A/N: Thank you so much for everyone's kind words! It warms my heart to know that you enjoy this story. I don't want to slow down in September, but I just wanted to reiterate that that will need to happen; I'm a busy graduate student, but this is part of my self-care routine, so I won't abandon this story! I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 7
When Sakura walked into Sasuke's bathroom, she didn't spare any time to admire the contemporary surroundings, for the day's events were too much to stand. What made it bearable was knowing that she would see her dark-haired teammate again, and she was so thankful that he allowed her to enter his home despite the later hour.
Sakura shut the door behind her with one hand while the other clutched at the clothes that he allowed her to wear for the night. The earthy scents of woods and nectar wafted into her nose. She hugged them tightly to her chest for a moment of comfort before setting them on the bathroom counter next to the sink. As she unbuttoned her shirt, she pictured the hands that grasped frantically at her collar earlier in the day just before allowing it to fall to the floor and expose her bra-clad chest. As she unzipped her skirt, she pictured the despairing mother gripping at the hem as she fell to the floor in anguish. Sakura let the skirt fall and stepped out of it to look at herself in the mirror.
Over the last few months, her body had grown thinner, though the leanness of her muscular form never went away. She supposed it was a testament to her busy work schedule, for the first few months after the war, she refused to quit working. While Sasuke was detained, something in her snapped and she was suddenly in the throes of mechanical, yet methodical, work. She experienced many of her patients' gratitude in the form of tears, handshakes, and small gifts. She was hailed as a savior for many, and even when she was the bearer of bad news, they never failed to thank her for what they called her valiant attempts.
But caring for the immediate effects of a war are different from caring for the aftershocks that follow. Sakura lifted her arms and hugged her bare skin protectively as she stared into her own swollen eyes and flushed cheeks. She looked as disheveled as the mother did earlier in the day. A shiver slid down Sakura's spine and she ripped her gaze away from her reflection and walk to the showerhead to turn on the water on its hottest setting. As steam rolled into the room, she unhooked her bra and slid out of her panties slowly, as though each movement made her body ache.
She stepped inside the tiled shower and closed the glass door behind her. As the burning streams of water rained over her skin, she hugged herself tighter, feeling steaming pools build on her forearms. Despite the heat, she felt cold. She knew it wasn't from physical illness, but by the haunting sight she was forced to endure.
Sakura was called into the emergency bay at noon by another senior medic nin. She hurried through the swinging doors and entered a unit where a child no older than eight years old was rolled onto her side and vomited blood and bile into a bucket her mother held on the edge of the bed. The mother looked to Sakura, her brown eyes bloodshot and frantic. "Haruno-san," she whimpered. "Haruno-san, I don't know what happened, I don't know why, I don't know why, I don't know why!"
Sakura recognized the two of them without needed to read the child's chart. The mother, Nao, and her child, Nana, visited the hospital within a few days of the war's end. Nana had suffered a deep wound in her side as a result of an attack by a White Zetsu in their village, and Nao had carried her all the way from their isolated abode to Konoha to seek treatment when their local methods failed. Sakura was quick to act when she heard of a single mother and child at the village gates desperately looking for medical attention. When she examined Nana, however, she noticed that the local methods had done more harm than good, as whatever the villagers used were feeding the spores the White Zetsu left behind in little Nana's body.
Sakura treated Nana for months, working with her chakra to fish away White Zetsu spores that threatened to grow and form a parasitic relationship with her organs, spores that continually fed on the ointments and oils the villagers attempted to push into her body. In that time, she spoke with Nana. Sakura learned of her father and older brother who fought with the Allied Shinobi Force in the war and died in battle, learned of her mother who painstakingly rose to the challenge of raising her on her own, learned of her dreams to become an artist, a police officer, a chef, or shinobi, perhaps all of the above. Sakura had grown fond of young Nana and even helped Nao find an apartment in the village to be within reach of the medical treatment Nana needed.
But today, it crumbled, as the spores reached a parasitic state that could not be stopped. By the time Nao had brought Nana to the hospital, she was near death. Her pale skin clung to her cheeks, her eyes sunken and hollowed. "Within hours, Haruno-san, within hours she became like this!" Nao cried, running her fingers shakily through Nana's short hair. "I don't know why, I don't know why, I don't know why!"
Sakura hurried to Nana's back and placed her hands there to scan her organs with her chakra. Both kidneys had failed, her intestines were inflamed, and her stomach lining had been eaten away by the White Zetsu spores. Her body was now eating itself alive, and it was beyond Sakura's ability to save her. Her hands still on Nana's back, Sakura glanced at Nao's frantic eyes. The mother read the medic's expression that drilled in the reality of the situation when Sakura slowly shook her head.
"No," Nao shuddered, dropping the bucket to the floor and cradling Nana's head to her chest. "NO!"
The screeching cries that escaped the mother bled agony and despair. Within less than a year, she'd lost her husband, her son, and now her daughter to the war. She was going to be alone.
Sadness grabbed a knife and stabbed Sakura's heart. The medic rounded the bed to stand by Nao to rest a hand on her shoulder. By this point, Nana was gone.
Before Sakura's fingers could touch the fabric of Nao's shirt, the mother rose to her feet and grabbed hold of the collar of Sakura's red shirt. "You didn't save her!" she shrieked through her wails. "She's all I had, she's all I had, she's all I had left!"
"Nao-san—"
"NO!"
Two nurses ran into the room at the sound of the mother's anguished screams. One of them saw Nana, unmoving, on the mattress and hurried out of the room. The other nurse ran to Nao's side, put her hands on her arms, and tried to pull her away from Sakura. Nao let go for a moment to fall to her knees, another tormented cry escaping her mouth, only to grip onto the hem of Sakura's skirt.
Suddenly, her cries stopped, her head bowed, and she whispered steadily, "I have nothing left."
In the shower, Sakura lowered her head and crumpled onto the tiles. She felt the hot water pound her head, leaving her hair in thick pink strands. I couldn't help her, she thought, guilt filling her chest with every beat of her heart.
Sakura couldn't release anymore tears. Like Nao, she suddenly stopped, head bowed, and whispered, "She has nothing left."
She sat there for a few moments, picturing Nana's face, letting herself grieve.
Sakura then stood up and began to mindlessly wash her hair, then her body, scrubbing every inch of herself, angrily grating the washcloth until the hot water felt cold against her inflamed skin.
When she was done, she stepped out of the shower and pulled the spare green towel from the bathroom closet and ruffled her hair with it. Despite the quiet that surrounded her, she could still hear Nao's anguished cries. Sakura shut her eyes tightly and hurried to dry the rest of her body and don Sasuke's clothes.
Everything was too large for her, but luckily the drawstring on his sweatpants let her tighten them around her waist. Sakura gathered her clothes and folded them as best as she could, hung the towel next to the one she presumed belonged to the Uchiha, and stepped out of the bathroom.
It was dark in the living room, but she could barely make out Sasuke's form that rested on the bamboo flooring, his silhouette scarcely seen by the moonlight that poured in from the windows. She intentionally left the bedroom door open as she padded in, placed her clothes on the floor next to the bed, pulled back the sheets, and crawled into the plush mattress that seemed to envelop her body as she nestled in. She let out an exasperated sigh as she rested on her back and brought the heels of her hands to her eyes, pressing them gently to soothe their ache.
An hour passed, and by this time, Sakura had tossed herself into every position she could think of to let sleep overtake her. Each position, though, had become uncomfortable within a few minutes and kept her awake. Frustrated, she sat up in the bed and glanced around the room. It was nearly as bare as the living room, but out there had something this room did not.
She pushed down the sheets from her body and swung her legs over the edge of the bed to place her feet down on the floor. She pulled the sheets up over the mattress in an effort to make the bed before grabbing the last pillow and tiptoeing quietly into the living room. He won't mind.
Sasuke was right where she had last saw him. He slept on his back, his right hand resting by his head with his dark locks splayed out as though he was waving at the ceiling above him. As she moved closer to his form, she saw his face lightly illuminated by the moonlight. He looked peaceful, his brow absent of his signature scowl and instead raised in sleepy curiosity. His lips, framed by his sleek and strong jaw, were slightly parted and allowed his slow, quiet breath to escape with each rise and fall of his chest. The blanket he used covered his lower half but left much of his torso exposed. Excess blanket poured off of his body and spread out to his left in cascades of folds, beckoning for Sakura. How even a sleeping Sasuke looks like a god in human form, she would never know.
Sakura rounded to this side of him and knelt down, careful to ensure her contact with the floor was as soundless as possible.
Since she began living on her own, she quickly realized how easily lonely she became. No one to say, "Welcome home," when she walked through the door, no one to offer to cook a warm meal, no one to sit and talk with her after a long day. While one reason she left her family home was to experience the independence she often craved, she found herself wanting to spend time back in their dining room to watch her mother and father banter with each other loudly over a poorly-developed joke the latter would tout. She even resorted to sleeping at Ino's family home to search for some semblance of company from time to time, too embarrassed to admit to her parents that she missed them. She wondered silently how Sasuke did it for so many years of his childhood, living a life of solitude.
She wondered if he preferred it even now.
Sakura placed the pillow an arm's length away from Sasuke's own and laid on top of the blanket, not wanting to take too much advantage of what he intended to use for himself. She rolled onto her side, her back towards him, and exhaled slowly. This is no different from when we slept near each other when we were kids, she told herself. And, oddly enough, she noticed a difference in how her body reacted despite being on a cold, hard bamboo floor: she was relaxed.
Her eyes quickly grew heavy and she closed them without a fight. She couldn't feel Sasuke's body heat, but she could sense his chakra signature radiating familiarly near her, and that in itself was a comfort. She drifted and drifted until sleep finally wrapped its arms around her and let her rest.
*
It smelled good.
It smelled like oak trees and herbs, like a refreshing spring walk.
Sasuke breathed in the aromas deeply through his nose, savoring the scent that gently coaxed him in to consciousness. Eyes closed, he could feel the early morning sun's light trickling through his windows. At some point in the night, he'd rolled over on his left side and felt his neck ache when he attempted to lift his head off of the sunken pillow. He sucked in a deep breath through his nose once more to inhale the enticing scent slowly opened his eyes to face the day.
Pink locks caught his vision first, causing his breath to hitch at the thought of a possible intruder before his shoulders relaxed in awe at the sight. Sakura was on her right side and facing him, a careful distance away, with her arms tucked into her chest. Her face looked undisturbed, peaceful, save for the lightly swollen pink of her eyes from crying the night before. The locks of her hair fell in an impossibly graceful way against her cheeks and caressed her neck, the longer strands resting in front of her as though a soft wind blew at her back. Pink lips were slightly parted to let her breath escape in a slow, tranquil pace. The curve of her body contrasted the sun from the dark clothing he had let her sleep in the night before like rolling hills in the distance. But Sakura was right there, so close.
He moved his lower half slightly to find that the blanket he grabbed was tangled between his legs and underneath the pinkette, and the disturbance caused her to stir. A soft, languid groan escaped her lips as her eyes squeezed slightly in protest to keep from opening to the sun. She slowly stretched out her arms like a lazy cat and he watched as her fingers trailed closer and closer to his side. He felt his heart skip a beat and, in a bit of defensiveness, reached out and grabbed one of her wrists to keep her from making contact with him.
Sakura's eyes squeezed again before squinting open, her emerald irises brighter than dew-shined grass. She blinked a few times and adjusted to the light before glancing at the reason her encroachment was impeded. Then, she closed them once more and murmured, "Good morning, Sasuke-kun."
A shiver went down his spine at the sound of the huskiness in her voice and he let go of her wrist when she was limp in his hand. He wanted to gawk at her, at how calm and accustomed she seemed to be waking up next to him, for the sight was enough for Sasuke to think he had woken from a dream within a dream. "Morning," he said softly. "Was the bed not comfortable?"
Sakura curled her arms back into herself and propped her head up slightly by sliding her hands beneath her cheek while nestling further into the pillow. Eyes still closed, she replied, "It was, but I just couldn't seem to sleep."
"But out here…?" he questioned, his voice saturated in confusion and amusement.
Her shoulders raised ever so slightly in what Sasuke interpreted as a small shrug. "I'm comfortable."
That's hard to believe, he thought. His own neck was a bit stiff from sleeping on the cold bamboo flooring, but he didn't want to question her decision, not after whatever she'd experienced the day before. While he had a nagging case of curiosity, he decided not to question her about what happened and give her space.
A short silence befell the two of them before she softly whispered, "What are your plans today?"
Sasuke realized he hadn't stopped staring at her since he woke up and forced himself to turn away from the pinkette's peaceful face and roll over on his back. He remembered Officer Hiroto's advice about bringing the medic to the station to appeal the misleading report the village women must have made of him. "Errands," he replied, hearing his tone dip flatly as a frown formed on his face. "I…have a favor to ask."
"Hm?"
The smoothness of her hum tickled the back of his neck. He placed his hand on his face, partly to shield the heat rising to his cheeks and partly because he wanted to rub his temples from the stress forming there. "There was a report made against me about being verbally aggressive in the marketplace when I was released."
When Sakura didn't answer, he peeked over and saw her emerald eyes were staring at him, brows furrowed in concern on her pretty face. "The village women," she said with recognition, and he felt some comfort in knowing that she had caught on quickly to the troubling thought. "What can I do?"
Sasuke turned to face the ceiling once more. "The officer said you just need to go to the station and appeal it as a witness."
"Mmm," she hummed, and he could almost feel her shoulders relax back into the flooring. "Of course."
Silence.
"Sasuke-kun?"
He turned his head and saw her gaze had fallen to the space between them, her cheeks dusting with pink. He looked to her expectantly, knowing that Sakura was aware she had attracted his attention.
"Before we do that, could I, um…wash my clothes? I wore them all day at the hospital yesterday and…um…"
He raised an eyebrow at her, not sure why her voice drifted off. When Sakura realized that the Uchiha wasn't going to reply until she finished her thought, she cleared her throat lightly and twiddled her fingers.
"I, uh," she stammered, "don't have any, um…under…underwear…"
Oh.
Sasuke turned away from her and felt his face grow hot. He waved his hand dismissively and said, "The machines are in the closet by the door."
He felt Sakura rise to a standing position and pad her way hastily over to the bedroom. He couldn't help but turn his head to watch her walk away and caught sight of her blue shirt that had an Uchiha crest sewn into the fabric right between her shoulder blades. Her hair was just long enough to brush the crest. Red, white, and pink didn't look so bad together.
Control yourself, he snapped, turning back to the ceiling and pressing his hand to his forehead. After a few moments, he heard the soft humming of an unfamiliar tune from Sakura and made the move to clean up his space. He folded the blanket he was using as best as he could with one hand and carried it and the two pillows over in the direction of his bedroom. In the hall, he and Sakura brushed by each other, her clothes clutched against her chest as she flashed a smile in his direction.
As she worked on washing her outfit from the previous day, Sasuke meandered into the kitchen to warm up the dinner he'd made last night for them to eat for breakfast. Sakura rounded the corner after she let the machines run and cocked her head to the side in curiosity. Without turning to face her, Sasuke nodded back towards the sitting table and said, "Sit."
Moments later, he balanced two plates of the hamburger steak and veggies with rice in his hand and turned to see Sakura scooting her legs under the table in the same seat his mother once used, her back turned towards him. Sasuke couldn't help but take pause to notice how she ran her hand through her silken pink hair before using both to twist and guide it over one shoulder to gently rake her fingers through the ends. The Uchiha crest was exposed on her back once more in his too-big shirt, but it was a comforting sight.
Shaking off the strange feeling that grew in his chest, he made his way around the table and placed the meal in front of her. It took another two trips to grab chopsticks and glasses filled with water before he was able to sit across from her and say in unison, "Itadakimasu." Sasuke listened to her chiming voice, liking the way it bounced off of his lower tones.
He'd never really thought about how much company meant to him in his home, if he could call this place one. Regardless, he hadn't experienced anything that resembled a family since he had defected from the Leaf. At the time, it was Team Seven that felt like kin: their closet-pervert sensei was the closest thing to a father figure he had with Naruto as his loud-mouthed brother. He supposed Sakura was like a sister at the time, mostly because he didn't quite know how to label her, but he had assigned that description with a very large asterisk of exception as the nature of their relationship changed after the second round of the Chunin Exams. It was then that she stopped being so irritating and started behaving like a shinobi. And years later, when the ties with his proxy-father and proxy-brother came undone, he was still perplexed by the difficulty he had with labeling who she was to him. Maybe it's because "friend" or never quite fit, he thought. But what else was she? What else—
"—your family."
Sasuke raised his head, pulled by the upward tone of her voice like a cat to bell. Mind-reading is a Yamanaka skill, last I checked. "What?" he asked, his tone clearly surprised.
"I was wondering if you could tell me about your family."
When Sasuke stared at her blankly for a moment, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Sakura did not actually read his mind, Sakura blushed slightly and looked back down at her food.
"N-never mind," she said, bringing her chopsticks to her mouth and biting them anxiously. "I know it's a touchy subject, but the table made me think to ask."
He studied her for a moment and nodded his head yes. "I don't mind."
Emerald met black and violet, the former glimmering with excitement. "Really?"
"What would you like to know?"
She pressed the ends of her chopsticks to her lip and he watched as they sunk into the smooth curve of pink. She then lifted them up as if to say, "A-ha!" and grinned. "If your parents could describe themselves, what would they say?"
The Uchiha furrowed his brow for a moment in thought. "I guess," he began slowly, "my father would say that he is hard-working, and my mother would say she is humorous." He pushed some of his vegetables on his plate as he pictured Fugaku and Mikoto in his mind. "They wouldn't be wrong. I'd add that my father was hard-working and prideful, and my mother was humorous and warm."
"What made him prideful?"
"Uchiha are all prideful."
"Are you?"
A smirk played on his lips and he surprised himself as he said, "Most definitely," a teasing undertone playing beneath the words.
Sakura grinned at that before putting her chopsticks down and holding her glass with her hands on the table. "But your mother wasn't," she clarified.
Sasuke shook his head and mirrored her actions of putting his chopsticks down before he leaned back on his hand, bending his left knee upward for balance. "She kept my father in place. She'd always been humble and refused to have us grow up with the mentality that men in our family are to be served. We need to contribute because we are no better than our neighbors, brothers, sisters…anyone."
The medic nodded thoughtfully across from him, her eyes trained on his face attentively.
The series of questions she asked were rather enjoyable for him to answer. He told her about the time his mother told him she was a jonin and how he simply couldn't believe someone who was so pretty could be so strong. He told her about how his father would let him step on his back after a long day at work and called it a massage when Sasuke pretended he was a giant stomping through hills. He told her about how his mother was the first person to show him how to throw a shuriken and how his father bought him strawberry ramune to show praise.
Sakura's laugh rang through the living room, and he couldn't help but chuckle at a few of the stories himself. They took a short break to let Sakura throw her clothes in the dyer only for her to hurry back to sit across from him to hear more. And, oddly enough, he didn't mind. He didn't mind at all. In fact, he wanted to tell her more.
Nearly an hour had passed before Sakura and Sasuke's chuckles and snorts died down, his last story about how he stole one of his uncle's chickens particularly amusing. The medic took a sip of water before saying, "They sound like good people."
"They are," he agreed. "The try to be, anyway."
He froze for a moment and felt his throat thicken uncomfortably. I've been talking in the present tense, he realized. He'd been so caught up in the memory of his parents, so much so that the spoken memories felt almost as if they were in the present tense. As fun as it had felt, a pain replaced the amusement in his heart.
"They tried to be," he corrected quietly.
Silence.
"Sasuke-kun," Sakura's voice whispered tentatively.
He shook off the memory of his parents as best as he could and swallowed hard before grabbing his empty plate and holding his hand out for hers. When she obliged, he stacked them up and abruptly rose to take the dishes to the sink to wash. He heard Sakura's footsteps fall nearby to approach him, but he didn't want to feel the vulnerability anymore. "You should get changed," he said quietly. "The station's probably open, now."
A soft hand rested on his shoulder and he turned to look at her jade eyes and warm smile. "It's okay to think about them, Sasuke-kun," she murmured. Sakura then turned to grab her clothes from the dryer before making her way to the restroom to change.
He was sure she wasn't wrong.
It just hurt more than he thought it would.
*
Despite the tension that occurred less than an hour ago, his mood brightened when Sakura stepped out with him into the streets of Konoha. He was grateful for her decision to remain upbeat and, oddly enough, it didn't disturb him in the slightest. It was as if she knew just the right things to do say to transition into something less saddening. I still want to revisit it, he thought surprisingly. He normally wouldn't want to glance back into his past.
Their walk to the police station was peaceful and with minimal glares from villagers, probably due to the medic who walked closely by his side. Her red blouse was slightly wrinkled, but she didn't seem to care to look pristine as she tied her white coat around her waist by the sleeves only to wrinkle them both further. She pressed her hands into the pockets of her tanned skirt and made a proud comment about how her skirt had pockets to begin with—"Can you believe it? A civilian skirt. With pockets. It's amazing!"—while they walked.
When they got up the stairs to the police station and pushed open the door, the same gruff front-desk officer was scribbling away on whatever paperwork he had in front of him. Although, when he heard the door squeak shut, he glanced up and gave a small smile in Sakura's direction and decided to give a nod to Sasuke. "I'll buzz Chief. He'll be out soon."
The two shinobi walked over to the uncomfortable chairs that lined the windows. Sasuke felt her green eyes on him while she physically seemed to squirm in her seat. He glanced over at the medic and raised an eyebrow. Sakura met his gaze and a light blush dusted her cheeks while a small pout formed on her lips.
"What?" he asked, amused.
"You have really good posture."
He snorted at that. "So?"
"We're meeting with the Chief of Police. I think I should improve my own before we walk in there," she reasoned, lifting her chin and rotating her shoulders carefully. Something in Sasuke wanted to reach out and touch her at that comment. Cute, he thought, unimpeded by the snapping he normally directed at himself when these thoughts arose.
Sure enough, the door behind the front desk opened and out came Officer Hiroto, his face a little less smug than the day before. He nodded brusquely at the two of them to follow and the shinobi obliged. With Officer Hiroto leading the way into the hall, Sasuke held the door open for Sakura before following closely behind her. The scent of what he described as a fresh morning walk through the trees wafted into his nose yet again, and he felt his shoulders relaxed, not realizing they were tense.
As Officer Hiroto rounded the desk, Sasuke and Sakura took their seats on the other end on another set of uncomfortable chairs. The burly man sat down and leaned back in his chair as he rifled through the desk drawers. The two shinobi exchanged amused glances at each other when Officer Hiroto stuck his tongue out with effort.
"Here's the form," he muttered, pulling it out onto the wooden surface and snapping it to a clipboard before sliding it to Sakura for her to see. He then looked up and scratched the back of his head sheepishly, no doubt a little bit flustered in the medic's presence, as he'd remained gruff with Sasuke the last time he'd visited. "I should introduce myself, shouldn't I?"
Sakura gave him a warm smile and nodded for him to do so.
"I'm Officer Hiroto. I'm the Chief of the Konoha Military Police. Have been for a little under ten years." He bowed and Sakura mirrored the gesture of welcome. "It's a pleasure to have you here, Haruno-san. Thank you for all that you've done for the village during the last war."
Sasuke raised his eyebrows in surprise and glanced over at his teammate to see a pleasant smile holding on her face. She seems accustomed to this.
"You can call me Sakura," the pinkette assured him. "So this form…?"
"Ah, yes."
Officer Hiroto pushed the clipboard towards her a few centimeters before she reached over and pulled it closer for her to read.
"There was a complaint against Uchiha recently regarding aggressive verbal behavior in the middle of the market street. I explained to him before that I am aware of how the village perceives his previous actions and the way the village has historically regarded his family name. I try to stay as objective as possible in these situations and felt something was off." He nodded toward Sasuke who remained deadpan in his gaze. "The form is just a written statement, more of a formality, to appeal the complaint and you both will be free to go."
"And Sasuke-kun's record?"
"Clean as a…used whistle, but cleaner than if this weren't appealed. I'll admit he has a tough road ahead to gain the villagers' trust. He was lucky you were with him that day."
Sakura nodded slowly and carefully read the document's terms before she reached over for a pen and began writing away.
The three of them sat in quiet for a while, a quiet that Sasuke truly didn't mind. He felt his gaze wander around the room before hovering over the wooden desk. In addition to the used coffee mugs with browned stains on the rim and cigarette butts' stale smoke that drowned out Sakura's sweet scent, he saw a stack of familiar wooden frames sitting face down.
Officer Hiroto followed the trail of the shinobi's gaze and raised his pointer finger in thought. "Ah, yes," he said, scooping what appeared to be five picture frames. "When I inherited this office, I didn't know what to do with these photos. I didn't want to rid of them, so I figured I'd return them to the young heir himself one day." He stood up in a half squat to lean over the desk and motioned for Sasuke to take the stack.
Each frame was about the size of his hand yet thinner than his finger. He flipped over the first frame and felt his mouth fall open slightly at the sight: dark, yet vibrant eyes stared back at him, frozen forever with a gentle smile outlined by a slender, elfish jawline. Long black hair cascaded down shoulders and disappeared into the bottom of the frame. A slim hand was raised in greeting, waving to the creator of the photo, love blooming through the whole portrait through the woman's face.
Mother.
Sakura slid the clipboard back to Officer Hiroto and leaned slightly closer to Sasuke to peek at the photo. "She's beautiful," Sakura breathed.
"Fugaku had those pictures placed around this room," Officer Hiroto said. "I didn't feel right just throwing them away."
Sasuke couldn't bring himself yet to flipping through the other pictures still in his lap. Instead, he bowed. "Thank you," he murmured, hoping yet again that his gratitude was felt through his voice.
After exchanging pleasantries and salutations, the two shinobi set off back into the streets of Konoha.
The walk back to Sasuke's apartment was quiet. If villagers glared at him, he hardly took notice this time around, for he was occupied with the stack of photos he held tightly against his side.
They entered the wide space of his home—if he could really call it one—and Sakura reminded him that he needed another treatment to make up for the one they'd missed the previous night. The two of them settled into the healing routine. Sasuke padded over to the sitting table and peeled his shirt off while Sakura settled herself next to him to send warm pulses of chakra into what was left of his arm to undo the chakra clots.
They sat quietly for the first ten minutes until thought of her birthday crossed his mind. "What are your plans tomorrow?"
Sakura raised her eyebrows at his curiosity, and he felt his face grow warm, realizing how his question was out of character. However, he was genuinely curious about what she planned for the day. "Well," she began, tucking her hair behind her ear briefly before continuing the session, "Ino left me a message at work saying that she's been scheduled to work at the intel headquarters and cancelled on me. I also have the day off from the hospital, so I guess I'm free to my own devices."
He didn't know what made him do it, but he did.
"Do you want to go on a date with me?"
Sakura's chakra flickered, reflecting her surprise. He turned his head to face her. Sakura's emerald eyes suddenly grew impossible to read and Sasuke felt panic rise in his chest, though swallowed to keep it as subdued as possible. Damn that Naruto, he thought. And damn that blond gi—Ino. He probably wouldn't have said anything if they hadn't planted the idea of going on a date with Sakura for her birthday into his head. Retract the offer, retract the offer, retract the offer, retract the—
"Why?"
Why?
"Isn't it what you want?"
Her face grew even blanker. "Do you?"
Sasuke's throat was suddenly dry. Yes, he thought, willing himself to verbalize it. Yes, I do. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Fuck, I probably look like a fish.
A frown formed on her face and she pursed her lips. "Don't do something you don't want to do just because it's my birthday." She let the chakra in her palms dissipate and removed them from his bare skin. She turned to stand but not before Sasuke reached out and grabbed her fingers. She snapped her head back in his direction.
"I do," he said.
She stared at him, her green eyes still blank.
Sasuke swallowed hard once more. "I do. I want to go on a date," he said slowly. "With…with you. It's not just because it's your birthday tomorrow."
Silence.
Say something, he urged. Please.
"Okay."
He released her fingers from his hold and let them fall onto his lap. "Okay?"
Sakura shrugged and her face broke out into a smile. "Yes, Sasuke-kun. I'll go on a date with you."