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Suo really doesn't want to get out of bed.
Because if he doesn't get out of bed, then he can go back to sleep, and if he manages to go back to sleep, he can maybe, if he is lucky, dream wonderful dreams of far off lands and far off places he can run off to after sucker punching mentally far off people.
As it stands, he currently cannot go back to sleep. This, suffice to say, is because the blanket feels very nice where it is resting on his thigh, but is coincidingly very itchy where it's digging into his heel, and if and when he attempts to fix it, he will. Fix it. He will. But he will also ruin it, and his ankle will ascend to godhood, but his thigh, stomach, and right hand will disintegrate at the nearest and next touch.
He knows, because he knows, because he is that type of person. The type of person being: the type of person who just. knows, that it is most likely physically impossible to be impaled to death by a singular hive mind collective of vicious inanimate strands of hair. But, this being said, he also knows, because he thinks he might not know, because he is very tired, because he is in bed, trying and failing miserably to fall back asleep, that he is not in the correct state of mind to be making potentially life-saving decisions. Just because something has never been recorded in medical or metaphysical history, he thinks, does not mean it can never occur medically or metaphysically in past-future-right now time. The back of his neck is in an acupuncture appointment that Suo never scheduled, and never needed.
And perhaps the most prevalent factor, the author of his destruction, if you will, is the fact that someone, some god forsaken asshole has been pounding on his door as loud as inhumanly possible for the past six minutes. He counted. This horrid person has been playing a Cuban Clave with the woodgrain of his frontdoor and the cries of mercy of its hinges like the devil himself dropped the fiddle after his embarrassing loss against Father of Fantasia: Johnny Applesauce, or whatever his insignificant name was, and picked up the most literal translation of "instruments of torture."
His mental debate goes something like this:
Go-Open-The-Damn-Door-Already Suo: They have been knocking for ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten is certainly a number. Not a particularly large one, but, when multiplied by sixty, it would become quite an issue, you agree? Ten minutes.
Ten minutes is a long time to wait. Ten minutes is a very long time to be up listening to this.
But-I'm-Ti~i~ired Suo: Six, actually. Minutes. Seven by now, probably.
What if they're dying, huh? You ever thought of that?
If they were dying, they would have been long dead. You think a dying person could play The Carousel Of Life knock-on-wood style for six-now-seven minutes without collapsing or perishing from their imminent threat?
It's very annoying.
I agree wholeheartedly. Do you know what would fix that?
Answering the door?
Yes.
...Oh. I- I thought-
Hm?
I just thought you were going to have your own flavour of resolution to this particular query.
I mean, I can't exactly say no to that, can I? You are, objectively, right.
Wow, I'm weirdly horrible at reasoning with myself.
Yes, you are.
So, it's settled then-
But! You know what would take marginally less effort and have a similar, if not identical outcome?
Yes.
Going back to-
Going back to sleep! I'm very tired.
So am I. We are the same-
We are the same person!
This is pathetic, and I hate you. We're opening the door.
So Suo, both against and because of his will, sits up in his bed. He reaches over to his side table and grabs his eyepatch, because even the jerk who has disrupted his very beautiful and enticing sleep shouldn't be subjected to that, but he leaves his earrings for now. The blanket dilemma has now been solved, or, in other words, eradicated, because it has fallen from grace and or the bed and rests idly on his bedroom floor.
Slowly but surely, Suo makes his way downstairs, running his hand along the back of his neck, heroically saving his life.
Unsurprisingly, the banging gets louder and more annoying the further downstairs he dares tread. He nearly trips at the bottom of the stairwell, and nearly trips again over his own feet. He turns the light on and immediately stubs his toe on the kitchen counter.
Suo mumbles something unintelligible under his breath.
He saunters over to the door and doesn't even bother checking the peephole. An amateur mistake, really. He goes to Bofurin. He checks peepholes. It's a thing. The consequences are worse than he could ever have imagined. Because once he swings the door open wildly, there is one, Sakura Haruka, standing on his front porch staring blankly at him.
Everything about Sakura is, and perhaps always has been, one. He has one blue eye, and one yellow one. One side of his hair is black, and one side is white. He is one person, with the many ambitions of a singular, simple person, but he is nothing singular himself. He is wearing one: Plain white t-shirt, underneath one: school uniform jacket, which pairs nicely with one: School uniform pair of pants. Most surprisingly, he is also wearing one: shoe.
Suo stares at him for a solid second, and Sakura, face unblinking, stares right back.
Sakura tilts his head to look past Suo, then looks back at Suo. Then, still looking as unimpressed as ever, looks past him again.
"I'm entering your house." He says suddenly, and takes a step forward.
Suo, who hasn't moved in a hot minute, thinks that he should have gone back to sleep. Nevertheless, he turns around only to find one: Sakura Haruka, rifling through his one: fridge.
"You have juice boxes?" Sakura asks. "Why do you have juice boxes?"
"Because I like juice-"
"And why are they apple-flavoured?" Sakura interjects.
"I like apples," Suo responds.
" Okay," Sakura says, like he doesn't believe him, and sticks his head further into the fridge, as if his house has secret pockets filled with riches and better-tasting fruits. Sakura rifles around for a little longer before standing straight and stretching his back. "Your juice selection is lacking." He comments, taking a box of apple juice out of the fridge.
"I didn't know my juice selection concerned you." Says Suo, rubbing the sleep from his eye.
Sakura stabs at the drinking hole with the straw and misses, then misses again. He gets it on the fourth try, then slowly brings it closer to his mouth, making excessive eye contact with Suo when he inserts it into his mouth. The straw makes a gurgling sound, like it normally does when it's warning you that you're getting low on drinking edifice and need to go grab another to retain balance to the mortal world, and Sakura pulls his head back to glare at his box, as if it has personally offended him.
Suo watches as Sakura painstakingly slowly makes his way over to the living room, where he drapes himself over Suo's couch and sighs dramatically.
"What?" Sakura asks when Suo doesn't join him, and instead continues to glower meaningfully from the entrance to the kitchen.
"You're acting weird." Suo accuses.
"Yes," Sakura confirms. "I am."
"Would you be open to telling me why?"
Sakura doesn't break eye contact as he takes another sip, the straw gurgling horridly as he does.
"No."
"Why?"
"Uh," Sakura says eloquently. "I dunno." He goes to take another sip, but this time, the gurgling sound is actually signifying the scales of mortality tipping, so he grunts and lowers it onto the side table.
"Throw it out."
"Yes, sir!" Sakura says, and launches out of his seat and passes by Suo. Suo can hear him banging around, looking for the garbage, and he can also hear it when Sakura stops, presumably smack in the middle of the kitchen, and refrains from moving.
"Check under the kitchen sink!" Suo calls out to him, moving towards the now vacant couch.
"I did!" Sakura calls back.
Suo waits a second or two.
"Wait, never mind!" Sakura says, then emerges from the doorway. He saunters over and sits down next to Suo, and positively deflates.
They sit in silence for a while, because believe it or not, (and it's most likely a "not" considering the impression he must have made on you during these past six-but-seven-but-now-somewhere-closer-to-eleven minutes, but suffice it to say, that he has at least woken up enough to not be Open-The-Damn-Door Suo, nor But-I'm-Ti-i-ired Suo, and has instead returned to regular old, mysteriously handsome Suo) He can be quite a nice person from time to time. Sporadically. When he feels like it. And Sakura, you will most likely believe, does not know how, or perhaps plainly does not want to, share life stories in any meaningful way.
"So, do you have parents?" Sakura asks suddenly, looking around Suo's house.
"Yes." Responds Suo, but he chooses not to elaborate.
"Oh," Sakura says. "Where are they?"
"Ah, where is anyone nowadays?" Suo says.
Sakura nods, like that made any sense.
Suo lets the bipolar-ness melt out of his system and closes his eye in deep thought. He sincerely doubts that Sakura gave a second thought to coming here. He also doubts that Sakura gave even a first one. He gives everything. That's who he is, but yet, here he is, "giving" absolutely nothing all over his living room. But he's here now, against anyone's wishes, and he will continue to be here until Suo can help and/or fix whatever dilemma Sakura has unquestionably found himself in.
Though what to say is a predicament in and of itself.
Sakura has made it thoroughly clear that he does not want to talk, which, by that, Suo means he will eventually, but "eventually" really does mean eventually when talking about Sakura. Though Suo isn't sure of Sakura's moral ambiguity right now, but yesterday and the day before that, they have been friends, so he supposes he should probably let it slide for now.
There are many ways he could bring this up, none of them explicitly polite, but since when has passive-aggressiveness not been his strong suit.
The only thing he says, however, is "Sakura, how do you know my home address?"
"Nirei gave it to me."
Ah. That checks out.
"How does Nirei know my home address?"
"Nirei knows everyone's home address."
Ah. Weirdo.
"Why are you at my home address?"
"Went for a walk," Sakura responds, somewhat longingly.
"And you ended up here?" Suo assumes.
"To some degree."
"To some degree, you ended up here?"
"To some degree, I ended." Sakura says. "To some degree, I am here."
That doesn't make sense. Suo thinks. Then, he thinks, Good.
"The bridge on the far side of town is very pretty." Sakura says suddenly.
Suo supposes it is. It's a bridge, for all intents and purposes, but it's a centrepiece for the aesthetic ones. It's a chandelier, not a very grand one, but that can't possibly matter when it isn't in a chandelier store.
Sakura must have passed it on his walk, but Suo's house isn't on the far side of town, and neither is Sakura's apartment, so he must have been out for a while.
"Long walk." Suo hums. He knows where this is going.
"Well." Sakura hums, and Suo wonders if he knows anything at all.
Suo looks down. He's tired, and if he blinks for a second too long, he fears Sakura will continue on his walk.
"Where's your other shoe?" He asks. A filler. A context, just maybe.
"At the bridge, on the far side of town," Sakura answers. "Or maybe under it, but probably far away from it."
"Why?"
"Because it was my favourite one."
Your favourite shoe? Or your favourite bridge? Suo doesn't think thoughts alone can kill spiders, but he can at least try to clear some of the cobwebs. Sakura's favourite shoes? Or the spider he named and fed? His favourite bridge? Or his favourite thought? Or, who knows, the one he keeps re-visiting?
"My landlord shut off my water."
It isn't even a surprise, but Suo despairs all the same. He tenses, and contorts his brain into something of a mess. On purpose? All the same.
"Yeah." He chokes. "They do that." His eye goes wide. What was that? Serious question, because, well, what was that? His face feels hot and his hands go sweaty. His smile is retracting into his face, because, well, you get the gist.
Sakura huffs, and it takes Suo a second to realize that was a laugh. Then, Sakura laughs again. Once more, and then he stops, looks forward, and snorts.
"Smartass. I think?" Sakura mumbles. "Which, well, I guess that's exactly why I shouldn't've come here. You get everything, don't you? You've got something that a lot of people, me included, just kind of, don't have. And I could be cheesy and say "A future" or "a heart o' gold" but we both know that second one ain't true and, ah, well, I guess I'm not that good a fortune teller considering the whole reason I came to this place was because of a poorly placed bet. It's just that, and I'm not saying you should have seen anything because this is kind of how I've aways been because, well, look at me, but stuff has been kinda shit recently. Furin's more home than my home, and more of a "house" too, I guess, now with that water thing, but at the end of the day, I think I'm starting to realize I've kinda got a time limit with this whole happiness thing. I was thinking, once we graduate, I've got nowhere to go. I sure as hell ain't going to get accepted into any mish-mash of colleges or universities, meaning I'll get a job straight out of high school. My pay'll be too low to keep renting an apartment, which just means I'll have to start earlier, but if I start earlier, my grades'll slip and I'll have to be held back. My parents agreed that they'd send me money for the three years I'm here, but as soon as those end, I'm on my own. I guess the moral of the rant is that I think I'm going to die."
Well, that certainly didn't need as much probing as Suo thought it would.
"Die? I think that's a bit dramatic, even for you." No. It really isn't. It's just a little misdirected.
"Really? Then tell me, oh seer, what fate awaits me in this ever so humble life of mine?" Sakura laughs a little and slouches a little and, maybe thinks a little, but mostly thinks a lot.
"Hm. I could help out."
"Fat chance." Sakura laughs again for whatever reason.
"I'm serious," Suo says, as he finally turns to look at Sakura. "I'll help you. Why is that so hard to believe?"
Sakura doesn't return the gesture, insisting on analyzing the wall at the far end of the room.
"I can help you study." Suo says. "If you study your grades won't fail and you could get a job. If you get a job, I'm sure I could too. I'm in a more suitable financial situation, so I could help you get back on your feet and drink water from the comfort of your own home again. And if that doesn't work and your brain screams mercy, then we can always take a midnight walk over to your favourite bridge."
"No." Sakura says quietly and pulls a knee up to his face. "I hate that bridge. It stole my shoe. It stole it and killed it, and I think it's trying to kill me too."
"Well then." Suo leans forward, trying to look into both of Sakura's singular eyes. "I guess if you're so sure, we'll just have to avoid it then."
Sakura finally takes the chance and makes eye contact. Not for long, though, because he is who he is, and he might as well quit while he's ahead for the first time in his life.
The first time he's ahead?
The first time he'll quit?
An enigma, isn't he?
Wholeheartedly, one singular objective, yet here he remains a detour himself. He's a video game character. Before he can fulfil his quest, he must learn his own mechanics, gain skills, trust, and allies, and he can, though he is only one person, try again and again until he, one man, in one blind faith, will succeed.
"Stay here, I'll go get something for you to sleep on." Suo stands and stretches his aching muscles.
"Hm?" Sakura says, starring up at him.
"You're not going back to you're apartment, are you?" Suo asks.
Sakura doesn't answer, so he supposes he has his answer.
"Well then." Suo sighes tiredly. "My home is always open, and feel free to help yourself to anything. There's apple juice in the Fridge."
There will be, at least, from now on.