Hotel del Luna

Chapter 1:Sunflowers

Y/N remembered her first bouquet of sunflowers - what it had felt like to run a finger along the furry softness of the saturated green stems, to hold the weighted package in her arms.

There had been no particular smell to the flowers, nor had their yellow been especially beautiful; but the bouquet had been wrapped in thick expensive paper, with a quality printed card slotted in-between the leaves.

'Happy Birthday, Miss Y/N,' it read. 'From, the Hotel del Luna.'

Later, she would look up the meaning of sunflowers. Adoration, said one book. Loyalty, longevity, and happiness.

Ironic, should've been one such word. Y/N was certainly never happy to see them.

For every year after her seventh birthday, a bouquet of sunflowers had been delivered to her doorstep every November 3rd, one bouquet for each year since her Dad's terrible agreement with the Grim Reaper.

The first was thrown away in horror by her Dad who immediately made the decision for them to move far away as quick as possible. Her Mom was long gone and buried, and her Dad it seemed, was never coming back.

There was nothing to be left behind except for a house full of faded memories, and so with only the clothes on their backs and a cloth bag of food, they relocated from Japan to the deep rural forests of China.

Their next house was tinier than the last one, but they found a way to be happy for a year until the next bouquet arrived. This one was burnt to ash in a metal bucket, and they ran away from the city of Beijing with the smell of burning sunflowers chasing at their heels.

By the delivery of the third bouquet, it became clear to Y/N that time was something they couldn't outrun. So she decided to stay in Seoul.

"I'm sorry, Y/N," her Dad once murmured, his breath heavy with the scent of the whiskey he'd tried to drown himself in. "I thought it wasn't real, I..."

"It's not your fault, Dad." Y/N told him, because it was true. Her father was an idiot, but Y/N didn't think she could ever blame him for choosing to live, nor would she have forgiven him if he'd given up.

And if she had been there, standing before the woman in a red dress and her cold, cold eyes, Y/N wouldn't have changed a thing. Her dad had been dying, and she had been six years old and needed her father.

In fourteen years, I will come to collect your daughter.

Her dad survived - and in return, Y/N's soul was sold to the Hotel Del Luna.