On the outside, Sasuke was a hardened shinobi to the core, though he'd only been a genin for a few weeks. He showed almost no emotion, and he took his missions and his training seriously. But on the inside – a side Sasuke would rather die before showing to anyone – he was weak and insecure.
Every day after training or missions, he'd return home to the Uchiha compound and smile at a picture of his family. "I'm home," he'd call out when he entered, as if his mother, father, or brother would actually respond. Then he'd make his way to the kitchen and put on his mother's apron before cooking dinner. He'd pull out his mother's old cookbook and pick a random recipe to cook for the family that day. On some days, when he'd imagine his brother would come home, he'd make extra food and set a fourth plate on the table. And the entire time he cooked, he'd converse with his mother, usually just speaking about his day and asking about hers. Sometimes he'd drag his father into the conversation, asking him how things were going at the police headquarters. Things were always a bit more lively when Itachi came home, and Sasuke's heart would soar just like it did when he was a child.
It was never until Sasuke himself sat down to eat that he realized that all of this – the extra plates he set at the table, the hours he spent talking to ghosts – was just an illusion. Because his parents were gone, and Itachi was never coming back, no matter how much food he cooked, or how many plates he set at the table, and that he was truly alone.
Sometimes, when the loneliness and the silence became unbearable, he'd go to his parents' room and open all the drawers – which still smelled faintly of his mother's jasmine perfume, lie in the middle of the bed, sandwiched between where his parents usually lay, just like he did when he was a small child, and try to picture the warmth of his mother's embrace and the pride of his father's hand on his shoulder.
But most of the time, he'd dread what would happen if Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi ever found out about what he did every day when he came home. Naruto would laugh at him, Sakura would gush about what an amazing person Sasuke is and that she never knew he could cook and so on, and Kakashi would sigh and narrow his eyes in disappointment. Because dreaming of happier days he could never get back was childish, and it only showed that he was weak, and, no matter what, Sasuke couldn't afford to be weak.
Sometimes he'd fall asleep, and sometimes he wouldn't. But the next day, when coming back home from training or missions, the cycle would begin anew.
Because Sasuke is – should be – a lot more traumatized by the Uchiha Massacre than he lets on to anyone. This may seem a bit out of character, but I personally think it's strange that Sasuke, someone who's experienced so much grief and trauma, only feels anger when thinking about the Uchiha Massacre, not grief (or if he does feel grief, he doesn't show it) – hence this little headcanon. Also, please note that this entire story was written from Sasuke's point of view, and that Naruto, Kakashi and Sakura probably wouldn't act like Sasuke had envisioned. Please review!