Sachie and Himawari

After Himawari's birth, the couple could not achieve a third pregnancy. It was recommended, due to Akiko's health, that they stop trying. Therefore, the mother began to intervene in her daughters' education to ensure good marriages in the future.

At the same time, without anyone being able to intervene and with no one else to inherit his knowledge, Tooru began to teach Sachie various subjects in herbology, traditional medicine, and helped her with a better comprehension and understanding of reading.

He thought it was the way he could pass on his knowledge without it being lost. In his logic, he believed that, if possible, Sachie's future husband could have them. The years passed, and the sisters grew up.

Sachie was not always the rebellious daughter of the family. She liked to learn. She liked to spend time with her mother, as she was responsible for her education. After Himawari's birth, Akiko could finally spend time with her first daughter.

The years passed, and the Apricot couple's daughters grew up. Usually, both played in Sachie's room, pretending to be fairy tale princesses (Kaguya being Himawari's favorite). When Sachie was 10 years old, her education as the heiress of Tooru's knowledge formally began, something Haruto disliked but did not dare to mention so as not to contradict the family leader.

He had no reason to complain since Sachie spent most of the day with her mother, who patiently taught her to read, embroider, and gradually taught her how to manage the home and treat the servants.

The first 15 years, there was complete tranquility in the Apricot family, but as she grew up, Sachie began to renounce her mother's education to dedicate more time to the study offered by her grandfather. At that time was when the fights between father and daughter truly began.

"Stop arguing," Tooru shouted one day upon seeing Haruto reprimand Sachie for working in the garden.

"But..." Haruto tried to say, still looking at his daughter's face and hands dirty with soil and mud.

"As long as I live, Sachie will learn my knowledge. That way, nothing will be lost."

Haruto was furious. He knew it was a direct attack on him, who was not interested in learning traditional medicine because by that time, he considered it useless compared to what was coming from outside Japan. Besides he needs to remembered he is the son-in-law, the adopted one.

When Sachie turned 20, Tooru's health began to decline. He could no longer attend to the business and officially left Haruto in charge of the apothecary. Akiko focused more on preparing Sachie for marriage. For the first time, she was forbidden to leave the garden, to stop making those medicines, everything only to meet prospects.

Her mother insisted that she was no longer a child, that she should now be responsible for her decisions. That no one would want a wife with tanned skin and dry hands from working in the dirt.

"Sachie, bathe and get ready," Haruto told her one afternoon while watching his daughter come into the house after working in the garden all morning. "We are going to have dinner with the Kinomoto family."

"I won't go with them," Sachie said flatly. A week ago, they had gone with a different family, and it was a failure. She knew the same thing would happen with the Kinomotos.

"I am not giving you an option, Sachie," Haruto told her, trying to sound calm.

Akiko dragged her to her room, reprimanding her. She shouldn't talk back to her father like that; it wasn't right. By force, Sachie changed her clothes into a pink kimono with white flowers. She decorated her hair with some of her ornaments. But when she started trying to put makeup on her daughter, a fight between mother and daughter began. Sachie felt they wanted to hide her true personality.

“ Sachi, please,” Akiko beg, trying not to ruin the little makeup she put on her daughter. "It's just for tonight."

"It will only be tonight," Sachie said mockingly, imitating her mother, "next week it will be two other dinners with two different families."

Haruto watched the scene from outside and looked furiously at his daughter, who, out of fear, stopped talking back and let her mother finish her makeup. An hour later, they left for the Kinomoto house. The evening passed, and although the suitor family were interested, Sachie's attitude made all interest in continuing and getting engaged disappear.

During the winter of 1889, Tooru finally passed away from pneumonia, leaving Haruto as the head of the small family and owner of the apothecary. Tooru left his last words to his granddaughter in a letter dedicated to her.

"Sachie, I ask you to remember everything I taught you. You know how chaotic your father's world is: noisy, which only values money. The lessons I taught you over these years have given you patience and a calmer view of the world that values what is truly important: your ideals and your dreams. I see you as an equal, not only as a woman that can give only heirs. Fight for what you consider your truth.”

Adopting these words, Sachie began her rebellion. She went out alone to look for ingredients for her medicines. She hid Tooru's books that were her only inheritance. She began to fail to show up for her meetings with people who were courting her.

When she turned 22, these events stopped happening. Sachie, and consequently, her family, were already marked. No one was interested in meeting that girl who liked to get her hands dirty with soil.

That period had a certain calm, and Haruto realized that there were still important customers who sought the traditional medicines they once bought from Tooru. He began to lie about the origin of the medicines. He said he bought them from small merchants.

The customers who bought these medicines praised him for the ointments and recommended him for the syrups and powders for coughing. Haruto, in his pride, could not accept that they were his daughter's medicines. He thought they would stop visiting the apothecary if someone found out.

During the summer of 1890, during a truly heavy drought, an elegant woman entered the Apricot Apothecary. Haruto, seeing her, noticed a certain air of authority, and elegance in her way of walking. That woman looked at him judgmentally, but he noted that she had a certain air of concern.

"I need effective medicine for heat stroke," that woman began to say without even greeting him.

Without answering, Haruto gave some options to that woman, who watched in silence and listened to the explanations and advice to soothe the pain the patient was suffering. The woman thanked him, paid, and left the place satisfied.

Haruto wondered if that woman had a son the age of one of his daughters and thought about whether he could introduce her to that woman's family. His only chance for that year was to introduce Himawari. At least Akiko had succeeded in her second daughter's education, and she was his only option for social advancement. Sachie was already a lost cause.