A Standard
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Naruto. I don't profit from the writing of this story.
Sakura had settled down after the war ended.
"I'm glad you've returned for your follow-up appointment."
Sakura had focused more on developing her medical abilities, completely exceeding Tsunade.
"Have you been experiencing any aches? Soreness?"
She made it a ritual: she and her boys take the evening just eating, relaxing at Ichiraku.
"I see with your recuperation, your chakra flow has returned to normal."
She always made sure to have a girls' night and reserved some for just Ino.
"Your strength should recover soon and you'll be ready for a more demanding mission."
She pursued a kinship with Karin, wanting the red-haired kunoichi to enjoy her stay in Konoha.
"Please be careful next time, okay, Sasuke?"
Sakura Haruno had settled down five years after the war ended.
Her left hand glinted with a modest gold band.
"Hn."
Sakura Haruno accepted a man's marriage proposal two years after the war ended
One she had refused to become his girlfriend.
-but did not marry him for another year.
"Haruno-san, marry me."
"E-eh? B-but…"
"I know. Your heart is for another man, but this war's over. Feelings change."
"I…"
"Marry me, Haruno-san. You deserve a good man. I will be that man. I promise you."
"I can't."
He made a fist. Looking away, he clicked his tongue.
"And I can't let you go."
Her lips thinned.
"We survived a war. We deserve to be happy."
I want to be happy.
Sakura understood the undertone.
"If that man doesn't want you,"
She shut her eyes pushing back the sting.
"after all the dust fully clears, then be with me."
The rubble, the pain, the turmoil cleared in a year's time.
It was a verbal agreement.
Sakura settled.
"I will marry you."
"My eyes… Sakura,"
The pink-haired medic's eyes connected with his. They stayed in silence.
"Let me have a look."
She closed their distance. Their noses were almost touching as she slipped warm fingertips upon his temple. Her eyes focused, hard. She noted some signs of strain and overuse in his eyes.
Sasuke's breath fanned her neck. The heat of his exhale clung to her delicate skin.
The Sharingan user's fingers twitched. A strand of her pink hair tickled his cheek.
In a blink she pulled away. Her face read no expression. Eyes downcast. She smiled strained.
"Progressing wonderfully, Sasuke; you'll be good to use your Sharingan again in no time."
With that, she spun on her heel and walked away.
"Sakura-"
She froze, her hand almost fully turning the handle of the door. She acknowledged him.
"-I'm sorry."
Sakura tightened her jaw at his soft voice.
"…Thank you."
Not once looking back, she strode away closing the door behind her.
Sakura Haruno took the same path, walking home to her small apartment. She shared her home with a man she married, a man to whom she promised her life and loyalty.
She met with a dear man she loved, a blonde energetic legend, whiskers tilting as he grinned broadly.
"Sakura-chan!"
"Naruto, ready for dinner?"
"You bet! But…Hinata-chan…can't come tonight. She fainted."
"Oh…I hope she's alright."
"I kissed her. Like really-really kissed her." His cheeks enflamed.
Sakura cupped her mouth, blushing. "O-Oh!" Recovering she clapped her hand to his shoulder, "You did it!"
"Nyehehe, Sakura-chan. So much for you betting on us taking it slow."
"I know, I lost, I'd make my shishou proud. Impressive, it took her you guys making out for her to finally faint. I thought she would the moment youheld her hand."
Naruto bashfully scratched the back of his head. "Great, isn't it?"
She poked his cheek teasingly, "Ooh, what's this, Naruto? Getting embarrassed? Gosh, Naruto, what about when you guys take it to the next level? Are you guys switching personalities?"
Naruto elbowed her playfully, "geez Sakura-chan, already thinking Hinata-chan and I are ready for that! No wonder you jumped into marriage!"
The air staled.
The blonde regarded her. Their pace towards Ichiraku had not slowed. The silence stretched.
"Well, let's eat, Naruto."
Sakura let out a deep sigh as she let the apartment door close behind her.
"I'm home."
She was greeted with silence, and she removed her boots. She paused, finding her husband's shoes already neatly placed at the entrance.
As she fit into her house-slippers, she almost tripped over the first step into her home and caught her balance with the wall. Her fingers grazed a frame just above her. She stared solemnly at its subject.
The love-letter.
She recalled the day after he moved into her apartment, how ecstatic he was to bring the letter.
"Do you remember this? I really wanted to give this to you."
She touched the corners of the paper, eyelids drooping.
He was so happy.
"You turned me down, but here we are. I waited and it paid off."
She recalled how he shyly touched her wrist. He lifted her much smaller hand into his, and pressed his lips on the wedding band on her finger.
"I love you, Sakura."
He'd always say.
"Thank you."
She'd always say back.
He'd accept it.
Sakura crossed into the bedroom they shared, and she rested her cheek on the doorway. She smiled, that smile, the one not quite touching her eyes.
He sat there in the center of their queen-sized bed. He read a scroll, most likely of his mission for the next day. He was so focused.
She had read his missions before. All of them were C-rank missions, D-ranks; escorts.
To him they were triumphs. Any mission, actually felt like great feats. He was Sakura's husband. She was Sakura, the apprentice of the Sannin Tsunade. After leaving the Stone Village and being accepted into Konoha, something he didn't expect. As long as Konoha assigned him missions, he felt worthwhile.
Add to the fact that Sakura never told him she had done numerous S-ranked missions.
He looked up from his scroll and gave her a gentle smile, before returning his attention to his reading.
Sakura pushed off the doorway and fully entered the bedroom.
She went to bed as this man's wife. They slept together as man and wife.
Sakura lay; listening to her husband's leveled breathing.
He lay, spent, elation clear on his face even as he slept.
Sakura stared at the blissful, sleeping countenance of her husband. She clenched and unclenched her left hand where she held it to her cheek. The glimmer of her wedding band stared back at her.
The circle: her clan's symbol. The symbol on her finger an expression of an unbroken, eternal love—there was a hollow in the circle. A naked hole never filled.
Her ring started to feel tight on her.
Sakura lay in bed, eyes falling from her ring.
She fell asleep dreaming of her parents, of their marriage, a standard she never could reach.
Sakura stepped back and observed the whole of her patient.
"Sasuke, you're not injured."
"Hn."
She licked her lips.
"Why are you here?"
"We need to talk."
She caught her breath. Shaking her head instantly she pursed her lips.
"I won't repeat myself."
"We don't need to talk." She walked to the door and opened it for him. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must report to the Hokage."
"Naruto can wait, Sakura."
"Sasuke…"
He approached Sakura and shut the door with force. He glared down at her while she met his gaze boldly.
"Why did you get married?"
"Because I lo-"
"Bullshit."
"Excuse me?"
"Why did you really get married?"
She didn't answer him this time.
"Sakura." A warning tone seeped into his voice.
"I love him."
"Stop lying."
"I love my husband."
Sasuke's hand shot to her wrist tugging her body to him.
She flinched. "I am a wife who loves her husband. That's why I got married."
He gripped her fragile limb. Her rehearsed response frustrated him.
"That's why anyone marries, isn't it?" Her face tightened, scrunching painfully.
"No." Sasuke brought his other hand and slipped it along her neck. A typhoon of thoughts, feelings whirled through him. Closely, his onyx eyes focused on her deep emeralds as she let her eyes shut.
"Tell me, Sasuke, why do you think anyone gets married?"
"For this," Sasuke crashed his mouth into hers.
He devoured her. Her lips shyly tried to keep up with his annihilating pace. He released her wrist and shoved her against the door. He tangled his fingers into her shoulder-length tresses, tugging her head up, deepening the kiss. Sasuke wanted her to melt into him. The erratic rhythm of his kisses mirrored his unconscious thrust of his hips into hers. His hands snaked to her back pushing her into him so deeply they became just a mess of bodies and heat.
"Marriage is bondage." Sasuke hissed. She moaned into his mouth, her useless limbs suddenly finding use. She found his scalp and clawed through his spiky hair. She weakly sunk into his kiss gathering strength to fight for domination.
"I-I think you mean a binding…" she softly corrected, she gasped when he nipped her.
I meant what I said, the action spoke.
Sakura was losing herself: the sense of time and her entire surroundings. The rest of the world swallowed up in the inferno of their activities.
"There should be trust, history in a marriage. You have nothing with that man."
She squirmed as she felt him easing his fiery kisses onto the column of her neck. He pulled at the collar of her red top.
"But…Aah, Sasuke….r-regardless…"
"But nothing, Sakura." He suckled on the vein that throbbed recklessly from their kisses. "You've made a mistake."
She gripped his hair tightly infusing her fist with her chakra. She willed herself to tear him from her person.
Her action excited him further.
"You made the mistake, Sasuke…"She sniffled despite her burning ache flowing through her body. "I waited…I did…You never came."
Sasuke tongued the hollows of her collarbone. "Sakura…"
"I can't do this, Sasuke…please…"
"I can't let you be that man's wife."
"T-Too late…"
"It's not."
It was like a padlock. His words released her weight. The unsure sensation had swelled within her being when she first married.
Whatever resolve she had before, to remember her place as married kunoichi in Konoha slipped away. All she knew, all she could grasp was he was a man and she was a woman.
They craved.
Sakura walked through the streets of her too-familiar village, bathed in the evening.
She rubbed her neck, uneasily, eyes shifting from side-to-side. She chewed her bottom lip.
Her steps were short and measured. Sakura sighed tucking a tendril of hair behind her ear. Forest-green eyes caught sight of her wedding ring. She held her hand up into the moonlight. Her face fell, a heavy lead ball weighing her belly. Her eyes washed over the way her ring innocently glimmered no matter how she angled her hand.
She made her way home uninterrupted. Darkness told her she wouldn't be running into Naruto this late at night. She entered her apartment and met with the nighttime. The drilling snores of her husband could be heard from the living room.
Her husband.
Sakura pressed her back against the door, not even thinking about removing her shoes. She slid her back down the door, and she rested her forehead on her fist.
Her husband.
He was a kind, kind man. Her actions tonight were less than kind.
Not once -not even the second time, no, or even the third time- did her husband deserve such treatment.
He didn't deserve her thoughtless actions.
She didn't once think of him when it happened.
Her thoughts centered on her unrequited feelings for the man who did things to her she had never experienced.
She rubbed her forehead on her fist from side-to-side. She tilted her head upwards, staring up at the ceiling. Her free hand touched the crook of her neck lightly.
For first time, in the apartment she shared with her husband, Sakura genuinely smiled.
Sasuke filled her hollowed circle with just one night after years of isolation.
A/N: If the format is blinding, I apologize. I'm experimenting with literal spacing and I felt for this story, it needed it. I plan to continue it but for how long? Not sure. Thanks for reading!