disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: to Fiona Apple. & Philrya. for totally different reasons, but there you are.
notes: three hours of sleep in forty eight hours. hay girl haaaaaaay. an interesting fact: "cunt" is my favourite word.
trigger warning: references to abuse.
title: paper thin
summary: On running away. — Sasuke/Sakura; 37/1oo.
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The first time she asked, it was summer, they were nine and she was bleeding from her mouth.
"Will you run away with me?"
Sasuke stared at her. Her name was Sakura. She was older than he was, but also shorter. She lived next door and sometimes Sasuke couldn't sleep because her parents were yelling so loud.
(The walls were paper thin, in this town.)
The first time she asked, he didn't know what to say. His mother was making tuna casserole that night.
Sasuke hated tuna casserole.
But running away would make his mother sad.
"No," he said.
Sakura looked at him calmly, the bags under her eyes more pronounced than ever. It looked like someone had given her a pair of black eyes, and Sasuke winced and thought that maybe someone had.
"Okay," she said. "Maybe later."
Sakura would be okay until later.
Whenever that was.
—
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That summer only got worse from there.
Sasuke watched Sakura get progressively quieter and quieter. By the time school started, she barely spoke at all.
He wondered if he ought to have done something.
They were in the same class and sometimes Sasuke watched her when he knew no one was looking. She seemed a little better; like school got her mind off things, and he guessed it did.
But they never walked home from school together anymore.
Sasuke wasn't sure if he was thankful, or what.
—
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Sasuke was never really sure when she stopped talking to him. It might have been at ten or eleven or twelve, but at fourteen, the most either of them expected from the other was inadequate eye contact. They'd both moved on, both had their own lives.
(But the walls.
The walls.
They were paper thin, and the screaming—the screaming. Sasuke didn't know how she stood the screaming.)
He looked out the window, and caught a flash of pink. She was curled in the window nook with the window open, staring blankly outwards. Sasuke watched her for a long time, before opening his window.
He'd never heard the house so silent.
"Sakura," he called, lowly.
She snapped her head up, and stared at him, wounded animal eyes wild. For a moment, Sasuke barely recognized her.
"Oh," she said. "Sasuke. Sorry. I didn't—"
Sasuke inclined his head a fraction on an inch. They looked at each other for a moment; Sasuke thought that she looked too old for a girl so young.
"Are you alright?" Sasuke found himself asking.
Sakura snorted. "Am I ever okay?"
He wondered if she knew how rhetoric she sounded. But from the far-away look in her eyes, he had a feeling that she did. She looked like a painting, still and soft and sad despite the silence and the sun.
She tilted her head and looked at him, long bangs in her eyes, hair spilling over her shoulders like bubblegum tears. "Will you come with me?"
"Hn."
"I'll take that as a no," she smiled, wry.
Sasuke didn't say anything, and watched her watch the sky.
"Sometimes I just… want to go, you know?" she asked, softly. "Just go."
"We will," Sasuke said quietly.
The wry smile remained in place, and Sasuke thought he saw the shutters behind her eyes snap shut. "But not today. And I want to go today. I'll see you later, Sasuke."
And she closed the window and disappeared.
—
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She started running away.
She was gone every other day; her seat at school was almost always empty. Sasuke pretended not to notice, and the year(s) flew by. Fifteen came and went and Sakura ran and ran and ran.
But they dragged her back every time.
Sasuke watched them drag her back into the house, snarling and screaming. The whole street could probably hear; the whole street was awake and listening, despite the darkness of the night, despite everything.
But no one did anything.
They all stayed in bed and shivered. Sakura's rage was a bitter taste in their mouths, Sasuke knew.
The police dragged the thrashing girl to the front door of her home.
The eerie silence that descended along the street when the front door to her home was opened made Sasuke clench his teeth. Forcing her home wasn't compassion; it was cruel.
Sasuke wondered why he couldn't just say yes.
—
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"Don't be a cunt, Ino. It's just hair," Sakura muttered.
Sasuke could barely hear her over the roar of the classroom. Sakura and her best friend were sitting directly in front of him. Tenth grade was hard on everyone, and Sasuke closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the oncoming headache. Sakura's best friend huffed and tossed blonde hair over her shoulder.
"Sakura, your hair was gorgeous! Why?"
"Because I wanted it gone," Sakura replied, nonchalant. She shook her head, and Sasuke watched the newly-short tips of her hair dance.
There was something in the way she said it.
It was like it wasn't the only thing she wanted gone.
Like she wanted to be gone.
Like she always wanted to be gone.
But then Sasuke thought that he probably didn't know her well enough to be sure. Didn't know her well enough to know that that was desperation in her voice.
(And he was always lying to himself, wasn't he?)
But he did hear the slamming doors and the anger.
He thought that maybe she was paving her way to hell. He thought that maybe she was paving the way to hell for them both. That maybe she was paving the way to hell for them all.
And he couldn't bring himself to stop her.
—
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Sasuke had no idea when he realized that he had started taking care of her. It was somewhere between her bruised eyes and her penchant for stumbling through trash cans. Maybe it was rooted in childhood, even. He'd always had a strange attachment to her, always; even when she was at her brightest and he was at his darkest and they were both at their lowest.
And he couldn't let her die.
They were sitting on his porch, mid-summer. He was just about to turn eighteen; Sakura was already there, wise-only-not and short and bright pink with knowing eyes that belonged to someone much older.
But then, she'd always been like that.
Sasuke downed a glass of amber liquid that belonged to his older brother, and looked at her through lazy eyes. He watched her tuck her still-short hair behind her ears.
Sometimes he just watched her.
Sakura smiled at him. "Why're you looking at me like that, Sasuke?"
"Hn."
"That's not an answer."
"I know."
But they both knew she'd take it and run, because that was what Sakura did. She knotted her hair up in her hands, yawning at the sky. She smiled at Sasuke, and said "You're funny, you know?"
"Hn."
"Would you run away with me?"
It was the eighth time she'd sprung that question on him, Sasuke thought.
(Not that he was keeping count.)
He looked at her for a very, very long moment. They'd graduated. In the fall, he was going away and she was going away and he had a sick feeling that they wouldn't ever see each other again.
"Where?" he asked, slowly.
Sakura's head jerked up, and she stared at him, wide-eyed. He'd always said no. There had never been any question.
Where was a question.
"The coast," she replied. "I want to see the ocean on fire. I want to drive forever and see the ocean on fire."
I want to see everything on fire, hung in the air, unspoken.
Sasuke contemplated, for a moment. They could go. Drive forever, like she'd said. There was nothing stopping them. Paper thin walls for nothing; they could go and never come back.
And it was funny, because Sasuke had thought that Sakura needed it.
But she wasn't the only one who needed it.
He knew that.
"Go pack your shit, Sakura," he told her quietly. "We leave in the morning."
—
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fin.
notes3: you guys. YOU GUYS. I HAVE FINISHED MY FIRST YEAR OF UNIVERSITY.
notes4: life is sparkly. please review!