Kaien brought me flowers from the market.
This was not something he had done before. He was not, in the general course of things, a man who brought home flowers — not because he was indifferent to beauty but because he had always seemed to consider the flowers that were already in the garden a sufficient statement on the subject. The roses that had appeared in the eastern bed without invitation were his unofficially acknowledged territory: he checked on them periodically with the casual attention of a man who will not admit he cares about something and cares about it deeply.
So the fact that he came home from an errand in the market district with a paper-wrapped bundle of pale yellow chrysanthemums and set them on the kitchen table without explanation was, in its way, remarkable.
I looked at the flowers. I looked at him. He was already moving toward the study, coat not yet removed, with the air of a man who has done a thing and does not intend to discuss it.
"Kaien."
