S

sakura: decently good driver. hes not like The Best and it can get a bit rocky at times BUT! he'd figure it out. nirei will remind him of a certain direction like 5 times (remember, its exit 7, okay sakurasan??? LEAVE IT ALONE ALREADY I KNOW!!!) and it pisses sakura off SOO bad. he does like being told what to do though. like oh so im supposed to,,, turn down this road,,,? oookay...........

umemiya: nobody who knows whats good for them lets him drive. Hes not a bad driver. he is just fucking insane. you'll get to your destination in one piece but we cant promise much more than that. hiragi probably threw up after the first time he agreed to let umemiya drive and was like. oh my fucking god. i can never let this man hit the road ever again. Again. hes insane.

takiishi: cannot be trusted on the road. he dont yield to no fucking pedestrians. bowling alley where you are the ball.

yamato: actually a really good driver. speeds like a motherfucker though. he'd be pretty chill on the road i think. tho that depends whether hes in a car or a motorcycle. on the motorcycle he's probably more thrillseeking & prone to speeding. car though? i would trust him in a car

kiryu: doesnt want to drive. dont force him :(

tsuge: overenthusiastic on the gas. overly apologetic on the breaks. have you ever been in a car with someone whos speed fluctuates every second and you just go back & forth back & forth? thats him. he also takes turns too wide. then overcorrects and nearly flips the car or something

sako: good driver. CANNOT tolerate anybody else in their car.

togame: very chill slow driver. youll probably fall asleep in his car because he keeps everything so steady. very low music droning ect ect. hes a chill guy. but other cars fucking hate his ass. hes getting tailgated and he just dont care

for nirei, sakura is bigger than life. someone who's protected him before. he wants to be by his side and help him achieve his goal

but as much as the view of sakura's back is one of protection, it also shows the distance between them. distance nirei can only hope to catch up to and help sakura in any way shape or form

he wants to be right next to him, but what he imagines is sakura's back

next we have suo, his admiration of sakura is one i've talked about before and i think it stems from sakura's maturity and adaptability. while suo is made up of empty words, sakura lives by his own words

suo starts by being in a competition with sakura

but pretty quickly he gives up on it. there's no competition anymore. he thinks he already lost

like nirei, suo sees sakura as someone that can stand on his own and keep going no matter what. its impossible to reach out to him. even the things suo does better now, if sakura puts his mind to it, he can suppress him

lets take a detour

umemiya knows that if he takes a leadership role, he needs someone to keep him in check, someone to be objective and tell him no when he needs to hear it. even as they became friends, umemiya has the trust hiragi will intervene if he ever needs to

so, whenever i thought about sakura having a right hand, suo felt like the obvious option. he's smart, he's strong, he's one of sakura's best friends, what more do you need? i even thought their dynamic of suo being silly and pissing sakura off was kinda similar to hiragi and umemiya's dynamic

but admiration is a double edged sword. i think suo and nirei's admiration of sakura makes them almost blind to sakura's faults. not sakura's flaws as a human and friend, but as a leader. from the beginning suo and nirei have admired, trusted and believed in sakura too much to be useful as a second in command

but sugishita, the one that spent the most amount of time observing umemiya as a leader, is able to look at sakura and see what he lacks. sugishita could never be umemiya's second in command just like suo can never be sakura's. but sugishita can be sakura's. in time.

sakura is not the same person as umemiya, not even close, so he doesnt need to be the same type of leader, and he's still deciding what he wants to do (although i think he will want to turn makochi into a safe heaven for outsiders and sugishita having hated outsiders would make the best second in command because of that but that is neither here nor there), and the whole structure of having four kings could be changed to fit sakura better, but some things are true regardless. he needs someone to tell him no

sugishita also sees sakura's back, but that makes him decide to change so he can beat sakura. he doesn't want to be by his side, he doesn't think he can never catch up to sakura. he will just beat him. and we have seen how much he's changed since he made that promise