#alisstairs

In which cherry blossoms are familiar and Uchiha history can be found woven into all the fabrics of their household.

A/N: Hi everyone :) sorry for my own lack of posts, but I’m so excited to finally share this! My dear friend and the talented artist ALISS @alisstairs​ and I have been working on this project for a long time and we’re posting this part as a Valentine’s Day treat!! Our twitters are plumbIossoms and a_lisstairs. Please enjoy and look out for the rest of the project when it’s ready to be posted! Please do not repost any of this anywhere.

Sakura walked through the front door and was immediately greeted by a delicious scent and soft sounds coming from the kitchen — which meant her husband was cooking. The fact that Sasuke was both home early from a mission and cooking dinner was enough to put her in a good mood, so when she saw him standing over the stove, she couldn’t help but break into a big smile. 

“Why’d you get an apron?” Sakura asked when she came up right behind him to peek at what he had set to boil. Sasuke jerked his chin towards his lone arm, “It can get a little messy with just this. I actually bought this for you while I was getting groceries, but I needed it myself for today.”

When Sakura walked in, Sasuke’s back was to her, so she only noticed the strings knotted around his waist that showed he was wearing an apron. Only when he turned around to kiss her in greeting did she realize the apron was pale pink in color and covered in a cherry blossom print. How cute.

“And when were you planning on telling me about this gift?” she asked with the same big smile she wore when she walked in.

“Never. It’s fine if you don’t use it and we just eat out all the time.” Sasuke honestly enjoyed his wife’s cooking, but it was always fun to tease her when everyone else claimed she was the worst. Sai’s pale skin turned a shade of sickly green anytime someone mentioned Sakura’s soldier pills.

Sakura rolled her eyes. Fine, he could just make his own bento next time! 

“Sarada is still with my parents?” she queried instead. “Yes, I figured your mom would refuse to give her up if I attempted picking her up early. We can get her tomorrow morning?” “That sounds good. I only dropped her off this afternoon, so she’ll be fine for a little longer, but I’ll definitely be glad to have her back here. Sasuke-kun, aren’t you tired from your mission? Why didn’t you want to just get take-out or something?” Sasuke’s face fell almost imperceptibly, “You weren’t home when I got back. I wasn’t injured so I couldn’t bother you at the hospital. The house was too quiet without Sarada and I didn’t really have anything else to do.” He said it plainly, but the explanation made Sakura’s heart hurt a little. Coming home to an empty house was a certain kind of lonely feeling. The only downside of Sasuke returning early was that she hadn’t been there to greet him right away. 

“Okay,” she smiled gently up at him, hoping to draw him away from any dark thoughts, “I’m glad you’re making something, I’m starving.” Sasuke nodded, but when his eyes narrowed soon after, Sakura already knew what he was thinking. “Yes, I ate lunch at the hospital. I brought the last of some leftovers.” He nodded again, satisfied.

Sakura moved away from his side to give him some space and started setting the table. “You know, this feels a little like before we had Sarada. Just me and you.” 

“Except we’re not roasting fish over a fire in the middle of nowhere,” Sasuke deadpanned. 

“Hey! You can’t deny that we had some good meals on the road. Well, I think cooking them was usually more fun than eating them because we never knew how they would turn out,” Sakura reminisced.  And she was constantly impressed by Sasuke’s mastery of fire style; every single time he produced the perfect flame for their food. On her birthday, he even humored her and produced a baby flame for a candle they picked up in a random village.

They were able to find some familiar foods during their travels, but there were plenty of new flavors too. Naturally, some were hits, some were misses. The open air markets from the various nations always had something new to offer. 

But having access to a kitchen inside a home was definitely a perk of returning to the village. For Sasuke, Konoha was a place where his home happened to be, and for Sakura, Konoha was always going to be home. Even if they couldn’t control the chaos outside the village walls, they at least had a warm kitchen to always return to. 

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A few days later, Sasuke returned home from the market with another apron, this one specifically for him: it was larger and free of (a specific pink) decoration. He hadn’t noticed how messy they could get while cooking and feeding Sarada until he did laundry recently. He always managed to get sauce splattered on his pants while cooking. Sarada was normally a good eater, but smashed peas often ended up on his shirt after dinner. Even on the darker fabrics he preferred, some stains just wouldn’t come out. 

“Oh, but it’s so plain. At least let me sew the clan symbol on it?” Sakura rubbed the thick material of the apron between her fingers. It was so much longer than hers, Sasuke is so tall! Should she make a pocket? How big should the fan be? Should she sew his name on it too? 

“Sakura the food is burning!” Sasuke was taking off his shoes and playing with Sarada by the door while Sakura examined the apron, so neither of them noticed the rising smoke until it was too late. Sakura rushed back to the stove to turn down the heat, but the damage had been done. Their meal was torched. Toasted. Singed. Seared. Charred. Fire style jutsu-ed. “That’s what I get for trying to speed up the process by using high heat,” Sakura sighed. Work had been long and taxing, she really didn’t want to spend more time chopping vegetables, but dinner wasn’t going to cook itself. 

But thankfully, Sasuke was there to save the day (as he so often did). She felt his large, warm hand come to rest on the small of her back and at first she thought he was just trying to comfort her. But then his fingers fiddled around behind her and undid her apron’s knot. “It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have distracted you,” he said mirthfully. “I’ll fix it or just make something else. Go sit.” 

Sakura meekly shuffled away, grabbing Sarada to play on the couch. She wondered how she got so lucky. 

After stealing several peeks at Sasuke’s broad back in the kitchen, Sakura carried Sarada over to him. “She wants to know if she can help,” Sakura held Sarada up and covered her own face. Sarada squirmed and babbled in her hands, making Sasuke smile. She would be talking, as in actually able to articulate her own sentences, soon enough.

“She can be our official taste tester.” He wasn’t going to let Sakura worry about dinner, but he also could never deny her attempts at having a little fun. He took a small spoonful of broth and blew on it until it had cooled considerably. He brought the spoon to Sarada’s mouth and guided it in.

She spit half of it up onto her white bib, but giggled loudly afterwards. “I think that means she likes it?”

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“Mom, can I borrow your apron? I wanted to make ChoCho something for her birthday, it’s tomorrow,” Sarada called out from the kitchen where she was poking around and gathering ingredients for a cake. She had only ever made one with the help of her mother, but it couldn’t be that hard, right?

Sakura came in from the living room, “Oh, sure! It might be a little big on you though. We should just get you your own, even your dad has one.”

The thought of her father wearing an apron covered in tomatoes made Sarada freeze. Papa? Has his own apron? 

“Well, he used to use mine, but then we weren’t able to cook at the same time. His would definitely be too big for you.” Sakura opened up a cabinet and pulled out her well-loved cherry blossom apron, plus a larger, blue apron with the Uchiha symbol in the center. It would definitely be too big on Sarada.

But Sarada always missed her father, so she asked shyly, “Can I wear dad’s? I’ll probably get really messy, so I need it to cover all of my clothes.” Sakura smiled at her and helped her put it on. Even though she tied the strings extra tight, Sarada was still swimming in the blue fabric. It didn’t feel wrong, though. 

As she went along with baking the cake, she always made sure to avoid wiping her hands on the clan symbol. After learning about her family’s history, she had a certain reverence for the Uchiha. The fan represented her ancestors, her family past and present, and as silly as it was, she didn’t want to dirty it. When she pulled the finished cake out of the oven, she noticed the intense heat didn’t bother her as much now that she had become more proficient in fire style. 

After frosting the cake with a simple birthday message, Sarada finally cleaned up, satisfied with her work. She was reluctant to take the apron off and part with another piece of her father. She wondered what kind of food he made when he wore this apron. Were there any Uchiha family recipes he could share? Maybe next time he was home, Sarada could make him something too

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How Sasuke and Sakura grocery shop. Blank period.

A/N: Happy birthday to the best of the best, Uchiha Sakura!! Here I am again with art by my lovely and talented friend Aliss (@alisstairs) to celebrate. This is the first part to our project, here’s the second part we posted for Valentine’s Day. Our twitters are plumbIossoms and a_lisstairs. Please enjoy and look out for the rest of the project when it’s ready to be posted! Please do not repost any of this anywhere.

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Sasuke picks up a red apple from the wooden tray where they’re all stacked up on each other. Their skins are so shiny he thinks they’ll all slide off each other and topple out of the tray, but they don’t. Apples are just apples when they’re left to sit there. 

He sniffs the apple and crinkles his nose at the scent. Sweet. 

He turns around and passes it to Sakura. “Smells sweet. You’ll like this one.” Sakura smiles at him, a small smile, but it still makes her eyes crinkle so he decides he likes it. He liked a lot of her smiles but the ones that only he saw were by far the best. Sasuke didn’t have as many smiles as she did, but he knew she liked all of them.

His black traveling cloak swishes as he turns back to the cart of apples, a critical eye passing over the pile of fruit. He chooses one that’s more yellow and orange than red. He smells it but doesn’t pass it to Sakura. It smells more like grass, more like the earth. He preferred them that way.  

Sasuke and Sakura have shared a lot of things since they began traveling together. They cooked and ate together for every meal, but they still had their preferences. No matter how many berries Sakura insisted were delicious and a must try, he couldn’t stomach sweets. 

He’d heard floating rumors that Sakura was a terrible cook. But eating with her made the food taste better, he always thought. It was just nice to have someone cook for him, to have someone care for him and his well being. Her thoughtfulness always blew him away; she always consulted him when choosing ingredients, always considered him even when he told her to decide what they’d eat that night. She respected his freedom while still caring for him. Even the smallest actions like that made him admire her more and more.

He liked being able to freely browse around open air markets the best. They got to sample foods from all over and bargain with the vendors. And each market was a place for a new memory with his wife, rather than the complicated emotions brought by any place in Konoha. He still could hardly stand walking by that bench. Instead of dwelling on all his regrets, he found it better to focus on making new memories. Thoughts of pink hair and green eyes kept the darkness at bay.

He once thought he’d be able to impress Sakura with the knowledge of the natural world he’d picked up during his solo travels, but as expected of Tsunade’s apprentice, her personal knowledge base was far more impressive. Not only did she know more about what kinds of plants were edible, she could make herbal medicine as quickly as she could make poison. He left the gathering to her after the first few times his ego was wounded. 

(“This kind is edible.” 

“You’re right! But it’s best when fully blossomed. Way more tender and flavorful.” 

“How...did you know that?”)

When Sakura became pregnant he took grocery shopping even more seriously. He’d never cared too much about what something tastes like, but if it was good for you, then it should be eaten. There was only so much control one had when the baby was still growing inside, and Sasuke was determined to do all that he could. And it started with food. 

“Don’t get that one, it looks like it’s already starting to rot. Get this kind instead.” Even with only one arm, Sasuke insisted on carrying the grocery bag. Sakura’s back hurt enough with the weight of their baby. They both claimed they could manage, but Sasuke was being extra stubborn. He had a lot of worries that their lifestyle as traveling shinobi would somehow injure their unborn child. “But this kind is more expensive.”

“It doesn’t matter. You should just eat what’s good. Why spend money on food at all if it’s going to be bad? What else would we spend it on?” Sakura sighed but took his suggestion anyway. She normally found his protectiveness to be sweet, but he was already a helicopter dad. She supposed she should be flattered that he thought highly enough of her to not have micromanaged her like this before she was pregnant, but now that they had a helpless baby to worry about, he was nearly insufferable. She thought maybe it would just be the constant reminders to take her prenatal vitamins and get enough rest, but it was always the food too. They were usually fairly conservative with their spending, but now much more of their budget went to groceries. 

(“Sakura, this is supposed to be good for pregnant women.” 

“I know, but I already had some for lunch.” 

“You can eat it again at dinner, can’t you? It won’t hurt.” 

“Sasuke-kun, I’m the doctor, I think I can make a call on this and only have it once today.” 

“Well you’re my wife, and you’re pregnant now, so I’m just worried.”

“I know, I know.”)

“I’ll buy this one for our dinner too, it has a lot of protein. You said the baby is big enough to have fingernails now, right? Okay, the baby needs protein to...get better fingernails.” He sounded like he was not only trying to justify his purchase to Sakura, but to himself. He had so little time to prepare for fatherhood, and it’s not like he grew up with the greatest example, or any example at all. He was learning everyday and he just wanted to feel like he knew what was going on. 

He was comforted by the thought that Sakura, on the other hand, would be a natural. She was caring and patient, could sing a lovely lullaby, and could quickly heal even the most menial cuts and bruises their child would acquire. Sasuke, in a word, was worried about his own abilities. But if he listened to Sakura, he would realize he would be a great dad. 

Sasuke tried his best in everything, and that would soon include fatherhood. He was always trying to be the best husband he could be to Sakura, but even that was still so new to him. With Sakura’s pregnancy, his recent efforts had been all about properly responding to her hormonal changes — and her strong cravings.

“Sasuke-kun,” Sakura whined, “I’m really, really craving anmitsu.” She felt like she needed the sweet taste on her tongue, or she’d be one grumpy mama-to-be.

Sasuke was conflicted. She was blinking her beautiful green eyes at him and rubbing her adorable baby bump in a clear attempt at convincing him. 

“You just had anmitsu yesterday. Are you hungry? Can’t you have something healthier, like vegetables?” He attempted to reason with her, genuinely concerned by her sugar intake lately. 

“The baby doesn’t really want vegetables right now. No more tomatoes please.” She was pouting now. 

Sasuke eventually gave in, like he did basically every time. Seeing her eat happily would make him feel better. And anmitsu had fruit too, right? Besides, after breast milk, their child would be eating mushy vegetables for a long time. And he would make sure to always buy the best damn mushy vegetables the world had to offer.

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