Eighteen Christmases passed in a blur of serene winter landscapes and glittering amber infernos. Eighteen Christmases marked by neither tragedy nor blessing, crisp memories following akin to footprints in the show.
Outside, the snow danced silently in the wind. Inside, two flames met on the outskirts of their desires. This was Sakura's nineteenth Christmas.
Sakura's heart pounded in a furious rhythmic drumbeat. Her chiefly unclothed body felt the cold of the outside, as if it were squeezing itself through the cracks in the walls. Yet she also felt warm. Kakashi's passion was burning her. Every kiss he planted on her body was like a spark of heat. Not painful, but slightly pleasant.
I'm...I'm a virgin, Sakura realized.
The fact should have been perfectly apparent. She knew she had never lain with anyone in her life before this moment. This had come mostly out of bad luck, rather than any desire to maintain her precious chastity. Her absence of any genuine sexual experience had never been a dominant reality. She was chiefly indifferent to her unspoiled loins if the thought ever crossed her mind. But at this specific moment, she truly felt as if she was a virgin. She felt it keenly in every part of her body, every portion of bare skin that seemed to tingle at Kakashi's touch.
Kakashi pressed his lips against Sakura's neck, her scent engulfing his brain. The lust stirring in his mind was almost permeable. A part of him desired to waive the traditional foreplay and indulge his thirst, but a glance at the dark sky outside of his bedroom window quelled this primal want. There was no hurry, he reminded himself. They had all night.
In her swelling disquiet, the urge to empty her stomach roused itself within Sakura's body. She was beginning to feel rather sick. Her earlier confidence, the poise with which she had followed Kakashi to his bedroom, seemed to have been pilfered from her. She was alone, her longing subdued by Kakashi's touch. She quivered, not merely with pleasure, but with the uncertainty of a woman who'd found an uncharted sea inside her own mind.
Kakashi planted one final kiss on Sakura's neck. He raised his head to stare at the woman, his lustful gaze meeting her own. The smile on his lips waned as he noticed the expression on her face. It was a rather sexy expression, marked by the innocent hesitation in her eye. She looked the part of the bashful virgin in a smutty romance novel, except with a bit more fire. But the arousing innocuousness of her expression was only visible on the surface. When taken away, it revealed a layer of anxiety that suggested Sakura was on the verge of fainting. She had gone pale, her hands clutching the bedsheets as if hoping to sink into their pristine whiteness. Kakashi laid aside his desires for a moment and raised his eyebrow.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
What the fuck am I supposed to say? Sakura wondered, very nearly amused. Am I supposed to tell him that I, a grown woman whose faced entire armies, is about to vomit out of nervousness about losing my virginity?
Sakura's face burned with embarrassment. She could hardly believe she was having these ridiculous feelings. She had chased him, after all. She should have known this would happen eventually if she were to succeed in catching her prey. Yet in an odd way, she hadn't been aware of this basic fact of human nature. Until this particular night, their love had seemed rather innocent: Holding hands, sharing an umbrella, picnics, gentle kisses, affectionate concern prior to missions. However, as Sakura gazed into Kakashi's eyes, reading his longing for her, she realized that this was not a childish pseudo-romance. This was love. A pure, almost shamefully intense, love. A love that hadn't felt entirely real until they arrived at this point, the point in which Sakura's bra straps hung limply around her arms and she could feel the heat of Kakashi's entire body melding with her own. It both terrified and fascinated her.
Concerned by Sakura's refusal to answer, Kakashi rolled off of her with a sigh. He'd known there would be complications with their relationship, but he hadn't expected them to extend to their intimacy.
"You don't want to do this?" he surmised quietly.
The reprieve was brief for Sakura. She exhaled deeply, a bit of the unfortunate haze clearing from her mind. The realizations had all come to her in an unpleasant rush, leaving her mentally exhausted for a moment. When her mind fully settled, it came to her attention that she had quite possibly compromised what could have been one of the most wonderful nights of her life.
"Would you hate me if I said I didn't know anymore?" she replied, smiling cynically.
She continued before he could reply, her tone acrid.
"It's not just my virginity," she revealed. "It's this whole….thing. Because it really is just a "thing", isn't it? This "thing" that a lot of people have been opposed to since it began, but we keep going. But…it's not really the age difference or the fact we used to be sensei and student. It's...the fact that we are who we are. Kakashi, did you ever wonder how you came to be interested in someone like me?"
Kakashi restrained a chuckle. It was almost, but not quite, too late for Sakura to be asking that question. Logically, she should have asked it soon after their first date. He had already asked himself that query prior to the experience. He had been awake in bed for hours after their mildly successful outing, sorting through several years' worth of varied memories concerning a specific pink-haired kunoichi. He patiently gave Sakura the answer he'd come up with after his pondering.
"I have absolutely no idea," he replied serenely. "Maybe someone drugged me."
Sakura reached over and slapped his shoulder.
"Just how little blood is going to your head?" she demanded, annoyed. "Answer the question seriously!"
Allowing himself his chuckle, Kakashi sat up on the bed.
"Why did you choose me, is a better question," he pointed out. "I wasn't your first choice for a boyfriend, was I?"
If Sakura was being truthful to herself, Kakashi was just shy of her third or fourth choice. He'd managed to fall behind everyone else in the running, simply because he was barely in it to begin with. She'd only vaguely taken him into consideration because he happened to be close to her, she happened to not completely dislike him, and he happened to be male. Therefore, it was unclear how she'd even decided to entertain the notion. After a moment of reflection, Sakura sat up as well.
"You're not that bad, Kakashi," she told him. "Sure, you read dirty books, and you're always late, and you leave the toilet seat up, and you make perverted comments, and you..."
She abruptly wondered just how she had put up with Kakashi all this time. But she shook away the thought and continued.
"I became interested in you because I thought you wouldn't break my heart," Sakura revealed, a meager smile on her lips. "Despite all your flaws, you'd never do that. This might surprise you, but that's really attractive to women."
Kakashi gently wrapped her in a loving embrace. It was the best answer he could have hoped for. He had half-expected her to tell him she had chosen him out of desperation.
"So….is there going to be any naughty stuff tonight?" he asked. "Or should we save that for another time, after I figure out why in the world I became interested in you?"
Sakura closed her eyes, sinking into Kakashi's affection. She was feeling a lot more confident about the idea, her mind having gotten used to it. She was still anxious, but their conversation had reminded her of an unwavering truth in her life: She trusted Kakashi. She trusted him with her life, her happiness, and her body. Regardless, she didn't want to destroy this lovely moment they were having.
"Isn't the snow beautiful?" she breathed in reply.
They had gone on their first date during the winter months. They had shared a scarf in their fight against the bitter cold, had snuggled together in front of a roaring fire, as well as a whole host of other romantic cliches. On her eighteenth Christmas, he confessed his feelings to her underneath the mistletoe and they shared a drunken kiss. It all fit so well together, as if their love had come to straddle the frosty wind.
As midnight fell over the village, Sakura and Kakashi watched the snow cascading past the latter's bedroom window. And thus ended Sakura's nineteenth Christmas.