i'm dedicating this final chapter to Birkastan2018. you're like one of the best people i've encountered on the world wide web. your words always motivate and inspire me. and you're always so modest whenever i express my gratitude for all your support but in all honesty, you've really made me appreciate my own writing and that means so fucking much! thank you for your kindness, your generosity, and your uplifting spirit.
three. drunk in love.
Sakura comes clean about skipping class for most of the semester, and her friends−and her new boyfriend−help her out as much as they could. Naruto and Ino collect notes from her classmates, while Sasuke emails her professors to ask for their assistance and consideration, all of which have yet to reply. In the meantime, Sakura absorbs a whole semester's worth of information in two weeks in preparation for finals.
It's futile, she knows. There's no way she could pass the semester simply by doing well on her finals. She smiles at Naruto when he insists that she could make it, with a big grin and his signature "Believe it!", but she knows.
She's hopeless by now and their two blonde friends are gone and Sasuke is still poring over his own study materials. They're sitting on their living room floor with piles of paper and open textbooks all over their low coffee table, the two of them sharing one bottle of mule to get them through the night. Sakura holds it close, with the rim pressed to her lower lip as she watches Sasuke line his book with neon then type his notes into his laptop with quick fingers. He's wearing his reading glasses and the spikes of his hair are long enough that he has to tie them in a little ponytail, and she can't help but daydream about pulling hard on that ponytail while he goes down on her right on the table−
"Pay attention to your notes, not to me, Sa-ku-ra."
The teasing lilt to his voice makes her cheeks heat up and she lets go of the bottle she's been holding to flip through the pages of her book, pouting and grumbling as she goes. And when she finds herself reading the same sentence five times, she reaches out for the bottle once more. She looks up at the scraping sound as he slides the bottle across the table far from her reach.
"Enough," he says sternly, without looking away from his work. "I've had one sip and you've finished half the bottle."
She pouts even though he's not looking. "Hard-ass."
"What was that?"
"I said I love you," she quickly amends, blushing furiously.
/
Sakura swallows thickly as Sasuke starts lining her little friends along the kitchen counter−from expensive jager to cheap vodka, fat bottles of tequila and gin…
There's not much to do now that school is out of session for the winter. Sasuke lazes around and Sakura walks around their apartment in oversized sweaters that swallow her up. They play video games and dissect her alcoholism like a math problem and watch cheesy Christmas rom coms and make out for hours on end and fuck on every available surface, and everything's fine.
Sakura is better in the days, weeks, months after Sasuke's 21st birthday. She knits when she's bored and she pesters him for mind-numbing chess matches, anything to keep herself busy, anything to keep herself from wanting a drink.
And they agree that quitting cold turkey is not the solution, so he starts with limiting her. First, she starts drinking less and far between. Now, he's throwing out all the hard liquor she's stashed all over their apartment so that she's left with only beer and alcopop, light drinks to get her through the day.
And it's fine, he thinks. Even if she looks at him like he's murdering puppies right in front of her eyes when he starts draining bottles in the sink.
/
She looks up at him with glazed eyes and without having to say anything, he knows what she wants. Sasuke flips her over onto her stomach and slides a pillow underneath her to lift her hips as he straddles her thighs. He taps his dick against her wet cunt before entering her swiftly and deeply. She makes a sound that's caught between a sharp gasp and a moan.
He fucks her, driving into her savagely and relentlessly. He watches her ass bounce against his hips, listens to the resounding slaps of skin on skin, before he braces his arms on either side of her, caging her in. She cries his name as though in worship, her fingers digging into his wrists, pussy tightening deliciously around his cock. He fucks her stupid and she screams herself hoarse.
Sleep doesn't come easy to Sakura anymore. She tosses and turns in her sleep and even thrashes in bed. Sometimes she wakes in a cold sweat and sometimes he wakes to find her pacing around the room in the middle of the night, frazzled. And Sasuke helps in the only way he knows how to: he sinks into her and drills into her hard and fast and he lets her use him however she wants. Until she's too spent to move, too spent to think, too spent to crave anything else.
And it's only after she cums for the third time and she finally succumbs to exhaustion, when she's fast asleep in the crook of his arm and he's calmed down and come down from his own high, that the feeling starts to sink in. But this is fine, he insists. Sakura is doing great. Sakura isn't drinking.
Sasuke falls asleep before he could dwell on the wrong feeling in his gut.
/
Ino gets her very own apartment in the art district, an early Christmas present from her father. And so they spend Christmas at her housewarming party.
It's a studio on the fourth floor, nothing luxurious like the penthouse Sakura and Sasuke share. But where the two of them watch the city like a thousand shining stars at their feet, the floor-to-ceiling windows in Ino's apartment make her feel one with the city. She is immersed in graffiti and giant colorful murals, immersed in color and life.
But even here, surrounded by the city in a room full of people, Sakura's eyes seek out only one person. There's wine going around−it's not Ino's fault, of course; it had simply slipped her father's mind that his daughter's best friend is a recovering alcoholic−and she needs him as a tether. Her feet are moving towards him before she even sees him, as if she's attracted to him like a magnet, like his presence alone beckons her.
Sasuke turns to her with a question in his eyes and she takes his hand and kisses him under a mistletoe they pass by before she pulls him into the first empty closet she finds.
/
It happens a week after New Year's and a week before the Spring semester begins. Sasuke's out, driving his brother around to run errands because Itachi had totaled his car after a boys' night out gone wrong with his high school friends. Sasuke's out and Sakura picks up the white envelope with their university's seal on it.
She knows what it is before she even picks it up, knows what it is before she even tears the corner open and skims the letter.
It's over. She's been expelled. The University of Konoha wouldn't be accepting her for the coming semester. And hours seem to pass as she just stands there, in the middle of her living room, holding the letter so tightly that the paper is crumpled at the edges.
Faces flash in her mind, the people that she's disappointed−her father, who could add this to the growing list of her failures, Naruto and Ino, who bent over backwards just to help her do well in the final stretch of the semester, and most of all, Sasuke. The person who has stood by her from the very beginning, the one who's never given up on her, the one who still believes in her even though she's let him down time and time again.
She realizes that her hands are shaking, that her cheeks are wet with tears, that there's a growing lump in her throat. A lump that needs to be washed down with something strong.
Sakura tears the letter apart. She searches for her wallet then grabs her keys. Just one drink, she tells herself. Just one drink to calm her nerves. Just one drink couldn't hurt.
/
This is what Sasuke comes home to, two hours later: pastel pink running shoes thrown haphazardly by the genkan, torn pieces of paper in the living room, two bottles of Jack on the kitchen counter, one of which is empty, and Sakura slumped on the bathroom floor with her head resting against the toilet bowl. And the scene hits him hard. He falls back against the doorframe and slides down to the floor, knees weak.
Sasuke stares at her in disbelief and she stares back at him blankly. She's drunk. For the first time in months, and so soon into the new year. She's drunk and her eyes are empty and the bathroom reeks of something toxic and the only thing he thinks is that he's not enough, he never was and he might never be.
He comes home from babysitting his older brother to taking care of his struggling girlfriend. He inhales sharply and runs a frustrated hand over his face until he's pulling at his own hair.
Her head lolls back and she stares up at the ceiling. "Let's break up."
He glares at her. "Fuck no."
She shakes her head in silent, bitter laughter. He sees tears at the corners of her unfocused eyes. "Why not?" she bites out. "I told you, from the very start, there's no reason for you to love me! How could you even still want to be with me? My own father wants nothing to do with me and the University's closed its doors on me! Why are you−" her voice cracks, "so persistent?"
So that's what this is about. He shakes his head, he should have known. There was no way she could have salvaged her grades solely by doing well on her finals, especially not when he's learned that she's been maintaining a one-point-something GPA for two years now and they've been sending her warning letters that she's been keeping from him. And yet, he's held out hope. For her. As always.
Because I love you, he thinks but doesn't say. Instead, he picks himself up then he picks her up and drops her unceremoniously into the tub. He strips her and he washes her and she stays still like a ragdoll, eyes sparkling with unshed tears. This might be the worst he's seen her.
/
They spend the rest of the day in her room. He makes love to her. He swallows her breathy moans and her soft whimpers, he twines their fingers together and looks deeply into her eyes, into her soul. It's all so sweet and tender and so overwhelming that she cries, and he kisses her tears away. He comes with a low groan and he holds her tight as she trembles.
Then Sasuke rolls off of her with a weary sigh and a faraway look in his eyes, and she gets it. She understands that he's tired, understands that it's not easy to be there for her, to love all of her. And yet, he doesn't let go and she wonders if there is a masochist inside her lover.
"I'm sorry," Sakura murmurs. He squeezes his eyes shut as if he's sick of hearing it but he threads his fingers through her hair and when he looks down at her, his dark eyes are a bottomless pit of sadness and hurt.
He presses his mouth to her forehead. "I thought I could do it. I thought if I tried hard enough, I could help you. But this isn't working, Sakura."
"Sasuke-kun−" she lifts her head and her protest dies in her throat as she sees the desperate plea plain on his face. Her mouth hangs open as she struggles to find words, the gravity of the situation weighing down on her all of a sudden. This is it. He's not letting her get away with it anymore. She closes her eyes and a single tear rolls down her cheek. "I want to see dad first."
/
Kizashi Haruno receives the two of them in his office on a Tuesday afternoon and he greets his daughter with a stiff embrace that leaves her cold. He tells them to sit with a stern voice and looks at them like he has things he'd rather be doing than wasting his time in conversation with his daughter and her boyfriend. Dejected, Sakura tries not to wilt like a forgotten flower. He shoots Sasuke a dirty look.
"Are you pregnant?" he asks her, eyes never leaving the boy next to her.
Sasuke's jaw clenches and Sakura sinks slightly into her seat, wanting to disappear, wanting to jump out of the sixteenth floor window. "No, dad. I, uh…" she swallows thickly. "I'm sick."
He finally looks at her. Looks at her long and hard, eyes devoid of concern. "You look well," he says with a shrug, like they are wasting his time. And she wants to laugh because she looks like utter shit, like she's been through hell and back which is exactly how she feels.
"I'm not well," she says, almost desperately. "I'm going to rehab, so… you might not see me for a while." Not like he sees her at all. When he only looks at her incredulously, she adds, "I drink, dad."
At that, he barks with laughter and she winces. "And? Everyone drinks, Sakura. You're twenty-one, you should be drinking!"
She squeezes her eyes shut. This is the last thing she needs to hear right now and Sasuke looks like he's about to speak up but she places her hand on top of his, stopping him. Her throat tightens and when she speaks, her voice cracks. "I black out a lot."
"Drink responsibly then−"
"I've been drinking since I was thirteen. I've woken up in strange places with no recollection of how I got there," she continues, as if in confession, voice thick with tears she's holding in. "I've done drugs. I've gone home with complete strangers. I was hospitalized twice in high school because of alcohol poisoning−but you didn't know that, did you? I need help, dad."
She squeezes Sasuke's hand as Kizashi continues saying all the wrong things. He sounds angry as he tells her that she doesn't need help, doesn't need rehab, voice close to a shout in his soundproof office. Then he turns his attention to Sasuke again, pointing at him with an accusing finger. "Have you been putting these ideas in my daughter's head, Sasuke? Just because you don't know how to take care of her?"
Sasuke snaps and he rises to his feet so abruptly that the armchair he's in falls back. His fist shakes at his side with anger and Kizashi's booming voice commands him to sit down. But before her tears start to fall and before he does something regrettable, Sakura stands up. She steels herself as she meets her father's eyes, holding his gaze as she takes Sasuke's fist in her hands. "It was never Sasuke's job to take care of me," she says, voice hard. "It's yours. Dad."
/
They don't speak during the car ride home or the elevator ride up to the penthouse. Sakura holds herself together and when Sasuke reaches out to touch her, she pulls away like the slightest contact would shatter her. She stalks past him when he unlocks their front door and makes a beeline for her room as her throat starts to tighten and breathing becomes harder. Her knees give in and she sinks to her bedroom floor. It's almost painful to cry, to breathe, as her sobs rip through her.
She yanks at the collar of her dress until the zipper on her back breaks and she struggles out of the fabric. She's in the middle of clawing her way out of her clothes when Sasuke drops next to her. He helps her out of the damned thing, stripping her down to her underwear before engulfing her in his arms. He whispers soothingly in her ear and rocks her back and forth. And when she's cried herself hoarse, he tucks her into bed and follows her under the covers.
It doesn't take long until Ino and Naruto arrive. Sakura doesn't even know when Sasuke called them, but they are here and their blue eyes soften at the sight of her curled up against him. Ino lies down next to them, resting her head on Sakura's shoulder as she holds her from behind. Then Naruto comes up from behind her and extends his arm over the three of them.
Sakura buries her face further into Sasuke's chest as tears begin to fall again. Her body begins to tremble and their arms tighten around her. She thinks of how Kizashi didn't even call out to her when she turned her back on him, didn't even stop her from leaving his office. And it dawns on her now that even though she did not have her father all these years, she's always had her family.
/
It's Ino who takes care of everything. She takes charge of the situation, makes the calls to doctors, researches the best rehab facilities in the country, and instructs Naruto to keep Sasuke out of it. He and Sakura are codependent, she keeps saying, and they'll just keep running in circles if she left this all to the two of them.
Ino finds a doctor and a facility in a matter of four days. She schedules everything and when it's time to go, it's her who drives Sakura away. She doesn't tell Sasuke where she's going, doesn't even tell Naruto because she doesn't trust him to keep it from his best friend. Sasuke hates that she's right.
It's anticlimactic. There's no rain when they say goodbye, there are no dramatic professions of love, there are no promises of waiting or whatever the fuck. They're standing in the lobby, Sakura with a suitcase at her side like she's just going on a little vacation and Sasuke with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie because he doesn't trust himself not to hold onto her and never let go.
"I'm gonna miss you," she says.
"Aa," he responds and she rolls her eyes.
She playfully punches him on the arm. "Come on," she chuckles, even though her eyes are glassy and her voice comes out thick. "Not even a goodbye hug?"
Sasuke squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to look too pained. He reaches out and cups the nape of her neck, pulling her close until his lips are pressed firmly against her forehead. His eyes slip shut and he breathes her in, as if he could absorb parts of her for him to keep at all times. "I'll see you soon."
As she drives Sakura away from all she's ever known, Ino assures her that the time spent apart will do the two of them good.
/
The rehab facility is homey enough. But Sakura is a ghost in this place, a weightless entity just floating by. Aware and existent, but less than alive. She's not Sakura Haruno here. It's as if she's denounced her identity the moment they stripped and searched her the first day. The tall floor-to-ceiling windows look out to a lush green garden, it doesn't show her the rest of the city like the windows back home. There's no Sasuke here, no Ino, no Naruto. Her best friend is librium.
The detox facility is her home for her first five days. She makes small talk with the other patients, they eat their meals together, they go to group together, but she doesn't pay enough attention to remember their names or their stories. This would be an emotional roller coaster, really, if only she's able to feel anything.
Sakura gives them what they want. She forces herself to look alive enough, functional enough, when they need her to be. She doesn't let them into her head, where she's plotting her escape, where she feels helpless, where she's in a perpetual breakdown that her face doesn't show.
She is only allowed a few minutes to call home. She calls Ino the most and her therapist restricts her from making any contact with Sasuke, says that he is her crutch.
Her roommate frowns at her when she slips into her own bed in a hoodie that's too big on her for the seventh time that week. Sakura just turns her back on her and lies on her side, and drowns herself in Sasuke's scent.
83 more days.
/
Sasuke does better without her than he expects, he tells himself.
It's not like in the movies. Where she leaves him and he turns into a slob and the apartment they once shared turns into a pig sty. No, Sasuke and Sakura's suite remains immaculate. The floor-to-ceiling windows are crystal clear, the tabletops spotless, not a speck of dust in sight. Sasuke holds himself together well without her.
He's in the middle of organizing the books in the living room bookshelf when he hears the front door open. He whips around, expecting to see her standing there, beaming up at him. But instead, he sees a beautiful woman with long black hair in a crisp suit. He tries not to look so disappointed and Mikoto Uchiha looks at him sympathetically.
"Mom," he breathes out and walks into her open arms.
He fusses over her before she could fuss over him. He tells her to sit, takes her jacket off of her shoulders and her purse out of her hand, and busies himself in the kitchen. Anything not to be stared at for too long by this woman he could never hide anything from.
But he has to face her eventually. He takes a deep breath as he brings her a cup of chamomile tea. She takes it from him and sets it down on the table before reaching out to hold both of his hands in hers and pulls him down next to her.
Mikoto sighs sadly as she looks at his son's face, looks into his eyes. She cups his face and holds him gently. "How are you, Sasuke?" He opens his mouth as if to say he's fine but the words die in his throat when she gives him a knowing look.
They are silent for a long moment until he falls forward and she wraps her arms around him, holding him tight as sobs he's held in for so long rip through him like a storm. He clings to her. He is not fine, hasn't been in a long time. In his mother's arms, he is finally allowed to be the scared little boy he's felt like for the past few years.
/
She warms to them after two weeks. In front of all these people, she admits that she's an alcoholic. Little by little, she airs out her dirty laundry and she gets used to the big-eyed stares after three weeks. Dr. Senju would only give her a hard stare when she thinks Sakura is feeding her what she wants to hear, but as the girl finally speaks her truth, Tsunade's brown eyes soften and her red lips turn up at the corners with pride.
"I'm an alcoholic."
She said those three words on her first day and she's been saying them every day since.
Sakura hits her highs and lows in this place. Some days, she thinks she's better. She thinks she's closer to coming home to her makeshift family. She makes friends, she remembers their names and their stories like Lee and his adderall addiction, Temari who is a sex addict, and Tenten who is also an alcoholic among other things. The three of them make it all bearable for her.
But some days are worse than others. Some days, people leave. Some days, she's crippled with helplessness, with an overwhelming sadness, with a desperation to get out and go home. And when they give her medication to make these feelings go away, she goes back to being numb. At this point, she's not sure whether it's better to feel every emotion all at once or none at all.
/
They're in group but she doesn't speak. None of them speak. For once, it's Tsunade who speaks, who shares, and they're the ones looking at her with eyes wide in wonder, in sympathy, in inspiration. And Sakura is absorbed by every word the older woman utters.
Tsunade Senju is not an unknown name. She is a woman who built her career from the ground up and she's a legend in the world of science, in the field of medicine. Sakura would think that a woman of such caliber would've had her shit together to be able to come this far. But she's wrong.
Tsunade Senju was in a room just like this, once upon a time, and not as a therapist. But as an addict, an alcoholic, a gambler. She had been one of them, all of them, and look at her now.
"This is just a hurdle," she says and there is such strength in her voice, in her eyes, in the way she holds herself. "This doesn't define you. You still have so much more ahead of you."
That night, Sakura still wears Sasuke's hoodie to bed. It doesn't smell like him anymore, but she still finds herself drifting to sleep easily.
/
Recovery isn't easy. Healing isn't easy. Sakura spends half a year in what's supposed to be a 90-day program. Still, she conquers. She doesn't tell anyone when she finishes the program, doesn't even ask Ino to take the 12-hour drive to pick her up. She comes home when Sasuke doesn't expect her to. Naturally, he's not there.
The penthouse is the same as it's always been, as if time is suspended in this place. Immediately, she's hit with the memory of the last time she was here−scared, hopeless, helpless, weak… everything she no longer is. And she wants to see him, wants to show him this version of her, the version of her that he deserves, the version of her that they all deserve.
/
Sasuke comes home and stops dead in his tracks. He almost thinks he's dreaming when he finds pastel pink running shoes at the genkan and an unattended suitcase in the living room. The world comes to a halt when her bedroom door opens and she freezes when she sees him, too. Her mouth falls open slightly and she stares at him with wide green eyes. They stare at each other for a long time, as if in disbelief. For a moment, he thinks he's hallucinating. That he has been missing her to the point of madness.
This is not the reunion he's pictured countless of times in his head. Her hair is still wet from the shower she just took and she's wearing a baggy white shirt and gray sweats. She looks different; her hair is longer and her cheeks are rounder and her skin is glowing and she looks alive. She looks… like a pipe dream.
His keys drop with a loud clang and his phone with a heavier thud. He crosses the room in long strides until she's in his arms. Sasuke holds her so tight that he's afraid he's going to break her bones but she only buries her face in his chest and holds him just as tightly. He buries his face in her neck and breathes her in. She's here, he thinks, as his embrace grows tighter around her. She's here. She's real.
He sighs, eyes slipping shut. He rests his forehead against hers. "I was so scared… that I would never be enough for you…"
She pulls away from him and when he opens his eyes, he finds her frowning at him incredulously. "Sasuke-kun," she shakes her head in disbelief. Then she cups his face in her hands and stares intently into his eyes. "You are more than I could ever ask for. This… was something that I had to do. There was nothing you could have done if I wasn't willing to help myself! Please don't ever think that again."
There are tears rolling down her cheeks but he doesn't realize that he's crying as well until she swipes her thumbs gently at the corners of his eyes. "I'm back," she sighs.
He holds her to him again. "Welcome home."
/
It's been a week but it still feels strange to come home to her. Every time he sees her, it's like he's seeing her for the first time all over again. There's a tight, warm feeling in his chest that makes him feel like he's about to burst and he feels it so strongly he almost aches. Today, he finds her sitting on the floor of their living room with a laptop between her legs and a tablet on one side of her and several medical textbooks on the other.
He sits on the couch behind her and she climbs up next to him. She and Ino have been researching schools lately and now she shows him her list. She wants to be a doctor, she says. There's a shine in her eyes that he hasn't seen there since they were ten; it's hopeful and determined and passionate. He loves that look on her.
Absentmindedly, Sasuke reaches out and brushes his knuckles against her cheek. "You're so beautiful," he murmurs.
Her cheeks turn rosy and she smiles bashfully. She covers his hand with hers and leans further into his touch. "I love you," Sakura says quietly. She slips her fingers between his and turns her cheek to kiss his palm. "I don't think I've said this enough, but… thank you. For everything. For loving me. For being my best friend."
/
It's not easy, almost nothing ever is. Sakura greets bartenders like old friends and avoids alcohol like an ex-lover, and sometimes Sasuke would catch her staring longingly at a bottle of whatever. But healing is not a straight line, it's a long, arduous process. She picks herself up one piece at a time, she continues seeing Tsunade as a therapist, and she leaves room to forgive her father−not now, not soon, but someday.
It's not easy, but she's getting there.
fin.
a/n: happy 2020, yall! i intended to update on new year's but something came up and if you follow me on tumblr you know exactly what happened as i was writing this chapter. that being said, i want to thank all of you for reading, for leaving reviews, and for patiently waiting for this last chapter, and most of all, thanks to the people who patiently waited and didn't demand for my return.
i wish you all growth and healing, and may this year be kinder to you than the last.
much love, Y.