fragments
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i.
naruto heals fast, new cells stitching over the gaping emptiness of his missing arm quicker than kakashi steps foot into his new office as the rokudaime. sasuke doesn't share the same propensity for hasty recovery. his severed arm is a messy matter, much like his severed ties to the place and people he once called home. it takes more time and care. it takes sakura visiting his hospital ward every morning and every evening to change his bandages, to interrupt the thoughts he sits stewing in all day, to open the curtains and let some sunshine into the room. at first, she thinks she's intruding. every time she walks in, he looks up at her with mismatched eyes that look almost annoyed. but then she remembers, that he's never had any qualms about calling her annoying. she trusts he'd let her know as much if it were the case, so she takes his silence as tacit acceptance. acceptance, perhaps, is reaching, but sakura has never been anything if not cautiously optimistic.
ii.
sasuke never says much, but he has an armory of words that he borrows from often.
thank you.
shut up, dobe.
tomatoes would be good.
konoha's different now.
i'm sorry.
the last one always surprises her. not because she thinks him above the humble act of apologizing, but because it comes at unexpected moments. while they're taking a quiet stroll by the grassy riverbank, or when walking home from ichiraku after dinner with naruto and kakashi, or more puzzling still, after a sparring session that ended in a tie. it always comes with no context, no preamble. sakura accepts it with a smile. she thinks one day she will tell him to stop. one day she'll tell him, the first sorry he offered was more than enough. (she won't tell him this, but it was also more than anything she'd hoped for). for now though, she doesn't say anything. she suspects the sporadic apologies are more for his own benefit, more so he can justify his place next to her, to himself.
iii.
it's a terrifying thing to have someone you've looked at for so long to be suddenly looking back at you. it's exciting, thrilling, and a little disorienting, but it's terrifying above all else because it feels so surreal—like you're in the middle of a precious, fleeting dream and no matter how hard you try to hold on, startling awake is inevitable. so sakura impresses everything to her memory, everything from the deliberate, scorching stares he fixes her with quite often to the unsure, nervous glances he occasionally steals, when he thinks her attention lies elsewhere. that is the thing he hasn't yet figured out about her though. that when it comes to him, she is always paying attention.
iv.
they sit side by side, watching the village from atop the hokage mountain. there is something about the quiet, which blankets midnight konoha that is comforting. even as she sits holding her breath and holding hands with the boy, who, she fears, will leave her as nothing more than a pile of ash for the wayward wind to scatter away one day. sasuke's hand on her own is warm, like a spark just coming to life. she shivers at his touch, because the blood that runs in her veins is kerosene and setting ablaze whole is only but a matter of time. she lets out a sigh and watches her breath like white skeins of smoke in the cool night air. too late, she realizes that this has given her anxieties, her wordless insecurities away. he squeezes her hand―a soft, almost impalpable caress, like it was the wind that had just reached out to her, not his heart―and suddenly, she is at ease.
v.
sakura cannot sleep the night before sasuke is set to leave the village. goodbye again, she agonizes, i cannot say goodbye again. the words play like a broken record inside her head all night long. when morning comes unbidden, she walks to the gates, steps heavy with an all consuming desire to turn back the hands of time to the day he came back, or really just any day after that, but this. she makes a promise to herself. she will not say goodbye, because this is not goodbye. on a whim, she asks if she can accompany him instead. he declines, kindly, and taps her forehead―two decisive, fingers against the big, horrible expanse of her forehead.
"maybe next time… and thank you."
it's only when she is losing sight of his distant back that she realizes he didn't say goodbye either.
a/n: first in a potential series of ss drabble. please leave a review if you feel so inclined.