Rice Wine
"What's that?" Sasuke asked as his Mother added a few drops from the bottle in her hand into the pan she was using.
Turning to her son, Mikoto smiled. "This?" she asked, holding the bottle towards him. "It's mirin, rice wine."
Young Sasuke gasped. "That's in our food? I won't be able to have any. I'm not old enough to have wine."
Mikoto laughed. "It's okay to have some in food," she told him in a whisper, leaning forward to ruffle his hair.
Sasuke squirmed away but frowned up at her. "Won't I get drunk?" he asked.
Two fingers tapped his forehead. "No, it's not strong and there's only a small amount in the food." He still looked doubtful so Mikoto assured him, "I've never known anyone to get drunk on rice wine."
The aroma in the kitchen was surprisingly pleasant and Sasuke was skeptical, absently wondering what his Mother would have made of his new wife's cooking. A great kunoichi and medic she may be but there was no denying that Sakura was domestically challenged.
"Ah, Sasuke," she smiled when she spotted him standing in the doorway. "Can you pass the mirin? I couldn't reach it."
"You know," he began warily, passing her the bottle after retrieving it from the top shelf, "you could just go out for a meal with the girls. It would save you the effort of cooking."
However, Sakura narrowed her eyes, holding the bottle in one hand and pointing her wooden spoon at him with the other. "No," she replied. "They think I can't cook. A 'culinary catastrophe' was the term Ino used. I'm going to prove them wrong." With that, she turned away, checking the recipe and adding a few drops of the rice wine into her pot. Sasuke walked away with a shake of his head so he missed her dipping her spoon into the mixture and sampling the vinaigrette she was making for their sushi. Sakura frowned, checking the recipe once more, peering into the pot and then tipping the rest of the mirin out of the bottle and into the pot.
To allow for her 'girls only' dinner party, Sasuke was meeting some of the guys for a meal and with Naruto involved, it could only be at Ichiraku. He had only been out for half an hour, the bowl of ramen just placed in front of him when the messenger arrived informing the group that Sasuke, Naruto, Neji and Shikamaru should be ready to depart for a mission within the hour. With a sigh, he stood to leave. Neji and Shikamaru followed his example but Naruto refused to leave his ramen, promising he would still be ready to leave by the appointed time. With a roll of his eyes, Sasuke left him to it, knowing that the blond would probably clear all of the abandoned bowls.
Sasuke was surprised by the noise level that assaulted his ears when he arrived home, venturing into the dining-room to investigate. Surely they couldn't be drinking the sake already. The other girls had only just been arriving when he had left.
"Sakura," Ino sang out, her already loud voice reaching unprecedented decibels. "This is the best sushi I've ever had. You are a wonderful cook!"
Something was definitely amiss. Sasuke couldn't see any signs of sake on the table and, sure enough, the bottle remained untouched where it had been in the kitchen when he had left. He looked back at the girls, all of whom looked flushed and were giggling loudly, even Hinata. He opened the cupboard and noticed the absence of the mirin bottle. Frowning, he scanned the worktops until his gaze landed on the bin and the empty bottle poking out of the top.
He remembered as a child asking his Mother if he would get drunk when there was rice wine in the food, and how she had laughed at the impossibility of it. Sasuke vowed there and then he was never letting Sakura cook again.