Written a million months ago as an entry for SasuSaku month. Wrote a few but this was the only one I liked.
Da capo, da [k'ka:po] - A musical term in Italian, meaning from the beginning (literally from the head). Take it from the top, take it to the double bar, 'til Fine.
Originally published on my Archive of our Own account: Faint_Harlot.
Da Capo Al Fine
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1. She learns that love is blind.
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She learns that the foundations of her affections were not logical or steady, not brought upon by a chance moment of romance in a quaint park. Their parents were not friends; she did not meet him while holding her mother or father's hands, a chance passing. The sun was not shining on them, nor was it a day of particular note. There was no underlying notion of destiny, impelling sense of fate involved.
Skies did not light up, and fireworks were dismally absent.
She just remembers that he was beautiful, and the most he could manage to give her was an awkward smirk, torn in half. Pain on one side, fear of interaction on the other, sprinkled with an emotionally curbed personality courtesy of vapid and obsessed little girls. His story was the gossip they gnawed on, passed among them in the form of pocket-sized talismans.
But there was so much more. Never did she forget his face. Long after every girl her age told her to give it up, that he wasn't worth it, her heart rebelled. The only part of her as a child that was so incredibly stubborn, it refused to bend or break. Growing out of her phase was not an option in the face of love, one that hardly made sense.
All she knows is he has a chasm in his heart; gaping, cavernous, a void. Brimming with love, she pours it all in.
She's been burned by the flame enough that she's quiet, now. She thinks it's one-sided, but everyone else knows.
If only she ever caught a glimpse of his handsome face, all the times he smirked before turning away.
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2. She learns that no matter how hard she tries, they will always see her in the ways they want.
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Her sensei will always see her as the girl he lost. It's why he thinks she can't handle the truth, why he smiles beneath the cloth that masks his face. Why she receives shoulder-pats and hair-ruffles and once in a while, embraces and someone to wipe away tears, for good reasons, or perhaps not. Every time – when she's cried over her first love to a recent awkward encounter in a seedy bar – his uncovered eye lingers on her right shoulder, as if his teammate's ghost smiles at him from that faraway place.
Sometimes, he could drown in that place, with that girl; Sakura knows.
Her friend will always have a lingering soft spot. She can see it when she succumbs to tears, cries her lover's name in an ugly emotional display. When she's on her lover's arm, dolled up to perfection, and they pass with significant others in tow, quiet in the night. She's rebuffed him so often, one would think it would fade. But no – she implores him with her eyes to keep it to himself, and look at his own girl. It's not love, and they both know that. It's a childish love, a scrap of his past, a lost tally in the legendary rivalry. She hates being a part of it, but that is how they see her, and some things will never change.
Sometimes, he could drown in that young ideal again; Sakura knows.
But her peers will always see her as the glue that kept their legend together – and the girl who breathed life into a traitor.
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3. She learns that the first time you kill someone, there's no one that can comfort you.
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It is not necessarily that everybody is busy or does not want to; just that no one can.
She feels power in her hands, in her fingers, in her veins. The sound of the snapped vertebrae of the neck does not fade. She hears it in ordinary instances, such as the wind shutting a door with a sharp click. In the middle of a sunny day, a wispy but sharp final breath follows her around the hospital, lingering in her ears. She spirals into the mental gymnastics of "what if's" that give the victim shape, identity, and love.
Her boss takes a drink. Her sensei gets himself lost. Her friends offer empty words.
Her lover runs a thumb over her dangerous palms, but says that it is a milestone she confronts alone.
Still, if he could do it for her, (if he could have been there) he would.
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4. She learns that shinobi coping mechanisms usually involve indulgent variations of alcohol and sex.
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And that being a medic as well as a good girl does not absolve her from falling into the patterns of many great and talented ninja before her.
She thinks it has to be a phase, and that her boss's habits could never possibly rub off on her. And if they did, she could remedy the issue with sheer willpower.
It takes her years to realize the toll of existence, healing, failing, and living. Losing an entire squad only to wake up the next morning and face the world again. The sick do not wait, the dying do not pause, and enemies are endless.
She never seems to feel the same way when she approaches him. She's a hot mess. It happens the other way around, although he does not have to be nearly as intoxicated, and emits about a tenth of the babbling she does. It's always easier to kiss her to shut her up. There's a lot of anger, hurt, laced with laughter. Some nights her dress is red because she chooses it; others, because she's lost the fight. Once in a while, she just needs something to throw around like a rag doll, something not easily bruised; he never admits he's always glad to oblige. And sometimes, she just needs to be held while she asks herself if all her work is worth it, while she frantically scrubs every last microscopic inch of her skin. Death follows her to bed, and he tries his best to bar the doors.
The fact that her peers all do the same thing does not bring them together; it drives them behind closed doors to personal choices of drink, pain, and kink.
One morning, she wakes up beside him with the cottony taste of overindulgence on her tongue. Kisses his shoulder – his sweat tastes of liquor.
She's not mystified by her boss's behavior anymore.
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5. She learns that love is blind (again) – and it's okay she didn't learn it the first time.
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For years, everybody watches him watch her, and smile only when she looks away. They warn him, in their own ways, that she could always wise up, grow up. Figure it out.
But love did not have that logic.
Something skips and thrums in her heart every time he's around. She's a little lighter, too giddy. All the feelings she should have had at the tender age of eight, not now as an adult.
She never sees it coming, the day he quietly escorts her to the empty alleys that once were the staunch and serious symbols of his powerful clan. The day he silently walks around, feeling the ghosts of dead family members brushing by, wanting a straightforward answer. The day his mother, with all her love and blessing, whispers to him in a quiet breeze. He knows his choice.
The day he takes Sakura's face in his hands and asks, "Will you?"