Catching Up – Chapter 5

Kurai-Hisaki

I just finished a story/diary for Final Fantasy VII – Cloud x Tifa. It's called Unspoken. It's from Tifa's POV, and the story is a mix of FF and real life situations that has happened to me. It was half of my life through Tifa's eyes, and I thought it was pretty interesting. It's a mix of real/fake situations, and it's blended so you don't really know which is which.

Please do check it out and give me some feedback if you have time!

Anyways, here's the next chapter – enjoy!

The sun shone through the clouds on Sakura's face. She opened her eyes to a very hazy surrounding – an effect due to the sun.

Another crappy day… looks very gloomy outside; maybe it's going to rain…

She sat staring at the window for a while, before a though hit her.

How did I get home? I was sure when I fell asleep it was outside on the grass in front of the memorial stone…

Did someone carry me home?! Who was it?! How did they know that I slept on the couch?

Feeling a bit dizzy and in a panic she jumped up from the couch and gave herself a huge cut her shin on the edge of her coffee table.

"OH, F-"

"What happened?"

A calm, familiar face peeked around the frame of her bedroom door. Scaring the crap out of Sakura, she fell butt first on the carpet.

Damn, another embarrassing moment…

"WHAT ARE YOU … What are you doing here? Why were you in my room?"

"Bringing you breakfast."

Kakashi held up a paper bag as he walked over to her kitchen table and placed the bag on it. Making his way to Sakura, he bent down and picked her up.

"And you know as well as I do that I don't use the door much."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I'm not in a life or death situation, I can walk you know…"

Kakashi ignored her. Placing her on the nearest chair, he went to her bathroom, took out some bandages that he had discovered the night before from her cabinet and kneeled in front of Sakura. Kakashi looked up at her while bandaging. Sakura's hair was disheveled as she just woke up, her dress was wrinkled, and it was currently resting on top of her thighs as he pushed it up to wrap her wounds. Her eyes were half closed as she looked at her wound.

God, why are you doing this to me… she looks like something from the Icha Icha movies… At least her dress covered everything… Why does she look a bit pale… and turning paler by the second…?

"OH MY GOD!"

Sakura jumped up and her chair fell backwards with the momentum. Kakashi's eyes snapped to her face – guilty of his thoughts and afraid that he had been caught staring at her again.

"You brought me home yesterday night, didn't you?!"

Kakashi nodded while wondering what he did wrong to make her react this way. She was frantic. Sakura suddenly knelt in front of him with her head lowered to the floor – all the while, bleeding on her carpet.

She begged him, "Please Please, don't tell anyone what you saw yesterday. Please don't tell anyone where I was."

Kakashi wondered why she was so negative about this, but she continued and he understood. She knew that Kakashi was very observant when he needed to be, she had no doubts of what he had seen her doing and with whom.

"No one knows about this except for shishou, please don't say anything, you weren't suppose to know. I thought you were at the bar for the countdown, so I slipped out hoping that you didn't notice… but I guess you did huh… I'm sorry; I didn't realize that you were following me. I didn't want anyone to treat me differently. Please don't pity me either, I can handle this on my own, and …"

"Sakura, you're rambling. I understand. Don't worry."

And Kakashi did understand. He understood why she didn't want anyone to know. He understood why no one told him about Sakura's change in personality, why no one acted any differently except for her. No one knew – so this was why he was never informed about this from Naruto and Sasuke. It wasn't because he wasn't around enough; it was because no one knew. He found out something he wasn't supposed to, and he just complicated his life by needing to keep someone else's secret.

Not that he minded.

He felt like he had the obligation to look after Sakura anyways.

In a gentle and calm voice he spoke to her. "Sakura, sit up and let me finish dressing the wound, it's deeper than you think."

Sakura slowly rose to pick up her chair and to sit down again. Kakashi noticed that she was biting her lips the whole way.

"You might want to stop biting your lips that way; you don't want to know how I cure bleeding lips."

Kakashi gave her a smile and was rewarded with a small smile of her own.

"Pervert."

Kakashi chuckled.

"So where did you stay the whole night? You weren't in my bedroom while I was on the couch were you?"

He spoke while keeping his usual sleepy, calm face. "Of course I kept the nice bed to myself… It smelled nice and was soft and…" After being hit on the shoulder lightly, he continued more seriously, "actually, I felt that it was inappropriate for me to stay over without your permission, so I stayed outside your window, on your balcony - which isn't much of your property anyways since everyone always hops on it while going to places. I went to grab breakfast this morning, and reached the window when you cut your leg open."

Sakura's mouth dropped opened.

"It's cold outside! I know you sleep outside all the time, but I still can't believe you, you are so weird! My house was within arms reach. You know that I'd welcome you anytime! If you got sick, I'm the one who'd get stuck healing you, you know?"

"I know."

Kakashi's baritone laugh made its way to Sakura's ears. She felt warm inside and a bit dizzier than this morning.

He stayed outside the whole night… who would have thought that he would be a gentleman? The lazy, perverted copy ninja, a gentleman… huh…

The thought made her stifle a laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"You… being concerned about other people's property and feelings."

"I'm a sensitive guy…"

Her laugh made its way out of her mouth.

"I suppose that makes sense, you don't like other people invading your privacy. I remember all those times trying to find out what's under that mask or what's in your orange book when we were young… Ah, fun times…"

Kakashi suddenly became serious and leaned a couple centimetres away from Sakura's face.

He breathed out his sentence to her in a low and husky voice.

"Would you still like to see what's under the mask?"

Sakura blushed and became very flustered with him being so close. From her distance, she could tell that he had lines on the corner of his eyes that was created by smiling throughout his life. His eyelashes were a decent length that outlined his eyes perfectly. She could see that he had a strong jaw-line from the outline of his mask and a tall nose that was just right for his face. She felt like she couldn't breathe. She didn't even realize that she never answered his questions before she fell out of her chair.

A lone onyx eye peered down at her as Kakashi expressed amusement and laughed.

Wiggling the bag of breakfast up above her face, the copy ninja teased her.

"Breakfast?"

"I hate you."

"Now, now, don't be bitter just because you are embarrassed."

"I am not bitter or embarrassed! Shut up!"

Kakashi just laughed some more at her without helping her up. Grabbing the nearest chair, he sat himself down and started to eat. Sakura sat up with her head in between her hands.

Ugh… Dizzy… What the hell…

As soon as the young kunoichi stood, she fell forward. Being the quick ninja that Kakashi was, he caught her well before she hit the floor.

With a very concerned expression, he looked at her and asked, "What's wrong?"

Sakura replied, "I'm not sure… I think I might be sick…" then she started to talk half to herself, "This is so strange… I haven't been sick in the longest time… I can't even remember the last time I was sick, I'm always at the hospital yet I was always fine. Why am I sick now?"

"Probably because you slept outside with nothing but a thin dress on. You seemed pretty out of it last night too, I'm guessing you need a break from work. Take a break, you're exhausted."

Sakura spoke while trying to make her way to the couch. She couldn't walk straight, so Kakashi carried her until she reached the couch. "I'm fine. I'll be as good as new tomorrow. Who are you to tell me to take a break anyways? You never take one yourself."

"I'll take one."

"Why?"

"To look after you, because obviously you can't look after yourself. You are going to start by sleeping on the bed, and not the couch."

The once fiery woman, opened her mouth to argue, only to close it again, then she ran to the bathroom and curled herself around the toilet.

Kakashi simply said, "Who just said a couple seconds ago that they were fine?"

He was rewarded with a deadly glare.

"Umm… Sakura, I think you have a fever."

"No shit."

He wanted to reply with 'Where did you pick up that type of language from' but decided against it as he noticed that she was obviously in a worse mood than this morning and last night. Kakashi held her hair up while she threw up. He couldn't remember the last time that he took care of someone. When was the last time he touched such soft hair? Checking her forehead with his hand, it was confirmed that the famous medic, Haruno Sakura, was sick.

When she was done, Kakashi grabbed a cup that was hanging around the sink, filled it up with water, and gave it to Sakura to rinse her mouth. Leaving Sakura alone for a while, he went to her bedroom to clean a space for her to sleep in. Being neat for once, he piled her books and scrolls on a nearby desk while making note of what on the bed ended up where on the desk.

Sakura sluggishly walked out of the washroom. Without looking at Kakashi, she muttered a 'thank-you' then fell face first onto her pillow. She was out like a light.

Pulling blankets over her, he decided that he'll go to the Hokage's later on to tell her that he needed a break to look after his former student. He was sure that Tsunade will understand, provided that she was the other person that knew about Sakura's situation. Planning out the rest of his schedule for the day, he also decided to stop by his most hated place in the world, the hospital, to pick up some medicine for Sakura. After all this was probably the one place where he could get expensive medicine for free – especially since he was a well known shinobi and the medicine was for a well known head medic.

Maybe a light lunch and dinner wouldn't hurt much either… I suppose I'll stop by Tsunade's then the hospital, come back to check on Sakura, and then hop out again to bring some lunch back… This place needs a bit of cleaning too… I can do that after lunch… hmm wonder when she'll wake up… I'm guessing she'll want a bit of company after… maybe over dinner…

Being dazed and too caught up in his thoughts, Kakashi did not realize that his feet were already carrying him to Tsunade's.

And thus, a routine had been set for the next couple of days.

So… a funny thing happened to me today, I just have to do a blurb about it.

I was doing a photo shoot in a lab, and was pretending to put chemicals into a flask. Then another model was facing me and what he was supposed to do was to pretend that he was talking to me or was describing something to me. I guess he misunderstood the photographer, because he actually started talking to me and reading the labels on the chemical jars to me. He just kept reading the warnings and ingredients to me. Then he picked up this white bottle (I think it was Sodium Potassium Phosphate or something, not sure…), he stuck his finger in it then ate some of it. I'm just like staring at him like he had 2 heads.Then he reads the bottle again, and he's like "Oh, there's lead in here."
I'm like *O_O… "Isn't that poisonous?"
He's like "Yeah, but I should be fine."
I'm just thinking… who the hell does that?! I wouldn't put my hand anywhere near my mouth after being in a chemistry lab. Hope he doesn't die.
But yeah, that's my little morning one day at work…

Please give me some feedback about the chapter, any mistakes?

Thanks!