While I was heading toward Dori, Ordinary Person said he’d go buy the materials and split off to do his own thing.
「Pretty, pretty!」
Dori was pointing at the flowers on a package in the bulb section.
It must have caught her attention because it was displayed prominently on the “recommended” shelf.
「Ah, that’s a red spider lily.」
Its bright red petals stood out, so it made sense that Dori would be drawn to it.
But despite its striking beauty, red spider lily didn’t have the best reputation.
Every part of the plant was poisonous, with its bulbs containing particularly strong toxins.
Back when Japan still used burial mounds, people planted red spider lily around graves to keep moles from digging up the remains.
「Kant?」
Dori must have really wanted the red spider lily bulbs.
She kept glancing between my face and the package, her expression pleading.
「These flowers are usually planted around graves.」
「Greyb?」
Dori was struggling to grasp the concept.
Since there weren’t any graves nearby, and I had never taken her to one before, it made sense that she wouldn’t know.
As I was wondering how to explain it, someone suddenly spoke to us.
「Oh my, are you planning to plant red spider lily this time?」
The woman who approached us looked familiar.
I didn’t know her name, and I was sure we hadn’t met often, but I had definitely seen her before.
I racked my brain and finally remembered.
「Ah! You’re that oneesan from before!」
「I told you, I’m not that old to be your oneesan!」
It was the woman who had bought Dori’s flowers at the farm stand for the first time.
Back then, Dori had been eager to sell her flowers, so she had called out to passing customers with all her might.
That experience had made me realize how much I wanted to sell our vegetables with my own hands.
I remembered calling her “oneesan” as part of my sales pitch—it felt nostalgic now.
She had mentioned that she did gardening at home.
The basket she was carrying was filled with bulbs and seed packets.
「Dori wants to grow red spider lily, but I’m not sure about it… It doesn’t have the best image.」
「Well, there is that old saying about red spider lily growing over buried bodies.」
So it really was a widely known belief.
That just made explaining it to Dori even harder.
「Ah, then how about this one?」
The woman seemed to recall something and picked up a different set of bulbs from another shelf.
「What’s this…?」
The package was labeled “Lycoris Albiflora.”
Lycoris…? I wasn’t familiar with that name.
But I did know that “Albiflora” meant “white flowers.”
「It’s also called the white red spider lily. Unlike the usual red variety, it blooms in pure white. There’s also the yellow shokiran, but since you were selling shokiran last time, I thought a different color might be better.」
Red spider lily wasn’t just red—there were other color variations.
Lycoris Albiflora was a white red spider lily, while shokiran was a yellow one.
She must’ve figured that the white variety would be a more interesting contrast compared to the yellow shokiran I had planted before.
A quick search on my phone told me that it belonged to the red spider lily family but was a closely related species.
Unlike regular red spider lily, it had broader, larger petals.
「It might not bloom this year, but I’ll be looking forward to seeing it for sale.」
Maybe she was simply hoping I’d grow it for her.
Tailoring my crops to customer requests could be a good challenge as a producer.
With that, she returned to her shopping.
I had never been particularly interested in flowers, but I was beginning to realize how many varieties existed.
「Dori, which one do you want?」
「Hmm… white one!」
「Not the red?」
「Nope! White is like Papa!」
I wondered why she had chosen white, but then I saw her pointing at me.
Looking down, I noticed I was wearing a white shirt.
Now that I thought about it, I pretty much always wore white shirts.
They were easy to wash, and even if they got dirty, I could just throw them in with bleach.
Spending time with Dori and Potato meant I got dirty a lot.
「Alright, let’s get a few more flowers while we’re at it!」
「Yeah!」
That day, we ended up buying cyclamen, snowdrops, baby’s breath, and a few other flowers to plant in autumn.
At the time, I didn’t think too much about why Dori had chosen Lycoris Albiflora.
Its flower meaning—
“The only one I think of is you.”
—I wouldn’t learn that until much later.
Leave a Reply