Faceless Desire

There's No Miscommunication If There's No Communication At All

Sasuke quickly dresses and leaves Sakura's apartment before she wakes. The man is in an awed state of disbelief. All those late nights spent talking to Haruki about things he's never said to another living person.... It's been his coworker on the other side of the screen.

Inside his head, it still hasn't sunk in. The person who has been the greatest comfort these past few months is none other than the woman he's harboring unrequited feelings for. More than anything, Sasuke doesn't know what to do. How could Sakura lie to his face like this? He should be angry, and he is, but he's more hurt than anything. Betrayal. It's an emotion he hasn't faced in a long time. That doesn't make it any easier.

After arriving home, he falls lifelessly onto his bed, fully dressed in last night's clothes.

Last night was a mistake. Finding out the truth just hours after abandoning his self-control has to be one of the biggest cases of irony ever recorded. Sasuke should've known better than to think things would end up okay. Sure, he expected repercussions of some sort for sleeping with Sakura, but he never foresaw something of this magnitude, and certainly not how quickly it arrived.

The worst part is that Sasuke can't deny his feelings, at least not to himself. He still likes Sakura. In fact, the magnitude has grown exponentially since he now knows she's helped him through a handful of dark nights and hard conversations. What was once a potentially superficial attraction has become something else overnight. It hurts the man because he isn't sure if she meant all the things she shared and said or if she'd been putting on an act to fool him.

Unconsciously, a memory of Sakura's vulnerable face from last night, her voice saying his name so affectionately, crosses his mind. He curses to himself, burying his face in the pillows. If he could go back and stop himself from going home with her and consequently discovering the truth, he would.

He's distraught that he's lost his closest friend, other than Naruto, and now he's unsure if he'll be able to keep Sakura as his assistant at work. If he can't stand the thought of facing her while he's home alone, how can he possibly look her in the eye and pretend everything is normal on Monday? Maybe he'll assign her to a different department. It's his fault for initiating sex, after all.

A ding chimes from his phone, tearing him from his distress. Sasuke hesitantly picks up the device, holding his breath when he sees Haruki's name on the screen. 'What's up? You never message me this early on a weekend.'

The man doesn't respond. He can't. Not when he knows Sakura is on the receiving end. So, he leaves her on "read".

Sakura lied about her location. She lied about her gender and her name. What else did she lie about? Is there anything between them that's not fake?

He's humiliated and upset. That woman knows how hard it is for him to open up to anyone, even a little, and yet she pulls something like this. All the elation and contentedness he's harbored these past few weeks disappeared when he left her apartment earlier. His head hurts. All he wants to do is stay in bed. He wants to hide away in his condo for so long that Sakura forgets who he is so he doesn't have to deal with the explosion that's bound to happen when she sees him at work on Monday.

No matter how much he ponders, Sasuke simply can't picture the pink-haired woman he's come to know enacting such a scheme. It's too much to be a coincidence. There's no way they were both unaware of one another's identity.

She's manipulative; the best actress he's ever met.

...Right?

.....

When Sakura wakes up the morning after the grand opening party, she's entirely mortified by her actions from the previous night. Not only did she get majorly drunk, but she fought with Kiba Inuzuka, had to be saved by her boss, and even slept with him!