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The next three days seemed to pass by with the wind.
Miyona spended each afternoon with Sakuya, who was recovering rather quickly.
Finally, Miss Kukiko allowed her to leave the infirmary the next day, which was luckily a Saturday.
But for the night, she still need to stay there.
Sakuya could barely fall asleep that evening, tossing and turning in her bed, since she was really exited about the visit to town tomorrow.
Moreover, Miyona had told her that she still had a surprise ready for her.
Sakuya chuckled at the thought of it.
Just what had Miyona prepared?
The sun had already set, then the girl finally fell asleep.
Still, despite having fallen asleep rather late, she woke up quiet early the next morning.
Then sun had only started to rise and outside the window she could see a beautiful sky in red, orange, purple, pink and blue.
For a moment, she just gazed at the sky, watching it shift colors slowly.
As she sat up in her bed afterwards and looked around the room, she saw that someone had put a white blouse, a dark-blue skirt, a dark-blue blazer, a deep red ribbon and white tights on the chair next to the bed, all of them neatly folded.
On top of them was a small note written on white paper and a black card laying.
She took the note and read it.
"This is your school uniform. Always wear it during school. In the town, after school and on your days off you can of course wear normal clothes. Also, the money on the card is your allowance. You can use it to buy the things you need. Principal Mizaki."
With a smile, Sakuya looked at the clothes and the card and decided to thank the principal personally later once she got the chance.
As she stood up to go to the small bathroom next to the room to wash up, she saw a pair of brown leather shoes standing neatly beneath the chair.
Sakuya, with a smile, took the clothes, went to the bathroom, washed up and put them on.
They fitted her perfectly.
Then, she brushed her hair with a brush Miyona had gifted her two day after she woke up.
It was a simple wooden one, but it was good .
After she had finished getting ready, she noticed a wooden box, the size of her forearm in length and four times the size of her forearm in width, standing next to the chair, wich she seemed to have overlooked before.
It was light-brown and had written 'Sakuyas things' on top of it.
Curious, she opened the box through taking of the lid.
Inside was a folded, beautiful, dark-blue kimono embroidered with light pink cherry blossoms, a pink satin obi, a sky-blue satch and a silver satchclip in the form of three cherry blossoms in a line, the two on the right and left side colored in light-pink and the one in the middle in deep blue with silver edges.
She took it out and held it into the air, examining it throughout.
Despite its beauty, the hem was ripped apart and on the left sleeve was blood.
As she looked at the kimono sadness overcame Sakuya.
It's a pity it was damaged. It was made with great care and shouldn't have been destroyed like this., she thought.
Afterwards, she folded it again and wanted to put it back into the box, but stopped as she saw that there were still two other things laying inside.
One was a white envelope and the other was a light-pink ribbon.
She put the kimono on the chair and took out the envelope first.
The moment she opened it, some dried up cherry blossoms fell out and landed on the bed infront of Sakuya.
As Sakuya looked inside the envelope she found a letter written by Miyona, in which she told her that those were the clothes she was wearing and the flowers her hair had been decorated with then Miyona had found her.
Miyona had kept the flowers safe, despite them already being dried up.
As for the ribbon, Sakuya had clenched her hand around it then she was found, so Miyona, assuming it might be something important, had put it into the box as well.
A rush of warmth and thankfulness towards Miyona flew through Sakuya.
She was so kind and comsiderate.
She would definitely thank Miyona properly later.
Then, she took out the ribbon and took a closer look at it.
Besides it light-pink color it also had embroidery of cherry blossoms on it, which were in another shade of light-pink only making them noticeable if one looked closely.
In that moment she had an idea: She quickly braided her long, black hair, which she had let open until now, and tied the end together with the ribbon.
She had barley finishe doing that, then someone knocked at the door.
"Please come in!", she called.
Miyona entered the room.
Today, she was wearing blue pants and a a long-sleeved white shirt with blue stripes, as well as white sneakers.
Moreover, she was followed by another girl, with shoulder-long brown hair, which was kept out of her face by a deep green hairclip, and lush green eyes.
She smiled at Sakuya and then said:" I'm Inaba Haruka. Inaba written with the Kanji for rice plant and leaf, and Haruka written with the kanji for far away. I'm Miyonas roommate, so we will also be roommates from now, that's why I would be happy if we could become friends."
"I would also like to be friends with you.", Sakuya answered quickly.
Haruka smiled:"Then, from today we are friends."
Sakuyas smile grew even brighter.
She was so happy to have found another friend!
Afterwards, they continued talking for a few minutes, until Miyona looked at her wrist watch and said:"We should get going now, if we want to get all the things we need today."
Then, the three started moving.
For Sakuya, it was the first time leaving the infirmary.
Once they stepped out of the building, warm sunshine caressed her cheeks and above her head an endless blue sky was stretching out.
Alongside the stone paths leading around the schoolground there some flower beds and meadows, were fresh green grass was already growing.
The first few crocuses in white, yellow and lilac were blooming alongside the earliest white and yellow daffodils.
Some birds were singing, and everywhere one looked, they could see that spring had come.
They walked slowly, showing Sakuya all the important places they passed by from the outside at least until they finally reached the school gate.
Once there, Sakuyas feet abruptly stopped.
The town was streching out not far from them.
The school was build on a small hill overlooking the city, so from the school gate one had a fantastic view.
For a moment, she just stood there, her breath taken away by the amazing view.
The buildings of the town seemed to glimmer in the sunlight and far away, she could see rice paddys around the town, cut through by grey streets, on which some cars were driving.
"Are you coming?", Miyona said in that moment.
She and Haruka had gone ahead a bit, walking down the way on the hill, leading to the town.
Sakuya nodded, turned around and followed them, running a small part to catch up.
Talking and laughing the three girls walked down the way until they reached the town.
There, Miyona and Haruka had planned to go straight to the shopping center, but theier plans were disrupted by Sakuya, who stopped every few steps to look at something, amazed by everything, like a child.
She found the skyscrapers, that weren't even that high, amazing, as well as the station of the underground.
They needed to go two stations by train to reach the town's shopping center and the whole ride long, Sakuya asked them how the train worked, what building that was, whenever they saw one from outside the window, and so on.
Miyona and Haruka need to chuckle quiet a bit at Sakuyas child-like curiosity and innocence, making her find even the most normal things in a town of modern-day Japan interesting.
That why they needed until midday, just to get close to the city's shopping center.
Since it was already time for lunch by then and they were all quiet hungry, they decided to go to a restaurant, Haruka recommended.
It was only a street away from the Shopping Centre, allowing them to quicklywalk there afterwards.
The building inside which the restaurant was had a white facade with a dark-brown wooden door and only a small window next to the door, looking completely average.
Moreover, the fact that it was a bit hidden and from outside looked the same as a residential building, made it a rather unknown spot, if you weren't a regular there.
As they entered, they saw that luckily there were many empty spots today, so they could freely chosen there to sit.
It was a rather small restaurant with a cozy and homely feeling to it.
The wooden floors,walls and ceiling alongside the wooden tables and chairs with dark green cushions made it seem a bit as if sitting in a tree.
Only a minute after sitting down on a table in a quiet corner, a friendly waiter came to them, passing them the menu, which had a black leather cover.
There were lots of delicious sounding dishes written down inside, but Haruka recommended them to take either the spaghetti carbonara or the eggrice with chicken, since those were the most delicious dishes, as she said.
Despite that, Miyona chosen the fried udon with seafood, while Sakuya followed her advice and decided to order the eggrice.
Haruka ordered the spaghetti carbonara.
The food came not much later and tasted fantastic.
Sakuya needed to smile brightly as she ate.
Her rice was perfectly cooked, the combination of egg and chicken perfectly seasoned, making it an irresistible dish.
In the blink of an eye all of them had finished eating and they decided to order desserts.
Haruka choosen a dish called jewelplate, while Miyona choosen mango pudding and Sakuya choosen backed banana with honey.
Haruka jewelplate turned out to be a mix of different colored jelly and, again, the dishes were amazing.
Once they had finished eating, paid and left the restaurant, Haruka and Miyona took Sakuya with them to the clothes department inside the Shopping Centre.
At first, Sakuya stopped again, overwhelmed by the big building made of glass and steel, with a dome, completely out of glass as well, but her friends didn't allow her to stare at it in amazement for moments again but instead dragged her to the clothes store.
There, they had really much fun letting Sakuya try on all kinds of outfits.
Not long after they started the saleswoman of the shop joined them, her face glowing of happiness to have a customer who could very well be a model.
It was quiet clear that she used this opportunity to show other customers in the shop how good the clothes looked.
"Everything looks so good on you, Sakuya.", Haruka complained troubled, between her and Miyona making the third girl wear two outfits.
One was a rather cool style, with a white shirt, a blue jeans and a brown coat and the other one being a cute one with black pants and a hoodie with cat ears.
In the end, Sakuya could barley stop her friends from buying all the clothes she had tried on, instead settling for four dresses, three pants, five shirts, ten pairs of socks, a nightgown and some undergarments.
All the outfits looked really cute on Sakuya, which was exactly what Haruka and Miyona had tried to achieve.
Sakuya, out of breath from stopping her two friends, kept on one of the dresses right away instead of her school uniform, after her two friends had advised her to do so.
The dress was a long-sleeved light-blue one with a pattern of pink peonies.
Afterwards they continued strolling through the center and on theier way to the stationery store they passed by the accessories department.
Then they walked by one of the accessories stores, Haruka had the idea to buy matching pendants for all of them, so they entered it to look for some.
And they were lucky.
They found beautiful, small silver stars displayed on a small metal stand on top of a wooden table not far from the entrance right away.
One had a blue stone in the middle, the second one a lilac one and the third one a lightpink one.
"Perfect!", Haruka exclaimed loudly, which earned her displeased gazes from the other customers in the shop.
Embrassed she lowered her head, her face slightly reddened, quickly bowing once as apology.
Both Sakuya and Miyona need to chuckle, despite doing theier best not to.
Afterwards they continued browsing the shop.
Miyona found a silver chain, which could perfectly hold the pendant, letting it fall on the upper side of her chest.
Haruka buyed an golden bracelet and two pearls, which she quickly used to decorate the end of a braided strand on the left side of her hair, opposite to her hairclip.
Sakuya instead noticed a blue ribbon, that could be worn around the neck, with a small loop in the front, on which the saleswoman attached the silver star pendant with her superpower.
They paid and left the shop, continuing theier shopping tour.
Next they finally went to a stationery store were most things needed for school were sold.
There, they buyed a typical normal Japanese schoolbag which could be carried in the hand as well, pencils that Sakuya would need to write, the necessary notebooks, a pencil case and a black fountain pen.
Afterwards, they went to the bookstore to buy the books needed for the next schoolyear, since Haruka and Miyona had already received the list for those alongside the other students in theier class.
Besides the normal books for Japanese, Math, Science, Geography, History, English, Social Studies, Health Science, Home Economics and Computer Science they also needed to buy one about spells, one for Magictheory, one for Theory of Superpowers and one for Ayakashi Studies.
Once finished, they all were packed with shopping bags and they noticed that it was already past 5'o'clock p.m..
Since there still was a curfew at 8p.m. on Saturdays instead of the normal one at 7.p.m. they decided to slowly make theier way back.
On theier way to the train station, they passed by a crepe stall and buyed one each.
Miyonas was filled with strawberries, Harukas with blueberries and Sakuyas with bananas.
They tasted great and the girls needed to laugh a lot while talking.
Sakuya was really grateful towards the other two.
They had not only helped her all day, but also took care of her.
At least, she had been able to pay most of the things herself, since the director had given her an allowance, because Sakuya didn't have anyone to give her money.
While they were on the 15min ride in the train, she dozed of, sleeping the whole ride long.
Around an hour later they returned to the school together with the setting sun.
When they reached the gate Sakuya turned towards Haruka and Miyona and said:" Thank you for today.", with a bright smile on her face, the sun illuminating her small figure with gentle red light from behind.
Because of the shadows, she couldn't see her friends expressions, but Harukas words:"Let's do this again then" told her everything she needed to know.
Together they walked the path to the students dormitories, two four storey building with white walls and many widows, each going out from one room in the building.
One was the girls dormitory and the other one the boys dormitory, both buildings standing across from each other.
After entering the girl's dormitory through the automatic glass door at the entrance, they passed by the room of the dorm head, not far from the door and made theier way to the elevator, which carried them up to the third floor.
Once they left, they stood at one end of a long corridor, from which wooden doors were leading into the rooms in regular distamces on the right and left side.
Miyona and Haruka leaded Sakuya to theier room. It was almost at the end of the corridor on the right side.
Opposite to it was an empty space there two wooden tables and some comfy chairs with cushions stood.
"That's one of the lounge areas in the dormitory. There is one on each floor.", Miyona explained.
Then they arrived, they saw that someone had already brought Sakuyas things there, putting them down in front of the door.
Sakuya bowed down, and picked it up while Haruka stepped forward and unlocked the door.
Once she pushed the door open, the simple metal key she had been holding in her hand until then dissolved into thin air with the glowing of a faint golden light.
Sibilant, Sakuya inhaled the air.
Where did the key disappear to? How?
"The keys have a spell on them that makes them appear if they are needed and disappear if not. This way, they won't get lost.", Miyona answered her unspoken question with a small grin, after having taken a look on her face.
Sakuya nodded, still a bit amazed,her eyes still widened in surprise.
She afterwards followed Miyona and Haruka inside.
The room was average in size for a small apartment, but not to small.
A simple corridor leaded from the door into the actual room.
A single stair at the entrance marked the place, there one could leave theier shoes.
On the left side from the entrance was another wooden door, which leaded to a bathroom with a bathroom sink, a toilet and a shower.
Inside the room itself there two loftbeds, inside each two people could sleep, standing on the opposite walls of the room.
Next to them stood one wooden wardrobe each.
In the middle was a carpet on which a small wooden table stood with four pillows to sit on around it, just how it was typical in Japan.
In the corridor was a small kitchen inclrporated, with a sink and a small stove.
At the wall opposite to the entrance was a window leading out on the backgarden of the school, allowing the last bit of sunlight of the day to fall into the room.
Sakuya felt comfortable in the small room right away.
"The right bed is empty, so you can decide whether you want to sleep on the bed above or below.", Haruka said.
Sakuya decided to take the bed above.
Afterwards, they all put theier things away inside the wardrobes, wich were enchanted with a spell to make the inside bigger then the outside, and one small shelf, that Sakuya had overlooked at first.
Then, they all washed up and went to bed.
It was already very late, with sunrise having ended already and the last strand of dusk fading into black night, but luckily they could sleep in tomorrow, so they didn't need to be to concerned about this.
Sakuya changed into her new nightgown, wich was black adored with a pattern of white starts, and laid down inside her bed.
The rustling of the sheets in the now dark room, with all lights turned of, showed her that the other two had also gone to bed already.
Today was so much fun!, Sakuya thought, and filled with happiness, she fell asleep.