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The legend of Akemi and Kenshin.
Everyone in the world knew that story, or some version of it, and Sakura… Well, Sakura hated it.
Especially whenever he woke up like this, in a sweat, out of breath, and slightly shaking, he hated how it had affected his whole life. Besides, he despised the message it would convey. And, most importantly, he hated how it made fun of his strange appearance, a cruel taunt that had haunted his childhood. The tale’s mockery of his supposed "specialness" was a lie, a mockery, total horseshit, and yet it was powerful enough to give him nightmares.
He wasn't special.
He was just a freak.
Sakura clicked his tongue in annoyance, sitting on his futon.
He had just woken up in an unfamiliar room, empty and worn out, the lingering fear of his recurring nightmare clinging to him. The dream was always the same: a tense, fragile walk along a tightrope, his balance a constant struggle. He was alone in his precarious journey until another presence approached. A vibration hummed through the rope under his feet, a silent warning of a coming collision. He could never see the other person until they were too close, at which point they would both fall into the abyss below.
Sakura knew the dream was a metaphor for a soulmate - a concept he found to be complete bullshit but that still seemed to stick with his subconscious mind. He knew he didn't have one, and more importantly, he didn't want one.
Why would he?
Why would he want someone else to have suffered as much as he did?
Someone whom Sakura was supposed to fall in love with, no less.
But he had come here, in a new city, looking for a fresh start. If he were to be seen as a freak, at least he would have punched his way to the top, where he would have been untouchable.
If not respected, feared.
If not accepted, left well enough alone.
He just needed to stop thinking about the story that haunted his dreams.
It was so stupid.
In the end, like any other legend, it was a means to educate people, to teach them how to avoid mistakes. This legend, especially, was a clear warning, a tale of a doomed tragic love he refused to believe. It was a ridiculous story, one that nobody in this day and age took seriously. Only teenagers still loved to play around it. Some of them still would dream about the perfect mate, that union of souls that makes girls sigh and boys hope to get their special one to notice them. It constituted hope for those who were lonely.
Not for Sakura.
Nowadays, it was a bedtime story for children, so renowned that even Sakura, a boy raised in an orphanage, neglected and alone, had heard it countless times. Yet, to him, it was only ever a fanciful tale with no basis in truth.
To be honest, when he was a child, for a while he'd believed it could be real—that somewhere, his perfect half was waiting for him. He soon learned that it was a cruel delusion. How could something so beautiful and pure possibly exist in a world full of such cruelty?
The irony wasn't lost on him. He could have been one of the lucky ones. For some reason, though, Sakura's mismatched eyes turned out to be more of an easy target for his classmates’ wickedness than a sign of hope. Probably, it was due more to a feeling of envy than repulsion, but it was still a physical manifestation of a myth Sakura wanted nothing to do with.
And yet, despite his hatred toward it, he knew the myth by heart.
A long time ago, it was said that the gods, in a moment of playful whimsy, had given some people a soulmark—a physical feature identical to that of their soulmate. It was a testament to a love so profound it transcended the ordinary. It could be anything: a unique freckle pattern, a mole on a wrist, a crescent moon-shaped scar, or a single birthmark. It was a physical sign of recognition for kindred souls, and the gods, confident in their power, had trusted Fate to bring them together.
But Fate didn't want to do the whole job. People needed to pursue their perfect love and not rely on destiny to find their happiness.
Well, not that the story had a happy ending. That much, at least, held some credibility in it. It was the tragic tale of Kenshin and Akemi. According to the myth, Akemi, a girl as beautiful as a fleeting dawn, was born with an obsidian-black, crescent moon-shaped scar on her hand. Her village elders told her it was her soulmark, a sign that she was destined for a great warrior. Far away, a warrior named Kenshin carried the very same scar, a relic of a battle in his youth. But the two never met, their worlds apart, loving each other their whole life, but never getting together. And so the gods, enraged at Fate for not allowing their souls to connect, stopped giving soulmates marks altogether.
Or so it was believed. Because of that, in any case, finding true love in this world had become almost impossible.
Sakura didn't care for their tragic story anymore. His life was tragic enough as it was, without having to think about impossible loves thwarted by Fate. And to be honest, as a little kid, when he was still innocent, he just thought they didn't put enough effort into seeking each other. He believed he would have searched for his soulmate everywhere. But that was before he was bullied for his oddities—the very thing that was supposed to be a beautiful sign of his specialness. Instead, his features became his misfortune.
The teasing about his mismatched eyes—one amber, the other a cold gray—started in middle school.
“Thank goodness I don't have that horrible eye color,” the girls would say. “Imagine if someone like him had a soulmate. Poor girl. And his white hair? Disgusting…”
Things got even worse the following year and absolutely unbearable the third one. Things started to get physical. By the end of his time in middle school, though, Sakura had learned how to fight. He had to protect himself, to become the strongest so people would avoid him and stop talking about that soulmate nonsense, mock him for having such a clear mark on him.
By now, those words didn't even hurt him. They were just echoes of a pain he had grown accustomed to. After all, it was true; how could someone like him possibly have a soulmate? How could anyone be tied to him by Fate? And anyway, it was all a big, fat lie. Sakura had never believed it, right?
If only he didn't have that fucking nightmares so often…
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
His arrival in Makochi had been eventful, to say the least. And not what he expected.
The encounter with Kotoha was… strange. The girl, whom Sakura had saved from some bullies even if not on purpose, had looked at his eyes with wonder, not disgust. He wasn’t used to that. His hair, his eyes—everything about his appearance kept people away. Sakura had grown up marginalized even by his own family. So he would fight anyone who would get too close, look him in the eyes, and, God forbid, make a comment about them.
But Makochi immediately revealed itself to be different. The next day, he met another Furin student, a clumsy, blond guy who was a weirdo in his own right. But he, too, didn’t seem particularly put off by Sakura’s eyes. He even said something about Sakura being too stressed, whatever that meant, and for the first time in a long time, Sakura felt a flicker of something that wasn’t hurt or anger at being touched by another human being.
He followed the guy to school, arriving with time to spare before the opening ceremony.
The fluorescent lights of Furin High hummed with the usual chaotic excitement of a new school year. For most, the noise was a symphony of possibility.
They were there for a reason, something important. Sakura didn't know anything about it. Not yet at least.
He entered the room, ready to face hostility. A guy greeted him.
He wasn’t loud like the other boys, but his presence filled the room. Sakura, against his better judgment, met his gaze, his fists already up, and was immediately caught by the sight of him. He wore long, golden tassel earrings and a black eye patch, and the one visible eye, the one that met Sakura's, was a striking, impossible shade of red. It was a mirror to his own oddity, and Sakura felt a flicker of something he couldn't name—a mix of curiosity and dread.
The blond guy seemed on the verge of freaking out. He seemed to know who the eye patch guy was.
“I am Leonardo Di Caprio.” He introduced himself.
His name was Suo, though.
He was a strange guy as well.
A couple of minutes later, Sakura announced he wanted to climb to the top, and a tall guy threw a desk at him. He clashed with that sort of gorilla, and from then on, his new life at Bofurin started.
The strangest thing, though, was that nobody had commented on his eyes yet.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Somehow Sakura had become the grade captain of the class. They had fought against Shishitoren, and then they went through the Keel fiasco, and then they descended into war against Yamato Endo.
By the time summer break arrived, Sakura started to relax.
He was used to the whispers and the stares, the uncomfortable questions about his eyes. That's why he had been all blunt angles and wary scowls at first; it was easier to push people away before they had the chance to hurt him.
But at the new school people seemed to really care about him. Genuinely. Sakura was slowly starting to believe that.
Nirei, Kiryu, and Tsugeura had become his close friends. And others too.
And then there was Suo.
Suo was a mystery and at the same time the easiest one to understand.
He had secrets he couldn't or didn't want to share. Sakura could easily relate to that. But they understood each other well and, for some reason, Suo was very intent on protecting Sakura.
It went beyond his duty as his vice captain.
For instance, there was that time, in a shadowy alley where they ended up alone, that a rival gang had them cornered. The leader, a brute with a sneer, stepped forward and cracked his knuckles. "Look what we have here," he jeered. "Two little lambs lost their way. Time to send you home to your mothers. God, what a freak… with those eyes. Let's see if I manage to carve that out and make you wear an eye patch like your little friend here."
The man moved toward Sakura, but Suo stepped forward.
"Don't you dare," Suo said under his breath to the gang leader. The words were a promise of what was to come.
Sakura just grunted, already moving to flank the leader. He feinted left, drawing the enemy's attention, and in that split second, Suo launched his attack. Their coordination was a fluid, brutal dance. Suo's kicks were swift and precise, and Sakura followed up with a powerful, crushing blow. The fight was over in seconds.
As they walked away, brushing the dust from their clothes, Sakura glanced at Suo. The eyepatch was askew, revealing the edge of the scar.
"That guy was clumsy," Sakura muttered.
Suo adjusted his eyepatch with a smirk. "Yeah, his movements were sloppy. They gave everything away." He nudged Sakura's arm. "You weren't bad yourself."
Sakura grunted again, a sound that, for them, now meant "thank you."
"We're a good team," Suo said, and this time, the words hung in the air, a quiet and profound statement.
Months later, their friendship was a silent, seamless partnership. They still didn’t talk much, but in a fight, they didn't need to. They moved as one, each anticipating the other's actions.
In no time, their first year at school was about to end.
Sakura, his class, the entire school went through a lot together but nobody ever said anything about his amber eye or mentioned the story of Akemi and Kenshin. Sakura thought that maybe the legend wasn't as famous in Makochi as it was anywhere else.
So he started to believe he would never hear those names again.
Until today.
It was the last day of school and the class was cheerful and loud, even more than usual.
Suo settled into the desk next to him, a half-smile playing on his lips. “Something on your mind, Sakura-kun? You look terribly serious, who wronged you?” he said, his voice a low, teasing murmur.
“I am fine.”
He was fine. It was just that he hadn't thought about that story in months and it was enough to sour his mood.
“Are you thinking about finding your Akemi?”
Sakura's entire body tensed. He gritted his teeth and didn't look up. “No. Leave me alone,” he grunted, the words a shield he had perfected over the years. He knew how this went. It always started with a joke, then a comment, then the real cruelty began. Suo just hummed softly, a sound of amusement. He didn't push.
Sakura had braced for the inevitable mockery, but it never came. That afternoon they went all together to Pothos to celebrate the end of school. Suo's presence was, as always, a quiet, steady thing. He didn't run away.
Suo simply sat there, next to him, their thighs pressed together, sipping from a bottle of water. Today, Sakura was feeling restless, he couldn't help but glance at him. He always liked to watch Suo. He was just so beautiful, especially when he would fight; the grace of his movements and the elegance of his strikes were completely different from Sakura's own brute force. He knew that Suo's teasing wasn't mockery; it was an attempt to bridge the distance between them, a clumsy but genuine gesture of affection. Slowly, cautiously, Sakura let his guard down again, the tension in his body finally loosened. He looked one more time at Suo, and the other boy met his gaze. He smiled and Sakura smiled back.
Usually, he would respond to Suo's quiet comments with a monosyllabic answer or a grunt that passed for a laugh. It wasn't much, but for them, it was everything.
Today he smiled, feeling the connection between them more intensely than ever.
Suo's warmth next to him was soothing and yes, Sakura was happy, he found a place where to belong but… he was still waiting for the second shoe to drop.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It had been a year since he moved to Makochi and the Sakura trees were blooming again.
School was starting again, the break passed and done with even too quickly.
Sakura was confirmed grade captain and with the beginning of the new school year, new challenges knocked on the Bofurin’s door.
Sakura had been proven to be a good leader, though, his friendship with Suo was stronger with every passing day, and Sakura started to think about Akemi and Kenshin less and less often.
Everything came to a head without warning, though, when a small group of boys from a rival school in a nearby city had been waiting for them on their way to Sakura's. One of them, a loud, sneering kid, caught sight of the captain and laughed. “Hey, check out the freak with the fucked-up eyes! If was true! I didn't believe the rumors about such a freak of nature living here in Makochi,” he jeered, and Sakura's carefully constructed calm shattered. His body went rigid, his hands clenching into fists. It was the same insult he had heard a thousand times, but this time, with Suo so close, it felt like a wound that reopened and started bleeding again.
He didn't want to be seen as a freak of nature, not by Suo. The last it happened, months earlier, Sakura was still used to being called a freak. Now he wasn't anymore. Suo and the other Bofurin guys, Kotoha, and the people of Makochi, made him believed he could be more than that.
But nothing had really changed, had it? These students from another school, from another city, came all the way just to remind him who he really was.
A wave of suffocating panic rose in his throat, and he backed away, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
The anger and shame were a suffocating weight. He felt a hand on his shoulder and flinched violently, pulling away as if burned. Suo's face, usually so composed, was a mask of concern. The teasing was gone, replaced by a fierce, protective focus. Suo didn’t need words. He stepped forward, placing himself between Sakura and the bullies. “Get out of here,” he said, his voice as cold and sharp as a blade. It was a promise, not a threat. Then the assholes, intimidated by the quiet ferocity, scrambled away. Suo didn’t turn back to Sakura. He knew he was still fighting his own battle.
Without a word, Suo led him to his apartment, made him sit down and quickly made some tea.
Sakura could face hordes of enemies and knock them down with his fists, but a few words spoken with such intentional cruelty were enough to break him.
Suo had never made fun of him. Nobody in Makochi had. So why was he panicking?
The answer was as easy as it was painful. Because he had feelings for Suo. Suo was his person, but Sakura wouldn't know what to do about that. One thing was clear, though. Sakura couldn't stand the distance between them anymore. He had to tell him. He had to make him understand why he was so broken. His hands trembled, his head bowed.
“Sakura-kun, look at me.” Suo said, sitting on the floor across from him and resting the tray with their tea between them.
“I can't.”
“Why?”
Sakura may have been happy in Makochi, but the years of bullying, the taunts, the feeling of being an oddity couldn't be just erased. How could he explain that.
“You wouldn't understand,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “My eyes… it's always been about my eyes. I'm a freak. A monster. But I don't want you to see me as one.”
His voice was raw with a pain he had never shared with anyone.
“You're not a monster. You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen.”
Sakura’s eyes widened and he could only gape at the boy he was in love with. In Suo’s red eye he saw it. He saw that same feeling mirrored there.
Oh… how could he not notice?
Maybe… maybe it was time he shared his past with Suo.
He started speaking and Suo listened, his silence a profound form of empathy. He didn’t pity him; he understood him. When Sakura fell silent, a lump in his throat, Suo smiled at him and offered him a few words, his voice full of relief and something else which Sakura had never hope to find there.
“You know? I have been waiting for this moment for so long, Sakura-kun.”
He gently unhooked the straps of his eyepatch and lifted it away. Sakura's breath hitched. Instead of a missing eye, there was only a pale, puckered scar. It wasn't ugly; it was a part of him, a quiet, profound secret. It was a mirror to Sakura's own scars, the ones he carried on the inside.
Slowly, hesitantly, Sakura reached out. His fingers were shaking as they approached the smooth, scarred skin. The touch was feather-light, a tentative brush against the surface. The moment his fingertip made contact with the scar, a jolt of energy—warm, electric, and breathtakingly complete—shot through his body.
A vision, a single flash, burned into his mind. He saw Suo's face, but the scarred socket was gone. In its place was a perfect, almond-shaped eye, the pupil a deep, vibrant amber. It was a mirror of his own, a part of him that was meant to be whole. The vision was brief, but it spoke a truth that went deeper than words.
The light faded, leaving them under the lonely glow of the lamp. The tension was gone, replaced by a quiet awe. A sense of peace settled over them, a feeling of coming home. Sakura's voice was a whisper, filled with a fragile awe. “It was amber.”
Suo's face broke into a soft smile, a genuine, non-teasing expression that reached his eye. His hand, still holding the eye patch, fell to his side. He reached out and gently took Sakura's trembling hand in his. The two halves of a whole, finally found.
“So,” Suo said softly, his voice a low, teasing murmur, “you believe in fairy tales now?”
Sakura's head jerked up. He glared at Suo, but there was no real heat in it. “Shut up.”
Suo just chuckled, a genuine, warm sound that made something inside Sakura feel lighter.
"Sorry. I'm just happy the gods finally got their act together… I was so afraid you wouldn't believe me if I told you."
“I... I thought it was all bullshit.”
“I know. You needed time.”
Sakura smiled at him, still timidly as if he couldn't believe him completely.
“Thank you for waiting for me.”
“You were worth the waiting.”
Sakura didn’t know what to say, but he could understand him. If Suo had told him his lost eye was amber, Sakura would have probably punched him in the face.
“What happened to your… I mean, you don't have to tell me…”
Suo lowered his gaze.
“I will… but, if you don't mind, it's a story for another day. Today I want to celebrate.”
Suo looked at him again, a soft smile gracing his face and cupped Sakura’s soft cheek.
“Okay…”
“Thank you.”
“Suo…You are beautiful too.”
For the first time, Sakura witnessed a pale pink spread all over Suo’s cheeks. Suo didn't break eye contact and smiled.
“Can I kiss you, Haruka?”
Sakura gave him a timid nod, his face painted in red.
Suo leaned in and gently brushed his lips against Sakura's mouth.
That was their first kiss and Sakura had his epiphany. He felt his soul sing, his heart soar and his body tingle.
Yes, if he had doubt before, now he was sure; he had found his person. It took him a while to recognize him; he had been blind and stubborn, but Suo was patient enough to give him time to fall in love with him.
"What do we… what now?" Sakura asked, his voice barely a whisper. He felt like he was navigating a new landscape, and he was completely lost. No, not completely. He had Suo with him, holding his hand.
Suo leaned closer, pressing their foreheads together, his eye full of a quiet understanding. "Now, we don't have to be freaks anymore."
Sakura smiled and with a gentleness that was new to him, he kissed Suo again.
And again.
Epilogue
Several months into their new reality, Suo and Sakura found themselves alone in a quiet park after school. It was a warm, lazy day, and the sun was setting, painting the sky with a brilliant mixture of vibrant oranges, soft pinks, and deep purples. They sat on a bench, a comfortable silence stretching between them, a familiar space of shared quiet.
Sakura turned to Suo, a rare, serious look on his face.
"Hey.”
“Mm?”
“Tell me about it."
Suo tilted his head, a flicker of confusion in his good eye. "About what?"
"Your scar," Sakura said, his voice unusually soft. "It’s… a part of you. I want to understand."
Suo let out a long, weary sigh. He looked at Sakura, his eye holding a quiet, familiar sadness. "It isn't a heroic story, you know? It was just a stupid accident. My dad... he was drunk. He wasn't even aiming for my head. It was just a broken bottle." His hand instinctively moved to touch his eye patch, his voice dropping to a barely audible whisper. "He isn't a bad man. He's just... lost. But for a long time I thought he took the most precious thing away from me."
“Precious?”
“I believed that without my eye, I wouldn't have found my soulmate. But then… you stepped into the classroom and I was so… happy. You were there… But you couldn't recognize me and I felt at that moment that you weren't ready to know the truth, that I needed to wait and give you time. I… was hoping you would fall in love with me even if I didn't have my mark anymore.”
Sakura's hand reached out and tentatively took Suo's hand, a silent promise to hold on. "You know, my eyes…" Sakura said, his own voice thick with emotion. "I hated them. People always told me I was a freak of nature. I never understood why I had to look like this. I never thought anyone could see past it, least of all that I could have someone destined to be with me. But Suo… You're right, I… love you. And for sure I loved you before knowing your eye was amber like mine."
Suo looked at him, his gaze soft and unwavering, a mirror of deep understanding. "I love you too. I always saw past it," he said simply. "Sure, it was the first thing I saw. A part of you, a part of me." He squeezed Sakura's hand gently, a quiet reassurance. "But I had the privilege to get to know you without the expectations of our soulmark. We're not freaks. We're just… two broken pieces that fit together perfectly.”
Sakura smiled and rested his head on Suo's shoulder.
They stayed like that watching a sunset which now held the same amber, gray and red hues of their eyes.