Sakura could always sense when Kakashi didn't want to talk.
She was sitting on the couch when he returned, her eyes perusing a magazine without any clue as to what the subject matter of it was. Her body had moved forward in time, but her mind was still trapped in those stressful moments between her hesitant revelation and the threat on Sasuke's life Kakashi had calmly delivered.
Discarding her magazine, Sakura opened her mouth to ask questions.
Only to close it a second later.
With difficulty, she swallowed the many queries that were crowding into her mouth. She was consistent in her respect for Kakashi's right to remain mute, even if it caused her unending annoyance. In this case, the effort of holding back her words was tremendous. She longed for reassurance that there had been a civil discussion, rather than a full-scale war between her former sensei and former teammate. She felt isolated and scared, living with only her unpleasant theories for company.
The silence would have to lift at some point, she told herself. Eventually, with quiet prompting, he would relinquish a full account of the event.
But the remainder of the day passed and he did not say a word.
His tongue remained rigid, his features hosting indecipherable emotions. When their gazes met, he would shift his away as if staring at her too long might force words from his lips. A wall of silence developed between them.
A silent bedtime rolled around, without even a friendly "Goodnight" to round off the day. Perhaps Kakashi worried that unwanted utterances might spill from his mouth if he were to speak even that simple word.
However, he did not sleep.
Sleep was an impossibility on this night. Kakashi could only lie awake in bed, staring at the dark ceiling and listening to Sakura's quiet breathing beside him. Innocent Sakura, haunted by questions rather than answers. He envied her for being burdened with unattached queries. The answers he had gotten that day were ones he could have done without.
The memory of earlier that day came back to him. Sasuke's words, serene and yet pounding in his skull...
"I knew you would come. I just had to feed Sakura some bullshit about stealing her away from you. You couldn't stand that, could you? Your precious pride wouldn't allow me to get away with it. Despite the carefree way you appear to outsiders, you really are passionate about certain things."
Kakashi didn't want any of this. It was bizarre, it was unfair, it was agonizing that it was being forced on him. And the worst of it had not yet replayed. Sasuke's voice continued to speak within his head, the sincerity of his words apparent.
"So, that bitch Sakura... How is she in bed? No, don't answer. However good she is, I can do better. I can please you in ways you won't find in Make-Out Paradise. I can love you in ways too intimate and through to put in print. You think being loved by Sakura is nice? I'll show you what it truly means to be loved...if you'll allow me."
Kakashi recalled his own reaction. Or rather his lack of one. For he had stood there in silence, his face utterly blank as Sasuke spoke. He could have departed, but he remained for the duration of the speech. It was as if Sasuke's mere words had rendered him incapable of escape.
"I'm going to steal you away from Sakura."
On its own, Kakashi could have excused it as a poor attempt at humor. But stacked up against everything else that had been said, he knew it was not meant to be comedic.
Kakashi's world had only just started spinning.
Yet he was already getting dizzy.

Kakashi did not want to see Sasuke's face first thing in the morning.
He had been steadily driving that visage from his thoughts. It was only when it had departed completely that he was allowed one or two replenishing hours of slumber. By the time he achieved this commendable feat, the first rays of the sun were beginning to peek over the rooftops. Sooner than he desired, he was being yanked headfirst into the waking world by his shrieking alarm clock.
The last thing Kakashi wanted to see before his breakfast was the serene features of Sasuke Uchiha gazing at him from the doorway.
"Good morning. Sleep well?"
One small mercy made the event slightly more bearable. That small mercy was the fact that Sakura was absent. Due to a mission, she had left the apartment earlier than him, leaving behind an affectionate little note to reiterate her absence. Kakashi wondered briefly if intellectual Sasuke had arranged to call on the man at the perfect time out of concern for Sakura's feelings.
"I don't want to talk to you," Kakashi responded baldly.
Sasuke's only reply to this blunt statement was a slightly raised eyebrow, as if he found the impoliteness undeserved. He was displaying the same manner he had in the coffee shop, which Kakashi found somewhat maddening.
"Where is it?" he inquired curiously.
"It?"
Kakashi's confusion momentarily pushed aside his anger.
"Sakura-chan. Your possession."
The displeasure rose in Kakashi's chest yet again, a monster rearing its head after a brief slumber. Sasuke was bringing that up again! Was it the only objection to Kakashi and Sakura's relationship that he could conjure up? Or did he merely relish the inevitable fury that always accompanied the words? His smile suggested that it was a marriage of the two.
"Sakura is not..."
"...worth more than a common prostitute?"
Sasuke completed the sentence in his own way, the ghost of a smirk around the corners of his mouth. He was doing as he had done before, as intentional as it had been the last time. He was giving the fury more power, rather than draining its capacity. Despite having confessed his love for Kakashi, he seemed to be taking a certain enjoyment in stroking the temper of his supposed beloved. If it was his attempt at flirting, he was making an obvious error.
Kakashi was seized by a violent urge to slam the door in his visitor's face. Or deliver that promised punch in the nose he had intended before. He knew it would be more prudent for him to master himself, yet he felt it might be justified for him to allow the animosity to have its way with him.
Before he could perform either satisfying action, Sasuke spoke in a voice that was wholly serious.
"You're hurting her."
"What?"
"You're hurting Sakura. You're letting her fall into the illusion that she means more to you than she did back when she was a mere student. She loves you, Kakashi. But you don't love her. Why don't you just give up the facade and let me love you?"
The words "let me love you" detached themselves from Sasuke's short paragraph. They nudged something in Kakashi's mind, temporarily distracting him from his mounting rage. Something about the structure of that utterance...
"Let you love me?" he uttered quietly. "Does that mean you wouldn't care if I loved you back?"
Sasuke laughed, but there was no humor in the sound.
"You weren't meant to love. You were meant to be loved."
The words stirred something in Kakashi's mind. A distant, half-dissolved memory concerning Sakura. The conversation, so brief and easily forgotten, had slunk to the very back of his recollections. It was only now, two years after its occurrence, that he recalled that one particular comment.
"You weren't meant to chase, Kakashi. You were meant to be chased."
What had Sakura meant by that? He had never bothered to ask her. The events following the utterance washed it away and stranded it on a deserted island in his thoughts. But what had Sasuke meant by his similar words? Was there something about him, something he himself was unaware of, that other people noticed? People who...loved him, like Sasuke or Sakura?
"Here. Take this."
Sasuke produced an especially gorgeous rose, his features shifting to affection. It was rather unnerving to see such an expression on his face. It was rare, if not nonexistent, for him to openly display an emotion so sincere and tender. In that one instant, his visage changed in all the most pleasing ways. He had obviously been building up to this one amiable gesture from the beginning of the visit.
Kakashi, his brain numb with wonderings, took the unexpected gift without comment. Even if he had managed to grasp speech, it would have been confused and virtually indecipherable.
The selcouth affection on Sasuke's face seemed to deepen as Kakashi accepted the flower. It was as if the two men became willing participants in a silent agreement. The rose itself was a contract that Sasuke had submitted to the other man for his approval. By accepting it, Kakashi had given his signature to an unbreakable vow.
His lips forming three silent words, Sasuke reached out and lightly brushed Kakashi's cheek, as if he merely wanted a sample of the other man's warmth to take home with him. Kakashi did not respond to this touch, although in this case it had more to do with his astonishment. Proceeding this, he lifted a slightly quivering hand to his cheek as if a shocking blow had been delivered to it. He was not blushing, yet he could have sworn an odd heat was rising somewhere inside of his body.
Sasuke left, but Kakashi scarcely noticed. He stood staring at the empty doorway for many moments, his mind a confused haze of thoughts lazily thrown together. To him, a year's worth of shocking events had crowded into his life in the space of three minutes. A century's worth of problems were bearing down on him, intent on causing harm to his body and mind. He could not avoid these problems by any method. He could only face them in combat, although his victory was not assured.
How much more of this would he have to endure before his world finally stopped spinning?

"I'm surprised you let me chase you."
"Hm?"
"I didn't think you were the kind of man who would let yourself be chased."
"Isn't "chased" a little dramatic? You...pursued me..."
"Obsessively."
"Normally."
"You've never chased a woman, have you? Not that I'm surprised."
"I can't say I've ever felt the need to...CHASE...anyone."
"Of course you haven't. You weren't meant to chase. You were meant to be chased."
Why was he thinking about that conversation now? Why was he thinking about what it had ultimately led up to in the space of ten minutes?
Kakashi lay in bed yet again, listening to Sakura's soft breathing beside him. The mercy of slumber was again refusing to wash over him. He was trapped in the waking world where his thoughts and memories of earlier dominated him. If sleep were to claim him, he would become the puppet of troubled dreams that would evaporate in the morning, unlike everything else that had happened in the previous two days. But sleep would not claim him, a bitter fact that he must come to terms with. Insomnia was an unfortunate side effect of a world that was spinning too quickly for him to control.
He remembered Sakura's eagerness. She had not been reluctant about them having sex for the first time. He was the one hesitating, the one who did not want to rush into such a thing. He had been hesitant about their very relationship from the beginning, as he found it wrong to even consider it due to their status. When everything came into the light, the reception wasn't as bad as it could have been. His reputation was still more or less intact and he had learned to close his ears to the whispers. But Sakura, from the beginning, had not cared about their status. She loved him absolutely and would not allow something as meaningless as him having been her sensei to stand in the way of that love.
But again, why was he thinking of that now? It was insignificant at this point in time.
Sasuke's words came swimming into his ocean of thoughts.
"So, that bitch Sakura...how is she in bed?"
Uncomfortable, Kakashi lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes.
He could still feel the ghost of Sasuke's touch, even though the hand was long gone.