Cruel games of irrationality, The Preview:

It took some beating around the bush and a half a mug of tea when she finally managed to blurt it out: "Naruto is marrying."

Mebuki just nodded and said: "Oh."

Her mother had clearly heard the talk of the town way before her daughter's visit, but she didn't interrupt her while she was trying to open up. Sakura was sure that Mebuki hadn't an idea why she was so shaken by the simple news of her best friend marrying. So her mother just continued with watching her with the eyes of a worried mother that to Sakura, felt like a penetrating gaze of a hawk.

"I'm glad," Sakura added like an afterthought, with a gentle smile, finding her mother's lacy tablecloth to be overly fascinating and hiding her hands in her oversized lab coat, "he's grown so much. I'm proud of him and the life he now leads. It really is… different."

They both heard her father leave the house with a jolly cry and suddenly, her mother let a carnivorous smile curl up her painted lips as she leaned forward, "And what are you really here for?" Her eyes roamed over her daughter's unnaturally blank expression, latching onto the forced smile that was surely taught to all shinobi within the first year of the academy. "You can talk. Your father is out of earshot now."

And those were the words that broke her carefully constructed façade.

"I think I should let him go," Sakura confessed out of the blue, her lips trembling and voice choking up, hitching up an entire octave by her last word.

Just like that time, so many years ago, when she confessed her love for the lost boy from the cursed clan to her mother. She once again looked small and vulnerable, nothing like the bull-headed, confident woman she had grown up to be.

Sakura turned away, ashamed at the way how that simple sentence seemed break her, all while hugging herself with her arms to get a sense of protection from the judging look her mother was unintentionally shooting her way.

"The Uchiha?" Mebuki asked, even though she already knew the answer.

Sakura nodded, because, really, who else would have been it? It was painful to admit it how hard she was taking his absence. Or him, in general. She had been in love with him since they were what? Twelve? Six? Four? Either way, it was far too long to survive on a single promise of someday and daily nightmares. Even if she held both close to her patched-up, fragile heart.

When it was clear that Sakura had nothing else to say, Mebuki took a different approach to unravelling her daughter's labile emotions. She was sure, if Sakura continued to go on like this, anxious and unable to rationalize her own feelings, she would soon break. And this time, it might not only be her heart.

A/N: Hey lovely people who liked Mermaid Chronicles! I'm sorry, it's not an spin-off story for those vicious creatures, but rather a bit of taste of my new multi-chap story, under the name of Cruel games of irrationality. As you can tell, it's Sakura-centered, a kind of Blank period fic that does not take the usual route with a speck of gruesome realism, butchering and then rebuilding relationships and then butchering some more. Careful with that story, it's a monster. You will hate me for it.

If interested, first chapter of said story is available by now. Thank you for your time and reading, and if so, also for joining me for yet another ride, a maybe even wilder than Mermaid Chronicles. Now, hope you'll enjoy it!