"Read it again please, pleaseeee!" The small pink haired girl demanded.

"I've already read it for you twice today Sakura, shouldn't we do something else?"

The small girl reached out with her hand toward the boy who accompanied her on that warm spring day. The sunlight above them cascaded down through the limbs of the ancient tree they rested against, becoming more and more dim as the sun descended upon the city horizon. In her hand was one of her many overly sweet treats she shared with him from time to time. She seemed to be offering it as a type of bribe in order to get him to read for her again, although she failed to mention the fact that she had been licking that same treat prior to realizing it was an important bargaining chip.

The boy sighed.

"Fine," grabbing the lollipop and plopping it into his mouth, wincing slightly at the sudden rush of sweet flavors colliding with his tongue, "but this is the last time today, okay?"

"Fineeee," the girl swayed side to side smiling toothily.

At least, she was smiling until the raven-haired boy next to her collapsed for seemingly no reason. His breath had become labored and his eyes were closed in pain. Beads of sweat had formed on his face as heat radiated from his forehead.

"What's wrong!?" The young girl reached out and grabbed his shoulder, a panicked look on her face.

"Zer… Tw…" He mumbled out under bated breath.

His face had become a ghostly white and his eyes had seemingly rolled into the back of his head.

"Hey, what do I do? Are you okay? Say something, please!" She was becoming more and more worried, tears starting to well in her eyes.

A middle-aged woman that had been taking a leisurely stroll with her partner had noticed the commotion and was now rushing toward the two of them. Her partner appeared to be calling an ambulance, they seemed to realize the severity of the situation. Sakura was so afraid, she didn't want to lose him, she couldn't lose him. Tears were flowing from her eyes, and her small heart was racing with confusion and worry.

"W-what's wrong with him?" She choked out toward the older woman who was carefully examining the boy.

She shot Sakura a comforting smile, however, the worry was written all over her face.

"He's gonna be alright just trust me," the older woman said glancing at her partner who was now approaching, still on the phone.

It wasn't long before paramedics had arrived, the last thing she remembered from that day was watching through teary eyes as her only friend was carted away by an ambulance.


Sakura had left the house despite her mother's persistent claims that she'd only be a bother to his parents should she decide to visit him. Stubborn was an understatement for what Sakura was however, and so she continued her walk through the snowy wind toward the front door of what had become something of a second home for her over the past year. She raised her hand to knock on the door, but hesitated slightly, head looking up toward the window of Hiro's room and then traveling down to her feet. Was it really okay for her to show up like this? After all, she was probably the one that caused all this trouble to begin with…

To her surprise, the door in front of her swung open. She looked up to meet the blue eyes of the woman that was her companion's mother.

"What are you doing out here by yourself Sakura?" The black haired woman questioned, "It's freezing, hurry inside."

Sakura didn't step inside, fists clenched at her side as she buried her face deeper into the red scarf she wore around her neck. She was welcoming her inside? Sakura had expected to be turned away, to be told to come again at a better time, but instead… The older woman noticed how tense she was and gently smiled as she leaned down to pull Sakura into an embrace.

"He's alright you know? I'm sure he'd love to see you, so come inside will you?" Hiro's mother spoke soothingly to Sakura.

Sakura sniffled a bit, trying not to cry and when she was released from the embrace, she followed the older woman inside. Together they peered inside the dimly lit room Hiro was resting in, his face was pale, but his breath was steady, which seemed to give Sakura a bit of comfort as she rushed to his bedside to examine him.

He stirred slight from his rest and she silently cursed herself for her hasty approach. It seemed to be a false alarm however, as his eyes remained closed and he soon ceased rustling under the covers that he was cocooned in.

"The doctors couldn't find anything major wrong with him," the older woman said quietly from behind Sakura, "they told us it's most likely just a fever and it'd be best to just let his body recover to the best of its ability."

"So he's going to be okay?" Her eyes wide with and full of hope.

"Yep, I'm certain he's not the type to let something as simple as a fever take him out. Don't you think so too?"

Sakura nodded, and then returned her attention to the boy in the bed taking seat in the uncomfortable wooden chair placed temporarily at his bead side.

"Can I stay here for a while?" Sakura asked innocently, not wanting to leave his side in fear that the second she looked away he would fade to nothing.

Another warm smile and nod from his mother was all she needed as she leaned herself onto his bed side gripping onto his hand and squeezing gently. After the older woman had left, Sakura began to lose track of time as she gently played with the boy's fingers. She thought of the first time they met, when he reached out to her like none of the other children ever seemed to do. She always struggled with other children, her temperament made her more quick to anger than most. You could always tell when she was in one of her dangerous moods when her eyes glowed red like a , even after learning about that side of her, Hiro was never afraid, he never cowered away from her. Instead, he was always the one to pull her back to Earth, to keep her emotions from running wild. For the first time in her adolescence, she finally felt like she had a chance to fit in normally with him. She absolutely could not let him disappear. She had to protect him.

Time continued to pass until Sakura's fatigue finally gave into sleep as she collapsed completely onto Hiro's bedside. Still clinging onto the hand that had reached out and changed her life forever.


"Sakura?" Ichigo questioned, pulling the emerald eyed girl out of her day-dream. "Are you feeling alright? You haven't touched your ice cream…"

"A-ah, I'm fine, just a bit tired," Sakura said, half smiling as she was pulled back into the present by the voice of her friend.

Kokoro, Miku, Ichigo, Ikuno, and Sakura had decided to meet up at one of the mall plazas spaced throughout New Tokyo as a sort of girl's day out. They all wanted to meet up in order to discuss one of the group projects they had decided to work on together. At least, that was their excuse for going out to find something appropriate to wear to the upcoming festival and relax on their off-day.

"She was probably too busy thinking about you-know-who to even fall asleep," Ikuno joked.

Sakura rolled her eyes in response while Miku snickered at the comment.

"And who might you be thinking about right now, Ikuno?" Sakura questioned with a sly smile, finally beginning to dig into her strawberry ice cream.

Ikuno was caught off guard by the comment, and her face reddened as she glanced quickly in the direction of a certain blue haired girl, before returning her gaze to her hands.

"N-no one in particular, why?"

It was Sakura's turn to snicker, she pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time and sighed once she saw how much of her day had disappeared.

"Are you happy with what you picked out?" Ichigo said gesturing toward the shopping bag at Sakura's feet.

"Mm, it's not anything spectacular, but I think Darling will certainly like it," Sakura said with a smile.

"Darling?Eh…" Miku mused with a grin.

Sakura ignored Miku's attempts to tease her and Ichigo continued on with their conversation.

"That's good," Ichigo smiled, "I know you said your just tired, but if something's bothering you feel free to talk to me about it! You've seemed out of it this whole week…"

"I'm fine mom," Sakura joked, trying to avoid the topic while absorbing herself in the bursting sweet flavor of strawberry in her mouth.

Ichigo sighed in defeat, but still held onto her slight smile.


Hiro was busy studying for a science exam when his father informed him of his unexpected, but not surprising, visitor.

"Yo," Sakura smiled brightly at him.

She was in casual clothing, jean-shorts and a white t-shirt, she had a shopping bag over her shoulder accompanied by her small pink hand-bag. Even in her casual clothing she really did look extraordinarily beautiful to him.

"Done already? I though you guys were going to spend the entire day in town?" Hiro questioned.

"We were feeling pretty tired so we decided to head home a bit early," Sakura said, walking past him into his home as if it were her own.

Before Hiro even had time to say anything else, she was already heading up the steps toward his room.

"I hope you don't expect me to entertain you, I have a big test on Monday you know…" Hiro said matter of factly closing the door behind him as he entered his room behind her.

Sakura tossed her bags to the side and plopped herself down on his bed, making herself comfortable.

"Don't care," she spoke face down into his pillow, "if I went home I'd end up being bored by myself anyways."

Hiro shrugged and returned to his reading on his desk. He was reading about topic of particular interest in their society: yellow blood cells. Their origin in homo-sapiens went back only a thousand years, and were first introduced as a method for humanity to take control of the Franxx that had been used to defend them in the past. Yellow blood cells had no side-effects or functions in low concentration, and yet every human had them. They had integrated themselves into the human genetic code and long outlived their purpose. Nature would suggest their disappearance over time due to this, especially due to the issues YBCs caused at higher concentrations. Children born with abnormally high counts of these cells typically died due to rapid aging and organ failure within a few months after birth. A tragic event that occurred once in every million childbirths.

However, what made this topic so interesting to Hiro was his recognition that he and Sakura were once a part of the original parasites who restarted humanity. There were very few mentions of specific names in the history books, a long list of all the parasites that had contributed to the new beginnings of human society were present in nearly every history text, but the only names put separately were those of the supposed "saviors" of humanity: Hiro, his namesake and former self, and Zero Two. So he knew for certain he had once been a parasite. He'd always been told by his mother that he and Sakura were miracle children, born with absurdly high YBC concentrations and yet showing no symptoms of aging or abnormal growths. Now that he was learning more and more about the nature of the new world he was living in, he couldn't help but wonder if the concentration of yellow blood cells in their blood had something to do with his recollection of vague memories from his previous life. Maybe the blood cells weren't just a problematic byproduct of humanities misguided past.

Silence greeted him after he pulled himself from his thoughts, the girl behind him was being oddly quiet. Spinning his chair around he found the teenaged girl behind him completely passed out, eyes closed in a seemingly blissful sleep and legs pulled up close toward her chest. He smiled to himself, while a storm was raging in his mind, she was sleeping peacefully, there wasn't any better reminder that he was overthinking things again. Rising from his chair he grabbed his extra blanket from the end of the bed and pulled it over her gently. Just as he was turning around to return to his desk he took notice of Sakura's shopping bag, before he had a chance to peak inside he heard a voice growl from behind him.

"Don't," the pink haired girl warned.

Hiro laughed nervously and quickly backed away from the bag, returning to his seat. Sakura rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she sat up slightly leaning on her elbow to look out the window. It had begun to rain.

"Have you been staying up too late recently or what?" Hiro asked jokingly.

"Is it so wrong to want to take a nap every now an again?" Sakura scoffed.

"I suppose not," Hiro shrugged, "but if you're taking a nap because you've been having bad dreams again and can't sleep properly I'd like to hear about it."

He innocently decided to press the issue, she used to have a lot of trouble sleeping as a child due to her vivid nightmares. She still had them occasionally, but luckily they weren't nearly as frequent. Hiro knew if he didn't face her head on with persistence she'd keep everything to herself, and what kind of companion would he be if she let her do that? Oh, how hypocritical he was to think that way though…

She met his eyes for a few moments and finally groaned, falling onto her back.

"It's just the same one as usual," she said, giving in, "we're walking together with my family and then my dad fades away and you disappear along with him. Then it's like an ocean surrounds and no matter how hard a yell or cry my voice get's muffled to nothing."

She shivered slightly at the though of the abyss her mind created at night. Hiro appeared thoughtful for a couple moments. Her dad had died when she very young, and she tended to avoid the topic vehemently except for in moments like these, he knew she alway feared being left behind by others even if she never showed it.

"I'm not going anywhere you know? It's always gonna be just a dream, I promise." Hiro said softly in an attempt to comfort her.

She rolled away from him onto her other side.

"I know," her light blush was hidden from him the words that followed were much quieter, "will you read me the picture book?"

Hiro was slightly caught off-guard by her request, and glanced at his textbook before sighing and moving to retrieve the colorful book from his bookshelf.

"Alright, but after this I'm going to need to get back to studying."

"Fineeee," she sing-songed.

"'In the deepest, darkest part of a forest lived a tribe…" He began.

Sakura would occasionally chime in whenever Hiro read something she particularly liked, but otherwise remained quiet as her breath began to steady. As Hiro finished reading the final page it was clear that she had fallen back asleep. He analyzed the final page of the book and couldn't help but smile to himself.

Let's rewrite the ending together!

The familiar words rang through his head. He returned his focus to Sakura.

"Sweet dreams princess," he joked quietly to himself.

The rhythmic sound of rain was the only noise in the room the two of them shared as the comfortable silence rapped around them in a warm embrace. These were the simple things Hiro valued the most.


AN: And that's that, I was planning on keeping most of the focus on Sakura's perspective this chapter, but I figured interchanging in some of Hiro's perspective would make the chapter flow better toward the end. Most of this stuff is still just build up still, mostly fluff but I hope you guys enjoyed. I'm not sure how many chapters or words this will be by the end, but as I mentioned previously I have a really solid idea of where we'll end up with this story and it's probably not too far off at this point. Anyways, thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favorites as always I plan to stick to the weekly update schedule (5-7 days between chapters if all goes well) since it's given me plenty of time to mill over ideas for this story while also manage other things I have going on.

P.S. I went back and updated the previous two chapters for some grammar stuff, even after proof reading I still find ways to mess that type of crap up. Might need to consider getting into the whole beta-reading thing lol.