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“He’s been acting strange lately,” Ino says, fiddling with a pair of knitting needles. The thick thread is on the table in an unceremonious heap, while Hinata’s is shaping up to resemble a wooly winter hat. Sighing, Ino makes a face at her yarn and continues, “Not in a bad way, if you were wondering.”
Hinata feels Ino’s eyes sparkling at her and wills away the blush rising in her cheeks. “I wasn’t worried . . .”
“I think what’s going on is, he’s trying to talk about you to other women so he can figure out what to do.” Now Ino’s thread is tied up in her fingernails, and she sends a sidelong glance to Sakura, who looks up from chopping vegetables and sticks her tongue out. “Can you do this with me so I don’t look so bad at it, Sakura?”
“Maybe one day you can take over vegetable duty, Hina. I feel like a mother.” Sakura tips the root pieces into a nearby basket.
“You are the mother of Team Seven; I tell you that all the time,” Ino jibes, abandoning her thread with a huff. “Anyway, listen-listen, he’s all nervous and weird and he can’t figure out where to put his hands, and then all he talks about the whole time is how he’s been getting all this female attention, he doesn’t know what to do with it but he’s very sure he’s in love with someone, so I felt obliged to offer a pep talk. You’re very welcome.” Hinata’s blush deepens and she also puts down her knitting needles.
“I’m sure he wasn’t talking about me.”
“I’m sure he was,” Sakura murmurs absentmindedly, watching something out the window. She pauses, knife hovering above the pepper, ready to strike like a snake. The orange vegetable has no escape. “He’s probably waiting to sort out all the feelings in his heart. It’s probably not easy. A lot has happened.”
The back door opens, is caught and left to close quietly. Sasuke intends to make it to the kitchen without notice, but he can’t ignore the three kunoichi who all look up to see him. With a curt nod, he adjusts his grip on the basket – tomatoes – and continues into the next room.
Ino manages to turn her laugh into a quiet, strangled chuckle. “Speaking of—”
“He just comes and goes,” Sakura says blithely, glancing out the front window again.
“Did you give him—” Hinata shakes her head at Ino, crossing the knitting needles in front of her into an X. Chastened, Ino bites her lips, remembering again how it had been impressed upon them, harshly, not even whispers.
“The same night Naruto needed advice on the wiles of women, yes.” With that, Sakura puts down the knife. It’s a moment or two before her companions realize there’s knocking at the door.
Temari’s grinning teeth take Sakura slightly off guard. She recovers and opens the door. “Want to come in? We’re making enough food for a militia.”
“Nope, just dropping this all off, then it’s back to making cross-cultural friends,” she drawls, handing the medic a thick brown envelope. Black seals in neat calligraphy are on each side, mirrored on the left and right. “ I also have these.”
With a flick of the wrist she undulates a menu of paint swatches, ranging from pale pink to gunmetal grey in hue. They meet eyes for a brief moment, and Sakura studies the rainbow in front of her.
“Hmm, I’m not too creative. Maybe I’ll stick with green.” She runs her finger along each narrow swatch, listening to the pip-pip-pip of each one as it’s pulled from rank and file and snaps back again. She knows there isn’t much time, and has a horrid sense of foreboding as Temari noticeably swallows, and plucks the red one from among the color fan.
“I think this would look good for a kitchen,” Temari says. “I’m not an expert, but if you’re looking for different, this would work.”
Carefully, Sakura takes the proffered color swatch. She inhales in deeply, once. Exhales.
"Thanks,” she responds. “I’ve been looking for a change.”
Nodding, Temari turns away before each can see what’s on the other’s face; there’s no façade so airtight, so immutable, that it cannot be detected. Waving over her shoulder, her back already turned, she says, “Hokage-sama and Shikamaru want the corrections soon. I told them you always deliver.”
When Sakura returns to the table, it’s been cleared of all vegetables and thread, and both of her companions are waiting expectantly. They know the color of the swatch before she tosses it into the middle; still, there was a slim hope hanging in the air for a different outcome. Ino folds her arms, exhales harshly, a slim blonde strand dangling in the air above her head in the gust. Hinata laces her fingers, knuckles white. Sakura presses hers against her mouth, rigid as Sasuke walks into the room.
“The kitchen is red,” she whispers. “We need Kakashi-sensei.”
An ugly creature hugs her heart. No matter the changes they bring, the suffocating futility of their sacrifice winds itself around her chest. The legends they thought they could uproot and rewrite will chain them down.
How stupid. I thought I could be happy.
I thought we could be normal.
I thought we could be whole.