Walking back to you
Is the hardest thing that
I can do.
It was poetic injustice that just around the same time the heat wave was finally beginning to let up, half of the village, including Sakura, had to migrate to the desert in preparation for this year's chunin exams.
Ok, half the village was a little bit of an exaggeration, but there was still certainly a lot of people joining Tsunade's entourage at the village gates. Sakura was required to go to Suna as both Tsunade's apprentice and a medic. Everyone else consisted of ANBU guards, chunin examiners, genin students and their teachers and a large group of other people Sakura didn't recognize but suspected were just coming along for a free holiday.
Sakura had, at Sasuke's request, nominated him for the exams, which was the reason why he was plodding sullenly along beside her with an umbrella shielding his fair skin from the razing sun. The looks on the other jonins' faces had been priceless the moment she had stepped up and told Tsunade who she was nominating. Neji had even gone as far as retracting the nominations of his students in the face of Sasuke's entrance into the exam.
Kakashi had stuck by his decision though, nominating all his students save for the girl, and had done this without so much as a single glance in Sakura's direction from the moment he had entered the meeting to the second he'd walked out the door again. Even now she had a feeling he was studiously avoiding her, keeping to the back of the moving procession with his two students and his nose buried in his book.
It was a tactic that, although she understood and somewhat appreciated, she also couldn't help but feel resentful of. He had quite effectively told her that nothing could happen between them, without actually explaining just why, and Sakura didn't quite know how to feel about this. Was it because he was not interested in a relationship with another human being in general, or was it just her? Was the reason he had avoided her since the incident in the Water Field because he found her so irresistible that he couldn't be around her without wanting to ravish her? Or was it that he just found his own attraction to her too repulsive to bear?
It was depressing. Sakura knew that any kind of relationship between them would be weird, taboo and unacceptable and that Kakashi was probably doing the right thing. But still… her inner romantic was lost and confused over the fact that the first man in her entire life to ever show any kind of real interest in her was going out of his way to avoid her.
She had suspected after the nominations meeting that it was probably just her imagination filling the silence between them with her own insecurities. But the day after, when he'd walked out of the jonin common room exactly ten seconds after she'd entered it, a heavy weight of realization settled hard over her shoulders. He had to be avoiding her. What else could have made him put that book away and stand to leave the moment he saw her out of the corner of his eye?
This wasn't the way romance worked!
In all the books she'd read, when a man and a woman grew attracted to one another, there was simply no force on earth that could stop them from being together – be it other people or simply their own inhibitions. Love always ruled supreme in the end. But clearly this kind of ending was just a fantasy. In real life, attraction made things awkward. It ruined friendships.
Although maybe this was only when the attraction happened between the wrong people…?
Sakura only realized she was holding her face in her hands and outright gurning when Naruto tapped her on the shoulder. "What's the matter? Are you getting heat stroke?"
"Should have brought an umbrella," Sasuke remarked. He seemed to be feeling especially combative that day as Tsunade had ordered him to be given another psychological profile exam the day before. He'd passed, but it hadn't exactly been with flying colors, hence his rather foul mood.
"It's not that, I was just thinking about something," Sakura said wearily, wiping sweat from her brow.
"Something," Naruto said mysteriously, "or someone?"
Sakura glared at him. Sasuke just looked confused. "What are you on about now, you imbecile?"
He probably meant that in the nicest possibly way, and luckily insults slid off Naruto's back much more easily these days. Besides, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to gloat about something Sasuke knew nothing about, despite Sakura's warning stare. "What, you don't know? Didn't she tell you she liked Kakashi-sensei? You knowin that way?"
Sasuke's incredulous look moved from Naruto to Sakura. "What's he talking about?"
Sakura didn't answer, but the hard shove she gave Naruto said it all. When the blond picked himself up from the sand and rejoined them, he gave Sakura a dirty look as he shook sand grains from his hair. "Sasuke won't tell anyone, Sakura-chan. He's good at secrets." He looked at Sasuke. "She has a crush on Kakashi-sensei."
Sasuke pulled a mild face as if he'd just caught wind of an unpleasant smell. "Ew."
"What, 'ew'?" Sakura exploded, drawing to a dead stop. "Why is it so 'ew'!"
Sasuke halted with Naruto and looked back at her. "What is he, fifty? It's terrible."
Folding her arms, Sakura stormed past them, leaving them to scramble in her wake. "You know, that's just typical of you guys. You know he's not that old! And why is it so wrong for me to like him when you're both allowed to go lusting after that woman we saw in that film last week. She must have been around thirty-five, but I didn't tell you it was gross! Typical double-standards!"
"I didn't find her particularly attractive," Sasuke pointed out.
"Shock!" deadpanned Naruto.
"Yeah, well Naruto sure did," Sakura bit out. "His jaw was virtually on the floor when she took off her top and I don't see you having a go at him because of her age."
"That's different!" Naruto protested. "It's not like I'm ever going to get together with her."
"It's not like I'm ever going to get together with Kakashi-sensei, so what's the big deal?"
Perfectly annoyed with both her friends and not really understanding why or even wanting to understand, she marched away from them, weaving her way between the groups and pairs of other travelers to make her way toward Tsunade. The woman in question was walking along in the midst of several ANBU guards, severely hampered by her official Hokage robes and looking very pink in the face.
"Tsunade-shishou," she began. "How far is left till we reach Suna?"
"Oh, Sakura, you're like one of those annoying children who's always asking 'are we there yet?' Do you know how many people have asked that since we started off? I could kick them all."
Considering how nasty Tsunade's kicks could be, Sakura changed tact quickly. "Maybe we should take a break?"
"I like that idea," Tsunade said with a sigh, coming to a halt. "Fifteen minutes break. And someone get me Captain Tenzou," she said to the ANBU, "I want a nice cold fountain up here, now."
Poor Yamato, Sakura thought. Everyone liked to exploit his skills to the point of abuse. And Sakura was about to sneak off again when Tsunade caught her wrist. "I need someone to hand out the letters of induction to the genin. You don't look busy." And with that she produced a wad of slim scrolls from her robes and slapped them in Sakura's hands before dismissing her with a lazy flick.
Sakura chewed her lower lip anxiously. She was used to Tsunade fobbing all kinds of work off onto her when she didn't feel like doing it herself, and normally Sakura was only too pleased to be able to help.
Only, handing out scrolls to genin would undoubtedly mean she'd have to approach Kakashi's students, and by association, Kakashi himself.
There were fifteen scrolls for fifteen students, and Sakura meandered her way through the resting groups to locate them all – which was generally quite easy since the genin tended to be the smallest people there.
She gave scrolls to three of Shikamaru's students (and watched Shikamaru shy away from her in a must-protect-my-balls kind of way), two more to Gai's team, and one for Kurenai's student. She spotted Kakashi close-by, predictably too busy reading his book to have seen her, and tried to rally her nerves as she approached him and the two boys sitting in the sand at his feet.
"Letters of induction," she said pleasantly to the boys, bending down to pass them a scroll each. "Make sure you read them carefully. All you need to know about the exams is in there."
She straightened and chanced a look up at Kakashi, partly hoping that he had at least noticed her there.
But no. He turned the next page in his book and read on as if she was invisible and mute.
He probably didn't mean to hurt her, but Sakura couldn't deny the squeeze of pain in her chest at the blatant rejection. A lump rose swiftly in her throat and she turned and move away quickly before anyone realized she was struggling on the verge of tears.
Kakashi's students piped up like any insensitive child usually did, not aware that Sakura wasn't quite out of earshot. "Kakashi-sensei, did you fall out with your girlfriend?"
Sakura didn't stick around to hear any reply he might have made and stormed straight up to an ANBU whose mask she recognized. "Here, Sai," she said to him, thrusting the remaining scrolls into his arms. "Hand those out. Tsunade's orders."
"You're crying," he commented, sounding surprised. "Did you look in the mirror again?"
It wasn't the wisest thing anyone had ever said to her, and Sai had never been in her good books to begin with. So, without caring who saw and what they thought of her, she pulled back his mask on its elastic ties and then promptly let go, allowing it to smash back into face with a satisfying slap. She left him there, reeling in surprise and pain with an armful of scrolls he was attempting not to drop, and stalked back to where Sasuke and Naruto had sat down to slump in the shade of Sasuke's umbrella. They, like everyone else she passed, gave her weird looks.
"What's biting you?" Sasuke asked tactfully.
"Nothing," she ground out angrily, well aware that her bottom lip was trembling and her eyes were glassy. She sat down with her back to them so they wouldn't see.
How easily that man could affect her. He literally had to do nothing to upset her more than was reasonable. She glanced bitterly at him over her shoulder and was taken aback for a moment to see him similarly looking at her. He turned away the moment she caught him, but at least it made her feel incrementally better.
He couldn't ignore her as easily as he liked to think.
When they arrived at the gates of Suna, the kazekage himself was waiting for them with his two siblings and various members of his own entourage. And while the majority of the Konoha ninjas present regarded the young man warily, including Sakura, Naruto blithely went charging up to meet him in his typically exuberant manner.
Luckily, Gaara was fairly used to his loud attitude and took it with a vague smile, which was the Gaara equivalent of a big manly hug and some ecstatic shoulder clapping.
It was Temari who showed the group from Konoha to the hotel where they would be staying, set in a different location than the groups from other villages to discourage cheating. Sakura couldn't help but wish she was already back home in her beloved green Konoha. Everything in Suna came in a million shades of beige and yellow, including the buildings and local plant life. Everything seemed to be half buried in sand and Sakura figured that the hotel would look just as sandy and decrepit on the inside as it did on the outside.
However, when they were shown indoors, Sakura was delighted to see not a speck of sand anywhere (save for the stuff they brought in with them). Everything was luxury carpet and sculpted limestone walls.
It was much better accommodation that Sakura had remembered receiving in Kiri the previous year.
But as was usually the case, Sasuke found something to complain about. "Typical. Villages always try to rub their hospitality in your face in an effort to outdo each other. Next year they'll be giving us our own hotel each. This is why I hate taking exams abroad. It's so pretentious."
It may have just been another aspect of inter-village rivalry, but Sakura found it to be one more enjoyable ones. Better to have people fighting over themselves to provide you with better accommodation than have them trying to cut your throat while you're sleeping.
"Don't worry Sasuke. You only have to fail one more time before the exam comes back to Konoha," Naruto informed him. Sasuke flicked sand at him in response.
Temari, by the check-in desk, gathered everyone's attention with an authoritative clap of her hands. Twenty years old and already a bit of a battle-axe. Sakura glanced at Shikamaru, finally understanding why he was probably doomed to marry her. She was just like his mother.
"We've set aside fifty rooms for you," Temari announced. "You may choose your own amongst yourselves. In the mean time, please remember that we will not tolerate vandalism, cheating, trouble-making or excessive noise after eleven o'clock. The bars and restaurants are further down the road, just follow the east Tower. All foreign visitors get a twenty percent discount on food and drink, but I remind you also that curfew begins at twelve."
There was a slight murmur of disappointment from the majority of adults in the foyer.
"Also," Temari told them sharply. "The exam begins tomorrow at ten o'clock sharp and finish at six. Your grades will be given to you the day after."
The murmur of disappointment was suddenly overwhelmed by the gasps of shock and outrage from the genins. "But I thought this would take weeks!" a genin protested. From the sound of it, it was Kakashi's loudest student. "And last year in Kiri we had a whole fortnight to prepare!"
"Ninja who cannot prepare themselves for a simple test in the space of twenty-four hours are not fit to become chunin," Temari shot back coldly. "In a real battle, you would be lucky to get such advanced notice."
That effectively shut up the complainers.
"She has a point," Naruto sighed quietly. "Seems kinda cruel though."
"I think they just want to get rid of us as soon as possible," Sasuke murmured pessimistically.
Sakura sneaked a look at Kakashi to see what he thought of this arrangement, but the most she could see of him were the tips of his messy white hair over the heads of some of the other teachers. He was probably reading his book anyway, she thought with frustration.
She, Naruto and Sasuke arranged to get three rooms next to each other. She knew perfectly well that Naruto would probably wind up sharing Sasuke's for the entirety of their stay, but the more rooms the better (where room service and possible minibars were involved). And naturally Naruto wanted the rooms on the topmost floor. Initially Sakura disagreed, having lived in a third floor apartment for three years now and thoroughly fed up of the idea of climbing so many sets of stairs. But when Naruto pointed out the elevators, she grudgingly agreed.
And then wondered if Kakashi would also get a room on the top floor…
It was a stupid, obsessive thought that she immediately put out of her mind.
Then it popped back in.
Would he be on the same floor? Would it be a good thing if he was on the same floor? If his room was right next to hers? Maybe not. The sensible and logical side of her brain told her that it was best that she did not see him at all; out of sight and out of mind, and all that. But her heart hoped differently, because her heart had never been sensible or logical.
She idly imagined them actually sharing two rooms with an adjoining door. And she would walk through it and blink at him in surprise and say "Oh, I thought this was my bathroom. I'm so sorry to disturb you."
And then in a way that was perfectly suave and charismatic and probably very un-Kakashi-like, he would reply, "Oh no! Nothing about you could ever disturb me, Sakura. Now take off your clothes and get into my bed."
At which point her fantasy grew a little x-rated and Sakura had to shake herself out of her ridiculous imaginings. Because that would never happen. Every time he looked at her he probably cringed to himself and thought 'student'.
And probably nothing she could ever do would change that.
As she rode up in the elevator with Naruto and Sasuke and a dozen other people because the other elevator was broken, she sighed miserably to herself. "Don't you ever wish you had a switch for your heart so you could just turn off your feelings for others when you wanted to because they keep bothering you?"
"Yes," Sasuke said quite emphatically, glaring at Naruto who was picking his nose.
"That would be quite handy," someone at the back of the elevator said.
"Someone needs to invent that jutsu," said another.
"I wish I had one for my wife…" said a man.
"Yeah, well, I wish I had one that would make you do the dishes for once," said a woman.
Quite unaware that she'd started one surreal debate and one nasty argument, Sakura waited for the elevator doors to ping and stepped out, still trapped in her own stupor. Naturally Sasuke and Naruto immediately disappeared to explore their rooms before Naruto came barging into Sakura's to establish that, yes, they were exactly the same. When Sasuke eventually joined them, they simply lolled around Sakura's room, not saying anything.
"Well… now what?" Naruto asked, looking out of the window.
"I should probably train," Sasuke said.
"No way!" Naruto scowled back at him. "You've been training nonstop for two years. You need to unwind, man! Relax yourself for the exams!"
Sakura sighed, rolling onto her back on the bed. "He means you should get drunk," she translated.
"You too, Sakura-chan," he told her. "You've been kinda down lately. Alcohol will fix that."
"Noooo…" she groaned, covering her face, "I just want to stay in and order room service and then go to bed early and forget all you horrible people until I wake up all nice and refreshed and ready to heal all the people Sasuke kills tomorrow."
Naruto and Sasuke gave each other a significant look. And then moving as one, they grabbed Sakura by an arm each and dragged her off the bed. "Hey!" she squalled.
"It's for your own good," they chorused.
Unless it had something to do with fighting, nothing good had ever come of a Naruto and Sasuke Plan.
They hauled her straight out of the hotel and into town to check out some of the sights while there was still daylight left. This included visiting a cactus that supposedly only ever bloomed flowers in the presence of a truly beautiful woman (Sakura was slightly put out by its clear indifference to her), a funny shaped rock that was supposed to be the place where an old Suna hero had once died, and a courtyard of statues celebrating previous kazekage.
They were all more or less pleased to see the statue of the man who was presumably Gaara's father was suitably vandalized and bore a comical moustache of black marker pen ink.
"Saves us having to do it, I suppose," Naruto whispered.
Then, because the temperature was cooling and the light was fading, they dragged her into the seediest bar they could find. Naturally they sold nothing that wouldn't produce some sort of spontaneous hair growth on the torso, so Sakura stuck to ordering water. And as the evening grew older, she began to wish that Naruto and Sasuke had done the same, because they both happened to get irritatingly loose-lipped when drunk.
"You know what your problem is, Sakura-chan," Naruto drawled after only his fifth sip. "You get these weird fantasies in your head, right? You fix your sights on some unattainable guy and pretend they're perfect. You need to forget about assholes like that and just stick to normal people."
"What do you mean by normal?" she asked wearily. She wasn't happy. The bar was sticky beneath her hands, the air was filled with cigarette smog, and the temperature was stifling enough to mix with the overly sweet stench of alcohol in a way that made her feel nauseous. Never in her life had she wished dearly to be back home in her bed.
Apart from that time she'd been stuck in Mastura's bed.
Sakura nearly wretched for the hell of it.
"Normal!" Naruto declared. "You know, like, someone your own age with the same interests hobbies and shit."
Sakura remained stonily silent, partly because she feared she would actually throw up if she opened her mouth.
"Crushing on your teacher is just weird, you know?"
"Ino crushes on him," she pointed out, massaging her temples.
"Ino isn't his student," Sasuke reminded her, eyes closed. "And even then it's still weird."
Speak of the devil, Ino appeared at Sakura's shoulder. "Who's weird? Are you people talking about me again? Really, it's too much. You'll make my ears turn red."
Ino had arrived with Shikamaru and Temari, and for once Sakura was glad she was there. It meant that there was now something to distract Naruto and Sasuke for berating her over her 'crush', if you could even call it something as belittling as that now.
Sakura mostly stayed away from engaging in conversation. She sat and sipped her water and half-heartedly listened to Naruto relaying an anecdote that had everyone chuckling, and was very aware that it was simply no fun being depressed. She hadn't felt like this since Naruto and Sasuke had both left the village and she'd found herself unable to enjoy the company of her other friends, because the two people she wanted to see most simply were not there. She looked over at an empty stool to Sasuke's right and longed for Kakashi to be sitting in it. Just to be able to see him and hear his voice and feel his presence like nothing at all had gone bad between them.
"What's the matter?" Ino said, nudging Sakura. "I know you're dull, but you're not usually this boring. Have some of my drink."
Before Sakura could stop her, Ino had pushed her glass to Sakura's lips and made her inadvertently choke down a sloppy mouthful, banging the glass against her teeth. "Ino!" she wheezed. "How can you drink that? It tastes like bleach!"
"Acquired taste, clearly," Ino said, amused. "Now what's the matter, you can tell me."
"No I can't," Sakura muttered resentfully. "I know what you're like. I could tell you something now and by the time I got up the next morning, only the people living under rocks wouldn't know what I'd told you."
"Aw, Forehead, you know I'm good for it. Promise!" Ino grinned and held up her hand with her thumb pinning down her little finger. Sakura stared at her. It was their promise salute that they'd made up as kids when they'd still been best friends. And to this very day, Ino had never gone back on a promise salute, and Sakura felt oddly touched to see it again after so long.
"Alright," Sakura conceded, "but only because you're the only person who would know what to do."
Despite her confused look, she grabbed Ino's arm and dragged her further down the bar and away from the others. She didn't want anyone else listening in to their conversation. Ino regarded her with mild curiosity as Sakura drummed her fingers anxiously on the sticky bar top.
"You know this crush you have on Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura began tactfully, but was interrupted by Ino before she could continue.
"Oh, that again." Ino looked annoyed. "This is the second time you've brought it up. Look, I'm not going after him so you can just drop your over-protective act and pull yourself together."
Sakura ignored her on the basis that Ino didn't really understand. "Well, hypothetically speaking, how would you feel if Kakashi-sensei was interested in you?"
Ino's face smoothed out into an expression of shock. "Eh?" Then she looked uncertain. "Are you saying Kakashi is interested in me?" she whispered.
"No," Sakura said quickly. "That's not the case. I'm just wondering, since you like him, what would you do if he liked you back?"
The confusion on Ino's face had her wrinkling her nose for a few moments. Then suddenly realization dawned and she'd sobered. She looked at Sakura quite seriously, and for once there wasn't a trace of smugness or mocking in her tone. "Oh," she said, evidently taken aback. "You like him, don't you? And what… he likes you back?" Then a slightly more friendly sneer returned. "Jeez, he must be desperate. So what's the problem?"
"Some things happened between us," Sakura told her slowly, and somewhat reluctantly as she felt the emotion rise within her in the form of another lump in the throat. "And he said that he 'can't'. And… now I-I don't know what to do. He won't talk to me, he'll barely even look at me or acknowledge me, and it's so confusing and I don't know how to talk to him and I don't know what to do. That's why I was asking you. What would you do?"
Ino pulled a face. "What did he mean 'can't' exactly?"
Sakura shrugged. "He just said he 'can't'. He 'really can't'," she sighed. "I think he meant he can't have a relationship with me."
"Then he's not interested," Ino said bluntly.
"He is."
"Oh yeah? Prove it."
Sakura bit her lip. "When he said it, he was lying on top of me and he had a… you know… down there." Sakura flapped her hands to supplement the word she didn't really want to say.
Ino gasped. "No way!" she hissed. "Seriously? How big would you say it was?"
"I-I don't think that's-"
"In cubic inches."
"Ino!"
"Sorry, sorry," Ino murmured, looking disappointed. "So, he clearly likes you and finds you attractive. But he doesn't want to be with you? Maybe… he feels restrained by your respective ranks and position? I mean, he's your teacher. The obvious answer is that your current relationship is not one he feels he can violate."
That was the obvious answer. Sakura had just needed to hear it from someone else. She sighed and rubbed her face. "Problem is, we don't have a current relationship. After what happened, it's all gone bad between us and I don't think we can ever be the same way with each other ever again," she said miserably. "I feel like I've lost a friend."
"In that case, you're in limbo. You can't go back, so your only other choice is to stay where you are and keep being unhappy or move on and take a chance," Ino pointed out. "I suppose that has a lot of potential to go wrong, but it's better to take that risk than let things remain bad and awkward between you for the rest of your lives."
Sakura shook her head. "I don't know how to do that. And it's not what Kakashi wants."
Ino blew a raspberry. "Sakura, just because he's older than you, doesn't mean he knows better. Teachers don't have all the answers to everything. And I think you'll find that a thirty year old man can be just as confused and lost as a seventeen year old girl when it comes to romance. He's a man for crying out loud. You can't expect too much of him. Here; drinky, drinky!"
Sakura gratefully took Ino's drink and downed half the glass without noticing it still tasted like bleach.
"But you know," Ino told her musingly, "You're probably better off getting over it and finding a normal guy."
There was the word normal again…
"Suna's an untapped resource, Forehead!" Ino said gleefully. "There's plenty of handsome boys around this place with sexy Suna accents! And you'd have no trouble getting a date because to them you're an exotic novelty. Guys always like foreign chicks."
Sakura nodded. "You're right."
"Of course I am!" Ino looked pleased. "I mean, we could start now. There's a really cute guy behind you eyeing up the back of your head, so-"
"No, not about that," Sakura said, waving her off. "I meant you're right about Kakashi. We can't go back so we have to keep trying to go forward or at least get some sort of closure. Now if you'll excuse me, I must be getting back to the hotel to get some sleep. I have to get up early tomorrow and prepare to kill all the people Sasuke heals."
Ino gave her pitying look. "Sakura… I think you're a little drunk."
"Then the sooner I get back the better," Sakura handed back Ino's drink and stood up. There was a vague feeling of light-headedness, but it wasn't particularly severe. She only felt slightly warmer and happier than before and not nearly as sozzled as Naruto and Sasuke were beginning to look. "I'll see you tomorrow, Ino."
"Remember what I said," Ino warned.
Something about… guys digging foreign chicks? "Whatever," Sakura gave her shoulder a friendly pat and walked out of the bar to head home.
Walking past the various active cafés and restaurants lit only by natural burning streetlamps, Sakura realized just how different Suna was from Konoha. The uniforms were different for a start, but a lot of people were also warmly dressed as if they couldn't feel the desert heat at all. It set Sakura quite obviously apart from them as she, like most people from another village, had stuck to wearing as very little as possible. This was probably the reason why so many men realized she was from Konoha and approached her.
"Want to join us for a drink?" some men would call out to her.
Sakura would wave back politely. "No thanks. Going home."
It could have been the fact that she was wearing a very short skirt though.
Everyone in Suna seemed to have a tan as well. Well, everyone except that pale-haired guy in the green vest over there. Sakura did a double-take and realized she was looking at a Konoha vest, and the person wearing it was none other than her Hatake Kakashi. Sakura came to a stop.
He hadn't seen her. He was sitting at the bar of a café that was similar to Ichiraku with his back to the street. A pen bobbed in his hand, writing something, and a tall glass and bottle was stationed next to his hand. He was completely unsuspecting and the stool to his left was empty.
It was possibly the effect of Ino's words or Ino's drink (or maybe both) that made her walk towards him. Suddenly he didn't seem quite so scary to face. The fear of the unknown was gone.
When she slipped onto the stool, Kakashi's pen paused against the report he was writing. Clearly he didn't even need to look up to recognize her. Whether it was her scent or her manner of movement or something else entirely that gave her away, Sakura didn't know. But she felt in inward tug of smugness at the level of tenseness he suddenly displayed. She could see he was wanted to leave, but even that was a bit too blatant for the Copy Ninja. Nonchalantly walking out of a room when she entered was one thing, but getting up and paying without a word when she sat down next to him was something else. Especially when he was clearly in the middle of something.
"You could say you were saving the seat for someone else," she told him. "I might believe you. Or perhaps you've just remembered you left your iron on at home and must rush back to Konoha?"
He straightened in his seat and looked at her. "Good evening, Sakura," he said, with a hint of a smile about his eyes. But it was perfunctory and meaningless; the kind you'd give to your dentist.
And what was more, as he stopped writing he moved his hand to cover his work. It was customary to shield reports from the eyes of others when in public, but it wasn't something Sakura did around trusted friends. Altogether it made her feel snubbed and unwanted, as if she was only interrupting him. And all that from a simple move of his hand?
More courage needed!
Sakura snagged Kakashi's bottle of drink and took a swig without asking. Almost immediately she regretted it and had to fight down the urge to spray everyone on the other side of the counter. "Urgh – that's worse than what Ino drinks!" she cried, coughing and spluttering.
"Shochu," Kakashi said blandly, taking back the bottle and moving it out of reach. "You're not really supposed to drink it straight out of the bottle like that. Better to mix it with water first." He made a motion as if to pat her back, but then seemed to think better of it. Sakura didn't miss it though.
Once she could breathe again, she wiped her mouth and gave him a sideways look. "Kakashi-sensei, I've been thinking…"
"Easy now."
She stared at his masked profile for a long moment, filtering out the noise of conversation and music around them. Only he mattered to her. "Are you angry at me?" she asked softly.
She expected him to shake his head and say 'no' whether or not it was the truth, but instead he just inhaled deeply and looked at her as if bored. "Why? Are you angry at me?"
Sakura looked down at the bar. "A little bit. There's this thing in my chest, and whenever I think about you it burns. And sometimes it feels good and sometimes it just hurts. It always feels stronger the closer I am to you. But… I don't know if it's hate or something else."
"Could be a cyst."
"It's not a cyst!" she snapped. "It's love, or something stupid like that."
"Mm," Kakashi sighed to himself. "Frankly you'd be better off if it was a cyst."
Sakura tapped her fingers on the bar and rested her chin in her palm morosely. "That was my way of telling you that I think I love you, by the way."
"Yeah," Kakashi said tiredly. "I know."
This really wasn't how it went on the romance novels. Normally love professions took place over moonlit rendezvous, or after a life-and-death situation, and occasionally after a bout of incredible sex. They didn't happen like this. She could just as easily have told him she'd forgotten to bring her toothbrush and his reaction probably would have been just as enthusiastic.
Feeling grumpy and depressed, Sakura's hand shimmied towards Kakashi's glass of Shochu and ice. He plucked it out of her grasp and pulled his mark to his chin to take a sip. "Not for you," he said, placing it down out of reach. "Buy your own."
"Can't. Not old enough here."
An intriguing cringe crossed his face at her comment. It was brief, and only caused a slight impression beneath his eyes, but it was there. She might have missed it had his mask been up, and suddenly it was one of those rare occasions where she could read his thoughts.
"My age makes you uncomfortable?" she murmured. She had suspected as much at the back of her mind, she had just been hoping that perhaps she was wrong. He often referred to her as 'too young to understand' things at times. It seemed to add up.
Kakashi gave another heavy sigh and began rolling up his report. He was going to walk away again. "Let's not talk about this, Sakura."
"No, let's," she insisted. "Is the reason why you don't want to be with me because I'm too young? Because I'm your stu-"
"Stop it," he said shortly, turning to face her abruptly. "You don't really want anything from me, so let's just forget it. It's not debatable. Nothing can ever happen and I won't let you make such a mistake."
He assumed a hell of a lot for someone who like to look underneath the underneath. There he went, undermining her feelings again and treating her like a child who didn't know what she wanted. Well, she wasn't sure she wanted a relationship with Kakashi to be honest. At least not if she was going to have to put up with these kinds of remarks all the time. He knew nothing of what lay in her heart. It may be a mistake, but it was Sakura's to make if she so wished.
She scrutinized the hard lines of jaw as he picked up his drink with the intent to finish it in a few gulps. Clearly he was enough of a tightwad to finish what he'd paid for before storming out of the conversation. But tightwad or not, he was undeniably good-looking and her insides felt like complete jelly for watching him close his eyes, tilt his head up and swallow that way. She felt like a voyeuristic pervert for looking at him like that.
Not for the first time, the urge to kiss him rose again. Normally this urge was quashed by common sense and fear of rejection. However, in the presence of alcohol, these factors were strangely absent.
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. "Kiss me."
Kakashi choked. He was forced to put down his half-empty glass and hold a sleeve to his nose as his drink had gone full circle around his nasal passages. Eventually he lowered his sleeve and carefully sniffed. "I'm not going to kiss you, Sakura," he said shortly, but he looked unsettled.
"Well… since you're pretty much my teacher and people always refer to me as your student," she said slowly, "I guess it would be crossing some sort of line if you kissed me." Despite the fact that he'd already done so.
Kakashi said nothing. He watched her impassively as she met his gaze earnestly.
"Please kiss me," she said, aware she was half and octave aware from a whine. "I won't tell anyone. There's no one here we know and I'm only asking for one."
"That's one too many," he said, glancing around as if to check for familiar faces.
Sakura scowled at him. "I know you want to kiss me too."
Again he said nothing. She had a feeling it was because to disagree would be to lie, and to agree would only weaken his position. She could see him struggling to find the words he wanted.
"Just one," she said, holding up a finger for emphasis. "Just one kiss, sensei."
He looked away from her.
Belatedly she corrected herself. "Kakashi."
She reached out to lay her hand over hers, only for him to pull it out of her reach. It hurt, but then she was used to getting hurt by all sorts of people so she tried not to let it show on her face. Even so, it must have shown, because a pang of regret pinched Kakashi's brow and he lifted that same hand he'd withdrawn to tuck a stray pink lock behind her ear. He cupped her head; his hand large enough to span across her neck to both curl his fingers around her nape and rest his thumb on her jaw. Sakura's heart leapt into her throat as she saw a familiar expression dawn on his face – the same one she'd seen in the forest after he'd tried to force-feed her a mushroom. The same distant hunger was there, as if the only thing that mattered in the entire universe at that moment was Sakura.
Then with a light tug, he pulled her forward and leant in to kiss her… on the corner of her mouth.
Sakura was too surprised to react. She didn't know what to make of this kind of kiss. She'd expected one full on the lips, with the same passion and sensuality he'd shown her before in Matsura's hideout. But it wasn't a meaningless peck on the cheek either. It was too long and lingering to be as platonic as that.
It was a kiss that contained a strange mixture of innocence and intimacy that she'd never felt before. Instantly Sakura felt guilty for demanding it in the first place. She could feel his hand shaking and both taste and smell the alcohol on his breath. Kakashi was a wreck, and she had no right to play with him just to sate her naïve curiosity.
Slowly he pulled back, removing his hand from where it was now cupping her cheek to grip his glass. She noticed his knuckles turn white as she touched the place he'd kissed her wonderingly.
"Go back to your room," he rasped, his voice having broken into a hoarse kind of whisper. "And lock your door."
She was about to ask why, but then she quickly understood and her insides flushed cold in shock. "Oh…" she breathed, sliding off the stool and onto her feet. Now she didn't know what to say. 'Goodbye' just seemed too empty. So instead she whispered. "Thank you… and I'm sorry. I won't bother you again."
She walked away calmly, but inside she was fleeing. She had no memory of what happened between then and the time she arrived before the door of her hotel room; the journey was just a blur. The moment Sakura closed the door behind her, she locked it and then went to sit on her bed.
Then she got up and unlocked it.
Ten minutes later after a quick shower and a swift change into her nightshirt, she went back and locked it again. The next half hour was spent under her covers, agonizing over whether she'd made the right decision. But before she could change her mind, the warmth of the bed and the intoxication of the alcohol had lulled her to sleep. And straight into a nightmare.
She hadn't had one for a while, though perhaps it was the combination of a strange bed and am unsteady mind that brought the unpleasant memories rushing back.
Matsura was there, pinning her to the bed, his mere presence larger than anything she could imagine and pressing down on her spirit so hard she could almost feel herself suffocating. And no matter how much she cried and begged and screamed, she could not find the strength to fight him off. He violated her with his hands, all the while muttering lewd and hurtful things in her ear with his thick tongue.
"He doesn't want you now that I've had you. You'll always be mine. I'll forever be your first."
Kakashi was there, but he either couldn't hear her screaming for him or was just ignoring her. He was in a distant place, reading his book, oblivious and indifferent to her distress and pain.
She woke up crying and thrashing against the covers, too delirious and upset to care that it was only a dream. It had seemed almost real, which was enough to have her chewing her pillow as she sobbed into it.
When the door handle suddenly rattled, Sakura's heart stopped and she stilled. She was certain it was Matsura. There was a shadow cast over the gap of light beneath the door, and she watched it carefully until it suddenly moved away.
Then she realized.
Kakashi!
Sakura leapt out of bed and ran to the door. She fumbled with the lock with shaking hands before yanking it wide open, ready to call him back. If there was any one person she needed at that moment it was him.
But all she saw was Naruto and Sasuke with an arm flung around each other in what was probably the only thing keeping them upright. They'd turned when her door opened and apologized profusely in very slurred voices.
"Sorry, sorry!" Naruto whispered loudly. "We couldn't remember which one was our room. Stupid curfew..."
Sakura didn't care. She left them alone and went back inside to lock the door again. she was still shaking in the wake of her dream as she curled up in bed for the second time. The last time she'd had a nightmare so severe, she had had Kakashi sleeping next to her to make her feel safe. Right then she had no one.
But just the memory of his most recent kiss made her relax a little. She touched the corner of her mouth again and closed her eyes, imaging the spot was still moist with the taste of his lips.
It was this and only this that allowed her any more sleep that night.
TBC
A/N: If you reviewed the previous chapter 13, you probably won't be able to review this one. T.T If you want to leave one, you may have to go back to a chapter you haven't reviewed and leave one there. But I'm also open to PMs since I'm anxious to know people's take on the revision.