Chapter Text
Sakura isn’t a coward by any means, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t thinking about skipping school tomorrow. The thought of patrolling with Kaji after what happened earlier fills him with a dread so heavy it makes him borderline nauseous. Sakura can still remember the downturned corners of Kaji’s mouth, lips parted in disgust as he’d looked at him. It sits behind Sakura’s eyelids every time he closes them.
Kaji looked horrified.
By Sakura.
Someone Sakura looked up to, respected as a friend, someone he’d--
Kaji lips parting around a lollipop. His dark eyes when he’d pressed it to Sakura’s mouth—
Sakura grits his teeth and fishes a hand out of his futon until he finds his jacket. Tugging the iPod nano from the pocket, he shoves the crappy, tangled wire headphones into his ears and clicks on the first song that comes up. It’s something loud and very Kaji-like, because of course it is. Sakura closes his eyes and lets the song wash over him like white noise. Shutting off two of his senses like this actually helps a bit; it feels like the world has shrunk down just to what Sakura can feel, contained in a bubble of music that pulses through him like a heartbeat. He can see why Kaji finds it so appealing.
Sakura’s mind circles back to his senpai as the song continues blasting in his ears. It’s not hard to see the similarities between them; Sakura has been around Kaji enough to learn that the older boy dislikes his aggressive outbursts, how they alienate him from others, how he can’t bear the way his friends would look at him with fear. Sakura knows those feelings intimately, even if they don’t match up exactly — he’s always been looked at with fear and repugnance, he’s always been alienated from others. He hates, keenly, that someone he cares about has felt the shame and loneliness of these things, but he can’t help but be grateful that he’s not alone in this experience.
Kaji gets it. Gets him.
He’d lent Sakura an mp3 player the moment he’d found out that he hadn’t listened to enough music to have a preference. Sakura looks at the iPod in his hand and feels an emotion roll up his throat, swelling like a balloon.
Kaji had looked at him with dark eyes and a private smile like— he’d looked at Sakura like—
Sakura rips the headphones from his ears and lobs the iPod across the room before he can finish that thought. The tiny device makes a plink as it clips off one of the wall support beams, landing on the tatami with a dull thud. The screen is black.
“Shit!” Sakura dives out from his futon to snatch it off the floor. The device doesn’t turn back on. Not even when Sakura mashes the tiny little buttons and shakes it like a glow stick. “No no no no n-”
A knock at the door interrupts Sakura’s spiralling mind. He squints at his phone across the room; he’d told his classmates that he wasn’t feeling well, but his vice captains had come to visit him last time. Probably they’re here to check on him. He debates just ignoring the knock until they go away, but he still hasn’t gotten a lock so they’ll probably just come in if he doesn’t answer.
Sakura trudges to the front door, tugging down his oversized sleep shirt as he pulls it open.
“Suou, I already told you, I’m-”
“Sakura-san.”
Kaji stands outside, headphones around his neck, hand raised like he’s about to knock again. He’s panting a little, cheeks pink, like he’d run here. The thought makes something in Sakura’s chest squeeze painfully.
“What are you doing here?!” he blurts before he can stop himself.
Kaji shakes himself out of his stupor, dropping his hand and straightening up. “Your vice captain, Suou Hayato. He gave me your address.”
“Oh.”
Kaji’s brows pinch together. “Can I come in?”
He says it like a challenge, but Sakura doesn’t miss the way his fists curl. If he’s going to yell at him for something, at least he’s polite enough to wait for an invitation. Sakura steps back and pulls the door a little wider. It’s all the encouragement Kaji needs to push past him and into the apartment, kicking his shoes off in the genkan as he goes.
The atmosphere feels like a bubble about to pop, heavy and full. Trailing behind him, Sakura doesn’t miss the way Kaji’s brows do this concerned little twitch as he looks around the barren bedroom. Sakura is aware it doesn’t look great, with the water stains on the wall and the tatami peeling apart in one corner of the room, and usually he doesn’t mind it since he only uses this place to sleep. But having Kaji here makes self-consciousness prickle under his skin.
After a moment of taking it in, Kaji shakes his head with a low mutter. Sakura only catches a soft, “-the hell?” Before his senpai turns to face him.
Without uttering a single word, Kaji starts to strip.
He takes his headphones off first, placing them down carefully the way Sakura has seen him do before. Then he shrugs off his jacket, grabbing the collar of his shirt to pull over his head, exposing his bare torso. It’s like the start of a bad porno.
Sakura slaps his hand over his eyes with a yelp. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“Take your hand away and look at me, you prick!”
Something in Kaji’s voice has Sakura’s fingers sliding from his face. He sounds angry as usual, but it’s something else. A tinge of desperation staining the edges. Kaji has only stripped down to his trousers, and even though it’s not Sakura’s first time seeing him shirtless, he keeps his eyes firmly on the other boy’s face. Kaji’s expression is complicated; he’s glaring like he’s trying to get to the bottom of Sakura.
He flings out his right arm with a grunt.
“I got this scar from a compound fracture when I was ten. I don’t remember doing it, but apparently I tried to punch an older kid and ended up hitting the jungle gym. It took three months to heal.”
Sakura looks at the proffered arm; sure enough, a faint dark line sits against the skin, curved upwards like a scimitar.
Kaji rolls his other arm and continues, “This shoulder is permanently dislocated. See how the joint is misshapen? It would take surgery to grind the bone down so they can pin it back in place. Since I’m not in pain and I have full mobility, the doctor said I could leave it.”
If Sakura peers at Kaji’s shoulder, he can see how it looks uneven, sitting a little higher than his other side, bumpy where it shouldn’t be.
“These are from a middle schooler I flattened.” Kaji lifts his left arm to exhibit a row of three pale lines following the shape of his ribcage. “Someone dragged me off him, I think. But the kid was so distressed that his nails cut right through my shirt.”
It’s obvious what Kaji is doing; the gesture is nice, but Sakura can’t help but think those kids had it coming, if whatever they said to Kaji triggered him so badly.
Sakura’s scars aren’t reactionary. They’re not a result of him fighting, they’re a result of him being… Him.
“You don’t have to show me all this,” Sakura tells Kaji. “I don’t think less of you for fighting. That wouldn’t be fair of me.”
“We all have scars, Sakura-san,” Kaji replies. He sounds real firm, real nice, like a proper senpai. Sakura wants to wrap his clothes even tighter around himself. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Not like this. It’s not the same as getting hurt from a fight.”
“The ones I showed you are from me losing control , not from me protecting the town,” Kaji snaps. He seems to be getting more irritated as the seconds march on, and he brandishes one of his hands to display it. Sakura notices there are bandages around his knuckles. “Just today I lost control and cut up my knuckles! Only half of these scars I got since joining Furin!”
Sakura turns away, feeling ashamed. “That’s different. Those are from protecting people.”
“YOU’RE a person!” Kaji yells so fiercely that it takes Sakura a second to realise Kaji is holding the front of his shirt, dragging him forward until their noses almost touch. He’s fisting Sakura’s collar with both hands. “You count! Protecting your own person counts!”
It’s sickening, really, how quickly Sakura feels a hot prickling behind his eyes. He doesn’t want to cry in front of Kaji, not in a million years. But it’s impossible to ignore the immense, breathtaking relief that comes from those words. Sakura is only now understanding just how much he’s been wanting to hear someone say that to him.
He’s not a violent, mad dog looking to hurt people. He’s not some freak people should be afraid of.
He’s a person.
He counts.
It feels too good to be true, and too terrifying to hope.
Kaji must see the conflict on his face because his snarl drops, tension uncoiling from his limbs. Leaning forward, he presses their foreheads together with a sigh.
“It’s fine if you don’t get it yet,” Kaji mumbles, sounding weary. He’s still not letting go of Sakura’s shirt. “I struggled at first, too. You can take your time, okay? We’re not going anywhere.”
He’s so close.
When Kaji closes his eyes, Sakura is sure he can count the older boy’s lashes. He’s so close that Sakura scarcely knows what to do with his hands. He reaches up, making an aborted motion to loosely circle Kaji’s wrists but stops halfway.
It’s almost a relief when Kaji steps back, straightening out Sakura’s shirt with a gruff sweep of his fingers. His touch lingers a second longer than normal, and then Kaji is moving away, crossing the room to swipe his shirt off the floor and pull it back on. The motion makes his bandages flash white in the dimly lit room.
“Your hands-” Sakura starts, pausing when Kaji’s eyes cut to him. His eyes are narrowed almost defensively, and it’s so different to his usually impassive expression that Sakura nearly misses the uncomfortable twist of his mouth.
“I told you. I lost control,” Kaji explains, not meeting Sakura’s eyes. He’s embarrassed, Sakura realises with a jolt. “After I left you in the gym. I didn’t want you to see me like that, so I just booked it.” Kaji lifts his head, meeting Sakura’s gaze dead on. “I’m sorry. I should have explained myself first.”
Sakura looks away. He can only hold earnest eye contact like that for so long. “You don’t gotta apologise to me. And anyway, don’t you only lose control when you’re angry?”
“I was angry.” Kaji grits his teeth. His hands are shaking minutely. “I’m
still
angry.”
Oh. Sakura’s eyes widen as it slots together in his head. He was angry for me.
Had gotten so angry on his behalf, in fact, that he’d punched his knuckles raw.
A warm, glowing feeling starts filling Sakura from the bottom up, like coals coaxed into a fire. It feels tremulous and overwhelming, and a lot like gratitude.
“You don’t have to show me,” Kaji says quietly, breaking the rising momentum. “Not if you don’t want to. I’m just letting you know that I won’t judge you.”
He sounds so patient that it’s too much, like Kaji really would be fine if Sakura never even took off his jacket in front of him again. Sakura’s stomach squirms at having so much kindness directed at him, and he turns his back to Kaji with a huff.
“You don’t have to sound so damn serious, it’s really not a big deal. I don’t know why everyone is making such a fuss either, so I might as well show you. The class has already seen ‘em, anyway.”
“Sakura-san, you don’t need-”
“Just shut up and let me!”
Sakura yanks his own shirt over his head and lets it drop unceremoniously to the floor. There’s silence from behind him. Not even a sharp intake of breath. After a moment, Sakura hears Kaji approach, his footfalls careful, signalling in case Sakura wants to stop him.
“These were all deliberate?” Kaji’s voice is low and with a faint tremor. Sakura can practically see his senpai curling his fists. It stokes that warm feeling in his belly.
He shrugs. “Most of them. There are probably a few from stupid accidents and lucky shots.”
Kaji breathes out slowly, and even that sounds shaky. ”No wonder you’re so strong. You’ve been fighting to survive this whole time.”
Sakura scoffs. “Don’t talk about me like some bird with a broken wing. I’m strong on my own.”
”That goes without saying.” The easy reply catches Sakura off guard, and the fight goes out of him in an instant. Kaji’s next words knock his shaky foundations clear away. “You didn’t deserve this.”
A hot, tight knot rises in Sakura’s throat. He wrestles it down immediately, swallowing hard in an attempt to clear the warm prickle behind his eyes. “It’s fine. It happened, but it’s over now.”
“It’s not fine,” Kaji growls, and he sounds a lot closer than he was before. “None of this is fine, Sakura-san. How could anyone ever-” he cuts himself off with a frustrated groan. “I wish I’d known you sooner. I could’ve protected you.”
“I don’t need protecting-”
Cool fingers brush against Sakura’s spine, tracing the rough skin along the dip.
“This okay?” Kaji asks, quiet and raspy.
“... Yeah.”
Those fingertips trace a pathway up the knobs of Sakura’s vertebrae before moving outwards, outlining the shape of his scars. The rough ones first, then the smooth, longer ones that Sakura doesn’t like to remember.
“Does it hurt?”
“No. Some of them I can’t feel at all.”
Kaji makes an unhappy noise at that, but his fingers continue, grazing Sakura’s skin in a pattern until they finally come to rest on the kanji scratched into his shoulder. Sakura can feel the way they tremble as they ghost over the jagged strokes.
He doesn’t say anything about it. Sakura almost wishes he would; the silence is becoming unbearable the more it stretches.
“I—“
Kaji’s lips press oh so gently against the torn skin and Sakura’s mouth snaps shut.
“Still okay?” Kaji checks.
Sakura nods, not trusting his own voice. He’s grateful for the dim light of the room, so he can hide the furious blush spreading down his face.
Kaji waits a beat, for him to change his mind maybe, before he says, “Stop me if you hate it.”
Kaji is so close.
Closer than Sakura has ever been with another person, like this. Close enough that Sakura can smell his cologne and the faint scent of shampoo.
He’s so close that Sakura’s fight instinct shoots all the way past flight and settles on freezing like a deer in headlights. If he moves, he’ll surely burst this suspended bubble of intimacy in which it feels like the world is holding its breath.
Sakura holds still as he can whilst Kaji plots the maps of his scars, an inch at a time. It’s nearly impossible, his body hypersensitive and trembling with every sweep of Kaji’s mouth, every glide of his fingers. Kaji’s touch is cool, but only because Sakura feels like he’s burning, flushed to the tips of his toes, and gentle, too. So gentle that it’s hard to imagine these same hands crushing thug’s noses with controlled, deadly fury. Sakura’s legs feel like they could give out any second.
When Kaji reaches Sakura’s nape, he swipes the tip of his tongue over it. Sakura makes a noise he could have gone his entire life without knowing he could make. His knees choose that moment to finally give out, and the only thing that saves him from crashing butt-first to the floor is Kaji belting an arm around his waist to keep him upright. Even that is gentle, the hold firm but not too tight.
Suddenly, Sakura is deeply grateful that Kaji put his own shirt back on; he’d surely shake apart if they touched skin to skin right now. He’s never been touched like this: Carefully, like he’s something precious; reverently, like he’s something beautiful.
“Sakura-san,” Kaji breathes against his neck, voice rough. Sakura nearly loses his legs again, but the arm around his waist squeezes securely. “Is it— Do you hate it?”
The faintest tremor in his voice has Sakura sucking in a breath, realising that Kaji is feeling just as affected. It’s reassuring to know he’s not the only one, feeling a little flayed, a little tender. Sakura plants his feet more firmly, leaning the slightest bit back into Kaji’s hold. The arm holding him squeezes again.
“No,” Sakura says. Wheezes, really. He breathes out, pushing his voice to be a little stronger. “That’s… I mean— I didn’t… Hate it.”
Kaji hums, finally pulling back, though he keeps his hand wrapped loosely around Sakura’s abdomen. Sakura peers at him over his shoulder. It feels a bit too much like he’s hiding, and so he steels himself and turns in the circle of Kaji’s arms. When the older boy sees the state of Sakura’s chest, a dark look crosses his face, lips curling briefly into a snarl.
Sakura grabs his chin, forcing Kaji’s eyes up to meet his.
“Don’t look at it, alright? It’s not going away, so you don’t have to react like that every time.”
He means it to sound stern, but it uncoils into vaguely pleading. Sakura won’t manage if Kaji’s face pinches whenever he sees the scarring. Too late, he notices that he’s holding the second year by the jaw, keeping their faces close. He sees Kaji’s eyes flick down to his mouth and stay there, even as he says, “I can’t help it. I’m not gonna apologise, either.”
Sakura blinks. He’s sort of… lost the thread of the conversation. Since Kaji looked at his mouth with an expression that can only be described as hunger.
“Can’t help what?” Sakura croaks.
He barely finishes speaking before Kaji’s lips press whisper-light against his. Sakura holds his breath. Kaji’s eyes are closed - Should Sakura close his?? What should he do with his hands? Kaji’s are around his still bare waist and shoulders, but Sakura only has one free.
Just as quickly as he came, Kaji withdraws, leaning back enough that Sakura can take in his expression. He looks like he’s waiting for something, eyes wide and… Oh fuck. He looks vulnerable.
“That,” Kaji breathes. “I told you, it’s okay if you don’t get it yet.”
Sakura has been quiet for too long. He knows he needs to say something, but he can’t think of what so he just squeezes his eyes shut and leans in. Kaji huffs, amused, and then he’s catching Sakura’s mouth with his again, pressing harder this time, and Sakura’s brain clicks off. It’s a bit stilted - Sakura has fuck all experience and he’s mostly trusting his snatched glances of kissing scenes in movies. He lets Kaji guide his head to tilt to one side, deepening the kiss. His hand drops from Kaji’s jaws to his chest, the other finding its way up into his senpai’s hair. The way Kaji groans appreciatively when he tugs at the bleached strands has Sakura shaking like a leaf.
The first swipe of Kaji’s tongue against his bottom lip has Sakura gasping with surprise, and the older boy seizes the opportunity to press inside his mouth. He doesn’t push too far, almost teasing with the way he flicks against the tip of Sakura’s tongue with his own, making Sakura tingle all over. He might very well pass out from sensory overload; Kaji’s hands still press against his skin.
Perhaps sensing the impending overwhelm, Kaji pulls back before it can really build heat. When his eyes pass over Sakura’s flushed face, the bastard has the cheek to look smug.
“C’mon,” he says, lacing their fingers together and pulling Sakura towards the futon.
“What?” Sakura nearly chokes on the word. “I’m not going to bed right now? It’s like 8pm.”
“Not to sleep,” Kaji says, pausing when Sakura makes a sound he will deny until the grave. “And not for that either! Are you some kind of pervert?!”
“Says the guy dragging me into bed!”
“You—!” Kaji growls, the softness giving way for a second. “Just, ugh, come here!”
He yanks Sakura unceremoniously down onto the futon, parrying the squirming smacks Sakura tries to send his way and arranging them to his satisfaction. “Like this, you little prick.”
And oh… This is nice actually. They’re lying on their sides facing each other. Kaji’s arms are wrapped around Sakura’s shoulders, Sakura’s head tucked under his chin. It makes Sakura feel small, somehow. Safe. The notion is alien and unfamiliar, and all of Sakura’s instincts are yelling at him to reject the foreignness. But he breathes through it, lets the tension leave him and just feels.
They lie like that until the streetlamps ignite, filling the room up with blueish light.
“I broke your iPod,” Sakura admits.
Kaji twitches, obviously not expecting the random topic. “The fuck?”
“I’m sorry.” It’s kind of easy for Sakura to burrow his face into Kaji’s neck and avoid his anger. “I— After you left the gym, I was feeling kind of shitty, and I tried to distract myself with the music, but it just reminded me of you so… I threw it across the room. Now it won’t turn back on.”
Kaji uncurls one arm from his back, and for one horrifying moment, Sakura thinks he’s going to get up and leave. He nearly panics when he realises how much he doesn’t want that; his hands preemptively latch into Kaji’s shirt. But the second year just gropes blindly about the tatami behind him until his hand lands on the device in question.
He peers at it for all of three seconds before saying, “It’s fine, just out of battery.”
“Oh.” Relief washes through Sakura like a breeze.
Kaji notices and holds him that much tighter. “Forgot to ask. Find anything you like?”
Sakura thinks for a moment. He feels a touch embarrassed, knowing that the song he’d liked the most on the mp3 player was a far cry from Kaji’s usual tastes. “Uhhh, yeah but I don’t know what it’s called. The name is in English, so I couldn’t read it.”
Kaji hums, contemplating. “Was the artist in Katakana?”
Sakura recites the name a little clumsily, but Kaji seems to get it because he tugs his phone out of his pocket and types something into it quickly before tossing it somewhere on the futon. A tentative roll of orchestra fades into the room, filling the space around them with a little pocket of ambience.
Kaji makes a small noise in the back of his throat as the song continues. “Oh yeah, my mum’s into this stuff. Would never have pegged you for a Classical guy.”
Sakura scowls at him. “Oi, what’s that supposed to mean?”
Kaji merely shrugs. “Guess you’re kind of romantic at heart, huh?”
“Sh-shut up!?” Sakura hides his face in Kaji’s chest, ignoring the amused rumble vibrating through it. “It’s… Nice.”
“Nice?”
“What? You want me to start listing adjectives?” Kaji doesn’t reply. He runs a hand through Sakura’s hair, effectively dampening the rising ire. Sakura wishes he’d put his shirt back on so that he would feel exposed by his next admission.
“I think it sounds hopeful.”
He doesn’t miss the way Kaji’s breath shivers out of him, and then warm lips are pressing a kiss to his brow.
“Yeah,” Kaji agrees, the smile audible in his voice. “I think so, too.”