Chapter Eleven
Sasuke can feel them looking. Every Leaf ninja present for the exams, their curious eyes trained on him and Sakura. He's still holding her arm, and she stands in front of him, smiling like he didn't just grab her in public. Underneath that placid expression he can tell she's angry. Maybe because of his outburst, but more likely she's still upset about what he told her the last time they met privately.
Is there something you wanted Sasuke-kun?
There's plenty he wants from Sakura, but little of it that he plans to announce, least of all in front of half their Konoha peers. So he lets her go and says, "No, nothing."
Her smile grows weak and sad. She cradles her arm, as if the place where he touched her is tender, and leaves the stands.
Naruto leans over Sakura's empty seat and asks, "What was that about?"
"It's none of your business," Sasuke says.
Naruto frowns more deeply, his blue eyes narrow and suspicious. "The two of you have been weird lately."
"Hn. If you say so."
He hopes that will dismiss the issue, but this is Naruto, so of course the dobe has more to say. "Well you've barely talked to each other since we got to Kiri. And Sakura-chan's been crying. I saw her with her face all puffy."
"What makes you think that has anything to do with me?"
Naruto snorts and says, "Because it's always your fault when Sakura-chan cries."
That stings, but Sasuke doesn't allow himself to show it. Besides, it isn't anything he doesn't already know. He's no good for Sakura, not really.
Down in the arena, a new pair of genin are readying for their fight. Neither of them is a Konoha ninja, so Sasuke doesn't particularly care about the outcome, but Naruto should be watching every match. "Pay attention to the exams, Hokage."
Naruto grumbles something about mouthy subordinates, but he drops his questioning and accusations.
Sakura comes back just in time to see her other student's fight. It goes quickly. Between the Hyuuga boy's gentle fist technique and the wind jutsu Sakura undoubtedly taught him, he defeats his Suna opponent within minutes.
"Your genin are doing well," Sasuke says.
She nods. Won't look at him, won't speak to him. This isn't the place for it anyway, but he wants to get some kind of reaction. Sakura has never before been indifferent to him, and he thinks it might be the one thing he can't stand from her.
Neither of her students makes it to the last round. Hachiro loses his second fight, while Izumi is defeated in the semi-finals. It's another day before the results of the third test are announced. When Sakura sees that Izumi wasn't promoted to chunin she considers petitioning the examiners, but Kakashi tells her not to bother.
"The results are never overturned," he says. "Don't feel bad, though. None of the girls were passed this year, so there was probably someone on the examination board who just doesn't like kunoichi."
"That really doesn't make me feel any better, sensei. Just angrier."
Sasuke makes no attempt to join her in her cabin on the voyage back to Konoha—which is just as well, since Ino decides to actually use her bed on the return trip. At first Sakura thinks it's because her friend and Shikamaru are having some kind of spat, but Ino's actual reason for staying in their room becomes clear quickly enough.
"So," she says. "What exactly is going on between you and Sasuke?"
Sakura sits up in bed and says, "Nothing. Really."
Ino rolls her eyes. "Oh come on. He caused that scene during the exams and you've been acting off for weeks. Something's up."
"What is it that you think is happening?"
"I don't know," Ino says. "That's why I'm asking. Are you guys having a fight?"
"Sort of," Sakura says.
"Well, what's it about?"
"Nothing, really. Sasuke's just being Sasuke." That's true enough, at least.
Ino lets it go, finally, and a few minutes later they say goodnight to each other. Sakura hugs her pillow and turns from side to side, but she can't sleep. She lies awake for hours, eyes closed against the dark, willing her mind to calm. All she can think about is Sasuke, and the feeling is so reminiscent of her lovesick genin days that she's angry with herself. She's not a little girl anymore, and if Sakura has learned anything over the last few months it's that Sasuke isn't nearly as unreachable as he likes to pretend. So she gets up, slips out of her cabin, and walks down the hall to the room she saw him retire to earlier in the night (the only single besides Naruto's).
She knocks softly and waits. Except when he's in the grip of a nightmare, Sasuke is a light sleeper, as most shinobi are, and she knows he'll hear. Sure enough, he answers a moment later. Stands in the doorframe, shirtless and scowling. So beautiful that Sakura's certainty wavers and she wonders if she has the strength to do what needs to be done.
He doesn't say anything, just steps aside and lets her into his cabin. Sakura stands a few feet away from him and hopes he doesn't try to touch her. If he touches her, her resolve will crumble.
"I need to talk to you," Sakura says.
Sasuke leans against the wall. "Then talk."
She takes a deep breath, opens her mouth, then closes it. Confessing her love was easier and facing Kaguya was less terrifying than this. "I can't do this anymore," she says. "I can't keep seeing you. It—it hurts too much." You hurt me too much.
Sasuke's face is carefully blank, devoid of expression. He nods.
"Don't you have anything to say?" Sakura asks.
"It wouldn't make a difference if I did."
That isn't true, though. There are a dozen things he could tell her that would make her stay. "Right. I'll just go then. Sorry if I woke you."
She starts to leave, but Sakura doesn't make it halfway to the door before Sasuke turns her around, his hands gripping her shoulders almost too strongly. For a moment there's just silence and stillness between them, and she wonders what exactly it is that he means to do.
Then Sasuke kisses her, and his mouth is nearly desperate on hers, possessive. He pushes her to the bed, down onto her back, and presses his body against her body, until they're aligned from lips to tangled legs. He pulls up her nightdress, and Sakura shouldn't let him, but she does. She wants this, wants him, will want him for the rest of her life, and if she can't have forever then she'll settle for tonight.
"This doesn't change anything," she tells him, if weakly, because he deserves to know she means what she said.
Sasuke kisses her neck, her shoulder. Cups her breast hard enough to hurt just a bit, and maybe his roughness is a small reprisal, but when he puts a hand between her legs he's as gentle as ever. Sakura can tell the difference in when he touches her to make her come and when he does it just to get her wet—she's learned his body and she understands this part of him, if little else—and so she isn't surprised when he stops just as the feelings mount and become overwhelming.
"Please," Sakura says, because all of her aches for him, and she doesn't care how he has her as long as he does.
He turns her onto her stomach and a moment later she feels his cock pressing against her, then stretching her, filling her, and she's missed this. It's been weeks since they made love, and it's almost too much to stand. She's glad she isn't facing him, that he can't see the hot tears sliding down her cheeks. By the time he makes her come once, twice—he goes slow, takes his time, drawing it out—she's sobbing half from pleasure and half from grief. She'll never have him again (and really she never had him at all).
When it's over, Sasuke pulls away, falls to the place beside her, breathing hard. He leans his head back and she sees the long line of his throat, pale and perfect as the rest of him. Then he looks at her, reaches over and touches her damp cheek, wipes away the wetness there. He frowns and says, "At the exams, Naruto told me I always make you cry. I guess he was right."
Sakura turns onto her side, away from him. "Naruto has made me cry plenty too, so he didn't have any business saying that to you."
Sasuke slides an arm around her waist and pulls her closer, so that they're pressed together, nothing separating them but her wrinkled nightdress. He kisses the top of her head and says, "I'm sorry that I hurt you."
She bites back fresh tears. Sasuke's apologies are few and far between, and she hardly expected to hear one tonight. Sakura knows she needs to go now, because if she stays any longer she might relent and take back every word she spoke earlier. So she sits up and his hand falls first to her hip, then away, and at the loss of contact she feels empty and alone, even though he's still here next to her.
She stands, straightens her nightdress, looks over her shoulder at him—naked, tousled, impossibly handsome. "I'll see you tomorrow."
He doesn't say anything; he never says anything when it truly matters.
She leaves, takes the stairs up to the deck, to fresh air and midnight sky. When she walks to the bow she finds someone there already: Naruto, elbows at rest on the railing, looking out over the ocean. He turns to face her and Sakura sees that he's been crying too.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
He scrubs at his tear-stained face and says, "I just really miss Hinata and the baby. It's been weeks, yanno? Kushina's probably not even gonna remember me."
Sakura puts her hand on Naruto's shoulder (and she has to reach up because he's so much taller than her now). "Little girls don't forget their fathers as easily as that, Naruto."
He nods and wipes his cheeks with the sleeve of his pajamas. The gesture is so boyish and so much her friend that she has to smile.
"What about you?" Naruto asks. "Why are you out here?"
"Couldn't sleep," she says. That isn't a lie, at least, if not quite the full truth.
"Well, let's keep each other company, yeah?" he asks.
"Yeah," Sakura says.
They talk about how Kiri was too wet and the chunin exams were unfair. "Your girl should have passed," Naruto agrees.
Sakura leans over the railing and watches the ship knife through the rippling sea. "Well, I'm sure it will make Izumi feel better when I tell her that the Hokage himself thinks she should have been promoted."
They keep talking into the early hours of the morning, and simply being in Naruto's presence makes her feel a bit better. Like giving up the man she loves was strong instead of stupid, and maybe she can keep going after all.
Just as the sun starts to rise, Sakura says goodnight to Naruto and returns to her room. Pads across the floor with light, graceful steps, careful not to wake Ino. She gets beneath the covers of her bed and finds that her mind is just as full with thoughts of Sasuke as it was when she left.
He sits atop the Hokage monument in a nook between the effigies of the First and the Second. It's a sunny day in Konoha, the sky bright and blue, and from here Sasuke has a plain view of the entire village. Green leaves and colorful roofs, shinobi and civilians milling through the streets. He stays there, ignoring a message to report to Naruto's office, from afternoon to sunset, and then later. Until the shadows stretch across the ground and bleed into the darkness of night.
Yesterday he returned to an empty apartment, dusty with neglect. So he swept the floors and washed the sheets and polished the furniture. He made himself a simple meal of soup and rice and ate in the relentless silence of his solitary home. Then he laid on his back in a bed that smelled of laundry detergent and regretted washing away whatever hint of Sakura may have been clinging to the linens.
Tonight he sits on top of his small world and watches the moon brighten against a bruised purple sky.
He didn't think it would come to this. He didn't think Sakura would leave him. But he pushed her too far and now she's gone and he's alone again.
Sasuke makes his way back down to the nearly deserted village and wanders the streets. Tsukino's is still open, and although a part of him craves a drink and the company of people, he decides against going inside.
He follows the familiar, rebuilt roads of the too-new Konoha. Sasuke passes the hospital where Sakura could be working a night shift. The bench where she confessed her love for the second time in their lives. The restaurant where they once had breakfast together (not a date, he'd impressed upon her at the time) after a night spent making love. By the time he circles around to Sakura's street, Sasuke realizes he's been haunting the steps of a relationship that's over.
Her window is shuttered and dark; she isn't home.
Sasuke scales the nearest building and jumps from rooftop to rooftop until he reaches his own apartment. Inside, it's as resoundingly quiet and utterly empty as the night before. He slices a tomato in half and eats both pieces. Cleans his weapons. Tries reading a novel, but he has never had much patience for this pastime. Like so much else, he sacrificed his literary skills to prepare himself as a shinobi. He puts the book away and doesn't bother marking his place.
He shouldn't have skipped his meeting with Naruto. He should have demanded a new mission. Something useful to fill the hours. Tomorrow he'll report to the Hokage's office and request a new assignment. Preferably something S-rank, difficult, and dangerous. If he succeeds, his work will benefit the Leaf, and if he doesn't—well, there are worse things than giving his life for Konoha, like Itachi.
Later, after he falls asleep, Sasuke sees his brother. These nightmares are always drawn in shades of red and black, Tsukuyomi colors. (And what is a dream, really, if not a genjutsu of sorts?) He runs from the bodies of his dead mother and dead father. He runs after the disappearing fragments of his resurrected Nisan. And then he sees her, lying in a crimson pool, so still she barely looks real. When he wakes, terrified and alone, shouting into the shadows of his barren bedroom, it's Sakura's name on his lips and Sakura he reaches for, before he remembers that she isn't there. That she won't be there ever again.
Sasuke stands before the Hokage's desk, tired and angry. "I want a long mission. S-rank if you have one, A-rank if you don't."
"You'll get what I give you," Naruto says. He rifles through the papers on his perpetually cluttered desk. "Here. You might remember this target, Hamasaki Haru, from your mission with Fujimoto."
It would be hard to forget Hamasaki. The young man is a murderer who runs a prostitution ring out of the city of Tosogawa. He was an apprentice of Fujimoto's, so he has the skills of a ninja, but without a hidden village's formal training.
"I'm surprised you haven't taken care of Hamasaki already."
"Not for lack of trying," Naruto says. "After you killed Fujimoto he left Tosogawa and laid low. But now our intel says he's back and running things."
Sasuke looks over the mission directive. He's to infiltrate the Golden Lotus brothel by selling a kunoichi in disguise to Hamasaki.
"The assassination will be the kunoichi's, but you're going to have to provide support and make sure she gets out of there in one piece," Naruto says. "We have it on good authority that Hamasaki likes to—well, to try out new girls before he sells them—so she should have an opportunity to get him alone and make the kill."
"I'll take it." Most of the harlots in Hamasaki's brothels were there against their will, and Sasuke would like nothing more than to see him pay for his crimes. "When do we leave?"
"As soon as I find a kunoichi willing to take this mission. Just between you and me, so far Hanabi is the only one who volunteered, but I turned her down. Hinata would have killed me if I sent her baby sister on this one." Naruto rubs his face and says, "Anyway, come back tomorrow morning. Hopefully I'll have found somebody by then and you can leave together."
He returns to the Hokage's office at eight o'clock the next day, and Naruto's assistant tells him to take a seat in the hall. "Hokage-sama is debriefing another shinobi," she says. "Please wait here."
Sasuke sits in an unforgiving metal chair and waits to see who his mission partner will be. It's a full fifteen minutes before the door to Naruto's office opens. The Hokage steps out, smiling brightly. "Good news, Sasuke. Sakura-chan's coming with you. Between the two of you guys, Hamasaki and his people don't stand a chance!"
Sakura gives him an apologetic smile. "Guess we're working together this time, Sasuke-kun," she says.
He turns to Naruto, and for the first time in a long time he's truly angry with his friend. "What the hell are you thinking, sending her on this mission?"
Naruto frowns, but before he can open his mouth, Sakura says, "Hamasaki Haru isn't even a real shinobi, and I'm twice the fighter he is anyway."
"What's that you said to me before my mission with Fujimoto? About not underestimating my opponents?" Sasuke asks.
Sakura blushes, but she stands firm. "I can handle myself."
Sasuke ignores her and speaks to Naruto instead. "She's a medic-nin. The best in Konoha, maybe the best in any hidden village. Why risk her on this?" He steps closer and says, more fiercely, "Do you really want Sakura alone with a man like Hamasaki?"
"I'm more than a medic-nin," Sakura says. She sounds as furious as Sasuke feels. "Besides, I'll kill Hamasaki before he has a chance to touch me."
"I'm trying to protect you!" He thinks of the dream he had: Sakura, bleeding and lifeless, lost to him.
"Well I'm not yours to protect!" she shouts. "And I'm going on this damn mission whether you like it or not. Isn't that right, Naruto?"
"If you give her this assignment you really are an idiot," Sasuke says.
Naruto smiles, but it isn't his usual happy expression. There is something harsh and fox-like in the lines of his grin. "Sakura is the best kunoichi for this job," he says. "And she's gonna take out Hamasaki, with or without you there to help. Do I need to find another shinobi to support her?"
Dobe, Sasuke thinks, but all he says is, "No, Naruto. You don't."
Author's Note: Hello, everyone! I continue to be blown away by the number of people who are kind enough to leave me reviews, favorite this story, or follow it. I clearly have a great bunch of readers, and I appreciate all the encouraging, thoughtful comments. So thank you so much to everyone who's been giving me feedback. And thank you to my incredible and clever betas, tall-girl-in-a-small-world and uchihasass, for keeping this fic so well-edited.