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Takes place some time after Sakura shares his story with Momijikawa.
── ⟢
It’s soothing, in a way, how the rain finally let up after a day of constant drizzle, a beam of fresh sunlight peaking through the dispersing grey clouds. At least that’s what Sakura had thought before being nudged along to the rooftop by his very pushy, soft-hearted senpai, only for the guy to ditch moments later, which confused the dual-haired teen, until he glanced up and saw a familiar, grumpy scowl etched onto one of the second year grade captain’s faces. A face that just made Sakura’s drop, a scowl twisting his lips as he realised this must’ve been one of Umemiya’s little schemes.
“The hell are ya here for?” He muttered, scowling harder at the embarrassed heat crawling up his neck.
Kaji just glared, peach-flavoured lollipop in his mouth as he sat down onto the concrete curb near the plant beds.
“What does it look like?” The blonde boy snapped back. “Same as you, obviously.”
“Damn meddlin’ asshole.” Sakura muttered, cursing Umemiya under his breath as he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, scuffing the ground with his foot.
He glanced back at the doors, wondering if he could just leg it now and deal with the consequences later, but a sigh from behind drew his attention. “Don’t bother.” Kaji grumbled. “If you scram now, I’m gonna get an earful from Hiragi-san later about not helping my kohai.”
“Help me?” Sakura furrowed his brows. “With what?”
There were some unintelligible mumbles coming from his senpai, muffled by his lolly and he looked just about as uncomfortable with this situation as Sakura did. In truth, they’d both rather be anywhere else at the moment. Though, it’s not as if Sakura couldn’t stand Kaji. He didn’t mind him really, and he was a great sparring partner whenever they trained during the day. They both egged each other on and pushed each other’s limits. In fact, if Sakura were being honest, he’d have to admit that he had a fair amount of respect for his upperclassman. But then again, Sakura was never quite in that honest of a mood and you’d have to drag the words out of his beat up body to ever get him to admit that.
And Kaji didn’t dislike Sakura either, or anything. Most people irritated him in general, and the dual-coloured teen was no different. Sakura just reminded him of himself really, and maybe that was why he was always ready to smack some sense into his impulsive head, because he hadn’t been able to do the same for his younger self back then.
No, the reason Kaji was acting so awkward was more so because he had no idea how to start this stupid conversation that had been set up for him. He could almost hear Umemiya’s cheerful voice in his head telling him to persevere and Hiragi’s utterly exasperated voice telling his friend to shut up and mind his own business, because honestly, how was Kaji supposed to casually bring up Sakura’s past, after hearing about it from his classmates?
He didn’t want to drag up any more bad memories than the boy probably already dealt with, and he wasn’t sure why Umemiya had asked him to do this in the first place. He'd made it sound like Sakura was in desperate need of someone to talk to, but he seemed just fine to Kaji. He had his classmates and he doubted Sakura would appreciate him just bringing it up out of the blue.
But he supposed that Umemiya wasn’t the type to force these things to happen, nor would he actually meddle without good reason, so he let out a resigned sigh and popped his lolly out of his mouth, adjusting his headphones around his neck.
Look, I don’t wanna be here either, but… Great start. Already so comforting. Uh… I heard about what happened to you before you came to Makochi. That’s rough, dude. Now that was a winner.
Fucking hell, why was this so difficult? Okay, stop beating around the bush and just say it straight. Damn it, just say it.
“This is about what I told everyone on the roof, ain’t it?”
Kaji glanced up to see Sakura rubbing the back of his neck, an embarrassed look on his face as the tips of his ears were tinged a warm pink. Kaji sighed and gestured for him to sit down wherever, and the dual-coloured teen slid down against the wall of the shed, under the shade where the rain hadn’t reached.
“I wasn’t on the roof the day you told everyone about it.” He shrugged. “So I heard it from one of my classmates. I’m… sorry that happened to you.”
Sakura tried to shrug it off but Kaji could tell he was feeling uncomfortable. “Eh. Everyone is, right? I mean, nothin’ I can do about it now. What happened, happened and that’s that.”
Kaji couldn’t help the raise of his brows as they disappeared beneath his blonde bangs. Either Umemiya was looking for a certain outcome of this conversation or he was just underestimating Sakura’s mental capability.
“Stop pretending to be mature.” He rolled his eyes. “I can feel the discomfort you’re stewing in from here.”
“Wh— the hell?!” Sakura’s face reddened and he leapt to his feet only to hit his head off of a shelf, knocking him back onto his ass. “Ow, damn it. Why does everyone keep sayin’ that? I’m not pretending!”
Kaji let out a breath and pondered his next words for a moment. “You don’t have to say it’s okay, in any case.” Is what he came up with eventually. “Actually, I’d be surprised if you didn’t want to curse them out constantly.”
“Well, it’s not like I’ve forgiven them all for treating me like shit.” Sakura muttered, rubbing his head with a wince. “I just don’t see the point in thinking about it the whole time. Sure, when I do think about it, it pisses me off. But… I’ve been told that holding on to that kind of anger isn’t good for me.”
Kaji nodded, tilting his head back to look up into the grey-blue skies. “Well, whoever said that’s got a point.” He hummed thoughtfully. “But… I guess…” Kaji trailed off, suddenly unsure where he was going with this.
“Eh? Spit it out.” Sakura grumbled, wondering what the point of this all was.
“Fucking hell, I’m saying talking about it might help too.” Kaji snapped, spinning the lolly pinched between his index finger and thumb.
The dual-coloured teen blinked. “Talk about it? I told everyone my story, didn’t I?”
Kaji sighed yet again, watching more darkening clouds roll in. “Sure, you told people about it. But did you guys mention it again after everyone was done comforting you?”
Sakura thought for a moment, and after a minute of silence, Kaji figured he wasn’t planning on answering that.
“Well there. I don’t really know what I’m trying to say either, alright? But if… if you ever want to rant about it or just get some shit off your chest you can go to your friends... or something.”
Sakura just stared at him, and the look on his face was clear. What is this guy on about?
Kaji, fed up with the embarrassed heat he could feel crawling up his neck, shoved his lolly back into his mouth for a minute or two to calm down. This was weird, he thought to himself. When had he ever talked so much to someone who wasn’t in his class? Or who wasn’t Hiragi? He was no good at comforting people either. There were much better people suited for this. Hell, he bet Kusumi and Enomoto would even do a better job with this and they knew Sakura about as well as Kaji did. And Kusumi didn’t even fucking talk.
“Or… or you can come to me.” He added after a moment’s painful silence. Sakura looked surprised, then embarrassed, then red from head-to-toe.
“E-eh?! Are you tryna pick a fight with me?”
“No dumbass, I’m trying to say you can talk to me about this shit!”
“WHAT? You makin’ fun of me?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake—” Kaji stood up, irritated, but Sakura took that to mean he was about to offer him up a knuckle sandwich and leapt to his feet a second later, fists ready for a fight.
Never before had Kaji felt such a strong urge to stomp his foot like a child in frustration.
Is he stupid? He thought frustratedly. Tch.
He swatted the other boy’s hands away from their fighting position and bonked him on the head with his fist with a scowl. “Shut up for a minute, dumbass.”
“Hah?! But—”
“...”
“F-fine…” Sakura grumbled to himself, rubbing the top of his head as his face grew pink once more.
“What I was saying,” Kaji continued, a grumpy mutter in his tone now, “is that if you ever have enough of everyone’s sugary comfort then you can come to me and lose your shit.”
Sakura just blinked, confused. “Eh?”
“Get mad, rant, throw some punches—I don’t really care. But sometimes you need to let all your anger out. It’s better than bottling it up. Trust me on that.”
Trust me on that. Shit, he was such a hypocrite. He recalled Hirgai once saying the same things to him, and what had he done? Accepted that and moved on? Definitely not. It’d taken a long time for Kaji to accept things the way they were, so did he have any right to ask it of his kohai?
But to Kaji’s surprise, the dual-coloured teen just shrugged silently, sitting back down.
“Might take you up on that.” He muttered after a minute.
Kaji blinked. He’d noticed it before, obviously, but it really was becoming clear how Sakura had grown and matured since first coming to Makochi. He’d been short-tempered, stubborn and thought he was better off alone, and even though he was still most of those things, it was nice to see how far he’d come since then.
They sat there on the roof of Furin for a few minutes. Kaji finished off his lolly and Sakura just watched the clouds, seemingly deep in thought. It almost looked like he wanted to ask something, but wasn’t sure he should. Kaji could guess however, just like how Sakura had guessed earlier. Unlike him however, he actually managed to ask his question.
“So… why do you always wear those headphones? And the lollipops? Do you have some sort of stash?”
Kaji gave him a deadpan look. “No, they just magically keep appearing in my pockets whenever I finish one.” For show, he flicked the lollipop stick over into a nearby bin and produced another from his pocket. Sakura’s eyes widened for a split second, and that was what it took to realise he was being made fun of.
“Asshole.”
“Stupid questions get stupid answers.”
“Then answer my other one.”
Kaji brought his hand up to his headphones, carefully taking them off, and holding them in front of him. “Hiragi-san gave these to me back in middle school.” He brushed a non-existent speck of dirt from them fondly. “Y’heard how I used to lose it back then?”
Sakura shrugged. He’d heard snippets of what Kaji’s anger issues had been like, but he didn’t really know all that much.
Kaji mirrored the shrug, taking off the lollipop wrapper. “Well, it was pretty bad. I lashed out like crazy whenever I got mad, and basically just beat everyone around me to a pulp. I’d wake up a few minutes later to their unconscious bodies around me and bleeding fists.”
Sakura’s brows twitched and his stomach flipped uncomfortably. He knew all too well what that was like.
“Anyway, long story short, after I met Hiragi-san, he gave me these headphones and told me to block stupid people out with them. And the lollipops just make it harder to mouth off at someone if they piss me off.”
Sakura nodded, unsure what else to say to that.
“Uh… what music do you listen to?”
“Eh? Why d’you wanna know?”
“I’m just curious, damn it! Don’t gotta be an ass about it.”
“I just listen to whatever Hiragi-san recommends. I don’t actually know the names of the songs or whatever. But it’s usually rock, I think.”
“Oh. That’s… that’s cool I guess.” Sakura mumbled the last bit out, shuffling his feet to try and look indifferent.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Music, dumbass.”
A scoff. “I don’t listen to any.”
“You should. Maybe it’ll help stop you from mouthing off every now and then. God knows you need it more than me.”
“EH? Bastard, you are making fun of me!”
“What? No, I'm being serious.”
“Y-you—!”
Scuffle. SLAM.
From the doorway, two people watched the interaction—one, beaming like a proud father, and the other, pinching the bridge of his nose as he felt the start of a stomach ache coming on.
“Seriously?” Hiragi muttered. “The hell are they doing now?”
Umemiya sniffled, eyes glimmering. “Look at them, Hiragi!”
“I am looking! Those jerks’re makin’ a mess!”
“Then look properly! They’re bonding!”
“Bonding? Shut up, dumbass, they’re clearly brawling!”
Sakura and Kaji were, in fact, brawling (though it was hardly serious). Kaji was on the ground with his arm locked around Sakura’s neck, and the dual-coloured teen had yanked the other’s hood down over his eyes, the both of them tussling and scrambling around like idiots.
Umemiya straightened up, a fond smile on his face. “But you know, those two really are more alike than they think. They’ve both come so far.”
Hiragi could agree to that, at least. “You’re right about that. I’m glad they got to talk.”
Umemiya turned to his friend, eyes sparkling. “Hiragi!” He threw his arms open for a hug and was met with the other’s palm smooshing against his face to keep him away.
“Hey, get off!”
Days later, Class 1-1 saw Sakura walking into class, and offered him their usual cheerful greeting, which went ignored.
Puzzled, Suo, Nirei, Kiryu and Tsuguera shared a glance, wondering what was up with their grade captain, when Anzai gasped, facepalming. “He’s got airpods in!”
Well, no wonder they’d been ignored—he simply hadn’t heard them. After poking him and waving their hands in front of his face obnoxiously, he finally got fed up and yanked them out.
“What?!”
“Sakura-kun, I didn’t know you liked listening to music.” Suo walked over, his ever-present pleasant smile on his face.
“I didn’t know you even owned airpods!” Kiru chimed in.
“Oh, Kaji gave them to me and a playlist recommendation.” Sakura shrugged. The class paused.
“HUH?”