Fate Wheel | Naruto

22| Gratitude

"Eyes so young, so full of pain ... Two lonely drops of winter rain ... And no tear could these eyes sustain ... For too much had they seen."
— Shaun Hick

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DAWNS POV

"Ah, you're awake!"

Snapping out of my thoughts, I glanced at Sakura who entered the room with a small smile on her face and a tray of food in her hands.

"Yeah... I woke up a few minutes ago." I said, pressing my lips together.

"Are you feeling better?" She asked worriedly, wrinkles on her forehead. "Kakashi Sensei said your chakra was near the brink of being completely depleted and you've been out for a couple of days so we stayed in the Land of Waves. Your wounds seem to have healed entirely, which is weird since you took quite the beating."

The last part wasn't much of a surprise, but I was a little concerned if they found my healing factor intriguing. It wasn't something that was ascribed as I still have numerous scars from the past, but it was a secret of mine that I refused to share with anyone. At times I wondered why the others- or anyone- weren't suspicious of Jiro and I, we kept a lot of secrets that could be deemed as dangerous and yet, they trusted me so blindly. How could I be trusted when I couldn't even trust myself?

"You have our back, we have yours. That's how it works."

I almost groaned out loud if it weren't for the fact that Sakura would give me weird looks and question my behaviour. His annoying, nagging repulsive voice never left my mind, and the weird thing was I didn't mind it one bit. Whenever I thought of one thing, he'd contradict it with another and won't just let me be. Things would be so simple if my teammates didn't try to pry me out of my shell because I was scared that if they tried harder, they'd might succeed.

But even if they did succeed... would that be such a bad thing?

Whenever I pushed them away, it made me feel like the bad guy. They had shown nothing but kindness to me, and I repaid them by being an indecisive, difficult asshole who pretends that she doesn't have emotions? If I didn't have emotions, then surely I wouldn't have used my body as a shield to protect Sasuke and Naruto, I wouldn't have felt bad for telling Sakura to leave me alone, I wouldn't have shown sympathy towards strangers and nearly exposed myself so that they could live, I wouldn't have gone insane trying to push everything aside so I could carry out my revenge, I wouldn't have woken up in Sasuke's arms feeling like I was safe.

Safe. I scoffed. Who am I kidding? I'm never safe.

"Uh- Dawn, you there?" Sakura waved her hand in front of my face.

I blinked rapidly, before swallowing. "Yeah... uh, sorry."

"It's fine-"

"No." I interrupted, staring at my lap. Am I really about to do this right now? "I'm... sorry, for being harsh on you earlier. It was a dick move, I shouldn't have-"

"And like I said, it's fine." Sakura smiled softly. "I shouldn't have been so pushy to begin with. So it's fine, really."

"So..." I tried searching for the right words. Why did I have to be so awkward? "We're good?"

Sakura bobbed her down with a giggle. "Yup, we're good. Anyways, eat your food before it gets cold." She placed the tray on the small table. "I'll just inform the others you're awake, and also Haku wants to speak with you- he says it's important."