Hello dear readers! Thanks for stopping by. ^_^ This is my latest expedition, another KakaSaku just begging to be released. The lyrics are from Paul Simons Hearts and Bones, a great song that was begging to be used for some crazy Kakasaku adventure. ;)
So R&R, tell me what you think so far. This is the first chapter of four so feedback will be greatly appreciated!
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Naruto because I'm not cool like that…but Masashi Kishimoto is! XD
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They started a long time ago
The arc of a love affair
Rainbows in the high desert air
Mountain passes slipping into stones
Hearts and bones
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Is this the way it should be? she muses, an ironic smile gracing her lips. She's watching his back fade into the crowd and her smile that twists the very meaning of a smile just grows larger. Fate is so kind isn't it? Just when you think the roses are yours, the sun is shining for you and the world is yours for the taking, it comes along and dashes every hope and every good thing until all there is left is dust. Dust and the cruel memories of what could've been but isn't.
Just before he disappears into the crowd he stops and turns slightly, only the side of his face showing. A lone grey eye betrays no emotion and the mask that hides his face conceals whatever expression that lays beneath it. He lifts his hand in a farewell salute and Sakura knows, by the blank stare and the stiff shoulders; the silent plea that lies in such a simple gesture of goodbye.
Oh yes, fate likes to twist the arms of the believer. He says goodbye as he would do so any other day, but Sakura knows that this is goodbye in a very different, very un-welcome way.
Sakura lives each day like a first. That was what she was taught since the beginning of her ninja life and it is what she clings to. Who knew when the day would come and she would never again set foot inside Konoha's walls? Each day is the first day and no day is wasted. But it now seems that the months and the years she spent chasing and loving and being loved; it seems that they were indeed wasted.
Such a shame, she thinks, because she really does love that man. Irritating as he is, he's still everything she knows and has ever wanted. But what is it worth; the loving and the wanting, when he couldn't love and want her back? It is painful, it is heart-breaking, and it is a waste – that is what.
Before he can finish his one-handed salute – a pitiful excuse for goodbye, really, and it just irritates her more – she is gone. She has turned her back before he could turn his, and now she is running through groups of people and children who are cheering and laughing at some far away spectacle.
Let them laugh.
In the back of her mind the doubt that lingers festers like a tumor. Had she really been so blind throughout their relationship that she didn't see this coming? Did she deliberately miss the signs of his discontentment because it made her feel better? Something, that little voice she had ignored for so long now, told her that she had. She believed he was happy because she was happy; happier than she had ever been in her life.
It's a strange thing to be happy and to be utterly content. It's the desired thing for any Shinobi or Kunoichi simply because life is short. So when Sakura found her contentment, she was determined not to let anything shatter it.
Some things can't be helped though. Kakashi wasn't happy with what they had. He told her that all those months ago when he broken 'them' off.
"I love you Sakura," he had said with the truth ringing clear in his voice, "but I can't love you enough for this to work."
How does that even make sense, Sakura wondered not for the first or for the fiftieth time.
She had listened to him with realization slowly encompassing her. His words had seemed to float over her, around her, through her until she felt the raw pain that was silently and swiftly replaced with numbness.
The numbness was a protection, really. Otherwise, who knew what madness would've driven her to do. But now it seemed the numbness was finally wearing off. The raw pain that she knew for but a second was creeping back with a deadly pace and Sakura found that even just looking at him from a distance was pure torture to her weary heart.
She wanted to cling to the belief that Kakashi loved her once. But she was forgetting what that felt like, to be loved. In all honesty, she'd have taken any sort of love Kakashi had to offer her, even if he believed himself incapable of more than friendship. She'd have taken that without complaint and worked hard to build on it. But Kakashi was too much of a damn coward to let her.
Lost in her emotional terror she takes no heed as to where she's running. The crowds of people that had gathered to commemorate Naruto's appointment to Hokage had disappeared to be replaced with gravelled footpaths and endless walls of metal fence.
She has run in the direction of the one place that holds too many precious memories for her to recount. Team sevens training ground introduced the beginning of a legendary team comprised of three contrasting students and one already distinguished, notorious shinobi as their teacher. That in itself was enough to be legendary.
The fence is familiar to her in that nostalgic way, stories and dreams seemed to be woven into the metallic knots. She can always find solace in what the past holds because the ignorance of youth was a protection that was never acknowledged until now. Oh to go back to those innocent days where Sasuke was a god, Kakashi a perverted sensei and Naruto an annoyance that would not go away.
But tonight the familiar fenced area, the forestry that lay beyond and the worn-down ground provides no sort of comfort at all. In the light of the full moon the area is bathed in a forbidding, forgotten aura, as if the air has forgotten what love was too. At least Sakura was sure that someone had; someone who had silver hair, mismatched eyes and was currently standing some few yards behind her as if she weren't a revered ninja of The Hidden Leaf with basic detection skills.
It could've been insulting if she wasn't so lost in feelings of despair that seemed to linger around anything to do with him.
She decides not to make any move though, not towards him or away from him. As far as she's concerned, he's the one that followed her and, therefore, the ball is in his court. Instead she tries to calm her breathing, relax her shoulders and release the tension that's continually been building up.
Just when she thinks she has regained some kind of composure, he speaks. To Sakura his voice is like thunder. Deep, dangerous and powerful with that sensual note that always sends shivers down her spine.
"Why are you crying?" he asks a little uncertainly.
Even though Sakura was ready for that familiar voice, she still jumps at the sound. Just as she is about to retaliate with assurances that she is most definitely not crying, a cold prick of a splash falls to her raised hand. She stares down at it in wonder as more gather in quick procession.
Dammit, why is she crying in front of Kakashi now, of all times? Evading tears for so long, she thought that perhaps she had avoided them for good. But as always, fate and her damn bad sense in timing assures her the worst possible outcome.
Kakashi has moved to stand in front of her, be it with a few meters distance between them.
"Leave me alone," she snaps like a child throwing a tantrum. She rubs furiously at her eyes, silently begging them to stop crying.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay…" Kakashi says, not daring to take another step closer but leaning his body forwards infinitesimally.
The laugh that leaves Sakura's mouth is full of scorn and makes Kakashi flinch ever so slightly. Does he dare mock Sakura with his fake words of pity? He doesn't care whether or not she's okay. Why even bother lying about it when she already knows that truth? He's the one that told her he couldn't care for her like she wanted. She only wanted what he could give. Obviously that was nothing so why, in his all-knowing ways, does he try to make out that he does still care for her?
Sakura's questions left her reeling and also slightly baffled. Her contemplations were perplexing during the best of times.
"Don't mess with me Kakashi," she says, glaring furiously at his shadow-cloaked face. Her fists are clenched and she strains to hold back the rage that demands physical release via some death-shattering punch or something of the like. "You're a liar and a damn bad one at that. Just leave me be already."
The silence that hangs in the air is thick with tension. Sakura levels a glare at him, albeit a rather pathetic one, but it sends the desired message nonetheless. Kakashi sighs, even the voiceless sound holding the power to shake Sakura like a rag doll, and he turns away.
She knows what comes next. She's seen it enough times now to be able to play it over like a broken record in her head.
He turns with that sad, pitying look. One lone, grey eye searching for understanding. She stands there, always the one being left behind and broken.
"I'm sorry," he whispers yet again. But Sakura knows he's not sorry. She knows he's only saying that because that's what any other decent person would say. But hey, he's Kakashi, isn't he? The great Copy-nin? It only makes sense that he'd adopt the customary behaviour for this kind of situation, not really caring but acting like he does because he doesn't know anything else.
Sakura is once again contemplating the easier option of turning and running away before she sees any of his pretended behaviour. It only makes her sick at heart. She knows, too, that this time he won't follow her. He won't make up some lie about being concerned because she knows the truth. What's the point in lying when the one being lied to is already enlightened?
"Save it," she says, cutting off what would've been the routine; "I wish it were different," line he was surely about to say.
Because, even though she's heard those words countless times now, she can't help the small tear they create in her heart. Different; what does he wish were different? The years that separated them? Age was but a number, right? Or perhaps it was their line of work and the uncertainty that it prompts. But that should be an incentive to live fearlessly, act courageously and love fiercely all the more, shouldn't it?
One would think so.
So Sakura, unable to understand Kakashi's logic and coming to the only available conclusion that Kakashi doesn't love her, refused to hear his declarations of 'if things were different' and how 'it wasn't her it was him'. She'd rather hear nothing at all. It was better that way.
Time seemed to pass and blur in such a way that Sakura could no longer distinguish minutes from hours, hours from days and days from weeks. It was a slow process of moving until her feet stopped, talking until there was silence and smiling until there was no body looking. To anyone who bothered to glance, she was Haruno Sakura, the Hokage's diligent apprentice and leading medic-nin. However, to anyone who bothered to look, she was a broken mess.
It seemed there were few who looked at Sakura, save for the scarce number who cared.
"Sakura, you should take some time off," was the suggestion from Sakura's blonde-haired friend. Coincidently, she was counted among the 'scarce number'. "You're just a walking zombie around here, spreading your gloom everywhere!"
Sakura glanced up at her friend with tired eyes. Ino was right, Sakura thought dryly. Time heals some wounds and others, Sakura believes, it leaves to fester and burn holes into chests. Perhaps some time off would be the remedy to Sakura's case of heart break.
"Okay," she said, nodding into her cup. Ino's eyes widened in surprise.
"Really?" she said, sceptical that the workaholic-kunoichi would have the guts to leave her job for more than one afternoon, "you'll do it?"
"Yeah. I'll take some time off, clear my head and come back…better…"
Ino fisted the air causing blond tendrils to fall over her face.
"Don't just come back better," she said with a broad smile, "come back cured and damn ready to party!"
"Sure, Pig,"
A/N - Did you like it? Tell me! Did you hate it? Well, I guess you can tell me that too…maybe…
Cereal though, R&R. It makes me smile. :)
Second chapter will be up when I've actually finished it. The angst is sticking around too, I think. ;)