A/N: I'd like to thank those of you who have re-followed this story. It's very encouraging. For those of you who requested to beta read our stories, we have to decline for now. Also, Aizenbashi Hospital is an actual hospital located within the Naniwa ward of Osaka. About character appearances, I'm taking it from the anime. I feel it adds more to their style (since a majority of the characters are described to have brown eyes in the manga).

To the unnamed guest—

I'm pleased it seems interesting so far. It' s unfortunate, but it's a struggle to write with my schedule nowadays, so you'll (everyone will) have to bear with irregular updates. Thank you for reading so far!

ブライアーローズ

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Briar Rose

Nobara's Side

The hot weather began at lunch and persisted through the last class of the term.

Precisely half an hour before the end of the lecture, I was staring at the clock above the entrance to our classroom and silently licking my chapped lips. The lip balm I applied before the start of the period had dried out completely in this burning heat.

I never heard the end of people's complaints concerning our classroom's rising room temperature. What was the use of complaining about something they could not control? If anything, the heat haze had lulled me into a deep slumber. I couldn't even recall what I was doing before I slipped into a state of nothingness.

Then as I slept on my desk, I thought to myself about a lot of things—

The errands I would run for my mother after school.

The steaming trays of takoyaki I would share with my little brother.

The few, but memorable moments I spent laughing with my father.

Many other things I cannot remember because they were all a part of one strange, collective dream; which came to an end with someone's faint voice telling me to wake up.

I didn't move.

I didn't open my eyes.

I felt incredibly exhausted and as much as the sun made my back sweat; I didn't care about it. I was comfortable and content with where I was, and my head refused to bring itself up from my desk.

'Wake up.'

The voice had become borderline commanding and grabbed my attention.

A small sigh left my lips. Slowly, I opened my eyes to the brightly lit classroom. My eyes narrowed to the light that invaded my vision and once I was able to focus, I noticed a boy standing beside my desk. It was one of the guys that sat at the very front of the classroom beside the window. I recognized his hair, a sandy brown that shone like silver in the sunlight.

Wide, gray eyes were staring down at me.

It was Shiraishi Kuranosuke, one of the brighter students of 1-4.

He stood there with his arms across his chest and his attention was trained on me. If someone was looking in from the outside, perhaps they would have assumed that he was a creep who liked to watch sleeping girls. My eyes narrowed at him. Shiraishi just leaned against the desk behind him, clearly studying me.

I couldn't stop the scowl that spread across my face. I opened my mouth and was prepared to tell him off bitterly, but at that moment, I noticed just how empty the classroom was. I broke eye contact and scanned the room from left to right. I remember thinking frantically: how much time had passed? My gaze shot up at the analog ticking away at the front of the classroom.

'Everyone just left.' Shiraishi had reassured me.

Inwardly, I gave a sigh of relief.

He leaned further back onto the desk behind him. 'You'll get heat stroke if you stay here any longer.'

Despite his words, he looked as if he was enjoying it himself. He tilted his head back and let the sun's rays beat on his face.

Hypocrite.

I didn't want to stay in his prescence any longer. My legs moved on their own and brought my body out of my seat. Mumbling a curt thank you, I packed the scattered papers on my desk into my bag and walked past the strange boy. I made no hurry out of the classroom, but I ended up colliding with another student in his sweaty, white uniform shirt.

The impact caused me to take one step back into the classroom and snap out of my lasting daze. I looked up to unruly, lightly colored brown hair and sharp, dark cerulean eyes. The boy stepped aside with a slight blush of embarrassment and scratched the back of his head. He looked down at me and apologized very sincerely.

For some reason, I couldn't help but smile before nodding at him. He resembled a guilty grade school student apologizing to an angry teacher.

'Oshitari?'

I walked back into the hall and heard Shiraishi calling out to someone; most likely the boy who had hurried into the classroom. Reaching a hand behind my neck, I wiped away the disgusting drops of sweat that trickled down my nape. The roots of my hair were beginning to feel greasy as well. Perhaps it was a good thing that Shiraishi woke me up.

I wanted nothing more than a long, cold shower.

Otonashi opened her eyes.

She woke up with her hair dried and fanned out on the floor. The teen laid under her family's dining table and opened her eyes to the ceiling fan circulating above her. Her mother, Erika, emerged from the kitchen with a thin, glass vase of fresh flowers in her hands.

Humming a sweet tune, the older woman went down on her knees beside her daughter's head and positioned the vase at the center of the table. As she picked at her floral piece, Erika spoke to her daughter. "You've been quiet after your shower. Lost in thought?"

Yawning, Otonashi propped herself up beside her mother and drew her legs into a criss-cross. "I'm sorry if I worried you. This heat got me groggy in class." The lounging girl kept the other half of the truth to herself. There was no way she would admit sleeping in class to her mother. Smoothly, she digressed the conversation. "So what kind of flowers are they this time?" The teen studied the delicate flowers placed across the table.

"Do you like them? They're carnations." Erika rested her arm on the mahogany wood and admired them fondly. "The florist in the hospital had an overstock and offered it for grabs on our floor last night."

Bundled up so close together, the frilly flowers in the vase looked like one delicate puffball of pink. Otonashi wasn't fond of its vivid color, but the bouquet her mother arranged created an interesting effect.

"They are lovely," Otonashi admitted to her. "Even if it's a little too bright for my tastes."

"Aa, that's right," Her mother pressed the back of her hand to her lips and chuckled lightly. "No-chan hates pink."

"I don't hate pink," She emphasized the strong word. "And don't call me that." Otonashi wasn't fond of that endearment either.

As if on cue, her chocolate haired little brother came flying out of the young teen's room yelling. "No-chan, No-chan!"

Before the elder sister could even react, she was run down by him in a second and hugged tightly around her waist.

"Shion, how many times have I told you to stop running inside the house?" Otonashi ruffled the boy's messy hair. "And who gave you permission to be in my room again?"

Pouting, the first grader removed himself away from her and ran into his mother's embrace.

"That's my fault." Their mother gently brushed her son's hair from of his face. "I didn't tell him to clean his room when I came back home."

The teenager would find that troublesome kid loitering in her room when his was a mess.

"It's not your fault okaa-san," Otonashi ran a hand through her long strands of hair and reassured her tired mother. "I just hope he didn't damage anything."

The last time Shion was in her room, he was jumping on her bed as if it were a trampoline and knocked down one of the potted plants she had received from her mother as a gift.

"I'm sure he didn't," She reassured Otonashi as lax as always. "Right, Shi-kun?" Her green eyes glanced down at the boy in her arms affectionately.

Shion grinned up at his mother childishly. Shion very much resembled his mother with his emerald eyes and dark wavy hair. As the doting mother looked upon her child, Otonashi noted the faint, dark circles had formed beneath the skin under her eyes. Her eldest daughter knew her mother's sleepless nights had been adding unnecessary stress to her job over the past few months.

"Oh no." Otonashi's eyes rounded in realization. She immediately picked herself off the floor; almost tripping over her own feet.

Her family's eyes darted up to her frantic form. Her mother was startled by her abrupt transition.

"Nobara?"

Otonashi swiped the keys to the house and her bike lock from a tiny bowl on the kitchen counter and hurried back to the front door.

In haste, she grabbed her bag, shed her socks and slipped into a pair of black wedge slippers.

"I need to pick up your medication from the pharmacy."

"Ah yes." Her mother recalled as well before she started to protest. "Why are you bringing your school bag? And your clothes-"

Despite that, there was no stopping her daughter who was already locking up the door from the outside.

Otonashi was at the front counter of Aizenbashi Hospital's pharmacy counter. Pharmacists in white lab coats were pacing back and forth between shelves of medications and hurriedly taking calls from other departments. It was a common occurrence the teen observed many times to retrieve her mother's medications.

As always, there a male pharmaceutical clerk behind the counter to attend to her. "What can I help you with today, little miss?"

"I'm picking up a monthly medication." She explained to the middle-aged man. "It's for my mother."

"Her name?"

"Otonashi Erika."

As required, Otonashi gave her mother's full name, birthdate and their house phone respectively. After verifying the information on a computer, the man disappeared behind one of the shelves.

In a short while, he emerged with a white bag sealed with a brand of the hospital and slid it towards her from across the counter.

Typically, Otonashi would have taken the medicine after the pharmacist's monotonous farewell and left straight for home, but this pharmacist behind the counter had continued to stare down at her without another word.

A young girl picking up psychotropic medication from a pharmacy was a rare and concerning sight; even if it was for her mother. The nerve-wracking thought of running into one of their neighbors would usually send her back onto her bike. If they were to question her business at the hospital, she would attempt to lie and lead herself into a disastrous scenario.

How could she predict so?

The eldest daughter of the Otonashi household would never try to lie; for the sole reason that she could never make one sound convincing.

A smile grew as the man shifted his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He seemed to notice her nervously chewing the inside of her cheek. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable," He leaned his body over the counter and spoke to Otonashi softly."Your uniform reminded me of my son."

"My uniform?" The school girl gripped the gray ends of her skirt and pulled it outwards as she glanced down at herself. The pharmacist's mouth parted slightly. Then he began chuckling to himself. His laughter was even kind to her ears. Embarrassed, Otonashi shot him a hefty glare and promptly snatched the medicine off the counter. She heard the chuckling man call back to her apologetically. Shoving the packet of medicine into her school bag, the newly irritated girl was thinking about how much she wanted to ditch him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I'm not making fun of you. " He stifled his laughter. "You looked so cute staring down at yourself like that."

Otonashi reluctantly traveled back to the counter and stared up at him with a stern expression. She uttered one word.

"Creep."

Because the man was leaning closer to her, Otonashi caught a better glimpse of the plastic name tag pinned to the right breast of his white lab coat.

There were two neatly printed kanji characters under his pharmaceutical title—

Shiraishi.