Welcome to the last Fire Friday of 2020! As usual, this is coming a bit later in the day than I actually wanted to upload but, oh well. I guess my New Years resolution can be trying to upload on a set time on Fridays, I'm aiming for 3pm GMT :)
Oh, yeah! Just a heads up, I tried putting the talk between Sakura and her pack between "" bc that shit was making *me* confused, so yeah.
Enjoy!
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Sakura took longer to get up the following morning, letting Kakashi go ahead and start the first phase of their hastily thrown together plan. He would have a 'private' conversation with Asuma during breakfast about their supposed fight, making sure at least some people heard of it. Her absence during the meal would surely spurn some questions and Kakashi would brush them off like it was nothing while making it abundantly clear that something had happened.
She briefly woke up when Kakashi first got up but resolutely turned her back towards him and covered her head with the covers to try and block out some of the sunlight as she fell back asleep. It was a shallow nap, nothing that she couldn't be up from within seconds, but it significantly improved her mood.
Which was a shame because part of the plan revolved around the fact that Sakura had to pretend to be miserable.
Of course, she hadn't acted miserable for the past three days so she had to be more subtle than that. Sakura got up and went about putting herself together for the day ahead while stimulating her tear ducts with small amounts of chakra so she could force herself to cry. Once she spent a sufficient amount of time doing so, she dried her tears, put on a big fake smile and left the tent towards the outskirts of the camp where she would take a few hours of watch.
After receiving pitying looks from her partner for the day which she promptly ignored and kept a quiet but forcibly happy appearance, Sakura headed towards the campfire to take her shift of working with the cooks. She had been firmly delegated to chopping the vegetables whenever she took a shift on the cooking pit but she didn't mind the slight against her cooking skills, it would serve as an advantage that day.
A few of the members were already there, having finished their tasks around camp and deciding to wait for the first serve of the food. Right on time, Aya sat down on one of the logs with Yukio.
Sakura kept quiet as she worked, waiting patiently for Kakashi's chakra signature to appear closer. When he was just a few meters away, she let the knife slip and make a shallow cut on her finger.
"Ow, ow, ow," Sakura cried, making Yukio get up and put a hand on her shoulder in worry.
"Akari-chan! Are you okay?" He asked and Sakura's good mood just got better. Everything was falling perfectly into place. She caught Kakashi moving in the corner of her eye at the same time Yukio did.
"Damn it," Sakura said quietly, tears brimming on her eyes but not yet falling as she moved an excessively chakra heavy hand to her cut. It felt wrong to use so much chakra on a simple cut but Akari didn't have the proficiency on iryo-ninjutsu Sakura had and she needed the telltale green glow to appear all around her hand and not just on her palm.
"Akari-chan…" Yukio murmured, his face going from worried to angry as he watched Kakashi approach. Clearly Yukio had already heard about their fight during breakfast and had chosen sides. Sakura wanted to laugh but, instead, she made herself choke on a sob.
"I'm fine, Yukio-san, I just need…" Sakura trailed off, her tears spilling down her cheeks as she let her head drop and quickly walked off.
She made her way past the campfire towards the cleared small section next to it where the thieves used to spar. Once she was far away enough that they could have a private conversation but still within eyesight, Kakashi stopped her with a hand on her arm. He held her in place long enough so he could step past her and settle in front of her.
Sakura counted the steps she took in her mind and fought a smirk. They were far away enough that the low ranking thieves wouldn't be able to hear them but a trained shinobi would hear most of the conversation. Aya and Yukio, the only two jounin present, were perfectly placed to witness the fight.
"Akari…" Kakashi started, the gruff, serious voice he had adopted as Kato softening into something warmer, regretful sounding.
"No, it's okay," Sakura replied, taking her arm from his hold and cleaning her blood covered finger on her pants. "I'm okay, really."
"No, you're not." Kakashi stepped forward and Sakura debated taking a step backwards. Was Akari hurt enough that she would reject his touch? Kakashi took her face between his impossibly warm hands and Sakura figured Akari couldn't possibly want to put space between herself and that source of warmth. "I don't know how else to make things better. It's either this or I go back to working jobs as an assassin. Maybe it's safer for you that way."
"No, Kato, don't." Sakura put her hands over his leather covered wrists, squeezing it lightly even though the others wouldn't be able to see it. She felt so satisfied that everything was working out okay, she wanted to laugh. "I rather be here with you than safe inside some musty inn while you and Asao risk your lives. Just… please stop pushing me away, I can't do this without you."
The way her voice took a small pitiful undertone annoyed Sakura. She sounded too much like the girl she had been, fawning over Sasuke and begging him to let her leave the village with him. She knew that annoyance was unfounded, however. She was sounding like that because she was exactly the opposite of that little girl. She was lying and infiltrating this camp for the sake of her village, her loyalty never to be questioned again.
Kakashi stepped closer.
She had to tilt her head up to see him then and his hands shifted with the movement, his thumbs brushing away her tears before sliding lower to settle on her jaw.
"You're not alone." Kakashi stepped even closer and Sakura's heartbeat sped up. Was he going… Was he going to kiss her? His thumb caressed her jaw and Sakura felt a shiver roll down her spine. Kakashi finished in a quiet voice, "I'm with you."
And, yeah, okay.
Apparently, Kakashi was going to kiss her. His nose brushed hers—giving her time to reject it, she realised—just before his mouth fell on hers, closed but then tilting forward and down so it could have looked like he was deepening the kiss to their observers. And there were plenty of them, Sakura could feel their eyes burning holes on her back as more people arrived for lunch.
Sakura let her hands fall from his wrists to his waist, pulling him slightly closer as their mouths moved together. It was a chaste kiss, really, nothing that would particularly send her heartbeat into a gallop or make her belly flutter but the warmth of him pressed to her front on that particularly cold morning sent another shiver down her spine, this one much more noticeable.
Sakura had an almost out of body experience, Inner conspicuously quiet on the back of her mind as she wondered just how the fuck did she get there. And most importantly, why wasn't she freaking out more over the fact that she had Kakashi's lips on hers. Distantly, she also wondered when his scent had become so familiar to her.
Her rational and analytical mind took over when Kakashi broke the kiss. Maybe she wasn't freaking out because this man holding her didn't feel like Kakashi-sensei. It felt like Hound, a fellow Team Ro member on an infiltration mission with her, someone she trusted and respected and that treated her as an equal. Still, she felt like Yugao—and the rest of them, really—had slightly miscalculated on how easy and appropriate their cover stories would be.
Sakura pressed her face to Kakashi's neck, trying to hide her smile there. She didn't think she could handle looking at his ridiculously pretty face this close after having his lips on hers, despite all her thoughts on seeing this as just another mission. She was fucking human, goddamn it, and Yugao was in for the training session of her life then they all went back home.
Kakashi pressed his face to the side of her head, his hands leaving her jaw so he could wrap his arm around her now that she was firmly buried against his neck.
"Are you laughing?" His question, posed lower than a whisper so no one would overhear, was more amused than accusatory but Sakura felt it jarred her back to reality. She still had a part to play. "Should I be insulted?"
"I'm sorry," she murmured seriously against his neck, hoping he understood that she meant to go back to business.
"Don't worry about it," he breathed in her cheek, placing a slow kiss there before speaking again, "They bought it."
Sakura felt her good mood from before come back. Their little scene had worked and half their plan had successfully been put into action, now they just had to keep the ruse up with the same stakes they elevated that morning. Kakashi laced their fingers on their way back to the campfire.
There was some good natured teasing going around that day, Yukio and Aya effectively breaking the invisible barrier between their trio and the rest of the group as they all took turns teasing Sakura and Kakashi and Asuma quickly jumped in, his own brand of teasing much more pointed than the others. Sakura tried to convince herself that she had to fight to keep her cheeks red.
Kakashi left after lunch with another quick kiss pressed to her lips and Sakura was left to her free afternoon with Asuma. Half of their forces had left with Kakashi, including Aya and Yukio—but not their partners—and the rest of the rogues went about their days like nothing was going on. Yuuto had sequestered himself inside his tent and no one had bothered him so far.
Sakura sat beneath a tree on the outskirts of their impromptu training grounds, the sun warming her even through her layers of clothing. She closed her eyes and tilted her head to the sky, enjoying the lazy afternoon.
It didn't take too long for Asuma to come and sit down next to her. Sakura silently scooted closer to him so their arms were brushing and she could syphon off at least some of his warmth. Goddamn Water and its cold weather, all she wanted was to be able to circle her chakra faster like a proper shinobi and warm herself up.
"You alright there?" Asuma asked and Sakura kept her eyes closed while slowly letting her body relax against the trunk.
"Yep!" Akari's bubbly personality came through even though a sleepy tone was affected. "I'm doing something real important here, Asao-kun." Akari's voice was teasing but Sakura knew Asuma understood her meaning because he just grunted in response. A few seconds after, she heard the sound of his lighter clicking and the smell of tobacco.
The reason Sakura had chosen to sit as far away as she could was because that day marked day three of their infiltration and she wanted to see if she could get into contact with Kaede. He would be around the woods surrounding their camp and if Pakkun and Chika had done their job, he would already have been warned that it was meet day.
"Kaede?" Sakura asked, her breath evening out as she pretended to take a sun-soaked nap next to her best friend. It took a few minutes but she got a response.
"Sakura-hime, are you there?"
"Affirmative. Updates?" Sakura got straight to the point, not knowing how much longer she would be undisturbed with the sparring going on.
"A part of Team Ro is watching from a distance the mission Kakashi is on. The others have circulated back to Sairyu to see if they can follow through on the Akatsuki sightings there. Tomorrow, some of them will head to the village up north and see if they can gather some more evidence that the duo went that way." Kaede's growly voice sounding in her ear made Sakura want to bury her fingers in his thick fur. She didn't like having her summons so far away from her while working a mission like this one. Hearing his voice, at least, knowing he was safe for the time being, settled some of her nerves.
"Roger. What about the pack?" Sakura asked, already feeling someone approach them. "We don't have much time."
"We're trying to pick up a scent. We're spread all over the woods but we meet constantly throughout the day to keep track of what we find." Kaede sounded frustrated and Sakura had to fight a small smile from tugging at her lips. Despite having grown to his full size, she still thought of him as that four month old pup she met two years ago.
"It's a waiting game," Sakura tried to reassure him. "Meet me here again in three days. Be careful."
"Oy, you sleepin' on the job?" One of the rogue shinobi shuffled on his feet in front of them, making Sakura blink bleary eyes open as if she had just been woken up.
"Have some respect, will ya?" Asuma snapped.
"Oh, hiya! Sorry about that," Sakura said with a big dopey smile, stretching her arms on top of her head and getting up swiftly to meet the big hulking man in front of her. "Do you need healing?"
"I think I broke my arm." The rogue carefully showed her his wrist which clearly wasn't broken. Despite the happy smile and bubbly attitude of Akari, Sakura couldn't stand snappy rogue nin who had the pain tolerance of toddlers acting like they could be rude to her.
"Oh~! That must hurt!" She smiled sympathetically at him and carefully put her hands around his wrist. "Let's check that out!"
Sakura squeezed and prodded his wrist for a good full minute, completely enjoying the way the rogue was trying to keep a handful of expletives from coming out in front of Asuma. She 'oohed' and 'aahed' thoughtfully as she messed around with his second degree sprained wrist before she finally brought healing chakra to her hands. Then, of course, she made sure to make the nerves surrounding the area she was working extremely sensitive instead of numbing it like she usually does while healing a patient without imminent threats of death.
The rogue left with his big cheeks red, sweat beading at his forehead and a tired grunt after Sakura's cheery, "Come let me know if you need anything else~!"
"Mean, mean Akari-chan," Asuma chuckled when Sakura sat back down next to him. Sakura laughed, settling back against the trunk of the tree but not needing to steal more of the man's warmth after she'd gotten her chakra flowing with the small patch up job.
"I have no idea what you mean, Asao-kun." Sakura tilted her head to watch the fluffy clouds surrounding them. There seemed to be rain in the distance and it would surely rain later in the night but so far the sky was perfectly clear. "Great day, isn't it?"
"Sure," Asuma said with a shrug then shot Sakura a perfunctory look when he went to offer her a cigarette. "Especially for you after you solved that little lover's spat."
Sakura accepted the cigarette without thinking, thoughtfully puffing on it as Asuma lighted it for her. That sentence could easily be constructed as light teasing between friends but the way he said it, the tone of voice no ninja could pick out across the field as they were from everyone else… it gave Sakura pause.
"Is it…" She started hesitantly, trying to state what she wanted to say in a way that would seem natural for their covers if anyone happened to be reading their lips. "Is it weird for you to see us like that? Even though you're older than Kato-kun, you used to be a mentor to some of my childhood friends and… our age difference, I mean. Does it bother you?"
Asuma took a slow drag of his cigarette before carefully aiming the smoke away from her face as he contemplated what she was asking. Sakura knew it was pretty much already too late to be arguing about their cover stories but she was still curious. Would Asuma think it was improper? She was sure he wouldn't have gone with that particular cover if it had been him and Ino.
"I'm not stupid, Akari. I know you had a pretty different upbringing than Maru-kun and the others had." Maru-kun, Sakura wanted to snort at the codename for Shikamaru and settled for storing it to be used later. It was a surprisingly insightful way of thinking for someone like Asuma who had never been ANBU. "I also know that despite our situation, you and Kato never had the same relationship like some of the others do."
Some of the others. The other jounin sensei? It was true. Kakashi had never treated Team 7 like they were his children like Gai and even Kurenai did. His approach with them was too distant for anything like that even though Sakura knew he cared a lot. Kakashi had treated them like pack. She was just surprised Asuma had picked up on it. More and more she was realising how much he resembled Genma in some aspects and that only served to endear him further to her. She wondered why they had fallen out of touch, especially when she could see how they cared for one another.
"It's still not exactly… proper," Sakura said, shooting Asuma an amused look while taking another drag of her cigarette. He snorted and bumped his shoulder with hers.
"Who the fuck cares."
Everyone would care, Sakura wanted to say. While this was simply them faking being a couple and nothing that they would actually bring back to Konoha, she knew that even the idea of it would put off a lot of people back home. Sure, ninja had fewer scruples overall and it was often that team members got together, but it was much less often that a jounin-sensei would initiate anything with a student. And even though there were no rules against it, some serious investigation usually happened to assert that there had been no foul play. Sakura simply shrugged.
"Kato does." And that was the truth. They could have gone for this more realistic acting from the beginning but Kakashi—and in some ways Sakura as well—had held back. Sakura took another drag before continuing, "I think I underestimated how much he would care and how that would affect us…"
"Ah." Asuma nodded, shooting her a shrewd look. "Was that what the fight was all about?"
"Hm." Sakura shrugged one shoulder. "Partially, yes. But that's over now! We stepped up our game as a couple and came out of it stronger!" She cheesily pumped her fist in the air before shooting Asuma a thumbs up and a grin that was completely inspired by Gai and Lee.
Asuma laughed boisterously and stubbed his cigarette on one of the roots surrounding them before reaching for his pack.
"Good to know, Akari-chan." He placed a new cigarette on his lips to light it. "Want another? You might need it for later."
Ah, yes. Asuma certainly got the double meaning of her last sentence. Sakura smirked at him, laughing a little before she vehemently shook her head no.
"You'll turn me into a smoker, old man!" She pushed his pack away and got up. She brushed the seat of her pants and did a few stretches before turning to look back at him. "You should get at least some practice in, you know, so you don't get rusty. I'm gonna take a shower while everyone is still busy."
"Rusty," Asuma grumbled while Sakura bent to place a quick kiss on the top of his head.
"See ya!" She waved while walking towards the showers, her good mood definitely back.
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Kakashi and the rest of the camp came back just as the sun was setting. Akari, freshly showered and in a happy mood that Sakura didn't need to fake, greeted him with a big smile and a kiss.
Yuuto was also in a good mood when he realised the mission had been a success. The caravan they had robbed was probably from some minor lord because they came back with a lot of gold and jewellery. Yuuto had clapped Kakashi on the back when the others retold the story of how he had been the only one to realise a Water shinobi had been hidden in the woods while protecting the caravan and had saved their lives and their bounty.
He offered Kakashi a pick of whatever jewellery he wanted in return
and had clapped excitedly when Kakashi had chosen a delicate gold necklace and promptly given it to Sakura. It was a series of delicate chains that held a pendant of a diamond shaped emerald, connected to a gold circle by four impossibly thin gold bars. It was all very dainty and elegant and something Sakura would never have the opportunity to wear but she loved it.
Sakura told herself that it was okay to like the stolen necklace because it was from a Water caravan. Whatever.
That night, Yuuto had brought out cheap booze from his tent and the cooks had prepared a feast compared to the simple meals they had been eating. Everyone was in a good mood and a few of the lower level rogues had even brought out a small set of traditional drums and a flute.
Akari had been properly delighted by the impromptu party. She danced with Yukio and Aya when prompted and even managed to coerce Asao into joining them. While Kato had been adamant about not dancing, he had been seemingly in a good mood, pulling her into his lap and drinking whatever was offered.
They kept their usual four men guard and while the party was still happening when Sakura and Kakashi decided to head back to their tent, it was significantly slowing down.
They climbed inside the tent and Sakura immediately put on one of her privacy seals, making a mental note of creating more whenever she could. They easily moved around each other while taking off their outer layers and preparing for bed while Kakashi told her what he had discovered on his trip.
Apparently, having been chosen to go with the thieves on their way to rob a particularly hard to access caravan had meant he had gained the approval of most of the rogues and, on the way back, their mouths had been considerably looser. Kakashi had figured that during the week, Yuuto selected duos and trios to go into nearby villages to do some petty thieving but that most of their money came from robbing caravans. The intel on those caravans seemed to come from above and Kakashi had a suspicion that it was somehow related to the Akatsuki. Apparently, they had recently upgraded to robbing other shinobi and that's why they were looking for more fighters and a medic.
It wasn't much, but it was a considerable advance in their intel. Sakura found her good mood coming back with a vengeance, powered by their newest discovery and the cups of cheap shochu she had at dinner.
Eventually, they made their way to their makeshift bed and faced each other.
"Right," he said after a long pause of looking at her searchingly. "Are you sure about this? We can… we can come up with something else. A genjutsu, maybe?"
Sakura smiled slightly, finding his need to check in with her again equal parts reassuring and annoying. This was a mission. They would do what they had to.
"We already went over this, Kakashi. A genjutsu of that magnitude would surely raise some questions and we have no idea if the other jounin have a genjutsu affinity." Sakura cocked her head at him, her eyebrows slowly rising on her forehead. "Unless… you're uncomfortable with this."
"I'm not." Kakashi frowned. "I just don't want to… cross a line we can't… uncross." And fuck things up, was left unsaid but Sakura heard it loud and clear.
To be completely truthful, she also wasn't sure that this wouldn't be a complete game changer for the two of them. She was scared that they could possibly lose the camaraderie they had built and it was making her nervous. But in the end, she was still on a mission and she had never done anything short of whatever it took to complete one.
"We're professionals," she reminded him, looking right into his eye as she reached forward to slide his eyepatch off. "Rule number four, a shinobi must always put the mission first."
Kakashi reached forward to flick her on the forehead and she gasped in surprise. Before she could retaliate, he leaned over her to not turn off the lamp but to dim its brightness. Her heart galloped in her chest when his arm brushed her torso when he leaned back.
Kakashi looked at her seriously, the light making the shadows of his handsome face stand to contrast. "If we're following through with this, I need you to be completely honest with me." He took hold of her arm and pulled her closer. "We'll fake whatever we can get away with." He brought their faces together, not actually touching her but just so. "Whenever you feel uncomfortable, remember our sign for backing off." Sakura couldn't help but stare at him when he took his shirt off and threw it away, making sure to let it smack against the canvas of the tent. "Try it, Sakura."
The last of the rogues that had been at the campfire were making their way back to their tents and the sound his shirt made when it smacked on the tent was enough to draw some attention to them. Kakashi quickly broke the privacy seal.
This was the last part of their plan, the one where it could possibly be more dangerous for the two of them but they had all day to back out of it and now they were going through with it. Sakura breathed a sigh when most of the people outside their tent quickly moved forward to give them privacy, even if there were a few giggles.
She had already seen Kakashi without his shirt off, the night they had dyed his hair dark brown but, at that time, she had been more preoccupied with the sight of his face than his abbs. Which was a weird thought to have, she knew, but it was even weirder to see so much skin from a man who compulsively kept ninety-six percent of his body hidden beneath clothes at all times.
When she had seen him without his shirt, getting ready for this mission, she wasn't exactly in the mindset to be actually looking but now it was all she could do. Before, it was business as usual, being in a changing room with her team while they got ready wasn't exactly something that made space for such things but now…
Now she was inside a tiny tent with nothing else to look at, the light was dim and their breaths sounded loud to her own ears. It wasn't… arousing but it was tense in a way she hadn't been expecting it to be.
Sakura brought one hand to slightly scratch his shoulder twice, deeming it the safer place to try out their signal again. The skin beneath her hand was warm and smooth and that made her pause more than anything. She had gotten used to sleeping next to him over the past week, wrapped around each other like lovers but it somehow felt like a far cry from this kind of intimacy. Having his warm and smooth skin against hers, Hatake Kakashi, right beneath her fingertips.
Sakura quickly used the hand on his shoulder to level herself on his lap and let out a shaky breath when his hands encircled her hips to guide her, low but still loud enough that if someone was outside their tent, they would hear it. The chakra signatures of the guards on patrol were fastly approaching and she knew they would come by their tent any time now.
"Take off your shirt, Akari." His voice was low and dark and she supposed it would be pleasant to hear it under different circumstances.
Despite his words and the raspy quality to his voice, when she turned her head up to look at him, there was no telltale flush to his cheeks or sweat to his brow and his pupil wasn't any less dilated than expected from the dimness of the tent. Kakashi wasn't aroused and by the way he slightly raised an eyebrow at her and shut both of his eyes, he was going to take this seriously.
Sakura quickly took off her shirt, the sound of it hitting the bedding seemed to echo in her head as she moved to work on her bra. The rogues on patrol had stopped outside, a few steps away from their tent. Creeps. She knew her shape in the shadows cast by the lamp would be their focus so the curves of her breasts and ass needed to be visible. Sakura checked the chakra signature of the tents around theirs, a few of them were still active, including Asuma's, and the two guards were talking in hushed whispers she could pick out with her enhanced hearing. They already had enough of an audience to go further.
With quick jerks that she hoped looked more eager and less like she just wanted to get the job done, Sakura brought her pants and underwear to her knees. The cool air hitting her centre forced a genuine gasp out of her. Kakashi's grip on her tightened almost imperceptibly.
With his hands guiding her, Sakura set a slow, languid rhythm of rising up on her knees and coming back to his lap. Her thighs were spread over his, making contact just below his pelvis so that they weren't actually grinding against each other.
Every time his hands brought her down on covered thighs, Sakura expelled a forceful breath through her mouth, not exactly moaning out loud, but letting a few whimpers out every now and then. There was no need to wake up the whole camp, all they needed was for a few people around them and the patrols to hear and see some things and, by tomorrow, no one would be able to doubt their relationship.
It was surreal, really. Strange and awkward to be writhing on top of a man with no clothes on while he was still mostly dressed. It was stranger even that he had his eyes adamantly closed and breath forcefully short, as if he didn't even want to look.
The most surreal thing, though, was that the feeling of his bare arm against her ribs and around her hips made her want him to be looking at her. The feeling of flesh on flesh was one of the few things she missed from her relationship with Neji. Physical comfort, feeling another body next to hers, was something she enjoyed and sorely missed.
Sakura knew that rationally, this was like any other mission. Hell, after she had lost her virginity with Shinsei, she had even taken missions where her talents in genjutsu and iryo-ninjutsu weren't enough and she actually had to have sex with her target. It wasn't the most disturbing thing she'd ever done for a mission in ANBU. Her body was a tool and a weapon and she knew that. Sex, or this fake version of it, wasn't something she was self conscious about, either. She had often hooked up with teammates while away from the village and she was never shy to go after what she wanted even if it meant being with foreign ninja she had no particular connection with.
But for some reason, despite the forced intimacy of the moment, she wasn't aroused. Maybe it was the fact that she had never really seen him as a sexual being and suddenly he was all hard muscles and soft warm skin beneath her hands. Maybe it was because he had been so adamant on faking all they could or maybe it was how insultingly unaffected he was. Maybe it was the sheer awkwardness of it, the fact that Kakashi didn't seem at all affected by her but… Sakura kind of felt herself wanting to like this, to push forward.
Without thinking, Sakura brought Kakashi closer, the warmth of his chest radiating towards her as she continued faking sighs and tiny moans. She accidentally pitched too close to him and her nipple, hard from the cold, brushed his chest.
Kakashi's eyebrows pinched together and his eyelashes fluttered minutely and it only made Sakura angrier because, okay, he was a trained shinobi, but her nipples had literally brushed his, couldn't he react a bit more? The next few minutes were explained by temporary madness on Sakura's part.
She didn't actually need to take things further, she knew. The two rogues outside their tent had already been moving away to continue their patrol and they had been suggestive enough already. But Sakura couldn't help the mischievous voice of Inner, telling her to go the extra mile, the man needed to be taken down a few pegs, honestly.
Sakura gave in and moved her hands to twine between his surprisingly soft hair. With her hold on the dyed locks, she simultaneously levelled herself on her knees and exposed his throat. Making sure she slid her body against his torso on her way down, she muffled on his neck the dirtiest, loudest moan she had ever uttered.
She didn't actually plan on sitting herself back on him because by how close she'd brought their bodies, she would surely be sitting right on top of his length and she wasn't quite sure she even wanted that. There had been no need for such ponderings, though, because Kakashi's hands had become iron bars around her hips when a grunt escaped him from her actions.
Sakura barely had a second to feel victorious before he was pushing her away. He turned around without saying anything and put his shirt back on. Sakura followed his lead and started putting herself back together, the high from her previous success at getting a reaction out of him fading quickly when he reached for the lamp, this time to turn it off. He still hadn't looked at her.
"That should be enough," he muttered.
And then the only light around them was the brightness from the moon outside. From the eerie blue glow of it, she could see him settle himself as far away as he could get before actually leaving the tent, his back firmly to her.
Sakura put herself back together, a frown on her face. When she laid back down and closed her eyes to try and fall asleep, she couldn't hold back a frustrated sigh. She felt like she had broken his trust somehow, made things unnecessarily hard on both of them.
The troubling thought that she had made him mad somehow, didn't leave her head. Stupid fucking Inner.
It was weird to not have any part of her touching him while they slept. When Sakura fell asleep that night, heart heavy on her chest, she oddly felt empty and sadder than she'd allowed herself to be in quite a long time. She wrapped herself up in her blanket and tried not to shiver.
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SO. THAT HAPPENED.
I'm mentally preparing myself for a lot of backlash (there were some of people who complained about Sakura and Shinsei, it's kinda funny actually) but I'm so SO HAPPY that I got to FINALLY put this scene (you know the one I'm talking about hehe) on a chapter because I wrote it on a notebook I use for sketching almost TWO YEARS AGO when I was still living in Australia. Fucking insane, mate. I leave on this short break in the middle of our Act 2 (kinda, I have to properly section this fic into acts/arcs tbh) but where the *major* shift in their relationship happens. It's so funny to write these scenes because like, they're clearly coming face to face with the fact that the other is like a sexual being, I guess, and while everything is so professional and even clinical, at the same time, they're two people who naturally have a lot of chemistry and well, they don't really know how to deal with it. Fuck I love this pairing. The romance isn't starting yet, but a major shift happened and I LOVE IT.
Anyway! Next chapter we'll have Kakashi's POV to understand how he felt about the whole thing and how the two of them are gonna move forward with the mission with this new aspect of their interactions. Also, some Asuma.
My official date for the next update is the first Friday of February (on the 5th!)! I'm actually so happy for this break, I'm gonna chill a bit and then write a lot ahead so I can keep up with this pace :) Please do keep in touch during the hols! I know sometimes I let my replies to the reviews fall a bit behind but I'm pretty active on Tumblr and Twitter so make sure you follow me there so we can chat a bit!
Thank you so so much for all of your continuous support throughout this hellish year. I wanted to keep updating for you guys to have some reprieve during these tough times but ended up having my own reprieve through your comments and general love. Thank you for the fanarts, thank you for the long, beautiful comments, thank you for reaching out on Tumblr and Twitter, thank you so so much.
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