#ssm19d13

[mmmakus]

sasusaku month 2019

day 13 | heavy

[sgrayonderii]

kilogram of feathers

SSM19, Day 13 Heavy: No matter how much he wants to tell her, the words are just too heavy.

Sasuke hears that ambiance is everything. Naruto had confessed under the falling moon, so it was only fitting he does so under the rising sun.  

So he decides to take her to a place he once saw on his travels. A cliff overlooking the seaside. The view is spectacular. The ocean glitters in the dawn and Sakura could not look more beautiful. He is in awe that someone like her would still want to be at his side after all his time.

It was the perfect place. The perfect time. But he freezes. His throat is dry and he is paralyzed. 

“What the matter?” she asks him. Smiling. Precious.

“I…” but his confession stops short. The words too heavy. 

And as if the heavens were mocking him, the skies open up forcing them to end their first real date to find shelter. 

---

The first time he tells her he loves her is in a stolen moment in the dead of night three weeks later. It had been an especially exhausting day with an unexpected ambush and a near fatal injury. In that moment Sasuke had realized that he absolutely cannot live with himself if Sakura never knows just how deeply he feels for her. 

Yet all day, the words choke in his throat. When he looks at her, his mind goes blank. When she laughs, his heart races. And when he thinks about all the things he has done, his blood runs cold. 

Because Sasuke is a man of action, it is the only way he knows how to express his love. When she is tired, he gives her a shoulder to lean on. When she is in danger, he offers his body as a sword and shield. And in those quiet moments just two of them, he kisses her forehead as a token of his endearment. 

He wants Sakura to know without doubt that his affection is as real as hers. 

But Itachi had loved him all along, more than anything in the world, yet he showed his sentiment by dyeing his hands with blood of their family. In return, hadn’t he tried to destroy everything that wronged his beloved brother? 

How much bloodshed could have been avoided if they had just talked things over?

So for once he doesn’t just want to be a man of action, but a man of his word. 

Finally he whispers to her “I love you” under the moonless night.

Sakura is asleep and does not hear a thing. 

---

For many nights afterwards, he confesses her how he feels. When he is sure Sakura is asleep, he pulls her close and cradles he in his lone arm. He breathes her in. Memorizes her features. Listens to her steady heartbeat. 

“I love you” Sasuke whispers, “I love you.” And he hopes one day he can tell her when she is awake. 

---

After they make love for the first time, she turns to him with a soft look on her face. 

“I love you Sasuke-kun.” she tells him.

It is the perfect time. The perfect place. But again, when he looks at her, the words stop at his lips. 

Desperately. Unequivocally. He wants to tell her, to reaffirm her. To show her that her devotion was not misplaced, but those words choke in his throat. Fear stops him. After all, everything he has ever loved had eventually disappeared out of his grasp. 

“I...Sakura, I…” he struggles. 

Sakura seems to understand his plight and reaches up to tenderly stroke the hair out of his eyes. “It’s okay,” she tells him, “I know.” And she smiles at him as if she had been awake for those hundreds of nightly confessions. 

Sasuke knows those words shouldn’t be so heavy now. Not when Sakura looks at him like that. Not when his heart knows that she is the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with.  But the only words that escape his lips are a quiet “thank you.” 

But these words hold no less weight. 

A/N: Thank you for reading! This was a lot shorter than I thought and a day late but happy SSM19!