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Kasumi slowly trudged through the hallways of Shujin Academy with her head bowed, her recent gymnastics meet clouding her thoughts. She had bombed it. Spectacularly. Now she felt hopeless. Would she ever be able to escape this slump? She dreamed everyday of achieving the goal she and her sister had shared, of excelling in gymnastics and winning the upcoming international competition, but success continued to drift further and further away.
Kasumi glanced at her phone, hoping for a call or a notification even though she knew it was pointless. Recently she had come to rely heavily on Amamiya-Senpai in times like these. Senpai's quiet reliability and kindness always seemed to cheer Kasumi up when she felt depressed, but that wouldn’t be able to help this time. Kasumi had texted earlier in the day asking to spend time together, but Amamiya-Senpai was apparently sick today, so Kasumi was on her own.
A pang of guilt shot through the red-haired honor student. Amamiya-Senpai was too sick to even get out of bed and yet she was the one who was feeling sorry for herself? The guilt mixed in with her depression and dragged her down even further into that endless muck of self-hatred. I’m sorry Sumire, I can’t keep my promise. I can’t be the best, I can’t even get past this plateau. She vaguely registered hot tears streaming down her face as she ran, when had she started running? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…
Suddenly, she crashed into someone and fell to the ground with a yelp. “Oh no! Are you okay?” a gentle voice cried out. Kasumi groaned and slowly started to get up, then suddenly someone was helping her to her feet. “I’m so sorry. Did you get hurt at all?”
“Ugh…no, I’m fine. It’s not your fault, I wasn’t paying any attention to where I was going.” She finally looked up to see a girl with a light pink sweater and a worried look on her face. “Were you hurt, though? I think I hit you quite hard.” Kasumi asked before sniffling. Oh god, she probably looked like a mess didn’t she?
“Oh don’t worry, I’m quite alright!” the girl said with a glowing smile, before her face returned to showing her worry. “But… are you sure you’re okay? You seem like you must have been going through a lot to make you run like that… Here, let me help you out.” She pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to Kasumi, who took it gratefully and began drying her eyes.
Suddenly the girl jumped a little. “Oh! Where are my manners? My name is Haru Okumura, I’m a third-year student,” she introduced herself.
“Ah, right! Nice to meet you, Okumura-Senpai, I’m Kasumi Yoshizawa, a first-year.” Kasumi finished wiping her face and gave a deep bow. “I’m very sorry for inconveniencing you, I’ll get out of your way now.”
“Oh don’t worry, you haven’t inconvenienced me at all. And please, just call me Haru!”
“No, I should show my respect, Senpai. You really saved me after all, who knows what would have happened to me if I had just kept running like that. That was really reckless of me…” Kasumi quickly started to get dragged back down by her emotions, which Haru immediately noticed.
“Well, I was actually just on my way upstairs to the roof to tend to the planters, would you like to come with me? I find that taking care of them helps me calm down when I’m stressed, maybe it could be helpful for you, too? But only if you want to, of course.”
“Oh, that actually sounds very nice!” A chance to distract herself from her failures sounded quite tempting right about now, but self-doubt quickly began to gnaw on Kasumi. She had already inconvenienced her, and now she was forcing her to comfort her, too! Just how selfish can I be, Okumura-Senpai must be so frustrated with me right now. The panic was setting in now, she needed to make sure that the older girl wasn’t annoyed by her. “But, I’ve already troubled you, I should really get out of your way and let you do your work. I would just be slowing you down.”
“It’s fine! Gardening isn’t a race after all. If it helps you feel better then it would be well worth the time.” Haru continued to offer, but she quickly saw that Kasumi was in no mood to accept selfless help. “Besides…” She slyly looked down at the large bags at her feet that Kasumi hadn’t noticed until now. “I really need to get this compost up to the roof, but getting them up these stairs has really worn me out. It would be a massive help if someone could assist me in carrying them the rest of the way…” A mischievous smile painted her face as she emphasized the small task’s importance.
Kasumi’s self-doubt immediately began to battle against her natural instinct to help others, and with the help of her own selfish desire, one side quickly won out. “Well, if you need the help…”
After patting gently around the base of the plant, Kasumi stepped back to admire their work. Where there had once been nothing but soil in these planters, now each of them had multiple small, green sprouts, the product of a lot of hard effort from both of the girls.
When she first came up to the roof she had been surprised to see that the planters were empty. Wasn’t Okumura-Senpai growing plants up here? But after the two of them finished hauling up the bags of compost, the older girl had explained that she had just recently finished harvesting the last crop of plants and it was now time to start a new crop. At this point, Kasumi idly thought that this was far more like farming rather than gardening, including much more hard work than she had expected, and it really seemed like Haru was far more accustomed to that hard work than she had let on earlier.
However, Kasumi had already been hooked by the girl’s scheme and stuck around to help her further. She found herself focusing on little other than executing Haru's soft-spoken yet confident directions, mixing some of the compost into the planters’ soil before taking a trowel and digging out space to insert the seedlings that Haru had already brought up earlier. Next came actually transferring the seedlings into the planters. Kasumi handled each of them gently, scared of damaging the plants, only to turn around and see the other girl moving with startling speed and efficiency, almost a blur as she worked (I thought this was supposed to be an exercise in relaxation, Kasumi chuckled to herself).
After carefully forming the soil around the newly planted seedlings, they had finished. Looking over the planters, Kasumi felt a warm glow of satisfaction in her work. Sure, she thought, Okumura-Senpai had managed to do twice as many planters in the same time as me, and sure, they're also all somehow far neater than each of mine, but it's impossible to look at the bright splashes of green leaves contrasting the dark soil and not feel proud.
“Well, the only thing left to do for today is to water them,” Kasumi heard to her left, looking over to see the third-year grabbing a watering can and beginning to move from plant to plant. “I can’t thank you enough for your help today, Kasumi-chan. You made this much easier than it would have been with just myself.”
“Oh, please. I barely did anything compared to you, Senpai.”
“Not at all! Sure, I may have done a little more, but that’s just due to experience. You still helped me out plenty!” Haru smiled brightly at her. “And more importantly, I had quite a bit of fun today. Usually, gardening is a solitary affair, but having you here with me made it even more enjoyable than usual.”
“I don’t have any experience to compare it to, but. . . I really enjoyed this as well.” Kasumi replied quietly. The calm work had done wonders for her mood. The pain of her failed meet still stung, but it no longer seemed quite so. . . existential. She took a deep breath before continuing. “I can’t thank you enough, Senpai, for inviting me to help you.”
“You're very welcome! I’m so glad to hear you had fun. Hopefully it helped with your . . . earlier distress as well, at least a little bit. . . “ the older girl said hesitantly, clearly unsure if she should broach the topic.
“It did, actually! I was just a bit stressed before.” Kasumi paused before continuing. “You see, I, um, I’m a gymnast, and at my last meet I . . . I performed very poorly.”
“Ah, I see.” Haru nodded. “Well, no one can always be perfect. I’m sure you’ll be able to bounce back and blow everyone away at your next meet!” she said with a sudden exuberance.
Kasumi smiled hesitantly. “I hope so. But, the thing is. . . this meet is actually just the latest in a string of poor performances.” Her smile quickly collapsed and her gaze fell to the ground. “I’ve been in a slump for a while now, ever since Sumire. . . ever since my sister passed away. . .” Tears began to fill her eyes, threatening to spill out. The last thing she wanted was to burden her savior with her problems after she had already done so much for her, but the grief suddenly became overwhelming, making it impossible to focus on anything other than that familiar darkness. As Kasumi began to spiral, a comforting arm rested around her shoulder.
“It's okay if it's too much for you to talk about right now,” Haru softly said. Kasumi looked up at her kind gaze, then looked down and nodded gratefully, tears continuing to flow. As she sniffled quietly, Haru slowly began to pull her closer, giving her plenty of time to break away if she wanted, but Kasumi immediately fell into the hug and clutched the older girl tightly. Haru simply held her for a time, letting the younger girl cry into her shoulder. The comforting warmth of the hug didn't make the darkness suddenly disappear, but it pushed against it, offering Kasumi a lifeline to hold on to in the storm.
She leaned into Haru for what felt like an eternity before she began to pull away, though it likely wasn’t actually that long. Haru silently offered her a handkerchief again, which she took once more. Once she finished cleaning her face, Haru quietly spoke. “Well, I may not be able to offer any advice for gymnastics, but the rooftop is always available if you’d like a chance to relax like today.”
Kasumi looked at her in gratitude. “I’d. . . I’d really like that.” She looked down at her feet, suddenly embarrassed. “I really can’t thank you enough for everything, Senpai. The gardening, the chance to calm down, and, umm,” she began to blush as she recalled the very gentle hug. “Just, thank you so much.”
“Of course!” Haru nodded with a giant smile on her face. “Anytime you need help just let me know! I’ve. . .” she stopped suddenly, her usually cheerful face turning downcast. “I’ve been through a lot myself recently, and it makes me very happy to know that I can be of help to someone also going through difficult times.” She looked back up, her face bright once more. “Here, let me give you my contact information so you can let me know whenever you want to garden with me!”
As they exchanged information, and then slowly walked down the stairs from the roof, Kasumi found herself filled with excitement. She already knew she could turn to Amamiya-Senpai when she needed help, but Amamiya-Senpai was just one person, and helping Okumura-Senpai with her garden had been both fun and calming. After her time with her, she felt like she had the strength to keep moving forward, to keep chasing her and her sister’s dream.
She had just left, but she couldn’t help but be excited for the next time she would be able to visit the rooftop garden, and, as she thought of the small glimpse she had seen of the kind girl's own sadness, she hoped she would be able to offer her some of the same peace and comfort that she had given to Kasumi.