Chapter Text
All of Sakura’s life he felt as if he was walking on a tight rope, all of his life he’d been told words that should cut deep into someone’s soul and been hit so many times he’d probably should of had 10 times the amount of scars then he actually did.
It used to get to him, the little things his teachers mumbled about him under their breath keeping him up at night—the way it used to repeat in his head over and over like it was words spoken directly to him from God.
Until one day everything just… stopped. It was like the words people would shout at him just got nullified.
He wasn’t sure if he had just grown as a person or if hearing those words so often just took the effect away eventually.
It was nice, being able to live life without having the words of others affecting him anymore.
But one thing he had failed to realise about shutting down like that was that he’d regress in being able to accept his own emotions. Sounds a lot better than it actually is.
He’d seemed to have forgotten what it felt like to feel anything but negative emotions, whenever he was put in any uncomfortable situation, instead of handling it like any normal person, his first instinct was for fight or flight to immediately kick in.
He hated that about himself, the fact that he could never connect with anyone because he didn’t even know how what his favourite colour was.
He didn’t want to rely on other people, he didn’t need to, just the thought of asking for help from somebody else almost made him feel sick. But to watch everybody else do it flawlessly almost felt invalidating.
He wasn’t normal, he had been told that his whole life, if there was one thing he knew about himself with no doubt was that he wasn’t normal, he wasn’t loveable, there was no way he could be. Unless everyone had just lied to him right through their teeth his whole life, he just wasn’t meant to be with other people—he’d learnt to accept that years ago, reluctantly sure, but he did nonetheless.
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Yet Sakura couldn’t tell if it was blood or tears tricking down his cheeks, feeling the way they burnt his skin not being any more help—it always seemed to feel the same when you were in a daze anyways.
He sat in the corner with his knees to his chest, his hands shaking as he watched the blurry figures talk about him on the other side of the room—the shards of glass from the bottle previously thrown at his head surrounding his body.
“Oh great, he’s a cry baby too.”
He knew that voice off by heart, it was his mother’s, the way she spoke with her whole chest and the way the words slipped off her tongue like butter on a hot pan or the warning bells going off on his head whenever he heard it told him it was his mother.
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He had felt his hands beginning to shake before he heard the piercing sound of someone raising their voice at him.
“Sakura-san, Sakura-san!”
Sakura jumped when he heard his name being shouted, his first instinct was to throw a punch. But something about the way the words were so gently rounded seemed to have reminded him that this was his friend, he had learnt very quickly that Nirei never seemed to have any kind of ill intent against anyone. He was so… kind, he always worried about everyone, he was basically like a mind reader.
He felt his cheeks get hot the second he realised that he had spaced out thinking over such a stupid memory that he swore he’d never remember.
“D-don’t shout like that! You scared the shit out of me!”
He sputters, tripping over his words like they were a staircase he had lost balance on. Those being the only words he could choke out through his own embarrassment.
“Can’t seem to form your words correctly, huh? You really are just like a kitten shoved into a teenagers body.”
Sakura’s face flushed even more when he heard that, practically dying when he was called a kitten by Suo, getting relentlessly teased by him, again.
“I told you to stop calling me that unless you want a fist to the nose!”
Suo just chuckled at this, shaking his head in mild amusement.
“Okay, okay, I stand down. Maybe you’re more of a big cat than a kitten, no? Is this you trying to tell me that you’re a fearless tiger instead?”
“SUO!”
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Somewhere along the lines of Suo teasing the fuck out of Sakura and Nirei trying to stop Sakura from reigning bloodshed on some stranger hitting on a girl—they had ended up in Sakura’s apartment.
“I’m like 99% sure that living alone at 15 is illegal.”
Suo hums, him and Nirei sitting cross-legged on a spare futon they had scavenged from a closet Sakura forgot he even owned.
“Yeah, how’d you even get the apartment?”
Nirei added, seeming somehow concerned on whether this was safe for Sakura to be doing.
“Don’t ask me! I think my landlords did some sort of illegal shit to lent it to me.”
Sakura argues back, clearly not pleased with the allegations being thrown his way.
“Oh yeah, no way the guy isn’t, this is shady as hell. Also we need to talk about your lack of furniture.”
Suo continues, only saying it to fuck with Sakura, realise being amused by his way of living.
“I don’t have a lack of furniture! I just don’t think it’s worth wasting my money on things I’m rarely going to use!”
Sakura huffs, quickly going to defend himself.
“Sakura-san, you don’t even have a bed frame.”
Nirei says, glancing over at the mattress on the floor Sakura was kneeling on, not impressed with Sakura’s reluctance to caring for himself.
“And who says I need a bed frame, ey!”
He says, grabbing a blanket, which was kindly, yet reluctantly, gifted to him from Sugishita when the whole class had come to his apartment to give him things for his place, which Sakura described as them breaking into his apartment to shove items into his arms against his will.
“Your spine, Sakura-san. Your spine says you need a bed frame.”
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After a few hours, Sakura had fallen asleep while the three were watching a movie on Nirei’s laptop and officially decided it was time for all of them to head to bed.
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Sakura woke up at around 3 in the morning due to the cold breeze coming through his window which never seemed to fully close, but that’s what you get when you rent a cheap apartment from this shady guy who probably isn’t even a legal landlord, whatever.
But Sakura also seemed to quickly remember that he had given his blanket to Suo and Nirei on the futon. He wasn’t that cold earlier so he let them use it, big mistake. Yet he’d rather it he him waking up cold then have it be Nirei, and Suo, but knowing Nirei he wouldn’t have the guts to wake anyone up and ask for something to keep him warm.
After a few minutes Sakura decided to get up and try and find something to keep him warm, easier than just lying there and letting himself freeze to death.
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“Sakura-chan?”
Sakura jumped when he heard somebody speak behind him, quickly setting down the glass he was holding on the counter and whipping around to see who it was—having been to tired to identity them by their voice.
“No need to be so jumpy, Sakura-chan. I just noticed you walked off and wanted to see what you were doing!”
Suo says with that same blank smile he has on basically 24/7.
”Ah- you can’t just sneak up on me like that in my own apartment!”
Sakura whisper-yells at him through flustered cheeks. His hands clenched in little fists before Suo presses a finger to his lips.
”Sh, Nirei’s still asleep. What’re you doing up now anyways?”
”I just got cold… so I was looking for a blanket, what’s it got to do with you anyways.”
Sakura practically growls, he always seemed to get so defensive at the slightest of talk. Must be some kind of defence mechanism he built up when he was younger, that isn’t something you just do.
Suo chuckles at Sakura being so protective over his reasoning—taking his finger off of Sakura’s lips.
“Ah, that’s what you get for lending us your blanket. I would tell you to get it back from Nirei, but he’s fully sprawled out.”
Suo hums, holding his hand out to Sakura.
”Come on, let’s get you back to bed. I doubt you even own another blanket if you don’t even have a bed frame.”
Suo continues, interlocking his fingers with Sakura’s.
”Wha- ah- huh? Hey! What’re you doing!”
Sakura scrambles over his words, his face basically as red as a tomato’s. His voice raising slightly in surprise and embarrassment.
“Sh… I told you Nirei’s still asleep.”
Suo says, leading Sakura to the bedroom calmly.
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