Title: Fork in the road
Prompt: July 5 / test
A/N: So late for SS month, but exam and all…either way, I'll keep writing for it as inspiration strikes. Hopefully that'll be once a week.
Summary: Sakura was tired of dancing around it, of waiting and hoping.
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"Leaving already?" Sakura watched as Sasuke double checked his pack. With one hand it was difficult, but he never asked for help.
He didn't look up. "I've been here for two weeks."
"Any longer and people would think you've settled down." Sakura scoffed, rolling her eyes as she ran a hand through her hair.
Now he looked up, eyeing her, and she swallowed. She hadn't meant to sound as bitter as she had.
But it was the truth. It had been over two years now and he hadn't shown any sign of slowing down, of figuring out just what he wanted in life.
Of figuring out if she had any place in that.
Sakura was tired of dancing around it, of waiting and hoping. She spent three years doing that while he and Naruto were away, spent years doing that when they were here.
"Sakura?" He asked ten questions with her name and it still surprised her how good she was getting at reading him.
But he was more open now than he was as a child and back then, she never had a chance at understanding him. She hadn't had the right maturity to do it anyways.
"It's nothing," she started, but no, it wasn't nothing. It was everything, it was the way she looked at the gates every morning on her way to the hospital, expecting something that never happened. "I'm tired."
He didn't say anything, just kept watching her with those dark eyes.
Feeling brave, she continued. "I get it, I do—you have to go and redeem yourself. But...it's hard, waiting for something that might never happen."
Sometimes, she feared that he might decide it would never be enough and keep wandering forever. That she would be left waiting and never know.
And there had been so much death these past years, so much destruction—she wanted to live. She wanted to live and breathe and scream of her existence. That she existed, that she weathered it all.
That she survived.
And waiting and worrying and wondering, that wasn't living. That was stasis, that was hibernation. And they've had enough of that.
She swallowed. "Are you ever going to forgive yourself?"
Sasuke looked at her in surprise, and then back at his pack. As though he had never considered the question.
And maybe, he never had. Maybe he had just assumed he'd find forgiveness, that one day he'd wake up and think enough is enough.
And that might have happened. But she'd seen enough to know that was almost never the case, that you had to think these things through before you could find a solution that felt right.
And Sasuke, Sasuke would almost never forgive himself, not without being told to.
"I don't know," he finally replied.
And that right there was the crux of their relationship.
"Figure it out, then, by next time," she finally said after a resounding silence. "I can wait till then."
But not much longer.