Chapter III: Save the Hero
I stare at you in thought.
I sometimes kick myself for letting you slip through my fingers. Your enthusiasm and wisdom make me feel foolish and empty. Realizing that throughout our friendship, I've been the idiot.
I chuckle when I see children smile at you. Or perhaps it is that endearing smile of yours that makes me like you and this scene all the more.
Sometimes I can't help but ponder how life with you must be. Exciting.
You would've adored me. You would've wanted me from head to my toes. You would never leave my side. You would make it all so easy…
But then I see her charming smile, her innocence and how she saw you for what really where from the very beginning.
I get up from my chair and walk up to you both, happily greeting you. Truly happy to see you.
I ask you how you are. You give me your usual goofy grin. Hinata only smiles shyly while listening to you talk. The look in her eyes makes me smile.
That is how I would want it.
That is how it should be.
Love.
I sigh at the thought but pretend it was something you said. A reaction towards a usual habit of yours, talking too loud. Though, over the years, none of your annoying habits annoy me anymore. But I still pretend they do. Just so these things never change. Just so we never change.
You both invite me over for dinner but I decline. I lie and tell you have some work to do.
We say our goodbyes and in my mind I dare to think of holding on to you a little longer, just to know how it feels. I call myself an idiot again.
I promise I'll talk to you soon. Which is another lie.
As I walk in the other direction, I can't help but turn around to stare at you one more time.
I see you put your arm around her.
Finally a shoulder for you to lean on, Naruto. Somebody to save the hero… I can't repress a sad smile.
Yet an image crosses my mind. Where I am her and she is me.
Don't be so selfish. Don't be so low, Sakura, a voice in my head says. I turn on my heels and walk off.
I swallow the lump in my throat. I don't know why I feel the way I feel. With every step I take, I drag my feet back home. It is starting to snow. I look up at the grey sky and see how the day is already over.
I hate this time of the year. Which is weird because as a child I loved it. Winter.
I think of a time, long ago and another thought crosses my mind.
How did I stray so far of what I used to be and what I wanted to become?
Now I feel like I'm neither. Like I'm nothing.
I stare at a couple with children.
Though I don't long to be a mother yet, I suddenly remember thinking as child I that I would be pregnant with my first by now.
My heartbeat increases.
If things were different, if things had went the way I had planned, would I've been a mother by now?
Do I not long for it because I know I can't or because I have the knowledge to know that I'm not ready yet?
And if this knowledge, that I claim is true, would've stayed unknown… Would I've found myself in a position of ignorance but yet utterly bliss? Does all this knowledge lead to anything…?
'You're overthinking thinking again, Sakura,' I say to myself.
You're also talking to yourself out loud again, Sakura, my inner voice says. I sigh and walk home.
Alone.