Bruises & Bitemarks (SasuNaru)

78.

When I wake up the following grey-sky morning, the first thing I want to do is go back to sleep and never wake up again. My chest burns with guilt and worry; I'm deathly afraid of what Sasuke might say, how he feels, what might happen to us. I lay immobile, dreading his awakening, wishing for time to stop here and now.

When I sense Sasuke's presence stir behind me, my pulse goes on overdrive. I clutch the sheets, still facing away from Sasuke, wide-eyed in terror. He rubs his eyes sleepily, turns to look at me – I can feel his eyes on the back of my head; oh, god, I can feel his gaze, he's going to—

And then he stands up and drags himself to the bathroom.

The click of the bathroom door is like the needle that pops my balloon of tension. I deflate, flopping out on the bed. Then I bury my face in the pillow and try not to cry.

I stay stock still, listening to the sound of the shower, not moving when it stops, or when Sasuke goes down the hall, or when he comes back and tapes a note to my back (I hold my breath and fear he might feel my frantic heartbeat), or when he leaves the house. I stay where I am.

I return to a turbulent sleep, drifting on the line between sleep and wakefulness, images of half-dreams haunting me and crumbling my rest. I awake a second time much later in the day. It's started to rain, wet drops pattering gently on the window. I check the note Sasuke left me, crumpled from how I've tossed and turned. All it says is Out.

I sigh deeply and roll onto my back, staring at Sasuke's handwriting. At least he felt okay enough to leave me a note in the usual way, although I was hiding my face so he couldn't tape it on my forehead. Is that a sign that he's okay, or is it just a habit he's gotten so used to that he didn't even connect it with last night? Is he still hurting? Physically? Emotionally? Even though we had sex again afterwards, the way we were used to it, it didn't have the same feel. There was no love; there wasn't even really lust. It was just us trying, and failing, to fix our broken hearts.

Didn't Shiroi and Takeshi go through something similar? They said they tried, and it didn't work out very well, and they very nearly broke up. Sasuke hasn't kicked me out of the house yet; he still left me a note, meaning he wants me to know where he is. But not really. "Out" doesn't tell me anything. The only thing he's done is ignore me.

I think Sasuke has a tendency to ignore me when things go wrong. Like he needs to separate us, to figure things out on his own without my presence clouding his thoughts. At least, I hope that's what he's doing. It's better than what I do, running away. At least he seems to be more rational about it, and not afraid of being near me. Just afraid of talking to me. In a way, we both like to avoid our problems.

I hope he has an umbrella. The rain is picking up outside.

Most of all, I hope he doesn't hate me. I feel awful. I wanted so much just to give him this; he did sincerely seem to want it, and I wasn't too sure about but I thought it would work out okay, like it did the very first time. I didn't think it would turn out like this. I hurt him. I hurt both of us, and the feeling of incompetence doesn't hold a candle to my guilt for causing him so much harm. If only I could've read the signs... If only I'd realized I was hurting him, I could have stopped the pain sooner and maybe it wouldn't be so much of a disaster.

Eventually hunger drives me to my feet, because it's already late afternoon and I haven't eaten since dinner last night. Unwilling to commit to a full meal in case Sasuke should return, I traipse over to the cupboard to find something to sate my stomach for the moment. After a whole pint of Sasuke's favourite red bean ice cream and a can of pop, however, I still feel so empty that I stop out of futility.

After a while, I figure out that it's not my stomach that's empty, but my heart. You'd expect this to be obvious, wouldn't you? And still Sasuke's not home.