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constellations

(deep river)

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(00:00:04:00:34)

There is something in the way her lab coat flutters around her form as she's walking back from the hospital, something in the way the wind moves. She has felt this feeling only once before, and she does not need to return home to discover the folded letter waiting for her there, stained script on paper, after her night shift.

The trees rustle quietly, secrets shared amongst leaves, and when they fall around her, she tips her head up to the sky, searching it for the moon that is not there.

And Sakura knows.

She knows in the way she can trace the scar through his chest in her memory, knows in the way that she will never love anyone as much as she loves him.

Her time has run out.

Her hands are loosely curled in her pockets, and her shoulders are back. Her head is held high, and she does not mind when the cool midnight breeze ruffles her hair, blowing strands into her face. Her feet take her to the end and the beginning all at once, and she does not need to turn around to know that he is there, a few steps behind her.

"Again?" her voice is resigned, a soft sigh. Everything aches, and there is nothing she wants more than to drench herself in sunlight and fall asleep.

Her gaze is focused on the edging of the gates, the way this is so much the same and so different.

"Sakura," he begins, and it is at times like these that he makes her feel like her name is the most beautiful word in the world. He hesitates on his words. "I can't stay."

Her eyes sting, and even though she knows and has known for months, it burns. She nods numbly, and she sighs shakily. "I know." Her brows pull together, and she blinks several times before turning around.

Meeting his eyes, so soft and for her, hurts, asphyxiates. She bites her lip, and she cannot look at the apology in them, so she looks away. "Just promise me one thing," she says thickly, and before she can stop herself, she steps forward, closing the distance.

Touching him is instinctive. Her hands come up to trace the landscape of his face, and she has to swallow to keep back the words that threaten to spill out, words that sound like I love you.

He is so beautiful.

"What?"

She ducks her head, resting it just under the strong line of his chin. "Come home to me."

He pulls away, tips her chin upwards, and then he is kissing her like the sun is dying, like he has found the threads sewing them together all these years. When he pulls away, tears slipped out of the corners of her eyes, and she's looking at him like he's already gone.

He presses his nose into her hair, and she shakes in his grip. She smells like antiseptic and soap and home. "Don't say goodbye, whatever you do," she whispers into his skin. "Don't say goodbye."

He shakes his head. "I won't."

Sakura doesn't stay to watch him disappear into the distance, doesn't stay to see him slip through her fingers again. She sits on the bench facing the trees and the training ground behind it, knees pulled up to her chest, and watches the way sun blooms pink over the horizon.

It does not feel warm. Not today.

(00:00:00:00:00)

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notes: *yawns*