notes: typos fixed! (5/23/19)
rating: K
disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
.
.
16. reflect
.
.
As a young child and teenager, Uchiha Sasuke lived a very vacant, gloomy life; he felt nothing else as the power-hungry feeling bloomed inside him and continued to spread in the form a cursed seal at the area between his neck and shoulder. He was easily peeved if things interrupted his path to power; he'd be filled with only anger as his key emotion. He shuts everything away—from his memories to people—behind his iron walls, refusing to let himself escape.
Because they didn't matter to him; nothing mattered to him as long as they weren't any help to him and his journey to strength.
However, Team 7 finally came along and slowly, they began to fill up patches in his heart.
.
.
Naruto, a boy who experienced his shares of loneliness, brought enough warmth to melt away the ice cube Sasuke was.
He was always dumb, sporting big foolish grins, always prattling about how he'll become Hokage. People scoff at him, yet Sasuke noticed that, despite how utterly dumb Naruto was, that idiot never gave up.
He taught Sasuke how to believe in his own achievements, his own power, his own dreams—to cherish those who came to love him for who he is. He taught Sasuke to appreciate those lame team bonding times where Naruto basically shoves a bowl of Ichiraku ramen under his nose and demands Sasuke to eat it, soup and all. He taught Sasuke how to work in a team, even if Sasuke had to put up with his stupidity ("Hey, Sasuke... I need to pee.") a constant twenty-four seven on his watch. He taught Sasuke what friendship meant—and it is funny and ironic, because Sasuke lost track of when, specifically, did Naruto became his best friend.
Sasuke is fast while Naruto is strong. Sasuke is a genius while Naruto is a fool. Sasuke is quiet while Naruto is loud. Sasuke is alone while Naruto is surrounded. Sasuke frowns while Naruto grins. Sasuke isolated himself while Naruto made friends.
Naruto is his foolishly-loud friend, a brother.
.
.
Kakashi brought Sasuke something they both lost: a father.
Fathers were the last thing Sasuke needed to think about when he was still admitted in the Academy; he found it senseless to think of it anymore. He hated it whenever there was a parent-teacher conference—he'd go by himself, and they would know why. He'd grit his teeth, his fists would clench, his nails would dig into his palms to the point of drawing blood, and he'd glower away at the wall. He'd sometimes hear, whenever he goes out, sons exchanging words with their fathers, and Sasuke would feel something akin to aching settle in.
He hated seeing fathers.
Then Kakashi comes skirting in with his stupid masks, that dumb book, and his knowledge.
Sasuke isn't a fool like Naruto—he's aware that Kakashi gave him more attention than he did for Naruto and Sakura. He saw something in Sasuke that he felt could be changed, perhaps. He taught Sasuke his signature Chidori; Kakashi never went easy on him either. Kakashi tried his hardest to make sure Sasuke stuck around—to stay with the team and to trust his teammates, to never abandon them.
Sasuke felt that he failed him, greatly. But not once had Kakashi scorned him ever since Sasuke came back to Konoha—Kakashi believed in him, just like Naruto, just like father. He wondered, briefly, how it would be if Kakashi had met his father. Fugaku would like him, probably. Just a maybe.
.
.
Sakura brought him care and love, something Sasuke had lacked.
Her pretty smiles and lively eyes often brought some semblance of warmth to him—and her whole presence, name included, reminds him of spring. When he met her when Team 7 first assembled, years ago, it felt like he would've frowned his face silly at her lack of tact. She'd put on those stupid dreamy smiles and her face would flush crimson, and he hated it. Fangirls—Sasuke hated them. And Sakura hadn't been any different at that time of his life. He hated her.
As their team came over obstacles, from mission to mission, he had begun to think differently about Sakura.
She threw her life on the line for him. Sasuke wanted to ask why she'd do that, perhaps wanting to seek for a deeper reason, and he didn't know why but it often slipped his mind on other days. He'd see her there, smiling at him for the umpteenth time and he really didn't know why, but he had taken habit to nodding at her in response. Being in a team together, Sakura had seen him at his worst with each passing season, each passing day, each passing mission.
She looked prettier with short hair, he had decided one day, even when her eye was bruised and her face was caked in grime and dirt that day.
But her eyes always held some sort of emotion Sasuke couldn't pin down whenever she had looked at him the other passing days—regret, maybe? The more their camaraderie seemed to grow within the team, the more Sasuke felt that he could trust her. He hadn't exactly told her of his family—those were privy to his hurting heart—but on more than one occasion, he'd give her a look and she'd look back, and he can tell she's trying to read him.
Before he knew it, she had confessed on that one day. He often toyed with his thoughts, thinking how it could've been if he had taken her offer to bring her along. He'd think, idiot, and went onward. She wouldn't have survived. And he was right, if his experiences were to be learned from.
It'd been two more years after that.
Sasuke felt strange whenever he came outside the hideout and his eyes met with the cherry blossoms that had bloomed those passing springs. A petal would fall to him and he'd take it; gives it one look and lets it fall and he wouldn't look back. Her smile wormed its way from his memories to him, and he would need to take a second to cast it off again. How silly of him. He cut ties with her some time ago.
Sometimes Kabuto had relayed information to Orochimaru whenever Sasuke slumbered away, information concerning Sasuke's old team.
"Haruno Sakura, she made it to Chūnin," Sasuke heard him say once, feigning sleep, and he thinks Kabuto's a fool for speaking so loudly in the other room merely two doors down. "She's training in medical ninjutsu, and quite frankly, she's one of their best, Orochimaru-sama." And the rest became gibberish to Sasuke, his Sharingan flashing dangerously at the walls before sleep had succumbed him at last.
He hadn't expected Sakura to be there when some moronic fool came marching in the hideout seeking for him and even had the gall to bring him back to Konoha—Sai, that clod's name was. His replacement. Sakura looked ready to smash the guy's lifespan out of his body that day and if that surprised Sasuke, it hadn't been obvious. Truth to be told, he was never surprised by it. From Kabuto's information prior, he knew she wouldn't sit and dawdle. But soon after that, Sasuke didn't see her again for a while.
She never really smiled at him, not once, when she confronted him again at the bridge. Her face and scowling lips took away any small lingering bits that gave him a semblance of spring which he always associated her with. She was no longer warm, bright, happy Sakura. Sasuke didn't remember much, but she had tried to take his life at that point—even blasted Kakashi intervened, and the only thing Sasuke could recall was his own hand flexing to make a grab at her throat. He didn't know what to make of that. He never did. He didn't feel like himself—the things that Danzo, Akatsuki, Orochimaru, and Itachi made him go through just seemed too much for his heart. He was tired. He just wanted revenge. He just wanted his family to come back.
During the war, it had never occurred to Sasuke how much Sakura grew. He knew she made progress, that was evident, but when she'd summoned that slug of hers (Tsunade's) and elicit enough chakra to heal everyone midst their ranks—even going as far as to revive Naruto—while never once showing signs of weariness, it made him wonder just how strong she is. Though, even so, it would seem that she still wears her heart on her sleeve.
Strange. She changed, but hadn't changed.
He never told her, but he always did felt guilty for leaving her behind that day. Team 7 had been something to him, and it hadn't felt right to leave it all behind. But he wanted power, so Sasuke had to narrow his choices; sacrifices had to be done. He had expected Sakura to drop the whole subject of 'loving him' (he always wondered about this too, always drawing up blanks) after that, but she brought it up again and Sasuke felt frustration as to why she wouldn't just give up on him. What's so good about him? What? Why?
Why?
Why?
It was only when he and Naruto brought this war to conclusion did Sasuke realize just how fond he thinks of Sakura. Her grief-stricken tears rolling down her face coupled with her relieved whimpering reminded him of the Sakura two years ago when she had been gravely clinging to him for dear life after Haku struck him down. She started to look warm again to him—and he welcomed it.
That's when he realized—she's like the spring sunshine to him.
.
.
Sasuke tries to smile—a small one, the corners slightly up, but he's trying—when he sees Sakura cradle the baby in her fatigued embrace, stepping forward to see the baby's sleeping face. He hears gurgles and gurgles and laughing and gurgles. This sound is new to him, and so was her existence. He didn't know he would be here in life; what would Fugaku and Mikoto say?
"It's a girl, Sasuke-kun," Sakura breathes, a weak smile on her countenance dampened with sweat from post-childbirth. "Have you thought of a name yet?" When her arms shift, the baby makes a loud joyous cry, arms stretching out to reach for anything.
Sasuke sticks his pointer finger into the baby's little hand, and replies, "Sarada." He had placed care into it, chosen it with other things in mind, and hopes she would come to agree too.
Smiling, Sakura quietly offers Sarada to him and he takes her into his one arm. Sarada doesn't mind, finding it entertaining to play with his cloak. "Sarada it is. It's a beautiful name for her." She slowly closes her eyes; Sasuke could tell she went to sleep and he, understandably, walks to the corridor outside the room, preferably to find Karin after she'd ran out to clean herself of blood after helping Sakura give birth. Karin is a girl, so maybe she could help him take care of Sarada.
When he looks down, Sarada gives him a big toothless smile. His heart felt much warmer, lighter.
Sarada filled up the last gash in Sasuke's heart.
