I didn't realise how much things had changed until that day. Everything in my life had taken a drastic turn and my life was heading off on the wrong track. I had lost the person I thought was my best friend because of my selfish desires. There was a strong hatred for me inked within her heart after that day. She didn't speak to me. She changed bunks. She avoided me in the kitchen as I passed, turning her head away as I tried to say something to her. I never was able to say anything to her, the words frozen within my breath no matter how hard I tried to urge them out of my lips. And I knew nothing that I would say would be able to change anything between us. She hated me.
Of course the other girls noticed. They spotted the changes in the atmosphere between us almost immediately. They didn't know anything at first but when they managed to convince Hinata to tell them what happened, they also changed. They never yelled or said anything horrible towards me but there were no longer any words exchanged between us, not even to ask me to pass something to them. There was a never ending silence around us, a thick tension stuffed in the air that I couldn't slice through, that I couldn't escape from.
There was only one place where I could escape from the silence and tension - Sasuke's chambers. Sasuke, I felt was the only person that hadn't changed. Of course, he had changed from the moment I had met him but there was no drastic change to his behaviour. There was no sudden anger or irritation. He was calm and peaceful. I felt somewhat comfortable in his company. He didn't really say anything to me, sitting in complete silence except from a few occasional words, and I didn't think I needed any more than that.
"Not going to say anything. No 'Hello' or 'Good Evening'."
My head rose at the deepness of his baritone voice, watching as he lifted himself off the comfort of his arm chair and carried his weight across the room. His fingers brushed against the glass of the decanter as he held it tightly in his grip and poured the vile liquid into the small glass. He emptied it almost immediately before seeking some more, turning back as if he could sense me watching him. Our eyes met and I could tell that he was still awaiting a response from me.
I heaved a deep sigh, my lips parting, "Good evening, Sasuke," I said simply, saying them in the same fashion that he had. His eyes didn't leave mine, his attention focused completely on me. "Is that what you wanted?" I ask, feeling discomfort grow within me as I grow more conscious of my current state.
Sasuke took a few steps forward, towards me as his feet thudded against the vinyl floors. He glanced briefly outside the window, the leaves scattered across the ground as they continued to flow down from the trees while winter returned once again. I lowered my head, unsure of what he was planning as I play with my hands. I had grown trust him since I realized that he actually cared but who knew if it was all just an act.
Who knew if he just wanted to break me again?
"Nothing has changed has it," He tore through the silence before taking a seat beside me. His fingers ran over the wooden structure of the bed before he glanced upwards, the worry showing through the darkness of his orbs.
If I had seen him like that months earlier, I don't know what I would have thought, but now, it almost seemed normal to witness the coldness disappear. He had held me, comforted me after Lee had been dragged away. He allowed my tears to stain his clothes as he pulled me closer to him, patting my back reassuringly. He wasn't the same Sasuke.
I turned towards him, "What do you think?"
"I thought after a month everyone would have left it behind them," He retorted.
I witnessed the fury growing within him, the expressions of distaste slowly starting to stream across his face. His eyebrows were knitted together with confusion, the dark pools within his orbs growing darker with anger until I could no longer see any colour within them.
I tore my eyes away from his, watching as water trickled down the glass that acts as a boundary between us and the outside.
"You don't understand."
The words leave my lips in an almost soundless whisper, hidden by the harsh sounds of an incoming storm. But he still managed to hear them, his ears able to pick out the words. He placed his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to turn towards him as his palms dug into the muscle. I bit onto my lower lip, trying to suppress the groan of pain that was eager to escape from my mouth.
"Don't understand what? That they're trying to avoid you because of what happened to Hinata?" He yelled, the anger dripping from his voice while his body fidgeted with his irritation. It wasn't your fault!"
Thunder erupted in the backdrop, playing as a perfect soundtrack alongside his words.
Everything became silent around us. I struggled within his grasp, trying to escape from his tight grip as his hands forced me down. The fury and anger were burning in his dark orbs and I didn't understand how he could have become so angry over something so little, something that didn't even concern him. I hated that aspect of his personality - his untameable anger, the uncontrollable violence. I hated all of it. I didn't understand how he could change so suddenly.
The lamps above us suddenly dimmed, the light disappearing from around us until we were left with nothing but the darkness and the flame of a single candle that burned on his desk. I watched him for a few moments, trying to find his eyes in the little light that we had. I was unsure but I knew that he was looking away with embarrassment, a deep red flowing through his skin, rushing to his ears.
"They're accusing me of telling the soldier to do it because I'm so close to them," I finally respond as the pitter-patter of rain returns. Sasuke's grip automatically loosened, freeing me slightly as our eyes met. There was a coolness, a serenity to his eyes that always managed to draw me into him, that seemed to make me feel impervious to the world around us.
"They said that?" He asked, the calmness returning to his voice. "They think you're close to the soldiers?"
"They didn't say it to my face. They were talking about me behind my back," I replied after a few more moments of silence, dropping my head slightly as I spoke with the regret evident within my voice. "I visit you every night. Of course they'll think I'm close to the soldiers."
"You know," He started as I glanced up at him briefly, scanning my eyes over his face. "You should just ignore them. They don't know what they're talking about."
"If I could just do that, I would." I whispered. "You don't know these girls like I do."
My skin tingled at the touch of his lukewarm breath, his fingers running through the tousled strands of my hair. I tilted my head up slightly, trying to see his face and understand his words before he twists his head, directing his eyes in the opposite direction. The heat transferred between us as the cool breezes whistled through the air around us, his arms tightening around my waist as he tried to keep me warm.
I assume he was the only person that I had ever known to have made me feel both fearful and protected when I was with him. I felt as though I was immune to everything else around us when he would hold me in his arms, as if he was a protective shield between me and the rest of the world.
I enjoyed the moments where I felt the protection, where I felt a feeling of comfort indulge between us. They were the moments that I had once wished for in earlier years as I had watched the sun set. I wanted to have someone hold me close as he kept me warm while we watched as warm and cool colours intertwined and flooded across the night sky. I wanted to have someone love me.
Somehow I felt like he loved me.
"I'm sorry," He whispered almost soundlessly, his lips pressed against my ear. His voice was so soft that it would have been capable of lulling me to sleep.
I turned my head in his direction, my eyebrows knitted together with confusion. The sounds replayed in my mind, trying to convince me that those were the words that he had actually spoken. "You're sorry?"
The tips of his fingers traced along my jaw, his eyes warm and welcoming while sympathy flooded out onto his face.
"I'm sorry about what's going on. I walked past the kitchen earlier and noticed how bad it was," he paused for a few moments, tucking a few strands of my hair behind my ear as his lips grew dangerously close. "And it was my fault you were here in the first place."
He watched me, his eyebrow raised in curiosity as I remained unresponsive, trying to process everything in my mind. The corners of his lips were tugged upwards, a smile lingering upon his lips.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked in amusement, his fingers brushing along the pink tints across my cheeks.
"I didn't ever think I would hear you say that," I spoke with hesitation after a few moments, unable to conceal my surprise with his words.
I think that was one of the only moments that he had ever apologised to me or to anyone else in the years that we were there. It was one of the moments where it seemed like he actually cared about anything other than himself, one of those moments where I realized what Naruto had said was true. His true image was coming out. He wasn't the army Captain that everyone else knew him as. He was Sasuke, just Sasuke. And he didn't need to be anything more than that.
"You're so skinny" he mumbled, his arms tightening around the thinness of my waist as he cradled me in his arms. "I'm worried that I could break you if I held you too tight. You're like a porcelain doll."
"Whose fault is that?" I asked.
I was trying to be humorous but I knew that it had caused the opposite effect and had a negative impact on the atmosphere between us. His muscles stiffened, growing heavy with each passing second, but he didn't tear his hands away from me and just held on as if he was worried that I would leave. He knew that really he was to blame for this and he held that fact to his heart.
He looked down, his dark lashes starkly contrasting with the pale white of his skin.
"I didn't mean that." I wriggled within his grasp, lifting my hand to his face as I brushed the tips of my fingers against his jaw.
He rested his hand on mine and pulled it away, his touch soft but eyes heavy as he glanced up at me and I met his dark eyes beneath the dim light of the room. He looked almost annoyed and I couldn't have helped but worry that it was because of me and what I said and with that I knew I should have been more careful with my words. No matter if it was true.
"No, you don't have to correct yourself." He said finally as he stared down at me.
Neither of us said anything for a while. This war was a difficult issue in the first place, and when you had two people from opposing sides, the tensions of said war that could set between them wasn't easy to overcome though it was nothing but common. Wars could tear people apart and find them at their most vulnerable, most angry or upset. And there would never be anything but disagreement.
I cleared my throat, trying to break the ice that had suddenly frozen between us. "Sasuke?"
"Hmm," the warmth of his breath blew the curling tendrils from my face.
"What day is it?"
"Tuesday."
I was watching him when his eyes darted upwards with curiosity, as if he was waiting a response from me. Confusion lingered upon the features of his face as I waited for him to say more. A sudden blankness washed over him, his eyes emotionless. He took a few moments to render what I was saying in his mind, what I really meant before he turned back to me with understanding evident in his eyes.
"It's the 25th November," he replied simply, knowing that there wasn't much else to say.
The last date that I remembered was the 3rd of October, the day that we had left Konoha after the dance that Lee had taken me to. Now it was the 25th of November, a year later.
I supposed I should have known that that much time would have passed since I had been there. I supposed I should have known that so much time had passed since I was forced to move from Konoha, forced to move into a new home in Suna, forced into this camp without any choice of my own and the list could continue on endlessly. But in all honesty, I had never noticed any of this. Yes, of course, I had counted the seconds and minutes as they passed me by so slowly but what I never realized was that they were passing so quickly that I struggled to hold onto them any longer. Time passes slowly when you want it to move quickly, when you want the seconds pass and you want to escape. But in reality, time passes before you even realize it.
I hadn't seen my mother for over a year, and I knew that the years would continue to pass by before I ever had the chance to see her again, if we both ever did make it to that time. I didn't really know what else I should have expected after being there for so long. I had kept track of the days early in the days of our arrival but soon, I struggled to count the days and there I was.
And then the fact that I had aged had dawned upon me. My birthday fell in the last few days of March, the exact date never specified as I had been born in the countryside, far from technology. When we had moved to Konoha, my parents never knew of the day of my birth and each year, they chose one of the first five days of the month to celebrate my birthday, choosing a different date each year in the hope that that day was my real birthday. That year, I had turned 20. I had missed my birthday since I had arrived.
I began to wonder how old Captain Sasuke was. He had never disclosed the simplest details to me though he had given be a brief overview of the events of his life. I didn't know the most basic things about him even though we had been meeting for over a year. I began to question whether he was trying to hide these things from me but I came to realize that I myself, though I had mentioned some things, had never really told him a lot about me.
We were nothing but strangers to each other.
"You've never really told me much about yourself," I spoke up, my voice slicing through the silence that sat between us, the silence that was eager to fade away from our surroundings.
It was strange how we always used to sit in the silence, how we used to wait until one of us would make a remark, the other replying quickly after only for some form of conversation to start between us. The hostile atmosphere of the camp had caused some kind of depression within me and it seemed that Sasuke was always the conversation starter, despite being not being much of a talker himself. Until that night when I decided it was time for me to find out more about him, to break the barrier of anonymity between us.
His head shot up almost instantly, his fingers running along the length of the page quickly as he folded the page and slammed the book shut. He glanced up at me with hooded eyes, a confusion and curiosity lingering upon his face. The confusion and curiosity was another factor that was frequently presents in the evenings we spent together.
"Of course I have," Sasuke snapped, his eyes scanning up the walls before they reached me. "I've told you as much as you needed to know."
"I know the Sasuke here but I don't know the Sasuke there," I muttered beneath my breath, the sharpness of his eyes causing a feeling of discomfort to grow within me.
"There?"
"Where you came from."
"Why do you want to know so much?" His voice raised a few levels until it almost felt like he was yelling at me in fury. Yet he remained still. He sat in the same position, the book held loosely in his hands. His face was unchanging, emotionless. His eyes, however, held the same discomfort that I felt was lingering through me.
The discomfort didn't ease away as our conversation continued. It felt like with each word I said, he grew more annoyed. He grew more uncomfortable and all of this, I could only read through his eyes, those stunningly dark eyes. I didn't understand why he was like this. If he wasn't going to tell me anything, if he was reluctant to speak to me then how was I to know what he was actually thinking. That ultimately was one of the flaws within his character.
"I want to be distracted from the dreariness of this place," I finally replied a few moments later. The discomfort and confusion faded away briefly, becoming replaced by understanding. His eyes, the way he looked at me, grew softer until I was also able to become comfortable once again.
I hesitated to continue, unsure whether the discomfort would return. I glanced upwards and Sasuke looked back at me, with an expression that told me I was free to ask anything that I desired. "What's your birthday? How old are you?"
"24," He replied simply, "I'm 24."
"Favourite colour?"
The corners of his lips tugged upwards, the smirk lingering across them. "Black."
"Nope, it can't be."
His eyebrows knitted together. "You asked me the question and I answered."
"But black isn't a real colour."
He didn't say anything and just chuckled as he pulled the strands of hair away from my face and sat before me.
The questions continued and I learned more and more. Occasionally, I would give my own input, telling him my own answer to the question and it began to feel like we weren't such strangers to each other after all. It began to feel like he was someone I had known my whole life, like he was a childhood friend or something along those lines. The fact that he was from the opposition, the ones that were supposed to be killing me didn't cross my mind that night. He wasn't an army Captain. He was just Sasuke.
His shoulders were slumped, back leaning against the comfort of his arm chair as he intertwined his fingers with mine. I watched him, busily running through my thoughts, knowing that there wasn't much left that I could have asked. I knew it was probably time that I left him behind and returned to the others, glancing upwards at the solemn clock.
"You vaguely remind me of someone I know back home," he spoke up as if he knew that there was nothing else that I could have said. I directed my eyes upon him, our eyes meeting each other once again through the rays of light streaming down from the lamps above our heads.
"A sister?"
"No," He shook his head, "My cousin's wife."
"Do you miss them?" I asked, the curiosity lingering in my voice. "Your cousin and his wife, I mean."
"When they're all that you have left, that's all you can do. Missing them," he heaved an exasperated sigh, glancing briefly out of the window as if they were there. "I haven't seen them since I last went home. They hate me."
"They couldn't hate you. You are their family," I said quickly as the worry flashed onto his face and took over his emotions.
A low chuckle escaped from his lips, as if he was laughing at his own misfortune and worries, his own despair. The chuckle died out in the air, the echoes disappearing into the walls. He sunk further into the comfort of the armchair, as if it was the only thing that could support him, and I realised that there was so much I was still unaware of.
"They think I killed her. They think I took our Mother away from us. And I did. I killed people her and in the process, I killed her too." The sadness twitched in his eyes, regret filling all empty space and while I would expected there to have been tears, his eyes were dry. "I'm a monster, Sakura, and they hate me because of it."
I didn't really know how I would have been able to console him, to make him feel better. I didn't know what his family truly felt towards him. He did. He knew what faults he had made in his life, the faults that have caused such drastic changes in his life. I know, we both know, that if he could go back and change things then he would. He didn't want any of this anymore. He just wanted to be at home, to live life like other boys of his age.
Sasuke was a broken man.
a/n: I'm not hugely fond of this chapter, probably because it's not as long as it usually is and while I was editing the first time round, I lost some of it because my laptop decided to shut itself down and of course, the rewrite after losing some data is never as good. Ah well, its a filler anyways so it doesnt matter too much. Hopefully the next one is better.
Until next time,
coolgirlaamy xx