Window

Chapter Two

It grew increasingly more humid the further they headed into the mountains that morning. The forest thickened, the road drew narrower, and mist began to descend the higher they went. Their target village of Asahi was nestled somewhere deep in the valleys, isolated and vulnerable. As they walked, Kakashi explained the mission.

"Asahi is a gold mining town," he said, over the ambient buzz of cicadas. "They're prosperous, but they lack adequate protection. Recently they've been having trouble with a group of rogue-nins who have a habit of figuratively waltzing in, taking what they please and vanishing again. They've been robbed five times, and the thieves seem to be pretty advanced ninjas, so they've yet to meet any resistance."

"Wait till they meet us!" Naruto blustered confidently.

Kakashi ignored him. "We'll split into two teams. There's two roads in and out of Asahi and the thieves use either one or the other for their cart. Naruto and Sasuke will guard one road, me and Sakura will take the other. We'll probably be out of radio contact range with each other, so if anything goes down, throw out your loudest jutsu and the other team will come help. Is that understood?"

"Yes," Sasuke droned.

"Yep!" Naruto chirped happily,

"…sure."

Just her luck. Even if the world ended and civilization descended into chaos, Naruto and Sasuke would still somehow come out as a pair on the other side. Granted, they were the most effective pair in the entire history of forever, but Sakura had really been hoping today that she could have been paired with one of them.

Now she was stuck with Kakashi. The man whose orgasm she'd witnessed that very morning.

Oh god…

No matter how far she walked or what beautiful sights she saw as they trekked through the valleys, absolutely nothing had been able to push that image from her mind – quite possibly because the object of her distress was walking in front of her. She found herself doing things she normally didn't do… like watching his strong, broad shoulders and ogling his rear. His pants left quite a lot to the imagination, but Sakura's imagination had some very accurate material to work from.

Then no sooner was she haplessly admiring her teacher's physical assets, she was fretting over his choice in sex partner. Kimura Yoshi. Kimura Yoshi, for crying out loud! She had to have at least ten years on him and Sakura had treated her eleven-year-old son for a broken arm only last year. Her husband had brought the boy to hospital, and from what little Sakura had seen of him, he seemed a nice, jovial man who obviously loved his son. That man didn't deserve to be cheated on. That boy didn't deserve it either.

What was Kakashi doing with that woman?

Ok, obviously she knew was he was doing with that woman – in unnecessary graphic detail – but the better question was why? Having seen him maskless, Kakashi struck her as a fairly attractive man. But even with the mask, that was pretty obvious. He surely didn't have to try too hard to get a girl. Why hook up with an older, married woman?

Probably some perverted fetish…

When they finally reached Asahi, they split up into two teams as Sakura had been dreading, and she made her way with Kakashi across the village to find the second road. Sakura pretended to take an unnatural interest in the architecture of the town, simply to avoid having to say or look at Kakashi. But sadly the only interesting thing about Asahi was that all the clocks seemed to have stopped fifty years ago, and everything was the same as it was then, right down to the clothing and hairstyles.

"Is everything alright?" Kakashi asked her lightly as they passed by a group of openly staring locals.

"Mm-hm," Sakura responded quickly, in a too-high voice.

"You look like something's bothering you," he commented.

Sakura kept her eyes resolutely on the path that was taking them back out of the village. With nothing but trees to look at now, she was running out of diversions.

"It's like you've seen a ghost," he mused absently. "Or something equally terrible."

She very nearly whimpered. "N-No, I'm fine."

She was waiting for him to say it. They were out of ear-shot of other people now and undoubtedly this was the point where he would confront her over what she'd seen to demand her secrecy. Sure he acted nonchalant and apathetic, but once he got her alone…

Several hundred yards further down the road and away from the village, Kakashi pulled her to a stop. Sakura braced herself for the inevitable awkwardness.

"Here will do," he said, looking around. "You take that side of the road, I'll take this side. See anything, hear anything, alert me through the radio."

Then he turned and walked away.

Stunned and confused, Sakura could only obey. A few minutes later she found herself settled in a ditch that smelt strongly of ferns with a forest on one side and a road on the other. How she'd gotten there… she couldn't quite recall at that moment. She looked across the gravel road to spot Kakashi on the opposite bank, leaning against a wide tree that hid him from view of anyone coming toward the village. His book was in his hand, but it was closed and dangling from his hand. From his distant stare, he was either thinking about something or listening intently. Sakura listened too, but all she could hear was the grating squall of cicadas in the forest and bushes around her. With their deafening chorus, it would be a wonder if she hear the rogue-nins coming at all.

But why wasn't Kakashi even acknowledging what had happened that morning? Perhaps this was his defense – pretend nothing happened and things will go on as normal. Yet it was like the man didn't even have the decency to be embarrassed!

Suddenly, Kakashi's head turned and he met her gaze dead-on, unblinkingly. A cold prickle ran up the back of Sakura's neck, but she found herself unable to look away. At this distance, his mask rendered his face even more unreadable than ever, but there was something compelling about his penetrating stare. It was like he was silently assessing her… waiting for her to take the initiative. The noise of the insects seemed to swell around her, reaching suffocating, deafening volume. The longer she stared at him, the more acutely she felt detached from everything else.

Then his hand lifted slowly to touch his ear. The radio crackled in her own.

"Sakura?" she heard him say over the wireless.

"Sensei…?" she breathed.

"There's a cicada on your head."

"Thank you, sensei." Quite calmly she flicked the large bug away – which explained the noise – and sank back into her ditch in the hopes that the sides would cave in and bury her alive. Only her death could spare her any further humiliation at the hands of this infuriating man.

Hands that this morning had been clamped over the hips of a curvaceous, naked woman.

It would be a long, long mission…

If Sakura had been worried that Kakashi would corner her at some point during their mission to have a little 'chat' about what she'd witnessed that morning, then she needn't have worried. Kakashi, for the most part, ignored her. But then, she was doing her best to ignore him too, so it was hard to say if he was deliberately keeping to himself.

The rogues never turned up. Sakura spent two hours in that ditch, picking off insects that seemed attracted to her hair color, and generally getting her white skirt covered in fern stains and dirt. Eventually they gave up the effort and told the village head they would be back the next time the gold was due to be evaluated – a vulnerable time that the thieves would probably pray on.

Team Kakashi headed home, thoroughly discontented. Naruto was annoyed at having been deprived of action, for Sasuke it was their lack of payment and success, and for Sakura it was Kakashi's confusing behavior. Kakashi himself, however, seemed more or less as indifferent as ever. Beyond that initial curious glance he'd swept over her as they left Konoha, he hadn't shown even the faintest sign that he even remembered that morning.

Perhaps he really hadn't seen her? Perhaps he was too wrapped up in his activities to actually register her presence, even when staring directly at her?

But Kakashi was an elite jonin. It was hard to catch him unawares when he was sleeping, so she doubted that passion would cloud his senses that much.

The man was an enigma. An enigma wrapped in mystery and topped off with a crunchy outer shell of eccentricity.

By the time they arrived back at the gates of Konoha, it was almost evening. They sky was still bright, but it had turned a paler shade of blue. Naruto immediately declared hunger and excused himself to go find Ichiraku. Sasuke wandered off, mentioning something about taking a bath, and once more Sakura was struck cold with the realization that she was alone with her teacher.

Undoubtedly now that they were no longer on the mission and no longer had to worry about keeping their guard up, he would confront her.

"I have to go fill out a report," Kakashi said idly, not looking at her. "I'll see you around, ok?"

Sakura swallowed her intense relief. "Bye." She finally looked up the same time he looked down and met his gaze. A dark eye crinkled with a smile.

"Bye-bye," he said, and wandered away.

Confused and perturbed, Sakura began to plod homewards. It was only when she glanced at her watch to check the real time that she realized the mission had run on longer than she'd expected and she was late for a dinner date with her long-time rival.

She arrived at Ichigo's Teahouse, out of breathe and still covered in fern stains. Compared to Ino, who was sitting outside under the red teahouse canopy in her spotless clothes and perfect hair, she might as well have been a troglodyte.

"Forehead!" Ino greeted her with a wave. "You always bring the most interesting smells…"

Sakura sat down with a thump in the chair opposite Ino's and half-collapsed against the table. "You wouldn't believe the day I've had…" she moaned.

"Bad mission?"

"No, the mission was fine."

"Oh, jeez. It's not your pathetic excuse for a boyfriend is it? I have told you where you can shove him, right?"

"No, it's not Ikki," Sakura said, scowling. "It's Kakashi-sensei."

"Kakashi-sensei?" Ino echoed, sticking out her lower lip in a pout of confusion. "What's he done?"

Sakura leant back in her seat with a sigh, staring at the red canopy above her head. It stirred in the faint breeze, lifting up and down almost in time to her breathes. "I saw him with a woman this morning."

"Oh?" Ino sounded only mildly interested. "I suppose that's… surprising. I thought he was a quite adamant bachelor type. Is that really the reason you look like you've been hauled through a hedge backwards?"

"No – I mean I saw him with a woman," Sakura stressed. "He was late so I went to his apartment and I didn't knock and I saw them together and-"

Ino bust out into tinkling laughter. "Oh my! Did Sakura-chan get a bit of an eyeful of her old sensei?" And then promptly dissolved into more laughter. "Oh – go on – who was she?"

"I… I don't know her name," Sakura lied. Telling Ino about this scandal was a guarantee that everyone would be talking about it by breakfast tomorrow. It was risky enough telling her this much.

"Shame…" Ino said, dabbing at her tears of mirth. "She must be a lucky girl."

Sakura looked at her sideways. "Why?"

Ino was waving to the waitress. "Yes, I'll have peach melba, thanks! Anyway, what was I saying? Right! Well, Kakashi-sensei has the sharingan right? I was talking to Shikamaru the other day about Sasuke and he was explaining to me all the things that the sharingan could do. He says that a properly realized sharingan is primarily a hypnotism device, and whereas normal hypnotism depends on the willingness of the person being hypnotized, the sharingan can force control on someone like genjutsu."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I knew that, Pig."

"I'm not finished, Forehead," Ino shot back. "Anyway, he was saying that the sharingan can inflict near instantaneous emotions and feelings on a victim. Like fear and anger and joy and sadness. So theoretically… couldn't it give someone spontaneous orgasm?"

This was what Ino did. Within sixty seconds of starting a conversation, she would somehow manage to steer the subject onto sex and/or orgasms. Sakura gave her an incredulous look. "Give me a break," she muttered into the heel of her palm.

"No, think about it." Ino grinned cattily at her. "Sai says that Sasuke only had to look at him and he was suddenly on the floor shaking all over with fear for no apparent reason. So isn't it logical that the sharingan can do exactly the same on the opposite end of the spectrum? And make people fall on the floor and start shaking for another reason?"

"You spend too much time thinking about these things," Sakura said flatly, though she had to admit she was a little intrigued.

"I bet if Sasuke can, Kakashi-sensei can too," Ino said, running her fingers through her ponytail. "And you know, that's what you need. Someone who can give you spontaneous orgasm."

"What?" Sakura yelped, sitting bolt upright.

"God knows that loser of a boyfriend of yours isn't doing it for you," Ino muttered, giving Sakura a pointed look. "Have you dumped him yet?"

Sakura recoiled slightly. "Well, I thought maybe I should give him another chance to-"

"To what? Prove what a dick he is?" Ino thumped her hands down against the table in irritation. "Come on, Sakura. You're dumb, but you're not that dumb. Ikki is a loser!"

"He's an ANBU captain!" Sakura cried in defense.

"Sure, but that doesn't negate the fact that he drinks too much and he can't keep it up long enough to satisfy anyone but himself," Ino said, giving her a disgusted look. "Seriously, Sakura. I know you're not keeping him around for his sparkling personality, and from what you tell me he's like in bed, he should just be hung, drawn and quartered for crimes against romance."

"He's not that bad," Sakura said, frowning at the table. "He just likes sake, that's all."

"The way Naruto likes ramen," Ino pointed out. "I had an uncle like him, you know."

Sakura had heard this one before. "I know," she mumbled.

"And do you know what happened to him?" Ino pushed.

"He died," Sakura supplied dully like a child hearing the same lecture a hundred times.

"Drunk too much and choked to death on his own vomit with no one there to help him because no one could stand being around such a drunken idiot," Ino finished with a sharp nod. "That'll be what happens to Ikki, mark my words. And god, you're stupid enough to think you can't do any better, aren't you? Hell, I'd let you have Sasuke all to yourself if it meant you were setting your standards a little higher again."

"I don't want Sasuke," Sakura grumbled. It hurt to even think about him sometimes. Loving someone who cared so little for her was more harmful than loving a stupid drunken dope any day. Sakura had realized that the day she'd professed her love to Sasuke for the final time. He'd shot her down in a heartbeat, creating such a pain in her chest that she finally understood why people called it 'heartbreak'. Sakura didn't think she could handle that feeling ever again, and from that day on she'd decided to take whatever willingly came her way and gave up chasing boys entirely.

That was how she'd gotten involved with all her boyfriends to date. They'd approached her in bars or at work and asked her for a date. Even though they were strangers, she'd often said yes, and if things went well Sakura agreed to go steady.

But none of them had ever really worked out. And Ikki just seemed to be the latest in a long line of people Ino had dubbed to be 'losers'.

"You have appalling taste in men," Ino told her bluntly as her desert arrived. "You need to pick better."

"No… they're just the type that I attract," Sakura explained patiently.

"Rubbish," Ino admonished. "You're just taking all the dregs who think girls with pink hair are trashy like them. I bet none of them have even ever given you an orgasm either."

Sakura blushed a fiery pink. "Of course they have." Another lie. "Anyway, boyfriends aren't all that important. They don't last and I'm not looking to settle down, so who cares what they're like?"

Ino gaped at her. "You've clearly missed the point here, Forehead," she said. "Boyfriends are great… they're like best friends that you don't have to share, and once you discover half decent sex you'll realize what you've been missing."

"That's because everything you know about love and men is from out of silly romance novels," Sakura burst out. "That's not realistic! In real life, sex isn't perfect and men are stupid and all the good ones are taken by all the prettiest girls!"

Ino gave her a pitying look. "Sakura," she said, unusually quiet and serious. "I don't want you to end up like my aunt, ok?"

"Your aunt?" Sakura frowned.

"The one who married my dead uncle." Ino gave a sad sigh. "Used to be a great ninja. Then she got bogged down with three brats and a dead husband, and now she's just fat and old and takes drugs all the time to keep away the depression."

Ouch.

"Yeah, but I'm not looking to settle down and marry Ikki, am I?" Sakura reasoned.

Ino's expression remained skeptical. "Neither was my aunt, but look how that turned out."

This conversation was leaving Sakura with a bad taste in her mouth and a knot in her stomach. But then, most conversations with Ino seemed to turn into Ino lecturing Sakura about 'taking herself seriously' and 'finding a better guy'.

"Aim higher," Ino declared suddenly. "Like Kakashi-san's mystery girlfriend. Or do what I do and just see if you can get into any of the good clans. Start with the Dotou clan and work your way up to Hyuuga."

Ino was a bit of a gold digger, it had to be said, but Sakura didn't really care. Ino just had extraordinarily high standards and planned to marry the most financially and genetically sound man she could get her hands on. Sakura felt it was a little unrealistic however, and that Ino would probably wind up settling for a normal man with decent providing skills and little clan affiliation.

But who would Sakura wind up with? So far the best she'd done was one drunken fool and a handful of potential poster boys for premature ejaculation drugs.

She didn't feel the need to find a serious boyfriend yet. And Ikki wasn't that bad anyway...

Although…

She found herself thinking back to what she'd seen that morning and found herself inwardly steaming with quiet jealousy. It just wasn't fair that Kimura Yoshi had married into one of Konoha's wealthiest clans and had snagged an affair with her sensei and team leader. Kakashi was clearly a good lover – way out of Sakura's league in any case.

Until the day Sasuke turned around and got down on one knee for her, Sakura didn't think she'd ever be as lucky in love.

A slow breeze wafted through the dining area where she and Ino sat, making the red canopy above them balloon upwards slightly. Sakura watched, exhaling in time to the canopy as it sank back down to its previous position. "Maybe it's me?" she said to Ino absently. "Maybe I'm the one who's not very good at sex…"

"Always a possibility," Ino said dryly. "I wouldn't put it past you – you're not very good at most other things."

"Charming."

Ino stared at her for a moment before leaning across the table to rest a hand on Sakura's arm. "If he comes home drunk tonight, you have to dump him."

Sakura scowled. "Believe it or not, but Ikki doesn't always drink."

"That's fine. If he isn't drunk tonight, then ignore my advice," Ino said abruptly. "But if he is… just remember that you can do better. Hell, Akamaru could pull better men than Ikki."

Sakura shook her head. "You'll be wrong. You'll see."

"We'll see."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Alright then."

"Yes."

"…"

"Fancy some of my melba?"

"Ooh, yes please."

Truthfully Sakura was a little anxious that night as she curled up against her low apartment table, warming her toes with the electric heater beneath it. Her favorite show was on the TV, helping her take her mind off Ino's conversation, but it was only something that she'd been told so many times before that it had become an ever-present worry in the back of her mind. Even as she laughed at the stupid jokes onscreen, she couldn't help but feel uneasy. She idly hoped that Ikki wouldn't visit tonight, then she wouldn't have to face the fact that Ino was right and that Ikki was a loser.

But the moment she heard a key turn in the door, Sakura knew her luck was out. She looked up with a vague smile as her boyfriend entered the room, tugging off his ANBU mask and shoes and depositing both on the rack against the wall.

"Hey," he greeted with a smile of his own.

"Hey," she said.

He came over to kneel by the table to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "How's my favorite girl then?"

The stench of sake and blood overwhelmed her. Screwing up her face, she pushed her elbow against him, trying to get some distance between them. "Ikki, you stink."

"It was a rough mission," he said, shrugging. "I nearly died today."

Sakura had nearly died yesterday, but she hadn't found it worth mentioning. "Didn't happen to involve choking on your own vomit, by any chance?" she asked mildly, knowing he wouldn't understand.

"Kunai, heading right between my eyes," he said, gesturing to the very same spot in case she was left in any doubt of where 'between the eyes' was. "If I hadn't ducked in time, I would be speaking to you from beyond the grave."

"That's nice," she said absently, turning back to the TV. The plot of this show really was quite fast-paced. If she let Ikki distract her for too long she'd miss something important.

"And you know what I thought when that kunai was heading for me?" Ikki asked, wrapping an arm around her middle.

"Mm?" she feigned interest.

"I was thinking how much I'd really miss the twins." He kissed her neck as the arm around her waist eased up to fondle her chest through her shirt.

"Ikki," she sighed, but only half-heartedly tried to lean away from him.

"Sakura," he groaned.

"What?"

"Let me fuck you."

Sakura gave a sigh of wavering patience. "Now?" she asked, hinting with a reluctant tone that it wasn't a good time. "My favorite show's on."

"You'd rather watch some stupid show than make love to your boyfriend?" he asked.

"Ye-no, of course not. But…" She scrambled for a good excuse. "Ikki, can't you take a shower first."

"I'm horny now."

"But I'm tired and I don't feel so well."

"I'll make you feel better."

She was willing to bet that Kakashi never had any trouble trying to convince a woman to sleep with him. He probably only had to snap his fingers and say 'go to bed with me' and every woman in a five mile radius would be forming an orderly line to do just that. Especially if they'd seen what Sakura had seen that morning.

Ikki was persistent, kissing her throat and tugging her collar aside to press those kisses lower. Sakura grimaced a little, knowing exactly where it would lead to and wondering what the point would be.

Maybe, she thought. Maybe this one time he would surprise her and give her something worthwhile out of the experience. Common sense told her that this was just wishful thinking, but the softer side of her was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Alright," she mumbled.

He pushed her onto her back and kissed her hard. His breath stunk of rice wine and his body emanated the coppery stench of other people's blood, which wasn't an immediate turn-on, she found, but Sakura could almost ignore it. It was a little annoying that he didn't bother to remove any of their clothes properly either. He simply tugged her panties down over her knees and opened the front of his pants in a hurry, and when he entered her it was far from pleasant or comfortable.

She tried to slow him down, tried to make him give her a chance to catch up, but he blundered on regardless. He pumped with selfish frenzy, grunting over her in what had to be the one of the least arousing displays Sakura had ever seen.

"You like that, huh, baby?" he panted. "You like it rough."

"Oh, uh, yes," she offered politely. "Uh, baby."

It was like being tickled in a place that was decidedly un-ticklish. She shifted uncomfortably and gave a few experimental moans, trying to coax herself into the mood, but it seemed beyond her. She looked over his shoulder at the television set, hoping to see if Daisuke had figured out Yumi was having an affair with his brother yet, but the dialogue was effectively drowned out by the noises Ikki was making in her ear.

With a sigh, Sakura let her head fall back onto the carpet to watch the ceiling and wait for Ikki to finish. Maybe it was her that was the problem? It seemed strange that all her previous boyfriends had managed to get off just fine, it was just her that didn't enjoy the sex. She wished she was more responsive… like Kimura Yoshi, who had managed to climax before Kakashi.

She remembered the look on his face when he'd found that release. A grimace of pleasure that wasn't all that different from when he occasionally got caught in the side with a kunai. She'd seen that loss of control that had come over his body as he'd gone wild on that woman, and for some strange reason it excited her. A thread of arousal curled low in her belly, making her breath hitch with real pleasure for the first time since… well, since ever.

Closing her eyes, Sakura tried to imagine it was Kakashi braced over her. There were probably all sorts of psychological issues involved with projecting the image of one's teacher on a lover, but right then Sakura didn't care. She would worry about the meaning later when it was over, but until then it was the only thing that had the potential to make this an enjoyable experience.

"Aw… hell." Ikki twisted slightly, reaching for the katana strapped to his back that was clearly digging into something it shouldn't. His hammering slowed to gentle, delayed thrusts as he battled to get the weapon loose.

Sakura reveled in the newfound rhythm, feeling as though the hook had finally caught her and was dragging her away. "Yes," she breathed, running her hands up and through sharply chopped hair that was almost long enough to be mistaken for Kakashi's if she kept her eyes shut. She moved her hips in time to his, feeling elated that the end that had eluded her for so long was actually within sight. "Just like that," she sighed.

"What, just like that?" Ikki repeated awkwardly, clearing not understanding.

Sakura slipped a hand over his mouth. "Shh," she hushed him. The sound of his voice was threatening to ruin her imagination, as it was no where near as deep and smooth as Kakashi's.

This could work, she thought with amazement, feeling the pleasure spiral upward and her breathing become more shallow. For the first time in her life she might actually-

Ikki stiffened above her with a broken groan and she felt his breathing stop as he came hard and sharp against her. It was over in a blink of an eye, and before Sakura even had time to register that fact, Ikki was up and staggering to the bathroom with that 'I'm about to vomit' green tinge to his face.

The pleasure that Sakura had been carefully nurturing dissipated like ethanol on a hot plate, washed away on a breeze and leaving her dumbstruck on her apartment floor. Bemusedly she looked at the television and saw the credits rolling on her show. She'd missed the finale. Strangely, that upset her more than what had just happened.

"Typical," she whispered to herself, sitting up to pull her panties back on straight.

Retching sounds echoed from the adjoining bathroom and Sakura winced. "If you make a mess, you're cleaning it up yourself," she called, running fingers through her disarrayed hair.

But as she was doing this, a flash of movement from the window caught her eye. She looked up and thought she saw a flicker of white slip away over the roof of the neighboring apartment block. Sakura frowned. One of her neighbors did have a calico cat. Perhaps it was setting out for a nighttime hunt?

But how did it get on the roof…?

The toilet flushed in the bathroom, dragging her out of her thoughts before she could dwell on them further. That was usually the only kind of cleaning Ikki ever managed to will himself to do, and frankly only if he was in a considerate mood. Really, Ino was right. He was a complete lout half the time, and the only reason she'd agreed to go out with him was because he'd told a good joke about three weasels and a hamster ball. She hadn't entered into the relationship to take the slack of his leftover mission adrenalin, nor to clean up the mess he left in her bathroom after he'd drunken too much.

He had to go. It was time for the 'talk'.

After a few moments Ikki appeared in the bathroom doorway, looking slightly pale and clammy, but that was nothing unusual. Sakura was about to open her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it. "Sakura," he said seriously, looking at the floor. "We need to talk."

"That's funny, I wanted to talk to you too," she said, feeling the fine hairs crawl along the back of her neck. "You see, I-"

"I think we need to see other people."