Ball and chain|| Sasusaku

Chapter 13

Sakura knows flower language.

She has known it ever since Ino developed an interest in it during the final year of high school, and that interest eventually led to her co-owning a flower shop with her boyfriend.

"Please..." She hears Sasuke mumble, and swivels her head to find his face buried in his palm, his neck and ears the color of ripe carrots. "Just take it..."

She watches him in silence, torn between the desire to burst into laughter against the restraint imposed by her anger, for a full minute before turning her attention back to the bouquet in his shaking hand. A few of its delicate petals now strew across her lap. It's undeniably a bouquet designed for a confession, one so heartfelt it shatters the walls around her heart and looms impatiently in the back of her throat, like an imminent flood, yearning to overflow. And the rosy hue on Sasuke's skin doesn't make it easy to suspect it as anything but that.

Yet, Sakura has to believe it as anything but that.

"Do you know the meaning behind these flowers?" she asks.

Cheeks still as flushed as a sunset, Sasuke peeks out from between his fingers, and she gulps hard, fighting against the tug at her heart, as he mouths a quiet, "...no."

With a half-frustrated, half-embarrassed sigh, he lowers his hand, placing it on his lap. The bouquet receives a subtle shake, a gentle reminder for her to take it—ah, his arm must be in pain—he elaborates, "I simply asked for an apology bouquet."

The florist played him. If he was anything like Sai—Sakura muses—he did it on purpose. For the fun of it.

With a small shake of her head, she takes the bouquet from his hands and rests it on her lap as he takes his hand back, fingers intermingling together.

"I'm really sorry," he softly intones. "I was being an asshole last night and—honestly, I'm not really sure why but—yeah, I shouldn't have said... that," he breathes. Once. Twice. "I'm... not sure how to fix this. If I could, I would take it all back, but I can't. It's just... I'm... that... "

The veins in his hands bulge when he clenches them, as he grits his teeth, awkward and stuttering, uncharacteristic of the cold, composed man she has always known and so similar to the broken boy only she had seen inside him.

"I'm really sorry."

"For what?" she snaps.

"For... saying that. And lashing out."

"...and?"

Lifting his eyes momentarily, a touch disoriented and caught off guard, he flits his eyes back to the car's floor, a faint frown forming on his face.

"For not being there for you when you needed it."

"And?"

At this point, his attention is fully on her, eyebrows drawn together, lips slightly parted, and Sakura notices he smells like beer.

"For... " He scrapes for more and everything escapes him. "For hurting you..."

"That's not what I'm asking, Sasuke!" Sakura bursts out, pivoting herself to face him, a tear-infused glare aimed at him as her chest rises and falls. "What about using me as a replacement? Keeping me in the dark about it all? For always," she takes a deep breath, wrestling with the tears, and just managing to keep them at bay, "always lying to me."

"What are you talking about?"

Sakura sucks in a deep breath, balling her fists on her lap, on both sides of the bouquet, as she swallows back her tears.

"Tell me," she breathes out, her voice shaky, "Why did you marry me?"

"Huh?"

"Why?" Her question unintentionally carries a sharper edge, and she takes a moment to steady herself, gulping down the anger sitting on her tongue. "You had no reason to marry me? Why did you accept me?"