Chapter Text
The errands always ended the same way.
A grateful shopkeeper, a paper bag filled with something warm, and Suo’s easy smile.
“Take it,” he’d say, pressing the food into Nirei’s hands before anyone could protest. “I’m on a diet.”
He said it so cheerfully that no one ever questioned him.
That day it was sweet buns, still steaming through the paper. Nirei looked half-embarrassed, half-delighted, and Sakura, standing off to the side, bruised from the scuffle they’d just broken up, watched as Suo wiped his hands on a napkin and turned away, already talking about where to go next.
Sakura didn’t say anything. He’d seen it enough times to stop finding it odd. Suo always gave the food away, always smiled, always brushed off the question before it was even asked.
But sometimes, when the others weren’t looking, Sakura noticed the way Suo’s hand lingered on the bag for a moment too long. Like someone remembering what hunger felt like.
Later, while staying at their friend's house, the others were loud and laughing, throwing cushions, arguing about who’d done what. Suo laughed too, softer than the rest, a steady note in the noise.
Then, when everyone’s attention turned elsewhere, he excused himself quietly.
Out in the corridor, the light flickered once before steadying. Suo leaned against the wall, hand pressed lightly against his stomach. His expression didn’t change, but there was something fragile in the stillness of him, like glass holding back a crack.
Inside, someone shouted his name. Suo straightened, fixed his smile, and stepped back into the room as if nothing had happened.
And maybe nothing had. Maybe it was only Sakura who saw it: the small tremor in the space between gestures, the silence beneath the laughter.
Because everyone has a Room 19. And Suo’s door was always locked, even when he seemed to be standing in the sunlight.
The first time Sakura realized he’d started watching Suo wasn’t when he meant to.
It was during another scuffle, nothing serious, just a few local troublemakers testing their luck.
Suo stepped in, calm as always, voice steady enough to pull the heat out of the air. He never raised his tone, never looked angry, but somehow people still listened.
When it was over, everyone drifted away, laughing and complaining. Sakura stayed back a moment, watching Suo’s hand curl subtly against his side before he hid it in his pocket.
A wince, small enough to miss.
But Sakura didn’t.
Later, Suo was the one who asked if everyone was okay. He checked Nirei’s scrape, tossed Band-Aids onto the table for Kiryu, smiled that same warm smile when speaking with Tsugeura.
And when Sakura tried to hand him a bottle of water, Suo only shook his head. “I’m fine.”
Always fine.
It wasn’t that Sakura didn’t believe him, it was that he no longer could.
He began to notice things.
How Suo’s left hand sometimes trembled before he steadied it against his thigh.
How he laughed harder when the others were around, and quieter when they weren’t.
How he always seemed to disappear right when the noise started to fade, like a man who only existed in motion.
Sakura started walking him home without saying why.
At first, Suo joked about it “You’re making sure I don’t get lost?” and Sakura only grunted in reply.
But over time, the silence between them grew comfortable.
They’d walk the same streets, past the same flickering lights, neither of them saying much.
Sometimes, when the air was still and the moon caught the edge of Suo’s profile, Sakura felt that strange ache again — the feeling of standing outside a locked door.
He didn’t know what was behind it.
He only knew that whatever it was, Suo was guarding it with everything he had.
And maybe, without realizing it, Sakura had started guarding Suo in return.