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“Wait for me! Don’t run so fast!”
Somewhere in a small town, in the heart of a now-forgotten park, the footsteps of a desperate child can be heard amid the echo of the rain.
Mud stains his pants, the dirt stains his sneakers—which hold value only for one of these little beings—and blood eventually mixes in with sweat and the dampness of the raindrops that the sky releases with sorrow.
The scar on the short boy burns, stinging so badly that he wants to be able to complain without hesitation, but the regret and pain of the other boy’s guilt are far greater than any wound on his knee, so he runs while begging him to stop between gasps.
“Please, listen to me! Don’t run anymore!”
But he doesn’t stop; no, instead the other boy runs even faster, as far away as possible, hiding among the surrounding bushes.
The small figure in dirty sneakers huffs tiredly when, after several minutes, he no longer sees him in his field of vision, and nervously bites his lower lip once he finds himself in front of the small grove of trees surrounding the playground as the only answer to his uncertainty.
The raindrops then begin to fall harder than before, and in response to the situation, the boy stamps his foot furiously against the muddy ground.
His hands clench into fists, but they’re too small to contain the frustration he feels; and the complex web of emotions surrounding him—which he can’t quite understand—has him on the verge of tears, but he can’t allow himself to give up, so without looking back and with his mismatched eyes burning, he steps forward.
The scratches multiply, as do the branches and leaves that begin to adorn his disheveled hair; the sleeves of his sweatshirt seem to get dirtier by the minute, and despite the difficulty of breathing due to exhaustion and the humidity in the air, the boy continues his search.
However, the further he advances through the bushes, the less luck he has; the grove is a reality too vast for a small being whose world is reduced to just four walls and a window. He doesn’t know what to do or who to call; he wants to give up, but the other being’s gaze remains etched in his memory as a grim reminder that no matter how much dirt he has on his hands and feet, finding him is his only priority.
“Suo! Suo! Please, answer!” The boy swallows the exhaustion in his throat as best he can while the rain drowns out a call that no one will hear.
“Suo, say something! Suo!”
Silence, again, the rain preventing anything from being heard.
“SUO! WHERE ARE YOU!?”
Silence.
“SUO, PLEASE! I’M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU!”
And then, amid the sounds of nature, a pitiful cry begins to be heard a few steps away from the boy with distinctive hair, who immediately tries to follow the faint sound.
For a child his age, following a melody that doesn’t want to be found is difficult; it’s a concept that doesn’t exist in the innocence of his world, especially when, at that stage of life, all he knows is the sound of laughter and happy moments with friends and family. But the child with eyes of different colors is different. The melody of silent tears, prayers, and hopes for something better is a recurring theme that has embraced him from the very first moment he became conscious, thus erasing an innocence that could never have existed in the face of the cruelty of a world that failed to protect him.
That is why, as soon as he hears the familiar sound of stifled crying, he runs without a second thought in the direction he knows the sound must be coming from. And after what seems like hours to the little creature, he manages to find him.
“Suo?” he whispers softly, certain it won’t be heard—not while the other boy continues to hug his knees in an attempt to hide his small self from the world trying to hurt him. The response to his presence is delayed until the boy takes a loud step forward in an attempt to get closer.
“Go away, please.” The boy with the peculiar hair looks at him in silence, and his chest tightens just as it does on those days when the hostile stares of his orphanage mates weigh heavily on him.
“Suo…” What should one say in situations like this? The boy isn’t sure if the right thing to do is to cheer him up or say nothing at all.
“Just go away, Sakura. Leave me alone, please.”
“Suo...” He bites his lower lip as he tries to take another step, the other boy’s body shrinking in response. “You’re going to catch a cold if you stay here.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Suo.”
“I said leave me alone, Sakura!” The boy jumps at the suddenness of the shout and takes a step back almost instantly, but his fear is quickly replaced by—pity? Guilt? Understanding?—as he looks into the other boy’s eyes.
Suo, the boy hiding beneath one of the thick-trunked trees that rarely bloom, looks at him with an eye full of rage and pain, the sparkle in his iris fading as tears silently stream down his face. And his other eye, which he hides under a patch, remains concealed, leaving the image of a wound that is large enough to make the boy want to disappear.
The puddle of rainwater that seems to want to separate him from the other boy grows larger, and if you were to ask the boy with eyes of different colors why he hasn’t left despite the other boy’s angry shouts, he would tell you that in that forest, what lies before him is not a wounded child, but a broken mirror that shouldn’t exist.
“You’re enough of a pain to deal with for one day—just go away! You’re no help with that disgusting hair! Just get lost and leave me alone! I don’t want to see you! Go be a nuisance somewhere else!”
The medical patch under Suo’s eye is stained brown with dirt.
And Sakura silently watches the way the mud has ruined his shoes.
“You owe me a pair of sneakers after this.”
Suo looks at him confusedly when he hears the other boy’s empty remark. “What? What are you talking about now?”
“You owe me a pair of sneakers.” He lifts his shoes and points at them boredly. “Because of you, I’m going to get scolded when I get to the house and I won’t be able to go out. You owe me a new pair.”
“You…” Suo brings his hands to his face and smiles with a hint of malice. “Don’t act like you don’t hear what I’m saying!”
Sakura shrugs. “You’re just talking nonsense, I don’t get it.”
Suo glares at him, and instantly his face takes on a venomous expression that Sakura knows full well is just an act; and as a storm of hurtful insults interrupts the melody of nature, Sakura puts on his best innocent expression.
Sakura’s heavy smile begins to spread across his face with every knife the other boy throws at him, the wound on his chest bleeding in a way that has become normal to him, though the other boy is unaware of it.
“Are you happy now?” Suo insults him again. “If you keep this up, you’ll be late getting home; your parents are going to worry.”
“Just get mad already, Sakura! Blame me and hate me!”
Sakura sighs and finally approaches the other boy; his response is to instantly yank Suo’s hair, making him whine. “This is easier than everything you’re trying to do.”
“Sakura!”
“You're really weird sometimes, seriously.” When he finally lets go, he notices that the mask of venom seems to have vanished, the attempt to push him away having failed. “You're too childish, Suo. You act like a very spoiled child.”
“We're the same age!” Sakura nods.
“Well, it doesn’t look like it right now.”
“Sakura!”
The boy snorts and ruffles the other boy’s wet hair. “It wasn’t your fault. What happened on the swings wasn’t your fault. Stop acting like it’s the end of the world.”
Suo closes his eyes and places his trembling hands on the other boy’s, pushing him away from himself while avoiding his gaze. “But when you get back, they’ll punish you for what I did.”
“Surely.” Suo takes a pained breath, and Sakura rolls his eyes, closing his own and letting his head drop onto the other boy’s shoulder with a heavy sigh to tease him, sitting down beside him. “It’s nothing new, Suo. Even if you hadn’t done anything, they would’ve punished me anyway. It’s easier to blame me than to admit that what my classmate did was wrong.”
“It’s not fair, Sakura. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s that… that idiot’s fault who thinks he has a right to everything in this park. Next time, I won’t just punch him in the face.” Sakura lets out an amused laugh and shakes his head.
“Thanks, Suo. Now stop blaming yourself for something that has nothing to do with you.”
“Sakura!”
“I mean it, Suo. Before you got here, I’d already punched him, so in a way, it’s not really your fault.”
“I made things worse. That wasn’t my intention.”
“I know, and it’s okay.” Sakura opens his eyes and looks at the way the other boy’s pained eye shines. “I'll be fine, I promise.”
“Are you sure?” Sakura nods, but Suo doesn't seem entirely convinced. Still, he takes his hands and, with the other's support, they get up from where they were sitting. “I'll try to visit you as soon as possible, at our usual hideout. I'll let you know, so don't be late.”
“I’ll be waiting. Now go—there are people who’ll worry if you don’t show up in a couple of hours.” Suo looks at him with a sad smile, and with that gesture, he leaves.
Sakura watches the other boy’s back disappear, and as the cloak of night falls over the vast open sky, the rain stops, leaving behind a muddy ground and a boy crying inconsolably in silence among the bushes.
The small body trembles, fear setting in as he realizes what awaits him in a few minutes, but at the same time, the sense of release from complex emotions unraveling manages to untangle him just as small tears fall.
Suo doesn’t know it, but the punishment he receives is much harsher and worse than he expects; however, the weeks they’re apart allow Sakura to hide his wounds, and with a forced smile, he calls out his friend’s name when they see each other again.
“Suo! You said you’d be back soon!”
He smiles sadly at him. “Sorry, Sakura! I was supposed to come sooner, but my parents wouldn’t let me leave.”
“They wouldn’t let you leave?”
He nods as he climbs onto the empty swing next to the boy with different-colored eyes, swinging lazily. “Yeah, but you don’t need to worry about it, they just misunderstood everything. I tried to explain what happened the other day to them, but…”
“But they think it was my fault and that you shouldn’t have done anything. That I’m dangerous.”
Suo looks at him, offended. “Sakura!” The boy sticks his tongue out at him in response. “Don’t say things that aren’t true! You know I don’t like that!”
“They may not be true to you, but they are to them.”
“They don’t understand. If they knew you, they wouldn’t say any of that. My parents are good people.”
“Of course they are, Suo.” He says it with a sarcastic tone.
“It’s true! They aren’t like the other adults who hurt you!”
Sakura wants to laugh when he hears the honesty in the words coming from the boy with the medical patch by his side; he pretends to do so while looking away, thus hiding his face from his innocent friend. The joke too good to ignore.
How many times has he heard those same words repeated over and over by other children? Too many—enough to lose count, enough to understand that he is alone and that no one will stand by him. In a world where falsehood reigns over truth, and where innocence is nothing more than a weapon to control minds that seek only good, Sakura cannot afford to trust anyone, especially those who created such a system.
Hate and resentment are a strong seed, and the little boy doesn’t know it yet, but the first fragments of a twisted tree are growing inside him. A tree that no one will know when it will bloom—or at least not at that moment.
Sakura doesn’t laugh in the end, but when the sparkle in his eyes dims as he remembers the reality of where he lives, the boy with the peculiar hair uses the excuse of being tired from “playing” at the orphanage, and pretends, once again, that everything will be all right.
But for how much longer will he be able to maintain that illusion he shares with his friend?
“Sakura, are you listening to me?”
He sighs and starts rocking back and forth vigorously. “Everything’s so complicated.”
Suo looks at him, confused. “What are you talking about now?” Sakura turns to look at the boy and gives him a smile as he shrugs his shoulders.
“Nothing, just nonsense.” Suo rolls his eye in annoyance. “Unimportant stuff.”
“You know that anything is important if it comes from you.”
Sakura tilts his head back as he begins to laugh heartily, the breeze hitting his face harder the higher he rises. “You make me feel special with those words.”
“You are! Someone’s made you believe nonsense again, haven’t they?!”
Sakura shakes his head, and as the sunset erases their footsteps, the answer to his question seems to have finally been resolved by the canvas of fate.
The snow draws nearer with each passing day, as does the arrival of the lonely, cold winter. But this time, the solitude of a stove seems to cast a shadow over the distance.
And then, the pounding on his window wakes him, and the darkness that reigns in his room consumes his mind with a voracious hunger that leaves him unsatisfied the moment he opens his eyes; the silence is far greater and more necessary than any attempt to pretend a life he will never have—or at least, that is what he tells himself as he tries to ignore the incessant pounding on his bedroom window.
He closes his eyes tightly, tries to cover his ears to keep the rays of light from entering a place where they should be forbidden, he pretends it doesn’t exist, but he can’t. Not when Sakura can no longer keep lying to himself by imagining a sad eye because of him.
Because the truth is the exact opposite of what he tells himself, because Sakura wants to embrace the warmth he was never allowed to feel, the curiosity and the desire to have something normal in his life far greater than any lie he has ever told himself, so, even if the consequences of crawling to reach that unknown light he longs for are very harsh, Sakura will try to reach it, no matter how difficult and tedious it may be.
Because that will allow him to follow the trail of that one being who seems to blindly believe in him as no other being ever has. So he opens the door.
Suo’s brown eyes meet his, and his genuine smile serves as a casual greeting as he steps into the room where, just minutes ago, solitude was his greatest gift.
“What are you doing here, Suo? We agreed you weren’t supposed to come here.”
Suo shrugs and sits down in the middle of the small, empty room. “I came to visit my friend.”
“Suo, we’ve already talked about this.”
“No, you’ve talked.” Sakura lets out a sigh and looks at his friend in exhaustion. “I didn’t say anything. Besides, it’s normal to come visit a friend when they’re sick.”
“Am I sick?”
Suo nods. “That’s why you didn’t come to our secret spot to play.”
Sakura sighs and shakes his head, amused by the seriousness on Suo’s face, the kindness shining in his eyes so brightly it manages to outshine the moon. Sakura sighs again, this time tiredly.
Starting to explain the truth to his friend is difficult, especially when it means shattering the perfect reality he lives in. If he did that, he wouldn’t be much different from the adults he hates so much, so he can’t allow himself to do it. Therefore, he stays silent and decides to go along with the lie Suo feeds him, hoping the honesty Suo takes advantage of will never leave him.
Sakura tries to protect his friend as he should, so he smiles, the clouds blocking the faint rays of light in the night.
“You’re right, I’m sorry I forgot.”
“It’s okay, as long as you don’t do it again, everything’s fine.” Suo smiles, his cheeks flushed from the cold, causing Sakura to look at his friend with a hint of envy in his mismatched eyes.
The thing is, a couple of hours earlier, before Suo arrived, the boy with two-toned hair had been punished in the darkness of a room that tormented many at the orphanage, and without being able to complain, he’d had to spend his afternoon there, without eating, drinking anything, or even resting properly. His friend, however, had spent a peaceful afternoon; his neat face and new clothes gleaming as a testament to the comfort and luxury few can afford, his shoes far more valuable than any treasure hidden beneath the dead earth of the building where Sakura lives.
And as if the world were pointing out the vast distance separating their worlds, Suo begins to pull from his small backpack a series of food bags that Sakura is sure gleamed with luxury and the packaging surrounding them.
“You didn’t have to, Suo.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t say another word. Just by looking at you, I can tell you’ve skipped a meal again, like you always do. Let me help you.” Sakura is about to complain, but Suo is quicker and shoves a piece of bread into his mouth. “I said don’t talk.”
Sakura snorts and rolls his eyes, takes the bread in his hands, and pushes it away after taking a bite, Suo smiles at him as always after managing to get him to eat something. “Okay, whatever you say. You win this time.”
“I always win, Sakura.”
He rolls his eyes and snorts, his body resting on the only piece of furniture in the room—the futon where he sleeps. “It’s because you’re too annoying.”
“But I’m the only one who puts up with you and your friend, so you can’t complain.” The boy with the eye patch sticks his tongue out at him, and Sakura looks at him amused before mimicking him in annoyance.
“It's not like I had a choice; you forced me.”
“That's a lie, and you know it!” Sakura raises an eyebrow and looks at him amusedly. Suo pouts and crosses his arms, glaring at him. “You were the one who wanted to be my friend.”
Sakura looks away, embarrassed, his cheeks starting to tingle. “I think you’re misremembering that, Suo.”
“No, I remember it perfectly. You…” Suo is about to continue, but Sakura is quicker and interrupts him in a panic with a piece of bread he finds among the nearby bags of food.
“Okay, okay, I get it! Don’t say a word!”
Suo snorts and turns away, annoyed. “Tsk, ungrateful.”
Sakura looks at him with regret in his mismatched eyes while Suo eats reluctantly to the side, and after a few minutes of silence, they both fall to the floor laughing at the situation they were in earlier, the image amusing to both of them.
However, almost immediately after falling to the floor from laughter, Suo smiles at his friend with the peculiar hair, laughter bubbling up from within him as if it were the most natural thing in the world even though it wasn’t; the image before him clashing with that of that summer afternoon when the boy seemed like a different person.
“Tell me, Sakura, do you remember what we played last winter?”
Sakura looks at him, confused. “Why are you asking that out of the blue?”
Suo gives him a mysterious smile. “Just answer. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I think so.” Sakura brings one hand to his chin. “We made little snowmen, lots of them—enough to form an army to defend the swings.” He makes a sad face. “The next day they destroyed them, so we made them again, but this time at the entrance, and then we started making them anywhere they’d been destroyed.
“It was really fun, actually. We should do that again.” Sakura nods with a serious look on his face until a funny expression crosses it as he remembers something.
“I remember not having gloves because they’d broken, so you lent me a new pair, but something happened and we got into a fight. Why did we fight that time?”
Suo lets out a laugh as he nods, noticing the other's confused look. “Yes, we fought because Sakura couldn’t accept my gift. He wanted to get cold and catch a fever.”
“I bet they were too expensive, and that’s why I didn’t want to accept them.” Suo nods, and Sakura rolls his eyes in feigned frustration. “Yeah, really funny to remember the time you threw almost all the snow in the park at me.”
“No, no. Don’t act like you didn’t start it. Besides, it was Sakura who threw almost all the snow around me first.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I still remember how heavy your snowballs were.” Sakura lets out a small laugh as he shakes his head amusedly.
“It was fun, really, but why bring this up out of the blue?”
Suo shrugs. “Last winter was one of my favorites out of all the ones we’ve shared together, Sakura. There wasn’t a single boring day, nor any I remember badly—nothing like the ones before you arrived. Every time I think back to those months, it makes me happy to know my friend was there. Do you feel the same way?”
Sakura looks at him silently and nods. “Yes, I feel the same way.”
“Then let’s keep sharing more, so that the day you don’t want to remember will hurt less, and we can bury those memories under hundreds of new ones—much better than the old ones.” Suo raises his pinky finger, his sincere smile glowing in the faint moonlight. “It’s a promise.”
“And what if I never forget them?” His face is worried.
Suo shrugs. “We’ll have enough moments to overwrite our encounter; I’m sure we’ll even forget without realizing it.” Suo holds out his pinky to his friend, who looks at him with a grimace. “Don’t worry about that now.”
Sakura looks at his friend’s hand, and then at that eye that seems to wrap him in a kind of blanket with its warmth, one that had never covered him before. A few minutes pass in silence, during which Suo thinks his friend will reject him, until Sakura finally moves and tentatively extends his pinky finger.
It doesn’t take long for Suo to intertwine their fingers—a simple, careless promise, yet as strong as their grip.
And so, at just five years old, Sakura makes his first promise, one that he will later forget, like all the others, because what are promises but a white lie to the heart meant to fill you with false hopes?
“For more days together…”
“For more days together…”
And so, they both fall asleep, tranquility embracing their hearts, unaware that the future would bring the end of a friendship neither of them would want to let go of.
But to speak of that moment, we must first speak of the following morning, when Suo wakes up while the sky is still dark, the early dawn secretly accompanying him on his sneaky return home, his heart screaming so that no one would know of his monthly escape to his friend’s home, thus leaving, without realizing it, one of his earrings in his friend’s room.
Suo straightens his clothes once he makes it home, makes his bed, hides the evidence, and goes about his day as usual, unaware that, at a familiar distance away, at the orphanage, his friend looks worriedly at the fallen earring, not knowing what to do with it.
The conclusion? He should take it with him, because the chances of getting in trouble with his caretakers, as well as of it being stolen by one of his classmates, are high—very high—and he doesn’t want his friend to get angry or disappointed with him, so he decides to give it to him the next time he sees him.
But that turns out to be a difficult task when he remembers his friend’s complicated schedule, especially during the fall and winter months, so several days later, Sakura ends up going alone to what he thinks must be his friend’s school. But he finds nothing, so he walks to the next place, the restaurant where he usually goes to eat ice cream with his parents, but he finds nothing, so he decides to go to the place where he goes to read books, but he finds nothing.
Finally, exhausted and without much hope, Sakura decides to go to his friend’s house. It isn’t a good idea; in fact, Sakura himself knows it’s the worst thing he could do, considering the places he’s visited—each one a greater luxury than the last for the boy with different-colored eyes. But Sakura doesn’t want to owe his friend anything, much less feel like he hasn’t been honest with him, so he goes.
On the way, he prays that his parents aren’t home, that no one is there so he can leave the earring and walk away in peace—it’s all he can do as he regrets his decisions more and more.
But once he arrives in the neighborhood, extravagance surrounds him—a world far too complex for Sakura, who is used to the simplicity of his orphanage. That is why Sakura begins to bite his lower lip the further he goes, the feeling that he should hide his hair and his presence growing with every step he takes.
However, he does nothing; instead, he follows the path he thinks he knows based on his friend’s words and arrives, exhausted, at the door he has heard about countless times from the other boy. The scent of old wood greets him as he stands before the large gate, and with it, the sound of tree branches rustling on the other side welcomes him into the silence.
Sakura hesitates; he doesn’t know whether to knock on the door or look for a doorbell. With no answer and hundreds of doubts, he decides the best solution is to leave the small bag containing the earring at the entrance, but then, the sound of heels approaching in the distance reaches him.
“Excuse me? Are you lost? You seem too young to be walking alone without adult supervision.”
She is soft and gentle; despite her curiosity, the other person is kind to him—or at least she will be until Sakura turns his face and reveals what the other person cannot see.
Sakura swallows hard and shakes his head, avoiding any unnecessary movement; the woman looks at him in silence.
“You’re not lost?” He shakes his head again. “Then what are you doing out here alone?”
He doesn’t want to answer; he wants to avoid that awful moment when the other person looks at him as if he were some kind of weirdo or a disgusting creature. But he needs to get out of there fast.
“Sorry to bother you, I just came to drop off something a boy who came to play at the orphanage dropped.” Sakura mutters without turning his face.
“To play at the orphanage? A boy?” The woman seems to think for a few seconds until she smiles as the answer comes to her. “Do you mean Suo?” He nods. “Oh my… this kid has his head in the clouds; he’s always losing things with that friend of his.”
Sakura doesn’t need to be very smart to notice the dismissive tone in the woman’s voice, the urge to laugh and tell his friend he was wrong growing in his chest.
“Ever since he’s been spending time with him, he’s become more disorganized. Though I suppose that’s just how childhood is when you’re having fun and have friends, don’t you think?”
“I guess…”
“Thanks for bringing whatever it is he lost.” Sakura nods; he’s about to put the hood of his sweatshirt on to turn and walk away when the other woman steps beside him and looks at him. “But you didn’t have to bring it.”
“It’s no problem.” Sakura swallows hard.
“You really didn’t have to, Sakura.”
The boy quickly turns to look at the woman in surprise, and she, in response, looks at him with a strange emotion that Sakura doesn’t think he’s ever seen before. Years later, he’ll discover that it was compassion, perhaps, but in that moment, the boy trembles with fear of the unknown.
A mysterious smile on the other person’s face makes something inside the boy feel cold in his hands, the unknown causing Sakura to finally act his age.
“I… I’m sorry!” Sakura closes his eyes and bows to the other person in a gesture of apology, his hands clenched into fists. “I didn’t mean to keep that earring for so long! I’m sorry!”
“You don’t have to worry; it’s just that Suo doesn’t wear them anymore, which is why I said it wasn’t necessary.” The woman looks at him before sighing and taking another step toward the child, her face coming to his level once she crouches down while a sad smile forms on her face—one that Sakura cannot see. “But thank you for caring about him.”
“I'm sorry! I really am!” He bows even lower than before.
“It’s okay, you don’t need to apologize anymore.” Sakura’s eyes widen in surprise, and he automatically looks up, his surprise growing when he sees the woman ruffling his hair with a broad smile on her face. “Suo hadn’t told me he had such an interesting friend.”
“You…”
“Your hair is beautiful.” Sakura scowls, looking annoyed and confused, as the woman ruffles his hair again. “I’d heard a few things about you, so I couldn’t quite picture the little guy who makes our Suo act so rebellious—you definitely exceed my expectations. You even seem more well-mannered than the kid at home!”
“Don't make fun of me!” He swats her hand away, and instead of getting angry, the woman starts laughing loudly.
“What a temper! No wonder you can handle Suo.” Sakura looks at her, confused, and when the woman finally stops laughing, he notices her sparkling eyes. “You're a great kid, Sakura.”
“You… you… you're weird!”
She laughs again. “You say that? Oh, our little boy has really found someone interesting.” Sakura feels his cheeks flush with embarrassment and frustration.
“You’re a very strange lady!”
“Miss, I’m still too young to be called ‘lady.’” Sakura opens his differently-colored eyes in surprise, and the woman finally steps away from him; the height difference becomes apparent with that gesture, forcing the boy to look up to see the other person’s mysterious eyes.
“Well, you don’t look it! You look older!” The woman laughs at the comment and ruffles his hair again, this time more roughly and painfully.
“Don’t push your luck, Sakura.” The person in question looks at her with a hint of annoyance. But before Sakura can continue speaking, the other woman’s gaze drifts off into the distance as she turns her face away, and she quickly steps in front of the child, as if shielding him with that gesture.
“What are you doing?”
The woman turns her gaze back to the boy and smiles, the kindness fading despite the gesture she offers him. “Sakura, don’t speak so loudly.”
“What? Why?”
“You see, my boss is about to arrive, and I’m afraid that, unlike me, he won’t be very thrilled at the idea of meeting you—especially if he finds out about the earring.” The woman looks back again and, in a more hurried voice, addresses the child without looking at him. “Go before he spots you; hide your hair so he doesn’t know who you are.”
“Your boss? I thought you were… aren’t you his mother?
The woman makes a sour face. “If I were, maybe everything would be different. Now go, Sakura. I’ll let Suo know so he can go see you if he can at some point.”
“I…” Sakura wants to say something, but the woman’s expression seems to grow even more serious, so he says nothing. Instead, he pulls up his hood and runs off.
He stares straight ahead, running as he hopes that whatever has happened behind him is just an illusion or something he doesn’t need to worry about; he prays that nothing will happen. But things aren’t as simple as asking a god no one knows to help you, because if that were the case, Sakura would have known his parents. No, life is much more unfair and deaf than one thinks at that age.
That’s why Sakura doesn’t hear the screams in the distance, the argument between the two people growing louder by the hour before it seals the end of his friendship with the other boy.
A couple of days later, Suo visits his room in the afternoon, but his solemn face is answer enough for Sakura; it’s proof that, once again, his prayers have not been answered, and that his mistakes, as always, have consequences. While others can walk around carefree despite their misdeeds, Sakura must pay a higher price just for something he didn’t even mean to do.
“Sakura…”
The boy looks at him and manages to put on his best fake smile—the one he uses when he needs to hide his pain. A feeling that something wasn’t right was growing in his chest. “Suo? What are you doing here? We just saw each other.”
“I… I have something to tell you, Sakura.”
“Oh? What is it, Suo? Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?”
He shakes his head. “No, I should have told you before we left… but I couldn’t, I can’t.”
“What is it, Suo?”
The boy with the medical patch looks at her with such deep sadness that it brings the darkness back to the four empty walls of his room, and Sakura tries—really tries—to smile as best he can.
The sky is clear despite the cloud weighing on both children’s hearts; the rain is closer than they think.
“I...”
Sakura pretends like he doesn’t know what it could be, and his bad feeling screams back at him what he doesn’t want to hear, his smile trembling on his face while the other boy doesn’t notice, the pain blinding them both. “You?”
“I...” Suo sighs and, as best he can, looks his friend straight in the eye. “I... I’m moving away, Sakura.”
“Oh? Congratulations, Suo.” Sakura starts clapping, but his friend looks at him with a pained gleam in his eye.
“I’m going to another country, Sakura.” Sakura freezes, and his smile seems to shrink with every passing second. Suo swallows the lump in his throat. “I’m leaving for somewhere else—somewhere very far from here.”
“That… that means… we won’t be able to see each other again.”
He nods. “I swear I tried to convince them, but for some reason they have this strange idea that this is a bad place and that it’s a bad influence on me. I wanted to tell them about you, but they wouldn’t listen.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them what a good person you are, how you’ve helped me, but the shouting just got louder—it’s as if they couldn’t hear me.” Sakura looks at him for a few seconds, then at the wall behind him. The memory of the visit is still fresh, just like that woman who tried to protect him.
“Was there anyone else in that argument?”
“Huh? No? It was just my parents and me. No! Wait, I think there was another maid with us. I’m not sure.”
It was his fault.
The reason his friend was leaving was his fault.
Because of his selfishness, because of his attempt to be a good person. Sakura had ruined everything because of unnecessary worry, over something he was sure even Suo didn't remember.
He really was the cause of all the trouble.
Sakura feels his hands burning; the rage and helplessness he feels toward himself are growing in a way he never believed possible until that moment. The urge to turn back time and make a different choice grows stronger the more he remembers that day during those long minutes when neither of the two children speaks.
It’s an eternity in minutes that punishes Sakura; he wants to speak, but he can’t say anything as his throat feels tight, he can’t respond as something in his chest begins to squeeze painfully. He can’t do anything when he is the cause of pain that is foreign to him.
If only he hadn’t gone out… if only he had given up…
“Sakura?”
The boy looks at his friend, the urge to cry evident in that beautiful eye that shines brighter than it should. And the other boy wonders if he looks the same.
But Sakura can’t cry, because if he does, his friend would break down, and that isn’t fair—not when he’s the one to blame, the boy with different hair and eyes. So Sakura tries to smile, and as best he can, he stays strong so he doesn’t fall, holding them both up.
The world of two children crumbling in an instant.
“It's okay, Suo. It's fine.”
Suo looks at him, confused and hurt. “Didn't you just hear me? Sakura, I'm leaving—far away, to another country. We won't be able to see each other! We won't be able to play together anymore!”
“But we can write to each other, or call each other every now and then. It's not like it's the end of the world.”
Suo looks at him in disbelief. “Sakura, I won’t be able to come visit you like I do now.”
The boy with different-colored eyes nods, a sad smile spreading across his face. “I know, but what can we do, Suo?”
“I don’t know, but we can’t just accept this! Let’s not give up before it’s over!”
“Suo, it’s okay… it was bound to happen someday…” Sakura bites his lower lip, and once again, with a sigh, decides to hide the truth from the other boy to protect him. “Let’s enjoy the time we have left before you leave.”
“You can’t give up, Sakura! We promised we’d always be together!”
“And we will continue to be, Suo.”
“What?!” The other boy’s tears are a sight that breaks Sakura’s heart. “How are we going to be together if you won’t be there with me anymore?”
“Because I’ll always remember you when I make my army of snowmen.” Sakura smiles at him despite his crying; his hands are too heavy and stained to comfort him. “As long as I don’t forget you, it’ll be okay, right?”
“Sakura…”
“You told me that yourself once. So don’t cry—let’s make so many memories that we’ll never forget each other.”
Suo looks at him with pain in his eye; he doesn’t want to accept the reality of things—a world far removed from the freedom to shine and make his own decisions. But what else can he do? Suo is just a child, a child who doesn’t know much and is facing for the first time the fact that his parents might not be as good as he thought.
So, with pain and regret, he wipes away his tears, takes his friend’s hand, and they both run off into the rain, their sandcastles more fragile than on any other day.
Sakura keeps his smile; he does so even as he says goodbye, he does so while he eats, he does so while he showers and hides beneath the blankets in his cold room. Sakura smiles even as tears fall in the solitude of the night, his face hidden just as his eyes lack their usual sparkle.
And so, Sakura says goodbye to Suo.
And with that last memory, Sakura decides to forget the boy he ruined.
The next morning is much heavier than any other day up to that point; his body feels drowsy and absent as he wanders for weeks toward a place that he was sure would soon lose its warmth. And finally, with a void accompanying him in his chest, he decides to finally surrender to the fate painted on the canvas of life.
That is how, at some point, he ends up lost and alone in the rain.
It was a beautiful yet nostalgic melody, whispering to him the loneliness with which some of its listeners stood watching her in silence, offering a sweet, cool embrace within the warmth of the right arms. It was a song the boy knew and admired with a calm that was frightening, a moment in which he let nature cleanse the impurities of his solitary existence, and for a moment it kept him tethered to reality, showing him the image he sometimes forgot in the mirror—that of a young man with no path to follow.
His name drew the spring flowers that died in an instant, and the raindrops watered the branches of the withered tree that would not see him bloom for another year.
Someone was calling his name, but the strange ringing in his ears prevented him from knowing who or what was trying to capture his attention. And as if it were some kind of bad joke, the world around him slowly faded away.
On the wet ground of an unfamiliar park, alone, and in the arms of the rain, a young man with peculiar hair closed his eyes to the morning, while the blood on his hands washed away and lost any glimmer of hope. Sakura Haruka embraced his new reality—one in which he would be alone, one in which no one would ever shout his name again.
His eyes, each a different color, gaze with a strange gleam at the sheet of paper in front of him, as if he were reading some kind of secret document—when it is nothing more than his acceptance letter to the new school—and he lets out a long sigh, releasing the weight he didn’t realize he’d been carrying. He runs his hands through his hair, and for the first time in a long while, not out of frustration, but out of a strange relief he didn’t know could feel so liberating.
Then he looks up, and within the lonely four walls he finds himself in, he gazes at the night sky.
“I told you you’d make it.”
The woman smiles at him from the other side of the door, her footsteps as steady as ever, just like on that day when she protected him.
“I didn’t think I’d have a chance.”
“Huh? What’s that I hear—doubt? Is that you, Sakura?” He looks at her, annoyed, and the woman laughs again, amused.
“You're so annoying!” The laughter grows, but her worried look doesn't go unnoticed by the other young man.
“Ah… I'm really going to miss your screams, little nuisance.” She ruffles his hair, and with an annoyed complaint, Sakura tries to push her away. “You have to be careful. I won't be able to make sure you're okay from so far away.”
“Tsk, as if anything could be worse than this place.”
The woman looks at him sadly, and with a heavy smile, she drops a cap onto his hair, which is a different color. It’s small—much smaller than it should be for a young man his age—and it’s in terrible condition, the years clearly showing on it.
Sakura looks at it, puzzled, and she shrugs.
“A gift.”
“It’s too small to wear.” Sakura takes it in his hands, the strange cap feeling out of place, as if something were slipping away from him because he couldn’t remember.
“It’s a metaphor, kid.” The young man rolls his eyes as the woman sits down beside him. “And I’m supposed to let you go to a place where they spend their time fighting?”
Sakura shrugs. “It’s the perfect place for me, a place made for people like us who don’t belong anywhere.”
“You do have a place, Sakura.” He lets out a weary sigh, and she rolls her eyes as she shakes her head, looking up at the sky. “You always will.”
“You don’t count; soon you’ll be starting your own family.” The woman doesn’t answer. “I have to learn to live without your help so I’m not a burden; sooner or later I have to start fending for myself.”
“You’re too young to say that.”
“That’s what that man told me.” The woman closes her eyes in annoyance and sighs.
“You only listen to him when it suits you.” His father’s face was a dark stain Sakura refused to remember, and his voice was nothing but an annoying echo. “I hope things go well for you.”
“I plan to get in touch every day.”
“You?” The woman looked at him with an amused smile. “With what phone?”
“The one you gave me for my birthday! What else?”
“I knew you’d kept it!” The other’s embarrassed face makes the woman laugh heartily. “You’re such a good person, Sakura!”
“And that’s how you plan to be a mother?! With such a childish attitude?”
“What did you say about me, you ungrateful child? It’s because of things like this that you forgot about him!”
“Here you go again with your weird stuff! Age is getting to you!” The woman begins to ruffle his hair, the sheets tossed aside in disarray in the empty room—the one from which Sakura would take nothing, since he didn’t really own anything of his own.
That night Sakura has a nightmare; his body feels heavy against the damp earth. It’s the same rain in the same place he thought he’d forgotten—the park that punished him on the very day the young man gave up.
Sakura bears many scars, not from fights or accidents; it’s much deeper than that. His scars are inside him—in his name, in his eyes, in his hair, in his heart. Sakura has too many scars—scars that seem not to have healed, that are slowly closing, and others he’d rather forget.
That day in the park is one of those scars, which is why, when he opens his eyes again, filled with fear, he decides not to go back to sleep—even if it means staying awake for hours—because the thought of reliving that same feeling from that day terrifies him.
He looks at the papers the woman left in one of the corners and tucks them away as if they were a treasure; exhaustion sets in as soon as he gets up—he hasn’t slept a wink—and he can feel the consequences of it when he looks out of his room.
He looks at his hands, which are trembling, and tries to calm himself by going through his daily routine, while trying to think about everything and nothing at the same time. He must keep himself busy; he must avoid silence, and for a few hours, that seems to work.
And while Sakura continues to exist in a loop where he only knows pain and the harshness of others, many miles away from him, a young man with an eye patch stares intently at a tree whose branches are bare of leaves.
The young man remains absent, just like the calligraphy he should be filling on the sheets beside him. But he cannot move, not because he doesn’t want to, not because he hasn’t tried, but because the weight of a memory casts a shadow over his chest in a way he can never heal.
His gaze fixed on a single point causes Suo to remember things he shouldn’t, things he’s supposed to have buried. But then a gaze of a different color returns to his mind, a gaze that continues to freeze him in place.
Suo sighs, and as best he can, he tries to forget the image from the past with other memories, but when he turns his face, in a corner of his room, the young man with the eye patch swears he can see a wounded child staring at him. His face is covered in wounds he’s never seen before, his hands are stained with mud and dirt, and something else—something crimson—and his eyes, the ones that should shine beautifully despite his heterochromia, are clouded by a feeling that screams he’s reached his limit.
The boy doesn’t smile as he remembers, he doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t cry either, despite the blow he receives from the other person. He doesn’t complain when he’s locked in his room, without food or drink; no, instead he accepts it in a way that baffles Suo
The boy from his memories—always fighting, always complaining, and always making such a ruckus with every step he took—stood there, shattered, as the observer watched from a distance. His eyes reflected nothingness itself, a void that managed to freeze the boy who had come to visit him in secret, who had wanted to surprise him with his delayed flight, but who, instead, left without being able to help him.
“Young master?”
Suo looks up, and with a small, fake smile, gazes distantly at the person calling him. “It’s fine, don’t worry, I was just remembering.”
“May I ask what?”
Suo nods. “My biggest mistake, that’s all.”
“Has the young master made a mistake? When?”
Suo lets out a laugh, his smile growing more tense and difficult to maintain the longer he ignores the boy in the corner. How was it possible that his friend could keep that smile every day he visited him? “Oh... I’ve actually made too many. Ignorance in childhood can be a great enemy if you don’t realize it in time.”
“But if you were just a child, no—”
“That’s no excuse. In my immaturity, I failed to protect the one I should have.” It’s a sharp remark, a statement that can’t be argued with—a declaration, even if it isn’t meant to be one. Suo simply shakes his head after a few minutes and rises from his seat as if he hadn’t just silenced the other person a moment ago. “I’d better get my things ready for the new school.”
“Young master.”
“It’s too late to keep talking.” His distant smile—unable to hold the warmth his friend managed to convey even on days when he couldn’t take it anymore—is the only thing he can offer the other person to put their mind at ease.
And as he walks away, he ignores the corner where eyes of a different color watch him with a resentment he refuses to accept is real.
When Suo closes his eye, determined to go to sleep, after cleaning the scar beneath the patch and making sure his things are where they should be, his twisted mind brings back a moment that squeezes his heart.
He is smaller than he remembers, and the rain seems to have cleared.
“Suo, look! There are so many puddles!”
The boy looks at him amusedly and nods, his arm quickly being pulled toward one of them while the other boy laughs. “I see them, Sakura. There are quite a few.”
“I didn’t think there’d be so many!”
“Well, it really started raining hard; it was bound to happen one way or another.”
“Suo, look! That one’s huge!”
And the boy lets go of his grip, his eyes shining with excitement as he decides to approach the puddle that looks big enough to hold three people. The boy stares at the puddle for a few seconds, and without thinking twice, he decides to jump into it; the water splashing around and onto his clothes makes his eyes reflect a face much more childlike than he appears.
And Suo watches him without saying a word, his smile growing as he’s pulled over to his side once more; his friend’s expectant gaze prompting the boy with the eye patch to respond with an even bigger jump, and so they both get dirty as they start playing amid laughter.
“Suo, look, I’m jumping higher!”
“No, I’ll do it!”
“No, look how hard I’m doing it!”
“Not as much as me!”
And when Suo opens his eyes again, the rain has stopped, and in its place, the approaching spring sun welcomes him.
And so he walks toward Makochi without looking back, a mask and a smile as his only reminder of something that no longer exists—or so he believes. Because as the cherry trees rise up and the noise of his classmates surrounds him, Suo feels he has regained something he thought was lost when he looks at the school entrance.
His black-and-white hair is longer than before, his face seems harder and more troubled than he remembers, but his eyes of different colors—the ones that haunted him like guilt on the worst nights—shine in a way he never thought possible.
Sakura looks frustrated as he talks to a blond-haired boy at his side, his face etched with confusion and frustration, the kindness gone from his expression.
To Suo, the boy in front of him is different, but the more he listens to him from a distance, the more certain he is that this is the same loud boy from his memories. It’s just that it seems the wounds within him have grown.
He watches as they noisily enter the school while Suo’s heart pounds, hoping the boy will end up in his class—a wish granted when, after long, agonizing minutes, the door swings open abruptly.
Suo looks at him, and surprise flashes across his face as he instantly realizes that the other boy will be his classmate.
“Not bad.”
Suo looks at him, and with a smile, calmly approaches the other boy. The image in his head of that encounter playing out exactly as he’d planned. “Hey. You must be Sakura.”
The boy looks at him defensively, even though the blond boy seems excited to see him. “So what if I am? Who are you?”
It’s just a second, but to Suo, it feels like an eternity.
Who are you?
He had imagined that encounter hundreds of times; he was prepared in case his friend reproached him for not having written to him for years. He had even thought of an apology in case the other boy was waiting for him, angry. But he hadn’t thought that none of that would matter when the moment came.
Not when Sakura had forgotten about him.
The promise broken and cast aside, as if its meaning had never been worth anything.
“Hold on, Sakura.” The blond-haired boy tries to get Sakura to lower her hands, which are raised in a fighting stance. “Forgive him; he’s very impulsive.”
There are several bows, emotions on the part of the other freckled boy as he tries to make way for an introduction that shouldn’t exist.
Not when Suo is part of Sakura’s story, not when they’re supposed to have known each other.
“There’s no doubt about it!”
Suo looks at the floor, but instantly raises his gaze with a carefree smile, something inside his chest asking him for something twisted upon realizing that Sakura doesn’t remember him. “I’m Leonardo DiCaprio.”
And so, with those words, Suo decides to bury a past that doesn’t exist for the other.
Sakura’s eyes widen with excitement for a moment, and Suo must pretend it doesn’t affect him—not when Suo decides to take fate by the hand for a fresh start, as he had often wanted, his whim granted, and his punishment his own selfishness.
Sakura has many scars—wounds that bleed because they haven’t healed properly, and others that have left a mark on him. There is a scar inside him that weighs heavier than any other, one that returns in the form of nightmares, one he thought he had learned to live with, but now that he knows what family means, now that he understands the complexity of friendship, it hurts more than ever.
When night falls, it comes accompanied by a nostalgic melody.
And then he is back in the park again, years ago, his hands full of blood and heavy, and the smell of wet earth is just as he remembers it. He wants to cry, he wants to scream; his scar bleeds like the rain that washes away his impurities, and Sakura hears a voice calling him again, but he cannot move—he feels numb, just like that day.
There are promises he forgets, there are laughs he recalls fleetingly, there are screams he hears once more, there is rage that ceases to exist, there is pain he learns to live with.
There is a tree with withering flowers on it, falling as if they were raindrops, that he will never see bloom again; there is a first name on it that he doesn’t want to recognize, there is a surname without meaning.
There is someone who is alone, and no one will ever call them again.
“Sakura?”
The person in question opens his eyes, his exhaustion and desire to keep sleeping far outweighing anything else at that moment. The young man with the eye patch at his side looks at him with a strange smile on his face. “Suo? Did something happen?”
“I should be the one asking that.” Sakura looks at him, confused. “You started moaning in your sleep. Does something hurt?”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s just a nightmare. Don’t worry.”
Suo stares at him for a few seconds, his smile fading before returning, smaller than before, his eye looking at him in a way Sakura doesn’t understand. “Is that normal?”
“No, it’s just from being tired.” Sakura sighs and looks at the other boy with a carefree smile. “Don't worry. Nothing a little food can’t fix.”
“It’s really late. You should’ve gone with Nirei when he asked.” Sakura lets out a groan, but then Suo pulls a strange bread roll out of his backpack—its wrapper familiar for some reason. “Here, this way you won’t be too hungry.”
“But it’s yours.”
“And you haven’t eaten—take it.” Sakura grimaces; their hands brush against each other for a moment, and Suo is sure he feels a strange warmth where they touch.
“Fine, but don’t complain later.”
“I would never do that. I’d rather have a noisy Sakura than one who hasn’t eaten. It’s really annoying.”
“What did you say!?” Suo bursts out laughing, his eyes sparkling as he recalls a familiar situation from years ago. “I’ll show you what being a nuisance is all about!”
“Sakura, what you just said doesn’t make any sense.”
“You! Suo, you’re so annoying! ” Sakura starts cursing at him, and Suo savors the moment, the innocence finally shining in the other person as it hadn’t been able to years ago.
“Ah, Sakura, you’re yelling too loud; Nirei is going to worry.” Suo pretends the blows from his friend don’t hurt, but deep down, anything is fine as long as he can keep the other person by his side.
The roles from years ago are now reversed; the winter promise buried in the sands of time—or at least that’s how it is until Sakura stumbles upon it.
The old cap the woman gave him feels heavy in his hands, and as the summer night envelops him, the memory of the boy with the eye patch makes him blush as he tries to force himself to recall moments from a life he feels he has forgotten in parts. Suo’s melodious voice is an echo that is at least familiar in its playful tone, but he can’t remember a thing.
All he can travel to is an army of snowmen he hates making alone, and a rainy day.
But then, little fingers clasped together in the thick of the night, beneath blankets that shield them from the winter, come to his mind. Sakura looks at the cap again and remembers something.
He remembers a fight, his hiding place under a tree that bloomed only in spring, his crying as he pushed someone away, the comfort of small hands as they helped him to his feet. And then, he remembers an old shield he had forgotten, a laugh that promised to protect him, a dirty bandage that needs changing, just like the other’s stained, elegant clothes.
“Please don't help me.”
“Huh?” The boy looks at him, confused.
The boy with the two-toned hair starts fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt, his gaze fixed on the ground. “Don't help me. If you do, I won't be able to stop thinking that someone actually cares about me.”
“What you just said doesn't make any sense.”
“Just... just don’t help me!” The boy with the unusual hair breaks free from the other boy’s grip, but instead of getting angry, the boy with the eye patch looks at him with a smile. “What’s with that reaction?”
“You know what? You have a strange way of asking to be friends.”
“I didn’t—! I never said—! What are you implying!?”
The boy with the eye patch shrugs. “I didn't have to say anything; your eyes were screaming it at me.”
“What?”
“Your eyes—it's as if they were asking me to ignore what you're saying. My master often tells me they're very important.” The boy with the different-colored eyes stares at him in silence, not knowing what to say or do for several long minutes. “Just be honest.”
“But nobody wants to be friends with someone who looks like me.”
“Huh? Really?” The boy nods. “That’s weird. Your eyes are really pretty. Maybe it’s just jealousy?”
The boy looks at him in disbelief, and instantly starts laughing, his tears completely forgotten. “You’re really weird!”
“Why are you laughing? I meant it! Your eyes are beautiful, just like your hair!” The other boy’s laughter grows. “You’re so mean.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just that… no one has ever told me what you just said. ” The boy looks at him, and for the first time, he lets selfishness take root in his heart.
“Well, then that’s what I was saying: envy.”
The boy with the mismatched eyes looks at him, and with a small, timid smile, he speaks to him again. “Is it okay if we’re friends, then?”
“Of course!”
“Then be my friend, please.”
The boy with the eye patch smiles happily at him. “You don’t even have to ask.”
Sakura looks at the cap and smiles as the lump in his throat begins to grow.
He doesn’t remember his name, nor the face of the boy who was with him, but as he hugs the old cap, he lets the sadness he didn’t know he was hiding take hold of some part of his being.
“Sakura?”
The person in question turns around; a worried face looks at him from the other side of the door. “Suo, did something happen?”
“I should be asking you that—you suddenly got really quiet.”
Sakura shrugs. “Nothing, I was just remembering something a woman told me.”
“A woman?”
He nods. “Yeah, a really grumpy one.”
Sakura thought his name would be forgotten, that the scar from that rainy day would fade, but it’s much more complicated than he realizes.
Once you learn about the warmth of people, returning to the coldness of the world is difficult, and that’s when you realize that things that didn’t hurt before now do, because tasting sweetness makes the weight and pain they bring with them much greater than they used to be.
“This is the first time I’ve heard you talk about someone from your past.”
Sakura smiles at him as he shakes his head amusedly, his cap hidden between his legs, unseen by the other boy. “It’s just someone who helped me get here. I think you’d like her.”
“If Sakura says so.” There’s an ironic tone in his voice that makes the boy with the eye patch give him a dirty look.
“You talk as if you’re questioning my friendships.”
“You don’t have a very good track record.”
Sakura opens his mouth, indignant. “You were part of that track record!”
“Now I’m part of another one; don’t compare.” Suo smiles at him amusedly from across the room.
“You’re making me regret my decisions, Hayato! And what other track record are you talking about!?”
Suo rolls his eye. “Too late. Now help me set the table for dinner.”
“Tsk, sometimes I really question our relationship.”
“You’re late for the party, Haruka. Don’t forget the cups. And set the table.”
“I’m on it! Don’t treat me like I forget the things you tell me so easily!”
“But Haruka, you always forget the important things.”
“You’re impossible!
Sakura is slowly learning to accept and let things go, and as Suo holds him and makes him laugh in the quiet of the night, Sakura feels that everything is going to be okay. Because even if the rain falls again, this time he won’t be alone.
The forest no longer exists, and perhaps the tree that watched them grow up has been cut down, but Suo and Sakura don’t look back; this time, they keep moving forward side by side, walking hand in hand.