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winterfang53 · 3 years

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Title: Like Gold

Summary: Sasuke grapples with love and intimacy regarding his developing relationship with Sakura after returning to the village from his journey of redemption. Kind of a character study on Sasuke handling an intimate relationship after dealing with PTSD and survivor’s guilt in solitude for so long. Blank period, canon-compliant, Sasuke-centric, lots of fluff and pining, slowly becomes a smut fest with feelings.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: M (eventual nsfw-ness)

AO3 Link - FF.net Link - includes ending author's notes

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Chapter 8/?: Grasping

Sasuke awakens abruptly, nausea clawing its way out of his throat like a soup of sepsis that’s been left percolating on a stovetop for too long, finally boiling over and soiling everything.

Stomach churning, he tries to aim it at the floor - he’s gotten better at doing that, over the years - but he doesn’t quite succeed. Hot bile, acidic with mostly digested dinner, coats the side of his bedding and part of his sleeve.

He coughs, gagging on acid and torment and hyperventilation. Then his stomach lurches again, and he turns to retch another round at the floor. Part of it floods his nostrils, stinging, and he rasps more.

That triggers another round, after which he waits a minute, sharp coughs punctuating the stillness, familiar at this point with what his stomach’s settling feels like. He shrugs off his shirt once it does, and makes his way to the kitchen, hacking on a foul aftertaste and vomit-inducing visuals flashing before his eyes.

A glance at the clock tells him it’s half past midnight as he gulps water, snorting in a manner very undignified to clear out his nasal passages and soothe the putrid taste overwhelming his insides. Then he chokes more of it down, feeling the beginnings of a pounding headache.

There are times when having a near photographic memory is not a good thing. He is very tired of recalling crackling electricity, of stumbling over body after body with lifeless eyes. Men, women, children, all with charcoal irises like his.

And teammates, with irises decidedly not like his, luster flattened to single dull colors.

And himself, at the end, deranged and dispiteous, standing where Itachi had stood a long time ago, looming over remains as if he himself is the final obstacle to defeat before it just ends, the culminating villain in some fucked up fable. All at once, he’s a child again, gagging on a demented form of truth, left to stew there for years and years and years, rotting him from the inside out.

He's noxious. He knows he is. He wishes he could spit himself out along with partially digested yakitori.

Sasuke takes another sip of water as his vision blurs, trying desperately to focus on the wood grain of the cabinets and not daring to close his eyes, lest another flash snake its way into his ocularity and undo the mild soothing the water is providing. He coughs again, throat raw. Then his mouth starts watering, a telltale sign that he’s going to throw up again, so he walks carefully to the bathroom, bottle in hand and trying not to jostle his stomach more than is necessary. Switching on the light and flipping up the seat of the toilet, he makes it just in time.

This round it’s mostly just water, and it burns a little less. The murky brown color he’s faced with seems very reflective of what he feels inside, ignominy and wretchedness and self-loathing, no substance at all, just a bitter aftertaste of that which was left behind on a wood floor a lifetime ago. There had been saliva then, too, seeping from his mouth to the floor in his cowardice.

He swallows once, a gargantuan effort. Then he takes another sip of water, studying the text on the label to try to distract himself, vile and unsettled as he is.

He doesn’t deserve Sakura, not after what he’s done. When his vision starts to blur again, he can’t read anymore anyway, so he looks at the mangled mess left of his left arm instead.

He deserves that, a maiming to fit the crime. He wishes he were a better man.

Slowly so as not to further disturb his stomach, he lies down sideways, pressing his cheek to the coolness of the floor. He feels disconnected from everything, at a loss for proper coherent thought, a mess of misery sprawled on a tile too clean for his own rancidness.

Nothing matters for a long time. He just stares into nothingness, a mild burning in his throat and eyes on a void of pure white that he doesn’t belong in, thinking about how it matches the skin tone of bodies that have been drained of all their color. It’s like he’s barely there, nothing seeming real except the hollow feeling in his chest and the buzzing sensation tempering the edge of his consciousness, like his brain has been stuffed with cotton but parts of it are burning away to nothing. Everything of substance singes away in a controlled burn, destined to always have gaping holes of meaning scorched away at random wherever the fire takes hold.

He doesn't know if there ever even was anything in the first place, deep down. Maybe corrosion is a terrible metaphor, because what's left, at the end of it? Layers and layers of useless shale and sandstone and limestone, packed atop Precambrian filth that’s been decaying there for what feels like centuries. Or magma, set to burn anything he touches.

Or electrocute it.

XXX

Suddenly it’s hours later, and a bird is chirping outside, twitters resounding through a metaphysical tunnel of distortion. Gradually it shifts into an audio that doesn’t sound quite as echoed, accentuated by light filtering in through the miniscule bathroom window.

This happens, sometimes, the nightmares and the absconding into abeyance where his brain seems to shut off, a resulting loss of significant chunks of time. Not sleeping, just staring at something dully for a while, stuck on the same cycle of repeating thought. The memorial stone is a trigger for it, he thinks. It’s why he dreaded going there, upon his return, although it's complicated. Occasionally, visiting it seems to bring feelings that are almost positive, where it feels like he’s reaching out to reclaim tiny shattered shards of what used to be his heart. Mostly, though, it’s just mourning. The reading of names may be what compels the worst of them; sometimes he thinks if he looks too long, he’ll learn things he doesn’t want to know.

Exhausted, he drags himself to his feet and begins wryly picking up the pieces, chest hurting from heaving. He throws his bedding and his shirt haphazardly into the washing machine, drowning them in soap before he grabs cleaner to do the same to his floors.

It smells disgusting, like it’s been petrifying in his stomach for years. He supposes that makes sense; a lot of things have.

Once the surface is clean, he gets in the shower, not caring that all of the hot water is being used for the laundry; the icy cold helps wake him up. He’s fatigued, lethargic, but he knows better than to try to go back to sleep at this point.

As he fights shivers in the towel afterwards, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looks awful. Pale and sickly, repulsive, purple sallow staining his skin the same color as the Rinnegan. His normal eye is bloodshot, vacant charcoal that pollutes everything it touches. He lets the black of his hair shift over his Rinnegan eye in a manner he's well accustomed to by now.

His remaining eye inches to the corner of the mirror, the front of the medicine cabinet.

He carefully procures a cough drop, and then makes sencha tea, hoping the caffeine will dull his headache. There’s a part of him that still feels like he’s hardly there, like he’s a ghost just going through the motions. When he takes a sip, it feels good on the throat, but the vomiting earlier has partially singed away the surface of his tongue; he hardly tastes it.

Sasuke then takes the photo from when they were Genin to the living room, grasping onto it for dear life in more ways than one. He alternates between studying it and gazing out the glass, to the cherry blossom tree across the street.

An hour passes, slowly, sitting there thinking about what he does and doesn’t deserve, a mess of thoughts swirling down the drain of his mind. Then another. The luminescence of the day begins trickling in more, green buds across the street gaining back their pigment.

He’s not sure if he should even go to Sakura’s still, because he feels like he’s going to make even worse company today than he usually does, as tired as he is. But he’s weak, and he selfishly wants her; there’s an equanimity only she can provide, the swingback of a pendulum briefly through a sense of normalcy, and he needs the chance to look into jade eyes, to see the light hit them, to ascertain that the chatoyancy has not been dulled. And she’s not dead, despite his inner psyche screaming at him that she would be, had Naruto or Kakashi arrived just a second later. He needs to thank them for that, when he gets the chance, though the timing has never felt right to bring it up.

And he loves her. He's not sure if his love is worth anything, contemptible as he is, but it’s the main reason he can make sense out of the absolute mess that is his inner thought process this morning. So he goes.

XXX

It helps. He’s enormously exhausted, and the light of day hurts his eyes, even once he’s inside and is only absorbing its rays from the diamond window, but it helps.

“Sasuke-kun,” she greets in a voice like honey as she opens her door to him, dimple on open display. She really is so lovely, multi-faceted jade sparking with life that nearly instantly calms some of his anxiety.

He is briefly concerned about what he looks like to her, today. He checked prior to coming over here, brushing his teeth thrice in the hopes that his breath wouldn’t be bad, that he could drench his innards in enough clarifying mint to be even remotely deserving of a small amount of her affection. His eye was a little less bloodshot at that point, but overall he still looked like hell, sickly and pallid.

“Sakura,” he murmurs in response, voice hoarse from being put through a ringer of his own making.

There is a prolonged moment in which she examines him, wearing an analytical expression that reminds him of clinician Sakura. Then the spell is broken, as if she’s forcibly turned that part of herself off, and she’s stepping aside and telling him softly, “Come in! I made onigirazu.”

He steps inside her entryway, setting his book on the console table momentarily beside where Hazel Wood lies, ready to be returned. He then shifts out of her way so he can remove his shoes. He’s not particularly hungry, but he’s glad it’s something fairly simple and heavy on the rice; he should be able to eat it fine.

He follows her inside, appreciating the subdued luminosity of her lamps along the way. The blankets are already laid out on the couch, a promise of simple warmth and companionship that he is very much looking forward to.

As his eye adjusts and he enters the kitchen, ready to grab a plate, his gaze locks on remnants of sliced tomatoes atop a cutting board he recognizes, though it’s familiar to him from his own apartment, not hers.

It’s exactly the same design as the one Naruto gifted him.

A fire roars to life in his ribcage as he freezes for a split second, an exhausted icy hot appreciation. It’s an implication that means the world to him, and particularly well timed.

She wants him around, to help prepare future meals.

“I put some sliced tomatoes in yours. I hope it’s okay,” Sakura says as she hands him a plate, not addressing the elephant in the room at all, as if she just needed a new cutting board and happened to pick up that one, though he knows that cannot possibly be the case; he'd seen at least two in her cupboard, before. “Would you like tea, or maybe some water?”

He nods stiffly, vision a bit blurry, then comprehends the second question.

“Water is fine,” he manages thickly.

They sit in front of her window, supple sunshine streaming in. It’s not too bright here, angled just right.

“...How was your morning?” He asks after taking a sip of water, voice still gravelly. He is beyond content to be sitting here, just looking at her, so much better than a picture.

“Good. Ino and I walk or jog in the early morning on Sundays, if it's nice. Hinata comes sometimes; she did today.” She chews a bite of her rice sandwich.

Sasuke blinks; she hasn’t mentioned that yet. Another chunk of her schedule falls into place. “...Where?”

A half smile blooms on her lips, dimple pushed into being. “Sometimes we run laps around the village, but usually there's no real destination; we just walk and visit.” She takes a sip of her own water. “It’s nice when Hinata comes; it tones Ino down a notch.”

He would snort, if he was in a different sort of mood.

“We went to the southeast part of town today,” she continues. “Ino wanted to see a new building they put up. Her mom has a big order of flowers to deliver there later this week.”

Flowers. In the chaos of the night he’s had, lily bulbs fell to the wayside of his mind.

Sasuke carefully takes the first bite of his own food. It’s good, as he expected; a mixture of salmon, tomato, and salted rice, simple enough to hopefully help settle his stomach. He can kind of taste it.

He chews slowly, reverently, alternating between eating and taking small sips of water as she chatters animatedly. “The flower shop's orders are really taking off now. Ino’s usually busiest once May comes. Hopefully things stay peaceful, so she can stay in the village for the most part; her mom can always use the extra help.”

They wash and dry the dishes together, afterwards, a routine that is beginning to feel familiar. She still doesn’t say anything about the cutting board, but Sasuke greatly appreciates the way it feels in his hand when she gives it to him, weighty and with a designated home under her roof. It slides into place easily in the cupboard with the two others.

They read for a while on her couch again, wrapped in their respective blankets; Sakura keeps her apartment fairly cool. It’s cozy in a way that makes his head feel funny, like he could fall asleep in minutes if he really tried, lulled by the soothing scent of berry and cleanliness. He wonders if it would be restful, if he did. Usually once enough time ellipses, well into the next day, his brain cuts him some slack, though it could be that he's just too exhausted from being up most of the night for the neurons to fire up again to such a frenzy.

Sasuke finishes the last chapter of his book sluggishly and contemplates the ending, a lengthy description of the fisherman gripping the solid railings of the dock with both hands as he comes ashore for the first time in months.

When he flicks his gaze to Sakura tiredly, she’s a third of the way through a new book, titled Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections. It appears to be a memoir; he assumes it must be one she’s purchased, as it doesn’t have the library label. Perhaps it’s new, picked up this morning while she was out, or it could be one from her bookshelves. He would like to peruse the titles she has, sometime. He drowsily wonders which war it’s about.

He takes a careful breath and just revels in it, being here with her, mere feet away with his eyes closed but able to sense her presence, worn out with thoughts that have edges as frayed as he is. He would like to stay for dinner, too. He thinks it’s perhaps becoming implied that they’ll eat together if she doesn’t have other plans, but he doesn’t want to be rude or overstay his welcome.

Sasuke hopes he can stay awake. Maybe he shouldn’t have said no to tea earlier; the additional caffeine might have helped. He could offer to make them both some, he thinks fuzzily, but then he starts wondering if that would be odd or overstepping. It’s her tea, and her kitchen, and her cups.

Then he sleepily remembers the cutting board.

“You can take a nap, you know,” Sakura murmurs kindly, soft words echoing a little in the stillness of her space. “If you’re tired. I don’t mind.”

He blinks his eyes open, vision adjusting as he realizes he nearly dozed off.

She’s smiling from the other end of the couch. “I can make dinner later, and wake you up when it’s ready. You should rest until then.” She pauses, then adds, “I can grab you a better pillow from my room, if you want.”

His brain catches up to his auditory processing, and then his ears warm.

Oh.

The offer is tempting, though he doesn’t want to be rude. If it were any other day, he would force himself to stay awake, to spend more time with her. But it’s not any other day, and he’s drained, enervated in a way that makes him want to give in. He should ask, to make sure it’s okay, but he’s pretty sure she wouldn’t offer if it wasn’t.

“...Here?”

A flush inks its way onto her cheeks as her expression turns thoughtful. “Yes. Or... you can use my bed, if you want.”

Sasuke forces his gaze away from hers, because his face feels extremely warm all of the sudden. “...I meant… here, at your apartment.”

“Oh.” Sakura laughs in a way that sounds nervous; he hears her fiddling with the book in her lap. “I, um… just meant whatever’s most comfortable.”

When he hesitantly looks back to her, she’s red, too.

“...What will you do?”

She gestures with her hand in a waving motion to indicate it's fine. “I can read, or do some laundry or work stuff. It’s no trouble. Really, Sasuke-kun.” Her blush deepens. "...I would like you to stay… And to have dinner later. If you’re free."

He swallows before slowly nodding his acquiesce, and then Sakura is up and heading to her bedroom in a blink of mismatched eyes. Muffled footsteps pad back moments later, a pillow with a lavender pillowcase clutched in her hands.

Her bedding must be a variant of violet, then, a pastel contrast to the black of his own. He is curious about the color of her bedroom walls all over again, but then she’s handing him the pillow, and he’s too tired to continue thinking.

“...Thank you.”

The smile she wears is so soft, treasured. “You’re welcome.”

He’s out within a few minutes of laying his head on the pillow, drowsing eyes barely catching the lamps flickering off one by one as she meanders around her space.

The pillow smells like her, too, cogent in its beckoning. He sleeps like a rock.

XXX

Sakura nudges him awake hours later, leaning forward to rest her upper body against the back of the couch. The scent of miso and roasted tomatoes drifts into his nostrils while lively jade peers down at him. The light coming from her window has dimmed quite a bit. It must be well into the evening; she let him sleep for a while.

“Dinner’s ready,” she murmurs softly, wearing an expression that is incredibly fond.

He stretches slightly as he rises from her sofa, working out a crick in his shoulder and thinking that he feels much more rested. Sasuke is about to head to her kitchen to get his own bowl, until Sakura turns towards the table, and he sees that she's already set out food for both of them, green market light switched on overhead.

There's onigiri, too, and a steaming cup of sencha placed on his side that he's sure is decaffeinated.

His side.

The realization, albeit a good one, disarms him.

He has a side of her table. And a side of her couch.

Sakura recites a story Hinata told her this morning as they eat, about how Naruto initially buried every single flower bulb in their garden beds six inches deep instead of reading the directions, so they had to dig everything up and salvage the instructions on the package from the trash to replant.

“He mixed them all together, too, instead of planting them in sections like a normal person.” She laughs, and his lips turn upwards in shared amusement. “She said she hopes they didn’t miss one. Iris and echinacea can sometimes multiply out of control. She was happy she didn’t add bee balm to the list, too, or they’d really be in trouble; those can grow anywhere, even in gravel.”

The soup and tea feel good on his throat, and the rice is filling in a way that would be difficult to throw up, absorbent of moisture and chunking together to expand in his stomach until he is full, in more ways than one.

He can taste again, the richness of tomato and miso and calming ubiquitous green on his tongue and in his heart, thoughts of flowers and their idiot teammate helping to cast aside his earlier melancholy.

Sasuke loves her so much in that moment that it physically aches, her voice a balm that puts the rawest parts of him at ease.

"Thank you," he says quietly at the conclusion of the meal, grateful in ways he's not sure he'll ever be able to put into words.

Her response is simple, gentle, pure. “You’re welcome.”

As they wash and dry the dishes together in the dim light of her kitchen, Sakura tells him softly, “I put leftovers in containers for you in the fridge. Please take them with you tonight.”

He nods as his eyes sting with appreciation. When he turns to put away the teacups, he blinks to clear them as she wipes down the sink one last time for the evening.

As she sorts through her movie selection afterwards - it’s her turn to pick - he asks, “How is the poison antidote coming?”

Sakura glances at him curiously for a second from where she’s perched on the wood floor, rifling through the lower cabinet. “I think we might have it solved. Blarina toxin from a southern short-tailed shrew, and then possibly lionfish toxin, laced with algal bloom cyanobacteria. The lionfish toxin is part of the trouble; it’s such a trace amount that it was hard to identify, not enough to cause swelling on the exterior body like you’d see if you were stung by one in person. We’re still running tests, but the neutralization seems to be working on the mice so far.” She blanches a little. “Or, rather, the mice we have left. It’s diminished our stocks; shrew venom is particularly deadly to them.”

Sasuke knew it was likely to kill several of them, but not quite to that extent. He’s interested in her work, so he asks, “How many?”

She turns back to sift through her cabinet as she answers, pulling out another movie to examine. “A gland-full of venom is potent enough to kill up to two hundred of them. It’s why it took us longer than usual; we had to give them the absolute tiniest dose in order to not kill them within hours. I guess it makes sense; they’re one of the things they eat in the wild. The dose in the poison sample was high, though, venom from multiple shrews. A single bite usually isn’t enough to do any harm to humans, but when it’s quadrupled in dosage and laced with other things, it’s more severe.”

“...What’s the treatment?”

Sakura rattles off the extremely complex answer as if it’s nothing. “An antihistamine, steroid, botulinum toxin, and an antibiotic. We’re also giving them blood transfusions and flushing out the blood as it comes to the exterior machine, to get rid of the cyanobacteria. Kind of like conventional water treatment… just more complicated. More steps, filtration, and obviously we can’t use chlorine, so it takes longer.”

Sasuke blinks somewhat in awe. She really is so intelligent.

“...That sounds lengthy.”

She shrugs, movie still in hand. “It is. It’s why we’re not one hundred percent sure if we’ve solved it yet; the lionfish venom is still the weak link, and will be until we can see that the other portions of the treatment have worked to isolate it.”

“...I’d like to learn the process.”

A smile plays at her lips and a flush inks its way onto her cheeks. He supposes it was a roundabout sort of compliment; he could have worded it better, but she seems to have understood him anyway. She does about a lot of things, he thinks.

“I can bring home a kit, sometime, and teach you the basics. It could be useful.”

He nods; he would like that.

There is a long pause as Sakura bites her lip before further examining the movie case in her hand.

Then, she asks, a tentative expression on her face and peeking at him to gauge his reaction, “Want to watch a bad one?”

Sasuke wonders if she knows he would watch any movie with her, if it means he gets to be in her company like this, saved from a room with white tiles or dark wood.

“...Sure.”

She wasn't exaggerating; it is truly terrible, riddled with plot holes so nonsensical that it’s almost funny. The acting is bad, too, though perhaps that’s more to blame on the script rather than the actors.

“Even the camera work is awful,” Sakura says at one point, gesturing towards the left side of the screen. “If you look in the background here, there’s an extra that just… walks into the wall.”

He watches, and sure enough, behind the main characters, a girl walks directly into a corner and just stands there.

He snorts, genuinely enthused in a manner he would not have thought possible hours ago. Sakura laughs at the other end of the couch. It’s a sound he could listen to forever, sweet and chiseled into his heart.

They play an extensive round of go afterwards, venturing well into the night with the plinking of small pieces into place. It’s nearly eleven when she finally walks him to her doorway, two containers of tomato miso soup and onigiri in her hands. As he pulls on his shoes, Sakura sets them by his library book on the console table.

“Would you want to read tomorrow afternoon?” She asks as he rises to his full height.

He nods. “...I’ll meet you here.”

Her dimple makes a reappearance. “One fifteen?”

He inclines his head again in agreement, then decides to ask. It’s becoming easier, now that she has said yes so many times.

“Dinner, after?”

Her smile widens. “Of course. I was thinking gyudon. Light on the sugar. You could…” She bites her lip and shifts a bit. “...You could help me cook, if you’d like.”

Something turns over in his belly. “...Okay.”

She glows at him. He swallows once before reaching out to skim her freckle, enjoying the feel of her cheek against the pad of his thumb.

And then her fingers against his fingers, holding him there against her cheek, soft and steady.

Then he leans down, and his lips are on hers, a breath exhaled in unison as her entryway falls away. Her free hand twists around his neck, delicately brushing the fabric and a fraction of his skin in a way that nearly makes him shiver. It’s a long moment of quietus, a finishing stroke to a day that could have gone very differently.

It is also the longest kiss they’ve shared yet, and it is over far too soon.

He’s pulling away to look at her, letting his hand drop away, when she wraps her arms tenderly around him.

He can hardly breathe, taken off guard by the absolute sensation of comfort he’s enveloped in.

She doesn’t say a thing; just hugs him tight, her fingertips spreading across his back and face pressed to his sternum. Berry invades his olfactory senses.

Slowly he lifts his arm to carefully return the hug, swallowing a tender sort of truth, a kind that goes down easy, the evidence and action of her affection. He can feel Sakura’s heartbeat against his chest, a tempo teeming with life.

They stand there together in her entryway for a long time.

XXX

He sleeps wrapped in a clean comforter, and though it’s not for very long, it is dreamless.

He’s eating leftover onigiri when he receives a mission summons, barely past seven in the morning. He finishes his meal and pops a cough drop in his mouth before departing for the Hokage’s office.

It’s a nice day, he thinks as he walks, coming to a decision as he admires vernal greenery lining the streets. The sun is just lifting over the horizon, painting everything pale amber.

“Sasuke,” Kakashi greets as he walks in; he’s the first one there again, apparently. “Good morning.”

“Kakashi.”

Their old sensei smiles at him in the strange all-seeing manner he has. Sasuke notes the presence of a new picture frame present on his desk, replacing the one he’s given him.

He is extremely grateful to have that picture to grip onto in his darker moments. Sasuke considers thanking him then, for Iron, but then Naruto is barreling in noisily.

“Whaizzit?” He yawns raucously, as if he just woke up, sleep still clinging to the corners of his eyes. They are multi-faceted, too, even in their barely aware state, and Sasuke inwardly breathes a sigh of relief, normalcy shifting fully back into place as the door clicks behind his teammate.

Then Naruto registers that Sasuke is present. “Eh? Teme?!” Cerulean scans the room as if he’s searching for something, then he frowns, directing a lengthy glare Kakashi’s way.

“If you've called me here at seven in the fucking morning for anything that isn’t a Team Seven reunion mission, I’m going to lose it.”

Ah. He was looking for Sakura.

“Afraid not,” Kakashi answers cryptically from his desk, and Naruto’s sleepy glare tightens. Then the Hokage smiles, as if something is incredibly amusing. "Guard duty. Kotetsu and Izumo deserve a break. Things are slow this week, and we have the extra numbers.”

The copy ninja skillfully dodges Naruto’s sandal as it flies towards him. “You’ve got to be kidding. You woke me up for this? You could have told me later in the day or something!!”

“Future Hokages don’t receive special treatment, and it’s professional to give more than twenty-four hours notice if possible.”

Naruto grumbles. "All week?"

Kakashi grins. "Tuesday through Friday."

Inwardly, Sasuke twitches.

"I should specify; nine to six, Tuesday through Friday."

Outwardly, Sasuke twitches.

It's not exactly her work schedule for all four days, but it lines up closely enough that it's fairly obvious what Kakashi’s doing.

Naruto barely reacts; just snorts in a way that is caustic, as if he finds the times unsurprising. "Cool. Can I go back to sleep until it’s time to kick teme’s ass now? Hinata-chan and I were cozy."

Sasuke rolls his eyes; when they spar in the mornings, it’s typically between eight and nine. He’ll have around an hour's extra sleep at best, though he supposes he’s not in any position to judge at this point, given his nap on Sakura’s couch yesterday.

Kakashi’s smile widens, mask wrinkling. "Sure. Dismissed."

They both watch on in faint amusement as Naruto stumbles sleepily out of his office, neglecting to collect his missing shoe.

“...Some things never change,” the Hokage murmurs, sighing.

“...No, they don’t.”

“Well, anyways, before you go…” Kakashi turns to him, tapping the pen at his desk absentmindedly. “How are things?”

Sasuke blinks, recalling leftovers and a new cutting board and the feeling of Sakura’s arms around him.

And kissing. Mostly kissing. Probably too much, if his neck’s sudden warmth is anything to go by.

“Good.”

A lone visible eye crinkles at the corners. “Great. Don’t hesitate to let any of us know if you need anything.”

He lets the words hang in the air for an extended few seconds before nodding slowly.

"I was thinking…” Kakashi continues, gaze flicking down to the photograph on his desk. “...Perhaps we could make Team Seven dinners a monthly thing. It would be good, don’t you think?"

“...Yeah.”

A dark eye locks on him again. "Sai could come, too."

Ah.

"...Sure." He really should make an effort to get to know him better. His replacement seems nice enough, peculiar as he is.

"Wonderful. Let's plan on the first Saturday of every month at six, shall we? If we're all in the village, that is. I’ll let him know when I call him in later this morning."

“Okay.”

A long moment passes, then Kakashi is procuring the shoe from the area behind his desk. Sasuke notes that he holds it as far away from him as his arm will allow.

“...I don’t suppose you’d return this, when you see him later?”

Sasuke says nothing.

“...Though I suppose I could assign it as a mission to some Genin.” Then he's sighing, setting it on the farthest edge of Naruto’s work area. “Too bad I just gave an assignment to my last two.”

Shooting him a withering look, Sasuke departs the Hokage’s Office. He gets the distinct feeling as he goes that Kakashi is incredibly pleased with himself, solidified by what he calls after him.

“Tell Sakura I say hi.”

Guard duty is easy in theory, but spending thirty six hours with the dobe may be… a challenge. He supposes if the reward is being able to see Sakura after she works most of those days, he'll take it. He's sure Kakashi won't keep him in the village forever; eventually duty will call him away for extended periods of time.

It solidifies his decision; he should take the opportunity of being here to plant something.

He stops by the market vendor on the northern end to buy two packages of lily bulbs on his way home. The market is fairly slow, so there are few other people around.

The packages feel good in his hand, lighter than he expected.

Sasuke works through a section of one of his other books before Naruto shows up on his doorstep, still appearing for all intents and purposes half asleep. Their spar ends in another draw; luckily there are no cracked bones this time.

He eats more leftovers for lunch after, appreciating the taste.

XXX

Sasuke feels at home in Sakura’s kitchen, cutting scallions easily while she broils beef and prepares the egg mixture for gyudon just a few steps away. The meal comes together quickly between the two of them, savory with a sauce that is heavier on the mirin and sake than the sugar.

Food they prepare together somehow tastes even better. It’s late when they finally sit down to eat dinner, gazing out through glass at the streets below as they take their first bites.

The sauce is perfect; not too sweet.

“...I have guard duty this week,” he mentions after a while.

“With who?” She asks, though her lips twitch upwards.

He rolls his eyes. “...Guess.”

She bites her lip, and he tears his gaze away from her mouth and up to her eyes. The green is filled with mirth, twinkling with illuminated flecks.

“Good luck,” she says sincerely. “What times?”

He glances away, ears warming and wondering if Kakashi has mentioned anything to her about them being… together.

“Tomorrow through Friday, nine to six.”

There is a long pause. When he peeks back at her, she’s blushing.

“...Kakashi-sensei is nosy.” Sakura takes another bite of her food, looking shy for some reason, and suddenly Sasuke is certain that their sensei has said something to her, perhaps on multiple occasions. He wonders what.

“...He is.” He thinks, then adds as an afterthought, “...He says hi.”

They do the dishes together and play two rounds of chess. Sakura wins once, and the second round is another stalemate, though he suspects he was close to beating her.

It’s close to nine by the time they’re putting the board away. As he works on packing up the last of the pieces to store in their allocated compartment, he notices she’s gazing out the window, scanning the sky as if distracted.

The way she’s angled puts the freckle on her cheek in plain view, pale hair loosely tucked behind her ear.

Then she turns to him, pink flooding her complexion, and Sasuke realizes he’s been staring, the remaining few pieces still clutched in his hand, frozen in midair in his distraction. He hastily finishes putting them away as his own face warms. Sakura rises from the table to put the box away, footsteps echoing softly through her living space.

He looks outside quizzically for a moment, embarrassedly trying to will the color away from his face and wondering what she was looking at outside. It’s a clear evening, calm without a cloud in sight.

"I was wondering if…"

His vision snaps to her expectantly across the room, and her cheeks flush darker; he can see it even though it’s dimly lit, shifting from one foot to the other. She seems nervous.

"If you would maybe want to… go stargazing for a bit tonight?"

His pulse quickens, pushing at the seams of chambers and ventricles in a way that makes it feel like the vines have twisted their way in, taking hold of whatever they can clutch.

She apparently does still like that sort of thing.

And she wants to go with him.

He nods immediately, struck speechless with elation before he manages to form the question, "...Where?"

Her expression is one of relief. "I was thinking just outside the village. There’s…” She looks away, smiles. “There’s a place Ino and I go to sometimes; we went today for a bit, after training. There are wild lilacs blooming right now.” She shifts her gaze to him again. “It's supposed to be a little cooler, but the sky’s clear. We could bring tea in a thermos; I have two."

Heat creeps up his neck as he agrees, heart stammering in his chest a little, because he’s started thinking about it now, and stargazing together is very clearly romantic in nature, amongst flowers even more so.

Sakura brews tea for the both of them as he distracts himself by slicing a lemon for hers. When he glances at her surreptitiously, she’s still blushing, and jade eyes snap away as if this time she’s the one that’s been caught staring. That makes his heart pound, to the extent that he’s glad she’s a few feet away, because it’s so loud that she might hear it.

They meander to the edge of the village as evenfall settles, into the forested area just beyond the gates. As Sasuke trails behind her, divagating through subtly flattened pathways between the trees, his thoughts wander to bygone seasons.

There once was a pond, three quarters of a mile outside of the village, beyond where the Uchiha District used to be. It wasn’t officially a part of their grounds, but it was remote enough that it wasn’t easily happened upon by anyone other than their family, off the beaten path and through thicket and thistle as it was.

Itachi used to take him fishing there.

He thinks they’d gone four or five times in all, but he remembers it well, because he had been terrible at fishing, not a shred of patience. His brother caught most of them, but he would sometimes set the hook before passing off the reel to Sasuke to help him learn. It was quiet, peaceful in the way that only the wilderness is, away from the pressures of expectations. Wildflowers poked up everywhere in the later summer months, situated on a hill towards the far side of the pond. They picked some together for their mother, once; Sasuke clutched them in his hands while they made the trek back to the village, Itachi carrying their bucket of perch and bass.

It was nice in the autumn, too, warm tones flooding everything. One could sit in the swaying overgrowth flush with falling leaves for hours taking it all in and still not see it all, an overwhelmingly pure sense of peace, made heartier by the taste of freshly grilled fish later in the evening.

The walk had seemed like it took forever back then, on short legs looking upward. He’s never returned to that place, not once, since he was eight. It would hurt too much, for different reasons now than when he was twelve.

He remembers passing wild lilacs then, too, on the way there and back. He supposes they probably thrive in the chaparral throughout Fire Country, if one cares to traipse through the foliage to look for them. He stumbled upon many on his journey, just passing through on roads less traveled.

The small clearing Sakura leads them to reminds him of the pond a little, wild and flush with fading hues, framed by fragrant lilacs in bloom as she said, but there are no memories tied to it yet, so it’s better. Huge bushes of them grow unaided here, wispy purple redolence scattered by the wind into the earth's cracks, ushered in by whispers through the trees.

The wilds are not so far from Konoha, really. Like the cherry blossom tree on the hill, it's a good reminder that some things can grow easily even on rougher terrain.

Sasuke sits rather close to her, so they can drink their tea together. The sun slips just below the horizon, a cloudless sky awash in a shifting gradient. He catches jade as he takes a drink, appreciating the taste, a small bit of warmth on a cool night.

The way she’s looking at him makes his heart rate accelerate again, a serene expression that implies there is nothing she would rather be doing right now than be here.

With him.

Eventually stars begin inking into existence overhead one by one, the last bit of sun lingering just on the horizon, a muted blur of violet bleeding into black. Things are slightly clearer here, beyond the boundaries of the village, no glass or light pollution to obscure the retinas.

Once she finishes her tea, Sakura lies down the same way she does on the hill, so he does, too, trying to calm his heart rate, because he is very close to her, just within reach. The forest breathes around them, coating everything in a lilac perfume.

He used to think about her, when he looked to the stars, feeling worlds away and wondering if she thought of him that day. Being next to her is better, revered, the calm din of an evening he has craved for a long time.

When he turns to steal a look, her eyes are already on him, and there is something about that moment, as the last light fades, being here with her, that makes his chest go aflame.

And then Sakura turns slightly, reaching out towards him with her right hand, and he blinks.

She sweeps his hair away from his Rinnegan eye, a thumb gently skimming his cheek as he has hers, before her hand falls away. Though they are cloaked in the gloaming of dusk’s darkness, enough he hopes to hide the warmth that has crept into his face, there is adequate light left to see her expression, so tender, jade eyes desaturated to dark sage.

He feels seen in a way that he hasn’t felt before, recalling soft words in an exam room.

Not me.

The sky is fully lit in short order, beautiful and dark with only a tiny sliver of the moon visible. It is truly lovely, Ursa Major, Leo, and Hydra scattered before them like a painting a million years old, ageless messengers traveling from who knows where, as he did. It took many steps to get here to her, scattered revolutions passing wide arcs around the sun, yearning for a day to close the gap, to feel like he was close to ready.

It was worth every single one.

A question is on the tip of his tongue, so he decides to ask it, to give in to the impulse.

“...Any poems?” He wants to learn the words she likes, what kinds of meaning she applies to things, intelligent as she is. Sasuke imagines the inner workings of Sakura’s mind to be quite complex, teeming with all of the things she’s read, research and fiction and nonfiction. He would like to know her favorite pieces of poetry, what she holds dear in her own heart.

She shifts slightly; he thinks she must be looking at him for a split second.

There is a lengthy silence punctuated by crickets before she finally answers, “A short one,” voice hushed like the breeze around them; if he wasn’t so close to her, he wouldn’t be able to hear.

He shifts his gaze to her on his right, barely able to make out her silhouette in the dark.

“Take notice of what light does - to everything.”

The words sink into him like rain on freshly tilled soil, triggering a bricolage of recollections. Instantly he is reminded of light through the window of his bathroom, stirring him from a pit of self doubt and guilt. Then light through the windows of Sakura’s apartment, cooking and doing the dishes together in her kitchen. A nap, comfortable on her couch as day fades into dusk, lamps switched off for a period of much needed rest. Flowers, grown by a doorstep with the sun’s rays seeping in through diamond patterning. The shadow of a jasmine plant, inked onto her cheekbone, and neon lights reflectant atop pale pink hair.

The intricate stitching of an uchiwa fan, thread catching iridescence as she holds it daintily in her hands as if it is something important, to be cherished.

Her eyes when she is happy, hints of gold flecks, catching like fractals of color atop shifting seafoam.

The way white nephrine lilies looked drenched in sunlight, on days that are decidedly not summer monsoons.

Stars are a form of light, too, and despite being far away, they are refulgent in their luminosity, a beauty that cuts through murk and offers much for contemplation; the gaps of darkness between them are what allows people to make meaning out of them, constellations strewn together.

He is home, surrounded by spring. It is something to behold.

“...Did you write letters to Naruto?” Sakura asks after a lengthy period of reflection, so softly that her voice is almost a whisper.

The concept is so ridiculous to him that he would snort, if not for the moment they are sharing right now and the way she asked it, no hint of a joke in her tone.

So he answers seriously, just as quietly. “No.”

There is a long pause.

“...And Kakashi-sensei?”

Ah. He understands what she’s really asking. “...Other than missions, no.”

It’s hard to tell, but he thinks he sees her fingers grip in the grass next to her, gently as if in reflex.

Sasuke tries very hard to swallow his doubts.

When they were on missions as Genin, she used to lay sprawled out like this, hands spread next to her. So did Naruto. It bothered him then, because he liked his folded together on his stomach and he was very particular about personal space, which they both invaded.

Sasuke doesn’t have another hand to fold his with anymore, though, and he’s less concerned about personal space with her than he used to be. The darkness helps bolster his confidence, too, nyctophile that he is; she won’t see the heat that’s spreading to his face here, lit merely by distant flickering stars.

Take notice of what light does - to everything.

The luminaries above them offer only a little of it, yet it's a transfixing sight, something of the epochal and the divine present that he has been drawn to for years.

So he reaches out to skim her hand with his, a tentative sort of constellation in itself, recorded in points of contact and palm prints on the skin rather than etched in alembic light in the sky.

There are soft fingertips, a knuckle gently gliding by. Then she’s interlacing her fingers with his, and suddenly it’s not tentative at all. It’s leal, steady, her small hand in his as if it has always belonged there, the scent of flourishing blooms wafting around them and painting everything in his head lilac starlight.

Her thumb brushes his skin once, twice, thrice, achingly gentle.

He should have reached out sooner, but he supposes they’re young, still. There is a lot of time ahead of them. The stars will align eventually, slow in their revolutions around common centers of mass as he is in letting people in. She accepted his apology for being late already, fine fingertips clutching an uchiwa fan with a touch just as gentle as now.

If he can only hold her hand in the dark, maybe that’s enough for now, a single star he can reach. He hopes he'll reach the others eventually.

Hours pass with her hand in his, and he is a small bit closer in revolution by the time he walks her home.

Lilac and raspberry and starlight coalesce against his lips when they collide with hers, an allegorical perfume he could easily get drunk on. He skims the freckle again, tenderly osculant, and realizes that is the start of a constellation, too, a novitious star burning brighter every time he reaches out. Kissing makes three.

Her hands around his neck make four. This time he does shiver, but he doesn’t pull away.

Sakura’s lips are so soft.

XXX

He plants the lily bulbs shortly after they say good night, under the cover of the caliginous dark that shepherds in the dew of the morning, tiny drops of moisture beginning to collect on nearby blades of grass. The stars are still out, bright enough to be beautiful but dim enough so that he can’t read the names.

Sakura would help him if he asked, he knows, but he doesn’t think he’s quite ready for that yet. He settles for trying to make his touch as gentle yet sure as hers, an elegy of calloused fingers digging carefully through the dirt, grasping and placing lily bulbs one by one. There are four bulbs in total, so he plants two on each side, nine inches apart, allowing them to poke up through the soil slightly and frame the stone; he reread the instructions when he stopped by his apartment earlier. It’s a different brand of corrosion, manually digging up layers of dirt rather than hoping they slough off, but it’s progress, and it doesn't require digging too deep.

There has to be something beneath the layers of sediment, he thinks, to feel the way he does about her. He hopes that what he feels is enough, that his slow revolutions will be worthwhile for her, in the end.

I’m sure it will be lovely, when everything finally comes together.

Being in Konoha is not easy, after everything, but being with Sakura is.

When he’s lying in his own bed a short time later, he recalls the love in her fingertips against his. It lulls him to sleep.

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winterfang53 · 3 years

Text

Title: Like Silver

Summary: A companion series for Like Gold.

Sakura misses him so much. She misses the faint smell of woodsmoke and sage, and mismatched eyes captivating in their intensity and unfathomable depths. The Rinnegan is beautiful, soft lavender ringed by hypnotizing layers of circle and tomoe, but flecks of silver dance in his right, tiny asterisms bewitching in nature, if one gets close enough; she’d first noticed it when they were children at the Academy. She knows they're Itachi's now, a slightly different scattering of luminaries aglow in the deep pitch of obsidian, but they're still as enthralling to her as they had been back then. She dreams of that silver sometimes, recalls it any time she sees something similar in color or reflet.

Blank period, canon-compliant, Sakura-centric, some expanded plot points from Like Gold, fluff and pining, eventually becomes a smut fest with feelings.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: M (eventual nsfw-ness)

AO3 Link - includes beginning/ending author's notes

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Chapter 1/?: An Introduction to Electrocardiography

Sakura gazes out the window of her office, a pile of paperwork set aside for a poetic sort of procrastination, trying to indulge for once in a Konoha spring, though she's finding it arduous.

As pretty as it is this time of year, all she can manage to feel is wistful.

Hanami has come and gone already for the most part, though there are a few stubborn cherry blossom trees lingering at the tail end of their blooming. She can see one here from her window, up on the hillside that slopes towards Hokage Rock, clinging to the uneven land. She’s sure its roots have to be all twisted, a labyrinth of gnarled wood clinging to any scrap of land it can wind itself around as its branches and petals try against all odds to reach upwards into the open sky that she can’t take her eyes off of.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but it’s one she doesn’t care to unpack.

This year was her twentieth viewing of her namesake, though Sakura obviously doesn't remember the first few. Her parents take great pride in the retelling of tales from those first few years of her life, the ones she was too little to remember. The highlights come up annually on her birthday without fail, how she grasped at the petals like they were something precious, clutched in her sticky little hands the entire day.

A framed photograph is perched on one of the built-in shelves of her parents' living room, of her and her father on her first birthday. He was holding her up on unsteady legs, ridiculously proud and pointing towards the camera where her mother had been trying to get her to look. Her short pink hair was flying absolutely everywhere, matching the fluttering petals and in-bloom cherry blossom tree in the background, chubby hands grasping upwards. Strawberry cake and frosting were smeared all over her cheeks. They’d had a picnic for her, at the park nearest to their house.

“We came home and cleaned you up, and then your father helped you water your tree for the first time, in the little pink watering pail you unwrapped earlier. You were so cute.” That’s what her mom says every year. Sakura has the sentence memorized at this point, could recite it on cue, if she needed to.

Her parents had planted a cherry blossom sapling in their backyard a few days after they brought her home from the hospital as a newborn, so the tree is around the same age she is. She used to spend time under it often, as a kid, and some of her earliest memories involve sprawling beneath it to study the heavens while her mother gardened. She would also sneak berries from the patch when her back was turned. Sometimes her dad would join in her pilferage, and they would sit beneath the tree like a couple of bandits with stained lips, though those first few years she can remember he barely fit underneath it, as tall as he is. Many a tickle fight had been had, shaded by those branches. She would read books there on nice afternoons, when she was a little older.

The tree is fully grown now, also on the final cusp of its blooming for the year, floriferous wood expanded outwards to drape her childhood stomping grounds in a sea of soft pink. They have a picnic under it every year, in her family’s backyard, when they celebrate her birthday together. Her actual birthday has come and gone, but her birthday dinner is two days from now. Her parents swung by her apartment on Sunday afternoon for a bit with outlandishly large cupcakes, but her mom had mentioned they’d do dinner and a gift on their usual night, Thursday, since it works so well with their schedules every other week.

“We have to have your picnic, under your tree, like always. It’s a tradition! My beautiful girl. I can’t believe you’re twenty. It seems like just yesterday you were only yay high.” Her dad had told her, gesturing below his knees before hugging her too tightly, ruffling the hair she'd inherited from him before they left. The cupcakes were strawberry with cream cheese frosting, one of her favorite treats. They’d left her with four extra to enjoy between then and Thursday, one for each day if she wanted it, turning her birthday into more of a week-long affair than a one-day celebration.

She and Ino had demolished two of them while watching some of the terrible movies they love to hate together, later that evening. It had been a smorgasbord of strawberries, really, because they'd washed them down with strawberry daiquiris, sugary sweetness topped with ridiculous amounts of whipped cream. They'd sat on her balcony, after, sipping a little tipsily and just looking.

"You should try to enjoy your namesake more this year, Forehead. You're so busy that I'm not sure you've realized, but you've really grown into it." Ino had said, beckoning vaguely towards a Konoha beginning to bloom, renewed with a warm breeze, spring ushered in by a fluttering of pink petals. Ino likes to give compliments in roundabout ways, she’s learned over the course of their friendship; crass as the blonde can be, she does have her moments. Her words meant a lot to Sakura, so she’s trying to take them to heart, to stop and smell the cherry blossoms, so to speak. It won’t be long before Konoha crescendos into the sweltering heat of the summer.

She loves her parents and her friends. She really does.

But birthdays are weird, Sakura thinks.

Last year, Sasuke had sent her a letter on her birthday. She’s reread it so many times that she has it more than memorized; it’s stitched into the muscle tissue of her heart at this point, or maybe scarred into the lining of her aortic valve, sempiternal markings adorning the tunnels that sustain her, causing her breath to catch every time.

Sakura,

Hanami has come to the wilderness in the Land of Honey. Bees are awakening and foraging for the first pollen of the season, with which to begin again. Cherry blossom petals are everywhere, lining the pathways and floating on the water.

Happy birthday.

-Sasuke

It had been short, simple, and even a little poetic; she had cherished it, as she does all of his other letters. She’d cherished the pressed flower with it just as much; a cherry blossom, neatly flattened with a precision that screamed Sasuke, near exactly the same shade of pink as her hair.

Sakura had started crying when she unfolded the paper to reveal it sitting atop his words. His hawk had waited patiently at her office window for a response to be written and tied to its leg, perched atop the windowsill and watching the goings-on of the village below, absolutely no concept in its predator brain of how much she delights in seeing it fly, a graceful tether to the boy - now man - she has been in love with for ages.

Cherry blossom petals are everywhere. Is there a hidden meaning there, or is she making a mountain out of a molehill?

She’s tried not to read too much into the letters. She's not sure if he sends any to Naruto or not; she's too afraid to ask, because she'll either get a heart-pounding hope if he doesn't get them, or a soul-crushing disappointment if he does. She can't imagine him sending a yellow flower to Naruto, but he may very well have sent him a different gift for his birthday.

Maybe he just thought she would like a flower, which she did - it’s pressed for safekeeping, along with all of his other correspondence to her, sporadically and chronologically throughout a book she keeps on her nightstand, An Introduction to Electrocardiography. It is her take on an album of small things she holds close to her own heart, things she wishes she could read in his. Sakura didn’t want to buy an actual album for such a thing; that felt too formal, for something as ambiguous as her ties to Sasuke, overflowing on her end as they may be. So she’d settled on a book about deciphering the heart’s tells based on science only, electrical impulses and repolarization, the sizes and positions of the chambers, how to diagnose conditions utilizing one’s findings. It’s one she doesn’t need access to anymore, extremely familiar with EKGs after years of study. She’d wanted it to be something no-nonsense, all hard facts and data on how to read activity plotted over time.

Evidence-based. Are letters evidence, though? She’s not sure that would hold up as empirical proof in any of the scholarly journals she’s studied or submitted work to since beginning her research. She thinks wryly, though, based on what she has witnessed get published, that scientific verification doesn’t always matter if you know the right people.

She’s thought many times sifting through it that perhaps it is too optimistic, too hopeful of a book subject for such a thing. Sakura has agonized over it, frankly, wondering whether it was an inappropriate choice.

...But now that they’re in there, it might ache worse to move them somewhere else.

It’s the last day of March now, and she didn’t get a letter this month, which is unusual, because she’s gotten one near each month in the time that he’s been away. She’s paged through the book a few times over the past several days, rereading and admiring the preserved sakura blossom, frozen in suspended animation indefinitely on a page about precordial leads.

Sakura hadn’t really expected anything from him for her birthday, other than a monthly letter like he usually sends... but this year she didn’t even get that. She’s trying really hard to not be disappointed. She has so much to be thankful for, in the grand scheme of things...

...But the petals of the cherry blossom from last year have faded over time, she’d evaluated yesterday, sitting in her bedroom. It might be like her, always pressed in a book, fading whilst stuck indefinitely between the boundless teeth of academia. There is always more data to record, more evidence, with which one can prove or disprove their findings.

No letter this month, though. Nothing to record, no new evidence.

It might be time to move the letters somewhere else, she thinks pensively. Maybe a place where she’s not tempted to look at them all the time; their placement in the book, small scraps of paper that stick out in only a couple of places, makes it easy to go back and reread them. She’s pretty sure she has an empty shoebox in her closet that she could move them to, in a pile rather than catalogued between pages rife with information and a fragile sort of hope. Maybe she’ll do it tonight, put it up in the far right corner of the upper shelf, shoved towards the back so she can’t reach it without the stool, so she’s not tempted whenever the next bout of heartsickness slams into her like one of Tsunade-shishou’s fists used to. She needs to go by the library after work first, to return some things, but maybe when she gets home, she’ll do it. She could eat a cupcake, too; that might make it a little easier.

She dreams of that silver sometimes, recalls it any time she sees something similar in color or reflet. There’s an extremely unique necklace in an antique shop she visits with Ino and Sai from time to time, and occasionally on her own, over on the northeast side of town. It’s a salt-and-pepper diamond, dark grey with inclusions, dainty and set in what must be a hand-fabricated setting. It hangs from a silver chain, towards the back of a display case filled with other vintage and distinctive pieces, but it’s the only one she ever finds herself drawn to. It is so similar to his right eye, dark smoke near black, speckled with beguiling silver startling in its clarity. The bevel cut reveals new flecks dependent on the angle at which you view it.

Sakura studies it closely on each visit, because it is so hauntingly breathtaking and it reminds her of him.

Ino has said it’s not her color, and that she should stick to warm tones and gold, for which she is better suited; Sakura has not confessed to her why it catches her eye so much. Sai has agreed with his girlfriend on the coloring note, sensitive as he is to such things, but the way he studies her every time she tears herself away from it makes her suspect he knows exactly why it captivates her so. It’s been sitting there for years at this point; she has to mentally talk herself out of buying it on each visit. It’s beautiful, but she would spend far too much time gawking at it, and it might hurt more with extended study than the gentle tugging at her heart she experiences when she’s in that old building throughout tiny fragments of lackadaisical afternoons.

Sasuke has been gone for a long time. She hopes he's finding the peace he's been seeking, that he's seeing the world with new eyes just as he'd imagined. She thinks of him every day, sends out little orisons like petals in the breeze in the hopes that they’ll find him, wherever he is.

I wonder where he is now.

Try as she does to enjoy the breath of spring Konoha is right now, and her namesake as Ino said, all she can seem to do is shift her vision to the sky, hoping against hope for a glimpse of a familiar bird-of-prey that will stay an ample amount of time for her to craft a response, before it abvolates away for another month.

Sakura smiles, then, close to laughing at the absurdity of it all, because she is so predictable. She loves this village despite its many flaws and challenges, despite the things about it she and Naruto and Kakashi-sensei and Ino and even Tsunade-shishou, off in the Land of Wind, are trying to change, but even after so many years, she’s still pining for something beyond it, something in the wilds of the sky just beyond her reach.

There’s always next year, she supposes, pupils drawn again towards the outstretched branches of the cherry blossom tree on the hill, before trailing her eyes along further. She can grow a little more to try to reach him. When she was little, she had wanted to grow tall so she could try to touch a star, like the branches of the tree in her backyard did when she and her father laid beneath them on balmy summer nights. He would tell her ridiculous stories about all of the constellations, things she knew had to be untrue, even at the ripe age of five. Precocious, he’d always called her, but in the loving, joking manner he had.

Her gaze follows the horizon, leisurely taking in the rest of her home. It really is a lovely day, despite her yearning. Spring is here again, and today's is a gentle sunset, one last little bit of sunlight with which to conclude March. The temperature is already spiking, unusually warm for early spring, but summers in the Land of Fire are always hot. She really should finish her paperwork, but it’s hard to find the motivation just yet.

Something possesses her, then, to turn her neck more, take in more of the skyline's continuation. She wants to see all of it.

And then Sakura’s eyes fall on an achingly familiar figure cloaked all in black, perched only a roof away and observing her, and she thinks she must have nodded off, because she has to be dreaming.

She subtly pinches herself in the millisecond of time that follows, but she is very much awake.

The words are blooming out of her throat before she can even process what’s happening, exultation sinking into her every vein. “Sasuke-kun!” She moves to crank her window open the rest of the way, and he hops from the neighboring roof down into her office, all nimble legerity that she still thinks has to be a mere mirage conjured from her memories. When he straightens to his full height, she muses that he has to have grown taller. The mere sound of his footsteps on the tile flooring, as familiar a refrain to her as if he’d just walked out of the village yesterday, are a treasure beyond price.

“Sakura.” His voice is a rich timbre that she has desperately felt the absence of; hearing him say her name almost makes her want to cry. She smiles wider instead, to the extent that it almost hurts, and her gaze latches hungrily onto the very eye she was just daydreaming about. A storm of soot and silver, beveled into countless fragments like some kind of dark, rustic diamond, and so staggeringly beautiful that she’s pretty sure she’s blushing just from beholding it. Gods, it's not fair for someone to be so handsome.

“When did you get back?” She asks, utterly overcome with joy. This is better than a letter or any birthday gift she could have received, brighter than any star she’s beheld.

“Just now.” He’s smiling, a small and subtle upturn of lips that is so characteristic of him. Then his words hit her, and her face must be getting redder.

Just now? As in…

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday.” He adds before she can simmer on that for too long, and she has to blink in bewilderment, because that is the absolute last thing she expected him to say. Sakura wonders how much heat can creep into one’s face before they spontaneously combust.

Then she realizes she should probably respond, as humans tend to do in conversations. “Oh! Um… it’s okay.” She folds her hands in front of her shyly, grinning like an idiot. “Thank you for remembering.”

There is a lengthy moment in which she just soaks him in, hoping he can read in her eyes how much she’s missed him. He is still so beautiful, prized eyes and aristocratic angles that have solidified a bit more into the face of a man in the time that’s passed. His hair is different now, covering his Rinnegan eye. His cloak is a little more threadbare, too. He’s tall.

His expression, normally unreadable, is calm. Content, even.

There’s a question nagging at her that she knows she needs to ask. She tries not to bite her lip as she asks it, braces herself for the possibility of not liking the answer.

“Are you… just back for a little while?”

Did you find what you were searching for?

He gazes at her for so long that she thinks he may be glimpsing her soul, peeking into her ventricles to see his own words immortalized there, seared into her core to be felt each time her blood pumps.

“...For more than a while.” And she smiles the biggest she ever has. Oh, this is so much better than a letter or a gift.

“Well, welcome back, Sasuke-kun. It’s… very good to see you again.” It feels as if a piece of her heart has been returned to her, something of the divine stitched back into her chest and full to bursting in omneity.

There is a pause, and then he’s reaching his hand out towards hers, initiating physical contact with a touch that is feather light, so gentle she thinks she is going to start sobbing.

She can’t help it; she pulls him into a hug, tinged with elation. She hopes he doesn’t mind too much; he stiffens for a brief moment, but then settles, wrapping his arm around her and settling his head atop of hers, and she could die happy right there, embracing him with feelings momentarily set free from where they’ve been whelved into her chest.

He smells faintly like sage and smoked cedar, just as she remembered. She can hear his heart thumping, a strong cadence, and it grounds her. Oh, she’s missed him.

“...I’m home, Sakura.” Soft words float above her head, and she can feel the vibration of them through his chest, right by her ear.

Oh, she’s crying.

Sasuke lets her embrace him for a long time, for which she is so grateful. She knows he’s not one for physical contact; it’s a privilege to be allowed into his space even for a single second, let alone for an extended period.

She draws back eventually, glancing up at him again through the tears still collecting in her eyes. Her face blazes when he reaches to wipe them away tenderly with a calloused hand, careful and with a lenity that she’s always known was there, hidden under the surface.

She could just stare at him for hours, she thinks as he lowers his hand. He’s still looking down at her, wearing one of the softest expressions she has ever seen him wear. She really hopes she’s not dreaming.

It’s tremendously hard to get it together, but she tries, because she doesn’t want to spend the entire time crying, not when he's finally back. There are so many questions she’d like to ask him that she’s finding it a challenge to pick one with which to lead.

He surprises her by speaking first, quietly. “I… had something made for you.”

It takes a moment for the words to compute.

Made for me?

Her processing speed must be exceptionally slow, stuck in the utter mush her insides have become, because he adds, “...For your birthday.”

Sakura blinks, and furrows her brows in confusion. “Made… for me?”

He nods. “...I’m sorry it’s late.” The way he speaks it is cryptic, like the apology weighs more than one needed for a tardy gift. Doesn’t he know she doesn’t care? He could have showed up in July with something for her, and it still would have made her knees weak and her heart thump furiously in her chest.

Made for me? She’s still stuck on that sentiment as he breaks eye contact and turns to rummage through his satchel, beneath his cloak.

Sasuke pulls out a medium-sized flat box, a simple white, and she doesn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t that. Something that comes in a box is a lot more formal than a pressed cherry blossom, something more… permanent.

She reaches out to take it on autopilot, and is stupidly distracted by the way his hand brushes against hers, a small spark that makes something in her quake. She wonders if he felt it, too.

Sakura clutches the box with both hands like her life depends on it, murmuring softly, “Thank you, Sasuke-kun.” She’ll wait until later to open it, after he’s left; whatever it is, she doesn’t want to embarrass him, and she also isn’t sure she can tear her eyes away from him just yet, anyways.

Is it just the lighting in her office, or are his ears a little flushed? She didn’t notice that before; maybe he’s had a drawn-out journey back. She wonders how much ground he covered today, if he’s still winded. He might need to rest.

But then he mumbles, voice husky with what she assumes is disuse, “...You should open it.”

His words echo in her head again. I… had something made for you.

“Okay.” She answers in a hushed voice, so she doesn’t scare him away, shifting slightly to set the box on her desk carefully. Suddenly she is very nervous, anticipation settling into her gut.

When she lifts the lid, she swears her heart ceases beating.

The most exquisitely intricate uchiwa fan she has ever laid eyes upon is placed in the box before her.

It’s carved into a likeness of a cherry blossom tree, branches twisting lissomely into bamboo framework, impossibly fine. A different set of words is reverberating in her head now.

You should try to enjoy your namesake more this year, Forehead. You're so busy that I'm not sure you've realized, but you've really grown into it.

Made for me?

“O-oh.” Sakura is not sure what she expected, but it wasn’t this. She fights back the tears, biting her lip and wide eyes soaking it all in, enjoying her namesake in a way that is entirely unprecedented in its sheer severity. The amount of time it would have taken for someone to sculpt and bind and sew is unimaginable; every detail is finely wrought, flawless down to the silk and stitching, lacquered and carved pale wood shifting effortlessly into eighty slivers of bamboo, intricately webbing silk together with the lithe grace of gossamer. It’s a cherry blossom tree, petals and all, pearlescent thread shifting slightly, gorgeously in the light, unimaginable detail. She has stitched people back together countless times over the course of years, but even her expert dexterity would look like a child’s first embroidery stitching in comparison. The stamen within the petals is nearly more detailed and finely milled than an actual, real life cherry blossom, plexure sutured in a fashion so baronial that it’s impossible to believe human hands were even responsible for it.

The silk. Oh, the silk. The color shift bears a striking resemblance to the Uchiha insignia. This is not a gift one gives to a teammate.

Oh, she's crying.

This has to be a dream, some kind of paracosm her heart thought up to give her brain the high of a lifetime. Hope burgeons and unfolds in her chest cavity, bleeding into her extremities like the pale pink shifting into red before her eyes. She’s never, ever going to forget this, not even if she lives to be one hundred years old.

Made for me?

She picks it up with disbelieving hands, grasping it more carefully than she’s ever held anything in her entire life, as if she’s going to wake up at any moment and it will dissolve into synapse, lost in the hazy juncture of morning the way one tends to lose awareness of the contents of a dream upon coming to lucidity. To her absolute bewilderment, it stays solid in her hands, a finery made even more unbelievable by touch. The grooves of the carving are as gentle as his hand had been on hers earlier. She thinks it would have had to be commissioned at least a few months in advance, outlandishly expensive. She’s never seen silk like this. She doesn't know; she's smart, but she's no artisan. Maybe she should ask Sai. She's crying.

Tears won’t stop welling in her eyes; she thinks they may be escaping from a tender spot inside her chest that’s been reserved for him since she was a child, a leak in a metaphorical dam. She takes a steadying breath, blinks, almost has them conquered. Get a grip, Sakura.

She adores it.

Then Sasuke’s hand is on hers, gently turning the handle over.

Her name is carved into the pale wood, on the back in formal calligraphy, Sakura daintier and more perfect than she could ever write it, as if it had just been uncovered in one of the inner layers rather than whittled there manually. Sasuke presses her fingers to it before loosening his grip, and in that second it feels as though his lost hand is in the wood, caressing her from split atoms in the grooves from the other side.

The tears spill over her cheeks - she admits defeat - intricacy of the entire thing blurring out of focus but still somehow burned into her retinas for all eternity.

Made for me, made for me, made for me-

Her voice finds her after a few more tears fall. “It’s beautiful.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, overwhelmed with complete and utter awe, trying desperately to choke down a sob. “Thank you, Sasuke-kun. I… I’ll treasure it. Always.” She cradles the fan closer to her chest, her heart - maybe An Introduction to Electrocardiography wasn’t a poorly-chosen book, after all; there is much to be read from something this precious - and regards him with watery eyes. She wishes she wasn’t crying; the distortion of the tears is making it hard to see the silver she’s loved and missed so much.

His hand lifts to her face after a moment, and to her surprise, he wipes away her tears again. She barely catches the something-more in his eyes, then, through the waterworks, precious metal flashing and pouring into the words scarred into her ventricles to live there forever, fortified in silver, but he is looking at her so -

“...Always.” He agrees, voice a little breathless, sparking scintilla near hypnotizing her in their luster, and he seems so happy -

Then he leans down to press his lips gently to hers, and this is better than her heart stopping, like when she opened the box. This time, her heart soars, and she touches a star she’s been dreaming of for eons.

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