For Keeps
More than anything Naruto has always desired acknowledgment. Sakura knows this, and she also knows that it's something they have in common with each other.
Ever since she was eight, Sakura has wanted Sasuke to notice her.
She also knows, and it makes her feel guilty when she dwells on it, that Naruto has been waiting just as long for Sakura to notice him.
If she were just a little bit more brave, then maybe she could finally bring herself to tell him that she does. Sakura is far too weak to do something like that though, and so sharing her most private feelings is a wish she keeps buried deep in her heart.
Sakura sees Naruto and admires Naruto and maybe, just maybe loves him the way a woman loves a man.
While she keeps her feelings for him to herself out of shyness, she denies them out of shame and something close to self-loathing.
Sakura loves Sasuke. Sweetly, innocently; the way a girl loves a boy. Her ever maturing heart knows, however, of the aching at the core of those feeling for Sasuke.
Sakura and Naruto, they have to bring him home. Together.
She's had the same dream, or maybe it's a nightmare, twenty-one times in the two and half years Sasuke's been gone.
During it, Sasuke has come home. She doesn't know how or why, in this dream there are no circumstances. He still looks the same as he did last time she saw him, thirteen and too thin; she too, looks as she did last time they saw each other, fragile and afraid.
She's sitting at his bedside; in a place she doesn't know, but in this dream she isn't bothered by that. She's cutting him an apple, and he allows her to feed him each and every carefully cut and peeled slice.
She remembers, only after she wakes up, that last time he didn't let her feed him. He'd smacked the apples out of her hands and onto the floor, disregarded and discarded. Sakura wants it to be different this time around.
She denies loving Naruto because what right does she have? What right does she have after claiming she hated him? After being ignorant? After be completely, disgustingly foolish?
Sakura denies loving Naruto because of Hyuuga Hinata. Who has always seen him, always admired him, and Sakura knows, has always loved him.
Hinata was able to see his value from the start. Sakura lacks the right, and she's never sure what she hates herself for more, lacking it or losing it.
Sakura is, regardless of what anyone might think, not a little girl. She has long since learned that the world is unfair, and she hates it. It's because she hates it so much, that she does her best to act fairly and do what's right by others.
There are some people in the world that Sakura thinks deserve happiness so much that she is willing to put effort into seeing it happen. Naruto and Hinata are two of those people.
Sakura continues to tell herself she loves Sasuke, not only because she told him so, but because she knows that really, she honestly does. Really. Sakura decided long ago that of all the things she could be, a liar wasn't her aspiration.
Sasuke's existence has troubled her for a long time. The way he's in so much pain, even if he refuses to let himself feel it; the way he's drowning in hatred. The way he gave in and allowed himself to.
A long time ago, when she really was just a little girl in the academy, Sakura encountered a boy who was always alone, always looked like he was dwelling, always angry, and despite all of this, was still beautiful. She decided at that time, to be that boy's, Sasuke's, companion. His light; a beautiful, soothing ray that offered comfort and love, trust and faith.
No matter how much she's tried to shine for him though, Sasuke has always left her switched off. Hatred and the dark go hand and hand, after all.
Sakura denies loving Naruto because she lacks the right and because it's for the best. When he finds out what it's like to be truly loved, Naruto will forget his feelings for her. That's okay, she decides.
Because she loves Sasuke, because Sasuke needs her...because maybe, just maybe, someday Sasuke can love her. Truly love her.
Right now, what she sees in her mind is Sasuke lying in the dirt, and there's a breeze that's caressing his hair and mussing her own from where she's standing beside him. Naruto is nowhere to be found. Neither she nor Sasuke are looking for him in the area that's surrounding the two of them though; they're both looking upwards, at the sky.
The sun is bright, fiery and orange. More than anything Sakura wishes they could fly too.
AN: I think I did all right. Even if this does suffer from a complete and utter lack of clarity. Seriously what the hell was I even writing about? D: If you managed to figure it out tell me, lol. Reviews are appreciated. You make me feel like a woman.
Oh my gods.
Edited March 4, 2009.