So to those of you who read this top thing: New updating schedule shall be Mondays and Thursdays (just like LFG), because I'm writing these too fast to sit and chew my nails for a week. And thank you for the lovely reviews on the last two chapters!

This is from Kakashi's POV, while they're dating.

You don't rationalize things. You don't talk things to death, and you don't recall beating any dead horses recently. When you tell Sakura that you're bisexual it doesn't bother you very much, it's not something which bothers shinobi much. Shinobi are about as bothered about it as they are about most relationships. Civilians are the idiots who get squeamish. Sakura's eyes are only a little startled, but her body language doesn't change as she rests against you. You'd been discussing previous partners and the like—you're a little worried about your innocent little Sakura, her life experience throwing seeds of doubt into your mind. You'll be safe from her wrath as long as they don't grow, as long as you keep trusting her and not deciding things for her about your relationship.

She settles further into your embrace after her initial reaction, tugging your arms around herself more securely, and you think that by some miracle your jealous little Sakura doesn't want to know about this part of your past. You'd be wrong, as you sometimes are with Sakura. She has a history of rising above expectations, such as when she leveled you last November. You barely catch the indication she's going to talk, which shows she's been thinking this through in her head—her words don't catch with embarrassment and they don't lack flow.

"Kakashi, your rivalry with Gai-sensei, is that just the twisted way you two show affection? And if it is, you need to tell him you're off limits, or I will." She is halfway turned around to scowl at you.

You feel those seeds of doubt wither a bit—although she seems to lack a lot of experience compared to you, she certainly knows where and how to hit things. Of course her teacher in many things more than medical is Tsunade who is downright creepy with her intuition sometimes. Her student would no doubt pick up on quick, hard hitting questions.

"Eh…Gai…" You raise one of your shoulders in an awkward shrug. Gai. Your best friend, sometimes your only friend between deaths of others. He's been there since…ever. You'd only spent a smidgen of time at the Academy, and you'd made some deep impression on him. You'd thought, hell still do think, that your departure would be the end of a brief acquaintance, but apparently your rapid promotion to Chuunin had only made him work twice as hard in order to catch up with you. He'd graduated the Academy at age ten, four years after you'd left him behind. You hung out with him because—well no, you hadn't hung out with him. You didn't disappear when he sat next to you in the mess hall or at the library or the park or wherever. He was the only one besides Sensei who accorded himself that honor. Then again there was the fact that you weren't actually good enough to escape from Sensei if he really wanted to see you, and Gai would just keep looking until he collapsed. So to save them both the trouble you simply let them be if they found you.

Sakura waits patiently, having settled back down in your arms, waiting to hear your answer. Jealous little sneak…

Gai was the one who'd helped you out of the hospital after that mission, declaring that if you failed to make a speedy recovery he would volunteer for twice as many missions to cover your slack. You didn't mention to him that he had to train for his Jounin exam and that was what he should be focusing on. But his strange way of caring had pricked something deep inside of you. The Sharingan wept bitterly behind the bandages the entire way home—Obito always showed what he felt where you didn't. You began to form your underneath the underneath ideology because of that day—Underneath those words Gai was telling you he was worried for you, but underneath that was Gai telling you that if you needed time…you didn't have to worry for the village's wellbeing while you were at it.

You sigh. After that it was kind of written.

"Gai has been there for me for almost as long as I can remember. When I had just turned fifteen I lost my Sensei during the Kyuubi attack. The Third charged me with watching over Naruto while he searched for the whereabouts of the Hokage, my teacher. I was in shock—but that's not why Sarutobi-sama had me watching the infant. Even if I recovered my wits, the fact that the boy was Sensei's son would protect him from my fear of the Kyuubi. But I was only barely able to function, and Gai found me that way. He knew nothing of Naruto being the new container, he knew nothing of any of it. As a Chuunin he'd been on duty carting people to the hospital. But when I didn't move to attack him or acknowledge him he knew something was wrong." Sakura is much stronger than you, which is why she's able to pry your fingers open from around her forearm and wrap her hand up in yours. This is why you hate giving air to your awful memories, you always manage to freak out somehow.

"I defended Naruto that night, but Gai defended me." Sakura doesn't relax in your hold, she remains alert—years of being a ninja telling her when her opponent is finished speaking or not.

You remember your fanatic care of Naruto—he was under the protection of the Third, but you didn't trust anyone with Sensei's son other than yourself. And Gai. Because Gai seemed almost too wrapped up in being obsessed with you to notice when you carried the soon to be hated infant around. Gai broke the rules of being a shinobi—loyalty to the village above all, etc, etc—where you were concerned. He still does. Gai didn't question you, even when he too realized "what" Naruto was. You defended the little tyke from random attacks by the villagers, and so he did too. Eventually most ninja in the village understood that the little blond orphan was to be left alone. And Gai grew closer to you as you lost more people—trying to keep them was like catching moonlight, something even the Sharingan couldn't do.

"He wasn't the first man I dated though. As painful as it is now to think about, I had a meaningless fling with an Uchiha. It wasn't…It wasn't meaningless to me, but it was to him. He was too wrapped up in his cousin." Sakura clutches at your hand, wondering which Uchiha you're talking about.

"Shisui and I woke up in the same bed one morning after a particularly drunken evening the night before, and we kept up the pattern for a few weeks, just with less alcohol. And then he told me he couldn't, wouldn't, see me anymore. I was amazing in every way, but a poor replacement for his cousin Itachi. Three days later he was dead. That's when I went to Gai."

It was supposed to be just for the routine challenge, to work out frustrations in a way which was only healthy for shinobi. It had ended with allowing Gai—who had been developing superspeed through massive weight training, he didn't use it with you very often because it was pretty much useless if you opened up your Sharingan—to shove you to the ground and kiss you senseless. You had wanted more but that was all he gave you then. It turned out to be all you'll ever get.

"I used him, used him as a bounce-back from Shisui's death, from the fact that Shisui was only using me. He told me that he wasn't ready for such a thing, what I was giving him wasn't what he wanted from me. He took a yearlong mission outside of the village, going around Fire on solo-patrols near the borders. I didn't fall into a funk because he'd already lifted me out of one. Instead I let myself get picked up by a nice girl from the Hyuuga branch family. I," does Sakura really want to know this? Of course she does, she already has your spilling your guts. If you stop now she might break all the bones in your hand. And then she'll work her way up your arm. You swear, if Ibiki should ever get wind of her interrogation techniques… "I might have married her, but her entire team got wiped out on an S-rank mission. I've never known the details. I'm glad she died on a mission though, she was rebellious enough to get herself killed by her own family because of that damned curse."

"But what about Gai? I can't have you leading him on, Kakashi! You've already hurt him once!" If only she knew the half of it. You'd already healed from your loss of Kaguya when Gai returned, so your pursuit of him when he returned from his mission had been purely from your own heart. He turned you down by countering your every attempt with "So you challenge me again, my Eternal Rival!" That was in public. He had told you once in private that he would take you when you stopped lying to yourself about liking women. For once in his life, Gai had been wrong about your inner workings—you would give your affections to whoever would give you theirs, be they man or woman. You had even gone so far as to tell him that.

"He's hurt me as well, Sakura my love," that shut her up properly, "he rejected me when he got back, for not having pure intentions, for not wanting him and him alone—he wouldn't trust me that this time I really did. So I withdrew, before I'd wrecked things he'd been my friend. I went back to treating him like I did before, as a sign I respected the line he'd drawn as well as a way of saying I wasn't going to cross it to meet him there." You smell tears in the air, and you know that your girlfriend's face is blotchy, and her eyes are probably as pink as her hair from tears.

Great. Now she thinks she's keeping the two of you apart.

"Sakura, don't cry. I did something which ruined Gai's trust in me, and I moved on because I wanted a relationship with someone who trusted me. Now, you, I trust you. Don't cry for some tragic lost cause." Gradually her tears stop, and despite your words to the contrary you appreciate that they did fall. You've never wept (Obito wept, but he hardly counts. He really sucks as a ninja, showing his emotions willy-nilly) for your loss. Someone needed to.

"Kakashi, I trust you, I love you. And if you're using me I'll pound you to a pulp again. And then I'll tell Tsunade what you did." The serious mood turns into a different kind of serious. You're suddenly very glad that you know all of your intentions with Sakura and you're glad that they're not shadowy in the least.

"Understood."

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