disclaimer: do not own Naruto.
Pairing(s): Hakate Kakashi and Haruno Sakura.
Comments: revamped 10/13/2006.
They watched her, worry darkening their eyes, bringing a softly coaxing note to their words. They asked about dinner; she gave a noncommittal answer and the slightest of shrugs, too drained to answer to their concern.
"She'll be better in the morning," he stated firmly, more to convince himself.
"Perhaps I should talk to her alone," she fretted, staring blankly at the stew so meticulously prepared.
Sakura hardly cared of their regard. She didn't want dinner; she didn't want to hear their cautious taps against her door. She wanted solitude, to sit and nurse her wounds.
She wanted yesterday.
Yesterday, when those words had been left unspoken.
Yesterday, when he had still been oblivious to all of that.
Yesterday, when she had been smart enough to simply smile and nod and train like the others. She had been nothing more than a student then. Nothing more than an everyday ordeal. Nothing like what she wanted to be.
What she could never be.
Tears fell unnoticed, eyes too wide and shadowed and pained by the brutal reality of life. By the disastrous death of her childish dreams.
No, they weren't childish.
Stupid, immature, fantastical - yes, all those. But they were not the dreams of a child. They were not the dreams she had held for a boy, innocent in her inability to see beyond a touch of a hand.
They were a woman's dreams, for a man. A woman understanding what she wanted.
But, he had said - so logical, so rational, so damn unmoved - that she could not understand what it meant. Did not understand, despite her intelligence, despite her textbook-perfect recital of facts and figures.
And the truth of it - the truth of his knowledge and his wisdom when she was so blinded by feelings - it burned, burned so deeply it scarred.
What had she been thinking, to believe he would turn to her with a smile, with open arms and soft kisses? He had known her since she had barely begun to edge into the world of womanhood - she was more a daughter than a lover, in his eyes. She was still a child.
"Only to you," Sakura whispered, raising a hand to the cool glass of her window. It was beginning to snow, the white fluff gently floating to the ground. Children laughed and danced as their parents watched indulgently.
Naruto would be doing the same, right now - running with abandon, perhaps followed by young Konohamaru and his friends. Playing without a care in the world (practicing, in their words), without knowing how hers had cracked.
Sasuke - he would perhaps be eating dinner, without even realizing how the weather had changed. Maybe speaking with him, learning ways to build his strength. The only thoughts in his head were those of revenge; Sakura learned that long ago.
Learning that had never hurt this much.
Nothing had ever hurt this much.
She gazed blankly at the fog beginning to cover her view, withdrawing her fingers slowly, reluctantly. Giving up her brief link with the outside. Feeling herself close in.
Kakashi... sensei.
Her hands clenched at the name. That beloved name that tore through her chest, bit into her heart with viciously sharp teeth.
If only it were yesterday...
If only she had not let her eyes reveal her most precious secret.
It wouldn't have happened if I kept my concentration.
It wouldn't have happened if he hadn't caught her so easily in his arms.
I shouldn't have said your name then.
She shouldn't have left out the honorific.
It had been top easy for him to realize then, when she had given that soft, breathily whispered "Kakashi", staring so avidly into his face.
He had put her down quickly, his eyes suddenly stern, his lips compressed. She could tell, behind the mask. She knew him better than he would ever come to see.
Then he had waited until the boys had gone home, waited to speak so calmly toward her. So unemotional, as though it hadn't affected him at all.
Was she supposed to walk over there tomorrow, with a smile on her face? Pretend nothing happened? Act as his student, and nothing more?
Impossible.
"It's too hard..." she said in light complaint, realizing now how hard it was to mourn. It took too much energy to form the depression and anger in her words, feelings that were so evident inside her.
But it didn't matter. Her stuffed animals didn't answer; they never did.
She groaned softly, letting her head fall forward onto her arms. It really was too hard. She couldn't... she wouldn't be able to handle it.
Would not be able to face him.
And what if he said her name? Would it always, always hold the memory of how he said it today? So flat, so bracing? The bringer of ill news?
Or would it sound as she had just imagined it - rather aloof, yet so slightly concerned? Would he notice the grief in her eyes? Would it show so easily in her face? Would he care?
Would she even be able to hide it, hide behind her pride?
"Sakura..."
She grimaced as his voice intruded again. Concerned, as though he cared. So different - Lord, how different! - from today.
More like it may have sounded yesterday.
"Sakura, look at me."
She covered her ears, bit back a sob of pain. Of bitter betrayal as her mind forced these tricks, gleefully danced over her battered heart.
"Go away," she whispered, hunching her shoulders defensively. "Please... please, just g-go... away."
"Sakura."
Stern now, commanding. And near.
Her head jerked; she stared in blank shock at the man crouched outside her window, which had somehow opened without her notice.
"Sensei..." She turned her face away, bitterly aware of how ravaged her face seemed. "What do you want?"
He was silent, but moved swiftly to enter her room, stepping in front of her. She turned again, refusing to lay eyes upon him, wishing desperately he was not here.
Secretly ecstatic that he was.
"Sakura," he said again, softly. Coaxing. She kept her gaze on the far wall, setting her mouth stubbornly. Wondering if she seemed childish still. Caring and uncaring.
"Another lecture?" she inquired bitterly, wanting to strike out. Wanting to make him leave. Wanting to make a breach so wide and deep it would never heal.
He stayed silent, fanning her bitter pain into a fine fury. Finally jade eyes turned, glaring into his face. Filled with all the pride of a girl on the cusp of becoming a woman; filled with the indignation, the memories of his rejection. Filled with bitterness and anger and so very, very hurt by his sudden appearance.
He tucked his hands into his pockets, backing away casually, as disheveled and graceful as always. She hated how her heart still lurched at the site of him.
"What do you want," she breathed, wanting to hear him reject her feelings again. Wanting to be angry enough to strike. Wanting any reason, any reason at all, for her to shove him out of her mind.
Wishing he would hold out his arms.
"You dropped this," he finally announced, pulling a hand out of his pocket to hold out a rather tattered piece of cloth. Her cheeks flamed, paled.
"You held it all this time?" he asked softly.
She bit her lip. Another thing for him to tear from her; another sweet memory that would only be tainted by this moment.
"Yes." Her admittance was hoarse and nearly inaudible.
"You were thirteen," he mused softly, "young and easily impressionable."
"And bruised and battered after falling out of a tree." Sakura felt her cheeks warm again. Falling from a great height - like today. Like his rejection.
Had it really been four years?
"It was convenient, wasn't it?"
She blinked at his words, shaking her head before fully realizing the import of his question. "Never convenient."
His lips quirked slightly, a sign of great amusement and a joke only he could comprehend. "Of course."
Sakura tore the fabric out of his hands, tucking it away into her pocket. "What do you want, Kakashi-sensei?"
His hand hovered briefly between them, before he let it fall. "Why didn't I come to your front door?"
She blinked, confused. "I don't know."
Kakashi glanced away, perching on the edge of her bed carelessly. Calm and aloof and so damn in control. "Sasuke is gone."
Her shoulders stiffened. "Gone?"
"He and Naruto were assigned to a mission." He crossed his arms, unmoved by the news, never realizing that he was tearing her world apart.
"How... long?" she whispered, feeling her body tense. She needed them here. They were the only way she could keep her sanity. The only way she could hide from Kakashi's too-knowing gaze.
They were all she had of yesterday.
"...but it will take time. The journey itself will be long." He was speaking even as her mind wandered and dipped dizzily.
She shook her head sharply, ignored his slightly raised brows. Glanced away.
"Then, practice...?" she questioned, stomach knotting nervously. Her voice trembled. She swore softly in her mind.
"Ah, well. I have some things to do, so we'll start back up next week."
So casual.
"Was that all?" she questioned coolly, as though she wasn't in her own little crisis.
He hesitated.
"Then good night, sensei."