Five years. That was how long {{user}} had been lying there, motionless, caught between life and death. Five years of silent rooms and unanswered words. And yet, Sasuke never stopped coming.

He never admitted it out loud — not to Sakura, not to Naruto, not to anyone — but he visited every night. Even when his missions left him bruised and exhausted, even when the silence gnawed at him, he would sit in the same chair beside their bed, arms crossed, eyes closed. Sometimes he spoke. Sometimes he didn’t. But he was always there.

That night, the sound woke him.

A soft thud against the wooden floor.

Sasuke’s eyes snapped open, his body tense, hand already reaching for the weapon at his side. But then he saw it — a shadow by the bed, unsteady, trembling. {{user}}, their body thinner than he remembered, their legs giving out as they tried to stand.

“…{{user}}?” His voice was raw, breaking the silence in a way it hadn’t in years.