13.
He is thirteen, and she begs him to stay.
Sasuke is on his way out of the village, following the only road that leads to elsewhere, when Sakura stops him. He wants to ask how she knew to come here, how she knew he would be leaving. A harvest moon looms over large in the dark sky, and the autumn night smells like freshly cut grass. She stands several feet away from him, but her voice feels close as she reminds him of the good times Team 7 has known. She may not understand him, but Sakura has a talent for finding his weaknesses.
And then she confesses her love. Not much of a secret, really, but his heart beats faster when she says it all the same. Maybe because he never expected her to voice these things, or perhaps it has just been so long since anyone said those words to him. He finds that it feels, if anything, good to hear, and he wants her to say it again. To say it simply because she means it and it is true, not as part of a desperate attempt to keep him in Konoha.
He does not turn to see it, but Sasuke knows she is crying. He wonders how many times he has been responsible for her tears. More than he would like, because any at all is more than he would like.
She says, "If you go, I'll scream, and—"
He's behind her before she has a chance to move away. The wind blows her short hair against the back of her neck, and Sasuke looks at the place he should strike to knock her unconscious. He doesn't want to do this, to hurt her in any way, but he needs to if he's going to get out of the village without her raising an alarm. He has the desire to thank her. For her love, for everything.
But before he can speak the words, Sakura turns around and embraces him. It feels remarkably like that time in the Forest of Death, when she held onto him and the curse mark receded.
"Don't go, please," she whispers, and Sakura looks up at him, trembling, eyelashes wet and spiked. She's a warm burden, arms wrapped around his body, her face an inch from his own. He can smell whatever shampoo she used on her cherry blossom hair, and when she kisses him he can taste the salt of grief on her lips.
She begs him, and Sasuke stays.
14.
He is fourteen, and Sasuke is on the verge of murdering Naruto for the fifth time this week. Sakura stands between them, one hand on each boy's chest, and while his rival barely seems to notice, suddenly all Sasuke can feel are her fingers splayed across his bare skin like a five-pointed star.
Later, alone in bed, Sasuke traces the outline of her palm and remembers the warmth of her touch. Sakura had slapped Naruto upside the head, but she only said to him, "Sasuke-kun. Please stop this."
And from that day on, any time she touches him, it's too vivid, too sharp. Sasuke is familiar with lightning, the power of it, how it feels coursing through his body, and this is similar. Like an electric current running between them, connecting the boy and the girl even after the contact itself has faded.
15.
He is fifteen, and he sees her kissing a civilian on the cheek. Sasuke's first thought is that he knows seven different ways to kill this boy without spilling a drop of blood.
"Who was that?" he asks later, and it's hard to keep his voice steady, nonchalant. "The guy you were with earlier?"
She frowns, like she doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, and then Sakura smiles and says, "Oh, you mean Shun? He's my oldest friend. I knew him even before Ino. We were neighbors when we were little kids, until his parents moved to the other side of the village. I started at the Academy and he went to the civilian school and we lost touch. That was the first time I've seen him in years."
Sasuke thinks, somewhat childishly, that whatever this Shun means to her, it cannot compare to what Sakura feels for him. Of that he's sure.
16.
He is sixteen, and he kills Itachi. His last act is to graze Sasuke's forehead with two bloody fingers. A red, big-brother touch.
He is half-dead himself, exhausted and wounded and out of chakra. Sasuke faints amidst the lightning storm of his own creation, and when he wakes he is in the Konoha hospital. Sunlight streams into the room, golden and bright, an early morning greeting. His teammates sit in the uncomfortable chairs for visitors. Naruto has managed to fall asleep, but Sakura is on the edge of her seat, head in her hands. She looks up when he stirs, and then she's on her feet, by his bedside.
"Sasuke-kun," she says, and there is the gravity of a girl's love and relief laced into his name. "You're awake."
He should say something back, but all Sasuke can think about is the feel of his brother's fingers on his forehead. That annoying gesture, resurrected from their childhood.
"Where's Itachi?" Sasuke asks. "What was done with the body?"
Somehow, she knows that he is asking after the brother he once loved, not the monster Itachi became, because Sakura says, gently, "We brought him back with us. We brought him home."
She reaches out—cautious, tentative, like she's approaching a wild animal—and takes his hand. The warmth of the contact, the tangling of her fingers with his own, is not unwelcome, and when she squeezes his palm he squeezes back. Maybe a little too hard, but Sakura is a kunoichi of Konoha and she doesn't remark upon it.
And when the tears begin to slide down his cheeks, she doesn't remark upon that either.
17.
He is seventeen, and Sasuke kisses Sakura on the very bench where Naruto impersonated him all those years ago. The same place where he once intended to leave her behind.
Now she kisses him back and this time she does not taste of tears. Sasuke catches her bottom lip between his teeth, and Sakura whimpers, clutches at the front of his shirt. He wraps an arm around her hips and pulls her closer, onto his lap.
This is their first kiss since the night he almost left Konoha, but it is not the last.
They start meeting in private places. Usually his apartment, but sometimes her parents' house when Kizashi and Mebuki are both on missions. Eventually they grow bolder, and after a hard sparring session they will often lie in the grass and trade touches. Her hands roam beneath his shirt and she presses her lips to his cheek, his chin, his neck. So warm and soft, and he begins to imagine her mouth on other places.
They keep their secret for three months, until the day Naruto bursts into Sasuke's flat without knocking and sees them together, on the couch. He's mildly jealous and more than a little hurt that they did not confide in him. Naruto tells someone, who tells Ino, who tells everyone, and soon it's all over the village that they've been sneaking around.
Kizashi and Mebuki are not happy about this.
"They told me I can't keep seeing you if we're not dating," Sakura says. "But I don't care. It's not their choice. I'm seventeen and I outrank them and it's not any of their business. I'm moving out soon anyway."
"You should respect your parents' wishes," Sasuke says.
"Didn't you hear me?" Sakura asks. "They don't want me to be with you if we don't—"
It is not the only time she's chosen him over her mother and father (he remembers her offering to leave her family that night four years ago), and Sasuke doesn't want her to feel like she has to keep making that choice.
"So what?" he asks. "We'll start dating then."
He expects her to be happy, but Sakura looks at him doubtfully. "And that's what you want?"
"I wouldn't ask you if I didn't."
She smiles, and it is maybe the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.
18.
He is eighteen, and they make love for the first time.
They fumble with one another's clothes, her hands trembling as she pulls his pants down, his fingers tripping to unzip her shirt. Nervousness and inexperience battling with want. Desire wins out, and soon they are naked in his bed. They kiss and touch and when they finally come together Sasuke nearly cries out. The sweet friction where their bodies meet threatens to undo him, but he is careful to go slowly, gently. Sakura bites her lip and scratches his back, but she is a strong girl, a girl used to pain, and she doesn't cry.
"I'm sorry," Sasuke whispers, because he is. However good this feels, he doesn't want to hurt her.
Sakura shakes her head, lifts herself against his shallow thrust, deepening the contact, and Sasuke clenches his teeth, fists the sheets. "Don't be sorry. I want this. I want you."
He takes her mouth with his, takes her body with his, and when it's over Sasuke lies beside Sakura on the love-rumpled sheets, breathing heavily. There is something he wants to say, but the words won't come. Stalled on his tongue, three syllables that carry so much weight for all their brevity.
19.
He is nineteen, and Sasuke asks her to become his wife.
His proposal is short, terse, unromantic, but sincerely meant. A simple, "Marry me, Sakura." More a demand than a request, but she says, "Yes," just the same.
Three weeks later, Haruno Sakura becomes Uchiha Sakura, and for the first time since he lost his clan, Sasuke has a family to call his own.