Flower Boy

II. Sunflowers

  I was quick to learn the mysteries of the boy next door.

  His name was Killua. He was fourteen 一 like me, except he didn't go to school. He was so frail and sickly that his parents forbade him to stray far from the yard.

  And he was mute.

I learned this the night of the day we met. He sat cross legged at his bedroom window, waving to me to catch my attention.

  I immediately scramble onto my mattress that I had the movers place by my window, and waved back to him, grin on my face. How lucky was I that his room was just across from mine?

  He pulls what looks like a notepad into his lap and starts scribbling something on it before holding it up against the window so I could see.

  I'm mute.

  I look slightly perplexed and seeing my look of confusion, he pulls the notepad back and turns the page to scribble something else, before showing me in the same process once more.

  It means I can't talk.

That's when everything clicked and I finally understood why he didn't talk to me earlier.

Because he couldn't.

My heart immediately weighed heavily in my chest as I took this information in. Not only was he so frail looking, he couldn't even talk! I felt angry, and I couldn't fathom why. These were things that just happened, as unfair as it was. I felt a wave of overprotectiveness wash over me.

I had to protect this boy. That was the thought that embedded itself into my conscious. No matter what I had to do, I would protect him.

--

The following week arrived, and that meant school. The days that had led up to it, I had used to get to know more about Killua.

Daisies were his favorite flowers, and cats were his favorite animals.

When I told him I would be getting a kitten soon, he was beside himself with glee, mouth wide open in silent laughter. It was honestly the cutest thing I ever saw. The way his small body shook as he doubled over, though the laugh was silent. I bet if he could really laugh, it would be the most beautiful sound in the world.

I didn't understand my complete fascination with this boy at first, other than the fact that I thought he was so pretty and mysterious.

It soon became clear as to why.

Despite his handicap, he was the sweetest thing. The morning after I moved in, Mito-san called up the stairs, announcing I had a friend over. Confusion laced her voice, probably wondering how I had made a friend so fast and not telling her about it.

Excitement surging through my body, I jumped off my bed and bounded down the stairs. There, at the bottom, by the front door, stood Killua, in an oversized grey sweatshirt and coffee brown shorts with flip flops on his dirt smudged feet. He looked small, and out of place in my living room, a frightened look in his eyes. Clutched in his small hands were a bundle of sunflowers.

"Killua." As much as I wanted to cry out his name in utter joy, I used my inside voice. I didn't want to frighten him off, after all. He already look scared enough standing by my Aunt Mito.

  A look of relief flickers across his beautiful blue eyes as he holds out his bunch of sunflowers at me and I blink in surprise, taking them.