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It was the first time she ever thought she was beautiful — that was probably when.
She had become Naruto’s ever since he’d leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. Even now she wants to remind herself that it had been Sasuke instead, but the image looks wrong; and there’s a twisted part inside of her that hates the fact that it had been Naruto all along.
But it’s hard to believe it could’ve been anyone else when it’s his fingers that trace every scar, old and new, on her palms like he worships them. He is the only one who could make her believe that her hands, out of all things, were something to be revered.
When she was young, she’d despair when she’d stare at her face in the mirror: the loud pink hair, the timid green eyes, and most of all the wide surface area sitting atop her brow that was decidedly the shame of her life. She’d look over at Ino with her long, shimmering locks and her elegant blue eyes; the way she was a white rose blossoming every season of the year; and feel so small and shriveled because compared to her, she was nothing.
She wanted to be like Ino: strong, confident, blossoming. She wanted to be beautiful.
So when Naruto leans down once again in an attempt to peck the tiny diamond that adorns her forehead, despite the fact that she pulls away in disgust she can’t help but glow. He calls her his number one girl without knowing that it makes her ache with both warmth and pain.
She doesn’t like to believe that she’s his. But she believes in Naruto, and perhaps that’s the same thing.
Sakura had despaired when hand cream couldn’t do anything to smooth the rough patches of her palms. The reason inside her said it was trivial and rebukes her for being vain, but late at night she’d stare at her hands and mourn for every callus and scar that replaced any evidence of womanly daintiness.
There is a scar and callus for every kunai she’d thrown; for each time she’d reshaped whole landscapes with a single punch. Her hands are used to the feel of medical tools, the feel of her own chakra seeping into the bodies of countless shinobi. They are rough and ache because she holds life and destruction in both.
Naruto takes her hands and presses them close to his chest and makes her the promise of a lifetime. She doesn’t want to understand why he’d go so far, but the deepest part of her already knows.
Sakura doesn’t want to be Naruto’s. The universe chuckles at her, for she goes to hold his heart in her very hand.
Here she stands now, her rough hands stained with dried blood, entwined with Naruto’s who is still breathing by her side. The Byakugou glimmers on the center of her forehead like a crown.
. . .
She wants Sasuke to be hers. So badly does she want it.
The world as she knows it is near perfection now, if the world is nothing but her back against the cool stone wall, Sasuke’s hand wrapped around her hip as he stands in front of her. There’s lightning trapped underneath that boy’s skin, and as their lips part she can still feel it crackle and tingle. But his black eyes are cold and static.
One last mission, he had said; one last mission before he could see either of his teammates again — to wait for Sasuke would take an eternity and she had only one last chance.
He didn’t push her away then, only sighed and lead her by the hand towards a section of the far wall. All at once his mouth was on hers, and her heart was leaping with joy. Finally all she had ever begged the universe for was hers to keep, but as Sasuke lets her down and turns around she knows that she hasn’t received her end of the deal.
Unfair trade, the universe says.
Her end of the bargain had long been given away for one kiss to the forehead. Sakura waves Sasuke goodbye and as she sees Naruto’s figure approaching her side, she can’t help but despise him.
Oddly enough, it doesn’t hurt as much at night, when she rolls over on the bed and the other side is empty.
. . .
“I heard about you and Sasuke,” Naruto says, a sheepish smile on his face as he rubs the back of his neck. “Congratulations. Finally got ‘im, huh?”
He had taken her aside for something. Just as he always would as an excuse to be with her, and Sakura wonders if Naruto’s ever realized she always sees right through his excuses.
This isn’t what she is expecting.
“Yeah; it’s so surreal,” she responds after a while, and she’s trying to read the expression on his face against the glare of the sunset.
They’re walking along the ridge near the lake: a beautiful spot that catches just the right amount of light at certain times of day, so that diamonds glitter and flicker along the surface of the calm water. Their silhouettes are black against the golden sky, and there’s no other sound but the echoes of their footsteps and the sleepy flapping of birds’ wings.
Naruto’s fiddling with something in his pocket, and it makes a slight clinking noise that sounds like it could be metal. Curious, Sakura leans closer, but Naruto staggers as he pulls away. She half-expects him to blubber something ridiculous, but he doesn’t. “Naruto?” she says, raising a suspicious eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“Nothing,” he mumbles, and Sakura lets out an exasperated huff. “Tell me more about you and Sasuke,” Naruto says again, but she doesn’t bother answering the deflecting question.
“Naruto, it’s just the two of us. Tell me,” she insists, and Naruto throws his head up with a defeated sigh.
“Fine.”
Naruto takes Sakura by the hand and leads them down the ridge towards the pier. He motions for her to sit down, and as she slips off her sandals and lets her bare feet dip into the cool water he finally opens his mouth.
“You’re my number one girl, you know that, right?”
She still doesn’t know what she feels about that nickname. “Yeah. I know.”
“And I can count that you’ll always be there for me, no matter what, right?”
“Yes.” She can’t remember how many times she’s made that promise to him. Naruto smiles and clasps his hand in hers, and fiddles around with her wrist to make her laugh.
A speck of gold catches in his blue pupils, and for a moment Sakura’s so stunned that she doesn’t immediately hear what he says next.
“So when I marry my fiancee next month, you’ll be there.”
The smile is frozen on Sakura’s face. The words hang in the air and her thoughts race with questions that she doesn’t want answered out of fear. “I-I’m sorry, what?”
“My fiancee! You know, Hinata?” Naruto repeats, and he genuinely looks surprised that Sakura didn’t seem to know until now.
“Oh! Oh,” Sakura exclaims, standing up suddenly with the lopsided smile still tugging on her lips. Naruto holds out his arm as if he’s anxious that she’ll run away, but Sakura’s legs are frozen too.
This isn’t what she is expecting — and more than anything Sakura wishes that Naruto had pulled her aside to talk about something else. She doesn’t even know why she’s frozen; the news wasn’t something to be shocked about — rather, it was to be celebrated. Naruto getting married to Hinata wasn’t a bad thing. More than any other person it was Naruto who deserved someone to spend the rest of his life with, and now he had finally found the girl who would stay beside him forever.
But ever since the beginning she thought that girl had been her.
Sakura didn’t want to marry Naruto herself — it would be a disaster, and she couldn’t see it no matter how hard she tried. She wasn’t lying to herself when she’d said she loved Sasuke; that rang true as ever.
But ever since she was twelve years old all she had known was Naruto and Sakura — that was her world, even when Sasuke had returned to reclaim the empty spot in the group photo. It had always been Naruto and Sakura, and had never ever changed.
Now here he stands, telling her that he’s going to be married to practically the loveliest girl in the universe, and her world is shattering. She never thought she could lose him this way. Not when she just realized that Naruto had been hers at all.
Please, say something else, she begs with her mind, and Naruto does.
“Sakura?” he asks softly, “Will you be at my wedding as Hinata’s bridesmaid?”
“Why can’t Hinata ask me herself,” she retorts almost bitterly.
“Well uh, about that…I think she was. But she’s so busy with the wedding planning and all that, y’know?” A sheepish grin once again spreads across his face. “I’m doing her a favor, if you ask me.”
Please, say something.
“Sakura?” She hadn’t realized she had been staring blankly. Her eyes lift to meet his, and Naruto’s hand digs into his pocket and pulls out a tiny pink hairpin. It’s so beautiful and dainty, and the twilight reflects on its smooth surface. It’s shaped like a cherry blossom.
Naruto holds out his hand, and for a moment Sakura doesn’t know what he wants her to do. “…You’ll wear it then, won’t you? I think it’ll make you look extra pretty.”
She doesn’t reach out to take it.
Naruto lowers his gaze. His voice barely above a whisper, he says, “If you wear it, I’ll dance with you first.” It’s a promise. What is Naruto and Sakura without their promises?
Finally, she takes the hairpin and nods.
She will step back and watch Hinata go down the aisle with him. She’ll cheer when he leans in to kiss Hinata’s lips. And she will be happy. If she gets to dance with him first like he’d promised, that would be enough.
. . .
Hinata is so beautiful, Sakura realizes: her raven black hair is a curtain behind her back, and lovely lavender-white eyes peep under her bangs and sweetly glow. The white ball gown, though not as spectacular as the kimono she wore for the ceremony, makes her look like an angel.
Sakura is sitting at the long wedding table with the two other bridesmaids, in a light lilac halter dress that wraps much too loosely around her body. She looks over at Ino to the right of her and marvels how she looks absolutely enchanting in that shade, how it enhances the color of her eyes and how the dress glides perfectly on every curve. Ten-Ten’s wearing a matching purple ornament in her buns that resembles a china aster, and she looks godly.
On the other hand, the lilac clashes with Sakura’s pink hair, and her ribs are awkwardly exposed. She looks even more flat-chested than she already is. If only the shade had been darker, she muses.
She looks over at Hinata once again, and there’s a speck of silver glitter caught between her long dark lashes. Naruto had seen it as well, and he moves to kiss her eyelid with a cheeky giggle. Sakura can’t take her eyes off them: how they lean towards each other and how no one else seems as near. It must be a marvelous thing, to meet someone’s eyes and feel so sure, that you cannot even look away.
All goes silent as Kiba stands up and clinks his glass with a fork. “A toast, everybody,” he announces, and Sakura can hear Naruto snickering mischievously as they share an inside joke.
Neji is the first to rise. “Before I say anything, I just…Hinata?”
Hinata catches her cousin’s gaze and her eyes instantly soften. “Nii-san?”
Neji can’t say anything more, or else he’d stammer; he looks about ready to burst into tears. Sakura can’t help but smile as he pauses to collect himself, then repeats: “Hinata, you can’t imagine how happy I am today.”
His voice fades into the background as Sakura’s eyes wander towards the bride and groom. Naruto’s wrapping his arm around Hinata’s waist, his other hand tightly squeezing hers. They’re leaning into each other the way no other pair of lovers could, and an echo resounds in the hollow of Sakura’s chest.
During Shikamaru’s speech was the first chance she got where no one was looking. Sakura quietly slips out of her seat, and when Ino turns around to question her she motions for her not to follow. She quietly pushes open the double doors at the back of the room and stands outside the reception hall, alone, with only the cold brick and the scruffy carpet underneath her as her companions.
She stays there until she can hear music drifting through the double doors, and she’s glad that no one has checked on her absence yet. She doesn’t feel like dancing, so instead she peers in through the window to see the lights dimmed a little.
Ino looks so graceful when she dances, and as her dress swishes around Sai’s legs they look like a painting worthy of being hung in a gallery.
Sakura stares until the music goes from upbeat to slow, and that’s when the orchestra starts playing. The harmony lifts from the floor and above the crowd’s head, even to outside where she is, and Sakura feels like she could float with it. All lights dim except for a soft one in the center of the room, casting a dreamy ambiance. An announcement comes on the speaker and the crowd parts.
Naruto and Hinata drift onto the open floor. Her heart is choking; there’s Naruto taking Hinata’s hand in his and leading her in a slow motion around the floor, Hinata’s head resting on his shoulder as the music swells. Naruto’s dancing with her.
And outside is his number one girl, giving up her turn.
Something drags her back into the hall, and there’s too much of a crowd blocking her path to the center so she goes to find Ino and Tsunade instead. She can see the top of Tsunade’s blonde head not five feet away from her, but there are other guests in the way. It’s futile to try to reach her now, so she heads outside the hall and into the blinding light of midday.
The heels she’s wearing is poking at the back of her feet, and she can feel blisters forming. With a grunt Sakura staggers to take them off.
Sakura starts off only casually swinging the shoes to her side, but as her mind drifts back to the image of the parted crowd and the lovers standing in the middle underneath an angelic glow, the swinging grows harder and the shoes thump against the side of her thigh. Scuff from the sole rubs onto the ugly lilac dress.
She’s angry at Naruto now, angry at the dress, angry at herself, and she wants to be angry at Hinata but she knows Hinata hadn’t done anything wrong. The park is only a street across and she decides that after an hour of sitting there alone, she will go back to the party and smile and laugh and congratulate as she had done for the past three.
A hand subconsciously goes to scratch at her pink hair, a habit she had formed ever since she realized Naruto wasn’t as interested in her hair as he used to be. As she ruffles it a strand gets entangled in the hairpin she’s wearing.
It was the same hairpin he’d given her that day, and in her frustration she rips it off with a painful yank and tosses it into a nearby trash can.
Sakura stops, realizing what she had done, but it’s not like she can fish the hairpin out.
She collapses onto the bench right beside it in a fit of quiet tears as the epiphany strikes her: she hadn’t broken her promise, nor threw anything away —
She’d only let him go.
. . .
They are sitting outside the hospital room, half-awake in those odd hours between midnight and dawn where neither space nor time quite exist. There’s only one bench in the dimly lit hallway, and the sickly gray lights flicker on and off, casting shadows on two gloomy gray figures seated awkwardly side by side.
“I should be in there,” Sakura whispers, and she moves to stand up when a hand stays her.
“You’ve already done all you can,” Sasuke says, but his expression isn’t visible behind his dark bangs. There’s a roughness in his grip that tells her that he’s just as worried as she is, but as in many things, he is right.
She would’ve cut her palms and collapsed to death before Naruto slipped through her fingers. Even now her white lab coat is stained with his blood.
There had been a skirmish on the borders of Fire Country, and despite almost a decade of practicing with little baby steps how to kick the habit, he was still as impetuous and headstrong at twenty-one as he was at thirteen. Sakura still remembers the feeling of lead upon her sandals, how her kunai felt weightless and yet heavy in her hand.
There had been a horrible shredding sound, and a spectacular splatter of blood that stained the dust, and she was sure his soul had been ripped out from his body.
She had not run to him in time. Hinata had gotten there first.
Everything after is a blur — for a wild moment the world was nothing but the lines and blinking lights and the incessant beeping of the monitor. She had heard Ino’s voice, then Tsunade’s, and for a moment she thought she had heard Sasuke, and Hinata’s frantic cries as she pulled his limp body into the room.
Blood spilled from the gash like a red river, and the scent of it had thickened the air until it was almost intoxicating. It ran and dripped through Sakura’s palms until even Tsunade had to be excused from the room. Green chakra bloomed from her hands and she could do nothing but hope that enough of it would seep into Naruto and bring him to life.
His blue eyes had glazed over with gray; and whatever life was left in Sakura, tainted by all her regrets and her secrets, she prayed it would be given to him. Ino had shouted from her place beside the monitor.
“He’s flat-lining!”
She felt, rather than heard, herself scream Naruto’s name.
The echoes are quieter now. Nothing else could be heard but the buzzing of the weak hallway lights and Sasuke’s steady breathing matching with Sakura’s half-ragged one.
Her fingers are flexing and she’s wringing her wrists like something had possessed her, and her eyes travel to the clock on the wall — it says 2:30 in the morning, and its ticking is steady, so out of tune with the beating of her heart. She shuts her eyes and the steady rhythm of it tunes out, but she’s pulled back to awareness with the quiet shutting of the door.
Hinata’s face is clean now, the tear-stains that ran down her cheek having been wiped away long ago, but there’s shadows under her puffy white eyes that weren’t there before. The regal line of her back is slumped with exhaustion, and the soft curve of her lip is pulled down in a somber frown.
“How is he?” Sasuke asks. Hinata turns to him and musters a small, grateful smile.
“I think he’s okay. He isn’t conscious right now though.”
Sakura’s breath catches in her throat. “I-is he?”
She can feel Hinata’s soft, warm hand alight on her back as she answers, “It’s all thanks to you. If you hadn’t gotten there, he might have…” Sakura shuts her eyes once again, maybe out of relief, maybe out of fear, or perhaps there’s a part of her that despises the fact that she hadn’t been the one who had gotten to him first.
Sasuke’s peeking into the small glass of the hospital door, and there’s a pause before he whispers with shaky breath, “He still looks pretty bad.” Hinata bites her lip as if restraining tears as Sakura’s hand moves to hold the one on her shoulder. “It was so sudden, and yet so eternally slow,” Hinata was saying, a slight trembling in her sweet voice. “Never before have my legs felt so heavy.”
Sakura says nothing, only turns around and readjusts her coat. “Sakura?” asks Sasuke as she pushes the door open.
“Can I have a moment?” A moment is all she wants right now.
The room is even dimmer than the hallway when she enters, with only pale lamp light to wash over Naruto’s even paler face, making ghosts of the shadows dancing underneath his eyes and his sunken cheeks. Sakura wants to collapse into tears when she sees him lying deathly still, but she had taught herself long ago to never let anything make her cry.
The folds of the linen are wrinkled where Hinata had sat for an hour by Naruto’s side, and Sakura goes to smooth it. She can’t bear to sit down or peer into Naruto’s blanched face, so her eyes travel towards the curtain, to the table, to the monitor, to the bedside table, anywhere but to him. Sakura feels that if she holds his limp hand and gazes at him the same way Hinata seems to, she would surely hate herself for everything and nothing at all.
Night wind ruffles the curtains of the window nearby, and milky moonlight filters through the blinds, creating patterns on the tiled floor. The ruffling sound is low and almost comforting, and Sakura closes her eyes to let it seep into her when the hand beside her stirs.
“H-Hina…” Naruto’s barely awake.
There’s a lull in Sakura’s train of thought as his hand gingerly touches her palm. It doesn’t feel right that the first name he whispers isn’t hers.
With a gentle brush of her fingertips on his forehead, Sakura whispers, “I’m here,” breath ghosting near Naruto’s ear that makes him shudder. He’s still delirious, she can tell, for he doesn’t seem to recognize her.
Naruto’s lips part as if he’s trying to say something, and Sakura lowers her head nearer. She stumbles backward a bit in surprise when a rough hand lightly brushes her shoulder. “N-Naruto?”
She can see his bright blue eyes, still a little dazed, much clearer through blonde lashes as Naruto opens his eyelids. He smiles then, her name faint on his lips when he finally recognizes her. Sakura can’t help but smile back when his fingers move to brush through the tips of her pink hair, and a part of her wants to imagine that he had been dreaming about her hair before he woke up.
“Sakura…I almost had him. If only I’d…”
She shakes her head. “If only you hadn’t been so impatient, you wouldn’t be lying here now.” It’s a rebuke, but her tone is soft and gentle, a tone she’d only use when she and Sasuke were alone. “Hinata’s been worried sick about you the whole night.”
Naruto’s ears perk at the sound of his wife’s name. “Hinata? Where is she?” and he cranes his neck towards the door, but a sharp pain pricks him in the gut and he lies back down with a groan. “Shh, she’s right outside. Don’t try moving,” Sakura says, and she rubs her hand through his tangled blonde hair, a little damp with sweat.
Naruto leans into her touch like he’d been yearning for it, and with a tiny gasp Sakura retracts her hand, an instinct she hadn’t realize she’d developed. A puddle of regret pools and reflects in her glassy green eyes, and she goes to stroke his cheek with the back of her hand instead. Her mouth opens, then closes, because she feels like she should be saying something but doesn’t know what.
A small tear rolls down Sakura’s cheek without her meaning to, and before she can wipe it away Naruto’s finger is already there; and he’s looking up at her with that smile that even now makes Sakura’s heart flutter involuntarily.
Once again she attempts to say something, because a room containing both silence and Naruto never feels right. “Who brought me in here?” Naruto asks, and Sakura’s glad for it.
“It was Hinata. She rushed as fast as she could when I couldn’t.” A fond grin spreads on Naruto’s face, but it contorts into slight confusion when he asks, “And you?”
“I…I was occupied.”
“Oh. But you were with me, weren’t you?” He asks it like his whole world would collapse if she said no.
She only nods her head, eyes looking down at the dried blood splattered on her lab coat. Naruto’s eyes travel to where she’s looking and a small gasp escapes him when he realizes. “It must’ve been ugly,” he breathes.
“So ugly that even Tsunade-sama was shaking,” Sakura half-jokes, but it makes Naruto frown instead.
Silence drifts between them once again, and it’s awkward and painful. They had barely spoken to each other since the wedding, and Sakura had forgotten how to face him. The echoing of their voices in the bare room feels only like ghosts now, as if they had never really spoken at all.
All she can do is sit by his side and stare at her palms, tired and aching from hours of desperate work. She can feel his blue eyes watching her, half-lidded and drowsy but still alert, and it’s all she can do to not stare back.
A hand rests in her palm. She does not pull away.
“Y’know, this reminds me of countless other times,” Naruto says slowly, his voice weak but filled with fondness. Sakura smiles because she remembers them too: Naruto lying in a hospital bed, bandaged up like a mummy while Sakura teased him with a steaming bowl of ramen underneath his nose only to swipe it away.
They were so young back then, so young that there were no such thing as fatal wounds and being with Naruto was easy. The smile on her face grows wider like she’s happy, but there’s a deep ache pressing against her chest because all she can do is mourn.
“Seems like I haven’t changed, y’know? Always getting into a lot of trouble. Then after I’d already been beaten black and blue, there was you to face right after,” Naruto chuckles.
“But I was always there to fix you up, remember.”
“Yeah. No matter what.”
Naruto’s hand wraps around hers and squeezes it, and it’s warm and so familiar that Sakura can’t believe she’d forgotten the feel of it. Naruto’s eyes are piercing through hers, and she makes the mistake of looking right back. The breath catches in her throat.
“I…can still remember the feel of your hand on my heart,” Naruto whispers, and his voice is so sweet and low that it makes her chest ache more, and Sakura almost wants to howl from the shock of it.
Her chest is aching, aching more badly than a slash to the stomach, and the tears start spilling from Sakura’s green eyes as she realizes that it’s loss.
“I-I’m sorry,” she says through shuddered sobs when Naruto squeezes her hand tighter in concern. “I- I- I just couldn’t move,” and that’s all she can say without wailing louder. Naruto only gazes at her, his brows furrowed and his eyes soft, and Sakura silently thanks him for keeping his mouth shut lest she breaks into more sobs.
They sit there like that for a long while, just the two of them, and Sakura wonders if the two outside can hear her and are worried. They sit with their fingers interlaced until her tears become quiet shaking and the only thing that’s left in her chest is clean air. When she’s done, the world had only shifted a fraction, but everything feels clear and new.
“Hinata got there first,” she whispers, almost desperately, as she leans in closer towards Naruto’s face. “Hinata got there first,” she repeats over and over again, her voice shaking and growing louder because she can’t even believe it herself. Naruto’s palm goes to softly cup her cheek.
With a sniff, she says one last time with resolution, “Hinata got there first.” And Naruto shakes his head.
“But you were still there for me,” he says, and the sparkling in his beautiful blue eyes, bluer than any clear sky, could not have been brighter than the dazzle of his smile. Her stomach lurches in that old, half-familiar way as she stares at him.
“No matter what,” Sakura finishes.
Sakura’s hand moves to clasp around the one cupping her cheek, and for one sweet, long moment the rest of the world melts away and it’s just how the world used to be, how it’s supposed to be.
Just Naruto and Sakura.
She knows that once the spell is over Hinata will be outside. Sasuke will be outside. She will have to pull away from him and let his warmth slip from her fingers; and the piece of her soul that he’d been keeping since young, the one she’d longed to steal back, would have to be left alone. But one last tear falls from her cheek as she lets herself imagine that she’d never lost a piece of his after all.
His eyes flutter as he drifts back into the realm of sleep, his hand slowly falling away from the one that had always been his to hold.
“No matter what,” he repeats softly.
Sakura closes her eyes, leans in, and presses a ghost of kiss to his temple, and she knows it’s fine. They were Naruto and Sakura — they’ll be alright.
“I’ll be there, stupid,” she whispers, and she ignores the quiet sound of the door squeaking open behind her —
“Because I’m your number one girl.”