We’re meeting close to the pastry shop where her sister Noemi works. I’m sitting at a bench at the fountain, and right away I see the two sisters walking from afar, coming from a corner. From a distance, and sometimes even up close, you wouldn’t even think they’re related, the differences are striking. Noemi is taller than average and has straight black hair past her shoulders, although she keeps them tied in a bun during work; Inami, instead, is on the shorter side and wears her slightly wavy golden brown hair at chin length.
Her sister is wearing normal clothes for work, but Inami looks so beautiful today. Her white shirt and chestnut jacket are not too dissimilar to what she usually wears, although she doesn’t usually wear shirts with frills; her long pink skirt, however, is something I’ve never seen on her before.
Noemi waves at me from afar before entering the shop and I wave back at her, while Inami walks in my direction. “Hey, did you wait long?”
“Nope, I barely managed to sit before I saw you two.”
She smiles, “good, where are we going now?”
I point at the street to our left. “Down that road, there’s a place I’m sure you’ll love.”

She loves plants and gardening: I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, but I see a new plant every time I enter the Dayglow, so I thought it’d be nice to bring her to the Rossambra National Botanic Gardens. “You know me so well, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid anyone who has ever entered the café knows!”
She starts laughing, “well, that’s true! But when you see some things often you might just get used to it and forget it. So I’m happy that you remembered.”
I was worried that getting closer to fall the gardens might look a bit dull, so I did my own research beforehand, and now I’m seeing with my eyes that they look lovely even at this time of the year. There are no guided tours available today, but she’s probably gonna be a good guide. “Rori, how good are you with naming flowers?”
“Hmm, let’s see. I know lavender, lily of the valley, hmm… sunflowers… and roses. Tulips too. Everything else is just ‘flowers’ to me.”
She sighs, but with a smile. “At least you know the two national flowers. Alright, I’ll teach you!”
The first flowers we encounter are close to the gate. “These ones are dahlias. We have lots of them at my parent’s house because they’re always in bloom around my birthday. We have lots of daffodils too, since Noemi was born in march, but they don’t usually last until fall. Daffodils are those flowers with a kind of cup at the center.”
“Oh, I think I got which ones, they’re often yellow or white, right?”
“Exactly. These ones instead,” she says moving towards the path on the right, “are begonias. I feel like these might not last much longer, the warmer weather surely helped. The scent is lovely!”
She kept going on, telling me about gerberas, petunias, chrysanthemums, verbenas, and sage. “I didn’t know sage had such beautiful flowers, I only knew about the leaves used as herbs.”
I never thought I’d find flowers this interesting, or maybe I just like seeing how passionate she is about them and the way her amber eyes almost start glowing when she explains those things to me. She’s fond of her café, loves art, and has a passion for flowers and plants. I’m glad I’m getting to see one more side of Inami today. “Anyway, I’m not that much of an expert, I just know what I learned with time~”
These are just the flowers we’ve seen along the way, but I don’t know about her personal tastes. “What’s your favorite flower?”
She didn’t even stop to think about it. “Hoya carnosa, the porcelain flower. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the way it looks puts me at ease, and it smells very sweet. It takes years to start blooming, so I also grow affectionate to the plants. I have some at home, I’ll show you someday!”
We walk towards the inside of the building, a greenhouse comprised mostly of plants without flowers. The roof is quite high, so there are some trees too, and also some ponds with aquatic plants. The part towards the center is fascinating, they made a small waterfall with mossy rocks and vines.
Inami looked at the tags of almost every plant, taking note of those she liked the most. I love the serious look on her face, she’s really into it. I’ve been looking at her so much, I wonder if she noticed. “Are you having fun?”
She nods, “of course! Thank you for bringing me here.”
I’ve seen her glance at my hand more than once, so I turned my palm in her direction. She saw it and held onto it. Her hands are warm and soft, a bit tiny, but her grip is somewhat firm, as if she wants to make sure that I don’t let her go. We’re close to the end of the path, maybe I should’ve done it sooner.
On the other side of the building there were more flowers and trees, and a pond with some fish. We kept walking and talking until we got back to the gate from the opposite side. Time flew so fast.

And that’s pretty much all I had planned for today. I’m gonna improvise the rest. “How much of the city have you seen?”
“Well… Noemi’s house, everything along the way to the pastry shop, and these gardens today. The mall right outside the city too. Sooo… yeah, not much.”
It makes sense, after all she’s from a town on the other side of the lake, it’s closer to Prima than to this city. “That makes it easier for me! Let’s go for a walk!”
Since it’s not too far, we walked towards the biggest square of the city to do some window shopping. It’s packed as usual, and this even considering that most people are probably already at the festival, along the river and around my house.
Inami is tightening her hold of my hand, maybe to avoid getting separated in the crowd. She keeps looking around at the screens plastered all over the buildings, she’s probably never seen anything like this before: Prima may be the capital, but it’s a very calm place immersed in nature that still looks quite fond of the simpler times, while Rossambra is way more lively and is basically the economic center of the country. She seems a bit uneasy, so before we go look around I want to show her something. “Have you ever seen the statue in Parco Alfedena?”
She thinks for a bit before replying. “Hmm… I don’t think so.”
We walk through a crosswalk to get to a small and less crowded park, and she gets noticeably more relaxed, which makes me think that maybe she doesn’t like crowds. We walk toward the center of the park, until we reach the statue. It’s a beautiful sculpture depicting Shigure lying down and grabbing the hand of a floating Ventus, with a writing below: “L’amore è salvezza” - love is salvation. This brings me back to how Ventus told me about his insecurities. People gave many interpretations to it, but I think I found the real one: Shigure is the one who saved him.
She looks happy. “It’s so lovely, I didn’t know there was a statue like this.”
We sit on a bench to rest, our lazy legs have been asking for mercy, especially mine. “Were you feeling uncomfortable before?”
She nods, “yeah, I don’t like the oppressive feeling of having so many people taking up all the space around me. Did you notice?”
“Mm-hmm. Well, that’s how things are around here, I had to get used to it too.”
I hope the festival isn’t gonna be a problem, but in the worst case my house is close by. I’ll keep an eye on her.
The sunset is here, and since she doesn’t seem to enjoy this crowded area maybe we’ll leave the window shopping for another day. “Shall we go to the festival?”
She takes my hand again. “Sure, let’s go.”

On the way to the festival we inevitably walked by Colle Zefiro; we wanted to try paying a visit to Ventus, but the museum manager there told us that he left not too long ago. I just can’t seem to ever catch the dude here after that first time a while ago.
“Aww, I wish we could’ve wished him a happy birthday!”
I’ll keep our last encounter a secret. “I’ve met him before at this shrine, he’s a very chill and fun dude. It was just the two of us, so we had time to chat about some of the series made by authors I manage, he’s a fan of some of them.”
Her amber eyes are twinkling. “That’s so cool! Does he visit often?”
“Hmm, don’t think so, I’m sure he’s quite busy, and there are a lot of shrines all over Sogna. But he always comes on Ventus Day, this is his city, after all.”
We walk around the museum to let her see some of the art people all over Sogna made for Ventus and the other divinities. There are some old photographs too, especially together with Shigure: yup, he didn’t change one bit, if not for his clothes. He looks quite handsome in his formal attire, not gonna lie.

We’re finally here, and we’ve worked up an appetite so it’s time to get something to eat. The street lights are all turned off, lanterns and torches glow in their place, giving a much warmer atmosphere. Being honest, most of the lanterns have LEDs inside, but I like to pretend that I don’t know about it.
There are a lot of people, but we can walk easily. “Are you okay with the crowd here?”
She smiles and caresses the hand she’s holding with her thumb, “yeah, this is a much warmer place than before.” By the way we’re both acting we should just say we’re already a couple, but I can’t take the easy way and forget about it: she deserves a real answer. “Have you ever been to a festival before?”
“Mm-hmm, I’ve been to Prima’s festival on New Year’s a couple of times, when I was still in high school. Primetta goes there every year too since it’s the only shrine she visits. She’s my favorite divinity, Noemi says she reminds her of me.”
That’s true, Primetta often has a thin smile and isn’t known to be particularly talkative, she’s also of quite short stature. “Huh, I can see it. Now I want to see you with long lilac hair.”
“Haha, maybe one day! But for now,” she takes a fox mask from a stall, “I’ll take this!”
She’s so cute, I love it when she has childish moments like this. I grab a wolf mask too, “I’ll pay for these.”
She smiles brightly while placing her mask on the side of her head, “thank you, we match!”
Fox and wolf, Ventus and Shigure, husband and wife. I really wanted one, but now I’m too conscious about it. I can feel my face tingling. I’m blushing, ain’t I?
She puts my mask on my head too, her eyes are sparkling again. I like to think that it’s because she found out something new about me. “Here, looks good! I guess Shigure is your favorite then!”
Those eyes always make me smile. “Yeah, although I vibe with Moondiver too.”
I’m having so much fun with her, we should’ve done something like this a long while ago.

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