The Bank II
"A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it." - Jean de La Fontaine
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the characters contained therein, they belong to Masashi Kishimoto who is kind enough to let fans write fiction. I make no profit from this nor do I intend to.
A/N: Unbeta'd. I will attempt to post every week.
Enjoy.
Chapter X
Sakura made her way down the hall slowly, her feelings mixed in regard to the patient she was on her way to visit. She'd thought that he understood that suicide by mission was unacceptable. But, from what she'd heard and briefly seen, he had come back injured again and what's worse, with injuries that were beneath him. He simply didn't make the kind of mistakes that led to those sorts of injuries.
Deep in thought, Sakura suddenly found herself at his door. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the chart on the door. Quickly she flipped through, looking for updates on the most recently added notes. She had already found that overall, his injuries were not as bad as she'd first heard but still worse than he should ever have gotten on his own. At least according to the updates, she hadn't stopped by for a few hours, he was responding well to treatment.
Not bothering to suppress a sigh, she opened the door and started upon finding Tsunade there, clearly on her way out. Tsunade made a parting appeal that Sakura should go easy on Kakashi – though, why, she had, of course, neglected to say. As she slipped past Sakura on her way out of the room, an ill-concealed smirk materialized on her face just as she moved out of Kakashi's line of sight. Sakura's eyes widened slightly and she had to take a moment, pausing in the doorway to turn and watch Tsunade saunter down the hall, in order to fight the light color she felt creeping up into her cheeks.
Once she felt better collected, Sakura quickly scanned the hallway, looking for an orderly or someone she could send for Kakashi's things. Upon seeing no one, no one at all aside from Tsunade's vanishing back, she fully entered Kakashi's room and closed the door.
Lost in thought, Sakura shook her head slightly as she pressed the orderly call button by the door – there should have been someone on duty in the hall, were they really that short-staffed, or more likely, were they so afraid Kakashi would do something foolish that they'd cleared the hall of unnecessary foot-traffic?
Kakashi watched as Sakura paused in the doorway before continuing into the room. Clearly she was engrossed in her own thoughts and, as he was fairly certain those particular thoughts had to do with if she was going to follow Tsunade's appeal or not, he figured it was in his best interest to stay silent until she snapped out of it. No use trying to hurry her along – that could have the exact opposite effect than what he wanted. Instead, he'd just wait and see what happened.
Letting Tsunade's strange words truly sink in, Sakura continued her interrupted stroll to Kakashi's bed, absently picking up a gum wrapper on her way. Once at his bedside, she paused, thinking of what she could do to make his stay less unpleasant – aside from getting him his belongings of course. Since Tsunade had made time to stop by herself to get his preliminary findings, Kakashi would absolutely need to get that report written as soon as possible. The fact she had stopped by to get a preliminary report at all made Sakura more inclined to believe Tsunade's insistence that Kakashi had good reason for his foolish injuries. Whatever mission he'd been on, had been urgent enough for Tsunade to need the contents of his report as soon as possible – sooner than he could even write it. If that was the case… he deserved for her to listen to Tsunade's appeal on his behalf. That he was an old friend who had often turned up with delicious coffee when she most needed it, meant that she should probably also do whatever she could to make his stay in the hospital at least a little less boring. Naturally, a trip to the bookstore and to the coffee shop across the village would be in order. The line would be long but he'd already braved it for her multiple times now. Perhaps she'd try the coffee shop across the street too – their competing coffee blend was quite good…
An orderly promptly responded, interrupting Sakura's inner musings. Upon entering he was only slightly surprised to find Sakura there with Kakashi.
"You, ah, called, Ms. Haruno?" he asked with some relief. The whole floor had been warned not to help the patient in this room unless medically necessary, lest he decide to make a break for it. Consequently, he was dreading having to answer a call from this particular patient's room.
Ignoring the orderly's clear trepidation, Sakura responded somewhat absently, still mostly lost in her own thoughts. "Yes, please retrieve Mr. Hatake's belongings and bring them here."
The orderly's eyes widened. "But-"
Sakura held up a hand, not wanting to hear his protests. She was one of the few people who would make Kakashi behave… most of the time at any rate.
"It's fine – he has a mission report to write for the Hokage and needs his things to get that done." She shot a sideways glance at Kakashi, who had so far stayed uncharacteristically quiet. "And, he won't be going anywhere anytime soon."
Kakashi chuckled, he knew as well as she did that once he had his pants and was physically able to do so, he'd be spending at least some time wandering the hospital.
Sakura shot him a look that told him he had better behave and rolled her eyes before amending her statement. "He will not be leaving the hospital any time soon."
Realizing that Sakura, rightly, had the final word regarding the troublesome elite shinobi, the orderly nodded and made a quick exit. He wasn't exactly certain where Kakashi's things had been stored but, he knew for certain, that they had been put somewhere out of the way. No one wanted to be responsible for Kakashi leaving the hospital early and if they could prevent him from doing so, even if only for a little while, then they would absolutely resort to hiding his belongings.
Sakura turned her attention back to Kakashi.
"So, now that that's taken care of…" she trailed off, unsure what she could say. Tsunade had told her to go easy on Kakashi, he had good reasons for what he had done and she believed her. "I came here to rip you a new one, you know."
He nodded, offering no defense. He had none. At least not one he was going to give her.
"You're not going to tell me what happened?"
He sighed, having hoped that she wouldn't ask. "I did what was necessary."
She eyed him suspiciously. "I see."
"It's classified."
"What?"
"The mission is classified. I can't discuss it at this point in time."
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Really?"
He held her gaze evenly. "Really."
Shaking her head slightly Sakura plopped herself down in her chair, her fingers crinkling the gum wrapper she had picked up.
"Itsuki stop by?"
Knowing that there was no way he could possibly deny it, Kakashi simply shrugged, ignoring the flare of pain the movement caused him.
"What did he want?" Sakura asked her brows knitting together in confusion. "And, why didn't he bring you your stuff?"
Kakashi stayed silent. Sakura was an intelligent woman, she should easily be able to guess what her recent ex may have wanted.
She sighed, suspecting that she knew very well what Itsuki wanted. "He asked you to talk to me about giving him a second chance, didn't he?"
Surprised but doing his best to hide it, Kakashi refocused his attention on Sakura, staying silent as he knew if he opened his mouth he'd likely say something unfortunate. His patience with Itsuki was long gone, as he hoped was Sakura's.
Sakura held his gaze, waiting for a response. After an increasingly awkward moment, she broke eye contact. Clearly he wasn't going to answer. "Fine. I bet you talked about manly men things – far too testosterone-laden for a mere female such as myself to ever understand." She rolled her eyes.
Unable to help himself, Kakashi snorted and then laughed. She was closer to the truth than she'd ever know.
Giving up the topic of Itsuki – the less said about him the better anyway – Sakura decided to try one more time to get to the bottom of Kakashi's injuries. "So you're really not going to tell me about your injuries?"
Kakashi frowned slightly but otherwise remained silent.
Sakura eyed him one last time, looking for some sort of tell and once again found that she was very glad that she never played cards with Kakashi. With an irritated sigh, she gave up. Sometimes there was just no telling why he did the things he did – though, apparently, according to Tsunade, he had his reasons and they were good ones. She would just have to accept it and move on.
"So, have you been reading anything good lately?" she asked, settling down more comfortably in her chair to have a nice chat rather than the lecture she'd planned on giving him. "I finished some of the books you left and am not sure what to try next."
Kakashi sighed and closed his book for a moment, the current novel was not going very well and he needed to stifle the desire to strangle the main character before he could continue reading. Unfortunately, since he was still in the hospital, he had few options for alternate novels so he would have to finish this one before allowing himself to select a new one. Sakura had been more than generous in going to several different bookstores for him. Unfortunately, he had read quite a few of the novels commonly kept in stock at most bookstores. Most of the time when he wanted a new novel, he either had to buy something that had just been released or special order something off the back catalog of one of his favorite authors.
This particular novel was one he'd avoided buying for years – he hadn't particularly enjoyed other novels by the author – but it was one that he hadn't previously read. After reading the first few chapters he found that it was definitely not going to be one he would recommend to Sakura, she had far less patience (and time) for stupid main characters than he did. Kakashi had to pause a little longer just to remind himself that his lower tolerance for main character nonsense had nothing to do with the fact that Sakura was in an all-day meeting and wouldn't be along to help him cope with his boredom. Nothing at all.
While Kakashi was contemplating his options for the rest of the day – limited since Sakura wasn't around – someone knocked on his door.
Without waiting for a response, the door opened, and a familiar thin long-haired woman carrying a clipboard entered. Kakashi frowned to himself for a moment before managing to place her. He felt his expression tighten just a little. The fact that she was turning up on the one day where Sakura was guaranteed not to be there did not escape him.
"Mr. Hatake!" she greeted him with a sweet smile. "I'm so glad to see that you're awake! When I heard you were back staying with us again I was afraid that it would be under similar circumstances to your last few stays." She stopped just short of batting her eyelashes at him. "I'm Kumiko Nagata," she giggled. "You might recognize my name from your bank list."
She winked and smiled, bouncing a little on her toes and allowing the bounce to translate itself elsewhere on her anatomy. Classic kunoichi tactics – why she thought they'd work on him, he couldn't even begin to guess.
"Nice to see you again Ms. Nagata," He greeted her, wary of why she was visiting and choosing to ignore her comment about his bank list.
Kakashi was torn between wanting to tell her that he'd made a choice and she wasn't it and ignoring her hints, just leaving well enough alone. Aside from it not being any of Kumiko's business, he was uncertain how much, if any, trouble Kumiko could make for Sakura if he flat out told her to find herself another list.
The status of his list aside, Kakashi couldn't even begin to guess why Kumiko was there. He certainly hadn't called for her and couldn't think of any other valid reason she might have to stop by.
"Oh!" she raised a hand to her chest and her cheeks colored slightly. "You do remember me!" She bounced again, just a little.
He kept his sigh to himself and silently waited to see why she was there – eventually she would have to get the hint and elaborate.
Realizing that he wasn't going to comment, she decided to continue on. "I'm so glad to see that your file won't need to be opened any time soon." She made a show of looking him over. "Looks like you're doing much better now," she nearly purred.
Losing patience quickly and doing his best not to roll his eyes, Kakashi continued to keep his expression of polite inquiry, waiting for her to state the reason for her visit.
Sensing that she had perhaps gone a little too far, she cleared her throat and changed the subject. "Anyway, I'm helping the records department with some updates this week. So I have some paperwork for you." She held out the clipboard she was carrying.
He raised an eyebrow in inquiry, suspicious of any paperwork the determined woman may have for him. "What sort of paperwork?"
"You need to update your list." Her smile widened and she extended the clipboard again.
"Excuse me?" he asked, stunned that she had come into his room while he was staying in the hospital to demand that he make changes to his list. Starting to become angry, Kumiko definitely crossed a line, he did his best to keep his emotions from showing. Anyone in the village with a brain and the knowledge that Sakura was on Kakashi's list would know that she would be his choice, and he'd be damned if he let some other woman try to change his mind.
Kumiko's eyes widened in mock surprise. "Oh! Not that list, silly!" She managed a giggle, thinking that things might not be going too badly for her after all if he immediately thought of his bank list with her in the room. "You can do whatever you like with that list! I'm sure you're making the right choice!" She winked again as she stepped closer and held the clipboard directly in his line of sight. "This list!"
Still fuming but also uncertain what she was referring to, he finally reached out for the clipboard. Automatically his eyes were drawn to the top and started to skim the document, his ire fading as he read.
"That's your Approved Visitors List," Kumiko added unnecessarily as she waited while Kakashi glanced through the document.
"I… see…" he flipped the pages, wondering what it was all about, he'd never had one before. "I don't have anyone to ban so I don't need an Approved Visitors List." He shrugged and tried to return the clipboard to Kumiko.
Surprised, she shook her head. "Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't being clear." Gently, she pushed the clipboard back to him. "The hospital has put into action a new visitor check-in process. We now need Approved Visitors Lists for all of our patients. That's my task for this week – get updated lists for all patients currently staying in the hospital."
"But, I don't have anyone to ban." He frowned. "I've never needed a list before."
She shook her head. "That doesn't matter, there's an option at the bottom if you'd rather reverse the list and allow everyone and bar only those on the list. If you have no one to ban, you can just leave it blank."
Suppressing a sigh, knowing there was no use fighting new hospital policy, he pulled the clipboard back to himself and started reading.
Awkwardly, Kumiko stood and waited, it hadn't occurred to her that Kakashi might actually read the papers before filling them out. Several minutes later he finished up, signed and dated the document, and then handed the clipboard back to her.
Quickly Kumiko scanned the papers, it would be easier to catch and correct any mistakes immediately, rather than finding them later. She nodded as she found that he'd filled out the pages as she'd suggested. Suddenly she stopped.
"Oh, Mr. Hatake, I think you may have misunderstood this one here," she pointed at the clipboard.
He leaned forward to check, he'd read it all carefully and was fairly certain that he had made no mistakes.
"This one isn't for your regular or most often seen medic, it's for your medical contact – the person who makes medical decisions for you in the event that you are rendered unable to do so yourself."
Kakashi glanced again at the form and shook his head, starting to lose patience with the overly friendly woman. "Yes, I'm aware. There's no mistake."
"But it says Sakura Haruno? She's your medic, not your medical contact."
Tired of dealing with the woman and irritated all over again he shook his head and decided to try and subtly spike Kumiko's wheel. Sakura was well-loved by everyone in the hospital, any malicious trouble Kumiko could try to cause would likely fall flat. And, if it didn't, Sakura was entirely capable of handling anything Kumiko could throw at her.
"Yes, I understand the difference. However, while Sakura is my medic, she is also my medical contact. She has power of attorney too if a situation comes up where decisions need to be made and I'm unable to do so." He shrugged. "I trust her to take care of anything that needs to be handled if or when I'm unable to do so myself."
Kumiko's mouth dropped open in surprise. "W-what?"
Kakashi regarded her calmly, his patience gone. "Sakura is my contact for pretty much everything. Shouldn't be surprising considering how long we've known each other." He shrugged again. "If that's all?" he asked, shifting himself a little as though he wanted to try and sleep.
Still shocked, it had never occurred to her that the relationship between Kakashi and Sakura had gone back so far or run so deep, she closed her mouth and shook her head. "U-uh, no, no, I believe that is everything. Thank you for your time, Mr. Hatake. I-I'll just let you rest now."
Hastily Kumiko beat a quick retreat, clipboard in hand, starting to wonder if she should look into getting herself added to another list.
Sakura glanced up at the faint noise and was unsurprised to find Kakashi, fully dressed and in his seat as though things were back to normal, even though she knew that he had not yet been discharged from the hospital. She frowned as a delicious scent invaded her nostrils. A quick glance down informed her of the source of the delicious scent. Since it was far better than anything that was ever served at the hospital Sakura frowned slightly and returned her gaze to her visitor.
"Kakashi…"
"Hmm?"
"What's this?" She pointed at the fragrant to-go cup sitting on her desk. "And, where did you get it?"
He chuckled, knowing exactly what she was thinking. He'd not yet been given the green-light to leave the hospital. That he'd left, even to get her something that smelled heavenly, was a violation of their unspoken agreement. "It's a new special limited edition tea that the coffee shop across the street has started carrying."
"Limited edition tea?" Sakura asked as she lifted the to-go cup in order to better inspect its contents.
He nodded, taking a sip of his own tea before responding. "It seems that there is a parody book out now," he brandished the lavender jacketed novel he'd pulled out when he took his seat, "about a server in a tea shop – imaginatively titled, The Tea Shop." He laughed at her incredulous expression. "The coffee shop across the street decided to do a limited edition parody tea – to up their game against that coffee shop across the village that has the licensing to do the limited edition coffees to go with The Coffee Shop books."
Sakura laughed, it was exactly the right kind of ridiculous to appeal to Kakashi's sense of the absurd. "Is it any good?"
"Try it, and see."
Sakura giggled again and took a sip. "I meant the book – the tea is delicious!"
He chuckled, unsurprised at her reaction. "Don't know about the book yet. Just bought it today when I found the tea."
"Mmm, if it's even half as good as the tea, I'd like to give it a read when you're done."
"Sure."
"You do know that you're still in trouble for leaving the hospital, don't you?"
He inwardly cringed, having hoped that the limited edition tea might buy him his way out of trouble this time around.
She snickered and relented. "Well, only if someone else noticed. I'll give you a pass," she narrowed her eyes, making sure he was listening, "this time around."
Exhausted, Sakura returned to her office. It had been a long day and she was more than happy that she only had about an hour to go before she could pack it in for the day. And, to make things even better, she was off the next day so could sleep in as late as she wanted.
Upon opening her office door she was surprised to find Kakashi there waiting for her in his usual seat. She blinked in astonishment. He'd just been released from the hospital the day before. She'd figured that it would be another week at the very least before she saw him again. After all, he'd already spent quite a lot of time with her recently, he must be getting sick of her.
He chuckled at her reaction and extended a hand with a to-go cup of the limited edition coffee she liked so much. "I figured I'd bring you a cup since I already went through the trouble of waiting in the line for one for myself."
Feeling inordinately pleased despite doing her best not to be, Sakura smiled in appreciation. "Thanks, I really need this."
He took a better look at her and frowned. "You do look tired. Long shift?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I got home late last night and had to come in early this morning."
He nodded, given her schedule, it was all too understandable. Konoha had had a medic shortage for far too long – something would need to be done about it soon. Sakura and her colleagues wouldn't be able to keep up the pace much longer.
Social niceties taken care of, Sakura returned her focus to her paperwork, enjoying Kakashi's silent companionship. She was more than aware that she should enjoy it while it lasted as he would likely soon be sent back out and there was no telling when he would take his last mission – the one from which he would not return.
An hour later, Sakura stretched before starting to tidy up her workspace, getting ready to leave. Since she would be out the next day she wanted to take a little extra care to make sure everything was nice and neat before she went.
"Quitting time, Kakashi," Sakura announced unnecessarily while she gathered her things from her desk and fished out her keys.
Unsurprisingly, Kakashi also set about tidying up his little corner of her office, straightening his chair and making sure he left no traces of himself behind.
Once her desk was tidied, Sakura headed to her office door. Kakashi moved to the door before her and chivalrously held it open for her. Sakura laughed at his little uncharacteristic display.
As she was locking her office door, she was surprised to see that Kakashi didn't particularly seem inclined to wander off as per usual when she called it a day at the hospital. Tucking that surprise away, she pocketed her keys, and started off down the hall, smiling to herself when Kakashi fell into step next to her.
Once they were clear of the hospital, Sakura turned to Kakashi, wondering what his intentions could be. Before she could ask, he beat her to the punch.
"You're too tired to cook tonight, aren't you?"
"Y-yes," she stuttered, caught off guard.
"You're thinking you'll probably have instant ramen."
"Maybe…" she hedged, not really wanting to admit that he was right. Naruto was right to sing the praises of instant ramen for when one was just too tired to cook… or care…
He chuckled. "C'mon, there's a new challenger in the world of ramen – just opened last week and from what I've heard, it's actually pretty decent."
Instantly perking up Sakura couldn't help but respond. "What? Really?"
"Yup."
"There's another startup trying to take the crown from Ichiraku?"
"Uh-huh, it's not far from here."
Sakura couldn't help but smile, a part of her wondering if this was his way of asking her out. Regardless, she couldn't possibly refuse ramen of the non-instant variety. "Well, I can't say no to ramen – and as tired as I might be... it's unlikely that this place will actually last very long."
Kakashi snorted. "The last place still holds the record, two months."
"Well, who knows how good this new place is, we'd better get there quickly, just in case."
"Mmmm, that was probably the absolute best barbeque that I've ever had." Sakura sighed in contentment as she continued along toward her apartment.
Kakashi nodded agreeably as he continued amiably alongside Sakura. It had been a very nice evening. The latest of a long string of nice evenings.
"By far, I think that's probably the best place we've been."
"Mm-hmm," he agreed.
"Though, to be honest," she tilted her head to the side just a bit. "There was just one thing…"
He chuckled. "The coffee."
Sakura pulled a face. "How can a place that makes such good food make such terrible coffee?"
He shrugged. "No one is perfect?"
She laughed. "That's fair. I suppose I can take the fact that they have terrible coffee, I certainly don't have to drink it, if they have such excellent food. Though… It seems wrong to have a meal like we just had without a decent cup of coffee afterward."
"Mmmm," Kakashi responded noncommittally, not really thinking about it too much.
They walked on in companionable silence for another few moments before arriving at Sakura's apartment building.
"Thanks for dinner, Kakashi."
He nodded, as was his custom, unwilling to respond in any other manner. This was not his favorite part of the evening.
"One of the aides at the hospital gave me a bag of that limited edition The Coffee Shop coffee, decaf – for helping her deal with a troublesome patient." She shot him a glance. "Do you want to come up to have some?"
Startled, Kakashi shot her a glance. He'd thought that their rather non-relationship relationship was fairly clear in their boundaries – what he would and wouldn't do, or rather, what he could and couldn't do.
"Sakura, I-"
Catching his expression Sakura sighed and rolled her eyes. "Coffee can mean coffee, you know."