Chapter 8: Sasuke's wounds
"You should break up with Sasuke as soon as possible."
Sakura could not believe her ears. "What?", she cried out. "Sensei, how can you say something like that?"
"It's not a joke, Sakura. I really like Sasuke, but at the moment I'm more worried about you. He is not good for you."
She couldn't find anything to say; his strange advice had been too surprising. "I don't understand…"
"I am not stupid, Sakura. You haven't been together with him for long, but you have already changed. I have been talking to Ino, Naruto and a few others."
That was quite unexpected too. Kakashi wasn't the type to worry about others. In any case, she could imagine what Ino had told him. "Sensei, what I said to Ino that night was just a joke…"
He ignored her completely. "Don't try to fool me. I have been watching you and Sasuke isn't good for you. I wasn't planning on judging him so quickly, but now I think it's best if you get out of this as fast as possible. Promise or not, you should leave him."
"You know about that?", she muttered.
"He told me. He doesn't care how you feel about this. Sasuke thinks only about himself. If you want to make yourself unhappy, that's your business, but it will end in tragedy if you two keep going like this. Just as it did with Sasuke's family." She wanted to hear more about this, but he kept talking. "I should have warned you from the beginning, but I honestly thought you could help him."
"Help him? What are you talking about?"
His gaze darkened. "Sasuke has changed. He must have been hurt deeply. He didn't want to tell us what happened during his fight against Itachi, but there is no doubt that something important DID happen. Itachi must have said or done something, but we can only guess. When he asked you to be his wife, I thought maybe he was starting to recover. I thought you could maybe help him leave all of it behind and forget his past once and for all."
She would have liked to disagree, but he was right. She had noticed too how Sasuke had changed after the battle. And she had not been able to change anything about that.
"Maybe it's too late for Sasuke. It isn't too late for you, though. If you stay with him, he will destroy you and you'll become as cold as him. If you wait too long, you might already have a child and then it'll be too late to leave him. Please, end it now that you're still able to."
It was hard to hear all of this. What Kakashi said made sense, but there were things that held her back. Her promise, for one, but also the old love that still attached her to Sasuke. And her wish to help him.
Kakashi seemed to understand that. "Just think about it, okay?"
All of a sudden, she felt queasy. To hear this kind of advice from Kakashi was disturbing. "Why are you doing this?", she asked.
He leaned forward and kissed her forehead – through his mask. "Because I am worried about you, Sakura-chan."
Sakura blushed deeply and stammered, "I'll… go for a walk, and maybe I'll head back home when Sasuke isn't there… T-Thanks for your help.." She offered him a weak smile and practically fled from him.
When she was gone, Kakashi chuckled softly. "Cute." His expression changed. "Far too cute for someone like Sasuke."
***
Even though she knew better, Sakura returned home. She had hoped that he would have been gone already, but he was lying in bed trying to get some sleep. Well, he wasn't going to sleep right now… first she had to talk to him. Kakashi was right; they couldn't go on like that. She positioned herself in front of the bed and said loudly, "Sasuke. We are not done yet."
He opened his eyes to glare at her. "What do you want?", he muttered and sat up.
"I want you to listen to me." she replied angrily. He said nothing, but offered her an expectant stare. "Sasuke, we can't go on like this. Promise or not, I won't let you interfere with my life like that again."
He lifted an eyebrow and replied cynically, "We're married, right? It's our life now. I just wanted to protect you."
"Yeah, right!", she yelled. "There is no us and you know that. You don't give a shit about me. You didn't ask me first when you became an Anbu. I'll say it once more: I won't let you do something like that again. Next time I will…"
He tilted his head sideways and asked jeeringly, "You will what?" His arrogance made her even angrier. Inner Sakura was already rampaging.
"Next time I will break up with you, do you get that?", she yelled at him.
She had expected his usual reaction, but he got up from his bed and positioned himself in front of her, staring dangerously into her eyes. Suddenly she felt very small compared to him. "Save your threats," he hissed. " If you wanted to get divorced, you would have done so a long time ago."
Her inner voice screamed, 'That's it! DON'T PUT UP WITH THIS!'
She swallowed the queasy feeling and stared back at him. "You listen to me now!" she spat, pressing her index finger against his chest. "I am not your property and I demand to be treated with respect." It was probably only surprise that made him take a step backwards. She closed the distance between them again and bore her finger into his chest, emphasizing every word. "And for as long as you do not treat me like your wife in EVERY aspect, you will never do something like that again, or I will put in for a divorce that very same day and you may as well marry Ino and have lots of arrogant little Uchiha brats with her!!!!" She had screamed that last part at the top of her lungs.
The look of surprise quickly faded from his features and he slapped her hand away. "I won't let you blackmail me, do you understand?", he said in a dangerously low tone, making it Sakura's turn to take a step back. "You knew what you were dealing with. If you have a problem with the way things are, then go back to your parents, but don't bother me with your ridiculous problems! You're even stupider than I thought if you really think I am dependent on you in any way."
That was the last straw. Sakura hissed a not so lady-like curse word at him which came directly from her inner voice as she aimed a punch at him. He caught her before she could hit him, just like last time, but this time she didn't make the mistake of being surprised by that. Instead she raised her knee, targeting his groin… but he was too fast for that too and blocked her knee with his free hand. He then let go of her abruptly and disappeared from her view only to reappear kneeling in front of her, where he spun around and hit her legs with his.
Sakura fell to the ground, but she wasn't willing to give up yet. "Asshole!", she cried as she attempted to get up. He pressed her to the ground though, and within an instant he was straddling her hips, pressing her wrists to the ground. "Let go!", she yelled, writhing beneath him, but he only shook his head disapprovingly. She had to accept that it was useless and so she eventually gave up.
Silence filled the room and the only thing that could be heard was their rapid, heavy breathing. Sakura had outdone herself because she had put so much power into her blows, but at least Sasuke was worn out too. The reason might be that he had just returned from an exhausting mission, but still it was a small triumph for her to see that there was a limit to his strength too.
"Have you calmed down?", he asked coolly and she grimaced. "Okay, then listen to me. I will not decide things that are none of my business from now on, but in exchange you won't interfere with my affairs either." She didn't reply. "I won't let you blackmail me. If you want to leave me, okay, I won't stop you. I never forced you into anything, remember? But I appreciate that you kept your promise."
"Liar," she muttered sadly. Her anger was gone and there was only a depressing sadness left. She meant nothing to him; he was ready to replace her with someone else if she ever left him. "Please, let go," she whispered.
But he didn't. Instead he asked, "What do you expect from me, Sakura? You knew from the start what you were dealing with. I can't and won't ever feel anything for you."
"Why did you ask me of all people?", she asked. "Why not Ino or any other fangirl? Is it because I was the only one who was stupid enough to save herself for you?"
His brows furrowed. Sakura snorted. Didn't he know that? Ino had turned to Shikamaru at the age of 16 and they were still in a weird kind of a relationship which seemed to end every few months just so they could make up and get back together again. The other Sasuke fangirls had all eventually found a nice boyfriend to return their feelings. Of course, Sasuke was still the most famous boy of the entire village, but his fangirls had grown up and given up on him eventually. Only Sakura hadn't managed to let go of her naïve crush on him after all this time. She had always saved herself for him, hoping that he would eventually change and return her feelings. At this moment Sakura realized that she probably wasn't as clever as she had always thought.
"I'm such an idiot," she said, more to herself than to him. "I should have gone out at least once with Lee-san, or with Naruto. Then maybe I would know how it feels to be with a man who really likes me."
Sasuke ignored that, instead saying, "I asked you because you believed in me. Because you were there for me when everyone was gone. That's why."
"In other words, because I'm stupid, right? Because you knew I couldn't refuse any request from you. Now let me go, please." This time he complied and stood up silently. Sakura sat up and rubbed her sore wrists. She felt tired. She had lost control of the situation long ago and didn't know how to deal with it in its current state.
To her relief, Sasuke announced that he was going to train for a while. He left the house and she felt strangely reliefed. So they had already reached a state where she was glad whenever he left. Sakura stood up and walked over to the kitchen. She hadn't eaten in about 24 hours. She opened the fridge but didn't feel very hungry; when she was in a bad mood, she could never eat anything. She was about to close the refrigerator, when her gaze fell upon a bottle of wine. Sasuke had brought it a while ago, and she guessed that it had probably been a present or something. He never drank any alcohol, so the bottle was still untouched.
Sakura remembered the way she had felt after drinking too much at Naruto's party. For a while, her problems and sorrows had been so far away and, regardless of the headache afterwards, that feeling had been great. She picked up the bottle and took a sip. It didn't taste so very good, but if it promised to make her forget about her worries for a while…
She drank some more. Disgusting. Yet she took another gulp.
When Sasuke returned home in the evening, the bottle was empty. And Sakura was drunk.
Upon entering the room Sasuke seemed to notice something. He wrinkled his nose. As Sakura shakily stood up and wished him a wonderful evening, though, he knew what was going on. "You're drunk," he said with no emotion in his voice.
With a huge grin plastered on her face she draped her arms around his neck. "Yes I am, Sasuke-kun. How was your daaay?"
He pushed her away. "Am I going to find you sleeping on the doorstep again tomorrow?", he asked, slipping out of his shoes. "Sakura, let go."
For no apparent reason, she started to laugh, just because she felt like it, and Sasuke disappeared into the kitchen to make himself something simple to eat. Meanwhile Sakura spent her time on their bed, trying to find a comfortable position and mumbling incoherently to herself. It was almost funny. She was dead drunk and even that hadn't changed the stoic expression on his face. Maybe nothing could ever shock or anger him.
When she got tired of waiting she hopped over to the bathroom and tried to even out her hair with clumsy fingers. Then she completely undressed herself, took a last glance at her grinning self in the mirror and returned to the bedroom.
Sasuke was already seated on the bed undressing himself. When she entered the room, stark naked, he actually seemed surprised for a moment. Then his face darkened and he asked "What the hell are you up to?"
Something within her screamed. Maybe it was her inner voice. But her head felt dizzy, everything was so easy, so untroubled… She went over to the bed and sat down on his lap. "What's the matter, Sasuke-kun? This is how you wanted me, isn't it? You want to make some kids, and, well, you can't if you don't sleep with me, right? I'm not pregnant yet. We should push ahead." He turned his head away almost disgustedly when she tried to kiss him. "What's with your plans, Sasuke-kun?" she taunted. "You wanted to restore the Uchiha clan, didn't you?" She didn't even know herself why she was provoking him like that. Something warned her that she was going too far, but she ignored it.
He stared at her and said, "You're right."
All of a sudden she found herself lying backwards on her bed, her arms pressed into the cushion over her head. His eyes stared at her coolly. His hand grabbed her left breast while he was still holding her in place with his other hand.
Sakura had accomplished what she had wanted, but now she didn't feel so good any more. In a single second her mood turned over and rested heavily on her heart. "Sasuke, let go," she whimpered, "I don't want this."
"You have to make up your mind," he murmured into her ear. It was obvious from the tone of his voice that he was now trying to provoke her just like she had provoked him. His hand reached down between her legs and she emitted a startled scream.
"Sasuke, stop it! I don't want this!", she cried. Her voice sounded weak and shaky. He didn't stop. And Sakura gave up protesting. She didn't resist when he let go of her wrists eventually, instead she lay there impassively and stared out of the window. The stars were beautiful tonight.
While he nudged her legs apart, she tried to find a reason why she loved Sasuke for every star out there. His eyes; his black hair; his strength; his loyalty; his coolness; his kindness, hidden under all the hatred; his friendship; the scared kid he is.
When she tore her gaze away from the stars to look at him, to look at the way he was laying on top of her, sleeping with her without looking into her eyes, she noticed that his eyes were still beautiful. And that he was still handsome. But everything else she had loved about him was gone. She could no longer look at his handsome face without thinking of all the pain he had caused her. Her gaze travelled back to the window where the stars were still sparkling. Slowly, she realized that she had started to hate Sasuke.
…tbc…