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Neatening a stack of papers, Sasuke stared out the window.
He and Sakura had been helping out at the academy when they weren’t out on missions for a few months, now. It was strange, in so many ways, to be back in the building. They had been out of lessons for a while, out of Iruka-sensei’s classes for what felt like forever, but there was something comforting about being back now. He wasn’t stupid, he knew why they were there, and he knew why Kakashi-sensei had dropped them off when he’d been sent on a more dangerous mission. Things outside of their village were getting increasingly complicated and worrying.
But it felt…Nice.
Iruka-sensei took the time to have lunch with them. He asked them about their day, about their training, about the missions they went on. He made sure they were okay.
Sasuke was starting to understand why Naruto loved him so much. He wasn’t just their teacher, wasn’t just a facet of their life in the village. He was someone they could talk to, someone dependable, someone they could go to when something was wrong. Sakura had always listened to him before, but now she spoke about him with so much more respect.
He wasn’t just some Chuunin who taught them. He was their mentor and their teacher and the one in charge of protecting them in case of the worst.
He’d bought them dinner, sometimes, and walked them home to make sure they got there safely.
With a small sigh, Sasuke shuffled the papers again, still staring out the window. Even with the distractions, even with the chaos caused by the younger generation, he couldn’t get his mind off the missing person in his life – Naruto, out of the village for months, now. Not even Konohamaru, having learned Naruto’s idiotic jutsu, could distract him.
Not with the letters that came occasionally.
Not with the scratchy writing that told him Naruto was still himself and still struggled to sit still while composing a letter.
Not with one practically burning a hole in his pocket, delivered to him by a very hurried Tsunade earlier that day, her heels clattering on the floor as she dodged her assistant to give it to him. She’d passed it to him without a word, the envelope just having his name written on the front of it. Sakura hadn’t gotten one, neither had Iruka-sensei.
Just Sasuke.
It had been stuck in his mind the entire day, distracting him at every turn. Any time he stopped to breathe, the thought of the letter came back to him, the paper present in his pocket a distraction he had to keep his hands from yanking out and ripping open. It could wait until he was alone or, at the very least, it could wait until he was somewhere other than at the academy. He had gotten others, of course, but each one felt more important than the last.
Each one felt special.
Ever since his brother’s secrets had been revealed to him, things had changed. Sasuke had been cracked out of a shell of sorts, the world suddenly brighter and louder around him. Things that had once seemed so unimportant suddenly were just the most important – And Naruto was one of those things.
Their current third teammate, a boy named Sai, was strange and quiet. He and Sasuke were often at odds with each other. If they had met before everything, Sasuke would undoubtedly have ignored him.
He would have labeled him as an annoyance and brushed him off.
Now, however, he was an invader, but also someone being used as a weapon. Likely against his will. Sai was strange and quiet, yes, but he was also too close when you did not want him to be. Danzo was trying to use him to get answers and figure out what was happening. Their second team leader, Yamato-sensei, often ran a sort of interference. He kept Sai from bothering them too much, kept him from running into their edges and setting off anger and frustration.
There was something else there, something else happening, and Sasuke knew it.
He also knew it was something he did not need to be directly involved in, yet. Everything was a game of Shogi. Every action needed to be considered carefully, every move debated before being played. He wasn’t even sure who was playing or if there was more than one player on each side.
The door opened quietly. When Sasuke looked up, Sakura nodded, entering slowly and closing it behind herself.
She sat at one of the desks, tucking her legs behind it like she had when she was a student, and turned to stare out the same window he had been looking out. Neither of them spoke for a while, silently watching a breeze rustle through the trees. “The letter from Naruto,” Sakura eventually spoke up, licking her lips. She sounded hesitant, like she didn’t want to ask, but she needed to. “What’s it about?”
“They’re always about the villages he’s been at,” Sasuke knew that wasn’t what she was asking. He moved to sit near her, staying a couple seats away.
“I mean…”
“He tells me he’s safe,” Sasuke added, shrugging. He set the stack of papers on the desk in front of him. “He tells me about food he eats, about how he’s doing, about how much he misses us. He tells me he misses me.” He glanced at her, swallowing nerves that tried to climb his throat. “Sakura…”
“It was never going to be me, was it?”
He stared at her.
Of course he’d known about her crush on him, how could he not?
She’d said some of the most braindead things about it, when they’d been put on a team together. The mentions of loving him, the ignorance of talking about Naruto and him being an orphan, the way she’d always spoken about him being an idiot like that would impress Sasuke. He looked at his hands, shaking his head before he even could bring himself to say anything.
“…It was never going to be you,” he confirmed. “But to be fair, it would never have been any other girl in the village either.”
Sakura closed her eyes, her mouth screwed up in a way that he knew meant she was trying not to cry. She’d been amazing during the Chuunin exams, holding strong against Orochimaru and working through all that had happened and running with things when Itachi and Kisame had shown up. She was strong and capable, and he knew it.
But she was never going to be the one he chose.
Sasuke would always view her as a friend. He would choose her as a teammate again and again, as someone he went on missions with, but he would never view her romantically. Sakura was a great girl; she would make someone happy one day.
But it would never be him.
When tears rolled down her cheeks, Sasuke didn’t know what to do. Sakura buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking, and he could only watch as she broke down. Something cautioned against him attempting to touch her shoulder, at that moment, and the voice in his head sounded like his mom’s. Or maybe it was Itachi’s voice, telling him not to upset her further.
Either way.
They sat there for a long while.
Eventually, Sakura’s crying tapered off, her face red when she rubbed at her cheeks and nodded. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I…It’s not your fault.”
“I don’t even know what I did to get all the girls in our class to like me,” Sasuke frowned.
“You existed,” she smiled, her eyes still watery. “You looked good, and you were good in class, and you were someone with a known family name. I think a lot of it was our parents telling us you were…Special. That you deserved it. Obviously, if you’re well-known to them, you’re worth liking.” She rubbed her face again, shaking her head. “I’m probably not explaining that right. Or very well.”
Sasuke frowned, staring at her. “It’s…The idea?”
“Something like that,” Sakura sighed. “The idea of you. It became a competition amongst the girls. So many of us pinned a lot of our self…Worth? Identity? On the idea of you liking us.”
“…Why did you ask?”
“When you got the letter, earlier,” She brushed her hair out of her face, frowning at how short it was. She was still getting used to it. “I’ve never seen you smile that much, before. Or that big. The entire time it was in your hand, you were smiling.” Sakura stood up, moving out from behind the desk to come stand in front of his desk. “I hope he feels the same, Sasuke-kun. I think the two of you could be very happy together, if he does.”
Sasuke stared at the surface of the desk in front of him, breathing through his nose. “What do I do if he doesn’t?”
“He nearly went insane when he thought you’d died,” Sakura laughed. “He chases after you at every opportunity. He challenges you and follows you and keeps pace with you and I know he’s the one you went to after your brother…” She shook her head again. “I think he does. Or if he doesn’t, it’s only because he’s not aware it’s an option.”
She patted his wrist. “Thank you for not letting me think it was an option for me for years,” she spoke softly. “Thank you for letting it die pretty quickly.”
With a small noise, she let go of him and scooped up the papers he’d been sent to retrieve. “I’ll take these to Iruka-sensei, so you can read your letter, hm?” Her smile was bright when she held them close to her, her face still red and her eyes still wet. Sakura would be okay, Sasuke was pretty sure.
He was less sure about himself.