Chapter Text
Suo’s sure that Sakura doesn’t actually hate their weekly gatherings—act as he may. There’s only so many conclusions one could come to after watching Sakura barge in with varying levels of enthusiasm in the Pathos everytime, and yet leave hiding a smile always, scoldings from Kotoha aside.
Suo considers being observant one of his better virtues, being able to pick up on small cues surrounding his classmates. Whether it be the slump of Nirei’s shoulders after a lackluster performance at training or Anzai facing yet another Nagato related dilemma,he prides himself on being able to know just the right word to lift them up.
Yet there is something about Sakura–an oxymoron he can’t seem to get a straight read on. He seems like an open book; not one meant for blending in the crowd with his split-coloured hair and eyes.
Suo had him written in for another big-mouthed visionary with hopes too high for his hands to ever reach, but moments later those same hands had almost Sugishita to the ground and the same mouth had ran to save a junior high kid he didn’t even know before Suo himself could even react.
Sakura proves his initial observation wrong again and again, and Suo can’t help feel just a little defeated at that. Yet he can’t help the curiosity that ignites in his heart for this foreign boy.
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Suo admires just how bold Sakura is as watches him tell off two Shishitoren kids and he can’t help but chime in with a retort of his own. There’s something about him— Sakura who unabashedly picks fights one second but turns beet red upon a single compliment. Something alluring even, that compels Suo’s emotions forward as well.
He says his thoughts to Sakura before his fight with the kid and can’t help but smile as he watches Sakura declare a fight and then immediately turn red when Suo says that he’s cool.
So maybe Suo thinks back on how the man-child he’s fighting had abandoned his teammate so easily and so maybe he puts on a bit off a show, but who’s noticing, really?
❃❃
It happens again, when Sakura becomes grade captain and he takes up a fight all on his own— against KEEL all based on a promise made to a girl he met at a park and a classmate who was alone.
Sakura singles himself out, oblivious to all the support around him, but there’s a limit to denseness as the class all rallies around him and Suo does his part as he drags Sugishita’s sleeping form out to help.
Seeing Sakura fight is a beauty, Suo thinks. Suo’s personal slight is a shamble of different techniques but he thinks there is a grace to it, the no-hit policy. You get back what you give, momentum is Suo’s greatest weapon.
Sakura’s fighting is anything but, an offense rather than Suo’s defense, quick to incite and even quicker to deliver. He kicks, punches and elbows without hesitation and it’s a beauty to watch, a mess unfolding.
He is unapologetic, a tide that pulls,pulls and pulls, and Suo can’t help getting washed in as he kicks his own opponent a little too hard. He heads in for the final blow, till he feels a hand on his shoulder. “He’s already down, isn’t he?”
Suo unfurls immediately and laughs. “ I got a little too carried away, huh?”
He watches the easy roll of Sakura’s shoulder, the decisiveness of his fists and thinks, I have a long way to catch up to you.
Then Sakura gets sick and Suo heads along to help with Nirei to find an abandoned house with doorbells that don’t work and doors that stay open. His heart clenches a little as he thinks of whatever Sakura must have been through to live alone but he knows pity is the last thing Sakura would want to see on his face so he keeps on his easy smile.
He heads back with Nirei early, when he thinks Sakura has had a little too much and waits for Sakura to come back down on his own.
He does the next day—an apology of all things on his lips and the class jumps him. Suo’s right alongside them as they all drag their asses to the Pathos again and Sakura smiles like Suo’s never seen at Suo’s aversion to natto, and Suo thinks he wants to see it again.
He really is curious about Sakura.
❃❃
“I’m telling you, Sakura-san, I tripped and fell. You tell him, Suo-san!” Nirei frantically moves his arms to Suo’s general direction. Suo merely smiles, taking a sip of his tea.
“Huh!? Like hell I’d believe that. That’s the oldest lie in the book, ya’know?” Sakura picks his ear with one hand, omlette rice half abandoned as he scrutinizes Nirei’s injuries.
“No, really. Suo-san!”
“If there’s someone beating ya up or anything”, Sakura’s voice lowers when he leans forward in his seat.
Nirei aggressively shakes his head; “it’s nothin’ like that, I promise” and Suo finally takes pity on him.
“Aw, Sakura-kun. You care so much. Promise to beat up any guy who hits me too? “
Suo smiles when Sakura predictably turns red. “Th-that’s not what I meant. I don’t wanna protect you all or anything, I just hate guys who gang up on others, y’know…” Sakura trails off with a pout, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“How cute.”
Sakura flails even more at Suo’s remark. Tsugeura drags Nirei off then, to demonstrate some technique with Kiryu and it leaves Suo alone with a red Sakura.
“You know”, Suo begins, trailing his fork in his own half-eaten omlette rice, “you’re very caring, Sakura-kun.”
“I told you it’s not like that…What, you wanna go?” Sakura brings up his fists.
Suo pushes Sakura’s fists down, a chuckle escaping him. “I’d rather not fight, Sakura-kun.”
Sakura huffs and returns to devouring his food. Yet moments later, Suo sees Sakura slowly slide his plate over to him. The plate is clean of food save for vegetables and Suo raises an eyebrow in question.
“Yer dieting, right?” , Sakura tilts his chin towards Suo’s abandoned food, “ that’s why yer not eating or whatever…”
Suo feels his face go warm at the gesture and he thinks yet again, that Sakura never fails to surprise him.
“That’s very nice of you, Sakura-kun, but are you sure this isn’t just a scheme to get out of eating your veggies?”
“Huh? If you don’t want it, you can just say no!”, Sakura moves to grab the plate, but Suo intervenes, mirth dancing in his eyes.
“I’m joking. Here, you can have mine.” Suo’s slides his plate over. Sakura eyes him and the plate, then accepts it.
And there’s that.
❃❃
A couple days later, Sakura comes upto Suo in class when he’s supposed to be on patrol and hands him a small brown bag packaged well with a bow on top.
“Here”, he says as he places the bag on Suo’s scratched desk and gets ready to leave in true Saukra fashion.
“Wait—Sakura-kun, what’s this?”
“You said you liked drinking different types of tea, right?”, Sakura rubbed the back of his head, “that old lady who runs the teahouse lost her cat so I helped her out and she gave me this stuff.”
“Oh.” Suo says. A smile forms on his face.
“I mean—I don’t really care much for tea and all, and it would be a waste to just throw it away or let it rot in my apartment so–” Sakura rambles.
“Thank you, Sakura-kun.” Suo cuts him off.
“Um,you’re welcome? Well, anyways, I have to like, go, to patrol.” Sakura has turned his brand of red again as he stumbles out of the classroom.
Suo feel his heart warm at the care and words spill out before he can think twice. “Would you like to try them with me?”
“Huh?”
Suo finds himself inviting, for the first time. “My house? We can brew it together.”
He can almost see the cogs in Sakura’s head turning. “That’s not–”
“It’s your reward, isn’t it? It wouldn’t be fair for me to enjoy it all by myself.”
Sakura nods slowly at that, relaxing. Suo offers to help out with patrolling and Sakura resists a little less than he would have a week ago.
Like that, a deal is made under the setting sun. An invitation from a boy that rarely initiates to a boy that rarely accepts.
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