Temari smirks with the satisfaction of the final capture of her prize and goes to shower, leaving the naked girl passed out asleep on the bed behind her. Her hair, cherry blossom pink by some odd joke of genetics, is sweat damp and spread out across the ruffled white linen pillowcase. In some far distant corner of her consciousness, the exhausted girl thinks - dreams sadly - of her lover.
The blonde woman is so hard to understand, for Sakura. Maybe for most people. She is harsh, demanding - sometimes irrationally so - and utterly self-possessed. Unpredictable as weather, prickly as thorns, soft as the silky fur between a rabbit's ears. A pure predator, who hunts for her prey with a callous smile on her fascinatingly kissable lips. The strawberry haired kunoichi knows that being with Temari does little but cause her heartache, but somehow she can't be free of this addiction she has to the sandy haired wolf, with her sea green eyes. Eyes that tease, cajole, seduce, infuriate Sakura. In many ways the female Sand nin is even better at controlling puppets than her spiky haired brother, Kankuro; but people are her puppets - Sakura, especially. On her short visits to Konoha, Temari spends most of her time ignoring Sakura as though she were invisible. Only after midnight, when Sakura lies staring at the ceiling, bathed in moonlight, does she feel the rush of cool air as the window opens and her lover - half-insane, perhaps, as Sakura often wonders - steps inside and smiles her predatory smile of glee. Then she takes what she wants - lusts for - and Sakura is left drained, with a feeling of bittersweet pain in her chest, wishing always for some certainty, wanting her precious person to stay with her forever, knowing that she never will.
Temari dresses again and steps back into the bedroom to sit beside the sleeping Sakura. She strokes a few blushing strands back from that smooth, milky skin and smiles, more tender than before. She leans down and kisses the bare brow for a moment, closing her eyes to drink in the smell of her love, and then walks to the open window and slips out again, pausing only to shut the curtains behind her, hiding the girl's still naked body from the eyes of anyone but her. As she runs across the rooftops, back towards the building where she is assigned to stay on these visits, she knocks a few sparkling drops from her cheeks. She isn't crying, of course. She has no reason to cry - never cries - to cry is to be weak, and she must be strong, protect her brothers, her village, the people who she is obligated to, by some old law of blood. She tries her hardest to forget the girl she is leaving behind. She won't see her again, not for some time, because she is returning to Suna early the next day, and Sakura will be working, or maybe still sleeping. She must be tired from Temari's advances, after all.
Temari is a strong woman, a powerful woman, a brave and intelligent and sly woman, wiser and more cunning than many men - but still a woman.
She is in love, and she is well aware of it, but she says nothing. Takes what she needs from her pink haired object of affection, and then goes before she can blurt out the secrets of her heart. Sakura never resists, too used to it perhaps, but Temari can see the pain in her eyes. It hurts her, too, to see the other woman in such anguish, but she is too cowardly.
Far too cowardly to ever tell Sakura how much she loves her, wants to be with her for the rest of her life. Far too cowardly to stand the rejection she knows she will receive. So she takes and gives nothing back, unable to say the words that spin around inside her head, and leaves with a parting bittersweet and tender kiss, forcing herself with stern discipline to go back to Suna Gakure, as is expected. She never tells anyone what she feels, because no one would listen if she did. Sakura is the only one who truly could know her, and she is too afraid to tell her all the things she needs - yearns - to say.
Always a coward, running away from what she loves most, pretending to herself and others that nothing is the matter, as if anyone would care even if she admitted that it was.
She isn't crying, no one would say that she was, despite the drops now running freely down her face, leaving her slick with salty tears. No one would dare say anything so compromising to the fierce woman of Sand.
She returns to her room and sits on the floor to pack her things back into her bag, last minute, not very much to take, but no point leaving it behind. She tucks the few items back where they belong, and then pauses as she comes across the sprig of cherry blossom that she picked several years ago now. It is completely dried out, all colour bleached from the the petals with age, but she keeps it tucked into a small pink silk bag, a strange sort of memento. She hopes no one else has ever seen it, seen the tiny weak** part of her that trembles and sobs in the middle of the night when she's at home, unable to reach for the thing she yearns** for, hopes that no one ever sees how weak** she is inside. Because she can imagine the ridicule that she will be given if anyone learns of how she feels, who she really is underneath her angry mask of defiance and defensiveness.
She touches the small bag for a moment, and then tucks it into her pocket. Then she turns and lies on top of the covers, not bothering to get underneath, and lets herself drift off into guilty dreams of running far away with a pink haired girl to live where no one else can find them.
In the morning, at first light, she walks to the gates of the village with Shikamaru at her side. He's a decent if lazy guy, and an excellent ninja. A few people are under the impression that the two of them have a thing going, but there's nothing like that between them. They are certainly close, though. She's probably the only one who knows about his feelings for his teammate, if only because he's too lazy to tell anyone else. And he's the only one who knows how she feels about her unbearably beautiful lover, because he is smart enough to figure it out for himself.
He nods curtly to her as they pause in the gateway.
'Already said goodbye?' he queries, raising one dark eyebrow languidly.
She nods back. They don't have to mention who she said goodbye to. In reality, she hardly said anything to Sakura, but she had meant it that way.
'Until next time.' she smirks, and takes her leave.
A few months later she returns, takes everything from her lover and leaves again. It happens over and over, and she begins to break up inside, but she never speaks of it. Only Shikamaru knows, because he sees it in her eyes. He gets the one he wants before too long, but while she still touches the one she needs from the bottom of her soul, she can never truly have her.
It hurts to see the pain in the other woman's eyes. That's the only thing she knows for certain anymore. It hurts.
It hurts to love.