SURFACE;
they’re not going to forget one another’s smiles
narusakusasu

- - - - - - -
seven sunrises
and seven more nights
you’d think we could learn to do it right …
- - - - - - -

Behind all the adventure and fighting, there’s half-heartedly spun lies and rollercoaster rides. Behind all the blood, tears, and training, there’s a demon, an avenger, and a little girl who’s so in love with them both that she’s undertaken metamorphosis to become a woman.

Sasuke, Sasuke was sort of the tragedy of Team 7, always melancholy, angst, and bleeding red eyes. Sakura, Sakura was kind of the glue that made them all mesh; all pretty pink hair, wide apple green eyes, and porcelain skin that held Naruto by the heart and skull and Sasuke from the corner of his eye. Naruto, Naruto was the unsung hero of them three, always charging ahead to the unseen future.

Together, they’d fought, fought, and fought; at times together, other times with each other. And it continued on like that until one day, one of them decided to run away and never come back.

When they were first pulled together, they were anything but cohesive.

Boy who was reclusive and always plotting the death of another, girl who was normal and simpering (totally infatuated with boy who was reclusive), and boy who was determined to prove his own worth, be valiant, and win the love of the female team member; all placed in one cardboard box.

A strangling mix of personalites.

Yes, people would’ve never saw it coming, all three of them, twelve years old with faces that held traces of baby fat, all of them, combined into one single unit.

Nobody ever expected a love story to take place because love stories are childish and unpractical, sweet like red bean paste and lace parasols and carousals.

But fuck, they’ve got their hands on one.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura.

- - - - - - -

you want to catch your breath, you want to go out
but as you surface you don’t really know how
how to live upon the solid ground
sometimes it’s easier to let yourself drown
- - - - - - -

Sakura knows that Sasuke could’ve loved her if he really tried.

And maybe that thought will be enough to make her continue loving him for this lifetime (and a hundred other).

Sakura has feelings for Sasuke in this terribly irrevocable way; she loves him the way children have to love their mothers and bedtime stories. And that kind of love is addictive and adoring; it’s simply never-ending and it is a sort of love that only escapists and true romantics can understand.

She treasures the way he used to flick casual glances at her and scowl at her when their eyes met. She treasures the cruelty because she understands that no matter how hard he made it seem like he wouldn’t bat a lash if she were to rot off of the face of the earth – he does care. She knows that if she were to die, Sasuke would feel something, whatever that something might be.

Sakura comes to understand Sasuke very, very well.

Because no, she’s never going to be able to fully comprehend the horror movie that was Sasuke’s youth, she’s never going to be able to be able to say, “I know how it feels, I feel your pain,” to him.

But she wants to fill up the hollow spaces in his chest, she wants to lay his weary head down on her lap, and she wants to tell him what happiness feels like and which constellations are which. She wants to help him forget Itachi, gradually.

She thinks that just might be enough to make Sasuke be human again.

Sasuke is her source strength. Because of Sasuke, the teal-bright eyed girl will always be in bloom for she’s promised herself to never be weak (small, fragile, useless) again. She’s decided to become stronger, stronger, and stronger, each and every single day.

No longer will Kakashi forget about her, no longer will she comb her cotton candy floss hair and lie in bed daydreaming away. She is reborn.

So she keeps her hair short, just below her chin, because long hair gets in the way of combat and is a hassle to wash. Cropped hair reminds her of when she started to love-love Sasuke (not petty crushes and confession letters). She’s sheds her vanity like a second skin and her compact mirror has been smashed and left in her bedroom drawer.

Sakura will travel through dimensions and time zones; she’ll slowly find a way, through dream catchers and sleepless nights, to close in the gap between her and the ebony haired boy of her dreams.

She fears no distance.

There are nights where fireflies dust her cheeks and her eyes squeeze shut and she prays of flickering, flickering but never fading, feelings.

She says to herself, “God, if he doesn’t have a heart anymore, please let him have mine.”

And it’s just like that.

There’s no going back once you’ve fallen in love, love’s got its fingers around your throat in a chokehold; her pain is its thrill.

She fears no pain.

Thusly, Sakura trains, because one day, she’s going to bring him back. There are no more days where Sasuke will pull her out of harm’s way; there are no more days where she will ask him out on sweet dates, there’s no more pretty red dresses and learning how to aim with shuriken. Her childhood’s over. And she hasn’t mourned over it in ages.

But, that was so long ago. And Sakura’s wiser now (she tells herself), and there’s a new day ahead of the horizon, so she doesn’t over miss her twelve-year old self (nostalgia, nostalgia), and instead, continues to search for that path that’ll lead her back to Sasuke.

It’s so clear that it’s carved in her skin, inked in her veins; she loves him.

She loved him back when she first joined the Academy to the near death experience in the Forest of Death, and she will love him to her grave.

She’s never going to stop because she knows that Sasuke in his right mind, could, would, should, and will love her once he gets the fuck over himself. So Sakura will stay in Konoha and grow stronger, stronger and stronger, because if Sasuke’s going to fall; she’ll be able to catch him.

One day, he just might come to the realization that Sakura appreciates him better than anybody else does, or maybe he already has.

“Sasuke-kun,”

Her heart is stone still for Sasuke, waiting, kind of like how Naruto’s is ticking for her.

The clouds part, and sunshine comes through in stick thin rays.

- - - - - - -
your voice was the soundtrack of my summer
do you know you’re unlike any other
you’ll always be my thunder
your eyes are the brightest of all the colours
- - - - - - -

Naruto, for her, is a revelation.

She’s not quite sure how it happened and when she exactly started to love the sunny haired ninja, but the important thing is that she does. With all her might.

It’s unexpected and makes the world bright, blindingly so.

When she first stumbled across the realization of her feelings, she skipped with joy and shouted to the sky that she was in love again. She laughed, laughed, and laughed until her lungs wanted to pop out of her ribcage.

And after the initial butterflies of a new love fluttered and faded, Sakura was quiet and still. She was just fourteen and at the bridge, their bridge, and everything was sort of foggy and messed up. Falling in love with Naruto’s a surprise; it’s off-guard, and it makes Sakura feel like a heroine who’s come to understand her plotline. Her hate for Naruto has become glorious, comrade love.

It’s like a child blowing a bubble, slow and cautious, until, finally, the shiny soapy sphere morphs outward, and flies. It’s free and uncomplicated, like bluebirds and morning bells.

That’s her love for Naruto; unrestricted.

Following her newfound love, Sakura waits for Naruto’s return with Jiraiya with polished spirits and fevered anticipation.

Sakura comes to understand that Sasuke is number one in her heart but that Naruto exceeds that in a strange, bizarre, completely and utterly Naruto-like way. Naruto is her white light, her solar power, the sunshine in her everyday life. Naruto is her thunder.

And maybe she first fell in love with him when he promised her that he’d bring Sasuke back for her. It had been the most endearing promise that anybody had given to her, and by then, Sakura had already stopped her pointless hate towards him. He’d sworn on that oath to her with a pleasing sense of honesty, and Sakura could tell then that Naruto was the kind of man her mother talked about, the real deal, not prince charming and make believe.

“You’re best of with a man that wants to make you happy; those men are the greatest in the universe, and you’re lucky if you meet one,” her mother had said to her.

Naruto is her best friend now, and she knows that he’d walk with her from one side of the earth to the other. It’s comforting, like teddy bears, orange juice, and pink balloons. When Sakura thinks of Naruto, she forgets about being a kunoichi.

Naruto works miracles in her heart, Naruto is under her skin, in the curves of her brain, and she can accept that.

Naruto teaches Sakura to love again, in a new way; he heals the bruises that Sasuke have formed on her, and he doesn’t even know it.

He gives to her non-stop, and he’s oblivious.

Sakura isn’t confused after deciding Naruto’s place in her life, no, she is renewed, rejuvenated. She isn’t going to try and stop loving Sasuke; that would be like attempting to pull out the roots of an age old tree. Trying to, wanting to give up on Sasuke is like defying gravity.

For Sakura to do so is impossible.

No, Sakura is smarter than that; she keeps her two boys, her two teammates, locked in a treasure chest (made for only them) and she throws away the key.

- - - - - -
and like spools of thread
you watch silver threads unwind
like panic-woven movements, catching at the light

- - - - - -

To Sasuke, Sakura is another sacrifice, she’s baby-soft skin and adoring smiles, but he gives her up like how he long ago gave up his naivety. It is almost effortless, and that, of all things, hurts him.

(Although sometimes, sometimes, very rarely though, he dreams of her and he remembers her and her words, remembers the way she says his name.)

To Sakura, Sasuke is a goal, and her first love. He is her satellite.

(And it’s never going to change, never.)

To Sasuke, Naruto is a challenge, a rival, a surprise, and most likely the closest thing to a best friend he’ll ever have.

(The friendship stings him, Naruto’s words sting him like salt in an open wound. It hurts Sasuke to know that he in reality is more of a child than Naruto is.)

To Naruto, Sakura is his one and only girl; she is this hidden force that urges him to be more than he already is. She makes him aim to be the best.

(The unrequited love never hurt him, and even if she has yet to directly tell him that she loves him. Naruto knows, he just knows.)

To Sakura, Naruto is fuel, and the jumpstart to her heart. He is today and tomorrow; he quenches her thirst, he cares and sometimes, that’s enough for her.

(She loves him, and maybe they’ll have a happy ending without Sasuke, if all goes well.)

To Naruto, Sasuke isn’t a love rival. Sasuke is just his best friend, and he’s going to stick it out for him, no matter what. Even if he has to go to hell, and drag his Uchiha ass back up.

(That’s what this story’s all about.)

- - - - - -
love is thick like blood like honey
you can’t spell it out, there are no words
- - - - - -

There was a night, so long ago, before Sasuke left, before their glass castle had shattered, where they’d finished a D-rank mission and had just rested, together. Team 7, small and happy and peaceful and very much alive, breathing, and not trying to murder somebody (be it Orochimaru or Itachi).

They’d lain on the grass, Sakura, in the middle, her then long hair fanning her face and glowing. Sasuke, to her right, and Naruto, sprawled to her left.

Tall grass had kissed their cheeks, and crickets had sung them a ballad of treetop silhouettes and sticky-sweet summer heat, and they’d counted stars, eyes half-lidded and sleepy.

So, with cold feet, they fell asleep together in the dark, a silent hallelujah and moment to always be remembered.

Sasuke, with his back turned on Sakura, feet touching hers, ever so slightly. Sakura, with her back against the ground, face turned towards Sasuke (oh, some things never change), and hand brushing against Naruto’s. Naruto, faced towards Sakura, curled up like a little ball.

The three of them are hydrangea flowers: Naruto white, Sasuke periwinkle blue, and Sakura that soft shade of pink that she’ll always be no matter how hard she tries to differ from that.

They slept like that, adventure and fights forgotten, and (secretly) wish that they’d never woken up.

- - - - - - -
: This is dedicated to Caitlan (ninja butterfliie)! She is the cheese to my macaroni, and my prince charming, all-mighty and hot-looking in her white-blue robes. And ah, she’s the key factor to my return to Naruto. I LOVE HER AND YOU SHOULD TOO.

HOLLY BROOK - like blood like honey
BOYS LIKE GIRLS - thunder (acoustic)
were both used in this one-shot.