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“Sakura-senpai!”
“Senpai, you totally beat ‘em!”
“No doubt, Sakura-san always wins!”
The school hallways buzzed with loud chatters—his juniors admiring him, praising him, adoring him. Sakura merely laughed off all those compliments. Even after all those years, he’s still not quite used to receiving praises from others.
Only when he reached the far corner of the third floor did everything finally quieted down. The broadcast room had always been his sanctuary. Sakura had come to understand why Umemiya really liked to spend his time inside that particular room back then.
Click
The door was shut. Sakura heaved out a sigh, thinking he’d finally attained his much deserved peace and quiet.
Alas, contrary to his expectation…
“Thanks for all your hard work, Sakura-senpai~”
Sakura jumped at that voice. His hand instinctively flew to the burning spot on his nape, where his mischievous vice captain, Suo, had practically zapped him with a hot bento box.
“Fuck! Can you stop doing that?! What if I get a heart attack?!”
“Sorry, haha. Your reaction was priceless.”
“Funny,” Sakura grumbled, rolling his eyes.
“Anyway,” Suo said, perching himself on the broadcast desk just to annoy his captain, “I’ve noticed that Sakura-senpai has been gaining massive popularity among the first-years and second-years lately. I wonder why, hmm.”
“Tch. Call me ‘senpai’ one more time, and I’ll show ya what a senpai gonna do his annoying kouhai.”
“Heh.” Suo grinned wickedly. “That sounds naughty, not gonna lie.”
Sakura grunted, about to think up of a smart comeback, but then his gaze caught on something.
“You let your hair loose,” he commented.
“Hmm…” Suo hummed. His eye twinkled. He brought up one finger to twirl the loose hair strands that fell off his shoulder as he answered his captain’s curiosity. “My hair tie snapped when I sparred with Nire-kun earlier. You sounded like you were in a hurry when you called us to the fight, so it just slipped my mind.”
“Oh,” Sakura said eloquently.
He thought his vice captain looked cute with his hair down. He absolutely would never say it out loud though.
Deciding to take advantage of Sakura’s stunned silence, Suo fished out a silky ribbon tie from his pocket and held it out to his clueless captain.
“Tie it again for me?”
It was more of an order than a request. Sakura didn’t really mind being ordered though. The “captain” to his name, or his official role as Bofurin’s leader following his former senpai, were really just public titles. He’s kind of meek and weak when it came to people he cared about. Especially one that he secretly harbored an embarrassingly huge crush on.
So, he stepped around to get behind Suo. His vice captain had always had a naturally smooth and shiny hair that even made Kiryu jealous, but it’d gotten even more noticeable after Suo started growing it out by the end of their second-year.
“Are you ever gonna cut it short again?”
“Why? I thought Sakura-kun likes it.”
“…Eh?”
That certainly was not the answer he’d expected.
His hands froze in the air, clutching the end tails of the ribbon awkwardly. The gears inside his brain ran a mile a minute in his desperate attempt to make sense of that revelation.
‘Am I too obvious?! Shit, are you kidding me… Does he actually know about my feelings?!’
To his lack of luck, the door to the room was soon slammed open before the conversation could continue.
“Sakura-san!”
“Sakura-senpai!”
A pair of second-years barged into the room. Their eyes wildly scanned the room for their leader, who abruptly took a step back from his vice captain just to avoid any weird rumors spreading.
Sakura cleared his throat. “Ahem. What’s wrong?”
“Those guys from Rascal Dogs are going around and picking fights with at Tonpu Market—”
“—some street vendors already came to us for help!”
“Okay, um. Get Nirei or Kiryu to talk with those vendors. I’ll go to the market and see what’s the fuss about.”
His juniors dutifully ran back to do as they told, leaving Sakura with a sense of disappointment as the sound of those footsteps fade from his ears.
“What a shame, huh…”
Again, his vice captain’s habit to sneak up on him made him jump. Sakura glared, ready to hurl out a petulant protest. But his words got caught on his tongue when he noticed the rare sight of a sad smile that graced Suo’s face.
“What… Huh?”
“The bento.” Suo chuckled. “You didn’t get to eat it. Maybe I should just offer it to Anzai or Junpei—”
“No!”
It came off more aggressive than he’d intended, but Sakura couldn’t stop his instinct to grip Suo’s wrist and squeeze it hard. A sliver of hot jealousy ran through his veins even though Sakura recognized how stupid it was.
“I… I want it. The bento, I mean. You… You made it for me. It’s mine. Don’t give it to others.”
“Oh? I didn’t know Sakura-kun likes my cooking that much.”
“…I do,” Sakura mumbled.
He turned his head to avert his gaze, but he couldn’t escape the heat that’s spreading from their close proximity. Especially when Suo took a step closer, standing just behind him, lips right next to Sakura’s reddening ear.
There were much more important matters for him to think of; those street vendors, his juniors, the other gangs that messed with his territory.
Everything fade into nothingness as Suo’s breath tickled the tip of his ear shell in a whisper.
“Sakura-kun… Are you going to eat at Kotoha-san’s or Momijikawa-kun’s tonight?”
He shook his head slowly, finding words impossible to be uttered right then.
“Let’s have dinner together then. Your place. I will cook. Expect me at your door at eight tonight.”
Just like that, Suo casually tugged his arm off of Sakura’s weak grip and walked ahead, leaving his bewildered and flustered captain behind.
‘Did he… Just now… Is he flirting with me?!’
Unfortunately, Sakura didn’t get to find his answers that day.