Sakura: I'm afraid I'll use too much force

Help, help.

Anyone, please come save me.

Sakura kept backing away, her body trembling violently. The bag in her arms had long since fallen to the ground, spilling a stack of envelopes and photographs.

If anyone had been there to see, they would have noticed that the photos were all candid shots of Sakura's daily life, taken from different angles. There were even pictures of her at the electronics store with An Xiao yesterday.

All the photos had one thing in common: the subject never looked at the camera.

As the man in front of her came closer, one step at a time, Sakura felt a little despair.

How had things turned out like this?

Thirty minutes earlier.

Sakura stood at an alley entrance behind the electronics store, holding a bag and glancing around uneasily.

Maybe I should contact Ichinose.

Sakura gripped her phone, pressed her lips together, then put it away.

Forget it. I shouldn't trouble him this time. He's already helped me so much.

Besides, this place was close to the shopping district. Nothing should happen.

Sakura was thinking this with her head lowered when the light in front of her suddenly dimmed. She instinctively took a few steps back and looked up, only to find the electronics store clerk she'd seen before standing in front of her.

"Is that you, Shizuku? Did you come to see me?" The clerk gazed at Sakura, who was so close to him, with infatuation in his eyes. His feet moved forward almost without him realizing it.

Sakura jumped in fright and took several more steps back. Drawing a deep breath, she shouted at the clerk in front of her.

"Please stop contacting me. And stop following and secretly taking pictures of me!"

"I don't know how you found out where I live, or why you're doing this, but please stop!"

"Your behavior has caused me a lot of trouble."

After shouting, Sakura gasped for breath. She waited a long time, but the man across from her didn't say a word.

Just then, Sakura's phone rang. She was about to take it out and check when a hand struck the one holding her phone with force, knocking the phone from her unsteady grasp.

A shout followed right after.

"How can that be? It can't be like this! We're a match made in heaven. Even our meeting was arranged by fate. How can you say that?"

"You're the most important person to me. Am I not the same to you?"

"No, don't! Please don't come any closer!"

Sakura tried to run away, but after backing up several times, she was already some distance from the alley's entrance.

"Stay away from me!"

Sakura hurled the bag in her arms at the man.

It hit him, but it didn't help.

The man steadily closed the distance between them, murmuring all the while.

"Yeah, we're definitely still too far apart. Just wait, Shizuku. I'll make you feel my love right now... If I do that, Sakura, you'll understand, won't you?"

As the man said Sakura's name, she collapsed to the ground.

Help me. Anyone, please.

With the figure now closing in, Sakura scrambled backward on her hands and feet, despair welling up inside her.

Who would come to save me?

"Heh, you're into some pretty wild stuff, huh? How about you come play with me?"

As soon as he said this, quick footsteps followed.

The clerk turned around and saw An Xiao running toward him, holding a wooden stick he'd pulled from who knew where. An Xiao swung it at the man's head.

The clerk instinctively raised a hand to block it, but just before the stick hit him, An Xiao tossed it aside, pulled something from his arms, and stabbed at him with it.

Bzzzt—

Crackle!

After a flash of blue-white light, the clerk fell straight to the ground.

Looking down at the fallen clerk, An Xiao gave the stun baton in his hand a little bounce. He still felt a bit creeped out, so he walked over and kicked the man hard in a fleshy spot.

Not caring whether the man could hear him, An Xiao kicked and scolded him. "You could've been a decent person, but instead you chose to act like an animal. Do you know that with behavior like yours, you'd be at the very bottom of the prison hierarchy?"

"Obsessive fan, huh?"

"Think you're all that, huh?"

After kicking him for several minutes, until his clothes were covered in gray footprints, An Xiao finally stopped and kicked him aside like a piece of trash.

"Tch. If I weren't afraid of seriously hurting you, I'd have hit you with that stick earlier. Then you wouldn't have passed out so easily."

"And you—you're so foolish, or what? Didn't I tell you to avoid him as much as possible? Why did you go and face him yourself..."

Before An Xiao could finish, Sakura threw herself at him and hugged him.

An Xiao's face instinctively flushed red, but Sakura's voice soon reached him.

"Thank you, thank you. Really, thank you."

"I was so scared. That was so frightening."

"I really can't do this... I can't do anything on my own."

"I knew he'd been following me for so long, but I naively thought that if I just explained things clearly, it would be fine."

Hearing the girl's sobs, An Xiao couldn't bring himself to say any of the scolding words he'd been about to say. He didn't dare move, either. He simply bent down and let her tears fall on his clothes.

After who knew how long, Sakura's voice gradually faded into sobs, until at last she fell completely silent.

"Well, who knew what they said in anime was true? This really does make you fall asleep faster."

Looking at Sakura, who was slumped against him, An Xiao smiled helplessly.

He turned around, hoisted the sleeping Sakura onto his back, and gathered up the things scattered on the ground.

As he passed the clerk, An Xiao stopped. After thinking it over, he shocked him once more with the stun baton, then walked away, satisfied.

Just as he reached the alley entrance, Ichinose came over from the side. Looking at Sakura on An Xiao's back, she asked worriedly, "Is Sakura all right?"

"She's fine. I got there in time. She was just overwhelmed, so she'll wake up soon."

"But thanks to you, no one else came this way."

"Something like this is probably not something she'd want a lot of people to know about."

If some of the gossipy people who ran shops nearby found out, Sakura would probably have a hard time staying at school in the future.

"Yeah. Also, here."

Ichinose went to a corner and handed An Xiao the phone that had been set up there to record.

"Thanks."

An Xiao glanced at the phone, then put it back in his pocket.