A/N: Written for the Quintessential Quoting Challenge, quote: "There is no cosmestic for beauty like happiness." – Maria Mitchell, The A-Maze-Ing Race Challenge for prompt word: ivy, and for the 100_tales challenge, Angel's Feather: Shou/Anri prompt #062 – hurt.

To Smile and Be Jolly

When I first saw him, I didn't know his parents had just died. How could I have? He was rushing along as though he had no worries in life, pulling a katana out of nowhere and offering me a hand with a beautiful smile on his face.

I'm not sure whether it was the hand or the smile that made me fall in love with him…or the way he grinned off my embarrassment for being mistaken for a girl when he addressed me. I knew he was new then, at least; before that I wouldn't thought he was a classmate I'd forgotten – though I don't know how I could forget someone like that…

But I heard later who he was, what his life was like. I learnt later he'd lost two sets of parents, the adopted ones just before he'd enrolled here. It explained why he'd suddenly arrived mid-term – and how he'd gotten a sport's scholarship on such short notice – but it didn't explain the happy grin and sparkling eyes that seemed to be everywhere he went – except when he was looking at Misonou Kai-kun.

I didn't understand it, how somebody could lose their parents and smile like that. I thought, maybe, that his parents had been…bad. But when he talked of them – after we'd gotten to know him better – he talked fondly. No-one could deny he had really loved them. Especially not when the tears came, still with that bright smile on his face.

And when he lost his friend after just meeting him again…

I don't know. It made me really sad, to know that he was suffering – crying – still with that smile on his face. And I wondered how he did that, how he could do that.

I also wished I could play my flute to get rid of those wounds as well, but he just smiled at me and said he was happy. Happy even with those wounds, because he had other things he could be happy about. He had his little brother back, finally. He had a cousin too, and a home waiting.

'And you,' he said to me with a grin, brushing my fringe aside.

I knew he meant all of us, but it was nice to know I had been the one to hear it.

But then he switched topics to my braid and the moment was lost. Perhaps well-meaningly as well; when a flower bursts into full bloom, it's time to die is soon after all. And I don't want to risk my friendship with him for a possibly unrequited crush. (And I must say, I'm glad I'm not a poison ivy that causes him to itch when I get too close.)

After all, I can do nothing but gaze at his beautiful smile, and the pain I know that's buried beneath, invisible to the world.