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The next time is the same.
Sakura’s eyes flash open to the dark of her bedroom, moonlight spilling through her window as she tenses, trying to figure out what has woken her. She glances at the clock, squinting to read the hands. It’s past midnight and calculating how many hours she has left before she’s back at the hospital, she lets out a sigh. It’s depressingly low.
A creak of the floorboards outside her room has her flinging back the covers, alert and tense, the cold biting at her exposed legs under her t-shirt.
Another creak, and she grabs the kunai from her bedside table.
“It’s me.” Says a curt voice from the hall.
Sakura doesn’t release her stance. “Am I supposed to find that reassuring?”
Only silence follows.
Huffing, she walks to the door and opens it, revealing her guest.
Only someone with as much arrogance as Uchiha Sasuke would break into a woman’s house in the middle of the night, nearly give her a heart attack, and doesn’t even have the decency to look guilty about it. Instead, he stands in her living room like he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be, in all midnight black, and Sakura smells on him pine and rain, so foreign in her home, and wonders where he has been all this time.
“What do you want?” She asks. She’s long given up trying to appeal to him, in fact, she wants him to know that she’s not bothering with pleasantries anymore. If he’s only going to turn up, unannounced, once or twice a year, in this exact manner, he’s not coming back to a welcome party.
He glances around her flat nonchalantly and Sakura hates that she has no idea what he is thinking. She follows his gaze and tries to imagine what he sees. He probably thinks it plain, with her fluffy rugs and colourful cushions, all her pictures on the walls.
Sasuke has always been a bit of a snob, a testament to his affluent, albeit limited upbringing. Her flat is small and homely, and that’s exactly why he will hate it.
“I don’t want anything. I need something.”
Sasuke’s comment snaps her out of her spiral. Honestly, she chides herself, he is like a black hole she can’t help getting sucked into. Two minutes in his presence and she is already insulting her own flat.
Knowing he won’t leave until he gets whatever he wants, she aims to speed up the process.
“Fine. What do you need?” She ignores the fact that he is being pedantic. God forbid she insinuate that he might want something from her. No, he only shows up here as a last resort, that much he has made clear.
She walks across the room and pulls out her medical supplies, turning her back to him. She hopes he takes it as an insult. It’s the first thing taught in the academy — never show your back to another ninja. You only do that with people you trust, or if you’re arrogant, when you want to let someone know that they’re not even a threat. Although, knowing Sasuke, he will take it as the former and that would just confirm to him that she is an idiot.
When she looks over her shoulder, he’s sat quietly on her sofa, staring at the ceiling. It’s disarming, really, because she is so used to him being angry or tense or covered in blood. Seeing him almost look peaceful in her home pisses her off.
She stomps over and stands in front of his knees, throwing her medic-pack onto the sofa beside him. “Is it your eyes?” She asks bluntly.
“Where is he?” Sasuke glances around, ignoring her question.
“Who?”
“The guy who was here last time.” Sasuke catches her eye and his gaze is piercing.
Sakura’s brow furrows. “What?”
“The last time I came, there was a man.”
A flush grows under her skin but she doen’t break eye contact. “That was years ago.”
“So?”
Sakura’s not sure why he’s forcing them to relive one of the most humiliating moments of her life, the night of Ino’s 25th birthday. A room in a sake bar was booked, and popular as Ino was, had seemingly invited the whole village to join in.
Ino had her dressed up in a tiny red miniskirt, fishnets and a crop top—not really her usual get up, and Sakura had accidentally drank an entire bottle of sake. Things were getting out of hand, as things with Ino usually did, and Sakura found herself being dared to make out with someone, anyone.
“One kiss. Just try it. You might like it.” Taunted Ino, who had been trying to get Sakura to date for months. Sakura just wasn’t interested. She saw the appeal, obviously, watched all her friends have fun and tumble about, but something was always missing for her.
That evening Ino had been divulging all about Kiba’s penchant for biting, which may or may not have encouraged her to find alternative company.
“Okay.” Sakura sighed, looking around. There were many new faces here, and she pointed blindly at a tall guy across the room, wearing the standard flak jacket. He had dark hair, pale skin and…
“—Oh no.” Ino spun her back around. “No, no, no. We are moving you on from tall, dark and broody.”
Sakura rolled her eyes. “Maybe Sasuke is just my type. That’s all. Maybe I’m just attracted to the way he looks, and I’ll just meet another—”
“Psychopath?” Ino supplied.
“No—”
“War criminal?”
“Ino—”
“International terrorist?”
Sakura slapped her on the arm, harder than was necessary. “Don’t call him that.”
Ino appraised her, hands on her hips. “Either way, let’s not test that theory, lest you end up snogging Sai.”
Sakura grimaced, glancing over to Naruto who was gesticulating wildly with a smiling Sai tucked under his arm in a friendly headlock.
“He’d call me Ugly and I’d crack his skull like a nut before his lips got anywhere near me.”
Ino laughed. “Ah, and here I thought degradation was your thing.”
Sakura knew it was a joke, but something about it rubbed her up the wrong way. As though the long years of being rejected, insulted, and nearly murdered by Sasuke were something she might seek out by choice, or worse, enjoy. She sipped more sake and appraised the room again.
This time she caught the silver eyes of a shinobi who was staring in their direction. Tanned skin, long crimson hair. Perhaps it was the sake, or maybe she just wanted to escape Ino, but she put her glass down and stalked towards him. Her confidence waned as she grew closer, but his smile only grew.
His name was Heizō. He had moved to Konoha from Kumogakure after the war, as part of the reconciliation effort to rebuild Konoha and strengthen international ties. He complimented her hair, and she batted her eyes. It was unlike her, but she discovered it was surprisingly fun to flirt with someone new. They drank some more, then Sakura said she was going home. He offered to walk her back, she accepted. That’s how they ended up pressed against her kitchen counter in the dark, mouth to mouth, one hand on her waist and one on her thigh, creeping up under her skirt. It felt good, and Sakura thought, maybe, finally, she could move on with her life.
When she opened her eyes on a gasp, just as Heizō grazed the tender skin between her legs, she almost wasn’t surprised to see red and lilac eyes glowing in the dark across the room. Sasuke had always loomed over her heart like a shadow, so of course, her mind would bring him here, now, to play tricks on her.
But then the eyes blinked, tomoe spinning, and Sakura realised too late that it wasn’t a figment of her imagination.
Before she could act, Heizō’s warmth and weight was ripped away from her. He grunted as he was smashed down onto the side, in a brutal display eerily similar to when Sasuke broke the sound ninja’s arms in the Forest of Death. There was a beat of silence where no one breathed, the smell of pine and rain enveloping Sakura’s senses as Sasuke’s cape floated back down to rest against his missing arm.
“Sasuke?”
Lilac and red eyes darted to her, annoyed. Sakura watched Heizō’s face scrunch up in the background. She realised her mistake too late. Sasuke was infamous everywhere, but especially in Kumogakure.
Making use of Sasuke’s distraction, Heizō artfully broke out of Sasuke’s hold, flipping up onto the side. The two men stared at each other, and Sakura knew she had to intervene, but was struggling to keep up with the rapid change of atmosphere in her inebriated state.
Sasuke turned up whenever he felt like it, once in the blue moon, usually for healing or treatments for his eyes. She had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t let anyone else heal him, and only came to her when the physical strain of whatever injury he had sustained started to effect his ability to do whatever it was he was off doing. He spoke little, and didn’t dwell, and despite her efforts the first couple of times to get him to open up, he kept their interactions strictly business-like.
Technically, he was a free man, but Konoha would want to know if he was in town, and why. She suspected he didn’t register his arrival in the village, hence him only turning up in the middle of the night, and leaving again before dawn. She wasn’t sure why she never told anyone about his visits, except that she was afraid people either wouldn’t believe her, or would make an effort to stop him coming, and despite the fact he had hurt her in the past, if she was the only one he’d trust with healing, she wasn’t going to give him up.
But now they had a problem, didn’t they? Heizō had seen, and knew Sasuke was here, and given Sasuke’s unfriendly entrance and attempted assassination of the Raikage’s brother, Heizō would see him as a threat. Not to mention that her mild reaction to finding him waiting in her house would implicate her in whatever trouble Sasuke would get into for not following Konoha registration procedure.
Sakura internally sighed. Of all the evenings for him to show up. Of course it had to be this one.
Clearly impatient, Heizō spun, swinging his leg towards Sasuke’s head, who ducked gracefully before using his rinnegan to flicker behind the Kumo nin. Heizō drew a kunai, and the two began to parry, matching each other’s strikes.
Sasuke was pulling his punches. He could have wiped out Heizō in a single hit if he wanted, hell, he could have blown up her entire apartment with the help of one lone Susanoo arm. Heizō was decidedly not pulling his punches, for Sasuke’s or her apartment’s sake. Sakura winced as a string of Heizō’s shuriken landed in her sofa cushions.
Sakura moved on instinct when she saw Heizō leap back, preparing to send another kunai at Sasuke. Sasuke would dodge, of course, but directly behind him sat her shelf, covered with all her picture frames, including the team seven photo she had coveted since she was eleven.
Sakura had learnt better than to jump in the middle of two fighting ninja, so she flash stepped behind Heizō hoping to catch him just before the kunai left his palm. She was only a fraction too slow, her fingers digging into the pressure point on his neck as the kunai flew, Sasuke’s rinnegan flashing to life. Sasuke disappeared, and Sakura’s grip slipped as she watched the kunai aim right for the expanse of her teenage forehead.
Heizō spun, wildly, slamming Sakura’s back against the wall, gripping her throat. His eyes were wild, perhaps he thought this was all a trap, and Sakura couldn’t entirely blame him.
She tried to say his name, but his grip was tight, cutting off her oxygen.
“Who are you working for?” Heizō snarled in her face.
Sakura tried to shake her head.
Heizō lifted her from the wall, and slammed her back against it, and Sakura felt warm liquid at the back of her skull. Heizō was dominating her vision, crowding her against the wall. She couldn’t see if Sasuke was still there.
If Sakura was alright with demolishing her entire apartment block, Heizō would be nothing but dust. She choked out a laugh, and his eyes scrunched up. She was allowing him to do this. Damn her sentimentality. But the truth was, ever since Pein’s attack on Konoha, she had a new appreciation for home.
Heizō sneered at her, nastily, before a blank look crossed his face. Slowly he set Sakura down, trance-like and Sakura wobbled slightly when her feet touched the floor. Instantly she went to her head with green healing chakra and Heizō swayed and collapsed on the floor next to her.
She looked up, honestly surprised Sasuke was still there. He was clutching his stomach, sharingan flaring across the room right where she saw him disappear from. Sakura coughed, testing her throat before poking the unconscious Heizō with the edge of her sandal.
Silence stretched out between them, awkward.
“I hope you put him into a nice genjustu that will explain what the hell just happened.” She said, trying to play off the tension.
“Hn.”
Sakura looked up towards him, noticing that the Team Seven photo on the shelf behind him was whole and undamaged. She walked over, wobbling slightly and catching herself. Reaching past Sasuke, she picked up the photo, checking it for cracks under the glare of the light.
“Ah, I really thought this was going to be ruined.” She said, smiling down at it.
Sasuke shifted next to her, holding out Heizō’s kunai. Sakura took it from him, glancing to where he was still holding his stomach.
“Are you hurt?” She asked, slipping into medic-mode.
“…No.”
Sakura pushed forward, trying to see the wound. “Let me see.”
But Sasuke backed away and turned, closed off.
It wasn’t unusual for Sasuke to be like this, cold and indifferent to her. So Sakura ignored him, looking down at the photo she was caressing in her hands.
When she looked up again, Sasuke had disappeared, and Heizō was beginning to stir. Luckily for her, whatever Sasuke had done to him had removed the last twenty minutes from his memory, so she quickly spun a story about him tripping over and banging his head while they were kissing, which he took about as well as any highly-trained ninja would do.
Heizō left quickly after that, with the excuse he had drunk too much. But whenever Sakura caught sight of him around Konoha in the weeks after, he’d turn on his heel faster than she could say 'sake'. She'd always wondered what exactly Sasuke had done to him, for him to avoid her so aggressively.
Sakura crosses her arms and straightens, glaring down at the Uchiha currently commandeering her couch. “He went back to Kumo. I think.”
At Sasuke’s narrowing eyes, she huffs and reaches for her medical pack. “We didn’t exactly see each other again, after that night.”
Sasuke continued to stare at her as she unzips her pack, giving nothing away in the frown on his face.
Wanting to move on, Sakura leans one knee on the sofa between his open legs, moving closer, hand green with chakra. “Relax. I’m just going to check your eyes.”
After a second of hesitation, he closes them, face going slack as she presses her fingertips to his temple. She always tries to be gentle with him, even when she’s irritated, because personal feelings and history aside, the world has not been gentle to him.
“I’m sorry if I ruined it.” He says, voice low, after a long stretch of silence. The green of her hand is lighting up the room, which is still ensconced in darkness. Pine caresses her senses, and the cold of his cape bleeds into her thighs where they touch.
“Ruined what?” Sakura replies, half-distracted, and half-feigning-ignorance. She doesn’t want to talk about Heizō. More interestingly, Sasuke’s eyes seem to be fine, not nearly as bad as they had been last time she checked. Perhaps he has listened to her about not overusing them.
She leans back, assessing. There doesn’t seem to be anything amiss about Sasuke this time, no blood, or obvious injuries. He opens his eyes after a second, assessing her back.
“What was it that you needed?” She makes sure to make it clear that he doesn’t want anything, but it is less and less obvious exactly what he is doing here.
Sasuke glances around the flat again, seemingly interested in anything but her. Sakura leans back, moving to shift herself off the sofa and give him space when suddenly his hand catches her arm.
His skin is freezing, grip tight, it feels like a manacle around her wrist, and, well, isn’t that the story of her life. For so many years she’s been tied to him, desperately seeking approval and affection, no matter what he did or where he went.
When she was younger she convinced herself that she had a family curse all of her own. If the Uchiha were cursed with endless hatred, then she, Haruno Sakura, was cursed with endless love. Of course, she never had any evidence for the such, no matter how long she dug through hospital scrolls for a cause or a explanation for her feelings. She was logical and smart to a fault— her chunin exam could prove that—and even she could see how ridiculous and unfounded her love for him was. He had never been nice to her, not really, and it only got more and more nonsensical after he nearly killed her at the bridge.
People always made her feel small and stupid for these feelings. Naruto got away with it. It was heroic and selfless when he did it in the name of friendship, but people always gave her a tight smile when she professed her love for Sasuke, as though her love was a scarlet fever which would only leave her weak and breathless, before passing.
Still, despite it all, she couldn’t deny it, or him. She had made peace with the fact she would always love him, even to her own detriment. Now, she just wanted to stop him and everyone else from seeing it. As wretched as she had become over him, she could at least wrangle back some of her pride.
Her eyes widen at the contact, the hand he has wrapped around hers. Panic flaring, she steps back, tugging herself from his grip. He lets her go, too easily. She turns to face the wall, palms to her cheeks, trying to reconstruct her facade. In front of her, Team Seven’s photo sits on the self, undamaged, her beaming teenage face a reminder of how far they had all come.
Behind her, she hears Sasuke stand. He’s probably leaving now, she thinks. It’s probably for the best. Hopefully whatever he needs can wait till next time.
“Sakura.” The way her name drips off his tongue has always made her weak.
“…Yes?” She responds, still refusing to look at him.
Silence surrounds them again, and she’s lost as to why he’s here. Normally their dealings are quick and precise, Sakura has always seen his visits like ripping off a bandage. He comes to get it out the way, an inevitable thing he doesn’t have time for. But this time feels different, and suddenly Sakura wonders if their meetings are more like stitching up a wound. It stings, over and over, but eventually the wound closes.
A hand at her shoulder makes her jump out of her thoughts, and she turns to see him standing before her now. His face is still carefully blank, and Sakura lets the hope burning in her chest die swiftly.
“When are you leaving?” She asks.
He tilts his head to the side, as though the question was asinine. “Do you want me to leave?”
What a question. Yes? No? Sakura realises that Uchiha Sasuke is the most infuriating man on the continent. She doesn’t grace his question with a response.
He looks around again, and she watches his black eye catch on the Team Seven photo behind her. A smirk grows at his mouth, small, but Sakura is close enough to notice it.
“I need something.” He says, as his eyes come back to hers.
“So you say.” She replies, breathy, not sure how much to push him.
“It’s been a long time, though.” He’s being deliberately vague, and she almost wants to roll her eyes.
“What is it? I don’t have much in my medical stock, but I can try procure anything you need from the hospital.”
She ignores the fact that she just volunteered to steal from her workplace for him.
Sasuke steps forward even more, crowding her. She wants to step back, but the shelves are behind her, and she doesn’t want it to look like she’s intimidated.
She feels his hands on either side of her shoulders through her t-shirt, touch light, and she thinks this is the gentlest he’s ever been. She’s breathing heavy, she can’t help it, she’s sure he will make her his fool.
“When I saw him, touching you.” Sasuke says, so quietly, lips close to hers. “I hadn’t felt that way in a long time.”
He’s talking about Heizō again, she realises belatedly. “I didn’t know you had come.” She offers, an apology on her lips that she bites back.
“Hn.”
One hand runs up to her neck and she shivers.
“Would you let me touch you?” He whispers, and everything comes crashing down.
She pushes at his chest with a chakra laden palm, making him step back. Annoyance flaming to life. “So that’s what this is about? You need something to fuck?”
Sasuke seems dazed, and slightly confused at this, but Sakura rides the wave of hurt that’s unspooling in her chest.
“Are you trying to make fun of me?” She seethes. “I heal you whenever you turn up— no questions asked— so you think you can just fuck me and leave too? That I’ll just be your own personal whore?”
Sasuke says nothing so Sakura storms over to her medical pack left on the sofa and zips it up. She hopes it’s clear now that she wants him to leave.
“Sakura—” he tries, as she storms over to the kitchen, putting her supplies back in the cupboard. She turns around and finds him right behind her.
“No. I’m done. Get out.” She tries to walk around him, and he grabs her arm again. She ducks and twists, breaking his hold.
“I have nowhere to go.” He says pleadingly and this makes her anger pause. It’s so un-Sasuke to say it. This is the man who abandoned his village, set off to god knows where. There’s always been somewhere he wants to go, and nowhere he wants to stay.
“What?”
“I will leave, if you want. But I think you’ve misunderstood.” He holds his hands up to her, placatingly. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Done what, Sasuke? Get to the point.” She’s too vulnerable to him, can’t regulate her hope or her hurt. She feels frayed and raw at the edges, too sensitive to handle what he’s doing.
“Please.” He says, expression blank, at odds with his words. “Come here.”
She shouldn’t appease him, but she does, something between them pulling her his way. She hopes she doesn’t regret it. She hovers in front of him, bouncing slightly on her heels, like she might flee at any moment.
“When I lost my family… my home…” He starts, and she’s thrown off by the zig zag in conversation, wasn’t expecting him to broach his family. He looks overcome for a second, brow furrowed. “I was lost for the longest time.”
She nods, because doesn’t she know it.
“But I came here, to you. I didn’t know why at first. I made up some excuse, healing, my eyes, whatever. I was still a mess.”
Sasuke has never been this honest with her. She listens to him, trying to erect a wall of protection around her heart as she does.
He waits a second before continuing. “I never return anywhere when I am travelling. It doesn’t matter if I like the people, or the trees or the food. I don’t stay anywhere for too long.”
He reaches out to touch her again, softly tracing a finger up her arm.
“This is the only place I ever return to.” He says, watching his hand. The weight of this statement hits her. She wants to cry.
“Over and over again, I’d find myself here. Sometimes I’d get into fights just to have a reason to visit, or let a kunai hit that I could easily dodge. I’ve been fighting myself for years, too scared to give into this.”
His finger traces all the way up to her neck, then drifts to her chin. When their eye’s connect, his sharingan blinks into life.
“I can’t promise that I’ll be the best for you.” He says simply, as if that is the end of it. “But I will always return home.”