#!yin

It had been about a week that he had been in Korea and he was slowly learning his way around. Japan’s streets were way more confusing than these and honestly, he was taking to the less crowded streets—it meant few pick pockets. With a pair of sunglasses on the dark almond eyes, he strolled down the street watching his feet dance in front of each other. The guitar on his back loomed over his head with the borrowed hat sitting on top of the long mass of black hair, his form fashionable despite the tattoo’s that peeked out from under the exposed chest and fingers. It was subtle, but he still had looks from some of the other members of the community—he probably did look like trouble with the old acoustic guitar on his back, tattoos and tattered jeans but he really could careless since he was exploring his new home.

Lifting his eyes from the ground, he chewed on the lip ring that protruded from his lip before something caught his eyes. A flower shop? How silly in the middle of the city but despite his thoughts, he welcomed the idea of having such a place of nature in such a crowded place. He had never seen anything but the city for the exception of small patches of land in some of the homes, and daisies were pretty popular over there but here—he hadn’t expected the delicate flower to even be here to purchase with the exception of fake plastic ones that danced on signs or to decorate peoples’ homes.

Strolling over, never having stopped his steps, the male pulled his hands from his pockets and picked up a single steam of the flower. Looking over each petal, he brushed delicate calloused fingers of the small petal with a soft sigh. It wasn’t just a flower to the small man because there was memories with it. His past had wiped most of his childhood away but there was small triggering things that made him remember something he thought was a dream—like this flower. It was delicate, untouched and completely unaware of the danger that could happen to it any day; it just accepted it’s fate and for a moment, Ishihara felt stupid for leaving his own. His fate was locked in a house with a bunch of others, being beaten if he didn’t gain enough money or satisfy a customer—not walking on the streets free. It was all he knew.

But, it wasn’t. There was the small memories of his childhood that reminded him that he wasn’t just this slave that he had been throughout the beginning of his life. This was his re-do button. And he should learn to just accept it. That woman hadn’t come into his life, with her family, for him to just fall back into the same line of work. He had to work hard, make a name for himself. He was only twenty years old and he felt almost as if he was a middle aged man with no dreams left. But it was far from that. So much potential and he was putting himself down—but when you’re told you’re worthless since you were a small child, confidence is hard to come by on a daily basis.

But he wanted the daisy- it was hope. His hope.

Lifting his head from the flower, he moved inside the store as he looked around for a person. Why wasn’t this place more busy? Any flower places in japan were booming at the opportunity for nature to be in a home or for a sweetheart to have a flesh vase of flowers on their table. But, it seemed this country wasn’t as romantic as he thought it would be. Even with the massive amount of roses floating in bins of water with ribbons laced around the stems to attractive even the wondering eye. He was here, was he not? But, why was there no worker?

“Hello? He said softly, the English word flawless as it left his lips because most of the Koreans had no idea how to speak Japanese unless they were business men or high income households. He hadn’t had much luck with that, considering he had been in many fights the past couple of days because of misunderstandings. Most of them were just scraps and he was able to get away, but it was still annoying to deal with a language barrier—he should have thought about that more before moving here.