Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, Sasuke would come running back to Naruto and Kakashi would be locked in my basement.

Author Note: This is my second (posted) one-shot! This is my personal favorite. (it used to be Uncertainty and Clarity, but I changed my mind).

This is rated for one teensy mature scene.

WARNING: YAOI! BOY ON BOY LOVE (SASUNARU). If you can't handle it, don't venture any further.


DREAM

by: Cecile Li

Sakura finally got her dream. Sasuke asked her to marry him. He wasn't smiling, or nervous or anything. He just had a carefully blank look on his face. He bought a big diamond ring for her. Girls loved diamonds, Naruto told him, he said after Sakura accepted. Naruto told him.

But he was never hers. He spent all of his time out of the house, except at night where he strived for an heir. Sometimes—no, every time Sakura went to the marketplace to buy groceries, she saw Sasuke. She saw Sasuke with Naruto. She saw Sasuke smiling at Naruto. She saw Sasuke happy with Naruto.

Sasuke always calls Naruto dobe. Sakura wished he called her a pet name. Anything. It could be cherry blossom, sweetie, Sakie, hell she wouldn't even mind smartass. She wished so, so much, that he would show that he loved her. And that one time…that one time where Sasuke slipped and called her a pet name.

At night, he's almost there. He whispers in her ears, "…dobe…" Dobe. Dobe. And that's when she figures it out.

She thinks she's always known. Somewhere, on some level, she had always realized that that couldn't only be rivalry.

She has always known Sasuke loved Naruto. She has always known the reason why Sasuke never smiled at her. She has always known that Naruto took up Sasuke's whole heart and left no room for her. She has always known, and for that, she hates Naruto.

She hates him so much. She hates him for always being stronger than her, even when she was the smartest one in the academy. She hates his stupid determination to be Hokage. She hates how obnoxious he is and his selflessness. She hates how he makes her not able to hate him. She hates how he'd still die for his former teammate.

Because he almost did.

It was a rainy night and she was crossing the road. She and Sasuke were leaving Naruto's apartment. Sasuke was already on the other side, continuing to walk home. She was crying in the rain and was too stupid to notice the truck, but Naruto did. He yelled, "Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!" and pushed her out of the way. He got hit by the truck instead.

There was so much blood. It was splattered all over her pretty red dress and over her carefully styled hair. It was on her expensive bag that Sasuke had bought her. It was everywhere. She couldn't move.

But then Sasuke was kneeling next to the broken Naruto. His beautiful face was streaked with tears. Or was it rain? But it didn't matter because he was yelling at her.

"Stop crying, you bitch! Start healing him!"

Bitch. So, Naruto had to get hit by a truck so Sasuke could call her a pet name. But Naruto was dying, so she tried to heal him.

The whole time they went with Naruto to the hospital, Sasuke refused to look at her. "I'm sorry…I'm so sorry, Naruto." he murmured to the unconscious Naruto. He didn't seem to care if she had figured anything out. Of course he knew she knew. She was the smartest ninja of their year, wasn't she?

When Naruto got to the hospital, they waited in the waiting room. Sasuke sat away from her. He broke the silence first.

"If Naruto dies, I will kill you."

She looked at him. His eyes were still blood red and his cheeks had tears streaming down them. So it was tears, not rain. The she looked away and nodded.

If Tsunade was shocked when she saw the couple, she didn't show it. Sakura wondered if she had been the last to know about Sasuke and Naruto.

"Naruto is in stable condition. It is lucky for him that he had Kyuubi. If Sakura had been hit, she wouldn't have survived."

"If Naruto didn't have Kyuubi, he wouldn't have met Sakura." Sasuke replied offhandedly, showing none of the emotion he had just displayed.

And Sakura nodded as she listened to the love of her life ask the Hokage when he could see Naruto. She got up and she left.

A week later, Naruto left the hospital and Sasuke resumed his schedule of late nights. One night, Sakura sits in front of the door and waits on the cold hard floor. At 2 o'clock in the morning, the door opens. Sasuke walks in, smelling of ramen.

"Sakura." He says. If he was surprised, he didn't show it.

She doesn't greet him. "How long, Sasuke?"

He sighs and sits on the sofa. He doesn't ask what she's talking about. "Since I came back."

She plays with the tassel on her nightshirt for a minute. She looks at him. "You know I love you right?" He doesn't answer. "I love you, Sasuke," Her voice cracks. "I love you so, so much. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you." She waits for a response and when she doesn't get one, she continues. "I love you and that's why I'm going to give you what you really want."

Sakura stands up and looks at Sasuke calmly in the eye. She smiles gently at him and brushes off the lint on his shoulder. "You don't want an heir because it'll remind you too much of me. You want to live with Naruto. You want to wake up with him every morning. You want to grow old with him. But you can't, because of me. So I'll get rid of this problem." She reaches into Sasuke's pocket and takes out his kunai. She regards it for a moment and then she pierces her heart where she knows even Tsunade can't heal. She enjoys Sasuke's surprised face. So much emotion for her. "Please," she says through the blood cascading down her open mouth, "Please be happy now."

She closed her eyes as she fell to the floor. Sasuke's smiling, happy, face flashes through her mind and she smiles again. She sees Naruto's bloody face in her mind and she wishes she could have apologized to him before leaving. But this was so much better than an apology, right?

Sasuke-kun…I have always loved you so much.

And the last thing she knows before she falls into eternal darkness is how warm Sasuke's arms are when they're holding her.

Author Note: Well. I hope this wasn't too dramatic. I had posted this up on another account but I decided to take it down to make some changes and then repost it on this account. However, I had no beta so please excuse any mixed up tenses.

Reviews are my anti-drug. Please leave feedback.

-C.L. (damn, I'm really starting to hate my penname)