Title: paper dolls
Author: Naiya-Hime
Pairing: Uchiha Sasuke x Haruno Sakura
Fandom: Naruto
Prompt: #22, crumble
Word count: 466
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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Once you told me that my hair was too bright and my eyes too wide. You told me I was annoying, that I didn't understand life.

I went home that night and dragged the blade of a knife through pink, watching as the silky soft strands of my hair drifted slowly down around me like a halo.

I called you on the phone and said; "You'd be proud, I've leaned to grow."

I think you laughed, but it could have been a sob.

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There was something beautiful about the rain and, on stormy days, you would always sit beside me on your couch and let me touch your hand in feather-like glances.

Sometimes I would feel a drop of wetness on my skin and I told you that maybe you should check your roof because it was leaking.

It took me eight times to figure out that they weren't raindrops, but your tears.

The next time it rained, when you had gone, I stayed home and sat out on my drive, letting the sky saturate my shirt and soak me to my bones.

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You taught me a lot of big words like 'quintessential' and 'superfluous' and 'autophobia.'

I decided that I was probably a little autophobic because whenever I was without you, I was a nervous wreck.

But maybe that was just the whole 'love' thing and not an anxiety disorder.

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The stories you told me were always so promising, about little girls with orange lantern cheeks and eggshell lips. You would call them paper dolls.

But at the end of every one, the paper doll girl wouldn't find her prince and her heart would flicker and fade like the dying lights in your black abyss eyes.

"Am I your paper doll girl?" I asked once, watching as you bit at your chapped lips. I'm pretty sure that was when you started to crumble away. Or maybe you had always been falling apart, I could never be sure.

"Only if you want to be," You rasped in that deep baritone that sent shivers down my spine, letting go of my hand you had been holding tight.

A breathy sigh left me. "I don't," I said, spinning away from you. "Because I want to find you."

"You should have started looking a long time ago."

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The day after you left, I made a chain of paper dolls and wrote 'Sakura' on every one.

I was going to send them to you but I forgot and now they sit on the corner of my desk, collecting dust beside my broken vase of dead tulips; the ones you gave me.

I wouldn't know where to mail them, anyways, because I still haven't found you.

But I can't help looking.

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A/N: I wrote this out of order, so if it's jerky, well, it's supposed to be.