Chapter Text
When Sakura first began acting strangely, Togame had assumed it was something at work troubling him.
After being together for six loving and wonderful years, Togame thought he knew Sakura as well as he knew himself. But whatever was troubling him, Togame knew to trust Sakura and let him explain in his own time.
Fortunately, Togame only had to wait about a week for Sakura to be ready. It ended up being two days before Christmas Eve when the younger man sat down with Togame. On the low table in front of them was a slightly worn old shoebox Togame had seen a few times since they moved in together a few years prior.
“The other day…” Sakura began in a quiet voice, “I got a call. From my birth father.”
The mere mention of the vile scum that had put Sakura’s life on the path of so much pain made Togame instinctively go to hold his boyfriend’s hand for reassurance. When Sakura first told him about his past, it had been in a moment of fear and anxiety that Togame would reject him knowing the truth. They had been dating a few months at that point and the subhuman trash had threatened to cut Sakura off what pitiful excuse of living expenses he was provided. Needless to say, Togame and Sakura’s friends rallied with finding paying work, tutoring and finding a safer place to live, so Sakura was independent of his biological father.
Six years was in no way enough time to heal the wounds from Sakura’s childhood. Sometimes the festering hurt would reach his eyes or manifest in his movements, even after weeks or months since it last appeared.
Togame squeezed Sakura’s smaller hand in his, letting his partner find the words he wanted to say.
“It was a lot of nonsense, but basically he’s done with his so-called ‘support’.”
And that explained the shoebox. It was where Sakura stashed money to repay his father for all the expense of ‘raising’ him. He always knew that one day whatever obligation he and his father had toward one another would come to an end and Sakura would throw every yen that was given to him back at that bastard. It had been several years now since Sakura had added to the box, around the time he had been given a big raise at one of his part-time jobs when he was 17. And not long after that, he moved into the Togame home.
“It’s time then?” Togame asked.
Sakura nodded. “Nothing more between us. And I’ll make him tell me where my mother is resting.”
It was his only request of his blood family. He wanted to visit his mother’s grave, the only blood family who loved him, and put her worries to rest. She may have been gone for over twenty years now, but Sakura had been encouraged to believe his mother loved him dearly and given him his beautiful name. He wanted to speak with her and pay his respects. And he wanted to introduce Togame to her as his family, the love of his life, and the one who helped shape him into the man he had become. He couldn’t introduce everyone to his mother, but he could introduce the man he wanted to marry and spend his life with.
It was several hours by train, three line changes and deep into a bustling metro area far different from Makochi Town that Sakura and Togame managed to find the home of Sakura’s birth father.
The home was alarming considering the state of Sakura’s former apartment and living situation. A large practically sparkling new build with the space for a large family and a guests. Togame swore he could see yen pouring out of all the large glass windows.
The sound of Sakura scoffing drew Togame’s gaze. “This isn’t a home. It’s all cold and ugly. Our home is way better.”
Our home. The phrase always made Togame giddy, but hearing it now when faced with the life Sakura’s birth father had made him grin with delight. Their home was warm and filled with love and memories, the years Togame and his grandfather spent together before adding Sakura to their family, its old bones held generations of laughter and smiles and provided the balm that eased the aches of Sakura’s emotional scars.
Money and a fancy new house couldn’t compare.
“I agree completely. Let’s finish our errand and head home. Grandpa’s making hotpot for dinner tonight.”
Sakura flashed a bright smile and stepped forward to press the bell next to the locked gate. The shoebox had been upgraded to a thick business envelope tucked inside of Sakura’s cozy winter coat, freeing up his hands so he could hold onto Togame’s large hand for reassurance. He was acting brave and nonchalant, but Togame knew his partner better than that.
The gate clicked and swung open and a shadow appeared at the front door. The pair headed into the cold museum of a yard, no plants or trees giving the concrete and metal any sign of comfort. The door opened as they came under the overhang, revealing a middle aged woman that looked far too frail and frankly uncomfortable. Togame could see in the corner of his eye how Sakura seemed to shift from age-old fear to just awkward.
“Hello ma’am,” Sakura greeted her as if she was just another person who came in for lunch at Pothos.
“Ah. Haruka. You look… well. Would you and your… friend like to come in for tea?” The woman asked. It was clear this was Sakura’s step mother. Togame didn’t get all the details because Sakura didn’t know either, but it seemed as if his father was forced into remarrying to have another (better) son and it wasn’t a marriage of love.
“I’m afraid we can’t stay. We’ve got plans tonight, so we have to head back. It’s a long trip up here.”
Sakura was strangely calm and poised, far more than when he had practiced what to say yesterday. Like the fear that haunted him and the craving for love and validation from this woman who could have been a second mother to him was a long forgotten memory.
“I see.” The woman looked a little shocked. As if she hadn’t anticipated this reaction from Sakura nor him appearing in high spirits and good health and in the company of someone holding his hand like lovers do.
“Haruka,” came a cold voice.
The newcomer was most certainly Sakura’s father. He had the same grey-blue eyes as Sakura’s darker eye and Togame could see the serious side of Sakura in his father’s features. But everything else was without question the warmth and love blessed by his late mother. Togame didn’t even know her name, but he could tell just by seeing what kind of man Sakura’s father was that every atom of the boy, now man, that Togame loved was shaped by the selfless and loving mother that brought him into this world. Every millimeter of Sakura was made to be loved by the woman who gave everything she had for him.
It was obvious Sakura’s father could see his late wife in his abandoned son. There was hesitation and the coldness was replaced with abject pain for several quiet moments.
And it was Sakura who broke the silence. “You both look well. I just came by to return this,” he reached into his jacket and handed the hefty envelope to his father. “That’s everything I owed you for providing for me and the stipends I never used after I turned sixteen. I graduated high school, I have a stable job and income, I’m taking college classes, I have friends too. And this,” Sakura paused smile at Togame like all the burdens and pain were melting off of him. “Is my partner. I’m going to marry him. So now I have no obligation to you. I made my own way and I’m giving back everything I owed you. All I want is to go see my mother and introduce her to the person I love.”
Sakura rarely talked so much, especially about himself. He didn’t even blush talking about being in love and what he wanted. But he said everything he wanted to say- there was nothing between him and his father and he had long since moved on and thrived with the family he found all on his own.
It was clear neither the father nor the stepmother knew what to say. But a small nudge of the elbows between them had the stepmother retreating inside.
“You look like her, you know…” Sakura‘s father spoke quietly. “She… was bright. Easy to smile, even easier to blush over the smallest things. If it wasn’t for your one eye and the white hair, you’d look exactly like her…”
Neither Sakura nor Togame had expected any kind of conversation from this. It was strange and uncomfortable, but it was something Sakura had wondered about many times over the years. And Sakura’s father had answered that; Haruka Sakura looked just like his mother.
And that in itself was an answer for the oldest question that rotted away in the deepest confines of Sakura’s heart.
Haruka was a ghost of his mother. He resembled her so much that it made those who loved her despair. A child resembling their lost parent could be a comfort to the surviving family, but in this case it was a knife driven over and over again the more Haruka grew to resemble her. And in time the grief became anger and hate at the child whose only crime was being born of love and carried by a mother who loved until her final breath. Haruka became a child driven away out of misdirected anger and sadness and came to survive and thrive in spite of being labeled a murderer and buried under years of contempt.
Sakura’s stepmother returned with a small letter envelope with the kanji for Haruka on the aged paper. It was passed to Sakura’s father before landing in Sakura’s free hand.
“This is for you. Photos of your mother. And the address of her cemetery,” his father explained in stilted words.
Sakura brushed his thumb over the kanji for his name. “Thank you. I’ll consider this a goodbye gift.”
That evening, when the pair returned home, they found Togame’s grandfather fussing over the family shrine. He had made room for Sakura’s mother next to Togame’s grandmother and fresh flowers were added and new incense was lit. Togame took the best photo and added it to a picture frame before setting it onto the shrine, the familiar radiant smile that previously only belonged to Sakura adding more warmth to their home.
On New Years Eve, all of the Bofurin, Shishitoren, Roppo-Ichiza and Gravel members that still lived locally came out to join Sakura and Togame for the first shrine visit. It had become a bit of a tradition since life was busy for everyone now that they were all working adults.
Over the years, faces came and went as jobs or college, growing families and other things kept people away or bringing them back. Some guys even got married or had kids, bringing their growing families with them to the annual celebration.
And as the crowd cheered and fireworks sparked across the night sky, the sound of the gongs striking in the new year, Togame took a knee and Sakura’s hand just as Sakura had done six years earlier.