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“Anyone want some chocolate?” Kiryu asks in a sing-song voice as he enters the classroom. He’s immediately surrounded on all sides by excited teenage boys.
Kiryu places the treats on the teacher’s empty desk, opening a pristine looking box revealing ball-shaped chocolates all lined up like pieces of jewelry.
“Where’d you get them?” Anzai asks, already reaching for one.
“I got them from my sister. She said that her manager at work gave some to all of the employees. She’s not a big fan of liquor chocolate though, so she asked me to share them all with you guys!”
“I’ve never met your sister before, but she sounds great,” Kakiuchi says between a mouthful of milk chocolate.
“Liquor chocolate? What’s that?” Sakura asks as he approaches the group.
Akihiko, ever ready to assist, sidles up next to his grade captain. “Liquor chocolates are chocolates that have some alcohol in them. It’s just a little bit, though, so it’s okay for minors to eat.”
“Yup! That’s pretty much it!” Kiryu says, grabbing a piece of chocolate from the box and shoving it into Sakura’s mouth. “Here, try one!”
“At least ask first before you shove it in his mouth, Kiryu-san!”
“Hm, it’s fine isn’t it? It’s good, right Sakura-chan?”
They both turn to their grade captain to gauge his reaction. His head is ducked down so it’s hard to see his expression, but then…He looks up at them, face flushed, eyes half lidded.
“Hm? Yeah! It’s greaaaat~” And now he’s smiling. It’s dopey and cute and definitely not an expression Sakura would wear if he were sober.
“Is he…Is Sakura drunk? From one piece of liquor chocolate?” Kurita asks, brows knotted in confusion.
“Huh. And here I thought stuff like that only happened in manga,” Takanashi says in a tone that’s way too calm considering the situation.
And Akihiko? He was already going into full panic mode. “What should we do? Is this legal? Are we in trouble? Should we report this to Umemiya-san?”
“Calm down, Nirei-kun,” Suo says, ever calm and collected. He stares Sakura up and down, bringing a finger to his chin.
“Hm, let me try something. Sakura-kun, can you lift your hands up like this?” He lifted his arms up, hands closed into fists reminiscent of a cat’s paws. Sakura mirrored him without complaint. “Alright, now tilt your head to the side.” Again, Sakura did as he was told.
“What are they doing?” someone asks.
“Shhh! I wanna see where this goes!”
Kiryu, as if sensing something unforgettable was about to unfold, whisked his phone out and started recording on his video app.
“Okay, very good, Sakura-kun. Now repeat after me: Nyaaaa!”
Sakura smiles a smile that would render an entire army speechless before letting out what could only be described as the world’s cutest “Nyaaaaa!” No cat, not even Risa, could ever hope to achieve that same level of cuteness.
The room full of teenage boys were suddenly on their knees, clenching their chests for dear life. That was lethal. This version of Sakura could never be unleashed into the world. He would be too powerful.
“Kiryu, please tell me you recorded that,” Tsugeura says, shaking the shorter teen’s shoulder slightly. Kiryu responded with a victorious thumbs up.
“Please, I’m begging you, send that to the group chat,” Anzai says, hands clasped against his chest pleadingly.
“Sure thing~ I’ll make a separate group chat for the class without Sakura-chan in it. Coz, you know, he’ll probably kill us all if he ever sees this.”
“Yeah, that’s a good call.”
Then, Sakura suddenly sways. Suo grips both of his arms, steadying him. “I think our grade captain might need a chair.”
“On it!” Akihito yells, already grabbing hold of the closest empty seat. “Here, Sakura-san.”
As Suo helps Sakura settle into the chair, Akihiko finds himself marveling at how strange the image in front of him looks. Normally, Sakura would be kicking and screaming, yelling at Suo to let go of him because he can sit on a chair on his own, thank you very much.
But right now he’s so…docile. Akihiko could almost swear that he can see a little flower growing out of his head.
“Um…Sakura-san, how are you feeling?”
“Hm?” Sakura tilts his head to the side, as if seriously considering the question. “Um…Weird!”
Yeah, I bet.
“Sakura-san, maybe we should—“
“Hey, Sakura-chan. Who’s your favorite person in Furin?”
“Kiryu-san?!”
“Aren’t you curious, Nirei-chan?”
“No, I mean, yes! But why—“
“Nirei-kun, I’m sure you’ve noticed, but in this state, Sakura-kun has been very cooperative.” Suo says, affectionately patting Sakura’s head as if to make a point. Sakura leans into the touch, and if he were a cat, Akihito is almost certain he’d be purring right now.
“See?”
“You got it, Suo-chan! And we don’t get many opportunities to get straight answers from Sakura-chan like this!”
“I don’t know…It still feels kind of like we’re taking advantage of—“
“My favorite person is Nirei!”
“Afhgfsfdkhfgksg!!!”
“Nirei-chan, you good?”
“Hold on. Hold on, I need a moment…” Akihiko looks at Sakura and holds his gaze. “Sakura-san…I-I’m your favorite person?”
“Of course! Coz you’re my first friend~”
“S-Sakura-san!” Akihiko clasps his hands together, feeling like he might actually start tearing up. To think that Sakura would hold their friendship in such high regard!
“Good for you, Nirei-kun,” Suo says, gently patting Akihiko on the back.
“Yeah, well, Nirei’s been sticking to Sakura’s side since day one.”
“Yeah, there’s no way any of us could have lost to him. Ha ha!”
“Alright! Then Sakura-chan, who’s the person you have the most trouble getting along with?”
“Eh?! You’re still asking him stuff?!”
“More importantly,” Tsugeura begins, sending a not so subtle glance in Sugishita’s direction. His head is laid down on his desk, asleep. “Is there really any point in asking that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The answer might end up surprising us.”
“Huh?” Now Akihiko’s interest is piqued. He’s pretty sure that Sugishita is quite literally the only person in all of Makoshi that Sakura doesn’t get along with.
“The person I have a hard time getting along with…” Sakura begins, and the class finds themselves hanging onto his every word with bated breath.
“It’s S-S- A-choo!”
“Uwah! He sneezes like a kitten!”
“I now understand what the term ‘illegally cute’ means.”
Okay, cute sneeze aside, Sakura’s answer still seems pretty obvious to Akihiko. The person’s name starts with an “S”, so it couldn’t be anyone else but Sugishita. Honestly, what’s Kiryu thinking, poking the hornet’s nest like that? For all they know, Sugishita might just be pretending to be asleep.
“Oh…I sneezed.”
“You sure did, Sakura-chan. But it was cute so it’s fine.”
“Would it not have been fine if it wasn’t cute?!” Someone fires back.
“Anyway,” Kiryu continues, ignoring the comment, “What’s your answer?”
“Oh, right! It’s Suo!”
Ah, yeah, figures. Of course it’s Sugishita. Who else could it — Wait, what?!
“S-S-Suo-san?!”
“Yup!”
“Sakura-san, I’m hurt that you would say such a thing,” Suo says from behind Sakura’s seat. His mouth is smiling but his one visible eye isn’t.
Sakura puffs his cheeks like an adorably disgruntled squirrel. “It’s coz you’re always teasing me and — and tricking me and stuff. At least with Sugishiii— Sugishita, we just fight each other. I don’t gotta think twice or anything. It’s just. Hate. And Fight. Simple.”
Suo moves to kneel in front of Sakura, taking one of his hands into his own. His voice is soft and gentle as he speaks. “So you don’t like it when I tease you then?”
“Of course not! Only a masoshi— machismo—“
“Masochist.”
“A masochist! Thank you Kiryu.“
“Anytime.”
“Only a masochist would enjoy being teased all the time!”
“I see,” Suo says, holding Sakura’s hand in a firm grip. “Well then, I formally apologize if any of my teasing upset you. But you know, I can’t just help myself since you always have such cute reactions.”
“I do not!”
With his face now turning red as a tomato, cheeks still puffed out, Sakura is really not helping his case.
Suo huffs out a laugh, unbothered. “Yes, well, since you were so honest with me, I suppose it would only be fair to lighten up on all the teasing. Does that sound fair to you?”
“You promise?”
Suo lets go of Sakura’s hand and traces and “X” across his chest with right finger. “Cross my heart.”
Sakura smiles (he’s been doing that a lot today and Akihiko honestly doesn’t know how much more of this his heart can take) and nods. “Okay!”
The sound of a chair scraping against the floor catches everyone’s attention. Sugishita’s hulking figure comes into view and he’s…he’s getting closer. And closer. Was he really feigning sleep this whole time? But…Sakura didn’t say anything that should have triggered him, right? Still, Akihiko moves a little closer to Sakura, just in case. From the corner of his eye, he can see Suo straightening, back going ramrod straight. He’s eyeing Sugishita’s every move, calm and calculated.
Sakura’s still kind of sort of drunk, so it would be bad if they got into a fight now.
Sugishita finally comes to a stop, face set in that usual frown of his.
“Oh, it’s Sugishita~” Sakura says, blissfully unaware of the tense atmosphere. He brings his fists up in a wobbly fighting stance. “You wanna fight?”
Sugishita raises a hand and— pats Sakura’s head.
“Huh?” Sakura says, echoing everyone’s thoughts.
“I…don’t hate you.”
“Oh…That’s great! I don’t hate you too!”
Sugishita grunts in reply, the smallest ghost of a smile crossing his features before he trudges back to his seat and lays his head back unto his arms like he didn’t just blow his classmates’ minds.
The classroom erupts into loud shouts of surprise.
“Dude, what just happened?!”
“Are they friends now, or—?!”
“Sugishita’s still in the classroom, you know. Ya’ll might wanna keep it down.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. The guy’s probably still processing the fact that Sakura doesn’t actually hate him.”
The rowdy discussion is interrupted when the door to their classroom slams open.
“Will you brats keep it down?! We can hear you from all the way up on the roof!”
“Come now, Hiragi! They’re just having a bit of fun! No need to—“
“It’s Hiragi and Ume-nii-chan!”
Akihiko watches in amazement as Hajime Umemiya, the top dog of Furin High School, one of, if not, the strongest man that he’s had the pleasure of knowing, is brought down to his knees.
“Ume-nii-chan?!” He exclaims, gripping his chest in shock. “I—Sakura, what did you just call me?”
“Ume-nii-chan!”
“Gnrrkkk!” Umemiya’s now on the ground on all fours. Akihiko was right, Sakura has become too powerful.
“Who knew that this would be all it took to bring Ume-chan-senpai to his knees?”
“Kiryu-san…”
“Get it together, man,” Hiragi says, pulling Umemiya up by the collar of his uniform. He turns to level a considering look at Sakura, eyebrows raised.
“Is Sakura…drunk?” Then, in an angrier tone, “Did you guys bring alcohol to school?”
“No, that’s not it at all!” Akihiko says, flailing his arms in a panic. “It was chocolate! Liquor chocolate!”
“Yup!” Kiryu says, picking up one of the offending treats from the box still perched on the teacher’s desk.
“Here, try one.”
Hiragi examines the candy carefully before finally popping one into his mouth.
“He got drunk off of these? How many did he eat?”
“Just one.”
“Just one?! Man, how much of a lightweight is he?”
“Um, am I in trouble?” Sakura asks, tilting his head to the side.
Hiragi lets out a tired sigh. “No, no you’re not. I don’t think any one could have predicted you getting drunk off of a piece of candy.” He rubs the back of his neck before reaching into his jacket pocket to take some of his stomach medication. “Man, this class is gonna be the death of me someday…”
“Sorry, Ragi-nii-chan….”
“Gnnnrrrk!” And just like Umemiya, Hiragi has also been brought to his knees. Akihiko’s going to have to make so many updates to his notebook later.
“Hiragi-senpai’s down!”
“Our captain…He’s too strong.”
“Hey, now that I think about it, isn’t Sakura-kun the youngest in our class?” Tsugeura asks crossing his arms. “I guess in a way, he’s like the little brother of our whole class.”
“Yeah, a little brother that could kill me with his pinky finger,” Kurita says with a sigh.
“Don’t be like that, man. Sakura would at least need his whole fist to kill you,” Kakiuchi says, laying a comforting hand on Kurita’s shoulder.
“Kakiuchi, that’s not comforting at all.”
“I know.”
Umemiya, after finally regaining his composure, shoots back up. “That’s right! Sakura, you have so many brothers here, you’ll never be lonely again!”
“Isn’t that great, Sakura-chan? Now you won’t be an only child anymore!”
“I’m not an only child, though?”
Huh?
HUH?!
“S-Sakura-san, what do you mean?”
“I have a brother.”
“Wh-Wh-What?!” Akihiko whips his notebook out, pen at the ready, because this is big. Sakura never talks about his family, and up until now he’s never given any indication that he has any siblings.
“How old is he? Is he older? Younger?”
Sakura’s face scrunches up, eyebrows creased together. “Um…That’s weird….I don’t remember.”
“Huh?”
Sakura brings a hand up to his face, eyes clenched tight. “His face…I can’t remember that, either.”
“You must be really out of it if you can’t even remember the face of a guy you’ve shared a house with for so long,” Anzai says with a laugh.
“We didn’t live in the same house.”
“What?” Anzai asks, smile disappearing.
“My bother lived in the house. I lived in the shed out back.”
The room grows completely silent. From the corner of his eye, Akihiko thinks he sees Sugishita sit up, eyes wide in surprise.
And then he remembers. That comment Sakura had made when they visited Kiryu’s house.
“Everyone’s got a shed at home, right?”
He had thought that it was just a silly misunderstanding on Sakura’s part because he’d never visited a friend’s house before.
Akihiko looks at his friend’s face, notebook and pen forgotten on the floor.
“Sakura-san, what do you mean by that? You — Why were you living in a shed?”
It doesn’t feel right, to be asking Sakura these questions when he’s clearly in a vulnerable state. But Akihiko has always been a curious person by nature, and he finds himself pressing on before he can stop himself.
“What about your parents? Were they okay with that?”
“Of course they were, it was their idea.”
“What?”
Sakura lets out a dry laugh. It sounds wrong, even in the tipsy state that he’s in. “They said I didn’t belong in the family.”
He should stop. He shouldn’t keep pressing. They were peeling layers off of Sakura and he wasn’t even aware of it. But he needed to know. Why? How could anyone look at someone as kind and selfless as Sakura and not want to treat him with that same amount of kindness?
“Sakura-san…Wh-what do you mean by that?”
Sakura pointed to his mismatched hair, then his mismatched eyes. “Because of how I look. They didn’t like it.”
Akihiko hadn’t realized that his fists were clenched so tightly until he felt Suo gently lays a hand on his arm.
“Nirei-kun, I think we should stop here,” Suo says, and while his expression remains calm, Akihiko can see the storm brewing behind his eye. Suo will not forget what he has learned today, and neither will Akihiko.
“Did…Did I say something bad? You all look upset now,” Sakura asks, eyes downcast.
Umemiya is the first to move, kneeling so he’s eye level with Sakura as he lays a hand atop their captain’s head. “No, you didn’t say anything wrong. You’re a really good kid, Sakura.”
Sakura closes his eye as a small but content smile makes its way across his face.
“No one has ever told me that I’m good until I came here. I’m really glad I came to Furin.”
“Yeah,” Umemiya says, mirroring Sakura’s smile. “Me too.”
Sakura starts rubbing his eyes and lets out a yawn. “M’sleepy…”
“Ha ha! Well, you’ve had quite the day!” Umemiya says, ruffling Sakura’s head one last time before finally letting go.
Sakura slides down his chair before settling into a sleeping position. On the floor.
“Ahhh! Sakura-san! Don’t sleep on the floor!”
“It’s fine. I’ve slept on harder surfaces.”
“That doesn’t make this better!” Akihiko takes off his jacket and lays it in a bundle on the floor. The rest of the class gets the hint and soon there’s a big pile of jackets laid out on the floor..
“Well, that should be good enough!” Umemiya says with a laugh as he and Hiragi toss their jackets into the pile.
Akihiko gets on his hands and knees, trying to lay the heap into a more organized pile before Sakura unceremoniously plops on it and lays his head on Akihiko’s lap.
“Wha—?! Huh?! S-Sakura—“
“Shhh!” Suo says, covering Akihiko’s mouth with one hand and bringing the other to his lips in a shushing gesture. Akihiko looks down to find that Sakura has already fallen fast asleep, all curled up like a kitten.
“Well, we’d better get going,” Umemiya says before casting one last fond gaze in Sakura’s direction.
“Right,” Hiragi says, “Make sure he’s hydrated when he wakes up.”
As the two seniors leave, it hits him. Oh no. This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.
“What’s wrong, Nirei-kun?” Suo asks as he crouches next to him.
“Suo-san, I— I have to pee…”
Suo’s expression grows serious as he lays a hand on Nire’s shoulder.” “Nirei-kun, listen to me, alright? This is very important.”
Akihiko feels himself nod, careful not to jostle his friend that’s still sleeping peacefully on his lap.
Suo smiles. “Endure it.”
“Y-yes, sir…”
When Haruka wakes up, it’s to hushed whispers and a light throbbing pain in his head. He feels around for the blanket on his futon, but instead feels the fabric of his school uniform jacket. Several school uniform jackets, in fact. Haruka’s eyes snap open before coming face to face with Nirei’s bright brown eyes.
“Ah! Sakura-san, you’re finally awake!”
Haruka jolts up, feeling his face heat up.
“I— Huh?! Why was I sleeping on your lap?!”
But Nirei jolts up just as quickly and runs out of the room before he can answer Haruka’s questions.
“Nirei-chan was holding that in for a really long time! He’s such a trooper!” Kiryu says as he hands Haruka an unopened water bottle, and it’s only then that he realizes just how thirsty he is. He takes a couple of gulps before finally addressing his friend.
“Kiryu, what’s going on?!”
“Well, let’s see…What’s the last thing you remember?”
“You shoving that chocolate into my mouth. After that…” Haruka puts a hand to his head. “I…can’t remember anything else.”
“Ah, okay. So basically, you passed out after eating the chocolate.”
“What?”
“It was amazing, Sakura-kun,” Suo says, and how long has he been standing next to him?!” None of us expected you to get drunk over a single piece of liquor chocolate.”
“What?! Drunk?!”
“Don’t worry, Sakura-kun,” Tsugeura says from behind, and how do these people keep sneaking up on him? Is this a side effect from being drunk? “You merely slept. You did not say or do anything that would betray your virtues.”
Haruka raises an eyebrow. “Okay? So I just slept?”
There is a loud chorus of “yeses” uttered around the classroom, and a more perceptive person may have questioned that. May have wondered why their classmates’ responses seem so rehearsed and why most of them couldn’t quite look at Haruka in the eyes in that very moment.
Luckily for his classmates, Haruka is not that perceptive.
“Huh. Alright then.”
As Haruka turns to down the rest of his water bottle, his classmates let out a collective sigh of relief.
Haruka does, however, notice the change in his classmates’ attitude towards him in the days that follow. They praise him more than usual, keep calling him a good kid even though they’re all the same age. Umemiya keeps calling him up to the roof just to give him head pats and the occasional hug, although he’s since given up after one to many kicks to the face.
Even Hiragi keeps patting his head whenever he gets the chance, but Haruka lets that slide because he’s at least more subtle about it.
But the most disturbing changes are in Suo and Sugishita.
Suo’s lies and teasing have lessened significantly. And it’s not like Sakura misses it, he really doesn’t. But it’s suspicious, to say the least. He’s wondering if Suo’s just luring him into a false sense of security before he starts teasing him again out of nowhere to get a bigger reaction or something. But it’s been a month already, and nothing. No lies, no jokes, the worse he’s done is poke Sakura’s cheek and call him cute after he got flustered over an old lady pinching his cheeks last week.
And then there’s Sugishita. He hasn’t picked a fight with him at all, not even when he caught him trying to deck Umemiya after the latter made another attempt at trying to hug him. And he keeps…looking at him weird. Like an abandoned box of kittens. It’s the kind of expression that looks wrong on the face of someone like Sugishita, especially when that expression is directed at him, of all people.
He tries to talk to him more, too. Not just grunts. He greeted him in the morning once, and told him to be careful when he nearly collided with a pole during a fight a few days ago. That’s not really a bad change either, but it’s still really, really weird.
It’s as he’s mulling over these recent changes in his friends’ behavior that he sees it. A notification on his phone from the class group chat.
Kiryu: Ah, right, I found another video of Sakura-chan from that day. I’m sending it now.
What day is he talking about? Haruka doesn’t remember them ever doing a video recording of him recently. He clicks on the video attachment and nearly breaks his phone with how hard he’s gripping it.
Ah. So that’s how it is.
Anzai: Kiryu, you idiot! You sent the video to the wrong group chat!
Kiryu: Huh?
Tsugeura: Quick! Delete it! Maybe Sakura-kun hasn’t seen it yet!
Sakura: 10
Takanashi: Too late! We’re all screwed!
Kakiuchi: Sakura? Buddy? What does that ominous number mean?
Sakura: Nine
Kurita: It’s a countdown!
Sakura: Eight
Kiryu: Well, gentlemen, it’s been nice knhakjsfhljs
Anzai: He didn’t even finish the count;aojsd;jlsg
Away from the line of fire, from the safety of the school roof, Akihiko grips his phone like a lifeline.
“Thank God we decided to have lunch on the roof…” Sakura was actually supposed to meet up with them, but Akihiko doesn't feel inclined to remind him right this second.
“Do you think that Sakura-kun would change his answer if we were to ask him which person he gets along with least?”
“Suo-san, you’re still thinking about that?”
Suo’s single eye trails over to Sugishita, who is currently attending to Umemiya’s plants. He turns, looks at Suo, and smirks. Akihiko swears he can see sparks flying between the two. When did this unholy rivalry happen?!
“Suo-san, I don’t think Sakura-san would even answer that question unless he got drunk again.”
“A novel idea, Nirei-kun! It just so happens that I came across some liquor chocolates the other day!”
Akihiko can hear the screams of his classmates below.
“Suo-san, I’m literally begging you to just please drop it.”