Almost
While
Naruto was gone, it was easy to ignore Sasuke's absence. She could
feel it, of course, but it was undefined, like half of one of her
mother's pottery molds. After Naruto returns, he forms the other
half and the outline of the empty space is painfully clear. When he
walks with her, he leaves just enough room for it between them, and
the gesture is almost enough to make her love him.
She lets Naruto kiss her and more, and if he isn't very good at first, well, neither is she. Maybe, she thinks, "almost" will be good enough.
Change
It's all wrong. The shape is
right but the dimensions aren't; it's been three years. Sasuke
doesn't fit their mold anymore.
They've changed as well, she and Naruto. He used to be their common ground. Her crush. Naruto's rival. They've made their own common ground since then. Their walls curve around more now than where he used to be.
She wonders if the empty space he left will stretch to hold him again, or if the walls of it (the walls of them) will crack and shatter. She watches Sasuke and Naruto fight, and wonders if she wants them to.
Doesn't
When Sasuke looks first at
Naruto, Sakura doesn't notice.
When Sasuke's first words are to Naruto, Sakura doesn't care.
When the first time Sasuke smiles is for Naruto, Sakura tells herself it doesn't matter.
When Naruto talks Sasuke into a boys-only ramen night, Sakura doesn't object.
When Naruto is late coming home, Sakura doesn't wait up.
And when he returns well after midnight, smelling of sweat and sex and Sasuke, she doesn't turn over and she doesn't cry.