Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For Sakura, it all began on a warm Monday night. He had just arrived in Makochi, which was famous for being controlled by Furin high school. Right now though, he was on Kisei street.

Apparently they had cheap food, and Sakura was in a bit of a financial situation so cheap food sounded very appealing.

He had only been walking and eating his takoyaki when it was suddenly knocked away from his hand with a cruel laugh. Mourning the loss of his food, Sakura looked up to glower at the man who had pushed his food to the ground.

The man looked drunk out of his mind, and he was surrounded by a decent number of guys who also looked drunk. They looked like your typical sleazebags who got drunk and harassed women, but really weren’t that big of a threat.

“Hey buddy,” the man said, wagging an empty beer bottle at him. “Watch where you're going! I think you’re gonna have to pay for that-”

Sakura punched him square across the jaw, fuming. “Shut up you fucker.” His poor takoyaki. “That cost me half my wallet!”

It didn’t take long for Sakura to knock all the drunkards to the ground. He sighed, massaging his sore fists as he turned around to go buy some more food.

Suddenly, in a flash, a bolt of red was beside him knocking some guy to the ground with a nasty crunch. Sakura turned around, shocked when he saw a knife on the ground. That man just saved him. “Who are you?” he demanded.

The man looked at him for a second before he turned around and walked out of the alley like nothing just happened.

Sakura frowned, growling “Hold on a moment.” He made the mistake of putting a hand on the man’s shoulder, coming face to face with a flying punch that sent him backwards stumbling to the ground.

“Hey!” Sakura called. “What was that for?” To his surprise, the man turned around to examine him again.

“Do..” his voice was quiet, but it held a certain authority Sakura couldn’t quite place his finger on. “Do you go to Furin?”

Sakura stood up quickly, nose bleeding as he readied his fists for a fight. “What about it?” It wasn’t hard to hide that he did, he was wearing a Furin uniform afterall. He unfortunately had no other clothes to wear, but he’d never admit that to anyone.

The man stared at him more, his golden eyes unblinking. It was unnerving. Actually this entire man was unnerving. “Nothing.” he said as he turned around.

Sakura grit his teeth. No way this guy was walking off again. “Hey! You can’t just walk off like that! Come fight me!”

The man turned around, annoyance visible on his face. “Make this quick.”

Sakura grinned. This is why he came to Furin. To fight really strong people. He leaped into the air, throwing a punch with a consecutive kick. It had worked on those thugs, but this guy dodged the punch and caught his kick, his fist driving right into Sakura’s stomach.

Sakura barely was able to block it, but his arm hurt like a bitch from where the man had hit him. He blinked once and suddenly the man was delivering a kick straight to his skull, and when Sakura ducked, the foot changed direction to come straight down onto Sakura’s head.

Dodging to the side, Sakura swept his foot low on the ground, watching as the man jumped back to dodge.

This guy was really strong. Sakura could feel it in his blood as he cracked his knuckles, grinning. “Come on, let’s go for real now.”

The man said nothing but ran up the Sakura with his fist pulled back. When Sakura blocked the other fist came up and struck him square in the jaw. At the same time, Sakura’s other arm gripped the arm that was punching his jaw as his leg extended up to kick the man in the jaw.

In that moment, something in the man changed. His eyes were suddenly glowing as a small smile grew on his face.

“Kid, what’s your name?”

“Huh?” Sakura was caught off guard but he puffed his chest and declared, “I’m Haruka Sakura.”

“Sakura..” the man rolled the name over his tongue almost experimentally. “You’re interesting.”

Sakura frowned. “Yeah, alright, stop yapping, let's keep fighting.” Just as Sakura clenched his fists, he felt a shiver go down his spine as an image of his bloodied self appeared in his head. Shaking it away, Sakura focused on his vision ahead of him. Speaking of which, the man had disappeared.

Sakura felt a sudden force hit his head like a missile as he was tossed to the ground. He tried to shake the man off his body with his leg, but he wouldn’t budge as Sakura held his hands up to block the punches being thrown at him, each knocking his head into the ground with how powerful the force was.

Sakura felt his breath catch in his throat as he yanked the man’s head down using a leg that had broken free, slamming the man’s head into his own, feeling a painful vibration ring through his skull.

Coughing, Sakura stumbled to his feet, blocking a kick to his left before he countered with a punch to the man’s chest. His fist was caught and Sakura felt his body get pulled forward as a punch landed straight onto his nose.

Grinning, Sakura let his body fall backwards as he caught himself and kicked up, catching the man in the jaw.

They both stepped back to catch their breaths but the man was on the offensive in a split second as he threw punch after punch, and a small part of Sakura knew he wouldn’t keep up for long.

Shoving that thought away, Sakura let himself be punched in the face just so he could land a punch of his own on the man’s face.

Then the world was spinning and turning dark, and then Sakura felt himself fall to the ground.

When Sakura woke up, he was in a bedroom, a nice one at that. Maybe he should pretend to sleep for a little longer, because this was a nice bedroom.

Hold up. This was not his bedroom. Sakura looked around frantically. Feeling his face he discovered his wounds were patched up and his jacket had been folded neatly on the nightstand.

Sakura yanked his jacket on before he slammed the door open to a spacious living area. Seated on the couch was the red haired man he had fought and some other black haired guy.

Maybe not seated. Right now, the black haired man was climbing on top of the red head, who almost instantly pushed him away. He heard some bickering and whining, and then the black haired man was getting punched right in the nose.

The red head man stood up and walked over to him. Sakura stepped back defensively, unsure if they were about to fight or not. The man looked rather harmless though, dressed in a shirt that was rather big for him and pajama pants.

“You must be Sakura.” The black haired man had blood leaking from his nose but he still leaned casually against the red haired man. “I see you’ve met Chika. I heard he beat you up pretty good.”

“I should beat you up.” Chika muttered, clenching his fists.

The black haired man started laughing merrily. “What do you mean? You always beat me up Chika!” His tone changed to a less merry one and more threatening. As if he was testing Sakura. “I’m Yamato Endo. I heard you go to Furin?”

Sakura frowned, raising his fists a little higher. “I mean, school hasn’t started yet. It starts in.. two days.. I think?”

Endo laughed. “He’s just like us when we went there! Remember..” Endo continued talking but Sakura’s brain was taking a few moments to process. Those two went to Furin? Were they at the top there? They must’ve been. No way there was anyone stronger than Chika..

“What was it like at Furin?” Sakura blurted, feeling his cheeks heat up at the way he had interrupted Endo. “Were you guys at the top?”

Endo laughed again. “You’re funny kid. Of course we were! We- or I guess Chika- ran the school! There was nobody who could stop us. But then it got boring because of this guy named Umemiya. He took over and now that stupid school is all good-two-shoes and they ‘protect the town’ or whatever. They even have a stupid motto.”

Chika began yawning at their conversation. Apparently it was uninteresting to him. Although, it looked like not many things did interest him. For some reason though, Endo was glancing at the time and saying “Oops, Sakura it looks like it's past Chika's bedtime. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

“Don’t just kick him out, go drive him home.” Chika snapped, glaring at Endo, heading into the bedroom where Sakura just was.

“Woah, alright Chika.” Endo smiled as he tucked a piece of hair behind Chika’s ear affectionately before running away to dodge the flying fists.

Sakura walked by Chika awkwardly, half bowing but scared to fully lower his defenses in case Chika decided to kick him in the face or something. Instead the redhead just yawned and walked into the bedroom Sakura had been sleeping in, completely ignoring Sakura.

“Hurry up kid!” Endo called from the open front door, throwing his shoes at Sakura.

Sakura was surprised to see a sports car parked outside, sleek and shiny.

“Impressive, right?” Endo grinned cheekily. “Me and Chika stole it.”

Sakura couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Of course they did.

“Alright buddy, put your address into my phone, wouldja?” Endo pulled out of the driveway, revving the car way too loud for the time of night as he sped down the road, following the GPS all the way to Sakura’s house.

By the time they got there, Sakura felt his heart racing in his chest. In the span of their 10 minute drive, Endo had run 3 red lights, gone 50mph on a 30 speed limit, and nearly ran over a whole deer. He needed a second seat belt.

As Sakura pointed out his house, Endo gasped. Gasped like he was genuinely surprised. “What?” Sakura growled. “Is there something wrong?”

“This is where you live?” Endo’s jaw was wide open as he quickly parked the car and hopped out, running ahead of Sakura. “No way. Do you even have a bed?”

Sakura ran in front of him. “Hold up, I never said you can come in my house. And yes, I do have a bed, thank you very much.”

Endo pushed him aside and tested the lock, blinking in surprise when the door itself nearly fell off the hinges if Sakura didn’t catch it. No words were exchanged in the troubled look Endo gave Sakura.

“Oh my god.” Endo walked around, sending judgemental looks to the leaking water faucet and the single futon in the center of the single room. To Sakura’s dismay, he snooped around, looking through the closet and in the pantry. “No food, no clothes, man, how are you surviving?”

“Shut up!” Sakura’s face was beet red at this point as he tried pulling Endo out of his house, but the man wouldn’t budge.

“Why don’t you just live with us?”

“..Huh?”

“Yeah.” Endo grinned. “Takiishi likes you a lot, and you look pretty interesting. Just live with us. We don’t live too far away from Furin either.”

“..Really?”

“Sure. I mean, maybe Chika will beat me up for it but he’ll probably be okay with it.”

Sakura took one look at the rusty faucet that had been leaking since he first stepped in the house and walked back outside to Endo’s car.

Endo laughed behind him. “Great! You’re gonna have to sleep on the couch tonight, but we have a spare room that I’ll set up for you.”

“Great.” Sakura grumbled. Unfortunately for him, his stomach decided to rumble loudly at that moment.

Endo paused, eying his stomach. “Was that you?”

Sakura blushed and turned to the side, refusing to say anything.

“Don’t worry kid. You won’t go hungry with us. We have ramen, and bread, and rice and..” As Endo droned on and on, Sakura felt himself yawning before he was suddenly out like a light switch.

Chapter Text

Sakura awoke to the soft sound of something buzzing and liquid pouring. Blinking his eyes open slowly, Sakura felt a wave of panic overcome him as he looked around, unfamiliar with his environment.

“Good morning!”

Sakura nearly screamed as a sudden voice shouted behind him as he scrambled and ended up falling off the couch. “Ugh,” Sakura grumbled as he turned around to see Endo handing Chika a cup of coffee as he sipped his own mug. “Can’t you be quieter? It’s too early for this shit.”

“Actually it’s 1 in the afternoon.” Endo said, taking a seat on the couch next to Sakura. “But we just woke up too so it is pretty early.” Drinking his entire cup in one gulp, Endo turned to Chika. “Anywhere you wanna go today?”

Chika, compared to Endo, drank his coffee much slower. “Shouldn’t Sakura walk around Furin a bit?”

“Alright we’re going to Furin!” Endo jumped up and pulled Sakura with him, throwing his mug in the sink and somehow not cracking it.

“Huh?” Maybe it was because he just woke up but Sakura’s brain was processing things really slow. He was in his clothes from yesterday, hadn’t eaten since his spilled takoyaki and his bed head was really bad at the moment. “Right now? We’re going right now?”

“When else? There’s this bakery that has really good bread. Chika really likes it so that’s where we’re gonna go. Right Chika?” Endo looked at like a lost puppy, but Chika completely ignored him as he stepped around to approach Sakura.

Sakura felt his pulse increase, unsure if Chika was approaching him for a fight or for something else. Instead, he felt a hand pet his head, smoothing out his hair that had been defying gravity before he simply walked away.

Sakura stood in complete shock for a second before he felt Endo grab him by the collar and begin shaking him. “Hey buddy,” he heard Endo hiss. “Just so you know, Chika is mine. So you’re not allowed to touch, look, or breathe the same air as him, got that? And if-”

Chika punched Endo across the jaw, freeing Sakura from his grip. “Ignore him.” was all Chika said. Behind him, Endo got up and began scampering after Chika as he stuck his tongue out at Sakura.

All Sakura could say was that those two were extremely odd.

For some reason, Sakura was walking alone down the streets of Makochi, even though Endo and Chika said they would be there to show him around. Chika had looked in a shop for a few seconds and suddenly Endo was insisting they look inside, leaving Sakura all alone.

Before he had left, Endo had shoved an ample amount of money in Sakura’s hands, so he wasn’t that upset. What did surprise him was how much money Endo had casually given to him. Sakura could probably buy enough food that would last him a week with this.

At the entrance of the streets, Sakura noticed a billboard with some long paragraph of words. When he had asked Endo and Chika about it, Endo had only laughed at it and Chika simply said it was irrelevant.

Sakura skimmed over it, and honestly it all sounded cheesy and stupid. “Holds evil in their heart?” The person who wrote that must’ve had their head a little too high in adventure stories.

The people on the street seemed nice and there were shops in every direction, but what bothered Sakura was the pitiful weaklings who went around harassing people. Like that gang who were surrounding some high school girl.

Sakura beat them all up without a second glance, before he walked away without a second glance.

“Wait!” the woman called out. “You go to Furin, don’t you?”

Sakura looked around. Was she talking to him? “Err, yes ma’am.” he said awkwardly as he straightened his back and stood up. “You’re talking to me, right?”

She laughed. “Who else? Thank you for saving me. Why don’t I treat you to a meal?”

So then Sakura was devouring a plate of omurice as the girl did the dishes, occasionally glancing up at him. “Thank you by the way,” she said. “I’m Kotoha Tachibana.”

“Oh.” Sakura coughed as he cleared his throat. “I’m Haruka Sakura. Um.. nice to meet you.”

Kotoha smiled, opening her mouth to say something when suddenly the door burst open as the punk Sakura had beaten up earlier grinned as he waved his bat around. “Hey kid, why don’t we finish what you started from earlier?”

Sakura frowned as he pushed his plate away, shoving his hands in his pockets. He hopped off the barstool he was sitting on, cracking his knuckles imposingly. “Alright bud, let’s bring it outside.”

The thug’s grin widened when he saw Kotoha behind the counter. “Why not right here? We’ll have a little audience-”

Sakura leaped at the man, kicking him square in the face as he stumbled backwards out through the open door. “I said, let’s bring it outside you shithead.” Sakura twisted his head to the side to crack his neck as the man scrambled backwards, stopping when he reached the feet of a whole gang of thugs. Several of them were armed with bats or pieces of wood, and Sakura noticed that around them windows had been shattered and shops messed up.

So they were the destructive kind of gang. Those were some of the guys Sakura hated the most.

“This..” Sakura sighed, swinging his arms around to warm up. “This is pathetic. You can’t even fight in a proper one on one, huh?” He lowered his fists into a fighting stance. “Whatever. Bring it on.”

The fight was even more disappointing than Sakura thought it would be. Each guy went down with a single punch, and it seemed their only useful trait was their numbers.

Maybe Sakura jinxed himself though, because he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder as he turned around to find a guy standing behind him with a knife in his hand. Gritting his teeth Sakura punched the guy in the gut, putting his hand on his shoulder which was beginning to soak with blood.

He heard Kotoha run over to him as she took off her apron to apply pressure on his wound, shouting as she asked if he was alright.

Sakura pushed lightly at her arm, muttering through gritted teeth, “I’m okay..”

Suddenly the weight was lifted off his feet as someone yanked him up to his feet with his arm. “Dang kid, you already got into a fight! Look at you!”

Sakura wasn’t sure if he was happy or annoyed to hear that annoying voice. His face must’ve made the annoyed face because Endo grinned, patting his head as he said, “Oh so you’re happy to see me too!”

Then he turned to Kotoha and said in a pleasant tone, “Thank you ma’am, but I can take him from here.”

Kotoha shook her head, her hands still gripping Sakura’s arm. “Don’t worry, I have medical supplies back-”

“Thank you, but we’ll be okay.” Sakura felt a shiver pass through his body at the underlying tone in Endo’s voice. He definitely would beat Kotoha up with that tone of voice.

Sakura felt a little bad as he watched Kotoha glare at Endo, then at him before she walked off, clearly upset. But then Endo’s hand replaced her’s as he pressed onto his stab wound, and Sakura was more focused on the pain. “Hey you bastard, that’s too hard!” he snapped, yelping as it only made Endo press harder.

“Where’s Takiishi?” Sakura asked, pushing Endo away so he could apply pressure on his own.

“Right there!” Endo pointed to where Chika had gathered all of the thugs into a human pile.

Chika looked up at him. “Which one stabbed you?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, this one.” Sakura kicked the man with his foot, eliciting a groan from him as he blinked his eyes open.

Sakura watched in half horror, half amazement as Chika picked the man up by the collar and punched him across the face, watching as a tooth fell out of the man’s mouth. Chika threw the man on the ground and continued to beat him up, each punch making Sakura’s heart beat faster and faster.

When Chika threw the man onto his pile of humans, the man’s face was unrecognizable. Half his teeth had been knocked out and his nose was twisted in a nasty angle, and Sakura had heard a bone snap when Chika bent his arm backwards as he picked him up from the ground.

The scariest part of it all was the maniacal expression sporting Chika’s face the entire time. His eyes were wide open with more life than Sakura had ever seen as he grinned wildly.

Chika sighed, smile gone as he wiped his bloody hands on an unconscious thug’s shirt. “I’m hungry.” he said as casually as one does, as if he wasn’t standing on a pile of unconscious human bodies.

Endo laughed heartily. He let go of Sakura as he skipped over to Chika, cupping his face as he leaned in for a kiss. Sakura felt his face flush as he turned away, but instead he heard a punch and then Endo was laughing with a bloody nose.

“Alright,” Endo said, reaching for Chika’s hand as he interlocked their fingers. “Let’s go get your bread.” He glanced back at Sakura. “Kid, are you still alive? Did you bleed out yet?”

Sakura wrinkled his nose at both of them, making a disgusted face. “You guys are so gross, you know that?”

“Says the one who smells like he hasn’t showered in a week.” Suddenly, Endo backed up away from him. “Wait a minute, you actually probably haven’t showered in a week, have you?”

Sakura flushed, stuttering as he waved his arms in front of him as he tried to come up with an excuse. Then he saw the judgy face Chika was making at him and he sighed, heaving his chest in defeat.

Chika shook his head. “We’re getting the bread and then you’re taking a shower.”

Kotoha walked back, a shiver running through her body that she couldn't understand. Was it because of the man with tattoos? Or was it because she saw a glimpse of the red haired man beating up a thug to the point where he might be dead?

Kotoha sighed, turning into her shop which thankfully had no broken property from when the thugs passed through the area.

“Oh there you are.”

Kotoha looked up in surprise as she saw Hiragi and Kaji sitting at the bar. “Hiragi, Kaji? Did you guys need something?”

Hiragi shook his head, putting his phone down from where he must’ve been playing games. “Nah, we were just patrolling through the area and we heard there was a commotion so we came over. But then Granny Sato said some kid took care of it all, and we couldn’t find the thugs so we assumed it was all over. Where’d you go?”

Kotoha sighed, rubbing her temples. “I was just with the kid who took care of it all. He’s going to Furin tomorrow, I think as a first year.” She paused for a moment, chewing her lip.

“But there were two other guys.. I’ve never seen them before.”

Hiragi looked at her, waiting for her to continue.

Kotoha shook her head. “Nevermind. Anyway, you guys want some food?”

Chapter Text

When Sakura woke up that morning, his back was stiff from sleeping on the narrow couch again. Endo was supposed to clean out the guest bedroom for him, but apparently he’d rather spend 6 hours playing video games (Sakura couldn’t talking he played the entire time with him) and decided to leave Sakura with the short end of the stick by sleeping on the couch.

“What a douchebag.” Sakura grumbled to himself as he walked down the same street he had beaten up the thugs on yesterday. Endo and Chika had woken him up early (noon) and forced him to go to school, even though it didn’t start until later in the afternoon.

At least Endo gave him more money to buy food. He took a visit to Kotoha’s store, spending all his money on three of her omurices. She had laughed at him, when he ordered it, but didn’t make another attempt to engage in conversation.

Then there was this Furin kid who burst in carrying a tiny grandma on his back, and suddenly the empty shop was filled with chatter.

Sakura wolfed down his food before leaving his money for Kotoha, but then the kid was all up in his face questioning him. “Ooh, you go to Furin too? Nice to meet you, I’m Akihiko Nirei! Are you good at fighting? You know, I’ve never seen you before- did you move here?! When? Why? Did you know our school is really strong? And-and-”

“Nirei,” Kotoha laughed. “Breathe for a second. Look at the poor kid.”

Sakura glared at her from where he had stepped back, clutching his uniform as his brain tried to process all the questions that had been rapid-fired at him. “Hi.. Yeah I moved here.. and I'm going to Furin.”

This Nirei person lit up like a lightbulb. “Wow that's awesome! Are you a first year? I’m a first year! I wonder if we’ll be in the same class!”

“Yeah!” Sakura said, smiling awkwardly as he stepped around Nirei. “Umm, I have somewhere to be, so I’ll head out now!”

As he closed the door, he could hear Nirei shouting to find him later at the opening ceremony. Sakura heaved his chest as soon as he escaped that awful cafe. The only reason why he would ever go there again would be only because of the food, he swore.

As he passed through the street, he sighed as he noticed another guy hitting on some poor girl who clearly was not interested. As soon as he raised his fist, Sakura decided to step in, knocking the guy to the floor with a single punch.

It didn’t take long before all of them were bruised and beaten up before one of them said, “W-we won’t let you get away with this!” before scampering away pathetically. Honestly if they were going to get beaten up, they shouldn’t say cringey things like that. It made Sakura want to go and beat them up again.

The girl who Sakura saved held tight onto his arm, bowing deeply as she expressed her gratitude with countless thank you’s. Sakura could barely look at her, all he could feel was heat rising rapidly to his face.

“Please, let me give you some pastries.” the girl said, and suddenly she looked like an angel that descended straight from heaven. Sakura felt a wave of happiness surge throughout his body as he was handed not 1, not 2, but 3 delicate and delicious looking pastries.

Sakura thanked the girl with a large grin on his face as he strolled down the street. The sun was warm, the sky clear, and he had 3 beautiful pastries to eat. As he gobbled down each pastry, Sakura glanced at the time and suddenly that feeling of happiness was gone. He had less than 5 minutes before the opening ceremony started,and he didn’t even know where the school was.

He sprinted as fast as he could to Furin, barely remembering the directions based on what Endo had told him as he arrived at the front gates 2 minutes late. Either for good or for bad, Nirei arrived at the gate at the same time as him.

“Oh Sakura!” Nirei jumped up and down like an excited child as he waved to Sakura. “So you’re also late! Heh, don’t worry about it, we still have some time so come check the class lists with me!”

Sakura followed behind Nirei, who skipped through the courtyard happily before stopping at a sign with hundreds of names listed. “Sakura! Guess what! We’re in the same class! And we’re with Suo… Oh! And Kiryu and Tsugeura!”

“Who’s that?” Sakura asked, picking ear wax out of his ear. It was an old habit he did when he was bored, and he probably should stop doing it. It disgusted everyone, even him sometimes and it was his own earwax.

Nirei gasped as he whipped around. To say there were stars in his eyes would be an understatement. He literally glowed as he listed off facts about each one of the names he listed, each fact capturing more and more of Sakura’s attention.

“Sounds like there’s a bunch of strong guys in our class.” Sakura grinned as he skimmed over their class list himself, even though he recognized none of the names.

“No way…” Suddenly Nirei gasped, his hand over his mouth with a terrified expression.

“Huh? What?”

“Su..Sugishita is also in our class!”

Sugishita, Sakura learned, was a pale, darker haired Tarzan that both looked and fought like him. Almost immediately they had started brawling, but unfortunately they were interrupted by the intercom.

Of course, Sakura would’ve won but for some reason every single person in the class stood up straight as if they were receiving orders in a military camp. Not a word was spoken the entire time the intercom was on.

“That being said, I don’t think any of you should rough each other up on the first day!” the man behind the intercom said cheerfully. Suddenly, Tarzan was wiping the blood off his face from where Sakura kicked him, but not without a glare in his direction.

“Let me say one final thing,” the voice said, tone now serious. “I want all of you to protect our town. The people, the memories, everything. That’s the one rule around here. Anyway, good luck! I’m gonna head out to get some grub, so have fun! …How do you hang up on this thing?”

Sakura glanced around, unnerved by the unity displayed just then between all the students at Furin. Kinda reminded him of a cult.

“That was so cool!” Beside him, Nirei looked like he was about to pass out from joy. “Do you know who that is?” he asked Sakura as he produced a notebook out of thin air. Maybe it was from those stupidly flashy clothes he was wearing. “That was Hajime Umemiya! He’s the top of the school here, and he’s the one who decided that Furin would protect the town! He’s seriously awesome!”

Nirei kept rambling but Sakura stopped listening to think a little in his head. Top of Furin? Maybe Endo and Chika knew him. He also knew that that man had the top spot Sakura was aiming for. One day, maybe they’d fight and Sakura would finally find what he’s looking for.

“Hey you two,” Sakura was shaken out of his thoughts as he was pulled in by a strong arm, grimacing as he came face to face with Tarzan-Sugishita or whatever the bastard’s name was. The guy who was holding his arm had a strange look to him, maybe he was a pirate or something because he had a pirate’s eyepatch over one of his eyes.

Either way it was unpleasant to be so close to Tarzan.“You heard the big man.” Eyepatch said. “No fighting on day one! Why don’t we shake hands and call a truce?”

“Who’re you?” Sakura demanded, trying to pull away but the arm wouldn’t budge.

Behind him, Sakura could hear Nirei gasp as he said, “You’re Hayato Suo, aren’t you?”

Suo laughed. “Haha, close guess. I’m actually Leonardo DiCaprio.”

Silence followed and then Sakura said, “Really?” Who knows, maybe he really was a foreigner! It would explain the eyepatch and the weird dangly earrings, plus the weird attitude.

“No silly, I’m Japanese. Nice to meetcha, I’m Suo! Now Sugishita, Half-n-Half, why don’t we shake hands?”

Sakura wanted to laugh as he watched as Tarzan hesitantly extended his hand out before he realized, this guy was actually serious. Fine. Sakura reluctantly shook his hand, whipping it away almost instantly and wiping it on the nearest surface which happened to be Nirei’s shirt.

“Hey, this is new!” Nirei complained, but Sakura was too busy trying not to cry in disgust when suddenly the door slammed open and a buzz cut man stepped in suddenly shouting, “Get your butts out here!”

Sakura literally wanted to kill himself. How he ended up painting over graffiti while on supposed patrol, Sakura didn’t know.

Unfortunately, he ended up with Tarzan as well as Eyepatch and Nirei, along with some shark tooth commander guy that took stomach pills every 2 seconds. Sakura could nearly see his gray hairs forming every time he yelled at Sakura or Tarzan for painting in the wrong spot.

“Seriously this is such a pain.” Sakura muttered, feeling his body begin to doze off. Suddenly, he was leaning against the wall with paint stained on his forehead as Nirei fell to the ground laughing at him.

When they were finally done, Sakura ate taiyaki fish cake in 2 bites, thinking quietly to himself. If he had gotten 2 taiyaki, maybe the job would’ve been worth it, but now his arm was sore and there was dried paint on his forehead so naturally the payment would need to be higher. Maybe 2 taiyaki and a popsicle?

Then their little group had stopped at the entrance of a tunnel that ran underneath some train tracks. Above the tracks was a lion symbol, one that Sakura didn’t recognize.

“Shishitoren..” he heard Nirei whisper in awe.

Sakura looked ahead, noticing what looked like a person running. Squinting his eyes, he saw that the person couldn’t have been older than a middle schooler and it looked like he was being chased by 2 high schoolers.

Without a second thought, Sakura ran ahead, kicking one of the chasers to the ground. Behind him he heard Shark Teeth shout “Wait!” but it was a little too late.

One of the chasers was unconscious on the ground, nose bleeding as the two guys behind him backed up slowly.

“Sakura..”

Sakura turned around slowly to see Shark Teeth glowering at him. Unfortunately, he didn’t look very scary when he was popping gas pills like they were drugs. Shark Teeth opened his mouth then closed it, motioning for Sakura to come over.

“But there’s two more of them!” Sakura argued, pointing to the two other guys in yellow uniforms.

“Get over here.” Shark Teeth hissed, pointing at the middle schooler as well. “You too.”

The middle schooler nodded his head furiously as he scampered to his feet, running over to where Hiragi and everyone else was standing.

“Seriously, what a pain in the ass.” Sakura muttered as he turned around and began walking back, hearing shuffled footsteps run up to him from behind.

“Sakura watch out!” Nirei shouted as Sakura turned around to see both of the Shishitoren guys pulling their fists back to punch him. Without a second thought Sakura dodged both fists before swinging his leg to kick one guy into the other, sending them to the floor.

Sakura readied his fists to continue fighting, but instead a slow, low, turtle voice sounded throughout the tunnel. “Well well, what do we have here?”

Sakura turned to see a man with a rat tail trailing down the back of his neck as he downed a can of soda before tossing the empty can behind him. He wore wooden sandals on his feet and he also wore the yellow Shishitoren jacket. His eyes raked over the two Shishitoren guys Sakura had knocked down, before ending on Sakura.

“So you’ve decided to pick on our guys..” his voice trailed off at the end as his mouth curled into a distasteful frown. “Pathetic.”

Sakura backed up as Rat Tail stepped forward, narrowing his eyes as Rat Tail stepped up to both the Shishitoren guys as he squatted down, murmuring something before hitting one of them across the face.

He stood up and kicked the other one to the ground, raising his leg again to stomp on his face while the other Shishitoren guy watched in silent horror.

Sakura felt his teeth unconsciously grind into themselves. What the fuck was this guy’s deal? Beating up his own team? Maybe Sakura didn’t like his morals, or maybe it was the stupid rat tail but he found his body moving unconsciously as he lined up for a punch aimed right in the guy’s stupid face.

Rat Tail clearly noticed though because he caught Sakura’s punch with one hand and used his other to hit Sakura’s stomach. Gritting his teeth through the pain, Sakura placed both his hands on the arm that caught his punch and pulled down, kicking Rat Tail directly in the face.

“Stop!” Shark Teeth pulled Sakura away, standing in between the two of them. “Sakura, go back over there.” he barked, pointing to where the group was standing.

“But-”

“Get over here!”

Sakura hung his head as he walked over, feeling Shark Teeth place a hand on his shoulder. “That was a nice kick.” he whispered quietly enough that only Sakura could hear.

Behind them, Rat Tail began laughing like he was mad. “You’re an interesting one, Half-n-Half. It looks like an othello board!” His tone shifted as his laughing stopped. “I’m gonna beat you to a bloody pulp. Your face really pisses me off, ya know that?”

Sakura turned around to watch him stalk off, the two Shishitoren guys scrambling after him.

Shark Teeth sighed, pulling out his pills as he swallowed half the packet in one gulp. “Because of you kids, I think I’m gonna die young..”

Nirei still looked around from where he was still hiding behind Suo, his voice wavering as he said, “Um, I think you should take the prescribed amount… then maybe you won’t.. Die?”

Shark Teeth suddenly looked very upset. Sighing, he shook his head in his hand. “We’re gonna have to report everything to Umemiya.” Looking at the middle schooler, he motioned for them to follow him. “Come on, let's go.”

On the way back to Furin, Shark Teeth had apologized for not stepping in earlier. Nirei had to tell him that his name was Hiragi, and Rat Tail’s actual name was Togame.

Suo also made fun of him for acting so rashly, calling him a hothead as he walked on his right side, whereas on the left Nirei looked like he was about to pee his pants. He kept muttering things about how they were all going to die and how Sakura just declared war.

“Cheer up Nirei!” Suo said, patting Nirei on the back. “Even if our little Sakura did start a war, I’m sure he could beat all of Shishitoren with a sneeze! Isn’t that right, Sakura?”

Sakura grinned, puffing his chest. “Damn right. Those guys better run when they see me!”

When they got back to the school they climbed the stairs all the way up to the roof, Sakura taking note of all the potted plants and random things lying about, like the hammock and a random couch. To the side, there was also a ping pong table. In all honesty it was a really nice place and Sakura could probably hang out there all day and not get bored.

But that wasn’t why they were there. A man with white hair was leaning over a flower bed, humming a tune to himself. Hiragi stepped forward, clearing his throat as he shouted, “Umemiya!”

The man in question turned around with a smile on his face, some sort of potted plant in his hand. “Look at these eggplants!” he exclaimed, waving them around in the air. “We could have such a good barbecue this summer.”

“Don’t make that face!” Nirei hissed at him, elbowing him in the ribs. Sakura’s face must’ve subconsciously shifted into a judgemental expression because he could feel his nose wrinkling in disgust.

Turns out the Umemiya guy was a softie. He had his own little garden and didn’t take anything Hiragi said seriously. Even when they sat down and Hiragi made Sakura explain what happened, Umemiya still had a big smile on his face. It really wasn’t hard to figure out why people followed him.

The first time Sakura saw that smile disappear was when a voice from a megaphone sounded from down below, calling out, “Ume!! I’m here to challenge you!”

The shiver Sakura felt run down his spine was the same one he felt when Endo and Chika got serious. So maybe this Umemiya guy really was powerful, even if he didn’t act like it.

Sakura was quick to follow behind Umemiya and Hiragi, following close behind as they sprinted down the stairs, running until they came into view of the front of the school. There, a short, child looking Shishitoren guy waved around an unconscious Furin guy, megaphone in his other hand.

Sakura watched as Umemiya stepped forward, fixing his jacket as he chuckled in an unamused voice, “Hey Tomiyama. I think that there belongs to Furin.”

“Holy shit,” Sakura heard Nirei breathe next to him. “That’s Choji Tomiyama, the leader of Shishitoren! Are they really gonna fight right here?”

Sakura frowned, straining his ears as he tried to listen in to their conversation. From what he heard, Tomiyama really wanted to fight Umemiya, but for some reason Umemiya didn’t. Then suddenly Tomiyama was swinging his leg but Umemiya simply blocked before saying some more stuff that Sakura could barely hear.

Suddenly, his eyes darted to the motions of several people as he saw Togame and what looked like the rest of the Shishitoren gang walk in onto Furin ground like they owned the place. Togame clearly saw him as well because he threw a cheeky grin at Sakura as he walked up next to Tomiyama.

“Well if it isn’t Othello.” Togame’s voice was annoyingly smooth as he slurred his words in that lazy lilt of his. “And the rest of the gang.” He nodded to Hiragi, his grin shifting into a haughty smirk.

“Shut up you fucker,” Sakura snarled, already curling his fists. “I’ll take you right here!”

Togame smirked, motioning to come forward with his hands. “Let’s go.”

“Wah, Togame, you’re stealing my spotlight! I wanted to fight Ume!” Tomiyama’s voice was high pitched and hurt Sakura’s ears as he hit Togame like a baby. Honestly, his whole appearance and personality was just annoying Sakura.

“Back off, all of you.” Umemiya’s voice cut through the air leaving no room for discussion as he stepped forward to stand face to face with Tomiyama. “I’ll fight you and only you, Tomiyama, right now if you want.”

Sakura scowled. “The fuck? How come only you get to fight?”

Some ugly Shishitoren guy, Sakura, barely remembered him as one of the guys he kicked earlier gave Umemiya a shit-eating grin. “Little Furin leader is a big wimp, eh?”

“Say that again?” Sugishita literally growled, the hair standing up on his back.

Behind the ugly Shishitoren guy, an even uglier Shishitoren guy giggled like he was a tiny girl. “Look at them!” he giggled, pointing a finger at Sugishita. “He’s getting all angry cuz we said something bad about their general!”

“Hehe.” Suo’s laugh held zero amusement as he covered his mouth politely, directing his words at the extra ugly Shishitoren guy. “Aren’t you a cutie? Even though you look like a baby, you’ve still got an ugly face!”

“Alright, calm down everybody!” Togame waved his arms around, signaling to both sides to stand down. “Now, it wouldn’t be fun to fight right now, would it? After all, you can’t see their faces all beaten up if it's dark outside, right Othello?”

Sakura grinned, raising his chin to look down on Togame. “Damn right you are, ya bastard.”

“Ah!” Tomiyama jumped up as he spun around Umemiya. “I’ve just gotten the best idea! Why don’t we all just fight tomorrow, since we all know each other! We can do it at our place, doesn’t that just sound great Umemiya!”

“Hell yeah.” Sakura stepped forward, wagging his finger at Togame. “You and me tomorrow buddy.”

In the end, Umemiya reluctantly agreed to a match between 5 people from Shishitoren and 5 from Furin. All of the Shishitoren guys walked back off to their own territory, leaving the Furin guys with nothing to do but head home.

Sakura had been walking home when a car suddenly pulled up next to him, honking the horn as loud and long as possible as the passenger window rolled down and Chika simply said, “Get in.”

Sakura smiled as he pulled into the back seat, quickly buckling because Endo was driving and you had to be careful with him at the wheel.

“How was your day, little man? First day, didja make any friends?” Endo asked, his eyes meeting Sakura’s in the mirror.

Sakura grinned, voice smug as he proudly declared, “Yup, I ran into a couple Shishitoren guys and now we’re gonna have a fight tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Why not right now?” Endo asked, casually speeding through a red light and earning a honk from a car to the side.

“I don’t know. We’re gonna have 5 individual matches, and I get to fight their number 2. Name’s Togame or something. Ever heard of him?”

“Nah. I’ve heard of Choji Tomiyama though. He’s pretty strong for someone his size. I could probably beat him pretty easily though. Last I heard he’d gotten pretty weak. He’s also annoying as fuck.”

Chika turned to side eye Endo. “When you fought him you had a broken nose and a twisted ankle, plus you couldn’t see for a week because your eye was so swollen.”

“He doesn’t need to know that.” Endo muttered, pulling into their driveway. “Oh yeah, I cleared out that guest bedroom for ya. You don’t need to sleep on the couch anymore.”

“Thanks,” Sakura said, hopping out of the car, silently thanking God that he didn’t die in that 5 minute car ride. Ahead of him, Chika pushed open the door and walked in. “Do we have any food?”

Endo nodded. “Yeah, Chika made me buy fresh food.” Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, “He said something about younger kids needing to eat healthy. Don’t tell him but he’s gonna drain my wallet real fast if he keeps spending money for you like this.”

“For.. me?” Sakura asked, confused. “What’d he spend on me?”

“Not that much, just we got a ton of new food, and he bought you a whole wardrobe, and a new phone because, ahem, the one you have right now probably dates back to the prehistoric ages. There’s some other stuff but it doesn’t really matter.” Endo sighed, shrugging his shoulders. “Y’know, all of this would be so cute if it wasn’t all on my card.”

Sakura stood rock still for a few moments, wondering if his ears were working properly. A whole new phone? If he were still on his own, it’d probably take him a few years to save up to buy that. How rich was Endo?

Sakura opened his mouth to ask that, but Endo shushed him before he could say anything. “No, I didn’t steal this money, I simply am a man of many talents and that includes selling possibly illegal goods on shady markets. But you didn’t hear that from me.” He laughed as he sauntered off.

Sakura rolled his eyes as he followed Endo to the kitchen. He wasn’t lying when he said their entire food supply had been replaced. Opening the fridge Sakura could find tons of fruits and vegetables, and all the old takeout boxes appeared to have been thrown away.

“The only problem is neither Chika nor I know how to cook,” Endo beamed as he took out a knife and began waving it around, tossing it from hand to hand. “But it can’t be that hard, can it?”

Sakura made a note to stay out of the house if either of them decide to cook.

Almost on cue, Chika came up behind Endo, taking the knife from his hand to wave it around on his own. “Anything you want Sakura? We have a lot more food now.”

Sakura felt sweat creep up on the back of his neck. He felt bad for making them buy all this food, but at the same time he’d like to live a little longer. Dying in a burning house or eating poisoned food was not on his bucket list.

“Um, maybe.. some omurice?” he asked, hoping it wouldn’t be too hard to make.

Chika nodded. “That can’t be too hard to make. Right?” Next to him, Endo laughed encouragingly. “Right! I mean, how hard could it be?”

Sakura felt a wave of dread as he watched the two of them search up a recipe, muttering quietly that he’d just go to his new room. Opening the door, the first thing Sakura saw was the giant bed pushed to the corner of the room. He’d really only slept on lumpy futons so a bed was like heaven to him.

On another wall was a wardrobe, which Sakura opened to find all sorts of clothes that he could wear besides his uniform. He couldn’t help but notice 2 Furin uniforms folded neatly at the bottom of the wardrobe.

There were only 2 people they could belong to as Sakura unfolded one of them, holding the jacket up to himself seeing as it was a little big on him. The other uniform fit him rather nicely. It must’ve been the same size as the one he was wearing.

Huh. Interesting. He could still see the blood stains on both of the uniforms.

“Sakura! Come over here, we made your omurice!”

Sakura grimaced as he braced himself for the worst possible meal, but the omurice that was presented in front of him actually looked edible. Sure, there was a a couple white thing that suspiciously looked like eggshells, and the rice was dry and had a bit of crunch but really it did taste good besides that.

“How is it?” Sakura had never seen Chika show so much expectation, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Endo narrow his eyes at him, clearly displaying a message to lie whether the food was bad or not.

“It's actually really good.” Sakura answered honestly, chewing on an egg shell. “Honestly I’m just glad you didn’t burn down the kitchen.”

“Yamato tried to boil the egg in the microwave.” Chika snorted, pointing at the poor microwave that still had steaming egg splattered inside of it. His smile turned fond as he looked at Endo’s sheepish face, but it immediately disappeared when Endo leaned in for a kiss, replaced with an irritated frown.

Sakura pretended to throw up his food, gagging at their disgustingly in-love behavior, watching as Endo peppered Chika’s face with kisses, grasping him by the waist as he dipped him down.

Soon Chika was walking away and Endo was sitting on the floor with a Chika-shaped bruise on his face paired with a stupid, dopey smile.

Sakura sipped on his cup of milk, completely finished with his omurice. “You guys are so weird.”

Endo groaned as he got up to his feet, stretching his back as he let out a monstrous yawn. “Yeah yeah, but you’re single and I’m not, so I don’t think you can be talking.”

“Go ask Takiishi right now and ask if you guys are dating or not.”

“...”

“Haha, that’s what I thought.”

“Ask me what?” Chika asked, walking back into the room changed into his pajamas, phone in hand.

“Chikaaaa,” Endo whined, wrapping his arms around Chika. “Are we dating? Sakura thinks we aren’t.”

“I don’t know,” Chika said, eyes glued to his phone. “Are we?”

“I told him yes but he didn’t believe me!”

“Hmm.” Shutting his phone off, Chika’s hand wandered up to Endo’s face, caressing his cheek. “Maybe if you buy me a new motorcycle I’ll date you.”

Sakura put his dishes away as he watched Endo happily agree, picking Chika up and spinning him around like some cheesy movie couple. No wonder all of his money was disappearing.

“Get some rest kid,” Chika ruffled Sakura’s hair, suddenly behind him. “You’re going to Shishitoren tomorrow, right? You better kick their asses.”

Sakura smiled as he nodded, watching as the corner of Chika’s mouth lifted into the tiniest smile, one of the first he’d ever seen.

“Goodnight Sakura.”

“G’night Takiishi. You too Endo.”

Chapter Text

The next morning Sakura woke up with a funny feeling in his stomach. He had a funny feeling it was from that omurice he ate yesterday, since it felt like a bulldozer was passing through his stomach.

The day before Nirei had emphasized showing up on time to Kotoha’s cafe bright and early in the morning, but even though Sakura set multiple alarms he still got out of bed 30 minutes late and was the last one to arrive at the cafe.

As he walked in, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he received a chorus of good mornings. He sat down at a table with Nirei and Suo, his eyes meeting with Umemiya’s for a brief second at the table next to them.

Sakura nearly fell asleep at the table right there again, but Nirei slapped his back so hard he jumped out of his seat, yelping as he glared at him. “How come you’re even here?” Sakura grumbled, rubbing his stinging back. “You’re not fighting, are you?”

Nirei shook his head, eyes shining. “No, but I would never pass up an opportunity to watch the top of Furin and Shishitoren fight! This is.. This is.. like watching the World Cup! A once in a lifetime opportunity!”

Suo laughed on the other side of the table, sipping his mug of coffee. “I’m not sure it's that big of a deal. Or at least Umemiya doesn’t seem to think it is.”

Sakura turned around, looking for the man in question. He was laughing at the counter, showing Kotoha something on his phone while his face lit up in a huge smile. Speaking of which, didn’t they seem awfully close?

Squinting his eyes to make sure they were working properly, Sakura tapped Nirei’s arm as he asked, “Are those two.. Y’know? Like.. dating?” he whispered the last part, feeling blood rush to his face.

Suo laughed at Sakura, his one eye crinkling with mirth. “No, Umemiya said something about them being siblings. Why? Are you scared or something?” he teased, tapping Sakura’s flaming cheek.

“No!” Sakura slapped Suo’s hand away, raising his fists without any intent to hit as Suo kept laughing at him. “You want to bring this outside buddy?”

Kotoha walked over to them, tossing a plate of sandwiches in front of Sakura. “If you’re going to fight, please do bring it outside and keep property damage to a minimum or else you’re paying for it.”

Sakura lifted the sandwich, taking a hesitant bite before determining it was edible before he devoured it in 2 bites. After that omurice Endo and Chika made, you could never be too careful.

“Alright gang!” Umemiya clapped his hands together, gathering all of their attention with a simple movement. “Let’s go! Thanks Kotoha! We’ll be back soon, don’t worry!”

“Mhmm, sure, come back anytime.” Kotoha said, voice apathetic as she didn’t even spare him a glance.

The walk to Shishitoren felt like a stroll in the park; not a single person seemed nervous or scared. Well except for one person. And he wasn’t even fighting!

“C’mon Nirei, we’ll be fine.” Sakura had tried every method he could think of to stop Nirei from biting his nails off. He’d yelled, he’d bribed, he’d ignored him, and he’d even begged. Sort of. Suo said it would sound more convincing if he actually said the word “please” but that was where Sakura drew the line.

When they finally got to the entrance to Shishitoren, Nirei looked like he was about to shit his pants. He was shaking like a stick in the wind, hiding behind Suo as their group walked up to Tomiyama.

From there they were led to an abandoned theater filled to the brim with Shishitoren members, shouting and cheering as they passed by to sit in the front row.

Sakura nearly fell asleep watching Sugishita and Suo fight, since they were both pretty one sided. It was interesting watching Hiragi fight though. He clearly had a past with the guy he was fighting with, but eventually Hiragi won so Sakura could find himself to really care.

Now it was finally his turn to fight. Sakura hopped on the stage whereas his opponent took his sweet time lazily walking up the stairs, yawning as he did.

“Sakura.” Sakura turned to see Umemiya watching him with a comforting smile on his face. “You’ve got this.”

“Huh?” Sakura felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. “Of course I do. What, you worried you’ll grow even more white hairs?”

Umemiya chuckled, nodding his head. “Good. You’ll do great.”

Ahead of Sakura Togame threw his glasses to the side, grinning lazily as he shifted his legs into a wide stance, lowering his body like a lion about to pounce on his prey.

It didn’t matter who attacked first. Suddenly Togame had disappeared and the world was spinning as Sakura fell to the ground, feeling an ache already forming on his torso from where Togame had tackled him.

Sakura scowled, bracing his hands on the ground as he kicked up into the air, just barely missing. Scrambling to his feet, Sakura stepped backwards to dust his jacket off, grinning haughtily at Togame. “All ya got Rat Tail?”

Togame laughed, running a hand through his shaggy hair. “I knew I’d like you Othello.”

They threw punches for what felt like forever. With each punch Sakura felt his blood pump harder, his eyes grow sharper and his grin grow wider. He’d never felt more alive in a fight before.

Meanwhile, Togame still had that sleazy smile on his face as he casually brushed away at the blood dripping from his nose.

“Come on,” Sakura called out, gesturing for Togame to come forward. All the noise seemed to have drained away. All Sakura could see was his opponent standing in front of him, just waiting to be squished like a bug. “Let’s keep going. You said something about beating me, didn’t you?”

Togame laughed, and to Sakura he wondered if it sounded a bit sad. Maybe nostalgic even. “Alright, let’s go Othello.”

Sakura frowned. He could feel Togame’s punches getting weaker and weaker with each blow, and it was pissing him off. He stepped back for a moment, watching as Togame hung his head as he caught his breath.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sakrua felt anger build up inside him, even though he didn’t know why. “Stop holding back, let’s go!”

Togame chuckled, lifting his head to squint his eyes at Sakura. They looked so dim.

“Seriously,” Sakura grumbled. “This is getting hella boring if you don’t fight the fuck back!” He swung his leg at Togame, watching as the man barely defended. All of his energy from earlier was gone.

What a shame. He could’ve been really fun to fight. Sakura threw punch after punch, watching as Togame’s facade crumbled faster and faster, until Sakura was standing above him, looking down on his battered face.

Catching his breath, Sakura turned to the side where he saw the Shishitoren members sitting in shock, disbelief written all over their faces. He glanced at the Furin guys, and while none of them were smiling, there was a sense of contentment mixed with an underlying feeling of uneasiness.

Nudging Togame with his foot to check if he was unconscious, Sakura sighed as he hopped off the stage, taking his seat in between Nirei and Suo.

“Sakura, good job!” Nirei exclaimed, giving him a shaky thumbs up. “You.. you actually beat him!”

“Huh?” Sakura turned to Nirei, annoyed. “What you mean I actually beat him?! Of course I did! I mean, look at me!”

“Wow Sakura,” Suo smiled on his right side. “I didn’t know you could fight like that! Very scary!”

“You were scary.” Nirei agreed, jotting something down in his notebook. “The entire time you were smiling. You looked kinda crazy to be honest.”

“Oh really? I was?” Sakura scratched his head. “I didn’t know.”

Smiling? Wasn’t that like.. Chika when he fought? Sakura shook that thought away. No way. He’d seen Chika fight once, twice if you count the time he beat up a nearly unconscious guy. No way..

“Hmm? What’s wrong Umemiya?” Sakura turned to where Nirei was looking at Umemiya with a polite smile on his face.

“Ah, nothing.” Umemiya shook his head, a forced smile making its way to his face. “Sakura, good job. You fought well. It reminded me of someone I knew, that’s it.”

Sakura wanted to ask something else, but pretty soon Tomiyama had thrown Togame off the stage like he was trash. “Umeeee! Hurry up hurry up, I wanna fight!” Tomiyama exclaimed, dancing around like he couldn’t contain his excitement.

“Just one question Tomiyama,” Umemiya asked as he stood up, tone cold. “Did you feel anything during that fight?”

Tomiyama tilted his head, visibly confused. “Huh? Like what?”

Umemiya sighed, standing in front of Tomiyama on the stage. “I see. That’s too bad then.”

The fight was over before Sakura could blink. The winner was decided from the start, after Umemiya started saying something that clearly agitated Tomiyama before he was crying on the stage fighting Umemiya like a rabid animal, biting and clawing at him like he had no sense of self.

Sakura cringed at Tomiyama. Whatever he was going through at the moment, it was not amusing to watch.

Suddenly Umemiya was cupping Tomiyama’s face, looking down on him with a kind gaze before suddenly he was knocking Tomiyama out with a powerful headbutt.

The theater was completely silent. It was quiet when Sakura beat Togame, but that couldn’t compare to the silence that filled the theater now. A leaf could fall and you would hear it.

Then Togame was walking up to the stage, wooden slippers clicking with each step. He kneeled in front of Tomiyama, silent tears dripping down his face as he whispered apologies only they could hear.

Soon Tomiyama blinked his eyes open, and then they were both crying, apologizing over and over, small sobs filling the uncomfortable tension in the room.

Sakura watched as Tomiyama stood up on shaky legs, shrugging his Shishitoren jacket off as he handed it to Umemiya. “I lost. So I’m gonna drop out of Shishitoren. It's yours now, Ume.” He hesitated as he glanced in the direction of the Shishitoren guys. “So.. please take good care of them.”

A faint smile appeared on Umemiya’s face for a split second before it was gone, replaced by a face of alarm. “No no, I couldn’t possibly.” he said bashfully. “I wasn’t even looking to expand or anything like that. But.. maybe our two teams could be friends?” he asked, holding his hand out for a handshake.

Tomiyama stood in complete shock. Sakura didn’t even know if he was still breathing. Ume laughed to himself, talking aloud as he dismissed all of the Shishitoren members, already using the word “friends” to describe them.

“Haha!” Tomiyama laughed, his face lighting up. “You’re funny Ume! We should have an after party!”

Sakura did not want to go to this after party. But he couldn’t do much when Sugishita started growling like a wild animal and Nirei was ready to pounce on him at any moment, so he reluctantly agreed to stay. Plus, free food was free food.

“Sakura, save some for us!” Nirei pushed Sakura to the side, trying to put some food on his own plate before it was all eaten. Across from them, Hiragi kept slapping Umemiya’s wrist every time he tried to squeeze lemon juice all over everything.

Tomiyama and Togame were uncharacteristically quiet, neither of them looking anyone in the eye.

It didn’t take long before all the food was gone. A shame. Sakura probably could’ve eaten a couple more plates. The mood seemed pretty joyful, the sun was out, they ate good food, and overall it was just nice.

Sakura took the opportunity to leave. He simply stood up, thanked them for the food and hopped down the roof, ignoring the protest of Nirei and Umemiya, as well as the confused look from Togame.

He really didn’t want to be there when those two Shishitoren bastards ruined the mood with their stupid apologies.

Pulling out his phone Sakura curled his lip in distaste when he saw 2 new contacts in his phone next to his daily weather. One of them read “Handsome Man” while the other was just “Chika Takiishi.”

Dialing Chika’s number, Sakura asked if he could come pick him up, since his torso was still really aching from where Togame tackled him.

“Sure, where are you?” Chika asked, and Sakura could’ve sworn he heard someone get punched in the background. Probably Endo.

“I’m outside this theater. It's called Orion theater. Or it used to be. I don’t really know what it's called now.”

“Ohhh I know where you are!” Endo seemed to have stolen the phone because he was suddenly yelling into the speaker. “We’ll be right there kid. You won right? You crushed that number 2 or whatever he was?”

Sakura didn’t even have a chance to respond before he heard a “shut up” and another punch before Chika was hanging up on him.

True to his word, Endo was there in less than 5 minutes, although there was a bit of blood coming out of his nose and his forehead had a bright red fist mark on it. As soon as Sakura stepped in the car, Chika and Endo asked at the same time, “Did you win?”

“Duh, of course I did!” Sakura puffed his chest proudly. “Did you guys know a guy named Umemiya?”

Chika and Endo shared a glance before Chika nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“I don’t know, just wondering. Is he strong? He fought today but it was kinda wimpy.”

“He’s as strong as Chika,” Endo answered. His tone was uncharacteristically serious. “If he wants to be. His style of fighting.. it's pretty wimpy, sometimes you’re right.”

Sakura raised his eyebrows, intrigued. “Did you ever fight him?”

“Nah, but Chika did. And you won every time, right?”

Chika nodded. “Umemiya used to be interesting, but now he’s just boring. Furin isn’t fun anymore.” Suddenly he turned around, a glint of light shining in his eyes. “Maybe you could make it interesting again Sakura.”

Endo laughed, loud and cheery. “Shouldn’t we introduce him to the other guys first? Then we can have fun at Furin again.”

“Those are your guys.” Chika rolled his eyes. “They’re all weird anyway.”

“Huh?” Sakura was confused. “Who the hell are ya talking about?”

Endo’s grin was smug and proud. “My little gang of minions. Noroshi. I bet you’d get along real well with them.”

"Noroshi? What a stupid name."

Endo's smile turned sly. "I think'd you'd make a great member of our little group."

Chapter Text

“Did you know Noroshi is a stupid name?” Sakura asked, trotting behind Endo slowly.
“Excuse me, I was the one who named them,” Endo hissed, turning around to glare at Sakura. “And the name is not stupid, you just have no taste.”

Sakura rolled his eyes, kicking at a rock on the ground. “Blah blah, whatever.” Endo had forced him to come out with him to meet with this Noroshi group and now they were walking around some shady street with drunkards and gang members on every corner.

“How much further?”

“Kid, I’m actually about to kick your scrawny ass into the concrete right now.”

“Alright let’s go! Fight me right now!”

Endo turned around, fists raised with an irritatingly cocky smirk on his face. He threw the first punch, one that Sakura easily dodged and countered with a kick aimed at Endo’s face.

Endo blocked, grabbing Sakura’s leg and pulling him off balance as his hand snaked around Sakura’s head and pulled down, causing Sakura’s face to meet with Endo’s knee.

Sakura pulled away, an ache in his nose but it didn’t feel broken. It wasn’t even bleeding. Endo must’ve went easy on him, but it didn’t matter now because he was turning around and calling out, “C’mon, we’re gonna be late.”

Sakura scowled before running up to catch up with Endo, giving him a small push that was immediately retaliated with a stronger push that nearly sent him stumbling into the street.

They kept bickering until Endo turned into a wide alleyway filled with the smell of tobacco and at the end a group of 5 guys had gathered together, talking loudly amongst themselves as they passed around a lighter.

Endo pulled out his own cigarette holding his hand out as he was passed the lighter. Sakura snatched it away before he could light the cigarette, saying “Don’t smoke. You’re gonna stink up the house.”

Endo raised his eyebrow in challenge. “Oh?”

Some guy wearing emo clothes and a god-awful haircut stepped forward, snatching the lighter right back from Sakura. “Who’re you? Some little kid?”

Sakura took a step forward, getting all up in his face as he said haughtily, “Yeah, what about it? Looks like you need a leash with that collar around your neck. You’re just Endo’s little doggy, huh?” Sakura grinned as the emo guy furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance. “What’re you gonna do now? Bite me like a rabid dog?”

The emo guy lunged at Sakura, grabbing onto his arm and pulling him forward but at the same time Sakura swung his fist into the emo guy’s face, knocking him right in the nose.

As blood dripped down his face, the emo guy laughed, cheeks lit in a bright pink color. “Let’s go!” he shouted, grinning from ear to ear. “I want to feel good.” he hissed, swinging again at Sakura.

“Come over here when you’re done.” Endo called out as he walked away from them.

Sakura hit the emo guy over and over again, but each time his grin grew wider and his attacks got faster and stronger. It was really annoying.

Sakura pulled his arm back to punch upwards, feeling the emo guy dodge to the side before tackling his side and sending him crashing into the brick wall. Standing over him, Sakura could barely block the rain of punches coming down on him, feeling each hit knock his head harder and harder back into the wall.

Finally Sakura managed to move to the side and kick the emo guy away, blood dripping down the back of his head. “These are new clothes.” he muttered in regret, glancing over at Endo who was watching him with a smile.

“Don’t look at him, look at me!” the emo guy whined, jumping at Sakura. Recognizing an opportunity, Sakura took a step backwards and swung his leg high, catching the emo guy between his foot and his ankle as he sent him flying into the wall.

Sakura sighed, kicking the emo guy in the face to see if he was conscious or not. When he confirmed he was out, Sakura walked back over to Endo, who was beaming as he leaned against the wall.

“Good job kid. I never liked that freak anyway.” Endo smiled, holding out his hand for a high five. Sakura reluctantly slapped his hand, slumping against the wall next to him.

“So what am I doing here?” Sakura asked, feeling exhausted after that fight. The idiot fought pretty hard, managing to hit him pretty hard all over his body. He’d definitely look like a blackberry from all the bruises the next day.

“I was just talking about something. Ever heard of Keel?”

“No. Is it a group?”

“Yup. They’ve gotten annoying as fuck so I was gonna go take them out tomorrow. They’ve got a shit ton of people so I was wondering if any of these guys wanted to come.”

Sakura looked up to see most of the Noroshi members, except for the emo guy who was still passed out, looking at him. “How many of them are going?”

“Just me.” The guy who said it looked very average, with a chiseled jaw and a nice smile. He didn’t look awful strong but if Endo picked him he probably was. “I’ve been needing to take my stress out on some weaklings.”

“Fine,” Sakura sighed. “I’ll come. You gotta drive me though, Endo.”

“Alright, alright.” Sakura felt a hand ruffle his hair. “We'll probably go tomorrow night, since I know they should all be meeting there for a meeting.” Endo said, scrolling through something on his phone. He held up a picture of Sakura to see. “This is their leader. I forgot his name but his face is pretty ugly so if you ever see him on the streets feel free to give him a nice punch.”

“Yeah yeah, okay. I have school tomorrow though.” Sakura stood up, feeling his bones ache as he lifted his arms to stretch. “So I don’t think I’ll ever see him.”

“You go to school?” The redhead to the side asked. “Which one? Furin?”

Sakura nodded his head.

A chorus of sighs went around their little circle. “Furin used to be so good. Then Umemiya and his minions took over.”

Sakura squinted his eyes. “What happened?” Directing his gaze at Endo, he raised his eyebrows questioningly. “How come you guys left Furin? You never told me.”

Endo fiddled around with his cigarette, leaving it unlit. “Yeah I never did tell you, huh. We used to go to Furin at the same time as Umemiya and all of those guys, but then they started ganging together and created a nice orderly school. That wasn’t fun so me and Chika left.”

“Huh. That was more boring than I thought it’d be.”

“Anyway.” Endo flicked his cigarette away. “We’re done here. I’ll see you tomorrow Hashirao. Let’s go Sakura.”

Sakura followed behind Endo, grasping at his toros. It had already hurt from where Togame had thrown him to the ground, but fighting that emo guy intensified the pain to the point where Sakura felt like his rib was broken.

“Did Banjo mess you up?”

“Huh? Nah, my rib hurts from earlier. When I fought the Shishitoren guy.”

“Hmm. Want me to go bash his face in for you?”

“No, I already did that. I hope his nose is still broken.”

“Ha, well don’t tell Chika about that then. I don’t want him to go over to Shishitoren and try and beat them all up.”

“He’d do that?”

“He’d do a lot for you Sakura. I’m not sure if you noticed though.”

Do a lot? A lot of what? Sakura pondered that as he walked through the front gates of Furin, suddenly yanked out of his thoughts as he felt two hands push on him from behind.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Suo asked, smiling at him as a greeting.

“Yeah! Also where’d you go yesterday? We just saw you get into a car!” Nirei exclaimed, walking on his left side as Suo walked on his right.

Sakura pursed his lips, thinking of a response. “I was just… going home.”

“Oh so that was your parents car?”

“No my.. older brother’s.”

“For real? You have an older brother?” Nirei seemed very excited as he produced his notebook out of nowhere. “Does he fight? How many years older is he? What’s his name?”

“Yeah he fights.” Sakura got angry just thinking of Endo’s stupid face. “He’s really annoying too.”

“Wow, our little Sakura has an older brother!” Suo smiled, interrupting whatever questions Nirie wanted to ask Sakura. “You left in quite a rush yesterday, so we were wondering if you had something going on.”

“No.” Sakura grumbled. “He wanted me to meet his stupid friends.”

“Haha, I see.”

As soon as Sakura opened the door to their classroom, everyone started yelling and crowding around him and Suo, pushing Nirei to the side. They all were shouting but Sakura heard things like, “Wow they’re here!” and “Did you actually beat the number 2 of Shishitoren Sakura?!” and most of all “Tell us what happened!”

Sakura stood frozen from all the attention and eventually he just pointed at Nirei and shouted, “Ask him!”

The crowd finally moved over to Nirei, who told the story like a narrator with a few added details for exaggeration. Suo sat next to Sakura, watching Nirei in amusement.

“Sakura,” he started. “Where did you get those extra injuries? I don’t remember them from yesterday.”

Sakura huffed. “It was nothing. I just beat up some annoying guy on the street yesterday.”

Suo chuckled, smiling. “Oh really? Sounds like he was a big hassle, huh?”

“He was annoying as fuck.” Sakura agreed, lowering his head down to take a nap when he noticed out of the corner of his eye, one of his classmates whose name he couldn’t remember scurry out of their classroom in a hurry. Very suspicious.

“I’m gonna use the restroom.” he muttered to Suo as he stood up and followed after his classmate, watching him run down the hall and down the stairs.

Sakura followed behind closely, running up to his classmate at the bottom of the stairs. “Wait!” he shouted, jumping down a few steps as he ran up to his classmate, who was trying to force a calm expression on his face. “Where are you going?”

“Oh Sakura!” his classmate said, panting slightly. “What are you doing here?”

Sakura narrowed his eyes. “More like where are you going? Umm.. what’s your name again?”

His classmate didn’t even seem offended. Clearly something was bothering him. “Anzai. It's Anzai. And if you don’t mind, I really have to go somewhere right now.”

Sakura frowned. He grabbed the folder Anzai was holding, opening it to see a picture of some kid beaten badly as he slumped against a fence. Written in vibrant handwriting, it wrote, “We beat the crap out of Nagato! Waiting for you at the abandoned Senkan shipyard!”

“Hmm.” Sakura crumpled up the picture. “Let’s go.”

“Huh? No, only I should go. Y-you don’t have to worry about me!”

“I ain’t going for you. I just want to beat some bastards up.”

Reluctantly, Anzai ran with Sakura to the Senkan shipyard, which was much further than both of them thought because after they were both sweating and panting like they had just ran a marathon.

“So they’re here? This is a gang right?” Sakura asked, walking up to the metal door, which was locked with a rusty chain.

Anzai nodded, shaking like a leaf in the wind. “Yeah, their name is something like Keel.. I think.”

“Keel, huh?” Sakura tried to remember where he had heard that name. Oh, Endo was going to take him to get rid of them later today. Oh well. It didn’t hurt to get the job done earlier.

“Sakura wait!”

Sakura and Anzai turned in surprise to see their entire class approaching from behind, Suo and Nirei in the front. “What are you guys doing here?” Sakura asked, genuinely astounded.

“We just followed you!” Nirei exclaimed. “Where are you guys going anyway?”

Sakura looked at Anzai to explain, who seemed to have gotten over his initial shock as he looked around at their class, who was looking at him expectantly. “It’s just.. It’s just..” he shook his head furiously. “It’s just a personal issue! Thank you very much, but I can handle it on my own!”

A pink haired guy took out one of his wireless headphones as he nodded. “I’m sure it is! And you two were going to beat up a gang, weren’t you?”

Anzai paled. “How’d you know?”

“It was just a guess.” the pink haired guy shrugged. “Now that we’re here, might as well let us fight.”

Sugishita went up to the locked door and tried tugging, brow furrowing when it didn’t unlock. In the end he just kicked the door, the lock giving away as they pulled the heavy doors open.

Anzai gasped when the light shined inside and a hooded figure was holding the bloody boy Sakura saw in the picture, and suddenly Anzai was running forward, throwing a fist at the guy holding Nagato. Whether it was a difference in skill or simply because Anzai acted recklessly, the hooded figure easily pushed Anzai away, throwing Nagato at him.

Sakura looked around to see more Keel members circling around their class, leaving them outnumbered greatly. Their leader climbed a staircase to the upper level of the shipyard, probably choosing to watch the chaos unfold rather than participate.

Sakura narrowed his eyes. Sure, they were outnumbered probably 3 to 1, but each individual fighter seemed pretty weak.

The leader of Keel sat down on the railing as he grinned, shouting out, “Alright let’s go!”

Sakura bulldozed his way through each Keel member who came at him, finding himself disappointed when they each went down with a few punches. Fights like these made him mad. Being so weak you have to fight with numbers is pretty pitiful.

All of the sudden, two new Keel guys walked in front of him as the other members strayed away to go fight somewhere else. “Look at this guy.” One of them laughed. “He looks like a cookie. Like one of those half and half cookies.”

“Heh, you’re right. Like-”

Sakura scoffed, running up at the one running his mouth as he shut him up with a firm punch to his face, sending him flying to the wall behind him. The new Keel pair proved to be all bark no bite because Sakura barely wasted a sweat fighting both of them.

When he turned around though, he found his classmates were not fighting with as much ease. Some were barely hanging on fighting 2 or 3 people, while others were simply struggling to block and dodge attacks.

Sakura narrowed his eyes as he saw Suo standing in front of Nirei, blocking attack after attack. Could Nirei not fight? Was he so weak that Suo had to expend his energy protecting him?

Sakura felt his teeth grind into each other. He hated guys like that. Guys who talked only about fighting and flaunted around with nice clothes and fancy words, but look at him. Nirei was so weak he had to be protected.

Sakura ran up to Suo, helping him fight off a couple of the Keel members who were relentlessly attacking him. Suo smiled in thanks, but Sakura didn’t even look at him. He sent Nirei a furious look before running off to the stairs, where Anzai was trying to fight his way up to the leader.

Sakura pushed him out of the way, making his way up the stairs. “I’ll fight him,” he told Anzai. “Don’t worry, I’ll bash his head in.”

Anzai looked at him with pleading eyes before he nodded his head furiously and ran off somewhere else.

The Keel leader waved around a metal pipe, his ugly grin showing from under that ridiculous hood he was wearing. “I wanted to fight that little guy, what’re you doing here?”

Sakura pulled the sleeves of his jacket up higher as he sighed. “My buddy wanted to take out you guys, but I decided to do it before he did.”

The Keel leader stroked his chin as if he were an intellectual. “Oh really? Was it that little kid down there? Or someone else?”

Sakura threw a punch at the Keel leader. “Someone else.”

“Oh really?” Swinging the metal pipe, the Keel leader laughed joyfully. “I’ll make you tell me when I’ve beaten your face in!”

The Keel leader, did in fact, not beat his face in. Sakura lost track of how long they fought, but he felt adrenaline pumping through his veins, and suddenly he was looking down on a battered face.

Taking a deep breath to recollect his thoughts, Sakura picked up the Keel leader by the root of his hair, studying his face now that his hood wasn’t casting a shadow over it.

“Endo was right,” he muttered, not missing the way the Keel leader’s breath caught. “You really are ugly.” He threw the head to the ground, stomping on it a few times for good measure. He better be knocked out.

Sakura hopped down the railing to see that the Furin guys were still barely holding out, a coup;e of them knocked out in a corner while the others tried to defend them.

“Sakura!” Suo called out cheerfully, smacking the guy he was fighting in the face. “Are you done with the leader? It sure looked like you were having fun up there!”

Sakura nodded, kicking another guy in the stomach. “Was I smiling again?”

“You sure were! But it's alright, you don’t look too crazy!”

“Hmph. Where’s Nirei?”

Suo’s smile disappeared. “We had to carry him outside. He was too injured and was just getting in the way.”

“Ah.”

It took a while, but finally all of the Keel guys were either knocked out or had run away somewhere. “Whoo!” the pink haired guy cheered, swinging his arms around as he smiled. “Sakura, you’re so scary!”

The orange broccoli head Sakura had seen doing pullups in their classroom grinned, throwing a sweaty arm around Sakura’s shoulders “Alright man! You’re crazy, y’know that!”

“Am I really?” Sakura muttered.

Before any of them responded, the doors were pushed open and some of the second years walked in. Sakura recognized one of them as the one who made them go on patrol on the first day, the buzzcut one. “Here you are!” he shouted, looking around in shock when he saw the unconscious bodies and blood on their faces.

The second year with headphones frowned as he shouted at the top of his lungs, “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” Then the mushroom looking guy took his headphones off and suddenly he was speaking normally. “What happened?”

Suddenly all eyes were on Sakura to explain as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, stepping forward. “So.. umm…”

Thankfully, Anzai came to his rescue, limping up to them with the help of one of their classmates as he stuttered, “I-I can explain…”

Their class listened as Anzai explained what had happened between him and his friend Nagato and how Keel had come in between the two of them. Anzai bit his lip as he turned around and bowed, touching his forehead to the floor as he bowed to their class. “Thank you so much! You don’t know how much this means to me!”

Their class remained silent for a second before they were all patting Anzai’s back and helping him up, assuring him it was no big deal. Eventually their classmates all woke up, and Nagato stood up on shaky legs, tears running down his eyes as he apologized over and over again to Anzai and their class.

The second years took their leave, but not without yelling at them for leaving school so abruptly. “Take some time today to decide who you want your class captain to be.” The buzzcut said. “We came to get you guys to decide earlier today, but we discovered you had all run off. You can vote on it tomorrow morning.”

The mood was joyous as everyone helped each other walk out of the shipyard, watching the sun set as they walked back towards Furin.

“C’mon Sakura!”

“I’m just gonna check something real quick.” he called back, walking up the stairs to where the Keel leader was still unconscious. Sakura took out his phone and took a quick picture, sending it to Endo, before he ran after his class.

Broccoli head, Sakura learned his name was actually Tsugeura, was carrying Nirei, who slowly blinked his eyes open. He looked around in confusion, asking “Where are we? Did we win?”

Pink hair, or Kiryu, laughed, patting Nirei on the back. “Yep! All thanks to our hero Sakura! Oh yeah, Sakura, give me your contact info.”

“Huh? Why?” Sakura demanded, holding his phone away from Kiryu. Suo grabbed it from behind and opened his contact information, blinking in surprise. “Oh? You have three contacts, Weather, Handsome Man, and.. #number 1? Who’s that?”

“That bastard..” Sakura grabbed his phone, peering into his contact list. When did Endo change that? “I’m gonna kill him.” he muttered.

Kiryu laughed, snatching his phone right back as he added his contact information. “Who is it? I just added you to our class group chat by the way.”

“My.. older brother.” Sakura grumbled. “Brothers, I guess.”

Handing him his phone back, Kiryu looked at him in surprise. “You have two? Wow, I never knew. You kinda look like an only child.”

Suo also looked surprised. “You never mentioned your other one.”

“Yeah, I guess I didn’t. He’s quieter.”

“Oh really? That’s peculiar!” Suo laughed, watching as Sakura glared at him with narrowed eyes. “Nirei, are you okay?” he called back to Nirei, who was uncharacteristically quiet on Tsugeura’s back.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” Nirei responded. “..I’m sorry Suo.. and everyone. For being so weak.”

Sakura narrowed his eyes as he listened to his classmates reassure Nirei with endless affirmations. A feeling inside him knew he’d never look at Nirei the same way.

“Let’s get food everyone!” someone shouted, and now Sakura was being dragged along to Kotoha’s cafe.

When they opened the door, the restaurant was nearly full, with Umemiya and Hiragi sitting at a table along with the 3 second years that had shown up. “Oh there they are.” The buzzcut said. “You and you.” he pointed at Anzai and Nagato. “And you.” Pointing at Sakura, he motioned for them to come over. “Explain.”

Sakura sat quietly as Nagato and Anzai explained what happened with Keel, wondering why he was called over when he had nothing to do with the story.

“Alright!” Umemiya slapped his leg, causing both Anzai and Nagato to flinch. “You kids did good!” He shouted, giving them a thumbs up.

“That’s.. it?” Anzai asked.

“Yup!” Umemiya beamed at them, melting whatever fears both of them had. “And you Sakura! I heard you fought well.”

“Oh, nothing too crazy.” Sakura said bashfully as he felt a little heat rise to his cheeks. “They weren’t that strong.”

“Yeah they were!” Nirei exclaimed, excitement lighting up his face. “But you went all, boom, crash, bang and then they were all knocked out!”

Sakura gave a forced laugh, saved by Kotoha placing a plate of omurice in front of him. He instantly dug in, pausing when he realized it was kind of rude and looked up to see Umemiya grinning. “Kotoha’s omurice sure is good, huh?”

“Yuh.” Sakura nodded with a mouth full of food, causing Hiragi to scowl at him and shout “Chew your food properly!”

As soon as he was done, Sakura stood up, stomach full as he returned the plate to Kotoha along with money.

“Sakura, where are you going?” Kiryu called out to him. “It's not that late.”

“I’m going home.” Sakura answered, confused.

“You should stay a little longer!”

Sakura bit his lip, as he shook his head with fake sorrow. “My brothers get really mad when I stay out late. Sorry I’ll see you guys tomorrow!”

He nearly ran out of that cafe, walking home quickly. Checking his phone, Sakura discovered Endo had called him a couple of times.

Calling him back, Endo instantly picked up. The first thing he said was “I can’t believe you. I wanted to be there when we bash Keel’s face in!”

“Sorry sorry, it's just that something came up with a guy in my class and we ended up going over there. Can you come pick me up? My legs hurt.”

“You’re gonna have to ask Chika. I’m fighting some guys right now.” Now that Sakura thought about it, he thought he heard screaming and the sound of a scuffle happening in the background.

“Bro.” Sakura shook his head. “Fine. when are you coming home?”

“Not that long. An hour? Did you see my new contact name for Chika? Do ya like it?”

“Shut up. And no, it's awful.” Sakura hung up before Endo could say anything else, texting Chika who responded almost immediately. Sakura told him his location, rolling his eyes at the phone when Chika responded with a “I don’t know where that is.”

“I guess I’ll just walk home.” Sakura said glumly.

Chapter Text

The first thing Sakura awoke to was the ping of his phone. Confused, he tapped on the notification, frowning when he saw a message from their class group chat. He tossed his phone to the corner of the room, intending to go back to sleep but the notifications started flooding in like a waterfall.

Eventually Sakura couldn’t fall back asleep with all the noise, so he got up and reluctantly checked his messages.

“Grade captain..” he murmured aloud. “What’s that?”

He kept rereading the messages as he walked to school, still confused. “Hey!” he shouted at Suo and Nirei, who had just entered the school before him.

“Oh Sakura!” “Sakura!”

“The hell is a grade captain?” Sakura demanded. He had wanted to ask Endo or Chika, but they were both dead asleep and he had a feeling he’d get killed if he woke either of them up.

“Ahaha, you don’t know what a grade captain is Sakura?” Nirei laughed, patting him on the back. “It's like the leader of the class. They’re supposed to handle problems and take control.”
Suddenly Nirei gasped. “I know! Sakura, you’d make a great captain!”

“Me?” Sakura was shocked. “Huh? Why would you think that?”

Suo laughed as they pushed the door open to their classroom and took their seats. “Just think of it! Sakura, you don’t want to be the leader of our class? I thought you like those kinds of positions!”

Sakura shook his head fiercely. “Nuh uh, not something like that. That sounds like a lot of work.”

Before either Suo or Nirei could respond, the door slammed open and the 3 second years they saw the day before walked in. “That’s Ren Kaji, Yuto Kusumi, and Takeshi Enomoto!” Nirei whispered. “Didn’t they come to Keel’s base yesterday?”

Sakura nodded, listening as Enomoto shouted for their attention. “Alright, since yer scrawny asses decided to disappear yesterday, we gonna decide the yer grade captain today! Let’s hurry it up and get it over with.”

The class remained silent until Suo raised his hand and politely asked, “Excuse me, may I nominate someone?”

Enomoto nodded as the class turned to Suo. “I think our grade captain should be Sakura.”

“Huh?” Sakura asked, completely flabbergasted. Nirei mentioned it earlier, but Sakura didn’t think they were actually serious. “Hold on-”

“I think that’s a great idea!” Tsuegara raised his hand in agreement. “You were super cool yesterday, like a real man! I was gonna vote for you too.”

Kiryu also raised his hand, a cat-like smile donning his face. “I agree!”

“Me too!” Nirei shouted.

“Hold on, hold on!” Sakura stood up and pointed at Sugishita, who was sleeping in the corner. “Wouldn’t he be a better captain?!”

Suo laughed as he shook his head. “Look at him, he’s not even interested.”

“Well I’m not either! Besides, what would I even do?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Sakura turned to the back of the classroom, where his classmates there gave him reassuring smiles. “You basically already led us to fight Keel.” “Yeah and you knocked out the number 2 on Shishitoren, and the Keel leader. That’s enough for us to vote for you.”

“Besides.. The strongest guys in our class are voting for you. How can we say no to that?”

“Sakura, I’ll become your vice captain.” Suo smiled softly. “And Nirei can be the other one.” His eye shone with kindness. “And we’re all rooting for you. We’ll be right behind you.”

Nirei beamed at him. “Yup! We’ll do our very best!”

“Will you really turn all of us down?”

Sakura turned around to see everyone, even Sugishita who had woken up sometime ago, looking at him expectantly.

“WHAT’RE YOU WAITING FOR?” The second year with headphones screamed, Ren Kaji Sakura thought his name was. He pointed his lollipop at Sakura. “YOU! THEY ALL WANT YOU SO YOU’RE GRADE CAPTAIN. THERE. DONE.” Behind him, Kusumi slid his headphones down to his neck, revealing the music that was blasting so loud it could be heard from the back of the room.

“..H-hold on a minute..” Sakura held up his hands, trying desperately to argue. “You can’t just decide like that for me!” Turning to Enomoto, he waved his hands around desperately. “And how come you’re just letting your vice captain decide stuff?”

“Huh?” Enomoto tilted his head, snarling “I ain’t no captain. That’s Kaji.”

“No way that guy is the second year captain.” Sakura muttered, kicking pebbles that were in front of him. After Kaji’s outburst, Enomoto had declared Sakura the captain and didn’t take any arguments, ordering them to all go on patrol in groups of three.

Sakura was joined by Suo and Nirei, who were now officially his vice captains. Nirei was still ecstatic over getting the second year’s contact information, as he kept scrolling through his contact list in awe.

“Yes, it was surprising for me to hear that too.” Suo agreed. “I always thought that Enomoto was the captain, and the other two were the vice captains.”

“How did you guys not know?!” Nirei exclaimed, eyes still sparkling. “Kaji is famous for being so strong in middle school, he was always starting fights and nobody could stop him!”

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not..” Suo murmured as Sakura laughed, grinning. “Oh yeah? Then I should challenge him to a fight. See who would win. Me obviously.”

“Huh?!” Suddenly Nirei’s eyes got as wide as saucers. “Nonono, Sakura don’t do that. What if you get killed?”

“Huh?! You really think I’d lose to some headphone punk? As if!”

Nirei swallowed thickly. “N-no, I’m just saying, out of concern as your vice captain-”

“Oh we have a notification.” Suo interrupted them, showing them a message from the second years. “We have to look for some cat named Risa. She’s white with a pink bow. If we find her we return her to this granny.”

“Hah? We have to go looking for some stupid cat?” Sakura sighed, already groaning with pain. This could either take 10 minutes or 10 hours.

“Don’t worry Sakura! I’m on it!” Nirei exclaimed, typing furiously on his phone. “There! Check your phone!”

Sakura opened his phone to see a message from Nirei reading, “Our captain’s first order is to find this cat named Risa! She’s white with a pink ribbon!”

Suo snickered and then typed, “He’s a bit nervous so let’s work hard!” He added a sticker of a smiling bear with a thumbs up.

Sakura nearly threw his phone in disgust, frowning harder and harder with each new message. “Yeah we got this!” “On it!” “Sakura so cool!” “That’s the virtue Sakura! You really act like a man when the time calls for it!”

Sakura sighed, turning to yell at Suo and Nirei when a flash of movement caught his eye, followed by a pink ribbon. He bolted after it, watching as the cat darted into an alleyway and somehow managed to climb to the roof, scampering off.

“Sakura! Hold on!”

Sakura did not hold on and propelled himself up the roof using the narrow space between the walls, running after the stupid cat that was annoyingly fast. He probably chased the cat all over the town because he was panting and sweating when he finally realized he was flying through the air into a river to catch the cat.

“Sakura!”

A few moments passed before Sakura emerged, a writhing and shivering cat in his arms. He swam slowly to the side, struggling since the stupid cat kept trying to scratch his face as it squirmed around. When he finally made it out of the freezing river, he handed the cat to Nirei as he took off his jacket, squeezing as much of the water out as he could.

“Are you alright?” Suo asked, handing Sakura his phone. “Here, you dropped it.”

Sakura nodded, a sneeze cutting off his next sentence. “I’m alright. But that stupid cat is really fast.”

Nirei laughed, stroking the fuming feline. “I know. You were running so fast, we lost you a couple of times.”

“There yer are!” Enomoto came running over to them, taking the soaking cat from Nirei’s hands. “Thank god yer found her. She’s a feisty one.”

A grandma came scurrying over with Kaji and Kusumi following behind. “Oh Risa! I thought I lost you!” She bowed low to Sakura, Suo and Nirei. “Thank you youngsters so much for finding her! I know she can be a bit of a hassle, but this means so much to me!”

Sakura blushed, despite feeling cold from the water. “I-it was no biggie.”

“Aww, Sakura’s blushing.” Nirei teased, poking his cheek.

Slapping his hand away, Sakura turned around. “I am not! And it's not like either of you did anything to help!”

“What are you talking about? We helped communicate!” Suo smiled, making Sakura want to punch his shit-eating grin off his face.

“Shut up!”

“Are you sure you’re not sick?” Chika asked for the millionth time, eying Sakura’s stuffy nose and red cheeks.

“I told you, I’m.. ahh.. achoo!” Sakura sneezed again, grabbing a tissue and blowing his nose as he threw it away into the overflowing trash can. “I’m okay.” he mumbled, slouching further into the couch.

Chika had piled a million blankets on him and made him rest, refusing to allow Endo anywhere near him saying “I know you’re going to try to make him do something.” Endo hadn’t denied it, and it made Sakura want to smack him across the face. But Chika already did that for him, so he was probably alright.

“How come your clothes were all wet?” Endo asked from the opposite side of the room. “Didja go for a swim in the sewer or something? You smelled like shit too.”

“I did not!” Sakura protested, his voice raw along the edges from the coughing he had been doing for the past few hours. “I was chasing down this stupid cat and I jumped into a river.”

Endo barked out a laugh. “That's it? You got a cold because of that?”

Chika flicked him in the forehead as he took a seat next to Endo. “Not like you didn’t get sick for 4 days after you got your flu shot.”

“But Chika,” Endo whined, wrapping his arms around Chika’s waist. “I have you to take care of me. That’s why I got sick. So you’d take care of me.”

“...Do you want me to kill you?”

“You would never! You love me too much.”

As Sakura watched them, he felt the sudden urge to throw up. Then he was grabbing the trash can and actually throwing up, whether it be from sickness or how gross it was just watching Endo and Chika.

After that Chika was ushering Sakura to bed after feeding him warm soup as he made Endo disinfect the entire couch, much to the man’s discontent.

The next morning Sakura felt even worse. Apparently he slept for 13 hours straight, since by the time he woke up Chika was already awake, forcing medicine down his throat and making him drink what seemed like the whole ocean’s worth of water.

Endo had been forced awake and out of the house to buy real cold medicine instead of the measly Advil pills they kept around the house, which explained why it was so quiet and peaceful.

Sakura fell in and out of sleep as he slumped on the couch watching whatever was airing on TV, Chika occasionally coming over to give him some food. Honestly, Sakura was impressed. He was handed a plate of omurice that looked and tasted even better than Kotoha’s, which was not an easy feat in Sakura’s mind.

When Sakura asked if Chika had been practicing, he nodded and said he had been forcing Endo to eat it, and apparently the first few times Endo ate it he had been bedridden for a few days, unable to comprehend how Sakura ate a whole plate in the first place.

The thought of it made Sakura laugh, a warm feeling spreading through his chest. It was a similar feeling when he watched how Chika pampered him, constantly checking up on him and making sure he was doing alright.

It was an odd, foreign emotion. But somehow, Sakura didn’t hate it.

Sometime in the middle of the day, their doorbell rang and Chika opened the door to see 2 Furin kids, one with an eye patch and dangly earrings and another with blonde hair and a wimpy face. He stood silently as the eyepatch kid smiled and asked, “Hello! Is this where Haruka Sakura lives? We’re his classmates, and we wanted to check up on how he’s doing!”

Chika nodded, pretending not to notice the blonde kid shaking like a leaf in the wind as he asked them to wait at the door as he walked over to Sakura and tapped him gently on the shoulder, waking him up from his nap. “Some Furin kids are here to see you,” he said. “Some kid with an eyepatch, and another plain looking one.”

“Hmm? Suo and Nirei?” Sakura asked, groggily pulling himself to his feet. “What’re they doing here?”

“Ask them yourself.”

Sakura wandered over to the front door, where both of them were waiting patiently, a twitchy smile on Nirei’s face. “What’re you guys doing here?” he asked in a scratchy voice.

“We came to see you!” Nirei looked really worried. “We thought you were sick, so we wanted to make sure you’re okay!”

Sakura felt really surprised. “Oh.. thanks but I’m doing okay.”

“Are you sure? You don’t look okay.” Suo commented, eying his red face and stuffy nose.

“I’m fine.” Sakura snapped, turning around. “I’m gonna go back to bed. Thanks for coming.”

“Anytime!” Nirei exclaimed, as Sakura slowly closed the door behind them.

Collapsing back on the couch, Sakura heaved a heavy sigh, feeling Chika sit down next to his head, pressing the back of his hand to Sakura’s forehead. “You still have a fever.” he murmured, running his hand through Sakura’s hair.

Sakura closed his eyes, feeling soft fingers comb out the tangles on his head. “Mhmm.”

“Were those Furin kids your friends?”

“..Nah. They just follow me around.”

Sakura heard Chika laugh quietly. “They seem to like you a lot. You’re the captain too, aren’t you?”

Sakura opened his eyes. “How’d you know?”

“A guess.”

“Hmph. I don’t like them very much. They keep bothering me.”

“Whatever you say, Haruka.”

They sat in silence as Sakura slowly felt his mind drift, the sensation of fingers running through his hair and soft breathing taking over before he fell into a deep sleep.

When Sakura woke up, the sun was setting and cold medicine had been placed on his forehead. He jolted up, feeling the medicine fall into his lap as Endo lifted his head from where he had the TV on, smiling in relief. “You’re finally awake.”

Sakura yawned, nodding his head as he took a pill out of the container and popped it into his mouth, breaking it up with his teeth so the effects would kick in faster. “How long was I sleeping for?”

“Well, I got back 5 hours ago, so for at least 5 hours. You were out kid, y’know that. I had the TV blasting and you were still dead asleep.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Sakura stood up, feeling all his joints pop from being still for so long. “Where’s Takiishi?”

Endo paused the TV to turn around and face him fully. “Oh yeah, that’s right. Guess what. When I got home, I saw you sleeping but Chika had also fallen asleep on you.” Endo pulled out his phone to show him a picture where Sakura was fast asleep laying on Chika’s lap, while Chika leaned half his body on Sakura’s shoulder, eyes closed peacefully.

Endo sighed dreamily. “He almost killed me when I woke up. But it's okay.” Suddenly his eyes darkened as he pointed his phone threateningly at Sakura. “Don’t you dare tell him I have these pictures. He’ll make me delete them, and I absolutely will not delete these.”

“Delete what?” Chika walked over to them, rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he yawned. Endo stood up instantly, wrapping Chika in his arms as he shifted from side to side, kissing the top of Chika’s head as he insisted, “Nothing! I just took some pictures of Sakura that he wanted me to delete!”

“Oh really? You should show me.”

Sakura smirked, watching as Endo’s face paled. “Yeah Endo. Show him those pictures.”

Endo sighed in defeat as he opened his phone and gave it to Chika, eyes saddening in loss. Surprisingly, Chika hummed in content as he smiled gently, handing Endo the phone back as he said, “Send those to me.”

Jaw wide open, Endo looked at Sakura, who had a similar expression on his face. “Did you give him something funny?” Endo hissed.

“What? Of course not, I was sleeping!” Sakura argued, eying Chika out of the corner of his eye.

“Endo, order food I’m hungry.” Chika called out. “Get whatever Haruka wants.”

“Alright Haruka,” Endo gave Sakura his ever-so annoying smirk. “Should I call you that too? It sounds funny.”

“Shut up. Your name is funnier. Who named you Yamato anyway?”

“My parents, thank you very much. Anyway, what do you want? I’m also pretty hungry.”

The next day when Sakura walked in the classroom, he was flooded with questions asking about his well being, as well as a comment from Kiryu “Who knew you could get fevers!”

“Sakura, are you feeling better now?” Nirei asked. “When we came over to your house yesterday, you seemed really sick!”

“Yeah I’m better now.” Sakura nodded, overwhelmed by the attention. “I think I got sick from jumping in that river.”

“Ohh, that makes sense. By the way, I didn’t know you had such a nice house!”

“Huh? Oh yeah. My brother owns it. I think.”

“So that red head guy was your brother? He didn’t look like you so I couldn’t tell!”

“Yeah. We’re not related but.. He’s like… my adoptive brother.”

Nirei seemed fascinated as he jotted things down in his notebook. “So you have an adoptive older brother? That’s so cool! He was kinda scary though.”

“Hmm. I guess he can sometimes be scary.”

“Hey Sakura!” Anzai came over and threw an arm around Sakura’s shoulder. “Since you're feeling better, why don’t we go out to eat? In celebration!”

“Celebration of what?” Sakura asked, confused.

“C’mon bud, you're our new captain! We gotta celebrate that! You can pay for us too!”

“Huh?” Sakura’s eyes widened. “I don’t think I have enough money for that.”

“Hmm, yeah you look like you don’t. Let’s go somewhere cheap then! What do you like to eat?”

“Umm.. omurice?”

Nirei smiled as he shouted, “Let’s go to Kotoha’s cafe! Her omurice is the best!”

“I can’t make omurice for your entire class!” Kotoha shouted at Sakura, sighing when she saw the large crowd standing outside. “I just bought these eggs yesterday.” she muttered. “Fine, come in.”

Nirei beamed. “Yay! Thanks Kotoha, you're the best!”

Their class gathered almost all the chairs in the cafe around one large table, all chattering amongst one another. Sakura felt oddly out of place. He was seated in the middle of everyone, but was the quietest. People spoke around him, but nobody really spoke to him.

“Sakura!” Someone shouted, snapping Sakura out of whatever trance he had been in. “What’s your biggest fear?”

“Huh?” What a random question. “Umm, probably like babies or something.”

Suo smiled next to him. “Are you sure it's not romantic feelings? You always seem a bit scared anytime we see anything romantic.”

“Excuse me?! I have never done that before!”

“Sure, sure.”

“Anyway I’m deathly afraid of bugs.” One guy said across from Sakura. He shivered as his face paled. “They’re so..freaky! Every time I see one it makes me want to throw up.”

Tsuegara nodded. “Bugs are scary, but do you know what’s scarier? Ghosts!” His voice began to stutter. “J-just thinking of it makes me want to die.. And because of it I always shower with my eyes wide open!”

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Kiryu asked quietly, biting on his lollipop as he cocked a pierced eyebrow. “I don’t think I could ever do that.”

Tsuegara grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently. “You don’t understand!” he gasped. “You can’t touch ghosts no matter how much you train! It's like a curse!”

“I don’t know if that’s how it works..” Kiryu mumbled, eyes lighting up when Kotoha wheeled over a cart full of plates of omurice.

“I expect very high tips.” she snarled, glaring right at Sakura. “I have to go buy a whole new set of eggs now because of you guys.”

“Thanks Kotoha!” Nirei smiled, ignoring the withering gaze Kotoha shot at him, taking a big heaping spoonful of the omurice. “Mhmm! It's so good!”

As they ate, Sakura noticed outside of the window, Umemiya was frantically waving, eyes lighting up when he saw Sakura notice him. Then he was dragged away by Hiragi, and Sakura felt his eyes widen when he saw a person following them, one of the most beautiful he’d ever seen.

They turned and smiled at Sakura, winking before walking off behind Umemiya. Sakura sat in bewilderment for a second before he shook his head. Maybe he imagined them.

In the end, each person in their class paid for their own omurice, but Sakura was forced to leave a humongous tip that was supposed to count for all of them. Kotoha huffed when she saw the amount, reluctantly letting him off the hook since she said it was enough to cover a new batch of eggs.

The next day, the entire school was called up to the rooftop. Hiragi had said it was to allow them to meet new people, and for Umemiya to show off his garden, which he was already doing, posing glamorously and asking people to take pictures of him.

Sakura took a sip of the juice he had been handed, nearly choking when it tasted salty and like tomatoes. He silently handed it to Nirei, who looked in surprise and took a sip, nearly choking as well.

Sakura wandered around, watching as Suo and Nirei began talking with people he didn’t recognize, leaving him to wander around without anyone to talk to. Suddenly, a figure stepped in front of him and Sakura looked up to see the beautiful person he saw yesterday.

“You must be Sakura!” they said, surprising Sakura with how deep their voice was. “I finally get to meet you!” They grabbed Sakura’s hands, holding them close to their chest.

Sakura felt heat rise to his cheeks as Suo and Nirei snickered on the side. “H-huh?” he stammered. “Who are you?”

“Sakura!” Nirei hissed. “That’s Tsubakino! They’re one of the 4 Kings!”

“Huh?” Sakura’s eyes felt like they were popping out of his head. “You’re one of the 4 Kings?!”

“Haha, I am dear! I’m nothing special though. You can just call me Tsubaki!” Tsubaki smiled bashfully.

“T-Tsubaki..” Nirei said the word awkwardly, like it was foreign on his tongue. “Do you know Sakura?”

“Of course I do! I’ve heard of everything he’s done, and his appearance is so… so.. Distinguishable!”

Sakura opened his mouth to say something but he was cut off by Tsubaki flying around him, brushing his hair and touching his skin. “You have such a cool hair color! It really matches your skin! And your skin is so clear, and your hair is so soft! And your stoic face completely matches your simple outfits! It's very fascinating!”

Suo chuckled, watching as Sakura became and more flustered with all the attention he was receiving. “You’ve never seen Tsubaki before Sakura? Even though we’re in an all boys school?”

“Well I saw them, but I never really paid attention!”

Tsubaki sighed, and although they had a dreamy expression, there was a hint of sadness. “You probably could never imagine someone like me wearing such a girly outfit in an all boys school..”

Sakura held his hands out as he shook his head furiously. “No no! That’s not what I meant! I just don’t really care about what clothes you wear! There’s nothing wrong with dressing like that!”

Tsubaki squealed as they wrapped Sakura in a bone-crushing hug. “You’re so sweet! I don’t know how I’ve never spoken to you before!”

“Can’t… breathe..” Sakura choked out, feeling the blood leave his head.

“Oh sorry!” Tsubaki let him go, and Sakura felt his feet wobble. “I know!” Tsubaki flashed Sakura a smile. “Why don’t we go on a date later?”

“D.. D-date?”

“This is so exciting!” Nirei led the way, holding out his phone with the GPS on it. “We’re really going to a restaurant with Tsubakino, one of the 4 Kings! Y’know, according to my notebook, they love sweets! So I wonder if we’re going to a cafe or something!”

“I’m not quite sure we’re going to a cafe Nirei.” Suo pointed ahead at the large entrance sign, reading “Kisei Street”.

“Huh? But this is the red light district. Are you sure this is the right place?” Nirei frantically looked around, tapping his phone.

“You’re the one with the GPS.” Sakura responded, walking in despite Nirei’s protests.

“C’mon Nirei!” Suo smiled gently. “Sakura will protect us if anything happens!”

Sakura turned around to see Nirei screaming as a young woman in a maid outfit approached him with an advertisement sign, sighing and rolling his eyes. “Where’s this stupid restaurant?”

“Um..should be just up ahead!”

“Alright let’s go-” Suddenly Sakura felt a sudden weight fall on his chest as he fell onto the ground, a warm body sitting on his.

“Sakura!” Nirei screamed. “A girl fell from the sky!”

“Oh! Oh my goodness!” The girl’s voice was soft and squeaky, as she pulled Sakura to his feet, trying to dust off the dirt on him. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry! I’m really really sorry! But I have to go now, sorry!”

“Hold on.” Suo grabbed her arm, eyes narrowing when she flinched. “You’re injured.” he simply said, pointing to her calf, where her dress was ripped and her leg was dirtied with grime and blood.

“Oh you’re right!” she seemed genuinely surprised, which was a bit strange. “Oh and my necklace is gone too! When did that happen?”

“Sheesh,” an accented male voice carried over the loud chatter of the busy street. “Ya made us run all over for ya. This money ain’t catching itself, ya know.”

In front of them there was a gang of older men, all at least 30 approaching them, the man who spoke reaching up to grab the girl’s arm. Sakura slapped the hand away, stepping in front of the girl.

“You should run.” he murmured to her, before speaking out loudly, “Why’re you after the girl?”

“She’s got a bounty on her head.” the leader grinned. “Hand her over.”

“Not a chance. Picking on some girl is pretty pathetic, you know. Ain’t no honor in that.”

“Psh, what’re you talkin’ bout kid? I ain’t do nothin’ for honor. We gonna get rich when we turn her in.”

“Hmph.” Suo stepped forward beside Sakura. “There’s no point in arguing with them. Let’s get this over with so we’re not late for dinner.”

“Fine.” Sakura charged forward with Suo, and it didn’t take long before the entire gang was knocked out on the ground.

“C’mon let’s go.” Sakura motioned, feeling a prickle of wind blow past him as he ducked to the side, barely dodging a fist that came flying in his face. Instinctively, he leaned over and kicked upward at the person, frowning when it felt like he was kicking a brick wall.

“Stop!” the girl shouted, fighting her way in between them. “Kan, stop! They helped me!”

The man stopped, backing off as he pulled the girl with him. “Shizuka, are you alright?” he asked, eyes narrowing when he saw the bruises and cuts all over her body.

“I’m fine!” Shizuka put a reassuring hand over his arm. “These guys saved me.” she said, motioning to the bodies on the ground.

Relief instantly flooded the man’s face, and suddenly he looked a lot kinder. He bowed to the 3 of them, shouting “Thank you so much! I’m so so so sorry I hit you earlier! Please accept my deepest apologies!”

“No biggie!” Suo smiled as Sakura huffed. He supposed that apology was good enough for now. “Who are you guys anyway?”

“Us? Oh yes, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Kanji Nakamura, and this is Shizuka Narita! Nice to meet you guys!” Kanji smiled as he rubbed the back of his head shyly.

Shizuka nodded as she beamed. “Yes, I’m a singer at a bar and Kan is always saving me! I’m always incredibly grateful!”

“You should hear Shizuka’s voice!” Kanji smiled, eyes shining. “It's like an angel! Her voice is incredibly beautiful!”

“Oh stop! You’re making me blush!”

Sakura turned around, refusing to watch another second of that before he threw up. “Huh? Sakura wait!” Nirei called out. “We’re not done talking with Shizuka and Kanji!”

“Yeah, but I know I’m hungry.” On cue, Sakura’s stomach gave a large rumble, causing Nirei and Suo to laugh.

“Oh are you guys in a hurry? Sorry for taking up your time.” Kanji smiled sheepishly.

“It's not a big deal!” Nirei stammered, waving his hands. “We’re just looking for a restaurant!”

“Oh really? Which one? I can help you find it.”

“Oh it's.. Right here, this one!”

“Hey! That’s the bar where Shizuka works! We were about to go there. We can go together!”

Suo and Nirei nodded as Sakura started walking ahead, even though he had no idea where they were supposed to go. “Hey, guys could I ask something from you?”

Sakura turned around to see Kanji looking at them with a serious expression. “Please don’t tell Tsubaki about all of this. You guys are friends with them right? It’d be a hassle if they find out, so could you keep your lips sealed just on this one?”

The 3 of them nodded and they walked to the restaurant.

“Huh?” Sakura and Nirei’s jaws dropped wide open when they walked in and saw Tsubaki dancing around a pole, moving elegantly and gracefully as they held a microphone in their hand and sang ferociously.

When they got off the stage to the sound of applause, Tsubaki waved at them, motioning for them to come over, sitting down with them at a table. “Hey boys!”

“Tsubaki!” Nirei had his pen and notebook out as he scribbled furiously. “I didn’t know you performed! That’s so cool! How did you learn? When did you learn? What kind of dance is it?”

Tsubaki laughed, downing a colored liquid that was either alcohol or juice. “It's called pole dancing. I saw it one time and I fell in love! I wanted to perform in front of people, but there aren’t any bars near Furin so I came here! Did you guys like it?”

“Yes it was so cool!” Nirei exclaimed.

“Awww, you’re so sweet. Feel free to order whatever you want! It's on me!”

“Really?”

Now Sakura was interested. As the waiter came by to take their orders, he ratted off a list of food long enough to feed 3 families as Tsubaki paled with each new order. “Are you really going to eat all that?” Suo asked, whereas he ordered only a glass of water, saying he was on a diet.

“Of course.” Sakura grumbled, feeling grouchier as he got hungrier. “It's free, isn’t it?”

“I hope so.” Tsubaki sighed as they looked into their wallet. “My wealth isn’t endless, you know?”

“Sakura!” “Sakura, why would you do that?”

“Huh? I’m hungry!”

Behind them, a voice sounded loudly. “We’ll take another fruit plate! Huh, oh yeah, put it on that person’s tab. Yup, we know them don’t worry.”

Tsubaki turned around to see two identical twins, one grinning while the other stuffed his face. “Hey, you finally noticed us Tsubaki!”

Tsubaki’s jaw dropped to the floor when they saw the number of plates piled up. “Sasakis? What are you guys doing here? And how much food did you order?!”

“Not much! We were about to order dessert actually!”

“Cancel the fruit plate! And the dessert!”

Sakura stuffed his face with the appetizers that came out when suddenly the lights darkened and the stage lit up as Shizuka emerged onto the stage, freshened up as the music started. Her voice silenced the entire restaurant, each note carrying a mystical tune to it, an angelic sound Sakura had never heard.

Then it was over, and the restaurant roared with applause as Shizuka bowed and made her way off the stage, running over to Tsubaki to enwrap them in a hug. As they chattered, Kanji came over with their food, struggling to carry so many of Sakura’s plates.

“Thanks for keeping our secret,” he said, looking fondly at Shizuka. “I think the world would explode if Tsubkai heard about what happened. Maybe it's because they’re like sisters, or just because they’re really close, but Tsubaki would snap if they heard what happened.”

Sakura was half listening, more intent on stuffing his face. The food was cheap and oily, but sometimes that was what tasted the best. He was listening, however, when the door burst open and a man rushed in, eyes locked on Kanji as he shouted, “Bad news! There’s some guys we’ve never seen before! They’re causing a huge scene!” The man stepped closer, speaking in more hushed tones so only their table could hear. “They seem to be with the guys from earlier.”

“From earlier? I heard you guys beat up some drunkards, right? Is it a big deal?” Tsubaki asked.

Kanji nodded, looking at Sakura, Suo, and Nirei. “Could you three kids help us out? Tsubaki, Sasaki’s, could you protect the bar? There seems to be a lot of them, and we need to keep the restaurant and Shizuka safe.”

Suo and Nirei stood up, but Sakura remained seated, trying to stuff as much food into his mouth before he ran off after them, chewing loudly. “Was that really necessary bro?” Nirei asked, exasperation showing on his face.

Sakura swallowed, nodding his head. “Yes. I can’t fight on an empty stomach.”

As they ran, Kanji smiled beside them. “You didn’t have to come, you know. We really appreciate it.”

“We?”

“Yes. I’m the Chairman of the Roppo Ichiza. We help maintain peace around here, so some of the guys should already be up ahead.”

“Huh? You’re the Chairman? I didn’t know, that’s so cool!” Nirei shouted as they ran.

“Haha, it's not really a big deal. Look, they’re up ahead.” Kanji pointed to a group of men fighting in suits against a much larger group of sleazy looking drunkards.

They joined in the fight and Sakura was impressed. Even though they were outnumbered, the Roppo Ichiza made up for it with sheer power and experience. Soon enough, the dust settled down and they had won fairly easily.

“That wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be.” Sakura commented, looking around. Most of the Roppo Ichiza barely had a scratch on them, although they all looked exhausted.

“Heeey, what’s this we have here?” Some kid with a man bun and bowl cut came walking up to them, a ribbon tied around his wrist. Everyone that followed behind him had the same ribbon somewhere on their arm as they chattered amongst each other. “Once we’re done here, we can grill some meat!”

The Roppo Ichiza frowned. “How many of them are there?” someone mumbled.

“Huh? Oh, we’re not a part of them.” Bowl Cut said. “We’re called Gravel. From the Sunaba district.”

“Do you think wearing suits makes them stronger?” Someone from Gravel asked as they began discussing buying suits as if they were just walking leisurely down the street.

“What’s wrong with these guys?” Sakura muttered. “Can’t we just fight?”

“We can handle this quickly,” Bowl Cut said, holding his hand out. “Give us Shizuka Narita and we’ll leave. Besides, y’all look pretty tired out. Wouldn’t that be easier? Win-win situation!”

“As if we’d ever do that,” Kanji snarled. “Our job is to protect the people here. We’ll do that even if it means we all lose!”

Bowl Cut sighed. “Alright, so we’re gonna have to take the hard way out. That’s a shame.”

The fight continued on for a long time, and over time Sakura saw the Roppo Ichiza members getting more and more tired as they started to fall like flies, one by one. Meanwhile, Bowl Cut observed in the back, making occasional comments like, “That guy looks funny” or “This is like a boss fight, isn’t it?”

Sakura kicked the guy he had been held up with, finally free as he glanced around. They were outnumbered 4 to 1, and a huge swarm of Gravel guys crowded around Kanji, who fought them all off. Suo was busy with his own matchups, and Nirei was hiding in the corner, trying to stay out of the way.

Without a second thought, Sakura ran at Bowl Cut, watching as his mellow eyes turned to him without the slightest hint of interest. “Oh? You’re not part of Roppo Ichiza, right? How come you’re here then?”

“Because you’re a jerk!” Sakura responded, kicking as hard as he could, frowning when Bowl Cut blocked easily, before countering with an uppercut.

Bowl Cut wasn’t strong, but he was fast. Sakura would punch him and he’d dodge easily, disappearing from sight as he appeared behind Sakura. Not that Sakura was outmatched. Their fight consisted more of dodging and blocking than actual hitting, which was rather annoying.

Eventually Sakura gave up dodging and grabbed Bowl Cut’s arm from where it had punched him in the face, flipping him over as he threw him on the ground. Sakura raised his foot and stopped down, grunting when Bowl Cut dodged with agility that should be considered unfair, feeling his center of gravity shift as he now was the one rolling on the ground as Bowl Cut stood above him.

“You’re pretty good.” Bowl Cut smiled, looking creepy with blood pouring down his face.

“And you’re pretty annoying.” Sakura felt a vein pop in his neck as he jumped up to continue fighting.

As Sakura fought, he felt himself falling further and further into the flow of a fight that he enjoyed so much. The way his body moved faster and felt stronger was addicting. Soon his body was moving before he could even control it as his mouth curved upward into a maniacal smile that he was slowly becoming familiar with.

Bowl Cut began moving slower and slower, and soon Sakura felt himself overpowering him as he landed punch after kick after punch, watching as Bowl Cut’s man bun fell out to reveal long black hair.

“You’re so slow,” Sakura grimaced, wiping blood off his mouth. “What happened to getting to the girl? You can’t even get through me.”

Bowl Cut stood up and touched his hair, seemingly surprised to feel it flowing in the wind. “Do you happen to have a spare hair tie?”

“..No?”

“What a shame. It's inconvenient to fight with my hair down.” Bowl Cut curled his fists. “Oh well. Let’s continue.”

Sakura nodded, frowning when he saw other Gravel members suddenly jump at him. “This ain’t no one-on-one..” he snarled, ducking to the side as he punched one guy in the face and kicked another away.

“Sorry, street fights are never fair.” Bowl Cut apologized, jumping at him from behind, knocking Sakura to the ground.

Just as Sakura was about to jump up, he saw a figure towering behind Bowl Cut. Instinctively he jumped away, barely dodging the fist that slammed down on Bowl Cut, sending him hurling to the ground just where Sakura had been sitting.

“Where’s Shizuka?” Tsubaki demanded, face furious. “Where is she?”

“Huh? I don’t know.” Bowl Cut looked genuinely confused as he stood up, completely ignoring the blood flowing from the side of his head. “I thought she was still at the bar?”

“You fucker..” Tsubaki looked terrifying when they were mad. “What’s this sick joke?! Tell me where she is right now!”

“I don’t know.” Bowl Cut shrugged. “Maybe one of our guys got her. That's good. Then we can leave.”

“You bastard,” Tsubaki looked ready to explode as they launched forward, slamming Bowl Cut into the ground with a high kick. “Tell me where she is right now!”

Sakura watched in amazement as Tsubaki fought ferociously against Bowl Cut, powering through every one of his attacks like they were weak little flicks. In the end, Tsubaki looked down on an exhausted Bowl Cut, who stared up in defeat. “I don’t know where she is.” he said, flinching as Tsubaki’s eyes flared as they raised their fist for another punch.

“Hold it Tsubaki, she’s right here.”

Sakura whipped his head to the sound of the unfortunately familiar voice, wanting to groan when he saw Endo atop the roof of a low building, holding a shaking Shizuka in his grasp.

Endo’s eyes shone with amusement as he observed the scene below him, eyes focusing on Sakura for a split second. In that look, Sakura got the feeling that he should stay quiet and watch.

“Hmph. Suzuri, I think I’m gonna have to take back that job I offered to you. I don’t want to speak with losers. But hey. Look at all these Furin guys.”

“Why..” Sakura looked in surprise at Tsubaki, who looked shaken. “Why are you here? Let her go!”

Endo stuck his tongue out, grasping Shizuka harder. “Shut up, I can do whatever I want. But I guess you can have the girl back.” He grabbed Shizuka’s arm and pushed her over the roof edge, smirking as Tsubaki and Kanji scrambled to catch her. Meanwhile, Suzuri used the distraction to squirm away, making a run for it with the remaining Gravel members.

Endo then jumped down himself, pausing for a moment as pain flashed through his face. And Sakura thought his face normally looked ugly, but he felt a huge wave of second-hand embarrassment as Endo hissed “Ouch ouch, that reallllly hurt!”

Kanji hid Shizuka behind his arms, veins popping on his forehead as he shouted, “How dare you show your face here again! The damn nerve you have!”

Tsubaki frowned as well, glaring at Endo. “Sakura, Suo, Nirei, don’t any of you touch him… he’s dangerous.”

Sakura curled his fists and lowered his posture, frown deepening as Endo walked up to him, glancing over at Suo, who was standing protectively in front of Nirei. “You three are pretty interesting, huh? Acting like big-shot heroes! Well done!” Endo lowered his voice to a whisper as he turned so only Sakura could see his face. “Keep the acting up buddy.”

Sakura widened his eyes as he saw Tsubaki and Kanji run in behind Endo, barely stopping himself from shouting out in warning. He didn’t need to, as Endo swiftly dodged, walking away from Sakura as he held his hands out in fake sadness. “What’s with the hostility? I haven’t even done anything!”

“W-who’s that?” Nirei stammered, glancing from side to side as he shivered.

“Go on Tsubaki, tell the underclassmen! Look at them, they’re so confused!”

Tsubaki narrowed their eyes. “That’s Yamato Endo. He was in my grade at Furin but he left… and now he’s back. Unfortunately.”

Nirei and Suo gasped. “The former Furin student...” “Yamato Endo?!”

Endo rubbed the back of his head bashfully. “Heh, I guess I’m a bit famous, huh? Anyway,” his eyes focused back on Sakura, who was glaring at him. “I wanted to talk a bit with you, Sakura. Why don’t you leave Furin? You’d be better off alone.”

Sakura’s eyes widened, as he saw Endo’s mischievous grin. “What are you talking about..” he muttered.

“T-that’s n-not true at all!” Nirei shouted, stumbling over his words, eyes wide with tears. “Don’t s-say stuff you d-don’t understand..!”

“Huh?” Endo curled his lip in disgust. “With the way you’re stuttering, I can’t take any of that bullshit seriously. Grow up before you speak to me, little man.”

“Take it back.” Tsubaki stood up straight, glaring straight ahead at Endo as they kicked again, followed quickly by Kanji and Suo. “You don’t understand Sakura at all!”

“Goodness gracious, calm down.” Endo dodged each attack before retreating back to where nobody was standing. “I’m praising him! He’s talented, and he’s wasting his talents here! Just saying! And besides,” Endo’s eyes darkened. “I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand him.”

Their eyes met, and during that time, Sakura felt like he could see the game Endo was playing. As if he was watching the pieces move on their own, while Endo controlled the board. Maybe this could be really interesting.

“Anyway, you guys are pretty cool! I think I’ll try to go talk to that old man and tell him to stop chasing the girl.” Endo turned around and began walking away, waving goodbye. “You’re welcome! I’ll see you later.”

Sakura stood up to chase after him, but Tsubaki held him back. “Wait! Don’t go after him. We have to clean up here.”

Sakura felt a wave of disappointment run through him as he backed down. “Oh, okay.”

After they handled all the Gravel members that had been knocked out thanks to the Roppo Ichiza, Tsubaki wanted to hold another dinner for everyone, but Sakura had to say that his brother was texting him, telling him to go. Which was not a lie. Endo had been pestering his phone for the past half hour, begging him to hurry up and meet him down the street away from everyone else.

When Sakura finally found his car, Endo was fast asleep, snoring like a bear. Sakura hit the horn hard, jolting him awake as Endo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“Huh? Oh, took you long enough, kid. Making me fall asleep here..” Endo shook his head to get rid of the sleepiness. “Anyway, that was fun, wasn’t it? I had fun. But my feet hurt a lot.”

“You were so embarrassing.” Sakura felt heat rise to his cheeks. “I can’t believe you did that! Why did you even have Shizuka anyway?”

“Oho, you got the hots for her or something?”

“No!”

“Haha, I was kidding. I just saw her running like a damsel in distress so I grabbed her. Then I made her go up onto the roof so I could look all cool when I made my introduction. Good thing they caught her or else that’d be pretty bad for her.”

“Dude..” Sighing, Sakura shook his head. “What’d you mean anyway? By I’m better off alone?”

“Hmm? Oh that’s all bullshit. Don't listen to that crap kid. Actually don’t listen to anything I say. It's probably gonna be a lie.”

“Oh.” Sakura felt relief flood through him. Not that he was unfamiliar with being alone, but there were some people he wanted to hold on to. Two people specifically.

“I’m gonna send a letter to Furin.”

“Huh? Why?”

“It’ll be fun. I’ve got a whole army of guys, y’know. What if we went back to Furin? You could be our spy?”

“Spy?” Sakura couldn’t lie, that sounded fun. “For real?”

“For real. And Chika can fight Umemiya again. He’s been wanting to for a while.”

“Woah.” Sakura never thought about them fighting. “Who do you think would win? Chika, of course. He’s never lost against Umemiya.”

“Really? He’s cooler than I thought.”

“I’m cool too, y’know.”

“Not after that. I was trying so hard not to cringe at you. Please never do that again.”

Endo drove them home, arguing with Sakura along the way. When he got out of the car, he looked at Sakura seriously. “Haruka, are you sure you want to do this? You’re going to be betraying all of them.”

Sakura looked him dead in the eye and said, “Yeah, I’m sure. Let’s do it.”

Chapter Text

The next morning when Sakura walked into school, he was greeted by a usual chorus of good mornings from his classmates, but something felt off. As he sat down in his usual seat, the door opened and Tsubaki smiled at them. “Could you three come up to the roof for a second?”

Sakura took a seat in between Suo and Nirei, as Umemiya sat at the head of the picnic table, the 4 Kings seated on the remaining benches. Hiragi sighed and took out his stomach pills when he saw them, grumbling something under his breath that made Tsubaki give him a small push.

“Alright!” Umemiya beamed at them. “We’re all here, so let’s get started! Well first, I brought some of Kotoha’s sandwiches! C’mon, dig in everyone!”

Sakura was the first to grab a sandwich, devouring it in 2 bites as everyone thanked Umemiya. As cups were passed around, Sakura nearly choked on his food when he saw Sugishita glaring at him.

He watched as Sugishita placed a cup down for everyone except Sakura, smirking at him during the process. “Hey you bastard, gimme a cup too!” Sakura shouted, standing up. “You wanna fight? Let’s go right now! Over there!”

Sugishita responded by crushing up a cup and throwing it at Sakura’s face, hitting him right in the forehead. “Alright that’s it!” Sakura was now rolling up his sleeves, trying to stomp over to Sugishta if it wasn’t for Suo and Nirei holding him down.

“Sugishita, that wasn’t very nice.” Umemiya frowned, looking sadly at Sugishita who panicked and grabbed the cup from Sakura, uncrumpling it and handing it back to him politely. “Wow, that’s much better! Good job Sugishita!” Umemiya gave him a big thumbs up.

Sakura felt every vein in his body popping from the stupid cocky grin Tarzan gave him.

Hiragi sighed, putting down his cup. “Thanks for the food, but shouldn’t we get started Umemiya?”

Umemiya nodded. “You’re right. Well, first things first, Sakura.” He turned to face Sakura, the playfulness gone from his eyes. “How did it feel to meet Endo?”

“Huh?” Sakura tried to remember the first time he met Endo. All he remembered was being annoyed because he kept teasing him. “He was.. A big asshole.”

Umemiya laughed. “An asshole, huh? Well Tsubaki said he seemed pretty interested in you. So I wanted you three to know a bit more about him.” He gestured to the people around them. “So we’re going to have to start from the beginning. So that’s why all these people are here.”

Umemiya turned to Nirei. “How much do you know about how Bofurin was established?”

“Huh? Well, first, 5 students came to Furin and..”

Sakura felt his attention wavering as Nirei went full story-teller mode, explaining the backstory of Furin everyone already knew. He didn’t really care about Furin, he just wanted to know what Umemiya and the rest of Furin thought of Endo and Chika.

“And that’s it.” Nirei bowed, cheeks pink with excitement. “That’s how the curtains fell on this volume of Bofurin’s history.”

“Yup, that basically sums it up!” Umemiya clapped along with everyone else, ignoring how Hiragi looked up, shocked as he gave him a dirty look. “What?”

“Don’t be stupid, there was a lot more!” Hiragi shouted, as the other Kings mildly agreed with amused expressions. Tsubaki laughed. “Remember when he left you to fight alone against 30 people?”

“Of course I remember! And he still owes me for that!”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Anyway, that was basically the story but you missed a few details.” Umemiya looked back over at Nirei again. “What do you know about Endo?”

Now Sakura was listening, eyes focused on Nirei like everyone else. “W-well, anyone who goes to Furin knows about him. He’s like… a legend. When he was a first year with all of you guys, he created his own small faction. And they never lost to any of the upperclassmen. And he’d go fight other teams, not just at Furin.” Nirei glanced nervously at Sakura. “And I heard.. If Endo has his eyes on you you’re dead meat… But anyway, Endo was like the final wall when it came to forming Bofurin. But you guys still did it. You broke through and Bofuirn was formed. And then.. Endo and his group left.”

Umemiya nodded. “Almost. What you said had… one big mistake. We..” he sighed somberly. “We never won against Endo and his group. They were the ones to leave Furin, so we could take over.”

Nirei gasped, eyes widening. Sakura frowned, hoping it would be enough to pass off as surprise. “Does that mean..”

“Yeah. We’ve never won against them.”

“No way…” Nirei gasped again, trembling. “What.. what do you mean by that?”

Umemiya smiled sadly, nostalgia shining in his eyes. “You already know how we united the school to protect the town, but on the contrary, Endo and his group wanted to keep it chaotic, so they could enjoy fighting. But even then, every time we fought, it was like fighting against the ocean. But eventually, they left as we continued to unite everyone.”

“And… when the time comes… Sakura, I’m going to count on you to handle Endo.”

Sakura’s eyes widened as he pointed at himself. “Me?”

“Yes.” Umemiya’s eyes were full of confidence, full of trust. “I believe in you.”

Those eyes almost made Sakura feel bad for lying. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Nirei looked around in confusion as he raised his hand politely. “Umm, Umemiya, you’re not going to be fighting Endo?”

Umemiya shook his head. “Nope. I’ve never even fought him before, actually.”

“Huh? But you said you fought Endo..”

“Endo and his faction. There was one other legend.. Besides him actually. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of him but his name is Chika Takiishi.”

Sakura felt his eyes widen, a similar expression on Nirei’s face. “Oh..” Suo looked surprised as well. “I’ve never heard of a second one.”

“Yeah. He’s a lot stronger than Endo. So much that I’ve… I’ve never won against him.”

Nirei began shaking. “N-no way.. There’s a monster like that out there?”

“Yeah.. he’s probably the strongest man in Furin history.”

“...And that’s what he said.” Sakura laid on the couch, playing a game on his phone as Endo and Chika listened from where they were cooking something in the kitchen. Actually it was only Chika, but Endo said he was helping.

“Bwahaha!” Endo seemed to find it very funny, since he was practically rolling on the floor as Chika walked around him. “He really said that? Since when did he get so funny? I’m really a legend?!”

“I don’t know, you don’t look like a legend!” Sakura lowered his voice to a mutter. “More like a sewer rat.”

“I heard that!”

“Yeah yeah, whatever. Get up off the ground, you look so stupid.”

Endo walked over to pull on Sakura’s cheeks, giving him a nasty smirk as he cooed, “Watch out little Haruka, Umemiya said Big Scary Endo is gonna beat you up!”

“Get off me!” Sakura sprung to his feet, standing up on the couch so he’d be taller than Endo. “Let’s take this outside buddy! Right now me and you! We’ll see who’s gonna win! Which is obviously me!”

Endo laughed and pushed him over, laughing even harder when Sakura fell off balance. He only stopped laughing when Sakura grabbed onto his arm to catch himself, causing them both to fall over clumsily.

Chika walked over to them and took one look at them clawing at each other on the floor and walked away, sighing. “Dinner’s almost ready. Yamato, stop acting like a kid and do something.”

Sakura was shocked with how quickly Endo scampered up, chasing after Chika like a little dog. Gross.

They ate in silence, mostly because Endo and Sakura were too busy stuffing their faces with food to talk. Once it was all gone, Endo burped loudly before thanking Chika who scowled at him.

“Hey Haruka.”

“Yeah?”

Endo smiled at him. “Why don’t we mess around a bit with those Furin people? Look, I have such a good idea.”

The next day as Sakura walked around the school, he looked around, watching as chatter ran amongst the halls. “Did you hear about the note?” “Yeah what do you think Umemiya’s gonna do about it?”

Sakura walked into his classroom, nodding at Suo and Nirei who waved at him. “Sakura! Do you know what’s going on?” Nirei asked, looking around, confused.

Sakura shrugged. “I heard something about a note. But I don’t know.”

Before Nirei could respond, the intercom sounded and Umemiya’s cheerful voice stopped all conversations. “Good morning boys! Today’s weather is looking pretty nice! Make sure to stay hydrated though!” A loud sigh sounded. “I’m going to cut right to the chase. I need all the grade captains and their vice captains on the roof, right now.”

Sakura didn’t glance at either of his vice captains as he ran for the stairs, already hearing Nirei and Suo following close behind. On the roof, the mood was nothing like the last time Sakura came. The captains were talking amongst one another, grave expressions on their faces.

“Hey guys! Sorry for the rush this morning!” As Umemiya walked by, followed by the 4 Kings, everyone stood up straight. “Anyway, you probably already know the reason I called you all up here.” Suddenly, his voice deepened into a hardened voice. “We got a note this morning from Yamato Endo. In 2 weeks, they’re coming here, to destroy all of us.”

Sakura saw the people in front of them tense up, as a collective deep breath was taken. “And.. one other thing.” Sakura had never seen Umemiya look as furious as he did now. “There is apparently… a traitor among us.”

Sakura looked up, watching as Umemiya’s eyes ran over all of the captains, most of which looked shocked. “A traitor?” “Who?”

“If you want to step out, do it now.” Umemiya said coldly. “Otherwise, Bofurin will not hesitate to purge you.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Umemiya sighed, lowering his head. “I see. It doesn’t matter. Even with a traitor, we will still fight against Noroshi, and win. Information will not matter. What will matter is our strength to fight, to protect this school, this town, and all of our comrades.”

Sakura watched as Umemiya walked away, releasing them all from the unbearable tension. “A traitor?” Nirei was pale next to him, his breathing growing faster and faster. “No way.. No way there’s a traitor! I can’t believe it!”

Sakura had to suppress the urge to scoff. Instead, he looked Nirei dead in the eye and lied straight through his teeth, “Don’t worry. We’ll find this traitor and beat them up.”

Suo smiled, patting Nirei on the back. “Yep, you heard our captain. Don’t worry Nirei, both of us will protect you.”

The rest of the day was filled with training. Sakura was paired up against Hiragi, who was an enjoyable person to fight against. If only Endo let Sakura go all out.

The night before, when Endo had written the letter, he had talked things over with Sakura. “Wouldn’t it be so fun to add a little traitor into the mix?”

“Yeah, sure, that sounds fun.”

“Oh, but there’s one thing kid.”

“Huh? What?”

“If you ever fight any of the Furin punks or whatever, don’t go all out. I don’t know if you realize it or not, but you look a lot like Chika when you fight, and we don't want you to get caught and stuff, so try to focus on reading your opponent's body, since I can tell you suck at that.”

So now Sakura was stuck trying to hold himself back against Hiragi, which was a big shame since it would’ve been a really fun fight. He could feel himself getting better at reading Hiragi’s body though. It was easier to tell when he would go in for a left or right punch, or which direction he’d dodge in.

Eventually, Hiragi sighed, pausing as he caught his breath. “Sakura, you seem distracted. Why don’t you go take a break.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Sakura lifted his head up, panting as well.

Hiragi scowled at him. “You’re not fighting as aggressively as usual. Not that that’s a bad thing, since you’re able to fight for longer now, but it's alright to take breaks too.”

“No, I’m okay.” Sakura said. “I really am. I’m just trying new things out, so it maybe looks different.”

Hiragi sighed, raising his fists. “Well if you say so. Let’s continue.”

They continued fighting until Sakura was literally laying on the ground from exhaustion, feeling like he had just ran 10 marathons in a row. Hiragi was sitting next to him, all the energy drained from him as well.

“Ya gotten better,” Hiragi breathed. When Sakura didn’t respond he asked, “Are ya nervous? About Endo?”

Sakura covered his face with his hands, giving the smallest nod to Hiragi, which seemed to convince him.

Hiragi hummed in response. “It's alright. That’s understandable.”

Sakura looked up, watching as the gym suddenly got a lot livelier as Umemiya walked in, smiling and waving at everyone as he made his way over to Hiragi and Sakura. “Hey guys! Whoo-hoo, Sakura you really beat Hiragi up, huh?”

“Shut yer face,” Hiragi growled, standing up as he dusted himself off. “Not like ya been doing anything anyway.”

“Nonsense, I’ve been helping everyone out? But Sakura, I was wondering if I could talk with you a bit on the roof?”

“Yeah sure.”

Umeymiya sat on the edge of the roof, dangling his legs over the edge. He patted the ground next to him, motioning for Sakura to sit down.

“Are you nervous?”

“Huh? I mean, a little. Why?”

“No reason.” Umemiya sighed. “I’m a bit sad. It's hard to believe we have a spy. I mean.. I like to think of everyone here as my younger siblings. So for them to betray me like that… Hurts my heart.”

Sakura listened attentively, looking ahead at the sky, which was clear and blue, not a single cloud in sight. “Hmm. Who do you think it is?”

Umemiya leaned over the edge, peering straight down. If you fell from this height you’d probably break every bone in your body, maybe even die. “I didn’t want to think about it but.. Endo said it was someone who met with me and the 4 Kings, right after you met Endo.” He turned to Sakura. “So it could be you.”

Sakura felt his pulse quicken as he scoffed, glaring at Umemiya with distrust. “Why would it be me?”

Umemiya laughed, and then the tense mood was gone. “Just kidding. I don’t know why he’d go after you if you were the traitor, and there’s no way you could’ve met him. He doesn’t live around here, after all.”

It was hard for Sakura not to laugh. The irony was a bit too strong here. Instead, he said in a mellow voice, “Yeah. You’re right.”

“AHAHAHAH!”

“Shut up! Shut up shut up!” Sakura kicked Endo in the butt, feeling embarrassed even though Endo wasn’t even laughing at him.

“No way he said all that,” Endo’s laugh turned into a wheeze as he wiped tears from his eyes. “I always knew he was stupid, but not that stupid!”

Sakura couldn’t hold back a snort, and soon he was laughing with Endo as Chika eyed them both with disgust. “Hurry it up you two.” he said, and Sakura could tell from his tone that he was rolling his eyes.

Endo walked ahead to throw his arm around Chika, planting a kiss on top of his head. “Aww, are you jealous that I’m paying more attention to Haruka? Don’t worry Chika, you’ll always be number one in my heart.”

The disgust in the expression Chika made was enough to wither a whole forest, as he pushed Endo away and walked ahead. “Did I say something wrong?” Endo asked, falling back in line with Sakura.

“No you’re just stupid.”

Right now they were walking to some abandoned parking lot, where apparently Endo had ordered all of his so-called “minions” to gather.

“Here we are!” Endo pointed to a large dump, full of wrecked cars and gangsters. Most of them looked average, but Sakura noticed the Noroshi group all talking in a circle. “Good thing none of them are late. I probably would’ve pummeled their faces.”

As Endo walked in, the chatter lowered until everyone was looking at him. Grinning, Endo pulled Sakura in with his arm as he waved around. “Hey everyone, what’s good? We still have like, a week or something until we’re gonna bash Furin in, but I just wanted to tell everyone what’s gonna happen.”

Earlier that day, the 4 eyed King had explained the plan of action for Furin. Their defenses would be spread thin, making it easy to break through any entrance to the town. Endo smiled when he heard that. “Good,” he said. “I was thinking of spreading out all of the minions, including Noroshi while me, you and Chika sneak by like ninjas to Furin. We told Umemiya he has to stay there, so Chika can go fight him and me and you can sit back and relax.”

Sakura watched as Endo repeated those directions efficiently, simple enough that a small kid would understand what to do. “I told Umemiya I wasn’t going to touch the city, but truthfully I don’t really care, so feel free to do whatever you want. Just stay out of my way.”

Endo clapped and then the meeting was over. Chika had been standing in the corner, watching silently. “That took longer than you said it would.”

Endo grabbed Chika’s hand, interlocking their fingers. “Haha, sorry Chika! You see here, Sakura kept looking at me funny and it hurt my feelings, so I spoke a bit slower than usual.”

“What? No I didn’t you big fat liar!”

“Yes you did! See, he’s doing it again.”

Chika sighed and squeezed Endo’s hand, effectively shutting him up. “Let’s just go home. I want to fight Umemiya already, how come you set such a late time?”

“Well, it's because me and the kid are like playing a game! It takes patience and time.”

“Shut up. I’m going to cut your head off when we get home.”

Endo leaned over to whisper in Sakura’s ear. “He’s in a really good mood right now actually. He’s so excited that he gets to fight Umemiya that-”

Sakura watched as Endo was knocked to the ground like a bowling pin, stepping over him as he continued walking beside Chika.

“Are you hungry, Haruka?”

“A little. Can you make omurice again?”

“Yeah. Endo, go buy more eggs.”

“Huh? Why do I have to go?”

Chika shared an exasperated look with Sakura before he grimaced, pulling out his most effective weapon against Endo. “...Please?”

“...Alright alright, I’ll go!”

It was finally the night of the attack, or the A.O.F. (Attack on Furin) as Endo liked to call it, even though it was literally the stupid thing Sakura had ever heard. Checking his phone, the time was 11:53pm.

Endo told him to stay put at the school, mentioning something about making the surprise effect even stronger. His phone was blowing up with texts from his class, asking where he was and what he was doing. Sakura ignored each one of them, preferring to turn his notifications off as he played games sitting on the toilet. Umemiya was outside the school, waiting at the entrance for Chika and Endo, so for now Sakura wandered around the school, exploring places he’d never seen like the parts of the rooftop and the classrooms on the upper floors.

Then he looked outside and saw bright, beautiful fireworks light up the sky, indicating the start of a festival. Sakura watched the show, eyes caught in the vibrant lights when he got a notification. He looked out the window and saw Endo waving, either at him or at Umemiya, who was waiting at the entrance.

“Finally.” Sakura breathed, feeling his blood boil with excitement. “It's time.”

“Hey Umemiya!” Endo waved at Umemiya, who stood like a solid wall, protecting the school. “Been a long time, huh?”

Chika smiled next to Endo. “Umemiya.”

Umemiya gave them a forced, tight lipped smile. “Hey guys. It's been a while.” His cold gaze fell on Chika. “Let’s go to the roof. There’s something I want to show you.”

Endo laughed, stepping forward until he was a foot away from Umemiya. “Actually, there’s something we want to show you. Remember that little traitor I mentioned?”

Sakura felt his mouth shift into a wild smile. “Hey Umemiya.”

Umemiya felt a gasp escape through his clenched teeth as he turned around to see Sakura sticking his tongue out with gleeful eyes. Maybe that was why he couldn’t react to the fierce punch that knocked him in the jaw, sending him flying to the ground as Endo patted Sakura on the back, complimenting him proudly.

“You… all this time it was you?!” Umemiya had never looked angrier, even to Endo and Chika. Blood dripped down his mouth yet he completely ignored it, springing up to his feet to swing at Sakura, fueled only by anger.

Sakura flinched, eyes widening when Chika blocked the attack, swinging his leg and kicking Umemiya away. He seemed breathtaking, glowing underneath the sparkling light from the fireworks as he cracked his knuckle, smiling ferally as he looked to Umemiya and said, “Let’s fight Umemiya.”

As the two of them fought, Endo walked over to Sakura and patted him on the head. “Looking pretty good kid! Have you been practicing?”

Sakura flinched, glaring at Endo. “No! Go away! You’re not even doing anything!”

“Just wait. Soon, those Kings should realize something is wrong and then they’ll all come running over here.”

As Sakura watched Chika fight, he could feel the familiarity in the way they fought. As the fight continued on, Chika grew faster and stronger, his expression looking more and more alive with each passing second. It made Sakura feel… proud?

Endo looked at Sakura, laughing when he saw his expression. “You look so happy, little man. That’s good. I’m glad.”

The fight was over quickly. Chika gripped the collar of Umemiya’s jacket, blood and dirt smeared over his face but not as bad as Umemiya.

“Sakura..” Umemiya whispered. His voice sounded broken. “How could you… I trusted you y’know..”

“Too bad.” Chika threw Umemiya to the ground, stomping on his face with a nasty crack as Umemiya was knocked out like a light switch.

Endo ran over to Chika, grabbing him in his arms and swinging him around like they had just gotten married or something. “Wow! That was so cool Chika! I love you so so much!”

Sakura laughed, strolling over to them. “That was cool.”

“Sakura..?!”

Sakura turned around to see his class, led by Suo and Nirei, who both wore horrified expressions. Tears ran down Nirei’s cheeks as he stumbled forward, hand reaching out for something that wasn’t there. “I thought… no way… are you.. are you really the traitor?”

Suo grabbed Nirei’s hand, yanking him back. Fury filled his one eye as he snapped, “It's exactly what it looks like Nirei. Sakura is the traitor.”

Nirei gasped, falling to the ground. “B-but I..” he looked up desperately, teary eyes locked onto Sakura’s. “We’re friends aren’t we? N-none of that.. Was that all fake?”

Behind Nirei, his class shared similar questions as they looked around with horrified faces. “You’re our captain,” someone shouted. “You’re our captain! How could you do this?!” Sakura looked to see Anzai shaking like a leaf in the wind, face pale.

Sakura looked at each one of their faces. Not a single one didn’t have an expression of shock. Sighing, Sakura rubbed his hand through his hair. “Sorry! You guys were just a little bit stupid that’s all.”

Nirei behind Sakura at Chika and Endo with wide eyes. “No way.. do you.. do you live with Chika Takiishi?” He gasped, reaching a sudden realization. “They’re your older brothers…”

“Yup.” Sakura nodded, walking back to drag Umemiya over by the root of his hair. “Here’s Umemiya by the way.”

A collective gasp ran through his class, along with a desperate cry from Sugishita as he ran forward, grabbing for Umemiya. Sakura tossed the body to the ground, stepping forward and punching Sugishita directly in the stomach, sending him flying backwards.

“Haruka, why don’t you finish up here? I’ll take Umemiya and hang back until you’re done.” Endo grabbed Umemiya’s arm, dragging him back towards the steps that led into the school with Chika.

Sakura nodded. He turned forward to face his class, who seemed to have gotten over the initial shock and seemed more angry. “Well, are we going to fight or not?”

Sugishita didn’t say anything, he just jumped forward and ran at Sakura. With all of the time Sakura spent fighting Hiragi and learning to read body posture, it was almost too easy as he dodged Sugishita’s kick and grabbed his arm, slamming him to the ground as he gave the back of his head a solid punch.

He sighed, using his foot to press Sugishita’s face into the dirt, looking up ahead. “If we’re going to fight, can you at least make it interesting?”

Suo narrowed his eye, sighing as he held his hand out and lowered his body into a fighting stance, sadness visible on his face. “Sakura… I don’t want to-”

Sakura ran up at him, cutting his words off as he kicked at Suo, smiling when the man easily deflected, pivoting his leg so he could push Sakura off balance. Too bad Suo was easy to read. He always kept his center of gravity equal, never leaning to one side or another, but that meant he could only fight with his limbs.

Sakura timed his kick in the moment Suo moved, managing to knock him off balance so he could then sweep his feet off the ground, slamming his foot down on Suo’s chest.

Sakura looked upwards, shouting at his class. “Well? Aren’t any of you going to fight?” His class seemed conflicted. A few of them stepped forward, rushing forward to help Suo but a few stayed back, including Nirei.

None of them were particularly strong, so Sakura could easily fight them off. In fact, it seemed like they were getting in the way of the stronger people in their class like Suo, Tsuguera, and Kiryu.

Sakura gripped Anzai by the collar of his shirt as he threw him into Kiryu, who caught him gently before rolling up his sleeves and moving forward to attack again. “Sakura I thought we were friends.” he said so quietly, Sakura almost didn’t catch it.

“Guess you thought wrong then.” In a single well-timed kick, Kiryu’s back slammed against the brick wall and he closed his eyes silently.

Tsuguera hit him harder and harder, each swing losing more and more accuracy. “What happened to your virtue, Sakura? Teaming with Endo is not virtuous at all!”

Sakura rolled his eyes, glancing quickly at Endo who waved at him. “You don’t understand either of us.” He knocked Tsuguera right in the temple, watching as he fell down and didn’t get back up.

Now Suo was the only one standing. “Are you sure Sakura?” he asked, jabbing at him with his fancy martial arts. “I think I know you. The Sakura I know is loyal and stands up for what he thinks is right.” Suo’s frown deepened. “Is this really what you think?”

Sakura shrugged, ducking as he kicked Suo away, sending him crashing to the ground. “Not like I have a strong opinion on any of this.” He stepped on Suo’s arm, watching as he winced in pain. “I’m just doing this for fun anyway.”

“No.. no way.”

Sakura felt a body tackle him as Nirei shouted, flying at him.

“Stop! Sakura stop!”

“The hell?” Sakura pushed Nirei off him, feeling angry run through him when he pathetically rolled to the ground, shaking.

“I’ve always hated you Nirei,” he snarled, stepping forward so his foot was right above Nirei’s face. “I hate people like you the most. You act all strong and high and mighty, but you’re really the weakest.” His foot landed on Nirei’s wrist, a nasty pop sounding throughout the courtyard. Kicking Nirei in the face, Sakura scoffed as he turned away. “Damn leach.”

Suo gasped, panic seeping into his features. “Nirei!”

Sakura blocked his attacks, feeling the desperation leaking into his body language as he tripped Suo and threw him to the ground, punching his face into the dirt. As blood leaked from his nose, Suo spat through his teeth, “You never cared about any of us, did you?”

“Nope.” Sakura punched him again, watching as Suo’s eyes closed and didn’t open. When he stood up and looked around, his entire class lay unconscious and writhing on the ground, bloodied and beaten.

Nirei’s soft sobs echoed quietly, and Sakura walked over to him, staring down at the little boy who looked up at him with betrayed eyes. “Sakura.. can’t you come home with us?”

“..No. My home is somewhere else.”

Nirei sobbed harder, and Sakura raised his foot and stomped Nirei’s face into the ground, and finally, it was quiet.

Walking back over to Endo and Chika, Sakura saw that Umemiya had woken up as he sat against the wall, face ashy and eyes dead.

Motioning to Umemiya, Sakura asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

Endo shrugged, tapping on Umemiya’s shoulder. “Hey bud, you good? Looking a little dazed out.”

“...”

“I think you broke him Chika.”

“Whatever. He was a lot more boring than I thought he’d be.” Chika sighed. “I think he’s gotten rusty being the leader of the school. Haruka, let me borrow your phone.”

Sakura handed Chika his scuffed up phone, watching in curiosity as the man took a picture of Umemiya and typed something before handing it back to him. “What’d you do?”

“I just sent them a photo of Umemiya. Hopefully they’ll come faster now.”

They didn’t have to wait long. It took no less than 5 minutes before the sound of hundreds of footsteps running towards them sounded as the 4 Kings led what must be the remainder of the Furin students. Sakura watched as Tsubaki gently picked up Nirei, who sobbed and pointed at Sakura, saying something that made Tsubaki glower at Sakura with full force.

4 Eyes walked forward, approaching Chika and Endo. “Sakura. You’re the traitor.”

Endo answered before Sakura could say anything. “Duh, you shithead. He’s ours, so back off.”

Tsubaki stalked up to them, fury seeping out with each click of their heel. “Give us Umemiya.”

Chika stood up and shed his jacket, throwing it on the ground. “All of you. Fight against us and if you win, we’ll all leave.”

“Deal.” Tsubaki agreed before anyone else could say anything, and soon they were swinging at Chika, who easily dodged and quickly landed a smooth punch on their face. As Tsubaki wiped the blood dripping down their face, growling like they were insane, Endo smiled as he stood up.

“C’mon kid. It’s us three against the world.”

When the fight was over, 3 people remained standing. The rest were knocked out cold on the ground.

“Chika! There’s blood dripping from your nose!”

“And half your face is purple?”

“But that means someone hit you! Who was it? I’ll go over there and kill them!”

“I’m going to kill you right now.”

Sakura couldn’t help but laugh as the 3 of them walked away. Maybe it was a bad thing, but he’d never felt as happy and calm as he did right now.

“Takiishi… thanks for finding me on that day. Thanks for taking me back.”

“..Woah, kid are you feeling okay? Do you have a fever or something? And where’s my thanks?”

“Shut up! I’m trying to be nice!”

Chika smiled, and Sakura had never seen him look so content. He felt a hand run through his hair as a lump formed in his throat, and he had to look the other way to hide his sniffles.

“I’m really glad I met you, Haruka.”

“... Dude, are you crying?”

“I’m not! I hope you go kill yourself!”

“Woah woah woah, calm down!” Sakura could hear the grin in Endo’s stupid voice. “Don’t worry kiddo, no need to thank me for offering our house to you and spending a lot of money on you.” Endo wrapped his arm around Sakura’s shoulders, giving him a half hug. “As long as it makes you happy.”

Sakura couldn’t stop the sniffles from coming as he wiped at his face, feeling every emotion he’d felt since meeting those two come out. His family. He’d never had a family before.

Chika rubbed calming circles on his back as Endo gripped his shoulders, and from then on, Sakura knew he’d be okay.