Sakura's POV
The drive to Sasuke's parent's house is quiet for the most part. Every now and then Sarada or I would start a conversation, but it wouldn't last. Sarada now spends most of her time looking out the window, and I try to zone out as well and listen to the radio, but I can't. I haven't been able to calm down. I'm going to meet my boyfriend's family, his parents. How can I stay calm? I tried on over five outfits before picking the one I am wearing now, which is a light blue and white romper, and I even straightened my hair and put on more makeup than I normally do. A part of me believes it is too much, but another part of me wants to make a good first impression.
The more we drive, the farther away we get from the main area of the city, where all the huge buildings are, and the more we get to the neighborhoods with a spacious amount of land. The area is clean and the houses are big. A perfect place to raise kids.
About ten minutes into the clean neighborhood, Sasuke pulls into a big light brown house that has a white fence around it. When you pull into the driveway, the actual house is to your left, and in front of you is a gate from the fence that leads to the back yard. Sasuke kills the engine and pulls out the keys. "Sarada, why don't you take the lemonade and go say hi to everyone. Go through the gate. I can hear people in the backyard," Sasuke suggests.
"Okay," she says, and then clicks the seat belt button to lose the seat belt from her body, and grabs the raspberry lemonade and regular lemonade we brought. After getting a good grip on them, she opens the door and vanishes to the back yard.
I take this chance to unbuckle myself, and when I glance at Sasuke, his seat belt is still on and his hands still on the steering wheel. When I get a look at his face, he looks more anxious than me. "Honey?" I reach over and touch his tense shoulder to break him away from his trance.
"Sorry. Spaced out for a second." Even after saying this, he doesn't let go of the wheel. Not even his grip loosens. Therefore, I don't let go of his shoulder, and instead, move it to the back of his neck and massage it.
"Why are you so nervous?" I ask him with concern. Sasuke's grip on the steering wheel loosens, and is released making his hands fall onto his lap.
Sasuke doesn't respond immediately. He just stares off in thought as I continue to rub his neck. "I'm just... a little nervous about seeing my father," he finally responds. "With seeing everyone. I haven't stayed in contact with any of them besides my mother."
"Sometimes that happens. We are busy or forget to stay in contact with people," I reassure him. "But that doesn't mean they won't be happy or excited to see you. It will probably be the opposite. I'm sure your father and everyone will be very glad to see you." What I said makes Sasuke chuckle a little.
"My father won't be glad to see me. We don't exactly have a great father and son relationship." I stop massaging Sasuke's neck, and I slowly bring my hand down his arm, passing the end of his short sleeve, and to his rough hand. "When I told him that I was going to be a father, he didn't take it well." Sasuke takes the hand that I'm not holding and brings it up to his face and rubs his temples. "He called me a disgrace, a disappointment. He wanted my girlfriend at the time to abort her. He even punched me."
I end up being speechless. Why was he so awful to him? Sure, having a kid when you are very young is definitely scary and stressful, so why would he make things harder for him? "Even before Sarada we had a rocky relationship. He always favored my older brother Itachi, and always compared me to him. I never really lived up to his expectations." Hearing all of this makes me want to tear up, but I know I have to be strong for Sasuke. With all of this emotion running through me and him, our grips on each other's hands tightens to a point where our knuckles are ghost white.
I then take my other arm and wrap it around Sasuke's bicep, and hug onto his arm like I will never get to see him again. This causes Sasuke to lean into me and wrap his other hand around the back of my head. "I'm sorry you have to go through this. I don't know if this will help, but don't ever for one minute think you are a disappointment, or a disgrace. You are such a great person, father, worker, and boyfriend, and if your dad can't see that, then it's his problem, not yours," I mumble into his arm.
I don't know if what I said was the right thing. I understand that feeling of not being good enough in your parent's eyes. I have been feeling that with my mom recently. "I know that feeling of not being good enough to someone you care about," I continue. "But, I just want you to know-" Before I finish, Sasuke moves my face from his arm and kisses my forehead.
"You don't have to do this, you know."
My face scrunches up. "Do what?"
Saying that makes him smile. "You don't have to give a long speech to try to make me feel better. You have a tendency to do that."
For some reason, that makes me feel a little insecure. "Oh, sorry. I just don't want you to ever go through pain, so... I guess I try to fix things," I mutter.
"Don't apologize for something you don't need to apologize for," Sasuke commands. "And thank you for worrying. You always trying to help is really sweet, and it does make me happy. I just want you to know that you don't have to always have a solution, and that just listening and being there for me is enough."
As soon as he ends his little speech, all my feelings of insecurity vanish in the air. Instead of hugging only his arm, I reach over and attempt to hug all of him, though it is a little difficult for me to because of the car and his seat belt, but that doesn't matter to me or him, because he quickly responds to it.
After a minute of hugging, Sasuke gets the courage to exit the car and see his family. Once we pass the white gate, we see a stone patio to the left with outdoor seats and glass tables, along with folding chairs farther down, surrounding the fire pit. Along the fence are many bushes filled with purple, pink, and white flowers. Near one of the back corners is a swing set connected to a slide, and a sandbox. There is where some small children were playing with water guns.
"SASUCAKES!" A middle aged woman with long, dark hair like Sasuke shouts. Sasuke, with his hand still in mine, walks over to the patio where the woman is. She rises from one of the chairs while holding wine in her hand and makes her way to us. Soon, everyone in the backyard is walking to us.
When we catch up to the woman, Sasuke lets go of my hand and hugs her. "Hi Mother." I can tell that Sasuke is trying to release himself from the hug, but his mom won't let him. "As soon as I saw Sarada coming in I couldn't keep still! I can't believe you came!" Sasuke's mom finally lets go of Sasuke, but keeps the same energy she had when she first saw him.
"It was a last minute decision," Sasuke responds with. After talking a little more with him, his mother turns to me, and looks like she is in shock, but even more excited.
"Sasucakes, who is this?!"
Sasuke then wraps an arm around my waist and says, "This is my girlfriend, Sakura." At first, she looks at me as if I don't exist, and that she is just imagining me, but once I speak, she realizes I am real.
"It's nice to meet you ," I say, trying not to stutter, or sound nervous.
Sasuke's mom quickly places her glass of wine down and wraps her arms around me as if she knows me. "It's so nice to meet you. You have no idea. I never thought this day would come." Since she hugged me without me thinking it would happen, my arms are trapped in her embrace, so I try my best to respond to the hug, but only end up having my hands hug her. "And call me Mikoto. You don't need to be so formal. After all, you're part of the family now!" Part of the family?!
"Mother, stop suffocating her." This makes Mikoto end the hug, but she then grabs my hand and drags me to the crowd that formed when Sasuke and I entered.
"Everyone, this is Sasuke's girlfriend Sakura!" Everyone looks in shock just like she did. "Sakura, this is Obito, Sasuke's cousin and his wife Rin," As Mikoto introduces me to the family, she points to them. "He is Sasuke's uncle Madara, and this..." Mikoto pulls a tall, thin man with long hair like hers with eyes like Sasuke's. I will admit, he is very handsome. "... is Sasuke's older brother Itachi and his new baby, and Izumi, his wife."
Sasuke's brother looks at me gently, and almost like he is saying thank you to me through his eyes. "Hello," he says. I respond with a smile as Mikoto leads me through the rest of the family, and by the end of this, I will be completely drained of energy from all the smiles and the hellos I am giving. That is, until Mikoto drags me to the table she was sitting at before, where a middle aged man with brown hair sits, and drinks beer.
"Honey, this is Sakura, Sasuke's new girlfriend. Isn't that wonderful?!" Mikoto speaks with glee. The man only raises his eyes, but not his head to me, grunts, and takes another sip of his drink. I can feel myself sweating tremendously. "Sakura, this is my husband and Sasuke's father." MIkoto pats my shoulders. So you're the reason Sasuke didn't want to come. You're the reason Sasuke couldn't get out of his car. You're the one that hit him. I know I shouldn't judge someone as soon as I meet them, but you have caused Sasuke so much unnecessary anxiety that I can't bring myself to like you. And by the way you glanced at me, I can tell you don't like me too.
After Mikoto introduces me to , she drags me back to Sasuke, who looks a little annoyed with her. "Mom, you shouldn't have dragged her to everyone like that."
"Well she has to meet the family if she is going to be a part of it." We've only been dating for three months and it sounds like she is already planning a wedding.
Sasuke's face reddens, along with mine when she speaks. "You still shouldn't have thrown everyone at her. That's a lot to take in," he says while grabbing my arm and bringing me back to him.
"Oh alright, I'll leave you two alone for a little while, but I will be back to talk. For now, you, Sakura, and Sarada get something to eat." she says as she points to a huge table off to the side filled with mountains amount of food. Sasuke then puts a hand on my lower back and leads us to the table.
On it, there are many things I want to choose. Fruit salad, potato salad, regular salad, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, chicken, about five different kinds of chips, and more. "Where is Sarada anyway?" I question when I grab a paper plate.
"She is in the sandbox, playing with her cousin." Sasuke walks next to me and grabs a plate too, and fills it with food along with me. "By the way, sorry about my mother throwing you to the wolves known as my family." Hearing him say that makes me chuckle. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, but what about you?" We both reach the end of the table and get plastic forks and napkins.
"I'm doing fine right now. As long as I don't talk to my father, I should be fine. What did he say to you when my mother brought you to him?" Once we have everything in our hands, we both walk over to an empty table that is more separated from the others.
"...Nothing really, he just grunted," I say as I play with the carrots in my salad.
"Don't let it bother you."
"Don't worry, I won't."
Sasuke's POV
While Sakura and I ate, my brother introduced us to my new niece. "She looks just like her mother, thank god," I said teasingly. That earned me a punch to the shoulder. Itachi and his wife spent most of our time with them, and later my mother came to talk to us and Sarada sat down as well to eat, and before I knew it, night time came.
This is the time when the fire starts up and the sparklers too. Instead of sitting with everyone around the fire, I sit behind them on a large rock and sip the last drops of my beer. The day hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I am exhausted, and the bugs are starting to bother me, but it could have been worse. Plus, I wanted Sakura to meet my family, because I'm not planning on letting her go any time soon.
Once the fire starts to glow and increase in size, all the kids run for the marshmallows and sparklers. "Being antisocial again?" I turn my head to see green eyes and a beautiful face. Sakura walks up to the walk and sits down next to me while holding a paper plate filled with fruit. As I take one more sip of beer, Sakura stabs her fork into a piece of watermelon and holds it up to my mouth. Without hesitation, I open my mouth and slide it off the fork.
While I chew, Sakura bites on some cantaloupe, and a small figure comes running up to us, holding what looks like two unlit sparklers and one lit one. "Papa, Sakura, you should try one," she says and hands us the unlit ones. Sakura is the first to light hers by using Sarada's, then I do the same. Once they are lit, Sarada runs back to her uncle Itachi, both of them play with the sparklers as if they are magic wands.
Sakura giggles beside me and twirls the sparkler around in front of her. "This reminds me when I was little and my family went camping." As the sparklers slowly burn out, I listen intently. "We would go with my uncle and cousin for a week. During the day we would either swim, fish, one time we even played ping pong for hours, and I learned how much I love it. Once it was night time, we would build a fire, roast marshmallows, and light sparklers." By the time Sakura ends her story, the sparklers die down and we place them to our sides, and she grabs her plate again.
"Sounds like a nice time." After saying that, Sakura leans her head on my shoulder.
"It was. Maybe someday, we can save up enough and go there with Sarada."
Thinking about that makes me smile. Going camping and hiking, fishing, it all sounds amazing. Like we're a carefree family. "I'd like that," I say, then kiss her temple. After that I lean so my head is almost on top of hers. We sit together and let the music on the radio, the cheers of some of the kids, and the voices of the grownups fill the silence. "Thank you for coming." I kiss her temple again. "I don't think I could have gone through with this so easily if you weren't here."
"Of course. I wanted to come."
Not a bad way to spend the day.