To Be or Not to Be
Let me know that I've done wrong
When I've known this all along
You're the only one that needs to know
Don't tell anyone or you'll just be another regret.....
Kakashi spends the next almost an hour threatening the LEGENDARY SANNIN JIRAIYA. Demanding almost, in the quiet brooding manner that a man like Kakashi can only demand, that the old man keep his mouth closed on what he saw. On us, me pressed against the wall groping to connect our heartbeats with my hands, and Kakashi's driven finger tips, tracing tender routes and pit stops along the parts of me that long for parts of him on a daily basis.
I can't get close enough to make out what they're saying. And I hang back reluctant willing to just be there and not be snapped up in the chaos. I stand there listless, my thoughts drumming restless beats against my skull bones; my arms wrapped around my middle as if I've somehow gotten better at holding my body in, in one complete mass of flesh over the past couple of minutes.
Jiraiya and Kakashi talk, their heads bowed like two old men over checkers. They squat down in the dirt, relaxed. Kakashi slumps back on his elbows and stretches out his long legs. There's the pretense of laziness billowing overhead like a weed cloud, but I can hear the darkness in their voices. The bitter stabs of periods, the sarcastic turns of commas, and the jagged way their sentences joust against one anothers like a skeleton struggling to fight it's way out of it's skin. I wonder what's going to happen. What's going to happen to me?
The girl Jiraiya brought with him stands beside him, staring down at the two of them, but when I look her eyes are suddenly on me. I smell her sweet in the air. Can tell by the wrinkle in her nose that she is smelling me too. And for a moment we stand there eyeing each other, the hairs on the back of our necks rising up like the hackles of two jungle cats circling one another for territory, all smooth black bodies and solid muscle. When she looks away from me she looks back into Kakashi's face, enraptured. And in my mind's eye I can see what she sees. The planes of his eyes, and the smooth angles of his bones and the gentle pink curves of his lips, and the definitive chin. She looks back up at me and the kitten in her eyes is ferocious and knowing when she licks her lips. Despite myself I feel a sting of jealousy scrape down my back like an idle claw. And almost as a reflex I step forward and link my arm in Kakashi's as the two men stand and move away from each other. She is too pretty.
Without another word, Jiraiya turns to go. Whatever needs to be said has been said. Questions hang in the air for me to ask, but I'm too afraid to grab them and rein them in, now. May'be later when there's not this stilled vortex of chaos swirling around me. May'be later when I find my head under the sink in Asuma's apartment or somewhere else where it is easy to think. To think about what might...
As they go, Jiraiya holding tight to the girls' brown arm, she looks back and her eyes filter me out and run straight for Kakashi. I want him to kiss me right then and there. Right on the open mouth. In front of her darling face. And her darling lips. And her darling breasts that are coming out of their places in her shirt. But he won't. He won't do anything, he's too busy watching them leave. And I can't read his expression which as I'm learning is never good.
When they've finally completely gone, Kakashi turns and walks past me, brows knit like a storm cloud over his features. He sits down in the gravel and rests his hands underneath his temples. The air grows thick with silence between us, and a breeze blows through picking up debris and my heart rate along with it. I just might explode.
Kakashi lifts his head and swears, his head back, swaying a little. His eyes look blank and far away in the spaces where sake red has not filled them in. As if he is searching for something in the crevices of the sky. Something breathy and tangible. He swears again and this time bangs his fist on the wall behind him. I think I hear something dull. A popping or crunching sound. And in the instant that he takes his hand away from the brick I see his knuckles alive with blood.
"Kakashi!"I shout, unable to hide my emotion. I get to him just as he's raising his fist again and pry his hand to my chest, where the stubborn fingers remain a fist like an iron necklace between my breasts. His skin is sticky and wet with blood. And the blood is so red and so sticky on my own skin that it might not be blood at all. It might be candy or something else. Less sinister. If this was not our reality.
His hands shake in mine. I can visibly see the cracks sliding up through his body threatening to demolish him into a pile of useless bone and splinter. Even when he smiles just a little and says "Sorry, I got a little ahead of myself there." Even when I smell the sake on the flak of his jacket and wonder if he even drank before We got going. Before this.
"It's okay." I say. And I thread my fingers in his hair, because I can feel us both unraveling. He wraps his arms around me to hold us both together and we sit. Listening to each other's heartbeat making sure that the other is alive and well. For now. Because "Anko." Kakashi murmurs into my shirt. And Asuma, I think. What would Asuma do if he knew? Would he kill me?
"Anko." Kakashi keeps saying. His eyes are taking on that far away look again. And I can tell that I will lose him to the ghosts of deaths yet to come if I don't say something now. So I force the words to speak even though my mouths feels hollow and empty. "It's okay, baby." And the words come out before I even know what I'm saying. His eyes lock on mine. And we have entered into something new and unfamiliar here. Something dangerous with that word. Baby.
And yet it seems like it was made for now. For this exact moment, and for him and him only. And whatever the word even means really I wouldn't have meant it as much if I had said it to anyone else. Kakashi watches my face and the way this new thing has changed it, I suppose. His lips move and he mouths the word himself, tasting the ebb and flow of it. Then he reaches for my neck and pulls me down, smiling into his lips pressed into an identical shape and pressing them against mine. And I might have believed in the magic of it all.
Except the next day we both get called into Lady Tsunade's office.
Hehehe, so there you have it. Fooled you didn't I? This chapter was nothing but a little twitter to transition back into Kurenai's POV and to build the suspense UP UP UP! So what's gonna happen next folks any guesses? Has Jiraiya informed the Hokage? Will Kakashi retaliate? Have Asuma and Anko found out? What will they do? WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?! Wellllll, you'll just have to find out in the next chapter. ^.^
