Author's Note: Here is the sixth installment for the Naruto Couple Event on Tumblr. I hope you all enjoy!

title: footsteps
event: naruto couple's event 2018
prompt: favorite platonic relationship / family / confession
pairing: platonic naruto x sarada, implied naruto x hinata, implied sakura x sasuke
genre: family / drama
summary: "Anbu brought them to my office at the hospital," Sakura quipped, venom in her tone. "It seems that they got into a fight…in the middle of the market."

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, they belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

Let me know what you think by reviewing! Favorite and follow, also!When Naruto became Hokage, he understood that he would be settling his fair share of disputes, both inside and outside of the village.

Over the years, the blond believed he had garnered a firm grasp on international quarrels, but the domestic incidents…those he still struggled with.

It all had to do with personally knowing the people whose arguments he was meditating. People accused him of favoring ninja over civilians or siding with those who he had been friends with for years.

There was no winning being the middleman, and this situation was no different.

The last thing that Naruto expected when he opened his office door was to see Sakura standing there, arms crossed, lips pinched down into an unfriendly frown. Her eyes were narrowed slits of jade, and there was a muscle jumping above her right eyebrow.

Naruto had been on the receiving end of that look many times. Her anger was simmering just below the surface, teetering very close to blowing sky high.

Quickly wracking his brain, the blond thought back over the last week, trying to deduce out if he had done something that would incur the wrath of his cherry-haired teammate. With nothing immediately standing out, Naruto became increasingly curious.

Whatever it was that had Sakura wound up, she apparently couldn't deal with it on her own, otherwise, she wouldn't have come to him.

"S-Sakura-chan!" Naruto greeted, hesitantly. "What brings you here?"

There was a handful of ways that he could go about managing an irate Sakura. He wanted to go for the approach that didn't end with him getting smacked in the back of the head.

Sakura didn't return his welcoming. Instead, she turned to the right, shifting her attention towards some point behind the doorway.

"Come on," she ground out. "Don't be shy. You've both been so outspoken until now."

There was a pause, before a shuffling of feet, and Naruto quirked a fair-haired brow at the two new individuals who stood in his office doorway.

Boruto and Sarada fidgeted uncomfortably in front of him. His son looked off to the side, refusing to meet his gaze, hands shoved into his pockets. Sarada stared at a fixed point beyond Naruto's shoulder, her hands clasped in front of her, fingers awkwardly twining and untwining.

Everything would have seemed relatively standard if it weren't for their twin states of utter dishevelment. Both pre-teens were covered from head to toe in dirt and grime. Sarada sported a few slashes in her red top and the sleeve of her shirt was burned away, revealing angry, blistering skin that covered the majority of her right shoulder.

Boruto's clothes were in tatters; his right eye was swollen shut, blood smeared under his nose and over the collar of his white shirt.

"ANBU brought them to my office at the hospital," Sakura quipped, venom in her tone. "It seems that they got into a fight…in the middle of the market."

Naruto grimaced, taking a step back from the door, before stating, "Bring them inside."

At first, neither of the children moved – Boruto looked like he was ready to bolt – but Sakura placed one of her hands on either of their shoulders, thwarting any attempts at escaping, and gentling pushed them forward into the office.

Sakura corralled Boruto into one of the chairs in front of Naruto's desk, grabbing the boy's chin and tilting his face upwards so she could get a better look at his nose. Sarada stood awkwardly next to the pair, refusing to look in his son's direction.

"So…," Naruto started slowly, blue eyes zeroing in on his child. "You want to tell me what this is all about?"

Boruto's eyes met his briefly, azure locked with azure, before quickly shifting away, lips pursing as he did so.

"Apparently," Sakura murmured, hands glowing green as she worked to soothe to bruising around Boruto's eye. "Witnesses to the brawl said that they were fighting about you."

"What?" Naruto inquired, lips parted in his confused stupor. "What would they be fighting about me for?"

The pinkette's head whirled in his direction, a scowl marring her brow.

"Well, how would I know?!" She growled. "They haven't said a word since they got caught. Apparently, these two could destroy a vendor's cart with exploding tags, but when faced with the consequences, they can't seem to verbalize as to why they had done so."

Sakura turned her attention back towards Boruto, who remained tense under her healing hands.

Opting to try a different approach, Naruto looked towards Sarada, who stood stiffy next to her mother, eyeing the Hokage warily.

Naruto knew Sarada had a stubborn streak when it came to her mother, especially when she ended up in the hot seat. The blond didn't particularly blame her; Sakura was a hard person to deal with when she was angry; her emotions were always a large part of her personality, they drove her, but in some instances, it was almost suffocating to be on the receiving end of them.

Under these circumstances, however, Naruto knew that his ex-teammate's heart was in the right place.

Sakura Haruno loved her daughter more than anything in the world.

Sarada just had difficulty understanding her mother. Sakura was an enigma; a bundle of anger, love, and unresolved strength; a natural fighter and a world-renowned healer. There were so many aspects to Sakura that Sarada had yet to grasp. Notably, the relationship that Sasuke and Sakura shared.

Naruto knew that the young Uchiha was trying her best to comprehend the unique lives her parents chose to lead, but the more Sarada struggled, the more her frustration seemed to mount.

Sarada continued to look at him, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The onyx-haired preteen looked like she was about to speak, lips parting to offer some explanation for their behavior, but she hesitated.

Apparently thinking it better to remain silent than to speak her mind, Sarada snapped her mouth closed and averted her eyes.

Sakura, who finished restoring Boruto to his prior state of excellent health, turned towards her daughter and began to heal the burn on her shoulder.

"I confessed to Boruto…" The youngest Uchiha suddenly murmured, interrupting the silence that had encompassed the room.

Sakura's brows shot up, and she peered at Naruto from her position behind her daughter. The confused look on her face mirrored his own, and for a very long, drawn-out moment, the adults in the room merely gazed at one another.

Sakura was the one who broke their staring contest, green eyes sliding towards Boruto then to Sarada.

"By confession…you mean…?" Sakura left the remaining part of her question unsaid, her gaze continuously flicking between their children.

Sarada looked perplexed, trying to understand the implication of her mother's inquiry. After a minute, realization dawned on her face, but before she could clarify anything, Boruto finally broke his self-induced silence.

"Not that type of confession! That's just gross!" He screeched, an embarrassed flush blooming across his cheeks.

Sarada bristled, black eyes glaring at the blond sitting a few feet from her. "And just what is that supposed to mean!?"

Sakura, physically caught in between their yelling offspring, looked back in Naruto's direction, giving him a glower that clearly said 'fix this, you idiot.'

"Alright, enough," Naruto commanded, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "One of you start talking. Start from the beginning and don't spare any details."

"She confessed that she wanted to be Hokage when she got older, and I may have…" The younger Uzumaki broke off, toiling with his wording. "I may have disagreed with that."

Sarada rounded on Boruto then, breaking from her mother's grip in the process.

Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides as she barked out, "By disagree he means that he said it was 'stupid of me to think that way' and that I would end up 'uselessly wandering around like my father.'"

As the reasoning behind their fight was announced, Sakura tensed, her shoulders becoming as stiff as a board. Emerald eyes honed in on her daughter, taking in the quivering chin, furrowed brow, and the white knuckles of her tightened hands.

Naruto knew an impending crisis when he saw one and, at that moment, he once again felt the weight of being a mediator.

Despite Boruto being his flesh and blood, there was right, and there was wrong, and his son was clearly in the wrong. The brooding grief he would most likely get from his oldest child was imminent, but he could worry about that later.

"Sakura-chan," the Nanadaime started, gaining the attention of all the room's occupants. "Could you take Boruto home? I'm sure Hinata would be more than happy to see you."

Sakura refused to acknowledge Naruto's statement, not lifting her eyes from her daughter.

After a short, strained minute, the rosette sighed before turning towards the younger blond. "Come on Boruto-kun. We can pick up some dango on the way. I'm sure your mother would like that."

Needing no further prompting, his son jumped up from the chair and made a beeline right for the door.

Sakura followed after him at a more leisurely pace, pausing when she stood next to Sarada. She placed a hand on her daughter's head, fingering the inky locks as she dragged her hand down the side of the young Uchiha's face to cup her cheek.

A moment passed between mother and daughter and Sakura pulled away with a small smile on her lips.

"I'll see you soon," the cherry-haired woman hummed before continuing her way out of the door. She spared Naruto a passing glance but said nothing on the way out of his office.

Left alone with both of his best friends' child, Naruto reclaimed his seat behind his desk, gesturing for Sarada to sit in the chair that Boruto had recently vacated.

The dark-haired female hesitated for a moment, then heeded his signal, sitting in the armchair.

"I'm going to be honest here," Naruto stated with a nervous chuckle. "I'm not really the best when it comes to handling these types of situations. When Boruto and Himawari argue, Hinata is the better at calming them down than I am."

Sarada, unsure of which direction his rambling was going, merely nodded her head.

"First, I want to start off by apologizing for what Boruto said to you, and he will be personally saying that he's sorry later on. However," The Hokage trailed off, face losing all traces of humor. "You both will be going to the market tomorrow to repair the vendor's cart and clean up the mess that you both made."

Sarada's lips thinned out, the corners of her mouth drawing down into a tiny frown.

"Understood, Hokage-sama," She commented softly.

Naruto's face relaxed at the admission.

"You know, your father is one of the strongest people that I have ever met." At the mention of her sire, onyx eyes immediately fixated on his face. "Sasuke suffered alone for a very long time, more so than anyone that I have ever met. A lot of people had things to say about the infamous 'Last Uchiha,' but instead of letting what they said bother him, he trained. Everyday. Until he paved his own path."

Naruto's lips curled into a small smirk as his mind flashed with memories of his younger years.

"Although Sasuke's journey was more…lengthy than the rest of ours, he still achieved the goals he set out to. There was nothing anyone could say that could deter him from that and I think you're very much like your father in that aspect."

Sarada's gaze was wide-eyed as Naruto's confession washed over her.

The blond reached out for the caped hat that rested on the corner of his desk.

"If you're looking to wear this one day, the path won't be easy, but you have your mother's stubbornness and your father's pride, so I look forward to seeing what you achieve."

The Nanadaime gave his best friends' daughter a cheeky grin as he pushed back from his desk, standing from the chair and crossing the space between them with a few long strides.

Naruto stood in front of Sarada, who, still stunned, was trying to process the weight of the words that he had just graced her with. She tilted her head, looking at him with a small smile and a hopeful expression encompassing her features.

"Come on," Naruto chirped, depositing his hat on Sarada's head before making his way towards the door. "If we hurry, maybe we can make it home before they eat all the dango."

He didn't have to look back to know that the youngest Uchiha was hot on his heels, following him across the room and out the door.

Thank you for reading!

word count: 2,129
last edited on: 05/17/18

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