title: first light
summary: it all happened too quickly and yet very, very slow.
prompt: day #10 - impulsive
rating: k+
a/n: reviews would be loved!
Sakura had come to look forward to her morning walks with Sasuke.
Somewhere along the way, they developed the habit of meeting as the sun broke over the horizon; each day, his knuckles would lift to her front door, quiet greetings and soft smiles would be exchanged, and they would step into the early daylight not quite hand-in-hand, but still together.
Their footfalls would follow the dusty paths laid out beneath them, always moving them forward and never back; and on their route through the main portion of the village, they would pass shops and shop-owners getting an early start on the day, and sometimes a customer out buying food to make surprise breakfast for a friend. Although they were rare during their morning walks, Sasuke would often tense at the sight of these citizens, and Sakura didn't blame him.
As the village was mostly empty in its early hours, it would be an understatement to say that the pair stuck out, with the way the villagers recognized Sakura for her medical expertise and Sasuke for his rather ironic tendency to attract unwanted attention. Eyes never failed to wander to them, and, to put it simply, some villagers stared them down as if they were some form of mutant beings and not completely normal.
(Well, mostly normal—as normal as they could get.)
And it didn't stop there; other days, when staring villagers were not enough, a disruption would come in the form of a nosy friend or two. When their walks took place considerably later than usual, Naruto would often make an appearance that generally involved embarrassing one or the other—although more often than not, he tended to enjoy humiliating his best friend more. Ino, too, would drop a visit sometimes, to chortle at them, and even Sai, Lee, and Tenten had showed once—twice, thrice.
But despite all that had happened—and all that would happen, without a doubt—Sakura had come to look forward to her morning walks with Sasuke. Because it was the mornings when she learned him, or rather, relearned him, because they'd both silently agreed to start anew.
As the days passed, each morning became a new experience, with less structure and rigidity, and more unpredictability. She gradually relearned how he smiled. How he laughed. And she realized that it was a blessing to remember.
His smiles were subtle, barely-there, whisper-soft. Sometimes if she blinked, she'd miss it completely, and sometimes she did, but minutes later she'd find a way to make him smile once more.
His laughs were, in essence, the same, but then again—very different. They were easier to notice but even easier to miss, as they were short and fleeting. His laughs came as chuckles some days, scoffs on others, but his eyes always crinkled at the edges and the notion warmed her inside out.
She relearned the rest of his expressions, his faces, too—thoughtful, calm, upset, and embarrassed even, on the day she betrayed her rationality to act on impulse. An idea materialized out of the blue that morning, and at first, she stopped and questioned where it had come from but quickly blinked her cloudy thoughts away.
She then took a breath and reached for him, letting her hand slip into his.
It all happened too quickly and yet very, very slow. His reflexes were as sharp as ever, his gaze snapping to hers before she could do as much as bat an eyelash. His footsteps faltered, and she noticed that her heartbeat was doing the exact opposite.
And he did the last thing she expected: he blushed.
When she half-gasped 'Sasuke-kun?', he tore his eyes away, face burning scarlet but still let their entwined hands linger, and after several beats and several breaths, he found he could not let her go.