The same pink long hair reminded Sakura of many things, but add the striking red highlight at the forehead, and its meaning became unambiguous.
"No need to rush, Rin." She smiled wryly and shook her head, yet quickened her pace regardless—every action felt natural, flowing effortlessly.
Her right hand was held by Rin, leaving only her left to adjust the straw hat on her head. Fingertips pressed lightly against the brim; even through the thick weave, she could feel the smooth long hair beneath, the warmth between the strands.
She paused slightly—something seemed... missing?
But before she could ponder further, a pull on her right hand interrupted her thoughts—Rin, like a lively foal, pulled her forward through the bustling crowd.
"Wait, Rin, where are you taking me..."
"Alright! We're here!"
Sakura stopped, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her sister before a tall, grand building.
"Look, look! This is our school library! Uh... actually, it's supposed to be a museum. It has lots of writing tablets, pottery shards, and amber slabs, supposedly genuine artifacts from the library of the Mu Empire—humanity's first empire..."
Rin then put an arm around her sister's shoulders, leaned in mischievously close to her ear, glanced around at the crowd, and whispered conspiratorially, "The school claims every stone brick used in this library dates back to the Mu Empire era. I can't tell if it's true, but if it is... look at this color! The ancients would probably crawl out of their graves in anger!"
Sakura's eye twitched as she looked at the library... or museum... before her, starkly divided down the middle by the main entrance doors, painted in jarringly distinct shades of blue and pink.
Neither color was particularly dignified, ill-suited for a building meant to evoke historical weight, let alone when combined .
"This... Who did this? Your principal... wouldn't he be angry?"
"Ha? Angry?" Rin tilted her head, wagging her index finger. "Sister, don't you think these two colors perfectly match our school's two silly... uh, those two principals?"
Pulling Sakura inside the museum, Rin lowered her voice further:
"That new vice-principal wanted to paint all the school buildings pink. The principal refused, of course. So the vice-principal snuck out at night with a few buckets of paint and painted half the museum pink. The next day, when the principal saw it, he got mad and painted the other half blue."
"...And then what happened?" Sakura suddenly felt sending Rin to this school might have been somewhat... unreliable... But it was too late for regrets.