SasuSaku Month 2017 – Day 6 – Thank You

s-asuke:

AU in which Sasuke travels for a year than comes back to Konoha for the Ootsutsuki mission

*****

Long, brutal winters. Sakura spent them all alone. All at once, she cracks.

Tears flow. The world is white.

Is it snow?

More like artfully replaced sanity with other people’s presence. She passes the street, Ichiraku shining brightly among the moonlight, warm lives talking to each other. Small ripples in the calm lake of hers disturb her.

She cries small tears without sobs and returns to the lonely apartment she lives in. Some days that apartment is not so lonely, filled with laughter of Naruto’s, Yamato’s and Kakashi’s bickering and Sai’s horrible jokes (which get better by the day) and Ino’s nagging.

Some days even the Shadow Hokage visits her.

He is busy with his travels – she knows – but her heart is more selfish than that. It yearns and hurts and Sakura can’t take it some days, but she will wait. The world is more important than her. The pain of knowing it is another story, yet as the soft shimmer and the waft of ramen call her grumbling stomach after a late shift in the hospital, she ignores it as she leaves home, to spend her New Year’s alone. Kakashi’s inauguration will be taking place in the spring, leaving her lonelier for one friend. Naruto married Hinata, but the good thing is that her Master is going to share the Hokage seat and the office with Kakashi, the future Rokudaime.

The state of affairs is mingling constantly. Shikamaru and Temari are to be married soon, leaving Sakura, Chouji and Tenten the only single ones. As Sakura tramples the snow, she is lightly smiling about the fact that Sai is now a taken man, courtesy of her loud blonde friend.

The dark-skinned Kumo kunoichi is eyeing her chubby friend, so Sakura wonders how much will pass until only she and TenTen remain the only single ones who are not taken or married. TenTen will never get over Neji, the beautiful kunoichi training day after day, looking wistful at the weddings of her friends.

And Shino.

How did she forget Shino.

Her house awaits her like she left it, a bottle of wine in the cooler, perfectly clean. In some part of her brain, a strange loneliness appears and a wish for her apartment to be even messy or visited by someone is stronger than ever.

The fireworks will begin in an hour. It’s a New Year, after all. Another year of peace, without a pesky war or some other issue that would disrupt the Alliance. An ocassional missing-nin or a dramatic criminal who tries to make a name for themselves. Nothing special, really.

She takes the wine glass, filling it to the verge of spilling, slams the bottle down her throat instead. She doesn’t drink to get drunk – always had a too good of a tolerance for that – only for the sweet sourness on the back of her throat as she thinks about Uchiha Sasuke, the rebel, the shadow, a ghost of Konoha. Somebody who thanked her at the gates, seen only a few times after, breaking her heart over and over.

Thank you.

It meant;

I love you.

I’m sorry.

I will miss you a lot.

I am so lucky to have you.

She aches to tell him, no, to shout to him and to scream and yell and kiss and be prideful of, because I love you Sasuke!

Chugs the glass down. Pours another. Fireworks go off, and she doesn’t bother looking at them – just starts crying, and small, cold body is now overcome with sadness why am I like this she begs why am i so alone, and nobody screeches back to her.

She sobs, scared and small, and something whooshes past the cold air of the opened window – too fast for her to open her eyes and register it.

If he was an enemy, she’d be dead. But instead a gentle, calm hand guides her face upwards, to his, voice soft, yet raspy and deep as fresh as if it were straight from her memory.

“Wipe those tears.”

“Sasuke…” He stands before her, the dim room not doing him justice, his coat still covered in a small array of shiny snowflakes and afterthoughts of mud. He closes the window, murmuring something about her carelessness as she wipes her eyes harshly. “Sasuke-kun… you didn’t mention anything about visiting! Why now?”

“Hn. Do I need a reason to?”

“I guess not.” She whispers softly as he settles himself a few decimetres away from her. She physically aches to kiss him and hold him, ask him all about his journeys and other questions she has, there is too many…

“Why were you crying?” He is blunt and on point, piercing her expectantly – it hurts him to see her cry but alas, if she wants not to tell him he will respect that. “Haha, Sasuke-kun, how silly of me! I was just, crying for no reason! Maybe I have drunk too much…”

“You can choose not to tell me, but you don’t have to lie.” As always, defeat. Sakura can never deceive her black-haired companion. “I came to ask you something… very important. Can I?” He is overly cautious with this question, which is out of character for him.

“Of course, Sasuke, what is it?”

“Will you come to travel with me?”

Her heart stops. She has expected many things, but not this certainly. She is certain that yes of course she does but what about what Tsunade and Kakashi say? What about the hospital and-

“I know you are thinking about your duties in Konoha and such. But I have already spoken to those above you. They approve.”

She looks at him small and wide eyed, and breathes out a ‘yes’ because this night was such a rollercoaster for her – it was like out of a fairytale, the dark, cloaked figure strikes up the deal of the maiden’s life. Somehow, Sakura didn’t know if she was hallucinating because of the alcohol. She begged life not to.

“Then good. Pack yourself tomorrow, and I will sleep on the couch.”

He moves lithely, setting his cloak and boots away, settling away from her eyes, and before he can smooth out now shoulder length hair she begs, “Would you sleep next to me tonight?”

They look at each other impossibly long, Sasuke’s face seemingly passive as he nods. She jumps immediatelly to put away the wine and her glass as he murmurs about getting the bed ready. She is blushing furiously – they have kissed once, many things have happened, yet Sasuke always kept her waiting with the thank you, and as the words were not his way of showing love, he could not have said I love you more properly.

“Sasuke-kun, I’m ready to go to bed,” she declares once she is all dressed up, comfy pajamas covering her entirely, warm and fluffy as the blankets she will sleep in tonight. Sasuke is already perched casually, his lean form overwhelming her strangely as she is silent on the top of the matress. He shuts the lamp out and it starts being slightly uncomfortable from there.

Sakura fidgets as if someone put a stick in her butt, maybe closer to Sasuke, as if he was a magnet of the opposite pole. He flutters farther away, or perhaps even he gravitates closer? It doesn’t matter in the next moment since they are both starved for both physical contact of each other.

He drags her to himself, terribly so, so she is capable of feeling all his yearning and warmth – so when he murmurs the epic, earth-moving thank you in her heair she knows that his kindness is rare but more brilliant than a waterfall of diamonds. He murmurs more now than he talks through the day, speaks of his gratefullness and apologies. And wishes her a happy beggining of the upcoming year. Her heart full of him, as she leaves for the last boat to dreamland.