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Winter of 2020 – Present Day
Mebuki opens the door irritably. "What's the matter with you?" she snaps. "Were you trying to break the bell?"
Sakura snarls back, dripping water on the porch. "It's just a bell, mother. You can get it fixed, unlike other things in life."
Mebuki frowns, puzzled, still annoyed, stepping aside to let her in. "Don't be so cryptic."
Sakura barrels past her, searching for Aunt Guren. Her aunt is in the living room, delicately sipping at her tea, stiff and rigid as always, while Matsuri greets out cheerily when Sakura appears around the corner.
Sakura throws a smile at her cousin. Or tries to, but it fails miserably because Matsuri is losing her own smile, looking worried and crestfallen. She doesn't push, though, and Sakura wholeheartedly believes that this is Uncle Yukimaru's teaching. Sakura is glad that he exists, because Aunt Guren is probably going to ruin her child's life.
"Aunt Guren."
Her aunt raises one eyebrow, still patiently sipping at her tea. Sakura wonders if she can read her face. Wanting to help out – just in case – Sakura walks forward and violently throws the cup away.
Now, she has her aunt's attention.
Mebuki cries out from the other side in protest, which goes unattended. Her aunt is on her feet already and she silently, jerkily, gestures at Matsuri to go outside. Kizashi, quiet until now, follows Matsuri out for company without question. Sakura feels a hysterical laugh bubbling in her throat at her father. How is he still so aloof?
Nonetheless, Sakura has the stage. "You told him to leave me."
Aunt Guren doesn't respond. In fact, it's as though she hasn't even heard Sakura.
"You told him that he's unworthy, undeserving of me. You told him that if I bring him home, you and mother will disown me. You told him that he's a useless, directionless person and that I'd be better off without him. That if he can't see it, then he is staying in a delusional world as though there is even a slightest possibility that I might actually like him. That I might love him."
"Sakura –"
"Shut up, mother," Sakura cuts her off icily.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders if she's gotten this trait from observing her aunt over the years. The ruthlessness that was brimming underneath her skin all her life, the one that she kept carefully wrapped because it felt too inhumane to ever use this tone with anyone. More so, when she began teaching students.
Sakura has always tried to keep a polite, nice demeanour. Yes, she used to be very shy during school, but that changed when she entered college. She became more outgoing, more social, more confident as her friend circle grew. When she dated Kabuto, Sakura began fighting back, too. She would refuse to listen to any claims that were untrue, or she would always try to stand her ground, believe in her truth, and stick to it.
And the saddest part was that Itachi used to be the one who brought out that side in her.
He would always challenge her, taunt her, force her out of her shell. When she entered college, ironically, the sheer yearning to get over him, to move on, drove her towards this personality transition.
Or maybe she had it all along.
Aunt Guren takes a step forward in her direction. Sakura doesn't even blink.
"I was right," her aunt says stiffly.
"You don't know that," Sakura snarls back. "And who the fuck do you think you are, messing with my life in this way?"
"SAKURA!"
"Shut up, MOTHER!" Sakura whirls around to face Mebuki head on. "You let her do this, didn't you? You knew. Both of you drove him away from me!"
"He did that himself," Aunt Guren cuts her harshly. "He made the choice."
And Sakura is this close to throwing something at her. "He was seventeen! You guilted a child into this terrible crossroad and then basically told him, hey your friend might get disowned because of you! What the fuck did you expect was going to happen? Don't tell me that's not what you wanted!"
"He was old enough to make his own decisions, Sakura," Aunt Guren says, slight anger colouring her tone.
Finally. Sakura has to keep pushing and pushing, until her aunt breaks. That's what she all cares about in this moment.
This is payback, she thinks.
"You were old enough to leave us alone!" Sakura reminds her snidely. She turns to Mebuki. "Are you seriously trying to tell me that you were okay with your sister meddling in your daughter's life to this extent? That your daughter lost her love? Really, mother?"
Mebuki frowns, her anger at Sakura now mixing up with confusion. "He was your love? Wasn't he just some boy who flirted with you?"
"Excuse me?"
Mebuki's eyes flick past Sakura to Aunt Guren before resettling. "Love?"
"Yes!" Sakura says with incredulity. "He's the love of my life, mom! And you forced him away! You made him believe that he was worthless!"
With every sentence, Sakura feels the hard-hitting facts bring out the old pain, the whole of it, as if she was ever over it in the first place.
She continues in a cracked voice, not wanting to cry but not wanting to sound weak, either. She's still angry – so much – and she wants to punish them so severely that it's a physical desire to do so.
"You broke my heart, mom. Not him. I spent all these years believing that he was the one responsible for my pain, that he was a coward, that he didn't want me, that he chose not to be with me. But you did all those things! You were responsible. How can I ever forgive you for that?"
"Don't blame your mother," Aunt Guren says, voice hard and icy. "I did it. And I still stand by it. Sakura, you were a child blinded by some kid in your school. What do you expect us to do?"
"To LEAVE ME ALONE!" Sakura finally shouts, the words bursting from her. "How are YOU the one to decide what I feel? Why do YOU get to choose what I do? What he does? You have NO RIGHT to mess with my life! You were not even supposed to touch my phone, let alone fucking steal his number just to contact him! Who the fuck gave you that right? Did Mom?
"Mom, please! Enlighten me a little here."
Mebuki is quiet. She averts her gaze to the floor, her hands fidgeting. When Sakura doesn't break the silence, her mother says lowly, "Love of your life?"
Sakura groans. "Yes! How many times do you want me to say it?"
When her mother looks up, her eyes are filled. "I didn't know that. Guren told me it was some boy from your school troubling you and that we should help you out."
Some boy?
Sakura thinks of Itachi and his snowy-night eyes, his snug sweaters and the black-rimmed glasses. His amusement and the way he smirks just before he's about to rile her up. His you can be afraid of things that don't exist. His Cherry and Haruno and the backdrop of exploding colours. His dislike of wearing blazers since school and his hanging ties. His drumming fingers and his restless energy. His constant desire to be candid, to be himself, to not sell something that he's not.
Itachi is not some boy. He is Itachi, and Itachi is worth going to wars for.
There's a faint ringing in her ears, and when she speaks, her voice is all murky and at the end of the tunnel.
"We're done."
Summer of 2018
Kabuto's mouth falls open. "Excuse me?"
Sakura's gaze is cold and unrelenting. "We're over."
There's a suspended moment in time and Sakura watches as the anger resettles over his features. "You can't do that."
"I just did."
"I don't care," Kabuto says. "I'm not done with you."
Sakura scoffs, letting the reckless rage wash over her. "I don't give a shit if you're not done, Kabuto. I am."
She focuses on the blurry city lights behind him, and it's a beautiful view. Maybe breaking up with someone on a building's terrace should be made illegal. Or maybe it's the best location, with the clear, dark blue sky above them – it makes her hopeful. She can let go of Kabuto, the way she did with Itachi, and feel her toes grazing the stars.
Kabuto is positively swelling with resentment. He had planned a date night for them with the whole basket-blanket-wine thing going on, which is now pitifully forgotten on one side when they got into an argument about Lee.
Sakura is tired of explaining herself to anyone anymore. Especially to Kabuto when he assumes there's something going on between her and Lee. There isn't. There really isn't. There have been moments, but Sakura has been faithful, has been loyal, and she doesn't believe she should be constantly questioned over it. If Kabuto still cannot trust her, then she cannot continue with it any further.
She thinks that maybe she should be feeling bad. A little sad, at least, to be breaking up with such a long-time partner. Maybe she will, once they leave the terrace, and she can no longer lose herself in the stars. When it will be just her and her heartbeats and the silence of the world.
In this moment, she wishes more than anything that Itachi was here. Nothing more than even a friend. She regrets her decision of cutting loose, despite knowing it was the right one, but doesn't think it's wrong to miss him from time to time, especially in moments when she wants to curl up and knows that Itachi would have forced her to face herself.
What if.
Don't, she grounds her thoughts immediately. No point.
"Sakura, I'm sorry," Kabuto changes tactic immediately, appearing crestfallen and regretful. "I won't doubt you again. But please, please don't do this."
My ass, she thinks viciously. This is not the first or the second time he's had the same argument with her with the same outcome. He will either apologize or make her apologize. But it never ends.
"We're done."
Winter of 2020 – Present Day
Sakura is shivering when she knocks on Hinata's door later that night.
Hinata brings her a towel without question, pushes her in the bath for warm shower, and when Sakura steps out, feeling somewhat normal, Lee and Sai are in Hinata's living room, arguing over a movie.
They watch The Pretty Woman, and Sakura is grateful that nothing from the movie is relatable. It's a good distraction until Itachi texts her, past midnight, when the movie is about to end –
Are you okay?
She locks the phone without replying.
She needs time, she thinks. Time away from her family, away from Itachi, away from the past. It's not healthy to constantly be in that loop, reliving the same experiences from different perspectives. Yes, she is mad at her aunt and her mother. However, that does not mean that everything is magically resolved with Itachi, either. She doesn't blame him anymore, sure, but she can't magically be fine with him, either.
When the end credits roll, Hinata finally asks her what happened. This is also the first time that Lee has bothered to speak with her, and it's a testament to their long friendship that Lee can be here despite everything.
Sakura tells them, the whole thing. First, about how Aunt Guren snooped in her phone, made Sakura question Itachi's motives, which drove her to constantly criticise him later in college. Then she told them the other side, how Aunt Guren contacted him personally and gave a long lecture how Sakura would be better off without him in her life.
"I couldn't leave you alone completely," Itachi had told her miserably in the rain, "I'm sorry."
She tells them that she was just home, confronting them both over this, and how Aunt Guren still doesn't see reason, how her mother gave such control to her aunt over Sakura's life in the first place.
"What do you want to do now?" Sai asks, serious to a T. No jokes, no taunts.
"I don't know," Sakura says honestly. "What can I do? Even if this matter was cleared, it doesn't change the past. It doesn't change what I went through."
"But it gives you a new perspective," Lee points out.
"Yeah," Hinata adds. "You can work through things with Itachi, as well."
"If I want to," Sakura mutters, remembering Temari and do you want to move on?
"And you and Itachi need to talk," Sai says with a roll of his eyes. "With each other. You two seem way too good at assuming things and making decisions."
Hinata laughs. "I know, right? Sakura, you still don't know what he wants, either. Maybe you will get your due closure, who knows?"
Sakura groans, hiding her face in her hands. "I need a fucking break."
There's a moment of silence, and then Lee declares in carrying voice, "Who wants to get SMASHED?"
Sakura wakes up with a raging headache and nausea.
She's draped on Hinata's bed on one side, and her feet are touching someone's hand. She keeps her eyes shut, counting from twenty, but when she reaches nine, there's a loud ringing in the room.
"Oh my god," Sai complains, and the hand near Sakura's foot tweaks. "Shut that fucking thing."
That fucking thing turns out to be Sakura's phone. She blindly reaches for it and snatches it from between the sheets.
One eye peeks open. It's Sasuke calling. What the fuck?
"What the fuck?"
Sasuke tsks in response. "Wake and shine, my little sunlight," he says sarcastically. "My brother is going insane."
"What the fuck?"
"Are you drunk?" Sasuke nearly shouts incredulously. "it's eight in the morning! What's wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with you?" Sakura groans. "It's eight in the morning! I'm not drunk. I'm hungover."
"Great," Sasuke says irritably, as though he is personally offended with her drinking habits. "Just perfect. My brother thinks he's done horrible thing and he refuses to tell me what, and keeps me awake the whole night, and currently, he's looking at me with wide eyes, biting his nails, waiting to know – what was it, Aniki? – right. To know if you're okay. Since you're drunk, I'm assuming you're okay."
"I'm hungover," Sakura corrects him, not knowing how to respond to everything else.
"Listen," Sasuke suddenly becomes serious. "Where are you?"
"Hinata's."
"Can you meet us?"
"Come over," and then she cuts the call.
By the time Sasuke and Itachi arrive, Sakura has managed to wake the others up, brush, freshen up a bit so that she doesn't look like The Walking Dead, and sipped on some water.
But when she opens the door, Naruto is bouncing on the balls of his feet behind the two brothers.
"Naruto?" she questions, surprised, refusing to look at Itachi yet.
He smiles sheepishly. "Hey."
"You forgot to send me the address," Sasuke rolls his eyes, smirk in place. "I figured Naruto would know where Hinata lives."
He's a lost cause, Sakura thinks and steps aside without further comment.
Itachi doesn't enter. Sakura is forced to look him in the eyes and fuck –
He looks terrible. He's dressed in his red sweater and black pants, hair in a messy bun, and black-rimmed glasses. It's the eyes, she thinks. They're red and tired and Sakura has a distinct feeling as though he's drinking her up, as though he believes this is the last time he's going to be seeing her.
That sobers her up.
It can't be the last time. She just got him back. She's not ready to let go of him so soon, if ever again.
"Hi."
He smiles sleepily. "Hi."
And it feels like a win.
Summer of 2019
Lee is devastated.
"I'm sorry," Sakura cries. "I'm so sorry. I just can't do it, Lee."
Lee is not even looking at her. He talks to the floor. "Still?"
"I'm sorry."
"How – Sakura. I don't understand," he says and finally locks his gaze. "What was it about him?"
"I don't know," she weeps. "I don't know, I don't know. I wish I knew, Lee. I wish I still didn't feel so terrible. I wish I could move on. But it's unfair to you."
"Yes," he agrees directly. "It is. You're breaking up with me because I don't make you feel the way he did. Is that why you broke up with Kabuto, too?"
This time, Sakura looks away. "I don't know."
But she does. Kabuto did not make her feel the way Itachi did. While breaking up with him, Sakura had thought in some part of her mind that maybe Lee would. That if she just gives those moments one chance, they might bloom into something meaningful, something she can live with.
It didn't happen. Sakura continued to wait, continued to hope, and it just didn't feel right, no matter which way she looked at it, or no matter how hard she tried.
"I'm sorry," she repeats, to him and to herself, believing that she failed in both regards.
Winter of 2020 – Present Day
Sasuke offers to help with breakfast. Naruto joins him, and Sakura doesn't know what to make of them anymore.
Lee and Sai have chosen to get back to sleep. Hinata is slouching on the couch, sleepy-eyed and hungover, nursing a bottle of water, appearing every bit of green as the plant behind her.
Which has left Sakura and Itachi to stand by the window in complete silence, awkwardly waiting for the other to speak.
It's almost five minutes later when Sakura breaks it.
"I met them."
Itachi jerks visibly in the corner of her eyes. "You did?"
"Yeah," Sakura says lowly, tracing the windowsill with one finger. "It didn't go well, but that's okay. I didn't want it to go well."
There's a brief pause. "Okay."
Then he breaks it again, just as Naruto's voice raises and he admonishes Sasuke with don't you dare, teme! And Sasuke's reply is not so clear, but Sakura can hear the smirk in his voice, and it makes her think of Itachi, who is right beside her, but might as well be standing on the other end of the world.
"I'm sorry."
Sakura gulps. "I know."
Then he asks, almost shyly. "Can we be friends again?"
Friends?
She thinks she might cry. "Okay."
"It's just," he continues in the same manner. "Sakura, there's so much I don't know about. And until now, I don't think we were both clear on the boundaries here. I want to label it, so that I can meet you and not feel as though I'm committing a crime."
"What?" she reflexively turns to him in shock. "Why would you even think that?"
Itachi is already watching her. His eyes are reflecting the morning sunlight. "Because of the way I behaved in the past. I don't feel I have any right to even ask to be friends."
Sakura's stomach flips. "We – we can be friends."
Then he takes a step closer, and he's no longer on the other end of the world. Sakura's vision is filled with red sweaters and black eyes and small smiles.
"Let me be clear. I don't intend to stay friends."
She sucks in a sharp breath. But before she can answer – she doesn't know what she could have said, anyway – Itachi takes another step closer.
"I want to prove that you can count on me."
And it's overwhelming again, in the new way, and Sakura thinks that maybe she doesn't need starry nights to feel hope.
Maybe sunlight through windows work just as well.
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