🌸Before you read🌸

🌸To those ever wondering who my number one OTP in all of INH is, I will say it's Sakura's parents. This chapter will explain why, so I hope you enjoy it.

🌸Preparations🌸

When given the option to either listen to two women argue about how the flowers should be arranged or answer whoever was at the door, always go with the third option: get them distracted on something else before answering the door. Did I know that though? Of course not, but I didn't think it was something I really needed to worry about.

Then again, when both of my mothers had strong feelings about flowers, I should've known nothing was going to end well. If I could get distracted by a single doorbell, then I would in a heartbeat.

I didn't even look who it was when I opened the door, but I had a good idea who was there since my friend agreed to come help set up. Of course, I was right as I saw a boy with dark hair standing there in a sleek suit. His arms were behind his back as he stood there, smiling as he caught sight of me.

"Happy birthday, Sakura," Mori greeted.

"Thanks," I said, tilting my head a bit. "What do you have behind your back there?"

Mori grinned even more, showing off one of his full smiles that could make any girl swoon. Honestly, it surprised me that he hasn't even asked a girl out at U.A. because any girl would be lucky to have Mori as a boyfriend. If it wasn't for my own strict "no dating" policy, I would've snatched him up for myself. Not because of his smile though, but because he was one of the nicest people one would ever meet.

Luckily, Mori understood that, but didn't deny the fact that I knew he had a little crush on me.

"Close your eyes," he said.

Instead of doing what I was told, I raised an eyebrow. "You know I said no presents, right?"

The boy shrugged. "I know, but I couldn't resist. Just do it, okay?"

I rolled my eyes before I closed them. I couldn't help but to tease Mori from time to time about stuff like that, but it was true. On the invitations, I specifically wrote a few important details for the party, whether it was the fact that I wanted everyone to have a date or wear formal attire. I even left my phone number on there in case anyone had any questions or needed help with anything; though, I'll admit, I really just left my phone number to try to help my classmates find the perfect outfit or pair them up with the perfect date.

Was it so bad of me that all I wanted for my birthday was for one of my ships to sail? I was a hopeless romantic. Sue me!

Since I knew people would worry about that, I didn't want them to worry about finding a gift for me on top of that. Still, feeling Mori's smooth hands as he guided mine in front of me was pretty nice. He took his sweet time with it, gently leading them in front of my chest before he slipped something long in them and curved my fingers around the object.

"Open," he said.

My eyes peeled open to see what looked like a bouquet of flowers, only, they weren't any flowers I'd find in my moms' flower shop. They were simple purple and white flowers made out of paper. Each flower was folded ever so carefully, almost making them look like perfectly bloomed ones. In the middle of the origami bouquet was a perfectly made crane right next to a poorly made one, one that I recognized all too well.

"Well, do you like it?" Mori asked.

I looked up at him, knowing I couldn't suppress my smile anymore. "It's perfect. Thank you. I have something for you too, but it's inside."

Mori nodded his head as he followed me into my home. I wasn't exactly sure why, but the moment he stepped inside, I suddenly became self conscious. It wasn't like he didn't know how I was raised or anything. The details of my moms weren't ones I kept secret anymore, but seeing the pictures of my moms and me plastered on the walls, especially the ones of preschool age me with them, made me wish I could somehow cover them up.

Fortunately, Mori didn't say anything which was a relief.

Unfortunately, there was something else I had also worried about.

"I'm telling you, Hana, succulents should be placed around the vases on the table, not inside them. It looks ridiculous!" my mom, Yui, yelled.

"Obviously, you haven't been reading Garden Weekly like I've been telling you to," my other mom, Hana, argued. "It's a very in thing right now, and with the limonium, it'll look perfect!"

I stopped as I heard them, looking back at Mori. My moms had been arguing about the centerpieces for the tables before I even got the door. I thought they'd be done by the time Mori stepped into the house.

Apparently, I was wrong.

"So, I probably should warn you," I told him, "but my moms are a little crazy when it comes to flowers. They do own a flower shop, so I guess it makes sense, but just be warned there's no pleasing both of them whenever they have their mind made up, so don't feel bad about ruining someone's day because you think one arrangement looks better than the other."

As I spoke, I could tell I had completely lost Mori. Sure, it was one thing to understand what I was saying. It wasn't like I was throwing terms at him that made it impossible to understand, but I could tell he had no idea what he was about to get himself into.

Hopefully, he'd just serve as a distraction to get those two to stop thinking about how the flowers were going to look.

This was what I get for trusting them to come up with the center pieces for the tables. I was in charge of everything else, but I wasn't as good at coordinating flowers as they were. Sure, I could pull it off, but they'd just end up telling me they had a better idea and do it themselves. I just thought it'd be easier if I let them do it.

I was wrong.

The living room looked as if someone took a field of flowers and shoved it into the small space. Different kinds of flowers—such as echeveria elegans, haworthia cymbiformis, different types of purple limonium flowers, crocus—scattered all over the room while both of my moms just stood there, holding a vase of what could be the center piece.

Yes, just like they were arguing before, Hana's small vase had a few green succulents—like the echeveria elegans—paired up with different types of purple flowers while Yui's vase had only different shades of purple flowers in it.

"Hey, can one of you grab me that box on the side table over there," I asked, hoping one of them would've heard me.

To be honest, I couldn't see the box I had put Mori's gift inside as the side table was, so there was a good chance it'd no longer be there. Being that was the side Hana was on, she didn't think twice to place her perfectly made centerpiece somewhere on the couch and carefully move some of the succulents around. Honestly, it was hard telling what anything looked like in the room with all the flowers. The only reason why I knew there was a couch there was because that was where the couch should have been.

After I was out of earshot of my moms, I'd have to let Mori know that my home wasn't usually like this. Sure, we had potted plants hanging and sitting all over the house on a normal basis, but it was never to the point where you could hardly walk because of the mess of flowers.

While Hana went to grab the box, Yui turned around to look at Mori and me. Her blue eyes widened when she realized we weren't exactly alone anymore. I could see the quick look of fear in her eyes as she looked at Mori. It had nothing to do with Mori, but more because of the fact that he was fully dressed in his suit. The rest of us weren't. At least, Hana and I were somewhat ready with our hair and make-up already finished, but Yui's long dark blue hair was still in its messy bun.

"Oh! I didn't even hear the doorbell go off. You must be Mori," Yui greeted, stepping around the flowers that scattered all over the room, so she could get closer to us. When she did, she stuck out her hand. "I'm Yui Sakai, and the crazy woman on the other side of the room is my wife, Hana."

"Haha, very funny," my other mom deadpanned as she weaved around the flowers and handed me the box like I had asked.

People always said my moms looked alike, but I could never really see it. I mean, sure, they were both fairly tall and slender women with dark hair, but Hana's face was much rounder than Yui's long one. True, it didn't help that they liked to dress alike all the time. Today was just one of the exceptions, but that was only because they weren't fully dressed.

Come time for the party, both of them would be wearing a long black dress with sparkles on them. While the dresses weren't the same, they were definitely similar.

"Now, which one do you like best," Hana asked as she held out her succulent-heavy centerpiece. "This colorful bouquet or Yui's sad little purple monster."

This time it was Yui's turn to send the death look.

Luckily, Mori just gave out a small chuckle at their little spat as he looked back and forth from the two vases. I could feel myself relax a bit knowing he didn't find the situation he was in a tad strange. If he did, then he was hiding it really well.

"Honestly, I don't know that much about plants, but they both look nice. Why can't you just use both?" Mori suggested.

Oh no. The moment those words came out of Mori's mouth, I knew things weren't going to end well. Just before he got here, I had suggested the same thing to my moms. I mean, since they were using similar flowers for the centerpieces as they all went with the color scheme I had picked out for the party—silvers, greens, and purples—it was the best compromise. Plus, I've seen it done many times before at other big events.

But these were my moms. One of them had to be right.

"And let everyone see Yui's catastrophe of a centerpiece?" Hana squealed as she held her vase closer to her chest. "I think not!"

"Oh, please, they'd see yours and think the succulents should be surrounding the vase, not in it, that they'd try to rearrange everything," Yui argued.

I shifted my paper bouquet of flowers into the same arm that Mori's box was in and grabbed Mori's wrist before he got wrapped into their arguments once again. Maybe it would've been best that I had picked Mori from his house or had just met him at the place we were going to have the party. My parents were a lot, but I thought that if I had someone over, they'd at least pull it together a bit.

Then again, this was Yui and Hana I was talking about. That was a tall order to ask of them. I loved my moms for all that they did, but would it have killed them to just be a tad normal when I had someone over?

Bet Mori's parents would've been very chill.

We didn't stop walking until I pulled him into the kitchen. It wasn't big by any means as there was just enough room for Yui or Hana to cook without complaining about space. I noticed Mori's wings were still clinging to his back, refusing to spread out a bit. I frowned when I saw them. My house was a pretty good sized place, but most of the rooms were still too small for Mori to spread his wings as wide as that could go.

It made me wonder how often he had to deal with stuff like this.

"Sorry about my moms," I apologized as I let go, realizing I was still holding onto his wrist. "What you told them in there was exactly what I said to them earlier, but they won't stop fighting until one of them is right."

The boy just smiled. When he did, I noticed his shoulders drop a bit.

"That's a relief," he said.

I smiled looking down at the small brown box that was tucked under my arm. "Oh, this is for you," I told him as I handed it to him.

Mori didn't think twice about it as he took it from my grasp and opened it. I would've watched, but knowing what I was giving him, I was a bit nervous. Instead of owning up to that fact, I turned around and opened up one of the cupboards hanging on the wall. There weren't any glasses or silverware in there, but rather, there were some spare vases in case someone wanted to put some flowers somewhere in the house. I knew Mori's bouquet of flowers would've gotten ruined in water, but they could still be placed in a nice clear vase.

As I used my Quirk to reach for a vase on the top shelf, I heard Mori's response. "Wow, this is really cool. I take it that your dress will be green?"

The moment my vine wrapped around the vase I wanted, I turned my head, seeing Mori holding up the emerald colored tie in his hands. He didn't seem disappointed in it like I thought he might have been as he couldn't take his eyes off of it. It was a relief to see.

"Of course," I told him. "I just needed to make sure that it matched perfectly with my dress, and I figured it'd be good practice to make a tie considering I'll design many others someday."

His eyes widened when I said that. "You made this?" he asked looking up at me with his dark colored eyes. "There's no way."

I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks at his small compliment. "Yeah, it's actually the first thing I pulled together, right before I made my dress. I figured if anyone deserves to have the first Wisteria original tie, it'd be you," I explained as I turned around and placed the paper bouquet into the vase.

Mori couldn't stop smiling at that as he held it out towards me. "Well, would you like to help put it on?"

My free hand reached back for my phone, but it wasn't in my back pocket. It was still charging in my room. Sure, I had texted Mori just before he had gotten here, but it died shortly after. I might've had a bad habit of letting my phone die, but that was what chargers were for.

"Could you hold that thought for a moment?" I asked. "I need to get my phone quick and put these in my room. I'll be back in a second though. Promise."

Before Mori could say another word, I walked past him and started running to my room. I rushed past the living room, hearing that my moms were still arguing about the flower arrangements. With the party just a few hours away, I really hoped they came to some sort of agreement soon because it'd be a disaster otherwise.

After running up the stairs, I turned into my room, being greeted by green plants that lined the pink walls. In the corner of the room, I saw my dark vanity, where a white charging cord laid on top of some of my make-up that needed put away. I quickly ran over and exchanged it for the vase, noticing seven missed calls from an unknown number.

Usually, when an unknown number called, I'd let it go, but I also didn't have all my classmates' phone numbers. It was because of that fact that I decided to give the number a call back.

That was my first mistake.

It didn't take long after I called for the person to answer. "Heeello? Is this Saakura Sakaii?"

"Yeah, that's me. Is everything okay?" I asked, trying to figure out who it would've been. The voice was a bit more mature than any of my classmates, and to be honest, it sounded like the person had been drinking way too much.

There was no way this person could have been though. At least, not if they had the right number. U.A. made it very clear that if we were caught doing any kind of illegal activity, even something as small as underaged drinking, we could kiss our chances of being a Pro Hero goodbye. It might seem like they were all talk, but I've seen it happened to a student in the General Studies program. While the student wasn't in the Hero Department, they clearly wanted to, but couldn't now that they were caught.

I must've just been imagining the slurs, so I stayed on to figure out who exactly was calling me.

Staying on the phone was mistake number two.

"Is everything ookay? No! Nothing is okay all because of you," the voice slurred on the other end. "Yoou ruined everything. Everything, you hear me?"

"Uh, ma'am, I-I think you have the wrong number," my voice shook, though I couldn't place why. Normally, I would've been confident, or had some sort of smart answer to shoot back. Instead, I just listened.

"Haave the wrong number my assss. I do not, not wheen you said you're that Sakura Sakaii. Is that what you calll yourself now? Too good to taake your faather's name? Lissten here. Yoou cost me my siisterr, and noow you want to play herro at that new school? Do they know what you've done? What horrible thing yoou've done toooo my sisterr? Do your new parents know? Would they have adopted your pooor ass if they knew? She's gone beecause of you! Everything is ruined beecause of you! You were the biggest misstake everr."

Just like that, my body froze as I felt my breath hitch. I couldn't move. It was as if Akiba was here, using his Quirk to prevent me from moving or something.

Adopted...for twelve years, I never really even thought about my situation. I mean, I knew why I was put up for adoption the day I was born. Even though my adoptive parents looked like me, people were easy to point out that they weren't my biological ones because they were both women. Both my moms were willing to give me the talk as to why they adopted me, why I was put up for adoption, and how it all happened before I was even ten. It didn't bother me. It never bothered me.

Except now.

"Aare you lllisteeening, yoou little brat?" the woman seethed from the other side of the phone. "Fuuucking answer, yoou good forr nothing—"

I hung up. My breaths became shallow as I did. She—no one should have been able to find me. Sakura Sakai, that was the name Hana and Yui gave me when they adopted me. Sakai was Yui's last name while Sakura meant flower, which was something they loved. That was who I was now. I was Sakura Sakai.

Yoou cost me my siisterr. Her words echoed into my ears as I tried making sense of it. I didn't do anything. It wasn't my fault. What happened that day—

My phone started ringing again. Instead of answering it, I quickly hung up, not even looking at the number. It rang again, and again, and again. By the fifth call, I was fed up with it.

"Listen here," I snapped as I turned around, seeing Mori standing at the doorway. I froze in my tracks as I did. His onyx colored eyes widened as he saw me while his tail flicked behind him as his hands were still wrapped around the tie.

For a few moments, I had forgotten what today was. It wasn't the day they died. It wasn't just any normal day. Today was my sixteenth birthday. The only reason why I came up here was so that I could look up a quick tutorial on how to tie a tie. I was so rash in that decision that I should've asked Mori if he could just walk me through it or something rather than try and figure it out myself.

"Whoa there, Sakura, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?" Kaito's voice joked from the other side.

I tore my gaze away from Mori as I let out a heavy sigh. "Sorry. I-I thought you were someone else. Listen, I'll call you back."

"Hey, is everything okay?" Kaito asked. "Mori didn't stand you up or anything did he?"

"No, I just need to get going, so everything is ready. I'll call you back in a bit," I promised.

Instead of waiting for a response, I hung up. Again, Mori didn't say a word as he looked at me. His dark colored eyes were fixed on me. While I never minded looking up at him, it was different after that phone call had ended.

No one else would understand though. Besides, it wasn't like I knew them. Unlike my friend, Tami, who knew of her dad that left, had people that met him, and other ties to him, I knew nothing except for the situation. I didn't owe anyone an explanation because I didn't know them. Besides, it would've been impossible to know them.

I just never thought anyone who knew them would try and find me just so I could face the facts.

"Is everything really okay?" Mori asked, as I heard him walking into my room.

"Yeah," I told him, shaking the thoughts out of my head. Once I could regain the smile on my face, I looked up at him. "Just a wrong number before Kaito called. Really awkward. The other person on the other end was already drunk. I'm sorry to keep you waiting. Honestly, I've never tied a tie and was hoping for an excuse to look it up."

For some odd reason, I don't think Mori bought my lie. Then again, we were both pretty good at figuring that stuff out. He might not have been as vocal as I was when that happened, but I knew he was pretty perceptive. Whether that was just the kind of person that he was or his Quirk, I'd never know.

Luckily, he seemed to push that aside as his lips slowly pushed into a small smile. "You could have just said that. I can walk you through it if you want."

I nodded my head as I closed the gap between us, listening to his instructions as I wrapped the tie around his neck. Every movement I made with it, I tried to forget about that phone call that had just happened. There was no need to worry about something like that.

Yet, leaving Mori in the dark about that was the third and biggest mistake I made that day.

🌸End of Part 2/4🌸

🌸Chapter Question🌸
What's your favorite kind of flower/plant?

🌸Character Spotlight: Hiroto Mori 🌸
Book: Kita's Legacy
Likes: Chocolate

🌸Character Spotlight: Sakura Sakai🌸
Book: I'm No Hero
Likes: Gardening

Song: It's My Day from Fruits Basket