🌸Cherry Blossom Palette🎨
🌸Chapter 3: Streetlights and Hedgerows🎨
Written by EmtenDew
Edited by P. serrulata
Author's Note:
ED: This chapter was hard to write. I had an idea of how I wanted it to go but I kept getting stuck on details and repetitive wording. I gave my editor as much as I could come up with and he aided in transitions and descriptions. He added a lot of details about the bad weather and stuff. I think it worked. Also, I think the chapter came out a little overly dramatic but I can see Naoto behaving like he does.
Ask us anything and we'll add a Q&A section in the next chapter. I would be happy if you ask questions.
Please enjoy what I wrote.
June 21, 2018
Naoto Hachioji, standing under his umbrella in the driving rain, was stunned to see the girl in front of him, "...Sakura-san?!"
Her eyes met his, and she dove into him, grabbing his jacket.
"Senpai-kun!" she bleated. "Please help me!"
She was soaked. He could feel the water seeping into his clothing, his jacket only partially zipped, and it sent chills through his whole body.
HolY SHiT CoLd!
Naoto stammered, "Wh-wh-what?!"
In the dim light of the streetlamps, he got a look at her face. He couldn't tell if she'd been crying or was just wet, but her mascara and eyeliner were trickling down her cheeks. Her nose was running. And her hair was finding its way into all these places, sticking to everything.
Her cream-colored blouse, its top buttons gone and a sleeve ripped, was riding down one of her shoulders, fully exposing it. He even saw her bra, strapless, bluish or gray, and plainly visible, both through her now-translucent top and in the open.
That was all he'd be seeing for the moment. Sakura hadn't been running from nothing.
"Sakura!" a male's baritone voice boomed, coming from the same direction Sakura just had. "Where are you?!"
This time, it was the gal who "took the lead", grabbing his arm.
Sakura, her face stricken with alarm, held her senpai by the wrist and led him towards a bare spot in a nearby hedgerow. He was so surprised, he found himself running along, and they hit green.
Deeper and deeper, they went into the foliage, and Naoto was pelted by wet leaves and small branches. Just when he was about to halt Sakura's pulling him along, she stopped.
Naoto, his vision no longer filled with things smacking him across the face, realized they were a solid two meters into the hedgerow. The barriers were thick, and as was the wont of older shrubbery, the middle had thinned out a good deal.
The voice sounded again, "Sakura! Where'd you go?!"
Whoever the voice belonged to, the guy sounded upset... even desperate. Naoto wasn't sure what to do, but Sakura pulled him into a crouching position, further obstructing their conspicuousness from the sidewalk. It was apparent to him nobody would simply spot them where they were, but he wasn't about to stand up.
Looking towards the direction of the stranger's voice, Naoto saw him. The figure emerging from the shadows and into the light of the streetlamps was recognized at once.
Naoto had encountered him a few times. He couldn't even remember his name, but recently, he'd almost managed to pin the large, brawny boy in the school's judo tournament. A few more seconds, and he would've won. But that wasn't what scared Naoto.
Say that again!
That was Naoto's clearest memory of the guy. The previous fall, he'd heard those three words out of the other boy twice. There was the time Nagatoro—for some reason, on the first day of the term—came along with him when asked, leaving the boy in question and his friend behind, the other girls following. Then there was the time at the zoo... Naoto lost his temper when this boy and the girl with him made fun of Nagatoro's elephant sketch.
And Naoto still wasn't sure what might've happened to him if Nagatoro hadn't sided with him.
Naoto's recollection of the above only took a few seconds, and he was immediately dragged from his contemplation when he heard the voice again.
"SAKURA!" he boomed.
Naoto shrank, hearing that; he was afraid of that boy, and he knew it. But what happened next quickly changed his tune.
Sakura, having pulled it together for a moment, getting them into cover, abruptly fell apart, putting her face into his jacket. He could hear her muffled wails, barely audible over the storm.
Naoto felt... He felt...
Something was horribly wrong...
It struck him like a slap across the cheek: this was the guy Sakura was dating.
Naoto was so taken aback at her running into him and dragging him into the bushes, he hadn't taken a brief but necessary moment to appreciate what he'd just fallen into.
He had enough light that he could get a decent look at Sakura.
Goddamn it...! Naoto felt something creep up inside of him.
Yes... yes, Sakura's blouse was torn... she'd been running for "who knows how long" from "who knows where"... and...
No...
He was sure he saw a bruise near her collarbone. The light wasn't great, but he saw something. And it looked like it hurt.
A switch abruptly flipped in Naoto's head; he couldn't remember the last time he felt so angry. He moved almost automatically.
Putting firm hands on Sakura's shoulders, she immediately quit crying as he pried her away. She looked up at Naoto's face, and what she saw scared her just as much as what had been chasing her.
Naoto slowly stood up, his mind fuming and nostrils flaring.
Say that again! Just say that again!
And Naoto became all the angrier. His fists balled up, and his fingernails began digging into his palms. This wasn't going to slide.
Now standing fully erect, something occurred to him in the back of his mind:
Nagatoro wasn't there to save his ass this time.
He was on his own.
But... he didn't care. He was going to hurt this piece of garbage as much as he possibly could. Maybe he couldn't do anything, but... he didn't care!
Naoto started to move.
"No...!" Sakura had realized his intentions, and she clamped both of her hands to one of his pantlegs.
"...?!" Naoto made to push her hands away, and he was about to resume his-
"No...!" she repeated; she was now hugging his leg, and she wasn't letting go. "Don't do it!"
She spoke in barely a whisper, but he had no trouble understanding her.
What was she doing?!
"Let go of me...!" Naoto hissed, facing the direction of the goon, still lumbering under the streetlights, calling out for his erstwhile date.
"I'm not letting you go!" she cried. "Don't go, Senpai-kun..."
"Let go...!" he was close to yelling; he didn't care what might happen to him, and all he wanted was to hurt-
"Please," Sakura begged. "Please trust me, Senpai-kun..."
Naoto couldn't believe what he was hearing... Trust?!
What was going on?
She held his leg all the tighter, "Don't go, Senpai-kun..."
He could only stare dumbly; he looked back and forth between his friend and the asshole outside.
Sakura then gazed into his eyes; hers were streaming, and it wasn't the rain this time.
Naoto balked at the despondent expression pasted across her normally pretty face; she looked... mortified... ashamed and absolutely mortified.
"Please..." she said as levelly as she was able. "It's not what it looks like, Senpai-kun... Don't go!"
He was wholly puzzled. What the Hell was happening?!
He had trouble making up his mind, but he at least better had his wits about him. He weighed his options.
His heart, guts, and balls told him to go out there and punch the guy in the throat.
But where would that leave Sakura? If and/or when he was beaten to a pants-shitting pulp, she'd be alone with this guy again...
His mind—and he listened to his mind more than anything else, for better or worse—told him to trust Sakura.
His head no longer occupied with nothing but wrath, Naoto was reminded of one thing, gazing into her eyes, and it struck him hard: Sakura had never been anything but honest with him.
He remembered her introducing him to her father the year prior:
Ah~! It's Senpai-kun~!
He's my senpai from school.
This here is my daddy~!
Naoto saw something that day... something he'd never imagined he'd see. There was more to Sakura than what any of the labels so many assigned to her could convey. And he realized that moment, standing there, ready to run in and probably get thrashed, that she wouldn't show that to just anyone. She trusted him.
And most of all, he knew that the last time she got into trouble with a boy, he was the only one she turned to for help. It didn't make much sense to him, but she had faith in him.
And he decided, then and there, that he trusted her. Whatever this was, he could figure it out later.
For the time, maybe it was better to stay quiet.
Naoto knelt down again, and Sakura, reassured, let go of his leg. He could feel her shivering intensely as she pressed herself into him, her arms wrapping around one of his.
But Naoto was paying more attention to their guest, and he realized they may yet be in trouble.
When Sakura had dragged him into the shrubs, he'd dropped his umbrella! He hadn't even thought of it, but he was now sopping wet, and he could see the umbrella rolling around in the wind. And the lummox had noticed it.
Sakura had also come to understand their predicament, and Naoto almost shouted in pain, feeling her clamping onto him so doggedly.
Naoto was positive the oaf would double his efforts and search the area, but that didn't happen. The young man simply picked up the umbrella, shook it out, and raised it over his own head. The guy hadn't had his own umbrella, was just as soaked as either of them, and was simply content with one he found on the ground.
Whether the lout was "content" or not didn't matter. He left, going back in the direction of the library.
One last time, they heard him call out for Sakura.
And after a moment, he was gone. Naoto breathed out, feeling the tension leaving his body.
He felt Sakura's body relax; it was as if all her energy had just... fallen out of her.
Naoto again looked where the dick had disappeared. His mind went to other places, the danger apparently having passed.
Fuck...! He couldn't believe his umbrella was gone! That son of a bitch must've been pretty stupid though, not thinking there might be someone around... that maybe Sakura was nearby.
Then again...
Maybe it was understandable, the stupe thinking nothing of finding an umbrella just lying there. It was windy. People lost umbrellas all the time, and it could've just blown into the park from the street or something.
Whatever the reason, Naoto knew his portable shelter was gone. He also knew this park well enough, and he remembered a picnic shelter on the other side of the playground. He knew what to do next.
He still had no idea what was going on, and his mind was muddled with too many things to process all that had happened, so he resolved to get the two of them out of the rain. Everything else could wait.
Pushing aside the thick vegetation, he steered Sakura out of the hedgerow. Her clothing kept getting caught, but he got her out without scratching her up.
He couldn't say the same thing for himself, and he felt a branch drag along his neck and ear. As tepid as he'd become in the last moment, this pissed him off something fierce, and his anger again rose, but a few more seconds saw him shy of the contemptible landscape feature.
Naoto had reason enough to be angry anyway. He had no real idea of what was going on, and one of Nagatoro's best friends—his friend—was a mess.
Speaking of Sakura, he realized she was still clinging to his sleeve. She wasn't looking so well. He felt a good nudge would tip her over, and he wasn't sure how she was even standing. Barely even thinking about it, he took her hand.
"Come on, Sakura-san," he began to move. "There's a shelter over there."
She didn't resist, but it took a couple seconds to get her to move, unresponsive as she was.
After just a moment, thoroughly waterlogged, Naoto made it under the wood and metal structure he'd sought out. Pulling Sakura in, he finally got a good look at her. The light was better, and he had the luxury of time now.
What he thought was a bruise wasn't a bruise; it was just skin marked up by clothing rubbing on it.
Good... Thank goodness...!
Naoto looked down. Under her colorful, pleated skirt, Sakura's legs were clad in a pair of unraveling black pantyhose. Her tanned skin was showing through the numerous rips, and she wasn't wearing shoes. Her toes, several of them visible and painted periwinkle, curled against the wet asphalt as she put weight on her heels, another sign she was freezing.
"What happened to your shoes?" Naoto found himself putting his hands on her shoulders, prompting her to look at him.
Panting, too overwhelmed to compose herself, she gasped, "All I have... is my phone..."
That answered the next couple of questions he had; it was plain to see she only had the clothes on her back, and if she did have her phone, it was somewhere on her person.
Another violent bout of shivering overcame Sakura, and her knees knocked, and she clutched her arms to her chest as she shrank, her body desperate for warmth.
Naoto still hadn't the foggiest what was going on in front of him, but she didn't appear physically hurt, and he'd decided to trust her statement that things were a little more complicated than what they appeared.
Questions could wait. It was dry under the shelter, but it wouldn't do them any good. Sakura was chilled to the bone, and he was no better off at this point. In fact, it had just occurred to him that he was shivering his ass off, his teeth clacking together.
Sakura looked at him, he looked at her, and it was apparent they couldn't stay there. They had to get somewhere warm.
They were only a few blocks from Naoto's house, and the boy saw no other option. Really, none had even occurred to him.
Looking down again, he knew Sakura wouldn't be walking too far. Another wave of shuddering cold rushed through her body, and she shrank further into herself. She pressed her sodden feet together, shuffling, obviously hesitant to put much weight on either of them.
Maybe she was hurt.
That too could wait. Naoto slung his schoolbag, previously forgotten, to his front and roused Sakura.
She startled at his touch, regarding him, "...Senpai-kun...?"
Taking off his jacket, the driest thing they had between them, he threw it around her shoulders and turning around, knelt slightly.
Sakura blinked, slowly realizing what he was doing.
"Get on," Naoto ordered. "I'm taking you to my house."
She dithered, whether from the cold or his bold declaration.
He said with certainty, "Climb on, Sakura-san. Do it."
The girl put up no resistance and leaned into his back. Allowing him to hike up her legs under his hands, she wrapped her arms around his neck, being careful not to choke him.
Naoto stood up and glanced to her out of the corner of his eye, "It's only a few blocks; we'll be there soon."
He felt her strengthen her grip, and he took this as reply.
Leaving the shelter, Naoto fell into a slightly faster pace than he'd been keeping earlier.
At once, he was further doused and even colder than he'd previously been. It was miserable going, slogging away, and he felt the squish, squish, squish in his shoes as he trotted along. Sakura just kept hanging on, and Senpai was glad he wasn't as weak as he'd been in the past. He could do this. The trembling girl latched onto him was depending on him.
That said...
This was hard.
But it wouldn't be long until he was home and dry. He just had to get there, and he wouldn't be alone.
Please look forward to the next chapter! Thanks for reading!
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