All the Waiting
By: Sasha
Disclaimer: I only own the story and the original characters. Everything else belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.
Rating: PG13 (may go up in later chapters)
Spoilers: definitely. If you only watch the anime, I suggest you go download the scanlations of the manga because they're definitely worth it. Inane does some of the best scanning and translating, so they're your best bet for quality. In any case, this is a take from the most recent chapters. It spoils things for chapters after 200 and follows directly after 218.
A/N: I can't read Japanese and I don't have access to the most recent volumes from Japan so I don't know if I've somehow foretold the future. I HIGHLY doubt that I have. Just before you start reading, this fic is somewhat of an exercise in changing pairings around. I have followed somewhat canon pairings, but now I want to try something new. For all you SasuSaku fans, I'm sorry. This won't be anything like that. I don't know who Sakura will end up with- yet, but rest assured, it will be with someone completely unlike Sasuke. I don't even know if Sasuke will return. I assume that he won't. Please give this fic a chance and for goodness sake, don't demand that I write the pairing you'd like. As I said before, this is an exercise in changing the way I write, that is, a break away from canon.
revision: June 14, 2004. Note, Sakura doesn't wait for Sasuke EVERY day, EVERY year. Just for the first year, and then once a year on the date he was declared missing.
Prologue – Giving Up
She was the only one who still kept track of how long he'd been gone. Uchiha Sasuke had been declared missing six years and four months ago. Four months ago, Sakura had sat in front of the gates to Konoha, as she had done once each year, to wait for him to come back to her. She was being irrational and completely childish, but she waited for the day he would come back so she could hear the reason why he stayed away from his own mouth. Then she would walk away without another word, because she would have nothing to say to him.
"Sakura-chan, please come and join us for dinner. You can still watch the gates and eat," Oyotaki, the main gate watcher pleaded, motioning for her to join him and Fujin, the other gate guard, for a meal.
She nodded, listening to the growling of her stomach and because Oyotaki's wife had sent her special bento boxes just for the occasion. Sakura took a seat opposite of Oyotaki and gratefully accepted the bento and chopsticks.
"You don't think I'm being foolish, do you, Oyotaki-san?" she asked, taking the lid off.
"Of course not. I think everyone is anxious to see when Sasuke-kun will arrive. I think you're perfectly normal to wait for him this way. It's not like you do this every single day," he said, patting her on the shoulder.
She smiled, grateful for his kind words, declared it was time to eat, and happily dug in.
Oyotaki was almost right. She didn't wait for Sasuke every day- anymore. The year he had gone missing was a different story.
Sakura remembered sitting in front of the gates, caring little if she happened to be in the way of people coming and going. The only thing that mattered was Sasuke coming back. She knew there was no way he would come back willingly, but she knew that Naruto could coerce their teammate into returning- with or without force. She remembered how heavy her heart felt, full of something she felt and thought was love for her teammate, but the six years he'd made her wait lessened the weight. She'd come to an understanding that whatever feeling she felt for the quiet, dark-haired boy couldn't have been love. Love lasted forever where they lived, though she must have been wrong about what she felt for Sasuke.
"My wife saw you the other day," Oyotaki started, "she said that you've gotten thin. Have you been eating properly?" he asked, concern furrowing his eyebrows.
Sakura nodded slowly. "I have, but I just can't seem to keep that much down. If my mother forces me to eat, I end up feeling like I'll burst," she quickly explained, enjoying the lunch Oyotaki's wife had made for her.
"Though," she said smiling, "your wife's cooking may change my ways," she added, bringing the chopsticks to her lips once more.
The main gate guard smiled. "I'm glad. I just thought that you might still be hung up over Sasuke. You know, he's really not worth it if he hasn't even sent word about his wellbeing. Some boys are just trouble like that," Oyotaki said, pointing to her with his chopsticks.
Maybe a few years ago, Sakura would have yelled at the gate guard for saying something like that. Since she'd grown, she'd learned to accept whatever people said because they probably were right. Sasuke must have been trouble if he hadn't returned. If he was trouble, then she could blame the stupid things she did, like waiting at the gate every day for a year and half, on him. Because some girls just liked bad boys, right?
"Sakura-chan," Fujin said, "do you really want to wait for the rest of the day? It's been so long," he said, his brown eyes softening in the sadness he felt for the girl.
She thought about it. Did it really matter if he came back? If he did, he would be shamed rather than welcomed, because shinobis who left their village did it for good. That's how they become missing-nins. Maybe this year she wouldn't stay. It wouldn't make much of a difference if she left.
"I'm not sure," she said, reaching into the lunchbox for the last takoyaki.
"We'll still be here, no matter what you choose to do," Fujin said, patting her free hand. She smiled softly.
Sakura knew what she would do. She wouldn't wait any longer. She was smarter than that, and despite how devoted she thought she could be, she didn't want to wait for a boy whom she was certain would not return. Sakura wasted enough of her life staring at the gates for Uchiha Sasuke and she wouldn't do it any longer.
Chapter one preview: Flashback to the boys' arrival into the village and Naruto explains everything in the hospital.
A/N: I hope you guys liked it. That's just the prologue. I'm estimating this thing to be pretty long, somewhere around ten chapters, give or take two. Yeah, I know that Sakura seems a little OOC, but nobody really knows how she'd turn out in six years. Not everyone acts like they used to when they were twelve, and Sakura is no exception. I just made her this way based on what she's had to go through and so I decided that she was smart enough to stop waiting for Sasuke to come back.