Who: Sakura, Sasuke and some important others.
When: after the War. Or so it seems.
What: if only I knew. But may contain traces of romance. Not a fluffy kind, mind you. And don't be fooled by all the jokes either!
(Chapter One)
Flowers In Her Hand
-/-
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,
because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
- Pablo Neruda, "Don't Go Far Off"
-/-
''I really, really can't believe this is happening," Ino says firmly. "And especially that this is actually happening to you. I mean – of all people. You."
"Thanks, Ino." Sakura tries to make her voice dry as a desert wind but fails, and sticks her tongue out at Ino instead. "You're a true friend."
The tea is still hot in their cups, and the evening air is like warm milk, and the world is full of many little sounds: muffled conversation across the teahouse, music across the street, echo of footsteps and things being dropped and picked up again, and the rustle of leaves and the flapping of wings as birds fly from roof to roof.
"You know you can count on me," Ino replies and then she smiles, sudden and bright as the sun, and tosses her golden hair that Sakura has always envied, and it catches the light and all eyes are drawn to her as if she were a goddess at the altar.
"That should be forbidden." Sakura is not very good at faking frustration, but the occasion is worth a try. "That hair is a secret weapon and we're not supposed to use those inside the village."
"Shut up," yawns Ino. "Anyway, can't see what's your problem with it. You've got your man – whom, I have to point out, in my tender young years, I intended to make my man – now step aside and let me find bitter consolation in what's still left lying around."
"Oh come on." Sakura rolls her eyes. "You were never all that hung up on him."
Ino wags a finger at her. "Oh, but he used to be a suitable object of desire – so handsome and stylish, not to mention frowning and brooding all the time –"
"How's that supposed to be appealing?"
"Don't you dare pretend you were any different. It added mystery to the bubbling brew in the cauldron. It hinted at the tragic past."
"His past was tragic, Ino."
"Yes. I'm sorry." Ino wipes away her lazy mischievous smirk and sighs apologetically. "I just meant to say that when we were kids it all looked... well, simple and less sinister. Like there were no shades of any color, you know. Black was black, white was white. Enemies were all bad, bad people. Tragic heroes were the best. I miss that sometimes."
"Believing in tragic heroes?"
"Living in an uncomplicated world where right and wrong really are the opposite of each other, idiot." Ino reaches out and lightly touches the petals of the flowers that stand in a jar on their table. She brought them along, from her family shop, and asked the waitress for the water to prevent them from wilting too soon. "Beautiful, aren't they?"
"They are." Sakura thinks of all the flowers that she never grew in a garden of her own, of all the flowers she never saw bloom and wither, and then of all those she never received from him. "Why did you bring them here?"
"For you, of course. After all, today we're officially celebrating the greatest success of your love life. You're finally in a realationship with the man you have loved since the world began."
"I can hardly believe it myself."
And she thinks of Sasuke and of the long path she has walked to arrive at the same place as he, and is surprised it happened at all, because it surely couldn't have.
For a moment, the air changes, becomes thin and crisp and fragile, and she sees herself and Ino, sipping tea and chatting, as if from a distance or through a thick glass.
And then the world comes back again, and in that world, Sasuke has finally chosen her.
-/-
drip, drip, drop
She lowers her eyes and looks down at the blade protruding from the chest of her attacker. It's narrow and it gleams dully in the dying light of the setting sun. Its edge hints at the sort of sharpness that not only easily cuts through the flesh and bone, but is almost painful to look at.
The man is very still for the longest of moments, mouth agape, gaze fixed on the sword, and then he understands. His left hand comes up to grip the blade in a futile effort to change or at least postpone what has already become inescapable. A soft, gurgling sound is born deep within his throat as the blood inside his body rushes in a million wrong directions.
drip, drip, drop
The droplets hit the dry earth with a flat, hollow sound. She can see more on his lips; a smudge, and then a trickle running down his chin and neck, right into a high collar of his dark vest. His fingers, now stained with red that looks gold and black to her, slide off the weapon's edge and his arm hangs limply down his side. In one motion, the sword retracts, and the body sinks into the dust of the road, still warm from a day of baking heat and no shade.
The summer is not a merciful season in the Land of Earth.
The same thick dust coats her sandals, and covers her clothes, and turns her pink hair almost gray. It has been making her cough all day. Down below, it prevents the blood of the dead shinobi from spreading quickly. Instead, the pool expands with agonising slowlness, gaining terrain little by little, in the same eerie silence that was spread over the place before the incident.
She raises her gaze to look into the eyes of the man she has never stopped loving.
His are black and fathomless, and when he speaks, his soft voice reaches into her and coils around her heart like a snake and squeezes gently.
"Sakura."
And she hopes Sasuke will be gentle to her from now on, but despite the fact that he has protected her here in the course of their first mission together – just him and her, far away from home – she thinks: it can't be real, can it? it can't. Perhaps she is too used to being rejected and cast aside, and now is unable to truly comprehend how much their relationship has changed. Odd that, seing how that has always been her only desire.
She stores the image in her memory, the improbable picture of the two of them getting along, and tries not to think of a nagging feeling that something is not what it seems.
The world keeps turning.
-/-
A/N: the story will have several chapters of about the same length as this one because I got tired of writing great long walls of text, which is my usual approach, and decided to try a different format. I promise a chapter every two days - even going to stick to it because the story is basically finished, only some small stuff remains.
P.S.: please review! :)