A/N: Happy reading!
I do not own Naruto.
The phone went off in Sasuke's back pocket, as he was standing in the kitchen helping his mother make dinner. He ignored it, assuming it was Naruto calling to tell him about how the date went with the shy Hyūga from high school. When three minutes passed and his phone was continuously buzzing, Sasuke had enough. He couldn't concentrate on cutting the mushrooms for his mother's hot pot, so he placed the knife down and whipped his phone out.
"What is it, dobe? Can't you tell I'm busy? I swear, if this is about your date with Hinata I'll-"
"It's about Sakura."
Sasuke abruptly stopped talking, and felt as though ice had been poured over him.
"Wh-what?" He stuttered into the phone, grabbing it with both hands. At this point, his mother, who had been preparing a broth, looked up at her son, and was alarmed by the pallor of his skin. She, too, stopped what she was doing and put a hand on her son's arm in support.
"It's her. I saw her Sasuke, god I saw her. I talked to her. She's alive and looks healthy and she owns a coffee shop now. Remember how she always said she wanted one? Well now she's got one, on a block in the old city. It's nearby the house with the old lady we always thought was a witch and-"
By that point, Sasuke was tuning his best friend out. He pulled his phone away from his ear and looked down at it, feeling as though he was going into shock.
"I've got to go," he told Naruto, and before the blonde could get another word in, he hung up.
"Sasuke, what's wrong?" Mikoto asked her son, looking up at his paler than normal face and his wide eyes.
"Sakura…" he managed to get out, and his mother placed a hand over her mouth, before taking him and leading him to the living room and setting him down.
Stepping away from him, she went to go call Fugaku, who was still at the police station. Meanwhile, Sasuke sat there on the couch staring at nothing, yet feeling his heart and mind race and race.
She's back? Is she OK? Did she even think about me, or Naruto or anyone? Where did she go? Why did she stop medical school?
A hand on his shoulder woke him from his self-induced trance. The hand belonged to his older brother, who looked down at him with concerned charcoal grey eyes.
"What is the matter, otōto?"
The younger of the two shook his head. "It's Sakura… She's back. Naruto said he saw her."
This was something he both dreaded and prayed for. The first week of Sakura's disappearance, he and Naruto lost it, worrying about her and wondering what had happened. They were so adamant that something was wrong, that the Uchiha Police Corps, a very large branch of the Konoha Police Department got involved at their insistence. They found that she withdrew from her university and just disappeared into thin air. Her parents, Haruno Kizashi and Mebuki were worried over their daughter's strange behaviour, claimed that she left home to go backpacking and didn't know when she would be back. When they did more investigating, they found that she had indeed packed up her bags and left, but no one was truly sure where.
He and Naruto had not taken it well. Personally, Sasuke felt betrayed that she up and left without a word, but he was torn. He thought about it night after night for a whole year, wanting her home, yet choking on his own anger at her lack of care for him. He wanted her home, with him, home is where your heart is, you belong with me, with me and Naruto where you've always been.
Sasuke watched as Itachi's usually impassive face went slack for a brief moment. There were emotions flickering through his deep grey eyes, too fast for the younger brother to read them correctly.
"Otōto," his brother sighed softly, pulling his little brother into a hug, and Sasuke gladly complied. The Uchiha brothers were never very affectionate with one another after Sasuke turned twelve, but in the moment they needed one another.
Sasuke tried his best to hide the shivers that wracked his body. "I didn't think we'd ever see her again," he whispered. Into Sasuke's shoulder, his brother replied, "I know." What went unsaid was Itachi's silent agreement to the statement.
Mikoto whirled into the living room not a moment later, wrapping her arms around her boys. Itachi stayed in his family's embrace for a moment, before taking that as his cue to leave the comforting to his mother. He pulled away slowly, and left the room, silently returning to his room. He pulled out his phone, and typed in a number he knew by heart.
"Hello?" A voice asked on the other line.
"Pein, remember that favor I asked of you?"
There was a brief pause. "Itachi. Yes, the Haruno girl?"
Itachi made a noise of agreement. "She's been found."
There was a longer pause this time. "I see. I'll send out someone to check, or…"
Pein left the statement hanging, and Itachi saw it for what it was, a way out. "Have someone check. I'll stop by later." When I'm ready, went unsaid but both of them understood.
"Take care of yourself, Itachi. We'll see you on Friday."
The phone line cut off, and Itachi pulled the phone away from his ear, trying to ignore the muffled sound of his brother's tears in the living room.
Haruno Sakura was wiping down a espresso machine when the strangest person walked through her doors. Strange in dress and in mannerisms, but that wasn't the strangest thing about him. It was the fact that her old martial arts teacher was walking through the doors to her coffee shop, his face still obscured by that red scarf, and his nose still buried in his favorite novel.
"Still reading that trash, eh Kaka-sensei?"
The man in question snapped to attention at her voice. His head whipped up and his eyes grew comically wide for a moment, before they took on a look she recognized well. His sharp onyx eyes appraised her, as if he hadn't seen her in years, and belatedly, she realized it was because he hadn't.
"Sakura-chan," he said in his smooth baritone, and she couldn't help but smile. No matter how old she got, her name would never leave his mouth without the honorific.
"It's not trash, you should really give it a try," the masked man sniffed, raising his nose in the air, but he kept his twinkling eyes on her.
"I beg to differ," she called, leaning her forearms against the counter top. "I think the first installment isn't what it's cracked out to be. Junko is a basic character and his love interests have no depth. But Icha Icha Tactics, that one is good. Overall, the plot is better, and Michiko's love triangle between the samurai and the merchant's son is much more enticing."
Kakashi, who was on his way to meet her at the register, stopped in his tracks. Beneath his scarf, Sakura could see his jaw had dropped, and she couldn't help but laugh.
"What? Of course I read the books, I had to know why it was a best-selling series for myself. I couldn't just take your word for it."
There was a strange look in her old sensei's eyes, but she brushed it off. "Coffee?" She asked, motioning to the machines and the coffee beans behind her.
Regaining his composure, Kakashi nodded. "Yes. The French roast," he said, and Sakura got to work immediately.
"Black right? No sugar or anything?" She called over the machine that was grinding the beans. He chuckled lightly. "You know me well."
The two sat in silence, the ambiance of the store and the dull murmurs of other customers a soothing sound. She finished the cup with a flourish, setting it down in front of him. Kakashi went to retrieve his wallet from his pocket but a shake of Sakura's head stopped him in his tracks. "It's on the house."
Kakashi scoffed. "Sakura-chan, you'll never keep a business running if you don't charge your customers."
She shrugged. "Remember all the times you'd keep the dōjō open late for me and for Lee? I think this is okay."
The infamous crinkles in Kakashi's eyes appeared. "You were always my favorite student."
She laughed, tugging on her long, pink braid. "Am I still?" She asked.
Without even thinking about it, "Of course," left the older man's mouth. After a pause, he told her, "But please, call me Kakashi when we're not in the dōjō. It makes me feel old."
She rolled her eyes good-naturedly at him. "That's because you are old!"
The masked man placed a hand on his chest in mock offense. "Maa, it's just because my hair is silver. It makes me look distinguished."
Sakura shook her head, and grinned. "Ok, I'll give you that. She bustled behind the pastry counter, took a strawberry and cream cheese tart out and put it in a bag. Then, she left the counter area, and went to give the treat to Kakashi.
"Here," she said, holding it out. "No, Sakura, I can't. You already gave me a free coffee, I can't take this. Plus, I'm trying to stay thin," he added on as an afterthought.
She placed the bag in his hand anyway, and poked his abs, which felt like solid rock. "You're spending too much time around Gai," she said, thinking back to Kakashi's "rival" who took the gym and his nutrition very seriously.
Then, a serious look crossed Sakura's eyes. "Please, Kakashi," she asked him, her voice steady. "You have done more for me than you could ever imagine. Let me do something to at least begin to try making it up to you."
There was something in her eyes that spoke to him. Kakashi recognized that look, one he would sometimes see in himself and in his old colleagues from the KPD. It was an alien, foreign thing on the sweet face of the girl he had once known. Taking a closer look, he noted her face was slimmer, and with his keen eyes he noted a small, silvery scar on the bottom left side of her face, starting at her jaw and probably going down to her neck. All of a sudden, red flags were popping up in his mind. But the somber look on her face prevented Kakashi from saying anything more. He took the bag without question, and before he could think too much more about it, she scooped him into a tight hug.
There were emotions between them, ones he couldn't understand and couldn't quite catch, but he could feel them. He wrapped his arms tightly around the young woman and held her to his chest. Sakura said nothing about the way his heart raced.
Kakashi pulled back, and then pulled down his scarf. He placed a gentle kiss on the pink haired woman's forehead, and said, "Stop by the dōjō sometime. I'm glad you're home."
Sakura memorized the curves and planes of her old sensei's face. She took note of his paler skin and the beauty mark on his chin, and wryly remembered the bet she and her boys had made all those years back. All those theories as to why Kakashi-sensei hid his face and what he looked like underneath. Sasuke and Naruto both owed her fifteen ryō.
"I will," she promised, and watched as he lifted his scarf back up. She then noted, that it didn't matter if Kakashi showed his face or not. It was his deep, black eyes that he expressed himself through. He walked out the door, leaving it open for another customer who was just entering, and before she knew it, it was like the man was never there. She deftly ignored the ache in her chest. She had work to do.
A/N: The entirety of the Kakashi/Sakura interactions was rewritten. There is still some old material from the Pein/Itachi interaction. Let me know what you think.
Anbu-chan