CHAPTER 1: HOW THEY SLEEP
Sakura often overheated at night. Contrarily, she could not sleep without a blanket.
Having another person in her bed was a similar trial. She liked the weight beside her, liked the span of a hand (his hand) across her rib cage, just under the swell of her breast. And the smell of him: sharp with pine, a little bitter from smoke—at the beginning of the night, she pulled him in close, face shoved into the crevice of his neck, just to suck in breaths full of it. (She would never be able to explain the compulsion; it was neither rational nor coherent.) Within the hour, however, as her body warmed beneath the comforter—in no small part due to the fact he ran hotter than the average person —she found very little could conquer the discomfort of being too warm.
Sometimes, he followed her as she pulled away. Sometimes, it was merely an arm. Sometimes, it was the whole length of his body, pressed demandingly against her back. Sometimes, Sakura groaned in protest, and she could feel the curve of his mouth against the top of her shoulder. (The sadist.)
At this point, she usually kicked him away.
CHAPTER 2: HOW THEY MOVE IN TOGETHER
"Have you noticed…?"
"What?"
"Well, your apartment looks like it's never been inhabited."
A pause. "If you say so, Sakura."
"And you spend most of your time at mine."
Another pause, longer this time.
"And?" The word, when it emerged, was deliberately casual.
"And," these words came faster now, "you make excellent food and most of the meals I eat anyway, so—"
"You want me to be your live-in cook."
"…yes."
"It might have come to your attention that I am already, quite officially, employed."
"Shut up. You know I don't mean it…literally."
"Then what could you possibly mean?" Amused.
"Kakashi."
"Do please make it literal—" now, delicate, precise mockery—"How else can I possibly understand?"
"Never mind. Forget I said anything."
A deliberate sigh. "Your place is too small."
"So?"
"So."
"...I'll find a dream place at a killer price within a week, just watch me."
CHAPTER 3: WHEN THERE ARE NIGHTMARES
Sakura had not slept well before Kakashi. This did not immediately change after him.
She suspected this was the same for him too.
Some people woke themselves up with a pinch. Kakashi dug his nails into himself, viciously, ruthlessly, in his sleep. Waking up to find blood dripping onto their sheets became a regular occurrence.
But he didn't get violent or lash out when he was woken (his eyes snapped open, dark and desperate, and recognized her immediately, as though he identified her by touch, even before sight).
No, apparently, that was something Sakura did.
She didn't know, until Kakashi. Opening her eyes to see her fist driving upward—and Kakashi above her, head angled to the side as it just flew by him—had been Sakura's ugly wake up call. There had never been an opportunity to know before. She hadn't slept—just slept—with someone else on a regular basis until him. There had never been someone like him.
"If you hadn't moved," she said after, pale and sitting on the ground.
He watched her, entirely too calm.
"I almost..." She pushed her hair back with shaking fingers.
It hadn't been a spar; it hadn't been her pulling a punch. Her arm had been charged with enough chakra to sink the whole complex. Worse, this had happened where they slept—a place that should have been unquestionably safe. Sakura wasn't so far off the deep end that even she didn't know this, recognize this, or...want it too (so, so badly, and now she had fucked it all up, hadn't she?)
He crouched to her level. "You," he said, voice flat, "couldn't have possibly been expecting perfection of me either, could you?"
How could he conflate the two?
"This isn't the same, Kakashi," Sakura shouted. Could she say it? She had to, there was no room for cowardice. "What I did— It's— abusive, and this— This... whatever this is between us, it has to stop and—"
He grabbed her now, face contorted, eyes enraged.
"You think it isn't true," she choked out. "Because you think you're too strong? Or, no, is it that you think there's nothing wrong because you deserve it—"
He pressed her into the side of the bed, hands wrapped around her upper arms. "Watch your mouth, Sakura." He hovered above her. "You think I can't easily defend myself against your half-asleep attacks— don't interrupt me."
Sakura's mouth snapped shut.
"Don't mistake my meaning," he said sharply, with icy precision. "If you had tried this wide-awake, outside of a spar, neither my strength nor your strength would matter."
He held her chin, guiding her forehead to press against his.
"But that's not what happened just now," he said tightly. "You didn't mean to do it. So what matters now is what you will do. What will you do?"
"I'll work to make sure I stop," Sakura whispered.
"Exactly," Kakashi stated flatly. "Don't threaten what you did just now, so lightly, ever again. Not when you negotiated so persuasively for this. If you hadn't been prepared to struggle, just as I am, you shouldn't have come to the table to bargain in the first place. You shouldn't have dared."
Her shoulders sagged. A second later, she pressed herself against him, nosing under his jaw, fingers carding through his hair. He surveyed her, expression unchanging.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I am prepared. I promise. I'm— Don't leave."
He clutched her back, just as tightly. "I will too," he said, voice low. "So don't make me leave either."
CHAPTER 4: WHEN HE BECOMES KAGE
"I'm sorry. I just can't keep quiet any longer," Sakura sighed, flipping an egg. It landed with a horrendous splat.
His brow arched as he turned, the back of the cloak reflecting in the singular mirror in the room. 六代目.
Ro-ku-dai-me.
"White really isn't your color." She shrugged. "Ino has been telling anyone who will listen that you should violate generations of tradition. I can't say that I disagree. White washes you out, Hatake."
"And what else does Yamanaka Ino say?" he drawled.
"Well," Sakura said, eyes narrowing. "She also said that it won't be long before some daimyo's daughter shows up at your doorstep, bent on one knee with a ring, white cloak or no."
"Hm," Kakashi murmured, eyes glinting.
She blinked back. "I did nothing."
"Somehow, I'm unconvinced."
Sakura left the egg, even though she could smell it beginning to burn. He rocked back a step as she barreled into him. She paid no mind, gripped the carefully ironed collar of his brand new robes and yanked him back toward her instead.
"Don't get me wrong," she murmured, "most of the time, I'm damned grateful no one knows. Could you imagine what a pain it would be?"
"Quite."
"Other times, though, I want to—"
She stopped herself, blinking.
"Want to?" he breathed against her, voice dangerously soft. It was a challenge.
Sakura smiled, mocking. "Hm. I think you already know."
CHAPTER 5: WHEN SHE BECOMES COMMANDER
"You're mad."
"I'm not mad."
"Look at me."
And he did, finally.
Even now, it took her time to interpret him. Kakashi, indeed, hardly needed a mask to be hard to read. It didn't make it easier, nonetheless, that he wore one now.
"Fine," she concluded, voice low. "You're not mad. But you can't possibly convince me you're happy."
He turned away from her, shoulders tight, to gaze out the wide windows. "I knew this would happen," he said curtly. "I knew it was only a matter of time after the war."
"So what?" Sakura demanded, walking right up to him. "So now you've resigned yourself to it?"
"Yes," he exhaled more than said.
She contemplated him for a moment, before tilting her head back, eyes shutting. She sighed. "It doesn't matter what you feel, anyway. It's done."
She head him make a harsh, wordless noise. "You don't understand."
Her eyes snapped open, flashing with fire. "What don't I understand, kage-sama?"
"Tsunade didn't have legions of shinobi calling for her blood the way I do," he spat back, turning toward her. "Her name isn't analogous to slaughter and bloodshed like mine is across countless shinobi villages and countries. The commander you served under was a different kind of commander than the one you'll have to be now—for me. But I know you. At a certain point, it doesn't even matter what I am or what I'm not. You're not the kind to manage from behind an office desk. You won't delegate my safety to—"
"And why should I," Sakura drawled back, cold, "when I'm the most capable? As it happens, I've earned my own less-than-savory titles too, Kakashi."
"Sakura." It escaped his mouth like a demand, and yet somehow, felt like a prayer.
But then the door to the hokage's office swung open and every inkling of turmoil vanished from his body.
Instead of straightening, he slouched further, eyes sliding to half-mast. He had softened in the eyes of his audience, for their benefit, Sakura thought. Perhaps, it was even true to some extent that Kakashi himself had changed as well—but not enough to lose the sharp edges and savagery some now naively believed tamed from him.
(Once, those eyes might have sharpened. Once, he might have made obvious the danger he was rather than attempting to hide it.)
It was a different mask Kakashi adopted now, though a mask nonetheless. He was still brutally effective at pretending to be something that didn't quite exist. And he had even done so well, Sakura thought, so as to make most of Konoha forget what he had once been.
But not everyone.
"Perfect timing." His lazy tone was pitch-perfect; despite this, the sharpness of the gazes of those entering his office did not diminish, not in the least fooled. "Let me introduce you to our new ANBU commander."
They surveyed her in turn. Sakura returned their attention unblinking.
Kakashi leaned against his table, painted gold-orange and gold-yellow by light passing through the windows, like some sort of absurd, domesticated lion sprawled in the sun. "Surely it will be no issue if we expedite today's ceremonies. I left off at a particularly gripping part in Icha Icha Innocence, you see—not so innocent after all!" He laughed, tossing his head back, to cool silence. He straightened a second later, eyes glinting. "We will make do with just the oaths."
This caused an outpouring of righteous indignation.
"Rokudaime-sama, you may be young and naïve to the importance of tradition, but—"
"That suits me," Sakura said.
He looked at her, eyes crinkling in an unfeeling smile. "Excellent."
There were grumbles of dissent, but Sakura ignored them, kneeling promptly in front of her kage.
"Do you agree to take on the role of ANBU commander?"
She could feel his gaze burning into her, as insistent as the fingers he liked to skate along her spine the night before.
"I do," she answered, stoic.
"Do you swear to protect Konoha, its interests, and its people to the best of your abilities?"
"I do."
"And do you swear, finally—" and he paused now, voice growing rougher—"to defend your kage, even at the cost of your own life?"
She looked up even though she knew this was against protocol, against tradition; she was deaf to the outraged hisses that erupted around her.
"I do," she uttered without an ounce of hesitation.
CHAPTER 6: WHEN SHE UNCOVERS (ONE OF) HIS SECRETS
Despite the years Sakura had technically known Kakashi, it was only after they became more that she realized there were actual living people Kakashi maintained fairly ordinary relationships with. It was, possibly, one of the best kept secrets in the village. Well, that, and the man's face.
Of course, Kakashi's predisposition was still decidedly one of reclusion. But it became clear one Saturday night early on, when Sakura happened to stay in—to find that Kakashi did not, in fact, come home within the hour or within the next two—that he possibly maintained other obligations with other people.
She had hunted him down (purely as matter of course, naturally) and found him at a bar with a select group of jounin. Asuma, Kurenai, Yamato, and Gai were the ones she could name. Among the ones she couldn't were a man with a toothpick in his mouth, another who looked strangely familiar with a scar rippling across the left side of his face, a blonde-haired woman, and a black-haired woman. (She suspected she knew the last two.)
Sakura had watched as the group chattered on as they sipped their drinks. All the while, Kakashi had sat disinterestedly near the corner. He was the odd one out in many ways: younger than all of them, not to mention their kage. Normally, one would imagine that would make the others uncomfortable. But if they were, they didn't betray it.
Kakashi didn't look like he had any particular investment in being there either, Sakura had thought. But Sakura knew there had to be. After all, he remained.
She watched until the end.
She followed him only a few more times after that too (just to determine the regularity of the phenomenon, she convinced herself). Eventually, when she was no longer able to justify the stalking to herself other than as some odd form of voyeurism, she left it alone.
They didn't talk about it until about a year later, when Sakura came home with a shoulder that had nearly been hacked off.
"You're hurt," he said as she walked through the door.
"I'm impressed by your skills of deduction," she muttered.
He stared at her, eyes narrow. "Go to the bathroom. I'll get some—"
"Don't," she blurted unthinkingly.
Kakashi's eyebrow arched dangerously. "Don't?"
"I just mean—" she sighed, pressing down on her nose through her mask. "Can we skip past how I know this, because I'm not proud of it, but I know that you meet with your friends on Saturday nights on the rare occasion you're able to?"
"I see," he said, unfazed. His gaze was particularly unrelenting. "And?"
"There's nothing you can do for me," Sakura pointed out. "I'm the one with medical training. So. You might as well go?"
"How generous of you. I do not accept."
She won many arguments with Kakashi, but that was not one of them.
CHAPTER 7: WHEN HE ADMITS IT
Sakura could sense him coming from a kilometer way. She pushed herself up from the hospital bed despite the protests of the doctor hovering beside her.
"Please, commander, your body is very weak right now—!"
The door was knocked clean off its hinges. Kakashi's eyes landed on her, without an ounce of rationality.
"I'm fine," she said, panting lightly with strain.
"Speak." The word was guttural.
The doctor shook, but managed to keep his voice cool. "She encountered a particularly virulent strain of the virus during her trip to Suna, rokudaime-sama, but we caught it in its early stages and started administering the antivirals in time. We will run her through the regular courses of doses. We have full confidence that she will recover."
Despite this, it was unclear if any of the mania left their kage. Killing intent had flooded the room, thick and suffocating; one of the nurses swayed concerningly on her feet. Beneath the doctor's carefully managed fear, Sakura saw bewilderment, no doubt regarding why Kakashi was personally here, in the middle of the day, when another ANBU could have reported on his commander's status if he so desired.
"Get. Out," he hissed.
If Sakura hadn't been so out of it, she might have rolled her eyes. Instead, she lowered herself resignedly into the bed and watched as the doctor and the nurses at least a minute, there was pin drop silence in the hospital room.
"Kakashi," Sakura sighed finally.
"I shouldn't have let you go."
"Kakashi," she snapped, voice stronger now. Because this was unreasonable.
And then he was by her side, crouched by her bed, not quite touching her. "You could have died from this," he said furiously, eyes dark and wide. "From—from ordinary human sickness which would not discriminate or have any care for—"
"Can't exactly punch a virus," Sakura agreed glumly.
"Sakura," he actually, honest-to-god growled, looking like he might begin to tear his hair out.
She stared at him. "What's wrong with you?" She wasn't sure she had ever heard his voice reach that decibel before. (Had someone heard them?)
"What's wrong with me?" he echoed. "You've made me like this, and you have the nerve to ask?" He grasped her face, drinking her in like a starving man. "You reduced to me this when you made me love—"
"Kakashi!" she shouted, scandalized.
His next words were scathing: "I have neither the willpower nor patience to indulge your pretended ignorance right now—"
"It's not like you were ever supposed to say it out loud!" Sakura groaned, covering her face. She peeked through her fingers a second later.
He seemed to crumple, folding into himself; she blinked, and suddenly he kneeled on the ground beside her. He clutched her hands tightly between his, just ever so slightly shaking. She felt him tremble, eyes widening.
"You heartless fiend," he hissed, head burrowed in her side, voice hoarse.
Pin by Passawid Phucheen on Naruto | Kakashi hokage, Kakashi hatake hokage, Kakashi
CHAPTER 8: WHEN SHE SAYS IT
"DON'T!"
He stopped instantly, fingers just brushing the door knob. His eyes narrowed
"Not yet, not yet…" he heard her growl, frustration thick in her voice.
So she had burned the kitchen down again. Kakashi stared blandly at the door. Although, he recalled vaguely, she had vowed off entering the space entirely after the third time. Perhaps, she had thrown the alarm clock, then, and taken out a good section of the wall with it. Again.
He had money now, unlike when he had been a child—but his childhood had taught him to be somewhat frugal, as a policy. At times, it occurred to him that attaching himself to this particular woman, of all women, had been a less than frugal choice.
"Come in!" she demanded, impatient. As though he hadn't been waiting because of her.
Moving with deliberate leisure—mostly because he liked the way annoyance looked on her, the way she wore it, with tightly pressed lips and unfathomable arrogance—he crossed over the threshold, tipping his head to finally remove the hokage hat. When he looked up, he found a frosted monstrosity directly in front of his face.
"Well?" she said impatiently, looking meaningfully down at it.
"A cake."
"And?"
His gaze scanned the mismatched eyes of the drawn figure, its dramatically spiky hair.
"I'm guessing that's meant to be me."
Sakura's face split into a wide satisfied grin. "Kage-themed cakes are all the rage these days. I'll have you know I had to fight for this one."
He shrugged off his robes, tossing them over a chair. He watched her the entire while, unblinking. She read his look instantly.
"Keep it in your pants, Hatake," she drawled, elongating herself nonetheless for his gaze. "I have presents too."
"Can't possibly imagine why," he said coolly, cocking his head to follow the sinuous curve of her back. His mouth curved, in kinship.
She leaned toward him, the table between them, to pull down his mask. "So you're going to pretend you forgot and not even the parade reminded you."
"Hm."
"All ten of them?"
"So that was why there was such a racket."
"Lost a fledgling ANBU to a pack of sugar-crazed genin."
"I'll be sure to sign the paperwork for a memorial."
She pulled back. Kakashi followed her, quick as a snake. Laughing, she shoved him back.
"Sakura," he said. He was beginning to lose his patience for the game, if he had had any at all.
"Not yet," she said.
"I can smell you," he told her coldly. He inhaled once more. It was a mistake. His hands clutched the table with too much force; the crack across it stretched another inch. (He wasn't even sure what number this one was—the table.)
There was no rationality for how irrational this always made him. Despite some consensus otherwise (in some circles, still), he was not, in fact, an animal. And she was only a woman—a human one at that. She didn't smell of gardenias; she didn't taste of sugar or honey. But it was ambrosia. Deep and heady, and it had him at the jugular, every time.
He had no real compunction that there had been others, apparently many, before him. Not in abstract. In practice, perhaps, his indifference was less than perfect. His only defense was that, absurdly, she had chosen to offer this to him, and he was helpless to do anything but guard it savagely, with nothing less than all of his best and all his worst.
He stared hungrily at her body and knew, despite this, that it had nothing at all to do with her body, in the end. It had nothing at all to do with her arms or her hips or her breasts—except in that they were all hers, and therefore, it had everything to do with them. It was about her cunt and yet nothing at all about it, except for the way it left him debilitated. Wanting. Mad.
"Sakura."
She exhaled sharply. "Don't," she snapped, even as she swayed slightly toward him. She forced herself still. "I have presents, as I said, and I intend to give them."
He paused. "If you want to give me a—"
"Don't finish that," she grunted, raising a hand. "You'll embarrass us both."
But he didn't know that he was capable of feeling the embarrassment she implied. Not even at the beginning, for all that she had thoroughly, unknowingly entrapped him. (It had never been embarrassment that had held him, albeit only temporarily, back.)
She had said it once, with resignation and with incredulity—that she had wanted to own him. Until she had said the word—owned—Kakashi had never even realized it was something he could want. To be owned. By someone else.
It probably wasn't correct. He was sure a medic-nin—someone like the one he had been forced to meet with as a child-ANBU— would have traced the sentiment back to losing his family at a "regrettably young age." He didn't disagree that it probably indicated some degree of maladjustment.
But ownership was what suited someone like him, weathered by terrors, not all subject to him, most wrought by his own hands.
But for the most part, Kakashi didn't dwell on the issue. He simply felt.
"Close your eyes," she ordered.
Slowly, resentfully, though every inch of him would be as aware of her with eyes shut as open, his lids slipped downward. He felt something placed into his hands, cool and cylindrical. He opened his eyes and found a bottle of shōchū.
"Well?" she asked.
It was her favorite bottle. He said as much.
"Is it?" she said, blinking innocuously. Unlike annoyance, innocence warred with her sharp features, rendering the emotion transparently implausible.
He placed it on the table and reached for her again. She danced away, eyes glinting.
"That's not all." She pulled a hand out from behind her back to thrust a hefty, cast-iron pan at him, complete with a red ribbon on its handle. "Here."
He held this, too, with dubious honor. "A pan."
"Yes."
"To cook food with."
She nodded, pleased.
"Food for you."
She twisted toward him, eyes hot. "You're not entertaining any other strays, are you?"
He dropped the pan, didn't flinch at the loud clang it made as it hit the ground. She didn't either.
"You're testing my patience, Sakura," he warned.
"And I'll test it a bit longer," she retorted. But she relented, pressing her mouth to his—gasping kisses, like she wanted to inhale him.
He knotted his hand in her hair and forced her head back.
"Don't tell me there are more gifts," he sneered.
She exhaled into him and walked him back, bumping against a chair and the sofa, until they fell onto the bed.
"Just one more," she said. She leaned down and ran calloused, greedy hands all along him. Kakashi hissed and felt it. Owned.
"I see," he said, with false calm, "so you're reneging on your prior words. No shame in that. Open your mouth for me."
With a mocking flash of tongue, her lips parted. For a second, he could do nothing more than stare, the sheer want paralyzing him. Then, covetous, because part of him wanted to fill even this space of her too, he pressed his fingers in. She watched him lazily, tongue sliding sinuously between his fingers.
He pulled them out harshly, moving then with blinding speed to that place between her legs.
Her mouth was by his ear. It took him a second to process the words, just as his hand cupped her.
"Love you."
And every single muscle in his body convulsed, like she had electrocuted him. She rocked into his hand, throat exposed as her head fell back.
"What did you say?" he demanded. He followed her, curving over her.
Her eye fell on him, beneath her pale lashes, drugged by arousal. Then, something like grim determination took over. "You know what I said," she said deliberately.
He stared, silent.
Her teeth sank into his shoulder. "I don't usually say it."
"Never," he answered.
"But I do," she whispered, darting a glance at him, strangely soft. This, too, looked odd on her. Or perhaps it was him: the oddity of receiving it.
He felt himself shudder, eyes widening. Her arms wrapped around him, with enough strength to hurt, to make him feel—
He had forgotten entirely where his hand was. She flexed when he shifted unconsciously.
"You wanted," he started, with a calm he didn't know he could possess.
"And now I want," she said. She swallowed. "To love you."
Kakashi didn't move.
It was true, in some part, that he had guessed she loved him—she had alluded to as much before. But he had not known it. And he had not imagined, in the least, that she could want to.
Her lips parted again. He kissed her roughly to stop her. To maintain his (fragile) peace.
But there was no peace, because she didn't stop. She whispered the words against him, again and again, slowly at first, and then later, frantically. And it wasn't her mouth but it was her mouth, that he felt like he was being driven truly mad (had he thought himself mad before? how laughable), by just these words, these paltry words used by humans since the conception of speech, repeated over and over again.
She said it until there was a violent rushing in his ears, and he was flat on his back, terrified of her.
At what it meant, to realize that he had been, for some time now, not owned—but loved.
Chapter 9: when she reflects
It took her years (two) to realize it. That it had been a choice she had made, somewhere, along the way.
Once, it had felt like obsession, venomous in how thoroughly it had infected her—and she merely pulled helplessly along, spitting and spiteful, by its current. But that had only been the cunning of the deception. Madness and irrationality, those towering notions that they were, had been but useful tools to delude herself—that she hadn't wanted because she had made a choice. That she hadn't wanted him because some part of her, knowing and conscious, had chosen him.
She believed, still, that people weren't enslaved by the things that happened to them. Nor were people, she felt now, slaves to the things they felt. She had had a choice, somewhere, along the way, and in that critical moment, unknown though it was, she had chosen.
Chapter 10: how they find out
Over the years, they developed a system for Saturday nights. On the rare occasion he was able to leave the office early, Kakashi met with the older jounin whose generation he had prematurely joined; on the rare occasion she was able to wrest herself away from her own duties, Sakura met with Sai, Sasuke, and Naruto. They ate their dinners separately, drank with different friends, sipped drinks that were each to their distinct tastes. After, they took different paths home.
When they arrived, for their destination was always one and same, it was at that time of night when nearly every other apartment in the building was silent. Sometimes, she simply held him, arms locked just under his ribcage, until it felt like her breaths were his breaths and she could no longer draw the line that separated them. Sometimes, he kneeled for hours at the foot of the bed—kneeled, she would recall after, for her—hands wrapped around her thighs, tonguing her until the sun rose and Sakura cried. And, still, other times, they would…
Well, it worked perfectly—their system.
Or so she felt, until the night their paths intersected too soon.
Arguably, said night marked itself for failure early on. As soon as dusk set, rain started to pour furiously, muddying the paths. But Sakura had drunk enough to be in a good mood by the time they stumbled out of the bar they had been kicked out of and into the one next door.
She was blinking rain water out of her eyes when Naruto exclaimed, "Hey! It's Kakashi!"
Which—was not good, her brain decided without much deliberation. She wasn't entirely certain why. Just that they had never crossed paths like this outside their apartment on a Saturday night, and that had somehow become sacrosanct. That separation. In her mind.
Which was irrational. Irrationality notwithstanding, she turned to leave.
"Leaving so soon?" Sai prompted, knowing. She paused to sneer at him—which was her first mistake.
"We're saying hi," Naruto declared, swaying into Sai, who shoved him unblinking into Sasuke. Scoffing with disgust, Sasuke threw the blond off, sending him staggering into the very table Sakura had hoped to avoid.
Which was Sasuke's mistake, Sakura considered. She evaluated her kunai with maybe more seriousness than perhaps strictly appropriate.
The table didn't quite go silent at Naruto's abrupt appearance, but it was a close thing. "Hello," Asuma said after a long pause, eyebrows raised.
Sai's mouth performed a flawless smile as he dragged Sakura and Sasuke forward with him.
"Sai," Sakura hissed under her breath.
Kakashi's head turned slowly—away from them. He brought the rim of his cup beneath his mask, tossed his head back to taste its contents. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, slow and deliberate. Sakura's gaze lingered.
He smirked, just the slightest narrowing of his eyes.
Two hours, she thought, mouth dry. In two hours, she would have her hands on him, and then—
"We're here to say hi to Kakashi," Naruto informed them loudly. "Hi!"
She grimaced. Right. This was why it was a bad idea. She had a strong enough buzz right now that just looking at him she was tempted to give them away—and what a mistake that would be, when it was so convenient that no one knew. Sakura cleared her throat.
Gai smacked the copy-nin pointedly on the arm. "Hi," Kakashi returned blandly.
Naruto rocked on his heels, a drunken smile affixed to his face. Forward, back, forward again. As the silence continued, he started to look lost.
Kurenai took pity on him. "How are you and Hinata coping with wedding planning?"
Naruto beamed. "It's been going well! I've been trying to convince Teuchi-san to cater the event, three ramen bowls per head at a discounted price, you know, for all my years as a loyal customer. But he's a surprisingly hard negotiator—"
"Apologies for our friend," she heard Sai say to the rest of the table. "He has no aptitude for indoor voice. It's a lesson usually taught in childhood by one's parents. Alas, he did not have any."
"Thank you for informing us," Asuma cut in dryly, "of common knowledge."
"Who hasn't been woken up by that voice one time or another?" the man next to Asuma agreed, good-natured. His head lolled back, sweeping cursorily over her and Sai—then returned to her.
Sakura had offended enough people along the way to have received that look just milliseconds prior to a flying fist. She idly flexed her muscles in preparation, just in case.
"Now you look familiar," he reflected aloud, tone still pleasant.
Not a fight, then. Sakura blinked and then looked away, bored.
"Ah." His mouth spread into a satisfied smile. "I remember now."
Sasuke took a swill from one of the bottles on the table. Scowling, he passed it along to her.
"But you don't remember me," he continued.
She did, actually, vaguely recall seeing him before, during the few times she had tailed Kakashi to figure out where he spent his Saturday nights. Still didn't know his name, though. The scar rippling across his nose into the side of his face had been familiar back then too…but Konoha was only a village, not a country. Whose path had she not crossed multiple times?
Sakura took a brief sip before handing the bottle over to Sai. "It sounds like you barely figured it out yourself. And I have pink hair."
Anko snorted into her cup.
"Fair enough," he nodded, smirking. "It was years ago."
He leaned forward, grinning. That's when it clicked. He was…flirting.
Sakura sighed. How embarrassing. And Kakashi was— Well, the man in question wasn't in the least sympathetic, calmly downing the rest of his cup.
Which was far better than what it had once been, Sakura reflected, recalling some choice incidents from their…early days. On both their parts. She had improved, somewhat. Kakashi, however, had become a master of lazy indifference.
If not for her pride, she might have asked how he had accomplished it. Copy-nin. Perhaps the bastard had copied it off of a monk. Why hadn't she thought of that?
Well aware her thoughts were now approaching the ludicrous, she lowered her gaze. Unfortunately, what she found herself looking at didn't quite help. As she watched that pale, familiar wrist flex, tipping a bottle to fill his neighbor's empty cup, her stomach clenched. God, she thought, this was absurd.
"Let me give you a hint," the man teased.
Long, calloused fingers twisted to curve further around the bottle, setting it upright. Sakura gritted her teeth.
"My name's Raido."
And that— Well, that pierced through her shameless, lustful haze with devastating efficacy. It took a second, because she hadn't been paying full attention. But when that second passed, her breathing halted entirely.
A night, not unlike this one, years ago. Go on. Kakashi's long fingers against her lips, scalding. Running away, shunshining back to her apartment. Going out then (on the hunt) to a nearby bar, where she had found a woman and her dance partner and brought them both home. The dance partner, a man who had been named-Raido.
"You know who I am now?"
It had been years ago. What were the chances—? Actually, not low enough. Konoha was not that big. Fuck.
"Sakura?" Sai murmured.
Fight or flight? Flight, her brain elected, perhaps for the first time in nearly a decade. A loose hand caught her around the wrist. Her gaze snapped down to it, disbelieving.
"Just want to say before you go," Raido murmured into her ear, even though there was absolutely no notion of privacy in a group like this. "First, thank you. Because that night was…great. Definitely top three."
Not precisely how she would have described it.
"God, the way you moved…"
Fuck. She really must have had a terrible previous life.
"And if you ever want to revisit old memories, I'd be more than happy to—"
Raido disappeared from sight.
Sakura blinked once. Then once more, for good measure. When she sensed something hovering above her, she looked up.
And found Kakashi inexplicably atop the table, sharingan spinning with dizzying speed, like some sort of vengeful god with his—she looked down—left foot viciously shoving Raido's face into the surface.
Sakura continued to stare.
"Kakashi!" Gai exclaimed. The normally unperturbed Asuma also rose to his feet, alarmed.
"What the fuck, Hatake—?" Raido demanded, enraged. He twisted furiously on the table. The foot pressing into him didn't shift an inch.
Not better, Sakura thought dumbly. Not an ounce better.
But, also, this had never happened before.
And wasn't that almost miraculous, thinking about it now? Given that she had slept with a...not insignificant number of people before him, and yet this was the first time they had actually had the nerve to appear before her and- Inappropriate laughter, mostly incredulous, bubbled up in her throat. Would she have to fight Kakashi now, if only to save this man's life? Perhaps, a diversion. If she were to punch the ground suddenly… No, no, the bar owners would suffer if she did that…
"What's happening?" Naruto asked of no one in particular. Sai delicately raised a fist to his trembling lips.
"Hey," Asuma tried, voice gruff. "Whatever this is, there are better ways to resolve it. You're our kage now. These aren't the old days. And Raido? Raido's a friend—"
"—can't possibly imagine what your problem is with me trying to not go to bed alone on the one night I don't have duty—"
"I'll cut out your tongue," Kakashi said mildly, eyes crinkling. He pressed down savagely with his heel. Raido made a high-pitched noise.
"Is this some sort of terribly misplaced remnant of antiquated chivalry, Kakashi?" Kurenai questioned, bemused. Asuma—broad, hulking man that he was—retreated immediately behind her, looking slightly relieved at her intervention. "If she isn't receptive or if she was offended, I don't think she needs you to handle Raido. Among the more ineffective secrets of this village is that she's commander of ANBU. Your commander of ANBU, not to mention the most combative commander we've seen since, well, ever, for that matter."
Sakura jerked to life.
"What," Raido stammered, "so you're some sort of prude now? Well, fine. Good for you. But why are you taking that out on me—"
Kakashi's gaze snapped down to where her hand planted firmly on his chest. His eyes narrowed, lashes fluttering.
"Enough," Sakura said curtly.
The outline of his mouth shifted beneath the mask. To the human eye, he didn't appear to be moving. Sakura, however, could feel the force from his frame pushing fiercely against her fingers. She was holding him in place. For now.
"Kakashi," Sakura warned.
His hand latched onto her hair, fingers knotting sinuously into the riotous locks. For a second, she forgot their audience.
Asuma grunted. Sakura's mouth snapped shut as she paled.
"You," Raido said, sounding aghast. "You fucking hypocrite."
Kakashi eyes darkened. "You want to know," their hokage, the infamous copy-nin, shinobi of more than a thousand jutsus, murmured, "the difference between you and me?"
Sakura's nostrils flared in instinctive panic. "Don't—"
Raido scoffed loudly. "Whatever excuse you have…"
"That's my fucking wife," Kakashi snarled.
And upon hearing these words, the entire bar went utterly, stunningly silent.
CHAPTER 11: HOW THEY REACT
"WIFE?!" Raido shouted, turning rapidly puce.
"Wife?" Naruto rasped, suddenly, dangerously sober.
"…Wife." Sai savored the word, thoughtful.
Someone dropped a bottle. It shattered loudly against the floor.
"Oh," Gai gasped, tearing. "Oh, my young friend. I was waiting for the day you would cease spreading your youthful seed among the plentiful flowers of the field and become more— more discerning! And what a singular choice you have made. Lilies and primroses pale in comparison, before such a…such a majestic Venus flytrap—"
Asuma burst into great, wheezing gales of laughter. Sakura grabbed Kakashi by his collar and yanked him off of Raido.
"We had an agreement," she hissed, lip curled.
Kakashi's expression didn't change. "I don't recall promising anything."
"No wonder you got promoted so quickly," said Sasuke, derisive, behind them.
Sakura saw red.
"You." She pulled Kakashi until her forehead slammed into his. "Want to defend my honor now?"
Kakashi tilted his head, as though considering it. "After you," he offered graciously.
Sakura's muscles rippled as she lunged forward.
"Now, hold on a second," Kurenai cut in delicately, red gaze wide, hand wrapping around Sakura's bicep. "You can't make a scene here. Even forgetting you two, you—" she pointed to Sasuke—"of all people can't be seen in an altercation like this as commander of the military police force. And that's not even including—"
"Head of international relations," Asuma chortled as pointed to Naruto, none of whose usual diplomatic cheer could be seen at the present moment.
"And I'm head of Root," Sai announced with a polite smile, bowing in front of the bar's stunned occupants. "Root being, of course, our rehabilitation program for operatives suffering from any kind of trauma. Please don't hesitate to reach out for yourself or a loved one—"
"Whatever," Naruto shouted, waving a hand at Kurenai, having apparently finally regained his voice. "None of that matters right now. You two have questions to answer. You got married!? And none of us were invited?"
By happenstance, it seemed, his gaze fell on Sai—who suddenly looked meticulously expressionless. "Again?" Naruto cried.
"Well," Sai said lightly, "Not the marriage part. I never thought of either of them as the marrying type."
Sakura's mouth opened and closed. "It wasn't like that—"
Kakashi's eyes cut to her, sharp.
"Well," Sakura stammered. Fuck "The…paperwork technically exists."
"So which is it?" Naruto interrogated, eyes narrow.
Kakashi leaned indolently against the wall.
Sakura glared. "It's not a huge deal. It was just a piece of paper. A certificate, really, for extra tax deductions and healthcare benefits and —"
"I am so proud of you, friend," Gai nodded along, "I would have thought it out of character, but you have done the honorable thing."
Sakura blinked, stunned. "Did you hear a word I said?"
Kakashi seemed to scan the wall with great interest. "It would probably be more accurate to say that she made an honest man out me."
Gai blushed. Sasuke made a scathing noise. Sakura grabbed a pitcher of water from the neighboring table and tossed it into his face.
The Uchiha hissed, sputtering water, hair sticking out like a wet cat's.
"Need your brother to come and pick you up, Sasuke?" Sakura mocked, lunging for him—or tried to, because Naruto and Sai both held her back, "Get you a dry pair of clothes because you've once again made a mess of yourself—?"
"Wait a minute," Asuma declared loudly, laughter stopping. He stood suddenly. Everyone's eyes flicked to him, even Sakura's.
The older man's brow furrowed at Kakashi. "Weren't you her—"
"—seven years' difference or not, you were her jounin captain!" Tsunade roared, amber eyes drilling into them from above gold-rimmed spectacles.
Sakura winced at the sheer volume of the older woman's voice. Kakashi tipped back in his chair, delicately balancing on the back legs.
It was a peculiar arrangement they found themselves in.
She couldn't quite remember how they had ended up here, participants in this particular tableau: she and Kakashi opposite Tsunade, not entirely unlike recalcitrant children, Tsunade, in turn, seated in the hokage's seat behind that infamously cluttered desk.
The tableau was, notably, a historic one-it hadn't occurred in nearly a decade.
"Seriously," Sakura muttered, rubbing at the prickled skin on the back of her neck. "Isn't this your office?"
Kakashi surveyed the hokage's office lazily. "I was under that impression, yes."
Tsunade's beauty was proclaimed in both daimyo's courts and on shinobi training grounds, but one wouldn't have known it in that particular moment, looking at her contorted face.
"You think just because you're hokage now that this office isn't mine?" she yelled. "As long as I live, my rights to this office outrank yours. If there's a fucking line, Hatake, you're behind me. If I summon you here, you drop everything and run!"
To demonstrate her point, the former hokage planted her palms flat against the pristine surface of the mahogany desk with a thunderous noise.
"Yes," Sakura chuckled forcefully, "Of course. Silly us."
She kicked Kakashi's ankle beneath Tsunade's line of sight. Saké, she signaled, scanning the office.
Blinking boredly, he tilted his head in the negative.
"Fuck," she said out loud, with feeling.
Tsunade stabbed a finger in Kakashi's direction. "If I didn't know that—" the godaime halted, gaze narrowing further, "If I believed for even a second that something unmentionable happened here, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I would have already strung you up by your intestines." She straightened, mouth thin. "But I gave this position and this village to you, and I didn't do it because I had questions about your character. So you will explain to me when and how the fuck this happened, especially when you demonstrably hated her guts and nagged me about her incompetence constantly—"
"I would like it to be noted," Sakura interrupted, raising a hand, "that I passionately hated his guts too."
"Well that obviously changed for both of you at some point, didn't it," Tsunade said venomously. She stepped away from the desk and began to pace the room, muttering, "Sandaime, this is what happens when kids graduate early from the academy and you let child prodigies become jounin and ANBU and then captains…!"
Sakura opened her mouth. Then shut it. "I think I would rather be stabbed than talk about this," she said honestly.
"Don't tempt me, Sakura—"
"I was involved with Saori Mori," Kakashi said tonelessly, looking out the window.
The older woman's eyebrows rose. "….who?"
Sakura jolted in her seat from sheer shock of hearing that name for the first time in years. "The name I used," she clarified weakly, "when I was in ANBU."
Involved? (An…inexplicable series of altercations?)
Tsunade paused, mouth pursing. "Brat. You were her captain too." But it was different, and the godaime acknowledged this. Her ire was swiftly redirected to Sakura. "So that's how it began—he didn't know who you were. You were of age. Gratified to hear it. Now you. You knew exactly who he was."
"I would rather," she repeated carefully, "be stabbed."
Tsunade stared intently at her for what felt like an eon. Finally, however, she let up, scoffing. "Fine, spare me the gory details. I'm not so out of touch that I can't piece it together myself. Hated him with a passion, was it?"
Sakura coughed loudly.
"But you're not in the clear, brats, even if we've confirmed I don't have to kill anyone today. Let's talk about present-day circumstances. Ever heard of conflict of interest?" Tsunade said sweetly.
Kakashi blinked at the view out the panoramic window.
"Conflict?" Sakura demanded, expression hardening.
"He's hokage," Tsunade said, still saccharine. She gestured in Sakura's direction next. "As you've been absolutely content to let everyone and their dog know, you're commander of ANBU. Most people don't even remember genin team assignments—hell, they might even consider you the same generation, given your age difference. But your current positions make this the definition of conflict of interest, and you're naïve if you think the council won't have vocal thoughts about that."
Sakura stood slowly, eyes narrow. "Why?" she said coldly. "I would die to protect this village. I would die to protect him. What is there to doubt?"
"You fool," the godaime said slowly, mouth twisting. "It's not you they're going to doubt."
Somehow, though it was objectively obvious, Sakura didn't comprehend until Tsunade's gaze flashed to Kakashi. His posture hadn't changed. He was in the same position more or less, staring coolly out the window…except, Sakura noted grimly, that every muscle had locked, every inch of him suddenly steel.
"I have it in hand," Kakashi said.
Tsunade's expression changed, shifting into something between pity and sympathy. "Do you?"
Sakura's brows rose. "He doesn't," she said, acerbic. "But I do."
She wasn't really aware of the fact that she had moved—hand drifting unconsciously to the bridge between his head and neck—until Kakashi twisted in response, neck sliding beneath her lax fingers, dark eyes running over her.
Tsunade made a sharp noise. Sakura pulled her hand away lightning fast, reaching to rub the back of her head, pretending that was what she had intended all along.
(No one was fooled.)
"Yes," the older woman said, clearing her throat, "Well. You'll have tomorrow to convince the council of that."
Sakura's glare returned.
"Now, get out of my office."
The next day was, in a word, hell.
In fact, it was well past midnight when the council finally released them from questioning. Unsurprisingly, Sakura's mood, compounded by her pounding head, had descended into something genuinely nightmarish by the time they made their way back to their flat.
Usually, they each made an effort to disguise their destination from any ANBU potentially watching on night-duty, often taking circuitous routes. They made no such efforts this particular night.
"You're a bastard," she spat as they climbed the staircase.
Kakashi said nothing at first. Then, disinterestedly: "It was bound to happen eventually."
Sakura spun around to look down at him. "Excuse me?" she hissed, teeth bared. "After we had discussed it and prepared for the potential blowout, maybe. Not like this."
He paused on the stairs, eyes narrowed.
"They threatened to make me step down, Kakashi," Sakura snarled. "Me."
"They never would have followed through."
She barked a humorless laugh. "What? Because of you?"
"Because," he said coldly, "of you. They weren't about to throw away the most effective commander they've seen in their lifetimes. Not to mention that your notoriety has been a valuable deterrent against conflict, and they're well aware of that fact. But you've played fast and loose with the rules, Sakura, and—even though that has benefitted them at times—they fear your lack of obedience. They threatened you today purely for show."
"Whatever," she snapped. "Just. Now? And of all the places to do it—"
It was so dark that he might have blended in with the shadows as he moved, if not for his glowing gaze. He lunged upward until they were on the same step, his face hovering just in front of hers as his hair settled into place. "When I looked at him," he rasped, "a thousand and one thoughts went through my head. Only one ended up with him not in a hospital. Incidentally, I chose that one."
She glowered.
"You would be lying if you claimed you haven't been similarly tempted."
"I," Sakura pointed out, "did not open my big mouth!"
"Sakura," he mocked softly, eyes burning. "Now everyone will know I'm yours."
Her abdomen clenched. (Traitor.) She pushed past him and covered two steps at a time to reach their flat.
She was so caught up in her urgency to get inside, that she failed entirely to note the foreign presence inside their apartment. Sakura swung the door open with vigor, face dark with displeasure—and by then, it was too late.
She blinked at the lone figure sat at their dining table, still as a statue. Its eyes flashed open, piercing and blue.
"Um," said Sakura.
She took an instinctive step back and slammed into Kakashi.
"Imagine my surprise, Sakura," Ino said pleasantly, "when I heard a certain rumor this morning at the flower shop." She paused, eyes drifting to the man behind her. "Hokage-sama."
"Ino," Kakashi acknowledged, nonchalant.
When the blonde straightened from her bow, it was with such ferocity that her long hair went flying. Her eyes snapped back to Sakura.
Sakura winced. "Ino—"
"Not a whisper, not even the slightest indication of a date night or couple's retreat," Ino said, pink lips curving into a terrifying smile, "Honestly, forehead, I thought you were wasting your time pining, desperately in love with me—"
"Seriously?"
"Well," Ino said, mouth pursed briefly, "No. But that's not the point. The point is—"
Kakashi calmly shut the door behind them.
"—I'm going to kill you."
Sakura shunshined just as the other woman lunged.
Ino had apparently been expecting it. She pivoted instantly on her heel. Sakura ducked beneath a fist. It flew past her and went straight through one of their cupboards.
"Kakashi," she growled.
"Yes?" drawled Kakashi.
"Order her," Sakura locked her hands gently around the other woman's arms and shoved her back, "to…stop."
Ino made a noise like an enraged cat. She launched herself forward, kicking off their table—which shattered under the duress, having already been on its quite literal last legs.
"She's breaking our place!" Sakura exclaimed, righteously indignant.
"Usually," Kakashi considered, "you break our place. Do I kick you out?"
Sakura flipped over the sofa. Her eyes widened as Ino latched onto the katana she kept tucked behind the mirror. She cursed as Ino started to swing the blade with, well, novice skill—she was no swordswoman—but a concerning amount of vitriol.
The Voice yawned within Sakura. Is this worth my attention?
"No," Sakura hissed below her breath.
She thought about it briefly, a second later.
No, she corrected privately, unless Ino actually lost it and tried to drill her way into their head.
"Put down the katana," she said out loud, exasperated. "You're going to hurt yourself."
"I'm going to hurt you," Ino retorted. Her wrists shook under the strain of the heavy weapon, unaccustomed to its weight. "You got married without telling me. Which also means you got your flowers from somewhere else—"
Sakura groaned. "There wasn't even a wedding!"
Ino froze. "Excuse me?"
The blonde stared at her, apparently stunned speechless. Tentatively, Sakura began to reach for the katana in her hands.
"No wedding, no flowers," Sakura repeated, exploiting the words for all their apparent sedative effect. "Just going to gently slip this out of your hands… Didn't even wear anything special, just my ANBU uniform…I didn't even bother washing the blood out beforehand, it was such a crazy week—"
Ino released a shriek of rage and brought the blade sharply down.
Sakura almost shrieked as well—in frustration. She redirected the strike and shoved the blonde woman into the wall, pinning her down.
"Seriously, Ino?!"
"You piece of shit," Ino raged, swiping nails dangerously close to Sakura's eyes.
"Come on," she shouted at Kakashi.
"—should dump you in a fucking ditch—"
The last thread of her patience snapped.
"Don't you love me?" Sakura barked.
"—this is absolute bullshit—"
"Stand down."
The blessed words emerged, and Ino's mouth snapped shut immediately. Sakura pulled slowly away from Ino, swiping her hair back from her face.
Silently, they all took stock of each other.
"That, Sakura," Kakashi said, "was very manipulative of you."
"Was it?" Sakura retorted coolly. "Considering this is your fault?"
Kakashi surveyed her, gaze bland. After a moment, he turned to look the other way coolly.
Ino let out an incredulous laugh
"I can't believe this," she said as she sank back against the wall. She shook her head. "We all fantasize about fucking our jounin captains at some point, but the rest of us don't actually do it, Sakura! But, of course! You're the absurdly lucky one who ended up with a captain who's not only hot like burning, but also accessibly not middle-aged. Do you know many men and women have orgasmed at just the thought of this man right here—and he went for you?"
Sakura groaned loudly. "Out," she said. "Out, Ino. Now—"
"Hurt her, of course, hokage-sama," Ino sniffed, "and I will do my utmost to end you."
Kakashi's eyebrow arched. Sakura made a choked noise.
When she recovered—and it took a few seconds—she leaned forward to haul Ino up to her feet. "You'd have to get in line, dumbass," she grunted. "Stop shooting your mouth—"
"I don't doubt your ability to handle the killing part, forehead," Ino announced, "but you would need my assistance in hiding the body. And for that, one or two of my talents could come in handy…"
Kakashi's eyes crinkled. Ino paused.
"You're entertaining him, moron," Sakura explained, annoyed, "not intimidating him."
"…you two really are a pair— Hey!"
She grabbed Ino by the back of her neck and herded her toward the door. The blonde tried to resist at first. When she realized she couldn't, she straightened and smoothed her clothes, delicately stepping through the debris as though she had intended to leave all along. Sakura rolled her eyes.
Just when they reached the door, however, Ino came to a dead stop.
Sakura threw her hands up. "Can't you just—"
"Hey forehead. If it took me this long to get to you, how long do you think it will take your mom?"
And it was a cruel stroke of fate, undoubtedly, that at that precise moment, rapid knocking erupted against the door, accompanied by a very familiar, shrill voice.
Sakura's eyes widened in horror.
CHAPTER 12: WHEN THEY GET MARRIED (THE SECOND TIME)
It was impressive, what layers of silk and gossamer, all precariously tied together, could come to weigh—even in someone like Sakura's regard. Worse, the pins in her hair pricked her skull every time she so much as shifted. And yet still, perhaps the most intolerable part of all this was that every time she inhaled, she had to suppress the fervent, profound urge to sneeze from all the powder and rouge packed onto her face.
Weddings, she considered—all the while glowering at the Shinto priest who was rather leisurely making his way through the Norito-sojo section—should be fairly advertised as cruel and unusual torture. She would have preferred actual torture to this.
A blessed moment of silence fell upon them when the priest finally finished his recitation. He didn't, she knew, deserve the brunt of her ire. He was a round-faced man who, rather offputtingly, seemed to have a permanent, genuine smile affixed to his face (point in case: he hadn't even flinched when Sakura had uttered a loud and heartfelt "fuck" when she tripped earlier).
Despite this, when his smile widened impossibly further as he offered them twin gold cups now, Sakura couldn't help but wonder whether it was sadistic impulses after all that had gotten him into the business of…priesthood.
Glumly, she received the cup. The priest nodded jovially, urging.
Before thousands of eyes, she turned to face the man across from her and tipped the cup full of saké into her pursed mouth. Only to find, to her surprise, that it wasn't saké—but richer, biting, burning its way down her throat. Shōchū—bizarrely enough, sampled from her favorite bottle too.
Surprised, Sakura's gaze dropped from the arch of flowers above her to the man in front of her.
He had, of course, averted his head as he drank, pale throat bobbing as he swallowed. But maybe he sensed her gaze, because even as his face remained angled away—his eyes suddenly cut to her, strangely clear, almost translucent.
It galled her to see it—that gaze. It was reserved for late evenings, when they shared a single bowl of stew between them, her toes tucked beneath the warmth of his legs, or mornings, when he dragged her spitting and cursing from bed, or…those times, when he held her by the hands and pulled her to the bathroom, scrubbing them clean for her. It wasn't meant for here, with thousands of strangers surrounding them, watching.
She swallowed the rest of the shōchū hurriedly, until the cup was empty. It was probably sacrilegious, she thought wildly—switching out the saké with shōchū, when it defined the San San Kodu ritual.
Out of habit, she smacked her lips at the end—exactly like she was drinking shōchū at the bar. The priest blinked at her before continuing his chanting.
"Careful," her husband murmured, eyes crinkling out at the audience, utterly devoid of the unbearable intimacy that had been there seconds earlier. Possibly, she had hallucinated it. "Or you might give us way."
Sakura still felt rather dazed. "Shōchū?" she returned. "Do you not fear the gods? Or perhaps, their judgment?"
Kakashi arched a brow at the legions of shinobis and royalty and civilians watching them. "Maybe I fear your wrath more."
"…that would be wise."
Kakashi was the one who had set this catastrophe in motion, after all.
Most of the time, Sakura was (mostly) grateful for the relative era of peace they currently enjoyed; other times, she wondered if it didn't give the council members too much time on their hands—and imagination. As Tsunade had predicted, they had had opinions about their marriage, but it hadn't ended with potential conflicts of interest.
Allegedly, it was a diplomatic insult of the worst order if a hokage got married without a proper (Sakura preferred the words 'unnecessarily extravagant' and 'garish') ceremony: the kind with foreign kages and daimyos and foreign ambassadors and the like in attendance. If certain council members were to be believed, she and Kakashi might have even invited war for the grave sin of a quiet, economic affair.
To her horror, they had proposed (forced the issue of) an official ceremony.
The staunchest proponent of said ceremony had been Naruto—which was possibly among the greater betrayals of her life (Danzo included). Sakura rather felt he had shamelessly taken advantage of his position to force her to hold a wedding he could attend. In fact, she even said so to his face in front of the rest of the council.
Not that it had mattered. The idiot had too much sway these days. He had, Sakura thought, scowling as another pin drilled its way into her brain when she returned the cup, an inexplicable way of getting precisely what he wanted via the most simplistic of means—like rotating between essentially three jutsus or talking at someone about each and every emotion he felt ad nauseam.
She looked at him now, sitting in the very first row, blue eyes wide and wet, utterly deceptive. Sai and Sasuke were seated on either side of him, the former with a soft curve to his mouth, the latter utterly stoic. The outright absence of disgust on Sasuke's face was probably remarkable. Sakura may have appreciated it more if not for her own current pain.
The priest cleared his throat, disrupting her grim thoughts. She turned back toward him, suppressing a wince as hair tore from her head. Damned pins.
"Before we proceed, I would like to address something regarding today's ceremony," the elderly man beamed. "Somewhat untraditionally, our couple has opted for a shortened list of the traditional rituals. I am told that it is increasingly the modern way—and, alas, I have long-since come to understand in my age the futility of standing against modernity!"
An obligatory chuckle rumbled from the audience.
Thank god—they were close to the end. Sakura's head fell back; she just managed to withhold a groan of relief.
"However, in service of that same modernity," he continued, smiling brightly, unknowing what his words beckoned, "I have inserted a ritual into today's proceedings. And though it is untraditional, I should add, it was at the heartfelt request of a close friend on the groom's side."
Kakashi cocked his head to the side, like a curious bird.
Sakura went straight to rage.
"It was his wish to remain anonymous. However, he had some words to share, that I will now read aloud as preface." The priest's hand delved into his voluminous robes to fetch out a slim scroll. With careful, wrinkled fingers, he unfolded the parchment.
"A kiss," he started, "is the ultimate flowering of youth."
There wasn't a single person in the village who didn't know who that was.
Sakura nearly lunged for the man in question, where he sobbed three rows back. As it happened, Kakashi casually shifted forward at the same moment, blocking him from her line of sight.
"To be certain, my dearest friend Kakashi—and his beloved wife Sakura as well, I have learned," the priest continued, "have gifted many such flowers in their time. Perhaps, in combination, to a veritable legion of men and women."
He sniffled. "But no kiss from the past can compare to the one shared now between the two of them. Their kiss is the blooming of that great thing we call love, the most blessed blossom of all."
The priest lifted a hand to his eyes, wiping at the corner. "Ah, I apologize," he chuckled wetly, 'it isn't often one reads such beautiful words. It is a true pity that I cannot reveal their author."
Sakura wondered if this was what a conniption felt like.
"But with that preface relayed, we now reach the concluding ritual of today's auspicious ceremony! Hokage-sama, you may kiss your bride."
Her lips parted, incredulous.
He couldn't be serious.
It became clear, at his anticipatory look, that he was.
"Mask," someone whispered shrilly from the audience.
"Oh, yes," the priest said, shrugging. "Can you not do it through the cloth?"
The day she sucked face with cloth… Sakura dared Kakashi to try it, nostrils flared.
The priest sighed good-naturedly, when neither of them shifted an inch.
"Come now, there's no need to be shy," the round-faced man laughed, adding a hand to each of their shoulders. He tried to push them toward each other. "No matter how your bride blushes, I will not end this ceremony until it is done!" he warned with a giggle.
Sakura's shoulder flexed, pushing back.
"Unfortunately, Kageyama-san, that redness in her face," Kakashi said, "is not modesty."
"Oh, is it not?"
"Shove that mask into my mouth," Sakura said slowly, "and I'll shove it up your—"
"Oh, what a funny woman you are!" The priest erupted into well-timed laughter, drowning out the rest of her words. "With such a charming temper!"
She stared at him.
"Truly unflappable, isn't he," Kakashi observed.
Sakura trembled in place, caught between anger and incredulity. Ultimately, however, as nearly a minute passed in stalemate, her mouth snapped shut—resigned.
Fine. She would do what was necessary to end this.
She turned toward the priest, shoulders taut. "Hold out your hands." As an afterthought, given his age (suspected sadism or not), she added, strangled: "Please."
Bemused, he readily unfurled his hands for her. She reached up without another word and started to yank out the multitude of pins in her hair
Mutterings rose from their audience. Sakura ignored them.
When her hair finally curtained her face, she spun toward Kakashi with militant precision. She found him leaning against the wooden arch of flowers, arms lazily crossed, apparently content to watch ongoing proceedings exactly where he was. A bundle of jasmine framed him right above his head, an unwitting crown.
"I've been having near-graphic visions of strangling you this entire ceremony. Set my heart racing," she said, unblinking. She stepped toward him. "Must be love."
His lashes fluttered.
She moved with chakra-induced speed and grabbed him around the waist, tugging him into her. Noises of surprise and alarm erupted from the seating area. Just as they were about to collide, however, she twisted.
When they stilled, she held him with one arm on his back, balanced over open air.
"Haruno-san—?" the priest squeaked.
Kakashi gazed up at her, calm.
Slowly, she bent over him, lower and lower, until her hair obscured his face. With her other hand, she pulled down his mask and kissed him.
A minute or ten later, whenever she pulled back, the priest blinked at them, his mouth at last free of the smile that had appeared carved onto it.
Behind him, men and women, regardless of cast or creed, were singularly unified in their stunned silence.
Sakura wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve, indifferent.
"So can I get out of here now?"
