Asphodel

A bell rang as the B-Z Model Shop's door opened, announcing the departure of its owner. Inoue Yori stepped into the fading light of sunset still wiping his hands on his untied apron, but his eyes were already shifting across the row of shops surrounding his. The sharp gaze turned satisfied, pleased at the sight of people milling about the street and store fronts, as if it weren't something he'd come across everyday. As if it were something besides the random passage of neighbors and fellow town folk.

Done wiping his hands, Inoue tossed the apron onto a counter and grabbed a tan satchel from it. Locking the front door – the OPEN sign still displayed in the window, with strange, fuzzy text handwritten in below it – he turned the key with hands still covered with already dried bits of glossy paint. This wasn't an odd sight in and of itself, given his work often marked him by the end of the day. Usually he'd take the time to better wash away the stains before taking to the street...

But today was special. Today, he was ready to stand back and consider what he had built.

His shop corner was just across from the central road, leading him into the center of town and the park at the heart of it, the people passing by increasing as he neared the grassy expanse of perfectly symmetrical lines of trees and flowers. Any of the benches the cobbled cross-point of four dirt paths would the perfect spot to stop. And so he did, pulling a leather roll of tolls and smooth bit of wood from his bag as he considered the area.

The fountain – a marble pyramid in the center trickling water down between the “bricks” – blocked a bit his view, but it was still the best spot to catch sight of as many residents as possible, prone as they were to come by on the way home from work or school, or linger to meet friends or relax on their own. At some point or another, for just a moment, everyone would come by. Everyone would cross paths.

He had designed them that way.

And with any luck, he would spot no fault in his model.