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“If you feel pain, you are alive. If you feel other people’s pain, you are a human being.”
Jo mulls over this quote as he rolls the marble in his Ramune around the curved neck, watching it through tinted glasses. His ankle stings, his knuckles bear the familiar retribution of inflicting pain even as his own are scarred over, and, of course, that ever-present ache in the back of his head where his soulmate took a hit one day and never quite recovered.
Annoying.
He sighs and flips the bottle upside-down, uncaring of the soda remnants that spill from the plastic mouth. He wishes for those blissful moments, the in-between of dreams and waking, when he’s still disconnected from his soulmate’s hurts and has yet to remember the misery that he has created of his life.
Soulmates... It had been presented to them early in life, their teacher following that quote with the question of,
“Do you ever suddenly feel pain that you can’t explain?” She had said. “Like bumping your knee when you were sitting still? Or taking a bite of something too hot when you were drinking cold water?”
Jo remembers that he had hesitated, then had raised his arm up, palm wide and open. He had always been a little bit taller than others so even when other hands had joined, his had stuck out from the crowd. The teacher had gushed about how lucky they were and introduced soulmates. Everyone had looked starry-eyed, and Jo had felt his own heart warm.
Soulmates hadn’t been a new concept. It had been in his parents cooing over the fact that if he was lucky, he would meet his match like they had and his father kissing a paper cut on his mother’s hand, the pain soothing from her face... but the laid-out explanation... to be told there was someone in life who would share all hardships and struggles and pain with you?
It had been beautiful for the few hours until after class, when he had come up to the teacher and had asked why his soulmate hurt so much, so often.
His teacher’s face had paled. A yawning chasm had opened beneath his heart.
“I’m sorry, Togame-kun,” she had licked her lips, and had smiled, the too tight smile of an adult about to lie, “it’s… It’s because your soulmate is strong.”
Even then, something about that had felt off, but he had clung to the security blanket offered until he had grown up enough that he could no longer cover the truth with it. Until the chronic pain from the soulmate bond had resulted in Jo getting a prescription pain medication that dulls him and makes the world around him slow and cottony.
His soulmate isn't strong—
He’s weak.
Jo sighs, lowering the Ramune bottle. A scuffle catches his attention, and when he peeks an eye open, he catches the fluttering of an orange jacket before it disappears around a corner.
A distraction.
Perfect.
With his leisurely pace, by the time he catches up with his men, following them all the way to the train tracks, he finds two Furin kids and three of his, one downed. Disappointment thrums through him. He hates this, hates the boys who have harmed one of his own, hates the now former Shishitorin member for being weak enough to put Jo in this situation, and most of all, he hates himself.
The hatred steeps further at the noise Othello-kun makes, chatter with no substance and so fast Jo can barely register the words through the sludge of his mind, even as he hears every single one. For someone so interesting looking, his words are banal and empty and so, so worthless.
Turning to leave, he hates that he will be reporting this to Choji, hates that he is so repulsed at the thought of approaching the shell of his best friend, and with the ever-present headache, Jo hates his soulmate as well.
There is something that calls to Jo, demands he approach Othello-kun like a gravitational force. He knows how satisfying it will be to pound Othello-kun into the dirt, to see his bloodied face and all his useless ideations broken, to be forced to reality. Jo will teach him.
Jo isn’t a good man but maybe Othello-kun can walk out of Ori with the scum beaten out of him. Of course, that’s just a bonus to getting to smash his mouth in. Yeah, Jo thinks, balling up all the anger and hate, he can take it out on Othello-kun.
Othello-kun’s impatience just adds to his annoyance. Guys like him, who are so eager to leave the imprint of their fists in someone else’s body. Disgusting.
Jo has only ever fought for necessity. To protect the festivals he works part-time at, to protect Shishitorin, even his current senseless violence exists just to keep Choji’s hands clean. Every insistence on fighting first, every impatient complaint, and every bossy comment thrown at his own teammates spiral Joe faster.
Eventually, it’s their turn. A strange pang cuts through him, a momentary, foreign desire to touch. Huh, he really can’t wait to beat down Othello-kun?
Preparing himself, he goes for the low hit, trying to grapple Othello-kun with his larger mass. An easy take-down move for someone as big as him. But Othello is fast and then—
And then.
Their points of contact are molten heat.
Suddenly, Jo is a kid again, burning sparklers and worrying over his soulmate’s newest ache to the face and holding his firework too long, hoping he would feel a similar burn to know his soulmate was having a fun Obon. He is a year younger, walking with Choji in the warm sunlight, laughing on the way back from protecting their friends. He is the Jo of right now, greedily desiring the warmth of his soulmate’s touch.
The feeling lingers, and Othello-kun must have felt it too because he hasn’t taken advantage of Jo’s pause, is subtly flexing his hand, and matching the intensity of his stare.
Their eyes meet, and Jo sees—
Disgust and…
Disappointment.
Rage boils up like he’s never felt before.
His soulmate? Disgusted in Jo? Disappointed in Jo?
When he’s some twerp looking to pick fights and gang wars? When Jo has been feeling his pain for as long as he can remember, a constant ache that went from worrisome to annoying to resentful.
But now… Now he can pay back all the pain he’s felt over the years. Pay back all of his own disgust and disappointment at his pathetic, weak soulmate, who recklessly throws himself into the very violence Jo regrets every day.
And maybe… Maybe if he can’t beat the scum out of his soulmate, he could beat Othello-kun’s head into the ground until he stopped moving and Jo could finally, finally be free of his chronic pain.
Ah.
Jo sees, mind clear for the first time in years. His men, chasing down a middle schooler. Ha, what a joke the devotees of power were indeed. He’s exactly the kind of bully that has been hurting his soulmate their entire lives, even worse, maybe for pretending he did it out of care when everything had just been him avoiding a problem.
He chuckles humorlessly.
Did they ever tell you, Sakura, that what they did to you was out of love?
What is he doing? What has he done?
I’m sorry, Choji.
I’m sorry… Sakura.
After they are eating together, Jo looks right at Sakura and bows.
“I’m sorry,” Jo wants to give all of himself to Sakura, will let the boy change him however he pleases. Will leave and never come back if Sakura wants, will follow him to the end of the earth if Sakura lets him.
“Stop being lame! Be someone cool!” He’s commanded, of all things, instead.
Before they leave, he approaches Sakura, who looks at him with such wariness, it makes Jo ache in memory of every face slap, hair pull, and fist to the gut Jo had felt before the age of 10 when his own parents had been soft touches and loving words.
“Uh, here,” he holds out a bottle, “for your head… I uh… it probably hurts, right? These help me with my headaches.”
His eyes glance at the spot that he knows aches, had targeted with prejudice on every stomp of his geta. Sakura’s brow furrows.
“I don’t take pain meds,” Sakura raises a brow, “is that why you talk so slow?”
“Oh! Kame-chan’s always had migraines,” Choji says, his open personality newly shy, feeling around the broken edges of their friendship that has left them bleeding.
Sakura winces, and Jo is used to the pain enough to not copy the expression when the ache throbs.
The bottle is plucked from his hands.
“Maybe the first step to being someone ‘cool’,” Umemiya says, voice dark, “isn’t trying to give a fifteen-year-old prescription pain medicine.”
The bottle is shoved back in his hands.
“R—right!” Jo hunches in on himself, thinks about how this looks outside of two people who share pain. “Sorry, wasn’t thinking.”
“Must’ve punched him pretty hard in the head,” Sakura says, a blessed way out that Jo sheepishly takes.
As they pass, Hiragi and Umemiya give him disappointed looks, he hears the kid that didn’t fight flipping through a notebook and telling Sakura how, with Jo’s weight, which the kid knew suspiciously well, who knows what the medication would have done and—
Fuck, yeah Jo can’t believe he has already bungled that up.
Jo is chatting with Sako and Choji when the hit to the head comes. It freezes him, and for a moment, he swears that blood is running down his face. Dazedly, he touches his forehead, but when he pulls it back, there is no sign of red.
“Togame-san?” A voice calls, hands gently resting on his arm, “Togame-san!”
“Kame-chan!”
Jo gasps and blinks back to reality and yeah, his head really fucking hurts but it’s not him, not Jo. Jo’s little soulmate is going to be the death of him if Sakura doesn’t get himself killed first.
The hit doesn’t quite drop Jo, but he staggers and Sako and Choji guide him to the ground, where he collapses into a heap.
“Is he okay?” Sako asks, hovering uncertainly.
Choji hums and is digging through Jo’s pockets until he pulls out the bottle Jo had tried to proffer to Sakura. God, Jo would do anything for Sakura to stop hurting, and now for reasons not just involving Jo’s own pain. The old concern, when he had learned what a slap to the face felt like and realized he had felt it over and over and over, rises up.
Once again, there is nothing Jo can do for Sakura, so he focuses on watching Choji unscrew the cap and parcel out a dose for Jo without even checking. It’s correct, take up to three as needed, and Jo warms, knowing that Choji remembers after all this time.
Jo is ready to swallow them dry, but Sako is shoving a water bottle into his hands.
“Yeah…” Choji is quiet, “it’s his soulmate. What was it this time, Kame-chan?”
Jo groaned.
“Hit to the head,” Jo tells him, “I think… pipe…”
Choji winces.
“Hope they’re okay…”
Jo nods, worried over how Choji is taking the topic when Choji has never felt any pain besides his own. Jo thinks that is part of why Choji had spiraled so deeply. When he had gotten to the top, when he had been the strongest, when fights had stopped so quickly that Choji never felt a hit…
To feel pain is to be alive…
When he looks though, Choji is just watching him sadly. The pain Jo bears lightens a little. He thanks Umemiya for teaching Choji that he doesn’t need a cosmic connection to feel others' pain anymore.
Jo’s hand around the medication tightens, and with a shaky breath, he hands the pills back to Choji. He watches Choji furrow his brow and check the dosage. Jo waves him off.
“You were right. I just…”
He no longer craves ignorant bliss, would rather know if Sakura is in danger, would rather feel and share the burden of all his hurts. He doesn’t know what he would do now if all the pain suddenly stopped as he had wished it to less than two weeks ago.
Choji just nods in understanding and packs away the medication. Jo breathes and tries to relax, to breathe through the pain echoing down a cosmic hallway. Choji stays with him as Jo bears the pain, tries to feel it just to know Sakura is there. Eventually, Choji picks the conversation back up with Sako, who is looking at Jo with a raw fear.
Jo sighs. He had never shared this with others after Choji’s leadership instatement. The ones who had remembered had whispered on his callousness towards a weak soulmate, and the newer ones had been taught that Jo had chronic migraines and a short temper for those who were headaches.
The day passes. The sunsets. Sako must have been really shaken because rather than going home, he has parked himself in staying, pulling out notebooks from his cross-body school bag. The pain to the head fades, there had been the familiar feeling of bruised knuckles and the twinge of an ankle, but all that had dulled to the background, so Jo knows that Sakura has won.
They are packing their things when the first wave hits him.
“Fuck,” Jo shudders, “he’s sick.”
Choji tilts his head.
“He?” his eyes sparkle, “wait, Kame-chan! When did you meet him?” His face twists, “and you didn’t tell me… I’m sorry…”
Jo groans and waves him off.
“I met them this week,” Jo tells him, which has Choji’s face brightening.
“Okay, well! Let’s go!”
“Huh, go where?”
Choji raises a brow.
“To your soulmate, duh?” Choji tells him as if it’s the simplest thing on the planet, the way he used to before his hurt became complex and amorphous to someone like Jo, who has never questioned the value of other people’s worth. “He finally has someone who can help him.”
Jo’s heart stutters, and a feeling of hope has him soaring. He always knew, when his soulmate had been aching from fever or sore throat, that there couldn’t have been anyone to care for him, not when the thirst and hunger would only be abated when his soulmate had been able to move his aching body.
“I don’t know where he lives…” Jo admits.
“We just need to find out!” Choji stands, pointing to the sky, hand on his hip, “… Hey, Kame-chan. Who’s your soulmate?”
Jo purses his lips and looks to the side, and mumbles his soulmate’s name.
“Hm?” Choji gets closer, “What was that?”
“Sa… kura…”
“YOU’RE SOULMATE IS SAKURA-CHAN?!”
Well, Jo guesses as multiple pairs of Shishitorin eyes snap to them, it’s not like he had any plans to hide the relation.
They end up getting Sako’s help to pull an address. Jo wonders how legal getting this address had been.
Doesn’t really matter, he supposes, not like any of their brawls or harassment had been legal.
What does matter is that the address is pretty deep in Furin territory. Choji insists on tagging along, a bit of a relief to Jo, as Choji had experience caring for Jo when his soulmate's sickness had poisoned him through the bond. They both agree to bundle up their Shishitorin jackets and trade them for nondescript clothes. Jo mourns the loss of his monk clothes and geta as he is stuffed into a hoodie, that he has no memory of ever owning, and forced into putting on sports shoes.
Better that than be immediately pegged as Shishitorin’s one and two, he supposes. They do pass a couple of Furin boys, and they get side looks, Jo standing out anywhere based on size alone, but his haircut is doing wonders for him, and with no glasses, orange jacket, or braid, they aren’t stopped. Choji…
Well, Choji had decided on a skirt and a wig for some reason. He looked happy enough, and one glance at Choji had the Furin boys’ gazes sliding off like water.
The building they come to has Jo stuttering. Choji halts as well, but he makes a show of marching on as if it’s just a friendly house visit. It’s already dark, but the apartment complex is darker somehow. Choji whispers gleefully about it being haunted, and Jo shushes him, having spent enough time helping at the shrine to be superstitious.
They climb the stairs.
- 201.
The doorbell doesn’t work, and when Choji knocks on the door, there is no answer. Lacking boundaries, Choji turns the doorknob, and the door swings open. Jo’s pulse races, and he knows, logically, that his soulmate isn’t in any more pain than he was three hours ago, but the thought of his little soulmate not even locking his door?
He races in, Choji following with a ‘Wait, Kame-chan!’.
Jo stops at the threshold of the shoji that divides the kitchenette from a six-tatami mat living space.
“What the hell…” Sakura is up, right in front of Jo and stumbling into a wall, “What the hell are you two doing here?”
“We’re here for you!” Choji cheers.
“Whu—” Sakura’s face goes red, “Why?”
The red flush of his face is adorable, but Jo knows the reason for his surprised expression, and Jo promises that there will be a day when Jo can help him, and Sakura will say nothing more than a thank you. Even better, maybe no acknowledgment, Sakura is just expecting Jo to do something for him.
Jo blinks, meets his eyes.
“You’re sick.”
Sakura makes a pained face and shakes his head, which Jo knows hurts.
“So what?” He sniffles and looks backward. “I’ll be fine alone. I always have been. Jus’ need sleep.”
“But you’ve never been alone.” Choji states, simple and clean, “Jo has always been sick when you are.”
Sakura jolts as he’s hit by the arrow of truth Choji had knocked and let fly. The face he makes looks devastated. He’s shaking, and before Jo can help himself, he’s taking two steps forward to catch Sakura as he sinks.
“Fuck…” he mutters and pushes Jo away, “Why? Why…?”
Jo bites his lip, doesn’t know what to say. His hand automatically goes to where he knows that ever-present ache is on Sakura’s head, and Sakura melts.
“Oh,” Sakura says, going lax, “that’s why… The pain meds...”
“Yeah…,” Jo says, “I didn’t think that one through. Just wanted to ease your pain.”
Sakura makes a noise, closes his eyes, and then Jo realizes he’s fallen asleep, curling in Jo’s lap like a cat.
“Oh wow!” Choji says, “That’s so cute~.”
He hears a snap, and Jo flushes when he realizes that it had been Choji’s phone, but then warmth spreads in his gut at the realization that there is now a picture of him and Sakura, snapshot proof of their existence together.
Jo sighs and is careful to bundle his charge up without waking him, although the heady feeling of touch seems to be enough of a pain reliever to have Sakura out like a light. It made Jo tired, too, and he wanders to the futon, hovering over it in uncertainty.
“What should I do?” He whispers to Choji.
Choji makes a shooing motion.
“Just hold him. Go lie down on the futon,” there is something tender in Choji’s voice now.
Jo sighs as he looks down at a futon. It’s not long enough for him, and there’s not a pillow in sight. There’s not really anything in sight, Jo discovers as he looks around the apartment. Except for the futon, the Furin outfit hanging by the window, a couple of white t-shirts, a phone charger, and a water bottle, this apartment is desolate.
Jo remembers hunger and thirst when he himself has never wanted for either of those things.
“Oh, where’s his pillow?” Choji asks, but while Choji is dense, he’s not stupid, and he pivots quickly. “I think I might have a spare one, but what about curtains? He should have curtains. I don’t know if I have spare curtains.”
“… I can ask Gramps… Might have somethin’ in storage.”
God, what else does Sakura need to make this a home…?
“… You know… How hard do you think it would be to convince Sakura to come live with one of us?” Choji asks.
Jo groans at Choji’s question.
“Impossibly hard.”
“Aw…”
Choji ends up doing most of the tending, with Jo being relegated to the role of a living hot water bottle. When they need Sakura to eat, Jo regretfully has to release him to get him to wake up. He shoots out little barbs that Jo knows his history too well to take seriously, and Choji would have never taken seriously in the first place, but is quick to stuff his face. Then, when he is trying to insist they leave, Jo just has to wrap his arms around him again. Sakura hisses like a cat, then immediately folds into Jo's arms asleep..
Choji places a cooling pad on his forehead and refills the water bottle. He keeps Jo company, but when he yawns and then winces at his stiff neck, Choji jumps up, saying something about patient’s comfort and takes off. Jo reminds him to lock the door behind him, shifting a hand through Sakura’s hair when he stirs at his call, thankfully able to soothe him back to sleep.
Choji gives him a thumbs up and is gone.
Jo goes back to half-napping with his sick soulmate, never quite so happy in his life. His soulmate is safe and not in pain, and his best friend is happy and supportive. Jo never realized there could be so much light in his life.
It’s all thanks to Sakura and Umemiya, but to Jo, right now, there is nothing quite so precious than following the delicate slope of Sakura’s nose, his pretty mismatched eyelashes, and the soft pink of his lips. Jo feels his own face warm up. He closes his eyes, holds Sakura closer, and dozes.
He’s vaguely aware of a phone ringing, the sleepy voice of his soulmate as he grumbles into the phone, then hangs up and willingly—willingly—sinks back into Jo. Sunlight is peering in, and Jo just shifts them so that his large back is blocking it, casting a dark shadow for Sakura to rest in.
It’s harder to fall back asleep, and Jo finds himself content to listen to his soulmate’s breathing, much better than the snotty huffing when he and Choji had arrived.
He hears the door open. He cracks an eye open, sighing as he wonders if Choji had just forgotten to lock the door, but then he hears voices that are not Choji’s.
Jo’s eyes snap open. Footsteps come down. Jo is quiet when he moves, crouched and hidden from the bedroom entrance by taking advantage of the corner. The door slides open, and Jo lunges a hand out, rolls to straddle the person, bumping them both into the wall at the tight space, and pulls a fist back. He brings it down hard, and the fist hits tatami as he realizes he has Eyepatch pinned underneath him and had managed to alter course.
Eyepatch is holding his breath, still like prey under a predator, but his friend is gasping and shaking.
“Nirei-kun! Go!” Eyepatch tries to dislodge him, but Jo has at least forty pounds on him, “Get Hiragi-san!”
The kid is frozen, then spins on his heel and takes off. The door slams shut, and Choji swans in, the kid shaking in terror over his shoulder and two canvas tote bags tucked under his arm. Vaguely, Jo notes he’s still in the get-up, but the wig has been abandoned.
“No need for that!” Choji cheers, tossing the kid, Nirei, if Jo had heard eyepatches correctly, onto the ground like a bag of potatoes.
“S— Suo-san, I failed…”
The newly dubbed Suo glares at Jo, gaze as sharp as a knife.
“How interesting to see Shishitorin’s number one and two at our friend’s home when he’s sick.”
Sakura groans, sits up, and blinks.
“Why the hell… ARE YOU ALL IN MY HOUSE?!”
Jo winces at the pain that bursts from his throat. Sakura sags, sucking in a ragged breath and then coughing. Suo is forgotten as Jo is fast to Sakura’s side. He rests a hand on Sakura’s back, and Sakura slumps into Jo.
“Sorry there, take it eeeeasy…” Jo grabs the water. “I know it hurt. Have some water.”
Sakura looks up at him, something guilty in his eyes. His mouth parts to say something, lip quivering, but he gulps down the water, hands it back to Jo before hiding his face into Jo’s chest.
Sakura grumbles something unintelligible, but Jo shifts them so he is really holding Sakura, and then the boy is out, still and peaceful as Jo has never seen him when awake.
Glancing back, he sees Suo motionless and staring, his single eye wide. His expression is blank of everything but surprise, a carefully curated mask that Jo can recognize but not see through. Nirei, meanwhile, looks scared and confused.
“We came to visit Sakura-chan because he’s sick,” Choji says.
“And he… told you?” There’s something surprisingly hurt and dark in Nirei’s voice.
Choji laughs.
“Nope! Kame-chan knew, so we raced over!”
Suo levels Jo with a look.
“Sakura-kun didn’t ‘tell’ you, did he?”
“No,” Jo says, trying to make himself smaller and closer to his soulmate's side.
Sakura’s nonviolent friend makes a face.
“You two… Beat each other up,” his lip curls, “how could you stand that?!”
Jo sighs, “I didn’t know until we were on stage.”
“Still…”
“Nirei,” Suo calls, “remember what Umemiya-senpai said. They had a ‘conversation’.”
Jo isn’t entirely sure what that means, but he understands the gist. Sakura had said a lot in that fight, all of it beaten into Jo, whether verbal or not.
“Sakura-san told me that he knew the geta were wood and not metal because of how many things he’d been hit in the head with,” Nirei spits out, eyes narrowed.
Suo’s brow furrows for a split second, expression dark. A crack in the mask, quickly repaired.
“… I know,” Jo says, “I’ve felt… every single one.”
“Is this the first contact you’ve had with him since the fight?” Suo asks.
Jo shrugs, not seeing the harm in humoring this little inquisition.
“… Yeah.”
“Is that why you tried to give him pain medications?”
Jo purses his lips and looks away, no longer humoring the little inquisition.
“Oh yeah!” Choji says, pulling out a pillow and folded fabric wait those were Choji’s curtains, “Kame-chan has had a headache since I’ve known him! Never goes away unless he takes the medication, but now, he can just help Sakura-chan feel better! Isn’t that great?!”
“Choji, sh…”
Jo brings a finger up to his lips and gives a subtle shake of his head. Choji mimics him, grinning. Jo’s relieved he understands.
“Sorry!”
“… What are you doing?” Nirei asks.
“Oh, well, it was just kind of sad in here… He doesn’t have a pillow or anything!” Choji is reaching up for the curtain rod. “He’s been alone. Jo used to act all angry about the pain, but I know he was really worried when Sakura-chan would get hit.”
Jo’s face goes white as Nirei’s gaze narrows in on him.
Choji had not understood.
Cool.
“Oh, I wonder how often? Sakura is younger than you, so you must have a good number of memories. What was his childhood like?”
How often was he hit as a child? Jo hears underneath the subterfuge.
Jo shakes his head.
He could spend the entire day recounting each hurt inflicted on Sakura and would still have days' worth of stories to tell.
“Choji, that’s enough,” he says, voice firm.
Choji looks at him and then back at the others.
“Oh… Okay, Kame-chan,” he says before he returns to his task, ignoring the Furin boys.
They all stew in silence, the focal point blissfully unaware of it all. He can see Nirei inch closer, taking out a book.
“Hey, Kame-chan…” Choji says when he has the curtain rod back up. “What else should I get him?”
Jo wants to give Sakura many, many things, but his own energy is sapped, him and Choji having come at night and Jo not getting a solid rest, and he can also feel the ache of sickness permeate through the bond, even as Jo soothes the aches. Knowing Sakura is safe, the exhaustion takes hold of him.
“Wanna give him…” Jo says as he sinks to lie down properly on the futon. Choji rushes over to tuck the pillow he had brought under Jo’s head, and from another tote bag, pulls out a blanket that will actually cover Jo, “… give him everything.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath and an oh from Nirei, and Jo sinks into sleep, happy to be dragging his soulmate into a painless, if temporary, bliss.