Title: gently
Synop: Time was never really on their side to begin with. Too many things to be done and overwhelmingly nothing is ever finished, always a glass left half empty. She's not right anymore, hasn't been right in a long time, but it's okay. [Sakura-centric for now~]
A/N: It's been ages since I last wrote something, and it's 3:20am and I'm an impatient person and I've read over this too many times. I don't have a beta and I can't pick out anything wrong with this anymore. And let me tell you, there's probably PLENTY wrong with it. Also, ignore the writing style, it's very... ahh... "Messy." As in, I left out a lot of grammar rules in favor of style and technique that no doubt looks horrible. (See something you don't like? Or lolgrammar mistakes? Go ahead and point it out~)
Anyway. Sakura-centric, psychological stuff, and probably gore at some point. Maybe. This will probably become Sakura/Sasuke because I've started to become fond of the bastard, but don't expect anything horribly happy. Focousing more on Sakura and character development with her and a lot of "what-ifs" and sorry, didn't mean to write a depressing story. There will be happy times and fluff but... We'll see.
...What did I write?
i. it's okay it's always okay can't you see it?
i
"Sasuke-kun, want to go out with me?"
"..."
She told herself it was okay that he said no, because she always had tomorrow.
She was thirteen when she asked him again...
He left the village less than a year later.
...and she was thirteen when she stopped asking him.
She was tired of asking and that was okay.
Now she didn't have to ask.
ii
She thinks of early spring mornings and late summer evenings and it stops there as she can't seem to think any farther into fall and winter is all but absent. There is a beauty in that all she can recall right now are stories of a dry rain spell, pink and whites floating to the ground in waves as the trees weep gently. But there is something about those trees, something about the rain falling from their branches and something about the color that she, Sakura, just can't quite place. There was something, wasn't there? Something of soldiers like herself and feelings gone awry, of lives unfinished and suddenly she sees a whiteness everywhere and she's running and can not stop.
Petals are replaced with a gentle snowfall and she can't seem to focus on anything, she knows something had been there at the forefront of her mind, something kinder and warm. There is no kindness here, only black oil coating her gloves and coat and yet somehow her mask was spared and still clean, though she wasn't sure how she knew. "Breathe," like it was a mantra and all she knew how to say and she said it over and over and over over over and she couldn't even hear herself speak the simple word. It was something to keep herself going, something for her to focus on and for some reason it just wasn't helping at all because she couldn't hear it shecouldn'tfuckinghear it come from her own lips and she felt like screaming.
Running so fast with her mind blanketed by the snow and in another world entirely her own, she had been working on reflexes alone.
She had been at it for hours, she hadn't stopped - hadn't wanted to - and it had caused her to screw up and she was sent flying. She had recovered slightly, keeping herself from completing a crash landing, but she hadn't cared to keep herself afloat beyond that. She tumbled through the snow and straight into a tree and lay there, breath so ragged and she wasn't getting the air she wanted and it should have hurt so bad, but she found she felt no pain at all. There was no pain in her heavily heaving chest, her beating heart was trying to pump the blood as fast as it could to keep up with her nearly twenty minutes ago when it had fallen behind. Her heart, so stricken with a haste it hadn't possessed in the first place, fell into the pit of her stomach and burned her side and she could feel the cramp, but now it was dull and only just throbbed.
Certainly, she thinks, certainly there was something she was forgetting. "But it's okay," because she can't bring herself to care, can't bring herself to want to remember what it is she's forgotten. As a cold chill begins to eat away at her overheated body, she tells herself that it's okay, and that's all she needs. She watches the snow for hours, it builds up around her and on top of her and her body begins to welcome it. It's a relief that she can't feel, an ache that had dulled some time ago and a rushing of frenzied thoughts beginning to finally slow down.
It's snowing around her, the trees are thick and covered in it and the forest seems to sleep and Sakura finds herself just a bit jealous.
She closes her eyes just as she hears static come over the radio in her ear, she swears she can hear a voice but its drowned out and by what she doesn't know. So many things she can't remember right now, so many things she doesn't know and so many things she isn't understanding. Then, opening her eyes, she sees blurs of white and realizes the snow has built up more than she should have allowed it. There is no rationality nor common sense within her right now, but there is something in the back of her mind, something picking at Sakura and pushing her forward. It's telling her to get up, that there's something she hasn't quite finished yet, something she still has to do and she pushes herself up off the forest floor.
The heavy material lining the coat has started to soak through and she shivers, feeling her numb arms and the ice that grows deep within her bones now. She realizes that she was always smarter than this, she's always been the smart one and she was always the one to keep her calm. She stands, taking with her frozen bones and much heavier clothes. She isn't sure, just for a moment, and then she takes a step forward almost cautiously.
Again the static in her ear piece rears up, again a haunting voice echoes over it and she squints her eyes trying to concentrate on the voice, but it's lost. The white world around her is eating up the sound and she only notices this when her steps make no crunch crunch crunch below her. She's walking but can not even hear her own steps, and she can not hear the voice in her head that comes from somewhere much farther away. Sakura's alone here and she nods, "always alone, even when surrounded by friends," it's mumbled but she can hear it. She looks to her gloved hand, coated in a blackness not unlike oil before pulling the coat tighter around her shivering form.
"It's okay."
She'll keep telling herself as such as she trudges forward, certain that the direction was correct, certain that she wasn't lost because she was on a mission and she need only hand in the item to her superior. Camp wasn't that far now and under her coat she reached to check and make sure the item was tucked safely away in her pouch, a scroll, she noted. The scroll was taken from a man -she had taken it from him- and then she was caught so she ran, and she ran as fast as she could and now she was on her way back.
Relief warmed her cheeks and made her stomach upset and worry suddenly inhabited her mind as she mentally checked over her body for damage and there was much - though not dangerously so. She was beginning to get a sense of where she was, of where she was going and memories of a few hours prior surfaced and she swallowed hard.
Sakura had thought she was out running for hours, thought she was laying in the snow for hours, thought her heart was running to catch up with her for so long; it had been less than an hour.
Time for her ran at an agonizingly slow pace.
"-ngu. re-rt. -at is -re sta-s-"
The static faded and suddenly the world around her, silent and sleeping and confusing and forgetful rushed back and hit her hard in the back, causing her to stumble and slip and fall again as she listened to her own ragged breathing. She heard the crunching of the snow below her and she heard the slight sway of branches and it was almost too crazy to say she could hear the snow touch the opposing snow on the land. Her hearing -so deaf and so gone- was now back full force and hypersensitive and there was a buzzing at the front of her head, though it slowly began to fade out. Super sensitive hearing began to return to normal and now the world was quieter again, though the volume was just right as everything came into place and she realized that:
"Everything is okay."
Short static and then clarity, "Tengu. Your status?"
A finger to her throat, a button engraved on a safety collar, "Everything is okay. I'm on my way back."
She was an ANBU rookie and was graced with the mask bearing Tengu, though the surface was flatter and absent the ogre's nose.
She stood from the ground, brushed off the built up snow and though it was slow and painful at first, she started her run again.
The world passed her by quickly.
She was unnoticed as she refused to falter again.
Even if she had been found out, there was no one who could tell.
There was no longer anyone who followed after her.
"Boar."
"Tengu."
Camp was packed and her comrades whose faces she did not know beyond the mask stood there, she was the last to have arrived. Her squad captain, Boar, nodded to her as she handed him the scroll from her pouch, the scroll that had caused her a train wreck before he hid it away. There was one other like it and that one had already been received, and now hers made two.
With her mission completed, the four of them turned and began their long trek back home.
More running, a suddenly tiring activity to Sakura, only this time she need only concentrate on the others backs.
iii
"Sakura~!" A cheerful girl waved, one hand enthusiastically as the other balanced one too many pots and flowers and roses of all kinds that shouldn't be in bloom on her hand and up to her shoulder. The early morning was clear and kind as clouds filled with cold had cleared out, moving on towards the mountains not far away. Steam rose from houses and lights were being shut off with the rising of the sun and people were out and about in the village. Sakura herself was on her way home from having just visited her precious Hokage's office and normally she was greeted by an elder lady at the flower shop.
"Ah, Ino." Sakura smiled, unused to seeing her friend helping out at the flower shop so early in the morning, "Those..." How was she supposed to word this exactly? "Ino, it's winter..."
"Mm! But we grow them in the greenhouse behind the shop. Mom's been overly infatuated with it recently for some reason, and dad's just glad he fixed it." Sakura nodded as she walked over, watching Ino balance the flowers with a hint of amusement in her mossy eyes.
"No training or missions today?"
"Nope! I've got the next few days off from missions, though we have training tomorrow... Aah, I never get a break from all of this." Ino looked absolutely appalled and Sakura couldn't contain her giggle. She had been avoiding people lately and taking up missions more often than she used to. Honestly, she had begun to miss being a socialite and talking with friends, but she had also started getting so used to living a life of solidarity that she found herself not minding more and more as the days swept by. She stood there for a moment longer, listening to Ino chatter about TenTen and then something about Hinata and the Hyuugas and a marriage for the heiress. There was so much she had missed out on, and so much news she wasn't aware had happened and like a newspaper too depressing to read, she found herself growing irritated at listening.
The marriage was a good thing, but the following rants and gossip was nothing more than a pile of crap that came from the blonde's mouth and Sakura couldn't help but wonder, had she once sounded like that, too?
"Ino, I... I'm tired and I just got back from a mission, so-"
"Oh! It's alright, we can catch up later. You get home and get some sleep, okay? I'll come by sometime tomorrow, probably after training, okay?"
Sakura nodded and turned to leave.
She wasn't far away before she heard her name called out again.
"Hey, Sakura."
She turned around to face her friend.
"Here. It's to cheer you up."
Looking down, Sakura stared at the small pink tulip offered to her by her friend, her friend who knew all about Sakura's hidden sadness as though she could see it like the clear skies above them. Ino was worried and Ino still cared deeply for Sakura, for her best friend, and though Sakura became silent to everyone and shied up around those she trusted, Ino just knew.
And Ino would wait till sakura decided to talk.
Because that's what friends are for, right?
iv
Home was a small cozy apartment, big enough for a bed, for a dresser, for a box under the bed, a small fridge for perishables, and a small table that resided under the window. Home was in a secluded back alleyway above some other person's home and home had it's own personal staircase attached to it's side so you could get to it. Overlooking the back alley sat the home's pride, a tiny little balcony made of the same metal the stairs were made of and fitted with a chair and, if she ever obtained one, even a small table could fit. Home was big enough just for one person and big enough for someone who rarely ever came home. Home wasn't her parent's estate and home wasn't her friend's large apartments.
Opening the door, Sakura walked in and with a quick shove of her foot she closed the door before falling on her overly plush bed not but a few feet away. She lay on it and looked up to the ceiling, flower pot and flower haphazardly still in her grasp and miraculously wasn't ruined and her travel bag spilled on the bed next to her.
She stared at the ceiling for quite some time, it was white and it was damn near painful and she found she hated it for resembling the snow that had almost consumed her whole and had almost claimed her very history.
Her mind began to wander.
and
She doubled over, slipping off the bed and crashed to the hard wooden floorboard below her, hands cupping her mouth and she heaved.
The flower pot lay next to her, dirt spilling out and the pot broken on the top; it was still usable.
She remembered now why she had thought of the dead and the rotting of flesh under cherry blossoms and why the petals were red and bloomed on trees and surrounded her. Why it had become warm and sunny when it was still winter and how she was suddenly no longer in her room but in the middle of a snowy forest and staring at a man. He was older than her by ten or so years, he was staring at her in fear, asking for her help and yet spitting at her in hatred and she couldn't figure out what to do and oh god his eyes were so dead. She stared at him, she stood up shakily and once again everything slowed down and he was coming at her quickly.
No time to react, she grabbed his sword, the blade aimed for her gut and swept it to her side just narrowly missing what would have been a deep wound only for it to graze her. She grabbed the sword, she shoved it past herself and her strength against his, her mastered chakra against his nothing. She easily, savagely pulled it from his hands with a snarl so unlike herself while breaking the blade and pain blossomed in her gut as she rolled through the snow. Springing to her feet she reached for the broken sword before the man could, she grabbed it before him and as he rolled on top of her with fury, he stilled.
She was heaving heavily as he couldn't even let out a whimper at the pain he felt, at the sword now protruding from the skin of his neck and locking itself deep into his windpipe and trachea. It's dull, broken edge had smashed its way in with a mess, there was no clean sliver cut in like a normal blade, just a damaging blow. The oil leaked from his throat and from his mouth and Sakura swore from other places but there was no time she had to get out of here.
There were others, others he knew, accomplices, others she needn't deal with.
But it was okay, she told herself, it would always be okay.
There was no sound, no noise to identify with and recognize anything. The snow fall around her completely blanketed and ate up the volume. It was silent, so silent and cold and pure and she was scared for a moment. But it was okay, because her fear was eaten up, too.
Everything would be okay, everything was always okay, and everything would continue to be okay.
She rolled over and brought him under her, hands still clinging dearly to the sword's handle as she stared into his eyes wide with pain and fright and death. She watched him struggle, gasping for breath of air and only choking on his own blood and she knew what she had just done.
It was inevitable.
The first time she killed someone, she hadn't been allowed to grieve. Everything happened quickly, too quickly, and she hadn't even been allowed the time to stop and wonder at what she had just done to someones life. That she had taken and cut the strings too short, too fucking short and god, there was no time because she had to run and she couldn't stop. If she had faltered even for a moment and allowed herself to look back, to comprehend that there was nothing living behind her, she might have broke then and there.
And she ran.
Her hand slithered over the dry boards to the broken flowerpot next to her, aware that her dry heaving was over and nothing came from her lips, her stomach refusing to spit anything out and she picked up the poor plant. She had just brought it home and already she abused it. She shook her head and stood up, pathetically trying to think of something else and the flower would do, it needed to be watered, right? Right.
She sat it down on the table, ignoring the blood pooling from her travel bag in favor of taking a water bottle from the fridge in the corner. Pulling up a chair, Sakura sat and smiled at the flower, mind thinking happier thoughts and reality wasn't something she had to face right now so why not?
Sakura's first flower was a pink tulip.
And that was okay.
i. it's okay it's not okay something's wrong but she can't see it