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By now, Yuu can tell what's real and what's hallucinated. He's used to ignoring the unimportant. It's why he never pauses to look at flowers anymore.
The day after he leaves Mater, he idles by a flower shop.
It's small, on the verge of cramped, but there are neat bouquets lined up behind the window. The door is kept open by a doorstop. The owners are unafraid of rain on a day like this.
A young man loitering near the door gives Yuu a broad smile, and asks him a question in Italian. Yuu's eye twitches.
Instead of simply walking away, he tells the man, "I don't know what you're saying."
He could be a demon. He hasn't approached Yuu yet, though, happy to stay in the shade of the doorway. Yuu decides not to run him through immediately.
"An Englishman!" the man exclaims, delighted. He has a heavy accent, but it's not heavy enough that Yuu has to truly work to understand it. "It has been some time. Are you here for the flowers?"
Yuu considers this.
"Come in, come in," the man says, backing up without waiting for Yuu's answer. The blind familiarity with which he dodges around the cramped shelves says a lot about how likely he is to be human.
"You're the owner?" Yuu asks, already several steps into the store. It's weird for the owner to hang out in the doorway, isn't it?
The man laughs like it's a funny question. "No, I am not, I work here," he elaborates. "My father owns here, I will take over from him when he leaves."
His English is passable, if hesitant. Even so, it's rare to find someone who speaks English on Yuu's international missions. Not that he talks to many civilians.
... Ah. Salesperson, of course. You'd have to know how to speak your customer's language to swindle them out of all of their money.
The shop smells overwhelmingly floral, and there's an underlying tang that Yuu recognizes as preservatives. All the bouquets are lined up in identical vases, but behind the counter in the back there's a chaotic array of colours, all kinds of fresh flowers waiting for arrangement.
"Who are you buying for?" the salesman asks cheerily. He's bright like the sky outside.
The whole world looks the same today as it did yersterday. Oddly unaltered.
"I don't know yet," Yuu says. Then, "I don't know much about flowers. Which flowers do you usually leave at gravestones?"
The salesman hums. "The beautiful roses are well used, we have many." He gestures to the back. "The colour, of course, depends on your intent. Red is for love and passion, white for innocence, pink has a more layered meaning with both positive and negative message."
Yuu nods along like he's understanding any of this. He's not sure why he asked.
"Geraniums are also popular," the salesman continues without prompting, looking extremely pleased to have someone to explain this to. "Pink is affection, red is comfort, usually bought for a gravestone many more people visit. We also have the ivy for friendship. Do you know the geranium ivy isn't ideally considered part of the geranium?"
The man keeps gesturing at the flowers on the shelves and at the back of the store as he names them, like Yuu is supposed to recognize them.
He adds, "It is, I promise." Yuu doesn't know what he's talking about anymore.
"My favorite, though, is Daliah." The salesman smiles, turning to look at another crowded shelf. "I leave it to my grandmother. It is gratefulness and insecurity. Some people think that's a bad message." He shrugs, clearly disagreeing, but leaving the explanation there.
When he looks back at Yuu expectantly, Yuu realizes that he's done answering... whatever his original question was.
"What do lotus flowers mean?" Yuu asks. There is a lotus bouquet on the far left shelf, although he hasn't seen any individual flowers on the back wall.
"Also a good choice," the salesman admits. "The lotuses are strength, great admiration, rebirth. It is hope for your love's soul. Do you want a lotus arrangement? We don't-"
Yuu keeps looking at the lotus arrangement. "No," he says.
He's not cruel. This time, Alma gets to rest. Yuu has made sure of it.
In the end, he declines to buy any arrangement at all. He leaves the shop with three single geraniums, the stems wrapped together by thread.
Yuu has learned too much about flowers today. He wants to forget it all.
The streets are alive with chatter in the afternoon sun. There's a market to the left of the flower shop, and Yuu passes it without a glance to spare for the shouting that's happening there.
Yuu isn't sure what killed Alma, in the end. It could've been the use of dark matter. It could've been Yuu himself.
It's possible that Alma's body was so wrecked and altered by external forces that it simply broke apart.
The geraniums sway in the breeze that blows between the buildings. Yuu tightens his grip as not to drop them.
He's not going to keep holding onto them while he repays his debt to Beansprout. He'll leave them... somewhere.
Somewhere Alma will know what they mean.
That's easier said than done.
Yuu had planned on taking a train to go back to the headquarters that evening. He walks this unfamiliar city's streets instead, looking for a place suited to a memorial.
Shockingly hard to find in a city that means nothing to you.
When twilight creeps in, Yuu stops on top of a bridge that he's passed three times already.
It's an ancient kind of bridge, all sun-yellowed brick and faded walls. It's been renovated quite a few times. Modern touches are scattered jarringly among the stones in order to keep the small bridge usable.
The river far beneath has worn away at the banks over years and years. It might've been higher up when the bridge was built, because the construction arcs unnecessarily over the gap.
The flowers have curled inwards slightly since Yuu last looked. The murmur of the city drowns out his disparaging huff.
Alma is probably laughing at him.
He slides the knotted thread down the stems. They're carefully pruned of leaves, and within seconds Yuu is holding three loose geraniums.
Pink, pink, red. He'd just have gotten one of each colour, but the salesman insisted that it should be an odd number if he were to pay proper respect to the dead.
He stuffs the bit of thread into a pocket, and brushes his empty hand on his clothes in an attempt to get rid of the plant sap clinging to his fingertips.
Yuu puts his elbows on the low wall of the bridge and studies the geraniums against the backdrop of the water, committing them to memory.
For a second more, just one second, he simply looks at them.
Then, without hesitation, Yuu opens his hand. The geraniums tumble through the air down below.
The river washes them away.