Ball and chain|| Sasusaku

Chapter 14

Each breath is a storm.

Sasuke's own hover near her ear, warm and moist, almost electric. And she is acutely aware of her own fogging over his shirt. Her fingers find themselves loosening their hold on his shirt as the light rustle of the cloth against her skin intertwines with the melody of her subdued exhales, while she battles to tear herself away from him, slow and painful, like iron to magnet, and loses, and hates it, and loves it.

With a tremor to her digits, she musters a drop of strength and pushes against Sasuke's chest, the sudden valley of air between them as if thorns grazing her skin, thorns she wishes to embed, when another rustle of cloth catches her attention, his sinewy arms enfolding her waist in an even tighter embrace, a lingering, deeper breath pressed into her shoulder. Her heart feels on the brink of implosion. And if Sasuke can feel it reverberating against his chest, it's his own fault.

"You are fine the way you are," he half-whispers into her ears, his hot breath as if a furnace on her cheeks, "You are enough."

Sakura finds herself choking back a gasp. Jaw hung open, she shuffles within his grasp to glance at his face and finds his eyes already on her, his nightly sea reflecting the forest in her own, glued to each other for what feels like forever before they both find their breath caught in their throats and separate, bodies still tingling from the other's touch and mind as scattered as dust. Sasuke looks out of of the car, his leg bouncing and Sakura fumbles around, unsure of what to do with her hands.

Taking a moment to collect themselves, they both linger in awkward silence with flushed faces. Sakura tries to calm her heart, counting back from 100, and listing the names of her regular patients and the names of the flowers in the bouquet on her lap, all in order, when she catches Sasuke's voice, hesitant still, but no longer a whisper.

"What's your dream?"

"Huh?" Sakura notices his slightly swollen cheek then, having missed it for the entirety of their dramatic conversation.

"Your dream? Anything you want to do."

Emerald eyes widen as she gulps back her confusion. She looks back on a conversation with Ino.

'Reflect on what you want to do the most.'

What she wants...

'Is it the marriage or your dream of studying in Tokyo?'

The selfish within her screams both. But Sakura knows. Dreams all weigh the same. It's the priorities you can scale against each other. Sakura's priorities always weighed more than her dreams did. But that is what she was led to believe.

'Reflect on what you want to do the most.'

Realization seeps into her, freezing her like a rock. For the first time in her life, she is being offered freedom to choose from anyone except Ino. And it may be the bare minimum, but it's a bare minimum she told herself she didn't deserve.

'You are enough.'

Sasuke's words echo through her head as she recites, etching into her mind albeit with force, every nerve in her body chanting in unison, mingling with the voices of both her heart and her head.

She deserves it.

"I deserve it."

"Hm?"

"Tokyo." The word materializes more easily than she thought and it courses a surge of courage into her skin, rosy lips pressed into a half-excited, half-nervous grin, as she reiterates with more fervor to her voice, "I want to go to Tokyo University."

His eyes find hers, as Sasuke turns his head, brimming with confidence and a newfound trust he rarely sees in them, the calming green in them like auroras, a luminance that freezes time itself.