Summary: Sakura took each day as it came. Taken with many things, but never taking any of them. She never took any risks. Instead, she took care. She never took any opportunities, she took the safe way instead. SasuSaku. Slight OOC.
See end of chapter for author notes.
Throw Me in the Water
When she was younger, Sakura never loved and lost. She understood loss in all its superficiality. She lost things, of course. Small key chains, pencils, the occasional hairtie. She took each day as it came. Taken with many things, but never taking any of them. She never took any risks. Instead, she took care. She never took any opportunities, she took the safe way instead.
But when Sakura was 13, she began to scratch the surface and peel back the layers of her teammates.
There is something to be said, obviously, about insecurity. Conventional wisdom was that the most performatively loud person at the party is the most insecure. And Naruto is nothing if not performatively loud – his restlessness, his bright orange jumpsuit, the bluster that his ninjutsu, and of course, his loud declarations of being the next Hokage.
And then there was Sasuke, and…she began to understand a bit. Because he is beautiful, sure, but a lot of him is empty. Empty in a way that feels heavy. Like his porcelain features, etched with a permanent scowl, were just a front to hide a past so no one will notice the broken and scared boy underneath.
When Naruto heard Sasuke had left Konoha, he was frantic, adamant in the belief that his teammate could be saved. But she and the Rookie 9 were convinced he couldn't. Sasuke had gone too far, and had become lost.
And yet–
And yet, when she was 17, she stood in front of Sasuke, once again reduced to her 12-year-old self, she knew that there was still a part of him left. The part of Sasuke still left, even as Sasuke was murdering and torturing without a second thought. She couldn't bring herself to kill him but she didn't want to leave him alone. She couldn't bring herself to leave him in a world he was set to destroy. She didn't have a good reason for most of what she did. Mostly, she went by what seemed right in the moment, and justified it to herself later, and in this way she was no different than anyone else she knew.
When she was 23, she occasionally found herself thinking about love when staring at the many twinkling satellites in the night sky, or when the wind tasted like sour peaches for no reason, or when she said a word that seemed different than a word she would ever say. Then she would wonder what it might be like to join her life with someone, or even just a few minutes with someone, just a touch or a glance, just anything, just something.
This, the idea of relationships bit, was all conjecture on her part. She herself felt too young to try to figure out her own life, let alone someone else's life near hers, and so she had never even sought out companionship of that type. Sakura thought about dating from time to time in the distant way a person thinks about eventually becoming famous or owning a castle or writing a novel. They're all achievable, realistic goals, but by turning objectives into mere fantasies, she never had to go through the trouble of achieving or maintaining them.
She was overjoyed when Sasuke asked her to marry him and she thought her life could not be more perfect.
But perfection, after all, isn't real. It isn't human, and Sasuke was not perfect.
No– even as she cried out in joy, she knew–he was imperfect. Everything about him, and them, and all of this is...it was imperfect. She thought she understood that it was those imperfections in their reality that were the seams and the cracks into which their outsized love could seep and pool. Maybe sometimes they would be annoyed at each other. Or disappointed. She thought she understood how love worked.
Now, thinking and looking back on her youth, Sakura felt a heavy sadness descend upon her. Of course, it was partly nostalgia, looking back at that younger self, bustling around, having adventures and overcoming obstacles that, at the time, seemed so overwhelming, but now seem like just the building blocks of a harmless story. But here was the truth of nostalgia: Sakura didn't feel it for who she once was, but who she wasn't. She felt it for all the possibilities that were open to her, but that she didn't take. She learned it the hard way with Sasuke. His words were like books that had her hooked like summer time, cooking up her mind all the way through. She supposed that she held on too tight and lost her faith in her own breath.
Sakura set her teacup down and stiffened her posture. Her eyes glanced back to the door, keeping tally of who was walking past. Satisfied for a moment, she fished for her compact mirror from her purse and made a show of checking her lipstick.
"Another exciting day at the hospital, Sakura?" Ino asked. She nodded politely when a waitress poured her a cup of tea.
Sakura closed the compact mirror with a click and set it next to her cup. "I'm not sure," she admitted, lacing her fingers together. Sakura suddenly felt like the words she was saying were twisting in her mouth and coming out as different words altogether. No part of the conversation was connecting with any other part. She might throw up after all, but she had just been in the restroom. It would look strange to run back to it so soon. The thought of that slight embarrassment kept her stomach in she could make her mind relax, banishing the imaginary enemies that lurked around her.
"I can imagine."
Silence.
"Are you okay?" She vaguely heard the click of Ino setting her cup down on the table. "You're awfully quiet."
It was a fair question, although the problem with fair questions is that they are asked about an unfair world. Sakura sighed. "I'm pregnant."
Ino frowned and tapped her nails on the table. "It's Sasuke's."
She felt the itch behind her eyes. She shut them and ignored the growing feeling of loneliness and dread that that was now becoming an accessory in her life. Alone in an empty house with a man that had little time for her, and she was alone in a hospital full of people she knew. She thought about Naruto and Sasuke joined together at the hip for the umpteenth time, imagining what her life would be if she never married Sasuke. Maybe she would have actually found someone else to cherish her, filling their Saturdays with dances and going to train in her favourite training ground, instead her sitting alone with a cold dinner, dreading the days of work that were ahead. Much to her dismay, Sakura felt the tears escape. She covered her face with her hand, as if that could stop her silent crying.
"Do you need a hug?" Ino said, hesitantly.
Comfort was the answer to all life's problems. It didn't solve them, but it made them more distant for a bit as they quietly worsened. Sakura shook her head. Her body no longer felt young. All of her energy had been robbed from her. She felt old, looked young, was neither.
They sat in silence.
A/N: If this is my first story that you've read, please consider reading some of my other stories, for extra angst. Penance and Missing in Action are from the same series. And please read and review!