I justify spending the whole day at 8338 Providence Street by getting some practice in for the spring showcase.

For all of my evolution over the past few weeks, I'm still not set on what I'll be doing, and if anybody knew how truly undecided I still am, they'd laugh at me. Dancers here start preparing for the showcase the second they're accepted, pretty much, and here I am, a celebrated senior, still perusing the music catalogue casually, like I've got all the time in the world.

I had originally planned this beautiful, intricate, technical ballet piece, and that's what I'd been working on for almost three years. But recently, now that I've decided to shed ballet because it's a fucking cancer for me, it seems…disingenuous. Like I'm going back on my word, somehow.

But it's not like I don't like ballet. It's gorgeous. It's art. It's the highest form of art to me. But it's not who I am anymore, and I keep reminding myself that that's a good thing.

The girl I am in Tsunade's studio is infinite. The girl I am in Miss Suzume's is…

A hot mess.

So I can't decide on a style. I haven't decided on music. And it's a couple weeks away now and the pressure's mounting again, but it's not like it was before. Now it's endgame. Once that's over, I know I'm secure at KCA, something that was up in the air at the beginning of the year.

I'm almost done. Nearly there. I just need to make sure that my grand finale is just that: grand. It's not the ballerina in me, it's the human in me that will settle for nothing less than the best.

Anyway.

What's nice about 8338 Providence Street is that nobody knows about it but me. And Mr. Sarutobi, I guess, but I doubt he's coming by here anytime soon. It's big and open and yeah, the floor isn't ideal, concrete never is for dancers, but it's private. There's space and quiet.

I just found out it existed yesterday, but I've already got plans for it. And no, they don't include doubilng as my own private dance studio for which I'm paying zero rent.

I'm starting to fix it up.

Do I have any idea how this might be accomplished? No. I don't have very many skill sets in this world and building renovation certainly isn't one of them, but I'm more than just the keeper of the key, so to speak. (Since I technically don't have one; I break in through the back window.)

I'm the only one alive who knows how deeply and how thoroughly Itachi Uchiha loved his little brother. This place is the evidence. This place is Itachi's full support of Sasuke's dreams and ambitions; it's four walls and seven rooms of brotherly encouragement. It's a starting ground, a nest egg, it's what Sasuke needs to be himself, and I'm the only one who knows the significance of that.

And if Sasuke ever comes back, if Sasuke ever wakes up, I want this place to be as nice as it can possibly be.

So what I do with my Saturday is, I wake up earlier than usual and I sneak over to Ink and Iron. It's not open yet and I still have my key, so I slip inside and swipe the cleaning supplies from the closet. If Kakashi ever finds out and questions me, I'll be honest, but I really doubt he'd care where his broom and dustpan went. I'll return them when I'm through. And, ignoring the curious stares I get on the bus carrying all these cleaners, I head across town to fun, artsy West Konoha. I toss everything inside through the little window in the back and climb through myself.

I don't know very much about renovation, as I've said. In fact I don't know shit, but I do know how to sweep a floor. And mop afterwards. And Windex windows. So if Sasuke ever comes home and sees this, at least it'll be clean. So I start early in the morning, and when I take a break, I practice. I stretch. I play music in my head and just move. And when I get tired from that, from dancing in this quiet empty space with too much dust on the floor to breathe properly, I pick up the broom and get back to work.

On and off. Dancing and cleaning. I guess the two things I'm best at: moving and fixing other people's problems. But it's how I justify spending valuable rehearsal time halfway across town without any overbearing instructors or jealous, catty fellow dancers waiting for me to trip up. Still practicing, but on my own terms.

I know what you're thinking.

Two days ago I hated Sasuke Uchiha. Or rather, I was very committed to the concept of hating him. And wouldn't you be? If he left you high and dry like he left me? With cryptic kisses and empty promises and silent apologies?

And now, here I am alone in this property he doesn't know he owns, trying to make it pretty for him just in case he ever gets his shit together.

Part of it is yeah, sure, I'm in love with him. And when you're in love with someone, you want the world to shine for them. You want everywhere they look to be beautiful and new.

But just because I'm in love with him doesn't mean I entertain any hope with him.

This is something I'm doing not because I have any expectations, because I don't. All of that pretty much evaporated the day he got on a bus with red clouds and left me with my heart in pieces on a sleet-soaked sidewalk. Not saying I don't understand why – Sasuke loves Itachi as much as Itachi loved Sasuke – but there were consequences that day. Things that he broke that I don't think he'll so much as try to fix, and even if he does, I have no interest in being that girl again.

I'm still confused on where my life's headed, even though I've got a little more direction these days. I feel better. I think I look better now that I eat three square meals and I'm not killing myself at the gym anymore. I haven't thrown up in weeks. I have a future, even if I don't know exactly where it's taking me. There's more to me than KPAA.

And yes, Sasuke helped me realize that. With disdainful looks and snarky arguments questioning me and the way I did things, he helped me along. And yes, it was his departure that snapped all my remaining resolve to keep killing myself the way I was. The trigger. The catalyst. I owe him a lot, for that.

But I will never let myself fall apart again the way I did at the bus stop. All weepy eyes and desperation, begging, literally begging someone to stay in my life that clearly wanted nothing to do with it. I would have gotten down on my knees for him if I thought it would have helped, and even though I love him, and even though he loved me and I know it, that's not the kind of love I'm interested in.

Love is not desperation. You should never have to plead with somebody to prove your worth to them, they should just know it. And he loved me, and maybe he still does, but I'm more, these days. I'm more than that and I deserve better and I won't ever let him do that to me again. I won't ever let myself do that again. Love is not enough by itself, and it was a hard lesson to learn.

I have his name over my heart in ink that can't be washed off. It's a reminder that I did this all wrong.

Still, though, he's important to me, and my heart breaks whenever I remember just who bought this all for him, and why. The brand new tattoo machine in the room I've already designated as Sasuke's office. The message. The one that Sasuke won't bother to hear.

He may never come back, I tell myself, tossing another dirt-and-Windex-soaked paper towel into my overflowing trash bag. The sunlight shines in now that the smudges are gone and there's so much promise in here. He may never come back to see all this potential for himself, and I'm cleaning out the tomb of all his forgotten ambitions. Maybe this is what happens to be a dream deferred: empty walls that should be covered with his art and empty rooms and no key to let yourself inside.

But this is something I've got to do. I don't know why and I don't have any expectation and I know it doesn't make any sense to you, and how could it? Unless you've ever loved someone silently, and selflessly, and in the shadows where none of it can hurt you anymore.

…have you?

If Sasuke-and-Sakura is a beautiful love story, then I suppose we're meant to reunite somewhere beautiful. With candles all around us, and he'll look across the room and I'll be there in a pretty dress, and he'll approach me with apologies tumbling freely from his lips and he'll take my hand, kiss it, eyes remorseful, the picture of contrition. And I'll accept his apologies gracefully, nod my forgiveness, let my eyes tear up and then he'll pull me in and kiss me.

It doesn't happen like that. Sorry to disappoint you, but that's life, and somebody should've told you by now the way things are.

Because it's when I get off the bus that night at the KPAA stop, tired and a bit sweaty from all the hard, puzzling work I put in at 8338 Providence Street, that I see him, arms folded, standing by the bench where other passengers wait to board as I disembark. Like he knew I'd be there, like he was waiting for me, like he hasn't been gone for the last two months.

What should happen here if this were Shakespeare or Austen or anything else you think you should be, is a moment between us. Like a significant one. One that rocks the world around us and makes everything else seem insignificant by comparison. That's what love is, right? An invitation to the most exclusive party in the world: two people who are more than enough for each other, and everybody else is just a name that wasn't on the list.

What should happen here is not what does happen here.

Instead, once I see him, I'm reminded of all the things I've tried to bury underneath my duty to Itachi. Like the anger. That's number one.

Because how dare you hurt me, Sasuke. How dare you let me love you like this and then remind me that I'll never be number one to you? How dare you be my rude awakening?

I would have resented the contrite, doe-eyed, apologetic Sasuke from the 'what-could-happen-in-a-different-world' scenario. But I find that I despise this one just the same: this Sasuke who watches me climb off the bus without so much as a single emotion on his face. Apathy. This is what I've earned in his absence.

That song about me? Bullshit.

This time I've spent harboring the truth, keeping it safe for him? Wasted.

Cleaning up that empty space meant to house his life's dream? I want to kick myself.

Because he looks at me like he looks at anyone. There's no heartfelt reunion here. There's no joy. There's nothing.

And seeing that, I steel myself over again. I lay ice around my heart as I walk right past him, because no matter what Itachi told me, that I couldn't give up on him, I can't believe he's here right now. And like nothing's wrong. Like nothing's changed.

You bastard. You unimaginable bastard.

"Sakura."

His voice is no more telling of his feelings than his expression. Just my name. Just my name but it halts me in my tracks, makes me think of his hands on my thighs, of him buried inside me and cussing in my ear, his fingers in my hair and that dark little laugh, and…

"Sasuke," I reply, and my voice is satisfactorily chilly. I turn and fold my arms, look back at him like he's beneath my notice. "Didn't think I'd see you here again."

"Naruto and the others came to my show last night," he tells me, and this is news, but I try not to let it show. "Can we talk?"

"I don't have anything more to say to you," I tell him stiffly.

"I don't believe that." Arrogant. "You called me." A mistake. "Come on." No.

Because let me have his anger. Let me have his love or give me his contempt, but not this. Apathy is love's true opposite, and that's all he's given me. I'd take his hatred because this is worse.

I turn away from him. Let him have my apathy, or at least the illusion of it.

He doesn't take the hint as I march smartly away from him, back onto campus and towards my lonely little dorm. I feel him behind me, shadowing me, and I take this time to be in total awe of how differently this is going than I pictured in my head. I always thought that when (if) he finally came back, I'd be so happy I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off of him. I'd hug him tight and cry and tell him I missed him, and that it's okay we didn't work out because we can still be friends, and that I forgive him and I'm sorry I tried to hate him.

But I wasn't expecting this Sasuke. Unrepentant, unmoved. Detached. Two months is a longer time than I thought, because he's looking at me like I'm everybody else.

And for all the scenarios I pictured on how this would work if we saw each other again, I wasn't ready for this one.

"Leave me alone," I grit out, stalking into my building, but he doesn't. He follows me upstairs and when I reach for my key, he grabs my wrist to stop me.

Here is where I feel it. That moment that should have taken place when we first saw each other, that shift in the earth, it's not when he looks at me, it's when he touches me. I think I might cry or I might hit him and I don't know which is worse, because his long calloused fingers are wrapped all the way around my wrist and I'm so aware of him. Aware of how close he is, how gorgeous, how good he smells.

And I can't do this.

"Sakura, stop."

Something – some emotion – bleeds into his voice and it's that, more than anything, that makes me look up and listen. And he's so close now, and he's so warm, and he doesn't look different. He looks like my Sasuke and maybe that detached one at the bus stop, the one without the apologies or the feelings in his eyes, maybe that was just a defense mechanism.

I'm too smart to believe that it was.

"I said," I tell him, almost desperately, "I don't have anything to say to you. I don't know why you came back and I don't particularly care. Get out of here, Sasuke."

"I have something to say to you," Sasuke snaps, and he looks frustrated. Good.

"Nothing I'm interested in hearing." I rip my wrist out of his grasp and use both hands to shove his chest back away from me. "You came back to find out what was in Itachi's will, right? Well that's got nothing to do with me."

"It's got everything to do with you."

It's late and people have got to be sleeping now but Sasuke doesn't seem to care. He's raising his voice, something that almost never happens, and now I'm sure that apathy was just a front. He looks so mad and I fall more and more in love with him because if he's mad, then maybe he hates me. And if he hates me, at least he still has some feeling for me, and the masochist in me would take anything over his disinterest.

"I know nothing more than anybody else," I lie boldly, opening my door; predictably, he storms in right on my heels before I can shut him out.

"That's a lie," he accuses. "I know you're a beneficiary."

"He didn't leave me any money if that's what you're worried about." I know it's not but I have to keep fighting him so he doesn't figure out how central I am to all of this. "That's waiting for you at the lawyer's office."

"What did he leave you?" Sasuke demands.

"That is none of your business."

"Fuck this, Sakura!"

He grabs my shoulder and pushes me till I'm sitting on the edge of my bed. My skin burns where he's touching it and I hate myself for the way I heat up between my legs; I remind myself that he's not here for me, he's here for information, and it hurts just enough to cool my arousal.

Sasuke leans over me in a position meant to intimidate. He's taller and bigger and stronger than me and he knows it, so he's taking those advantages and making them work. His eyes bore into mine and his fingers tighten on my shoulder and he says, "You know the truth. Tell me. Now."

He's got a right to know. He's got a right to all this information I've kept for him.

But I've got rights, too.

"Oh so now you want to hear what I've got to say?" I whisper, and my voice is like acid. I see my face reflected in his dark eyes and I'm morbidly pleased with the humorless smirk that's twisting my lips into something indecent. "Now you're interested in the truth? That's not like you, Sasuke. You've always been so content with living a lie."

Low blows, all of them, right down to the delivery, but sarcasm is a weapon just as sharp as apathy and I'm not a defenseless damsel anymore.

He sneers in anger but I'm not done.

"I tried, didn't I?" I remind him. "Didn't I try? To stop you before you left…then I called you, tried to tell you then. You didn't give a shit so now I don't either. Get the hell out of my room. You want answers, go to the lawyer, everything's there. But I'm not gonna do this anymore."

"I should've listened," he tells me, not quite an apology. "But I'm listening now."

"The world doesn't work according to your schedule!" I scream, losing my patience at last. I push him off of me and get up and in his face, backing him up against the wall. "You don't get to do this! You don't get to leave and ignore everybody and then come back like nothing's changed, demanding answers!"

"Everybody?" he echoes, snarling. "Or just you?"

It's like he slapped me across the face and I think I would have preferred it to the way he's staring at me now, full of derision and contempt.

"He's my brother," he snaps. "I have a right to know what the fuck he was doing before he died. Whatever hate you feel for me, put it aside long enough to tell me what he left us."

"That really is the only reason you came back, isn't it?" I shout, and to my horror, there are tears in my eyes and coming down my cheeks. "You don't care what's happened, what you've done, who you've hurt, as long as you get what you want in the end?!"

"You think you know shit about what I want in the end?" Sasuke laughs, and nothing's ever been so unfunny.

Then he's on me. Then he's kissing me. He's got his arms wrapped around me and his lips are on mine and it's violent and gorgeous in a filthy way. I can't breathe or see or think, all I know is him, and I taste my own tears and the mint of his breath and then I'm screaming, and then my hand hurts and when I look down, I see I've made a fist and then I realize Sasuke isn't kissing me anymore. He's back against the wall with his hand over his jaw and I slowly realize that I punched him and that's why my hand hurts.

For a few seconds we just stare at each other, breathing hard, and chests heaving and I can't believe I hit him but I also can't believe he kissed me. He blinks then and when he looks down at me, there's so much sadness that in an instant I forget all my rage.

"Being back here," Sasuke tells me quietly, lowering his hand so I can see the scarlet of his jaw, "it's…I fucked it all up, Sakura. Everything."

I say nothing. I can't. I can't even breathe.

"I'm trying to make it right," he says. "But…"

No. No more. I can't hear whatever he's gonna say next. "Mr. Sarutobi has everything in his office you need to see," I interrupt him. "I don't know all of what Itachi left you but he does. Just go see him, okay? That'll give you all the answers you need."

"Sakura…"

"Just go. Please. Please just go."

"Sakura."

"It was just a message." I sit back down on the edge of my bed and I don't even care how childish it must look to him, the way I wrap my arms around my knees and hide my face and cry. "That he left me. Nothing else, just a message."

Before he can ask anything more, I reach into my pocket and pull out the napkin with Itachi's message for me, and I throw it on the floor without looking.

I know he reads it because I hear him bend to pick it up. There's silence in my room except for my muffled sobbing, and then I feel his hand on my shoulder.

"Being back here, it's clear I won't get what I want," he says, and I don't understand what that means. Never did, never will and I'm sick of guessing, so I don't even bother. "But this…Sakura don't hold yourself to this just because he asked you to."

I stiffen. I feel him sit down next to me and then I feel his lips against my shoulder.

"Knowing me," he says quietly, breathing against my skin, "only ever hurt you. Don't tie yourself to me because a dead man never knew what an asshole I'd grow up to be."

"S-Sasuke…"

"I hurt you. I didn't mean to but I did. No one should have to feel that kind of pain. Let me go. Forget what Itachi said."

He's releasing me from my obligation to him. Itachi wanted me to believe in him, and Sasuke wants me not to. I can't figure out why, though, because Sasuke Uchiha doesn't strike me as the type to regret if a girl holds onto him without getting anything in return. But before I have time to puzzle out what's really going on here, he kisses the top of my head and then he stands up and I know this is goodbye. I know what it's like, goodbye from Sasuke. It's one of his specialties.

"You're the only beautiful thing I know," Sasuke whispers. "And it's not enough but I'll love you forever."

The door opens and closes and I almost laugh, or I would if it wasn't so sad.

Because only Sasuke Uchiha could ever say 'I love you' when it's way too late to count.

note.. hello :)

xoxo daisy :)