I’m stuck in my head the whole walk back from the pond.
Sakuragi-kun’s been bickering with Shizuka-nee the whole time, shooting her dirty looks when she bumps into him on purpose.
He’s still limping a bit, but for the most part he seems perfectly fine—if I hadn’t seen his face at the pond, I’d think it was any other day.
I can’t stop thinking about the moment when his face changed. Sharp. Gone before I could make sense of it.
But… he still stayed.
Even after that.
So maybe I’m just… missing something?
I look away before I can get caught staring.
I feel like I’m so close—I just need a little more time.
I’m still lost in thought as we step into the entryway—
And Mama spots us.
We freeze.
“…Welcome home,” she says, looking at each of us in turn.
Shizuka-nee and I each give our missing “I’m home”, but we’re so nervous they end up sounding more like questions.
Mama looks at our wrinkled clothes, probably smells the pond on us, and sighs.
“…Do I even want to know?” she asks.
“I was trying to keep Ren-kun from falling in!” Shizuka-nee says.
“I was trying to keep Sakuragi-kun from falling in!” I say.
“I was… trying to catch a frog,” Sakuragi-kun blushes.
“I… see,” Mama says, then thinks for a bit. “Well, I was going to offer Sakuragi-kun a ride home, but none of you are leaving this entryway until you’ve had a proper bath.”
There’s a collective whine from the kids.
“Sakuragi-kun,” she says over us. “Were your parents expecting you home by dinner?”
He doesn’t correct her, I notice.
“Uh, I think so,” he says instead. “We didn’t really talk about it.”
“Well, hopefully they won’t mind if we keep you a little longer,” she says, regaining some of her usual composure. “Now—shoes off, all of you. And don’t leave this spot—I’ll be right back.”
The three of us obey, prying the muddy shoes off our freezing feet. Hopefully we don’t get sick from this.
By the time I look up, Mama is already back, holding out a towel to each of us.
“Dry off so you’re not dripping everywhere, then baths,” she directs. “Boys, you can go first.”
Shizuka-nee makes a noise of disbelief, but Mama talks over her.
“Sakuragi-kun is our guest,” she decrees, “and his knee should be disinfected again. Ren, you can handle that, right?”
I’m already nodding when Sakuragi-kun speaks up.
“Um, I’d really rather bathe alone, if that’s okay.”
Mama nods. “Of course. Then you’ll go first, then Ren, then Shizuka.”
“Why do I have to go last?!” Shizuka-nee balks.
“When you have a friend over, you can get earlier bath times.”
Shizuka-nee groans again.
Mama turns to Sakuragi-kun.
“Would you be okay with me disinfecting your knee instead of Ren?” she asks.
Sakuragi-kun blinks for a second, then nods his head.
She smiles and gives a nod, then starts off towards the bathroom.
Sakuragi-kun follows, a little stiff, like he’s not sure where to step.
Shizuka-nee watches them go, then looks at me.
“You’re making that face again,” she says. “It’s creeping me out.”
“What? I’m not making a face.”
“You are,” she says immediately. “You’re making the ‘I just brought home a stray puppy’ face.”
“Wha—”
“And you’ve been hovering all day. ‘Are you okay, Sakuragi-kun?’ ‘Is your knee okay, Sakuragi-kun?’ ‘Be careful, Sakuragi-kun—’”
“I’m helping!”
“You’re fussing,” she says, screwing up her face. “It’s creepy.”
“So what do you want me to do? Just let him break his leg?”
Shizuka-nee laughs.
“Okay, first of all: he’s not gonna break his leg. It’s a skinned knee—calm down, crazy.”
That… is fair.
“Second, I’m not saying you can’t care about a new friend. I’m just saying you don’t usually get this carried away—so it’s like, ‘what’s so special about this kid?’”
My shoulders go tight.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“I dunno, he’s just kinda… weird, right? He’s, like, ‘all baseball, all the time’, and then we get back here and he’s all ‘yes ma’am, thank you ma’am’. What was that about?”
“He was being polite.”
“I’m not saying he wasn’t. I’m saying it was weird.”
“Well, what about the pond? He wasn’t ‘weird’ out there.”
Shizuka-nee seems to think seriously about it for a second.
“Hmm… not… as weird,” she finally concedes. “He definitely loosened up a bit. You pushed him, he pushed back. I pushed him, he didn’t freeze.”
…I’m so freaking confused.
“So again: what do you want me to do?”
Shizuka-nee snorts.
“I don’t ‘want you’ to do anything,” she says. “Just—don’t get all weird about him.”
“‘Weird, weird, weird’—is that all you know how to say?”
“I’m trusting my gut!” she shoots back. “My gut just… isn’t very specific sometimes.”
I roll my eyes.
There’s a moment of silence.
She’s not wrong, but…
“…But you’re saying… you don’t hate him?”
“I’m saying I don’t know him yet. But he’s… interesting.” She shrugs, like she doesn’t feel like explaining it all the way. “If nothing else, I kinda wanna keep him around just to see what he does next.”
I suppress a grin.
That’s… not nothing.
I try to come up with a reply, but—
“Fujimura-kun.”
Sakuragi-kun stands just down the hall, hair still dripping onto an old t-shirt of mine—Mama must have gotten it out of the laundry for him.
“Your turn,” he says.
“Oh, uh, sure,” I say as I head down the hallway towards the bathroom.
Shizuka-nee watches me go, but doesn’t say anything more.
“You can wait in my room if you want!” I add as I pass Sakuragi-kun. “I’ll be quick!”
I scrub off the pond as fast as I can, but it’s sinking into the steaming bath that really relaxes me enough to think.
Think about Sakuragi-kun staying after I patched him up.
Him staying again at the pond—even after his whole ‘we should only hang out after practice’ thing.
My conversation with Shizuka-nee—her calling him ‘interesting’. Whatever that means.
And… I think about Mama telling us to get in the bath together and how… weird that would have been.
Public baths are one thing, but I haven’t shared our home bathtub since I was a toddler—one big plus of having no brothers.
Still…
I would have done it if it kept him from leaving.
…Maybe?
I don’t know.
Guess we’ll never find out.
But.
At least he stayed anyways, right?
That has to mean something.
Like…
He wouldn’t have stayed if he didn’t like spending time with me…
…Right?
I sink lower into the water and close my eyes.
Sigh.
So much for relaxing.
[5/20/2026 edit: forgot a few "-nee"s]