CHAPTER 665: SPINOFF: MEMORIES IN THE SNOWY DAY

It’s not really dislike.

After all, she’s the girl next door.

Uesugi Sakura quite likes her eyes, radiant and very bright.

"I don’t dislike you."

Upon hearing this, Hanamaru Hanabi just nodded sullenly, and Uesugi Sakura wasn’t sure if she accepted his words.

Just having stopped crying, her eyes red, her small hand grasped the pen tip, doodling around the ugly shark on the book’s page.

She seemed to want to try something but was hesitant to put the pen down.

After several tries, she gave up.

She just held the book, scrutinizing the shark.

Uesugi Sakura felt she was like himself, a quiet type, not fond of noisy play.

When they were in kindergarten, she was always bullied by someone in the class, even hit with balls and cried.

In Uesugi Sakura’s eyes, these were just children’s pranks, but at that time the teacher wasn’t around, and no peer was willing to comfort her, so seeing the little girl really pitiful, he walked over and talked with her for a while.

...

These were things that happened a long time ago, Uesugi Sakura remembered it was shortly after Hanabi moved here.

Up to now, she likes being with him.

With a little girl tagging along behind him, Uesugi Sakura didn’t know how to play with her, so he didn’t pay much attention to her.

She was very obedient, didn’t disturb him, just sat next to him, killing time by staring at her dangling little legs when she got bored.

...

After that snowy day, Uesugi Sakura couldn’t remember clearly, but vaguely recalled trying to make her stop crying by teaching her to draw, but his drawing skills were bad, covering the book pages with bizarre shapes.

Clearly not that bad at doodling, she looked so happy, even lifted her still somewhat red eyes and forced a sweet smile at Uesugi Sakura.

Uesugi Sakura saw her sparkling purple eyes and realized some of her uniqueness compared to her peers.

...

A short while later, two ladies came back, brushing the snow off their bodies, taking out a box of takoyaki from a shopping bag with a smile, and handing it to Hanamaru Hanabi:

"Hanabi-chan, brought specially for you, take it and eat."

Uesugi Sakura didn’t know how she saw him, but as soon as she got the takoyaki, she ran straight to him, saying in a weak, small voice: "Brother, let’s eat together..."

One must know that girls of this age mostly don’t understand sharing, their first impulse would always be to keep the delicious things for themselves.

Such is the nature of children, there’s no right or wrong.

But this little girl in front of him was still the same as before, always offering what she liked to him.

Uesugi Sakura was very curious about what kind of person he was in her eyes, for her to do this.

...

One day after a big snow, Uesugi Sakura had just finished breakfast, and Mrs. Hanamaru brought Hanamaru Hanabi over to find him.

"Little Sakura, Hanabi-chan came to play with you again."

Seeing Hanamaru Hanabi’s timid expression at the entrance, with the two mothers’ urging, Uesugi Sakura had no choice but to take her to play in the snow in their yard.

The adults were inside enjoying warm conversations while he sat on the wooden board outside the living room, watching the white snowflakes falling from the sky.

Though he was supposed to play with the little girl, Uesugi Sakura still didn’t know how to interact with her.

He could only watch as she used her gloved little hands to mold small figures.

Among them, two snowmen were shaped quite tall.

Uesugi Sakura asked who she was molding, and she pointed at the figures and said it was Dad and Uncle Uesugi.

Two of the figures had long hair.

"Are these two Aunt and me?"

"Uh-huh..."

Hanamaru Hanabi finally molded a small snowman, palm-sized, whose features Uesugi Sakura couldn’t discern.

"Who is this?"

"It’s brother..."

"Oh, is this me?"

"Uh-huh..."

Uesugi Sakura propped his face, patiently watching her for some time, but never saw her make the sixth figure.

The other five figures had already been lined up.

"Isn’t there one missing?"

"No, none missing..."

"No, why isn’t Hanabi-chan among them?"

Hanamaru Hanabi first lowered her face, then slowly raised her arm to point at a far-off little figure, whose body was incomplete and placed far away, only its eyes looked this way.

Snowflakes drifted past, and when Uesugi Sakura looked up, on the vast expanse of white snow, that figure quietly stayed on the edge.

The eyes of that snowman were very hollow, but looking this way, its pupils surprisingly gave him a sense of hopeful looks.

"Is this you, Hanabi?"

"Uh-huh..."

"Why place it so far away?"

Hanamaru Hanabi was just lowering her face, not answering.

That distant snowman lay there lonely in the white ground, watching while at the same time seeming to be unnoticed by anyone.

Later, Uesugi Sakura finally understood, this little girl, only six years old, already had a sense of inferiority.

...

Uesugi Sakura knew the reason why she was like this.

At that time she just started kindergarten, Mrs. Hanamaru had her at 18, and she went to a day-care style kindergarten at the age of two and a half.

Much like boarding in high school, it was only when they had a day off on Fridays that parents would come to pick them up.

At that time, her mother was still in college, and her father was in the developmental phase of his career, so naturally, their attention on her was insufficient.

During that half-year in kindergarten, there happened to be a very dominant child who always disliked her.

Throwing toys at her was a common occurrence, frequently pushing her to the ground and deliberately saying they didn’t like her.