Minna san~ I give you the epilogue. Hurray for mixed up memories! Forgive me if the chronological order is terrible. I wrote them all and then realized I should put them in some sort of order but got lazy and didn't really double check after reshuffling ;P
-Note- Sakura's Birthday- 28th March -White day- 14th March
I hope you can enjoy the last part of this story~
"Pass me those blue ones Forehead," called one girl.
"Yeah, yeah, here you go," replied the other, flicking her cherry blossom pink hair and handing the first girl four blue flowers for the bouquet she was making.
"Who orders something other than roses on White Day?" complained the blonde girl as she struggled to find a good way to arrange the blue with the red. "Ugh.. This is stupid."
Eighteen year old Sakura sighed a little at Ino's frustrated mutterings but the exasperated expression was soon replaced with a smile as a man walked through the flower shop's door, his entrance announced by the cheerful ding of the bell on the door. The fact that he was holding a package that looked a lot like chocolate made her even happier.
His cheeks were flushed slightly, his thick lashed eyes gazing at her adoringly, making her blush too. He had been trying to be more open about them after the little talk they had had where she made him drop the "san" off her name but seeing those eyes in a normal, everyday place still took a little bit of getting used to. To her, him in his heavy ninja vest, goofy green spandex and fuzzy orange leg warmers looking at her with that sort of warmth was breathtaking.
"Happy White Day Sakura, I love you," he said sweetly, kissing her gently right there in the middle of the floor in plain view and slipping the present into her hands. "I would have got you roses too but I knew you were helping out here this morning so I couldn't," said Lee sheepishly, a deep blush now spreading over his cheeks at his own boldness. Sakura beamed.
"It's more than alright Lee." She was light with happiness. So lucky to have him, she thought. Lee was perfect for her. He was gentle and understanding. He didn't demand that she give up watching over Sasuke and Naruto and knew the importance of a team. He always looked happy to see her and spoilt her rotten. He made her so happy she didn't know what to do with herself when he looked at her or told her he loved her. Any girl would be jealous of what she had. Which reminded her...
"What about you Ino? Expecting any White Day presents from anyone in particular?" teased Sakura, turning to her rival and waving the chocolate proudly with one hand on her hip. The pretty blonde girl stopped arranging flowers, pouted and replied with, "just Shikamaru and Chouji, I made them chocolate on Valentines Day so I'm hoping they'll give me something back. Shikamaru is pretty lazy and Chouji might eat it before it gets to me though..."
"No one else?"
"None of your business Forehead Girl."
"I was just curious."
"Yeah whatever, you're making fun of me"
"Ah, there's Naruto kun and Sasuke san," said Lee suddenly, pointing out the window, moving things along before Sakura and Ino started another fight. The two girls moved to look out at the village that was alive with markets because of the holiday. Pink and red was everywhere. And indeed, there Sakura's two team mates were.
Sasuke all tall and long, now much taller than her and with a head over Naruto walked in smooth, elegant strides. His hair was still unruly and perfect at the same time, his pale face long and beautiful. Today he wore three quarter grey pants and an open necked blue shirt, strangely free of his Uchiha crest. He wasn't wearing his forehead protector. Right now, as he walked slowly on Naruto's left, his face turned so that those observing from the Yamanaka flower shop could see his features, his dark eyes were warm and soft while he listened to Naruto's talking.
Next to him, Naruto, one head down was dressed in his orange pants and black t shirt, his forehead protector hanging lazily around his neck and bouncing slightly as he walked, a certain spring to his steps. He turned his face their way to look at something and Sakura smiled at the huge smile he wore, his brilliantly blue eyes shining and jumping this way and that, his mouth still moving even as he faced away from Sasuke. Even now when he was all grown up, Naruto still found childish delight in the big village holiday markets.
"They look happy," noted Lee with a smile. Sakura nodded her head in agreement and Ino commented playfully, "I wonder if they'll both be buying White Day presents or if Naruto gave him something on Valentines Day." All three ninja laughed.
"So, you're two weeks eighteen, a proper adult. Has it been a happy ending to childhood for you and Team 7?" asked Lee, touching her short hair. Sakura blinked, still watching Sasuke and Naruto.
'A happy ending'? Now that was something to think about...
With these two and with Kakashi as well, there had been lots of times over the years before the settled scene they were seeing right now. Good and bad.
Small things like training together and going on missions together as a team. Sleeping in inns and eating breakfast with Naruto usually still in his pajamas as normal.
And bigger events too.
Helping Sasuke to walk for the first time without his crutches, Sakura under one arm and Naruto under the other. Sasuke had his determined face on, Sakura had been worried and Naruto was watching in amazement as Sasuke started. Kakashi stood a few meters' away, sat back on his haunches clapping his hands and calling Sasuke like he was a child taking his first steps with a stupid little grin on his masked face. Then just Naruto was holding Sasuke and then he was striking out on his own. Unsteady, growing more steady. When he got there, he stood on his good foot and lifted his recovering leg and kneed Kakashi gently in the chin. "I can do it myself." As expected from Uchiha Sasuke.
.
Watching Sasuke and Naruto become more and more ok with being the tiniest bit "couple-y" in the presence of Kakashi and Sakura and sometimes Iruka over the years. At first they wouldn't touch each other at all but soon they couldn't help it. She had smiled so much when Kakashi congratulated Sasuke on wiping stray rice roughly off Naruto's face for the first time all those years ago. One time Sakura overheard a conversation Iruka had with Kakashi on the topic too when she accompanied her sensei to hand in a report, about how he was amazed when the other day he'd observed Naruto ruffle Sasuke's hair in public view. They were totally hopeless. By this point she and Lee walked down the street holding hands. It was a bit different though she supposed.
.
And of course there was the time when they went on a joint mission with Team 8 and the look on Hinata's face when Sasuke bent and breathed an almost silent "night" across Naruto's forehead before he went to bed, shocking everyone. Sakura put it down to the presence of Inuzuka Kiba who Naruto was quite good friends with, and the fact that Sasuke seemed to be the jealous and possessive type. Hinata had looked shocked but not all that heartbroken. Then a small, sad smile graced her lips like she had just confirmed something. The next week Sakura heard that Kiba confessed and taken her on a date.
.
One memory she had was Sasuke's face at the festival the year after she had first accepted what was going on between her two boys when she told them both, "You can absolutely never love another woman more than you love me. Ok?" Blinking surprised eyes on Sasuke's usually so composed features; like a child's face that made her smile. He'd blushed and muttered commitment. Naruto had just grinned and asked her, "That's what you want for this year Sakura chan?" and she replied, "Forever you idiot."
.
But it wasn't always happy when they were together.
The earliest memory that she had where they had all been hurt together was when the Hokage passed away when they were sixteen and at his funeral it had rained. Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto stood in a line with the rest of their ninja academy year, all in black. Sakura had cried and Sasuke and Naruto had held her hands tightly with their ninja faces showing in the Third's honour. Afterwards Sakura took the two boys home with her and she and Sasuke had slept in her living room on the makeshift bed her mother had made them while Naruto, more distraught than he let on, slept in her bed upstairs.
.
But more often than not they were a pretty happy group. Those were the memories she liked to think about the most. Happy memories were best.
In the next week after the Third's passing, Tsunade became the new Hokage and took Sakura on as an apprentice now that she was staying in the village for good. They had her celebratory party to which Team Kakashi were invited due to Sakura's association with the new village leader. A very drunk Hokage had insisted on each of them have a taste of alcohol and it became very clear, to everyone's surprise, that Sasuke over Naruto was not particularly good at holding his own against the special sake Jiraiya had brought along. He had ended up revealed some very interesting things about Naruto's facials in particular situations, answering what Ino had asked Sakura the day before regarding who was played which role in the two boy's relationship. Quite frankly it was just way more than Sakura, or anyone else present for that matter needed to know. A mortified Naruto promptly flung Sasuke over one shoulder and left without a word.
.
In truth, Sakura had ended up learning more than she needed to know on numerous occasions but some were less comical than others. There were always good and bad times. It was definitely not all flowers and sunshine for them, no matter how cherry blossom pink she was, no matter how sunshine-y blonde Naruto was...
One early morning last year Naruto had come to see her while she was doing the graveyard shift at the hospital. He could barely walk and the back of his pants were stained red with blood. This was the day after the night that Sasuke came back from a failed mission on which he lost two men. Naruto was on the verge of tears as he lay down on the bed in a private room.
"Did you want to?" she had asked and he had turned his face away muttering, "It's not his fault. He was upset and I think this was the only way he could help himself, Sakura chan...You should have seen his face..." But that wasn't what she was asking. Repeating the question, he shook his head into the pillow and began to cry. But still Naruto went home to Sasuke after she had cleaned him up and loaded him with pain killers, and then even came to training the next day. Sasuke came too and Sakura spent the whole time trying to not say something to the tall raven boy. By the end when they were warming down she was at her breaking point. Sasuke went to touch Naruto and the blonde shrank away. Sakura lost it when he asked "why are you doing that?"
"Maybe it's because you fucked him till he bled and couldn't walk!" She screamed at him.
"What?" Sasuke's face was shocked and she hated the way he looked to Naruto for an answer.
"Don't give me that shit Uchiha Sasuke. I know you love him but that was not love! That was rape you big idiot! No wonder he doesn't want your hands on him! I can't believe you would do that no matter how bad things were! He didn't want it Sasuke kun! He didn't want it!" Sasuke had been taken back. And then he looked to Naruto again and Naruto looked away. No one else said anything else and Sakura never did find out what happened but she was sure her explosion had made things worse even though Naruto and Sasuke stayed together and were happily fighting the next week.
.
Again, funny-slash-slightly awkward was when Kiba threw a party for his seventeenth birthday and this time Sakura saw more than she needed too. It wasn't like they were actually doing the nasty in front of everyone but the way they were moving on the dance floor; pretty much sex with clothes on. Grinding and moaning into the music, a very intoxicated Sasuke with his hands dipped into the back of and equally intoxicated Naruto's pants, Naruto's mouth skimming over Sasuke's singing the words: "Lights on but you're mom's not home I'm sick of laying down alone..."
They got a few stares but no one dared stop them because although Sasuke became a talkative drunk and loosened up, Naruto got a bit vicious. Luckily, both of them had drunk so much they didn't notice and didn't remember anything too specific the next day.
Sakura felt a giggle bubble behind her lips as she recalled Sasuke's horrific hangover the morning after. Naruto had shaken his off fairly quickly thanks to Kyuubi's quick recuperation talents.
.
And then there was her own seventeenth birthday. The previous day someone at the hospital who just found out that she was that girl on Team 7 with the two "gay boys" asked her if she got lonely being the odd one out and she'd been thinking about it all the way to her birthday. But then she came home and found that her apartment had been broken into and the two "gay boys" that she was the odd one out from, had made her dinner and filled the entire place with cherry blossoms. Did she feel left out? Not really.
.
A few days later when Naruto had his first mission without Team 7 and he and Sasuke started their little tradition where if one of them went on a solo mission, they had to leave the other one a letter in case they didn't come back; that was something to remember too. Sasuke had come to her in the middle of her birthday dinner date with Lee with this look on his face that she had never seen before and the letter in his pocket, unopened. Lee had been very understanding and as expected of him, even in the middle of a date as important as that one Lee looked concerned, smiled reassuringly and said, "Naruto kun is definitely fine Sasuke san but the more the merrier, please join us!" and let Sasuke sit at the table with them. The Uchiha stayed near Sakura until Naruto came back safe and sound and she had never seen him so pathetic. She had also never seen Sasuke kiss Naruto until he did as soon as the smaller boy came walking through the village gate. Deep and long.
.
Sakura smiled and laughed as Sasuke leant over Naruto's shoulder with an uninterested face to see what the blonde was looking at the stall. Usually they were pretty discreet but today Sasuke was showing a little, with two fingers hooked through Naruto's left side belt loop, their arms brushing from time to time. This was the one of the only things that Sasuke would do as affection in public. She remembered sometimes he put one finger through her belt loop to make sure she didn't "wander off" when they were going somewhere specific that required walking past book stores or racks of clothing. Only one finger though. Two fingers was something more.
Yes, so many memories and experiences that had brought them to this time and place now.
Last week, a trainee had to have a bit of a counseling session with Sakura and the other staff on that floor about why when Uzumaki Naruto or Uchiha Sasuke came in for minor injuries after missions and had to stay over night, they always put them on Sakura's floor so she could treat them, but also at the very end of the corridor and at least three doors down from any other patient.
The poor young girl had been doing the graveyard shift and of course even though she was aware that Sasuke was a patient at the time, she didn't know that you weren't supposed to go any further than the second to last room and had walked in on Naruto flat on his back on the floor with his legs hooked over a broken ribbed Sasuke's shoulders; both sweaty and panting. She'd burst in after hearing groaning, thinking something was wrong.
Never ever go further that the second to last patient when one of the boys was on the floor because whoever was left alone at home liked to pay a midnight visit to the other. Midnight visits that if you walked in on, you might never be the same...
.
Those two...
But it wasn't always Sasuke and Naruto who she made memories with. Kakashi was a part of the team too.
He was the first one she told about getting a boyfriend. Her first boyfriend. After Lee had formally asked, and by formally she meant bowing as low as he could without getting on his knees and saying, "Haruno Sakura, I would be very pleased if you would become my girlfriend!", she had run into Kakashi on the street as she walked home in somewhat of a happily nervous state. He blinked at her dazed face over his book.
"Rock Lee asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes!" she blurted out.
"Ok," he replied. And they kept walking in their own directions.
.
The time that he patted her gently on the head on a mission and she had felt so proud. Kakashi had been up ahead, checking the path and despite being in a slight state of panic, as usual, she had kept a good guard over exhausted Sasuke and Naruto and even started at Kakashi, reaching for a kunai as he approached. He told her, "good work."
.
From when she was a girl to now, in her womanhood, he had been there making memories with her too.
One stormy night after finishing a tiring 24hour-plus shift at the hospital, Sakura was walking home, her temper blowing up at anything, even the heavy rain that no one could help. She had cancelled on going to Lee's that night, not wanting to upset him with her foul mood and was now heading home to go straight to sleep.
At the time, Konoha was the host for the Chuunin Exams and there were a lot of foreign ninja of all ages hanging around the village. She met one on the way home in a shortcut alleyway. As he tried to touch her and tempt her she had become very angry. On the verge of decking the guy with unpredictable strength, probably enough to kill him, she had felt an arm snake around her neck and a smooth voice ring out clearly over the rain.
"There you are Sakura-hon, I've been looking everywhere for you." It was Kakashi, in nothing but his black skins, revealing the ANBU tattoo on his shoulder. The creep who had been hitting on Sakura took one look at that swirl and made a polite excuse and disappeared into the night, effectively saving himself from a fight he'd rather not lose. Kakashi always had excellent timing.
And it wasn't just times with her that she had memories of Kakashi.
She'd heard from Naruto one day over tea that once when he and Kakashi were walking through the village, back when Naruto was fifteen, they had met and obnoxious genin who started calling Naruto out about being gay; how it was disgusting and that people like Naruto should die. He'd told Naruto that he could never be Hokage because the village would never accept someone like that as their leader. The rest of the boy's team had hung back looking uncertain until the single girl stepped forward and told her team mate to back off. He pushed her and told her to shut it, still spurting insults and curses at red in the face with embarrassment and anger Naruto.
Kakashi strung that boy up from a tree by his ankles for "being a rude, shallow minded little brat and bullying a girl." Naruto said he had gone back later to throw stones at the boy and the female team mate who was debating whether to cut her him down or not told Naruto that she thought he was a really good ninja and he would definitely be Hokage. She also told him with a blush, that he and Sasuke were adorable even if they were her sempais. Sakura had bought Kakashi the 'Icha Icha Paradise Movie', a luxury he was saving for himself as a big reward, for showing some anger in the right place.
.
From the flower shop window with fond eyes, Sakura watched Sasuke say something and Naruto's face pout before he threw a punch at the raven which he easily dodged. Naruto flushed as Sasuke quickly ran his fingers through the other man's blonde hair a moment later.
He was gentler these days. Sasuke smiled and laughed and joked now. Still sarcastic and blunt as hell but he was softer and never looked lonely when Naruto was near. He was much happier to be here in this life now that he had Naruto and Naruto wasn't nearly as unsettled with his behavior after he and Sasuke got together. They were happy she was sure and she was too.
'A happy ending'?
"Yeah. I guess it is." Said Sakura.
"I'm glad," smiled Lee.
The official end of Blood Stained Breaths T^T I'm gonna miss all the time it takes to write stuff like this! I already have the urge to write something new, not sure what yet though, I'm making a list. Thank you to everyone who has been with me through out this whole thing and to everyone who was so encouraging! And anyone who gets through all of this, I tip my hat to you. I know I wouldn't read something this long.
*sniffles*
GROUP HUG! Ramen all round! Yummy!
Love you guys~ *spamsloveateveryone*