She had either come very early May 5th, or very VERY late May 4th. Either way, she had come and Sasuke wondered how, even with all his training and talent, he hadn't heard her arrive or leave.

Tangu no Sekku was a day to celebrate the son's of the family. When he was young, his mother and father and brother had celebrated it with him. He and his cousins had spent days hanging colorful koi streamers and paper lanterns around the Uchiha compound. At night, they raced around with matches to light the lanterns, turning the ancestral land into a capsule of light and color. Once, when Sasuke was still too small to reach the high jutting edge of the entrance gate, his older cousins had teased him and called him Shortsuke (not the most clever nickname, but when your that young, does it really matter?). As tears crept to his eyes, he had felt strong arms scoop him up. It was his brother Itachi. Placing the little boy on his shoulders, Itachi had handed him the delicate string loop that was attached to the kite. "Go ahead, otooto," Itachi had laughed, "Who needs long legs when you have an older brother like me?".

Sasuke shook his head, as if to shake of the memories of the past. He rubbed his eyes and padded out to his kitchen, placing the carefully wrapped gift on the wooden table. Rubbing his eyes, Sasuke went to his nearly empty fridge. Guess I should buy some food soon. Pulling out a half carton of milk, he popped the wax paper top into a steeple and took a long swig from it. Tasting a sour note, the Uchiha survivor peeked into the carton. Not quite cheese yet… He shrugged and placed it back in the fridge.

Reluctantly, he returned to the gift. Over the years, he had received many ill conceived gifts from his fan girls. Every year messy cards, burnt cookies and stuffed animals had littered his doorstep or school desk, depending on the boldness of the giver. This gift however, had been placed right next to his sleeping head, on his Uchiha fan emblazoned pillow. This girl had some kind of backbone now.

Sasuke examined the parcel. It was obviously a box of some sort. Its paper was smooth and blue, with a thin pink ribbon wrapping around it from for directions, meeting in the middle in a bow with a koi kite charm tied in the center. Nestled next to the charm was a small, red and white fan shaped card on a shiny white background . It would be rude to look at the present first… Sasuke glanced around as if someone would have seen him being so rude. Confident, he slipped the pink bow off the gift and ran his fingers under the seam where the paper overlapped on one side. Deftly slipping the box out of its papery shell, Sasuke opened the parcel and gasped.

Inside of the plain gray box, were the most vibrant, round, perfect tomatoes, still on the green stem and smelling faintly of dirt. Lovingly, Sasuke lifted the bunch out of the box and placed them on the table. Must be the first crop of the season…

Sasuke gingerly picked up the bunch of tomatoes and placed them in his refrigerator. Everything else looked gross and dreary next to the vibrant fruits (or vegetables?). He sighed and begrudgingly tossed the sour milk and the two lone tomatoes, both with ugly gray-green spots puckering their red skin. After cleaning out the contents of the fridge, Sasuke returned to the blue and white card that sat on the table.

Sasuke pulled the card free from the ribbon. He noticed that the fan wasn't the card at all, just a homemade gift tag. The real card was printed in her neat, swirl-y handwriting.

Happy Tangu no Sekku, Sasuke-kun! I found this picture and thought you might like it. The tomatoes are from my mom's garden. First of the season!

Love,

Sakura

He flipped the picture over and let out a stifled laugh. Gently bringing it closer to his face, Sasuke couldn't help but smile at the picture. They all looked so young. Sakura had her arms thrown around her teammates' shoulders, flashing the victory sign on either hand and her tongue sticking out at the camera. Naruto was grinning like an idiot, his smile taking up his whole face. Sasuke himself would have looked, to an outsider, like he was totally unhappy. But Sasuke recognized the slight upturn in his lips and remembered how happy he had felt that day to be back home. Sasuke carried the picture over to his refrigerator and looked for a something to hang it up with. But the lump he had begun to prod was not a magnet at all, but rather a very large clump of dust. Putting the photo down on the countertop, Sasuke grabbed a paper towel and ran it under water. He wiped down the refrigerator and freezer doors, creating a clean slate for the team photo.

Locating a dust free magnet, the heir placed the picture onto the freezer door and adjusted it to a jaunty, nonchalant angle, as if it had just been placed their on a whim. Like there would be many more pictures to follow.