The Anatomy of Love
Written By: Banana007
Chapter 20: Interrogation
A/N: I don't normally post on Sunday but I was too tired on Saturday, so here you go!
Cold shafts of sunlight spilled through the lobed leaves of the palm trees that lined Sakura's path as she trudged on, her feet dragging heavy. It was still early in the afternoon that the sidewalks were clustered with the occasional throng of students making their way to the local establishments for some weekend fun, but she was just anxious to get home. Home to where her childhood bedroom and all her housed stuffed animals awaited her, offering a semblance of safety and comfort.
Yet her feet carried her onward to that empty apartment where she would check every lock of every window and door because what if Mizuki had followed her home and found where she lived? What if he had picked the lock or snuck onto the fire escape while she'd been alone on a weekend? What if he'd taken photos of her during the times she'd walked around the apartment naked and lulled by a false sense of security?
There were too many what if's churning through Sakura's mind as she continued spiraling down that bottomless pit of fear in her head.
So Mizuki had been arrested, but what did it matter when there were still countless people like him out there? How could she tell who was a sheep and who was a wolf in sheep's clothing? How could she differentiate a nice person from a good person?
All this time, she had thought she knew what red flags to look out for. Don't take rides with strangers. Don't look away from your drink. Always be aware of your surroundings. Don't go anywhere you don't know with someone you don't know. Yadda yadda.
There was all this talk about stranger danger, but nobody ever talked about the dangers of people who you know. Nobody ever talked about the uncle who hugs you too tight, the neighbor who always keeps to themselves, or the teacher who...
Sakura shuddered and walked faster, harried by the idea that every eye in the world was on her and undressing her with their intrusive leers.
Clutching her pepper spray tighter in one hand and the strap of her backpack in the other, she fought back a wave of envy as she thought of where Hinata, Tenten, and Ino were right now. They were all safe in the comfort of their homes—in the arms of their fathers and mothers who had always protected them from every blemish in the world. And though Sakura could not blame her friends for their privilege, she could not help but envy them.
And she hated that envious side of her. Almost as much as she hated how she had to make a mental list of how many locks she would have to check tonight and how many windows she would have to buy curtains for.
As she was in the middle of drafting that list in her head, the tip of her sandal caught the edge of the sidewalk. She flew forth, raising her hands to catch the sidewalk before her face could. The cold bite of the cement knocked the can of pepper spray from her hand as well as the breath from her lungs.
"Fuck," Sakura muttered under her breath.
Standing up, she dusted off the loose dirt still clinging to her skinned palms, wincing as she did so. There was no bleeding, but the heels of her palms where she'd caught the sidewalk were red and raw, the first layer of skin torn and peeling. But Sakura only groaned out in frustration when she scanned the area and saw her pepper spray was nowhere to be found.
Well, today was just off to a fucktastic start!
She kicked at a street lamp in anger only to wince again when her big toe banged too hard against the solid metal. Hopping on one foot now to ease the pain, Sakura stole a look around to make sure nobody had seen that. Except for a random guy at the gas station further down, there was no one around—wait—she whipped her face back to scrutinize the silver head glinting under the sun.
A tide of emotions hit her—excitement, warmth, worry, and then relief washed over. All that fear that'd been percolating in her stomach since this morning soon ebbed away, and suddenly she could breathe with ease again. Without the urge to throw up. Without her hand itching to reach for the pepper spray. Without wondering if she was in danger again.
From afar, she stared at Kakashi's broad back, noting the black leather jacket he wore despite the weather still warm enough for at least a long sleeve. And—she squinted past his figure to glimpse the sleek white vehicle he leaned against—was that a motorcycle?
Briefly, Sakura checked around to see if her professor was in the middle of a photoshoot or something because the image of him looked like something straight out of a Vogue magazine. All he needed was a bit of wind to get his silver locks flowing, and then open up his jacket to show off those steel abs—gods, stop thinking like Ino!
She gave herself a light smack on the cheeks before focusing on Kakashi again.
Clad in a black leather jacket with a motorcycle at his side, Kakashi looked more like a black knight with his iron steed; a picture come to life from the very pages of the fairytales her mother used to read to her. But the black knights Sakura remembered in her childhood had always been Machiavellian men who committed such malicious crimes that she'd often fallen asleep with the duvet pulled over her head.
Her heart then began to beat faster, but whether it was from anxiety or something else, she couldn't tell which. It was only mere hours ago that the news about Mizuki had been revealed. It was mere hours ago that she had found out a man who she was supposed to trust—and did trust—had been the very person she shouldn't have ever trusted.
Her right foot took a step forward but then she pulled back.
The urge to go to Kakashi warred with the fear of the unknown. The fear that he was the same as Mizuki and had lied to her and... done things to her without her knowledge. Without her consent.
'Believe me when I say Kakashi's the kind of guy you can trust with your life,' Professor Iruka's words cut through Sakura's slew of thoughts and gave her pause.
That's right. There had been so many times Kakashi could have taken advantage of her and the very first night they'd met had been the perfect opportunity. Having a drunk girl lead you to her new apartment? She'd practically served herself up on a silver platter and he'd done nothing about it. She was sure now that had she run into Mizuki that night instead of Kakashi, she probably would be standing in a police station and not in front of a gas station.
And as she stood before that gas station, she saw a few feet ahead that the sidewalk split into two choices for her. If she kept going straight, she would return to the apartment where only a cold emptiness awaited her, and she would check every lock before hiding away under the covers of her bed. But if she followed where the sidewalk split into the right, she would walk right into the gas station where Kakashi was and... see where it went from there.
Should she choose familiarity? Or the unknown?
Taking a few steps forward until she stood at the crossroads, Sakura clutched a hand over her chest, feeling every beat of her heart urge her to turn right even as logic argued to just walk on.
She sucked in a deep breath and decided to bite the bullet and turn right.
.
.
.
The first thing Sakura noticed when she approached Kakashi was his eyes.
There was something different about them today; they lacked that icy antagonism from the marathon fundraiser, but they were darker than normal. So dark and seemingly absent of any life that it was like staring into obsidian glass. And as she neared her Anatomy professor, he made no sign that he noticed her even as her sandals crunched on loose gravel.
He stood so still, shoulders hunched over and hands deep in his pockets that, if she didn't know any better, it seemed he was trying to shrink away from the world. As if he was just as sad and lonely as she was, and didn't have any home to take shelter in, just as she didn't.
He was leaned against the seat of his motorcycle, a white and majestic beast of a vehicle with a height that nearly rivaled hers. His hair, unruly as ever, appeared even more disheveled somehow as if he'd taken a morning stroll right through a storm and come out of it as only a shadow of the man he had once been.
But those eyes... where was the life in them? What horrors had he seen in whatever storm he'd come out of that made him gaze straight ahead into the horizon as if he was watching the coming of the apocalypse?
When Sakura stood a respectful distance away and Kakashi still did not acknowledge, she quietly cleared her throat to announce her presence. "Mr. Hatake..?"
He didn't answer.
She took a chance and stepped a little closer. The little hairs on her arms stood up as if there was some sort of charge in the air. Something dangerous that she couldn't quite put a finger on but could practically taste on her tongue. There was this gut instinct warning her to stay away from Kakashi the same way her instincts would've warned her to stay away from a predator.
Had it been anyone else, she would have. She would have turned and walked away—all the way back to her apartment where she could be left alone to her own devices and without the worry of sticking her nose into other people's business. But Ino had always said that even though Sakura was one of the smartest girls of their class, her downfall was her kind heart that always seemed to guide her to all kinds of people who were too bad for her own good.
But this time, it was not Sakura's kind heart that caused her to ignore her gut. Truthfully, it was out of selfishness that she took another step closer until she was only an arm's length away from her professor. "Kakashi?"
His lashes fluttered as he blinked very slowly like he was in the midst of waking from a dream or nightmare.
"Sakura...?" Kakashi called out to her in a whisper as his gaze fell upon her. He blinked again and suddenly his face sobered up. Like sunlight breaking through stormy clouds, the darkness in his eyes cleared away to that silver grey she was more familiar with. His back straightened as he registered that she was indeed real, and then he glanced around the gas station, seemingly confused by her appearing from out of nowhere. He returned his attention to her and drank in the simple dress she wore, brows knitting together like he saw her as a nymph that had wandered out of the woods and into a gas station.
On a normal day, Sakura would've felt like the v-neckline of her dress was too deep and plunging under Kakashi's observation. She would've blushed and wonder if the chartreuse shade of the dress matched terribly with her eyes. And maybe—just maybe—she would've imitated Ino's signature moves and pop her hip out or lean forward a bit to show off her non-existent cleavage.
But today was different.
She stepped closer until her sandalled feet with that chipped mint nail polish decorating her toes were inches away from the black leather of his boots. Until she was close enough to feel the heat of his body, see the light sheen of sweat over his brow, and worry if he might be having a fever. "Are you all right, Mr. Hatake?"
Kakashi stared down at her with a strange wonder as if he was still in the middle of his dream and was having difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy. When he started taking too long to answer, Sakura didn't hesitate to raise a hand to feel his temperature.
Her sudden movement towards him seemed to snap Kakashi out of his thoughts, however, and she let out a small gasp when he suddenly snatched her wrist to still her. His fingers were unexpectedly cold and they circled her wrist firmly, almost to the point of discomfort. She should've been afraid, but as if he'd sensed her pulse start to flutter anxiously against his grip, Kakashi released her almost as quickly as he'd caught her.
"What are you doing here?" he murmured, turning his eyes away from her shocked face.
"Um, I-I, uh..." Sakura stumbled over her words as she was still processing what had just happened. She tried not to touch her wrist—tried not to ask why his fingers were freezing cold when it wasn't even winter yet. "I-I was walking home from the library and, um, wanted to stop by for some soda." she explained.
He nodded slowly, still flexing the hand he'd used to stop her from touching him. It was obvious he wasn't in the mood for conversation, but Sakura didn't want to leave. Not yet. Because leaving now meant she would have to spend the rest of her day alone in that apartment with nothing but the silence and her anxiety to keep her company.
"Do you know if this station has cherry-flavored coke?" she asked, hoping it would lure him into another conversation.
Kakashi merely shook his head, refusing the bait. "I'm not sure. Sorry, sweets aren't really my thing."
Sakura tried to fight back her disappointment with a smile. "Okay... Well, I'll go check then."
She waited for his response but was met with a quiet grunt as he returned his attention to the horizon with that thousand-yard stare again. Holding back a sigh, she spun away and retreated into the gas station to draw up a new game plan.
As her hand passed over bags of chips and candy bars, she contemplated that melancholic look in his face. It wasn't the kind of look Sakura would've noticed on the first day of school but having gotten to know Kakashi in the past weeks, she could recognize the more subtle shifts of his expressions and attitude now. Despite the walls he put up and the mask of impassivity he wore beneath his literal mask, she could tell when he was genuinely happy just by the way the silver of his eyes brightened, or when he was peeved when the silver gaze sharpened. She knew when he was pissed when that silver faded into a smoky gunmetal grey, and when his eyes darkened into that icy storm of antagonism she'd only ever seen with Mizuki, she knew that was when something serious was up.
But that sadness in his eyes? That bottomless void of... nothing? That terrified Sakura more.
And when she stepped out of the store with an icy drink in each hand, she saw that sadness again in Kakashi. His expression was impassive as ever, but the lines across his face were drawn deeper and more pronounced, aging him by decades. He looked like a man who wore a young body but whose soul within had been stretched thin over the thirty-one years he'd lived.
Again, Kakashi didn't acknowledge her immediately when Sakura approached him. Not until she pressed one of the glass bottles in her hand against his cheek.
His eyes shot open and he instantly leapt away from the cold bottle, leaving Sakura to giggle at his reaction.
"Sorry, I wasn't sure if you could feel that through your mask," Sakura chuckled out, half-sheepish of her juvenile prank but half-proud of its success too.
"And I suppose your experiment was successful?" Kakashi said with a sardonic note in his voice.
Ah, he's coming back now.
She smiled and held out the bottled drink still sweating in her hand. "You said you don't like sweet stuff, so I got you some cold brew coffee instead, especially since you look as if you didn't get any sleep last night," Sakura said, hoping that would open up a chance for Kakashi to talk to her about whatever had been running through his mind just earlier. But when he reached for the drink, she gasped at the bruises coloring his knuckles and quickly took hold of his hand for a closer look. "Oh no, what happened to your knuckles?!"
"Oh, I..." He hesitated for a second. "I went boxing last night."
Holding his cold fingers in between hers, Sakura frowned in worry of the purple splotches staining his knuckles. She was glad to see that the skin hadn't split, but it still looked like an awful injury. Dropping that hand, she picked up his other one and clucked her tongue when she saw these knuckles were also just as badly bruised and swollen.
Geez, how hard was he punching the bag for his knuckles to get so raw like this?
"Here, hold your hands out," she instructed him. He obliged and Sakura pressed each drink over his hands to ice the injured joints. Kakashi's gaze was heavy on her face, but she was too focused on treating his bruises to care if he found this a bit inappropriate. "Aren't your boxing gloves supposed to protect your hands?"
In her peripheral vision, Kakashi's boots shifted. "I... guess they didn't?"
Sakura's frown deepened as she lifted the bottles to inspect his knuckles. "You need to be more careful, Mr. Hatake. This could be rheumatoid arthritis."
"... What?"
"If you bruised your knuckles just from a night of boxing then that could be a sign of a more serious issue like rheumatoid arthritis," Sakura began to explain, but she was cut off by a sudden bout of chuckles, deep and hearty. She finally glanced up to meet Kakashi's eyes, surprised to see them crinkled with mirth as if she had told him the most hilarious joke ever. "Wha... Mr. Hatake, I'm serious! Rheumatoid arthritis is no laughing matter for someone of your age since it's most likely to show up between the ages of 30 and 50 years old when you're, uh... middle age."
Kakashi's chuckles slowed to a stop at that.
"N-Not that I'm saying you're an old man!" Sakura hurriedly added although she felt she was just twisting the knife. Judging by the slightly pained expression he made, she might as well have stabbed him with a second knife when she said, "You're only... middle age! B-Barely!"
Gods, sometimes her mouth could be as big as her forehead.
"I guess middle-age is old in your book, huh?" Kakashi said with a wry smile. Too flustered to respond, Sakura could only busy herself with checking his knuckles again. The swell had died down, but they would remain purple for the next week or so, and she hated to think Kakashi wouldn't care enough to continue icing them at home later. She sighed and gently rubbed her thumb over his knuckles to test his reaction, but he seemed more preoccupied with what she was doing to notice any pain.
"Does it hurt at all?" Sakura asked, stroking his knuckles to catch any possible wince from him.
His eyes lingered on their hands before he raised his gaze to her face. Kakashi seemed to consider her more than her question, and she was surprised when his mouth twitched into a plaintive smile. "You shouldn't touch my hands, Sakura. They're... dirty."
Puzzled by what he meant, she turned his hands over to examine them more closely. Silver-white scars stood out in stark contrast to the lines on his palms, drawing another frown from her. Unable to help herself, Sakura lightly dragged her fingertips across the calloused skin to trace those scars, sensing Kakashi suck in a quiet breath as she did so. "Your hands don't look dirty to me?" she finally said, blinking up at him.
His gaze softened into a more pensive stare that somehow matched his subtle smile. Carefully, he drew his hands out of hers and reached for his back pocket. Realizing what he was doing, Sakura shook her head and hurriedly pressed the cold brew coffee into his palms. "Please, it's my treat."
"You sure?" Kakashi asked as he twisted the cap off the bottle to follow her lead. "I don't know if it's a good idea to be mooching off my own student."
"I'm not necessarily broke even though I am a college student," Sakura said, watching him tilt his head back and tug at his mask just far enough to take a sip. She observed the graceful shift of his Adam's apple but quickly took a sip of her own bottled coke when his eyes flitted back to her. "I live comfortably thanks to my parents sending me some money. Cost of living here is pretty cheap too, and I split the rent with Ino. I also worked my butt off with a lot of part-time jobs back in high school. Whatever gigs I could get my hands on. So yeah, I'm sure I can afford to buy you a drink. No alcohol though," she added with a frown. "You know, since I'm not legal yet."
Feeling like she was blabbing her mouth off now, Sakura took another swig of her coke to shut herself up.
"Well, I'm sure your age hasn't stopped you before," Kakashi said, smirking when she choked on her drink. "So what kind of gigs did you do back in high school?"
The heat of embarrassment in her face quickly drained away as Sakura found herself more pleased that Kakashi was making an effort to converse with her this time. On top of that, he was asking questions about her. As if he was genuinely interested in the mundane life of an average high school student.
So she told him about how she started her freshman year of high school working as a teacher's assistant and a tutor after school. Then she explained how much she hated working with Ino at their favorite burger joint one summer and couldn't eat burgers from there for at least a year. "Then I mowed some lawns, washed cars, tutored neighbors' children, and walked dogs. I would even bake goods or make some boba tea and sell the food at school even though it was against the rules."
She said that part a bit too proudly but, in her defense, she'd made quite a business out of it.
"So even as a kid, you were already breaking laws," Kakashi mused aloud, giving her an impressed look.
She sputtered over her drink again but recovered quicker this time. "Hey, it made me money! Or maybe you feel threatened that I can sugar mama you?" Sakura laughed in between coughs.
Kakashi snorted. "I assure you, I don't need a sugar mama. But I wouldn't be surprised if a student like yourself needs a sugar dad... dy," he finished awkwardly, realizing too late he'd set himself up.
Sakura bit back a grin. "Are you proposing, Mr. Hatake?" she asked teasingly, blinking her eyes innocently at him. She broke out in laughter upon seeing the tips of his ears redden and the way he tried to hide it by taking another draw from his coffee. Oh, he could be so adorable sometimes. "Hmm, I suppose I could use a sugar daddy," Sakura tapped her chin thoughtfully. "But I don't think I would make for a very good sugar baby."
Kakashi tipped a brow. "Because you don't like taking orders?"
"That, and... I'm a virgin, remember?" she quietly reminded him as he was in mid-sip of his drink. He stilled and their eyes met, and then Sakura could see in the corner of her eyes how his Adam's apple bobbed so sharply. "S-So I wouldn't be very experienced since I'm... since I've never... you know."
Something dark passed through Kakashi's face like a shadow as he lowered his drink. "Some men prefer virgins, Sakura."
His sudden solemnity caught her off guard and Sakura was still searching for a response when Kakashi abruptly changed the subject by asking her what her favorite part-time job was in high school.
"Definitely not the burger joint," he said jokingly with a crinkle of his eyes. There was that fake smile again—the same one he liked to wear when he wanted to hide something.
"Um, it was actually babysitting," Sakura answered, eyeing the fakeness of his smile slowly dissipate to match hers. Her smile widened as fond memories of caring for children whose parents had been too busy to spend time with them began to fill her mind. "Yeah, I really loved babysitting my neighbors' kids, especially the babies. They're just so adorable, you know?"
She wouldn't admit though that the real reason she loved children so much was because she was an only child. Unlike Hinata who had a younger sister, or Tenten and Ino who'd grown up with numerous nieces and nephews to play with, Sakura had no one. Babysitting Hanabi and other children were her only chances to interact with kids. Those were the times she got to have a taste of what it would be like to be with a family.
Looking to Kakashi, she wondered if it was the same for him since he'd been an orphan. Did he really grow up with no family? Not even a brother or sister? But perhaps, at his age now, he might've fathered a son or daughter? Sakura wasn't sure what to make of that idea, but she also couldn't imagine Kakashi growing old in age and then laying in his death bed all by himself. "You... don't have any children. Right, Mr. Hatake?"
Much to her relief, he shook his head. "I also don't have any nieces or nephews, so I'm afraid I have no babysitting jobs to offer you."
"Well, it's not just children—I love taking care of old people too!" Sakura thoughtlessly blurted out. Kakashi gaped at her and she felt her smile drop away in horror of what she'd just said. "Ah, n-not that I'm saying you're old o-or I'm offering to take care of you."
Frantically, she considered reminding him that he was only middle-aged but thought better of it. Kakashi, to his credit, didn't comment this time. Or maybe he just wanted to spare them both any further embarrassment (yeah, probably that one).
"So, you're an only child, right?" Sakura asked, eyeing the bottle in his hand and imagining him smashing the glass apart to shiv her for teasing him too much about his age.
"Something like that," Kakashi answered, swirling the remaining coffee left in the bottle. "So I can't say I'm good with children. There were plenty back in my orphanage, but I was usually just stuck with the babies. The most experience I've had with kids is..." he trailed off, leaving his answer unfinished.
A silence began to fill the gap in the conversation and Sakura tilted her head at the way Kakashi's eyes had lost their focus as he seemed to lose his train of thought. "Mr. Hatake?" She passed a hand in front of his face, and his eyes snapped back to attention as he caught sight of something on her palm.
"Your hand." He took hold of her wrist once again, more gently this time. Turning her hand over, he revealed the scrape at the heel of her palm. "You hurt yourself? When?"
With their roles reversed now, Sakura felt shy all of a sudden. "I fell earlier. It-It's nothing!"
With a shake of his head, Kakashi turned to a pair of bags hugging the back of his motorcycle. He rummaged through for a moment before returning with what appeared to be a first aid kit. Not wanting to burden him, Sakura was about to protest the treatment but one stern look from the professor shut her up.
"This might sting a little," Kakashi warned her as he held up a wet cloth she guessed was for disinfecting wounds.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "I'm a big girl now. I think I can handle—ah!"
She hissed at the sharp burn of the disinfectant meeting her torn skin, and then turned her glare back to Kakashi when she caught his mouth tilt into a smirk. Rolling her eyes again, she allowed herself to smile with him as he patiently cleaned her scrape. When he pulled out the roll of bandages, she opened her mouth to propose that she do it herself.
It wasn't because Kakashi was her professor that she felt weird with him doing it. Save for her doctor, nobody else had ever treated her wounds before. She couldn't even remember the last time her mother had put a band-aid on her owie. After so many years of taking care of her own scrapes and cuts, it felt far too strange for someone else to take care of them for her.
But she wouldn't deny that she liked the way Kakashi cradled her hand so gently in his. And she was actually quite impressed to see him expertly wrap the bandage around her wrist and hand using all the right angles. Exactly the way she would have done it herself. It was almost as if he'd done this many times before but for someone else.
But who...?
"What were you going to say earlier? About your experience with children?" Sakura inquired. For a split second, she swore his fingers had twitched against hers. No, not twitched. Flinched.
Kakashi continued wrapping her hand, his reticent face betraying nothing. "I was just going to say that most of my experience with children is probably in the classroom. Which has only been a few months, so..."
"Well, don't worry. I'd say you handle us quite well, Professor Hatake," she replied with a hum.
Kakashi furrowed his brows and glanced up at her. "I do?"
Sakura nodded. "I've met some really harsh teachers before. I'm sure those teachers actually hate children, but they love the power their authoritative position gives them. They love abusing that power. You're a strict teacher, but you're not abusive to children. You don't take advantage of them against their will... unlike other teachers," she added bitterly as Mizuki's face came to mind.
As if thinking of the same person, Kakashi looked down at himself, his mouth tightening into a straight line of discomfort.
"And even though people say you're strict, you know how to remain calm and level-headed no matter what," Sakura tried to reassure him. "Keeping your composure is important when it comes to dealing with children, so I think you'd actually be great with them."
But the corners of Kakashi's mouth dipped down in disagreement. He peered down at the knot he made at the base of her palm before releasing her hand, taking his warmth away from her. "I don't think you know me well enough to say that," he told her as he took a step back to put distance between them again.
If he had said that to her on the first week of school, she would have shut up right then and there. In the face of authority, she had always been the kind of girl who was the first to obey. No mess, no fuss, her mother had always told her. And because one of her greatest fears as the sole daughter of the Haruno family was disappointing her parents, she'd constantly strived to make no mess or fuss.
But ever since meeting Kakashi, suddenly Sakura wanted to break all the rules to being a good girl. She didn't want to obey and keep quiet any longer. She wanted to do whatever the fuck she wanted to do. While she still had time to do it.
And it was that selfishness once again that gave Sakura the courage to take a step forward and close the distance between them once more. "Then... I'd like to," she whispered to Kakashi, and then smiled when he didn't pull away from her. "But either way, I think I do know you well enough to say that you'd be good with children. When children are sad or mad, it often feels like it's the end of the world for them. They're very sensitive like that, so it's very helpful to have a calm and steady presence to reassure them that everything will be all right. At least... that's how I feel when I'm with you," she confessed quietly.
Holding Kakashi's gaze, she saw the way his eyes lit up at her confession. He looked upon her with such hope and pain right then and there, though she could not fathom why. All Sakura knew was that she wanted to reach out and touch him—reassure him that everything would be all right the same way he did for her.
"Thank you, Sakura," Kakashi nodded, the lines around his eyes crinkled but deep again. "And for the record, I don't think of you as a child."
Her heart soared at those words and she couldn't help but smile sweetly at him. "And I don't think you're that old."
Kakashi threw back his head and laughed at that, and suddenly he was young again, the stress lining his eyes fading away. She liked seeing him like that—happy and carefree. It made her happy too, and so she laughed with him until the empty lot of the gas station was filled with their chuckles. From the corner of her eye, she caught the station's clerk pop his head out to check on them, probably wondering what the hell these two idiots were doing chatting and giggling in the middle of the lot.
She only laughed harder even though there was no need to laugh anymore. But here, in this lot, the fact that they were teacher and student was miles away in the back of her mind. Here, in this banal corner of the world, she felt like they were just two regular people catching up together on their very regular lives. When her cramps started to act up again, only then did she stop and take a moment to drain the last of her coke and calm herself down.
"Here, let me take that for you," Kakashi gestured to her empty bottle.
With a grateful smile, Sakura passed her bottle to him but as soon as his fingertips met hers, the bottle slipped from her grasp.
She cursed as the glass bottle plummeted to the cement, but Kakashi was quick to catch it by the neck. Normally, she would've been profusely apologizing for her butterfingers, but her jaw had dropped open by his lightning-quick reflexes.
Okay, maybe he just played a lot of basketball in his youth? Oh, who the fuck am I kidding?! Even my reflexes weren't that fast in high school!
So had Mizuki been telling the truth then when he said that he attended the military academy together with Kakashi? Honestly, it was too difficult to separate his lies from the truth, but the very person who could verify for her was right here.
Acting as if nothing had happened, Kakashi tossed their bottles in the nearest recycling bin before returning to her with his hands casually tucked in his pockets.
"Those were some pretty cool ninja moves, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura teased him with an appraising once-over.
Kakashi shrugged, expectedly blasé about it. "I've got a pretty good response time."
"Did you develop that from your time in the military?" she asked nonchalantly.
He froze at the question, and Sakura could already see the countless thoughts racing in his head. How could some freshman girl know about that? It wasn't like he advertised it (although his muscular body was all the advertisement he needed). Sakura decided not to mention that she had only pieced it all together mere seconds ago after witnessing him catch the coke bottle. No ordinary person moved like that just as no ordinary person had their entire body decorated in scars.
Kakashi at least had the decency to look ashamed as he sighed in defeat. "I didn't mean to lie to you about that."
Sakura crossed her arms. "But you did."
"I did," he nodded. "And I'm sorry."
"It's okay, I'm not mad," she said with a shake of her head. "I just don't understand why you would feel the need to lie to me about that? Did I do something wrong?"
Her list of fuck-ups was filled to the brim at this point, but she didn't think she'd done anything so asinine that Kakashi had been desperate to keep his military background a secret from her.
"No, it's not you—it's me," Kakashi reassured her. Scrubbing a hand across his jaw, he looked away, seemingly too burdened by some sort of shame to look her in the eye. "I... I did some things in the military that I'm not proud of. I didn't want that to taint your perception of me. I didn't want you to be afraid of me," he admitted.
She frowned, still baffled by what he meant. "What sort of things did you do?"
Kakashi's eyes went glassy as that thousand-yard stare returned again. "Bad things," he simply said.
His vague answer left her as lost as ever, but she chose not to press him any further. Instead, she reached out and gingerly touched the crook of his arm to pull his attention away from whatever nightmares he was seeing and back to her. "Everybody does bad things," she spoke gently to him. "It doesn't mean that you're a bad person."
The edge of Kakashi's jaw tensed as if he wanted to refute her.
"And I could never be afraid of you," Sakura promised him. "I'd be more afraid of you getting hurt."
His brow twitched like he couldn't fathom the thought that someone—a random student from his morning Anatomy section—would care that much about him. But Sakura had always felt that since they first met, they were more than just teacher and student. They were magnets that were polar opposites of each other and yet drawn together by a shared kind of loneliness. Or so she liked to think. It was dangerous to think that way, but it didn't stop her from moving her hand to press it against his chest.
Kakashi's eyes widened onto hers, breath hitching like she was holding his heart in her hand. And she could feel that heart of his quickening against her palm, the heat of him burning like a furnace too dangerous to touch. "Is that where you got all these scars?" Sakura asked him. "From serving in the military?"
Although his gaze remained guarded, she could see that stoic mask of his chip away as she deliberately nudged aside the lapels of his leather jacket and lifted the bottom of his shirt. The muscles of his abs flexed as her fingertips brushed over them to peel away his armor and reveal the scars beneath. When Sakura reached the large X-mark scar crisscrossed over his chest, she peered up at Kakashi who had his face turned down in shame again and he'd raised his hand to absentmindedly rub at the scar over his left eye.
"Does that one still hurt?"
He stiffened and quickly lowered his hand. "No..."
The corner of Sakura's mouth tugged into a sympathetic smile at his attempt to lie again. At how he quickly schooled his face so that he was the very picture of a taciturn professor who could hardly care about the student before him. She couldn't understand why Kakashi felt the need to protect her from the truth. Did he really think she would hate him for it?
She reached out for him again, this time moving her hand slowly so as to not startle him. Seeing what she was about to do, he grabbed her wrist again and stared hard at her in challenge. But Sakura was just as unrelenting, and she waited patiently until he reluctantly released her. As soon as the tips of her fingers touched the rough line of skin that marked the left side of his face, Kakashi flinched. Just the barest quiver of his lashes.
"Liar," she whispered to him. "It still hurts, doesn't it?"
"Only sometimes," Kakashi murmured, shivering lightly beneath the finger that delicately traced the scar slashed over his eye.
Smiling wryly at his admittance, Sakura stood up on tiptoes and gently blew on the scar. "Pain, pain, go away," she sang softly.
He blinked at her, his frigid countenance melting away to that same wonder he'd eyed her with earlier. "Why... did you do that?"
"Oh, it's from this kid's cartoon I used to watch as a little girl. I'd watch it every Saturday morning while my mom folded the laundry, and so she learned this trick where you blow the pain away and she used to do it for me all the time," Sakura finished with an awkward chuckle as she realized how childish it looked for her to be imitating a character from a kid's show.
"But why did you do it for me?" Kakashi pressed her. Upon seeing her face scrunch up in confusion, he shook his head and smiled at her. "No, never mind. Thank you, Sakura."
Sensing more of his walls were tearing down now, Sakura beamed up at him.
"So how did you find out I was in the military?"
The smile froze on her face. Well, my fitness teacher-turned-criminal mentioned that you were a horny teenager who got caught with a stash of porn books while in the military academy.
"Mizuki," she tried not to spit out that bastard's name, "mentioned that he attended the military academy with you."
Kakashi scoffed. "Yeah, for a few months before he got himself kicked out."
Wait, what?
"He... got himself kicked out?" Sakura echoed back and Kakashi nodded. "For what?"
"Honor violation," he explained, watching another car finally pull into the otherwise empty gas station. "When you're accepted into the military academy, you're required to take an oath—a code of conduct called The Will of Fire. Mizuki broke that oath when he led a ring of students to cheat on an exam. They doped themselves to pass the physical fitness portion of the test and... well, even on steroids, they still failed anyway." Seeing Sakura's astonishment, Kakashi added, "Physical exams at a military academy are extremely brutal. They're not just meant to test the strength of your body, but also the strength of your mind. If you lack the will, then you fail."
Geez, no wonder you look like that, Sakura thought as her eyes skimmed down the muscles of his body that even a leather jacket couldn't hide.
"Mizuki took it hard when he failed," Kakashi continued. "Honestly, I didn't expect to find him here when I took up the teaching position at Konoha U."
But Sakura frowned at the thought of Mizuki teaching at such a prestigious university and spreading lies to his students. Lying to them about how much he cared for their wellbeing. Lying to them about Kakashi who had only just started teaching. It was disgusting, and if she saw Mizuki now, she was sure she would punch him in the face for what he did to her and Kakashi.
"He said you were the one who almost got kicked out of the academy," she grounded out, ignoring the pain of her cramps kicking in again. "He said you were expelled because you got caught with, um, porn..."
To her surprise, Kakashi only chuckled in amusement. "Oh, I did have porn. And that is against the rules. I just didn't get caught," he said with a wink.
Sakura's frown deepened still as she couldn't ignore all the crimes Mizuki had committed behind their backs and right in front of their faces. "The girls were saying Professor Mizuki got fired today. Apparently, the FBI got an anonymous tip that he was in possession of child pornography... that he was taking inappropriate photos of his female students without their knowledge and..." Her hands fisted at her sides. "And sexually abusing them."
Kakashi studied her closely and she had to look away, hoping that he wouldn't see the tears starting to burn at her eyes.
"And how does that make you feel?" he asked her.
"It makes me feel pissed!" Sakura spat out, digging her nails into her bandaged palm. "And... and scared," she professed in a small voice.
As she wiped away the angry tears that threatened to spill over, Kakashi tilted his head at her. "Were you close with him?"
Sakura frowned. "Close with him?"
Rubbing the back of his neck, Kakashi waited for the car on the other side of the gas station to peel back onto the street. When she continued gazing expectantly at him, he sighed. "I mean in a way that... you and I are close? Or perhaps even closer?"
"No, we only ever chatted when he needed my help in something like cleaning the equipment room after class. I'd usually go home right after," Sakura answered, but then paused as she reevaluated his question. She then gasped in indignation and Kakashi, damn him, didn't even blink an eye when she shrugged off her backpack, letting it hit the cement with a heavy 'thunk!' from all the textbooks kept within. "Wait, you think that I slept with him?!"
"Sakura—"
"I would never!" she stomped her foot, insisting on the truth and considering shoving it down Kakashi's mouth if she had to. Gods, he could really be a jerk sometimes, but that accusation was crossing the line! "What, you think I'm some slut that would sleep with any teacher?!"
"Sakura—"
"You think I was giving him blowjobs after class in the equipment room or... or..." She was still fuming but was quickly running out of steam under Kakashi's calm gaze.
"I trust you, Sakura," Kakashi said kindly as soon as she fell silent. His eyes hardened, however, as he added, "But I don't trust Mizuki."
He trusted her... Just hearing that was enough to have her unclench both hands in relief.
"I would never sleep with my own professor," Sakura quietly insisted, although something in her gut felt off about that declaration.
Kakashi gave her an odd look then, but it passed just as quickly as he glanced at the way she had her skirt bunched tightly in her hands. "Did Mizuki ever... call you to his office after class?"
The question was strangely specific, but Sakura just shrugged. "Um, I took a shower and he offered me some fresh towels in his office," she recounted, missing the way Kakashi stiffened in response. "But I decided to just go home because I had to cook that shoyu ramen for your lunch. I did go inside his office quickly for something but that's it."
He didn't need to know the more embarrassing details like how she'd gotten a free tampon from Mizuki or had bawled her eyes out to him because she'd been pms-ing pretty badly that day.
"And you never went home with a stomachache?"
A stomachache? What a weird question.
Sakura shook her head.
But Kakashi didn't seem satisfied as his brows started to furrow again. "On Monday, you said your stomach was hurting because of menstruation cramps. Did you start your bleeding on that same day or after?"
Already Sakura could feel her face heating up even before he'd finished his question. "Y-You're asking when did I start..." she sputtered, torn between slapping him and running away. "Mr. H-Hatake, I hardly think that's an appropriate question to be asking a girl—"
"Sakura." Kakashi touched her shoulder and she swore her heart was ready to burst out of her chest. "I need you to trust me and answer the question."
Still gawking at him in disbelief, she remained unsure of what his intentions were and how that had anything to do with Mizuki. And the more she questioned Kakashi, the more she questioned if his intentions were the same as that bastard's.
'Believe me when I say Kakashi's the kind of guy you can trust with your life' Professor Iruka's voice chimed in again, prompting Sakura to glance at the hand on her shoulder. When Mizuki had touched her, she felt weird about it—although at the time she'd been unable to put a finger as to why. But with Kakashi, somehow his hand was a warm and comforting weight on her shoulder, and she had no urge to shrug it off or pull away. No matter how he'd touched her, not once did she ever felt bothered by it. Instead, there was that magnetic pull between them that always left her craving for more of his touches.
It always made her knees go weak. Like right now.
"My cramps usually start a few days before I begin my bleeding," Sakura muttered.
"Don't you have class with Mizuki on Thursdays too?"
She nodded.
"Were you perhaps spotting before that?" Kakashi continued to grill her, seemingly determined to squeeze out every last detail from her. "Did you see any specks of blood on your underwear?"
"I-I don't know, I wasn't paying attention!" Sakura snapped at him, irritated by how their conversation had somehow turned into a full-blown interrogation over something that was supposed to be private.
Isn't this sexual harassment?! And yet, here she was, answering his questions with hardly any complaint.
Passing a hand down his face, Kakashi considered her for a moment before dropping his eyes back down to the skirt of her dress. A breeze passed through at that second and Sakura instinctively splayed a hand across her skirt to make sure it stayed in place. Her blush deepened as she caught Kakashi still staring, but there was a look of concentration in his face instead of a sleazy expression.
"You're already bleeding right now, aren't you?" he murmured, more to himself than to her.
Her face felt ready to combust as every inch of Sakura turned red all the way to the roots of her hair. "E-Eh...?"
Kakashi closed his eyes. "I can smell it. The scent of blood is thick on you."
Her brows shot all the way up to her hairline. He... He can smell my... blood?!
He opened his eyes and did that head tilt again that he often did when he was perplexed by something. "Is your menstruation flow normally this heavy?" he asked so casually as if he'd just asked her if she finished her homework for the day. With all the blood rushing to her face, all Sakura could do was nod. Kakashi nodded with her. "Okay, that sounds good. What day will your bleeding end?"
"Mr. Hatake, please!" Sakura pleaded with him, too mortified to be pissed anymore. But there was that commanding stare of his—the look he gave in class when he fully expected a student to answer a question of his no matter the difficulty. And then there was that stubborn part of Sakura that hated to disappoint him—that wanted to prove she could answer any questions about anatomy with ease even if it included her own damn anatomy.
And since he was an Anatomy professor, she assumed that these questions were for scientific purposes. She hoped they were for scientific purposes because, if not, then this was just pure sexual harassment which she was most certainly in her right to report him for... although would she really? Regardless, Sakura decided to give him a pass—just this once—but only because Kakashi seemed so serious about it as if the stakes were life or death for him... or her.
"My last day of menstruation should be on Wednesday," she conceded, her answer coming out in a shy squeak.
Kakashi hummed and peered over at the street where a car was waiting at a stoplight and blasting its music obnoxiously loud. Just as Sakura thought they were about finished with this impromptu interrogation, he turned to her and asked, "Were you ovulating during the Welcome Week?"
Was he trying to have her die from embarrassment?!
"I-I-I-I don't know!" Sakura stammered out, half-tempted to just grab the gas pump next to her and guzzle down the fuel to end her suffering right there. Then again, she was sure she was just one question away from combusting anyway. "I mean I guess I was?! But I'm not sure—it's not like I keep a calendar for it!"
She did, in fact, keep a calendar app on her phone specifically to track her period and ovulation days but she suspected that if Kakashi knew that then he would have her pull it out to show him.
"Is there a reason my professor needs to know my menstruation schedule?" Sakura demanded, glaring at the motorcycle helmet sitting on the rear of the bike's seat and wondering if Kakashi had hit his head on the way over here.
"It doesn't matter," Kakashi replied, seemingly satisfied now as he returned to his usual slouch. "Mizuki's gone and he's never going to lay his hands on you. You're safe now."
All the tension that had locked up her muscles dissipated the instant she heard those three words. 'You're safe now.' How many times had she heard someone tell her that? Zero. Not once in her life had Sakura ever been told that she was safe. Not once had someone ever told her that no one was going to hurt her again.
But then the memory of Mizuki holding his phone in her presence sent Sakura in a frenzy again. Panic began to claw its way up her throat, cloying her lungs so that she could hardly breathe. "But what if he has photos of me? What if he kept them somewhere or distributed them on the Internet—"
A hand settled on her head, warm and comforting like last time. "He didn't."
Gazing up at Kakashi from beneath his hand, Sakura blinked back the tears. "But how do you know?"
"Trust me, Sakura," he said, the timbre of his voice deepening with sincerity. "You are safe."
And somehow, just those three words exorcised the monster that was fear—the fear that had been haunting her every step ever since Ino had revealed Mizuki's crimes. All of a sudden, Sakura wasn't afraid anymore. She knew, without a doubt in her heart, that Kakashi was telling the truth.
"I do trust you," she said, studying those grey eyes steady and bright with his own veracity. There was the saying that the eyes were the windows to a person's soul. Sakura had never understood that until then as she gazed back into the calm storm of Kakashi's gaze.
It was strange. As a girl, she had grown used to the constant fear of danger lurking behind her shoulder. Waiting to drag her into an alley and take advantage of her. Or shove her into a car and spirit her away to the unknown... or to her death. But for the first time in her life, Sakura didn't feel that burden anymore. She didn't feel the urge to glance over her shoulder or pull out the new pepper spray she'd bought from the gas station.
Because she was safe now.
The corners of her lips tugged into a small smile. "You know, I was scared this morning when I heard what happened to Mizuki. I was so hurt that someone I was supposed to trust would betray me like that. And then I thought of you and," Sakura paused, carefully watching Kakashi's reaction as she said, "and I wondered if you were the same as him."
His face remained stoic, but she recognized how his posture went rigid straight in alarm and his jaw feathered with tension beneath the mask. But Kakashi remained patient and waited for her to continue.
"I wondered if you would hurt me the same way Mizuki had tried to hurt me," Sakura said, her heart beating faster as she continued to pour out her feelings. "But when I saw you just earlier, all that fear melted away into relief. I was relieved to see you. Happy. I felt like there was no way I could never get hurt so long as you're around. I still feel that way even now," she whispered out, clutching the hem of her skirt to keep her hands from trembling.
The hand resting on her head gently ruffled the rosy locks as Kakashi bent down to look her in the eye. "I'd die before I'd let anyone—including myself—hurt you," he promised her.
Had Sakura known what she would know a few months later, she would've pushed away from him. She would've acted indifferent and more inclined to give him a wide berth—draw the line between them as teacher and student. Even now, she knew better than to play with fire.
But as of now, she thought nothing of that promise and merely waved a dismissive hand, laughing at how dramatic he could be with such a serious face. "Maybe you should lay off the porn books for a while, Mr. Hatake."
He punished her by ruffling her head harder, messing up her bangs and prompting a protest from Sakura over his chuckles.
"So, we're close, huh?" she threw back his earlier comment, smiling coyly when Kakashi suddenly retracted his hand to run it through his hair. With a light blush, she said, "I mean, now that you know something as personal as my menstruation schedule, yeah, I guess you could say we're close."
Rubbing the back of his neck, Kakashi took stock of their surroundings as if he expected the FBI to come pouring into the lot and shout for him to step away from the underage girl. Sakura had to bite her lip to keep from laughing but was sorely disappointed when Kakashi decided to switch the subject by asking if Mizuki had told her anything else about him.
"W-Well, he did describe you as a pervert when you were a teenager," she said, giggling nervously. She didn't even know why she was nervous. Maybe it was because implying that your hot teacher was a horny teen didn't make for the best—or appropriate—conversation, especially right in front of that teacher.
Save for the subtle tip of the brow, Kakashi remained impartial to the accusation. "Did he? And what do you think of the me now?"
Her stomach flip-flopped at the loaded question and Sakura gripped her skirt tighter as she struggled to formulate a proper—or rather appropriate—answer. She curled a stray lock of hair behind an ear and pretended to find herself distracted by the gasoline prices listed at her side.
What do I think of the you now?
I think you're the hottest man I've ever met and I'm so lucky I get to stare at your cute ass during lecture when you're busy with the board. I think you can be so adorable with the way you obsess over romance novels when most men I know would rather put up a more manly façade and look at porn magazines. I think I want to count your abs and lick the sweat off of them whenever I see you at the gym. I think it's ridiculously hot how you know how to fix a pipe and give first aid. But I also think you're not as perfect as everyone makes you out to be and that makes me like you even more.
I think there's a more vulnerable man beneath that armor of yours—beneath that mask you wear—and I want to get to know him more.
I also think we should totally date, and make out, and have lots of sex every day, and make a ton of babies and live happily ever after together.
"I think you're a nice guy," Sakura squeaked out.
The leather of Kakashi's jacket creaked as he crossed his arms. Gods, what was it with leather jackets amplifying the sex appeal of men by a thousand? "So you don't think I'm a pervert now?"
The question made Sakura rip her eyes away from the muscular outline of his arms which strained against the leather of the jacket in his current position. Another breeze passed through the gas station and this time she was grateful for it as she fought back the urge to fan her hot face.
Seriously, why was he grilling her so much today?! Was he going to whip out the handcuffs next or something (not that she would mind... much)?!
"I... I don't mind if you're a pervert," Sakura confessed, gripping her skirt so hard that she was sure it would tear any second now. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears as she dared to look at Kakashi who seemed to be at a loss for words. It was too late to take back the truth now, so she decided to go all the way. "If it's you, I can handle it."
They were treading in uncharted waters now. It was one thing for Sakura to allow a teacher to touch her suggestively, but it was another thing to explicitly give him permission to do so. Curling his hands into fists now, Kakashi seemed torn between the social rules expected of him, and what she was giving him permission to do—to break those damn rules.
"You shouldn't say things like that to a full-grown man, Sakura," Kakashi croaked out, his expression pained like that of a man tormented by the sight of a delicious meal he was not allowed to have. "Don't say things like that to him, especially if he's your teacher."
His eyes were silently pleading with hers, but Sakura turned her face to the sky where the sun was crawling towards the treetops; a sign that it was nearing late afternoon. How long had they been standing here and talking together? There were no classmates around to interrupt them or coworkers to report them for saying indecent things to each other—suggestive things.
Here, they were just a man and a woman.
"I don't mind if it's you," Sakura asserted, drawing a frown from Kakashi. "Because I know you're a good man, Mr. Hatake."
Kakashi scrubbed a hand down his face; a shoddy attempt to scrub away his frustration as he shook his head at her stubbornness. "So you think I won't do anything to you?" He took a menacing step towards her as if to intimidate her.
"B-Because you saved me that night I was drunk and those boys were harassing me," Sakura stammered out, miffed by Kakashi's flare of temper.
"That could've been an elaborate setup by me," he argued, towering over her like a professor upset that she'd given him the wrong answer. "To lure you in and get your defenses down. I could've taken advantage of you in your apartment. It was just us two in the dark, your leg was injured, and you had just moved in and didn't know your neighbors. I could've hurt you," he said, and then his eyes darkened into that smoldering storm of ashes and mystery as he leaned in and murmured, "I could've raped you."
It was a threat, and at the same time it wasn't. It was his way of telling her to stay away from him. It was his warning that nothing good could come out of this... whatever this was between them. But empty threats didn't scare her. Kakashi didn't scare her.
What she was afraid of were spiders, an empty home, strangers stalking her, her professor taking advantage of her—and yes, rape. Like every other girl in the world, of course she was afraid of being raped. But she was not afraid of a man desperate to dissuade her from getting too close to him.
Refusing to back down, Sakura stood her ground and tilted her face back in defiance until she felt his hot breath against her cheek. The subtle scent of coffee she picked up from him was a wake-up call to how close they stood together, and Kakashi's half-lidded gaze on her face only sent a thrilled shiver down her back.
"But you didn't rape me," she said softly. When his eyes flashed with ire at her response, she shook her head. "There were so many times you could have taken advantage of me—against my knowledge or against my will, but you didn't. See?" Touching his arm and feeling the warm leather beneath her palm, Sakura smiled at him. "You're a good man. Don't think I don't know you well enough to say that. Call it... intuition."
Kakashi's eyes narrowed onto hers. "And did you have that same intuition with Mizuki? Or with that Daichi boy?"
"No." She pursed her lips. "But at the time, I thought I could trust Mizuki because he was my teacher. Because he was nice to me. The same with Daichi."
But she knew now that being nice and being good were two entirely different things, and that they didn't always go hand in hand together. Not all heroes were the good guys like in the stories she used to read as a child. Sometimes it was the dark knight that was the savior, or the beast everyone misunderstood.
Kakashi scrutinized her for a moment longer before caving in with a sigh. His shoulders sagged like a weight had been lifted from them and he gave her a half-hearted pat on the head. She'd passed a test of sorts—not the way he'd wanted her to, but somehow she'd proven something to him. That, or he'd figured out that this bull-headed student of his wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
"Still, don't ever let a male stranger into your place like that again," Kakashi added, shooting her a stern look.
Sakura bit back a smile. "Not even the plumber?"
Grey eyes flicked to the curl of her lips and then he gave her that familiar crinkle-eyed smile she loved more than she would care to admit. "Especially not the plumber."
She broke out into a sly grin and playfully bumped her hip against his. "Then it's a good thing you're not a stranger to me anymore, Mr. Hatake."
Kakashi's smile twisted into one of exasperation as he seemed to think to himself, 'What am I going to do with this girl?'
'You could take me on a joyride,' she was tempted to say as she finally turned her attention to the white beast that was parked before them.
Upon closer inspection, the coating was more of a pearly color than pure white. It looked so polished and clean as if he'd finished waxing it just before she arrived. Even the exhaustion pipe that ran along the side of the bike gleamed a clean silver. The motorcycle was clearly well-maintained and well-loved, because even though it looked brand new, she could tell the model was at least a decade old just by the vintage design of it.
"You know, I imagined my professors driving a sedan... not a motorcycle," Sakura said as she stepped in a slow circle around the bike for a better look.
Kakashi trailed after her, his boots crunching heavily on the loose gravel as she imagined him speeding through the freeway with a girl clinging to his back. "I don't drive it all the time. Only on days when I want to let loose a little."
She eyed the polished black helmet resting atop of the saddlebags at the back, noting that it didn't have a single scrape or dent on it. "This bad boy must be quite the devil on the road."
"The White Fang is actually a she," Kakashi corrected her before he gave the black leather seat an affectionate pat. "And yeah, this bad girl is quite a devil."
"So I'm guessing you only let the bad girls go for a spin with you?" As soon as the question fled her mouth, Sakura wished she could take it back. She did not like her fantasies filled with Kakashi and some random girl he'd probably made out with.
"On the contrary," Kakashi drawled out, lifting his eyes to meet hers, "I only let the good girls ride with me."
Warmth instantly pooled in her belly at those words and Sakura had to cast her gaze back down to the motorcycle before them, hoping to hide the blush staining her cheeks. "U-Um, it's a bit intimidating," she mumbled, feeling very shy under his attentive stare. "The White Fang, I mean."
There was a moment of thoughtful silence between them with nothing but the occasional passing of cars to fill the pause in conversation. Without warning, Kakashi took his helmet and held it out to her, gesturing to the bike with his other hand. "Try sitting on it."
She gaped at him and the helmet he offered her. With a nod of encouragement from him, she slowly reached for the helmet and took it in her hands. It was heavier than she'd expected like it was made of some sort of bullet-proof material. She hesitated for just a second before raising the helmet over her head to put it on.
Kakashi's eyes crinkled in amusement as he reached to adjust the helmet on her and make sure it was securely in place. Once he was sure she was wearing it right, he flipped the visor down and suddenly Sakura was surrounded by that refreshing pine tree scent that always reminded her of exploring an enchanted forest on a winter night. She closed her eyes to inhale him, and then giggled when Kakashi playfully knocked on the top of the helmet.
Her giggles died, however, when he gestured to the seat of the motorcycle. The cushion was so high that it reached her belly button and Sakura balked at the idea of climbing onto the motorcycle like a child climbing onto the counter for the cookie jar.
Sensing her smile falter behind the helmet, Kakashi held out his hand to her, palm up. "May I?"
Out of instinct, she moved to take hold of his hand but paused at the last minute to let her fingertips hover above his. Wasn't it just a few days ago that he'd been so aversed to touching her after the incident with the massage? What if she touched his hand now and he changed his mind like last time? Would he pull away from her as he did before, and speed off on his motorcycle to leave her in the dust?
Chewing the inside of her cheek, Sakura decided to take that chance and grasped Kakashi's hand. Warm and calloused fingers closed over hers as he guided her to sling a leg over the cushion. When her skirt raised dangerously high on her thigh from the sharp angle, she frantically grabbed at the hem but lost her balance.
Seeing her teetering dangerously on one foot, Kakashi quickly grabbed her by the hips and lifted her onto the seat before she could even gasp from the sudden movement.
Behind the visor of the helmet, she blinked at her new position on the motorcycle, finding it even larger now that she was sitting on it. It was more like sitting on a beast, and she held Kakashi's hand in a death grip to make sure she didn't topple off.
"You won't fall off," he assured her, his foot tapping at the kickstand that kept the bike upright.
Nodding, she pried her fingers off his one by one, prompting a chuckle from Kakashi as he moved to join her on the seat.
She wasn't ready for his solid chest pressing against her back or the delicious heat of him blanketing over her. And she certainly wasn't ready for his hands settling firmly over her hips to nudge her up the cushion more so that she had to spread her legs wider around the bike.
A light shiver ran through Sakura as she felt his warm breath stir the hairs at the nape of her neck—and was that her heart hammering away or his?!
"Bend over," he instructed her from behind.
Sakura's brain short-circuited at the command and she was glad for the helmet covering the intense blush on her face as she obeyed him and grabbed onto the handlebars for support. The fuel tank was cold and her thin bra did little to protect her, leaving her nipples stiff and tingling.
"This position reduces the air drag," Kakashi explained, still holding her hips lightly between his hands.
Sakura barely heard him as her entire attention was on the feel of his hips slotted right behind hers, his hands gripping her hips as she kept herself bent over for him. There was this instinctive need to raise her hips up and press her ass right against him, but she fought that urge as she simultaneously fought back the fantasy of Kakashi fucking her from behind after ordering her to bend over for him.
"Feels good?"
The question prompted a hot throb between her legs and she might've whimpered out a 'yes' in reply.
"Still feel intimidated?" Kakashi asked from behind while Sakura struggled to answer instead of moan. "It's different when you're driving," he said after mistaking her silence for hesitation. "It feels exhilarating once the speed picks up."
"Yeah, I'm already feeling excited," Sakura said breathlessly. And maybe even a little wet, she almost added. "I-It feels really good," she managed to say as she resisted the urge to roll her hips and grind her ass against him or at least rub her clit against the fuel tank.
For fuck's sake, Sakura—do NOT hump your professor or his motorcycle!
Behind her, Kakashi shifted and she almost sighed aloud at the feel of his jeans rubbing roughly against her ass.
"And for the good girl who gets to ride with me, I'd have her sitting at the back, holding onto me firmly like this." His hands deliberately slid around her hips to cross over her stomach, effectively holding Sakura against him like a safety belt. She could feel his chest rumble against her back, sending a roll of vibrations through her as he spoke. "And then I'd tell her not to let go."
Licking her lips, she lowered her voice to keep it from coming out shaky. "Then I... I don't think you're holding on tight enough."
There was a pause, and then a smile made its way across Sakura's face as she felt Kakashi slide his arms further around her to the point that she could indeed feel his heart thumping against hers.
"Better?" his voice rumbled deep, leaving her bones feeling like jelly. She nodded though she wanted to lean back and pretend he was embracing her. "Now close your eyes and imagine that you're riding..." He took her hands and guided them to wrap tightly over the handlebars, her thumb poised over the switches. "Listen to the engine's purrs. Feel the vibrations rolling against you. The wind is singing in your ear, and you're heading towards the sunset. The buildings blur all around you as the world melts away. All your problems... all your pain and insecurities... they all fall behind you."
A tear spilled down her cheek before Sakura could even realize she was crying. She knew they were still in the gas station, sitting in an empty lot with a store clerk eager for them to get out of his hair, but right now... Right now, with her eyes closed, she could pretend she was just a regular girl with a regular guy. She could pretend her parents were at home—her real home with the red-tiled roof and the leaky faucet that filled the silence—and that they were waiting for her to return from a date with a guy. A regular guy—not a teacher or the CEO of a conglomerate.
She could pretend her fate wasn't tied to how much money her parents would make within the year. Or that her future fiancé was the man of her dreams and not the man in the advertisement playing just a few feet away.
So she pretended, just like the younger her used to once upon a time when her parents had still been around to roleplay as dragons she could slay. She pretended and felt the engine purr beneath her, heard the wind whistling in her ears, and saw the city around her blur into nothing.
A laugh rose from her chest and Sakura tilted her head back, letting it bubble out of her even as more tears fell down her cheek.
And in this moment, she was free.
"Let's go somewhere," she proposed, giddy and high on the thrill of all of this.
"Where should we go?" Kakashi asked, playing along with her antics.
Finally glancing over her shoulder, Sakura met his roguish grin with one of her own. "Well, where would you take good girls with you?"
He seemed stumped for a moment as if he'd never been asked that question before. Or maybe he'd never had a good girl to take with him somewhere.
"I'd take her wherever she wants to go," Kakashi answered, and she laughed again when he pretended to rev up the bike for her. "And I'd tell her I'll even take her to the stars if she wants."
Sakura had forgotten how much of a dork he could be, and it still surprised her every time. Maybe he needs to lay off the romance novels more than the porn books, she thought to herself with a giggle.
"And what else would you tell her?" she teased him. "That she is a beautiful girl who is also an overachiever, and doesn't like to take orders even though she tries so hard to be a good girl?"
She'd only meant it in jest because she loved to push his buttons, toe that line that separated them as teacher and student, and see where it would go from there. See where every touch, look, or word would take them both. Because she wasn't actually playing with fire if nothing serious happened between them... right?
Because it didn't feel like Sakura was getting burned when Kakashi moved his hand in a languid stroke across her hip to tug gently on the end of her skirt. His fingers didn't touch her skin, but they skimmed so close to the edge of her panties that she briefly forgot how to breathe.
"I'd tell her not to wear skirts as short as these," he hummed quietly.
She licked her lips. "Why not?"
"Because," his fingers traced along the hem of the skirt, letting the thin cloth flutter precariously between each digit, "she'd be flashing her panties at everyone and, as curious as I am to see the color, I don't want everyone else to know."
Several beats passed between them as Sakura registered what she'd just heard. And because she didn't believe this didn't count as playing with fire—not yet, at least—she allowed a slow, pleased smile to crawl across her face.
"Do you want to get off the ride now?"
There it was again. That question of consent that set him apart from Mizuki. That thoughtfulness that hinted at Kakashi's good nature which, for some reason, he tried to deny the existence of.
"No," she breathed out.
She didn't want this ride to ever end.
But, like all good things, it did come to an end when another car pulled into the gas station and shattered the illusion of this little make-believe. Kakashi quickly hopped off, but Sakura moved sluggishly as she was still reeling from the whiplash of having to face reality again.
Once her feet were back on solid ground, they both stole a look over to the car passing them by, glimpsing the woman in the driver's seat eyeing them with enough suspicion to have Kakashi back away a respectful distance.
A sudden awkwardness settled into the new gap between them. They looked everywhere but at each other as the woman continued scrutinizing them from her side of the station. Sakura had half a mind to tell her to mind her own business when she caught the woman still peeping in their direction while pumping gas into her car.
Kakashi cleared his throat. "I should probably get going now."
Her heart sank in response but Sakura nodded. Realizing she was leaning against the seat and blocking his way, she leapt aside and tugged off the helmet for him. As he was busy putting the helmet on, Sakura took the moment to glare at the nosy woman across from them and stick her tongue out.
The woman's jaw dropped open in indignation, but Sakura quickly returned to Kakashi and smiled sweetly at him as he pulled on a pair of leather gloves that matched his jacket. He finally met her gaze, the silver of his eyes intense and vivid within the shadows of the helmet.
Without hesitation, she reached over to lay a hand on his as he gripped the handlebars. The leather of his gloves separated her skin from his, but she could still feel the warmth of him beneath.
"Please tell me you'll ice your hands as soon as you have time," Sakura pleaded with him. "And promise me you'll take better care of yourself from now on?"
His helmet dipped down in a nod. "I will. After all, I wouldn't want to get rheumatoid arthritis."
She saw his eyes crinkle at her before he flipped the helmet visor down so that she could only see her own reflection in the polished surface.
Watching him key in the ignition, Sakura found herself overcome by a sense of—not fear, but sadness. She didn't want Kakashi to go, but she couldn't make him stay either. All she could do was grip the skirt of her dress to keep from reaching out for him again. Keep from crossing that line all the way.
But, as he revved up the motorcycle, something within Sakura compelled her to open her mouth and say softly over the roar of the engine, "My panties are pink today."
The engine's roar subsided into a low growl as Kakashi slowly turned to her again, but all she could see in the visor was her own reflection with her wide eyes and lips still parted open after revealing such a secret.
A gloved hand reached for her, and Sakura's heart jumped in her chest as Kakashi gingerly swept back her hair behind her shoulder.
Behind the helmet, she wondered what kind of expression he wore as his fingertips grazed along the delicate curve of her shoulder. She knew what face she was making because Sakura could see it in the helmet's reflection—her rosy cheeks and the demure look in her eyes as she stared at the visor.
"Be careful on your way home." His voice was low but she heard him loud and clear even through the engine's purr. "Sakura."
And then he was gone, and she was left behind.
When Sakura returned home that evening, she checked the locks and windows as planned before eating dinner. The silence of the apartment would have terrified her had she just gone straight home from the library. As it was now, her heart was still racing a mile a minute, but it wasn't out of anxiety or fear.
It was something else.
When Ino, Tenten, and Hinata called her up for a video chat to discuss something, Sakura could hardly pay attention to what they were saying. Her eyes were focused on the mirror before her as she studied herself. She ran both hands down the flat chest she was always insecure of before settling her palms over her hips where Kakashi had been holding her mere hours ago.
Dressing in nothing but her bra and panties, she felt as sexy as the first day she'd bought the set of underwear... which had been three years ago when she'd barely started her freshman year of high school. Her curves hadn't grown much since then, but that wasn't what drew her concern at the moment.
It was her panties. Pink, just as she'd quietly confided to Kakashi, and with a tiny green bow over the front.
'And for the record, I don't think of you as a child.'
Kakashi's words echoed in her head with Ino's voice a fading buzz in the background. But as Sakura studied herself in the mirror, all she saw was a child standing before her.
"Forehead? Helloooo? Are you there?"
"I'm here!" She rushed back to her laptop and waved at her friends on screen. "Yeah, sounds like a great idea."
Sakura had no idea what they were talking about, but there were more pressing matters at hand. As Ino continued blabbing away about something school-related, Sakura began searching for some online lingerie shops.
Because as long as she didn't get burned, it didn't count as playing with fire, right?
The marker in Kakashi's hand squeaked as he scribbled another score across the umpteenth paper he'd finished grading today. He was behind on grades, and some of his students were starting to badger him about the scores for last week's pop quizzes.
With a tired sigh, he glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. It was half-past midnight, but he still had some energy to finish the morning section's papers on brain plasticity. Besides, it wasn't like he'd be going to sleep anytime soon.
At least most of the students who'd decided to stay for the rest of the semester were picking up the slack now, and their essays showed for it. That made his job easier, and he was able to quickly read through the first few essays before a yawn escaped him.
He blinked back the tears and reached for another essay to grade, pausing when the scent of cherry blossoms and the familiar notes of Minty Rainforest Mist hit him out of nowhere. His eyes zeroed in on the paper in his hand and Kakashi couldn't hold back a smile as he turned the paper over to reveal Sakura's name in the top left corner.
With his red marker poised over her essay, he leaned forward in his chair, curious as to how her own little brain plasticity experiment went.
Dominant side: Right
Non-dominant side: Left
Muscles used: Masseter, Temporalis, Medial Pterygoid, Lateral Pterygoid
Testing action: Masturbation
The pen in Kakashi's hand clattered onto the desk as he hurriedly took off his glasses. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut before taking another look at Sakura's paper again.
Testing action: Mastication
It was too late. He'd misread the word and now he had to pay the price as the image of Sakura popped into his mind. A stickler for the actual material—usually in the form of the Make-Out novels—Kakashi wasn't usually one for fantasies. There was no woman he could think of to fill his mind. No woman that he hadn't already taken to bed. And nearly all of those women had been strangers that he couldn't care to remember the features of let alone their names or numbers.
So why was it that when he was finally struck by a fantasy, it was because he'd misread his student's answer as 'masturbation' instead of 'mastication'?
And damn those two words because now Kakashi was imagining Sakura naked on her bed—or his bed because it was his fantasy, damn it—with her slim legs yawning wide open with a pair of pink panties dangling off a dainty ankle. A hand slithered down and she stroked the swollen lips presented to him, red and dewy like the edge of a rose petal slick with morning dewdrops.
And he'd love nothing more than to spread apart those glistening lips and lick that wet—
Kakashi groaned and leaned back in his chair to press the heels of his palms to his eyes.
"I'm just tired," he muttered aloud before dropping his gaze down to the sharp tent in his sweatpants. "And horny," he groaned out in anguish.
Maybe it was high time to lay off the Make-Out books.
He leaned back in his chair and threw an arm over his eyes, willing his erection to go away.
And as expected, it didn't.
Another minute passed before his balls started to ache with a vengeance. Kakashi gave in and shoved away from his desk to rush upstairs, throwing his shirt off before entering the bedroom. As he peeled down the waistband of his pants, he let out a hiss as it tugged at his cock, the friction stimulating but not satisfying.
He turned the knob and the showerhead blasted him with ice-cold water, prompting him to brace a hand against the tiled wall and hang his head down in defeat. The ache would take a while to go away, but Kakashi was already lamenting over how many times he'd been forced to take a cold shower, and how many more times he would have to in the future. This wasn't the first, and he knew it wouldn't be the last. Not for a long, long time.
He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep this up anymore. One day, he would wake up in the morning in his own, sticky mess. It was bound to happen at this rate; a curse all men were stuck with for denying their biological urges.
The hand he had braced against the wall curled into a fist. He would hold on because he refused to be anything like Mizuki, taking the relationship he had with a student and twisting it into something perverse.
At least the bastard had been honest for once in claiming that he didn't touch Sakura. If Sakura's menstruation schedule proved true, that is.
He could still smell the hint of copper following her around like perfume at the gas station. He could still remember the way her face had turned a bright shade of red when he'd asked about her menstruation. And as Kakashi imagined that blushing face of hers again, he couldn't help but wonder what shade her blush would be when he was inside her.
His cock twitched, rising quickly as the idea grew more vivid in his mind. Kakashi growled in frustration and grabbed the knob to turn it all the way, letting the freezing water pelt his skin like hail. His balls ached in protest, but his erection was already dying down in disappointment.
Each day, it was getting more and more difficult to not touch himself—to not give himself any semblance of relief. But it was even more difficult to not touch himself to her. Kakashi didn't know how much longer he could go on like this when there were still three damn months left of the semester to go.
At the back of his mind nagged a fear that he might one day snap and lose control of himself. And he feared that day might be soon.
A/N: Kakashi's motorcycle is a white Harley-Davidson Deluxe.
Read a deleted scene between Sakura and the gas station clerk on my Tumblr by copying this link: /post/674213028804329472/the-anatomy-of-love
Tumblr: tcookies777
Twitter: Rey_OrganaSolo
AO3: TCOOKIES777
