Chapter Text
Sakura knocked on the door, waiting outside the moderately-sized home with a basket full of ramen broth and fixings. She waited a few moments, listening to the rustling behind the door, then heard a soft “coming!” from the home’s singular occupant. A few seconds passed, then the door opened, revealing a slightly more elegant-than-normal Hinata. She’d swapped her typical sweatshirt and leggings for a simple, sleeveless dress. The lilac-colored material of the dress was a lovely compliment to her eyes and Sakura felt no qualms in letting Hinata know just how pretty she was. Hinata, of course, blushed, her shyness having never been completely eradicated, even after years of being showered in Naruto’s unabashed compliments.
“Thank you,” she near-whispered, brushing past Sakura to lead the way towards the Hokage tower. With her, she carried a small cake, thin slices of strawberries and kiwi precariously placed to spell out “32” atop the white frosting. Sakura smiled, the tiny gesture just one of many ways in which Hinata used to express her quiet, subtle affection for her husband. No one could ever say that Naruto was not loved.
They got to the base of the tower and paused. Sakura turned to Hinata, rested her palm on the woman’s shoulder, and channeled her chakra into her bloodstream. She’d learned this “masking” effect from a wandering ninja a few years prior. He’d been admitted to the ER, having been found lying unconscious outside the city gates by a group of genin. He’d had no money to pay her for his hospital care, so in lieu of this, he’d offered her knowledge about the “chakra masking” technique that he’d picked up on the road. The way it worked was, essentially, as long as a ninja wasn’t actively looking for the user’s chakra signature, it would go unnoticed, even by the most observant ninja. Sakura had been keeping the trick in her back pocket for times when she’d need extra stealth; times like sneaking into her best friend’s office with his wife so that they could surprise him on his thirty-second birthday.
Sakura finished enacting the jutsu, then let Hinata lead her up through the winding halls of the tower. They’d come late in the evening, hoping to catch Naruto after his weekly meeting with the council. Surprisingly, Hinata had been the one to come up with the idea over lunch a few days prior. She’d lamented the fact that Naruto had been coming home late looking worn-down and ragged. He’d been trying to push through a law that would prohibit assigning ninjas active missions until they were at least fifteen years of age. Naturally, there had been serious pushback on this effort on many fronts. But, like anything Naruto pursued, he’d barreled on, determined to get the law through legislation even if it meant sacrificing months of his own personal freedom.
Hinata pushed through Naruto’s office door first, gesturing for Sakura to follow after making a quick visual sweep of the room. They moved quickly, knowing that Naruto's meeting would be wrapping up any minute now, both of them shuffling over to the supply closet. The space was small, but not small enough that they both couldn’t fit if they knelt. Sakura was hopeful that Naruto’s meeting ended sooner rather than later, settling uncomfortably atop scrolls that Naruto had no doubt shoved in there to avoid looking at them. He often did this with minor requests, ignoring them until Shikamaru cleaned out the closet every few weeks and forced him to sit down and finish them. This was often a two-to-three-day process and both Naruto and Hinata hated it. Hinata because it kept him away from home; Naruto because he hated reading.
Sakura knew all of this because they both complained about the subject to her each time it arose.
The women sat quietly, Sakura on one side cradling the basket of ramen like a baby, Hinata on the other. Both were careful not to touch the delicately frosted cake. They couldn’t see much inside the dark closet itself, but the strips of bamboo used to make the closet door offered a few cracks of light. They’d be able to watch Naruto come back into the office, as they both had almost a full visual of the room.
Naruto, on the other hand, would not be able to detect them. Sakura was banking on the low-lit room and the chakra masking technique to give her and Hinata the element of surprise.
It worked. Naruto entered the room not three minutes later, looking tired and slightly defeated in a way Sakura had hardly ever seen him. He closed the door to the office quietly, his face revealing very little, but his shoulders were hunched over as though they were carrying a fifty-pound load. He dragged his feet across the wooden floor and slumped into the cheap, worn-out office chair. From there, he let out a deep breath and let his head fall to his hands. The only noises coming from the room were the low sighs he let out every few seconds and the scratchy sounds his robe made rubbing up and down the splintered wood of his chair with each breath he took.
Sakura side-eyed Hinata, trying to get a hint from her eyes about what they should do next, but Hinata looked just as confused as Sakura felt. Sakura’s breath caught, realization dawning over her like a cool, painful ice bath. Had… had Hinata never seen him like this? Did he not take this home to her? For comfort? For-
A quiet tap on the far window pulled Sakura from her thoughts. She turned her head away from the woman squatting next to her and watched as Naruto’s head popped up so fast he nearly toppled over in his chair. He ran to the window, unlatching it with unsteady fingers and a borderline smile on his face. Once he had the latch released, he swung the window open and met the visitor with a bright, enthusiastic “Sasuke!”
Sakura froze, her blood running cold when she saw that it was indeed her husband standing on top of the windowsill, his large cloak wrapped around him to ward off the effects of a cooling autumn.
Sakura saw Hinata turn to her in her peripheral vision. She knew Hinata could see that she was just as shocked as her to see the man on the other side of the windowsill. Sasuke had given no indication that he’d be coming home anytime soon, had sent no word to her or Sarada. He had always been distant, but he’d never left them this far in the dark… Or so Sakura thought. Her intelligent eyes watched him slip into the office, his cape billowing behind him, making him look like some sort of dark hero.
She nearly jumped when she felt Hinata’s small, soft hand slip into hers, squeezing it in reassurance. Sakura felt less inclined to jump out in surprise the longer she watched the scene unfold. Did Naruto know her husband was coming home? If so, why had he not told her? Or Hinata? Was it some sort of A-ranked mission? Something neither of the women was allowed to know about? Or was it something more? Something-
“Sasuke.” Naruto’s voice sounded breathless, relieved. Like there’d been a ribbon tying up the brightness in his chest for the past few hours and he’d finally untied it, allowing his joy to shine through in the form of a tearful smile and wispy eyes. “Sasuke, what are you-” the younger man shifted, reaching out to place his hand on Sasuke’s forearm. “When did you get here?”
He sounded confused but happily surprised. This did not soothe Sakura’s tumultuous thoughts in the slightest, for now she knew that no one, no one had known that Sasuke was going to be coming home. Her fist clenched around the basket handle. What was her husband playing at?
“Usuratonkachi,” Sasuke spoke softly, evenly, his voice cresting over the room in low vibrations. “Happy birthday.” He removed his arm from Naruto’s tight grasp and reached deep into his pocket. From it, he withdrew a small slip of parchment. He handed it to Naruto, letting the younger man read it in the dying light of the sunset. When Naruto was finished he looked back up at Sasuke with an expression bearing that of complete shock.
“You… when did you find this?”
Sasuke shrugged.
“Last time I was here I stole a few scrolls from the Elders’ quarter in the tower.” Naruto opened his mouth to no doubt reprimand him, but Sasuke held up his hand. “Relax, nobody saw me. Anyway,” he plucked the parchment from Naruto’s tight grasp, then moved to stand beside him so that he could point to something on the paper himself. Naruto’s head dipped down, familiarity bringing their foreheads so close together they nearly touched.
“You see here,” Sasuke said quietly again, “the Elders have been arguing with you for months over this age thing. But this is clear proof that one of them, Itato, held back his own children from becoming ninjas until they were seventeen. These here,” he shifted his thumb up the paper a bit, “are the notes taken during one of Itato’s son’s evaluations. He says, point-blank, ‘My son will not participate in the chunin exams. Children should not be forced into such turmoil at such a young age.’ The age,” Sasuke finished, “being that of a fifteen-year-old boy.”
Quiet followed. Sakura could hear nothing but Naruto’s shallow breaths. She knew there was no reason to feel this way, but watching the way Naruto stared hungrily at the paper, she suddenly felt as though she absolutely should not be witnessing this moment. That she would deeply regret witnessing this moment once it passed.
Sure enough, once Naruto’s eyes had taken in all they could of the small slip of paper, he looked up at Sasuke, his gaze holding nothing less than complete reverence. It made Sakura’s skin prickle in distrust, though she could not say why.
“Sasuke this-” he choked on his own words. Sakura did not know what had transpired during the meeting earlier, but she assumed that this was suddenly the answer to one of his many prayers. “I- thank you.” Sasuke met his eyes and they held each other’s gaze for longer than any normal pair of friends would be comfortable with. Sakura felt the tension settle in the atmosphere of the room like a thick smog. She wanted to look away, to look anywhere but the face of the man she’d married. Not because he looked bitter or angry or sad, but because he looked relieved. He, alongside Naruto, looked like something heavy, like some large burden had been lifted from his shoulders for the brief few moments that he got to stand and look at the man in front of him.
Never, in all their years together, had he looked at Sakura this way.
Naruto was the first to break the silence.
“How long are you here?”
And just like that, the weight fell back down onto Sasuke’s shoulders, a visible pain washing over his expression and dripping down onto his stature. He looked curiously old all of a sudden.
“I am not,” was all he offered. He gave Naruto a parting, empty look, then turned to leave through the window from which he came.
“Not- Hey! Wait a minute!” Naruto grabbed Sasuke by the tail of his cape and yanked him, hard, back into the office. “That’s it? You’ve been gone for four months! You’re not gonna stay for a few days? A few hours, at least?” Naruto’s breathing was ragged, Sakura could not tell if it was a byproduct of his worn-down body or… something else. An emotion she felt she shared, a panic she did not want to see settled in Naruto’s expression.
“There is no reason for me to stay,” Sasuke spoke simply, detached in a way that made Sakura feel more worthless than dirt.
“You’re not-” Naruto huffed, tearing his body away from Sasuke’s space to gesture wildly around the room. “No reason to stay, huh? No reason? Gone for four months, and six months before that, and months and months and months before all of those times?” Naruto’s eyes grew wild, his quick breaths sounding more and more like the early signs of hyperventilation. “What about Sarada, huh? Your daughter? You remember her, right? Or Sakura? Or, you know, me?” He jutted his thumb out and pointed it at himself to prove a point. “What about me, huh? I drag your ass back here after three years, only for you to leave me behind anyway? What the fuck is up with that, Sasuke?”
“Naruto,” Sasuke sighed, resting his head against the frame of the open window. “I don’t want to do this right now.”
“Yeah?” Naruto got up in his face, breathed, then dipped back down to tug at his own hair in frustration. “Well I do! I do because you know why? You know why, you selfish prick? I’m fucking-” his arms flailed again, drawing a dramatic and heartbreaking image in Sakura's view. In the room’s fuzzy, orange light, Naruto looked like a washed-out watercolor. Like something that had once looked beautiful, hopeful, and now just looked worn.
“I don’t know what I am.” And just like that, the orange light from the sunset dimmed, and Naruto’s heat with it. “I just- I don’t know what I am.” He turned away from Sasuke, facing the closet door so that Sakura could see the entirety of his solemn, somber face. Naruto brought one arm up, his hand grasping at his own forearm as though he were trying to keep himself from reaching for something.
“I miss you.” It came out broken, fractured by years of loneliness that Sakura was only just beginning to glimpse. Naruto… Naruto was suffering; had been for Lord knows how long and Sakura had been clueless. A quick glance at Hinata’s wide, frightened eyes was proof enough that she seemed to feel equally blindsided.
“I just miss you.”
Silence, followed by a soft:
“Hn.”
Naruto whirled, facing Sasuke with a renewed vigor, only this time it seemed to be fueled by deep, unmistakable rage.
“I know you miss me too, you bastard! I know you do!” He pointed an accusatory finger at Sasuke. “But you don’t talk about it! We never just talk and now- I… I-”
“You want to talk, Naruto? Hmm? Is that what you’d like? To talk about this?” It came out cold, cruel and bitter in a familiar tone that Sakura hadn’t heard since they were teenagers. “Okay, dobe, let’s talk.” Sasuke stepped into the light, pressing Naruto back with his chest so that the younger man had to take three steps back into his desk. “Let’s talk about how you chased after me for three years. Let’s talk about how you told me I was your best friend, your soulmate. Let’s talk-” he’d pushed Naruto all the way back into the desk, chests rising and falling against one another in sync. Sasuke looked wild, his eyes shattered and glossy in a way Sakura had only seen them one other time: the day Sarada was born. “Let’s talk, Naruto, about how you did all those things, said all those things, and then didn’t have the patience to wait for me for one goddamn year. Let’s talk about that.”
“Sasuke-”
“You got married. Fine. Whatever, but don’t pretend it doesn’t hurt me every time you beg, plead for me to stand there in the shadow of your life and watch.”
Everything stilled. Sakura was too frightened to blink, to breathe, lest the two men before her learn of her and Hinata’s presence. She had very little in her to feel anything for what Sasuke had just admitted to, for what Naruto’s unshed tears, now swelling at the corners of his eyes, appeared to be admitting to. Like a good ninja, she stifled her reaction so that she could take in the scene before her. She did not think about how the absurd actions of her husband over the past twelve years of her life were finally slotting into place. She did not think of herself, her child, her family. She did not think about what it meant when Naruto reached up for her husband’s cloak, only to let his hand fall to his side again. She did not think when Sasuke’s own eyes caught the light streaming in through the window, stars blurring beneath the fine layer of tears blooming near his tear ducts. She did not think.
Don’t think.
Naruto reaching again, this time both hands fisting into the thick material of Sasuke’s cloak.
Don’t think.
Sasuke letting his head fall forward, not close enough to touch Naruto, but close enough to clench his eyes shut and let out a ragged breath into short, blond hair.
Don’t-
“I never meant for this.” Naruto spoke it so quietly, buried into the material of Sasuke’s cloak. Like if he said it to no one, then no one would know. Not even Naruto himself.
“I never meant-”
“I’m not blaming you, dobe.”
Naruto did cry this time. It came out a croak, hidden from the cracks in the closet. Without warning, Hinata grasped Sakura’s hand again, her fingers clammy and shaking. If Sakura hadn’t felt paralyzed by the fear of being caught, she’d have turned to gauge Hinata’s expression. She figured it was no less horror-stricken than her own.
“She loved me.”
“I know.” There was no accusation in Sasuke’s voice, only tired understanding.
“She loved me.” Naruto pulled his head back, anger flashing through wet eyes, though he did nothing to dry them. His grasp on Sasuke’s clothing was used as propellant to shake the older man, albeit weakly and without any true intentional harm.
“Why didn’t you ever say it! I could have- we could have… You left me. Over and over you leave me and you never-”
“I love you.” Sasuke said it without any reserve or hesitation. The words rolled off his tongue like they’d been said a thousand times: easy, true, without question. Something inside Sakura, something that felt as though it had been dying for many years, finally laid down to rest.
“I loved you when we were children, Naruto, when you got tied to that log the first time.” Naruto stared at him as though he were seeing the sun for the first time, tear tracks on his cheeks drying in real-time as the words spilled out of Sasuke’s mouth.
“I loved you in the Land of Waves, the Land of Tea, and every other land we saw together.”
Sasuke reached up with his only hand, rested it on Naruto’s cheek like he’d probably dreamed of doing for years.
“I loved you when I left you the first time, the second time, and every time after that.”
Naruto removed one of his hands from its tight grasp on Sasuke’s cloak, only to cover the older man’s with his own atop his damp cheek. Together, they listened to Sasuke finally say what Sakura presumed Naruto had never let himself admit.
“Naruto, I loved you the day I nearly killed you, the day you saved me from myself. I loved you the day I came back and the day I left again.”
Here, Sasuke’s eyes seemed to droop, almost as though the hope from their youth had visited for an instant, then left as soon as it had landed.
“I loved you the day you got married. I loved you the day I got married. And every time I leave this village, I love you still.”
Naruto’s tears began to fall again, wetting the bandages on his hand and darkening the hue of the cheap, creamy material.
“And, Naruto,” Sasuke’s cool demeanor slipped, his voice cracking on the tail-end of Naruto’s name. “When I leave you again, I will love you.”
Naruto’s cries were silent, torn. He did not move his face away from Sasuke’s touch; instead, he let Sasuke watch as the man beneath him silently fell apart. As an onlooker, Sakura felt pained. As his best friend, she felt helpless. What had they done?
“I can fix this,” Naruto croaked, though it came out irresolute. For the first time, everyone in the room seemed to understand that Naruto’s words held no weight.
“I can fix us.”
Sasuke smiled, sad and small and so, so tired. Sakura knew he’d admitted defeat long before this conversation.
“Naruto, there is nothing to fix.”
Naruto looked frantic, panicked and stricken in the wake of something broken so wholly. Everything in his life had been clean-cut, something to be mended with love and tears and hard work. Nothing in his path had been unachievable, if not large.
But this, this was shattered. Shrapnel scattered across twelve long years. Cracks and tresses woven into the hearts of wives and children and obligation. This was not something he could fix. Sasuke seemed to have accepted this a long time ago, Naruto only just admitting to it.
“Sasuke just-” His breathing became erratic. He pushed himself off the table, only to sink to his knees, pain paralyzing him, keeping him from fighting. But, he was not above begging.
“Please, stay. Please.” He cried into the folds of Sasuke's cloak, clutching at the material so tight it seemed to nearly tear. “We’ll… I’ll fix this, please. Please just stay and I’ll-I’ll-”
“You what?” Sasuke choked out, staring down at Naruto with an openly pained expression. “You promise?”
“Yes.” Naruto nodded frantically, face still hidden in Sasuke’s cloak. “Yes I- I promise.”
Sasuke closed his eyes again, drifting down so that Naruto was holding him up by his waist. He half-knelt, clutching at Naruto’s hair and opening his mouth to it, silently screaming into the short tufts while simultaneously tangling his fingers in them tightly. If Naruto felt any pain from this, he did not show it.
“And what about your promise to Hinata?” The question felt forced, pushed forth from Sasuke’s throat as though he were speaking against his own will. “What of your promise to love her, to cherish her? What of your children, Naruto?”
Another sharp cry from Naruto, forceful enough to have traveled across the room and apparently strike his wife, as Hinata chose that moment to clutch at Sakura’s fingers so tightly they began to feel numb.
“I don’t know!” A broken, remorseful wail that had Sasuke sinking further down into Naruto’s arms. “I don’t know, Sasuke. I’ll figure it out.” He had Sasuke close enough now that he could wrap both arms around the older man’s shoulders and crush him to his chest. “I’ll figure it out. Just stay. Please, please just stay.”
Sasuke said nothing. He kept Naruto’s head in his hand, cradling the younger man into his clavicle and simply letting him cry. Everyone in the room felt the emptiness of Naruto’s promise.
Sakura watched her husband cry for the first time in her life. It made it feel all the more bitter, seeing as how he’d purposefully pulled Naruto into his chest so that the younger man could not see. Even now, Sasuke insisted on trying to save others from feeling his pain. It was a hollow gift, a gift Sakura had been on the receiving end of for twelve lonely years.
“Naruto,” he finally replied, speaking into the man’s neck, discreetly wiping his tears on the soft material of the Hokage cloak. “I cannot love you in halves.”
Naruto pulled back, confusion breaking through the pain for a brief moment.
“You love your wife.” Sasuke reached up, running two soothing fingertips down Naruto’s damp cheek in a small attempt at comfort. “You love your children and your village and your friends.” Sasuke stopped, letting the tips of his fingers rest beneath the base of Naruto’s chin so that his thumb could rub his bottom lip.
“You have built a beautiful life for yourself with people who love you, people who adore you. You are so strong and you will continue to be strong for them, and that’s… that's amazing.” Traitor tears slipped from Sasuke’s eyes, marring his perfect cheeks and inciting a sharp intake of breath from Naruto.
“But I am not as strong as you,” Sasuke finished unevenly, his hand falling between them and resting in Naruto’s lap like a broken prayer. His eyes fell as well, watching Naruto reach for his hand to thread their fingers together in a hopeless attempt at salvation.
“I have tried. For years, I tried. But I can’t be here for this,” he choked on the final word, turning his gaze to the side in a desperate attempt to wipe his tears off onto his cloak. “I can’t watch this. I do what I can to make Sakura comfortable, to make her content. I’ve tried to give Sarada a good home, a good community. But I’ve disappointed them. I see it.” He paused, hiccuping a bit when Naruto reached out to wipe his tears away with his bandaged hand. Sasuke stared at it as though it were a lifeline.
“I see that I’m not enough for them, but I can’t… I can’t be enough for them. Because I’m selfish and you-” He finally looked back at Naruto, driving the point home with a reignited ferocity. “You are not selfish, Naruto. You are a good husband. You are a good man. And that is enough for you.”
“Don’t tell me what I want!” Naruto pulled his hand back like it’d been burned. “Don’t tell me what’s good for me! What’s ‘enough’ for me.”
Sasuke just looked at him, eyes already draining themselves of the brief lapse in control he’d allowed Naruto to see. His voice was cool as he spoke, devoid of all emotion once more.
“Will you leave her then, Naruto? Will you break your wife’s heart, Sakura’s heart, simply to be with me?”
Naruto turned from him then, eyes squeezed shut as a fresh wave of guilt seemed to wash over him. A guilt that would burry this conversation as soon as it passed. A guilt that had kept them from even having this conversation for twelve long years. A guilt, Sakura thought, that Naruto would no doubt bring to his grave with him, feelings he would let wilt and fester before he’d ever consider hurting his wife, his children. Naruto loved Sasuke, there was no doubt about this fact now, but more so than this, Naruto clung to unshakable morals. Sakura knew he would insist on doing the “right thing”, even if that meant he would be carving out his own heart in the process.
Judging by the hollow look in Sasuke’s expression, Sakura’s husband had made peace with this fact long before this conversation. He knew how their story ended.
And so, nobody in the room was shocked to hear Naruto’s faint, distant answer to Sasuke’s question.
“No.” A whisper. A defeat.
“No,” Sasuke repeated. He stood then, moving towards the window as though he’d decided Naruto’s admittance concluded their turbulent conversation. “No, you will not leave her.” He refastened the cloak around his neck, refusing to look Naruto in the eyes again as he made to leave. “You will not leave her,” he repeated, “and I will not stay.” He paused, smoothed the wrinkles down the side of his cloak, then continued towards the window. “I’m sorry to have made you face these things so openly.” He pulled the hood of the cloak up, back still turned to the closet door. “Do not ask me to stay again. I have done many terrible things in my life, and thus I never expected to deserve you.” He rested his hand against the handle of the window. “That being said, I do not have your strength. Please let me lay in the bed I’ve made.”
“Sasuke.” It came out ragged, pierced. Naruto’s voice sounded like it had been drenched in kerosene and lit on fire with how raspy his words came out. “For what it’s worth,” Sasuke looked up from beneath his hood, looked up just in time to watch Naruto formulate thoughts left unspoken for so long.
“I love you too.”
Sasuke’s expression was agony. His eyes looked like they simultaneously held long-awaited relief and a new, fresh type of pain. He walked back to Naruto and leaned down so that his tears dripped onto Naruto’s cheeks. He cradled Naruto’s cheek with his hand, tilting the man’s head up so that he could press a brief, trembling kiss to Naruto’s temple. Both of them breathed out in temporary relief. Sakura could almost see a small bubble of falsified joy cloak them in relief for a small, minuscule moment. A moment where Sasuke got to be loved the way he wanted to be loved, and Naruto got to love the person he’d searched for for thirty-two years.
"I know," Sasuke breathed into Naruto's hairline, the life Naruto seemed to long for hovering above his temple.
Like all fantasies, this one came to an end. Sasuke pulled back, readjusted the cloak, then hurried through the window before Naruto had a chance to open his eyes.
When he did, there was nothing but pain.
The Earth seemed to stand still then. There was nothing in the air but Naruto’s quiet cries. Sakura had never seen him this way, never seen him look so hopelessly defeated. Even in the wake of a war, of the attack brought on by Pein, nothing defeated Naruto. In a dissociative, empty sort of way, Sakura knew she felt more sorrow on behalf of her best friend than she did herself. She did not know who had it worse: her, a woman married to a man who clearly did not love her, never had loved her, yet still she got parts of him that Naruto so clearly had never touched. Naruto, who had everything he’d always thought he’d want, always thought he’d need, yet he could not have the one thing he’d spent years of his life chasing after.
Or, Sakura thought with a broken heart, Hinata. A woman who so clearly loved her husband in every way a man dreamed of being loved, yet was not loved wholly, not loved completely, in return.
It was a terrible situation. A situation that none of them had no time to digest because not two minutes after Sasuke left there came a knock at the Hokage’s door.
Naruto wiped his face, flattened his hair, then moved to open the door wearing a smile so false Sakura was sure whoever was on the other side would see straight through it.
“Happy birthday, Daddy!”
“-Dad!”
“-Mr. Hokage, sir!”
There, on the other side of the door, stood Boruto, Himawari, and Sarada. In her hands, Sarada held a small cake, ‘Naruto’ spelled out with haphazard, distorted lettering. The children all smiled up at him, no doubt anticipating his pride.
“Wow.” Sakura heard him choke down more tears as he stared at the cake. “You guys made this?”
“Well, Sarada made it,” Himawari explained, a guilty expression plaguing her soft features. “But I wrote your name!”
“Yeah!” Boruto added, “And I was there! You know…” He scratched the back of his neck in a familiar nervous gesture. “Moral support, or whatever.”
Naruto shook his head in amazement, reaching down to take the cake from his daughter’s small hands, only to set it atop a hidden desk near the entrance.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” Boruto looked affronted. He crossed his arms over his chest with a large huff. “We worked hard on that!”
Naruto, ignoring his son’s small outburst, turned back to face the three kids and, without warning, engulfed them all in one giant hug.
“Thank you,” he smothered the words into Sarada’s hair, squeezing them all so hard that Sakura could see Boruto’s eyes popping out of his skull.
“Uh, yeah,” Sarada squeaked. “You’re welcome, eh, Mr. Hokage-sir!”
“Yeah, yeah. Happy birthday, old man,” Boruto huffed, wriggling around in his dad’s tight hold like a fish out of water. “Now let me go, please!”
Reluctantly, Naruto unwound his arms from the kids’ small frames. Sarada and Boruto pretended to be gasping for breath, but Himawari still clung to her father’s neck. She leaned back, smiling at her dad with matching blue eyes.
“Daddy,” she giggled, the apples of her cheeks glowing pink with mirth. “Happy birthday, daddy. I love you.”
She hugged him then, stuffing her little face into the crook of his neck and giggling into the top of his sternum.
Sakura saw fresh tears well up in Naruto’s eyes. To hide them, he buried his face in his daughter’s hair and held her close to his heart.
“Baby,” he whispered into the wispy, black locks curling at the crown of her head. “I love you too, more than anything else in the world.”
And there it was. Sakura heard Hinata let out a long breath next to her, the final puzzle piece slotting into place. Sakura knew they were both experiencing the same revelation simultaneously. Naruto only solidified Sakura’s understanding when-
“What about Boruto?” Himawari giggled into his chest. “Do you love me more than Boruto?”
A small, choked-out laugh.
“Okay, maybe not more than Boruto.”
“Haha,” she reared back, squishing his cheeks between her chubby hands and giggling right into his face. “And Sarada? You love Sarada too, don’t you daddy?”
Naruto lifted his gaze from his daughter to meet Sarada’s dark eyes. The resolution in his eyes did not waiver once, even when she blushed a deep red.
“Of course,” Naruto said firmly, rubbing small circles into his daughter’s back in reassurance. “Of course I love Sarada.”
And Sakura, despite the deep ache in her heart; despite the tear tracks staining Hinata’s sallow cheeks; despite everything she’d witnessed not five minutes prior; somehow, she felt a reinstated rush of affection for the man holding her daughter’s gaze with nothing short of unwavering, selfless love.