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“I love you, Sakura. Will you marry me?”
Sakura Haruno has only ever really been speechless twice in her life.
The first was when she landed the finishing blow on the strongest being in the universe, and the second is now. Having Sasuke Uchiha on one knee, asking her to marry him, saying the words she’s wanted to hear all her life. Sasuke Uchiha, holding out a ring with his only hand. Sasuke Uchiha, really.
Her lungs are caught on something, her throat swells, and her mouth is dry, dry, dry, but she knows this isn’t the time to suffocate.
So Sakura instead takes note of his doubting eyes, his pleading proposal (like he’s unsure he wants to be doing this), and all the courage it probably took him to do it. She takes it deeply into account. She does, she swears it. Maybe that’s why she tastes the inexplicable guilt and regret on her tongue when she says her next words.
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
She can’t give any reason beyond that. She can’t seem to explain to him the fear that overcame her like an avalanche at the idea of a lifetime with him. She wouldn’t dare to.
There’s no polite way to undress what follows. Sasuke stares, stunned, his face fallen by now. And she can’t offer any comforting words. It’s awkward. It’s mortifying. And it ends far sooner than any proposal probably should.
All Sakura can think by the end of it is that she probably just ruined her own future. Though she pretends not to dwell on it as she races out of their shared apartment with no idea of where she’s going to crash for the night.
*
She ends up at Naruto’s in the end.
He greets her at the door, rubbing his eyes, groggy like he just woke up - but she doesn’t really think about it as she struts into his apartment uninvited, panicked and wholly mad.
“I think,” she breathes, “It was his dead mom’s ring.” The guilt rises like bile, but she forces it back down just barley.
Naruto stares at her, completely confused, still half asleep as he closes the door behind them, far too used to Sakura walking into his apartment like she owns the place by now.
“What are you talking about, Sakura?” he asks, voice raw.
She’s pacing back and forth across his living room, cheeks flushed red, probably from Konoha’s winter, probably from the tears threatening to fall. The whole thing is a cry for help.
“Sasuke,” she shrieks, “God, what have I done? Naruto, I’ve just sabotaged any chance I had of a good future.”
That’s when he fully wakes up. He takes her gently by the arm, guides her to sit down at his empty kitchen table, and asks again, but softer this time, as if trying to soothe the answer out of his best friend.
By the end of Sakura’s dramatic retelling, which he only really gets in bits and pieces out of amidst the hysteria, he thinks he understands:
They were in bed. They were talking. Then suddenly they weren’t, and Sasuke was on one knee. And she was fleeing the scene. Out of guilt and fear, or maybe cowardice. But he knows the last thing Sakura Haruno is, is a coward, so he safely tucks that thought away.
“So why did you say no?”
“I don’t fucking know, that’s what I’m telling you.” There is mascara under her eyes, maybe from all the crying. Her hair is messy and furled at the tips. There is panic swimming in her eyes. In her veins too. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Him. Marriage. A happy ever after.”
“So…”
She sighs, loud and heavy. “It suddenly all felt so real. You know?” Naruto really does not, but he nods and allows her to continue.
“He’s really only in the village for a few weeks at a time. So I guess I convinced myself I still loved him as hard as I used to. It was easy, not seeing him for months at a time, keeping this idea of him from our childhood locked away in my mind. But marrying him? Fuck, Naruto, I panicked. I didn’t know what to say to him.”
It’s quiet soon after that.
Until Naruto finally says, “Man, at least he didn’t propose in a public place. That would’ve sucked.”
She glares.
He winces. Too soon, probably.
“Well,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, “you can stay here until you figure out how you’re going to face him. I’ll take the couch, you can have the bed.”
“Thanks, Naruto. Seriously, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
*
A whole week later, and she still hasn’t managed to leave Naruto’s bed, let alone his apartment. (Sasuke, by the way, doesn’t seem concerned at all that she hasn’t been back. He hasn’t even come looking. What a perfect couple.) Apparently, Sakura's taken a leave of absence from the hospital, and Naruto’s even had to buy her a new toothbrush.
He's never seen her this distraught. You’d think she was the one who got rejected, not the other way around. He wants to tell her that her future isn’t doomed just because she turned down a proposal, but he tries to quietly support her instead.
That is, until one night, he drags her out of the house with the excuse of: “You’re probably going to fossilize in my apartment if you don’t leave at some point.” They go to Ichiraku, but due to Sakura’s insistence for booze, they end up at a bar afterwards.
Sakura is easily the world’s worst confessional drunk. He remembers this very quickly, because of how everything comes flying out of her mouth like a hurricane.
“It’s her. It’s always been her. That's why I couldn't say yes.” She slouches over the table in their private booth. “Fuck those eyes, so blue, so perfect. They kind of look like yours, heh. Hey, have you ever wondered if you two are secretly siblings?” She giggles.
It’s stupid. Naruto is an Uzumaki, Ino is a Yamanaka. Two completely different clans. Blonde hair and blue eyes wouldn’t mean they’re related when they come from entirely different family lines. But he doesn’t think drunk Sakura cares.
“Oh.” Is all he manages. He doesn't really say anything else after that.
*
Sakura never thought she’d find herself admitting to anyone that she might actually be in love with her rival (and friend) and that her relationship with Sasuke was really just a way of holding onto something that made her feel normal, something she’s supposed to want.
Sakura’s been bottling this up for what feels like centuries. She’s tired. She's in love with Ino, and she's done everything to hide the evidence of it, and she's tired.
Tired of pretending she didn’t stop loving Sasuke Uchiha at some point. Tired of pretending she’s still that starry-eyed kid who was always so conflicted with herself. Who only ever chased after Sasuke to fit in with the other girls, until it became an obsession with shackles of its own.
She doesn’t know the exact moment it happened (when she stopped loving him). Maybe it was when she saw him walk through the front gates of Konoha after so long, tired, worn, a shell of his best self. Maybe it was back on the battlefield, when he tried to kill her like fucking twice. Maybe it was long before that, like the night he took her out with a pressure point and left her collapsed on Konoha’s floor until morning.
She can’t pinpoint it. But at some point, she really did stop loving Sasuke Uchiha. Romantically, anyway. She still cares deeply for him as a friend. She understands he was going through a hard time, and she sympathizes, but only as a teammate. Anything beyond that, she learns, is impossible for her.
And sometimes, when she’s drunk and spiraling, she wonders: did I ever really love him?
Probably not.
But then there's Sasuke, in front of her again, older now, and saying all the pretty things she had always wanted to hear. From him, from anyone. Saying it had always just been her. That she was more dear to him than his tainted legacy. That it had always been requited.
She knows most of it isn’t true. Sasuke Uchiha has hardly ever looked her way. There’s no way he’s unconditionally loved her from the sidelines of all his maddening grief. She knows it’s probably him scrambling to settle down and finally add some normalcy to his life, finally think of the future of his dying clan. She knows this well.
But still, Sakura thinks: this is safe. This is good. He is safe. He is good for her.
You know what’s not ‘safe’? she reminds herself. Being more attracted to a woman than a guy. Wanting to start a family with her and grow old with her but not him.
So she doesn’t hesitate to pack all her things, move in with him, kiss his neck, and tell him she loves him back too.
*
It's a few days later that Naruto tells her that the reason they haven’t heard from Sasuke is because Kakashi offered him a mission, far away, near the Land of Rain, and he went. He fucking went. She pretends to act shocked, considering she did kind of drop a bombshell on their whole sham of a relationship and probably blew it up for good.
“Why don’t you just tell her?” Naruto asks one day.
She coughs. “Where is this coming from?”
He sighs.
“It’s obvious you love her. Instead of being in such denial, just tell her. You never know, she could feel the same.”
He must not know that if there were even an inkling that Ino felt the same way, Sakura wouldn’t be dissolving into tea like sugar. She’d be fastening herself to her instead and breathing her air every second she could get. She’d be telling her all week long about the unbearable but tender feelings she has for her.
And then Sakura wonders if Naruto simply thinks she’s a coward. That she’s scared of leaving Sasuke and the falsehood she’s built because she’s afraid of being rejected by Ino. Which isn’t entirely a lie. But really, it’s much more.
Sakura is haunted by her own mothers voice saying that girls shouldn’t like other girls. That it’s wrong. That if her daughter ever turned out like that, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. It was behind closed doors, in a hushed, whispered tone, like the topic itself was guilty of being a sin. But Sakura heard it all the same.
That, and how people who love the same gender are treated in this land. How they’re ostracized for simply loving one another. How there are literally bullshit laws that define which kinds of relationships are wrong, and which kinds are right. Laws set in place by figures far higher than any Kage.
And finally Ino. Oh, Ino. Who’s been boy obsessed since childhood. Who she’s watched starve herself five sizes thinner just to get the boy she liked to notice her. Ino, who’s currently in love with a boy. Ino, who is straight, and from a renowned clan that expects heirs.
So maybe it was cowardice. But maybe it was also her being pragmatic. Realizing she’ll never have what she wants and also live happily. So why even bother?
“Don't you think I know the way it is?” She tells him as if she can’t bear to discuss the topic any further. (She really can’t).
*
Sakura finally moves back into her shared apartment. It’s okay. She's okay.
She’s picking up the pieces of her scrambled mind. She’s even set to go back to work at the hospital tomorrow and is already concocting a plan to apologize to Sasuke and win him back. Putting her life back on the right track. How it should be.
That is, until Ino swings by their apartment randomly.
“People are talking,” Ino says to her as Sakura stands in her and Sasuke’s kitchen, preparing tea for them. Anything to keep herself busy.
Sakura hums, feigning obliviousness. “What are they saying?”
“That a certain Uchiha proposed, and you panicked and said no.”
Sakura considers bashing Naruto’s head in for spilling the beans to Ino of all people. That idiot.
“Okay, well first of all, I know you only heard that from Naruto. No one else knows, and he probably just told you to check up on me. But I’m fine. And he’s wrong. I didn’t panic, I just didn’t know if I was ready then.”
“And now you are?”
Sakura really wishes Ino would spare her some dignity. She’s already taken enough of her sanity.
She thinks of blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She thinks of the sun and her lovely gifts. She thinks of the first person to ever call her pretty. To ever witness her potential and help her build her confidence. The only person she’s ever felt as angry as she has in love with. The only person who understands her ticks to a fault. And she swallows.
“Yeah. I love him,” swallows again. “I want to be with him for the rest of my life.”
Ino doesn’t respond for a bit, and Sakura is scared to turn around and look at her expression. Can she see through her mountain of lies?
Then, finally, “Okay, well you had me worried. You and Sasuke are like the perfect love story. I don’t know if I could believe in love anymore if it didn’t work out.”
Sakura laughs.
What she really wants to say is: if Ino’s faith in love is her and Sasuke, her whole romantic life has been a lie.
She doesn’t.
“I’m actually getting married too.” Ino giggles. Light, airy, mischievous even. “Sai proposed.”
Sakura imagines what hell is like, and thinks it’s somewhat close to this. There’s something dangerous threatening to crawl out of her ribs, clawing away at her chest, but she forces it back down and calms the roaring in her heart before turning to Ino and smiling, big and wide. All happy. Like a good friend should be.
Because a good friend wouldn’t secretly wish she was with her instead. Wouldn’t wish to be tangled in the same sin, damned by the same feelings everyone will crucify her for and call wrong for the rest of her life.
She's better of with him.
So she sits down beside Ino. “That’s great. I’m so happy. Ever since you met him you’ve been beaming.”
Ino smiles shyly. “You think?”
Sakura is either the world’s biggest masochist, or maybe just a liar. Because she nods and says, “Yeah. It’s like he brings out the best in you.”
Probably both.
*
She throws herself into her work. Sasuke isn’t back yet, and she doesn’t really have anyone else waiting up back at home, so she stays entire nights. Even when Tsunade tells her to head the fuck home and get some rest, she refuses and uses the excuse of her patients. Realistically, she knows her patients can last without her if she passes them on to another medic, but she’s not that responsible.
She avoids Ino. Not intentionally. She thinks it’s probably charged by her conscience. That maybe she thinks the pain in her chest will go away when she and Sasuke are officially hitched and fine again.
Naruto is worried. He keeps lingering on the subject, and she hates it.
She almost regrets letting the secret of her doomed and miserable love life slip to him. He’s her best friend, but sometimes it feels like he’s suffocating her with all his judgment and unbearable pity.
So she begins to avoid him too.
*
Sasuke comes back one early morning. She doesn’t go into work that day and instead they talk for hours. Mostly Sakura doing the talking and apologizing for freaking out and running away, but Sasuke chimes in here and there. It feels just like a long running joke.
“Is this what you want?” he finally asks by the end of the day.
She wants to scream at him: Absolutely not. I don’t even think this is what you want. We’re just two liars playing a love game full of charades for our own personal gains. But it’s all we have. No one else would be as stupid as us.
Instead, she nods. “Yeah. And you?”
He nods too. “I do.”
I need the idea of you. A devoted wife. Kids. That’s what he really means.
She’s the one on her knees this time, praying at the altar of their hoax and bullshit and loveless love. No ring this time, but somehow it’s a lot more digestible than the first time either one of them does it.
“Do you really want to marry me, Sakura?” he asks again. This time giving her an out. A chance to stop playing this game. A chance to leave and not feel guilty about it.
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
No. No. No. She really means to say.
*
“You are being a fucking idiot,” Naruto tells her.
She bursts out laughing. They’re at a bar, and she’s not drunk this time. Otherwise, she’d already be crying.
“That’s not how engagement parties go, usually. You’re supposed to toast and congratulate me,” she tells him.
She hasn’t seen him in a while and decides to invite him out, maybe get wasted without having to worry about the conversation drifting to Ino around any of their other friends. Naruto’s told her a hundred times that she’s a 'confessional' drunk. It’s best she doesn’t drink around others for now.
Naruto actually frowns and narrows his eyes. “I’m not going to congratulate you on being an idiot.”
She rolls her eyes and huffs in response. “She’s engaged, Naruto. Do you want me to stay miserable and moping around her side forever?”
“I want you to stop lying to yourself.”
“I’m not.” Another lie. She’s really getting good at this, she thinks to herself.
But half an hour later, she’s slurring Ino’s name, too hammered to care if anyone they know walks past their closed booth and hears. Then, she’s throwing up on the pavement outside the bar as Naruto holds her hair back and mumbles about how he “told her so”.
She dreams of Ino that night. Her hair, her eyes, her voice. She wakes up halfway through it though, screaming her name.
If Sasuke heard her, he doesn’t seem to show it the next morning.
*
“Congratulations, Sakura!” her friends and teachers say to her at her wedding. It's spring now and she smiles big and thanks them each individually.
“Congratulations, Sakura,” Ino says, a matching ring on her own ring finger. Sakura smiles, but this time it doesn’t reach her eyes, and she doesn’t say anything back. In other words, the truth is lodged in her throat, and she’s scared to let it out if she opens her mouth at all.
*
Sakura learns years later that Ino is a wound that never stops bleeding.