Page 54 of Phantom Flower

“What happened? Are you still scared to come because of the video?” he asked hesitantly. I did not know if my head was making things up, but I could swear he was struggling to speak to me right now.

I hesitated, fingers stilling on a stem. Part of me wanted to tell him to fuck off and leave me alone like I always did. But I was too drained, and he seemed soft. Which was a crazy thing to associate with Dimitri.

“No. Family stuff,” I said eventually.

Dimitri did not ask anything else.

After a few minutes he spoke again. “You know, when I was a kid, my mother used to have this huge garden behind our house in Russia. She’d spend hours out there. Said flowers made the world feel less ugly. I used to think it was stupid. Now I get it.”

I looked at him properly then. There was something distant in his eyes, like he was remembering something he did not talk about often.

I swallowed and went back to picking. “My dad used to take me to gardens in Tokyo. He’d let me pick whatever I wanted and carry the bouquet home for my mom. Even when he was busy.”

Dimitri did not comment on it. He just reached over and gently took the small bouquet from my hands, arranging the flowers I had picked. When he was done, he held it out to me.

“Here. Looks better this way.”

Our fingers brushed again when I took it back.

“Thanks,” I said quietly.

He nodded, then stood up slowly and offered me his hand. I stared at it for a second before taking it.

Chapter 16

Rei Kurosaki

It had been a week since Dimitri and I met in that garden. A full week, and I still did not know how to explain what was happening to me.

I had not seen him at school once. He texted me the next morning to say he had to handle something for his father, something that clearly was not a normal errand, judging by how short and tense his messages were that first day.

I did not ask for details. I already knew better than to dig into that part of his life. But every day since then, he had been texting me. A lot.

Sometimes he sent random questions in the middle of the day. At first I only replied because he threatened to show up at my house if I did not. I believed him. He was the kind of person who followed through. But somewhere in the middle of the week, I stopped replying just because of the threats. I started waiting for his messages.

I found myself checking my phone more than I should. I felt this weird little flicker in my chest when his name popped up, especially after he helped me feel better that day in the garden.

It was strange.

Three weeks ago I would have laughed if someone told me I would be sitting here actually looking forward to talking to Dimitri Morozov. The same guy who chased me through the woods and held a gun in my mouth.

But he had an effect on me. I could not deny it anymore.

Usually when I came home from school, the house felt like a cage. I would go straight to my room, lock the door, and just exist. Some days I sat on the floor with my back against the bed and let the memories of my dad’s accident play on loop until I could not breathe.

Other days I just scrolled mindlessly, trying not to hear my mom laughing with Daniel. But ever since Dimitri started texting me regularly, my mind stayed busy.

I did not drown as easily.

Yesterday he asked about my childhood in Tokyo. I told him about the small garden behind our old house and how my dad used to let me pick flowers even when I was too young to know the names.

Dimitri replied with a story about when he was eight and his father made him sit through a meeting that lasted six hours. He said he spent the whole time counting the sugar cubes in the bowl on the table because he was not allowed to touch them. Then he admitted that he still had a ridiculous sweet tooth. He told me he kept a drawer in his room full of imported chocolates and those little hard candies from Russia.

He said when he was a kid he used to sneak them at night and hide the wrappers under his mattress so no one would know.

I smiled at my phone like an idiot when I read that.

He had been doing that more and more, sharing little pieces of himself without me having to ask. Like how he secretly hated the taste of coffee but drank it anyway because it made him look older in meetings.