prompt: under the same sky

mentions of hallucinations and afterlife.

The sun hid beneath the horizon, the moon popped up and the sky turned to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars. Sasuke liked this part of the day when the sun sets and the stars came to play.

Sakura and he were sitting together on the old park bench. Sequined silver stars were scattered like embers of a dying fire winked down at them, illuminating the atramentous curtain of a sky. Sasuke was stabbed by bittersweet doses of nostalgia as he stared at the beautiful blinking fairy lights in the night sky.

He had met her a year ago in the same park, under the same starry sky. Since then, they were inseparable.

Sakura is an old soul, he feels. With a heart full of love and compassion and honesty on her tongue, she was an angel. She had a beautiful mind. People these days weren't like that. She understood him in such a way that not even a mother or Itachi could. He was young but he understood, he was lucky to have someone understand him so well. His mother has once told him, there's no such person who understands another perfectly, but Sakura wasn't like that. She was his friend, his lover, a part of his tiny soul.

Sasuke was an introvert, who almost always too egoistical for his own good. His only companion at school was that yellow-haired boy who was always too loud, but he was determined. So Sasuke didn't mind sitting with him in class or conversing with him here and there. However, that boy was dumb.

One can converse with someone that dumb only on some selected topics but not all. Naruto's brain cells couldn't process his talks about constellations. His dreams about being in the best student in his class. So he was elated when he met Sakura. She entered Sasuke's perfectly black and white life and painted it with the dazzling colors of her soul which made it strangely natural.

It was another usual day, the dusk falling upon them when Sasuke wanted his mother and Itachi to meet her. So, in the evening he pulled his mother to the park, Itachi would be joining in them from his classes soon he had said. They sat at the same old bench Sakura and he used to sit every day and waited. He looked up at the sky, it was late. Why wasn't she here yet?

After a few minutes, Sakura arrived. A forlorn expression on her features, her dress dirty and crumpled. What happened to her?

"Mother, this is Sakura. I told you about her, remember?" he asked his mother who looked at his with blank eyes. Was she mad that his friend was dirty? Why did Sakura dress like this today? She was annoying.

Mikoto's voice was soft when she asked "Where is Sakura, dear? I can't see anybody here except you. Who do you meet here every day?"

At this, Sasuke became annoyed. Was his mother playing games with him too? So, he pointed with his index finger. "Why can't you see her? She is...she's right here!" Thunder ran down his veins as he snatched Sakura's arm that was clasped behind her back, " Sakura! Talk to my mother! Tell her about you!"

Sakura could only look at him with glassy green eyes. She looked broken.

Mikoto could only look at him with tears in her eyes as she hugged him and dragged him away. Sakura stood frozen, by the park bench, under the same sky they had met, stars above, the stars which were the only proof of their bond, but she was broken and dirty and suddenly the wind blew her away in front of his very own eyes, that night. His vision blurred and he blacked out.

Sakura never returned again.

…

Sakura never returned again. Not when he went to the doctor, not when his reports came, not when he had to drop out of school. She was a liar. She promised him forever but she didn't keep her promise. She wasn't there when he was alone on the hospital bed with scissors and knives hovering above him. When everybody accused him he was hallucinating. She wasn't there to prove them wrong. She just wasn't there to hold his hand when he was scared, to tell him it was okay, to tell him his dreams still live. He was falling and falling… it was an infinite abyss.

Sasuke couldn't return to the park, again.

…

Sasuke doesn't remember where he was once. Everything is peaceful now, there isn't a throbbing pain in his head anymore. There isn't anyone at the park today and he sits at the same stone bench from all that time ago. There are stars in the sky and there she is. Sakura has returned. She looks a bit different, but he can never forget the pink of her hair or the green of her eyes even if eons had passed. He wants to be mad at her but he can't find it in himself to do after she flashes him a dazzling smile.

"Welcome back, Sasuke-kun."

There, he pulled her close and kissed her under the same sky they had met all that time ago.

…

Death #181699

Name: Uchiha Sasuke

Age: 17

Date: 11/01/20XX

Time: 6:48 pm

end.

a/n: this is posted on ao3 too. written for #sasusakutwitfest2020

Coming back to this piece, and I am still nervous because again, I have never written something like this before.