if you can't hold on, hold on
Chapter 5
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Naruto does a lot of yelling. On the roof, in the hospital room, through the whole discharge process, on the way home to the apartment and as he makes instant ramen.
"It doesn't matter how annoying you are, she's never going to like you back," Sasuke says, just to be bitchy. He refuses to be chastened. "Moron," he grumbles into the plastic cup.
Naruto's chopsticks slam against the table with a clatter. He glares at the boy sitting across from him for an entire minute before picking up the cup of ramen and downing it in wide gulps and chews with his mouth open, without breaking eye-contact. Damnit. Naruto knows he hates it when he does that. Frustrated, Sasuke peels the container top the rest of the way off and throws it at Naruto. It spins like a shuriken and hits him edgewise- right on the forehead. Naruto pulls his off and tries to throw it the same way. It flutters between them, caught in a draft and settles on the floor.
"I'm not picking that up," Naruto declares.
"Yeah, you are."
"No I'm not!"
The rest of the night is lost to bickering. Sasuke ends up picking it up. The pair go to bed angry, on opposite ends of the same room. But at least their minds are taken off the empty one, just across the hall.
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In his sleep, Sasuke rubs his shoulder. He has dreams of a brand on fire and snake eyes staring out of the darkness.
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The boys have no idea where Sakura is staying.
That day on the roof, after Sasuke said what he said, she'd turned a bright, furious red. Her cheeks puffed out and she clamped her mouth shut over an apoplectic shriek. She stomped her foot and stalked to the edge of the roof and walked right off it. It was an admirably casual kind of showmanship that would have made Kakashi proud.
Naruto panicked, rushed to the ledge and leaned over, apparently forgetting her skill at walking up walls. She stomped all the way down, then down the street, out of sight.
She didn't come home that night.
At first, Sasuke's sure she'll calm down eventually. Naruto is doubtful. Soon, Naruto's worry infects Sasuke.
Sakura's never been angry with him before. Even when he'd done things that probably deserved her anger. She was more likely to redirect her anger towards Naruto. Maybe that's why he never thought of her as an angry person before? His teammate always bore the brunt of it. He wonders if he would have preferred her anger to her fawning. He's mildly jealous of Naruto- a feeling more familiar than he'd care to admit.
It's terrible, no one can ever know, but on some level, Sasuke likes her better this way. She doesn't bother him or cry over stupid things.
Sakura doesn't come home the second night either.
Without her, Sasuke doesn't have the energy to fight Naruto on his desire to have cup noodles for dinner again. Usually, they'd gang up on him and Sakura's mothering would leave room for Sasuke to sneak something green onto each of their plates. Sakura hates most vegetables. She's such a hypocrite, but she doesn't have any room to argue once they've shamed Naruto.
That night, Sasuke lies awake, listening to Naruto's snores. He's feeling guilty. What he said wasn't okay. At all. It was horrible. He'd kill someone for less. Unless it was Naruto, then he'd probably just beat him to a pulp. He doesn't even know how he'd react to Sakura saying such a thing. Maybe it's because it's beyond imagining. She never would.
He can't apologize though. Firstly, because he doesn't know how. Secondly, he doesn't think he was wrong.
Sakura suddenly thinks she understands him and can tell him how to feel and react to things. She has a taste of pain and thinks they're the same. Sure, he'd thought about it… a little. When she was still having really bad days, he'd think about how he'd felt, and what he wishes someone would have done for him. He tries to sympathize, but really he just pities her.
She seems mostly fine now though. She's been getting better. He wonders if she misses them because she never talks about them. He doesn't know how often she thinks about them.
What he does know is that she's not like him. Her every waking thought isn't consumed by their shortened lives, by their absence, by vengeance. She keeps going about her life. She goes on, while he can't.
And that's why Sasuke knows, with the conviction of a boy who's already seen too much of the world and understands very little of it, that her pain is nothing to his.
Which is why he isn't sorry.
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Sakura moves back into the apartment on a Thursday afternoon.
Ino follows her in, carrying a cardboard box, head on a swivel. "I can't believe I'm in Sasuke-kun's apartment."
"Yeah," Sakura agrees uncomfortably, insincere. She never really thought about it before. Once, this would have been the biggest deal in the world, but she's been living with him for a month. She's seen him in his PJs. "Anybody home?" She calls.
Ino drops the box on the coffee table in the living room and wanders around, inspecting the place the way Sakura's mom might have. She tests the chairs for wobbles, straightens the pictures and knickknacks on the shelves.
Those didn't use to be there. Sasuke used to have serial killer walls. But Naruto brought his weird frog chachkes. And Sakura brought pictures.
Ino pauses at one of the two of them. Sakura doesn't remember for sure, but she supposes one of her parents must have taken it. It's so weird to think that Ino's the only friend who ever met her mom and dad. She remembers them. She loved them. "I miss them," Ino confesses, seemingly reading her mind.
She's been doing that a lot the last few days, it's one of the reasons she has to get away. Sakura loves Ino, but she knows too much.
Ino keeps trying to get her to cry, she thinks she's bottling it up. She thinks she knows what Sakura needs, but Sakura is finished crying. "I miss them too," she answers, resenting this performative gesture. Of course she misses them. What's your point Ino?
Sakura has cried a lot this past month. Now the tears are dried up and her heart is cracked in anger; a formless, thick, glutinous anger. And no outlet. Sometimes she doesn't know how to feel anything else. It's like it's taken up all the space inside her that used to belong to other things. There's no room for sadness or crushes or drive. There's just this.
She could leave, but she can't afford to live on her own. She doesn't have any savings. The paltry sums she received for missions went towards the lease on the house. When she'd graduated from the academy and the family finally had a third income, the Harunos had moved from an apartment to a house. And since… the attack, there hadn't been any missions available.
She couldn't stay with Ino forever.
And in a way, Sasuke's apartment had become her home. She misses her team as much as she resents them. There they went, going off and getting strong, while she stayed the same useless baby she was before. Except in a whole new angry flavour of orphan.
She's so tired of being a baby. She's tired of crying. She's even a little bit tired of living.
"Thanks, Ino," she says in a hollow tone. She's trying to hint that she should leave. Sakura needs her energy for when the boys come home and find her there.
"No problem forehead," if there's one thing Ino's bad at, it's reading the room. She comes closer and Sakura opens her arms for a hug goodbye, but the other girl surprises her. She pushes her hair back. It's only now that she realizes she hasn't trimmed it. She's overdue by two months.
"What?"
"I dunno, you just don't look like yourself, that's all," Ino sighs, "Mmkay, bye Forehead. I gotta go. When you wanna let me know what the drama is, give me a call."
"There's no-!"
"Save it." She waves over her shoulder and closes the front door behind her.
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Naruto and Sasuke get in around eight o'clock.
Sasuke puts his set of keys on the hooks he'd bought for them after Naruto lost his keys for the tenth time in a week.
The pair are taken aback to find Sakura sitting on the couch, wool blanket thrown over her head, staring unseeing at the television as the news plays. She looks up as they come in. There's something in her eyes that neither can place. Nothing is better. There's a lot of hurt and anger here. This is a home of unresolved issues, lost children and trauma. But each other is all they have. And Naruto makes everything easy.
He vaults the armrest of the sofa and gets comfy right beside her, stealing a third of the blanket and throwing it over his head too. "What are we watching?"
"Haven't decided yet."
"Oh cool, let's watch the Mutant Firefighting Turtle show."
"There's no way that's a real show."
While they squabble, Sasuke mills around the kitchen, going through the motions of making tea like a ghost, caught behind a veil, unable to join the living.
"No fair, why do you always wanna watch boring stuff!"
"The Nature Channel isn't boring!"
"Sasuke wants to watch the turtle show, that's two against one."
"You're a moron, go read a book." Just listening makes him feel a little more alive.
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For the first time in days, Tsunade emerges from Hokage tower. She brings one file on her walk. As she reads, her feet take her down the familiar route to the hospital. She helped build this place decades ago. It feels weird to be back.
She looks up at the beige stone structure and purses her lips. There's a trail of gouges up the wall, the size of a young girl's feet. Cracks radiate outward. It's easily fixed, a little plaster, a coat of paint, but what it means is a long-term headache.
She glares at the file. "This team will be the death of me, I can already tell."