Sasuke is handsome with a strong build, stable job and a loving family. What more could Sakura have bargained for in a marriage?
Love.
That's the only thing he can't give her.
Sasuke has his heart for someone while Sakura has confused feelings. Bo...
The deep voice jolts Sakura out of her thought and she stares before her, eyes wide and lips parted, towards the patient who gave her a look judgmental enough to make her want to hide. She looks at the time. Shit! How long has he been sitting here?!
"Oh, yes."
Sakura presses her lips, rolling her eyes under his stare, as she picks her pen, unconsciously bites it before scribbling incoherent words on her notepad.
"I'm writing your dose. Two times a day on empty stomach."
"Doctor, I didn't tell you anything yet."
The pen pauses.
"Huh?"
The silence is deafening. Her patient is furious; she knows. The clock ticks and she gulps, biting her lip and staring at the air as if to find words to say. The man coughs and she sighs.
"Ah yes, I'm sorry. What were you saying again?"
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The name is too hard to get it out of her head. It's not even that good a name; her own is better. But like a nail struck into a wall, even if she tries to pull the thought away, it leaves marks that remind her of the same. She remembers the look on Sasuke's face, his eyes glossed out, and his trembling chin all the way from his chiseled jaw to—no, that's not it.
Sakura shakes her head.
I'm a doctor. I've seen more things than a chiseled jaw. I'm a doctor for God's sake! But the thought is not as easy to let rest in her heart as it is on her tongue. Lately, she finds herself staring at Sasuke as he comes out of the bath, fresh with stream rising from his exposed neck glazed with droplets of hot and cold water dropping down his silky black hair, as his black (she has never seen a wardrobe this black) polo shirt sticking to his framed body with his buff arms popping out of his sleeves. She may be able to write a freaking novel on his body. And she hasn't even seen half of it. Sakura holds her head. She is not a teenager anymore and nor is she in any situation to be peeking from the corner of her eye, with a book in her hands as a pretense, to ogle a man who is not quite her husband.
And then there's this Kariu again, who's been hogging her mind as of lately. Sasuke didn't initiate the topic again, and his mood seemed to be even worse than ever. Sakura knows how it feels living in the fear of a ticking time bomb. Her father often came home drunk after they went bankrupt, and though he never raised his hand on her, and she knew if he ever did, her mother would have been kind enough to hold a broom over his head, but the anxiety was still there. Sasuke, to her, feels the same these days.
Though she doubts—no, she has complete belief—that the Kariu person is related to the girl Sasuke lo... loves. She might be the one, but Sasuke's expression when her name popped up scares her. He looked completely drowned in gloom, as if the amount of sadness inside him had left him hollow and yet too occupied for any other emotion. No, he looked disappointed. Kariu isn't right. Something's not right.
