light of my eyes
twilight
.
.
Sasuke is singing to himself.
The sound of running water and clattering dishes drowns out the quiet melody, hummed more than sung. Sakura freezes in the entryway, one shoe kicked off and the front door resting ajar on her hip.
She holds her breath, afraid to make a noise that might disturb him as the humming swells, taking shape into a soft string of words and syllables her ears don't recognize.
A floorboard creaks under Sakura's foot. The dishes clink and go quiet.
She breathes in and lets the door close. "I'm back!"
Sasuke's voice emerges from the kitchen, unbothered. "Welcome home."
The curve of his shoulders is relaxed as he bends over the kitchen sink, working through last night's dishes. Sakura touches the small of his back. "Thanks for doing that."
He nods, scrubbing a bowl with one patient and graceful hand.
"What were you singing?" she dares to ask.
Sasuke's hand pauses. She wonders if she's prying too deep. If this is not something she's allowed to know. It's new, what they are.
He stacks the dish in the rack. "It's an old song of ours."
Sakura closes her eyes, straining to remember the shape of the words that fell from his mouth.
She's always known that Sasuke speaks another language. When they were kids, his soft, round pronunciation of the common tongue only added to his allure. A slight accent still bleeds into his voice to this day, when he's too annoyed or angry or tired to help it.
And yet she only remembers hearing Sasuke's language one time. The night he left the village, as she threw her arms around him and pressed her face between his shoulder blades, his head tilted back, and a small noise escaped his throat, the sound someone makes before crying. And words poured out of him that she couldn't understand. Her name, uttered in a gentle, rounded way, cupped inside some kind of sentence that sounded like a plea.
And then he stiffened. The language they both shared coldly left his mouth, as if nothing had happened.
She wonders if he'll do the same now.
A crease grows between Sasuke's brow, and his head tilts, like he's listening for something. Without any fanfare, he sings.
Low notes float through the still air, rhythmic and spellbinding, different from the music Sakura's heard all her life at festivals or spilling onto village streets on summer nights. Sasuke sings like he speaks, simply and unashamed. His voice is quietly warm, like embers glowing in the remains of a fire, tinged with something sad.
He breaks off softly and looks away. "I don't remember the rest of the words."
"Sasuke-kun…" Sakura's mouth opens and closes, her throat tight and eyes stinging. Her capacity for speech is gone. So she relies on the two words that have always filled in the gaps for them. "Thank you."
Studying her face, Sasuke echoes something back in Uchiha.
She returns a questioning look.
His index finger picks at the edge of his thumb as he repeats himself, then translates. "'Thank you.'"
Sakura slowly turns the sounds over in her head, to make sure she remembers right. It's a long, light-filled phrase. It sounds sacred.
"Thank you," she says.
Her mouth twists with a wince. Did she say it right?
Sasuke's face brightens. He cups her cheek as he responds in a lilting sentence that ends with a rare, blinding smile.
Sakura wants him to look like that all the time. She leans into his touch, her heart nearly bursting from her chest.
"I didn't know it would be so nice." Sasuke's hand falls. "Hearing you say that, in my language."
"I'll say it again," she says, "that and anything else I happen to learn."
Sasuke's fingers twitch. "You want to learn?"
Things are different between them now, and Sakura doesn't shy away from his gaze anymore. But his deep eyes are so focused on her that heat rushes to her cheeks. "If you'll teach me." Her voice feels weak in her throat. "How else will I know what you're singing?"
One brow lifts in a hesitant arch. "I'm not a good teacher."
"Well, I'm a good student."
An amused exhale flies from his lips, and Sakura beams. It's his way of saying yes.
They turn to the sink, drying the dishes together.
"Sakura?" A thin note to Sasuke's voice startles her into looking up. The tips of his ears are red. "It was a love song."
midnight
.
.
The Uchiha language is a forgiving one, all soft consonants and resonant vowels, one neutral third person pronoun and few irregularities. Rhythmic words jump eagerly to the tongue, offering a myriad of ways to describe the curve of a mountain or the glow of fire. But none of this matters if the language only exists in the mind of one person.
Itachi mumbled his final words in Uchiha. Even filled to the brim with malice and hatred, Sasuke's ears sighed from the sound, hearing another voice speak his language for the first time since he was a child.
That might have been why, in the end, his brain could not exchange words for meaning. Or perhaps the rushing of his pulse drowned everything out. All he registered was the gentle fondness of his brother's voice. Then there was nothing else to hear. No one else to listen to.
In his dreams, he understands.
Now a lifetime later the language is waking up.
Sakura is a quick learner. Sasuke writes out list after list of verbs and vocabulary words—everything he can think of, from standard greetings to names of vegetables to species of flowers—and she tears through them with a starving frenzy and a shrug, explaining, "Do you know how many medical terms I've had to memorize?"
They spend their evenings together, practicing.
Sakura points. "That is…fire."
"That's right," he says slowly. "The fire keeps us warm. Do you understand, warm? Hot, but less."
"Yes! The fire…is warm."
"What color is it?"
"It is…not blue."
"Red, Sakura-jun. Red—we have a lot of words for it. This one's for fire."
"Oh!" She nods with enthusiasm and scribbles down a note. "Red!"
A rush of fondness swells in Sasuke's chest. "You're cute."
"What does that mean?"
Why does he feel so free to speak his mind in Uchiha? Is it by virtue of the language itself? Or because he knows she doesn't understand?
Sakura's discontented frown deepens the longer he leaves her in silence. "You're not going to tell me?"
He bites back a grin. "I said I'm not a good teacher."
"Then what's 'jun'?"
The affectionate ending slipped from his tongue so easily he didn't notice. Jun. My life. A term for close friends, family, the people held dear. There are no lukewarm feelings in this language.
"It's…friendly," he explains. "Like 'Sakura-chan.'"
Sakura lets out a shocked giggle while he grimaces. It sounds strange to him too.
"So can I say Sasuke-jun?"
No one has called him that in so long. A tightness grips Sasuke's chest as warmth spreads through his limbs. He nods.
"I want…to speak. With you, Sasuke-jun." Sakura's accent has always been eerily good, like she practices extensively on her own. Looking pleased with herself, she smiles at him. "I like you."
With nothing but joy on his mind, Sasuke tells her, "I love you."
His heart stutters as if pulled from his chest. Realizing that she can't understand. Worrying that she can understand.
"I love you," she repeats, eyes wide, voice sincere. "What does that mean?"
"It's…" He chokes on his words. "It's hard to translate."
He's not lying. The phrase means, in a literal way, my heart is connected to yours. It lifts off the tongue like a heartbeat.
Uchiha love is not lukewarm.
He studies the curve of her cheek, which he loves to cup against his palm. The lips he loves to kiss. The eyes that he loves to watch crinkle in a smile or blink awake next to him each morning.
"I love you." He touches her face. "Do you understand?"
Sakura blinks hard, tears gathering in her eyes, and nods.
He buries his head into the crook of her neck and says it again, not knowing which language comes out.
.
.
A children's chapter book is splayed open by Sasuke's feet. The book is on the floor, two steps inside the grand building that was once the archive in the Uchiha district.
If he raises his eyes, he'll see a lot more disorder inside, the remnants of a red night frozen in time.
Sasuke flips the book neatly shut and leaves it on the floor, stomach churning violently. If it weren't empty, he would vomit.
"Are you okay?" Sakura's hand lights on his shoulder. "Should we leave?"
Her voice is calm, but he knows that she's shaken because she's switched to the common tongue. These days, when it's just them, they only speak in Uchiha.
Sasuke's vision blurs, trying with all his might not to think about the brown splotch staining the yellowed pages. "I have to do this."
Precious contents wait ahead. The lexicon of an entire language, stories and songs. The word for sunset, among many other details Sasuke's younger self neglected to remember.
Sakura is inching closer to mastering Uchiha each day. But there's only so much knowledge Sasuke can impart, when his own understanding of the language froze at the age of seven.
After the massacre, Sasuke barely spoke in any language at all.
A shoulder brushes his, and a warm hand presses between his shoulders. Sasuke's mind presents a vision, clear as if it came from the sharingan. A child, wearing his eyes and Sakura's smile.
This is also why.
Not yet. Not even spoken about. They're young, and it's too early. But if he were to have a child, wouldn't it be with her?
"I can go." Sakura's voice echoes among the dusty, toppled shelves.
Pain and relief and guilt course through Sasuke's veins. He doesn't have to venture inside, to see the bloodstains sunken into the wooden floors? Books scattered, left open before dying hands?
"I can do it," she says again. "I'll do it."
Thirty minutes later, the door to the library swings open.
Sasuke rises to his feet. The stone steps where he's been sitting have sapped away all his body heat.
Sakura's carrying three boxes overflowing with a dying language. Scrolls, loose papers, books, textbooks, newspapers. Grammar workbooks from the small school Sasuke attended before the Academy, a serene red eye stamping the cover just like he remembers. Children's picture books. All stacked neatly, carefully, from wherever she had plucked them.
"I'm finished." Silent, relentless tears stream down her face.
Sasuke tilts his forehead against hers, and doesn't ask what she's seen inside. They lean close, needing each other to stand upright. "Thank you so much, my love." His throat feels too thick to speak. "I'm sorry that I made you do this."
"For you, I would do anything." Her breath fans softly over his lips.
The sun sinks low on the horizon, and a chill rises in the air. Sakura hefts one box up on Sasuke's shoulder, and making sure he's well balanced, lifts the remaining two in her arms. Together, they carry the weight home.
dawn
.
.
Sarada understands more Uchiha than her parents think she does.
When she was little, she babbled in it all day long. She remembers being too shy or too stubborn to speak the language of the Leaf alongside the other kids at school. Papa didn't smile as easily when he spoke the common tongue. So why should she speak it?
Knowing that, it's strange how easily the words of the Leaf took root in her brain, growing like ivy over her first language.
Or maybe not so strange, with her father away for years at a time, her mother working day and night. When her classmates scrunched their noses at her when she spoke in Uchiha, as if she brandished two heads and eight sets of eyes.
Sometimes Sarada's afraid to turn the language over in her head, afraid to learn how much she's lost.
.
.
When letters from Papa arrive, the air in the house changes. Mama will open the envelope on the spot and stand very still as she reads, holding the thin page like fragile gold. Without a word, she'll pass it to Sarada.
He writes in Uchiha, with a neat paragraph in the common tongue at the end for Sarada. Sometimes she hates it, how considerate he is. The effort he takes to include her, how much he doesn't want her to feel bad for forgetting.
Sarada skims the whole letter like she always does, sounding out words that feel as familiar as forgotten friends, picking out the parts her father didn't necessarily intend for her eyes.
I slept in a field. The grass [ ] my face all night, like your hair.
I hate being away. I don't want ...
... for Sarada ...
... mission ... don't care ...
... tired ...
The cherry blossoms are in bloom here. Sarada squints, trying to piece together the next sentence. My heart [ ] for you.
"Mama?" She points to the page. "What does this say?" Her hunger to know overshadows any guilt she feels for snooping.
"'My heart aches for you.'" Mama's face twists in the sad-happy way it always does when she thinks about Papa. "It's the way you say 'I miss you.'"
"Oh. That's…" Sappy. More sappy than she expected. "That's really nice."
"It's like that, your father's language—your language." Mama hesitates. "Even simple things are said as if they're a poem."
Sarada's heart aches. For her family, separated for so long. For this language, straining for light in her brain. For her Papa's arm to wrap once more over her shoulders.
"Maybe…we can practice together…" She digs for the right words. "This language, I miss it." Tears sting her eyes. "I've forgotten so much!"
"You haven't forgotten, Sarada-jun. You know more than you think."
Sarada nods. Even if she can't always conjure the words to speak, she can understand everything Mama says.
"It's my fault, really." Mama's mouth twinges. "I should have done a better job, speaking with you. It's been hard…without your father here…"
Sarada finds it hard to place all the blame on her mother. She hugs her, an Uchiha phrase lighting up in her mind. "Let the fire take your pain."
Mama pulls her into an embrace. "Yours, too."
An ache loosens in Sarada's chest. Don't worry, mother and daughter are telling each other. Don't blame yourself.
Some things are better said in Uchiha.
.
.
Papa smells like woodsmoke and wind as Sarada buries herself in his embrace. "Sarada," he says, "light of my eyes, how are you?"
Light of my eyes, he calls her, like he always has. One long syllable and two quick ones, just like the rhythm of Sarada's name. A hiccuping sob builds in her chest. No one has called her that in so long.
The language of the village waits on her tongue, but Sarada chooses Uchiha. "I missed you!" she cries, not caring about her pronunciation or whether she fumbles through the rhythm. "I'm so happy that you're home."
"I'm happy too," he says, smoothing her hair. "You're speaking very well."
"I've been practicing with Mama," she blurts in the common tongue.
"Have you?" he responds. "We can practice, too."
Mama's soft footsteps pause somewhere beyond their embrace.
Papa's head lifts. Sarada hears the smile in his voice as he greets her in Uchiha, using the affectionate name he reserves only for her. When Sarada was little, she heard him say the three short, playful syllables so often, she mistook them for Mama's name.
Sarada pulls back. "You always say that. What does it mean?"
Papa and Mama are already sharing in a silent conversation of warm gazes, but a new discussion takes place in the lift of a dark brow and the answering blink of green eyes. "'My love," Mama translates simply.
"Really?" Sarada pushes. "It sounds like more."
Her parents exchange another, more tentative glance. "'The one who has my heart,'" Papa supplies, gruff and awkward in the language of the Leaf. A faint blush rises on Mama's face.
Sarada fights the urge to roll her eyes. It really doesn't take much to reduce two of the strongest shinobi in history to shreds.
Also, she knows what it means.
Papa says something to Mama, too quick and packed with unknown vocabulary for her to pick up. The word home repeats twice. At the end, Mama's eyes go wide and shiny.
Sarada makes a guess from context clues. "How long until you leave home?"
Her father smiles. "I'm not leaving."
In his language, Papa says easily, the one who has my heart, the light of my eyes. I miss you. My heart is connected with yours. I love you. In the language of the village, Papa is different. Quiet in words, loud in other ways. A gift from his travels. A warm breakfast each morning. A kind glance, an affirming touch.
Sarada will always know what it means.
Love, and love.
.
.
notes:
this story was written for Homeward: A SasuSaku Zine in winter 2022. it was incredible to be a part of this zine alongside so many talented artists and writers in the fandom! thank you to addie (AdelineVW7) for beta-reading!
The Uchiha language is roughly inspired by Farsi, my first language which I lost when I was little and have relearned quite a great deal. Some of the affectionate terms Sasuke uses are real!
delbaram: the one who has my heart
delam barayat tang shodeh: i miss you (literally "my heart aches for you")
noore cheshmam: the light of my eyes
thank you so much to the team at Homeward zine for including my work in such a lovely project!
written for anyone who's experienced the dual pain and pleasure of relearning a first language.