An Irrevocable Condition: 6
Part 6: Where the Heart Is
Summary: Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.
Rating: Mature (for future installments)
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Author’s Notes: This is for timms7001, who donated toward the Naruto for Nepal project to see the next chapter of this fic. Thank you so much for your contribution, and I hope you enjoy the new installment!
Home, for Sakura, used to be the house she grew up in, but Pain’s invasion saw to its destruction. After the war, she came to see Konoha itself, even in its new incarnation, as the place where she could always come back to. But now she wonders whether home can be confined to anything as simple as buildings and the land they stand on. Maybe it’s something more, bound up in the collective affection of the people she cares for. Or rooted in her love for an itinerant man, wherever it takes her.
Sakura can’t be sure; she’s a fighter, not a philosopher, no matter how much she enjoys questioning things most people never bother to ask after.
She rests her head on Sasuke’s shoulder. “What do you think makes a home?”
They’re lying together in bed, both too wakeful to sleep. Sakura traces the same character again and again across the hard plane of his bare chest: mine, mine, mine.
“I don’t know,” Sasuke says, “but you can’t get rid of it.”
She frowns and asks, “What do you mean ‘can’t get rid of it’? Like it’s a bad thing?”
He sighs. “I wanted, for a long time, to forget you and Naruto and the rest of Konoha. To stop caring altogether. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do it. Not really.”
“Not even when you tried to kill me?” Sakura asks, voice carefully light.
“You tried to kill me too,” he reminds her. “Did it mean you’d stopped loving me?”
“No, of course not,” she says.
“Well, there’s your answer.” He plays with her hair. “I am sorry about that, Sakura. If I could take it back, I would.”
They lie in silence for moments that stretch into minutes, until she finally finds the courage to ask a question she hopes she already knows the answer to: “Do you love me, Sasuke?”
He’s quiet for one heartbeat, two, then he says, “When we were still at the Academy, do you remember how a rumor went around that I liked girls with long hair?”
“Yes,” Sakura says, a little testily, because he isn’t answering her question.
“Well that rumor started because I was stupid enough to tell Kiba that I thought your hair was pretty. I was talking about the color, but I guess he thought I meant the length, and then he opened his fat mouth and told everybody I had a thing for long-haired girls.”
She can’t help it, she smiles. “You liked my pink hair?”
“I did. I always thought you were beautiful. And then later, after we were teammates, I started to feel more for you. Back then I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. Now I do, Sakura.” He kisses the top of her head. “I love you, like you love me, but I haven’t done a very good job of letting you know it. I’ll do better. I promise.”
Sakura wipes away her tears and props herself up on an elbow. She cups his cheek, turns his face toward her, and looks right into his mismatched eyes when she says, “I love you, too. I love you so much, Sasuke.”
He pulls her down, so that she’s lying flat against his chest, and kisses her. It’s gentle, hesitant even, just the barest brushing of lips. His first, she knows, and hers too, but it couldn’t be more perfect.
Much later, after they’ve kissed one another breathless, Sasuke says, “I want to do this every day for the rest of my life.”
He speaks with such confidence. As if a future together is an inevitability he craves.
Author’s Notes: For those who are unfamiliar with the project this chapter is a part of, the amazing uchihasass began Naruto for Nepal to bring together Naruto fans to raise money and awareness for Nepal in wake of the earthquakes that have devastated her home country. This is an absolutely incredible effort, one I am happy to be a small part of. Please check out the Naruto for Nepal official tumblr for more information.
Also, I’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Sasuke’s conversation with Sakura about her hair was 100% inspired by this post by hachina1.