EYES WIDE OPEN: part two - doppelganger.

Chapter nine:

She sat by a cliff, legs dangling feets and feets below that one small wrong move- or an accident, she corrects in her mind -could lead to her dismay.

Although she was already dismayed by a lot from life itself. Apparently, living wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Nobody told her that. Nobody told anyone that.

It didn't matter, Sakura told herself.

The sky was still painfully orange before it would turn bright blue in a few moments later as long as she would still be sitting here to witness the sight. A sunrise.

Now at this time, in the Wave country whose main exports were undoubtedly fish, there would be fishermen hauling and hollering about...well, the fish.

However, the place she was sitting at currently was a little ways far and detached from that type of hustle and bustle. It was a stroke of luck that she managed to find it, in all honesty.

There was a sensation of calm.

But one could not be completely calm whilst sitting by the ocean.

The calm before the storm.

Cheek propped against one palm, Sakura gazed on listlessly upon the rest of her team.

She of course, was not with them.

There was...a barrier; so to speak. A fine line drawn. Of victimhood.

You see, the greatest visible pattern to be found within Team Seven was that they were all victims. Survivors of some painful, horrendous, tragic-

Well, you get it.

She reckons that this is the team with the people that society gave up on. Well, not so much gave up on but-

She struggled with a proper word to describe it. This concept.

It's like she imagined the Hokage looking at the lot of them and was at a loss too. Of what to do. So eventually just put those three together like a pile of broken things.

And broken things should not impact perfectly good and whole people.

They should not bother. (but oh, they do. They do.)

"What are you thinking about Sakura-chan?"

She gives the briefest side eye to the fairy-like boy sitting beside her. Older by a couple years. In body anyways.

She always thought he gave off an air of delicacy about him.

Now she knows why though. He's broken too.

His smiles, his eyes, shining bright and black like a beautiful piece of glass-

But empty like a cloudless sky. Too blue it was.

She goes back to looking at her team whilst noting that perhaps Haku could've served a better member of Team Seven than she currently was.

"Nohing in particular" she replies finally, taking her sweet time. Savouring it.

She did find it quite so funny that misery always liked company.

'It must be lonely, it must be painful.'

But it doesn't mean that just because someone is with you, it gets any better. In fact, things have a tendency to get even worse. Unfortunately.

In the distance, Kakashi puts his arms around Naruto and Sasuke and ruffles their hair with a visible eye-smile.

She has to wonder how much of it is real.

They've been at the island for a while now.

She herself doesn't necessarily keep track of the days but there is a peculiar mood hanging around the air and around the sulk of Naruto's lips.

They are leaving soon; parting soon and they could feel it. Everyone, collectively.

She knows that they have gotten closer with Zabusa and Haku. She was observer to seeing it all happen after all.

For hers is the role to observe. She does not participate. She is afterall, not the real Sakura.

But in any case; it seems like such a strange thing. To go from strangers- no, enemies -to friends.

A concept that she couldn't quite wrap her head around. You would have to excuse her though. This 'human' thing was pretty new to begin with. That's what she was; a beginner.

And besides, the experience of friendship...she's only had it happen to her once. You could not blame her for not understanding.

She looks on at their unsaid sentiments hanging in the air with a longing of her own.

In hindsight, it was perhaps this event that occurred during dinner that triggered the dream that unfolded in the following night.

'She' is sitting in the living room. At the kitchen table. But no meals were eaten there. Sarada eats all three meals outside regardless nowadays and Sasuke...perhaps one could consider themselves lucky if they managed to eat with him in the village; nevermind at this very exact and specific table.

It was an expensive table too. Bought overpriced amidst her frantic and eager decorating phase during her early twenties.

She is in her early thirties now and all she can think is; bullshit.

Well. At least she still eats here sometimes. Although maybe 'eat' is a bit stretching it.

She mostly just drinks coffee with a mix of protein powder. She doesn't get very hungry either way. And in any case, she had her 'resurrection jutsu' as everyone seemed to dub it as. She stopped correcting them too after a while.

She became resigned.

She throws her pen down, carelessly.

It rolls on the table before falling off the edge. Sakura doesn't bother to pick it up.

She looks at her bank statements littered all across the surface with every line of zero indicating how much money she has or has earned.

(you dipshit. Of course it's all earned. Where would it come from if you didn't earn it?)

Right. Right.

She was in the middle of doing her taxes. Not anymore though of course. She's gotten side tracked after all.

There are a million possible thoughts running through her brain. She doesn't entertain them all. She cannot entertain them all.

Because to explore every single one till the end-

Was like asking for madness.

So she doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to think about it.

Because her mind was already tilting at a precarious ledge. No, she thought to herself. Let's not.

But according to psychology, we were not the masters of our own minds.

Sakura believes it.

There were questions in her head that perhaps no one, not even God almighty could give her the answers to.

Such as: 'what's wrong with me?' 'what could I have done better?to make you happy?' 'do you blame me for being a bad mother to our child? YOUR child?'

But the one she was the most curious about; goes like this.

You said you loved me...what does that mean?

The trembling starts from her heart. Then it spreads; to her fingertips, her mouth is quivering.

A first sob breaks out. Like a moan of suppression and pain.

She must be in pain. Logically, she recognizes this fact. But it was quite alright.

Because the human body also gets used to the pain.

She believes that too.

'Do not break...do not break…' she whispers it like a mantra amidst her tears.

In the end, I never fell out of love for you. I simply fell out of love for love. I didn't want to be in love anymore.

Because that was how painful it felt to me.

She woke up gasping for air that could not fill up her lungs fast enough.

Her knuckles were white from grasping at the bedsheets and she doesn't even need to feel around to know that the pillowcase was wet with her tears that were still streaming down, seemingly endless in its quantity.

"Fuck." she swears under her breath.

She wakes up almost at the point of breaking dawn again. It was time to go to the cliff. It seemed like she would make the sunrise...yet again.

She couldn't tell you exactly when the dreams started. Maybe the second or the third night of staying here.

But she could at least tell you what they were about.

Sasuke -of course- because it was always about Sasuke. So atypical. So...expected.

There was no great tragic tale about Sakura's life other than the unfortunate circumstances wherein she fell in love with the wrong boy.

And she doesn't say he's not the 'right' one because of how broken he is.

It's just that, in loving broken people there is a risk of letting ourselves become broken too.

Because these are the people that can't love you back. No matter how much you plead and beg at their feet.

They simply...can't.

I guess you have your answer then. She thought.