The Moment He Wakes
There was something that happened, not too long ago. Sometimes, when Sakura gets coffee and silently reads, her mind falters and blinks; the fresh memories occupying her mind all over again.
She tries to renew and rewind everything she remembers every time she thinks back on those moments in the forest, trying to take note of new discoveries she missed the last time, or to make sense of whatever it is that refused to make sense in her mind.
The man in the hospital is still not waking. But he's out of the coma. She heard him dream and whisper her name.
This forges everything that she has been pondering on since three days prior. The man knows her, or else there was someone else in his life with the same name as her. When the accompanying nurse, Haku, heard him mumble the three-syllable name, he all but turned to her with a snapping speed. 'The man talked. He talked your name,' was what he meant by his stare.
Yes, he talked. And worse, he said her name.
If this is really going according to what she thinks is happening, then perhaps she's the only one who can currently give a name to the guy.
Kakashi. He said his name was Kakashi.
But he disappeared as soon as he said it.
Sakura had been confused by the disappearance, worried about the man's whereabouts. She frantically tried to search for him, trying to remember something on the scene that made him disappear. She did not leave a single place in that forest floor untouched. But she saw no traces, no footprints, nothing. After three days, she was convinced she had been hallucinating.
But now. But now. This guy (Kakashi, she is hopelessly sure of it) suddenly turned out of the blue with a bleeding head and other massive injuries, and every time she went back to check on him, he has not blinked away. When she stares at him longer than acceptable in her book, he does not disappear from existence. When she touches his skin, it felt real. But back then it felt real as well. Sakura could barely understand what the hell was happening.
Her thought bubble soon popped out due to the ringing of her for-business-matters-only-phone. She reached for it, and answers in her professional yet lively enough tone.
"Hello? This is Dr. Sakura Haruno speaking. Who's this?", she asks out of habit, but the bustling and curated chatter very similar to that of the hospital counter in the background all but revealed to her who the culprit is.
"Sakura? Why the hell aren't you answering your other phone? I had been ringing it for five minutes for fuck's sake." Ino says, shooing somebody trying to ask her something.
"I must have left it in the bath. Why are you calling anyway? I've already retired for the day." Sakura says, stirring her half-empty cup of coffee.
"Why am I calling you, you ask? Well, hold your tits girl, cuz I'll have you scrambling here by the time this call is finished. Your patient is awake, ma'am. The guy without a name, but has an obnoxiously silver hair? He has been shouting ever since he woke up and they're still trying to restrain him. He keeps shouting your name for some reason, and Haku says it's not the first time. So yeah! The reason why I'm calling you is that you are needed here and you need to explain why the guy knows—! Bitch, she just hung up." Ino then turns to the doctor waiting at the counter, smiling sweetly at him.
"Well, she has been notified, Sasuke."
The guy moves away from the counter and nods.
"Thanks, Ino." He begins to walk away.
Ino retracts then pushes deep the imaginary daggers she has been putting in his head.
Sakura was already by the second floor of her apartment building the moment she snapped her phone shut. What a convenient time for the guy to wake up. If they want answers, she's just as clueless. Maybe not as clueless as everyone else, but just as clueless as herself the last time the man barged in her life.
'Well, there are certainly some perks with living this near to the hospital. I need answers. And I want it straight from that man's mouth.' Sakura thinks as she flings herself on her bike.
Sakura's once vibrantly pink hair has now turned a pastel shade and it sways with the wind as she rushes down the street, grinding on the pedal almost as fast and as hard as when she caught news of one of her favorite patients already on his last breaths. Ten blocks, seven, five more, three blocks. Sakura halts to a stop, catches her breath, and steadies herself before she pedals once more, at a calmer pace than before.
After parking her bike, Sakura once again regulates her steps, trying to brace herself for the worse. There's only two things that could come out of this: disappointment, or relief. Whatever circumstances would generate either result, she has no idea. But she now has the chance, and she needs him to come clean about what truly happened to him, may it satisfy her need to understand or not.
She walks through the front doors.
It was Ino who immediately saw her, and instantly called one of the other nurses to guard the station. Sakura ignores her and her remarks about being too bare-faced and underdressed and rushes down the hall where the man's (he must be Kakashi!) room is situated.
"Sakura? Come on! I'm dying over here, girl. The man is shouting, see? You can literally hear his frantic voice from here. Everyone's asking why he's asking for you, they're all puzzled. Nooo, scratch that, we're all puzzled and stressed out, Forehead. If you knew the guy, why didn't you say anything?", Ino whines as she matches every long stride Sakura is making.
Sakura begins to quicken her pace as she hears the screaming. Kami, the guy is very loud.
"Sakura?", Ino probes once more, pursing her lips in confusion, and most probably, agony.
"I don't know him, Ino-pig." was all Sakura muttered in response.
Kakashi is flinging even when he know how pointless it is. There are restraints everywhere, and male nurses and two doctors are surrounding him, basically ensuring he couldn't go away.
As soon as Kakashi woke up, he tried to get up and remove everything attached to his body. He managed to go down the hall, but couldn't get farther because, well, he was wearing some weird hospital gown, and probably looked crazy. When they tried to cajole him to go back to his room, he panicked straight away. He could only recall to mind two things: a woman whose eyes are a lovely shade of green, and the name Sakura. So panicked was he that he opened and closed his mouth with alarming intensity, not realizing he was practically screaming her name.
Kakashi is still unsure of what is happening or why he is here, but he was sure that it was the reason he woke up. He dreamed of something, although for the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was. His mind is so hazy and panicked that the dream wouldn't surface into the front of his mind no matter how hard he tries. It sits right at the edges, constantly flickering in and out of existence. Kakashi tries to calm himself, sure that he had always been a composed man in the past, but the helplessness and desperation he can feel simultaneously from his secured hands and remembering what the dream was all about, results to another explosive exasperation from him as he lets out a growl louder than the last. The process repeats itself as the nurses and doctors look at each other like they're anxiously waiting for something or someone.
After a few more minutes spent in agony, the door opens silently and in arrives, a girl Kakashi knows a little too closely. He stares with bulging recognizing eyes and his jaw slackens in recognition and remembrance. The dream. The storm. It has all come back to life.
Sakura stares at him with a calculating gaze, and none of the other hospital personnel tried to voice out the considerably many questions they have about the scenario. Here was a guy, who just ten seconds ago, could not find it in himself to calm the hell down, yet suddenly, at the sight of the pink-haired Dr. Haruno, he basically stops breathing and struggling to get up. Ino, on the other hand, was having none of that.
"Um, hello? Silver guy who won't stop shouting like a psychopath? Is this the Sakura you've been screaming about? If she is, you might wanna start explaining any minute now, buddy. You look like you're having a heart attack." she speaks with a tilted head and a mischievous and curious glint in her eyes. Sakura snaps out of her own trance and snaps at Ino, reprimanding her for being a bitch instead of a nurse who follows hospital protocols and proper patient care.
"Uh, if you haven't caught up yet, none of this demands protocol. It demands an aggressive pace to match the weirdness of this whole jaggey-doo situation. But yeah, if it appeases you, I'm sorry Forehead," Ino almost whispers in her friend's ear.
Almost, because everyone in the room heard it anyway. It was Sasuke who broke the silence once again.
"Right, everyone, file out of the room. We are not needed here at the moment. Dr. Haruno, if anything happens and the guy tries to shamelessly escape, do alert us."
Sakura nods and glares at Ino to scoot away with the rest of the group. She reluctantly obliges.
As everyone made to do their exits, Sakura kept her gaze at the door, not yet quite sure how to behave about anything concerning this man at all. This is a crazy whirlwind, one that is so full of mystery and familiarity, she would've run away if she were a weaker man. Instead, she resorts to pretending she had to properly lock the door as she summons the whole earth to back her up, or swallow her whole. Either way is fine with her.
"Sakura?", the name once more tumbles from his lips. She faces him then, exceedingly calm on the outside and levels her stare in his eyes, only to flutter them away at the emotions she found embedded in them; Gentleness, melancholy, shock, grief, and others she can't fare to recognize.
"How-how do you know me? I never told you my name.", She starts, once again transfixed by the intensity of his expressions and his eyes.
The man, now truly Kakashi, lets out a ghost of a smile. "I'm pretty sure you did when we met during the storm, no? I don't think I have the apt skills of a clairvoyant to just guess it out of the blue," Kakashi retorts, and suddenly, lets out a tired smile. "You're probably puzzled and confused right now, and I'm sorry if I cannot answer all of your questions as I've pretty much once again exhausted my body. But if you could come back, and be patient with me, then I can share to you what had just recently settled itself in my mind."
Maybe it was the way he suddenly seemed at home with his posture no longer tensed and stoic or the manner he spoke to her with a sense of companionship and ordinariness, but Sakura found herself relaxed and exhausted as well. The day and its wake have suddenly loomed on her, and she could finally put some rest to her agitated mind.
"You sure you won't disappear? You had a penchant for that the last time I saw you." She says with a sheen of amusement in her eyes.
Kakashi let out a chuckle. "Yes, I won't disappear. That was only temporary anyway." He says and proceeds to marvel at her, eyes far away and probing at the same time. She is tempted to ask what he meant, but he recognizes the gleam of a question in her gaze immediately and slightly shakes his head before stuffing his face in the palms of his hands.
Tomorrow, then.
Sakura lets out another breath and waits for him to lock his eyes on her once more before she speaks up. "Alright, Kakashi. I'll see you tomorrow. G'night."
Kakashi nods and whispers, "Good night. Sakura."
Kakashi stares straight ahead and recalls with great clarity now, what the dream had been about. It was weird, but in a nice way, to stare and look at a different Sakura, although he was assured they were very much remnants of the same soul.
Kakashi wonders, as he drifts off to a light slumber if he also held the same remnants of his past soul.