🌸Cherry Blossom Palette🎨
🌸Chapter 40: The Artist and the Gal 🎨
Written by EmtenDew
Edited by P. serrulata
Author's note:
ED: I hope the last chapter didn't scare off many readers. It got to be more emotional than I wanted, but I didn't think it was so farfetched.
This time, Naoto and Sakura pick up the pieces.
I'm slightly upset with my editor for getting me started watching South Park (not really, I've never laughed so hard). To be fair, he warned me that Season 9 might get a little iffy for me. "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina" broke the mold of everything I've ever thought cartoons to be.
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.
Thursday, July 11, 2018
It was three weeks past the summer solstice, so the days were already becoming shorter, though it was still normally light until about 9:00 p.m.
But a bit of nasty weather creeping over the Miura Peninsula was changing that pleasant fact.
In the park next to the ice cream shop, west of Kazehaya High School, two teenagers hadn't spoken to one another in almost a half-hour.
The girl, face splotchy and makeup-stained, her eyes puffy from crying, observed the sky.
She broke the silence, saying, "Boy, it got dark in a hurry. What time is it now?"
The young man looked at his phone, as if it was the most natural thing to do in the world. "It's already… 8:00 p.m.?!"
"Crap… When's the rain supposed to start?"
"I haven't checked it in a while," he admitted. "But if the radar's accurate, maybe 30… 35 minutes…"
"Think we'll beat the rain home, Senpai-kun?" she pondered, a heavy disinterest plaguing her speech.
"…" He wasn't all that invested himself.
Naoto Hachioji and Sakura Inori still lay side-by-side on the bedsheet the gal kept in her schoolbag. However, their arrangement was different than earlier; they lay in opposite directions, their ears approximate to the other's knees.
Despite the encroaching rainstorm, the two of them had simply been loitering, and time had gotten away from them. It wasn't that they didn't know or didn't care about getting out of the elements. They just didn't have the energy or the drive to do much of anything.
Sakura groped around to her side, grabbing her erstwhile bottle of juice, undid the top, and took a swallow.
Naoto had refilled their empty bottles at the park's water-spigot to give them something to drink. He was glad they hadn't thrown them out. Each of them needed it.
"Thanks for that, Senpai-kun…" Sakura screwed the cap back on. "The water…"
"It's alright." His own bottle was in reach. "Just a short walk."
He said that, yes, but merely standing up had taken a good amount of willpower.
Both of them were drained.
"…"
"…"
"Senpai-kun…?" Sakura murmured.
"Yeah?" he glanced her way.
"…" She thought a moment. "I'm… so sorry for just unloading all that on you…"
He exhaled, tired, "I know…"
"…"
"…"
"How is it that… you can be so casual right now?" Sakura wondered. "After that, how?"
I could ask you the same… Naoto was otherwise coming up blank. "…"
His friend pushed, "How're you not totally freaked out?"
What had happened not an hour earlier was repeating in his mind's eye as a .GIF file might.
After coming clean to the fact that she possibly got a little hot in the pants over a man on a mission with a "Devil may care" attitude (and things far less printable), Sakura had essentially baited him into responding.
Does that make me sick…?
He'd thought so, and he'd let her know it.
What the Hell is the matter with you?! And why would you tell me that?!
She'd been trying to get that sort of reaction out of him, guiding him into her deception, and it soon led to divulging another secret of hers just as intimate.
You sound like my old therapist, Senpai-kun…
And after that, she'd told him that it wasn't her propensities that had seen her go into "outpatient psychiatric care".
I wish I'd been smart enough right away to see that she really cared… that she wanted to help me… She did… help…
Sakura's words hit hard.
I couldn't do it anymore…!
Being experienced with it himself, listening to her, it didn't take much of mental jump to come to the conclusion that she'd endured bullying in the past, before going to school in Hayama.
I needed to feel sure… I needed to be in control…
It was one of the reasons she became the girl she was at the present, one that wouldn't suffer such misery again.
People hurt me…
Naoto knew before she'd even said this that it wasn't bullying of the "friendly" sort. It had been bad. Having been through both in his life, he could sympathize.
After spilling her guts to him, Sakura had cried herself out.
He'd done little besides stay next to her, letting her hold his hands, which she'd gripped in a viselike manner, desperate for the touch of someone who cared about her; she'd all but crushed his fingers.
Despite all of this, Naoto felt a detachment. It seemed unreal, distant. He knew what was in front of him, what he'd learned, but it was far away. In his eyes, it was like it had happened to someone else, for him and for her.
Maybe that was why he was so calm.
Just as easily, he might've just been stunned and wiped. He was drained, after all.
There was also another possible reason, and it was what he settled on.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I guess this isn't the first time we've been like this."
As the Americans might say, it wasn't his first rodeo.
The young artist wouldn't say, but this kind of thing had happened with a girl besides Sakura. And what had he done after his time with Gamo-chan, in—as she called it—the "BJ grotto"?
He'd gone for normalcy. He'd tried to get back to his art in the clubroom, though a lot more wound up happening that day.
Things wouldn't be the same, but it hadn't harmed the relationship he had with Gamo-chan. He'd heard some pretty heavy things and seen a side of her he'd scarcely imagined, but even so, things didn't seem all that different. Learning what he'd learned had failed to truly trip him up.
It was almost as if she'd told him that she'd once failed a test she should've been able to ace.
Maybe it was callous, but it didn't seem like a big deal in the grand scheme, what he'd come to know of Gamo-chan. It didn't change the fact that she was a very pretty girl, a great friend, and pretty special.
The only thing that stunned him was that she'd show him such vulnerability, that she trusted him to that extent.
Gamo-chan was just a normal girl. A normal, teenaged girl.
And Naoto felt similarly about Sakura in these respects, not that he'd verbally dismiss her admissions—or Gamo-chan's—as no big deal. He just couldn't help but feel that way.
He, however, could say, "Sometimes all you can do is just move on. It happened… and sometimes just going on as usual is the only thing to do."
That's pretty much what had happened. Sakura had let a lot out, she'd come down, and things just sort of switched off for both of them.
"…" She thought about this. "I guess it's not all that shocking… that people have those kinds of thoughts."
Naoto could agree. It's not like she likes ME… I just happened to supply the kink…
He might feel differently if he suspected this, that's a pretty good bet!
The above caprices caused him to wince.
But it's not like he himself didn't have a few things going on inside that certain other people wouldn't balk at.
Knowing that someone might feel that way, romanticizing those things less printable, really wasn't such a punch in the jaw.
"…" He lazed. "But hearing it out loud can be…"
"I guess…" Sakura breathed.
"…"
"I expected you to just walk away and leave me here…" Sakura murmured.
Naoto came back with, "I thought about it…"
"I didn't mean to go that far…" She trembled.
"Once you got going, you just couldn't stop…?" he reasoned. "I think I see."
"I'm not proud of it, Senpai-kun…" she said wearily, shaking her head. "Nope. I only meant to tell you that I was worried about Hana-chan finding out some stuff… and I wound up telling you the stuff."
"…" Naoto sighed.
"…" Sakura clenched her hands, steeling herself.
"…" He noticed, and he tried to steel himself.
The gal began, "…The night at your house, Senpai-kun…"
He wasn't delighted to open up that conversation, but after things had gone this far, he wasn't unready to deal with it. "Yes?"
"I was tired… scared… confused… angry…" she said.
"Yeah…" he replied quietly. "Me too."
Sakura breathed, "I thought I could just scare you off, saying that awful stuff to you."
"It almost worked," he stated plainly.
"…"
"…"
She questioned, "How did you know I was… putting on an act?"
"I didn't… right away," he confessed. "I just don't know."
She nodded, pensive. "…"
Naoto had a question of his own. "Did you really think I was… trying to become a man?"
"…" She writhed, unable to find comfort. "I don't know why I said that… other than I was trying to scare you off."
"I see…" he accepted.
"…"
Naoto would rather take a kick in the balls than ask her, but there was something that had been sitting heavy on his mind for a few weeks.
He struggled, "And… after… did you really think that I'd… that I'd…?"
He couldn't bring himself to finish that sentence.
Did you really think that I'd violate you? That I'd… rape you?
It pained him, that horrible word, and he became faint at the mere thought.
Sakura didn't have to hear it; she knew what Naoto meant.
"I don't…" she began, her voice painfully wavering. "…I was scared. More than in a long time… I got… especially scared… after you clammed up and… stared me down like that. Considering the situation, I got to thinking what a mistake it had been, telling you I was really a… a virgin… It was then that I thought you might… y'know… after you heard that… At the right time and the right place, I hear something like that can set a man off… get him to do… anything…"
"…" Naoto recoiled at what she'd said; it was ugly.
"…" Sakura hugged herself.
"…" More was to be said, he knew.
And he wasn't wrong.
"…I did…" Sakura croaked. "For a minute, I thought you would."
That struck Naoto like a truck, and a jolt emanated through his body.
It was horrifying, yes, but he'd asked that Godawful question, and she'd answered.
He apologized, throat tight, "I'm so sorry, Sakura-san."
"I am too, Senpai-kun."
"…"
"And then the other stuff…" Sakura forced out.
Naoto recognized that she meant why she'd been sent to therapy. And her proclivities, no doubt, especially those existing diametric to the despairing helplessness she'd known that night, pinned beneath him.
She let him know, "I don't wanna talk about it… the other stuff."
"Okay."
"…"
"…"
Sakura took a breath and said, "What I just told you today… I don't want the girls to hear… I don't want Hana-chan knowing…"
"I wouldn't dream of it, Sakura-san."
"I know…"
"…"
"…"
"Why tell me?" Naoto had to understand.
"…" She took a few seconds. "I know it was wrong… but I wanted to see how you'd react. I couldn't just come out and say it, so I… forced your hand, I guess."
"And Sunomiya… and no one else know? Any of it?" He wanted to be clear.
"Only my family knows I went in for treatment…" she said. "And you're the only one I've said that stuff to… besides Dr. Akashi."
"Mm." What else could he say?
"I'm sorry, Senpai-kun…" she repeated.
"…"
"…"
Naoto didn't wish to shut her down or silence her or devalue her grief, but it seemed like the place to stop this… to put an end to it.
He shared his feelings, "If you're worried about telling others, maybe you… don't need to worry, at least not that much. Everyone has secrets, Sakura-san. If you really need to share something, go ahead, but people don't need to know everything… not even your friends… not your family… no one but you."
"…"
"…"
"I'll try to remember that…" she returned. "Thank you…"
"…"
"…"
Naoto stood up, perhaps too quickly; he got a headrush.
Shaking off his brief vertigo, he asked, "Sakura-san, if you're ready, why don't we get out of here?"
He had an urge to move again, and they had to get going at some point.
Sakura wasn't in disagreement. It didn't help matters that it was getting colder, and she wasn't exactly bundled up.
The gal rolled slightly to her side. "Yeah, you're right…"
She sat up, slow and measured.
"Need help standing?" Naoto offered.
She declined, "I think I'm okay. Just lemme get my shoes and socks back on…"
"Sure."
"And if you'll wait a couple minutes, I'd like to…" She gestured to her face.
"No problem, Sakura-san," he responded. "Go wash up. Think I'll do the same."
…
…
…
The two friends, having cleaned their aspects in the park's restrooms, were shuffling their way to the fork-in-the-road that would typically part them for the day, and they'd resumed their affable hither and thither.
After what they'd just been through, it seemed improbably that they'd get right back to chatting, but… normalcy.
As was becoming normal enough, their chin-wag had already taken a strange turn.
"Don't ever think you're a pervert, Senpai-kun," Sakura, plain-faced and slightly haggard, corrected what he'd just said. "You're not."
Naoto wasn't convinced. "…"
He hadn't meant to make things about himself or detract from her problems, but when the gal had called herself a pervert, moments earlier, he'd chimed in, hoping to be sympathetic (and wishing she wouldn't refer to herself as such), experienced with people calling him perverted, whether it was true or not.
"Them calling you that, even as a joke, it's not really all that funny," Sakura said. "You know what a pervert is~?"
Her fresh tone was akin to finding the rare trading card in a stack of garbage cards!
It was such a relief, again hearing that wheedle that no one else could replicate slip out of her, not to mention the tiny smirk showing through.
Naoto couldn't help but smile himself.
Relating to her question, he thought he knew. "What do you think one is?"
He was fairly sure he was in for a "treat".
Sakura blushed. "Well, besides… well, me—"
"Don't call yourself that, Sakura-san…" he beseeched.
She waved it off. "Like I was saying, a pervert is someone that starts getting off on specific specimens of the object of their fetish that they don't even like."
"Huh?" He thought that was kind of wordy, and it didn't quite register as a tasty "treat".
She gave an example. "Say that you're someone that likes… oh, I dunno, legs. If you start getting stiffies over legs you don't even like, then you're a pervert~!"
"…?!" Naoto floundered. WTF?!
I hope she's not talking about me! He wanted to crawl under a rock. And she's just offhandedly saying "getting stiffies"?!
At least her mood was better!
"Where'd you hear that?" He knew that hadn't just come from her own ruminations (and there was no way her therapist had said it!), but it did in a way make sense.
"I read it in a manga series I really like~." She poked out the tip of her tongue. "And it was about legs~. It's something the villainess said to the hero."
I'm not touching that with a three-meter stick! Naoto was interested, but he dared not ask.
It seemed Sakura was a geek! Maybe~…
Even the straightest arrows read manga occasionally, and he knew it.
But Sakura wasn't the straightest arrow; she might even come back like a boomerang and give you a head-canoe.
And he'd surely never read whatever series she was referencing. He'd remember having read a line like that.
"That's… fascinating." Naoto conceded. I so wanna ask what series it is! But I've got the internet!
She just laughed.
"…~" He was so pleased, seeing her take an upswing.
The gal had more to say, banally.
She submitted, "Yeah… back in middle school, a few of the girls I was sorta friends with, they… they introduced me to all kinds of stuff. And I took to it pretty easily."
Well, it has to come from somewhere… Naoto figured.
"A lot of it was weird stuff, Senpai-kun…" Sakura opined, slightly mortified. "It really changed how I thought about things."
He was more than apprehensive, but he willingly opened another can of worms. "How so?"
"I got a real kick out of watching you and Nobu-kun wrestling around in the judo tourney~!" she remarked, blushing. "I love that kinda stuff!"
Bwah! Naoto's brain took another steamy, hot shit. "You really need to work on your filter…"
Again, she just laughed.
"…?" A thought entered Naoto's mind.
"…~" Sakura was oblivious, still riding on the thermals of getting a rise out of her senpai.
"Uh, Sakura-san," he spoke up.
"Yeah?"
"Totally unrelated, but you let your parents know you were gonna be out this late, right?" He'd had other things to think about, but those things were in the past (or at least on the back burner). "I don't want you to get into trouble."
"They messaged me," she answered. "My parents are spending the night at a hotel a few towns over. Both were taking tomorrow off of work anyway, and they had too much to drink, so they're staying put. Yoichi is staying with his friend. Nothing to take care of at the house, so all's good. I'll ask a gal-pal if I can stay at her place. Got a few I could try just a block away. What about you?"
"I let my mom and dad know I'd be late, but I don't think I'll be seeing them anyway," he lamented. "They're probably staying overnight at work. Their companies do a lot of collaborative stuff, and they have a deadline, and there was a bug they need to fix."
"That's too bad." She was sorry to hear it.
He was used to it. "They're busy when they're busy, but when they're not, they're really not. Once this project is over, they'll be bored with sitting around the house."
…
KE-RACK! Rumble… Rumble…
…
It's not like the thunder had come out of nowhere, being damn near continuous by then; there was just no way to ignore it any longer.
Naoto grumbled, the lightning close, "Ah, damn it…"
Sakura checked the time. "Yup… 8:21 p.m. We didn't make it, Senpai-kun."
"Damn it…!" he cussed.
In their sloth, the two of them had failed to deal with the not so minute detail that a couple hours of lousy weather were upon them.
They could both really smell the rain by now!
"Sky's gonna open up soon, Senpai-kun…" The gal didn't even need to check the radar to know that. "Prolly in 10 minutes or so…"
"I can't walk home in this slop!" Naoto professed. "Didn't pack an umbrella."
He was pissed, but it wasn't like he hadn't done it to himself.
"Same here…" Sakura also lacked such a foldable canopy.
They'd both screwed themselves. Neither had planned for the evening they'd shared.
However, it wasn't the end of the world, and Naoto decided, "Okay, let's get you to one of your friends' houses. Call someone close by, and I'll walk you there."
"What about you?"
He wasn't concerned; it would keep him away from home for a couple more hours, but, "I'll just visit one of the restaurants or cafés around here until the rain stops. They won't mind if I sit and read or study a while if I order some dinner."
"…" Sakura scrutinized his plan.
"…" Naoto was fine with this.
But the gal didn't like it. "I have a better idea."
"What do you mean?"
"I gotta eat too~," she cheeped. "Let's go somewhere. I mean, we talked about that earlier."
"I have half of my way home yet to cover, but you can be somewhere warm and dry in five minutes. Do you really want to get caught in the rain?"
"I'm not bogarting anyone's dinner leftovers, not when I'm already staying over…"
Naoto reasoned that was sensible. "It would be pretty lame to show up, demanding food."
"You yourself just said some place wouldn't mind a student staying through the rain if food was ordered," Sakura detailed. "We can study together for a little while we eat. Then, when you get home, it's just shower and bed~."
This definitely wasn't unappealing to him!
He agreed, "Good idea. Where do you think we should go?"
"There's that yakiniku place just down the street," she answered. "We can be there in three minutes. That'll keep us busy for a while."
Naoto gawked at her. "That's expensive!"
"Then it's my treat tonight." She didn't mind. "I've got all that cash to burn~."
"I can't ask you to pay for that!"
"You can pay me back."
"I don't have that kind of money just sitting in my dresser drawer!"
"We can set up a payment-plan~!"
"Sakura-san…!"
"Boy, you wound me~!" she mock-pouted. "You're coming up with every reason in the book to not have dinner with me."
"It's not that at all!" He knew she was mostly joking, but he wasn't taking chances. "I'd like for us to get something to eat, but there's no reason to blow all that money. We could go get sandwiches or visit that diner up the street or even go to that noodle shop again."
Sakura persevered, "Thursday nights are all-you-can-eat kalbi for ¥2,800, rice, veggies, and soup included~."
Naoto's dick emblematically jumped. "Kalbi?"
"And it's an entire 100-minute time limit~," she added.
100 minutes of grilled, marinated beef?!
"It's just us…" Sakura further piled on the perks. "Two people shouldn't have a problem getting a spot, even if the place is swamped."
Her senpai was more than tempted.
But just in case he wasn't sold on the idea, she pounded one final nail into the coffin.
She suggested, "I know… Let's play another game… make a little bet."
"Hmm?" Naoto's attention was had.
"We can find out… 'how good a teacher is Senpai-kun?'~" she sang.
Naoto thought he was okay, but he wanted to know more. "…"
"If I meet the average on one final, that's 10% off what you will owe me for the yakiniku," she detailed. "If I get at least the average on two, then it's 20% off, 30% off for three, 40% for four…"
"Yeah?" Naoto fostered.
Sakura had bagged herself a senpai, it seemed, but she finalized, "However, if I get at least average in all of them, you owe me nothing~."
Holy shit! Naoto liked this, and he sprang. "Just make sure you study hard."
She gave him a kissy-face. "Do you really think I'd tank those tests to see you pay half the dinner bill~?"
Wowza! Naoto experienced a five-dimensional existence for an instant.
The kissy-face spurred in him the fresh production of approximately 500 million spermatozoon soldiers, but she needn't have given him that final push; he'd been sold a fair few exchanges back on the idea of a beefy feast.
He exclaimed, managing to keep his head, "Deal!"
"I'm holding you to it~…" she giggled. "You good with that?"
"Do they have Dr Pepper there?"
"By the bottle!" Sakura cracked up. "I take it that means you're up for it~?"
"Absolutely!" he declared. "I'm starving!"
"We can square up once finals are over, but to start, you're on snack duty tomorrow!" she said. "And you do need to bring sweet potato cakes! I lost the game earlier, so snack tomorrow was still my responsibility. Consider that your 'down payment'~."
It occurred to Naoto, "But what if you get at least average in everything?"
If she did, she'd be in debt to him.
The gal simpered, "We'll cross that bridge if and/or when we come to it~…"
Please look forward to the next chapter! Thanks for reading! Questions and comments are welcome!