If anyone thinks university means more time to write, I am telling you now, it is a big L.I.E. Likes, honestly. It sucks.

Prompt: Outro, by Stephen.

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In the old mining town, Sasuke looks up at the clouded sky and sighs. His breath condenses in front of him like white mist, weaving in the air. Beside him, Sakura shuffles deeper into her coat, blinking the snowflakes out of her lashes.

"Is it always this cold here?" she asks. Sasuke pulls her under his arm and she leans into him, nudging her face in his side. Sasuke's lips tilt upward at one corner.

"Mostly."

The market is almost empty. Very few people dare to venture out in the frostbite.

A group of children rush past them then, their red scarves dancing in the air, feet shuffling on the damp cobble-stones, their giggles floating like oxygen. Sasuke is suddenly reminded of the dead boy in the ditch, his lungs choked in the rain, eyes bloodshot, mouth contorted in a scream. His eyes had been black, not red.

Sakura looks back at the running children and glances up at him through her lashes. He tries to hide his grimace behind his hair.

"You know," she says, lacing her hands in his, "they say if you close your eyes and listen closely, you can hear their laughter in the snow."

To demonstrate, she seals her eyes shut. Her fingers squeeze his. He squeezes back. Her smile lightens some of the lead in his chest.

"Come on," he whispers, watching as the air clouded in her face. "We should get to someplace warm."

She nods solemnly. "Yes, please, before my fingers fall off."

Sasuke piques an eyebrow. "I think that's a bit of an exaggeration."

She peaks at him from one eye and says, "Not if your hands get abnormally cold like mine."

Sasuke laughs a short, choppy laugh. His voice comes out chaffed, like a silent chuckle. Sakura tugs on their joined hands and walks ahead.

Sasuke follows, glancing at the blue veins that peek at him from under her sleeve.

He wonders how long he can run from the wolves that keep chasing after him, and for how long. The ruminations circle his lungs and occupy his mind like a plague, refusing to dissipate. He should have saved that boy. He should have gotten to him first, but he had been too slow, too late. And it reminds of his own failures, of the desperation that chews his lungs and poisons his veins every time he tries to remember the life he had been stripped off, and of another life that he threw away, so callously, like it didn't matter. Like it wasn't supposed to matter.

Sometimes, when its dead at night and he can't see his hands, he wonders what had blinded him more: his anger, or his fears. And sometimes when he's alone in their home and shuffling under the anemic sunlight, he understands that it was he who ruined it all for himself. The blood that he splattered on his hands had been like a splash of crimson on a white canvas, embedded in the grid, stubborn and dirty; time had ignited the spark that burned everything to the ground and twisted the words of history. He had just chosen to be blind to it all.

Sakura tilts her head and looks at him, questioning.

He looks back at her hands and sees the pattern emerging. A crystal in the snow. It makes him sad.

He wonders how long he can depend on her to bring him back to the surface every time he jumped into the dark waters. He wonders if it's selfish to depend on her forever.

Review. Please. Tell me if i still have it after six month rut.