A Bittersweet Reunion

By: Phoebe Floros

The thunder stopped as she traced the mouth of the mug with her pinkie finger lazily. Unable to bring herself to look up, she instead cleared her throat in a shallow attempt to speak. Her lips had gone dry and her throat felt scratchy, so speaking would be a struggle, but before the words formed in her head, his voice rose.

He stood in front of her like a silent sentinel; his creamy, pale hands resting on his hips. His dark eyebrows were furrowed in a sort of frown and his black eyes, once the calmest gray, bored into the top of her pink head. His feet were about shoulder-width apart and his shoes were caked with mud. He had walked there in the muck and rain just to see her.

"Can I dry off?"

She looked up at him, wondering if these were the peaceable words she had yearned for him to say all these years. The four words were so simple, so unremarkable, that she couldn't believe Uchiha Sasuke would ever say them together in a single sentence, especially at this critical moment.

"Sure, the washroom is down the hall, first door on the right," she murmured, finding it hard to believe she was actually speaking to him in such a casual manner.

He nodded curtly and turned on his heel but before he disappeared down the corridor, he called to her over his shoulder. "Are there any clothes I can borrow from you? Mine are soaked." He had turned just enough to make eye contact with her and in his cold eyes, she could detect a hint of warmth and peace. He turned away from her, as if she had already given an answer, and resumed his way down the hall.

Sakura stood in the middle of her living room, motionless, until she heard the steady pounding of hot water through the faucet. That sound seemed awaken her and she rushed into her room. She rummaged around in her chest of drawers for some old sweatpants and she was about to give up when her fingers found the soft, worn cotton fabric. She pulled them out, one was ratty and the bottoms had holes worn into them and the other pair was relatively unused. She tossed the latter on her bed and tugged on the other, old sweats on over her leggings. She grabbed a large white Tee and threw that next to the pants. In a flash, she whipped her hair short hair up into a ponytail and folded the clothes. She placed the two articles of clothing neatly on the floor next to the washroom Sasuke was currently occupying. Then, she dashed to the kitchen and rubbed an ice cube over her forehead and cheeks. As she dropped the sliver down the drain, she noticed that her hands were shaking. She gripped the side of the sink in a useless attempt to control her nervousness.

The water stopped and she kept still, listening. She shut her eyes as the door to the bathroom opened and a soft muffling of clothes echoed in her ears as the door shut again. She exhaled a breath she didn't even know she held in. She took her place on the couch, her legs crossed over each other as Sasuke stepped out of the washroom, his dirty clothes in a ball under his arm. The sweats she had leant him were rolled up to his knees but it looked like he shirt fit him okay.

His smile, which was plastered to his milky complexion, looked an awful lot like Sai's. His eyes were closed and so was his mouth, but he looked genuinely happy. "Where should I put these, Sakura?" No honorifics, as usual, but it reminded Sakura of the old days back in Team 7 so she didn't really mind.

She jumped to her feet and scrambled for the closet where she pulled out the two wicker basket hampers. She grabbed the smaller one, which was empty, and skittered across the room to Sasuke, taking his clothes from him and throwing them in the hamper, his dirty shoes sitting on the top of the pile. She set them down by the door and offered Sasuke a seat on the couch. She hadn't noticed, but she'd been silent this whole time. Sasuke noticed, though, and that was part of the reason he was smiling. She was like a little mother hen, scurrying about to care for her chicks. Her first words just furthered his comparison.

"Would you like something to eat?"

"I would, actually." He placed a hand on his stomach playfully and looked straight at her.

This took her by surprise; she thought he'd say no. As she headed to the kitchen, she called, "We have cake. And mochi ice cream. There's chocolate, vanilla, mang-"

"I don't like sweet things," he replied coolly.

Sakura crossed her arms. "Well what do you want?"

He was silent for a moment and called out, "Do you have onigiri?"

Sakura sighed and looked around. After a minute, "We have the makings for it. The rice, the umiboshi, the salmon, the katsuobushi, the kombu and the tarako. Do you want anything else on it?"

"Tomatoes," he said, again, rather rudely.

Exasperated, Sakura filled her arms with the ingredients and set them on the counter. She laid out a cutting board and scooped up some rice and pounded it down flat. Out of nowhere, Sasuke appeared next to her, another cutting board in one hand and a knife in the other. She looked at him, frozen in fear when he nodded at the tomato. "Let me cut it for you."

Slowly, she let out a breath and handed Sasuke the fruit. "Here," she said softly. She took to slicing the salmon into little bits. They both were cutting in silence before the realization that Uchiha Sasuke, who had been missing since they were thirteen. Sakura just celebrated her nineteenth birthday anniversary last week. Six years he had been gone, bloodthirsty for revenge and filled with anger and hate. She stopped her chopping and looked up at the beautiful face of the man she used to love. Wait, she caught herself, used to love? Something was aching inside of her but it wasn't the familiar overwhelmingly heartbreaking love that she had become accustomed to in the past. In its placed was a soft, dull knot in the pit of her stomach. Weaved into the knot was a love, true, but not of a romantic kind. It was more of a sorrow, like something in her had died a slow and painful death. She moved the knife against the marble of the fish again, still looking for something in his concentrating face that wasn't necessarily there. Tears rose against her green eyes and she looked back at the pink of the salmon. It grew blurry and she had to stop cutting so she wouldn't cut off a finger. Drops of liquid salt fell onto the fish as she looked in the opposite direction of him so he wouldn't see her rosy face and wet cheeks. She wiped her eyes with the corner of her sleeve and resumed cutting.

Meanwhile, Sasuke was paying close attention to the squirming Sakura out of the corner of his eye. He watched as she carved the salmon with care, he watched as tears fell out of her eyes, he watched as she composed herself and as she looked up at him again. His eyes swung back to his new food item; tarako.

"What are you doing here?"

He cocked his head toward her, never taking his eyes from the fish. "I wanted to help you. I don't think it's very fair to ask you to make something for me all by yourself."

Her eyes narrowed and she set the knife down. "Don't be cute. Why are you here?"

His eyes widened in mock understanding. "Oh you mean why am I in Konoha? Well, I've come to a realization that we don't need to discuss." He focused back onto the food and he grabbed the katsuobushi and started chopping that up as well. Sakura wasn't convinced. She placed a hand on his arm and, when he turned back to her, looked him in the eye.

"Sasuke-kun, I-"

He stopped her with his hands on her shoulders. "I know. I'm wanted by the elders."

"You're a criminal, Sasuke-kun." Hot tears flooded her vision again. "They'll take you away."

He smiled a small smile. "But it's my own fault. I could have had a comfortable life here, but I chose something different. I've made mistakes and I need to pay for them."

She stepped away from the counter, looking at the linoleum floor. "What if they hurt you? What if…"

"Sakura," he said, his back to her, "I promise, everything will be alright."

She turned back to him, the tears falling freely. "Sasuke-kun," it was the one thing she could say. His name was everything and nothing. It was the beauty and the pain. It was her whole life. She impulsively hugged him from behind, like she did during the Chunin Exams, except now her cheek was pressed against the middle of his back. He had grown so much in those long six years.

He stiffened at her embrace, something that wasn't entirely unexpected, but he slowly relaxed into it. He loosened her grip on his waist and turned to face her where she immediately began to sob into his chest. He could do nothing but hold her close until she stopped and went limp in his arms. He carried her to the couch where he laid her carefully down. He traveled to the kitchen one last time, grabbed the two onigiri he had made when his back was to her, and left one on the coffee table next to the couch. Before he left, he scribbled down a note that he placed the onigiri on top of. Then, in a flash, he left the apartment and ran off into the rain, eating the onigiri one bite at a time. He ran all the way to Naruto's place where he had a similar exchange with the Uzumaki kid. Naruto didn't want him to leave again, either, but Sasuke knew it must be done. He left Naruto like he left Sakura, except Naruto watched Sasuke travel to Tsunade's office out of his window. When he couldn't see his best friend anymore, he went straight to Sakura's place.

He found her on the couch, exactly where Sasuke had left her. She was asleep, her lips slightly parted, her eyebrows lowered into a frown. Naruto could hear her say, "Sasuke-kun," over and over if he really strained his ears. His eyes traveled to the onigiri on top of the note Sasuke had scrawled in quick fashion before he stole out the door. Naruto picked it up and skimmed it. He set it down and woke Sakura with a nudge to the shoulder.

Her eyes fluttered open and she stared, confused, at Naruto. "Was it a dream," she asked to no one in particular.

But Naruto stuffed the note into her palm and quickly kissed her forehead. He was out the door in seconds. She looked around to see dirty clothes in the small hamper by the door. Looking back down to the note in her hand, she opened it and read it. A ball of sorrow formed in her throat as she crumpled the note up and threw it across the room. She saw the onigiri on the table next to her and picked that up, too, and threw it with all her might.

As the hot tears escaped her once again, she smiled a hard smile. "Uchiha Sasuke-kun, you sure know how to break a girl's heart."

Haruno Sakura-san,

Being your friend and teammate has been the best thing that has ever occurred to me. But seeing all the good things that have happened to me in the past, this isn't really a grand feat. You and dobe have been the highlight of my life. I hope that we can spend more time together in the future. If not, just know that I do care about you, Sakura-chan. I may not love you in the way that you would have me love you, but I do love you in a way that I do know how to. Wish me luck in surrendering; I hope they take it easy on me, if only so Team Kakashi can have a family reunion at the training grounds. Please don't cry anymore.

Your friend,

Uchiha Sasuke

I hope that was appropriate. I don't know if I had Sasuke in character, but I thought the storyline was realistic. Oh, and because I didn't explain in the story why Sasuke came back, it's because he finally realized that a killer is not who his beloved brother sacrificed himself for. He realized that to fulfill Itachi's dreams, he had to repent for his crimes. Hope you all enjoyed it! R&R!