rating: K
disclaimer: i don't own naruto.
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39. out
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"It's not that bad, is it?"
He gives her a look, one that involves sagging lips and a curt movement of his eyebrow. "Define bad," intones Sasuke, the slit of his eye narrowing more as his glare tries to pierce the back of Naruto's head. Displeased, he sourly continues to walk besides Sakura, his cloak shielding the sight of his fist clenching.
"Um, bad as in…" She swerves her eyes, adverting his, and her tone is near mocking. "Not good?" Smiling, Sakura beams, purposefully ignorant.
Naruto, ahead of them, proceeds to stop and marvel at a cotton candy stand—he wears a grin, exuberant, and nudges Sarada to ask if she would like one. Around them, festival goers are mostly in pairs or groups, also wandering in the stuffy atmosphere that Sasuke absolutely detests.
With a grimace, Sasuke watches as Naruto led Sarada, Boruto, and Himawari to the aforementioned stand. Sakura looked as if she would've went too, but Sasuke could tell her plan was to placate him tonight. He doesn't need placating, goddammit.
"I'm surprised Naruto hasn't caught on fire yet with how hard you keep glaring," she comments, amused. This is far from amusing, he thinks. "You should loosen up, anata, or else you'll get more wrinkles that way. This is an outing, after all!"
"A family outing," he grits.
How can he cross that gap across the bridge with Sarada if Naruto is there to whisk her off before he could? It'd been hard enough for Sasuke to mend that unbearable tension, and he certainly isn't blind to his daughter's admiration for the dobe. The last time he and her were at a festival together, things went horribly wrong (thanks to that no-good Kakashi giving him stupid advice from a stupid book) and this could've been a better opportunity to get along with her since Sakura would be there too.
Annoying. All the things he tries to do to make it up to her. This was all just annoying.
Really annoying.
Patiently, Sakura tells him, "Yes. And Naruto is family too, remember?"
Sasuke bristles. If he heard one more Uncle Naruto today—
One look from Sakura has him grimacing again. "The festival's only just begun! I'm sure you can talk to her at some point." She easily loops her arm with his, lightly tugging him. "For now, live a little! You're supposed to have fun at festivals!"
Nearly stumbling, he grunts and keeps up with her pace as they follow after Naruto to the other stalls. Despite what she tells him, Sasuke knows having fun isn't his thing. So when they approach a stand and he sees people of various ages trying to shoot down targets on ducklings rowing across a board for a prize, he is the only one not to approach closer.
Feeling the stop, Sakura becomes close to tasting dirt had it not been their looped arms—then she turns to him with those eyes, and Sasuke knows he sealed his fate.
He tells her, "No."
She widens her eyes at him.
"...No." He can hear Naruto's failed attempts at censoring himself when he missed a clear shot, then he hears Boruto's low mutterings. Himawari giggles from the sidelines, and Sarada sighs.
That's what he can hear, but all he can see is Sakura pouting. "You told me you'd try to have fun before we came here!" She briefly looks at Naruto and others, then adds, "You have good aim. Why don't you try it out instead?" Subtly, she tries to tilt her chin towards the game—where the prizes were at, where Sarada was at. Sakura didn't have to, but she smiles knowingly.
A faint sight exhaled, he slowly trudges forward and harrumphs once at Naruto's second attempt. Sakura is following him and Sarada is watching him now, but Sasuke cannot help but insert, "Your skill is pitiful."
Naruto lowers his fake pistol and if Sasuke said anymore, his veins would burst. "And you think you can do better?"
Sasuke assumes his strained grin was due to the idiot's two children present, but he wonders why Boruto looks starry-eyed as he extends his lone hand in request for the pistol. "I know so," he simply says, casually.
Naruto knew better than to start a fight—that would reflect badly on his Hokage status, Sasuke knows, smugly—so he grumbles, unpleasant, and switches place with him. Boruto and Sarada eye him with interest, Sakura is behind him and he can tell she's quietly cheering him on. He doesn't need luck.
His finger clicks.
The shot, a dart, pins directly in the middle of the target with ease—the sight of it gives Sasuke a sense of nostalgia, a very sad and hurtful kind. Itachi would've liked this game. He did something like that a lot back at the training grounds.
Naruto's mumbling stir him awake again, Sakura standing next to him with a bright smile. The stand's owner congratulate him first, then offers him an opportunity to pick a prize. Inwardly shaking his head of other thoughts that could haunt him, Sasuke peers at the offered objects despite knowing that all of them would garner absolutely no interest from him. These things were meaningless to him.
"Which one do you want?" he asks after some silence, glancing to Sarada.
She jostles a bit, surprised. "Eh…?" Her head tilts quizzically.
Sasuke resumes, "None of them interest me. Instead of getting something that I would end up discarding, I would rather someone else take it." What would he even take with him? Meaningless.
"Oh…" Sarada's eyes dart between the presented items, finding logic in his reasoning. Granted, many things were toys—Sasuke cannot see himself taking any of these. "That one." Her index finger gestures to a toy fan, a big cherry blossom imprinted on the front. "It reminds me of Mama!" she sheepishly admits, pink on her cheeks. Sakura ruffles her head with affection.
As the stall owner takes it down for her, Sasuke's gaze willfully lingers on it.
As Sakura politely thanks the man for the prize, Naruto takes the opportunity to usher Boruto and Himawari to the stall behind them because Himawari had exclaimed at some point about getting takoyaki. Sasuke half-heartedly paid attention to anything else transpiring as he trails behind Sarada walking over to join in.
Beside him, Sakura pokes him in the arm with the prize he'd won. "Y'know, she picked out a fan."
He nods, solemn. "Yes."
She gives him a look, one that entails a message that he hadn't tried to uncode. "A fan."
"Ah."
"A fan."
His eyebrow raises at the heavy insistence. "Is there a point to this?"
"The Uchiha symbol is a fan," Sakura ends up stating, idly twirling the object in her hands. Then she looks up to him with that knowing look again. "I don't think it's just because of me that she picked it out."
Quietly, Sasuke stares at the floor as they traverse the street, taking a right turn because Naruto and the children apparently decided to go check out the festival masks for sale, takoyaki in hand. When he looks up again, after some contemplating, he gently takes the fan from his wife, looking at it with softened eyes. "Ah."
His gaze captured by the fan, Sakura smiles and kisses his cheek—and then it feels like home again to Sasuke.
