Chapter 3 - Wedding

Five months passed since Naruto's fiançailles.

She didn't lose, by death, anyone so special to her. She didn't know grief or suffering in the way Naruto, Sasuke or her mistress did, but she didn't feel any real happiness since Sasuke's departure three years ago. Of course, Sakura was so happy to learn about his grace from death, but having him in Konoha could be better...

Before and during Naruto's fiançailles' party, a dark idea trespassed her mind : 'maybe he has a girlfriend and would never look at me after all this time, he didn't ask me to wait for him though'. The idea made her depressed, but it disappeared as soon as it came; thanks for the concerned to make things clear.

Sasuke's passage by Konoha was short, just for Naruto's party, but it brought light to Sakura's night.

They're now together.

"I know that I'm being so straight about this. No introductions or 'first steps', but it's just that I don't have much time for that, and I notice how everyone's situation over here has changed. I guess that... You didn't get in any relationship just because of me"

Sakura felt cold and anxious. He's marking a pause. Is he expecting an answer ?

"I don't know if I really need a family, a new one. But I prefer having a better reason to go back to Konoha. The Uchiha blood is wept off from here...

Without turning around, I just want to ask you if you want to be my companion, for now. Maybe we can evolve that relationship if we can agree on some points, that we may discuss next time I'll be here..."

Could she have rejected him ? Sakura doesn't know how could she.

Today was Naruto and Hinata's wedding. Sakura has spent this last month focusing on her happiness, enjoying her time with her friends whenever she could. She tried to forget Sasuke for the time. But not today. Today is the wedding completing the fiançailles, the fiançailles in the party of which Sasuke asked her as a companion.

But in the opposite of last time, Sasuke won't be able to attend it.

In full simplicity, Sakura attended the wedding and had no bad or solitude time. It was night now and Sakura was undoing her slight make-up and preparing herself to take a bath. Her eyes fell on the small paper on her dressing table on which "Congratulations" was written.

"Congratulations…" she spelled.

Sakura headed for her bathroom thinking if we congratulate people when they get married because they achieved what they were working on for so long… What about those who worked so hard and yet couldn't achieve that ? Does that mean than the latter worked less than the first ? What do we congratulate exactly ? The chance and the good luck ?

"Maybe I'll know what people are congratulated for one day." She thought, avoiding the idea that she may never know the answer.

The public wedding Naruto and Hinata got wasn't enough. It was traditional to them, they didn't enjoy themselves among their friends. So now, a week later, they're gathering all their friends to do a party like that one few months ago for their fiançailles.

Sasuke ? Won't attend, neither come to Konoha until a month or two from now.

Sakura won't miss these, at the same place as last time. But instead, she won't feel sad nor keep away from her friends even if they're in couples, she'll annoy them and impose herself.

Dressed in black and red this time; a black robe with the same from she wore in the public wedding with red lace on the edges and long sleeves in red lace too.

The young lady spent enough time with her friends and felt a faint need of solitude. Not because she was sad or in a philosophing mood, but because she needed to remember Sasuke's shadow from that other day.

She decided then, after spending some time in the same spot Sasuke came to talk with her at first, to walk into the woods, in the same direction he guided her in before.

Sasuke have been walking silently for around two hours now. He wanted to have a pause before entering that zone. A zone he has to enter in full discretion.

Half-sitting on a big rock in the center of a small clearing, Sasuke rose his head to the full Moon above him. Almost 6 months passed since he made his advance to Sakura in this place. He wanted to be here a week ago, and attend his friend's wedding but he hadn't completed his mission until three days ago, and he was heading to Konoha since then.

Feeling someone approaching by his left side, he lifted his face slowly to that side seeing a lady with beautiful white hair and grey eyes in the shadows. Blackly and darkly dressed. When she stepped closer, the moon-light colored her and her hair took a pink color while her eyes took the green one.

Sasuke didn't move. Kept like that, his head tilted to the side like a cat, gazing at her silently. While she stopped approaching him she asked calmly, like unsure if it was really him : "How are you here ? You shouldn't be done until next month." He kept gazing at her, with a faint smile, making her shiver. Both of them thought at some moment that the other was a ghost, an illusion, or maybe a delusion.

Sasuke rose his arm and invited her to come closer with a sign. After a hesitation, she walked with heavy steps toward him and stop within a meter beside him to hear his whisper-like answer "I did all I could to be here a week ago. But couldn't."

"Ah. I see." She answered. She was happy, moving like she was dancing to an Adagio partition from her nervousness, her eyes looking to the right side, then to the left, avoiding the center where he was. She forced herself not to, but couldn't not smile and have cheeks more colorful then the rest of her face.

Sasuke was gazing at her amused. She has matured, won't be yelling her feelings and making them so visible, but yet, she can't really hid them; she hadn't stopped loving him.

"How are you ?" he asked, catching her round eyes.

They kept discussing for almost an hour, silence filling half of it. Yet they were easily talking, enjoying each other's presence, about how these months have passed. Nothing romantic, just like friends would talk to each other, yet, maybe Sasuke wasn't someone who would sit like that and talk to any friend.

They were gazing at the full moon together, in silence, from around ten minutes now when Sasuke broke it at the same time a cloud broke the moonlight on them.

"I wish next time you'll receive the word I sent you a week ago, it wouldn't be about someone else's happiness, but ours."

The cloud, with the darkness it gave an opening to, accompanied Sasuke's words and disappeared when they ended. The moonlight didn't bring back Sakura's colors only, but added some more to her face. She was embarrassed with Sasuke's words, and wondered how could he say that with such a calm expression, feeling no embarrassment. But when she realized the depth of his words, she was paralyzed with anxiety. Does she have to answer him ?

"Saying ours is selfish, sorry. I should say your happiness, because maybe I'm not the right person you're going to marry."

Broke. She felt her heart breaking. Or, her emotions. The joy and warmth she felt moments ago broke like a lamp leaving its place to coldness and fear.

"What … Do you mean ?" she asked hesitantly, gazing at the grass under her feet.

With eyes still on the Moon, he expressed his thoughts so calmly after a long heavy sigh.

"First, I wish you keep what I'll be telling you to yourself. Then, I already told you that if to choose seriously someone to have as a home where to go back, I would choose you. But… I don't think that you would really want to spend your life with me. I think that you already sacrificed a lot for me, you don't have sacrifice all the happiness you can live with someone else… I'm not that wort-"

Interrupted by a "Don't you dare think that anyone could make me more happy than you !", Sasuke face Sakura beside him, having to bow his head lightly since he was taller. She was looking at him with slightly angry eyes, or hurt… He couldn't figure. But tearful anyway.

"Sakura… Thank you. Just for loving me for all this time, holding feelings and wanting to keep yourself for me is really an honor to me. Yet… I don't think you would like to be with me after hearing what I'm going to tell you."

A light shiver invaded Sakura. She trembled in fear. What was Sasuke going to tell her ? Maybe he loves a woman who he can't be with, and just want to marry her to rebuild his clan ? Or maybe he has children somewhere else ? He was somehow young to have children. What else ? Sakura's mind was trying to find all the hurting ideas, to prepare her for the impact when Sasuke shocked her with something unexpected, with a single word.

"Sterile. I am sterile Sakura."

Next chapter : Sacrifice