Ok! The title is taken from the song: I Missed Again by Phil Collins (well worth a listen :D) And it's kinda... Sorta a songfic, many chapter titles will be taken from lyrics, although not all (i.e. this chapter title isn't from the song).
This is, essentially a series of short one-shots, which is quite unusual for me (I tend to dislike short chapters, one-shots etc, perfering length and detail etc) however, this format seemed oddly appropriate here, I hope you agree!
I hope you enjoy as well! I really do love KakaSaku and eventually these little shorts will contain lots of 'fluff' and romance and the like, but no lemons (shocking, I know) but with a bit of luck these this will turn out as something cute and thoughtful... Please let me know if you think I'm straying too far off track! .~!
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I Missed Again
1. Two Bells for Three Wheels
Kakashi was a man who did not, generally, understand or particularly enjoy the company of women in an informal setting. A sexual setting was one thing, as well as a very long saga of irritation (on his part) and complaints on theirs, (apparently knowing him for a few hours or the space of (x) number of drinks meant they had a right to know things he kept from even his closest friends). He'd had no real experience being friendly with women; he had no memories of even his own mother, a single photograph told him what she looked like. One or two stories told to him weren't enough to display her character and he figured, that people always spoke of the dead in the kindest possible way, so he'd never gathered enough information even to construct the loosest idea of her.
From his earliest memories it had been himself and his father.
(And it quickly tumbled down to being himself and a man who looked eerily like his father, but held barely a shred of the man Kakashi knew as a child.)
After Sakumo's death, Kakashi's experience working with females manifested itself in the form of Rin; at the academy he was too young for gender to even hold meaning beyond why some wore skirts and others trousers. Of course, by the time he'd been assigned to Team Minato, he'd steeled himself against everybody – be they male or female, Obito drove him up the wall and made a mockery of everything Kakashi had laboured for. Rin? Intelligent, a peacemaker between himself and Obito, apparently she'd liked him – for whatever reason – but his recent promotion by the time of that mission, she was little more than another part of the scenery – and a cause for Obito be even more annoying than he already was.
When Kakashi first made it to collect Team 7, a comfortable three hours late, the three genin really were a sight; they couldn't have been more oddly different to each other if they'd tried, in looks and personality. Sasuke – the classic arrogance gained by living and growing up in isolation (but having known past tense what it meant to have the love of a parent) couldn't have been more obvious – he unapologetically spoke and acted according to what he thought was right. Which was usually wrong about in terms of social standards, but Kakashi couldn't teach him things like that, only a parent could, if they weren't dead. Although Sasuke had played himself in the team dynamic, he was the blood-memory of Obito.
Naruto? Idiotic, annoying but endlessly cheerful and looked on the bright side of everything; he was the sun to Sasuke's moon in many ways, Naruto had no memory of having company or others to share in failure and success the way Sasuke had. They'd suffered in such different but identical ways they'd ended up on opposite ends of the spectrum. He was his sensei's son and legacy, Minato held a carefree and gentle ease Kakashi couldn't understand at that age – how was there time to relax? What was there to be so happy about? But Naruto was Obito and Minato in nature and therefore bearable to Kakashi.
Sakura? The unknown but not unexpected quantity for Kakashi, as he'd cynically predicted her thoughts were only focussed on the opposite gender – Sasuke for her 'romantic' intentions and Naruto to vent her frustrations. Sakura was too feisty and held to much raw passionate spirit but with pathetic skills for him to compare her to Rin. Well, initially at least.
During that first bell test she'd demonstrating intelligence and depth of thought he wouldn't have anticipated had he not read their files.
He knew – everybody knew – that the last Uchiha, with all of the clan's arrogance and hatred manifested in one young boy as well as the son of the Fourth Hokage (who also happened to be the Kyuubi Jinchuurik) was going to call for almost all of his time and they were arguably paramount out of all of the genin who graduated that year. Sakura was unlucky enough to be the third wheel who lost out when the boys proverbially 'took the two bells' of Kakashi attention. The girl left out of the group of boys; she was just about tough enough to not take it to heart, but Kakashi could see how heavily it weighed on her slender shoulders.
The years flew by, Naruto and Sasuke held his attention the most – he had memories to honour, mistakes to correct and debts to be paid.
Sasuke had been a royal failure.
Naruto, held his own with or without Kakashi's attention (in favour of Jiraiya's) and Sakura disappeared off the radar and under Tsunade's wing – Kakashi was free to resume his normal Jounin life. He was thankful, somewhat, to be free of how annoying they could all be – in their own ways – Sakura, for example, represented not only everything he couldn't understand, but everything which reminded him of how he disliked women, those of the female persuasion, he was glad to live his own single, male life again.
Doubtless they'd return to him when necessary.
It was easy, whilst he didn't see any of them that he was just about satisfied with the job he'd done – if anything it was Sasuke which weighed the heaviest. But he did know he'd failed Sakura too, he couldn't even remember if he'd ever complimented her on anything, even when she mastered chakra tree-climbing his 'compliment' had only been a dig at her gender and an egg on to the boys.
What sort of teacher never compliments his student? He missed...
He didn't know what he was expecting when Naruto returned but Sakura's strength and maturity was a pleasant surprise. Even so, his attention was on Naruto, the boy now had to watch his back even more carefully – the Akatsuki was on the move and Kakashi couldn't afford play around as they had in the old days. Unfortunately, that too meant Sakura was forced to take a back seat - at least he could leave her with the Suna elder Chiyo, Kakashi had to protect Naruto, he couldn't afford for the Akatsukito get their hands on the Kyuubi. When Sakura and Chiyo caught them up, Kakashi barely able to move from over exertion whilst she and Chiyo appeared in front of them, the elder looking exhausted but Sakura with no more than a few nasty grazes. All Kakashi had to say was,
"You did well finding this place," A little girl and an old woman defeated an Akatsuki member and all he had to say was, well, you fought and killed an Akatsuki, whilst working with a woman you'd only met the day previous, let alone never worked with and carried her whilst you caught up with Naruto and I who haven't even gotten half way to killing him yet, but good work on following us, anyway!
Had he assumed that it was all Chiyo's work? Of course he had...Once again he'd underestimated the strength of the only Kuniochi he'd ever 'taught' and even after she'd done what probably no other of her peer group could, beside Naruto, he still hadn't found the words to compliment her skill... Unfortunately it was all too easy.
It was just so easy to brush Sakura aside whilst she was just a little girl.