Work Text:
On an otherwise ordinary morning in the village of Konoha, Hinata’s husband had decided to declare his love for her.
“Hinata, I love you,” he had said as if he were asking her to describe the weather. (Cold and sunny, just the way they both preferred it.) He had never once said those words before, but it was only fitting that Uchiha Sasuke, after six years of marriage, one child on his lap, and another child on the way in Hinata’s womb, would decide on this very moment in time to verbally express his feelings for his wife.
Her husband had always been cryptic, but it was only natural for Hinata to freeze as her mind went over the possibilities—perhaps an impostor was sitting across from her, perhaps she was trapped in a genjutsu…
No, her eyes were simply too good; it would be impossible for her to not detect a trace of genjutsu in the air. His chakra levels were normal and their two-year-old child, quietly asleep on Sasuke’s lap, would be crying if there were an imposter in their midst. Hinata couldn’t imagine anyone else holding a young child in the way that Sasuke did; like most mornings, he had one hand wrapped around his cup and his other hand holding their child in a position that would be considered precarious at best to most people—his hand seemed to be simply resting on the child’s head. However, anyone who knew the Uchiha at all would know that there was no one else in the village who could better protect the child without lifting a finger.
Still, as Hinata sat across from her husband after his sudden declaration, she looked at him over her own cup of green tea that she had already raised to her lips and paused before asking, “What did the hospital say?”
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow on his handsome face as if she had been the one to suddenly exhibit strange behavior. “Nothing.”
“What did Sakura-chan say?” Hinata clarified. Their pink-haired friend, the most gifted medic ninja of their generation, was usually the one who performed the routine check-ups on Sasuke whenever he returned to Konoha from a mission.
“The same thing as always.”
“Well, why did you suddenly…” Hinata trailed off as she struggled to articulate her thoughts into words—she had never doubted her husband’s feelings for her; after all, they had dated for two years after the war before eloping.
Of course, they’d talked about their plans for the future before signing the marriage certificate—as the last Uchiha whose life ambition was to rebuild his clan, it was inevitable that she would eventually give birth to children who would inherit the Uchiha name. Hinata was still a proud Hyuuga, but she hadn’t been the heir to the Hyuuga clan for years and her father was too busy training Hanabi, the current heir and Hinata’s younger sister, to succeed the family.
Unlike many of the married couples in the village who had reasonably decided to simply have one child and call it a day, Hinata and Sasuke had mutually agreed that they should have at least two children rather than simply one; it didn’t sound very fair to place all the burden and pressure of awakening the Sharingan and continuing the bloodline on a sole successor.
While the decision to have multiple children came with complications—one, childbirth wasn’t completely safe and two, it was possible that the two children would grow to resent each other if they were to compete with one another to become the eventual head of the Uchiha clan—there was also the possibility that one, or perhaps both of them, would have no desire to reproduce. Hinata would never pressure her children to have children of their own if they didn’t want to, but at the moment, there were no other ways to naturally pass on the Sharingan. By having multiple children of her own, she hoped that there would be less pressure on them to feel the need to continue the bloodline.
Sasuke was a prime example of someone who wouldn’t bother having children of his own if he weren’t the last Uchiha. He had told her from the beginning that he had never planned to have a family of his own, but when his clan was massacred in front of his very eyes, he knew that it was his duty to rebuild his clan. If the Uchiha name disappeared from the world, he would never be able to raise his head again. Hinata had understood and told him that it was lucky for him that she didn’t mind either way; it would make her happy to have a family with him or be a family of two—just him and her.
—
They had always been content with each other’s company.
But now that her husband suddenly felt the need to declare his love for her, she felt that she had the right to be worried.
“Are you going away for a mission?” Hinata asked, her hands unconsciously moving to rub her swollen belly. During a time of peace, his mysterious behavior could only be explained by something that was bigger than the two of them; Sasuke was never asked to be away from the village for more than a few days at a time. Naruto, the current Hokage, was aware of Hinata’s pregnancy.
She saw Sasuke resist the urge to roll his eyes and look out the window. He always had a dramatic flair, and she felt like reaching over the table to brush his long strands of black hair away from his eyes. They were getting too long.
“There was a time when most of the girls in this village would have jumped up and down in enthusiasm if I had confessed my feelings for them,” he deadpanned, failing to mask the small hint of amusement on his face.
“Those same girls are all married to other people now,” she pointed out, lifting her teacup to hide her small smile. She recalled the time when the others had first found out about their relationship; Tenten and Temari had excitedly congratulated her and confessed that they had both had small crushes on the Uchiha when they were teenagers while Sakura had thrown herself into her work at the hospital for years before she was able to congratulate the two with a genuine smile.
“And you’re married to me.” It was a simple statement, but even after all these years, there were butterflies fluttering in Hinata’s stomach. Out of all the girls in the village that were in love with him, somehow they had ended up together.
“Yes, because I love you, Uchiha Sasuke,” Hinata confessed softly, hoping their child would remain asleep. “I wouldn’t have married you otherwise.”
Sasuke took another sip of tea and stroked their child’s head. “You’ve never said it before.”
She heard the implication in his sentence, but it was baffling to her—she’d been under the impression that they would grow up to be one of those old couples that knew implicitly what the other person’s feelings were without having to verbally confirm it.
“I could say the same to you,” she said in a gentle voice, wanting to ask him exactly why he had picked that moment earlier in time to tell her that he loved her for the first time. She had known from the start that he was a man of action rather than words; it explained why he was usually selected for missions that required his expertise rather than anything that required tact and diplomacy.
When they were only eighteen years old, Sasuke had started to act oddly. They had known of each other’s existence since they were children, but he had never acknowledged her presence until days after Naruto had finally plucked up the courage to acknowledge Hinata’s confession from years and years ago. With a guilty look and his hand scratching the side of his face, he had awkwardly thanked her for her feelings and apologized for taking years to finally acknowledge her confession.
A few days after she had been formally rejected, Sasuke had returned to Konoha from a lengthy mission and shoved an object wrapped in a silk cloth into her hands without a word before disappearing. Staring at the space that he had previously occupied in bafflement, Hinata was left standing by herself—she’d been on her way to visit her sister when the boy suddenly appeared like he had been summoned by the gust of wind—and unwrapped the cloth to reveal a small tin that consisted of divine-smelling green tea leaves that instantly wafted the cold air. They were most likely picked from an area outside of Konoha that was blessed with the ideal climate for growing and cultivating her favorite type of green tea.
She’d waited days afterwards to invite him over to her small apartment so that she could brew the tea leaves for him and enjoy it together, but he had disappeared off to another mission for weeks. When he had finally returned, she had stammered her gratitude for him—it was back when her inability to stop stuttering had taken over her life—and he had handed over a lacquer box made of cherry wood to her before she could even invite him over. She had tried to hand the box back to no avail; he was much stronger and quicker than her, and with a defeated sigh, she’d opened the box to see a beautiful set of handcrafted bamboo chopsticks.
“T-thank you, Uchiha-san, but w-why are you giving these to me?” She had asked, still unable to solve the puzzle standing in front of her as she closed the box with a frown.
“You don’t like it?”
She would soon learn that he had a habit of not answering questions.
“I-I do! But I…I don’t understand why you’re giving t-these to me?” She had an unfortunate habit of ending the majority of her statements with a raised intonation at the end, giving people the impression that she was asking questions most of the time.
He hadn’t answered at the time, and continued to adorn her with more gifts whenever he returned to the village after his missions. She had soon learned from Sakura that the Uchiha had a tendency to procrastinate on visiting the hospital for his required check-ups—it was standard protocol for ninjas to visit the hospital as soon as possible after returning to the village to make sure their bodies and minds were intact—and seemed to wander around the village before the pink-haired medical ninja had to practically force him to visit the hospital.
Hinata, feeling uncomfortable with the uncharacteristic attention that the Uchiha had decided to offer her, had started to hide in her apartment whenever she heard that the Uchiha would be heading back to Konoha. Every firm rejection she had given him was then rejected by him; at the time, she had felt like she had no choice but to accept every present that he had handed to her because for some inexplicable reason, she felt it would be rude and unkind to say “no” more than three times when the boy was simply doing something kind.
But Hinata had quickly figured out that the Uchiha would need to deplete the savings that the Uchiha clan had left for him if he were to continue in this fashion. Finally, when he had tried to leave her with a grand kimono that would please even her father, she had no choice but to firmly draw a line between the two.
“Uchiha-san, I-I can’t accept this,” she had protested at the time, clenching her hands together and pressing them onto her chest in an effort to stay calm. “Why…why d-do you keep giving me things?”
His eyes, so dark in contrast compared to her lilac eyes, had remained unreadable to her. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No, it’s n-not.”
To her disappointment, he hadn’t answered her again.
She had turned around, intending to walk home without bidding him farewell, when he spoke again.
"Do you really know not why?"
And at the tender age of eighteen, Hinata had realized that their relationship would not be one based on explanations and declarations of love.
–
Two years of dating and six years of marriage later, Hinata acknowledged that her reaction may have been on the dramatic side; most people wouldn’t think of impostors, genjutsu, dangerous missions, or bad news from a hospital if their significant other had confessed to them.
But Hinata’s relationship with Sasuke had never been as conventional as the other couples in the village.
“So…why now?”
Why now, after so many years?
“I just felt like saying it,” he said simply as if that was all the explanation that needed to be said.
And for the twenty-six-year-old Sasuke, it probably was.
Hinata, who had been absentmindedly rubbing her belly as she thought about the twenty-year-old boy who had asked her to marry him on the peak of a mountain on another otherwise ordinary morning, smiled as she watched her husband continue to sip on his cup of green tea as he continued to stroke their child’s head.
“I love you too, Sasuke,” she said again, for it didn’t matter to her how many times she said it, and she felt like her heart could burst from happiness.