Step 32 - Dreams
Dreams are very important to us humans. They accompany us through our sleep and through our lives. It is the wishes that we want to fulfill, our dreams that we want to make reality. Dreams through the night usually show us beautiful experiences that gives us a feeling of happiness or contentment inside of us and make us sleep well. But some dreams make us sleep poorly, evoke feelings of fear and often make us wake up in cold sweat. Those dreams which are called nightmares. Our dreams at night mostly show us our wishes or fears, even in the most bizarre dreams you can discover hidden messages from our consciousness and sometimes they show us something from our past, which we still haven’t processed.
The storm presses heavily against the windows of the houses, lashing the rain to the ground, while lightning flashes, accompanied by a loud roar of thunder. The heavy downpour leaves the sound of hailstones on the glass panes and due to the amount of water trickling down the window panes, it gets hard for someone to see the outside. The bright flashes of lightning light up the clouds and the dark evening gets so bright, that for a second you can't see anything except white. Some of the thunders even make the ground vibrate as if it were to be slight earthquakes. A real storm, which is making the civilians outside take shelter at a safe place. It is truly a thunderstorm that struck Tokyo and caused a lot of chaos.
Only people who have been in their safe houses since the beginning of the weather, are hardly worrying about it. The doorbell rings through the villa, which makes the two young girls stop in their laugher. Ms. Yamanaka gives the two girls a slight smile, as she comes out of the living room in order to answer the door.
"Good evening Ms. Yamanaka." The woman gets greeted by a man, as soon as she opens the door to look at the newcomers, while Sakura stands behind her and ties her shoes in a good mood. The young girl had only talked to her parents a while ago and therefore thought that they have already arrived to get her. "We are looking for Sakura Haruno." Another man explains their sudden visit to the Yamanaka’s, which makes the blond woman look at them with worry. “What is it about?” The newcomers can see the confusion in her eyes as she asks them the question, while the earlier mentioned girl steps next to her best friend's mother with a smile. Only when she takes notice of the two men in police uniforms, her smile slowly fades and makes way for the confusion. “Miss Haruno?” One o the two men then asks as he looks at her. The pink haired girl nods timidly in response, watching as the man smiles somewhat sadly at her. "Miss Haruno. We came to inform you that your parents had a car accident."
A loud crack sounds as lightning brightens up the whole bedroom. As if the lightning had hit her, the young Haruno wakes up with a loud gasp and sits upright in bed in a matter of a second. Her eyes are widened with shock and fear and her short pyjama drenched in cold sweat, as she stares into the darkness of the bedroom. Confused, she looks around, searches around her bedroom for her parents. Tears well up in her eyes as she realizes that all the years which have passed ever since that day, wasn’t just a dream, but the painful reality. Her parents are no longer with her. They have died 8 years ago. She shakes her head to get rid of these thoughts an still tears run down her cheeks and drip onto the blanket which she is clutching onto for dear life. Suppressing a whimper, she squints her eyes and lowers her face towards the covers. They are gone, left her and Ryosuke alone. Silent sobs escape her lips. She tries to suppresses the sounds, but cannot prevent the tremor that is making her body shake.
But no matter how hard she tries, the tears and the sobs do not want to take an end. Again and again whimpers escape her against her will, as the thunder roars loudly right above their house. She throws her blanket immediately aside and walks towards the bathroom. She has to leave the room. Somewhere where no one can hear her breaking apart.
The ground vibrates slightly as the loud roar of thunder sound through the night once again. The Uchiha hums softly before opening his eyes just a tad and looks into the darkness, before turning to his right side with a soft grumble and reaching out his left arm to wrap it around his wife and pull her to his chest. However, it stays at an attempt, as his hand comes in touch with an empty bed sheet. His hand moves searchingly over it, but no matter what, he only feels the already cold fabric. Confused, he lifts his head from his pillow and looks at the half of the bed, in which his wife is supposed to be laying right now. But all he can find is her side being empty and cold. He lets his gaze wander through the room next and stops at the small, glowing crack underneath the bathroom door. Rolling himself over to the other side of his mattress with a confused frown, he too pulls his blanket aside now. It is the slight concern inside of him, which animates him to get up and slowly walk towards the bathroom door. Since the sheet is already cold, it means that Sakura must have been out of bed for quite a while. Maybe she isn’t doing well and has upset her stomach.
Tired, he rubs himself over his eyes and is about to knock on the bathroom door in front of him, when something completely else catches his attention and makes him pause in his attempt. Soft whimpers and sobs sound from the other side of the door, which make him look at the wooden door in surprise. Suddenly he's much more alert and carefully pushes down the handle of the bathroom door down to peek inside. The light from the bathroom mirror illuminates the room, less than the light from the ceiling would have done. His wife, however, sits crouched on the floor, right in front of the bathtub. Her legs drawn to her upper body, which she hugs close with her arms and her head resting on her knees. Her body is shaking from all the sobs, which only get interrupted by some whimpers in between.
Sasuke carefully approaches his wife to sit down right next to her. He gently touches her shoulder, lets his hand move to her back and caresses it up and down. "What is wrong?" His voice stays soft and careful, but when he doesn’t get any reaction, he then pulls her between his legs and against his chest. During the time of their marriage, he has never seen her cry like this. Not even when his mother died. He hugs her tight to himself and leans his cheek against her head, while rubbing her back soothingly. "I had talked to them on the phone and then, not even much later, these police officers stood in front of the door and said they had an accident!" The words leave her lips between all the sobs and tears and he listens attentively to each of her words, while rubbing her back more in circles. She wraps her arms around herself as if it would prevent her body from falling apart.
The police car hadn't even stopped completely, when she already jumped out of the car and stormed into the emergency department. She was pushing herself past the injured and past their family members. She could hear screaming. Screams and cries of pain and desperation, while she just kept looking around in fear and panic. Looked at each one, searching for her parents' faces, until she ended up in front of one of those shock rooms, from where a doctor rushed out with a bloodstained plastic gown and threw it into the trash can with a loud curse. He hissed angrily and suddenly hit the wall in front of himself and when she looked inside the room through a window, it felt like she was being choked. She couldn’t breath and started screaming when she saw someone put her mother into one of those black body bags. She started desperately screaming for her mother like a mantra, pounding on the window and asking for her to open her eyes, while one man looked at her pityingly and the other pulled the zipper over her mother's head. A nurse came closer and kept telling her they are sorry. That they couldn’t do anything for her any longer. He kept repeating that while she just kept screaming. “No! No stop putting her inside that! She isn’t death!” Only when she remembered her father, she let out a loud gasp and looked around the place again. Her head wiped from left to right with whimpers escaping her lips, before she turned back to the nurse and asked him where she can find her father. Seconds later, she had been pulled away by him into another direction, to which she let herself guided. She only looked up when the man asked her if this is the person which she was searching for and stopped with her in front of another shock room. And it was him. He was still alive at that time and she ran to him, past all the nurses and doctors. She was sobbing, calling out for him and dropped to her knees right next to his head and he was looking back at her while the doctors hectically tried to treat his wounds. His gaze was on her while she kept sobbing and tried to tell him what happened to her mother. She tried, but the words just wouldn’t come over her lips and still he was smiling. He was smiling before he closed his eyes and that bright and steady tone replaced his heart beats. She had to watch as the doctors tried to reanimate him quickly. She started screaming. Begged him to open his eyes, to wake up and go back home with her. She told him this over and over again, but no matter what, he didn’t wake up. She had to watch him die. She shouted desperately into his face with all her might, tried to shake him, but one of the nurses came up to her and pulled her to her feet. No matter how much she screamed and tried to fight back, she still got pushed out of the room. She was screaming through the window that he couldn't leave her alone. She had just lost her mother, so how was she supposed to handle his death as well? “No! No! Let me back inside!” She screamed again and again. The caretaker had to hold her up and tried to make sure that she wouldn’t have fallen to the ground, but she just pulled herself out of the nurses grasp and fell to the ground, where she pulled her legs to her chest and started to rock herself back and forth between whimpers and sobs. But no matter how many times she tried to wipe away her own tears, they kept coming back anyway. Only when she could hear fast steps and a person calling out to her, she dared to look up again and into the face of a person, which is much familiar to her. Just as familiar as the voice that made her look up in the first place. She saw Ino come up to her with fast steps, together with said girls mother. “NO!” She screamed aloud again, held and shook her head wildly, while they tried to take her into their arms to comfort her.
Sasuke holds her in his arms gentle, but firmly, with the intention to calm her down somehow, while she is reliving that most horrible evening in her entire life, in her head all over again. She wriggles around, intent to defend herself from his grasp, as she is confusing him with the caretaker from the hospital, who had pulled her away from her father many years ago. “No! No! Mom! Dad! No!” Sakura screams again and again, trapped too deep in her memories. "Sakura!" The Uchiha says, carefully, to get his wife out of her memory. Her heartbreaking sobs and the desperate screams which escape her lips, in connection with this memory, slowly let the tears well up in him as well. It hurts him to see her suffer like that. "Sakura!" He repeats, this time a bit louder and more emphatically, while the first tears eat at his voice. Her screams slowly fall silent and she stops fidgeting. Her eyes swollen red and filled with tears, she looks around. Sobs shake her body as she looks up at him and into his dark grey eyes, in which she can make out tears as well. He's about to say something, but gets held up as she presses herself against his chest for dear life and claws her fingers desperately into his shirt. “They died on me just like that!” She sobs desperately. "I had just spoken to them on the phone and then they just died like that!" She cries bitter tears, while he keeps caressing her hair and hugging her tight. "I know." He whispers those words next to her ear, while softly and carefully rocking her back and forth. “They only strayed off the street because of this thunderstorm!” The pink haired woman continues to sob as her tears soak his shirt. "Ssch. Everything will be fine. You are not alone. I’m here." He whispers continuously into her ear, trying to sooth her fears and her pain. "I am here." He repeats and continues to rock her back and forth in his arms.
Her sobs are lessening over time, while Sasuke keeps making soothing noises and rubs over her back in circles. after a long time, he then carefully lifts her up on his arms and slowly gets up from the bathroom floor. Sakura holds tightly on to his shirt as he carries her back into the bedroom and lays her down on the bed. He lies down next to her, while covering the both of them with his own blanket and pulls her back into his arms, just as he meant to do already before. She presses herself against his chest as close as possible and removes her hands from his shirt. Sasuke in the meantime start rubbing her back again, feeling her cuddle up to him and trying to hide her face in the crook of his neck. He smiles a few minutes later, when he takes notice of her calm breathing and closes his own eyes again as well.
~> * <~
The storm that kept Tokyo busy during the night has finally withdrawn. A few trees have fallen and lightning has struck several places. And yet this storm brought something beautiful with it. Tiny white flakes are falling out from the thick gray clouds and to the ground. The noise in the night, which sounded like heavy rain, was actually a heavy hail shower, which then turned into heavy snowfall and in the morning it was all over the city like a thick white blanket.
The Haruno lets out a weary yawn and holds her hand in front of her mouth, while rubbing her eye with the other. Her brunette colleague takes notice of this and looks at her with concern. “Are you okay?” Sakura grumbles questioningly at her collegue, before realizing what she actually meant. "Yeah. I just didn't sleep so well last night." Natsuki nods in understanding, taking a little pity on her. “You will soon have enough time for that. The holidays already start the day after tomorrow!” Natsuki happily claps her hands. The work for the last few days have been reduced to the smallest possible extent and so the two of them are enjoying drinking some tea and listening to Christmas songs. "I guess, we should slowly go then." Sakura then reminds her co-worker about the meeting and stretches herself with a moan, before slipping back into her boots which she had taken off during work. She just needed it as comfortable as possible. "Yes." The Hondo smiles at her suggestion and goes up on her feet. "Tell me, what have you two planned for the holidays?" Sakura lets out a sigh at her question and walks toward the door with a big stretch. "Well, first of all, we have all these important events, galas and so on. We'll celebrate Christmas at Fugaku’s and then we'll go on vacation with Naruto and our other friends." They slowly walk out of their office and make their way towards the large, reserved meeting room. They already handed their model’s out to Kakashi in the morning, who receives them and takes care that something like what Karin did cannot happen again.
"And you and Takumi?" Sakura then explores and runs her fingers through her hair to get it back in shape a little. “We will go to a hot spring over the weekend, other than that we decided to go on some trips." Natsuki shrugs her shoulders with smile. Sakura too smiles as the two enter the meeting room, which has already been set up and many of their colleagues have already occupied the seats. The tables were set up in a circle and each model stands on its own table, to which the respective designer will then also stand. Her gaze moves over the crowd and next to her designer colleagues, she can also discover a few other people whom she doesn't know. Sasuke too is already on his place and examines her with worry. A little tired, she smiles at him and is also infinitely grateful to him for being there for her that night. The traces from last night were still visible in the morning, but she was able to successfully cover them with her make up. She can't think about resting. She still has way too much to do until the weekend, before the company’s Christmas party will takes place and then also the fundraising and Christmas gala. Too many occasions on top of each other.
The door opens again and already by the sound of the heels, they all can tell that it is Karin who has just entered the room and is now wobbling her way to her model. As always, she is the last, because shortly afterwards Sasuke raises his voice to open the meeting. “Good morning! I am pleased that everyone managed to come for this meeting today, despite the weather chaos. As you know, we want to present and rate everyone’s ideas today in order to find out which product we will be launching in the upcoming year. I've invited a couple of department heads to join us today and of course, the head of the finance department too.” Sasuke points to the people on his left and then to Itachi, who comes out from behind him with a smile and a polite nod as a form of greeting. "Each of you now has the chance to briefly explain what your product is supposed to represent and what your idea behind bringing your model into shape, was." The youngest Uchiha then continues and looks at his wife, who smiles slightly and looks from him to her brother in law. The older of the Uchiha’s lets his gaze wander over all the models and grins when he sees that of Sakura’s. “We will then rate the models all together. You can give each model either 3, 2 or 1 point, which will be registered on the tablet in front of the models. We will also take a look at each model and take our parts in rating them.” Sasuke points once again to the other department heads and his brother.
The designers present nod briefly to show him that they have understood, before Sasuke turns to Kakashi, who calls out the first person to tell everyone their idea behind their project. Everyone listens attentively to what their colleague has to say and after a while, it is already her friend's turn. Kakashi prompts the Hondo, which bows slightly. "My idea was a kind of robot, which should animate the children with funny quotes. The purpose is to help the children separating, for example, the garbage and, above all, to throw it in the garbage can, so that the children can take off some work from their parents and have fun at the same time." The brunette then explains, who has designed a kind of trash can with a cookie monster-like figure. Murmurs go through the room until the next person gets called out to explain their project. After a while Sakura too, gets called out, watching as Kakashi smiles slightly at her, while the others take a look at her model and begin to grin or smile in amusement. "I know, it's a car." She grins slightly, at her own words. “I thought that the problem with children and housekeeping is that, if you start vacuuming, you can't hear the child anymore because of the noise. That's why my idea was a vacuum cleaner in the shape of a car. The best thing about it is, that you can put children up to a certain age, weight and size in the car and let them drive through the apartment by remote control or automatic, like these vacuum robots. In this way the child has fun and at the same time the mother can perhaps even relax. When the child gets older, however, they can drive their own vacuum cleaner, like a model car.” Again general murmurs fills the room, while Sasuke looks at his wife in amazement.
Finally there is the Kaseguchi in the end of the row. Everyone can tell that she hasn’t given the project any thoughts, because her model shows a feather duster and her explanation is nothing more than that parents should give their children one of these and just show them how it works. Sasuke snorts disapprovingly at her words. He knew she wouldn't come up with any useful ideas, so why did he even let her participate? It was just a waste of time and materials. “Well then, we can start rating the models. Please start with the model on your left and then go on in a circle!” The Uchiha then explains and watches as the other department heads go to the circle of tables, line up between the designers and inspect the models, before rating them. Sasuke has also lined up in the end of the row and starts rating them one after the other.
Some time later, when everyone finally rated all models, Sasuke picks up his tablet with a quite sigh, on which the results are listed and given names. "Okay." He then says, as Itachi steps up next to him, looking at the tablet together with him. With a slight smile, Sasuke pushes the tablet into his brother's hand, showing him the winner, while a slight unrest breaks out among the designers, as everyone talks to his neighbour about the results and points. “The new product that will come onto market in the next year, will be the product with 130 points, which belongs to Haruno Sakura.” The long haired Uchiha announces the results in a good mood as those present start to clap. Sakura looks completely baffled around the crowd and then at her husband. The number of points is not really surprising with almost 40 employees and the other department heads present. She just didn’t expect that it would be her vacuum cleaner that would win. Thankfully she smiles at the group, who is genuinely happy for her.
"Well, then. We will sit down with the technology department and others immediately after the holidays, to send the product to production and market it as quickly as possible.” Sasuke then explains, while looking at his wife with a proud smile, who nods almost shyly. "Thank you all for your participation and your ideas and enjoy the upcoming holidays." With these words he closes the meeting and after a short moment, the designers pour out of the conference room with their models in hand, in order to move to their offices and do the last bit of work they have.
Sasuke also slowly goes back to his office, where he turns to his secretary. "Could you please tell my wife to come to the office?" The woman looks up at him for a moment and then nods before he disappears into his office. He's worried about Sakura. She also doesn't look particularly fit and well rested. It doesn't surprise him either, after the breakdown she had that night. He doesn't know what it was that suddenly, in the middle of the night, caught her in this memory again. He even wanted to postpone the meeting again to let her sleep at home for the day, but she didn't want to. He also knows that she can't just take a nap after work like him, because there is still a lot to do before the fundraising gala takes place. At the moment she spends a lot of time in the orphanage with the children, but she doesn't want to tell him exactly what she's doing. And in the evening it is now she, who sits with the laptop at home and works way until late. It wasn't actually planned for things to turn out that way, when he hired himself the new employee to give up some of his work, but thankfully he knows too that things will turn back to normal right after the fundraising gala.
He lets out a sigh, not really liking the idea of letting her drive around alone when she has hardly slept the previous night. He had only reluctantly agreed that she would drive to work on her own. Slowly he looks up from his screen, which he was staring at while he was lost in thoughts. He is also tired because of this eventful night and actually didn’t expect that such a tragic story was leaning behind all this. But at least he can understand now why Sakura was so weird when they drove home from their second date. He just can't believe that she really experienced something like this and, despite everything, developed into this lovable and wonderful woman. For that she is to be admired. He admires her for that.
There is a brief knock on his door, which makes him blink for a moment. "Come in." he looks back at his screen, in order to at least pretend that he is working, until the door opens quietly and makes him look up again. A gentle smile pulls on the corner of his lips, when he can see his wife enter. "You wanted to see me?" She explores after closing the door behind herself and walking towards his desk. "I wanted to know how you are." He shakes his head, while correcting her statement and watches her as she raises one of her eyebrows. "Couldn't you have asked that over the phone?" She asks, the confusion written in her face. "You look pretty exhausted." The Uchiha smiles sympathetically at his own statement, instead of answering her question and turns to the side with open arms. "Come here." Silently, she complies with his instructions and approaches him, letting him pull her onto his lap and places her legs over his right armrest. “You really don't want to go home after work?” She can hear the worry in his voice and starts shaking her head with a sigh. "I can't. I still have a few things to do for the gala." He smiles crookedly when he can see her rest her head on his chest to cuddle herself into is arms. "Do you want to rest a little then?" Sasuke points to the couch in the right corner of the office, listening in to her soft laugh. "No, thanks. No need for that." It’s her mumbling that make him stay sceptical, about to ask her if she’s sure about that. However, he stops in his attempt when he hears her hum slightly.
An amused chuckle escapes his lips as he puts his arm protectively around her waist. Her calm breathing shows him that she has already fallen asleep, making him carefully pick up the office phone receiver. "Ayame. Please don’t let through any phone calls for the time being, except for my father and Itachi. Apart from these two, nobody is allowed to come to me and please make sure that it stays quiet outside." He says quietly into the phone and after hearing a sound of approval from his secretary, he hangs up again. With a soft sigh he puts the receiver back in it’s place and then looks down at his wife again. She is such a good hearted person. It is painful to lose one's parents and he knows exactly how it feels to have to watch them die. But he can't and doesn't want to imagine how bad it must have been for Sakura, when she had to watch her parents get packed up in those black bags, soon after she had had a normal phone call with them. It all happened so suddenly, like being hit by a truck. Even if he was there too when his mother died and it was hard to watch, it is still different, than when you watch doctors frantically treat critical wounds, trying to stop the flow of blood and trying to electrocute the person in front of your very eyes. All only to watch how they take their very last breath. She hasn’t really told him the details, but he could put 2 and 2 together through her gasps and pleads. She was brought to the hospital by the police men and had to see all those thing which everyone gets to see at the emergency.
The sudden vibration of his smartphone makes him startle out of his thoughts. He picks it up in surprise and looks at the screen before answering it. "Hey Ryosuke." He greets his brother in law silently. His cheek resting on his wife’s forehead. "Hello Sasuke." He hears the voice of the brunette man. "What gives me the honor?" Sasuke then starts the conversation with the question, with which he is always greeted by everyone, which makes the older Haruno laugh. “ I just wanted to ask how Sakura is doing. The storm last night was pretty bad and reminded me of how our parents died.“ Ryosuke then finally answers, the worry visible in his voice. "She's pretty tired because she couldn’t get enough sleep." Sasuke smiles slightly, hearing his brother in law hum on the other side of the line. "But, is everything else okay?” The Haruno then continues to explore. "Yes. And, Ryosuke?" He utters after a brief moment of silence, before getting another hum in return. A sigh leaves his lips, lowering his face with a sad look. “What happened back then? What kind of accident was that?“
He can hear his old friend sigh too, but just a little louder. “That evening lightning has struck a tree, which fell onto the road. My father dodged the tree, but ended up driving into a pothole on the side of the road. The car came off the road and fell down the steep slope. The car flipped over several times, hit the driver's side against a tree and only came to a halt when it crashed into another tree with the passenger side. That’s at least what i got told.” The brunette man reports the accident with quiet and broken words and Sasuke can’t stop himself from swallowing at the information and pulls his sleeping wife closer to himself. "Sakura told me last night what she saw back then. Or rather, gasped her memories out, as if she was reliving the past all over again. I thought she was going to have a panick attack." A shaky sigh leaves Sasuke’s lips at his memories of the last night. All the screams, all the gasps and sobs. It’s all still sitting deep in his bones and makes him shiver slightly. “What happened back then?” His brother in law asks him immediately. It seems, that she really has never even told her brother about the details she saw and it makes Sasuke understand how much she has learned to trust him in just this 6 months. He never thought that they would get this far. At least he didn’t expect for it to happen this fast, since she could never even talk to her own brother about it and instead just left him all in the dark for so many years. “You know how she is when it comes to this topic. All i can really tell you is…“ The Uchiha takes a deep breath, feeling his wife cuddling herself closer to him. "You are lucky that despite everything, she is still this good natured, gracious and loving woman."
