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The warmth of the spring sun feels good on her face. After so long in the damp holding cell, Sasuko finds that the sheer novelty of freedom hasn’t quite worn off yet – even days since her release. She shrugs a shoulder to readjust her rucksack and glances at the pink-haired kunoichi walking next to her. The movement catches Sakura’s eye. Sasuko notes the other woman’s lips quirk upward slightly with a brief smile.
“You know...” Sakura begins. Trailing off for a moment, she picks at the dirt beneath her fingernails before continuing, “I’m still having a hard time really believing that this isn’t a dream. There was a time that I had completely given up on the hope that we would ever be here again.”
Sakura doesn’t elaborate, but Sasuko knows without being told because it’s a dream she had long since given up on herself. The dark-haired kunoichi had cast aside any hope of a future where she could walk peacefully through the village that raised her in the company of her friend when she had left the other woman knocked out on a bench all those years ago. It’s a dream that Sasuko would often torture herself with during her darkest moments in the subsequent years spent in Orochimaru’s company.
The dream that she stayed that is.
Sasuko had been tempted – sorely so – when Sakura had stepped up to her that night and begged her not to leave. The pink-haired girl’s confession of love made it even more difficult, but the decision had been simmering in her gut for so long that it was inevitable – if not now, then later. No one had ever called Sasuko a procrastinator.
She still remembered how the confession made her feel though. That sudden flash of warmth in her chest was the first time that she could remember feeling an emotion so strong that wasn’t rooted in pain or suffering in years that she had begun to think herself incapable – too broken. Even the knowledge that Sakura hadn’t meant it romantically – Sasuko was her friend and Sakura loved her as such – couldn’t dull the flutter in her gut and the irregular drum of her heart. Despite her choice of words, Sakura’s love wasn’t romantic. She loved Sasuko, but she wasn’t IN love with her. It took years and a lot of soul-searching for Sasuko to figure out why that bothered her.
Sakura loved her, but not the way Sasuko wished that she did.
In a world hyper-focused on bloodlines and tradition, homosexuality was something more often kept on the down-low. Same-sex couples weren’t common in the village. At least, it wasn’t common in their society to be open about it. Severe trauma aside, it was this unstated compulsory heterosexuality and pressure to continue the Uchiha line that made it so difficult for the emotionally-stunted Sasuko to come to terms with her attraction to other women - namely, her attraction to one other woman.
“If you meet any boys on your travels, then you have to promise to let us know before you elope with any of them.”
Sasuko knows that Sakura’s kidding, but the implications of her teammate’s statement irk her.
“I have no interest in finding a husband.”
“Well, not now,” Sakura says, looking thrown by Sasuko’s sudden ire, “I only meant – “
“Sakura,” Sasuko says, cutting her off, “I like women.”
Sakura stops walking. Sasuko makes it another couple steps ahead of her before she stops as well. Steeling herself, Sasuko turns to face her obviously shocked former teammate.
“What?” Sakura croaks hoarsely just as Sasuko worries her impassive mask might crack with tension.
“I said that I don’t want a husband. I prefer the company of women,” Sasuko replies. When Sakura fails to respond, the Uchiha hears herself grow terse, “Is that a problem for you?”
“What?” Sakura says again. She sounds almost lost, as if she’s having an out-of-body experience. Before Sasuko can respond, the other woman is blinking hard.
“No! No, of course not! It’s just – I – you!” She’s shaking her head now, hands coming up to cover her face. Sakura releases a harsh, shaky breath and stays like that for a moment before her head snaps up. “You. Are. So. Stupid.”
“Ah?”
Apparently, it’s Sasuko’s turn to be taken aback, but she doesn’t have long to consider it because Sakura is marching, eyes blazing, towards her. Sasuko knows she could avoid the ensuing shove to her shoulder easily if she cared to, but she lets it fall and stumbles back half a step. Slim, strong hands catch the front of her shirt before she can get too far and draws her back into place.
“You dummy! Problem?!” Sakura scoffs incredulously, but when she speaks again her words soften, “I told you when we were thirteen that I was in love with you!”
Sasuko blinks, “I assumed that you meant it as a friend.”
“I definitely did not,” she says, emphatically. Then, Sakura is smiling again and suddenly, Sasuko is acutely aware of their proximity and the warmth of the woman’s hands still fisting the collar of her shirt, “Like I said – for a genus, you’re pretty stupid.”
“I had a few other things that I was going through at the time,” she says, shuffling awkwardly and glancing away.
“Maybe…” She answers. Picking up on Sasuko’s discomfort, she smooths the woman’s collar and steps away, “but you still had eyes – good ones. I’m pretty sure anyone within a mile of us could see that I was completely smitten with you.”
“That’s not unusual – everyone is,” Sasuko says with a smirk as they start walking again.
“Wow, better watch that ego of yours before it kills you.”
“Is that your medical opinion?”
“It might be.”
The medic’s eyes are dancing and Sasuko wonders if this is what flirting feels like. They walk in silence for a minute before the question Sasuko’s been harbouring slips off the back-burner.
“You said you were completely smitten…” Sasuko says. Suddenly unable to look at the other girl, she stares straight ahead. “It’s understandable, given everything, if you weren’t now…”
“Sasuko.”
Sakura’s voice is gentle and coaxing, but it’s the soft hands slipping around her own that convince Sasuko to look at her teammate. A gentle breeze kicks up from the east and ruffles Sakura’s pink tresses. A stray lock grazes her cheek and it takes a lot more effort than it should to prevent the black-haired Uchiha from reaching up and slipping it back in place behind Sakura’s ear.
“Even when it’s hard, I think there’ll always be a part of me that’s smitten with you.”
If Sasuko were a different person, she would have kissed Sakura right there in the middle of the road. But she isn’t and as much as she wants to, she doesn’t feel she’s earned the right.
Not yet.
So, instead she gently squeezes Sakura’s hands and offers her the best she can – a small, but genuine smile. They don’t drop their joined hands until they are within sight of village gates. The corner of Kakashi’s visible eye crinkles happily in a way that tells Sasuko that he probably saw them, but if he did, he doesn’t mention it.
“By rights, you should be in prison right now…”
Kakashi says his piece, to which Sasuko dutifully agrees. It’s nothing that Sasuko didn’t already know or suspect. It’s beyond generous, given all that she’s done. She’s been given the chance to re-examine the world with clearer eyes and forage a path that’s wholly her own for the first time.
When Sakura again offers to accompany her, it’s no less tempting than it was when they were young, but Sasuko knows with as much certainty that she still cannot accept. Some journeys must be taken alone. Sakura is the best medic in the five great nations and Konoha is still healing. Sakura is needed here as much as Sasuko is not. There is still too much hurt between the last Uchiha and her village. She needs her own time to heal – to detangle the knotted strings of her heart and atone for the sins she has committed against those who have been clinging desperately to its tattered, fraying ends.
Sasuko taps Sakura’s forehead affectionately and commits the pink-haired woman’s blush to her memory as best she can without activating the sharingan. She’s leaving again, but this time the gratitude she gives Sakura feels a lot more like a promise than a goodbye.
“Maybe next time… thank you.”