Catching Up – Chapter 6
Kurai-Hisaki
Due to the request of a friend, I have started writing an Inuyasha story. So for all you Inuyasha fans/lovers out there; please check it out! It's called Daybreak. It's also a change from the regular stories that I write, as it is written in first person.
Now…on with the story – some good KakaSaku bonding moments!
"HEY! I was watching that!"
"Go to bed and get some rest."
"No! Are you kidding me? It's 9 pm! I want to watch some TV before I sleep."
"You're not going to get any better by not resting."
"Who are you to tell me what to do? You're not my dad!"
Kakashi glanced at her; then a period of awkward silence followed. Sakura glared at him.
"I'm fine! Besides, I am resting… on the couch." Sakura ended that with a smile and turned her attention back to the TV.
With a sigh, Kakashi gave in and flopped on the couch beside her.
Sakura started speaking again after a short while, with her attention still on the screen. "You know what? He reminds me of you."
"Who?" Kakashi asked quickly.
"Wolx."
Kakashi let a silent sigh of relief out, as Sakura pointed her fingers at the screen and continued her sentence. " Not just the hair, but the eyes and the attitude and the scar. He just reminds me a lot of you. When you weren't here, I was watching this earlier and that thought just popped into my head."
"His attitude is horrible, are you saying that I have a bad attitude? Hey, who's she?" Kakashi looked bored while pointing to a blue haired girl on that same screen.
"No way! I think Wolx is the coolest character in the show! I love him!"
Kakashi looked at her briefly, but Sakura kept talking, "I think he's missing an important aspect though… he's missing the bright orange book… sure, he was a bit evil and a bit too serious sometimes, but who doesn't love a cool villain who helps the heroes. Besides, you can tell inside he's a very caring guy - and that's Ren. She doesn't talk much, but she's cute eh? So I see the silent type gets your attention!" With eyes still fixed on the screen, Sakura laughed at Kakashi. Kakashi's expression fell a bit and he didn't respond.
Sakura continued to talk, more or less to herself. "Good choice, I like her too, but Kuea is definitely cooler for the girl characters. She's pretty hyper and cute… hmm… Rowen isn't too bad either… perfect gentleman…"
Noticing something was wrong, Sakura turned her eyes on Kakashi's face, but Kakashi's eye crinkle was back and his usual, carefree face was there. Sakura shrugged it off and went back to watching her show until she got tired. For some weird reason, Sakura was dozing off a lot more easily these past few days.
Kakashi knew his day was coming to an end when he smelt a faint scent of shampoo and felt something rest gently on the side of his arm. He let his gaze drop and found that Sakura had fallen asleep on his shoulder.
I could get use to this…
After tucking her in once again - thus concludes another day for our famous Copy Ninja.
"Should you be walking around?"
Sakura spun her head around to see that her ex-sensei was propped against the doorframe to her kitchen.
"Are you sure you're even well enough to cook? That's not salt, and your eggs are starting to burn."
Sakura blushed a nice shade of red before grumbling a 'shut up' to him.
"Need any help?"
Reaching for her toast from the toaster while flipping the eggs, Sakura replied, "No, I'm fine and absolutely capable of cooking my own breakfast. But you can help me set up the table and make some tea."
"Sure."
Knowing exactly where the tea was, Kakashi reached over Sakura's head to get the tea. During the last couple days where he was cleaning, he had decided that putting some of the stuff that was originally on the counter, into the cupboards had been a good idea. It made the place cleaner and neat looking. He was glad he made that decision.
Sakura's small frame fit perfectly against Kakashi's.
He felt that Sakura jumped a little, then relaxed.
No one had ever fit so well between his arms before, but as much as he would have liked to have stayed in that position, he moved quickly to set up the table and to make the tea.
"A bit of milk with 2 sugars please."
"I know."
"How'd you know?"
"I just do."
Hearing Kakashi's response, Sakura smiled a bit. After making breakfast for the both of them, they started a comfortable conversation. Sakura had learned that it only took Kakashi seconds to finish his food, and therefore she never asked him about his mask anymore. She would glance down to eat her own food, and he'd be done. After all, the last time she asked, she almost died from a lack of air. She would have liked to think that, that incident made her illness hit her with full force a little faster that morning than she would have liked.
Sakura thought briefly, I think it also killed some of my brain cells in the process…
She quickly snapped out of her thoughts as she heard Kakashi's smooth voice.
"Feeling better today?"
"I guess so…"
"Want to head out for a bit?"
"What did you have in mind?"
"Nothing in particular, whatever you feel like doing."
Sakura sat in silence for a while, poking at her food until she responded with a smile, "I know exactly how I'd like to spend this afternoon."
All Kakashi could do was sit there with an eyebrow raised.
The last week or two had been busy for Kakashi. Sakura didn't get better in a day like she said, and Kakashi ended up taking care of her for longer than he had expected. Apparently it had been more than just a fever. According to the medics, she should be fine after eating the proper medicine that they had provided for her, but it seemed to Kakashi that Sakura was getting more tired as the days went by. However, he decided to listen to the medics and to respect Sakura's wishes when she said that she wanted to stay at home.
Hopping around Sakura's apartment and around the village, he found that it was nice to be back in Konoha for more than a couple of days. He had certainly been missing out on a lot around here.
On the odd days where Sakura wasn't dizzy and was not sleeping, Kakashi would accompany her to take a walk outside and to help her get some fresh air into her system. During the times they ate together and the times they hung out, Sakura would fill Kakashi in on everything that had happened during the last couple years, and told him what he had missed out on. She seemed a bit happier when she talked about her friends, but otherwise her smiles never reached her eyes much. Kakashi had almost spat his food at Sakura when she told him that Genma and Ino had a little something going on and the lazy ass Shikamaru made an effort to do something and was now actually dating Temari. Sakura laughed at him and maturely told him to grow up. How ironic that was.
During these past few days, Kakashi found out something new about himself. Although he lived most of his life by himself and he rarely felt lonely, he found that he enjoyed the sleeping kunoichi's company – even if she was just sleeping half the time. He felt himself smiling more often. When was the last time he had human interaction with the same person for more than a day or out of his own will, not for a mission? Was it okay that he was spending more time with one person – particularly Sakura?
"Cotton Candy."
Sakura rolled her eyes while looking up to the sky. "You're not very original you know? I thought you were smarter. I would say that looks like a bit like the Milky Way or at least some planets."
"Smart-ass."
"What was that? I swear I just heard you call me a smart-ass."
"You heard right, Sakura-chan."
"I'm not that smart, I only seem smart because I'm surrounded by not-so-smart people."
Kakashi chuckled out, "Do I hear a challenge?"
"Bring it, old man."
Kakashi's eyebrow twitched and he took the opportunity to look for the next cloud with a picture.
"That one's a scarf."
"Nope, it's definitely a snake hunting a rabbit."
They had decided to go to the old training grounds after lunch one day, and instead of training, they relaxed while cloud-gazing. Lying on the grass with the top of their heads almost touching, they stared and tried to make pictures out of the clouds they saw. Eventually their competitive nature got the best of them, and they started a bet. Whoever's answer sounded more intelligent or more creative – wins. The person with the most wins got to request one thing that they wanted from the loser.
"That one looks like the top of Naruto's butt."
Sakura's eyes widened. "Ewww… How would you know what that looks like? Don't answer that, I don't want to know. Which cloud are you looking at?"
Kakashi pointed to the one that was directly above their heads. Sakura's gaze followed the direction that his finger pointed at, and she stared at it.
"How the heck did you see the top of Naruto's butt from that cloud?"
"Who knows. Is someone declaring their loss?"
A moment of silence passed between them. The wind blew gently, playing with their hair and the blades of grass that surrounded them.
After a yawn, Sakura stated her answer slowly, with a soft, longing voice. "There are two big hands that belong to separate people, forming one heart, and from their views, we're directly underneath the heart. Or maybe… there's a big hand and a little hand… joined together – protectively of each other…"
Sakura had won the competition.
They had stayed at the field until the sun went down. Sakura had fallen asleep again – this time, before dinner. Not wanting her to get sicker, Kakashi took her home instantly. After making himself a light snack, he took a seat on the couch outside her room, and took out his book.
However, on silent nights like this when he was left to his thoughts, he started wondering about things that he shouldn't care about. For once, he found that he couldn't focus on his book. He was distracted. Kakashi had to admit that he had more fun today than he did in years, but there had been one major question that had ran through his mind the whole day.
How was it that Sasuke and Naruto didn't know about Sakura's situation with her parents?
Judging from Naruto's reaction the other morning, it didn't seem like Sakura stayed away from them, so how was it that they never realized?
BAM BAM BAM
"Ah… speak of the little troublemaker…"
When Kakashi opened the door, he was surprised that Sasuke, who looked as expressionless as ever, was standing there with Naruto. Sasuke now stood almost as tall as Kakashi.
"KAKASHI-SENSEI! What are you doing here?!"
Signalling to Naruto to be quiet, Kakashi let them into Sakura's apartment. Making themselves comfortable around the coffee table, they broke into a light conversation.
"So what are you doing here again?"
"Looking after Sakura."
"Oh… You're the person that Tsunade-baachan was talking about! She told us that someone that we knew was taking care of Sakura-chan, but I never thought it would be you. "
A soft 'dobe' could be heard.
"Since when did you start caring for your students?"
Kakashi simply shrugged.
With a low and stoic voice, Sasuke stared at Kakashi and spoke straight to the point. "We were told to get you so you could get some rest. So we came over after training and dinner. We all know taking care of Sakura for a couple of days could be tiring, so I'm taking over. You should get some sleep."
Kakashi felt uneasy for a second, but his face remained expressionless. He nodded to signal that he understood Sasuke.
I suppose I don't have to worry about spending too much time with her after all…
"Ne… Kakashi-sensei! Want to go get Ramen with me?!"
"Didn't you just eat with Sasuke? Why are you not staying here with him again?"
"Yeah, but I'm hungry again, and God knows I'll just annoy Sakura and get kicked out if I stay here for too long anyways. I'm sure she wants her rest. I'll probably make her condition worse."
Opening the door and dragging Kakashi out the door, Naruto yelled a brief 'good luck' to Sasuke, and then he closed the door.
He didn't know why he felt so troubled, but there was only one thing running through Kakashi's mind.
Sasuke... and Sakura…?
Ahhh, I know that cloud-gazing/heart thing was cheesy! I'm not sure where I came up with that.
The show/anime they were watching earlier is called Elemental Gelade or also known as Erementar Gerad. It was okay, not too bad, but I definitely like Special A better (the manga's even better than the anime, but since the manga's not done, the anime will have to do for now.) Kei is just too sweet and cute.
Hope the editing was okay, I'm quite preoccupied with trying to find a cosplay that I can do within the next few days, while I am stuck in university with no materials to make anything (haha). I think I'll just slap something a bit emo style on, and go as Amane Misa, from the Death Note movie, since my Anbu costume isn't done yet. Hopefully, if I take pictures, I can load them up on or my deviantart ^^.
Anyways, please tell me how this chap was!