My first honest try at NaruSaku. There is some kind of haunted tragedy to this pair, I find somewhat appealing.
Disclaimer. I own nothing, but the plot.
This is entirely in Naruto's POV.
AU set after the wars.
He knows best how haunted she truly is. How she hides behind every smile, every angry scowl, every adorable twitch the true depth of her despair towards Sasuke's coldness and indiferrence. Naruto knows best how fragile his little teammate is, how easily she is as crushed as the bones she crumbles under her dainty white hands.
How out of his reach she is still to him.
There were days, back in the wars, fighting alongside her, that the blonde shinobi truly felt close to her, in a level Sasume would never reach. When the wars ended, when every enemy shinobi had been laid to rest and his brother had been (forcibly) safely tucked under his wings once more, Naruto had honestly thought he just might have a chance at her heart.
He just might have a chance for a place inside those emerald eyes of hers.
It was for naught.
Sakura-chan, once she laid her beautiful eyes at their broken friend, had shed every bit of herself in them, every ounce of the desperate love and fondness she'd keep only for the bastard. In his darkest hours, Naruto found himself silently cursing himself for bringing him back. In those times he loathes, Sasuke, Sakura but mostly himself and his weakness.
Tilting his head back with a soft sigh in the relative safe of his ratted apartment (he can't bear to part with it, even if a man of his position had no job living alongside whores and thieves anymore) the broken radio played a soft tune he'd heard countless of times before, that held no lyrics, no words. To him that sad endless tune reminded him of her and her forced strength, her false bravado and how small and rather vulnerable she truly was.
How she was always making all the choices that would eventually hurt her the most.
She was always like this, like a whisp of air. Even back in their genin days. Sakura had always been like a small, fluffy cloud that was constantly carried away (be it Ino, or Sasuke, or even him) and nowadays, after everything (every hurt, every betrayal and wrong choise), she had become a dark, fast travelling one, carrying the heavy load of unbearable rain with her. Naruto could neither find who she truly was and yet he couldn't lose sight of all that he knew of her already.
What did he know of the weathers that tormented her anyway, of the torrents of winds that made fun of her and forced her to travel across the all worlds and dive into the depths of her personal despair?
What did Naruto know of every tearful gaze she turned towards her fallen avenger that seemed to dim and fade (and die) each (all) time he refused to gaze back at her?
What would he ever know about her lips, about the fire they could spread throughout his whole being once they touched his (he'd wanted to make that fire his for the longest time possible), the way she longed to touch Sasuke's (am I not enough?)?
Sakura was always travelling through her own time and space (unknowingly taking him with her) crying because of Sasuke and for Sasuke and their parting (and those thank you's Naruto would never know of) that still haunted her and all their unanswered feelings between them that held her heart in iron bars.
As for him, he stood in the sidelines, watching her helplessly drift away from him, breezing through her life and bringing gentle rain, each day a bit more, closing in on herself, crying and hurting and faking most of her smiles and laughs, making her silences even more unbearable.
Naruto had always thought himself a hero, but whenever it came to Sakura or Sasuke he always knew he was meant to be a failure.
Sasuke because he'd lost him to his darkness and Sakura because he was losing her to herself.
She was always like air.
So when she changed directions and her dark clouds were carried away, to lands far away, Naruto didn't truly have the heart to chase after her, no matter how much he desired it.
Air had always been his element after all, so whenever she went, no matter how far, Naruto honestly believed she would one day flutter towards him and her clouds would shield him from the blistering sun that was Sasuke.
One day her gentle rains would be his.
So when one day the sun in the land of fire cooled down a bit and he felt droplets of spring rain in his arms, he wasn't all that surprised by the way his arms were suddenly filled with her being in a desperate hug, full of "I missed you" and incoherent words or by the way her lithe body melted against his so naturally and when Naruto felt those lips for real (to finally shut her up), making raging hot fire course through his entire self, he knew it was worth the wait in the sidelines.
Gentle rains and soft winds and dark clouds and cherry blossoms and everything in between, finally in the place they were supposed to be.
She was alway like a whisp of air and he air had always been his.
A/N. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I hate it, still it had to be written, so here you go.