EDIT: I'm reposting this because fictionpress keeps telling me that this story doesn't exist, even though I can see it in my Live Preview. I really don't know what's going on...

Anyway, I’ve decided to take on a new story, just to see if I can switch back to writing original fiction once more. At any rate, I do hope you enjoy this somewhat, even if it is only a prologue and a first chapter.

This chapter isn't proofread (still), sorry; my current proofreader is out. Plus, I wanted to get this out to see if I'd get any sort of positive response at all for this story. Next chapters I post will be proofread; that is, if you would so desire me to continue.

But a Rose
Zakuyoe

0: Prologue

In my mind I can clearly see the scene as if it were yesterday—though that was only in expression, because it had been yesterday. But even if it had been five years ago it’s still brandished in my mind, the specific details growing more and more clearer as time passed by.

You were wearing a brown Pac-Sun t-shirt with jeans much too long for you. She had been wearing a light blue top with a flowery white skirt past her knees. In the garden the two of you had stood, the garden that almost no one knew about.

Pretty much, though, just you, me and her.

She couldn’t see what you were holding behind your back as you verbally teased to her in that manner I only wished you’d use when talking to me. You smiled, she smiled, and soon whatever you were doing she couldn’t help but doing as well. You were a charming fellow, I had to admit, and naturally I could see where she was coming from.

You told her to close her eyes and she did just that. You took out the roses from behind your back as you presented them to her, and even from where I had taken refuge I could see the nervousness in your demeanor. But you were always the luckier one between the two of us; she accepted your efforts as she stepped into your embrace.

You left shortly after, perhaps to take her to a dinner date, but I had remained behind the bushes for a long length of time afterward. I suppose in a way I’ve become jealous of what had just happened—but I wasn’t jealous of her. She was a pretty, intelligent girl, but I had known you liked her for months now, and I would never try getting in your way.

Why would I like her, though?—it was you I liked. But I had never been the luckiest; she had the advantage of being a girl, I didn’t.

I can clearly remember the scene in my mind as if it were yesterday. As I look toward the window, where a single rose in a vase sat upon the windowsill, I can’t help but think of you. That rose reminds me of that day you asked her, it reminds me how lucky she’s going to be now, and it also reminds me how much it hurts to know I’ll never have you.

I already know I’m never going to convince myself out of that conditioning. Because of that day, that flower will always be anything but a rose.