Chapter Text
“Sasuke-kun, can we rest for a bit?”
Her voice came from behind. They had been walking for hours through the bamboo forest without stopping. The August sun filtered through the tall, green stalks, painting pale stripes on the ground. Insects hummed all around them, a high, droning sound that clung to the skin. A few mosquitoes landed on his exposed neck, tickling, but he only swatted them away with irritation.
Hearing her request, Sasuke stopped immediately and turned. Sakura’s face had grown pale, a sheen of sweat covered her forehead, and her breathing had quickened.
“There’s a small village ahead, ten minutes to the south. We’ll rest there,” he said.
For the last year and a half, he had traveled alone. He would wake with the dawn, when the morning mist still clung to the ground, and wash his face with freezing river water. He decided everything himself, when to turn off the path, when to stop, how many times to eat, whether to risk lighting a fire and draw attention.
The war was over, but there were still people who held grudges, people who hated his name. He was especially cautious in places where he had once made mistakes — for instance, in the Land of Lightning. There he moved faster, quieter, always careful not to show the crest of his long-suffering clan embroidered on his vest.
And now that he was traveling with Haruno Sakura, he sometimes forgot that he had to think for more than just himself.
“Do you still have water in your flask?”
“No. Just a few drops… I drank the rest while we were walking.”
He pressed his lips together. Why hadn’t he asked earlier?
Of course, Sakura was a shinobi too. Like him, she could go long hours without food or water during missions. Since joining him a few months ago, she had been trying even harder — never complained, stayed quiet about small discomforts, as if wanting to prove he wouldn’t have to look back for her. But no matter how strong she was, she was still a woman. A woman he liked, and that made things a little more complicated.
Sasuke unclipped his own flask from his belt. He opened it. Only a few mouthfuls left.
“Drink.”
Sakura reached for it and realized, holding it, that it weighed almost the same as she did. She shook her head.
“Seriously? When was the last time you drank?”
“Don’t argue.”
The words came out sharper than he intended. Had he been given a few more seconds, he might’ve chosen something gentler.
She didn’t react, only looked at the bottle once more and drained the last drops in one go.
“…Sorry,” he muttered quietly.
“For what?”
“For being lost in my thoughts and not realizing you were struggling.”
“I’m fine,” Sakura interrupted, lowering the empty flask. “It’s just… I get tired faster lately. Maybe I don’t sleep well at night.”
Her smile wavered into mild embarrassment, and she dropped her gaze.
In the three months they’d spent together, he’d learned to read her better. When she was twelve, her emotions lay on the surface, easy for an observant shinobi like him to sense every flicker of mood. But the years had changed her. Circumstances had pulled them apart and brought them together again, again and again. The open, impulsive girl had grown into a composed, sometimes bold young woman who knew how to keep herself in check.
And yet, one thing never changed — the blush that always bloomed when it came to him.
Or maybe she was thinking about…
The thought burned through him; his ears grew warm, and heat crept up his cheeks. Not now. The sun was still high, and the mission required a cool head, but fragments of the previous night slipped unbidden into his mind: her quiet sighs, her eyes…
He turned away abruptly, as if cutting the thought short, stared at his sandals, and strode ahead.
“Let’s go. We’re almost there.”
Behind him came the soft, slightly uneven rhythm of her footsteps, a quiet confirmation that she, too, wasn’t thinking about the mission.
***
The bamboo forest thinned, and soon they emerged before a small family shrine, behind which stood a few dozen wooden houses. From some chimneys rose thin trails of smoke; the sound of daily labor drifted on the air.
“Can we trust them?” Sakura asked.
“Yes. I know these people. Earlier this year, I helped them deal with a bandit group.”
“Sasuke-kun, you’ve done quite a lot while traveling,” she said warmly.
“Nothing special,” he replied.
But privately, he liked hearing praise from her. It filled him with a quiet pride — a warmth that came from having done something good for those who had little.
As they approached, an elderly woman in a gray kimono hurried out to meet them. Seeing Sasuke, she gasped and, as quickly as her age allowed, shuffled forward.
“Sasuke-chan! Is that you? What a surprise!”
At the “-chan,” Sakura couldn’t help herself, she giggled, glancing at the serious, brooding man beside her. It was like putting a pink bow on a black wolf.
“Oh, you’ve grown so much and brought a young lady with you!” the woman said fondly, patting his single sleeve before peering kindly at Sakura. “Come in, it’s lunchtime.”
How many more times would they get embarrassed today?
“Thank you,” he replied curtly.
Hiding a smile, Sakura whispered,
“Sasuke-chan… mind if I call you that too?”
He clicked his tongue and followed the old woman inside. Sakura nearly burst out laughing and hurried after him.
They took off their shoes, dropped their packs in the corner, and sat down on the tatami. The house looked worn, but it was clean. Within minutes, the old woman returned with two trays of food and set them down before them.
A proper meal under a roof for the first time in days.
Though hungry, Sasuke tried not to show it and began his meal slowly. Sakura, meanwhile, ate with a healthy appetite, deftly picking up every piece of meat and vegetable with her chopsticks and washing it down with green tea. Her plates were empty in no time.
“You cook so well, I haven’t had anything like this in ages,” Sakura said, chewing the last bite of karaage chicken.
“We’ve had a good harvest this year, and the men bring plenty of food from the nearby villages. All thanks to our Sasuke-chan, who dealt with those bandits,” the old woman said, still showering him with praise. Then she remembered she hadn’t asked the name of his companion. “And what’s your name, dear? Would you like some more?”
“My name’s Haruno Sakura,” the girl smiled. “More food? Oh, I’d feel bad…”
“Here,” Sasuke said, placing a large piece of chicken into her bowl, where a bit of rice remained. “I don’t need much.”
“By the way, what bandits were they? Not the Anrai-dan*, by any chance?” Sakura’s gaze lingered on his hand. “I remember reading about them in your report for Kakashi-sensei.”
“Yes. It was here that I came across the woman who possessed a kekkei genkai,” Sasuke replied, moving another piece of chicken into her bowl and taking a slice of tamagoyaki for himself.
“Hmm… They caused quite a bit of trouble for Konoha. I thought you’d return to the village after that,” Sakura remarked, chewing her mix of rice and chicken.
“I did return. A little later,” he said calmly.
Sakura lifted her eyes and met his gaze. For a few seconds, silence settled between them.
All this time, the old woman had been watching how he, with quiet care, placed the best pieces into her bowl, and how she accepted them without hesitation. Neither of them seemed self-conscious about it. On the contrary, they acted as if they’d always eaten from the same dish, as if this quiet routine had been theirs for many years.
The look they shared at the end said everything, they had continued the conversation somewhere in their thoughts. A look like that could make any outsider feel unnecessary in their presence.
“Sasuke-chan, remind me of your family name,” the old woman’s voice brought them both back to reality. “Something that starts with a U…?”
“Uchiha.”
“Ah, right. But Sakura-chan, why didn’t you take your husband’s name? Is that not customary in the Land of Fire?” she asked with childlike curiosity.
Sakura was so taken aback that she dropped one of her chopsticks onto the tatami, along with a few grains of rice.
“Huh? What? We’re not—” A nervous laugh escaped her lips.
Sasuke tensed slightly, his expression hardening. He disliked when outsiders intruded into their relationship, even out of innocent curiosity. Still, he had no intention of being rude to an old woman.
“We’re not married yet,” he said flatly, taking control of the conversation before Sakura could stammer out an explanation.
“If possible, we’d like to stay here for a couple of nights,” he continued, steering the topic away before the woman could ask more about their relationship.
“Of course, dear. We have a spare hut. I can prepare it for you, and Sakura can sleep here in my house…” the woman suggested, assuming they weren’t as close as they appeared.
“Ito-san, please prepare bedding for her there as well.”
The woman blinked, then sighed and smiled.
“Ah, young people these days… so forward,” she chuckled. “Sit and rest. I’ll fetch clean futons and set them up for you.”
She hurried out, mumbling to herself with a faint, amused smile.
Sasuke exhaled and looked at Sakura. She sat frozen, her face unreadable, a mix of surprise and confusion flickering in her eyes. Feeling his gaze, she turned to him.
“…Not yet?”
“Sakura, I—”
“Wait… I need to… use the restroom,” she cut him off, standing up abruptly. The zipper on her boots was half undone when she rushed toward the door.
Sasuke followed her with his eyes. Through the window, he caught a glimpse of her figure, she nearly bumped into Ito-san, asked something quickly, and hurried off again. Normally, she would’ve looked back, but this time she deliberately avoided it, fully aware that he was watching her.
He remained seated, as if pinned to the spot by his own words: We’re not married yet.
The phrase echoed in his head, gaining weight with every repetition.
Had they ever talked about marriage? Not once.
Would he marry her himself? Maybe.
Did she want it? Undoubtedly.
Was it important to her? After everything they’d been doing almost every night for the past few months — most likely, yes.
And for him? Could he share a bed with a woman without serious intentions?
If anyone from his family had known, they would’ve forbidden him from wearing the Uchiha crest ever again.
Would he marry just because he had taken a woman’s innocence? His family name seemed to whisper back: Yes, you must.
But he himself? No. Not for that reason alone.
Did he like her? Far more than he was ready to admit.
Then should he have talked about marriage after their first night together? Maybe. But wasn’t that gesture — the light tap on the forehead — already his invitation into the family?
More eloquent than any string of words.
That sign had always belonged only to those closest to him. A symbol of his bond with his brother. And now, his so-called brother was Naruto.
But then why had he never touched Naruto’s forehead?
His imagination betrayed him, painting a picture of himself tapping Naruto on the forehead and murmuring, “Until next time,” — and his face twisted in disgust.
The stream of thoughts made his temples ache. It was only midday. He forced himself to remember: he was on a mission, not a honeymoon. During the day, his only concern should be matters of the shinobi world, not affairs of the heart.
“Why did I even think about a honeymoon?” he muttered. “We’re not even married yet.”
How much simpler everything had been when he traveled alone.
***
Fifteen minutes had passed since Sakura went to the restroom. Sasuke decided not to sit there drowning in his thoughts. He got up to look for her, and to check the hut Ito-san had been preparing.
The sunlight stung his eyes, and the air shimmered with heat. Soon he saw the old woman coming out of an aged wooden house.
“Ah, Sasuke-chan. Everything’s ready here, you two can rest for now. Sakura will be along soon.”
“Where is she?” he asked, frowning and scanning the yard.
“I saw her by the well. She said she wanted to drink some water and get out of the sun for a bit.”
Sasuke nodded silently. The woman went about her chores, and he turned toward the hut. Inside, it was almost empty, just a small low table, a shelf in the corner, and two futons spread out on the floor, carefully placed apart from each other.
That woman just won’t stop meddling, he thought.
Sasuke stepped closer to the futons and began to move them nearer together.
“Don’t,” came Sakura’s voice from behind.
He straightened and turned. She stood in the doorway — pale, her face damp, strands of hair clinging to her temples. She must have washed up at the well. Her quick, disapproving glance flicked over him.
“I want to rest alone today. I’m tired.”
He didn’t argue. It would sound as if the only reason he lay beside her was to touch her. But that look she gave him, as if he’d done something wrong stung more than he wanted to admit. Better to talk later, once she’d calmed down.
“I’ll check the perimeter. Get some rest.”
Leaving Sakura in the hut, he headed swiftly into the forest. The light was still good; he needed to make sure there were no pursuers nearby. Bamboo surrounded him on all sides — tall, smooth, and bare, offering no shelter like the trees in the Land of Fire. Sasuke climbed higher, pushing off from trunk to trunk, gliding through the air as he scanned the ground below. The bamboo bent and sprang beneath his weight, flinging him toward the next stalk like a taut slingshot.
After sweeping the area within a kilometer’s radius, he finally relaxed. Nothing suspicious. The forest was silent except for the soft creak of bending stalks and the whisper of narrow leaves swaying in the wind. It seemed safe enough to return. The evening promised to be peaceful… probably. Emerging from the forest, he walked toward the well where old Ito was filling a basin with water. Nearby, a pile of dirty dishes towered, and among them Sasuke immediately recognized the bowls they had eaten from earlier.
“I’ll wash them,” he said.
His voice startled the woman so much she jumped, nearly dropping a clay plate. But Sasuke was already there, catching it in midair before it hit the ground.
“Oh, I could’ve managed myself,” she said quickly, fumbling with her apron.
“It’s a thank-you for the meal and for letting us stay,” he replied, gently nudging her aside. He scooped water from the bucket and poured it into the basin.
“Well, all right… just make sure Sakura doesn’t overexert herself,” the old woman murmured, stepping back.
Sasuke ignored her words and focused on the task. In his hand were a coarse, cracked bar of soap and an old rag. He picked up each bowl carefully, lathered it, and scraped away the dried rice with his fingernails, one dish after another.
There were few things in this world that brought him any real satisfaction — washing dishes was one of them. When he had been left alone in the abandoned Uchiha compound, he had to scrub the utensils himself. He remembered clearly: most often, he saw his mother doing that very same thing. It felt like his duty to polish to perfection the three remaining plates and three pairs of chopsticks. The fourth, he had once smashed in anger and thrown away, unworthy, in his mind, to stand in his mother’s cabinet.
In his imagination, he sometimes pictured his parents suddenly walking into the house, his mother, pleased to see everything spotless, and his father, satisfied to see discipline preserved even in an empty home.
Later, during his solitary wanderings, he often found shelter in temples, seeking redemption and humility. One of the daily rituals there was cleaning the grounds and washing dishes for the monks. Those monotonous, almost humiliating chores — unfit for the heir of a great clan and one of the strongest men in the land — gradually washed away the remnants of his pride and superiority.
When he finally finished the mountain of dishes, he shrugged off his cloak and shirt, pouring cool water over himself to rinse away the day’s sweat.
Returning to the hut, he found Sakura bent over several scrolls.
“Report for Kakashi?” he asked.
“Yes,” she nodded without looking up. “I’m writing about how we helped resolve the conflict between the tribes in the Land of Canyons**. There’s also news of a group of rogue shinobi from Konoha. Their true goal isn’t clear yet, but they’ve been sighted in the Land of Water, wearing scratched forehead protectors. Kakashi-sensei asked us to stay alert, we might cross paths with them.”
“They don’t seem very eager to hide their identity if they’re still wearing protectors.”
“You think they’re impostors too?”
“Quite possibly. Either way, we’ll recognize them if we run into them.”
Sakura nodded and lowered her head again, her brush gliding smoothly over the paper.
He watched her for a while, then walked to the futons and lay down on one, resting his single arm behind his head, silently gazing at her back.
Her hair had grown noticeably over the summer, a few strands already brushed the narrow line of her waist.
“The same length as Mother’s,” he thought.
The image came to him unbidden. The kitchen in his parents’ house, the way he used to lie on the igusa tatami on a hot summer day, peering through the legs of the low table while his mother cooked him eggs and told stories about when Itachi had been small and innocent.
But tonight Sakura didn’t want to look at him or tell some silly story about Naruto or Ino. And yet, those were the kinds of stories he loved to hear, though he’d never admit it. Sakura was a far better storyteller than the snake Aoda, who did nothing but nod and listen obediently. She had a lighter way of seeing people, of seeing the world, it allowed him to argue with her, and sometimes, even for a moment, to see things more simply. Her stories of the village always sounded to him like they came from another world. The world he had erased himself from and could now only observe from afar.
He exhaled heavily.
At the sound, Sakura’s hand hesitated briefly above the scroll, but a heartbeat later she continued writing, her brush moving steadily across the paper.
“Turn around…” he called to her silently, as if he’d mastered a mind-transfer technique.
Sasuke kept watching her movements until his eyelids grew heavy. Sleep came over him quietly and unnoticed, and he slipped under without ever catching her gaze.
***
Sasuke woke as if surfacing from deep water. The room was half-dark; a single candle cast trembling shadows. For a moment he couldn’t tell if it was morning or night. The heavy blanket pressed down with heat, and he irritably shoved it off. For several seconds he couldn’t remember where he was, until it came back to him: he’d fallen asleep right here, watching Sakura.
Where is she?
The hut was empty, scrolls scattered across the table. Outside, night had already fallen.
He pulled on his sandals, stepped out, and activated his dōjutsu. Instantly he sensed a shift. There was one more chakra signature in the village. When they’d arrived that afternoon, he’d counted twenty-eight people. With himself and Sakura, exactly thirty. Now, looking through his Rinnegan, he saw it clearly — thirty-one.
He launched forward and in the next heartbeat stood at the village well where Sakura was. Katana drawn, he moved to shield her, ready to strike at any moment.
“Sasuke-kun!” she cried out, startled by his sudden appearance.
“There’s someone here,” he muttered, scanning the forest, the bamboo thickets, the narrow lanes. Everything seemed calm.
He stepped aside to check behind her, swept his gaze across the rooftops. Nothing.
“Where?!” Sakura asked, tensing, fists raised, falling into a stance.
That was when his eyes returned to her. At first, he only wanted to be sure she was all right, but something felt off. He began reading her chakra flow the way he would an enemy’s, from top to bottom, searching for distortions.
Head — no trace of foreign chakra. Chest — clear, her energy circulating smoothly. Hands — strength gathered, ready to strike. But when his Rinnegan dropped lower, he froze. Below her abdomen glowed a steady, alien concentration of chakra — the presence he had felt a moment ago.
He sharpened his focus, looked again. A sealing technique? A tailed beast? A memory flashed of Naruto, the pulsing core of the Nine-Tails inside his body. Had someone kidnapped Sakura while he slept and sealed a bijuu inside her?
No. This was different. Naruto’s borrowed chakra had always roiled and fought to break free. In Sakura, it looked entirely unlike that — two flows. One moving as it should through her body. The other gathered low, “resting” there, wrapped in a protective shell of her own chakra, as if guarding something.
And then it hit him.
The realization struck so sharply he almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But the Rinnegan couldn’t be wrong.
“What’s wrong?!” Sakura demanded, confused by the way he was staring at her.
Sasuke didn’t answer. His heart was pounding so hard it drowned out her voice. In a single instant, everything crashed over him — shock, disbelief, a lurching fear as though the ground had given way beneath his feet. And immediately after, a warmth, a strange stirring, a fierce urge to hold and protect.
For a man who had trained himself to stay in control, it was almost unbearable... so many emotions at once. He looked at Sakura and found no words. He shut his eyes, standing still for a few seconds.
Say something.
Say something.
If not now, then when?
“What’s with you…?” her voice pulled him back to the present.
She now saw his ordinary onyx eye. In the half-light, it almost seemed to her that his gaze shone with moisture.
“Let’s get married,” he finally breathed.