title: close the distance
prompt: #17 - raw
summary: for a moment she wishes they were young and naïve again.
a/n: again set after the previous prompts but can stand alone :-)
Sasuke is a bit off once he's discharged from the hospital, Sakura thinks. He's a bit too quiet as they round out of the building, a bit too distanced, a bit too lost in his own thoughts.
They turn onto the sidewalk leading away from the building, Sasuke just a hand's width from Sakura. He has yet to say a thing since they left his room, and Sakura wrinkles her nose at the realization.
She glances up at him. "Sasuke-kun, how's your pain?"
"Fine," he answers her, shrugging.
"Could you rate your pain on a scale of one to ten?" Sakura asks, attempting to wave off the vague answer. "One being close to nothing and ten being the pain if I were to punch you in the face or something similar."
There's a beat of silence before he answers. "A two, I guess," he says.
Sakura squints at him in disbelief, trying to decide if the pain medicine he was given somehow worked miracles or if it's simply his arrogance speaking, but she is otherwise content with the fact he isn't in explicit pain.
Quiet resumes, their footsteps falling more or less in sync.
Sasuke's pace quickens slightly step by step, and Sakura can't help but wonder if the chasm that has etched its place between them through the years he spent away from Konoha is resurfacing, separating them again even after their reunion. She pushes the thought away, but it pulses at the corner of her mind, a mantra of a warning, as their physical distance increases.
Even as Sakura increases the speed of her steps, Sasuke's strides are longer and carry him forward without her. She wilts as she thinks about how much he has grown since the last time she's seen him—taller, stronger, further.
For a moment she wishes they were young and naïve again, and she comes to a stop as she loses herself in the thought.
Sasuke turns back at the absence of Sakura trailing behind him, raising his eyebrows at her hesitating form. "Sakura?"
"Is something…wrong?" she asks, carefully.
Sasuke's features soften at the emotion weighing down her words. He glimpses the raw fear in her eyes, approaches her wordlessly, hesitating only a breath before pulling her to his chest.
"Not anymore," he assures her, and suddenly they are young again and nothing is as heavy as it once was. It is just the two of them, and the chasm that had been threatening to deepen between them has been filled with sediment.