Chapter 3
Sakura didn't receive a reply to her letter until four days later, and by then she had almost forgotten about it and the program altogether, what with how busy the hospital and Ino usually kept her.
She'd gotten up early that morning, the remnants of an unpleasant dream lingering in her system as the panic slowly faded. It had taken her sometime to recenter herself, going through the familiar routine of naming every object in her immediate vicinity until she stopped seeing bloody shapes littering a battlefield.
She'd showered, dressed, fixed her hair and only noticed a letter when she went to grab an apple and found an envelope on the roof of her microwave. Neat cursive letters of hers and her matches' participant numbers and a date.
Sakura took a seat on the kitchen chair and anxiously unrolled the paper to see what information she could glean about her match.
Dear 56…
Yes, it will indeed be troublesome not having a name to call you by. However, I will hold off on giving you a nickname until I've gotten to know you better—but feel free to call me whatever you see fit as well.
For the record, I too was dared into this program. I lost the lamest bet ever.
I'm an excellent cook, according to others. I've learned to cook from a very young age, more for survival than for a hobby. But to be honest, I'm usually too lazy to cook for myself these days.
I don't know about eloquently-worded letters but I do write in my free time. Nothing major, just short stories though I never published them. You see my best friend once told me to get a life, so I decided finding a hobby was in order.
Your teammates sound a little like mine, they're an absolute pain but I love them (I doubt they know, which is for the best otherwise they'd totally take advantage of it).
There's nothing wrong with being expressive... in a world like ours, it's a blessing when someone is open about their thoughts and feelings with people they trust. Although if you knew me this will make me sound like a complete hypocrite.
My favourite food is miso soup and I only cook for myself when the mood strikes. I don't have any roommates, I've always lived alone for as long as I could remember. To be fair though, I enjoy my space.
I'd also like to put a quick disclaimer here that I totally suck at this, and I haven't written someone a letter since … probably the Third Shinobi War. Yes, that long.
I do wonder how old you are.
Hear from you soon,
34.
Sakura let out the nervous breath she was holding after going through the entirety of 34's letter. What she found frustrating was that she had more questions than answers now. For instance, the Third Shinobi War? How old did that make him?
Logically, Sakura knew he could not be older than thirty-five, after all, she had this range specified in her form. However, when she'd aimed for such a limit, she'd been more concerned with pushing forth the idea that she wanted a mature man. Sakura was tired of boys. Those she'd dated were all either idiots, entitled, or lacked a spine.
All that considered, she still didn't expect to be paired with someone at the extreme end of her range.
Pursing her lips thoughtfully, she went through the letter again. He seemed … nice, for the lack of a better word. Friendly enough.
… and she barely knew enough about him to deduce his identity.
Sakura let out a dejected sigh and packed the letter back into its folder.
Today was her first day off in ages, and the only thing that occupied her mind until minutes ago was that she could barely believe Ino got to sleep in until nine-thirty a.m. while Sakura had to be up at five every day. Was there any fairness left in this world?
She contemplated writing a reply then, before she got too busy and forgot all about it … but then her stomach let out an antsy growl of displeasure, clearly finding the measly apple she'd fed it earlier too insulting and demanding retribution. Well, she had more pressing matters than the letter after all.
Sakura grabbed her pouch, shoving the letter unceremoniously into it, and was on her way. The closest restaurant was Ichiraku, but she didn't fancy ramen for breakfast. Instead, she decided to make a stop at the teashop just a little further ahead. It was owned by the Akimichi, which meant that whatever they served was a little piece of heaven on a plate.
It was an unexpected but pleasant surprise to find Shikamaru and Temari there, the former lounging in his chair with a stick of dango tucked between his teeth and the latter taking dainty sips from her teacup. Both glanced over the moment she entered and any quickly-formulated plan to leave the shop to avoid crashing their date became null.
"Yo." Shikamaru raised a two-fingered salute very reminiscent of Kakashi, and she wondered absently if it was a lazy person thing. "Fancy seeing you in the daylight."
"Hi Shika, hey Temari," Sakura waved as she approached them. "Nice to see you guys."
"Sakura, it's been so long." Temari was already on her feet and drawing the rosette into a friendly one-armed hug that had become their customary greeting every time Temari visited Konoha.
"Yes, I know, I'm sorry... I meant to visit Suna, but the hospital got me crazy busy." Sakura returned the hug, and when they parted Shikamaru, was smiling in that lazy way of his.
"How come you're not in the hospital right now?" He munched on another dango stick and stole Temari's tea for a sip.
Scowling, the Suna kunoichi reached over to slap his hand away and reclaim her drink. "Get your own tea," she demanded with a cute huff that sent Sakura doubling over with laughter and Shikamaru straight into long-suffering resignation.
"It's my day off, actually…" she paused. "Well, actually, I exceeded my weekly hours and Tsunade-sama physically hauled me out yesterday and asked me not to come back until tomorrow. So." Sakura sighed as she dropped on the vacant seat next to Shikamaru. "I'm stuck. Doing normal people stuff. What do people do when they're free?"
"Cloud watch—"
"—Go out and socialise."
Sakura watched with thinly veiled amusement as the couple sent mild glares at each other.
"I thought you enjoyed going out with me," Temari said, tone clipped.
"I thought you enjoyed cloud watching with me, what's your point?" Shikamaru countered, something both intense and lazy in his stare, a strange expression Sakura couldn't quite place.
"My point is you need to go out more," Temari insisted.
"Last time we went out, your brother attacked me with a puppet and I barely escaped with my dick intact."
Sakura snorted and quickly covered her mouth. Temari and Shikamaru seemed to remember her presence, and they both blushed a faint red before they too began to giggle.
Temari cleared her throat before long. "So, anyway. Chouji is having a barbecue party tonight, open to everyone. Maybe you should join us? I heard a lot of people will be there, might be a nice change from the hospital scenery."
The first thing Sakura thought of was whether Kakashi would be there. The second thing she thought of was whether her mystery letter match would also wind up there. And the third thing she did was reprimand herself for being such a teenager at twenty-one.
"Uh, well …" Even if she said no, she knew without a shadow of doubt Ino would be dragging her there kicking and screaming. "I might just."
Knowing her luck and how trouble chased her at every corner, someone would wind up hacking up a lung or dying, and they'd need her to be doctor Haruno to the rescue… might as well go and save some poor bastard from choking. Sakura was noble like that.
"Gods, you have no life," Shikamaru laughed and ducked Sakura's back-hand. "Oi, don't get pissy cause it's true."
A kick followed her failed attempt, stubbornly childish, but Shikamaru blocked it with his own, his eyebrow twitching ever so slightly, the only sign her kick stung.
"Okay kids, that's enough," Temari cackled, reaching over to steal one of Shikamaru's dango before he could stop her. She stuck her tongue out, victorious, before popping a piece into her mouth.
Shikamaru's intense gaze swore retribution—how he planned to deliver it, Sakura hadn't figured out yet.
As the couple proceeded to have a silent conversation with their eyes, Sakura's slid to the door just in time to see Suzuki—one of her completely insufferable dates, who had in fact never failed to try to convince her to go on date number three with him—walk in. It wasn't even Ino's match, because then blowing him off would've been easy… it had just so happened to be her mother, Suzuki's mother's best friend, who'd urged her to give him a try.
In a completely undignified (and embarrassing) manner, Sakura ducked under the table and flattened her back against the wall, jostling Shikamaru and Temari as she practically crawled between their knees.
Above the table, Shikamaru's dango seemed to have slid down the wrong hole. His knee jerked against the underside of the table, rattling the wood, and hacking coughs intermingled with wet laughter followed. Temari's body trembled as she too doubled over, and Sakura felt her face flaming in reaction.
She watched as Suzuki's feet walked past their table and internally cursed her luck. She might have to shunshin out of there now, breakfast discarded. Not to mention, this would be circulating the jounin headquarters for at least a month if Shikamaru breathed a word about it to Ino.
He was still laughing like a moron, and no amount of pinching his calf changed that. Sakura huffed, swiping at her fringe, and sent a warning jolt of chakra through his leg. It spasmed in protest, and she had to stifle a giggle at his hiss.
"Sakura? What in the world are you doing under the table?"
She froze in horror as a certain silver-haired, dark eyed man bent to peer curiously at her. "Is this some sort of fun three-way fondling in public, because you guys are not being very discreet about it."
"O-of course not!" Sakura spluttered, and her head collided with the table edge in her hurry to get back into her seat. "Oww!"
Temari very much choked on her chuckles as Sakura pressed a soothing green hand to her head and lowered herself into a vacant seat with as much dignity as she could muster. "Kakashi, you dirty old man, don't say such nonsense."
His eyes creased, and if she weren't too busy being completely humiliated, she might've rejoiced over his sudden appearance.
"Oh? I'm not the one sitting between Shikamaru and Temari's legs." He shrugged unrepentantly and slid into the seat at Temari's side, uninvited. "What, pray tell, were you doing then?"
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Sakura's face turned pinker. She reached over to grab an empty dango stick and waved it threateningly at him. "Do you fancy being castrated by a dango stick?"
"... I didn't peg you as a sadist, Sakura," he responded with widened eyes. "Do I get a safe word?"
"KAKASHI-SENPAI!" Sakura slammed the stick into the table and instantly regretted it.
A hairline crack splintered the wood, and she watched in horror as it crawled across the table, and then, in slow motion, the table split in two and collapsed in a loud heap, teacups shattering upon impact.
Silence descended on their little table, Shikamaru and Temari sharing a stunned look while Kakashi looked faintly amused. The waitress standing across the room started, her jaw popping open in shock.
And then, for the cherry on top, "Sakura?"
Slowly, the rosette turned in her seat to see Suzuki gaping at her … seconds before he all but howled with uncontrollable mirth. "Did you just destroy the freaking table?"
Her eyebrow ticked in warning—how dare he laugh at her!
"Gods, you're awesome!" he declared, and she immediately tensed with discomfort. Please… not in front of Kakashi… oh gods…. "Why don't you join me over there at my table?"
Shikamaru made evil eyes at her, the have-fun-being-miserable kind of ones, while Temari remained wisely uninvolved.
Her eyes flitted over to Kakashi, quietly panicked, and before she could weight the pros and cons, she uttered, "Senpai. Reptile."
Shikamaru and Temari looked understandably confused, and for a second no expression registered across Kakashi's features, but soon after recognition flickered through his eyes. She thought he was smirking under the mask as he slowly turned in his seat to shoot Suzuki a look. "Actually, Sakura and I were just about to head to the training grounds. Maybe another time, yeah?"
Suzuki's blue eyes slid to Kakashi, feeling obviously averse, but his mouth clicked shut an instant later, and she had to wonder about the kind of face Kakashi was making. "S-sure."
"Thanks for being such a cupcake," Kakashi said, his tone purposely light. He stood up, clapping the man firmly on the shoulder.
Suzuki visibly suppressed a wince and quickly scurried away, much to Sakura's relief. Kakashi turned to nod at Shikamaru and Temari before motioning for her to follow him out.
Clearing her throat, Sakura stood up and motioned at the pile of wood. "Just um—put it on the Hokage's tab. I'll speak to shishou about it."
"Only you can get away with this without so much as a reprimand," Shikamaru snorted, standing up too. "Come on, Tem, let's go."
"Jealous much?" Sakura huffed under her breath and ignored the renewed giggling that ensued from Temari.
Before Shikamaru could retort, Sakura waved goodbye and jogged after Kakashi. "See you tonight!"
Kakashi gave her his infuriating yet casually charming eye smile. "Ready to go?"
"Very," she agreed as he led the way.
He shoved one hand in his pocket in a lackadaisical manner, whipping Icha Icha out with the other. "What's happening tonight anyway?"
"Barbecue party at the Akimichi's," Sakura shrugged, glaring at his book. "Will you go?"
"I wasn't invited."
"I just invited you."
They shared a long glance. "Are you admitting parties are boring without your awesome senpai?"
"You're kinda full of shit, senpai," she accused.
"Ouch." He sent her a wounded look before he returned to his beloved story. "I might just have to come and prove you wrong."
"Mhmmm," she sounded out, inflicting an unconvinced lilt to the agreement, while secretly wishing desperately for him to go.
"Be nice to the man who saved you from a reptile," he chided, voice devoid of enthusiasm.
She choked on a chuckle and hurriedly masked it with a cough, "Right. Whatever would I have done without you!"
"That's more like it," Kakashi approved, and she could tell he was trying hard to resist a smile.
She grinned, her chest warm and fluttery. They arrived at the training grounds; despite it initially being an excuse to leave Suzuki, they seemed to have arrived at a unanimous unvoiced decision to go through with it.
"Rules?" Kakashi asked mildly as he slipped his book back into his pouch and adjusted his gloves.
"Hand to hand, no ninjutsu," Sakura decided as she slipped her pair of gloves on to match his. "For now anyway."
"Ho-ho." His eyes creased ever so slightly, like he might be smirking. "Do you plan to be here long?"
Sakura shrugged stiff shoulders and kneaded at muscles to loosen them. "I have nothing better to do."
"I see. Guess you'll just be doing me then," he said lightly, with a chuckle, like he didn't realise the way he phrased his sentence could be taken completely inappropriately.
Sakura felt her cheeks stubbornly heating. Any remote or even accidental implication—the mere thought—that she might in any world do Kakashi left her insurmountably flustered. She cleared her throat, hoping her face didn't look as warm as it felt. "Right. Get ready to have your booty kicked."
"Sounds fun." His eyes glinted mischievously in the afternoon sun, and her chest constricted strangely again. Sakura took a breath, resisting the urge to press her palm to her heart.
"We'll see." She sounded a bit strangled to her own ears, but that couldn't be helped, she thought as she skipped to the edges of the training ground, putting some much-needed space between them.
They squared off, each formulating a plan of attack; plans A and B and all the way through to Zs were formulated. She could see it in the gleam of his eyes, ideas thought up and discarded in the span of seconds, reformulated, readjusted. Two brilliant minds raced in time to out-match each other.
All the while, Kakashi remained as still and as motionless as the earth. His stance was quietly tense, shoulders pulled back, feet apart. He'd know better than to relax in her presence.
Sakura could never forget the first time she'd seen Kakashi in battle. Her mind had been too shrouded with fear, her limbs all locked in place and her heart a galloping, wobbling mass of anxiety. She'd fully believed she'd die then, by Zabuza's hand.
And through it all, every time she'd looked to Kakashi, to the silent, collected figure that stood stock still, to the mismatched pair of eyes that blazed with something dangerous, she'd feel her heart both falter and calm.
He'd seemed untouchable, unreachable. He'd stood tall and fearless amidst the converging fog, and he'd gazed steadily and surely at an enemy that by all rights should have sent anyone cowering in fear.
Sakura, as naive and self-absorbed as she'd been at twelve, did not yet know the history of Kakashi, the legend that followed him, that he was every bit as dangerous, as terrifying, as Zabuza.
A deep breath passed through her lips, and Sakura grounded herself to the now.
She was a legend in her own right these days, and stories followed her the way they chased Kakashi.
She watched his feet, saw the exact moment he moved. He'd always been so fast, but it seemed that no matter how much faster she'd become, she could never quite catch up to him.
He moved like the wind—ever-present but never seen, whipping past and nearly propelling her back with it. He moved like his lightning— a crackle burning a streak across the sky, seen before it was heard, and whipping with a force that might set one on fire.
Yes, Kakashi had always been dangerous.
Sakura reeled back, bent in ways his body couldn't hope to, and her leg jerked up, strength unforgiving.
He took the hit, her boot grazing the underside of his jaw ever so lightly because he'd moved back just enough to avoid the full brunt of her attack.
His hands touched the ground first, his legs went swinging over his head, and he landed neatly on his feet. Well, he was fairly flexible, even if it didn't hold a candle to the way she'd conditioned her body to move.
They engaged in a relentless and brutal round of hand-to-hand; fists and elbows and knees went flying. The world around them seemed to slow down, every second stretched into a hundred frames arrested in milliseconds.
Her mind, working at a sharp and brisk pace noted every detail, the curve of pale eyelashes, the sweat beading on his temple, the arch of his nose beneath his mask, and the endless pools of charcoal and their incessant gleam.
She could've sworn he was smiling beneath that damned cloth.
His fist connected with its target, momentarily knocking the breath out of her. Sakura gasped, fell back and blocked his following attack with her elbow.
He bore down on her for a moment, a big mistake really, and she sent him flying backwards with a well-landed punch.
He grunted as he hit the ground, holding his stomach. Sakura didn't give him time... she pinned him to the dirt, locked his hips between her thighs and pressed down on him.
She squeezed both wrists, pushed them over his head, growled when he struggled, his hips jerking savagely beneath her. "Surrender."
He wriggled again, threw his entire weight against her, and suddenly she was on her back and he had her stuck under him. "Not today."
His grip was steely; Sakura didn't think it'd be easy to break it without chakra. But she wasn't about to cheat. Knees bent, she planted her feet on the ground and pushed him away with all her strength. She was, after all, still physically strong without chakra.
A winded 'oof' echoed from him as he was slammed against the ground once more and then Sakura's hand wrapped around his neck, a warning as she gazed at him challengingly.
He stilled, swallowing visibly beneath her hold. She could feel his heartbeat thumping against her fingers, a fast, staccato rhythm that had heat emanating strongly from their point of contact.
"Surrender," she tried again, giving the faintest squeeze.
"Or?" he replied defiantly.
"I could crush your larynx."
Their eyes met—it was an intense, silent moment that seemed to last forever. She noted that his eyes weren't exactly black, but rather the darkest shade of grey, something smoky and endless and completely consuming.
They drifted, merely flickered, to her mouth for just a split second of inattention, or perhaps some loss of restraint, but that seemed to be enough to make Sakura's mind screech to a halt and then kick-start again, working overtime.
She was at once aware of everything and nothing, their lack of distance, the feeling of his heat on her skin, the lithe muscles paving his torso, and above all, the unnamed, electric something that darkened his gaze.
Sakura swallowed thickly, her grip loosening, and he sucked in a shaky breath through his mask. Her eyes fell to his covered mouth, and she considered, for just a moment, what would happen if she kissed him.
Kakashi still didn't push her off, even when he could break free any moment he desired—she was no longer trying to hold him captive. Sakura didn't know what he was waiting for, except that there was something strangely alluring in having him beneath her, like this.
Her thumb stroked the side of his throat, unconsciously, grazed the edge of a sharp jawline. Kakashi went still, his eyes widened and then glazed over, half-lidded and lazy, ever familiar, but holding something foreign she had no name for.
"Sakura?" Her name rolled thickly off his tongue, gruff—the desire she felt to have him was not new or strange, but for a moment, it knocked the breath out of her.
Sakura recoiled the next second when she realised she'd almost begun to lean in, as if by the force of an invisible magnet. She tried not to scramble in her haste to get off him, rather she crouched back on her heel and straightened, suddenly feeling her heart racing for a completely different reason than their spar.
She cleared her throat, regained her bearing as she offered him her hand. "Round two?"
(x)
Logically, given their particular skill set and main chakra affinities, Kakashi and Sakura were not perfectly matched to be the sparring partners Naruto and Sasuke had become. Kakashi's lightning-element against her earth-element tended to cancel out his attack and nullify hers.
He favoured mid-range, but Sakura at that distance could be quite lethal. Her style was more fluid, she could easily resort to ranged fighting, keeping the enemy as far away as she needed, just as easily as she could let them into her private space and kill them with a single spike of chakra. Or crush their throats.
And while Kakashi could indeed resort to long-distance too, mid-range was clearly his forte.
It was always his speed that saved him, in the end.
Sakura grunted when he, yet again, swept her feet from under her and sent her crashing down. It was infuriating how he could be just within reach and then, in the next half a second, not be.
A fist from Sakura could rupture internal organs, level mountains, cause earthquakes, but it couldn't do much if it didn't land its intended target. And he knew it.
Kakashi was excellent at evasion, which didn't hurt either. He ducked and jumped and back-flipped away from most of her attacks, forcing her brain to work double-time trying to anticipate every future move.
"Just be still!" she growled, and her fist impacted the tree with more force than she'd intended for Kakashi. The tree exploded into a million little pieces, the splinter shower nicking the skin along her arms, opening up shallow cuts.
Kakashi seemed to still where he materialised a few feet away, eyes wide.
Sakura squashed down the instant wave of guilt at the thought of that attack actually hitting Kakashi. "Uh… I may or may not have overcharged that punch."
"No kidding," he muttered in stunned disbelief. "Are you trying to turn me into a paste? Because believe me, no one will save you from any future reptiles if I'm gone."
She smiled, the earlier ever-present tension dissolving like it never existed. They'd be okay, they always were. "Right, good point. Plan 'Turn Senpai Into Paste': discarded until further notice."
He rolled his eyes, but the little creasing at the corner gave him away. He was smiling.
They stared at each other for a moment; something in Kakashi's stance seemed to have relaxed a little after the familiar back-and-forth, and Sakura was grateful for that. A brief loss of control on her part shouldn't ruin a years' long friendship, but she didn't want to tempt fate. What she had with Kakashi—it was something unique to them. She had it with no one else, and she didn't want to.
With everyone else, there was a wall she had to build due to a reason or another; but with Kakashi, she craved falling apart with everything she's got. If all the walls came tumbling down, it wouldn't matter. Kakashi would never judge her; Kakashi understood. It was an unvoiced fact, but a fact nonetheless.
"I should go," she finally managed. It was silly, how much she wished for more time. More, more, more of everything when it came to him. "I have to get ready for the party."
"Alright," he acquiesced. Now he was visibly at rest; he'd shoved his hands in his pockets and fallen back into his familiar slouch.
"Will I be seeing you there?" She tried not to sound too hopeful, but she wasn't particularly thrilled to go to that party and having Kakashi join her would surely make things more interesting.
"Well…" he trailed off, and then smiled. "What kind of knight in shining armour would I be if I didn't come and protect you from any potential reptile attacks?"
"A terrible one," she agreed with a grin. "I'll see you tonight, then."