Work Notes:
First and foremost, welcome dear readers!
Just a few things before we start:
1. This is my first multi-chaptered fic. Not just a collection of drabbles or snippets, but a full story. (YAY) But the way I'm writing it is the way I want it to be. There might be a lot of plotholes in this story, but I'll try my best to get the message across. Just pure self-indulgence at its finest.
2. We have a canon age gap, but Sakura and the rest of Konoha 11 are aged 18 at the end of the war. Everything in "Naruto" canon still happened. The only thing that didn't is the epilogue and what comes after it.
3. Tsunade is the Hokage in this story.
4. The story starts five years after the war.
5. Update dates are not regular (sad to say), but I'll try to get them out as soon as I can. I'm following a high-level outline from start to finish, but the only thing left is actually writing the in-betweens.
6. I take responsibility for any or all kinds of errors you may find in this fic. :)
I hope y'all stay for the wild ride.
Without further ado, let's get it on, shall we?
here i am
by ryekiree
Summary:
For the past three years, there is only one person Sakura hasn't been able to talk to. It would have been easy, to just move close to him when she sees him, chalk up the courage to say something witty that he'd easily respond to.
Like before…
And yet, he runs. He always does.
When a stranger starts to show up in Konoha, his camera at the ready for landscapes and skies, and acting as if they'd already met before, Sakura tolerates him at best and is on guard at worst.
But is it really "this" easy to get close to someone new?
Chapter 1
familiar, at the same time, not
Snow stops falling from the sky for the first time in two weeks.
Outside is a dark canvas, painted with winter white, a masterpiece Sakura can only devise with the way her head spiraled into a rush of elation and euphoria. Clumps of snow from the past two weeks chucked at each side of the road, as few of the early-risers—the collectors, she supposes—scrape at them, making it easier for the rest of the civilians to use the roads and walkways.
It is still fascinating as it is shocking for winter to dawn into Konoha.
By the time Sakura was born, all they had was the sun and the rain and a couple of blossoms by the garden in her childhood home. It wasn't until she was eighteen—the war survivor, Jounin and Hokage's apprentice titles under her worn belt— just weeks before she turned nineteen, when she encountered her first snowfall in Konoha. Sure, she has seen snow before—she has had missions at the Land of Iron and Land of Snow over the course of a decade, but in Konoha, it was different.
If one encounters snowfall in Konoha, one will know there was an undeniable shift, a transformation, a change. It wasn't something Sakura was used to.
It was something new, even after five years.
And with the blizzard at a rest, Sakura is now able to get out.
She wipes moisture on the windowpane, seeing herself for a moment before focusing on the outside; the skies are still and black, and she can't help the smile on her face, a small crease whilst unknowing.
Sakura brisks in between the space between her coffee table and her shelf, towards her bedroom, to the mirror attached to her closet, checking if there were more tangles on her hair sneaking under her woolen hat, if there were more closet dirt on her jacket, if there were any unreasonable scratches on her only winter boots. When she is dressed to satisfaction, even if she didn't really care that much, she takes her keys sprawled on her kitchen counter and flees until she takes a step on the snow.
A walk at predawn isn't new to her; Sakura has had earlier shifts at the hospital, and has had her bouts of restlessness, which makes her want to just get up and move around wherever her feet will take her. She runs sometimes, whichever she feels doing in that period of time. But wintertime is colder than most, and too much sweating only means vulnerability to sickness, so she settles on the slack and the slow pace. There is a lingering feeling of a world asleep that she tends to enjoy in slower walks.
Almost twenty minutes later, she stands at the foot of the stairs to the Hokage Monument. Another twenty, and she's at the top of it.
Her lungs heave as she reaches the top, her legs burn as she carries on a trail she can tread onto with her eyes closed. A gust of wind stings her skin, but it does not bother her, her eyes only fixed at the goal. Five years since this particular routine started, but she still counts the number of trees lined up beside her favorite bench—seven from the left, she mouths—aligned with what has been the Sandaime's head.
The Sandaime's head isn't necessarily at the exact center of the monument, but it protrudes further than the other Hokage's, and is seen higher from the front. Its short, spiked hair serves as a fence to those who want to sit right there under the sky, although there are railings to hold on to if people want to stand, lean onto it, look up higher. The ground is flat, shaped bow-like, and holds four people and not more than that. She remembers asking for a bench around a year ago, so she won't have to sit on the ground. And just months ago, before winter started, they placed a bench in the middle of patches of grass. She had thought that the grass was not going to be ideal, but when she found that it was artificial, she thought she could work with that.
It's the best spot to be settled in for sunrises and sunsets, and the reason why Sakura had waited for this day to come.
It was—and still is—one of Sakura's favorite places to be. A place closer to the stars, where she can never fall off. A place where everything falls first. A place she visits each season, or each month, if weather and work permit her to.
A place with memories she unwillingly takes with her, along with a voice that could stave off the cold of winter.
To a new year, he'd said as the first rays light up his masked features.
You'll be alright, Sakura, as the orange hues disappear from his silver hair.
Come here, as they camp under his flak jacket due to the unexpected sprinkle of summer rain in the sunset.
She remembers its warmth, yet it's a thing that haunts her the most.
But even with these memories, she can't stop this routine, coming up at the top of the village to look across the beyond. She can't stop herself from hoping that maybe… that maybe it'll be alright again. She can't stop herself from hoping she'd see that familiar flak jacket or that Jounin sweater or that gray vest and fox mask he now wears on his missions or that hair that looked like snow from the distance.
She can't stop herself from hoping that there is someone else on that bench to see the winter sunrise with her, just as it had been five winters ago.
And when she looks up from her feet to the open, there was, indeed, someone else.
It is a man's build, a man's shadow, she sees, underneath a long coat and a scarf that almost covers the man's head, and Sakura tries her best to quiet down the crisp sound of snow beneath her boots. She didn't want any interaction from anyone else. The man, though, either did not hear anything or was too occupied in tinkering with the gadget he was setting up—his camera.
The man's camera is different from those she'd seen before, a bit compact as he fixes it on its stand, a kind of thickened sheet protecting it from any unforeseen remnants from the sky. A click of a shutter echoes through her ears, throughout the quiet spaces, and she doesn't think it would relax her, but it does.
Right then, a wink of the sun's early rise peeks in between the mountains beyond Konoha's border, and the shutters go to work. They double by the second, as if the man doesn't want to miss a slight second, a moment. She almost forgets what she came here to do, almost spending the entire time watching the man near her favorite spot be satisfied with the touch of light, the corner of his lips turning up, a kind of smile that brought a slight clench to her chest.
Sakura shakes her head and looks to the horizon, leaning onto the fourth tree instead of the seventh, far enough not to disturb the man, but close enough to see him. In quick succession, navy had turned to sky, to orange, to gold. The winter clouds could not cover all of its light, as some of its rays spear through different corners of the view. The shutters continue, each second is probably a new frame. She wonders if a movie can be made, out of the different frames the man had captured.
When she is up here, time is endless. She doesn't think about how much of the dawn has left Konoha until she notices the peeking light showing half, and then three-fourths. The warmth cloaks around her, making her close her eyes.
Then, the shutters stop.
For a while, she wonders if the man was just taking a pause, but when she takes a glimpse back at the man, he is peeking through the back of his camera, under the sheet, with a smile of content and eyes glistening with the sun's glow mixed with winter snow. As the sun's rays fall onto his frame, Sakura can see the trace of brown at the top of his head—strands in a wave, yet neat from where she is standing. She had wondered earlier if maybe she knew this man, but seeing him under the light, she realizes that this is the first time she'd seen him.
As she steps back, the snow catches her boot, and she almost falls toward the tree. She mutters a soft thanks to the gods that she hadn't fell—cringes as the words fell out—but as the snow emits a loud crunch beneath her boots, she knows that her moment of stealth is over.
The man with the camera snaps his head towards her direction.
It is amusing to think that he only heard her when the world sprang to life, and not when it was still asleep.
What's even more amusing is the way she had to hide herself away with her hand, looking away from the man, as if she would disappear, as if she would evaporate out of his sight.
And when she carefully picks up her feet and looks back again, she meets the man's gaze, like he was waiting for her to look at him. He is different from what she had imagined he would look like. Quite… unique. She did not know what to expect, but she did not count on the purple markings just over his cheeks, nor the paleness of his eyes. It felt familiar, at the same time, not.
Sakura blinks away her thoughts, and inwardly blames the sun for the heat running through her cheeks. The man nods at her in acknowledgment, and she nods at him back with a tight smile. She then scans around for a moment, sees the morning light enveloping the Hokage Monument, the park, the trees, the benches, all covered in white, and the sun slowly taking its place in the sky. She looks back at the man, who looked away when she did, and slowly turns back to her earlier trail, a foggy sigh on her way home to prepare for the day.
"I got a coupon for five at the Yakiniku place that just opened!"
"That's great, Terumi! Sakura-senpai, are you joining us?"
"It's been too long—"
"Yes, Sakura-senpai—"
"Sorry, ladies, I have something else to do," she smiles apologetically. "But thanks for the invite."
Sakura takes her folder and leaves the shelves, as well as the trails of whispers on her heels as she closes the door to the medical records room.
Three minutes.
That is how much time is left until her shift kicks off, and Sakura is just about to start her fifteen-minute journey to the hospital.
A snowstorm had taken over her weekend and possessed Sakura to stay at home for its entirety. Ino had called her, told her of Tsunade-sama's decision on the big project that the Konoha hospital is going to be involved in. The only thing Sakura had heard from that meeting in the middle of the week was that the representative medics from the five countries are going to be there—a conference, as Shizune had described. And while Sakura had already expected that she would be the one to go, she felt relieved when Ino told her she volunteered. It was scheduled to happen at the end of March, and she had other plans, even though she hadn't really thought about it just yet. Ino then asked her if she wanted to hang out, or hang in for that matter, but Sakura also didn't want to burden her best friend with enduring the storm outside just so she could visit. As much as she liked talking to Ino, she'd rather not have anyone else remind her of reality for a while.
And just like the other times, Sakura had said no.
"Fine, Forehead. But please let me know if you need anything, alright?" Ino stressed on the word need. Sakura caught the worry in her words on the other end of the line, and she told her, "Okay," before hanging up first.
Sakura knows how to spend her time alone. And during snowstorms, she had a system.
Most times, she makes herself a cup of hot chocolate, foamed and sprinkled with marshmallows on top, and sits in the little nook by her window. Sakura is thankful that her apartment had a large window and a view of the village rather than the back part of a building—it helped ease up her stifling feelings sometimes as she peers through people who passed by, counting them when she didn't have anything else to do. Sometimes, she listens to Door # 5's favorite jazzy Christmas tunes she'd been hearing for the past two months, while she wraps herself with a blanket as the sun goes down.
Other times, she pulls a book from her shelf for company.
Sakura is known to read a lot, but most people assume that she only reads the boring stuff. Medical books, research, past missions, strategy, self-help. She admits she has read all those as part of her studies, her apprenticeship, and her job. But what people don't know about her is that she has a certain bond with fantasy.
The thing about fantasy books, they take you to a world far away from your own. A younger Sakura was always too caught up with what's in front of her, and she could have never understood that—the real world muted as her favorite one springs awake; the grayness of her walls breaking into a barrage of colors and flags, bricks and castles, swords and magic; the flawed main character and the morally-gray antagonist who she'd grown to care and wanted to meet again and again. She finishes a chapter without leaving the world and ends up dreaming into it—a princess trapped in a tower with her window above the clouds, captured by an evil, yet seemingly blasé prince, and a handsome sword-wielding knight on a mission to save her from her woes. She's happy inside her dreams, wishes sometimes that she would never wake up, but still ends up doing so.
Until she forgets to set her alarm for work.
Sakura woke up an hour ago with a smile on her face and sleep gluing her eyes, the warmth of the knight's embrace lingers into her chest, and she jolts up as she sees the sun boasting its light through her window. It was already high up.
It didn't take her fifteen minutes to get herself ready—coat on, her sling bag she'd used from last week donned—though she wasn't sure if she had gotten all of the dust in her eyes out. One last scan from head to foot through her mirror, and she's out of her door, down the stairs, off to the streets. Snow brushes against her cheeks and her boots as she dashes through a bustling wave of people.
"Sorry!" she blurts to a couple parting as she passes through; to a parent shouting at her with hands on their hips; even to a dog barking she'd woken from its sleep. Fifteen minutes turn to five as Sakura starts to jog, and then run—holding her bag close to her chest, collecting a few flakes of snow.
And when she turns a block and a few steps later, the familiar bushes beside the familiar gates on sight, her balance slips as she slams onto something tall.
Or someone.
Her world turns, and she waits for the fall, for the crash into the pile of white, for the cold to wash over her favorite winter coat. But it never arrives.
Instead, Sakura feels a hand clasped onto hers, and another behind her waist. She feels the warmth from a green overcoat, as if seeping heat from its owner. She feels gray eyes on hers, their intensity never eases by mere seconds.
She forgets to breathe when she realizes that this was the same man from three weeks ago, at the top of the Hokage Monument, capturing the sunrise through a camera's lens.
Flakes on top of his unkempt brown hair, as well as on his thick purple scarf, the man looks like a dream, an angel, surrounded in white.
"Are you okay?" he asks, smoke against the front of his scarf, and at that moment, Sakura doesn't seem to care where she's going.
Until her bag falls from her weakened grip, caught by snow, and then time flows.
"I—" There is a knot in her throat, and she wonders if the cold had gotten to her now.
He holds her until she's able to stand. He picks up her bag, dabbing off the sticking snow, and hands it over to her. She looks up at him, but she can only see his eyes, a portion of his face covered by the thick scarf.
She grabs her bag from the stranger, holding it close to her chest, as if she didn't want it to fall off again. She then bows to the stranger, and apologizes for the tenth time today, and dashes right through the snowed gates, the glass doors.
Her boots land on linoleum tiles a minute past her shift hour.
Made it.
Her lungs relax in front of the reception area, as patients and medics alike watch her with curious eyes, and then look away.
"Sakura-senpai, did you know that guy?" Hina, one of her trainees assigned to reception today, asks her, a hint of red dabbing her cheeks.
Sakura blinks, and goes still as the question starts to make sense. She didn't think someone would see her and the stranger. It felt like no one else was around. Like they were just two people—just the two of them—in the middle of a snow globe, surrounded by paper-white.
She peers through the glass doors, ghosts of a brown-haired stranger holding on to a pink-haired girl's waist to keep her from falling, a scene replaying like a movie in her mind, and realizes something.
"You know what," she glances back at Hina and shakes her head. "I actually don't know."
Sakura had even forgotten to say thanks.
"Sakura."
She flinches at her best friend's use of her name. "Yes, Ino?"
Ino only watches her, eyes telling—asking what she'd been pestering her for weeks.
"Tenten's birthday."
Sakura sighs. "I know."
"And?"
A pause.
"You can't be serious, Forehead."
Her lips close, and she places the pen and the document on her desk.
"I'm sorry," she finally says, and she knows Ino had already expected it before it came out of her mouth. "You know, I have to do this."
Ino sighs. "You have to get out more. It won't do you any good."
Sakura smiles at her best friend's concern. "Next time, alright?"
"We just miss you. I miss you, most of all."
She pauses before she responds, "Me too."
And when Ino leaves her clinic, Sakura considers whether she actually meant them or herself.
On some days, Sakura lives in an irony.
Where she hopes for something, and something else comes to her in return. Just simple ones, she thinks. Like hoping for a good weather, and then getting a report about a blizzard incoming. Like hoping to be able to join her friends after work, and then getting a deadline she can't get out of.
Like hoping to see a stranger she can easily get away from, and then sending someone familiar towards her instead.
Sakura thinks it ridiculous. She thinks that maybe the universe has decided to grant her that because it is a hysterical situation to be in. Thinks it might be funny.
It is not.
It is a living irony for a familiar person to be a stranger. It is a living irony to hope for this person to show up, but when he does—if he does, what then?
What then? A question Sakura asks herself a couple of times in the last year.
The sun sets much later than usual. It is the middle of March; one season falls back to give its way to another. The winter chill doesn't dissipate though, but it is the kind of chill that leaves room for the coats to not drop too soon. The people of Konoha are still not used to it—the presence of cold as winter leaves.
But how long does it take for people to get used to it, she asks herself sometimes. Ridiculously, she adds, don't they have people who are cold to them all their lives?
Sakura looks out beyond the window of her clinic. Outside, the cold fights it out with the heat, traces of water trickle down the windowpane as the sun blurs into the horizon behind a cloud of moisture. When she looks back in front of her, there are stacks of her work week cluttered on her desk—to the left are those that need to be taken to the Hokage, to be stamped or signed, whatever was working that week; and to her right are those that are to be discarded—trashed, unimportant.
And when she tries to ask her trainees for a favor, they are already at the door, ready to go. She hasn't even noticed any of them in conversation with one another until they fell quiet, or them trying to organize their desks as they leave the week behind. Maybe Hina had told her where they were going. It is then that Sakura notices the clock above the door, flashing twenty minutes past five on a Friday.
She sighs—they must have thought that she didn't care. She had tried so hard not to be a petty senior who locked up her subordinates at the start of the weekend, and she wasn't going to start doing that. So, she dismisses them quickly, even her assistant, Terumi.
This is how she ends up on her way to the Hokage Tower.
The Hokage Tower isn't that far from the hospital, and the route she'd taken doesn't intimidate her at least. She had been using this particular route for half of her life, perhaps even more. For years, she came and went—to her one-on-one training sessions with Tsunade-sama, to asking favors from Shizune-senpai, to mission briefings of her own, or just plain seeing off her favorite people as they embark on their own journeys outside of Konoha.
And just as she sees the Tower as it stood right under the Monument, she looks up. Pinks and purples fill the sky, and she wonders how it would look like at her favorite bench just right below the clouds.
There is a kind of chill latching onto her, even through her coat—the kind of pricking, like a premonition—and she tries to dismiss it as her coat getting thinner due to overuse, its fabric wearing out.
Tsunade-sama had always told her to believe in her gut. That if a feeling came to her and she was torn whether to trust it or not, she should always choose to trust it.
But like some days, Sakura lives in an irony, and most days, she chooses wrongly.
And when her steps take her to her mentor's office, she isn't thinking about anything else other than getting these documents in her hands signed and then going home to enjoy the weekend by herself. Or maybe even stopping by her favorite bench at the Hokage Monument, taking in the last hint of winter she could get. She isn't thinking about bumping into someone and has pretty much hoped she'll have the rest of the day alone. No other interactions. Not any of her former teammates, not any of her friends. Not any Anbu assigned to guard the Hokage.
Not even the person she had been hoping to see for three years.
The universe probably thinks it hilarious when you ask for something you want on a particular day, so in return, it gives you something else. If maybe, it were gods she had prayed to, they might have listened. They might have granted her desires the moment she asks for them.
But there are no gods, not really.
There is no one listening.
And yet.
There he is.
The living irony.
The what then.
At that moment, the universe laughs, mocking, she can almost hear it. And here is Sakura, only a few steps by the Hokage's door, taking in his spiked silver hair, a bit shorter, a bit neater than the last time she saw him; his eyes are solid on hers, like a night without stars; his well-known navy mask still holding him away from her. The gray uniform is the only thing she needs to know where he came from.
She can't really tell, but she thinks that he didn't expect to see her, too.
And just like her, Kakashi had stopped just a few steps by the door.
Neither of them moving forward. Neither of them saying a word.
A door and a space in between. Empty, but thick.
What then?
Then, the door opens, and frozen time melts away between Kakashi and her.
"Sakura." Her mentor's voice enter her thoughts, taking Sakura away from Kakashi's gaze. "Oh, you're here, Hatake, I didn't expect you to be back soon."
He looks like he was about to say something, but Tsunade motions for the documents in her hands. "More?"
"Yes, Shishou," she forces out the lump in her throat, hoping her voice didn't waver.
Tsunade nods, faces Kakashi and says, "Give us a minute, Hatake, you can come by later for your report."
Her mentor takes the folders from her hands, and walks towards her desk, leaving the door open for Sakura to enter. She misses the comfort of having something to hold when she doesn't know what to do.
What then? The question presents itself once more.
It is then that Sakura realizes she isn't ready.
By the corner of her eye, Sakura sees him bow his silver head and fix his Anbu mask in place.
A sigh escapes her lips, and another, and there is the familiar weight in her chest as her feet takes her in front of the Hokage's desk.
"Sakura…"
She looks up to her mentor, her Hokage and her guardian for more than a decade, but at that moment, she is the closest person to a family she can get.
She sniffs, then freezes. Only then, she notices the tears on her cheeks.
"I'm… okay," she lies, she tries, but Tsunade doesn't say anything.
She isn't ready.
It is already the middle of March, Sakura remembers, and the last season is supposed to give way to the next.
But there he was, the last person she had wanted to see today, and it was like winter fell back into Konoha, promising that it will never be gone. If it will, it won't be soon.
She isn't ready.
His chakra signature is gone not a minute later.
How long does it take for people to get used to the cold?
Dusk clouds are darker when the rain lets up. They're heavier in view—sometimes black, sometimes gray, stretching out towards the horizon.
And during sunsets, Sakura finds that she gets drawn to it more.
Sunsets are strange phenomena. They are faster than sunrises, but Sakura's experiences with sunsets are longer. There is that kind of pause before the last hint of light crosses the line between the sky and the sea, and that is when she believes that maybe sunsets are hers alone. Like she is meant to have them longer in order for her not to miss them.
From the top of the Hokage Monument, instead of just a line, it was the pointed lines between the forest treetops and the sky. Today, as Sakura heads onto her favorite spot, the sun fights its presence with the mixed cluster of dark and thin clouds, exposing its light whenever the thinnest parts pass through.
There is still time. Spring sunsets often last longer.
Sakura leans onto the railings. After that winter sunrise, she hasn't been back up here. She hadn't had the time. She probably could have a week ago, but there are memories she didn't need to be reminded of twice.
The wind is always warm after the rain, but the breeze gusts in a variety of directions. She doesn't care if her hair whips back, but she'll need to schedule a visit to a salon next month. The longer it became, the more difficult it was to control. But then again, she just needs to make sure that there's nothing else she takes up here that will fly away, escape from her.
One thing about the Hokage Monument—other than the view—is that she liked to observe everything at a higher perspective. And quietly at that.
The roads are filled with hanging lanterns between buntings in a zigzag manner that lead all the way to the riverside. The village is bustling through with excited calls and laughter from life of all forms—adults gossiping with their neighbors, children whose voices are filled with a mix of wonder and mischief at all the pink and white colors, teens who are trying not to ruin their own hairstyles as they walk with their friends, wrapped in their yukatas. In full swing, the Cherry Blossom Festival has always been a feat in the Fire Country, and in the entirety of Sakura's life, Konoha is not one to miss it.
Sakura, for most of her life, and as someone whose name comes from its origin, celebrates it with her best friend. It was one of those days she can try and dress up with Ino, get herself to feel like someone else. Someone better.
At one point, it felt good, to be squeezed in between a large number of people who notice her, boys trying to get her to notice them with trinkets from souvenir stalls or dango from the food stalls, trying to get her to talk to them, and politely declining, telling them she was with a friend or she was already taken, when she actually wasn't. A fantasy it had been, for both Ino and her, especially when they were teens who had actually seen the world for what it's like. It was good to feel, to pretend that it was real, that this is what's normal. To pretend that they are part of the world of the protected, even for a while.
Then, eventually, it exhausted her—to pretend.
And when she was tired, she had someone else to do that for her.
That was three years too long…
She shakes her head, blinking back the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She tries to reason that it was the wind, but what does it matter? She is alone. There is no reason to pretend.
And when she looks behind her, she sees her favorite bench, faintly lit by flecks of the sun and the festival decorations hanging on the lined trees.
And someone else.
A stranger.
Yet, a familiar one.
He leans back, legs crossed, arms straight, head-tipped, eyes with purple patches under them sweeping the light from its hiding places. In his hand is his camera, its body full on his palm, as his finger hovers, slides over the button at the top of the case. To his left, his bag. Around him, the same green long coat she remembers even after a month, the same purple scarf to top it off.
Then, he looks at her, and Sakura flinches, a step back, grip tightening against the railing.
With strangers, Sakura has learned from years back that she shouldn't talk to them when she's alone. She had taken the time to learn how to defend herself, to prepare for a war, and more. And while she did that, she had become a hero.
But, in reality, any kind of preparation, any kind of learning can never do anything. Preparation is only a simulation, like a world created from the depths of one's mind. It is one of the hardest pills she had to swallow. At the end of the day, anything she ever does to prepare herself for battle could not take away the void, could not let her avoid the blow. It can only let her accept it, and deal with it in any way she can. It isn't what she had wanted to learn, but it's what she had to. Needed to.
At that moment, there are two answers.
First instinct, fight. A non-answer, really. She is the one on-guard, while he is the one sitting down, relaxed. Unarmed. His camera—could be a weapon, could be not—but he holds it in a more careful way, rather than something he would throw out like a shuriken or a kunai.
Then, it is flight. As the wind blows, choruses of laughter drift into the empty spaces, the smallest of leaves fly with, and she wonders for a moment, ponders if there is indeed a need to take off. But she finds kindness in his eyes as a touch of the sun spills onto his face, and somehow, a bit of tiredness. That is something she was familiar with. And she finds that maybe he's relatable, and then shoots the idea down.
There is another answer she had been considering, one that is only applicable to these situations. With this kind of stranger, you can talk, negotiate. Bargain. But when Sakura tries to open her mouth, the words aren't found. Her brows furrow as she closes her lips and opens them again. But her mind is a void. She—
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Sakura blinks at his words, and wonders, how do these words flow smoothly in between the spaces?
She doesn't understand them at first, only hears the sound of his voice. Low, like that snowy day, at the same time, not. It sounds weaker, but maybe it is because he was nearer the last time. Maybe, it was because the snow had trapped his voice within the globe they were in. Maybe, it was different than how she actually remembers it. Maybe, it was just how she had wanted to hear it.
He isn't really a stranger, is he? There is no need to be afraid.
Sakura feels the air shift around her, and she sighs along with the wind, along with the tapping of the decorations into the branches. She nods at him, looking back to the sky, to the sun slowly on its way to sleep. "It is," she says, finding her voice, a whisper to the wind.
"Do you come here often?" he asks, innocently. The question is not unexpected. Yet, it doesn't always come through. People never ask her because they already know.
"Do you?" She doesn't realize she snapped towards him. But when she does, she is thankful that the stranger only chuckled, not taking any offense by her tone.
"Sorry," he starts, "it's probably too—"
"No, it's alright." She clears her throat, combs her hair in a constant motion, looking away. "It's just— I haven't been asked that before. And I haven't seen anyone else… or talked to anyone else while I'm here."
Not anyone I know of.
She catches a stiff look in her periphery, his brows almost hiding into his hair, and there is a pause before she realizes.
"Did I say that out loud?" she gasps in a whisper. "Wait, that's not right."
He chuckles again, and she chances on a glance. His eyes close, the purple on them darken against the orange light. His shoulders tremble, not in fear, as she thinks it must have been a long time since he had smiled like that.
But how in the world would she know that?
"Would you mind if I take over that area?" He points at where she's standing.
"Sure," and before she knows it, she is on her way to the bench, seats herself on the other end, while he walks towards where she stood, coat dancing with the wind.
Three clicks, a flash—she feels a thirst for wanting to learn something that is out of her path, wanting to learn something that she probably would never do for the rest of her life. She likes pictures; likes the way art is captured into these special papers in the littlest time possible; likes the way a moment is immortalized. Yet, in a way, she doesn't like the way they make her remember.
He stops, and his head hangs, browsing through his different captures with another set of clicks on his device. His sighs of disappointment and relief appear a couple of times. It makes her want to see what it was about.
"I haven't seen you before." Her voice—it seems—has been back for a while, disturbing the silence between them.
The stranger's body faces her, while he holds his camera close to his chest. "You have." A quirk in his voice as he replies.
Sakura knows what he means. When he means.
"I mean… I don't remember seeing you in the past. I was sure you haven't lived here. In Konoha."
He lines his eyes to the little square at the back of his camera and focuses on the right end of the monument: a family of four, taking their own pictures, in smiles, soaked in the sunset. Great choice, she thinks.
"I have," he says as he clicks on the shutter, "but I was everywhere. I didn't stay for long."
She nods. "You travel for work?"
He ponders a bit, before he adjusts his lens counterclockwise. "A bit."
"A bit?"
He pulls away from the back of his camera, tilts his head at her. "It's not always for work—sometimes, I travel because I want to."
"Lucky you, then." Her eyes trail to where his lens is pointed at. A brown-haired boy, teasing his sister, with a space in between his teeth, and she can't help but smile and think of her own former teammate.
Sakura gazes back at the stranger. His hands hold his camera cautiously, delicately, as if letting go would make her think him crazy. But at the same time, it was as if it held a kind of comfort to him, wanting to hold onto something, but it is the only thing he can hold onto at the moment.
When the family leaves, he keeps a satisfied smile behind his scarf and sits back at the opposite end of the bench, his eyes on the display at the back of his camera. She feels the space between them, tries her best not to squirm at the thickening air.
She looks around and realizes that it's already over. The sun is now asleep, and in its place hidden behind the clouds is a crescent.
Her shoulders sag. There are other sunsets, she thinks.
When she sees the first blink of a star, she only hears the end of his question.
"What?" She avoids his eyes yet leans closer to him.
"Are you here for the festival?"
Right. "Not really… are you?"
He takes off the lens from its body, places it inside his bag. "No."
"Why were you bringing a camera then?"
It was only a question in hopes of a long conversation, not really a question to show her interest.
And yet, she is intrigued when he smirks, "If I answer that today, I might not be able to see you again."
There is a skip in her heart, and at the same time, a hand grasping it, clenching. And without really meaning to, she looks straight into his eyes. Eyes steel-gray, yet they are as warm as the way her assistant talks to her; the way her trainees praise her; the way Ino embraces her.
An exact opposite of a shinobi with hair of the same color. The one she had seen a week ago.
"Is there a reason I should see you again?" There is a challenge in the way she says it, and she scolds herself in realization.
His brows lift. "You tell me."
A whistle to the skies, and three more shoot up, and a burst of colors fill her periphery. The clouds have since faded, cracks of a color wheel continue, but he isn't looking at them, not even blinking.
He is looking at her.
And she can't look away.
The crowd's cheers are muted in each second her eyes are on his, like time is endless.
"Sukea," he says, quietly.
She doesn't understand. She blinks. "What?"
"My name is Sukea," he repeats, more firm, as he holds out a hand in front of her.
Sakura only looks at it, unsure of what to do. It is only a hand, she thinks, but at the same time, it is not.
It is a once upon a time; the first flight; a green leaf peeking after winter.
It is spring.
And this man, this stranger—Sukea—his hand twitches a bit when she doesn't take it.
But before he can pull back and keep his hand inside his coat, Sakura catches it, as if she were catching that one leaf in autumn that floated longer than the others. The most difficult one to catch.
"Sorry," she says, and he looks at her curiously, bursts of colors from the skies reflect in his eyes when they meet hers. She looks anywhere, away from his eyes, but she doesn't forget to say, "I'm Sakura."
Spring.
"Sakura…" he repeats, crystal, as if to be sure that he's saying it right even if there is only one way to say it.
And his grip tightens, but not too much, only enough to let her know that he appreciates her response, like a gift. Like relief.
And when he lets go of her hand, there is a kind of burn in her palm.
A mark.
But it doesn't hurt, not at all, only a tingle, only a brush.
Warmth, like his palm is still pressed onto it.
When she closes her fists, it's still there.
She remembers a week ago, when winter has taken its time to stall the next season.
Somehow, she feels it now.
The shift of the seasons.
Something new.
Spring.
Chapter End Notes:
Thank you injeolmi_ddeok for agreeing to be my beta reader and for raving this story with me. Ily!
Let me know what y'all think of this first chapter.
x Rye