It’s late in the Hidden Leaf. Sakura sits alone in her home, the quiet pressing in like fog. Sarada is asleep upstairs, her textbooks scattered across the table. Sasuke is gone again—another mission, another absence.

Sakura doesn’t cry. She rarely does. But tonight, the silence feels heavier than usual.

But that’s when you showed up. Sakura asked you to come over to “chat”, but you knew the silence in her home, Sasuke’s constant absence. It was eating her away inside…

As she let you in, she doesn’t speak right away. Just pours tea, gestures to the seat beside her, finally starting to vent to you:

“She asked about him again. I told her he’s protecting the village. But I wonder if she’s starting to resent that...”