"You, usuratonkachi…"
What is it about the ties that bind? What keeps people together and what draws them apart? These questions plagues Naruto's mind as he stares wistfully into Konoha's star-filled night sky. Memories. He remembers the first time they were placed together in the same Genin group. Team Seven. How from the very beginning they were always at loggerheads with one another until the day they earned one another's respect and became friends. He thought that the ties that bounded them together were strong, but it was not enough. Not enough to keep him here. Here with them. Kakashi, Sakura and him. They were not enough for him. He wanted to break the ties that bind. Obtaining power was more pressing. Revenge was more important and he clung so hard to his need for vengeance until he did not recognize them anymore. With these thoughts brought about the slight prickling feeling in the back of his eyes, signaling the start of tears.
At the same time, Sakura was sitting up on her bed in her dark room. Moonlight filtered in through her window as she sat staring unseeingly out. She could not sleep but that was nothing new. Insomnia had been a frequent intruder into her nightlife of late. Especially after seeing him again. She looked up at her dresser to where the picture frame stood. From this distance and in the darkness, she could not see the picture clearly, but she did not need the light to know what it showed. She knew this picture intimately. She stood up and walked the few steps to her dresser to pick up the picture, before bringing it back to her bed. From the light shining into her room, she could see what was already long ago imprinted into her mind's eye. A picture of Team Seven when they were thirteen. Was it only taken two years ago? In the picture both Naruto and Sasuke were frowning but she could not remember a time when she had been happier. They were together and that was all that mattered to her. Her left thumb gently rubbed over the glass where Sasuke's face was. How could two years change things so much? She felt like she did not know him anymore, not that she knew him very well even when they were still together in Team Seven. He had always set himself apart, distanced himself from the rest of them. He was not like Naruto who wore his heart on his sleeve. No. Sasuke was more reticent. He was the opposite of Naruto in this regard. Most people were not privy to his thoughts. However, in their last meeting, it seemed as if he had become so much colder if that was even possible. As if he did not recognize or refused to acknowledge them at all. He was even willing to kill them without any hesitation as if they were not his friends, his teammates, the people who cared so much about him. They had all become merely nothing to him. The tears fell as she thought back to that day.
She heard his voice before she saw him.
"Sakura, huh?"
Her heart skips a beat at the familiar voice. She would have recognized it anywhere. It was his. She turns so slowly as if she were in a dream. The one person she had wanted to see again for the longest time, dreamt of rescuing from the evil hands of Orochimaru, the one she wanted to save.
Sasuke.
He stood above them, his demeanor impressive and confident, his left hand cocked on his hip as he looked coolly down at them from his vantage point. He was slightly taller than before and just that bit more handsome. Her heart skips another beat as her eyes fully took him in and she whispered, "Sasuke-kun…"
But he did not need saving. In fact the opposite was truer. They had needed saving instead because it all went downhill from there. Naruto came and Sasuke tried to kill Naruto before Orochimaru stopped him and they vanished together.
Blinking as the tears fell uncontrollably, Sakura heaved a sob. Sasuke was not their friend any longer. Or at least he did not think of them as friends anymore.
Naruto sighed as his memories brought him back to that fateful day too, little knowing that Sakura was also sitting in her room reminiscing as well this burden that they shared. Yet each of them suffered alone. Him sitting atop the water tank on the roof of his apartment and she cradling the picture in her dark room.
Naruto continues to contemplate the stars, trying to ignore the prickling feeling in his eyes. Trying to console himself, he thought, "Sasuke would also be staring at these same stars if he were looking up at the sky right now. By looking at the stars, it somehow binds us together?" Was it a trick of his eyes but he thought he saw a shooting star suddenly passing through the skies. He blinked and looked again but it was gone. However, the shooting star gave him hope. He smiled slightly and closed his eyes again. If he could see something so rare as a shooting star, then there was still a chance of Sasuke coming back to them. Yes. He would entrust his dream on a shooting star. Sasuke will come back to them. He will make sure of it. Naruto's mouth lifts into a slight smile as his little pipedream played out in his head. So the naïve and ever optimistic Naruto managed to convince himself to cheer up because somehow, someday, he will make Sasuke return to them. That was his way of the ninja after all and he did make the promise of a lifetime to Sakura.
Sakura on the other hand was not so positive. Perhaps she was being more realistic than Naruto. She wept as she stared at the picture, her tears splashing on the glass panel of the frame before dripping to the edge. This photo frame had seen her tears more often than not in the past two years for that was how long she had been mourning the loss of Sasuke. Even when she offered her all for him, it was not enough. He did not care for her in the way she wanted him to. He did not care enough about anything except for revenge against his brother, Uchiha Itachi. Just thinking of the name and the image it conjured up made Sakura shiver. Itachi was a very scary person. The boogeyman in little children's dreams. There was no way Sakura would have faced this opponent willingly if it were not for the fact that only this person could bring Sasuke back to her. That was why she asked to be under the tutelage of the Fifth Hokage. She looked up and out her window at the moon and stars shining down on this fair night. Only for you, Sasuke. For you I would go to hell and back. Even if you forsake us, forget us, I will never stop loving you. And that was her way of the ninja.