Hysteric Ease
2
Written by: teckno
Dawn made its way up the cotton bed sheets in delicate rays of soft sunlight. Kakashi, having an arm draped over his face, was not able to avoid the streaming warmth that awakened him. He opened his eyes and felt something breathing next to him. Pulling his arm away, the silver-haired man found his torso entwined in the arms of his student, Sasuke.
Cautious not to wake the smaller one, a quiet and calm sigh escaped the man as he recalled the events from the night before. The sound of his subordinate's loud and agonizing screams ached in endless rings inside Kakashi's thumping heart. The sight of the cuts and gashes on the kid's arms sent sharp pinches to the teacher's torrent veins. Sasuke's tear-stricken face, splashed and filled with years of loneliness and torment made the man's chest twist severely as if to try and ring out such a painful visual. His body was not handling what he saw last night very well. All those images were loud enough to almost shatter every piece of his solid ribcage.
For a long time, Kakashi was well aware of Sasuke's traumatizing past and the Uchiha clan massacre that the child's older brother, Itachi apathetically held responsible for. Sasuke was eagerly eight at that time. To hear about another's tragedy was one thing but to witness and feel a small fiber of the depthless and haunting darkness that runs deep within an individual's breathing soul for a night was, beyond doubt, absolutely frightening. Did he make an appropriate move in comforting Sasuke? Kakashi wondered as he laid in the quiet grip of numbness, staring at the blank ceiling above them. His actions could not be helped and irreversible. He had no rushing of an emotion as of yet, only questions—many questions.
Despite Sasuke being fourteen years Kakashi's junior, it was not the greater age difference that troubled the teacher but the tentative outcome and well-being of the new relationship that recently formed between them. Will it be able to help Sasuke or will it further deepen the turmoil that lives within this kid? Only time knows.
Looking caringly and with uncertainty at the softly sleeping student curled below him, Kakashi could only comb his slender fingers through the young boy's dark hair and hope for the best as he then pulled away from the boy and bed, carefully and silently.
Naruto's left hand balled energetically into a tight shaking fist while his right index finger pointed arrogantly, almost threateningly at his dark-haired rival in blue, who stood casually by a tree, unmoved by the theatrics that was unfortunately faced in his direction.
"Hey, Sasuke!" The boy in blonde chimed confidently, looking to the side to check if his teammate/crush, Sakura took notice of his bold, superior and hokage-worthy actions. "I will beat you in training today!" A wide and cheesy, eye-squinting grin followed.
Just like the brightening orange clothes that accompanied him, Naruto's words were burning acid, dissolving away the remaining tolerance that Sasuke had left in his system.
"You don't even know what we're going to do yet, idiot." Replied the recipient of the little naive threat.
Sasuke crossed his arms and watched as his predictable and hotheaded teammate grit his teeth and stomp the grass beneath them. He could a hear a low growl building up from the blonde's throat but as usual, out came a firm chuckle.
"Ha ha! Doesn't matter! Whatever Kakashi-sensei is making us do today, I will still beat you anyway!" Naruto exclaimed, producing more proud grins.
A light blush swept through Sasuke's cheeks at the sound of his teacher's name. His chest tensed a bit, remembering how warm and comforting Kakashi's body felt next to his the night before and how incredibly embarrassed he felt this morning, waking up to an empty bed. He could feel his face and neck grow hotter. Why was he feeling this way? A racing heart made him wonder if Kakashi acted that way towards him just to make him shut up or that he truly cared. A part of him wanted reassurance from his teacher and the other half wanted to completely forget about everything and pretend nothing happened—it was stupid and weak. Putting his pride in jeopardy was not the preferred route.
"Sasuke? Are you okay?" Came a soft voice. She placed a hand on his arm to have it nudged off. The girl gave a tiny gasp and took a step back, allowing the boy in blue to have some space.
"I'm fine, Sakura." He responded, uncaringly, avoiding contact with the green-eyed and pink-haired pest. Her head lowered faintly in disappointment.
"Huhhh! What is taking Kakashi-sensei so long?" Naruto squeezed his way in between the two as he had his hands shading his face, searching the forest clearing for any signs of their absent teacher.
A gentle rustling of leaves made all heads turn. Seeing who it was, Sasuke immediately looked away. His face faltered to a grimace in attempt to hide the reddening blush he felt coming. He desperately wanted to run, jump into a bush—do something to get rid of the unusual reaction that his body was making. Can't even handle a glimpse—how pathetic! The boy thought.
Kakashi's long legs hung freely over a thick and mossy branch as he sat relaxingly on top of a nearby tree—the faithful orange romance novel not far from his drowsy eyes. "Good morning, everyone!" said the anticipated masked man with a gloved hand raised, a gesture to let the enraged children down below acknowledge the fact that he had shown up.
Naruto and Sakura's eyes both transformed drastically into enormously rounded white circles. Angered, their mouths dropped wide open at such tardiness from the respected elite ninja. Imaginary flames began to blaze explosively out from above their heads and eyeballs. How dare Kakashi-sensei make them wait this long!
Tucking the book somewhere securely inside his flak jacket, Kakashi said to his pupils, "I'm afraid I've overslept," as an excuse for arriving two hours late and also for thinking excessively about Sasuke.
"Liar!" Naruto shouted, jumping and pointing at his deceitful teacher. "That was a lame one, Kakashi-sensei!"
"Yeah! At least pretend to be sorry!" The girl barked, shaking one of her fists angrily at the man.
Sighing, the man looked down to see the two ferociously circling and clawing at the bottom of the tree like leopards, about to leap up the trunk to attack him while the other student stood to the side at a distance, frozen and uneasy. The young boy's back was turned, Uchiha clan symbol and all. It looks like my presence is bothering Sasuke—What's he thinking? Did I do something to hurt him? Kakashi wondered with slight doubt, starring intently at his student's nervous composure. Naruto's snarling and demands of training instructions from below quickly took the teacher's attention back to his scheduled session.
"In other news…" The silver-haired ninja swiftly hopped out of the branch and landed firmly onto the fresh grass on one knee. He stood up, stuffing his hands into pockets. "…This is our last day for training before we go to the Land of Waves." Kakashi announced.
Sasuke forgot his insecurities and turned to the direction of the unexpected announcement. Naruto's eyes grew big with excitement. His teacher had not said something like this before.
"Why are we going there?" Sakura asked to make sure it wasn't some joke, while her blonde teammate prayed ruthlessly for the greatest reason—a mission!
"The bridge-builder, Tazuna-san of the Land of Waves has hired us as bodyguards. We will embark on our first mission this week." Kakashi's eyes loosely met Sasuke's burning black orbs as he finished speaking. The boy was caught off guard as the feeling of time was iced into a deep slumber. Why did his teacher look at him like that? He could not continue any more questions. Flowing blood in his circulation began to violently pick up speed. They both felt a magnetic trance at that moment, a soft force that wanted to pull both of them into each other's embracing hold. Kakashi unconsciously took his hands out of his pockets. His right hand was twitching as he began raise it, wanting to reach for the boy and tell him that everything would be all right. Sasuke still held his grimace as he continued to stare at the one eye that was looking at him but his foot fell heavily into the hypnosis that reeked the air and it took one step forward. Kakashi-sensei…
"Yeeaaaahhh! We're goin' on a mission! We're goin' on a mission! " Naruto cried, breaking the trance and giving Kakashi an irritated wrinkle on the side of his forehead. "I love you Kakashi-sensei!" The blonde mercilessly pounced on his teacher for a hug, both falling hard on the green grass.
"Get off! You're embarrassing me!" Hollered the silver-haired man, struggling to rip Naruto's grasp off his body.
"Geez Naruto, You went over your limit!" Sakura scowled at the boy in orange, whose arms drooped lifelessly over his teammate's delicate shoulders. Naruto had used up all his strength to capture all the stray kittens in the forest that Kakashi ordered the team to do so. This was expected of the blonde at the end of every training session
"I am… so… prepared to go…to the… Land of Waves!" Naruto said in between satisfying and exhausted gasps.
"Good work! I am very proud of the effort that everyone has put into today's session! Don't be late for our mission in two days!" Kakashi, in the midst of flipping a page of the novel, concluded the session to a tree. He was not even facing his students. The teacher did not pay attention to anything that happened at all. His eyes have been consumed into the world of Make-Out Paradise since the beginning. Soon after he had said everything, Kakashi closed the orange book shut and drew his attention towards walking behind Naruto and Sakura back to the village.
The girl in red let out an agitated sigh as she helped dragged Naruto's body out of the forest. She quickly stopped halfway and turned around, noticing that Sasuke was not following behind them. "Sasuke…?" Sakura frowned, knowing that her crush had a tendency to disappear anytime he felt like.
"Uh, Sorry guys but I just remembered that I am suppose to report this last training session to the Hokage to verify the start of our first mission. Bye-bye now!" Kakashi made up an excuse as he then formed a stance that would eventually cause him to disappear in a puff, leaving Sakura and Naruto to walk back to the village alone.
The dark-haired twelve-year old hid behind a large tree, his back against the trunk. Breathing hard, he scowled himself for having such difficulty concentrating in training and also for wondering why Kakashi had deliberately left after the session was done. His heart began to flutter like a million butterfly wings. Was Kakashi-sensei playing with his mind? Was the man taking advantage of him after the exposure he displayed last night? Or is he trying to pretend nothing happened too? Sasuke took one big slam at the trunk behind him with his fist and stepped out of the hiding place. He will not be taken as a fool! The clearing was empty, empty like loneliness. He stared down at the grass, finding a large shadow looming over him. Before he could turn around to see the person responsible for the shadow, it was too late—the monster's arms wrapped themselves around his small abdomen, neck and mouth. Sasuke tried to struggle as the beast pulled him into the tall grass. As soon as the freak laid down and released his grasp from the child on top of it, Sasuke rapidly whirled around, about to strike the person at the neck but discovered it was only his beloved, now startled, teacher under him.
"K-Kakashi-sensei?" The young boy was in utter shock, his legs straddled over the older man's hips.
"Yo." Kakashi pulled both his metal headband and mask off to sit up and give Sasuke a small kiss on the side of his cheek. He stroked the child's black strands of hair, releasing a warm smile.
Overwhelmed and unable to hold up his tough exterior and pride, tears ran down Sasuke's chin as he collapsed on top of the teacher's comforting chest, pushing his wet face into the olive jacket and enveloping his arms around Kakashi with the feeling of not wanting to let go. "Kakashi-sensei, I thought you forgot about me." He said, tightening his hold of the man's chest.
The silver-haired teacher placed one hand over his student's back and exhaled. "No, Sasuke. Of course I did not forget." Kakashi began to rub the boy's back gently in hopes of stopping the tears. "I don't think I can bear watching you having another nightmare. I can't let you suffer all by yourself. I can't-I won't-I mean-" This was the elite ninja's first time of being at lost for words. His eyes began to blur, remembering his own experiences of losing people that he had loved dearly and battling the pain alone throughout most of his life. Kakashi embraced his student, leaning his forehead forward against the top of the boy's head of hair.
Sasuke's eyes looked up, seeing a tear trail run down from his teacher's red and scarred eye. "Don't cry, Sensei." He whispered, lifting a hand up to touch the vertical scar. The man grabbed the student's hand and kissed it at each fingertip.
"I want you to be happy. My mind is set, Sasuke. I'm not ever going to leave your side." The man lowered his head until both of their noses were touching.
"Kakashi-sensei…"
They shared a long and loving kiss with smiles in between. The two had not been close to anyone for years, living day by day with no one to accompany them on their lonely nights. As Kakashi continued to explore Sasuke's sweet mouth, he knew that they would never be alone ever again.