Everlasting Flowers

Everlasting Flowers is the first installment in a series of "cinematic novels" that tells the story of two girls, Mina and Ran, and their struggles and growth as they search for their own approach to life. Sakashita Mina finds herself in a new town attending a famous all-girls high school. A misfit among a class of young, affluent ladies, she soon stops attending, realizing she'll never make any friends. In the year since, she has barely left her room. Time passes slowly, each day a suffocating eternity. Mina would stare at the dried flowers in her room, trying to convince herself that this space is the only place in the world where she belongs. Seino Ran is a child of a wealthy family and has lived the life her parents laid out for her. That is, until she realizes that nobody truly cares about her. With that in mind, her happy life begins to fall apart. These circumstances lead both girls to apply for a live-in job at a seaside lodge. Here they meet, and the two girls end up spending the summer together and healing their wounded hearts. They found someone they could trust in each other, something they never thought they'd find again. Spending her days together with Ran and the owners of the lodge, Yanase Michiko and Naruse Himari, Mina starts to wish that she could remain there forever. However, Ran's friend, Tachibana Sanami, gives Mina a reality check—it's high time she faces her problems. Mina is convinced that nobody likes her. She avoids speaking her mind, she avoids school, and she avoids everyone she once considered friends. And while facing those problem will be tough, she also doesn't want to go back to that room and go back to being her old self. As the time they have left at the lodge dwindles, Mina desperately searches for a place where she can belong. As for Ran...