My Crown is Made of Weeds

He loves the stars and dandelions, but he grows lonely as people show to only judge him for his likes. Maybe college will be different.

A one-shot for my OC Masayukki

- - -

 For some people, childhood is a hard time. For me, I guess that could be true. I grew up in a rural neighborhood in Europe, where everyone knew everyone. It was impossible to get privacy in my neighborhood, so all the kids in my school knew every little detail about me.

Once, when I was six, some boys in my class saw me in the schoolyard. This wasn't unusual, the school yard was pretty small. The men that do the yardwork at my school always forget a single corner.

The grass is long and the roots grow deep in the soil. There is a patch of dandelions, and a few small weed flowers.

Dandelions remind me of myself. They're so pretty, so bright and they stand out. Though, eventually, they all get ripped out of the ground and thrown into the compost, to the side.

I absolutely love dandelions. Our school yard doesn't have flowers I can play with. Once, I picked a flower from the side of the school and got in trouble. Turns out I was picking flowers in the school garden that the kindergarteners and first graders keep tidy.

After that day, I found the corner with weeds.

I stayed here all the time. Dandelions are hard to play with, their stems always break. But one day, I found the perfect way to thread them together. I made a flower crown.

After I made them for a while, I wore one back inside after recess. The boys in my class noticed.

"Ew, what's Masa wearing? Looks like he cleaned out a lawnmower on his head!"

"He's wearing weeds in his hair!"
"That looks stupid! It's not even done nicely!"

They said many mean things. Eventually, their mean comments were numbing words that didn't affect me anymore. The first few times, it made me cry. Now, I just realize they don't understand.

These dandelions, these misunderstood weeds, give me comfort. If I was a plant, I'd be a dandelion.

- - -

Staring out at the stars, I feel a sense of comfort rush over me. If I could stay here, looking at the stars forever, I wouldn't mind.

Currently, I'm sitting on the fire escape outside of my dorm room. My dorm room is pretty nice, and I was one of the lucky few to have a personal "balcony" or, fire escape.

Whenever I go out on my fire escape to stargaze, I have to be careful. Apparently if you're caught on them at any time, you can get in trouble.

I don't want that, so I always go outside at night. My dorm room is high up enough that the street lights don't hit my window, so it's perfect at night. I make sure the lights are off in my room and I sit on the fire escape with nothing that could potentially tell someone I'm up there.

Occasionally, someone from a higher or lower floor will go on their fire escape balcony. If I look at them, normally they can be smoking ( which you can't do ), or they start to climb down. Mind you, you can't leave dorms past 10:00 PM, which is exactly what those kids were trying to do.

At least what I'm doing isn't breaking rules as bad as those.

- - -

Sometimes I like to think about how my life could have changed for the better. What if I never played with those weeds as a kid? What if I didn't play with those weeds now, as a young adult?