Authors' note: this is a short chapter, but I have it already written and it serves as a Bridge for Chapter 3 which I have already schemed but not completed.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor any of its characters.
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CHAPTER 2:
Kakashi was catching up with Genma and Guy in one of the pubs in the center of Konoha. He had missed this, spending time with adult people in a relaxed environment, learning the experiences they have lived in his absence, talking about everything and nothing at the same time.
They were seated in one of the round tables in the corner of the pub, three empty bottles of sake and a fourth one half its way to it between them. Kakashi took a look at his surroundings, there were a lot of people that night at the pub, almost all of them were shinobis of a very wide range of ages.
"So," Genma said to pick his attention, "I have to ask, why did you leave for so long? It is not that I am complaining, as I have had much less competency in gaining lady's attention without you in town", he smirked making the senbon between his lips to lift, "but you know, usually it doesn't take five years to teach a team of three genin, leave alone only one…".
"Sasuke needed it" was the only answer from Kakashi.
Guy was looking at him with suspicious eyes. "Sasuke needed it or it was you who needed it? You know, my eternal rival, one isn't any less youthful by admitting that sometimes all he needs is to go away and take some distance in order to earn a new point of view".
As usual, words were Guy's most sharp weapon, even if sometimes his particular way of speaking was hard to understand for a newbie.
"Sasuke needed it", he repeated, "maybe it has been beneficial for me as well, but it was not the reason we left. He needed to develop out of the shadow of Itachi and out of the expectations from his father".
"And it had to be you the one guiding him?" asked Genma out of the blue. He was a little more serious now. "Again, not complaining here, my friend. If it has been good for you, I'm glad you did it, but what I'm trying to say is that you didn't have the obligation to be his savior just because he is an Uchiha".
At this, Kakashi's visible eye became inexpressive, not showing any emotion for those who didn't know him, but for his two friends it was evident that he had passed to defensiveness.
"I don't know what you mean, Genma", started Kakashi in a calm voice. "It had to be me because I was his sensei and I could help him master the use of his sharingan, that's all".
Neither Genma nor Guy pressed the topic further, but they exchanged a meaningful look between them. They knew that Kakashi's explanation was not the only reason why he had left with Sasuke, they knew he felt that a debt had to be paid to the Uchiha clan because of what had happened with Obito and he had found the way to expiate his blame through Sasuke. But it was something that Kakashi would never recognize out loud, even among his best friends.
"OK, but your work is done now!" Genma said cheerfully trying to alleviate the mood, "so let's get drunk and celebrate your return!"
Guy was already standing to order another bottle of sake when Kakashi stood as well, shaking his head.
"I am going to call it a night, tomorrow I have to include myself back in the mission roster and I cannot do it with the worst hangover in a lustrum" he gave his patented eye crinkle and hand wave and directed to the back door of the pub.
Kakashi exited the pub to the alley and let out a breath. Sometimes it annoyed him that his friends felt the necessity to speak out the obvious to him. He knew perfectly well his motivations to leave with Sasuke and he didn't need his friends bringing it out, he didn't want to talk about it with anyone.
Suddenly, a noise made him look to the darkest corner of the alley and he gasped at the scene he saw there. A young couple were passionately making out. The guy had a woman pinned to the wall, or he supposed it was a woman by the look of her legs braced around his hips, which was the only part visible from her. One of his hands was supporting her by her ass and the other was rummaging at her torso area.
This scene itself wouldn't have made him gasp in other circumstances, but when the guy displaced his kisses down the woman's neck, her face was suddenly visible and he identified Sakura. He could have never mistaken her, even in a situation as foreign for him to place her as this one. Her pink hair was indicative alone and her face, although distorted by pleasure and showing the years passed, was still identifiable as well.
At his gasp she opened her eyes and looked directly at him. She became taut in the arms of the young man once she recognized him as well. The guy turned his head to look at him, and Kakashi could determine by the marks on his face that he was an Inuzuka. The couple stopped their ministrations but they did not release their embrace nor their position.
The Inuzuka turned to look again at Sakura and he whispered in her ear: "Your place?"
Sakura kept her eyes on Kakashi for an instant more and turned to look at the guy nodding. The next instant they both disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Kakashi stood immobile in the alley. He never imagined he would see Sakura for the first time in five years in a scene like this one.
He managed to get out of his initial shock and started walking his way home. It was not such a strange thing, he supposed, that Sakura would have grown up, but he couldn't superpose in his mind the young woman he had just discovered in the preliminaries of passion in a dark alley with the teenage girl he once knew.
It would be interesting to discover how much had Sakura changed in their absence.