The day the world won the war was the day she lost her smile.
Because that flawed day of fate was when she lost them. Konoha's golden boy had died, along with the branded traitor who at his last moments redeemed himself. Buried with them was the goddess herself that had began the very curse that were shinobis. Though with the victory came the unbearable lose. She watched as they took their last breathes. Smiled her last just for the two of them. Her team mates, her brothers. And as she held them, tried her damnedest to heal them, she knew nothing would be fixed. Knew it was their last moments. But nonetheless she pushed her chakra into their systems as if doing so would bring back the light in their eyes, bring back the pumping of their hearts. She kept showering them with her chakra straight through four days and three nights until every patch of their skin was smooth, flawless, left unbloodied. Kept healing them until every drop of her had made its way to every bone and vein until she was soaked dry and she finally gave out.
When she awoke two days later she found that her silver haired mentor had buried her two team mates. He told her that he had been watching her nurse their bodies as if they would dust off their sleeves and walk away from it all just like in their genin days. But she knew that he knew, that there were no more Ichiraku lunches after a hard day of field work.
She followed him to where he brought the boys to sleep forever. High up in the mountains of Konoha were they would watch and guard the village as it grew and stood on her feet again. She thanked him but never once her lips quirked up into the briefest and smallest of smiles. He knew he would never see it again. And if it hurt him he hid it well like he always did all those years.
Like a bloom, the world began to go back to normal. Villages had been stabilized, alliances had been fortified, and tales of the greatness of the two that had saved the world began crossing worldwide. She knew she was supposed to be happy that everyone had been extremely gracious of the boys but every time she tried to smile to try and lighten up she couldn't. It was hard.
She can't.
And he saw this. Watched as she lived as a shell of her former self. He was hurting. To see her like that. It hurt him. Gone was the girl that had once looked at everything with those wide and challenging eyes. Now all that was left was the living corpse of a woman who had lost everything but not all. He knew that he should probably remind her that not everything was lost. He was still there. She was still there. They were still there. And when he said they he meant the two of them. Him and her. He knew that she probably thought that she still had so many people who was there for her but none of them could compare to those two. None of them held a candle against her boys. Her brothers. And he was beginning to think that he was one of the people she wouldn't notice anymore.
But he more than believed that she still saw him.
Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, months to years. It had been four years now and she, a still fresh age of twenty and he almost but not a withering age of thirty five for his profession of life endangerment. He had been appointed Hokage of the village three weeks after the war and that it was his job to settle everything like the gravity that pulls the dust back down to earth. Now that everything had settled and peace was a permanent pleasure, he had convinced himself that he was no longer needed. That the village can find someone new to take care of her, and that someone more significant to him on a personal level needs him more. He had been taking care of her ever since she found out that her parents hadn't survived the war. Had signed the needed papers in a blur and had her under his wing. She lived with him now but he had yet to see her smile again.
With the responsibility of being a village leader and being a guardian he tried to balance it out but the village kept winning against her. But now that he had retired and he could finally give her all his attention it was then that he found out just how broken she was. No matter how many times they went out of the village for some bonding time he found it hard almost impossible to draw at least a tweak of her lips. She always had that far away look. Her mind elsewhere and her ears as if having plugs in them.
He always respected her personal space but there was just so much indifference he could take from the person he yearned for that he had ditched his bed and crossed to her room where she lay staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night. Without much preamble he lifted her covers and made himself comfortable in her own bed. He scooted closer to her ignoring her shocked gasp and scooped her in his arms, pressing her against his torso until he was sure that his heat was seeping through her bones.
She had looked at him with curious eyes and he had looked back with the care and love that he wanted her to feel. And when he told her that he'll never leave her it was then that she cried. Cried into his shirt, clung onto his shoulders, wrapped her arms around him as if never wanting to let him go.
"Please don't leave me. Please don't leave like they did." She had pleaded as she cried her throat dry.
"It's always you. I'm always with you." He had said and held her tenderly, dearly, like a mother would their wounded child.
Since that night she had been with him. Beside him, behind him, in front of him. They would never separate. But as time passed by he found that she still wasn't happy. It was still her and her dead self. He wondered if he would ever see that smile. All he wanted was to see her smile again. And it hurt. It always hurt but now it was getting too painful, too suffocating that he was beginning to doubt who the broken one was.
He had experienced the pain of losing someone before and he had braved through the unimaginable agony it brought. Compared to her his burden of pain was heavier but he knew that hers was still suffering nonetheless and accepted the fact that to her it hurt so much so bad that it left her invalid and crippled in a sense. And because of this he had to be the strong one. He had to be her anchor. And it was then that he realized that he cared for her too much and he saw it as a good thing. In a life where everything was in place he only had to put her and himself in the right one.
He told her they were going away. Far from their country, far from their mainland. They would be living overseas in an island where shinobis and ninja villages were uncommon. Where life was just simple and that everything was perfect. She agreed with almost mechanical obedience and it made him worry if he was doing the right thing.
"I'm sure it would be wonderful." Was what she said but the plainness of her voice and the dullness of her face said otherwise.
He, with his long term pain of yearning for her old self and that beautiful enlightening smile, had began to worry for real who the broken one truly was. He was beginning to fear that it was him and not her with how fast his sanity was deteriorating. He was becoming obsessed. He was obsessing over her. Obsessing over her smile. He knew he should step back before he does anything he would regret.
And the wrong thing was that he found it felt right to be obsessed about her.
"You're with me through this shit right?" He asked her one night, in a moment of weakness where he feared he would break. He held her to him securely, tightly, never wanting any space to form between them.
"I'm with you through all kinds of shit." She said with so much passion and love that he almost believed her. Almost because she didn't smile. And that was what he was hoping for. Even so, he gave in and so did she. And it was a night that for once made them feel safe and right.
Life for them became normal but never correct since he still doesn't see a smile grace her lips. He knew he loved her but it felt wrong to tell her unless he finally made her smile and so, he still wouldn't tell her. She felt his love and she too loves him in return but to her, it too felt wrong to be told without ever seeing him smile.
He never smiled. She noticed that long ago.
And it was her obsession.
The day he finally broke was the day blood coated his silver hair. It dripped and trickled from the top of his head down the length of his limbs. He had finally had enough of not seeing her smile that the sight of another man smiling at her, a civilian no less, that it drove him to madness and he had killed the man in an inhumane way. The people around watched in horror and it ticked him off making him go on a rampage. On a killing spree. He finally snapped and while stabbing a child countless times in the head made a smile, a devil's grin, appear on his face. His pink haired companion was all too busy admiring the way his mask hung loose and those brilliant white teeth shine along his thin graceful lips.
There was the smile she wanted to see. No matter how twisted and disgustingly dark it was, it was a smile nonetheless and she was eager to finally see one. She watched as he beheaded a man and then proceeded to slice a woman's throat. And when he turned to her he saw that wicked smile once again. She hadn't noticed the way she was trembling. Her hands shaking and her knees buckling. She was terrified of him but was all too consumed by the wicked smile that he gave her. He stalked closer to her, dropping the bleeding body from his hands. She collapsed on her knees and her eyes widened in fear. She shook violently as fear gripped her whole being restricting her movement to that only of crawling. He stepped closer and she shuffled hurriedly away from him. Afraid of what he could possibly do to her.
"K-Ka-Kakashi! D-Don't come c-closer!" She stuttered somehow thankful she still had her voice. "Don't! P-Please don't!"
"Please don't leave me. Please don't leave like they did."
His grin dropped when he remembered her voice from not so long ago and he froze. He looked at her. Tears dripping down her cheeks, eyes wide and scared, limbs trembling in fear. He felt his heart constrict at the negative effect that he had on her. It hurt him so damn much now. If seeing her with dead eyes was like a kunai to his eyes then seeing her cowering before him was like a chidori through his heart.
"Sakura..." He dropped the blade in his hand as if it scalded him and dropped on his knees in front of her. She flinched away from him when he tried to reach her. He cringed at her reaction. He looked down at his bloodied hand and slowly, gently, reached for her again. She stopped resisting when she saw his eyes. His coal black and crimson red orbs that held so much softness and love that she remembered again who this man was. Her tears and shaking ceased, she didn't flinch when a bloodied finger of his touched her right cheek and began to draw a smile through the corner of her lips that ended at her left cheek. The blood painting a red line across her mouth that resembled a smile.
"Once more... once more please. I want to see you smile." He said in a whispered and hushed tone that she was sure it was only them in the world. "Please smile. For me, Sakura."
"Kakashi-sensei..."
"Please. Please." He begged and she saw the tears fall from his eyes. "Sakura... smile."
And she did.
That wonderful, heartwarming smile.
"I love you. I missed you." He said and held her in a crushing hug. She gripped him in an equally tight hold. He pulled back to give her his smile and it made her own widen even more.
"I missed you too. I love you. I love you." She chanted and kissed his face all over, landing lastly on his lips.
The day the world knew a new evil was the day Kakashi and Sakura smiled again.
A/N: First KakaSaku. Been shipping it ever since I had a crush on Kaka-sensei which was like... since I was eight or seven. Now I'm seventeen. Whew ten years later... Ehh... Alright. This was inspired by an HTF! fanart of Flippy and Flaky. (Here: its from zerochan just add this to the link [872367]) Sorry this was a little dark. I can do darker but maybe I'll save that for future fics of this ship. I enjoy doing dark fics. So darker fics in the future ahead.
You guys like or hate? Please tell me.
Disclaimer btw. I don't own the Naruto Series. Though I really really fucking wanna.