Two Flower Meanings
Emergency.
Emergennncy!!
It was already half past six, and still no solution had come to me. Even during the orientation lectures earlier that day I had been able to think of nothing else, so completely unable to focus that I had simply sat there wringing my brain dry right up until this very moment.
Who could have guessed Eve’s stream and my promise with Sol would overlap so perfectly?
Common sense said I ought to put Eve’s stream aside. But for me, the opposite was common sense!!!
“What do I do… I was the one who asked to meet first, so saying ‘let’s do it later’ would be rude. And somehow I really, really don’t want to.”
In my head, abandoning Eve’s stream was already off the table. Of course it was. Even back in the military, no matter how brutal the training had been, I had always made sure to check Eve’s stream.
“Sorry, Sol, but just this once I’ll ask to move the time. Or… I’ll just have to take the hate.”
Having steeled myself, I picked up my phone.
Ping!
A message arrived. I opened it.
…I’m sorry, Sol.
But I still have to put Eve first…
…so this meeting never happened…
…Haah.
I don’t know anymore…
I let out a long sigh, grabbed my hoodie jacket and wireless earbuds, and stood up from my seat.
Brace yourself.
From this moment on… I was going to catch both rabbits at once.
Yarrow.
Its leaves resemble the teeth of a saw, so it is also called sawwort. If I remembered right, it had several flower meanings. The one that stuck with me was “unchanging happiness.”
“Unchanging happiness, huh… Hoo.”
I looked at the sign that read Yarrow and took a deep breath. I was wearing a hoodie jacket with the hood pulled up. And inside that hood—
“Hive! Sorry for suddenly changing the stream time! But I couldn’t help it! I just wanted to watch Octopus Game 2 with all my Adami as soon as possible!”
—was a wireless earbud in my left ear, connected to the phone that was playing Eve’s stream.
By the way, watching Octopus Game 2 together…
I had really wanted to watch it with her!!!
“Today at 7 p.m.! At last the highly anticipated Octopus Game 2 drops! Are all my Adami ready?”
By now the chat was probably flooding with “of course” messages. The occasional donation sound effects matched the atmosphere I had imagined.
“Surely there aren’t any Adami who still aren’t ready… right~?”
Sorry, Eve.
There’s one Adami here who isn’t ready at all—who can’t even see your face.
But… just this once.
Ugh.
“What are you doing all by yourself?”
An familiar voice came from behind me as I stood in front of Yarrow Café, fists clenched in frustration. I turned my head and saw Sol waving at me in greeting.
“It’s been half a day. Did you eat dinner?”
No… I had zero appetite from weighing you against Eve…
“I just skipped it. Haha.”
“What? Come on, you have to eat properly.”
“For the record, Eve has already ordered chicken.”
…When the two of them spoke at the same time I couldn’t tell who was saying what.
Ah, so roughly… “eat your meals properly,” right?
“Yes, I’ll eat when I get home.”
“Then it’ll be pretty late… The bread here is good too. Let’s just fill our stomachs a little.”
“Sounds good.”
Still wearing the hood, I nodded and stepped into Yarrow Café. That was when Sol tilted her head and asked the one thing I had desperately hoped she wouldn’t.
“By the way, why are you still wearing the hood?”
“…”
Cold sweat.
Honestly, the back of my neck was already so damp I wanted to yank the hood off right then and there.
“I-It’s a fashion hoodie. I’d rather not take it off if I can help it.”
What the hell is a fashion hoodie. It’s not even fashion glasses. I was so flustered I just blurted out whatever came to mind.
Heh heh heh.
“Ah, yeah. It actually looks really good on you right now.”
She actually acknowledged it. Being told it suited me made me happy, but—
“Whoa, it’s really out! Octopus Game 2!”
—Eve sounding happy made me happy too.
“Shall we go in, then?”
Sol standing right in front of me, and—
“Shall we get started?”
—Eve’s voice in my ear.
“Looking forward to it?” / “Looking forward to it?”
This insane situation made me more nervous than excited.
Maybe because the café was named Yarrow, quite a few ornamental yarrow plants were visible even at the counter. Honestly, the flower isn’t that well-known, so most people probably wouldn’t even know its name. But back when I lived in a cave of a room and aimlessly wandered random websites, I had picked up a fair amount of miscellaneous knowledge, so I recognized it at once.
“Do you know the name of these flowers?”
Sol asked me about the yarrow while I carried the tray with our ordered drinks and bread.
“It’s yarrow. I know it’s also used as a medicinal herb.”
“Huh? You knew?”
She looked surprised as she sat down with me. Was it that unexpected for me to know flowers?
“A long time ago I ended up on some random site I had no interest in and just blankly read the information there. So I’ve got a lot of random knowledge.”
“Ooh, still—a guy who knows flowers well. That’s romantic.”
She praised me while taking a sip of her chamomile tea. I drank my iced coffee to soothe a throat that had gone dry from tension.
“Whoa, did you see that? He’s so handsome… Face-blind? …Yeah, that tracks.”
Eve’s voice watching Octopus Game 2 still filled one of my ears. Even without the video, just hearing her voice was fun. Eve really did have talent for streaming.
…Of course, right now the tension outweighed the fun.
“By the way, Sol. About that secret you mentioned yesterday—”
“Before that. How was class today?”
“Today’s class? It was the first day so we didn’t really do anything. Everything just ended with a simple orientation.”
“Wow… I’m jealous. My four-o’clock class did the orientation and then went straight into the lecture…”
So that happens too. Well, that part is up to the professor’s discretion.
“It’s funny to say you don’t want to attend a class you paid for, but I kind of wanted to rest on the first day. I was just talking about that with Yun-a a minute ago.”
“Yun-a…?”
“Ah, you don’t know her name. You saw her at the freshman welcome party. She’s the student council president of our department.”
So her name was Yun-a. A pretty name that didn’t quite match the vibe she gave off… That would be a bit rude to say out loud.
“You two seem close. I got that feeling at the after-party too.”
“Even if I die, I could never kill you with my own hands—that’s how close they are.”
“Haha, being that close is kind of enviable.”
“Hm?”
“Ah.”
Tremble.
I messed up. In the short gap while Sol was eating her bread, Eve’s voice had come through. The line matched my question so perfectly that I answered without thinking, as if Sol had said it.
“Did I say something…?”
“N-No. I just meant… I wish I had someone I was that close with. Haha.”
“Really? But you’re close with Su-yeon too. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that guy pay for someone else.”
“…Is that so?”
Su-yeon hyung? He didn’t seem like that kind of person.
“Yeah. Brother or not, that guy always goes Dutch no matter what.”
“If it were me, brother or not, I’d save myself first.”
…
What did she just say? Similar lines hit at the same time so I couldn’t quite catch them…
“Well, even in the military he was the type to look out for himself first.”
“Hm? Ah, well. There’s that side of him too.”
Did I smooth it over okay? I took a sip of coffee and snuck a glance at Sol; she didn’t seem to have noticed anything odd. Then our eyes met and she gave me a soft smile.
“Whoa, his face is seriously… insane.”
“Yeah… insane.”
“What is?”
“…The coffee. It’s really good.”
“Haha, is it because you watch VTuber streams? You use words like that.”
Hahaha, I’m watching one right now, actually. Hahaha.
…I’m going crazy.
Honestly I couldn’t taste a thing. Both of them never stopped talking, so my head was far more scrambled than I had expected and I had no room left to enjoy the flavor! On top of that, when their audio overlapped it was honestly hard to follow either conversation properly.
“Is the impression from the after-party still going on?”
“Sorry?”
“No… I just thought you left a pretty good impression today. Wondered if you’d made any friends or anything.”
“Ah…”
She had been worrying about me. True, the morning incident might have given a few people a better impression, but depending on the person it could just as easily have created dislike, and I hadn’t had any spare energy for that today.
“I’m not sure. Well, as time goes by a few people who click with me will probably show up, right?”
“Gachi will definitely make lots of friends. Whether they like VTubers or not.”
“Here we go starting another game. Whoa, is the protagonist gonna die this time too?”
What?
This time the lines were so unrelated I couldn’t make sense of them at all… Let’s see, if I just combine the words I just heard:
Gachi will definitely start a game. Whether he kills VTubers or not.
Umm… that is absolutely not it!
“Anyway, more importantly—about what we talked about yesterday?”
Since I had no idea what was going on I couldn’t answer properly, so I forcibly steered the conversation back to the main topic. It might have been a little rude, but that was the original reason we had decided to meet at the café in the first place.
Hearing me, Sol rolled her straw between her fingers and quietly looked at me. Even then Eve’s voice kept coming through.
“Whoa, finally finished episode 1. Then straight into the next one, go go!”
“Honestly it’s not that important of a story.”
“Still gotta watch it! Breaks? Who cares!”
“Gachi seems like he wants to get to the point. Making a girl feel left out.”
“Hey~! Who the hell are you to say that!? You bastard!”
“…Even though Gachi was the one who asked first.”
“If you put it that way… that’s a foul.”
What is this miraculous collab.
I hadn’t said a single word yet their conversations were progressing on their own.
More than that…
“Left out,” huh.
When Sol said it like that, I honestly had no comeback.
“Does Gachi want to go home already?”
“Sorry?”
Compared to the beginning, the strength had clearly drained from her voice. Because I had hurt her feelings, no doubt.
“Eve’s stream is at nine today, so… don’t worry, I was planning to finish before then. From the start.”
Throb.
Hearing that she had been trying to be considerate of me from the very beginning made my heart sting. Looking at her, lips slightly pouting even as she said those words, my chest hurt even more.
So I didn’t want to keep lying any longer.
“Sol… the truth is.”
I rested my hand on the hood, hesitated a little, then finally pulled it back and showed her the ear with the wireless earbud still in it.
“Gachi, that…”
I couldn’t look at her face right now so I kept my head turned, but she was probably wearing a shocked expression.
…Haah, I can’t even explain it properly with my own mouth.
I took the wireless earbud case out of my pocket, then held out the other earbud to her. With a puzzled look she put it in her own ear.
And then—
“Then starting episode 2!”
—Eve’s voice reached her ear.
Sol’s eyes widened a little, then narrowed again as she glanced at me.
“Ha.”
She snorted, set the wireless earbud down on the table, and said,
“Now I get it. Why every conversation I’ve had with Gachi since earlier felt weirdly off.”
“I’m sorry…”
“…”
She must be really angry. Or disappointed.
I hate that… even if I brought it on myself…
“Hoo. One thing’s become clear.”
I still couldn’t look properly at her face as she spoke. With my head still turned, my eyes fell on the yarrow flowers.
They definitely had the meaning “unchanging love.”
And one more.
There had been another meaning that was a little different.
What was it again.
“Go Gachi.”
“…Yes.”
The first time she had called me so firmly since learning my name. Even so, after that call I couldn’t keep looking away; I turned back to her and answered.
“Keep doing it that way.”
“…”
That has to be sarcasm.
I figured she was saying “go ahead and try that” in a roundabout way.
“Don’t misunderstand. I really mean keep doing it that way.”
“Sorry?”
Keep doing it that way?
Don’t misunderstand?
It wasn’t sarcasm?
“Because I’m going to change it.”
“Ch-Change what?”
At my question, Sol stood up, grabbed my hoodie, and pulled me toward her. With our faces now close, she spoke with a look of someone who had steeled her resolve.
In that instant, the other flower meaning of yarrow rose in my mind.
“You probably don’t know what I mean right now.”
It was battle.
“But the opponent I have to defeat right now—that’s become clear.”
Just like the flower language of yarrow.
Looking at Sol, who now looked like a warrior about to enter battle, I—
“Now the real game begins!”
—was still listening to Eve’s stream.