Prompt: Prince/Princess.
Pairing: Sasusaku.
Summary: They say hello more times than goodbye, and Sakura thinks it might be for the best. Especially when it's time to go. / War-torn Japan, 1600s. Edo period; Tokugawa era (changed to Uchiha). Takes place in the current capital of Japan, Tokyo, but changed to Konoha.
A/N: Been working on this from time to time. I hope I got most things right cuz I had to research more than once about the traditions and details, even if it came out pretty dark and depressing.
Usually the shogun doesn't go out to battle but I guess this village has a very hands-on shogun xD Just deal with it, history nerds. Enjoy!
"Sakura, honey," her mother says, and she turns with a heavy weight on her shoulders to regard her with a prepared smile, "are you ready?"
Sakura nods, not because she's in any way saying the truth, but because she's been taught to nod and smile since she was a toddler.
Her mother, dressed in her finest garments, lays her delicate hands on Sakura's covered shoulders from behind her sitting form. There's a large mirror directly in front of her; her mother's been staring at her for the longest time, and Sakura finally focuses her eyes on her own green ones staring back.
She can't say that the lady staring back doesn't look like herself. It is her, but with added makeup, slippery confidence, and some more pounds on her body—she had counted the layers of the kimono and the several skins under that and she'd reached the conclusion that there were more than ten.
She can't say she doesn't look like herself. She'd been raised to appreciate the elegance of a wedding and the requirements and expectations of a bride. The image staring back at her, even if she can barely make out any skin sticking out other than her face, is the reflection of who she knew she was going to become, eventually. Soon, to the joy of her mother.
She lifts her eyes to her mother's across the mirror when the soft sound of people entering the establishment reaches her ears. Her mother smiles slightly, and she returns it with a genuine smile of her own—the only one since she woke up that same morning.
The scattering of feet gliding and walking along the path she's soon to walk on makes her almost break a sweat. But she's better than that, she's been raised to be a better lady.
Still, being a decent lady raised in a decent family doesn't stop her from standing up when her mother's not looking and opening the door of the changing room to look outside. There are many people past the threshold she has to pass by in order to walk along the purple, long carpet that leads to her soon to-be-husband.
"Sakura," her mother berates her right when she's about to lay her eyes on the man who stands at the end of the building.
Sakura looks at her mother and straightens up, closes the door, and walks back to the mirror with heavy steps.
There are a few maids here and there trying to grasp at her ridiculously long dress, following her around the room and not saying a word; it's not like they could, anyway.
"You look marvellous," her mother whispers behind her, letting a woman reach behind her to tie up Sakura's hair in the intricate high-up she was supposed to have, letting a different part of her hair flow down until it meets her waist. "You'll do well when pleasing the warlord. He'll like you plenty."
Sakura wants to tell her that she won't do well, that she won't know what to do at all. Yes, she was well raised and educated, but this was the most powerful warlord the nation had, after all. She was merely a high-class status, fifteen-year-old lady, daughter of her well-known parents and raised in the more-or-less honourable Haruno clan; a noble girl who knew every royal family in the continent. She wants to tell her that she won't do well, because she'd only met the man once to know he didn't like her. And it only took her five minutes to know that there was nothing they had in common.
But she only says what is expected of her, as usual. In a decent, calm, and levelled tone, she speaks, the image on the mirror silently mocking her.
"Thank you, mother."
The walk to her soon-to-be husband is quick and simple, and she doesn't feel nervous at all.
Everyone in the palace is looking at her; at her long, complex and expensive garment, her dull and determined eyes, and her step for if she disgraces herself so much as to fall.
She pays no mind because she doesn't have to. The walk is short and well-paced, and she stands next to Uchiha Sasuke to marry him and unite their noble blood until the end of time in less than one minute.
He doesn't look at her. He barely even moves. So she hardens her gaze and purses her lips into a straight line like she's been taught to, because, even though he doesn't really ackowledge her existence at the moment, he's probably been taught to do so too—or not to, in this case.
So she vows to never leave him, to stay with him through everything, and he says the same words back to the monk. They're cool and devoid of any care, but then so are hers. Soon enough, one ring is on her finger, a light caress of nothingness against her hand while he's putting it like a ball diving cleanly through a hoop, and there's a simpler one on his. Simple rings for a simple procedure of complex reasons.
In the back of her mind, while holding on to his arm and walking away from the aisle, she thinks she hears the happy murmurs of the people in the building. Uchiha Sasuke's father didn't like people cheering at weddings; since his death, a few years back, nobody cheers anymore at these events in the nation.
Sakura peaks at her husband from her peripheral vision, only seeing the tips of his spiky hair for a split second, and wonders if he prefers the murmurs or the cheers—he didn't have a choice to begin with. But it's not hard to imagine at all. He barely communicates verbally to begin with.
They get out of the establishment.
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.
.
On the way back, in a little white carriage, they share the trek to their castle in silence.
She wants to see his face, his hair, and especially his eyes. But she hadn't looked at him since that day—far, far back, a few weeks before the actual wedding, when she first met him—so she tries to refrain herself. And by look she means to really look at him, take him in, engrave all his features in her memory. For she is his wife and she's going to have to look at him for eternity. But then again he didn't share the same level of interest, it seemed.
It's not like he looked at her; she knows even his cats at the castle are probably more important to him than his own wife, by the interactions he's had with them which she has seen.
But still, Sakura thinks, Uchiha Sasuke doesn't have to know she's going to look at him. Just a peak into his eyes, into his soul, and he won't know a thing.
She lifts her eyes slowly from looking at the passing flower fields, after bruising her covered thigh with her white-knuckled fist. She doesn't care, she needs to see the man she's going to live with for the rest of her life.
She takes the first look at him in the entirety of their big day, just out of curiosity and will, not really concerned whether it's right or wrong anymore, or if it's the right moment.
He looks back without thinking twice, and it's only the harshness in his impenetrable gaze that makes her look away almost immediately.
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.
.
While Sakura's expectations were as high as they could get, her little mouth still opened in awe at the sight of their new home. The beige and brown and white castle is at least five stories, and it stands on the peak of a moderately high, green-covered mountain, overlooking the village right in the center. The contrast between the light colours of the Japanese architecture and the vivid ground makes her eyes widen, glowing with piqued interest.
They enter the thick, tall stone gates, still in the carriage, and Sakura admires the view of the green leaves from the trees and grass and the numerous colours from the different flowers, which lead up the path to the front porch of the medieval-like castle, framed with Japanese architecture.
A man dressed in commoner clothes opens the door for her and she steps down onto a stone path, right in front of the wooden front porch. Her husband follows.
Their room is on the third floor; Sakura can't think of anything else, she can't gaze at anything else in the castle because he walks in front of her at a much more hurried step, as if he doesn't really want to look at the magnificent structure, even though he'd never seen it before. As if he wants to get things done as fast as possible. This castle is new for both of them, it was acquired with their marriage; for themselves and themselves only. But Sasuke walks through the halls and the stairs as if he's lived there since he was born.
As soon as they enter their new room in their new house, Sasuke blows fire into a candle. She understands what's about to happen, and because of the rigorous classes she's taken for years and years under her mother's request, she knows exactly what to do.
Sakura kneels down on the side of the comfortable futon that's in the center of the dimly lit room. Sasuke kneels a second later on the other side so that the only thing separating them is the mattress, and they bow their heads, not looking at each other and only following an old tradition passed down from generations.
With one hand, he motions to the futon, and she lies down gracefully, legs straight down and eyes focused on the wooden ceiling.
She doesn't mind it when he takes off her layers of Kimono slowly until she's left bare to his empty eyes, his hands firm and confident, but slow and prudent on the silk.
She doesn't mind it when he takes his own clothes off, layer by layer, faster than he did hers, and parts her legs when he moves between them.
After all, it's in her duty to let him. And only because it's in her duty does she let him enter her pure walls with quick thrusts, her eyes closing—in an attempt to focus on the darkness behind her eyelids, and not the laboured breathing between her legs or the gasps from her own persona—and her body tense with discomfort.
She's fifteen when she marries, and he's twenty-six. She, a virgin; he, a man who had the virgin as his fourth wife already.
When she thinks about it, some sadness sinks in, the prospect of multiple women gone before her marriage to him giving her chills—some say they died, some say they escaped, and some say they never really left, but Sakura has no way to know for sure. But it's long gone as soon as she thinks about other princesses, in other kingdoms—married at fourteen with a man bordering his fifties.
She lets herself whimper because she can't really help it, it hurts and she can't demand him to slow down, so she whimpers again under his laboured breathing and everything becomes still.
He stands up and leaves the room, not before blowing the candle into almost a penumbra. She feels something drip down from between her legs and onto the floor. Her legs are open, knees touching the futon. Her eyes feel watery, and for the first time in years, she lets herself cry.
It's not what she's been taught to do, but, in utter darkness except for the moon's glimpse of light from the window, it's the only thing she can do.
She never cries herself to sleep again. She doesn't let herself fall so low after that.
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.
He's twenty-seven when he becomes the head of the country's military government. With the assassination of his older brother, Itachi (the previous Shogun), there was no question that he had to take his brother's place in order to represent the Uchiha Shogunate.
There is nothing else Sakura wants to do but to look at her husband and console him and his dark nightmares, from that day on in the late days of summer.
She conforts him during the day by being near him and at night by caressing his hair and holding him through his nightmares every night, even after he pushes her away and tells her to leave him alone. She tries to rid him of his perturbed thoughts of vengeance for his adored older brother. But the words go to deaf ears and desinterested looks and she stops talking altogether one winter day.
The snow had started to fall a few weeks back, but Sakura still adores the way the snowflakes fall on the thick mantle of snow under the clastle, like love falls on hungry humans—cold and fast.
Her husband is away most of the time since his ascension to power; he's called to fight and lead armies to defend Fire of its enemies. From what she's heard, he trains Samurai here and there—the pride of Fire Country in crucial times. Sometimes he's gone for days, sometimes for weeks.
She takes the time off to paint on canvases, read medicinal books from the private library of the castle where she spends most of the time, and knit gloves for no one in mind. Trivial things that, when he's home, she can't do.
And every time he has to go for military purposes, he makes sure to not let her see him leave.
She has learnt to not mind.
.
.
.
Her husband has been successful in every facet of the nation because he's different from every other leader before.
She has observed him enough to know that this is the reason everyone in the nation trusts him to keep a civil war from issuing—to bring peace, instead, to the entire nation that stands on its tip toes. Not to say that Itachi wasn't good at leading people, but he was way too peaceful, and with the country on the brink of war he was, therefore, inefficient.
She has seen the way her husband thinks, the way he handles tasks under pressure and under the watchful gaze of the emperor, and even the way he trains under the dying sun in their backyard, like a flowing feather kisses the wind.
In the year she has been married to him, she has seen enough to know her husband is a quiet negotiator; quiet but lethal.
There has been just one attack inside their village, by another small village that rests next to theirs. Sasuke had talked to the village's clan heads, making a deal in less than two minutes. Sakura had heard the bombing stop immediately in Konoha—the capital of Fire—from where she sat in the castle next to a window, and she had heard from another party that her husband had stopped the attack with just a few, curt words.
Sasuke is nothing but a good leader to his people, especially to his gigantic, impressive army of Samurai.
Samurai aren't taught anything else but the basics to know how to fight. They're taught horsemanship, etiquette, and how to handle weapons, essential things to know in order to fight, but her husband surpasses all teachings.
Sasuke has been taught to really think about the strategies; he has been taught knowledge from different sciences, math, and different languages.
He knows how to fool the enemy or how to lure him in.
He's the complete package of knowledge, much like herself, and this is why their marriage flows quietly.
She barely ever sees him at their castle anyway; he's mostly away all the time, training or battling or making treaties. If she had to choose a number to explain how often she sees him on a weekly basis, it would have to be one—because she only sees him, with some luck, once every week. And, even if she does see him once a week, it's always during the night, while she's lying on her royal bed trying to sleep and she feels him slip inside the covers on his side of the bed.
It's quiet, always. Ever since that fateful day in summer a few months back, they seldom speak to each other.
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.
A new year comes out of the warm horizon, with hues of orange, yellow, and red. The soft light caresses her unusual blonde hair, speckled with a rose hue that makes it seem pale pink altogether, and creates a softer image of colours to the eye, just like the sunrise.
Sasuke stares.
It's the first morning he's had the privilege to sleep past seven since he became Shogun.
Sakura lies on her stomach, the small robe riding down her back and letting him see the expanse of her smooth skin under the messy covers.
Her long, straight hair falls on the pillow like a waterfall, cascading down and melting with the early colours of the sunrise seeping in through the open window. It's of a rose gold, soft and ethereal and something he has never seen before.
He lets his tired eyes trail over her silhouette, from the slender contours of her covered legs to the small of her exposed back, unmarred and frail, much different to his own.
It's something he has never done, and as he notices the slight hints of blonde on the tips of her hair, he feels a sense of sympathy for this woman—girl, he thinks, would be more appropriate—who hasn't asked for anything out of him in the two years they have been married.
From the large space in between them, he gazes upon the ethereal image of his fourth wife, feeling exhausted all of a sudden.
It's been two years and they're still strangers to each other, and he can't help but think that his previous wives were strangers to him as well before they couldn't take it anymore and left him in circumstances only he knows.
The prospect of marrying again, were Sakura to leave him, would be a very troublesome thing. He knows that he's always forced to marry because of money or treaties, but it doesn't make it any less tiring.
He has armies and people to lead, after all, and can't be bothered to care for any romantic displays of affection every time the time calls for it.
But as he watches his wife shift in her sleep, humble and patient as he has seen her to be, he decides he does not want any other wife.
Sakura shifts again and lies on her side, facing him, and his eyes soften imperceptibly.
He wishes he could have more time to spare to get to know her better, but he doesn't. He starts dressing up.
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.
Sakura's eighteen when she gets asked to attend an important meeting with the most important warlord in the nation of Fire, as Sasuke's wife.
She's asked to attend a meeting in which she will have no say in any of it, and she doesn't know why she's asked at all. After all, her husband has always gone to meetings with his advisors, but never with her. Women aren't really invited to such things.
Nevertheless, her personal assistants dress her with intricate and fine silks, a kimono which looks elegant and poised, much more expensive than any other person can afford.
Her husband waits for her in a room of the castle, where the warlord would arrive in a few minutes, and she enters with a kind of practiced grace that hides her confusion.
She still doesn't know the reason for her presence, but she walks with confidence until she sits next to him on the floor, legs tucked under her and hands on her lap.
When the tall and slender warlord enters the spacious and brightly lit room, they both stand and bow, as he also does, before they all sit down again—the couple together, and the warlord in front of them, separated by a small table.
"Uchiha Sasuke, I am very pleased to finally meet the brother of one of the few men I've trusted with my life," the warlord says, a man a few years older than her husband. His yellow eyes shift to hers, and she feels a tremor run down her spine. "I see you have brought your wife, too."
"Yes, my brother spoke highly of you many times before," the voice of her husband reaches her ears and she wants to look at him, for it's the first time she hears him speak of his deceased brother since his fatal assassination, but his next words still her desire. "And, if needed be, my wife can leave this room at my command."
She doesn't feel hurt at his cold words, but it still ignites a small flame of anger inside of her. It's not her place to feel angry, though, so she barely appears disturbed.
"Oh, no need, young Sasuke," the man says. "If I may, your wife is very beautiful, and she won't be a problem. Won't you?"
Sasuke stills for a second beside her, but he relaxes so quickly that she doesn't know if he tensed at all.
Sakura shows her pearly teeth when she smiles and bows respectfully to the man in front of her, faking the pleasure of his disgusting words.
The man chuckles a bit and runs his snake-like eyes all over her covered frame, almost as if trying to find any exposed skin but failing immediately.
"If I do say so myself, lady Uchiha has yet to produce any heir to the Shogun, and I hope he knows he can try other methods for the troubles," the sole sentence makes Sakura's hair stand and her throat feel like it's closing up. At Sasuke's silence, the warlord smirks softly at her confused and anxious expression.
"Concubines, very cheap and very efficient," he clears up, as if confirming her suspicions makes her any less afraid. Shoguns, Daimyo, emperors, and warlords all were very known for taking up more than one wife in order to ensure heirs to the position.
The fact that her husband had only touched her during their wedding day and had not shown any inclinations for having more wives rings in her head for the first time. She hadn't thought of that before, and it gives her some sense of relief.
However, she can't help but also think that, if he did have more wives, she would be able to detach herself completely from his grasp and be able to hold much more freedom. As it is, she holds the sole attention from every person in the world as the country's military leader's only wife.
"I have no desire to, just as you have no right to insinuate such things," the smooth voice of her husband reaches her ears, and she feels herself relax next to him imperceptibly.
Sasuke clears his throat.
"Let us begin, Orochimaru."
Orochimaru looks at Sasuke, then, and it's almost as if he's doing the same to him. His eyes trail over his body and then he smiles.
"Yes, of course."
They sign an accord twenty minutes later, when the meeting ends, and she can't help the sigh of relief that escapes her lips as soon as the snake man leaves the room. Sasuke feigns not noticing.
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.
.
Sakura's eighteen and she's young and she has very rare and striking features—rose gold hair that reaches her small waist and green eyes—that make her noticeable and known by everyone in the country.
When she married Uchiha Sasuke, nobody opposed. Everyone thought she was going to be his final wife, and that they were going to fall in love deeply, innately, at first sight. Her closest friends wrote to her for several weeks after the wedding—as they were not allowed to go inside the castle for visits—expressing their enthusiasm for her. They almost could have been described as jealous of her. Even Uchiha Itachi had approved.
The truth couldn't be further from that. Even after three years of just being there for him—but not really, for she had stopped supporting him ever since the winter of the first year—they are still complete strangers.
It's not that she has not tried; it's that he has not tried and they have not tried enough.
But Sakura is eighteen and she's young and she has no wrinkles, she's very flexible, she's fluent in the same languages he is, she knows how to solve problems strategically and mathematically, and she knows the art of seduction from her hair to her toes.
So she does not comprehend why she's in this predicament: stuck in a palace she has not been able to get out of in three years, stuck and not being able to interact with anyone other than her family through monthly letters. She does not possibly understand how her husband does not desire her, not even to hold her through the night like she has been taught he would.
She has been taught to seduce and be seduced, to rid of her garments slowly, to touch and be touched in exactly the right places, but none of it matters when her husband shows no interest in her whatsoever.
She doesn't mind that part that much; doesn't delve into it a lot. But it still makes her question her duties as a wife more than once—especially after the snake man's visit.
And one day she comes to the conclusion, dropping the brush full of a green colour she had been using to create grass in her painting, that he's so incredibly busy that he has no time to think about these domestic issues with her.
She comes to the conclusion that she's just there to serve as a symbol of resilience and stability in Sasuke's life and the country's gossips.
She comes to the conclusion that it's not her fault, but it's probably not his either.
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.
Sasuke is cleaning his favourite horse when she approaches him from the private gardens they own. And for the first time since they married, she doesn't feel it's not in her place to bother him. She feels enraged, betrayed, stepped-on, and she's not going to stand idly aside when she knows what has been done is not alright.
So she approaches him, and enters the very-well-cared-for stables, standing right out one of the cubicles where he's brushing his dark horse's mane.
She feels angry, but she masks it well enough so that she can speak coherently and calmly in front of his apathetic stare.
She only speaks when Sasuke directs his gaze at her form, though, and he stills the brush in his hand for a second too long, clearly baffled by her otherwise-ghostly presence.
"Sakura," he states, so infuriatingly perfect with his unruly locks and symmetrical features and toned body that she has the urge to turn away in frustration. But she doesn't.
"Sasuke," she reponds. She's dressed inappropriately for this kind of setting, with a blue kimono that only has two layers, while he stands with black pants and a black shirt, all simple and ordinary. She does not smile when she talks. "I bring to you a question that troubles me greatly."
She knows she has captured his attention when he puts down the brush and walks toward the entrance of the cubicle—toward her.
"Which is?"
"I fear your horse has ruined my garden, the flowers specifically," her voice is even and she never takes her eyes away from his own penetrating gaze, but she feels shaky inside. She has never stood up to her husband before—ever.
However, her husband is seldom at their castle, and, added to the fact that she can't go out of the castle and into the village on his strict orders, she gets bored. She's picked up hobbies like painting, reading, knitting, and taking care of her garden. Her beautiful garden that has been taken care of for arduous years. Her flowers were about to come to life again after the cold and harsh winter, and she woke up that morning to see all of her work run over. Her flowers were on the ground, smashed, and there were prints on the soil. Hooves.
Sasuke raises an eyebrow at her, standing less than two feet away from her.
"How are you so sure?
"There were hoove prints on the soil," she says, looking past him and glaring at the horse, who was staring at her with the same amount of hate.
Sasuke blocks her view of the horse when he steps in her line of vision, staring down at her like the dangerous man he is and acting as a shield for the shared hatred at his stables.
"Yami hasn't been out today, so there's no way she could have ruined your garden," he says, and she has the urge to laugh because his horse's name is literal darkness, and it couldn't be more fitting for the man, but she feels her eyes watering instead.
She turns this time, frustrated that she can't do anything about anything because she's only his wife and she doesn't even know him and he probably wouldn't care if someone infiltrated their castle and killed her tomorrowand she walks out of the stables with tears in her eyes—but she holds them in, she holds them in because she's not going to cry like she did on her wedding night, pathetic and frail. Never again.
Sasuke's steps grow louder as he steps out of the stables and calls out for her. She turns to him against her wishes, only because she's been taught to follow his every order since she could understand words, and sees his face has changed. It not stoic, apathetic, serious.
She can tell he's conflicted when he looks around for the words to say, grasping at air instead.
"I... I'll get you new flowers, just tell Akane."
Akane, the only maid who can go out to buy things in the village.
"Really? Just like the ones I had?" She asks, hopeful and childish and almost jumping from joy.
Sasuke turns his face and eyes away from her beaming eyes, but she still hears him loud and clear in the space between them when he speaks.
"Whichever you wish for."
It's not the best answer he could have given her. But as she watches him disappear in the stables again, she feels a small, true smile creeping up her lips, lifting the corners for the first time in a while.
She has never really thought of her relationship with Sasuke that much. She doesn't know him, he's only ever touched her once, and she barely even sees him around. But maybe they haven't really tried to get to know each other, and if she has to live in his palace until the end of her days anyway, she might as well make an effort.
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.
.
It's been a month since the flowerbed incident and her garden is almost blooming already with different colours and exotic plants that probably cost more than the common villager can afford.
She hasn't really thanked him yet, but she plans to as a way of showing initiative toward their broken marriage.
A sunny day two days after he returns from a diplomatic meeting at another village, she finds him sitting on her favourite single-person sofa in the study room. He's reading a book, thick and old and most likely confidential, yet she approaches him all the same.
He raises his eyes from the parchment to look into her own a second after her steps are audible, and closes the book almost too quickly for her to not notice.
She brushes it aside, though, and focuses on her next words as she extends her covered, slim arms toward him. She offers him his favourite dish in a bento, carefully crafted by her own hands for one hour, but he does not even look inside to see its contents.
"It's- I wanted to thank you for my new garden. It's more beautiful than before, now," she says, bowing to him while offering him her handcrafted bento patiently.
He seems to consider her offer for a second longer than expected, and then he curtly nods and looks away.
"Have Aki take it to our room later."
Sakura stands straight again after processing those words, and she feels her cheeks redden in embarrassment and her eyebrows lift in incredulity at his statement a moment later. She can't help but to speak up in her astonishment, hands clasping the bento box a little tighter.
"Forgive me, but I do not see the meaning of this. Does my husband think I could poison him?"
Sasuke looks back at her with some hints of surprise himself, clearly not expecting her to keep on talking to him so freely. He recomposes himself faster than she can blink.
"As with any other person aside my own, I reserve no differences in treatment. I am merely taking precautions," he responds, drilling holes in her skull and making her realise something she hadn't seen with such clarity as in the moment. It would explain why he refrains from touching her, having a child, sharing his life and secrets with her, and so many of the things they have been lacking over the course of three years.
It certainly makes perfect sense in her mind as she bows and leaves the study room, looking for Aki, the head of the kitchen.
Sasuke doesn't even see her as his wife.
A/N: Okay so timeline roughly goes like this: Sakura's 15 and Sasuke's 26 and they marry around April, then late July he becomes shogun after his birthday, making him 27, and she loses interest in talking to him that year's winter. Then two years pass by in those few time skips I did there, and finally Sakura is 18 and Sasuke's 29. Hope I didn't cause much confusion.
Review pls! I'm writing the next chapter.