status ongoing
background the two years between Naruto and Naruto Shippuden
notice Today marks the fifth anniversary of this story being out in the open. I wasn't aware that so much time had passed. I had just finished my junior year at the university back then and now I'm an adult person with adult responsibilities and an adult life. Honestly, I never thought I'd drag this out for so long, especially given my track record of unfinished stories. But for some reason, I've always gravitated towards this story. I don't know if I saw myself in these characters, or at least in my portrayal of them, or if it was myself I was writing into them. But it kept me going. Writing about Kakashi's depression and confusion and anger at a time when I couldn't even face mine. It was cathartic, in a way. And now… Now it's an old friend. Who has been there for me through my darkest times, as cliché as that sounds. But it was there, and it was mine, and it held a part of me I didn't know where else to put, so I'm grateful. And I'm grateful to every one of you who has read this story, commented on it, followed it, re-read it while waiting for an update, loved it for some of the reasons I was motivated to write it in the first place. All of this might sound like an epilogue, but it is a stepping stone, something that I apparently needed to get off my chest all this time. So, one more time, for the people in the back: eyesight to the blind is not over. It won't be over until Kakashi and Anko figure it out, Naruto returns from his training trip and Naruto Shippuden begins. It won't be over soon. It might take another five, six years, maybe even more. So, if any part of it has stuck with you, I urge you to stick with it, too. Now let's go make some noise.

xxiv. gravitation

Anko sighed deeply as she fell heavily on her sorry excuse of a couch. Her heart was still trying to find its steady rhythm after what had transpired only minutes ago.

She had kissed Kakashi Hatake.

She had kissed Kakashi Hatake.

She had kissed Kakashi Hatake.

Running her palm over her face, she groaned. What the hell was she thinking? Granted, she hadn't been thinking. Be it the alcohol she had consumed — which was, in all fairness, not enough to cloud her judgement — or the fact that he kept pushing up his sleeves to his elbows, which for some inexplicable reason were extremely attractive to her, she had gone and acted on her stupid instincts and possibly ruined whatever the hell she had struggled to build between them in the past months.

She hadn't realized how attracted she had grown to Kakashi until this very night.

It was so confusing. He was confusing. In all her life and her career in Intelligence, she had never before come across anyone who made her feel so perplexed.

Kakashi made her feel out of balance, with his aloof attitude on the one hand and his going along with her provocative flirting on the other. For all of her expertise on the department, she couldn't decipher his behavior and reach a conclusion about his intentions.

And what about her intentions? What did she hope to gain from coming onto him? Was he a means to get an itch scratched? And if he was, was she really prepared to face the consequences of her actions, whether he rejected her or not?

She hadn't thought it through, she knew that. She hadn't even given herself the opportunity to.

But Anko wasn't like that anyway. She didn't plan, didn't calculate. She didn't lay down the facts and analyze the situation — she acted.

She hadn't realized where the night was going until she had taken that final step and reached out for him. In that one moment, rejection hadn't mattered. Repercussions hadn't mattered. Only her inability to stop her hand from latching onto him. To stop her fingers from tugging at his mask and her mouth from touching his neck.

But then, after a blissful moment of reciprocation and warmth, he had pulled away from her. Had muttered some stupid excuse and retreated. And Anko, ever the bold type, had taken one last chance and invited him in — which he rejected profoundly.

She didn't know how to feel about that either. Sure, their erotic fumbling had left her wanting more — of him, of his body, of everything — but since she hadn't put much thought into it, she wasn't really sure if she would actually go all out and sleep with him. All she had known at that moment was that the magnetic pull towards him was something she couldn't resist.

What would it be like to touch him? For real? To kiss him without that stupid mask in place. To have him writhing underneath her, locked in her embrace, eyes closed in ecstasy as she—

With a groan, she pushed herself off the couch and walked over to the kitchen. Why the hell did her thoughts get sidetracked so easily where he was concerned? And when the fuck did it first begin? She knew that she had begun to see him differently after he had sealed her mark. Not romantically per se, just differently. Like he wasn't just another team member you had to get along with just for the sake of your mission. Or missions, plural. Somehow over the past week, all the moments they'd shared together teamed up and came to sit wrapped up in a very pretty bow inside her head and it drove her mad.

Mad with desire, apparently, because fuck he was handsome. And she knew it was a strange thing to think because how could she be attracted to a man whose face she hadn't even seen? But she had had glimpses of his body — his crooked fingers peeking from his gloves, his infuriating forearms, the toned abdomen leading to that tantalizing V that pointed to somewhere she felt suddenly very inexplicably drawn to — and the pieces she had collected suited her.

But the worst part was, his body wasn't even the thing she was most attracted to. For reasons she hadn't sat down to ponder on, and probably never would, she was drawn to the man that had slipped through the carefully-crafted façade he had built for himself. The man she had lured out of that metaphorical mask. The man who called her his partner; who sealed her mark and made her feel in control of herself again.

If only he hadn't gone and stripped away her control over everything else.

Anko was pouring herself a glass of water to fight off the headache she already had forming, when she felt a presence behind her. In a moment, she had a kunai in her hand and the glass laid broken in the sink.

She wasn't prepared to see Kakashi when she turned around.

"Kakashi?" Anko whispered uncertainly. In the fuzzy state of her mind, she wasn't sure if she was hallucinating or not. "What—"

"I don't know," he breathed out, shaking his head like the blur inside her mind had somehow spread out to him, too. "I don't know."

How had he slipped inside her apartment? When had he gotten so close? How did she not sense him? She was so baffled by all these questions that she almost failed to register that he was actually there. In her kitchen. Standing so close that she could hear him breathe, slow and somehow uneven. Like he couldn't find a pattern that suited him. His gaze was unreadable as ever, but there was something in his posture, in his very presence that made her want to scream in frustration.

Fuck this, she thought and reached forward.

Tentatively, her hand reached for his wrist. Feeling the small patch of uncovered skin over his glove, she let her fingertips linger for a moment. She had never touched his skin before.

Ever so slowly, her hand inched upwards. She brushed his elbow, grasped his bicep, lingered briefly on his shoulder and stopped at the base of his collarbone. She could feel the pattern of his breathing under her fingers.

Unsteady. Unhinged.

Her gaze locked with his, asking silently for a permission she had never dared to. Not seriously, at least. Not when she couldn't write it off as a joke. He didn't nod or say anything, but he didn't move away either, so Anko took that a sign to proceed.

The kunai in her hand fell to the floor with a clang.

With more caution than she usually gave herself credit for, both her hands went up to rest on his cheeks, fingertips sliding under the soft material of his mask. How many nights had she spent trying to picture a face that would do him justice? How many different faces had she given him? Did any of them even come close? And here she was now; presented with an opportunity only a handful of people had ever had before.

Trusted.

Unconsciously, Anko held her breath.

Her fingers curled decisively around the mask, and with defiance she finally began tugging the material down. First, his cheekbones were revealed, high and strong. Then, a long, straight nose. An upper lip with some residue sake. Then, moments later, a slightly fuller bottom lip and a narrow jawline. She kept going until the mask was bunched against his collarbone, exposing his neck as well. She could see the slight bruises she had given him earlier.

Anko let out the breath she had been holding. Although Kakashi was standing mere inches away, exposed to her curious and hungry eyes, the dim moonlight and her drunken state obstructed her from seeing him clearly. Just her luck, she thought briefly. She finally managed to see Kakashi's face and it was still as much of a mystery as it had always been.

Her right hand had fallen to her side, but the left one found its way up again, this time touching his exposed face as if trying to commit it to memory. Kakashi allowed her a brief moment of exploration before clasping her hand in his own and moving it away from his face.

Shame, Anko thought. She could do this all night.

Then slowly, hesitantly, she saw him move even closer. She felt his heavy breath on her face, felt the heat radiating off of him. She was still half-pressed against the sink and he was almost pinning her, but it didn't make her feel caged. Instead, she felt at ease. As if removing his mask had made every wall come crashing down.

Kakashi's lips stopped millimeters from her own, and it was only then that she realized that she hadn't even looked at any part of his face other than his mouth. Anko willed her eyes to look up and what she saw reflected in his made warmth coil in the pit of her stomach.

He wanted her. As common a look as it was to see on men, it felt foreign to see on Kakashi. Lust and passion were reflected in his lone black eye and it made her insides squirm. He wanted her.

Her. Anko Mitarashi. The thought-to-be traitor. The watch-your-back-around-her-she's-crazy.

Orochimaru's ex-apprentice.

Konoha's resident crazy snake lady.

Kakashi's partner.

So many titles for one person. So much burden placed upon narrow shoulders. So much rage and suppressed emotions and sarcasm all wrapped up in a bulky coat with kunai up the sleeves.

Could he see all of that? With his scrutinizing eye — not the gifted one, the prized one, the one that he cherished but was tormented by altogether — that seemed to be boring into her soul, could he see who she was? Could he handle who she was?

She didn't know what he was looking for in that one moment that seemed to drag on for hours. She could only wonder what the fuck was he waiting for.

Whatever he seemed to be searching for, he must have found it, because the next moment his eye was dropping shut and his lips had finally enveloped her own.

She tasted like dango and sake. Like the first frost in autumn. Like fallen leaves and fresh rain.

She tasted like life.

His mind was hazy, blurred by alcohol, by her heady scent, by her tantalizing body that wrapped itself around him, prying control away from his tightly closed fingers.

He could remember them laughing and drinking. He could remember Anko pinning him to the streetlight, a sight for anyone who would walk by. He could remember her lips on his neck, her fingertips grazing the skin of his lower abdomen, so deliciously close to where he needed her the most.

And then, nothing. A brief moment of clarity instantly regretted. A door closing and self-loathing surfacing again. And then, just as abruptly, a decision made. A defiance to all that he was and everything he did. A leap – of faith, maybe. And Anko in his arms, trembling like this.

Almost without realizing it, Kakashi pulled her tighter around his body. There was no space to move between them. One of her legs pushed its way between his own, her upper thigh rubbing against his growing erection. Her breasts flattened against his chest and her hands roamed his back, to finally settle on his ass, trying to bring him even closer.

His gloved hands cradled her neck, preventing her from leaving their embrace, from moving away from him, not that she seemed eager to do so. The lust was palpable; he could taste it in the air, on Anko's tongue, in the way she ground her pelvis against his. He felt like she was a torrent, wild and unrelenting, trying to sweep him away with every kiss, every grinding movement.

He tore his lips away from hers to breathe, his brain foggy, not knowing what to do next. Anko took the opportunity to trail kisses down his jaw and finally sink her teeth on the flesh of his neck.

Gods, he hadn't felt so turned on in years.

A fire was being stoked inside him, one that had lain dormant for so long that he couldn't even remember. He had felt it before, out on the street. And it had left him wanting more. But now it burned. He felt like his body wasn't his own to command anymore. This emotions that she had unearthed were so primal, so raw that he felt naked. Exposed to his very core, beyond a mask, a face, a body.

There was no logic behind his actions, only instinct. An urge to take, to seize, to satisfy. To burn all of what he was, all of what he hated himself for being in the fire that was Anko Mitarashi.

But he didn't know how. He didn't know how to take, only how to let go.

It was all too much — these sensations that spread through his chest. This watery feeling of losing control, when it was the only thing he had left, the only thing anchoring him, preserving his sanity — or whatever was left of it, anyway.

And so, for the second time in the same night, Kakashi pulled away.

His hands eased their hold of her neck and he craned his neck backwards, cutting off her ministrations, which earned him a whine.

"I need to go," he breathed quietly, almost in resignation.

Anko's eyes found his in the dim light, two questioning brown eyes who seemed to pierce through him. In them, he could see everything; lust, irritation, bewilderment. Like she couldn't quite grasp the context of the situation.

Well, that made two of them.

"Why?"

"I… I have to."

"No," she rasped, hot and bothered and every bit embarrassed by it. "Stay."

It was raw. It was honest. It was pure and assertive and it scared him. Scared him back into the comfort of his misanthropy and his carefully constructed walls that didn't leave cracks for an aspiring Mitarashi to slither into. Into the cracked shell of his little life that he could control and defend against the things that threatened to consume him.

Things like the wildfire she was igniting inside of him.

"I'm sorry."