A Thousand Cranes for a Wish (USHIJIMA X OC)

The Thousand Cranes Club

The next morning was a school day much to most students' dismay. Umeko entered the club room with a yawn. Just as she was going to put her stuff away, she noticed a rather intricate piece of work left in her cubby. Tiny white flower bells and two leaves both made of paper sat undisturbed. The entire piece was small, no larger than her hand. Where have I seen these flowers before? Umeko pulled out her phone and began to look up flowers that looked similar. Eventually she found them. "Lily of the Valley flowers, huh..." She looked at the piece again. It's really well made. The only flaw was on the right leaf there was an almost unnoticeable crinkle made by someone holding the paper too tightly. Could it be?

"A promise of happiness."

Umeko suddenly turned to the voice then looked at the owner confused.

Hashimoto walked in with a small wave. "Lily of the Valley flowers, they mean a promise of happiness. I always thought those flowers were beautiful." Hashimoto put her stuff in her cubby then took a stack of paper and began to fold. "You should get folding. You are a little behind if you want to finish your project within the allotted time frame."

"Ah, right" Umeko ever so carefully put the flowers back down before she grabbed a stack of colorful origami paper and sat down to fold. The two students chatted pleasantly while they waited for the final member of the club. It was the first Monday of the month, so it was due time for the next official club meeting.

"G'mornin', Akiyama, Hashimoto!" Sakuma chirped, his hair and uniform in disarray.

Umeko gave Sakuma a polite wave while Hashimoto simply raised an eyebrow. "You were almost late."

"But I wasn't!"

Hashimoto rubbed her temples. "You are the club leader. You can't just be late to the scheduled meetings." She sighed. Hashimoto was trying her best to stay composed. "What were you even doing? You look terrible."

Honestly Sakuma had just overslept but there was no way he was going to tell her that, especially since Hashimoto had gotten worked up about setting alarms. He did try to sleep early but he just kept waking up, it was a fitful slumber if you could even call it that. Besides, she has other things to worry about. "I, uh, got ambushed by a fangirl?"

"What utter garbage. Someone like you? With fangirls. Don't make me laugh." Hashimoto looked back down at her work and held back a grimace. Was that too harsh? "It doesn't matter, let's just choose the next club."

Umeko didn't look away from her paper nor did she speak during the whole exchange. It was a familiar banter by now, but it was still a pain just listening to it. Both parties were horribly unaware of each other.

Umeko snuck a glance at Hashimoto. While her words seemed cold -perhaps even uncaring- she just didn't know how to express her concern in a different way. It wasn't that she was dishonest about her feelings, Hashimoto was just harsh in her delivery. As far as Umeko was aware, Hashimoto was the only daughter of a large company who was raised to be the perfect image of a strong businesswoman.

Umeko looked over to Sakuma as he grabbed his papers with a grumble. For Sakuma, he was a little harder to get a read on. He didn't want to burden people with his own problems so he would rather come up with ridiculous stories and leave the listener none the wiser. Sakuma was very much someone who was both considerate and not at the same time.

Throughout the past three years Umeko, Sakuma and Hashimoto had shared together, they had never shared more than a few words about their personal lives. Every deduction they had of each other was all based on speculation from behavior and scraps of information that they could find. Umeko sighed in relief as her latest creation was actually what it was supposed to be.