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Sakura was so tired of the boys constantly bickering, and of Kakashi-sensei never doing anything about it. It seemed like they never got any sort of mission done without her stepping in to do it herself—gods only knew how many hours of work she’d put in to salvage their D-ranks from being marked as failures because Sasuke-kun and Naruto couldn’t keep their rivalry from ruining everything.
To add insult to injury, Kakashi-sensei saw this, and still refused to train her seriously. He let the boys run roughshod over one another and made her deal with the discipline, then shot her down every time she asked for him to help her with her taijutsu or to show her an elemental jutsu. It was always maa, maybe some other time or after the boys settle down, I’ll show all of you a new jutsu .
However, the boys never settled down, and Sakura was left with a growing sense of dread about her future. They would be taking out-of-village missions soon, and if they were ambushed? Sakura was as good as dead, with her current skill set. She didn’t have a clan to fall back on, or even shinobi parents to help—then again, neither did Sasuke or Naruto, not anymore, but somehow they were thriving.
“Hey, hey Sakura-chan!” Naruto’s voice snapped her out of her gloomy downward spiral. After yet another mission in which she did all the work while the boys fought (grocery shopping for an elderly client), she didn’t have it in her to snap as she otherwise would have done.
“What, Naruto?” She could hear the exhaustion in her own voice.
“Oh, um,” he looked startled for a moment, then leaned in close. She gave him the stink eye, but didn’t back away. “You look tired, Sakura-chan, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Naruto.” She didn’t sound convincing at all, but she was hoping he was oblivious enough to drop it. She just wanted to get to the mission desk, get her pay, and go home. Maybe she would make a pit stop at the library and try to find some books on genjutsu—she could at least try to learn that much, since her chakra control was so good.
Grant me strength, she begged any god who might have been listening.
As usual, the gods ignored her.
‘Well, I was just, um, you know…” He trailed off, pulling back to walk beside her and giggling nervously. “I just wanted to know if you’d go get ramen with me after this. Ya know, like a date?”
“Naruto—” She cut her instant denial off as they finally entered the tower, instead watching as Kakashi handed over the mission scroll. In return, he received three little sacks or ryo, which he distributed to Sasuke-kun, Naruto, and her before vanishing with an irritatingly jaunty wave.
Naruto’s not good at traditional taijutsu, but he is good at brawling , Inner pointed out. Maybe you could convince him to teach you a thing or two.
“Can we train afterward?”
“Aw, come on—Huh?!” She watched his face turn from resignation to excitement. “You really want to go out with me?”
She tried not to look over at Sasuke-kun, whose jaw had dropped, as she shrugged.
“I mean, it’s not like we’re getting married or anything. And I could use the prac—Naruto!” She felt like her arm was being yanked out of the socket as the blond started dragging her out of the tower and down the street, in the direction of Ichiraku’s.
All things considered, he wasn’t a bad date, necessarily. He paid for her ramen without her prodding, and even if she was a little irritated by how easily he bragged about getting her to go out with him during the meal, she couldn’t deny there was something endearing about it. Like he was starved for any bit of acknowledgement. He even asked her what training she wanted to focus on, once they were finished with lunch and found a free training ground. Though, he did have some reservations when she mentioned taijutsu.
“I dunno, Sakura-chan, isn't it bad to hit a girl?” By all rights, she should've been upset by such a sexist comment. And yet, she found it oddly endearing.
“Enemy nin won't hesitate to hit me on a mission, Naruto,” she reminded him.
“But I can prote–”
“I want to protect myself ,” she interrupted. “Besides, what happens when I go on a mission and you're not on my team? Eventually we'll make chuunin and be split up for at least some of our missions.”
Naruto looked pensive for a moment, then, with a glint of steely resolve in his eyes, he slammed back the rest of his noodles (his third bowl), slapped enough money on the table to cover both their meals, and once again grabbed her wrist.
“Don't worry, Sakura-chan! We'll get so good that no one will even think about trying to attack us!”
They were a disaster at first, uncoordinated and constantly switching between pulling punches too much and not enough. Sakura’s parents had never seen her come home with a black eye since her first year in the Academy, when bullies caught her after she’d shown them up in class by getting the highest score on a pop quiz. It had been the last time they’d been able to hurt her, because Ino swooped in to befriend her not long after.
She assured them there was nothing to worry about, but secretly fretted over how stupid she’d been for foregoing her training to such an extent. If she’d been a good shinobi, her parents would have been more suspicious if she came home without a bruise.
The next day promised to be much the same—Kakashi-sensei turning up late and taking them straight to the mission desk, Sasuke-kun and Naruto bickering the entire way, and even the chuunin staffing the desk rolling their eyes at the boys. Sakura was pleasantly surprised, then, when Naruto sidled up to her as they knelt down in the garden they’d been assigned to weed.
“Um, Sakura-chan?”
“Hmm?”
“How can you tell what’s a weed and what’s a plant?”
Sakura was floored. Not at his lack of knowledge—he was an orphan and definitely didn’t know anything about gardening, so that wasn’t surprising. No, it was the fact he was bothering to ask. She smiled at him, small but genuine, and proceeded to walk him through all the plants in the garden and which ones they needed to pull.
She ignored the way Sasuke-kun glared daggers at the pair of them, especially after she hesitantly pointed out that he was pulling up a flower and not a weed. Naruto bristled at the other boy’s treatment, but she managed to gently redirect his attention with a tug on his sleeve. The last thing she wanted to deal with was the two of them fighting and ruining the entire garden, after all.
“Hey, Sakura-chan?” She hummed to let him know she was listening as she tossed another weed into her designated bucket. “Do you…Would you wanna get ramen and train again? After we’re done?”
She wiped the back of her gloved hand across her forehead, careful not to get dirt on herself. Then, she turned her full attention to him.
“Can we get tempura instead?” Naruto, who’d been crouched next to her, toppled over.
“You mean it?!” Hmm, she’d need to help him work on his volume control soon. Her poor eardrums would never forgive her if she didn’t get him to mend his ways.
“Yeah, sure.”
After that second day, he never asked if she wanted to eat lunch together and train—he would just ask if they could get ramen, and she would either agree or veto it in favor of another type of food.
Slowly, she started to feel more confident with her fighting, and as much as the Sakura of the past would have loathed to admit it…She found Naruto cuter by the day. There was something so sweet about how earnest he was around her, always trying to win her over while still respecting her independence as a person. He’d seen the best and the worst of her, and he still liked her.
When she woke up one morning to realize her dreams had been about holding hands with Naruto instead of Sasuke-kun, she knew there was no going back. So, she resolved to do something about it. She waited until the end of the day, once they’d finished their one-on-one training and were getting ready to head their separate ways for the evening.
“Hey, Naruto?” She stopped right outside the training ground games, turning to face him. He also stopped, looking over at her curiously.
Before she lost the nerve she’d spent all day working up, she darted forward and pressed her lips gently against his cheek.
Awed, he pressed a hand to the spot she’d just kissed. His cheeks were scarlet, the color a bright pop on his deeply tanned skin. It matched the flaming blush she sported.
“Does this mean you’re my girlfriend?”
“I guess so.” She wagged a finger in his face as she added, “So you better treat me properly!”
“And that was how I started dating your father,” Sakura said, leaning over to press a kiss on her daughter’s forehead.
“Aw, come on, that’s not romantic at all! Papa said you couldn’t resist his charms and fell into his arms like a princess!”
“Papa says a lot of things.” Sakura shot a stern glance over her shoulder at her husband, who chuckled nervously.
“Aw, come on, Sakura-chan! I must have done something right, ya know.” Moving from where she’d been sitting on the edge of their daughter’s bed, she came to stand in front of Naruto, putting her hands on her hips and staring at him intently for a moment. It was only after he began to look truly nervous that she softened, grinning mischievously.
“You’ve done so many things right,” she affirmed, rising up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek, her swollen stomach making the task a little more difficult than usual. Just as he had the first time she’d done it, all those years ago, he blushed.