As soon as she closed the door after Shikamaru, Sakura ran to the window of her living room and leaned out to get a last look of him leaving the house.
"Looking for anything in particular?" an amused voice asked from the roof opposite.
"You," Sakura said with relief. "I wanted to shout 'I love you' out of the window."
"And what's stopping you?" Shikamaru asked, grinning.
"You're standing on that roof, instead of leaving my house," Sakura pointed out. "I thought you'd be running like a crazy rabbit like you said. What are you doing there?"
Shikamaru looked at her, still grinning, hands in his pockets. He looked like a street urchin.
"I thought maybe you would take off your dress and I wanted to see your panties."
Sakura laughed. "Oh, you pervert. I love you," she said. "Get going. I have to do something with my bed and I can't get started if you're just standing there with that silly grin on your face."
They watched each other from across the street for a minute, then Shikamaru seemed to come to a decision. "Very well," he said. "Be good, sweetheart."
He threw her a kiss and spread his arms with an exaggerated, jerky movement, like an actor in a silent movie.
Sakura giggled, then closed her eyes with a dramatic expression on her face and clutched both hands over her heart, throwing back her head, then she opened her eyes again and fluttered her eyelashes.
"Careful with those eyelashes," Shikamaru said, his voice dark and warm. "They're lethal."
Sakura swallowed.
That voice. That face. That look. Oh, that body.
Sakura felt his eyes wandering over her, as if someone was spilling melt, hot honey over her in slow drops.
She looked back at him and saw the darkness in his eyes even across the street.
"I'll be back after seven," he said. The way his voice sounded, it was halfway between a threat and a promise.
He turned and with a leap landed on the next rooftop, then disappeared from view.
Sakura turned away from the window and tried, just for a change, not to think of her brand-new boyfriend. Just for a minute.
Breathe, Inner advised her in a bored voice. Oh, and by the way, tonight you should let me out to play. Let's tie him to the bed this time, what d'you say? That may be risqué enough for him.
Sakura laughed aloud.
Tidying up her apartment took less time than Sakura thought at first. Apart from the usual clutter on tabletops and shelves, the flat was more or less clean – when a love affair goes up in smoke, Sakura thought, any kind of therapy can only go so far, but things like doing your laundry in the middle of the night (in the loving company of a bowl of chocolate icecream) when you couldn't sleep anyway or scrubbing your floor at the break of dawn (and imagining that it was That Woman's face, and when you were finished, Sasuke would see her without make-up for the first time in his life) did wonders for your apartment.
That was, actually, her mother's wisdom, Sakura thought.
She remembered coming home from the Academy one day and finding her mother on her knees in the garden, weeding like a madwoman. She looked up and said, 'someone I thought was my friend isn't,' and went on with her work. Sakura put her things on the steps of the house and went to help her.
Her mother's least favourite kind of housework was weeding the garden. She had no problem with washing up, she got rid of the headless birds their neighbour's cat brought her as a compliment without a word, she never complained about having to wash shinobi clothes covered in blood and mud and stained with grass, but weeding...
After they went through two rows of vegetables like a storm, her mother told her in a few sentences what happened (an old girlfriend, her new boyfriend, jealousy - and, as a result, some ugly gossip), and Sakura asked her if she was sad.
She remembered the way her mother looked at her – the same green, wide eyes that she had, the same firm mouth – and said with a sudden smile, "Oh, I was devastated, but I thought that since I was depressed anyway, I could start weeding the garden - you know how much I hate doing that!"
They both burst out laughing and then stood up and went back to the house to have a cup of tea, muddy and tired but still at peace.
After that whenever Sakura came home tired, unhappy, sad or irritated, and her mother looked at her, and Sakura grunted a one-word-answer (Sasuke. Naruto. Ino. Test. Homework. Exam) to an unspoken question, one of them usually said, "if you're depressed anyway…" and Sakura threw her bag in the corner and started doing the dishes or peeling potatoes while her mother was cooking or baking or ironing and by the time they were finished, troubles dissolved to a more or less manageable proportion in the steam and heat of the kitchen.
I wonder what my parents will think about Shikamaru, Sakura thought. They will love him. I know they will.
She smiled, filled with happiness.
I'll take him home to dinner tomorrow, she decided suddenly. I'm sure Shikamaru would like that. He wants commitment. He wants a family. He wants us to be together. This is not just another love affair. There are no rules. He will see this as I see it – a token of trust on my part.
Sakura thought it over. With anyone else, she would have seen this as unnecessary and possibly dangerous haste – what good could it do? But Shikamaru wasn't anybody else. Once she realized that Shikamaru was right, they had to agree on the code they were using and they did, there were no taboos, no limits, no rules.
Look at all those things we talked about – things I never mentioned to anyone else. He added a few of his own, too.
She wondered about it all the only way that she found really useful – she was letting her thoughts wander and come up with a conclusion on their own, but it seemed there was no revelation to come this time, except something she knew anyway.
I let him see today all the things that I would never show anyone on a first date. I was angry, hurt, oversensitive, scared, clingy. Not the calm, cool and collected Dr Haruno, but someone volatile and weak. I even hit him – not because he deserved it but because I couldn't find any way out. I couldn't deal with the situation. He, on the other hand, was moody, scathingly sarcastic, jealous, possessive and violent in turns – and in the end it was... it was all right.
Definitely not the way to spend a romantic afternoon.
She shook her head and mumbled something to herself, parts of sentences and fragments of words chasing each other in her memories.
But he wanted it to be romantic, poor dear. He wanted it so much. Not because this was meant to be, but because he thought I wanted it. Not very romantic, that's what he said on the hillside, how could you want so little? So he bought me a dress and he will take me out to the Golden Dragon, and the irony is, I don't need it, I would elope with him and live with him away from Konoha, I would become a missing nin if he wanted me to. Love has nothing to do with good intentions and grand gestures. It's all about small things. Like when he held me in his arms on the hillside and he thought I was still in love with Sasuke and never said anything about himself, he just said, no child warriors in my village, and I knew, I knew he would help me, I knew I could trust him...
She smiled, then shook her head and went to the bedroom to see what could be done with the bed.
Nothing. It was a complete wreck.
Maybe I could ask Yamato to grow me a new bed, Sakura thought.
She did her best to cover the ruins but it was hopeless, so she shrugged and went to get dressed.
The dress, if possible, looked even better in the afternoon sunlight than it did in the cold light of the shop. Sakura unpacked everything, sent a grateful thought to Shikamaru, her lovely, sweet, sexy, generous boyfriend, and started to get ready with slow, meticulous care. She brushed her hair, then opened her underwear drawer to choose the bra and the panties, the only things that would not be new on her this evening.
On the other hand… Oh…oh! Wait a minute!
She opened the next drawer – gloves, scarves, an ugly knitted cap that she only wore in winter when the weather was unbearably cold, some ribbons.
There.
It was a little package, pushed as far back into the drawer as possible.
After she found Sasuke and his new girl together on the floor (a week ago? A lifetime ago?) she ran home, scared, furious, hurt, and cursed the succession of events that led her to Sasuke's door unexpectedly.
It wasn't that she didn't want to know, but…
If Shizune hadn't sent her a message on Friday evening that the new microscope she'd requested was finally available.
If she hadn't told Sasuke that she'd have to drop in the hospital the next morning, even though it was a Saturday.
If Sasuke hadn't thrown a tantrum like a three-year-old, telling Sakura that soon she'd have to choose between him and that damn hospital work and she'd better make the right choice.
If she hadn't been so upset then that she'd just turned and shut the door with a bang behind her.
If on Saturday morning instead of going straight to the hospital she had not decided to see Sasuke first.
If he'd just locked his door instead of leaving it open. Not that he usually kept anything under lock and key. Not that anyone would have wanted to steal anything from the Uchiha compound. But still…
If he'd had sex with that girl somewhere else, not in that house that team 7 repaired and cleaned together and where Sakura chose the curtains because Sasuke asked her to.
If. If. If.
There was no if.
It was Saturday morning and her life was ruined and she was running up the steps and at the same time trying to find her keys when she saw Tenten standing next to her door.
"I thought you were at the hospital," Tenten said. "I just wanted to leave you this message to come and get that scroll that Neji…"
Sakura looked up, her eyes blurred with angry tears, and Tenten only said, "Fuck. Gimme those keys."
She opened the door, marched Sakura in, found some sake in the cupboard, and when Sakura told her what happened, Tenten promised not to tell anyone and also to find something suitably sharp and nasty in her considerable arms collection that, if applied properly, would make it sure that Sasuke would never be able to sit comfortably as long as he lived.
The next day, after a terrible morning at the hospital when Sakura got her new microscope and tried to pretend to Tsunade that everything was fine (and failed miserably), and an even more terrible training session with her team (Sasuke looked smug, Naruto looked worried, Kakashi was fully concentrating on training, business as usual, and, since Yamato was out on a mission, that left Sai to be empathic and understanding – thinking back, Sakura still broke out in a cold sweat), she found a note and a small package tied to the doorknob of her apartment when she returned home.
FUCK HIM, the note said. BETTER YET, FUCK SOMEBODY ELSE. HE DOESN'T DESERVE YOU. I'M NOT KIDDING.
There was no signature, only a shuriken drawn under the message as an afterthought.
Sakura only took a glimpse at the contents of the package and saw that it was something black and lacy with something red on it, then she pushed the whole package in the back of a drawer and went to find the rest of the sake that she and Tenten forgot to finish the day before.
The next day was Monday and she went back to work at the lab with a new microscope in her carrier bag and the burning resolution in her heart that she would never think about The Incident again, and she forgot about Tenten's gift completely.
Now it was time to see if that black and lacy something would be good enough to wear on her coming date. The size would probably be right – Tenten had it easy, since she and Sakura were the same size. Sakura remembered the laughs they had on a particularly fruitless and boring mission when they swapped clothes and the fit was almost perfect. Of course, that led straight to Tenten pretending to be a med nin and saying that she was a natural healer – sake had a universal healing effect, she argued, and if anyone disagreed, she would be glad to perform surgery on them with any sharp object of their own choice. Sakura retaliated with some private thoughts on arms collections ("There's that special katana that I always used to sharpen when my teammates upset me… Unfortunately, one of these days I realized that the blade was practically nonexistent now because I sort of sharpened it away, so now I'm sharpening the hilt instead… I told you, it's a very special kind of weapon…") and the rest of the mission was quite bearable. Once they swapped clothes and they fit, there was a feeling of camaraderie between them that was never there before, as if they discovered they had something more in common than they supposed. The next day they started to teach each other skills and jutsus they considered basic – as Tenten pointed out, it might be handy to trade places if need be.
But now Sakura had to take a close look at Tenten's present. Was it something suitably sexy and pretty? She already had the somebody else Tenten mentioned, and he only deserved the best, Sakura thought.
She opened the package and started to laugh helplessly.
It was a set, bra and panties, black and lacy all right – but decorated with shiny red-and-green satin cherries and strawberries.
Oh yeah. Actually, I remember reading about that in Modern Kunoichi – anything with fruits and flowers is in this year, frills and polka dots are out.
She put the underwear on and went to see herself in the big mirror.
She looked like the adult version of a kid's fantasy – strawberry panties, oh yes. The bra pushed her breasts higher and made them look full and luscious. Sakura turned and looked at her behind in the mirror. Impossibly long legs, ending in high-cut panties, lots of black lace and another bunch of fruits at some… oh… strategic points.
My, oh my. A very adult version. Good thing I'm a med nin, once he takes my dress off, he'll get a seizure. Tenten, you're a genius and I love you beyond words. Shikamaru will go wild.
At first she didn't want to get dressed (secretly she was hoping that Shikamaru would be back soon, sooner even than seven, like right now, even though he said several times that he had places to go and things to do), but then she thought, what the hell, why hurry. After dinner he'll undress me anyway. It will be a nice surprise.
Dress. Make-up. Then the evening purse, with all the important things transferred from her handbag, keys and all the rest. The green scarf, laid out next to the evening purse. She chose a pair of earrings, checked if the lace of the bra was visible under the dress (no, thank God – she didn't want to seem cheap), and then put on the shoes. The heels were not very high and the shoes were black, just like the purse.
Shikamaru has good taste. Not only that, he's tactful. He did exactly what he said he would do – chose a dress that he wanted to see on me, and then he stood aside and let me choose all the rest. I would have been very unhappy with a pair of green shoes or a blue evening purse. Unpractical. Not my money, but still. These I will be able to wear with my other dresses. I'll have to thank Ino.
Sakura giggled. She found the idea very funny and her imagination started to colour the picture already. Oh, Ino… oh, what fun they will have! You raised your teammate properly, she would say to her. He's a gentleman. I know you must have worked very hard…
I'll buy Ino a box of chocolate, Sakura decided. She'll love that.
She sat down on the couch and crossed her legs at the ankles. She felt beautiful and happy and ladylike and full of pleasant anticipation.
As if on cue, there was a knock at the door.
Sakura's first impulse was to run to the door but she decided to take it slow. She would pretend that she was waiting for someone else, a better date than Shikamaru, and then he would say…
She opened the door and said, "Oh."
It was Kakashi, leaning against the wall as if he were personally selected and paid by the landlord to do so in order to make the wall look better. He was his usual tall, handsome, effortlessly masculine self, the shock of silver hair almost glowing over his masked face, but Sakura felt as if she opened a Christmas present and found in it a pair of warm socks instead of a diamond necklace.
"The sight of your overwhelming joy when you realize it's me warms my heart every time," Kakashi said.
Sakura sighed and said dully, "Come in. You're going to anyway."
She turned and went back to the couch.
Kakashi followed her in and closed the door.
Sakura looked at him and caught a glimpse of the appreciative look on Kakashi's face. It was a very pleasant surprise. Sakura knew that Kakashi, for all his silence and dignity and reserved manners, liked women and was a connoisseur of female beauty, and this was the first time that he looked at her with anything more than polite interest.
Not that she ever wanted him to, Sakura thought a bit guiltily. He was like an uncle or an older cousin to her – not somebody you wanted to think of as showering your body with burning kisses, but not like your daddy, either. Daddies, in the usual way of things, always thought their daughters were perfect. Cousins, on the other hand, had opinions. It was like poor old Jiraiya, Sakura thought lovingly. He had his faults, of course, but if he said "that girl has beautiful legs," you knew that it meant something. Maybe that was why although each time there was loud screaming at the women's onsen when Jiraiya had been "getting inspiration for a new book", none of the women were truly furious.
On the other hand, when Jiraiya didn't even look at a woman…
Now I'm definitely in the group which Jiraiya would have taken a closer look at, Sakura thought smugly. Oh, maybe I will ask Shikamaru to pretend to be a voyeur at the hot baths. That would be fun. We'll see if he picked up any special skills in ANBU. But what about the other women? They wouldn't like it, but even if they did, there's no way I'd share my man. Oh, the meadow! The perfect place! He said there was another hot spring on the other side of the hill, further away from the gate. I'll pretend to be a scared virgin bathing in the hot spring and he… well, he can choose his role.
I bet I know how your little story is going to end, Inner said with a leer. Good for us. In the meanwhile, sensei is still here with us, just in case you've forgotten.
She looked at Kakashi. His face, as usual, showed very little emotion. He was watching her with mild interest.
"Would you like some tea?" Sakura asked him, still mollified that Kakashi approved of her new dress.
His visible eye crinkled and he said "yes" in such a voice that was meant to convey that making some tea would be the best possible idea in the circumstances.
He's up to something, Sakura thought.
She turned back to ask Kakashi what flavour he preferred and found him looking into her bedroom.
He's really like a cat, Sakura thought, slightly annoyed. Not the kind that curiosity killed, rather one of those smug-looking purebreds that get away with anything. If Kakashi were a cat, I bet it would be insolence that'd kill him. I bet it would be someone in a sudden fit of rage when they found that damn animal pissing into their shoes again.
She looked in the bedroom, too, following Kakashi's eye, and saw the remains of the bed.
Kakashi looked at her seriously. Sakura smiled at him sweetly and closed the bedroom door in front of him with a definite, sharp bang.
"Jasmine or lemon?" Sakura asked.
"I beg your pardon?" Kakashi said.
Is he blushing? Oh, surely I'm wrong. Kakashi is always cool as an iceberg.
"Your tea," Sakura said slowly, with as much scorn as she was able to pour in those two short words. "I have only green tea right now, but in two flavours. Now which one shall it be?"
"Huh?" Kakashi asked.
"Jasmine or lemon?" Sakura asked patiently.
"Jasmine, please," Kakashi said like an automaton.
"A difficult birth, but it was worth it," Sakura said under her breath and went to make the tea.
They were sitting on the couch and sipping tea and neither of them was even pretending to make small talk.
Sakura was thinking about Shikamaru, except it wasn't really thinking as such but a mixture of remembering and daydreaming - sudden, vivid flashes of memory, a series of very personal photographs, complete with sound and smell and sometimes taste, and some of these snapshots were suddenly morphing into something that wasn't yet but could be.
Kakashi was sitting calmly and waiting for something, God knows what. Sakura would have preferred him to say something, to tell her why he suddenly visited her alone, without the others – she couldn't remember the last time Kakashi came to see her like this. When he came alone, it was usually with a reason, to tell her that he was going on a mission, to ask for a favour or give her a message, none of these making it necessary to stay for more than a few minutes and he never did.
Trying to make him speak, on the other hand, would be about as useful as shouting at a stone, Sakura thought. He'll speak when he wants to.
She thought of Shikamaru again, his deer and his meadow.
I told him about the letter and he was so upset. Oh, poor darling. I had no idea he loved me. It must have been awful for him. He called me sweetheart when he tried to console me, I remember.
She heard Shikamaru's serious, gentle, warm voice again. Sweetheart.
She looked up and saw Kakashi watching her like a hawk.
She wanted to ask him why but decided not to.
I can sit here and drink tea until Shikamaru arrives. And then… We'll see. If my team tries to interfere, I'll make them see the light. Several lights, maybe, going around their heads, complete with little bluebirds and stuff.
She smiled.
"So, what's new?" Kakashi asked nonchalantly.
Round one to Sakura, she thought. And I had no idea the game was on.
She looked at Kakashi, measuring his behaviour, his manner, his reactions.
Recce. That's what it is.
"Just ask me what you want to know in plain terms and I'll answer," Sakura told him calmly, then she added, "I trust you, sensei."
Kakashi blinked.
Round two to Sakura. I reminded him that I'm a member of team seven, too. Although I don't suppose he'd be on Sasuke's side. I don't really care anyway. My team could have done something but they all decided not to. They must have heard what happened. Not from Tenten, she's very close-lipped. I think it was Sasuke's new girl – she had no reason to stay silent. That must have been how the news reached Shikamaru, too. Oh, and Ino. Ino must have known. The unofficial queen of gossip - and she didn't say a word to me. We met several times since then and she always pretended to be concerned with something else.
Sakura's heart filled with gratitude. Tenten, silent, smiling Tenten writing that angry note, leaving her a present. Shy, gentle Hinata, telling her in no uncertain terms she deserved to be happy. Gossipy, loud Ino, staying silent, pretending not to know…
Sakura looked at Kakashi.
My girlfriends stood by me. None of you did. Not even Naruto. He kept telling me to make it up with Sasuke. He didn't even know what the problem was. He didn't care.
Kakashi watched her silently and she could look back at him without emotions, without pain or disdain or anger.
It's not your fault, but I owe you nothing. Anyway, it's not a 'girls do, boys don't' kind of thing – what about Shikamaru?
Sakura never thought that after all that happened, she could yet feel something new toward Shikamaru, but she did.
He tried to help me, she thought and took a deep breath. He told me the truth. Yesterday he offered me nothing more at first, just a shoulder to cry on - just like he said. If I'd asked him for help to get Sasuke back, he would have bit on his tongue and then would have advised me in my best interest – as he always did in the last few weeks.
She never liked to tell others about her problems with Sasuke, Sakura realized. She didn't want to betray his confidence. But sometimes it was so hard, just so hard… She remembered one particularly disastrous dinner and the next morning when she arrived at the lab, pale, strained, and Shikamaru, looking at her closely, then carefully not saying anything until she asked him in a sudden, unhappy outburst, "Why are men so stupid?"
Then his calm, kind voice, as he said, "Give him time, Sakura. I've never been a missing nin, but I think that spending years away from home, filled with hate and despair, always fighting, always on the run must be a very hard life. I'm sure you'll make it all right. Just think of it as a kind of illness. You wouldn't expect somebody after a grave illness to get well in a day. You can't expect him, either. Give him time."
Sakura swallowed painfully.
Shikamaru told me to give Sasuke time, even though he was sure that these few weeks were all he himself would ever have of me – the hours we spent together at the lab. Then nothing. He loved me, and he never liked Sasuke, but if I could only be happy with Sasuke, Shikamaru would have bent backwards to make it happen. And then all that misery, all that hate and jealousy that he felt, all that pain – I asked him to forget it all for my sake. I asked him not to hate Sasuke because Sasuke's my friend. And Shikamaru tries. He grinds his teeth and he tries.
Sakura felt a chill run through her.
Shikamaru seemed to have a kind of inner strength that Sasuke didn't. There was something missing from Sasuke, something important that had nothing to do with his personal tragedy or the life he chose for himself. Fate was cruel to him, true – but he went through life as if this gave him a free pass to behave as immaturely and unfeelingly as he wanted to. Was it so simple? Could it be so simple?
Naruto would never behave like Sasuke did with me, Sakura thought. He can be completely clueless and stupid, no tact at all, but he would have considered this kind of thing too cheap for words. Kakashi, too. He may be a player, but he doesn't brag or cheat. I never heard of a woman he'd hurt or humiliated. He doesn't have it in him to have a long, serious relationship with a woman, he doesn't need that, but he has manners and style and dignity. When did I ever see Kakashi making fun of someone who was less than him in skills or abilities or anything? He could brag all day and strut around Konoha like a peacock and instead he's polite and reserved. He never ridiculed me, either, not even when I was behaving like the twelve-year-old prototype of a stupid, selfish, arrogant bitch. I don't want to be like Sasuke – I would have no excuses. I have my parents and my friends and my sensei… and Shikamaru.
"Is Sasuke very unhappy?" Sakura asked quietly.
Kakashi's visible eye widened, but he didn't say anything.
"Fine," Sakura said. "You always preached patience, sensei, but I think this is a situation when you would like me to be a bit less patient."
Sakura saw him tense. It would have been invisible to even another nin, but she'd known him for years.
When you work with someone who insists on covering himself fully, even his face, you learn to read even the tiniest signs of his mood.
"Anyway, we don't have a lot of time," Sakura carried on. "Naruto will drop in sooner or later and Shikamaru will pick me up some time after seven. I'd rather discuss this with you while none of them are present."
Kakashi nodded.
"Sasuke and I broke up because he cheated on me and I happened to catch him in the act. Did he tell you?"
"No," Kakashi answered slowly. "He said he had… problems."
That could mean anything.
"Fine," Sakura repeated. "Well, you have to know that this… affair with the other girl started after Genma's New Year party, so it wasn't something that Sasuke only did once. So that's over. I would never go back to him. Not in this life. I thought about it a lot, but I'm going to tell Naruto the details. I can't spare him. I tried but I can't. I thought Sasuke would explain things to him and I waited and waited but it's not going to happen, and Naruto still thinks we just quarreled over a trifle or something and wants us to make up. This can't go on."
"I understand," Kakashi said.
"Which brings us to my second point," Sakura said. She was silent for a minute, thinking about how she wanted to say what had to be said, and she decided to be blunt.
"I'm dating Shikamaru now. I love him. If anyone in my team, and I mean anyone, tries to interfere, they will regret it. Deeply."
"I see," Kakashi said noncommittally. "What exactly this would entail, would you please kindly tell me?"
Sakura put her teacup down on the table.
"This is, of course, just a theoretical possibility. So let's suppose that you, sensei, try to interfere and you hurt Shikamaru in some way. The possibilities are, basically, endless, but I think I would choose the easiest available way to get even. I could have all of Jiraiya's books banned in the whole of Fire Country. Any kind of erotica, in fact. Possessions confiscated and destroyed on the spot. Repeated offence is punishable, of course – first, a fine, then… well, it would be up to the Council."
Kakashi winced. The Council had a very conservative approach in most issues.
Sakura smiled humourlessly.
"Note, sensei, that this is me playing nicely. I could do worse things. I don't mean I would do them, but I could."
"Really?" Kakashi said in a disbelieving way.
Sakura let Inner float to the surface for a moment.
"Don't you sometimes feel… tired, sensei?" she said in a sweet voice, and smiled in a way that showed very little mirth and a lot of teeth. "You've been in active service for far too long. The village owes you. Maybe a nice, pleasant new job would do you good… where you could pass on your knowledge that we all feel should be shared… so a nice, cozy teaching job at the Academy is just what you need."
"At the Academy?" Kakashi repeated. A big drop of sweat rolled down his face.
Sakura smiled at him.
"You could work with Iruka sensei. Of course, you should begin with small kids… teaching the basics is very important…"
Kakashi picked up his teacup with shaking hands and drank.
Sakura laughed.
"Rest easy," she said. "I told you, I wouldn't do it. But the point is, I could. So I expect you to tell me if Naruto thinks that some kind of prank would make me forget Shikamaru and go back to Sasuke. I can't understand why Naruto's so set on Sasuke and me being together anyway. At the Academy he had this love-hate relationship with Sasuke, true, but if anyone told him that in a few years he would push me into Sasuke's arms, Naruto would have thrown a fit."
Kakashi sighed.
"You gave Naruto a chance to date you and then he realized that his feelings were not the same any more," he said. "But when he started to date Hinata, he still kept an eye on you. Then Sasuke came back and they made their peace, and now Naruto thinks of Sasuke as his other self, so it makes sense that he wants you two to be together. Which you used to want, too. Also, there is that tiny little problem that Naruto thinks that basically you're the anchor that keeps Sasuke here, not him, not anything else. So, if you push Sasuke away, he might disappear again. I don't think that's true, but Naruto feels that way. He was very unhappy and irritated this last week. He kept Sasuke under close surveillance, so to speak."
That was interesting.
"How did Sasuke react?"
"Surprisingly well, considering the circumstances. He told Naruto to butt out of his relationship with you, he never meddled with Hinata, and to stop following him around, he wasn't going anywhere."
"Oh, so he caught on, too," Sakura said, deeply in thought.
"Whatever Sasuke is, he's not stupid," Kakashi said quietly.
"I know," Sakura said. "Basically, this is all good. Today I met Sasuke and his new girlfriend, and I have to say that although he wasn't handling the situation very well, but considering everything, it wasn't that bad, either. I kept looking for any kind of trouble, but his eyes never changed. He was upset and angry, but no sharingan. That's a good sign. Also, when he felt that the situation got out of hand, he didn't become violent. He fled. When he was a child, he used to disappear when things got too emotional for his taste, but when he left Konoha, he changed. A few years ago he would have wiped out everyone in a situation like this in an instant. The emotional tension would have been too high, and he would have flipped. Not now. He's less volatile, less violent."
Kakashi leaned forward.
"So, what did exactly happen? Tell me."
This wasn't about gossip, Sakura thought. This was a team leader's request.
She told him about the encounter with Sasuke as shortly and precisely as she could.
"And the whole showdown was not his idea. His new girlfriend wanted to wipe the floor with me for my supposed sins, and things didn't go the way she thought they would. Sasuke wasn't very happy with her," she finished. "I think Shikamaru was right - that girl is a re-creation of my earlier personality and my supportive role in Sasuke's life. She's another version of me – an enthusiastic fangirl who would give him undiluted, unconditional appraisal and who would not have so many expectations. Or so he thought. Poor guy."
Kakashi seemed thoughtful.
"What did Shikamaru do?"
Sakura shook her head.
"He tried to stay out of it as much as he could. I asked him to try and get along with Sasuke, so he tries. His best bet was to step back. Anyway, we have this agreement that Sasuke is my problem, except if he tries to hurt me. I had to make this concession," she added, looking at Kakashi. "It's too much to ask from any red-blooded male to let his girlfriend's ex hurt her."
Kakashi nodded.
"And how are things with Shikamaru?" he asked and his eyes unobtrusively found the hole in the wall that Shikamaru's fist punched into it.
"I love him," Sakura said without hesitation. "He's great. He loves me, too. I'll take him to dinner to my parents' house tomorrow. He doesn't know that yet."
Kakashi raised an eyebrow.
Sakura smiled.
"Don't worry. He'll love it. He wants to be a part of my life."
She stopped for a moment, then the happiness she felt was too warm, too overwhelming, and she blurted out, "He wants a family. With me. He wants to have children."
Kakashi froze in his place. "Sasuke wants children, too," he said carefully. "He said you were… unsure if you wanted to start a family."
Another misunderstanding to clear up, Sakura thought.
"No. Sasuke doesn't want children," she said evenly.
"He does."
Sakura shook her head.
"No. Listen to me, sensei. He doesn't want children. He wants offspring."
"Is there a difference?" Kakashi asked.
"There is a very big difference," Sakura said seriously. "He talks about reviving his clan. That's fine. That's a responsibility I understand. But I had to point it out to him that even having children wouldn't mean that the Uchiha compound would be what it was when he was a child. Not in another fifty years. I don't want my children to grow up in a ghost town and even having ten children would only mean that in twenty or thirty years there would be another generation of Uchiha offspring, that's all. And not all of them would have the Uchiha kekkei genkai. I know it's supposed to be a dominant trait, but even a dominant trait isn't always fully present, there are mutations and variations, and I would definitely put a stop to any kind of inbreeding. That's a procedure with a very high risk, and I know it was common in most big clans, but I'm very strongly opposed to it. I wouldn't want to see my grandchildren married off to each other."
"Did you tell all this to Sasuke?"
"Yes," Sakura sighed. "He wanted to hit me."
Kakashi didn't move a muscle. Still, suddenly there was a faint but palpable aura of menace surrounding him.
"He didn't actually try," Sakura said tiredly. "He thought better. But I could see it in his eyes. So I thought, very well, let's see what we've got, and I took him to see Iruka sensei at the Academy."
She looked at Kakashi.
"I told you. Sasuke doesn't like children. He wasn't interested even in the brightest of them. He was bored and irritated. The sad thing is, the kids behaved really well. Iruka only told them that Sasuke used to be one of his most talented pupils, and he was a jounin-level shinobi – that was very tactful of him. You know how kids at the Academy are. They know I'm a jounin but I'm a medic nin and they suppose that must be the only reason, and for most of them, healing is useful but boring. And I'm a kunoichi. That's a good role model for girls, but the boys… oh, well. But a real, live, male jounin! He used to be a missing nin, too – for the kids, that's about just as good as being a pirate or a mercenary. Very romantic. The last surviving member of the Uchiha clan!"
She shook her head.
"I thought he would feel at least a tiny bit of nostalgy. I thought that maybe he would say a few kind words to the most talented kids at least. There's a Hyuuga cousin at the Academy know, quite good, and someone from the Aburame clan. One of the kids is six, and he can already do chakra walk! Iruka sensei said that this little boy used to climb up on the top of the Academy building to search for lost balls and shurikens, that's how Iruka sensei realized what he was doing. And people say I have perfect chakra control!"
She shook her head again, amazed.
"I visit the Academy regularly, you know. These kids are just… fantastic! And Iruka… he was always a good teacher, but I swear he's getting better every year! He'd deserve a raise! Anyway, Sasuke wasn't interested. Brats, he called them. Let's go home, I'm fed up with the brats. And these were Academy students, sensei. Pre-genin. Responsible. Serious. Hard-working. Basically, small adults with slight mishaps. How would Sasuke cope with a baby? A baby cries and eats and wets her diapers, then cries some more. You can't argue, you can't set rules, you can't stop it. I know what it's like - I have younger cousins and friends with small children. I did a lot of baby-sitting for Kurenai when Aiko was just a few months old."
Sakura thought of Aiko and a long lost and forgotten fragment of a memory rose to the surface from the depth of her mind.
It was Shikamaru again, holding a three-week-old Aiko tenderly in his arms and talking to her with all the seriousness of his seventeen years. The fragment of the memory was like a a short part cut out of a long reel of film. Sakura was looking into the nursery through the half-open door, and Shikamaru was concentrating so fully on Aiko that he never even saw Sakura. Aiko was crying, emitting long, loud wails of misery, and Shikamaru was cradling her in his arms and talking to her as if she could understand him. "I know it hurts. Oh yes. Yes, baby. I can imagine how awful it must be. Tell me, sweetheart. Just tell me. It will be better soon, I promise. Sleep now. Go to sleep, and when you wake up, it won't hurt anymore. Sleep now."
After a time the wails became shorter, less loud, and then Aiko went quiet and Sakura could see that she was asleep, but Shikamaru still held her close and he was watching the baby with an odd mixture of sadness and joy on his face.
That's why I didn't go in, Sakura thought now. I knew he was thinking of Asuma, and he wasn't looking at Aiko. He was looking at Asuma's child.
The short reel of film ended, the small memory fragment stayed as it was, a fragment. Sakura didn't know what happened afterwards.
She looked at Kakashi.
"Shikamaru is mature enough to become a husband and a father," she said quietly. "Sasuke is not. Now that I'm talking to you, I'm starting to realize what coming back here meant for Sasuke - a full circle. He is a jounin-level shinobi with considerable skills, but on a personal level he is about fourteen, at least from an emotional point of view. That was why he chose me – because of his memories, because of our past together. I was a safe bet. But I'm not fourteen anymore. I grew up. His instincts still work properly - his mother must have been a remarkable woman. When things didn't work out between us, he chose a new partner, suitable to the actual level of his emotional maturity, and got rid of me. He wouldn't get a gold medal for honesty and integrity, but he built himself a safety net. Good for him."
Kakashi stirred.
"Don't you think that this explanation puts the blame solely on him?" he asked.
"What do you mean, Kakashi?" Sakura said coldly. "Do you mean that it was in some way my fault that he cheated on me?"
"Fault is not a word I would use here," Kakashi said. "But please consider two things. I wouldn't tell you this just because of Sasuke, there seems to be no point, but as you are now with Shikamaru…"
Kakashi feels responsible for Shikamaru. He probably tries to protect Shika as much as he can because Asuma was a friend.
"I'm listening."
"One, a man can take a lot of things from the woman in his life. But there is one thing that he surely doesn't want – and that is pity."
"I never pitied Shikamaru!" Sakura said angrily.
"I'm not talking about only Shikamaru here," Kakashi pointed out. "You recognized this yourself a minute ago – Sasuke's new girlfriend worships him and you don't. Not anymore. But there is a wide scale of emotions between worship and pity. That's all I'm saying."
"I still don't see…" Sakura began.
"You were a dutiful little wife, Sakura, and you two weren't even married!" Kakashi said. "What makes you think he wanted a martyr any more than you wanted to take care of a fourteen-year-old?"
"Oh," Sakura said. It made sense.
Kakashi regained his usual calm and said, "Anyway, I can't say that I'm the world's biggest expert on relationships. I like to live alone and the perfect company, in my case, either leaves before midnight or turns back into a pumpkin."
"Or into a sex doll," Sakura said without thinking.
Kakashi laughed.
"Sorry," Sakura said in a high, nervous voice. "I wasn't thinking…"
Kakashi waved his hand.
"Never mind. As I was saying, I'm not an expert, but I can see how things work for others. So it helps if you try to think of people in relationships as plants and climates."
"Climates?" Sakura asked doubtfully.
"Do you remember Mr Ukki?"
"Of course," Sakura said automatically. "Your plant."
She closed her mouth firmly so as not to shout at her sensei. What would Mr Ukki and the men in her life have in common?
Kakashi seemed amused and Sakura forced herself to sit calmly.
He's doing this on purpose. This is something important.
"When I go on a long mission, I usually ask Naruto to water Mr Ukki for me," he said. "He usually forgets, then, once in every two weeks, when he remembers, he pours a glass of water on my plant, then forgets again. Then, just before I come home, he gets scared and starts to water poor Mr Ukki until the plant's flooded and starting to suffocate, then I come home and pour the water out, and everything's back to normal."
Sakura tried to be very Zen and meditate on the possible outcome of this very interesting story about Naruto's housekeeping habits, but Inner was watching the beautiful, pointed heels of the new shoes and measuring distances and angles to see if Sakura could kick Kakashi so that it would seem accidental.
Kakashi, as if on cue, sat a bit further on the sofa and crossed his legs.
Gah, Inner said disdainfully. Coward.
"The problem is," Kakashi said, seemingly unaware that he was boring Sakura to tears, "that no matter how much I approve of Naruto dating Hinata, she spends too much time with him for Mr Ukki."
Sakura's eyebrows shot up. Did Kakashi think that Mr Ukki would see…uh, inappropriate things? Maybe Mr Ukki wasn't of age yet? Really, was it a Mr Ukki anyway? Gee, Naruto, you shouldn't kiss Hinata in front of Mr Ukki! He's too young, he'd never produced any pollens yet!
Sakura looked at her own flowers in the windowbox with a rather doubtful expression on her face.
Poor sensei must be really lonely, Inner said. Either that, or right now there are lots of older plants explaining certain things to the younger plants on the meadow. Does grass count? I mean, just think of what you'd feel in their place. I'd hate somebody to have sex on top of me…
Sakura wanted to kick Inner, too.
If that helps, I think most of the plants were having sex around us in their own way, Inner offered helpfully. After all, it's spring. All that blossoming and stuff…
Kakashi was still going on and on about his plant, speaking slowly and peacefully as if he had all the time in the world. He usually did. In the meantime, somewhere else there were usually other people waiting for him in vain and cursing furiously, but that was in their time zone. "I know she's a great girl, but she watered Mr Ukki every day like clockwork. Naruto only told her that I wanted him to water Mr Ukki, so she dutifully did so when she thought he forgot. But Mr Ukki is a succulent," he finished in a triumphant voice.
Sakura considered committing suicide out of sheer boredom and stabbing herself to death with a pelargonium. Or, rather, telling Kakashi to go and sit on a cactus.
"And your point is, sensei…?" she inquired, sending a prayer to all the powers that be to send Shikamaru back as soon as possible.
Kakashi looked at her.
"Really, Sakura, you're usually smarter than this," he said. "I know that every generation thinks they invented sex, but I'm telling you, it's the usual way to perpetuate the species. Get your mind out of the gutter, and…"
"I was only thinking about plants," Sakura said defensively.
Kakashi snorted.
"I don't understand the analogy between Mr Ukki and sex," she said. "If it's got to do something with pollen allergy…"
"I said relationship, not sex," Kakashi sighed. "Really, Sakura. Anyway, what I meant was that Naruto only provided the necessary amount of water for Mr Ukki who is a succulent. A succulent is a desert plant…"
"…and it stores water. I know. That's why… Oh!"
She looked at Kakashi, eyes wide open.
Kakashi gave Mr Ukki to Naruto because he can take care of a desert plant that doesn't need a lot of water. But Hinata watered it every day – pure goodwill on her part, but with a disastrous effect. Poor Mr Ukki.
"What does it all have to do with me?" she asked in a tiny voice.
"Usually plants are not destroyed by the climate of their own natural habitat, except if it's a natural disaster like a hurricane or a forest fire. Jungle plants flourish in a tropical climate, and desert plants do just fine with very little water. But if you think of Sasuke as a succulent or a cactus, and yourself as a tropical climate, you'll see what I mean. It's not your fault, no more than a tropical climate could be at fault for providing too much sun and too much rain. But for a desert plant, it would be a catastrophe. You tried to give Sasuke as much tender loving care as you could, and he simply doesn't need it."
"But why didn't he tell me?" Sakura interrupted Kakashi. She didn't like this whole analogy with the plants and climates (Sensei thinks of women as climates, and poor men as plants, unable to move or do anything, helpless against Nature, Inner said with contempt), but he had a point.
"I don't think he knows it himself," Kakashi said. "I don't think he realized why he felt uneasy with you. You do all the things that a proper housewife and mother would do, just like his own mother did, so all his memories about his family tell him that you are doing things right. But he spent years as a missing nin. He was very young when his whole clan was wiped out. He is self-reliant. I recognize his behaviour because it is similar to mine. If you started to cook dinner for me every day, I'd bail out after a week. You're a sweet girl and I'm sure the food would be excellent, but when I come home from a mission I want to be alone, and if having dinner ready means I have to talk to someone whether I feel like it or not, I'd rather have beer and stale chips."
Sakura couldn't help but stare at Kakashi. She couldn't remember the last time he talked about anything personal at length. Over the years they had long discussions about several subjects, but Kakashi never shared details about his private life.
"You were worried about both of us," she said slowly. "I'm sorry, sensei. But… if things are like that, then it's better that Sasuke and I aren't together anymore, isn't it?"
Kakashi shrugged. "I have no idea whether it's better or not. That's none of my business anyway. I just wanted to tell you that if it was, in a way, inevitable that you two were drawn to each other, then maybe it's also inevitable that you broke up in the end."
He looked at Sakura.
"You didn't make a mistake with Sasuke," he said quietly. "You took care of him. People are, of course, a lot more complicated than plants. You tried to nurse him back to health mentally, emotionally and physically, and let him grow as much as he could next to you, and then you let him go when he wanted to go. You helped him build up another personality, sort of. Change back into the person he would have become if he stayed. Now he gets another chance at living a normal life instead of going on a killing spree and ending up as a common criminal in the bingo book. You've done a great job and you're free. But things will be different with Shikamaru. Sasuke was always a lonely sort of person. Shikamaru…"
He shook his head.
"He won't walk away from you. That's the good thing and the bad thing. You can't just… If it's just a rebound…"
Sakura watched him struggle with himself, to warn her but still not to betray a secret, Shikamaru's secret.
"Sensei," she said quietly. "It's all right. He told me everything that he could, I mean everything that wasn't classified info. I know about ANBU and his… special squad. I know what you said to him about getting out before there's nothing left from his soul but a stub."
"He told you?" Kakashi repeated, unbelieving.
"Yes. And I told him everything about myself. I still want him and he wants me. I would have stayed with Sasuke if he needed me, even though I wasn't very happy. We all do lots of things in life because they have to be done, not because doing these things make us happy. But with Shikamaru…"
Sakura smiled and looked at Kakashi. "Don't worry. I'm a tropical climate, but he's a jungle plant. Anything I pour on him, he wants more. He's a keeper."
Kakashi looked relieved.
"Did Sasuke tell you anything about the break-up at all?" Sakura asked him.
"No," Kakashi said curtly. "Today he told Naruto to shut up or he'd kick all his teeth out if he mentioned you and making up in the same sentence again, and then Sai said that the problem was that Sasuke and Naruto both had very small penises, and that ended the discussion as such, but I was lucky enough to see that Sai could avoid both a rasengan and a fireball if he had an inkbird ready. What did you think?"
"What did Yamato say?"
"He still isn't back from his mission. Otherwise he would be either sitting here with me, or he would be out with the boys and practicing his scary glare at Sasuke. Yamato's partial to you."
"Good," Sakura said. "I mean, it's good that he likes me, and not good that he isn't back yet."
"He'll be back by Thursday. He sent me a message to tell you that he'd like some extra tempura. I have no idea how he can eat something like that."
"What am I, his personal cook?" Sakura asked, trying to sound dignified and hurt and failing. She loved it that they all circled around her, like planets around the sun. It all started when she moved to an apartment of her own. At first it was only Naruto, insisting on coming to see her every week, especially if they were in separate teams, then Sai came with him, too, then they brought Yamato and Kakashi, and by the time Sasuke came back, it was a Tradition. Once a week the boys gathered at her place, and they shopped for food before and washed up (and sometimes broke) the dishes afterwards, but it was always, without exception, her turn to cook.
At first I was a pretty awful cook, Sakura thought. Still, they ate everything I cooked for them and they liked it. It's the closest they've got to a family, I guess. Food and drink and laughter and Naruto's pranks. Maybe that was why Sasuke decided to ask me out. With all of them together around my table, it was a loud, strange, happy family and he wanted it for himself. But with just him and me… it was silent.
"You know, I often wondered if you guys have a secret society that I'm excluded of because I'm a woman," Sakura said, looking at Kakashi.
Kakashi looked back, clueless.
Sakura gave him an evil little smile.
"You know, secret society? With a secret handshake and everything? With a tree house somewhere where Naruto shuts up, Sasuke talks about his feelings and you read books with a moral?"
Kakashi hiccuped, then gave a sound like a snort and asked, "What about Yamato?"
"Well, he decides on one of his two personalities and sticks with it," Sakura said.
"Nope. Can't see that happening," Kakashi said happily. He put his cup back on the table and Sakura leaned forward at the same time and her hand touched Kakashi's arm by accident.
Her next move was automatic. She saw Kakashi's eye widen, but by then her right hand landed on his chest with full force, stopping and pulverizing his heart in the same second.
There was a sudden noise, like a shot, as air poured in to fill out the place that a second ago was occupied by a body.
"The bastard!" Sakura screeched. "I open up my heart to him and share my deepest feelings with him… and all the while it wasn't him, it was this! The bloody bastard! He sent me a clone!"
She looked at her sofa, empty, then at the teacup, still almost full. The clone had already disappeared.
"And if I hadn't touched him, I would never have known!"
I'm not even sure he knew you could tell that it was a clone, Inner said. Most people can't. They don't sense the irregularities in the blood flow and the chakra flow.
"I don't care," Sakura said. "I told him before how much I hated it when he disappeared in the middle of a conversation. He promised me never to do it again."
She sat on the sofa and thought about Kakashi. She was sure that if Kakashi had found her crying and unhappy, Shikamaru would have had a very unpleasant evening. But Kakashi was always careful. He came to see her to decide what had to be done, and he listened to her. But what about the boys? Would she be able to persuade them that what she had with Shikamaru was serious?
Sai could be a nuisance if he wanted to, but he wasn't deeply involved in this. Sasuke was no problem anymore – he had no right to interfere and he knew it.
Naruto.
She didn't want to hurt Naruto but she would not let him hurt Shikamaru, either. That was the problem with family, she thought grimly – they always thought they knew better.
Maybe it would have been easier on them all if things had been a little slower, Sakura thought, but it just didn't happen that way. She was a tropical climate. Warm, suffocatingly intense, volatile, every storm followed by sunshine. And Shikamaru loved intense. His face was cold but his heart wasn't.
It was not a budding attraction between them, not something tentative and shy, waiting to unfurl like a leaf. No, it was an act of recognition, a chemical reaction. They tried to take it slow and they couldn't. Once the catalyst was introduced, there was no way to slow down, to withhold. Two forces of nature, colliding, changing and merging.
You. It is you.
It wasn't a question of whether she would give this up, because she couldn't. Not for anyone's sake – not for her team, not for her friends, not for her parents. If she had to fight them all, she would.
You will have to accept this, Naruto, whether you like it or not.
She heard Naruto's shrill voice outside on the street. A minute later, there came a mixture of sounds from the corridor that reminded her of a herd of animals climbing the steps, allowing, of course, that said animals also possessed the ability of speech that made it possible for them to grunt, shout, and hum at the same time.
If you think you did them a favour by sending a clone here, Kakashi, you are wrong, Sakura thought. But we'll see if any of them is stupid enough to think that they can tell me what to do, especially if it has anything to do with Shikamaru. Well, I'm just in the mood to deal with all of them now. Climates, bah. I'll show him climates.
She stood up and went to open the door.
Let them come. Poor little plants. They start to meddle and piss me off, and then they'll see what happens. It's hurricane time.