There was a type of anger that I felt afterwards, mixed with betrayal and sadness.
I was bitter and angry and let's just say those two weren't a good mix.
"You can't move on," Shizune said. "Do you want to know why?"
I looked at her skeptically, "Yes."
"Because you don't know why he left you. You left before he could explain and by the time your two friends came along, you couldn't conjure up the nerve to look at him, let alone talk to him."
"What does moving on have to do with me knowing why he left?"
"Because you already have someone to blame," she said simply. "Now you need someone you can forgive, you don't know who that someone is, you don't know if you should forgive yourself for holding on this long or if you should forgive him for making you this way."
"So you're saying I barge into his apartment after a year and ask why he left?"
"Yes," Shizune nodded. "Just, consider it, Hikari, if you can find some other way to move on, then, by all means, but just knowing why will help you."
Once she pushed that thought into my head, I couldn't get it out.
She wanted me to look at him after so long and ask him why.
She wanted me to talk to him when he'd moved on and I still hadn't.
How pathetic would I be? One year and I was exactly where he left me.
But I didn't want to be.
I wanted to be able to look at him and smile and wish them both the best of luck, I wanted to be able to look somewhere and not see a memory that has long since passed, I wanted to be able to go day by day and not think about him.
I wanted to move on but I didn't know how.
"Hold up," Shisui looked at me as if I were insane. "She wants you to what?"
"She wants me to go talk to him," I repeated. "She wants me to ask him why."
"Well," Itachi shrugged hesitantly. "Maybe...it would help?"
"Maybe," and I left it at that.
I considered the idea that I could go.
I could do it, couldn't I?
Just very quickly ask him at the door and then politely say thank you and leave.
It seemed easy enough but I knew actually doing it would be far from easy.
There were so many things that could go wrong, I could run into Sakura, Sasuke wouldn't want to see me, or he just wouldn't care and maybe he'd even mock me or something, heck, he could slam the door in my face the second he opened it, and what if he hated me? Wait.
Why would he hate me?
He had no reason to, if anything, I should've been the one hating him.
But talking to him scared me more than seeing him.
But I didn't have a choice, I wanted to know why.
I could've asked someone else but frankly I didn't want anyone knowing I still thought about it.
Well, anyone besides Itachi and Shisui.
My stomach churned at the thought of seeing him, and not the sweet butterfly I'm-schoolgirl-crushing-on-him type of churning, I mean I was actually afraid of seeing him.
At that point, having Fugaku stare at me with that glare of his was more preferable than being in the same building as Sasuke.
But I did it once, didn't I? I could do it again, except, this time I would actually be speaking to him.
Something told me I was far from ready.
For two weeks, I couldn't bare the thought of speaking to him, I tried visiting him, and by that I mean I was barely out the door before I came back in and decided that maybe a little more time would do me good, maybe next time, I would actually visit him.
I thought about Shizune and how maybe she was right, maybe knowing would help me get better, maybe being able to have someone to forgive would help me along, besides, if he didn't want to see me, I tried at the very least.
For the next three days, I was a ball of nerves as I considered the thought of the idea that maybe, just maybe, knowing why would be better for me.
Maybe it was exactly what I needed.
Shizune was right before and she'd probably dealt with a million girls like me so why would my case be any different? Maybe listening to her would be good.
The next four days after that, I practiced what I would say, how the conversation would go, how I could give off the air that I was fine, how, to the best of my knowledge of him, he would talk to me. I couldn't eat most days, my stomach churned and most nights were sleepless and were instead filled with watching horror movies in the hopes that it would distract me from it.
Needless to say, it didn't.
"You're actually going to go?" Shisui looked at me skeptically. "But why?"
"I want to know," I said simply. "I need to."
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah, I am."
Shisui left it at that and Itachi didn't say a word except offer a few words of praise and encouragement which I'll admit helped me a little.
Seeing Sasuke again, the prospect of it, it was terrifying, I was afraid of all the things that could go wrong, of all the things I could say wrong, of all the things he could do, of the reason he would give.
But I got myself together.
It was simple, I went through the motions of every normal day and at around 2 PM, I decided to get to it.
The sooner I finish it off, I remember telling myself, the better it'll be.
I repeated it to myself as I drove to his apartment building with shaking hands.
I repeated it as I got into the elevator to the fifteenth floor, all the way down the hall and stopped at the black oak door because I hadn't seen that apartment building in a year and the fact that he was there, inside, doing God knows what, I just didn't know what to do.
"...I know there's no set date to getting over anything but, don't you think it's about time you at least tried?"
"I've been thinking about us for a long, long time..."
The doorbell felt cold under my shaking fingertips and my feet were rooted to the ground despite the fact that I wanted to run.
"We're not working out."
Why?
I heard the footsteps which sounded a lot louder than they should have.
The door opened.
"I'm breaking up with you, Hikari."
Why?
"Hikari?"
I inhaled and exhaled calmly, looking up to see him.
"Sasuke," every single word I had practiced just flew out the window and I was left with the simple phrase that had been ingrained into my head. "I need to talk to you."
He blinked repeatedly before nodding, inviting me in without a word.
"Tea?" he offered as I sat down, folding my hands onto my lap.
I nodded, smiling politely, "Yes, please."
It shocked me how calm I was, how well he was taking it.
My stomach was churning as I looked around, still the same, he hadn't changed anything.
Why couldn't I be like him?
Why couldn't I just get over it?
Because you don't know why.
"So," Sasuke looked at me curiously, the Jasmine tea calmed me somewhat. "What's up?"
My eyes glanced from the cup of tea in my hands, to him.
My thoughts were a mess between him remembering that my favorite was Jasmine and trying to remember what to say to him.
"Can you..." I paused, shaking my head. "Can you tell me why?"
Sasuke looked at me for second, as if he didn't know what my question implied before it hit him.
He took his time in responding, almost like he didn't know how to.
And suddenly, I felt stupid for bringing this back up after so long, when he thought I had moved on and when he had moved on, but I needed to know why, it killed me to be there but I needed a reason and a reason was something he had that no one else did and it occurred to me that he knew I couldn't ask anyone else, he knew I would come back one day, be it one year or twenty-
"Can I be brutally honest with you, Hikari?"
I would come back and ask him why.
"Well, it's what I came here for," I shrugged and managed a smile.
And he smiled at me, for just a second, he smiled.
"I felt like," he paused, trying to figure out how to put his thoughts into words. "I felt like we weren't working out, you know?" but then he backtracked as it occurred to him how I could have translated it. "Don't get me wrong, those were the best six years of my life but I just wanted something else..."
Sasuke struggled with the words, but I understood well enough.
"I wasn't what you were looking for anymore?" I suggested and shocked myself when I didn't feel sadness, just a sense of...nothing as I looked at him with a hurting heart because yes, I understood, but it hurt because after six years I just wasn't what he wanted anymore. But I still smiled, because I would always understand him and he looked at me like he knew it.
Sasuke offered lunch afterwards.
By offered I mean he went into the kitchen and said he was making lunch and would take it as a personal offense if I left.
I only stayed because he said he made brownies.
I think I should mention that Sasuke made very good brownies.
Strangely, we had a lot to talk about, a lot to catch up on, I found myself talking about things that didn't even matter like that visit to the mailbox that morning and how the grasshopper chased me from the entrance to the door of the elevator and how I screamed until my throat felt raw, I told him about how Shisui ate all the ice cream and had the gall not to restock it before he left and how on my way back home I should stop by the grocery store to restock it myself.
Sasuke told me everything, every single little thing that came to mind he told me, he told me about how Naruto ditched him the day before to spend the day with Hinata and Sasuke had to watch movies all by himself, then he talked about Sakura ditching him for her hospital shifts and me coming over that day was perfect timing, then continued to talk about tomatoes and how getting his hands on good tomatoes was getting hard.
We had so much to tell each other that we'd speak over each other because some detail would occur to us and we just had to share it.
Talking to Sasuke was nice because I could tell him anything knowing that he wouldn't judge me for it and I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual.
I felt like maybe we could be friends again, maybe Sakura and Sasuke dating wasn't a bad thing, maybe one day I wouldn't have to think about him and tear up at the memory of something we used to do or talk about, maybe one day I'd be able to breathe without the churning in my stomach from the knowledge that he was out there and happy and I was still so far from it.
"Hey, Ari?" Sasuke called as I was about to enter the elevator.
I turned, "Yeah?"
"I'm happy you came back," he said with a smile that brought up so many memories.
I smiled, "I'm happy too."
Maybe, just maybe, I could be okay again.
"I did it," I told Shizune. "I asked him."
"And what did he say?"
I smiled, wiping away a few tears, "I wasn't what he was looking for anymore."
"How do you feel?"
"Like," I paused, inhaling deeply. "Like maybe he wasn't what I was looking for either."
I shrugged at my own response.
"Don't get me wrong, those were the best six years of my life..."
"Maybe I needed to see that and he didn't know how else to show me," I sighed, leaning back into the plush seat. "Maybe it's better this way."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to pick up the pieces," the words tumbled out of my mouth before I could comprehend them. "And I'm going to move on."
One year, and two months.
Four hundred and twenty five days of heartbreak, tears, misery, pain, anguish, therapy sessions, hurt, betrayal, confusion, broken promises, and finally, peace.
It took me a while, a really, really long while, but, I did it.
The birds started to chirp.
The sky was bright and blue.
My life was just fine.
`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`
A/N: This may or may not be the last update, haven't figured it out yet.
