Hey all! This is just a cute little one-shot that I literally wrote on my phone at work, so please excuse any errors. I just got this little idea and couldn't shake it. Hope you enjoy!
P.S. When Skies are Grey is not abandoned, I'm working on a new chapter now. Untitled Affections is similarly not abandoned, although I may take it down and rewrite some of it.
Disclaimer: Kakashi isn't mine *sad* (and neither is anyone else)
Inspired by Ralph Ellison's words: "if the price of looking was blindness, I would have looked."
Summary - In which Kakashi looks, and blindness is a very real possibility.
"I Would Have Looked"
"Kakashi!" Sakura smacked him gently but with a seriousness in her eyes that she hoped conveyed to him that she most certainly was not kidding. "Stop using your sharingan to look at me! You're going to blind yourself all for the sake of being a shameless old pervert."
"Why, Sakura-chan," her old sensei replied, covering up his offending red eye while simultaneously placing a hand over his heart, feigning a hurt most deep. "I can't believe you would even imply such a thing."
Sakura simply rolled her eyes at the man, turning to continue their walk down the road back towards Konoha. They had just finished a month long duo mission, which had included protecting a foreign dignitary, crashing a wedding, and a lot of staring - at least on Kakashi's part, that is.
The medic-nin frowned as she felt Kakashi's eyes on her back again, but chose not to turn around this time. He had been in a weird mood these last few days, and it was starting to make her uneasy. Why was he staring so much? He never had before. His sharingan was starting to give out, she knew that it didn't have much longer based on the multiple eye exams she had forced him to have over the last few months, and now here he was carelessly overworking it. And for the sake of what? Looking at her? It didn't make any sense.
She was self-aware enough to know that she had feelings for Kakashi. What had started as a feeble crush on her old teacher and the war hero had grown quietly and slowly into a sort of deep-seated admiration. She refused to call it love. She was nineteen now and had had more than her fair share of romantic offers - the line of work of saving lives often brought grateful and love-struck soldiers to her door - however, she turned each one down gracefully, unable to shake the feeling that she would somehow be betraying her Kakashi.
And now he was staring at her. Intently and with a hint of something in his gaze that she couldn't quite make out. He seemed... sad? Maybe.
"Please put that eye away, Kakashi. I really do hate for it to go to waste," Sakura sighed, without even turning around.
"It's not a..." Kakashi mumbled behind her, his signature pout lacing his tone.
"If you don't stop, I'm going to yank that eye right out of your head, Kaka-chan."
That shut him up for the time being.
oOoOo
The intruding red eye didn't plague her again for a few days. When they had returned to the village, Kakashi had squinted his eyes shut in a smile, saluted her, and poofed away in a cloud of smoke. He never showed up to Tsunade's office to give her a mission report - lovingly leaving it all to Sakura even though he had been the commanding officer on the mission. Luckily, she had grown accustomed to the dumping of others' work upon her, as she frequently endured such abuse at Tsunade's own hands.
She pondered all of this as she strolled through the aisles of the liquor store, trying to find Tsunade's favorite sake. Leave it to the Hokage to send the best medic in the village on an alcohol run at two o'clock in the afternoon. She grumbled angrily to herself about how being a jonin was no better than being a genin and having exceptional talent still rendered you a delivery service.
"You'd best stop frowning before your face gets stuck that way."
Sakura jumped at the voice, very nearly knocking over a display of expensive glass bottles with one of her flailing limbs. "God damn it, Kakashi!" She took a steadying breath, "How is it that you're still able to sneak up on me?"
"Natural talent," the silver-haired ninja shrugged nonchalantly, the tomoes of his sharingan spinning slowly as he watched her.
"You better have a very good excuse as to why you're using that eye, you moron," Sakura glared at him, trying to regain her composure after nearly having a heart attack.
Kakashi's face turned serious for a moment. "I do."
Sakura blinked at him, not sure what to say. "I...lunch."
"Hm?" Kakashi rasied an eyebrow at her.
"Cover the eye up now and I'll buy you lunch," Sakura amended quickly, willing herself not to blush after she stammered at him like a lovesick school girl. He'd always had that effect on her, and growing up had done nothing to make it any better.
Her awkwardly offered bargain seemed to work, though, as Kakashi smiled and covered up his eye. "I will accept your offer, even though I'm not sure if you realize what you're asking me to give up here." His hands went directly into his pockets.
"And what is that, sensei?" Sakura asked, curiosity now piqued.
"Ah ah, Sakura-chan. That is for me to know, and you to...not know," he smiled at her from behind his mask, in that infuriating way he always did.
"You'll just have to come with me to deliver this sake to Tsunade, she'll have my head if I don't get it to her soon," Sakura sighed, walking up to the counter with a large bottle of the sake Tsunade liked.
The copy-ninja smiled at her again, causing her heartbeat to falter a little. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."
oOoOo
The restaurant was crowded, forcing Sakura and Kakashi to sit in a tiny, two-person booth in the corner. Kakashi sat across from her, his face in a book as he said it was necessary for him to keep his eyes occupied if she didn't want him using the sharingan. This is what brought her to the conclusion that he was messing with her. Leave it to Kakashi to speed up his inevitable blindness all for the sake of a joke.
They hadn't yet discovered quite what would happen once his sharingan did give out, but it was a distinct possibility that he would lose vision in both eyes. Historically, when an Uchiha lost his vision, he would lose sight in both eyes, even if only one sharingan went bad. But in Kakashi's case, he only had one sharingan to begin with, and a borrowed one at that. There was no knowing what would happen to his normal eye. At their last appointment, Sakura had told him to prepare for the worst, just in case. She had reassured him that there were many very formidable blind ninja out there and that he would do fine, even if he did go completely blind. He hadn't seemed thrilled.
Now, Sakura wondered if that was the reason for his strange behavior. Was he just depressed that he might go blind? That was probably it. He didn't know how to react and so he was teasing her since she was involved with his care. She also wondered if he knew about her feelings and was humoring her. He was too nice to openly reject her.
"Kakashi," she said slowly, "Let's go to the clinic after lunch. I want to look at your eyes again. I think there's more research I could do."
Kakashi slowly lowered his book from his face. "I appreciate it, Sakura, but you don't have to do that. You've already spent so much time on it. I think you've researched all you can."
"But Kakashi, I-"
"But Kakashi, nothing," he raised his book back up, officially shutting her out. "I've come to terms with it."
Angry now, Sakura grabbed his book and forced it back down. "I haven't come to terms with it. I'd never forgive myself if I could have saved your vision and I didn't. You don't want me to beat myself up for the rest of my life, do you?" She knew that last bit was a low blow, but she couldn't help it.
Even through the mask she could tell he was scowling. "My, my, Sakura-chan. Whenever did you become so manipulative?"
Sakura only smiled.
oOoOo
It turned out there really wasn't anything to be done for Kakashi's sharingan. After days and days and days of nearly constant research, Sakura was out of things to consider. The sharingan was dying and there wasn't a thing she could do to save it. A bitter defeat.
Kakashi wasn't mad. He did say he felt bad that she had spent so much time on it and that she was upset, but he had been expecting the outcome. He'd bought her dinner and told her to forget it.
He continued to pester her with the sharingan. She'd catch him watching her with it across the street or see him peeking around the corner at the hospital. His behavior was becoming downright bizarre and Sakura considered sending him for a psychiatric consult. She saw him lurking around at all hours of the day and night, she began to wonder if he was sleeping at all. He was going to go insane, simply from a lack of sleep, she was convinced.
She drew the line when she saw his face pressed up against the window of the restaurant she and Ino were in, staring unabashedly at her as people walking on the street ran into him. He was hogging up the sidewalk.
"Uh, forehead? Why is Kaka-san staring at you like that?" Ino furrowed her bro at Sakura's old sensei. "It's like he's transfixed."
"He's been doing this," Sakura sighed, slapping a hand to her head. "I'm not sure if he's teasing me or if he's losing his mind. Maybe he's been knocked in the head one too many times..."
"Let's go out and ask him," Ino stood. "Come on, Sakura."
Letting curiosity get the better of her nervousness, she followed Ino outside. Maybe she'd finally get some answers with Ino asking the questions.
"Kakashi!" Ino addressed him brashly as they stepped outside. "Why are you perving on Sakura?"
Kakashi peeled his face off the window and turned to face them. He was frowning. "I'm not perving on Sakura."
"Then why are you staring at her like that?" Ino asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Kakashi scratched the back of his head, and Sakura swore she saw the edges of a blush creep up past his mask. "While I would love to explain it to you, I'm actually due to go re-bristle some toothbrushes for a lonely old woman, and I must be off. Bye, Sakura-chan."
And with a wave, the ever allusive and more recently confusing Hatake Kakashi disappeared into a puff of smoke.
Ino coughed and cleared the smoke by flapping her hand in front of her face. "Man that guy is weird."
oOoOo
Sakura had had enough. She was going to confront Kakashi once and for all, she wanted to get to the bottom of this. She stomped all the way to Kakashi's apartment, not caring that it was nearing midnight or that she was wearing her fluffy purple pajama shorts and bunny slippers. It all clashed rather badly with her oversized jonin sweater.
She didn't care.
She turned onto Kakashi's street in a huff, nearly tripping over a stray cat in her haste. She tried not to be distracted by the pleasing scent of fabric softener wafting through the air - the laundromat on Kakashi's street always made the whole area smell wonderful. She shook her head forcefully to maintain her anger and jogged the rest of the way to his door.
"Hatake Kakashi!" she yelled, banging on his battered blue front door. "It's Sakura! Let me in, I want to talk to you!"
She tapped her foot impatiently on his doorstep, deciding to give him another minute before she just broke down the door.
To her surprise, the door creaked open slowly. Quirking an eyebrow when it didn't open any more and Kakashi didn't appear, Sakura pushed the door the rest of the way open herself.
"Kakashi?"
"In here."
Sakura kicked off her slippers and turned the corner into Kakashi's living room. She nearly tripped over her own feet when she saw him. He was sitting on his ratty old couch, both hands held firmly over his eyes.
"Kakashi? What's wrong? Did your sharingan give out?"
Sakura worried, rushing over to sit beside him and drapping an arm around his hunched shoulders.
"It did," was his only reply.
Sakura hesitated. "And your other eye?"
"I'm not sure," said Kakashi with an audible sigh. "I felt the sharingan starting to fade and I just immediately shut my eyes. I'm not really sure what to do now."
"Kakashi," Sakura hesitantly reached out and touched the hand covering his good eye. "You have to open your eyes. So we know."
Kakashi sighed again. "But, what if..."
The medic-nin frowned, "What if what, Kakashi?"
Even though his eyes were covered, Kakashi turned away from her. "What if I never get to see you again, Sakura?"
She felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. "M-me?" she all but squeaked. "Why me?"
Kakashi spun back around on her, and she tried not to laugh at the comical image of him still posed with his hands covering half of his face. The other half was covered by his mask. "Why, Sakura-chan, don't play dense with me."
"You mean you - Kakashi, I..." Sakura frowned. "You know, it's very hard to have this conversation with you when I can't see any of your face."
Kakashi made a sound between a snort and a scoff. "You can't see it but I'm rolling my eyes. Fine, here."
Sakura nearly choked.
He'd pulled down his mask.
"Oh my god, you should have prepared me," Sakura said, barely above a whisper, completely forgetting she had planned to come over and yell at him. Now she sat transfixed, unable to stop staring at the features that had been hidden from her for so long. His nose and chin were angular, and he had a small dimple in his right cheek that was deepened by his smirk. She considered reaching out to touch him.
"Now that you can see my face, we can talk, right?" he asked.
"Sure," Sakura agreed, still shamelessly staring at him. The irony was not lost on her.
"I assume you came here to demand answers about the staring, or to yell at me," Kakashi began in his calm, deep voice.
Sakura suddenly doubted everything, as sitting this close to Kakashi was doing serious things to her concentration... maybe she was even more interested in him than she thought. "Well, yeah... I guess that was some of it."
Kakashi frowned, and Sakura mourned the loss of his smile. She was entranced with watching his lips move.
"Sakura," he began, and the way he said her name gave her chills. "I'm sorry for staring at you, and for most likely creeping you out. But, I... well, frankly, I was afraid that I would never get to see you again. And so I used the sharingan to watch you and try to commit every bit of you to memory so that I'd never have to forget what you looked like, so I wouldn't have to stop seeing you."
Sakura was delighted to see a bright red blush beginning to color his cheeks. She wanted to let him keep talking, to hear what he was going to say, but she decided to save him instead. "You're telling me, that I've been hiding a crush on you for the past three years for no reason?"
Kakashi parted his lips. "What?"
Sakura's eyes widened in horror. Had she misunderstood him? Had she just admitted to something completely embarrassing and not at all related to the situation?
"Oh god, Kakashi, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"
She was cut off by his lips crashing into hers. She let out a gasp which only gave him further access to her mouth and he took it greedily. It only took Sakura a few moments to let the shock wear off before she was kissing him back. He had at some point dropped his hands from his eyes and threaded them into her hair.
He eventually broke the kiss, pressing his forehead into hers and looking into her eyes with his normal one, little puffs of his breath ghosting over her lips.
Sakura's eyes widened. "So you can see?"
Kakashi waved a hand, taking a small step back and grinning sheepishly. "Ah, about that. I lost my sharingan vision about four hours ago. I already knew I could see with my other eye. I just didn't think I could look at you while saying all of that."
"You bastard! I was worried!" Sakura reclosed the distance between them, smacking his shoulder fiercely. "Don't scare me like that!"
Kakashi hooked a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up to look at him. All the anger flooded from her and she became lost in his gaze. How quickly he could melt her.
"I'm sorry. I just had to tell you and," he averted his gaze, "and Sakura, you should know that I have a lot more than just a crush on you." His face was almost as pink as her hair.
This time it was Sakura's turn to force his chin in her direction. She smiled at him. "Me too," she said simply.
He leaned in and kissed her.
fin.
AN: well kids, there you go. I was getting depressed about not finishing any of my longer stories, so a one-shot that I can actually complete is always super nice to break up the monotony. I may write a few more before I get back to my multi-chapter fics.
I hope you liked this! Please leave me a review if you did - and if you are reading my other stories: When Skies are Grey amd Untitled Affections, which one would you like to see finished first?
love you all :) -loony