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446 – A Three-Shaku Shell Every Day!
🕑 Added 2025-08-13 15:00:16 +0000 UTCA cool night breeze brushed past, carrying the freshness of evening.
Yamauchi Sakura’s snow-white neck instantly broke out in tiny goosebumps.
Kyousuke took the phone from her hands, pulled the blanket over them both again, and said quietly,
“It’s getting late. We should probably—”
“People are actually a lot like swords,” Sakura murmured.
Huh? Was this because the moon was so beautiful that she suddenly wanted to have a philosophical sword duel under it?
Honestly, nights were better spent doing what they should be doing, then falling asleep together, wrapped in a pleasant afterglow.
Still, Kyousuke had always been lazy in his own way.
Letting his mind wander aimlessly was a small, peculiar joy.
In high school, skipping class usually meant handling important business.
But back in junior high, he’d sometimes cut two classes just to find a grassy patch on campus to lie down.
Gazing up at a clear, endless blue sky.
Hearing the faint ebb and flow of voices reading from textbooks.
Breathing in the fresh scent of grass.
Letting his thoughts slip their reins and drift into nowhere in particular.
Pointless on the surface, yet incredibly satisfying—like a momentary cure for every bit of fatigue in his body.
And of course, if in that moment he had a beautiful girl in his arms who completely understood him… that would be even better.
The faint chill brushing his face made it easy for Kyousuke to understand what Sakura meant.
Day and night, warmth and cold—the cycle people live through is like the quenching and tempering of a blade.
That was probably the idea she was getting at.
“The things we go through in the day cool down at night, becoming nourishment for our growth. Over and over, we’re refined—until we’re as resilient as a worthy blade,” Sakura said softly.
It felt like there was more she wanted to say, but left unsaid.
Kyousuke was about to puzzle it out when she suddenly grinned and asked,
“Are you trying to figure out what I meant, Kyousuke?”
“Not really. I was just thinking about what position I’ll use next time to temper you.”
“Eh?! That’s cheating! I had a really cool line I was saving up to say!” she pouted.
“Oh? And what was that?”
“That if you think every single thing I say is full of deep meaning… you’re totally wrong!”
Sakura lifted her chin with her usual playful smile—adorable, lighthearted, like a carefree child.
“I know,” Kyousuke replied softly.
Of course he knew.
She was the kind of genius who could spend two hours talking nonsense to a potted plant.
But still—if it’s you saying it, I can’t help but want to remember every word, to play them back in my mind over and over.
“Heh~ But who knows? I am a genius. Sometimes I don’t even understand what I’m saying,” she teased, contradicting herself from two seconds earlier.
Her bright, clear laugh rang out.
Kyousuke thought that if life really was the forging of a sword, then Sakura’s laughter was the essential additive that ensured the blade never broke.
After a while, she tilted her head back, then lazily rested against Kyousuke’s chest, eyes shifting forward.
“All the cherry blossoms are gone.”
She was looking at the cherry tree in the lower left corner of the courtyard.
According to her famous Yamauchi Sakura Theory, cherry blossoms sprout four months after falling, and bloom again the following spring.
Right now, the tree’s bare brown branches held only a thin layer of moonlight—stripped of beauty.
“It is almost Golden Week,” Kyousuke replied.
The Edo-higan cherry in their yard was a late-blooming variety.
Sheltered from strong winds in the courtyard, its blossoms lasted longer than most.
“Such a shame. I wish Celty could see it, too.”
Sakura sighed, her mind filling with images.
Her first birthday after moving into the Ruyi Dorm—everyone’s first time gathered there, eating sushi Miki brought, listening to Eriri and Utaha bicker, watching a flustered Yukari-sensei, greedy Kyousuke.
Then there was the time Yukino-chan and Megumi first came—when sea bream was on the menu, right as the blossoms began to fall.
Even the hot pot had seemed to pick up the scent of sakura.
“Time is a funny thing,” Kyousuke said with a smile. “The next time you have that thought, the blossoms will already be blooming again.”
Even more so for Celty.
Her sense of time must be different from theirs—he had felt it the moment they met.
Two years had passed, yet she hadn’t changed at all.
“The more beautiful the cherry blossoms are in memory, the lonelier it feels when they’re gone,” Sakura murmured, fingers tightening around Kyousuke’s hand under the blanket.
Kyousuke said nothing.
Cherry blossom festivals, summer festivals, fireworks shows…
The most beautiful things are fleeting.
The more they imprint on your heart, the more sorrow you feel when they vanish—and the more you can appreciate their beauty.
That was the Japanese mono no aware aesthetic.
But he didn’t like that view.
He was the kind of person who, upon finding something delicious, wanted to eat it over and over.
He didn’t believe in that kind of bittersweet melancholy.
“They’ll bloom again next year—more spectacular than this year. And the year after that. Every year, without fail. Even if you get tired of them, the blossoms will still return.
That’s not something to feel sad about. If anything, isn’t it comforting to know you can see something so beautiful every single year?”
Kyousuke turned his hand to clasp hers. That was his answer.
True companionship, true freshness—it wasn’t doing the same thing with different people.
It was doing the same thing with the same person, year after year.
“As expected of my Kyousuke.”
Hearing his steady voice, Sakura turned her head and pressed a light kiss to his cheek.
“How strange… that loneliness just vanished instantly~” she said with mock exaggeration.
Kyousuke bumped her head lightly with his chin in mild reproach.
“You’re with me and still letting your thoughts wander? Now that’s strange.”
“Hehe… I guess you’re right~” Sakura stuck out her tongue but kept her eyes on the cherry tree.
It was because she was with him that her thoughts wandered—because she feared losing this.
“I wonder how many more times we’ll see it together,” she whispered.
“At least eighty-four more,” Kyousuke replied without hesitation.
“Eh? You can be that exact?” She blinked, but before he could answer, she figured it out.
“A hundred years old, huh? What a grand goal. You really are a romantic, Kyousuke.” She nodded solemnly.
“Of course!” he said with complete confidence.
Living to a hundred had always been his dream.
Originally, he’d figured he’d be content once he got so old his mind went foggy and he couldn’t take care of himself.
But now, with Mitsuha’s gift letting him stay in peak condition until the end… there was no reason not to live as long as possible.
“Then I just need to watch it eighty-three times,” Sakura said.
“Hm?”
“Because a world without Kyousuke would be a lonely one. So please… promise me you’ll live longer than I do.”
She smiled as she said it.
“That’s no good. Without Sakura, spring would be lonely too,” Kyousuke immediately countered.
“No, you’re wrong~”
Sakura spoke earnestly:
“Cherry blossoms are flowers that only choose to bloom in spring. But spring doesn’t only come when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom.
Even when the cherry trees are gathering their strength, waiting for the next spring to arrive, spring still visits other places, bringing warmth to other flowers.”
A classic Yamauchi Sakura-style sophistry.
Kyousuke didn’t reply right away.
Instead, he held her small hands tighter and frowned at the bare cherry tree in the courtyard.
Something felt off.
Sure, after passion fades, it’s normal to feel a bit empty inside—but Sakura’s “philosophical cooldown” was lasting unusually long this time.
Knowing her, this was the kind of moment when she’d normally say something like, “Hey, Kyousuke, let’s capture spring so the cherry blossoms bloom all year round.”
Then he’d translate her whimsical idea into something like, “Let’s build a botanical garden, and use technology to trick the cherry trees into thinking it’s spring four times a year.”
It wasn’t impossible.
It even fit perfectly with his own ridiculous personality.
The fireworks festival was another example—he could easily afford to light fireworks every night if he wanted.
Or better yet, just move to Nagaoka City, where they launch massive shōsan-shakudama shells every three days until you get sick of them.
Absurd? Absolutely.
But absurd was exactly what Hojou Kyousuke and Yamauchi Sakura excelled at.
While Kyousuke remained silent, Sakura stayed quiet too.
Her amber-bright eyes, normally so lively and restless, were strangely calm tonight—still as a lake, as if hiding endless thoughts.
They sat together in silence, gazing at the plain, lifeless cherry tree, each lost in their own thoughts… thinking of themselves, thinking of the other.
After a long while, Kyousuke heard a slow, steady breathing against his chest.
He looked down—her serene sleeping face lay there.
Her long, thick eyelashes were still, like a silent nighttime forest, her eyelids unmoving.
He’d just been tricked into thinking she was asleep once earlier tonight, but this time… he believed it.
With a sigh, he pushed away his tangled thoughts.
Adjusting his position, he lifted Sakura wrapping her in blanket and all—into his arms, carrying her carefully upstairs.
The bedroom door wasn’t closed; a light nudge from his foot opened it.
He didn’t turn on the light.
Sakura could sleep through anything, but he still wanted to avoid any chance of waking her.
Everything in this room was designed by the two of them.
He could find the bed with his eyes closed.
The covers were already laid out.
Both of them thought making the bed in the morning just to unmake it at night was a stupid ritual—one of the privileges of having a large room and no need for tatami mats.
Instead of setting her down immediately, he lay down with her still in his arms.
Gently, he moved her head onto the pillow.
But even in sleep, she seemed startled—her small hands clutched at his shirt and refused to let go.
Kyousuke slowed his movements even more, letting her hold onto him, and rested his head on the same pillow.
Sakura’s bed wasn’t stuffed with plushies like Eriri’s, but it did have many pillows.
One behind her head to protect her from bumping into the headboard—something she’d done often as a child during vivid dreams.
Two plump ones on either side for her to nuzzle against when she slept alone.
Like a kitten, she could only sleep soundly when there was something to snuggle against.
With him beside her, the frown that had briefly creased her brow melted away again, though her little hand stayed clenched in his shirt.
Lying on his side, Kyousuke watched her sleeping face in the moonlight.
Pretending to be asleep was a game they played often, but he always won—because whenever she barged into his room in the middle of the night.
She’d demand a story until her eyelids could no longer hold themselves up.
She always lost, and the privilege of admiring her moonlit sleeping face had always been his alone.
When she woke him from dreams, his sleepy brain would gradually clear as he spun tales for her.
And when she finally drifted off, his thoughts would wander, following the threads of those same stories.
Just like in the stories he told her, even the gods could not resist Hypnos, the god of sleep.
But there was one exception—not pious worshippers praying to the stars, but a knight weaving dreams for a girl.
He looked at her, holding her restless little hand, smoothing the faint crease from her brow, wiping away the tiny droplet of drool at the corner of her mouth, and pulling the blanket back over her shoulders.
The night was short—close your eyes and the sun would already be rising.
The night was long—long enough for her to journey endlessly through the worlds of his stories, long enough for him to watch her face and slowly find his own sleep again.
He took her small hand, still gripping his shirt, into his own.
With his other hand, he gently brushed her hair aside so it wouldn’t tickle her face.
“Hmm… mmm…”
Her gentle breathing, soft through her small nose, was so endearing in his ears that even his own eyelids began to grow heavy.
In the moonlight, her round cheeks seemed to glow with a faint pearly light—so beautiful he couldn’t bear to look away, even for a second.
Smoothing down the last of her stray hairs, he let his fingertips lightly trace her cheek.
For a long time, he simply watched her in silence, thinking.
At last, he carefully loosened her grip on his shirt, slipped out from under the blanket, and tucked her in again.
Drawing the curtains closed, he walked to the door. Before shutting it, he cast one last glance toward the bed.
Without the moonlight, even his sharp eyes couldn’t make out her features—but her peaceful, adorable sleeping face was still vivid in his mind.
He wanted to stay, to wake up with her naturally, and tease her about being a lazybones when the sun was high.
But for now, there was something else he had to do.
