my heart, my hips, my body, my love / tryna find a part of me that you didn't touch / gave up on me like i was a bad drug / now i'm searching for a sign in a haunted club / our songs, our films, united we stand / our country, guess it was a lawless land / quiet my fears with the touch of your hand / paper cut stings from our paper-thin plans / my time, my wine, my spirit, my trust / tryna find a part of me you didn't take up / gave you so much but it wasn't enough / but i'll be alright, it's just a thousand cuts

- death by a thousand cuts, taylor swift (lover)

dear sasuke-kun,

my bags are packed, my things are kept away. it only has been 3 hours since i came back from there and i am already leaving again.

to where, i'm still not sure. i just know that i have to leave this apartment that still smells of you. it's funny since you haven't been here for almost a year, and yet the walls still breathe your scent and the sheets still remind me of the days gone by as if it was just yesterday.

packing all the stuff you left here were painful—your favorite albums, your original dvd of home alone, your random notes left on my study table; notes that scream you care and that you're a gentle one despite your hard exterior.

they remind me so much of what once was and what could've been if you have stayed. what could've happened if you decided to just be here with me? ah. there's no point in dwelling about things that will never happen.

but is that really it? will the thought of us together never gonna be possible anymore? i hope not.

i found some of my old stuff too. some of them dated back in high school when i first loved you. scribbles of your name on my favorite stationery, short poems about your hands, random sticky notes we exchanged back in college when we finally got together. i also found girlish fantasies of what our life would be if we get married. there were handwritten letters just like this one that will never see the light of day. letters of love to my childhood dog and to my mother; letters of appreciation for our favorite homeroom teacher.

these are all mementos of our long history together, and i ache in the thought that we'll only be history soon. they're all written in these old papers that cut my finger earlier. but when i think about the paper sting that came from these paper-thin plans we will never get to do, i know it will never compare to the sting of this truth—i lost you.

why did it have to be this way? why did you decide for yourself that the best way to cope up with pain and loss is to hurt and leave me here? why didn't you trust me to carry your pain like it was mine just like you have always done with me? why didn't you let me soothe your ache you have been harboring for so long now when we saw each other again? why didn't you go after me after i left you there?

i have so many questions, sasuke-kun. i have wanted to ask them all to you when we were together but when your lips were on mine and your hands were on my hips, i forget everything. you have touched everything in me and i am now living with an invisible imprint of your warm hands on me, praying that it is not the last time i will feel you touching me.

i want to know why am i not enough even though i have given you everything. 4 years we have been together, and i have loved you even longer. you gave up on me like i was a bad drug without thinking about how good i was for you for the years we have been together.

i am grieving the death of us and i ache everywhere. i want to wrap myself around you and never let go, ask you to comfort me like you always do, and just let go. i want to ask for one more time, for one more chance; but that's it, isn't it? there is no more 'one more'.

this letter is getting out of hand, i know, but fuck it. this will only be another addition to the letters i will never send because what can it do, really, when you already made up your mind? you're building your new life there and i know you're still hurting from what happened here, and who am i to tell you otherwise? who am i to tell you to stop hurting? to forget it all?

i just want to let you know i still love you. my heart wouldn't be shattered like this if i don't. even after all these years, my heart still belongs to you and it will always be yours until the day you come back home to me. even if it takes even longer than this. but for now, i need to run away. i nee-

sakura was interrupted by a knock on her door while writing her goodbyes for now. she looked back at her letter, words smudged by her falling tears, and had the burning urge to crumple the paper she was writing on. she gripped her pen harder for a second before letting it fall from her hands.

she wasn't expecting anyone to visit her today and she planned on disappearing for a few days while finding a new apartment while she's at it. that's why when she opened the door, she almost had a heart attack right then and there.

on the threshold of her front door stood sasuke, dark eyes red-rimmed from crying and booking the earliest flight back to her, looking like a lost boy wanting to get home.

in a sense, he is. sasuke uchiha is a lost boy wandering different cities running away from something; looking for something; longing for something—some sort of explanation on why he's still alive when everyone who loves him has died; or salvation in the form of someone. sakura. and now he's here, seeking that salvation he's dying for, realizing that it—she—has always been with him all along.

they stood there, two people mourning two different deaths, but has now been resurrected by each other. sakura reached out first, because she knows he still has inner battles to win, and she wants to let him know she will be there with every little step.

no words were needed. only the silent comfort of a physical touch was enough. they wrap each other in their arms, eyes misty and closed, and there is the quiet after the storm. there will be more storms coming, they know, but the thought of surviving it with the other is enough for both sasuke and sakura.

they sleep on the couch, his suitcase forgotten like her unfinished letter on her table, holding onto each other. they will work on living their written plans one by one. for her, there will be no more unsent letters and no more papercuts from writing them. for him, there will be no more leaving her.

they will be alright.

~fin~

a/n: sorta a finale to sad beautiful tragic and this love prompts from day 5 and 12 :)