Chapter Text
July
Sasuke stared blankly at the forms in front of him. He had had a month to prepare for this moment, but felt no closer to making a decision than he did when he first found out he needed to make one. He let out a sigh, crossed his arms, and leaned back in his chair, a pen balanced between his nose and upper lip.
He considered himself a very decisive person. In fact, he had already known exactly what path he would take when Hinata informed him and Shikamaru at the start of the summer that she would be disbanding their team to take on a genin squad come August.
His plan was simple enough. Five years with ANBU to get all of his restlessness out and then he would start his career at the Konoha Police Force. But, his father’s rather abrupt announcement to the family last month had forced him to change all of his plans.
He sat forward again with a groan and once again glanced at the stack of forms littering his desk.
“Application to Mentor and Train a Genin Squad.”
He moved it to the side without much thought. At only twenty, he didn’t feel as if he was ready to mentor a genin squad. Not for lack of knowledge, he just didn't want to give up going on missions higher than B-rank yet. Though, Naruto’s younger brother Ichigo had just graduated. The temptation to head Ichigo’s genin squad and make his life as miserable as possible was there, but Sasuke knew Minato would never put them on the same squad. Besides, just like with ANBU, he didn’t have the time to dedicate to a genin squad anymore.
He looked to the second form and held it up in thought.
“Application to Join a New Jonin Squad”.
A good short term solution to replace his desire to join ANBU. He let out a sigh and moved that one to the side as well. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around being on a team with anyone other than Hinata or Shikamaru. He trusted them at his back and with his life. After being on a team with them for eight years, he didn’t really want to start the process over with a new squad when he knew it would just be short term. He supposed he could trust Naruto just as much, but the dobe had been teaching at the academy for over a year.
“Fostering young minds and forcing them to hear about my nindo is my greatest calling in life, teme.”
No, he had no shot of convincing Naruto to go back on active duty. Even if he did, he wouldn’t know who to ask to be their third member as Shikamaru had already begun apprenticing under his father at Intel and Battle Strategy.
That only left two more forms…
He had been given a fifth form: “ Application to Teach at Konoha Shinobi Academy”, but he had crumpled up the form and thrown it back at Naruto’s face immediately upon receiving it.
Sasuke stared longingly at the ANBU signup form on his desk.
ANBU required a minimum of five years of servitude, which was something he could no longer give them. Hell, he couldn’t even give them one year. His father now needed him to be home more than ANBU would allow.
Fugaku had gone on one of the rare missions the Yondaime would assign him to and came back sporting an injury a younger shinobi would recover from in time. At the age of fifty-two, he would never regain full function of the left side of his body. He would be retiring officially from active duty at the end of August, and stepping down as the head of the Uchiha clan the following July.
Deep down he knew the obvious answer was to just go ahead and sign up for the Police Force, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to start the rest of his life yet in the one area he could control.
He looked again at the two applications he had left. He grabbed the ANBU form and crumpled it into a ball before throwing it across the room.
With another sigh, he placed his pen back on his desk and stood up. He had another day before he had to officially make the decision. He shoved the applications in his desk drawer and moved towards the window. He opened it and rested his arms on the sill, propping his chin on them.
The middle of summer always brought a flurry of activity to the Uchiha compound. Since Konoha was located in the land of fire, their summer festival was the grandest festival of the year. The Uchiha clan being considered the fan to Konoha’s flame, it was always their honor to head the preparations for the summer festival.
He watched now as his clan members bustled around outside, preparing fireworks, painting lanterns, repairing yukata and kimono, or cutting uchiwa fans out of thick paper. A breeze brought the scent of cinnamon and butter from his aunt and uncle’s bakery up to him.
He’d bet a week’s worth of earnings that Itachi could be found there “helping.”
Sasuke watched as Minato and Kushina made their way down main street with their youngest child (Sasuke's favorite of Naruto’s younger siblings), Mikuri. The group detoured into the bakery lead by an enthusiastic Mikuri.
He hoped his aunt or Itachi sent them with some tomato shokupan knowing the Namikaze family was headed to his house to meet with his mother. After a minute, they exited the bakery. Minato had a bag in his hand. Itachi stood at the door waving with Mikuri, who now wore an apron, as Kushina and Minato made their way towards Sasuke’s house again.
Kushina popped something into her mouth with a smile, and Minato reached for her hand. Minato noticed Sasuke in the window and raised the hand holding the paper bag in greeting. Sasuke raised a hand lazily in response.
A loud laugh caught his attention. Naruto was coming down the main road as well pulling a cart laden with flowers. Ino walked next to him, her arms full of bouquets, long, blonde ponytail swaying at her waist. Behind them was another cart full of flowers, but he couldn’t see who was pulling it behind the overflowing blooms of the first cart.
Probably Shino, the third member of the former Team 7.
He closed his eyes and enjoyed the breeze for another minute. He should really go find someone to help before his mother and Naruto had him help with flower arrangements. He left his room and descended the stairs just in time for his mother to enter the sitting room with Minato and Kushina.
“Oh, Sasuke, there you are!” his mother greeted with a warm smile. “I was just about to come get you. Your Aunt Uruchi sent some tomato shokupan with Minato and Kushina.”
Sasuke accepted the paper bag with a quiet “thank you.”
“Are you done filling out those forms, dear?” Mikoto asked.
“For today,” Sasuke said distractedly as he popped a piece of the bread into his mouth.
“Finally made your decision then, Sasuke?” Minato asked brightly.
Sasuke shook his head in response. “Not yet. I still have a day though.”
Mikoto shook her head fondly at her son’s procrastination. “Are you on your way to help set up some of the stalls?”
Sasuke shook his head. “No, Father said they weren’t working on those until tomorrow.”
“Oh, so that means you’re free to help with the flower arrangements?” Mikoto smiled at him.
Shit.
“Well, I was just on my way to…” Sasuke began, but to his horror, he couldn’t think of any excuse to give. Naruto was currently on his way to Sasuke’s house with a cart of flowers, Shikamaru was busy preparing the chunin exams which were set to start next week, and Hinata was helping choreograph the dance honoring Kagutsuchi. Three facts his mother knew all too well. With a sigh, he conceded, “Yes, Mother, I’m free to help…”
Kushina let out a laugh at Sasuke’s expense.
“Oh, come now, Sasuke. Flower arranging isn’t bad!” Minato said brightly. “You get to stay inside sipping tea rather than roasting in the summer heat.”
Sasuke mumbled that old age and two daughters had made Minato soft as a knock sounded on the door.
“Sasuke, will you prepare enough tea for eight while I get the door?” Mikoto asked.
“Ah,” Sasuke said walking towards the kitchen with his hands stuffed in his pockets. As he set the kettle on the stove, he heard the front door open, and with it came Naruto and Ino’s loud voices in the hall.
“Oi, teme!” Naruto called, making his way into the kitchen as Sasuke finished putting the cups on the tray. “How the hell did you get stuck on flower duty? I thought you’d rather paint lanterns than deal with flowers all day. Was Fugaku serious about kicking you off the firework committee?”
Sasuke snorted. “We did those yesterday. I’m supposed to be focusing on my future. As if I have any choice left where that’s concerned,” Sasuke muttered leaning against the counter as he waited for the water to boil.
“And have you made a decision?” Naruto asked, completely ignoring his best friend's sour mood.
“No.”
“Isn’t the deadline tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Wait too long and Dad will pick for you.”
“I know.”
“You’re not even a little concerned about missing the deadline?”
“Not particularly.” With a sigh, he added, “we all know I’ll just end up joining the police force earlier than I originally planned.”
Naruto’s eyes softened, and he opened his mouth to say something. Probably one of his famous pep talks. Sasuke was saved from enduring it as the kettle began whistling. He picked it up and poured it into the kettle with tea leaves.
“Do you want me to give you my words of wisdom or do you just need time to brood still?”
Sasuke threw a tea bag that hit Naruto directly between the eyes.
“More time to brood then?” Naruto nodded. “I’ll grab the cream and sugar.”
He rushed to the pantry. Sasuke rolled his eyes. Naruto and Itachi were the only two people he knew that drank tea with sugar. He placed the tea on a serving tray and followed Naruto into the sitting room, now strongly overpowered by the smell of flowers.
“Oh, Sakura, do you know my youngest son, Sasuke?” Mikoto asked, reaching to hand out cups of tea after Sasuke finished pouring them.
He had almost missed her, her hair and clothes blending into the pink and red blooms around her. “We were in the same graduating class at the academy and took the chunin exams at the same time, but I can’t say our paths have really crossed since. It’s nice to see you again, Sasuke,” Sakura beamed at him with a flush on her cheeks. She was fanning herself with an uchiwa fan, so he was sure the blush had more to do with the weather than him. But he remembered that she had had a crush on him back in the academy.
She had been placed on a team with Choji and Kiba. He heard she had gone on to train under Tsunade Senju after becoming a chunin. Naruto’s younger sister Shio had taken her spot on Team 10. Now she worked exclusively at the hospital as Tsunade’s second in command. The Uchiha had their own personal doctor in the compound who was an expert on the Sharingan, and he didn’t often find himself in the hospital after missions. No, their paths hadn’t crossed in years despite the fact that she was best friends with the girl on Naruto’s team. He hadn’t really even thought about her in years. At the time of the academy she had irritated him with her flirting and the fact that she outscored him on almost every written test. He’d go so far as to say he had been relieved when they hadn’t been put on a team together.
Hinata was one of the few kunoichi in the academy that didn’t have a crush on him, and he counted his blessings everyday for her being the one to end up on his team.
His mother looked at him expectantly. Sasuke inclined his head to Sakura.
He felt he knew everything he needed to know about who Sakura was now as he watched her add sugar to her tea.
Sasuke had been spared from actually having to arrange flowers for most of the morning. He served more as an errand boy; grabbing more vases, replenishing empty flowerbuckets, filling tubs with water, finding extra shears, and saving four or five of the arrangements from falling over when Naruto bumped into them. But, his time had finally come when Kushina came to him with a gleam in her eye and an empty vase.
Resigned to his fate, he grabbed the vase with a sigh. He set it down on the only empty spot which was next to Sakura. He glared down at the vase with his arms crossed as if intimidating it would make it tell him where to even start. He glanced at the atrocity that was Naruto’s vase and vowed to at least do better than him.
Sasuke began shoving flowers together haphazardly recalling somewhere in the back of his mind his mother once commenting that the vision for an arrangement struck after you had been working on it for a few minutes.
“They say making a bouquet out of only red and white flowers is bad luck,” Sakura said, glancing up at him from her own bouquet which was a riot of blue, green, pink, and purple.
“They’re the Uchiha colors,” Sasuke said simply.
“Then I suppose the Uchiha are bad luck,” she said with a laugh, completely unfazed, and shifting her attention back to her own arrangement.
“You wouldn’t be the first person to have said so,” Sasuke muttered, adding some dark pink carnations to his arrangement to appease her. She let out a tinkling laugh at the comment, but kept her focus on her task.
This struck him as odd because the Sakura he remembered from the academy would have forced the conversation to continue instead of letting it come to its natural end. But, he supposed, he wasn’t the same as he had been at twelve either.
“Naruto, you can’t only use orange flowers! Have some variety!” Ino yelled, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
Naruto, on the other hand, may have been the same as he was at twelve…
“Don’t worry, Ino, I’m adding some purple ones too to symbolize mine and Hinata’s love!” Naruto protested.
“There are only two purple flowers in that bouquet!”
“I never said I was done!” Naruto said, reaching blindly towards a bucket of flowers. “OUCH!” He shrieked when a thorn poked his finger. He placed the finger in his mouth and said around it, “the orange flowers never hurt me…”
Ino rolled her eyes at Naruto. Sakura stepped up to his side and held out her hand. “Here, let me heal it for you.”
“No, Sakura. Let the baka suffer,” Ino groused, crossing her arms.
Naruto glared at Ino before offering Sakura his hand. “Thank you, Sakura . My only true friend around here.”
“What did I do?” Sasuke asked, despite knowing it was in his best interest to stay out of it.
“You didn’t learn medical ninjutsu.”
“Ah, yes. I learned it just for this moment,” Sakura said sarcastically, and Sasuke was surprised to find himself holding back laughter at the comment. He didn’t remember Sakura being particularly funny back in the academy. Granted, he couldn't really recall her having much of a personality at all outside of being a know-it-all and a bad flirt.
“ See? ” Naruto crowed, wagging his now healed finger in Sasuke’s face. “You clearly don’t love me like Sakura does.”
“Bold of you to assume I love you at all,” Sasuke said, slapping the offending appendage out of his face.
“Naruto is nothing if not bold,” Kushina called from somewhere across the room. There were so many blooms, Sasuke had no idea where she, Minato, or his parents even were.
“Hey!” Naruto shouted, spinning in a circle, trying to find where his mother’s voice had come from. Not for the first time, Sasuke wondered how Naruto had ever graduated from the academy. He shuddered to think what sort of shinobi the generation of students learning under Naruto would become.
“Sasuke,” his mother called from somewhere to his right. “We’re running low on peonies, carnations, tulips, irises, and delphinium. Do you and Naruto mind running to the Yamanaka shop to grab more?”
Sasuke turned to Naruto who looked completely at a loss of what any of the words his mother had just said meant. Sasuke was equally lost. He shrugged at Naruto and called back to her disembodied voice, “Of course, Mother.”
Sakura caught the exchange and chuckled, wiping her hands on her apron before taking it off and draping it carefully on the coffee table. “I’ll go with you instead.”
Naruto let out a dramatic sigh of relief at being let off the hook. “See? This is why she’s my favorite.”
“You’re such a fair weather friend, Naruto,” Ino grumbled under her breath. Sasuke remembered she and Sakura had a bit of a rivalry in the academy, and he wondered now if they still did to a certain extent.
“Try not to bleed out while she’s gone, dobe,” Sasuke said, beginning to make his way through the maze of flowers. Sakura followed behind him, throwing out a compliment to the bouquet Minato was working on on her way out. They slipped their shoes back on in the entryway and nearly ran into his father at the door.
His father may have had to lean heavily on a cane now, but he managed to use it in a way that made someone passing by think that it was a personal choice and not one borne out of necessity.
“Ah, Sasuke,” his father greeted. “I just finished loading up one of the carts. Do the two of you mind dropping them off at the fair grounds on your way? Ino’s mother will handle them from there.”
“Yes, Father,” Sasuke said with a slight incline of his head.
“Always a pleasure to see you, Sakura,” Fugaku said with a nod on his way past them to the door. Sasuke wasn’t entirely sure how Sakura knew his father, but he would ask him later. Now didn’t seem to be the time.
“You as well, sir,” Sakura said, bowing her head as well.
They made their way to the cart loaded down with a myriad of floral arrangements. The humidity and heat of the day made them smell cloyingly sweet. Sasuke grabbed the cart handles, and they began their trek down the main street of the Uchiha compound. Sweat quickly began to bead at his hairline and drip along his back. Thankfully, the fair ground and flower shop weren’t very far from his house.
“It’s strange seeing someone as stern as your father helping with something like flower arrangements for the festival,” Sakura thought aloud.
Sasuke let out a huff of laughter through his nose. “He’d do anything if it meant spending more time with my mother.”
Sakura smiled at that. “I’ve always admired your father and mother’s relationship. What I’ve seen of it, anyway. Like how they share being head of the clan equally. It’s not like that in other prominent clans of the village.”
“Father has always said he and Mother are one. She is his other, better half, and you can’t have him without her.”
“They’re lucky,” Sakura said, shooting a soft smile in his direction. “I hope to find a love like that someday.”
They were quiet for a beat before Sasuke added, “Me too.”
“Sasuke! Sasuke!” Mikuri called from the doorway of the bakery. Sasuke slowed to a stop, wiping at his forehead with the back of his arm. The young girl rushed forward with a plate in her hands, her blonde hair flying in a sheet behind her. “I just helped Itachi make some daifuku! Try it! Try it!”
Sasuke hid his displeasure at the sugary treat, but there were only two people he couldn't say no to: His niece and Mikuri. He grabbed the small confection akin to a shinobi who had just been told he was going to war. He took a bite and tried to swallow it without chewing or tasting it.
While she waited, Mikuri handed one to Sakura as well who gladly accepted it.
“It’s good,” he lied.
“Ha!” Mikuri shouted, spinning on her heel and facing the bakery again. “I told you I could get him to say he liked a sweet, Itachi!”
Sasuke glared at his brother who was laughing in the doorway. “I should have believed you!” Itachi called. Without another word, Mikuri rushed back into the bakery with Itachi.
“Still not a fan of sweets, huh?” Sakura asked.
“Not even a little.” Sasuke said, offering her the rest of his daifuku. She took it with a quiet thank you.
“I will say, I’m surprised,” Sakura said.
“About what?” Sasuke asked, brushing his hands off on his pants before picking the cart back up.
“I never thought I’d see the day that Sasuke Uchiha did something he didn’t want to do just because a girl asked him to,” she said with a laugh.
After dropping the arrangements off in Ino’s mother’s capable hands, Sasuke began wheeling the cart in the direction of the Yamanaka flower shop. The early afternoon sun was beating down on his head. Cicadas chirped loudly, drowning out some of the festival prep noise.
“I feel like I owe you an apology,” Sakura said suddenly all in a rush like she would lose her nerve if she didn’t say it quickly.
“For what?” he asked with an arched brow.
“I feel like I came on a little strong when we were younger.”
“A little?” Sasuke said with a laugh.
“Okay, a lot strong. The things I did back in the academy are some of my brain's favorite embarrassing moments to replay in my head while I’m trying to go to sleep.”
Sasuke laughed lightly, readjusting his grip on the cart. “I was slightly relieved when you nor Ino were put on my team.”
Sakura laughed at that. She must laugh easily as Sasuke knew himself to not be a funny man, and her laughter now wasn’t at all like the fake, flirty laughter he had endured in the past.
“Gosh, can you imagine what it would have been like if we had been on the same team growing up?”
“I probably would have asked Father to let me join the KPF as soon as possible,” Sasuke monotoned.
Sakura laughed again. “I told Ino I was nervous you would throw me out of your house when she and Naruto asked me to help.”
Sasuke snorted. “And risk my mother skinning me alive for my bad manners? I’d rather eat ten more of Mikuri’s daifuku.”
It was strange, Sasuke thought after dinner as everyone left, if he had been a child again, the idea of spending an entire day with Sakura would have been his nightmare. But the day had actually been kind of… nice. He wondered if perhaps he had written her off too soon. Maybe if he had treated her like a normal girl instead of an annoyance, she would have become more comfortable around him sooner. Or perhaps they had both just needed to mature.
Either way, he found himself feeling a slight pang of disappointment that it was unlikely he would be seeing more of her in the future.
***
The summer festival went off without a hitch. A week-long celebration that rarely stopped as some people celebrated all day and all night. Now, it was the closing ceremony, and Sasuke found himself wiping his sweaty palms on his yukata. His father was giving the closing speech now, and would be making the announcement at the end of it.
Normally, Sasuke would be on the other side of the lake during his father’s closing speech, waiting for the signal to start lighting the first of the final fireworks show.
“Breathe, little brother,” Itachi said, placing a hand on Sasuke’s shoulder.
Sasuke shot him a glare. “Easy for you to say. You aren’t the one who has to stand on a platform before the entirety of the village.”
“No, that will be next month,” Itachi chuckled. “And I have to actually give a speech.”
Sasuke crossed his arms with a scoff.
“You should probably unroll the sleeves of your yukata. Mother will be mortified for the entirety of the village to see your bare shoulders.”
Sasuke snorted. “I’m ushering in a new era for the Uchiha.” But he untied the string holding up the heavy sleeves of his yukata anyway.
Itachi gave Sasuke another comforting pat on the back before he made his way to the awaiting crowd, and Sasuke brought his attention back to his father’s speech.
“...many of you know, I had an unfortunate accident during my mission last month. The injuries- and our own Yondaime’s upcoming retirement- have led me to the decision to retire as Chief of Police of the Konoha Police Force as well as the head of the Uchiha clan.”
Sasuke shifted his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. He scanned the crowd and saw Hinata who gave him an encouraging nod. Beside her, he caught Naruto and Minato’s eyes. They flashed him hearty thumbs ups and Sasuke had to remind himself not to roll his eyes at his Hokage when so many people could see.
“I will step down as chief at the end of next month, however, I will not be stepping down as clan head until the start of next year’s summer festival. This will give me a year to show the ropes to my successor, whom I would like to formally announce tonight.”
The crowd silenced, waiting with baited breath. It wasn’t everyday a prominent clan announced its new head.
Fugaku held his hand back towards Sasuke, indicating for him to join him on the stage. Sasuke took a deep breath and began climbing the steps. He stopped when he stood just a step behind his father, as tradition dictated. Fugaku clucked his tongue and pushed Sasuke to stand beside him with a light hand on his son’s back.
“Konoha, welcome the future head of the Uchiha clan, my son, Uchiha Sasuke.”
The crowd roared in approval. The ringing sound overwhelmed Sasuke, making him feel light headed. The fireworks show began behind them, lighting faces in Uchiha red and white. Sasuke’s eyes searched the crowd until he found his family. Mikoto’s eyes sparkled with tears. Izumi stood between Mikoto and Itachi, clutching their hands in either one of hers, resting them on her pregnant belly. Itachi nodded at Sasuke with a soft smile on his lips. On his shoulders sat Koen pumping her tiny fists up in the air. He didn’t need the Sharingan to know she was cheering “Uncle Sasuke!”
To his mortification, he heard a chant of “Sasu-ke! Sasu-ke!” begin where he knew the Namikaze family was standing. His father chuckled under his breath and led Sasuke off the stage with a hand at his shoulder. When he was sure no one was paying him attention anymore, he shot a glare towards Naruto. Naruto didn’t pause in his chanting, just aimed both of his middle fingers at Sasuke. He was unsurprised when the action was copied by Ichigo and Shio. Kushina immediately pounded her fists on her children’s heads.
Sasuke and Fugaku made their way to the rest of their family. Sasuke began rolling his sleeves up again as they weaved through the throng of people. His father moved to stand beside Mikoto, wrapping an arm around her waist. Mikoto leaned into him and laid her head on his shoulder.
Sasuke grabbed his niece off of Itachi’s shoulders and transferred her to his own before standing beside Itachi. He draped his wrists loosely over Koen’s knees.
“Now I have such a high standard to live up to next month,” Itachi said to him, eyes still trained on the firework show.
“Shut up,” Sasuke scoffed, elbowing Itachi’s arm. “Are you sure they have a hat big enough to fit on your head?”
“I’m sure they do if they can fit one over Minato’s hair.”
Sasuke chuckled before looking up at Koen. “Your favorites are next.”
Koen let out a squeal when what she called “sparkle fairy!” fireworks lit the sky in gold, pink, and blue. The fireworks bathed the crowd in a myriad of colors, and Sasuke caught a flash of pink diagonally in front of him.
Sakura was staring up at the firework show with a look of childlike wonder. Sasuke found himself briefly mesmerized by her. As if sensing his stare, Sakura turned her eyes from the fireworks to Sasuke.
She mouthed “congratulations” to him with a small smile on her face before turning her attention back to the show. Sasuke looked away and back up at the sky, wondering why he felt the sudden urge to stand beside her.