Chapter Text
It started innocuously with a ball of yarn. Then two, then three. In the black, yellow and green of Furin's colors, placed sporadically inside of 1-1's classroom.
When asked, everyone said it's not theirs. But they saw no reason to move them, so they let them be, putting them in a corner of the room.
And the number of balls kept growing. Until there were dozens, in different colors. They suddenly appeared out of thin air, and in the blink of an eye, they vanished just as swiftly.
No one thought much of it for the next few weeks, until the first one showed up.
A small knitted doll of himself appears on Nirei's desk. Each strand of hair lovingly cut and trimmed to the appropriate length. Freckles have been carefully added into its face. Even his iconic notebook was embroidered and sewn to Nirei-nui's hand.
A couple days later, a doll of Suo shows up on his desk. Holding an embroidered teacup.
And it's like a dam breaks. They keep popping up. Tsugeura's next, with a mini dumbbell, then Kiryuu’s with a phone. Anzai, Kakiuchi, Sugishita, Kurita, and eventually all of 1-1 find a doll on their desk. All appearing out of thin air.
Even their senpai are getting one - this they find out when the speakers blare to life with a screech first thing in the morning and everyone in the classroom has to cover their ears.
“Mic check! Mic check! Is this on?! Hiragi! I can’t tell!”
“I already told you that it was on you idiot. What are you doing so early in the morning!”
“But I have to thank them!”
“Just say what you need to say and end the broadcast already! It’s not your private property. Stop harassing everyone!”
“Right, so— What was I going to say again?”
“Are you—”
“Oh right! I remember now! Ahem!”
The very familiar sound of Hiragi’s hand slapping against his forehead echoed through the mic.
“To the lovely person who left this little present on the roof, identify yourself! I mean, how am I supposed to thank you if you don’t leave a note or anything. It’s so cute~ what with this little tomato in its hand, like what? How did you even get the hair to lay like this? Wait, hold on, is this tomato embroidered? I thought it was fabric!”
“Stop ranting and cut to the chase!”
“Right.”
And suddenly his voice turns more serious.
“To whoever it was that gifted this to me, please come see me so I can thank you in person. I can tell how much effort went into making this and can not let you go without knowing how much I appreciate it. You can always find me on the roof. Or, if you want me to come see you, just let me know who you are. You can leave a note or anything. That’s all I have to say.”
There was a pause, and then they could hear the sound of velcro being separated.
“Wait what?! The tomato comes off! I didn’t know that. Hiragi, it's so cool! I wonder if I’ll get anything else to swap it with! I should take a bunch of pictures and show Kotoha.”
“You’re still broadcasting!”
“Oh, whoops.”
There was a click, and then the voices went silent.
No one is surprised when he comes on the speaker again a couple days later to gush over his newly acquired embroidered potted plant.
Hiragi’s doll shows up next, snugly tucked into the back pocket of his pants. They only noticed it because the wind blew up the back of his jacket, exposing the doll’s hiding spot. And just like the others, it’s accompanied by an embroidered box of stomach pills.
No one understood why he carried it around with him until one day when he went to grab his medicine. Instead of pulling out the iconic box, he suddenly paused, as if reminding himself of something, and then reached to pull the doll out from its resting spot, squeezing its hands instead.
Unbeknownst to everyone but Hiragi and the gifter, his doll had come with a note.
[Stop weakening your stomach with medicine, improve your grip strength instead. Squeeze this.]
The senpai’s dolls continued to show up after that — Kaji's, Kusumi's, Enomoto's, and Tsubakino’s, all accompanied by their own little accessory.
Even Kotoha got one; it sits on a corner of the counter, always within eyesight. Its little green apron is made of a high-quality fabric instead of being embroidered like the rest. Odd.
Weeks go by, and the members of 1-1 wait for the final doll to show up. There’s only one person left in their class who hasn’t received a doll.
But it never appears. Sakura-nui never finds its way home.
It’s by complete coincidence, during a patrol one day, that Nirei notices a lump of something soft lying off to the side of the street. It's a knitted -nui arm, yarn loose where it appears to have been ripped from its body.
A quick message into the group chat confirms that no one has lost their doll. A similar response comes back from the group chat with the senpai.
This is a doll who has yet to find its owner.
So 1-1 keeps a look out for the main body. And it becomes a bit of a game — to find all the pieces and identify who this doll is.
They find a leg under a vegetable stand. The other arm in front of Cactus bakery. The torso is hanging from a store awning, oddly enough. And the other leg is caught in one of the large wind chimes laid throughout the shopping district.
Despite their search efforts, they can't find the all-important head. So they get ready to trudge home.
It's at that moment that they're notified that Risa-chan has escaped again. And so the boys on duty band together to bring her home again and it’s Anzai who notices it first.
“Wait, do you see that? I think she’s got something in her mouth?!”
Numerous pairs of eyes shoot down to Risa-chan’s mouth at this statement.
They all peer closer and… It's the missing doll-head.
And so begins a wild chase through Makochi. Half motivated by bringing Risa-chan home, and half to solve the mystery of the doll's identity.
They manage to catch her again and pry the ball from her mouth. And the face... is Sakura's.
They looked towards their grade captain, horrified to discover that this was the reason why his doll never showed up, only to see Sakura with a very complicated expression on his face.
Their confusion is palpable.
“Sakura-san? What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t respond. If anything, his face just looks more uncomfortable.
“Sakura-kun? Do you know something about this?”
“I… it’s mine.”
“We can see that Sakura. It’s kinda obvious.” Anzai waves the doll’s head at him.
“No. I mean, I made it.”
It takes a lot of patience and coaxing but they get Sakura to talk. It turns out that he had been knitting his own doll and had left the parts strewn about his house to stuff and attach together later. But some stray cats had snuck into his apartment and stole the parts as play toys, running about the city with them.
He didn’t chase after them as he didn’t think it was a big deal.
What he doesn't tell them is that knitting became a hobby he picked up to keep himself busy in the evenings, when it was too late to be out and about, fighting.
He'd knit them late into night, sometimes from dusk till dawn, to cope with the lack of human interaction in his life. They were his makeshift friends.
When his relatives found out that he was moving to Makochi, the finished dolls and his supplies were disposed of without his knowledge.
However, when he happened upon a craft store on his way home after school one day, he couldn't help but pick up the hobby again.
But he has real friends now, and senpai who care for and about him. So instead of making imaginary friends, he pivoted to making dolls of his real friends, to give them out as gifts. As thanks for being with him.
And once they were done, he dropped them off at school to send them off to their new homes. It was the toughest thing he'd ever had to do: keeping a poker face as he watched his classmates take their dolls home, each with a grin on their face, while he felt his ears and cheeks grow warm.
“Sakura, what do you want to do with it? Do you want us to help you clean it up?”
“We’d be glad to help you out, Sakura-san! Just say the word.”
His expression pinches. And he shakes his head.
“Just throw it out. It’s not worth the effort, I’ll just remake it,” Sakura says, turning around.
“You guys should all head home,” he finished as he walked away.
And just like that, the conversation is over.
His friends don't quite agree with him though. And behind his back, Suo slips the doll parts into his pockets.
Sakura came to them broken and they were able to help him heal. They will do the same to this doll, together.
Suo shares a look with Nirei, Tsugeura and Kiryu. They all nod back.
They decide to hold a sleepover at Kiryu’s home, as it's the most spacious. And it's there that they work together, gently hand washing and drying each part before filling them with stuffing and carefully sewing each part back onto the body.
Somehow, it takes them finishing the doll to realize that it's missing its Furin jacket. But it's late, so they decide to rest for the day, intending to bring the doll with them to school in the morning to discuss what to do with their other classmates.
But before they can really get a discussion underway, the class is called out for assembly.
Unknowingly, the doll falls out of Nirei's pocket and lands on the floor by the classroom door.
It’s Sakura who finds it. He nearly stepped on it.
He's surprised moved to see that his friends had cleaned and fixed up the doll. He picks it up, running his fingers over the seams where he can see the novice stitching putting it back together.
“What are they doing, really. I told them to throw it away.”
Sakura lets out a sigh and slowly pulls something out of his own pocket — a mini Furin jacket.
He puts the jacket on and puts the doll on his desk, and that's all he gets when another student comes running by, before pausing at the sight of him.
“Sakura? What are you still doing here? Umemiya-san called for an assembly out front ages ago.”
“Ugh, again? I’m coming.”
1-1 makes it back before their grade captain — he's been kidnapped by Umemiya again — and notices the finished doll sitting on his desk.
Anzai picks up the doll, turning it back and forth. As if he can’t believe his eyes.
“Wait, what’s this doing here?”
“We fixed it! There’s no way we could’ve thrown out Sakura-san’s hard work!”
Nirei squints at the doll.
“Wait. Where’d the jacket come from? We didn’t make that.”
“Sakura-kun most likely made it and put it on when we weren’t here. For all that he said he didn’t care, he probably already had that made and was just waiting to put it on.”
“Sakura-chan is a tsundere after all~”
“That personality of his is his virtue!”
“This conversation has gone a bit off-track, but now that we have his doll, we should figure out how we can thank Sakura-kun. You all heard Umemiya-san, we can’t let his efforts go unappreciated.”
And so they begin to plan.
If Sakura comes back and notices the doll missing, he doesn’t comment on it.
The next day, Suo and Nirei convince Umemiya to distract Sakura during lunch and 1-1 puts their plan in motion.
They bring out the dolls Sakura made for them and stage a photoshoot.
Suo and Nirei took a moment to thank Hiragi-san in their hearts. It was only with his help (and a lot of stomach pills), that they managed to convince Umemiya-san to not crash the shoot and ruin everything.
They ensure that the Sakura-nui is always included in all the shots. That, most importantly, it's always the focus of the shot.
They want to make sure that when Sakura sees these photos, he knows he’s appreciated. That he knows that they know these gifts are from him. That they do and will return the care and devotion he’s shown them thus far.
Once they’re done, Nirei makes a new group chat for their class, naming it “nui loves you”, and they all proceed to flood the chat with the pictures from the shoot. He makes sure to add Umemiya-san too, as that was one of the conditions he laid down for distracting Sakura.
And when Sakura comes back to the classroom, everyone is looking at him with a grin on their face.
“Welcome back, Sakura-kun.”
Sakura looks at his classmates’ grins, at their hands hidden behind their backs, and immediately feels apprehensive. There’s also a suspicious looking box that wasn’t there before sitting by the window.
“Why are you guys looking at me like that? And why are you hiding your hands?!”
If anything, their grins only grow wider.
“You should check the new group chat Sakura-chan~”
Sakura scans their faces again. Trying to figure out if there's a hidden meaning behind his words, before taking out his phone.
To his surprise, he’s got a bunch of unread message notifications on the LINE app, and another one indicating he’s been added to a new group chat.
He glances at his classmates one more time before opening up the chat.
And immediately his face goes red.
The chat is absolutely flooded with photos. The first picture is of the other dolls dog-piling the Sakura-nui, hearts drawn all around them in bright pink ink.
The next one is of his classmates’ dolls pelting origami hearts at Sakura-nui who’s already half-buried in them.
The one after that is Sakura-nui sitting in a model dollhouse. An omurice in front of it. But instead of the ketchup being a squiggle, it's another heart.
And the photos continue on. Suo-nui and Nirei-nui hugging Sakura-nui. Suo-nui and Nirei-nui offering origami hearts to Sakura-nui. Sakura-nui in a farmer’s outfit, harvesting heart-shaped radishes.
Sakura-nui sitting in front of a model sakura tree, surrounded by petals. Sakura-nui and Kiryu-nui sitting in front of a smartphone, the screen open to a game’s loading screen. Pair and group shots with his other classmates.
The list goes on.
And it dawns on Sakura. His classmates are hiding their dolls behind their backs and that box in the corner probably contains all the props they used for this inane photoshoot.
“I—! What—! How—! WHAT IS THIS?!”
Sakura’s face is the reddest it’s ever been and they can’t help but look on and feel proud. It looks like their feelings were properly received.
“It's our love for you, Sakura-san!”
“Knowing when to accept love is a virtue, Sakura-kun.”
“That’s right Sakura-chan~ Accept it~”
The rest of the class also decide to chime in.
“That’s right Sakura! Accept our love!”
“Hahaha! Take that Sakura!”
Suo looks on at his laughing classmates and smiles at Sakura.
“You heard them Sakura-kun. Now what do you say?”
Sakura’s face gets redder with every word. They didn’t think it was possible.
“I—! That—!”
Sakura goes red down to his hands. His face scrunches up and they can practically see the steam coming out of his ears.
“You guys are idiots!!”
The so-called idiots just look at each other before turning back to look at Sakura, huge grins on their faces.
“But we’re your idiots, Captain!”
Sakura stares back at them, dumbfounded. And like a cresting wave, an unfamiliar feeling wells up deep inside him, gripping his heart and tickling his throat.
He can feel his eyes water as an unfamiliar, but not unwanted, sensation slowly fills him to the brim, threatening to overwhelm him, but at the same time making him feel just so warm.
And as the first tear falls from his eye, Sakura just leans his head back, opens his mouth and laughs.
It's only after they get together, when Sakura lowers his guard around him, that Suo realizes how truly sentimental Sakura is. More importantly, how endearing he is.
For the most part, they had agreed to leave their dolls at each other’s homes. Since it felt too cruel to separate their doll counterparts when they get to be together.
On the days they're left at Sakura's, Sakura took the opening for what it was and proceeded to accessorize the dolls, projecting his desires through them.
Suo remembers quite clearly, walking through Sakura's apartment on a sunny day, only to find the dolls propped up by the window together, a newly embroidered green throw ‘blanket’ draped over their shoulders. Bofurin's symbol clearly on display.
Suo doesn't comment on the little pink heart embroidered onto a corner of the blanket. But the look he sends Sakura and the responding blush tells him that Sakura knows he saw it.
It seemed as though Sakura had intentionally left them there, in plain sight, to gauge Suo's reaction. What kind of reaction, Suo didn't know. But Sakura must've gotten what he wanted, because something shifted that day.
There was a slight change in the items Sakura bought; it wasn't just yarn and fabric anymore—now, modeling and crafting supplies also found their way into his apartment.
Suo quickly found out why.
When Suo happened to walk into Sakura's apartment on a rainy day, he found the dolls sitting together under a large paper umbrella, holding onto a teru teru bouzu between them, with a model tea set placed before them. The Bofurin blanket was once again draped over both of their shoulders.
During the winter, when the cold weather forced them to stay inside, Sakura made a model kotatsu for the dolls to sit under, angling them just so, so that they looked like they were cuddling. Between them sat a pile of knitted mandarins.
And on days after it had snowed, the dolls would be arranged to look like they were building an igloo, crafting snowmen or having a snowball fight.
Suo feels his heart fill up more and more with every instance and can't help but think how adorable his partner is. Of how much he wants to treasure this precious person.
So he decides to repay his boyfriend. By making it his mission to photograph their dolls in the cheesiest poses possible.
After all, he needs to display how proud he is of his boyfriend's hard work to the rest of the world. It's just too cute.
He’d bring them to the florist’s and have Suo-nui hold a rose out to Sakura-nui. Or he’ll pose them against the light of the sunset, making sure Suo-nui is kissing Sakura-nui on the cheek.
On another occasion, Suo-nui will put a crown of daisies on Sakura-nui’s head.
Sakura wouldn't realize this until later, but this was also Suo subtly warning Sakura about what he wanted and was going to do. So he wouldn't be overwhelmed.
Even when they became much more comfortable with each other, and Suo didn't need to forewarn his partner, he couldn't stop taking them.
The way Sakura's face lit up, flushed and happy, every time he saw the photos. The cute quirk of his lips as he grinned, making him glow from the inside out. The tender look in his gaze.
This view was too precious to give up.
But if anyone asks Suo to pick his favorite photo, without fail, he would always reply with a cryptic smile before dodging the question, casually stroking his thumb over his phone case.
And tucked away inside, hidden from sight, laid a picture of Suo-nui and Sakura-nui standing side by side, hands clasped, dressed in white tuxedos, amidst a carpet of flower petals beneath a wedding arch.
He had plans after all, and it wouldn’t do for them to ruin the surprise.