#sakura threads.

unprompted | @cherriedrage

He would take whatever is dished out to him without complaint.

SAKURA ALWAYS WONDERED HOW togame became half-deaf. granted, he's met plenty people who were born that way or lost part of their hearing from an infection. and hell, it's not like he cares how well togame can hear — he's even made an awkward attempt to talk slower with the guy.

tomiyama approaches from his hard-of-hearing side. kaaaaameeeeee. it's enough to make sakura want to grab togame's hand and leave the fuckin' room to begin with. but when his second doesn't hear him and choji responds by winding back a fist, everything clicks into place lightning-fast. it's not certain, but sakura has a terrible feeling he's just learned what kind of repetitive damage might have caused this.

the rage has him moving before his mind can catch up. sakura steps between togame and tomiyama, his arm darting out to catch the smaller boy's fist before it can finish its course. ❝ hey — hands off! ❞ the snarled words are accompanied by a hard heel-kick to the sternum that sends tomiyama skidding back across shishitoren grounds.

❝ FINALLY. TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH to show your face. ❞ the border between bofurin and shishitoren territory is no longer guarded by malice. the boys with orange jackets are starting to invoke less fear around sakura's neck of the woods — and on the occasion his ears pick up nasty gossip, he can't help but set it straight. they're still lame, but we kicked some sense into 'em.

THEY'RE FIGHTING AGAIN. GO FIGURE. it may as well be a weekly ritual at this point. which one of them started it has long washed away; between sakura and bakugou, the cause of the fight stops mattering two blows in. all they care about is what is right in front of them: an opponent, a pair of fists, a flame. sakura lets the other boy's hand make contact with his shirt, only to grab him by the wrist as soon as he's shoved so that bakugou is carried backwards, too.

❝ you think you're hot shit, huh!? i could do this all day, asshole. ❞

SUO IS RIGHT that sakura wouldn't let him fall. not even as a joke (he is currently unable to comprehend such a thing.) the most immediate reason he shifts his weight to support suo is worry — worry that his friend is indeed injured, despite the fact that sakura's never once seen him get hit — but if you asked him for more reasons, he wouldn't be able to deny that the physical contact is ... nice. suo smells good, and the weight of him against sakura's shoulder sends a wash of comfort over the disgruntled boy's touch-starved form. ❝ what, got a bad knee or somethin'? ❞

THERE'S A MOMENT, as suo's hands lift toward his face, wherein the foreseen vision of a hard headbutt flashes across sakura's mind. his body reacts the way it always does: tense, springloaded, ready for something to go wrong at any moment.

were he still a new arrival, he would have struck first. instead, he doesn't strike at all. telltale cherry-red blossoms across his twisted-up face, indignance in his eyes, defensiveness in his eyes, but he doesn't move.

it says a lot.

there's a moment, as suo's hands frame his face, that it's quite clear what sakura's jittery, impatient self is about to say: SPIT IT OUT ALREADY! but then he does, right at the moment when the words rise up to the top of his diaphragm. and it's — 

???????????

❝ WHADDAYA MEAN ROUND!? my face is normal! your face is the weird one! ❞ merely a defensive answer. they both know he doesn't mean it.