向日葵

Sasuke wasn't here, but she was long used to it. It made her cherish their rare moments together even more.

It also created a difficult feeling in her chest. His absence made her feel as though there was a hole in her chest- it couldn't be stuffed in no matter what. She made room in it specifically for Sasuke and begged him to take it. He did.

But he's not here.

She had been just as determined as Naruto to bring him back. She did.

But he's not here.

Sakura forced a laugh at Naruto's silly ramen-eating antics. Six years ago she would have smacked his head and scolded him to get some table manners, but she had no right now. They needed a stress-relief for the aftermath of the long-fought war- who was she to nitpick?

Propping her elbow on the counter of Ichiraku ramen, her chin on her palm, she twirled her ramen noodles with the oak chopsticks on her left hand as it cooled. "I wonder when he'll be back," she couldn't help but mutter.

Beside her, Naruto tensed. Then, he chuckled awkwardly. "Sasuke's trying to understand the world better! He'll be back soon! Datte-bayo."

Sakura sighed. "That's what he said." She peered at her only teammate in Konoha. "Ne, what exactly did you two do in your journey together, right before you returned to the village?"

Naruto grumbled. "Stuff."

Sakura frowned. Was he keeping a secret so as to not worry her? She decided to get straight to the point, as she always did when it involved Naruto, by banging the counter-top. "Naruto, don't avoid the question! When's Sasuke-kun coming back?!"

"SOON!" Naruto snapped angrily, before seeing the shocked expression on Sakura's face. He swallowed, ashamed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to raise my voice. Listen, I gotta...report in to Kakashi-sensei." Naruto pushed back his chair and stood up. He looked again to Sakura, who was staring ahead with a blank expression and hunched shoulders. "Sakura...he'll be back. I promise." Naruto pat her shoulder, before turning his back towards her and waving a hand as he stepped away. "I don't break my promises."

"Yeah." Sakura acquiesced. "You never do."

She wondered when Naruto stopped adding the -chan suffix to her name.

向日葵

After healing the last hospital patient, Sakura wiped the sweat from her pink brow. 'Business' was going slow since the aftermath of the war. She's overworked herself more as a secretary than as a doctor. Health insurance, medical reports, medical research, along with the occasional paperwork Kakashi-sensei- Hokage-sama- sent her when he was lazy. Years of being Tsunade's apprentice and paper-pusher made her reliable. She also had to carry heavy equipment.

She started to miss the adrenaline she experienced from working days without rest to heal injured shinobi during the war. It was a selfish, horrible thought so she suppressed it, and exhaled.

"Done." Sakura smiled, and waved a nurse over to handle her shift as she exited the room.

She should have learned to become a doctor without the use of chakra. There were fewer and fewer cases of patients requiring immediate, emergency treatment via chakra, and even if she healed normal patients with medical ninjutsu, she was bound to run out of spiritual and physical energy. The most she could handle was a hundred, or twenty if everyone's wounds were fatal, without using her seal. After that, she'd need a week of sleep to recover her lost energy.

Normal, civilian doctors could treat thousands without breaking a sweat.

Sakrua was not suited for the hospital.

At this rate, she was starting to go into debt.

She decided to keep this fact to herself, there was no need to trouble Kakashi or Naruto. She only hoped Sasuke-kun would understand.

I'll pull through, I always do.

向日葵

It was another night at Ichiraku's, and Sakura spent her time thinking of Sasuke and giggling at Naruto's stories. Beside Naruto was her arch rival and best friend, Ino, who was also joking. They were loud and boisterous and outgoing- It made Sakura feel just as self-conscious as the days before she'd met Ino who brought her out of her shell.

There were ten or so fangirls beginning to crowd around Ichiraku's, and Sakura knew what they were because she'd been one of them herself- for Sasuke.

Only this time it wasn't Sasuke they had their eyes on- it was Naruto.

Sakura growled under her breath as the girls formed a line to hand little gifts to Naruto, who accepted them with a clueless blush and muttered awkward thanks.

That idiot was unused to so much attention despite being a war hero multiple times. Sakura hunched over, waiting it out as she went by unnoticed, until she spotted something she ordinarily wouldn't have noticed.

Raising her head, she looked past Naruto with the crowd of girls, towards a silhouette standing beside a telephone pole. Squinting her emerald eyes, she saw two glows of white reflecting the lamp lights.

"Hinata?" Sakura called in question, and the shadowy figure tensed, before stepping out. The shaded, pale face was now tomato-red, as the girl approached her. Hinata's hairstyle was still the same with her black bangs, but grown long past her waist, and her eyes were nervous and fearful. Her arms were bare; she was wearing a similar top to Sakura's, only hers was pale lavender and Sakura's was red.

Turning her head towards Naruto, Hinata stared at him with longing eyes before looking down. Sakura knew those eyes- they were the same as her own directed towards Sasuke. Realizing that, she knew she didn't want Hinata to experience the same, unrequited love and endure the same pain. Sakura resolved to get Naruto to notice Hinata and understand what true love really means.

Naruto stopped talking to the women around him as he noticed Hinata, and called out her name. "Hinata? What are you doing here?"

Hinata's face grew redder as she squeezed a brown paper bag to her chest, before she spun around and ran.

"Huh?" Naruto blinked in confusion, before Sakura spoke without looking up from her cold, untouched ramen.

"Aren't you going to escort her home?"

Naruto looked at his female teammate in confusion. "But Hinata's strong enough to hold her own, why would she need me to walk her back?"

Growling, Sakura pushed herself off her seat and slapped the idiot.

"Baka!" Sakura hissed, "You don't understand women at all!"

"W-What?" Naruto touched the stinging red mark at his whiskered cheek, questioning eyes on his pink-haired teammate as she turned tail and fled after Hinata. What was going on?

向日葵

Watching Hinata walk by herself through the dark alley made Sakura's chest hurt. She caught up to the girl and folded her arms behind her back, leaning slightly to the side to peer at Hinata's face as the girl stopped walking.

Tears were streaming down her milky eyes, dripping down her chin and splashing the stone floor; Hinata was crying.

"A-Ah, don't cry," Sakura stammered out, moving her hand towards the girl's face to wipe them off. She should have grabbed those napkins that came with the ramen. Naruto you idiot!

"I-I'm sorry," Hinata's shoulders trembled as she held her face into her hands, nudging Sakura off. Tears slipped through her fingers as she sobbed as quietly as she could.

"It's okay, everything will be alright," Sakura said firmly, placing her hands on Hinata's shoulders. It sounded like she was trying to convince herself the same thing. "Everything will work out." Sakura's lips thinned. "Don't keep everything bottled up, Hinata-chan, or it will destroy you in the end. Talk about it. I can keep a secret, and there are things only a girl could understand," Sakura decided. Hinata never had any female friends their age while Sakura had Ino.

Hinata hesitated. "I thought about Neji."

Sakura raised her eyebrows. The memory was still vivid in her head, the time Hinata moved in front of Naruto to meat-shield him from the wooden-spikes shooting from the Ten-Tails...Only for Neji to jump in front of her, sacrificing himself instead.

"He's in my heart, h-he's still alive- his dream is," Hinata said, "We've endured and worked hard for it." Hinata then laughed drily. "I-I told Naruto to keep believing in himself and I told myself that too. His hand was warm and comforting. I'm grateful to Neji- I don't regret a thing."

Sakura was speechless, but she knew what Hinata needed most, and wrapped her arms around Hinata's back. "That still doesn't make it any less painful. It's okay to cry now, the war is over. You don't have to force yourself to be strong anymore, and you don't have to keeping justifying his sacrifice. I know it's logical and everything turned out for the best, but if it goes against your body's feelings...you should listen to your body more, not just your mind. Cry if your body feels sad." Sakura whispered.

"We think, as shinobi, our mind has full control over our emotions, but that's not possible," Sakura kept talking to give Hinata a voice to listen to, as she remembered her very first C-rank mission at Wave when she thought Sasuke had died. "So, suppressing them would only make things worse. I mean, you can save your judgment for the important things, not little things like..this."

Hinata hugged Sakura tighter, as she bawled her eyes out on her chest. They had seated themselves on the ground, and Sakura placed her chin on Hinata's black hair- It kind of reminded her of Sasuke's. It was also getting late. "Come on, let's go home," Sakura stood up and held a hand out for her friend to take.

Hinata grabbed the outstretched hand and pulled herself up, before resuming their walk.

She wondered why Sakura didn't release her hand throughout their entire way to her home.

向日葵

"Ooh, holding hands?" Hanabi teased from the front door as she stared at the sight of her older sister with a teammate of Naruto's. "Practicing for Na-Ru-To-Kuunnn?"

"H-Hanabi!" Hinata protested indignantly, face reddened again, as Sakura laughed. She'd never seen Hinata lose her cool like this before- the timid girl tended to have high tolerance.

Sakura chuckled and said, "That dumbass left poor Hinata-chan to walk home by herself in the middle of the night. I couldn't just leave her."

"Nnnn," Hanabi smiled, "Are you here to help onee-chan with her scarf?"

Sakura raised her eyebrow while Hinata stammered out a warning. "Hanabi!"

As Hanabi gave her that look, Sakura caught on. It was no secret Hinata had a crush on Naruto. Sakura turned towards Hinata and smiled, "I think you should give Naurto a chance. He's a dense knucklehead, doesn't know what 'love' is, thinks it's the same thing as his like for ramen." Although, Naruto wouldn't sacrifice his life for ramen. "Actually, I mean. There's different kinds of love!" Sakura reworded herself. "There's love for family, love for rivals, and love for..." Sakura trailed off, looking straight into Hinata's eyes.

Hanabi coo'ed from the background as Hinata tentatively smiled. "T-Thanks, Sakura-chan."

Sakura stiffened. Sakura-chan.

How long has it been since someone called her that?
"I..." Sakura rubbed the back of her neck. "I'll hammer the truth into Naruto's head..." She looked again at Hinata then. "For his sake. He doesn't know what a wonderful, devoted, caring...girlfriend...he's missing out on."

Hinata widened her eyes and Sakura laughed. "Don't get the wrong idea- He sees me as a sister, just like Sasuke's a brother to him."

The thought of competing with Sakura for Naruto was the last thing on Hinata's mind when she gaped- even if that's what Sakura assumed.

向日葵

Sakura sipped her green tea and glanced out the glass window. Across from her, on a brown leather armchair, was Hinata knitting a scarf.

"What's the story behind that?" Sakura queried.

"Naruto-kun saved me from some bullies when we were little." Hinata answered, not breaking her concentration. "He was wearing a red scarf- T-They tore it apart."

"Aa." Sakura snorted. "That idiot."

There was fondness in her tone, Hinata noticed, before also noticing she made a mistake in knitting the red threads. There was now wrong knots. Hinata made a distressed sound as she tried to undo them, until a hand stopped her.

Sakura kept her hand atop Hinata's, and muttered, "Keep those errors. There's nothing to regret." Sakura looked reminiscent for a second before adding, "I think Naruto would like those inconsistent knots. It's proof that the scarf is homemade and the idiot is one to like imperfect things." Sakura squeezed Hinata's hand. "Even if it comes out a lump of knots impossible to wrap around a neck, it's something to cherish. Don't regret anything about yourself."

Hinata's lip quivered as she met her gaze with Sakura, before nodding and continuing to lengthen her scarf, bumps and knots and everything.

向日葵

In a resturant across from Hinata, Sakura placed her overly-large forehead against her hand as she picked at her sushi with her chopsticks. Across from her, Hinata gazed out the window.

It was rare for them to be together in broad daylight. Usually they met at night after one of them had something to feel bad over.

As of now, they were here to discuss things.

"So, did you give Naruto the scarf yet?" Sakura asked with her mouth full. There was no need to eat politely because Hinata was a girl, in Sakura's opinion; they weren't trying to make themselves look good for the other. Unlike when they were facing Sasuke or Naruto.

Despite so, Hinata waited until she swallowed her food, and tried to think of an answer that wouldn't dissatisfy Sakura. "A-Ano..." She poked her fingers together. "Not yet."

"Baka!" Sakura slammed the table, causing a crack beneath her hands as Hinata tensed. "Oops, sorry!" She held the table in place. "You don't have to be scared, you've gone through so much. What can be faulted with you? You're practically flawless," Sakura gestured at Hinata's figure. "Honestly, after all the impossible miracles you've achieved, you're still self-conscious?"

"I-I...It's Naruto," Hinata whispered.

"Exactly, it's Naruto." Sakura insisted. "He's just like you- never gives up against all odds. That's your nindo, too, right?"

Hinata nodded.

"Then what's stopping you?"

Hinata opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

It's you.

向日葵