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it stung, sasuke thought.
his tongue ghosted over the cut on his lower lip, and he was torn between crying from pain and shame from clumsily landing on his kunai. itachi would never be in this situation, but he was perfect and sasuke's only six so he chose to sob instead.
like salt to the wound, a girl passed by his crouched figure along the riverbank. her pink hair was a bright hurricane against the summer dusk. "does it hurt?"
sasuke glared, clamming up from being perceived, but he can't retort. it bled harder when he tried to speak.
"do you like sweets?"
he kept staring at her, wishing she would just go away and leave him be. instead, she opened a lollipop, pocketed the wrapper, and glazed the candy over her lips, smacking them together twice.
"see! it's not poison!" she thrust the lollipop at him and sauntered away into the budding night as if he was merely an errand.
he opened his mouth into the sweetness she briefly savored, wincing as blood crashed with hardened glucose, then fading away into a strawberry burst.
"a single parfait for a week's toil of labor. i can't believe this!" if naruto could salivate directly on the ice cream, he would, but sakura deftly took the cup away.
"let's be sane about this. i get the berries please," she implored while scooping the surface.
"don't use your pretty privilege on me, sakura-chan!" naruto pulled the cup closer to him and took a big chunk with some berries, igniting a silly tug-of-war until sasuke's supposed-to-be-spoon fell.
"oops sorry! gonna wash it." the two scampered to get a replacement for him. meanwhile, sasuke borrowed sakura's spoon and carved his portion from the treat sans berries.
then he caught kakashi looking at him.
"what?"
"huh, kids."
"it's your canister," sasuke insisted.
"so?" sakura shrugged.
"aren't you conscious of uh, saliva, uh i mean poison?"
she leveled him with an amused stare. "you're in the hospital, albeit in the triage area. i'm not really worried, now drink up so i can go on my rounds."
sasuke sipped up her remaining water, accurately portioned for each villager in the war-torn konoha. the aftertaste, he surmised, reminded him of summer—was it her lip balm?
flushed rose and smooth under the moonlight, that's what her lips looked like to him as she stole sleep beside sasuke's hospital bed. waking up to find pink hair poking his cheeks was a nice departure to the sanitized cotton pillow.
sakura snored, if ever so lightly, he noticed but he kept looking, quite enamored of his teammate who he thought he pushed beyond his reach yet found her inching so effortlessly.
desperate to smell anything but disinfectant, he snuggled closer, knowing he'd smell her shampoo—a hint of jasmine. he got a whiff, feeling all sorts of foolish, then she jerked awake, almost losing balance from her chair if not for his arm who held her up.
and in this flurry of chaos, his lips grazed hers.
"what do you think i taste like?" brave, beautiful, drunk-on-sake sakura spilling under the open midnight sky.
"we better get you home. you just had a 48-hour shift."
"you just got back and you're leaving again so soon."
"can't be helped." sasuke shifted his feet to better assist her walking. he found he didn't mind taking care of her.
"you didn't answer my question." sakura stumbled away from his one-arm grasp. "what do you think i taste like?"
"i don't know." sasuke said truthfully.
"you explained elaborate things about sake but you can't even answer mine!" drunk, drunk sakura saying things she'll regret in the morning, and all he could do was laugh inside.
beautiful and charming.
"i really don't know," sasuke repeated, "unless you let me."
"huh?"
he closed their gap, afraid she'll stumble again, but also so he could ask again. "can i kiss y—"
she stood on tiptoes and crashed against him, a loose wish eventually finding anchor as he responded, letting the wonderings and the wanderings fall away to what was certain.
a burst of strawberry so sweet in the summer dawn.