Chapter Text
When the breeze is let into Sakura’s bedroom, she knows that it will go away soon. And yet in its short voyage around her room, it has managed to tear her flesh apart. And not all at once but layer by layer. And it’s only minutes later that she realizes that it’s the same as that night.
Squeaking of wheels like it has handed over a ticking bomb to her, informing her that they can’t let it kill them, the rays of brightness from the headlights of the car, in disarray. Sakura held her breath as she tried to turn the wheel in her hand but the two front tires were already exposed to the darkness of the cliff and something told her that if she closed her eyes and listened to the void into which she is about to slip, she’ll hear angels sing; she’ll smell her death. It was then that Sakura wanted to live, more than ever but she forgot to try. Without investing any effort in going back into the safety of the earth, she gripped the wheel and pressed on the accelerator. The car leaped into the abyss and took a jump. And that’s when the air rushed in, several moments before some part of the car hit some part of the cliff. Sakura was scared but was also reduced to a silent spectator of the end. The car stumbled its way into the pit and by the time it fell onto hard ground, she was left with nothing to spectate. The faulty airbag didn’t surprise her when her chest hit the steering wheel and it’s like she already knew what will come after. Her bleeding head demanded unconsciousness from her and she gave into it. But Sakura knew the moment her eyelids closed. Someone asked her to do so and she, without any sign of protest, obeyed.
The world swirled into a grey loop as if all the colors had been sucked out and she sighed as her vicinity became more obscure with time. Sakura didn’t witness the end, her eyes shut before the car could reach solid earth. How disappointing, she thought. It was several hours before her marriage; when her eyelids finally slid into a complete close, she began chanting inside her oblivious head: “I won’t wake up again. I won’t wake up again. I won’t wake up again.”
But she does but in her bedroom; her eyelids stretch open and she stares at the blank ceiling above her bed. Nightmares of that night like it never left. But this is no surprise.
Nightmares are supposed to keep you awake. They don’t entice you to slip into their wrath and let them take over you. She would rather be awake than fall asleep but the day she had doesn’t side with her. She falls into the arms of her terrors and once again, she lays, as helpless as she has been in her entire life, scared to move an inch; scared.
This time when her eyes shut themselves back to sleep against her desperation, she hears voices, like watching a play she has already seen before but it’s etched and she can’t seem to erase it.
“We suspect myocardial contusion. The ECG will be here in a minute. But this won’t do. She needs surgery.”
Sakura didn’t open her eyes yet. Partly because she knows what myocardial contusion is.
“Did you inform the guardian?”
“Her mom lives far away so that will take some time but Anko got the oral consent.”
“Get ready for the surgery.”
The sound of footsteps that followed told her that she was alone. She was coaxed to open her eyes when she still didn’t want to. An urge to see everything conquered her mind and she was staring at a ceiling again. The sharpness of the ringing in her ears made her think of shriveling lilies and tortures using blood-smeared rays of light. The tightness in her chest and the needles from her sole shot up and suddenly she was aware of all the pains. Her bleeding head, her swollen arm, her broken rib, her crushed heart, her past self. Some bandaged, some still an open wound.
The oxygen mask felt suffocating.
The curtain hung around her bed and the screaming machines tore to reveal Sasuke’s panting figure. He didn’t speak. She would have done it for him but her voice is suddenly snatched away. Whatever happened to her made her breathe more than she wanted to. Speaking and breathing then seemed impossible.
“Are you the guardian?” A Junior resident she didn’t know.
“No, but I’m- I’m her friend. I got a call.”
“Yes, that’s because you are the person she listed as the emergency contact. We need to speak with you. Please come with us.” And there was, and Sakura noticed it, a vulnerability in his eyes that was never there before. He wasn’t locked behind a hundred doors now. Suddenly, Sasuke seemed to be at a reachable distance.
The shadows casting on the cloth curtain from outside told her many stories but every one of them, in the end, found their way along the path that finally led them to her death. Dwelling on something untouchable is weak. No matter how much you extend your hands, they won’t change; it’s your same arms, ineffectual, weak, every other time.
“And so you need surgery.”
“You don’t have health insurance?” Sakura didn’t witness Naruto’s arrival. He crossed his arms on his chest and made no effort to hide his panic. Even if he did, his concerns were as visible as the light of day. “Sakura-chan, how can you-” his voice trailed off. Maybe it’s because he realized that it’s pointless to tell off someone who was dying. But Sasuke grabbed the trail and threw his anger at her.
“How can you not have health insurance?” That was the first thing he asked her and all that came out was worry.
“Use mine. I’ll give you mine! Isn’t that possible?” Naruto shouted all of a sudden.
“It- doesn’t work like that,” the resident nodded, “that’s only possible when you’re married to her.”
Naruto shook his head in disappointment but Sasuke spoke like he was promising to pick up flowers with her even though he hated it; the sun, the smell, the heat, and the mud.
He spoke like it was the easiest thing he has ever done, “I’ll marry you.”
The glass plate placed on a table that falls under Sakura’s vicinity for a reason she couldn’t think of, broke as it laid still. A rift on the white ceramic. Whatever made her feel like this, brought her closer to giving in to the feeling of unconsciousness patrolling her mind, ready to be slipped into any moment now. She was so sure then, that if she lept into the abyss of her mind now, darkness would cover her like a blanket.
“Sas-” Naruto began.
“Sakura, you should marry me.” He still doesn’t force her.
Silence. And the silence–—as Sasuke knew–—a consent.
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It has been there for as long as he can remember: the cafe in which they are supposed to meet. And yet it has taken him this long to finally acknowledge its presence. The long five years that he has spent familiarising himself with this place brings bitterness; it is disappointed in him. Sakura’s schedule required him to arrive for brunch and he agreed. The pending paperwork meant less to him.
“My life has been unfailingly monotonous since the last time we met so there’s that.”
Sakura hums before she presses her lips to the coffee cup. Something tells him she won’t drink it.
“You should just tell me.” He decides he cannot let her ask him about his day for the third time in just half an hour.
“What? Tell you what?”
“You’re hesitating. Don’t. Just tell me.”
“Sasuke, I want you to sign these papers.” She slides a cover across to him. The paper against the wood sounds like the slash of a knife. She tells him what it is.
“You didn’t bring a pen?”
“No.”
“Return it to me when you find one.”
“Hn.”
With his usual hum of response, Sasuke lifts himself from the seat and exits the place with an envelope in his hand, but his pace was faster.
“Sasuke, there are ups and downs to everything. You already know that.” His parents told him once and then too many times for whatever he shared. And he left just like this. But he didn’t walk away from everything he wanted to hold together then.
When stars begin to peep from the window right behind him, Sasuke avoids it. But slowly when they grow into millions, their significance becomes inexorable. Perhaps, the night is too pretty for what he felt inside. And maybe it’s the dizziness he feels from the amount of screentime or feelings he consumed or the dryness in his mouth for alcohol and love. His hands reach out to a pen and the ink bleeds over the required column of the paper.
He has to place paperweights on his chest so that the paper doesn’t fly away.
His vicinity; the sharp wind that causes jackets to be torn off from shoulders which own them and land on another; the silence that makes you want to destroy it and laugh. It’s too late to go to someone he doesn’t love. His shoes play a tune as he descends the steps of his office with the same cover in his hand. He can decide to love her.
The car pulls over in front of her apartment. Sasuke never felt like visiting his wife was a burden; he never had to drag himself out to walk to her. The quickness in his steps, however, is rather disputable. He makes sure it is.
He only sees it when the headlight of the car goes off - the outline of a man who seems to be rather disturbed by his arrival. Once Sasuke shuts the car door behind him, the figure of the man is revived like sand out of the ocean. His decision against initiating a conversation prompts him to climb up the stairs wordlessly.
“Sasuke-san?” Now he has no other choice. “Sasuke-san, right? Sakura has told me about you. I’m Haru.”
“Hn.”
“Do you think you can get Sakura for me?” Sasuke drops his gaze and it reverts to the man behind him, uncontrolled.
“Call her yourself.”
“She’s not answering so judging by the fact that you are here at this hour, she seems to be perfectly able to take calls. So I just want you to-”
“Nobody wants you to judge anything.” Sasuke advances towards him as he continues, “if she doesn’t pick up your calls, it’s not my fucking problem.” He drops an end there. The words demanding the man in front of him to leave don’t make it to the outside because he’s convinced that he never had the right to dismiss Sakura’s relations. It was the unsaid but unbreakable rule they followed: no getting involved in each other’s relationships.
“The fact that you’re here is-”
“Is what?”
“You’re just the guy she fucks without feelings. I’m the guy she fucks with feelings. No big difference-”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“What?”
“Just- get the fuck out.”
“Do you realize that you act as you belong here?”
Sakura is on her feet before the storm can subside two stories above. Groans of pain and shrieks of spectators coax her into slamming her waist to the window sill, the persistent sound of punches landing on someone’s chest prompts her to move the curtain and lean. Sasuke. She sees him first before everything else as a gasp leaves her body still and grey like a stone. Bruises on his cheek, blushing with pain, it almost shines sharply like a needle and her cheeks start tingling. Pain. She has known it before. Worry boils from her core and it tangles with unnamed emotions, creating turmoils and she chokes on it. Her body bends as she cups her hands over her mouth and moves away from the window. She has to stop this now. She has to leave. The distance between herself and the door elongates until she cannot see it.
Sakura’s phone chimes and turns itself on and she swears it has sprouted silver wings. Her feet only prove to be helpful while stumbling towards her phone. Her fingers glide over the glaring screen, swiping up 911.
The dark living room lights up with the blinding red of the police cruiser. Sakura picks herself up and saunters to the window sill again. But this time she lets the veil fall between her view allowing it to obscure it, but not too much; until it feels adequate; safe, owing to the incomprehensible trepidation she felt.
Sakura identifies the other man as Haru when he is made to turn around by the cops. But what gains her attention–—and while accusations of her selfishness rose from within–—is Sasuke’s hardened gaze and clenched jaws loosening while he looks up to the window. The circling siren suddenly flashes its light onto her face and Sakura’s reliability on the lack of light in her living room is vanquished. Her body moves back like a reflex.
Sakura casts another look at the door and it seems even more unreachable. But now she cannot afford to lose to it, never.