Chapter Text
The day Sakura was discharged from the hospital, a party was thrown in celebration.
Which was fine, except that they chose to throw it at his house, and that nearly every single member of Furin, rival groups turned allies and the entire population of Makochi showed up at one point during what turned into a day and night event.
Sakura thought the past couple of weeks being the center of attention at the hospital where the visitor amount could (somewhat) be controlled was bad enough. But being the center of attention at a party that was dedicated entirely to him, where every single person who was there was there to see him and greet him and wish him well… that was an entirely different beast all together.
For one thing there was a gigantic banner that said ‘Welcome Home Sakura!’
Well, technically it said ‘Welsome’ with the s crossed out and replaced with a c. Sakura wasn’t a betting type of guy but he would have bet money that the sign had been written by someone in his class. He wasn’t too concerned with the misspelling plus the fact that it was handwritten made it even more heartwarming.
Umemiya had insisted that they leave the hospital by car no matter how much Sakura insisted that he was fine walking, and it was clear why by the time they arrived on the street leading to his apartment. He knew that the moment Sakura laid eyes on what was going on he definitely would have made a run for it.
(He was right.)
Being in a car sitting between Umemiya and Kotoha with Suo looking way too excited in the front passenger seat, it meant that there was no way he could have run.
The party went on the way parties do, except for every single person he passed reaching out to shake his hand, pat him on the shoulder and told him that they were happy to see him; the physical touch alone was overwhelming, but thankfully his bodyguard at that point (being Nirei and Suo) seemed to pick up on him becoming too overwhelmed with the attention and skillfully weaved him out of the crowd and into his apartment where it was much, much less hectic.
The party took place in the lawn of the apartment complex. Umemiya had asked permission from the landlord to throw it which was why the police hadn’t stopped by to put an end to it. The amount of people who had showed up meant that the party eventually spilled over into the street, and had become more of a block party than just a regular welcome home one.
Sakura was relieved when he entered his room, falling into his futon like it was a comforting old friend. Nirei and Suo followed him in, taking a seat around the table in the center of his room.
His room was pretty much unrecognizable from the way it had been in the past - from any room he’d ever had in his past. Where it used to be bare and cold, it was now homely and welcoming. It wasn’t the things it now bore that made it that way, it was the thought, effort and care that had gone into making it that way and now unlike in the past, Sakura’s room wasn’t just four walls and a roof. It had become a place that he wanted to go back to, a place that was warm and welcoming not only to others, but also to himself. It was a place that, wherever he looked, would remind him that he had people who liked him and cared about him, people he liked and who genuinely liked him back.
His room truly had become a sanctuary for him, and it was never more apparent than in that very moment.
He could still hear the voices and music playing through the walls, but it was muffled and when Suo slid the door closed, it felt like an exhale of relief.
Sakura stretched out across his futon, forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t alone in the room until Suo spoke, asking whether he was hungry and if he wanted anything to eat. When Sakura nodded, having just realized that he was indeed hungry, Suo sent Nirei to get him a plate. Though sent was maybe an exaggeration, because Suo only just glanced at Nirei when Sakura nodded and the other boy was already on his feet, beaming, a hand flying up into a crisp salute.
He and Suo didn’t really talk but the silence wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable, and once Nirei returned with three plates of food (Suo’s which he discreetly slid towards Sakura) not much was said thereafter.
Truth be told, Sakura didn’t really remember much about what happened after that. The only thing he could really recall was the taste of food, the comfortable silence and at some point he must have fallen asleep because the next thing he realized he was waking up to the sight of the morning sun beam against the far end wall of his room.
He pushed the blanket off as he sat up (he didn’t even remember pulling it over himself before falling asleep). The groan escaped his lips before he could stop it. His whole body was still sore and weak from lack of use. The doctors had told him that the feeling would persist for a while because he did almost die, it was natural for his body not being able to listen to him like it used to, at least for a while. He’d been injured in fights in the past but the aftermath had never felt so shitty. He paused to wonder whether having people to protect really did make him weaker physically and mentally. But he shoved that thought out of his mind the second it reared its ugly head.
It didn’t matter. He didn’t regret what he did and if he had a chance to go back and re-do everything, he would have done the exact same thing.
Except he’d probably try to avoid getting blindsided by the knife.
He kicked the blanket off his legs as he surveyed the room.
There was an odd heap of jackets in the corner of the room that hadn’t been there the night before. When Sakura stood up, the peculiar fabric mountain shifted and emitted a choking, snoring sound that almost sent Sakura jumping until he noticed a head of blonde hair sticking out from underneath the mound.
Sakura couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped but made sure to make as little noise as he could as he walked towards the door and slid it open.
There were a bunch of sleeping bodies strew across the floor right outside his room, as if they’d partied too hard and decided that the floor of Sakura’s very small and very cramped hall was the best place to catch up on sleep. He noticed Anzai and Takanashi almost immediately because they were sleeping one on top of the other like they’d been doing some sort of wrestling move and had immediately fallen asleep.
The second thing he noticed was the looming lanky teen standing in his tiny kitchen washing dishes.
Sugishita looked over when he heard Sakura’s bedroom door slide open and they stayed that way, eyes locked for more than a few seconds, unmoving.
Sakura was wondering what the guy was doing in his kitchen and Sugishita looked like he wanted to throw himself in the sink and crawl into the pipes.
But after a few seconds of tense staring, Sakura just exhaled and tore his eyes away. He was careful not to step on any of his friends as he made his way towards the front door. His hand was nearly to the doorknob when Sugishita’s mumbled words (barely) reached his ears.
“Are... Are you okay now?” he asked.
When Sakura turned to look at him he found only Sugishita’s back as his audience. He stood unmoving, his shoulders tense, that was the only reason Sakura knew that he hadn’t imagined the words that had reached his ears.
He looked away from Sugishita when he answered. “Yeah… I’m okay now,” he said.
Sugishita didn’t react to his answer or make any indication that he even heard him besides a small, almost imperceptible nod, but then he turned on the tap and resumed with washing the dishes as Sakura stepped out onto the balcony.
The feel of the fresh morning air on his face was like the town’s very own welcome back greeting. It felt good and nice and Sakura didn’t realize how much he missed the feeling of the wind on his face and sun on his skin. He closed his eyes and just basked in the feeling of cooling warmth that washed over him.
A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and brought his gaze towards Suo down in the patio doing something he’d explained to Sakura and the rest of the class was called tai-chi. It was some sort of meditation thing that he did to center his chi and tame the fox demon residing in his eye. Sakura suspected at least one of those things was not true.
The surroundings of the apartment complex still showed remnants of the party that had taken place there, but not in a messy way. Tables and chairs had been arranged neatly by the fence, ready to be picked up, and bags of garbage were stacked in the corner to be disposed of later.
Besides what seemed to be at least half of his class currently sleeping strewn out across every inch of his very tiny apartment (and Sugishita in his kitchen) it seemed like everyone else was able to get themselves home after the party.
There was a ruckus coming from the room next to his, but besides trying to recall whether there had always been someone living next door to him, Sakura didn’t pay it that much mind. He was pretty sure that there was only a handful of people renting room at that complex and the one next to his had definitely been vacant the last he heard.
He took a moment to just look out into the distance, towards where the center of town was. He thought about the first day he arrived in town, knowing exactly what he wanted to do and eventually finding out that Furin was not at all what he expected. He’d been disappointed for a minute, and pissed off the next, but those two emotions were quickly replaced by the feeling of bewilderment, disbelief and oddly enough, denial. It was weird.
He saved Kotoha that day and his whole life had changed from that point on.
It wasn’t something that he’d even set out to do to be honest, he hadn’t even noticed her there when he initially approached the group. There had been something about their aura that told Sakura they were looking for trouble and he was only too eager to oblige. He only noticed her once he got closer to them.
He had no regrets about saving her that day either despite his mind constantly telling him that protecting people would be his downfall.
Sure, he almost died saving her this time around; his whole body still hurt, the wound from the knife and from the subsequent surgery still ached and pulled every time he moved. The smallest amount of effort still left him feeling absolutely exhausted and his broken arm was still in a cast and rendered him absolutely useless in a fight. He’d rejected the sling outright when he was leaving the hospital but somehow between Kotoha and Tsubaki’s insistence and Hiragi telling him that taking care of his body was the way to make the healing process go faster - he’d ultimately been bullied into wearing the sling as he left the hospital.
He was out on the balcony without the sling, someone had taken it off at some point while he was asleep, and the weight of the cast was pulling down on his shoulder and still injured side and he hated to admit that Hiragi might have been right.
He curled his arm against his chest and held it protectively with his other hand. It lessened the tension almost immediately but he hated how vulnerable he felt and looked.
The ruckus in the room next to his was becoming louder and Sakura had half a mind to knock on the door to tell them to shut the hell up when almost on cue, the door suddenly swung open and out stepped -
“Umemiya?!” The name came out both as a question and a statement.
Umemiya had the audacity to laugh his typical overly enthusiastic laugh at Sakura’s expression.
All of a sudden Tsubaki was there as well, dressed in a nightgown and his usually perfectly coiffed hair in disarray. Then it was like Sakura was watching the world’s most ridiculous clown performance where they were filing out of the world’s tiniest car because the rest of the Kings appeared one by one until they were all standing right in front of him in various states of obviously just woke up.
Sakura’s brows were in his hairline as he surveyed the row of people standing in front of him.
Who had just walked out of the room…
The room next door…
The room next door to his room…
The people who were making a ruckus just a few minutes ago.
His neighbour??
It was making zero sense and trying to figure out what in the blue hell was going on was giving Sakura’s headache a headache.
“Howdy neighbour,” Umemiya greeted happily as he stepped up to Sakura, patting his good shoulder a little too enthusiastically.
“What the hell is going on? Why are you here?”
Umemiya laughed sheepishly, in the background he could see Hiragi sigh, pulling a strip of Gaskun 10 out of his pocket. Whatever scheme Umemiya had concocted was obviously not Hiragi approved.
Even Tsubaki and the others had guilty looks on their faces. While they obviously weren’t fully on board with what Umemiya was doing, it was clear that they were all in on it.
“What’s there to explain, my place is undergoing some renovations so I had to look for a new place to live for the time being. And I was talking with your lovely landlord and she happened to mention that the unit next to yours just happened to be vacant. What a coincidence right?”
Sakura wanted to point out that ninety percent of the units in the entire building was vacant but he kept his mouth shut.
“So I thought, great. Not only do I have a good place in town, my neighbour is also already pre-approved. Win-win!”
Umemiya’s laugh was like a jackhammer on his brain. He just sighed and reached up to massage the stress from his temples. “Whatever. It’s your shitty apartment to regret,” he said.
“Well, the apartment isn’t important, it’s the company that matters,” Umemiya said with a grin.
The blood rushed to his face so fast Sakura was scared it would leak out of his ears. He stuttered out an incoherent response before turning around so fast he almost ate the floor and disappeared back into his apartment without a second glance back, slamming the door behind him.
He didn’t look but he could imagine the amused look on everyone’s face at his reaction.
He didn’t look at Sugishita or watch where he was walking as he headed back to his room and shut the door. He was pretty sure he’d stepped on a few classmates too judging by the muffled groans he’d heard just before his door slid to a close.
He didn’t know how everyone in town were able to make him feel so… flabbergasted and out of sorts with so few words.
None of them ever said anything bad, or anything negative to him. Their words were always positive and kind, always thanking him and complimenting him for the little things and praising him and it was those kind of words that made him feel the most unworthy.
He’d grown used to hearing all the insults and the abuse and the hate and scorn in everyone voices whenever they talked to him or talked about him and that was normal. That was what he was used to.
But everyone in Furin and Makochi always saying nice things to him and about him, always complimenting him and thanking him for doing the most inconsequential thing… that was something he needed to work on getting used to.
Umemiya said a lot of things in lighthearted fun, but everything he said to Sakura always seemed too heartfelt and too genuine and most of the time Sakura didn’t even know how to react to it.
He sat back down on his futon. Nirei was still snoring away from under the mountain of fabric in the corner.
He just took a deep breath and exhaled, repeating the motion almost in time with Nirei’s gentle snoring.
“Sakura-kun. Are you okay?”
Sakura took his time before opening his eyes though he nodded to answer Suo’s question.
As a matter of fact, it was something he had learned from Suo whenever he was feeling too overwhelmed; to just take a moment to breathe in and re-calibrate his mind.
Suo seemed to understand what he was doing because he didn’t ask any further questions. Sakura did sense him entering and taking seat across from him at the table.
Eventually, when he finally opened his eyes, he found Suo’s eyes and his soft smile on him.
“It’s good to take a moment just for yourself once in a while. I’m glad you’re finding it helpful, Sakura-kun,” he said.
Maybe because he was finally getting used to the constant attention, and the way they always have nice, positive things to say to him, but for maybe the first time since he came to town, he didn’t feel the familiar warm feeling of blood rushing to his face. Instead he just nodded.
“Yeah. Thanks,” he said, and his response seemed to surprise Suo because he raised his brows with a soft and almost disbelieving ‘oh?’.
That did send the blood rushing to his face as he struggled to sputter an explanation. Suo just laughed.
Sakura glared at him and hastily looked away, though he could feel a tug at the corner of his own lips that he quickly pushed back.
“I see you’ve got some new neighbours,” said Suo, changing the subject.
Sakura just sighed exasperatedly. He’d completely forgotten about that.
“I heard Umemiya-san was looking into some new real estate but I never would have guessed it was here. Though, I’m not all that surprised.”
Sakura just groaned an unintelligible response. Suo was obviously not mentioning the elephant in the room - which was why Umemiya had chose that exact apartment complex to rent.
Because he wanted to keep an eye on Sakura. Because he was still worried about him. Because he didn’t think Sakura could take care of himself.
“I know what you’re thinking, Sakura-kun, and it’s none of those reasons.”
Sakura’s head snapped up so fast he almost gave himself whiplash.
“I sacrificed my left eye to gain power to read minds,” Suo said.
Sakura glared at him.
Suo laughed. “You’re so easy to read, Sakura-kun. But truly, it’s not for the reasons you’re worried about. I don’t know why Umemiya-san did what he did, but I can tell you why I would have done it… because I’d want to spend more time hanging out with you. The last few weeks showed everyone that you really can’t take any day for granted. We all just want to make the most of what we have.” There was a mischievous glint in Suo’s eye when he locked eyes with Sakura. “As a matter of fact that’s the reason why I rented the room down the hall.”
“What!?” Sakura almost yelled. His eyes wide and brows almost tickling his hairline.
Suo chuckled. “I’m just kidding.” He turned serious suddenly. “Or am I?” Then he laughed.
Sakura just gave up with a sigh.
“But seriously, Sakura-kun…” Suo spoke again, but this time there was a serious tone in his voice that Sakura didn’t hear often. He glanced up to Suo’s face to find an odd, almost wistful smile on his face, “Welcome home.”
Sakura felt a lump rise in his throat that he tried to hide with a cough as he managed to choke out, “I’m home.”
Then Umemiya burst in through the door with a small container asking to borrow some sugar, Tsubaki and a few others tumbling in behind him and the whole scene was beyond absurd.
Sakura laughed and it felt nice.
He truly felt like he was home for the first time in his life.
Tbc.