[epilogue]

Sakura moves on in his absence. She cuts her hair, she makes more friends, she does well in school. She passes by his house every day and she's strong enough now not to look, not to check if he's there.

The house next door continues to age ungracefully. She still hears people refer to it as a haunted house but she, of all people, knows it's not. And oh, what she would give to be haunted by him again. But she tells herself that he's in a better place now, and so is she.

[305]

It's Halloween morning, exactly one year since she was last in this house with him. She sits on the floor now, with her back against the wall, the wall he had been leaning against the last time she saw him, the wall he had leaned against to have his height measured, in happier times.

She has a stupid piece of paper in front of her, divided into four sections of yeses and nos, and two pencils crossed over each other. She stares at it intently. She's been pleading with it for almost half an hour now. "Come on, Sasuke-kun," she whispers.

Then it happens. Her breath hitches and she watches the pencil turn, only for it to roll off the paper and across the floor. She rolls her eyes, realizing that it's only the breeze coming in from the broken window. Exasperated, she picks herself up and crumples the piece of paper, takes her pencils, and walks out of the house. "Stupid Charlie, Charlie," she mutters, pulling the door close behind her.

[306]

It's a perfectly normal day when it happens. She goes out for a run like she does every morning, she picks up milk from the local grocery store like she does every week, she checks the mailbox and picks up the newspaper when she reaches her front porch. It's a normal day, and she's just going about her normal routine.

Until she sees a dark figure in her peripheral and she freezes halfway up her porch, already knowing what it is−who it is. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, afraid that if she turns to look, he'll disappear again, like he had so many times before. She turns slowly, slowly, slowly…

Her lips part in a soft gasp and then her throat constricts altogether. He's there. Still there.

Sasuke Uchiha stands on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, eyes blank as he stares up at the menacing house before him−his house. His face is impassive as he looks on, totally unaware of her presence, until the sound of her things dropping to the ground snaps his attention to her direction.

His name leaves her lips in a shaky breath and he frowns deeply as she starts wobbling towards him. "Do I know you?" he asks. He looks at her the same way he had the first time she met him, guarded but curious.

She's close enough to touch him now, and he only jerks away and stumbles back when her fingers graze his arm. The shock from just feeling him, his flesh, real enough to touch, drowns out his question. "You're−wait, how?"

"Who are you?"

She just stares at him dumbly. Her comprehension doesn't seem to be working at the moment, her thoughts racing and muddling together. "You're here," she says breathlessly. Her eyes begin to sting from unshed tears.

"Who are you?" he asks again, through gritted teeth.

Sasuke looks agitated, almost feral, the same way he looked when she last saw him, on his knees and screaming.

"Excuse me, miss?" A much kinder voice interrupts.

Sakura feels a hand on her shoulder and she instinctively jerks away from the stranger's touch. Then a boy with wild blond hair steps between them, completely obscuring Sasuke from her view. She tries to look past but the boy only steps forward to block her, slowly backing her up until she's close to her own front porch again. "Were you teme's secret girlfriend or something?"

The question surprises her enough that she turns her attention to him now. "Uh−no, I'm his neighbor. I thought he…"

She trails off and he easily picks up, shaking his head in response. "He was in a coma," he explains, "for a little over half a year, I think? He actually woke up around this time last year. As you can tell, it's his first time back in town so he's a little disoriented. Emotions running high, yanno? He'll probably remember who you are after some time. Just give him space for now, yeah?"

"I'm Naruto, by the way. His best friend." He holds his hand out and she shakes it in a daze.

A coma, huh…

She's relieved, beyond words. If he'd woken up around this time in the past year, then that explained his sudden disappearance, the absence of his presence in the weeks following the last time she saw him. But what did it mean? Is it all lost? Everything that happened while he was unconscious, the whole time he was here, with her, was it all gone? Does he really not… remember her?

"Oh god," she breathes out. She puts a hand over her mouth as tears begin to spill from her eyes. Naruto's eyes widen in alarm before he hesitantly reaches out to comfort her. "Thank god, he's alive," she sobs.

[19:39]

A knock comes on the door just as Sakura is about to go to her room.

"I'll get it!" she says, loud enough for her parents to hear from the kitchen. She wants nothing but to go to bed, emotionally and mentally exhausted from her eventful morning. And as if he knows she's missing him, she opens the door to Sasuke, casually standing there as if he didn't shake her world to its core twice in one lifetime.

"Er… Karin's here! I'll just step out for a bit!"

She closes the door behind her and follows him when he sits on her front porch's steps, side by side in the cold. This close, she could feel his warmth, something she didn't feel before and easily chalked off to the cold autumn weather.

She's entirely overwhelmed by the situation and she wants nothing than to throw herself at him and hold him tightly, tell him how much she misses him and how much it killed her when he disappeared, but she knows Naruto is right. Sasuke is as confused as she is, as overwhelmed, and crowding him wouldn't do him any good. He's traumatized, she has to remind herself, having been shot at by his own big brother.

"So, uhm…"

"How do you know me?" he cuts to the chase. And it's so good, so good to hear his voice again.

She thinks on the question for a long moment, considering her words with care. She bites her lip in deep thought and tries to ignore the way his eyes draw to her mouth. "This is going to sound crazy," she starts hesitantly. "But we were friends. You were here. While you were… sleeping."

His face twists in confusion, his struggle plain and obvious as he tries to wrap his mind around it. "Like… a ghost?"

"Exactly a ghost." She cringes, "I told you it sounds crazy!"

They fall into silence and if she closes her eyes, it's easy enough to pretend that this is one of those afternoons she spent with him, sitting at the foot of the tree, talking about everything and nothing at all. Sometimes they would drift into comfortable silence and other times they would plot their paranormal venture into the haunted house….

"Don't you… remember me at all?"

He clenches his jaw and draws his eyebrows together thoughtfully, before turning to her and shaking his head. "But," he breathes out, "I have this vague feeling that I know you from somewhere."

It's not much. It's nothing, really. But she feels relief flood through her. "I'm sorry," she says sheepishly, shaking her head a little. "This is weird, but can I hold your hand?"

His brow shoots up in surprise and the elegant curve of it is all too familiar that her heart sings, along with the way a corner of his mouth quirks up in an amused smirk. He snorts, shaking his head as he reaches down and touches her hand. She holds her breath when his fingers ghost over her palm as they slide into the spaces between her fingers. He squeezes her hand and she cries for the nth time that day.

She covers his hand with her other one and he says nothing as she cries into his shoulder. He doesn't let go of her hand, doesn't awkwardly push her away. Instead, she feels his fingers in her hair, combing through her hair and pressing softly against her scalp. And when he does let go of her hand, it's so he could run his hand up and down her back to soothe her. She wraps her arms around him then and he holds her with his chin resting on top of her head.

[20:02]

Sasuke pushes her away just enough to cup her face in his hands. He wipes her tears away with his thumbs and once her cheeks are dry, his thumbs continue stroking her cheekbones. Sakura sighs pleasantly and leans into his touch. "I also have this vague feeling that I've kissed you before," he murmurs quietly.

She huffs. She shakes her head, unable to fight the smile that's tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Not really," she says coyly. "But we were definitely going to. You did say that you liked me."

"Did I?" He's close enough now that she could feel his smirk right against her own lips.

Sasuke doesn't give her a chance to answer, as he presses his lips against hers. And it's sweet and perfect and electrifying, everything she had thought it would be when she wanted to kiss him that day in the house, and more.

It's funny. He's the one risen from the dead and yet it's Sakura who feels as though he's breathing life into her.

a/n: see, i never really explicitly said sasuke D-worded... also i changed the title to ghosted from haunted because i just realized when i was re-reading it that sasuke literally ghosted sakura in the first part.