Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Stages of Love: Team 7 Style ❯ Sum of Unequal Parts ( Chapter 4 )

Title: Sum of Unequal Parts

Author: mischief maker

Theme: Intimacy

Rating: R for language

Author's Notes: This isn't at all what I'd intended to write, but it's what came out. >.>

 

Sakura frowned as Sasuke slid out of bed and began pulling on his pants without so much as a passing glance in her direction. It had been three months since that day at the training grounds, and it was still like this with him. It wasn't as if she really expected him to cuddle with her and Naruto or even just sit and talk, but… It dawned on her that she really had no idea what she had expected from him. She just knew this wasn't it.

 

It was almost as if he simply flicked a switch and became someone else when they were in bed. But as soon as it was over, he went back to being the same old Sasuke. Sakura understood he wasn't one to outwardly show affection, but to simply act as if nothing had changed between them… She tried to not fault him for it, but she couldn't deny the emptiness his actions - or inaction as it tended to be - evoked within her.

 

He would protect either of them with his life; she knew that. Shouldn't that be enough? Was it selfish of her to want more, to be more than a teammate to him?

 

What were they to each other now? Her best guess was something slightly more than fuck buddies (and oh, how she hated that phrase) yet still less than involved. Perhaps the problem was that it meant something different to each of them. Maybe it was purely physical for Sasuke.

 

She had no doubt that to Naruto, she was his girlfriend, and Sasuke was - as of the incident two weeks ago anyway - his boyfriend, if it could even be summed up by such insignificant words. They were his. She could see it in the way he looked at them with that soft smile even as they bickered. The way he seized every opportunity possible just to touch them - a hand on a back, a brush of her hair, a perfectly timed bumping of shoulders - perhaps to prove to himself they were there and that this was real. The way morning had found them sandwiched together with his limbs wrapped around both of them that time he'd convinced them to stay the night. Upon waking, Sasuke had quickly slipped back into brooding mode and immediately left to get some breakfast, while Naruto had simply shrugged it off as he did everything else.

 

I wish I could just shrug off Sasuke's indifference, she thought as she watched him slip into the bathroom. Relationships were a lot of work under normal circumstances, and this, if it even qualified, was anything but normal. She idly wondered what they'd gotten themselves into.

 

She was reminded, though, as Naruto kissed her shoulder and snuggled up flush against her back that she didn't have to figure it all out at once. The only thing she needed to do at that moment was let Naruto pet her hair as they basked in the afterglow, bittersweet as it may be.