title: broken arrow
disclaimer: i do not own any material you recognize.
dedication: to the lonely nights, where all you've got is yourself & sometimes you don't even want that.
notes: growing up isn't easy- you don't get used to it. you just begin to accept it. "when i was young/your age"- don't let that come & have nothing to say for it.

She's running away tonight.

Everyone else has two options- they can find someone to be happy with or they can run away. Naruto and Hinata- they're one of the former, a golden glow complete with rainbow sorbet sunsets and white horses. She's the princess and he's the handsome knight.

Sasuke ran away a long time ago, though. He got away- he's still away (the pile of mail still sits in front of his abandoned apartment)- and she's still looking for him, isn't she? He's the chased and she's always in pursuit-

But not anymore.

She wants that chance- the opportunity everyone else got but she never got to choose.

She's tired.

So tired.

She is sitting on her childhood bed- the one her father had built for her when she was still a little girl- innocent and glowing with childhood grace. Before blood coated her hand- the blood she took from everyone else, because she either destroyed or brought people back, didn't she?

She's tired of that.

So, so tired.

She's tired of telling Naruto that Sasuke- he's still there. That he's still the same Sasuke who called Naruto the first Dead Last and Sakura herself "annoying". She's tired of telling Hinata that he'll come back safe and sound in one piece.

Because what did she know, really?

She's just the emotional support, again. Staring at their backs and wondering…

Wondering if they ever wondered how she felt.

Whether maybe she'd given up on him- because all she's got are words, now. Just things to say- the pretty words that make Naruto perk up immediately, at the thought that there is still hope.

But she's all packed now, so her hands pick the small pack up and slings it onto her back.

Sakura takes a moment to look back at her room.

It had been hers for longer than she'd had her bed. It's where she used to sit, in the middle of the floor, gossiping with Ino- where she used to dance around in her pajamas on the weekends- where she used to creep out the window to go stare at stars with Shikamaru on late nights when she was grounded.

This is where she used to be Sakura Haruno.

She decides to use the front door to leave- some twisted mockery of sneaking out when she mustn't go, but leaving the right way for the last time.

As she goes down the hall past her parents' rooms, she listens to her father snore in his sleep and the silent breaths of her mother. It brings to mind when she was four and her big nightmares- the things that could be under her bed- still scared her to the point that she would run down the hall and jump into bed with them. Back then, Sakura Haruno used to lay quite still between her parents and just listen. The warmth of their love- because it wasn't their body heat, was it?- carried her safely to sleep.

But now she shakes her head- get your head in the game, Haruno- and treads softer, jumping over the top landing to crouch on the ground floor right in front of the door.

Sakura can't help but stare at the oak for a while, reaching to follow the curve of the Haruno crest with her finger. It was another childhood thing, that circle, and one that has not lost its meaning to her- the continuation. Life and its never-ending circle- must continue, push forward no matter what.

She still remembers how she knew her father was coming through the door- how there was a certain creak behind it, how he had this habit of jiggling the key until there was the slow croak of the tumbler disengaging. He always had a flare for the dramatic- "Honey, I'm home!"

Just like in Pleasantville.

It is too bad that Sakura outgrew that movie.

But Sakura is a ninja, unlike her father; she slips out the door and has it locked with no sound whatsoever.

Kakashi would be so proud.

Walking down the street in front of her house, she spots an old familiar path through the village.

(She isn't taking this path for him.

This is for her.)

Her feet are leading her- her mind is completely cool, taking in everything that she ignored on a daily basis. There's the broken tile in the market area that Naruto accidentally Rasengan-ed a few years back- the tree stump from her tossing Sai into it for calling her Hag after a rather stressful re-evaluation at the hospital- the small hill with a lake where Kiba and Akamaru went to cool off and have some "fun" training...

She passes the bench, and, for a moment, she pauses.

Looks at the old wood- where it's chipped, where Sasuke had once laid her head, where she'd sometimes sit to just stare into space and… admit that Sasuke was… well, gone. Looking around, she sees a lot of things- the good times she had with Naruto, Sai, Yamato, and Kakashi at Ichiraku (even if she had denied it then)- the times she used to spend with Ino at her family's flower shop…

But Sakura shakes her head and continues moving forward, tracing Sasuke's path for a while before creating her own.

No one is there to see her off.

finite