Wisteria Ki // D5

They'd always owned the shop as far as he knew. Before his mom ran it, it'd been his grandmother's and before that it hadn't existed. It was called Magnolia's and it stood on the South end of the Games Square. After a reaping, they always saw a rush of flowers for celebrations, graves and condolences. It was a busy time, they needed all hands on deck.

Wis loved to put together the bouquets, he always had since he was little and he was good at it. He knew the meanings for all the flowers and knew exactly how to read a person to figure out exactly what it was they needed. He was a sweet little thing, always charming everyone into a good tip. They liked him though, nothing new there, everyone had always liked Wisteria.

He wasn't very threatening with his weak lungs and easy smile. They were too used to him flying around the city on his bike, a basket full of bouquets out for delivery. Magnolia's was as much a staple in Five as Gingham's Electric. So, of course, no one would suspect that they'd been laundering money for the Mae family for the last fifteen years.

But what could you do when your son was born with Asthma and all the Doctor's appointments and treatments were a little bit too far out of budget? In a society like their's, there were very few options and the Mae's offered a deal that was more than generous. A fifteen percent handling fee was enough and then some to help the Ki family afford Wisteria's treatment.

The flowers were never a front though, not for Wisteria. He was always growing something, he kept a small pair of clippers in his back pocket in case he came across a good clipping. One time he'd put a seedling in his shirt pocket with some dirt and he'd hung it on his door and forgotten about it. A week later it was sprouting beautifully and Wisteria had learned that it was a great place to propagate a plant.

There was always too much dirt beneath his fingernails and barely enough air in his lungs. He was lucky not to be born allergic, his asthma was triggered by everything but. Cold air made him wheeze, smokers made him angry and being angry made him cough. So he always had an inhaler in reach and a scarf around his neck in any weather that might wobble on cold.

But he liked to sit in the square at six in the morning with a coffee in the snow and watch his breath cloud in front of him.

They lived above the flowers, three floors stacked over the little shop and a basement for storage. There was a bakery next door, Magpie, it was called after that little poem about the king. Wisteria and his parents supplied them with flowers for their windows and in return, they got a loaf of bread for their table in the morning. It was symbiotic, community that was induced by their mutual association with the Maes. It wasn't only flour being loaded into the bakery's basement in the early morning after all.

Sweet Wisteria, so gentle a scent and with a flower that cascades, the boy lived up to the name. He was helpful, calm and kind to everyone, but there was something in him, a fire burning so deep that it wasn't often one caught a spark of it in his gaze. Slow to anger but brutal when he did, he had a knack for more than the flowers but for the wads of cash stacked in a safe below the counter.

There was a gun in a holster beneath the register, Wisteria knew how to use it. He'd learned young that he could end a sentence with more than just a period.

Afterall, the prettiest flowers are always the most poisonous.