Chapter 1: I
Chapter Text
I.
Trust was a curious thing, Sasuke decided, for trust must have been at play, must have allowed him to enter a territory he shouldn’t have been allowed to breach, what with the baggage he carried. Official pardons were easy to discard when ones good sense was overridden by defensive gut reaction. They must trust their Hokage that much. That trust must have extended to Naruto and Sakura.
After weeks of ruminating on the pros and cons, he decided to heed their advice on accepting the limb prosthetic and had gone home to undergo the procedure. Sakura and Naruto in their enthusiasm made it sounds so simple, but their old sensei, carrying the more practical worries of his station had been kind in explaining certain realities. They had arranged to meet today to discuss finances and logistics.
Evidently, becoming Hokage had not fixed Hatake Kakashi's casual approach to time. Sasuke might have taken a quick nap at his desk--he did trust them too, he supposed--before Naruto's approach roused him.
"Hey," the other man peered at him from the doorway, not even bothering to hide his triumphant grin. "You're home. You have a meeting with sensei?"
"You look... good," Sasuke said. "All things considered."
That wiped off Naruto’s stupid smile at least. With a sigh, he flopped down on the chair opposite Sasuke's. "If I have to hear 'it's a family custom' one more time, I think I’ll reverse-summon us to Mt. Myobuku and have one of the toads marry us."
"And cast a shade upon your children's parentage."
The dobe waved away that detail. "It makes Hinata-chan happy to see everyone get along, so I guess it's okay."
"How do you even know you're ready for marriage?" It was an impertinent question, but one Sasuke was genuinely curious about.
Naruto's whiskered face crinkled as he gave the question a surprising depth of thought. Sasuke expected a breezy, "I just know it!" as if answers to such life-changing questions simply sprouted out of thin air for his friend. Naruto had always been more determined to be happy, he conceded.
"I can be a little slow sometimes," the dobe finally admitted.
"You think?"
"After I discovered I wanted to share my everyday with her for the rest of my life, it wasn't really a hard jump to getting used to the idea of getting married. I mean it sounds terrifying if you focus on the forever part and that we’re starting something new I don't--I don't even have experience in--"
"I don't think first timers really have any experience going into things like this." Even Sasuke knew that.
"But you do, don't you? I mean things went to shit, but you grew up with a family. I mean you saw your parents interact. You remember."
Ever the optimist, Sasuke thought, but he let it lie.
"Anyway, it's easier to just think of forever as everyday instead. And that she'll help, and she won't laugh, not meanly anyway, and that we'll probably both mess up a lot, especially in the beginning.
"It's really the practical things that's tricky, like, how much do I need to save each payday for the wedding? Which apartment can we each afford to pay by ourselves, just in case one of us can't work? Grown up stuff like that.
"Did that make sense?"
"No," Sasuke said. Naruto opened his mouth to explain further but was foiled by their Hokage's arrival.
"Forgive my tardiness," the Rokudaime said, his eye twinkling underneath the vestments of his office. "I was washed away by a sea of nostalgia and it was a long swim coming back ashore."
His old students rolled their eyes in unison, muscle memory overriding polite fictions for their ultimate commander.
"He'll never run out of those," Naruto lamented.
"Unfortunately," Sasuke agreed.
After greeting his Hokage, Naruto rose to leave. "I can always come back later," he said. "It'll be harder for him to reschedule with you. Come by later if you're staying in town for a while. I have an actual spare room now and--don't tell Sakura-chan--my quality porn stash that I will gladly pass on to you. Practice that new hand of yours."
The jounin backed out of the room with winks and vague hand gestures. Kakashi blushed delicately as Naruto finally succumbed to his own joke. Sasuke felt the imminence of a tension headache.
"I suppose your balance will be odd for a bit, but I think you’ll get used to it fairly quickly," Kakashi said. "Not necessarily in the solo flight capacity-- though won't that be like doing it with Hashirama's hand on your junk--"
"You said something about technicalities."
"Yes. Yes, I did. Direct transplantation of Hashirama cells is highly dangerous and we've seen first hand their more grotesque effects. Even the growth of limbs in vitro, as our research mednins have done, aren't without risks, so on behalf of Konoha village, we appreciate your trust."
"Aa."
"I do have a tight operational budget and there's only so many places from which I can pull out funding for unplanned expenses."
"And the elders won't approve your using it on me without something in return. Predictable. You want me to formally accept missions again."
"Only one actually, a simple thing. It's a good deal, and I can even give you a decent stipend."
"Cut to the chase, Kakashi."
"Educational endowment. You just need to produce an official output, something like a dissertation."
"I've never written a dissertation."
"Neither have I; I’ll be lenient. I do have suggested topics from various people for a start."
The Hokage pushed a ratty piece of paper towards him.
- Far-Reaching Socioeconomic Effects of the Recent Shinobi War
- Reanimation vs. Resuscitation: When Should the Dead Stay Dead?
- The Post-War Resocialization of Missing Ninjas--Arguments For and Against Their Return to Their Native Hidden Villages
- The Effects of Mineral Content on Broth, An International Survey
- A Survey on the Sociopolitical Relevance of the Icha Icha novel series
- The Spring After A Long Winter Dilemma: Adjusting to the Idea of Having A Future Again, A Soul-Searching Reflection
"You can always propose other topics, but it'll have to go through the elders and the endowment committee and the ninja academy. A pain in the tush, really, so if you'd so kind pick one of the pre-approved topics--"
"Are you joking with me?"
"I am not. You've learned a lot in your various travels. You've had three years to think. Three years is short in a lifetime, I agree, but you've done enough thinking to further explore your discoveries following a certain direction, frame your thought processes into something structured."
Kakashi smiled at him kindly. Sasuke could feel the telltale throb of his temples and neck now. He was going to pass a bad night.
"I think it will help," the Hokage finished.
"This was her idea, wasn't it?"
"She gave me the idea offhand, yes. She also suggested embroidery, crochet, knitting, needlepoint, basket weaving, glass etching, pottery, wood carving..."
"I get it, I get it."
"Two of your senpai have volunteered to serve as your advisor. You can request someone else, if you're heartless enough to rake me through more red tape."
"Again, predictable. I choose her. I can at least follow her line of thinking."
Kakashi seemed very pleased with his decision; Sasuke discovered why after the procedure. Haruno Sakura had been appointed as Sasuke's attending mednin and shall oversee the follow-up care post-prosthetic attachment.
A Note on Funding Source / Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author is being paid a living allowance by Konohagakure no Sato. Mednins caring for the author have also waived professional fees otherwise owed; in lieu of payment, the author is participating in undisclosed clinical trials unrelated to this study. The author continues to have a professional relationship with the pharmaceutical, herbology, and chemistry departments; the monies earned in these retrieval missions are received by Konoha General Hospital and the Medical Staff to cover expenditures related to the author’s treatment.
The author does accept donation, but would prefer for donors to direct their kindness to Konoha’s post-war rehabilitation funds instead, with special attention on the orphanage, the half-way homes, and the new pediatric walk-in clinic.
Chapter 2: II
Notes:
originally posted via Tumbler on April 2015
Chapter Text
For all of Kakashi's formality with signed contracts and legally-obtained funds, Sasuke expected gleaming walls of instruments and steel cells filled with experimental subjects. The whole ordeal started professionally enough. Sasuke turned up in front of Konoha General Hospital for his follow up appointment at nine o'clock, Tuesday, two days after the arm was attached.
Sakura, white coat over her usual mednin uniform, led him through the lobby, an elevator ride to the basement, and a maze-like collection of halls and doors labeled laboratory, hematology, chemistry, pathology, and so on. Those parts looked like legitimate hospital departments, but then the surroundings started looking too familiar for comfort.
"We reclaimed some of this area after the war," she explained ten minutes into their journey. "R&D isn't exactly priority and even though half the equipment need some fixing, the infrastructure stands. The waste containment, air circulation vent system, chakra dampening cells... Orochimaru was obsessive and detail-oriented."
"Aa."
"We're a legit operation."
"I didn't say otherwise."
She wisely didn't choose to add any more arguments, but he could see her brows knit, as if she were internally generating twenty-five more of them.
"And if it wasn't, my silence can be bought."
"Please tell me Naruto hasn't been feeding you ramen three times a day. You need quality protein in your diet, among other things. Less sodium will certainly help keep your kidneys from choking, between the drugs and dead muscle cells--"
"I've been feeding him, if you have to know. Tell your Hokage I'm expensing said feeding."
"You should have stayed with me instead," she muttered. "My dad can cook."
"I've been told you had no spare room."
Sasuke wasn't sure what was going on in her mind, but that seemed to silence her. She took pains in looking very occupied with finding their way--from the branching passageways she had to constantly choose from, that wasn't surprising. Still, he caught her stealing glances at him when she didn't have to stare into some dim alley, seeming to take pleasure at the action. He couldn't read anything on the actual look, but he felt no tension or aggression or anxiety from her. A small smile played about her mouth the entire time, quirking ever so slightly bigger each time she stole said glances.
The tunnels were unfinished rock in some places, concrete in others, lit by dim, low-energy lamps every few feet. When they reached a noticeably cooler area, she stopped, fumbled through her pockets, and pulled out keys.
The iron door opened to a small room, undressed but for a metallic table, four chairs, a squat sink with tap, and two rows of lockers, mostly padlocked. There was another door beyond this.
"We're in the breakroom of the limb regeneration lab," she said. "I took the long way around so we didn't have to suit up before passing through the working areas."
Suit up? Either for safety of the workers or to prevent contamination, Sasuke supposed. Their products couldn't be that dangerous, considering he was wearing one and would be carting it with him around the world.
"Hashirama cells in certain states could be dangerous, of course." She held both hands up after a pause. "Not your arm! I mean it's pretty stable and confined at the point we attach on a person."
"I signed the consents," he reminded her. "I read fifty-three pages of it summarizing the risks."
"Anyway, we're better off not passing there." She tugged at her ragged ponytail and shifted. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Please make yourself comfortable, Sasuke-kun. I mean, sit down. The chairs aren't really comfortable. Let me sanitize the area, drape you, scrub up, and then get started."
Sasuke did as he was told and watched as she wiped down the table with some strong-smelling chemical, puttered around the room, scrounged through a few lockers, before poking her head out the other door to call out to her blonde colleague. He could hear the other's complaints cease as she came to the door, some translucent outer garment half-divested and hanging from around her waist. The look she gave her friend seemed significant. They were inseparable growing up, he remembered, so he supposed they were exchanging something private, something he had no business being curious about.
"Ino," Sakura said with an airy laugh. "Was kind enough to offer help."
"Aa."
"But I reminded her she was in the middle of something time-sensitive."
He wasn't one for small talk, but he couldn't stand her fidgeting as they waited for the table to dry. She seemed comfortable talking about her work, so he directed his inquiry along those lines, asking if she was in charge of his care overall.
"We're working as a team, really," she said. "But you can say I'm in charge of seeing your progress over the next year, though other specialists will be seeing you over time. It's a little bit of a role change for me."
"I heard Naruto mention you still take field missions."
"Of course. I am a mednin at heart. We should be able to start soon. There's any number of potential applications for these cells--I can't even tell you. I really wanted to be part of the early steps here in the labs, so I'd be more effective later when we're actually doing trials out there in the field. Granted, front-line applications would be developed in much later phases and not guaranteed funding. Our focus has been the post-war rehabilitation of both ninjas and civilians."
She spoke as she prepared, pointing to a gown for him to change into--just the shirt please.
"We don't need a sterile room," she explained. "Basic asepsis will do. "
Words as brisk as her movement, she further detailed the procedure she was about to perform. She described the chakra field she was overlaying over both of them, which would stunt the growth of the their skin and the creatures naturally growing upon it. The layer around his arm itself would plunge the limb quickly in temperature, in effect suspending all movements within the arm--blood flow, clotting, the exchange of substances between blood and flesh, between cell and cell.
A closed system. The energy she was pulling outward from the thin blanket of air around the Hashirama limb was being recycled to sustain the greater chakra field. Once the system stabilized, she began slicing through the stump of his upper arm and then of the Hashirama limb with chakra scalpels, taking tiny samples from each layer, from different parts of the arm-- the outer skin, the layer of fat between skin and muscle, the sinew, the bone, the fat within the longbone.
He watched as his flesh simply slid back together in place as her chakra scalpels flipped each layer back in place, blurring in their speed, until finally she reattached the artificial arm back.
"Grossly, I can more or less tell everything is proceeding beautifully," she told him absently as she capped a bed of tiny vials, about seventy of them, still maintaining the outer layer of the chakra system she had imposed over them. "There doesn't seem to be any malignant growth, but our researchers will have to look through all the samples we took to look for signs of undifferentiated Hashirama cells arising from the prosthetic or from your arm."
"That was... impressive," he managed. "To say the least."
"Isn't it? It's a beautiful, dangerous thing, this Hashirama limb. Can you imagine fixing things we didn’t think we could regrow? Nerves, brain tissue, pancreatic tissue..."
A correction formed at the tip of his tongue, even as the impressive chakra field dissipated from about them. Then the moment passed and it would have been too odd to explain to her what he meant. Sakura had always had exemplary control over chakra and an immense ability to concentrate and focus when needed. He remembered, too, how pleased she seemed back when they were children, when he made simple, obvious observations about her abilities. How could she not notice, he scoffed then, he still wondered now.
He had seen her in the battlefield, where she had demonstrated how that immense control and focus could level a mountain. Such destruction might be overwhelming to many, but what Sasuke appreciated more was the subtlety of creating and maintaining; everything was bent towards falling apart, anyway---what was a little push? But to fight against a gradient, a predilection, a certainty.... Impressive was a woefully inadequate term.
When he left the village almost two years ago to sort his thoughts, to sort himself, she had asked to go with him and he had told her maybe some other time. That wasn't surprising in the least. She was stubborn and pushy and quite wily. He wondered now, seeing how stretched she was among several, discrete responsibilities, if would she have really been able to leave Konoha and follow him then. She loved him, she had said several times before, but what did that mean in the face of all this? Would there ever be a time when this village would no longer need her talents?
(The more pertinent question for him was different but related: what exactly was he promising to her back then, anyway? And by corollary, what did he want from her?)
"You're all set, Sasuke-kun," she said, breaking through his catalogue of life-changing questions. "Let's see each other in two weeks, same time and place."
"Aa. Thank you."
"You're always welcome. By the way--"
"Yes?"
"I'm glad you enjoyed my little light show."
Sasuke stared at the mednin for a second or so, finding his mind excruciatingly slow in processing what she just said, counting hours in the face of her amusement.
She smiled at him, her face coloring in self-consciousness but unrepentant. "I hope you don't mind my saying it, but I noticed you being impressed by my technique."
He couldn't help but smile back at her, rather gratified that she appreciated her own talents.
People change indeed.
Introduction
Haruno Sakura has had many roles in my life over the years: a classmate, a teammate, an enemy, an assassin, a medic, an attending physician, a liaison, a mere memory, a passing annoyance, a permanent itch.
I've roamed the world twice over now, have thought many thoughts and come to numerous realizations. Atonement shall take my entire lifetime, though I have resolved to not allow it to consume me as vengeance once had or my life will end up just as hollow as it had been those dark days. Where Haruno Sakura fits in this life of mine, I know not yet, but I am certain of two things: that she will insist on staying and that I do not mind in the least. This paper will explore the adjustments in thoughts and behavior this rehabilitating missing nin had to undergo to rebuild a personal, non-working relationship with a fellow Leaf nin.
Chapter 3: III
Chapter Text
When Sasuke returned to Konohagakure no sato three weeks later, he was met by one of the ANBU. The person started stalking him at a polite distance about 10 miles from the village border, but didn’t come forward until he stopped at a roadside stall for a cup of tea and odango.
“I don’t think this is the time for a leisurely walk home,” the person said, tilting up his mask as he landed beside Sasuke. “I’ve been thinking of a way to say it without being offensive, but… Anyway, if you put a little bit more urgency in your movements, you might be in less trouble. I doubt it though.”
Sasuke recognized the man as Sai, the man who had been his replacement in Kakashi’s team, sometime after he defected from Konoha. He hasn’t personally had any prolonged interactions with the man, but he came up often enough in conversations with Naruto and Sakura that made Sasuke suppose they had a good relationship as a team.
“I’m talking about your appointment with the transplant team,” Sai added with a sheepish smile, when Sasuke didn’t respond. “Ugly asked me to remind you about it, in case I ran into you while I’m out and about for my mission.”
Ugly? Sasuke wasn’t sure who Sai was referring to until he remembered Sakura mention that Sai has a weird way of showing affection and that he was stepping out with her blonde friend, Yamanaka Ino. Yamanaka Ino was part of the transplant team.
“Aa,” Sasuke said, deciding to head to the hospital first before debriefing with Kakashi. Sakura did tell him to come back last Tuesday at nine in the morning, but he was busy keeping his balance on an ice floe around that time. She was reasonable and would understand once he explained himself.
Sasuke walked to the direction of the hospital, ignoring the ANBU still on his trail. He reached the lobby in what he felt was a reasonable pace, but hesitated at the front desk. She might not mind him finding the limb transplant unit by himself, but she did take field missions and had other responsibilities throughout the village. They worked as a team, she said, and any of her colleagues should be able to examine him, contact her if necessary.
Sai came up to him again, this time keeping his mask in place.
“I can walk with you, so no one would bother you,” he offered.
“All right.”
“You don’t have to sound so testy. I’m just doing my girlfriend a favor. It’s awkward, but trust me, we’ll both be in worse positions otherwise.”
Sai led him through a different course of corridors, bypassing the main lobby elevators and instead taking a flight of stairs somewhere by the cafeteria, eventually reaching a door labeled Hashirama Lab, and then another.
The sign was newly painted on that second door, though the door itself was wooden, scuffed, and suggestive of a windowless office. It opened to a waiting room instead, lit by the same low-energy lamps dotting the basement corridors. On one side were four folding chairs, two facing the other with barely enough room to keep knees from knocking together. On the other side was a desk that could have very well been also borrowed from the Ninja Academy, partially blocking off an open door into yet another corridor. Closed doors dotted this narrow corridor, all as seemingly ordinary as the previous two they entered.
“Please check in for the both of us,” Sai said; Sasuke could hear his ubiquitous smile sliding in place, even past the mask. “Please put ANBU guy or something unspecific. I should be halfway to Sand by now, though I can make up time tonight when it's cooler.”
Sasuke did as he was asked.
“Ugly should be along shortly. If she can’t come, Ino or Shizune should be on-call. I’ll take you to decon, if you want.”
Ugly? Again? “Are you referring to Haruno Sakura?”
“Yeah. Who did you think I was referring to? Tsunade-sama is semi-retired, you know. Unless… are you by any chance nursing a flame for my Gorgeous? I’m not a jealous man, but I hear women find it romantic when their boyfriends demonstrate a bit of possessiveness sometimes. What do you think?”
“I wouldn’t call any of the people you’ve mentioned ugly, least of all Haruno Sakura.”
“Okay. Now that’s testy.”
One of the doors along the corridor opened before Sasuke could decide just how testy he was feeling.
“You know, she doesn’t really need you or anybody else to fight her battles for her,” Ino said. “And you, you meddling bit—“
“Now, now,” Sai said, even as he sidled near the blonde and reached for her bare waist. “Shouldn’t you be saying that to yourself? Minus the naughty language, of course.”
“Perish the thought.”
“If you two,” grated out Sasuke, “could leave the fraternizing till after the tasks you’ve set out for are completed…”
Ino ignored him, lifting the ANBU mask to bestow a kiss upon the face of Sasuke’s escort. Once satisfied, she also ignored Sasuke’s flat expression and glanced down at the open log book.
“It was nice seeing you, babe, but I’ve got work to do.”
An obvious dismissal. Sai gave Sasuke a speculative look, but it was shot down by his girlfriend’s frown before he could inquire.
“Patient privacy and all that,” she explained once the ANBU left. “Raise your arms in front of you, Sasuke. Palms up.”
The mednin pushed down against his forearms as he did. He was familiar with the rest of the exam, as several of the mednins had routinely done the same or part of it, immediately after the arm was attached, during the days he spent in the hospital. Sakura herself did it, too, before they parted last time, almost as an afterthought.
“Stop getting her hopes up,” Ino said as she tested the movement and tone of his wrists.
Stop getting whose hopes up?
“And don’t bother answering. That’s all I have to say about it, so help me. I promised not to be a meddling bitch.”
Sasuke bit his tongue as requested, even managing to quell the impulse to retaliate on the fingers she asked him to squeeze. True to her word, the only other thing she asked was to fan out his fingers, before finishing the exam by testing the movement of his thumbs.
“Your left arm motor function is crap.”
“You knew that by looking at my handwriting.”
“Yes, hence the full motor exam I just did. You’re going to decon and straight to a procedure room. I’m going to have to call Sakura.”
Sasuke nodded.
“I can do it myself, but I’m sure she’d rather have the honor of ripping you a new one.”
“Have I done something to you or Sakura?”
Whatever it was, Ino’s look suggested it was something antediluvian.
“Barring the obvious. Recently?”
The mednin briskly walked down the hallway, gesturing for him to follow with a flick of her ponytail.
“She’ll have to detach and biopsy the arm again. She might even have to debride dead or apoptotic cells. More than likely there’s been some degradation in the contact points. We don’t want the arm to just fall off dead. That would waste a lot of people’s hard work.”
She led him to a room at the end of the corridor. He had woken up at this room after the attachment procedure, but did not remember arriving or leaving from it. Three wheeled beds, narrow and rickety, were separated by threadbare green curtains. The nurses station was another Academy desk and two folding chairs, flanked by two massive steel carts brimming with medical paraphernalia. On each side of the room were two other doorways; one was curtained off, while the other was dark and seemed to lead to a mostly empty room.
“Leave your stuff at the desk,” Ino said, then pointed at unlit room. “That’s the decontamination room. Strip, stand over the showerhead, and yank down the chain. It’ll be scalding. You’re a Fire user—deal with it. Use the brushes. Be thorough but don’t break skin. Here’s a bag for your belongings. Gown up. Everything else off.”
Sasuke did as he was told, annoyed by the mednin’s clinical tone and manner but unwilling to submit such information to her.
Sakura was coming in from behind the curtained off area, just as Sasuke was walking to the bed Ino had earlier pointed him to.
“Sakura,” he greeted her.
She nodded, walked briskly towards him, and drew the curtain about his bed as soon as he cleared its perimeter.
“He’s awake,” he could hear her hiss at Ino.
“Naturally. So you can actually talk to him?”
“You meddling—”
“Please.”
“Sai said you were already in the middle of things.”
“How exactly would Sai know what the middle of things is? Isn’t he a sweetheart, though? He anticipates my needs so well.”
“And what about my need to not have you lot meddle in my business? If you really wanted to help, you could have induced him in the procedure room, not make up excuses to see him half-naked, Ino-pig.”
“Excuse me, forehead girl. We both know I’m not the one you’re really steamed at. And don’t forget: once you have him paralyzed, lay it on him!”
“I can’t keep him awake while paralyzed! That’s—”
“Of course, you can. Although how different would it be? He’ll still be unresponsive.”
“Ino.”
“I don’t see why he gets to buck protocol just because he’s the Hokage’s prodigal son finally come home. He’s been decontaminated as per protocol. The procedure room has been set up. You’ll need to debride. My notes are here.”
“Fine.”
“You’re welcome.”
Sakura took him through the curtained off doorway she had came from, past a cramped anteroom that barely fit a sink amidst various machines and blue-wrapped boxes, and into what he assumed was the procedure room. White ceramic tiles gleamed wall to wall. In the middle was a raised platform where a man-sized chopping block was softened by a thin sheet and a lumpy-looking pillow. He managed to lie atop the procedure table without exposing his rear end. The warmed blanket he took from Sakura, but didn’t unfold it, left it bunched over his waist.
“It’s too cold in here,” she said, draping another blanket over him, tucking the ends under his feet and hips. “And you won’t be moving for a while.”
“I’d rather stay awake.”
“That’s not protocol.”
“You’re still developing protocol for this, aren’t you? I insist.”
“I need your arm completely relaxed.”
“A nerve block then?” He pointed to his shoulder. “I’m sure you have several alternatives to offer.”
The mednin pressed her lips together, as if dissuading herself from further arguing. Sasuke was gratified when she did as he requested. She explained the procedure---drugs would be injected and chakra applied to a nerve plexus which would block sensation and motion to his left arm and allow her to explore the Hashirama limb, his stump, and the attachment points--and remained silent until he spoke up, almost fifteen minutes into said exploration.
“No light show today?”
“Developing protocol.”
“Your average mednin wouldn’t be able to replicate your feat from last time.”
“Our hospital-based mednins shouldn’t have to work under constraints otherwise presented in a battlefield. It would be overkill. When the time comes for them to learn the procedure, your average mednin will no doubt do so.”
Sasuke wondered if that was tacit confession of her showing off newly acquired skills to an old teammate. “And yet a field mednin is developing hospital-based protocol.”
“You seem to misunderstand. Our training covers the emergent, the acute, and the rehabilitative phases of medical ninjutsu. At the end of the day, my decisions always boil down to risks and benefits, prognosis in mind--what's the downstream effect? What will be the patient’s quality of life after this immediate problem passes? As a field mednin, the immediate goal is often to save a life, save a limb, save eyesight. In the battlefield, one would be more aggressive because of the time factor, but that aggressiveness comes with its own price and risks.”
“Price?”
“Cells can’t replicate forever. Ninjas don’t produce chakra indefinitely. Exceptions noted.”
“Aa.”
She went on to explain the details of why entire limbs and organs couldn’t just be regenerated wholesale, absently going into the details of how cells replicate and how they differentiate into various tissues with very specific functions, mentioning cell death and tumor markers and effects of chakra, shifting deep into her professional argot before realizing with a frown his purpose in asking.
“Why the sudden interest in the quality of your care?” she asked, though he suspected she already saw through him.
“Just making conversation,” he said. “I didn’t mean to sound critical.”
“Maybe you should be more critical and attentive. Ino reports you can’t feel three fingers on your left hand. Shouldn’t have that warned you something is wrong?”
“So it did. I came back as soon as possible.”
“So if you had no symptoms, you wouldn’t have even bothered coming back for a follow-up visit.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“And I suppose, prior to that, you did indeed decide to skip your scheduled appointment last week being that the paresthesia hasn’t yet manifested at the time. Figures.”
With effort, Sasuke smoothened the deepening scowl off his face. “I didn’t say that,” he repeated.
“What made you accept the Hashirama limb, anyway?” Sakura asked after a brief pause, her voice as level as his now.
“I’ve proven to myself I could survive traveling to the ends of the earth. I now know that I can survive without it and will always remember having to live without it. I will always remember that the arm was but a tiny payment for all I am atoning for.”
“And how do you know you’ve reach the ends of the earth? Where is that exactly.”
“Simple. There, where the sky and the sea meet.”
“Okay.”
He blinked at her response, more startled than offended. Her tone was its flattest yet, ever since this hostile appointment started, beating even Yamanaka Ino’s sarcasm. Never one to be able to hide when her emotions ran high--not from him anyway--she was clearly offended by something he said.
“I didn’t mean to waste your team’s hard work, but when I say I came here as soon as possible, I mean it.”
“I’m not fishing for gratitude or compliments. I simply need you to commit to the treatment plan we’ve gone over and show up to your appointments on time.”
“I had every intention of showing up to our appointment on time.”
“Intentions are wonderful things, but its delivery that matters. You can’t leave me hanging again like that.”
“Sakura, I apologize for being late.”
“As long as you understand the importance of the follow up visits, apology accepted.”
She wasn’t as angry anymore, he could tell by the more relaxed set of her shoulders, not like earlier. She had never been rough with him throughout the procedure, not even during the moments he could have sworn seeing her forearms tense, fists itching to strike his face. Even after she cleaned him up, brought him back to the recovery room, and waited for him to fully regain function of his left arm, she continued to converse with him in a similar manner throughout the appointment. She was thorough in explaining what he needed to watch out for, what he needed to contact her team for, and what he need to come back home for sooner than the next appointment. She was attentive when he clarified points or sought advice on dietary options.
But she was still different from usual. What was usual, anyway? He wasn’t sure. She seemed more upset about him being late for the appointment more than anything else, rather petty of her. Perhaps, she was angry for other reasons, but he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it if she didn’t deign tell him what her issue was.
She was pissing him off and he wasn’t sure why.
Sasuke endured the rest of the appointment with a rather tenuous grasp on his temper, and then admittedly rushed through his debriefing session with Kakashi with less civility than should have been tolerated. He decided that he couldn’t stay one extra moment in Konoha---there was no reason to tarry. No doubt when they meet next time, Naruto would complain about being bypassed and abandoned, but Sasuke didn’t think he had the patience to endure an evening with his friend. Naruto would learn about today, from Sakura or Kakashi or Sasuke himself. The evening would be then occupied with the dobe attempting to translate his or Sakura’s behaviors through his rosy, newly-besotted lenses, enlightened as he was by his ongoing participation in a long term relationship.
Might Sasuke benefit from Naruto’s insights by virtue of being mutual friends with the person in question? Perhaps. But damn if he was going to sit through yet another person listing things he needed to do as soon as possible.
He was a good twenty-seven miles from the village before he found the word he was looking for: frustration.
Definitions
Accountability - an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility
Amino Acids - biologically important organic compounds that comprise human cells in the form of protein and perform various critical roles in function of the human body
Atonement - the lifelong journey of offering reparation for grave injuries and offenses previously dealt
ATP - a molecule that stores physical energy, the basic currency exchanged in metabolism. It is the end-product of a very involved, multi-pronged process that starts with one breath. It is then used by enzymes and proteins, including the various chemical reactions that make the body function and the replication and differentiation of cells.
Busu - ugly, Sai’s term of affection for Haruno Sakura
Cell - 1) the basic unit of all known living things. 2) the basic unit to which genins are usually assigned after graduation, comprised of three genins and one jounin sensei.
Cell Differentiation - process by which a cell changes from one cell type to another. This is how a human is borne from a single cell, zygote, that then divides and differentiates into various cells with varying sizes, shape, capabilities, and therefore function. These changes are dictated by the organism’s genome, but can be/are largely affected by the environment of the cell. Cells that have the ability to differentiate into all cell types are called stem cells.
Cell Division - a process in which a parent cell divides into two daughter cells. DNA replication always precedes cell division. Daughter cells bear exact copies of the parent cell’s DNA, except for in the case of gametes, which only contain half. Cell division eventually halts, a protective mechanism that “retires” cells no longer able to replicate DNA while maintaining the integrity of the information carried within.
Chakra - the combination of physical and spiritual energy that fuels life. It is possible to produce more chakra than necessary for activities of daily living and to release it through pressure points. Shinobi, for example, have weaponized chakra.
Chromosome - in so many words, DNA with packaging.
Creation Rebirth - the ultimate regeneration technique developed by Tsunade, wherein chakra spurs the body to instantaneously heal to its uninjured state by accelerating cell division.
DNA - deoxyribonucleic acid; a molecule that carries instruction used in development and functioning of living organisms. It consists of two strands of repeating, simpler units, called nucleotides, that run antiparallel and coil around each other in the form of a double helix. Biologic information is encoded in the sequence of these nucleotides. The helix unwinds and exposes the nucleotide pattern to be copied in its entirety as in the case of DNA replication or in part as in the case of RNA transcription.
Frustration - a feeling of anger, annoyance, or dissatisfaction that stems from being thwarted from something/some place/some state; this feeling is magnified when that something has in fact yet to be pinpointed or is intangible
Gamete - a cell that fuses with another cell during fertilization/conception
Genin - lowest rank assigned to ninja
Genome - genetic material of an organism, DNA & RNA
Gorgeous - Sai’s term of affection for his girlfriend, Yamanaka Ino
Hashirama Cells - cells from the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, who is known for his abilities to regenerate and to convert his chakra as a source of life (Wood release techniques). His DNA has been used in past, notably by Uchiha Madara and Danzo, to obtain said abilities by directly implanting Hashirama cells into their own bodies.
Hashirama Limb - developed by Tsunade, an artificially created limb grown in a lab using a cross-section of a recipient cells and Hashirama cells, only implanted on the recipient when the limb is fully grown. Because the Hashirama cells in the limb has already differentiated into specific cells (e.g, muscle or nerve), the risks for malignancy caused by unchecked cell replication should be minimized.
Koibito - lover; a kind of souvenir comprised of chocolate in between two thin cookies, that can be obtained from a remote town in the frigid north, just before where the earth becomes permanently covered with ice
Medicine - the science and practice of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease
Mednin - medical-nin; a ninja who specializes in medical treatment and in manipulation of chakra for this purpose. For this reason, a mednin is of high intelligence and exemplary chakra control. Mednins abide by four rules that govern their practice: to continue treatment until their comrade’s death, to never stand in the frontlines, to survive for as long as there is someone else alive in their cell, and to only ever break the aforementioned rules when they have mastered Creation Rebirth techniques.
Missing Nin - a ninja who severs ties with his or her ninja village. Having abandoned their duties and becoming a liability to their former village, they are often blacklisted to be killed on sight by their former comrades.
Mystical Palm Technique - medical ninjutsu that allows its user to accelerate healing by channeling the appropriate amount of chakra on internal and external injuries and without necessitating the use of medication or surgery.
Nakama - comrade; a person that can be depended on in a crisis, usually willing to die for you or that you will be willing to die for.
Ninja - also known as shinobi and kunoichi, are individuals trained in manipulation of chakra, and often in combat, who sells their services for certain fees. Often, they are associated with a specific hidden ninja village. Hidden ninja village governments are often formally recognized and claimed by civilian nations, but operate autonomously and separately from their de jure sovereigns.
Nucleic acid - large molecules essential to living creatures that convey hereditary information through the sequence of their repeating components; a collective term for both DNA and RNA
Organ - a collection of tissues structured together to serve some common function
Organ System - a complex cooperative of functionally related organs
Physiatry - a specialty of medicine concerned with the management of disabling diseases and conditions typically of a musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, neuromuscular, or neurological nature by physical means.
Proteins - large molecules consisting of long chains of amino acids that perfom various functions within living creatures, including catalyzing chemical reactions (to either harvest energy or create components of cells), replicating DNA, responding to stimuli, and transporting molecules from one location to another.
Ribosome - a subunit in a living cell wherein protein synthesis occurs. Ribosomes link amino acids together in the sequence specified by mRNA as it was instructed by DNA.
RNA - ribonucleic acid; a long chain molecule that controls numerous chemical activities within the cell, including the coding, regulation, and expression of genes. For example, as mRNA, they convey genetic information from DNA to direct synthesis of specific proteins on ribosomes. As tRNA, they deliver amino acids to the ribosomes. As rRNA, they link amino acids together to form proteins.
Sequelae - negative aftereffects
Strength of A Hundred Technique - a forbidden technique built upon the Creation Rebirth that allows its user to heal instantaneously from injury without conscious intervention, for as long as said user has chakra to expend. Mastery of this technique is what allows Haruno Sakura to directly intervene during field missions.
Surgery - a branch of medicine concerned with diseases and conditions requiring operative procedures.
Taisetsu na tomodachi - precious friend
Telomeres - repetitive nucleotide sequence at the ends of the chromosome that protect the integrity of genetic information. During DNA replication, the enzymes cannot duplicate all the way through the end of the DNA strands (imagine pants fly - the zipper slider can't be brought over the last pairs of teeth). It is part of the telomere that gets cut off, instead of compromising the rest of the strand. Even though a certain enzyme repairs the telomere as it shortens over subsequent cell divisions, they are associated with aging and mortality.
Tissue - a group of cells that are organized together to perform a specific function
Notes:
Thanks to lilmikomiko for being a bouncing board, Naruto information mine, and hand holder. Any mistakes or OOCs are mine. All of the definitions above were taken, sometimes verbatim, sometimes condensed, from Wikipedia, Narutopedia, and Merriam Webster. Miko suggested the koibito definition and mellon read/defined taisetsu na tomodachi for me from 700+6 (as well enduring pages and pages of ranting about Sasuke’s or Sakura’s intentions/wants.)
Chapter 4: IV
Notes:
originally published via tumblr in July 2015
apparently this and chapter 3 had been sitting in draft since 2021
no additional changes were made since then
chapter 5 is being proofread/edited, chapter 6 and epilogue will be written (uhh, before the year ends. i'm doing a lot of escapism and procrastination so it will be *done*.)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Anticlimactic was the word he was looking for, Sasuke decided.
The unrest that accompanied him when he left Konoha two weeks ago lingered. He had dragged it through the wide expanse of the frigid north, taking it out to examine when time permitted. People, even animals, were rare in those parts, so he had spent what he felt was an unnecessarily extended time with said unrest.
What did he uncover? Nothing. Absolutely nothing but the need to defend himself better the next time he found himself in Konohagakure no sato. He finished his business in northern Earth country, parting ways with the kindly old woman who had taken him in as a temporary, part time pottery apprentice. The spring thaw made travel perilous and that at least offered some form of distraction, if brief.
He made it a point to start the hike early, expecting most of the rivers he needed to ford to be swollen and most of the taiga lands he needed to trek through soggy. He ended up circling Konoha three and a quarter times, taking the opportunity to gather certain herbs the pharmacy department had requested. He was sure they'd be able to deal with an overstock of foxglove.
Sakura met him in the hospital lobby at 9 o'clock sharp, trailed by a wisp of a mednin apprentice that looked like he might fall to pieces if caught in the wrong direction of one of Sakura's medium-sized earth punches. Instead of the locker room or the limb lab procedure room, Sasuke was brought to one of the mednin offices--Sakura's, he assumed from the cherry blossom decor some sentimental fool picked for her--where the light show around his transplanted arm once again commenced. The apprentice performed the exam with a fair reproduction of the chakra field Sakura had created the first follow up meeting they had while she watched with obvious approval. The apprentice lapped said approval like a starved puppy.
Truth be told, Sasuke felt that all the time he had spent brooding on what went wrong the last follow up meeting had been a complete waste. The no-nonsense meeting of today only verified that everyone had overreacted the last time.
(Self-pity didn’t suit him. He had gone through worse things to feel sorry for, but he was honest enough to admit he was a bit offended by the transplant team's treatment of him when they had been congenial to him prior. Why? Again, the why! Another three years of wandering might not produce answers. He pushed the word aside and concentrated on the discharge instructions being babbled by the apprentice.)
“Sasuke-kun," Sakura said, her slight frown indicating she might have said it more than once. "Sasuke-kun, are you ok with that?"
"With what?"
"Michiru-kun is all set with your arm. Everything looks beautiful. I was going to let him go for grand rounds, unless you had questions for him."
"I don't."
Unless it was to talk about his beautiful arm being so set he was no longer obliged to return to Konoha every two weeks, he didn't, and even that he wasn't prepared to tackle yet.
"Oh," she said. "Okay."
Sasuke nodded his thanks to the aforementioned Michiru-kun, who meekly exited the room like a dismissed student (which he was, another part of his brain reminded, the idle, problematic part.) Sakura waited for the door of her office to close after him before she shut the folder of paperwork that bore his name. Instead of speaking, he assumed she wanted to talk, she fidgeted in her seat, twining her pen about her fingers until it broke and stained her hands with ink.
She looked utterly miserable at this that Sasuke sighed to himself and grabbed one of the blue cloths the so-called Michiru-kun had earlier fastidiously draped over his left arm. Careful to not spread the ink to her clothes or her piles of paperwork, he reached across the desk and started scrubbing her fingers. The idle part of his mind toyed with the idea of simply burning off the ink, fairly confident only the topmost, already dead layer of her skin would be collateral damage. He dismissed it as yet another overreaction.
"You don't have to---" she started. From the corner of an eye, he noticed her chew on her bottom lip, huff, before speaking again. "Thank you, Sasuke-kun."
"Aa."
"You can probably use some these." Her other hand gingerly navigated the mostly unused tray of surgical implements and handed him the makeshift cup of antiseptic.
She could have also walked over to the sink and ran her hand under tap, but he since he had already smeared the ink deep into the lines of her calluses and the under her nail beds, the antiseptic was useful. She might have realized this, too, for he could feel her gradually tense. Her hand felt cool beneath his, perhaps from the alcohol, perhaps not. He sensed more than saw the curve of her waist inch away from her desk, her head tilt away from his bowed head. Against his ear he could feel the soft whistle of her exhalations, prolonged and measured. It reminded him of chakra control exercises from their genin days---Sakura starting her calming breaths in this way, Naruto turning blue in the face in his efforts, Kakashi reading his trashy romance novels, and him--where was he? Near her, evidently, since he could recall the feel of her like that, could say definitively that the feel of her now was different from her drowsing twelve year-old self.
She was somewhere in between relaxation and battle pitch then, he thought, but the idle part of his brain was unimpressed by this show of precision.
“Um,” she said after several minutes of silent scrubbing. “I think I can manage the rest of it.”
“Aa.” He released her hands and surrendered the cloth, belatedly wondering if he had just given her an excuse to avoid looking at him, but she glanced up as she started speaking.
“I… want to talk to you about last week.”
“All right.”
“I think I was being unreasonable.”
He wouldn’t have gone as far as to call her unreasonable, but he decided to wait for the rest of her apology before telling her so. No, an apology would be superfluous. All he wanted was an acknowledgement: he was doing his part in this, too. He was making effort.
“I was really upset when you didn’t show up for your appointment last week.”
He gathered that already.
“And I overreacted without even thinking about things from your perspective. I mean, after all, you’ve spent years calling your own shots and never really having to adhere to anybody else’s schedule. I didn't even ask for your input and try to work with your availability. I just assumed you’d be there because you needed to be. For that, I apologize."
Her reasoning was valid, he had to admit. Still, he remained irritated by her assumption that he had willfully blown off their appointment, even after he had already told her he didn’t mean to be late. Besides, both of them didn't take into account the distances he sought. The call of the road wasn't quite the intoxication of nabe rolling into a boil or high-grade sake warmed just right. It was knowing the road stretched before and behind him, feeling the restlessness that came when he tarried too long in one moment, giving in to the urge to follow one step with another and another... till the road ran out and then he made his own.
“I’ve also overlooked the fact that you have the rinnegan. If there's anything remotely foreign growing in your arm, you would have been able to catch it. I mean, the Hashirama cells are foreign to your system, but you’d know if they start to work against your body. That’s basically our main worry, anyway. Everything else is pretty cosmetic.”
That might be true, but the issue they had encountered with his transplanted arm last week didn’t seem directly related to Hashirama’s cells overpowering his own tissues. She fixed it, as expected, but wasn’t the idea of the follow-up meetings to catch these events, as she had, earlier? He frowned.
“With regards to establishing protocol, you and Naruto are the worst possible candidates for this. I mean he heals inhumanly fast for one. You have alternatives to a transplant arm--the susanoo, your dojutsu, and--”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I don’t think this close of a follow up is warranted.”
“You’re wrong on several counts. I wouldn’t be able to perceive changes at the cellular level, not in miniscule amounts. Even if the Hashirama cells start producing or consuming more chakra than the rest of native cells, that minute of a change will just blend with other types of energy in the environment.”
She considered this. “You mean like background noise? But at some point, such a change would be apparent---”
“You mean, once I lose control of my arm? You’ve already questioned my capacity for risk assessment last week.”
“But it’s only to be expected. Our vantage point of what’s urgent versus emergent would be different since you have no medical training beyond basic first aid.”
“Which means you can’t just rely on my reporting signs and symptoms.”
“But Sasuke you do need to report--”
“You need to guide me with the right questions. With regards to your protocol writing, I am still a twenty times better guinea pig than that dobe. I don’t heal short of regenerating. I don’t have the kyuubi’s chakra at my disposal.”
“Okay, but still--”
“Already, I’ve presented a scenario you’d no doubt encounter with other patients. Anything can happen in a mission. What steps should your mednins follow if their patient doesn’t make it to their appointments due to extenuating circumstances?”
Sakura had long abandoned her ink-splotched hand and was staring at him.
“When I apologized last time, I meant it. When I said I had intended to come on time, I meant it, too. Don’t cop out just because I was delayed a few days. I’ve already said I miscalculated and didn’t account for the spring thaw in my travels.”
He stared back at her to prompt her for a response at least. Her eyes fluttered away. She resumed rubbing ink about her hands, folding the blue cloth in four and running one of the resulting corners under her fingernails. He could see the color of her cheeks rise and he wondered if he had been too abrupt with her.
“We’ll both get better at this,” she murmured to herself. “At any rate, I had a couple of ideas to help you keep track of your appointments.”
Sasuke paused to process this. He must have misunderstood her intent then---so she wasn’t suggesting they cease their meetings.
“No,” she said lightly. “I wasn’t suggesting we stop these follow-up appointments. Maybe adjust the frequency to monthly is all. Sorry, but you won’t be rid of me that easily, Sasuke-kun.”
“...Aa.”
“I got you this actually.” She rummaged through her lab coat pockets and presented the object to him with flourish. It was a small notebook, the size of a bingo book a jounin might carry, leather bound. He leafed through it and saw her neat, even handwriting scattered through several Wednesdays.
He should have known.
“I took the liberty of penciling in my days off,” Sakura said. He didn’t need to look up to know she was grinning like a fool.
“You must be working every day then,” he told her, after a cursory look at the next month revealed none of these purported days off.
"Almost everyday, yes. I was just kidding about the days off, Sasuke-kun."
"Tea," he found himself saying. "You owe me tea, at least."
"You're inviting me?" she said, her head tilted down, ostensibly over her now mostly ink free hands. Her eyes looked almost blue through her lashes, her smile uncertain or coy. He wasn't sure. "I'd love to, but where?"
"Anywhere will suffice." Tea was tea. Well, it wasn't, and he had certain preferences on the accompanying snacks, but he wasn't familiar enough with the area tea houses.
"Which lucky tea house, I wonder. I can almost guarantee a line of prying eyes following the mysterious Uchiha Sasuke, gracing a place as pedestrian as a tea shop."
"At home is fine."
She giggled at this, reminding him yet again of her twelve year old counterpart. "You called Naruto's place 'home.' I shouldn't mention it, but that's just too cute."
"I suppose we'd have to invite him, too."
"Just us is fine, Sasuke-kun. I'll bring snacks. Naruto's tea stash isn't that bad, you know. Hinata-chan's taken command of his kitchen when she found out the guest had to make a grocery run at two in the morning, following surgery he was supposed to be recovering from."
“Don’t bother with the snacks. I have... souvenirs to dispose of.”
“Souvenirs?”
“I have some koibito.”
“I love koibito! But we shouldn’t eat all of them ourselves.”
“You can have all of them. I will see you at four o’clock.”
Anticlimactic was still appropriate, Sasuke thought, being that he expected a fight, failing that a fiery argument. He certainly didn't expect the path their discussion took, but he supposed he should be glad they were able to fix their disagreement without resorting to a duel. Who knew what limb he'd lose next time and one prosthesis was plenty for him.
Sasuke wasn't sure what made him invite Sakura out for tea. (He suspected it was some competitive streak in him, unwilling to be the lesser person, the less cooperative one, the less gracious.) Whatever his original reason, Sasuke found himself looking forward to being with her outside of these follow-up appointments.
He was satisfied.
Conceptual Models
Notes:
I figured Sasuke would've been a powerpoint everything type of guy.
Chapter Text
If pressed, Sasuke might say the tea date from two weeks ago was a success. Any additional requests for details would, however, be rebuffed with a frown or a curt shake of his head, and not only because he preferred to keep his business his own. He only started thinking of the said date as a personal mission after the fact, after being subjected to several flavors of mostly illogical advice and anecdotes from fellow shinobi.
(Full disclosure: he only just started thinking of his prolonged tea with her as a date, because as his insufferable Hokage pointed out, it was.)
Considering he had no set agenda or goal other than to have tea with… with another person, he would be hard pressed to quantify the basis of such an assertion. Even a Naruto-like statement, "things just felt right," would be inaccurate in his case, as he had left Naruto's apartment with an odd sense of... not dissatisfaction, exactly. Anticipation, Kakashi had suggested during what was supposed to have been Sasuke’s annual employment review last week. Wary anticipation, the Godaime had added. It didn't occur to Sasuke till later to find it awkward for the teacher of the woman in question to be sitting in on his official meeting with the Rokudaime, talking about not-so-official things.
Examining the tea date piecewise would make it seem more disastrous than Sasuke remembered it. After pointedly making it early to the 9 o’clock arm check-up that day two weeks ago, he had gone to the routine debriefing with Kakashi, who used him as an excuse to slack off for a three-hour business meeting over lunch and then kept him an additional two hours, minutely examining his existing job contracts with Konoha General Hospital’s pharmacology and dietary departments in between coaxing out details on his misunderstanding with Sakura. Sasuke had left the Rokudaime’s office in profound irritation, arriving at Naruto’s apartment ten minutes after four in the afternoon.
Sakura had already been there. Naruto and his thumb-fiddling girlfriend had found her waiting outside and had let her in, even setting out the tea things and boiling water for her. The two—well, mostly the dobe—-made a show of magnanimously going for an impromptu ramen run so that Sasuke could have time alone to consult Sakura about his dissertation.
“Consult me about what?” Sakura had asked.
Sasuke had promptly stuffed his foot into his mouth and asked her to mind her own business.
Even the intervening years haven't erased Sakura's familiarity with such a rejection. The hurt barely registered on her face. And while it didn't produce the same iciness from this morning's meeting, it pissed him off that she felt she had to police her feelings to such a degree for his sake.
(Perhaps, it was this feeling that made him doggedly prolong tea until it spilled into dinner time, until they felt okay. He still couldn't say what that meant in precise words.)
With practiced deftness, Sakura eased them past the awkward moment by asking Naruto and Hinata about their wedding plans. Much to Sasuke’s chagrin, he discovered that the Hyuuga girl could in fact talk when she started discussing the difficulty of procuring material for traditional uchikake and opting to be more frugal, buying a pre-made dress. Naruto’s acquaintance could get her a good price. Sakura seemed riveted by every word; he supposed it was the sort of thing some females were universally riveted by, and he didn't mind, but wasn't it her who said tea by themselves was fine?
“Mr. Uchiha?” the mednin’s timid voice broke his reverie. Sasuke was more bemused than irritated by the rabbit’s twitch. He barely noticed the boy, so engrossed was he with feeling out what had changed between him and Sakura over a measly two weeks. It wasn't like him to obsess about an unseen problem like this.
He forced a neutral, “Aa,” in response.
The boy smiled back at him, shy but not so intimidated now. “Mr. Uchiha, your arm is doing wonderfully. Any signs of rejection we had been starting to see from the two previous appointments have been resolved. Sakura-sensei’s intervention was timely; if you hadn't recognized the problem yourself and consulted us, we might have lost the prosthesis completely.”
“Well done, Michiru-kun,” Sakura said. “If you have no other questions for Mr. Uchiha, you may go and have an early lunch. Our next patient won't be here till 2 pm.”
“See you in a month, Mr. Uchiha,” the rabbit said. He cast a last fawning smile at his teacher before the door shut behind him.
“A month?” Sasuke prompted. They had previously spoken about decreasing the interval of his check-ups, but he didn’t expect the change so soon.
“Michiru is right,” she said. “Your arm really is doing well and doesn’t need that much monitoring. I will miss this, though. I think I’ve gotten spoiled.”
After their friction over his punctuality during one of his previous appointments, the change felt anticlimactic. If he had known strict compliance would result to a faster resolution of his obligations, he would have—
He would have what?
He clicked his tongue. Maybe he had also gotten spoiled.
“Any additional instructions for me, then?” he asked. “In the interim.”
“Oh, same as before. Please use your arm regularly, preferably for activities that also involve deft use of your fingers.”
“Weaving is out then.” Perhaps, it was time to take up one of the other ladies’ offer to teach him embroidery at that village in Lightning country.
“What? Oh, no. Weaving sounds perfect.”
“I only know how to weave with one hand.”
Sakura chuckled. “Take it as an extra challenge then. Learn how to do it with both hands.”
Was she teasing him?
“The challenge is in being patient with yourself for not suddenly becoming twice faster now that you can use both hands,” she chided him, not unkindly. “It’ll ruin your groove, I expect.”
“I made my cloak,” he said. “It’s comfortable.”
“It does look comfortable.”
“Wool helps regulate body temperature.” Like it did for the animal that used to wear it before it was sheared off. “It stays comfortable over a broad range of climates. In colder regions, I can add more clothes underneath. It’s hardy.”
“I did wonder if you wove it yourself.”
“I did,” he said. “While I was walking through the steppes, I learned that the locals get their wool from the mountain rams. Undyed, it blends well with the frigid deserts of Northeast Lightning country.”
“Cold and dry, hm? The wool fibers have a waxy coating that sort of repels water drops, so it’s great for a light drizzle, maybe flurries. But it doesn’t rain that much in that area of Lightning country, does it?”
“No, it does not.”
“There’s any number of technologies we humans have developed that were inspired by animal adaptation to their environment. Especially with us ninjas, who’ve developed fighting techniques inspired by animals.”
“Or other people. Even incorporating their name in said techniques.”
“Rock Lee Rendan?”
“It doesn’t flow as well as Shishi Rendan.”
Her chuckle tapered off into silence, though not one he felt the need to fill in. Her student had neatly cleaned up his work space, so there was nothing for her to fiddle with, as was her practice. Her hands were neatly laying on top of one another on her desk, her weight mostly on her elbows as she leaned just the slightest forward into his space as they talked. Only now she wasn’t speaking, simply smiling at his direction, eyes alight with whatever journey her mind had taken. He was almost envious that her version of wandering didn’t require her to trek all over the world. His imagination wasn’t robust enough for that.
“You must think I'm strange,” he said. “For being so reluctant to get the arm prosthetic.”
“Hm?” She was seeing him again. “Ah, I would think that’s a normal response, isn’t it? Particularly for a ninja, who always first learns how to fight without tools. Not to mention the possible adverse effects of that particular prosthetic. I was glad you took time to think about and weren’t just… hm.”
“Reckless?”
“Oh, no.” She looked away briskly, her forehead wrinkling as she fought off her usual thinking expression. “I was glad you didn’t do it just to humor me.”
When had he ever humored her? If he was honest to himself, he was probably often abrasive to her, as he was with everything he considered in the way of his goals as a survivor denied justice. Despite the marker he had tied around his head, he was just a child then. They were children.
“Don’t make that face, please.”
What face was he making? He blinked to clear whatever it was off his eyes, because that was where she was staring wistfully.
“Like you’re sorry. I was glad you didn’t agree to be part of my project because you wanted to make up for things or some nonsense like that.”
“Make up for what?”
“Exactly.” She nodded. She was almost back to her usual self. “Anyway, using a prosthetic isn’t a matter of course. It’s a personal decision.”
He motioned to his eyes. “My brother’s,” he said. “I’ve worn other people’s eyes for that matter.”
“Good point.” Her smile was only a bit rueful now. “I wouldn’t really know, but I’d imagine you to be so sick and tired of having other people’s cells mixed in with yours. Truth be told, I was thinking more about the curse seal of heaven and Orochimaru having once been part of you. Nightmare fodder.”
He shrugged. That seemed so long ago. There had been other horrors since, some he unleashed himself.
“Do you have anything else you wanted to talk about before we end the check-up, Sasuke-kun?”
What? His mind blanked. Of course, he did not not want to talk with her more. She was usually more considerate than this, asking him point blank, though he supposed he had been mostly staring at her like a ninny and being all—what was that she had written in her notes—non-contributory.
What did he want to talk about?
“So a post-war bridesmaid, huh?” he said just as she clarified, “I meant about your arm and the plan for it.”
“Aa,” he said, a non-answer. He had a question somewhere.
“Also you would not believe the number of weddings I’ve had to attend. I think everyone is taking advantage of the war frugality still being in place. Only Hinata-chan is too nice to tell her family to leave her alone.”
“The schedule,” Sasuke said triumphantly. “I have an issue with the schedule.”
“All right then. Please tell me.”
“I want to see you next week and the week after.”
“A weekly appointment for two weeks? I don’t think it’s warranted, but If it makes you feel more comfortable—”
“It will.”
“I’ll schedule you with Ino.”
Again he wondered what expression he wore that would elicit such a peal of laughter from her.
“Shizune-sensei, then. Michiru-kun will still conduct the check-up, but Shizune-sensei will supervise him. And I will see you in two weeks.”
He supposed that would do for now.
“I pushed back,” Sasuke reported to his two hokages. “I said I wanted to keep meeting her.”
“Excellent progress, Sasuke-kun,” Kakashi crowed.
“I don’t know about that,” Tsunade said. “Are you two really on the same page? Also, she’s actually right, Sasuke.”
“About what?” he asked.
“You can’t be her patient if you’re dating her.”
“Who said anything about dating her?”
Lightly, Kakashi smacked him upside the head.
“She was avoiding me.” Sasuke did not feel the least bit sorry for trying to slither out of their questioning.
“Has it ever occurred to you that you can try seeing her at any other point of the week?” Kakashi said kindly. “If you want to keep it unlabeled, I respect that, as long as, like the Godaime said, you’re on the same page. Courting aside, she is your friend.”
“We had tea last time.”
“Meet somewhere Naruto won't be a third wheel then. He can’t help but be invested.”
“You all are unhealthily invested in my personal business,” he muttered.
“Well, it's a matter of juggling around personnel, what with this overwhelming leap into matrimony and reproduction.”
How was that pertinent to his matters?
“Anyway, Sasuke,” Kakashi said. “You never were able to consult with her about your dissertation. That’s a perfect excuse. I’ll lend you one of our conference rooms.”
“Come on, Rokudaime,” Shikamaru called out from the next room. “We’re already fighting over the conference rooms as it is. They’ve been fully booked for the next 6 months, so don’t go bumping people off or I’ll never hear the end of it. Have them rent an hourly room at a local motel like normal people do.”
The Godaime overruled them all: “Sasuke, book the war room.”
Needless to say, he didn’t bother leaving Konoha for the time being. After Tsunade’s comment about Sakura possibly transitioning his care to another doctor in anticipation of… something, he resigned himself to seeing the rabbit student instead of his pretty sensei during his next appointment. As Kakashi pointed out, Sakura did live in Konohagakure no Sato. He was bound to meet her if he ventured outside his usual haunts in the village.
For the rest of the week after his check-up, Sasuke had lunch at the eatery just behind the outpatient department, because they offered a variety of meal sets with hefty portions at bargain prices. Everyday, between one to two in the afternoon, Sakura would stroll by and chat with the proprietress, eat some fraction of her meal, then get interrupted by an urgent matter she specifically needed to attend to. She would then dump her leftovers in a to-go box, thank the owner, and ask them to add the bill to her tab. Out of courtesy, Sasuke made sure she didn’t see him, so she wouldn’t be obliged to sit with him and make small talk and end up eating even less of her food. He also would have paid her bill and asked her to just repay him on a day she wasn’t busy, but the amount she owed was at least 3 months worth of meal sets.
Despite accusations, he had no idea that his favorite discount store happened to be her and Ino’s favorite discount store. (“We’re the only discount store in town,” the cashier said to put an end to their discussion that held up the line.) No one believed him but he was equally startled when he just happened to grab the same 6-pack of unscented bath soap for sensitive skin that Sakura had been tiptoeing to reach. Ino’s judgmental expression wasn’t conducive to productive, grown-up conversation, so he put the soap in Ino’s basket and grabbed a bottle of what turned out to be dizzyingly musky body wash for men, which shouldn’t have any use in a village of ninjas who made their livelihood not being perceived by other people, and made a beeline for the cashier. They then followed him to the cashier and insisted they weren’t following him. Then, it was Ino who blatantly asked if he had wanted to talk to Sakura, couldn’t he be normal about it, and did Naruto not have a phone?
Finally, on Friday evening after work, Sasuke happened to ask Naruto if he had any other kinds of ramen, like the bulk discount kind with too much salt. Naruto happily said he knew a mini grocery that smuggled imported ones, though it was on the opposite side of town. Sakura happened to be there, likely because it was right next to her parents’ house, and Ino happened to be with Sakura again, likely because they walked home together after work.
“What are the odds, huh?” Naruto said, elbowing Sasuke. “Why don’t we walk you ladies home?”
“Sure,” Sakura said in amusement and walked 9 steps to her front door and another 5 to her kitchen.
“Stalker,” Ino mouthed at them.
“Cockblocker,” Naruto mouthed back at her.
An unfortunate exchange that was in full view of him, Sakura, and her parents.
Apparently, Ino was only there to get changed for a date night with her boyfriend and shortly left the Harunos, so no tempers were lost. In his guileless, shameless way, Naruto managed to get a dinner invitation. He also managed to volunteer Sasuke to serve as Mrs. Haruno’s scullion, which largely involved reaching bottles of seasonings for her and chopping up cabbage. His attempt at tossing the yakisoba largely failed, less from his inexperience and more from Naruto’s misguided attempts to help him. Sakura finally kicked them both out to set the dining table.
For once, Sasuke was thankful for Naruto’s random chattiness, even if his assists were overzealous and transparent to anyone with two eyes. He swooped in to add two paragraphs of banter for every one word answer Sasuke managed. Maybe it was the intense look Sakura kept training on her parents, but they were both polite to him and seemed interested in what he was up to recently.
During the clean up after dinner, Sasuke finally found a pocket of silence to ask Sakura out.
“Will you look over my dissertation for me?” he said. He had been standing behind her, about to carry out the trash, while she scrubbed the stove top. “I’ve booked the war room for us.”
“The war room?” she said, frowning as she encountered a tough spot of burnt sauce. “You don’t want to just go up to my room right now?” She paused her scrubbing, maybe realizing how that might have sounded like to him, and turned around sheepishly. “I have a desk there! Is what I meant. Big and spacious. With two chairs. For studying, of course.”
“I didn’t bring my papers with me.” Really, it shouldn’t take him long to grab it from Naruto’s bachelor pad. He looked around the room for something to switch his notes with, before remembering he had bags of trash clutched in both hands. He had left his draft and notes on his bed. Brilliant. Or not brilliant. That would mean indefinitely leaving trash bags full of biodegradable material that would ooze and leak on his bed. Realistically, though, how long would his consultation with Sakura take?
“Some other time then?” she prompted in his moment of indecision.
Sasuke agreed begrudgingly.
“You wish to send important documents to Haruno-sensei?” Michiru said as he examined Sasuke’s arm.
“They’re not that important,” he dissimulated, unwilling to surrender the slightest intel to the rabbit trainee.
“You can stick it in sensei’s letter box at the hospital call room, I suppose. That’s where we sometimes submit our papers. She checks it daily. I can drop it off for you.”
“I’d rather do it myself.”
Shizune had been watching the exchange with one eyebrow raised. “I’m heading there once your check-up is complete,” she said drily. “You can take a walk with me after.” She raised her other eyebrow as well, giving her a startled expression. “It’s not perishable, is it? What you’re giving her?”
“Patients like giving sensei food stuff,” Michiru explained. “Vine tomatoes were a popular gift for a few months.”
“Aren’t tomatoes your favorite, Sasuke?”
“Back when I was a child, maybe,” he said and entertained no further inquiries.
Sasuke also didn’t bother leaving the village in between the 1st and 2nd of his weekly appointments with the mednins. He tried the same tactic of randomly running into Sakura in places that weren't at the hospital, but she had been away on field work for most of the week. Naruto also had back-to-back missions, some of which Kakashi tried to foist on Sasuke, who then reminded him he was technically a genin.
“When it’s convenient, you’re a genin,” Shikamaru muttered from behind his wall of paperwork.
Ino’s midriff boyfriend, however, seemed to be everywhere.
“Stop stalking me,” Sasuke told some loose roof tiles.
“Now you know how my Gorgeous feels.”
“I wasn’t stalking her.”
“But it’s true though? You’ve turned the tables on Ugly?”
“I’ve asked you not to call her that.” Sasuke doubted Sakura would be amused if he got into a random fight over unsavory pet names when she could pummel assholes on her own.
“We can’t have two tall, dark, and handsome men, running around the same town and uttering, ‘Sakura,’ as if in prayer. That’d be weird and Ino might get the wrong idea.”
How the hell would people even confuse the two of them?
“Anyway, from one gentleman to another, don’t slack off on the chase, hm? People are always nervous during peace time stretches—we’re always one snub away from some megalomaniac upstart trying to take over reality. In this current marriage market, people might skip dating and go straight for proposals.”
Sasuke wasn’t even mad about the unsolicited advice. Nor could he even be irritated about Sai wasting his time, since Sai’s ramblings did put a dent on Sasuke’s considerable idle time.
He ended up assisting his old academy teacher, Umino Iruka, with some remedial classes for a bunch of Naruto-type students. The man still had a soft spot for such rambunctious pains in the ass, and somehow, Sasuke felt the world was doing just fine because of it.
“Here you go, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura said in lieu of a greeting. “Folate, vitamin C, lycopene, and more.”
His soon-to-be former doctor plunked a bushel of vine tomatoes by his chair.
“Mr. Uchiha doesn’t like toma—”
“Thanks,” he said. “I love tomatoes. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner to offset the volume of ramen in my bloodstream.”
Michiru the rabbit trainee conducted the appointment from start to finish, inquiring on how Sasuke had been the past week. He seemed genuinely excited to hear how Sasuke’s arm managed to endure climbing, swinging, and biting six-year-olds. The rabbit went on to say that the exam was unremarkable and that he should make an appointment 3 months from now. Come sooner if needed.
Being an adult, Sasuke waited till his new doctor left the room, all smiles. Before he could open his mouth to clarify the 3-month gap between check-ups, Sakura spoke.
“I’ve read your draft,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes.
Her expression was the same one she had worn while observing her trainee, a slight squint paired with a tiny attentive smile. Her tone was mild. Maybe he was only imagining the almost placating edge to her voice.
“What possessed you to put it in my letter box, Sasuke-kun? Anyone can just pick it up and be nosy.”
He didn’t know it while speedwalking behind Shizune to keep up with her zigzag through busy hallways or even while he carefully stuck his paltry few pages in between the variety of important-looking paperwork already in her office mail box, but maybe that was the point. He may not yet have the wherewithal to say aloud the contents of his paper, but he wasn’t ashamed for others to read the results of his ruminations.
“I wouldn’t have imagined you felt all that,” she said quietly. She looked up from her hands and met his gaze. “I don’t mean to imply I didn’t think you felt , of course.”
She didn’t need to explain herself. Some people assumed he was an unfeeling monster. He supposed he tried his best to be that just so he could meet his goals, mete out justice, uncover truths.
Wasn’t numbness an emotional state, too?
But see, Haruno Sakura, his comrade and precious friend, beloved now and then, she was his spring thaw.
“Hey, Sasuke-kun?”
“Aa.”
“Would you like to scratch me?”
He blinked at her stupidly. His mouth felt like he swallowed an entire urn of sand.
“Your itch.”
So she asked, but it was her who bridged their distance, half leaning across her desk. The curious, thinking squint was still there in between her brows, her pink moue. Perhaps, that was it. He didn’t have to feel all this out in the dark. She offered to walk with him, his lovely, hardy woman, if she’d still have him and all the rainclouds he was still learning to temper. As the storm in his ears rose to drown out all the unsolicited advice he has recently received from peers who didn’t really have that much more experience than him after all, his eyes shuttered.
His lips landed not quite on hers, so he did peek at her long enough to realign with her soft sigh.
“Is that what they call it now?” he asked. “The youth…?”
“It can mean whatever you want. We are still the youth. Add an entry in your glossary.”
She didn’t really smell of anything, just the faint echo of her discount soap and the antiseptic one ubiquitous in the building. Suddenly, he realized that he didn’t notice if it tasted like chicken or strawberry, an objective finding he had been specifically asked to note. He wondered if it was too impolite to try scratching her again so soon to find out.
“Still itchy?” she teased. “Maybe you really are allergic to me.”
Was he? Didn’t she say allergic reactions manifested on second exposure?
Eschewing the limitations of having furniture between them, he got up and was on her side of the desk in two steps. Once more, his eyes fluttered close prematurely, but she guided herself to him just fine while his mind blanked in the heat of her mouth.
At some point, she pulled away just a bit.
“Breathe, Sasuke-kun.”
Later, he thought and sought her again.
They were interrupted by a knock, followed by the door swinging open.
“Sorry,” Shikamaru said as they righted themselves hastily. “Also, does this mean I cancel your war room booking?”
“...Aa,” Sasuke said, pleasantly surprised by the no-nonsense reaction.
“What did you do now, Shikamaru?” Temari said, evidently one less witness to worry about.
“Opened the door too soon. Still up for that lunch meeting, Sakura?”
“Yes, of course,” Sakura said with a delicate cough, casually fluffing her hair in place with her fingers. “Do you mind if I bring a guest?”
“You can see I brought my annoying half with me.”
“I’ll distract the gossips with my rapier wit,” Temari said dryly.
Sasuke stared with newfound appreciation for these two. As for their lunch meeting, he did want to listen in.There had been a persistent rumor that majority of the work in the Hokage’s office actually fell on the lap of the so-called shadow brain, and that Temari and Sakura often offered to help him. That worried Sasuke, for it confirmed Sakura’s importance in the day-to-day running of the village.
He startled as a smaller, calloused hand pressed tentatively on his.
“Are you coming with us?” Sakura said, her flower-like face so close to his that he almost resumed scratching her.
“Aa.”
She tugged his arm. A memory of her clinging to his arm surfaced—had she ever done that or was he losing his mind? Even the way his hand casually intertwined with hers was curious, as if it had done so before a hundred thousand times.
Having that extra hand with which to feel her warmth felt nice.
They were only going to the canteen behind the hospital, but he refused to let her go, earning him a chuckle and admonishment when it was time to carry their trays.
Her hand in his.
Somehow, it felt even more intimate than the kisses.
V. Experimental Design/Methodology
I kissed her.
VI. Results and Discussion
She kissed me back. It was nice.
VII. Implications
Kissing is an acceptable addition to our interactions going forward. Holding hands is pretty okay, too. Doing things together (e.g. tea, chatting, sitting quietly, pottery, gardening, attending lunch meetings, catching last-minute sales at the discount store) is both pleasing and productive. Hatake Kakashi (personal communication, winter, year 4 post war) said figuring out time and place is crucial to heeheehee [sic] success and mutual satisfaction, but he was too damn cryptic to contribute any relevant insights. "Consent is sexy" (I. Yamanaka, unsolicited yet important advice, spring, year 4 post war).
Notes:
I haven’t forgotten that Sasuke is a casual pervert.
Chapter 6: VI.
Chapter Text
Three months later, Sasuke met his not-doctor after his arm appointment with Michiru-sensei.
“Haruno-sensei is swamped with paperwork today,” the rabbit said, no longer a trainee but still an impertinent brat. “I was hoping to buy lunch for her and deliver it to her office, but Uchiha-san’s appointment ran over. Look at the line of patients waiting outside!”
“Does she still like the #5 set, Hokage mountain lion with fried rice and soup?” Sasuke said.
“She’s extra hungry today, so she also wants an oyakodon with a side of garden salad.”
“I know my own order, you little shit.” He wondered if he should report his own doctor for matchmaking on the job, but the intrusive questions from hospital administrators (Tsunade, Shizune, and Ino) and the Hokages’ offices (Tsunade and Kakashi) wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Weeks ago, he had concluded that they didn’t really care about the details of his dating life, just the fact it annoyed him made them all happy, those twisted sadists.
To add insult to injury, his doctor was now in on it, too. So much for the ethics of keeping doctor-patient relationships confidential and non-personal. After he finished scribbling his findings in Sasuke’s chart, the rabbit reached into his pocket and tried to give Sasuke money.
“I can treat my own girlfriend to lunch,” he snapped, immediately regretting having fallen for such transparent bait.
“Thanks for the confirmation, sir. My colleagues and I are rooting for you two.”
“You don’t really know who I am, do you, kid?”
“Whoa, that sounded really threatening.” The kid—he wasn’t that much younger than them, truth be told, not by years—grinned as he handed over his updated instructions. “We’re protective of sensei, but we all know she can handle herself. She can handle you, whoever you really are, sir.”
Well, Sasuke thought, that was a nice vote of confidence from Sakura’s trainees. Maybe they’d make terrible field agents with that low level of suspicion. Then again, maybe that was why they were mednins. They were able to stay non-judgemental, even with missing nins and the sort of ridiculously overpowered villains one only found in myths.
Sasuke was not one to fret ordinarily, but he did just call his doctor’s teacher and boss his girlfriend. Technically speaking, there had been no concrete discussion as to what they were to each other. Once she hears about it, Sakura would likely take it in stride, maybe laugh and tease him with an, “Am I now?” That wasn’t the point. He liked to think they communicated better now. (Kakashi had observed this, but not only did their teacher lack objectivity on the matter, Sasuke also wasn’t sure if the Rokudaime had any applicable knowledge on the romantic type of relationship Sasuke thought they were both sauntering towards). Still, it seemed entitled of him to just decide without consensus.
“Sasuke-kun, you are a sight for sore eyes,” she exclaimed when she opened her office door to his knocks. “And you brought lunch. Are you a mind reader now?”
“I can read time,” he said. His attempt for dry humor was marred by his mumble.
She took the lunchbox he offered her, pulling him closer to her by his left arm, so her kiss could reach his cheek. Sasuke took that as evidence of his overthinking. Even he knew enough that shows of affection like that fell within the realm of girlfriend behavior. He toyed with the idea of returning said kiss, but she had already moved away, relocating one of the chairs in front of her desk to a spot beside her, pointedly setting aside her work, so they could eat together and chat. He mostly listened while she talked about inconsequential happenings around the village while he was gone, allowing the warmth of her chatter to wash over him after a mere month without it.
“Naruto won’t talk to me,” he said.
“You were his best man,” she pointed out.
“You’d think he would have told me that.”
“I thought that had been why you two were joined at the hip the last few months. I thought he was making you help with wedding stuff.”
Making him help with wedding stuff? Was that why Naruto kept talking to him about it? The Hyuugas had been the one doing the spending and the actual legwork of the preparations. Was the help he needed mostly what Sakura called emotional support? Anyway, it wasn’t like he meant to miss it.
“You know how Southeastern Water country is in the monsoon season,” he said. He wasn’t exactly pleading his case, but he was determined for at least Sakura to understand his side of the story.
“Hanabi was the Maid of Honor, you know,” she added with mock sorrow. He was adept enough to spot her acting now. “But they fixed things to accommodate stuff. I didn’t have an escort or dance partner, so I languished by the buffet table with Gaara. All night.”
“Sorry.” Not that he knew how to dance. He would’ve made a poor escort, and then he, Sakura, and Gaara would have languished by the buffet table. “I will attend your next wedding. As your plus one.” See, he listened to Naruto. Where else would he have picked up wedding lingo?
“I think most of my other friends plan on just moving in together.” She looked at him. “Was that also your plan, Sasuke-kun?”
For a moment, he was troubled. What did it mean for him to plan a future with her? What did it mean for him to start a lease on a bigger apartment? Truth be told, it wasn’t even in anticipation of the day he’d simply want to come home to her. A glimmer of a plan to ask for her assistance in picking a place, to allow her touch to mold a bunch of rooms into a home. But on the days he was away on his never-ending surveillance, would he simply allow her to marinate in all that extra space?
After all, he had been there before. He knew how it was to drown in emptiness. As tempting as it was to simply regard her as his home base, she’d need the place to stash him whenever he came home, so she could continue the flow of her life uninterrupted by his coming and going.
He was getting ahead of himself again.
“Remember when you asked me how I knew where the ends of the earth are?” he said.
“I think so, yes,” she said, graciously allowing him to leave her own question unanswered. “I thought you were being sarcastic at the time.”
“I want to show you where the sky, the sea, and the earth meet.”
“Oh?”
For some reason, Sasuke felt as if his answer would make or break his plans. Sometimes, he didn’t bother explaining things because the effect of doing so wasn’t worth the effort. Sometimes, it was because he thought the situation spoke for itself, if only the other person applied themselves. There were times when he simply didn’t know how.
“I traveled north,” he explained. “Close to the pole. The atmosphere is thinner there, so I thought I could look into ambient energy signatures filtering through near-space, maybe further beyond that.”
She nodded attentively.
“The land is featureless. No, that’s not true. I had stayed in a hamlet in Northern Earth country, in the area just before permafrost sets in. There were still hundreds of kilometers between the settlement and the pole, so I kept walking till I no longer had land underneath.”
“Freshwater ice?”
“Initially, yes. Eventually, frozen saltwater. A thick layer of contiguous chunks of drift ice that insulates the sea from freezing in the subzero temperature of the air. They shift and thin and crack and reform. It’s imperative to stay on stable sheets, not newly forming ones. We’ll be one of the only large mammals there on the surface.”
Any genin could tell you the world was sphere-like. As such it had no edges, if one thought of it as one solid. He could bring her to any beach, and lo, the earth and the sea met there. If sky was just another word for the atmosphere, then it met the earth everywhere. When looking upon the world with his left eye, all of its inhabitants and components could be stripped bare to its constituent energy and the basic repeating patterns that made up matter. For him to stand on an ice sheet that teemed with life, on and underneath, and call it nothingness, for him to behold the unsinking sun through the haze of ice crystals in a swirl of clouds and call it the meeting of the earth, sea, and sky, was pure, unadulterated, poetic drivel.
Sakura, he realized, a woman of science, beauty, and herculean strength, would never think of poetry as drivel.
“It feels like nothing and it feels like everything. My brain knows the seeming emptiness is false. I can see the energies of all life there. But in the face of a screaming blizzard, not knowing when your tent shall be opened as some bear’s last ration, and afterwards, when the sun starts shining through the clouds and its light scatters through millions of tiny prisms, it feels like I’m standing at the end of the world.”
He noted the riveted sparkle in her pale green eyes, could see her mind knit his words into images. He shouldn’t have doubted. If he couldn’t say all this to her, then to whom could he?
“I don’t have the words to describe it, but it’s stunning. My skull feels hollowed out and there’s a quiet joy in realizing that someone like me can still be stunned silent by beauty. I want you to see it, too. Not just that, I want to be there when you see it.”
“Wait. Is this an actual invitation?”
“Yes.”
“Not a figure of speech. Not a promise of someday.”
“No. In a few weeks, the apartment’s lease is up, so I thought the timing would be good. We’ll need a bigger one when we come back anyway.”
“We’ll need a bigger one,” Sakura echoed.
“For when you visit.” He took her sauce-spattered hand in his. “When you stay over.”
“It was cramped. I don’t think either of those rooms would comfortably fit even a double bed.”
“Other eventualities.”
“Eventualities. As in jumping the proverbial bandwagon so popular these days?”
When he didn’t respond, she carefully poked him. He watched her fingers loom to his forehead, noting the bluntly trimmed nails, the cuticles dry from constant use of antiseptics. Who was the rabbit now?
“Ask me again.”
“I am asking you again,” he said almost sulkily. To be more precise, he was asking instead.
“I mean, you silly goose, I have to take an extended leave. I can’t get stuck on an ice floe indefinitely without being sure my shifts are covered.”
Oh, good, he thought. Sakura understood what he was trying to convey.
“At least 2 years. Is that enough?”
“That’s plenty.”
“All right. Eight months then.”
“Two years will give us more leeway. In case of blizzards, monsoons, and volcano eruptions.” He planned on showing her the full-range of vistas he had seen. They’d also be passing through all sizes of human settlements. People could cause delays, too, desirable or not.
“Hmm. Then we probably won’t see each other for the next three months.”
He thought about what Dr. Rabbit said earlier about Sakura’s protective trainees.
“You don’t think so?”
“I think you’ll have more help than you think.”
“Sasuke-kun. This is a little more significant than renting an apartment together. Do you think we’re ready?”
“We’re ready.”
“What about… unforeseen consequences?”
“Unforseen.”
“Okay, foreseen, expected, but untimely.”
Sasuke paused to think about the consequences they might face. After that one educational endowment business, the Hokage had started sending him to small, D-level missions and the occasional higher grade ones, like a B or an A. It was only a matter of time before they took advantage of Sasuke’s wandering and sent him out on missions that would require weeks or even months of immersion. The quiescence of the world would not last forever. Creatures of destruction like him were allowed in the wild in case the species had need of him, not so close as to accidentally destroy the places where humans grew their families and their hubs, not so kept as to soften too much to remain vanguard. But that was not all he was. In the meantime, maybe he could be allowed this much. Maybe he could be allowed to hold her hand in his while he tarried, while she rested.
“The family thing, Sasuke-kun. Making more Uchihas.”
It would be a lie to say he didn’t think of the possibility of offspring, perhaps even relegating it under the umbrella of eventualities. He may have spent most of his adolescence obsessed with vengeance, but he knew to what their activities may lead. Still, he would never assume she would want the same thing at the same time he did, if she wanted them at all. Even he wasn’t sure if he should be allowed to want. (Who had the authority to forbid him but her?) A surprisingly optimistic speck in him believed that her influence would prevail on such hypothetical offspring. They would be more balanced, could love and fight with equal ferocity.
“During our trip,” he finally said. “In between investigations and hiking, maybe at night before we fall asleep, we’re going to talk about practical things like taxes and mortgages, splitting up chores and saving money. What would we do if one of us can't work? Grown-up matters.”
“And when do we talk about dreams and fanciful notions?”
“Right along with the practical stuff.”
Long-term plans were a luxury in their setting. There was an element of wishing when they conferred like this.
Please let us meet again.
Please let us keep our promises.
Please let our bonds endure.
“All right,” she murmured, insinuating closer to him in that endearing, still startling way hers. “I’ll walk with you. The world’s ends and the in-betweens. I’m with you.”
He shifted forward to clinch their embrace.
“Thank you,” he said. “Sakura.”
VIII. Recommendations
The rational next step to this study is to remove the new dyad from their familiar setting and discover how they’ll respond to various challenges, situations, and locales outside their comfort zone.
The author strongly recommends the approval of Haruno Sakura’s leave of absence.
As Sakura anticipated, it took awhile for her to obtain her sabbatical leave.
“Why can’t you just have a huge wedding like Naruto?” Shikamaru demanded with Shizune nodding vehemently in the background. “I’ll rent you the former Uchiha estate at a discount.”
“Why are you asking me about Sakura’s request?” Sasuke asked.
“Because she’s eloping with you!”
What an assumption. Just because neither of them had gotten around to filing the proper paperwork didn’t mean they intended to elope. In between moving apartments, he stayed a few nights in her childhood bedroom, while she stayed at her dormitory room closer to the hospital. He saw childish scribbles of Uchiha Sakura in sparkly pen—did she accidentally infuse them with chakra or something? They glowed in the dark through stacks of old test papers, published journals, and formal appointments as he forced himself to sleep under covers that smelled of her go-to detergent. It had to be made official, that Sasuke knew, but he would wait until it organically came up in their conversations, preferably without all the work distractions. Hence, the urgency of them approving her leave.
“Meanwhile, I get to stay here and reassign her work. How many ninjas do you think will I need just here in the office to maintain her caliber of output?”
“I’m starting to get offended here,” Kakashi said, looking up from his paper work. “What am I?”
“And can you think of a mednin capable of functioning at her level?”
“Do you need mednins capable of functioning at her level in your everyday operations?” Sasuke asked Shizune. “I mean the extreme end of her skills, ma’am.”
“I’ve never gotten a ‘ma’am’ in my life,” muttered Tsunade, looking up from her cards.
“She’s my doctor’s direct supervisor.” He shook his head impatiently. “Should we reschedule, Kakashi?”
“It’s okay, Godaime-sama,” Kakashi said, creaking to his feet. “I’ve never had a ‘sir,’ either. Not holding my breath.”
His ultimate commander brought him to the relatively quiet war room.
“You’ve read my paper?” Sasuke said to speed things along. He wanted to start dinner early, so he had extra time to shop for alternatives should his cooking fall below par.
“Yes, I think this one is safe to submit for publishing. I wanted to confirm that you have no other additional changes and then have the endowment committee give a final stamp of approval.”
In the end, it was unanimously decided by Kakashi and all the brown-nosers that frequented the Hokage’s office that Sasuke needed to keep his dissertation on Haruno Sakura private. And if they published his fastidious, but still obviously and hopelessly full of pining, document, neither the endowment committee nor the academe of Konohagakure no Sato would be taken seriously anywhere, locally or abroad. There would also be deleterious effects on the reputation of one Avenger, whose realignment with the village conferred no small deterrence to malicious outside elements, opportunists who would have otherwise pounced on their rebuilding home. Tragically, the ramifications of his bloated love letter on the economics and political environment of the village and even of the Fire Nation were just too unpredictable to risk.
“Love letter?” Sasuke had demanded at the time.
“That was your takeaway from my entire speech?” Kakashi had said, aghast. “I got late coming in this morning from staying up all night composing it.”
“You’re always late. Who said it was a love letter?”
“Sakura. She asked me if I could find a way to not publish your love letter. So it can be just hers forever.”
Sasuke had never felt his face burn so hotly before. And he was a fire user.
“Romantic, isn’t it?”
At any rate, Kakashi made an executive decision to replace Sakura as Sasuke’s thesis advisor and to change his topic. He submitted the final draft of his paper, “Not Just A Light Show: The Effects of Sea Salt Aerosols on the Chidori,” a few days ago. Once the endowment committee approved his paper, he would have fulfilled all his obligations related to the financial costs of his prosthetic arm.
“So how are the newlyweds?” Kakashi asked, switching topics quicker than warranted.
“We’re not married,” Sasuke said lamely.
“You live like you are.” His former teacher’s visible eye crinkled warmly. “But never mind my prying questions. In full consideration of the previous paper you submitted, I’m doing my best to have Sakura’s leave granted. Just don’t tell her yet, okay?”
“When you assigned me the first topic, was it part of my risk assessment?”
“Risk to whom?”
“The general public.”
“I’d like to think I have a fair understanding of you, Sasuke, and that in the spirit of the Konoha Naruto wants to lead, I’m giving you the opportunity to reintegrate back to us in equitable terms. That doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge the part that I still have a small soft spot in me for you, having once been one of my precious students.”
“Did you think I won’t be honest about it?”
“I thought you would give it your best shot, of course. I didn’t think you’d decide to frame it through your relationship with Sakura. That was just a bonus.”
“What if I was faking it?”
Kakashi snorted.
“Why wouldn’t I frame it through Sakura? I was determined to protect the village, but the only reason I’d permanently stay here is for her. But the more I wander, the more convinced I am that I can’t stay put.”
“Are you so determined to be the half-glass-empty guy?”
“It’s not about optimism or pessimism. It’s about preparing for the future.” Sasuke shook his head. “I just want us to have the chance to deepen our bond before I test it again.”
“I understand. But if you don’t mind, I’d personally keep hoping you two have all the time you need together and no earth shaking thing will force you to divest all the tenderness and humanness you’ve since built up.”
“We will see.” He was determined to be the realist among all the dreamers he seemed to have gathered throughout this short life. “I’ll live in the now.”
“Congratulations, Sasuke.”
“Thank you, sensei.”
They shook hands and parted ways for now.
Notes:
Thanks for reading till the end.
Kyanite217 on Chapter 1 Sun 28 Mar 2021 02:26PM UTC
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marlenemma15 on Chapter 1 Tue 09 Sep 2025 02:41AM UTC
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Anon (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sun 28 Mar 2021 02:08PM UTC
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sleepycoffeemug on Chapter 2 Mon 29 Mar 2021 06:04AM UTC
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Moonbitch (Guest) on Chapter 2 Fri 09 Jul 2021 09:48AM UTC
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Heslis on Chapter 2 Mon 17 Apr 2023 10:20PM UTC
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marlenemma15 on Chapter 2 Tue 09 Sep 2025 03:04AM UTC
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anon (Guest) on Chapter 6 Mon 08 Sep 2025 09:18PM UTC
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