After trying here and there, I did manage to find a job. For a very low hourly wage. But that saying beggars can't be choosers, it exists for a reason.
I had to leave home very early in the morning and could only return late at night. I was also working during weekends because I didn't make much money anyway. That was where things started to go downhill.
I was practically never home. I hardly saw Sarada and even when I did, she was always sleeping. The few hours I spent at home, I was tired. Exhausted to the core. I almost didn't have any energy left to even talk to Sakura. And not like she was dying to talk to me either. She had to manage the entire household while taking care of Sarada. All by herself.
One night, Sakura said that I needed to spend time with Sarada. That she needed a father. She wasn't being aggressive or anything, just casually pointing out an already too obvious fact.
But I had had a bad day at work. In fact, most of my days at work were bad. Because things didn't always go the way they were expected, required to, so people often needed an outlet for all their frustrations and anger and it was always the weaker ones, those who couldn't fight back that they chose to exercise their power on. I was a twenty one year old trainee at the firm with no degree. I was one of the easiest targets.
"Do you think I do it because it's fun?"
"That's not..." she was flabbergasted, "I didn't... mean it that way."
We didn't speak another word for the rest of the dinner.
I felt really guilty about my behaviour and when we went to bed, I tried to make up for it by making love to her. Which she refused. It wasn't the first time. I apologised and explained to her that I was just in a bad mood because of work and she said she understood and wasn't mad at me. She was just tired and needed to sleep. I couldn't argue with that because her day started even before mine.
The following Sunday, I decided to leave work a little early. Because Sakura was right. I needed to spend time with my daughter. She needed to bond with her father.
When I got home, Sakura was playing with Sarada. She had her on her thighs and was holding her tiny hands and making faces. And Sarada was giggling.
Sakura needed to go to the kitchen so she gave Sarada to me. As soon as she came into my arms, she burst into tears. I tried everything I could think of and nothing worked. She just kept wailing. In the end, Sakura decided she was hungry and nursed her. After being fed, she fell asleep. Since I was home, Sakura went shopping for dinner, leaving Sarada with me. But she was already sleeping and I didn't really have anything to do so I just sat there, my mind replaying the image of Sakura and Sarada, playing and laughing. They looked so happy.
Where did I fit into that picture?
I started to wonder when, if ever, I will be able to improve our financial condition. I didn't want to be rich, to own a big mansion or an expensive car. I just wanted to have enough money to afford spending time with my family.
A few weeks later, I got a call from my professor at university asking me to come see him.
He said the university was ready to exempt my tuition fees altogether if I decided to return. Because I was the best student of the year and it was very unfortunate to see me end up that way. But free tuition wasn't going to help me feed my wife and child. Even working seven days a week, from early morning to late night, I was having difficulty supporting my family. Sakura was trying to come up with ideas to make money from home. But with a seven month old kid to take care of and a part-time husband, she had no time. She had to constantly worry about money. To the point, she was doing laundry by hand because it saved detergent. I could see her losing weight.
I had to turn down my professor's proposal.
I left his office thinking about the girl who always came second in the class. How she'd now be the top student and in the end, get selected for the special internship programme that used to be my dream. My eyes fell on the cafeteria at the distance and I remembered meeting Sakura there.
If only I hadn't met her.
I couldn't forgive myself for even allowing that thought inside my head. She was the woman I loved. My wife. The mother of my child. She had it just as hard as me. I had to be a monster to even try to put the blame on her.
That night, when I tried to make love to her, Sakura didn't refuse. But she wasn't responding to my touches the way she used to and I completely lost it when she faked her orgasm.
First of all, who did she think she was fooling? Secondly, the very idea that she felt the need to do that, it made me feel like a rapist, I wanted to leave the bed that very moment. I spent the rest of the night as far away from her as the narrow bed allowed me to. That was the last time we had sex.
I started to feel like I had lost Sakura. My heart was screaming in protest saying this wasn't how it was supposed to be. We were in love. Right?
But in reality, she was no longer the same girl I had fallen in love with. She was a different person altogether. And I, clearly, wasn't the boy she had fallen in love with either. At that point, we were like two strangers living together because our past selves had once gotten along surprisingly well and ended up having a baby together.
I started to lose interest. In literally everything. Nothing felt good anymore. I was spending even more time at work. And I HATED work but being home was suffocating. I no longer felt like a human being. I felt like I was a robot, only moving and acting because that was what I was programmed to do. I had hit the rock bottom and had neither a way nor any will to make it out of there.
My parents contacted me once again and told me it was time I finally opened my eyes and saw how I had been ruining my life being manipulated by Sakura. How she was only using me. Because no-one else would go such lengths for someone as crazy as her. By then, I had no energy left. I listened to everything they had to say, never said a word back, and after that call ended, I never talked to them again.
I realised Sakura was acting different. She was being cautious around me. At times I thought I scared her. It made me feel terrible and I started to distance myself even farther.
I no longer remember what had started that fight. If it can be called a fight in the first place. Because she didn't really fight. She was trying to reason with me. But I do remember her words that set me off.
"How can we stay together if you're always being like this?"
"I am being like this? I am the one at fault. Right? Even though I am out there, working my ass off to make money? Even though I am the one who gave up all his dreams so that I could support you and Sarada? Tell me what you had to give up, huh? Tell me ONE THING you had to give up. You can't. Because YOU, didn't have to give up anything. It was all me. It was all me."
I was being loud and it woke up Sarada. She started to cry. And without losing a moment, Sakura ran to her room. The small store room that used to be my study back when I was attending university.
When she came back, she looked a little surprised to see I was still there. Because those days, our conversations often led to heated arguments and it always ended in me leaving home for a good few hours to let my brain calm down. Sometimes I wish I had done it that night too. But I hadn't, I was still there, she saw me and started putting on the apron and getting ready to prepare dinner, looking all calm and composed, as if nothing had happened at all.
That was the moment I realised.
I was the only one. I was the only one suffering. And therefore I was the only one trying to make things better. Because she didn't really care. She had a home, she had her baby and a husband who made money. Yes, he did get mad at times but he always came back and was always coming back to her and going to work the next morning to keep her life going. So, quite practically, she didn't really have a thing to worry about. My parents were right after all.
"Sakura," she turned around.
"Let's get divorced."
Note: The fact that SasuSaku actually got married and had Sarada very young, and raised her so well, while keeping their love strong in spite of the physical distance, they literally survived every test. Legends. I feel kind of bad messing things up here although it's an AU. Like Sasuke and Sakura won't mess up, ever.
Love,
June ❤️
[13.03.2020]