:: Simplicity of Emotions ::
by Shadow.of.Illusion
Summary: Emotions are so simple that they become a complicated mess.
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own Naruto. Or the series. Or the seriously wicked weapons. The last part I'm hoping to change.
WARNING!: Mild hint of adult activities. Not enough to be "M," but enough to earn the "T" rating.
Brief A/N: I don't even know where I came up with the idea for this, but I found it in a forgotten folder on my computer and decided to polish it up and post it. Hope someone enjoys it!
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It was so simple, it was absurd. At the same time, it was complicated and irrational to the point where the young medic wanted to bury her head in her hands and shut out the world for a moment or two.
She was no longer a young girl, she could no longer blame her tangled up emotions and thoughts upon raging teenage hormones. That, in and of itself, lodged a heavy weight upon her shoulders. What could she blame for this then?
Well, she could blame her shishou. Goodness knows all that alcohol had a part to play in it.
She could blame her teammates for dragging her into a bar to have a "good time" after she had been nearly wasted thanks to a "chat" with her teacher, the Hokage Tsunade, who should have rightly known better than to give her barely legal student all that sake. After all, she was head of the village, and a medic to top it off.
She could blame the loud music of the bar, and her best friend Ino for her incessant teasing about her single status. And her teammates for dragging her into said bar, when they already knew she was wasted, but they were too selfish for their own good, and she was far too passive in their requests for her own good. Did she already mention her teacher? Ah, yes, she had.
She could blame herself for being a female. What hot-blooded female wouldn't want to get on the dance floor with several very hot admirers, all while the pleasant buzz of alcohol had silenced her conscience and second personality. Ino really should have shut up about the mess that was her non-existent love life. She was going to kill Naruto later too for dragging her into this, as he was the only one of her current team that she couldn't really turn down.
But really, she could blame him for everything. She was completely wasted, but could have handled herself blind and drunk (the latter obviously being present, and the second quickly on its way—the lights were awfully bright) even with the more aggressive of her admirers. But no, he had to step in. He had to pull her out of the crowd, a dark look in his visible eye which had told her—even in her drunken state—that he was decidedly unhappy about her current status and her current friends. She had told him to back off, after all, she was a legal adult and could make up her own mind about what she wanted to do or not.
He had simply glared down at her, daring her to say anything further about his actions. She had glared right back at him, emerald green still a burning fire beneath the haze of liquor, but had allowed him to lead her out of the bar. Besides, it was loud in there, her head was beginning to ache, and the music really wasn't her favorite thing to listen to.
She had stumbled thanks to the speed he had exerted in getting the both of them outdoors, and had fallen into him. He had frozen, briefly, and she wondered what he had thought when her feminine curves had molded so nicely with his sculpted figure. She wasn't nearly as endowed as either Ino or Hinata, but she was still very much a female.
Sakura groaned and shook her head, refusing to drudge up the rest of the night's memories. She had most definitely proved to him how much of a female she was. He, on the other hand, had proven most of the rumors she had heard about him to be true. Very true.
Her body still ached from last night, and memories of his touch still lingered on her skin, eliciting goose bumps. Did he think her to be a loose kind of woman now? A flush radiated off her cheeks at the horrifying thought. No, he was her first. She had planned to save that for Sasuke, but after the events that had taken place, and his desire to only produce heirs to replenish his bloodline, she had eventually decided that he wasn't worth giving up her innocence for. There had been others, and she had debated long and hard with each romantic interest, but at the end, they had never simply been the right one.
Why had it felt right with him?
Sakura wanted to tear out her short pink hair in sheer aggravation. If she wasn't careful, she could. Being a horrifyingly strong person had some drawbacks, there weren't that many, but there were always a few. This being one of them.
She knew she had always admired her sensei, had looked up to him, and had even forgiven him completely for ignoring her during their genin years. Even when she had given up on learning anything from the sharingan-wielding shinobi, she had still respected him. It was something she had never really reasoned out to herself before, as Sasuke had managed to take up most of her thoughts during her childhood.
Was she in love with Kakashi Hatake?
With a sudden start, Sakura stiffened in her chair at the thought and fell over with a loud crash onto her bedroom floor. Her face had surpassed the shade of her hair, as the normally (somewhat) rational medic came to terms with her tangled up mess of emotions. She was in love with Kakashi, a porn-reading, continuously late, emotionally retarded man.
Her life officially sucked.
How on earth was she going to manage this? She could handle the former two... quirks, and had for years. The last one would take some serious managing, and the medic wasn't quite sure she was up to it. Last night had seemed to be a "once in a blue moon" occurrence, and she couldn't recall more than a handful of times over the years she had know Kakashi where he had shown his true emotions about a situation.
He hadn't even opened up to them while he was officially their teacher! At the same time...
Perhaps he did have feelings for her. She seemed to recall Genma complaining to her, while she was healing him at the hospital, about how Kakashi was being more of a pain in the ass than ever recently. The senbon in his mouth had tipped low in an obvious state of annoyance as he proceeded to mutter about how someone hadn't gotten laid in years.
She had chalked it up to Kakashi's secretiveness. Goodness knows she wouldn't tell Ino if she had been with someone, as the news would be all over town before she could blink. Same with Kakashi telling Genma anything. Then again, she was talking about two males. They had to have swapped stories at some point, just because of the unspoken law of their gender.
So was it true...?
Picking herself up from off the floor she paused and noted a tall shadow coming from her window. Slipping a black glove from her pocket, the medic tugged it on in the off chance that Naruto happened to be on the other side of the frosted panes of glass. She definitely owed him a pounding.
Before she reached the window, the person on the other side rapped on it loudly, making it clear that it was not Naruto. Or anyone else who visited her that came in through the window rather than the door like a normal person would.
She swallowed a golf-ball sized lump in her throat and moved to open the nearly floor-length windows. Emerald orbs met a single charcoal grey eye and time seemed to come to a jarring halt.
"Sakura... I, we... we need to talk."
"If you're going to apologize, forget it." She turned on her heel, putting up a devil-may-care front with surprising ease.
Kakashi ran a hand through his tangled silver hair, making the spikes go even more awry. He knew she wouldn't make this easy for him. Best to be blunt.
"I'm not sorry about what happened last night."
A delicate pink brow rose, as if mocking his words, "Oh?"
Gone were the days of easy chats between himself and his one-time student, "I am sorry if I hurt you." He almost winced at the dark look flooding the pink-haired medic's face. Almost. Knowing that unless he did something, anything, quickly—he would face the wrath of a scary-when-angered woman, he tried to sum up his feelings without truly having to say anything.
Sakura nearly fell over in shock as she felt his lips on hers. Which way was up again?
He pulled back slightly after a long moment, offering her a glimpse of a handsome face, a strong, relatively straight nose, and thin, firm lips. She fought to retain her dignity by not gasping in shock. Instead, she allowed herself the liberty of hesitantly tracing the features she had blurrily seen last night. She scowled at the smirk he dared to give her at her actions, and briefly thought about wiping that particular expression off of his face.
"Perhaps you would be interested in eating dinner with me? No alcohol involved tonight."
She really did punch him this time at the last jibe.
It really was a simple matter. She was in love with her ex-sensei, and she had a pretty good feeling that he wasn't much better off than she was.
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Weeeell... I'm still undecided as to whether I like this or not, but as I haven't been able to post anything in ages...
Please do tell me what you think! What you liked or what you hated, both will help me write better in the future. Thanks for reading!
--S.o.I.