Chapter 1
Memories are probably the most powerful thing Sasuke has known—memories of his childhood, memories of that night, memories of nooks and corners of rooms he has stayed in over the years enduring the consequences of the past. They accumulate somewhere inside him, layer after layer, and are set free at night like papers of a book free from its binding. Their freedom often meant his imprisonment. Sasuke is locked in the past. Although he never learned how to break free, he learned how to live with it—how to adapt.
Naruto is talking nonstop like always, pouring his heart out over a few glasses of sake. He can never hold alcohol well. Sasuke, on the other hand, has an unnaturally high tolerance and prefers to remain silent. He knows that with Naruto, he never has to do the talking. In fact, sometimes he doesn’t even have to do the listening. Naruto knows his friend well enough to not read into his general lack of enthusiasm. And for this and a million other things, Sasuke would never admit his gratitude but that never meant its absence.
“You know who else I miss? Sasuke! Are you listening?” Naruto draws everyone’s attention to their table.
“Can you keep it down?” Sasuke says under his breath. But Naruto doesn’t seem to heed his request.
“I miss Jiraiya,” he continues with teary drunken eyes, “Sasuke, let me tell you-” Naruto retches and cups his hands over his mouth as he lurches forward. Sasuke immediately pushes him back to his seat.
“That’s it. We’re done.” He slams the money on the table and gets up from his chair.
“No, we’re not.”
After almost wrestling with Naruto, he manages to get his friend on his feet. Although he can’t walk straight, he can walk. He drops Naruto at his house where a worried Hinata waits for him. She thanks Sasuke over and over as she takes Naruto inside. The moment he’s out of their compound, Sasuke is facing the moon hanging overhead. The night has progressed well and there’s not much noise on this side of the street. Lights are off in almost all of the houses. He takes in the crisp air and accepts the chills the cold brings. He should go back to his apartment.
Sasuke, on returning to Konoha had a rough start. Trying to find accommodation with his reputation was a hassle but he managed somehow with Naruto’s help. Although the both of them spend a lot of time together now that he’s back, the people of Konoha have very polar opinions about the two. Naruto is the universally loved war hero and Sasuke is…well the exact opposite. He naturally doesn’t care about such things but it sure brings him trouble in situations where he must inevitably interact with strangers around him.
His landlord flinches every time he speaks. When Sasuke enters a store, kids are pulled away from him. It doesn’t necessarily upset him when he realizes that he is known as a criminal. And people are not really wrong nor can they be blamed. Whether they know the entire story or not is not his concern. If anything, he prefers it to be this way. Nobody dares talk to him unless they absolutely have to and he can go about his tasks in peace. This is even ideal.
Sasuke lived in one of the two apartments on the first floor of a building in which he was the sole resident. The ground floor is non-residential and it has been put up for sale. When Sasuke reaches the front of the building he sees stacks of cardboard boxes and packing parchments scattered on the floor. Did someone finally buy the ground floor? Unbothered, he takes the stairs to his apartment when he hears footsteps growing louder and louder followed by the sound of two women speaking from upstairs.
“I genuinely can’t stay for the night. I have an early shift tomorrow.”
“Fine. You win. Reach home safely, okay?”
A door closes.
It has been two weeks since he left Konoha for a mission. Instead of coming home to a vacant apartment, for once Sasuke decided to accept Naruto’s invitation to have drinks.
All this change within a couple of weeks? As he slowly makes his way upstairs, he realizes that the footsteps are approaching closer to him. Finally, when he stands facing the final flight of stairs to his unit, she stands near his door ready to come down. Her hair is a mess and there’s an overflowing unzipped bag that she’s somehow managing to carry without spilling its contents. Sakura stares at him for a few seconds and begins to speak, “I er- what-” she attempts. But she can’t seem to understand why Sasuke of all the people would show up here. He feels that Sakura expects him to explain and so he does, “I live here. You’re standing next to the door of my apartment.”
“OH!” She immediately moves away from the door as if her touching the handle would mar it, a testament to the far-stretching distance that has settled between them, “Sure, of course.” Although she’s just a few steps away from him, he’s suddenly aware they’re still miles away from each other.
Sasuke doesn’t move yet. She must have taken this pause as him waiting for an explanation from her. He wasn’t. But Sakura elaborates anyway.
“Uh, so Ino just moved in right next to you then.”
Sasuke remembers Ino. The loud blonde-haired girl who was his classmate. Now he’s her neighbor?
“Right.” He says. Both of them begin moving simultaneously. When they’re on the same level of the narrow staircase, he leans to the wall. He notices she steps away too. However they try, the scent of her hair doesn’t escape him. It smells like vanilla and warmth and sleep. And just briefly, for a fraction of a second, their hands graze but none of them stop to react. He inserts the keys and the door opens in seconds. By the time it shuts behind him, Sakura has reached the ground floor.
He enters his apartment and sighs at the darkness stretching in front of him. After what seems like an eternity, he decides to take his coat off and move to the bedroom. The bed looks cold and uncomfortable embellished with patterns of the metal bars on the window drawn by the moonlight. Sasuke never sleeps in his bed. He drops his belongings in the bedroom and proceeds to the living area to turn on the TV which soon becomes the only source of light in his apartment. Sasuke sits on his couch and stares at the light. The noise from the TV takes up the whole place and he waits for exhaustion to conquer him in the same way and save him from himself.
After hours of lying awake, the sound from the TV finally muffles. He stands at the precipice of consciousness waiting for that final nudge to haul him into sleep. Sasuke suddenly feels his muscles tense and he knows what's coming and he is helpless. He is being shown the moon and he would’ve believed it to be the same as tonight’s. But he has seen this and experienced it too many times to know that it's not. Pictures of the Uchiha compound begin to flash through his mind. He knows this story. He has it memorized.
Not tonight too. He wants to sleep at least tonight. The desire takes over him and he mumbles semiconsciously. Something nice, something nice, give me something nice. His forehead wrinkles in concentration. Please, something nice. Please.
Everything goes blank. And then Itachi appears like a miracle.
“Sasuke, it’s time to go home.”
The sand between his toes looks like grains of gold, the same color as the setting sun shining against the Uchiha crests on their back.
“Nee-san,” his tiny arms extend towards his brother. Itachi’s eyes turn a shade of brown when he stands against the sun to pick him up.
Sleep comes over Sasuke like a blanket and he can almost feel the warmth of the sun in his dream fighting against the cold of the night. The next scene, however, is least expected. The vanilla scent arrives with great intensity like she’s right next to him. Just before his brain shuts down, he catches a glimpse of messy pink locks in his dream and senses the freshly familiar heat against the back of his palm. But before Sasuke can think, he is, after many sleepless nights, descending the spirals of slumber.
Soon the first few rays of sunlight fall shyly on Konoha like a blessing. Sasuke is asleep–a strange occurrence in itself–on his couch even at the break of dawn. As if caught in a good dream, the faintest of smiles adorn his lips.
–
“Guess who I ran into.”
“Can’t guess. I’m way too tired.”
“Sakura didn’t we agree that you need to do other things than working?”
Sakura gives Ino a look. “I have a boyfriend,” she says. Ino dramatically chokes on her drink, “Kaito would be happy to hear you say that.”
Sakura was just done with her shift and was on her way home when Ino showed up and dragged her to get coffee. She went on about how she looked like she hadn’t eaten anything for days. Sakura easily gave in; she could use a coffee. This led to her sitting in a cafe at noon, provided with food and Konoha’s latest gossip.
“Right! I forgot to tell you who I ran into. You won’t believe me,” Ino’s eyes sparkle with excitement. She looks like she cannot contain it anymore. Sakura nods for her friend to continue.
“Sasuke! Uchiha Sasuke! Can you believe it?” Ino whispers like she’s revealing bad news, “You know what’s crazier? He’s my neighbor.”
Sakura joins in the conversation with the enthusiasm Ino desires. For some reason, she doesn’t mention their meeting last night. When Sakura learned that Sasuke had come back, the first thing she felt was relief. His return meant that he was safe. Although there existed a part of her that expected him to reach out to her; the part of her she wouldn’t acknowledge, she had moved on with her life. She never found herself near him partially because she was busy and partially because when she was not, she was with Kaito or her friends. The feelings that were once all she knew about, the certainty of her love for him, and her determination to be with him slowly dwindled with time, and now it was barely there. It’s been a month since his return and they’ve seen each other around the town. There were times during his absence when she dreamed of his arrival. She often wondered how they would interact. Young Sakura would’ve fantasized about him holding her in his arms and spinning her around like they do in movies. Teen Sakura would have expected them to be friends at least, while hoping to be more. Now, she simply chooses not to wonder. Sasuke is back and well and she decides to leave it there.
“Sakura, pause,” Ino looks at her with narrowed eyes, “You already knew this didn’t you?”
She should have known. Sakura and Ino have been friends for years. Nothing gets past her and so she ends up telling her about their encounter anyway. There’s no reason not to. And yet, she leaves the part where her heart sank at the sound of his voice. For talking to him was finally accepting how distant they had become, how it felt so familiar and unfamiliar all at once, how she was forced to relive the strength of the emotions that once existed, now a phantom. The supposedly insignificant exchange triggered in her, the recollection of the times the three of them laughed and cried and waited for Kakashi. Sakura felt the proliferation of an emptiness that dwelled inside her, its presence was looming. To attempt to fill that void was to pour water into a broken cup. She is no longer the little girl she used to be. She cannot resort to thinking about what could have been.
“And then what happened?”
“I left and so did he.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
Ino proceeds to talk more to herself than to Sakura: something about how rude it is of him to not reach out at least once to someone who used to be his teammate.
Sakura looks down at her arms lying open on her lap. Under the table, she clenches her left hand only to release it immediately.