Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

VII.

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The morning light came through the window faintly when he woke up and realized he wasn't alone. The terror of it struck him a moment after and he couldn't help but recoil, shifting away at a safe distance at the very edge of the bed. Sakura, on the other hand, disturbed the even rhythm of her breathing for a second, inhaling with the loss of closeness to his body.

He was not moving a nerve, hoping that she wouldn't wake up. He didn't know why, he just didn't want her to wake up yet. There was plenty of things he had to consider, as he usually considered things in the mornings, contemplating his empty bedroom in half-discontent, half-drowsiness, and now he couldn't. Because there was a person in the middle of his bed. A pink-haired, naked person.

Kakashi neared her a little, feeling very bold, but then she shifted absently, slowly and peacefully sighing as her she huddled closer to the white sheets. They fell lower, revealing the picturesque curve of her hip down to her waist and up to her bare shoulder. He nearly jumped back at the light motion, returning to the comfortable edge of his bed, eyes following her for any signs that she might wake up for real.

It was bad, he had a vague idea of it yesterday when he was too lost to think straight. But now that he looked at her, it dawned on him how bad it was. Not that she became any more or less beautiful or caring or whatever she has always been. It was in the relief he felt seeing her wrapped in his sheets and sleeping. All this time he spent worrying whether she might be crying or suffering somewhere far away was irrelevant now, she was here and here was safe. Safest.

Pretending that he didn't approve of the situation was going to be a lie. Pretending that he hasn't imagined this view before too. But somehow liking it still felt wrong.

Kakashi moved to his side and warily leaned on his pillow without leaving her out of sight. It was bad, very bad. His brain was consciously stuck on her voice, moaning his name adoringly, and he didn't know what to make of it. It wasn't like he could stop the sound of it echoing in the back of his mind. Or the helpless desire to touch her again. He'd never had anyone say to him I love you and really mean it, out of the context of intense, senseless pleasure.

His eyes were fixed on a point in the air and he was still bound by the terror, but trying hard to accept it as it is. It was over and done, he couldn't bring back anything... Especially anything Sakura's said. Nothing could be reversed anymore. It was not long when he started feeling as if being watched and his gaze shifted to Sakura, who had opened her eyes and brushed back locks of her hair. She pulled the sheets closer, supporting herself on her elbows and looking at him with odd calmness.

It was way too early, but he didn't feel like it. Everything seemed out of place and way too crammed all of a sudden. Why didn't he feel like it yesterday? Sakura bit her lip hard, jade eyes running down his body and back up to his eyes.

He slightly heaved up, backing away against the solid frame of the bed. What was with that look? Absolutely no. He had to get her out of his apartment as soon as possible.

"Sakura," He raised his hand to stop her, voice low with a warning, but she was on the verge of laughing and very much approaching him, her breathing a little ragged.

She pushed away his hands and saddled him most casually, hand greedily sliding down his clear-cut core muscles. A distinct whimper echoed from her lips as she leaned in to kiss him, but he averted from her, trying his best to push her away and not give in to the view he was exposed to. She wasn't the most voluptuous he's seen but was highly distracting nonetheless. "Sakura, wait."

"Don't move." Sakura breathed out in his ear and her tongue licked its way down his neck, sending a pleasant prickle across his skin. The hold he had on her loosened vastly with the heavy distraction as she swirled wetly around the swell of his Adam's apple, carving a weird, protracted sound out of him, and all he was thinking of the absolute mess he created with letting her inside last night, both in his mind and in general. It's not like she wasn't going to break the door for real, though.

He cursed himself for allowing her to attack him in the first place. Mornings have been hellish without her tongue anywhere near him anyway.

Every sense he had seemed to heighten a couple of times in the mornings. Which is why he had to stop her before going completely hard within the next ten seconds. He was yet to begin explaining to her that the chemicals in his head had somehow pulled him back into a frustrating, almost constant state of wanting to be high on pleasure. Living alone was the darkly ironic punch line of this whole joke. He didn't really want to have to need her again.

"Sakura, I'm serious. Get off me."

"Why, you have somewhere important to be? It's Saturday." She sighed, breathing against his lips with impatience. Her cold touch reached out to his fingertips and demonstratively licked and sucked on his thumb without tearing her mischievous, hazy eyes off his. It took him a few seconds to realize he had been holding his breath watching her, but then he blinked away.

When did she learn to do that?

Kakashi caught her, this time tried getting a hold on her waist in a frail attempt to move her away, but she twisted her hand, grabbed his wrist instead and bashed it over his head with such inhuman strength that he felt pain at the moment his skin met the concrete. He rapidly lost the colour on his face, remaining completely still. Her eyes pierced through his, wildly and with anger he couldn't miss from this close.

Sakura let go of his hand and he remembered just now that she told him not to move. Which wasn't a hard task on its own, but he really wasn't supposed to stay with her any longer. It was all spinning out of control and last night was a great mistake. He had somehow lost the initial goal of this whole challenge, namely resisting to let her take over. He only wanted to stop seeing her… seeing her in pain… his thoughts trailed off when she began backing away under the sheets.

"Sakura, please don't-" Kakashi opened his mouth in horror, but before he was able to fully object to where she was going, her moist lips were carefully taking him in without any warning whatsoever. His breathing skipped through with a wave of shivers cascading down his spine at the welcoming warmth. Do that… Please don't do that.

For a moment his vocal chords just shut down, leaving him with a mix of whirling relief and rising anxiety at the same time. There was supposed to be a consuming guilt somewhere inside him that was missing. That Sakura was as happy to give him whatever he wanted before he was certain that he was appropriately deserving of it. It wasn't fair that… it felt so good. His fingers dug into the mattress and curled with the tension.

The spikes of common sense and their reflective words flashed through his mind before she started moving, forcing him to moan against his will. Her pace was only slow in the beginning, to try and see his reactions, and as he proved able to form words, really poor excuses of words, and try to beg his way out of this catastrophe while not really believing his own reluctance, she pulled back to suck at his tip, causing a harsh shudder to course through him.

How was he… going to stop himself from wanting her now? The thought was really quite despairing on the background of the muddling chaos in his head.

His head relaxed back on the pillow with a series of quiet, defeatist moans when she continued to move, the intense pleasure washing through him in hot waves. Oh, it was so much better to give in like that, than to have to think of consequences. He felt as if he couldn't get any more sensitive than that, the pressure in his body rising every time her tongue slicked along him with mellow wetness. He wanted her to never stop, relishing in the drug-like feeling.

Sakura slightly backed away and uncovered her head from the sheets, reaching for him. It was clear to him what she wanted. His hand instinctively pressed against the base of her neck and helped her understand the exact pace that he required. And she was diligent and obedient as always, having him tremble with anticipation and slightly buck against her, bits of helpless, prolonged groans he couldn't control falling off his mouth.

The chase ended abruptly when her tempo turned aggressive enough to have him finish and arch a little against her with the sudden pulsing bliss that reached all his nerve endings for a moment that seemed all too brief. He heard himself let out some kind of a low sound, but wasn't sure, gripping Sakura's hair and fighting for a breath of air. His brain couldn't quite deal with the satisfaction just yet, blank as it rarely was, and he kept his eyes closed in a few long seconds.

The thin fog of tiredness that enveloped him left him in a slight daze. Truth be told, he's had this done to him before but not as thoroughly.

When he finally opened his eyes, still panting, he saw Sakura looming over him with a mixture of softness and curiosity on her. She observed him, trying to catch a breath as well, staring at him continuously in the silence, until her relaxed features didn't suddenly alter with bewilderment.

"I might…" Kakashi tried speaking, but his voice was a little more hoarse and drawling than he expected and within the pause he opened Sakura shifted away from him in the most careful manner, her surprise going deeper and deeper, and her lips a little opened in awe. "I need a second."

She nodded, her head tilting a little and hands pulling the sheets over her body with a bit of worry. Still, she didn't say anything, looking at him as he stood up from the bed and made his way to the bathroom. The moment he closed the door his eyes fell on the odd mirror image over his sink. Well, that was the weirdest thing to ever happen to him lately. It was quite weird, considering weird things happened all the time in his life.

There were trails of tears down his eyes. Which made absolutely no sense to him. Those weren't tears of sadness for sure. Weren't really tears of joy as well. At least not joy joy.

He slowly neared the mirror and blinked away. It was so strange to feel like crying without knowing even why. It wasn't like he was thinking about anything upsetting. He wasn't even thinking in the first place. Maybe…

His gaze ran down, stopping to look his hands as if the answer was there, in the lines of his palms and all the battle-scars on his fingers. There was something he had been thinking about. Something that had all his insides spasm with heavy, heavy pain. It was something of a conviction that was branded on his mind and didn't give him peace of mind.

His eyes shifted from the mirror and he reached for the door again, returning to Sakura who was patiently waiting and flushing in a dark red. So, now she was blushing, huh? He slowly laid back in the bed and she slid down to him, at a loss for words, as he used the silence to look at her carefully.

"You'll have to wait for a while, I'm not twenty anymore."

Sakura burst into laughing, leaning closer.

"Don't mind waiting at all." She said breathily, her head shaking. Her eyes slightly blurred when she met his, there was… remorse in them. "That happens to people a lot, you know. It's normal."

Whatever it is, I don't want it.

"It's fine. You had me... unprepared."

Sakura chuckled, "Sorry. Should've warned you in advance."

They stared at each other and he couldn't stop that bitterness from evading his mind. Her beauty was unearthly and it only bloomed like that because he was near. The thought still astounded him and it's been years and years of her proving him that it was true, and he never believed.

"Something has been upsetting you ever since we were in that forest…" Sakura whispered softly, her brows wrinkling. "I see it in your eyes every time you look at me and I don't know what it is."

Always good at hitting the right spot. Kakashi drew back a little, escaping from her puncturing gaze.

"I don't want to talk about this."

"You never do," Sakura remarked with a puff. "Never."

"You won't understand."

"I wouldn't." Sakura shook her head, shifting so that she was leaning on her elbows again. "I'll never know what you've been through unless you share it with me."

The silence, the one he used to like so much on Saturday mornings, now fell between them with a dreadful weight to it, and he knew deep inside that he had to talk now. Because maybe if he didn't, he would never do it. He'd never talk, with anyone, anywhere. And as much as he spent years of his life convincing himself these things just stay with you and hurt, and that's how it is, there was this miniscule, selfish part in him that wanted to speak out.

Sakura was looking at him with soft concern, she could see her in his periphery, but refused to face her. The ceiling was a nice view for now. He didn't know what to say, how to say it, where to start. Most of all, he feared she was too far away to understand, even though she was gifted to understand people and love them, stintlessly, with this rare openness people never had. At least not the ones he knew and especially the shinobi. They were all too close to death to love like that, he pondered. Yet she did, despite the dangers of it.

She loved out of time and she was here, looking straight at him, trying to make him believe she had chosen to love him, and the more he thought about it, the sadder he felt. Sakura shifted a little closer, whispering, "If this is about past events... they're not determining anything in your life. You choose what to do because your present is different."

"You can't choose anything if you're..." Kakashi cut off his sentence, somehow not brave enough to finish it.

Broken. He felt broken. Living in an infinite cycle of shattering to pieces, then coming back together, then shattering again. Every time he got close. And he discovered he could get what he wanted without having to get attached. And it was great. Before Sakura came. He glanced down at her and his eyes quickly evaded her again, trailing to his previous point of interest. "Anyway, this is not some kind of a joke. I mean it when I say I need you to go. Please… just leave me be."

"That's it? You're scared to break a pattern because you think it will hurt me?" Sakura breathed out, in half-anger, half-surprise. "Sounds like an excuse to me."

The fear in him climbed up twofold, it's how he knew he was nearing the truth. He hated it, not being able to fight this battle the way he fought every other. Knowing his enemy, with all his weapons familiar and within reach. All he had was the sheets on his bed covering him and it was the same for Sakura, he felt that she was just as vulnerable. Excuse? Maybe. What about it? If it was how he survived, then so be it. He had welcomed all the lies that he could take, to get him through the nights.

"How about you try something different this time, huh?" Sakura whispered, her intonation going up at the end.

"Don't tell me to try and get attached for a change." Kakashi scoffed. "Because I always do."

"You do realize you have helped me become... great? I'm practically cooler than you and can take care of myself alright. I know you're worried about me ending up hurt, but I'll be fine, you know. Stop worrying about not being able to… protect me or something." Sakura sighed, head shaking.

The pause after her words plunged deep into him and it weighed down, making it a little harder for him to breathe. It was unbearable, so he sat up, staring at her, almost looming over her with this inexplicable helplessness and anger whirling in his chest.

"I'm not worried about you!"

Sakura fazed, recoiling at the sudden loud intonation, withering with sadness at the sight of him, putting on display a raw emotion that he's been avoiding for a long time. Her eyes watered. Good, she finally understood then. That what she did was, in a strange way, doing more harm than good. That the better he felt, the worse it struck him afterwards because he couldn't imagine having to care as much as she did.

"I can't love you," Kakashi announced and at the moment he said the words, he felt like someone else said them to him and he hadn't fully apprehended them until they came out of his mouth, out loud. Something stung at the back of his eyes when he saw Sakura utterly devastated, but still drawing near to hug him.

"Kakashi," Sakura's calm voice came somewhere close to his ear as she weaved around him, still messily wrapped in the sheets, and pressed her body close to his, her palms tightly against his shoulder blades so that he could feel all of her warmth. "I don't think you know what love is."

Her head tilted back to look at him with the smallest of smiles and he found himself pressing her body closer, just to feel her heartbeat, and she complied, resting against the crook of his neck silently. There was something enchanting about the way she touched, at first sight just giving out affection, but he felt caught up and entangled in a soothing way, and only she could create such a feeling. It was the same even before, when she healed him during missions.

"And you know?"

Sakura shrugged, backing away to look in his eyes. She knew to whom he was referring to, it was in the wounded look of her eyes. Hers wasn't an easy path either. "You've seen rupture, I offer solace. It's nowhere near painful… and it's free." The tears rolled down her eyes as her hand came up to his face, her thumb brushing down his scar. "Give it one last try. For me."

Kakashi furrowed at her.

"If you don't stop crying, you'll make me cry too. Again."

Sakura trembled with a chuckle, grabbing the thin end of her sheet and brushing off the tears. "I'm sorry. That's the last thing I want to do. It's the last thing."

For a moment he forgot what they were talking about because she licked her lips absently, putting away a loose strand of hair that she was irritated by.

"I think… I'll go take a shower."

"Kakashi," Sakura warned, gripping at his arm. She was waiting for an answer, even though she never asked a question. He knew his fingers were shaking and she felt it, against the bare skin of her back. She felt the reluctance and the cowardice, but didn't point them out, she just waited, like always, her warmth sifting through the light fabric.

She made it easy, to decide to trip again, to fall, despite how unfathomably scared he was.

"I think you'll have to take a shower with me."

Sakura laughed, wrapping hands around his neck happily. "Better."

A/N: Sorry for pouring out a bucket of feels on you all, I said this is gonna be a sad af fanfic. I've got 4 deadlines and things to do, but I wanted a break so hey! why don't I write some smut and angst, huh? I don't have any idea what I'm doing, but this was planned for 9 or 10 chapters or something like that? Not sure when I'll find the time for them, though. You're warned. Also, I hope this will display how obsessed Sakura is with Kakashi in my fic and how Kakashi low key needs someone to be obsessed with him lol

Another headcanon of mine! (psychology time! the mind's defences and distractions against emotional issues of any kind drop completely for a little while after a nice sex and that triggers tears and the feeling of being upset)(this affects both genders and it actually happens super often and people are usually super confused about it) So, please do imagine Kakashi with his thousand traumas and his usual carefree behaviour having to face them because his brain had removed the coping defences. I bet he's gonna be hella upset.