(no subject)
Studying medicine is hard, it involves books upon books and much theory that leaves her brain hurting but that’s alright because Sakura had always gotten along with dusty volumes of information.
Sakura loves the library. It’s her haven of all havens. Her first haven. It’s the place she could hide before Ino, when the bullies would tease her endlessly. It’s the place she can go to and feel a little better about herself when she fails her first academy exam.
The volumes range from big to small, dusty and old with crinkled parchment, smooth and new with shiny covers. Before the chance to become a ninja, Sakura had pondered what she wanted to be. Becoming a librarian had been her first choice; though she had thought back then it was inevitable that she would follow her parents’ merchant paths.
The words whisper in her mind like the fall of water down precipice rocks. It sooths away the aches of life and takes her to another world. Duty called her away when her time became divided between her team and missions and training.
It calls her back a few rare times. The times when doubt resurfaces and she wonders… Does Kakashi-sensei does care for her career or does he just sees her as an amusing way to pass the time while he trains Sasuke. The times she wonders if Sasuke can see her as a person, a living, breathing, human being - not some dead ghost that haunts him like a Spector.
Sasuke leaves. Naruto leaves. Kakashi leaves.
Hopes are dying like the crinkled leaves on the autumn trees, dying by the hand of glacial winds that kill her heart along with them. The books are there, the ink savoured in each letter of scripture. Sakura doesn’t think during those long nights at the hard tables with kerosene lamps.
But books don’t erase the pain, they just hide it. They shroud her in a veil of mist, where the future if a reflection of ripples and the past a cracked mirror of regret. She thinks she catches glimpses of her predecessors in those moments and it makes her want to shatter the mirror because Sakura will damn her soul to the death god before she lets team 7 end like those before.
It gets easier during those three ageless months. Kakashi isn’t around, not to her sight no. She wonders if he’s returned, answered the call of his brethren Anbu and donned the mask of nothing again. Sometimes she wakes up, head ponding from wood pillows but not cold as the wool of a blanket chases the night chill away.
Books aren’t the answer but at the moment they are her only alternative.