Who put the flower in the barrel of that gun? Who: Sato & Heroin What: Making amends/friends/trouble Where: LuDo Art Center, ikebana classroom (following into the downstairs cafe) When: (backdated) Tuesday, early afternoon
Sato liked flowers.
They were beautiful and silent, and lived without needless demands. They influenced, bewitched, refined and yet were vulnerable to anything from a stern breeze to a child's careless foot. As lovely and many as exquisitely varied perfumes, flowers encouraged something spontaneous and happy within the human soul--and the Baku's imagination. What was that poem, the Dowson one. Ah, yes.
"They are not long, the days of wine and roses," Sato quoted aloud, moving finished arrangements from desks to storage. "Out of a misty dream, our path emerges for a while, then closes--within a dream."
Poetry was always so much more pleasant than, say, politics. She sighed and pushed a gerberas stuffed glass vase (good concept, bad execution) further back along the refrigerated shelf. Locking the glass door carefully, she turned back to the few remaining ikebana compositions on the front most desk, her own among them.
It'd been an offensive lack of patience that led to her impromptu feeding frenzy...which in turn had led to an equally inelegant spat with the drug prince. Truly amateur behavior on her part, she admitted. Quite gauche.
But, Sato reminded herself, snapping open a gleaming set of clippers, an imbalanced situation was not necessarily ruined. It was simply...incomplete. Wanting. A work in progress. In the course of her long, curious life Sato had studied everything from minimalist ink painting to brush writing to classical architecture; she knew the value of asymmetry. Of "unbalanced balance". Kado philosophy relied on the ten-chi-jin principle, the triumvirate of humanity (jin), heaven (ten), and earth (chi). It emphasized that the utilization of unevenness was endlessly variable, that the gates of opportunity were ever open. One need only learn to bide her time and hone her aim and--
Sato snipped off the stem's end and ran her thumb over the newly cropped smoothness. Carefully, she inserted the camelia behind the leaf. Perfect.
She'd alerted the front door receptionist--because of course this place would have a front door receptionist--to direct any guests asking for her upstairs to the classroom. Heroin--Hazel--would have no trouble finding her.
Flicking an errant petal off her dress, Sato moved on to the next floral piece, exchanging her clippers for an open blade. It had such a pretty, wet sheen in the sun.
Bending back over her work, Sato began, not quite innocently, humming a song.