A/N: Hey everyone, Snakespur here. I know I promised you all that I wouldn't start anything else until The Large Ashikabi was finished, but this idea has been floating around in my head for a couple days now and I just had to get it down and uploaded. I do apologize for not updating my main story and I don't really have an excuse for why I haven't been recently. I'm hoping to get back to it later on in this break though.

This short story is also a way for me to get back into the swing of writing and letting the "creative juices flow" so to speak. I'm not 100% sure how long this story will be, other than the fact that it'll definitely shorter than TLA.

If somebody had told Choji fifteen years ago that he'd be married to Sakura Haruno at some point in his life, he would have probably had that person checked into the nearest mental hospital to make such an outlandish statement. However, to the great surprise of many, especially himself, that was exactly what happened.

Not long after the Fourth Shinobi World War, Konoha, along with the rest of the villages had their work cut out for them; recovering from the horrors of Madara Uchiha's attempt at ruling the world as a god. Needless to say, this involved a lot of rebuilding and healing, along with tracking down the remaining enemy bases and resources.

It was through a series of these search and destroy missions that Choji and Sakura began to see more of each other and their friendship grew. Romance was not on either shinobi's mind, mainly due to Sakura's relationship with Sasuke. However, both were proud to call the other, friend.

A year after the Shinobi World War, Sakura married Sasuke, with Choji attending as one of the groomsmen at the pinkette's request.

Sasuke, who was so far out of touch with his old academy mates, was in no real position to deny her anything, mainly glad that he wasn't going to be killed on sight anymore and full of remorse over what he did.

For the first year of their marriage, Choji noted that Sakura and Sasuke were pretty happy together, up until the birth of Sarada, now two years after the war. However, it was a few weeks after Sakura came home from the hospital with her and Sasuke's daughter that things began to turn sour.

Even after all these years, Choji could still remember holding baby Sarada, while Sakura clung to him as mother and daughter wept unashamedly into his shirt the night that husband and father expressed the desire to divorce and leave them.

The reasons Sasuke gave everyone for this decision were to assist Konoha in maintaining the hard-fought peace, and wanting to see the world through the eyes of a true shinobi and not an avenger or terrorist.

Initially, Choji was as angry as the rest of their friends at Sasuke's apparent run from responsibility; and confused as to why he couldn't travel the world and stay married. However, the more he thought about it, the more Choji was convinced that the divorce was done out of guilt more so than anything else.

Unlike most of his friends, Choji stopped being angry at the Uchiha after coming to this conclusion. He still disagreed with Sasuke's poor handling of the situation, but he could understand where he was coming from. Besides, Choji's kind nature prevented him from holding grudges for long; a rare trait in the ninja world.

He would never know for quite some time, but his guess at Sasuke's motivation was more or less correct. As Sakura's pregnancy took its course, the Uchiha began to question if he really deserved to be happy with a family of his own. By the time Sarada was born, and it became all the more real, Sasuke had convinced himself that he didn't deserve to be a part of his wife and child's life; at least not without some form of atonement. Despite Sakura, and Naruto's best and tearful attempts to convince him otherwise, Sasuke had already left the village with the permission of the Hokage at the time, Kakashi.

O.O.O.O.O

Personally, Kakashi was also disappointed in his former pupil's decision to leave Sakura in such a fashion. As the leader of a ninja village however, he also recognized the value in having a shinobi of Sasuke's caliber in the world, maintaining the uneasy peace in the wake of the Great Ninja War. Knowing that he had to look at the big picture, the former copy-nin gave the Uchiha permission to come and go as he pleased, even going as far as to inform the other villages of his decision in the hopes that Sasuke would help them too. Still, it was against his judgement as a former teacher that he did this, seeing as how it reminded him of how Sasuke was in the years leading up to the break out of the war. It was only for the sake of Konoha itself and the desire to maintain peace that Kakashi kept quiet about how he really felt about it.

O.O.O.O.O

Throughout the first couple years after Sasuke's departure, Choji did his best to be there for Sakura and her daughter. Whenever he wasn't on a mission, you would quite often find the large shinobi babysitting Sarada whenever her mother took shifts at the hospital. Sakura didn't trust many people outside of a few close friends with her one and only daughter, so Choji was honored to be among that number.

Later on, he would recall that spending time with Sarada, with or without her mother brought him joy the likes of which he never knew existed and it was throughout these first couple years after Sasuke's departure that Choji found himself falling in love with Sakura.

Unfortunately, Choji's new-found confidence, discovered during the Great Ninja War did not extend to matters of the heart, and it was through his own action, or rather inaction that prevented him from moving forward for a long time.

At first, he used all of the obvious reasons to protect his feelings from opening up to the possibility of rejection:
'It's too soon after Sasuke. The wounds are still fresh.'
'If I confess now, it would make our friendship awkward.'
'Oh, it's Sarada's second birthday, I don't want to ruin it with my stupid crush.'

On it went, until Choji's excuses become flimsier and flimsier:
'Sakura had a busy time at the hospital, I don't want to bother her with my silly feelings.'

'Well, I was going to confess today, but Iruka-Sensei said he needed me to sub for one of his classes.'

Eventually, the reasons he used to justify himself in keeping his feelings hidden went from flimsy to downright stupid:

'Nope, not going to do it today, the flaps on my favorite pair of sandals broke, that's bad luck no matter how you look at it!'

'I would confess now, but there's a huge discount at the all you can eat buffet at Yakiniku Q! I can't afford to miss it!'

When Choji's feelings for Sakura were finally out in the open, it happened in an unexpected way. Choji would later confess to Shikamaru that no matter how awkward it was, he still considered it one of his best memories.

A/N: There we go, the first part of the prologue is done and this time I decided to be mean and leave things at a cliff-hanger, mainly because I'm curious to see how many people are interested in this. Unfortunately, I see this short story as getting more views and favorites than TLA, since the Naruto community is so much bigger. Anyway, see you in the next chapter.

Edited slightly: June 6th, 2017