Jade and Rose
Summary: Eyes are the window to the soul, after all. His eyes should have been jade, not hers. Maybe then she would've realized what he really was sooner.
Ever since he'd left, she couldn't help but think about it. How could she have changed things, when had things started going wrong? She'd traced it all the way back to the beginning, to when they had first become a team.
She wanted to blame it on Naruto, because then she wouldn't be at fault, then Sasuke wouldn't be at fault. But she knew that wasn't true, because Naruto had understood Sasuke best even back then, and she'd just been chasing after an image in her head. She wanted to say that, since Naruto had understood Sasuke best, he should have been able to help him. But that wasn't true. Naruto had been alone too long. He had been desperate for friends, for attention. There was no way he could have been different, because he'd never been taught. He wasn't able to see past himself, not so early in his life.
She wanted to blame Kakashi; he hadn't been the best of leaders. He had left them on their own, to make their own mistakes and learn their own lessons. Perhaps if he had been more hands-on…but, she could see that was impossible. Kakashi was broken; he had no strength with which to support them, not emotionally, not in the ways that they had been lacking. From the start, he had seen himself in them, seen his past in them; but he had forgotten that, though he had survived his past, it was not guaranteed that Sasuke's ice could be broken by Naruto. He had simply stood and watched, and left them waiting, from the very first day they had become Team 7.
Maybe it was then; that day they'd first become a team. Sasuke had called her annoying, just like on that other day. He had said she didn't understand what it was like to be without parents, that she didn't understand loneliness.
And she hadn't. She couldn't have. She had had struggles and sadness, yes. But she had a family; she had even made friends. No one had ever taken these things from her, or denied her the right to gain these things.
She had lived her life through rose-tinted glasses; and nothing more could have been expected of her at that point. Had she been more understanding, more knowledgable…she might have been able not to hurt him. But she would never have understood, not enough. It was ironic; the only way she had learned how he felt was through his betrayal. The only way she could have saved him was if he had betrayed her.
She didn't want to blame Sasuke. But if she looked at it harshly, she could see that fault did lie with him, even if not all of it. He was jaded. He couldn't see that they wanted to help him, to befriend him, that they weren't useless. He couldn't help the fact that he was broken, no more than Naruto could, or than Kakashi could.
But that didn't change the facts. No one but Sasuke could be blamed; there was nothing they could have done, with the way things had been. There was nothing they could have done, not unless he had believed in them.
She hadn't wanted to become broken, like the rest of them. But she had been, and there had been no way for her to avoid it.
Eyes are the window to the soul, after all. His eyes should have been jade, not hers. Maybe then she would've realized what he really was sooner— he was jaded; he was a beautiful, dark stone, with jagged edges. He was broken, and anyone who tried to hold onto him would be shattered, too.
A/N: And there we have my rather depressing Christmas piece; it wasn't meant to be for Christmas, it was started in the summer, but that's when it was finished. Rather ironic, with the title- Jade and Rose, Green and Red.
Thank you for reading.
Shiori Hitohana