For the 30-day OTP challenge. Here's an anthology of SasuSaku goodness; each one-shot is somehow related to the other. Enjoy!
Prompt; day 1: Breathe
Standard disclaimer applied.
"Ne, Sasuke-kun!"
"…Hn?"
"You're so uptight all the time; breathe a little!"
"Sakura."
She blushes; he called her name.
"Hai?"
"Stop being so annoying."
He's always been an insomniac. He hasn't slept properly in over a decade, the result of being traumatized by the infamous Uchiha massacre. And in those sleepless nights he'd muse over memories that he wouldn't dare say out loud that he missed. He drowns in leaves and ramen and training and, the most curious case, cherry blossoms. Even now, the colors are vivid even if he closes his eyes in hopes of slumber, and he's not sure whether it's because he's clinging to the thought of her or the colors of her features are just so bright.
And, like any other, tonight was one of those nights that he stayed up thinking. About her, of all people. A lot of people have scoffed at his pride and her understanding, but she's Sakura and he's Sasuke; he denies with his supersized pride, and she will always love him.
Always is quite the controversial word, though. Because tonight just might be his last if he does not win the bargain.
For tomorrow, they will take her away from him.
White walls, white ceilings, white everything. It was frustrating her; she's been walking for Kami-sama knows how long, yet her effort was getting her nowhere in this labyrinth.
She couldn't help but wonder how the light in her eyes contrasted to the purpose of it. This place was her picket fence, a place where she's supposed to be happy behind it. But how could she be happy?
They were keeping her from him.
But he's the only one that could make me happy.
She never gave up though. Not when he left her for his revenge, not when he came back home and her advances still hadn't affected him. That did not deter her from loving him despite the difficulty in expressing her affections. She knew, somewhere in that perfect façade there is a crack.
And this maze is no exception. She'll find her escape, back to him.
Sasuke-kun… Wait for me, will you?
So her bare feet padded along the ivory floors, running forward, never ceasing. The place threatens to blind her as she speeds past the identical corridors. She turns a corner, and another. She faces a dead end but she turns around and tries again.
Because without her, what would he be? What would he feel?
She was his light, but right now she's trapped in it while he wallows in his own darkness.
Someone has to save him.
And for a long time, she walks, she runs, she tries to find the exit. She couldn't tell for how long she's been here, but she couldn't wait to get out.
And at last, there it is. A lone white door at the end of the hallway.
She pries it open to her freedom.
He wakes up, unknowing of how he fell asleep. He can't thank whatever fact it was, because today, of all days, he cannot waste time.
Today, every second he wastes in his house, his personal hellhole, was a waste of the time he should be spending with her.
So he goes, to where he thinks she is. He could only go by instinct; he does not know where they took her.
From his spot, in a birds-eye view, he is merely an ant among the millions. In the clocktower by the moon, a man, the man watches with eyes so sinister, detached yet amply just to the people he governs.
Sasuke senses it, and the man's presence beckons him.
Anything for her.
And so he goes again.
Anything to find her.
He slams open the door of the last room at the top of the tower ("How cliché and overly dramatic." He snorts.) and does not beat around the bush.
"Where did you take Sakura?" Raw need mixed with underlying anger laced his voice with a deadly venom, a promise of vengeance. And this time, for her.
"Why would you be so concerned as to what happens to her? The cherry blossom does not belong to you."
Oh, how he hated the man. His honesty pierces Sasuke's soul with shards of the truth; she does not belong to him. But still, he's Sasuke. And he clings to whatever's left of his pride, the rest gone with his desperation to feel her again.
"But she does not belong to you either." He counters.
He hopes his impatience wasn't evident, that his desire for her is not on his face.
"I am God, Sasuke." Aloof, detached. And condescending.
"You are—were, one of us." Calm and controlled. Emotions at bay, as what the clan has always been taught to portray.
"It does not matter what I was; I am God now."
"You will never be mine—"
And as always, she has the ability to stop the burst of ire in him.
"Sasuke-kun!" She shouts salvation in his ears, her voice almost seeming foreign to him. How long has it been since she was taken?
Not from me. She does not belong to me.
And though the Uchihas don't hope, Sasuke would break the tradition now.
In a breathtaking view of cascading rose-colored hair and jade eyes, her porcelain skin is flushed as she rushes past the doorway. She was fixated on him, seemingly as affected by his presence as he was to hers, and the brightness in those spring spheres of hers were back again at the sight of him.
But in a flash they showed ire at her captor.
He's always loved how expressive she is.
"You—"She started. Her finger points shakily at the man of the clocktower. Hatred blurred her vision.
In a very out of place thought, a brief sentence brushes past the recesses of his mind.
Bitterness never suited her.
A sick voice added, You let her experience it first in your own will.
She could almost taste the blood from her lips that she's been biting so hard. What good would her anger do to the situation?
The genjutsu had won over the world. He was the god here.
Perhaps, in another world, we'll be together.
Sasuke's eyes threatened to turn crimson, but seeing Sakura's trembling figure, they softened at the sight. He turns to her then.
"Sakura. Let's leave."
"But Sasuke-kun he—"
"We can't do anything. For now."
Is that a promise, Sasuke-kun? Sakura hopes.
As the two shift towards the direction of the hall in which they both burst through, the man in the clocktower finally breaks his statue-like demeanor.
White marbled floors shift to his mental command, creating a hole on the ground. Afloat in the air amidst them three was an hourglass of their fate. It glowed white, intensifying as Sakura was forcefully pulled towards it.
Since the massacre, since his curse seal, this was the third time he loses his sanity.
He's about to lose her.
"Sakura!" He screams his need for her, uncaring of the family image that's been drilled to him since his childhood.
In a moment of mutual feelings running through both of them, the rosette reaches out to him, her small hand trying to grasp his own.
And he almost touched her, before they were lost in the light.
"You will never be together."
Where..?
Sakura?
There is no answer, and he lets go of the breath that he is holding.
Even if it's just a little…
"Sasuke-k—"
Her voice always gets cut off, and he turns to the direction of his hope.
"Breathe a little, would you?"
She laughs at the end of her own request, and it sounded like redemption, like heaven to him.
And so he adheres to her wish.
An intake of breath.
And the light leads them both to their new beginning.
Reviews are highly appreciated.