pamamanhikan

pamamanhikan - (noun) a Filipino tradition where the families of the bride and groom first meet.

They were a weird bunch, standing over unnamed graves at the farthest corner of the town. It rained earlier, the cusp of autumn lingering in the aftermath of the light showers. This was the designated spot, Kakashi said, where everyone can easily forget and forgive.

Despite its remoteness, someone took the time to cut the grass and plant perennial wildflowers, the bare minimum for the excommunicated. Sarada snuggled closer to the breast of her grandmother, still too milk-drunk to watch what was happening.

Sasuke shifted in his feet, unaccustomed still with the presence of Sakura’s parents. He cleared his throat and swept his arm across the grounds. “Well, uh, this is it.”

“I can’t believe they didn’t even put their names. So disrespectful.” Kizashi shook his head in dismay. He glanced at Sasuke briefly. “And I’m not saying this because you’re my son-in-law, but I think everyone who gets on their deathbed wishes to be remembered.”

“Papa,” Sakura whined.

“Ah, let your father speak his mind,” Mebuki said softly, adjusting Sarada against her waist. “Now, Sasuke dear, I think it’s time you make the introductions.”

On a random weekend morning, Sasuke catches his daughter lingering for quite a while in front of the mirror. 

Sarada fixes her hair, trying to change the parting from side to middle. Upon realizing that she looks like a dusty old broom inside the university library, she lets her hair be and shifts her attention to the hitai-ate. She usually wears it across her forehead, but committed to trying things out, she fashions it today like a headband. 

A longer stare at her reflection. A twist and turn. A sigh of exasperation. The hitai-ate is sprawled across the counter.

Sasuke guesses it's time for some sort of intervention. In the earlier days, it felt like he was always grappling at the most mundane accidents, teetering towards breakdowns, but now—now, he's learning. He's coping. He clears his throat as he pretends to just notice her. “Sarada, is something wrong?”

His daughter gives him a lopsided smile and shakes her head tentatively. “It's…nothing.” Sarada glances again at the mirror and sees him looking too.

Sasuke wraps his arm around her shoulder. “You resemble me a lot.”

Her fingers start playing with the tips of her hair. “I'm thinking of dyeing it to pink.”

He wonders what tone he should use for a bubbling sign of rebellious reinvention. “Like Mama?”

Sarada nods. “I'd love her green eyes as well.”

“Me too. They're my favorite color.”

“Do you think,” Sarada stares up at him with a disarming sincerity, “I'd look like her if I did?”

He leads her to the veranda overlooking the garden they have been toiling for the past summer. What Sakura enjoyed the most was the fresh supply of flowers, clumped wild blooms that spruced up their space, as if it had always been their home.

“It's not that I hate your genes, Papa. You have a very nice genetic makeup, the best actually, but—” Sarada blurts out in innocent defiance. “—sometimes I wished I looked like Mama too so people could tell immediately I am that great doctor's daughter. I don't even have her medical skills, which sucks so so bad. You know how my friends always seem like they had a 50-50 share in their parents’ features? Look at Himawari. Or Inojin. Or Chouchou.”

“But you do look like her, peanut.” Sasuke smoothes down the tension that lined Sarada’s face.

“Mama. I want to know what she looks like when she grows old. How the wrinkles and age would shape her face. How she would smile without dentures. Her smile when the laugh lines end up staying. The crow’s feet that would only get more prominent by the years.”  The child clasps the knuckles of her father. “So maybe if I look like an exact replica of her, we would see her alive again.”

Sasuke opens up his palm and entangles their hands together. Tiny fingers too small for the spaces that her mother once fit perfectly. 

“As I said, you do look like her.” He smiles, internally fighting the waves that have surfaced on his recently calmed shores with Sarada’s confession.

“You laugh exactly like her. You yell shanaroo at the smallest inconvenience. You have her brute strength and her wit and that makes you the strongest kunoichi alive. You're Sakura's daughter.”

In the distance, Sasuke makes out the first blooms of daffodils. “To me, to us, you're perfect the way you are.”

Sarada slyly whisks away the pooling tears in her eyes. “I still want to dye my hair pink though.”

“I think Mama will kill me if your hair gets fried with the bleaching.”

“Fine Papa, let's try first with a wig.”

tadaima

“Tadaima!”

Sasuke heard this greeting many times when they were kids. After classes, after missions, after errands. Everyone had families to come home to. Only Sakura had this privilege in their team, her parents still alive, but never once did he catch her uttering it.

He envied her regardless. However casual and mundane the word was to her, he craved to use it. Maybe letters strung together could bring back his dead.

But it was Sakura, his anchor after the war, who made it possible again. “Tadaima.”

And today, he’ll hear her say it to her family.

Only that, she isn’t herself. He sees her plant a longer kiss on Sarada’s forehead and feels her squeeze his arm a little tighter, signs of her anxiety bursting to the brim.

“We can go another time.”

Sakura shakes her head and grins her way out of his silent prodding. “Let’s take advantage of this while we can. A complete family. I can show them that.”

A complete family. Sasuke always thought Sakura had it easy, but not all families mean home.

x x x

“It’s Karin’s idea, just so you know.” Suigetsu easily offers his teammate as the scapegoat. It’s good to scram as early as now, judging by Sasuke’s furrowed brows.

“It was your suggestion!” 

“It was supposed to remain in theory! You didn’t have to go and find it!” 

Karin attempts an angelic smile as she turns to Sasuke, “We thought it could make you happy. Besides, it’s Jugo who first noticed it.”

Jugo usually does the right thing, but he makes a point to be annoying today. “Happy birthday, Uchiha.”

“A stick.” Sasuke twirls the gift on the ground, hits it against the rock he’s sitting on, and breaks it into two with his knee. Karin and Suigetsu make the wise choice to flee the maelstrom and find mundane things to focus on.  He is pissed, rightfully so. He has thrown his past away, and all the things that tie him to it, including dates.

“We’re no gardeners, but at least you can bring something that reminds you of it,” Jugo shrugs. “You always look like you want to grow them.”

He almost discards the brown carcass when the scent of the sap hits him. A subtle floral. Pink buds on bare branches. A season of blooms. He has been looking at those trees for far too long. The broken pieces lie abandoned in the undergrowth, but a small twig makes a home inside his pocket. 

It will dry out from the journey, and many times it will almost lose its shelter. But its final resting place will be on hallowed ground, a marker for the sowed.

Soil underneath his fingernails, he brushes away her tears.

“I think I killed your herbs anata.”

“They’re easy to revive, Sakura. Don’t worry about it.”

“The tomato leaves kept curling.”

“It’s just environmental stress.”

“The yuzu isn’t flowering!”

“It’s still too young to produce fruits.”

“I’m really sorry. It was supposed to be your birthday.”

“You’re lucky you married me, but I might need something.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“Wild—”

“Wildflower?”

“Hot—”

“Pepper?”

“Se—”

Inside the house, Sarada yells, “Papa, come quickly! Your ice cream cake is melting!”

“Tadaima!” Sarada bursts through the door with a spring in her step. Today’s the start of summer, and she couldn’t wait to welcome the season with her favorite things.

The first is her father, Uchiha Sasuke, greeting her at the door, donned in an apron and a spatula in his hand. “Welcome home, peanut.”

She doesn’t ask what he’s cooking; she will eat everything he makes. Except tomatoes of course. But when you love someone, you’d let their favorites exist beside yours. Like the way Sasuke buys three cupcakes with different flavors for Sakura and lines them up with his tomato salad. Or the extra custard cream taiyaki he makes for his daughter’s friends. 

The dinner table normally sits three but most days, there are only two warm bodies. Nonetheless, it doesn’t feel too vacant. Conversations of  moments apart have filled the spaces. This is how time gets mended. The father and daughter finally rest on the veranda in the aftermath of dishes and wind chimes.

Sarada’s second favorite thing is apples.

It’s not like oranges when you peel and the smell permeates everything, even the pores of your fingers. Apples are meticulous. A good paring knife is necessary to pull away the thinnest skin and mold the fruit into bite-sized shapes. It bruises easily, but the sweetness stays. 

“Why do you peel it like that Papa? I can always do it, you know.” Sarada can’t stop gaping at the infamous purple armor, and how its reputation is relegated to slicing fruits. “You don’t need to waste your chakra.”

“It doesn’t have much use. I want to use it this way now.” Sasuke smiles.

She doesn’t hear the silent addition that follows the pause, “It’s because the war has ended.”

“Does Mama love apples so much?”

“I don’t know, peanut. That’s why I’m asking.”

She repeats the question to Sakura on another day as the red skin lands in spirals beside her feet.

“I’m not that fond of apples,” Sakura replies with a chuckle. “And neither is your Papa.”

“So why do you and Papa always peel them?”

“Oh my sweet spring baby.” Her palm ruffles the crown of her daughter’s  head, leaving the sticky scent of apple in her strands. “Your Papa, he still doesn’t believe I’d always peel apples for him.”

Sarada sighs in defeat. She’ll never know the depth of it—

That Sasuke is asking: “Do I still have a place in your heart?”

And Sakura is replying: “You never left.”

“You’ve seen the world,” Sarada tells me one day.

It’s one of those rare, ordinary summers when missions are few and far in between and a lazy calm tempers the fiery movements of the village. This is how I find myself enjoying a whole watermelon with my daughter, and nothing but pauses in between eating to dodge her pointed observations.

I want to tell her, My feet may have roamed earths, but my axis orbits here—with you, with Sakura. But that would be a tad too cheesy, and she would grimace and hide her laughter. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“Not the whole of it,” is my attempt at the truth.

“Then you’ve probably seen all sorts of seasons.” She straightens her back, braces, and spit the seeds in wildfire sequence. 

(“It’s not a katon jutsu.” Itachi’s scolding went like this when I did the same thing, seemingly a lifetime ago.)

“I guess.”

“Tell me about them Papa.”

I don’t tell her how she will carve those experiences for herself, or how she will also leave the village for an entirely different reason, or where she will find her corner of peace in this universe. Instead, I tell her about the blizzards that last for weeks that a village is forced to hibernate. I describe autumn as the mountain’s annual metamorphosis when it follows the many shades of the sun. Summer is unlike the watermelon they devoured; it is of sea creatures congregating on the shore in a homecoming. Spring, spring is the gigantic flowers blooming in crevices no one dares to discover, their scent as the sole indicator of their existence. 

“I think about winters and the snow angels I haven’t seen you make. The pumpkin spice latte a random stall offers when it's fall—”

“—but there are no pumpkins in Konoha, Papa!”

“Yes, peanut.” I smirk at her. “And yet your Mama is a sucker for them. They’re a bit too sweet for me.”

“And weird.”

“Spring is picnics—” A shadow falls on Sarada’s face, and my guilt for sporadic departures clutches at me like a sudden attack. “—and petals on sandwiches.” And pink hair splayed across the sheets.

“Summer here is so hot,” she zeroes in Konoha’s shortfall. “Literally the land of fire.”

“You’re right.” I find myself mirroring her stance earlier, a straight back, a compressed chest, and a long exhale as I spit out the seeds. “Summer is this—you, me, and watermelons.”

Sarada stiffens, probably in embarrassment, and upon realization that we’re on our porch, waiting for Sakura to arrive, she breaks into uncontained laughter.

You see, my daughter, I may have seen all the seasons, but it’s the weather at home that I miss.

first person pov, sasuke

"Why is Sasuke so hot?"

I catch my wife's voice amidst the market chatter.

All my muscles go rigid as I resist the temptation to retrace my steps and angle my face towards her so she could see how flustered I am.

After all, she has the privilege to see me like this. A helpless, bumbling mess.

But I choose to disappear in the throes of the crowd, safe in the knowledge that a moment like that is plenty in the confines of our home. No strangers to look on and feed on the intimacy I keep as secret. It's ours, mine and Sakura’s and Sarada's.

When you lived a life like mine, you'd want to gatekeep all the love you know too.

And yet I let that love thrive where I have learned to plant my roots. Barefoot in the kitchen. A nudge under the table. The smile of our little sunshine. A giggle that blooms into laughter.

After dinner, Sakura's unclothed feet land next to mine on the balcony, the cold of the night simmered by the cup of tea she hands me. Her features glow brighter in the dark as she zeroes in on why I made her a ring. She goads me into telling even when she already knows the truth.

I kiss her in the middle of laughter and she stills. The sound in her throat comes down as the flutter of her heartbeat.

It calms me—the knowledge that these expressions are ones she only makes with me. That this face is mine to keep.

That as her naked fingers wound through mine like roots weaving under fallow land, a forest gets to grow.

And that's when I know, I am capable of spring.

“I’m so sorry.”

Kizashi and Mebuki are seeing a different Sasuke. Their daughter’s husband rarely says ‘sorry’, but here he is — a deep bow on the floor, repeating the sentence over the loud cries of a child until Kizashi taps his shoulder.

Sasuke’s hollow cheeks and dark bags give away the sleepless nights.

“If Sakura was here, Sarada wouldn’t get sick.” Sasuke closes his eyes in regret and waits for his in-laws’ harsh judgment. 

“Why don’t you sleep for a while, Sasuke?” Mebuki offers as she disappears into the kitchen. 

“I can’t.” Nothing he did seemed to alleviate Sarada’s suffering. It really had to happen while his wife was away on a month-long diplomatic mission. Sasuke thought he could do this alone, this thing called being a father, but he’s an utter failure at the bottom of it all.

“Rest.” Apron-donned Mebuki glares at him with both hands on her hips. “That’s what we’re here for.”

He lets Kizashi lead him to the couch where the man throws him a blanket. “Collapsing won’t help my grandchild, you know. Sarada needs her father.”

The first thing Sasuke registers when he wakes up is silence. Sarada has fallen asleep.

Most of the house is dark except for the kitchen where the old couple have their shoga-yu (hot ginger tea). A pot of cooled okayu (rice porridge) rests on the counter, ready to heat anytime.

Sasuke sits on his knees and bows. It’s a sight they’ll never get used to. “Thank you. I understand I am lacking as a parent and —”

“Oh quit with the bullshit, son,” Kizashi scolds him with fondness. “You don’t need to do everything by yourself. Not anymore.”

“My darling’s right. We’re your family after all.” Mebuki hands him a plate of onigiri. “I know this is your favorite —Sakura told us — and it may not come close to what your Mom made, but I hope it will suffice. It has tuna filling.”

Under their expectant gazes, Sasuke takes a bite. 

Suddenly, he’s three again, in the kitchen, grabbing the first onigiri Mikoto shaped.

“Yeah not close,” Sasuke mutters to their amusement, and he takes another one and another and another and his soul is full and warm and comforted.

The clock strikes three to a muted firework in the sleep-filled sky. Its tiny specks are luminous through the parted curtain of the Uchiha’s living room. The floor, with strewn confetti and bits of torn gift wraps, mirrors the display.

Sasuke and Sakura, resting, taking in the late solitary celebration of another sleepless person on the other side of the village. All the flutes and goblets are dripping dry on the counter, the leftovers packed and stored in the brimming refrigerator, the noise come and gone.

“What’s your favorite part of the party?” Sasuke asks.

“The after party,” Sakura replies, “where it’s quiet with you.”

She turns away from the window and burrows closer to his chest. No butterflies, no racing, just a steady heartbeat, a rhythm of calm.

“Me too.”

"sasuke seems like a different man," ino notes to her best friend.

across the field, sasuke lets a five year old sarada place a crown of flowers on his head.

it's messy work in the fingers of a young babe and the flowers disintegrate in his strands.

but sasuke smiles nonetheless.

"i don't think he is." sakura gathers a cluster of daffodils on a patch of grass beside her. a clumsy creation from a one-armed man.

"you changed him, sakura."

"it's nice to think of it that way, but i didn't. he's already like that since he was young — gentle and kind."

"and what about the in-between?"

"that was him too. just someone in too much pain and anger."

"then i'm glad he's back as his true self," ino smiles, "with you."

the only reason why sasuke isn't going all out with meno is because he loves dinosaurs too much he probably wants to take home one.

🍅: it'll be my pet

🌸: honey it's a dinosaur

🍅: it's ✨ a✨ dinosaur ✨ i can also share it with sarada... sometimes...

Sasuke considers the sight before him as he forms an appropriate response.

A child with an oddly familiar duck butt hair, dressed in an open chest top and purple rope belt holds a clumsy bouquet of wildflowers to Sakura. A paper sword stays limp on the boy’s side — an attempt at his kusanagi.

“Dr. Haruno, please marry me!” the boy declares. When he closes his eyes in embarrassment, Sasuke sees the smudged scribbles of sharingan and rinnegan on the lids. This kid really did his homework.

The efforts that go into this /costume/ make him scoff. He obviously wore it better than this mimicry.

Sakura, on the other hand, finds it utterly delightful. She hasn’t stopped fawning over him since the boy called her, “Sakura-ka.” Without honorifics! The audacity of this dwarf.

“Thank you Natsumo! Unfortunately, I’m already married.” Sakura shows off the ruby ring strapped as a necklace.

“I know.” The boy shows a sheepish toothy grin. “To me.”

Sasuke takes his wife’s arm and pulls her closer to his side while clearing his throat. “To /me/.”

Sakura throws him a stupendous glance as if saying, “Seriously Sasuke?”

“I’m the better version!” Natsumo sticks out his tongue and proceeds to pull Sakura’s other arm.

Very much annoyed right now, Sasuke goes down on one knee and glares at him. He would have unsheathed his sword if not for Sakura planting one heavy foot on his wrist. “Listen kid —”

And he sees a sight that takes his breath away.

A girl with a pink synthetic wig. In Sakura’s genin clothes. With a smile that very much mirrors the original. With looks of devotion he had been a recipient for.

Instead this time, it’s intended for someone else.

“Sasuke, be kind,” Sakura warns under her breath. The weight on his wrist presses harder.

“— Listen kid.”

“—I have ears, old man.”

“This Dr. /Uchiha/ Sakura already has a Sasuke.”

“I volunteer to replace you.”

“You brat.” He forcefully grabs Natsumo by the shoulder (yes he risks breaking it against Sakura) and pivots him around to see the little girl.

“Hey, what are you doing old man?”

“See that girl?” He feels the tension leave the boy’s body. “That’s your Sakura.”

The girl walks up to them and waves a little hi. “Hello, Natsumo-kun.”

“Oh it’s only you Mira. Hn.” A hint of red creeps to his cheeks as he struggles to keep a straight face. “You’re annoying.”

The familiar phrase makes Sakura laugh while Sasuke reconsiders unsheathing his kusanagi. He could never catch a break.

SS Retsuden Countdown | D-2

Prompt: Corona borealis - Your hands are my pride

Sakura glances at the clock for the umpteenth time. 6:00 PM. The newly bought hydrangeas cluster together in the middle of a table where three plates are laid down. She makes sure to include Sasuke tonight. Somehow, she gets a strong inkling. She just knows. Like how one would smell rain before it drops.

The door swings open to reveal a five-year old Sarada and Inojin. 

“Hey, you’re late today.” Her daughter sports a rigid scowl and a furrow in her brows which mimics Sakura’s own and — oh — she spots the fist and the fresh scratches.

Inojin shuffles awkwardly by the entrance, nodding an acknowledgment to Sakura, but refusing to meet her questioning gaze. He digs for something in his pocket and grabs Sarada’s arm before she goes inside her safe space.

“Don’t think too much about it,” Inojin tells her. He forces the thing in her hand and disappears just as quickly. 

It’s a handkerchief.

The moment the door closes, Sarada bursts into tears. Sakura gathers her angel in her arms and waits until the bawling subsides into steady sobs.

“Someone beat you at the academy?” she prods. Sarada’s ruthless competitiveness sometimes gets the better of her.

Sarada shakes her head. In between heaves, she tries to explain, “Some kids by the park said some bad things about Papa.” She liberally uses Inojin’s handkerchief to wipe her tears.

Sakura feels an ache in her chest. She’s supposed to be prepared for this, but a child, even of Sarada’s lineage, is still a child. She wonders if she failed as a mother because of this. “What did they say, my love?”

“They said Papa is not a true person!” Another batch of tears starts to pool in her eyes. “Because he’s missing an arm! His body parts are not complete.”

“And do you believe them?”

Sarada vigorously shakes her head. “Papa….Papa’s hand! Papa’s hand cooks my favorite. His hand ties my hair. His hand tucks me in bed. Papa’s hand always hugs Mama when he goes away. Papa’s hand holds my hand.” She starts to bawl again, this time because she misses her father.

Sakura feels like crying too, but she helps her daughter wipe her tears for now. There’s only room for one crybaby in this house. “Yes, Papa’s hand — it’s our pride right?”

Sarada burrows her face further in her mother’s arms. “I miss Papa.”

“Me too,” Sakura says in Sarada’s hair. “Listen, why don’t you wash up before we eat dinner? Then I’ll teach you simple seals.”

Ever the studious child, Sarada lights up at the treat. She quickly saunters to the bath as Sakura contemplates putting away the third plate.

“Hmm. Maybe not tonight,” she says to no one in particular.

“What’s not for tonight?” replies a familiar voice.

Sakura wheels around and finds her husband crawling through the window. It’s unfair how he still manages to look put together after a mission and even in such weird positions. “Anata, you know there’s a door right?” Nonetheless, she enjoys the somersaults from the sight of him.

“I forgot where my key is,” he says with a hint of apology. “How did you know I’m back?”

Sakura shrugs. /I just know./

“Papa!” Sarada’s voice rings across the room, and she tumbles into his open embrace. Ah there’s that smile only they can see. It looks good on Sasuke — happiness and love and family. The dining table sits three tonight.

“Sarada?” 

“Yes Papa?”

Sasuke takes her scratched hand and places it on his palm. He lets his fingers cover her small knuckles. “Papa’s hand will always hold your hand.” He glances across the table at Sakura. “And Papa will always hug Mama with his one arm.”

Ah he heard all of it, Sakura thinks. 

“So take care of this hand and Mama’s hands, okay?” he tells Sarada.

“Why Papa?”

“Your hands are my pride too.”

---

buy me coffee? :)

Wading through each shelf, feet kicking the rested dust, stealing glimpses through the gaps of the sinewy spines — they feel transtemporal. It’s a specific replica of their genin days, back when it seemed they were too eager for a ‘mission accomplished’, but she was only too focused on catching Sasuke’s attention. Naive, head over heels, in love.

She’s still the same girl, just with several upgrades, she surmises. Not that she isn’t eager now; after all, Naruto’s life is at stake.

Sakura just wants to bide her time in their quick library research. It’s not every day she gets to be with her husband, much more so when it comes to missions.

So she savors this sight, this moment, this time. Even when it meant suffocating from cobwebs and molds and probably a century old layer of dust. She’s too busy /seeing/ her husband.

Him in a bright blob of orange jumpsuit. His shoulder length hair. His chakra signature, carefully hidden, but memorized by her. His steady gaze as it finds her in between a stack of books. His mouth which she misses.

“You found anything?” he says in a low voice. That kind of tone sends shivers down her spine.

Oh kami, Uchiha Sakura, you’re on active duty. Calm your pseudo teenager hormones, she chastises herself. “Poison recipes. Could help Naruto die faster if I want a capital punishment. The cure’s probably on the other side.”

“Hn. I only have ten minutes left, and the other inmates will start wondering.” He walks to her side of the shelf.

She shrugs. “I also have a scheduled appointment. This is just actually my only free time.”

Sasuke raises his brows. “The prisoners?”

“Yes. Most of them scheduled an appointment with me, quick check up and everything. Even though you just had a system sponsored one last week.”

Sakura recognizes the quick flash of agitation on Sasuke’s face.

“Those scumbags.”

“It’s all right anata. I’ll go through them quickly so I can catch up on rest.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Frustration spills over in his voice. “They’re men.”

“So?”

Sasuke backs her against the wall, his lone arm finding its place above her head. Sakura has to look up to meet his intense embers.

“I’m a man too, Sakura. Your husband.” Each word is a weighted plea, and her body responds accordingly, willing to cave in. “Don’t you know the things I want to do to you right now?”

She lets her hands cup his face, introducing gentleness where there’s currently gaunt and grime. “I’m your wife. You’re the only one who can do things to me.”

Sasuke responds like a bush lit on fire. Rough, all consuming, burning. It only takes five minutes to reacquaint each other’s skin with their imprint, and five minutes more to leave lasting marks in places only they are allowed to see.

Within ten minutes, that certain corner of the library is rid of cobwebs and cleared of dust, having found new homes on the back of prison fabric and doctor’s robes.

The night is quiet save for the crickets precursor to summer rains. Their ember-haired daughter is fast asleep under a light blanket in the living room. On either side of her are parents, still walking the line between wakefulness and shallow dreams, hands surrendered to the thumbs of Sarada who likes clasping them in slumber, a nature she hasn’t grown out of, as if she too is still wondering if this is real.

“She learned how to do one hand seals today,” Sasuke tells his wife over the soft breeze that permeates their dwelling. 

“She really is an overachiever.” Sakura smirks. “Makes sense when we’re the parents.”

“It reminds me of him.” Until now he couldn’t bring himself to say his brother’s name.

“What’s wrong?”

Sasuke shakes his head, but it’s futile. Sakura has learned how to understand the depth of his silence, read between the lines, and coax him to talk. It doesn’t take much this time. She only needs to have worry etched on her face, and he would go to the pits of the earth to hunt down happiness.

“I wonder,” he starts, “whether she’ll be like him. Like them. All the good things…and all the bad. Maybe the misery gets passed on. Maybe she’ll also get sick in the head.”

“And you don’t want that.”

“No. I just want her to be happy.”

Sakura turns away from him and stares at the ceiling fan, its blades going round and round and round. Outside, the pitter patter starts, and the petrichor seeps in the atmosphere. It takes him back to the days when forest was a home and her arms were his only sanctuary.

“You know, Sarada also yells ‘Shannaro’ all the time.” Sakura laughs at the recall. “She also copies slang words from Chocho, and draws her hiragana like my father does. One time I saw her jump in sync with Mitsuki, the same arm position, the same height. But the one thing she does perfectly —”

“What?”

“Your smirk,” Sakura replies, and for good measure, mimics, “You’re annoying.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes and sinks on the warm futon. It has gotten cold all of a sudden, and his body moves closer to the two loves of his life. “I’m thinking too much, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, you probably drank too much coffee.”

“Hn,” he agrees.

“It takes a village.” Her other hand finds his hair, fingers lost in his strands. He welcomes her touch; there could be no other moment he could refuse it. Sakura sighs, and he hears the weariness drift from it. “It takes a village,” she repeats, “and a village is more than just a family. It has her friends, her teachers, and us. She’ll be who she is, whatever she chooses, Sasuke. All the good and bad — that’ll be our Sarada. That’ll be our daughter.”

“My peanut.” Affection is no more a stranger on his lips.

“Yes, your peanut.” Sakura stifles her laughter, melding with the rain and Sarada’s steady breathing. This is how Sasuke sleeps tonight.

they set this silly rule when sarada was born: always sleep on the bed. the rule doesn't hold out eventually when sakura finds them on the living room floor after her graveyard shift.

sarada is cuddled against her papa's chest, her small head resting where the rest of his other arm should be, her fingers grasping his thumb.

sakura lies down on the other side of sarada and stretches out her arm to engulf her two loves in a cuddle. it doesn't take long before the heated floor, the laid out futon, and sasuke's snores lull her to sleep.

there in the middle lies an extension of their limbs, their skin and hearts and combined, a vessel that binds their souls forevermore, their firstborn.