Naruto: Blind

After leaving the room where his parents had been murdered, Sasuke put the event aside, firmly ignoring it. He had regained his regular temperament and Sakura didn't ask him about it, knowing that if he wanted to share, he would. However because he did not want to share, both acted as if nothing had happened.

He was now currently walking slowly across the living room, trying hard to remember where everything was; he had been in this room less than half an hour ago, painting a mental picture in his head of where everything was. Now as they came back to the living room, he struggled to recall the mental map he had written not too long ago—everything was there, but the proportions skewed; was the table more to the left? Or the right?

He found out it was a little more to the right than he remembered as he stubbed his toe on the table leg. Repressing his less than gentlemanly curse words, he took a slight step to the right, a little irritated that Sakura was refusing to help him on his second round through the rooms. Carefully, he took a couple of steps forward, then prodded forward with is one foot, tentatively testing for the couch's structure, an uncertain distance away from him. He couldn't sense it, so he took another step towards the wall. This time, his foot collided almost immediately with it, and he stumbled, falling forward into the upholstered piece of furniture.

Sakura came up behind him as he pushed himself up from the cushions and into a sitting position, scowling irritably. He heard a quiet giggle, which irritated him further, but he could never bring himself to be angry with her for subtle things like that. He just settled himself comfortably, quietly brooding over his injured toes and bruised knees as he painfully discovered where some hidden piece of furniture resided—that often occurred as he grew overconfident, moving too quickly for Sakura to warn him in time.

He supposed it was because he knew this house; things should have remained untouched since he left and stopped living there. Even though things had remained where they were, he had grown, and the distances between places were smaller and quicker to get to than he remembered. He was no longer his twelve-year-old self, but rather a man with significantly longer legs. He was taller, so the ceiling was lower than he remembered, and all the windowsills weren't nearly as high off the ground. But even if things like that had changed, there were some rooms that he knew would never change, the room where his parents had been murdered standing out clear in his mind.

The cushion next to him sank down under Sakura's weight, and a damp…thing—a cloth or article of clothing—brushed his right side. Violently pushing aside his dark thoughts, he listened to her fidget on the spot for a moment, as he tried to figure out what she was doing.

"What are you doing?" he asked, giving up, his mind feeling worn out from having to do so much guesswork already, a nice distraction from bleak contemplations.

"I'm mending Naruto's hoodie," she replied in a serene—no, not entirely—peaceful manner, "He always pushes himself to the point where he's exhausted, and his clothes are a little worse for wear."

"You are a skilled woman, Sakura," Sasuke told her after a minute, "You are a ninja and a medic who can mend, cook, work with rehabilitation, and you are good with children."

He heard her movement pause, and when she spoke, her voice was turned towards him. "I suppose I am," a shift in the couch's cushions suggested that she had shrugged, "I never really thought about it."

"What else?" he found himself asking, for no particular reason—something he normally wouldn't have done if it had been anybody else.

"What else what?" she replied in confusion.

"What else do you do?" she was different now, it had only taken the first day when she let him topple into that damned flowerbed that he realized that.

She paused for a moment, "Well, I can garden, and I have a intermediate grasp on music. But I learned that in kunoichi training, along with the mending and cooking. As for children, I just like them I suppose—to some extent."

"I see."

As a silence fell between them, he closed his eyes and eased back into to the couch, listening to the rain, which was pounding steadily on the roof, creating a rhythmic pattern. He rested his arm against his forehead, trying to listen harder—he could hear Sakura moving, her movement rhythmic as well, as she sewed Naruto's shirt. He wondered absently whether it was the same trademark orange, or if he had changed his style. Concentrating harder, he searched for the smallest changes in sound, the slightest ripple that would disturb the air. He could hear the creak of the house as the wind blew lightly outside; something, perhaps a tree branch, scratching the side of the house gently; and if he listened hard enough, he could even catch the subtleness of Sakura's breathing.

"Sasuke," her voice seemed unnaturally loud in comparison to her soft breaths, "I've been meaning to ask you something for a while…"

He tensed slightly, was she going to ask about his reaction when they had entered the room earlier?

"Hn?" a short, one-syllable reply, something that was helpful in concealing his emotions.

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