Sasuke is handsome with a strong build, stable job and a loving family. What more could Sakura have bargained for in a marriage?
Love.
That's the only thing he can't give her.
Sasuke has his heart for someone while Sakura has confused feelings. Bo...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Mikoto's eyes flutter open to the harsh glare of the overhead lights and the eerie creaking of windows yielding to the relentless wind outside. A storm, she surmises, regarding the wind howling above the impervious silence in their house. How simple it is to get used to, Mikoto wonders. She never thought silence would be one thing she will get used to, between Sasuke's cheerful calls for his brother and Itachi's infectious laughter; from not-so-hidden whispers between Itachi and Izumi to Sasuke's tantrums at not being involved. They were few and all that they needed. Complete. What changed, she can't help but think.
Mikoto rises from the chair, the wood creaking beneath her weight, and turns towards the clock on the wall behind her, its hands inching closer to twelve. Just four more minutes. Her heart speeds up. Sasuke being late is an occurrence too frequent in their household. He is as bad as Itachi, if not more. But Sakura... Mikoto let her fingers bunch through the fabric of her dress. It was only yesterday she heard of the incident Sakura went through, how fear had grappled their hearts and turned their household quieter than the silence it was used to, and all they had yearned for was to rewind time and save their precious child of the frightening experience. Sakura had locked herself up in the bathroom, and as much as it broke Mikoto's heart to see her in such distress, she had let it happen, Sakura's need of space in that moment in mind.
She will come to, Mikoto thought and planned to comfort her. But Sakura had rushed straight out of the house, and her favorite pancakes had gone cold.
Would sending them with Sasuke have been too much? She had let that idea simmer down.
Sakura was hope. And only if to burden her with nothing else, she was a delight to have around. After their house had darkened in the way the world does under clouds awaiting storms, Mikoto assumed her eyes would no longer see the world in anything but monochromous strokes when Sakura sauntered in, as if she wasn't all but a rainbow in person, to make way through the clouds and belight their world with the light bending in her kaleidoscope. Their flower, who held the power to soften even her husband's frown into a small smile. She was their treasure, and they had found her, stolen her from her world and given her new arms to embrace. But little had she known then, it was their soil that was poisoned. They had wilted her, made her petals shrivel. They could water her however much they wanted, but they had nothing for her roots to hold on to. And it scares her, Mikoto realizes as she trudges along and finds herself before Sakura's door, the lack of her presence behind those walls.
