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Sakura isn’t sweet. He isn’t kind or soft, made for nice gestures and gentle smiles. He finds though, that despite his sharp corners and the brash words that tumble from his mouth, uncontrollably like a rushing river, he is… cared about.
It’s hard to accept at first, that small gestures like patching up his ankle or helping him remember names could ever amount to anything more than a distant memory he’ll cry bitterly over later. That all this overwhelming warmth is something he could enjoy and even more strangely, ask for.
He could open an arm in a sort-of inviting gesture for Nirei and the teen would jump into his arms (well not jump, but the point is there) and Suou will pat his shoulder on a job well done without question. That stupid fucking Hajime would loop his arm around Sakura’s shoulder like he wasn’t a freak or rabid dog– like he wasn’t alone.
Somehow though, he didn’t expect love to ache. He had seen families who played board games every Friday night and classmates that visited the arcades after school without care and assumed that love was demure, that love was easy.
Then he finds out that love also feels like an uphill battle that you’re being dragged up along, that love requires effort and healing (so much healing, so much getting used to) and the realisation dims the warmth in his heart from a forest fire to something more manageable. Something he could hold without burning, something he could pass around in small gestures and well-meaning promises.
The aching crater that he had thought was the craving to become the strongest was strangely, easily filled by eager smiles and the feeling of being needed , and maybe more importantly, being wanted. The thought crosses his mind every so and then again but without the cruel, sharp fingers clawing at his heart, the ache feels more like a remnant of past hurt. Past hurt he could deal with, bandage up and heal from.
He still gets bruises and scrapes, his muscles will ache after a particularly hard fight and sometimes his nose will bleed in summer more than it did before but he knows that ice packs and antiseptic wipes are waiting for him around the corner and it lets him hit a little harder, kick a little faster at the fuckers who dare ruin this sanctuary that would accept a fuck-up like him.
He’s safe, he realises on a random Tuesday night. His scuffed knuckles ache with exhaustion and his eyelids droop wearily but as he lays down, he feels warm . Not in a temperature way but his heart burns with a desire to be loved, to protect.
Sakura calls Tachibana at 1:21AM with strange tears flowing down his cheeks that he doesn’t even try to rub away at.
“Sakura-kun?”
He faintly recognizes that tears are slipping down his face and he blinks them away with a strange confusion. Sakura opens his mouth to speak then slowly closes it as he quickly realises that words aren’t forming.
Huh.
“Sakura? Do you need something? You should be asleep by now.”
He lets out a wet chuckle when he can hear the frown in her voice and the lethargy that coats it.
“Seriously, do I need to come to your house? If you don’t respond, I’m sending someone to your house. I’m serious.
…Sakura?”
He opens his mouth and a small hesitant word comes out, “Yeah?”
It’s awfully vulnerable and he hates how his voice catches at the end but somehow, it still reassures Tachibana enough that she sighs in slow relief.
“What do you need?” It’s soft and warm, rounded edges and candle by firelight and tears roll down faster again as he buries his face into his knees. He doesn’t speak, lets the silence wash over him like warm water on frigid limbs.
“Thank you. Thank youthankyouthankyou-” The choked whispers continue, even as she keeps soothing him with hushed comforts.
He keeps thanking because his heart hurts and it feels awful and simultaneously different because everything is too good for once.
Eventually, his breathing slows and at some point, she’s actually gotten to the house and sits beside him. She tells stories of the town before his arrival, Nirei as a child, Suou’s enigmatic personality, Unemiya’s brashness even as a child.
Tachibana keeps weaving stories, each irrelevant web slowly linked to one another to form a wonderfully bright tapestry that Sakura is afraid to insert himself in.
He doesn’t speak but this is good enough.
He is no longer alone.