He was really talking to the flowers… I know that he likes flowers and this place a lot, but talking to them?? That is a little weird. What is he talking about anyway…? I leaned in closer to the entrance of the garden to listen.

“-ied going to a few flower shops I knew from the top of my head, but none of them had one. I tried asking a few of the florists that worked there, some were a little scared of me, but the ones that answered said they didn’t know as well.”

Flower Shop… is he searching for a particular flower for the garden? Hmm… No, that would not have put him in the strange mood he has been lately.

I can barely hear him from here…

“-a really rare color for that flower and I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get her favorite flower by tomorrow… I'm going to feel really bad if I miss the day…”

I seeeee, that is why he has been feeling down lately. He tried to find a specific rare flower for someone by scouring many different shops, but could not find it… Who's that special someone thought? Wait, rare flower… special someone… IS HE GOING TO PROPOSE TO SOMEONE!? I need to listen in more!-

“-sked my biology teacher if she knew a shop that had it, but still no luck… I'm running out of options I know perso-”

“Seiko!” A familiar voice yelled my name from the other end of the corridor.

“AH-” I instinctively used my hands to muffle my scream.

“There you are! Wha-What are you doing with your hand over your mouth?”

“You almost made my heart jump out by yelling my name like that!”

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

“Wait, why are you even here?”

“I was thinking while waiting for you that Hiroshi might be in the garden, and after seeing two council members pass by the classroom, I panicked and ran here.”

“Oh, so you thought he might be here too. He is in the garden, yes, but he's talking to the flowers, look.”

“Eavesdropping is not a nice thing to do, Seiko.” She says while leaning in behind to see as well.

But it was then that her shoe got caught up on my leg, and she ended up tripping and falling on my back…

“Wo-Woah!”

and now me, falling on a dirECT LINE TO THE FLO-

THUMP

Ow, ow, ow, my whole body hurts… hitting a floor this hard with this much weight behind me… is this divine punishment for eavesdropping? Uuuuuuuuuugh…

“Ah! I'm so sorry Seiko! I tripped on your leg and fell on you!” Chie said in panic while getting up from her shock absorber…

“It-it's fine… just please… help me get up… I need help.” I say while rolling to the side, extending my hand towards her so she can help me.

“Oh, alright!” Chie grabs my hand and pulls me, helping me get up a bit.

“What… is happening?” Another familiar voice is heard from the garden.

This blunder blew our cover and grabbed the attention of a, now confused, Hiroshi.

“Ah, Hiroshi!” Chie says as she quickly turns to him… letting go of my hand…

THUD

“Ugh…” I fell again.

“Oh no, Seiko! I'm really sorry!!”

Is this further punishment? Is this the price I must pay for eavesdropping?

“Seiko!”

I see, I now understand the errors of my ways.

“No! Don't go to the light, Seiko!”

I shall never eavesdrop, oh almighty divine god…

“...”

“Wha-What are you two doing…”

Both Chie and Hiroshi had helped me to get up, after which he asked: “What are you two doing here?” and Chie explained everything up to this point.

“I see…” crossing his arms while looking at me, Hiroshi says “You really should stop eavesdropping on people, Seiko.”

“I know, I know. I have learned a great lesson and I promise to never do it again!”

“More importantly though, we were worried about you!”

“Yeah, you didn't show up during lunch and we got worried.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. It was nothing to worry about, I just wanted to talk with a teacher, that's all… Sorry that I couldn't warn you two about it.”

“Hmm… considering what we know it does make sense.” He wanted a rare flower for a girl after all.

“Huh? We know what?”

“Oh right, you weren't eavesdropping. Basically he has been feeling down because can't find a specific flower for a g-”

“Hey, hey, hey!” An agitated Hiroshi interrupts me “You shouldn't spread what you heard, Seiko!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Oh my, he looks so scary when he is angry…

“Oh yeah, why were you talking to the garden's flowers? I'm still curious about that. You like flowers that much, Hiroshi?”

“I'm curious to know too.”

He pauses for a bit after briefly thinking about the question, and responds: “Do you really wanna know? It-it's kind of an embarrassing long story…” Hiroshi says while slightly dodging our line of sight.

“We all have our fair share of embarrassing stories, it can't be as bad as some of the ones I had.”

“Yeah, I want to know!”

After our persistence, he turned to the flowers and began…

“When I was little, I used to help… my mother with her flower shop. She knew a lot about flowers and really loved them, even grew a few of them at the shop. She loved them so much that she would often talk to them.”

“That's a little strange…”

“I thought it was strange too, so I asked her. She told me that talking to them would help them grow faster and healthier, and she said they were great listeners as well. No matter how trivial the problem was, they would listen with the utmost care. So every time I have some issues or a lot in my mind, I come here after school to talk to the plants I have been growing for a few years now.”

“Do plants actually listen to us?”

“I… don't know if that’s scientifically proven to happen. But if you asked me what I believe… I do believe that flowers listen to us, and sometimes even share our same feelings, despite not being able to talk.”

“...”

“...”

The garden became quiet after Hiroshi's story. He left us completely speechless…

“Wh-wh-Why are you two silent!? You're not going to laugh are you!!?” He says while his face slightly reddens.

“What? No, no, it was such a beautiful and cute story that I was shocked it came from you.”

“Cu-cute!?”

“Am I right, Chie?” I ask while turning towards her… Huh, Water is running through her face… Wait! “Are you crying Chie??”

“I never knew sniffle that it was for such an inspiring and sniffle beautiful reason.”

“He-Hey! Do-don't cry over it!” Hiroshi says a little panicked and with a completely red face.

After a bit, she calmed down from her crying and we remembered the reason why we were trying to find Hiroshi in the first place.

“Oh yeah, I completely forgot! We wanted to talk to you and invite you to hang out with us after school.”

“Hang out?”

“Yeah, our original plan was to help you. We noticed you were feeling a little down recently.”

“But you didn't want to tell us what was wrong, so this would have been a way to indirectly help you!”

“Well, now you know the reason why…” He says as he gives me a sharp look that could pierce any soul. He is scary when angry!

“Where would we hang out though?”

“Seiko mentioned we would go to… actually, you haven't mentioned where we would go, Seiko.”

“I didn't? I thought I did, well we would go to a Café first and then to Shizen Park!”

“Shizen park… I have never been to that area before, I have only been to the northern areas of the city, where I live…” He thinks for a bit.

“What do you say? Wanna hang out with me and Chie today?”

“Hm…” The anticipation grew until he finally responded “Sure, I can hang out with you guys. Maybe I can even find what I'm looking for around that area.”

“Yay!”

“Woo! Mission M.H.S. continues!”

“Yeah!”

“Mission what??”

After chatting for a bit, we decided to head out to the Café. But before leaving the garden, there is one thing I must do!

“Hey, you two go ahead of me. I have something I need to do- I mean, I dropped something at the tree!”

“We can help you search for it.”

“Oh no, no! I'll be fine on my own, don't worry!”

“Uh…”

Hiroshi and Chie looked at each other a little confused about my, admittedly, very suspicious behavior.

“Alright… we will meet back at the entrance of the school then.”

“Sounds good! See you two in a bit!”

And they both left. Time to execute my plan!

I carefully approach the flowers Hiroshi was talking to earlier… Actually, looking at them this close, they really are beautiful… I believe he once said that these are white Gladiolus flowers. They kinda look like swords that a knight would use… hmmm.

Standing up, I proclaim to the worried flowers:

“You all have nothing to worry about anymore, Gladiolus… no, Gladiouluses!”

“The Knight Seiko is here and she vows to help find what he is looking for! That's my promise to all of you, as a knight!”

After my promise, I suddenly felt a little gust of wind pass by me, to which all the flowers in front of me reacted in unison, shaking from right to left… They really do listen huh…

“Well, time for me to go, they are waiting for me. I'll see all of you another time!” I responded smiling to them, while heading out.

Packing my things in my backpack, I left my classroom in a hurry and met up with my friends, who were already waiting at the entrance.

“I'm here! Sorry for the wait.”

“It's fine, we didn't wait that much.”

“So, where exactly is this Café?”

Pulling the map my father made from my blazer's pocket, I say “I got it right here, a map made by my dad!”

Opening the map I show it to Chie and Hiroshi.

“It's a place called Letspri… Lespri…”

“L'esprit Espresso.”

“Yeah, Léspri espreso!”

“This drawn line going from the school to the Café is our route?”

“Correct.”

Hiroshi looks further into the map I was holding and comments: “Why are all the directions written on the right all wrong…”

“What? They are?”

“Yeah, the line goes to the right but the instructions say left.”

“That's… true…” Did my dad… mistake right from left!?

“M-My dad might have been just a little bit sleepy when he was writing the instructions, that's it! I'm sure the line goes directly to the place.”

“If you say so.”

“Alright, let's go go!”

According to the map, we just need to go in a straight line and turn uh… hm… which one was it again? Is it right or left again!? This map with wrongly written directions confused me and now I don't know anymore! I’m so done for…

“Is everything okay, Seiko?”

“You've been making some unusual faces while looking at the map.”

“Ah! Oh, yes yes! Everything is A-Okay! I know exactly where we are going!” WHY DID YOU SAY THAT, SEIKO!?

I have to choose fast, the corner is coming up-

“Alright, we are taking a right here!” Right is always right… I hope so at least.

We continued to follow the map's path and on the last turn where we should see the Café, we… Instead saw the Gakumon School at the end of the road…

“Th-That's Gakumon at the end of the road…”

“...” Why is right never the right way…

“Here, give me the map.”

“Here you go…” A defeated Seiko, with tears in her eyes, hands over Hiroshi the map.

“Hmm… ah, you just took right instead of left at the first turn.”

“Please don't make fun of me for not knowing right or left…”

“Why would you do that? Confusing right or left is pretty normal.”

Hiroshi… you are way too kind to me…

Following Hiroshi's lead, we finally arrived at L'esprit Espresso. From the outside, the building looks very rundown and old fashioned…

The windows were all very dusty, and even after swiping the dust off with my hand, I couldn't really see inside, it was far too blurry.

“Hmm…”

“Are you sure we're at the right place? This place looks a bit sketchy.”

“Is the entire map wrong…?”

“Well, we won't know if we don't go in.” I said going to the door.

Grabbing the door handle and opening the door, which causes a bell to ring above me. Stepping foot inside, I was immediately blasted by a sweet aroma. And after taking a peek at the interior, I was met with a sight totally opposite from what the outside belied.

“This place looks so nice and cozy inside!”

“Really?”

“Huh…”

“Come on guys! This place is great!”