Like Gold

by cherrynojutsu

Sasuke grapples with love and intimacy regarding his developing relationship with Sakura after returning to the village from his journey of redemption. Kind of a character study on Sasuke handling an intimate relationship after dealing with PTSD/survivor's guilt for so long. Blank period, canon-compliant, Sasuke-centric, fluff and pining, slowly becomes a smut fest with feelings.

15. Isthmus

AN: The chaos of school starting, a second tango with covid, major move plans foiled, and the decision to mayhaps start my master's degree in January later…

Chapter 15: Isthmus

---

A few days of effortless routine pass, peaceful afternoons melting into evenings spent out of the heat wave in Sakura's apartment. She fixes a flare-up in his stump one afternoon, green chakra soothing frayed nerve endings. The next, they prepare rei shabu together in her kitchen, enjoyable in its chill as they overlook the street below her window; it's exceedingly empty due to the rise in temperature, save the occasional passerby or itinerant bird. They do see her neighbor arriving back home once as they eat, the courier at the other end of the second floor. She's rather quick for a civilian, darting back out into the street and around the far corner after only a few minutes, an additional bag thrown over her shoulder.

"Her boyfriend lives on the edge of the village," Sakura comments, hand propping up her chin on the table. "A fisherman; he's out at the lake or the river nearly every day. Ino knows him."

Sasuke simply nods. Sakura's apartment building is nice and in a relatively quiet portion of town. While it's in a convenient location in terms of access to everything, he can see the appeal of the edge of the village; it's more naturalistic. It brings to mind recollections of backyards and clan grounds annexed at another edge of Konoha, wilderness teeming at the fringe and a handful of treasured walks with Itachi, dodging thistles and poison oak.

With the expansion of the village proceeding at what he's gathered in his short time back is a rather breakneck pace - there's still construction going on in several areas from what he's seen - he ponders once again how long the edge of the village will stay the edge of the village. Though he's been watering the lily buds diligently, he still hasn't gone beyond the memorial stone, into what used to be the Uchiha District. It's a task for another month, he thinks. Maybe when the autumn equinox arrives; it's been ages since he was in Konoha for that tradition.

His usual shared dinner with Sakura drifts earlier and earlier, thus offering such glimpses at the lives of the people who pass by day to day during the waning afternoon time slot. There's an exordium as of late, to stay longer into the night than he has in the past, midnight and beyond. Usually it's accompanied by some sort of snack Sakura presents in the later hours of their eves spent together, walnuts or bagged seaweed tempura or his small stash of snacks in her drawer. He surmises it may be partly an effort on her part to get him to eat more, which he doesn't mind, as he particularly enjoys the indulgences that come before said snacking.

"We could watch another movie," Sakura says near every night like clockwork, cheeks red and eyes sweeping away from him shyly, as if they've made any effort at all to watch the one that's just finished, credits rolling.

He hypothesizes that she could just be better at multitasking than him, able to ascertain at least some of the plot and dialogue despite her lips melding to his for the better portion of each film's sprawl. In credence of his theory is the fact that her pile of papers has made three further appearances during the earlier evenings, though she always slides them aside to their designated spot on her bookshelf prior to seven.

Sasuke, however, is convinced he is quite incapable of focusing on anything else when her fingers are sliding through his hair and her tongue is drifting along his, sweltry hot. The scent of raspberries is disarming and overwhelming when he's this close to her, all audio irrelevant background noise in comparison to the hum of each breath Sakura takes. Sometimes, right when they change angles and in advance of their lips colliding anew, he can catch the hint of a sweet sound she makes low in her throat; he thinks it may be the cusp of something akin to a whimper.

It hasn't helped his secluded profligacies within the privacy of his own bedroom in the slightest, as he yearns to hear just what sort of other enticing noises Sakura elicits during certain… activities. His subconscious persistently fills in the gaps, should he have such a dream; he wakes on several occasions, flushed from visuals that involve peeling thin crimson fabric and midnight netting away from her freckled skin, clearing the way so that he may caress each and every square inch of her.

He knows he's not ready for that by a long shot just yet. He's not even ready to trail his fingers anywhere other than across her cheek or atop her shoulder or through her pale hair, silk in his palm. It will take time.

Still. It's altogether impossible for him to catch even a hint of what's playing out on the screen when they're kissing like that. It's possible that the masculine system is simply wired differently, utterly subservient to such distractions. The aftertaste of whatever tea she's been drinking lingers in his mouth whenever they finally part, a sensation he's quickly become addicted to: peach, white coconut creme, caramelized pear, none too sweet.

It's still very new, but Sasuke is rather enjoying figuring it out. He concludes Sakura must be, too, as she initiates just as often as he does, which has eliminated most of his qualms; he'd been apprehensive initially that perhaps he'd be bad at this sort of thing, with as many times as he'd ruminated without acting on the desire, but he must not be terrible if she returns every kiss with equal fervor. She seems rather good at it, herself. It makes him wonder if she's ever kissed anyone else. Realistically he presumes that she must have; Sakura was always a pretty girl, even when they were children. The beautiful and capable woman she has grown into has likely attracted a fair amount of attention.

He would never ask, of course. It is categorically none of his business, given the heartbreak he forced upon her for years and the subsequent wait for him to be ready for any kind of closer relationship. He starkly ignores the part of him that aches with a great deal of jealousy at the mere thought of Sakura kissing anyone else, locking it away behind old doors that usher other parlous and nugatory feelings of his away for containment.

It doesn't matter now. He sort of wishes he could just lose the key to that sort of cerebration already. Other troubling tendencies linger behind that aged wood and its rusted hinges, insecurities and his penchant for self-punishment and his propensity to overanalyze every situation, sometimes to the extent of onerous and unjustified panic.

Someday he'll get to them, clear away the sediment; spring cleaning, perhaps. For now, he's content in relishing this new stage fully. He feels… closer to Sakura than before. He knew that would happen, but there's a familiar ease, a sedate domesticity, that he experiences within the walls of her home that he hasn't really had occasion to feel anywhere else, or at least, hasn't had occasion to feel since he was very young. He loves spending all of his time with her, whether it's cooking or kissing or sneaking an occasional glimpse of her as she scrawls things into her notes, fine pink brows furrowed and jade eyes scanning the paper analytically. Since he's begun to sit closer to her on the couch, he's noticed that they appear to be corrections of some sort, her handwriting with its swooping As flooding the margins with torrents of precisely inscribed notes. He doesn't pry about what she's working on; it may be confidential, and thus there's a sort of implied trust in him there, too, of which he doesn't wish to contravene.

He used to ache for this feeling, pine for it desperately, the indulgence and eudemonia of hours of quietly shared company and more open affections. As a child, he used to train to the point of exhaustion, pushing his body to the limits in the hopes that he could rip the desire for it out of himself. So now, contrarily and to make up for lost time, he allows himself to revel in it. It's a nice change of pace from licking his aged wounds to the point of septicity.

Following another heated session of kissing that was abruptly interrupted by rolling credits, Sakura mentions something about making iced tea at home soon, or maybe lemonade, as she rifles through her drawer of snacks. A questioning glance is thrown his way as she pulls out his popcorn.

He nods absentmindedly, barely hearing in his distraction, incalescence still cooling behind his ribs, but understanding at least the visual portion of the offer.

"Is there any kind of iced tea you like?" She's still a little flushed as she turns to face him. "Other than sencha, I mean."

His brain has barely caught up to his body standing in the dark of her kitchen, outwardly still feeling each of her fingertips at his scalp and inwardly feeling like his stomach is recovering from its compendiary transformance into molten ardor.

"...What?" That which is feverish floods his neck and licks at his ears. He's so stupidly fixated on that freckle on her cheek, as well as the way her lips look after they've been kissing: slightly plump, parted invitingly. That's done nothing for his aggrandized and enticing dreams, either, frissons of temptation that enwrap him as they slide down his spine.

"Iced tea; do you just like sencha?" She asks softly as she hands him the bag. "Or are there others you like? Or… I can make unsweetened lemonade, too."

He latches on to the end part of the sentence the quickest, as it's the only part that computes initially as he drops his gaze to the bag he's now clutching.

"Lemonade," he murmurs, trying to force the color from his face and exceptionally thankful that Sakura is a lamp aficionado. There's limited light to discern said coloring here, unless one has the Sharingan.

"Okay," she says, smiling brightly. "The next time I'm at the market, I'll get some extra lemons to make some."

The next evening, another movie serving as background noise finished, they venture to the kitchen again in search of an eleven o'clock snack. Sasuke opts for the almonds this go-around - he may need to pick up a second bag for whenever the next team movie is - but Sakura trails to her refrigerator, pulling out a small container of anko dumplings.

Sasuke eyes them curiously in the scant seconds that pass prior to returning to the living room. Their dinner was simple today, and Sakura herself grabbed what they needed for the meal from the fridge, so he hadn't seen that container before now. They appear well-made, visually appealing enough that he expects she must have picked them up from somewhere; perhaps it was the bakery nearest her apartment, the one that he suspects sells confections.

As she sets up the next movie, Sasuke finds himself recalling one occasion when they were Genin, on their lone mission to the Land of Waves, in which she'd scarfed down anko dumplings with considerable delight at dinner. He'd been preoccupied with a rather juvenile eating contest with their third teammate, but he'd still noticed; if there's one defining characteristic that he has, it's his ability to be methodically observant, often to the point of his detriment. Racking his brain, he thinks he can also recall at least one other occasion in which she'd ordered them at a restaurant that Kakashi had taken them all to at the tail end of another Genin mission closer to home.

Though he himself doesn't like dango anymore - she kindly questions him if he'd like any as she takes her seat scant inches away from him, even though she knows he doesn't like sweet things, to which he politely declines - he still mentally files this information away for future reference as he eats a few heaping handfuls of almonds. He hasn't stepped foot inside a bakery since he was seven, but he does have access to his own kitchen now.

In this small collection of days that bring May to a close, Sasuke doesn't receive any mission assignments. He assumes their old sensei and his returned assistant Shizune must be gearing up for the upcoming Chunin Exams, and thus he is probably loath to send many Konoha ninja out in the next few weeks; there is always the possibility of getting held up somewhere for longer than expected. It's likely that they're taking an ample chunk of Konoha's upper ranks to assist in Sunagakure, too, which means there needs to be an even rounding of capable ninja left here to maintain the village's security. If Naruto's going with Kakashi, Sasuke expects he himself will be home for a good while, as will Sakura; most of June they'll be here, possibly even into July, save any sort of emergency. He supposes it's probable that he will be assigned guard duties with some degree of regularity in the next month.

Going so long without a mission assignment used to bother him, eager as he was when he was younger to attain breaks from the village, but now he can't find it in himself to care one bit. Summer heat has hit Konoha with the same reprisal it always has, sweltering temperatures coating everything hot and humid. He much prefers simplistic evenings at Sakura's apartment, watching movies and snacking and kissing her until time blurs to the waning width of a crescent moon.

Amidst all of this, he somehow manages to acquire a summer sickness.

It begins as a tickle in the back of his mouth, possibly near his tonsils. He notices it as he gently sifts his remaining water over greening lily buds well past midnight, just there behind his tongue, and chalks it up to the fact that he was reading the names, the pain in the back of his throat cresting as it always does here.

Once he arrives back at his apartment, he discerns that his mouth is sort of dry, but he assumes it's due to the fact that it's brutally humid. Even now, sweat is trailing down his neck in the calefaction. He downs an entire bottle of water in one go to counteract it.

He doesn't sleep particularly well, but it's not one of his worst nightmares - he doesn't throw up this go-around - so he's grateful. However, upon waking, the twitching feeling at the back of his throat has intensified to an ache.

Frowning once his heart rate has decelerated and he's stared out his window for a bit, he procures a cough drop and relocates the lamp to the living room end table so he can read on the couch, sprawled out lazily in pursuit of distraction. The hours evanesce away, and one lozenge becomes five.

An occasional cough quakes his chest, though he thinks it's from his mouth being persistently dry rather than from anything severely infectious plaguing his lungs. It's… unpleasant. Torrid and irritating, affliction lurking at the back of his throat each time he attempts to clear it. Muscle memory demands he raise what used to be his dominant arm to cough into his bicep sleeve, but it's empty, so that doesn't work so well. What's left of his left arm only partially covers his mouth.

He's rarely been ill over the past few years, and only once did he ever have any sort of cough accompanying it. He spent very limited hours physically around other people, he supposes, choosing to say little and retire early on the rare occasion that he was under someone else's roof rather than sprawled beneath the stars alone. Perhaps he caught something from someone he crossed paths with at the market.

His mouth sinks downward once the fit passes, brows furrowing ahead of another cough rising to take its place. He raises his right arm this time, coughing into the interior portion of his elbow, then rises to procure a drink.

It's wholly disorienting; the world rotates and knocks something aching in his skull. When his fingers skim his forehead, he deduces that it's warm as the ground relevels itself. The beginning of a migraine, he concludes, as well as a fever.

Reaching for one of the jars on his tea shelf, Sasuke sets a cup of caffeinated sencha to brew, swallows two pain relief pills from the medicine cabinet, and chases the medicine with a cough drop prior to dragging his spare comforter rather unceremoniously to his couch for further comfort.

The tea soothes his throat incrementally, and his headache eases slightly; whether it was the caffeine or the medication that did the trick, he couldn't say. It's not until he rises to fix breakfast, most of his book on the history of the Land of Tea finished, that he realizes he has some sort of a genuine chill, too. Sasuke scans the thermostat for confirmation as a shiver ripples through him; the temperature reads the same as it always does.

There's a frown permanently affixed to his face now. He shrugs out of his usual long-sleeved shirt, deducing that a heavier fabric he usually reserves for cooler seasons and climates would better suit the situation he's found himself in. It helps a little, but he still encases himself back in the comforter, an occasionally coughing cocoon of a human, brows furrowed as he flips through the art book again in want of something to do to distract him from this infirmity.

The sun has climbed higher in the east, just barely clearing the horizon. He's trying to decide if he should make the jaunt to Sakura's to cancel their plans for this afternoon, lest he infect her with whatever he's caught, when the telltale banging of Naruto's fist resounds against his door.

"Teme!" He calls between heavy knocks that are sure to wake his neighbor if she's home; they're boisterous enough that they hurt his head with each sharp pound. "Kakashi-sensei is working with Shizune this morning. Let's spar!"

Sasuke sighs, lone hand rising to his head in pain at the sudden volume as he rises slightly unsteadily, not at all befitting that of a ninja.

"Hey, teme, are you home?!" Additional banging accompanied by a slight twang of an object resonates atop the vertical stretch of wood. "C'mon, hurry up! It'll be hot as fuck if we don't go soon! I already promised Hinata-chan that I'd drink this whole thing of water, and-"

"Stop. I'm coming," Sasuke calls, followed by a swallow that requires some effort. His throat hurts more now, he realizes as he nears the door that's still being hammered on relentlessly by two fists; the dobe must not have heard him.

There has to be a better system for spars than this, he judges, brows furrowing in disquietude. Some sort of designated day and time. He simultaneously contemplates how often the idiot's volume has bothered his neighbor or woken her child.

His fingers find the knob and he opens the door, only slightly as he doesn't want to permit Naruto any kind of opening to barge his way in. He is unsurprised to see his best friend appearing as if he's just rolled out of bed, blond hair skewed sideways and both fists frozen in midair. One is wrapped around a huge thermos that must have been contributing to the audial uproar.

"Oh, good, I thought maybe you slept at Sakura-chan's or something-"

Sasuke's neck warms as he pins him with an unimpressed look.

"Oh." Intense blue assesses him as he lowers his curled fists from the air finally. "Uh."

Sasuke narrows his eyes when his best friend's expression morphs into one of amusement.

"You… kinda look like shit," the idiot chuckles.

Observation of the century, he thinks and nearly says, but it's about two too many words; he doesn't wish for his throat to ache further than it already does.

"I'm sick," Sasuke deadpans instead, glaring kunai at his teammate with a pounding head. The warm light cast from the rising sun isn't doing wonders for his headache situation; it's throbbing worse now than before with the continued exposure.

For some reason that results in the dobe's laugh intensifying. It starts as a snort but quickly escalates into a snicker, then a cackle. If his neighbor wasn't already awake, she's sure to be now.

"What's the matter, teme?" He lilts in a teasing voice that causes Sasuke's patience to run thin and his frown run thinner still, incensed. There's a smug grin on the dobe's face, the kind that appears when Naruto is about to say something catastrophically fucking imbecilic.

"Swap too much spit with Sakura-chan?"

Sasuke's brow twitches.

"You know, you should go to the hospital-"

Immediately sensing where this line of reasoning is going, Sasuke promptly shuts the door - not a slam, but not muted, either, and no, he is definitely not red in the face, it's just the fever.

He blocks out most of whatever the idiot ends up saying - some thinly veiled and highly implicative innuendo about making an appointment - through sheer willpower and a lengthy, irritated exhale. By the time he's switched to inhaling, a new round of laughter is apparent from the other side of the wood.

Sasuke relocks the door in the most methodical, purposeful, and audible manner possible, scowling darkly.

"Don't worry!" The dobe calls from the other side of the door, laughing. "I'm sure Sakura-chan would love to make a house call, just for you! And anyways, she-"

Sasuke stalks to his bedroom and yanks the comforter over his head, drowning out whatever the idiot's going on about with another forced exhale and determined to go back to sleep for an hour, at least until nine. He'll figure out what to do regarding their afternoon plans later, he thinks through an additional round of clearing his parched throat, triggered by the sudden change to a horizontal position.

He's tired enough that it actually works. His last thought afore sleep claiming him is that he really is genuinely sick for the first occasion in a while, and is definitely running a fever.

---

He's not sure how long he sleeps for - it feels like twenty minutes or so, strange pieces of a hazy and familiar gray dream just beginning to color his subconscious - but a few sharp, precise raps on the door have him rising haphazardly from slumber, ready to lay into Naruto despite how dry and sore his throat is. There's sleep clouding the corners of his recognition and the edges of his eyes are watering, irritated, as his hand unlocks the door as if detached from his body just yet. The sleepy retort is already on his tongue when-

He blinks in bewilderment, both at the overwhelming amount of bright light and the colors that are still solidifying before him, below his direct line of sight. Definitively, it is not a blur of orange and yellow that comes into focus.

It's pink and green instead; Sakura is blinking up at him owlishly. It's nearly midday, judging by the sun well above them both. He's slept for the better portion of three hours rather than the one he intended.

"Hey," she greets softly. "Naruto stopped by and said you might be sick." Pale green is both assessing and caring as she gazes up at him. "I assumed we'd cancel our afternoon plans so you can rest, but I wanted to… to check on you." She motions towards the bag curved around her shoulder.

He blinks as his pupils adjust to the harsh gleam, trying to process through the splitting migraine that's now surging with a vengeance. He's still stuck on how he's somehow slept for three hours, and how his eyes are, for some reason, itching now.

Must be the light. He blinks a few more times for good measure, slowly.

"If… if that's okay," she says, an uncertain expression overtaking her features as he continues to stare at her, brows furrowing finally as his brain catches up with what she's said. "Or… If you'd rather I didn't, I… I can…"

"Okay." His voice comes out a shred rougher than it usually does, but he manages, pulling the door open wider to let her through; it feels as though his throat has been coated with sandpaper on both sides and it's grinding against the remaining contents of his pharynx. "Sorry. I slept longer than I thought."

Sakura's face brightens, shifting to something like recognition - he's succeeded in communicating that his delay in speech wasn't because her presence was unwanted - and her lips quirk upwards.

"Oh," she murmurs airily, beaming as she moves to step inside, fingers grasping at the strap of her bag. "I'm sorry I woke you up."

"...It's fine," he mumbles, still disoriented as he closes the door behind them. He examines the lock for a protracted moment, considering, because the idea of the dobe barging in on an examination is not the most appealing mental picture, but he ultimately decides against it. Sakura likely won't be here for very long, and he doesn't want to get her ill, either.

Though now that he's thinking about it, they did sort of… spend a rather significant amount of time kissing on her couch again, the night previous.

And the night before that.

…And the night before that.

He mentally reviews old lessons on contagions from the Academy ages ago, tiredly trying to discern if he has already given it to her. She would be showing symptoms already if he had, he reasons; she would only be a day behind him at best in exposure. His brain feels muddy, like it's lagging exorbitantly behind everything occurring in the present, just on the edge of slumber.

When he turns to her, rubbing at his eyes a little as they're still sort of irritated, she's already slipped her shoes off and is looking around somewhat uncertainly.

His focus meets hers in silent question.

"Um." Sakura blinks. "Where should I…?"

Ah. This is only her second time here. The couch is probably more comfortable, but it's also probably covered in more of his germs.

"...Here's fine," he elucidates, motioning to the table prior to absentmindedly flipping the kitchen light on. He squints at the offending brightness once he does, head pounding and blinking as it occurs to him that he might appear a bit… unkempt as of yet. He frowns, briefly recalling that his hair tends to skew away from whichever side of his head he slept on.

If she notices, Sakura pays no mind to it. She simply nods once and then turns to take a seat, beginning to pull a kit of some kind out of her bag. He takes the opportunity to pour himself a glass of water, as he realizes he's presumably going to have to talk in regards to symptoms and he would rather avoid having to cough in her immediate vicinity.

A stretched sip is taken, hydration temporarily soothing his pharynx, before he swivels back towards the dining table. Within the kit, he can see, was a stethoscope, an ear instrument, a cuff to measure blood pressure, what he assumes is a penlight, and a sealed clear bag that contains several things: a tissue, swabs, small tubes, and one of the wooden sticks typically used to hold the tongue down when examining the throat.

There is also a new package of the menthol-lyptus cough drops among the instruments, shiny azure blue like the others. He notices it last, tired brain processing through each item at a delayed pace.

His haggard gaze flits to her with immense appreciation as he sinks into the remaining seat on her side of the table. He's only gone through about one and a half of the initial three bags she gave him, but he'll probably use a lofty number of them up during this bout of illness. It was kind of her.

It seems she reads the gratitude in his expression, smiling under his continued appraisal. Her cheeks flush slightly as she rips open the package and offers him one.

"So," Sakura says softly as he carefully unwraps it. "What are your symptoms?" Her eyes are kind as they temporarily flick to the glass of water in advance of coming back to rest on him. "I'm assuming a sore throat?"

Sasuke nods, bringing the cough drop up to slip beyond his lips.

"...Headache." He pauses, situating the cough drop into the hollow of his cheek and thinking. "Chills."

She surveys him for a long moment as if working through her next words or perhaps considering something of note.

"Runny nose or congestion at all?" She questions finally as she picks up the blood pressure cuff. He places the wrapper on the dining table before offering his lone arm out to her.

"No."

She situates it easily, securing the apparatus around his bicep in advance of upping the pressure. He focuses on the feeling of the cough drop numbing his throat, dissolving into an essence of relief. Pressure amps and declines around the squeezed muscle of his arm.

"Just a little higher than usual," she remarks eventually. The pressure releases as she peels it away.

"Pulse next, please."

There's a delay as he processes the instruction, blinking prior to holding out his arm again; he allows his elbow to rest on the surface of the table between them. Both of her hands ascend to grip his wrist, plying for his radial artery.

Even with as tired as he is, he can't ignore the latent tangibility of her fingertips feel against his skin there. He barely breathes for a moment, closing his eyes and overly aware of the ambrosia of raspberry for about the three-hundredth time since he's returned.

"Hmm," Sakura appraises thoughtfully when her fingers finally fall away and he exhales, thinking this shouldn't affect him so, especially not now, given their more recent activities. "Your heart rate isn't really much higher than normal, but that doesn't mean you're not sick."

Sasuke supposes his heart rate when ill certainly would present synonymous to his heart rate when in the immediate close proximity of his girlfriend, her touch at his bare skin for an extended period of time. He briefly toys with the idea of trying to mentally count the measures of his own pulse when they are next occupied with kissing, but that notion quickly devolves into a frown, because it will probably be a while now before he kisses Sakura again.

"You're more tired than usual?"

Pulled from the doldrums, he nods stiffly as she reaches for the ear instrument, neck warming.

"Do you think you have a fever?" She questions as she puts some sort of cap atop the instrument for what he assumes are sanitary reasons. "Your wrist felt kind of warm."

Sasuke dips his chin again in confirmation, rotating his head slightly so she can take his temperature via his ear. It takes only a minute.

"One hundred and two," she informs him softly, taking the instrument from his ear and removing the miniature cap from it to be set atop the tissue, the pile of things to dispose of later. "So a small one." She sets the instrument aside, turning back to him. "Any cough?"

"Not really," he answers. "Sore. Dry." He pauses, then adds, "I cough if I don't have water."

Analytical eyes peer up at him before she procures the wooden stick with one hand and the penlight with the other. "Do your lymph nodes hurt at all?"

His brows knit together.

"...I'm not sure." They don't feel swollen, really, but his need for sleep has been attracting all of his focus since the sun rose, to the extent that he hasn't really glimpsed himself in the mirror at all. He also hasn't brushed his teeth yet today, he realizes with some regret.

Sakura nods as if this makes sense. "I'd like to look at your throat, if that's okay."

Sasuke swallows again as she grabs the wooden stick and penlight. He then opens his mouth; the cough drop is a meager remnant stored in the hollow of his cheek.

Sakura frowns once she's got the light aimed for analysis.

"Say ah, please?"

He complies, feeling inelegant in all respects.

She pulls the stick away after a short few seconds of study, though for some reason she keeps the penlight on. He closes his mouth and situates the cough drop back onto the main spread of his tongue, blinking slowly as the menthol eases the dryness that came with the open air exposure. His eyes feel like they're about to droop shut any minute.

"Could I look at your eyes quick?"

His brows furrow as he processes the question, flummoxed - I haven't used them is on the tip of his tongue, in reference to his doujutsu - to which Sakura smiles patiently.

"I think you probably have a bacterial infection. Your tonsils are swollen." She motions to the penlight still in her palm. "I'd guess group A strep throat, but you don't have any white spots yet. Sometimes the bacteria manifests in the eyes, too. Conjunctivitis."

He blinks once more, regard flickering tiredly but purposefully to the penlight to grant her permission, as if to say go ahead whilst sparing his pharynx the further motion of words.

Sakura's gaze softens prior to discarding the stick, placed atop the tissue so the part that was in his mouth doesn't touch the table.

She then switches the penlight to her left hand and reaches toward him with her right.

His brows knit closer together in sluggish puzzlement before she's sifting his hair away from his left eye carefully, touch gentle and expression soft.

Heat licks at his ears. Ah.

He's an idiot. Of course his hair was in her way. Perhaps he's more out of it than he thought.

Her fingertips graze his cheekbone and part of his temple slightly as she raises the penlight. She shines it into his left first, then lets her digits fall away from his cheek as she shifts the light over his other eye. He hopes they're not infected, or, if they are, that they don't appear too… gross. He vaguely remembers just two other occasions in which he acquired conjunctivitis; neither of them left his eyes particularly presentable, visually speaking.

"They look a little irritated," she observes matter-of-factly, clicking the light off prior to setting it aside. She then reaches for one of the swabs. "Could I swab your throat for a test? If it is strep, I'll prescribe an antibiotic."

Sasuke nods yet again, to which Sakura smiles in response.

"Alright. Tilt your head back, please."

He stares at the ceiling above him, moving the last remnant of the cough drop to his cheek again before he opens his mouth.

"Say ah," Sakura instructs. "This will probably tickle a little."

He does, and she quickly slides the swab over what he assumes are his tonsils, one swipe on each side. Once it's out, he clears his throat to satisfy the small itch as she situates the swab neatly into one of the test tubes. He follows it up with a sip of his water.

"I'll stop by the hospital to run this, and then I'll be back later if it's positive," she says smoothly as she wraps the tube again; he expects it's to offer it some cushion in the kit. "I'll bring eye ointment, too, just in case."

Sasuke nods once more, taking another measured sip. She begins placing the other items back into her kit, though she leaves the stethoscope out.

"I'd like to listen to your heart before I go," she comments. "Sometimes group A can spread to the heart and damage the valves; scarlet or rheumatic fever. It's probably too early for that if you just started having major symptoms this morning, but it's standard practice to check anyway."

"...Okay." It's also standard Shinobi protocol to take every precaution available when it comes to the possibility of impaired health, especially involving a vital organ. He's not particularly a fan of being poked and prodded given his history, but if it's Sakura, he doesn't mind. He has come to know that she excels in every aspect of her profession, and bedside manner is no exception.

At that thought, he forcefully shoves the idiot's teasing from earlier to the back of his mind as Sakura situates the stethoscope in her ears, lifting the chest piece and pressing it to his sternum. He breathes slowly, in and out as his eyes droop somewhat; it somehow makes him sleepier, inanition ready to overtake him.

"Your heart sounds good," Sakura comments as she removes the chest piece. "No concern there." She then plucks the other side of the stethoscope from her ears, moving to return that to the kit, too; he assumes that means she doesn't need to check his lungs this time. The bag of cough drops stays on the table as she swivels her upper body to grab her tote bag from where she's left it.

"Do you need anything?" She queries as she turns back towards him, and he gets the distinct impression that Sakura the clinician has vacated the premises entirely. "I could make some soup if you want. Chicken noodle, maybe? If you're on an antibiotic, you'll want to avoid anything acidic or with dairy."

Sasuke's brow furrows. He doesn't want to get her sick with extended time spent here, but he would be deluding himself if he didn't admit that such a dish sounds like heaven right about now with the way his throat aches. He may be able to make something similar on his own in terms of having the ingredients on hand, but his will to produce such a dish is another matter entirely. He's too tired to consider making anything that's not ochazuke today, and he also knows he likes Sakura's cooking; he doesn't doubt that he would like this rendition of soup, given she seems to utilize her slow cooker fairly frequently.

He supposes it is her day off, and they were supposed to hang out later anyways, so it's not like she'd be neglecting other plans on his behalf. It's very kind of her to offer.

You shouldn't just… suffer in silence, if something hurts.

"...Soup would be good," he admits quietly after some internal review, realizing she's waiting for a response and he's taking too long. He pointedly slides his focus to the cough drops atop the wood grain of the table before refocusing on her tiredly. "Thank you."

A pleased smile blooms on her lips.

"You're very welcome," she says. "I'll try to get Naruto to leave you alone for a bit, too. I'm guessing he nearly busts your door down each time like he does mine? Between the door and the window, I'm surprised my office is still intact at this point."

Sasuke snorts, and her grin widens in amusement.

"...That's the reason my door is usually locked," he admits, something occurring to him as he speaks the words. The knocking earlier, sharp and precise, was not how Sakura normally knocks on a door. Not that he's heard her knock often as of late, now that he's thinking about it, but when they were younger, servicing clients in and outside of the village on missions, it was usually a few gentle raps, more of a grazing of her knuckles against the egress. It was a sharp contrast to Naruto's discordant and careless whacks even back then.

Which means that she likely knocked lightly at first today but he slept right through it.

Suppose it wouldn't hurt. It's overnight, always, when his issues with sleep disturbances emerge, surpassing further than a few hours of slumber as a nap does. It should be fine to provide her a way in for later today in case he's asleep.

Sakura rises with a musical laugh, shifting her tote bag back in place on her shoulder. "I'll see what I can do." Shining soft green levels him, beautiful and rich with mirth as she turns towards the door.

"...Sakura," he says as he also rises abruptly, inwardly wincing at what it does to his head. She pauses halfway to the door, angling herself back towards him with a curious expression.

Crossing the small kitchen to the drawer on the far left, Sasuke pulls it open quietly. He doesn't own enough kitchen supplies to fill all of the compartments in the space, so this one has remained mostly empty, save for the spare nickel-brass key that came with the place. He's never had a use for it, so he just left it in the same location the previous tenant had: at the back of an unused drawer.

He turns to Sakura with the cool metal in hand, sluggishly so he doesn't get disoriented again by sudden movement. In one gradual but sure motion he's extending it out to her.

She blinks twice, staring at it with widened eyes and a nonplussed countenance that makes his throat tighten uneasily.

It is in this moment that his pulse pounds in his ears to the point of careening as he second guesses himself entirely.

He didn't really think it over much before retrieving it; he just didn't want her to be stuck waiting outside his door if he's out by the time she comes back with soup or medicine. He dimly soaks in that this is possibly a bigger deal than his somnolent mind is capable of fully processing just now.

"...If I'm asleep," he expounds expeditiously, voice marginally hesitant now as he begins to overthink, a sliver of rationality cutting through the haze of fatigue and settling in the form of presage just behind his ribs. Suddenly it feels like there's something poring through the soil there, disturbing vines and dirt and roots, scrutinizing them afore flinging them away carelessly with the aid of a rusted spade.

They've barely been together for two months. Perhaps he has vastly overstepped, made her uncomfortable-

"Okay," she says as her expression morphs into a shy smile, palm brushing his to take the key.

Once his pulse finds its place again, no longer rushing and echoing in his ears like a torrent of an alarm, he slowly lets go of the sleek metal. Sakura's eyes are filled with something that looks an awful lot like awe, fractals of seafoam atop a shifting reflected fluorescent light.

Her soft fingers are, as ever, incredibly distracting as they slide away, nimble and graceful. She's out the door in a few seconds, a sweet-natured glance cast back in his direction before she turns. The door creaks open and closed, and the latch clicks softly behind her.

She locks it for him, eternally polite.

He blinks once, staring at the wood grain for a lingering moment in advance of rotating to land his study on the bag of cough drops.

A feeling is settling somewhat behind his ribs that is rather nice, twisting vines and disturbed roots and other things he's entombed pushed neatly back into place, utterly at odds with his physical afflictions.

---

Several hours pass, more half-formed thoughts a rippling gradient in his subconscious that are not given quite enough time to begin to stew, along with strange scraping noises that filter in and out of his skull.

He eventually blinks groggily to the aroma of chicken soup invading his olfactory senses. It effectively fades the blur of cinereal to simple off white plaster, and he rolls out of bed rather unceremoniously. His headache is at least a little better, he finds, though the dryness in his mouth is not. He gulps down some of the stagnant water in the glass astride his bedside from earlier. He then proceeds to his doorway with it in hand, pushing the door open.

Sakura is stirring soup in what appears to be the slow cooker from her kitchen he was recalling a short time ago, brought here. Savory roasted shiitake mushrooms and sliced green cabbage intermix with the scent now that he's closer, and she turns to the soft click of the door opening and closing.

"Sasuke-kun," she greets in a hushed tone with kind eyes, smiling. "You're awake."

"...Sakura," he says in response, somewhat disoriented.

"Your strep test was positive," she murmurs, turning back to the pot to tap the remaining moisture off the ladle before setting the lid back atop the soup. "I brought you an antibiotic; it's on the table. Eye ointment, too."

His focus sinks to the table, and sure enough there are two medications: a tube of ointment that's labeled Bacitracin Ophthalmic Ointment and a small bottle of pills that reads No. 860015-5578, Uchiha, Sasuke, Penicillin 500mg, Take twice daily. Quantity: 20 tablets. Dr. Haruno, Sakura - No refills.

There is a lengthy moment in which he stares at the clear orange container. His vision adjusts lethargically, lingering on the material transparency, the way it colors the stark white pills contained within it. There is a scattering of seconds where the air momentarily feels crisper in his lungs, harder to respire.

"Thank you," he finally responds, cutting through the haze of his own thoughts as cleanly as a swipe of his chokuto can cleave through paper. He exchanges his glass of water for the garishly bright container, using his teeth to rotate the lid off.

"You're welcome," Sakura acknowledges to his left, reaching for cutlery and beginning to fill the sink, apparently to soak the dishes. Now that he's fully awake, he sees that the cutting board is among them. She must have added a few things to the mix just after arriving here for the final additions to the soup.

"Just make sure to finish the whole thing, even when you start feeling better." She smiles at him. "In twenty-four hours, you won't be contagious anymore, either, so you can return to normal life if you're feeling up to it."

Lone pill popped into his mouth, he reaches for what's left of his water. It drags along his throat, scraping irritated tissue; it takes a few more gulps of water to force it all the way down, effectively draining his glass. He shoves away his disdain for the feeling.

"...You don't need to wash those," Sasuke says quietly, frowning as he rounds the table, intent on obtaining a new glass of water. "I'll do it later."

Fine pink brows arch, then furrow furrow as he places it on the counter nearest the fridge. She's peering at him as if he's grown another head.

"Of course I will," Sakura insists, expression confused. "You're sick, and I dirtied them. After dinner, though."

His frown sinks deeper, pursuance of the water pitcher in the fridge momentarily forgotten.

"...You'll get sick."

There is an enduring pause where she appraises him carefully, as if he's said something completely nonsensical.

"I… don't think you need to worry about that," she finally replies, cheeks flushing a little as she swipes her hand across her skirt once to dry it. They fidget there, bunching in the violet fabric. "You probably got it from me."

His brows furrow as his fingers rest atop the fridge handle. Briefly she meets his eyes, and her cheeks darken further.

Ah.

He angles his vision momentarily in the direction of the counter, studying the pattern in an attempt at distraction from the acute sensation of flame licking up his neck.

"...Wouldn't you be sick, too?"

Sakura shakes her head in his peripheral vision.

"Well-" She begins, then stops. "Well… I mean technically, I have it, but… I'm mostly asymptomatic. I had a small fever when I checked, running your test, so I did one of my own and it was positive; I'm taking an antibiotic, too . Group A strep has never really given me symptoms other than that, though. And…" She pauses long enough to pique his curiosity, so he meets her stare.

Her cheeks are incarnadine, but her countenance is more akin to apologetic than embarrassment. Her fingers are still restless at her sides.

"I had a patient with strep come in on Tuesday. Group A has a two to five day incubation period, so… Relatively sure that you caught it from me."

Slowly Sasuke nods, and she smiles, but then she turns in a way he can only describe as meek, back to the dishes as if searching for something new to keep her hands occupied.

"So… take this as my apology for getting you sick," she quips, speaking in a rather regretful tone, one that quickens with every word she speaks, aflush with offers that he immediately clocks as being laden with some sort of misplaced guilt. He's struck by the tired, absurd notion to laugh, because Sakura is the last person who should ever be apologizing to him.

"Is there anything I can take care of for you? I could bring some new books, if you'd like. If you've finished your other ones, I mean. Or… I don't have to eat here, if you're too tired. I can come get the slow cooker later if it's easier for you to heat it up that way. Maybe when you're feeling better? And-"

"Sakura," he murmurs, carefully placing his lone hand on her bicep, and she quiets instantaneously, pupils honed in on his.

"...I don't mind being sick." The words are out of his mouth before he can overthink them, but they're true and enunciated as clearly as he is capable; he doesn't mind at all. He would take being ill again a hundred times over if it means he gets to spend the amount of hours with her he's been able to recently, and furthermore, to kiss her, like that. There's a comfort in it, similar to the comfort of seeing her in his apartment for a third occasion or the amenity that comes with someone you love offering to eat soup with you when you're ill, despite the weather outside being blazing.

It's arduous for him to voice such things, but he hopes she can understand through his expression alone, as she often can.

I want you here.

Her pupils have widened to the size of saucers, a thin slice of jade green circling their edges just so.

"Oh," she intones faintly. She peers down to where his hand is still resting, curved gently around her arm, and her face flushes darker somehow. The corner of his mouth twitches; she really is utterly oblivious to what her touch does to him and his pulse, yet is endearingly affected by his touch on her in any way, shape, or form, innocent as it may be.

"...Good." She says it with what sounds a little like relief, and the spell is broken; he lets his fingers fall away as she reaches to turn off the faucet, sink now brimming with suds and hot water. "We should probably eat, then."

Sasuke dips his chin once in agreement, reaching to obtain the bowls from a nearby cabinet. He ladles out large servings for both Sakura and himself, more content now that he knows she's not getting exposed to illness unnecessarily on his behalf. Similarly to the last occasion she made soup, the pot is full to brimming; there will be plenty of leftovers for tomorrow, or tonight, should he wake again or have trouble sleeping in the first place. He's hungry, he realizes; he didn't eat lunch. In fact, he has to side-eye the clock to see what the time actually is just now: a few minutes prior to five, the continuance of their newly adjusted meal schedule.

Sakura reaches into the silverware drawer while he oscillates in the small space. Her bowl in hand, he crosses the kitchen to deliver it to the table, placing it in the same spot she sat the previous time she was here for dinner. He embarks on a second trip back for his own, during which Sakura deposits their silverware in their respective spots.

She's heading back to the kitchen for some reason as he sets his bowl down, the sound of the fridge opening at his back. When he glances her way in question, his gaze softens, because he realizes she's taking the water pitcher out to fill his glass, forgotten on the counter.

"Would you like some tea?" Sakura questions as she pours, vision colliding with his briefly. "I know you don't like sweet things, but I brought some honey in my bag; a little might help your throat until the antibiotics kick in. If I brew the sencha strong enough and just use a bit, you probably won't taste it."

He shoots her a look that he hopes communicates his appreciation, nodding, before he turns to the table, transiently trying to place what's missing. His point of study flickers to the eye ointment, then to her bag.

"There's some in the cupboard," he mentions absentmindedly, slightly hoarse, wondering if he should apply the ointment now or if it would make him look stupid for dinner. He doesn't really want irritated eyes - they're itching a bit, again - but he also doesn't want them caked with gunk while Sakura's still here.

"Tea?" She questions with a curious tone. He hears running water from the faucet begin anew, plunking levelly into the saucepan.

"Honey," he clarifies, distrait before he finally pieces together that the lamp is still in the living room from earlier. He crosses the breadth of the apartment to collect the light source, unplugging it from the outlet nearest the end table.

It's not until he's back at the edge of the kitchen, hooking the lamp's cord into the outlet and flooding the space with softer light, that he realizes silence is still reigning and Sakura hasn't moved an inch.

Sasuke shoots her an inquisitive look, raising an eyebrow as he slides the light flush with the wall atop the table, next to his stack of library books.

"Honey?" Sakura echoes finally, and his unthinking admission catches him.

Calidity blooms on his neck, blistering all the way up to his ears and rushing through the twisted pathways of his veins.

"...Yes," he mumbles after extensive pause, implication clear and body resolutely still until Sakura turns toward the cupboard with a perplexed expression. It reminds him of the look on her face when he proceeds with a move she clearly didn't expect him to whilst hours into a match of chess or go: a black piece waltzing willingly into her reach only to parry away in the next turn, if she doesn't seize it in favor of the continuance of her own strategic maneuvering.

He supposes this is no exception. Sasuke seizes the opportunity to grab the ointment and noiselessly escapes to his bathroom to apply it. The only sound is the open and shut of his bedroom door behind him, a duet of soft clicks.

He takes his time, washing his hand thoroughly and tilting his head back to apply the cool ointment into the small pocket behind the lower lash line of each eye. It's a bit of a challenge to accomplish the task one-handed without touching the tip of the applicator directly to his corneas - it's not something he's done since gaining his handicap, really - but he manages by pulling the skin out with two fingers and holding the tube with the other three. Closing his eyes is a welcome distraction, rolling them in their sockets to distribute the ointment throughout, as it says on the back of the tube not to rub at them with one's fingers.

After washing his hand a second time, he examines himself for a long moment in the mirror. They don't look too bad, though the typical white sclera is pretty pink, more clearly afflicted after a few hours of sleep in which the bacteria could apparently fester untreated.

His skin tone has mostly returned to normal, save his neck; he dislikes the slight tinge of a flush that's hovering stubbornly at his cervical spine, refusing to concede to his will.

Following a deep breath and another minute's passing, Sasuke crosses the divide of his bedroom and returns to the dining table to the tone of two more mild and muted clicks, gaze shifting to Sakura as soon as he's carefully drawn the door closed. She's shut the kitchen light off, it appears; her back is to him, white circle emblazoned brightly across the space between her shoulder blades, but the water is steaming in the saucepan atop the stove, and she's fastidiously scooping out a vestigial amount of what appears to be the lavender Earl Gray mixture into his lone tea infuser.

There's a small part of him that's relieved. It had seemed like something she would like, though he'd picked up a jar each of the loose leaf decaffeinated matcha and the caffeinated peach, too, as well as a modest container of the shop's honey. He wanted enough variety that she could have tea here no matter what time of the day it is. Sakura's apartment is vastly superior to his own in terms of variety of things to do, and he hadn't been sure if she would want to come by again, but it's good to be prepared, and he'd reasoned that if she didn't, he could simply deposit the jars and honey discreetly into her contraband drawer sometime.

The scent of sencha overwhelms his nostrils as he sits, intermixing with the aroma of the soup. A mug filled with it is placed next to his bowl; she brewed his first, it seems. He takes to the distraction of food and drink rapidly, bringing a spoonful of the soup to his mouth.

It's just as excellent as the last time. He savors the way it soothes his throat even as his neck continues in its rogue goal of staying stubbornly blazing. Hearty chunks of chicken, noodles, and a minuscule mushroom slide down his esophagus, drenching everything in a different heat, one that's relieving. He takes a sip from the mug, after, and it's definitely stronger than he usually prepares it, but he can't taste the honey much, as she said.

He's alarmed when a muffled sniffle intermixes with the sound of jars being picked up and pushed back into the cupboard. Sasuke watches Sakura uncertainly out of the corner of his vision as she closes the front of the cabinet, and sure enough, she brings one of her hands to her face as if to wipe tears from her eyes.

Now it's guilt that runs aflame down his spine like a fuse, though this time it burrows sharp into his gut. It wasn't at all his intention to make her cry.

He experiences a grand moment of internal conflict as he returns his gaze to the table, torn between rising to his feet to do something akin to wiping her tears away clumsily - her name is on the tip of his tongue - and staying put to cede her privacy, as it's possible she didn't want him to see that she was crying; she turned the kitchen light off herself, after all. He also doesn't know if she's taking anything for conjunctivitis; he washed his hand well, but he doesn't want to chance giving it to her if she doesn't have it already.

The remaining water in the saucepan creates a small echo as it's poured into a cup, shortly followed by a spoon chiming against ceramic as it stirs the contents; then, there are soft footsteps.

"Sakura-"

He is saved from the decision in short order. At his left, she shifts his hair away from his eye and cheekbone with solicitous gentleness prior to pressing her lips there. They linger longer than they have in the past, achingly tender.

"That was sweet of you," she breathes as her lips depart his skin, voice a little shaky. Even through his fever, the warmth sears him, drizzling down his lungs on the inhale and into his heart. "Thank you."

When she takes her seat across from him, he sees that her eyes are glassy, reflectant in the lamplight and tempered with such love that it makes him ache.

The dinner is drawn out, yet comfortably quiet in the way that many of their shared meals tend to be. Spoons clink against ceramic bowls and the inside of Sakura's cup as she stirs her brewing tea. Mugs are raised and lowered, occupying paltry and ever-shifting circumferences. Sasuke puts away two helpings to the tune of it, the soft rhythms of shared life. His throat feels a bit less like sandpaper by the conclusion of it.

"I'd like to check on you tomorrow, too," Sakura says once they've done the dishes and stowed the leftover soup in his refrigerator, carrying over the routine they've fallen into at her place just as easily here. She's standing near his doorway with her bag shrugged over her shoulder, sandals pulled on and twisting the spare key nervously in her fingers at her side.

"Okay," he murmurs, glimpsing pointedly in the direction of her hand, then back to her to show he understands what she's asking him. She can keep it as far as he's concerned - it's not like he has any use for it, anyway, and he knows Sakura is nothing if not cognizant and respectful of his boundaries, possibly overly so - but perhaps that's a conversation for tomorrow.

"Okay," she agrees, flashing him a dazzling smile. Her digits close around the key more surely, fidgeting coming to a standstill as her dimple sinks into existence.

There is an expectant pause where there is usually some sort of kissing, but even if they're both on the antibiotic, his mouth still tinges with a little dryness now that he's not consuming some sort of hot liquid. Coughing all over her is the last thing he wants to do.

Sakura exhales slowly. "Well… I'll see you tomorrow, Sasuke-kun. Good night."

"...Good night."

Sasuke stays rooted by the door once she's gone, lock long since clicked into place for him a second time and her visage burned into his retinas. Torpidly, carefully, he presses his forehead to the cool wood of the threshold.

How is it possible for someone's mere presence to transform a space in such a way?

He would have been terribly bored - irritated, even - in his apartment alone this evening, and he knows as sure as the sky is blue that any soup he crafted alone wouldn't have tasted half as good as what Sakura prepared for him.

Reasonably, Sasuke is aware that such things are possible, though he learned that lesson the first time in reverse. He recalls it vividly as he traipses to the memorial stone to water what he's planted, the way in which someone's absence robs a house, a backyard, an entire district of all joy.

He shrugs off his shirt once he's sojourned back home in favor of doubling up on his comforters; the top was coated in sweat from the humid walk. Both blankets are clean currently, he reasons, and if he has them, he might as well use them.

The sheets are cool to his skin initially, a nice feeling against his still fevered skin as he suspected they might be. The blankets enwrap him comfortably, endlessly warm.

---

Sometimes Sasuke contemplates what happens after people die. He's dreamed about it often, ensnared in nightmares of eighty-six bodies or otherwise: if it hurts or if it's peaceful, like sinking into sleep, and if there is something after all of this. He perceives that there is some truth to reincarnation from their encounter with the Sage of the Six Paths, and that has set him slightly to ease, in the sense that in some liminal way his clan lives on: his brother, his mother and his father, his aunt and uncle, and the rest.

It has also given him additional questions, though. Does part of their soul stay adrift endlessly, clutching their memories like a keepsake to their chest, a threaded nexus tied to their previous life? Or does the spirit depart completely into their next existence, flitting to the most fitting and available vessel to embark on a new annal? The thought of his mother not remembering him or the lilies in their backyard makes his chest ache terribly, brittle and easily broken, and Itachi forgetting him is another agony entirely.

He also wonders if part of their memories could be geographical, tethered haphazardly in pieces to places they loved in life. He knows his Aunt Uruchi loved the bakery with its smell of toasting senbei and pastries. He suspects Itachi enjoyed the bakery, too, with his affinity for dango and other sweet things. He vaguely recalls a festival when they were very young in which they polished off twenty multicolored sticks together and ended up with bellyaches. They'd used the wooden remains to construct a form reminiscent of a simplistic house, lantern glow illuminating the scant lines in the dark, ephemeral and easily ended when it came time to collect them and embark on the journey home.

Sasuke likes to think Itachi also enjoyed the pond he took him to occasionally, the wildflowers they picked to take home for their mother, and the resultant scent of budding blooms that lilted through hallways with dark floors on those handfuls of occasions, intermingling with the scent of their salt-grilled catch come dinner. He knows his mother loved their yard, and their kitchen, too, lilting with freshly brewed jasmine tea in the morning or the quiet din of family once everyone sat down for a formal meal. His mother plucked a bone from his mouth once, a small one he'd nearly swallowed. He remembers her softspoken instructions to be more careful, voice comforting as she reached to the back of his throat methodically with tweezers in the soft light of early evening.

But he is not sure of the sorts of places his father liked, or if there even were any, and that compels worse hurt. Thinking of his father is bruising and convoluted in general, as there is much Sasuke would like to know of him, and further he would like to say to him - most of it, should it ever bubble out of his lungs to be lost in the interminable abyss, is anger - but he was so closed off in life that Sasuke can only wonder aimlessly in his death. His mother was the only person who truly knew his father at his core, he thinks, silent as he was and unyielding in his convictions. He mulls on whether their marriage was truly happy or if that was colored darker by the planned coup, too. He cognizes that his mother likely spent her final days sick with worry about that; Uchiha Mikoto was a caring woman, everything he could have asked for in a mother.

It makes Sasuke doubly furious with him. Didn't he know the risks, what it would mean for the children of their clan if they failed? It is no easy thing, to stumble over the bodies of their ilk again and again and again, the Uchiha children, adolescents and toddlers and one newborn, desperately clutched by a cowering mother in an alley, drained white and nauseatingly pallid, and he still can't get their faces out of his mind, the way their noses were identical when viewed from the side as he lurched over them in his cowering, tripped-

Stop.

It also makes him furious with Konoha, the most bellicostic he's been in a long while since the Land of Iron a year ago when he last dreamed this dream, passing through and revisiting his greatest failures, Danzou and the fucking council that forced this further cataclysm of an already cursed lineage on him. Didn't they know annexing an entire clan and letting wounds fester would lead to spilled blood eventually? What the fuck is the point of a village, of shared civilization, if its malfeasant corruption gorges itself on the innocent over and over and over? There is only so much one can take of their life boiling away in their veins with untempered rage until they snap-

Not their blood, a grotesque susurrus inside him whispers, one that envisions the aspostates that signed his clan's death warrant and one he has desperately tried to drought out of existence to be replaced with better things over the past couple of years: Kakashi's particular brand of cutting and commiserate wisdom that lingers years after he's spoken it, Naruto's relentless optimism and the sense of vying brotherhood that reminds him of Itachi ad finitum - You're trying to be alone again and I can't let that happen! - Sakura's unwavering kindness and altruistic affection - What if I said… I'd go with you? - the feel of her seal against the tips of his outstretched fingers, her soft lips against his as she threads her fingers through his hair, the way the jasmine plant dangling above her window warps a perfect chiaroscuro to frame the freckle on her cheek once the sun has sunk below the horizon just so-

Not their blood, so why would they care?

Take notice of what light does, to everyth-

Corrosion-

For now, for now, for now-

Yes, Sasuke likes to think his years away changed him in at least some marginally minute way. Yet his subconscious returns him to this place cyclically to reread moribund chapters, the single lone instance in which he thought maybe, just maybe, his father was proud of him. He's still searching for answers that will never come, from a man he has come to realize he holds a monumental amount of resentment towards.

He almost doesn't wish to contemplate this, as he recognizes it is ages away and much can happen between now and then - and also he is utterly undeserving and woefully ill-suited to care for a child, both physically and otherwise - but if he is ever blessed enough to someday be granted one, he does not want to be like his father. He doesn't want to perpetuate this sort of aimlessness, the weight of expectation and a mentality of being a slave to blood. This gloom and despondency and misplaced pride will be his end as it was Fugaku's, he knows, if he doesn't rinse the wound out on occasion, acutely feel its sting, its agony.

In this anamnesis, he is barefoot on a dock as he always is, tiny feet placed firmly atop a thin dusting of snow. Orange flames spout from his mouth, chapping his lips, crowning gold and climbing higher and higher into the brumous sky as his throat dries with the heat and amelioration, a thin veiling of illusory safety that was everything to him when he was small and alone and desperate for some sense of control, grasping at straws.

When he turns, coughing from the smoke and faintest remnant of crushed pills pelted into his eyes by bitter winds, he half expects even now to hear the lone set of words from his father that he has tried to replay in his head thousands of times.

As expected of my son. The only way the words live on is via an echo of Sasuke's own voice speaking them into existence again. He can remember the visuals perfectly with near photographic recall, the day that his father told him that: the ripe fever of life and late summer, the rippling of the leaves a stark contrast to the chill that haunts him in this overplayed dream where he clutches an emptied and mangled marigold prescription bottle. He watches now with his brother's eyes as he throws it skyward and torches his own name out of existence with the last of his chakra, all of seven years old.

He can perfectly recall his mother's lilting halcyon inflection - When we're alone, all he talks about is you - and he can remember both of his brother's last words to him - I'm sorry, Sasuke. This is the last time, and No matter what happens from now on, I will love you forever -

But he cannot for the life of him remember what his father's voice sounded like; not the inflection, nor the tone or tenor. It was the only time it ever felt like he held an ounce of affection for him, fleeting and gone the next hour. He only remembers the way their family crest looked as he said it, presented to him boldly as his father turned away from him.

And isn't that just the richest metaphor? He fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

He doesn't know what it says about him, but he assumes it's nothing good. The phrase inferiority complex has crossed his mind on many such occasions. As he has aged, he's reviewed it with fresh eyes, and wondered if it was all an act, some passing dalliance to satisfy his mother. Shinobi are capable liars, and he knows his father was one of the best. It would be easy for him to feign the mirage of happiness about saying such things.

What would his father's face have betrayed? Would there have been any certitude had he caught up with him on the walk home instead of trailing a few steps behind in his shadow? Uchiha Fugaku was not a man who smiled often. Conversely, his mouth was wrinkled from being set in a frown so regularly that there was a permanent line just below his lip. Sasuke deems he himself will expediently encounter an identical issue as he ages, though primarily he also believes both he and Itachi took more after their mother, physically. He sees her nose each time he views himself tiredly in the mirror. Her eye shape, too, and the inky black hair, a shade darker than their father's.

It will be fitting, he thinks, he knows, to watch his mother's agreeable features bleed out of him and reveal what he's always been.

It would hurt her deeply, if she heard that thought.

He loathes that about himself.

He loathes a lot of things about himself.

There is no one behind him to offer platitudes or words of encouragement in this particular brand of dream; there never is. The dock of the pond within the Uchiha District and the shore surrounding it, just around the corner of another dead relative's house, is empty, packed with a fresh dusting of snow and charred blue particles. The wind is blowing, though, almighty chilling and true, making branches ripple in the zephyr as it carries away the gray and the meager amount of heat he's created with it. He outgrew his coat that first winter, and his shoes, too.

"Where did you go?" He is compelled to ask, intonation a scant whisper against slate air rippling as if this whole thing is an illusion - Am I caught in Tsukuyomi again? - but there is no answer. That used to terrify him when he was much younger; he had been afraid his father was trapped in the childlike depiction of hell he'd conjured up in his brain, and that that was why he couldn't really recollect the way he spoke, the gruffness or whether his voice was tenor or bass.

He returns to land, taking extra care of his steps, and wonders, if nothing else, if the earth will remember his bare feet, a sign that he's still here, sinking through the snow and other remnants that divide them.

---

He awakens to the smell of tea and rice and something else. It's disorienting, tumultuary, the feel of a warm blanket at his toes and soft noises clinking from the kitchen when just prior there had been cold snow and acutely lonely roads. It distracts him a bit from the morose stinging in his eyes, enough that he can rapidly blink it away, forcibly shrugging off the melancholy as if it was nothing more than a weighty winter cloak, ushered over his shoulders like the layer of his second comforter and pushed back down deep.

"...Sakura?" He calls once he's been awake for a minute, speech cracking a little at the last syllable, still groggy as he sits up in bed and promptly regrets that decision; the change in position triggers a fresh pounding in his head, aching thumping at his temple as his blood rushes. He reaches for the water at his bedside table with first his left arm, a phantom sensation echoing in empty space before he remembers to use his right.

There is the sound of soft footsteps as he gulps down tepid liquidity, and then a tentative knock at his bedroom door.

"Sasuke-kun?" Her voice resounds faintly from the other side of the wood, as if she's unsure if she actually heard him call her name.

He blinks, unsure what the hold-up is, then realizes through the fever and rapidly materializing headache that she's being polite.

"...You can come in."

The knob turns, and in she comes, very much awake and wearing what he now recognizes as her summer training gear, the cropped top and short skirt framed by dark transparent mesh. He pointedly takes notice of the clock, then, for multiple reasons that are all overshadowed by the fact that his internal monologue has undertaken a fatuously lascivious turn, greedily seeking distraction and here in his bedroom, no less. He then puts together that it's still somewhat early, only six thirty; she's dropped by to prepare breakfast before her spar with Ino.

For him.

He tries to get a grip on the warmth that's nudging at his heart, insistent in its beckoning. It's not like it's the first time she's made him food, but he knows she's occupied on Mondays till after lunch. She's gone out of her way to do such a kindness for him, added additional things to her schedule.

"Hey-" she says softly as he turns back to her; she's taking a step toward him with a mug of what appears to be steaming water and the pill bottle he left on the table. He stares at the marigold plastic, slightly desaturated and less contrasting here in the darkness of his room. "Er. I mean… Good morning. I was up early, and I… I thought I'd make you breakfast."

He nods slowly as his eyes prick at her sweetness. Now that the door's sitting open, he would recognize the aroma of ochazuke anywhere. He's never directly voiced to anyone that it's one of his favorite breakfasts, though he supposes it's rather easy to piece together that he would like it given his other food preferences. He made it several times when they were away on missions as Genin, too.

Still. In addition to all of the other qualities that encompass who she is, Sakura is as observant as she is kind.

"Thank you," he says quietly, heart swelling with the relief of being cared for, simple and true, even as his throat aches and his head pounds.

Her lips tilt upwards into a smile, and it is then that he notices, pulled back to normalcy and something providential that's swelling in his chest, finally tearing his vision away from the pill bottle, that her cheeks are bright red for some reason; the light from the cracked door has her illuminated.

"Of course." Her focus falls to the glass of stale water he's put back on his bedside table, then the mug in her hands. "Want me to..?"

Sasuke nods prior to repeating himself. "Thank you." His words come out raspy and raw.

She pays it no mind, still smiling with scarlet cheeks as she places both the mug and the pill bottle on the surface, taking the glass in exchange. "Of course," she murmurs, meeting his gaze briefly prior to his reaching for the pill bottle.

"I'll… um. I'll go… watch the rice," she stammers as he sets to opening the lid with his teeth. She turns to go, then pauses, casting her focus back at him, though the trajectory of her eyesight seems directed mainly at the area above his head. "Do you still like ochazuke? I thought, maybe…" She trails off and purses her mouth as he finally pries off the lid, setting it aside.

"I do," Sasuke discloses immediately, pausing in his ministration of procuring a pill from the bottle, as he recognizes the tone of her voice and the expression she's wearing as being betwixt and between, unsure of her assumptions or his availability for breakfast together when ill, or, perhaps, uncertain if she's welcome in his room. "I have it often. Thank you."

Her posture relaxes completely and any uncertainty dissolves.

"Oh," she breathes, lips curving upwards. "Good." She lingers a second longer, jade eyes soft on his directly before she turns and trails out of his bedroom, closing the door behind her.

He stares at the threshold for a lengthy spread of seconds, thinking. He then turns slightly to try to ascertain what she was looking at above and behind him - perhaps some sort of spider managed to entrench the corner with a few spools of web in the night - but there's nothing he can discern aside from the small amount of texture coating the walls.

Perplexed, he reaches for the mug, pill bottle placed atop the blanket in his lap. A measured sip floods the pill down first, drenching his insides in blessed heat and ease. It feels so incredibly good on his throat that he quickly drains the cup. It does nothing for his head, he realizes once he shifts slightly, extending his arm to place the mug, then the pill bottle, back at his bedside.

A pause to alleviate the pounding has him locking his gaze onto the inscription on the bottle's label.

Uchiha, Sasuke.

Haruno, Sakura.

He muses less than fleetingly on empty space, the ever-changing weight of melancholia, and the way the earth feels beneath one's feet.

Turns out that rising doesn't do much for his head, either, but he does it anyway, padding first to the closet for a change of clothes.

It is then that he promptly recalls that he did not wear a shirt to bed. His face warms at the quandary, realizing he directly invited his girlfriend into his bedroom while half-dressed.

In addition to a little self-consciousness, satisfaction begins to unfold in his belly, because he gathers, unraveling and rewinding the interaction for closer examination, that Sakura was definitely not unaffected.

He journeys to the bathroom to apply the eye ointment and brush his teeth thoroughly before joining Sakura for breakfast, shaking off this new development that he's sure will beset his dreams the next time he's asleep and his endocrine system decides to torture him.

Sakura, still red-cheeked, makes ochazuke with nori instead of sesame seeds, he learns.

He finds he likes it better.

He drifts back to sleep with a full stomach, slipping away into genuine rest in the hopes of cowing his fever, and with it, his headache, into submission until the early afternoon.

This sleep is dreamless, deep and paradisiacally empty aside from a strange clunking noise or two, no room for ruminating on the nature of omneity and complexes.

---

It's a sign that the antibiotic is working that he awakens as he hears the key twist in the door. He's tired, but not as much as earlier this morning or yesterday. His throat is less dry, too, he realizes.

He then sits up in bed and promptly discovers that he still has a headache.

"Sakura," he calls lowly, just loud enough to be heard through the door as he blinks, vision adjusting to the light now that he's pushed aside the blankets that were previously encasing his head in darkness.

"Sasuke-kun," she answers. There's the sound of an object being placed on the table before she raps on his bedroom door twice.

You don't need to knock, he would say if the events of earlier this morning had not come rushing back to him.

"Come in," he says instead. He has a shirt on this time, at least.

The door pushes open.

"Hi," Sakura greets, regard settling on him fully after only a second of delay at the empty space above his head. Her hair is damp and she's switched into a different set of clothing. There's an expression on her face that's hard to describe as anything but dotingly affectionate. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to wake you."

He shakes his head, eyes finally adjusting to the light. "...I should get up."

She grins for some reason. "You should," she agrees, her countenance filled with levity.

He arches a lone brow in question, at which she chuckles, soft.

"Naruto gave me lunch to deliver to you," she informs him, looking utterly amused. "And you'll never guess from where."

Sasuke exhales heavily, rolling his eyes prior to shifting to rise and promptly pausing at what it does to his head. He apparently doesn't succeed in minimizing his wincing; before he can continue with the motion, he sees her smile morph unmistakably into concern.

"...Do you have a headache?" She questions softly after a lengthy quiet, stepping away from the door frame and closer to his bed. "I can fix it," she adds, just prior to halting a foot away.

He blinks up at her, immediately reaching the conclusion that he's been incredibly stupid. Of course she can fix headaches. It just… didn't occur to him to remember that, or to ask. Conceivably it could be the fever, clouding his judgment.

"Just… if you want," she tacks on hastily, fingers twitching at her sides. He realizes she's holding herself back from reaching for him without his express consent.

Sasuke nods, then, just once, but very sure.

"...Please," he whispers, shifting more so that he's closer to the edge of the bed. Her fingers stop their anxious repetitions as his feet finally shift to the floor, upper body now easy for her to reach.

He contemplates if this oblivion of chartreuse and charcoal will ever cease in making his affection for her feel like it's overflowing from a teacup filled to the brim. Sakura's expression is unendingly soft and a bantam smile plays at her lips as she closes the rest of the distance between them, fingers coming to rest expertly at his temples. Ten points of contact coalesce as she threads her chakra into his being, alleviating the pressure from whatever sort of swelling causes such headaches slowly but surely.

He maintains eye contact with her this time - she's so short that he's nearly eye-level with her while sitting - studying the small nacreous circle of jade and tilleul at the outer edges of her iris; the black of her pupils have expanded to fit nearly the entire contents of the space, but there are still microscopic flecks of gold here and there that catch the light. It's challenging to pull himself back from activating his Sharingan to capture the way she's looking at him just now. The convolution of tomoe could etch it into his memories perfectly, he knows.

He concludes that she's studying his eyes, too, or rather, his brother's. He wonders silently if they appear terribly different from his own eyes, close up. Sakura's observant; she might be able to discern if there is any noticeable variance from when they were younger, enough to demarcate between the old ones and the new.

Eventually her chakra tapers and her fingers trail away.

"Better?" She questions.

It feels as if his heart is in his throat when he answers.

"Better." He holds her gaze for a moment longer, exhaling contentedly and struck stupid with the urge to pull her closer to him so he can breathe in more of her scent. "Thank you."

Her lips curve upwards, and he wants to kiss her badly.

"You're welcome," she says, grinning and biting her lip once.

She then surprises him by leaning in, apparently overcome by the same inclination as him. It's a chaste kiss, achingly slow and gentle, unmarred from the pressure that's been plaguing his head. Her lashes slide against the highest point of his cheekbones.

Her cheeks are ablaze when she finally pulls back, darker in color than her hair.

"You… should probably eat it while it's still warm," she reasons quietly, smile guilty.

"...Probably," he agrees, taking in the green of her irises one more time before tearing his ocularity away.

He rises to trail after her to the dining table, where he finds a to-go container of ramen. The clear lid of the styrofoam container has been haphazardly carved into sloppy handwriting, he assumes by way of the tip of a kunai.

Sorry. Get better soon, asshole.

-Naruto!

The tail end lettering of the word asshole drifts down the side of the container onto the styrofoam, as the moron clearly ran out of room to finish off his sloppy scrawl. Sasuke resists the urge to shake his head, settling for rolling his eyes instead.

It's a nice gesture, he supposes as examines the soup through the transparent lid: there's broth swimming with noodles, seared chicken, and chunks of spring onions and mushrooms. His brow furrows and he looks up, then, to Sakura.

"...You already ate?" He questions. Her slow cooker is still on his counter, the pot laden with soup from yesterday in his fridge.

"With Ino," Sakura confirms. "Naruto caught me walking to the library and ran to go get it."

He blinks, curious that she's visited the library. He doesn't suppose she's been there much on her own since he returned; they usually go together. He'll need to return his own books in the next week or two, come to think of it, since he's finished the one on the Land of Tea now. It's sitting next to the lamp on the kitchen table, stacked on top of Art From Around the World. Sakura's tote bag is lying there, too.

"I think I convinced him to push our movie night to next week," Sakura offers; apparently his face belied his curiosity. "Ino said Sai was wondering if you'd finished the art book; he finished the one you recommended."

Sasuke nods. "...I did." He decides to keep his books until next week, then, if Sakura's already exchanged hers. He can reread one of them to keep busy, since he feels more awake today. He'd rather go with Sakura than alone anyways, and then he can take it to Sakura's for the movie. He's mildly curious what sort of strange comment Sai will have on the book about kenjutsu.

It would probably be fine to voice that, he decides. "...I'll bring it to the movie."

Sakura grins at him in response, before her body language morphs into that which belies bashfulness.

"So… Do you feel any better today?" She questions quietly, seemingly searching his expression for something. "Or do you need more sleep, do you think?"

He blinks, searching her own in return.

"I'm awake," he finally answers honestly, chest warming at the tone in which she asked the question. He recognizes the way she speaks, timid and almost unsure, as the way she acts when she's about to suggest they do something together, though she shouldn't be. There are few things that he wouldn't agree to if they involve her.

"...Better now with no headache," he adds gratefully after a moment in which she appears to wait patiently for an answer to the other part of his question; it's hard for him to focus on words when it feels as though his chest is unfurling behind his ribs, flooded with warmth and metaphorical sunshine. It's the truth, besides; the only thing plaguing him at the moment is the minor hint of a dry throat, which will ease after he eats the ramen from the dobe.

"...I'm glad," Sakura murmurs after a sustained pause in which he gathers that she's contemplative. Her gaze flicks to her tote bag on the table for some reason, and then she's reaching into her pocket, and out comes the key.

"I'll give this back to you, then," she says softly, smiling as she presents the flash of nickel-brass to him with an open palm, its polished sheen bathed in light drifting from the living room window. Her focus shifts to her tote bag again briefly. "And I was thinking…"

He reaches out silently, vastly enjoying the way her eyes widen as he presses her fingers back around the key with his own. He holds them like that for a second to emphasize his unmitigated insistence, enjoying the warmth of a hand dwarfed by his own. He momentarily wishes for his other arm, so he could use it to press her fingers in place, too.

"Keep it," Sasuke counters in a husky voice, amused at the way her mouth has parted in surprise and simultaneously looking forward to a few days from now, when he can get back to pressing his lips to hers on her couch, until they're plump with evidence of their kissing.

"Um." She beholds him with an endearingly dazed look etched into her features. Dark pupils examine his hand clasped around hers and then ascend upwards again. Her face flushes with color the longer he looks.

"...Keep it?" She finally whispers, tone questioning as if she's unsure she's heard him correctly. Her fine pink brows have risen as high as her facial muscles seem to allow in surprise.

"Keep it," he affirms, squeezing her fingers around the cool metal once more ahead of allowing his lone hand to fall away.

Her pupils fall to her palm again, slender fingers wrapped around the key, before traveling back up to hold his smitten stare.

Her face is as red as an heirloom tomato. He thinks she's gorgeous like this.

"...Okay," she finally mumbles, apparently completely flustered. "I…"

Sasuke gives her a look that he hopes conveys both his seriousness on the matter and his amusement simultaneously.

Her mouth closes once, then opens, then closes again. Her lips are gorgeous, too, endlessly distracting.

"You're sure?" She questions softly, finally.

He nods, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards in amusement, because there have been few things in his life that he's been more certain of than this.

"I'm sure."

Long lashes skim her own cheekbones as she blinks before acceptance washes over her. A wide smile adorns her features as she returns the key to its place in her pocket.

Her own mouth twitches ahead of directing her focus to her tote bag again.

"Um. So…" Jade eyes flicker to him again hesitantly, blushing in a manner he finds charming. "So I was thinking. Just… if you're feeling better. Since we're both contagious until later today, I mean. I… Well, I talked with Ichika through the window and she set the books outside for me. So…"

She pauses, inspecting his countenance hesitantly prior to smiling again and reaching for her bag.

"If, maybe you wanted some company… If you don't need to sleep more…"

She pulls out Hazel Wood and Isthmus, the book about the fisherman Ichika recommended to him. The spines catch the light from the window, too.

"...Book club?" She finishes in a questioning voice that's euphonious to his ears, a suggestion of shared affinity and her smile turning sheepish.

His eyes soften.

"Yes," he murmurs soft and sure, initiating oblivion by holding her gaze. "...Book club."

Sakura beams, and he wonders for the upteenth occasion if she knows she's the brightest, most felicific thing in his life, the breath in his lungs, intenerating and lambent sunlight on seafoam and all the rest.

He eats his meal while she chatters, asking questions at appropriate intervals when his mouth isn't full. He'll begrudgingly admit that it's good while ill; he supposes he accepts Naruto's apology, though he recognizes that it certainly won't be the last time he's teased by the idiot. He silently wonders if Sakura endures the same annoyances from their third teammate when he's not present, the thinly-veiled raillery and endless stupidity.

That thought is somehow both comforting and amusing. He ponders it a moment further while depositing the last chunk of mushroom into his mouth, chewing methodically.

The pleasant thrumming in his chest momentarily hushes in quiescence when Sakura mentions, "I think you might have a new neighbor soon."

Sasuke blinks, pausing his sipping of the last bit of broth. The sudden stillness reminds him of the Land of Beasts, the way the lush grasslands stop swaying just before an ugly storm rolls in.

"...What?"

Sakura tips her head to the side, the direction of the wall he shares with the woman and her child next door.

"Your neighbor. I saw her taking boxes downstairs."

Ah.

The mysterious scrapings and clunkings suddenly achieve perfect retrospective clarity. She in all probability planned this, he realizes glumly; listening carefully to steps and visitors and doorways, searching for the opportunity to make her escape, surreptitiously moving things out and elsewhere to get away from him.

He ruminates briefly if her lease ended this month or if she broke it early, if she paid a penalty in her desperation to get her and her child as far away from him as possible.

There's a moment in which he becomes keenly aware that he has the volition:

Let this knowledge consume him, allow the inner voice of the parts of himself he loathes to speak.

Or, to focus on the good things that are right in front of him, split evenly and clearly to his cognition as a prism divides light into its according colors, easily recognized as the rose color of Sakura's hair, the rich berry of her scent, the pale peach of her complexion, the gold and seafoam green of her eyes, the calm azure of her gentle touch and the lilting, mesmeric lilac and honey complementaries of her voice, soft and rich with candor and compassion.

Sakura shifts slightly, surveying him with a curious expression as if she doesn't understand his sudden disquiet - she probably doesn't - and a sunbeam settles on the right half of her face and its corresponding shoulder. Two more freckles have inked into existence on the expanse between her trapezius and her neck, a testament to her morning spent outdoors training with Ino.

In an instant, he knows his choice.

"Hm," he says noncommittally, rising to discard the container and place his chopsticks in the sink. "Guess so." He takes in the newest flecks dotting her skin again as he passes behind her, allowing his gaze to linger, though he is excruciatingly aware that it will later drive him mad, this overwhelming urge to drag his lips across her skin there, up the column of her neck in a trifold of reverence and adoration and utmost, aching apology.

He'll contact his landlord, he decides, and pay the penalty for her if there was one. He hopes that, wherever the woman and her child end up, it will bring her comfort and a sense of safety. He knows what it's like to go without.

He also knows what it's like to find such senses again, and maybe this is the point: to exist in the blink of an eye in divine space, to be cared for in the iterum, in the coruscating flash that they inhabit the earth. There's augury to be found in place, surely, the compelling fibers of memory interlocking at the corners of one's consciousness and a corollary post factum, but it principally tethers back to the person that made the event memorable in the first place, whether it's a fisherman returning to dry land following a long journey or a girl and her mother inheriting an estate rife with mystifying writings or Sakura taking her side of his couch, closer to him than the last time; the redolence of tart berry overwhelms him, fresh and new.

He admires the way the highest points of her face look when bathed in sunshine, smooth lineaments arching and adorned aurelian, before he realizes for the thousandth time that he's staring and settles into the mystery book instead.

They read until evenfall, content for plenary horizons to slip into violescent gradients as they discuss the more remarkable points of both books by lamplight to the scent of soup and tea. Sakura tries the decaffeinated matcha, and he watches quietly as she ladles honey into her mug, shooting him a glance that can only be described as sweet and highly appreciative, cheeks glowing deep red.

They return to the couch after dinner, antibiotic anodynes swallowed and roughly halfway through their respective texts.

He thinks he dozes around eight or nine in the evening, book at his chest as he had thought he was just resting his eyes for a minute. Sasuke blinks groggily in the direction of Sakura's side of the couch as he awakens from the nap; at seeing it empty, his attention flits accordingly to the clock.

Eleven thirty, he notes, shifting ahead of the realization that one of his comforters has been laid carefully over him. She must have switched off the lamp they were reading by, too. He blinks, staring at the cast of moonglow atop the fabric in the desaturated night as perspicuous warmth pours into his belly. Sasuke marvels at the feeling for longer than is stringently necessary, examining the way the blanket is tucked in slightly around his feet as his vision adjusts. It was probably a challenge to situate, especially without waking him; being tall comes with some disadvantages.

Eventually he rises, turning the direction of the kitchen - it was hot today, too, he gathered, so the lily plants likely need another drink - and stops short, eyes zeroing in on that which is out of place.

There is a lone key laid purposefully on the corner of the dining table that is not his own, glinting gold in the scant sliver of moonlight cascading in from the living room window.

His chest ignites anew as it coalesces with his fingers. He turns it over in the soft glimmer of night, relishing the way it feels in his hand, every tactile cut of the metal and every small scratch from extended use. Judging by the amount of wear and the fact that she had it with her, he thinks it must be her original copy, the one she herself has carried around since first residing there instead of a spare.

It feels real in his palm, the physicality of it honey sweet and sinking into his very bone marrow.

For now, he thinks. It clinks into place purposefully next to his own on the key ring before he departs.

---

AN: We are finally inching towards the good stuff and I cannot wait. I do apologize for the delay of this chapter; shit has been crazy and will probably continue to be so. I've had parts of this written since the early days of this story circa July 2021, but other parts I really struggled with for some reason. I'm hopeful I'll get on top of things here and be able to crank out at least a couple more chapters before the year ends. Until then, catch me on Twitter losing my shit over the Sasuke Retsuden manga coming on October 23rd.✌️

Thanks for reading.❤️

P.S. Word on the street is that might bite the dust soon. I cross post on both my tumblr and AO3 (both cherrynojutsu), so if such devastation happens, you can find this fic there.