The following evening Sasuke found himself exhausted, yet unable to stop pacing through his room. He didn't know what had him worked up so much, and he couldn't make himself sit still no matter how much he might want to. The nightmare from the evening before was still with him. He could remember nothing but the fear. The fear of the dream, but more so the fear that had followed him out of the dream. It was irrational fear, but then that was the kind that always held on the longest. Again and again as he made continuous circuits through his room, Sasuke found his thoughts turning back to his vague memories of the white haired Anbu ninja that had rescued him eight years before. He still wanted to know who that man had been, but despaired of ever knowing.

Sasuke had thought of the man frequently when he was a child. His adoration of his rescuer was at first the unthinking obsession of someone who thought himself on the very cusp of death only to be pulled back at the last possible second. This man was god-like to him in his child's mind. As he went through his ninja training classes his obsession mellowed into a simple desire to himself become one of the Anbu ranks when he was older. As he grew older, that adoration grew and bloomed into a love that Sasuke didn't understand at first. Rather than think about this love, he concentrated on his studies and his training, something he could understand perfectly.

When Sasuke's team was assigned four years before he began the process that would help him understand that love. He'd always known that the girls in school always watched him, blushing and squealing and calling their love to him whenever he was near. He paid little attention to any of them. He wasn't interested, and was too busy with his studies besides. When Sakura Haruno was assigned to his team he felt her excitement and adoring looks just as well as he heard her cries of delight, and the groans of disappointment of the other girls. It somehow worked through his preoccupation with his future what exactly Sakura's attentions meant. He understood that she was in love with him in much the same fashion he was in love with that mysterious Anbu agent. He was still thinking on this the following afternoon when their new sensei walked into the room where they waited. When the door slid open and the white haired, masked ninja walked in, the world closed down around Sasuke. Nothing else existed except himself and that older man. Sasuke's first thought was that this other man was the ninja he'd spent that past four years looking for. Something in the timbre of his new sensei's voice however promptly crushed that hope.

"So you're the ones I'm stuck with this time, huh?"

Sasuke chuckles softly with the memory of this first meeting of the man that would become extremely important to his team. He was more than just a sensei to them all, but each for different reasons. It was only a year before that Sasuke began to almost forget about that hero of his past, his attention turning more toward his sensei. He never quite forgot about that other man, but he thought about him less and less often as he grew closer to his sensei. His attraction had been growing steadily over the four years his team had been training under Kakashi, but Sasuke tried not to think much about it. He couldn't very well confess his feelings to the older man, therefor, he thought it better that he just not think about it too much and torture himself with an unrequited love. He could see what Sakura's love for him was doing to her, and he didn't want the same thing happening to him.

Moving without thought, Sasuke slipped out onto the balcony outside of his window. He was off in a flash, moving silently from rooftop to rooftop, shadow to shadow. His mind was whirling with thought, driving him on in a fevered state. Eventually he finds himself standing in front of a familiar door. He stares at it, feeling his cheeks flush with heat. He starts to back away, unsure what has brought him to this place, and yet somehow very sure of what has brought him here. He tries to convince himself that he can't disturb anyone this time of the night, certainly everyone was asleep in the entire village except those on duty. Just as this conviction almost sends him back to his own room, he notices the light shinning warmly out of the windows. Making a helpless noise low in his throat, Sasuke, feels his arm lifting, seemingly of its own conviction. Before he can even think to stop himself, he knocks.