blackbox | kirishima eijirou

12 | siren storms

Remember what Sakura thought about getting her hopes up—hoping that her day or week would get along just fine when she notice how smoothly it went without the lightning striking each time?

Yeah. The sailor's ship got wrecked again after days of sailing the smooth sea.

"I already told you my exams are coming up and all these days I've been studyi—"

"If you actually did study then why did you end up getting a B for last week's test?" Her mother held the paper in her hand, standing a few centimetres in front of Sakura while her father sat on the stool, drinking his coffee.

The young girl clenched her fists. "At least I tried—"

"Tried?" She repeated as she pointed on the grade marked on the corner of the paper. "Trying is a waste. Doing is best. You're better than this."

"We all know that History isn't my best subject, mum." Sakura sighs as she tried to ignore the frustration running through her veins.

"Then perhaps you should focus more on that when you're excelling in the others," her father firmly stated as he looked up from his phone.

"Then what if I focus too much on my worst subject to get an A and end up dropping the rest?" She averted her gaze away from the both of them, not bothering about the tone of her voice.

"Don't be ridiculous," her mother firmly said. "If you can maintain your grades then I'm sure it'll be fine."

Then what about Sakura?

"Okay," the latter's throat tightened, clenching her teeth behind closed lips, ignoring the embers burning inside her. "I'm gonna study a little bit before I go to bed. Night, mum. Night dad."

Before her ears became numb to their words to catch on what they said next, she quickly strode up to her room, shutting the door with a little too much of a force, but eventually, she locked the door in case one of them barges in to yell in her face about slamming doors.

It's trivial as she counted the number of days that she sailed while not knowing about how fast the currents were luring her ship into another storm. She was too busy admiring the islands from afar, only to get her ship in danger again.

Or was it her effort as a sailor trying to lead their crew isn't enough?

Tears were pooled within her eyelids, streaming down her cheeks as her throat ached again.

Sakura slowly slid open the window, immediately gasping for air as she did so as if the room she's in was suffocating her. Another sob escaped her lips as she leaned onto the window, the immense warmth prickling her eyes again, feeling the familiar pang within her ribcage.

And then she dropped on her knees, shoulders shaking as her knuckles touched the wooden floor.

In the end, the blue girl walked into the aisles of her solitary life, finding outputs that were waiting to be chosen only to be wasted away in the junkyard where everyone will finally be seen as worthless.

Every day she hopes that all of this was a dream—please, someone, anyone, wake me up—but who will sing and make her dreams wake up tonight? Every night, she'd always wish she could find something she'd been waiting for after all this time no matter how long it takes. But day by day, the dreams were slowly warping into a hellish nightmare—the meaningless wishes leaving her lips each time she spots a shining star wasn't coming true.

Whatever the sailor was going through, wasn't a thunderstorm anymore.

The sailor stumbled upon an alluring, beautiful siren instead.