Bouquet Attack 1

Synopsis
At a flower shop he stopped by to make a bouquet, a man is turned into a flower by the clerk, "Sensei," who carries red flower shears. It is a creepy flower shop that turns humans into flowers. Eventually, a leader emerges from among those who have become flowers. Guided by her, the flowers, now possessing their own will, gather together, take on their former human forms, and confront the flower shop. The battle between Sensei and the leader, the new clerk born from its conclusion, glasses with different colored lenses on each side, and the conspiracy of artificial flowers. A disturbing, pathos-filled story where the boundary between human and flower wavers.

I thought I would make a bouquet. That was all.

I thought I would make a bouquet, so I came to a flower shop.
A tall woman with good posture appeared from the back.
She had well-defined features, but I thought nothing more of her than that she was a flower shop clerk.
I perceived her as just another flower that had appeared inside that flower shop.

She didn't say "Welcome" to me, but instead stared at a purple flower near the entrance as if looking at my background. I thought she was a flower shop clerk because she was wearing jeans, an apron, and a name tag. Otherwise, I might have considered her a woman living in the back of that flower shop.
She had her long hair tied back in a single bundle. She wasn't using a rubber or plastic hair tie, but a wreath with a single white flower attached to it to tie her hair. It was very fitting for a flower shop, and I felt favorably toward it.
That hair accessory looked like the one my elementary school homeroom teacher used to wear.
It wasn't that her face looked like hers, but the back view of her wearing that hair accessory was exactly like that teacher.

As if ignoring my existence, she sat down on a chair next to the register.
She was still looking at the purple flower.
I felt a sense of discomfort with her behavior as a clerk.
Normally, she should have greeted a customer who walked in. Why was she sitting on a chair, looking at a purple flower?
It was hard to understand, but this is an era of diversity.
Perhaps she is just someone who is bad at communication.

However, honestly, I didn't feel bad about it.
The flower shop clerk wearing a flower wreath hair accessory—her presence seemed very charming. Perhaps I, too, was being considered as one of the newly stocked flowers. I had the impression that she was like a flower, and conversely, if she considered me a flower, we should get along well.

I came here to have a bouquet made.
Someone at work was retiring, and someone else suggested, "In that case, let's give them a bouquet." I thought a bouquet wasn't really necessary, but I didn't have the courage to point that out, and as the youngest person at the workplace, I was sent to buy the bouquet.

The clerk said nothing and sat next to the register.
I also stood there, staring intently at the wreath of white flowers tying her hair.
She really does look like my teacher.

Some time passed just like that.
Just as I was wondering if the silence would last forever, the clerk spoke to me, saying, "Are you, looking for, something?" She remained seated, her gaze still on the purple flower. I was a little surprised because she spoke to me so suddenly.
So I am being seen as a customer, not a flower.

"I want to make a bouquet," I said.
I just needed to have a bouquet made casually and take it back to the company.
The clerk gave a slight nod and said, "Understood. Then, let's, make it, together," and disappeared into the back of the shop.

I stared at where she had disappeared.
She didn't return for a while, and I was left behind alone.
Just as I was fantasizing that I might become a flower in this shop and end my life here without being able to move a single step, the clerk returned.
She was holding red flower shears.
They were flower shears with an unusual shape, but they suited her very well.

"What kind of, bouquet, do you want, to make?" she asked me.
I explained that I wanted a bouquet to give to a colleague who was quitting their job. "Understood," she said, showing a smile for the first time.

Using the flower shears she was holding, she took out several flowers, cut them, and placed them on a small desk that served as a workbench. Her hand movements were so beautiful that I was captivated. There was absolutely no wasted motion. Every flower laid out looked lively.
If they were treated like this, the flowers would be happy too.
"From here, choose the flowers you like, and bundle them, in a balanced way," she urged me to bundle the flowers.
Is it normal for a flower shop to make the customer bundle the flowers? Being ignorant, I asked her for guidance and tried bundling the flowers. She overlaps more and more with my teacher.

Eventually, a bouquet that looked like a collection of dirty stray cats was completed.

As I was looking at the completed bouquet, she praised me, saying, "For your first time, you did, well."
For some reason, I felt immensely happy.

Suddenly, the teacher pointed the red flower shears toward me.
Her smile stopped.

The next moment, I had become a flower.

I don't know why I have become a flower.
The bouquet I made was in a large temporary bucket.
It didn't look like I had done well, even for a first time.
The teacher is staring at the purple flower just like before, sitting next to the register as if nothing had happened. We were talking and making a bouquet until just a moment ago, so what does this mean?
I even thought that perhaps that was a dream, or conversely, that I had been a flower from the beginning and was dreaming of having been a human.

Strangely, I felt no fear or impatience.
It was an ordinary life anyway; I had no particular regrets. As I looked around the flower shop, I was thinking about how I should spend my time as a flower from now on.
I am positive.

The teacher is writing something with a red pencil on the calendar hanging next to the register.
I remembered that red pencil.
It was the one my homeroom teacher often used.
I can't see the letters, but something is written on the calendar every day, including today.
However, the red ink was only for today.

Since flowers absorb water and sustain themselves through photosynthesis using light, they don't need to eat anything. That said, the flowers in the flower shop have no roots and only absorb water, so they don't last very long. At most, two or three days, I suppose.
A week at the longest; if they don't sell, they will wither and be thrown away.
Thinking about that, I became a little scared.

Would anyone at the company worry that I had disappeared?
Would my family make a huge fuss about me losing contact?
Several people know my whereabouts. After all, I came here to make a bouquet with money entrusted to me by my colleagues. If I suddenly became unreachable, wouldn't they come to the flower shop first?
However, no one would ever imagine that I had become a flower in the corner of this shop.
Strangely, I didn't feel like I wanted to be saved. Rather, I was excited about the prospect of spending my time as a flower in this shop. An expectation and joy welled up from somewhere, wondering how the master would handle me with those hands, and how he would turn me into a bouquet.
Perhaps my mind had been eroded by the poison of the flowers in the shop.

From the beginning, the master had skillfully laid a trap to turn me into a flower. Are there many people who have been turned into flowers in this shop like this? Even if I think about that, there is nothing I can do. After all, I am already a flower. I can do nothing.
I cannot even die by my own hand.
Everything was exactly as the master intended.
If that is the case, I want to fulfill my role as a flower in this shop.
If I don't sell, I don't mind if I just wither away.

If I am to be discarded by the master's hand, I have no regrets.