Archive of Our Own

Sakura knew what it meant to like Sasuke. She had known for years. 

It meant noticing when he walked into a room before she noticed anyone else. It meant remembering things he said long after he had probably forgotten saying them. It meant wondering whether he thought her hair looked nice; whether he noticed when she did well in training, whether he would ever look at her the way she sometimes caught herself looking at him.

It meant butterflies in her stomach when he stood too close. It meant irritation whenever Ino so much as breathed in his direction. It meant wanting his attention and pretending she didn't care when she couldn't get it - Sakura understood all of that perfectly well.

Naruto didn't act like that around Sasuke. If anything, Naruto acted as though Sasuke's very existence was designed specifically to make his own life harder - to make every victory smaller, every accomplishment less impressive by comparison.

They argued over everything: training, missions, food, who was stronger, who had landed the better hit, who Kakashi had complimented more. Naruto could turn practically anything into a competition if Sasuke was involved, and Sasuke, despite all his sighing and eye-rolling and insistence that Naruto was an idiot or a moron or a scaredy-cat, always seemed willing to take the bait.

Sakura had never thought much of it. Boys were weird, and Naruto and Sasuke were weirder - Naruto especially.

So when Sakura heard that Sasuke was dead, Naruto was not the person she thought of. She didn't really think of anyone at all; she just simply stared.

The words had reached her, but they refused to settle into anything that made sense. Sasuke… dead. Sasuke. Dead.

Her blood went cold, then her heart stopped.

She could hear Kakashi speaking, and the battle continuing somewhere around them, and the scrape of sandals against concrete, and the rush of water below the bridge, and the wind whipping through the mist. But none of it sounded real anymore. Neither did her own voice when she finally managed his name.

"Sasuke...?"

There was no answer, and something inside her seemed to drop.

She had imagined so many things about Sasuke - stupid things, mostly. Things that seemed horribly, embarrassingly stupid now.

She had imagined him finally asking her on a date, she imagined walking beside him through Konoha while Ino watched and fumed. Imagined getting older alongside him without ever really considering what older meant, because twelve-year-olds weren't supposed to have to think about whether their teammates would live long enough to become thirteen.

Sasuke was supposed to come home - they were all supposed to come home.

Her eyes burned, then from somewhere behind her, there was a scream.

Sakura froze, because she knew Naruto's voice. Everyone in Konoha knew Naruto's voice, with how impossible it was to miss it. 

Naruto laughed loudly, complained loudly, celebrated loudly. He yelled when he was happy and yelled when he was angry and yelled sometimes, Sakura suspected, simply because nobody else had spoken for several seconds and Naruto couldn't tolerate the silence.

This didn't sound like the Naruto she knew.

She turned, and for a second, she didn't understand what she was looking at.

Chakra poured from him, thick and red and wrong, curling around his body in violent waves. The air itself seemed to change beneath it, and Sakura felt every instinct she possessed tell her to move away, even from where she stood.

Naruto's face-

She had never seen him look like that. She had seen many faces on Naruto: she had seen him angry, she had seen him furious with Sasuke for upstaging him in every circumstance, she had seen him humiliated and frustrated and determined beyond reason.

This was different - this was unrestrained grief with a fire that kept burning, and Sakura, despite the tears spilling hot over her own cheeks, forgot to cry, as she just watched him.

Naruto had always cared too much. He always got attached to people so easily: Iruka, Konohamaru, Kakashi - even people they met on missions seemed capable of becoming precious to Naruto within a matter of hours. So it only made sense that he cared about Sasuke. They were teammates - friends, even if neither of them would admit it.

Sakura tried to imagine Naruto reacting like this if Kakashi had been killed. She could see it, maybe. Then she tried to imagine him reacting like this if she had been the one killed instead. For some reason, that was harder.

The thought made something uncomfortable twist inside her, and she suddenly pushed it away, telling herself that it wasn't important - that nothing was important except Sasuke.

Except Sasuke was dead. Except - he wasn’t…?

It happened so quickly that Sakura almost didn't process the change. She saw the single breath, the movement. Then, an instant later, and Sasuke was alive.

Sakura's body moved before her mind did. "Sasuke!" She collapsed into him, wrapping her arms around him and feeling her knees digging into the ground so hard it hurt. All the fear and horror of the last few minutes bursting out of her at once. "You're alive," she choked.

Sasuke made some faint, annoyed sound at being crushed against her, but Sakura didn't care. He was warm, he was breathing, and he was undoubtedly alive and not a trick of her mind.

Her tears came harder and the relief was dizzying. It made her laugh even while she cried. Made her grip the fabric at Sasuke's back as though letting go might somehow undo it.

She had thought he was dead. She had thought - Sakura suddenly opened her eyes, feeling something hot and searing. She looked up, and over Sasuke's shoulder, she saw Naruto, who, noticeably, hadn't run over.

Naruto, who was always running somewhere, stood completely unmoving several feet away, staring at them. No - not at them. At Sasuke. All the rage from before was gone, along with the horrible chakra. It was jarring seeing Naruto completely still for the first time in his life.

There was something on his face Sakura couldn't quite place. His eyes were wide, but he wasn't crying anymore. His mouth had fallen slightly open, as though he had forgotten whatever he'd meant to say.

Sakura knew what relief felt like - she was pretty sure it was the only feeling she would feel for the next month. Relief was trembling hands and wet cheeks and laughter that hurt coming out. It was wanting to hold Sasuke tighter just to reassure herself that he was really there, moving.

Naruto only looked at him, and somehow, inexplicably, Sakura thought Naruto looked more relieved than she felt.

Sasuke seemed to notice it too.

His head shifted weakly against her shoulder, eyes finding Naruto somewhere behind her. Several long seconds passed, and neither of them said anything.

Sakura thought this might have been stranger than everything else, because Naruto and Sasuke never had nothing to say to each other - there was always an insult waiting, or a challenge, or some stupid argument neither of them was willing to lose. Even silence became competitive between them sometimes, both stubbornly refusing to be the first to acknowledge the other.

Now Naruto stared, and Sasuke stared back. And Sakura, caught somewhere between them, suddenly had the peculiar feeling that she was intruding on a conversation in which nobody had actually spoken.

Then Naruto's face twisted. "You idiot."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Even exhausted, Sasuke managed to look annoyed. "About what?"

"You know what!"

"I obviously don't, moron."

Naruto took a step forward, his hands had curled into fists again, though Sakura noticed that this time they were trembling. "Jumping in front of me like that! You could've-“ His voice caught, and the rest of his words disappeared in the settling mist around them.

Sasuke's expression changed, so slight that Sakura might not have noticed if she hadn't already been looking at him.

"You could've died," Naruto finished, quieter.

Sasuke looked away; the only answer being the water rushing beneath the bridge.

Then Sasuke gave a small shrug, but when the shrug released, the tension in his shoulders remained. "I don't know."

Naruto stared at him. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I mean I don't know." Sasuke sounded irritated now, as though Naruto was somehow at fault for asking a question he couldn't answer. "My body just moved."

Sakura looked between them, and watched the way Naruto's mouth opened. She couldn't remember ever seeing Naruto rendered speechless once, let alone twice.

Sasuke turned his face away again, the tips of his ears perhaps a little pink from anger or embarrassment or exhaustion - Sakura couldn't tell which. A lot had happened today.

"Don't make a big deal out of it."

Naruto made a strangled noise. "You almost died!"

"And I said don't make a big deal out of it."

"How am I not supposed to make a big deal out of-“

Sakura almost laughed. Whatever strange thing had settled between them shattered beneath another argument, and suddenly they were Naruto and Sasuke again. 

Naruto was yelling, Sasuke was insulting him, and Sakura was stuck in the middle wondering how two people could be so exhausting while one of them was barely conscious.

This was familiar - this made sense - so Sakura let herself stop wondering about the few seconds before it.  

After all, Naruto and Sasuke were teammates - they were friends. Friends protected each other.

Sakura was twelve years old, and so she mistook it for friendship.

❀

Sakura had imagined seeing Sasuke again more times than she could count. In some ways, it was the only thing keeping her held together when the world kept throwing challenges and reminders at her that Sasuke was gone. That he had left.

She imagined reuniting with Sasuke in every variation possible. In some versions, he was sorry.

Those were the ones she entertained less often now, but when she was younger, she had liked them the most. Sasuke would come back to Konoha of his own accord, older and taller and somehow softer around the edges, as though he had had a realisation of what he was doing was wrong, and that Konoha was where he belonged.

He would apologise for leaving, maybe not to everyone - Sakura had never been foolish enough to imagine Sasuke apologising to everyone. That was far too unlike him - but to her and Kakashi, but especially to Naruto, who almost died trying to stop him.

Sometimes, she imagined finding him instead, but those versions changed depending on how angry she was.

Sometimes she hit him. Sometimes she hugged him. The only thing that didn’t change was that in all of them, she would cry, grateful he finally had come to his senses and come home.

One time, after Naruto had returned from another failed attempt to find him with injuries that took Tsunade hours to heal, Sakura imagined doing all three. But mostly, she imagined that seeing Sasuke again would feel like getting something back.

She had never imagined this.

There was no relief, or rush of butterflies. There was no overwhelming urge to run to him like she had when she was twelve and had thought, for what were once the most haunting minutes of her life, that he was dead.

In reality, when she did finally see Sasuke again, there was nothing like what she had imagined - there was only a strange hollowness that filled her, as though she was trapped in a state somewhere between breathlessness and grief.

Sasuke stood before them after nearly three years as though three years were nothing.

He was taller, his hair was longer, and his face had lost what little softness childhood had afforded it. The clothes were unfamiliar, the sword at his side even more so, but somehow none of it made him look unfamiliar enough, despite the emotional distance in his eyes.

He was still Sasuke, that much was irrefutable, but Sakura didn’t know whether she wanted him to be.

For three years, she had been forced to build him out of memories: Sasuke sitting beside her in the Academy, Sasuke rolling his eyes at Naruto, Sasuke comatose on the forest floor, Sasuke leaving her unconscious on a bench.

The memories had changed as she did. Some had become embarrassing, and others painful. A few had become so worn from being revisited that Sakura no longer knew whether she remembered the moment itself or simply remembered remembering it.

But throughout them all, the boy inside them had stayed thirteen. The person standing in front of her hadn’t.

“Sasuke…”

His name came from somewhere nearby, and Sakura almost believed she’d been the one that had said it, before she realised it was Naruto. And, without knowing why, she looked at him to see how he felt about the new Sasuke that had found them.

Naruto had imagined this too - maybe even more often than she had.

For three years, Sasuke had existed in nearly every plan Naruto made for his future. He would become stronger, and then he would bring Sasuke back. He would learn a new technique, and it would make him strong enough to bring Sasuke back. He would become Hokage someday - but somewhere before that, somehow, Sasuke would come home.

At first, Sakura had thought it was because of the promise he had made to her: I’ll bring Sasuke back to you - Naruto had said it so confidently that she had believed him. She had needed to.

But when he failed, she had watched that promise hurt him, over and over.

Sakura carried guilt over that. She had asked too much of him - she knew that now. She had put the weight of her heartbreak into Naruto’s hands because she knew he would and because he loved her and because twelve-year-old Sakura had been selfish enough to believe those things made it fair.

She had apologised and tried to release him from it, but it hadn’t mattered. Naruto refused to stop chasing Sasuke; his determination woven through every action and decision he made.

She hadn’t thought very deeply about what that meant, but now, Sakura questioned if she should stop pretending as though he was just doing it for her.

Naruto wasn’t moving, and there was nothing particularly strange about his expression. There was shock and disbelief - it made sense, given everything. Three years of searching had finally ended with Sasuke standing directly in front of him - anyone would stare.

But something about it scratched at an old memory.

Naruto’s eyes were fixed on Sasuke. He wasn’t looking at the sword, or the clothes Sakura herself had immediately noticed, or searching Sasuke’s surroundings for a threat.

He was just looking at him, as though he was seeing Sasuke all at once. Sakura had seen Naruto look at Sasuke like that before; the thought came without explanation.

Her brow furrowed, trying to recall when she had seen it. They had spent so much time together as children that it could have been anywhere. The Academy, Training Ground Three, their first mission, or even the Chūnin Exams, but none of those felt right.

The memory was foggy, and a breeze passed through her as if trying to guide her mind in the right direction. Sakura continued to analyse Naruto’s face, and a second breeze swept through, making her eyes water at the sting, giving Naruto the illusion of a water reflection.

Sakura went still, and for one impossible second, she could hear water rushing beneath concrete, the feel the chill of mist dampening her skin. She could feel fabric clenched between her fingers and Sasuke’s weight against her.

You’re alive.

There was Naruto standing several feet away, not yelling or running like how he always does… just staring.

Sakura looked at Naruto now, watching the memory of Naruto when he was younger transition three years older, now taller and stronger than before - changed in a hundred little ways that had happened slowly enough for Sakura not to notice most of them.

But the expression was the same, though there was much more hurt and history in it now. Underneath all of that, it was still the same.

Something shifted unpleasantly in Sakura’s stomach and she looked back at Sasuke.

“Sasuke,” Naruto said again, but it was different this time. Almost pleading.

Sakura looked between them. Sasuke’s expression gave her considerably less to work with - it always had. He looked at Naruto with the same coldness with which he seemed to regard almost everything now.

Almost.

Something tightened around his eyes when Naruto spoke, it was so slight Sakura might have imagined it; disillusioned after the years of dreaming of what he’d be like after all this time.

Sakura felt that strange hollowness return once again. Three years Naruto had spent preparing for this moment, and Sakura had imagined anger from him. She had imagined yelling. She had imagined Naruto launching himself at Sasuke before anyone could stop him. Instead, Naruto looked at him as though the most important thing was simply that Sasuke was standing there.

Sasuke spoke coldly - about bonds, about severing them, about the past as though it were something he had successfully carved out of himself. Sakura listened, anger gradually burning through the shock. How could he stand there and speak about them like that? Like Team Seven had been an inconvenience. Like Kakashi hadn't trained him. Like Sakura hadn't begged him to stay. Like Naruto hadn’t-

Her eyes flicked sideways.

Naruto's fists were clenched. "Then why didn't you kill me?"

The question stopped something inside her, and Sasuke looked at him, something flickering in his eyes that it could’ve been mistaken for the sun’s reflection.

Naruto's voice shook with anger now. "If that's what it takes. If you had to kill your closest friend to get that power, then why didn't you?"

Sakura knew what Naruto was talking about - The Valley of the End. There were parts of that day Naruto had never told her, she knew that too. He had come back broken and unconscious, Sasuke's headband clutched with the rest of his belongings, and for weeks afterward Sakura had learned not to ask questions Naruto clearly didn't want to answer.

But Sasuke knew.

Whatever had happened between them there belonged to the two of them, and Sakura suddenly felt it again, that peculiar sensation from years ago: standing somewhere she was not supposed to be, listening to a conversation that had begun long before she entered it.

“That day, when I left you lying there,” Sasuke started, eyes trained on Naruto, who still had yet to move. “I only spared your life on a whim. Nothing more.” Sasuke stopped, staring down at Naruto as though he expected something. A yell denying it, maybe. Or even a shout that it wasn’t too late to come back.

Sasuke had just told him that his survival meant nothing, that whatever mercy Naruto had carried with him from the Valley of the End had never been mercy at all.

Sakura waited for Naruto to get angry, that’s what he usually did, but Naruto, still, said nothing. Then, Sakura realised, while watching Naruto stare up at Sasuke, that Naruto had never learned how to accept losing Sasuke.

Sasuke could tell him he meant nothing. Naruto would hear him and somehow come away believing he needed to try harder.

Sakura used to think that was admirable. Standing there now, she wasn't sure what it was.

Sasuke’s face twisted, as though the silence was as unexpected to him as it was infuriating, like he had hoped Naruto had more to say than nothing at all.

Before she could understand why, Sasuke moved. He was so fast Sakura barely registered it. One moment he stood above them, the next, he was there - close. Far too close.

Sakura's body tensed instinctively, ready to react, knowing this could go in any direction at any given moment. Naruto tensed too, though he didn't step away.

Sasuke stood before Naruto, barely acknowledging Sakura and Sai and Yamato, as though they weren’t a threat enough to concern himself with. But it always came back to Naruto, even when Sasuke addressed all of them, his attention seemed to return there.

Sakura immediately hated herself for noticing it when there were more important things happening.

One of Sasuke’s hands rest on Naruto’s shoulder as he leaned close to Naruto’s ear. If Sakura didn’t know Sasuke, she’d have thought Sasuke had had a change of heart, that the gesture was almost friendly.

“You know, come to think of it, wasn’t it always your dream to become the Hokage?” Sasuke said lowly, eyes staring right past Naruto, who only grew more tense. “All of the time you spent chasing after me would’ve been better spent in training. Wouldn’t you agree… Naruto?”

Naruto’s expression remained the same, a permanent carving of relief and grief all at once.

“But this time…” Sasuke continued, his spare hand reaching to something beside him. Sakura couldn’t see what it was he was reaching for, but felt her heart drop at the sound of a sword unsheathing. “My whim is telling me… to finish what I started.”

The grating of metal continued, dragging out so slowly it was as though Sasuke was testing Naruto to see if he finally would say something after all.

Sakura watched the way Naruto’s eyes shook, as though he was only now coming to the realisation that this was happening. Finally, his expression hardened, and the determination he’s had for the last three years to get Sasuke back swallowed the shock.

Sasuke’s sword was raised and ready, but Naruto didn’t retreat.

“How could I ever be Hokage,” Naruto finally spoke, bringing a hand to clutch at the wrist of Sasuke’s hand that was still on his shoulder. “If I can’t save a friend?” Sasuke said nothing as the sunlight caught his sword. “Isn’t that right… Sasuke?”

There was silence as the wind all but disappeared, and Sasuke was frozen with his katana still held in the air, ready to strike. Sakura watched them with bated breath.

Suddenly, Sasuke’s wrist snapped and brought the sword down.

Sakura screamed, begging Sasuke not to, but Sai was already there, with one hand on Sasuke’s wrist, preventing the sword from meeting Naruto, and the other holding a katana of his own.

Naruto was still locked in place.

Sasuke moved again, and lightning crackled out his palms, sending Sai and Naruto flying backwards and landing into the walls of the crater they found themselves in.

Back and forth, back and forth, as natural as breathing, Naruto and Sasuke fought again. It was painfully resembling how they used to fight when they were younger, but this time, rather than it being over something small and petty like who could climb higher up a tree, it was Sasuke’s talk of killing Naruto, and meaning it.

And, somehow, Sakura could still see the same boys underneath it. Sasuke claimed he had severed their bond, yet here he was, years later, still explaining himself to Naruto, still answering him, still letting Naruto make him angry.

Sakura didn't know what to make of that, but threw herself into the fight to make sure Sasuke wouldn’t prove himself right.

Sasuke was stronger than they had expected - painfully stronger. Every movement made the distance between the boy who had left Konoha and the people who had spent three years chasing him feel wider.

Sakura fought, and Sai fought, and Yamato fought, and Naruto-

Kept trying to reach him, even when words had already failed, even when Sasuke made it clear that he would rather destroy them than return with them, even when his hand formed around power that made Sakura's skin prickle with warning.

Naruto still said his name - not Uchiha, not traitor, not even bastard, which somehow might have been easier to hear. He said his name again and again, as though the right way of saying it might bring the thirteen-year-old boy back.

Then Orochimaru intervened, and the moment fractured.

Sasuke's attack disappeared before it could be completed, and voices Sakura barely heard passed around her as her attention remained fixed on the two boys.

Sasuke looked at Naruto and Naruto looked back.

Sakura almost expected something, but she didn't know what. It could’ve been anything: hesitation, a crack in Sasuke’s expression, an explanation to justify the last three years, but nothing came.

Sasuke turned away, and Naruto took a step after him.

"Sasuke!"

Sakura closed her eyes, only for a second. When she opened them again, he was gone… again. Sasuke had left them a second time.

The silence afterward felt worse than the fighting.

Sakura's breathing was too loud, and her body hurt in several places, though she couldn't yet tell which injuries would matter once the adrenaline wore off.

Sai said something, Yamato answered, but Sakura barely heard either of them.

Naruto hadn't moved. He was staring at the place Sasuke had disappeared.

Something inside Sakura sank. There it was again - not exactly the same. It was never the exact same, but she knew it now.

A bridge covered in mist. A twelve-year-old Naruto staring at Sasuke because he had thought, moments earlier, that Sasuke was dead. Naruto staring at empty space because Sasuke had left him again.

As Sakura watched him, she thought about the promise: I’ll bring Sasuke back to you.

Naruto had changed since they were twelve. His shoulders were broader now. His voice was deeper. He had grown into his face, though Sakura suspected he would be wearing that ridiculous orange in some form until the day he died.

He wasn't the boy from the bridge anymore, but he was looking at the place Sasuke had been with that same expression.

Suddenly she remembered being twelve years old and wondering why Naruto had looked more relieved to see Sasuke alive than she had. She had decided they were friends and teammates. That they fought constantly and competed over everything. Naruto called Sasuke a bastard almost as frequently as Sasuke called Naruto an idiot.

They were friends, who eventually become best friends. That was what Naruto called him, and Sakura had accepted it because there had been no reason not to.

Except, Naruto had spent three years chasing him. Three years.

Sakura had begun questioning if it was even possible to get Sasuke back. It had become more of a dream than a goal, for her. Naruto never had questioned it, even once.

Of course Naruto had chased him. Sasuke was their teammate, and Naruto never abandoned his friends - that was one of the best and most infuriating things about him.

Except Naruto had other friends. He had plenty of them now, especially compared to before. There were people who loved him - people he also loved. None of them occupied the strange, immovable place Sasuke did.

Sakura had once thought it was devotion to a promise, then loyalty to a teammate, then stubbornness and guilt, then ultimately pegged it down to Naruto just being Naruto. She had found so many explanations for it.

Apparently, so had he: he’s my teammate. He’s my friend. He’s my best friend.

Sakura’s breath suddenly caught.

Oh.

The thought was so quiet she almost missed it.

Oh.

She looked at Naruto again, and for the first time in years, Sakura wondered whether Naruto understood why he had been chasing Sasuke at all.

Naruto, who had spent half their Academy years loudly declaring his love for her. Naruto, who had asked her on dates and tried to impress her and sulked whenever she paid Sasuke more attention than him.

Naruto and Sasuke? Naruto and Sasuke?

Sakura knew what she had once thought love looked like.

Butterflies. Jealousy. Wanting someone’s attention.

Naruto had never looked at Sasuke the way she had, and maybe that was why she hadn't recognised it - his love didn't look like hers.

It looked like remembering someone when everyone else wanted to forget them. It looked like returning after every rejection. It looked like refusing to let someone's worst choices become the only thing they were allowed to be. It looked exhausting. It looked painful.

Sakura could no longer convince herself it was anything else. Naruto loved Sasuke.

The thought didn't shock her as much as it should have. More than anything, made her certain. There was no great revelation, or a sudden rearranging of the Naruto she knew - if anything, the opposite happened, as pieces that had never quite fit settled quietly into place.

The bridge, The Valley of the End, the promise, the three years of searching, the way Naruto had said Sasuke's name today as though nothing Sasuke did could make it stop meaning something to him.

Sakura wondered whether Naruto knew.

She looked at him again and decided, with a strange ache, that he probably didn't. Naruto understood loving people in actions, like keeping promises and showing up.

Understanding Naruto only made Sasuke harder to understand.

Maybe Sakura was wrong about him. She hoped, strangely, that she was, because Sasuke had looked at Naruto as though the last three years had changed nothing, like Naruto’s devotion were an inconvenience, as though being found was something he had never wanted.

Sakura felt an unexpected flash of anger on Naruto’s behalf.

Naruto had crossed countries for him - he had spent years refusing to accept a world in which Sasuke Uchiha did not come home.

And Sasuke… Sasuke kept leaving.

Sakura hoped, with every part of herself, that this was simply Naruto having attached himself to the one person determined not to be held onto, and Naruto, being Naruto, had taken that as a challenge.

Sakura didn't say anything, but moved closer instead. It wasn’t close enough to touch him, but enough that when Naruto finally turned away from the empty space, he wouldn't find himself standing alone.

She looked once more at where Sasuke had disappeared. Years later, she would wonder how she hadn’t understood Sasuke then, too. How she had watched him cut ties with everyone who had ever loved him and somehow failed to question why Naruto was always the bond he had to sever personally.

Sakura didn’t understand Naruto completely like she thought she had, but she understood this much: Naruto had spent years chasing someone who did nothing but run.

And Sasuke had always been good at running.

❀

By the time Naruto started dating Hinata, Sakura had known for years.

She had never said anything about it, because there had never really been a reason to. Naruto himself didn't seem to know, and Sasuke was gone more often than he was home, leaving whatever existed between the two of them somewhere underneath rivalry and friendship and arguments and promises, buried beneath so many other names that Sakura sometimes wondered whether giving it another one accomplished anything at all.

So, Sakura kept it to herself.

But then Naruto started dating Hinata.

At first, Sakura told herself that changed nothing. People moved on, and feelings changed. They weren't sixteen anymore, and the things that once seemed impossible to survive eventually became memories they could look back on without feeling the same ache. Naruto had spent years chasing Sasuke, but that didn't mean he was obligated to spend the rest of his life doing it.

Hinata loved him, and Sakura had known that almost as long as she had known Hinata. And, more importantly, Naruto was happy.

That should have been enough, and for a while, Sakura decided that it was.

But then they got engaged.

The first time Sakura considered talking to Naruto about it, she dismissed the thought almost immediately. It wasn't her place to interfere, and Naruto was an adult capable of making his own decisions. The second time, she made it as far as imagining the conversation. That was enough to stop her - because what was she supposed to say?

Congratulations on your engagement. By the way, I think you've been in love with Sasuke since we were children.

The thought was so ridiculous Sakura almost laughed, but the humour died quickly when another thought followed it. Because what if she was right? What if Naruto had spent half his life loving someone without ever understanding that was what he was doing? Was she supposed to tell him? Was it even her place to do so? Would telling him help anyone, or would Sakura simply ruin more lives than one?

There was Hinata to think about, who loved Naruto openly in a way Naruto himself had never seemed capable of loving Sasuke. Hinata had waited years for Naruto to look at her and now he finally was, and Sakura couldn't justify taking something uncertain and placing it between them.

And then there was Sasuke. That was the part Sakura could never solve.

She knew Naruto. She had spent years learning Naruto, and his feelings lived outside of him whether he wanted them to or not. They appeared in his face and his voice and every reckless thing he did. Naruto could call Sasuke his rival, or his teammate, or his best friend as many times as he wanted, but Sakura had learned long ago that his actions said something much bigger.

Sasuke was different - Sasuke had always been different. Sakura could never tell what he was feeling unless he allowed her to, and Sasuke almost never allowed anyone anything. Even as children, his emotions came in changes so small that Sakura had to already be looking at him to notice them.

She had never let herself examine Sasuke's side of it too closely. Maybe because it felt invasive. Or, maybe, it was because saying it, even silently, would turn years of memories into something else.

Maybe there was nothing to tell Naruto. Maybe Sakura had spent so many years watching Naruto love Sasuke that she had started seeing meaning in every look Sasuke gave him in return. Maybe Sasuke really did love Naruto in the way he claimed to - as a friend, a rival, someone who understood him better than most - and Sakura had taken years of complicated history between them and turned it into something it wasn't.

She didn't know, and Sakura had no right to destroy an engagement over something she didn't know.

So, once again, she said nothing.

But then came the wedding.

Konoha had been preparing for it for what felt like weeks. Everywhere Sakura went, someone seemed to be carrying flowers, food or decorations. Kakashi was drowning in paperwork related to the ceremony, and Iruka looked ready to cry every time Naruto's name was mentioned. Even people who barely knew Naruto seemed inexplicably invested in making sure everything was perfect.

Naruto complained about almost all of it: he complained about the clothes, and the photographs, and the fact that everyone kept telling him where to stand, but Sakura watched him laugh through most of it.

He was happy, she kept reminding herself of that. Naruto was happy, and Hinata was happy, and this was a good thing. So why did Sakura keep waiting for something to go wrong?

The feeling followed her throughout the morning, from getting ready, to helping with preparations, to watching people arrive. Every time someone entered, some ridiculous part of Sakura expected them to be carrying news that would change everything.

Under that expectation was another question, one Sakura had been trying very hard not to ask: what was Sasuke going to do?

Sakura hadn't heard from him, but that wasn't unusual. Sasuke came and went as he pleased, and nobody had ever been particularly successful at convincing him otherwise. But this was Naruto's wedding, so surely Sasuke would come. It was his best friend’s wedding.

Sakura found herself thinking about it more as the ceremony drew closer. She wondered where Sasuke would stand, probably somewhere toward the back where he could leave without anybody noticing, and whether he would look at Naruto differently than everybody else did. She wondered if his expression would betray something, and that thought made Sakura extremely uncomfortable. She wondered whether Sasuke would congratulate them, whether he would shake Naruto's hand, whether Naruto would complain that Sasuke hadn't brought a proper gift, and whether Sasuke would call him an idiot and tell him he should be grateful he'd bothered to show up at all.

Maybe everything would simply be normal, and Sakura was just overthinking it all, but the thoughts continued to tumble over each other in rapid succession and Sakura tumbled with them.

Sakura wondered whether Sasuke would object, and she immediately felt stupid. Sasuke Uchiha interrupting Naruto's wedding to declare his undying love sounded like something out of one of those terrible romance novels Kakashi pretended not to read, and Sakura nearly laughed at herself for imagining it.

Still, as more people arrived, she kept looking toward the entrance, waiting for Sasuke to eventually arrive.

The ceremony began, and Sakura told herself he was late. Sasuke was always steering clear from Konoha, taking missions whenever he could. He was probably coming from somewhere far.

Naruto stood at the front, dressed in clothes he had complained about for the better part of the morning, and when Hinata joined him, Sakura watched his face change.

His smile brightened his entire face, and Hinata smiled back, looking the happiest Sakura’s ever seen her.

Something inside Sakura hurt, and she hated herself for that, because this wasn't a tragedy. Nobody was being forced into anything, and nobody was unhappy. Naruto had chosen this, Hinata had chosen him, and they loved each other.

Sakura smiled when she was supposed to, and she watched as the ceremony continued, though her senses focused on everything but what the ceremony was about.

Some ridiculous part of her remained convinced that something would happen: a messenger would arrive, or that Sasuke would appear at the last possible second, or that Naruto would suddenly realise something Sakura had understood years ago - anything. Anything at all that could stop this, but nothing did.

The ceremony continued, and Naruto said what he needed to say, then Hinata did too, and just like that, it was done.

Naruto was married.

People cheered, and Sakura joined them. She clapped until her hands hurt and smiled when Naruto looked towards everyone, then again when Hinata did.

She was happy for them. She really was. That was what made the sadness so difficult to understand when logic kept trying to convince her that the sadness was misplaced.

Sakura wasn't sad because Naruto had married Hinata, and she wasn't sad because Hinata had gotten something Sakura wanted. Those feelings belonged to children they hadn't been for years. She was sad for something that had never happened - something that, perhaps, had never even been possible.

Eventually, Sakura looked towards the back of the crowd. She had stopped expecting him to show up by then, but still, she looked, just in case.

Sasuke wasn't there.

Sakura stared at the empty space where she had imagined him standing, and something about it scratched at an old memory. Not one specific memory this time, but several.

Sasuke standing in front of Naruto after three years apart, insisting that he had only spared his life on a whim. Sasuke leaving the village. Sasuke trying to sever every bond he had ever made. Sasuke insisting Naruto meant nothing while returning, again and again, to Naruto whenever he needed to prove it.

Sakura had spent years wondering why Naruto had always been different. Why was Naruto the bond Sasuke had needed to sever personally? Why had Sasuke been willing to die for him when they were twelve?

My body just moved.

Sakura went still. For years, she had believed Naruto was the one chasing Sasuke, and that much was true. Naruto had spent years running after him while Sasuke did everything he could to get further away. She had simply never questioned why Sasuke kept running.

Sasuke didn't run from things that meant nothing to him. Sasuke had spent years severing bonds precisely because having them meant there was something left for him to lose.

Naruto had always been the one he couldn't seem to sever completely.

Sakura looked around again, as though Sasuke might somehow appear now that she understood, but he still was nowhere to be found.

It was his best friend's wedding - Naruto's wedding - and Sasuke wasn't there.

Sakura thought about all the reasons to justify why he hadn’t come: he was travelling, he was on a mission, he didn't like crowds, weddings weren't exactly the sort of thing Sasuke had ever shown an interest in. They were all perfectly reasonable explanations, except Sakura had spent years doing this with Naruto too.

He's his teammate.

He's his friend.

He's his best friend.

She had spent years finding explanations because the alternative had never occurred to her.

Something inside Sakura sank. Sasuke had always been harder to understand because, unlike Naruto, Sasuke's feelings rarely escaped him unless he wanted them to, but Sakura realised now that she had been looking for them in the wrong places.

She had looked at what Sasuke said when she should have looked at what he couldn't make himself do - and now, apparently, he couldn't watch Naruto marry somebody else.

The realisation didn't hit Sakura in the same way it had years ago with Naruto. There was no sudden catch of breath, or a sudden dawning that had her reeling. It instead was something that settled, slowly and unpleasantly, as though it had been sitting there waiting for Sakura to notice it.

Sasuke loved him too.

Sakura closed her eyes, and suddenly, things she had spent years dismissing as contradictions no longer contradicted anything. A twelve-year-old Sasuke had thrown himself in front of Naruto before he had time to think. A thirteen-year-old Sasuke had stood over Naruto at the Valley of the End with every reason to kill him, and didn't. A sixteen-year-old Sasuke had insisted Naruto meant nothing while watching him more closely than anyone else.

Again and again, Sasuke had tried to cut Naruto out of himself, and again and again, he had failed.

Sakura had thought Naruto was the only one telling the truth without knowing it, but she had been wrong. Sasuke's actions had told the truth too, they were just simply harder to read.

Naruto loved Sasuke by refusing to let him go. He spent years reaching for someone who kept pulling himself further away.

Sasuke did the opposite - when Sasuke cared, he ran. He had always run. And Sakura, who had spent years watching Naruto chase him, had mistaken Sasuke's running for the absence of anything worth chasing.

She looked towards Naruto, who was surrounded by people now, laughing and smiling, with Hinata beside him. He was married.

Sakura wondered whether Naruto would ever know. She wondered whether Sasuke already did, or if he had spent just as long finding other names for it as Naruto had. She wondered whether knowing now would make any difference at all.

Probably not, because years after, nothing had changed. Naruto was still married, Hinata still loved him, and Sasuke was still somewhere far away from Konoha. Sakura had simply learned the answer too late for it to truly matter anymore.

She couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if Sasuke had been honest, the way Naruto's actions were. Naruto had never learned how to run from what he felt, but Sasuke always had. Maybe that’s why things turned out this way.

Perhaps, for once, Sasuke should have done the chasing. Now it was too late.