Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Also! This is a story that is probably going to be in short snippets. Thank you so much for reading!
Day One:
Sasuke has lived most of his life through a film of grief.
The gentle presses of sadness have always infringed on his vision: yearnings of mother's love, brotherly words and paternal acceptance have always been the moments where his heart stutters in his chest.
Anger has always been prevalent—undying, forever—in his heart, until of course, like all the other feelings of rage and emptiness, the ever-burning, ever-present anger eventually fades away too, with time.
Anger and rage and sadness and occasionally, betrayed love—Itachi's red eyes always burn in his mind, Sakura's strained words through her sobs, Naruto's tightened hands, Kakashi's lazy eye—those are the only things Sasuke ever felt until after.
After the war, after the bonds, after Sakura, after Sarada.
But nothing, not even his history of bloodshed, not even the night where he watched, so small and vulnerable as his parents were slaughtered by his unwilling brother, even comes close to the grief that ensconces his mind, body and soul as he watches the casket that holds Sakura's body lower slowly, gently into the hole in the ground.
His heart seizes in his chest and tears so sharp and hard come to his eyes that he needs to swallow once, twice, three times before he allows himself to fit the blank mask that comes with his grief.
Today is the day when Sasuke has to bury the only woman he's ever loved. The only woman he'd ever even wanted to love.
His eyes feel strained as he tries to listen to Naruto's speech. His best friend's eyes are bloodshot and filled with tears, his cheeks already gleaming with them. Naruto's words are a love story, told through aching sobs and stuttering words and Sasuke can see that even though Naruto loves Hinata, he has never truly been able to stop loving Sakura.
(And he can see the toll in Hinata's face. How her mouth pulls into a tight line, how her hands clench in her lap as she listens to her husband's last call to a dead love. He can see how it breaks her, torn between desperate grief—her husband or her best friend?)
Kakashi is beside him and Sasuke can feel the older shinobi's hands trembling in his pockets. He can hear his ex-sensei's quiet little fast-paced breaths, his chest nearly heaving with emotion.
"Papa."
Sasuke clears his throat and blinks back the tears that have unconsciously appeared in his eyes once more.
The casket is in the ground now.
There is a graveyard worker that is already beginning to throw the muddied earth into the hole.
Sasuke turns to face his daughter.
"Yes, Sarada?"
Her eyes shaped so much like Sakura's but prevailing in his color stare back at him. His wife's mouth twists into a trembling line. Sakura's forehead creases into little lines on his daughter's face and he tries to gulp back the hot, knee-jerking memories that come with staring at the face that looks so much like the woman's in the ground.
("She looks like you, Sasuke-kun." She cooed, swiping a thumb at Sarada's tiny, chubby chin. The baby gurgled and Sasuke rolled his eyes at how his wife fell further in love. "You're wrong." He'd told her, looking at his daughter's eyes and how that tiny mouth edged its way into a loving smile, "She's got your features.")
"Kaito is crying."
And then the world comes crashing down and Sasuke swallows again.
He must remain strong for Sarada. He has to sweep away the terrifying blankness in his daughter's eyes and the veil of grief that sticks to his seventeen year-old's form.
And, he swallows once more, trying his hardest not to cry at the pink that sticks out of the bundled white scarf.
Sakura's bundled white scarf.
And, he thinks once more, he must remain strong for Kaito.
His son, barely three days old, screams into his chest once more and Sasuke wants to howl with him.
Tell me your thoughts!