Sasuke hates her.
No, that isn't right. He doesn't hate her, he hates this new person in her place. This dead person. This isn't Sakura, it can't be. She's broken, she isn't working right. She has to be fixed, mended, healed so that she isn't this anymore. She used to be bright and the embodiment of virtues. Pure and untainted, like freshly fallen snow. Someone had stomped through that snow, ripping it and leaving a mark, marring it until it hurt Sasuke to look at her. Now she was dead and lifeless, and he wanted to hunt down the creature who could destroy something so beautiful, something that represented life so fully. As he felt the need and blood-lust he knew at once it couldn't be fulfilled because he was the one who ruined her, ripped her into tiny shreds of what she once was.
She used to smile, love in it's purest form. Sasuke could still clearly remember her intensely green eyes sparkling with every one hundred percent caring word. That is what got him through the long nights and the even longer days. He could go back and see her tomorrow. He could feel the love through the air around her, as though the air itself absorbed her kindness from her soft skin. Sakura used to shine those bright eyes on him, smiling with the pureness of joy and nothing less. Her smile is blank now, it is there for those around her and her own sake at the same time.
Those around her need it to believe that Sakura is alright, but Sasuke sees through that like peering through evil glass. She is not alright. She is nowhere close to alright. He used to bask in the knowledge that a large part of the love she gave to everyone around her was meant for him, not just a happening of proximity. Now there was no love coming off her, Sasuke broke her and there is no more love to go around. He doesn't know how everyone believes that dead smile, but then maybe they don't. Maybe they pretend to so they don't have to think about her pain. So they don't have to admit to themselves that she is rotting away in front of them. But that is why it is for her as well. If she can give an empty smile then they can pretend that it isn't so empty and they wont try to help her. They wont ask Sakura to think about why she is so empty. They will just go on believing that it will all balance out and she wont have to relieve how she died. But it doesn't matter if they don't see her shattered being, Sakura sees it. He already knows how she died, he was there, helping to kill her, and he relives it if she does or not. If he sees her or not.
She is broken and empty and dead and it kills him every moment of every day, but not as completely as he deserves. Sasuke used to think he could fix her, he used to think he could bring her back, he came back to his old village for that, but he found out the hard way that he was wrong. She was beyond repair, at least beyond repair by him. Sasuke knew who could fix her. Sasuke had known who could fix her since the moment she was destroyed, and it hurt him more then anything to know, like a jarring in his bones that ground him to dust. It hurt him for a million reasons. So many reasons and almost none of them he felt strong enough to face.
Sasuke hated that he could fix her. He would always be able to fix her. Sasuke was sure that no matter what happened the sight of him would bring her back to life, mend all her cracks, patch all those gaping holes Sasuke had ripped into her. He could see it now: Sakura in a random bar, drinking until her already dim eyes were cloudy too, and he walks in, in his strut he used to reserve for entrances. He would sit down next to her as though he hadn't been gone at all, smiles and sunshine. He would kiss her on the forehead and tell her not to worry and she would believe him. Of course she would. She always believed in him. She used to believe in Sasuke too, but he had proved her wrong. Perhaps it was jealousy that kept him awake at night, too tired of tears to cry. Perhaps it was betrayal. He had always known that Sasuke needed her like plants need sunlight, but he took her anyway. There was no brotherhood amongst best friends after that day. He refused to fix her, the light of their lives for years. The three of them stuck together until he left.
What hurt Sasuke the most was that he knew. That bastard knew that he was the only one who could fix her. He knew from day one, Sasuke could see it in his eyes, his walk. He knew. He knew, but he didn't care enough to help her. He would rather she drink herself away and say his name to the empty stool next to her. It made Sasuke more then sick and less then helpless.
The situation boiled down to waiting. Waiting for him to care, or for her to finish rotting away. He broke her, he knew. It was his fault, but he hadn't meant to, he hadn't known she would shatter beyond his ability to repair. He hadn't known she would be lost to him, he hadn't even meant to start the chain of events leading up to that day. But she was broken now, and he felt like all he could do was hold onto a ghost and wait for a figure who left them as soon as the worst happened. He would clutch to her fading hand and beg for him. He who abandoned her. He who Sasuke would never forgive. He who could fix her.
Because Sasuke knew she loved him more than anything. He was Sakura's love, and Sasuke was nothing but an old crush who destroyed her. For the first time in all the year's he had watched her drink herself away Sasuke finally joined her at the bar. He would drink with her and talk to that same empty stool. Call it by that name. Because at this point he was like Sakura
Broken and trying to forget.