title: this is not goodbye
prompt: #12 - white flag
summary: sasuke has barely promised anything in his life, but this is a promise.
Sasuke's heart swells when Sakura asks to come along on his journey to see the world.
Breathing quickly becomes something less of second nature and more of a burdening difficulty to him; he feels the air catch in his throat, the clench of his chest, but it's almost a pleasant feeling, he decides, at once. Uchiha Sasuke hasn't felt this way in a while.
He closes his eyes and glimpses flashes of a memory dating back years ago, notices the subdued parallels between the first time he left her and the situation they're in today. He's leaving her again: he knows this, and simply knowing drops a suffocating amount of weight into the crooks of his shoulders. He watches the shapes of her face change just slightly beneath her skin, and it isn't the first time he has wished he could stay.
He wants to ask her to stay with him, like this, for a while, but he can't find the right words. This happens so often around her, and Sasuke almost laughs at his own ineptitude to properly convey his feelings. Instead, he decides to tell her she has nothing to do with his sins.
Sakura's face falls and he winces, realizing his words may have been too harsh. I can't be with you like this, he thinks, I can't let these sins have anything to do with you.
But Sakura is as strong as the sky is blue and the ground beneath their feet is an earthy clay-brown. She presses her lips together and nods. "Okay," she whispers, only mouthing the word.
"I'll see you when I'm back," he says, softly.
Sasuke reaches out to her for the first time in what feels like forever, extending his right hand to tap his middle and forefinger to the diamond at the center of her forehead. His lips curve at the chaste, simple touch—he feels connected to her again, now more than ever. "Thank you, Sakura," he tells her again.
Her eyes are wide and evergreen, pooling with everything that has ever gone unsaid.
Sasuke lets his own eyes close at the sight, wanting to remember her expression through the duration of his travels. He turns to the wide road in front of him, and Sakura remains burned into his mind, bright as ever. They don't say goodbye.
(This is not goodbye, he tells himself, over and over again.)
He's a good ten paces from the Konoha gate when he hears footsteps chasing after him, their pace like the patter of rain. Sakura's arms encircle him from behind, and he feels her forehead press against his back. "Thanks for not knocking me unconscious this time," Sakura says, half-jokingly, half out of breath, but the scant tremble of her voice grounds him. Her arms tighten around his torso. "Take all the time you need, but please… Find your way home when it's all over, Sasuke-kun. I'll—we'll all be waiting for you here, always."
Sasuke turns in her arms, sees the white flag in her eyes when he looks at her. She won't ask him to stay; she hasn't asked him to stay at all, and although Haruno Sakura has never been one to back down, for now, he realizes she's going to surrender. She's letting him go.
His arm comes around her, his fingers entangling in her hair as he pulls her closer, her ear against his chest as if she's searching for his heartbeat. "I will," he says. Sasuke has barely promised anything in his life, but this is a promise.
Sakura pulls back, her smile pulling at his heartstrings. There are tears in her eyes, but he knows they won't spill today. Her cheeks flush as she stands on tiptoe to brush her lips at Sasuke's cheek, and she's rendered him to a loss for words yet again.
"I had to do it once, before you go," she tells him sheepishly.