Reunion
Pairing: Team 7
Universe: Canon
Summary: The wall that stands between him and them is only getting thicker with each passing day.
He stares at them from the edge of the cliff, trying to school his expression into that of complete calm. If anyone knows how to read him, it's them and he does not want to take the chance.
The first person to come rushing out of the tunnel is a tall, slender man whom he doesn't recognise. Skin pale, hair as dark as coal, a short-sword strapped to his back, the only giveaway being the Leaf headband tied to his forehead. He eyes that familiar symbol, how he once felt the weight of it, and he can remember the cool steel against his skin as though it was only yesterday.
He can feel their chakra signatures and knows who this man is. He wants to grind his teeth in frustration because he realises that what he's looking at is a substitute, someone who can never be as good as the original. This man, with his unreadable dark eyes and controlled demeanour, makes him feel like he's looking at himself in a mirror. Jealousy has always come easily to him, and he cannot help but have it flare up now.
The next person to run out has his throat constricting and eyes narrowing. Even from a distance, the pink hair is vibrant as she stares at the pale man next to her. He can't help but call out her name and he's pleased to see that he still can grasp all her attention with a single call. The child in him wants to smile in triumph at the replacement.
She's grown, he notices. Her hair is still short, but there is nothing about this woman that he recognises. His vision has always been better than most and he can see her as though she was standing right in front of him. She's smudged with dirt and covered in sweat, but none of that seems to be of any importance now. He remembers a time when it would have been.
Still, he can read the expression in her eyes, and he's almost grateful that something about her stays stagnant in the time that he's been gone. She's staring at him in the same way she once did, her gaze clear and honest, but there is something more to it now. A steely resolve that did not exist three years ago. The vivid memory of her tear-streaked face, of her strained confession in a desperate effort to make him stay flashes through his head in an instant.
Somewhere, in the pit of his stomach, he feels pleasure when she speaks his name with the same endearing suffix.
The blonde man that follows her makes him take in a sharp breath. He stands next to her, tan and blue-eyed and so honest. Even after all this time, he's never learned how to stop wearing his heart on his sleeve. It is him that he is the most afraid to look in the eye. He looks and feels like home and reminds him of a time that he's desperately trying to forget.
The three of them stand there, staring at him. They look like a team from this distance and he wonders idly if they eat ramen together.
He lays a hand on Kusanagi and ponders. He could leave, but he wants to stay for a little while longer. He moves with a feline grace and soon he's next to them, amused at their startled expressions.
The wall that stands between him and them is only getting thicker with each passing day , but being so close to what used to be his second family for the first time in three years, Sasuke can forget the shadows of his past, even if only for a fleeting moment.