Her Bright Smile

"You are such a lame friend, Sakura…"

"Yeah, we don't want to be friends with you anymore."

Eight-year-old Hayashi Sakura stood there, her whole body frozen, as she sadly looked at the laughing shadows of her so-called friends as they walked away from her. Despite all her best efforts, Sakura would always struggle to fit in with the rest of the class, no matter what she did or how hard she tried.

There would be times when she thought she already found a group where she could somehow belong to, but ended up being left behind. Sakura would just stand there in silence and watch the people come and go into her life. She became used to it and gradually became numb to the pain it would bring every time this happened.

Therefore, she finds it increasingly difficult to make friends among her classmates. Her hope of finding someone to befriend has already dissipated from her system, and she is forced to sit and walk all by herself as she witnesses from a good distance all of her classmates having fun without her.

Thinking to herself, she often wondered what it would be like to have so many people who cared about you every day, will look out for you when you are sick from school, and who have the same interests as you do.

Smiling bitterly, Sakura whispers under her breath, "I wonder if there would come a time where I would experience all of those things someday…"

***

-PRESENT DAY-

As Hayashi Sakura's eyes swiftly open, she is struck by yet another flashback from her past. As much she wanted to forget, she is deeply aware that those memories... how painful could it be... will become a painful part of her life.

Two days have already passed since she was absent from school and work. Her throat became worse, her body temperature is not improving, and she continues to cough frequently from a sore throat. She doesn't feel like eating or tasting anything right now.

Sakura happens to have sneaked a glance on her wall clock that is currently hanging adjacent to her bed and was rather surprised to see that it is already five in the afternoon. Looking back to what she did for the past few hours, after forcing herself to reheat and eat her fourth curry this week for lunch and drank her medicine, she remembers falling asleep after that. But, oh boy, after having a few hours of slumber, she could still feel her eyes drooping back to sleep but she fights the urge to do so.

Just when she gives in to her body's request and goes back to her room, the doorbell suddenly rings, indicating that someone is on the other side of the door. That nearly surprised Sakura, for she couldn't think of anyone at the moment who could be here in this kind of state that she is experiencing… unless it's her apartment buddy Alan, whom she would refuse seeing until she gets better.

Almost hesitantly, Sakura forces herself to walk straight to the door after hearing the doorbell ring for the second time around. She cranes her head as soon as she is near it and looks through the small, peeping hole placed a few inches above her head.

With a wide-eyed expression, she almost can't believe what she is now seeing with her own eyes. There is Nakano Yuna, Tanaka Ryo, and Mori Ken now standing outside of her apartment room, for goodness' sake!

Meanwhile, Nakano Yuna is about to ring the doorbell multiple times as she is getting impatient already when Tanaka Ryo stops her from doing so.

"What the hell is taking her so long to open the door?" Yuna complains, her lips frowning and her eyebrows knitted together.

Sighing, Ryo tries to explain with her, "Maybe she is now asleep or is doing something at the moment. We were the ones who showed up here unnoticed, so maybe we should bear with it for a moment."

"That's because we don't have her contact information! If only she gave it to us first-hand, I wouldn't have to waste our investigator's time in getting her address like this." Yuna countered.

"We simply forgot to ask her…"

"Shut up!"

In the midst of their argument, Hayashi Sakura has soon finally decided to open the door for them, a thing that Nakano Yuna has sighed in relief. The former hides herself behind the door while her head is the only one that is peeping in.

"H-how did you find my address?" She hesitantly asked them.

Tanaka Ryo was just about to tell her that it was Yuna's idea to hire an investigator to get her address when the latter kicked him with so much force he started to yelp in pain.

Nakano Yuna answers instead. "We forgot to ask for your phone number the other day, so we simply searched for your address. Anyway, can we come in?"

Sakura's face flushes. She is embarrassed by the fact that she wasn't able to clean her apartment for the past two days because she was sick to do so, and now she has visitors! Talk about great timing!

Unwillingly, Sakura replies, "S-sure. Come in…"

Upon entering her apartment room, all three of them left their shoes in the front step. They placed the paper bags they had brought along from the store in front of the kitchen before sitting in the living room with Sakura in her apartment room.

Sakura was still in a daze from what is currently happening. 'Is this for real? Or is this just a part of another dream?' Sakura pinches her cheeks just to make sure, and they incredibly hurt like hell, meaning that this is… without a doubt… real.

Seeing Sakura pinch her cheeks out of the blue confuses her three visitors. With a nonchalant face, Yuna asks, "Uhm, what are you doing?"

"N-nothing, " Sakura can't help but smile brightly, striking everyone around her motionless.

Just when Sakura thought none of these things would happen to her, they do so now... worrying about her condition and suddenly visiting her.

"I'm just so happy now that you suddenly decided to visit me out of the blue. For that, I am so grateful…"

True to her word, nothing makes Sakura happier now than seeing all of them inside her apartment room and checking out on her current condition.