SASUSAKU MONTH ✿ JULY 2021 ✿ #ssm21
text list of prompts ✿ all rules + faq ✿ message ✿ twitter
calling all fans of sasusaku! 🌸🍅sasusaku month is a celebration of the relationship between uchiha sasuke and uchiha sakura (formerly known as haruno sakura). it runs every year from jul 1st - july 31st. during this celebratory month, sasusaku fans can join in to create and share fanwork. focus can be romantic or platonic friendship—however you enjoy them! 💖💙
key rules (all rules+faq):
✿ starting july 1st 2021, tag your posts with #ssm21 to be reblogged. please use it within the first 5 tags! to ensure we’ll see it, you can tag us @ssskmonth
✿ if you would like, you can also include the specific day tags (ex. #ssm21d7 on day 7: Years Past or #ssm21d28 on day 28: Thank You) to make specific content easier to find for others, but is it not a requirement! we’re only tracking the #ssm21 tag.
✿ you may participate on tumblr or twitter! or both! if participants do not have an account , please utilize the submit function on our message page
✿ late submissions are okay! will be reblogged up until august 13
✿ all types of fanwork (fanart, fanfics, edits, gifs, fanmixes, amvs, meta, headcanon, etc.) are acceptable
✿ no reposts/edits of fanart without explicit permission; zero-tolerance policy
✿ explicit content must be stated as such (M rating at the top of a fic, tagging ns-fw). note that as per tumblr’s policy, such posts may be blocked/flagged by tumblr so it is recommended to host them elsewhere (ao3, twitter etc.) and link them here. it will be reblogged and tagged with "#nsfw"— individuals who don't wish to see explicit content work, please mute the #nsfw tag
✿ message or tag @ssskmonth if we don't reblog a submission
✿ happy creating!
note: mods are @itshomerunkat + @harukaozawa. we are not affiliated with the mods of the previous sasusaku months. this was organized solely to fill the void. it will function relatively the same!
check out the full list of rules+faq and then feel free to send us send a message if you have any questions!
💖 reblogs would be appreciated! 💙
@narutoevents @faneventshub @eventfeed @fandomweeks
Hi! I don't know if you're active in these months, but I was hoping if you could give me some tips/tricks on how to organize/run a ship month and feature some artists/writers? If not, I'm sorry for bothering you <3!
hi! no, the blog isn’t active so we apologize that it’s been a few days until we saw this!
we held the event in a last minute effort and we didn’t feature artists/writers so we’re not sure if we’re qualified to answer, but working as a team and communicating is key. establishing ground rules for you and all participants to abide by is also very important so everyone is on the same page. emulate what you’ve liked from other events and plan out what posts you’d like to push out. at the end of the day, fandom will do what fandom does and that’s produce content and celebrate! your job is to ensure it happens as smoothly as possible.
A/N: Major spoilers warnings for those who don’t follow Boruto Manga. After chapter 55 events.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
FFN | AO3
When a bunch of papers settled on Sakura’s desk, she realized she had been slacking off work more than she should have. The last few days had been too exhausting. Although she had been relieved when both Naruto and Sasuke had returned to the village, her heart clenched with the thought that if she had accompanied them, the situation wouldn’t have gotten so dire.
The last time Sasuke had come back injured and Naruto was brought back by kids, she had been determined to be there to protect them the next time. But that hadn’t been the case when Isshiki infiltrated Konoha, and an emergency was declared. She knew at the time of emergency, her role as medic nin was a greater priority than fighting in the battlefield. Still, the fact that they had left without her still stung her.
Why was she the one who was always left behind?
These days felt akin to the days she had trained under Tsunade — being left out by her teammates, unable to help them or make a difference. Always waiting for them to return then, waiting for them to recover now.
She sipped her coffee, before glancing at the clock and starting to go through the file of one of her teammates (her inner self blurted out Hokage-sama). She looked through the examination report she had run in the morning on Naruto. Naruto had protested, but she was adamant about it. Some things never really changed, she realized.
Although she was relieved that the reports stated that Naruto was fine, she knew her friend was struggling emotionally. Kurama had been there with him for a long time, and separating from him had left a big dent on his soul. Not to mention the issues with his son had been bothering him. She had overheard their conversation when Sasuke was at the hospital, and she had known him long enough to figure out the tone of his speech.
Closing the file, she realized it was about time she should go home. But before that, she reminded herself that she needed to make a quick visit to Tenten’s shop.
*****
When she reached her house, she found Sarada splayed on the couch with a book lying open on her chest. A gentle smile spread on Sakura’s face seeing her sleeping, but it faded when she realized she had been out for the whole day on her daughter’s birthday. She covered Sarada with a blanket, realizing it was too late to wake her up to give her birthday present. She took off her glasses and kissed her forehead, murmuring an apology.
Sighing, she walked to her room and was greeted by the sight of Sasuke sleeping — his head, resting on the headboard with an open scroll lying on his lap. She leaned against the door, taking a moment to observe him. He looked the same as he had that morning — tired and defeated.
The last time he had come back to her with serious injuries, she had thought nothing could be worse than that. She had hoped this time that she would welcome him back, but when things didn’t go as she anticipated, she couldn’t feel but feel angry that she was left behind.
She was spiralling deep into her redundant thoughts when she heard Sasuke saying, “Welcome back.”
She blinked, shaking her thoughts off because she couldn’t change what was done, and whispered back, “I’m home.”
“Is your eye giving you any trouble?” she asked, walking towards him.
Sasuke shrugged, “A little.”
She knew he was having a hard time, but he wouldn't admit like his sixteen year self. Some things never changed, she realized again.
“Did you eat?” Sakura asked as she started examining his left eye.
“Aah,” Sasuke smiled.
Sakura's heart warmed up seeing him smile. “Did something happen?” she asked.
“Sarada…" Sasuke sighed in relief as Sakura's chakra flowed through his eye. "She has really grown up,” Sasuke admitted.
Sakura admitted the same, smiling, but her features were still sad.
“Sakura?”
She looked towards Sasuke — a man she had known long enough, yet he looked so different to her now.
She lied, “Nothing. I feel bad because I couldn’t give her any time today. I wanted to make her favourite dishes.”
Sakura checked his other eye as she went on, “It’s just that she always treasures the little things. Once around her birthday, you had sent a letter, and…”
For a moment, she paused, pretending she was concentrating on checking his vision, but her inner self was daunted by the realization that she had been alone there too — raising Sarada all by herself.
“... and she had treasured it so much. I bet she still has it,” she tried to laugh it off though.
Before she could excuse herself, Sasuke held her wrist. Sakura didn't avoid Sasuke's gaze like she had done in the hospital. She flinched on realizing how immature it was to project the bitterness of being left behind on him like that.
They didn't say anything for a minute and savoured the silence between them.
However, when her vision blurred with tears, Sakura averted her gaze, and she let out her insecurity. “'I'm scared, Sasuke-kun.”
Scared because I’m used to you always coming back sound and safe to me.
She cupped Sasuke's cheeks, tenderly tracing them, as she whispered almost like a prayer, “Always come back safely to me.”
However, when Sakura saw the struggle in his eye, she apologized for what she had said.
Sasuke leaned forward against Sakura's torso. Sasuke thought about his resolve. He didn't want to back off from his resolve even if that hurted Sakura because he was Itachi's brother after all — like his brother, he would bear the pain of his loved ones but would hesitate to show it.
Sakura held him close to her body, clutching at his overgrown hair. She had married a man who put his duty first. Moreover, she was a shinobi herself, and she knew what she was asking was unfair. She just couldn't match the picture of her that always thanked him for his sacrifices, and her current self who lamented because she was afraid that in spite of his promise to return back to her, one day he wouldn't.
When they part, Sakura wipes her tears away, and Sasuke says, “Sakura, can you bring me a paper and pen?”
Sakura raised an eyebrow, but she did what Sasuke asked for.
She handed him those and sat down, looking in amazement while Sasuke tried to scribble something. After a few attempts, Sasuke’s vision finally adjusted, and Sakura read while he wrote.
Dear Sarada, You’re the light of my life.
Happy Birthday!
Sakura almost smiled, but she didn’t when she saw Sasuke frowning.
He scribbled something again and handed it to Sakura. Sakura read it now and smiled cheerfully after days. And for the first time after so many days, Sasuke felt like he was home. The bright smile on his wife's face was enough to assure him of that.
Dear Sarada, You’re the light of my our life.
Happy Birthday!
She rolled the paper carefully, saying, “We will give her in the morning.”
Sasuke nodded. Perhaps now he could understand what Itachi had felt. Now he finally realized that Itachi never regretted his decision, because he wanted Sasuke to shine. He was wrong when he thought that what he had lost had all been in vain. The little girl who brought so much light into his life thirteen years ago now had a bright future ahead of her.
fin
Credits: Thanks to @something-like-air for beta-ing and my constant source of motivation while writing this :)
Prompt: Culture | AO3 link here | Connect with me on Twitter. (Belated) Happy SS Month everyone! 🌸🍅🥗 @ssskmonth | This is quite long so please bear with me.
“What are your dreams like these days?” her mother asks as they removed the stripped abaca fibers from a bamboo beam beside their house after days of drying. Already separated by their thickness, the mother and daughter start to rub the strands with their hands to make them more pliant and softer for weaving, much like washing clothes on a sunny day beside the blue green waters of Lake Sebu.
Sakura looks around and finds all other women in their tribe busy with the same motions. Their small units of conversations are enough to drown her reply. “Foggy. Like the lake at four in the morning.” Sakura resumes rubbing the fibers and sets the thinner batch beside her to be reserved as lengthwise threads. “I always walk on water. But I can’t find her.”
“Perhaps, it isn’t your time yet,” her mother gives her a reassuring smile and finishes rolling her batch into balls of fibers to be used for crosswise threads. “Maybe she’ll visit me, or your grandmother. Now be a dear and get the last batch from your aunt’s house.”
Sakura explicitly grimaced at the request. Her aunt’s house is located on the completely opposite side of their place, a thirty-minute walk that ends with a clear view of the lake and clumps of water lilies.
“Don’t you want to see the flowers?”
“Nay, you know they only bloom at dawn.” But she sets off anyway with nothing but the hard ground, the flattened grass, and the flowering weeds. She arrives at the house after a sweltering walk of some twenty minutes or so (because she wants to go home quickly and eat dinner and entirely avoid her father).
Begrudgingly, she takes off the fibers from the house beams and ties them neatly stacked on each other. She almost sets off again without taking a break, but the sun has begun to set and its golden rays start to cast off an ephemeral play on the reflection of the lake. As her eyes follow the myriad of the show, she is disappointed by the break of the owong, a small dugout canoe, against the water, the lapping of waves sending the flickering sunshine into disarray.
Her eyebrows furrow but gone too soon when she sees a pair of onyx eyes stare back at her on the canoe. He mirrors her shock ever so slightly, and he starts to look away, gesturing to his companion to turn around. His fingers course through the strands of his hair, absent of the usual striped tricolored bandana of red, black, and white hues.
Sakura almost tethers over the edge, summoned by an overwhelming feeling of curiosity, and her mouth opens in a wordless no. Her stomach lurches when he glances back in time with a stare that lingered for a minute too long.
She is quite certain she’ll see him again.
She comes home just before the sun fully dappled their place in purple and pink tones, and she gets an earful from her mother who grew impatient of waiting to finish the day’s weaving tasks. This she doesn’t mind as her thoughts conjure up his face, his eyes, and his smile just before he truly looked away for the last time.
Over dinner, however, her thoughts start to fray.
“Sakura, I have found a good match for you.” Her father devours the grilled tilapia on his plate, a portion from his harvest earlier this day. “They are a big tribe at the opposite side of the lake. But they have a sizeable dowry, the only remaining eligible son has handsome features, and you’ll marry into a great clan.”
She finds the morsel of food difficult to swallow, but she nods anyway because this means her marriage will rid both clans potential land conflicts. She agrees because this is her duty as the T’boli chieftain’s daughter.
Over the years, their tribe has grown smaller from internal clan wars, a fight over resources, and, more often than before, outside developments. She must do what she can within her capabilities to ensure her tribe’s survival. Her mother gives her a comforting smile across the table as if this would be enough compensation for the realized burden on her barely-out-of-puberty shoulders. Shy a month from nineteen, she has been passed another great mantle of responsibility.
But filial duties aside, maybe she can learn to love her husband the way her mother loved hers.
That night, she stands atop the same ground she was on this afternoon. She finds the same owong in the middle of a still Lake Sebu, its blue green waters deathly silent, and its surrounding land rid of lamps and candles, and while it is midnight, the water lilies are in full bloom with the bright moon on top of a starless night sky. Dreams suspend realities and so she jumps off the cliff and walks towards the waters, her bare feet almost touching the lily pads but never creating ripples on the surface.
The owong is empty, much to her dismay. She climbs on it, settling on the middle where he stood, and tries to take his remnants in – maybe he left his smell, his footprints, or strands of his hair, and maybe she’ll carry parts of him in her new life.
She wanted to know him – how foolish! A stranger meeting her eyes and yet she feels remorseful. Nonetheless, she sobs, unwilling to accept her fate, especially when she hasn’t met her yet, her first great responsibility.
While time is suspended in this dimension, she raises her head, aware that she will wake up very soon, and takes in the last vestiges of her dreamlike memory. On the other end of the lake, she sees her, a tall woman with her hair curled into a high bun, face framed with strings of beads, arms raised to her sides like an embrace, the sleeves open and dancing with the wind Sakura cannot see, the long tubular skirt molded in between the waters and her ankles. For a split second, she almost hears her voice.
“Fu Dalu!” Sakura yells as she sits up on her bed. Her heart is beating fast, and she’s barely breathing. So this is what it feels like.
The name she called out she triggers a morning audience in her quarters, her mother beside her, brushing her untangled rose strands intending to make her calm. The other female tribe members sit near the door, awaiting instructions for weaving.
“Has the goddess of weaving talked to you?”
Sakura glances at each face of her family before she rests on her mother’s expectant expression. She really couldn’t blame them. The dreamweaver before her met Fu Dalu when she turned thirteen and made tens of weaving designs before she got married off with a childhood friend. Her mother started when she was eight and was pursued by her father when she was of marriageable age. And here she was, already considered too old to be married, and still no dreams with the goddess of weaving.
She shakes her head and focuses her sight instead on her hands which are tired of drying abaca, tired of separating fibers, tired of dyeing them, amid the sighs of her fellow clan people. She wants to spin the threads, but she is devoid of this blessing.
Her face is still regretful when she is called to welcome the man arranged for her. Color her surprised when the same pair of onyx eyes stared at her when they disembarked on the shore.
“Datu Kizashi, this is Uchiha Sasuke, our second born, and Sakura’s betrothed.”
His eyes leave hers for a few seconds to shake hands with her father, and then he finds her again, a smirk playing on the ends of his lips. She doesn’t withhold her smile, but she hopes they will see it as nothing more than a courteous response to their guests. Internally, different kinds of somersaults have taken place; not at all liberating, just a fluttering sensation that threatens to overwhelm. Would this still be called a responsibility when she is literally engaged to the stranger she wanted at first sight?
They discuss her dowry over at lunch amid the feast of steamed crabs, shrimps, grilled fishes, and sauteed water spinach. Five whole roasted pigs have been brought in separate three separate canoes as an offer to the tribe. Sakura is barely listening, too distracted by his undivided attention on her, and the clarity of his voice.
“I agree with my father that we should do a moninum,” Sasuke says.
“But that will extend your preparation by two years,” Kizashi starts to protest. Sakura feels the weird pain that comes from the implication she, a dreamless weaver, is being quickly discarded.
“And two years I will commit to her devotion,” the raven-haired man replies. “I hope your daughter accepts me fit for her hand in marriage.”
“Fit for you? Oh even the Bathala knows you are far more deserving. We are happy to oblige.” Her father’s words change direction. Sakura knows he knows it isn’t worth to complain against a bigger clan like the Uchihas.
As they prepare to leave, Sasuke stays behind with the silent instruction for his men to go back first to their canoes. Sakura’s family respectfully gives them space albeit not alone together but enough distance for them to not overhear their conversation.
In hushed tones he says hello. “I was spying yesterday.”
“Did you like what you see?” she asks, avoiding his gaze.
“I like her better at this distance.” His fast hands slip her a gold bangle with engraved looping lines, and he gives her a smile only her eyes can see.
And off he goes, back to the other side of the lake.
Sakura wears the bangle on her left wrist as she sleeps that night. And Fu Dalu finally reveals herself. She is covered in moonshine, her eyes twinkling as if all the stars are gathered there. Sakura stands upright in the owong in the middle of the lake. The goddess places both of her arms in front of her, revealing the colored threads that connect to Sakura. They shimmer under the night sky but soon disconnect from her body to spun into an intricate pattern in shapes of diamonds and stars in shades of reds and whites.
This is her first weaving design – that of the afternoon sun when they first met each other.
The houses come alive in a flurry the next morning, and for the first time in a long while. Sakura allows herself to hum as she threads the pattern on the legogong, a backstrap loom, the bangle still on her wrist, regardless of its weight on her weaving hands.
The first of the six feasts to be done over the course of two years is arranged a fortnight later, the second on the following two months, and every time, without fail, he goes to her side to engage her in conversation. He shows her his sword, a work of his own, and the handle which he personally engraved with a clan seal. In turn, she discusses her weaving design and the night Fu Dalu came to her.
“Will it be all right to ask something so obvious?” she asks.
He angles his head to her so his full attention is on her, and he urges her silently with his eyes.
“Will you take another wife?” She expects him to cast his stare down, but he doesn’t. After all, he is from a wealthy clan, and the number of wives dictate how rich a household is. Surely, he is one to display his abundance.
Instead, he smirks, and his arm moves but stops in the middle of the space between them. “I am not bound by the rules expected of my older brother. I am a second born with the sole duty to marry good and defend my family. Unless you would want me to?”
“It is your right, I suppose.”
“And my right to choose to refuse.”
The t’nalak piece has been completed within those two months, thanks to the hardworking hands of the women in her community. The last part is the semaki, a process where a cowrie shell is rubbed against the fabric to condition its threads and dyes and add the completed look of a sheen. Sakura takes a cowrie shell from a basket and gives it to the youngest daughter of her aunt to make the first motion. Elated from the distinction, the girl starts the burnishing motion and eventually followed by the hands along the length of the fabric.
Fu Dalu appears to Sakura the second time in the same place, but the sky is completely devoid of a moon, the usually still lake is laden with waves, and the goddess herself is weary.
The threads still move across space to connect to Sakura’s body, but they are slowed down with a combustion of flames around the lake. Surrounded with blazing fire and angry waters, Sakura tries to keep steadfast inside the confines of the owong, trusting her connection to Fu Dalu, and the fact that this is but a dream.
But she wonders if it is still a suspended dimension when she hears the trill of muhen amid the cackling of fire and the swell of the waves, the god of fate whose sound signals an imminent omen. A bird suddenly swoops down in her owong, temporarily fraying the threads that connect her to the weaving goddess, and she wakes up with the last burning image of an eagle’s eye.
She calls for her mother in the loudest voice she can muster. Notwithstanding her unkept appearance, she goes out of her quarters and calls for her family, anyone, but she finds them gone. A good half hour transpired before they come back to her, seemingly distraught, and once they see her out and about, they advertently avoid her questioning gaze.
“Sakura.” Her mother comes to her with her hands on her shoulders. Sakura is not sure whether the action is to steady her daughter or herself. “The Uchiha clan is at war.”
Her father explains the repercussions to her when he arrives that afternoon from hunting. “We might have to suspend your moninum with Sasuke. The clan at the lower mountains contested the land since they’ve been displaced by a plantation. If their clan doesn’t win this, we might need to prepare for the worst.”
“What’s the worst thing, Tay?” Her voice is trembling.
“We might leave this place and seek refuge somewhere. I’ll find a son to marry you with, Sakura. The next worst thing above that is if we stand our ground and fight and fall to our deaths.” Silence befalls their household.
Sakura forces in the whimper that threatens to escape her lips. She must not show fragility at these crucial moments. She is the datu’s daughter. She must remain brave.
“I apologize, inday. I should have married you off earlier to a good family, and you could have escaped this misery that awaits us.” Overt fatherly affection is rarely experienced, particularly from a chieftain, and to be the recipient of that in public, that actually meant something.
So Sakura didn’t have to hold back the sobs anymore. She is afraid, not of death, but of the possibility that she will marry someone else other than Sasuke only to find he survived. Must fate tempt them like this?
However, she is now a dreamweaver, and it is her role to weave into life Fu Dalu’s images. With a heavy heart, she resumes her position on the legogong and draws the eagle’s eyes over the threads. Black, deadly, nothingness.
The day the emissary delivered the message, Sakura found no strength to continue the weaving. The t’nalak is halfway done with the pattern clear enough to be replicated so her mother takes over the finishing process. Her daughter, wanting to be rid of grief, travels to her aunt house to look over the lake where they first met.
The Uchihas won, but they couldn’t find Sasuke. He hasn’t returned the night after the war’s conclusion.
The emissary still delivers the same message the following week and the next. Sakura drags herself to finish the t’nalak eagle piece with semaki, the gold bangle on her wrist heavy like lead as she rubs the cowrie shell against the fabric.
She hopes she doesn’t dream of Fu Dalu again.
As if it is spite, the goddess reveals herself to her again in the same place but different entirely. There is no more chaos, but it is the lake teeming with life. Rays of sunshine abound the horizon, the birds fly out and about in teams, and ripples form on the surface. Somewhere, Sakura hears the sound of families rising to another day of life.
But she cries and covers her face with her callused fingers, not wanting to see the threads that connect her to the goddess’ hands and the images they conjure for her to spin and thread and weave.
She hopes for the fire and the storm to swallow her, for the muhen to trill and signal her own death, but it doesn’t come.
Nor do the threads.
Only then does Sakura realize she is not standing on the owong, but on the lake itself, and there are no threads spinning in front of her with Fu Dalu at a distance but that the goddess herself is sitting beside her, her eyes the same onyx color like Sasuke’s.
Fu Dalu’s hands, callused and wounded all the same, hold a single stalk of a water lily bloom.
When Sakura wakes up, it is still four in the morning. She hastily dresses herself in awkward silence and slips out of their house to go to her aunt’s place. It is empty right now as her aunt’s family paid visit to a relative on the adjacent town. She arrives just in time for the dawn to break.
Cold to her bones, Sakura waits amid the fog. For what, she doesn’t know, but the water lilies have started to open their bulbs one by one, sharing their full unabashed beauty to the ones who rose the earliest.
“What are you trying to tell me, Fu Dalu? What do I need to do?” Sakura asks herself.
The fog clears up a bit, and she catches her breath. An owong starts to make its way across the waters with the same passenger but a slightly different countenance. A scar has carved across his right brow down to his left jaw, and while fortunate of having this shallow cut, he casts her an apologetic look as he rolls his sleeve up. A bandaged stump has replaced his left arm.
But the only thing she sees clearly, and the only thing that matters really, is his onyx eyes against the backdrop of the blooming water lilies just as her sight starts to blur with tears.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
T’bolis are indigenous peoples who reside in the mountains of Cotabato in the Philippines. Their cultural centers and dwellings are usually situated in three major lakes, one of which is Lake Sebu. Apart from being a source of their fishing economic activity, the lake and its naturally blooming water lilies akin to lotus flowers have become a tourist attraction in Mindanao. The pink water lilies, dubbed as sunrise flowers, only bloom from five to nine in the morning, then close up in the afternoon.
Datu – the highest position in a community held by a male household head. But a T’boli society will have one or more datus with varying degrees of authority, wealth, and status.
Marriage – Polygamy is allowed in a T’boli society; the number of wives gives a distinction to the abundance of resource a man has. Arranged marriage is also the norm, with the process starting even from childhood, puberty, and adolescence. Once married, a celebration called moninum can be optionally conducted which is a series of six feasts done alternately by the families. Did a little creative license here where the six feasts should ALL be completed before being considered as fully married.
Dreamweavers – Only the females in a T’boli community can be weavers, and they can only weave once they are visited by the goddess Fu Dalu. It is a spiritual undertaking as much as a community work. This results to a highly prized cloth called t’nalak, often worn in important life events (e.g. birth, wedding, death).
Muhen – bird god of fate whose trill signals imminent misfortune
Owong – dugout canoe which the T’bolis use for fishing and transportation. It can hold up to three people
T’boli and the rest of indigenous peoples in the Philippines face multiple challenges in today’s society. They are consistently displaced in their ancestral domains by government-directed developments (e.g. land conversion, mining agreements, forest management agreements), militarization, and illegal economic activities (illegal logging and quarrying by large corporations). This also exacerbates the already existing internal land-grabbing and resource conflicts, and clan enmities within the communities.
As their culture is rooted in their environment, they find it difficult to maintain, nurture, and practice their cultural identity. In this context, dreamweavers cannot focus on months’ work of weaving if they are running away from military operations every other day.
Further, commercialization of these products has cheapened the value of their own craft. There are instances where these designs are stolen by profit-oriented entrepreneurs and sold without the knowledge and consent of the tribe. Another case is an unfair agreement where weavers are contracted to make the t’nalak but are not given the commensurate money for it. They fail to have leverage against these exploiters since they are not educated in the ways of our society. They have a different worldview and orientation, one which we may struggle to accept if we continue to perceive them through our lenses.
Better August than never… 😅 sorry my darlings, life gets in the way, does it not? 🌸 you can read the previous entries in this prompt collection over on ao3 or ff.net 👑 as mentioned in an ask, I think there are two more to go until this is completed. Love you! @ssskmonth 🍓
Day 21: Flower
“Sasuke-kun,” Sakura says to him as they lie in wait for the weapons smugglers, “where should we go next?”
It is the first time they have discussed a destination on this almost-journey, the first time that either of them acknowledged that it might have an end; for all journeys must go someplace. Sakura is so casual about it that he almost misses the sharpened edge to her poise. The answer means something to her, but before he can give it, their quarry strolls into the marketplace, swaggering with the confidence of people who believe themselves at the top.
Sasuke wonders if perhaps Sakura will take out her frustration on them. Then she puts on her gloves, and he knows she will.
A/N: Major spoilers warnings for those who don’t follow Boruto Manga. After chapter 55 events.
Part 1
Part 2
FFN | AO3
Sarada scrunched her nose in irritation. The rice porridge she had been trying to cook didn’t taste right. Frustrated, she dropped the ladle on the granite slab. A few minutes before she had tasted it, and it lacked salt. She was so sure that she had sprinkled in the right amount, and now she couldn’t understand how that could ruin the taste.
I never have trouble with this recipe! She cried in frustration. And why is it happening TODAY of all days?
It was a simple recipe that she knew how to cook. Perhaps it was things around her that distracted her.
She twisted the knob of the burner with much more force than required, turning off the stove. She dropped the lid over the pot forcefully and cringed at the sharp metallic sound.
The start of the day had been good for her. Like every year, this birthday also started with the sight of her mother grinning widely. It was a bit too early, however.
Her mother had given her a squishing hug as she wished her birthday, and like every year, she giggled and returned her mother’s embrace. Everything around her could change, but maybe this routine never would.
Perhaps it could. She was no longer a child who hid behind her mother when she was afraid to face something. She had been on her fair share of missions and was beginning to grasp the essence of shinobi life. She was a kunoichi now, and she had confronted the death of her comrades. She had accepted this ugly truth, but watching her father recuperate had made things worse for her. Sitting beside her unconscious father in the hospital had almost given her a taste of what it felt like to lose someone close.
Trying not to concentrate on her thoughts, she padded towards the refrigerator. She tried to occupy her mind with how to fix the porridge. One thing she could do to balance the salt was to add more rice to porridge. She sighed in relief when she spotted a bowl of rice in one of the cabinets.
She turned on the stove again, adding the rice and water to adjust its consistency and let it boil.
She tapped her fingers on the granite slab, eyeing the bubbling water. With nothing to do at the moment, her mind wandered off to her teammate.
She reached for other ingredients and measured in each carefully. While she was stirring the porridge, she realised that with her team on suspension from missions, she hadn’t seen Boruto lately. Boruto seemed to be doing fine, but she had realised she was wrong when Shikadai pointed out that of all people, Boruto was the one who’d been affected most by the incident.
Maybe I’ll call him up, Sarada thought while she cracked eggs into a bowl.
However, she felt like he had been ignoring her, and decided not to call him while she gathered the chopsticks and started beating the eggs.
She had mixed feelings regarding Boruto. Although she understood it wasn’t Boruto’s fault at all, every time she saw her father’s injuries, she couldn’t control the anger that surfaced. She tried to shake off the feeling as she poured the beaten eggs into the porridge. She didn’t want to blame Boruto for what had happened.
After closing the lid on the pot again, she buried her face into her palms, leaning against the counter. She really hated this cycle — understanding Boruto’s helplessness and then ending up holding a grudge against him. No matter how hard she didn’t want to think about it, the thought of what havoc he might cause when he lost control of his body again dreaded her. She knew Boruto was now a potential threat. What if she had to do something in future herself?
She was too confused to think straight. With a sigh, she removed the lid to see if it was done. Satisfied with the consistency, she sprinkled in some spring onion and reached for a bowl to pour some for her father.
Sarada knocked lightly on the door, announcing her presence to her father. Although it had been routine for a few days, she waited till her father responded. A small smile adorned her face when she heard him ask her to come in.
She realized she rarely had any time with Sasuke like this. They usually trained together or ate dinner when he came back from his mission. She never had felt his day-to-day presence as such.
She pushed the door open. She tried to suppress her excitement, but she didn’t have to work hard when she saw her father reading a scroll.
“Didn’t mama tell you not to strain your eye?” Sarada asked him, pretending to be offended.
She kept the tray on the bed-side table and heard the scroll falling on the bed with a light thud.
Sarada fidgeted on her foot sheepishly, waiting for her father to wish her a happy birthday. She looked around the room, trying not to be obvious. The silence stretched, and it became a bit uncomfortable, so she asked him.
“How are you feeling today?”
"Better," Sasuke nodded, his voice as reserved as always.
Sarada adjusted her glasses, and scrutinized her father's face. He didn't look any better than he had the previous days. Although her mother assured her there was nothing to worry about, she sensed that her father wasn’t doing well.
She wasn't quite sure if her father was sad or if he really was better. Sometimes she was really amazed by how her mother managed to read behind her father’s stoic mask.
His long absence from her life made her sad because she knew Uchiha Sasuke only in two ways — one when he was happy and proud of her, and the other when he was indifferent and unattached with his surroundings. She didn’t know much about her father, and maybe her father didn’t know much about her.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, patting his hand on the side beside him and gesturing for her to sit.
Sarada plopped on the bed beside him; and replied, “Boruto.”
He listened with a rapt attention as Sarada recounted her concerns and could only wonder when his little Sarada, who hardly could make coherent sentences when he had left for his mission, had grown up. He had missed so many years and so many things, he realized.
Sarada frowned when she asked him, “Papa, do you think anything is going to happen to Boruto?”
Sasuke knew what she was talking about, but didn’t interrupt her.
“Since he is a potential danger now,” she explained.
Sasuke sighed, closing his eyes, partly in relief and partly agitated. “Don’t worry about that. This isn’t the old Konoha. The present council doesn’t take any harsh measures.”
Sarada gave him a perplexed look, and Sasuke realised what he had said. However, he didn't falter, and waited for her next question.
“What about old Konoha?”
“A lot,” he paused and thought about whether to complete his sentence.
“About the old system.”
About that unforgivable system that ran on blood and filthy tricks.
“About the old councilors.”
About those insensitive bureaucrats who didn’t think twice before ordering a thirteen-year-old to butcher his own clan and family.
“And about our clan.”
About the family I once had.
Sarada was thrown off by his sudden straightforwardness. He had always measured the amount of information he fed her and had always dismissed her when she pried much about the clan and the doujutsu. She couldn’t help but feel a little awkward, and she didn’t know how to react until she noticed.
“The food,” she squeaked. Sarada touched the bowl and wailed, “Oh no! It turned cold.”
It reminded him of Sakura, and he smirked before he said, “Ah, but I can eat.”
“You sure? I can go and reheat if you say so,” Sarada said as she set a low table on the bed and placed the bowl there.
Sasuke nodded, and murmured, “Itadakimasu.”
He took a spoonful of porridge, and asked her, “Did you cook this?”
Sarada nodded eagerly. “Mama had to leave early for the hospital today, but it isn’t like mama’s, though,” she pouted. “I messed up while adding salt.”
“No, it’s fine,” Sasuke lied. The porridge was too watery with a lot of rice, and it tasted disbalanced.
He wondered again when his daughter had grown up so much. Although he knew they were shinobi and they were supposed to, he couldn’t shake off the image of the tiny girl born to them years ago, and the shiny big black orbs that had stared at him when he had held her in his arm for the first time.
Sasuke took a few more bites of food and decided to break the silence, “What do you want for your birthday?”
“Eh?” Sarada blushed, although she tried hard not to overreact.
So Papa remembered.
She grinned harder and nodded her head, saying, “Nothing. You being at home is more than enough for me.”
But when the words slipped, she realised perhaps her reply wasn’t apt. Some unfortunate events making him stay home wasn’t what she wanted.
“I didn’t mean that way,” she reprimanded herself. “This is the first time you’re home on my birthday and...”
She didn’t know how to explain further, looking at the ground.
As far as she could remember in her childhood, Sasuke had never been home for her birthdays except a few years during which she didn’t have a clear memory.
Sasuke again took a spoonful of porridge and said, “Aah,” and smiled lightly and added, “maybe training?”
“You know mama won’t be a bit happy about this?” Sarada deadpanned.
Sasuke scoffed and after a second, both were laughing.
It was the first time she had seen her father so unguarded. She had made many memories, spent precious time with her father, and learned a lot, but this Sasuke was an entirely new one to her. For that moment, she stopped blaming all the wrong things that had happened to her, to her father, and to her family and cherished the moment. Seeing him so casual, she decided to say something she had been thinking about.
“I’m sorry. I had always resented you because you couldn’t live with us. I wondered why you had to go on a mission for so long.”
Sasuke was a little taken aback at the moment. Years of sacrifice had created a large mass of guilt inside him. However, Sakura always supported him, but he knew he owed an apology from Sarada for his absence. He wasn’t sure how. Words weren't his way, and he was too overwhelmed to say anything after what her daughter said.
Sarada smiled widely, and added, “Thank you for protecting us, Papa”.
“Aah.”
(Since chapter 55 was released in March, I assumed it to be around Sarada's birthday)
a/n: this is a very late submission for @ssskmonth. and there will be a part two which will be posted soon, hopefully. anyway, i hope you like this thing that i've written. prompt used is thank you.
summary: “But Sasuke, what if you waited for those six hours and didn’t see me?”
read on ao3?
Her head rests against the cold of the glass and she can see the road stretching in front of her, green giving birth to more green with grey painted all over the sky. She lifts her arm to check the time - 3 PM. So much for sunny afternoons.
Hawaii is everything she expects it to be and more. She remembers this place as pieces she joins together to return to. But Sakura has run away too many times to let this place become four walls that keep her safe.
“Dear fellow travelers, due to the unexpected weather, sightseeing is not possible today,” the guide announces from a distance.
The bus ride is agonizing but sleep succeeds in finding her. And for now, that’s enough.
“Excuse me, can we use this seat? You can just sit over there.”
“Hn.”
The scene takes place a few seats behind her but she can hear it. Even with her earphones plugged in, dying for a song to play into her ears. She tried searching for a track a while ago but couldn’t settle on just one. To Sakura, it's all at once or none at all. And now, none at all, it is.
“Excuse me,” and she looks up and nods to the man, somewhere around her age, with eyes as dark as his untamed hair falling onto his eyes. He frowns, occasionally, his eyes never meeting hers.
When the pack squeals at a passing animal (that she doesn’t care to pay heed to), he doesn’t flinch. When the coastal lines slowly show themselves he doesn’t throw them a glance. And it’s interesting, at least. What else will you call it if you see a man on vacation, but as uninterested and dispassionate as you?
With her elbow propped up on the armrest and her palm pressed to her jaw, she looks at him.
There’s something bothering him and she pretends not to notice it for a while but fails. It’s hard not to when you are staring at someone for so long. His hands clench and unclench, his lips part and he inhales through his mouth but words don’t come out. Air does. It reminds her of herself and it’s vexing.
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
And they surrender to an awkward pause.
“Can I sit next to the window?”
The corners of her lips try to turn up but she restricts them.
“Sure.”
She scoots over to his seat and he to hers. He bends low and grabs her loosely packed bag and gives it to her.
“Thanks.”
“Hn.”
“What’s your name?”
A frown and then, “... Uchiha Sasuke.”
“Hi… Sasuke,” he winces at his name divulging from her lips. Is he looking at her because he expects her to introduce herself?
“What’s yours?” He is.
“Hmm…” She looks at the meadows, dull unlike what everyone expects them to be, outside her window and adds as if they’ve given her the answer, “I’d rather not say.”
“I said mine.”
“Yeah.”
He nods again and looks away. And for a second, she wants to ask him why he is traveling. But as she itches for words, it gets lost somewhere between her lips. What is it for?
They don’t talk for the rest of the ride.
Hawaii is beautiful. Even when it’s raining. While Sakura preferred it when her green eyes mirrored the blazing summer sun, Hawaii still managed to enmesh her.
“It grows on you,” she heard that line back from the airport. Someone talking about the new ice cream flavor, she guessed, as she tried to choose a song from her phone and failed.
Sakura scratches her head and lets it drop back, peering at the window, now unfamiliarly far from her. Sasuke looks different now. Even if his face still stays expressionless, it accommodates tranquility, with his eyes on the sky, a shade darker than his own eyes. Who says the color of his eyes is a bit too dark for it to mirror the light? The bunch of clouds cracks in the middle and a ray of sunlight escapes, adorning the fields - once seized by the ghostly grey - with gold.
For the light to mirror, black, is just as sufficient.
It’s been a while since Sakura smiled.
“Be grateful. Remember to be grateful, okay?” Her mother said when Sakura told her about a joke someone made in class which made her chortle while she did the laundry. Another summer evening she spent with her mom, telling stories about her never-ending list of crushes and teachers she despised. “Huh?” Little Sakura didn’t get it.
“If someone makes you smile, you thank them.”
“Mm… okay.” She furrowed her eyebrows and gave her mother a shrug, busy with the toys in her tiny hands. “So I'm playing with dolls. Look! This guy met this girl one day when they were very sad. And they fell in love and they became happy and got married and then how many babies will they have? Ah! Wait! Do you think love is real? You know, today in class-”
“Sasuke?”
He doesn't care enough to turn his head towards her. But that's okay. It's better this way.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
A shrug. And that’s all she gives away.
--
He can’t sleep. No, that’s a travesty. He doesn’t allow himself to sleep. His hands, long and spread on either side of the bed, cross themselves on his forehead so that they block his view of the ceiling. Ceilings make him nauseous. Or maybe the solid end, they suggest. He drags himself up on his feet and once he is out of the hotel room, the sound of the night sea engulfs him, enticing him to leave the building and let his feet take his body.
It’s chilly outside and he wishes he brought his jacket but is unconcerned enough to stop himself from returning to grab it. The hotel, facing the sea, has access to a private section of the sea to itself. He knew this by heart. While they waited for the guide to check them into their respective rooms, he despised the hotel banner hung right in front of him so much. The number of words, too little that they crammed in his eyes and he didn’t even have to read it but memorize it, instead.
So now he stands, hands as deep as they can fit into the pockets of his black pants, his nose tinted with blush as the zephyr fans out. Sasuke can already tell how it’s pregnant with a much stronger gust. He breathes in through his nose and turns around to see warm mellow lights popping out between the dark green of the leaves, slow-dancing in the wind, hand in hand. His gaze travels further up to see a board and reads the ornamental letters out in his mind. But his thoughts still race to things he doesn’t want them to. He reads the banner again, but this time, aloud. Welcome, the banner shouts. “Welcome,” so he mutters under his breath and is prompted to repeat, this time a bit sonorous, “welcome.”
“Thank you,” and it’s like the sea’s murmurs. For a second, he is tempted to look around for someone or something. But his mind is quick to race off again but this time to her. Her pink messy locks and earphones that match her half-chipped nail polish.
“Hey!” Sasuke doubts if he accidentally called her name a bit too loudly. But no, he doesn’t know her name. Yet. She flows - like the sea - down the flock of stairs and towards him.
“Hi.”
“Why are you in Hawaii?” Her question only rises once she stands leaning towards the sea, her elbow resting on the metal railing Sasuke believed to be too cold to hold onto considering the biting wind brushing by, filling their lungs with the crisp air. He expected her to ask him if he couldn’t sleep but then decided that this question would be somehow worse. Sasuke wants to be honest. So he blends honesty in his mouth and spits it out.
“I’m traveling.”
She sniggers, amused. He draws his head back a little and looks at her
“You’re traveling?” She chuckles again and looks at the waves, coming at them with all their might only to shatter against the sand as foam, stretching out their hands as they plead to linger on the land for just a second more and then, retrieving. She continues after a nod, “No, I don’t think you get my question. Traveling to move on or run away?”
And Sasuke wonders if a wave washed him over as he stays still. A couple of meters away, the ocean heaves.
“You look confused. Want me to tell you mine?”’
He looks at her. And this time, it’s not through the corner of his eyes or when she is asleep in a crowded bus with the penetrating smell of overly polished leather seats. And he is no longer sure which is more effulgent - her face under the stars or the stumps of garden light behind their back.
She takes the hint and mutters something. And it’s so incomprehensible that Sasuke is coaxed to lean in, but just a little bit, expecting her to repeat her words.
“Hn?” He asks instead.
“Running away.”
No, it’s definitely her face.
But he doesn’t get to tell her that. But then again, what is there to say?
So he watches her knee-length dress being tortured by the gale, her hands offering them solace by pressing it down to her thighs as she moves farther away from him. Sasuke is left with the remnants of her bare feet on the floor in the form of fog against the polished wood that starts to evade with each sprinting second. And he doesn’t want to see the end of it; of the absence of her.
Sasuke wishes he brought his jacket. Again.
When he doesn’t find her on the ride back, Sasuke contemplates whether he should ask the guide. Because asking about her meant something. But not doing so also has an elucidation and he chooses the latter.
“Ah, Sakura-san? She suddenly had to cancel due to personal reasons.”
Can people just cancel things in the middle? But that question is already answered.
Sasuke can sit near the window now, without having to interact with anyone. But this time, he searches instead of watching.
People fan out from the bus to the seashore and Sasuke doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t want to be the one who remains. He has been that before.
And he looks for her in the glinting sea accompanying him wherever he runs; in the sway of the coconut trees, some gleefully erect, some coiled, as if adjusting to someone they were supposed to hold, only to be left, abandoned; in the golden sand lying unperturbed against the fathomless blue overhead, dissolving into the mirror of the same color below, unexplainably deep.
When Sasuke’s feet vanish under the sand, he gasps. Sakura would not have been surprised. He always thought her unfazed and nonchalant. The scorching heat is an encumbrance but he doesn’t move away from facing the sun. He can feel his palms boiling but he doesn’t take them out from his pockets. Are blades of grass springing up between her toes while his remains, invisible; buried under the grains of gold?
He prefers the cold, he concludes, more than he ever wanted to.
“You know the pink-haired woman?” The words sharpen against his ears.
“Mm? The hot one?”
“Yeah, apparently she disappeared.”
She didn’t disappear, he knows.
She left.
--
“Do you want to go get some air?”
“No, I think I’ll stay here.” Her date nods as if he is pleased with her reply. But Sakura has just been through this too many times to know that he is not.
He looks at his phone and bites his lip, pretending that something on the screen has genuinely sparked his interest, while contemplating how to tell her that he is only here because he thought that at this point, she'll agree to sleep with him. And maybe she would have but tonight, to Sakura, is a pitch-black hole, sucking her into it with every passing second until she can't move. But she can, and it lies as the cause of the exasperation behind her sighs. Something her date fails to notice while rummaging through his ideas on how to tell her he is only here because he expected sex. Sakura presumes that he has got an escape plan when his face tenses more. He gasps out of nowhere and tells her there’s an emergency. His lips part and unite while she remains silent, and he muses on whether speaking more will persuade her to believe him.
“No no. It’s alright. You can go.” She gulps down her drink. Sakura has an acquaintance with the ease that comes with pretending, only a bit too much for her own liking. The absence of alcohol in her beverage makes her hand unlatch from it. She cannot get drunk today, her schedule demands it. Sakura stares at the light she has now awakened from her phone to check the time. It’s not that late. But she doesn’t read the time anyway. Her gaze lands on the lock screen and she feels stuck between turning off and unlocking her phone.
A picture of the beach through a window. But it’s blurry and she has better pictures of the sea; pictures she took when she was the one who sat next to the window. But Sakura likes to keep this one and she tells herself it’s not because of the fall of coal-black strands of hair, cascading from the very right corner of the picture. No, she likes the sea this way, she tells herself, a bit far from her; blurry; unclear; unsettling and she stops herself there. But that’s-
“-a lie. You're fucking lying.”
“Did you expect me to tell the truth? You know you didn’t. Face it.”
And the sound of fists jabbing against bones. She turns around as quickly as her stool allows. Another fight at the bar. But that’s not what catches her eyes. Black hair; same as the one on her lock screen for the past three years. That's what.
“Seriously, what is with that picture on your lock screen?” Ino asked once.
“It’s whatever.” Sakura found it funny, how desperate Ino sounded.
“Do you miss that place that much or something?”
“Mmm…” Her back fell behind to meet the wall against it and continued, “yeah, maybe I do.”
“Tell me, what’s Hawaii like? What do you miss the most about it?” Ino dropped her bag on the floor and walked to her friend, anticipation visible in the form of a smile plastered wide across her face, awaiting words like the beach, the wind, the sunset, the blazing sand against the vast blue of the sea, and all the like.
Sakura narrowed her eyes, and looked at something insignificant like the dress she was supposed to wear for another date - also the second one in that week - she said, “well… I guess I miss… the cold.” She ends it firmly.
“You miss what?”
“The cold.” Sakura shrugged, walking away from Ino who was left to ponder about her friend’s remark.
“Seriously, you miss the cold of Hawaii?” But when Ino realized that Sakura was not going to respond to her, at least with words, she added, “well why did you come back so quickly if you liked the… cold?” Sarcasm, evident in her voice, while she rolled her eyes.
“Ino I don’t think I’ll be needing your hairdryer,” Sakura shouted from a distance.
Ino was nosy. But she knew when to stop; when to give space and when not to. Sakura was reminded of this again when her best friend allowed her to change the topic as she said, “I thought you wanted to look all pretty tonight and make an effort. Get back from Hawaii and start dating. Remember what you told me?”
“Just not tonight.”
Months pass and Sakura still holds her breath and walks out of the bar even though she sees him. Just not tonight, she thinks again.
--
Sasuke knows it’s her and perhaps he grasps it a second too late because she leaves the bar. A practical decision, because they are on either side of the bar, with two enraged men in between. He caught her eyes between fastening hits and freshly bruised limbs. His eyes trail behind her and he thinks it’s the sound of hits landing on the men a few feet apart from him but it’s his heartbeat and he feels, for a second, the luxury of being oblivious. To everything else except the way, she plugs her earphones - something he has seen before; something that tells him it’s her, all over again - and strengthens her grip on her purse. She’s out of the bar and on the sidewalk within the time it takes for him to chug down a mouthful of the bitter alcohol in front of him. But the moment her feet touch the footpath as if the skies have been waiting for her consent, they darken, and in a couple of seconds, raindrops kiss her body and still pour down on her all at once. Sasuke can see her body strain as she stands in the pounding rain. Everyone else, moving to find shelter under the sunshade while she finds hers under the lamenting sky. He can see her holding the purse against her chest owing to the transparency of her white dress, even with his hands lazily holding up his jaw; even if a mile or a half and a thick glass through which rain trickles down separate her back to his face. He drops his gaze when the fabric permits the rain to reveal her pale skin below. Sasuke slams down his bill for a beverage he didn’t touch on the table and marches out. The fight behind him only rages on. Once the door slams behind him, the flying curses from the inside are replaced by the sound of raindrops shattering against the tiled footpath. He doesn’t know this place. But he despises it already. A big city with this and that; with more people than it can accommodate; with too many things untold - places, persons, reasons, names.
Sasuke’s under the shield of the sunshade but he steps out this time.
The pink-haired woman spins when she catches the sound of his shoes against the pavement and squints at him, the rain hindering her vision. She holds the purse closer to her chest and looks at him, her eyes searching for something that she doesn’t say out aloud. Sasuke is coaxed to peer at her soaked clothes but restrains himself. When he’s close enough to her, a song pours out from her earphones and he can hear it, even with the rain crushing them with its jewels, because of its low quality.
“- And then I can tell myself
What the hell I'm supposed to do”
A few more seconds and he is just as drenched in the rain as her. He tears off his jacket from his body and tries not to flinch at the warmth carried away from him together with it. Sasuke turns heedless to the needles piercing all over his body, his hands extended to her slightly shivering body, neither of them planning to return inside.
“Here.” He brings it in front of the purse.
“What?” She is shouting, literally. And it takes him a moment to realize that this is because of the rain, unbearably loud all of a sudden, penetrating its way into their conversation.
“Do you…” He shouts too, even if tentatively, “want… this?”
“And then I can tell myself
Not to ride along with you.”
She gives him a nod. And Sasuke decides to wait for a second, to play it inside his again to make sure he didn’t read her wrong. A cupped hand runs over her face, in an attempt to remove the water on it. “Yeah, okay.”
“When the night was full of terrors
And your eyes were filled with tears
When you had not touched me yet
Oh, take me back to the night we met”
She takes it from him and wears it across her shoulders but only after her sea-green eyes meet his black ones once again, for the first time in three years.
Sasuke knows he has something to say. He looks at her, pledging to open his mouth in a second or two but when he does,
“I had all and then most of you
Some and now-”
her phone rings. The music dies abruptly to be replaced by her ringtone. It's the default one that comes with the phone for the first time. She pulls it out from her bag and cups her hand over the screen and blinks at it a couple of times. She slides a finger across the phone and speaks into it before pressing it to her ears.
“What?”
His eyes hand on her hair that sticks to her neck like separate pink twigs, and then to the rise of her breasts ensuing her heavy breaths.
“Yeah, okay. Listen to me, I’ll reach there somehow. We have to do this now.” She says to the phone, a bit too loudly.
Sakura leans forward, sticks of her damp hair trailing her head. She scans the alley for the headlights of taxis but doesn’t find them and draws back, sighing and avoiding his gaze. The need to have her eyes on him makes Sasuke speak this time, “I can give you a ride.” He yells, even though they both know the rain is not as deafening now. There’s some kind of emergency, this much he knows.
“Really?” Does she not trust him?
“Where do you want to go?” They’re still shouting.
“Um, the hospital.”
He doesn’t interrogate her anymore.
“Sure, but I don’t know the way.”
“That’s fine, I’ll show you.”
“Hn.”
He walks to his bike and is confident that she’s following him. The small bar doesn’t have a parking lot so his bike is only a few feet away from them. He grabs the keys from his pocket and sits on the bike and so does she. And he can tell from the way she has placed herself, that she doesn’t have a lot of experience with riding on a bike. Sasuke suppresses a smile and the words escape his mouth before he can do anything else, “I think you’ll want me to speed up so sit… safely.”
He’s not sure if she heard him. But he likes to think she did when she places her palms down on his shoulders, rigidly, however. And her touch on his soaked shirt tells him of the absence of freedom she feels, to hold him anymore closer than this.
Sasuke speeds up once they are off the narrow alley of the bar and on the main road. The sharp wind makes him shudder but he doesn’t give into it.
“Are you cold?” She asks, and it’s not a yell anymore. It’s her lips, closer to his ears than before. But not a whisper.
“No, I’m not.” He replies.
He wonders if she remembers him, under the battering rain through which they strike past front yards and streetlights. Maybe. People don’t accept rides from a total stranger at the bar who offers them jackets. But is he a stranger? He is, in too many ways.
The rain feels somehow lighter. They don’t pierce, they scathe, and then they touch.
The bike pulls over in front of the ER, obeying her directions. It comes to rest amidst the sound of ambulances from miles away and water dripping down from her pink locks of hair. She grips on his shoulder tightly to support herself when she gets off the bike. Sasuke has felt this before; reliability. Okaasan. Niisan. But he leaves it there.
“I have to go.” She shrugs, already spinning away from him, and walks a couple of steps before turning to him again and shouting her gratitude. Sasuke nods and watches her leave. He drops his gaze as he doesn’t want to see the end of it. End of them, all over again.
But she still doesn’t disappear. She only leaves.
--
“Why are you so drenched in the rain?” Ino exaggerates and Sakura ignores.
“So where’s the patient?” They are climbing the stairs, three of four at a time and they don’t even have to take a look at it. The stairs, the building, the garden, the rain; everything, is familiar.
“It will only take three hours,” Ino assures her while Sakura rubs her hands together under the running water. The sound of water against the sink but she prefers the rain.
“What are you thinking about? You seem weird,” Ino closes her tap and continues, “you know that, right?”
She gives Sakura a look and pinches the mask to her nose a couple of times. Sakura does the same after Ino leaves. The door slams shut behind her and the light of the OR greets her. A rather familiar place she should not get used to.
She dips her hands in the gloves being stretched out for her and stands in her position.
“Ten blade.” And the metal meets her tightly gloved hands within seconds.
“So he lived?”
“Yeah well it took six hours instead of three but he lived.” They’re sitting in Hinata’s office.
“I’m just going to leave,” Sakura adds and exits the room and Ino doesn’t follow because she knows Sakura doesn’t want to be followed. Not now.
The raindrops run down the glass walls of the corridor that connects the ER block to the rest of the hospital; remnants of the rain now pulled back into the sky like it was a mistake. Like something they let conquer them in the momentary feeling of frailty and now they regret it.
“Sakura-senpai?” Someone calls out.
“Yes? I was just leaving. Is there something wrong?” She turns in the direction of the voice. It’s the new intern. Red hair, blue eyes.
“Okay, so I’m not sure but I think someone was waiting for you.”
“What? Who-” Her eyes glide past the ground floor, lying revealed through the paneled glass. Sasuke. And it’s unmistakable. A certain paper bag containing a black leather jacket hung loosely on her fingertips quivers as her hand folds itself into a fist owing to her hardening grip. She looks at her phone and the time knocks her off. 2: 48 AM, it screams and she flies down the flock of stairs and throws herself out to the front porch. He’s leaning on that bike of his; black; enclosed; concealed; like a part of him has grown onto it.
“Did you wait here for six hours?”
“I tried to leave.” He frowns.
“What are you doing here?”
“My jacket.” His eyes fall on the bag in her hand.
“Huh? Oh! Right!” She pretends that it’s convincing; that he waited half a dozen hours for his jacket. Maybe he did. “But it’s not fully dried yet so-”
“So are we going to talk about it?” It comes out a bit loudly and Sakura wonders if he meant it to be that way.
“About what?” She decides to play dumb. Like she wasn’t hoping that this won’t come up.
“About Hawaii. Do you-”
“Do you want to dry your jacket?” Sasuke takes a breath and opens his mouth to complete his question but stops when she says “from my place?”
But he remains unaffected, or so she thinks. Sakura inhales, realizing that she owes it to him. But it seems impossible. Giving him an answer other than how she wants to erase that picture of the sea, how she wishes the next time she opens her phone, she isn’t greeted with pieces of him that’s left; pieces of herself from three years ago; pieces she hasn’t announced her dislike for yet. But she owes it to him tonight, so she begins, “about Ha-”
“Want to dry my jacket? From my place?”
A pause and then.
“Fine.”
--
Sasuke wants to know if he’s a stranger and the words don’t need to be forced out from his mouth. It pours out on its own.
“About what?” She asks and something tells him she already knows what. Her emerald eyes release him from them all at once, and he is sure that now, she does.
“About Hawaii. Do you-”
Do you remember me? Are you back because you do?
The question coils itself inside his stomach.
“Do you want to dry your jacket?” He dodges the question and just when the words untangle themselves and begin to flow out of his mouth, she adds, “from my place?”
And it’s not because of how attractive she is, with her now dry hair, deliciously revealing her neck as a consequence of the wind, bathing in all its power even after the rain that seemingly arrived with the aim of destruction, that he loses his words. It’s because he is validated; because she answered him. Sasuke is not a stranger and she has established that and yet her face tenses up as she inhales. “About Hawaii-”
She doesn’t get it and what seizes him is the urge to tell her that he does; that he is sick of seeing only the ends. Of sentiments and ceilings, and both.
“Do you want to dry my jacket? From my place?” Her eyes widen and he searches for something else - disapproval or the lack of it. Maybe she doesn’t want to go with him. But there’s a pause in the air and for a second, everything remains static, as if it’s paused for her reaction; waiting to know how to feel; to decide on the aftertaste. Sweet or Sour?
“Fine.”
Sweet, this time.
we’re sad to see it go, but we are incredibly grateful to everyone that has took part—from the participants who created work to the people who showed love and support for their work! ❤️❤️ we also want to show appreciation for helping us run a smooth event—it was our first time and we’re glad it went well 🥰 thank you for the kind welcome, adhering to our rules and communicating concerns to us!
reminders:
you can check out fanfic entries on our our ao3 collection and ffn community titled ‘sasusaku month 2021′ for fanfic #ssm21 entries. ao3 and ffn will be better updated in the coming days, but authors, please feel free to add your stories on ao3!
we will continue to reblog entries until august 13th so please feel free to submit using the #ssm21 tag! 😊
Pairing: SasuSaku
Prompt: Flower
Title: and I came here to make you dance tonight
Tags: Blank Period; Canon Divergence; Jealous Sasuke; Drinking; Gossip; Wall Sex; these kids are messy
Ao3 | twt | full series link | @ssskmonth
In the language of flowers, he’s so very sure Sakura is telling him to fuck right off.
Excerpt:
An hour turns over somewhere in this tavern without visible clocks, the shift from pleasant evening to rowdy shinobi off mission dispatch. From here the din always climbs louder, the music soars warbling and vibrato and gives an ulcer to anyone over thirty. Spills end up on the floor more than in mouths, failing to slake any thirst since by this time people begin to find it in drunk strangers or friends waiting in the wings.
Such is the way in this watering hole, off the beaten track, a first choice if you’re wanting to hide your poor and drunk ones.
Sakura’s eyes deepen in shade at the advent of the first note. Doesn’t matter what it is, and as she accepts another drink with reluctance Sasuke asks rudely, again, “What is that?”
“Don’t you like it?” Showing him her cheek to better flash the ruddy yellow flower perched behind her ear, the colors in discord; he tastes sour hate on his tongue, and it’s not the drink. “Ino dressed me tonight.”
To this he only snorts, meaning obviously. Knowing Ino tends to be behind most bright and terrible ideas that involve his … teammate.
“Good thing,” Sakura says tartly, “I don’t care what you think.”
Hello! Today's free prompt I wrote is a little too long, a long one shot, so you need to visit ff.net for a bit if you're interested to read🤭
Here's the little detail;
Title: Suited [SSM21 Day 31: Free Prompt]
Summary: Civilian Sakura/Non-Massacre AU | In which Shinobi-san and Anbu-san turn out to be the same person.
Rate: K+
Read here: ff.net
This year's prompt are so fun to write and I feel dreadful that it's going to end too soon😭😂 English isn't my first language so I do hope you excuse me for it, but despite that I hope you do like all prompts that I wrote for SasuSaku Month 2021. Its been really fun for me. Happy SasuSaku Month 2021! 🤭
Sarada went back late from her mission that day. She huffed, stomping her feet on the ground as she walks up to her home, muttering about how an idiot Boruto is.
When she opens the door and calls out an 'I'm home' like usual, she wasn't greeted by her mother cheery voice, instead it was her father's familiar soft uninterested one.
Her eyes grew wide. Quickly, she took off her footware and run off to the direction of her father's voice, feeling the excitement, giddiness and joy coursing within her blood all throughout her body. Her father has been out of the village for some time and has not been back until now. As much as she loves Lord Seventh, it annoyed her that he lets her father went to those lengthen mission.
"Papa!" Sarada calls out, seeing the back of her father facing her as he works on something on the stove.
She watch when that said father of hers turn around to look at her and she almost let out her laughter. Standing there, in the middle of the Uchiha's kitchen–cooking?–is Sasuke Uchiha, one of the most feared shinobi in his generation, in all his glory wearing his wife pink colored apron.
Sarasa close her mouth with her palm as chuckle erupted from her mouth, "You're wearing Mama's apron."
Sasuke looks down at himself, seeing the pink garment over his usual attire, "Ah yes." was all he said.
Sarada couldn't help herself as she runs off, laughing, and gushing infront of her father, "When did you come home? Last time I see you was months ago."
The rise and fall of Sasuke's shoulder was almost non existence but she sees that, "There's something I need to report to the hokage. Thought I should deliver it to him myself and stay in the village for a day or two."
A day or two is enough, Sarada thought as she grins up at him.
"And you're cooking. Where's Mama?" She asked as she moves around her father to look into the cooking pot on the stove.
Smells good, there's actually no tomatoes in there. She said to herself, nodding only slightly.
"Yes. She received a call from hospital demanding her presence when I arrived earlier. She said she's coming home right after." She heard her father spoke as he wash his hands in the sink.
"Ahh." She responded, "Do you need help?" She asked.
"No. Your mother already cook the rice and one dish, I'll handle the others. You can go wash up." He said, tending his work while not looking at her.
Sarada's smile didn't waver as she decides to sit on the dining table, one elbow prop up on the table as she rest her cheek on her palm and watch her father move around the kitchen, playing the role of her mother as the cook.
"When you and Mama were younger, do you cook together?" She asked. She always interested to know about her parents relationship, there's always something to learn about them. They both are surprisingly quite clingy with each other behind close door and are nothing like the lovey dovey couple she sometimes witnessed when they're out in public.
"Often." Her father answered, "Your mother doesn't really good in cooking."
Sarada laughs a little too loud at that, "I can totally understand that. And you, Papa? Are you any good?" Her tone teasing as she regards him.
By the confusion on his face, Sarada just knew he doesn't know how to answer that. His father isn't like Lord Seventh who she noticed sometimes, just love to boast about himself.
At last he settled on, "It's edible."
And Sarada laughs again, "I'm sure they are." She rise up from her seat and excuse herself to clean up.
The edge of Sasuke's lips turn upward hearing his daughter's soft humming as she walks way, doesn't regret his decision to stop by the village one bit.
When Sarada walk into the kitchen again, her mother was pestering her father as she sits herself in the kitchen while her father serve their dinner, at the same time asking her for her work.
"Mama. Papa." She calls out.
Both heads turn to her direction as she sits on her usual place at the dinner table,
"Sarada, how's your mission? You home late." She heard her mother said.
"Boruto." Just one word, one name really, and it already causing a frown appear on her face.
It makes her mother laugh, and a small smile on her father's face, "What does he do this time?"
Sarada waves her hands in dismissive, "I don't want to talk about him. Let's just eat."
When her father sit himself on his place, they say their thanks and start to eat, "This is good." Sarada said, letting out a satisfying hum.
"Really good, Sasuke-kun." Her mother chirp, her hand at the side of her cheeks as she savours her husband's cooking.
"Thank you." Sarada laughed internally at her father's two words. Despite trying to socialize more, he still missing a lot in his vocabulary.
She watch interestedly at her parents eating, talking, adore the way they speak with one another, happy that her father is home, that he cook their food and just happy for this moment they having together. It's not every day that her father is home, and now that he is, she's going to have most of their time together as she wants.
Sakura was scared. She was sent on a mission with Naruto and Kakashi to rescue Sasuke who had recently joined the Akatsuki. Naruto had to retreat when Sakura got kidnapped by one of the members, Deidara, because the Hokage specifically told Naruto not to engage. Him and Kakashi left frustrated.
Sasuke was on a mission when Deidara dragged her into their hideout. Every member was delighted when he brought her in. “Is this the girl you wanted?” Deidara asked Pain. “Very well, leave her there.” He responded. Sakura had a gag over her mouth and ropes tied around her arms and legs. She tried to cut the bindings but no use. Sasuke was summoned to have a meeting to talk about what they would do to the girl. Sakura saw a shadow-y figure resembling Sasuke. “Sasuke.” Pain started. “Come back, we have the kunoichi from the leaf we need to kill.” Sakura’s eyes widened when she heard the word ‘kill’. She started speaking but was muffled by the gag Deidara tied over her mouth. “HEY shut up bitch!” Hidan screamed from where he was. “I’d be right there.” Sasuke said calmly not knowing it was Sakura.
Sakura had been kept tied in a basement for hours when Sasuke returned. They had all agreed that Sasuke would take her life. He entered the basement and looked at her. He was shocked. He had only agreed to do it because he thought it was someone else. Sakura was his weakness. After he had killed Itachi, he joined the Akatsuki in hopes of destroying the leaf but had no plans on destroying Sakura at all. Sakura looked at him with fear in her eyes. He hated that look. The exact one he saw when he was first left the village. Instead of cutting her throat, he cut the bindings and untied the gag. “You’re free to go.” He said shortly. “But-” “Leave. Now. There’s a place you can leave through the back.” Sakura scurried to the back as she took off running back to Konoha.
The seals on the ground disappear in a huff of smoke and are replaced with their contract summons – Aoda and Katsuyu, smaller in size, the call not for combat or remotely related
to aggression, but a call for discussion among masters.
Sakura and Sasuke are seated beside each other on a clearing within a forest, months out
from their first journey together away from Konoha. The two summons look unfazed, having known of the thoughts and feelings the two have for each other. The summoning
contract demands such connection, and with intense relationships such as theirs, the information isn’t hard to perceive.
“Lady Katsuyu.”
“Aoda-san.”
The couple bow slightly to the two.
“We have come to ask for your permission to amend our contracts,” Sakura starts, and Sasuke continues. “To appear in the brink of danger and to lend strength for the other as necessary.”
“As necessary for the other to come back home safely.” She smiles at him as she reaches out to clutch his hand, his fingers intertwining with hers.
“This is uncommon,” Aoda remarks. “No one has ever demanded us of this….at least in a century.”
“But not without precedence,” the slug added. “We can gauge your intensity to protect and the depth of your wishes.”
The couple then bows their heads lower. Sasuke tells his summon, “We have one more request.”
Tension fills the air of the forest. They know these demands are too much. After all, neither summon had time to really learn about the other summoner. But if their feelings are connected enough, maybe they could convey this fervent wish as well. “We humbly ask for your added protection for our little one.”
Sakura fills in the ensuing silence, echoing the words said earlier that seemed like vows. “To appear in the brink of danger, and to lend strength as necessary.”
“Ohhhhh, is it a boy or a girl?” Katsuyu loses her composure and squeals in delight. She attaches herself to Sasuke’s face and kisses him with her slime. “Congratulations you two!"
Aoda coils itself on Sakura’s arm and hisses in delight. “An amalgamation of you two. What a sight to see. Of course.”
“Of course, we agree,” Katsuyu confirms.
And so Aoda and Katsuyu became the first godparents of Uchiha Sarada, the first to watch over her while the parents sneaked in some rest, the first to play with her, the first to shield her from unknown genjutsu and imminent dangers. In the future, if she chooses to contract an entirely different summon, parts of them will still stay avowed to her, not because of the fine print, but because of the innate need to protect.
