Once you open your heart to loneliness it is impossible to stop it. It will take over your mind and body and you won't be able to live life as you used to. It was an illness to which nobody seemed to find a cure. At least nobody he would have known until this day.
Spending your days undercover investigating as an ANBU used to be some kind of distraction to Kakashi so that he wouldn't think about all the despair caused by war and loss but somewhere along the way even that turned into monotonous everyday life. Getting up just to take your shift in watching the environment, watching nothing for hours and go to sleep right after that again. When had his life become something he could get bored of?
"Damn this mission.."
Why did he join ANBU again? He couldn't really remember to be honest. Maybe he had thought that the missions would keep his mind from thinking about how he failed as a fried, a teacher and a ninja in the past. Instead it only gave him more time to go through all the events over and over again. If it wasn't for his failure maybe Obito would be with him right now, on this mission keeping him company and maybe even Rin would have joined ANBU. Who would have known? It was his fault that he would never see his friends grow up and it made him go crazy just thinking about it.
He didn't deserve this life he was given. He didn't deserve the eye of his friend and he hadn't deserved to become the teacher of former team 7. Especially training his sensei's son was a task Kakashi never really wanted. After Naruto left Konoha a few years ago to find Sasuke on his own terms, he somehow realized even more how empty his life was without the task of training these kids. He had been the only student left after Sasuke betrayed Konoha and Sakura became the apprentice of the Hokage herself and he had spent a lot of his free time with training him.
He had become quite a ninja actually but leaving the village for hunting down an old comrade wasn't the ninja way he had planned for the Kyuubi's vessel. Allowing his past to go through the last conversations he had with his former student, Kakashi laid his head back against the tree he was sitting on. The night was almost completely dark, barely any light from the moon and the wind was cooling him down in a pleasant kind of way.
"It's not like that, Kakashi-sensei."
"So tell me what it is like."
"Come on, you know me long enough to know that I would never betray the village for the sake of one single person's wellbeing. I'll just go, find Sasuke and keep my promise to Sakura and when I'm back you can tell me what hell of a shinobi I've become!"
"It's never that easy."
"You're such a pessimist. Wouldn't it be nice to have Team 7 all together again? Sakura will love me for reuniting the four of us!" Enthusiasm was all over the yellow haired boy's face but Kakashi stayed silent. He knew that whatever he would say to him, he couldn't change his mind and thanks to his hard training, he wouldn't even be able to stop him from going.
"Just don't worry about me too much and promise to take care of our favorite kunoichi. She'll be so pissed that I didn't say goodbye to her but you know, she would probably punch me through a whole building so that I have to stay a month in the hospital before I can leave."
"Well, maybe you deserve it."
"For keeping my promise? I don't think so. Sakura just tends to overreact every once in a while. Guess she has it from grandma Tsunade."
"Do you really think finding Sasuke is worth the risk of losing another teammate to Sakura? I don't, actually."
"Stop trying to convince me of staying, Kakashi-sensei. I know you love me so much and really want me to stay and marry you or something like that but I really can't." The boy laughed but Kakashi couldn't bring himself to smile. Going after Sasuke was risky and he couldn't become friends with the idea of Naruto commiting suicide.
"Well, I'll better get going now. Wasted too much time already, you know. That guy's fast and it's already been some days since he was last seen in the Fire Country." Naruto explained while scratching the back of his head before he gave Kakashi one last Gai-like smile and ran out of sight.
That boy really was the son of the Yellow Flash of Konoha.
„How long do you plan to stay up there, Sensei?"
"That depends on how long you plan on calling me that." His gaze met the pink haired kunoichi who stood beneath the tree. He recognized the voice of his former student immediately especially since she was almost the only one on this endless and pointless mission who talked to him every once in a while. There weren't many people here he knew, most of them had been gone for a very long time. Was it home or some better place without war.
"I told you already – we're equals here. That's the good thing in ANBU, you don't have any ranks."
His voice was quiet and he turned his head to look in the starless sky again. He almost seemed to be lost in his thoughts which was never a good thing. Whenever a shinobi thought too much about things that happened, it would only make them sad or hurt them. Thinking about feelings was never a good thing and so Sakura decided to not let him stay on his own out here.
"Mind if I sit?" She climbed up the tree and decided to sit on a branch where Kakashi and her sat back to back. She knew he wasn't much of a talker but that wasn't a reason for her to leave him alone. She cared about him and he was the only person of her past, of her team, that she could still talk to. It meant the world to her that she had been assigned to Kakashi's team in ANBU too.
Kakashi just "hm"d quietly and sighed. Of course she wouldn't let him sit out here on his own. It was Sakura they talked about here. The caring and overprotective medic he knew for so many years now.
He didn't actually care whether she kept him company or not he just didn't really want to talk about anything. Talking always complicated things and it was well known to everyone in Konoha and here that he wasn't good with words at all.
"I know you're not much of a talker but maybe you're a better listener." Sakura started quietly and sank her head a bit. She couldn't understand how Kakashi could just sit there and stare at the sky for so long. There wasn't anything up there to be seen and it reminded her of the emptiness that filled her life since her two boys left their village. She missed them so much and even though she somewhere along the way got over the crush she had on Sasuke, she still had to admit that he was one of the people she cared the most about.
"You know, there was once a girl, full of joy and happiness and helplessly in love with a guy she could never have. Someone who was obsessed with something different, more powerful than love. Since that time I wonder whether love is the most powerful emotion in this world. You know what they all say, right? Love would be everything a person needs, the goal in life to achieve for everyone but what if – what if that's not what to live means?"
Kakashi lifted one eyebrow. Conversations like that weren't like Sakura at all. He had expected her to maybe give him a little "Everything will be alright." speech but reflecting about the purpose of life was really a surprise. She simply kept talking, obviously not expecting an answer to her question.
"It turned out that her love was unrequited of course and so it started. I don't think she was aware that at that time that this guy she loved would affect her future like that. She had always thought he would be the one she would marry, have children and a happy life until their deaths with but she had just been naive."
Sakura couldn't hide that it made her sad talking about it but most of the things she sad Kakashi knew anyway. Everybody knew how she had been in the fact but only a few people knew how her view of the world had changed over the years.
"Instead he introduced the feeling of loneliness to her. No love, no joy, no happiness like she had expected." Her gaze was absent with no real point to focus on. "Loneliness brought up something else. Other people she cared about and who cared about her somehow got more important to her with every day because they took the pain of being alone away, even if it was just for some hours she spent with them. She was glad that she still had bonds which made her life worth living. Of course the void was never filled but at least it didn't hurt as much."
Where was this conversation going? Neither Kakashi nor Sakura really knew but she decided to just let the words come as they went. He wouldn't judge her for that and for one short moment she was a little amused that she had made the legendary Copy Nin speechless. He didn't talk much but every once in a while he at least made some sarcastic comments on the subject which wasn't the case right now.
"Just when she thought her life was slowly going back to normal, her best friend also left her. He left her alone to keep a promise he had given the girl ages ago and he didn't even say goodbye. If he had, maybe the girl would have kept him from going because at that time she had already realized that one thing was more important to her than the bond to the boy who first left her. The bond of friendship that had grown between those two and her urge to protect someone she cared about were stronger than her feelings for the other man."
That was something Kakashi hadn't quite believed. He had thought about whether Sakura had stopped Naruto or sent him away to find Sasuke for many times since the young Uzumaki had left the village but he had always ended up thinking that Sakura's childish obsession with the Uchiha heir would have taken over control and made her send her friend away. His eyes closed while he kept listening to her and he relaxed under the calm sound of her voice.
"Now there's that girl, once carefree, sad for so many reasons but she still can't bring herself to give up. There's still the loneliness that came back step by step with every bond she lost but there were still people left she cared so much about that it was worth fighting to be able to protect them. Would it have made her a bad person if she had given up? For her own sake? I don't really know but I think it would have been selfish of her. People still need her, do they?"
No response of Kakashi again. He stayed silent because he didn't want to interrupt her monologue. It was just starting to fascinate him in some kind of way. Never would he have thought of Sakura to be such a deep character. Strong, maybe, but deep wasn't something he would have expected. She was Tsunade's student after all and no matter how you turn things, you just can't accuse Tsunade of being very philosophic or deep.
"It's just that loneliness and friendship had always been in some kind of balance and the more loneliness entered her heart, the more people she needed who she could take care of and talk to. Years passed and the girl kept losing people to a war in her home country. What did you think happened with her feelings?"
"Those for the people still left became more intense." Why had he answered her now? He didn't really know.
"I don't think I can lose any more people, Kakashi."
The moment he said his name for the first time and didn't call him her sensei a small smile reached his lips. Sakura twisted a little on her branch and bit her lip for a second. Silent tears started rolling down her slightly pink cheeks and she hoped Kakashi wouldn't notice. Simply saying what she had said during the last few minutes made her appear weak, he wouldn't have to see her cry in the same night. If there was one thing Haruno Sakura wasn't it would be weak.
She tightened her grip on the branch a little and wiped away some tears with her arm protector. "I really don't want to." She repeated barely whispering.
"I don't think you will have to, Sakura." His voice was deep and she could almost swear she could feel the whole air vibrate around them. There had almost been something she had liked about his voice. It was calming her down in a way nobody else could do and even the rough sounding part of it affected her in a positive way.
This man who was sitting back to back with her right now was everything she had left. Everybody left the village or this world after the last war and only a handful shinobi stood their ground and were still loyal to the hokage. Sakura couldn't stop herself from crying in silence even more when she thought about how it all had started. If only she had never become a shinobi. She would still be the naive girl without any clue of anything and she would have never experienced war like she had to.
It took her one moment to realize what had just happened when she felt something cold touching her hand. She sniffed quietly and looked down to where Kakashi's hand had found hers and stared at it for a while. It was weird that no matter how long they have known each other, they had never really had direct body contact if it wasn't for training purpose and so Sakura just sat there in silence appreciating the gesture and smiling a little under her tears.
"So you think protecting people is more important than love? That's very noble." Kakashi's voice was still quiet, mostly because he didn't think all the camp had to know what the two of them were talking about.
"Protecting people is the most important to me. Loneliness just gets in my way all of the time.." She squeezed his hand lightly before wiping away another tear with her other arm.
"You don't have to feel lonely, you know? Nobody has to." Sakura's eyes widened a little as he suddenly appeared in front of her so near that she could have felt his breath if it wasn't for his mask. The branch was small and her back was pressed against the trunk so that she couldn't have dodged even if she wanted. It felt good having someone so close to her and it somehow didn't even feel weird that it was her former sensei.
"I don't want to feel lonely, not tonight.."His head cocked a bit to one side as he laid one hand lightly on her waist to maintain his balance. Even if it was dark he could clearly see the goose bumps he caused her. Her body was responding to him being so near to her even if she probably didn't notice. Kakashi did and he knew that this was what loneliness did to people. They both clearly didn't care that they used to be student and teacher and just after Kakashi had looked at her for some more moments, he decided that there was clearly no doubt in the beautiful green eyes of Sakura.
"You're not alone." He shook his head a little and before Sakura was able to understand what was just happening, she found herself looking at the crooked smile of Kakashi without his mask for one second before her eyes closed instinctively when their lips touched.