Over the next days, our chakra control exercises moved on to climbing on trees, similar to the exercise Kakashi had team 7 do in the story.

This one took me and Hinata a week to master but Sakura again got it down first try and ended up "rewarded" for it by getting to do it again with the weights while we were catching up to her.

From there we moved to standing upside down on a tree for the next week and finally to something I was dreading.

The Jesus special.

Walking on water was as much of a nonsense as I expected it to be.
It took us hours to be able to stand on a single foot but the exercise grew orders of magnitudes more hellish from there.

Not only did we have to constantly adjust our chakra output to match our weight distribution when standing with both feet, but any disturbance in the water also had to be accounted for.

The result...

We were all practicing on the same lake at the same time, hence one of us losing control and falling into the water would cause a chain reaction sending the other 2 in for a dive as well.
All this as Anko merely stood to the side watching and laughing whenever someone fell.

It was a week into this training that my first meal was finally ready

"Yami, can I head to your place for a bath first"

Sakura finally couldn’t resist anymore and jumped from the pan and into the fire.

She asks in a shy voice, making it clear to both of us what she's expecting to happen.

I hold Sakura in my arms as we slowly make our way back to my orphan-provided bachelor apartment.

It's unimpressive and mostly bare but kept clean and tidy.

We don't put much pretense once inside.

I face Sakura and kiss her hungrily. My hands roam, feeling her tights and groping her ass.
Both are finally starting to burgeon.

"Sakura, do you want to take that bath before?"

She stares blankly for a couple of seconds before snapping out of it and meekly saying yes and heading to the small shower in the bathroom.

I don't have anything to do while waiting so I simply take out my upper body outfit, set it aside, and sit bare-chested on a chair while staring outside.

After a long wait, the door to the bathroom finally opens and Sakura walks out wrapped in a white towel.

She finds me and her skin already flushed from the bath gets a tone redder.

"Thank you for letting me use your bath….

….I should maybe get dressed"

I stand up and walk up to Sakura and hold up her chin. We hold eye contact for a few seconds.

She's not getting away after having come this far.

"I'm… sorry Yami, if my body isn't good enough. I'm not as pretty as Ino or have a body like Anko-sensei"

"None of that is necessary Sakura"

"You are beautiful Sakura, inside and out. Your presence is like a sun in my life, bringing joy and warmth.
Nothing makes me happier than your smile and laugh."

I kiss Sakura and hold her tight against my bare chest.

"What we are and how we look might change as we grow older, but who we are and what we feel won't change."

Love can be so cruel. Our bodies flood us with hormones as we start a relationship and as bond with someone we are rewarded with all these lovely hormones.

But after some time those reactions fade. Even if nothing changes in the relationship, the reduction in hormones causes people's feelings to soften.

Some people grow dependent on those all-so addicting initial hormones and as soon as their body cuts them off, they think the love stopped as well and move on to the next person.
They are love junkies addicted to the cheap oxytocin thrill of finding a new love.

That won't happen to us. I've gradually been conditioning our bodies so our hormone production induced by our relationship wouldn't fade.

Is this cheating? Maybe, but I'm inclined to simply consider it an illness being prevented or a deficiency being corrected.

I'm deciding how my body should act and not allowing my body to decide for me what I should do or feel.

With this correction, our minds decide our love and not some unstable hormones…. I might have only leaned them a bit too far into the ON switch.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Sakura"

I kiss her lips again and gently lower her onto the futon to the side of the room.
She sits inclined backward and as I lean over her, her bathroom towel opens up to reveal the treasures it hides.

Sakura's chest remains small and undeveloped with equally small pink tips.

I kiss lower, her neck and then move to her nipple, giving it a few kisses and lightly tapping it with my teeth.

"Yami… that tickles ~ngh~ don't stop."

I keep kissing her chest as my hands work on freeing my lower clothes.

Sakura catches sight of my cock for the first time. So far she had only brushed it a few times while we made out.

It's grown to a healthy 6-inch size over the past months and Sakura stares at it in admiration.

"It's… big… will it hurt?"

"Do you want it to?"

"… no~"

"then it won't let it Sakura, I can make the pain go away.
I will also prevent any baby accident"

It is trivial to prevent ovulation.
With a little more work I can also stop her menstruation entirely.