Author's Note:
It's been like one year ever since I've completed this and I could still clearly remember how I was so excited in updating each and every chapter every single day :')
I had always wanted to post an official epilogue to surprise you guys with it, but I was so damn lazy to do so. I was also planning a Ferris Wheel theme for my valentines' day one shot but I'm like, "Heck it, let's just make a May I valentines' day one shot instead."
And here it is! It is quite rush and lame but I hope you still like it :)
[ May I be your Valentine? ]
"Really? Nothing at all?" Ino gasped in disbelief.
Sakura looked away and started fiddling with her thumb like how her best friend, Hinata would do whenever she was nervous.
"Not even a damn bouquet of flowers?" Ino shook her head.
"Yes there is!" Sakura's eye brightened up as she leaned her body forward and sat both of her arms on the café table. "He bought me flowers."
"When?" Both Hinata and Ino said in unison.
"When I had this really high fever and was sent to the hospital." Sakura gave a small pause, as if this would add to the suspense. "He bought me a bunch of flowers the next day."
"Sakura." Ino said in a deadpanned voice. "I mean for your birthday, or maybe Valentines' Day. The flower's reason are supposed to be romantic!"
"Birthday? The first birthday I spent after my marriage was with you guys." Sakura spoke as if she stated the obvious. "Same as the second year too."
"After that? Did anything happen on the two days of your Birthday bash?" Ino made exaggerated gestures.
"He sent me home after the party." Sakura sounded as if she was speaking to a dumb person.
"Just like that?" Hinata gave a disappointed smile.
"Well..." Sakura started to fiddle with her thumbs again. "For the second year, we were both quite drunk and we... you know… it was raining and we're both a little hot..."
"Oh my gosh." Ino squealed. "Details!"
"Ino!" Hinata hushed as she clasped her cheeks with both of her hand.
"It's my privacy and I will not share it." Sakura gave a triumphant smirk.
"Alright, details set aside." Ino rolled her eyes as she starting stirring her spoon in her tea. "And ideas, Hinata?"
"Maybe you should give him some hints th-that you wanted to spend your day with him, alone." Hinata suggested.
"I agree." The blonde nodded.
"But I don't know how." Sakura muttered.
"Maybe I can give you a list." Ino rummaged through her bag and fished out a paper and a pen. "This might work." The blonde said proudly as she uncapped the cover smartly.
The other two friends glanced at each other doubtfully and shook their head.
0o0
"Have you bought anything for Sakura yeah?"
"What for?" Sasori glanced up from his papers before picking up the calendar from the table. "It's not even March. Her birthday is not approaching."
"Idiot." Deidara stood up from his seat and tapped onto the date for tomorrow. "Valentine's Day yeah."
Sasori frowned before he sat the calendar back in silence.
"Nothing at all?"
"You don't have to appreciate someone on certain fixed dates. You can do that anytime." Sasori said in a wise tone.
"May I ask when is your anytime?"
Sasori sent an annoyed look towards the blonde as the latter decided he should stop talking about it.
"Let me tell you what I have planned for Ino." Deidara closed his eyes as he went back to his seat. All Sasori did was to look down at his incomplete paperwork without responding to what Deidara had said.
"I've booked a seat for two in her favorite restaurant. And then I would bring her for a boat ride just for the two of us to view the magnificent view and enjoy some wine-"
"And to propose? A splendid idea indeed."
"What?" Deidara stopped and stare at the redhead who calmly stared back.
"Just a week ago, I saw a small box on the table and being a little curious, I opened it to realize it was a ring.
"You-" Deidara took in a deep breathe and glared at him. "Well, at least I have prepared everything beforehand."
"Wow, a picture of you stuttering and falling into the river just flashed across my mind." Sasori shut his eyes as his lips curled up into a smirk.
"What the-" Deidara stopped and decided to just ignore Sasori's mind games. "I'm not doing anything yet. But unlike you, I'm going to put in the effort to show her how much I appreciate her by spending my time with her tomorrow."
The redhead just rolled his eyes, trying his best not to bother with his friend anymore. After a few minutes, Deidara started packing up to leave as he already promised to fetch Ino home.
But something made Deidara stopped at his track when he was about to reach the glass door as he whirled around to speak for one last time.
"I'll see you around. And I expect you to at least buy some flowers for your wife. Or I'll do it for you if you don't."
Sasori took a deep breath and forced himself not to throw his mug at him.
0o0
"Here's your breakfast." Sakura beamed as she settled a plate of bacons and eggs right in front of Sasori before placing her own set of breakfast on the table. After Sakura had started eating while reading something from her phone, Sasori finally braced up the courage to calmly speak to her while he played with his food.
"Today is Valentine's Day."
Sakura's eyes brightened up as she looked up from her phone. "Yes, it is." She gulped down her food in anticipation.
"I'm working overtime."
Sakura blinked but as she ate her sunny-side up egg in two bites in order for her to have some time for her to think. "But last week I've checked the schedule for you. You are free after 4." Sakura informed.
"Someone called in and wanted to have his order ready by tomorrow." He explained briefly before setting his plates aside and stood up.
"Do you need help? I can come over this afternoon." Sakura asked, pushing her food aside while watching her husband go.
"It's fine." Sasori called out as grabbed his shoes from the cabinet and tucked them in. For a moment of silence, he spoke again. "As I was saying about the Valentine's Day."
"Yeah?" Sakura inclined her head, her hopes were slightly lowered now.
"How do you plan to celebrate it?" Sasori stood up and adjusted his collar, just to give Sakura some time to think.
"Maybe a romantic dinner with nice view for just the two of us. And then there would be a bouquet of 100 roses and a bottle of champagne at the side of the table. And maybe a violist playing a song right beside our table…" Sakura could have continue blabbering on, but she realized Sasori was staring at her with a small grin. She huffed in defiance.
"Your imaginative skills hasn't change even after two years."
"What do you mean by that?" Sakura made a face, her arms crossed and her eyes almost glaring at him.
"I'm off to work now." Sasori messed up his hair in a fashionable way and proceeded to the door.
Sakura's softened her eyes as she followed her way out with Sasori until she saw him entering his car. "Bye! Have a safe trip."
As Sakura went back inside the house after hearing the car engine started, she gave a soft sigh while she looked around the empty house. After a while, she decided that spring cleaning would be a great idea to spend the rest of her time on a Valentine's Day.
0o0
"I was searching for you in the entire bookstore and I never thought you would be standing her and reading some book that is-."
Sasori slapped the book shut and turned to stare at the stalker-blonde who was leaning against the bookshelf Sasori had just took the book from. The blonde managed to catch a glimpse of what Sasori was reading before he could hide it from him.
Before Sasori could react, Deidara grabbed the book and read the cover out loud. "58 ideas for a perfect date." And soon, he started chortling behind his hand loudly while Sasori just stare plainly at him.
"Give me back." Sasori drawled.
A few disapproving glares from a few customers were directing at Deidara but he ignored all of it.
"I can't believe this yeah. Back then when you mentioned the book about 1001 ways of torturing your worker, I could actually picture you reading it. But this…" Deidara lifted up the book to stare at the cover before he started laughing again.
Sasori snatched the book and placed it back into the shelf. "I'm just reading through it, you moron."
"So what idea did you get?" Deidara stifled a giggle.
Sasori rolled his eyes and walked away.
"Flowers are the best yeah." His best friend followed closely behind him.
"Stop advertising your girlfriend's store." Sasori stopped and browse through a business magazine. "It's too original anyway." He managed a whisper.
"I see that someone wants to be creative yeah." Deidara stroked his chin.
"Shut up."
"I can give you a few pointers."
"Speak again and I'll drill your teeth."
"… Stubborn old man."
0o0
"Overtime? He's really getting on my nerves now." Ino started cracking her knuckles before resting her arms on the counter in her flower shop. It was in the middle of the afternoon and instead of going out to have her lunch, Sakura surprised her by bringing cakes over to her store so they decided to spend their time having tea while chatting before Ino's break ended.
"I can't blame him, he has work to attend to."
"He has a wife to attend too." Ino emphasized. "And did you try out the lists of methods I gave you?"
"Ino. I threw them away." Sakura gave a withering look.
"What?" Ino hollered. "How could you?"
"Wear lingerie to eat breakfast. Are you insane or just stupid?"
"Isn't that how you should spend your Valentine's Day? After that hot sex, he'll be in your clutches and you can do whatever you want." Ino cackled.
Sakura was slightly worried about Deidara's future.
"I wouldn't want to get disappointed if Sasori actually rejected me early in the morning." Sakura managed a laugh.
"You alright?" Ino raised an eyebrow as her tone started getting serious. The blonde just continued staring at Sakura until her laughter died down.
"Why wouldn't I?" Sakura waved off Ino's doubt. "Maybe this is for the better. I'm training to get over Valentine's Day alone so that it would work out better in the future."
"You don't have to phrase it like that." Ino patted on Sakura's hand.
"I was just joking." Sakura smiled.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Alright enough of these talks." Ino rested her chin on top of her palm. "Have you been noticing how weird Deidara been?"
0o0
Sakura never expected much from Sasori since he had always fulfilled his role as a loving husband in her opinion. Spending as much time with her, watching some movies or having dinner together during weekends. It was not like he neglected her or anything, but on such a special occasions other than her birthday or wedding anniversary, Sakura wished she could spend some more time with him to celebrate.
But Sakura would never blame Sasori for the lack of romance genes he had.
He was never good at romantic stuff compared to other guys she met, for example Deidara. He knew when was the exact time to present flowers, gifts or saying some cheesy words to each other like how Sakura had heard from Ino about Deidara. Sakura really wished that the blonde could at least teach his redhead best friend a thing or two about romance.
The only thing Sakura could find it more or less romantic was when they were in bed and under the covers, naked somehow. It's just simply weird to see a completely different Sasori when he's hot, rough and stuff…
Sakura sighed, trying to get rid of those dirty thoughts out of her mind while she rummaged in her pouch and scooped out her keys.
Just as she wanted to slot in the correct key, she realized the door was already ajar. Puzzled at the fact that it couldn't have been anyone else she could thought of being in her house, she pushed the door slowly and quietly as she clutched onto her pouch.
Before she could even call out to see who was the intruder or visitor, she smelt something… burning.
Sakura left the door hanging open as she tiptoed across the hall and towards the burning smell and the muffled sound of someone cursing. Right at the moment when she was about to open the kitchen door to know what the hell was going on, the door flung open by itself and a man ran out with a small cloud of black smoke surrounding him.
"Shit. Damn it."
"Oh my God." Sakura coughed hard as she waved her hands around. "What on earth happened?"
The sound of another person's coughing immediately stopped and a puzzled and innocent voice answered her instead.
"Sakura?"
As the smoke slowly cleared, the view of her redhead husband in her newly bought light pink apron that already had a few weird colored blotch all over it was staring back at her in shock. His hair that was originally in a mess was now even messier like he just came back from a war.
"What is going on?" Sakura gasped as she approached to Sasori and dusted the dirt off him, and also her precious apron.
"I didn't know what to do for you today, so I planned to cook dinner for you but I've screwed up at cooking again…"
"Sasori…" Sakura looked up at Sasori who was sheepishly looking away.
"Should have bought the flowers from Ino's but I wanted to surprise you…"
"Sasori."
"And the kitchen is now in a mess..."
"Sasori!"
He went silent for a moment when Sakura suddenly just shouted out his name. But after heaving out a huge sigh, he ruffled his hair and spoke in a tiny whisper that Sakura needed to strain her ears to hear.
"I'm sorry…"
Sakura widened her emerald eyes but shook her head desperately. "I should be the one saying sorry." Sakura grabbed onto his wrist and forced him to look at her. "I've neglected your feelings… and I didn't appreciate the things you have done for me all these while."
Sasori looked away as he stared at the mess in the kitchen. "I should have stick to buying flowers and treating you dinner instead." Sasori attempted a smile as he removed the pink apron and set it on a chair.
"Shall we spend the time cleaning the kitchen?" Sakura raised her eyebrows.
Sasori stared at the mess before looking back at Sakura, deep in thought.
"No." He gave a teasing pause. "I have an idea on how we can spend the remaining hours of Valentine's Day." Sasori grabbed onto Sakura's wrist as he lightly shoved her against a wall as he looked at her with his calm, brown eyes.
"Oh?" Sakura snickered as she slung her arm around his warm neck, resting her forehead on his before giving him a light kiss. "Tell me all about it."
Happy Valentines' Day! :)