Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
All the Small Things
"May the power of love overcome the love of power."
"What are you staring at, Sasuke-kun?"
Blank obsidian eyes shifted slightly to focus on Karin's curious form.
He frowned at her. "Hn."
A smile pulled at the corners of her lips. "You were staring at the sunset, weren't you? Aw, I knew you had a sentimental side!"
From across the motel room, Suigetsu snorted. "Yeah, Sasuke has a sentimental side, and I'm a foreign diplomat from Cuba."
"No one asked you, dumbass," Karin snarled, turning to face the silver-haired shinobi.
"But the question was implied," Suigetsu responded in a sing-song tone.
Sasuke turned away with his lips pressed together, eyes not amused. He pulled a chair away from the shabby desk the room offered, and positioned it so that it faced the room's single window. Then he promptly sat down and leaned forward, resting his lips against his folded hands with his elbows placed on the window seal.
The sun, for some reason, had turned the sky a brilliant shade of purple, gold, and pink. He'd never really noticed before how intricate a sunset could be. Seamlessly the sky blended from color to color, until finally it all closed upon the burning source of orange light that was the sun. Several pink clouds were floating in front of it as it slowly sank below a far-off mountain range.
So beautiful, yet night would always come, and the beauty would be erased. It was inevitable.
Sasuke frowned once again.
Then, just as he was about to snap at his teammates to shut up, he heard muted laugher.
And he froze.
The laughter had come from outside on the streets before him, blocked only by the thin window he had been staring out. It sounded so familiar…
Then he saw why.
Sakura. It was Sakura.
She was walking down the street beside a man Sasuke didn't recognize, on the side furthest from the Uchiha. He watched as she clasped her hands together behind her back, then leaned forward slightly, turning so that her bright grin was directed at the man next to her, her eyes curved upward in little half-moons. The man blushed minutely and fidgeted with the cast encasing his left arm. Sasuke noticed that the man's left eye was covered by a medical swathe that continued to wrap around his forehead several times, as if his eye had been injured somehow.
Sakura giggled at something the man sheepishly said, then reached up to pat his black-haired head. In response, the man blushed even deeper and turned his face away from her in embarrassment, toward where Sasuke was watching. The man's one visible eye was a vivid blend of amber and gold.
And then they had passed the window, and were gone.
"Sasuke-kun? Something the matter?"
Sasuke hadn't even noticed that the bickering behind him had stopped. Slowly, he unclenched his fingers from the ledge of the window seal (when had they moved?), noted the slight cracks it now adorned, and roughly stood up.
"I'm going to bed," he answered flatly, and promptly walked across the room. He removed his shinobi sandals along with his arm guards, untied the purple rope around his lower torso, then placed them, his Kusanagi sword, the blue cloth from around his waist, and his loose-fitting white shirt on the beside table. After - left in only his dark blue shinobi pants - he dropped onto the mattress, his naked back facing his teammates.
"But Sasuke-kuuunnnn," Karin complained. "The sun hasn't even gone down yet!"
"Oh, let him be," Suigetsu drawled. "He's obliviously PMSing again. I have an idea: why don't us three go to a bar and find ourselves some entertainment?"
Karin sighed. "I guess you're right. C'mon, Juugo - we're leaving."
Within the next five seconds they were out of the room, and Sasuke was left in silence.
Gradually, almost warily, he turned so he was facing the window once again. Now only the very tip of the sun was visible above the mountain range, and he watched for the next minute as it sank fully beyond his view.
The beauty might fade away for a while, he knew, but it would always, always return.
A/N: Sorry for spamming your in-boxes with this pathetic little piece, guys. I know it's meaningless, but I knew it would be fun and easy to write. I so wish something like this would happen in the manga. Le sigh.
The man Sakura's walking with isn't anyone in particular. Let's all pretend she was sent to that village to help with medical issues, and healed him.
Also, the last sentence can be interpreted many ways, but I think of the beauty Sasuke's talking about as relating to the happiness he left behind when he left Konoha, which sort of relates to a fading sunset that always leads to a new dawn. Oh well. I babble a lot. Don't mind me.
Review if you want. :) I will highly appreciate anything you have to say.
Sincerely,
Silver Echo
