The Song of Windchimes

Daisy

┏━°⌜防風鈴 ⌟°━┓

Chapter 22

┗━°⌜防風鈴 ⌟°━┛

"All right!" Ryuu stands beside Hiragi as their leader starts saying goodbye to the two in front of them.
"Next time, you guys should come hang out at our place. The food here's delicious, but we've got a lot of great food over there, too." Umemiya places his hands on his hips, looking down at Shishitoren's leader.
"Really?!" Tomiyama pipes up.
"Yeah! Man, I wish I brought some with me..." He mumbles as he rummages through his pockets, "Oh!" Umemiya pulls out a squished sweet from his pocket.
"I totally forgot I brought Anpan from Cactus!"
"Anpan?" Ryuu whispers to himself, grabbing the attention of Hiragi, who smiles at him softly.
"Ya want it? The bread's good even when it's cold!"
Hiragi frowns at Umemiya. "I don't think it being COLD is the problem," He grumbles from behind before watching as Tomiyama grabs the packaging of the bread.
"Thank you," Tomiyama smiles up at Umemiya.
"Yeah!" Umemiya smiles back, "Next time, ya gotta try it right outta the oven!"

"See you guys later!" Umemiya waves at the two, walking away from the Ori no longer as enemies. Ryuu walks quite a bit forwards, mumbling to himself and fixing his bag on his shoulder.

┌──❀*̥˚───❀*̥˚─┐
On Furin territory
└───❀*̥˚───❀*̥˚┘

Walking under the train tracks that separate Furin and Shishitoren, Ryuu attempts to sneakily walk off but is grabbed by the sleeve. Suo had seen his want to leave, but would not let him, dragging him back into the group before walking towards their destination with the rest of the gang. Ryuu sighed through his nose, knowing that the dogs in the alleyway near his place would whine and complain about their food not being there.

'Maybe I should message Miss Yaya...' He wonders 'Ah... but she is scared of dogs.'

Sitting in front of Pothos, the middle schooler holds his knees close to his chest, looking down at his shows before looking over towards the, now arriving, Furin group that saved him. The boy gets up quickly and runs towards them, catching the attention of Kotoha, who is inside ready with a first aid kit and a lot of bandages at her side as she studies.
"Welcome back!!" Sasaki calls out as he runs towards the groups, taking them off guard.
"Oh, Sasaki!!" Everyone stops in front of the boy "Were you waiting for us?!" The boy stays quiet, staring up at them with wide eyes. The group stares back at him in confusion.

"Uhh... I..."
Umemiya chuckles before bringing his hand up and patting the boy's head. "I told you! You can count on us!"
"It's all over now." Everyone looks at the boy with gentle smiles minus Sakura, who just looks away from the middle schooler.
"We're baaaack!" Umemiya sings, the bell alerting the cafe owner that they came in.
"Welco- Oh!" She looks over her shoulder to see the boys. "You're all patched up already."

Ryuu stands behind the excited and happy Umemiyawith a light smile on his lips. Their interactions today while at Shishitoren really made their bond grow a lot stronger, and he was able to acknowledge everyone else's abilities and gauge them easily.
Umemiya rushes forwards for a hug from Kotoha, who just ignores him and walks towards Hiragi.
"You guys always go all out, huh?" She says "How are you doing?"
"We're fine," Hiragi nods towards Kotoha, "This is nothing."
Hiragi suddenly points towards Ryuu beside him, "Osa-" He coughs "Ryuu here patched us all up, so it's really thanks to him we are good." The smirk on Hiragi's face as he said that.
"I can see that..." She looks over the other first years before stopping at Sakura. "Sakura... You'd look more of a mess without his help..."

"Welcome back." She smiles at them, but mostly to the spicy cat named Sakura.

Sakura presses his lips together.

"Because you... are ALONE." Kotoha's words replay in his mind, the picture of that day engraved in the back of his mind. Her non emotional smile and knowing eyes glaring, or what felt like glaring, back at him as those words tumble from her lips.

"You can only reach the top if you're being lifted by everyone under you."

"It was only possible because there were people who agreed with my vision and wanted to help me."There's a long silence as everyone looks over to him, all of them waiting for him to at least say something back to the girl.
"Sakura-san, what's wrong?"

"You were so quiet on the way back, too"
Sakura is quick to turn and walk towards the door they entered through a minute ago. "I'm leaving," he states and he goes to open the door.

"HUH?! SAKURA-SAN?!" Nirai calls out in confusion. "Wait! WHAT'S WRONG?! SAKURA-SAN!"
Umemiya goes and grabs the collar of Sakura's furin jacket with a large smile and yanks him back, "Now hold on there!"

"L-Let go..." Sakura struggles before quickly being lifted and moved, causing him to scream in shock at the ease Umemiya had lifting him.
"It's a day to remember! We gotta celebrate!" Everyone stares at the two as they go all the way to the back of the cafe, "Kotoha! Get us some special coffee, won't you?!" Sakura then is thrown on the leather seats of the cafe, quickly recovering from his landing.

"TH-THERE'S NOTHING TO CELEBRATE!!" He yells at Umemiya, mentally groaning in pain.
"You managed to converse with your opponent during your fight!"
"Umemiya-san should be a bit more gentle with Sakura right now..." Ryuu mumbles.

"So today marks you' First fist conversation' anniversary!"
"What in the?!" Sakura's yelling interrupts,"YOU'RE NOT MAKIN' ANY SENSE!!"
"What's a fist conversation anniversary?" Nirei asks out loud, wording the same question the rest had in the back of their mind. Kotoha sighs before walking toward the kitchen to make the coffees that were requested.

"Hmmm... Dunno!" Suo smiles "Maybe it's like the Salad anniversary?"
'Salad... Anniversary?' Ryuu looks at Suo before walking away to sit in the benches in front of where Kotoha is at with the coffees.
"Umh... Kotoha..." He grabs her attention.

"You want tea, Osamu?"
"Ah... no... I'd like some hot chocolate..."
Kotoha smiles at him, "coming right up, Osamu." Ryuu smiles at that, placing his bag on the seat beside him and grabbing the notebook that Suo had created for him to practice on his writing and a pencil before opening the book and starting to re-write some of the words with the same strokes that Suo drew on the paper.

Kotoha sets his hot chocolate in front of him, watching his blue eye move around with focus on what he was doing.
"Hey Osamu," She grabs his attention, making the boy look up with a pout and a hum. His eye was slightly wider as he waited for her to say something.
 "Your eyes... if you don't mind me asking, why do you cover your other eye?"

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A/N: SO SO SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING LAST WEEK, I WAS BEING LAZY AND SLOW AND WRITERS BLOCK AND TOO MUCH OF EVERYTHING!! and also, so sorry for only posting two chaps,,, hehehehe,,, i'm prolly gonna start posting only two chapters a week, but that might change as school is starting soon for me (in less than a month, how scary hhhhh)
ANYWAYS! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING THIS UPDATE, I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED IT!!