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An attendant from the package tour company traveled with us all the way from Japan. I had a little crush on him. When we were leaving one of the tourist attractions in Italy, the charter bus was waiting for us on an unpaved lot covered with wild flowers. At every venue, the attendant was standing by the bus to make sure everyone in the group was getting on the bus when leaving. My sister and I were the last ones to get back to the bus at that place. I trotted toward the bus carefully not to step on the flowers. This time, the attendant was waiting with one of the flowers in his hand. I was about to get on the bus after my sister when he held out the flower to me. It was the most romantic gesture I’d ever been given and I felt over the moon. I hadn’t had many chances to be treated nicely by men because I had been regarded as ugly since I was small and also because I had spent most of my school days at a girls’ school. I wanted to keep it forever and tried to make it a pressed flower back in the hotel. As I was murmuring how I should make a pressed flower, my sister suddenly shouted, “I don’t know! I don’t care!” She was furious. She stormed out of the room and into my parents’ room to tell on me. Since she didn’t like him, I didn’t understand why she was angry. My happiness earned a mysterious outburst of fury. It seemed Italy inflamed people’s emotion. But I never knew a more emotional happening awaited me the next day…
