A/N: This is me not being able to sleep. And playing with a somewhat different style.

Winter seems to have already come when Sakura leaves the hospital that early November evening.

A mass of chilly air hits her as the automatic doors open, and a shiver wrecks her small body. Of course she would forget her jacket at home, she muses quietly with a small roll of her eyes. But at least she can find comfort in the fact that she has chosen to wear her furry boots.

Giving a small sigh, the pinkette wraps her arms around herself in an effort to retain what little warmth she has left. The road to her apartment is short; she has made sure of that when she rented it years before. She was barely sixteen when she decided to move out of her parents' house and attempt to stand on her own two feet.

She remembers determination, and long days of harsh training. She remembers muscle aches and chakra depletion. She remembers blood, sweat, and tears. That awful, awful feeling of being left behind, of struggling to keep up, and never quite managing to. She remembers pain, exhaustion. Picking up the fragments of her shattered heart and working to put them back together in a sterile room with white walls and squeaky floors and a small couch in a corner where she could slump and rest her eyes for a minute.

Now, she is older. Taller, smarter, stronger. She is eighteen. And her heart — the heart that she has so carefully sewed back together — is in pieces once again.

She wonders if she will ever be able to pick them up again. She wonders if she should even try.

And now, as the chilly air seeps into her bones and her knees threaten to give away beneath her, she thinks not.

It is unfair, she has concluded. She is not the type to complain, but she truly believes that the way the cards have been dealt in her case is unfair.

People usually keep their hearts to themselves — shinobi especially. The few lucky ones decide who to trust with them. Sakura has never really had that choice. And it is just her luck that the person who stole her heart does nothing else but stomp all over it every time he gets the chance.

With a small sniffle, she tucks her hair behind her ear and hoists her bag higher up her shoulder, quickening her pace. Her arms crossed over her chest, she holds her head down as she makes her way through the empty streets, dead leaves crunching beneath her feet.

Onyx eyes narrow in annoyance as they watch yet another shiver travel through her body.

"What are you doing?" a voice hisses in the darkness.

Her hair whips around her as she quickly turns towards the source of the sound. A familiar figure steps out of the shadows, and she wishes she has just ignored him, wishes she has hurried to reach the safe confines of her apartment, because then the broken fragments of her heart wouldn't feel as though a fist was crushing them.

But she stands her ground. She wraps her arms tighter around herself, praying they will keep her together, and she gazes back at him — back into those beautiful onyx eyes that hold every piece of her.

"Stop avoiding me," he seethes harshly as he stalks the remaining steps in her direction.

Sakura looks up at him, and realizes for the first time just how much he has grown. "I haven't been avoiding you," she answers softly. "True," she consents with a small nod, "I don't pin after you anymore. I don't follow you around. But you shouldn't for a moment think that you are important enough for me to avoid Naruto, to avoid Kakashi-sensei, to avoid anybody that means something to me."

It is only partially true. The hospital has been busy. But Sasuke is more important than she would like — he is important to the point of obsession. He is important enough for her to give her life away. But since he has never cared about that, Sakura figures he should not be able to realize that she is lying.

"Liar," he whispers.

She is wrong.

His eyes bore into hers, and for a moment, she thinks he looks vulnerable.

She swallows. "The hospital was busy."

"I know," he answers.

"And I pulled double shifts," she admits.

He doesn't blink. "I know."

"But not because of you. Because of me," she confesses quietly. "Because I knew that, the moment I saw you again, I would crumble, and everything I worked so hard to get would turn into nothing. And because you — you, Sasuke — wouldn't care either way."

She turns his back to him then, and she never once looks back. Never looks back to see the boy that once meant the world to her — that still means the world to her — watch her retreating figure with an unrecognizable look in his eyes. A look that speaks of years spent away from her, of hardship, of pain and sweat and the occasional stray tear, of bloodshed and revenge and an empty, empty hole in his heart that shouldn't be there — not now that he has fulfilled his dreams and everything is supposed to be alright.

She never looks back to witness that look shift and turn and meld into something else — something that speaks of an unbreakable stubbornness and determination to do things the right way this time around.

She does not see that.

But that is alright, he thinks, because this time, maybe he will manage to make her feel it.

A/N: Check out my profile to see what she was wearing. The inspiration actually came from the outfit. Yeah, imagine THAT. I was doing some shopping, 'cause the weather has suddenly become as chilly as HECK around here, and don't get me wrong, 'cause I love that, but I put some order in my closet this summer, and half of it is still empty.

That's why this probably doesn't make much sense. Haha! I guess I just needed to get it off my brain.

Review if you happened to enjoy this!