When the war was over, Sasuke and Naruto bloodied, bed ridden but still laughing, Sakura thought she had won. Peace was upon them, Sasuke was home. The world was beginning to feel like the one she had pictured so long ago - but then Sasuke said he had to leave the village. That he did not belong there right now, and that he had to atone for his sins before he could sleep peacefully protected by nin he could've remorselessly executed.
When he said that, her heart ached to new lows, as the happy ending she had already begun weaving in her mind began to unravel with painful quickness. When he said that, she begged him to stay until they could create a proper prostetic for him. When he said that, she cried against his chest and pleaded. Flashes of their childhood came to her in waves, of how similar this all felt. How much horror that had brought to her life. She would fight him! She wouldn't let him go! Not again. Not when she loved him, loved him so much.
Naruto was the one to hold her. "Let him go," He had that brave voice on - the one that made you want to believe him when he said he knew what was the right thing, "Sasuke-kun. Your home will always be here, no matter how far you go."
"To hell and back you brought me here," he had broken the slightest grin, "Farewell."
Before Sakura could move, he was gone, and bless Naruto for the beating he took after. He let her let it out, let her hate him for letting him go. For holding her back from following him. He had let her hate him, so that she didn't have to hate Sasuke. That was how she knew, these years later, that he really had loved her, but never in the way she thought.
She had thought she knew so much then. But she couldn't see past her own mind. She had told herself for years that Sasuke had kept his distance because he was afraid, he was hurting, too focused on revenge, too lost in madness - never, perhaps, that he had not reciprocated. That seemed so impossible - that a girl who would give up the rest of her world for a boy, could be loving someone who did not love her. That this wasn't a fairytale, a tv show, a movie, and that maybe, she wouldn't get her happy ending. When she found out he was leaving occasional notes for Naruto, but never contacted her on his journey, she found herself so confused she drank until it made sense. And she realized he didn't love her.
It was moments like that that broke her into reality, moments like that that broke her.
Sitting now at the crowded watering hole, her cheeks blushed, head slumped, years past, she wondered how she still wasn't quite over it. Not in a hateful way, no; In fact, she saw it so clearly now, the obvious reality of who he cared so deeply for, even though neither would admit it quite yet, but in an empty way. It was like she had poured all her love into a pit, and never got any back, never made anymore. Could it have been any worse? The boy who loved her and the boy she loved... Leaving her feeling discardable, useless, unloved.
Not much had changed from her childhood, no; Except now, much like her brilliant teacher, she could drink it all away.
Even Lee - she had thought of it, of trying, of forcing herself to smile when it required and to laugh when he joked, but even he, in heartbreak for his fallen comrade, had become so close to TenTen, that even he had abandoned her. Atleast that, she concluded, was deserved.
Of course, there were people who expressed concern - she could see the brows furrowed on Ino-chan's otherwise plain face, the way Naruto forced extra bubbliness in his voice. Kakashi would drop in on her, tried to get close to her, perhaps, feeling some guilt for never addressing her more prominently when she was younger, and feared this may have been his fault. But she shut him away too - he had no reason to feel guilt, because she never blamed him. She never blamed anyone - her sadness was her own.
"Ya~! We're closed. Go sleep somewhere else!" The older bartender slapped her hand on the bar several times - alerting the pink haired kunoichi that the lights were up, and she was totally alone. Hadn't she come with people? She guessed not.
The walk home felt longer and longer the more she walked. When she hit the edge of town, she stared at the gates and wondered if it was better to be like Sasuke - to run from all her problems and start again somewhere else. Somewhere where no one knew her.
"That's impossible!" She groaned, putting her head in her hands; She was of couse, part of the Neo-Sanin, and known around the world for medical prowess and physical strength. She tried to clumsily transform herself into someone else - to a girl with blue hair, brown eyes, beautiful, shorter and thinner, dainty and charming - but she was messing up the hand signs, and stuck with herself. "I'm drunk," She rationed; It was time for her to go home. Hadn't that been where she was heading in the first place?
"You do look a little flushed in the moonlight."
She jumped several feet back in alarm, but stumbled and was falling backwards when the same voice appeared swiftly behind her to catch her, "Sakura-chan, did you come to visit me on gate duty?" Her former sensei, hadn't meant to tickle her neck when he held her, but the haze of alcohol telegraphed it into straight electricity, and she found her footing as quick as possible.
"I'll admit, it is quite dull, the nightshift in a peaceful world; Nothing ever happens." He said it with a smile, but his eyes were duller than the edge of a well used kunai.
"I'm... Sorry, Kakashi-sen..sei," She paused, hating how her body betrayed her right now. Alcohol seeping through her system, she found that rolling off the tongue in an odd way. She was clearly far too lonely. "I need to be going now, one too many cups of sake, ha ha!"
"Grown woman or not, I believe it is my duty to walk you home, Sakura-chan. Is that okay?"
"No, really, I'm okay!" She laughed, taking off in a frenzy.
He appeared infront of her, haulting her hurried movements, "Your apartment isn't that way, Sakura."
She sighed. What fight could she put up then? She had fallen asleep at a bar, ended up almost abandoning her village, and couldn't find her house if she tried.
Kakashi-sensei made pleasant conversation the whole way back, but Sakura had lost herself in her own mind, and he allowed her to go there. Something had changed in her after the war, even though everyone had become so happy and content - she seemed... lost, or, in turmoil? He couldn't quite place it, and it bothered him so much some days he spent hours trying to figure it out. He had reached out, but she always shut him away.
How could he blame her when he did the same thing? He had had many more years of practice, however. He never left bars hours after they closed. No, he drank at home. No one ever asked.
She fumbled with her keys, placed her head on the cold wood of her door. Why couldn't she make her mind stop. Why couldn't she do anything right? like get her keys in a lock. Like be worth it to someone, like-
He touched her hand so gently, in her drunken sea of emotions she nearly cried right then. Placing them in her door, walking her in, he had stopped there, at the door. "Sakura-chan, please... be well."
He had turned then, and his leaving felt like just another exodus, one she just couldn't handle, and it didn't make sense and she didn't know what she wanted and she knew she was drunk, but before he could vanish in a cloud of smoke, she shouted, "Stay!" and it took them both sufficently off gaurd. Faster than she could think, and now she was hiding her face beneath her hair. Sober Sakura would kill Drunk Sakura in the morning, but maybe that would be a good thing.
He wasn't sure what she meant by that, but she sounded so desperate he couldn't quite leave. He turned to look back at her, to see her hiding, blushing, so unsure - it reminded him of her as a child, and how far she had come... To see her like this now, it wounded him.
"May I fix a pot of tea?" He asked, almost as sheepish as she; It was strange to admit that after all these years, he had never been in her apartment, and doing so at such a bizarre hour made him...uneasy. She was no girl anymore, after all.
She could only muster a nod, heading toward what he presumed her kitchen, drawing some water and fixing it on the stove. She wouldn't face him. "I'm sorry, I've had too much and was in my own head. Thank you for being kind enough to... to walk me home, to... not leave." As she struggled to form her words clearly and precisely, the tea pot was whistling away, boiling up, though she made no attempt to move it.
She knew she should, grab it, act normal, pull herself together - tell him to leave - but her hands, mouth, body, mind, all were frozen in place. One hand found her shoulder, the other the tea pot. "Sakura... What's come over you?"
She was sobbing then, all of her emotions bubbling out any orafice they could, turning her stone-walled facade into muddled mush before him. He tried to console her, but nothing stiffled her tears. He settled for holding her, guiding her toward the couch where she curled into a ball with her head on his lap; Sympathizing, he felt her pain all too well. Perhaps he couldn't place her source, but he knew that emptiness. He had grappled with it for many years before she, Naruto, and Sasuke had come along... Maybe, even now, though he would not admit it, that emptiness had crept back into his life, with the peace that had prevailed. Some ninja only knew how to fight. Kakashi was still learning how to do anything else.
Eventually, her tears slowed to a stop, and he realized she had fallen asleep. Although uncomfortable, any attempt to move her was met with a grunt and a determined kunoichi refusing to budge, so he accepted that this might be his resting place for tonight. As he began to drift, he wondered if Sakura would wake with a start and hit him - it was possible. So he decided perhaps it was better to stay awake.
He did a lot of staring at her, without much else to do, he found himself watching the way her lips twitched into a smile, then rested, having some sweet dream saving her from her personal torment. Her pink hair, though a mess, framed her face in just a way that made her look so at peace, so pretty despite her tear stained cheeks. How he had wanted to reach out and wipe them away, but he did not know the appropriate way to deal with his former student - or with women in general. He had formed personal bonds, yes, but ones that still, he found lecture and strife with, not nurturing and comfort. They had brought him joy, and perhaps he had brought them joy too, but the nature of his care for his students was... life and death, not emotional torment. Still, he had been preoccupied with Sakura's suffering for more than this evening. After all, he was thankful she was so drunk to believe he was on gate duty... a Hokage, on gate duty. He laughed to himself.
She had been sad for some time, but her spiral was only apparent these last few months; She still got up and went to work, still smiled when she said hello, her reports were all well detailed and clear, but something was missing when she performed any of these tasks. Some light, cheer, something so... Sakura, so obviously absent to anyone who knew her. He was ashamed he noticed it after Naruto pointed it out to him, but that spoke to what an excellent ninja she really was.
"Kakashi-sensei," He had stopped him in the doorway one night after a mission they had taken into the Land hidden in the Mist to bring back some rare herbs for a vaccine; Sakura had already departed, and Kakashi was taking his leave as well when Naruto's tone of voice spoke of some trouble - had the Land of Mist been doing something treasonous? A rising faction of infidels? He was waiting for his peace to crumble before him. "Sakura-chan is not well."
It had thrown him off - he had just seen her of course, and she appeared just fine. This was not nearly as serious as his voice had made it seem, so he thought. But Naruto had never sounded more convinced - even more so than when he proclaimed he would be hokage, and so Kakashi listened. "I don't know how to fix her emptiness. She seems lonely, even surrounded by people. She is not smiling as bright as she used to. She's smiling... But it's hallow."
Kakashi regretted his advice that day. "Maybe she just needs some alone time, Naruto. Adjustments to a war-less state can be hard for some nin. And Sasuke not staying probably didn't help anything."
But Naruto had protested saying it was more than that, and Kakashi couldn't offer too much more help other than that he would see what he could do. And he saw, but he could not do. When he noticed her vacancy, he had probed, shown her acts of kindness, assigned her interns to keep her tied down to people, to reconnect her emotionally, but nothing helped. These last few months her routine had been drinking herself to stupor at any watering hole that would take her, going home, going to work, and continuing on that way. Today was the first day she reached out.
As the sun came up, he created and dispatched a clone to go sit at his desk and make him look busy. He found himself playing with her hair, brushing it out of her eyes to see her face more clearly. She was far too beautiful to be so sad.
He hated that thought had crept forward in his mind, like a sneak attack from an enemy, pouncing at him in his weakest most tired state. She was not a girl, no, but he had been her teacher for christ's sake, and further, he was more than ten years her senior.
In his most honest state, he could admit that Sakura was one hell of a woman - slightly terrifying, but so very sweet, a delightful cook, and a delightful woman. Her healing powers were so much more than her training, it was the reassuring smile she gave patients, her kindness of finding the favorite foods of the sick and weak, her confidence that was transcending to all of her staff. In his most honest state with himself, he would accept that he had spent too much time admiring Jiraiya-sensei, and was becoming a pervy old man. A young mind, he said, but an old body.
Unfortunately for his old eyes, they had sagged before sunrise, and he woke to a startled Sakura fumbling off the couch, thankfully no fists his way. "Sakura..."
He could see her face trying to register what exactly had happened last night, and why her former teacher was in her apartment. "Sakura..." He didn't know how to phrase it in a casual manner, "You made some tea and fell asleep. I didn't have the heart to wake you. You looked at peace."
She turned from him, hiding the blush on her cheeks. The night was blurred, but she recalled crying, recalled shamefully asking him to stay. Recalled the first peaceful dream she had had in months - and who was in it.
"Well," She paused, "Thank you, for being kind enough to not wake me. If you don't mind, Kakash-sensei, I'll be late to work if I don't get ready soon."
"Unnecessary, Ino is filling in for a sick hospital comissioner," His words were meant to relax her, but she turned around in a flurry of fury, "She what?! Kakashi-sensei, that is completely pointless I am completely well and the hospital needs me-"
"Are you disrespecting an order from the Hokage?" He mused, somewhat entertained at her outburst. More flustered than before, she opened her mouth several times before huffing, "I don't need to be taken care of."
"Are you free for lunch, Sakura-chan?" Ignoring her entirely, she growled at him when she responded, "No, I believe I'm feeling under the weather today."
He laughed. "Right, right... Raincheck, then, I suppose."
Standing, he would've frowned at her had she been able to see through his mask. She looked as at a loss for words as he was, and he gave a slight bow before mumuring, "Feel better" and disappearing in a huff.
She has asked him to stay, she remembered that much. And he had. Perhaps the only person who would've. But his kindness was just that, as was there's... A substitute to hang over her misery one more day. Ah, if she could just be appreciative. Head against the wall, she hated herself - but more importantly, the headache that overwhelmed her. She poured herself a cup of sake to soothe the ache.