Chapter Text
The first day Sakura had woken up to a dull ache in the back of his mouth, he casted it aside as he did all of the pain in his life.
The second day it grew from a dull ache to an ever present throb.
The third, a hot panging sensation.
He lasted like that for an entirety of three weeks until it simply became unbearable. Worse than any injury he had ever received (and he’d had a lot in his lifetime.)
Every moment was like a new kind of sensation, a drill to his gums, or his teeth burrowing deeper into his mouth.
Teeth pain.
He had peered into the cracked mirror of his sad apartment and opened his mouth as wide as he could to determine where the swelling had originated, but he couldn’t even open it enough without the pain being unbearable to get a good look.
Maybe if he ignored it, it would go away eventually.
He was annoyed, confused, and even maybe slightly scared because internal pain wasn’t something he could fight off with his fist.
That afternoon, Nirei had insisted the class all have dinner at Pothos cafe as a get together, since the end of their first year was nearing. Of course, none of them had worried about being left behind a grade because there weren’t any teachers to hand out grades and there weren’t any grades to hold them back.
It was loud, roudy, and with each spike of pain from the movement of his mouth there was an accompanying jolt in his brain.
The loudness was certainly not helping his headache.
From next to him in the booth, Suo separated him from the rest of the class and the walkway like some protective barrier. His one eye scanned Sakura, and he looked like he was going to say something, but was interrupted by Kotoha placing dishes in front of them.
“Sheesh, you guys are gonna run off all of my other customers,” she complained as she wiped her hands off on a dishrag. Even so, she looked happy to be doing it.
From across them, Nirei and Kiryu looked down at the food with stars in their eyes. Kiryu snapped a photo of it on his phone, like he always did, before digging in.
Sakura looked down to his own food and felt vaguely nauseated. Normally he would finish the egg dish within two minutes tops, but the smell of it sent warm saliva down the back of his throat. It hurt his teeth.
He simply pushed his plate across to Nirei, who momentarily looked at him concerned before stuffing his face with more food.
“Sakura-Kun, why are you not eating?” Sup questioned, because of course he would notice even the smallest things.
“Why aren’t you eating?” He shot back, because Suo almost never ate.
He simply smiled and replied, “I’m on a diet.” Like he always did. “Though, you are always quick to eat, Sakura-kun. Could it be that you have a fever?”
Suo lifted a hand up, and at the sight of it Sakura flinched in preparation for a punch. Instead, Suo slowly brought his hand forward and brushed Sakura’s bangs back to place a gentle hand on his forehead.
Now, they had both Nirei and Kiryu’s attention from across the table. A noodle hung from Nirei’s mouth, he slurped it up slowly.
Suo frowned after a moment and hummed, a sound reverberating deep from his chest. When he moved his hand away, Sakura was both thankful and sad to get rid of the contact.
“Your temperature feels a tad warm, are you getting sick, Sakura-Kun?”
Sakura’s entire face hurt, even so, he frowned. “I’m not-“
“If-if you’re sick Sakura-kun, you can go home and rest early! You shouldn’t feel pressured to stay if you’re unwell.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Kiryu agreed with Nirei as he happily ate his food. From across the room, Taiga shouted victoriously as he won another arm wrestle.
Sakura’s head hurt even more.
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad suggestion.
But… could he really do that as a grade captain?
“It is okay, Sakura-kun. You are naturally an introvert, so it will not be strange if you leave a little early.” Suo reassured, and like she had been summoned, Kotoha dropped a to-go bag in front of Sakura. It had fresh food inside.
“If you let my cooking go to waste, I’ll kill you.” She threatened, and a shiver ran down Sakura’s spine as he nodded, even if it was a lie.
Suo grabbed the bag and walked Sakura out of the cafe. It was dark outside now.
“Are you sick enough for me to walk you home?” He offered, and Sakura’s face grew red. Or maybe it was already red from his sickness. He didn’t know.
“No, go back inside.” He ordered, turning heel and walking towards the direction of his apartment, even if he felt Suo following him from a respectable distance the entire way back.
Sakura woke up the next morning In extreme pain. The kind that made him want to curl up upon himself and just wish to shrivel up.
He burned with what he was sure was a fever, even if his insides felt cold. Then, there was his jaw, pulled tight like a taut rope, ready to snap.
He was drooling into the pillow, something he normally did not do.
He let himself lay there for a moment to marinate in his own suffering, but then eventually dragged his limp body out of the futon because he had school, and after school, they had an afternoon patrol.
The weather outside was getting colder, so it was like a nice blanket against his swollen jaw as he stepped out. He didn’t have the energy or the appetite to stop by the cafe, so he simply set for school.
The thing about his apartment, was that it was directly on the border of the shadier district from the shopping street. It also meant more fighting and gang activity for Sakura to fend off, which under any circumstance, he would be more than happy to do.
But now, when each step felt like a marathon and his entire face felt like he had been curb stomped, he would rather not.
Even so, he couldn’t just ignore the group or thugs vandalizing Makochi property and pissing on it like they owned the place. Especially when they attacked him first.
Instead of saying anything to taunt the group, Sakura was quick to simply punch and kick them. It was like he was in a haze of repetitive motion until there was a sharp throb in his jaw, so Intense that he faltered to cover it with his hands, like it would detach from his skull.
And just then, a force from behind him kicked him and brought him down to his knees. He scrambled to find purchase, but now that they had him off balance, kicks were thrown at him.
He protectively curled in on himself until finally, the world grew silent apart from his pounding head. When he opened his eye, cursing himself for being useless, Suo was already grabbing him by the shoulders to help him to his feet. Looking him up and down and dusting him off
“You’re unwell,” was the first thing he said to him, then- “you look unwell too.”
Sakura tried to reply with sarcasm, or maybe with an even more vulgar retort, but his mouth wouldn’t move. It was sealed shut firmly. It would hurt too much to move.
So instead, he shot him a glare and pushed past him to move in the school's direction. Even if his body felt like shit, he had a job to do. Suo silently followed him like a shadow all the way there.
When they slipped into class, Suo was inconspicuous because he always was, but Sakura always seemed to gain attention no matter what room he entered. Whether it was because of his freakish appearance or because he was a loud person by default.
This time, he ignored the greetings from his classmates and got to his desk. He curled up and placed his swollen cheek down onto the cold surface, the universal language for
‘Leave me alone.’
Even if he could feel the worried stares digging into his back like a bunch of knives.
When he woke up, it was to… a strange atmosphere. He didn’t know how long he’d been knocked out, but it must have been even longer than he had anticipated by the way he struggled to pry his tired eyes open. Once again, there was hot drool on the desk underneath him, like he couldn’t control his mouth, and there was his sore, sore body.
He let out an involuntary groan as he struggled to lift his head from the desk, and strangely enough, the window next to his desk filtered sunset light.
He had slept… the entire day? And they had just let him?
There was a blanket draped across him too.
His body felt like it was on fire from fever and pain as he scanned the room, and his eyes finally found the schools student representative sitting on the large teacher desk at the front of the room, thumbing through the pages of a plant life book.
Sakura cleared his throat, and when Umemiya jolted and looked up, he immediately shut his book like he had been caught in a bad act. “You’re awake!” He exclaimed as he slid down from the desk to approach. “You’re probably wondering where your class went, it’s their patrol time right now. Your Vice captains stepped in and are in charge of them in the meantime. Good thing I was here to watch you while they’re out!”
Sakura tried to open his mouth to tell him that he “wasn’t a baby who needs coddling, he was just a little sick,” but his jaw was locked.
He couldn’t even open his damn mouth.
He felt like he needed to throw up.
Sakura shot up from his desk, the blanket around his shoulders falling to the cracked school floor as he attempted to find a trash can, but as soon as he took a step, he lost his balance.
Umemiya was quick like a whip and there in an instant to grab him and gently lower the both of them to the floor, Sakura going stiff in his arms like an alarmed cat.
Umemiya was saying something, but he couldn’t hear him through the ringing of his own ears. He tried to open his mouth to get something out- anything- but it wouldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He could only make a few aborted whimpering noises as he clawed at Umemiya to get a message across.
His mouth was closed.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t breathe.
The world around him blurred significantly and everything around him sounded as if he was underwater- plunged deep down with hands grasping at him.
He couldn’t breathe.
His own shaky inhales and stuttered exhales was the only thing his ears picked up aside from the dull roar of the ocean surrounding him.
He couldn’t breathe-
There was a hand, reaching out to him and grounding him. Unlike the ones that were trying to ground him.
Then there was a voice, sounding above the torrential storm. It was calming and an anchor in the storm, telling him how to breathe and what to do.
It took a few moments for his vision to finally come back to him, but it was the first sense to be restored.
Then, his hearing.
“Breathe in and out with me,” Umemiya said, like he had been saying it for a while now. His inhales and exhales were pronounced, and he found himself following along with the rhythm he set.
“Good job Sakura, just like that.”
Then, finally, he could feel.
He could feel a body holding him upright. Then, there were larger hands encasing his, keeping them placed to a chest so that he could follow the breathing easier.
“Are you back with me?” Umemiya asked, and when Sakura was reminded of their position and how weak he must have looked, he immediately scooted away from the leader until his back hit the wall.
Umemiya looked at him with big worried eyes, and it wasn’t an emotion that Sakura was used to seeing on peoples faces- especially directed towards him.
“You had a panic attack,” he offered, like Sakura was a wounded animal. “It’s my job to assure the protection of my little brothers, so if there’s something more that’s wrong-“
As if on cue, the door to the classroom slid open Suo entered. Silently, like he had assumed Sakura would still be asleep, but once he recognized the scene in front of him- Unemiya’s concern and Sakura’s heaving chest- he silently approached and crouched right in front of Sakura.
“Sakura-Kun, please tell us what hurts.” He said, honest and straight to the point as he always was.
With the amount of pain that was wearing him down, Sakura honestly would have told Suo about the extreme pain his mouth had been in for the past few weeks- except that he couldn’t.
He couldn’t even open his mouth, he was pathetic.
Suo’s lips drew into a thin line as he studied Sakura and the drool on the side of his lip. “You can’t talk, can you?”
Sakura shook his head.
Suo hummed, like he always did, and delicately put a finger underneath Sakura’s chin to move his head from left to right.
“Your mouth is all swollen,” he tisked, “how could you let it get this bad, Sakura-Kun?”
Sakura tried to half heartedly break away from Suo’s grip, but it was firm and he remained in place. “I need to see the inside of your mouth Sakura-Kun, open wide.”
Sakura growled from the back of his throat because he couldn’t open his mouth, but then Suo was helping him, wrenching his fingers past his lips and locked teeth, creating space to hook his fingers on his lower jaw to open it.
It burned and the movement shot jolts of pain all the way to his brain, but he held still as Suo studied the inside of his mouth like he was some kind of middle school science experiment.
“Sakura-Kun,” he leaned back, allowing Sakura’s mouth to finally close. “Have you heard of of wisdom teeth before?”
Sakura tilted his head to the side in confusion.
Of what now?