Chapter Text
“Thank you for taking care of our Sakura-kun,” Suo silkily purrs, extending his arms. Sakura feels himself rolling out of Kaji’s arms and into Suo’s. It’s annoying how much he needs to be carried everywhere.
But he lets himself settle into Suo’s arms. Because Kaji was right, as much as Sakura hates to admit it, he needs to let himself rely on his friends.
He learned this. From the fight with KEEL to the fight with Norotoshi, he learned that he has to rely on his friends. But he’d never been this… incapable.
What a cruel, twisted lesson this is. To teach him that he needs to rely on his friends more. Why couldn’t the universe do it in the form of another fight?
Sakura hates this whole situation. The others had bought him food, he’d taken Kaji’s food, he’d taken three hours of Kaji’s time that he probably wanted to spend with someone other than Sakura.
He couldn’t even defend the town. He needed to let his class take care of the patrols for him. It was annoying, that’s what it was. He would probably lose to even Nirei in this form. He was weak.
And if he was weak, what use did Sakura have?
His whole life, the only thing Sakura had was strength. He could beat up anyone who bullied him after turning eleven, and all his threats at least had the strength to back them up.
Kaji’d told him that this whole cat thing probably helped with his whole reliance issue, but it made him more… insecure. Relying on everyone else was one thing when you could repay them. But how could he repay them as a cat?
“Hey, Sakura-chan!” Nirei calls. “Were you listening?”
Sakura perks up, head shaking a little at the scare Nirei’s sudden question gave him. He tilts his ears forward, ashamedly admitting that he was stuck in his thoughts.
“We fought off a few misfits spray painting a shop today,” Kiryu says. “You would’ve beat them to a pulp. That was all any of us could think about.”
“Yeah, you totally would’ve enjoyed it!” Tsuguera exclaims. “Can’t wait for you to become human again, ’cause I’m totally in the mood for a sparring match, but none of these guys wanna fight!”
“Calm down, Tsuguera-kun, we just finished patrolling,” Suo reprimands, eye shut in amusement. Sakura knows this whole interaction is supposed to amuse him, make him remember what he loves, but it just made him feel worse. A reminder that he couldn’t even fight anymore. That he was useless.
Sakura curls up involuntarily, tucking his nose into his paws and wrapping his tail over his body. He doesn’t want to think about how useless he is, so naturally, it’s all he can think about.
“Sakura-chan, are you okay?” Kiryu asks, and Sakura sees his pink hair in front of him. “You seem down. Did something happen at Kaji-san’s that made you sad?” There was the small, underlying threat of I’ll hurt him, there, but no. That’s not what made Sakura feel horrible, or at least, not the main reason, as he signals with his ears.
“What is it?” Nirei asks. “Are you feeling hopeless about this whole situation? Because you’ll be a human in no time, I know it!”
“And if not, you’re a cute cat,” Kiryu adds, making Nirei scold him.
Sakura just tilts his ears forward in a ‘no’, hoping they stop.
But Suo doesn’t. “Do you feel like you’re relying on us too much? Like we’re doing too much for you? And you feel useless, right? In this form?”
Oh. Of course Suo read him perfectly. Sakura resignedly signals a yes to the others, nuzzling his nose even farther into his paws so he’s not forced to see the expressions on his friends' faces.
“Oh- Suo-chan, how’d you figure that out?” Nirei exclaims.
“Call me a cat whisperer,” Suo replies, then it sounds like he gets slapped as Kiryu, with more anger than Sakura usually sees in him, says:
“No time for jokes, Suo-chan! Oh, Sakura-kun, I promise we love taking care of you! It’s not a burden, not at all. You’re not useless, you’re the source of my happiness! Please don’t think that way, it makes me very sad.”
Sakura picks up his head, looking at the giant frown on Kiryu’s face and tilting his head. He can’t tell if this is genuine, that ‘sarcasm’ Nirei was telling him about, or just something to make him feel better.
“Sakura-chan, we’re here for you,” Nirei says, pressing a hand to Sakura’s head. “You’re not useless. Hell, you’ve done so much for us, taking care of you for even a month wouldn’t repay you.”
“Yeah,” Tsuguera interrupts, “I agree. I probably wouldn’t even be friends with these three without you, and certainly not with Kiryu-chan, considering we only got close to him after that fight. You’ve literally brought us, even the whole class together. Don’t think you’re useless, please. Even as a cat, you’re smarter and probably stronger than we are. We’ll take care of you forever.”
Suo doesn’t add on immediately, just strokes a finger down Sakura’s back. “Reliance isn’t a bad thing, Sakura-kun. As you’ve been told before, there’s only so much time in a day. You need to rely on your friends to get what you need to do, done. And, when you are in trouble, like now, you need someone to take care of you. As said fairly well by these three, you’ve done quite a lot for us. Now it’s our turn to care for you. Please, Sakura-kun, trust us.”
Had he really? Had he really done that much for them? Sakura never thought about it, about how he’s affected his friends' lives, because he’s never had anyone whose lives he could affect. And the way his friends were talking about it, it seemed like he had changed their lives for the better.
Resting his head on his paws, he doesn’t move, just thinks. They didn’t seem to be angry at him.
Throughout his time in Makochi, everyone in the town had constantly shown him that they loved him. It felt… too genuine to be fake, but too good to be true. Like there was something wrong, but there was nothing wrong. He hated how unsettling he found it, he truly did.
But… maybe he wasn’t that useless. Clearly, he wasn’t to these guys. They seemed to like him enough to take care of him as a cat, which is more than his parents did when he was a human.
Maybe… maybe relying on them wasn’t too bad.
Sakura feels sleep coming over him, so he stretches his jaws in a yawn. He hears Suo laugh, and then a hand petting his head, which feels like itching an itch you’ve been ignoring for an hour. “Aww, looks like our Sakura-kun is sleepy. C’mon, let’s bring him back to his place and he can sleep. Are you feeling better about yourself, Sakura-kun?”
Suddenly, he feels really sleepy. Hmm. He remembers vaguely that cats sleep for like most of their day. He slowly processes Suo’s question, and wonders, is he feeling better? He supposes so, after all he feels like he can actually sleep, and bring his thoughts away from the stuff plaguing him before.
He just tilts his ears back, then involuntarily yawns, feeling his vision go blurry, and then falling under the darkness called sleep. He’s never been able to fall asleep in a place that’s not his bed, next to other people, but at this moment, he feels like he can rely on his friends to keep him safe.
It’s almost anti-climactic, how he blinks open his eyes and the first thing he sees is hands. How he can’t smell every small thing, and how he doesn’t feel as hairy all over. It takes him a second to process, before:
“What the-” Sakura exclaims, sitting on his butt. He’s not- he’s a human! No longer is he in his cat form!
Although, as he gets up, he feels a weight beside him. Blinking, he realizes that there’s an auburn-haired guy next to him, legs crisscrossed.
“Morning, Sakura-kun,” Suo whispers.
“AHH!” Sakura exclaims, leaping out of bed, face burning. Luckily, he’s in the outfit he was in that day when he transformed, otherwise that would’ve been embarrassing.
“No need to yell. After all, you are the one who begged me to stay here with you.” Suo opens his eye, looking at Sakura with his imposing eye.
“I- WHAT? No I didn’t!” He can feel his face turn bright red
“Yes, you did, Sakura-kun,” Suo responds, getting out of his meditative position. “You kept waking up every time I put you down, and you only slept with me next to you. If I must say, quite a lot of trust for someone who was having a mental crisis just yesterday.”
“YOU. Shaddup! Get out of my house, you- you perv!”
“You begged me to sleep with you,” Suo reminds him in a teasing tone, getting to his feet and heading to the door. “You even wanted me to hug you and cuddle you.” Sakura hates how hot his face gets - he needs cold water to splash himself with. He also hates how the memories rush back, how he clawed at Suo, and how warm his arms felt around him.
“Don’t say it like that! We didn’t sleep together! And stop teasing me!”
“Alright, I’ll leave,” Suo responds resignedly, opening the door.
Sakura bites his lip. “Wait- Suo-”
“Hmm?” The other boy asks, turning around.
“Th-thank you,” Sakura mutters, looking anywhere but at the auburn-haired boy. “Thanks for all you did. I’ll see you at school, okay?”
“No problem. Yep, I’ll see you in ten minutes!” Suo then promptly shuts the door.
“WHA- ten minutes?!” Checking his watch, Sakura curses under his breath as he realizes he really only has ten minutes to get ready, and the school is a seven minute walk away. Oh well, he’ll just be late.
Sakura goes to his bathroom, brushing his teeth and running a brush haphazardly through his hair. He then spends the next few minutes staring at himself. He’s… human again.
It’s surreal, almost as surreal as the original transformation. He now understood how much everyone else loved him, at least to some extent.
Yeah. Relying on them wasn’t a half-bad experience - not like he’d admit that. Sure, he still feels kind of… useless, but he didn’t he always?
But the thing that shocked him the most was how easily they all just… accepted it. Like that was just their new life, and they’d deal with Sakura’s shenanigans forever. It was uncanny to Sakura, someone deciding that they’d deal with him, in all his freakishness, without batting an eye.
Taking a bit of the sunscreen Kiryu had given him, (“your skin is so pale, you need some sort of SPF!”) Sakura slowly massages it in.
He remembers what Kaji’d told him. That Kaji needed to start relying on his friends to become human again. Was that what happened to Sakura…?
Yes, he decides. He didn’t understand why everyone loved him so unconditionally, but he felt like he finally understood that they did. Suo, Nirei, Kiryu, Tsugeura, even Kaji, they all saw something in him he didn’t see in himself. They’d care for him at his weakest.
He’d never had someone who would look after him at his strongest. Now he had people who wanted him, even when he wasn’t even himself.
It was new. That was the only thing he could describe this sensation as. Sakura pulls on his usual shirt and his uniform, leaving his house and starting his walk to Furin.
He’s hungry, Sakura realizes as he walks down the road. But he’s already late, and Kotoha would just yell at him for not being at Furin on time if he stopped by Pothos. Plus, he was pretty sure their senseiwould kill Sakura for missing another class.
Anyway, Sakura’s used to being hungry. He had to deal with it before coming to Makochi, and even with the goods provided by the residents of Makochi, he wasn’t able to provide consistent meals for himself, except for his morning omurice.
Halfway through his walk to Furin, though, one of the older shop owners approaches him. “Sakura-kun!” she calls, and Sakura turns.
“D’ya need somethin’?” He asks, almost choking over his words - side effects of only being able to meow for three days.
“No, it’s just- you’re late to school, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m goin’ right now.” Sakura looks away, frowning. He doesn’t need anyone on his case. “What’s it to you?”
“Did you eat breakfast? I have some leftover egg rolls from the morning rush!” She hands over the bag with a big smile.
“Oh- there’s- really, there’s no need, I’m gonna be late!” Sakura backs up, still flustered during situations like this even after living in Makochi for what feels like forever.
“Please, you can’t learn on an empty stomach! At least eat this on your walk.” The woman reaches into the bag and pulls out a container. “Just these four egg rolls.” Smiling, she practically shoves the container into his hands. “Have fun now, dear!”
Sakura blinks, looking down. There’s an aroma coming from the box that makes his mouth water. “Th-thank you,” he mumbles, and the woman just pats his arm before waddling back to her booth.
After turning the corner, he opens the box, and sees - as promised - four egg rolls and a container of sauce. He pops it open and gingerly takes a bite of a roll dipped in the sauce, before shutting his eyes for a second to appreciate the taste. It’s warm. He can taste the love put into it.
Never before has anyone looked out for him like this. Not before Makochi, no one made sure he was fed, that he could pay attention in school. No one would care if he walked around starving - or they would’ve just bullied him - and no one would care if he turned into a feline. No one but the idiots at Makochi who had decided that they would care for him no matter what.
He practically scarves down the rest of the food, throwing it out at the trash can right in front of Furin, and walks towards Class 1-1, opening the door and entering. Luckily, classes haven’t started yet, or he would’ve been yelled at.
Sakura tries to approach his seat, but before he can reach it, he sees a golden streak of light, and feels arms wrap around his body. Looking down, he sees Nirei, with his arms clinging to Sakura.
“Sakura-chan! You’re back!” Back in two ways, but that wasn’t important.
“Uh- yeah- now LET GO OF ME!” Sakura practically shoves Nirei off, face bright red. “I was just uh- sick! Leave me alone!”
“Well,” Anzai calls out, jumping towards Sakura, “we all missed you. Three days without our grade captain is a lot, y’know.”
“Sheesh, didn’t these guys tell you? I was fine.” He shoves past the crowd to take a seat. “All of you sit down before Sensei comes and forces you to.”
Everyone takes their seats, and Sakura tries to keep his eyes facing forward, but Kiryu grabs his face, turning it towards the other four. “Saaakura-kuuuun,” he sings. “You’re like- human again!”
“Don’t say that so loud,” he mutters. “But yeah. I just- I just woke up this morning. And I was human again.”
“Woke up with Suo-chan, you mean,” Kiryu sing-songs. Sakura feels his face heat up. “We all saw your show yesterday.”
“That was just- I- SHADDUP.” Sakura crosses his arms, sinking into himself as the other four laugh.
The door swings open, and they all glance up and see Kaji, Enomoto, and Kusumi at the door. “Yo,” Enomoto announces, “change in patrols. We’re doing today, you guys do tomorrow. Sounds good?”
Class 1-1 nods and “yup”’s, and Sakura just nods. Kaji eyes meet his, and he stiffens, before Kaji removes the sucker from between his lips and says, “welcome back, Sakura-kun,” then turns and starts walking away. Enomoto just winks at him.
He feels conscious of the way they’re all leaning towards him. Of Kiryu’s hand on his shoulder, of how Nirei’s arms felt around him, of the comforting fullness those egg rolls gave him, of Kaji’s care, of how Suo helped him sleep. It makes him feel… cared for. It’s not something he’s used to.
But it’s something he knows he can get used to.