Penitence

by magnolia11

Loving him, she believes is the most painful thing she has ever done. No promises of eternal devotion could spur a small place in his heart for her but being the stubborn fool she is, she continues to hope. Five years is a long time to love someone in the sideline.

Once my flame; twice my burn

Haunted by a bleak past

The sorrow of what could have been

Moulded by circumstances, no hope for redemption

Like an angel of death

The manifestation of tragic beauty

A creature of darkness; an avenger

No warmth or ravenous in onyx eyes

Severed all ties of humanity

Apathetic; that was the one word to enunciate his aristocratic features which deemed frozen virtually. No hint of human finesse could be associated with the blatant majestic grace he was accustomed to. Sparing no glance to his counterpart as if the members of the council were all but well articulated puppets, he announced his verdict ascertaining once and for all that his position could not be questioned. His onyx jaded eyes contemplated the mummers and the muses that came from the crowd. Remaining stoic, he elegantly raised one hand in a gesture to dismiss them. Bowing their heads to their sire, the 17th leader of the Uchiha clan they left him to his solitude. Silence danced in the fine room of intellectual debates and vindications.

He as the patriarch to one of the most powerful noble clans was taught from a young age to be worldly wise in all arenas discerning politically or socially. A ruthless conqueror yet a kind ruler to his people, many did not understand him. After all, by overcoming the regrettable tragedy of the massacre of the main family of the Uchiha clan and handling the burden of being the next surpassor of his father's legacy at the tender age of eighteen, a prince unprepared to become king was born but he sought to seize all his might and vanquished all qualms of his jurisdiction. A burning desire for revenge and power were quenched in the depths of his soul, he was darkness personified in its most vindictive form.

The only ray of light in his bleak vengeful life was her.

Sakura

If only he could allow her to pull him from the demons of his past and the shadows of sorrow that loomed in his heart.

In the heat of the summer,a lifetime ago

A gorgeous face and few glances

She fell harder than the nightfall's descent

So the story begins in an enraptured gaze; in a convulted haze

He's a vision in white but with a cold black heart

Ripped at every edge yet she's falling apart

Enamoured with the goodness that is bewitched from the start.

Tears were swirling out of her cerulean green eyes like droplets of sand with time. The void in her heart ached and bleeded for whatever hope she had in her soul for a what could have been disappeared like mist on a sunny day. Funny how she was breaking apart for something that never existed, her love for sasuke-kun was- is unrequired and fairytales of convoluted love, moonlit kisses and promises of a lifetime were lies that humans breed for glorifying their ideals which surged on the threads of reality.

Everything was always about him with her and even now flashbacks of meeting him for the first time, hearing him, admiring him and most of all loving him were transcending in her mind like a motion play of a repetitive scene from a movie again and again. Her memories that were encompassed about him were frivolously mocking her distained being, her childish qualms and intrigues of false pretence.

t.

Love of a scorned brother and pride of a clan

A mere puppet he became in fate's hands.

It pained her to see him like this so indifferent but what could she do. If only her heart could undo all the remorse lament in his soul. He was always quiet and a little cold but this indifference was something she couldn't bear- she missed his warmth, his faint smiles and light talks. Ever since that tragic night everything changed; sasuke-kun's entire family was murdered. She didn't know the details but an aristocratic family like his had many dire enemies. In what seemed to be play of jealousy by a competitive malicious clan, sasuke-kun's entire world crumbled.

She tried to reach him but she failed...

If wishes came true then her heart could undo all the hate lament in his soul

"I am here for you, if you want to talk or when you feel it is alright to talk, I will be there-I promise." She looked at him, his onyx eyes were cold and apathetic to her form, no emotions were visible on his face.

"I am fine; you should leave." he walked ahead ignoring her. He seemed to be wavering like the light of a candle, the darkness threatening to consume and take over his entire being. She rushed and clutched onto his hakama shaking lightly against his lean form.

"Sakura" he breathed, his voice tantalizing his warning tone.

"Just give me a chance to understand, don't push me away please." Her eyes teared up and the hand clutched onto his hakama tightened as if she was afraid he would disappear right before her.

"And what could someone like you possibly understand about loneliness, a girl belonging to a civilian family protected by her oblivion of maliceness and crudeness that lurks here." His eyes darkened and he removed her hands from him.

"I have friends and I have a family but if I lose you then to me it will be the same as being alone, I love you so much so please please..." her voice quivered and she bit her lips to prevent herself from tearing up any further because that would not help him or her.

"You are an annoyance." He spoke narrowing his eyes and quickened his stride, leaving her in the barracks of his household. However this time when he called her annoying it broke her heart unlike the previous times when she thought of it as an affectionate gesture with a poke on her forehead.

So furious was his wrath, so deep his melancholy

She didn't give up, she refused to leave him be so that the demons riding on his soul could take over. She won't forget his kindness and believe that this aloof aptheticness was all that was left of him.

Even if loving someone from the living was too precarious a notion for sasuke-kun to entertain, she would always follow him as long as they were under the same sky for he was everything and everything and eternal to her. So even if her heart broke, this aching bleeding hope of him finally finding some solace would comfort her. She knew that he cared for her and in way loved her as much as he could love someone even if he didn't share the intensity of her feelings for him.

"Some dango for you." She smiled and handed him out the packet. His eyes followed her trail as she made tea for them. Why was she trying so hard? His emptiness wouldn't let him see how he himself longed for some warmth and solace but the thought of loving someone so deeply and blindly only to lose them put him at such uneasiness which he didn't like to subject himself to once again. It seemed that happiness hated him and now he hates happiness so no matter what effort Sakura might try to conjure up he wouldn't let himself get closer to her, his sole reason for existence was to seek revenge against the Hyuuga clan for the fall of his own and to carry on his father's legacy.

Whatever dreams and aspirations he had died with the burial of his family. All his hopes are despondent in the past. His heart, feelings, love and desires are all frozen in the bleak memories of his family, his clan that haunt his present and reign over his future. Back then he had the mere purpose to succeed his elder brother, Itachi who was a prodigy, the genius of the clan and the next in line to lead after his father. Itachi was his father's pride and he had longed to hear the words that you really are my son through his father's mouth, words which were always adorned for Itachi whenever he proved his remarkable strategic skills. Now, he knows that could never be...

His brother always told him that he will be there for him even if it's in the form of an obstacle that he must overcome.

So how come he can't feel his presence anymore?

He couldn't eat his mother's mouth-watering meals, he couldn't compete with his brother and he could never make his father acknowledge him. His mother's private garden was losing its beauty and vitality because he was unable to muster up the mere courage to look after it himself or employ a gardener for the reminiscence of the memories that lingered in there where too painful for him to look at. He wanted no needed to burry all connections that reminded him of what could have been, it was futile to dwell on something that consumed his entire being. Bitterness, apathy and longing was all there was left of him. This house and this town no longer felt like home to him after all home is where the heart his and his vanquished in the dirt with the remains of his family. What he wouldn't give to relive just another day with them, to thank his mother for her unconditional love and support, for those thousands kisses on his cheeks and forehead, for wiping away his tears and entertaining his spoilt demands. He wanted his father to know that he loved him in spite of pretending that his approval didn't mean the world to him. Most of all he wanted Itachi to poke him in the forehead and tell him that he still has a long way to go because he feels so lost in this road of life that no superior power could bring light to any way in his abode.

Sakura was the only thing that brought the feeling of love in his cold bleak existence but she was too bright in nature and too naive in mind to understand him. It was for her own good if he pushed her away. He couldn't give her happiness for his soul was languished with sorrow and he couldn't bring himself to love her the way she loved him or the way a girl like her deserved to be for hatred and revenge were the demons riding on his back. She deserved someone who could give her the world not someone like him who couldn't even give her a chance to rekindle whatever humane instincts that were left in him.

"I will take my leave now...take care of yourself sasuke-kun. You ought not to strain and overburden yourself with so much work that your health suffers." She strode towards the door of his household looking slightly detached as if she was motioning herself to be careful of her words.

"Thank you sakura." Her eyes widened and she let out a small gasp...perhaps she was finally getting somewhere all this time of turning at him on her own accord worried that he would feel her presence as an intrusion on his peace. Something rose in her chest, painful and tight because it was too large that emotion and her heart was only finite.

"It will always be you sasuke-kun." She muttered in the stillness of night to no one in particular. Unknown to him she was answering his unspoken thoughts.

If someone asked her why she loved him then it was simply because he was Sasuke, it was not because he was heir to a clan of enormous fortune or because hers was a kind of love harboured out of pity and sadness when he lost everything he held dear afterall he had always been Sasuke first to her and Uchiha second. She loved him for his words as well as his silence for he believed that silence is golden, she admired his graceful stance and the way he upheld himself, she was bewitched with his faint smiles and small gestures of kindness that he tried to hide, she was capitulated by the way he always managed to catch her when she trembled and she was irrecoverably enamoured by his diligence and fierce protective nature.

If only through the years, through tragic tears

A new kind of hope would emerge, Shaping from sorrow a new kind of love

Loving him she believes is the most painful thing that she has ever done. She wanted to save him from himself, his sadness, anger and desires of revenge because revenge doesn't bring anyone happiness; if only he could see that.

She cared for him in a sense that was not based in romance but were just encompassed by it. He was her friend for as long as she could remember. She looked at the scenery of the landscape from her window and ran her hand through her pale pink locks. Even if she didn't find happiness with him, she sincerely desired from the core of her heart that he would find happiness with someone else. His solitude and confinement were obstacles that were clutches of his own force and only he could manifest a sword to break through those webs. The most hurtful thing that troubled her wreaked broken heart was the lingering notion that he could perhaps never be at ease with himself or anyone else for that matter, that he would be forever trapped in his misery and sorrow...that he couldn't ever feel at home in the district he was born in, the district that she could never part from which drenched his family name in the crimson red of blood. Would he forever remain a wanderer, always searching for some answers repressed in his unwavering obtuse demeanour? He had loved deeply not widely so is it not possible for him to muster up whatever sort of likeliness he had locked up deep inside in the confinement of his heart to accept a glaring presence of a companion to share his sorrows, to seek comfort and most of all to be at peace?

Her father had accepted a suitor for her and now, whatever silly dreams she had of a happily ever after with her gorgeous dark prince shattered.

"Sakura, come on now...he's here." Her mother's sweet call snapped her from her thoughts and she breathed conjuring up the courage to walk ahead for what lied for her, to what was supposed to be her future.

Her pace was slow and her gaze was downcast, once she reached the hall room she didn't bring upheld her face to see the face of her fiancé, her eyes choosing to take in his choice of boots instead. Velvet black, just how sasuke-kun wore them...it seemed fate was mocking her or the goddess of love, Aphrodite hated her. Her father stopped his exchange of thoughts with the stranger who was her fiancé and told her she looked lovely.

"Indeed." A light deep voice reverberating with masculinity gave his compliance which caused Sakura to become slightly breathless, that voice was so much like-like

She abruptly lifted her head, a pair of eyes of contradicting hues met each other and she was bewildered to see Sasuke-kun sitting next to her father. His eyes soft with a faint smile on his handsome chiselled face.

"I will leave you two alone for some time." Her father smiled once again at her.

There were so many things running through her head, so many questions, it felt as if she had a massive headache coming her way and her knees felt weak. She was afraid they might give in soon.

"What are you, why? I don't get it; how?" She asked incoherently lacking the ability to form sensible sentences.

"You said you loved me when we were nineteen, when I had lost my clan." He replied placidly as if they were conversing about the weather. He closed his eyes and took a sip of jasmine tea with rich aroma that her mother had prepared.

"That was a long time ago, we are twenty four now." Her eyebrows knitted tight as if not understanding where this was heading to.

"Just five years." He muttered, his eyes not meeting hers.

"Five years can seem like five lifetimes to someone." She let out an estranged breath out loud. She stared deeply into his midnight eyes taking every inch of his placid stance exuberating an aura of superiority and grace far beyond his years. She wanted to memorise every detail of his unearthly grace that made her fall in love with him. Perhaps it was the way he held himself like a proud regal black diamond, the rarest of the rare. He is like an angel of death, the manifestation of tragic beauty severed with humane bonds; embracing solitude as his sole companion.

"I remember it like yesterday or don't you love me anymore?" he whispered, a ting of uncertainty and doubt lament in his tone. He remembered how softly she had confessed her feelings, how her voice had trembled, how she was pressed against his back and the way her hands had clutched his hakama tightly. He could still remember how her beautiful apple green eyes had teared up, how her nose and cheeks had taken a lovely hue of baby pink.

He had tried to reject her because she deserved better and told himself that her love was based on silly infatuation from childhood days of convulsed love stories but after five years of lying to himself and her, he knew that she loved him more than anyone has ever loved someone who was so broken yet she had stayed strong for both him and her whenever he turned her way. He firmly believed that revenge was all that was left of him but she had crawled in his skin so deep and shattered his walls with every smile, look, touch and gesture of kindness and those occasional outbursts of furry and tears.

"I have always been in love with you but you sasuke-kun if you do not love me then this marriage is but a false-

"Had I ever told you I didn't?"

"You didn't exactly say you did either."

He looked at her for a few heartbeats and his eyes fluttered open.

"I love you" he said simple.

Her lips trembled and then she laughed and laughed; her cheeks a soft glowing hue of pink and her eyes radiating with such warmth reserved solely for him.

He poked her on the forehead and her heart fluttered at the familiar affectionate gesture. She wounded her arms around his neck and heard him mutter annoying under his breath as he placed a butterfly kiss on her shoulder.

In the end, both of them saved each other.

To love is nothing but to be loved is everything.

Promise of a lifetime;

Behold his most precious trinket

the love of hidden glances and open hurt gave yet another chance of soulful embrace and precious hope

for every sunrise avenues a new door