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The war seems to have exhausted any of Sasuke’s penchant for dramatics. “Probably,” says Sakura, balanced in the branches of an apple tree, picking fruit, “because you lived too hard and too fast when you were young and now what are you? Boring. The most boring man in Konoha.”
Sasuke stands below the tree, holding a basket for her and only half listening: a sparrow has landed on his head, chirping busily like some hairdresser imparting scandalous gossip.
“What is with you and birds?” asks Sakura disgustedly. “Are you like the virgin princess of the forest? Where are the squirrels? Where are the rabbits? Where are the baby deer?”
She leans down and tosses two apples into the basket. The third, she throws at Sasuke’s face. He catches it, of course, but hitting him hadn’t been the point. The sparrow departs in an agitated flutter of wings. sasuke’s hair is an absolute mess.
“Your hair is an absolute mess,” she tells him.
Sasuke considers the apple she’d tossed, and rubs it against his shirt, and takes a bite. “Come down and fix it,” he tells her.
“Ha!” says Sakura, pulling herself up a few branches. “Am I allowed to touch your hair? Dare I soil its perfect conditioning with my unworthy fingers?”
Sasuke squints up at her. “I use the same conditioner you do.”
“I’ll throw another apple at you,” she threatens.
“Don’t,” he says. He chews a little, and considers the sky: late-summer blue, a little hazy, the sun just past its zenith. Too hot, thinks Sasuke; but he waits patiently under the tree. Sakura is angry with him, and he can be patient for that. It never lasts very long, anyway: Sakura forgives too easily. Sakura is made of such tiny, everyday feats of superhuman strength.
After some time, the basket has grown considerably heavier, Sakura has accidentally crushed three apples, and Sasuke is starting to wilt in the heat. He’s kind of a terrible shinobi, thinks Sakura, when he's not actively on missions: like some hot-house flower, impressive but delicate. She lowers herself to sit on the lowest branch, legs dangling. Sasuke edges closer, and hands her an apple from the basket. She looks at it.
“We’ve known each other a long time,” she says.
“Almost two decades,” he agrees.
“Is this the first time you’ve given me an apple?”
“…Yes.”
“Rude,” she sniffs. She aims a half-hearted kick at him -- he lets it strike his shoulder. “How long is your trip?”
“Two weeks, if the weather’s good.”
“To deliver a fucking letter?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe I married the mailman,” says Sakura. “Do you also deliver packages, or is it just letters?”
“…Rude,” he says.
“Fuck you.”
“You like our mailman,” he reminds her.
“I’m having an affair with him while you’re gone,” she threatens. “You’ll come home to red-headed brats everywhere.”
He wraps a hand around her left ankle. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I’m sorry to miss dinner tomorrow.”
Her leg twitches, but she doesn’t break his hold. “You think I’m so easy,” she grumbles, even though she really is that easy. Sakura does not know how to hold a grudge -- it is one of Sasuke’s favorite things about her. For form’s sake, Sakura persists, “I -– There….there might still be red-headed brats when you get back.”
“You’re already pregnant,” he points out.
She holds up her half-eaten apple to throw at him.
“Sorry,” he says promptly. “Sorry. Please don’t throw that at me.”
Please, thinks Sakura: this is Sasuke now. He and politeness are passing acquaintances. Is that boring? she wonders. A man is not dashing for saying please and thank you.
And yet -– dashing is not what Sakura wants for Sasuke. Vengeance may be romantic, but it is difficult to love. You cannot make a life with it: to plant a garden, and argue about the flash point of cooking oil, and pick apples in the late summer sunshine.
Probably, thinks Sakura, the kind of man who says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ is the kind who remembers that there had been more to his childhood than just blood and murder and betrayal. Before all of that, his mother had scolded for tracking mud in the house, and his father had reminded him to say itadakimasu, and he had homework from the academy to do.
She holds her arms out. “Help me down,” she says, which is as good as forgiveness. His help is unnecessary: she accepts it anyway. You could make a life with that.
Sasuke helps her down from the tree. “Are you thirsty?” he asks. “It was hot. Do you want some water?” He hands her a water bottle, unopened. She looks at it, and at his sun-flushed face -- he had been in the sun far longer than she had.
“Dumbass,” she calls him, and bullies him into drinking first.
They collect their things: keys, wallets, Sakura’s shoes, the basket of apples. Sakura considers her shoes. “You could piggyback me home,” she offers magnanimously.
“I’m carrying the apples,” Sasuke says.
“I’m not heavy,” says Sakura. “I definitely weigh less than the apples.”
“You definitely do not,” says Sasuke, who perhaps still has a little of wartime fearless, dashing idiocy left in him.
“Are you calling me heavy?” asks Sakura.
Sasuke considers this. Fearless, dashing idiocy is no good in peacetime, nor in a marriage.
They head home. Sakura wraps her arms around Sasuke’s shoulders, sticks her legs out and wriggles her toes. “Enjoying yourself?” he asks, wryly.
“Mmm,” hums Sakura, happy.
Sasuke looks up at the sky, flushing pink on the western horizon. Behind him, Sakura smells like hospital skin lotion and the shampoo in the shower at home and a little bit like apples. Common, familiar smells: nothing startling about them. He tells her, “It was hot today. We’ll need to water the garden after dinner.”
“'Kay,” says Sakura, resting her chin on his shoulder.
“If it’s still this hot later this week, remember to keep the curtains closed during the day. Otherwise, the house is going to bake.”
“I’ll remember,” she promises. They are quiet for a little while. Sakura leans forward to press a kiss just behind his ear.
“What–”
“I like boring,” she tells him.
He glances back at her: one eye a bloody red, the other ringed in strange pattern. But the look in them is familiar: a little baffled, but fond nonetheless. He doesn’t understand -- perhaps, unlike Sakura, Sasuke does not delight in talk about watering gardens and closing curtains and the weather later that week. Still, he says, “Thank you,” low and quiet and affectionate. The inflection is the same as when they were thirteen.
“Yes,” says Sakura. She presses her smile into the curve of his shoulder. “Me too.”