The morning sun rolls in through the windows like a wave, leaving shadows of the blinds across their shoulders. Sasuke wakes up to the woman of his dreams wrapped around him like a vine, the room thick with the scent of sex. She's sprawled over him, arms across his chest, legs entangled with his. She smells divine, like sweat and something only her, something floral and womanly. He inhales, deeply, his nose buried in her hair.

She shifts a little in her sleep. Her eyelashes dust her high cheekbones, her lips parted as she breathes delicately. He wants to brush her pink bangs out of her eyes, but he's afraid he'll wake her. He wants to enjoy this moment forever, waking up to Sakura for the first time, pressing his lips against her forehead; Sakura all over him, Sakura on top of him, Sakura sleeping soundly next to him like she trusts him. Sasuke doesn't feel like a trustworthy person.

He looks over at the little alarm clock on the table next to them, and it's too early. He should press a little kiss against Sakura, and shut his eyes, but he can't. He watches her carefully, instead. With her eyes closed, he misses bright, emerald green, wet and hopeful, maybe a little teasing. His eyes linger on her perfect, button nose, and then her plush lips. He could kiss her, right now, if he wanted. He could kiss her awake, just like he's always dreamed. Then, he could press her into the mattress, and fuck her—if she'd let him. He'd do anything for her.

He presses a dainty kiss against her lip, and she shifts, mumbling something quietly in her sleep that he can't make out. She turns further into him, arms squeezing around his neck. He's selfish. He wants her to wake up, so he can kiss her soundly. He wants her to wake up so he can hear her sweet voice. He wants her to wake up so he can see her pretty, pink pussy again, wet and ready for him. He kisses her a little harder, until she stirs.

She groans, and nuzzles her face into his neck. Whining, she asks, "what time is it?"

"Seven."

She groans again. "It's early."

"Do you have class today?" he asks.

"Not this early." She looks up at him, finally, eyes tired with sleep, lips a little cracked, hair mussed. She's more than what he's dreamed of. She's so spectacularly beautiful that his breath catches in his throat, for a moment. When she smiles at him, he can feel his heart race, slamming against his chest like a tattoo. "Good morning," she says.

"Good morning," he replies.

She leans in and kisses him, softly. He wants it to last forever. She presses her tongue against the seam of his lips, and she tastes like morning, like exactly what he wanted to wake up to. They kiss for a long moment.

"I have coffee," she offers when she pulls away.

"I'm fine." He doesn't want to move from this bed. He pulls her even tighter against his chest, pressing kisses to her fine hair. She squirms a little and giggles. "I want to stay right here." He starts pressing kisses against her neck, and then her clavicle, and then when he gets to the swell of her breasts, he realizes they fell asleep naked. He can see her perfect, pert breasts with a move of the sheet. His cum is still dry between her legs. It makes him shiver, cock as hard as velvet-wrapped steel.

When he starts kissing her breasts, lapping them up with his tongue, she wraps her legs around his middle. His hard cock bobs against her stomach, leaving a trail of his precum down to her pubic bone. He grinds against her as he takes a nipple into his mouth, rolling it between his teeth, sucking down hard until she bruises and she's left the squealing mess he adores.

They roll until he's on his back, and she's on top of him, straddling him. His cock slots against her pussy that's already wet, already soaked for him. It makes him groan, loudly. "Sakura, fuck, you're so wet."

"For you," she moans, and buries her face in his chest. "For you," she repeats as she leaves hot kisses on his pectorals.

His finger finds her wet pussy easily. From below her, he pushes a long finger inside of her until her walls pulse around him. He begins thrusting, slowly, and then adds another finger. She takes him so well, stretching around him like a hot, wet vice. He thinks she can take a third finger, so he pushes it in and she moans, loudly. "So much," she says into his chest dreamily.

She rides his hand and the sight is stupefying. He can barely breath. He wants to see her on his cock, riding him like this, her beautiful breasts bouncing. She finishes so quickly, his sensitive girl, when he crooks a finger inside her and lets his thumb carefully strum her clit. When he pulls out, his fingers are soaking wet with her cum. He licks them clean and moans while she watches.

"I need to be inside you," he says, softly, and positions her over his cock, hands on her hips. She's already sitting up, ready for him, flushed with her orgasm. She takes him greedily, easily, gripping him tightly as she slides down onto him. The early morning sun casts shadows on her back as she begins to ride him slowly, head thrown back in ecstasy. He watches her breasts bounce with every thrust, keeps his fingers tight on her hips. He can already see the bruises forming under his attention.

They make love lazily in the early morning. She comes again with his name on her tongue that he happily swallows with a kiss. She lets him finish inside her, begs for it, "please, Sasuke, please, cum inside me." She doesn't have to tell him twice. He fills her up until she's spilling over, and she collapses on top of him, into his arms. She runs her fingers through his thick, black hair, and peppers his face with kisses and tells him how good he was.

"Sakura," he interrupts her babbling. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For…" He shakes his head. "Thank you."

She smiles. "You're welcome."

…

Sakura drags Sasuke to her favorite diner in town for breakfast. It's a fifteen minute walk, and she babbles the whole time about school, about her internship, about psychology that he hasn't thought about since he was in college. She's as charming as he remembers, all giggles like jingles and sweet words whispered a little too softly in his ear. This time, as they walk together, she holds his hand. Sasuke has never held somebody's hand before.

Her's are soft, and small. She wraps her little fingers around his and squeezes, tightly, with a smile on her face. "This okay?"

He blushes. "Yeah."

When they sit down for food, he's greeted by any standard college diner. The menu is cheap and the coffee is abundant. He orders eggs, and toast, and she orders the sweetest pancakes on the menu like he imagined she would. They tuck in contendly as soon as it's delivered between words of praise.

"I'm so tired," she says once she's eaten nearly half her breakfast.

"I wonder why," he nearly sings. She swats at him from across the table. "I missed you," he says.

"What?"

"While you were sleeping," he admits.

"You're so sweet," she gushes with a smile. She cuts a piece of her pancake and offers it to him. He takes it with a sour face. "Oh, that's right. You don't like sweets."

"You remember that?" he asks.

She nods her head. "I remember everything."

She has no idea, he thinks, what it's truly like to remember everything.

When she's just about finished with her meal, he reminds her, "this is my last day here."

"Are you speaking today?"

"Yes," he says. "At two. And then I was going to hit the road."

"Right." She nods her head. She sighs as she places her fork down, full and sated with her delicious breakfast that she shared with him. "How are you getting to the airport?"

"I was going to uber."

"I'll take you," she says quickly, definitively. "I have a car."

"That would be great." He smiles, softly. "Thank you."

"I'll meet you outside the lecture center and we can walk to the parking lot together." Her tone doesn't leave room for debate, not that Sasuke would want to. He wants to spend as much time with her as possible, like he has since he met her. He's tired of all the space between them, all the space he created himself over the years.

"That sounds good," he agrees softly.

Her lips curl into a blinding smile, one that makes the butterflies in his stomach crash violently against his sides. She's still smiling when he asks for the check, and when she rubs her ankle against his under the table, and when she grabs his hand as they leave.

"I'll see you in a little." She releases his hand with a squeeze and he watches her leave him, not for the first time, as she starts her day.

Sasuke swallows, and readies himself for another lecture that he'll have to navigate knowing he'll never be able to stop thinking about her sweet pussy and her open mouth when she came.

…

It's a short ride to the Suna airport, and Sakura fills it with stories about her sophomore year of college. Sasuke isn't surprised to find out that Sakura is still as studious and dedicated as ever. She goes on about her new friends, and extra-curriculars he used to participate in, too. Sakura is following his footsteps. Sakura wants to be a psychiatrist, too.

Sakura wants to be just like him.

Sasuke swallows as she goes on. He was never a very good mentor, always drove her away and made her waste her time more than she had to. He would rip her analyses to shreds and ignore her when she asked questions. He used to send her around the hospital on wild goose chases just to get her out of his office so he could breathe for a moment. And she still wants to be just like him?

When she trails off about a dog she saw on her way to class during his lecture, he tells her, "I was a shit mentor."

"What?" she scoffs, looking at the road. They're two minutes away from the airport, he can already see the planes in the sky, low and slow. They block the shining sun from his eyes, creating a late afternoon glare as it sets. Her hair is a deep maroon in the building darkness, and she pushes it behind her ears with one hand on the wheel.

"You're following in my footsteps," he says, "but I was awful to you."

"No you weren't—"

"I was," he corrects her. "I tried to be."

Sasuke watches as her face shifts in confusion. Her green eyes widen with what he believes might be hurt. "What?"

"I didn't want…" he trails off; he's mincing words. He shouldn't have said anything. He shouldn't have brought this up. "I didn't want to give you the wrong idea."

"You didn't. I assure you." Sakura takes the exit ramp toward the airport and, because somebody is on his side today, there's no traffic. She enters the airport without issue and they pull into a spot in silence. She turns off the engine quietly and pulls her hair out of her face, tiny hands brushing bangs on her large forehead, her endearing forehead, her perfect forehead. "You weren't a shit mentor, Sasuke. I was… not making it easy."

He raises his eyebrows. "What?"

"I shouldn't…" She sighs. Her eyes look an icy green in the purple and pink setting sun, misty with tears he hopes won't fall. Seeing Sakura cry, even after years of not seeing her, is still his least favorite thing. He'd do anything to take her pain away, if she'd let him.

When she doesn't continue, he pushes her with a small, "go on, please," that deepens her frown.

"Do you remember that party?"

"Which one?"

"The first one," she says. "When I met you for the first time."

"I thought…" he trails off, eyebrows knitting in confusion. "I thought you didn't remember that."

A sour laugh leaves her lips, unfitting and self-deprecating. He hates it. "I'm sorry, I lied to you."

The car fills with silence so thick he could cut it with a knife. This Sakura, this Sakura that tortures herself and laughs painfully, is maybe the first Sakura he wishes he didn't have to see. Even so, he wants every part of her. This part that he thinks he knows just as well as she does, the part of herself that only finds pain when she delves into her deepest self. He knows that pain.

He'll take it away from her if it's the last thing he does.

He knew, even back then, how much Sakura was like him. He hoped it wasn't true, but she feels just as much turmoil and pain inside as he does. He can see it in her wet eyes and trembling lower lip, in the way her hands shake when she fiddles with her hair nervously. Her pain is visceral and takes over a huge part of her life, washes her insecurities in dirt and leaves her confidence buried in the hot, wet soil, to be eaten alive by the worms.

Quietly, he asks, "why did you lie?"

"Because I thought…" she trails off, then says, "you were older, and better looking, and you had this fancy job I wanted, and then I realized…"

"What do you realize?"

"How much I liked you. Even if you smoke cigarettes."

He blinks. "I quit."

It comes so quickly. She's choking on a sob before he can even wrap his arms around her. She shakes like a leaf against him, crying harshly into the collar of his dress shirt, staining it with her tears. They fall freely and Sakura cries like she lives, with abandon. "You quit," she says between sobs, "of course you did."

He plays with her hair as she cries, it's silken and smells like shampoo. "You told me too."

She nods her head in his shoulder. "I did."

They sit in silence as she calms down, interrupted by her small sniffles. Her eyes are red and wide when she pulls away, like she's just taken a painful hit of her first cigarette. The ones he left behind in Konoha.

"I have to catch a plane soon," he tells her. He doesn't want to. He wants to stay with her, in Suna.

"I don't want you to leave," she says exactly what he's thinking.

"I don't want to leave." Sasuke holds her like he'll never let go. He buries his face into her hair and cocoons her delicate neck in his hands. She smells divine, a smell he'd never forget, beautifully floral and sandy, like Sakura. She shifts closer to him, burrows into him like he's the coziest, warmest blanket she's ever wrapped herself in. She sighs so delicately, and it sends a shiver up his already quivering spine.

His plane leaves in less than two hours.

"I visit Konoha," she says.

He shakes his head. "I don't."

"You could," she insists. "I go home every month. I drive there."

"I only travel for lectures," he admits.

"Suna is…" she swallows. "Suna is so far from Oto."

He winces. "I know."

"This can't be…"

"It isn't," he says. "We'll see each other again."

He can see the tears building up in her eyes again. She's painfully beautiful, maybe not the pretty little ballerina that danced around his head, but a gorgeous woman who handles herself with poise and grace. She's grown into her slight features, high cheekbones that are sharp and soft at the same time, full cheeks rosy with her beautiful blush, plush lips he wants to bruise with his kisses. She's taller, and a little curvier, still with small breasts and wide, strong thighs. She looks like she's eating better, and taking better care of herself, and her body. Even if darkness lies within, she also seems more tenacious, like the darkness no longer looms over her, but instead lives with her.

He looks at her, and he's happy he waited.

"I still have your number," she says.

He laughs. "I still have yours."

"You'll call me? And text me?" she asks.

"I don't really text."

"God, you're so old."

He winces. "But I'll call you."

She smiles. "I'll answer."

They watch each other for a long moment, emerald clashing with deep brown. Sasuke cradles her pretty, soft cheeks in his hands and presses a soft kiss to her lips. She tastes like coffee when he presses his tongue against the seam of her mouth, and she opens up with a wonderful groan that goes straight to his lower belly. He doesn't want to start anything he has to stop, but when he makes to pull away, she chases after him with her kiss. It steals his breath away, how much she wants him.

When she finally releases him, the smile that fills her face is the happiest sad thing he's ever seen. It makes his heart beat quicken, how much he wants to kiss it away, how much he wants to take that smile into the backseat of her tiny Civic and have his way with it. Instead, he adjusts himself, and smiles back. "Thank you for driving me."

"Anytime."

She helps him gather his bags from the trunk and offers him another sad smile when he kisses her goodbye. Before he can move, though, she wraps her arms around his waist in a tight hug. He's surprised, at first, and looks around to see if anybody is watching—and nobody is, because they're two adults, hugging goodbye at the airport, as anonymous as anybody else. There's nothing wrong about what they're doing, and Sasuke can stop making himself sick over it.

He buries his face in her neck and hugs her back, just as tightly.