“C’mon!” I say, pulling Sakuragi-kun down the hallway by his wrist. “You’ve gotta check out this awesome poster I got!”
I slide my door open and tug him inside, then spin him toward the wall by my bed.
“Check it out!” I say. “Have you seen Reiwa Rangers?”
Five figures stare back at us from the poster, each with their own color and action pose.
Sakuragi-kun’s eyes move across them before he looks back at me.
“…Uh… no. I haven’t,” he says.
“Oh my gosh, it’s so good!!!” I say and grab my phone out of my pocket. “Check it out—this is the opening!”
I sit on my bed and gesture for him to join me, then search up the video on MooTube.
When Sakuragi-kun sits, I angle the phone so we can both see the screen and hit ‘play’.
The music kicks in—bright and loud—and the five rangers flash across the screen in quick cuts, poses and explosions.
“Oh! I have a toy of that!” I say as their space station spins into view. “It’s on my dresser over there, but the real one is as big as Japan—isn’t that crazy?”
“The ‘real one’ in the fictional TV show?” he grins.
I grin back and bump his shoulder with mine.
“You don’t know that it’s fiction!” I say and stick out my tongue.
He rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.
The screen cuts to a different shot, one of a group of girls in ornate dresses.
“Oh, those are the Heisei Scouts,” I say, pointing at the screen unnecessarily. “They’re kind of the Reiwa Ranger’s allies and rivals.”
“Pretty.”
“Right? We have toys of them, too, but Papa gets weird about them sometimes, so they usually live in Shizuka-nee’s room.”
“You have a sister?” he asks.
The video ends, and I lower my phone.
“Yep!” I grin. “She’s really cool. How about you—any siblings?”
He seems to… think about it?
“Hmm… Dad has a kid on the way, but I don’t know if I’ll ever meet them—does that count?”
Uhhh…
That’s…
What do you even say to that?
Sakuragi-kun sees my expression and laughs.
“It’s okay,” he grins. “You don’t have to answer.”
I breathe a large sigh of relief.
Sakuragi-kun reaches for my hand—
And pulls my phone back up in front of us.
“Can we actually watch it again?” he says. “I didn’t really catch all of it the first time.”
“Sorry,” I grin sheepishly. “Shizuka-nee does always say that I talk too much during movies.”
“Just can’t help yourself, even in a minute-long intro sequence—”
He grins, and I can feel my face heating.
“—now shush.”
We re-watch the video in comfortable silence, and it’s even better the second time—honestly, if Sakuragi-kun weren’t there, I would probably loop it again.
“…I like it,” Sakuragi-kun says eventually.
“Right? I kinda want to rewatch it now.”
“You can do that?” he asks.
“Yep!” I say. “It’s on streaming.”
“Oh, nice,” he says—then pauses. “…That means you and your sister can watch it whenever you want.”
“Shizuka-nee usually gets bored rewatching stuff,” I say. “Says it’s ‘no fun if you already know what’s gonna happen.”
“Oh! That sucks.”
“I know, right? It’s more fun with someone else,” I say, and…
Is that too on-the-nose?
Come on, Sakuragi-kun!
There’s another pause where we just look at each other.
Then he opens his mouth.
“…I—”
—knock knock.
“Ren-kun?”
What?
No!
No no no!
“Shizuka-nee?”
She slides the door open and peeks inside.
“There you are,” she says. “You said we were gonna—”
She sees Sakuragi-kun and stops.
Her eyes flick to me.
“…This him?”
“Uhhh yeah,” I say, trying my best to switch gears in my head. “Shizuka-nee, this is my…” friend? “teammate Sakuragi Toji. Sakuragi-kun, this is my sister Shizuka.”
Sakuragi-kun straightens slightly.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he says—back to formality, I guess.
Shizuka-nee looks at him for a second, not-so-subtly sizing him up.
Then, to me:
“You ready?” She jerks her head toward the hallway. “Pond. Before it gets dark.”
Ready for…?
Oh!
I turn to Sakuragi-kun.
“I totally forgot we were gonna go to the pond!” I explain. “It usually has a ton of frogs in it. Is your knee feeling okay?”
He nods. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Actually fine or ‘Sakuragi-kun’ fine?” I grin.
“It’s fiiine,” he says again, but he’s definitely trying not to laugh.
Shizuka-nee rolls her eyes.
“Great. New kid is fine. Can we go now?”
“Nope,” I say, grabbing Sakuragi-kun by the wrist again and leading him back towards the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Shizuka-nee snaps at me as I emerge from the storage closet with a roll of tape and a thin plastic bag with the grocery store’s logo on it.
“Just humor me,” I say, but I’m looking at Sakuragi-kun, not my sister.
He gives another eye-roll grin but doesn’t stop me as I kneel down to tape the bag around his knee. I probably use way more tape than it needs, but better safe than sorry, right?
“Unbelievable,” she says as she tromps out the door without waiting.
Sakuragi-kun and I exchange one last smile and then follow her out.
The walk to the pond takes longer than usual.
Despite Shizuka-nee’s best efforts to push us forward, the off-road nature of the trip—packed-earth path from town giving way to the wood’s tree-root tangle—doesn’t seem to agree with Sakuragi-kun’s leg.
I do my best to keep an eye on him, but honestly?
Our conversation earlier is kinda bugging me.
I mean sure, technically we got interrupted without me asking outright, but…
It was pretty clear what I was talking about, right?
So… what does it mean that he didn’t answer?
“Hurry up, slowpokes!” Shizuka-nee calls back to us. “We’re already late ‘cuz of New Kid!”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had reservationsat a pond,” he shoots back, and…
Is that the fastest I’ve seen him respond to someone other than his mom? That feels weird.
Shizuka-nee laughs her big loud laugh. “So New Kid can talk! You’ve been so quiet I thought maybe you hurt your leg and your voice.”
“My voice works just fine,” he glowers—
—then pauses as the sound hits us: croaking, layered over itself, loud enough that it almost doesn’t sound real.
Then the pond comes into view—not too big, but its tall reeds and dark ground make it contrast nicely with the surrounding forest, and the rippling shapes on the surface mean it could be 1 meter deep or 10.
Sakuragi-kun steps up beside me, peering out over the water.
I look, too, but I’m still lost in thought.
What if I ask again but he thinks I’m just being silly?
Or worse—what if bringing up Shizuka-nee was his way of letting me down gently?
My face falls—
And my eyes find his knee again.
“Your knee okay?” I ask.
“It’s fine,” he says.
Then after a second: “You don’t have to keep checking.”
“I just don’t want you falling or anything,” I say. “It can be slippery out here.”
“Yeah,” he scoffs. “That’s why I belong on the baseball field, not out here in… who-knows-where.”
I blink.
“Do you… not wanna hang out?”
He frowns.
“We do hang out,” he says. “After baseball practice.”
…Oh.
Maybe him not saying anything earlier was the answer.
“Okay, well… just let me know when you want to head back,” I say, and he nods.
We stand there for a moment, just watching the water…
Then there’s a splash as Shizuka-nee seems to punch the water nearby.
“Tch. Got away,” she says, shaking pond water off her hand.
“You catch them?” Sakuragi-kun asks.
“I do,” she says, snapping a stick off a nearby tree. “Ren-kun usually just watches.”
“It’s gotta be scary getting picked up like that!” I say. “It’s like… an alien abduction, but for frogs.”
Sakuragi-kun nudges my side. “They don’t do abductions in your show?”
“They summon their robots from space,” I say. “That’s, like,… the opposite of an abduction.”
“I bet the Heisei Scouts would be good at catching frogs!” Shizuka-nee says, climbing a stump and waving her stick around like it’s a magic wand. “Meanwhile, I’m stuck with you losers.”
That gets my attention.
“Hey!” I shout back. “We’re not losers!”
“Yeah, and you met me, like, an hour ago,” Sakuragi-kun joins. “Hardly ‘stuck with’ me.”
“Loser until proven not-loser,” she says, brandishing her stick-wand at us. “Ren-kun may be all starry-eyed, but I’m not so easily impressed.”
There’s a splash nearby, and a wicked grin crosses Shizuka-nee’s face.
“Go ahead,” she says, jumping down from the stump. “Let’s see that hand-eye coordination, baseball boy.”
And just like that?
Serious Sakuragi.
…Crap.
I think I liked it better when he wanted to leave.
He steps forward, eyes locked.
The frog shifts—barely a ripple—and he tracks it, adjusting his footing without looking down.
He’ll only get one shot at this.
The frog jumps, and he jumps too—two quick steps forward and lunge.
Or—it should be a lunge.
His foot catches last minute on a stubborn reed, and Sakuragi-kun starts slipping forward toward the pond.
“Sakuragi!” I call, grabbing his arm on pure instinct.
Which… almost works?
I slow his descent a little bit, but only at the expense of pulling me towards the pond with him.
Oh no oh no oh no—
I’m just squeezing my eyes shut and bracing for impact when something yanks me back.
I don’t let go, just open my eyes to see Shizuka-nee grabbing me with one hand and Sakuragi-kun with the other, pulling both of us back up the shore as she braces herself on a shore-side rock.
“Are you kidding me?” she groans out through gritted teeth—
And then her foot slips.
We go down in a messy heap, 100 kilos of human child all splashing into the pond at once—it’s nowhere near deep enough to submerge us, but wow is it cold.
I take a moment to get my face free of excess water—
And then start laughing.
“I told you it was slippery!” I yell at Sakuragi-kun.
“You grabbed me!” he shoots back, but he’s laughing too.
“You were falling!”
“You both were!” Shizuka-nee grins. “Unbelievable.”
We start the climb back onto dry(ish) land, and—
“Oh no!” I say. “Your knee!”
His knee is as mud-splattered as the rest of him, and—yep, there’s the bag floating away.
Ugggghhhh.
“Worth it,” he grins.
“Not if you didn’t even catch—”
I cut off as he glances down at his hands, which are… cupped together?
I blink.
“Wait…”
He slowly opens his hands, then jerks backwards as a frog-sized blur bursts upwards toward his face.
Shizuka-nee and I watch in horrified glee as Sakuragi-kun and the frog both jump at the same time—the frog towards freedom, and Sakuragi-kun backwards. He succeeds in keeping his face free from the frog, but his foot slips on the mud in the process, landing Sakuragi-kun on his back with a thud.
He just lies there for a second, and I start to worry that he hurt his knee somehow and can’t get up, when—
He starts laughing.
It’s by far the loudest noise I’ve heard from him, and I can’t help but grin when I hear it. This kid—usually so quiet and reserved he almost feels grown up—is now just splayed out in the mud laughing his head off.
My grin turns into a full smile, and then I start laughing too. Even Shizuka-nee joins in.
“Okay,” she admits. “That was pretty cool.”
“Told you,” he says as he sits up.
He smiles at Shizuka-nee, then at me, and…
It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him.
Then—
it shifts.
Just a little.
Not gone, just… tighter.
More pulled in.
Like…
Oh.
I blink.
“So?” he says, and his tone is light. Airy. Forced.
“So what?” Shizuka-nee says back.
But I know what he’s talking about.
“He met your challenge,” I say. “Now you have to say we’re not losers!”
She snorts. “Mama’s gonna call you a lot worse than that when she sees us.”
I look down in horror—I hadn’t even thought of that—but Sakuragi-kun seems less bothered.
“Doesn’t matter!” he says. “You still gotta say it!”
“I don’t have to say nothin’!” she says.
Sakuragi-kun glowers, then looks around himself for a sec—
“What are you doing?” she asks.
—before gathering up the biggest wad of mud he can in one hand.
And adopts a pitcher’s stance.
“Uhh, I’d run if I were you,” I say.
Her eyes widen.
“Stay away from me!” she shrieks as she runs back the way we came, Sakuragi-kun hot on her trail.
I chuckle once more and start back up the trail myself.
Maybe we could be real friends after all.
[4/5: Edited for clarity.]