🌸Cherry Blossom Palette🎨
🌸Chapter 26: Sunday Driver🎨
Written by EmtenDew
Edited by P. serrulata
Author's note:
ED: I'm glad to say we're past the "down in the dumps" of the last two chapters. Despite a rough morning, Naoto found solace in his friend over a nice lunch. Things will brighten up, but there'll be a bump or two in the road.
This is another heady and exposition heavy chapter, but Naoto has gotten a reality check and needs to think about things.
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.
Sunday, July 7, 2018
"Okay, son, I want you to merge left before the upcoming intersection."
"Got it." Glancing over his left shoulder and checking all his mirrors, Naoto Hachioji flipped on the blinker and steered his father's car into the left lane.
"Good," Mr. Hachioji said. "Remember that 134 merges into 16 at this T-intersection. It's best to just stay in the leftmost lane. The turning lane to northeast on 16 can halt traffic for blocks."
"Right." Stopping at the traffic signal's behest, Naoto kept his hands on the wheel, glancing about. "It's kind of busy for a Sunday afternoon. A lot of people out."
"It is a little odd," his father allowed. "There aren't that many places to eat on this street, and nearly everything's closed."
"Yeah," Naoto hit the gas when the signal changed. "A Honda dealership, a few schools, one McDonald's, the dentist… Can't be anything with Kanagawa Human Services… not many college classes on the weekends. Maybe there's something going on at Umikaze Park."
"I guess that could be," Mr. Hachioji accepted.
The two of them continued to follow 16 to the northwest.
On this pleasant Sunday afternoon, as has likely been established, a certain young artist was getting in a little driving practice. Being 18-years-old, he had his provisional license and had taken a few lessons. His parents were both busy people, but they'd found a few hours every week to get their son out on the road.
Upon leaving home, the boy and his father had gone south on 134 to Miyagawa Bay, turned around, and headed east on 134, eventually merging into 16, which they'd just done. A casual loop of the Miura Peninsula, it was an otherwise leisurely route containing most of the challenges faced by any driver in Japan.
That summer, Naoto would be testing for his Class 1 license. He was nearly ready, but it was about a month before he'd take the exam. It would be good to have another driver in the family, not that Naoto would have his own car.
On this jaunt, Naoto's temperament was fair, but compared to how he'd been right away in the morning, "fair" was "stellar". He still dwelled some on the lousy afternoon he'd had with Nagatoro the day before, but it no longer plagued or otherwise overwhelmed his thinking.
The positive shift in his mood was largely and best attributed to Sakura Inori.
After waking up feeling like a poisoned lab animal and disparaging himself in ways that would have an armchair masochist taking notes, Naoto had gone to school. The arrival of Sakura and Hana Sunomiya, both of whom he was helping study for the end-of-semester exams the next week, was a lifeline on the ocean of excrement in which Naoto had been drowning.
But he was still a mess, and after Hana wished her two senpai well, off to meet her family for her grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary (wow!), Sakura had convinced him to visit a noodle shop with her.
Sakura, as Naoto had for her, some weeks back, had "knocked some sense" into him over lunch, and she'd convinced him to look at the bigger picture. Maybe that wasn't her exact aim, but that's what he pulled away from her oration.
Afterwards, enjoying some pretty good noodle soup, chicken tempura udon, alongside his friend and kohai, Naoto felt genuinely alright.
He didn't even have to come up with a "lesson plan" later that evening for their study session the next afternoon; he and Sakura had worked one out together!
Shoot, they'd even booked together for another hour, taking advantage of the little restaurant's bottomless fountain soda, having a very pleasant time.
In fact, Naoto had enjoyed his time with the gal so much, he'd lost track of it and was nearly late for his dad's driving lesson, the two having agreed on 3:30 p.m. He'd probably run harder to make it home than he had the whole semester!
He—
…
"Hey, hey," Mr. Hachioji chided. "Watch the road, boy."
The young man came back into focus. "Sorry, Dad."
"Just be careful." The older man relaxed the death grip he'd taken to his seat. "I know you've got a lot on your mind these days, but don't go daydreaming while you're driving."
"Yes, Dad."
Running into no real problems, the two continued northwest, Tokyo Bay shimmering in the east.
…
…
…
Naoto sat at his desk and stretched.
The clock said…
8:57 p.m.
Ooh, had it been a day!
Well… it wasn't horrible… Naoto supposed.
But it had been rather draining. He'd been awake since before 4:00 a.m., and there was no denying his body and mind were well aware of this fact.
Since he and Sakura had already decided on a plan of attack for the next afternoon when they'd be working with Hana, he'd been able to devote a couple more hours to studying and slogging towards completing his self-assigned workbooks.
He still had a long way to go, he believed, before he'd be good and ready for the final exams, but he'd been able to answer satisfactorily the questions and issues—the academically inclined ones, at any rate—he'd pondered earlier in the day and previously.
All in all, he was getting pretty comfortable with his expectation that final exams would go well for him.
After returning from driving with his father in the late afternoon, the two of them had gone outside, and they'd done up some pork cutlets and vegetables on the grill. With a pot of fresh rice on the side, dinner had been great, and the family was able to have together one of the three or four meals they typically managed in a week.
Naoto often longed for more sit-down mealtimes with his folks, and he knew they did as well, but they always made the most of the time they had.
A welcome, refreshing shave and shower after dinner had led to his own personal study stint.
Now, he'd eaten, he was nice and clean, and he'd done all the cramming he'd wanted to do for the day, and it wasn't even that late!
He could relax for a while and go to bed a little early. Maybe he'd even read something for fun!
Well, that's what he'd wanted to do.
His thoughts about Nagatoro weren't far off, and with no more diversions obscuring his mind… he unsurprisingly thought about Nagatoro.
But first—and leading into that—something else was bugging him just as much…
Who was Sakura?
Since she'd shared with him a little wisdom and advice over lunch, meditations of her were never any considerable distance away either.
Seriously…
Sakura was a far cry-and-a-half from the two-faced gyaru, the dumb, ditzy blonde and conniving femme fatale, the known world seemed to view her as. Even their circle of friends—minus Hana—still held Sakura as a suitable example of the former and a fine specimen of the latter in relation to these two species of female.
There was a whole Helluva lot more to Sakura than that.
She'd called him a "yin-yang", but he could call her the same. Hell, everyone was a yin-yang.
Like him—and anyone else—she could switch back and forth from happy and pleasant and confident to miserable and coarse and hesitant, and this could happen at the flip of a switch.
A "bad ending" to Sakura's final date with Nobuo Takata—and his crossing paths with her—had begun this entire episode Naoto found himself in.
He'd never seen the gal that low, but a lot of things happened, and before he knew it, she was beginning to open up to him… and he to her. She improved greatly after the opportunity to speak with Takata. They'd broken up, yes, but it was clean… amicable.
Then, in spite of the weeklong, wild rumors and speculations surrounding the breakup, Sakura had held on pretty well. She'd been a little blue as that week had dragged on, and Hana of all people had reached out to her.
One strange "bonding experience" later, the two girls seemed to become best friends overnight!
Naoto still harped on himself for even suspecting that Sakura might be taking advantage of Hana's… eccentricities for her own amusement, but he'd learned a lot about his increasingly closening friend since.
He also bore much of the guilt for another wild collection of scuttlebutt around the school, in that he'd taken Sakura to a less than wholesome environment to discuss his Hana-related concerns. She'd called him "hot-headed and impulsive and stupid" for that, and she wasn't wrong.
Why, oh why, oh why, oh why did I chase off those dumb freshmen like that?! He ground his knuckles into his temples, grumbling.
To wit, Sakura had said he'd been "hot-headed and impulsive and stupid", so that was a possibility.
But Sakura even took this entire mess with a grain of salt. The new rumors petered out more quickly than the older ones, and once summer vacation arrived, it would all be dust in the wind, probably.
The only thing that had gotten the gal down any measurable degree had happened the day before.
On the way to school to meet Hana, Sakura had undeniably taken a cerebral trip to garbage-mountain, finding herself down in the dumps.
Admittedly, Naoto had helped steered her there, being insensitive. He should've figured she was having mixed feelings about the Videogame Club, but he'd asked her about it anyway.
He'd definitely played the part of Asshole-kun well, and even Sakura saw that he was "in all his bright and shining glory" regarding the extent of this assholery.
But…
They're worried about me, Senpai-kun. They keep messaging me, asking if I'm okay.
Her feelings lay heavily with the curious bunch she'd befriended in that club.
Even though I treated them all like crap last year… they forgave me… and they invited me to join them.
Maybe she hadn't needed reminding of it, but he'd felt compelled to say it anyway.
They care about you—a lot! I hope you can see that.
Naoto knew she wanted to pick up the pieces with those guys, and they surely weren't contacting her to rub salt in her wounds.
You need to forgive yourself…
Sakura had been worried about going back after all the mess she'd freshly endured, and she was concerned that she'd again been abusing and taking advantage of her club members as she had before she'd joined up with them. But she hadn't been simply using them again. She'd become their friend… and her, theirs.
Just tell them the truth… You want to hang around and play games and have fun with them again, but you just need a little time to yourself. Isn't that the truth?
That had touched her, and perhaps it was the most worthwhile thing he'd ever said to her.
Maybe you aren't in all your glory, Asshole-kun~…
Naoto blushed quite heavily, remembering her voice and the soft weight as she'd rested her head on his shoulder.
Yes…
The day before he'd reminded her that she had people waiting for her that cared.
Today, she got him to try and leave his own temporarily dreary mind.
Naoto supposed everyone was in their own time and place and were sometimes stuck in their own heads.
Anyway, so far as being confined in his own brain-prison went, Sakura had told him not to overthink things.
But he resolved to think.
…
No matter how he cut it, there was still a lot to think about, beating a dead horse or not!
He still felt pretty lousy about the shopping trip with Nagatoro, but he decided his grounding was better at present.
He could be more realistic about it.
And the most realistic place to start wasn't an easy jumping-off point:
What was going through Nagatoro's head?
He couldn't rightly answer that…
He wasn't sure why she did the things she did. He could go over and over again what she'd done, but it likely wouldn't go anywhere.
About all he could do was examine how he felt, and he needed to do this with a better foothold than he'd previously been able to maintain.
Firstly… and relatedly…
Was he wrong about Nagatoro's older brother and sister?
He was putting in an awful lot of stock related to these two, and his ruminations of them were bothering him the most at present.
Was he nearly losing control of his bladder and bowels for nothing? Did they really see him as some cancerous bump they needed to burn off their little sister's being?
Were the two of them really… well, Hell, walking on Earth?!
He had no answer for that either, but he didn't think he felt that way for nothing.
It was clear, however, that he had been wrapped up in his own crazy. It was time to break out and think.
…
Was he overreacting? The answer to this went back and forth, as did the potential merits and demerits of telling Nagatoro what he thought about her belittling him.
There was no logical way to compare these ideals, but, hey, he was brainstorming! And he was getting rather sleepy.
He also wondered if she in fact had any respect for him or not. Was he a toy, or did she actually value him… or both ("both" didn't coherently compute with him)?
Naoto wanted her respect. He wanted to be a man worthy of her respect.
It frequently occurred to him, whether it was true or not, that Nagatoro had maybe never respected a single male human being in her life besides her father and brother.
His experience had him leaning heavily—cripplingly so—towards the school of "all but father/son are shit outta luck!".
Really, he'd made up his mind more than once that she was just harassing him for nothing but her own amusement. Abruptly, something would happen to change his mind. Maybe he did mean something to her. Then, sometimes in the same moment, the assertion was pulled away from him again like crutches pulled out from under some poor, one-legged societal abortion.
He'd been wondering for months how to confess to her that he actually loves her, but she rebuffed almost everything before he even had a chance to begin to try.
If she cared about him, she wouldn't push him away, would she?
The idea of a relationship was daunting, but he felt ready and would never push her away as long as he had feelings for her.
It would take a lot to give up on her. It wasn't even in his playbook.
Seriously…
Was he overreacting? Would his friendship with Nagatoro hold up in the face of his honesty? Did she respect him? Was he just a toy?
Most importantly, though…
If and/or when he told her how he felt—that he loved her—was there any hope that she'd feel the same way? Would she even be open to it?
Did she like him?
Did he even have a chance?
Did she give him such a hard time because he was her friend (again, this didn't wholly compute)?
Was she even his friend? Others said he was, but…
…
He couldn't answer. He had no answer for any of these.
All he picked up from Nagatoro were mixed signals, and this was all but worthless to him.
That was the scariest part. He didn't know what was going on in her head.
…
To end this shebang, jumping right to its conclusion, Naoto wanted with Nagatoro what he'd recently found in Sakura.
That much, he did know!
He wanted that same easygoing, friendly sort of relationship with the farmer-tanned cutie-pie he treasured so much.
And he wanted Nagatoro to cherish him as he cherished her.
Maybe he didn't appreciate her enough. So, he needed to more thoroughly understand Nagatoro in order to cherish her as she deserved. He needed to work on this.
Additionally, he wanted Nagatoro to respect him as Sakura seemed to respect him. And he hoped he could give the same to Nagatoro.
But…
What Naoto wanted most out of Nagatoro was to see some earnestness and sincerity. Try as he might, he couldn't push the square peg into the round hole; he'd never tangibly seen these things in her. She'd never proven herself earnest or sincere, yet he probably wanted that more than anything.
Conversely …
And perhaps most importantly, he needed to remember that Nagatoro and Sakura weren't the same. He couldn't be a selfish prick surrounding this fact. It was wrong to expect of Nagatoro all the things he'd come to know from Sakura. Nor could he demand the opposite. He couldn't have his cake and eat it too.
Regardless… was some earnestness and sincerity—some Goddamn, motherfuckin' honesty—too much to ask of the girl he loved?!
Was that too much to ask of Nagatoro?
…
Sakura…
He remembered a small portion of Gamo-chan's diatribe from Friday:
They're just toys to her, Paisen, all of 'em! I mean, you know you're the only guy she's ever respected, don't you?
Naoto continually needed to remind himself that he—maybe unfortunately—was one of the very few people to know what was going on with Sakura just then. How this was addressed in the future, he'd leave it to the gal herself.
Regardless, the idea that Sakura respected no man was so untrue it didn't even make a good joke! The gal had made some very stupid decisions in her relationships with boys over the last year or so, but she regretted this gravely, and he knew she was turning over a new leaf.
Naoto had known he had her respect since the previous fall term, and it had become mutual as he came to know her better. He knew she respected her father—
Derp!
Well…
At least, he knew she loved and adored her father. Those weren't the same as respect. A girl might love her daddy, but she might not honor him. He didn't know, and it wasn't his business.
Still, he was pretty sure that Sakura honored her father. She probably wouldn't have been so elated for the him to meet her father if she didn't respect him, and that stood up to reason.
He knew Sakura had gained respect for the boys in her life. She wasn't suffering through the last couple/three weeks, agonizing and attempting to mend fences, for show.
And she'd received that in turn, whether she realized it or not. She had Takata's respect—and probably his forgiveness—and the guys in the Videogame Club wouldn't be texting her and messaging her if they didn't respect her and love her so much.
…!
Bah! I said I'd end this "shebang"! Naoto scolded himself. Stop thinking about Sakura right now!
"Focus on Nagatoro right now…" he breathed. "Focus…"
But to keep with context, he'd earlier surmised that the gal wanted he merely look at the big picture.
He chose to amend his thinking: maybe she hadn't succeeded in just simply getting him to look at the big picture. Instead, she'd additionally meant that he to try seeing things from different perspectives.
That was part of seeing the bigger picture, yes, but… it was a little different.
Or was it? Naoto's mind weaved back and forth.
Never mind… It wouldn't be difficult to think himself in circles.
Sleepy!
What mattered was that a set of "fresh eyes" was never unhelpful in examining any difficulty, and it seemed several of his problems could just be chalked up to stress, as Sakura had suggested.
He was sure a lot of his concerns were real, and some of them were still dire enough, but his time and energy were better spent elsewhere for now.
He would get through to Nagatoro. He would. And he'd try to not be such a stupe about it. He needed to be thoughtful. He needed to step back and think but not overthink. He needed to think of where she was coming from and not just of himself.
Above all, he needed to wait.
It was less than two weeks before break began, and he'd have plenty of time to think about things once the semester was out of the way.
Here and now are what matter!
And as far as his current feelings went…
Naoto realized he'd been looking at things all wrong lately! He'd really had a head full of muck that morning… before Sakura had "knocked some sense" into him that afternoon.
There were two girls—two great kohai—he could call friends, and he'd shared another successful morning of working together with them.
Sakura had bought him a nice lunch and gotten him to pull his head out of his own ass a bit.
He got to spend some time driving with his dad.
He got to sit and eat a pretty swell dinner with his parents.
He was ready for Monday.
I need to count my blessings better… Naoto determined.
The girls…
Hana cared, and she couldn't be more appreciative of the time they'd spent together, learning and enjoying themselves.
Thank you for today, Hachioji-senpai. I hope you feel better, so please take care of yourself. I'll be thinking of you.
What mountain had he moved in a past-life to win the gift of her friendship?!
Sakura was encouraging of him and what they were trying to accomplish.
We're depending on you, and you'll help get us there. So… chin up.
Naoto had helped her a few times, but where would he be without her?
Now… please tell me you feel a little better~.
Without the other, neither one of them would be as well off!
Truly, what had he done to have the privilege of knowing her? To walk alongside her in the early morning sun, filling his lungs with the incredible perfume of the basswoods in bloom? To laugh with her?
Then, he always, always, always had the love and support of his parents, and he knew they'd be forever on his side, come what may.
It almost brought tears.
On this Sunday, things hadn't been bad.
The people in his life had shown him nothing but love and goodness that day! All the negativity he'd stewed in was in the past or in his own head.
The day hadn't been bad at all.
Some days were great. Some days were terrible. Good and bad… High and low… Hot and cold… Here and there… Yin and yang…
Having a great day was, well, great.
But there was something to be said—a certain, specific satisfaction—of a day just being "okay".
Sometimes an "okay" day… an "alright" day was enough.
In the end, with all things considered, Naoto's day had been alright.
Perhaps the day had been a notch above "alright".
Really… Naoto smiled a little to himself, that brief heat resurfacing and tickling at his eyeballs. Today was pretty good.
…
Visiting the bathroom once more, he relieved himself, washed up, and brushed his teeth.
After downing a glass of cool, clean water, he returned to his room for the night.
Climbing happily into bed, he picked up the manga book he'd bought the day before. After making it through a few chapters, he beat off and proceeded to fall wonderfully and immediately into a deep, onanistically-induced slumber.
In his dreams, he strolled along in the sunlight by a lazy river, the fresh scents of summer pervading his nostrils and the great, wide-open sky and its puffy, white clouds riding high into the blue.
Please look forward to the next chapter! Thanks for reading!