Cherry Blossom

Chapter 5 - Cherry Blossomblue

“All right class, before we begin today’s lesson, for some reason we’ve got another transfer student.” Akamine-sensei was packing out her stuff after the morning break ended. “Be nice to her and all that.”

A commotion rose in class, just like the time Noa transferred in, but this time Keisuke was confident in who that person may be. A short and brown-haired human girl with glasses walked in.

“Nice to meetcha! I’m Sakura Ashikaga.”

“Anything else?” Akamine-sensei raised an eyebrow.

“Well, if you insist. That guy right there, Keisuke, is going to be mine, and we’ll get married. Mark my words!”

“WHAT!?” Keisuke couldn’t believe his ears.

The class once again erupted in chaos and chatter, while Akamine-sensei just sighed, probably thinking back on both Noa’s and now Sakura’s stupid intros.

What in the world is she saying?

“It’s good to see you, Sakura, but we won’t be getting married.” Keisuke replied after shaking his disbelief.

“Oh? So you already knew each other?” Noa teased.

“You’re not helping! And didn’t you already know?”

Noa just mischievously shrugged at Keisuke’s remark.

“Please don’t waste our time.” Akamine-sensei interrupted. “Your seat is the one next to Fujimori-san.”

“Sorry and thanks!” Sakura went to her seat and flopped down. “Nice to meet you! You must be Cho-san, right?”

“Yes, nice to meet you too.”

“This is a bizarre sight…” Keisuke noted.

They couldn’t talk much in Akamine-sensei’s classes, but after those came home economics, where they got put into groups of six. Keisuke got put together with Cho, Noa, Sakura and two more familiar faces from the original timeline: Giichi, a male niji-human from the Yellow Clan, and his human girlfriend, Emi Nakamura. Giichi had short black hair and a lively personality, while Emi was a more introverted person with long black hair.

“Yo, Keisuke!” Giichi greeted them. “And nice to meet everyone else! Just call me Giichi.”

Emi shyly bowed to them, hiding behind Giichi.

In our original timeline, Giichi was one of the few survivors because he was absent that day. I’ve heard that he had a crash-out with the Yellow Clan, and since Emi-san wasn’t among the survivors, he couldn’t continue on living...

“Yo, Giichi and Emi-san! How’s it going?”

“All good, nothing new. What about you?”

“Everything’s fine. I wouldn’t say that there’s nothing new, but..."

“Are the rumors true, Keisuke-kun?” Emi spoke up quietly.

“Rumors?”

“You haven’t heard? Well, this isn’t the best place to discuss it, but let’s just say your group of four has been the talk of the town.”

“Well, it doesn’t surprise me that much with these two goofballs on the team.” Keisuke pointed at Noa and Sakura, who were studying the recipe already.

“What do you mean, Keisuke? And who is this Noa-san?” Sakura asked.

“I don’t know who you are either, Sakura-san. And if you want to marry Kei-kun, you’ll have to prove you’re worthy first.”

“Why are you acting like you’re my mom? And relax; I’ll explain everything you want to know. See what I mean?”

“Yeah, they’re a lively bunch for sure.”

“Scary…” Giichi and Emi agreed in different ways.

“Why don’t we try to focus on making the best curry and salad we can?” Cho tried to get everyone’s attention.

“You’re right. We’ll get scolded if we don’t get to work. How about we split our group in half? I’ll make a curry with Giichi and Emi-san, and you guys will make our salad. Sounds good?”

“Yes.”

“Fine by me.”

“Can I put blueberries in the salad?”

“Discuss it with Sakura and Cho-chan.”

“You can if you tell me a little about your relationship with Keisuke.”

“Okay, let’s leave them be…”

Keisuke turned his attention to Giichi and Emi. They discussed the way they were going to make their curry, allocated the roles amongst each other and started cooking.

Keisuke and his group managed to make a pretty good-tasting and looking curry, and surprisingly, Noa’s half of the team also made an edible salad, though with somewhat interesting elements. 

To their luck that day, the last period got cancelled, so everyone was able to go home early. Keisuke, Noa, Cho and Sakura said their goodbyes to Giichi and Emi, and the four of them decided to walk home together.

“So, Kei-kun, how did you two get to know each other? I’ve never heard you mention Sakura-san.” Cho started the conversation.

“We met in prep school, but we weren't aiming for the same high school, so we didn’t talk much.”

“Really? You seem pretty close for people who ‘barely talked’.” Noa teased.

"Ooh, shut up, you blueberry…”

“Hehehehe…”

“Why did you end up transferring then, Sakura-san?”

“I didn’t like the environment and the people there. Plus, I get to squeeze Keisuke’s man bun this way.”

“Huh…”

“Don’t make it sound weird!”

“Are you flustered?”

“No.”

“Yeah, right…” Noa chuckled.

They continued with some idle chatter, going past beautiful cherry blossoms, when Cho had to part ways.

“My home is this way. See you guys next week!”

Everyone waved and said their goodbyes, and thus remained three.

“Sakura-san, you came from the future, right?”

“I don’t know what you might mean…”

“It’s fine; you don’t have to pretend. She’s our ally, and she also came from our timeline.”

“But how?”

“She snuck into our space station.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“That’s exactly what I said as well.”

“Tehee…” Noa made a quirky face. “Anyway, so you were like an assistant researcher in our timeline, right?”

“Correct. And what’s your correlation?”

“I want to save Cho-chan. And Kei-kun as well. They are my best friends.”

“I didn’t hear anything about you from Keisuke, though.”

“They don’t remember much about me currently. And there’s a reason for that, but it’s not important right now. I assume you also want to help, right?”

“Indeed. My family is quite rich, so I can provide any material we’ll need.”

“Aren’t you a shameless one?" Keisuke said.

“Didn’t you know that already?”

“You’re right…”

“Ooh, so you wouldn’t mind buying me a couple boxes of blueberries?”

“Depends.”

“Wanna use my place for all your tech and research stuff?”

“I think Noa-chan’s place would be good if all we wanted was to research something, but since we potentially want to make tools or even weapons, I think my house would be better. My parents have a business apartment they always stay in, so they are never home, and even if they were to come home, they always notify me ahead of time. Our second floor is basically just my room and a guest room, so they never go up, and thus it would be perfect as a base.”

“Instead of that long speech, just say you want to have two girls over at your house. Right, Noa-san?”

“It’s not really that special, though, is it? We’ve been to each other’s places often in the original timeline, and even in this one, Kei-kun has been to my place already.”

“HUH? What? But I have never...”

“Your teasing backfired, Sakura. You’re the only one with a dirty mind here.”

“Fine! Take me right there, right now!”

“Right now? You guys don’t have to come over right away.”

“I actually don’t have a place to stay, so I was hoping for your assistance.”

“Okay, I don’t even know how to react anymore.” Keisuke facepalmed. “You can have the guest room for a while, but please find yourself an apartment in the meantime.”

“If you trust her that much, I don’t have to worry, right?” Noa asked.

“Yeah. I won’t let her do anything to me; don’t worry.”

“Hey!” Sakura shouted when Noa ran ahead of them, turned around, smiled and said:

“Cho-chan and I will be coming over sometime, so Sakura-san, you better be ready to be evaluated by Kei-kun’s two best friends.”

“I’ll show you my resolve.”

“Good.” She grinned ear-to-ear.

“What are you so happy about?” Keisuke asked.

“It’s a secret!”

After parting ways with Noa, Keisuke and Sakura entered the Higashi residence. Keisuke guided Sakura to the guest room, offered her a bath, a change of clothes from her mother’s wardrobe and dinner, which she gladly accepted.

“Sorry, but we only have instant ramen right now.”

“No worries, but we’ll have to go shopping, because it isn’t healthy to just keep on eating this. I’ve told you this many times in the space station too."

“Yeah, you did. And you’re right.” Keisuke sighed with a wry smile, slurping up his instant ramen noodles. “By the way, if you don’t have a place to stay, then where is all your stuff?”

“They are still back home in Osaka. I’ll arrange for someone to bring them over.”

“That’s quite far.”

“They’ll get paid a hefty amount.”

“All right…”

After dinner, Keisuke went to his room and laid down on his bed.

We’ll definitely avoid this tragic event. We have to. It’s not just for Cho-chan and us. It’s also for people like Emi-san and Giichi. Now I’m getting nervous...

What if it happens again? What if we won’t be able to stop him? Am I ready to face that outcome? Am I ready to dedicate my everything to this? Would I be able to build another time machine, even if we failed? Wouldn’t it be better if we were to just run away?

Suddenly snapping out of his thoughts, he heard a knock on the door.

“Come in…” He sat up.

“Hey, Keisuke… Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

Sakura came into Keisuke’s room. At first, she nervously looked around, then she walked over to Keisuke and sat next to him on his bed.

“I just wanted to tell you that; if something's on your mind, I would love to hear you out. You tend to overthink sometimes, but you don’t need to worry. We’ll definitely succeed!”

Keisuke’s heart softened as he patted Sakura’s head.

“Thanks! I really appreciate it. Can I take you up on that offer another time?”

“Yeah. It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it right now. I’ll wait for as long as you need.” She patted Keisuke on his back in turn, then after a little while, she stood up. “Good night, Keisuke!”

“Good night, Sakura!”

Sakura went back to the guest room, and Keisuke once again laid back down and soon after fell asleep.

I wonder how long it has been since someone has said ‘good night’ like that to me. Thank you… I’m truly grateful.