Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
And so Sakura follows the silver boy with bright eyes and his father every day and delights in each of his accomplishments. She doesn't know what it all means, especially when the boy starts wearing a metal band across his forehead and his spiritual energy becomes alarmingly strong, but she does know that the curl of his wonderful lips means he's happy. Therefore, she's happy and she continues to whisper to the wind encouraging words that she hopes he'll hear.
She's been practicing her powers as she's been directed by the older spirits, and it shows in the way she can now pick up objects, travel greater distances and control the growth of plant life. She practices every day because she wants to be just as strong as the tree spirits, and it is on one of these days where she is encouraging a struggling tulip to grow that she hears the boy's name.
Her little pointed ears perk and her head quickly turns in their direction. A beatific smile has already started to bloom on her face as she sits back on her heels, her hands cupping her cheeks in delighted marvel.
Names are powerful things, she knows, and have incredible meaning. Her own name—Sakura—comes from the strong cherry blossom tree that raised her; she wanted to be like her, soft and beautifully fleeting, and so she was Sakura because it felt right.
She loves her name, and she loves his name: Kakashi—scarecrow.
It's funny, because the grouchy crows who peck fussily through her hair complain that scarecrows are ugly things, but her scarecrow is far from it.
Kakashi (and she loves the way his name curls around her tongue like the sweetest nectar) is beautiful enough to be like her; and she supposes that is what drew her to him in the first place. With his snowy hair that shines gold in the afternoon sunlight but silver by the light of the waning moon, and the paleness of his skin, he could almost be a night spirit were it not for the one blemish on his face that made him so very human. Her own skin is pale and flushed like the petals of her namesake, but unblemished, and yet she does not think it detracts from his beauty.
The day after Sakura learns Kakashi's name, the two mortals are hushed into surprised silence when they come upon the beautiful array of flowers that cover their previously bare training grounds.
.
.
Days and months pass and Sakura is unwavering in her dedication to watching her favorite human. He grows stronger with each passing day and so does she. But there is a heaviness in the air now, a weary sort of grief that follows the eldest of the two, and it worries her.
They've always been relaxed and happy, but now there is a line of rigid tension in Kakashi's shoulders and a burning shame in his father's eyes. Though she does not find the eldest as beautiful as her silver boy, she does not like that he suffers, so she whispers lovely words onto the blades of grass with hopes that they'd lift him higher. She grows flowers beneath their fingers when they sit in glum silence, and preens happily when they lift them to their faces inquisitively.
Until one day they do not come.
It doesn't bother her at first, Kakashi and his father don't come every day. They have their own lives outside of her little magical forest, she knows that, and sometimes they don't come when the weather is particularly bad.
But when sunny days after sunny days pass and still they do not come, Sakura starts to worry. And when weeks and months and seasons pass and still they don't show, Sakura's heart begins to fray and the blooming bulbs in her hair begin to weaken.
Has something happened to her silver boy? Did they find a better part of the large forest to train in and she never realized?
The last thought spurns her into searching every inch of the unfathomably large forest, but she doesn't find a trace of them. And so, with a heavy heart, Sakura returns to the place where she had first seen her silver boy and waits.
And waits.