i saw a ghost, it had your smile
hayato suo x reader, wc: 3.5k, req? no note from sunnie: warning! this contains major spoilers for the current arc! (suo backstory chapters) and because of that, this is definitely an angst fic! enjoy :)
You don’t know anything’s wrong until the end of the first day.
Not until Nirei’s text comes in as the final school bell rings. You read his message while your friends race to pack up and go home around you, a confused furrow in your brow and lip trapped between your teeth.
Have you heard from Suo today? He didn’t come to school and isn’t answering our messages.
You frown, swiping to the text thread you have with Suo. His last message is from the night before, telling you to sleep well. He didn’t text you good morning like usual, which is odd, but you’d woken up late and been swept away in schoolwork for the whole day so you didn’t notice.
You’re starting to feel guilty about not noticing.
Despite the gnawing worry eating at you, you ignore Nirei’s message for the length of time it takes you to haphazardly shove all your belongings into your school bag and run out of the classroom. Instead of bothering to type out a response, you dial Nirei’s number and press your phone to your ear.
He answers on the third ring.
“What’s going on with Suo?” You ask in lieu of a greeting once you hear the call connect. There’s some shuffling, some muffled voices on the other end of the call, and you know he’s still at Furin with his class.
“We were hoping you’d know,” Nirei sounds anxious, which wouldn’t be out of place, but the tension underlying his words is making your own heart pound in return. “He hasn’t said anything to you?”
“No,” You hate how bitter the one word tastes on your tongue. It’s not like you and Suo are dating—not officially, anyways. But there’s always been a connection there, a level of closeness that goes just a touch or two past friendship. Really, you’ve just been waiting for him to finally ask you out. You’re practically a couple without the label. “He didn’t say anything about being sick when we talked last night.”
“We—hold on, let me put you on speaker,” Nirei’s voice goes distant for a moment, until the muffled voices in the background become louder, clearer. You recognize Sakura muttering something indecipherable to Nirei, hear Kiryu chastise Tsugeura for some unknown misstep. The usual crew. “We were with him last night, and he seemed fine.”
“The jerk can’t even bother to send a text?” Sakura snaps, and you know his anger is just misplaced frustration. You also know he’ll correct himself when he’s ready—you’ve watched him grow an incredible amount in the months you’ve known him.
“I’ll try calling,” You offer, because now you’re starting to worry. The boys bid you goodbye and good luck, and you end the call before starting another.
But Suo doesn’t answer.
You leave a voicemail, instead.
“Hey, it’s me. Can you call me when you get a chance? Everyone’s worried about you. And I… I am, too.”
You message Nirei and tell him that when you hear from Suo, you’ll let him know, and try to reason with yourself that missing one day of school and not answering a few texts isn’t the end of the world. You try, but you don’t find much comfort in it.
Because one day turns into two, which spills into three.
You’ve lost count of how many times you’ve messaged him, let alone called. None of it gets you a response, and the small knot of worry that had been building since Nirei texted you on day one has built into a boulder of anxiety sitting heavy on your chest.
Day two is spent checking your phone every time you imagine it to vibrate with a text. And when you do get a message, it’s Nirei or Sakura asking if you’ve heard from him. Day two is hell, because you feel helpless.
Day three isn’t much better. But Nirei calls you during your lunch block, and you answer with enough dangerous hope that they’ve found him, that you nearly die from impact when you’re let down.
“Where does Suo live? We’re going to go there after school,” Nirei says instead of what you actually want to hear. You frown, nudging your bento forward and away from you, ignoring the curious looks from your friends. Suddenly, you have no appetite.
“I don’t know,” You admit, pouting. The same helplessness comes biting back at you with a vengeance at your admission. “We’ve never gone to his house. We either hang out in town or at my place.”
You’d known something was wrong when he never mentioned his family or invited you over. But you were no stranger to uncomfortable topics, so you let him decide when he wanted to talk about it. Now you’re starting to wonder if you should’ve pushed him to open up. If maybe it would change how things are.
“Okay,” Nirei doesn’t blame you for not calling into question why you—after months of nearly dating—have no idea where Suo lives. You sort of wish the blond did, because you can’t be the only one blaming you. “I’ll check the school records. He had to list an address on his application.”
You hum, mind a million miles away. Your thoughts are scattered somewhere near where Suo is, but the problem is you don’t have a clue where that could be.
“Hey,” You say after a beat of silence. Nirei is still on the line, no doubt having picked up on the fact you still had something to say. “If you find his address, could I come with you to check on him?”
“Of course. I’ll text you our plan.” There’s no hesitation. You think you hear relief in his tone, though you’re not sure if it’s because he and the boys won’t have to go alone or because you won’t be alone.
Either way, you’re grateful.
“Thanks, Nirei.”
You hang up on him quickly, and open your text thread with Suo.
Twenty-seven unread messages from you to him. Three days of no contact. You miss talking to him, but you miss just having him even more.
You’re typing before you can process your thumbs tapping across the screen.
I’m sorry if something happened. Or if I did something that upset you. I just want to know you’re safe, Suo. Even if you don’t want anything to do with me anymore. I hope you remember how much I care about you. Please be safe. And come back to me soon, okay?
Somehow, you know he won’t respond even before you hit send.
“Are… are you sure this is the right address?”
You’re looking at an empty lot.
An empty lot.
It’s supposed to be Suo’s home. It’s supposed to have at least a building, one where the owner of your heart sleeps and does homework and calls you right before bed just to ask how your day was.
And there’s not even a building.
“I’m certain.” Nirei responds to Kiryu’s question. You’re standing hopelessly between the four boys—Sakura and Tsugeura on your left, Nirei and Kiryu on your right—hoping that no one will acknowledge you.
Of course, you’re not that lucky.
“You seriously have never been to his house before?” Tsugeura asks, and Nirei hisses at him to be sensitive! You nod your head despite the guilt threatening to eat you alive.
“It’s just…” Kiryu starts his question more tactfully, but he’s still addressing you, so you kind of wish you could bury your head in the sand. As if that’d make Suo come back. “We all thought you two were… together. It’s weird that he never invited you over.”
And doesn’t Kiryu realize that you know all that? That you probably should’ve seen some of the red flags with Suo and confronted him? You know you could’ve done a million things differently, and thinking about it is only making your throat close with hot, angry tears. Guilty tears.
“It’s all weird,” Sakura interrupts, saving you from having to answer. He turns towards you, and you think you might crumble if he asks you a question, too.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he nods his head over his shoulder, gesturing in the direction away from the empty lot that was supposed to have the answers to where your Suo has been.
“C’mon, I’ll walk you home.” He’s not asking. He’s giving you a direction, an out of the conversation that’s slowly breaking you apart piece by piece. You nod, even though you don’t think you ever really had an option to not leave with him. “Let me know if you find anything out.”
He says that second part to the others, but he doesn’t wait for a response before he’s turning away, walking without checking that you’re following him.
You do, because you can’t stand to look at the empty lot any longer.
You walk half a step behind him the whole way back into town. Neither one of you talk, either, but you do sniffle back unshed tears every once in a while he does you the favor of not acknowledging.
He leads you back in the direction of your house. When you get there, he doesn’t leave immediately, and you know he wants to say something to you. But it’s still Sakura, so you know he doesn’t quite understand how to open up this conversation.
You sit on the curb, knees drawn tight to your chest and fold arms so they’re covering your face. You don’t want him to see how you’re almost crying, but you know he’s perceptive enough to figure it out regardless. Still you put some effort into hiding.
Sakura lowers himself onto the curb beside you, quietly, and suddenly it’s impossible to stop the thoughts that’d been plaguing your mind from taking over.
“Do you…” You hesitate, turning your head to the side to watch him while still folding in on yourself. He doesn’t look at you, but he does give you the space to straighten out what you want to say. Or, more so what you need to say than what you want. “Do you think I could’ve done something to drive him away?”
“Not a chance,” He doesn’t hesitate, and the swift certainty he replies with catches you off guard. He clicks his tongue like he’s annoyed by the question, which is a positive thing, coming from him. “Stupid. Suo’s obsessed with you. Always talkin’ about you and things you like.”
You frown, and though you know you should be comforted by his words, you’re not. There’s something gnawing at you, deep in the pit of your stomach, and you know you won’t feel at ease until Suo is back in your arms.
Safe.
“That’s the thing, Sakura.” Your voice is a little stronger now, but your throat burns and your eyes are still flooded with tears that haven’t yet spilled. “He knows so much about us. But how much do we know about him?”
Your words hang heavy in the air between the two of you. And it might be a sunny afternoon, but you feel chilled straight down to your bones.
“It’s like he’s a ghost to us.” You look forward, across the street and into the distance. Nothing in particular catches your attention, but at least you don’t have to see the way Sakura reacts to your words. “Like he’s there, but not real. Just out of reach, haunting us.”
“He ain’t a damn ghost,” Sakura snaps, and you flick your attention to him to read his expression. He’s frowning in the same forward direction you’d been looking, his dual colored brows knitted together tightly in frustration. “He’s real, and we’ll find him.”
And you really can’t let your mind go down the road of not seeing Suo again, so you make yourself believe him. You make yourself trust Sakura’s vow, and trust that when Suo comes back, you’ll all work it out.
You can’t let yourself believe otherwise.
So, you nod.
Nothing has happened by the end of the third day.
Nothing, until Suo calls you.
You almost don’t register that it’s actually him calling at first. There’s a moment, or two, where you just stare at the screen in disbelief.
His contact photo is a picture of the two of you. Tsubaki had taken it at one of Bofurin’s celebrations. He’s standing behind you, strong arms wrapped around your middle with his chin tucked over your shoulder. You have a palm pressed to his outside cheek, holding him close. You look so happy.
You thought he had been, too.
But the moments pass and you realize you cannot miss his call, so you scramble to drop the pencil you’d been doing your homework with to collect your phone and hold it to your ear.
“Suo?” His name falls past your lips in a breathy whisper. Like just the sound of it knocks the wind out of your lungs—and it does.
“Come to your window.” You hear his voice, real and steady if not twinged with something you can’t place in your haste to race from your desk to your bedroom window.
And then you see him.
Your bedroom is on the second floor, so his head is tilted upwards to find you. Night has fallen, so he's only light up by the hazy street lights. He’s in the middle of the road, wearing his regular clothes, if not a little disheveled. There’s a smile on his lips that doesn’t look right, but none of that is what catches your attention, because—
“What happened to your nose?” You feel like your heart is in your throat. He’s so close and calling you but he has blood staining half his face. You’ve never known him to get hurt to the point he bleeds, even despite the innumerable fights he’s been in. “Who did that? Where have you been?”
“My, you have a lot of questions.” He deflects. There’s something off about him—and he didn't need to have been missing for three days for you to figure it out. Even from your spot in the window, even through the phone, you know he’s hurting.
“Suo, hold on,” You huff into the call, weight shifting between your feet. Nervous is an understatement to describe your feelings. “Don’t move. I’ll come down—”
“Stay right there, sweetheart.” He chastises, voice dripping with honey despite stinging like venom. You freeze on command. “If you leave the window, I’ll have to go.”
“Suo,” You plead, not caring in the slightest about the tears welling up in your eyes. Miraculously, you haven’t cried yet, but now you’re approaching your limit. Having him so close yet so out of reach is beyond painful. “Hayato.”
You see it then, the emotion he tries to hide. It flashes across his face like lightning, so quick you wouldn’t be able to catch it if you were any less devoted to him.
He’s hurting, too.
But then he’s smiling again, acting smug like he can convince you that he’s fine, that this is all part of his plan. You know it isn’t, but calling him on it might make him run, and you really can’t risk that right now.
“I’m afraid that won’t work. This time, at least.” He laughs, but it’s a touch too self-depreciating for you to believe him. You hadn’t meant—ever—to use his first name as a way to convince him to do what you want. But from his words, it almost seems like he’s accusing you of manipulating him by calling him Hayato.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” You confess, as if that much wasn’t glaringly obvious. You have to lean your weight against the windowsill, forehead pressed to the glass as you watch him like he’ll disappear in the time it takes to blink.
Which, is that even a stretch anymore?
“It’s all very obvious, if you think about it.” Suo hums, almost tauntingly. But any mirth he might be trying to display is completely undercut by the dried blood coating the lower half of his face. “So put that pretty head of yours to good use, alright?”
“Suo,” You plead again, hating how desperate you sound but doing nothing to temper how obviously you’re aching for him to come back. “I… I love you. Just talk to me. Please.”
It’s the first time you’ve said the words, admitting aloud just how heavy the feelings you carry for him are. And you despise you’re being forced to tell him like this. Through a phone call, on the verge of tears, unable to physically go to him despite being close.
But it doesn’t make them any less true.
“Don’t… don’t.” Suo breathes heavily through the line, and you hear the shudder in his words. You think he believes you; you think you see the truth of it settling across his features despite the distance or how quick he is to lock down his emotions after. “If you say stuff like that, I’ll have to leave.”
“You don’t have to.” None of this makes sense, but you know you’ll never get your answers if he leaves tonight. Something deep within your bones tells you that if he leaves—if he walks away—you won’t see him again.
And you can’t let that happen.
“You haven’t seen poor Nirei yet.” Suo smiles and you don’t believe him. You don’t believe that he’s actually amused, or that he’s so casual about this all, or that he just implied he’d fought Nirei. And you certainly don’t believe that Nirei was the one to give him the bloody nose. You can’t believe it. “He just didn’t know when to quit.”
“Stop it.” You hiss, and you feel the first of your tears start to run down like it’s a race to fall. “You don’t mean it. I can see it in your face.”
How did everything go so wrong?
“I only came by to let you know that this thing between us? It’s done.” His voice is cold now. And you hate that the first thought you have is that at least he’s not pretending to smile anymore. But such a small comfort doesn’t take away the bite from his words, each one landing like a well placed punch to your heart. “There’s a reason I never asked you to be official.”
It feels so trivial, worrying about your non-relationship status while he’s actively breaking down. You wish you could say you don’t care about it, that the only thing that matters is that he’s here, but you know it’s not true.
And maybe it’s selfish, but knowing that fact doesn’t make the pain cease or your tears stop falling.
“Hayato.” You don’t even know what you’re begging for anymore. All you can think is to plead his name on a broken sob, your fingers gripping your phone so tight something is bound to break—whether it be bone or glass or you.
“Goodbye,” He doesn’t even say your name, not once, before he ends the call, still not smiling. You watch him pull his phone away from his ear, and when he turns the slightest inch away, you run.
You don’t bother with shoes, or a coat, or even clothes other than your pajamas as you race through the house. You take the stairs two, three, at a time. You use your hands to push off from the walls to increase your momentum and speed.
Still, it’s not enough to catch him.
Barefoot, you sprint into the street where he’d been standing moments before. He’s gone, you knew he’d be, but there’s not even a trace of him left to be found. There’s no way to tell if he went left or right, but you guess anyways and run up and down the street like you’re insane.
You feel like you are.
You’re still crying by the time you dial Sakura’s number and drop helplessly onto the curb. The same spot you were in when you talked to Sakura earlier that day. You don’t feel any better than you had then. Part of you wishes you could go back to the version of you that hadn’t suffered the call with Suo.
Sakura answers after only a few rings, but you’re already talking, rambling, the moment you hear the call connect.
“I saw him,” You sob into the phone, knees drawn tight to your body like you could physically make yourself small enough that the ache inside you has nowhere to live. “I talked to him, but he left. I let him get away. And—and he was hurt, Sakura. He had a bloody nose—”
“Yeah, we know.” He interrupts you, voice grave. He doesn’t want to be having this conversation with you, you can tell. He’s angry, and you still haven’t pinpointed who he’s angry at. Now, you’re in no state to dissect Sakura. “He fought Nirei.”
Suo had practically told you as much, you think. But you don’t say it aloud. There will be a time, later, for you to break down the conversation you had with Sakura, Nirei, and the others. But it’s not now, not tonight.
Tonight, you can cry. Tomorrow—that will be when you can talk about it.
You think about how, earlier, you called Suo a ghost. Unknowable, unreachable. An apparition.
And suddenly, you’re finding it impossible to deny the fact that you might be right.
extra note from sunnie! I loved writing this and am dying to know how this arc is resolved. possibly a part two depending on how it plays out?
