The Colour of Camellia

## Chapter 1

She was six, or maybe seven, when she first became aware of the memories that assaulted her memory for the first time. She was in the backyard of her parents' store and had stuck a camellia flower on her head, her father had told her that she was lovely like that, she had then decided that all her life she would wear the red of camellias on her.

But who knew that this decision and that the smell of this flower, was already so familiarly linked to her, that it unlocked in her, memories that should not have existed.

She had always preferred Camellias to other flowers. The Camellias... This word sounded so sweet and slipped on his lips with the same sweetness as a homemade candy from his mother. And its red color seemed to him so pretty that it reminded him of the color of the jewel of his mother's ring that his father had given him.

This flower reminded her of security, sweetness, tenderness, beauty.

She reminded her as much of her father and the strength in his arms when he hugged her and she felt safe, as the sweetness and tenderness of her mother who seemed to her the most beautiful in the world in her eyes.

She loved her parents, she loved their jobs, the cafe they owned in downtown Manchester. She liked the help when she had the right, with the regulars who went there. She liked to be held by the inhabitants and to be lifted as if she could fly away. She liked being told that the red of the Camellias made her even more beautiful.

She liked to be innocent.

But when evening came, the Camellia placed beside her on her desk, the sweet smell of the flower touching her nose. When she fell asleep. It wasn't the red of the Camellias that gave her back, it was the red of a car accident, the red of the hot blood that ran inside her, laughter was replaced by cries, happiness by fear, The sound of glass that slap on the tables, by the one who breaks on the windows of cars. The howls on game nights, those of joy at the marked points, by the howls of those who call for help.

Then the laughter returns, but accompanied by bitterness and nostalgia. That of mourning.

So she woke up screaming, asking her parents for help, screaming until she was sure she was being held in her father's arms, screaming until she was sure she was awake. The morning rising slowly by the window.

When she looked up at the small desk beside her, and saw the faded Camellia beside her.

She cried even harder. Mourning his innocence and his naivety. How could she have known that the Camellia was already wilted before it even bloomed?

## Chapter 2: Time and stars in the sky

### Part 1: The Evening Star

The weekend was just beginning, the dawn was still timid, barely above the roofs of the houses and buildings of the city. She didn't know how long she had been reading, maybe two or three, maybe even five. The time since she had realized what she was seemed a foreign concept to her. If before she ran after him, now she welcomes him like an old friend, letting him do what he wants. She no longer defines him, leaving him to his rest and what he is, and barely spares him a glance.

In her room there is only her alarm clock to tell her the time, and the only time she looked at it was in the morning just to make sure she was not late for her class. . But now it's the weekend, and for the moment it's even summer vacation. No need to wake up or watch the clock. She has no hardship or anything. She's just there, lazily reading the pages slipping between her fingers, her eyes moving over the black-on-white lines.

His eyesight gets tired in the light of the lamp in his office, and an unpleasant tingling begins to be felt in his limbs, more precisely in his arms. It's time to stretch your legs a bit.

She finally deigns to look up from her current book, at which the corners are starting to dent a bit, bending slightly inward or outward. She lays a Camellia flower there to dry between the pages so as not to lose it and lays it on the desk next to her lamp, on top of a thicker pile of other books that she has read during the year. Next to his lamp and his books, you could see a small bottle of water and a fairly well-opened jar of cookies, here to accompany his sleepless nights of reading.

She unrolls her body trapped in her blankets, fighting a few minutes of a fight without real motivation before managing to get out. She then crosses her room, the floor of which is covered with sheets and books of all kinds, sometimes forming piles, others just open to certain particular pages, paying attention to the pencils scattered everywhere. She apparently enjoyed living in danger.

Arrived at the corner of the room for the object of her desires, she places the small wooden stool below the window which is in the ceiling and climbs on tiptoe to open it.

She then climbs and finds herself sitting on the roof of the cafe in the city center, seeing the life that is gradually coming to life, the light of the street lamps each turning off. The air is sweet, and only the sound of birds are heard during the morning.

From the roof of her house, she sees beyond the roofs and the chimneys, the small rays of sun which begin little by little to extend beyond the buildings which surround her.

From here she can hear the greetings from the little shopkeepers who come to town once a week, the shutters slamming and the blinds of the little shops going up. This spectacle may seem quite boring, but in his eyes with the rising sun, they only remind him of a painting that a painter would have made, wanting to implement everyday life, painting the buildings with red and pink to highlight ahead the rising star.

She may have had another life in her head, the one with another name in another country, but for now she was born here, and she won't trade her place for anything in the world, even to continue to observe this spectacle with his own eyes.

That life may have nothing to do with those of the characters in the novels she reads. But she has her own challenges to live, her own magic, her entourage. Even though she walks away from them, feeling uncomfortable lying about who she is, she loves them.

She closes her eyes and feels the morning breeze caress her hair and tickle her nostrils. She is no longer nineteen, she is now twelve, she lives in Manchester in England, she no longer lives in France, she is no longer a student, she has become a schoolgirl again. Her name is now L.

-LILY BROWN!

Her mother's scream snaps her out of her reverie. It sometimes replaces the sound of the steeple. She straightens up straight as a post and jumps into the hole in her window and closes it. In a mechanical gesture, she redid her long brown ponytail in order to avoid looking like a grizzly the day after a storm. Her mother loves her hair (just like in her old life), so when she gets downstairs combing her hair, the latter combs her hair, while she drinks her scorching hot chocolate. So she prefers to have a quiet breakfast than to feel her hair being tugged in all directions.

As she descends the stairs into the kitchen, she places a kiss, half asleep, on her father's prickly cheek and another on her mother's soft cheek before taking a bowl of hot milk and spilling the chocolate into it. powder by putting the halves aside. various cakes are laid out on the table, and Lily grabs the smallest bun she can find. His mother never jokes with meals, especially not with breakfast.

She feels the coldness of the tiles under her bare feet, as well as that of the cushion of her chair under which she sits. She glances at her mother, still decked in her apron and as ready and beautiful as possible to greet the customers of the day. She really likes to see her like this, finding her more beautiful than other women, and not even seeming to have had a child, her face having no wrinkles. The latter turned her head towards her daughter and squinted at her face before stretching one of her cheeks.

-Look at yourself! Have you seen the dark circles you have? You still have a sleepless night! Don't lie, it shows as much as the chocolate in your mouth! Clean this up for me.

- Yes mom whom I love with all my heart

And with a final smile, that mother pinched her cheek before turning away as she grabbed the tea towel from behind her father's chair and wiped her face. Having finished her breakfast, she clears her cutlery and kisses her mother one last time, smelling her scent of vanilla before doing the same to her father and her scent of sweet coffee, then goes back upstairs. She heads for the bathroom where she puts on her cotton nightgown and looks critically at the mirror that sits above the sink. She could actually see the dark circles, the only witness to her sleepless nights under her eyes.

His green almond eyes give him a curious and suspicious look, of those who want to know and approach without daring to really know. She would take her eyes from her grandmother, under the words of her father, and seeing a photograph, she had trouble contradicting him, having exactly the same eyes as her eldest.

Twelve years old, she is perfectly the age, surely helped by her long, slightly wavy hair which frames a slightly round face which will thin out at puberty. Due to the pallor of her skin, she reflects a certain childish fragility. She has, however, slightly bushier eyebrows, probably due to her father once again. As for her mouth, it's the one that most little girls have, but she must admit that she was lucky that they were almost naturally well-pigmented, a soft pink. She wiggles her nose like a trumpet, perceiving the smell of the bread her mother is baking. She knows that the taller she will find herself more "cute" than beautiful depending on aesthetics, but that won't be a problem. Moreover, as his father would say, she looks like "an adorable doll". So she shouldn't normally spend too much on aesthetics.

After working her hair into a ponytail, and grooming herself like a cat, she dresses in a large white t-shirt with the "I'm perfect for me" label on it, and denim shorts, socks that stick out a little above my ankles, with navy blue sneakers, she seems ready for the day, to help her parents run the cafe.

Going down the steps of the stairs four by four, she spins to put on an apron and heads towards her mother who is behind the counter, sitting down on one of the stools.

-Ready for a new day! to serve the first customer to come!

- Well, it took you a long time all the same, noticed his mother, are you expecting someone in particular? If so you could have made more effort I think.

-Ahahah...Very funny mum, frankly I'm hilarious...

-So much the better ! It is better to start a day in a good mood! go, go see your father behind, he must have finished the orders of the two customers near the window while I clean the counter.

-Understood !

And so begins a new day for Lily, helping her parents in the cafe.

His mother who cleans the counters is called Emily Brown née Smith, she was a student of English literature and a journalist. But having been in conflict with her boss some time ago, she is looking for a new job, for the moment she is helping her father at the counters. Her mother as she has already said before was very beautiful in her eyes. She has long blond curly hair in ringlets and beautiful blue eyes.

His father, meanwhile, is called Jacob Brown and studied business in France before settling in England to set up his own business. His grandparents not believing in him cut off all contact, so Lily never met them. His father is in his eyes, huge, he has wavy brown hair and brown eyes, which reminds him of his hot chocolate in the morning.

They are his parents, at least his new parents in this life.

If she seems to accept this situation, Lily must admit that the weight of her secret is heavy. She had read fanfiction on this theme in her former life, and none of the characters seemed to bother more than that about the weight of holding such a secret from those around them. But for her, she felt like she was lying all the time. To be false in their eyes, a liar who played with them. So even if she acted like this, she tried to put more and more distance as she grew up, little by little... Putting her old life behind her, after that night, six years ago, was something complicated for her. her, and painful. Her parents were worried and they decided to take her to see a shrink, who diagnosed her with a nervous breakdown,

So Lily had to learn to separate things and little by little to mourn.

To bring it to today.

Lily then decided one day to help her parents at the cafe, and since she was finally coming out of her room, they agreed without hesitation. Six years later, what was there to distract her has become a habit, and she then helps her parents whenever she can, gaining the following reputation, being called "little miss" by the regulars of the shop.

Lost in thought as she brought the orders to the customers, the day passed quickly, leading her quickly into the evening, when closing time for the cafe arrived.

His mother turning the small painting in front of the shop and turning off the lights, it was time for the "Sporty'Coff" to end its day.

She cleaned the tables with her parents, swept the broom, picking up food crumbs, dirt and grime that had accumulated. The routine has set in and after finishing what there was to do in the shop, Lily goes to her room, a bottle of milk she has stolen from the reserve in her hand, and goes out the window. on the roof to admire the starry sky on summer evenings.

The luminosity of the lampposts does not prevent observation and she looks for the constellations by imagining stories among the stars. A multitude of them face him, and some seem almost brighter than the others. Then at times, some pass like arrows of fire. Lily lets herself be lulled and overwhelmed by the beauty of the sky, her eyes never leaving the celestial vault for a moment.

Then a star catches his eye, seeming bigger than any in the sky. She gives off a glowing dark blue light, which stands out among the white lights, and then she looks at him...The closer she seems to come...

But in the end it's not an impression. Panicking Lily gets up suddenly almost falling, then the next moment, without her knowing how, a black and white rabbit falls into her arms as she falls backwards on her buttocks.

-What on Earth...Since when do rabbits fall from the sky?

The rabbit seems to become aware that we are talking about her and raises her head from her chest before...smiling? And flailing around, staring at her with large eyes, like two dark jewels. Then she pulled out a candy out of nowhere, swallowed it and looked back at her.

-Good morning ! I am Luea! And I'm looking for a teammate, having passed my degree in magic, will you be mine?

But Lily didn't care what the bunny wanted, she abruptly let go of him letting a small squeal escape her mouth and backed away, her heart beating madly.

- Ouch! Does it hurt you know?, resumed the rabbit, Your roof is not made of foam as far as I know, do you often drop rabbits on hard floors? Because if that's the case, I don't congratulate you no, it really hurts...

-You...you...you speak...

The black-and-white, jewel-eyed bunny turned her eyes to her after rubbing her behind and jumped in place in great leaps in front of her, suddenly excited.

-Yup! It is thanks to magic candies that I took beforehand that I can communicate with you! You see, I'm here to find a partner to go to the higher school of magic, and I need a human partner. And I decided it would be you!

The young girl, looked at the rabbit who looked at her with eyes full of expectation, then she went to her window and jumped into her room.

-I...I think I need some sleep...

-What ?! No wait I'm serious! And I still don't know your name, please listen to me!

But Lily didn't care and closed the window in the rabbit's face and went to her bed, forgetting the bottle of milk still on the roof, and turned off the light. Tomorrow may be better after all.

Yet when he got up the next day, his dream didn't seem to want to end.

Especially seeing the bunny of her dream, by her side, in her bed, when she was sure she was outside, on her roof, last night.

She touched the rabbit with her fingertip, to be sure it was real. Then touching something warm, covered in fur. The rabbit woke up with a yawn. She is however sure, on her two lives. That a rabbit does not yawn. So she had her first reflex, on this situation that escapes any logic she can think of.

She started screaming.

At least, that's what would have happened, if the rabbit hadn't covered her mouth with her paw covered in black fur.

- Wait, please don't scream! Please let me at least explain it to you! Please ...

Normally, and any logical person would say no. But it's morning, Lily is barely awake, she also wants to know what's going on since apparently it's not a dream, and stop panicking. So she nodded, confused, scared, but she had to admit, curious too.

The Dutch doe seemed reassured, so she removed her paw, and stood up on her two hind legs without difficulty, and bowed as she introduced herself.

-As I said yesterday, I am Luea, a Jewelpet, more precisely I am the Jewelpet of Truth. And in order to be able to access higher studies in magic, I have to find myself a human partner. I've been looking around the world for several days now. But you're the only one who tickled my curiosity and you seem to meet my criteria. Please give us a chance...

But Lily was thinking of something else, she thought that if she accepted, she would have to lie to someone else, and this twenty-four hours a day, moreover to someone who is supposed to represent the Truth. So replied:

-No..sorry, I can't..you look beautiful as a partner, But I can't..

-What...what!? But why?!, asked the annoyed bunny.

-I... You are the Jewelpet of Truth, right? So no.. Luea, I'm a liar, I've been lying since I was born, to my parents and those around me. I'm not your ideal human, far from it. I am the opposite. I've been lying since my first words. Find someone else...

But the bunny didn't seem to want to give up, so she hopped over, a few sparks of magic flashed, without her realizing it, and she put her paw on Lily's lap, watching her with her eyes. large dark jewelry eyes and declared.

-You can tell me everything, you know? I wouldn't judge, when you want to hear the truth, you have to be able to accept it. I will accept your darkest secrets, even your most beautiful desires if you accept me...Introduce yourself and tell me what's wrong...I don't want to leave you..Not when I feel that it's you.. please...

So with a desire that came out of nowhere...Lily burst into tears and revealed to a little rabbit, what she never managed to tell an adult or her shrink.

And that's how the two friends and partner met.

And that's how Lily, after another night's sleep, realized what universe she was in. And that declaration the next day, expressed all his thoughts.

"-Oh great

-What's the matter ? ,asked Luea"

She was a shojo manga. And one of the few with which she can put her life in danger at some point. His luck was really nil...

And in the end, she resumed running after the passage of time.