Eclipse
Yesterday is a promise that you've broken
Don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes…
Sakura thinks she knows what love is. Everyone else thinks she's right.
…But Sakura doesn't know love. She never had Itachi for a brother; she never woke up with fistfuls of his sheets in her hands because he helped her sleep through a storm. She doesn't know what it's like to breathe in the smell of rainwater and Itachi's incense sticks together.
Sasuke hates Itachi. He wants to kill him; stab him with a katana, maybe, and watch his blood run down the length of the blade. If it rained, he could watch his blood swirl into the soil, little blooms of crimson diluted with the sky's tears. …That would be nice. Too pretty for the bastard.
Sasuke hates Itachi…but a tiny part of him is still the six year old that remembers calling him "aniki" and being poked in the forehead, and so you see, Sasuke loves Itachi too.
It's a curse.
And Sakura doesn't know…she doesn't know what it's like to look down at yourself and count the scars and recall how many came from saving other people. …Family. Your mother, sometimes your aunt, your cousins—distant relatives, it doesn't matter. It's love.
Some of these marks he can't see unless he has goosebumps from being extremely cold, and others have faded so that he can only recognize them in a certain light, but he knows that they are there.
In his mind he remembers the clash of metal on metal, and sparks raining down. Kunai. Shuriken. Katana. …He won for them, his family. It was love.
And way back in the back of his mind, in his memories, love was also being pulled from the river, coughing and sputtering, by his father, the first time that he attempted swimming. His mother's yells rang through the air so clearly when at last he was above the water, but below the surface her cries for him were garbled and hard to hear. …Still, they were there. And his aniki, who'd been on a mission that day, let him sleep in his bed later that night. (There came more memories of incense, and newly opened ink on parchment, too. Itachi wrote his mission report that night; Sasuke slept well.)
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… Hate, Sasuke thinks sometimes, is the hardest master to answer to. But just as well, love is also hard. Love can be a bitch.
Fin.
Author's Notes: My little hiatus was unintended, everyone! I will definitely be back soon. :)