Chapter Text
Sasuke can read volumes in one glance. He has faced murderous looks, the stares of the uninformed, tearful gazes from disappointed former fans; every flavour of visual communication is his to own, and so it hits him hard when he can’t decipher what Sakura’s expression means.
By pure coincidence they have crossed paths in some backwater town on Fire country’s coastline. It’s the kind of place criminals come to escape the clutches of Konoha, but that’s not why he’s here. Not this time. Sasuke is almost two years into his journey of redemption, his path cautiously circling the village until he has begun to meet Konoha ninjas out on patrol. This time, apparently, it’s Sakura.
Just Sakura. She’s alone; he knows because she doesn’t throw a covert look to where her teammates would be patrolling (a tell she’s never quite broken free from), and because she stands her ground, part surprised, part something he cannot read.
“Sasuke-kun?” she queries, like she too has lost power over her vision.
“Sakura,” he affirms. Neither of them look away. Neither of them speak.
The busy port moves on as they stand in the way. It’s close enough to Konoha that the average person probably recognises Sakura’s uniform as that of a jounin, and there’s barely any grumbling as the townspeople skirt around where they stand, shifting like the shoals of fish they catch daily. When did Sakura make jounin? She hadn’t mentioned it in her letters. Sasuke can feel the weight of them in his pocket, and he’s tempted to touch their crinkled pages, believing in the power of touch, at this moment, over that of sight.
“Should we get something to eat?” he hears himself asking, because Sakura hasn’t moved or spoken again and he is beginning to feel uneasy with her unreadable face.
“Have you just arrived?” she asks in response to his question. It doesn’t make sense, but Sasuke shakes his head, telling her he has been nearby for a few days. Today is the last day he had booked at his inn; tomorrow a new chapter would start.
“I see,” Sakura replies. Sasuke does not. “Yes, let’s get something to eat. You still eat seafood, right?”
Sasuke has eaten three day’s worth of it, but he nods like it’s his favourite thing in the world, following her mutely until she stops outside the restaurant attached to where he’s been staying. The proprietress throws him a warm smile as he steps beyond the curtain, gesturing him to where he’s been sitting in the evenings. At Sakura’s presence, she darts a glance back at him, blatantly puzzled.
“Back again?” the woman says lightly, placing their meals on the table. There’s only one thing on the menu, and Sasuke’s eaten it for days now. “The girls will be pleased.”
Sakura’s pale pink eyebrows climb towards her hairline at that; Sasuke is relieved her expression has changed into something he recognises, though it’s not jealousy, just curiosity. He cannot quite muster pleasure at the implication.
They don’t talk much while eating - Sakura never has, and Sasuke is too well mannered - and before long two tortoiseshell cats slink under the low table, appearing in the space where Sasuke’s arm stops.
“The girls,” he finds himself explaining, enjoying the way Sakura’s intensity softens at their animal affection.
“You’re popular,” she observes, and he thinks he can hear the laughter in her voice though she doesn’t show it.
“For once,” Sasuke jokes, and Sakura grins outright at his jest. It’s unlike him, but cats tend to relax his guard. Or so he tells himself, watching her smile delightedly as he feeds them the scraps.
Conversation is sparse as they finish eating and leave, Sasuke paying the bill while Sakura is busy acquainting herself with the cats. It dwindles to nothing as they walk together through the streets of the port, some semblance of patrol visible in the way Sakura’s hands remain resolutely in the pockets of her flak jacket. She commands respect in a way he doesn’t remember - nor receive himself - and it’s strange to him, this woman shaped like the girl he knew, but not quite the same. They’ve walked for an hour, or two, when he notices her face has closed off once more, and her glances at him grow longer, and longer until she stares openly as they wander.
“What is it?” he ventures. They’re standing at the outermost pier; with no ship docked it’s empty, a pocket of quiet in the bustle of commerce. It is, he reckons, exactly where he’d departed from Fire Country’s shore all those years ago.
Sakura doesn’t reply immediately. Her deep green gaze holds his with such intensity that he blinks and almost drops his stare, but Sasuke has never looked away from Sakura, not when she is truly looking. She is now, and he reaches forward with all his understanding, wanting to pin down the meaning in the depths of her expression.
“When-” she starts, then closes her mouth so abruptly he hears her teeth click. He waits. It’s his turn to, after all.
“Would you like to come with me?” she asks, and it’s not what she was going to say. Sasuke can see it in the frustration on her brow. He thinks she was going to ask when he would go home, but it’s the wrong question, and Sakura has always been the smartest of them. So instead she simply gazes up at him, a woman grown but still shorter than he by far, her face upturned with the sun in her hair. There is a promise in the way she holds herself open, but not relaxed.
It’s beautiful. It’s Sakura at her most persuasive, and he’s sure she knows that it works on him as well as it always had.
He doesn’t know where she is going. And she doesn’t tell him, waiting under the hot sun as the waves tickle the pier they stand on. But it doesn’t matter, because Sasuke can read volumes in one glance, and Sakura has opened herself like a book to him once more.
“Yes, I’ll go with you,” he agrees, glancing as her fingers flex in unconscious relief. It surprises even him, to say it so openly.
“Anywhere.”