lavendersmiles:

SasuSaku Month 2017

Day 26: Hawkmail

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FFnet link 😀

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“Okay everyone, time to place your weekly letters on the desks of your classmates!”

The eight year olds rose from their seats and went around, leaving letters for everyone. Their teacher Iruka made it a classroom tradition. “Handwritten letters are still the best, children,” he told them at the beginning of the project. Every Friday, they would make one letter for each classmate. It could be about anything, and they all looked forward to it. They would use stationeries and stickers to decorate, and they have the entire afternoon to make them.

Seeing their desks piled up with colourful envelopes makes the children excited. Everyone made a promise to not look at letters not for them, or else they will not receive any letter for two weeks.

After everyone got the chance to give their written messages to each other, they went back to their seats and placed them inside their bags.

“Class dismissed. Have a nice weekend, everyone!”

Everyone went home, excited to read their letters. Haruno Sakura went up to her room and laid the letters on her bed. She first took the mail with a plain white envelope, as always. It’s her best friend’s mail, after all. She smiled at his trademark hawk stationery, but felt uneasy at his words.

.

.

Sakura,

Please meet me at the park at 5pm today.

Sasuke

.

.

It was short, like his usual letters, but it contained a sense of something bad she couldn’t name. After getting permission from her mother, she found him sitting at the swing. He was looking down, and he didn’t face her even when she sat on the swing beside him.

“What’s the matter, Sasuke-kun?”

When he did turn his attention to her, his eyes held unshed tears and such sadness Sakura felt her happy disposition gone.

“We’re moving away… far away… next week.”

Their little world crumbled. After the tears and whys, they promised to make the most of their time left together. As the dreaded day came, Sasuke handed her a letter, similar to all letters he’s given to her.

“Read it later, okay?”

Sakura was crying too hard to give a coherent reply. With one last hug, their paths separated. As she read his letter at the sidewalk, she tried to stop her tears from blurring her eyes.

.

.

Sakura,

I promise I’ll come back. I don’t know when, but I’m sure I will. Wait for me, okay? I will never forget you. We will always be under the same sky.

Sasuke.

.

.

She clutched it close to her heart, vowing as well to wait patiently for him. Sasuke never breaks a promise – she knows he’ll be back. It may take long, but the thought of being together outshined the pain.

.

.

.

Years later…

.

.

.

“I’m going now!”

“Wait, Sakura! There’s a letter for you that just came a while ago.”

She turned towards her mother who was handing her a white envelope. “Enjoy your first day in high school, okay?” the older Haruno cheered then gave her daughter a hug before going back to the kitchen.

“Hai,” she nodded absentmindedly. She looked at the letter in her hands. It feels strange, yet oddly it felt right. Nostalgia hit her hard and she opened her door, deciding to read it on her way to school. When she freed the piece of paper from its envelope, her heart skipped a beat.

It was the same hawk stationery her beloved Sasuke-kun used in his mails back in second grade.

It contained only one message, but she felt her face lit up with it.

.

Tadaima.

.

“Tadaima, Sakura.”

Sakura stiffened. That voice… felt hauntingly familiar. When she looked up she saw a guy around her age, tall with midnight black hair and aristocratic features. Definitely handsome. He had a soft smile on his face with his hands in his pockets. Her mind went blank for a moment, but when their gazes locked, everything fell into place.

.

She could never forget those pair of onyx orbs.

.

He spread out his arms, looking at her expectantly. With a small squeal, she rushed towards the man she missed the most and tackled him to a hug. Years of waiting finally ended – their promises fulfilled.

.

“Okaeri, Sasuke-kun.”

dezmari:

SasuSaku Month 2017
Day 26: Hawk Mail

Sasuke Uchiha is not a fan of the new emerging technology.
Naruto likes to pester him about it, how he can’t use a cellphone and he can,
he just doesn’t like to. There’s an intimacy lost in the technology, it loses
that personal touch that can only be transmitted by a more traditional form of
messaging.

Technology will never be able to recreate the creases in the
paper created by the hawk’s delivery. Or the elegant but somehow at the same time
messy handwriting that he recognizes as Sakura’s. It’ll never be enough to
transmit the feeling behind her words as she writes, with love, at the end of every letter and how her pen seems to have
hesitated at the last syllable, wanting to write more.

Occasionally there are tea stains on the letters, sometimes
coffee stains, and more rarely stains of food at the paper’s edge. It speaks of
exhaustion, a convoluted schedule or a messy eating companion.

Sometimes the letters are divided in sections, and because
of the almost unnoticeable differences in her writing he can tell she wrote it
in the span of a day or a week. Sometimes there’s a P.S. added as an afterthought, most of the times a tale of something
Sarada or Naruto did, these are things he knows she’d like to say to him in
person.

So when he messages Sakura he prefers the old fashioned way,
and holds her letters close to heart.

sasukesassthetic:

prompt: ssmonth17, day 26- hawkmail

summary: between the woods and frozen lake.

notes: enjoy ❤

the first letter came on a dead summer’s morning, as day broke on her windowsill. a brown hawk tapped dutifully at the glass; she had half a mind to toss a lamp at anything that disturbed her after a four-hour sleep just two hours before her shift at the hospital started. days were long amid these times of reconstruction. sakura hardly saw her boys, as everyone was tied up in the ins and outs of daily bureaucracy. naruto found himself day in and day out, stamping through mind-numbing policy right along kakashi-sensei, or rather, the rokudaime. sai sporadically would join her for quiet dinners, cups of tea. peace was a headache, though one she was grateful for, every day.

the bird sat in quiet nobility, awaiting his recipient to pull her lazy joints into place and draw herself from the bed. frowning deeply, she rubbed her eyes, and pulled back the window to greet the hawk. “ohayo,” she grumbled, pulling a slip of paper from the bird’s carrier fold. before she could spare any possible thanks, two great wings flapped and swept the messenger off into the morning breeze. sakura clicked her tongue at the abrasive nature of it all, muttering things about a glorified pigeon under her breath.

a jolt of partial surprise sent a wave of currents through her stomach, she leaned against the frame of her window. it wasn’t unheard of for sasuke to contact his teammates in the year he had been gone. regular reports to kakashi were expected, and the occasional notification of general health to naruto or herself was a courtesy. hell, he had even sent her rare teacakes from waterfall for her birthday. still, something about her name scrawled out in his neat pen made her palms sweat. she tore at the wax seal, a little too hastily, and tried not to devour its contents too quickly.

sakura, 

i received the medicinal pack you sent at the start of the season. It was addressed from the three of you, though I figured I’d thank the source. 

so, thank you.

sasuke

a heavy sigh fell from her lips at the close of the letter. she had forgotten about the package. the areas up north had been suffering large bouts of typhoid fever this season. worrying was her natural state, as her father always said. but boys as strong as sasuke were not impervious to illness; it was a preventative measure more than anything else. albeit, any form of contact with him these days, even if one-sided, comforted the small part within her that imagined his fingers against her forehead some nights; a gesture she told herself time and time again was platonic affection.

going about her morning ritual, she washed the anxiety from her brow, wiped the steam from the mirror, and took a look at herself. it wasn’t often they contacted himself outside the bounds of village matter, and even less often they heard back from him outside of necessity. sakura stared deep into her own expression, the slight glow of her eyes, the trace of an absent smile that she told herself wasn’t giddiness.

her letter would reach him at his next expected stop in Yuki. She kept it direct and succinct, as she figured he might appreciate.

dear sasuke,

i’m glad the pack reached you in time. by the time this gets to you, you’ll be in snow country. lucky duck. the snow was always my favorite. stay warm. protect your fingers and toes, please. frostbite is truly pesky. i’m sure you remember the time naruto almost lost a toe. what a mess.

wishing you warmth, 

sakura

---

it was about two weeks before sakura came to the conclusion that he wouldn’t respond. the disappointment was absent, just enough to give a small sigh each morning she opened the window, half wishing that damned hawk was plucking her out of her sleep. she was glad she hadn’t caved and mentioned it to naruto, or even ino for that matter. her self-pity party would be a small, private affair, candlelit, and accompanied by small doses of chocolate after she got off her shift. icha icha paradise is on at eight tonight, she noted absently one evening, kicking her shoes off by the door.

the incessant pecking started up at 8:17, just as the icha icha male lead and some nameless woman from a party climbed into bed. sakura threw the blanket off and clumsily threw the window open. the hawk looked up at her, blinking patiently, probably ready to set off on his next task. sakura sighed at the sight of the bird, reaching for his carrier fold, “we cannot keep meeting like this.” like clockwork, the creature gusted off into the night just as she retrieved the letter. settling back on the sofa, icha icha murmuring softly on the television, sakura traced her hands over her name in neat pen, a small smile tugging at her cheeks.

sakura,

medical facilities are far with few in between here, the pack has been useful. as for the frostbite, i have five fewer fingers to worry about than he did. i’ll manage.

sasuke

---

their correspondence was light and sporadic, like rains shifting up and down the plains. they talked about the weather, about the people and things he saw. sakura did her best to keep him up to date with things she decided he should know about: the budding-something between naruto and hinata, the number of babies she delivered that week (only if it was that impressive), or how many times she had to snatch icha icha out from behind a document kakashi swore he was reading. on his birthday, she sent him an oxblood scarf she had knit herself (and secretly wondered if he smelled it when he opened the box just as she would have done if roles were reversed). letters flew in and out, far into the year. it was late that autumn when the first invitation came.

sakura,

my time in snow country is coming to a close for now. the locals say we’re expecting the first real snow of the season next week. come see it.

sasuke

Well, she did need a day off.

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