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Konoha’s forests were teaming green again, donning halos from the sun peaking through. Frost melted into dew on the leaves, and lily buds sprouted from the ground in the tease of spring.
Sakura could still feel the fog on her breath and the chill of dawn, it was almost enough to muster her spirits even a little.
Most days, she would walk through market, past the little stalls where people laughed unaware or couples lounging under shaded roofs. She dragged her feet through dusk, hovered from shop to shop until the late hours of the night, with nothing but warm bean soup or a bowl of steaming rice to distract her.
This particular morning found her at the underpass of the river’s edge, towards the east where the training grounds were as always.
It was there she saw him, sat idly on a tree branch, one leg swinging off of it. Sasuke was above the three wooden posts, his back turned to her. Her breath hitched in her throat and she let out a small gasp in surprise.
It was enough to make him turn and look up at her. His usual features were strummed with worry. So used to his battle hardened exterior, she had never seen his stare look so unnaturally soft. Even stranger was how visibly sad he looked. She couldn’t remember a time she saw him so awash with emotion. He sniffed.
“What do you want?”
Sakura could ask him the same thing. In fact, she wrestled with the courage to do it time and again ever since the incident with Naruto on the hospital roof. She had wracked her brain over what she could do, how she could help.
“I-I walk around here sometimes, why are you here Sasuke?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He muttered it quietly as if to himself. She sensed the hint that the conversation was at an end. Still, possessed by the idea of him being right there in front of her, she continued, despite herself.
“I find myself doing that a lot lately, just walking around the village. It helps when there’s a lot on my mind… Sasuke?”
He didn’t respond or even look at her. She took the silence as an invitation to go on. She was already daringly pushing it, and couldn't find a point to stop now.
“Were you thinking of leaving?” The words lingered across the open field.
Their missions were suspended. Kakashi said he would ‘deal’ with Sasuke. Naruto hid behind encouraging smiles but like everyone else around her, seemed to want to sweep past the obvious.
There were times she even waited by the village gates, twisted by a deranged sense of knowing her worst fears could spring to life. Expecting to find the worst.
The last she heard, Sasuke had some run in with Orochimaru’s henchmen, and the incident was luckily intercepted by Kakashi sensei who was nearby. But since then, it has been nothing. Radio silence. Give him time, she thought. That was the sensible approach. Or maybe the only one. So all she could do was pace herself day in and out, hoping to outrun the pain that sat like a stone in her stomach. Hoping with time, answers would come and everything would make sense again like dawn turning into day. Before they consumed her.
“He’s slipping away, the more time I waste here…” Sakura, maybe, heard his voice tremble slightly. He clenched his fists, looking to the sky. She walked closer and gently leaned against the tree, listening, maybe he didn't mind her company.
“Yet I… I can’t make any move. It’s like I’m stuck.” He sighed and laid back against the tree. Specks of rain began to drop over their heads. Was this what he’d do? His mind circling through the same thoughts? She didn’t like the idea of him alone, hurting. She never did.
She wondered if he was talking about Itachi, but didn’t mention his name.
“I can’t understand what you are going through, but if you think revenge -
“If you know you can’t, then you shouldn’t waste your breath…” His voice rang sharp.
“It’s true I don’t understand. I don’t know anything. But you never say anything! You don’t let me in.” Sakura exclaimed, tears welling up in her eyes.
“I’m not like you and Naruto. I have my reasons for living, even now it’s.. too late.” The words faltered in strength as he said them. Sheets of rain fell harder as a shower through the tangle of trees. Thunder cracked in the air.
“Even still,” She cried out against the downpour, “You don’t have to be alone!”
“ I.. I remember when we first put on the same team. All I thought about was impressing you. I didn’t know anything," She shook her head frantically and gulped, “I still don’t! But I do know that the time we spent together as a team came to mean everything to me. You don’t have to be alone.” She gasped the words out in one breath, watching him desperately as webs of wet hair plastered her cheeks.
“Why do you care?” It was a genuine question, one that stung and his face twisted expectantly, slick with rain water.
“I think you know why,” she replied. “It’s eating me alive wondering what you’re thinking. Because I’ll never stop caring about you no matter what path you take. Even if you choose a different path. Even if it would kill me inside. I…
“Sasuke, I lo.. -”
She was cut short as he jumped down from the branch, stood in front of her.
“You should head inside.”
Her heart froze in her chest, sending a shiver running down her body. She blinked more tears away, not noticing how he inched closer, his eyes fluttering downwards in the torrent of the storm.
She eventually did look up, vision blurry and her searching eyes met his unflinching ones.
He then bowed his head, shoving his hands in his soaked pockets and brushing past her. She stood rooted to the spot.
“Sakura…” His voice whistled softly through the wind.
“Thanks.”
He kept on walking, in the direction of the Uchiha compound.
The rain was warm against her skin like spring.