KONOHA

“...Is it true?” Ino asked behind her. Sakura looked up, her gaze rising from the potted flowers by her feet to regard the pale-faced blonde. The Yamanaka scion was panting, sweat beading her face; they must have turned her back at the hospital as well.

“Sakura!” Ino called again, this time managing to break her from the trance she found herself in. Sakura’s distracted gaze finally managed to focus on her rival's worried visage, tears brimming her eyes.

“Yes,” came Sakura’s monosyllabic response. Her throat felt sore and dry, rasping even with this single word she uttered. The despair in her heart shone through even her stone-faced facade.

Crippled. Her beloved. Crippled.

A line of tears ran down her right cheek, mirroring Ino’s. She wiped it stoically. He disliked tears, Sakura remembered, a sad smile gracing her face at the thought of him intimately breathing down her neck about how undignified they were.

She turned back to the flowers at her feet. “It’s bad luck to buy a potted plant for someone who’s in the hospital,” she ground out, managing to force the words out of her mouth. “Cut flowers are a better choice. Which ones should I get?”

Ino said nothing. For a few ominous moments, the blonde gave no reaction. Then, suddenly, she stepped forward.

“A daffodil?” Sakura whispered as she gently pried the flower from the other girl’s hand. A smile blossomed on her face.

“It’s perfect. Thank—” A surprisingly smothering hug from Ino interrupted her, forcing the air out of her lungs. Sakura looked down to see the girl she had dreamed of triumphing over for years now sobbing into the crook of her neck.

Vulnerable.

Sakura’s hand hesitantly rose to the blonde’s back as she reciprocated the hug. The feeling of Ino’s shudders reverberating through her body thawed something in her heart. She found hot tears running down her face. She wiped them, but they proved persistent.

I am not crying... No! I am not! Sasuke wouldn’t like that… It would be undignified.

“...Why do boys do this?” she asked her companion. “Why do they always hurt us so?..”

“How would I know?” Ino whispered. “I’m a girl too, you know…”

“...Sorry.”

***

Sasuke sat on the windowsill, dressed in a patient gown, one leg dangling languidly in the air from where it hung on the ledge. Her beloved stared out at the village outside, his thoughts undiscernible through his placid visage. His left hand toyed with an ink brush with which he scribbled down those indecipherable notes of his on a tiny notebook on his lap. Where his right hand ought to be the voluminous sleeves of his garment collapsed into itself.

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Sakura’s breath stuttered as she observed him. As usual, he seemed utterly unconcerned about the world around him. An unnatural calmness. Like a mountain or a great beast at rest. He appeared ominously unconcerned about the loss of his appendage. Regal, with a subtle divinity about his aura…

Majestic.

Beside her, Ino’s feet shuffled on the tiled floor. The girl appeared unsure whether or not to approach him. As if sensing her discomfort, Sasuke’s limpid gaze slowly panned to regard them. A gentle smile curled at the edges of his pink, sugary lips. A careless beauty.

“You came,” he intoned. Sakura’s bones turned soft at the sound of his voice. Ino didn’t seem to be faring any better. “Thank you.”

“...I-it’s not a p-problem, Sasuke,” Sakura replied. She shook her head to get the stutter out of her voice. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” came his reply. “I should be able to return to doing missions in a few days… Assuming Kakashi-sensei gets any better that is.”

What?

Her mind short-circuited. Missions? What about your arm? she whispered, tears threatening to stain her face again.

Her fool-hardly flame smile turned fond as if he could hear her thoughts. Then he appeared before her, his face inches from hers.

“I might not be able to use ninjutsu anymore, but I am still more of a threat to your generic shinobi than you are at the moment.”

She blinked and he was again seated at the windowsill, a small smile still gracing his lips. She couldn’t say for sure whether or not he moved or what she saw now was just a Genjutsu. Abruptly, Sakura felt herself a fool. Here she was worrying about Sasuke’s future when even while deprived of an arm he remained leagues ahead of her in possibly everything but ninjutsu.

Still, a relieved sigh vented from her chest and she found herself looking at him in a new light.

Such fortitude of mind…

It ignited a new feeling in her heart. The flames of her adoration of him blazed even stronger than ever before and she fell in love anew.

“...We brought you flowers,” Ino managed, subconsciously falling back to her old habit of not wanting to get sidelined in Sasuke’s presence. Despite this though, Sakura couldn’t find it in her to get irked at the blonde. A fond smile blossomed on her face.

“Dandelion?” Sasuke asked, gently collecting the flowers from Ino. Despite her change of heart, Sakura could not completely suppress her twitching brow as the blonde purposefully went out of her way to run her fingers against Sasuke’s. Her beloved didn’t react, probably oblivious to Ino’s advances. Sadly, he seemed quite dense in matters of… that nature.

I have to protect him from these minxes at all costs! Sakura resolved in her heart, watching as Sasuke sniffed the flowers.

“Y-yes,” Ino stuttered.

“...Beautiful even in the dead of winter,” Sasuke whispered. “Patiently waiting for spring without bowing.to the cold. Thank you. Both of you.”

The room fell silent.

“...What?” Sasuke asked, apparently confused.

“...How do you know that verse?” Ino asked, stunned. Sakura could not keep the surprise off her face either.

Sasuke’s expression froze. He flashed an embarrassed smile which he promptly hid with a cough. “...A poem?” he said hesitantly, moments later.

…A lie, Sakura realised. A flimsy lie!

Her eyes widened as a strange epiphany befell her. She could not stop the torrent of giggles that poured out of her mouth. Neither could Ino, it seemed. Sasuke scratched the side of his cheek, his onyx eyes flickering to the side nervously.

She didn’t think it was possible. A blushing Sasuke?

How utterly absurd…