Sakura speaks in a language that Sasuke understands: one that smoothes along his ear with velvet floral and enraptures him in its creamy brilliance. It's a language he is intuitively fond of, but one he cannot speak himself.

He tries to—often, actually. Tries to tell her, Yes, he notices her too. He sees everything: Her cherry smiles in the break of morning, the methodical dexterity of her passion-driven pursuits, the dilation of her pupils and hum in her throat—reserved only for when her lips meets sweets and the taste of him.

He tries to tell her that he sees her, hears her, reveres her—the way she seamlessly does for him, with something as simple as Sasuke-kun. Instead her name leaves his lips in rasps and hesitation, his praise caught on the edge of his molars grinding into one another. The substance of her language is lost somewhere between the tumult of his scarred heart and the inheritance of his father's reticence. There is very little that Uchiha Sasuke fails at, but bilingualism may be one.

There is a shame in this. It's a beautiful language, Sasuke thinks. And Sakura tells him that it is made especially for him.

"Only you, Sasuke-kun," Sakura says, breathless. One hand brushes against his jaw; another fists at the back of his shirt. "Only you."

She stops filling his ears with her tongue, and fills his mouth instead.

Her tongue isn't always gentle, of course. There are roughened edges to it, not as sharp as she likely intends at times, but Sakura can still be devastatingly crude when she wants to. She has shoved Naruto headfirst in a bowl of his own ramen, growling, Dumbass! She has flushed a gorgeous pink and swat at Ino's shoulder, crying, Baka! And she has looked at him with glossy eyes, pale hair tossed in a disheveled mess, whispering, Fuck.

It's hard not to want something so radiantly passionate when all Sasuke has even known is his dirge of silence. And he can't quite learn the vivid patterns of her speech, but sometimes…

Sometimes…

Her kisses are warm, just like her words—just like every part of her. And she makes soft sounds that clog Sasuke's head with something alive. It's moss and vines and foliage, sliding from her mouth through his, crawling along his throat and nesting in his heart. It's her own softness resonating inside, her tongue reflecting, spurring him on when he pulls back, and sometimes says, "I love you."

Sasuke has always known with a near calculating consideration that Sakura's steadfast ease and affection would rub off on him in some form or another—that he would wake up one day with her beside him and feel an inexplicable peace that his teenage maelstrom could perhaps know of, but never fathom.

He did not consider the possibility that, while she gives him her consistent vivacity, he would give her a fragment of him, too:

Tsunade dies on a cloudless summer night, and Sakura is silent.

She is silent as they receive the news, she is silent during the obligatory hospital promotion, and she is silent as she and Shizune prepare for the wake.

The funeral is too large for a loss so intimate, and it makes the affair that much more miserable. Sasuke weaves his hand in Sakura's, squeezing her palm gently, though she does not squeeze back. The air is thick with the ashen scent of incense, and Shizune's steps are light when she finds the two after the ceremonial prayers.

"I know she didn't leave with regrets," Shizune says, looking at Sakura with solemn, but warm eyes. Tonton shifts uncomfortably in her arms, veiled in black and grief like the rest of them. "She was so proud of you, Sakura."

Sakura does not say a word.

The moon is a bleak grey when Sasuke presses warm kisses on her shoulder one night. Sakura has not initiated a kiss for weeks, and her responses to his are too often shallow. He has not tasted her tongue in lifetimes, and he is starving. The slope of his nose brushes against her neck, the silk strands of her pale hair.

When he usually laved her with tender affections, she'd lean back into him with a soft, eager sound. Now she shifts away, sighs something heavy and choked that makes Sasuke's heart feel the same. "Not tonight, Sasuke-kun," she says.

He can sense she doesn't want to be touched, maybe doesn't want him here at all. Somehow, the rejection makes him even more desperate for contact, makes him ache to hold her close and kiss her senseless and deep. He startlingly realizes that this is not his language of love, it is hers.

It's an ironic swap of their swatches, and the worst way to remind him how intimately connected they are. Not for the first time, Sasuke wonders how she endured such a persistent helplessness for so many years.

He settles on kissing the back of her head, the pink thread of her hair soft against his lips. "Okay," he says, and tries to remember the same art his stagnant heart had once forced on Sakura's: Patience.

Her face splits in a smile by their two fondest idiots first.

It happens weeks later, in their kitchen when Naruto has just stopped by after a spar and Ino is helping herself to their stove as hers is in need of repairs. Sasuke is reading at the table with them when Ino makes an off-handed comment about Kakashi's poor taste in erotica, "You'd think a teenage boy wrote it, honestly,"

"THANK YOU!" Naruto's fist slams on the table with a loud thund. Sasuke narrows his brows and picks his fallen silverware off the floor. "I've been saying that for years!"

Sasuke sits up straight, turns his profile to meet Sakura's soft one. That's when he sees it.

Sakura's cheeks are warm pink and she has to cough to break a laugh. Sasuke thinks he would be jealous if he wasn't already filled to the brim with pure relief and ardor.

That night, he presses close until she's wedged between his arm and torso. When he kisses her shoulder, she doesn't lean closer like she used to, but she doesn't pull away either.

It's a bright, but chilly autumn morning when he holds out a bowl of chocolate-clad fruits and says, "Eat with me."

He's not fond of sweets, but Sasuke has found Sakura is more likely to eat on the days he does it with her. Today, she picks at the bowl with more interest than she's shown in months. Sunlight spills through the open windows, brightening everything with honey-glossed warmth. Sakura gulps her last curve of apple, the sound wet and just a little too loud.

He turns his head and finds her green eyes shining, shoulders hunched as she stares down into her hollowed bowl. Sasuke panics, wondering what he did wrong and whether he should wait for her to speak before he reaches out to hold her.

"I'm sorry," Sakura says finally, her twitching fingers wrapped tight around porcelain. She chances a glance at him before her eyes shift back down. "You've been doing this a lot. I-I don't mean to put you through all this," she says, "I know I haven't exactly been…present."

At first, Sasuke isn't sure what to say at the admission, but he feels a light buzz in his head telling him whatever mixture of their tongues he's been speaking, it hasn't gone ignored. He looks at her downcast gaze, and sees the same splendor he bore witness to years ago when he wasn't present either: pink hair, watery eyes, a big forehead and an even bigger heart.

"Sakura," Sasuke says, and cups her chin in his palm. He tilts her head enough for their eyes to meet (and if he slants his head, their mouths can too.) "I'll love you through everything," he tells her.

Her breath hitches, and then she smiles: cherry-bright, honest, and beautiful.

When he kisses her, she hums sweetly, and opens her mouth for him to taste.

A/N: a short piece from the sasusaku fanzine :))