Chapter 3
"Meeting Again"
The Konoha Embassy was a ramshackle building situated on the outskirts of Amegakure. The grey rain-soaked concrete and dim windows didn't make for a very inviting place, but the ninjas and other officials from Konoha made due. Someone had even put a welcome sign on the door.
The Konoha Embassy was also one of the biggest out of the villages providing aid to Amegakure. It featured a section for housing refugees, along with fully outfitted medical facilities so that they could best serve those who needed it. It didn't make up for the years of war that tore this stretch of land a part.
Sasuke stood in front of the building before pulling open the doors and wincing at the overly cheerful bell that brought the attention of the lobby attendant down on him.
"Hello!" Arima, the usual attendant greeted him cheerfully. "Are you here for your latest assignments? I can let Nishigaki-sensei know-"
"Later." Sasuke said, cutting her off. "I need to know, is there a medical ninja named Haruno Sakura currently stationed here at the embassy?"
Arima blinked once and then again, surprised. She had never heard the man speak more than a few words and he rarely ever asked her any questions.
"Haruno-san? Does she have pink hair? If so yes! She came in the latest batch of medical ninjas from Konoha almost a month ago."
"Where can I find her?"
The attendant moved over to the computer, a great white box sitting on the desk in front of her. "It looks like she signed in this morning… she should be in the main medical hall today. We have a new influx of refugees that need to be checked and put into the system."
Sasuke was gone before she could finish, heading down the hall and taking a sharp left turn. The main medical hall was an old ballroom that had been retrofitted to serve as a hospital. The patients in there were usually the walking wounded and sick-the more critical cases were kept upstairs and had round-the-clock care.
The main medical hall was lined with wrought metal beds and there were people filling almost all of them. Nurses and other medical personnel trailed from bed to bed checking on everyone and making sure that they were comfortable.
He didn't come to it very often, there was no point since he didn't know the first thing about medical ninjutsu and besides… sick people made him feel uncomfortable. The sound of coughing and quiet conversation could be heard throughout the room and he had to keep himself from immediately leaving the way that he came.
But he pushed himself further into the room, his eyes scanning the various medical staff-looking for Sakura.
Luckily she stuck out like a sore thumb, her pink hair making her easy to spot. She was standing in the corner of the room next to one of the beds, her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows and her hair was tied back as she examined her patient.
Knowing better than to interrupt her Sasuke leaned against the wall and waited. It didn't take her long to say goodbye and turn to face the rest of the hall and it took even less time for her eyes to find him.
Sasuke watched her register his presence with shock and he lifted his hand in a little wave.
Sakura made her way over to him, waving off people stopping to ask her questions.
"Hello Sasuke." She said with a sheepish smile as she finally came to stand in front of him. "I see Naruto blabbed."
"He did." He agreed.
"So…" Sakura drew out the word, as if trying to figure out what to say next, "Want to get some ramen?"
He nodded and they left the main hall, ignoring the curious looks of all of the medical staff.
As they passed Arima, Sakura signed out with a smile "I'll be back in about an hour. Tell Abe-san that I'll be back to check her vitals and that she needs to eat something because her blood sugar was too low last time I checked it an hour ago and oh! Tell the nurses not to let Endo-san get out of bed, he needs to be resting his back…"
As Sakura rattled off instructions to the attendant who was hurrying to scribble them down, Sasuke was surprised that she remembered any of those things. She seemed so… adult. In a way that made him feel vaguely odd. The last time he'd seen her for any stretch of time was when he left Konoha three years ago.
When he'd returned to aid Konoha when the moon nearly collided with them she'd been away on the mission itself and he'd thought it best just to disappear-not wanting to get her hopes up since he wasn't ready to return to Konoha yet.
As they walked in the rain, in relative silence Sasuke tried to connect the image of the seventeen year old Sakura that he'd left over three years ago in Konoha with the woman walking next to him. She stood just above his shoulder and she'd let her hair grow past her shoulders again and kept it tied neatly back in a pony-tail. The presence of cosmetics was new too, done with a careful light hand she had some kind of gloss on her lips and something shiny on her eyelids.
They came upon the ramen shop that Sasuke usually favored and entered, leaving their umbrellas next to the door as the shop owner greeted them and showed them to a small table by the window. A heater was situated above them that quickly chased away the chill from the rain.
"This shop is so different from the one back in Konoha, I guess I'm so used to just ducking inside somewhere and taking a seat." Sakura joked as they ordered their ramen.
"It's always raining. It would be bad idea to have people eating outside." Sasuke replied, speaking for the first time since he'd seen her from across the room back at the embassy.
"I guess thats true…" Sakura trailed off and they looked at each other awkwardly. Sakura toyed with her chopsticks, as Sasuke watched her mind crank to find something to say before deciding to be straightforward with him.
"Are you upset that I'm here?" She asked, lifting her eyes to meet his.
Sasuke thought about it for a moment before speaking,"If I said yes would you leave?"
He watched her visibly wince but she collected herself quickly, "No I wouldn't."
"Is that why you didn't write and tell me you were coming?" He wanted to add that he would have come to meet her once she made it to Amegakure but chose to keep it to himself.
"I figured Naruto would say something and if you wanted to see me then you would. You aren't usually one to go out of your way to do something that you didn't want to do."
Sasuke shifted uncomfortably because she'd hit the nail on the head. Luckily their food came and he didn't have to say anything else for a few moment.
"So you quit your job?" He asked, trying to lighten up the conversation.
"You could say that." She replied, her cheeks reddening as she launched into the story. Telling him about her boss and how she was going nuts. When she got to the part about punching the wall next to her boss's head Sasuke couldn't help but smirk. It was so Sakura to bottle everything up like that until it burst out of her-at least it was the Sakura that he remembered.
Sasuke was struck yet again by how adult-like she had become. She spoke with such energy and her hands never stopped moving as she told him some of the funnier stories of her time at the hospital.
"Will you just be working at the embassy?" Sasuke asked, pushing away his empty bowl.
"I thought I would be but it turns out that there is a team that needs a medical ninja. Kakashi asked me to work with them until they can find someone more permanent. They are taking care of groups that are against Amegakure joining the union and might become violent."
"Actually, Kakashi asked me to work with a team that is need of a medical ninja. They are one of the teams that investigate the groups who have spoken out again Amegakure joining the Shinobi union-to make sure that they don't become violent.
Sasuke sat back with surprise, what was Kakashi up to? "Have you met them yet?"
"No I'm supposed to meet them in the coming week since they are out on a mission at the moment."
"I see." Sasuke said "I'm surprised that you want to go on missions. I'd heard that you prefer working in a hospital setting."
"I like them both if I'm being honest-as long as everyone is pulling their own fair share." Sakura was trying to figure out how to explain the restlessness that she'd felt over the past six months. "But I don't know… I just felt like something was missing."
They paid their bill and left the ramen shop and surprisingly there was a rare lull in the rain so they didn't need to open their umbrellas.
Once they made it back to the embassy Sakura turned to Sasuke, biting her lower lip as if deciding whether or not to say something.
"I'm not going to wait anymore." She quietly said, looking up at him with a wide smile. "I couldn't wait patiently in Konoha, I'm sorry, I've never been the most patient person."
She then turned and hurried inside as the rain started again, waving over her shoulder as she pushed the doors open and disappeared from view. Leaving Sasuke standing by himself in the rain.
Author's Note:
Good afternoon (for me) lovelies! Here is chapter three of The Lost Year. I hope you enjoyed it and are looking forward to the next chapter! Special thanks for the four reviewers so far: Meganmegoo, Luin-Fanel, MystikalFaery & Sharingan Blossoms! Thank you for the motivation to get off my butt and edit this chapter! The chapters are taking a little longer to put out than I'd like because I am really trying to go through and edit my work after I finish the chapter. Chapter four is nearly complete but it does need editing so it should come out in the next couple of days. I look forward to seeing you all then!
Thank you for reading and reviewing!
-LittleMoonLover-
