Published on: 02.04.18
Words: 2.6k
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Sakura Uchiha Haruno's small world crashed to the ground and shattered like fragments of glass the day she learnt of cruel reality. She now walks naked on that ground.
Her bravery is escaping her fast and despite every effort she has put into hiding the fact, she knows nothing can be hidden from his all-knowing eyes. And she knows that she is hurting him and hates herself for it.
Two eyes and a heart, all injured and crying tears of blood, ache worse than the glass beneath her feet.
She is through pretending that she can brave this. And Sakura is so angry. She hates him right now, for putting her through this. She blames him for his disease, because she does not know who else to blame. Her breath comes in short bursts of painful oxygen, between sobs that feel more like agonizing fits.
Once, crying used to help her feel better. Now it only leaves her with a hollow feeling. Its a never ending lake of pain and she is on her knees in the glass covered ground.
Reality is too real right now and she needs to escape. And she knows he is watching her leave once more from the couch. He blames himself for her pain too. And she is adding to his pain, but right now she doesn't care. Because she cannot breathe - not if she is looking at him.
She is slowly dying too, for he has been her oxygen for so long. And with him gone, she cannot go on. The shattered glass pierces her skin and then she is bleeding through her very bones.
His pain will be over in a matter of months, but hers will go on for much, much longer, forced to live when she'd die along with him. He understands that and he knows that he was the only thing on the planet that could ever break her spirit. So, destiny chose to use him.
He wraps her in a jacket and guides her gently out of the mass of drunk people in the loud club. Two years ago, he could not even put Sakura and club in the same sentence. Since receiving the news of his impending doom, he has helplessly watched her slowly break, pretend and then, watched her mask fall away.
She sobs into her pillow at night and washes the covers every morning before he wakes up. She thinks he can't tell why, all of a sudden, his wife has become a neat freak.
He wants to hold her to him when they sleep, but she has drawn an invisible line between them. He doesn't think she has any other choice but to be angry, or the pain will swallow her whole. He doesn't blame her, but he misses her. He wants to change the situation, to heal, to wipe her tears that belong to him, but he finds himself useless.
She has woken up clutching her heart and grasping for air again. He is soothing her and holding her and breathing into her again. It is not the first time her panic attack has happened. The doctor has told them, her mind is trying to reveal the pain she is concealing behind her anger. As if he did not already know that.
His wife is walking on glass. He has the soft cushion of death as the final end of this physical and emotional curse, but his wife will walk on glass stained with his blood forever after him. Without him.
She feels pain not just in her heart but also her body. Everywhere he hurts physically, so does she. He had heard of sympathy pain, but he hates that she loves him as much as to have to suffer through it.
It will pass, says the doctor. Will it?
They are nearing the third month now. Her anger has almost faded, followed by a depressed, resigned woman. She has accepted the inevitable. He is guiltily relieved at this - at least she is not driving herself mad.
The glass is tearing her muscle and lodging in her bones, but not letting her bleed out. It never will. She is meant to suffer this pain. And she is.
So, instead of trying to hide from the truth, she takes the bullet to her chest and thinks that its only some fifty odd years - less, if she does not care enough for her health - before she can see him again.
With that in mind, she sometimes mourns into his chest and sometimes, his lap. She no longer blames him. She will love him to the best of her abilities as her farewell. He will not die a tormented soul on her account.
But by some miracle of Heaven, the doctor after his check-up that month, tells them that he is no longer going to die. Her heart stops beating and her feet give out beneath her. She sinks to the floor and the tears are unstoppable as Sasuke hugs and kisses her.
She does not know what is what anymore. She cannot believe this. She doesn't. But then months pass and he is still there. And he is so much better. He hardly takes a pill per day, no more. Her torn and tattered heart finally starts to mend.
And he is so happy to see her happy again. He can finally breathe too, feeling as if he had been starved of oxygen this whole time. So, destiny wasn't so against them, after all. And he is sure she mirrors the feeling.
She has been making him his favorite meals every morning, now that he is free to eat what he likes. She is no longer taking life for granted ever again. Their future will never be planned again. No. They will live in the moment.
She is smiling and humming to herself as she walks down the road. She even answers her phone with a chirp to her voice - she only remembers doing that in high school! But she is so happy. The voice on the other line is broken though. Of a friend. And then, she goes numb.
Sasuke's car was hit by a truck and he died on the spot, he tells her.
Her phone drops on the road and is crushed beneath a passing car's wheel. Just like her. She is frozen to the spot as if her soul has been ripped out of her. She is just too numb to cry.
His casket has been lowered and she has still not cried. To give her hope, allow her to believe and then to tear it away from her. She doesn't have the ability to understand the cruelty anymore.
And then, two nights later, as she looks at herself in the mirror, wearing his shirt and pants and cloak, wrapped in his smell, something flickers in her blank green eyes and her lips stretch.
She is now rolling naked in the shattered glass by herself, laughing. She is laughing at the irony of destiny. She loves the blood oozing from her skin and she loves her torn soul. It will always remind her of him. He has not left her. He will never leave her.
Physically, her body is shaking with wracks of laughter in a sound too foreign to her ears, because since when did it sound like that? And she is laughing as she retches her guts out. She cannot seem to stop. Because of course he is not gone forever! He is right here!
Days and days pass, she cannot tell anymore. Her house never stinks of her vomit though - she keeps everything squeaky clean - because then it won't smell like him. Their best friend is appalled when he visits her, eyes wide with fear and something more primal. He knows immediately what is wrong.
Against her wishes, he carries her out, informing her along the way that she has been holed up in the house for four months. When did he visit? She cannot even recall. Eh, who cares! She still has him.
She recognizes the white of hospital and her laughter ceases. This is the place where he was first attempted to be taken away from her. She struggles out of his grip, but Naruto is unforgiving and very, very angry.
Inside the chambers, he catches her before she can crash to the floor because she has had enough shocks for one lifetime. Yet, once more, the ground is shifting underneath her feet and she is as helpless to stop it as the day she was told that Sasuke will die.
But Naruto is whispering soothing phrases in her ear and she wants to cry now. After months of strange emotions and piercing numbness, she wants to cry.
He is always taking care of her. Even when he is gone from this world, he is taking care of her. And she cannot collect any more thoughts than that, because she has finally, finally submitted to gut wrenching pain even with dawn just around the corner.
And he is there again, reminding her of his presence. She can feel the chill she has come to associate with him and she clutches her stomach because her sanity now depends on it.
Naruto is instantly on his knees beside her, the pain of his best friend's loss refreshed in his blue eyes, but there is something else too. He is angry. And this time she understands it. But she is not in control of herself anymore than she has been since that gravely unfateful day.
She somehow finds herself back in his car. He is sitting beside her like a solid wall of strength and she knows its selfish but she needs to draw on that strength because despite everything, she still cannot find hers.
Then, Naruto does something. Something that Sasuke would have done and she loses her breath and finds it in that one breathtaking moment. He reaches out and puts his palm across her belly and softly tells her that this is where he has placed his essence. This is how he is going to be with her till the end of her days.
She feels a chill, but her body is working. Her tattered body, covered in blood and glass stills and she turns, placing her palms on the ground and pushes. She pushes till she is on her knees again, pushes till she is standing again.
Of course he will take care of her. He always has and he still is.
Once she walks through the doors of their bedroom, she locks it behind herself, because Naruto is insistent upon not leaving her alone and she learns that he has been going back and forth here for quite some time - she could not seem to remember before this but now that she really strains her mind, she remembers waiting for the man to leave till she was alone again.
Alone with him.
At the thought, she glances up. And there she finds him, leaning against the wall, dark hair matting his beautiful face, a divine smile upon his lips and onyx eyes glinting at her - just like the first day they met. A knowing look is in his expression now, though.
He does not speak, however. He never speaks. Now that she is ..more sane.. she wonders if all spirits keep silent or just him and decides soon that she does not care, because she has just discovered that he knew all along. Her palm flies to her belly and she gazes at his form, still leaning, though the lack of movement of his chest does not go unnoticed by her. It has stopped unsettling her too much.
You knew, she accuses. This whole time, you knew.
He nods and adopts a boyish look that is only very Sasuke-like and it makes her heart flutter and she loses it. She demands an explanation, but he only looks on at her. She does not care anymore that Naruto is outside, but wonders if Sasuke can even hear her. He has never answered her directly before and he is not doing so now.
There is no knock on her door this time, for the blonde man breaks right through, blue eyes concerned, frustrated and angry. Sakura freezes. He stilll leans against the wall nonchalantly though. Perhaps, he is a hallucination and she really has lost her mind to grief, thinks she, as Naruto opens his mouth to scold her.
He freezes in his tracks too then, his eyes following the same as hers, stopping at where her dead husband is leaning. The color drains from Naruto's face, understanding dawning in his eyes as he looks straight at the spirit of his best friend.
He is stuttering his name and now, hers. This whole time, he breathes, which is much more than what Sasuke can do right now and promptly, tears fill his eyes.
You were with me all this time, she finally speaks again, softly though, voice on the edge of breaking. Was it for this? She rubs her stomach.
He smiles a little wider and Naruto gasps beside her.
You wouldn't let go, he finally utters, gently, as if he understands.
Her eyes go wide as saucers, because he has never spoken before and with a sinking feeling, she realizes, he will never again. She watches his sparkling eyes lower to her stomach and a wide smile carves itself upon his face as he meets her gaze.
She instinctively clutches her belly again as tears brim, for she knows now, that he must go. He has taken care of her - not just in life and death, but even after. She needs to let go of him. He must go. I'll be okay, she promises, as much to herself as to him.
He nods and extends an arm forward. She feels his intended touch against her right cheek in the form of a cold and gentle caress of a breeze. His eyes move to his best friend, who has finally sobered. He does not speak, but an understanding passes between them - one that exists between old friends and Naruto tells him, I'll take care of her.
He gives them one last smile - a peaceful acceptance and calm in it - and just like that, the room is empty again. This time, she knows, he is really not coming back. Her tears fall fast and hard and she collapses against Naruto, who cannot seem to hold his own tears very well.
Five months later, she holds a beautiful girl in her arms. She is a hauntingly beautiful reflection of her father and they decide to call her Sarada. Her tears are of joy today and though a dull ache of his absence remains in her chest, he has given her something to look forward to and someone to love and cherish as she did him.
She has walked on glass, rolled naked in it and stood back up to get here. She pulls the piercing fragments from her skin and tosses them aside, wipes the blood from her skin and where once she saw darkness and misery, she sees a sun rising.
With Sarada in her arms, Naruto by her side and Sasuke's memories in her soul, she takes her first step toward it.
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