Maria-sama ga Miteru Volume 31 Chapter 1

"Are those Marguerite daisies?"[1]

s.h.i.+mako-san said, as they entered into the clubroom.

It was Monday. After school. On the second floor of the Rose Mansion.

The exhaustion from yesterday's trip to the amus.e.m.e.nt park, plus the six hours of cla.s.s today, had left them pretty frazzled. "Ah, who are you kidding, it was fun," Yumi thought to herself.

"Indeed. The flowers do look like Marguerite daisies, don't they?"

Yos.h.i.+no-san giggled. What kind of response was that from someone who'd asked the exact same question when she first saw what Yumi was carrying when they met in the cla.s.sroom that morning.

"But since you said that, they must be something else."

s.h.i.+mako-san placed her bag down on a chair then leaned in close to the bouquet of "Marguerite daisy lookalikes" that Yumi had just finished placing in a gla.s.s vase and inhaled their scent.

"Ah."

Then, the answer that slowly came was -

"They're Garland chrysanthemums."[2]

Correct.

"Incredible, s.h.i.+mako-san. You really know your flowers."

Yos.h.i.+no-san looked at s.h.i.+mako-san with a touch of respect.

"Neither Touko-chan nor Noriko-chan got it right."

Hearing their names called, the two first-years momentarily stopped preparing the tea and turned around, but soon returned to work.

"Well, it was the smell of them &h.e.l.lip; It reminded me of a sukiyaki hot-pot."

So that was it. Perhaps her first memory of that plant was of eating the leaves in a sukiyaki hot-pot. It was an adult taste, the smell was quite strong.

"s.h.i.+mako-san, do you like chrysanthemum leaves?"

"Yeah."

"I knew it."

Despite her tender age, s.h.i.+mako-san had a preference for adult or, rather, bitter food, such as ginkgo nuts, edible threeleaf arrowhead and lily bulbs. The complete opposite of Yumi's onee-sama, Ogasawara Sachiko-sama.

"So then, why do we have these chrysanthemum flowers?"

s.h.i.+mako-san asked.

"Yumi-san brought them from home."

The response was provided by Yos.h.i.+no-san before Yumi had a chance to speak. But rather than explaining fully, Yos.h.i.+no-san said what she wanted to say then slyly pa.s.sed the baton to Yumi, saying, "Right?" Yumi had no choice but to provide the follow-up.

"My mother grows them on our verandah. When they're tender, she'll pick them and we'll have them in a hotpot from time to time. But, now that it's March, we don't have hotpots all that often."

So without constant attention they'd become overgrown, and had then bloomed. Usually they wouldn't bloom until May or June, but they'd been in such a warm, sunny spot. Their verandah.

"They'd been decorating our cla.s.sroom until recently, then I thought they'd go well in the Rose Mansion too, so I took about a third from the vase and brought them here."

"Ahh, is that so."

s.h.i.+mako-san smiled in agreement.

The room was currently adorned with vases containing roses that had been left over from the third-years' send-off, and they were still looking healthy, but the Marguerite daisies, or, more accurately, Garland chrysanthemums, added a different aesthetic that looked wonderful.

Flowers are good, no matter their type. Add them to a room and it becomes brilliant.

Nonetheless, the more Yumi looked at them, the more they resembled Marguerite daisies. If you only caught a quick glimpse, the impression of yellow rather than white was probably more p.r.o.nounced. While the petals of Marguerite daisies were entirely white, the petals of Garland chrysanthemums had a yellow coloring where they met the stem.

"The Marguerite daisy is also called the Garland chrysanthemum tree, so it's not surprising they look so similar."[3]

Yumi and Yos.h.i.+no-san responded with, "He-y, really?" and, "Knowledgeable as ever, s.h.i.+mako-san," to this comment. It apparently also had other names, like the "Grove of German camomile." Who knew?

"Well then."

With that statement, Yumi, Yos.h.i.+no-san and s.h.i.+mako-san took their seats.

"Shall we start?"

Slowly, they reached into their bags and placed the items they had brought from home in the middle of the table.

Lined up was a single issue of B5-sized magazine, a small plastic bag with a character drawn on it containing seven boxes of candy and numerous ribbons of various colors.

"It feels like something's not quite right, don't you think?"

"You thought so too?"

"It feels like there's a much better idea lurking out there."

So the, "Shall we start?" was a non-starter. While they lingered, Noriko-chan and Touko brought out tea, placing one tea-cup in front of each of the three people.

Three tea-cups. The two first-years didn't sit down, instead asking a question of the three second-years.

"Will there be anything else?"

"No. Thank-you."

"Then is it alright if we leave ahead of you?"

"Yes. Thanks for your hard work."

The first-year duo said a farewell gokigenyou, then quietly opened the door and departed.

"That's thoughtful of them."

Yos.h.i.+no-san said, as she sipped her tea.

"Or maybe they're just well trained."

As the onee-samas of Touko and Noriko-chan, Yumi and s.h.i.+mako-san giggled, both embarra.s.sed and proud of this praise for their pet.i.t soeurs.

"But if it were me, and my onee-sama was talking about giving a present to a junior other than me, I'd be shrieking."

That's probably true.

The three future Roses had not gathered for a regular meeting, or even a special meeting, in connection with their Yamayurikai work, but for something far more personal.

White Day was not far away. They were meeting to discuss reciprocal gifts for people they had received chocolates from but weren't especially close to. This was their third meeting on this topic.

The first meeting had taken place last week, as they were standing in the school corridor chatting.

It started with, "You received chocolates from people other than your pet.i.t soeur?" then moved on to, "What should we do about return gifts?" and "If there was a difference in return gifts between the three of us, it'd leave a bad taste, don't you think?" before ending with, "Then I suppose we should go shopping together."

The second meeting was yesterday at the amus.e.m.e.nt park.

After watching the fireworks, as they were starting to make their preparations to leave, Yumi had a flash of inspiration and asked, "Anyway, since we're here, why don't we buy cookies or candy or something?" With that, they returned to the souvenir shop and each of them purchased enough for their own return gifts.

And so, the third meeting was today.

Since it would be somewhat insipid to hand over the purchased candy as is, they decided they should at least wrap the presents themselves and had brought along ribbons from home. Unfortunately, none of them had any new wrapping paper, so they'd have to do something about that. It just felt like something was not quite right.

"It's no big deal, but they left because they didn't want to get in our way."

She was still talking about the first-years. It looked like Yos.h.i.+no-san was envious of their pet.i.t soeurs, after all.

"Outstanding."

That's it.

Unable to come up with a good plan for wrapping the candy, Yos.h.i.+no-san had fled to a different topic of conversation. She continued to mumble heartily as she flipped through the magazine.

"They'll both be like Mizuno Youko-sama when they're seniors."