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“Okay Ren, you can go off on your own for a bit but make sure you aren’t gone for too long.” Jun Amamiya said to his young son who as soon as he heard his Dad finish ran off.
“Thanks Dad!” The short black hair boy shouts as he runs off to a different part of the park.
“And don’t go too far!” Jun yelled as his son got further away before shaking his head and sighing, “He better be careful.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine and I’ll go look for him in 10 minutes but his summer just started so let's give him some time to have fun.” Yuine Amamiya said to ease her husband's worry. “Besides Ren is good, he won’t go too far. I’m sure he’ll just run around nearby.”
Yuine turned her head to look at the table they had claimed minutes before “Are you sure you don’t want to go with him Sasa?” Yuine asked the girl sitting at the table.
“I’m happy reading.” Sasa mumbled as she turned the page to the next page of her book.
Yuine smiled “Okay but after lunch you’ll have to put that away and join the rest of us for a walk.” Yuine explained, Sasa made an affirmative murmur in response as Yuine and Jun looked off in the direction Ren ran off in.
Ren dashed through the park exploring different parts of the park that were near where his family were. He had just finished his first semester at middle school and was now on Summer break and he wanted to enjoy his time off as much as possible..
Trying to explore as much of the park on his own as he could before his parents came to find him Ren decided to go to the play area nearby so he could look around from on top of the climbing area.
As he made his way over he passed by a few of the benches that lined the play area and sitting on one of them was a girl roughly his age with bright red hair who was looking towards the ground in front of her.
Ren slowed his pace as he passed by as the girl tried to see if she was okay as she looked sad and as he tried to get a look at her, he heard her quietly sobbing.
“A-are you okay?” Ren asked the girl out of concern, the girl didn’t respond so Ren Ren asked again “H-hey? Can you hear me? Are you hurt?” Ren asked again hoping the girl would respond.
“Please go away…” The girl said in a voice barely louder than a whisper.
“But you need help!” Ren declared as the girl went back to ignoring him.
Ren looked around the area to see if there was anything he could do to help cheer up the girl eventually he spotted a black cat wandering by some of the trees at the edge of the play area. He quickly left the girl and moved towards the cat.
Ren quietly snuck up on the cat and swiftly tried to grab it and as he picked it up, the cat lashed out and scratched Ren’s arm.
“Ouch!” Ren yelped trying to keep hold of the cat “Don’t scratch, I need your help.” Ren explained hoping the cat would calm down. After a few seconds the cat calmed down so Ren gently carried it back over to the girl.
“Hey.” Ren said as he got back to the girl ”If I can't help, maybe he can?” Ren asked as the girl lifted her head and saw the black cat being held out towards her.
The girl paused as she took in sight of the boy and cat, after a few seconds she began to softly giggle as she reached out and started to pet the cat’s head “Good Kitty.” She whispered.
The cat started to struggle in Ren’s grip so he put him down on the bench next to the girl. When placed on the bench the cat moved closer to the girl and started to rub against the side of her leg as she continued to pet it.
“You’re nice to her…” Ren muttered as he checked the scratch which thankfully wasn’t too bad.
The girl looked at Ren giving him a slight smile now “Thanks… d-do you want to sit?” The red hair girl asked. Ren nodded and sat on the other end of the bench, they sat in silence while the girl continued to play with the cat, Ren did attempt to stoke the cat as well but his attempt was met with a hiss.
After a few minutes the cat let out a loud meow and then it jumped off the bench and went back to explore the park. The girl turned to Ren, “Thanks… I feel a bit better now.” The girl said with a smile.
“That’s good!” Ren said finally relaxing “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Ren Amamiya.”
After a moment of hesitation the girl responded “I’m Sumire… Sumire Yoshiwaza.” Sumire shyly greeted.
“So what was wrong?” Ren asked curiously.
“I don’t really want to talk about it…” Sumire exclaimed looking back towards the ground.
“Are you sure? Maybe I can help?” Ren persisted, not wanting to let Sumire struggle on her own.
Sumire thought for a minute before letting out a short giggle “You’re weird.” She sighed and decided to talk “It’s nothing really, I just lost a competition.” Sumrie explained.
“What kind of competition?” Ren question.
“It was a gymnastics competition. I went with my sister and like always she beat me…” Sumire muttered in a sad tone.
“Did she make a big deal about that?” Ren asked “My sister does that when she beats me in a game.”
Sumire shook her head “No, she’s actually really nice and tries to cheer me up but... I just can’t beat her. No matter how much I try, Kasumi is just way better than me and I hate it.”
Sumire started to look like she was about to start crying again “I-I’m not even sure anyone would care if I just stopped… Everyone only cares about how Kasumi does…” Sumire sniffled as tears pricked her eyes again.
“Can I see?” Ren asked with a tone of excitement.
“W-what?” Sumire responded with confusion.
“Can you show me your gymnastics? You said no one cares about you doing it but I want to see it!” Ren yelled with a bit more enthusiasm.
Sumire was taken back by Ren’s interest and after a moment to process it she got up off the bench, “I-I guess I can…” Sumire said as her face went a slight shade of red.
The pair got up and moved to a more open grassy area nearby, after a brief bit of stretching and warming up Sumire started to perform a couple of basic gymnastic moves as Ren looked on in amazement.
Just as Sumire was performing her last move she lost her balance and tumbled down to the ground. “Ahhh.” Sumire shouted “I always mess that up, I just can’t do-” Sumire was interrupted by Ren running over.
“Are you okay?” Ren shouted as he finished running over to Sumire.
“Why do you care… I messed up like always.” Sumire muttered as her sad almost crying expression returned.
Ren fiercely shook his head “What are talking about? That was so cool! I’ve never seen anyone move like that before!” Ren yelled as he reached his arm out towards the girl offering to help her up.
“Can you show me how to do that?” Ren asked with great interest.
“I-I can’t… My coach or even my sister would be better than me.” Sumire said more trying to justify to herself.
“But I don’t know either of them and you were really cool and I want to have some more fun with you so… please” Ren offered.
Sumire went silent again until she smiled back at Ren “Okay!” Sumire cheered as she grabbed Ren’s hand.
Sumire then started to teach Ren the basics of Gymnastics as best she could but each time Ren attempted he ended up falling over without even getting close to performing the move.
The first few times he fell Sumire tried to apologize for not being able to explain it properly but each time Ren interrupted her and tried again, so after a while Sumire stopped feeling about and started to giggle when Ren tumbled to the ground.
“Ouch…” Ren said as he was lying down on the grass.
“Maybe you should stop. I don’t want you to get hurt.” Sumire stated as she continued to giggle.
“Yeah you’re probably right…” Ren sighed as he sat up “Thanks for teaching me I had fun.”
Sumire had a genuine smile on her face as she sat down next to him “Thank you as well Ren, I’m feeling a lot better now.”
After that the pair decided to talk about school, to Ren asking more about gymnastics to other hobbies.
“I really think you’d love Neo Featherman,” Ren said, trying to convince his new friend to watch the show, “They even do cool moves like you.”
Sumire laughed “Okay, I’ll watch it I promise.”
“Good! Then we can talk about it next time we see each other.” Ren stated with a slight smirk.
“Next ti-” Sumire tried to ask but was interrupted by a collection of familiar voices calling out her name. “Oh no…”
“What’s wrong?” Ren asked out of concern.
Sumire looked away from Ren, “I.. um kind of ran away from my family after the competition…” Sumire explained feeling slightly embarrassed “Can you please not tell them why I ran away… I don’t want them to get mad.”
“Okay!” Ren promised as he and Sumire stood up and made their way back over to the play area where the voices of Sumire’s family were coming from.
As they approached the play area they saw a tall brown haired man, a woman with medium length red hair similar to Sumire’s and a little girl with tied up brown hair. As they got closer the brown haired man noticed Sumire and Ren approaching and once he had seen them he ran over to them.
“Sumire!” he yelled in a concerned tone as he picked Sumire up and gave her a hug, “I was so worried. Please don’t run off like that again!”
“S-Sorry Dad…”Sumire stuttered out “I.. Saw some really pretty flowers and then.. Couldn’t find you again.” Sumire lied as the little girl and older woman approached as Sumire’s dad lowered her to the ground.
“Sumire, you scared me! I didn’t think we’d find you.” The little girl said with a pout as she dragged Sumire into a hug.
“I’m sorry Kasumi…” Sumire said with growing embarrassment with how her family were acting.
“It’s fine! But can you show me those flowers? If they were pretty enough to get you to run off I want to see them.” Kasumi asked in excitement.
“Oh um… I don’t remember where they were anymore.” Sumire said hoping her sister wouldn’t push the topic, thankfully Kasumi bought it and left it alone while she continued to hug her sister.
After Sumire’s mum gave her daughter a hug and gentle scolding they finally took notice of Ren who was standing a little bit away while they had their reunion. Sumire’s dad came over “So who are you?”
“I’m Ren Amamiya.” Ren responded as Sumire ran over to his side.
“Ren has been really nice to me Dad. I got… scared when I got lost and he helped me feel better!” Sumire explained with a smile.
“Is that so? Well thank you young man.” Sumire’s dad said earnestly before looking around, “But where are your parents?” He asked.
“They’re…”Ren paused as realization struck, “Oh no. I was meant to go back ages ago!” Ren said panicking a little.
Before anyone could say anything a voice called out “Don’t worry Ren, you’re fine.” the group looked over and saw Yuine sitting on a bench.
“M-mom, when did you get there?” Ren asked with a confused tone.
Yuine got up and walked over to the group, “You were gone for a while so I came looking for you. Then I saw you playing with your new friend.” Yuine gestured to Sumire, ”And I didn’t want to be interrupted. Since you two looked like you were having a great time.”
Hearing Yuine’s comment caused Ren and Sumi’s faces to go a little red which made the parents laugh. Sumire’s dad introduced himself as Shinichi Yoshizawa and her mum introduced herself as Akane Yoshizawa and had a little talk while Sumire introduced Ren to Kasumi before continuing their conversation from earlier with Kasumi attempting to join in or just occasionally try and tease Sumire.
“Well as fun as this has been we should probably get going, we don’t want to disturb your day anymore.” Shinichi declared.
“Dad… Can I please stay with Ren a little longer?” Sumire asked with a bit of hesitation.
“I’m sorry Sumire, but we need to leave soon. You know we need to get on the train home soon.” Shinichi calmly explained to Sumire.
Sumire pouted “But…”
“Don’t worry Sumi! We’ll see each other again!” Ren spoke up trying to cheer up his new friend.
“Ren…” Sumire muttered as she hugged the first person who felt like the first friend she had made without Kasumi’s help.
“Hey does Sumire have a phone?” Yuine asked. Akane nodded in response.
“Perfect, Ren why don’t you give Sumire your number and then you two can talk and it’ll make it easier to see each other again.” Yuine suggested.
Hearing the suggestion Ren and Sumire both take out their phones and share their numbers as their families prepare to leave.
“Thank you Ren… for everything, I can’t wait to see you again.” Sumire said as she finished adding Ren’s number.
Ren shook his head “I’m glad I could help.” Ren then grew a slight cocky smirk “And I’m going to try and keep practising what you showed me so next time I’ll be able to show off what I can do.”
Sumire giggled “I believe in you!” Sumire cheered giving Ren one last hug before the two had to leave with their respective family. As Sumire glanced back to see Ren and his mom getting smaller in the distance Kasumi walked over with a huge grin.
“Sooo Sumire.” Kasumi spoke in a teasing tone “What can you tell me about your new boyfriend.”
Sumire’s face instantly turned bright red “K-Kasumi!”