The term dragged on, very little interesting developments, just the same schedule again and again. I say this but that's not completely true, I had been lukewarmly introduced to a couple other classmates,
Sean Salter, and Chris Lawson, they were alright guys. Other than that Egawa had been keeping certain aspects of school interesting in her crusade to keep my consciousness during classes, and she was actually gradually succeeding in doing this to my complete despair.
Egawa had confirmed she'd take me out before the finals, on the 7th of July. That day had arrived, quicker than I had thought it would. We had arranged to meet up at some random place she picked out, so I arrived there about 20 minutes early, only to find that, of course, she had made me late.
"You really got here before me?"
"Yes I did"
"How long have you been waiting?"
"Approximately..15 minutes"
"You seriously got here 35 minutes early? That's commitment to the date huh"
"Date? No, more like outing"
"Pretty much"
Egawa asked me to follow her around. She took me about this place which I had no sense of direction in, nor any kind of knowledge about despite it being not too far from my house.
"Look, the trees" Egawa was pointing at a small park containing some massive oak trees.
"They're huge..Damn"
I spotted something in the park, and decided I wanted to go to it for a bit.
"Let's go to the park, just for a little bit"
"Huh? Why's that?" She asked, but I turned her around and led her toward the park. I brought her to a little bush in the park when we got there, it was a lilac plant. The flowers had recently bloomed, and they were beautiful enough for me to spot from all the way where we were.
"They're beautiful aren't they?"
"Are you some kind of flower lover?"
"I'd say I'm more than partial to flowers, possibly even greatly liking them"
"Why'd you word it like that?" She giggled a little as she said that, probably the first time I'd seen her properly smile, and I couldn't
help but respond with one of my own. "I love flowers too.."
"Oh yeah? What would you say is your favourite flower?"
"Probably snowdrops?" "Yeah I think that'd be it"
"The flowers of hope.. How interesting."
"And you?"
"Lilacs or freesia have always been my favourite, I've felt drawn to them for years now"
"That's really quite cute you know"
"How come everyone's calling me cute nowadays?"
Instead of protesting that she didn't actually say that about me, she just smiled at me, the biggest smile I had seen her make before.
We stayed at the park for a little longer before she led me around to the place she had wanted to take me from the beginning, I think at least. It was a garden with many flowers, utterly stunning was all I could think as I gazed upon it.
"You see, Daniel, this is what I wanted to show you"
"Why?"
"Because it's beautiful, and I thought you might benefit from seeing something like this. The beauty of the world and all"
"Hmm, I can't deny you're right"
It was a warm day when we met up, but recently clouds had begun to form
and the afternoon had become overcast. Only 30 minutes after we had gotten to the park, the first drop of rain had fallen, and before we knew it, it was absolutely lashing.
"We probably should have thought ahead on this one"
"Even I couldn't foresee it would rain this much"
I held my jacket over her head to cover her at least a little bit from the rain, she was still getting soaked though.
"Where even are we Sakurako?"
"We're in Dallesmo"
"That's pretty close to my house, hold up I'm gonna check something"
I whipped out my phone and checked my location, we were like 10 minutes from my house.
"Do you live close to here Sakurako?"
"No I had to get the train here, and I'm pretty far from the station"
"Alright, well I live around 10 minutes away, I think we should probably go there if we're looking for shelter"
"Are you sure?"
"If you're fine with it so am I"
We walked together for a bit in the rain, swiftly walking of course.
Soon though, the weather transformed into torrential downpour, in summer? Because it was getting way too heavy I needed to take action here. I dropped my jacket onto Sakurako's head, and grabbed her hand,
it was noticeably small and delicate.
"Huh?!" She exclaimed as I forced her into a run.
We ran for a couple minutes before arriving at my home, I unlocked the door to the apartment and let her in.
"We're absolutely soaked.." Sakurako took my jacket off her head and
handed it to me.
"Take this and dry off, you can use the bathroom if you like for a shower or whatever" I handed her a towel from a cupboard near my entrance. "Throw your clothes in the dryer if you're going to shower or have a bath, just don't snoop around my place"
"Shouldn't you prioritise yourself? I brought you out so this is my fault"
"Yeah but you're a guest so go ahead, don't worry about me I haven't gotten sick in years."
"Okay then, I'll go for one. Thank you"
While she left to go do whatever she chose to do, I took off my sopping wet clothes, changing into some easy casual wear. 20 minutes after that Sakurako emerged from my bathroom, wearing clothes she most definitely didn't have at the time of her entrance.
"You're done?"
"Your house is pretty untidy.."
"My bad, I suck at housework!"
"How hopeless.."
"Say what you like"
"Daniel, why do you own women's clothes, and why do you own all of it?"
"You know that's a good question"
"Are you going to answer it?"
"I think my family left them here for if they ever come over, surprised any of them fit you"
"I'm not that small you know"
"Yeah I guess you're only a couple inches shorter than my sister"
I realised when I said that, this is probably the first time I'd ever actively mentioned my family in this manner.
"You have a sister?"
"Yeah, Elizabeth. She's 2 years younger than me so she'll join the school in our 3rd year"
"I know you have a poor relationship with your brother, but your sister?"
"Honestly I haven't spoken to her in over a year, but I always had a pretty good relationship with her. The only thing I can really say about her is that she has an interesting personality completely
different from my brother and I"
"How come you have a poor relationship with your brother?"
"Drilling me with the questions today are we?"
"I suppose"
I usually would've shut down any conversation like this, but today I felt like I wanted to tell her.
"There's two answers to that so I'll give you one of them. He sees me as both a failure and a threat"
"Huh??"
"Yeah, I've failed to live up to the lofty expectations my family had of me, even if I was never going to inherit the company or anything" It was surprisingly easy to talk to her about this. "I have all the talents, and the skills that they taught me, but I struggled a lot with the pressure, so eventually I stopped trying, and that's why I am where I am now"
"What would be the result if you did try?"
"That's why he saw me as a threat, because I would be nigh on unbeatable in academics or trials of the mind I guess you could call
it?"
"I see, how close am I to you?"
It seemed like Sakurako wasn't all that interested in this, she just wanted to avoid making me divulge every last drop of information, which I appreciated.
"Very close, I'm unsure if you could beat me if I'm at my best, but I won't deny the possibility you could defeat me"
"Hmm..Interesting"
The cogs weren't turning in her mind, Sakurako had already completely analysed the situation.
I asked her to take a seat in my living room, and prepared some drinks for us, tea to be exact. I brought it to the coffee table, placing it down.
"Thank you"
"So any more questions you want to ask?" I sighed, but I wasn't particularly begrudged by her interest.
"What is your sister like?"
"I can't say for sure by the time she'll join us, but more likely than not she'll attempt to challenge me and herself, possibly even you to see the superior person."
"Why's that?"
"She's always loved winning" I said as I put my chin into my palm with the teacup in my left hand. "Especially when beating people older than her"
"Older than her?"
"She is a supreme child genius, so I guess she's always really like the feeling of beating people who've had longer to hone their skills"
"Alright that's intriguing, I won't ask anymore questions"
"She's a good person though, I said I've always been on good terms with her, and that's true.
To be fair I had told her almost everything I could've told her by this point, but I was intrigued in her standing.
"So. What are your circumstances exactly?"
"My family are completely middle class, I have one brother who is 25, and is completely average in every way"
"How exciting.."
"I'm the only "Exceptional" person in my family, and I mean that in every way"
"What like smarts, looks, not sports"
She glared at me as I said sports but quickly returned to the point.
"Yeah pretty much. But that was the worst thing that could've happened to the family, because I was so abnormal in comparison to the rest of my family, my father didn't trust my mother"
"Like he thought she had an affair and that's why you were so different to him?"
"Exactly"
"I assume they ended up splitting then, that's the natural course for an actual marriage"
"Yeah they did, 4 years ago, I haven't seen my father since then, he completely cut me off"
"What a terrible father"
"You mentioned 'normal marriage' what do you mean by that?"
It was back to me I suppose.
"I don't know all the details, but my parents were a marriage of convenience, arranged"
"Business reasons, I guess"
"Yep, merging the Barrington heir apparent and the Callahan heir presumptive nearly doubled the size of my fathers empire. It got to his head and he's obsessed with competence, my mother was far weaker than him"
Sakurako just sat contemplating for a bit as she finished her tea off.
"I plan to start a company myself, I want to pay my mother back and bring success to myself"
"You know Sakurako, I think you could do quite well in that"
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. Cruise along? Or maybe I'll join the family company if my brother would allow me to"
"Why do you not strive for better?"
"Because I don't need to, and I don't want to help my family in anyway"
Once again she contemplated, but for that she stayed silent for a lot longer as I took the tea set and put it in the kitchen.