"I can't keep doing this."
Sakura's back was rigid, her shoulders tense. I felt the familiar sinking in my gut, the one that told me I needed to stop using her, that I needed to stop coming to her apartment at odd hours. To stop asking her to give me what I want because I know that she will, no matter how much it hurts. But the selfish part of me wanted her so badly that I couldn't imagine a day without her. That same selfish part also told me that I didn't want a relationship, and I couldn't give her the attention she required, and honestly deserved.
"Goodnight," I said, pulling on my cloak. She knew I'd be back tomorrow, just like always.
I felt the weight of her silence as I left through the window. I waited until I was well out of sight before I vomited, the sight of her back facing me reminding me of how pitiful I am.

Her room felt empty when he left, and it made her so angry. She was no longer an occupant in her own home. She was a visitor in the home of who she wanted to be, and who she was starting to become before Sasuke returned to Konoha. Sakura had convinced herself that the possibility of being with Sasuke would never happen. He was too emotionally unavailable, too consumed with his mission.
Too selfish.
As she curled herself into a tight ball on the floor of her bedroom, she thought of before Sasuke came back, when she was hopeful that his self-redemption would bring with it a piece of the Sasuke she loved. Sakura knew now that her hopes had been stupid. There was no going back after all they had been through, and he could never be the same person.
It's why she sat on the floor. Her bed was for a different person now: one that slept with men who took but never gave, who didn't know how to control her own life. But here on the floor, she felt more like herself. Here, she could look up at the bed, rather than smelling his soap on her pillows and wondering what the fuck was wrong with her.
...

Sakura hated to lose a patient. It happened so infrequently now that the war was over, but even in times of peace, people die. In a morbid sense, it helped her to refocus. There were worse problems than sleeping with the man that you loved, even if it was rotting out your insides.
Some of her uneasiness fell away when she walked through the door and into her living room. She had begun moving her personal items out of the bedroom. The more sterile she made that room, the more she felt that she could leave herself at the door. So now, when she would have curled up in bed with a book, she took to the couch. It was only when she sensed his chakra that she went into that room. There, she could pretend that Sakura was still on the couch reading. This was not her bedroom, with its empty green walls and plain white sheets. This was not her bed. This was not her life. This was someone else, and she was only visiting.
...

Sasuke never came any further into her apartment that the bedroom, and he never used the door. It was almost like he was never really there, like a leaf that flew in with the breeze.
He never saw all of her things in the living room, but he noticed that they were missing. He asked her one night, why all of the sudden her room had been reduced to a bed and a dresser.
"I'm just getting rid of some old stuff," She said, looking out the window while he got dressed. He had frowned, giving the room a hard once over before saying goodnight and leaving.

She really didn't care at this point if he knew how she felt. If he wanted to stop, he would, and nothing she said was going to change that. She couldn't say no to him, even after all this time.

The only one who did seem to notice was Naruto. It was like the two of them were polar opposites. Sasuke only existed in her bedroom. Naruto never went into her room, partly because he seemed to understand how she felt about that place. He was careful to never mention Sasuke, and if he knew anything about their nightly visits, he didn't let on. She needed Naruto, to remind her that she was still alive, that she was more than her body and what Sasuke thought of it. Clearly, Sakura thought to herself, he isn't here for your personality.

It was Tsunade that finally said something.

"You really need to tell him to leave you alone."
Sakura knew that this was coming. Tsunade had been shooting her worried glances for weeks, which turned to glares whenever Sasuke came by. He had just left the hospital, and Saukra was busy stirring her cold cup of coffee.
"He's making you miserable. I was hoping you would tell him to fuck off on your own, but you haven't. Just lock your door. If he doesn't get the message, he's a bigger ass than I originally thought."
Sakura nodded and smiled, knowing full well he would be back again tonight, back from a mission and ready to take and take and take.
…

It was two weeks later when she learned that Sasuke had a mission.

"SAKURA-CHAN!" Naruto hollered through her front door. "COME GET RAMEN, THE TEME IS LEAVING. COME CELEBRATE."
She heard a loud thump, and opened the door to find Naruto nursing a bruised head, and Sasuke staring at the mailbox.
"Sakura-chan, come out with us! It will be like old times," Naruto said, the look in his eyes telling her that she was never getting out of it. She found herself seated at Ichiraku's, sipping on a bowl of ramen she really didn't want, the two of them arguing in the background. Absentmindedly, she pushed the noodles around. Sasuke was going on a mission. She would have a few nights alone.
…

When he finally came back, she did not go to meet him. She left the bedroom door closed, wrapped in the cocoon of her belongings she had created in the living room. It took him a full thirty seconds to leave her bedroom. She felt his chakra as he entered her room, where he stood in what she assumed was confusion, until he walked into her living room. She let him stand there in awkward silence as she sat on the couch, clinging to a pillow and gently rocking herself.

"Why are you out here?" He finally asked. She looked at him for a long time, finding herself without the energy to fake a smile.

"Because I hate you," she said, her voice dull and monotone. "Because I hate you, and I hate that room."

He had the decency to look a little taken aback, before nodding. "Right," he said, "you moved all of your stuff out and started living on your own couch because you can't stand me. Why not just tell me to leave?"

He took a step towards the couch, and she shot up like a spring.

"Because I've loved you my entire life, and all I ever wanted was to make you happy. I thought the first night you came here that you wanted to be with me. I've given up on that, because I realize now what an idiot I've been this whole time. You don't want anything to do with me, you just don't want anyone else in the village to know that you're human enough to want sex. You just used me because you didn't want to use anyone else, and the fucked up thing is that I let you."

He gave her a cold glare, and pointed at her things. "It didn't have to be like that! You're the one that moved everything out of your room, emyou/em are the one that made it feel like nobody lives here. Why is it my fault that you made this whole thing seem like a cheap date?"

She felt her blood pressure rising. "I moved my stuff out because I couldn't stand to be in there anymore. I didn't tell you to stop because the only person I've thought about in fifteen years is you. Now every time I walk in that room all I think about is how much I hate you, and how much I hate myself when I'm with you. You make me an awful person and I'm sick of it."

He laughed at her, and closed the distance between the two of them. "You were already an awful person," he whispered in her ear, "I just showed it to you."

The ring of a slap echoed in his ears. He leaned back, clutching the side of his face. "Sit by yourself then," he seethed.

She flinched as the front door slammed.
He had finally learned to use it.

…

I felt the red tinge finally fade from the corners of my eyes, and already I wanted to go back, to take back what I had said. I turned around, sprinting back towards her apartment. My hand hovered over the doorknob, every part of me wanting to go inside, but the sobbing stopped me. I sensed her just on the other side of the door, sitting on the ground, almost as if she was waiting for me to come back. And then it hit me: I hate you. She didn't want to see me. She hated me. Sakura was just grieving the loss of a childhood friend she thought she could save. So I left her there, sitting on the floor.

I went back two weeks later. I had just come back from a mission, and the only thing I could think of while I was gone was her. I knew I'd made a terrible mistake, but I had no idea how to fix it. I found myself standing at her doorstep, but I didn't need to go inside to know she wouldn't be there. I couldn't feel her chakra, but there were other things: the wind chime was gone, and there were no curtains in the windows. The birds that usually hovered around the feeder were gone, no one had replaced the seed in days. She had left.
I thought about just wandering around town until I sensed her chakra, but something told me not to. I thought about how much she must hate me, if she couldn't even stand to live in the same apartment anymore. She didn't want me to know where she was.

I figured I owed her that much.