Hello all, and welcome to Keep on the Sunny Side, a SakuSasu one-shot! Gawd, I have no originality!
Again, this is a bit angsty...why am I writing all this angst lately? I have no idea. It's not something I'm used to, but now's a good time to learn, right? So feel free to give me some constructive criticism on the angst and maybe even characterization.
Disclaimer: Judging by the intellectual caliber of the people who frequent this site, I don't really have to do this (in layman's terms, I don't own Naruto or the song 'Keep on the Sunny Side'.).
Keep on the Sunny Side
Keep on the sunny side—it was her inspiration, her mantra. It was the way she, Haruno Sakura, went about life, always looking for the good in the midst of horror, illness and death. So what did she get for her optimism? A position at Konoha's hospice, easing the pain of those already consigned to humanity's ultimate fate.
Every day, she sat with the hospice's residents, chatting and healing, listening and administering their medicines. Some would talk her ear off about how proud they were of their children, how good life had been to them. Others were silent. It was to these few that she would sing:
Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way
If we'll keep on the sunny side of life
She'd do anything to get them to react, even if the reaction was violent or rude. The silent patients were understandably bitter, frustrated, and angry. A fate they never wanted, a destiny they never needed had been thrust upon them without care or warning. They were resentful, tortured, but most of all, they were focused on what was before them; so focused that they ignored the good in a vain quest to rid themselves of the bad.
She had plenty of experience with similar individuals.
Seven years ago, her optimism had done nothing to save a certain raven-haired boy. He told her thank you, but he wouldn't look back. And when he returned, he had learned nothing. Uchiha Sasuke may have realized the emptiness of revenge and the frivolity of power, but he was no better off for it. Knowledge is useless when unapplied, when not taken to heart.
Surprisingly, the years had done nothing to diminish her affection for him. She wanted so badly to forget him, even after he returned. In the three years he was absent and four years after, she had tried to find what she loved about him in someone else...and she always failed miserably. It was at once frustrating and comforting to know that he was so unique. To Sasuke, Haruno Sakura was a distant star that could never truly be his. To Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke was, and would always be, the tortured drifter in need of a spirited and, in his not-so-humble opinion, annoying comrade.
In their time as team mates, they had come to a sort of twisted understanding. She was the innocent girl who wandered blithely through life, and he was the brooding avenger who had one goal and one goal only. She would ask him out every day, and he would always say no. She would try to lure him into conversation, and he would remain as tight-lipped as possible while somehow managing not to provoke her infamous temper.
It was a wonderful game for her. It was an admittedly intriguing annoyance for him. And somehow, both appreciated their little rapport. It was her hobby, and his greatest source of enjoyable human interaction. It took some time for Sakura to piece together the tragedy that had shaped him, and despite his single-minded and vain pursuit of vengeance and redemption, the completed puzzle made her love him more than ever.
When she had realized how broken he was, she sang:
There's a dark and a troubled side of life
But there's a bright and a sunny side too
Though you meet with the darkness and strife
The sunny side you also may view
One evening, Sakura mechanically tended to a frail old woman with a failing heart. Her mind was elsewhere until a weak hand gripped her wrist. She smiled at the woman, who looked back solemnly.
"Are you truly happy, dear? Or is that smile for my benefit?"
Sakura, still smiling, squeezed her eyes shut.
"Whoever he is, he's the luckiest man alive."
Sakura gaped. The old woman offered the best smile she could manage.
"You're a blessing, dear. Beautiful, intelligent... but most of all, you're a healer. I've seen you with the others, the quiet ones." She paused and inhaled with a wheeze. "Being so close to death grants insight. Something weighs on your mind." The grip on Sakura's hand, to her shock, tightened. "Tell me everything, dear. You know it's good to speak."
And, blinking away the tears, Sakura told her everything about him, from his name to his mannerisms, from his coldness to her...her love.
"It's a strong bond that can survive seven years, child. You try so hard for these whose life is already forfeit. Why not for him?"
Sakura was silent. Why indeed?
He was just as lost, and in a twisted way, perhaps just as close to death. She had spent the seven years of his absence living vicariously through others and trying to fill the hole in her heart with more emptiness.
"You've done enough for me today, dear. Go to him."
Sakura smiled, gently squeezing the woman's hand, and wiped the tears from her eyes.
When she stepped out of the hospice, the dark clouds that had been threatening all day finally burst. She cursed and used the medical kit she carried each day to ward the rain off her head as she ran towards home. As she rounded a particularly wet corner, she was halted by a hand on her wrist. Tilting the medical kit to protect her eyes from the blowing rain, she turned to her would be captor.
A dark and familiar man, staring at her impassively, was holding a fittingly black umbrella in one hand and her wrist in the other. Half of her wanted to run away, while the other half wanted to throw herself into his arms.
A third option then presented itself.
Sakura shifted her trapped hand so that their fingers were entwined. Smiling ever so faintly at Sasuke's obvious surprise, she pulled herself close enough to him to share the shelter of his umbrella. Sasuke looked away, down the street towards her house. He gripped her hand firmly, and the pair walked side by side, hand in hand. Sakura smiled softly before singing quietly:
Though the storm and its furies rage today
Crushing hope that we cherish so dear
The cloud and the storm will in time pass away
And the sun again will shine bright and clear
Keep on the sunny side always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way
If we'll keep on the sunny side of life
--
You may recognize the song from 'O, Brother, Where Art Thou?'. If you haven't seen that movie, please get out from under that rock and watch it! Not only is it loosely based on Homer's Odyssey, its genius. So yeah. Just go watch 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'.
After you review and/or give me some constructive criticism, of course (beseeching grin).