"Wait, what do you mean you've been living with your dad Ushio-chan?!" Sakura asks her best friend, in complete shock at what she had just been told by the Okazaki girl. Sakura always had the impression that Ushio's father was a good-for-nothing father, and wanted nothing to do with his own daughter, and that he had to be up to something, or had to have some kind of plan.
"Y-yeah, Dad's back to being himself, and isn't in that dark place that he was stuck in for years, he's not trapped in there anymore." Ushio assures her friend. "I'll tell you about it later at my place, okay Sakura? For now let's just enjoy the school day." Ushio adds, with Sakura agreeing with her friend with a nod, as they continue to walk to their classroom (with Ushio happy upon finding out they were in the same class). As both Ushio, and Sakura walk into their homeroom class, they happily greet their fellow classmates, smiling as they tell them good morning. Afterwards, the two girls take their seats, sitting next to each other, in the second to last row in the back of the classroom. With the two girls happily talking to each other as a boy with black hair, and blue eyes approaches the girls, the boy is clearly nervous about having to make new friends with the other students in the classroom.
"H-hello, its very n-nice to meet the two of y-you, my name is N-Nakano." the boy nervously introduces himself to the girls, who smile at him, and politely introduce themselves.
"Its nice to meet you Nakano-san. I'm Sakura Tomoe."
"And I'm Ushio Okazaki. Its nice to meet you Nakano-san."
"I-it's nice to meet the two of you, Tomoe-san, Okazaki-san." Nakano says, smiling at the two girls.
"It's okay, we won't do anything to you, so you don't need to be so nervous around us." Sakura assures Nakano, "Ushio-chan might be a little too energetic at times, but she wouldn't hurt anyone on purpose." she adds, with Ushio smiling at her best friend
"Hey, that happened one time! You'll never let me forget about that will you?" Ushio laughs. "Besides, I'm not able to run around as much as I could back then." she adds in thought, not wishing to make her friends worry about her and about the illness that she has. Ushio was brought out of her thoughts by Nakano who was asking her a question regarding the Furukawa family.
"By the way, Okazaki-san, during the entrance ceremony, I saw you with the owners of Furukawa Bakery, I was wondering if you were related to them?"
"Yeah, Sanae-san, and Akki are my grandparents, from over on my mom's side. My dad married their daughter, Nagisa Furukawa. Both Sanae-san, and Akki had taken care of me back when I was born due to… the circumstances at the time." Ushio answers Nakano
"I'm sorry, and Akki is?" Nakano asks the Okazaki, with Sakura answering the boy.
"Akki is the name Ushio-chan calls Akio Furukawa by, from my understanding, he hates being called 'Grandpa' by Ushio-chan." Sakura informs the boy.
"I see, so the owners of Furukawa Bakery are Okazaki-san's grandparents." Nakano says, "They had once told me that they had a granddaughter my age, so then that would be Okazaki-san." he adds.
"Yep, that's right!" Ushio nods, "Do you go to the bakery often?"
"Yes, my family are good friends with your grandparents, and I've gotten to know them myself over the years." Nakano says. "So, then I take it that the blue haired man that was with you during the day of the entrance ceremony would be your father?"
"That's right." Ushio nods, as Sakura bites her tongue, still not liking the idea of Ushio living with her father. "Dad might look kind of scary at times, but he's actually a really nice person." the Okazaki girl adds. Shortly afterwards, the homeroom teacher walks into the room, and introduces herself, with the students calling her Hirasawa-sensei. With her introduction of the way, and after taking attendance, the homeroom class starts as the sound of a bell rings throughout the school.
"Okazaki-san, may I speak with you?" Hirasawa asks, with the student, standing up and nervously walking over to the teacher's desk, wondering if she did anything wrong.
"Did I do something wrong Hirasawa-sensei?" Ushio asks the teacher, with Hirasawa giving the girl a smile as she answers her student.
"No, no, you didn't do anything wrong Okazaki-san." Hirasawa begins, "I'm aware of your health problems, and I just wanted to know if there were any signs I should look out for." the teacher says, catching Ushio off guard.
"Well, that's the thing, nobody knows anything about my illness."
"Nothing at all?"
"Only person that Dad knew with my illness was Mom, and she died when I was born. As for signs, the problem is that it can tend to just happen suddenly, like, I'll have a really high fever all of a sudden, stuff like that. It happens the most during the winter, so I should be fine until then." Ushio tells Hirasawa, who nods, while listening to her student.
"I see, so it can be rather unpredictable at times." Hirasawa says, "From my understanding it makes your body, and your health rather fragile, correct?" the woman asks, with Ushio confirming this with a no. "Thank you for your time Okazaki-san, I'll pass this information along to your other teachers." Hirasawa thanks Ushio, with the girl returning to her seat, and resuming her conversation with her friends.
"Hey, Ushio-chan, what did Hirasawa-sensei want to talk to you about?" Sakura curiously asks her friend.
"Hirasawa-sensei wanted to talk about my health problems." Ushio replies
"Health problems? What health problems? Her health was fine the last time I saw her." Sakura ponders, before finally asking about it. "What do you mean? I don't remember you having any health problems."
"A lot has happened since we last saw each other."
"I swear if its something your father did to you-!" Sakura begins before being cut off by Ushio
"No, he didn't do anything to me!" Ushio tells Sakura, wanting to calm her down, "My health has been rather… fragile for years now, I have the same health problems as my mother." Ushio tells both Sakura, and Nakano, letting out a sigh before continuing. "Look, I'll tell you more about all of this later, okay Sakura?" the girl asks, with Tomoe letting out a sigh, as she agrees to drop it for the time being.
"Alright, fine, we'll talk more about this later." Sakura says, and doesn't bring it up again, just like she said she would. As the day goes on Ushio has classes in subjects such as math, English, Japanese, and so on so forth (with Ushio having a hard time with English). Eventually, the school day comes to an end, and Sakura is walking with Ushio to the Okazaki home. Once they reach Ushio's home, Ushio opens the door to let them inside.
"I'm home, and I brought a friend with me!" the girl announces, as Tomoya greets the two girls.
"Welcome home Shio!" Tomoya greets, "Who's your friend?" he asks, smiling at Sakura.
"I'm Ushio-chan's best friend, Sakura Tomoe. We've been friends ever since kindergarten." Sakura introduces herself, bowing as she did so.
"Well, its nice to meet you Tomoe-san." Tomoya replies, "How come we've never met until now though?" he asks, knowing for sure that he had never seen the girl whenever he was at Ushio's kindergarten.
"My family had moved to America. I believe my parents were helping someone named Kotomi Ichinose." Sakura answers, surprising both Okazaki.
"Kotomi Ichinose? Wow, your parents were working with Dad's childhood friend!" Ushio exclaims, remembering the few times she had met Kotomi over the years.
"Really?"
"Yeah, I'm good friends with Kotomi. I guess it really is a small world huh?" Tomoya says.
"Okazaki-san, can I ask you something?" Sakura asks Tomoya
"Sure, what do you want to ask me?"
"I always had the impression that you wanted nothing to do with Ushio-chan, and that you were a good for nothing father, so what changed that? Why did you suddenly come back into my best friend's life, where, she's been telling me that you're no longer the person you were back then, what happened?"
"S-Sakura!" Ushio panics, not expecting that right off the bat, "I-I'm so sorry Dad! She's not usually like this, I swear!" she quickly begins apologizing to Tomoya, who tells her that its alright.
"Don't worry Ushio, she just wants to look out for you." Tomoya assures Ushio. "As for your answer Tomoe-san, its going to be a bit of a long story, is that okay with you?"
"I don't mind."
"Alright then, I take it you've already heard about stuff such as how I had practically abandoned Shio, and had her raised by the Furukawa family. So, I'll start with the day we went to the field of flowers." Tomoya says, as he tells Sakura (with Ushio helping him out).
"So that's how it happened?" Sakura asks, "Its thanks to your grandmother, as well as Ushio-chan's grandparents, that you wanted to become a family with Ushio-chan again." she says to Tomoya, with Ushio responding to her childhood friend.
"That's right." Ushio replies to Sakura, "On the train ride back home, Dad even finally told me about Mom."
"That reminds me, Ushio-chan mentioned something about having the same health problems as her mother, but she never had any problems before my family had moved to America."
"Ah, well you see, Ushio has the same illness as her mother, the problem is, nobody knows anything about it, they don't know how to cure it, or anything. It started affecting Ushio when she was five, sometime after we had gone to the field of flowers." Tomoya answers, clearly not very fond of the memories of when Ushio had first gotten sick due to her illness. "Ushio had become really sick, in fact, it had become so bad that she had nearly died in my arms, its a miracle that she made it through all of that."
"Wait, wait, wait! Ushio-chan had almost died?!" Sakura asks, concerned for her friend's health.
"Yeah, but don't worry! Ever since then, it has never gotten that bad, sure, my fevers are still really high, but, I haven't almost died from my illness ever since that first time." Ushio assures Sakura.
"So, your dad took care of you that entire time Ushio-chan?"
"Yeah, he did, he didn't leave my side."
"... I feel like I should apologize to you, Okazaki-san, I misjudged you, and thought you had some kind of ulterior motive to come back into your daughter's life. Please forgive me!" Sakura apologizes to Tomoya, bowing to the blue haired Okazaki.
"It's alright, I forgive you, I understand that you were just worried about Ushio. I thank you for looking out for my daughter." Tomoya smiles, accepting the apology from Sakura. Sakura, relieved upon hearing Tomoya's words, smiles with the two Okazaki, as they three enjoy talking, and passing the time, with Sakura, and Ushio, happily catching up with each other. Eventually, Sakura notices the picture of Nagisa next to the phone, and walks over to the picture, holding it in her right hand as she examines the photo.
"The woman in this photo, is she Ushio-chan's older sister or something?" the girl asks, getting a laugh out of Tomoya before he answers the girl.
"Actually, that's Nagisa Okazaki, Ushio's mother." Tomoya answers Tomoe, unable to help himself from remembering when Youhei had thought that Sanae was Nagisa's older sister.
"Wow, she's very pretty." Sakura says, "She reminds me a lot of Sanae-san." she adds.
"She was a wonderful woman." Tomoya says, smiling fondly, with Sakura seeing how much both Okazaki loved Nagisa, even though the girl had never been able to meet her mother, Sakura could tell that she still loved her mother very much.
"I wish I could have met her, she sounds like an amazing person. I can tell you both love her very much."
"I wish I could meet Mom too." Ushio agrees with her childhood friend, "Plus, I have to thank her, and Dad for helping me even make it to school today." she adds, sheepishly smiling as she spoke.
"What do you mean Ushio-chan?"
"I was really nervous when walking to school today, I was about to just turn back and go back home, when I remembered a habit Dad once told me about Mom having."
"Oh, you mean the habit where she would say something she wanted to eat, right?" Tomoya assumes, letting out a chuckle as Ushio confirms that was indeed the habit she was talking about.
"Huh?"
"You see Tomoe-san, in order to give herself more courage, Nagisa would say the name of something she wanted to eat. Back when I had first met her, she was in the middle of doing this, back then, she had said anpan out loud, to help give herself the courage to walk up the hill leading up to our high school." Tomoya fondly explains, chuckling at the memory.
"So, then what did you say Ushio-chan?" Sakura curiously asks
"Um… I said… fried rice." an embarrassed Ushio answers, mumbling the last part, as her face turns red from blushing.
"Fried rice eh? Alright then, how about I make us some?" Tomoya suggests, with the man heading for the kitchen, with Ushio offering to help him out. Ever since the girl had found out about her father's shoulder injury, she has been more than happy to help out her father. Tomoya, smiling at Ushio wanting to help, declines the offer, and tells his daughter that she should spend time catching up with Sakura, since the two of them haven't seen each other in years. Ushio, agreeing to this, lets Tomoya know that all he had to do was let her know if he needed help with something, with the girl glancing at her father's right shoulder as she tells him this.
"Aw, I think its so sweet how you're like 'Daddy's little girl' and want to help him out!" Sakura giggles, as Ushio smiles sheepishly. As they passed the time, the two girls shared stories of what has happened to them over the years, eventually the food was ready, and the three of them were finally able to eat. Once they finished eating, the two Okazaki said goodbye to Sakura, who headed back home, with a smile on her face.