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Sitting by the windows was usually a strategic choice. From their classroom on the fourth floor, the windows were a great vantage point for anything approaching or happening in the courtyard. Hayato also, selfishly, enjoyed getting to have a mostly unobstructed view of the sky and feel the breeze when they opened the windows. Sunny days were his favorites.
Days like that day, gloomy and overcast, were not. The atmosphere begins to shift and press down harder, making the incoming storm’s presence known silently. Humidity, so unlike what he’d grown up with, gave the air a thick, damp feeling. Hayato felt the throbbing ache in his head when he woke up that morning. Warmth rose down his spine, across his shoulders, and around his neck before his body adjusted.
Hayato wanted to go home. It hurt, throbbed like the heartbeat feeling of a pain from a wound, whenever the grief and homesickness was no longer manageable. He loved it at Furin, don’t get him wrong. He was happy where he was. It was just… sometimes…
Sometimes he missed Kasai and Bankoku-Gai. The sounds of Makochi weren’t the same, the people were kind but not the same. Nothing was the same and he felt like he was betraying the others if he admitted to sometimes wanting to go back. Not forever. Just for a day, an hour.
Just long enough to abate the aching hole in his chest.
Instead, he does what he does best. Shoves it away, hides it behind smiles and silly jokes. Pretends to not know what Nirei is asking when he checks on him, ignores Kiryu’s eyes on his back. It’s fine. He’s fine.
It was easier to hide the truth when on patrol. There wasn’t always a fight to handle or someone who needed their help with something. Just getting out and moving around helped to keep him distracted. If Hayato was lucky, he’d make it through the whole day without having to outwardly acknowledge how hollowed out he’d felt all day. Luck rarely landed on the option he’d prefer though.
Hayato figured he’d get cornered by Sakura at some point that evening. It wasn’t like he could hide from him at the apartment. Not unless he wanted to lock himself in the bathroom for the entire night. Which wouldn’t happen, for several reasons. Hayato contented himself with letting the rain-cooled breeze wash over him and pretending he could smell the river surrounding Bankoku-Gai, not the rain.
Haruka had noticed it the first time a storm had been rolling in and Suo had gone quiet. He knew that bad weather gave the other boy headaches. So Suo’s slightly off behavior that morning and throughout the day hadn’t been unexpected. It was the way Suo’s smiles didn’t reach his eye, the way that sadness seemed to cling to his shoulders like an ill fitting coat.
Suo wasn’t a person made for sadness, in Haruka’s opinion. It wasn’t natural to see Suo without a smile. Haruka also knew it wasn’t that easy or simple. That this melancholy wasn’t something that would go away just because they wanted it to. Just because Suo wanted them to believe he was completely happy.
It wasn’t easy to hold his tongue and bite back the questions, but Haruka did. Suo had opened up to them a lot since his return. That didn’t mean that Suo enjoyed the act of laying his past bare to an audience of their peers. It didn’t mean that he enjoyed being pestered for details or answers when he was a fraction different from expectation. So Haruka could wait. He could tell everyone to leave Suo alone and wait till the two of them got home.
Haruka wasn’t a patient person but he could wait as long as Suo needed him to.
Kotoha was the one who achieved the unspoken goal that day. Of course it was. Haruka still wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t a witch, but her witchcraft served them well in that moment. He’d let it go, this time.
The fluffiest orange kitten meowed in complaint of Suo’s hands keeping it securely caged. Tiny, needle-like claws pricked at Suo’s sleeves and palms as the kitten fussed. Haruka had pressed his shoulder to Suo’s when Kotoha had essentially dumped the tiny thing into the brunette’s lap. He left it there, the excuse of the cat on the tip of his tongue, and pretended like he hadn’t noticed Suo’s shoulder leaning back into his.
Suo’s earrings jingled softly when the kitten, finally freed, had climbed to his shoulder and swatted at one. A laugh, terribly quiet and small, came from Suo and the worry Haruka had held since that morning eased a little. Haruka listened as Suo quietly scolded it as he pulled it down from his shoulder. He watched as Suo smiled for real for the first time that day.
Soon the others came to join them and the kitten was confidently scampering across the table to play with fingers or bits of string. The sadness around Suo was still there, more muted than before. His expression was less forced and more relaxed. Haruka was still pretending that they weren’t still pressed together in a warm line from shoulder to elbow.
The door to the bathroom clicks open and Haruka knows there’s no time like the present. He’s prepared what he knows Nirei would call a peace offering. A cup of Suo’s preferred bedtime tea and a dose of pain killers is not what makes up a peace offering in Haruka’s opinion. But it does seem to be what it is, what Suo takes it to be.
There’s a sort of resigned wariness in Suo’s eye and the sigh he lets out when he steps into the room. Haruka knows that there’s a lot of things Suo gave up to come back with them. That there are even more concessions Suo makes on a regular basis now. Haruka knows that their actions to protect and free Suo had cost him.
“You were sad today,” Haruka mumbles after Suo’s settled down across from him. “Why?”
It had taken a lot of trial and error to reach this point. Of being and staying calm when asking Suo for explanations. Of listening without interrupting when Suo would answer in stops and starts. Of learning that for all that Suo is strong and capable, he was also scared and fragile. They’d grown a lot in the last couple of months.
Suo doesn’t answer him right away. Instead Haruka watches as Suo stares at the pain killers with a grimace, as he tests the temperature of the tea, as he finally takes the damn medicine. It had taken a shouting match, a panic attack, and two days of Suo giving him the cold shoulder to learn that the silence wasn’t for coming up with lies.
“I-I miss it,” Suo says finally. He isn’t making eye contact with Haruka. “I don’t. Don’t want to go back. It’s just.”
“Makochi doesn’t feel like home,” Haruka finishes for him.
Suo nods. Haruka doesn’t understand. Not really. Homesickness isn’t something he’s ever really dealt with. It’s hard to miss the places he’s lived before when there wasn’t anything to love being there. He thinks he’d feel it for Makochi, though.
Haruka makes a decision. “Tell me about what you miss.”
The tension in Suo eases, even if he looks a little startled. His shoulders relax further as he speaks. An entirely different view of a city Haruka has only seen once is painted by Suo’s words and memories. Haruka knows it wasn’t all good, he’s been woken by Suo’s nightmares just as much as Suo’s been awakened by his, but he can see it. The things that made that place special to Suo. Special enough for the homesickness to feel like grief.
Haruka makes Suo use his phone to pull up a long video that sounds like the river and city noise he’d described before they go to bed. It’s nice. Soothing in a weird sort of way. He’ll pretend that he slept a thousand times better so that Suo will set it up to play again every night. Anything that will help this person so dear to him keep smiling, stay happy.
Because Haruka won’t ever believe that Suo was made for anything but smiles and bad jokes and being his friend.