And this is my first Naruto fanfic. Um. yes. Take it as you will.
(To the under-appreciated olfactory sense, kakasaku style)
Breathing Memory
A scent sometimes stays longer in memory than an image. Images grow old in the mind, tarnished and distorted by thought and opinion, and many times are forgotten. But smells last. Sakura knew that.
Sakura didn't see her former teammates or sensei often anymore, being a medical ninja afforded little off-time. Naruto was always off doing who-knows-what for Konoha, being the Hokage and all (she remembered the aroma of ramen on the night she and Naruto and all their comrades stormed Ichiraku and devoured ramen in congratulations to the Rokudaime.), Sasuke had disappeared and was roaming the continent (the scent of the solitary sakura blossom and the farewell letter lingered in her mind even after all these months, though the flower had withered and the paper crumpled). And Kakashi was...he was...what was he doing these days?
Some said he left the village and was now in another country, happily married and watching over his son (Sakura highly doubted that), others said he had hidden himself away in the mountains and was leading an ascetic life to atone for the lives he had taken (she definitely didn't believe THAT), while a few thought that he was managing Jiraiya's bathhouses until Naruto had time or was legally eligable to take care of them (that sounded about right in her mind). At any rate, he wasn't here. And he hadn't been in Konoha for four long years.
And for everything that had ever crossed her mind and her nose, the way Kakashi-sensei had smelled always lingered. As Sakura filled out the medical files on her desk, she couldn't help dwelling on it. A hospital was so sterile, it never smelled of a thing unless blood or vomit or whatnot from the violence of the outside world came and interrupted it. Thus without a smell of its own, it never seemed real. Sakura put her pen down and thought long and hard. What did he use to smell like, what did he smell like...
She thought of him passing by her one day after training. There was a slight gust, and as he passed, with his dirty book in one hand (he was SO at the bathhouses), she caught a whiff of a clean smell of bamboo, a minty smell, too, and a wood scent. The springtime flowers hadn't blossomed yet, and she was covered in mud, and a clean scent suddenly made her jump.
And when he said good- bye to her before he went looking for Sasuke and Naruto, he gave her a brief hug and sauntered away, she caught again in her nose that clean smell once again: dark and pleasant, clean and deadly, only something Kakashi could pull off. He didn't wear cologne, she didn't think, and she was sure he didn't change his clothes that often, so how could he smell so good all the time?
She smiled at the rememberance of the time their team had to go shovel manure for a farmer. The odor that hit them caused the genin to retch, and Naruto had blurted out, "WHAT'S THAT SMELL?" Kakashi had chuckled, and said, "That's the smell of my cologne". With that comment in mind, they spent the day making mean remarks about the fetid stench and Kakashi, but Sakura never stopped wondering about how he could smell so good. It was awkward that she'd remember him this way, but that was just how it was...
Her secretary suddenly knocked on the office door, and Sakura snapped out of her reverie. "Yes?" Sakura inquired, shoving the paperwork to her left, causing some to fall into the trashcan. "Someone sent you flowers, Sakura-san", the girl murmured, carrying in an odd bouquet/bonsai garden/ arrangement of plants. Whoever did it wasn't Ino, thought the pink-haired medic nin, but she kept the comment to herself and relieved the girl of the mass of...plants.
Sakura set it precariously on top of another mass of paperwork and medical journals, just next to an open window in her office. She continued to work, and tried not to be distracted by the monsterous pot of greenary and things.
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew through the open window, upsetting the papers all over Sakura's office, causing a blizzard of forms, magazines, and reports. But that didn't concern her, because she suddenly smelled something she hadn't smelled in ages.
It clean like a river and dark like rainy nights in Konoha when she was all alone wishing for someone and it stirred hope because she knew, she knew that smell, it was like home and it was familiar and heart-wrenching and it couldn't be, but it was, through and through. The room was suddenly filled with the scent of Kakashi.
But how? Sakura turned to the mass of plants and began noticing what was in it...everything that ever came to mind. Bamboo, and, bergamot, and orange blossoms. Digging through the leaves, she grabbed the card that she hadn't noticed before that was in the chaos.
And when she read what was on the simple white card, she sunk to the ground, cried, smiled, and laughed.
It read:
Guess who it is?