"Mikoto-kun!" Mikoto froze, mustering all the bravado he could before turning around to face Akemi Amori, one of the more popular girls in the school. Sakura, whose rant to Mikoto about the misuse of art supplies in the Art Club was interrupted by this girl, shook her head and sighed. She could see where this was going.
"Ah, what a pleasure it is to be graced by the presence of a beauty like you!" Mikoto proclaimed, with a smile worthy of a shoujo manga cover illustration.
Give me a break, Sakura thought, mentally counting down how many seconds Mikoto had before he would become too flustered to flirt. "Hello, Akemi," she muttered, but Akemi ignored her.
"Aw, you're such a sweetheart, Mikoto-kun! You're still coming over today to help me bake treats for the Music Club, right?"
"Of course, how could I refuse to help a lady in need?"
"What a smooth talker you are!" Akemi laughed lightly, then stood up on her tiptoes and quickly kissed his cheek. "Then it's date," she whispered, winking.
Mikoto's mouth fell open. "A d-d-d-date?" The color in his cheeks rivaled the red of his hair.
"Oh, what's this? Lost your silver tongue?" Mikoto tried to respond, but the circuits between his brain and his mouth were fried, and he couldn't speak. Akemi was cute, and everyone in the school expected them to get together, but it was too much pressure, he would never last, and now he that he had confirmed he was coming over, he couldn't come up with any last minute excuses and oh my God what I am going to do about this now, she's going to expect me to be this charming knight in shining armor and- His racing thoughts were interrupted by a loud thud from behind. He whipped around and saw Sakura laying on the ground, unconscious. "O-oh no! She passed out!"
"Someone get the nurse!" a nearby student called out.
Sakura needed help, but Mikoto had to get out of there, and fast. A horrible idea formed in his mind… He quickly looped one arm under her legs and the other under her back. "There's n-no time! I'll t-take her to the nurse's office!" Picking up someone who had just fainted probably wasn't the proper thing to do, but Mikoto needed to get away from Akemi (who stood by looking completely impassive). Helping Sakura was the perfect opportunity, even though it was a little selfish… Okay, extremely selfish.
"The hospital," Sakura whispered, barely audible. Mikoto jumped and nearly dropped her back on the floor. "The hospital!" she whispered again, more forcefully this time. "The hospital takes longer!"
He realized she had faked her collapse onto the floor for his sake, and he grinned to himself for a moment, feeling both relief that she was alright and guilt for wanting to take advantage of the spectacle, then declared, "I think she hit her head! I'm taking her to the hospital! Everyone, move out of the way, this is an emergency!"
Does he have to be so dramatic? Sakura internally rolled her eyes. But the diversion worked, and Mikoto left Akemi behind, navigating through the confused students and barely managing to run to a secluded grove on the campus before dropping Sakura roughly on the ground. "Ow!"
"Sorry… you're… heavier than I thought," he panted.
Sakura sat up and smacked his leg. "You don't say that to a girl."
"I… yeah." Once he caught his breath, he looked over his shoulder back at the school. "I don't think anyone saw us go here."
"After your horrible acting, I don't think anyone really believes you're taking me to the hospital. No one's going to try to follow us there."
"Hey, now, Hori-san thought I was perfect when I helped Yuu-san practice her lines as the prince!"
"He just didn't want to hurt your feelings!"
Mikoto sat down next to Sakura, laughing, then he paused and said, "Thanks for getting me out of a date with Akemi. If I'd known she was going to say that, I wouldn't have agreed to come over in the first place."
"You probably still would have, since you're too caught up in flirting to realize what you say sometimes." She played with a few blades of grass at her fingertips before turning towards him and smiling. "But you're welcome. You know I'll always be there for you."
Mikoto didn't expect his heart to skip a beat at those words, but he felt like he had just slammed into a brick wall. He had always found Sakura to be attractive, but in this moment… the two of them, alone in the grove… the wisps of orange hair waving gently in the breeze, the fiery violet in her eyes that contrasted with the soft pink of her lips… Sakura chuckled uncomfortably, feeling a bit unnerved under his gaze. "Wh-what is it?"
"I… um…" Mikoto didn't finish his sentence, but instead reached out to straighten one of the ribbons in her hair that had been moved out of place when he had plopped her on the ground. His hand started to trail down to her cheek, but he pulled away suddenly and sat on top of his hands.
"Haha… thanks…" Sakura stood up and laughed a bit more, trying to dispel the lingering awkwardness. Was that my imagination or was he about to kiss me? "Um… I guess I'll head home now. See you around, okay? Just tell Akemi you're at the hospital with me and don't want to leave me alone."
"Okay." Mikoto murmured, trying fruitlessly to hide his face behind his long bangs so she couldn't see the inevitable blush that would begin creeping up his cheeks any moment now. Once she had walked a bit away, he couldn't help but look up to watch the sway of her hips. Like her other features, it was something he liked that he had already noticed before, but he had kept it on the periphery of his awareness until now. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, thinking that the voluptuous figures he kept at home lacked the charm and grace of his heroine.
Postscript: I addressed this in an author's note in one of the later chapters (a note that I'll delete later), but I confused myself with some of the high school years of the characters (which is funny to me because I literally stared at the wiki pages for hours RIP), so for the sake of convenience, just pretend that Sakura and Seo are in the same class as Wakamatsu. This chapter is intended to take place during Sakura's second year/Mikoto's third year.