3. chemistry
Barely a girl of fifteen, and already in the motions of surpassing a living legend.
Sasuke gets the news from a masked courier (because even missing-nin fall victim to gossip) and then from the updated bingo books. He doesn't fail to notice how Konoha's section is thicker than previous years. Not by much, though, which means Suna is lagging in proper threat production. He skips through those, because the only one who matters is the Kazekage, and finds Konoha's finest.
The team formerly known as Team Seven is depicted at the very end. His finger slides along the edge of the page, curving Naruto's new portrait into a caricature, and then, upon catching the next page's, keeps it straight.
He had expected Sakura to grow bored or disillusioned with the shinobi life, he realizes, as he takes in the black-and-white drawing of her likeness. Sakura had been clever, this he remembers, but in the end she had wasted precise chakra control and genjutsu skill. In the battlefield, all he can remember is the way her eyes darkened when she cried, and the warmth of her arms as they held him.
Sakura doesn't look like she cries much anymore. Her tea-sweet gaze has been sharpened to a needle's point, and her estimated missions' total is enough to tell him what Sakura has become. She completely overshadows Naruto in that matter, but then again she stayed behind to reap the benefits: a master of strength, a talented medic, and an accomplished chemist.
Sasuke commits that face to memory, eyes flashing red and brief, and then closes the bingo book.
Color makes a difference.
On paper, staring at the reader, Sakura lacks so much. Ink and pen are not enough to describe what she looks like when she is staring up at him, surrounded by debris and the heat of Sound's desert.
The green of her eyes remains the same as before, even if nothing else does. Crisp, bright seafoam amidst the cherry blossoms, looking at him like he is still the boy he once was. Looking at him like he has never left her behind. A reaction mechanism halted at the first step, despite all the other changes within her.
An intake of breath and the motion of her lips, one second after, and he knows what she is saying even without hearing it. He can almost see the pause, the vacuum before the honorific, and—
He wishes he didn't notice. It proves he is still too weak and young. It proves attachments are as dangerous as Orochimaru made them out to be, and that basic needs do not limit themselves to nourishment and sleep.
Sasuke does not look at her again, that day. But one look is all any Uchiha needs.
He does not always dream of blood and full moons.
In his head, Sakura takes him by the hand. They are twelve again, and her hair is long and berry-scented. Naruto is nowhere to be found, though Sasuke knows, with the certainty of a dreamer, that he is off training with Kakashi.
Sakura leads him amidst the trees of their training grounds, and the sun mottles her skin with white freckles, from her wrist to the pink of her lulling hair. His belly burns just as bright, and this time he is not sure of the why, but he suspects. Confirmation comes in a new shape: when she turns, it is not a child who looks back, but a young girl with wider shoulders, a smaller forehead, a mouth that tastes of mint. The grass stains the red of her shirt when she moves, elbows pushing against the ground so she can kiss him better.
Her hand slips between the open collar of his new clothes, white and purple instead of dark blue, and she is both cool-skinned and scalding. Sasuke lets her, and notices how bright her eyes get when he can see himself in them, shirt shifting down his arms.
She smells like latex dust and chemicals, under the berry mix. He thinks of glass vials, of a serpent's dripping mouth, of his eyes bleeding into red to take her in. Her lips open and his entire focus closes in on the movement, on the tip of her tongue as it flattens the second syllable of his name. Breathy like the breeze sifting through the leaves above them, but infinitely warmer.
His body lurches into hers, without Sasuke asking it to.
She is a catalyst when all he needs is an inhibitor, and it is too much.~He wakes up in damp sheets, eyes wide open. The startling clarity of the ceiling tells him he has activated his sharingan without meaning to, and that might be the worst sign of all. Control is necessary for Sasuke; what does it say of him that he loses it to the ghost of a girl?
Sasuke does not always dream of blood and full moons. But perhaps it would be better if he did.
He thinks of her neck for a long time, after that fateful day on the water.
It is easier to think of how soft her skin was than how heartbroken she looked. It is easier to blame Kakashi's interruption than it is to admit that Sasuke couldn't bring himself to kill her. And, eventually, it's easier to excuse his behavior as way to ensure she won't bother him again, at least outside of his head.
It doesn't happen, of course. Neither teammates nor teacher stop hounding him. Sakura is more cautious now, though, and that seafoam gives way to a darker shade Sasuke shouldn't even remember.
It is the only color in her eyes whenever he's around. An awful, acrid reaction, considering the previous lovely mixture.
Color really makes a difference, he thinks, head swimming from the blood loss.
Sasuke remembers all of the hues in Orochimaru's petri dishes, and how they darkened upon losing effect. Sakura's eyes are still forest-dark as she funnels chakra into their arms. Sasuke can pick out the color even through her tears, and it's a blow stronger than any of her punches.
He tells her he's sorry, then. A last, genuine attempt at preventing his downfall.
Sakura tells him to shut up, calls him an idiot, and cries harder. But her eyes clear up like the sky after a storm, and it's enough for him, for now.