Chapter 43
Rei Kurosaki
I did not know where he was taking me. We had been walking for a while. I was outside, and grass whispered under my bare feet. Somewhere far off, I could hear birds.
When the blindfold finally slipped away, the world exploded into color.
Flowers. Everywhere.
A living, breathing ocean of petals stretched farther than I could see, enclosed by a tall, elegant fence that disappeared into the trees. The mansion loomed behind us, but this… this was hidden. Private.
I had never seen anything like it. Colors I did not have names for burst from the earth - deep violets, electric blues, blood reds, soft golds that caught the morning light like they were glowing from inside.
I could smell the perfume in the air. Some of the blooms were taller than me.
Others clustered low like living carpets. I turned in a circle.
This was behind the mansion. The forbidden side.
The one Dimitri had told me never to go near when he first brought me here.
I had listened. I had not cared enough to ask why.
I had assumed the worst - some hidden spot where he or his men took people who needed to disappear.
I had pictured concrete rooms and locked doors.
I would have never expected this… so much life exploding in every direction.
I crouched down carefully, fingers brushing the edge of ghostly white blooms that looked like they had been spun from moonlight. My voice came out stunned.
“Ghost Orchids…” I whispered. Then my eyes caught something else - cascading turquoise vines dripping like living jewels from a trellis.
“Jade Vine… and those—” I pointed to a cluster of striped, slipper-shaped flowers that looked unreal.
“Rothschild’s Slipper Orchids. I told you about these in the hospital.
The ones that only grow in certain places, the ones that take years to bloom… ”
I looked up at him, my heart hammering. “How… how did you find them? When did you even—?” I stared at the field again, at the sheer scale of it. “There is no way this could be done in a few weeks. This took… Dimitri, this must have taken months.”
He was smiling. God, I loved when he smiled.
“I started it when I first noticed you get panic attacks if you do not have one,” he said softly. “I wanted to make sure you are never left without a flower.”
“But you hated me back then.”
Dimitri chuckled and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a single, perfect bloom - pale and star-like, with delicate petals arranged like a comet’s tail. A Comet Orchid. One of the rarest. He stepped closer, and before I could speak, he tucked it gently behind my ear, fingers brushing my hair.
“I never hated you, baby,” he said.
He was standing in the middle of a field of flowers, but he looked at me like I was the one shining the brightest. “Now you will never have to be without a flower again.”
I swallowed, my eyes stinging. Even if the garden disappeared tomorrow - even if every bloom wilted and died - I had found something better. Something rarer than any orchid or vine or impossible flower that took decades to bloom.
I smiled, and then said, “Kimi wa boku no hana da yo.”
Dimitri’s eyebrows furrowed in that adorable, confused way. “What does that mean?”
I shrugged, suddenly shy, and reached for the next thread like a lifeline. “I found out what ‘lyubimyy’ means in Russian. But it is your turn to get confused now.”
His confusion deepened, but I did not give him time to ask. I stepped forward instead, closing the last bit of distance between us, and wrapped my arms around his waist. My face pressed into his chest. He smelled like the garden now.
“Does this mean we are official now?” I asked.
Dimitri’s arms came around me. One hand settled at the back of my neck. “Weren’t we always?”
I pulled back, a small laugh escaping. “Well… you never asked me to be your boyfriend, did you?”
That big, dangerous, mafia-heir man looked genuinely lost for a second, eyebrows drawn together, mouth slightly open like I had just spoken another language. “But you are my boyfriend.”
I chuckled, the sound bubbling up from me. “I am.”
Then I leaned in and kissed him.
The Comet Orchid in my hair brushed against his cheek.
When we finally pulled apart, I rested my forehead against his.
“From now on I will not be scared anymore,” I whispered.
Because I had the rarest flower of all.
I had him.
My flower.