This will be updated based on my 'word of the day' feed. Feel free to drop word prompts for me and I'll see what I come up with. No holds barred.

My only rule is that I'll only write words I don't already know, which was kind of the point when I signed up for the word of the day thingy.

adjudge (verb) – to pronounce formally; to declare

[Haruno Sakura. On, being Uchiha Sakura.]

―

Her husband is beautiful, with inky locks falling to a sharp jawline and large, powerful hands; and fathomless mismatch eyes that let her peer deep, deep into his lily-white heart. She still remembers the pretty, half-broken young boy in her childhood that she's chased, and perhaps only recently stopped chasing, despite how much she's proclaimed otherwise.

It is that he's so beautiful, so pure that he stains—was corrupted so easily by the nefarious hands coveting that purity.

Maybe that's why he's always been the private sort, in both words and actions. It's neither by choice nor nature, but nurture. Knowledge is a weapon, and the more of it you give out, the more likely it will be used against you. Every academy kid is taught this principle, but he's learnt it and embraced it more than most.

He never tells her, but it occurred to her a few months into their journey as she watched him provide only the bare minimum of information to secure cooperation from local authorities—just the night before he was writing down false names for them both on the inn's registry. All she thought about as they were welcomed into the small village, was how lonely it must have been for him, how unsafe the world must seem still, even with all the powers he wielded.

She tucked herself against his chest that night and complained about the chilly mountain weather so that he would hold her close and, just maybe, remember she was there. Always would be. For him.

He's a hard man to love, so full of doubts and regrets, but it got easier once she knew to watch for the in-betweens, for the words unsaid and acts undone. With him, there is never a grand gesture or declaration. Only overly-intellectualized care and silent companionship.

He doesn't go out of his way to love, and he perhaps doesn't have to. Shouldn't, even.

His frosty exterior is not a shield like many might think. Rather, it's a lid, and she has learnt firsthand just what it keeps contained. Unadulterated love. Raw feelings at their purest. True to Uchiha form, he loves with his entire being and then some more, and she thinks to herself sometimes, as she writhes beneath him, how he manages to hide such passion so completely under daylight. She would have sooner burst into a million pieces.

Loving him isn't easy, but it is more than fulfilling. She is contented just being by his side.

They never dated, and their wedding was a quiet affair, decided on after she told him of her pregnancy, and done with just the two of them and a government witness as they signed their names and sealed the document with their fingerprints. By the time they left the building, it still hadn't felt real.

It still doesn't feel real now. That she is Uchiha Sakura.

Nothing has changed. They still write down fake names for the inns, still travel in silence most of the time, and fight together with effortless teamwork. He still protects her from harm she's perfectly capable of neutralizing by herself, and just does it more blatantly now that he can point at her still-flat stomach as cause.

There's a strange, pervading sense of anticlimax. Like there's a threshold she's failed to cross. She wonders if it isn't disappointment she's feeling; if it would have taken festive celebration and being surrounded by friends and loved ones to make this milestone feel official.

But she hasn't thought about her own wedding in ages, the notion of which having faded into a silly pipe dream the night he's first left the village. She didn't entertain it when they shared their awkward first kiss, not even when they started sleeping together.

He's always been her endgame, and how she gets there (and stays there) doesn't matter. Hasn't mattered for quite a while now.

She looks up from scrutinizing the tomato in her hand and follows his chakra signature that she's memorized by heart and soul to find his tall back before a small, unassuming stall.

"How about it? Sixty ryō for the head. You won't find a better price for fish this fresh!"

"Hn, forty-five."

"Tsk, ya trying to kill my business? Fifty-five, and that's final."

"Forty-five. The shop over there is selling for forty."

"Pah, Hara's!? They freeze their fish overnight, son."

Sasuke turns his head to look at her as she comes up beside him. She smiles, almost a knee-jerk reaction when meeting his impassive gaze and noticing the way it softens infinitesimally on her. She's loved and no one can tell her otherwise.

"This your girlfriend, son? Come on. Buy it for her so she can cook you a delicious meal tonight."

She acknowledges the shop owner, a middle-aged man with a tan, gaunt frame. He scratches his bearded chin with a good-natured grin, and she understands he meant no snide remark but still feels mildly irritated that she is expected to cook, especially because Sasuke is better at it than her.

That said, Sakura isn't sure why he's trying to bargain for fish. They usually go for dishes that are simple to prepare on the road, and if they feel like getting fancy then they just go to a restaurant. But if it's this fish he wants, she should play nice and help knock down the price-

"Wife."

She turns to him, surprised.

"Hm?" She hears the shop owner say.

"She's my wife." He tells the older man, as if it is the most natural thing in the world. (It is, she reminds herself.)

The owner laughs. "That so? You're a lucky fella, she seems a good one. So, don't be stingy and buy it for her."

"Hn, Saku-" He looks to her again and chokes on her name, panic flickering past his mismatched eyes, his entire body tensing in the classic fight-or-flight mode.

"O-oi, what's wrong, lass?"

She blinks and notices belatedly the wetness on her cheeks. "N-no no…" She snaps her face down, wiping at the tears blurring her vision. "It's just the hormones…I think."

"What, your girl's with child!?"

"…Aa." She feels his arm hesitantly come around her shoulders and pull her to his strong chest, which only serves to intensify her tears.

"What the heck! Forty-five ryō, it is. Take the damn fish head as my congrats to you two lovebirds!"

.

As they walk away from the marketplace, the fish head dangling inside a bag next to her leg, her eyes and nose still prickle from the tears that have long dried up. He keeps shooting not-so-discreet concerned glances her way, so she gives him her best reassuring grin.

"I'm fine, Sasuke-kun. The hormones will make me do weird things so you better get used to it for the upcoming months."

He stops in the middle of the crowded street and regards her with stark bemusement. "Are you telling me to get used to seeing you cry?"

She laughs, shaking her head, and hugs his arm to pull him along. She wonders if he even realizes just how many things he's confessed with that single question. That he's not used to seeing her tears. That he can't bear to see her cry. That he's on edge and feeling helpless.

So she rests her head on his shoulder and promises to herself, she is Uchiha Sakura. She is his wife, and she will never be used against him.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Happy Good Couple day.