Chapter Text
The streets of Furin were something he thought he knew by now. The dirty alleyways he'd run down to save rebellious cats owned by old ladies, the main streets lined with gratuitous shop keepers always prepared with gifts and free food, the winding bridges crossing steadily moving streams...he patrolled them all so often by now, he should know them too.
But all it took was one drastic change in mental state to strip away all that Sakura Haruka knew about this place and twist it so nothing looked familiar and nothing looked safe.
It was in the middle of the night when it happened and maybe that was why the shadows of dingy alleyways looked so frightening. Maybe being woken up at 3am to pounding and yelling made everything in Furin look so damn…nauseating and terrifying.
It didn't really matter regardless. Sakura did what he always did in this situation, every time it happened, in every new place he stayed; he found a dumpster in a far off alleyway and hunkered down for the night.
Sakura's foster parents were, in a word, bad. In a couple of words, terribly abusive. In more than a couple words: the most annoying and dirtiest, slimiest pieces of shit that ever walked the face of the-
A bang echoed down the alleyway and Sakura jolted from his hunched position hugging his legs to his chest. In front of him, a rat or maybe a mouse scurried across the ground. He sighed.
His nerves were shot and his head pounded with the oncoming headache his foster parents always brought with them. Years of their abuse always brought Sakura to a state of mind that dizzied his thoughts and burned his brain.
How did they find him this time?
He left no clues where he was going. He made sure to leave in the middle of the night and even leave a barely there breadcrumb trail of places he'd been going the opposite way for Furin. He did everything to lay low until he got here. Even Furin itself! It was way the fuck away from where he'd last lived with them.
So just how the fuck did they find him so seemingly damn easily??
Sakura breathed out shakily. He gripped his shins tightly and pressed his face into his knees, relishing in the pressure that wasn't in his brain.
He couldn't go back to the apartment. They met him there, pounding on the (thankfully for once) locked door, yelling his name. He answered too, like an idiot. So much had happened recently though, he'd nearly forgotten their voices, and his drowsy brain had failed to recognize them until it was too late.
Surprisingly, they looked different in the same extreme ways that Sakura felt different.
His foster 'mother' was older, as if the past half a year hadn't been kind to her. She still wore that gaudy makeup that irritated Sakura. (And he couldn't help but compare it to Tsubaki's makeup, his perfect eyeliner and blush and shadow was far far far superior to hers).
His 'father' was angrier. His face blotchy red and breath huffed out his mouth like the yelling and the stairs they took to get up here had already winded him and stolen his breath.
They both were a sore sorry sight.
Sakura had frozen in their presence. Stock still, frozen. Almost exactly like he had for his classmates all the way back when they were fighting KEEL. Only this time there weren't any upperclassmen to pick up the slack he dropped.
Red hot pain stabbed at his head as he thought about it in the safety of the alleyway by the dumpster. His 'father' had smacked the side of his head hard without a breath of hesitation. His 'mother' berated him and snagged his ear to pull him down to her level. The injuries from the Noroshi fights hadn't fully healed yet and stinged with reminders.
He barely remembered what they said before he pushed her and slammed into him and jumped the stairs in favor of running, running, running. Running until his breath wet in his throat, until his eyes stung and blurred his vision, until he collapsed on the ground, burning his knees against the asphalt below.
A waste of effort and time.
Should have chained you down when we found you, would've been easier than thi-
Now we're all in trouble over some unwanted-
They always said the same things. Always the same insults, threats, and lies. Funnily enough, they stopped making sense to Sakura. Why say something a million times over if it was true? Seemed like a waste of breath to him.
He needed a game plan. They were at his apartment, so he couldn't go back there, at least not now. Maybe in a little bit, a couple days and he could get all his things and then-
And then-
In an instant, Sakura was drenched in cold sweat. It wasn't that cold tonight, the dumpster's metal maybe, but shorts were fine. Right up until that, he was fine. But now, he was shivering.
He'd wait a few days, for his 'parents' to get bored, or tired, or preoccupied. He'd grab the few things from his apartment he could and then he'd-
What? Would he leave again? Would he ditch Bofurin after everything they'd gone through and find a new place to live? Go through it all over again and start fresh again?
And then Sakura thought about it more. Was this his life now? Running? Always a new place, with new people, and new challenges?
The small, terrified little boy in Sakura was crying. And all he was saying was: I want to stay here.
I want to stay here. I like it here. I like the people here. I'll miss the people here.
I want to stay here.
He couldn't leave. For once, he didn't want to. For once, he had something he wanted to keep, to protect, to hold.
He couldn't leave here.
So now a brand new, extra scary problem came into play. Just what the hell was Sakura supposed to do now? Where was he supposed to go? He couldn't avoid his 'parents' forever. He couldn't avoid his apartment forever. He needed to sleep somewhere. He needed to get his uniform back too. He needed-needed-needed-
He needed a plan.