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第一章 夜开花
Chapter 1: Night-Blooming Flowers
The night-blooming flowers opened only after ten. Their color was a moon diluted in water.
Kaze would not let them be shown to outsiders. “They can’t stand a crowd,” she said. “When there are too many people, the flowers hide their ears.”
Haru thought it was a metaphor. Until one night of overtime, when he watched his senior take off her hat—and under the hat there was no hair ornament, but a pair of pointed ears lying flat along her hair, veins showing green beneath skin thin as paper.
The watering can hit the floor. Every night-blooming flower opened at once, like a row of eyes startled awake.