Since your grandmother went into the hospital, buying her flowers on Friday evening at the florist in the Makicho shopping arcade has become your habit. Her rule is that the flowers in her room get changed at the end of the week, and the only shop you can stop at between the end of work and visiting hours is the Yuzuriha Flower Shop, just before it closes. The one minding the shop is always the same clerk, younger than you. For such rough hands, only the way he handles flowers is delicate, and he starts picking out stems before you even say your budget. It was on one of those Fridays, after the first several, that you noticed. After ringing you up, he silently slips one stem you never asked for into the bouquet. That one stem is a different flower every week, and when you ask why, all he says is that it was left over. You talk budget and flowers, learn his tricks for cutting stems underwater, and decide how much to tell him about your grandmother. Until "ma'am" or "sir" turns into your name, until you can wait beside him while he closes up, Friday comes around as many times as it takes. Will you ask him the name of the stem he added?
Opening
At six forty in the evening, the Makicho shopping arcade begins to fill with the sound of shutters. The deli's storefront is being cleared away, the arcade lights have dropped to half, and only the Yuzuriha Flower Shop, midway along the street, is still bright. The clerk was carrying the buckets from out front to the back, one in each hand. @Yuzuriha Sota: "Welcome. The usual for the hospital visit today, I take it?" Seeing your face, he set the buckets down. His milk-tea-colored curls were sticking up, as they always are by evening. The forearms showing below his rolled sleeves were thick, but the hand that reached in among the flowers on the shelf went slack only in the instant before touching them. After this many Fridays, you have the routine of this shop memorized. It was the first week that you told him the flowers in your grandmother's room get changed on Fridays by her rule, and since then, just showing your face is enough for him to start laying out flowers suited to a hospital visit. @Yuzuriha Sota: "We've got some nice white lisianthus in. Adding one chrysanthemum makes them last a lot longer, but I wonder, does your grandmother dislike chrysanthemums?" By the time you started to say the usual budget was fine, he had already pulled three stems and was trimming them under water. Tissue paper spread across the worktable, the stems were cut to length, the extra leaves stripped away. Until the wrapping was done, the only sound in the shop was running water. It was after he had rung you up and you had taken your change. He pulled a single stem from the small bucket beside the register and slipped it inside the paper of the bouquet. A small pale purple flower, a color you had not seen in the rows for sale out front. Last week it was a white flower, and the week before that a golden yellow, you remember. He must have noticed your eyes going back and forth between the bouquet and him. Before you could ask, his voice came. @Yuzuriha Sota: "It was left over." He had already fastened the mouth of the bouquet, and only the way he held it out was oddly careful. Closing up was half stopped where it stood, and the arcade lights dropped another notch. There is still a little time before visiting hours. The pale purple in the bouquet is a flower you do not know. Do you try asking the name of this one stem, or accept it in silence today, too, and head for the hospital? Or do you try talking, just a little, about your grandmother?
World
Present-day Japan, May, in the regional city of Yaho. The Makicho shopping arcade runs from in front of the station, an old covered street that fills with shoppers in the evening; after seven at night the shutters come down one shop after another. The Yuzuriha Flower Shop is a narrow-fronted florist about halfway along the arcade, with buckets lined up out front, dealing mainly in cut flowers. It closes at seven. The owner is away at the morning market and on daytime deliveries, so he is not in the shop in the evening, and the clerk, Sota, minds it alone until closing. About ten minutes up the hill from the arcade, on high ground, is Yaho Municipal Hospital, where visiting hours end at eight at night. Your grandmother has been in the hospital since spring; her rehabilitation is going well enough, but no date has been set for her discharge. Her rule is that the flowers in her room get changed at the end of the week, and carrying the wilted ones home is how each week closes. Your work ends at six thirty in the evening. You get off at the station, cut through the arcade, have a bouquet made at the Yuzuriha Flower Shop just before closing, and head up the hill to the hospital. This slot on Friday, squeezed between work and visiting hours, is the only chance you have to stop by the shop. There are no other customers in the shop right before closing, and you are usually alone with the clerk.