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Back when he first moved to Makochi, Sakura didn’t think of what he’d do after graduation.
His plans were, after all, straightforward: he’d fight his way to the top, become a leader so strong only the bravest would dare to challenge him, and then he’d enjoy his loneliness at the summit. Right now, he doesn’t have a very clear image of the future. He doesn’t know what he’ll do in five years, or ten, or twenty. There are, however, a few things that he can predict already.
The first one might be the easiest: he’ll stay in Makochi for the rest of his life. He might travel from time to time, maybe even temporarily live in another town for a reason or another, but he knows he’ll always wind up back in Makochi.
The second one is blurrier: he’s not sure he’ll keep his current job as a waiter in Keisei Street but if he doesn’t, then he’ll simply try another one until he finds the job that fits him the most. Still, regardless of what he’ll choose to do, he’ll never stop fighting to protect those in need. This is a part of him, a part of Sakura Haruka’s identity.
The third is as much a certainty as it is a hope: he won’t be alone. His friends will stay by his side until the end. Suo and Nirei won’t be his vice-captains anymore but they’re his best friends. Umemiya will always be his model, not as the man Sakura tries to be but the man who helps him look in the right direction.
As for Momijikawa’s place in his life, well—Sakura dreams of what it could be.
“I still can’t believe that the two of you are going to move in together in three weeks,” Suo says in the middle of the first lunch break the trio manages to spend together—now that they’re no longer students at the same school, their schedules don’t align as much as they wish. At the very least, working in Keisei Street offers an advantage: there are many restaurants where you can book a table when you want to see your friends.
Nirei enthusiastically nods. “Right? We all thought that you’d do that at some point, but almost right after graduation?”
“To be fair, they also slept under the same roof right after they had a real talk with each other,” Suo points out, and Sakura feels his cheeks heat up.
“We only ate dinner that night!” he corrects, and he feels the weight of his best friends’ eyes on him, two heavy gazes that seem to read through him like an open book.
“He tamed our Sakura-kun like a wild cat,” Suo says, as teasing as ever. “And now he’s going to leave us and stand on his own two feet.”
“You’re not my parent.”
“Are we not better than parents?”
“That’s debatable.”
“Do you hear him, Nire-kun? I feel so, so hurt right now.” Suo, overdramatic, puts a hand over his heart, his face distorted by a fake expression of pain.
Nirei, who’s used to his anthems, only chuckles. “Suo-san is joking, but it’s not like he’s entirely wrong. We’ve been here for you for so long, so it’s weird to think that you no longer need us.”
Really, why do these two have to be so embarrassing? Sakura feels his body turn into fire and hides his face behind his hands. “Stop it, you two! Besides, I’ll be with Sakae, it’s not like I’ll be on my own!”
“Nire-kun, we should have a word with his beloved Sakae-kun.”
“For once I agree with you, Suo-san. I have some files on him, if needed.”
“Great. Remember what I taught you last week? I’m sure you can use this move on him if he doesn’t cooperate.”
Sakura, sometimes, feels like he has the worst best friends on earth, because these two are truly the most wonderful friends one can ask for. Mortifying friends, yes, but they’ll always have his back, at least.
It’s not like he’ll ever need their protection, though. He’s been hurt too many times in the past to give his heart to the first stranger who offers him something that seems to be love. He waits, and waits, until he’s sure of the other’s intentions. The thing is, Momijikawa has always been sort of transparent, after the first evening Sakura spent at his place. His care for Sakura was so obviously genuine it didn’t leave any space for questions. Sakura knew right away that he was loved.
It made him uneasy, at first, but in the end he fell in love too—and the rest is history.
✿
One night, Momijikawa asked Sakura a question that he never expected from him.
“What do you think about moving in together, once we graduate?”
Sakura almost chocked on his rice when he heard it. He felt his boyfriend’s eyes on him as he coughed and said: “Why are you asking me this now?”
“Because I just had the thought.”
Sakura grabbed his glass to clear his throat. School nights at Momijikawa’s were among his favourite, and not because of the food; it was nice, for sure, to be fed home-cooked meals catering to his taste, but the company mattered more than what he was eating. It was comfortable: that’s how Sakura would describe these evenings. Momijikawa laughed at him sometimes, but he never teased him like Suo did. He knew many things about Sakura, but he didn’t write them down in a notebook like Nirei did. He was different from Sakura’s best friends, he was simply himself.
Momijkawa was the boy who chose to call him Haruka without asking for permission, when Sakura’s other friends were already happy that he was using their names. Sakura hated it, at first, because he loved hearing the sound of his first name on Momijikawa’s tongue. And when calling him Sakae became as embarrassing as whispering words of love in someone’s ear, that’s when Sakura knew that their relationship had taken a new turn—one that was, all in all, predictable, or so his friends claimed.
“Okay,” he ended up saying, because even though the embarrassment never truly left (it remained, deep down, as a fluttering of the heart or a patch of skin turning red), there was more to his feelings.
Momijikawa, for some reason, didn’t seem satisfied with his answer. “Okay? That’s all you have to say?”
“I mean, isn’t it what people do when they’re in love with each other?”
Momijikawa sighed, and Sakura felt like he had just missed something, although he couldn’t tell what.
“I don’t want us to live together because that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Oh.
Sakura stared at Momijikawa, suddenly aware of the deafening silence of the room around them.
“I want you to choose to live with me,” Momijikawa clarified. “But it’s fine if you don’t, or if you have conditions. We don’t even have to share a bedroom, you know. Well, I’m not sure we can afford a flat with two separate bedrooms right now, but later on, we can, if that’s what you want.”
Later on. Sakura liked the way it sounded, the future they would build together, step by step. He couldn’t know yet if he wanted his own bedroom: so far, he only shared rooms with people who weren’t comfortable around him. It was far better to sleep alone, in these circumstances, so he was happy when he got to live alone in his own flat.
Sleeping next to a man who considered that Sakura may not like it, though, sounded strangely appealling. Sakura wanted to try it out and see for himself.
“Then,” Sakura said, “I want to live with you.” Because these nights were so gentle, like a beacon of light in the middle of darkness, and Sakura thought it was the right decision. His heart was telling him so.
✿
“I’ll put the rest of my clothes in a suitcase,” says Momijikawa, “and then we’ll be done for today.”
Sakura looks around him. The first time he entered Momijikawa’s house, there was a hospital bed in this very room; he had seen his share of ‘normal family houses’ in his life, but this was the first time he saw a bed placed outside a bedroom. It was peculiar, and at the very moment Sakura realised, this guy hasn’t lived a normal life either. The bed disappeared before they started to date, but Sakura’s first impression never truly faded. It took him time to understand that he simply can’t see Momijikawa as normal: he is special. A significant other, as they say, because their life takes a whole other meaning when you watch it unfold before your very eyes.
Now, this place that has grown familiar to Sakura has become an empty space, bare walls with no other furniture than the built-in kitchen.
“Right in time for the move, then,” Sakura says. His voice echoes inside this empty space as he speaks. He feels small, all of a sudden, but not as small as he was a child, not as powerless. He’s simply standing before the door leading him to a new part of his life, and beyond lies an infinity of possibilities, many futures so tightly interwoven he can’t distinguish them from each other. He only knows that a single step will close some roads for him, but all the others will remain.
He’s never felt small around Momijikawa, not even when he’s wearing his clothes which are too big for him. That might be why he chose to cross the door with him.
“Are you okay with cup noodles for dinner?” Momijikawa asks as he folds a shirt on top of the suitcase. “I can’t really make something tonight.”
Sakura’s used to this kind of food. “It’ll be just like back in the day.”
The smile that blooms on Momijikawa’s face is soft, like a breeze caressing your skin. “I’d promise you that this is the last time I’ll make you eat ready meals, but I don’t think I can keep it.”
“Because we’ll move out again?” Sakura asks this question, but he knows the answer already.
He sees Momijikawa nodding, and it pleases him, deep down, to realise that he knows Momijikawa well enough to predict him. He’s aware that he’ll discover new faces of Momijikawa as he lives with him, faces that he’s caught a glimpse of each time he stayed the night. But he knows him already.
It fills him with love. It makes him feel like every part of him is imbued with this love, from the tip of his toes to the hair on the crown of his head.
Sakura, listening to nothing but his own heart, kneels in front of Momijikawa and, softly, with all the care he can gather in a single gesture, kisses his temple—and then, swiftly this time, with all the embarrassment that can be contained inside a body, jumps away from him, his cheeks red and his hands trembling.
Momijikawa looks at him. It reminds Sakura of the time he’s called him Haruka: there was something in his smile, so genuine, so warm, coming with the sound of his first name on a foreign tongue, that dazed Sakura for a moment. He might have thought that Momijikawa was beautiful, at the time, even with the bruises and the dressings on his face. Momijikawa smiles in this simple way that never fails to bewitch him.
“I like it. When you kiss me first.”
Sakura averts his eyes. In truth, he’s still not as comfortable with physical displays of affection as he wishes to be; there’s a part of him that struggles to use his body in ways that aren’t meant to harm someone, at times. It’s always easier to say shut up and to (gently) push the other away; easier, but not honest enough.
“Well, maybe I’ll kiss you more if we start living together.”
There might be a part of him that is still a little scared. A part that worries that things may not turn out as he wants them to. But this is why he said yes, anyway. This is what it means to trust someone: you believe they’re safe, even if you haven’t met anyone you’d feel safe around during the first fifteen years of your life.
And Momijikawa laughs. “I’m looking forward to your kisses, Haruka.”
✿
It didn’t take Sakura more than an afternoon to pack his belongings into boxes.
Boxes—not a single one, this time, because back when he first moved to Makochi he only took the bare minimum with him: his brand new Furin uniform and textbooks, a few pens, and some necessities like a toothbrush, a towel or a futon. And now his flat is filled with all sort of objects given by his friends: curtains filtering the light of the early morning sun, a collection of matching glasses used by Nirei and Suo when they come over, brand new and second-hand mangas, a funny star-shaped lamp that doesn’t bring much light in the evening, a rug, and many other things that Sakura has no use for, yet he can’t imagine leaving any of them behind.
Sakura discovered that day that objects carry memories and feelings with them, and you keep them not because they are useful but because they are part of your history. A person’s home is supposed to tell you who they are and what they dream of. For about fifteen years, Sakura’s room reflected none of that; rather, it reflected the hollowness of his heart, emptied by a lifetime of abuse. There was nothing of Sakura in any of the previous places he was supposed to call home, only an echo of who he could become: the fighter, the loner, but not the friend, not the lover.
I’m going to miss this flat, he thought as he sealed the last box with adhesive tape. This rundown flat that he picked because it was cheap enough for his allowance, with its broken doorbell, its damaged walls and its taps leaking half of the time, is the first place he ever called home. So yes, a part of his heart might stay here, trapped forever within those four walls.
Then Sakura got up and stretched. His curtainless windows now let in the full force of the sunlight. It reminded him of his first days in Makochi. There was, truly, nowhere to hide: he thought he could simply fight his way to the top while keeping his soul out of view, but he’s been seen through all along.
With a smile, Sakura left his flat and headed for Momijikawa’s house—for that last place that Momijikawa would call his home instead of theirs.
✿
At the beginning of the day, Sakura sees the dozen of boxes and the furniture they have to fit inside the van rented for twenty-four hours, and he thinks, can we really move in in a single day?
He is proven wrong at sunset when Nirei offers to return the van in their place, with Suo sitting on the passenger seat. Tsugeura, Kiryu and Sugishita decline their offer to stay for dinner, Kiryu politely explaining that everyone’s too tired for a shared meal, so now it’s just Sakura, Momijikawa, and all the things that belong to either of them in the space that is now theirs, undividedly theirs. Most of these things have yet to find their place, but they have all the time they need to sort them out. For now, they only unpacked what they need the most: some crockery, their futon and hygiene products, mostly.
“I’ll cook, tonight,” Momijikawa says, as though he isn’t the one who usually cooks when they’re together.
Still, there’s a certain solemnity in the moment, because this evening may look like all the others but it isn’t the case at all. This evening is the very first they spend in their shared home, the first of a long series but it won’t happen ever again. With time, they’ll slip back into this casualness that used to be their routine before they moved in together, but right now there’s a small amount of uncertainty, of anticipation, as though anything could happen and none of them are properly prepared to face them.
Sakura isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do, either. “I’ll help,” he offers, because it’s best to keep himself occupied than to let his thoughts wander too much.
There’s a hint of red on Momijikawa’s cheeks when he says, in a firm voice: “No.” And then, softly, as if he realised he should tone himself down: “Could you find my pj’s for me? I don’t know in which box I put them.”
Sakura nods, happy to help. Their new home is a rather small flat, although not as small as his previous one, two rooms with an open-plan kitchen and a bathroom. What will become their bedroom is, for now, filled to the brim with cardboard boxes, with only a space wide enough for two young men to lie down in the middle. Sakura wonders how Momijikawa managed to collect so many things already when he’s spent about the same amount of time on Earth as Sakura.
And then he remembers that Momijikawa’s life isn’t the same as his. It’s been full from the very start. His loneliness hasn’t defined him as it did Sakura; he owned so much, before his loved ones were torn away from him.
These many boxes of Momijikawa’s embody more than his single life: his parents and grandparents are there, too, their feelings encompassed inside all his belongings.
Sakura opens a box, then a second. A familiar flavour wafts through the air from the open door, and once he recognises it, Sakura can’t help but smile. So this is why Momijikawa didn’t want him to help with tonight’s cooking.
Time passes. Sakura finds the pj’s, and many other things that he knows will gain some meaning the more time he spends with Momijikawa. He may not know who doodled a cartoon character on the cover of one of Momijikawa’s notebooks, or if someone offered him this pencil holder, or if Momijikawa saved money to buy himself this frame protecting the picture of his family. He may not know any of these things yet, but here is the beauty of living together with the person you love.
When Momijikawa shouts, dinner’s ready, Sakura knows already what lies on the table.
“So you finally made an omurice,” he says as he sits down on what will be his chair, and not just the chair he always borrows at his boyfriend’s house.
Momijikawa looks straight at him. That’s one of the things Sakura likes the most about him: he’s not one to run away, even when he gets embarrassed—it’s only when he’s pissed off that he’ll avert his eyes, but Sakura knows better than to provoke him when he’s serious.
“If you compare it to its Pothos counterpart, I’ll kill you.”
Sakura smiles and grabs his chopsticks. “Come on, there’s no way this won’t be the best omurice I’ve ever tasted.”
After all, nothing can top a meal made out of love.