Chapter Text
“You’ve gotta become a really cool guy!” Sakura declares, pointing in his face like it’s the most reasonable demand in the world, to just become cool. To him, it probably is, he’s gotta be one of the coolest teens Jou has ever had the pleasure of meeting. “Don’t do that lame shit ever again, got it!?”
His gaze is piercing, those bright eyes that had only seemed brighter during their fight, intense in everything he does it seems. Jou can’t look at them for long, under the weight of the words and his own actions, lowering his head again to avoid them. He’s said he would take any punishment, whatever was seen fit for his crimes, but here Sakura is just telling him to become someone better. To take that weight and do something with it, he supposes, stop letting the world stagnate and ferment around him like a bad tofu.
It’s a forgiveness, really. Warm in his chest in a way that feels like burning after so long spent cold, and he chokes on his breath for a moment. Voice shaky when he manages words, but heavy with the promise that he means it. Bowing his head lower yet in respect. “I promise.”
The silence stretches for a moment, before Sakura rips it apart like always, just as intense as before. “And you!”
Togame looks up now, where Sakura’s pointing at Chouji next to him, a blush climbing the bichromatic boy’s face rapidly. “You can’t take advantage of people’s respect like that, right? Being a leader is…” Sakura stutters for a moment here, like he can’t find the words to explain what he’s trying to say. His blush grows brighter yet as he drops his hand, taking a step back and avoiding eye contact with all of them. “Well, you!”
Umemiya laughs across from them, light in the space, and Jou’s eyes lock onto him immediately. More focused on the faces around him than he’s ever been before as he waits for Sakura to figure it out, and less focused on Chouji’s than he’s been in years.
“Sakura, take a breath, the words aren’t going anywhere.” Umemiya offers, in that warm and understanding tone he wears so well, eyes soft. Sakura only goes redder though, crossing his arms over himself like a hug and sputtering.
“Well! I just think you should… Like you did… Me and Sugishita…”
It doesn’t make any more sense than anything else he’s said, as far as Togame is concerned, but Umemiya seems to understand immediately. Mouth in a little ‘o’ before he smiles again, nodding. “Right okay, so you think he should get a spanking.”
…What?
The way Jou eyes widen at the words, jaw going slack in horror, Umemiya might as well have had two heads. It’s so far from anything Jou could have guessed, straight out of left field it feels like, and he’s not entirely sure the words even registered properly until Chouji echos it beside him.
“Spanking?” Even worse, Chouji doesn’t look startled at all, or horrified by even the suggestion. Instead he’s just curious, eyes trained on Umemiya like the older teen knows all the secrets of the universe, open and warm. (Why can’t he look at Jou like that?) “Like for little kids?”
Jou forces himself to swallow awkwardly when he realises the blonde kid from Bofurin is staring at him owlishly, straightening his posture a bit and smoothing his expression over. He had said they would take whatever punishment Sakura found fair, hadn’t he? He was a man of his word, if nothing more. He’d let Chouji ask the questions, and brace himself for whatever was coming, however discomforting it would be. It isn’t his ass being threatened right now, anyways.
“Not always, did you get spanked as a kid Chouji?” Umemiya asks it like it’s a completely normal question, equal to asking him how he liked the weather. Maybe to him it is, but Jou isn’t the only one with a red face right now at least. Sakura’s complexion is about as red as a tomato, and a few of the other first years are blushing at least a little. This might be normal to Umemiya, but it isn’t normal.
Chouji nods, putting a finger to his chin the way he does when he’s trying to recall something. “Yeah, a couple times! I-”
“Tomage.” Another voice cuts through the air, pulling his attention away even as Chouji and Umemiya keep talking beside him. The first year with crimson hair, Suo, meets his eyes when he looks over. Eyes calculating, analysing him in a way that puts Jou on edge. Judging.
“Sorry?” He tries, forcing his voice back to that cool tone he does his best to use. To not react to the energy Suo is putting off, similar to the feeling he’d had during that fight. Trying to push him in some way, like he had Arima, making a mockery of him on stage. No- that had been earlier, he was being too harsh now. Suo had only just said his name.
He expects Suo to say something more, to criticise him or taunt him even as he tries to tell himself he won’t. Suo, the absolute monster he’s starting to take him for, lets the silence stretch between them for a long moment, letting the feeling pull along with it. Then, he smiles in that too-serene way of his, and nods his head towards the little blonde beside him. “Nire-kun wanted to talk to you.”
Jou might still hate this guy, just a little. He turns to the boy in question though, the small anxious one who hadn’t fought anyone today. Right now, he looked determined in a way Jou wasn’t expecting, hands clutched around a little notebook in his lap and eyebrows furrowed.
“Yes?”
“Does Shishitoren not use spankings? You looked surprised by them, in a way I wouldn’t expect from someone who hands them out, so it’s pretty clear you don’t, so does that mean none of you do? But you pummeled that one kid, for losing a fight right? Oh, well no that answers it I guess, because if you got kicked out for losing a fight and disrespect is enough of a cause for a fight then… that means you have no reason for a productive form of punishment in the group. Nobody could earn one while still being in the group, for your standards then, right? Or do you-”
“Okay kid, woah, breathe for a sec!” He doesn’t even understand half of what the blonde has said, rushed and jumpy as it was, but he’s held onto the gist at least. Waving his hand through the air in a ‘calm down’ kind of motion. “You’re going way too fast, little man. No, no we don’t use… that.”
Nirei nods and scribbles something down, but when he talks again now he’s more careful to be paced with it. “That makes sense, they didn’t at Furin before Umemeiya-san either, but it’s still surprising. It might be helpful here though, for figuring things out y’know?” He glances at Chouji while he says it, still talking with Umemiya though Jou hasn’t caught a single word of it.
He flushes again at the implication, waving both hands now and chuckling awkwardly. “Woah, no, I don’t think so kid. If that’s what's happening today then so be it, but that’s uh, not my cup of tea I guess.”
“Huh? It’s really good for emotional reg-” He’s cut off by a hand on his shoulder from Suo, finally deigning to take pity on Jou now that Nirei has made him about as awkward as possible. Smiling in that same way, like nothing in the world could shake his demeanor.
“Come on Nire-kun, let’s give them some privacy.” The blonde looks like he wants to say more, biting his lip for a moment, but he lets the taller teen guide him up without a word. Tucking his notebook away and stumbling to follow when Suo starts walking. Sakura and Sugishita follow without much prompting either, and Jou glances between them and Chouji uncertainly. Should he go too, or stay to keep an eye on his leader?
Hiragi answers for him, meeting his eyes as he stands up and straightens his jacket. “You should see it. I’ll keep these guys out of your hair.”
“Oh, okay…” He trails off, feeling lost in a way he has so many times before while Hiragi walks away. At least this time, it isn’t just him and Chouji in that space in his mind, lost and trying to navigate. Umemiya is with them too, knowledgeable and understanding, whether or not Jou wants to acknowledge it. No matter how annoyed he feels when Chouji looks at the older teen like a breath of fresh air, or the man who hung the stars, because Umemiya had earned that adoration in him. Umemiya wouldn’t let them drown in this.
It’s still uncomfortable, turning to face the two and trying desperately to catch back up to where they are. Chouji is still sitting next to him, but his legs are sprawled out and he’s nodding to something Umemiya is explaining rather animatedly. He doesn’t look any more anxious than the last time Jou had looked at him, shoulders still loose. As calm as Jou wishes he could be with this, even as Umemiya explains exactly what’s going to happen.
“Right, you’ll go over my knee like that, unless you’d rather stand, not much out here safe to lean on.”
“Your lap sounds fine!” Like he isn’t helping plan his own humiliation, though. At this point, Jou isn’t sure Chouji even feels that emotion.
“Then you’ll go over my knees, and I’ll put my hand on your back to keep you there. I can put a leg over yours too if you get too kicky.”
Jou’s gut does a weird swoop at that idea, Chouji being pinned in place and hit like Umemiya is planning to do. His job is to protect Chouji, isn’t it? Shouldn’t he stop this?
“So I shouldn’t kick?”
“You can if you need to, I’ll only do that if you’re kicking too much for me to work, or if you ask me to. Kicking a bit is totally normal.”
“Ohhhh, I see!”
“Anything else you wanna ask?” Umemiya is putting lids on food containers as he asks, collecting them in a pile so they’ll stay as warm as possible until the others come back. He looks longingly at one of them, but doesn’t seem at all irritated at having their meal interrupted. If Jou is going to jump in anywhere, it might as well be here, right? But he was a man of his word, and he’d said they would accept it.
“Wait-”
“Kame-chan?” Chouji looks at him with those deep eyes of his, brighter now than they’ve been in so long, even after only a day around the Furin boys. Touched in ways that Jou couldn’t manage with years of scratching, clawing at the space between them in all the wrong ways. “What’s wrong?”
He draws in a breath at the words, clenching his fists tighter in his lap and trying to pull his thoughts together. For all the years he had spent now drowning, he’s never felt more lost on where the surface is. “Are you really… okay with this?”
Chouji actually seems to consider it for a moment, tapping his chin in that way of his, before he nods. Giving Jou a reassuring smile, when Jou should probably be the one reassuring him right now. “Yeah! I mean, it sounds awful, yeah? But Sakura-chan is right, I was bein’ real naughty and mean to everyone ‘cuz I wasn’t having fun.”
Jou nods. He understands that much at least, is caught up to here.
“It was like that when we were kids too, right? Well, you didn’t know me yet, but I’d get in trouble for being mean at playtime in school too, kay? And whenever I got home with a bad note, dad would smack me and tell me to be nicer, so it’s like that, right Ume-chan?”
Umemiya nods, smiling when Jou turns to look at him, gaze warm. “That’s right!”
Jou finds himself nodding too, looking down as his brain turns the information over. The certainty Chouji says it with, as if it really is basic math that only Jou is too stupid to put together right.
Really, Chouji and Nirei both are right, he has no idea why this is sitting so wrong with him. It’s arguably not anything worse than what he’s been doing on a daily basis for the last few years, no more violent, and in this case Chouji is agreeing to it. He isn’t being beaten black and blue either, or being thrown out of Shishitoren, Umemiya is just smacking him like a child and letting them move on.
He doesn’t quite get it, why what he was doing is so clearly wrong but this isn’t, but he doesn’t have any real ground to stand on to argue it either. Asking more questions at this point will only drag this out longer anyways, and the last thing he wants is to spend any longer on this than they have to. If he can’t stop it, then they might as well just get it the hell over with.
“Okay.”
Chouji reaches out for his hand as he says it, wrapping their fingers together and leaning to bump their shoulders together. “It’ll be okay Kame-chan. I trust Ume-chan, okay?”
“Okay.” He’s starting to sound (and feel) a bit like a broken record now, squeezing around Chouji’s hand firmly before letting him go. Chouji doesn’t seem to mind though, squeezing back before he climbs up, brushing invisible dust off his track pants.
“Let’s do this, Ume-chan!” What Jou wouldn’t give to have the kind of bravery Chouji does. Even in a situation like this, talking to someone who’s just barely below his eye level sitting down.
Umemiya nods agreeably, setting the last container aside and shifting to sit more comfortably, legs still folded under him. Jou guesses that’s the right position for this too, not that he would know. Maybe that’s where his hesitation comes from, really. Neither as a kid or now has Jou ever been spanked, has never even been threatened with it. It’s just not something he’s familiar with at all.
Chouji goes over without any hesitation, letting Umemiya take his hand and guide him over with such implicit trust in the moment. The same kind of trust he’d shown in Jou, when he’d decided that Chouji’s happiness was more important than anything else; the first in a series of bad choices that had done anything but respect it.
Umemiya does exactly as he said he would, adjusting the boy carefully and putting a hand over his back firmly. It looks huge on him, fingers nearly long enough to span the entirety of his lower back, almost laughable if it weren’t for the circumstance. His other hand looks just as large when it comes to rest over the seat of his pants, almost completely covering it.
Chouji really does look like a child like this, and the way he starts wiggling almost immediately doesn’t help the visual.
“Are you ready then?” Umemiya asks, rubbing Chouji’s back in big passes, like soothing a kitten. Patient and calm, where Jou’s idea of a spanking had always seemed more rushed and violent.
Chouji sucks in a deep breath, and then pushes it out quickly the way he does right before jumping into a fight, bright and electric. Preparing himself for just a moment before he can think about it too hard. “Ready!”
The first smack is loud, louder than Jou expects, echoing over the roof the same as a punch would. It doesn’t seem as hard though, and Chouji just gasps with it, twisting his fingers around the fabric of Umemiya’s uniform pants when he takes another breath. The second is the same, with the same little gasp of reaction, and despite himself Jou can feel his shoulders loosening. Chouji isn’t bucking up, or trying to run away, or yowling like a cat with a stepped tail.
Umemiya isn’t going to hurt him, or beat him black and blue; Jou figures he could probably take hundreds of light swats like that without hurting too bad. This is going to be fine, he tries to tell himself, Chouji will be fine.
Each smack only calms him further, despite how illogical that sounds, watching Chouji melt into the Furin leader’s lap like he belongs there. Dutifully taking each one and answering Umemiya’s questions as best he can. Why he’s there, what he’s learned, what he’ll do better in the future. It’s startling how well the spanking seems to pull such clear honesty out of him, how willing he seems to listen and even ask questions of his own in turn.
Umemiya is patient with each one too, keeps his swats slow and steady as he answers how he finds fun in being a leader. How he stays connected, and what he cares about, and the secrets to his motivation. Jou is left sitting there through it, watching the two connect in a conversation he isn’t really a part of, how the words seem to reach into his friend’s chest and pull feelings right out.
It reminds him of the fight with Sakura, how punches and kicks had connected them in a way only words never could. How they’d reached such a point of understanding in only a few short minutes, just the same as Chouji and Umemiya are doing now. It makes more sense now, in front of him like this, and he feels foolish somehow for having felt so against it when he can see how helpful it is.
By the end, even when Chouji is crying softly and kicking his feet through the last of it, he feels calm. Brought to understanding however unwillingly, as helpless to Umemiya as anyone else. The guy really knows what he’s doing, even when he sounds insane saying it, and Jou is forced to respect him for it.
He hugs Chouji when he’s done, rocking the smaller boy through his cries and gestures Jou over to them. Jou follows like he has no other choice, shuffling over until their knees bump and Choiji turns to grab at him instead, taking up his lap without waiting for permission. He’s warm against him, especially where his face presses to Jou’s shoulder, and his voice is wet in his throat.
“I’m sorry Kame-chan!”
“I know Chouji, it’s okay.” Well, it will be at least. They still have more to talk through, more to figure out. How to repair their mistakes in what ways they can, and how to go from here, but at least now they’re starting down the path. Now he feels like he can connect to him properly again, the way they had once all those years ago.
He doesn’t want to admit this will help, that this could have been in any way necessary even if he’s willing to accept it isn’t as bad as he had expected. But, the way Chouji is crying against him, showing so much more emotion that he has in so long, letting those horrible feelings out in this way… He can’t bring himself to argue its use either.
He’ll concede for now, that Sakura and Umemiya were right once again, on some level.
Not that Nirei kid, though. He could adjust himself to this on this level, just this once, for what Chouji got out of it; but he would never do it himself.
Jou stays firm in that conviction for a week, trying to sort things over with Chouji, to rebuild the bridges between them and the rest of their crew. He pretends to be firm in it still for another two.