Band-Aid

"Now could anyone tell me the answer to this question?" the teacher began as the class was doing a science experiment. He checked the list of students in his folder and chose a random one. "Let's have Sakashita answer it." and paused to hear silence. "Sakashita?" he repeated. "Sakashita!"

"Ah! Hai!" the fifteen year old girl quickly replied waking up from her nap while the other students snickered at her outburst. She had an embarrassed expression on her face as she was afraid to ask what she was assigned to do. "H-Hai?"

"Could you please tell me the answer to the question?" he repeated again expecting an incorrect answer from her.

Her eyes were showing nervousness, but when she glanced at the question on the board, she smiled. "That's easy, the pressure was named after Pascal!"

The teacher along with the class was shocked at her correct answer. "T-That's correct." he muttered admitting defeat. "Class dismissed." he muttered again as the bell rang for students to leave.

"Geez, you were so close to getting in trouble Yuzuyu!" Marika scolded her sleeping friend. "I mean, you were lucky that you knew the answer because if you didn't- hey are you listening to me?!" as she noticed her friend drifting off to lala land. "Hey, we have clean up duty together, don't think you're going to skip out because you're sleeping."

"Mm…" she mumbled and rubbed her eyes to wake up again. "I'm almost forgot about that…" getting up to follow after her friend.

Marika sighed and handed the flower vase into the girl's hand. "Here, just go get a refill of water into the vase, the flowers are dying if we don't change it." and moments later before Yuzuyu took a step out of the classroom, a small crash was heard. "Oh no…"

She stared at the broken vase on the floor and stood there frozen in spot. "Uh….Yuzu…don't tell me you…"

"Hey, how much do you think a vase would cost?" she laughed nervously, and kneeled down to see the damage of it.

"Hey it's not something to be optimistic with." the dark haired girl scolded again. She put the classroom notebook aside and walked out. "I'll go get a broom." and ran out quickly before anyone else would notice.

Yuzuyu sat there still in a dreamy daze staring at the broken glass pieces and sighed.

She heard the door slide open and close, she didn't bother looking up thinking it was Marika, but was instead surprised to hear a different voice. "So the honors student has done it again."

"Eh?" she asked looking up to see a familiar boy. "Shouta-kun? What are you doing here?"

"Well I left my notebook here in class and I was thinking about getting it later, but…" as he glanced at Yuzuyu's situation. "I'm glad I didn't."

She gave him a small glare and began picking up the pieces slowly and placing them on cloth to carry with. It was pretty funny, the glass pieces were a little bit like Yuzuyu. Trying to fit all the broken pieces together one by one. The bigger pieces represented the people who helped her in life, the smaller ones were the things that were simple and made her happy, like the preschool pictures she used to draw all the time. Then she remembered the day when she met Shouta and when he had to leave… "I've liked him for a pretty long time…" she noted.

"Sakashita!"

"Eh?" she asked again forgetting where she was to see an amused face on Shouta. "Now, what are you laughing about?"

He shook his head. "Nothing, I just think it's funny how you ended up being the honors student but still be the clumsy Yuzuyu from preschool."

She glanced at the clock. Marika hadn't come back yet with the broom and dust pan. "What's keeping her?" she wondered at first but only one reason had to be why it was keeping her. "I bet she's with Ken…"

Once again, she was back into her own dream world with the glass pieces. She almost giggled imagining the faces on the glass. She picked up another piece. "Some were big with sharp edges, almost like Kippei's older sister, who was a big impact in her life, but could be one strict adult when things were serious. Others were like the ones with not so sharp edges, the nice kind like Kippei." she reminded herself, putting the pieces back together to form the original vase. Only one piece was missing…

"Yuzuyu, you're bleeding." Shouta said urgently taking her hand and examining it. "You better not let it get infected" as he led her out of the classroom to the infirmary.

"W-Wait, I can do it by myself." she try pull back, but she was still walking forward. "It's only a cut."

He winced at the word but kept quiet about it until they reached the nurse's office. He opened the cupboard for the rubbing alcohol, a couple of cotton balls, and the band aid. He motioned her to come over to him, but she shook her head no. He sighed. "Say, what happened to the Yuzuyu who was saying that it was only a "cut?"

"A….I take it back?" she guessed seeing him chuckle at that comment. He was walking closer to her with the ointment, but she hid her hand away. "It'll hurt."

"It'll only hurt if you don't take care of it." he scolded but it still didn't convince her.

She looked at him. "Why are you so concerned about it? It's nothing…" but she didn't complete her sentence seeing Shouta's hurt face. "Ah…is this reminding you of your mother before?"

"Yeah." he muttered. "She's not like that anymore, but it's a pretty sensitive topic."

"I'm sorry…" she apologized and suddenly had a thought in mind to make him smile. "Shou-chan."

"Don't think I ever forgot about that either." he laughed. "That was such a girly name, I can't believe you still remember that."

"But you let me call you that." she giggled and sat down on one of the nurse's chairs.

He smiled and glanced at her hand. "Now about that hand…" to see her stop smiling and go back to where they left off. "You know, I think the reason why you don't want that to be treated is because you're remembering Kippei."

She laughed nervously. "Y-Yeah, I haven't seen him in years since I left the house on my birthday. He used to always be there for me…and even until now… he doesn't respond to my letters or anything…" as tears were starting to stream down her face.

"Hey now." Shouta interrupted wiping her tears away. "We all deal with pain in life, but you know, there's always someone out there for us to heal our pains, and then we'll feel better. Just like your cut." he pointed. "You need a band-aid to heal that."

They were both silent. She hesitated and held out her hand. He took the cotton and touched her hand. She winced at took her hand away again. "It hurts."

He sighed again knowing that they weren't getting anywhere. Then he had an idea and smiled. "I know something that won't hurt."

Out of curiosity, she looked up at him. "What's that?"

"This." he muttered and his lips pressed softly against hers for a mere moment. He pulled back and chuckled. "Done."

"Eh? Done?" she thought and glanced down at her hand to see it he managed to put the band-aid on her.

"See? It wasn't that hard was it?" as he took his schoolbag and stared at her embarrassed face. "I can't believe we made such a big deal about a band-aid." as he waved to her goodbye with a smile.

"Hey, where were you?" Marika asked seeing that her friend had decided to come back after a while. "I spent the whole time worrying that you left without me that I finished the classroom duties." she glared but noticed the injured hand. "What happened there?"

"Huh? Oh ah, well…" she blushed.

"Oh well, no matter." Marika waved changing the subject. "Since you already fixed the broken vase, and everything else is done, I'll be leaving." while gathering her belongings.

"With Ken?" she guessed to see a slight pink face on her friend.

"W-Well! I'll see you later Yuzuyu!" she waved and ran out the door to avoid any more embarrassment.

She smiled to herself taking her schoolbag along with her. She slid the classroom door open but before leaving, she remembered the words Marika had told her about the broken vase. If neither of them fixed it… turning back to see the vase all put together perfectly… then "who did it?" she wondered.

Closing her locker shut, she walked outside to the school gates to see someone waiting for her. Suddenly, she realized who fixed the broken pieces. "Shouta." she grinned.

He looked over at her direction and smiled back waiting for her to catch up with him.

No matter where you may go,

No matter how many broken pieces you may leave behind,

I'll be there to put them back together again.