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One winter some years after the almost end of the world: Sakura starts her residency at the hospital, Naruto takes up semi-permanent residence at the ramen cart, and Sasuke comes down with pink eye.
“Amazing!” declares Naruto. He’s tagged along to Sasuke’s hospital visit. “Oh man, turn on your Rinnegan –- come on, let’s have a look, what color would that even be? I swear, dude, your eyes are so fucked up.”
Sasuke, who mostly looks ill, casts a baleful glare at Naruto. “I’ll fuck you up,” he says direly –- but it lacks force. The teary swelling of his right eye doesn’t help.
“Naruto,” says Sakura, with a good pretense at patience, “I have explained to you before the nature of doctor-patient confidentiality, yes?”
“Yes, Sakura-chan,” agrees Naruto obediently.
“Then get out of my office.”
Sakura snaps on latex gloves and shines a light in Sasuke’s eyes. The diagnosis is pretty obvious at this point, but as a matter of professional curiosity Sakura never turns down a chance to inspect Sasuke’s eyes. The number of chakra pathways in them is insane.
“Aren’t we practically family?” Naruto persists. “Don’t keep secrets, Sakura-chan.”
“This is not a secret,” says Sakura. “It’s confidentiality –-” She sets aside her penlight, turns around and squints at Naruto. He’s looking mulish. Naruto is often frustrating and frequently unconventional, but he rarely insists on flouting actual laws. “What’s this about?”
“He’s banned from missions for the rest of the month,” says Sasuke. “Kakashi found about what happened at the castle. You know.”
“The vandalism?” Sakura does know. Sakura had been very vocal in her objections of said vandalism two weeks ago, when they had stayed at the daimyo residence for a mission.
“Now he’s grounded,” says Sasuke, looking as smug as a man with a teary eye could reasonably be expected to look: which was to say, not very, but he made a valiant attempt.
“I’m not grounded,” protests Naruto.
“Yeah, right. I have an A-rank coming up next week, and you can’t come out to play –- that’s grounded, idiot.”
“Are you going on that one, Sakura-chan?” asks Naruto. “You’re not going too, are you?”
“It’s not playing,” Sakura swats at Sasuke’s head. She reaches over and swats at Naruto too. “And you: stop acting like we’re off to have fun without you -– it’s work, all right? It’s very serious.”
“Nara says there’s an eight-headed, eight-tailed snake terrorizing the lower basin region –- an actual fucking dragon,” says Sasuke with gleeful relish, because he’s an eight year old at heart and also because he’s an asshole who can’t resist rubbing salt in other people’s wounds.
“I hate you,” says Naruto feelingly.
“Children,” says Sakura; and then she throws Naruto out of her office, and drags Sasuke with her to the pharmacy, intending to drug him to the gills with various antibiotics because, in addition to being an eight-year-old and an asshole, Uchiha Sasuke has the most fucked up immune system Sakura has ever seen. It defies every principle of pharmacology.
“Can’t do anything about the viral conjunctivitis,” says Sakura. “It’ll probably clear up by itself in a week or so. As for the bacterial component, do you want to try -–”
“No,” says Sasuke. “It’ll clear up by itself as well. Stop peddling me drugs.”
“I wasn’t peddling drugs,” scowls Sakura, though she had been. Sasuke’s drug-resistance offends her at a personal level.
“We’re at the pharmacy just for laughs, sure. What cocktail of poisons did you want to try on me today?”
“Not poisons,” protests Sakura. “I took an oath to do no harm.”
Sasuke makes a face at her, a funny combination of eye roll and mouth flattening, and by that expression indicates: first, that the conflation of patient and drug experiment subject, as demonstrated by her current actions, is highly ethically dubious; second, that all medicines in some form and at some dose are poisons; third, he saw her punch Sai in the face at the grocery market last weekend and what with the broken nose and fractured vertebrae, even if she did heal him immediately afterwards, she also definitely did harm.
“Fuck you,” says Sakura, and misses the days when she thought Sasuke was the most handsomely expressionless boy in the Academy.
This Sasuke, twenty-something years old and tall as a tree, one-armed and sometimes one-eyed and currently sniffling with cold-like symptoms: this Sasuke tells her to leave well enough alone, because there’s no point creating drug-resistant bacteria just because she underdosed him on quinolone-derivatives, and when Sakura deflates and agrees that this is a sensible argument, nudges her and invites her out for drinks.
“Today?”
Sasuke waves vaguely at his eyes. “When this gets better.”
“Are you buying?”
“Haruno-san,” says Sasuke, dry as the winds in sand country, “don’t I always?”
Not quite a week later, as Sakura is walking home from the hospital, Sasuke falls into step beside her. He tilts his head in invitation. She smiles.
They stop by a corner convenience store and pick up some bottles of yuzu-flavored chuhai and bags of potato chips, and then wander back out into the winter night. The evening is blue-tinted, but light from neighboring houses spill out from the windows warm and yellow. They leave the village center. Snow crunches quietly underfoot as they cross the field behind the academy. Sakura exhales in a rush and watches her breath hang in the air in a cloud, pale in the moonlight.
“Do smoke rings next,” says Sasuke, a note of laughter lurking in his voice.
“You know I can’t,” complains Sakura.
They come up to the playground, always smaller than Sakura remembers from when she had been a student. Sakura takes a turn on the slide -– a tight fit –- and then joins Sasuke perched on the monkey bars. He hands her a bottle of chuhai. She tears open a bag of potato chips, and they drink quietly for a little while.
“How do you know I would have underdosed you?” Sakura asks at length. “With the quinolones, I mean.”
He slants her an amused look, as if to ask, You’re still hung up on that? He says, “Because you always underdose me.”
“I was going to give you a massive amount this time,” Sakura says. “like, truly, terribly past the upper dosing limit.”
“They don’t work on me, Sakura,” says Sasuke. “Any of the meds.”
Sakura worries at her bottom lip, chapped in the cold. “That’s not good,” she says glumly. “One day you’ll show up on my operating table, and there’ll be no antibiotic or anticoagulant that’ll work.”
Sasuke shrugs, apparently not overly concerned about this eventuality.
Sakura frowns at him. “Be more worried,” she tells him.
He turns to looks at her, eyes darker than the night. He hands her his chuhai bottle. Leaning forward so that their breaths in the cold mist together, Sasuke raises his hand and forms it into a fist –- a cheer of encouragement, Sakura realizes in outrage, as he says, “Do your best.”
“What the fuck,” complains Sakura, kicking at his shins. Sasuke leans back, takes back his chuhai, tucks his legs away from her kicks. He’s laughing in little hiccups. “Not me, asshole, worry about yourself,” Sakura swears -– but not really angry. She’s never really angry when Sasuke laughs like this.
He taps his feet against her ankles, mimicking how she had kicked him. “I don’t need anticoagulants,” he tells her. “I have you.”
A lifetime ago, when her hair had still been long, Sakura would have been flustered by such declarations -– flustered and flattered, blushing to think it hinted at some meaningful intent. But Sakura has cut her hair in war, and she isn’t that schoolgirl anymore; so she is able to laugh and chide Sasuke for his presumption.
He smiles in reply, small and fond and almost sad. It is a strangely nostalgic expression -– Sakura cannot remember when she had seen it before. The next moment, Sasuke asks her about the progress of her research, and they lose some time to the discussion of chakra-enhanced enzyme kinetics. He is not himself an academic, but he seems to have picked up enough biochemistry to ask intelligent questions.
Eventually, the discussion winds down into a familiar wheedling for Sasuke to come work at the lab -– his eyes! exclaims Sakura, what his eyes could see with chakra markers! -– but he refuses as always. Sakura takes a deep breath of the winter air. It stings her nose and throat. Her fingers are going cold; she fumbles her free hand into his coat pocket. Sasuke puts off heat like a furnace and his pockets are always warm.
“Yes, yes, yes,” grumbles Sasuke, and shifts to allow her better access to his coat pocket.
Smiling and pleased, Sakura clinks her chuhai bottle again his. They drink quietly for a while. Eventually, Sakura finishes her bottle, makes a face, and decides, “I don’t like yuzu. Let’s not get this flavor again. Let’s get the ume flavored ones next. Or -– actually, let’s just get sake next time. We’ll heat it and put it in a thermos, pack some side dishes, maybe some squid; it’ll be nice.”
“A picnic of alcohol,” he laughs at her. “Just like you. Haruno-san,” he says, eyes bright again, “have you considered? You may have a drinking problem.”
She kicks his legs again. “Asshole,” she says, affectionately.
To own the truth, Sakura and Sasuke have in fact been keeping a secret from Naruto. Sakura ponders on this as they collect their things and head home -– it has been bothering her for some time. “Hey,” she says. “I’ve been thinking. Do you want … I mean, should we –- tell Naruto?”
“Tell him what?” Sasuke takes one of her hands in his, and puts them in his coat pocket.
“Thanks,” says Sakura.
He shrugs, a gesture Sakura more feels by the motion of his arm than actually sees.
Recalling the subject at hand, she sobers, reddens, flustered. “How we … sometimes … you know …”
Ge peers down at her. Very blandly, he says, “What do we do sometimes, Sakura?”
She huffs, embarrassed and annoyed. Really, Sasuke can be such a terrible person. “Have -– have sex, all right? There. I’m not ashamed to say it. We’re fuck buddies.”
“Is that what they call it these days?”
“What do you mean, these days, grandpa?”
“Kinky,” says Sasuke. “Are you into that?”
“You’re horrible. No. I just meant -– it’s not like we’re dating, what other term would you use?”
When he doesn’t answer, Sakura looks up. He’s peering at her with a quizzical expression, thoughtful but shuttered. After a beat, Sasuke blinks and agrees, “Right.”
“And you know how Naruto last week was all –- ‘Don’t keep secrets from me!’ Now we’re going on a mission without him and -– just. Hasn’t he been really strange lately? I thought he grew out of his graffiti phase, but then during that last mission! And now all this about secrets and acting so clingy and getting grounded.”
Speaking, she curls her hand around Sasuke’s wrist, two fingers resting on his pulse point. He slants his eyes in her direction, dryly amused. “Are you checking my pulse?”
“No,” she lies. It’s somehow a reassuring thing to feel: how slowly his heart beats; what a strong heart it must be.
Sasuke considers her some few moments longer, but says nothing more on the subject. He turns his gaze to the snow crunching underfoot; after some few dozen more steps, he decides, “I don’t want to tell Naruto.”
“All right.”
“Not yet,” amends Sasuke. “He has a lot going on right now. You know the council’s hasn’t been kind with him.”
“Those old fuddy-duddies,” mutters Sakura. “Kakashi-sensei doesn’t want to be Hokage for the next eighty years, that’s not Naruto’s fault.”
Sasuke is quiet for the next few blocks. Sakura lets him sort through his thoughts. Eventually, he says, “I told him he should marry Hinata.”
Sakura, startled, stumbles to a halt. Sasuke continues a few more steps, but –- tethered by her arm -– he’s pulled to a stop as well. He glances back at her.
“Hinata!” exclaims Sakura. “Marry her? What! Naruto? Naruto’s never even looked at her before! He barely knew her name in the Academy!”
“Yes,” agrees Sasuke. He tugs on her hand and they start walking again. “A … political marriage, I meant. Hyuuga has a lot of pull with the council: they’re an important family in Konoha.”
Sakura glares up at him. It seems wrong, unnatural. Naruto -– the most sincere, genuine person she knows –- marrying for political ambitions. What a cold-hearted transaction. She doesn’t like it.
“Naruto didn’t like it either,” admits Sasuke. He hesitates, and it’s strange enough that Sakura pays attention to his next words. “But it’s not so uncommon, Sakura. Not for people like Hinata. She’ll be clan head. It’s expected of her.”
“But Naruto,” protests Sakura.
“Naruto needs someone like her. Heroism isn’t the same as respectability.”
“Naruto didn’t even manage to cheat during the cheating portion of the chuunin exams! He bleeds sincerity. He takes everything personally. You think he can negotiate a marriage like this, for respectability, like it’s some trade agreement between two countries --”
“Like it’s an alliance,” frowns Sasuke. “He’s completely capable of alliances.”
“He doesn’t love her,” cries Sakura. “And how is this fair at all to Hinata? What do you mean, it’s expected of her? To be married for her connections? Because of her family? Like she’s not a person!”
She breaks off, realizing that they have reached her apartment building. She disentangles her hand from his. “Are you coming up?”
But Sasuke is not finished. He shakes his head. “She likes him and she can help him –- only she can help him like this. So the balance of affection isn’t equal. What of it? That doesn’t mean she’s unwilling. He has a problem and she is uniquely able to -–”
“What, do you think he’ll fall in love with her out of gratitude?” scoffs Sakura.
Sasuke stares at her stonily. After some moments, he says in the flattest tone she’s ever heard from him, “You’re right. No true feelings have ever been born from gratitude. That’s not possible.”
Sakura rolls her eyes. “I want for them more than just gratitude –-”
“It must be love at first sight or nothing; there is no place for –- for growing to know a person, or to be moved by goodness -–”
“Her family and connections are not the extent of her goodness –- ”
“Her willingness to leverage her family connections -–”
“Hair splitting! Semantics!”
For one mad moment, they glare at each other, ready to come to blows. Sakura is stronger, but Sasuke is faster. She doesn’t know if her punches would land. But he is swordless tonight, and his one-handed seals are still not up to speed. For a moment, Sakura is tempted.
Then the moment passes. Sakura deflates, and Sasuke grimaces; she shoves his shoulder and he flicks her on the forehead, and like that, they are friends again. “Go home,” he says, rough.
“You go home,” Sakura shoots back. She plants herself on the sidewalk under a street lamp, hands akimbo. “Don’t be scared of the dark,” she calls after him, saccharine. “I’ll watch you go.”
“I’m not scared of the dark.” He bares his teeth at her, as if to say, I’m scarier than anything in the dark; and Sakura, laughing, watches him dissolve into the shadows with the same practiced grace as when they had learned the technique at thirteen.
Sakura isn’t blind.
She knows what Sasuke looks like. She knows how broad his shoulders are, and the sharp cut of his hipbones, and the delicate turn of his ankles; the clean lines of his jaw and the sharpness of his cheekbones and the elegant sweep of his collarbones. It’s no great mystery why they first fell into bed together.
And then -–
She likes him there, in her bed. He’s always warm, and he has neat habits. He never eats in bed, doesn’t leave clothes strewn about, hangs up bath towels after he’s used them. He doesn’t complain about her hair clogging the shower drain. Most importantly, Sasuke is surprisingly well suited for physical affection: of course he’s good at sex, Sakura doesn’t think a person trained to pay so much attention to the physical state of others could be bad at sex; but Sasuke is also content to stay in bed afterwards and lets her cuddle as much as she wants. He turns on the bedside lamp and pulls out that morning’s newpaper and reads to her about the new cidery that’s opening and the zoning amendments passed by the village council.
Sometimes they sleep; sometimes Sasuke squints at the wall clock and rolls out of bed and pulls on his jeans and leaves with a soft, “See you” over his shoulder. They keep things casual. Casual and fun and light. Convenient.
It’s great.
In truth, Sakura is too busy for a boyfriend, has no need for a boyfriend, prefers the single life, is dating medicine. Besides, the last time she loved a boy, he went on to almost destroy the world, and she nearly turned traitor to join him, and then she tried to kill him. That kind of thing makes a girl wary of relationships. It makes her reassess her priorities in life.
It’s better like this. Better that they have their own lives and own careers and own priorities. Sometimes they have dinner together. Sometimes they have sex. Sometimes they drink cheap alcohol on the Academy playground. No one tries to destroy the village, no one cries about their heart being broken, no one derails their entire life to prove some romantic point.
Sakura does not regret her decade of devoted romantic pining, exactly, but she has learned that there worlds and worlds outside of Sasuke. There are things other than love to which one can aspire: lives to save, and anko dumplings to eat, and trees to climb and walls to punch and mountains to level. And one day, Sakura knows, one day she will be hospital director and hold the lives of everyone in the village in the palm of her hand.
There are great, great things meant for her. The world is so very large.
And yet –-
Puttering around the kitchen that night, making a pot of ramen to soak up the alcohol, Sakura thinks about Nartuo and about Hinata and about marrying for convenience.
What unutterable hypocrisy it would be for her to rail against relationships of convenience, as if that were not the basis of her buddyfucking.
And yet, and yet, and yet –-
She considers calling Sasuke back, to share a pot of ramen with him and discuss less realpolitik ways of securing Naruto’s Hokage-candidacy. Is such dogged pragmatism necessary? she wants to ask. Is there no room for ideological appeal? Does personal character count for nothing? Had Naruto not saved the world?
Instead, Sakura finishes the ramen by herself, puts the pot in the sink and leaves it to wash the next morning, and goes to bed with an uneasy heart.