Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter 2: Cherry Tree / In which Sakura reveals her love

"There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery" (Lord Jim; ch. 24).

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March 28, 16 A.K.

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The moon rises, slim and lovely, the curve of her pale cheek a beacon against the dark backdrop of her hair that spans an infinity. Night has crept up and now curls around the earth of leaves and shadows and trees, a luxurious panther with eyes shut tight.

Beauty, black and velvet, yawns through the streets, a thick shimmer on the still forms of resting villagers. Stars glitter as ornaments above a cherry tree that bends an elegant arc into the sky, branches smooth and leaves coiled.

There are no buds on this tree.

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A pale girl, whose eyes flash bright and hair flashes brighter, raps on the door of her former teacher's apartment. She stands on his doorstep, a cold and lonely-lost nearly-woman—with a face set in frigid calm. Her name is Sakura, for the cherry blossom, and at sixteen, she fits her name like the recent-bought kimono left at home stretches tight about her hips.

Bristle-brush gray hair greets her as the door opens, and a heavy eyelid rises.

"Sakura," the man says. "It's nice to see you."

Sakura smiles to herself. She knows it's well past midnight—well past the hour when decent people sleep. She knows that he knows. But apparently, he isn't going to make a fuss.

Ninjas are not known for being decent people.

"It's nice to see you too, Kakashi…" Sakura says, and drifts off meaningfully.

As Kakashi grins, Sakura sees that the face mask doesn't stretch as far as she remembers. Either her memories are blurring, or Kakashi's strained. But then, it's been a while since his only female student—the only one to remain safe and secure in Konoha—has paid a visit to his one-room apartment. This time, a frozen pink flower alone and cold on his doorstep, there is nothing to excuse her.

"Yes, Sakura?"

Sakura sighs. Kakashi's still as difficult as she remembers. And if the last time she saw him, head bent and eyes closed in the field of death, serves as any proof—He hasn't grown. He's still the same man whose heart is tied to the grave of Konoha's ninjas.

"May I come in?"

Without a word, Kakashi creaks open the door—too lazy to oil the hinges, Sakura thinks—and moves to set a dusty kettle on a dustier stove.

"Tea?" he asks, and receives a nod from Sakura.

Stark blank walls as gray as Kakashi's hair box in a room that seems as if it hasn't been a home since before the Second War. A ratty blanket carries in its threads a dim, washed-out shade of Sakura's eyes and a trim of worn shurikens. It lies on a suspiciously-clean white bed. And white is the second-most prevalent color in the room, gracing the solitary pillow, the chipped rice-cooker, and the sheets that bear slight crumples with a distasteful flair. There's a cracked table, a scarred floor, and the smeared, scratched-up ceiling looks as if Naruto had painted it.

According to Sakura's calendar, that bold blond on that happy head's been gone two years, three months, and sixteen days. Sakura's counted—she dots each day off with a neat red pen—and she misses those yellow spikes. Naruto is her dream, her hope, her only chance for peace and yet the very trigger of disaster, and if he dies, she'll be the last of her team, but—

Naruto's nothing compared to Sasuke.

Sasuke was her dream, her hope, her only chance for peace and yet the very trigger of all disaster.

He was her heart.

The hem of Sakura's dress curls around a sharp-edged foot of the knee-high table. It's an understated work of red medium-cost cloth, but it's cut slim and low enough to arouse—if Kakashi was the type to be aroused by real-life women. The only women he's known for the past ten years, if Sakura's sources are accurate, are the succulent females that adorn the pages of his dirty orange books, pocket-size and the perfect tool for ignoring his students.

Sakura tries not to resent him. But it's a little late for such restraint when she's sitting at his table drinking his tea (which tastes like water) and watching him tap his mask with vague, uneasy hands before tugging it down. He angles his head away from her as he sips; props up his head with his left hand, fingers resting on his nose.

"So, what have you learned these past few months?" Kakashi asks after swirling down the last drops from his cup. He repositions the mask with great care.

"I've just taken the test on the reproductive system," his only female student informs him.

Paint-bold diagrams, flat and jarring, are recalled by Sakura. Her Sannin teacher etching the curve of a mammary gland with a manicured nail. A slight smirk on Tsunade's face as she points out the male organs. Detailed monologues on the life cycle, age, vitality…virility.

Sakura had absorbed it all.

There was one thing, however, that she hadn't quite sucked in like a sponge. It stays as a nettling particle lodged between pores. During the lesson, Tsunade's smirk had been followed by a frown as a head not-quite-overgrown with white fur had peered in and announced it was time for lunch. Sakura could've sworn she'd heard Tsunade mutter, "Damn those Jiraiya look-alikes."

It almost seems as if Tsunade misses that white fur more than Sakura misses those yellow spikes.

Sakura knows they love each other. She just doesn't know why they fold it under laughing pranks and stiff rebuttals. She doesn't understand why they don't understand the urgency of their situation—how one day the snake that waits to cinch tight around their circle will squeeze until they writhe with pain.

But then, she's never understood love. Not the soft sighs or the flutter kisses or the burning eyes, not the raging blazing passions that her dates have professed, merciless in their smooth-tongued confessions.

She understands desire. After all, desire's just a result of libido and natural urges and the need to reproduce and all those other phrases that have to do with reason. But love, love has no logical explanation, no clever way to label and package it without sounding downright silly.

So Sakura does what she's always done when she doesn't understand, and makes up her own definition. Love is—

"Is that so?" Kakashi says. He meets her eyes without expression, and again his dirty secret comes to mind. Actually, it's the dirty secret that isn't really a secret, since he holds it up as a shield between himself and the rest of the world.

Those perverted novels by that perverted man who the perverted Hokage loves.

With a slight relish and a need to disturb, Sakura answers, "Yes. We used two corpses and I had to touch all the parts."

If Kakashi's bothered, it doesn't show. Instead, he arcs one eyebrow—the only one Sakura can see—and says, "That's an interesting method."

Sakura frowns. "What other method is there?"

After a pause, Kakashi replies, "I don't remember the medic-nin I used to work with mentioning that to me."

"You worked with a medic-nin? I thought Tsunade had just started sending medic-nins out with every team—"

"It was a long time ago."

The topic is closed. Draining her cup, Sakura decides it's time to get to the point, so she makes an off-hand comment.

"You know, it's my birthday today."

Flowers bought from the Yamanaka shop will be strewn all over the faded floorboards of her house. Once the sun has stumbled out of bed, there'll be a gaggle of relatives eager to bundle her up with wishes for her health and wrap her up in hopes for her prosperity. And when she refuses to remove the Konoha forehead protector from her hair that marks her as a full ninja of the village, she'll try not to notice the wary glint in their eyes or the calculated glitter of their smiles.

Kakashi has a comment of his own. "That's very fitting."

"How so?"

Sakura knows the answer, but she wants to hear it from Kakashi.

"Cherry blossoms appear in spring," he says.

"The cherry tree in my front yard hasn't flowered since Sasuke left."

There's no preamble before she deliberately mentions the unmentionable. It's as if they're carrying on some sort of conversation about the one who began the end for their team. Kakashi's one-eyed gaze doesn't falter, doesn't drop. But he doesn't say anything, either.

"Ino says that it won't bloom until I find another love."

It's the official, unbiased opinion of a horticulturist.

Kakashi has no response, so his former student tries again.

"Do you think she's right?"

His silence prompts her to offer her own opinion.

"I think it's kind of a ridiculous diagnosis, but I agree that it's odd behavior for a tree."

Kakashi blinks. Teeth nipping down her impatience, Sakura continues,

"Sasuke's been gone a long time. I loved him—and I still do—but he left. I know why—Tsunade's told me, but… It doesn't excuse anything. He didn't have to leave us. He didn't have to become his brother in order to kill his brother. It'd be—it'd be like killing himself."

But he's always worn a death-wish around him like a cloak, a nasty voice whispers in Sakura's head. He's always had that suicidal bent, despite all his haughty talk about defeating "that man." Why do you think he nearly got himself killed countless times saving you and Naruto?

Sakura shakes her head free from the sharp voice and its sharp words. "But I've… I've forgotten that. I've grown in order to forget Sasuke, to forget how it felt when he left me on that bench and when he left Naruto and when we didn't hear anything of him. It's like scar tissue has grown over that part of my heart that was Sasuke."

Kakashi merely watches her and says nothing.

"Damn it, Kakashi, I've grown," Sakura explodes. "What in the name of the Kyuubi is wrong with you?"

There's resentment in that dark eye at the word "Kyuubi," and for a moment the eye narrows.

"There's nothing wrong except a heart too old to understand love," Kakashi says slowly.

A harsh laugh erupts from Sakura.

"It's the young that don't understand love," she tells him. "I thought I was in love with Sasuke, but I outgrew that. And though I'm not in love with him now, I still love him, to the point that I would die for him. But it's not the type of love that can be affirmed with a rose. It's the type of love that teammates have."

If she stares hard enough, she can see that there's a slight twitch of his eye and a quiver of his mask.

"Liar," Kakashi says, voice a killing soft. "You can't outgrow love. You can't grow to forget it."

Sakura's eyes widen and her breath stops. As if to soften the blow, Kakashi extends a hand of placation.

"You must not understand love then, Sakura," Kakashi tells her gently, "because you are still young."

Sakura's smart. She hears the implication in his words. He knows why she's here. He's trying to ward her off.

But being intuitive doesn't stop her pale face from paling further. It doesn't halt the tightening of her lips as she says coolly, "Good night, Kakashi."

Her dress trails behind, sweeping her bitterness along with her.

"You're right that I must not understand love yet, Kakashi," Sakura says as she reaches the door.

Finger-pads on the icy knob, her head arches to face him.

"Because I could've sworn the day before that you loved me."

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The moon glares hard and cruel as a weapon as it dangles before a bare cherry tree. Limbs outstretched, the naked wood is shorn.

A/N: Lord Jim is a classic novel by Joseph Conrad. Reviews and concrit appreciated.