ADAW 22/52 - Flowery
Dmitri felt a little bouncy as he rung the buzzer at Nikola's apartment. He still had the key Samantha had given him, but he hadn't ever used it.
"Hello?" the speaker crackled.
"Hi! Are you ready?"
"Hi. Why are you here?"
"Cherry blossoms! It's today!" Dmitri said.
"I know. But why are you here?"
"I thought we could take the train together."
"Oh. Hang on." The door didn't buzz to let him in, so Dmitri found himself pacing in the vestibule.
Twenty minutes later, Nikola emerged, his hair damp and drying at several weird angles. "Hi!" Dmitri said, pushing down his annoyance at having been kept waiting. He hoped his phone battery wouldn't die before he'd taken some pictures. "We'll meet Mom and Dad and Sofie and Samantha there."
"Okay," Nikola said drily. He plunged forward, out the lobby doors and toward the train. Dmitri had to hurry slightly to catch up. Nikola walked silently, tapped his card at the turnstile silently, and stepped onto the train silently.
Dmitri found himself chattering, about TV, about movies, about the social activities of their acquaintances, none of which elicited a brighter response from his brother than "Oh" or "Mmm." He didn't notice when they reached their stop, and Dmitri grabbed his hand to pull him out of his seat in a hurry. Nikola let himself be dragged along for a second before yanking his hand away suddenly, stalling in the train doorway. Only when it began to shut did he hop forward out of the way.
"Nikola! Nikola! Are you okay?" Dmitri shouted, wanting to grab his brother by the shoulders and shake him, but holding back.
"Yeah. Sorry. Spaced out for a second. Let's go."
Nikola walked with his hands shoved in his pockets, and though he remembered the path to the Common, he didn't bother to look up, nearly bowling over a few hapless pedestrians. He only stopped when a shout carried over the crowd. "Nicky! Nikola! Over here!"
It was their petite mother, bundled up in a fur-trimmed coat and waving her pink-manicured hand. "I'm so proud to have tall sons, it makes them so easy to find. And Nikola, your pretty dyed hair, it is really nice, you stand out so much." The stalls of the Japan Festival had already begun to get crowded, despite the slight chill in the air.
Dmitri bent to hug his mother. "Your father's already found alcohol, not even eleven o'clock yet, that's the Russian, you know, and Sofie is being just sour, she's already run off..."
"Where's Samantha?" Dmitri asked.
"She took the blanket and went over to the cherry trees to find a seat." Dmitri felt a frisson of anxiety pass through him on behalf of any poor botany fan who happened to get within 50 feet of his elder sister.
A ball of curly black hair poked out from behind Nikola. Their little sister, Sofie, looking older than her twelve years, despite the Hello Kitty hairband she sported. "I'm hungry," she declared.
"We should be able to scrounge up at least one thing you like…" Dmitri followed his sister, leaving Nikola with their mother. She would certainly find someone to show him off to.
Sofie patiently stood in line for yakitori, taking both sticks of chicken as Dmitri paid. She ate a nibble of hers, then handed it off to her brother, proclaiming it bland. Squid and eel followed the same fate, being declared "gross" and "too saucy." She ate two of her three takoyaki before remembering she didn't want to eat octopus anymore because cephalopods were too smart. Much to Dmitri's chagrin, she declined to share her corn on the cob at all, and gave him only the green ball of her three-colored dango. He was just paying for a pair of Hello Kitty shaped melon pan when Nikola sidled up to him. "I'd forgotten how much you love food on sticks."
Dmitri grinned. "I can't help but wonder if I inspired Sofie's picky eating by always eating all of her leftovers. But you can't argue with food on sticks. Takes us back to our hunter-gatherer roots. Satisfies a deep need in humanity."
Nikola smiled. "Perhaps. But I think Sofie eats so little because she wants to be thin."
"She's twelve." Dmitri frowned. "Do you really think so?"
"Yes."
They walked in silence after Sofie, Dmitri finishing the melon pan she'd eaten an ear off of. She bored of food, and Dmitri gave her his last twenty to buy stickers. Their mother appeared, pulling their father behind. He'd clearly purchased several bottles of sake, and probably tasted quite a few of them. "Come along, dears, let's go find Samantha."
To no one's surprise, Samantha had spread out an enormous pink blanket underneath a particularly large and pretty tree, and was suspiciously isolated. They sat together for a while, until Sofie decided to climb a tree, and enlisted Dmitri to help her. They located a tree with a strong low branch, and Dmitri set her on it. "Is it really climbing if you force your servant to put you up in the tree?" Sofie blew a raspberry in return.
Dmitri strolled down the alley of trees. They were marvelously pretty. He lay down on the ground, thinking it might be a nice angle for a picture, but he found himself just staring. Nikola passed near him, not really focusing on anything, and without thinking, Dmitri put his hand straight up in the air, his fingers grazing the tips of his brother's. He didn't jump away, but he looked down at his brother like he was a stranger.
"The trees make me depressed," Nikola said.
"But they're lovely."
"They are now. And a week from now, they'll be half green and half pink, and that'll be a nice dapply effect, so they'll be pretty then, too." Nikola was staring at a branch of flowers, his eyes fixed, not looking at his brother below him. "But two weeks from now, they'll just be green, like any other tree. And if you saw this hill in winter, from a distance, would you remember it having trees at all?"
"I would remember, because I've seen them this way. In their shining moment. At their little tree prom."
"The memory will fade. If you never came here in spring for twenty years?"
"I would remember." Dmitri tried to press his fingers harder into Nikola's, but he put his hands in his pockets. "The beauty of the blossoms is that they fall. If they were beautiful all the time, they'd just be part of the background, like a painting that hangs on the wall and you pass every day. You'd just get used to its prettiness, and it wouldn't be special anymore."
"Will I get used to feeling like there's no point to prettiness?"
Dmitri stood, and he could see Nikola's legs lean, as if he wanted to run away, but held himself back. "The flowers also remind us of our mortality. We have a limited amount of time until we wither. Best not to waste it." He threw his arms around his brother, whose whole body strained with some hidden effort. "Do not put yourself into the ground, brother," he whispered. "I will dig you out again. You have a long time left to blossom, and I am greedy to see it." Nikola's breath shook, and they stood together for a long time.
Finally, Nikola raised his arms and clapped his brother on the back. "I am tired. I haven't slept well in a while. Will you take me home?"
"Of course."
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This one was passed over for ADAW because Nikola looks to sultry to be depressed...
I love how Nikola looks in this, nice and bright, but that didn't suit the story, either, despite his sad gaze!
PROTIP: If ever you visit Boston in the springtime, you'd better A) come late-ish, as our cherry trees blossom later than DC's (these shots are from May 2nd), and B) not expect to find cherry trees on the common, because they're not there. The closest cherry blossoms are on the Esplanade, the park bordering the river, but I conflated the event with the Japan Festival, for reasons. These shots were taken at a secret cherry tree location (mwa ha ha?), and I'm not 100% sure they actually are cherry blossoms? BOTANY, WHATEVS.
Also, for my own knowledge...
25/52 - Blood
24/52 - Summer
23/52 - Façade
22/52 - Flowery
21/52 - Light
20/52 - Transport
19/52 - Milk
18/52 - Stunning
17/52 - Glass
16/52 - Ancient
15/52 - Mail
14/52 - Green
13/52 - Choice
12/52 - Spring
11/52 - Math
10/52 - Connection
9/52 - Blue
8/52 - Night
7/52 - Love
6/52 - Control
5/52 - Determine
4/52 - Arch
3/52 - Shatter
2/52 - Fire
1/52 - Origin