Boruto and his meddling friends were currently sprawled across a small playground near the river. He sat in the middle of the swing set with Denki and Metal on either side of him. His head hung low as he loosely gripped the chains and blankly stared at the wet spot on his pants where he tried to clean up the ice cream mess. Namida and Wasabi were in the sandbox going through a pack of sparklers that each of them bought, and Iwabe was awkwardly sitting on top of the jungle gym. Cho Cho was sitting at the bottom of the slide leaning backward on her hands.

Even with the chatter of people passing by and the excited squeals of children near the fireworks stand, their little bubble was painfully, awkwardly silent. The elephant in the room was suffocating them. Nobody wanted to talk about it, but nobody wanted to leave, either, and risk missing out on any last minute gossip.

Boruto both looked and felt dead inside.

'I messed up; I messed up; I messed up,' he kept repeating over and over again in his head like a mantra, 'She hates me. I'll never recover from this. I'm so stupid!'

"Hey!"

Suddenly, an all too familiar voice cut the tension in the air and grabbed everyone's attention.

"There you are!" continued Sarada, shouting from atop the curved walkway ramp that led down to the playground. She jumped off the railing and landed in front of Boruto.

Boruto perked up. His eyes widened, and his heart raced.

"Sarada?!"

Sarada could feel everyone's attention on her, and she pushed aside any embarrassment she was starting to feel. She needed to set things straight.

Sarada stomped up to Boruto and yanked on his ear which caused him to yelp in surprise.

"Ow! Sarada!"

"I know what you've been telling everyone; I'm so disappointed in you!" she snapped, "I thought you were better than that!"

"Sarada! Ow, please! Ow, let go! Cut it out! What are you-" Boruto's pleas went unheard as Sarada kept her grip on his ear and turned on the rest of their friend group.

"And you all!" she yelled, "I'm so mad at you! Especially you, Cho Cho! Did you all have fun talking about me behind my back and spreading nasty rumors about me?"

Everyone was frozen in shock and only briefly stared at Sarada before the truth of her words sunk in and they redirected their gazes to avoid eye contact. They all felt ashamed, and no one was brave enough to speak first.

"Anyone?" asked Sarada, "I'm waiting."

Silence.

Until…

"I-I'm sorry Sarada. I wasn't a good friend to you," said Cho Cho, finally breaking the silence. Sarada just stared. Thanks to Cho Cho, though, the others started gathering around Sarada and they each apologized to her one-by-one.

"I'm sorry, Sarada. We should have asked you first if it was true," said Wasabi.

"I'm sorry I got swept up in the moment," said Namida wiping her tears on her sleeve, "I was so excited about the gossip that I neglected your feelings."

"I'm sorry," said Denki with a weak smile.

"Yeah, me too," said Metal.

Sarada sighed and finally let go of Boruto's ear.

"I'm sorry, Sarada," said Iwabe, "as the older one, I should have known better than to believe Boruto when he said you two hooked up."

Boruto's eyes widened and mouth opened in shock, and his head snapped toward Iwabe so fast he gave himself whiplash.

"WHAT?!" Boruto shouted.

Sarada ignored the outburst and turned around to survey her friends in silence.

"Oh, you're sorry? Well, get ready to be even more sorry."

Sarada narrowed her eyes.

What happened in the following minutes was absolute chaos.

"Run!"

"She's got her Sharingan!"

"Mommy!"

"Sarada, please, we can talk about this!"

Screaming.

That's all anyone passing by the playground heard that night.

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Back at the Uzumaki household…

Dinner had just ended and Himawari was busy clearing the table and bringing the dirty dishes into the kitchen for Hinata to wash. It was just the girls at home tonight. Himawari grabbed a towel to help dry, and then looked at her mom with a serious expression.

"Hey, Mama, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, honey. What is it?"

"Do two people have to be married before they can have a baby?"

Hinata almost dropped the plate she was rinsing. She cleared her throat and laughed nervously.

"Why do you ask, sweetie?"

"I overheard some older kids talking about it at the park, earlier."

"I see."

Hinata was clearly not ready to have this conversation with Himawari, but it wasn't like this was the full talk so she decided to choose her words carefully.

"Well, sweetie," she began, "most adults prefer to get married, first, because having a baby is a very big decision, but it's true that not all of them do. There are plenty of children whose parents aren't married, but that doesn't mean those children are loved any less. Families come in all shapes and sizes, but what's most important is that they love the children that they bring into this world." Hinata tapped Himawari's nose with a soapy fingertip and smiled when her daughter giggled.

"Like you and Papa?" asked Himawari.

"Like me and Papa," said Hinata. 'Crisis averted,' she thought, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

At that moment the front door swung open and Boruto, a little worse for wear, came inside and kicked off his shoes. He was ready to go to bed and pretend tonight never happened.

"Welcome home, nii-chan!" called Himawari, "Hey, guess what?!"

Boruto groaned, but he was too sore and beaten up to push her away. He decided to humor his sister before dragging his broken body into the shower.

"What?" he replied with a fake smile plastered on his face.

"You and Sarada don't have to get married if you don't want to!"

"Uh…what?" Boruto's mind went blank.

The sound of a broken plate emanated from the kitchen.

THE END

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A/N: Thank you so much for reading my story! I'm so happy to finally finish this.