GM: ^_________^ so I reeeeally like this one, and for the first fic I've ever done from Sakura's POV, I'm rather proud of myself.
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The world is made of concrete forms, facts and stipulations and rules set down by parents, teachers, patriarchs. Sakura's world is made of buildings, her home, the academy, the lean-to stalls of the farmer's market in between the solid restaurant and shopping establishments. Konoha is her world, and her world is surrounded by a giant wall.
As a child that wall was all encompassing, the world beyond a mystery seldom glimpsed. But she wondered, and she sat eagerly at her grandfather's side and listened to stories of his youth, as a shinobi who traveled beyond. That was, for a long time, her synonym for everything she didn't know. Beyond.
When she was nine Iruka took the class on a field trip to the outskirts of the village, they traveled through an underground tunnel meant for escapes. She was told that if the village were ever attacked, this is where she would go. In the weeks that's followed she heatedly imagined an invasion- her and her class mates, terrified, would file through the dark tunnels, holding hands and bundles of supplies from the school- food and blankets, first aid kits. And then they would be out- forced to explore the surrounding forest, perhaps camping in a glade of ancient maples, hidden between roots like the toes of giants.
That particular fantasy occupied her for months.
When she joined team seven at the age of twelve, and they were assigned their first real mission, she had been ecstatic. When Naruto made an unprecedented amount of noise and tugged her sleeve in excitement, she'd struggled not to grin, his enthusiasm contagious. It had taken all of her will power not to run on ahead of them. It was only when they had been walking for several hours, and her feet were tired and she no longer cared whether their client liked her or not, that she began to feel nervous.
The word beyond came back to her, and despite her curiosity, there was doubt. "Kaka-sen…" she had asked, trying to keep the apprehension from showing. "Will there be other shinobi in the place we are going?"
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After that her world expanded until the wall that held it all in was an ocean, and the outskirts an unforgiving desert. At the center of everything stood Konohagakure. At a nameless intersection, a plain, two story house. Inside her parents waiting for her with open arms. Sakura's world was made of concrete forms.
But some of them, some of them hovered at her peripherals, ambiguous shapes that she never dwelt on. One of those shapes, one that in later years would obsess her, was the old Uchiha compound. When she was nine and Sasuke was re-introduced to the class after several months in the hospital, she glimpsed the compound and understood that that was where he lived. For years after that she assumed in an unconscious manner that Sasuke had never stopped living there. So, when one night after a grueling D-class mission, she walked Sasuke to his house, she was startled to find him living in a filing box apartment with gray paint and gray windows and gray gray gray. He climbed the few steps to his door, a ground level one, and gave her a dismissive look. It was a look that barely veiled desperation and uncertainty. As though he just didn't know how to tell her to go away. As though he didn't know she could tell how much her presence bothered him.
She had been so shocked, remembering during their silent walk together as she noted that they were in the wrong district, it had simply never occurred to her before that he lived alone in a tiny apartment somewhere.
The next day she went to their usual meeting place, the red bridge before the training grounds. Naruto was the only one there. She wanted to ask him if he had known about Sasuke, but she felt it would be a strange thing to ask right out. "Hey Naruto, what kind of house do you live in?"
"Eh?"
"I mean, I'm curious, you know? I think if we're a team, we should know these things about each other."
"Oh," he grinned widely and she desperately hoped he didn't interpret it as a come on. "I live in an apartment, it's just a block away from Ichiraku's! Isn't that convenient? I can go get ramen almost whenever I want."
For a second time she was shocked. But then, Konoha didn't have an orphanage, she'd know if they did. She had never thought of Sasuke as an orphan. He had a family, they were just… dead. Naruto was the orphan- the snotty brat with no manners and only three sets of clothing. Why did they live in apartments?
Why, when she had a house, and a mom and dad waiting for her to come home?
"Naruto?"
"What?"
"I'm sorry."
"Heh? What for?"
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She never asked Sasuke about the compound, but she heard rumors over the years. People said it was haunted, that ritual sacrifices had been performed there. People said it was completely empty except for the main house, which was lit up once a year on the anniversary of the massacre. If she listened, she could hear all sorts of things about the place, and she wondered what kept the Elders from tearing it down to make room for a new police station, or houses, or stores. She wondered why Sasuke didn't live there, or even Naruto, or maybe all the orphans of the village. And years later, when Sasuke had gone away and everyone knew deep down that he was never coming back, that's when she started to hear people talking again.
They spoke about renovating it, filling the area in with apartments.
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