Fake. Fake. Fake. Fake
It was all fake, and what was even more sickening was the fact that nobody but Sasuke noticed. The way her eyes widened when she saw him but held no spark, the way the tears gathered but there was no emotion. Her lips trembling but there were no sounds, her body shook but her muscles were stiff, and as her friends gathered around to support her trembling frame he was the only one to notice the haunted look in her eyes when no one else did.
Fake. Fake. Fake. Fake.
It had been two months since his trial and Sasuke spent his time watching the world around him and in particular his former pink headed teammate. Her schedule was predictable as she spent most of her time in the hospital tending to the injured and occasionally getting dragged to someplace by a friend. He wouldn't call it stalking per say, Sakura was acutely aware to his presence around the village and her eyes would flicker to meet his, and they would scrutinize each other before her emerald irises would flick away in disinterest. But mostly he watched from the bench outside the hospital as she would trudge outside the sliding doors her shoulders hunched. It was so much more than chakra exhaustion weighing down on her shoulders, and as he sat on the stool of Ichiraku with Naruto on his left and Sakura to Naruto's. Forced to listen to the strain of her laugh, the force behind it and how Naruto lit up regardless, that he truly realized.
No one else saw behind the facade.
It was only when a foreign nin had infiltrated Konoha and attempted to assassinate one of Sakura's patients that he finally saw the boiling beneath her hollow surface. Her enraged cry that sounded like a beast caged for too long, he got to see her slit the mans throat and his life fade instantly. The hollow look had stirred something in her emerald irises, and as the blood dripped off her chin and her gaze flickered toward him once more he felt himself pause.
The Haruno Sakura he knew, was no more.