Refining The Old
DeixSaku oneshot. Enjoy! :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto but I do own this plot.
Normal Point of View
The seasons still changed, unchanged by everything going on amongst their presence, unmoved by the emotions and thoughts of others.
The people however, they do change. Sometimes these transformations come across over time, others within an abrupt instant.
For her, the false reality she had came crashing down at once before finally collapsing into a heap of debris which lay piled at her feet. All the assumptions she'd made primary seeming irrelevant now.
Presently, she was bored. True, she had wept at all of her friends' funerals over her entire lifetime but since then, there's now more use to cry. What she'd based herself on in her childhood, crying over stupid, insignificant things, was no longer meaningful except to bring back soured memories.
Now, an amazing sixty two years old, Sakura Haruno was no longer the pristine beauty she once was, all of her gaze-catching features now sagging and paled.
Her once creamy, porcelain skin now was wrinkled and ghastly pale yet soft to the touch.
She didn't miss her former self, she'd theorized that shedding back the age would unveil the equally old memories that she'd rather not relive.
Her emerald eyes that once had shined with intimidating gleams of youth nowadays casted darkly with an older, jaded color, her green orbs reflecting her boredom with life.
Her hair, once silky, pastel petal pink is now strewn up in a bun, insipid, almost white with a pink stained tinge, bundled loosely atop her head.
However, the story of her life remained the same, only to be added on to, never to be lost like appearances and friendships.
Speaking of which, yes, her friends had all passed by now, leaving her the sole survivor of the horrid thing known as time.
Though, time never holds back, each day the sun rises and sets the same, the unprecedented affairs of humans don't affect the solar workings of life.
What she truly needed, she had concluded, was a bit of drama for that had always sustained her attention in her younger years.
Though, her resolution held many kinks that she was, in doubt, too unmotivated to even think her plan through.
She thought to herself momentarily of how her old high school friends would say this was the typical, attention-whore Sakura they always knew and she couldn't help but smirk at how much that helped them in the long run.
Coming to the conclusion that this was definitely worthwhile, she slowly got up out of her recliner and went to her closet in her bedroom.
Now, walking gingerly down the street with short but determined steps, her glossy emerald eyes scanned the bustling street for people she possibly knew.
She was almost positive that she could draw attention to herself by the way she looked, that opinion of herself hardly faltering as the years seemed to fly by.
Her pink hair, now falling down past her shoulders in waves of soft curls complimented her sea-foam green sweater and floral skirt that brushed her ankles.
Sakura wasn't completely pleased but otherwise felt secure with herself as she rounded the curb to only collide with someone and, much to her body's displeasure, fell to the pavement roughly.
"Owww, damn my back…" She cursed under her breath as she took a quick, rushed breath to extinguish the sharp pain radiating from her lower back which had been giving her troubles the past five or so years anyways.
Casting a glare up at the individual whom she had ran into, her orbs widened at the sense of acknowledgment to the person's identity.
Dusty blonde hair falling over his shoulders, a stumble across his jaw line, forming the early signs of a beard, apologetic stunning blue orbs…
"Sorry, Miss. Deeply sorry, yeah." He spoke with a heavily accented and grounded tone. He bent over and first grabbed her elbows which her locked firmly outward as she braced her aching spine and continued to raise the petite Sakura to her feet.
Then, he doubled back over to pick up his canvas along with his paint and brushes which had fallen out of his bag.
She watched him, wondering, although her face had a strewn look of acrid distaste.
Hesitantly, she found her voice and spoke, "Deidara?"
He raised his sight to look at her in the face and an air of realization spread like a quick wildfire across his face almost as if he'd just won the lottery.
Throwing his bag, now refilled with his art supplies, over his shoulder and slipping his canvas under his arm, he smiled at Sakura.
"Sakura." Deidara smoothly stated, the final vowel rolling off his chapped and older lips with the same intensity as they had many of times before.
She recognized this and a sweet numbness whisked the pain away and, in return, left butterflies struggling to free themselves from her chest.
He had always had this affect on her and just the nostalgic sensation alone left her reeling for more memories.
"Where have you been the past, oh, decade or two?" Her sweet yet tainted, no longer youthful voice questioned.
The now dusty, once golden, blonde just rolled his shoulders loosely, dragging a calloused and wrinkled hand across the side of his face to pull the stray hair away from his face as the wind continued to fight back.
"Around and about I guess would explain it, yeah." Was his reply as he began to walk in the direction he was first going before the small incident.
Knowing she'd follow out of his old knowledge of Sakura, he just continued his pace, keeping a steady ear to listen for her footsteps behind him.
Soon enough, just like he'd predicted, he heard a loud huff come from the pinkette's mouth and the soles of her leather boots on the pavement.
"Walking off as usual, huh, Deidara? Typical." She bitched just like she always done back when they were in high school when he would tease her.
"Nah, I knew you'd follow so that was a silent invitation and obviously you've taken it." Deidara smirked, small wrinkles forming along the lines of his mouth and inwardly, he despised it so much.
Unlike Sakura, who didn't mind her now ragged and sagged appearance, he struggled to get used to the prospect of no longer having his gorgeous, tanned, and toned looks.
"Fine, so where are we going?" The old woman asked the equally old man as they walked side by side down the sidewalk, the old architecture of the buildings running alongside the walk way seemed to erase the years from the occasion and give the feeling of their first date together back when she was fourteen and he was sixteen.
He pointed a long, knobby finger in the direction towards an old, worn down coffee shop right down the road from where they were.
He sighed and threw his long, blonde hair over his shoulder and carelessly pointed towards the new coffee shop that'd just opened that November.
"The coffee shop we went to before?" Sakura asked, unsure of where Deidara had been pointing.
"That new coffee shop? I've never been there before." Sakura asked, all too enthused by Deidara picking out the newly opened business.
"Mhmm, yeah." He said casually, remembering and replaying that first date in his mind for the hundredth time probably.
"Yeah." He plainly answered, trying to stay calm and collected as he had when he rehearsed the date in front of his bathroom mirror for what seemed like the hundredth time.
"Why here, Deidara?" The woman asked the man.
"Why did you pick here, Dei?" The teenaged girl as the guy.
He paused, wondering why this felt so repetitive, like the old record player in his studio that his father had given him years and years before.
The boy paused, saying his carefully thought of words in his mind confidently, trying to replay what his buddy, Sasori, had said would work just hours ago.
"Because, refining the old is like replacing the olden new, from before, by not changing what could've happened but by giving you something else to remember. Like a reunion when you notice how much people have changed, I suppose yeah." The older Deidara said, just like he'd planned to if he ever saw her again.
"'Cause, I wanted to pick some place new, where it blows all of those other guys' lame dates out of the water, yeah. Like an upgrade, I guess yeah." The younger Deidara said, just making up shit since he'd forgotten what he was going to say.
The pink lady stopped in her tracks and looked upward, thinking fully to herself with knowing emerald eyes.
The pink girl stopped dead in her tracks as she hung her head low, beginning to cry to herself with saddened emerald eyes.
"You're finally letting the old out, huh?" He asked with an air of equal knowledge and understanding.
"You know you're going to have to forget all of those out dicks, right?" He said with an air of arrogance but also compassion.
She finally wrapped her arms around his torso, burying her face into his warm chest as she felt the warmth of his cotton shirt and smelled the scent of peppermint and chocolate along with detergent.
She slung her arms around his neck, dragging him down to her level as she buried her pale face into the crook of his neck, feeling the radiating warmth of his bronze skin and catching the scent of his leather jacket and the wavering smell of cologne and briefly cigarette smoke.
"You didn't even want to go to the coffee shop after that, you wanted to go to the park and just walk around, yeah." Deidara stated dryly but with a smile on his face.
She pulled away and looked up at him with sly eyes before saying, "Well, I didn't even like coffee back then. It was way too bitter for my tastes but now it doesn't bother me and it's quite nice."
He scoffed, "You know, coffee shops don't always just sell coffee. If you would've just told me that you didn't like coffee, I would've ordered you a hot chocolate or something, yeah."
Sakura grinned at the Deidara, not seeing the old one but seeing the defiant, teenaged boy in his glinting blue orbs.
"Oh well, its not like that matters now right?" The short woman pointed out.
"Not really, no." The tall man agreed.
And with that, pushing aside the fact that you don't need to relive the old completely, there's no use in just starting anew when you already have an idea to go on. In other words, the elderly couple turned and went in the direction towards that old park where they had walked together over four decades ago.
Once there, though, Sakura was looking at Deidara's canvas under his arm still, and saw a scene much like the two of them, walking casually through the park's grass, holding hands like teens usually do.
It tied together so perfectly, she thought to herself. You might as well wrap it all up like an old picture with a new frame and call it life.
So…like it? Nah? It's something way different then what I usually do and it took me a while to get into the idea of finishing the oneshot I began I don't know how long ago, geez…
Well, I would appreciate a review, fave, or subscription to support the cause AKA feed Goody-chan's ego sooo….please?
Until next time,
Bye Bye!
XOXO
Goody-chan