A Blossoming Flower (Falling Petals)

Let's Help her make more Friends!

"GOODMORNING!!"

Sakura flinches at the loud voice and almost hissed a "shut up!" But she was able to hold herself back.

"...goodmorning."

Sakura does a light bow to the boy and had Raphael lower her so she can walk to her seat.

'I feel like I've been gaining a few pounds, I need to exercise if I don't want to bring any back pains to the people who carry me.' 

She begins to walk until a voice calls out to her.

"Sakura! Aren't you going to eat with me today?"

Phelan looked at her with his innocence light hickory brown eyes, the purple popping out even more. His ears dropping to the side when he noticed her walking to her usual spot.

'....fuck! It feels like I kicked a puppy in the ribs or something. I forgot dammit, I didn't mean to!'

"Hehe sorry, I forgot for a second."

Sakura started to walk back but got lazy, she looked at her surrounding which made those around perplexed in what she was doing.

"Ok! No outsiders."

Exactly at the same time she said that, he moved a chair and went under the table to reach the other side.

"Your highness!?" 

Raphael and her caretakers started to panic and quickly went the other side to move the chair so she doesn't have to crawl under it.

Hedwig started to laugh out loud and slapped his knee.

Mihkael only raised an eyebrow at her and lightly smiled.

"Princess!! You mustn't do such a thing next time! What if someone else sees!?"

"That's why I checked around. If there was anyone else other than those in this room now, then I wouldn't do such a thing and would be a mature and proud lady."

Sakura puffs up her chest in pride.

"So don't worry, I don't trust many people to show them who I am. It will damage papa's image."

"Your highness...."

Raphael didn't know what to say, but he turn to his friend and received the same stun look.

"Your highness...have you been holding yourself all this time? Do you really not trust anyone other than those in this room?"

"Of course not! I trust Azrael, Gabriel, Uriel, Seraph, and Uriel! And the knights who play with me when I was being watched over by Ariel and Azrael!"

She smiled up at Raphael and her dad.

"So you view them as your friends?"

'Of course not! If I did, do you think I would still keep this naive front? I don't really trust you guys to accept me for who I am, so I might as well create an image that will gains people's admiration and support.

"Yup! You guys and they are the only ones I can be myself with. I love you guys a lot!!"

Sakura spreads her arms wide to show how much she loved them.

'It's true, I really do love you guys, but not to the level of trusting everything to you. But I'll take a different approach from the other Sakura, I wouldn't create obvious walls and I'll act like I'll like a person, when in truth, I can despise them.'

"But it must be lonely to have only adults as friends? Do you want some who are close to your age?"

"Nah, I'm good. I don't want too many people close. It then becomes harder to know who to trust and how much to trust them so it's pain to act anymore that I have to."

'I would like to but I'm too shy to make so many knew friends, so I want to make more later.'

Sakura answered nonchalantly while trying her hardest to take a seat, she accidentally spoke her real thoughts while thinking of the appropriate thing to say.

The room grew silent, only the sound of Sakura trying her hardest to sit down filled the room, then a knock at the door to indicate that the food is really to serve.

Raphael told them to enter and then grabbed Sakura, he had the maids switch the seats and had her usual chair placed next to Phelan.

Everyone started to eat but a sense of awkwardness filled the air. Sakura hasn't noticed her slip up yet and was just enjoying her warm croissant with a cream filling and the hot milk.

She turn to look at Phelan and noticed he was really quiet too.

"Do you not like the cro- cru-hmm croi.ssan.t?" Sakura had to separate the word so she can pronounce it right. But she is glad she doesn't have to do it much, only for a few words.

"Does Sakura really trust me?"

"Huh?"

"Do you trust me or are you just acting that you do?"

'Where the f**k did this come from? I know I said the right things so I don't because obvious, so how can he tell?'

"I do trust you, but not much."

"!!! Then...!"

"Well I just met you, it's hard to trust a person I don't know much about. We need to get closer so I can fully trust you."

'Let's just say something rational so he doesn't start crying over this.'

When Phelan heard her point of view, he didn't jump to conclusions and was actually relieved that she was trying to trust him and didn't automatically just say she did so she can get rid of his suspicions.

'Then she really wants to be friends!! Haha I'll make sure to get her to trust me quickly!'

The boy smiled widely, showing his small canines and a spot where a tooth was missing at the side.

Seeing the children interaction, Mihkael looks a bit sad and lightly sighs, he looks at his food and just went into a deep thought.

'Even when she hasn't been taught yet to distrust people, she already learn that with watching her surrounding. She even knew how to measure how much she should trust a person. Even more so, she said it's hard to act anymore than she already does! Just how much is she bottling up and hiding? does she even trust us? No! She is still a child, she wouldn't distrust me or Raphael. Right?'

He was staring to get a small migraine and didn't know what to think about his daughter sudden yet innocent revelation.

'She is still a child if she can say such things without knowing what type of impact it can have. She doesn't know how strange it is for a toddler to speak as if she had years of experience. I wouldn't have discovered this so easily if I haven't been educated so young! She hasn't even attended one royal class with the tutors.'

"Mihkael. Relax, we can't have Sakura notice how much her words effected us, she would start to worry and think she did something wrong."

Raphael slightly whispered to Mihkael, so they don't worry Sakura.

"... yeah, let's talk about this later."

They finished their breakfast and let the children play in the garden with Ivy and Daisy. Hedwig followed along so no incident occurs.

"Oh Mihkael. Make sure to tell me when you have the meeting with the others, I'll like to join it too."

"Sure, and please watch over my daughter, I'm still worried from what happened yesterday, I don't know if it left some type of trauma."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure nothing like yesterday happens again."

Feeling reassured, Mihkael did a light bow goodbye and began walking to the throne room to hear the morning reports. Raphael follows behind. He was a bit relieved that someone else can watch over Sakura, because he knew they had to have a meeting about Sakura's actions and words.

"Yo! You guys are late today."

Ariel laughs and was sitting on the stairs that leads to the throne. He was just lazying there with no care of his image.

"Your one to talk, you literally got here 10 seconds ago." Seraph just sneered when he glanced at Ariel's lazyass form. He really can't find the one majestic and battle maniac that always ran in front at battles.

"...." Azrael leans at one of the pillars and does a bow when he sees Mihkael and then a light bow to Raphael. But his usual expressionless look had a frown.

"What's wrong with Azrael?"

"Uriel hasn't been around for a few months since he joined Gabriel to conduct research on finding a reason for Aurora's deep coma."

"I'm lonely..." Azrael didn't change his expression, but you can feel such a sad aura around him that those around felt a bit bad.

"Sorry Azrael, I'll call for them to come back soon. I bet you are still preparing for the wedding."

Azrael nods and looks to Mihkael.

"We decided to adopt soon after the honeymoon.... Uriel is really happy of the thought.... of having our own..." Azrael wasn't used to talking much, but he smiled when he remembered how happy Uriel was to having their own family.

"Congratulations! I hope the best for you two." Mihkael smiled and patted Azrael in the head, he noticed what he was doing and quickly stopped.

"Sorry.... habit that I gain after being with Sakura for so long."

Azrael just looked at him and then patted his own head.

"Its fine.... I didn't hate it."

For a second people felt that they saw dog ears twitch in joy and a wagging tail when they saw him touching his head.

"Hahaha! Now I see even more why Uriel became so fond of you. We always get to see something new when it comes to you."

Ariel stands up and wraps a shoulder around Azrael, and then ruffles the other man's hair. 

"Stop messing with his hair Ariel, we have to begin the reporting today." Seraph rolls his eyes and began the report when Mihkael sat down and everyone was in place.

A few hours later, the reports were done and everyone was ready to go to their next tasks. But were stopped when Mihkael called for them.

"There is actually something I have to report today, Seraph should already know of what." Seraph eyes widen in realization and he understood what he meant.

"Yes, yesterday's incident was an unexpected event that I never thought would occur."

"What happened yesterday?"

Ariel frowned in confusion when they brought it up as unexpected.

"Haah~ yesterday Sakura had an incident."

"!? Did something happen to her!?"

Both Ariel and Azrael frowned and a ferocious atmosphere filled the air.

"It's not what you this, no one attacked her, just wait to hear what we got to say you muscle heads."

"Oh ok."

After that, they were told what happened the other day and then Raphael brought up what Sakura said today in breakfast too.

"... what happened yesterday really was unexpected, but the thing about this morning, not so much."

"What do you mean by that Ariel!?"

The men all turn to him with wide eyes. He just shrugs his shoulders and begins to talk.

"Well a few days passed after her accident and I've noticed at most moments she seems as if she reacts to things with perfect timing or when she wants to redirect attention, she creates this naive feeling and changes the topic without one thinking much of it. I just had a strange feeling to it because she never went too far when throwing tantrums and she steadies her reaction to others."

Ariel began explaining what he sensed when he watched over Sakura and knew how change it sound.

"That's why I'm really surprised when you told me what happened yesterday. I wouldn't have expected her to do something so out of character since she was so careful with her actions." Ariel frowned at the unexpected situation.

".... sometimes I noticed it with others, but she does act different. She likes to observe rather than interact. "

Azrael remember how bubbly and childish Sakura becomes with others, but when she is by herself with him, she becomes quite and observant of her surrounding. Azrael thought it was normal for children to be different from each other, so he didn't take it to heart, especially since he was surrounded by kids like Mihkael and Seraph as a child. He thought it was pretty normal.

"I see, because Azrael was with us when we were kids, he thought all children was just as intelligent and advanced in character. The thing about that Azrael, is that we had tutors and were shown the dark side of people at a young age. But Sakura was different. Raphael didn't really got her a tutor, but someone who can just teach her to count and learn the alphabet, but even then, she didn't study. And Mihkael always kept her away from people because he didn't want her to go and witness so much at a young age, he didn't want her to become like him who had to grow up quick or be swallowed by the dark side of adults."

Seraph explains how strange her way of thinking was.

"Its strange how a girl who was sheltered from the outside world ended up with such a guarded personality. She was either taught by someone in secret or went through something that made her think like this. But then that leads to another web of questions. Who taught her or what has she experienced to catch on with the world?"

Azrael now understood more why everyone was treating this seriously.

"And adding to that, her strong outburst to meeting Hedwig's grandson, her attitude was if she was meeting her enemy or her most hated person. There was just hate laced in her words. And then the cherry on the top was her strong attachment to Raphael, the moment he turn away from her. The light left her eyes, she looked as if she lost everything that very moment."

Seraph was truly astonished and perplexed of why such a reaction.

'She looked as if she lost the only thing holding her together, what made her so obsessed with Raphael? I understand he was there the longest, but still. I can see her interaction with Mihkael got better, I would say they both have the same amount of love, yet that incident displayed her need for Raphael.'

"Haah, but you know guys."

Everyone turn to Ariel when he spoke, he looked each person on the eyes.

"Even if we talk about this, we aren't Sakura. So we can hypothesis and guess all we want, but we won't find the right answer on our own."

They all looked at each other and knew what Ariel was saying, they ended up sighing and found that there will be no solution.

"That's true, but we should at least do something about her distrust on others, and her dislike of making anymore friends."

Raphael was worried that Sakura will isolate herself just because she finds having friends tiring.

"But didn't she make one luckily. The grandson of Hedwig. We already found her taking her first steps to it."

Ariel thought maybe that maybe that can be her turning point.

"About that..."

Raphael sighs again. He started to feel like he has been sighing a lot this days.

"I might be one of the reasons she even bothered asking him to be her friend."

"What you mean?"

Now everyone turn to look at him. He felt a bit awkward and hoped that maybe he was overreacting.

"Well... yesterday before dinner, I told her how I hoped she can be friends with him... and she turn to me and asked 'Will you be very happy if I become his friend?' At that time I thought the question was strange, but I just nodded and said I would like it if she made more friends her age. I noticed she looked like she was contemplating it and then said she'll see."

"..... so on the end, she didn't become friend with the boy because she cares to, she used the boy to get what she needs when she saw the pros and cons, so then decided to be his friend... our princess is quite cruel huh."

Ariel can only laugh in disbelief.

"Sakura is quite attached to you Raphael, that she even used an innocent boys need for friendship just to make you happy."

"But I said maybe! It can be that she didn't really ment it like that!" 

Raphael tried to defend Sakura and regretted saying anything.

"Actually, does she really trust us? Does she really like us or is she using us-"

Seraph noticed so many different factors to Sakura and wondered if maybe she was using them, but then he stopped his talk when he remembered her crying and turning to him.

***

"Uhh hick uncle Seraph~" 

***

She for the first time called him uncle and wanted to be held by him.

"...maybe she really did want to make a friend?"

"Huh? What you mean."

"I feel like she is just scared to and really does want a friend her age, maybe she is putting a cold and calculating front just because she doesn't really want to show weakness, but deep down she wants friend."

"!!! That could be true..."

"Then maybe we should help her! She might just be shy and awkward to take the first step."

"That's a great idea! We should help by giving her a helping hand, just she doesn't find out."

Mihkael finally spoke and decided what should be done.

"Do not worry Sakura, soon you'll find trustworthy friends who you may even create a deep bond of brotherhood with."

'I don't think a brotherhood is the right term to use....'

Everyone felt a sweat drop from Mihkael's way of thinking. But now that they decided maybe she really is lonely and wants friends. They wonder who they should get.

"How about our children?"

"Gabriel's and Seraph's kids?"

"And Azrael's future kids too. We can bring them over and she may open up to them."

"Great idea!"

While they started to make plans, Sakura didn't know that soon her peaceful life won't stay so peaceful anymore. Soon she will meet the first batch of capture targets and she never knew it was because of the misunderstanding the others have about her.