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‹ morning glory ›

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Burrowing her fingers into the moist dirt in the early light of the morning, Sakura hummed to herself as she weeded the back garden of their home.

It still felt strange to say that, to even think it. Their home.

It had already been four months into their tender and quiet marriage, and she still hadn't gotten used to signing her name Uchiha Sakura. But as she kneeled at the edge of the flowerbeds, gloves tossed away in favor of feeling the soft earth against her skin, she felt like Uchiha Sakura.

A smile curled at her lips, and she yanked out some weeds, tossing them into the steadily growing pile at her side.

They had had moved into his old home, replaced the flooring to get rid of the blood stains, and had been fairly content with the new state of things.

She'd gotten more time off the past few years than she thought would ever be possible. It seemed like peacetime brought with it a particular kind of idleness.

She still went on missions and managed the hospital, but with the patient count at an all-time low and the danger in the world at a minimum…there wasn't a lot to take care of. And since she was in charge of her own hours at the hospital, she was free to ration her work as needed.

Needless to say it was relaxing…and consequently made her incredibly restless.

Somewhere along the way, Ino had suggested she take up gardening and she had, as of late, found herself planting every type of bloom imaginable, relishing in the splashes of color and the calm, methodical process of plant care.

It was when she was gardening that she allowed herself to dream, imagine the feeling of having a belly heavy with child, the giggles of something that she'd created and the pitter patter of feet in the hallways of their home.

She hummed thoughtfully and began to carve out a hole in the empty patch of dirt to plant the indigo pansies she'd purchased a few days earlier. Shifting the dirt around to make room, she stopped short when her fingers slid against something smooth and solid.

Frowning, she felt around tentatively and yanked at what felt like the lip of the object. And all of a sudden, with a spray of dirt, a wooden lacquered box was dragged to the surface.

Sakura blinked.

She'd known that the Uchiha clan had their secrets, but it had never crossed her mind that they were the type to hide them in their plant life.

Wiping her hands off on her pants quickly, she sat backwards with a sigh, and examined the unremarkable box, quickly locating the opening.

A small latch secured it shut, but with no lock, all it took was a quick flick of her fingers for the top to swing open…and unveil a stack of photographs.

They were untouched by time in every sense of the phrase. Not only were the photos dust and dirt free, but there was writing on the back of each and every one, detailing exactly what was occurring in the corresponding image.

The penmanship was feminine and small, and Sakura was fairly certain that this meticulous documentation was all done by Sasuke's mother.

And to boot, they weren't clan secrets or anything of the sort, either. They were baby photos. Family photos. Candids of Fugaku asleep at the kitchen table and of a glowing Mikoto, her curious eldest son, and in her hands a small bundle she knew to be Sasuke.

A picture of Itachi at his Academy graduation, of relatives laughing around a table in a house that was unfamiliar to her. Sasuke holding a stuffed dinosaur extremely possessively, and a girl—

Sakura paused in her perusal.

A girl, dressed pristinely with all the looks of wealthy upbringing holding hands with a decidedly dissatisfied Sasuke. And right beside the two of them, Mikoto, all smiles and twinkling eyes.

Sakura stared for a long moment before flipping the photo over to read the description on the back.

There were only a handful of things in Sakura's life that had made her felt like her world had stopped moving, but she never thought this would be one of them. In blue ink, this: Sasuke and his precious fiancée, Yue.

—

"Tell me what to do," Sakura said, scrubbing the grout between her bathroom tiles with a toothbrush.

Ino, who was perched on the vanity of the master bathroom, shrugged as she observed the cleaning frenzy occurring before her eyes. "I don't even see why this is such a big deal. He's married to you, stupid, and every night the two of you fuck like bunnies, I'm sure—"

Sakura's fingers fumbled around the toothbrush, dropping it as she sat back on her heels, her face turning an uncomfortable shade of pink. "Ino!"

"It's true, isn't it?"

Pursing her lips, Sakura pushed behind her ears the stray hairs that hadn't made it into her ponytail. "That is beside the point," she said primly, plucking up the toothbrush from the ground again, waving it around as she tried to explain. "It's not…I mean, she doesn't bother me. It's just that he never told me about her. I thought we were beyond secrets."

Leaning over to snatch the toothbrush from Sakura's hand, Ino quickly snapped it in half, ignoring the squawks of protest. "So ask him. Simple as that. And stop cleaning like your life depends on it. Your grout is spotless."

"But then he'll wonder how I know…and then he'll be irritated that I snooped around."

Arching her eyebrow, Ino hopped off of the counter and pulled Sakura up from the floor. "Did you snoop around?"

"…not intentionally, no."

Ino ushered Sakura into the kitchen, sitting her down on a barstool, and then proceeded to grab two mugs out of the cabinet, waiting for Sakura to come to her own conclusions as she always did.

"I think…I'll hint at it and give him the opportunity to tell me on his own. Otherwise I'll just tell him that I know up front."

Ino snorted, pouring hot water into each of the cups before tearing open a couple of packets of chocolate powder and dumping them unceremoniously in each mug, pushing one towards Sakura. "Stir," she instructed, handing her a spoon. "You're treating this like it's the end of the world. Relationships are about communication—if you want to know something, you're within your rights to ask."

Sakura pouted. "I know, I just…I want him to tell me. I don't want to have to ask. Especially if she's a relative or something—I don't want to be the wife that asks about the dead fiancée and subsequently becomes the most insensitive person on the face of the planet."

Ino rolled her eyes. "How you two function as a couple is beyond me. Now drink your cocoa so I can leave. I've got places to go, people to see, and babies to make."

—

Sakura didn't know if it was her natural knack for organization as head of the hospital or the fact that she'd been a ninja since she was quite young but by the time Sasuke returned home from his office at the Military Police Force, she had devised a Battle Plan.

He'd shouldered the door open and set the takeout on the table while he shucked his shoes and set them by the rack.

"Hey," she said, padding into the kitchen, comfortable in a soft sweater.

In a way that she wasn't sure she would ever get used to, he greeted her with a kiss. His hands would automatically reach for her waist, and like it was normal, like it was something they were going to do until they turned spindly and old and gray, he kissed her, sweet and simple.

"Hi," he returned, his fingers sliding under the hem of her sweater to graze her bare back.

She smiled widely, leaning backwards to look at his face. "So today I planted pansies and daffodils in the back garden, and I cleaned the bathroom grout with a toothbrush. I think I'm getting the hang of this domestic life stuff. All I have left to do is the hospital paperwork."

He snorted. "With a toothbrush?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Well, actually, I did half of the grout. But then Ino broke the toothbrush like we were in a godforsaken prison and she was going to use the sharp end to shank me to get my stale bread. And then she left, the jerk," she paused. "Want to see the flowers?"

"Lead the way," he gestured, following her as she stumbled down the patio, lacing her fingers with his to guide him.

"I hope they won't die, but…" she trailed off, pointing at the new colors in the flowerbed, where the yellows and the purples intermingled among the herbs she'd planted along the back for medicinal purposes.

"It smells like shit."

Sakura scowled, elbowing him in the side hard. "It's soil. It's good for them to grow."

"Doesn't change the fact that it smells like shit," he shrugged, rubbing the spot where she'd likely inflicted a bruise.

She huffed. "Well anyways, as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted, when I was little I used to try and dig holes to find fossils or long lost history," she said, inspecting his face closely as she mentioned this.

No reaction.

"And I was telling Ino about it, and she told me once when she was repotting plants when she was younger in the flower shop, she found a wedding ring in the bag of soil."

Still no reaction.

"She found out it was from their shop's supplier's wife. They'd had an arranged marriage to unite two agriculture firms—"

"What's wrong?" he interrupted her, fixing her with a penetrating stare.

She blinked. "What?"

"You're talking a lot, which means you're hedging around something that's making you uncomfortable. I'm not blind, and you're not a very good liar, so spit it out."

She stopped, very unsure of herself all of a sudden. With Ino's words echoing in her head, she clasped her hands behind her back. "I…don't know. Gardening made me think about a lot of things." Not entirely a lie, she supposed.

"Such as?" he prodded, folding his arms across his chest.

She looked at where her toes burrowed into the grass and then back up at him. "About families."

He seemed surprised, and dropped his hands back to her waist, their favored position of choice, and she, in turn, wound her hands around his shoulders. "Families?"

"Kids, actually," she murmured into the crook of his neck. "And I know we've talked about this already, but…I don't know. I don't know where I was going with this."

"Okay," he chuckled and leaned with the intention of kissing the side of her neck.

She frowned, pulling away entirely and flicking him on the arm. "Don't laugh."

And then proceeded to flounce back into the house, making a beeline for the takeout. She'd resume the Battle Plan after she'd sufficiently stuffed herself.

—

It was a few hours later that she brought it back up again, setting down the pen and pushing aside the large stack of forms. "Do you suppose those people had a happy marriage?"

"Hm?" Sasuke said without looking up from the medical textbook she'd written. He'd gotten into the practice of being overly fascinated in her forte—at the thing that made villagers from all around the world flock to Leaf for medical care.

"The agriculture firm people. With the ring. The arranged marriage?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Does it matter?"

"Well, her wedding ring was in a bunch of dirt," she noted, eyeing her own, simple band. "I just don't know what that says. Do you think it was an accident or intentional?"

Sasuke sighed, setting down the heavy book. "Well, did Ino give it back?"

She nodded. "Yeah, she found their address and paid them a visit."

"So they took the ring back. Probably an accident, then."

There was a long moment of silence in which Sasuke flipped a page and resumed reading again. And then: "Do you think they love each other?"

Sasuke shut the book and shot her an incredulous look. "What?"

"I'm just theorizing," she defended hotly.

He rubbed his face tiredly. "What's wrong?" he drawled.

This was not how the plan was supposed to go. He was not supposed to be a dunderhead. He was supposed just tell her who this girl was. "There's nothing wrong, I'm just askin—"

"Just tell me."

"It's nothing!"

"Sakura."

"I'm telling you, I'm fine," she bit out, annoyed.

He exhaled sharply. "Sakura, just spit it out."

"No! I'm fine, I don't need to talk about anything; it's you that needs to—" She began, cutting herself off as she realized her irritation was getting the better of her.

"I need to?" he nudged.

"Nothing!" she shrieked. "I'm fine. I'm doing paperwork. Don't bother me."

Disbelief colored his face. "You're the one who asked me all these inane questions in the first place, and now that you've started this, you need to finish it."

"There's nothing to finish!" she protested, flapping her arms emphatically.

"Stop being idiotic and do us both a favor and just say—"

"Fine! Fine, you want to know?" Ignoring all the protests in her head, and an ugly frown marring her face, she barreled onwards. "Why haven't you told me about her?"

Sasuke paused, searching her face. "What are you talking about?"

"Your fiancée!" Her face heated up in embarrassment of the plan falling apart this way, at the look that Sasuke was giving her as if she was completely insane.

The room settled into tense silence for all of five seconds. "I'm not sure if you're aware, but you're my wife."

Firmly ignoring the happy tingles that raced up her spine at the word wife, she held tight to her anger and tugged at her hair in frustration. "Not now, I mean before."

"Have you completely lost it?"

She stood then, thrusting a finger at him, shaking with anger. "I knew it would come to this! You always think my worries are irrational and ridiculous, but I'm human and I have feelings and the fact that you didn't even trust me to tell me about her—I thought we were beyond that! I thought we were done with secrets!"

"We are—"

"Clearly not, since you didn't bother to tell me about the fact that you were supposed to marry someone else!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?!"

She shrieked, then. "YUE. I'M TALKING ABOUT YOUR ALMOST WIFE."

All the anger drained from him, then, and he paused. "How do you know Yue?"

She hissed, seething, not answering his question. "I tried to hint around it so you would tell me yourself, but you're just like the rest of the male species—dense and idiotic and completely—mmphhh!"

And then Sasuke's lips were hard on hers and his hand was tugging at the bottom of her shirt. She tore her lips away from the kiss, still agitated. "What do you think you're doing?!"

She pushed at his chest, but to no avail, and aggravatingly, he just continued to suck along her neck as if nothing in the world was even the slightest bit wrong. "Shut up," he muttered.

This served to provoke her, and this time, with chakra, she shoved him away, completely furious. "You cannot be serious. Tell me you did not just try to placate me with sex."

Any and all humor that used to be present was gone, and in that moment, Sasuke knew what it was like to be on the other side of her killing intent on a battle field.

"Sakura, you're—"

"I swear to fucking god, if you say I'm being ridiculous—" she stopped herself, breathing heavily.

He sighed, then, and began to tell the story.

—

A little less than twenty years ago, Sasuke had been the second son of two very proud, very alive parents. He lived in the Uchiha district and was brought up among doting relatives and precocious peers.

He had a fairly normal life. He woke up under the same sun as every other person, ate breakfast without bothering to brush the crumbs off of his face, grabbed his bag, and ran out of the door with a beloved peck on the cheek from his mother.

He attended the Academy, and every day, he passed by Uchiha Teyaki and Uruchi. They owned a small bakery down near the entrance of the district, and his parents were close with them.

Plus, they gave him free baked goods every Tuesday.

And so without fail, he would wave enthusiastically to the elderly couple who would always comment fondly on how fast he was growing up—comments that built up his ego.

He couldn't wait to grow up.

Growing up, to him, meant being as cool as his older brother and gaining the full force of his father's pride and being a good ninja—just and fair and loyal.

To Uchiha Yue, the granddaughter of Teyaki and Uruchi, it meant getting married.

Sasuke and Yue had never seen eye to eye, but her parents had perished in a mission, defending their country, and so she was raised by her grandparents—the same ones that gave him sweets.

He couldn't afford to piss her off.

Especially since Yue was manipulative. Nobody believed him, but she was—he'd swear on his stuffed dinosaur's life. She was tricky and slippery and when nobody was looking she'd give him these looks that spoke of grave things indeed.

It all started one Saturday afternoon when his mother had returned from the market with Uruchi and Yue in tow.

At his mother's bidding, Sasuke was told to go play with Yue while the ladies talked.

Yue had tossed him an all too innocent, all too saccharine sweet smile and skipped ahead of him into the back of the house where she had found, to his horror, his stuffed dinosaur, left abandoned. Picking it up curiously, she turned around to face him with a maniacal smile, and then he was at her mercy.

She had his dinosaur.

What else was a man supposed to do but grovel?

Somewhere along the lines, with his dinosaur as ransom and her grip on his hair tight, she'd managed to wrangle him into a dress. A girl's dress! All for the purposes of playing some "game" called "house".

Right. That's what they all said. But Sasuke knew she was evil. This was just some heinous plot to gather blackmail from him and then proceed to ruin his life. It was the only feasible explanation.

So while she was all giggles and buttoning up the back of his purple, glittery dress that she had procured from hell, he was plotting his escape. But it was too late because her laughter had alerted his mother and the embarrassment was too far gone.

She was coming, and Sasuke was going to lose all of his man points.

His face slowly began to pink up, and Yue grabbed his hand suddenly. "Mikoto-baa!" she squealed, "Sasuke-chan and I are going to get married."

That night, while his parents were sleeping, a desperate Sasuke knelt in a flowerbed, arms elbow deep in dirt, and buried the box of incriminating photos where nobody would ever find them. Especially not Yue.

—

Sakura awoke the next day curled against her husband just as dawn peeked through the semi sheer curtains. His breathing on her neck had tickled her awake, and she shifted his arms, leaning over him as he pretend to be asleep.

"I found a box buried in the dirt in the garden," she started, kissing a trail into existence on his bare chest. "It was made of wood, and it was previously in the spot where the pansies are."

He cracked an eye open. "What?"

She whispered her way up his skin, nuzzling his chin. "It had photos. That's how I knew about Yue. She was in the box. It's in the kitchen right now."

At that, he opened his eyes fully, locking his gaze with hers. "You put it in the kitchen."

"Yes?"

"You put the box that was buried in flower dirt that smells like shit in the kitchen. Where we eat."

At that, Sakura fell backwards onto her side of the bed with a half amused, half irritated groan and kicked him in the shin even as he feathered his fingers down her ribs playfully. "Sasuke-kun, I want a divorce."

He smirked and leaned over, slanting his lips against hers. "Shut up."

—

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notes: wow I've been uploading a lot this week. ahem.

for the sasusaku-headcanons tumblr—they'd been kind enough to invite me to celebrate with them for this year's sasusaku month and I enjoyed it immensely. hopefully as much as you enjoyed reading it. (:

this is the headcanon I'd been given to write for: While they were cleaning their house, Sakura finds a photograph of a little girl with a beautiful woman, who was obviously Mikoto. It was apparent from the next set of pictures that the little girl and her family were a close relative/friend to Sasuke's family. Later on, it is revealed that the girl was supposed to be Sasuke's fiancee.

happy ssm!