Tuesday night and Naruto hugs her at her doorstep. She shrivels inside of herself when he does; his arms are too warm and too safe (she is too in love with danger now), and this makes her ridiculously insecure.
Tonight is the first celebration of winter—the festival of first snow—and the glowing lanterns strung up all around remind her of bladders bursting with red wine wishes.
She is wearing a silk kimono tonight, red as the bladders hung from lengths of sky-string. She feels strange in the garment; the sensation of smooth cold is deliciously awkward on her skin. Her hair is coiled into a loose up-do, so the strands of hair spill out and along her pale face, and the chill nips the nape of her neck. The light from the lanterns settles on her cheekbones, leeching away her luminance.
Naruto's eyes are unbearably bright.
She avoids his gaze the entire walk through town, until they meet up with a large group of chuuin and jounin at the ramen stand.
"Oi, there you guys are," calls Kiba, roughly. "You had us waiting." Naruto grins widely.
"Couldn't get the party started without me, huh?"
Sakura watches the exchange of greetings and is mildly sickened by it. She lets herself sink slowly to the back of the group, falling through layers and layers of wafer people. She slides onto one of the stools and listens absently to the banter and the moon-iced laughter.
Her eyes drift close and then a touch so electrifying, so cold, snaps her awake.
"Sakura," he says, and her stomach drops five levels, into a black pit she cannot escape.
She turns to face him (first erasing the dreadful floundering), and the lantern glow is reflected off his banal expression. She cannot say his name, she mustn't—
"What are you doing here?" she asks bluntly and without poise (but it's better than saying his name, she tells herself).
He smiles as if he understands her, and the cracks of his smile embarrass her.
"Am I not supposed to be here?" he asks gently, inoffensively, and at the same time putting her to fault.
She clenches the pool of bloody silk shimmering in her lap.
"I—no, it's not that," she says quickly, knuckles cold as a comet's punch. She looks away from his steady gray gaze. "You just—surprised me."
"Ah." He nods and keeps that smile. His smile is a train in the night that hurtles through inky dark, ignoring the crash before it—
They sit in a silence swirled with foreign sounds. The words come burbling in from strangers' throats to mingle in dead ear canals. These two are strangers who have met once before, but one has turned the cheek.
"Ne, Sakura-chan! Come be my partner!" Naruto crashes into the scene with his raucous grace, his orange, eagle-spread palms. His face is so bright and bobbing (he is seal-eyed) that she nearly cringes, until she remembers that Kakashi is sitting beside her; so she curbs the expression into an uneasy smile.
"But—"she begins.
"Come on! It'll be fun!" Naruto jumps up and down with all the energy of the stars packed and bursting from his tan frame. He grabs her by the hands, catching her by surprise. She tenses, clenching her hands within his grasp, cold and hard.
Kakashi speaks, a smooth and inundating taunt. "Go ahead, Sakura. Don't let me ruin your fun."
The hiss collects beneath her breath, under the feeling of pinpointing eyes.
Reluctantly, she stands, sliding off the cool wooden stool. Naruto leads her off to a game in the middle of the group, where the cries and hoots paw at her ears. She carries out the motions with a sick locomotive chugging inside of her, with the constant awareness of his muted gaze on her that is so beautiful, so appalling.
The game is a dancing game, and Naruto's pace is too high and too far to match her sedate step. They dance more than a little awkwardly together, but Naruto in all his bursting smiles compensates. She looks along the skyline and the stars frost her eyes blue-green, and the voices of the people all around are far away. Their laughs do not include her. (only his gaze is—)
She forces herself, gritting, against the magnet of his eyes.
Halfway through the night she remembers that Ino is dead.
-
She creates beautiful blue fire, cupped in the palm of her miraculous hand. Tsunade's gaze at this moment is piercing and frightening, the omnipotent judge. (Even a cracking mask is frightening if painted in the right way.)
Sakura feels the sharpness of Tsunade's gaze puncturing the junction of her shoulder; her eagle eyes are hard and unforgiving. Sakura's hands need to know perfection. She controls her pants, willing the sweat crystallizing on her bare forehead to form perfect squares.
The fire pulses and she feels her heartbeat in it; the faint but steady throb of an embryo.
(my creation, she thinks, tinged with warmth from the thought)
She is lost in the blaze.
Tsunade speaks, cutting through cobweb fantasies. "The flame is steady," she says, "but there is something lacking."
Sakura snaps out of her stupor and the flame abruptly evaporates. She examines her burnt fingertips, and then frowns slightly, reaching to brush a streak of sweat and a pink bang aside.
She looks to Tsunade, who is frowning. Tsunade gives her a searching look, as if by looking hard enough she will discover something buried beneath the pores.
"You need more—flame. More heat."
Sakura makes a troubled expression of incomprehension.
"You need to make flame as if you were making yourself," she says, before clicking away to her desk. The meaning of the words just barely escapes her, skimming easily over her head.
"That's enough for today, Sakura," Tsunade says, once safely behind the paper piles on the desk, her fortress. "You may go home now and rest."
Sakura bites her lip, turning it marble white.
She thinks of the blue fire dancing and cannot find fault in the gypsy.
"But—"she starts.
"Go home, Sakura. I have nothing else to say to you today."
She bites her lips so hard she imagines the taste of blood. Hands balled and fingertips crackling, Sakura stands, lifting up the skirt of her dress from the ground.
"Thank you, Tsunade-sama," she says, bowing her head slightly.
She turns and walks out the door, the blue gypsy fire misting her eyes.
-
Getting that feeling again.