I don't even try to hide it, having already reached my limit. I cry there, sitting in front of her, fully conscious that she's watching me. I cry like a helpless little kid.
"Sa-Sasuke?"
Sakura sounds somewhat taken aback.
But I can't say anything. Instead, I just keep crying, covering my face with both my hands.
"Sasuke!" I feel a warmth, the familiar hold of two slender arms around my upper body as her alarmed voice enters my ears. "What happened, Sasuke? You're trembling."
Like a drowning man clutching at a straw, I hold onto her, desperately urging her to help me, to save me. Because I can no longer hold myself together and after all this time, she is still the only one I can ask.
She sits on my lap and puts her arms around my shoulders, "It's alright. It's alright, Sasuke," she whispers into my ears. Making me cry even harder.
"Why..." by the time I finally manage to pull myself together again, my voice is barely coming out, "Why didn't you ask me to stay...? Not even once?"
She looks me in the eye, her arms still around me, and sighs.
"...I didn't want you to hate me any more than you already did. And... For Sarada. I wanted to take her away before you started hating, blaming her."
I only realise I'm crying again because she gently wipes away the tears from my cheeks.
"I've done many things..." I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down, "But hating you isn't one of them."
Her eyes go a little wide.
"Yes, I admit, back then, there were moments when I thought none of it would have happened if I had never met you... I don't know where that thought came from, I didn't like it, it made me feel terrible for trying to put the blame on you but... It just... During moments of frustration... Just know this, Sakura. If I could go back to the day I first met you, knowing everything I know now, I'd still do it all... Everything."
"Sasuke-"
"Getting pregnant wasn't your mistake, and it wasn't my mistake either. Because Sarada is NOT a mistake. I love her more than anything and anyone in this world. She's my daughter and there's nothing I wouldn't do for her."
I see her eyes glistening with tears.
"I... don't make as much money as you probably think I do, I just send you most of it because I don't know how else to be of any use to you two... I want to do everything I can, I couldn't back then, for you two. I don't really have much savings but I've talked to Itachi... In case something happens to me, he'll see that you get it..."
"What are you talking about? Nothing's gonna happen to you."
"That's why I said in case. When you have people you worry about, it's only natural that you stay prepared for the worst."
She falls silent after that, but I see a painful look in her eyes.
"And about that phone call... I didn't say anything because I didn't want you to hear. I knew it'd hurt you. And I know you didn't get pregnant intentionally. I've never entertained that idea even when I was at my lowest. Not once."
I loosen her hands from around me and hold them in mine.
"And also because I knew it didn't matter. He didn't hate you because he had a reason, he made up reasons because he hated you. In his eyes, you were an evil woman who stole his son from him."
That's a fucked up tendency people have. They just can't accept that it's the one they love, the one who's their own, hurting them. So, they go for the easier option and try putting the blame on someone else. Making them out to be the bad one who lured away their beloved.
"And that was the last time I ever talked to him. I haven't spoken to him again. Till this day."
She gasps, and I clutch at her hands tighter.
"I thought you no longer loved me. I was away all day and when I came home, you still almost didn't look my way. Most of the days, you won't even eat dinner with me. I thought you no longer cared about me now that you had your baby."
"I... It was easy doing the chores while Sarada was sleeping. That's why I ate while feeding her and did the chores later."
"Yes, I get that. I'm not saying I deserve any husband of the year award, I'm not trying to make excuses. I'm asking you to see things the way I saw them at that time. I'm asking you to understand me."
"I..." but she doesn't say any further and casts her gaze down.
"Dinnertime and bedtime was all I had with you and you were almost never there. You no longer wanted to have sex with me and then that night when we had sex after so long, you weren't even responding to my touches and then you faked your orgasm."
With her eyes wide, she looks up at me.
"Why did you do that? Why didn't you just say no if you weren't in the mood?"
"You were wearing yourself out, working all day for me and Sarada... You gave up your studies, your dreams so that I didn't have to go out to make money after having a baby... You did so much for me... I didn't know how else to..."
"Pay me back? Was that what you wanted to do?" I finish her words that she can't bring herself to speak out loud.
"...I had already turned you down a few times. I knew you didn't like it when I did that. That was why I thought-"
"Yes, I didn't like that you kept rejecting me but that was because to me it felt like you no longer were interested in me. I wanted you to want to have sex with me, like you did before. I wanted you to make love to me, not let me fuck you because you felt like you owed it to me. You were my wife, not a hooker I had paid to sleep with."
She sits quietly for a while and then slowly removes her hands from my grasp.
"I was trying, Sasuke. I was well aware that you were the one who made all the sacrifices. It was exactly like you said. I didn't really have to give up anything, I had pretty much chosen that life. But I was young too. That change was huge for me too. I didn't know how to take care of a household all on my own while being a mother and a wife at the same time."
We sit in silence for a while. Then she gets up.
"I didn't have dinner last night. I'm hungry. Did you eat breakfast?"
"I... Had a cup of coffee."
"Let's eat something first. I heard we feel more irritated when we're hungry."
.
.
.
I don't get why she places a separate jar of jam in front of me. An unused one from the look of it.
"It has less sugar."
I guess she sees it from the look on my face because she says while opening the other jar, the one in front of her, "Yes, it's one of those less sugar more gelatin ones I used to make for you."
I think it takes me a while to speak because by then she already finishes putting jam on her breads.
"Why?"
"Because I made it for you."
She puts the lid back on and reaches for my plate and jar.
"I always make a jar for you," she starts putting the jam on my bread, very casually like it's a chore she does daily, and I don't think putting jam on someone's bread is considered a grand gesture in any way, but for some reason, to me it feels like the sweetest, most heartfelt, most loving act someone has done for me in a long, long time. "There's a whole shelf in my kitchen cabinet. Full of all the things I made for you but didn't have the courage to actually give to you."
"Why do you still... Do that for me?"
"Why?" she looks at me, "Because I want to. I don't think too much about it. I've always been like that. I do what I feel like doing if I know it's not going to cause anyone any harm. I do it because you were precious to me, because our love was precious to me and maybe right now that love is lying in pieces," she pushes the plate back towards me, having finished putting the jam on the breads, "But even in pieces, something precious is still precious."
Note: To clarify, I used the hooker line in the sense that you're having sex because of other reasons (like money) not because you love this person. Just that. I think someone who works in any way to earn their own money deserves respect. And let's not overlook how sex workers get abused all the time. Sex work is not easy money.
Also, I hate hate hate making Sasuke's family so abominable, but that's how they were in the story I got the idea from and I didn't want to work on changing it. I rather wanted to work on SasuSaku. After all, it was supposed to be a oneshot.
Anyway, stay home,
June ❤️
[24.03.2020]