AN: This is the longest out of the collection yet at very close to 2,000 words. Prompt was aristocrat / commoner AU, and I took it one step further and set it in the Taisho era of Japan (roughly 1912-1926).
Quick note: I get lovely comments from 99% of you, but please, please don't comment on this fic demanding I update some of my other works. I know you're anxious to see updates but it's kind of upsetting to see that, especially when I want to know your thoughts on this piece 3
It starts innocently enough. His mother likes her family's traditional sweets: his brother gets hooked, then his father admits partiality to the Haruno anmitsu recipe and that's it. The Uchiha family and all their followers become regulars, landing the humble sweet shop a new class of clientele in one fell swoop.
Sasuke doesn't even see the daughter of the house for the first few months of the arrangement. Like his brother he's aiming to get into Konoha's most prestigious university, and his days are spent studying, fending off his father's friends' daughters, and trying and failing to avoid the friendship of the only scion of the Uzumaki family.
So when he finally meets Haruno Sakura, he has no idea who she is: she's just another kimono-clad menace come to disturb his quiet contemplation of The Tale of the Ninja in the ceremonial garden.
"Excuse me, young master," she chirps, and he lifts the book from his face to send his patented glare in her direction, "could you show me the way to your kitchen? I'm afraid I'm lost…"
Sasuke tuts under his breath, pulling himself up into a seated position. It must be a new trick of his mother, to send a girl directly to him. Too bad for the noble Uchiha Mikoto that Sasuke has inherited his father's stubborn streak.
"And you're bothering me because…?"
She tilts her rosy head at his rudeness, clutching the wooden barrel held in her hands tighter.
"Because I believe you'll know the way?"
This mysterious girl speaks with the politeness proper to his situation, but there's a tinge of impertinence that reminds him of Naruto, so he folds his arms and tucks his book into his pocket, standing up to show her the way. She walks beside him, which takes Sasuke off guard: most of the young heiresses he knows - which are the sum total of the young women he knows - take a respectful stance one pace behind him, but this interloper strides confidently by his side, smiling at him over the covered barrel in her arms.
"What's in that?" Sasuke asks, once they're halfway across the tree-strewn lawn and she still hasn't spoken.
"It's some fresh dango, for your honourable mother," the girl replies, and he blinks black eyes in surprise.
"How do you know who my mother is?"
She smiles like it's obvious, and perhaps it is, because Sasuke knows he's the spitting image of the Uchiha matriarch.
"And who are you?" he continues, thrown a little off balance because of her shimmering pink hair, forest eyes and smile just this side of sassiness.
"I'm Haruno Sakura," the girl introduces herself, bowing over her family's produce. "Would you like to try one? I packed an extra stick for a snack."
"Hn," Sasuke acquiesces, though he doesn't like sweet things. There's a moment of shuffling before she passes him a gently-steaming stick of dango with her bare hands, fingers which he notices have the rough calluses of a working girl. This 'Sakura' is very different from the proper young ladies his mother makes him sit through lunches with; though she smiles often, she hasn't giggled once, and when she picks up the barrel of sweets he sees the strength hidden behind the practical cotton of her kimono.
He bites down just before they reach the back door to the estate's kitchen, a bustling workspace Sasuke tends to avoid. It's obvious Sakura recognises where they are now, if the way she's looking around is any indication, so he turns to go.
"Wait!" she calls, the first departure from polite speech she's made.
He spins on his geta-clad heel, student's cape flowing behind him as he waits to hear why she's dared to break the iron rules of social hierarchy.
"What do you think?" Sakura asks with a merchant's smile, nodding to the half-bitten dango in his grasp.
"It's… good," Sasuke admits reluctantly, watching as her expression turns more genuine. "Not too sweet."
"Then I'll bring some extra for you, in the next delivery."
Sasuke doesn't say yes, but he doesn't say no either, and the next time the Haruno daughter appears with his mother's treats, the youngest son of the Uchiha house makes sure to wait by the kitchen doorway.
"My father's father was a daimyo," Sasuke says randomly one day, "and my mother's mother is the Emperor's distant cousin."
Sakura looks at him askance before continuing to unpack the delicate tea-ceremony sweets her father has made. Her house has been working for his for just under a year, now, and her pink hair is a familiar sight in the kitchen. He waits for her under the stout roof of the closest pagoda when she makes her deliveries, and they'll sit together, leaning against the wood, trading conversation and treats while the estate bustles around them.
"That's nice," she says noncommittally. "My mother and father ran away together, so I don't know who their parents are."
She turns to him with hands clasped to her chest, a wistful smile on her face. "Isn't that romantic?"
"It's foolish," he retorts, reaching over to pluck a matcha-flavoured treat from the tray. "How did they expect to survive with nothing?"
"Sasuke-kun," Sakura chides, but he's faster than her and deposits the treat into his mouth before she can snatch it back, "you're being cruel again. And you've ruined my display!"
The pet-name slips from her mouth when she's not thinking, but Sasuke never draws attention to it; if pressed, he'd even admit to secretly wanting to hear her say Sasuke-kun all the time. Over the last year they've developed an easy friendship that starts and stops at the threshold to his estate, a comfortable relationship that flaunts the boundaries of what both of them know to be appropriate.
Amidst the increasing marriage proposals heading his way, Sasuke finds it as refreshing as his ancient rivalry with Naruto.
"Your brother," Sakura suddenly whispers, and he leans in close because Itachi is a forbidden topic in the Uchiha household right now, "he ran away. Is that foolish?"
Sasuke looks down at his fingers, covered as they are in the fine sugar dust from Sakura's family's pride. Itachi's departure has the entirety of Konoha's aristocracy in an uproar, the future head of one of the city's oldest families declaring his defection to move abroad and pursue his artistic dreams. It's left Sasuke in a difficult position; he's the only one able to uphold his own family's pride, now.
"Yes," Sasuke whispers back, "but I don't resent him for it."
Sakura's smile softens like it does when he says something kind.
"Someday, I hope I love someone as much as you love him," she murmurs, turning back to her work. And though they're given a fair amount of privacy - Sasuke's presence tends to scare away most of the kitchen staff in the quiet afternoons when she arrives - there's still too much risk of being overheard by gossiping maids.
"You'll have to marry someone with an incredible sweet tooth," Sasuke dismisses, and he doesn't say it, but that person won't be me is implied in his imperious tone.
It is not quite what he wants to say.
"Right?" Sakura agrees, and there's a sadness there, but he doesn't want to look at it too closely. "It'll have to be some poor, lonely boy with no family of his own."
Sasuke forgets sometimes that although their worlds are vastly different, Sakura is also the heiress to her family's prospering business.
It can't be you, she doesn't say, but green eyes meet black and they both know what's being said: the truth behind the sugar-spun, empty words.
Sakura is eighteen, and he's twenty, and he's been accepted into university and his mother's apron strings have finally been cut when Sakura comes and says,
"Mother and father want me to marry Sai."
Sasuke drops the dango she'd given him, and they watch as the rich syrup coats the grass of the ceremonial garden.
"My poor, lonely boy with no family," she continues, stooping from her seat to pick up the ruined treat. "He finally appeared."
These days, Sakura's hands don't look so worn; the Uchiha patronage and subsequent popularity among the rich means that her father's shop is now two, three, four eateries, serving the richest and the poorest of the city with equal care. Where Sakura used to make the mochi, they have servants instead, and her insistence that she still delivers the Uchiha's personal order is nothing but headstrong.
She is still far, far below Sasuke's status.
"Ah," Sasuke manages. He's met Sai a few times, an orphan boy that Sakura's father picked up through loyalty to a dead friend. He's a good man, if a little strange, and Sakura tolerates him well enough.
So he shouldn't interfere, but-
"Don't marry him."
Sakura gapes, her green eyes wide as the words leave his mouth before he can stop them. It's against the rules of their relationship, to state such absolutes. Then her face crumples, and he watches as smooth hands come up to cover her face, the first hint of tears leaking through slender fingers.
"I don't want to," she admits, "but it's not like I could marry-"
She cuts herself off, but Sasuke knows what she was going to say, because it's true. It's not like she could marry him, the sole heir to the Uchiha family name, the youngest scion to grace the family that stands at the forefront of their society.
"Regardless, I'm going to accept," Sakura's trying not to cry as she states her decision, and Sasuke feels the back of his throat close up in what feels very much like despair. "So we can be like this for a little longer, and then you'll have to be 'young master', even though you're not so young any more."
Sasuke closes his eyes. "Sakura-"
"Haruno-san," she corrects, sounding as sad as he's ever heard her.
"Dango-thief," Sasuke retorts, and his companion stops hiding her face to drum her fists against his chest. Though she doesn't work in the kitchen any more, Sakura still has strength unseen in the delicate ladies of the nobility, and her hits actually hurt, but Sasuke lets her land them all.
"Sakura," he repeats, halting her movements when they start to slow. "You'll marry Sai, and I'll marry someone my mother chooses, but you should know…"
He trails off, and tells her with his eyes instead. But Sasuke wants to makes sure Sakura knows, really knows what he wants to convey, so he dips his finger in the pretty anmitsu arranged in her basket, and raises the syrup to her lips.
"You've ruined your father's dessert," she scolds, but it's without malice, and Sasuke notices the brush of her lips against the pad of his fingers more than anything he's ever felt before.
"It won't be the first time I've disappointed him," he whispers back, pressing harder against lips that are reddening with the pressure of his touch.
"Sasuke-kun," Sakura murmurs, and the curve of her speech loops around the cage of propriety, winds its way to his chest until he finds himself leaning into her side.
"Don't marry anyone else," he says, and it's almost, almost a promise.
He feels her smile against his touch.
"I won't," she vows, and Sasuke thinks, where is my brother, what could I say to my mother, how badly will my father hate me, but then Sakura closes her eyes and leans in to him to seal the deal, and all he can taste is the sugary sweet promise of her lips.
AN: Oh I just love this time period so much. And I'm a sucker for ending on a kiss if you can't tell.
