Chapter 1
The Land of Fire didn’t experience any other season than summer; it was always sunny, and the humidity was consistently heavy and dank. The only way the people of Fire Country knew that the days were passing and the seasons were changing was by their annual festivals and a calendar. Everyone looked forward to the celebrations held within the country, especially the citizens of Konoha. Everyone that is, except for Sasuke.
Sasuke hated the concept of time because his perception was altered compared to everyone else’s. Every passing day was a reminder of how long he’d been alone; every year was one more year where everyone around him moved on and he was still stuck in the past on the dark streets of his childhood compound covered in the blood and remains of his unrecognizable clan members. Every festival was a celebration of life and thanks; Sasuke hadn’t felt grateful for living since he was six.
This particular festival was Sasuke’s least favorite amongst the Konoha celebrations. It was their annual Cultural Festival and was supposed to highlight all of the clans of the village and their unique traditions. Each clan, even the civilian families, would showcase their food, utilities, and so on. He recalled that the academy even had the students do special presentations about their families, like a social studies fair. Sasuke’s heart compressed at the memory of getting his first, and only, C on an assignment because his clan had been slaughtered less than a month before and he had choked up and ran out of the room. Iruka had said that his grade was based on his lack of a vocal presentation, not his inability to make the damn poster, but he knew that it was a pity C. He should’ve failed.
Frankly, he should have been excused, but whatever.
The point was that this “celebration of life and family” was twenty days after the anniversary of the Uchiha clan’s downfall and no one seemed to bat an eye at the stand that had suddenly disappeared from their festival. No one cared that Sasuke hadn’t bothered to put his family’s name into the party in the last eight years. No one even asked, so Sasuke was bitter and frustrated when his team started discussing it.
“I love the cultural festival!” Sakura gushed as they sat in a line at Ichiraku’s. “I come from a civilian family, but it’s always so cool to learn about everyone’s cultures!”
“Yeah, I guess.” Naruto slurred through a mouthful of broth, which Sasuke found rude and disgusting as he judgmentally slurped his own noodles and cringed. He really didn’t like ramen. “I mean, I’ve never been invited, so it must not be a big deal.”
Sasuke paused, noodles halfway to his mouth, and peered from the corner of his eye to look at the blonde.
Sakura raised a brow, “What do you mean? It’s a week-long celebration! It’s not something you’re invited to. You just show up!”
“Well, I’ve tried, but I always got kicked out, so I just stopped trying.” Sasuke felt a tinge of pity at the story, and it seemed like their female teammate felt similarly. “Anyway, it’s not like there’s an Uzumaki stand somewhere. I’m the only one, as far as I know.” Naruto took the sides of his bowl and brought it up to his lips to gulp down the remaining broth. He slammed it down on the counter with a sickening clank . “Another bowl, please! Extra pork this time!”
“Kakashi-sensei, what about you?” Sakura asked.
Their aloof squad leader hummed, “I usually attend with Guy, but I don’t participate in the cultural events if that was your question.”
The rosette gasped, “What?! You don’t either?!”
He shrugged, unbothered. “I’m not associated with one clan, so I just indulge in everyone else’s.”
“What does that mean?” Naruto grumbled, a noodle hanging off of his mouth.
“There’s not a “Hatake” clan or compound. That, and I’m somewhat of a “bastard” child. I’m the only one I know of, like Naruto.” His one eye smiled and Naruto grinned, although none of them connected what exactly he meant by a bastard child.
Sakura turned to him, “Sasuke-kun, what about-”, but she shut her mouth as soon as she made eye contact with Sasuke’s blank stare. She remembered the last time she talked about his family and didn’t want to get scolded again. “Uh, right.” Sasuke blinked and turned back to his lukewarm noodles. At least Sakura wasn’t stupid enough to ask a question with an obvious answer. “Well, now I just feel bad for bringing it up.”
Good, Sasuke thought ruefully, even though deep down he knew that wasn’t fair to the girl.
“Don’t feel guilty, Sakura.” Their teacher advised, “It’s just the way of the world.”
Sasuke huffed indignantly, which earned him odd stares from his teammates. He didn’t care.
“Hey!” Sakura exclaimed, getting everyone's attention. “What if we did something just for us? I know that the festival starts this week, but each day is dedicated to a different element, so we all can do something together! Tomorrow is centered around food, so we can just make something special to us!”
Sasuke hated that idea, unfortunately, that meant that the other two loved it.
“That’s a great idea, Sakura-chan! I’d love to spend time with you!”
“I agree. That sounds like a nice idea, Sakura.”
“Thanks, guys. It’s nothing!” She turned to Sasuke expectantly, “Sasuke-kun?”
He was going to turn her down, he really was, but one look at the girl’s puppy dog eyes, the blonde idiot’s questioning blue orbs, and Kakashi’s all-knowing stare left him caving. He sighed, “Whatever.”
She grinned brighter than the sun; that wasn’t a no, so she took it as a win!
“Alright!” Naruto yelled far too loudly in the contained space, “Team 7 is doing their cultural festival!” He and Sakura cheered and high-fived, while the introvert of the team inwardly groaned. He was not looking forward to this.
Sasuke woke up earlier than usual on Monday. He checked his clock; 4:37 am. He groaned and threw one of his spare pillows on top of his face. All of the genin teams were off for the week to prepare for the festivities, but, of course, Sasuke was dragged into the antics of his extroverted, charismatic teammates. He was wide awake but continued to rot in his bedsheets for another twenty minutes. When the sun started shooting its rays directly into his sensitive irises, and the texture of his blankets was scratching his skin, was when he decided to rise from the dead. He felt like shit.
The raven went through his normal morning routine; shower, get dressed, brush his teeth, stretch, and then he grabbed an apple from the fridge for breakfast. His breakfast always tasted slightly mint, but he had a habit of brushing his teeth before and after every meal, so he was used to it. Today though, he gagged at the sharp tang of the mint and the overly sweet apple and chucked the rest into a trash bin. He was not having a good morning. He trudged over to his balcony and leaned over the railing to people-watch. Families were already beginning to decorate for the festival; sooner or later every street was going to be crowded with colorful lights, food stalls, carnival games, and performances. Sasuke sneered at the happy faces, clicked his tongue, stormed back into his stupid one-bedroom apartment, and slammed the door.
Sasuke begrudgingly peeked at his clock; it was almost 6:30. Team 7 was planning to meet that evening for their own “food stall” kind of dinner, and Sasuke was not looking forward to it. He felt like a broken record talking about how much he hated this festival, but there was a reason . There was a reason Sasuke never tried to keep the Uchiha culture alive. It wasn’t because he didn’t care, but he had been so young that he wouldn’t have been able to make a stall all by himself, or make the food that was essential to his family, or sing the songs that they used to sing, wear the formal robes, he couldn’t even recall what his family used to do for this festival. And that was the main thing: Sasuke couldn’t remember , and it shattered his frozen heart. He wasn’t looking forward to this dinner because he wasn’t confident about recreating an enigmatic meal from a forgotten childhood. He grimaced at the thought but then noticed the picture of his team on his shelf; he picked it up. There were a lot of things that they did wrong, and his teammates often strung him thin, but they were the closest things to friends that he had, he supposed. As horrible as he felt, a small bubble in his chest popped at the idea of ghosting his teammates; he couldn’t do that and he wasn’t a quitter. Sasuke could at least try …but it was going to take a lot of thinking, studying, and preparation. He sighed but put the picture down, put on his sandals, and reached for his bag. He needed to go shopping if he was going to attempt to make something, but he also needed to stop by the library to see if he could find any archived… things about his clan. Today was going to suck, but he was going to get through, just like he did every day.
The library had been a bust. Every book he could find was either so outdated that Sasuke couldn’t even recognize the words, or they were just completely wrong . Most of the literature talked about how hateful his clan was, that they immigrated to the Land of Fire during the 2nd World War, or how the majority of its members turned into criminals, which Sasuke knew was not true. Firstly, the Uchiha had been around since Konoha’s existence, since an Uchiha was one of the founders . The Uchiha’s primary chakra nature was fire. The Uchiha name stems from uchiwa, meaning fan; their clan symbol was a fan, as in, fan the flames. It didn’t make any sense for them to have immigrated like the history books say. They were already here. He could understand why they would want to try and erase Madara Uchiha from its history, as immoral as that sounded because he was an international terrorist, but that left his second point. All of the Uchiha were evil? That was audacious! In their entire family line, which had been around for decades, maybe even centuries, there were two criminals. Two. He digressed, he could worry about arguing about those books later; they were old as shit anyway. He had a dish to make.
Sasuke had decided that the only way he was going to make a meal true to his family was going to be doing it from memory, which was already a challenge. It was much harder than he anticipated. Sasuke wasn’t the worst cook, but he didn’t really go out of his way to make extravagant things. He kept rice and vegetables in his fridge; that’s it. He only ate out of necessity, not for the taste, but if there is anything he recalled about his childhood meals was that Uchiha’s were all about flavor. His auntie owned a spice shop for fucks sake! The dish he had settled on was actually meant for breakfast, but he didn’t think it mattered too much under the circumstances. It was a stirfry of sorts with fried rice, a vegetable medley, and fish, but he could only remember that it was supposed to be mixed with a spicy curry. Sasuke stared at his rice: it was fried in fish stock and it was turning it a toasted golden brown…which smelled good, but it wasn’t the right color. He scratched his head and turned to the pan with the curry; it wasn’t the right color either. What was he missing? He groaned, frustrated, and banged his head against his counter. He couldn’t remember his mother’s recipe. This was so, so hard for him. He wanted to cry, but he didn’t want to sound like an insolent toddler, even if he was alone and no one would see him throw a tantrum. He took a deep breath in, held it for ten seconds, and then let it out. Sasuke lifted his head up and immediately saw that his curry was no longer simmering, but boiling.
“Ah, shit!” He quickly took it off the heat and stirred repeatedly to salvage it. It stopped bubbling and didn’t smell burnt, so Sasuke let out a sigh of relief and continued to stir. Eventually, he had to pour the curry over the stirfry, but it wasn’t how he remembered it. Sasuke opened his cabinet and grabbed a small bowl. He took a little bit of the rice, vegetables, and fish in a bowl and spooned the curry…sauce?...onto his rice. Maybe if he tasted it together he could figure it out. Going off of smell and appearance alone wasn’t enough. He mixed it up and took a bite: it was warm, for sure, but it wasn’t spicy . There was turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, cumin, black pepper, coriander, cardamom, and garlic, which is why it was warm. Those were warm spices and Sasuke was confident that flavors were in this meal because they were in every Uchiha dish, but what made it spicy? What gave the rice that red hue?
Sasuke knew that this dish was supposed to have a kick to it because he distinctly remembered his mother making this for his first day at the academy. It was a breakfast meal meant for special occasions, so he was excited to finally get to try it. Little six-year-old Sasuke had been overzealous and pinched way too much in between his chopsticks. He shoved the fiery scoop into his mouth and instantly cried. It was hot and tingly , but it had tasted so good that even though his nose was dripping and he couldn’t see from the tears in his eyes, he continued to eat it with little pained hiccups. He remembered his mother fretting over her baby because his face was puffy, red and he was quivering. His mother had been worried he was allergic to the…
“Chilis!” Sasuke gasped in realization. His mother put chili oil in her recipe! Did he have any? He searched through the grocery bag and, yes! Somewhere in his head, he must’ve known it had chilis in it because he had an unopened bottle. He effortlessly cracked open the seal and popped the bottle open with a satisfying click. Sasuke smelled the bottle and smiled; that’s exactly what was missing. He smirked and took out a tablespoon…to start.
The day went by quickly; before Sasuke knew it the sun was sinking below the horizon and Sasuke was going to have…dinner with his teammates? To say that he was nervous was an understatement. This was not a good day for Sasuke and he was horrified that he was going to somehow ruin this for Naruto and Sakura by being a sulking mess. He was trying not to think about whether or not he got the recipe perfect, or if they were going to walk on eggshells around him or worse. Would they think it’s weird that he actually wanted to come? Maybe he should just head home. That would be more on-brand for him than making his teammates dinner. What was he thinking?
“Hey! Sasuke!” The raven was stirred from his inner ramblings by the hyperactive idiot waving to him from the picnic spot that Sakura had picked out. It was outside one of the training grounds, surrounded by trees, with a wooden table underneath a willow. Sakura was setting up the tablecloth, smoothing out the creases and triple-checking that it was even on all sides. “Sasuke, hello?”
Sasuke glared at the blonde’s hand waving in front of his face, “I heard you the first time, idiot! Now get your hand out of my face before I bite it off!”
Naruto crossed his arms and grumbled, “Geez! If you heard me then say something, asshole!”
“Guys,” Sakura exasperated with a hand on her hip, “Let’s not fight today, alright? This is supposed to be fun!”
Naruto slumped and scratched his head, ashamed. Sasuke would have relished in this, but he also felt the heat of shame rise to his cheeks like he’d been scolded by his mother.
Naruto looked at the bowl in Sasuke’s hands and raised a surprised brow, “Wow! Did you actually bring something?”
Sasuke hid his self-consciousness by shooting a defensive glare, “Wasn’t that the whole point?”
“Well, yeah, I guess so, but I didn’t even think you’d show.” Sasuke felt like a deflated balloon. He was right. He shouldn’t have come-
“Naruto! Stop being rude to Sasuke!” The girl smacked the blonde upside the head, much to Naruto’s dismay, and turned to Sasuke with a kind, accepting smile. “Thanks for bringing something, Sasuke! You can put it on the table.” She glared in Naruto’s direction, “Naruto, didn’t bring anything!”
“Hey, I tried! I told you that all I know how to make is instant ramen!”
She sighed, “At least you brought the plates.”
Sasuke set his food on the table and looked at everything that was set up…
“Are there any utensils?” Sakura and Naruto both paled.
“Augh!” Naruto screeched, “I forgot to get forks!”
“Naruto, you idiot! How are we supposed to eat without forks!” As his two idiot teammates argued in the corner, Sasuke pulled out the chopstick sets that he brought.
“What’d you bring, Sasuke?” The raven jumped and looked to the left, the right, and then up to see his lackadaisical mentor sitting on the willow tree’s branch above him. He jumped down, hands in his pockets, and peered over his shoulder. “Smells good.”
“It’s nothing special.” He lied.
“And you brought utensils.” He smiled, “Good thinking.”
A small blush formed on Sasuke’s face from the praise, “Whatever. It’s meant to be eaten with chopsticks, so I brought them.”
“Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto exclaimed. “Please, tell me you brought something! Sasuke and Sakura are the only ones that have!”
“Of course I did. Except it’s not food.”
Sasuke’s face fell, Sakura looked furious, and Naruto was blowing up.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T BRING FOOD?!” Sakura and Naruto screamed in unison, while Sasuke crossed his arms disappointedly. Perhaps he did put too much effort into this.
Kakashi laughed, in that awkward way someone does when they’ve been caught, and scratched the hem of his mask, “Well, I mentioned that I had other plans, right?”
“Huh?” Other plans?
Suddenly, a blur of green zipped from the trees above them and landed on the table, with a thumb jabbed at his shiny teeth and fluorescent bowl cut. Oh, no.
“Good evening, Team 7! What a beautifully, youthful afternoon in the Leaf!”
“What is he doing here?” Sasuke seethed. He was only marginally right with his teammates taking a peek at something that made him feel vulnerable and exposed, but Might Guy was not someone he wished to share it with.
Kakashi laughed again, seemingly understanding Sasuke’s introverted feelings. “Guy and I always spend festivals together, albeit unwillingly.”
“Nonsense rival! You wound me with your ridiculous lies!”
“Hey, if bushy-brow sensei is here, does that mean-?”
Just then, another blur of green fell from the trees next to Sakura, who shrieked.
Naruto smiled, bright and wide. “Bushy-brows!”
“Naruto!” Lee exclaimed, just as loud. Sasuke could feel a headache coming on.
“Guys, seriously. We shouldn’t invade their space without asking.” The pigtailed girl on their team said as she and Neji Hyuuga emerged normally from the trail.
“It is rather rude to show up uninvited.” He formally stated.
“We were invited, Neji! Do not be absurd!” Their bold sensei exclaimed with another dramatic pose.
Sasuke looked at their table, appalled. “Get off our table. We plan to eat here.” Guy got off without complaint and the raven crossed his arms, “Who invited you anyway?”
“I did,” Sakura said from the corner to the other teammates' surprise. “I thought it would be fun to have more people, plus, Neji is the only one with family to spend it with.”
“You didn’t bother to ask how-”
“Sakura, that’s a great idea!” Naruto interrupted loudly. Sasuke sighed. He wasn’t going to be able to fight this, so instead he sat down at the table and let everyone else work out the kinks. The conversation seemed to go on forever and Sasuke was wondering if they were ever going to eat. A small, childish part of him was excited to have his team try the food, but now he was overwhelmed and wanted nothing more than to go home and sit alone in the dark.
“Hey.” Sasuke turned to the long-haired boy now standing by his side, “Mind if I sit?”
He turned away, “I suppose not.” He felt the seat shift as the older genin took a seat beside him.
“Don’t worry,” Sasuke looked back at Neji, who had a small, comforting smile. “They’ll calm down in a minute.”
“Hm.” Was all that Sasuke gave him, as Sakura took the seat on his other side.
“Don’t worry,” he got deja va as he turned to Sakura, “I asked them to bring food. It’s not just us.”
“Good. If it were just us we’d have to head home.”