TiMER

theeflowerchild

chapter one

Sakura has never been so excited in her life. She's here. This is it. She's made it.

Thirteen.

Her grin stretches from ear to ear, pearly white and a little crooked. She curled her pink hair, and her brother helped her get the back of her head. She picked out the prettiest blue dress her and her mother could find at the store. Her mom let her borrow a little bit of lipstick, even if it made her father frown. She feels pretty; she feels older.

Sakura squirms in her seat in the middle of the couch. "This will sting a little," her mother says, but Sakura doesn't care. Her mother takes out what looks like a nail gun and aligns it perfectly with her daughter's left wrist.

"Don't count down," Sakura says.

"Alright," her mother agrees, and before Sakura can get nervous, the outside of her wrist is stinging painfully and her eyes are watering.

"That's it?" Sakura asks.

"That's it," her mother replies.

"How long does it take to turn on?" she asks, staring at the little clock imbedded in her wrist. It's blue, and small, and there are blinking zeros where a countdown should be. It actually matches her dress, she thinks fondly.

"Mine took a few seconds," her brother interjects. He flashes his own timer. "If your soulmate has theirs in already, yours should light up soon."

Like clockwork, Sakura hears a small 'ping!' from the device on her wrist. Naruto is right; it only takes a few moments for her timer to light brightly with its countdown.

"So?" her mother asks with a curious smile and lifted brows. "What does it say?"

Sakura stares at the device on her wrist and thinks she must be reading it incorrectly. Her eyebrows knit in confusion and she purses her lips, careful not to smudge her lipstick on her teeth.

"Earth to Sakura," Naruto teases. "Anybody in there?"

"Um," she stammers, pretty green eyes wide with confusion. "I think it says… a minute and a half."

Her father blubbers from the corner, the first thing he's said all night. "What?! That's not possible. Tsunade, read it."

Her mother quickly swipes her wrist into her lap, not without a snappy glare toward her father. She examines the device closely, a little too close for comfort, before her own eyes widen. "Dear, she's right."

Naruto swats his mother out of the way, and takes Sakura's wrist in her hand with enough force that she hisses. "What the hell—"

"Language—"

"I have to I wait five years, and Sakura gets hers in 90 seconds?" he snaps with a frown.

"Don't be like that," Sakura says with a grimace. "It's not like I could have done this on purpose."

"You're right," he sighs, and releases her wrist. "Can't imagine what the bastard will say when he sees this. His hasn't even lit up, and—"

Naruto freezes.

Jiraiya finally stands, with a deep frown on his face and his brown eyes darker than ever. "That damn Uchiha."

Sasuke is nearly to Naruto's house when he hears a soft 'ping!' come from his pocket. He digs his hands out of his jacket, reaches for his phone, and frowns when he finds no notifications.

With a drawn sigh, he runs his hand through his messy hair. He's not sure how he got wrapped into celebrating Sakura's thirteenth birthday, but he'll do anything Naruto asks him to, though he'd never admit that to him. That includes celebrating his adopted sister's special day, and he knows as well as anybody else that thirteen is an important year. He seemed to think it was six years ago.

That was, until Sasuke's timer never lit up. Seven years later, and he goes to bed every night staring at a series of zeros that mean nothing on his wrist, and wakes up to the same zeros that haunt him in his sleep.

Sasuke reaches to knock with a deep frown. He'll put on a happy face. Just because he's miserable and soulmate-less, doesn't mean other people have to be.

That's when Sasuke sees his wrist.

His eyes widen an impossible amount. He brings the timer as close to his face as possible, and scrutinizes the countdown: fifty-nine seconds, then fifty-eight, then fifty-seven—

"Oh, oh no, oh god," he nearly yells when realization dawns on him, taking a staggering step back from the door. He nearly falls over nothing.

It never occurs to him that the timer, of course, accounts for his blubbering foolishness. It accounts for him stumbling back down his best friends driveway, only to approach again to see if the timer changes. It accounts for Sasuke finally deciding to knock when it shines '00:00:00:30.56.' It accounts for Naruto answering the door with a disgusted frown on his face. It accounts for Sasuke rushing past him into the kitchen, a cake with Sakura's name written in pretty pink and the number thirteen on the table likely forgotten. It accounts for him looking frantically around the room, and it accounts for him spotting Sakura on the couch, confused tears in her eyes and hair curled perfectly.

Sasuke is vaguely aware of alarms going off, but all he can see is Sakura looking right through him. His device on his wrist is reading 'congratulations!' but Sasuke isn't sure if this is a celebration anymore.

"Oh, Sasuke," Tsunade whispers, more empathetic than he feels like he deserves at his moment.

Sakura is swallowing, loudly, and then she starts laughing when instead Sasuke was sure she would cry. Everybody is looking at her now, like she sprouted three heads. It's nice to have the attention off of him for a moment. When Sakura continues to laugh, Sasuke feels his heart beat a little too fast, and suddenly he wants to hit himself for not noticing what was right in front of him this whole time.

Then Naruto is behind him. Then Naruto is touching his shoulders. Then Naruto's wrists are around his throat.

"Naruto!" Tsunade shouts.

Jiraiya howls with laughter. "'Atta boy!"

Sakura springs to her feet, and pushes Naruto off of him with more force than necessary. Sasuke knows this isn't his fault, he has no control of this situation. He doesn't decide who his soulmate is; he doesn't govern the timers. Still, he feels guilty. He feels like he deserves Naruto wringing his neck.

"You bastard!" Naruto yells. "That's my sister!"

"It's not his fault, Naruto," his mother reprimands. Tsunade puts herself between the boys, while Sakura takes an enormous step back. She looks like she's going to cry, and somehow, Sasuke feels it.

"Wait—" he says, before he can stop himself, but Sakura is turning on her heel.

"I'm going to my room," she announces, and Sasuke can't see her face, but he knows she's crying. And he knows it hurts.

Sasuke isn't able to stop himself when he follows after her. He hears Naruto call after him, and then Tsunade say, "let him go." He owes that woman a fruit basket.

Sasuke knows this house as well as he knows his own. He knows the sound of Sakura's footsteps storming up the whining stars, and the sound of the door slamming shut. He even knows the sound of her crying all too well.

Sasuke doesn't knock. He doesn't even think to. He's at Sakura's side with two, long strides, and he kneels between her legs while she sits on her bed, head in her hands. He's sure of Naruto saw them like this, his neck would be in another well-deserved choke hold.

Softly, he says, "hey."

"Hi," she chokes out, and moves her hand. Her grassy green eyes are rimmed red, and her cheeks her puffy from crying. She looks so young. She has freckles, and long eyelashes, and pouty lips. She's only thirteen, and now she's bound to Sasuke for the rest of her life.

"You're taking this very well," he says, and that makes Sakura laugh. His chest tightens with every strained giggle.

"Not as well as you," she replies, and he smiles. At least she's teasing him. She reaches out, and touches his face, and he pulls back sharply. When he sees her fingers, they're wet, and that's when Sasuke realizes he's crying too.

He pushes his palms against his eyes a little too harshly. "Sorry," he mumbles, and if his cheeks aren't already red from crying, they're certainly red from embarrassment. "I'm the adult. I shouldn't be crying."

"It's okay," she says, in the soft and kind way only Sakura can, moody in only the way a teenager can be. Storming away in a fit of anger and tears one moment, and comforting him and caressing his face another.

It's quiet for a moment before Sakura speaks again. "You are an adult," she says.

He smiles sadly. "I'm sorry." He knows almost immediately that this is even more unfair to her than this is to him. He's known Sakura since she was three, and she walked into Naruto's kitchen, bony and skinny and a little bruised. He's watched Sakura grow up. Sakura has met his family, and his little girlfriends, and has seen what he looks like in the morning after sleepovers with her brother.

They are in such different places in their lives. It's unfair for Sakura to have to have a soulmate seven years her senior. If he thought it was unfair for him to have to wait, it's even more unfair for her to have someone she can't grow with. Sasuke has already been through enough to make him a whole person. Sakura's life hasn't even begun.

"We'll figure it out," he says, finally. He stands, because he is the adult. He has to be strong for her until he knows what else he can be. He offers her his hand, and she takes it. They'll have to figure it out. They're soulmates. "Until then, let's celebrate your birthday. There's dinner and cake. I even have a present for you," he says.

"You do?" she asks, and he sees the tears stop. She's blushing as pink as her hair now.

It's a dumb gift. It's a lame gift to give your soulmate. It's a book he told her about months ago, that he wrote down and remembered and picked up only yesterday. He reaches into his inside jacket pocket and hands it to her, poorly wrapped and offensively tied with a mangled bow.

He lets go of her hand and he motions her to follow him. In the hallway, she asks him, "are we friends?"

Sasuke nods. That's what they'll be for now: friends. Sasuke needs a romantic relationship with a thirteen-year-old like he needs a hole in the head, whether or not exceptions are made for soulmates, but he's already friends with Sakura. He'll continue to be friends with Sakura. Nothing will change, yet. Perhaps he'll get to know her more. Maybe she'll go to more of his hockey games. He'll go to her school functions, and she'll tag along when Naruto and him go on excursions. They'll be friends. At some point, he thinks, he never had a choice in the matter anyway.