so deep in my daydream,
Sarada comes to this observation eventually: the Seventh may be summer, but Boruto Uzumaki is winter.
As preteens, Chocho once casually stated that Sarada‘s obsession for Boruto’s eyes was becoming one of Konoha’s worst kept secrets. She’d sputtered over her drink because she wasn’t obsessed, thankyouverymuch, but they’re just so freakishly blue. Her best friend just rolled her eyes before taking another bite of her burger. Whatever honey, Chocho had replied, before switching the topic to something else entirely.
Mama once said this to her: “Naruto Uzumaki has eyes the colour of the summer sky- bright and bold and unbelievably pure.”
Sarada comes to this observation eventually: the Seventh may be summer, but Boruto Uzumaki is winter.
In the dead of winter, after an unexpectedly taxing C-rank mission, Team Konohamaru stumbles upon a small onsen on their way back home. It’s Mitsuki who inquires about it, mentioning that he’d never ever been to one.
Sensei momentarily gazes at them thoughtfully, before instructing his raggedy team to halt. Wordlessly, he backtracks and steps inside the humble building. After a few minutes, he comes back out, beaming a smile so bright it might as well reflect off of the freshly fallen snow outside. “We can spare a night here if you kids aren’t in too much of a rush to get home,” he says jovially, but raises a hand to rub the back of his neck- Sarada knows this to be a nervous tick- and looks to her imploringly, “But they only have one family-sized room left to share.”
She doesn’t mind, and tells her Sensei as much. What’s sleeping on separate futons in the same room, anyway? Sensei smiles and turns around to go back inside, motioning for them to follow with a small wave of his hand, their footsteps making soft crunching noises in their wake.
Unsurprisingly, Boruto is unabashedly excited for the hot springs, and true to tradition, Mitsuki is excited that Boruto’s excited. Hey, even she’s excited. The owners, a sweet-faced middle-aged man and his soft-speaking wife, inform them that their dinner will be served in their room. “In the meantime, please feel free to use the hot springs in the back,” he adds kindly.
The onsen is small; a four room establishment in which the owners also reside, somewhere southeast of Snow Country, surrounded by an age-old bamboo forest. She doesn’t doubt that generations of the same family have owned and operated it with the noticeably attentive care put into it. The architecture is old, but the clay roof hasn’t a single missing tile, and the soft tatami floors still give off a pleasant scent. The humble hot springs are also mercifully separated, with a tall, man-made rock partition running through the centre.
As Sarada takes her first dip inside, she can just vaguely make out her teammates conversing. The distant sounds are easily drowned out by a woman and a young girl- her daughter, she assumes- playfully splashing around, and louder noises of someone bathing on the other side. All’s well, because Sarada doesn’t focus too much on their voices and immerses herself completely in the water.
When she breaks the surface, her dark eyes are on the sky. The night prior, it had snowed heavily, and the day leading up to it had been ominously grey and bitterly cold. Today, it’s a pale blue; crisp and frozen, and almost silver-like if she stared at it long enough. Leaning against the warm stones on her back, Sarada inhales deeply and exhales slowly, not fighting the automatic drooping of her eyelids.
She slowly wakes to the gentle kiss of a snowflake on her nose. Her eyes are fuzzy with sleep, but a quick glance confirms the now dark-grey of the sky, and a few snowflakes gaily dancing around the steam emanating from the spring. The mother and daughter duo had since left, but a quick glance at her fingertips tells her that she hadn’t been asleep for too long anyway. With an indulgent groan, she goes about getting ready for dinner.
Boruto is the first she sees on the way back to their room, who she instantly assumes must be the last to get ready of the boys. She grins and quickens her pace to reach the door first, sliding it open before he can reach it. It’s a competition that she was only privy to, but she can’t help but be a little smug not to be the last to show up.
Of course he’s lost in thought, but she takes the brief moment to study his eyes once again.
...And okay, so maybe Chocho was onto something back then, but she’s not obsessed. Boruto just has nice eyes, okay?
Sometime in the middle of winter, somewhere just outside of Snow Country, Sarada learns this: Yes, Lord Seventh may be summer, but Boruto Uzumaki is a clear sky in the dead of winter. She smiles fondly at her realization, and quickly covers it with a grin when Boruto snaps out of it. She slinks through as he peeks over her shoulder, noticing the charming array of food places on their kotatsu, where the rest of their team is already sitting.
Sensei urges them to take a seat quickly, and Mitsuki smiles at them from where he’s sitting. And if she casts one more indulgent look at her blue-eyed teammate as she takes her seat, who’s to say because everyone else is focused on their dinner?