The Anatomy of Love
Written By: Banana007
Chapter 28: Date Night
Sakura winced as another bobby pin stabbed her scalp for the umpteenth time that evening. She shot Ino a glare in the mirror, but the young woman was too far gone in her happiness to care much. Humming, Ino went on to stab another bobby pin into Sakura's hair before taking a step back to survey the loose waves she'd pinned into a low bun.
"I have to say," Ino mumbled around a mouthful of bobby pins, "spending your very first date studying at the library is... disappointing."
"I'm sure reading books together can be... romantic."
"Maybe if you were reading a porn novel you two could act it out together. But a science book?"
"Anatomy."
"It's still science," Ino said, crinkling her nose as if she couldn't comprehend the idea of romance and science mixing well together.
To be honest, neither could Sakura. Looking at diagrams of eyeballs, skeletons, or a face without skin wasn't really great for setting a romantic mood.
"Or," Ino drawled out as she set the bobby pins down in exchange for the curling rod, "maybe you can test each other's knowledge by using your own body as a model. Get a little hands-on approach, if ya know what I mean."
Seeing Ino waggle her brows suggestively in the mirror, Sakura responded with a pained expression. "Ino! That's... I mean I barely know the guy—I barely even knew he existed until this week! Besides, I haven't even had my first kiss yet. What makes you think I'll be jumping straight into the sex?"
"Hey, you're the one who's about to spend date night on the third floor."
Sakura frowned at her in the mirror. "What do you mean?"
Sensing her confusion, Ino lowered the curling rod to meet her bewildered gaze. "What do you mean what do I mean? Haven't you heard the rumors?"
Rumors?
'I wouldn't go on that date if I were you,' Kakashi's words from Monday's class wormed their way back into her head. 'Apparently, there are some rumors about the third floor of the school library.'
With a scowl, Sakura shook her head hard to free herself of any thought of Kakashi. Tonight was all about Kankuro—not her professor—so she was going to think of Kankuro and only him from now on.
A sharp reprimand from Ino had her stilling herself, however, and she felt her friend frantically checking the bun she'd so carefully pinned together for the past hour.
"I don't believe in ghosts anyway," Sakura covered up her lie with a harrumph. "So I don't care if—"
"Ghosts?" Ino was already shaking her head as they frowned at each other in the mirror. "What in the world are you talking about? Haven't you heard the rumors about what happens on the third floor at night?"
"No...?" Curious now that she realized her assumption had been wrong, Sakura twisted around in her chair to face Ino. "What happens on the third floor at night?"
There was a mischievous twinkle in Ino's eyes as she turned off the curl wand and began rolling up the plug. "Well, it's really just Room Three-oh-three. You know, one of the computer labs where students can go in to print stuff any time of day?"
"What happens in Room Three-oh-three at night?" Sakura asked in a smaller voice now, somewhat afraid to even want to know at this point. Especially with the way Ino was grinning wickedly at her like it was the juiciest gossip she'd heard since finding out Tenten and Neji had once slept together.
Looming over her shoulder, Ino smirked. "Students go in there to have sex," she teased out the last word with a hiss, giggling when Sakura's mouth dropped open.
"You're... kidding," Sakura squinted at her friend, searching for any signs that she was just pulling her leg here.
Shaking her head, Ino placed a hand over her chest. "I'm not—cross my heart! One of my classmates had printer problems last week and so she visited the room at two in the morning to print there. She ended up walking in on a pair of students buck-naked and fucking right on top of one of the study tables. They didn't even stop when she opened the door."
Sakura's face scrunched up at the R-rated scene taking shape in her mind now. "Oh gods... is it like a different couple every night or something?"
"I dunno. Maybe it's first come first serve?"
"Oh, ew!"
Ino rolled her eyes at Sakura's gagging face. "Don't be such a prude!"
"Or maybe I just don't like the thought of studying at a table stained with the body fluids of who knows how many strangers!" Sakura argued back, gently smoothing away the frown from her face before the makeup could crease there.
"Then you should probably avoid that room if you're going to be studying with Kankuro," Ino warned her with a snicker, already searching through the vanity mirror's drawer for another bobby pin to tuck away the baby hair at the nape of Sakura's neck. "But if you do need a human model for your study of the body..."
Before Sakura could protest further, the alarm on her phone went off, signaling that it was time to go. Ino let out a squeal and did a little happy dance first before scampering out of the room to retrieve 'just one more thing'.
With a dissatisfied huff, Sakura waited in front of the mirror and took the moment to study herself. Although she'd insisted on a simple cardigan and jeans attire, the girls had looked at her as if she was an imposter for even suggesting such a plain outfit on her first date. So somehow, a vote had been made between the sexy librarian and the mischievous school girl. The winning theme had been a sexy school girl instead.
She hated it, of course, but the girls had overruled her with their votes and dating experience.
Smoothing down her red plaid skirt, Sakura crinkled her nose at the white blouse Ino had forced her to wear. The first three buttons had been left open—again, at Ino's insistence—leaving her non-existent cleavage bare for everyone to see—much to Sakura's chagrin. But it was the pair of fake glasses perched across her face that were the statement piece of this outfit: large black frames to give her that nerdy look.
It was too on the nose and a bit cringey in Sakura's opinion. Like she was trying too hard to impress a guy by suggesting that she was smart. Which she didn't need to do when she was already freaking smart to begin with.
Just as she considered taking the glasses off, Ino returned with an eager grin and a raised hand fisting something. She twirled around dramatically before holding her fist out and uncurling the fingers to reveal a square wrapper sitting innocently on her palm.
Sakura nearly puked at the sight of the gold foil gleaming too bright like a golden beacon of sin and debauchery.
"Ino! Are you serious right now?!" She snatched at the condom and tossed it aside only for it to land innocently on her bed. Unfortunately, Ino was already shoving a second condom into the depths of her skirt's pockets. "I am not going to be having sex with a guy I barely know—let alone on the first date!" she protested, but was too afraid to touch the condom and pull it out.
"Hey, better safe and prepared rather than sorry and pregnant," Ino trilled out before shoving Sakura's backpack and textbook into her hands.
Sakura's grumbles were ignored as she was grabbed by the shoulders and steered out of her room to meet the girls at the kitchen. The moment they laid eyes on her, they gasped and Tenten started doling out praises of her whole look. Hinata was surprisingly more quiet than usual as she smiled encouragingly, but Sakura could see past their whole charade. They were just trying to hype her up so that she wouldn't worry about fucking this date up.
Honestly, she could see herself doing just that, especially considering how she'd fucked up her afternoon with a bunch of drinks. But that was if Kankuro really was going to show up at the library today and not stand her up like every other boy who had asked her out. If he didn't show up for the date, at least she wouldn't have to worry about having a date to fuck up. Nor would she have to worry about the condom going to waste or not.
The condom which was sitting deep in her pocket with the weight of a brick. It made Sakura drag her feet around as she gave a demonstrative twirl to show off her outfit. Her red miniskirt ballooned high and she was sure she flashed some cheek, but tugging the skirt down didn't do much for her either.
As if sensing her confidence deflate with every compliment from Tenten and Hinata, Ino slapped her back, prompting Sakura to stumble towards the door. "All right, now get outta here before my mom arrives to pick the rest of us up. Or else she'll have a heart attack if she sees what you're wearing."
The joke came out lightheartedly, but Sakura knew her friend was actually serious. Mrs. Yamanaka was one of those old-fashioned women who had strict ideas for how a real lady should behave. Such strict ideals inadvertently created a very uncouth daughter, which Ino was proud of (and very loud about it too).
But Sakura was the opposite of loud and uncouth as she silently pulled on her heels. Her stomach felt like it was doing somersaults, leaving her nauseous to the point that she found herself wishing she could just crawl in bed and stay in bed for the rest of the night.
But somebody unlocked the door for her and shoved her out into the hallway, leaving Sakura at the mercy of her fate.
"Keep us updated!" Ino said, shooing her to hurry away now. "And if you need to bail, just text and I'll have mom turn the car right around to pick you up!"
That honestly wasn't very reassuring for Sakura because then Mrs. Yamanaka would just spend the car ride lecturing her on dressing so shamelessly, and no boy would respect her if she dressed like that, and then imply how disappointed her parents would be. Blah blah blah.
Sucking in a deep breath of the cool evening air, Sakura marched towards the stairs while Tenten shouted for her to make good choices.
Good choices. Right. How could she do that when she felt like every choice made from hereon would be a bad choice? What the hell did a good choice even look like anymore? Because the good choice would be to stop pursuing her professor who kept rebuffing her advances for the greater good. A good choice would be to leave Kakashi alone at his insistence and play the part of his student. A good choice would be to have fun on this date with Kankuro and see where it led them.
And the perfect choice would be to move on from Kakashi and find a 'better guy' for herself. Exactly as he'd been begging for her to do.
Her heels clicked aloud as she walked, but somehow they just gave Sakura the sense of an impending doom. She wasn't even sure why she felt this way when on Monday she had been... well, thankful that Kankuro had asked her out. Excited? Not really. Sure, she hadn't been jumping with joy or eagerly counting down the days, but...
But what?
She couldn't even come up with a rebuttal.
Because the truth was that she didn't want to go on this date.
At first, Sakura had told herself that she'd agreed to the date because this was the opportunity she'd been dying to have for so many years now. It wasn't every day you got asked out by a cute boy. But as she trudged down the stairs like an old and weary lady, she realized that the main reason she'd agreed to the date wasn't because she had sincerely wanted to.
No, she'd done it just to make Kakashi jealous. To force him to admit the truth of his feelings for her. But he hadn't done that because, apparently, he was just as stubborn as she was. It was like she was an unstoppable force and he an immovable wall. Neither of them refused to budge.
But I've made my bed and now I have to lie on it, Sakura sighed inwardly.
"Sakura!"
The rapid fall of footsteps on the stairs behind her had her turning around. Hinata was rushing towards her with bare feet as if she'd made a last minute decision to run out of the apartment. She was already panting for breath when she reached Sakura, her brows crinkling in concern and hands fidgeting with the hem of her blouse.
"Hinata, where's the fire?" Sakura joked, puzzled by her friend's apparent desperation. "What are you—"
"If you really don't want to go on this date, just say so!" Hinata blurted out.
Sakura gaped at her for a hot second. "What... what are you talking about?" she chuckled awkwardly, trying to play off the panic now dripping down her temple in a cold sweat.
But Hinata had always had the sharpest eye in the group, and she was one who could see straight through any person's façade. Which was why she gently took Sakura's hand in her own and smiled reassuringly at her. "When we were little, we used to talk all the time about having our first date be with our true love and true love's kiss. So I have to ask... Is Kankuro really your true love?"
Sakura's nose wrinkled. "Hinata, I only found out he existed less than a week ago. I don't know if he's my true love," she air quoted, "when I barely even know his name."
Hinata's face fell with disappointment. "So you don't even like him."
It was the truth but, coming from Hinata's mouth, it sounded like an accusation. It left Sakura feeling like she was doing something awfully wrong here. As if in answer, her stomach turned over with a wave of nausea.
"Sometimes first dates are to find out if you like the guy or not," she tried to say the same thing she told Kakashi. But like Kakashi, Hinata wasn't convinced.
Truthfully, neither was Sakura.
"But we've always wanted our first date to be with our first love," Hinata insisted. "And you never forget your first love, so shouldn't you make sure your first date is with him?"
It was easy for Hinata to say that because she was the kind of girl who could never get over her first love even if she tried. And that was probably how she finally—miraculously—ended up dating Naruto, a boy she'd been in love with since the first grade. A boy whose promise ring she now wore after more than a decade of longing.
But Sakura didn't have that kind of luxury nor did she have that much patience.
She looked aside and down the street to hide her discomfort. "Look, things like first love or true love are just fairytale stuff. It was nice to imagine it when we were kids, but we're older now and this is the real world."
Slowly, Hinata tucked her chin down, letting the bangs fall across her eyes. But not before Sakura caught the disappointment that had flashed in her gaze. "I know we're not kids anymore, but that doesn't mean we have to be so cynical. That's tiring, don't you think?"
Cynical? Hinata had spoken softly, but her words had carried great weight.
'It must be exhausting to be so cynical. To be you.'
It'd been days ago but it felt like only just yesterday she'd thrown those words in Kakashi's face. Funny how being cynical was something she'd accused him of not too long ago, and now here she was being accused of it too. By her own friend, no less.
"I'm just being realistic," Sakura replied, smiling as she gingerly pulled her hand back.
The lie had left a sour taste in her mouth, so she spun away and raised a hand in farewell as she walked on and towards her destiny. From behind, she could feel Hinata's sharp gaze penetrating her back and seeing straight through her lie.
So she walked faster, letting her heels click sharply and her backpack thump heavily against her back.
For a Friday night, the streets were surprisingly empty. Then again, most people liked to return home for the weekend to spend some quality time with their family. Even the roads were quiet of any cars passing by. The occasional hooting and whooping of the neighborhood frat boys bounced from somewhere else nearby, but Sakura made sure to steer clear of the frat row.
From the corner of her eye, however, she spotted some boys sitting on the porch steps of their student-rented houses. They had their hoodies up, and the dim light of the street lamp from too far down the block made it hard to tell if they had spotted her as well.
Hugging her textbook tight against her chest, Sakura let a hand stray closer to the side mesh pocket of her backpack where she kept her pepper spray handy. With her head held high, she crossed the street to avoid crossing paths with the boys directly. But then the gradual sound of an extra pair of footsteps behind her had Sakura's heels clicking louder—faster.
When someone unexpectedly cleared their throat way too close to her, she nearly screamed as she grabbed for the pepper spray, spinning around to repel any jerk.
"Miss Haruno?"
Her hand froze, tangled in the depths of her backpack's mesh pocket as she gaped at Professor Iruka smiling at her. Both of his hands were full with bags of groceries but he lifted one to wave a finger at her in greeting.
"P-Professor..." Sakura's shoulders sagged as she drank in the unusual sight of her freshman orientation professor dressed in sweats rather than the dress shirt and slacks he liked to wear for school.
"I thought I recognized your pink hair!" he chuckled before noticing the textbook she was hugging. "Are you going back to school?"
She glanced down at the book she'd come so close to slapping the smile off his face with just a second ago. "Y-Yeah, I'm heading to the library to study."
For a date, she didn't have the courage to say for some reason.
Professor Iruka's brows crinkled in confusion. "On a Friday night?" Just as she was about to explain, he squinted at the title of her textbook and the crinkle between his brows instantly smoothened away. "Ah, I see! It's for Kakashi's class."
Just hearing his name had Sakura's fingers tightening around the edges of her textbook but she nodded.
Her silence gave Professor Iruka pause and he peered up at her before taking a quick glance around their dark surroundings. Over his shoulder, the hooded boys on the porch steps were smoking something and Professor Iruka tilted his head in the direction opposite of them. "It's not safe for a lady to walk alone this late in the evening. Let me walk you to the school."
Sakura instinctively opened her mouth to protest and insist she was well capable of walking just fine on her own, but she remembered her parents telling her that it was rude to refuse an offer. Pressing her lips together, she stepped up to her professor's side to allow him to escort her.
The walk was awkward at first as she didn't know what to say. Not that Sakura had the energy to say it. Her stomach was still jittery with nerves that it felt like one wrong word and she would puke the rest of her sentence out onto the sidewalk.
Professor Iruka observed the sour expression on her face and he quietly exhaled, shaking his head. "As I thought, Kakashi's been giving you a hard time, isn't he?"
Sakura's eyes shot to him in a panic until she realized he meant Kakashi's class and not this whole drama that had been going on between them. "Something like that," she mumbled, stepping over a crack on the pavement.
"If he's being too mean to you, just let me know and I'll talk to him. Ask him to tone down the jerkitude."
She was surprised by his forthrightness, and when she looked to him, Professor Iruka reassured her with a wink. "O-Oh, it's okay. You don't have to do that."
"Oh? But the other morning in class, you seemed... stressed," Professor Iruka spoke carefully as if he was afraid to hurt her feelings. Sakura inwardly winced as she remembered how she was so out of it in his class the other day, but he merely smiled kindly at her. "To be honest, I'm surprised you haven't quit Kakashi's class yet."
"I've been told I am a very stubborn girl," Sakura muttered. Once upon a time, she would've taken pride in those words. Nowadays, she wasn't so sure how to feel about it.
They reached a pedestrian light and Professor Iruka juggled his groceries into one hand first to tap the button. As they waited for the signal to flash, he shrugged at Sakura. "Like I said, Kakashi can be a total jerk sometimes but he always means well even at his own expense. So I'm glad that you're still in his class and that you're giving him the chance he deserves."
The chance he deserves? She almost scoffed at that. "Well, it'd be nice if he could give me a chance too!"
Professor Iruka blinked at the sudden scowl scrunching up her face. "I-I'm sorry..?"
Seeing the light flash for them to go, Sakura stepped off the curb to stomp her way down the crosswalk with Professor Iruka hurrying after her. "I mean I know you warned me at the start of the semester that he can be a jerk—but why is he such a big jerk?" she demanded over her shoulder.
Poor Professor Iruka huffed and puffed as he tried to keep up with her. "Uh... it's complicated," he wheezed out. "And I don't think it's my place to tell you."
Sakura stomped harder, forcing him to pant after her as they began walking on an uphill slope. "As someone who has to put up with his jerkitude every week, I deserve to know why he sometimes acts like he has a stick shoved so far up his ass—err, butt..."
The plastic bags of his groceries rustled aloud as Professor Iruka broke into a light jog to match her mad pace. He was clearly out of shape as he had to take a moment to catch his breath first.
"Listen, it's not my business to tell, so I can't say much except that... Kakashi was in the military," he said, dropping his voice to a low hush as if he expected the ex-soldier in question to snipe him for letting his tongue slip with classified info.
Sakura nodded. "Right. Professor Hatake was in the Anbu Black Ops."
Professor Iruka stumbled slightly in surprise of how she already knew something like that. He eyed her with a mixture of awe and something else before blinking out of his stupor. "Yes, Kakashi hails from a family of decorated soldiers and war veterans, so he chose to uphold the family legacy by joining the military."
Sakura finally slowed down her pace to digest this new piece of information. "That was during the height of the war?"
"Yes, that's right. You weren't born yet when the war broke out, so you're probably too young to remember how very different the world was back then," Professor Iruka explained. His friendly smile softened with an unexpected wistfulness as he stared on ahead at the street stretched out before them. "This city wasn't as beautiful as it looks now. And this neighborhood wasn't always this peaceful and quiet. Back in the day, this was a city of absolute chaos…"
Sakura frowned at him, confused by his dampened demeanor. Still staring at the street corner further on ahead, marked by a news rack stuffed full of the local newspaper, he pointed at the spot.
"When I was a boy, I'd see prostitutes and drug dealers there every day, all day," Professor Iruka stated. "If you even looked them in the eye, they'd pull a shiv on you or put a gun to your head."
Sakura observed the very corner he pointed at as they walked by it.
The cement was a clean stone white—free of any cigarette droppings, gum stains, or even bird poop. It was hard for Sakura to imagine a prostitute or drug dealer doing business here, but the solemnity in her professor's tone told her that it had happened once upon a time.
"You couldn't ride a bike in the street without some thug beating you to death just to steal it," he continued. "Mothers pushing their babies in strollers were often run down for fun. The elderly were beat up for their watches. Even stray cats and dogs would be drowned in tar by kids who had no parents to teach them right from wrong."
The mental images in Sakura's head drew a horrified expression from her. Still, Professor Iruka hardly seemed fazed.
"And this scar across my nose?" He gestured to the ragged tissue line that decorated the center of his face. "I got it from a drive-by shooting while on my way home from school just a block from here."
Sakura's mouth dropped. "A drive-by shooting?!"
She'd always assumed he'd tripped and fell. Truthfully, he'd always given her that sort of clumsy impression.
Professor Iruka nodded and he traced the scar with a finger absentmindedly. "Kakashi was walking with me and he took off his backpack to shield me from the gunfire. His textbooks took the bullets, thankfully, but my face ate pavement," he chuckled heartily as if that memory was nothing more than a story he told to entertain others.
Ah, so he had tripped and fall.
But when his chuckles died, she could see the sadness darkening Professor Iruka's gaze as he skimmed his eyes up and down the peaceful neighborhood. "Crime used to be so rampant in these streets that no girl could walk a block by herself without getting kidnapped or assaulted. Even Professor Kurenai... you must've seen the scars on the back of her hands, right?"
Sakura found herself already nodding as she remembered her run-in with the psychology professor in the school bathroom. The scars on the woman's hands had been faint but still noticeable as she'd applied her lipstick.
"When Kurenai was your age, there were many times when she had to fight for her life on this very sidewalk," Professor Iruka explained as his smile saddened even more. "If it weren't for Asuma, Guy, and Kakashi... I don't know if she would still be here with us today. I don't know if I would."
Sakura watched her professor tilt his face back to smile at the sky in gratitude of having survived such a dangerous childhood thanks to his friends.
"That's awful," she commented quietly.
"Oh, it was more than awful. It was truly the survival of the fittest," he said with a shake of his head. "Back then, the world was a very cruel place to live in, especially for lonesome kids like Kakashi. It's why gang activity was extremely prevalent; it was too difficult to survive as a kid without joining a pack. But joining the military... I think Kakashi felt like it gave him a purpose... a reason to live... and also a family. But the war stole his family from him too..."
"They died in battle?"
Professor Iruka paused, prompting Sakura to stop alongside him as well. He fiddled with the plastic handle of his grocery bags as he seemed to contemplate whether to answer her question or not. This wasn't the sort of question he'd probably expect from a student, but he sighed in defeat and continued walking, shaking his head in reply.
"It's a bit more complicated than that—in fact, Kakashi's whole life has been complicated from the moment he was born... Oh, I really shouldn't be telling you this," he fretted as she pressed him with a hard, expectant stare. Professor Iruka gripped his grocery bags tighter before caving in with a sigh. "Kakashi's mother died giving birth to him, so for a few years all he had was his father. But then his father... died..."
"From the war?" Sakura asked for clarification.
Professor Iruka's lips twisted as he seemed to struggle for the right way to answer a yes or no question. "Like I said, Kakashi has a very complicated life. So let's just say that the loss of his father traumatized him deeply. Growing up an orphan, it was hard for him to find a family again... He had friends like me, Kurenai, and the other guys but weren't orphans like him. We weren't like him in the sense that we were completely alone like Kakashi was, so we couldn't share the same pain—the same burden as him. But he eventually found a new family in the military: his Anbu team. They meant a lot to him. And then on one of his last missions, Kakashi... he made an innocent but grave mistake that cost him the lives of his whole team—the family he had loved. Ever since then, he hates himself for it."
Sakura's steps had slowed down to a cautious amble as she struggled to process this load of information dumped on her. The specifics were still vague that it was hard for her to really grasp what he was talking about.
"What mistake did he make?"
Professor Iruka shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure. Kakashi's always refused to divulge the details but, from what I've heard, it had something to do with a child."
The moment he said that, he stiffened and touched his mouth as if to silently rebuke himself for letting slip something that was supposed to be a secret.
A child? Sakura frowned. There had been no photos of any child on Kakashi's nightstand, and he himself had clarified that he didn't have any children. What child could have anything to do with Kakashi's mission?
"But what does that have to do with him being a jerk?" Sakura asked instead once they reached another crosswalk. "Why does he try so hard to push people away? To make them… hate him?"
"He's scared to care again," Professor Iruka simply said as if the answer was really that simple. "He's scared to lose a loved one again. He's scared to fail them too..." Seeing the confusion fill Sakura's face, he sighed. "You have to understand that Kakashi was born with the weight of the Hatake legacy on his shoulders. In the days since the first World War, the Hatake family was and still is renowned for their military prowess and achievements. Every single Hatake that ever existed are decorated war heroes—it practically runs in their blood.
Which means Kakashi was born with the duty to serve and protect others even at the cost of his own life. Even though he was made an orphan at a young age, he still knew that much. And that legacy running in his blood was, for him , the most important thing—the only real thing—that connected him to the family he had lost. So when Kakashi failed to fulfill that duty... when he failed to uphold his family legacy and protect his teammates... that one failure destroyed the core of his identity. And now he's..." Professor Iruka's shoulders sagged heavily as he lowered his eyes to the cement like a man mourning a long-lost friend. "Now he's a husk of his former self. This jerk that you know as your Professor is just a mask he wears to protect those around him... and, in extension, himself. But the old Kakashi is still somewhere in there… just hiding. And on some really good days, if you manage to get his guard down then you might be able to glimpse the man behind the mask."
The man behind the mask? Yeah, Sakura had caught a glimpse of him before. Before everything had gone to absolute shit, and now Kakashi seemed to wear his mask up all the time around her.
She must've looked less than convinced because Professor Iruka smiled wryly at her dark glower. "Just know that Kakashi's not a jerk without reason. He doesn't tell people what his reasons are—in fact, he doesn't really share his true feelings at all—but everything that he does is always for the greater good of everyone. Or at least that's how he sees it."
Sakura couldn't help but snort at that last line. "That's a bit arrogant of him, isn't it?"
Professor Iruka's face scrunched up. "Mm, I wouldn't really call it arrogance although it's easy for it to look that way. The truth is, Kakashi's just a man controlled by his trauma. I don't think he understands that though. I don't think many people do," he added more quietly. "Mental health is something people like him have to battle every day, and too many people aren't able to see an invisible battle like that let alone understand it. They just don't have the patience to."
She was caught off guard by the shard of guilt that slid into her gut in response to his words. It was true; although Sakura had noticed that Kakashi sometimes seemed off in the most random moments, she had never been able to put a finger as to why.
And the more she thought about it and Professor Iruka's explanation, the more she felt guilty. She'd been so absorbed in her own feelings and the drama between them that she hadn't actually stopped to consider Kakashi's feelings. Why he'd lashed out at her that night at his house. Why he sometimes pulled away like he was afraid she was the one who might hurt him.
"Shouldn't he be in therapy then?" Sakura suggested weakly as she already had a feeling what the answer would be. "Aren't there programs for war veterans to help them with whatever trauma they have?"
Professor Iruka guided her around the corner of Kage Park, cutting through the basketball court where they'd played a match together with Kakashi and the other school faculty.
"It's not so simple to just tell someone to go to therapy. Therapy is for people who still have hope in themselves. Kakashi is too married with his guilt—he hates himself too much to want to help himself," he said before pointing to the back parking lot of the park. "You see that man over there?"
Sakura followed the direction of his finger and squinted at a figure stretched out across the curb of one of the empty parking spaces. It was a man although she couldn't discern his age with the tattered blanket shrouding almost all of him in darkness and a scraggly beard hiding half his face. But she could spy his shaky hands gripping onto what looked like a syringe.
Her upper lip curled back in disgust. "You mean that homeless man shooting up drugs?"
Professor Iruka turned his kind smile away from her and towards the figure in the distance. "That man is Satoshi. He's a war veteran just like Kakashi."
The grimace fell away from Sakura's face.
Without further ado, Professor Iruka trudged towards the homeless man—towards Satoshi's direction. She trailed after her teacher, hesitant more from shame than fear. How ironic that she'd seen this man as just a random homeless drug addict when the reality was that he was a war veteran with a name—Satoshi.
Guilt was an understatement as Sakura watched Professor Iruka gingerly place the two bags of groceries by Satoshi's side. Satoshi didn't mumble a word of thanks or any sort of acknowledgment as Professor Iruka continued to flip open his wallet and slip a couple of bills into the depths of the grocery bags. He didn't pay either of them attention but merely gazed on listlessly into the darkness of the night like a man haunted by his waking nightmares.
Sakura recognized that eerie stare of his; it was that same thousand-yard stare she'd seen from Kakashi before. The first time had been at the end of the Manhunt game from Welcome Week. The second time had been at the gas station.
As they walked away, Sakura peered back over her shoulder to watch Satoshi close his eyes. This far from him, he looked dead or at least someone waiting for death to come.
"For us regular folks, the war ended long ago," Professor Iruka continued as he steered her out of the parking lot. "But for soldiers like Kakashi, the battle came home with them. And some are too tired to fight anymore that the only thing they can do now is try to numb the pain by—yes—shooting up drugs or drowning themselves in alcohol. Anything to feel nothing. Or sometimes anything to feel something. But for Kakashi..." Professor Iruka's voice broke on his friend's name despite the soft smile still sitting on his face. "Some part of Kakashi is still fighting to survive. I know it's hard to understand all this—believe me, it was really hard for me to understand at the beginning too because he prefers to keep all his problems to himself. I didn't even know how much he'd been suffering until—" He stopped himself, and then pressed his lips with a shake of his head. His bottom lip trembled as he instead said, "Even now, I can't begin to imagine how difficult this battle is for people struggling with mental health. Which is why I must ask you again..."
Professor Iruka stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and Sakura was caught completely off guard when he bowed low at his waist for her.
"Please be patient with Kakashi."
The open sincerity in her professor's request left Sakura speechless for a second before she remembered that they were in the middle of the street. It was probably an odd sight for a teacher to be bowing for a student, so she quickly waved her hands to urge him back into a straight position.
"Um..." Feeling Professor Iruka's hopeful smile bear down on her, Sakura looked aside and continued walking. "It's... hard," she eventually admitted.
Her neutral response didn't put him off as he merely laughed and nodded. "Yes, Kakashi does have a rep for being the hardest teacher on campus. It's definitely not easy dealing with him, and that's why many students are so quick to drop his class at the start of the semester. So it's understandable if you decide to quit too."
The suggestion had Sakura bristling on instinct. Just the word 'quit' was enough to invigorate her and prove the opposite—that she was no quitter. She'd grown up that way and it wouldn't be like her to, well, quit that kind of attitude now.
As if thinking the same thing, Professor Iruka took one look at her and quirked an amused grin. "But if you ask me, I can't see you quitting."
"Why not?"
He squinted at her like he was studying something she couldn't see. "Well, Kakashi once said that you are stubbornly determined when you want to achieve something. I noticed it too that day we played basketball together. In fact, you remind me of an old friend," he said more quietly as a pensive expression took over. "He's not here with us anymore, but he too had the same kind of stubborn determination as you. Maybe that's why Kakashi seems more alive with you around."
Had anybody else told that to Sakura, she would have laughed right in their face. Because these days, Kakashi was the very opposite of alive whenever she was around him. Terrified, exasperated, aggravated—and maybe even annoyed (but that was hard to tell with his impassive face). But alive? Even a cadaver had more life than him.
So she said nothing as they approached the main gate of Konoha U's campus. The steel archway painted in a leafy green greeted them as they passed through it. A lone officer sitting within the police box by the entrance waved at them before returning to whatever game he played on his phone. Professor Iruka continued to escort Sakura until they reached the fountain of the main courtyard where it was best illuminated.
"Well, I don't want to keep you any longer," Professor Iruka said, gesturing to the steps of the library further on ahead. "But I would rather you not walk home so late in the evening by yourself, so please be safe and get a lift from someone if possible."
Once again, Sakura opened her mouth to tell him that even though she was a small and unassuming girl, she was well capable of walking home alone at night just fine. But upon remembering the dangers Professor Iruka had described from his youth, she decided it wasn't very respectful of her to just casually brush his concern off. At least not in front of him.
"Miss Haruno!" Professor Iruka called out to her as she took her first step on the stairs. She paused and waited for him. Scratching his cheek, he gave her a somewhat bashful smile. "Us adults aren't as perfect as you youngsters make us out to be. We don't always have everything sorted out and sometimes we can be far more childish than you guys. In fact, sometimes the innocence of the youth is what's needed to point us wayward adults to the right direction. Because the truth is... we, too, are still finding our path in life—with some of us more lost than others. But in times like that, both the young and the old need to help each other along. Life's not a race, you know?"
No, she didn't know. Because for Sakura, her whole life had felt nothing but one big race with a stopwatch ticking nearby.
She shook her head at him. "Sometimes, Professor, it is a race."
He was still standing at the foot of the stairs when Sakura smiled politely back and thanked him for his time. With that, she then headed into the library.
As expected, the first floor was practically empty with only a straggler still sitting at the study tables but she was already gathering her books to leave. The front desk was also already bereft of any librarian or student worker but Sakura knew exactly where to go as she made her way to the elevator.
Kankuro had texted her earlier that he would nab them a spot by the stacks on the third floor where they could study together with a semblance of privacy. She was thankful enough that he hadn't chosen any of the computer lab rooms—especially the infamous room 303. But given that it was a Friday night, she doubted there would be any privacy problems anyway.
Besides, privacy wasn't the problem that was on her mind while riding the elevator. Instead, Sakura found herself fretting over what Professor Iruka had said about Kakashi. He'd dumped all these details onto her, but they hadn't really been specific enough for her to truly understand Kakashi himself. All she'd grasped was that Kakashi carried a lot of baggage from his past, and all that trauma that came with it had destroyed the person he once was.
All because of one little mistake he'd made that had cost the lives of his whole team.
'I failed you...'
He'd mumbled that when under the thralls of his fever that day. And then he'd muttered some sort of apology for someone. Someone by the name of—
"Sakura, over here!"
She looked up just in time to see Kankuro sit up from his side of the desk he'd saved for them, grinning like a boy on a Christmas morning.
He waved at her and she tentatively waved back, taking in his clean attire for a purple long sleeve and basketball shorts that showed off his toned legs. It was a simple outfit, and she suddenly became self-conscious of her own schoolgirl-themed outfit that now seemed more tacky than sexy.
"You look... wow," Kankuro chuckled lightly as his gaze skimmed down her figure.
Mumbling her thanks, she tried to not rip her fake glasses off as she watched Kankuro hurry and pull back the chair beside his. It was a gentleman move, but Sakura could only flash a nervous smile at him under the guise of gratitude.
She stepped to the front of her chair and reached behind her mini-skirt to hold it down while she sat herself.
"I was thinking we could go grab dinner later before the cafeteria closes," Kankuro told her as he seated himself at her side.
Dinner from the school cafeteria? Not exactly the romantic dinner date she'd always fantasized, but she understood Kankuro was on a college budget just like she was.
Her eyes surveyed their empty table before Sakura reached for her backpack to pull out her school supplies and study materials—including pencils, pens, a notebook, the Human Anatomy textbook, the lab manual, a ziploc bag full of flashcards, highlighters, and a pad of sticky notes.
She organized everything across her side of the table before looking to Kankuro and catching the way he gaped at her almost in confusion of what she was doing. He had yet to open his own backpack and, when he realized she was waiting for him, he blinked and gave her a wry smile.
"Wow! You, uh... you really came prepared!"
He still appeared perplexed by all the materials she'd taken out, so Sakura frowned in confusion as well. "I thought you said we were going to study..?"
"Y-Yeah, no—we are!" Kankuro seemed flustered as he turned around to reach into his own backpack and shuffle through the mess of papers stuffed within. Some of the papers were crumpled but Sakura waited patiently as he shoved those aside in search of something. When he came up with nothing, Kankuro faced her with a sheepish smile. "Actually, I think I left my books back in my dorm?"
Sakura's brows shot up while her heart sank with disappointment. Considering he was the one who'd proposed to have a study date, she would have thought he would at least come prepared with the materials for it. But she tried not to let her mood sour over an honest mistake, and offered to share her books with him instead.
Kankuro was more than elated as he quickly dragged his chair all the way so that it was positioned right against hers, giving him the chance to sit elbow-to-elbow with Sakura.
She tried not to stiffen by the feel of his shoulder brushing with hers as he leaned into her space. Truthfully, she wasn't used to having her space invaded like this, especially when studying. But she reminded herself that this was a date, so intimacy was a given.
At least he's not wearing too much Axe body spray, Sakura noted as she slid her book closer to him. Although it was hard to appreciate the smooth, dark chocolate scent emanating from him when it smelled too fake. She much rather preferred something natural but masculine, and musky but refreshing too. Like Kakashi—gah, stop thinking about him, Sakura!
"We should review from the beginning first since midterms are coming up," she said, flipping through the pages to take them all the way back to chapter one and hoping to censor all thought of Kakashi from her mind.
At her side, Kankuro was fiddling with his phone instead of paying attention to the study guide she'd pulled out. Just as Sakura was about to ask him what he was doing, a string of expletives burst out of his phone and she nearly ripped the page off her book out of surprise.
"You like rap?" Kankuro asked her over the music blaring out of his phone's speakers.
For a moment, all Sakura could do was watch him bob his head in time to the beats.
"Y-Yeah," she managed to answer through a tight smile. "I love rap!"
Just not this kind of rap, she held back from saying as she returned her attention to her notebook.
His music continued to cut through the library's quiet atmosphere but Sakura did her best to focus on the pages of notes before her. Which was really hard to do when all she could hear was the rapper in the background spitting lyrics about sex and drugs, drowning out her thought process.
Scanning the paragraph summarizing the purpose of the lymphatic system, Sakura tucked her chin down to hide the frown on her face.
It took her ten minutes to finish reading the paragraph, much to her frustration (though she chose not to say anything). It took another ten minutes as she waited for Kankuro to finish reading as well. Before she could turn the page to tackle the next topic on the study guide, Kankuro was already asking her questions about the first topic.
Sakura didn't mind answering his questions, of course; it helped refresh her mind and figure out if she was lacking in her explanations and answers. After her first explanation regarding how the Central Nervous System was the control center housing the brain and spinal cord while the Peripheral Nervous System linked the former with the rest of the body's systems, it was smooth sailing from there.
She found a groove in the way that they'd read the page together first. Afterward, Kankuro would ask her to explain or clarify a concept for him, and she'd test her knowledge by answering his questions.
If Ino had been here in her stead, she would have already been calling the police to save her from the criminal boredom of this date. But Sakura didn't mind... for the most part. Okay, it wasn't as exciting as hiking and getting to know each other in the arms of Mother Nature. Nor was it as romantic as sitting in a candle-lit dinner with her best dress on. But hey—at least she was getting some studying done and Kankuro's music wasn't that awful (although maybe that's because she was trying to ignore it).
Besides, he made for a pretty decent study buddy! Much better than Ino who would already be begging to go buy some frappuccinos to have a photoshoot with.
It was still hard to read and think over all the rapping, but Sakura thought it at least helped in staving off any awkward silence from building between them.
At least for the first hour.
They had just started reviewing chapter 2's cytology when Kankuro suddenly leaned back in his chair, his mouth stretching open for a big yawn. A very, very big yawn that had him raising both arms into the air. Slowly, his arms descended and Sakura sensed the one closest to her cautiously drape itself across the back of her chair.
Oh, no. Sakura knew exactly what that meant. She'd seen it enough times in cheesy rom-coms and—oh crap, he's coming closer!
Clearing his throat, Kankuro none too discreetly sidled closer to her. Close enough that she could smell the deodorant he'd clearly reapplied to cover up the stink of an unwashed armpit.
But he works out and he's a busy college student, so it makes sense he didn't have time to shower beforehand, Sakura tried to reason with herself even as she slightly turned her face away from the subtle stench. But her inner thoughts rose up, reminding her that Kakashi had been sweaty many times around her and he'd smelled nothing but like a snack—delicious and—gaaaah, what the hell is wrong with me?! Stop thinking about that asshole! You're supposed to think only about Kankuro!
As if to remind Sakura of his existence, Kankuro slid his arm closer so that it pretty much wrapped around her shoulders now. She could feel his hand hanging loose at her side as if he was waiting for her to bat his touch away. She didn't, but not because she didn't care to. It was more out of nervousness rather than excitement that Sakura stayed absolutely still, afraid that any movement would prompt him closer or push him away.
Honestly, Sakura wasn't sure which she wanted. Never in her life had a boy touched her like this before—and Naruto didn't count because he was just a friend and he liked to hug everyone.
So when Kankuro finally turned to look at her, all Sakura could do was stiffen beneath his arm, half-expecting him to try and kiss her now.
Kankuro's smile twisted as he studied the discomfort evident across her face. "Sorry, I'm not good at this, am I? Am I making you uncomfortable?"
A part of Sakura was glad he'd caught on. The other part of her was horrified he'd noticed. It was just a touch around the shoulders and she couldn't even handle that?!
Geez, maybe I really am a prude like Ino says!
But she wasn't like that with Kakashi...
"N-No, I'm not uncomfortable," Sakura replied. She struggled to explain herself, but it was hard to come up with an excuse when she wasn't entirely sure why she was so averse to even just a simple touch. Flustered herself now, she stammered through her words. "I, uh... I'm just not used to boys touching me. I mean, not in that way..."
The arm around her shoulders instantly retreated and Sakura winced.
"Am I making this awkward?" she asked Kankuro, eyeing the disappointment in his gaze he now kept averted.
"I guess we both are," he tried to say, but Sakura was already shaking her head.
"No, I'm sorry—can we try this again?" She watched Kankuro's gaze shift back to her as hope filled him anew. And that hope brightened in his eyes as she said, "You can put your arm around me. If you want..."
Sakura could see his excited spark come back to life but, for some reason, that same spark remained absent in her. Extinguished by a wave of anxiety and nausea as Kankuro happily wrapped his arm around her once more.
They sat together like that for a while, snuggled up side by side like a real couple. Sakura didn't find it uncomfortable—actually, Kankuro was pretty warm and his muscles, while bulky like a wrestler's, still had the fat to cushion her. Unlike Kakashi's muscled arms that were very brawny like that of an elite soldier who could probably kill her with a single touch the same way he could probably make her come with one touch.
Sakura gripped her pen tighter.
Damn it. Why did she keep thinking about Kakashi when she was on a date with Kankuro? Was it because of her earlier conversation with Professor Iruka? Or was it because of what had happened at the bar with that journalist? Speaking of that journalist, Sakura couldn't help but wonder if Kakashi was on a date with her right now...
Ugh, I'm doing it again—thinking about that jerk when he's not even here!
As if sensing her frustration, Kankuro cracked a joke. Something about why is the nervous system reckless? Sakura didn't pay enough attention to hear his answer, but she forced out a laugh anyway. Heck, she even batted her eyes at Kankuro just the way Ino had taught her.
But none of it felt right. It felt fake. She felt fake.
And Kankuro's grin widened with such pride and contentment that it only left Sakura feeling more awful.
So she laughed harder when he cracked a second joke: why are hearts so good at dancing? They love feeling the beat!
It was obvious he'd searched up these kinds of scripted jokes beforehand, but Sakura tried to appreciate it nonetheless even though she didn't find them that funny. What was important was that Kankuro thought she found them funny.
And judging by the huge grin across his face, he thought just that. All according to plan.
But what Sakura didn't plan was for him to go quiet as his gaze locked with hers. Nor did she plan for him to glance at her lips. And she definitely did not plan for him to lean his face towards her, his lashes fluttering shut.
She could see his lips pucker ever so gently towards her, and she could feel her own lips make a small, surprised 'o' in response.
He went in slow but at the same time it was all too fast for Sakura.
Without thinking, she yanked herself back from him, almost spilling out of her chair in the process. The sound of her hand instinctively slamming the pen down on the study table to catch herself prompted Kankuro's eyes to snap open.
He blinked in bewilderment at the sight of Sakura struggling to haul her ass back fully on the chair. Once properly seated again, Sakura tried to giggle off the awkwardness now choking her. Her giggle came out so hysteric with nerves that she decided to clamp her mouth shut instead.
"Sorry," Kankuro chuckled sheepishly. "I'm moving too fast for you, aren't I?"
You haven't even bought me dinner yet, Sakura wanted to retort back.
But right now, she just didn't have the strength to speak. Not when her heart was pounding so hard that it seemed to be pounding all the way up to her head, too, like an alarm warning her to stop. To not kiss him because she didn't want to. Not one bit.
Swallowing back the nausea, Sakura smiled weakly at Kankuro. "N-No, I just... You caught me off guard, is all. Sorry, I wasn't ready. Let's... try again?"
What were these words coming out of her mouth? She felt like a character in some sort of play, preparing for a kissing scene with an invisible audience waiting with bated breath. Only she had a feeling she would just keep botching the scene.
Kankuro's face brightened like he was about to play round 2 of his favorite video game.
He closed his eyes and slowly leaned towards her again, but Sakura kept her eyes wide open and gawking at his incoming lips. Her heart was back to racing like a jackrabbit, but more from stomach-clenching anxiety than excitement. It was like she was back to playing spin-the-bottle with the uncertainty cloying her lungs as she faced Lee and his lips puckered up like a fish's.
If she was going to hurl again, now was both the best and the worst time to do so.
Kankuro's breath tickled her lips and she squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of—
DING!
Sakura's heart nearly leapt out of her chest when her phone abruptly interrupted them with a notification.
She quickly turned her cheek, letting Kankuro's face brush by with his kiss grazing her ear instead of her mouth.
With sweaty hands, Sakura fumbled to check her phone's notifications. This time, her heart nearly stopped at the sight of the e-mail symbol at the top of her phone's screen. Somebody had emailed her!
Could it be...?
Her thumbs flew across the screen as she opened up the email, hoping with all her heart that it was her parents finally getting back to her. But her heart plummeted the moment her eyes landed on the sender of the email.
It was just the landlord reminding her and Ino about the rent due for this month.
She sighed in disappointment when a second e-mail popped in but this time from Konoha U.
"Everything okay?" Kankuro cautiously asked with his face popping into peripheral view just behind her phone.
"Yeah," she mumbled distractedly. "The school just sent an announcement that Professor Guy will be taking over all sections for the Ultimate Fitness course."
"Oh..."
Remembering that he was still waiting for that kiss, Sakura set her phone down. It felt like she was putting down her only shield as she turned to face him and his lips once more.
But this time Kankuro seemed less enthused and more uncertain as he scratched his cheek. "Listen, Sakura, I know that I asked you out on this date but if you're not actually interested—"
"I am!" she blurted out, sitting up straighter in the chair now to show how serious she was.
Kankuro was less than convinced as he pursed his lips instead of puckering them again. "Okay, so you're interested in me... but do you like me? 'Cause I really like you, but I don't wanna pressure you into doing anything you don't wanna do. And if you don't like me enough to want to kiss me, then just say so—no hard feelings!" he insisted when her face fell. "I just really like you, and I think you're a sweet and super smart girl. So I want things to be honest between us, y'know?"
Sakura was speechless for a moment as panic clawed up her throat. But that panic was soon quelled by the strange familiarity she sensed from this situation.
Here she was, on a date with a boy who liked her but she did not like in return. Here she was, trying to trick him into thinking that she did like him enough to want to kiss him. Here she was, lying about her own feelings towards someone who had been nothing but honest with his own feelings.
Ah, now she knew why this all felt so awfully familiar. Wasn't she experiencing a similar thing with Kakashi? Except now the roles were switched.
Whereas Kakashi had been a liar for denying his feelings for her, now she was the liar for faking her feelings for Kankuro.
Funny how she'd been so pissed at Kakashi for being a lying hypocrite, and now she was playing the role of the lying hypocrite herself.
Sakura nodded slowly. "Yeah, I know..."
Kankuro, being the nice boy that he was, gave her a forgiving smile. "I am glad to be studying with you though. You've been a great help in explaining the stuff I've been struggling with. I'm good at memorizing the muscles," he gestured to his notebook, "but the concepts from lecture are harder to follow."
He started to go on about some concepts like the histology of the nervous system, but Sakura's attention had been drawn to the notebook he'd pointed to.
Across the page was a very detailed diagram of the cranium, drawn from a transverse view to show all the landmarks and foramens within. At first glance, the picture looked printed out, but Sakura recognized the tell-tale signs of eraser marks and smudged graphite around the edges.
Sakura's jaw slowly dropped as she reached for the drawing. "Hold on, did you draw these yourself? Kankuro, these drawings are amazing!"
"Huh?" Kankuro followed the hand picking up his notebook. "O-Oh, yeah, those are just sketches."
"Just sketches?" She shook her head and flipped to the next page where he'd drawn a very detailed clavicle—twice to show both a superior view and inferior view of the bone. "You even did the costal tuberosity justice! Geez, your muscle striations look so realistic too!" she remarked with awe as she flipped towards the pages full of muscle sketches.
Just like back at the gym when she'd praised his muscles, Kankuro preened under her praise. "Yeah, I draw anatomy sometimes. It helps to practice with dolls."
"Dolls?"
He blushed and tried to backtrack on that. "E-Err, my lil' bro has a collection of dolls—and action figures, of course. The dolls were, uh, just passed down to me—I mean to my lil' bro—from our elder sister. And I just study them for reference in my drawings. I-I-I don't play with them though," he insisted.
But Sakura didn't really care if he played with dolls or not as she was too busy recalling something Ino had offhandedly mentioned a while back. Kankuro did have an elder sister—Temari—whom Ino claimed Shikamaru had an on-and-off thing with. It was rumored that Temari was once the gang leader of the high school she'd attended back in her home country. But since moving abroad to study at Konoha U with Kankuro, it was the youngest brother who'd inherited Temari's former role as gang leader.
It all sounded too wild to be true, especially since Kankuro looked too much like a teddy bear to have gang leaders for siblings.
But Sakura didn't think asking her date if his little brother was a gang leader would make for good conversation (even though it'd be a really interesting one). So instead, she just asked him if he could teach her to draw the muscles and bones.
Once again, Kankuro perked up, seemingly relieved that this date was back on the right track now. Sakura smiled and waited for him to sort through her scarce supply of wooden pencils (because according to him, graphite was best for sketching). She felt a sense of relief too, but for an entirely different reason: she was no longer faced with the choice to kiss him.
For now.
If the next time he tried to kiss her, Sakura had no idea how she would react.
Wasn't this what she had wanted though? To share her first kiss with someone of her own volition rather than someone she was contracted to?
Yes, she wanted that, but the problem was that she wanted more than that too.
Hinata and Kakashi had been right. She was a romanticist at heart. She did want her first kiss to be with someone special—and she wanted her special someone to be her damn Anatomy professor.
Ugh, why can't I get over that jerk?! Sakura inwardly berated herself while Kankuro helped her trace the outline of a clavicle.
Another thing Kakashi had been right about was that her stubbornness really was infuriating even for her.
"You're doing great," Kankuro reassured her, mistaking her frustrated groan to be directed at her drawing rather than herself.
She'd told Hinata that things like first love—especially true love—was just utter bullshit. But the truth of the matter was that Sakura still believed in that 'bullshit' and she'd only said that not for the sake of convincing her friend but for the sake of convincing herself.
She really was becoming like Kakashi, lying about her own feelings to everyone including herself but who the hell was she convincing here? Nobody, that was for sure, because even Kankuro had doubted her just earlier.
Then maybe... maybe I should end the date right here?
It would be wrong of her to keep leading Kankuro on like this, especially when he'd asked her for honesty just earlier. Even Kakashi hadn't stooped as low as she was right now.
So should I just call it quits now then...?
"Ooh, ease up on your pressure there," Kankuro advised her, oblivious to her internal struggle over him. "You don't want to press the pencil too hard 'cause then it's harder to control your strokes."
Just as Sakura was about to mutter an apology—for everything—heat prickled across the back of her neck.
"Well, what a pleasant surprise!"
No... No. Fucking. Way.
Her eyes were already bugging out of her head as she and Kankuro glanced up in unison.
Ambling his way towards them from across the hall, Kakashi crinkled his eyes and greeted them with a cheery salute. "Yo!"
The pencil in Sakura's hand snapped in half.
"Professor Hatake!" Kankuro blinked in surprise, seemingly just as shocked as she was, if not more. "What are you doing here?"
Approaching their table, Kakashi jerked a thumb over his shoulder while his other hand rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, my printer at home ran out of ink and the stores have just closed, so I ran here to make some copies."
Oh, she knew that was the same kind of bullshit he spewed every Monday and Wednesday morning when he arrived to class late.
"Fancy catching you two here at this time on a Friday night," he continued, glancing between the two of them.
Sakura stretched a smile tight across her face. "We're on a date."
"Oh? A study date?" Either Kakashi didn't get the hint or he refused to take it as he touched the back of the chair opposite of her. "Well, I don't have anywhere to be, so how about I help you guys out with your studying?"
Her smile twitched with barely restrained anger while she glared murderously at him through her glasses. "Thanks, but no thanks! I'm sure you must be tired already from a week of school, Professor Hatake."
"You must be tired too, Miss Haruno. All that hard work to maintain an A in my classes," he replied with too much sincerity than she'd expected.
"Yes," she continued smiling sweetly at him, "but I'm young, so I can afford to stay up past bedtime."
Kankuro shot a look at her, his own welcoming smile faltering from her blatant jab at their teacher.
But Kakashi remained unfazed by the insult as he just crinkled his eyes at her. "Well, seeing two of my students working so hard to pass my class on a Friday night is quite motivating. I can't help but want to help them, and since I'm already here..." he drawled out, tapping a finger suggestively against the back of his chosen chair. "How about it?"
Kankuro answered with an awkward laugh and he peered uncertainly over to Sakura, but she was too busy staring daggers at Kakashi.
"Uh, sure!" Kankuro relented much to Sakura's silent indignation. "I guess I could use the help!"
What the hell do you think I've been doing for you this entire date?! Sakura thought angrily behind her smile. She squeezed the broken pieces of the pencil in her hand, watching as Kakashi tugged back the chair across from hers to sit down in front of her.
All the frustration she bore towards him began to percolate, rising with a maddened blush up her cheeks and to the roots of Sakura's hair. While Kankuro explained what they were doing at the moment, she leaned down to reach for her backpack sitting on the floor. If only to hide her face and the anger reddening it.
Shoving the broken pencil into a backpack pocket, she sucked in a deep breath to steel herself. Kankuro's rap music was still playing in the background and, for once, she tried to focus on it to distract herself of her anger.
It worked somewhat as she felt the heat subside from at least her cheeks.
When she straightened back up on her chair, Kankuro had just finished explaining which concepts he'd been struggling with until Sakura had kindly broken them down for him.
Kakashi nodded, carrying the professional air of a teacher whose sole intention was to help his student with his studies rather than interrupt his student's date. If Sakura didn't know any better, she would've fallen for it as well as the way he looked through Kankuro's notes... and pointed out his areas of weaknesses and strengths... and then wrote in some clarifications and notes in the margins...
Before Sakura knew it, both Kankuro and Kakashi were deep in a conversation regarding the purpose of acetylcholine receptors within the neuromuscular junction.
She took the chance to scrutinize Kakashi's plain shirt, leather jacket, and jeans attire. It was the same clothes he'd worn this morning from the bar. But there was no hint of a lipstick stain anywhere on his clothes or on him. Nor could she pick up any trace of a woman's perfume tainting his own familiar scent.
So either Kakashi had taken a very quick shower and then thrown back on the exact same clothes before coming here or... he hadn't slept with that woman...?
Relief flickered warm in her chest.
Still, Sakura was honestly baffled to see Kakashi here. She'd assumed he'd planned to spend the night with his journalist friend—that Oyama Sakae. Even now, seeing that Kakashi had come here for her instead of staying with that woman left Sakura feeling a mixed bag of emotions.
While Kankuro was busy scribbling some notes down, Kakashi must've finally sensed Sakura appraising him because he turned his attention onto her. His gaze remained cool and calm—a sharp contrast to the scathing look she gave him.
"Did you have a question, Miss Haruno?"
"…. No, Professor Hatake."
With a deep inhale, Kakashi relaxed back in his chair and folded his hands atop of the table. They stared at each other for a while as if they were in a contest with each other. Heck, for all Sakura knew, maybe they really were having a staring contest.
The tension between them was filled with the 'scritch scratch' of Kankuro writing down notes and his rap music still blasting lines about more sex and drugs. But even the lyrical expletives weren't enough to pierce the tension thick in the air.
She sat forward in her chair and turned a page in her notebook, but didn't break away from Kakashi's gaze.
Next to her, Kankuro had started to sing along to the song on his phone, his words more of a mumble compared to the rapid rapping.
"Mr. Suna?" Kakashi spoke up without looking away from Sakura. "I guarantee you'll be able to concentrate and retain the information much better if you leave out the distractions."
Kankuro peeked up and caught Kakashi's strict eye. Flustered, he hurried to stop the music on his phone, allowing the library silence to fully fall upon their table now.
Just as Kakashi flicked his eyes back to Sakura, she dropped her stare back to her textbook. Kankuro had flipped several pages forward under Kakashi's tutelage, but she was able to quickly get back on track with her studies.
Even though she continued to study under Kakashi's observance, it was actually much easier for her to concentrate now. But she wouldn't dare admit that she was begrudgingly grateful Kakashi had Kankuro turn off the distracting music.
Even if I did thank him, he'd probably go off and tell me how he's actually a bad guy and I shouldn't thank him—blah, blah, blah!
So Sakura ignored him instead, choosing to focus entirely on the midterm study guide and only on that. Once in a while, Kankuro would pipe in with a question regarding the study material and Kakashi would patiently help him through the problem. Each time there was a brief lull in the silence like this, Sakura would chew the tip of her pencil and watch them interact from the corner of her eye.
It maddened her that Kakashi had decided to butt into their date like this. It pissed her off so much that he'd, once again, taken advantage of his position as professor to interfere with her private affairs. And honestly, she was just as pissed at Kankuro for allowing this to happen!
Like some rabid fanboy, he nodded sagely and hung onto every single word that came out of Kakashi's mouth.
This was their date, and yet Kankuro's full attention was on their third wheel rather than the dolled up date silently fuming next to him!
When Kakashi proposed that they go and look through the shelves for some supplemental material to help Kankuro with some concepts, Sakura had been the first one to stand up from the table. She needed to stretch her legs lest she decide to throttle the both of them.
Kankuro still seemed oblivious to her ire as he stood up as well with a grin. He now seemed happy and confident with the material he'd been struggling with earlier. Sakura was happy for him too—but still just as annoyed.
"I think the Biology section is that way," Kankuro told them, pointing down a hall.
Sakura and Kakashi followed after him, passing by rows and rows of shelves as they neared the Biology section. But as soon as Kankuro turned a corner at the end of the aisle, Sakura grabbed Kakashi's hand and yanked him behind a stack.
"Go. Away!" she whispered harshly at him.
Kakashi's brows knitted together. "To where?"
"Anywhere but here!"
He opened his mouth to say something, but the return of footsteps prompted them both to grab a random book off the shelf.
Kankuro appeared around the corner of their aisle and smiled at the sight of them with their noses stuck in their books and reading intensely (well, pretending to).
"Hey, find any good material?" Kankuro asked her as he wandered down the aisle on the opposite side of the stack.
"Yeah," Sakura answered, staring at the words but not really reading them. Kankuro peeked in between the textbooks separating them and she sensed him frown at the book in her hand. She gave the cover a brief glance and inwardly panicked at the frog she glimpsed. "I-I mean, did you know that frogs have a similar lymphatic system as us?"
From the corner of her eye, Kakashi raised a brow at her.
Kankuro was still frowning, however, and he squinted harder at the book in her hand. "Uh, your book is upside down...?"
Flustered now, Sakura nearly dropped the book as she scrambled to flip it right-side up in her hands. Beside her, Kakashi let out a strangled cough that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle he was struggling to contain. Flashing a smile at Kankuro, Sakura surreptitiously stomped her heel atop of Kakashi's foot.
Kakashi's book fell from his hands as his strangled cough ended with a choked gasp.
"You good, Professor?" Kankuro tried to peer around the books still blocking most of his view of their aisle.
Kakashi could only grunt weakly in reply.
Kankuro's face twisted with worry and he began making his way out of his own aisle to return to theirs.
"I did warn you about rheumatoid arthritis, Professor Hatake," Sakura innocently said even as Kakashi scowled at the dainty little foot digging threateningly onto his foot. "Onset symptoms start to show for middle-aged men like you. You should probably go and get it checked out," she said with a meaningful look.
Kankuro swerved back onto their aisle just after Sakura lifted her foot from Kakashi's.
"I'm fine," Kakashi reassured Kankuro with a crinkle of his eyes (or maybe to just hide any hint of pain).
Sakura quickly returned her book back to its spot and walked away from her little crime scene, pretending to look for supplemental material elsewhere.
Anxiety roiled in her gut but a sense of satisfaction also swelled in her chest. She knew it was immature of her to behave like that towards Kakashi but, in her defense, he'd totally deserved it for interrupting her date.
"And he totally deserves more than that," Sakura grumbled to herself.
One aisle away from them, she could hear Kankuro chuckle nervously and ask, "Hey, Professor? It's not really related to Anatomy but I was actually wondering if you could share any tips or recommend any books for how I can... y'know, get my body jacked up like yours?"
Sakura turned around to catch Kankuro gesturing in awe at Kakashi's muscled figure.
"Ah, about that..." Kakashi clamped a hand across the nape of his neck, unintentionally flexing his bicep so that it strained against even the leather of his jacket.
Kankuro looked ready to cream his pants from the beautiful bulge of the muscle.
"Actually, I got this body from my military training," Kakashi explained. "Muscles like these have less to do with the gym and more to do with hard labor and discipline. But I'm sure I can find you some nutrition books to help you get started with the foundations," he quickly added when Kankuro's excitement began to die. "Just make sure you're doing this for your health and not for the aesthetic."
She watched Kakashi sweep down the aisle and pluck out several books to hand to Kankuro. She then waited as Kankuro drifted away to a spot with better lighting. Once the coast was clear, she shoved aside the books separating her and Kakashi, making a little window for her to poke her head in through the shelf.
"Tell him you have to go home and feed your dogs!" she hissed at Kakashi.
He glanced up in confusion and jerked back slightly in surprise of her glowering face wedged between the books. "Ah, but I already fed my dogs...? By the way, why are you wearing glasses?" he asked, frowning at the frames perched on her nose.
"It doesn't matter—just tell him!" she managed to say just before Kankuro returned.
She yanked her face back and almost lost her fake glasses in the process. Pushing the frames back up her nose, she shot Kakashi one more glare before walking away.
Her feet were already sore from her stomping around in these damn heels, but the pain only invigorated Sakura as she ducked behind a row of stacks. From a distance, she was able to observe the guys and even catch onto bits of their conversation.
But instead of hearing Kakashi make up some lie to excuse himself, all she heard from him was weight training tips and... protein shake recipes?!
Sakura grabbed a hardcover textbook and strangled it with her bare hands while Kankuro devoured every word of advice from his newfound mentor. He seemed enraptured by their professor, and Sakura couldn't help but think that Kakashi had far more chemistry with Kankuro than she did. How was that possible?!
No, even worse—how did I become the third wheel on my own date?!
When they started discussing the Make-Out series, Sakura's eyes nearly rolled out of her head. She turned away in disgust and wandered further down the stacks. Hopefully, by the time she returned to them, they would be done gushing over their favorite porn and the floor would stop stinking of testosterone.
In the meantime, she weaved in and out of the stacks, trailing her hand along the walls of books. Many of them were surprisingly not dusty, but she had since lost interest in searching for supplemental material. She had also lost interest in studying too. She was too frustrated at this point to be able to concentrate anyway.
Too many things had gone wrong on this date. It would be easy to blame it all on Kakashi for interrupting, but Sakura was well aware that she was to blame as well—if not more. The warning signs had been there all along, and she had known since the beginning that her heart hadn't been into this. Even Hinata had warned her not to go on the date if she wasn't fully on board.
With a heavy sigh, Sakura turned the corner of a stack but stopped at the sight of Yakushi Kabuto striding fast down an aisle. Her first instinct was to raise a hand and shout his name in greeting, but his eyes were glued to the phone in his hand and he seemed to be walking with a purpose.
Before she could think of chasing after him, he disappeared behind a shelf and she heard a door open and close.
It was surprising to see him still out and about on school campus given that it was a Friday evening. Especially in the library of all places. Perhaps Mr. Yakushi had spent the afternoon late with a student he'd been tutoring? But then how long had he been here in the library if she hadn't noticed him until now?
Sakura was still thinking how long Mr. Yakushi had been on the same floor as her when a 'thump' nearby drew her attention away. She paused and then frowned when the sound came again... and again... and again—almost rhythmic.
Heading the opposite direction from where Kabuto had disappeared to, Sakura followed the source of the noise, passing by the front desk of the resource center and the cricut machines. She found herself at a secluded hallway lined with rooms with an emergency exit at the very end.
She treaded lightly towards the single room that had light spilling out through the bottom gap of the closed door. When Sakura touched the cold handle, however, a strained groan prevailed over the persistent thumping. Her hand froze, but before she could finish registering the new sound, a feminine whimper soon followed after.
Sakura shot her wide eyes up and blushed at the numbers painted above the door: 303.
Computer lab room 303.
Oh... that makes sense, she thought just as another moan reached her ears.
Her blush deepened as Sakura stared at her hand still gripping the door handle tightly.
"Find something interesting?" Kakashi asked right over her shoulder.
A silent scream flew out of her mouth and she spun around to find Kakashi still bent at the waist as if he was going to whisper something else in her ear.
"Are you trying to scare me?!" She swatted his shoulder for good measure but he only raised his brow in amusement.
"You were taking a while to come back," Kakashi said as he straightened himself up. "Kankuro returned to the study table, so I went to go look for you..." he trailed off as he finally noticed the thumping noise coming from within the room before them.
Before Sakura could pull him away, a long moan cut through the space between them. Her face felt ready to combust as she watched Kakashi's brow twitch.
He narrowed his eyes at her almost in accusation before dragging his attention to the closed door at their side. With a sigh, he reached for the handle.
"Don't!" Sakura grabbed his wrist to stop him. "They're doing... that..."
Another moan emphasized what she meant by that.
Sakura glared at the door. Girl, if you don't shut up in there...
"And they shouldn't be doing that," Kakashi asserted. "This is a computer lab—not a sex dungeon. This behavior needs to be reported."
"No!" She struggled with Kakashi's hand for a moment but he was relentless. So she slipped herself between the door and him, pressing her hands against his chest to keep him at bay even though it was like pushing a wall. "Look, it's... it's a thing in this school," Sakura tried to explain. "All the students know about what happens in Room three-oh-three at night and nobody reports it. But if you report it then the school will probably close this floor off after hours and then students won't be able to come in anytime they want."
"Anytime they want to have sex, you mean," Kakashi said dryly, but he stepped back and crossed his arms.
She took a step forward to nudge themselves further away from the room of pleasure.
"What about good students like me?" Sakura argued. "The ones who come here on this floor to actually study at night? Like what I'm doing with Kankuro right now? What if my printer breaks down and I need to come over and use the printers here—just like what happened with you?"
Kakashi faltered as he found himself caught in his own excuse. His jaw tightened and he stroked a hand along the edge of it to contemplate over the moaning still emanating from the lab room. She waited through the terse pause even as her face continued to redden with each rising moan.
Finally, Kakashi heaved a sigh. "I'll look away this time then. But just this time," he emphasized with a raised finger.
Sakura sagged against the door as relief swept through her. Tucking back a loose bang, she dared to smile at Kakashi—a real one that she hadn't had since leaving his house. "Thank you, Professor Hatake."
And she meant it.
Kakashi held her gaze, the grey of his eyes softening for the first time in what felt like forever. The tension seemed to melt away in an instant. Even all the anger that had been burning hot inside her like a furnace raging for days now... it seemed to fizz out. To the point that Sakura could feel her smile widening for him.
DING!
They both jolted at the sound of her phone's text notification breaking the fragile truce between them.
"O-Oh, I think that's Kankuro," Sakura mumbled, feeling her cheeks warm for a different reason now.
She reached into her pocket to draw out her phone, but something else also fell out of her pocket and to the ground. They both peered down and froze at the sight of the condom glinting bright and gold on the floor.
The shiny foil seemed to mock them as a sharp, euphoric cry arose from the lab room. A satisfied giggle then signaled the end of the couple's 'study session' and prompted Kakashi's jaw to feather with tension once again.
Sakura was still frozen in place as Kakashi bent over to pick up her condom (or, more specifically, Ino's condom).
The grey of his eyes hardened like quartz as he held the offensive contraceptive up for her to see in all its shiny glory. "Were you actually studying with Kankuro? Or were you just waiting to have sex with him the moment this room got freed up?" Kakashi demanded, shaking the condom so that the foil crinkled obnoxiously loud. "Is that why you came here? To check if it's almost your turn?"
"Wha—no!" Sakura sputtered, horrified that he would assume something so debauch of her. Angered by it too, and that anger sparked back to life into a raging fire. "That is... That is none of your business," she decided to say instead of straight up telling him that it wasn't true.
Because it wasn't true at all, but why should she be obligated to tell him when it really was none of his damn business?!
Apparently, Kakashi thought the opposite because his face became more drawn like a strict teacher facing off with a very disobedient student. "It's my business when I am your professor," he explained in a slow, carefully controlled voice. "I have a degree of responsibility over my students."
"And what if the s-sex is consensual?" Sakura retorted. "So what if I have sex with Kankuro? What does it matter to you, Professor Hatake?"
"It matters to me..." He paused for a split second as if to reconsider his choice of words. "It matters to me... because you're not even of the legal age to consent to sexual intercourse, Miss Haruno," Kakashi reminded her harshly. "Kankuro is eighteen. You are seventeen. That makes you illegal for him."
With that, he turned away, taking her condom with him.
Sakura's mouth fell open in indignation that he would dare confiscate something that was rightfully hers.
She stomped after him to catch up. "Well, what do you care if I'm legal for sex or not?! Because you sure as hell didn't care when you were trying to..." she took a quick glance around their empty surroundings first before hissing, "when you were trying to fuck me the other day in your house!"
She nearly crashed right into him when Kakashi abruptly stopped in his tracks. He turned around, revealing how his normally stoic face was now a mask of too much emotion and conflict for her to read.
"I wasn't in the right frame of mind when you suddenly showed up in my house—in my bedroom—unannounced and uninvited while I was delirious from a fever." Kakashi sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly as if to reign back what little control he had left. "But I apologize for my behavior towards you that night, and I take full responsibility—"
"Responsibility?" Sakura scoffed at that. "No, you won't. Because if you do intend to take full responsibility then you wouldn't keep pushing me away every time we get too close. Like this," she gestured to how close their feet were to each other—how close they now stood together as if drawn like magnets.
Realizing he'd subconsciously neared her, Kakashi quickly took a large step back. She rolled her eyes at how he'd just proved her point, and then took two steps forward to close the distance between them once more. He took another step back and she took another two steps forward to match him.
"You keep pushing me away even though you're the one who also can't stay away from me," Sakura accused him, keeping her voice low and hushed amid the silence of the library. "So if you're truly sorry and you want to take responsibility then do it. Take responsibility."
Kakashi stood fixed to the spot even as every muscle of his body strained against his clothes like he wanted nothing more than to bolt. But he'd heard her challenge, and his eyes darkened from a stormy grey to that bottomless black that always threatened to swallow Sakura whole. His eyes flicked down to her parted lips as she panted through her frustration and that magnetic pull tugging at her belly and towards him.
Kiss me, Sakura silently implored. Just take responsibility and kiss me!
But Kakashi merely clenched his jaw and ripped his gaze from her lips and back to her hard stare. He pointed a finger at her with the same hand gripping the condom. "I already let you off with your illegal drinking, Miss Haruno. I won't let you off this time."
With that, he drew his hand down to pocket the condom in his jeans.
"Hey, that's mine!" she protested.
Sakura lurched for the contraceptive but Kakashi yanked it away from her reach. He raised it high above his head, leaving her toddling on her tiptoes. She stretched her hand up and even tried jumping for it but, even with heels on, Kakashi was just too tall for her.
"Give it back to me!"
"I'll give the condom back when you're eighteen."
That only enraged Sakura further and she stopped jumping to scowl at him. "Plenty of other people lose their virginity at seventeen, so why can't I?!"
Kakashi stiffened from the question and he took a second to consider her.
"So you are still a virgin," he murmured aloud, setting her face ablaze with embarrassment. But the surprise in Kakashi's own face soon darkened with disappointment and something else. He stepped forward, forcing Sakura to tilt her head back. "You're a virgin, and you were going to give your first time to someone you just met less than a week ago? And on the first date?"
His smooth voice dropped all semblance of professionalism as it came out razor sharp and furious. Just like the way he looked at her right now.
Sakura's mouth flapped open and close for an excuse, but she couldn't come up with one. Neither did she want to admit that she hadn't actually planned to give Kankuro her virginity at all—in fact, she'd refused the condom but Ino had insisted it. She wasn't the kind of girl who dropped her panties for any boy who took her out on a date, especially when he hadn't even bought her dinner yet.
But she didn't think Kakashi deserved the truth. Not right now.
"So what then?" Sakura raised her chin defiantly. "I should give my virginity to you, Professor Hatake?"
Kakashi looked at her as if she'd just slapped the bullshit out of him.
"Besides, it... it's my choice," she stated firmly. "It's my choice to decide how I want to lose my virginity and to whom. A-And if I decide to… to do it with a boy I just met, then so be it!"
Ugh, that had sounded more convincing in her head.
"Because it's my choice!" Sakura reasserted, hoping that would cover up any other sign of hesitation.
"It's your choice?" he echoed her, but the disappointment resounded clear in the deadpan tone of his voice. "Cut the crap, Sakura. You're doing it because you're so eager to catch up to the rest of your peers. You're too eager to please people. To prove yourself an adult rather than the child you sometimes still are. It's not so much about choice for you as it is about expectations."
Sakura gaped at him. She wasn't sure which had startled her more—that this might be the first time she'd heard her teacher cuss or that he'd seen right through her.
And she was almost embarrassed about it. That he'd figured her out with just one sentence and had smelled her own bullshit which even she had tried to hide from herself. Because the truth was—yes, she did feel in some way pressured by Ino, Hinata, and even Tenten to catch up to them. To stop being treated like the baby of the group for once—stop their constant infantilizing just because she was the one with the least experience in both romance and sex.
Kakashi had been right about that.
But what he didn't know was Sakura's marriage contract to Sasuke. He didn't know that she also felt pressured by the little time she had left before her 18th birthday. He didn't know her as well as he thought he did—the same way Sakura didn't know him as well as she thought she did.
"Well, you... you didn't think I was a child when you were touching me all over!" she tried to counter.
Kakashi shook his head. "Most times, you carry yourself like an adult. But you're just at the liminal border of adulthood and sometimes—just like right now—your immaturity shows through. You don't think things through properly. You only think of what you want and not what you need. You're reckless, impulsive, and sometimes far too stubborn for your own good. And what's worse is that you never think of the consequences, and as a woman..." he said more softly, more seriously. "As a woman, some consequences for you are irreparable."
Sakura swallowed hard at that last part. He was right to some degree; she'd been impulsive and careless with Mizuki and had come so close to facing the consequences for that. But Mizuki was gone now, so she didn't understand why all the worry?
The one thing she really needed to worry about was her engagement to Sasuke. That was the real reason behind her impatient search for a guy she could share her first kiss, date, fuck, or whatever with. That was why she was as impulsive, reckless, and stubborn as he said she was.
Because Sakura just didn't have the luxury to not be.
"You don't know my reasons for doing all this," she said quietly.
"Maybe not," Kakashi nodded slowly and tucked the condom into his back pocket. "But I know that giving all your firsts to a random boy you just met isn't what you want."
Sakura hated how much he was right. She hated how he'd spoken the exact words she'd been carrying in her heart the moment Ino had forced the condom into her pocket. And she hated that although Kakashi didn't know her as well as he thought—he still knew her well enough. It proved that, although he'd tried to act indifferent to her lately, he'd still been paying close attention to her.
She hated it, and she hated how secretly grateful she was for it. Grateful that while she hadn't had the courage to refuse Ino and return the condom, Kakashi had the courage to take it off her hands. Maybe that was why Sakura just didn't have the strength to fight him for the condom anymore. Although, in her defense, fighting a former Anbu Black Ops commander for a condom wasn't exactly a bright idea anyway.
Her hands clenched the folds of her skirt briefly before loosening. Honestly, maybe it was because it was getting late, or she'd had little sleep these past days, or maybe it was that all these emotions had been so draining, but right now she was just so damn tired and—
Grrrrrr...
Hungry.
She coughed to pretend the noise had come from her throat. The heat continued to creep up her cheeks though, so Sakura glared down at her stomach, letting her bangs hide her embarrassed face.
A calloused finger gently took the bottom of her chin, however, and raised her face back up so that she was forced to meet Kakashi's gaze.
"Have you even had your first kiss yet?" he murmured. Upon seeing her expression, he lowered her eyes back down to her lips. "I'll take that as a no."
Sakura licked her lips, studying the way he studied her as she did so. "So if I have my first kiss, then am I allowed to have my first time?"
Kakashi seemed entranced as he eyed the way the tip of her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip.
"I told you," he whispered, sweeping the moisture off her lip with the pad of his thumb, "you're not legal yet, Sakura."
"I'm not legal for sex?" Sakura whispered back, lightly shuddering as she felt him trace back her bottom lip once more. "Or... I'm not legal yet for you?"
His thumb froze just at the corner of her mouth, warm and gentle over her lip. It lasted for only a split second longer before Kakashi abruptly pulled back from her, his hands shaking and chest rising. He was breathing hard, eyes wide and jaw strung taut as he raked a hand—that same hand he'd used to touch her lips—through his grey locks.
Although this wasn't the first time she'd glimpsed the man behind the mask, Sakura had never seen him so flustered before. Sure, she'd unsettled him in many ways, but the way he reacted just now… it was like it took every ounce of Kakashi's strength to hold himself back from her. To not kiss her.
Even at the bar this morning, when she'd confronted him, claiming that he looked like he wanted nothing more than to kiss her… he hadn't looked so feral as he did now. With his pupils blown wide, jaw set firmly, and hand gripping the roots of his hair in frustration.
Sexual frustration, she guessed.
Seeing him fight his feelings for her always frustrated Sakura as much as it pleased her.
She felt a smirk tug at the corners and opened her mouth to—
GRRRRR...
They both went still at the noise.
Sakura instinctively dropped a hand to her stomach just as another 'grrrr!' drew Kakashi's attention. His face had gone back to being a blank slate wiped clean of any distress or lustful thoughts. Or maybe he was just hiding them behind his mask again.
Having fully recovered now, he slowly straightened up, staring expectantly at her stomach before it growled again. Loud and churlish.
Kakashi hung his head low with a sigh.
'Grrr!' her stomach insisted.
He raised a hand to his mouth but Sakura swore she saw the outline of his lips quirk into a light grin.
"It sounds like you haven't had dinner yet either," Kakashi mused aloud. "Are you hungry?"
"No," she said just as her stomach growled 'yes!'
The opposite corner of his mouth tilted up, barely hidden behind his fingers. "I hear the ramen bowls at the school cafeteria are delicious. Shall we go and find out?"
Before Sakura could even think of saying no, her stomach was already growling louder in answer. Her blush deepened above her pout, but she gave him a hesitant, silent nod. As Kakashi turned to guide her out through the exit door across from them, Sakura paused and glanced back over her shoulder.
She thought of running back to fetch Kankuro so the three of them could grab dinner together, but...
But... maybe he's too busy studying, she thought. I probably shouldn't bother him then. Yeah.
Kakashi was holding the door open for Sakura and she took her sweet time walking, passing him without so much as a glance. He didn't seem to mind nor care though as he let her take the lead. On the way to the cafeteria, she shot Kankuro a quick text letting him know that they were going to pick up some food.
Sakura: Do you want anything?
Sakura: I'll buy 😊
Kankuro took a while to respond, but he eventually sent a thumbs up and a request for a ramen bowl—same as hers. He insisted on paying her virtually, but Sakura insisted on taking the bill for the both of them. At least to make up for leaving him behind like that although a bit of guilt still followed her as they entered the cafeteria.
The dining hall was practically empty with only one or two students still sitting around and looking at their phones above their empty bowls. Most of the stragglers were the cafeteria workers cleaning up the tables and a lone janitor mopping the floor. Otherwise, even the kitchen was empty with the cook squinting at his watch and waiting for the exact second he could leave his shift.
Seeing as they only had 15 minutes left on the clock before the kitchen closed for the night, they scurried over to the cook to make their order. Beneath his chef's hat, the cook scowled at Sakura for her last-minute trip, but his scowl soon flipped into an elated smile the moment he noticed Kakashi lingering at her side.
Sakura watched, befuddled as the two exchanged some sort of greeting in a foreign language. She remained confused when the cook placed a hand over his heart and bowed low at the waist in a show of gratitude for Kakashi who seemed shy as he smiled wryly and rubbed the back of his neck.
When the cook turned his attention to the two new orders he hung up, Sakura turned to Kakashi, ready to ask him what the hell was that about.
But she remembered that she was supposed to be mad at him and promptly spun away to look for some snacks. She sensed Kakashi hesitate from behind. Like he wanted to follow after her, but then decided it was best to give her some space.
Hmph. How ironic.
He thought to give her space when he was the one who'd barged in on her date?! The hypocrisy!
But you were going to end the date with Kankuro anyway, a voice within reminded her as she picked up an apple. Sakura faltered but then shook her head. Well, she... she had just been considering it. Considering it seriously, yes, but it was still completely different!
But she still felt frustrated and continued to glare at the apple in her hand. Until she sensed the person working the cash register giving her a weird look. Quickly, Sakura set the apple down and wandered over to the frozen treats section.
Behind the glass door of the fridge, most of the ice cream cartons and popsicles had been sold out. Leaving only the flavors nobody really wanted. But rather than ice cream or popsicles, Sakura was in the mood for her favorite treat—fruit parfait.
Her excitement soon shifted to desperation, however, as she scoured the shelves for her dessert only to find nothing.
"Oh, there's that fruit parfait you like," Kakashi spoke from behind.
Sakura wasn't sure which surprised her more—his sudden presence or that he'd remembered her favorite dessert. Again, just like earlier, she felt that hot angry flame within her die just a little more as she followed his gaze all the way up to the highest level of the shelf.
She frowned, seeing nothing from her position. From the corner of her eye, Kakashi shifted on his feet and Sakura contemplated asking him to reach over and grab the parfait for her if there really was some left.
But no. She was still pissed and wasn't going to ask any damn favors from him.
Even if she really did want some fruit parfait...
With a sigh, Sakura turned away and feigned interest in a bag of chips instead.
Kakashi watched her walk away like a sad dejected puppy denied of her favorite treat. He looked back to the last fruit parfait sitting all the way at the back of the highest shelf. This week's batch was strawberries with the fresh red fruit sitting atop of a mountain of creamy yogurt and topped with a sweet, toot-rotting glaze. He wasn't one for sweets, but he could see how Sakura was obsessed with the treat.
He raised a hand for the fruit cup but froze as the hairs on the back of his neck rose. A tingling sensation crept across the back of his head, followed by the sensation of goosebumps. It was a feeling he'd felt countless times since his youth. A feeling that something was wrong. A feeling of danger.
He whipped around, his skin prickling hot with urgency as he first looked to the large windows overlooking the campus outside. He squinted at the poorly-lit walkways and between the dark shades of the trees for an active shooter.
Nothing.
He shot his attention to the dining hall next. Up and down, he skimmed his eyes across the rows of tables and scrutinized every cafeteria worker juggling forgotten trays some lazy students had left behind. His heart rate continued rising, heart pounding in his ears now as he evaluated each possible threat one by one before finally landing his attention on the single boy sitting at a far corner of the hall.
With a dark hoodie shadowing his face and baggy jeans sagging low at his waist, the boy didn't seem like a threat at first glance. But Kakashi had run into boys far younger than him and far deadlier too.
He approached the boy slowly, casually. The boy didn't seem to notice him, what with his face glued to the phone he held.
Kakashi stopped right in front of the phone. "It's not nice to take pictures of girls without their consent. Even if they are pretty."
The boy finally peered up at him, his shrewd eyes catching Kakashi off guard but only just a little.
He matched the boy's deadpan stare with a stiff, crease-eyed smile. "I'll tell you this only once: delete whatever photos you took of that girl," Kakashi said, tilting his head towards Sakura who was currently observing the cook flip the noodles in the wok. "Do it. Right now."
For a moment, the boy continued to stare back listlessly at Kakashi as if he hadn't heard him. And then, in a voice that cracked on nearly every syllable, he mumbled, "I didn't take any pictures. I was only taking a video."
The retort Kakashi had already prepared died on his tongue. He hadn't expected for the boy to comply so easily. He frowned at the kid's vacant gaze, wondering if he was on some sort of drug. The stench of marijuana hung heavily around him, so maybe that was it?
Kakashi shook his head. "Just... delete that video then. Anything and everything you took of that girl."
"Yes."
The boy started tapping away at his phone and Kakashi gaped at him, shocked that the student didn't seem fazed by the demand or even the fact that he'd been caught.
"Hey," Kakashi tilted his head, more concerned now. "Are you okay? Are you—"
"ORDER FOR COMMANDER HATAKE!" The cook—Kenji—shouted from the kitchen.
He stood ramrod straight at the title, glancing in exasperation over to Kenji's direction. He stole one last gander at the boy with his phone before hurrying back to the kitchen area where Kenji was still holding up his ramen bowl. Sakura was there as well, tapping her foot impatiently for her own order to finish.
"Where did you go?" she demanded, giving him the look of a hangry woman.
"I went to grab some napkins," he lied. When she frowned at his empty hands, he shrugged. "They're all out."
"Ugh, figures," Sakura mumbled to herself.
Kakashi spared one more glance at the table where the boy had been sitting, but he'd already disappeared. And yet, that hot sense of urgency—of danger—continued to prickle across his skin. Like an itch he couldn't scratch.
He didn't have the chance to ask the boy why he was recording Sakura. If he was just a pervert then wouldn't it make more sense to take photos like what Mizuki had done? Boys taking photos of a pretty girl wouldn't be so unusual even though it was still wrong. Then was that boy recording Sakura to show her to his friends? Tell them about the pretty girl he saw at the cafeteria?
Kakashi stroked his chin thoughtfully. Maybe that's it? Young people these days have all kinds of apps to play around on their phones now, so it could've been just a harmless video.
But there was still that nagging instinct of danger.
He dragged a hand down his face, watching Kenji put on a little show for Sakura by tossing an egg around with his ladle.
His heart was still racing in anticipation for a fight and adrenaline spiking through his veins. Every fiber of Kakashi's being was telling him that something was awfully wrong, but he couldn't put a finger as to what. It was like all his senses were overwhelmed, setting him on edge so that each 'clang!' of Kenji's ladle against the pot had Kakashi's fingers twitching for the gun at his side.
Except he didn't carry anymore.
Making sure Sakura wasn't looking, he shoved both hands into his pockets and squeezed them into fists to reign back control over himself. He quietly practiced his breathing exercises, counting each inhale and exhale just as he was taught.
He'd been warned that paranoia often came hand in hand with PTSD, but it had taken Kakashi a long while to discern the difference between paranoia and hypervigilance. All his life, he'd been trained to constantly assess any and all potential threats in his environment from the moment he stepped into a room. Checking the windows and taking note of every exit point had become a habit of his—sometimes as natural as breathing.
But outside the military, being hypervigilant was no longer considered a good thing. No, it was simply considered paranoia.
So Kakashi tried to tell himself that was it. He was just being paranoid. He told himself that Sakura was not in any danger, that the boy was just high on weed, and any threat he was sensing was just a figment of his PTSD.
'My investigative instincts are telling me that girl's got a story brewing,' Sakae's warning nagged at him again. 'And I know your instincts are telling you the same thing.'
Sakae hadn't been wrong. On some instinctive level, Kakashi had always felt there was something about Sakura that drew him to her like a moth to a flame. Or like a veteran drawn to combat.
Maybe it was because he'd first met Sakura when a bunch of punks were harassing her that he felt this instinct to protect her. Maybe it was because she reminded him in so many ways of Rin, and in so many ways of Obito. Maybe it was because that, just like her close call with Mizuki, Sakura had a knack for getting into trouble even when she wasn't looking for it. Maybe it was because her youth, and innocence, and stubborn hope in him was a soothing balm to his old, aching scars from the past.
There were so many reasons why Kakashi felt this instinctive drive to protect Sakura since the first night they'd met, and he'd tried to justify those reasons, thinking he was doing it for Sakura's own good.
But now as he stood beside her with his heart pounding in urgency—in fear of an unknown danger—doubt began to creep into the corners of his heart. What if the truth was that this instinct to protect Sakura... had just been conceived from his paranoia? A symptom of his PTSD?
Assess the threat. Assess the threat. Assess the threat, his instincts kept pressing him even though he didn't know what the threat was. The boy was gone and, from what Kakashi could see, Sakura was safe without a single scratch on her.
And yet, panic continued to flood his lungs so that it was hard to breathe. Panic at the thought that Sakura was in danger—and she would get hurt because of his careless mistake—and he would fail her just like he'd failed Rin and everyone else.
"Wow, that smells sooo good!" Sakura praised the cook aloud, leaning over the bar to get a better whiff of what the chef was cooking.
Kenji said something to her that made her break out into laughter, and the happy notes in that lovely sound cut through the panic clouding Kakashi's head.
He swallowed hard. Inhale, exhale, he reminded himself once more.
Practicing his breathing exercises all over again, Kakashi stared at the ramen bowl he'd set down in front of him. He'd bought it to give to Satoshi on his way home tonight, but he was no longer sure if he had the courage to face another war veteran at this time. If he was paranoid right now then Satoshi was delusional, having let his paranoia consume him years ago already.
Still, his instincts continued screaming that something was wrong—that he needed to track down that boy and interrogate him as to why he'd been recording Sakura. But Kakashi squeezed his hands harder in his pockets to tame that paranoia choking him from within.
"ORDER FOR SAKURA!" Kenji shouted aloud even though Sakura was already waiting in front of him.
Kakashi snapped out of his thoughts and went ahead towards the cashier to pay. While Sakura was busy collecting utensils for her and Kankuro, Kakashi gave the cashier his credit card.
"I'll pay for that girl too," he said, tipping his head in Sakura's direction.
The male student working the cash register took the card but snorted. "If only all college professors bought food for their students..."
Kakashi remained silent as Sakura finally joined him and began patting her pockets for her meal card. When the cashier told her she was good to go, confusion scrunched up her face for a moment before she looked to Kakashi.
He looked away, taking Satoshi's ramen bowl with him. Already he could sense Sakura scowling at his back.
"I can pay for my own food!" she hissed like an angry cat whose food had been touched without permission.
"I know," he said breezily.
She was still fuming behind her bags of food as he held open the door for her. When she passed him, he spared one last look at the dining hall in search of the boy but any trace of him was gone except for the faintest hint of weed still lingering in the air.
Yet that prickling heat of danger continued to nag at Kakashi.
The walk back to the library was still tense, but the aroma of the food wafting from the bags in her arms had a calming effect on Sakura. The pangs of hunger racking hell on her stomach for the past few hours seemed to lessen with every deep inhale she took of the hot ramen.
Kakashi had fallen silent on the trip back, much to Sakura's pleasure. Any word from him and she'd probably bite his head off. She was that hungry.
Her mouth was already watering when they entered the library, and she was already feeling her mood start to lift with the thought of finally having something to eat. The last thing she'd eaten today had been a bowl of cereal from breakfast. Other than that, she'd tried to hold off on any meals to avoid a bloated stomach for tonight's date.
That had been the worst idea ever, but a hot bowl of ramen would soon make up for that.
As Kakashi and her returned to the study table, however, Sakura could tell something was wrong the moment she saw Kankuro pacing instead of studying. He was on the phone with someone, and by the panic in his face and the urgency in his tone, the phone call was bad news.
"But is he okay?!" Kankuro demanded. He barely glanced in Sakura's direction when she quietly set the bags of food down on the table. "A-All right, I'm coming!"
She paused with both hands full with their ramen bowls. "Is something wrong?" she asked after he set his phone down.
"I got a call from my sis—something's happened to my brother," Kankuro answered breathlessly, already gathering his notes and stuffing them into his backpack. When Sakura remained frozen in confusion, he stopped with his backpack in one hand and his phone in the other. "I-I'm sorry, but I gotta go."
"Right now?" Sakura asked, feeling more and more like an idiot with each second her hands were full with the food.
Kankuro winced but he touched her shoulder like from one pal to another. "I'll call you first thing in the morning, okay?"
No, it's not okay! You can't just leave me with this jerk, Sakura thought frantically as she watched Kankuro and Kakashi shake hands.
"Have a good night—the both of you!" Kankuro said, already rushing away before she could even think to say anything else.
Sakura didn't even have time to put down the food and return his wave. He'd already disappeared around the corner of the stacks, leaving her behind with dinner for two.
It took a while for the shock to wear off. When it did, she plopped herself down on a chair, feeling more defeated than ever.
How could a date go so terribly wrong? No, at this rate, could she even still call it a date? 'Disaster' seemed like a much more befitting word!
She wanted to bury her face into her hands and just scream in frustration, but the gentle creak of the chair opposite of her had Sakura raising her face. Kakashi was sitting before her again, but reading his damn porn book instead of eating his ramen bowl.
Her brows were already drawing into a frown but Sakura found herself too hungry and exhausted to be angry anymore. At least for the moment.
"You're not going to eat?" she cautiously asked after popping off the lid of her own ramen bowl.
Kakashi gave a subtle shake of his head. "The food is for my friend."
Then why are you even still here? Sakura wanted to press him but decided against it. But only because she hated arguing while eating.
The hot steam of the noodles fogged up her glasses and, with a grumpy grunt, she finally ripped the stupid frames off her face and shoved them into her backpack. Thankfully, Kakashi said nothing about the stupid accessory, allowing Sakura to slurp at her noodles in peace.
As she chewed, she watched Kakashi from the corner of her eye as he continued reading his book. She wondered if he'd eaten dinner yet because it'd been many hours since lunch had passed already. With a figure like that, she doubted he was the kind of person who skipped dinner, especially on weekdays.
At her side, Kankuro's ramen bowl remained unopened and untouched. He'd left before she could even offer the food to him.
Nibbling a boiled egg in contemplation, she gave in with a sigh and pushed Kankuro's bowl over to Kakashi. If he was going to reject her food too, she was already thinking of suggesting his dogs could eat it... or not.
"What's this?" Kakashi asked, tentatively lowering his book to eye the bowl in front of him. She merely shoved the chopsticks out to him in answer. He blinked, but at least he wasn't looking at her as if wondering if she'd poisoned the food. "Are you sure...?"
"It's not like I can eat all of this," Sakura muttered, dropping her frown down to her noodles. "Besides, you're the one who paid for everything... Even though I could've paid for it myself," she reminded him.
He nodded and reached over to accept the chopsticks from her. But when their fingertips brushed together, Sakura jolted with a gasp.
The chopsticks clattered onto the table.
Feeling a blush come on stupidly, Sakura forced her attention back to her food and shoved more noodles into her mouth.
Damn it, what am I getting so worked up for?! I should be jamming those chopsticks up his nose for crashing my date!
As if nothing had happened, Kakashi gracefully collected the chopsticks off the table and popped open the lid for his ramen bowl. Sakura found a sudden interest in a piece of sliced pork as she sensed Kakashi's gaze warm on her face.
"Thank you," he said softly.
Her cheeks continued to bloom with heat but she blamed that on the hot steam of the food instead.
She decided to respond to him by viciously jabbing her chopsticks into her bowl, pretending to stir her food around.
As they ate in silence, Sakura made several attempts to catch a glimpse of his whole face while he ate. But even with his mask down so that he could eat, Kakashi kept his book held up to hide his face. At this rate, she was starting to give up all hope in sneaking a peek at his mouth.
What does it matter anyway? It's not like he'll ever show it to me.
She continued to eat and read her own textbook to keep herself occupied for a while. Without Kankuro as her study buddy, she was able to read the pages much faster and review the study guide without any interruption. Even Kakashi remained mindfully quiet for her from his side of the table. So much so that she didn't even hear a single slurp from his end.
He ate like a ninja the same way he often moved around like one.
In fact, he was so quiet that it took Sakura far too long to notice the cup of fruit parfait at her elbow. At some point, when she hadn't been looking, he'd slid it over to her. She thought the cafeteria had run out of fruit parfait, so when did Kakashi grab this? And did he grab it for her?
But more importantly, was this his way of extending a little olive branch to her? Form a truce of sorts?
Hmph. Without a word of thanks, Sakura snatched the fruit parfait and popped open the lid to dig in. She would accept his peace offering, but not so much his offer for a truce. No, even a parfait wasn't enough of an apology for that.
But Sakura still took her sweet time enjoying each bite of the fruit topped with cream anyway.
The bit of cold sugar and sweetness gave just enough energy for her to review one more chapter from the study guide. But when a yawn escaped her, Kakashi looked away from his book to check the time on his watch.
According to Sakura's phone, it was almost midnight now. Deciding she'd best be on her way home, she closed her textbook and leaned back in her chair to crack her knuckles, letting each 'pop' relieve her sore fingers.
Even as she packed her
stuff, Kakashi continued reading quietly. It was only when she zipped up her backpack did he finally stand up. Wordlessly, he took her trash as well as his and disappeared down the hall for a minute. When he returned, his hands were empty.
Sakura crossed her arms and sank lower in her chair to glare at him. What the hell?! He threw away my trash without my permission!
She opened her mouth to say something—bye or whatever—but thought better against it. She didn't want to start any conversation with him. There was still that spark of anger in her gut and one wrong word could easily ignite it.
Without saying a thing, Sakura grabbed her backpack and textbook and began making her way out of the library. She avoided the elevator this time, taking the little hallway with the computer labs that led to the emergency exit. Room 303 was quiet when she walked by, and she briefly wondered if the lovebirds within had already left.
"I'll give you a ride home," Kakashi spoke up behind her.
Sakura felt her brows start to twitch into a glower, so she walked faster.
He was doing it again—pushing her away and then pulling her back in at his own convenience.
"Sakura, it's not safe for you to be walking home alone at this time of night," Kakashi insisted.
'It's not safe for a lady to walk alone this late in the evening.' Professor Iruka's words came back to her.
She faltered in her steps but then that spark of anger deep within sizzled hot when Kakashi drew too near. With a sharp harrumph, Sakura raised her chin high and kept on walking.
Her silent treatment must've been enough to discourage Kakashi because he let out a sigh, and then a few steps later, she sensed his presence disappear. Like a leaf swept away by the wind, the warmth of him was soon replaced by the cool evening air.
A slight chill ran through Sakura's body as she realized she was completely alone now. Peeking down at her sexy attire, she tugged her mini-skirt down even though the hem of it remained enticingly high around her bare thighs. And her blouse suddenly felt even more sheer and thin than it did before leaving her apartment. Surveying her empty surroundings, Sakura buttoned up the front of her blouse to hide her 'cleavage' even though she knew it wouldn't do much to deter any would-be assailants.
But I still have my pepper spray, she reminded herself. And she'd been itching to test out those self-defense moves Kakashi had taught her.
Kakashi... right... He left me all alone... Sakura swallowed lightly. That's... good, she tried to convince herself.
She didn't need a man to escort her home at night; she could take care of herself just fine with her trusty pepper spray.
The whole campus at night gave off the vibes of a ghost town as Sakura left the main courtyard and headed towards the main gate. From the distance, she could see the lone police officer stationed at the police box now reading a book instead of playing on his phone.
She flashed him a small, somewhat relieved smile when she passed by, and he was polite enough to bid her a good night.
But as soon as Sakura stepped past the main gate of the campus and placed a foot onto the sidewalk, she stopped. Tugging down her skirt again, she squinted up and down the street, wondering if there was a shorter route home. Or at least a route that was better lit.
As she contemplated her decisions, a black car quietly rolled up to her.
Had it been any other car, she would have hightailed it out of there with the police on speed dial. But she recognized the make and model, and it was hard to deny the wave of relief that swept through her. Still, she made it a point to roll her eyes when the passenger window rolled down to reveal Kakashi.
Sakura scoffed and decided to keep on walking.
Kakashi's car continued trailing alongside her.
Still, she forced her feet to move one step at a time even though her toes were painfully pinched and her heels were sore from tottering around in these shoes.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Sakura snapped back. "I'm walking home!"
"All the way back with those heels, in the dark, and by yourself?"
"My pepper spray makes a better companion than you," she retorted. "Plus, you told me to stay away from you so that's exactly what I'm doing!"
She heard a frustrated growl from him and then, "When I told you to stay away, this isn't what I meant."
"Oh? Then how did you mean it?"
"I meant we need to stay away from each other as..."
"As what?"
"As more than teacher and student," Kakashi finished. "I did not mean sit all the way at the back of the classroom, or avoid looking me in the eye or talking to me. I didn't mean it like that—I meant... you know what I meant."
You meant 'don't cross that line between us', Sakura figured. You meant for us to just stay on our respective sides behind that line—stay as student and teacher and nothing more.
She had to stay behind her side of the line, and he had to stay behind his. Together, but separated. Which meant it was okay to be together, but not in the way she wanted to.
"Let me drive you home," Kakashi offered again. "Please, Sakura."
She finally stopped and was about ready to tell him off when she remembered Professor Iruka asking her to get a lift from someone when going home.
Grinding her heel anxiously against the pavement, Sakura stared down at the darkness stretched out before her. The streets would be nearly empty at this time of night. If anything did happen to her, she would be completely alone. And as much as she hated to admit it, her safety was more important than her little spat with Kakashi.
Sighing in exasperation, Sakura yanked the door open to hop inside.
"I'm only riding with you because my heels are killing me," she said sharply.
Kakashi only hummed in reply.
Now that she mentioned it, her heels really were killing her. With a huff, Sakura kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes in relief as Kakashi waited for her to pull on her seatbelt.
Once she was strapped in, he grabbed the gear stick and the car quietly peeled away from the curb.
A/N: The rumor about students having sex in computer lab room 303 is actually based on a real rumor from the college I attended where students would use a certain computer lab in the school library to have sex in the middle of the night. And yes, the rumor was true.
