Special Project

The date is now Friday, 19th April.

Nothing of importance happened after Yukimura hung up on me.

It’s not that I’m skipping events here, it’s just that while I might’ve promised a confrontation with Watanabe, playing detective (and e-stalker) for an entire day had completely sapped my mental battery—so I changed my mind. The fact he came back in a soccer kit instead of a tracksuit may or may not have also contributed to that decision.

All I wanted was some rest and relaxation.

I wasn’t really keen on playing Crewmate anymore.

In any case, Watanabe didn’t make it particularly difficult to ignore him—since he avoided all eye contact and immediately hightailed it to his room. Forget ‘no honorific’, the man disregarded greetings now. Whatever he was trying to hide, I decided that I wouldn’t care for the rest of 18th April—and so after eating some instant udon for dinner I went back to my room and fell asleep at some point.

Which leads us to the current moment.

In the narrative present.

I am—walking to school.

Usually, walking around Tokyo at this time of the year would be accompanied by at least a few late-blooming species of sakura—but the inside of Kitazawa High School’s campus had none. Where there were trees, they were young and of the genetically modified, fast-growing variety, and you could tell because of how skinny their trunks looked. The rest of the greenery consisted of just shrubs and bushes, which made it feel like an urban jungle filled with plants as an afterthought for some environmental quota.

In other words, it was dull.

Perhaps in ten or fifteen years it wouldn’t feel so obviously landscaped, but for now, I despised the daily walk from the dormitory to the school building because of this. My old commute to middle school had always taken me past beautiful scenery—and at this point in spring, it would’ve definitely included at least one sighting of sakura.

Get it? Sakura.

“Arara? Mizuhara-kun, is that you?” a voice called behind me.

...Maybe that monologue wasn’t as clever as I thought.

But 150 words of blatant foreshadowing aside, I’d somehow run into beautiful scenery on my 5-minute commute to school.

Turning around, I saw my classmate with her blue hair tied into a ponytail—and while I wasn’t a female hair expert by any means (I had to google ‘dutch bob’ after seeing it used as a description in a light novel) I noticed Sakura’s ponytail was tied differently compared to her tracksuit look. Her hair was gathered at a lower point, and as irrelevant as that sounds, it really played a part in disguising her freakish athleticism since it accentuated her girl next door energy so much.

Probably why I’d pegged her as a generic people-pleaser until yesterday.

Jogging to close the distance between us, Sakura flashed a smile that rivaled the sun in terms of its radiance.

“My goodness, it really is Mizuhara-kun! How lucky.”

“Oh, er, good morning… I didn’t realise anyone else walked to school this late.”

Speaking of walking to school late, my daily routine involved waking up at 8.15am and getting to class 1 minute before Mishima-sensei did at 8:30—so the fact I ran into Sakura was bordering on disconcerting.

“Ahaha,” she laughed. “I guess you could say I live life on the edge.”

“Eh.”

Press (X) to doubt. X.

After exchanging some pleasantries, we ended up walking and talking at the same time.

“I’m curious, Sakura-san—how did you know it was me from behind?”

“Everyone has their own unique gait, don’t they? I could tell based on how your hips swayed.”

“Based… on how my hips swayed?”

She tilted her head. “Hmm? It’s not like you’re super tall or large or anything like that, and everyone wears the same school uniform. Was there supposed to be a different way?”

“Uh, no, not really…”

“I’m sure that if you saw someone that looked like me from behind, you’d also be checking out my hips to confirm it.”

“Of course.”

I mean, she had blue hair, I was the type of guy who looked at his feet while climbing stairs behind a girl, and more importantly no high schooler does that—but she sounded so earnest, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

She had that type of childlike innocence which felt criminal to snuff out.

“By the way, I’m very sorry our conversation got interrupted yesterday,” she said.

“Huh? You mean with Mari?”

“Oh, no no no. I meant in class. We were talking about the STD System, right?”

“We talk to each other?”

This was news to me.

“That’s not a funny joke.” Sounding genuinely disappointed, Sakura shook her head. “You shouldn’t be saying things like that to a friend. And don’t you remember? You were about to tell me how you felt regarding school, but then Ruri-chan and Junpei-kun cut you off.”

“Oh. You’re right, something like that did happen.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, actually.

Who’s Ruri-chan? Is she cute?

More importantly, this was the second time she went about the friend thing so casually—to be honest, it reminded me a bit of Watanabe—but to be honest again, I found it endearing. This wasn’t a double standard or anything, okay? It had nothing to do with Sakura being pretty, okay?

“I’m glad you remember, Mizuhara-kun,” she smiled. “But please don’t forget me ever again.”

“Yehywyegh.”

“Is that Arabic?”

“N-no, something just got stuck in my throat…”

‘Don’t forget me?’ Was she trying to raise her own death flag?

Thankfully, I wasn’t a piano prodigy, so I didn’t have to worry about lies in April or anything of the sort.

“Well, I hope you’re feeling better,” Sakura said, completely unbothered. “By the way, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you—do you mind somewhat sensitive questions?”

“I guess it depends. But generally speaking, I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t tell you, so go ahead.”

“Uhm… okay.”

Taking a deep breath, Sakura looked at me with unadulterated concern.

“Are you struggling with a learning disability, by any chance?”

“What the hell? What kind of question is that?!”

“D-do you not?” she asked, somehow shocked. “I just thought with your grades and all—”

“Of course not! I’m perfectly functional! And preface that with a ‘no offense’ next time!”

Did I really look mentally challenged?

Maybe Yukimura was onto something…

“I-I’m so sorry! I didn’t realise you would get so angry,” Sakura cowered.

“Wait, no... Don’t get the wrong idea, I'm not angry. More like shocked. I just thought when you said ‘sensitive’ it would be more like… you know.”

“‘You know’?”

“Yeah, you know.”

“No..?”

There was no way I was going to explain this to her.

I thought Sakura was going to ask something like, ‘Are you really dating Mari?’ And then I’d answer no, after which she’d be like, ‘Oh, thank goodness…’ and blush. ‘So, that means you’re fair game? Teehee ♥’ would also be very decent.

She slit my throat instead.

“W-well,” I sputtered, “the point is I’m not angry.”

“But you look so scary… like you’ve just witnessed a murder, and now you’re all worked up.”

“...Do people really get ‘worked up’ after witnessing murder? Wouldn’t ‘breaking down’ be more appropriate?”

“Not really. At least from personal experience, I feel like getting worked up is the more appropriate response.”

“You’re scaring me.”

Hopefully, Sakura just confused ‘personal experience’ with a completely different phrase with how casually she threw down that remark.

“Anyway, maybe if I explain why I thought you had a learning disability, it’ll make you less mad. How about that?”

“No, I don’t think that would help...”

“Then how about I let you piggyback on my shoulders for the rest of the walk to school?”

Sakura proceeded to kneel on the pavement for real—and though this was supposedly an apology, all I felt was that I was getting bullied.

“Alright, Mizuhara-kun! Get on my back.”

“Let’s just walk normally…”

“If you’re hesitating because you’re heavy, don’t worry. I can effortlessly squat 100 kilos.”

“Really, I’d rather not…”

Forget getting expelled, I’d get thrown into jail if I took up her offer.

“Aw, fine...” Standing up and dusting off her skirt, Sakura proceeded to cross her arms. “I’m serious about the apology, though. How about I flip up my skirt for you? If I’m not wrong, it’s a sign of friendship between the opposite sexes.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Girls do that all the time for guys they’re close with, right? That’s what Junpei-kun told me.”

“Remind me to have a talk with this ‘Junpei-kun’ later.”

Blinking rapidly, Sakura replied. “Huh? Uh, sure, I guess. Anyway, if you’re not into skirt flipping, how about used underwear? You can have mine as a token of our friendship.”

Hmm. Now I had to think about that one...

Wait, no I didn't!

“I'm not into that kind of stuff!”

In truth, the only reason I said no was because I didn’t want to risk Yukimura or possibly Mari snooping around my room and possibly finding it—otherwise, I would've fully committed to Snifftown.

“Oh,” she sighed. “That’s a shame.”

“Shame indeed...”

“At the rate this conversation is going, we might really end up late for class… How about I just owe you a favour, and you tell me what it is in the future? Like a one-time use ticket.”

“A ticket?”

"Would you prefer if I called it a voucher?"

"Uh, no... It's just... nevermind."

I didn’t have any issues with what she was saying, I just felt that her likening ‘I owe you one’ to a ‘one-time use ticket’ felt much kinkier than it had any right to be.

Nodding enthusiastically, Sakura clapped her hands. “Okay then! It’s settled. By the way, I'll do anything, so don’t be shy.”

“Anything?”

“Yeah, anything.”

“...I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Let’s stop talking for now and focus on making it on time.”

“Mhm!”

As she skipped a few paces in front of me, her blue ponytail swishing from right to left, it was suddenly made clear to me that I needed to protect Sakura Emi from the male population of Kitazawa High School.