Sorry for the late update, I had a lot to do lately with job applications, a travelling man, rescuing my precious plants from the sudden frost, looking after our post-hibernation tortoises and my two absolutely batshit crazy parakeets.
Aaaand I decided to split this chapter as it developed a life of its own. Yep, so this means there will be more chapters for you to read ;)
I hope you like it!
Still waiting for some one-shot suggestions ;)
Enjoy!
SquaMata
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47. A Friendship should be safe
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Secretly both hated the idea of just being friends but it was better than no contact and missing each other any longer. They had to confess each one to themselves that there was no way to avoid the other, the drawing was just too intense. Kakashi told himself that at least he had regained his self-control now after all the distance he had worked hard to put between the two and he hoped she would keep it that way. It had been almost a year now since they had returned from Suna.
The silverhead stared into the distance behind his bedroom window.
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A friendship should be safe.
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He sighed and went into his bathroom to get ready for the day.
After his injuries had finally healed, Tsunade forced him to get his annual check-up at the hospital. There was a high possibility he would have to face her there again.
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Sakura had been the only one who he had allowed to examine him in the past. Probably that was still noted in his records. Kakashi had not thought about it until a young nurse led him into the examination room 8 and he felt a little unease creep under his skin.
It has always been in here.
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"Have a seat. The doctor will be here soon."
The nurse smiled friendly as she put the folder of his records on the desk to some others and left.
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Kakashi walked around the white and very unfriendly room. Its sterility, the biting smell of disinfectants, the sparse interior and all those people dressed in white and green made him nervous. He hated that building filled to the brim with painful memories and he didn't like to spend more time in any hospital than necessary. After five minutes which felt like eternity he wanted to leave like he had done often before.
It wasn't one of his problems when the medic didn't show up, right?
Before he could escape the door opened and the doctor appeared.
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"Ok Mr. Hanamori. The results look promising, but the liver values leave much to be desired and you still have to lose some weight."
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Seemingly all her focus was lying on the clipboard in her hands.
Kakashi smirked underneath his mask as she walked over to the desk and sat down. She had not even looked at him once and did not notice her faux pas.
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"I suggest you're going on a strict diet for a few months. Take the medicine as prescribed and all should be good. Alright?"
"Fine."
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The woman in the lab frowned as she noticed the huge pile of records on her table with wide eyes. Her face lost its rosy colour immediately as she heard a chuckle eventually.
It was too familiar.
Sakura looked around but could only see a dark figure standing near the window looking out.
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"You're not Mr. Hanamori, right?"
"No." The amusement was clearly audible in his dark voice.
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"Who are you?"
She browsed quickly through the five records on her table. As she had found what she seemed to be looking for her whole body stiffened. The moment her fingers found his record, she knew it for sure who the person was.
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"Kakashi?" Sakura turned into his direction.
"So which diet do you suggest?" He approached her with a funny eye-crinkle.
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With fire-red cheeks she tried to continue "I'm sorry, I did not expect you here." She cleared her throat. "What can I do for you?"
"Nothing special, it's just time for the annual check-up."
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She opened his folder and took a look at the data sheet. "You know you're about six months too late?"
He nodded.
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The pinkette shook her head and sighed. "Okay, remove your ninja gear and sit down on the table."
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Sakura walked to the faucet to wash and disinfect her hands.
In the meantime the copy-nin stripped down to his pants and his tank-top with the attached mask, folded the other items neatly on a chair in front of her desk and did as he was told.
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Silently admiring his physique and his unique smell she took a look at his recently healed arm injury first, which had left a nasty scar she decided to reduce with her healing chakra. The older jounin seemed to be in good general health, he had not overused his sharingan lately and the broken ribs he had not told her of had healed well too.
And he had lost a molar.
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"Where is your tooth?"
"It got lost it on my way somewhere." His warning look bore into her eyes, keeping her from asking any further questions.
"Mhm."
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Sakura also detected four stab wounds on his thighs with her chakra, they appeared to be inflicted at nearly the same time as his arm and the ribs got injured. She alleviated the damage of the almost healed tissue as best as she could, sending waves of relief with her mending chakra and something way more too intense.
He took her wrists and gently pulled her hands away from his thighs.
"Thank you, I'm fine now."
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Looking down in embarrassment she noticed he had left his boots on. Due to his body suddenly stiffening up she doubted he wasn't trying to hide something from her.
"Take them off."
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Shit!
He doubted he would get through with that from the start.
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Slowly he got his right foot out and then the left. The later had taken him some more effort to do so and the medic-nin knew something was off, so she took a closer look. His left ankle was swollen, warm and had a little crusted stab on the outer side right above the strange coloured joint. Her chakra scanned the area and she cocked her head to the side with a stern frown.
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"What about that metal in your ankle?"
Her former sensei shrugged nonchalantly "I can't get it out."
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"That's for quite some time in there, Kakashi." Sakura raised a brow at him.
"Eight months to be exact." He stated with a dramatic finger gesture as he tried to distract her from his bodily reaction as she touched said part of his body.
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Of course Sakura had noticed the slight flinch and without any warning she pulled out the metal with her chakra skills. The copy-nin hissed of the sharp pain and tried hard to suppress the urge to retch.
"Why haven't you come here sooner? I could have removed it before it got infected."
She looked at the foreign body wich seemed to be a part of a thick nail and shook her head. "That must have caused a lot of distress."
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The silverhead grunted still in horrible agony. "You have no idea."
Sakura looked up only to notice the intense pain written all over his masked face. "Oh, I'm so sorry!"
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Horrified she let her healing chakra flow and his clenched face muscles loosened up continually while his body began to relax too.
Her hand stayed a bit longer at his ankle as it was necessary to soothe the pain and heal the injury. He did not retreat and relished in the feeling of her calming chakra bonding with his own. Both felt a tingling sensation rushing through their bodies like a long missing piece of their own had finally returned.
Smiling the pinkette withdrew and stepped away to gather some devices to clean and bandage the wound. Purposely she leaned forward to get them from the rack as Kakashi's eyes fell on her backside and his mind drifted off to the moment when he had pushed her hard onto their bed in the spa hotel. The strong jounin remembered how sultry she had smelled, how desirable her skin had felt on his and how perfect body had fit against his.
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"Now you're as good as new!" Her words crushed him back into reality.
"Pardon?"
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"I said you're as good as new."
"Oh, yeah. Thank you!"
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She chuckled, still crouching in front of him with his bandaged ankle in her hands, sending him almost suggestive looks from below while her very warm hands slowly brushed their way up to his thighs and back to his ankles. He cocked his head to the side and felt another wave of memories from their training wash through his brain, like what he had told her about the right setting and the seductive ways to pleasure a man.
Slowly his lively, erotic imagination kicked in, but before his desires could take over he felt something soft slap his face.
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The copy-nin looked down at the fabric in his hands. It was his sweater. Obviously she had thrown his sweater at him.
So she is toying with me indeed...
Kakashi smirked underneath his mask knowing she had returned to her desk he put on the sweater without looking at her, his boots followed.
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He walked over to the front of her big desk and leaned over propped on his exposed strong, wiry underarms. Sakura watched him with huge eyes trying to slow her racing heartbeat down. Mismatching eyes were fixed on her, sending intense waves of something she couldn't decipher, as he grabbed his records and turned them into his direction. To make it worse he carefully took the pen she had in between her fingers brushing her hand so softly she barely noticed it while their eyes remained connected.
He averted his stare only to sign the papers at the required row and handed them back. Then he offered her the pen with the same intense stare which seemed to strike right at her core.
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"You can keep it." Sakura managed to say in a cracked voice.
She was sure she couldn't stand another single moment of a simple touch of him.
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He took a step back and gathered his other clothes, the pen disappeared in a pocket of his flak jacket and he took it in his hands. Her eyes were sudddenly very engrossed in following his every movement and she could swear reality had turned into slow motion. He didn't look at her as he put on his flak jacket, but before he closed the front, the fingerless gloves came next. One finger by the other he adjusted the soft leather with skilled hands until he seemed satisfied. Then Kakashi's fingers moved to the jacket, slowly zipping it up and hiding the hard planes of his shinobi body which were lying more or less evident underneath his sweater. She didn't realise how he had followed her eyes trailing his moves. The fascinated look on her reddened face encouraged him in his actions.
The legendary shinobi looked down and closed the zipper only to meet her heated gaze with his own. Slowly he took the forehead protector from the chair beneath and brought it up to his head. He made sure they had locked eyes again before he closed his mismatching ones and put the device into place, then he tied it skillfully at the back of his head. Kakashi could feel her stare as he adjusted his silver mane still with his eyes closed and with intentionally slow movements.
Their eyes met again, a fire burning in them both and the tension gradually rising into something unbearable. It seemed to be just a matter of time until one of them would give in. As the first ideas of throwing her onto that stupid desk and ripping their clothes off appeared in his mind, he knew he had to do something before this would get out of control.
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With an eye-crinkle he tried to save the situation with any innocent topic his head could come up with.
"After that long healing process I think I could need a little help at training."
Oh, come on! You can do that better, man!
A questioning look was the only answer he got.
"You said something about sparring together sometime?"
"Ehrm, sure."
"Good. What about tomorrow afternoon?"
"I'll have to work till 4 p.m. if that's a problem, we could…"
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He cut her off. "Fine by me. 1630 at training ground three."
Kakashi waved goodbye and exited the room as Sakura took in the needed deep breath she had skipped for too long.
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While he was walking down the hall of the hospital, he realised that asking the epitome of his desire, who was also his self-declared forbidden fruit, to fight each other with full body contact had maybe not been his wisest decision.
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That woman will be the death of me.
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And with the same sigh he had begun his day he descended the few steps in front of the hospital.
Definitely this wasn't his day. A visit at the cenotaph would help him to clear his mind.
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Their spar didn't go as weird as he feared it to be.
The strangest thing had been that he had shown up before her at the training field and that she had been the one with a lousy excuse.
The two jounin warmed up and sparred for a few hours, then stretched afterwards like they had done so many times in the past. They had missed this and the extensive and overly exhausting, yet very comforting workout. It was like harmonious routine with fluent movement patterns and the pleasant feeling of home again, it couldn't be described with other words.
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At around 8 p.m. the two ninjas sat down and he passed her a water bottle like he had often done during their prior training.
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*Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrommmmaaaaaaarrrggghhhlllll*
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Sakura's eyes went wide and her face turned fire-red.
Kakashi looked at her both questioningly and amused.
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*Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooooaaarrrrrmmmmaaaaaaarrrggghhhlllll*
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The pinkette tried to hide her face with the hands on her knees, but her redness had turned up to her ears.
"Sorry."
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The silverhead couldn't hold back his laughter any longer and it didn't take her long to join him.
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"Come on, let's get you something to eat before your roaring stomach will run amok."
Still embarrassed she looked at the chuckling man. "Please tell me you're hungry too."
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"I've never said I am not." Kakashi helped her up and they went to Ichiraku's like they had done with the team together in the past.
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The next weird thing was he had actually paid for both of their food, but before she could thank him he poofed away.