Title: Ghosts
Summary: He has never experienced loss like this before.
A/N: Ahahahaha, it's been a while since I've written for this series…
Prompt: July 18th / Ghosts
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This is a different kind of loneliness. Sasuke knows all about loss, about the spaces left behind by those dead and gone. It is an ache that throbs and cuts and slowly diminishes until it is a constant reminder, a bum leg, an iron ball dragged with each step.
He has had years to get used to that type of loss and foolishly he thought this would be the same.
Losing someone who's still alive is very different. It's not the absence that hurts but the lack of it. It only takes a moment to find all the traces of Sakura still left in the house: the wilted flowers, a pile of her clothes, her mitts sitting on a shelf. They're all waiting for her to return, to pick up the pieces and turn on the lights.
He has come to an understanding about his family never returning. They can't. But she can and she won't and it's hard to explain away the reason he wakes up alone. It's hard to ignore the fact that he caused this and he could fix it but he won't.
There's too much of her left here. Too much of her on his route to work, on the rooftops he runs on at night. This is where she parts with him, where she spends her afternoons lazing in the sun, her eyes searching for him. Her favourite bakery—he almost spots a flash of pink and has to keep his feet pressed on the gas.
No, losing someone who's still breathing the same air, walking the same streets, is very different. He half expects her to waltz through the door, a smile on her face as she chides him leaving all the lights off.