(Chapter Two)
All Things Are Quite Silent
-/-
Lay me on a bed of dreams, sweet love
I'm not strong or willing anymore
The lightness and weight of my obscure truth
I cannot carry further, I cannot endure;
– Ipshita Chakraborty, "Come hither"
-/-
Haruno has never been an important shinobi name. The blood that runs through her veins does not carry the sleeping memory of long-forgotten heroes, keeps hidden neither secrets nor ancient techniques. Her predecessors never held the fate of the world in the palms of their hands. The lives of many always depended on someone else's decision.
They were a reliable mass in the wars of the greater people, the we-can-always-count-on-those little group that got brought up when numbers were discussed and maps drawn in the tents of the generals and clan leaders.
If she closes her eyes, she can see them there, important men shaping the history of the world as they drink their sake, without even noticing: hard, grave faces, scars old and new alike, rough hands that cannot remember how it feels to hold anything but weapons, eyes full of weariness and determination and hatred. She can hear their urgent, hoarse voices arguing about the disposition and counter attacks over the crackling fire and can feel the smell of burning wood and night flowers and metal.
Sakura wonders what they would say about her and others like her if they could see the way the shinobi world turned out to be. What would they say about the countries and nations they strived to mold and shape as they saw fit? Would they condemn their descendants for their choices or would they be proud?
She once asked her father if their clan had been around when the village was being created.
"Oh no," was the reply. "We were elsewhere then, in the north, if I remeber it right. We joined later, when Senju Hashirama was already the first Hokage."
When we were sure the Senju and the Uchiha had finally buried the axe of war, Sakura thought, feeling something akin to resignation well up inside her chest.
Hers is not a clan of heroes.
-/-
"What if I had someone, Sasuke? Back in the village? You've never even asked. Never asked what I did while you were not around."
He pauses for a moment, his breath hot on her neck, then props himself up on one elbow so he can see her face. Otherwise, he makes no move to get off her and she doesn't try to push him away. The ground is hard and uneven under her back, and his weight is enough to make her aware of it.
His mouth quirks slightly, a curving narrow slash of darkness that hints at the many things he will never say.
"What if you did?" There is a hint of a amusement hidden in his voice, a lazy curiosity. Or perhaps she has only imagined it.
"Wouldn't it bother you?"
"No. I would pity them."
"Oh? And why is that?" she asks in a sharp, clipped tone, and his smirk widens.
"Because you would leave them in the end, anyway. For me."
She wonders if she should slap him, so arrogant he sounds, so cynical – so unlike anything she might want to hear from him. She probably should, she thinks. Her hands are free, after all.
Instead, she lies motionless, pinned to the ground by his weight, and listens to his heart beat close to hers.
"You've become such a jerk," Sakura says, and a part of her that is silent and ever watchful, deep inside, takes note of how calm she is. Nothing stirs – no anger, no disappointment, no sadness; and it's wrong but it's right. She knows that no matter what happens, no matter how the wind blows and what Sasuke turns out to be, in the very end, she shall never be able to rip him out of her heart.
His face is unreadable, mask-like, his and not his at the same time; a pattern of a soft, semi-transparent dark that seems to be lit from inside, and heavy, inky shadows; familiar features that make up a face of a complete stranger. He reminds her of someone now, but her mind is in slumber, vacant and slow, and the memory slips away.
His eyes are blacker than black, swallowing whatever little light there is.
Suddenly, he seems older – by ten years, or twenty, or a lifetime, as if the last remnants of the illusions and dreams of his youth had been washed away and nothing was left to recreate him as he used to be, so another person – someone hard and merciless and cruel – took his place without her noticing.
"If only I knew, back then, that you would turn into this," she says softly, and he tilts his head slightly.
"You knew." And it looks like he is smiling, and she prefers not to think of the alternatives. The whole conversation seems surreal, dream-like. "You just forgot later. You chose to."
Inside her, the silence is deeper than the ocean.
Inside her, there is a girl she used to be, the stubborn, fierce little creature that wants to argue and object, to explain that hoping something might happen is not the same as convincing yourself that it will, and that believing strongly, with all your heart, can make dreams come true. She wants to tell him this and a thousand other things he has undoubtedly heard a thousand times. Her words could be the arrows that would finally reach the target.
She feels like a soldier who went into battle only to find out that the enemy had long since occupied the headquarters.
The war is over and fighting is pointless.
"Ah," she sighs. "I guess you're right. I've remembered now."
And then that other one, the one who came to love her here and now, in this wild place under the stars instead of Sasuke begins to kiss her, and although his lips are harsher, more demanding, and his fingers are no longer gentle, she is elated and full of happiness, because for once she feels needed, indispensable, precious like the last drop of water is to a man lost in a desert.
In the back of her mind, the only delirious thought remains – if she can bring herself to remember who it is that he reminded her of just then, she will find out what is going on with him and her and the world around them.
She closes her eyes and orders herself to forget.
