1: Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming around...

Carefully... Carefully...

"Ow!"

Ah, horse shit.

For the kajillionth time in my flower arrangement career, I cursed the masses of romantics who simply had to favor roses among the other, perfectly fine, thorn-less flowers.

"Ffft. And those so-called chivalrous guys complain about over-charging. Well, if you were so damn chivalrous, you should try doing it yourself and not paying us to do it..."

Yes. And for the gigakajillionth time in my life, I was talking to myself. Gigakajillionth, in case anyone is wondering, is an example of my flexibility in order to compensate my inability to express myself. See, there are some advantages to talking to yourself. For one thing, you can freely use gigakajillionth and the rest of your inventive parlance without having to explain yourself to befuddled, if not amused, faces.

Another thing is, you can be completely honest. There is no-holds-barred truth. Although, sometimes, even that doesn't count as an advantage.

Anyway, whatever the case may be, there's really only one disadvantage that genuinely mattered. That after a while, it just gets unbearably lonely. I try not to listen too much to my dependency on human interaction, but it's screaming, always screaming, too loud to go unnoticed. Like a confused, chaotic cry of a man trying to be heard in his frigid stalactatic cave, desperately looking for warmth. I'm not making sense, but you must realize that I barely try to. It's hard enough trying to make sense of the world, especially all alone.

Oh well. Back to the old flower arrangement.

I guess I should've been paying more attention to it in the first place. But the clock seemed more fascinating, making me want to torture myself and count the minutes until someone came along and divert me from my depression-prone thoughts. At this point, or at usually any given time, any kind of distraction was welcome.

That was supposed to be Aya's job today, or his purpose or something. I suppose he wasn't in the mood to show up and get pricked by a damn plant. Well, to his credit, I believe that his absences are getting rarer and rarer.

...Gradually.

I winced as I sucked my finger, filling my tongue with a tangy taste.

Very gradually.

I'm not entirely sure when it happened, but I started considering Aya as a real friend. You know, the kind you'd bring to a lame movie marathon just to be able to hang out with him (if he were anyone else but Aya). It gets a bit tiring though, calculating the dynamics of our friendship. It doesn't get easier considering he never lets down his guard in reminding you that you're not privy to his thoughts. But there's something beneath the apathy, the coldness, that I just know. In that our camaraderie was something we never spoke of, but always, always knew existed. There was something between us that we didn't acknowledge, because we didn't have to, and didn't act upon unless an extreme situation gave us an excuse to. It was actually very similar to most of my friendships back in J-League. Of course, I doubt any of them could ever hope to match Aya's level of complexity and enigma.

"Hey, Kenken," Yohji said amiably as he entered and decided to watch me lose blood over a single rose. "Sucking your green thumb, I see," he says with an unforced smile.

He was familiar with this scene (everyone was) and never grew tired of thinking up often obscure jokes to ridicule me. "Shut up. And go away, do something productive." Apparently, productivity for him was laying his elbows on my table and watching intently as I try not to screw up. "Okay, let's define productive..." My patience was already halfway gone.

"Well, here's the deal. You do that, I watch, I learn. Great achievements for everybody!"

I resorted to an old, rarely effective technique. 1... 2... 3... Ignoring ridiculous-haired man hovering over me and my bloody torture chamber... 4... 5... Blast off. "Just stop watching, dammit!"

Yohji got up, turning his nose up in the air. "Touuuucheeee. You're worse than a menstruating girl, and they bleed for nearly one week straight..."

It was easier to ignore him as I calmed down. I didn't regret shouting at him -- I rarely do. If I didn't, either it would form some confused tension between us, or I would've taken it to a physical level.

It's not like I don't like Yohji -- I do. A lot. It's just that he tends to infuriate me, and almost always intentionally, no less. I know that he's doing this to keep us both sane. But, you see, I'm not always that rational. Hey, it's normal for friends to fight. Usually they even end up better friends once the truce has commenced. Yohji and I, a little different from normal, though. Sometimes I feel that we become better friends while the actual bickering is happening. It could be some security thing, or the result of the fact that we both are talentless in expressing ourselves, especially in terms of affection. But we both know what we mean to each other. I never understood it, and have only recently come to get used to it, how it's all natural.

Could've been some obscure deity having mercy on me, but Omi finally came home from school. Of course, along with him came a horde of other high school girls coming to threaten our sanity. But as Omi came in, a brilliant smile on his face, I knew I could endure anything.

Omi was easily my favorite. I don't want to assume anything, but I don't think anyone would accuse me of blasphemy if I say he's Yohji's too, and even Aya's as well. He'd feed us his big blue eyes, and we've got no other choice than to take them in, swallow our pride while we're at it. At those points in time, those eyes would hypnotize us into believing that our only purpose in life was to defend him from the tiniest possibility of sadness. In my case though, the effects of the hypnosis last longer than they probably should.

I felt a little guilty when I realized that I failed to notice the little child that was hanging onto his leg. It was Keichi, one of my students. His mother was there as well, further behind Omi. Keichi reminded me a lot of him -- Omi, I mean -- and even though they look nothing alike, I held on to my theory that they were separated at birth. In my defense, Omi's family tree is out of whack enough for it to be possible.

"I brought him in, Ken. Says he knows you," Omi said, ushering the little boy in front of me.

"Of course he knows me, he's my student," I said, unable to extract my pride from my voice. "What's up, Keichi?"

Keichi played with the hem of his shirt for a while, fidgeting and staring at the floor. He could be deathly shy sometimes, and was probably made timid by Omi and Yohji's presence, not to mention the unruly crowd outside the shop. "Um... I... I was wondering what you wanted for your birthday..."

Birthday? Oh. Oh. Oh! Wasn't it just November the last time I checked? It probably still is... "Why, that's so sweet of you to want to give me something. But I don't really need a gift." I went out of the counter and bent to be able to look Keichi in the eye, and held his small shoulders. "I don't need a gift to make me happy, you just made me happy by going all the way here just to ask me that. I'm really glad I have such a great friend."

Keichi blushed like a dutiful mini-Omi. "But... but I really want to get you something."

I smiled at him. "Okay. How about you give me something you made, so I can have something that nobody in the whole world has?"

"B-but, but, what if you don't like it?"

"I could never dislike anything that came from a good friend of mine. I'll cherish it, Keichi, I promise."

Keichi hesitated before wrapping his tiny arms around my neck. "You're the greatest!" He turned to his mom, who was watching with a small smile on her fair face. "I told you he was the greatest, didn't I mom? Aren't I right?"

His mom laughed as Keichi ran to her and attached himself to her leg. "You sure did. Ken, you are a wonderful person," she said with enough sincerity to make me insanely content.

"Ken's great with little children! He loves them, and they adore him!" Omi said, perpetually cheerful. He glanced at me with a friendly grin that I tried too hard not to attempt to memorize.

I replied with my own smile, appreciative, aware of my increasing embarrassment.

"That's right," Yohji interjected from somewhere behind me, "and Omi's living proof."

"Yohji! I am not a little child!"

I was caught between defending Omi as part of my instinct, striking Yohji (which was also an automatic reflex), and fighting down the heat which was aiming to redden my whole face.

All in all, they were pretty successful in distracting me.