Chapter 73: Sakura Will Teach Me
The sky had gone dark. A campfire burned at the river's edge, its light jumping and shifting, the iron pot above it full and smelling good.
"Hey, look at that!"
Jiraiya peered into the pot with genuine delight. "Naruto, you can actually cook."
"Of course I can." The blond boy puffed up slightly, then stole a sideways glance at Sakura. With studied casualness: "Sakura gave me a recipe book, and I took really good care of it. I also went and bought a few more on my own — different styles — and learned those too."
Sakura looked at the pot.
The food was good. She could tell without tasting it.
Naruto's face fell slightly at her non-reaction. He stirred the pot.
Jiraiya, impatient, improvised chopsticks from a pair of clean sticks, fished out a cross-scored mushroom, and put the whole thing in his mouth immediately.
"Mmmm— ow ow ow—"
His face went through several stages.
Neither Sakura nor Naruto was watching him.
Naruto was watching Sakura.
Sakura was staring at the fire, turning something over.
How do you tell someone you only see them as family, in a way that doesn't break something that matters?
She'd been sitting with this for weeks. She knew Naruto's feelings — had known for a while, had been carefully not-addressing them because the conversation was going to be awkward and she'd kept finding reasons to have it later.
But she'd promised herself: after the training. After Jiraiya's task was done.
Rip it off.
The longer she waited, the crueler it got. And Naruto deserved better than that — deserved the clarity. He needed to stop expending this particular kind of energy in this particular direction and put it somewhere it would actually come back to him.
There's someone who's been waiting for him. Has been, for years. She hadn't said Hinata's name out loud yet. She didn't want him feeling like she was manufacturing an excuse, pushing a substitute at him. That would poison things.
She stood up.
"Naruto. Walk with me for a minute?"
Jiraiya swallowed his mushroom, looked at the boy's face, and looked away.
Ah.
He'd seen that expression before. On a different face, a long time ago.
Tsunade.
Some things just keep happening.
The river was quiet. Moonlight on the water. A long way from the campfire.
Naruto walked beside her with his hands in his pockets — he'd picked that up from Sasuke somewhere along the way, some idea that it projected a certain attitude — and tried to ignore the unease sitting in his chest.
Sakura had never done this before. Walked with him somewhere quiet, at night, just the two of them. His heart was doing something irregular.
She stopped.
Looked at the campfire glow, distant through the trees. Made sure.
Turned to him.
"Naruto."
He went still.
"You like me. Don't you."
It wasn't really a question.
Naruto's face detonated. He looked left, right, at his own hands, at the water, at anything except her — opened his mouth several times and produced sounds that didn't form words — laughed awkwardly — stopped —
"Naruto."
He made himself look at her.
Her eyes were very steady. Very green. Very calm in a way that was somehow worse than anger.
"I think of you as a little brother."
She said it simply. Like stating weather.
"You're family to me. A friend. A teammate. Someone I'd go to the wall for." She held his gaze. "But I know what I need, and what I need isn't that. Not with you."
He didn't speak.
"There's someone who's been waiting for you," she added, carefully. No names. Just: look around. Look behind you. She's been there.
The river moved. The moon on the water shifted.
Then Naruto said, quietly:
"I like you, Sakura."
She waited.
"I don't totally know what liking someone is supposed to mean." He wasn't looking away anymore. His voice had gone somewhere steadier, something she hadn't expected. "But I know that the year you told me it was getting dark and I should go home — I know that's when I figured it out. If that's what liking someone feels like, then I like you. I know that clearly."
Sakura said nothing.
"You teach me things," he continued. "You chased off people who messed with me. You taught me to cook. You told me not to buy fresh milk if I couldn't finish it — to check the expiry dates. You told me to come home when it got dark."
A pause.
"I didn't always do that last one great."
The corner of his mouth moved.
"But you said you know what you need. And that's — " He looked at her, earnest and unguarded in the way that he always was, the way he couldn't help being. "I know what I need too. If liking someone means wanting to be with them for a long time — then I like you. That's clear to me."
The smile on his face is too steady, Sakura thought. For someone who just got rejected, he's too steady.
"I'm sorry, Naruto."
She meant it.
A sigh drifted back from the direction of the campfire, barely audible over the water.
In the Hokage tower, an old man sat in front of his crystal ball with his chin in his hand and an expression of profound regret.
...Was it a mistake, Hiruzen thought, putting those two in each other's lives as early as I did?
He watched the river. The moon on the water. The two small shapes standing apart from each other.
He had no answer.
He smoked his pipe.
(End of Chapter 73)