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A faint breeze runs through your hair as you look at the landscape below you. You are currently at one of your favorite places, on a hill that is on the edge of the city where you live. Snow is all around you, wrapping the hill in a white layer.
You are leaning on a massive cherry tree, one of your favorite trees. Actually, it should have been wearing blossoms long ago. After all, it's already mid-April and in about two weeks, the Hanami will be over. Due to the still cold temperatures and snow however, the buds have still not bloomed.
This saddens the whole city, because after all, Hanami is a very popular festival and everyone is looking forward to the beautiful sight, and at the same time the warmer temperatures that go with it. You too are a big fan of this festival, but apparently this year it will not take place.
You've even thought about inviting a specific person this year. Even if you aren't exactly sure if said person would come at all. Maybe someone up above wanted to tell you that this is a stupid idea, and that's why the cherry blossoms are not blooming.
You quickly shake your head to get the stupid conspiracy theories out of your head. Just because you have a little too much imagination, no one must have conspired against you. You stay on the hill for a little while longer and watch the sunset before heading back down.
When you're back in the city, only the street lights illuminate your way. Becoming annoyed from all the snow, you start kicking it out of your way. "In a bad mood today?" a voice pulls you out of your thoughts and you're looking straight back at the path. "Oh Chiyo-san good evening", you greet the old woman in front of you.
"What troubles you, my child? The weather?" "Yes...the Hanami ends in two weeks and there is still snow everywhere, it looks like we can't celebrate this year", you tell her your concerns. "Did you want to invite someone? My grandson, for example?" You start to turn red. "W-what? No, what makes you think that?"
Sometimes the old woman really scares you, at times you feel she’s able to read your mind. Just when you are about to say something again, the old woman starts to groan and puts the two bags she was carrying on the ground.
"Are you on your way home? Shall I help you carry the bags?" you offer your help. Your house is close to Chiyo-sans, so you'll just have to take a little detour if you help her. "Oh love, that would be too nice."
"No problem, I'm happy to help", so you take the two bags with a smile. At first, you are a bit surprised, because you didn't expect the bags to weigh so much. But once you get used to the weight, it's not a problem anymore.
Along with Chiyo-san, you walk through the snowy streets. "How's your business going Chiyo-san?" the old woman runs a wooden doll shop. It's an old family business, where old dolls are repaired, and new ones are made. You noticed the store when you were a lot younger and ran through your neighborhood. You were fascinated by the dolls sitting in the display window. Since that day, you have been seen passing by quite often, and each time you stopped in front of the display window and looked at the dolls.
"It gets better my child. My grandson's work is popular, so there are a few more customers." "That's nice. That makes me happy for you." "Yeah, I sometimes don't know what I would do without him", as she finishes the sentence, a boy appears at the intersection in front of you.
Speaking of the devil, how ironic. Chiyo-san's grandson comes over after he spotted you. "Grandma, why don't you tell me you go grocery shopping? You can't carry it all on your own", he says, slightly concerned. "_____, thank you for helping her", he gives you a slight smile and takes the bags from your hands.
"A-ah, that's no problem at all. I-I'm glad I could help", you can't prevent your blood from rising to your cheeks because of his smile. "See you tomorrow", he gives you a short nod and then he and his grandmother go the way he came. "Yeah, see you tomorrow", you mumble as he's already gone.
At home, you throw yourself onto your bed and don't move for a while. Why? Why can't you just talk normally when HE talks to you? And you have already known each other for a long time. Actually, ever since you knew about Chiyo-san’s doll shop. Without him, you probably would never have dared to go inside the store.
One day when you stood outside the display window again, he came out of the shop door and looked at you. "Why are you always standing there?" he asks bluntly. "I look at the dolls", you beam at him. "Why don't you come in then? There are a lot more dolls inside." Nervously you look at the ground. "But I'm not buying anything, it's not polite to go inside the shop anyway...", you mumble.
"Granny would be glad if you would finally come in. Come on!", whilst beaming at you, he opens the door with one hand, the other he holds out to you. Your worries are blown away and with a smile you grab his hand. Since then, you no longer stood in front of the display window, but instead went inside of the shop.
However, you haven't bought a single doll until today. You couldn't decide on just one doll. You like each one of them and you even named most of them. Chiyo-san always says it's not bad that you don't buy a doll, she's just happy to see how much you like the dolls, and she's always happy to see you visit.
Unfortunately, your visits to the doll shop have become less and less, as your highschool life is pretty busy and you don't have that much time. But if you just need to clear your head, you just pass by the doll shop. Even though the dolls are no longer the only reason for your visits.
Over the years, the red-haired boy has been attracting your attention more and more, and when he is in the store's sales area, the dolls are only secondary. Luckily you managed to get into the same class as him this school year, so you can see him every day.
You're glad to already know him from back then, because over the years he has changed more and more and there is little left of the sweet expression he had at that time. All in all, you don't see him smile often, so you're glad you're one of the few that he shows this side of him.
You are thinking too much again and that's why you only now realize how long you've been lying there. "What?! It's already that late? Oh God, how long have I been lying here, I still have to do homework!" Annoyed, you roll off your bed, put on comfortable clothes and then sit down to do your homework. After two hours, you put your pen aside and lean back in your chair.
"Damn, I hate homework." "You should have started earlier", that comment came from your brother who is leaning in the doorway. "Oh, shut up", you get up from your chair, walk up to him and give him a light punch to the chest. "Let's eat something", with that you go down to the kitchen, your brother follows you silently.
Your parents are currently on vacation, so you are taking care of the house yourself. After you have eaten together, you go back upstairs and take a nice warm bath. The warm water has made you sleepy, so you get dressed in your pajamas and lie down in your bed. Your last thoughts before you fall asleep are that the cherry blossoms should finally start to bloom.
The next morning you wake up before your alarm clock, which is unusual. You stay in bed until your alarm goes off, because it's not worth it to fall asleep again. Since you're already much more awake than usual, you're also faster in getting ready in the bathroom and with breakfast.
You wanted to watch TV until you had to go, but there’s only trash running, so you say goodbye to your brother who goes to a different school and set off for your own. Unmotivated you stomp through the snow and aren't in a good mood. You're generally not in a good mood in the morning, after all, you have to go to school, but all the snow makes it even worse.
The snow really covers everything, you can hardly recognize the border between sidewalk and street. So it's no wonder you don't see the icy surface that's right in front of you. You notice it only when your foot slips away.
An impulse rushes through your body and you automatically close your eyes, thinking about landing on the hard ground. But before you get there, two arms embrace you. One arm is around your waist and the other is holding your left arm. Relieved to have made no acquaintance with the floor, you exhale.
You turn around to thank the person who caught you. Your cheeks turn a little red when you see who has caught you. "Oh...thank you Sasori", you thanked your red-haired savior. "No problem", he puts you down and lets go. You blush slightly when you realize that HIS hand was on your hip.
"Are you coming?" Sasori has already gone on and has noticed that you didn't follow him. "Y-yes", you quickly join him and look forward to finally being able to go to school together with him. Even your initial bad mood lightens up.
You walk silently for a while and you glance at him again and again. Somehow he looks pretty tired, as if had barely slept. "What?" he asks without looking at you. Again, you start to blush slightly, as he has noticed your constant glances. "Uh, well ... You look pretty tired. Didn't you sleep well?" you ask as a counter question.
"I worked on a doll, went to bed too late", was his simple answer. "What doll are you working on?" you ask interested. "That's none of your business", a sharp sting goes through your heart as you hear his harsh response. "Right ... sorry", you feel bad after getting such a harsh answer and avoid looking at him.
The rest of the way to school you walk in silence. But before you enter the school grounds, Sasori speaks up again. "I'm not satisfied with my work, don't take serious what I said", he walks past you and disappears into the school building. You stop and watch him. Then you start to smile slightly and make your way into the school building too, which is definitely warmer than the schoolyard.
Your school day dragged on normally without anything extraordinary happening. The rest of the day also passed without any special events, just like the whole following week. Your mood has gone down more and more since the beginning of the second week, because this Sunday is the last day of the Hanami and the cherry blossoms still haven't bloomed, even if the snow has almost melted away.
The school day is finally over, and you make your way to your shoe locker. When you take your shoes out of the locker, you notice a folded piece of paper. Quickly before anyone can see it, you push it in your bag and then put on your shoes.
Shortly after that, a few of your friends come to you with whom you always go home. Together, you start your way home and as soon as you say goodbye to your last friend and go the rest of the way alone, you take the note out of your bag and start reading it. It's short, just two sentences long.
Come to the hill on the outskirts, to the big cherry tree. This Sunday afternoon at 2 o'clock.
Nobody signed, but there is a red scorpion in the lower right corner. What does the scorpion mean? Is it a sign of the person who wrote it? And why should you come to the hill on Sunday? You're really confused and don't know if you should follow the request. While you were pondering, you have already reached your house.
First of all, you decide not to pay attention to the note and take care of your homework first. However, your thoughts wander again and again to a certain red-haired classmate. Even after the day you went to school together, Sasori always looked very tired. As if he really barely slept. You're really starting to worry about him.
Without noticing it you have written his name on your papers and you notice the character that makes up his name. The character for scorpion. Your gaze slowly moves to the piece of paper you have set aside. A red scorpion as a signature.
Slowly you make a guess and write Sasori’s last name behind his first name. Sasori no Akasuna. Red sand. Can it really be that Sasori wrote the note? The red scorpion suits him perfectly. Suddenly your heart begins to race, and your cheeks turn slightly red. Sasori wants to meet you? Alone?
You're wandering off into a daydream but are soon pulled back by other thoughts. Sasori would never write such a note. That's just not him, besides, why would he want to meet you? That would be too good to be true. Sighing, you get back to your homework.
The next few days passed and you were hoping for a sign of Sasori, which might confirm your temporary guess. But it wasn’t like that, of course. Sasori behaved like usual. He didn't look over to you more often, spoke to you just as rarely as before and didn't show any other noticeable signs. It's now Saturday night and you're sitting on your bed staring at the note lying in front of you.
You still don't know if you should go to the meeting place or not. You don't even know what the person wants from you, let alone who that person is. A knock on your door makes you look up. "Yes?" Your brother stands in the now open door. "I'm going to play video games at a friend's place tomorrow at noon, so you'll have to eat lunch alone", he informs you. "Oh okay", with that, your brother disappears back into the hall and closes the door.
If your brother isn't there tomorrow, then you'll be alone the whole time. You actually had planned to sit down next to your brother during the day and watch him play video games and play a bit yourself. This will probably not happen then.
Your gaze falls back to the note in front of you. If you're just going to get bored here anyway, you might as well go to the meeting. If it's someone strange, you just tell the person you didn't want to be rude and just came to hear what they have to say and then leave. That's exactly how you will do it! With this thought, you get ready to go to bed shortly afterwards.
The next morning is just as any other. You get ready, wash your hair and have breakfast with your brother. Soon after, he leaves the house. With the remaining time until the meeting, you pack your handbag and look for clothes to wear. The rest of the time you watch something on TV and browse the Internet on your laptop. In between, you make yourself an instant noodle soup, because you don't want to spend a lot of effort in cooking for yourself.
Around 1 pm you start to get ready and to check if the windows are all closed. You quickly write a note for your brother in case you're out longer than planned, and put it onto the dresser in the hallway. Then you put on your shoes and coat, take your handbag and make your way to the mysterious meeting.
As you're almost up the hill, you become more and more nervous, constantly looking around. On the way you have thought too much about what might happen. On one hand, you still hope that Sasori will wait for you up there, on the other hand, it could be someone suspicious too.
Inwardly you have beaten yourself so many times, for this stupid decision to meet with a potential stranger, especially because it’s quite far from the nearest house. But you didn't want to turn around, because you're still interested in who wrote the note.
It was now close to 2 pm and you have almost reached the top of the hill. So far, you haven't seen anybody. Hopefully nobody has made a joke and tricked you into coming up here for no reason. That would be really annoying. Even if you like this place very much, you’d have rather spent the day doing something different than being up here.
When you finally stand next to the big cherry tree, you can't see anyone. For assurance, you look at your wristwatch. It's just after 2 pm. You decide to wait a bit longer. Everyone can be late, if someone really should come.
When your watch indicates that it's already 15 minutes past two, you decide to go back home. You feel like a fool, and want to hit your head against the tree next to you, because you were just so stupid and believed that someone really wanted to meet you up here. Just when you want to turn around, you hear an exhausted breath behind you and a familiar deep voice, which gives you slight goosebumps.
"Sorry, I'm late." You can't believe that Sasori is standing in front of you, that your guess really was right. "Uh, no problem...", you mumble. For a short while there is silence between you, in which Sasori comes to breathe again. Actually, he’s not unathletic, so he must have really hurried.
"Why ... why did you want me to come up here?" you ask softly into the silence. "Grandma told me that you would like to see the cherry blossoms." "Yes ... and today is the last day of the Hanami", you say sadly. "And not a single cherry blossom all the time", you add. "Then look up", you do as he says and don't trust your eyes.
Everywhere on the tree are buds and in some places they started to bloom already. You were so busy with your thoughts that you didn't really pay attention to the tree. "How pretty", you're really happy to enjoy this sight next to Sasori, who has brought you here.
You turn to him and find that he's now standing almost directly behind you. That's why you have to put your head back to look him in the eye. "Thank you for bringing me here", you smile happily at him. You feel his hand gently brushing a few strands of hair behind your ear while a small, loving smile forms on his face. "It was definitely worth it for this smile", he whispers.
Already his smile has driven a slight flush on your cheeks and the sentence has deepened it. "You're really cute when you blush", you can't meet his eyes and look to the side as your cheeks get even darker. A soft laugh can be heard from Sasori before he puts a hand on your head.
Because you look to the side, you notice the big bag next to Sasori. "What's in the bag?" At once he seems to be getting nervous. "Well ... That's what I've been working on for the last few weeks." "Why did you bring it with you? Is it a doll?", now you have become curious, because his dolls are always very beautiful. "Yeah, it's a doll and ...", he seems really nervous, because he’s not like this usually. However, you don't rush him, but wait until he talks on his own.
"It's for you", he says quickly. Surprised you look at him. "For me?" you can't believe he made a doll just for you. "Why for me?" "You have never bought one of the dolls from the shop. I wanted to make a doll that you really like, that is more beautiful than any other. I wanted to make you happy." "May I look at it?" you're really curious. "Of course", he says quietly, getting a box out of the bag next to him.
You take the box and carefully remove the lid. What you see then, takes your breath away. In the box is probably the most beautiful doll you have ever seen. Very carefully, as if it could break at any moment, you take out the doll. You lay the box down and take a closer look at the doll.
Every detail is finely worked out, the facial features gently designed, every single finger clean and clear processed. The hair neatly attached and the clothes perfectly tailored. You have never seen such a beautiful doll. Tears are slowly gathering in your eyes and you lower your head. Sasori who has been watching you closely the whole time, of course, notices this.
"Hey _____, are you ok?" he asks uncertainly. You don't answer him but crouch down and carefully put the doll back into the box and close it with its lid. Then you slowly get up, but don't look at him yet. But then you can't hold back your feelings anymore and throw yourself into the arms of Sasori and start crying. A confused Sasori awkwardly puts his arms around you and lightly strokes your back.
"Thank you", you sob. "Thank you for giving me such a wonderful thing. And from such a wonderful person too." A smile spreads over your face, even if tears of joy continue to run down your face. Even on Sasori's face, a smile forms and he slightly pushes you away from him and takes your face into his hands. With a thumb, he wipes over your wet cheek. "Everything for a wonderful person", he whispers, laying his forehead against yours.
Your giggle interrupts the emotional atmosphere and Sasori looks at you slightly perplexed. "So many wonderful things here, right?" A big grin now graces your face. Even Sasori has a small grin on his face. A strong cold wind suddenly sweeps over the hill and you push yourself against Sasori, as he is the only source of heat nearby.
"It's getting pretty fresh up here. Would you like something to eat?" asks Sasori. You just nod, but don't let Sasori go because you don't want to leave the heat source. "Then you have to let go of me", your action makes him smile. "You're warm", your voice is difficult to hear as you bury your face in his jacket. "But if we don't start moving, I'll freeze", you reluctantly detach yourself from him, but regret it instantly as the wind sweeps over the hill again.
Meanwhile, the red-haired boy bent down next to you and put the box back in his bag. Due to the wind some cherry blossoms were torn from the tree and now flew through the air. Instinctively, you reach for one and look at it with a smile. You're trying to catch the other cherry blossoms as well as they are dancing around you.
"What are you doing?", meanwhile, Sasori has straightened up and has the bag in his one hand. "Catching cherry blossoms", you grin at him. "I'll keep them as a memory of this day." Sasori smiles at you slightly and holds out his free hand. "Let's go." Your cheeks turn pink at the thought of holding hands with him, but you take all the cherry blossoms in your left hand and grab his free hand with your right.
Together, you eat in a fast food restaurant before you both make your way to your house. Even now, the redhead has your hand in his and it doesn't seem to bother him. You don't talk much on the way, but this silence doesn't make you uncomfortable, because his warm hand in yours makes you feel good.
Unfortunately, you reach your house way too early. Reluctantly, you let go of Sasori's hand to get your keys out of your bag and unlock the door. Then you face each other and don't know what to say. "I should probably go then. My grandma doesn't know where I went. Here", he holds out the bag with the doll. "Okay, thank you", you take the bag and put it behind you in the house. In doing so, your gaze falls on the dresser, where you have dropped the cherry blossoms.
You have an idea and you grab one of the cherry blossoms. When you turn back to the redhead, he has already turned around and was about to go. Quickly you hold him back by his arm. While he looks at you in surprise, you stand on your tiptoes and put the cherry blossom behind his ear.
It may look a bit strange when a boy has a flower behind his ear, but you just didn't care. Sasori also seems to don't care about that, because when he realizes what you did, he just smiles, bends down to you and gives you a quick kiss on your forehead, which makes your cheeks turn red quickly. "See you tomorrow", he whispers, turns around and leaves. "See you tomorrow", you mumble.
"When you're finally finished with stalking, come in and shut the door. It's cold." Startled, you turn around and see your brother leaning in the doorway to the living room. "H-how long have you been standing there?" "Only since now, but the cold wind is coming through the living room for a while now, so move your ass", he disappears back into the living room and you follow him in horror and close the front door.
When you wake up the next morning, you glance to your shelf to check if the doll that Sasori gave you is really there, not that you had dreamed everything in the end. However, you don't have to worry about that because the doll is sitting just where you placed it last night.
Happy about that, you get ready and have breakfast with your brother before you put on your shoes and make your way to school. You're looking forward to seeing Sasori again, but you didn't expect to see him so early this morning.
A few feet away from you, he leans against a wall and looks in your direction. With quick steps you go over to him and greet him with a smile. "Good morning", your mood couldn't be better this morning. "Morning", he smiles lightly at you and, like yesterday, takes your hand in his. And again, your cheeks turn pink.
"Let's go", with that he pulls you towards school. Even now you aren't talking to each other, but still you both know that your relationship has changed. And in a way that you are both very happy about.