Chapter Text
“Uchiha Sasuke, we need to talk. Right now.”
It wasn't helping that Ino was right outside of the Uchiha compound waiting for her, and using her mind-body switch technique to eavesdrop in their conversation.
The sooner that she proves her rumors untrue, the better.
"I'm not used to you being like this."
She furrowed her brows together in impatience.
"Like what?" He seemed unfazed but the way he's focused gave him away. He acted like he was busy sharpening his blade, but they both knew he finished doing that before setting out at dawn. She knew he was all ears on their conversation. “Angry.”
Who wouldn't be angry in this situation?
Sakura was losing her temper. And she wanted answers.
“You really don't know why I'm angry? Really, Sasuke? What is with you telling people we're getting married? Because as far as I know, we are not that close enough to even be in a relationship!”
Sakura didn't know she was yelling until she felt the strain on her throat. He looked fairly shocked at her outburst.
Not realizing that it was the first time he saw her raw anger directed at him.
"What are you playing at Sasuke? So what? Now that I'm woman enough for you, you expect me to come running back just because you give me an ounce of affection?" She couldn't help but say it.
Say the thoughts that kept bugging her mind since everything.
It was unfair. It was selfish.
But she resented the feeling of needing to prove herself to him even after the war was over. It just came out.
And here she thought she could handle this civilly.
"You’re not thinking straight. Stop being emotional. Calm down.” Sasuke's mouth twisted into a frown, putting his katana down. “Don't tell me you're the one who's forgetting? You keep taking care of me this year. I didn't ask for it. And now you're blaming me? I can't believe you." There was a wry quirk on his lips.
It pissed her off.
"This is how things were supposed to be anyway. Isn't this what you wanted? Things are just back to where they're supposed to be." He leaned close enough their noses could touch.
Ino was almost close to fainting in the small bird that she used to watch them with. And Sakura already forgot that she was even watching.
Isn't this what you wanted?
His words brought up dark feelings that she compartmentalized for so long.
He caged her to the wall, his face inches away from hers.
“And I'm just finishing what I started.”
It was sinful how beautiful he was. His dark eyes focused into her green ones. It was like an abyss that couldn't wait to suck her in.
But.
This wasn't the Sakura he knew when they were younger.
Sakura pushed him away with a single finger.
"No."
Her single reply made him speechless.
"What?"
"I'm not playing your games, Uchiha."
“You…”
She turns away.
“You weren't supposed to change.”
“I'm a person. Of course I'm going to change. You really think I'm going to wait for you, after what you did to me? Sasuke, grow up. I'm not the girl you left behind.”
“Why can't you just love me again, huh? You did it once. You can do it again.”
“You're not making any sense!”
“You cared about me, so why, why are you taking it back? You can just keep on caring about me like you used to.”
“So that's what it was all to you, that I care about you like I'm your mother? How is it not sinking into you that I'm in love with someone else?!”
And Sasuke felt like he was punched in the gut.
“I'm in love with someone else.” Sakura repeated.
There she said it.
And for the first time, she felt confident in saying it. Like she didn't need to hide anymore.
(Ino was close to fainting hearing this as a small bird near them. Sakura even forgot that she was eavesdropping.
Way to go Forehead! Tell him!)
She could finally say she wasn't in love with Sasuke anymore. She felt herself tremble at the realization.
“I'm in love with Naruto.”
“You're choosing him over me? The dobe…?”
“Of course I would. Why wouldn't I be? I don't even ask for much, Sasuke-kun. And you couldn't even give it to me.”
Sakura almost felt bad to see his expression fall.
But telling the truth?
God, it felt cathartic.
It felt like freedom.
“I love Naruto, and he loves me.”
—
Sasuke does not move after she leaves.
The room smells faintly of metal and oil. His blade lies on the table, unfinished, forgotten. He realizes distantly that he never put it away.
He had already sharpened it. But her words were sharper.
He replays it in his head, because they echo, but because they land.
I’m in love with someone else.
Naruto.
The name sits heavy in his chest, unfamiliar in this context. Not a rival in battle. Not an obstacle. Not a fool chasing after ghosts.
A man he didn't even consider would beat him this way.
A man who stayed.
Sasuke lost. And it was all his own doing.
Sasuke closes his eyes.
He had known. Some part of him had always known. He had seen it in the way she moved around Naruto, in the way she laughed without checking herself first. In the way she did not hesitate to touch him when Naruto came around to bother visiting them when he got the time.
And Sasuke had mistaken Sakura's proximity and tolerance for permission.
A mistake he has made before.
You weren’t supposed to change.
The words turn bitter in his mouth.
He realizes now how they must have sounded to her. As if she had been paused in time. As if the years he spent walking away from her had not continued to pass for her too.
As if love were a promise she made and not a choice she could revoke.
Sasuke exhales slowly.
He thinks of the girl on the bench, crying and offering herself as an anchor to a man already sinking. He had taken her feelings then and called it mercy when he let go.
This time, she did not wait for him to decide.
This time, she chose.
And that, more than the rejection, hurts.
Not because she belongs to Naruto.
But because she no longer belongs to the past he thought he could return to.
Sasuke opens his eyes and finally sheathes his blade.
There is nothing left to finish. Except for one.
“Dobe, we need to talk.”
“I didn't think you could talk, teme.”
“Naruto.”
This was serious.
“Fine.”
And they ended up destroying a training ground or two.
Sasuke was better at fighting than conversations anyway.
___
“You'll take care of her?”
“You know I would, teme. No need to ask.”
“Better you, than that green guy.”
“His name is Rock Lee, teme. You're rude.”
The day they came back for duty, Kakashi noticed an awkward tension between the two.
“Hey kids. Had a jolly morning? It's sunny out there, but you two look like you got dark clouds on your heads.”
“Shut up, Kakashi-sensei.” Sakura said, fed up. “Just give us the job.”
It didn't matter that they had a fight yesterday. They were still coworkers.
“Maa…only if you tell me why Sasuke isn't even pretending that I exist.”
“Leave him be. He's learning how to handle rejection. And you're the one with explaining to do sensei…”
Why do I feel like I stepped into a trap? Kakashi sweats in his hokage robes.
“Eh, whatever do you mean, Sakura-chan?”
Sakura's knuckles cracked when she flexed her fists. Kakashi gulped.
“What’s this I hear about you and the council matchmaking me with him!”
“Now don't hurt the poor man's feelings, Sakura-chan. He's right next to you—”
“Kakashi-sensei, talk or I'm committing a crime to my hokage today.”
And Kakashi succumbed to his fate.
Safe to say that Yamato had to come and make a new hokage office by the end of the day.
So when Naruto saw Sakura in his apartment waiting, he swallowed before making many clones and escaping.
“So, that's why you finally started talking to me!” She raised her fists in indignation.
“Here I thought you were being all sweet. I'll give you sweet fists, Uzumaki Naruto!”
Naruto ended up being carried like a sack of potatoes when Sakura found him hiding at Teuchi’s kitchen of all things.
“You're not gonna let me live it down, do you?”
“No. You have to apologize to Teuchi-san after we have some serious talk, Naruto.”
“Yes, ma'am…”
Epilogue
"Were it another life, do you think...?" Sasuke says softly. The years have been kinder to him since, he's been calmer now that he's older.
But power still emits from him in waves.
Green eyes watch him with awe.
It seems the blond toddler did not feel it when he reached his godfather's fingers in his mother's arms, and giggled when the Uchiha let him.
"Hmm...not really." Sakura says. "It probably won't work out for the two of us even if it happened." She says candidly as she cradles little Shinachiku in her arms. He seems enamoured with his godfather's lichtenberg scars after using chidori so much. His little fingers map them while the older man watches him with a small quirk on his mouth. A smile in Sasuke-speak.
“I don't think I could handle you leaving for so long. It would have made me feel so lonely.” She admitted, imagining herself waiting for Sasuke again, now that his trips outside of Konoha were longer with his other missions.
"Give me more credit, woman." She feels him bump his arm on her side which made her raise her pink brow. That was taking her time to get used to. Sasuke was even freer with his affections around their team these days.
But it jostled her son, who burrowed his little face on her chest. Sasuke flinched at her glare.
"You're lucky I'm carrying your godson, or I would've punched you right now, Uchiha."
"You wouldn't dare, Chief Medic. I'm the Shadow Hokage."
"Oh? Want to see me try kicking you?"
A familiar chakra announces its presence right outside the open door as a smile graces Sakura's lips.
"Anata, welcome home!"
“Papa!” Shinachiku beamed as a pair of arms raised him up high.
“Dobe.”
"Should I be jealous?" Sakura feels Naruto kiss the crown of her head when she leans into his arms with a giggling Shinachiku between them, his little hands on his father's neck. "No. Sasuke's just being a drag."
"I hate the two of you." Sasuke drawls with a disgusted look that made both of them laugh.
"Nah, teme, I know you love the two of us very much.”