Until Then

Chapter 23 ~ Small Gestures

“I wanna see the shadows on your face
I wanna see the mountains that you climb...
When am I gonna see you again?"

It was the crack of dawn when the pinkette had stirred awake. Her head was resting comfortably on Sasuke and her backpacks. There was a thick blanket of mist covering the forest floor, giving a settling frosty glow to the grass.

Feeling well rested, Sakura stretched out her arm, almost hitting something next to her. Sasuke was still there, sleeping silently in an upright position as if he had been keeping guard. She gently shrugged off her borrowed poncho, already missing the warmth as she draping it over his shoulders. Dark raven locks brushed over his eyes, and she noticed just how long his hair had gotten.

Without wanting to wake him up, she carefully dug through to the bottom of her bag, fishing out her cellphone. She hadn’t checked it since they had left the small inn. 4:13am. Looking up, it made sense how there were only thin stripes of light escaping in-between the trees, it was still early break of dawn.

 
Seven unread messages from Ino-Pig. Some were from the other day but it was the ones from yesterday that caught her eye.
 

SAKURA!!!

Sorry, I couldn’t wait to tell you because I don’t know when you will see this message, BUT!!!!!!!!

*attachment below*

Sakura’s eyes widened, as her hand came up ,covering her mouth to prevent from squealing. There was a picture of Ino sitting on the floor, surrounded by dozens of origami paper cranes and intricately folded roses. With a teary smile, she held out one of the unrolled flowers that read “Will you marry me?”.

The last message read, “I SAID YESSSS!!!!”

Sakura could practically feel her excitement through her texts. She wanted to call her, to see and congratulate her- but then she remembered the time and the fact that she was nowhere close to Konoha right now.

 
Quick fingers skimmed over the phone as she sent a reply. Her best friend and her teammate were engaged! ‘This day was already going well.’ Sakura thought to herself.

 
Sasuke was fast to notice the light bounce and general chirpiness in her movements that morning. From the way she hummed an unfamiliar tune as she neatly packed her clothes after hanging them to dry- to way her arms swung side to side as she walked. 

“I talked to Ino earlier, she got engaged!”

 
‘To whom?’ He wanted to ask in hopes that it wasn’t who he thought it would be, but the look on the pinkettes face confirmed his wanting doubt. He shuddered inwardly at the memory of the encounter with the couple when he had come back.

 
With Ino getting married, he assumed the future newly wedded couple would take time off, ultimately meaning Sakura would have to be in charge of the hospital. It would be back to her busy non-stop schedules.

“That’s…good?”

The way he said it, sounded so unsure that Sakura couldn’t help letting out a laugh at his attempt. “Uh huh.”

He watched from the corner of his eye, the unwavering smile that seemed to somehow show on her whole face. She didn’t even appear to be smiling at anything in particular, she just seemed genuinely content.
 
He noted that when she was happy, she was more quiet than she usually was, as if taking in everything around her.

It was moments like these which were a reminder to him that her place wasn’t on a foreign terrain with no clear destination, but rather it was back in the village. She had already built up her life there, he wouldn’t and couldn’t see himself be selfish with her.