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The first night in their new apartment, Nirei experiences several shocking events in rapid succession.
First, he's jolted awake by the sound of knocking at his door. It takes him a moment to remember where exactly he is—an unfamiliar space, no longer his childhood bedroom—and by the time he's sat up in bed and gotten ready to stand there's another frantic round of raps against the wood. A spike of fear pierces him at the urgency, and he hurries to answer, unlatching the door and swinging it open only to find Sakura standing on the other side.
Second, Sakura pushes his way into the room and Nirei suddenly has hands on his face, tilting his head this way and that. Sakura doesn't say anything; just examines him carefully, eyes wide and expression frantic, patting over Nirei's shoulders as if checking for something before his hands withdraw again, shaky.
Third, Sakura bursts into tears.
This is perhaps the most alarming part. Nirei can count on one hand the amount of times he's seen Sakura cry and have fingers to spare. But here he is: sniffling and hiccupping as he wipes at his own face futilely, hiding behind his hands, and Nirei feels shaken, as if he's that anxious first-year highschooler all over again.
"Sakura-san," he says, softly, still all-too-conscious of the late hour. "What's wrong?" His hands hover uncertainly at his sides, fingers twitching with the urge to comfort but unsure if it's what Sakura really needs right now. He feels out of his depth.
"He was like this when he woke me up, too," a voice says off to the side, and Nirei peers around the doorframe to find Suou standing nearby. "Though the crying is new."
"What do we do?" Nirei whisper-shouts.
Sakura sniffs once, loud in the quiet of the night, then says, thickly: "S-sorry. I'm fine. Forget this happened." He turns to (presumably) go back to his room, but Nirei stops him with a hand locked around one arm and he glares down at the appendage as if it personally offended him. "Lemme go, Nirei."
"No, I won't," Nirei says, stubborn. "Tell us what's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong! I'm tellin' ya, just forget it."
"Sakura-kun. Remember that talk we had about being honest with our feelings?"
"...Right." Sakura sighs. "I… don't really wanna talk about it right now, but…" He hesitates and Nirei squeezes his arm in what he hopes is a grounding gesture.
"Please, Sakura-san. If there's anything we can do to help…"
"Can I," he starts, and his voice is so small, "can I sleep here tonight?"
"Of course you can." Nirei doesn't even think twice before answering. He said anything and he meant it.
It's a tight squeeze with both of them in Nirei's bed, but they make it work—and if Sakura holds onto him a little too tight, arms around his waist and face pressed firmly between his shoulder blades, he doesn't complain.
By the time he wakes up the next morning, Sakura is already up and eating breakfast in the living room. When he tries to broach the topic, he says he just had a nightmare. Nirei knows there has to be more to it than that, but has learned over time to not push Sakura's boundaries too hard—knows that, if he's patient, Sakura will open up of his own accord.
And for the time being, that's that.
It's not until a week later that he finally gets his answers.
They'd been having a movie night, the three of them all crammed onto the couch with a massive bowl of popcorn between them that had already been emptied and set aside by around the half-hour mark.
Nirei doesn't remember falling asleep—who does?—but he remembers a feeling of safety and warmth; a feeling that's pierced sharply when he's awoken again by a pained sound at his side. Fighting against the instinct to return to slumber, he blinks his eyes open and glances down.
It's Sakura, pressed up against Nirei's side and clinging to him desperately, fingers clutched so tight in the hem of his shirt his knuckles are visibly pale even in the low light. He's making frantic, panicked little noises, and as Nirei comes around to full consciousness he's able to make out words.
"Please," he says, and it sounds like the pleas of a dying man. "Wake up... Nirei... please... please wake up." His voice is thick. "Please… don't leave…"
"Sakura-san," Nirei says, panic starting to edge his own voice. He puts a hand on Sakura's shoulder, shaking gently—
And is surprised when Sakura's eyes snap open and he's suddenly flat on his back on the floor. There's a wild look to the other, something angry and scared, and seemingly on frenzied instinct he reels back his fist—
"Sakura-san!"
And stops just short of Nirei's face.
For a moment, he can't hear anything save for Sakura's ragged breathing and the pounding of his own heart. Can't even bring himself to look away to check if Suou is awake or not.
"...Nirei?" Sakura blinks, just once, and then his expression crumples. "Fuck, I'm sorry, didn't mean to—" He stumbles back, putting distance between them, and retreats behind the arm of the couch. Nirei hears him choke out something that sounds suspiciously like "my fault" and feels his heart crack.
What else can he do but follow?
(What else has he ever done? Wherever Sakura goes—he made a vow to stay beside him. And he intends to keep it for as long as he still draws breath.)
"Sakura-san," he says, edging his way slowly around the furniture. "It's okay. I know you didn't mean to." And god, he wants to reach out. But there's that fear again; that fear of being too much. Pushing too hard.
Suou shows him some mercy by peeking over the side of the couch to interject.
"Sakura-kun, are you seeing someone?"
Almost instantaneously, Sakura turns beet red, head whipping up to glare at Suou with an expression that Nirei would describe as 'offended disbelief.'
"Huh?!"
"Not like that," Suou clarifies, a sympathetic smile in his voice. "I mean a therapist."
"N—" Sakura starts, shaky. "No?! Why would I?" Suou hums.
"Well, that might be a discussion more appropriate for daylight hours. As it stands, we should probably get some proper sleep."
"...Right, yeah. G'night," Sakura says, getting to his feet and making to leave until he's stopped by two hands: one firm on his wrist, the other stretching the fabric of his pant leg. He looks at them both in sequence, brow furrowing. "What?"
"Sakura-kun," Suou says, tone gentle. Delicate. "My bed isn't much bigger than Nire-kun's, but there should be enough space for the three of us. If you'd prefer that." Sakura clicks his tongue.
"I don't need you to—"
"This isn't about need, Sakura-kun," Suou says, brooking no argument. "What do you want?"
Sakura shakes his head at first, but says nothing. Nirei glances at Suou; he's staring up at Sakura along the length of his arm. Silent. Waiting. He swallows around the lump in his throat and follows suit. Waits.
Until, eventually:
"Okay."
The knot in Nirei's chest loosens.
They've never been in Suou's room before, not properly—only ever caught glimpses of it through the doorway—but even in the dim light of late evening, Nirei can see it's sparsely furnished. Almost military in its plainness. It makes him want to break something. Want to write, want to paint, want to give, want to fill this space with proof that Suou is more than just a warm body and a set of skills. Human.
But that can wait; has to, for all Sakura looks like he's liable to bolt at the slightest provocation. No, for now, he has to take priority.
As Suou had implied, there's not quite enough space for all three of them, packed into the bed like a tin of squirming sardines, an oddly familiar imitation of how they'd been squashed together on the couch earlier that night. Nirei had been sat in the middle then, but now he's hanging precariously at the edge of the mattress, where he finds he may very well tumble over the edge at any moment if he holds his weight wrong—that is, until Sakura drags him backwards by the waist towards the dip in the mattress where he's weighing it down. Nirei wonders, distantly, just what this all means for them.
But that, too, can wait. The hour is late, and his eyelids are heavy, and Suou's bed is comfortable despite the close quarters. And for now, it's enough to know he's safe, here, providing comfort in whatever ways he can for the people he cares for most.
Loves.
The rest will come with the light of dawn.