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Bam bam bam.
When his peaceful sleep was abruptly and rudely disturbed by a loud noise, he didn't process immediately what said noise had been. He was still grappling with that slow, sleepy scale-up that someone had upon waking, where he could only piece everything together a little at a time.
The first piece he put together was that he was warm, under a blanket and with a body in his arms curled against him. That part, he needed no additional time to process at all: he knew who that would be, because there was only one person he would want to be holding this way. He opened his eyes just a slit to find a head of black and white hair under his chin, the rest of its owner burrowed up to his ears under the covers.
If Sakura was still asleep then it was damn early. He was usually up even before his alarm clock every day, much earlier than Jo would opt to wake up on his own. It was certainly too early to get up. So with that conclusion reached, he tightened his hold around Sakura and nuzzled his face into his hair to attempt the age old strategy of, "if I ignore the problem, maybe it will go away."
Bam bam.
No such luck, because the same sound rang out again, and this time he was awake and aware enough to identify it: it was an insistent, heavy knock at the door. The volume alone proved it was intended for Sakura's unit rather than downstairs or next door, and Jo vaguely wondered who would show up here so early. If it had been a Bofurin emergency, wouldn't they have called? Sakura's phone was just over there by the wall and they would have heard it, had it rung.
Another rap echoed across the apartment, and that was the one that caused the body in his arms to finally stir. But instead of pushing himself up to investigate, his sweet Sakura instead buried his face more into Jo's chest and shoulder without opening either eye. "What's all the noise about?" he mumbled into his skin.
"I think somebody's at your door," he answered into Sakura's hair. It wasn't a friendly knock, either. "Were you expecting someone?"
When Sakura's head shifted from side to side in denial, Jo sighed and stretched his legs, then flexed his feet in a stretch of their own since they were poking out from under the edge of Sakura's blanket anyway. Whoever this person was, they were nothing if not persistent. That was annoying. "Do y'want me to go see who it is? I'm already wide-awake anyway."
It was apparent that the idea greatly tempted Sakura, judging by the way he failed to budge, but then sighed. "'S not even your apartment."
"Ahhh, that's fine; I'll go check, alright?" Sadly he needed to release his embrace for that, but that was the way it went sometimes. "You're just gonna have to move over a little to let me up."
He had been correct in thinking it was too early even for Sakura because he did not protest any further, rolling himself off Jo to free him and quietly accepting the option to stay in bed. Cute.
Before he pushed himself upright to go tend to the door, he leaned to the side to kiss Sakura's temple. But since his eyes were shut and he didn't see it coming, Sakura rotated in the same moment and Jo got the back of his head instead. Well, that was okay, too. He smiled and ran his fingers through the hair in that same spot once he pulled away. "Allllright."
Reluctantly, he worked himself up and out from the blanket and was forced to do a quick search for his underwear. "I should probably put clothes on, huh?"
"Y'think?" The voice from the futon was muffled due to Sakura's face being half-pressed into the pillow, and it made him chuckle. Apparently the pillow had ended up with the important responsibility of replacing him once he had moved.
He tried to be fast in pulling everything on because there were more loud, impatient demands from the entrance. "Somebody doesn't have very good manners," he noted with the flavor of grumpiness that only came about as a result of being forcefully and unwillingly dragged out of bed.
Someone at the door was unhappy? Well guess what, Jo had more right to be unhappy than them, because he could still be cuddling a half-asleep Sakura right now (and when he was half-asleep, he was blessedly a lot more receptive to being cuddled) if they weren't pounding on the goddamn door! Once this was dealt with, he was going to waste no time in slinking back under the covers to hold Sakura again until he had to get up to go to Furin for class. Or, maybe Jo could even convince him to stay awake and engage in some other fun ways to pass the time until he had to get ready.
He yanked on the sleeves of his top and tied it off with just one loose half-knot on his way to the entrance, calling out a, "Yeah, yeah, coming," to stave off another round of wood-cracking knocks. Why was this person so convinced that Sakura was home, anyway? Most people would have taken the lack of answer as a sign that the apartment's occupant had spent the night at a friend's house or something.
He had to push one of his geta out of the way with his foot where it had somehow strayed to an inconvenient spot for anyone coming in or out of the apartment, and then with a turn of Sakura's lock, he pulled the door back towards him and peered through the gap.
At the door was a middle-aged man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase who looked just about as baffled to see Jo as Jo was to see him. A salaryman of some sort? But what business would he have with Sakura? He was curious as to whether this person didn't have the wrong address.
And Jo had definitely never seen him before, but there was something oddly familiar about his face. He couldn't manage to pinpoint what it was. "Hellooo, can I help you with something?"
The salaryman - or whatever he was - made an expression as if somewhat disgusted by that greeting all on its own. "I'm looking for Sakura Haruka."
So he was at the right address. And if he was, then that would be the person Jo would assume he was looking for, considering who lived here, but-
"Who are you, though?" he wondered aloud.
It was evident by the way his eyes narrowed that the visitor didn't appreciate his question. "I don't have to answer to you; I have no idea who you are or why you're here. Is Sakura Haruka here or not? He is supposed to be living here."
The way this man was speaking with what might have been a hint of hostility, and referring to Sakura so impersonally - by his full name, at that... Almost instinctively, Jo made sure his frame was blocking as much of the opening in the doorway as physically possible. This was already very much rubbing him the wrong way.
At the moment he wasn't even willing to volunteer the information that Sakura was in here, really. And so, deciding to avoid answering altogether, he stood up a little straighter and cocked his head to the side smugly, feeling a lot more in character with his old brutal second-in-command act than he had in quite a while. "Huh, you sure demand a lotta answers, for somebody who shows up unannounced so early in the morning and won't give any of his own."
He never would be so rude to a visitor at his own house - his grandfather would smack him upside the head for it. But circumstances were different here: this was Sakura's apartment, and he was not getting a good feeling.
His deflection pissed the stranger off even more, and he was visibly clenching his jaw so tightly that it must have hurt. "If you won't tell me whether he's here or get out of the way, I'm going to call the police to deal with you."
Jo actually had to let out a laugh at the suggestion. Now he knew for sure this was an out-of-towner, if he thought the police anywhere around here did much of anything. If they did, the place wouldn't have such active gangs. "Greattt, I'm looking forward to hearing what you're gonna tell them."
The man at the door was seething at this point, but both of them shifted their attention in unison when a voice piped up from the kitchen. "Oy, Togame, what the hell's goin' on?"
He turned a quarter of a rotation to find Sakura walking towards them. He had pulled on his t-shirt and pants, both very wrinkled from being strewn out on the floor where they had been shed the night before. His hair was still all cute and disheveled from sleep, too.
"Who's-" Sakura finally stepped into a spot that gave him a glimpse past where Jo was blocking the entrance, and when he did, he froze in place as his eyes widened. Then, abruptly, some piece inside him that had been front and center curled itself away and back into hiding as his expression morphed into something vacant and unsettlingly un-Sakura-like.
None of them said anything for a second, and Jo didn't see the visitor's reaction to confirmation that Sakura was here after all because his attention was laser-focused on the much higher priority of his disconcertingly shutdown boyfriend. He was the first one to break the silence with the beginning of a concerned, "Sakura-"
"You should go home," Sakura told him shortly. Although he was looking past Jo's shoulder at the stranger outside the door, it was still clear to whom the suggestion had been directed.
And his stomach dipped, because that didn't sit well at all. He had eyes and ears, he could see that something was off here and he didn't want to leave Sakura to deal with it all on his own. Because he wasn't on his own - Sakura had him. Would he even be safe? Jo wasn't worried about him physically, of course - Sakura could whoop anybody's ass when push came to shove... but that wasn't the only way he could be hurt, however much he tried to pretend and make people believe otherwise. Jo didn't take a single step away from where he was still effectively serving as a barrier in the doorway. "You sure? I can stay and wait around, I don't mind."
His offer was met with a more insistent, "Just go home," and he had to withhold a heavy sigh. Sakura didn't look like he was going to entertain any further arguments about it, either. And that was Sakura Haruka: everyone else could lean on him for help with anything, but the reverse was unfathomable. Jo hadn't yet been able to persuade him that it didn't need to always be that way. He hoped he would be able to, after some more time together.
He hoped to one day convince Sakura of a lot of things he didn't seem to currently believe.
Well, there was nothing that could be done about it right this moment. Disrespecting Sakura's wishes in his own place wasn't something he was about to do, no matter how much the situation was needling at him with a sense of unease. "...Yeah, okay." He pushed himself away from where he had placed a hand on the door frame and maintained a relaxed expression as he slowly slipped into his geta - he didn't want this stranger to catch that he was pretty bothered by the notion of leaving Sakura alone. His jacket was still somewhere back near the futon where it had been dropped last night, but he would have to get it later; he had a feeling that asking to go retrieve it now would not be met with great enthusiasm. Fortunately he hadn't used his phone after arriving at Sakura's yesterday, and thus it was still conveniently resting in the pocket of the pants he had quickly yanked on to come answer the door. "Talk to you later, then?"
"Uh-huh," Sakura replied quietly as he waited for him to leave.
Jo had not seen him look so uncomfortable in a long time. He bit his tongue from things he may have wanted to say and simply remarked, "Alright. See ya, Sakura."
The man at the door had to move out of the way to let Jo by and was visibly none too pleased about it. They briefly held eye contact as he passed and Jo hoped the intended message came through clearly.
When he hit the bottom of the stairs, he turned to glance back over his shoulder and was startled to find that Sakura was letting the salaryman come inside his apartment. He didn't look the slightest bit happy about doing so, but he was.
Jo had assumed they would talk outside, or at least that Sakura would stay in his doorway for the conversation. What the hell was going on? Sakura obviously knew this person but also obviously didn't have positive feelings towards him.
So, if there was one thing Jo wasn't going to do right now, it was go back home. Sakura could be mad at him if he wanted, but he couldn't find it in himself to leave when his gut was telling him that he should stay. He wouldn't be obnoxious or intrusive or anything - he would simply stick around nearby until the guy left, to make sure everything was okay. Then he would be more at ease and not at home on anxious pins and needles waiting for Sakura to respond to his phone call or text.
Sitting right at the bottom of the building's stairs to wait, he decided, would definitely fall under the 'obnoxious and intrusive' category. But there was a bench across the road - likely a stop for an old bus route that was no longer in use in this part of town - and that should be a fine place to wait it out.
He strolled in that direction, tossing a few more glances up to the closed door on the second floor of the building where Sakura lived, and parked himself down to sit.
Surely this visit wouldn't take too long.
For the next twenty minutes, he probably used his phone more to keep himself occupied than he had used it over the last few days combined. While he had barely known what other apps were preloaded onto this thing before, he was sure finding out today.
At one point three little black and white birds landed on the sidewalk off to his left, bouncing around together to search for crumbs, and he mused fondly that it was a fitting color palette given their proximity to Sakura's place.
At least his view of the apartment wasn't fully blocked by the severely overgrown foliage and so movement caught his eye just in time for him to lift his head and see a person walk outside. He could tell even from this distance that the salaryman's expression was still as off-putting and unpleasant on the way out as it had been on the way in, and the door was quickly slammed shut behind him.
Sakura had obviously been ready for him to leave.
There was a car parked on the street that looked very out of place in this neighborhood, and the man descended the steps to approach it. As he was opening the door to get inside, he happened to glance up and spot Jo sitting there across the street.
Jo raised a hand in a mocking wave and smiled a smile that he was certain came across just as disingenuous as intended, much to the stranger's visible annoyance. Without sparing him another glare, the man got into the car and drove off.
Good riddance. Jo had no idea what that had been about, but the way Sakura's face had stonewalled told him everything he needed to know.
And now he had to consider his options. Because Sakura was going to be pissed at him if he went right back up there, and probably say something like he 'didn't need Jo to worry about him or keep an eye on things!' or whatever. And he didn't, Jo knew that. In ordinary circumstances, he wouldn't have stubbornly stuck around - he would have gone home with confidence that Sakura would be fine. But these weren't ordinary circumstances, and what Sakura often failed to take into consideration in situations where he was the receiving party of such things was that sometimes affection overrode logic. Sometimes, even with all the confidence in the world in someone they loved, a person might still have the urge to make sure everything was okay just in case.
Sighing, he shifted his gaze over to his feathery buddies still hopping around the sidewalk. "Soooo, I'm definitely gonna get yelled at, right?"
He wasn't sure how to translate the handful of chirps he received in response, but he figured they agreed with him.
Ah well. He planted his hands on either side of his thighs on the bench and pushed himself to his feet to head back to the apartment. There were much worse things than getting yelled at a little. Like Sakura feeling that he was completely alone in something when he wasn't, for instance.
He was sure to knock more gingerly than usual when he reached the top of the stairs, seeing as the poor door had already taken enough abuse today. It was jerked open aggressively and Sakura was clearly ready for a fight behind it, because he was snapping, "What the hell else do you w-" before even checking to see who it was. When he saw that it was Jo, his expression momentarily faltered before twisting into anger again. "I told you to go home!"
"You did," Jo agreed readily. "I just didn't listen. My bad."
All of the wind seemed to blow out of Sakura's sails as he visibly slumped. Resigned, he pushed the door open a little more and turned to walk back into the kitchen. "I don't feel like fightin' with you right now."
"Wellll that's good, 'cause I don't wanna fight with you either. I'm not gonna overstay my welcome or anything, promise." Shutting the door behind him, Jo hesitated before admitting, "I only wanted to check in for a second, 'cause I was a little..." He fished for a word that might be better received than some others. "Concerned."
"I don't need you worryin' about me," Sakura predictably shot back (yeah, the word choice hadn't helped) with none of the passion one would typically expect of him.
"I know, I know." He kicked off his geta before following the same course Sakura had taken to the main room. "You can take care of yourself - I know you can. It just kinda happens automatically when you love somebody."
That cut Sakura off at the pass somewhere, because he nearly missed a step and had to right himself as he came to a stop near his futon. His head dipped, fists clenched at his sides, and his posture looked more distraught than Jo had seen in a while.
This wasn't the first time he had said he loved Sakura; he had first said it what had probably been unwisely early on. 'Unwisely early on' as in, maybe two or three weeks after they started dating. But he hadn't been able to help himself.
Because he had observed Sakura a lot in the time he had known him - not in a creepy sort of way, but in a "I want to learn everything I can about you" way. And in all that time, quite a few things had struck him about Sakura. While many of these were wonderful and beautiful things, a few were concerning and had made his heart sink at what he suspected they indicated. And one of those latter things - one that he didn't think he would ever tell Sakura he had personally found to be pretty obvious - was that Sakura was not as self-assured as he wanted people to believe. He didn't seem to be quite so sold on his own worth, in the moments when everything quieted down and there were no effective distractions in the form of opponents to defeat.
The other thing that had always been glaringly obvious was Sakura's inexperience with anything besides solitude. He vividly recalled how Sakura had been when they first met: awkward, abrasive and uncomfortable with others. Even this much time later, sometimes words and actions - and especially kind ones - still flustered him and threw him off balance. So that was telling, and on top of that, the more Sakura had gradually revealed about himself (usually by accident, Jo thought), the more noticeable it became that he omitted mention of anyone at all in his life that had been close to him before Makochi. He never talked about family; never talked about friends from where he had grown up. Anything he said about himself from that time was worded as though he had been isolated, like the only human being left living in an abandoned city.
With all the pieces analyzed together, Jo had, somewhat reasonably in his opinion, concluded that Sakura had not been told very often in his life that anyone cared about him. But Jo did and had for a while, even when the extent to which he did was a one-sided secret. So he thought it best to make sure Sakura knew that, even if it might have been interpreted as him moving rather fast (ironic, given what people normally said about him). Although it wouldn't make up for lost time and all the instances Sakura hadn't heard it when he should have, Jo thought that the sooner he began hearing it now, the better.
It had not exactly had the intended effect: that first time he had told Sakura he loved him, Sakura's response had been to snort as if he had been told a dumb joke and tell Jo that he was full of shit. The absolute confidence with which he had declared it had punched a hole straight through Jo's chest, and he had suddenly had the sinking realization that changing the way Sakura perceived certain things about the world wasn't going to be as easy as he had initially - and very naively - thought.
Sakura didn't seem to know what to do with such a thing at this particular moment, either. Instead, he changed the subject and asked, "Aren't you gonna ask?" over his shoulder with a combative edge in his voice that spelled out his readiness for what he assumed the answer would be.
And of course Jo was beyond curious about what had just happened here, but he wouldn't ask on his own. When it came to Sakura, sometimes things had to come to fruition on his terms. Once in a while, depending on the situation, Jo might press him a little on small things but he never did it with anything along the lines of Sakura opening up and revealing information. All of that needed to happen on Sakura's timeline since Jo never wanted him to feel on edge when he was with him - he was supposed to be a comfortable shoulder for Sakura to lean on rather than a set of daunting expectations to meet. He tilted his head and hummed. "Nah. I figured if you wanted me to know, then you'd tell me."
That had not been what Sakura was expecting, judging by the way his furrowed eyebrows tipped in opposite directions in his confusion. He hadn't quite seemed to internalize it yet, that being with someone the way they were together might mean that his needs and desires were considered and maybe even put first. And so Jo wasn't surprised when he simply looked forward again and kept quiet for a few moments as he digested that response.
He was about to ask whether Sakura wanted him to go home now, seeing as he was a little shaken, yes, but otherwise seemingly managing alright. Jo had promised not to overstay his welcome, after all. But before he could, Sakura told him, still facing away, "That was my father."
Ah. Jo couldn't say he had been expecting that one but at least now he understood the strange sense of familiarity he had experienced upon seeing that man: in his face, he had seen a few of the same subtle characteristics that he saw in Sakura's, like the overall shape and the set of the brow.
Before now, he had essentially been operating under the assumption that both of Sakura's parents had passed away somehow, what with him having never once referenced them. "Ahhh." He couldn't say he had many questions about the state of the father-son relationship there, because it was readily apparent. Even if he hadn't known Sakura before today, his demeanor after seeing the man spoke volumes. "You... don't see him often, huh?"
"This is only the second time," Sakura informed him easily as he hunkered down to unplug his phone from where it had been charging against the wall. He was attempting to sound indifferent, Jo could tell, but he was moving more sluggishly than usual and that would have given him away even if nothing else had. "So no need for your worrying: he ain't comin' back. I honestly won't be surprised if I never see that guy again - as ya could probably tell, he hates my guts."
Sakura was not prone to exaggeration for dramatic effect - he usually stated things very literally, in fact. So if he said he had only seen his father twice in his life, then it had legitimately only been two times over the course of all those years. His blood parent, apparently still in the same country if not exactly the same city and therefore able to jump on a train or a plane to check in on him every so often... yet Sakura's father had opted against doing so. It was as though he wanted to pretend Sakura didn't even exist. Jo couldn't really understand it.
And hating him? That was an aspect of it beyond Jo's understanding, too: he didn't know how a father could hate his son. He didn't know how someone who knew Sakura could hate him, either. However, he knew better than to ask for an explanation. He couldn't imagine there was one that made sense, anyway. "Did something happen, that he came out here all of a sudden?"
He was actually surprised when Sakura began to answer. "He needed my signature on some paper, somethin' about-" But then he seemed to catch himself, clamping his mouth shut tight and choosing not to continue.
The mention of paperwork raised more questions than answers, but it was Sakura's call whether or not to expound upon that and Jo suspected it was going to be the 'not.' "I see. Anything you need a hand with?" When Sakura rotated in order to shoot him a disgruntled look, he held his hands up in appeasement. "Hey, you don't have to tell me anything you don't wanna tell me. But if you do..." He took a few steps closer to where the other stood and, when Sakura finally turned the rest of the way around and they were face to face again, wrapped his fingers around Sakura's wrist in a comforting hold. For being strong enough to dole out some hits heavy enough to have once practically sent his head spinning, Sakura's wrists were so thin that Jo's hand could fully encircle one with ease. "Then you can tell me anything at all, y'know?" he offered with a smile. "I told you before: I'll listen to anything you gotta say."
He saw the hesitation before Sakura broke eye contact and studied a spot on the floor off to his side. "You don't really know anything about me, Togame."
Well, he wasn't willing to take that claim lying down. It was a little insulting to suggest he knew nothing about his own boyfriend and friend-slash-crush before that. "No, I definitely don't know everything, but give me some credit here, Sakuraaa: I know a pretty decent amount about you." He squeezed the wrist in his hand gently before soothing his thumb over the pulse point. "I know more than enough to know who you are, anyway. It's why you're so important."
He leaned just a bit, ducking his head down to something a little closer to eye-level with Sakura. "Y'know... it seems like you maybe think there're things you could tell me that'll change how I see you. Is that what it is?" He knew he had hit the mark when Sakura neither argued nor looked up at him. "But the truth is that I don't think there's anything you could say that'd make that happen."
"That's easy to say when you don't know what 'anything' is."
"Hmmm, maybe. But I feel pretty confident." He knew he was heavily biased where Sakura was concerned, obviously. The guys in Shishitoren had made fun of him plenty even before they had begun dating, for doting on Sakura and always taking his side. He hadn't been lying, though - whatever Sakura wanted to claim, Jo knew him, and thus he knew that there wasn't any mistake Sakura could have made, no sin he could have committed that wouldn't have a good explanation behind it.
That being said, he was still thrown a bit and straightened his back in surprise when Sakura challenged flatly, "Did y'know I killed my mother?" His eyes were finally on Jo again, scrutinizing his reaction. There was something behind them that was at equilibrium at the moment, but might explode if placed under too much pressure too quickly.
The shock of hearing the question took only a few seconds to wane away. Because the answer was, of course, "no." But even more than that, it was "no, because you didn't do that." There was no way it was as cut and dry as Sakura was making it sound. His secretly compassionate, staunchly noble Sakura, who called out injustice wherever he saw it - who had called him out on his own injustices - would never, and Jo would stake his own life on that. "I don't believe that."
Sakura abruptly found just enough energy in reserves to be furious, and his entire body tensed as he glared. "Why the hell would I make somethin' like that up?!"
"I don't think you're making it up," Jo corrected. "I just think there's more you aren't saying." He was glad he hadn't released Sakura's wrist yet. It seemed more critical than ever that he continued holding onto it right now.
Ultimately Sakura took the decision away from him, though, because he tugged his arm back as a signal that he wanted to be freed and Jo very unhappily opened his hand to let gravity swing Sakura's wrist back to his side. He caught the motion when Sakura rotated his back foot as if considering taking a step away from him, too. "Well that's the truth, whatever the details are." It was stated matter-of-factly. "She died because I was born."
That comment made things more clear - so that was what had happened. It was still terrible, still a tragedy, but it also made a lot more sense than what Sakura had initially implied. Jo wasn't sure why he had originally phrased it that way, as if it was an act he had done himself, and done intentionally at that. "I'm really sorry, Sakura. More sorry than I can tell you." His tone had softened without him having consciously thought about it. "...But, you have to understand that isn't your fault, right?"
One of Sakura's eyebrows arched. "No?"
Was that a genuine question? "Of course not. How could it be? You had no control over that; you were just a baby."
Sakura huffed out a breath of air and rolled his neck as if to work out a kink, then kept his eyes on the ceiling. "Yeah, they all said that." No doubt 'they' was the Furin boys, whom Sakura had increasingly grown to trust more and more over the time Jo had known him. "But that ain't any consolation to her, is it? What difference does it make? Whether I had control over it or not, I'm still alive, and she's still fucking dead."
How much could anyone really say, with this sort of thing? Jo doubted there were any words that could help, especially for someone like Sakura. "I'm really sorry," he said again, at a loss. And because he truly thought it was necessary to emphasize - because it concerned him that Sakura did not seem to intuitively know - he added, "And I know it's beside the point and it doesn't make any of it better, but I'm telling you: no one would ever say or even think you were to blame for that."
Sakura's gaze dropped down from the ceiling to meet Jo's and he was smirking. "Nobody?" he parroted back, blatantly amused. "Why d'you think that guy hates me so much?"
Everything ground to a screeching halt. There was no way, right? There was no way even a complete scumbag would do that. "...What, your father told you it was your fault?"
"How'd ya think I knew about it in the first place?" Sakura's tone was as uninvested as if he was answering a history question in class. "He told me the first time I met him when I was eight or nine, somewhere around there. Called me a murderer straight to my face."
Jo took a moment and let a restrained, meditative breath out through his nostrils. Well, he stood corrected. Apparently there were some complete scumbags who would do that.
As much as he wished he had known a lot of this information earlier - say, when he had met Sakura's father at the door - he did logically concede it was for the best that he hadn't. He could keep his cool better than a lot of people in a lot of situations, but he doubted that encounter earlier would have been one of them, had he been aware of all these things in advance. And that would have created more complications than it ever would have solved.
Sakura, he-
Ahh, he liked to hold himself responsible for everything, didn't he? Jo remembered the devastated expression on his face as he had insisted it was all his fault, that Furin would fall because he hadn't been able to take Endo down on his first try. He took the entirety of the burden on himself. And to be honest, at the time, Jo hadn't fully understood it. Then Sakura's friends had been able to get his head on straight again and he had bounced back, and Jo had mostly blamed the whole incident on Endo. He had assumed that monster had been talking a lot of garbage and Sakura had simply taken it a little too seriously, what with his adrenaline and emotions heightened in the moment. But then once it was all over, it was over.
But hindsight was twenty-twenty, and now Jo was realizing that maybe there had been more to it. It hadn't just been Endo, if this had started long before that. Endo had probably been the crowbar that pried open a previously sealed box, sure. But he wouldn't have ever been able to wholly convince Sakura of something like that if Sakura hadn't already believed it somewhere inside himself, first. Endo had somehow spotted something in Sakura that had told him which string to pull, and he had yanked as hard as he could. (Just thinking about it pissed him off. Sakura had cracked his skull and knocked his ass out in the end, but Jo wished he had been able to hit that guy harder, anyway.)
Seeing so many additional puzzle pieces gathered together now that made up Sakura's life, Jo saw it quite clearly, what they had formed: the more complete picture. Everything made sense this way, and it was all so, so wrong.
Back when he had been a little kid - when he still lived with his mother and father, before a lot of things had changed - he had believed what most kids believed, unless they were explicitly told otherwise: that the world was nice and fair. He had believed that good things happened to good people and bad things happened to bad people, that good deeds were rewarded and bad deeds were punished.
He had of course grown up and realized this was not true long, long before ever meeting Sakura, but he was certain that it hadn't been until after meeting and falling for him that he felt quite as much soul-deep regret that the world really didn't work the way he had believed back then as a kid. He hadn't ever before felt all the way down to his core this much a sense of sadness that the world wasn't fair, and that even the best people could be dealt a terrible hand in life. It was almost unbelievable that Sakura had come out on the other side of all of it as good a person as he was.
"Your father, he's-" Jo had to bite back some choice words he had about Sakura's father. "Wrong. He's wrong, about what he told you."
The argument clearly didn't land the way he would have liked, because Sakura simply shrugged his declaration off and moved right along. "So, now ya know. I figured I'd tell ya sometime but I hadn't decided when. Might as well be now, I guess. Talk about bad luck on top of bad luck, right?" He put his hands up as if all this was a pretty funny joke that he was letting Jo in on, and the levity in his voice rang so inauthentic that in other circumstances, Jo might have been offended at being expected to buy it. "My mother dies from havin' me and then I come out looking the way I do to boot. Must've been a real bad arrangement of stars that day or somethin'."
This was going from bad to worse like a multi-car crash. "I'm sorry that happened to your mother - it's awful. But there's nothing wrong with how you look, Sakura." He tried to tell him this sort of thing sometimes, because this wasn't the first time Sakura had made a vague allusion disparaging his own appearance. It was never blatant and Jo suspected he didn't actually realize he was doing it whenever it happened. That probably proved how deeply in him the ideas were engrained, if he didn't even notice when he let them slip.
But he tempered himself, because if he complimented too often then Sakura would brush it off, or make the kind of face that said he thought Jo was full of shit again, or tell him that he was creeping him out. He had assumed his comments would come across as more sincere - and thus Sakura would be more likely to accept them - if he was selective.
Maybe that had been a mistake, though. Maybe he had tempered it a little too much and should have just let Sakura brush it off or tell him he was full of it or complain about feeling creeped out, but still said it all as many times as it took to register. "It's the opposite: you're really attractive."
Sakura scoffed and averted his eyes in annoyance. "Yeah, okay," he dismissed. "You just have to say that 'cause we're dating."
"I don't have to say anything, it's what's true. And it's what I've thought about you since before we started dating, anyway."
The claim earned him a sharper look. "Right, I'm sure you were thinkin' about how great I look back when you decided I was 'Othello-kun,' huh?" Sakura asked. "When you picked something to call me to remind me how weird I look, just like I'd always gotten?"
That one knocked all the resolve out of Jo, and his shoulders suddenly felt heavier. It never felt good to be reminded of all his stupid, bad choices from back then. He had worried while he silently harbored his crush on Sakura from afar that his own mistakes might be what prevented his feelings from ever being accepted or even acknowledged. He had considered that he probably had unknowingly destroyed it with his own two hands, the possibility of ever getting to be with the person he had come to cherish so deeply. After all, Sakura had very clearly verbalized his perspective on everything at the time, and he certainly had not had a good opinion of Jo.
He knew he had just gotten damn lucky that Sakura had a lot of forgiveness in him and had been able to look past all of it to accept him and his feelings anyway. And he was also damn lucky that Sakura had needed Shishitoren's help with Noroshi - Jo wasn't sure when he would have seen him again otherwise. He wouldn't have thought Sakura would have wanted to see him, so he wouldn't have tried no matter how often Sakura had crept into his thoughts in those few months after they first met.
But he had never imagined that the Othello thing had actually eaten at Sakura, enough so to be brought up further down the line like this. He hadn't known that Sakura had been called names so many times before that they had begun to dig their talons in and became that much more difficult for him to pull out, because Sakura just acted so untouchable.
He felt like an idiot for never having the lightbulb moment even with all the clues. He had thought he was so attentive to see that Sakura had some underlying, very covert hang-ups - just not attentive enough to know that he had been part of the problem. "I didn't say that because I thought you were bad-looking or that you looked weird. It was only 'cause your hair was something that stood out right away and you'd pissed me off so I was trying to get under your skin," he tried to explain. "I didn't know that you- that you didn't know that."
If there was one thing that bothered Sakura more than someone saying shit to him, it was when he realized he had said something that hurt someone else whom he thought hadn't deserved it. And so he quickly read the guilt in Jo's slumped body language and face like a neon sign before stiffening and revising, "It's not a big deal, I didn't care about that!"
Talking about all this shit that had happened in his life, things with which most people would never have to contend... how he had been dealt such a bad hand and treated so poorly, and yet Sakura was still so quick to drop all of it and shift his worry onto someone else besides himself, as if that mattered more. That was his Sakura, through and through.
Jo really loved that about him, but it broke his heart a little sometimes, too. Yeah, you did care, he corrected sadly to himself. You just showed me that you did. And I didn't know.
There were a lot of wrongs here that needed righted. And as he had already seen, it would take time. But the good news was that he had time: he would freely give his time for as long as Sakura would accept it, and that meant Jo could be there to help remind him of things, like which opinions were worthwhile and which were worthless. Like what he saw was true versus what he saw wasn't, as a separate party just to give Sakura some additional perspective.
He could help right things - he knew he could. And he wanted to do it, for Sakura. He wanted Sakura to have what had been stolen from him before, so that he could realize that was what he had always deserved to have. And what he would have, for as long as Jo had any say in the matter.
Thankfully Sakura had not ended up taking that step away that his body had seemed to consider before, because this way Jo could still reach him just by leaning forward a bit. And he did, and he cupped Sakura's face in his hands as carefully as he could. "Alright, sooo, now I'm holding you still and you have to listen to me."
Sakura obviously didn't know where this was going, because he was just confused at the sudden shift in tone. "About what?"
"About what I'm gonna say." Sakura's eyes were fixed on him, even if his face was a little heated under Jo's palms from the unexpected affectionate contact. "...I really like your eyes, and your eyelashes are really long and nice, and you have a really adorable nose."
"...Ha?!" Sakura turned fully scarlet in the length of a single breath as he reached up to hang onto Jo's forearms with his hands as if he might need to tear him off. "Hey, h-hey, Togame, you-"
Jo raised his volume to talk over him, refusing to lose here. "And when you told me one time that you'd never ever dye your hair since the school tried to force you to when you were younger, I thought that was a relief 'cause if you changed it, I might not be reminded of you as often when I see something with black and white. Like these little birds I just saw outside your apartment today that made me think of you."
"T-that's-!" Sakura sputtered like a tea kettle. "Okay, I-"
"And I've probably seen you turn the color red you are right now about a hundred times, but every single time I still think about how cute you look when it happens. I've never seen anybody that I think is more beautiful than you, and I'd still think that even if you told me I sucked and broke up with me."
Sakura's mouth twisted as though he was about to start yelling, and then-
Then Jo knew he had won the grand prize, because Sakura's mouth flipped upside down, and his eyes crinkled, and he laughed. It wasn't loud, or long, or hard - Jo didn't think Sakura actually knew how to laugh that way - but it was still undeniably a laugh, and it was wonderful. The same as the sun peeking through in a sky full of storm clouds. "Alright, alright! Knock it off already, you're creepin' me out."
Now this was a reaction that the mistrustful, isolated Sakura from that day under the train tracks never would have had. "Are you sure you get it? 'Cause I can keep going," Jo threatened.
"No, that's enough!"
Satisfied, he hummed victoriously and removed his hands after one last gentle pat. Sakura's face looked brighter than it had all morning long. And if he could have let Sakura stay that way without revisiting their earlier conversation, then he would have. But if he didn't acknowledge the matter and stayed silent, that would simply leave Sakura to draw even more of his own conclusions.
"And as far as what your father told you..." Returning to the subject sobered Sakura's expression back up again at light speed, which he did regret. "I don't know why he said that, 'cause I don't know him," and I sure as hell never want to, "But you mentioned that your friends said the same thing as me, that he's wrong. Hell, I bet you could ask anybody in this whole town whether they think he's wrong and they'd all agree."
Seemingly tired of discussing the subject, Sakura sighed. "Listen, you-"
Jo interrupted with, "I have to say that 'cause I'm your boyfriend? Or, I'm just saying it to make you feel better? Is that what you were gonna say?" There were moments like this where all of his investment in learning about Sakura paid off, where he knew exactly what would make Sakura understand something and the right words came to him as if carried by a benevolent breeze. "Then forget what I think."
He was granted the classic befuddled-Sakura expression. "Ha?"
"Forget what I think," Jo repeated. "And forget what the rest of your friends think, and forget what your father thinks, too. What do you think, Sakura? That's what really matters. D'you think it's your fault, what happened to her?" He paused. "'Cause I wonder, if you just ignore everything else and decide for yourself, what it is you'll realize you really believe."
That was it: he could tell from the way Sakura's eyes rounded in legitimate consideration for just a few seconds. Good - it was a good sign, because it meant he would think about it whether he wanted to or not.
Shaking off his stillness and raking a hand through his hair, Sakura glanced off to the side. "...Geez, you're lookin' so serious now. Lighten up, will ya?" When he turned his head back to Jo again, he smiled a small smile and the saving grace here was that - although it looked quite delicate and perhaps could be easily fractured - the smile also looked genuine. "All that stuff doesn't really matter anymore, Togame. I've got it much better now: I've got Furin, and the guys, and even the crazy people in this town. And you-" Sakura's bashfulness about their relationship was most apparent when he had to verbalize things with which he was pretty unpracticed. "You want me around, too. So, I'm good. I don't even really think about any of that all that often."
And, sure: Jo had to acknowledge that he had a point. There was no changing what had already happened, and Sakura was much better off now. But despite knowing all of that, it was difficult to just hand wave it away. He couldn't do anything about the times Sakura had sat in a room alone somewhere, believing that no one cared about him and maybe no one ever would. They couldn't go back in time and fix it so that Sakura's mother didn't die and his father didn't abandon him (although, he had minimal confidence that Sakura would have been better off living with that man - someone who could do the things he had done would never have been kind or nurturing), with Sakura left asking himself whether he was culpable for the way everything had turned out.
He couldn't do anything about any of it, and that probably made it worse - the powerlessness, and the knowledge that he hadn't been able to protect someone he loved and wanted to protect. "Yeah... you have a lotta people who you know love you now. But that doesn't mean I can't feel sorry about when you didn't." Because imagining the resigned, lonely expression on a younger Sakura's face cut him about as sharply as if it were his own sad childhood memory. "I wish someone had been there for you back then. ...I wish I could've been."
Sakura considered him for a moment before leaning forward, dropping his forehead to rest on Jo's shoulder. He didn't initiate things like this too often, and each time he did, it genuinely made Jo's heart swell. He would have adamantly insisted to anyone that he couldn't fall for Sakura any more than he already had, but every time he did something like this, Jo thought that, well, maybe he had been wrong about that.
"Well... whatever. You're here now, so, that works for me, alright?"
He circled his arms around Sakura's back and pulled together whatever remaining parts of them hadn't already been touching. "Mmmhmm. I'm here, no matter what."
Their nice moment regrettably ended up being short-lived, as the alarm clock on Sakura's phone went off in his pocket and he immediately began zipping around to get ready for class. Jo was unclear how he could have quite so much energy this early in the morning right after a pretty draining incident and conversation.
They went down the stairs of the building together, and at the bottom where they needed to divert into opposite directions, maybe he made a sad face and Sakura huffed like he wasn't going to cave to such blatant and targeted manipulation. But then Sakura spun a hundred eighty degrees to make sure no one was around and immediately did cave, letting Jo drop a goodbye kiss into his hair. He barely even pretended to swat at him for it.
"Hey, Togame?"
"Yeah?"
Sakura shifted his eyes around between him and every other thing within a reasonable distance that he could possibly look at. "...Thanks, for... y'know. All of- that, and how- Just, thanks, okay?"
"Haaa, you never have to thank me for that kinda thing, Sakura."
"Well you're gonna get thanked anyway," Sakura insisted stubbornly, pointing an aggressive finger in his direction. But that was all at odds with the pleasant expression on his face that - while not overtly cheerful - certainly could never have been mistaken for something unhappy. "And, y'know... I- you should tell me, like, some stuff I don't know about you, too. We can't just be talkin' about me all the time!"
Feeling warm and particularly endeared, Jo smiled. "Sounds like a deal."
With that agreed upon, Sakura nodded emphatically and turned in the direction of his school. "I'll talk to ya later," he called over his shoulder before setting off.
Jo lingered and watched him go, and he got a good laugh out of Sakura's flustered reaction with the way his shoulders shot up to his ears upon glancing back from further down the street to find that Jo was still there and had waved at him.
Ahh. He should have known better, honestly. He hadn't really needed to worry at all, because there was probably nothing in the world that could keep his Sakura down for long.