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Sakura had learned very early that wanting things too openly was dangerous.

Not dangerous in the shinobi sense, though that was true too. Dangerous in the smaller, sharper ways that mattered just as much when you were a child: the risk of being laughed at, the risk of being called selfish, the risk of losing the one person who had once taken your hand and decided you were worth standing beside.

Ino had been that hand.

When the other girls snickered at Sakura’s big forehead and her nervousness and the way she always seemed to take up either too much space or not enough, Ino had swooped into her life like sunlight with a ribbon in her hair and absolute certainty in her smile. She had told Sakura to lift her head. She had taught her how to tie it high, how to look people in the eye, how to laugh like she had every right to be heard. Most importantly, she had become Sakura’s first and only true friend.

So when their classmates had started whispering about Uchiha Sasuke—cool, talented, impossible Sasuke with his solemn eyes and quiet arrogance—and Ino had confessed with a bright flush that she liked him, Sakura had buried her own feelings so deeply she had nearly convinced herself they were gone.

She had smiled. She had teased. She had nodded along.

And then she had gone home and hated herself for how relieved she felt when Ino never noticed the lie.

Years later, on Team 7, Sakura still carried that old secret like a habit she no longer knew how to break.

It should have been easier now. Ino had her own team, her own missions, her own life. Sakura had grown stronger, louder in some ways, less likely to fold in half over someone else’s opinion. Their friendship had survived the Academy whole because Sakura had kept her crush hidden, because she had chosen Ino over the selfishness of wanting what Ino wanted too. It had become one of the things she was proudest of, even if it ached.

And anyway, what did it matter?

Sasuke barely looked at anyone for longer than a second.

At least, that was what Sakura told herself.

-

Then there were days like this one.

“Sakura.”

She looked up from the mission register she had been pretending to read in the Hokage Tower lobby and found Sasuke standing in front of her, close enough that she had to tilt her head back slightly. He was carrying their team assignment scroll in one hand, expression as composed as ever.

“Yes?” she asked, immediately aware that Naruto had vanished somewhere in the building after spotting Kiba in the hallway and Kakashi-sensei was, predictably, nowhere to be seen.

Sasuke frowned faintly.

“Your strap is twisted.”

Before she could ask what strap, he reached out and adjusted the shoulder strap of her pack with careful fingers, straightening it where it had bunched against her shirt. He did it with the same effortless focus he used when correcting his grip on a kunai. Casual. Precise. Entirely unbothered by the fact that his hand was brushing her shoulder and collarbone and that Sakura had forgotten how to breathe.

“There,” he said.

“Oh.” Sakura blinked. “Thanks.”

His hand lingered for half a second longer than necessary before dropping away. “You always tie it too tight on one side.”

“You noticed that?”

Sasuke gave her the look he reserved for stupid questions.

Sakura could feel heat rushing into her face. “Right. Sorry. Of course you—”

“There you are!” Naruto barreled back into the lobby with all the subtlety of a stampede, one arm flung dramatically over his forehead. “I was gone for one minute and you two already look like some weird married couple arguing over backpack straps.”

Sakura made a strangled sound.

Sasuke, to Sakura’s complete astonishment, did not immediately deny it. He only said, flatly, “You were gone for twelve minutes.”

Naruto squinted. “How do you even know that?”

“Because some of us can count.”

“Teme—”

Kakashi arrived just in time to intercept what would have become the beginning of a fight, eye curved cheerfully as if he hadn’t kept them waiting forty minutes. “Well, my cute little team is energetic today.”

“YOU’RE LATE!” Naruto and Sakura shouted.

-

Sasuke said nothing, but when Sakura stepped forward to wave their mission slip accusingly at Kakashi, she felt a light touch at the small of her back. Sasuke’s hand. Guiding her around a puddle left by someone tracking rainwater across the floor.

She almost tripped anyway.

It kept happening after that.

Not dramatic things. Not anything obvious enough to point at and say see, there, that means something.

Just Sasuke being there.

His hand steadying her elbow when she jumped down from a high wall after a surveillance shift, though she landed cleanly and absolutely did not need help. His fingers brushing a leaf out of her hair during training, with no expression on his face at all, as if removing foliage from Sakura’s hair was a perfectly normal use of his time. The way he stood slightly closer to her than to anyone else when they waited in lines or on rooftops. The way he passed her things directly instead of setting them down. The way his shoulder sometimes nudged hers when they sat beside each other and he never moved away first.

It would have been unbearable enough on its own.

Then there was his family.

The Uchiha compound stood proud on the quieter edge of Konoha, old stone and neat pathways and houses that glowed warm in the evening. Fugaku had a severe face and a voice like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. Itachi came and went with his ANBU duties but still found time to tousle Sasuke’s hair in rare unguarded moments. And Mikoto—

Mikoto adored Sakura.

The first time Team 7 had gone to the Uchiha compound for a joint sparring afternoon with Itachi observing, Sakura had expected politeness. Formality. Maybe the cool indifference that old clan matriarchs seemed to perfect.

Instead Mikoto had opened the door, taken one look at Sakura, and smiled like she had been personally delivered a gift.

“You must be Sakura-chan,” she had said, hands folding warmly in front of her apron. “Sasuke talks about you.”

Sakura had nearly passed out on the threshold.

Now, months later, it had only gotten worse.

“Eat more,” Mikoto said now, placing an extra piece of tamagoyaki into Sakura’s bowl at the low dining table in the Uchiha kitchen.

“I’m fine, really,” Sakura protested weakly.

“Nonsense. You’re a growing kunoichi.”

“She had seconds already,” Sasuke said.

Mikoto glanced at him. “And she’s still thinner than both my sons were at her age during growth spurts, so unless you’re volunteering to cook nutritionally balanced meals for your team, I don’t want to hear it.”

Naruto snorted so hard into his tea that he started choking.

Across the table, Itachi hid what might have been a smile behind his cup.

Sakura wanted the floor to swallow her whole. She also wanted, in a warm secret place inside herself, to memorize this forever: the gentle domestic noise of the kitchen, the evening light on polished wood, the fact that Sasuke’s mother had just called her a growing kunoichi as if she belonged here enough to be fussed over.

Mikoto sat beside her and adjusted the angle of Sakura’s chopsticks with absent motherly precision when Sakura held them wrong in her embarrassment. “There.”

“Thank you,” Sakura squeaked.

“You have such pretty hands,” Mikoto said thoughtfully. “They’ll be good for medical ninjutsu if you decide to pursue it.”

Sakura stared.

Sasuke, who had been reaching for the soy dish, paused and glanced at her.

“What?” Naruto said around a mouthful of rice. “Why are we all staring? Is there more tamagoyaki?”

“You’re hopeless,” Sakura muttered automatically.

Mikoto laughed softly. “You should come by more often, Sakura-chan. It’s nice having another sensible person in the house.”

“There are three sensible people in this house,” Fugaku said from the doorway.

Mikoto raised an eyebrow. “Then it will be nice having a fourth.”

Even Fugaku’s mouth twitched.

Sakura could not look at Sasuke for the rest of dinner. Which was impossible, because she was acutely aware of him the entire time. Of the silent way he slid the tea closer to her when her cup emptied. Of the fact that when Naruto reached carelessly across the table and nearly knocked over Sakura’s bowl, Sasuke caught it one-handed before it tipped.

“Careful,” Sasuke said.

Naruto scowled. “I wasn’t gonna spill it!”

“You literally almost did.”

“But I didn’t.”

“You almost dropped yourself off the training ground yesterday too. I still caught you.”

“That was one time!”

“Three.”

“Traitor,” Naruto said to Sakura, as if this were somehow her fault.

“I’m not involved,” Sakura said, though she was smiling helplessly into her bowl.

Sasuke looked at her then, really looked, and his expression softened in a way so fleeting she almost wondered if she imagined it.

Almost.

After dinner, when Naruto got dragged into a terrible philosophical argument with Itachi about whether instant ramen counted as a personality trait, Mikoto cornered Sakura on the veranda with a basket of folded laundry that definitely did not need both of them to carry.

“I’m glad you came,” Mikoto said.

Sakura clutched one side of the basket. “Thank you for having me.”

“I always like having you.” Mikoto’s eyes went fond in a way that made Sakura nervous. “Sasuke is happiest after your team visits.”

Sakura nearly dropped the laundry.

“I—what?”

Mikoto continued as if discussing the weather. “He pretends otherwise, naturally. But he’s been lighter since joining Team 7. More patient. Less broody, if I’m being generous.”

“Uchiha-san—”

“Mikoto,” she corrected gently. “And you don’t have to panic, dear. I’m not trying to embarrass you.”

Sakura suspected that was exactly what was happening.

Mikoto’s expression softened further. “Sasuke can be difficult to read, but he has always loved deeply. Even as a little boy. He was the sort of child who would find an injured bird and refuse to sleep until he knew it was warm enough.” Her smile turned private. “He’s careful with what matters to him.”

Sakura’s fingers tightened on the basket. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because,” Mikoto said, “you look like someone who spends too much time convincing herself not to see what is right in front of her.”

Sakura forgot how to answer.

Mikoto mercifully did not press. She only shifted the basket fully into her own hands and patted Sakura’s cheek. “Come again this weekend. I’m making tomato stew.”

And then she walked away, leaving Sakura standing on the veranda with her heart trying to break out through her ribs.

-

The problem with being observant was that once a possibility lodged itself in your mind, the whole world began rearranging around it.

Mikoto’s words followed Sakura into the next week like a haunting.

‘You look like someone who spends too much time convincing herself not to see what is right in front of her.’

It was absurd. Completely absurd. Sasuke could not like her. Sasuke, who had girls sighing over him in hallways and kunoichi from other teams inventing excuses to stop by the training fields. Sasuke, who was brilliant and talented and beautiful in that sharp aloof way that made people look twice. Sasuke, who could have anyone.

Sakura knew exactly what she was by comparison. Smart, yes. Useful, yes. Getting stronger every day, yes. But she also knew the old shape of herself too well: the girl with hidden crushes and careful silences, the girl who had built her friendship with Ino partly out of gratitude and partly out of fear that she would not find another like it.

Besides, even if Sasuke somehow did—

Ino.

The thought came like a reflexive sting.

Ino, who had never betrayed her. Ino, who still brightened when she saw Sakura across the training grounds, who still leaned in too close to gossip, who still shoved snacks into her hands after hard missions because “you forget to eat when you’re stressed, forehead.” Ino, who had loved Sasuke openly once while Sakura loved him in secret.

Maybe Ino’s old crush had faded. Maybe it hadn’t. Sakura had never asked because asking would mean revealing too much. The secrecy had become a structure she didn’t know how to dismantle without everything underneath it collapsing.

She was so lost in these thoughts one afternoon that she didn’t notice the practice post hurtling toward her until Sasuke knocked it aside with his forearm.

The log splintered against the fence instead.

Sakura jolted. “What—”

“You stopped moving,” Sasuke said, breathing only slightly harder than before. They were in the middle of a taijutsu circuit Kakashi had designed specifically to be annoying, with swinging logs, hidden wire traps, and Naruto complaining loudly from somewhere overhead. “Again.”

Sakura blinked at him, then at the broken wood. “You hit that with your arm.”

“It was wood.”

“You could’ve just dodged and let it hit me?”

His mouth flattened. “Why would I do that?”

Sakura’s heart gave a stupid little skip. “I don’t know. To teach me a lesson?”

He stared at her as if she had spoken in another language. Then he stepped closer, one hand catching lightly around her wrist. “Sakura.”

Her pulse went to war with itself.

“When we train,” Sasuke said, voice low and even, “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to make sure you come back alive if someone else does.”

Everything inside her softened all at once.

She swallowed. “That’s very dramatic.”

“It’s true.”

“Sasuke-teme is in looove!” Naruto crowed from his branch above them.

Sakura yelped and tried to jerk her wrist free on instinct. Sasuke, infuriatingly calm, did not let go.

Naruto cackled harder. “I knew it! I knew it! You do all the gross couple stuff and you keep looking at her like—ow!”

A thrown pebble hit him squarely in the forehead. Kakashi lowered his arm from where he had apparently materialized beside the tree. “Naruto,” he said mildly, “inside thoughts.”

“That was an outside situation!” Naruto protested, rubbing his head.

Kakashi eyed Sasuke’s still-closed hand around Sakura’s wrist and the way Sakura had turned pink to the ears. “Arguably.”

Sasuke finally released her.

But his fingers slid down as he did, brushing briefly against her palm before he stepped back into stance. “Focus,” he said.

Sakura absolutely could not.

-

That evening, Ino found her sitting alone by the river with her shoes off and her feet in the water.

“Wow,” Ino said, dropping down beside her, “that’s a face.”

Sakura startled. “Ino! What are you doing here?”

“Apparently rescuing you from your tragic inner monologue.” Ino leaned back on her palms and squinted at Sakura’s profile. “You only sit like that when your brain is being unbearable.”

Sakura sighed. “You know me too well.”

“Obviously.” Ino nudged her shoulder. “So? Mission trouble? Naruto trouble? Sasuke trouble?”

The last one hit hard enough that Sakura choked on air.

Ino’s eyes narrowed immediately. “Oh my god. It is Sasuke trouble.”

“It’s not,” Sakura said far too quickly.

Ino snorted. “Forehead, please. You’re awful at lying to me.”

That was the terrible thing. She was, specifically, awful at lying to Ino. Everyone else she could manage, at least a little. But Ino had always known where Sakura’s weak seams were.

“I just…” Sakura drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “Things have been strange.”

“In what way strange?”

Sakura hesitated. She could not tell Ino the truth. Not the whole truth. But she could maybe touch the edges of it. “Do you ever feel like… if you wanted something years ago, and then you decided not to because keeping someone you loved was more important, you wouldn’t know what to do if maybe it was possible after all?”

Ino stared at her for a long beat.

Then she said, dryly, “That’s the most you sentence I’ve ever heard.”

Sakura groaned and buried her face in her knees.

Ino laughed softly, then went quiet. When she spoke again, her voice had lost its teasing edge. “Sakura.”

Sakura peeked up.

Ino was looking out over the water. “You know, when we were little, I liked a lot of things because I thought I was supposed to. Pretty boys. Winning. Being admired. Some of it was real, but a lot of it was just…” She shrugged one shoulder. “Noise. Sasuke was part of that. He was cute and talented and every girl in class was obsessed, so of course I got swept up too.”

Sakura stared at her.

Ino glanced over and caught the look. “What? You thought I was still going to write Uchiha Ino Yamanaka in my notebook forever?”

“I never—”

“You absolutely did.” Ino rolled her eyes fondly. “Forehead, I haven’t seriously liked Sasuke in years.”

All the air left Sakura’s body in one stunned rush.

Ino blinked. Then her eyes widened. “Wait.”

Sakura went cold.

“You,” Ino said slowly, like fitting together pieces she hadn’t realized she had, “are not asking me this for a hypothetical.”

Sakura opened and closed her mouth.

Ino slapped a hand over her own face. “Oh my god. Oh my god, you idiot. You enormous idiot.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Why are you apologizing to me?”

“Because I—because back then—I knew you liked him and I still—”

“Liked him too?” Ino dropped her hand and stared. “Sakura.”

Sakura braced herself.

But Ino only looked incredulous. Then exasperated. Then weirdly touched. “You hid that from me all this time?”

“I didn’t want to lose you,” Sakura admitted in a rush, the old truth finally breaking apart in her mouth. “You were my first friend and I thought if I said anything it would ruin everything, and then it just… kept getting harder to tell you.”

Ino’s expression changed again, softening into something that made Sakura’s throat ache.

“You really are an idiot,” Ino said, but this time it was gentle. “A very sweet one. And for the record, if we’d had it out back then, I probably would’ve gotten over it in a week and gone back to bossing you around. You didn’t have to carry that by yourself.”

Sakura laughed shakily, because crying felt dangerously close.

Ino bumped their shoulders together. “So. Does he like you?”

Sakura made a strangled noise. “I don’t know!”

“Liar.”

“I genuinely don’t know!”

Ino gave her a flat stare. “Sakura. Every time I see your team, he’s touching you.”

“He is not!”

“He literally adjusts your gloves for you.”

“That’s because I tie them wrong sometimes!”

“He glares at anyone who flirts with you.”

Sakura’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Ino leaned in. “And last month at the market he carried your bags while you were talking to the florist and looked one second away from murdering those two genin from Team Eight for noticing you exist.”

Sakura could feel herself turning red all the way down to her neck. “That can’t be true.”

“It is very true,” Ino said gleefully. “Oh, this is incredible. All this time I thought you were just tragically oblivious in the normal way, but no. You’re clinically hopeless.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

Sakura sighed. “Unfortunately.”

Ino’s smile softened again. “Go be happy, forehead. And next time don’t decide my feelings for me before asking.”

Sakura looked at her, really looked, and something old and tense inside her finally loosened. “You’re okay?”

Ino flicked her forehead.

“Ow!”

“I’m more than okay. Honestly, I’m offended you thought my taste was that bad for this long.” Ino grinned when Sakura sputtered. “Though now that I know he likes you, I am going to enjoy watching him suffer until one of you confesses.”

“I’m not confessing.”

“You say that now.”

-

The next morning, Sakura arrived at Training Ground Seven to find Sasuke alone.

Which was already unusual. Naruto was typically loud enough to announce his existence from half a village away, and Kakashi’s lateness was a law of nature. But Sasuke was there, perched on the fence in the pale early light, one knee up, expression turned toward the trees as if he had been listening for her footsteps specifically.

When he saw her, he dropped down.

“You’re early,” Sakura said.

“So are you.”

She adjusted the strap of her medical pouch. “Couldn’t sleep.”

He studied her face for a moment. “Something happened.”

It wasn’t a question.

Sakura huffed a laugh. “You really do notice everything.”

“Yes.”

There was no modesty in it. Just fact.

She looked at him and thought of Ino’s laughter by the river, of Mikoto’s knowing eyes, of every steadying touch and quiet kindness she had spent months, maybe years, refusing to name.

Maybe she was tired of being afraid.

“I talked to Ino yesterday,” Sakura said.

Something changed in his posture, subtle but immediate. Not tension exactly. Attention sharpened into alertness. “About?”

Sakura’s pulse skittered. “Old things.”

He said nothing, waiting.

She looked down at her sandals, at the dew-dark grass. “I used to think if I wanted something, and someone I loved wanted it too, then the right thing was always to step aside.”

Silence.

Then, very quietly, “And now?”

Sakura lifted her eyes.

Sasuke was closer than he had been a second ago. Not close enough to startle, just enough that the space between them felt charged.

“Now,” Sakura said, because if she stopped she might never begin again, “I think maybe the right thing is to let other people decide for themselves what they want.”

Something warm and almost disbelieving flickered across his face.

“Good,” he said.

Sakura’s breath caught. “Good?”

“Yes.”

She made an incoherent little noise. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

His mouth tipped, just barely, into the ghost of a smile. “No.”

And then he reached for her.

Not abruptly. Not in a way that left room for misunderstanding. He lifted one hand and touched the side of her face, fingers settling softly just below her ear as if he had thought about doing this a thousand times and was finally allowing himself to.

Sakura stood absolutely still.

“I’ve been trying not to push you,” Sasuke said. His voice was lower than usual, quiet enough that the leaves seemed to lean in. “You get skittish when people corner you.”

Sakura stared. “I do not get skittish.”

His thumb brushed her cheekbone. “You do.”

She should have protested. Instead she leaned, just a little, into his hand.

His eyes darkened.

“I like you,” he said, with the same plain certainty he brought to battle plans and target calls and truths that did not need decorating. “I’ve liked you for a long time.”

Sakura’s heart became a useless, frantic thing.

“How long?” she whispered.

“Since the Academy.”

Her mouth fell open.

Sasuke looked faintly annoyed by her surprise. “You were the first person who smiled at me like I was normal after I beat those older boys in sparring.” His gaze shifted, distant for half a second, remembering. “Everyone else looked at me like a trophy or a challenge. You looked impressed and then immediately got angry because I’d bruised my knuckles.”

Sakura’s entire face burned. “I remember that.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you lectured me about ice for ten minutes.”

A sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaped her.

Sasuke’s expression softened further. “I thought if I told you too soon, you’d run.”

“I wouldn’t have run,” Sakura said weakly.

He lifted an eyebrow.

“…I might have walked?”

“That’s what I thought.”

She could not believe this was real. “You’ve been acting like this on purpose?”

“Yes.”

“All the touching?”

“Yes.”

“The— the carrying things and standing near me and fixing my backpack?”

“Yes, Sakura,” he said, and now there was definitely amusement in his voice, rare and warm and devastating. “I was trying to make it obvious.”

She covered her face with both hands. “This is humiliating.”

He caught her wrists gently and pulled them down. “Why?”

“Because apparently I’m the only person in the village who didn’t know!”

“That’s probably true.”

“Sasuke!”

His shoulders moved with a near-silent laugh.

Sakura stared at him. “You’re making fun of me.”

“Only a little.”

For someone so reserved, he looked unfairly pleased with himself.

Then the softness returned, deeper this time. “Sakura.”

Her name in his voice felt like being chosen.

“What?” she whispered.

He hesitated for the first time.

It made her chest squeeze, because if Sasuke hesitated, then this mattered to him more than he knew how to hide.

“I want,” he began, then stopped and tried again. “I want to be allowed to do this properly.”

“Do what properly?”

His hand, still against her cheek, slid to the back of her neck. Careful. Protective. Intimate enough that she felt it everywhere.

“This,” he said.

And then he kissed her forehead.

Not a childish peck. Not teasing. A slow, deliberate press of his lips right above the place she had once hated most about herself, as if he knew exactly what it meant and intended to undo years of hurt in one impossibly gentle gesture.

Sakura forgot how to stand.

When he pulled back, her eyes stung unexpectedly.

Sasuke’s expression sharpened. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she said immediately, voice shaking. “No, it was just—”

She couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t tell him that once, long ago, Ino had taught her not to be ashamed of her forehead, and now somehow the boy she had loved in secret had kissed that old insecurity like it was something precious.

So she only whispered, “Do that again?”

Something fierce and tender lit his face.

This time, when he kissed her forehead, Sakura reached for him without thinking.

Her hands caught in the front of his shirt. His free arm went around her waist at once, steady and sure, pulling her in until there was no uncertain space left between them. Sakura could feel the heat of him even through their clothes, the solid line of his body, the way he held her as if closeness was something he had wanted for a long time and was savoring now that he finally had it.

She laughed softly against his chest when he didn’t let go.

“You really were trying to be subtle?” she asked.

“I was.”

“This is subtle for you?”

“Yes.”

She leaned back enough to look at him. “That’s alarming.”

His hand at her waist tightened slightly. “Get used to it.”

A thrill went through her so bright it was almost dizzying.

Before she could answer, a shout rang across the training ground.

“WHAT IS HAPPENING?”

They both turned.

Naruto stood frozen at the path entrance, Kakashi behind him with one visible eye curved in unmistakable delight.

Sakura leapt backward. Sasuke did not release her immediately, which only made Naruto’s expression more outraged.

“I KNEW IT!” Naruto yelled, pointing at them like an accuser in a courtroom drama. “I knew the creepy vibes meant something!”

“They were not creepy vibes!” Sakura shouted.

“They were absolutely creepy vibes,” Kakashi said helpfully.

Sasuke finally let go of her waist, though his hand drifted down her arm as he did. “You’re late.”

Naruto sputtered. “You can’t use that as a comeback right now!”

“Why not? It’s true.”

Kakashi sighed blissfully. “Youth.”

“You’re not even that old,” Sakura muttered, still flaming.

Naruto stomped closer, blue eyes huge. “So what, are you two together now? Since when? Since five minutes ago? Since forever? Is that why Sasuke keeps threatening people with his face when they talk to Sakura?”

Sakura whipped around. “He what?”

Naruto slapped both hands over his mouth.

Too late.

Sasuke looked away, which on anyone else would have meant nothing, but on Sasuke was essentially a confession.

Sakura stared at him. “You do?”

“They annoy me.”

“Because they flirt with me?”

He said nothing.

Kakashi, traitor that he was, took out his little orange book and hummed thoughtfully. “This is significantly more entertaining than D-rank missions.”

“Sensei!” Sakura cried.

Naruto recovered enough to jab a finger at Sasuke. “Okay, but if you hurt Sakura-chan, I’m beating you up.”

Sasuke looked insulted. “That’s not how this works.”

“It is if I say it is!”

Sakura’s embarrassment melted, unexpectedly, into affection so broad it left her smiling helplessly at both of them. Her ridiculous team. Loud, impossible Naruto. Interfering, smug Kakashi. Sasuke, standing just a little in front of her like he always did when things mattered.

“Can we please not make this weird?” she pleaded.

Naruto squinted. “Too late.”

And somehow, he was right.

-

Because after that morning, everything changed and nothing did.

They still trained. Still took missions. Still argued over strategy and ration packs and whose turn it was to put up camp. Naruto still complained with the dedication of an artist and Kakashi still vanished at suspicious intervals. But now Sasuke no longer bothered pretending his touches were incidental.

If Sakura sat beside him, his hand found hers within minutes.

If they walked through crowded streets, his hand settled at the small of her back to guide her through the press of bodies.

If she grew tired after missions and tried to insist she was fine, he took her bag anyway and ignored her protests until she gave up and let him.

He was not showy about it. Sasuke would probably rather die than become theatrical. But there was an unmistakable steadiness to his affection, a quiet possessiveness that made Sakura’s pulse flutter and Naruto gag dramatically.

“You’re doing it again,” Naruto announced one afternoon from across Ichiraku’s counter.

Sakura looked up from her ramen. “Doing what?”

Naruto pointed accusingly at Sasuke’s hand, which was resting over Sakura’s on the countertop.

Sakura stared. Sasuke did not move.

“Oh,” Sakura said faintly.

“You didn’t even notice!” Naruto wailed. “This is what I’m talking about! You’re both disgusting!”

Ayame laughed behind the counter. “I think it’s cute.”

“Thank you,” Sakura said.

“No, don’t encourage them!”

Sasuke squeezed Sakura’s fingers once, almost absentmindedly, while continuing to eat. Sakura felt the gesture all the way to her toes.

The village noticed, of course. How could it not?

Old women at the market smiled into their sleeves when Sasuke carried Sakura’s purchases without being asked. Academy students whispered and pointed. A pair of chunin from another district tried to flirt with Sakura outside the florist and retreated with visible confusion when Sasuke stepped up behind her and simply looked at them until they remembered urgent business elsewhere.

“You cannot keep scaring civilians,” Sakura told him afterward, fighting laughter.

“They weren’t civilians,” Sasuke said.

“You know what I mean.”

“They were irritating.”

“You’re impossible.”

“You like me anyway.”

There was no good answer to that.

-

The best part, though, was that once the truth was out, Sakura no longer had to divide herself.

She could sit with Ino and talk honestly now. About silly things and serious things and, to her everlasting mortification, about Sasuke.

Ino took to this development with the enthusiasm of someone who had discovered a new hobby.

“So,” Ino said one weekend, sprawled on Sakura’s bed with all the entitlement of a second owner, “have you kissed yet?”

Sakura nearly dropped the brush she was using on her hair. “Ino!”

“What? It’s a normal question.”

“No, it’s not!”

“It absolutely is when your boyfriend has been looking at you like a half-starved man at a bakery for the last two years.”

Sakura buried her burning face in her hands. “Please leave.”

Ino cackled. “That’s a yes, then.”

“It is not a yes!”

“Not a no either.”

Before Sakura could die on the spot, her mother called from the front room that Sasuke was at the door.

Ino made a sound like a delighted predator.

“Do not,” Sakura warned.

Ino smiled with all her teeth. “I’m going to be so horrible.”

She was, in fact, horrible.

She swept into the entryway with Sakura trailing behind and greeted Sasuke as if she were a noble lady receiving an inferior suitor. “Uchiha.”

“Ino,” Sasuke said, perfectly flat.

Sakura wanted to dissolve.

Ino tapped her chin. “You’re here for Sakura, I assume. How serious are your intentions?”

Sakura made a strangled choking noise.

Sasuke, to his credit, did not even blink. “Serious.”

Ino narrowed her eyes as if evaluating him at an auction.

“Good answer,” she said. Then she leaned sideways and stage-whispered to Sakura, “He can stay.”

Sakura lunged for her. Ino dodged, laughing herself breathless all the way out the door.

Left alone in the entryway, Sakura covered her face. “I’m never speaking to her again.”

“You will,” Sasuke said.

“Yes, probably.”

He was quiet for a second. When she looked up, he was watching her with that softened expression he wore only in private. “She’s important to you.”

Sakura nodded. “She always has been.”

“That’s good.”

Something in his tone made her smile. “You really don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind that your friend cares about you?”

Sakura’s chest went warm. “Because some boys are stupid.”

“I’m not.”

“No,” she said, stepping closer, “you’re not.”

His hand came up at once, settling at her waist. Sakura still wasn’t used to how naturally he held her now. Or maybe she was too used to it; maybe that was the problem. Being touched by Sasuke had become one of the ways her body understood safety.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Where?”

“Home.”

She blinked. “The Uchiha compound?”

He nodded.

Sakura laughed. “Did your mother invite me again?”

“Yes.”

“That fast?”

“She asked yesterday why you hadn’t visited this week.”

Sakura tried not to look too pleased and failed.

-

At the compound, Mikoto greeted Sakura with such triumphant delight that it became immediately obvious she had known exactly what she was doing by inviting her.

“Oh good,” Mikoto said, drawing Sakura into a hug before she could even remove her sandals. “He finally stopped sulking.”

Sakura, caught in a maternal embrace that smelled faintly of tea leaves and soap, looked helplessly over Mikoto’s shoulder.

Sasuke had the decency to look mildly embarrassed.

“Mikoto-san,” Sakura said carefully, “was he sulking?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Mother and son answered at the same time.

Mikoto ignored Sasuke. “Terribly. Very gloomy. Sat in the engawa staring into space like a tragic hero from one of those serialized dramas.”

“That’s not what happened,” Sasuke said.

“It is exactly what happened,” Itachi said from the hallway, appearing like a helpful ghost.

Sakura clapped a hand over her mouth to hide her laughter.

Sasuke looked at his family with the betrayed dignity of someone realizing he was outnumbered. “You’re all annoying.”

Fugaku glanced up from the newspaper in the adjacent room. “Correct.”

It shouldn’t have felt so easy, being here. But it did.

Mikoto kept Sakura in the kitchen for nearly an hour under the pretense of teaching her a stew recipe and actually, Sakura suspected, because she enjoyed asking gentle but mortifying questions like whether Sasuke remembered to speak in full sentences around his girlfriend.

“He speaks,” Sakura said loyally, chopping tomatoes.

“Mm,” Mikoto said.

Sakura smiled despite herself. “Sometimes.”

“That’s what I thought.”

When they carried the finished dishes into the dining room, Sasuke took the heavier tray from Sakura without comment. His fingers brushed hers in the exchange. Tiny. Familiar. Intimate enough that Mikoto’s eyes softened over the rim of her teacup.

Later, after dinner and after Naruto had dropped by uninvited, eaten half the leftovers, and been shooed back out by Fugaku’s increasingly formidable stare, Sakura found herself standing in the garden under the evening sky.

Sasuke joined her a minute later.

Inside, she could still hear Mikoto laughing at something Itachi said.

“They like you,” Sasuke said.

Sakura looked at him. “Your mother has basically adopted me.”

He considered. “That sounds right.”

“And your father?”

“He approves.”

“How do you know?”

“He asked if I intended to waste your time.”

Sakura nearly swallowed her own tongue. “He what?”

Sasuke looked almost smug. “I said no.”

“Oh my god.”

“He seemed satisfied.”

There were too many feelings inside her at once—embarrassment, delight, disbelief, affection so full it hurt. “Your family is terrifying.”

“You’re not scared of them.”

“No,” she admitted. “I’m not.”

He stepped closer until their shoulders touched. “Good.”

They stood like that in the garden, side by side, while night gathered around the compound and warm light spilled from the house behind them. Sakura thought of everything that had led here: a lonely little girl and the friend who taught her how to be brave, years of silence, years of wanting, every quiet touch she had been too frightened to trust, every choice that had preserved one bond long enough to allow another to grow honestly beside it.

“I wasted so much time,” she said softly.

Sasuke turned his head. “On what?”

“Being scared.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, with unusual gentleness, he reached over and threaded his fingers through hers.

“You’re here now,” he said.

Simple. Certain. Like that was enough.

Maybe it was.

Sakura squeezed his hand. “You really liked me all that time?”

“Yes.”

“Even when I was annoying?”

“You’re still annoying.”

She gasped in mock offense. He actually smiled.

“Even then,” he amended.

She leaned her head briefly against his shoulder. “Good.”

His free hand came up to smooth over her hair, a touch so tender it nearly undid her. Sasuke had always been careful with what mattered to him. Mikoto had been right about that.

And now Sakura knew, finally, that she was one of those things.

Not because she had won him from anyone. Not because she had fought for him against her friend. Not because she had been chosen in some cruel contest.

But because he had loved her quietly, steadily, while she learned how to stop hiding from her own heart.

From inside the house, Mikoto’s voice drifted through the open door. “Sasuke! Sakura-chan! Dessert!”

Sakura laughed.

Sasuke’s hand tightened around hers just enough to make her look up. There was warmth in his eyes, and something possessive too, but softer now that he no longer had to conceal it.

“We should go in,” Sakura said.

“In a minute.”

She felt suddenly shy under that gaze. “Why?”

He looked at her mouth, then back at her eyes. “Because there’s something I’ve wanted to do all evening.”

Sakura’s breath caught. “Oh.”

That tiny sound seemed to please him.

He lifted his hand to her face the same way he had that morning on the training ground, thumb resting lightly against her cheek. Waiting. Giving her time to move away if she wanted.

She didn’t.

When Sasuke kissed her, it was gentle in the way only very restrained people can be gentle—careful because the feeling underneath was anything but small. His lips brushed hers once, lightly, like a question. Sakura made a helpless little sound and leaned closer. His hand at her cheek slid to cradle her jaw, and the second kiss was warmer, surer, still sweet enough to make her knees feel unreliable.

When they parted, Sakura opened her eyes to find him already watching her.

“You’ve definitely wanted to do that for a while,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“How long?”

He considered. “A while.”

She laughed breathlessly. “Very specific.”

He touched his forehead to hers. “Do you need the exact date?”

“Maybe.”

“I could probably estimate.”

“You are such a nerd.”

He looked mildly offended. “You like that too.”

She smiled, unable not to. “I do.”

There it was again, that tiny rare smile of his, given to her like a secret. “Then that’s fine.”

From the doorway, Mikoto called, “If you two are making moon eyes at each other instead of eating dessert, I’m bringing the tray outside.”

Sakura jerked back with a squeak. Sasuke closed his eyes briefly, resigned.

“She definitely knows,” Sakura whispered.

“Of course she does.”

“Does that not bother you?”

“No.”

Sakura studied him. “You’re very calm about your mother witnessing your love life.”

“She’s been asking when I was going to do something about it for months.”

Sakura laughed so hard she had to press a hand to her stomach.

Then, because she was full of too much happiness to hold all of it quietly, she reached for him first this time, catching his sleeve and then his hand.

Sasuke looked down at their joined fingers, then back at her with something warm and astonished deep in his eyes, as if despite everything he still wasn’t entirely used to being reached for either.

“Come on,” Sakura said softly. “Before your mother adopts me officially.”

“She already has.”

“Probably true.”

Hand in hand, they walked back toward the house.

Toward laughter and dessert and the bright, ordinary warmth of a family that had made room for her. Toward a future she no longer had to be ashamed to want. Toward friendship kept, not broken; toward love that had waited patiently for her to see it; toward the strange, wonderful certainty that maybe some things were not ruined by being chosen at all.

Maybe some things became real only when you finally let yourself choose them back.