Chapter Text
“Hey papa?”
“Hn?”
“When did you fall in love with mama?”
Sasuke paused. His daughter was a curious one, and while he had long gotten used to her countless questions, he had not been prepared for that one.
When he didn't respond right away, she asked, “...do you not remember, papa?” She sounded glum.
He let out a bemused huff. Their daughter was so much like her mother in moments like this. “I remember,” he finally says, as he resumes sharpening his ninja tools.
“Mama says that she fell in love at first sight,” Sarada told him with an amused smirk.
“Aa.”
He remembers, of course. The not-so-subtle glances that his pink-haired teammate would throw at his way and the blushed cheeks that would appear every time she greeted him. Back then, he had been too focused on revenge to allow himself to consider her feelings but even so, he was forced to admit that Sakura held a special place in his heart… and in that same moment, on the night he left the village, he locked away those budding feelings before they dared take root.
Unlike his wife, he couldn't say when exactly he fell in love. It wasn't love at first sight—although if his younger self had been more honest, he had always found her pretty.
The day that he lost to Naruto, the day he let go of the anger and hatred that blinded him… it was as if a dam had burst open. The feelings that began when they were genin and the feelings he never allowed himself to acknowledge… they suddenly came pouring out and rushing toward only one person… Sakura.
“There wasn't a specific moment,” he finally says. “But it probably began from the first day we became Team 7,” he muses.
Yes, because that was their beginning. It wasn't love at first sight but rather an accumulation of every moment they had shared together and by the time he realized what he felt was love, it was already too late.
Loving her and being loved by her… He could no longer remember what it felt to not have Sakura in his heart.
.
.
.
“Papa… you're so unromantic,” Sarada responded with a disappointed sigh. “Uncle Naruto's love story was way better! I heard that he apparently saved Aunt Hinata from the Moon and…” Sarada continued gushing about Naruto's supposed story of romantic heroism.
“...”