I don't own Naruto! Also thank you so much to all that are reading my stories~ I hope you bear with me on my attempts at story-juggling.
Just wanted to say that I wrote this because I thought that the switch from wanting to sever all ties to Sakura to wanting to marry her was a bit too fast and also? Sakura deserves to have some doubts-while I admire her unconditional love for someone, I also think that love has to be tested.
Thank you all so much for taking time out of your days/nights to read this!
xx Ghost Girl
Sakura was tired. Her hands were shaking with the strain of exhaustion and too-much chakra, her eyes were burning in her skull and she just wished she could drop in a comatose state for the next twenty four hours.
Sakura was tired and Sasuke, apparently, did not understand that.
Sasuke stood before her, dressed in his jonin shirt and slacks, staring at her. His thumb twitched and Sakura knew that this conversation must have been killing him.
The fact that he had to approach her was probably inducing nightmares for his twelve-year-old self.
"What do you want Sasuke?" Sakura asked, stifling a yawn. Her arms trembled with the effort and she knew that Tsunade would wring out her ass for overdoing it again.
A vendor happily smiled at her and she wondered if she should pick up some tempura before she went home. Then again, it would be cold and soggy by the time she woke up, so maybe not.
"To talk." Sasuke answered, breaking her out of her thoughts.
Cold black eyes trailed her figure and Sakura refrained from flinching at the strange approval lurking in his eyes. Sasuke had increasingly become more awkward to hang around since they had come back from the war. She could only ever remember his hands sparking in chidori and he could only ever see her professing her undying love for him.
Which, in the end, had died.
Along with many of Sakura's emotions.
"About what?" She breathed out, running a hand through her short locks. God, her hair was so greasy—she should really get to a shower—she probably stunk even worse.
"Things." He answered offhandedly.
Sakura gave him a look. And when he seemed to completely misunderstand it, she sighed and looked up at the dark sky.
The air was damp and Sakura knew it was bound to rain soon.
"That's not good enough, Sasuke." She whispered. Sakura turned away, heading towards her apartment, ignoring the calls of the various salespersons who wanted to sell her tasty, yummy food.
Her stomach gurgled and Sakura groaned. "Stupid body impulses."
She turned a sharp left and headed straight for the dango store. Yes, she knew it was unhealthy, she knew that what her body really needed was good food and vegetables, but she was tired and exhausted and her fingers smelt of chakra-burn.
She deserved a good stick of dango, damnit.
"Sakura."
She froze as she paid for the dango, ignoring the clerk's widening eyes and concerned looks.
He had…followed her?
This was a development in the Sasuke-is-strange-and-aloof-guidebook.
She would have to note it down sometime.
Maybe tell Naruto.
There would be a press release—Sasuke, the man who finally spoke to Sakura for more than ten seconds involving things other than insults, training or food! The crowd is shocked—confused—what is this sudden change of personality? Is it permanent? What in the world is he thinking ladies and gents!
"What is it?" Sakura groaned out, taking a big chomp of dango, "Please don't tell me someone is dying or on the verge of death or mortally injured—I am exhausted and if they need a Tsunade-level doctor there is always Shizune who is available."
The last bit was a lie—Shizune was on her honeymoon with Genma—but nobody had to know that.
A tiny smile curved Sasuke's lips and Sakura promptly choked on her food.
"Are you okay? God, are you running a fever? What is wrong with you—"
His annoyed expression resurfaced and Sakura could finally breathe again.
"Oh good, I thought you had suffered a stroke." She said, biting into another yummy, warm, dango.
His eyes narrowed and the upkick to his mouth vanished completely, settling into his customary scowl.
Ah, there it is folks.
Sasuke Uchiha's natural expression.
Patented and all.
"Well what did you want to talk about?" She asked, moving away from the dango store and towards the winding streets of the civilian district. She would have to check up on Emi-chan tomorrow—her little sister was much too much of an upstart to be left alone for a month—she thought her parents had finally understood that from the last month-long trip.
"Marriage."
Sakura tripped over a cobblestone and slammed her face right into the ground.
Groaning, she moved her world-weary muscles and stood up shakily, a tear escaping her eye at the fact that her dango was smushed on the ground, splattered all over her bloodied scrubs.
She shook her head and then ran a hand over her face. "Why d'you wanna talk about it now, Sasuke? I'm sure the girl you're in love with would want you to talk to about this herself."
Sasuke seemed to hesitate before he ploughed forward. "I'm not in love."
"Oh." Sakura stopped and looked over at the man.
His left eye was twitching and his hands were clenching and unclenching and Sakura wondered why on earth he was asking her about marriage.
"Well…okay then? I don't know what you wanted to talk about marriage with me for, but I'm really tired and my legs feel like jelly so I'm—"
"Marry me."
"—going to—wait what the fuck?"
Sakura stood in front of her childhood crush, her teenage love and her adult—thing, person, whatever.
His eyes held hers and Sakura rubbed her eyes.
"What the fuck?" She whispered again.
Her ears must be deceiving her because Sasuke would never ask her to marry him. Not in a thousand years. Not even if she was the last person on earth who could bear his children and pound into like a sex-depraved maniac.
"Why are you asking me this?" She asked, eyes crinkling with displeasure and confusion.
"Because I have to complete my goals." He answered nonchalantly, looking at the pretty stars stretching above them in the heavens. "We don't need a wedding, we can just sign a slip of paper—"
"No."
Sasuke turned. His hands unclenched and his eyes widened in shock. "What?"
Sakura's eyes gleamed under the moonlight, strong and steady.
"No." Sakura repeated.
He stared at her.
"You won't marry me?" He asked again, eyes narrowing.
"No." She said quietly, eyes turning up towards the sky, "I won't because it wouldn't be fair to me."
"How is that not fair? I'm giving you the one thing you've ever wanted—myself." Sasuke ground out and Sakura actually has to restrain herself from physically harming this…this—
"Dickhead." Sasuke looked properly scandalized and Sakura snarled at him, "Why on earth would I marry you?"
"You said you loved me." Sasuke said, sounding awfully accusing. "You said you would do anything for me."
Sakura sighed and she wondered when her life began acting like a soap opera. "Listen—Sasuke. Marriage is about love. Marriage is about giving yourself to another person not because you want to complete a goal, but because you love them and want to share your life—children, moments, kisses—with them."
"This," Sakura gestured between them with a disgusted face, "Is not even remotely worth keeping. You would leave me—go on a thousand journeys and never be home. I would have to keep loving you because of duty and because of the children we would have and it would disintegrate, so goddamn fast."
Sakura straightened up, swallowing against the lump in her throat—because this hurts more than she would like to admit—even though she has told herself time and time again that she doesn't love him, that she has already put too much on the table for him only for him to crush between his fingers, he will always keep a special place in her heart.
He was her first love.
He would have been her last if he had let her.
"Don't ask me to agree to a dutiful marriage. Don't ask me to look past the fact that you have very little care for me. Hell," She exclaimed, waving her arms around her, "You only ever came back here because Naruto asked you. Because Naruto fought you, because Naruto never gave up. I was never in the equation—you only saw me as a failsafe plan, as a little girl who was so in love you could ask for the stars and she would find a way to give them to you—and that hurts. That hurt and because of that, I will not marry you."
Sasuke is silent and Sakura is tired.
She is standing in front of the man that she has loved for what feels like a thousand years and she is turning down what she has always wanted—a chance.
"I'll see you tomorrow at training." She said before turning and walking away, ignoring the silent ache in her heart and the way her feet lagged against the cobblestones.