A/N: Long before my ongoing story Rise came to be there was a file on my computer named "Untitled SasuSaku." It has a little over 30k words and it's been abandoned since 2017 because I decided the overall direction of the story didn't fit what I wanted anymore. Instead I began writing Rise, in which I've corporated a lot of the themes and quite a few scenes from the original file. If you've read Rise you may notice something familiar in the story below (please don't get too mad I haven't updated in so long; I promise I'm working on it).

Tumblr saw this first! I was inspired by the #sssnippetaday tag on Twitter to post a snippet from the abandoned story (you can find me on Tumblr under this same username and on Twitter under the username konohahoe). After posting the snippet I decided to skim through the rest of the story and came across the scene below. Reading it brought back a lot of warm memories (I remember it being so fun to write) and since I decided it worked well enough on its own and I would never be posting it otherwise, here we are!

I hope you enjoy. :)

Twenty

It's her twentieth birthday. Sakura wakes up after a good night's sleep and stretches languidly, twisting the sheets around her ankles before pausing to stare contentedly at her ceiling. She plans on being utterly and completely lazy today, and with a yawn she rises from her bed to fix herself a nice, big, fattening breakfast.

She's just taken the first bite of her stack of chocolate chip pancakes when there's a sudden thud in her bedroom. Automatically her senses fan out, and her tightened muscles loosen when she recognizes Naruto, Sai, and Sasuke's chakra signatures.

"We could have just gone through the door, idiot," she hears Sasuke quietly mutter.

"But that takes away from the surprise!" Naruto shoots back.

"I don't think Ugly will appreciate us breaking into her house," Sai deadpans.

"Her name," Sasuke says slowly, deliberately, the iciness not hidden in his tone, "is Sakura."

"Shut up, guys." That's Naruto. "You're being too loud."

Sakura rolls her eyes but continues to eat, pretending she doesn't hear them. Some stealthily shinobi they are, she scoffs.

Another few seconds pass, and then her bedroom door creaks open. She twists her head to see Naruto's blond head poking out.

He freezes when he sees her, realizing he's been caught, and then grins. Before she knows it she's in his arms and trying her best not to suffocate in a crushing hug.

"Surprise! Happy Birthday, Sakura-chan!"

Sakura laughs as much as her constrained chest will allow her. "Thank you, Naruto," she gasps.

"Let her go, dobe," Sasuke commands flatly. "You're hurting her."

Naruto sheepishly takes a step back, and Sakura coughs a few times as she regains her breath.

"What are you guys doing here?" she huffs, fixing them with a stern glare. "And have you heard of using the front door?"

Naruto pouts. "We're here to celebrate your birthday, of course."

"Did you have to show up so early in the morning?" she complains. Gesturing down at her abandoned stack of pancakes, she says sadly, "I haven't even eaten yet."

Taking her words in stride, Naruto strolls over to her small living room and plops himself down on her couch. Making himself comfortable, he responds easily, "No problem, Sakura-chan. We'll just wait until you're done."

Sakura rolls her eyes. She watches as Sai moves to sit beside Naruto, and just as she's about to take another bite of her pancakes Sasuke pulls up the chair to her left instead of joining their teammates on the couch.

He meets her gaze, then glances down at the fork frozen in its path to her mouth. Sakura clears her throat. And even though she knows he hates sweets she holds the fork out to him anyway. "Wanna try some?" she asks meekly.

It's all she can do to stop her jaw from dropping open when he leans forward and closes his mouth around her fork, pulling the portion off as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

She watches, nearly gaping, as he chews for a few moments; slowly his nose wrinkles, and he frowns.

"Too sweet," he states simply.

Sakura expels a short, breathy laugh. "I know. You don't like sweets. Why'd you even try it then?"

He shrugs, not meeting her curious eyes. "You offered."

She stares at him. Shaking her head, she forces herself to focus back on her food. "You're strange," she comments nonchalantly, and takes another bite.

He snorts. "And you're annoying."

Sakura's fingers tighten around her fork instinctively. She hasn't heard that word in a long, long time—hasn't heard him say it since the day he defected. It stirs her emotions in ways she can't explain. Her throat clenches and her chest suddenly feels too tight.

It's like he never left.

They're so different now, so irrevocably stained by blood and death and war that they'll never be the same again. They've lived through nightmares other people will never be able to understand, but in that moment Sakura feels so utterly whole, so complete, that she has to remind herself that she's no longer twelve and that it's been eight years since the boy she loved more than anything left her alone on that cold bench to conquer the demons from his past.

Swallowing hard, she smiles softly down at the table. "Yeah," she says quietly. "I know."

Her three boys linger around her for the rest of the day. Naruto says that they haven't been able to properly celebrate her birthday in years since she's either always had work at the hospital or they've been out on missions, so he doesn't want to miss a moment of such a rare opportunity.

They've planned to take her to the village's Spring Festival (which just happens to fall on her birthday this year) later on that night, but just before they leave to get themselves dressed properly, Naruto beams and holds out a wrapped bundle containing her gifts.

Laughing, Sakura graciously takes the bundle from his hands and sits on the couch. Sasuke drops gracefully to sit beside her while Naruto and Sai fold themselves on the floor at her feet, watching her intently.

She pulls out a medium-sized orange package first. Even if the coloring isn't enough to tell that it's from Naruto, the blond's beaming grin is more than enough of an indication. Having received some extremely random and unexpected presents from her blue-eyed friend in the past, Sakura opens it with great caution, preparing herself for the worst.

An astonished gasp falls from her mouth as her hands come in contact with frayed, worn leather. The thick book now evident in her hands is ancient, but even so Sakura is able to make out the words spelled out in gold on its cover.

"This is Hamakura Renichi's 'Origin of Healing Ninjutsu'!" she all but squeals. "But, but"—her gaze flashes in disbelief up to Naruto's pleased blue eyes—"Hamakura-san lost this in a raid on his village before any prints could be made! He had to start all over from scratch and only recorded a third of what's in this before he died. And that was centuries ago! How in the world did you come across this?"

Naruto leans back to rest on his palms with a satisfied smirk on his face, obviously more than content with his work. "I found it while on a mission a few months ago. I stopped to rest for the night and went to go hunting and found this really small abandoned cabin—more like a shack, really—in the middle of the forest." He points to the book that Sakura now cradles against her chest like a baby. "That was there poking out under a bunch of really nasty-looking blankets." With a casual shrug, he finishes, "I thought it looked pretty cool so I did a little research and once I found out how important it was I knew it would be perfect to give to you. You like it, right?"

Sakura throws herself at Naruto—mindful to gently place the book down beside her before, of course—so hard he tumbles over, and with her arms wrapped around his neck she nearly yells in his ear, "Of course!"

Naruto's laughing from beneath her, and she squeezes him tight once more before releasing him. Smiling brightly into his whiskered face, she says with the utmost sincerity, "Thank you, Naruto. This is just about the greatest thing you could've ever given me."

As she rises to sit back on the couch she sees Naruto shoot his other two teammates a smug grin out of the corner of her eye, almost as if in challenge.

Sakura decides not to comment. With a small smile she turns to her next present. It's encased in a large, rectangular wooden box tied shut with a simple navy blue string around the middle. There's a miniature uchiwa fan printed in the middle of it, a direct indicator as to who it's from.

Curious, she undoes the string with deft fingers and gently pulls the lid off. Sitting on a bed of shimmering dark blue silk is a pair of combat gloves, very similar to the ones she has now but—as she can tell when she picks them up to inspect them—made of much better quality material.

Sakura slips them on to find that they fit her perfectly. She squeezes her hand into a fist, marveling in the way the black material conforms perfectly to her movements. With her style of fighting she tends to go through at least fifty different pairs of gloves a year, but she has a feeling that these will last her for quite some time to come.

"They're perfect," she says, meeting Sasuke's gaze that has been locked on her the whole time and smiling widely. "Thank you."

He nods at her, an unspoken You're welcome. His dark eyes flicker back the wooden box, and she remembers the blue silk that still rests there.

Her curiosity doubles instantly. In all honesty she didn't expect much out of Sasuke; he's not one to care much about such occasions and she would've been more than content with just the gloves. She slips her gloves off to turn her attention to what else lies in the box.

Carefully she lifts the delicate-looking silk and holds it up in her hands. It rolls gracefully out of its careful fold like midnight-colored liquid pouring from her fingertips, and there's only a slight moment of confusion on her part before she realizes that it's a kimono.

Her eyes widen, mouth falling open in shock. The kimono is the single most beautiful piece of clothing she's ever seen. The material is downy-soft to the touch, such a deep, pure blue it could've easily been woven straight from the night sky.

There's an intricate design stitched up and around the left side: a thin, curling silver branch holding a sparse number of pale pink cherry blossoms. At the bottom of the kimono, circling around the branch as if to reach up and pluck off the flowers, are three silver-and-maroon colored koi fish. They've been so neatly and expertly woven that with each small movement of the silk Sakura swears they're alive, swimming in the pool of midnight upon which they're placed.

Lying in the box is a folded strip of silver cloth. The obi, she assumes.

"It was my mother's," Sasuke says quietly, instantly breaking her out of her entranced paralysis.

Sakura's eyes widen impossibly more. She slowly turns the kimono around, and sure enough—resting just below the collar—there's the small red and white Uchiha fan: such a simple emblem, so seemingly harmless, yet filled with so much history and significance that it transcends any possibly inconsequential first impressions a thousand times over. Such a precious, irreplaceable piece, and he's decided to gift it to her.

It was my mother's.

"This—this was your mother's? Sasuke-kun, I..." Her words falter and she suddenly feels like crying. "I mean, are you sure—"

"I want you to have it," he interrupts, voice not in the least biting or malicious yet undoubtedly stern.

She twists her head to look at him from her place beside him on the couch. His black gaze is serious as she continues to stare wide-eyed at him, at a loss of what to say.

Finally Sakura finds it in her to muster up a wobbly smile. Blinking hard a few times to keep the tears at bay, she leans forward and—because she can't think of any other way to express how incredibly thankful she is—kisses him firmly on the cheek.

He jerks back slightly at her touch, then stills. Sakura smiles against his skin before pulling away. And although the words aren't nearly enough to express how truly thankful she is, how touched, she says softly, "Thank you, Sasuke-kun. I—I can't imagine how much this must mean to you. I'll be sure to take good care of it."

Sasuke glances at her before looking away. There's another small nod of his head, but otherwise he remains silent, refusing to meet her gaze.

Feeling a pair of eyes on her, she looks down to see Naruto watching her intently, a slow smile starting to show on his face. His eyes flicker over to Sasuke and his smile grows larger. She shoots him a puzzled look before her attention is drawn to Sai walking back from her bedroom holding a large rectangular package in his arms.

"I wasn't sure what to get you," Sai tells her as he sets the wide, thin package in front of her. "You are hard to choose presents for, Ugly."

She grins. "That you even got me anything is enough to make me happy, Sai."

He smiles at her and it's genuine.

Pursing her lips, Sakura tears the plain brown paper open to reveal the corner of a canvas. The sudden notion that Sai might have painted something for her has her pulling the rest of the paper off in excitement. From the moment he first showed her his artwork years ago she's been his biggest fan, always wondering what his newest project is and peeking over his shoulder to watch him work his magic.

Once the paper's completely off she has about a second to see what's on the canvas before tears begin welling in her eyes, promptly obscuring her vision. She presses her hand against her mouth to stop a sob from escaping.

Sai painted her a fully detailed portrait of the four of them together. Bright and full of life and color, it's a hand-made snapshot of Sakura standing in the middle of her three boys, Team 7's training area in the background. She's bending down slightly, eyes filled with undeniable joy as she laughs. The cause of her laughter and awkward position can only be Naruto, who sports a similar expression. He has evidently jumped upon her back, his arms wrapped around her neck and legs crossed over hers, suspended in time as he tackles her. Sai is smiling at the imaginary camera, standing to her left. On her other side is Sasuke. The Uchiha has a light frown on his face, glaring slightly at Naruto as he reaches an arm out to keep their only female teammate from falling over.

"Sai, it's beautiful," she exhales. The tears overflow, and she smiles a smile so big it almost hurts. A sudden laugh escapes her lips, and before she knows it she's placed the painting to the side, pulled Sai to her by the collar of his shirt, and hugged him as hard as she can without injuring him. "I can't believe—oh, thank you, Sai. I love it so much."

Sakura taught him a long time ago how to respond to such affection, and he's only still for a moment before reaching up and winding his arms around her back. "You're welcome, Ugly," he states simply.

Another laugh escapes her mouth. She leans back out of Sai's grasp slightly and with a hefty, "Come here, you two," pulls her other two teammates to her as well.

Naruto joins in on the group hug in a heartbeat, but Sasuke shies away, eyeing them warily.

Sakura holds out her only free hand to him and raises her eyebrows, expectant. Sasuke just stares at her with a small frown, black meeting green.

But then he reaches out, just close enough to be in her reach, allowing her to thread her fingers through his and tug him down to her.

Once he's beside her she kisses his cheek again, just to see what he'll do.

He jerks back as he did before, obviously startled. "Sakura," he lets out, more of an instinctual reaction to her sudden movement than a sign of displeasure.

"Hm?" She tilts her head at him.

This time he holds her gaze for a bit longer, searching her eyes with his, before purposely focusing elsewhere. Sakura's grin only grows wider when she notices that he hasn't let go of her hand. And for a moment she pictures how they'll look tonight at the Spring Festival, walking side by side, the Uchiha fan displayed proudly between both their shoulders.

"Thank you," she whispers as she holds three of her most precious people in her arms, feeling overwhelmed at the thought and care behind their gifts. "So very much. I can't even tell you how much this means to me. You guys just made this the most amazing birthday ever."

"Only the best for you, Sakura-chan," Naruto huffs.

"The day isn't over yet, Ugly," comments Sai.

She laughs, then notices that Sasuke's finally turned his head back in her direction.

Meeting her gaze with soft, content eyes only she can see, he squeezes her fingers in his and quietly says, "Happy Birthday, Sakura."