Alrighty than, here's a rather long oneshot. enjoy.
DISCLAMER: i do not own naruto or any related characters if i did i wouldnt have to tyoe this message now would i????????? o.O
"Why don't you ever eat anymore?" Naruto leaned over and asked our pink-haired teammate. However, just like she usually did when someone asked her Sakura just ignored him.
I looked over at my two teammates, 'When will that dork learn? She's just going to ignore him. I say, let her skip a few meals if she wants to. As long as she gets some type of food and she doesn't slow us down at all it'll be alright with me.' But inside there was a small voice that told me that something truly wrong with my female comrade and that she truthfully didn't eat anything at all. But, that stoic, self-centered part of me just ignored the realistic part. After all, I knew better than to show emotion around others because that was weakness. I knew that I shouldn't get involved with the affairs of Sakura. It was her buisness whether she ate or not. And besides, she probably didn't want anyone to get involved.
Well, everyone's wrong sometimes, right? Everyone makes mistakes, right? It's just my luck to make mine at the worst time possible. I mean, why couldn't I be more like Naruto? Hmmm...there's a thought, why can't I be more like Naruto so that I would have tried to talk to Sakura. Than, maybe this could have been avoided. If only I had seen the signs. Although, I suppose everyone in this room right now is thinking the same way. Naruto, sitting next to me has a worried look on his face. Ino, Sakura's best friend is crying silently by Shikamaru whose supporting her. Kakashi, is reading his book again but, it looks like he's not really concentrating. I wonder what is truly going through their heads right now. Are they doing the same as me? Thinking about all of the times when we could have noticed that something was wrong?
But, I shouldn't think about the others right now. All I want to think about is her. Sakura. Sweet, naive, loving, innocent, pink-haired Sakura. Right now, I have to concentrate on her because if I let her go out of mind for a second that might allow her to leave my life forever. And I can't go through that again. I can not lose another person, espeically not like this because once again it'll be my fault. Now, where was I? Oh yes, the practice where everything started.
"Well, that's it for today. We'll meet same time tomorrow." Kakashi anounced at the end of practice. He looked at us each, almost seeming to analyze us. He took the longest on Sakura for some reason. She was breathing heavier than the rest of us and was trying hard not to collapse. Also, she had had the harder time than usual when we were traing using our chakra. And during that she usual was almost perfect everytime. But, Kakashi left. He must have dismissed it as an off day for her. Afterall, everyone had those sometimes--even me.
"Hey, Sakura, you wanna go get something to eat?" Naruto asked Sakura, apparently he was still trying to make her eat.
However Sakura shook her head and replied, "No, if I don't get home soon my Dad'll kill me."
I wonder if she knew how close she was to the truth. I wonder if, inside somewhere, she knew what was going to happen. In that simple sentance was she infering what was going to happen? In that simple sentance was she trying to tell us something? Or, perhaps, I am just over analyzing things.
"Well, okay than. See you later Sakura." Naruto told her as he finished packing up his paraphenilia.
"Bye, Naruto." Sakura told him and started to leave but was stopped when Naruto called out one more thing to her.
"Do you want me to walk you home?" Naruto asked her.
"No Naruto, I'll be fine. I can take care of myself you know." Sakura called back in a firm voice.
Liar. Sakura lied, she couldn't take care of herself. If she could than maybe she wouldn't be in this predicament. I never knew Sakura could lie like that. But, I suppose that she would in order to keep her secret. And, who knows, maybe she thought that if she lied to us enough she would believe it herself. Maybe she only lied to us to keep herself from truly grasping the reality of her situation.
"Alright than," Naruto gave in. He must have run out of excuses to talk to her, "I'll just see you tomorrow than."
"Okay Naruto. Good-bye. See you later Sasuke." She turned to me and smiled, her sweet and innocent smile that made it seem like nothing was wrong.
Key word: SEEM
"Bye." I gave a one word, monotone reply to Sakura. I watched as she turned around and walked off towards her house. But, she walked slowly as if she was procratinating arriving home.
Naruto walked over to me, hands in his pockets. I looked up at him as he stood beside me for a moment, leaning against a scarred up tree. I stood there quietly, waiting for him to start talking.
Finally, after another moment, Naruto told Sasuke, "Do you think something was wierd with Sakura today? I mean she hasn't eaten in the past few days. Maybe we should go and check on her or something."
I thought over Naruto's suggestion and replied, "No, I don't think that something's wrong with Sakura. She probably is on one of those dumb crash diet things so that's why she's eating. As for going to check on her, I think it would just be a waste of time. And it would probably just get on her nerves if you keep pestering her. You don't want to get her mad or anything so just leave her alone."
Why can't I ever keep my mouth shut? Why couldn't I get over myself and for once act in the favor of others? I bet that there were multiple chances in which I could probably have stopped this from happening if I had just done those two things. I wonder how many there were. This is chance one.
"Okay, whatever you say Sasuke, see you later dude." Naruto replied curtly as he too walked off, most likely to go think over a bowl of ramen.
I too stood up and left. I walked around the village for a while, stopping shortly to eat at the barbeque stand. As I was eating my few last pieces Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji walked in.
"Hey Sasuke." Ino called over to me. She led Shikamaru and Choji over to my table, "Have you seen Sakura?"
"Nope," I answered, "I haven't seen her since she left practice to go home."
"Really? Well, I was going to ask her if she wanted to go to the mall with me today. I suppose that I could go over to her house and see if she has the time." Ino explained.
"I wouldn't do that. Or, at least wait until tomorrow than you can go but, she sounded like she was going to be busy all day." I advised her.
There goes the second chance.
"Oh, okay than, if you say so I'll just go with Hinata or something. " Ino told me, "C'mon Shkamaru, Choji. I wanna hurry up and get over to the mall." I watched as Ino led her to fellow teammates over to a vancant table. I payed for my food and stood up to leave. I walked out of the resturant and into the day that was slowly fading away as the sun was beginning to set behind the mountains.
Was Sakura seeing the same thing right then or was she too blinded by the pain to see anything?
I walked quietly down the streets towards my own house. I stopped at an intersection. If I continued staight I would reach my house in a matter of minutes. However, if I detoured to the right I would walk past Sakura's house and be able to reach my house in just a little longer than I would the other way. I looked down the road towards Sakura's house. I could distantly make out her front fence.
"I'm just being wierd." I told myself, "Why would I need to check on her? I'm starting to sound like that dork, Naruto." I looked away from her street and began walking down the street.
Well, there goes chance three.
When I arrived home I showered and went straight to bed. Well, I layed in bed at least, something was keeping me awake to stare at the shadows that danced across the walls of my room. I just ignored it.
The next morning I woke up, not remembering when I had fallen asleep. Outside the sun was just waking up, it was still low in the sky, just barely above the treetops that littered the outskirts of out village like tall, sturdy guards. I got ready to start my name and left the house, grabbing a granola bar for my breakfast and a small lunch. I ran out into the street and headed towards the bridge where I would meet Sakura, Naruto, and Kakashi.
As soon as I arrived at the bridge I noticed something was wrong. Sakura, who was usually there first was missing and Naruto, who usually didn't arrive until a few minutes after us was leaning against the railings with a worried look on his face. Kakashi didn't arrived until at least 20 minutes after he said fr us to be there.
Naruto ran up to me as soon as he saw me, "It took you long enough to get here. We need to go over to the hospital!"
"What happened?" I asked, although I had a hint as to who it happened to.
"Something happened to Sakura. We have to go to the hospital and check on her. Hurry up!!" Naruto turned and began walking briskly towards the hospital. He was obviously straining himself from breaking into a run. I just stood there, almost in a trance. Sakura was hurt? How could this happen? Who would hurt her? How bad was she hurt? All at once I was out of the trance as I began to walk towards the hospital.
When I arrived at the hospital a nurse showed me to a room. When I entered I was solemnly greeted by Naruto, Kakashi, Ino, Shikamaru, Hinata, and Lee. I walked straight towards an empty chair and sat down in it. I stared forwards as I began trying to answer the question zooming tthrough my mind. Ino walked over to me quietly and sat down beside me.
I glanced over at her as she began to summarize what happened, "I ended up going to the mall with Hinata but we saw a one day sale at Sakura's fave store. So, Hinata told me that we should go and get Sakura because she would be so like, siked. And so we went to go and get her. When we got there Sakura's dad was walking out and so we asked him if Sakura could you know, come with us to the um...mall. And so, anyways he was all like 'No, No, absolutly not. Sakura's in trouble.' And than he walked away. Well as we were about to go Hinata noted that he hadn't closed the door all of the way so we walked up the steps to shut it because we're just nice like that. And when we got to the doorway we saw blood. I mean everywhere on the floors and there was puke in some spots. It was like gross major. And so we walked in, worried of course. And we walked around until we got to Sakura's room and we waalked in and she was laying on the floor, covered in blood! We got so scared. Well, we freaked out at least. But, anyways, Hinata called Tsunade who came over really quickly and brought her to the hospital. We went to get you guys. We found Naruto first, he was walking towards the bridge. We told him to go there and stay in case you guys got there before we found you. We found Kakashi next and walked him over to the hospital, telling him what happened. When we got here Lee and Shikamaru were here. We got brought to this room and we've been waiting here ever since."
Once Ino was finished I just sat there, absorbing all of this information. Sakura's dad beat her? It explained everything. I looked at Ino and asked, "How's Sakura?"
She sighed softly, "She's in critical and has about a 60 chance of actually pulling through, but it's still a good chance, espiecally for Sakura whose such a fighter. She'll make it." But, Ino's voice wavered as she said this, as if she wasn't sure.
"And her dad?"
"He's in custody. Where he should be." Ino told him. She looked over to the corner of her eye." She gave another sigh and stood up. I watched as she walked back over to Shikamaru leaving me to think over everything that happened.
That was just a few minutes ago, now I'm awaiting the verdict from Tsunade whether or not Sakura will survive. I hope she will because I don't think I could live if she died.
I looked up as Tsunade walked into the room. She opened her mouth and began to announce what was going to happen to Sakura, "I think she'll be fine. But, need less to say, we'll keep her here for a few days to make sure everything's okay."
"Can we see her?" Naruto asked from somewhere to my right.
"One at a time." Tsunade directed, "Sasuke, come first."
"Why him?" Naruto objected.
"Because, unlike you he knows how to stay calm. Right now Sakura doesn't need people jumping in her face, asking questions off of the top of his head like a lunatic. Sasuke will go in first, than Kakashi, than Naruto, than Lee, and finally Ino, Hinata and Shikamaru can go in all at once because by than it will probably be late." Tsunade told them
"Why do I have to go third?" Naruto protested again.
"Naruto Uzumaki," Tsunade threatened him, "If you don't sit down and hush you won't see Sakura at all until she's released from here." Naruto sat down quietly, he obviously wanted to see Sakura.
"Whatever." Naruto muttered.
"Thank you Naruto, now Sasuke, come on." I stood up as Tsunade beckoned to me. I walked quiety over to the room, hands in my pocket. When I entered the next room I as greeted by the sight of Sakura laying in a hospital bed. I walked over and sat down in the chair beside her. Tsunade quietly shut the door and left.
"Hey." Sakura greeted me in a raspy voice. I looked at her voice and realised why, her throat had a white bandage on it that held together stitches. I looked over the rest of her visible body. Her forehead had bruises on her; she had the beginnings of a black eye; her neck, in addition to the cut, had bruises in the shape of a hand; her arms had cuts, scratches, and her wrists had lacerations on them. Her legs were covered by thin, white blankets but there were probably more cuts and bruises on them.
"Do they hurt?" I asked and immediatly realised how stupid the question was, of course they hurt.
"Yeah, I suppose. They don't hurt as much though. Besides, Lady Tsunade told me that it wasn't these scars I needed to worry about." Sakura told me.
"Oh, well, I suppose if you want to talk about anything I'm here for you." After I told her this I realised how stupid I must be sounding to her.
"I might like that. I mean, talking to you. I'll probably end up needing to talk to someone so that I don't go loony!" Sakura made a small laugh that sounded painful.
"Yeah, we wouldn't want that." I added.
"Well, I'm really sorry for not telling you about it. I should have told someone but I was afraid to. I was afraid of what people might think about me." Sakura admitted.
"It's not like it's your fault or anything. I mean, it could have happened to anyone."
"Yeah, but it hapened to me of all people." Sakura told him as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"Don't cry please. I don't want to see you cry."
"Whose out there?" Sakura asked, nodding over towards the door.
"Naruto, Kakashi, Lee, Hinata, Ino, and Shikamaru. They're all so worried about you." I told her. She smiled at me, a warm smile.
"Sasuke, I think that you're probably the person I'l have th least amount of trouble talking to. You don't show emotion as easily as some of the others so that way if I talk to you I won't have to worry about what yourthinking. Although, don't get me wrong, I care about what you think greatly. I just wish you might tell me what was going tthrough your mind. And, oh, I'm probably sounding so stupid right mow, I'm just babbling on and on so that I can put off telling you things that I want to tell you. I'm such a stupid coward." I watched as Sakura brought her knees up under the covers so that they were bent.
"You're not stupid and your not a coward. You are smart and brave and don't you dare forget it. I wish I could be more like you. I wish I could be brave enough to allow people to know what I'm feeling." I confessed to Sakura.
"You really think that?" She asked me, looking surprised.
I nodded slowly, "Oh, yes, of course. I mean it takes someone strong to go through what you went through. You're so strong in your own ways Sakura. Strength isn't just muscular. There's also mental and emotional strength. And you posess alot of the latter. And I respect you for that." I was shocked! Why was I telling her this?
"Thanks, Sasuke. That really means a lot to me."
"No problem." I told her. She leaned forward slowly and gave me a chaste kiss on the lips, as if asking for permission. I looked around, we were alone in the room. The door was completely shut behind me and the window shades were drawn closed, secured by a ribbon. Sakura leaned forward and gave me another kiss, this time a little bit longer. She drew back and looked at me, as if asking if what she did was acceptable. I looked at her blankly for a moment. Sakura turned her head to the side as if she was embarassed.
'This is what she really needs right now, isn't it?' I asked myself. She really needed me to do this for her so that she might feel wanted. I lifted her chin up with three fingers so that she was facing me. I slowly leaned in and gave her a deep kiss. I licked her lips, asking for permission. She allowed me to enter her mouth and I did so greatfully. I searched through every inch of her mouth, familiarizing myself with this new found place. She gripped my shirt tightly and pulled herself closer to me so that she rubbed against my chest. After a few more moments I drew back, allowing us each to catch our breaths. She looked up at me, a blush fully spreading across her face.
"Sasuke..I..." Sakura began to tell me but I stopped her by beginning another kiss. She placed her hand gently on the back of my head, pushing me even further into the kiss. I in turn put my hand around her waist, pushing her closer to me so that our bodies were pressed firmly together. I realised that we would need to seperate to breath but I didn't want the kiss to end. As my air supply began to dwindle I realised I needed to breath. However, instead of letting go completely I stopped the kiss on the lips and slid down to the crook of her neck, allowing time for a breath. I kissed Sakura in her neck. Here she tasted like cherries and vanilla. I worked my way around to the other side and kissed the other side of her neck. She gave out a soft moan that egged me on. I pushed her hair out of the way as I kissed more and more of her neck.
"Sasuke? Why are you doing this?" Sakura asked out of nowhere in her innocent voice that made me stop kissing her and look at her.
The truth was that I had no idea why I was kissing her. The feeling just came over me and I couldn't stop. But, what was behind those emotions? Just hormones or was I actually feeling something for my teammate? I looked up at her and replied finally, "I don't know I guess I just couldn't control myself or something. I think I love you but, I don't know. I've never felt like this before. I want to just kiss you all over but, I just don't know why."
"So, your not just doing this because you feel sorry for me or..."
"No, never." I told her. She gave me a shy smile.
"That's good, but, Sasuke, I'm probably going to have to tell a lot of people this but, I'm sorry for never telling anybody. Instead I kept it inside because I didn't want to be a burden. But, I guess that blew up in my face because I was still a burden to everyone and I still made them worry about me." Sakura let out a sigh.
"It's not your fault Sakura. I'm sorry, I should have payed more attention to you instead of being so damn haughty and ignoring you. I was so ignorant. And I was going to go and check on you but I thought it would be stupid to do so. If I had just done that you might not be in this position." I confessed to Sakura. I sat on the bed and leaned her against me so her back was to my chest. I stroked her pink locks but, I don't know if it was for her comfort or for mine.
"I'm not mad at you Sasuke. I think it's my fault for not being strong enough."
"No it's not, don't ever say that. It's his fault for doing this to you. He was your father and you trusted him, he used it against you. But, no one's going to ever hurt you again, understand me? I'll make sure no one ever hurts you. I promise." I told her. And it was true. I wanted to protect my little cherry blossom from everything and everybody. She was so sweet and innocent and no would could ever take that away from her. And anyone foolish enough to try would face the wrath of an Uchiha.
"Thanks Sasuke-kun."
"Anytime, Sakura-chan." I saw her blush as I added the suffix.
"Sasuke-teme hurry up in there others want to see Sakura-chan too!!!!" We heard Naruto yell from outside the door.
"Well, Sakura-chan, I believe I have to go."
"Already?" She asked in a dissapointed voice.
"Yes, but I'll be back, alright?"
"Yes, I'll be waiting for you."
"Very well. I suppose I'll see ya." I stood up.
"Bye Sasuke."
"Sakura-chan," I called to her softly, turning around, "I love you." I leaned down and gave her a chaste kiss on the lips. She looked up at me once more and in her eyes I saw everything, she trusted me, she loved me, she needed me.
Well, I needed her to. Right now. I leaned in once more and kissed her on the lips. I started softer but slowly made it rough. When we finally split apart I looked at her.
She looked up at me and told me, "I love you too Sasuke-kun, I always have and always will."