notes:
–though it is not the main focus, this story does touch on depression, trauma, and grief, so please take care when reading.
–I am also posting this story to my AO3 (catflorist, same as here).
the woodland path is wet,
and the soaking earth smells sweet [...]
and the rain drips,
drips, drips, drips from the leaves.
—winifred m. letts, "a soft day"
₊ ˚.
soft day
pt 1: forest shade
For the third time this week, Sasuke has crept past crumbling stone walls into the defunct Uchiha district, intending to make repairs. To finally seal up the broken windows, battle the weeds, even oil the gates. And for the third time, all he's done is tread out on the old dock and watch the sun dip low over the lake.
It would take some imagination to call the body of water in front of him a lake, though. It's dried up so much in the years he's been gone.
Somewhere out of sight the village clock tower chimes the hour. Time always seems to bend within the walls of the compound, an entire hour condensing into the feeling of a few minutes. Sasuke stands, collecting his satchel of untouched tools. Naruto has begged him into another team dinner at Ichiraku's, and he should try not to be too late. Because this time, Sakura's supposed to show.
Although, Naruto made that promise last week, and the week before, so he isn't feeling hopeful. He steps over a missing plank, footfalls landing on the dock with a hollow thump. Whatever. Thump. She can do whatever she wants.
Sasuke treks through the empty streets towards the gates, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead. Too many relics of the past are scattered around him. Shoes placed neatly on someone's stoop. A newspaper yellowing in a storefront window, dated eleven years in the past. In the gutter, a child's toy.
He picks up his pace, not wanting to linger. It will be dark soon.
The past two years of his life have been very different from the rest. He's spent most of it wandering from place to place, remembering how to exist when he's not being consumed by vengeance and hatred. Some days are easier than others.
Sasuke opens the gates onto a winding Konoha street. A flight of birds, startled by his appearance, lift off from dangerously tangled electrical lines above his head. The chill air parts with a warm breeze that hints at springtime. He's alone, facing a row of apartment buildings with bright green shutters, all drawn closed. To keep out the heat of the day, or perhaps no one wants to be reminded that they live across from a ghost town.
Already, it feels like his time in the village is up, even though it's hardly been a month since he returned from his travels. Now that it's been destroyed and rebuilt—once? twice? He's never asked, and no one's bothered to straighten it out for him—the village feels like a strange, hardly recognizable place with few comforts. So why is he still here?
A voice stirs in his head, gently suggesting an answer.
He scowls and lets the gate slam shut behind him.
.
.
Sasuke shows up to Ichiraku's a precise fifteen minutes late to find Naruto's shoulders bent over their usual table. Left to his own devices, it seems the dobe's ordered enough food to sustain himself and everyone seated in the vicinity for the next week.
"I didn't wait for you. Sorry," he says with his mouth full.
Sasuke slips into a seat. "I'm not paying for all this."
He will, though—he's just grumbling for the sake of grumbling. The state of Sasuke's finances aren't particularly great, but Naruto is a lot more broke than he is. It turns out that training to be the next leader of the nation looks a lot like an unpaid internship.
"Aw! Well, we can split this time!" Naruto is wearing the breezy smile of someone who probably decided to leave their shitty frog-shaped wallet at home. Sasuke doesn't bother to answer.
He flips open and stares open the menu he's already memorized. Tries and fails not to glance up at each and every slight motion happening offshore of their table. Though it's really no use. If Sakura were coming, she would be here by now.
He lets the menu fall to the table, annoyed with himself.
"Don't look so glum. I already ordered your usual."
"Chashu don?" he asks, surprised in spite of himself. "Extra radish?"
"Aw, shit. I thought it was no radish."
All this food, and not even one sliver of pickled radish to help cut through the grease and sodium that is Ichiraku's specialty. "Great. Thanks."
"They're poisonous in large quantities, you know."
"Yeah, that's not true."
"I'm just looking out for you, teme. How's your new place?"
Sasuke pulls a plate closer, picking at a soft-boiled egg. He settled into his own apartment a week ago, in a newer building home to a mix of elderly civilians and families. He's been at the tail end of a few curious looks, but they've left him alone so far. From his balcony on the seventh floor, facing the broad forest, the sounds of the village hardly reach him.
It's the first place that's been his in a long time.
"It's fine," he summarizes. "Roomy."
"If you don't like it, you can always move back in with me!"
"Hm, I think I'll pass." His first few weeks of staying in the village involved stepping over a lot of Naruto's dirty laundry and turning a blind eye to suspicious molds growing in the fridge. "You should get that mold checked out."
"Which one?"
As Sasuke stifles a snort, Naruto smiles knowingly, like he's very pleased with himself. Sometimes his airheadedness is nothing more than an act designed to put others at ease. And Sasuke falls for it more often than he'd like to admit.
Naruto proceeds to swallow a mouthful of food without chewing and chokes.
Okay, maybe it's not always an act.
He pounds on his chest. "What neighborhood are you in again?"
"I'm over on the west side."
"Oh, cool! Sakura lives around there..."
The way Naruto's hand freezes solid, broth dripping from his spoon, it's obvious he didn't mean to bring her up. His gaze all but begs for a pass.
Sasuke bites down, not feeling very generous. "Does she?"
"Um…yes."
"She isn't here," he says, as if he just noticed.
"Well...she couldn't make it today."
Sasuke hasn't caught a glimpse of their third teammate since returning to the village. And whenever Naruto announces she'll be present at their next get-together, something always comes up—surgery, previous plans, illness. Now, no excuse is offered.
It doesn't bother him.
A woman across the restaurant jumps in her chair, and he realizes he's been scowling all this time at some hazy spot north of her shoulder.
Across from him, Naruto is practically squirming in the silence, still refusing to address the obvious.
"She's been avoiding me," Sasuke says, point-blank.
"Of course not!" But Naruto's eyes remain down. When he looks up again, he falters. "Okay, maybe."
A dish arrives at their table—chashu don, and as per Naruto's request, no radishes in sight. The food before him is filling and rich, much more than he's accustomed to. His appetite disappears.
"So what happened, exactly?"
Sasuke scowls. "I don't know, Naruto." He doesn't want to talk about this anymore. "Just leave it alone."
"Well," Naruto prods, "have you done anything recently that might make her upset?"
Sasuke sends a glare that he hopes is dripping with poison. "What do you think?"
Of course he has. It's something he thinks about every day. He's hurt her in an endless number of ways. More often than not, deliberately.
Naruto winces. "Okay, okay. I know. I guess I mean, besides all that." He pauses. "You weren't yourself, back then."
It's something Sasuke's been told before. You weren't yourself, back then. And in some ways he agrees. He was tumbling down the wrong path. Far, far down.
Other times, he struggles with the same notion. Even if he wasn't himself, even if he was lost—does that take away the pain he's caused?
That day on the bridge, lightning in his hand aimed towards Sakura's throat. The memory chills him like ice sliding down his back. It's not something he can ever undo.
At that moment, his head was clear. That's what he struggles with the most. He knew exactly what he was doing as he strode forward to kill her. How cool, how logical he was in his decision-making. The chidori, for its speed. Attacking her from the back, by surprise, so there was no need to meet her in the eye.
"If I wasn't myself, then who was I?" A high, thin shriek erupts close by, and Sasuke does his best to remember it's a shriek of laughter. "Who did all those things—a ghost?"
That person is still a part of him, the way a meteor leaves behind a charred crater in the earth.
It's true that there are other things he desires now besides destroying the world. Somewhere safe to rest, time and space to wander if he wants to. A few people he can trust—just enough to count on one hand. And yet, the pain and rage that drove him forward as he stood on the bridge haven't really gone away. He's still carrying it all, and probably always will. He's just grown slightly larger around it, so there's a little more space to breathe.
Naruto crosses his arms, leans back in his chair. "You're being too hard on yourself."
He must mean it, because all his trademark humor is missing from his voice, and his blue eyes are steady and sincere.
Sasuke stares at the woodgrain on the table. The forgiveness that he's offered, over and over—he doesn't know what to do with it.
"I know Sakura thinks the same. Didn't you two talk before you left?"
Sasuke swallows. They parted on good terms, better than he hoped. "We talked."
Sasuke spent years pursuing his goals with a singular drive, never wavering. Never questioning himself. In his mind, there was no other option. But after traveling long enough, a faint new voice cropped up in his head, questioning even his most simple actions and motivations.
Do I really like this stiff, heavy fabric I'm always wearing?
This broth isn't spicy enough.
Why get up at this hour? Why not sleep a little more?
The thoughts were all innocuous and harmless, easy to behold, and simple to follow up on. So he found clothing that felt more comfortable on his skin. He remembered, with the surprise of a long-dormant muscle kicking to life, how to take pleasure in eating. He indulged in listening to himself like skipping rocks on water and watching with mild curiosity what might happen and how far it would go. Why not? It wasn't so hard.
Now, when he tunes in, most of the questions that await him wrench uncomfortably at his gut, like how long does he plan to stay in the village and why is he spending time pretending to repair the Uchiha district?
And doesn't he already know the reason Sakura has been avoiding him?
Sasuke frowns, picks up his chopsticks, drops them again. The shouted conversation at a nearby table and the general clatter of the restaurant is swelling loud enough to grate at the back of his skull.
"I didn't write her back," he mumbles.
"What? Speak up, teme."
"I said," he insists, louder, then his voice lowers again, "Her letters." His eyes drop. "I never answered."
Naruto's glass sets down with a quiet clink. "Not even one?"
"Yes , one. I did write," he says. "In the beginning."
"But then you stopped."
He shifts. "Yes."
"But you answered mine. And Kakashi's."
Sasuke stabs through the pork, leaving his chopsticks lodged upright in a rude fashion. "Yes."
If Sakura's distant, it's only because he forced the distance there first. She's only responding to what he's given her.
"Huh." The dobe's mouth thins, though not with shock or surprise.
Sasuke scowls. "You knew."
Whiskered cheeks twinge with a flicker of guilt. He's not a good liar. "Kinda."
Heat rises on the back of Sasuke's neck. "Why didn't you say so?" Naruto's eyes are apologetic, but his lips remain sealed, a serious undertaking for someone as mouthy as him. Which can only mean one thing. "She asked you not to."
"Maybe," Naruto says. "Sorry."
Sasuke reaches for the jar of shoyu in the center of the table. "Then why did you bring it up?"
"You brought it up."
Sasuke shakes his head and resumes eating. He's tired of this conversation.
Naruto cracks one of his knuckles, ignoring his food and Sasuke's clear signals to change the subject. "She didn't tell me any…" A slight wince interrupts his sentence. "Details , if that's what you're worried about." Sasuke grates his teeth, because there are absolutely no details. "She was kind of quiet about it." A hand circles vaguely in the air. "You know what I mean."
He isn't confident that he does, until he remembers one time when Sakura took a bad fall during training. On the way down, the ligaments of her knee twisted with a hard, audible snap.
He'd heard Sakura let loose a scream from gaining a splinter. But this time she clamped her lips shut and didn't make a sound even as her eyes glazed with pain. She might have forced herself to her feet if it weren't for Sasuke's repeated glares, and she clutched at blades of grass instead of Naruto's offered hand. For Sakura, the worse it hurt, the more she pretended it was nothing.
Naruto claps. "So what're you gonna do?"
"I don't know," Sasuke mumbles. "It's a little late for letters. Isn't it?"
Naruto's brow knits with focus, as if fishing for a response. It's a talent of his, knowing the right words of encouragement or comfort in any situation.
"So talk to her." Turning over one shoulder, he calls over the server. "Radishes, please. Extra pickle-y."
.
.
There's a note posted in the lobby of Sasuke's building—rent is due in two weeks. He sighs with reluctance. The number on his lease contains a comma that he really wishes wouldn't be there. Village life is expensive.
Sometime during his long absence, the council decided to seize the remaining funds of the Uchiha estate. It all remains frozen in the bank, inaccessible to him even now. A clerk at the bank promised they'd get the proper paperwork rolling. But bureaucracy in this village moves slowly. The council probably has the money tied up in investments without his knowledge, and he doubts they're eager to return it to him anytime soon. He'll need to report to his civilian job tomorrow.
The elevator doors close with a creak. Sasuke leans against the wall throughout the rickety ride up. Missions would bring in more money, he knows. A lot more. And Kakashi has asked.
But…he's done enough for this place. This place has taken enough from him.
The elevator releases him onto the seventh floor. Pink, sunset light beams through the skylights as a nimble form rounds the corner. Her hair is pink. It's not just the light.
Sasuke has never been good at naming the emotions taking residence in his body. But now, it comes easily. Something like cool forest shade on a hot day, like a hand held up over his eyes to block out the sun.
Relief.
"Sakura?" he says.
Sakura halts in her tracks, wide-eyed like a doe sighted between the trees, and his eyes find a moment's rest on the delicate planes of her face.
Then her face tightens by a hair. "What are you doing here?"
He can't untangle the expression enough to know how to respond. "I'm back," he tries. In his chest, a shaking hope unfurls. "You didn't hear?"
Sakura leaves a pause, and when she responds, it's almost apologetic. "I heard."
Sasuke forces his face to remain even. The relief all drains away to an unpleasant, floating jitter in his veins, like drinking one too many cups of black tea.
"I mean…right here." She waves at their surroundings.
"I live here," he says, frowning at Sakura's wet hair, the laundry basket balanced on her hip, her slippers and the pink bathrobe she's wearing with the sleeves rolled up. It suddenly hits him what all of this means.
"So do I," she says.
She lives on the west end, Naruto said.
The west end. In his own building.
Why didn't the dobe mention anything? He starts to grind his teeth and catches himself. Then again, has his exact address ever come up in conversation?
"I didn't realize." He feels the urge to reassure her of this, because he's no fool.
She is not happy to see him.
"Right…" Sakura shifts her weight, and for an instant her face softens. She looks like she'd start wringing her hands if she weren't carrying something. "Okaeri."
"Tadaima," he echoes stiffly, and falls silent, unwilling to say or do anything that might shatter this encounter, which already teeters on one edge like delicate glass.
Sakura meets him in the eye for the span of one long breath. Two. Then her gaze flicks over his shoulder to the elevators. It occurs to him that perhaps she was waiting for something. Whatever it was, he has failed to give it to her.
"Well," she says, clutching her laundry basket. Her face flashes with visible upset, but her voice doesn't waver. "I'll see you."
The hallway isn't lacking for space, but she slants her shoulders as she passes by, leaving him a wide berth.
He doesn't allow himself to feel a thing until he turns the corner. From there on, he feels cold.
.
.
Sasuke rises before the sun the next morning. When daylight starts to trickle through the windows, the dishes are long washed, the counters gleaming, bedding hung up to air in the sun, and he's sweeping a broom mechanically over the spotless kitchen floor. Having a space to clean, to exercise control over and to choose the precise way to arrange produce in the fridge, is a welcome comfort.
He glances at the drawer where he's shoved Sakura's letters.
Then he thinks about how he better wipe the counter a second time.
When there's nothing left to clean, he sets water to boil. Cup of tea in hand, he retreats outside to his narrow balcony, where a former tenant has squeezed a weather-worn table and two chairs. It's something he appreciates—he never would have come up with such a homey detail on his own.
Up here the presence of the village melts away, and he feels like part of the forest canopy. The endless forest and sky tend to impart a soothing effect on him. Usually.
Treetops sway in a silent breeze. Steam curls from his cup, untouched.
The bundle of letters sit quietly on the tabletop.
Sasuke hasn't kept many souvenirs from his travels. He isn't the sentimental type, and while on the move he was always quick to discard any unnecessary weight. Somehow, the same philosophy never applied to Sakura's letters.
He reaches over his tea and grasps the first worn envelope that he finds.
Dear Sasuke-kun,
How are you? It's been a few weeks since you set out, so by now you've probably made it through the most remote part of the woods. I wonder if you'll keep heading west or turn south to avoid the plains? You don't like being in the open so much, so probably south.
When he received the letter, he'd just turned south.
If you run out of the salve I gave you, just tell me and I'll send another. Like I said, it comes in handy for minor scrapes and bruises, but for anything more serious do NOT just "walk it off"! Go seek medical attention!
I already told you all of this, but it was so good to see you. Look at plenty of waterfalls and mountains for me, and please travel safely.
Sending love,
Sakura
There was something unfinished between them. A conversation waiting to happen. He knew. It was long overdue. Perhaps, when he returned to the village, they would find the time.
But in the meantime, they kept it light. And at first, responding was easy. He'd write a couple of sentences about the changing landscape, where he was heading next. How the salve came in handy for sunburn after a scorching day. Requests for news. When he dared, a question or two about how she was filling her days.
Whenever a new letter found him, he felt as startled as if he were witnessing rain fall up, straight back into the clouds. He was not used to having her so in reach.
Then the bad days started coming.
At first, the freedom of traveling, of doing something because he and he alone wanted to do it, was enough to drive him forward every day. He felt free. Like a bird, weightless in the air, following whatever current of wind blew his way.
Then one day he woke up to discover weights tying down his limbs, his body too heavy to move.
Sasuke was no stranger to these kinds of days. But they seemed to occur more and more, until each morning he would find himself curled up in the same cold or damp spot as the night before. Too heavy to complete the trek to the waterfall he wanted to see. Too heavy to stop by the farming village known for its tomatoes. It's not that he didn't want to get up, to keep walking. He simply couldn't.
The last time he felt like this, he was eight and alone, the Uchiha district freshly taped off. The village mortuary, smoking for days.
He faced a cruel irony. His thirst for revenge had nearly killed him, and yet it had also kept him alive. Kept him from sinking into the thick fog that followed close at his heels. There was never a moment to rest, to let anything catch up to him. And there was always more to do to help him on his quest. Train more, fight harder, sleep less, travel further. When was the last time he had the chance to slow down, to think, since he was a child? It made sense that the fog would find him now.
Sakura's letters, one by one, began to accumulate. Each of them cheerful, each of them brimming, between the lines, with forgiveness. Forgiveness for leaving so quickly. For not responding. For all the cruel things he'd done. Asking nothing. Existing with the sole purpose of showing she was out there, thinking of him.
It was more than he could have ever hoped for.
The fog in Sasuke's head also had a voice:
You don't deserve this. How could you think you deserve something like this?
It was a brutal voice, that always seemed to speak the truth.
Hi Sasuke-kun,
You must be busy, because I haven't heard from you in a while.
Naruto's officially training to be the next Hokage. Can you believe it? The same person who fell for it when we said the color orange makes muscles grow faster. Now that I think about it, did we ever set the record straight?
As for me, everything's still the same. I tried keeping an herb garden in the kitchen window, but it's not looking so good. I've been trying to open a pediatric wing in the hospital, so I'm not home enough to take good care of it.
Here her handwriting turned messier, the sentences flowing one into the next in a stream of consciousness.
Recently I've been thinking about the past, back when we were all on Team 7, traveling back from some mission—I remember once I woke up from a nightmare. I don't know if the nightmare or the fear that somebody would notice was worse—I was always trying to prove myself back then—but the point is, you gave me your blanket. At least I think it was yours. I woke up in the morning with an extra one. And when I came back from fire duty, it was gone, and Naruto was still asleep, so it couldn't have been him—but when I asked Kakashi, he had no idea what I was talking about.
And I remember feeling guilty, because it must have been you, and maybe you were cold that night.
I don't know why I'm writing all this. I'm sorry. Maybe I won't even send this.
I'm thinking of you.
For some reason, she'd decided to send it after all.
Sasuke flipped her letter over to the back. He didn't have any more paper on him.
Sakura,
It's been raining recently.
The words felt hollow like an old, frail tree. They came nowhere close to what he really wanted to say to her. He tried again.
I remember the blanket.
She was crying in her sleep, that night. So quietly, he only noticed because his own nightmares jerked him awake. What could be troubling her? he remembered thinking. She's always so cheerful.
Sasuke draped his blanket over her. He wasn't sleepy anymore so she might as well use it, right? It wasn't a big deal. They were on a team and were supposed to do teammate-like-things for one another.
Sakura whimpered quietly and rolled over, pulling the blankets up to her nose. A fat tear clinging to the end of her eyelashes rolled down her cheek. Sasuke automatically wiped it away.
And then realized what he'd done. He shot up to his feet and bolted to the creek trickling behind them in the woods. It's not a big deal. For the next few days, he struggled to meet her in the eye.
Sasuke stared at the near-blank page for so long that he fell asleep clutching his pen.
In his dreams, other memories were waiting.
Sakura's back was turned, and he was lunging toward her. She hadn't realized what he was doing yet. The electricity in his palm was lifting her hair.
Sasuke ripped awake in watery morning light, the scent of blood and death in his nose. Half-delirious, he fumbled for ink and paper and scrawled words in a shaking hand.
I had a nightmare—about the bridge
I don't use the chidori anymore and I don't think I ever will
Shame burned his throat and he crumpled the paper in his fist.
How could she let him near her?
Traveling was good for him, in the end. Something eventually forced him into action—a change in weather, fresh mountain lion tracks, a swarm of mosquitos he couldn't stand anymore. And as time passed, he'd keep moving not out of necessity, but because he wanted to.
He made it to the waterfall. To the fresh garden tomatoes.
It wasn't until the good days were outnumbering the bad that Sasuke considered returning to the place he'd once called home.
Until he'd subjected Sakura, and Sakura alone, to more than a year's silence—her letters feather-light and yet so heavy in his pack.
She was better off without him. Better off forgetting him. The more time passed, the more he knew it was true.
After half a year's silence, her last letter arrived.
Sasuke,
Sorry I haven't been able to write recently. The hospital's understaffed—again. But I've been getting by, as always.
Naruto says he heard from you. I was glad.
How are you? When you get the chance, please write me back sometime.
He couldn't.
.
.
.
.
Notes:
soft day: a "soft day" in Ireland—often greeted with the expression, "It's a soft day, thank God!"—is a moist one, with everything wrapped in mist and the slightest drizzling of rain (definition from the Joyce Project, 2012)
enormous thanks to rida ( ridasart) and silentvoicescry ( silentvoicescry) for beta'ing! Your thoughtful feedback and enthusiastic support as I chipped away at this fic helped make the story the best it could be and I am so grateful.
to my readers: thank you so much for reading! this fic has been in the making for a LONG TIME because I struggle with perfectionism and take this hobby too seriously! :') but also because I was seriously relishing in cramming in every little self-indulgent thing I wanted. I'm so excited to share it with you. I seem to say this every time, but this will be my longest work so far (:
heads up to FFN readers:
I am on the fence about posting this entire fic on FFN because later chapters will contain some...*mature* content, quite a bit more in depth and descriptive than I've shared here before. For now, I will move forward with posting.
You can always find me on AO3 (where I am also under catflorist) and read all my works there.
Comments are always appreciated! Your support truly inspires me to keep writing.
See you in the next chapter!