Forgotten Life

Chapter 7- Tears and a revelation

Sakura had been talking for ten minutes now and Sasuke just sat beside her on the couch listening in silence. He did not reply or make any sound, not even when she mentioned how his brother murdered not only his mother and father, but the entire Uchiha clan, his family. He only showed interest when she talked about his treatment of she and Naruto and that day of his departure.

"It was a cold, dark night and...you were leaving. You had been made an offer by Orochimaru, an ex-Leaf ninja. He'd promised you great power, great enough to defeat Itachi, and you...being overcome with that endless desire to have your revenge...you accepted his offer. That night...well, a couple years later we met you again and you'd changed. Naruto had promised...to bring you back to Konoha but when we met up again, you attacked us both. That was when...my faith in you...started slipping."

"Wait, that night? What happened?" Sasuke questioned. Sakura cursed herself for making her tension on the subject show.

"N-nothing okay! I-I don't want to talk about it," Sakura said, shutting down on him. She couldn't talk to him about that. She could not tell him how much he hurt her, or the feelings that went through her when he'd came up behind her and...No! she just couldn't talk to the culprit himself, the very reason that she'd been unable to have a steady relationship with anyone for the past eight years.

Sasuke looked at her sympathetically. What did I do to you Sakura-chan? he thought to himself as he noticed the tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

Suddenly, a knock came at the door and Sakura jumped up before Sasuke could and unlocked it. Before Naruto could come inside, she had escaped to her room, closing the door behind her.

Sasuke watched her go, and figured that he might as well talk to Naruto now. He opened the door and let Naruto inside and the two of them sat down on the couch and began to talk about the situation.

Meanwhile, Sakura was in her room. She couldn't hold in the tears anymore and she didn't want Sasuke to see her crying. At least, not this sort of crying. She could still hear the two guys in the other room talking so she tried to stay quiet. She didn't want either of them to come in and see her this way.

She'd tried to be strong, tried to hold in all of her emotions as she spoke the truth to Sasuke but when she got to that part...she just couldn't hold it in any more.

It was the day after the anniversary of Sasuke's departure. Eight years of tears, hurt, and incurable wounds. These wounds ran deep, the blood they produced seeped out even now after it had all this time to heal.

Sakura wondered sometimes if she would ever heal from the wounds Sasuke had left her with.

Images filled her mind again. This time there was no rain, just the silence in the air, silence that was in ways worse than the rain. Sasuke stood there motionless and waiting for her to state her cause. She'd stopped him but now she was fighting for the right words. "Sasuke-kun! Wait, please! Take me with you!" she said on impulse.

"No." Sasuke turned away from her and began walking away from her again.

"Please Sasuke-kun, I-I'll stay out of your way, just take me with you!" she begged. She was already crying and she cursed herself for being so weak in front of Sasuke.

"Sakura, you do not belong where I am going," Sasuke said turning to face her. This was different. He'd never said this before.

"W-what do you mean?" she asked, shocked.

"This journey is mine alone and the places that I am going,...you do not need to be there."

"But I want to be with you, Sasuke-kun!" she said running until she was closer to this riddle-speaking Sasuke.

"No Sakura. You will only get hurt and...you'll distract me. You are...too weak to go with me," Sasuke said, straining to say those hurtful words.

Sakura knew this was not what Sasuke had told her all those years ago. It was as if now, she was realizing his true meaning.

The tears went away and suddenly she opened her eyes and found herself awake once more. That was it, Sasuke had kept her away because she was someone close to his heart. It was the same thing with Naruto. They had been his closest friends and because of that, he had to leave them behind.

He would have never admitted this to anyone but now, Sakura knew it to be the truth. "Thank you." Those were his last words to her before he left. She remembered proclaiming his love to her and he'd seemed unfazed but as he knocked her out, he'd whispered those two simple words in her ears. Now she understood them, and because of that, she could move on.

"Thank you for loving me, and supporting me."

"So you see Sasuke, you really hurt Sakura when you left. She begged me to go find you, she made me promise that I would look for you, but eventually she stopped caring...or so it seemed. When I became Hokage, she forgave me of my debt to her and tried to move on. She even tried dating but that's when I knew it wasn't over for her. The pain that she carries in her heart still remains," Naruto said, finishing his story of Sasuke's departure.

Sasuke looked down at his lap and tried to remember doing those things to Sakura. He could imagine it but his memory still failed him. He wished that he could remember his words so that he could reverse them now.

Still, a darker part of his mind told him to be angry with Naruto for lying to him about his past. Why didn't he just tell him the truth to begin with? Sasuke was so confused right now that he did not know how to respond to Naruto's explanation.

Sakura's bedroom door cracked open at just that moment, saving Sasuke from having to respond. Both he and Naruto turned to see Sakura, her eyes red from recently-dried tears. She showed no other signs of the struggle that her mind had been in as she walked over to the two men and sat between them on the couch.

Naruto was silent for the longest time, and so were Sasuke and Sakura. None of the three knew what to say to each other. Sakura was waiting for one of them to question her about her tears, and Naruto and Sasuke were too afraid of upsetting her to say anything.

Naruto questioned her with his gaze and she responded with a calm tone, "I'm okay. I understand it all so perfectly now."

"Sakura-chan?" Sasuke asked timidly from her left side.

"It was not my journey to make, only yours, Sasuke-kun. And I...I forgive you," Sakura said as she took Sasuke's hand in hers and squeezed it gently.

-End-