sofa 01
i.
There is a knock on the door when Sakura is washing the dishes – she winces, and hopes it's somebody who won't stay long. She's tired and would like to go to sleep already, not chit-chat with someoneat the door after eleven o'clock in the evening, but still she goes to open that door (of course, it's become her obligation).
She reaches for the doorknob, wet hand touching the cool metal, and briefly goes over the option of not opening it: she could go to sleep and be forever left in the itching feeling of not knowing who wanted to see her that late in the night. She could also wallow in that damned curiosity of hers which always in the end takes the best of her.
The door opens with a soft click, like a hammer touching a nail too lightly, and reveals a half-dead, blood-clad Naruto on the other side.
A ghost of an expletive moistensSakura's lips as he falls on her, forgetting that it's him who's the stronger of them. A breathed hiss disappears into the cold night air creeping inside from the dark evening as Sakura hauls him onto her couch, forgetting to care about the mess he'll make if she doesn't remove his clothes. Not that it would help, she says to herself; he's covered in blood inside out upside down – even in his eyes.
Which, she knows, are not blood-red, but scarlet and for (if not entirely) different reasons than oozing wounds and a battle-filled mind.
ii.
It's warm, warm like in a womb (he imagines, of course he has no memories), like lukewarm rainwater pouring down from a sheet of clouds in a summer day. He's sore and aching from every single place in his body, and a few more, but the warmth that catches him lets him linger for a while and not think about anything but nice things.
The warmth disappears all too quickly and he suddenly sees a sofa in front of him, and that takes him off guard – there are no sofas in his apartment. It's beige and fits bizarrely well to the floor, which, Naruto realizes, is altogether too close to him than it ought to if he had just woken up. His head pounds – one, two , three, he loses count – and he's sure there's some sort of event meant for horses in there because it fucking hurts.
A feeling in his gut (which has been repaired by Sakura) tells him everything's not alright and he tells it to shut up, I know already.
There's a familiar smell lingering in the air, soap and food and a faint shred of anticeptics and Naruto tries to place them somewhere, failing miserably in front of the massive headache. Rolling onto his back, his side hits the table and he stares at the unfamiliar white ceiling, realizing that he can't move nearly at all. He can still feel, though, and he thinks this is a good sign because at least his spinal cord hasn't been broken.
Spinal cords break in battles.
Battles...
Naruto turns on his side again and retches.
iii.
"You could have kept it in."
"You didn't have to give me an overdose of painkillers."
"It wasn't an overdose, it was barely the necessary amount."
Naruto snorts and winces a second after when Sakura starts removing the bandages from his torso. Keeping angry remarks inside he reminds himself that she knows (she better know) what she's doing and bites his lip, which already tastes like copper.
Sakura's face is grey and white in the early morning light, shadows of worry and exhaustion more visible on her features than the shadows in the corners of her house. Worry for Naruto's condition (mental, the physical is already under her control), exhaustion from a night spent awake trying to listen to even the smallest sound from the first floor.
She doesn't ask.
It's not like he wouldn't tell her if he wanted to.
So she settles for slapping his arm gently, finishing the bandaging and adding sleeping pills to his food when he isn't looking.
