Common sense be gone

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More on that au

I think the summer festival is probably the first time Shishitoren meets Haruki- like, while they were active during the war against Noroshi, Togame had already moved on from the bridge by the time Haruki appeared so he just barely missed him. Of course, they heard the word on the grapevine that Haruki's identical twin brother (!) had shown up in town...

choji: oh! is this your twin brother, sakura-chan?

sakura: ye-

choji: oh, but you're both sakura-chan! okay. you're haru-chan and you're haru-nyan! it's settled.

haruki: HUH!? NO THE FUCK IT AIN'T.

togame: give up, you'll never be able to convince him to change his mind...

(i think if kanji learned that haruki beat the snot out of the dude that hired endo to kidnap shizuka he would forgive him for like. 95% percent of his sins.

They definitely want to befriend him!!

The only classmates he really directly talks with are Hiragi and his two lieutenants- but like, he still keeps his distance from them and from everyone else in his class. Sometimes he won't even show up for class- nine times out of ten it's because he's picked up someone else's shift at one of his many, many part time jobs on little to no warning. He really is like the stray cat they've been trying to tame for the past three years, lmao.

(He doesn't even know the names of most of his classmates. Sakura, buddy... please. c'mon.)

So when class 1-1 starts to tame him and Sakura starts to hang around them willingly it's just... hey! why not us! Hiragi-san, say something!

(But Hiragi is just watching Sakura fondly. Like, good for him- and he means that honestly. He knows Sakura well enough at this point to know that he has an earnest desire for human connection, as much as he likes his lone wolf act.)

imagine if nirei finds out about suo and sakura's shitty living situations and immediately sets out trying to find ways to get them independent asap. like he's just obsessing over every law and detail that can get suo and sakura out of their parents' control even a fraction sooner so long as it doesn't leave them on their own without support. maybe he even gives up a portion of his salaries to them because it's not like he needs it to survive: he's still under his parents' care, after all.

perhaps he even tries to document stuff to prove that suo and sakura at LEAST are undergoing child exploitation by the talent agency and then releases the evidence and info after they're transferred to the agency that manages bofurin?

maybe he only starts researching child abuse and exploitation laws so obsessively only after he goes "hey, do you guys want to disband?" and suo or sakura's like "no, because we'd be kicked out without living expenses then" and nirei has to pivot strategies.

sakura just casually dropping hints that his living situation is deeply fucked up... and then he gets sick and misses practice one day, and so suo and nirei naturally go to check up on him. they get his address from their manager and are shocked when it leads them to the most rinky dink apartment you can imagine. the only thing in it is a futon. he doesn't even have a pillow.

and nirei's just like. this isn't right.

suo at that moment realizing that perhaps sakura is in a similar boat to him... what can he do to help nirei without revealing anything about his own situation. his situation is fine, of course- no need to worry about him. after all, he's still getting fed daily while sakura's pinching pennies to make ends meet.

nirei doing little things to help sakura's situation. he's the center of the group so he gets some say about what kinds of activities they do. can we do more food reviews? more cooking shows? anything so that sakura can have an extra meal since clearly something deeply fishy is happening with his salary. he tries to snoop as much as he can without getting caught.

and just... learning that their agency's owner is sakura's father? oh it makes it so much worse. so much worse. he'd be happy to blow up both their group and his dream, but he's afraid that sakura might get more negative backlash than he'd want him to. thankfully, that information happens to get leaked entirely on its own...

(sakura when he gets his first paycheck at their new agency and it's an actual livable wage... he doesn't have to pinch pennies anymore! i mean, he still does that anyways because old habits are hard to break, but he like. doesn't HAVE to.

let Haruki's garbage alley cat swag convince you to read Wind Breaker (he is not even a canon chatacter).

it would be so funny if those two AUs were combined... Haruki just living his life and then all of a sudden he sees Haruka's face on a billboard. he's just like. what the fuck. and then learns that their shitty asshole dad is basically just exploiting him to earn money. and he's just. what. you know what. fuck this. and decides that he's going to be an idol too just so he can fuck up their shitty dad's plans any way he can.

(and that's how he ends up joining Endo's agency and becomes the third member of their unit. he is not even trying at being an idol and yet the fans are drawn to his chainsmoking dumpster swag anyways. Haruka seeing his missing twin brother getting promoted as a part of Noroshi and is just like what. HARUKI???

first of all. can you imagine if natsume & company learned that sakura had a twin brother out there somewhere that he was forcibly separated from at a young age (because at a certain point no one wanted to take care of two of them)? it would become their life's new mission to find him. he's so determined to do this he'd even be willing to (albeit hesitantly) recruit matoba to the cause.

and like... they don't find him, of course, because he's with endo already. but when the war with noroshi happens and sakura learns that his classmates saw (and fought) haruki? ough. but also- haruki learning that sakura has apparently been happily adopted by a distant relative? man. it's such a source of mixed feelings- like, he's happy for haruka because he's his baby brother and he cares about him a lot.

but also... he's jealous. why not him? why does he always get the shortest end of the stick between the two of them? at the same time he doesn't fully trust natsume & company- because why would he? everything he knows tells him that their entire family are pieces of shit. why would these three be any different? what do they want from haruka?

haruki definitely sees suo as a fox though. "gtfaway from my baby bro you vixen."

he totally just sees Nirei as some kind of little fluffy yappy (but harmless) dog. he'll never admit that he likes nirei's company but he definitely likes nirei's company and he's glad that sakura has him as a friend (but he does not consider the possibility that nirei could be his friend too).

mental image of like. nirei and suo showing up at the door of the apartment and haruki's the one who answers the door. he takes a look at the two of them and just. grabs nirei and sets him down inside and then shuts the door on suo's face. he looks so smug about it too.

when do you think nirei finally cracks and see haruki as cool? idk how nirei feels in the immediate aftermath of the noroshi incident but when does he stop trying to find out stuff about haruki from other people and just starts interrogating the guy himself for the notebook? (he did it for sakura, lol)

and how would haruki feel? weirded out? skeptical? a little bit flattered? (sakura 100% just watches this with the most amused expression known to man because he's been there before)

honestly I think it probably starts when Haruki doesn't berate him for being weaker than most of his classmates... like not to put too fine a point on it, but the guy's kind of been a total asshole for the entire (admittedly short) time nirei's known them- so he fully expects him to berate him. but he just... doesn't do that. he doesn't praise him like sakura did the first time they met or anything but he just... doesn't say anything at all. and given how much haruki likes mouthing off, it sticks in his memory.

at that point he just starts to pay closer attention to haruki. just a little. he sees the way he actually seems to worry about sakura. and nirei gradually comes to the realization that he's trying- he just doesn't know what to do or really how to talk to people. he just developed totally different coping methods than sakura did.

(if sakura stayed pure despite everything, then haruki definitely got dirty. dug himself into a pit as a way to protect himself. if he's also a piece of shit, then it won't hurt as much when people are pieces of shit to him. he can handle it.)

except for sakura.

here's this interloper to their group- this random student in umemiya's year who isn't a part of his group but is always around for some reason. sakura claims it's because he was already using the roof before umemiya made it his own personal garden/meetup spot. he ain't goin away!

and sugishita just. cannot stand his ass.

he's soooo disrespectful of umemiya. but at the same time, sakura is now sugishita's senpai so like- there's no way he's calling him sakura-senpai. not a chance. absolutely not.

sakura having a secret twin that he's never talked about who is not only a part of noroshi, but revealed himself at the most dramatic possible time and ended up beating up a bunch of them... what a guy. suo spending all that time to cultivate a mystique and sakura just does it so naturally without even thinking about it.

you know anzai is the center of the 'evil twin' jokes. he's only a little bit salty about losing to haruki. just a little bit. kiryu might chime in. a little bit. suo adds on when it's situationally appropriate. nirei would never... at least, not out loud. he knows the jokes annoy sakura.

(he cares a lot less about hurting haruki's feelings... at least until it becomes increasingly clear that underneath all his bluster that he actually cares about sakura a lot and just wants to be a good older brother to him- he just doesn't really remember how he's supposed to do that when it's been so long and he's dug himself so deep into a ditch.