Chapter Text
Sakura has found happiness. The true sort of happiness that sinks into your bones and makes you feel all warm and wonderful inside. It feels so much better than anything she imagined happiness to be just a year ago.
She had been so naive back then, obsessive and possessive to the point of blinding herself to everyone’s needs but her own. She had torn apart the bridges built around her to build one over a cliff, without realizing that there was nothing on the other side but a steep fall she could never come back from.
Back then she had built up ideas of people in her head, reduced them to singular characteristics they had, and then decided on whether she loved or hated them. Ino, her once best friend; reduced to a rival in love. Choji and Shikamaru, also part of their friend group; they were just slackers to her. Naruto, the boy who bore the village‘s scorn, who tried so hard to stay positive regardless; a complete looser with nothing else to note about him besides his annoyingness.
Sasuke, who she had thought she understood, who she had held above all others in regard, who she had made her whole world revolve around… She had reduced him to some one dimensional ikemen. An ideal to chase after, the dark and mysterious protagonist of a novel, she was so sure she could fix him.
Looking back, she had barely even seen him as a fellow human. Even though she objectively knew about his past, it never truly translated to emotional hurt he might suffer. In her head, he was inhumanly flawless.
It had taken seeing her team interact together, being vulnerable together and building each other up, to realize the world around her did not match the world in her head. In her head there was a gross caricature of reality that could never truly encompass the complexity of the real thing.
Back then she could only watch from the outside how Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke had uncovered each other’s jagged edges and, instead of cutting themselves on them, slotted themselves against them to create a whole that was stronger and better than they were by themselves.
She saw sides of them that she couldn’t understand at first, they just didn’t fit the people she believed they would be. She had to confront her own sense of self to reevaluate her reality and that was hard. Very hard.
But she managed.
It had taken a while for her to repair what she had broken in her idealization and apathy. She had driven off Sasuke and hurt Naruto and she was sure her sensei resented her for it, but it had not been too late to salvage what was left.
She took the fragments of those broken bridges and built new ones between them, better and stronger than any she had ever had before.
It was by no means just her own effort though, Naruto had been an invaluable help rediscovering the world around her and how to properly connect with it. He turned out to be surprisingly in tune with his surroundings and perceiving them for what they are, despite his apparent ignorance.
Looking back, it must have been the constant exposure to the very worst and best of the world, that allowed him to recognise anything in between. The village had hated him at first, before rejecting him entirely and pretending he was thin air. Their sensei had taken him in and nourished him with love and care though. She hated to think what might have become of him if Kakashi hadn't.
They were on their first mission outside of Konoha, when she made these discoveries for herself and started truly making an effort in understanding her team mates and learning to give instead of only taking what she wanted from a relationship.
She learned to give space to Sasuke, who was hurting from his difficult past. She learned to look past Naruto's brash personality and appreciate his care and optimism. She learnt to respect her sensei as a person with strengths and weaknesses and not just as her superior. And she learned to accept criticism, her faults, and to better herself.
She felt good about things now; about other people, herself, and her place in this world. She felt like she finally understood the differences and complexities of others. After all this time living complacently, she was ready to face the world and learn from it.