Winter
When she is twelve, Naruto plays a trick on her.
It is December, and the skies are grey. The clouds hang above, pregnant with fresh snow to come. She stands in the training field already blanketed in white. Waiting. She is always waiting. Waiting for Sasuke to love her. Waiting for Kakashi to see her. Waiting for Naruto to surpass her.
Her breath comes out in little puffs, and she warms her bare hands with them. Her fingers become sticky from the moisture, and she rubs her palms together for friction. She's forgotten gloves, again. She gently touches her cold face with her colder hands, and she can tell her nose is red.
Sakura puts a hand in her pocket. A soft tissue brushes her hand.
Someone is yelling from the bushes. A loud blur of yellow and orange comes at her. The blur throws a kunai and tells her to dodge.
The kunai lands at her feet. She is happy the boy missed because she feels sick and cold and dizzy. She doesn't want to train today.
Naruto shouts her name. Loudly. It sounds like a warning.
She looks down at her new boots and then at the kunai standing in the snow next to them. The exploding tag on the rounded edge fizzes away; the cold air carries its ashes into the sky.
There is blood in the snow, and she's cold and hot at the same time. She can't see, and her head hurts. There are more voices now. They're all shouting. She wants to push herself up and smile and say she's okay.
She wakes up in a cold room. It feels like a refrigerator and smells like a box of bandages. There are eight stitches running diagonally down her forehead, and her muscles are sore like that time sensei taught them to climb trees. She looks around. Someone sits on the chair looking back at her.
She opens her mouth to speak.
"Will it scar?"
"No," he says.
It's summer, and it's winter, and it's summer and it's winter. Her life explodes in a million directions like Naruto's exploding tag that left eight stitches in her skin.
She's thirteen, and Naruto is lying in a hospital bed crying. She wants to tell him everything's going to be okay, but she can't because she knows it's not. She tells him she's going to get stronger, and she turns around so he can't see her cry.
She's fourteen, and Tsunade is yelling at her, throwing her into rocks when she doesn't react quickly enough—which is almost always. She can't stand up, and she can't feel anything, and her ears are ringing with Tsunade's commands.
She's fifteen, and there is a man with a cylindrical heart grinding a katana into her vital organs as an old woman stabs an antidote into her thigh. She thinks she is going to die, and she is scared. She's scared because she can't think of a reason not to die.
She's sixteen and holding Kurenai's child while Shikamaru smokes on the veranda and plays shougi with Kakashi. Kakashi is losing, and the look in his eyes is something she's never seen before. Kureani's child squirms and coos in her arms, and Kakashi looks up from the board long enough to catch her eye. He smiles, or so she thinks he does.
She's seventeen, and she's crying because she's just accidentally killed a rabbit. She's crying into Naruto's jacket, and he doesn't stop her because he knows it's not about the rabbit. His head is on top of hers, and he looks down just enough to see eight tiny pricks along her forehead.
She's still seventeen, and there's a strange boy in her bed. She's so scared because he's not Sasuke and because she's never done this before and because he's touching her in ways Sasuke never would. The look in his eyes scares her because he looks like he wants her, and the way his lips brush her skin scares her because it feels like he has her. She closes her eyes.
She closes her eyes everytime.
It's eight o'clock, and she suspects she's late. But she's not because it's winter, and because things have been peaceful lately. She's not wearing clothes and she lies with her face pressed into her pillow and her stomach pressed into her bed. A sheet covers the lower half of her body. The heater hums in the corner.
Someone knocks on the door, but she doesn't hear it because she's too busy watching a bird leave tracks in the snow on her windowsill.
Someone tries the doorknob and finds it in a lenient mood.
She feels his chakra, and for a split second she thinks he's an intruder, and this makes her want to send the senbon in her hair flying into his jugular. But that wouldn't do because she would be in so much trouble.
He doesn't say anything about what she's wearing. He's seen her naken dozens of times before. On missions.
No words are exchanged between them, and he simply sets something down on the ground next to where she is lounging like a spoiled queen.
The card says "Happy Birthday"
She is eighteen in three weeks, and her sensei has just left. She's eighteen in three weeks and her sensei has just given her something early. She opens the box to find a fresh-cut daisy. Something in her stirs. She rips the card open, and his handwriting is so bad that she can barely make out the words "you can't live like it's always winter."
She doesn't know why she's rushing, and there is so much blood pumping in her veins because she hasn't felt this excited since she was twelve. Her boots hit just below her knees, and her jacket hits just above. She doesn't wear anything underneath because she's not cold anymore.
His bed is warm and his hands are warm, but she can't see anything because he's holding her from behind so she can't see his face. She doesn't like the way the game is being played so she cheats and flips them around. He doesn't care, and he lets her drink in the sight of his face. It's like another fresh daisy.
The next day she's worried, but it's okay because it's been so long since she's felt worry.
And he thinks it's funny because he's known all along that she would. Things are going to change is all he tells her, and she likes his answer because she wants them to.
She doesn't care if it's love, because she's learned to settle for less.
Things are going to change, and she is going to like them. She is wearing his shirt and drinking his tea, and she laughs to herself when she wonders if Kakashi needs heirs to the Hatake clan.
It's because she's always been like winter even when she acted like it was spring. But he is like summer, and it makes her feel things she never has before.
She brushes her bangs back and looks at him.
"It scarred."
He reaches over the table to brush her forehead so lightly that she shivers.
"I didin't want it to."
Snow can wait
I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose
Get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
When I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove
I run off
Where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice
"Your must learn to stand up for yourself
Cause I can't always be around"
He says
Boys get discovered as winter melts
Flowers competing for the sun
Years go by and I'm here still waiting Withering where some snowman was
Mirror mirror where's the crystal palace
But I only can see the myself
Skating around the truth who I am
But I know dad the ice is getting thin
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear
Hair is grey
And the fires are burning
So many dreams
On the shelf
You say I wanted you to be proud of me
I always wanted that myself
My dear