So because The Yellow Shoe wanted so badly for there to be a sequel, I wrote one. This is, however, the end of Kind of Dating. It was never even supposed to be a two-shot! And it's told from Sakura's perspective. Enjoy!
Sakura knew this mission was going to be dangerous—escort missions always proved to be. Actual combat missions were far less dangerous—teams went into the field prepared for battle. Escort and retrieval missions were dangerous because no one ever knew what to expect and prepare for. It wasn't uncommon for those types of missions to go up several ranks as time went by. Those who hired ninja as bodyguards were sometimes oily people who had either mis-classed the mission, or had a great deal more enemies than even they knew of.
Sakura knew of the dangers of her profession, and she knew that sometimes she would just have to take the risks. The mission was an A-rank, well within her ability, and hadn't gotten any more out of hand than any of her team had expected—it was the fact that their attackers had done the admittedly smart thing and gone after the medic first, severely injuring her right off the bat. There had been no time to fix her shoulder or her elbow, which were usable save for the massive pain. Her team had needed her maimed ability as a medic and distance fighter more than she had needed her arm, so she'd let their needs take precedence. They'd separated her from her comrades toward the end of the fight, and two of the enemy nin had unleashed a storm of taijutsu against her. She'd been knocked unconscious and only woke in fevered spells for the journey home.
Mostly she was silent, save for when she would gasp at a jarring jump from whoever was carrying her at the time. The rule had been changed under the Godaime Hokage—do not abandon a mission, but do not abandon a comrade to complete a mission. Sakura knew immediately, when she read over her own report, that she would have died if they hadn't gotten her home. A concussion, four fractured ribs, a cracked vertebra, not to mention her arm which had nearly been torn off—the muscles ripped, tendons snapped, and her rotator cuff would never be the same she suspected. TenTen had smiled down at her during a rest-break she'd been conscious for and told her that they were bringing her home to 'Kashi.'
When she'd seen 'Kashi' waiting at her side in the hospital she'd turned bright red, realizing that she'd likely been speaking while unconscious, and that her whole team had been subjected to whatever ramblings or demands she'd had. Speaking of 'Kashi,' he didn't look like a spring chicken either. His wheelchair was as close to her bedside as it could be without a welding job, while he slumped far down into it—poor posture even while confined to a wheelchair. A wheelchair. Gods knew how long Sakura had been sleeping, but for Kakashi to look well rested while in a wheelchair. She started bawling, it was the only correct course of action.
"Sakura, Sakura don't cry—I'm fine, really, Tsunade-sama said if I stayed in the chair and in the hospital I could stay with you." His lone eye was crunched a little by his eyebrow trying to meld with his other, his forehead wrinkling unhappily at her outburst. With an effort, he righted himself in his chair and reached for her hands. She continued to blubber, but gave her hands over readily enough. His thumbs rubbed across the backs of her hands in a soothing gesture.
"H-how can yo-ou be fine if you're all b-bandaged up," she managed, half-hiccuping from tears, finally. He smiled behind his mask, tilting his head comically at the same time.
"I'm not dying, am I?" His expression was his usual mix of bored, but with a hint of amusement. The tears stopped for a shocked moment before they came back with a vengeance.
"How dare you joke about that, Kakashi, how dare you?" her voice rose with hysteria.
"I'm not, Sakura, I stated fact. When I'm not in the midst of dying, I'm fine. And I'm not dying right now, so I'm fine." He smiled again, unseen except for ambiguous changes beneath his mask and the appearance of crows' feet at his eye.
"Kakashi, as your girlfriend I forbid you to even sort of joke about that anymore," Sakura scowled, her face aching at the movement—those guys had meant business with their taijutsu. A light chuckle nearly dragged her out of bed and into battle-stance, save for the now serious look in Kakashi's eye.
"Ah, no, we've never really spoken about that, Sakura, so I'm only kind of your boyfriend. But I want that to change. I want to get an apartment, a house, anything, and share it with you—I want to have one grocery list, and a living room with a full-wall bookcase with all of your medical voodoo stuffed in with my strategy books. I'm not saying we should get married this instant, but I love you, and I'm going to be around to love you because of this injury," he gestured to his leg, wrapped as it was Sakura could see it was something which could put someone like him out of commission for months, "and I want to know what you think about that." After his outburst he subsided, slouching just the tiniest bit into his chair.
She was at first stunned—she'd been asleep long enough for Kakashi to come to this conclusion, obviously—and then impressed. She'd been the one to start showing her interest in him, not the other way around. She was the one who had asked him out for a date years ago, and she dimly remembered Kakashi giving her the power to name what their relationship was. Kakashi mostly had just played with the cards he'd been given, never asking for more or less.
"So would we just be dating then, rather than 'kind of dating,' as you probably have it in your head?" Warmth flooded back into Kakashi's face and he shook his head.
"No, I was thinking we'd be lovers first and then we'd be old married people after that. Why be married for the first few years, anyway?" Okay, now she could get a read on how long she'd been out. He must have finished that new book Naruto had gotten him. Naruto had told her that Jiraiya's newest book might look a little like it had been based on her and Kakashi—andwasthatokay...becauseifitwasn't,itwastoolatetochangeit...andohheyisthatHinata? Sayonara, Sakura-chan... He'd run off too fast for her to pummel him, and she never liked to pummel him in front of his girlfriend, either.
"Kakashi, you've been reading too much Icha Icha, but okay, I agree to move in with you. But you have to tell me what is up with your leg, are you even going to be able to walk when its healed?" He nodded gravely, wriggling his toes which peeked out the end of the bandages. The rest of his leg was swathed, just as Sakura's arm and torso were swathed.
"Tsunade-sama is having me start teaching at the Academy just as soon as I can walk. She says next month, but I don't know—now that I am going to have a live-in girlfriend I find myself motivated to get better." Sakura's boyfriend was very lucky that she was bedridden as well, otherwise he would have been batted into next week for the innuendo. She held back the private blush, however, glad that he hadn't taken it any farther—he rarely did. Although before he might have been held back by the uncertainties of their relationship—if he didn't know where a line was, he was quite careful with her to not push it.
Lines in relationships were like good tripwire traps—large, easily seen ones, followed by ones hidden by those easily seen, and then the invisible ones which always threw a team for a sometimes murderous loop. Now that Kakashi had identified the secondary, hidden line, he was going to systematically work to find the invisible ones—the ones which given enough practice he'd see without even having to look.
Where was the line between now and becoming lovers? Where was the line which marriage delineated? What about the one concerning kids? Those ones were ones which even Sakura didn't know the location of—they'd just have to figure those out together, like a good team.
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