Chapter 7: Secret Admirer

Heart disease. Cancer. Accidents and Unintentional Injuries. Killed in Combat. Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease. Under the soft golden light of the paper lanterns, surrounded by grill smoke and laughter and ambling conversation, Sakura thought about the most common causes of death.

It was easier to think about her pile of notes and color-coded wall than to sit mere inches from Sasuke and think about him. To remember what she had said, more desperate than she'd ever been, before his fight with Naruto in the Valley of the End. If I still have a place in your heart, even if it's just a little... Please don't go! If we're together again, I'm sure we'd be able to go back to those days. Yeah— she'd rather ruminate on insufficient data from the medical records than remember how he called her an annoyance again and attacked her with genjutsu.

Stroke. Nephritis and other types of kidney failure. Alzheimer's disease. Diabetes. By the time she had fully organized her notes, she was scheduled to start at the emergency department again. She hadn't found the time since then to finish analyzing what little information those death certificates offered.

Naruto rambled about some novel he wanted Sasuke to read. Kakashi, who already finished his meal with quick, secretive bites, was reading his own ridiculous book. Sasuke listened idly and spoke minimally, but Sakura remained attuned to him despite all her efforts to the contrary.

He was close enough that, if she wanted to, she could hear the soft swish of air when he let out a breath, she could see the muscles working in his throat as he swallowed each bite. She didn't want to be close enough to hear him, to see him.

She wanted to be closer. That was the problem, wasn't it? Sakura pushed another leek off her skewer. It was always the same problem.

"Just read it," Naruto said, tossing the book back onto the table. "You'll see."

"Hn." Sasuke didn't seem convinced, but he folded his napkin onto his knee, wiped his one hand clean, then picked up the book to tuck it into his front pocket.

This close, not close enough, Sakura felt the redistribution of his weight in the booth they shared. She thanked and cursed the Gods that her medical bag remained as a barrier between them.

Tired of poking at her food, Sakura poured herself another cup of tea. We'd be able to go back to those days. She studied the golden hues of her hōjicha tea, steam rising from the porcelain cup, then added a few drops of honey. If we're together again.

Here they sat, together again— kami, they were even in the same rebuilt restaurant they used to frequent in the rare event Naruto didn't convince them to get ramen— but it was only because of the Hokage's instruction. Not because it'd been Sasuke's first choice. Not because he wanted what she had offered to him then.

Influenza. Pneumonia. Homicides unrelated to shinobi affairs.

Sakura paused before reaching for the teaspoon on her left, not wanting to take it if Sasuke was using it for his own sense of security. Though his sharp eyes were already on the spoon, it was laying flat on the table. From that angle, there was no way he'd be able to see the disgruntled shinobi.

She plucked the spoon up, avoiding the way his gaze flickered over to her once she did. In the upside-down reflection of the silver spoon, Sakura observed the shinobi a few tables back. She hoped that the shock of seeing Sasuke out and about would fade until he no longer held their intention. Instead, they talked lowly and huddled together. Their conspiratorial whispering was accompanied by covert glances. Chakra that flared darkly a few moments prior was now subdued. There was only one reason they would feel the need to do that.

Sakura knew Kakashi had a keen eye on them, even if he appeared aloof while he read, but she didn't put down the spoon.

Irritation rooted it's way into her, digging at her nerves. Those shinobi were allied to the Leaf, a village who only stood standing because of Sasuke's help in taking down Kaguya, because of his elder brother's commitment to prevent the devastation of a civil war. Without Sasuke, they'd be dead. Without Itachi, their parents might have been dead. That they should sit there, so arrogant and self-righteous, thinking themselves the heroes? The spoon was too tight in her grasp. She accidentally bent it in half.

Their server came by to check on them, eyeing Sakura's deconstructed meal left on her small plate.

"Is everything alright with your food, miss?" Jiro asked.

"Oh." Sakura glanced down, having forgotten about her meal. "Yes, I'm just not very hungry."

While Jiro checked with everyone else, Sakura casually twirled her bent spoon. Besides the apparent ringleader, she realized she did vaguely recognize one of the other chūnin at the table. From where, though?

The memory sprung forward soon after. It wasn't as though there were many places she frequented. A few weeks ago, he'd been in the hospital for a fractured wrist.

There were eight bones in the wrist. She'd taken her time with each of them while the freckle-faced man had gloated to his concerned companion. Like a simple injury from a B-ranked mission deserved something like a badge of honor.

Sakura frowned. He didn't have a clue— none of them had any fucking clue— what real sacrifice entailed.

"Will that be all for tonight?" Jiro asked.

The series of thoughts struck her spontaneously, one tumbling in after the other. Before she had the chance to think them through to their conclusion, she dropped the spoon.

"Actually, Jiro, would you do me a favor?"

The discarded spoon rattled against the saucer until it slowed to a stop.

"Of course, miss."

"I'd like you to deliver a drink to a gentleman here, but I'm- I'm not ready for him to know it's from me." Sakura forced a sugary smile. "Can you say it's from a secret admirer?"

Turned outward to face Jiro, she could only see Naruto's reaction in her peripheral. A bite of his barbecued meat flopped right out of his gaping mouth.

"Of course," Jiro agreed excitedly. "What gentleman would that be?"

"Don't look," Sakura told him, sweet but stern. "The shinobi three tables behind us, the one with the short red hair and all the freckles."

Jiro smiled. She saw him struggling not to look. "Of course, miss. What drink did you have in mind?"

"Er, Sakura-chan?" Naruto started, but she shot him a sharp look that brought him up short.

"He's a big fan of momoshu, but you know, that's such a girly drink. I wouldn't want to embarrass him in front of his friends. Will you mix it with your- well, your best liquor! And add extra lemon?"

Sakura didn't need to force an air of innocence. It was something people always presumed about her. Projected onto her. As if petal-pink hair and soft features, as if being a girl, negated the fact that'd she spent the last decade training as a ninja.

"Right away, miss." Jiro nodded eagerly and left, a secret grin hidden on his grandfatherly features.

Naruto waited impatiently for Jiro to be out of hearing distance. Then he lurched forward and whispered so loudly, he might as well have not bothered at all.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked, blue eyes wide and distraught.

"Don't worry about it, Naruto," Sakura hissed, then jerked her chin at his hunched frame. "Sit down and be subtle, will you?"

Naruto begrudgingly sat down.

Kakashi was watching her carefully. "That young man favors peach liqueur?"

Sakura considered his question. "I doubt it."

She planned to pick up the spoon again, but Sasuke held it. He wasn't using it to spy, though. He was too busy staring at her.

Sakura swung her attention back to Naruto, ignoring the blush as it crept up her warming neck.

Perhaps it was physically impossible for Naruto to be subtle. He was glaring at the freckle-faced chūnin so avidly, he should have just waved a bright, neon flag in their direction.

Sakura nearly groaned aloud. Instead, she considered what might best distract him.

"Speaking of admirers," Sakura began suggestively. She grinned slyly once Naruto's gaze dropped down on her. "How's Hinata?"

It worked. Naruto turned several shades of red. "W-hat?"

"You heard me."

Kakashi chuckled while Naruto flailed and fumbled. Even Sasuke paused to watch him, but then promptly turned his attention onto spying through the silver spoon.

"Ah, well, I don't know," Naruto said, cheeks blazing. "I haven't- well, I haven't talked to her this week, I—"

"You talked to her last week then?" Sakura prodded.

"I mean, once, on accident. We ran into each other at the market." Naruto scratched behind his neck.

"On accident?" Sakura repeated harshly. "You mean, you didn't want to talk to her?"

"Of course I did," Naruto all but hollered.

Sakura laughed, making sure her voice carried. "You did, did you?"

"Sakura-chan. You're trying to embarrass me on purpose," Naruto whined miserably.

She stole a glance through the spoon in Sasuke's hand. Jiro must have delivered the peach cocktail to the red-haired shinobi already. His smug grin was distorted by the reflection. In the topsy-turvy scope of the spoon, it looked more like a gruesome frown. She couldn't ignore the sudden thrill of anticipation.

"Oh no, I'd never," Sakura teased.

Only Naruto was truly distracted. Sasuke always sat with the poised posture of an aristocrat, but he straightened up even more, his shoulders pressed firmly against the back of the booth. Kakashi held his book up casually, but it blocked half his face and allowed him to watch the table of chūnin. When a commotion began, they were the first to notice.

Glass shattered, the sound of a plate unceremoniously dropped. Harsh voices climbed all over each other, one rushing to be heard over the other. Their chorus of protests all bled together, until one shout of concern rose above the rest. Panicked exclamations and surprised gasps bounced around the booths that surrounded them.

Naruto inevitably noticed. He shot up from his seat to search for the problem. Sakura waited to turn. First, she craned her neck to check the spoon in Sasuke's hand. In the flash of reflective silver, she saw the red-haired shinobi as he held two hands to his throat. A bluish pallor had come over his freckled features. Signs of a severe allergic reaction.

"Medic!? We need a medic," someone shouted from behind her.

That was her cue. Sakura leapt up, out of the booth and pushing through the concerned and curious crowd in an instant.

"Here! I'm a medic." Sakura shoved away two men who'd been hovering over the choking shinobi. "I can help."

She worked quickly. Anaphylaxis, the reaction to a severe allergy, led to swelling in the throat and blocking of the airway. She carefully wrapped both hands around the shinobi's neck, activating her healing chakra to reduce the inflammation.

"Try to keep calm," Sakura told him kindly.

She forced herself to look at him, at the fear that flashed wildly in his dark brown eyes, but she felt surprisingly little empathy. Maybe she really was that petty. Or maybe she was simply too tired to care.

In less than sixty seconds, she'd brought the swelling down well enough for the man to breathe on his own. He gulped down air at once, still startled by the sudden assault. Even if the stronger scents of lemon and liquor had overpowered the rest of the drink's ingredients, he should have known better than to accept food or drink from a stranger. Sakura swallowed the urge to reprimand him.

Without proper treatment, the flood of histamines and other physiological substances would continue to be released in his body, swelling his airway again and restricting the blood vessels. A dangerous drop in his blood pressure could be fatal.

Sakura swung her attention back to the booth with her teammates. She only had a second to observe their frozen features, all in varying degrees of restrained surprise.

"Sasuke-kun," she shouted over the muttering crowd. "Bring me my medical bag."

She didn't watch to see if he'd comply, but instead turned back to her impromptu patient. He was coughing harshly into his fist. Now that he was alert enough to listen, she explained to him about anaphylactic shock and the need for an epinephrine injection. He already knew his allergies, but it was standard practice for medical-nin to talk their patients through the process.

"The epi-shot will bring your body's physiological response to this allergic reaction to a complete stop," Sakura assured him. "You're going to be alright."

As soon as she finished explaining, she tracked the chūnin's concerned gaze as it flitted over her shoulder. Sakura then spotted Sasuke, silent and stone-faced as he approached them. In lieu of greeting, he lifted her medical bag toward her.

Sakura gingerly reached for it. "Thank you, Sasuke-kun."

She promptly opened her medical bag, filled to the brim with smaller pouches of first-aid supplies in addition to her few personal items. She was proud to find it well-organized for an emergency. It took no time at all to find one of the prepared epinephrine injection capsules.

Before Sasuke made to retreat, Sakura pointedly searched the faces of the choking chūnin and his comrades. They warily turned their attention from Sasuke back onto her, something in her calm, cold disposition alerting their shinobi instincts to the more immediate threat.

"It's a good thing we happened to be here," Sakura said, locking eyes with the ringleader, the shinobi who had permeated such dark chakra earlier. "Without this epinephrine injection, your friend could have been in serious trouble."

His jaw went slack, surprise and understanding rippling over his features. She was not an admirer, and she never intended to keep it secret.

And damn if it wasn't satisfying. She couldn't deny the rush, the surge of sureness and relief that flooded through her as she claimed control over the situation. Maybe if she hadn't loathed herself for all those years of being useless, she would've loved herself less instead of more for the way it felt to hold so much power.

Sakura expertly unlocked the capsule's lid with a quick flick of her fingers, watching as the leader of their little group snapped his jaw to an audible close.

Her red-haired patient seemed to understand, too. He was wide-eyed as he looked up at her, shifting his hands behind him and inching away from her.

"You'll want to keep still for this," Sakura told him.

She reached for his leg with her free hand. He jerked back on reflex, but she was faster, too well-trained on dealing with uncooperative patients— though usually under markedly different circumstances. Sakura clamped her hand over the top of his thigh, saving space between her thumb and forefinger. As soon as she had a solid grip, she plunged the epi-shot down into the fleshy meat of his thigh.

He yelped. An epi-shot was no small needle. Despite her lingering frame, he jerked forward to wrap both hands around his sore leg. She made sure not to scowl. Honestly, how did Ibiki agree to pass this guy during his Chūnin Exam?

Sakura counted to five, then withdrew the emptied needle. She'd known with certainty that her medical bag was packed with at least three epi-shots. It had been a hard fact to ignore once she remembered the chūnin's medical chart and his list of known allergies. Paracetamol— which had required her to find him an alternative pain reliever before tending to his wrist— and peaches.

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Sasuke didn't bother to step back further. The group of chūnin he'd spent half of dinner watching in a teaspoon no longer paid him any attention.

Sakura stood tall, shrugging her medical bag onto her shoulder. Ignorant, the crowd of curious onlookers erupted with a round of applause.

He appraised her and her handiwork. One freckle-faced shinobi, coughing over a whimper as he cradled a mere flesh wound, and three humbled chūnin, glancing disconcertingly between their friend and the Hokage's apprentice. Sasuke probably had the same questions as they did.

How in the Hell she'd done it, he didn't know. Sasuke wasn't even certain it had been her at first. He'd seen her during dinner, distant and distracted, playing with her food instead of eating it. Whenever he glimpsed at her through the low-lying spoon, there had been nothing on her face to indicate she planned on intervening. Even when she'd bent the teaspoon, he'd chalked it up to her idle slip of grip.

It had to have been her, though. Within minutes of the idiot consuming the drink secretly gifted by her, he'd started choking. Besides knowing that particular detail, Sasuke sensed the truth around him. He'd spent enough years at Orochimaru's side to know what fear smelt like. The bitter aroma of stress-induced sweat radiated off the Leaf shinobi as they sunk back from Sakura.

"If there are any lingering effects, you should bring him straight to the hospital," Sakura instructed the group of men. "I actually help oversee the emergency department. Either myself or someone from my team will always be there to help you."

Since he was listening for the threat, he heard it.

Naruto approached from behind. He laid a hand on Sasuke's shoulder, muttering unintelligibly under his breath.

"Come on," Naruto said, uncharacteristically serious as he shoved them in the opposite direction. "Spotless fucking record, remember?"

Sasuke watched as Naruto glanced sharply at the server, Jiro. The older man was clapping too, smiling at Sakura in wonder. As ignorant as the rest of the cheering crowd. No one would ever suspect the Godaime's sweet, servant-hearted apprentice. But if Sasuke lingered beside her for long enough, maybe they'd start to.

Trusting Kakashi to pay the bill, Sasuke let Naruto lead them out of the restaurant. Once they made it outside and away from the crowds, Naruto let out a low whistle.

"Meh, Sakura-chan can be real scary." He laughed nervously, peering behind them to ensure no one else watched or followed. "Y'know, I'm pretty sure she's got a bigger set of balls than you do."

Naruto elbowed him, but Sasuke didn't immediately react to the crude comment.

Neither he nor Naruto had been conscious during the fight when she'd cut her hair off. What she'd done, the manner in which she fought back against the Sound shinobi, he'd only heard about afterwards from the Yamanaka girl. Rambling at the side of his hospital bed, Ino spoke more about Sakura's steely defiance than her skill in jutsu. He was just a kid then, half-conscious from the early effects of the Curse Seal and distracted by the allure of power, but he knew enough to privately admire her. With enough discipline and practice, anyone could excel in combat— but not everyone was forged by the necessary sense of determination.

It was the first thing he'd noticed after being separated for years. She hadn't let her hair grow back out after that.

"Tch." As if he didn't take the time to pause, Sasuke dismissively side-eyed Naruto. "She's always had bigger balls than you."

For one strained second, Naruto looked shocked. Then a grin, wild and feverish, broke out over his features. He picked up his pace and started to jog, sparing Sasuke a quick backward glance.

"Come on, teme. Let's go spar. I've been itching for the chance to kick your ass."

His adrenaline had already been spiked by Sakura's act of retaliation. Now, it soared in his system, it was singing in his blood. For months, he'd been barred from training. From the sort of release that only physical exertion could offer him. Thanks to Sakura's insight on the Hokage's decree, he could now unleash it. Even the seal on his chakra couldn't stop him from feeling the fire as it flared beneath his skin.

Sasuke picked up his pace, determined to be faster, to be stronger. Even without his Sharingan, even with lingering uncertainty on Sakura's actions in the restaurant. Even with the discomfort of an open wound.

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Her work was too chaotic, her schedule too irregular, for Sakura to reserve a training ground in advance and plan accordingly. She too often found herself without the allotted space to accommodate her, let alone the aftermath of her destruction. When she couldn't sleep, after she finished a hospital shift, she needed to train. It was her only hope to avoid the sort of spiraling thoughts that led to despair and destruction. Her trashed apartment was an uneasy reminder of that.

Sakura had asked a hundred times before, but in light of recent events, Tsunade must have been feeling more considerate. The Godaime granted her permanent use of a specially designated location. On the outskirts of the village, the 45th Training Ground was gifted to her.

Thankfully, it was far enough that Tenzō didn't question her use of transportation jutsu to get there. Under the wintry skies of dawn's first light, he looked out at the landscape he'd transformed into a masterpiece. From shattered earth to all the wonders of a full-fledged forest, the forty-fifth was now a sight to behold. Tall pine trees, strong and sturdy oaks. A steep cliff, it's east-side hosting a roaring, rushing waterfall. He hadn't planned on growing any unnecessary foliage, but flowers sprung to life in the grassy areas on their own accord. Gold-crowned dandelions rustled in the wind.

It was a shame Sakura intended to destroy it all.

"Don't look so sad about it," she teased from his side. "You can always make another one."

He groaned quietly. "Let me guess. Next week, I'll have to."

"Hmm." She confirmed, snapping on her black gloves.

"You know, Kakashi is an earth-style jutsu user, as well," Tenzō said, thoughtful.

"Of course I know," Sakura said. "What's your point? Kaka-sensei hasn't trained me since I was twelve."

He gripped onto the front pouches of his flak jacket. "Right."

She turned, green eyes darting from the landscape to him and back again. "It's okay if you're too busy to train with me. I know they need you to oversee the reconstruction efforts."

"No, I'm not too busy," He dismissed. "I'm honored you've asked me."

She nodded, an eager student. "Thank you, Tenzō-sensei."

He waved a hand at her use of honorific. "None of that. Now, let's get started. The ceremony starts at eleven. We don't want to be late."

Sakura hid her frown. Maybe she should have asked Kakashi. For once in her life, the thought of being late appealed to her. Naruto could be excited for the New Years Day commemoration all he wanted. Sakura planned to simply grin and bear it.

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