someday
.
.
It hurts, being near him again after so many years apart. Sakura remembers the night he left with the perfect, precise detail of a pain she'll never forget: the taste of tears on her tongue; Konoha, grown quiet under the starlit sky; Sasuke's voice, cold and dismissive, when she begged him not to go; and then, gentler, thank you.
Now he's leaving again, setting out on a journey that will take him who-knows-where for an indeterminate time, and Sakura wishes, wishes with everything in her, that for once he could just stay. Or failing that, take her with him.
So she asks, at the last moment, when fear propels her to one final surge of bravery. Standing at the village gates, Sakura opens her heart one more time.
Apparently she has nothing to do with his sins, and it's a kind way of saying no, but it's a no nonetheless-
Then he pokes her on the forehead, and Sakura knows what that means. Sasuke told her about Itachi, in the dark of his bedroom, where they only had the courage to hold hands and talk about the future in vague, uncertain terms: when I come back and when we're ready, all of it crying out someday but not today. Now, when Sasuke smiles at her and shares the most loving gesture of his childhood, suddenly someday is enough.
It hurts, still, to lose him again, but in a softer way that promises happiness down the line.
.
.