i like my body when it is with your

body. It is so quite new a thing.

Part Two

Sakura does not lose her virginity. She gives it away to a man who deserves her. Divests herself of her clothes intentionally and carefully. Strips down to bare skin and an innocence destined to die a little death. Then she straddles her lover-to-be, who is eager but anxious beneath her, and leans over to press her lips to his.

"Are you sure?" Naruto asks.

"Yeah," Sakura says, because even if this isn't something she can do without reservations, she's ready anyway.

They kiss and touch for long, sweet moments, but after their bodies finally come together, Sakura sees her own teardrops wetting Naruto's chest. Not due to pain of her body, but simply because this is not what she pictured for herself, and it's hard to accept an unexpected reality. She wipes her face, and when Naruto asks if she's all right, she tells him, "I'm fine. It just hurts more than I thought it would."

Sakura,

I'm sorry for taking so long to answer your letters. There's no excuse for my silence, so maybe I shouldn't give you my reasons, but I know I owe you an explanation.

I've spent so long away from Konoha that I feel rootless, unbound. For me, home isn't the place I was born; not anymore. Home is Team 7. Kakashi, Naruto, and you. Especially you, Sakura.

Reading your words makes me want to give up. To forget atonement and just come back to the village. Your letters are like lodestones, pulling me away from my search. I thought I ought to throw them away, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. So instead, I stopped writing.

Here's the simple truth: I miss you. When I walked the sands around Suna, I thought of the desert where you saved my life. Touching a cherry blossom in the River Country makes me remember the softness of your hair spread across a pillow. Caught in sleep, I dream of you.

I'm a fool, and I hope you'll forgive me if you can.

Sasuke

She doesn't write back. Instead, Sakura hides Sasuke's last letter away with all the rest and goes about her day as if she'd never read it. At the hospital she heals a civilian's broken arm, prescribes medicine for an old woman's cough, and delivers a baby. After work, she goes to her parents' house for tea, then meets Naruto at Ichiraku. He blushes when he sees her. Sakura recalls with sudden clarity the feel of his sheets grasped in her hands, his hips between her thighs, and then she blushes too.

"How was your day?" he asks.

"Good. One of my patients had her baby this afternoon, a little girl. They named her Rei."

He smiles, and maybe because there is a certain letter on her mind, Sakura can't help but compare Naruto's freeness of expression with the way Sasuke closes himself off by keeping his face blank, emotionless.

They eat their ramen, and then Naruto asks, voice rough, if she'd like to go back to his place.

"Not tonight," she says. If they weren't in public, she'd kiss him on the cheek to soften her refusal, but since they are, Sakura smiles at him and promises that she'll come over sometime soon.

She runs home, dashes to the closet where she has stashed all of Sasuke's letters, and pulls his latest from the top of the pile. She reads and rereads it, lingers on each and every word, savoring the elegance of his neat handwriting, the beauty of his language. He misses me and dreams of me, Sakura thinks, and the thought sends an unwanted thrill through her. But would he care for her at all if he knew what she'd done?

She grabs a pen from her desk and a fresh sheet of paper and writes:

Sasuke,

When are you coming home? Tomorrow? Next month? Next year?

I don't want to hear from you until we're speaking face to face. Please don't write me again.

Sakura

She kisses Naruto in the shade of the thirty-second training ground. Sakura is six days shy of her twenty-first birthday and three months into this affair. They had planned to train today, but lately any opportunity to spend time alone has turned into this.

She breaks the kiss, sits up, unbuttons her shirt, and takes it off. Naruto looks up at her with heavy-lidded eyes, puts his hands on her waist. Sakura can feel the calluses on his palms and fingers, rough against the smooth skin of her belly. The sight of him so serious and intent makes butterflies flutter low in her stomach and heat spread throughout her body.

Before she can move to take off the rest of her clothes, Naruto catches her hands and asks, "What is this? That we're doing, I mean. Are we together or just…"

"Do we have to define it?" Sakura asks. "I like being with you this way, whatever it is."

"I knew you'd say that." He frowns, sits up, and lifts her off of his lap as easily as if she weighs nothing.

Sakura grabs him by his natural arm and asks, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I want to kiss you in front of everyone and tell our friends we're together and laugh at your father's bad jokes when you take me home to your parents," Naruto says. "But that isn't what you want, is it?"

"No," Sakura admits, "I'm not ready for all of that."

He says, "I know Sasuke hurt you. And maybe you're still hoping you can work things out when he comes back to the village—"

"He's not coming home, Naruto. You should accept that. I have."

"Is that what all of this is about?" he asks, and she can hear a flare of rare temper in his voice. "You've given up on Sasuke, so you're messing around with me?"

Sakura shakes her head. "No."

Naruto gives her a sad smile and says, "You can't fool me, remember?"

They don't talk to each other for the next two weeks, but then Sakura sees Naruto at the ribbon-cutting for the new school. Both of them had worked on the project with Kakashi, Iruka, and a number of community leaders, despite pressure from some corners that education for civilians' children shouldn't be a priority for their still-recovering village.

A small reception follows, which Kakashi co-hosts with the principal of Konoha Elementary. Sakura sits at a corner table, drinks the sadly unspiked punch, and tugs at the hem of the little black dress she tells herself she did not wear to catch Naruto's attention. Ino takes the seat next to her and says, "Stop looking so gloomy. The school's gonna open on Monday and lots of tiny brats are going to get a good education because you helped fight for it."

Sakura can't help but smile. "Thanks for the pep talk."

"No problem." Ino frowns after taking a sip of her punch and asks, "What is this crap?"

"I don't know," Sakura says, "but let's get a real drink once this wraps up."

"You don't have to tell me twice."

Somewhere between the reception and the bar Ino manages to invite half their friends, and so the Rookie Nine (short one) show up at the Blue Dragon. Sakura drinks half a bottle of sake, dances with Ino, and wins a dart-throwing contest.

If Sasuke was here, he would have won.

It's a useless thought because Sasuke is who knows how many miles away.

Naruto walks over and asks, "Wanna dance?"

"Sure."

The music slows just as they step onto the hardwood floor, and she wonders if Naruto had the forethought to ask the band to play something more romantic. She wraps her arms around his neck and lets him grasp her waist between his strong hands.

"You're beautiful," Naruto says.

"So are you."

And it's true, because she has never seen a smile as warm or eyes as bright as Naruto's. She loves the marks on his cheeks, the scars on his hands, the way he says "yanno" all the time and how he still calls her "Sakura-chan" when no one else does.

"Can I spend the night at your place?" she asks.

He hesitates, and she imagines he's considering the consequences of continuing an affair with a woman who loves his best friend. It worries Sakura too, but Sasuke isn't coming back, and if she doesn't try to move on, she'll be stuck in the same place forever.

"Yeah," Naruto says.

They leave the bar early, go to his apartment, and spend the night making love and talking. Then morning light creeps in through the gaps in the blinds, golden sunbeams disrupting the dark before dawn. Sakura lies beside Naruto, her head on his shoulder, tracing nonsense words on his chest. She's sated, tired, and happy, loving the freedom of her nakedness and the heat of the man next to her.

"I've got to get to work," Sakura says. "My next shift starts in an hour."

"Okay." Naruto kisses her goodbye and lets her go.

Spring blooms into summer, and Sakura finds that her days are filled with purpose, her nights with sweet companionship. But there are still moments, usually when she finds herself alone, that she thinks of Sasuke. Imagines him wandering a desert, a meadow, a forest, and she wonders how far away he is. If he's well or ill, sad or content. Because no matter whose bed she sleeps in, there's a part of her heart that belongs to Sasuke. And even though Sakura has given up hope of seeing him again, she'll never stop wishing him home.

"This is silly," she says.

"It'll be fun, you'll see."

They've built a pallet out of every blanket and pillow in her apartment. This makeshift bed sits in the middle of the living room floor, a mess of mismatched comforters, quilts, and the knitted throws that Okaasan makes for her.

Naruto kisses her and says, "Relax. I'll get us something to drink."

She strips down to her undershirt and panties, slips between the covers, and laughs when Naruto returns from the kitchen with two steaming mugs. "Who drinks hot chocolate in July?" Sakura asks.

"We do." He sets the cups on the floor to her left, lies next to her, and kisses her cheek, the tip of her nose, her lips. Sakura runs her fingers through his short hair, tugs him down to kiss her throat.

Then she hears the sound of something hitting the floor, and in between one breath and the next, her heart stops. Sakura looks over and sees a dusty, threadbare bag sitting on the carpet. And beside the travel pack stands Sasuke, just as dirty and frayed, staring at her. His expression is hard, unreadable, but his remaining hand is clenched and shaking at his side.

She pushes Naruto away and scrambles to stand, only to realize that her state of dress—a thin white tank top and blue cotton underwear—only damns her further. Sakura grabs her skirt from the pile of clothes on the floor and steps into it quickly.

"Sasuke," she says, and no matter how awful the circumstances of this reunion, for a moment all she wants to do is throw herself at him, because he's here, finally home, and she can barely believe it. Sakura takes a step forward, but before she can say anything besides his name, Sasuke grabs his pack, turns his back on her, and leaves.

"Wait!" She doesn't even bother to put on shoes, just hurries out the front door after him. "Please, Sasuke."

He's fast, always has been, and Sakura doesn't catch up to him until he stops in an alley between a bookshop and a grocery store.

"What is it you want to say?" he asks, and even harsh and accusatory, his voice is the sweetest thing she has heard in three-and-a-half years.

"Please don't go," she says. "Please don't leave again."

"Why not?" he asks, and now she can hear the thickness of his words, the grief he's barely holding back beneath his anger. "It looks like you and Naruto are doing just fine without me."

"It isn't what you think," she says weakly, "we're not…"

"Go ahead, lie. Tell me you haven't been screwing him." He looks away from her, and when he speaks again, his voice breaks, "Please tell me that."

She says nothing, and Sasuke presses her against the brick wall of the bookshop, cups her cheek with his hand. "Dammit, Sakura," he says, "why?"

"You were gone," she whispers. "You were gone and I thought you were never coming back."

"I told you I'd come home. I promised."

"You stopped writing to me," Sakura says, and now she's angry all over again. "What was I supposed to think?"

"You were supposed to wait," he says.

She can't help it, she leans into his palm, savors the warmth of his skin against her cheek. "I couldn't keep my life on hold for you any longer."

"So what then?" he asks. "I took too long to come home, so we're just… just done?"

"I don't know," Sakura says, "but whatever happens between us, I don't want you to leave Konoha again. You'll always be my friend, my teammate, the first boy I ever loved, and if you go again—" She stops, takes a breath to steady herself, and says, "I don't think I could stand it, Sasuke. So please, no matter how angry you are, just stay. We'll work out this mess somehow."

He leans down, closer and closer. It's just now that Sakura realizes how much taller he's gotten in the time they've been apart, and this new difference makes her feel delicate but not fragile.

Sasuke kisses her forehead and says, "I'm not going anywhere."

Author's Notes: This has actually been written for quite some time (since May I think), but it received such a vehemently negative response on tumblr that I hesitated to post it here. I got very nasty anonymous messages about this part of the story and was told to get "this OOC shit out of the SasuSaku tag" (by an absolute idiot, so that was just funny). However, upon further reflection, I decided that it's not fair to withhold this chapter from the people who want to read it. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but please do not leave rude or flaming reviews. And thank you to those who reviewed, favorited, or liked this story based on its first installment. Your feedback is very appreciated. :)