humans needed other humans to function properly. Mom said so too. But the only way she knew she could get her sister to come out of her room was by bringing flowers. But her favorites wouldn't be there anymore and soon...
Sumire was a bit worried. For now, she could give her sister autumn flowers, like asters (they had these cute lilac petals, Sumire liked them) and dahlias (the ones with the funky looking petal pattern) but soon enough, they wouldn’t bloom anymore either and then there would be no flowers to give to Hana and no way to get her out of her room, to get her to be her awesome big sister again.
Sumire didn’t know what to do.
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Hana was tired.
These days, she was always tired. And when she wasn’t, she was too full of energy with nowhere to put it. She cleaned her room then. Cleaned every nook and every cranny until all the things were gone and left her alone.
She hated the things. Bacteria, germs, microorganisms, whatever you wanted to call it, she hated them all.
Hana hated many things.
She hated that no matter what kind of cleansing products she used, the things would be there again within mere hours.
She hated that no matter how queasy it made her, she had to eat food with things in it because otherwise her digestion and health would deteriorate.
She hated how she couldn’t stand to go out anymore, how she couldn’t go to see the communal gardens and drink tea at the café near their house.
She hated how she missed her favorite TV series because the TV was in the living room and she couldn’t stand to be in there for long. She hated how she didn’t even feel like thinking about any of the things she liked before anymore.
And, most important of all, she hated that she even felt hate in the first place.
It hadn’t been like that until… She had been pretty normal until then. Or at least as normal as one could be with a quirk like hers. It wasn’t fair that she got something so horrible when all the others got cool or at least not harmful abilities. A girl she had been friends with in kindergarten could command water to make shapes and form bubbles around her. They weren’t much use against any type of pressure, but they still looked cool so the other kids had admired her quirk. Another child could change her haircolour at will, another would never need to worry about getting new pens and stuff because his quirk allowed him to make letters appear on any surface he touched without having to write anything.
None of those quirks were what people deemed ‚heroic‘ or even remotely of practical use (except maybe letterboy, as he wínsisted on being called) but she’d do anything, anything, to be able to switch with them. Any quirk would be better than her own, even not having a quirk at all would be preferable to what she had to go through.
It just wasn’t fair.
Life wasn’t fair, mom always said that. She was right, Hana knew that. But it still didn’t change anything.
She was still stuck here, unable to get away from her quirk, unable to really do anything at all. And if she even thought about going outside, the only thing that would pop into her head was the stark picture of two suited men waiting for her in front of their house, then the car again, with its shaded windows and comfortable leather seats, the contract… oh, that damn contract.
They’d made it out to be part of a tour of their facilities. She didn’t really want to go there, but she knew these men, they’d come for years, helping her with her quirk ever since it had activated and no doctor could help her with it. They were always nice to her and didn’t act as if she was overreacting.
She had liked them.
So of course she went along when they offered yet another thing that might help her even though she’d have to go with them to their labs. A new treatment, they’d said. And mom had been so happy, too. Happy that there was something to help her, even if she hadn’t liked that she wasn’t allowed to come along with her daughter. „It’s a matter of company security, you do understand Suzuki-san?“ And that was that. Of course she didn’t question it, they had been coming for years after all and had never harmed them.
So Hana went with them, in that fancy car, towards what she thought might be a solution- finally, finally a solution- to her struggles. She wanted to be like the other girls. She wanted to go out tot he cinema and tot he mall and the swimming pool without having to fight the urge to run away. She wanted to play with her sister in the garden without always feeling disgusting from all the dirt and the things in it afterwards.
She just wanted to be normal.
She never would be, she knew that now.
She also knew that the men weren’t a danger to her anymore, not now that they knew what they were after. They were prepared for any other attempts to get her into an agreement like they’d tried then. She’d never signed.
Hana was eleven years old and liked to read. A lot. Mom had already taught her to never sign anything without reading it first, and Hana, being the bookworm that she was, read everything. Including the fineprint. She didn’t understand it, so she didn’t sign. Thank god she didn’t sign. But there had been a moment… one single, terrifying snapshot that would remain in her memory forever, when she had hesitated.
She knew these men. She liked them. Mom liked them too. Surely they wouldn’t do anything bad to her?
But…
She knew them. She liked them. But she didn’t trust them quite as much as they probably wanted her to.
She did not sign.
Mom had explained to her, later, what would have happened to her if she had.
Hana had gone into her room afterwards, because she needed some time. And then… she hadn’t left again.
She was just so tired now.
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The first time her sister brought her flowers, she didn’t want to leave her room.
But they were so pretty and they did need a vase… and Sumire looked so sad when she hesitated in the doorway. So she went with her to look for a vase.
And then, a few days later when the flowers had started wilting, they did it again.
And again.
And again.
Soon, Hana was starting to look forward to her sisters visits. When Sumire stood in front of her door, flowers with no vase in hand, she felt normal again. Even if it was just long enough to drink a cup of tea and chat like they always did about everything they could think of.
Hana started to look forward to it. She started to do some of the things she used to, before.
Her sister made her feel better again, if just a little bit. She loved her normalcy.
It was ironic, really. She used to resent Sumire for a time, when her sisters quirk had come in. Because Sumire… Sumire hadn’t gotten a quirk like hers.
Thank god she hadn’t. Now she was greatful that Sumire was normal.
Sumire, her little baby sister with her chubby cheeks and big eyes that would light up when she talked about the things she liked, Sumire who was so very tiny when Hana had held her the first time, wrinkled pink face just barely poking out of the blanket she’d been swaddled in… Hana couldn’t bear the thought of anything bad happening to her.
And it wouldn’t. Because Sumires quirk wasn’t of any use in the big industries. No one would try to poach her or trick her into anything she didn’t want.
Her sister was safe.
The only one in their family who was in any danger from that kind of thing was herself.
Her quirk was an anomaly, not having much to do with her parents‘ or her sisters. Mom could make little balls out of energy, small glowing lights she used to make little dances when she told them bedside stories. Dad wasn’t there anymore and Hana could barely remember him, but mom said he used to be able to know what anyone in a small radius around him felt, due to having a mild empathy quirk.
Sumire could make plants around her grow a little bit, making flowers bloom earlier than they otherwise would, that kind of thing. Pretty, but not very impressive. Hana knew her sister wanted to become a gardener later on, even if using her quirk in a job wasn’t allowed. Having a quirk like that just made her fond of plants in general. Hana used to go with her to the communal gardens where they’d point at flowers and argued which ones were the prettiest ones.
All in all, no one had a bothersome or even unusual quirk.
Except her. She had gotten the ability to sense microorganisms around her. She could still remember when it had come in, a little earlier than expected, several months before her fourth birthday. She’d woken up to the feeling of a myriad of things, itching everywhere. On the walls of her room, her things, her everything, even herself.
She hadn’t stopped screaming until mom had taken her out of bed and into her arms.
So yeah, she used to hate how different she was. She still did. But she could never resent her baby sister for that. For all that she could be a little brat and really annoying, Hana loved Sumire. She always would. So seeing her sad was something that she could not let stand.
It was almost winter now and Sumire had become more and more withdrawn whenever they’d meet for their little flower appontment. And Hana was pretty sure she knew why that was.
She wasn’t blind to the fact that winter was setting in fully now. And with winter came a distinct lack of flowers that Sumire could bring her.
But…
Hana didn’t want this to stop. She wanted to keep this little spot or normalcy and make it bigger, make it stronger, until she could feel more normal like she used to.
Or at least as close to normal as she would ever get.
Well then.
Time to get moving and make a plan to cheer her baby sister up.
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Sumire wasn’t going tot he communal gardens anymore.
Now, not even her quirk could coax any flower out of the earth before their time, which wouldn’t be until next spring.
She didn’t have anything she could do to get Hana out of her room again.
With the last flowers, her hope had wilted away too.
Now, she didn’t know what to do.
She had tried to make other plans, but nothing was right. Nothing would work. She just had pages upon pages of notes ripped apart lying around her room.
It had been going so well too! Hana was out more, she smiled more, she was more like herself again.
Mom was happier too, often being in the kitchen, humming and laughing with them and making them more tea when their cups were empty.
But winter was here. And with the winter, the teatime disappeared and Hanas smile idsappeared and mom was looking more worried again. Mom had said she’d talk to Hana about going to a therapist after all, even though Sumire knew she didn’t trust any medical personal after…well.
But Hana wasn’t getting better in her own and mom didn’t know what to do either. That had been a hard talk. Mom always knew what to do, she was mom! To hear her explain that in this case, she didn’t and that they would need professional help because sometimes, things don’t get better on their own…
Sumire didn’t know what to feel about all of that.
So she laid in bed, thinking.
And thinking.
Until suddenly, there was a quiet knock on her door. Mom didn’t knock like that. But…
Hana did.
Sumire jumped out of bed faster than she’d ever done in her entire life, getting her feet tangled in the blankets in the process. She didn’t stop to get them back on the bed properly as she ripped open her bedroom door.
Her sister looked in, seeing the strewn about blankets, the ripped paper everywhere. And, against everything Sumire would have expected, she giggled.
Hana giggled!
Even as she was standing there, gaping at her big sister, Hana held out something in one of her gloved hands.
„Wanna help me pick out a vase for these?“ she asked, her eyes shining more than they had in weeks as she looked at her.
In her hand, she held a bundle of paper flowers, pieces of colourful scraps carefully folded into beautiful origami tulips and roses.
Sumire looked at them in wonder for a moment.
„I didn’t know you could do that!“ she exclaimed, before she could think about what else to say.
„Mom helped.“
„Oh.“
There was a moment of silence, as the two sisters stood there, a mirror of the same picture from months ago, one just in the doorway, the other holding out flowers.
With a start, Sumire remembered that she had to say something.
„Um! Yes!“
„Huh?“
„Yes, I’d like to pick out a vase with you!“ Sumire knew that the smile she wore was bright enough to look too big on her face, but she didn’t even try to stop it.
Hanas dark eyes shined as she smiled back at her.
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Hana didn’t get all better as fast as Sumire hoped she would.
But she did get better.
Slowly, over the course of months and months, Hana would start to spend more time with them again, even going so far as removing her mask more and more.
The therapist talked to her too, even if Sumire didn’t quite know why. She wasn’t the one that was hurt. But she went anyway, and she thought that maybe, they were pretty smart when they said that people changing wasn’t always a bad thing. That even if Sumire wanted Hana to do all the things they used to, that didn’t mean that doing other things instead was any worse.
Change was a part of life. People changed, just as nature did. Sumire understood that now.
Her sister wasn’t quite like she used to be, but Sumire didn’t care. The only thing that she cared about was that Hana would smile more, that the bags underneath her eyes would lessen by the day.
And as winter turned to spring and spring rolled into summer, the communal gardens were in full bloom. And Hana walked with her to visit them, her hand in Sumires.
Her sister wasn’t quite like she used to be. Maybe she never would be again. But, as Sumire walked with her, the sun high in the sky and the birds singing their joyful songs, she thought that maybe that was okay.
Because as long as there was a garden, flowers would bloom. And even if it was different ones than the year before, after winter they would look just as beautiful as the other ones had.