Chapter Text
“WHAT THE FUCK?!”
The summer break was supposed to end peacefully.
That was the plan, anyway.
Sakura had spent the last week of vacation at a beach resort with her parents, soaking up enough sunlight to return to university looking marginally more alive than when she had left, and she had exactly three days before classes started again.
Three days to unpack, three days to finish the assignments she had been pretending did not exist, and, most importantly, three days to enjoy the rare luxury of not having to see anyone from campus.
It had been a good vacation. She had eaten too much, slept too late, taken approximately seven hundred photographs of the ocean, and, after considerable begging from her mother, allowed herself to buy a swimsuit that was slightly more daring than anything she usually wore.
It was cute. That was the important part. Cute. Not scandalous. Not provocative. Just cute. The sort of swimsuit that looked excellent in photographs and would make Ino immediately demand to know where Sakura had bought it. Which was precisely why Sakura had taken a picture and sent it to Ino. Or, at least, she had intended to send it to Ino.
The problem was that Sakura’s hands were still wet from the pool.
The other problem was that Sakura’s phone was apparently designed by Satan.
She was standing near the edge of the hotel pool when she snapped the picture, one hand holding her phone while the other tried to brush damp hair away from her cheek.
The photograph had actually turned out annoyingly well. The sun was behind her, the water glittered in the background, and the swimsuit looked considerably better on camera than it had in the dressing room, which Sakura had considered a minor miracle.
She had looked at the picture twice, smiled despite herself, and opened her messages. Ino’s name was near the top. Sakura tapped the conversation, selected the photograph, and reached for the little blue arrow.
Her thumb slipped.
She tapped again.
The screen shifted.
Sakura frowned. Then she saw the name at the top of the conversation.
Sasuke Uchiha.
For approximately two seconds, her brain refused to understand what her eyes were telling it. Then her entire soul departed her body.
“No.”
She stared at the screen.
“No, no, no, no—”
The little notification beneath the photograph changed.
Delivered.
Sakura made a sound that was not entirely human. Her thumb attacked the screen so violently that she nearly dropped the phone into the pool. “DELETE. DELETE, YOU PIECE OF SHIT—”
She managed to delete the message.
Too late.
She knew it was too late.
There was no undoing the fact that, somewhere in the world, possibly still sitting in his room, possibly surrounded by Naruto and other human beings who might be able to witness her humiliation, Sasuke Uchiha had received a photograph of Sakura Haruno standing beside a swimming pool in a bikini.
Sakura stopped breathing. Her face became hot enough to qualify as a public safety concern. She stared at the empty message bubble. Then at her own reflection in the black screen. Then back at the empty message bubble.
“No.”
Her voice came out small. She looked around the pool as if someone might have witnessed the crime.
Nobody had.
That somehow made it worse.
“NO.”
This time she shouted. A woman three chairs away looked over but Sakura didn’t notice. Her phone remained clenched in her hand while her mind rapidly reconstructed the last thirty seconds, because apparently humiliation became more enjoyable if you reviewed it frame by frame.
She had opened the wrong conversation. She had selected the photograph. She had pressed send. Sasuke had received it. Sasuke had seen it. There was no possible interpretation of events in which he had not seen it. She had deleted it approximately one second later, but deletion was not time travel. Deleting the message did not reach into Sasuke’s phone and erase his memory, his eyes, his brain, or, most horrifyingly, the image itself.
For years, Sakura had had a crush on Sasuke.
Everyone knew.
Her parents knew. Ino knew. Naruto knew. Probably several people who had never even spoken to Sakura knew.
Sakura had spent years being painfully, spectacularly obvious about it, and she had eventually reached a point where even she had become tired of herself.
More than a year ago, she had finally stopped. She stopped staring at him when he wasn’t looking. She stopped finding excuses to sit beside him. She stopped blushing every time he said her name. She stopped interpreting every mildly considerate thing he did as a declaration of eternal devotion. Most importantly, she had learned how to be around him normally.
It had been liberating.
She could sit with Sasuke and Naruto without feeling like she was participating in some elaborate psychological experiment designed to determine how many times a human heart could beat before it exploded.
She could argue with Sasuke.
She could steal fries from his plate.
She could roll her eyes at him.
She could exist in the same room without constantly worrying that one wrong movement would reveal that she had once spent three consecutive nights imagining what their wedding would look like.
She had become normal.
She had worked very hard to become normal. And now she had sent Sasuke a bikini photograph. A bikini photograph. A cute bikini photograph, which was arguably worse. Because it wasn’t even an accidental photograph of her standing awkwardly in front of a mirror wearing something she hated.
No.
The universe had made sure the picture was flattering. Her hair was loose over one shoulder. She was smiling. The sunlight caught her skin. The swimsuit actually suited her. There was enough background to make it obvious she was on vacation, but not enough to make the image look innocent in the way Sakura desperately needed it to look innocent.
She could already hear Ino.
Girl, you look hot.
Unfortunately, Sasuke had apparently been selected by fate to receive that review instead. Her phone vibrated. Sakura nearly threw it into the ocean. She looked down.
Sasuke: You sent something?
She stared at the message. Then she screamed. It was loud enough that her mother called from the hotel balcony.
“Sakura? Are you all right?”
“YES!”
There was a concerned silence. Then her father’s voice followed. “Are you sure?”
“YES!”
Her mother sounded genuinely worried now. “Do you need us to come down?”
“No! I’m fine!”
She looked at the phone again.
She was NOT fine.
She was, in fact, experiencing a psychological event.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Sakura: Sorry, wrong person.
She deleted it.
Too casual.
Sakura: That was meant for Ino.
Delete.
Too humiliating.
Sakura: My hand was wet and I accidentally pressed your name.
Delete.
Absolutely unacceptable. Why did that sound like an excuse someone would make after sending a nude photograph?
Sakura: I am so sorry.
Delete.
Too sincere.
Sakura: Please forget you saw that.
Delete.
Impossible. Sasuke could not possibly forget that. Sakura herself was going to remember it on her deathbed.
She locked her phone, sighed like the weight of the whole world was on her shoulder with a serious face like she just received an invitation from Donald Trump for a tea party. Then slowly, unlocked it. Locked it again. Unlocked it. There was another message.
Sasuke: Okay.
Sakura stared at it.
That was it?
Okay?
No question mark. No teasing. No what was that? No sarcastic comment. No indication whatsoever of what had happened inside Sasuke’s head after receiving the picture.
Which was somehow infinitely more terrifying.
“What does okay mean?” Sakura whispered.
Her mother called again from upstairs. “Sakura!”
“I’M FINE!”
She wasn’t.
That night, after returning to their hotel room, Sakura showered, changed into pajamas, and climbed into bed with the solemn determination of someone preparing for battle. She lasted approximately four minutes before pulling the blanket over her head.
The photograph appeared behind her eyelids immediately. She groaned into her pillow. “I hate myself.”
She rolled over. She remembered Sasuke’s face.
Groan.
She rolled back. She imagined Sasuke looking at the photograph.
Groan.
She pulled the pillow over her head. “Why did I have to be pretty that day?”
There was no answer.
Naturally. The universe had abandoned her.
Eventually, Sakura curled into the pillow, cheeks burning, and stared miserably into the darkness. She had deleted the photograph. She had apologized. Sasuke had said okay. Technically, the crisis was over. Except it wasn’t. Because Sasuke had already seen it.
And no amount of deleting, apologizing, praying, bargaining, or threatening the technological infrastructure of the hotel could change that.
Sakura had spent an entire year teaching herself how to be normal around the boy she used to love. One wet thumb had undone all of it in less than three seconds.
She buried her face deeper into the pillow. “I’m never going back to university.”
That was her final decision. She was going to drop out. Change her name. Move to another country. Possibly become a lighthouse keeper. Anything was better than seeing Sasuke Uchiha again. Especially after he had seen her in that swimsuit.
Her phone, sitting innocently on the bedside table, remained silent.
Sakura hated it for that, too.