Fifty-Four: Reunions
Sakura was fairly sure that by the time Tsunade was done hugging her, the tears the blonde Hokage had shed had more volume than the stash of sake hidden under her desk, and that was saying something. Sakura would have liked to say that she kept herself composed and remarkably put together in the face of her mentor's apparent breakdown, but that would have been a lie.
"You have to promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone, got it!" Sakura said to Kakashi as the pair walked out of Hokage Tower after their debriefing meeting. She liked to think that she sounded threatening, but the pink-haired girl was busy wiping tears from her eyes, and—embarrassingly enough—snot from her nose, so she knew she probably looked anything but intimidating.
Little did she know that the blonde Hokage was making the same threats to a different white-haired man in the other room.
Her reunion with the rest of the Konoha 12 wasn't really any different. In her mind, Sakura handled each of her friends' hugs and exclamations with class and dignity—but if she were honest with herself, she was acting a whole lot more like a Naruto than a Sasuke.
"I think the best way to celebrate would be to get completely drunk!" Kiba announced, as the band made their way through Konoha's civilian district.
Naruto mumbled something about getting ramen instead, but Sakura quickly jumped on Kiba's idea.
"That sounds wonderful to me," she said.
"Alright! Then drinks it is!" Lee cheered.
"Maybe not for you, Lee," Tenten said, and Sakura laughed.
"Man, I can't believe you're a year older than us and you still haven't learned how to handle your alcohol," Kiba grumbled, as if he were personally offended that someone he considered his friend couldn't drink.
Lee shot back with something that Sakura assumed had to do with the "Springtime of Youth" that he and Gai-sensei were always going on about, but she had stopped listening and instead turned her head to where Naruto was walking and talking with Hinata. She smiled, glad that the two seemed to be making progress in their relationship. Hinata was so shy, and Naruto dumb when it came to matters relating to love that she worried their relationship would stall in its infancy, but it seemed that the pair always found time to get together when they weren't away on missions. She was happy for them.
The rest of their group was getting along like one would have assumed—complete with Sasuke and Sai arguing about something trivial, and Shino being ignored as always. It seemed like his time in ANBU had only helped to make him more invisible.
As the nine shinobi made their way into the nearest bar, Sakura found herself wondering what Kakashi was up to. It was the first time that she'd really been apart from him since her rescue, and while she wanted to spend time with him, they both knew it was good for her to get out with her friends for awhile. Plus, they hadn't broken the news to the team yet. It just hadn't seemed right during their reunion, and the subject never came up again.
"Oi! Sakura, what are you thinking about? Have a drink!" Kiba said, grinning and handing her something that looked really strong.
She smiled. Despite everything, she was happy to be back.
"So," Yamato started, leaning back and putting his feet up on Kakashi's table in a way that he knew annoyed his senpai, "have you told Sakura you're in love with her yet?"
"What?" Kakashi asked, after he nearly spit out the tea he'd been drinking.
The wood-style user laughed. "Oh come on. It's obvious. I can read it all over your face. I can't tell how she feels about you, though."
"And I'm the one wearing the mask," Kakashi grumbled, before setting his tea on the table and leaning back in a way that mimicked the other man.
"So?" Yamato prompted.
"Yes, she knows."
"And?"
"And it's none of your business!" Kakashi snapped, slightly embarrassed to be talking about his love life, especially with his old ANBU partner and occasional co-captain of his current team.
Yamato laughed again, harder this time than the first. "So she rejected you then?"
"No, in fact she didn't."
"Then how come you're here all alone?"
"Because Sakura was going to see all her other friends tonight."
"Oh? And you aren't jealous?"
This time it was Kakashi's turn to laugh. "No way. None of them have my mysterious charm."
"If that's what you want to call it," Yamato said, reluctantly pulling himself up and off the couch. "Well, I've got to head out on that solo mission now. Thanks for the tea, Kakashi."
"Be careful," the silver-haired shinobi said as he walked his friend to the door.
"I will. And you be careful too. You know how much attacks from the Kyuubi can hurt."
Kakashi sighed. "Why does everyone assume my students are going to beat me up?"
"Well, good luck. You're going to need it more than me, I think."
Great, Kakashi thought as he closed the door behind his friend. He looked over at his clock, and seeing that he still had over an hour before he was supposed to meet up with Gai, decided to hop in the shower. There was something about being able to take a shower in his own place, he decided.
As usual, Gai was knocking loudly on his front door nearly half an hour earlier than they'd decided to meet, but Kakashi knew his friends habits well enough by now to have been expecting him.
"Yo Kakashi!" Gai said, leaping into his friend's apartment without waiting for the Copy Ninja to invite him in.
"Hey Gai," Kakashi said, notably less enthusiastic than the green-clad man. He was thankful, however, that Gai suggesting having drinks at his place instead of going out. Frankly, Kakashi was tired and he could do with a nice, relaxing night in. Well, as relaxing as a night with Gai could be.
"You must tell me all the details of your mission!"
"I will, Gai, but you have to listen all the way to the end, okay. It may seem odd at first, but I want you to know everything."
"If that is what my rival asks of me, then that is what I will do!"
True to his word, Gai listened intently to Kakashi's story, and didn't butt in except to ask questions for clarification. When it was over, he was silent, and Kakashi felt a small spike of worry.
"Is that it?" Gai asked.
"That's the whole of it."
To Kakashi's surprise, his rival started laughing. "You had me worried! With the way you looked earlier I thought this was going to be a big deal."
"It is a big deal! Why am I the only one who thinks it is?"
"Because you are the only one who thinks you don't deserve to be happy, my friend."
"I—I don't…That's not what…"
"Our lives are short, and we lose more than anyone can imagine. Don't we deserve our happiness?"
Kakashi had to admit, sometimes Gai knew exactly what to say. The only other person that seemed to be able to get through to him like that was Sakura, or occasionally Yamato, and he smiled slightly at how similar Gai's words were to the medic's.
"Maybe you're right, Gai."
The sound of drunken yelling and stomping startled the two jonin out of their conversation. Kakashi had a bad feeling he knew who the commotion might be.
"Crap," he said to Gai, just as the pounding on his door started.
"Hey! Kakashi-sensei! Open up!"
"Shh! Naruto! He's probably sleeping. Besides, I told you—" That was Sakura's voice, trying to calm down the blonde.
"Where are we?"
Kakashi heard an overly exaggerated sigh, which he could only assume was from Sasuke. No one else sighed like the last Uchiha.
"We're at Sakura's apartment, Sai."
"No we're not!" Sakura squealed, temporarily ignoring her conversation with Naruto.
"Ah, there's nothing like the springtime of youth," Gai said, as the two jonin heard the recognizable sound of the blonde jinchuriki's laughter.
"Oi, Sasuke! You're the drunkest one here."
"I'm not drunk, loser!" Sasuke shot back, but the sound of his protest was accented by what Kakashi and Gai could only assume was someone falling down the stairs.
"Do you think perhaps…you should let them in?" Gai asked.
"No," Kakashi said, but he got up to open the door anyway.
"Hello, Naruto," he said, only slightly annoyed that the blonde hadn't noticed he had opened the door, and was continuing to pound on his chest as if he was knocking.
"Hm. Oh? Ahh!" Naruto yelped, stumbling backwards into Sasuke, who just reached the top of the stairs, and sending the two sprawling to the ground.
Kakashi blinked. "How much have you four had?"
"None."
"A little."
"A lot."
"I don't even know."
He sighed. "Okay, come in then."
Sakura shot him a guilty glance as the four shinobi filed into Kakashi's living room and immediately plopped down on his couches. Gai was already in the kitchen, handing out glasses of water.
"So do you want to tell me what this is all about?" Kakashi asked, even though he had a pretty good idea of what it was. Sakura was tight-lipped, but he was pretty sure even Sasuke didn't know which direction was up or down anymore.
"Well, it all started when we were getting wasted at this bar," Naruto began loudly. "I don't know where it was, but anyway, Kiba was jealous because Tenten was wearing this dress that looked really hot, and he was secretly mad that she was dating Lee because he said something about how he should be the one dating her because…because…"
"I think it was because their hair was the same color," Sasuke slurred. "Or something."
"Yeah! Because they have the same hair color! And so he was jealous of Lee, but he knew Lee used to have that thing for Sasuke—"
"For Sakura," Sasuke corrected.
"You're the one who has a thing for Sasuke," Sai said.
"Oh yeah, that's right. Hey, wait! No it's not. I'm dating Hinata! Quit confusing me Sai, you bas—"
"Naruto, get to the point," Kakashi sighed.
"Hm? What? Oh, okay. The point. So Kiba tried to get Lee to ask out Sakura instead of Tenten because we were all pretty drunk, and I don't really remember what happened because I was making out with Hinata, but Tenten got mad, and then Sakura punched Kiba for her because she's scary now, and then she said something about already dating somebody. It took us like an hour to figure it out, but we're ninja so we always get the scoop," he finished proudly.
"Actually, I'm pretty sure Ugly wasn't holding her alcohol very well at this point and blurted out that she was dating Kakashi-sensei," Sai said.
"Well, yeah, I guess it could've happened like that," Naruto grumbled.
Gai couldn't help it any longer. He laughed—a typical Gai laugh—and Kakashi couldn't help but join in.
"It's not funny," Sakura pouted, but even the boys were starting to join in.
"So I take it nobody's mad, then," Sakura said, after the laughter had died down a bit.
"Naw, it's okay. I mean, you guys are happy, right?" Naruto said, in a rare moment of apparent sobriety.
"Yes," Kakashi said, at the same time Sakura nodded.
"Good," the blonde said. "But if you break Sakura's heart, we'll kill you, right guys?"
Sasuke and Sai nodded, in a way that Kakashi assumed was supposed to look intimidating, but wasn't at all in their drunken state.
"So what if Sakura breaks my poor heart?" Kakashi asked.
Sasuke shrugged. "Then you probably deserved it."
"So mean," Gai said, putting a consoling hand on his friend's shoulder.
Sakura giggled. "That's my boys."
"So can we sleep here?" Naruto asked, curling up on the couch. "I don't really feel like dragging Sasuke's drunk ass back home."
"You're just as drunk as he is!" Sakura snapped. "It's Sai and I who'll be dragging you two back."
"No one drags an Uchiha anywhere," Sasuke said, but he'd started to make himself comfortable on his former sensei's couch as well.
"I never said you could stay," Kakashi grumbled, but he sighed when he saw Naruto was already asleep. "Fine. Just this once. Are you all staying then?"
"Depends," Sasuke said, without opening his eyes. "Is Sakura sleeping out here or in your room?"
"Watch it, Sasuke!" Sakura snapped, hurling a pillow across the room at him that he normally should have been able to dodge.
"I'll sleep out here," she said with a blush.
Sasuke yawned, taking the pillow and placing it under his head. "Then I'll crash here too."
Kakashi turned to their last team member. "Sai, are you staying too?"
But the artist was already fast asleep.
"I'd take that as a yes!" Gai said.
Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I bet your team never gave you this much trouble."
"Ah, on the contrary! We have had many team sleepovers over the years!"
Kakashi sighed. "Of course you have."
"Of course, our team bonding was filled with much more energy. Neji never seemed to enjoy them as much, but he always showed up."
His friend grew quiet, and Kakashi knew he was remembering the pain of losing a teammate. Kakashi knew that pain first hand, and it was something he'd wished Gai would never have had to experience.
"Come on, I'll make some coffee and we can go sit outside."
Gai nodded and made his way into the kitchen. Kakashi followed shortly behind, after one last glance at his sleeping team members.
Looks like there won't be any Kyuubi attacks in my near future, he thought, smiling to himself.
~A/N: Okay, so first of all, I owe you guys an apology, because I thought it had been two weeks since I updated this, but it's actually been 3, and I missed a week somewhere. So I'm very sorry about that. Second, I also owe you all another apology, because I may have to miss another update after this. I am moving officially to my first apartment, and while I am beyond excited to be a real adult, I have to spend weeks packing up the moving truck and driving halfway around the country, and then unpacking. I'm hoping to still update in two weeks, but if I'm a bit late with the next chapter, please forgive me, because it's also finals season and there's a lot on my plate right now. But don't think I'm giving up on this! I know sometimes when I see notes like this I get scared and think 'oh, it's just an excuse,' but I really am just going to be incredibly busy and moving around a lot for the next three weeks or so. But I wanted to make sure I let you guys know, so you didn't think I was going to abandon this.
Lastly, please stop reading here if you aren't caught up with the manga and don't want to be spoiled, but...after that latest manga chapter, it looks like this story officially can never be cannon because in this version Kakashi never got his eyeball stolen! Okay, I'm seriously angry about that. Like how easy is it to just play eyeball switcheroo around here? Kishi is contradicting himself because I know Madara is a god, but he was able to just run on over to Kakashi and grab his eyeball and pop it into his socket? Like, okay, cool dude, but Kakashi himself said that Rin had to use some fancy medical ninjutsu stuff to transplant Obito's sharingan so, yeah, I don't buy that Madara can just steal his eye. And now Madara is in the other dimension with Sakura and I'm freaking out. Because even if he doesn't bother to attack her and all and just goes for Obito, How is she going to get out of the Kamui dimension if Obito dies?! Although I'm hoping she will kick Madara's ass, since he's weak against taijutsu and Sakura is strong AF. There's always hope!
Okay, rant over, I really apologize if you didn't care about any of that. But maybe years from now when the manga is over someone will read this and know what happens and laugh at my worry and predictions. So this rant was dedicated to you, future reader.
