Everyone can thank baccalauréat-style math tests I end always an hour earlier. Otherwise this one would not have been there, or would have but much more later. Thanks to Beileil for pointing my mistakes and Meelee for the encouragement.
None of this belongs to me.
'Please just, Light the way.'
April the 22nd : tense mistakes fixed. Thank you ree'rhea.
All was gray this time. Gray and like it was moving.
The tingling was still there, in all his left side, like the ghost of a sensation. Going stronger, sometimes fading, coming back, still there.
He noticed he was not aware of the time, or of the passing of time. Until there was someone else near.
Maybe this someone talked, maybe not. Maybe this someone was a person he knew, maybe not.
He could not move, or pay real attention to what was going on, who was there. Not that he really wanted to.
He did not want to know too. He did not care.
It was gray, and something was telling him he was in Konoha. It was enough.
Kakashi stayed silently to Iruka side until this one close his eyes, falling apparently asleep. In truth, he only stayed next to the man for something like ten minutes. Then, as silently as he had stayed, he stepped out of the room, pulling the door behind him without closing it, leaving it in the same state he had found it.
Standing in the corridor, he leaned against the wall, closing his eye and taking in a long breath.
He did not know why it had shaken him so much. It was the first time he visited someone in the hospital, and certainly not the last too. Moreover, he barely knew the guy. Then why?
He opened his eye. A flash of light pink at the other end of the corridor caught his attention. A pink that was coming toward him. He lifted a hand in greeting, falling back behind a mask of false cheerfulness.
"Hello Sakura-chan!"
The pink hair made a funny little bounce.
"Kakashi-sensei! I didn't see you!"
Hatake studied the smiling girl dressed in medicnin uniform now in front of him. She sure had grown since the last time he had seen her that close. How long was it? Four, five months? Being the Hokage apprentice kept her busy, really busy, and he, without his team now, had gone back to the familiar 'mission after mission' kind of schedule, which kept him away of Konoha most of the time. It was a rare event for them to come across one another.
The not-so-smiling girl that was eyeing him critically.
"You're not injured at least?" she frowned.
Kakashi eye-smiled some more.
"No, no, just happened to be visiting someone … Been a long time since I saw you."
Sakura green eyes slid from her teacher to the side, noting the almost closed door Kakashi was leaning not far from.
"Can I buy my former student a tea?"
Sakura came back on the man in front of him, smiling.
"Sure! You're lucky Shizune-san ordered me to take a break."
Somehow they ended sitting around tea in the hospital cafeteria in a corner, Sakura doing most of the small talk, relating the latest gossips she had came across, the little adventures happening everyday in the hospital. Kakashi found it strangely relaxing. No life or death matters, no blood involved or so little it did not really mattered, no killing. A part of his mind wondered when in the hell he began to bother to pay attention to little tiny things like that.
"It's rare to see you this days Kakashi-sensei."
"Ma… about as rare as seeing you. The Hokage seems to think you could get bored outside the hospital."
Sakura smiled. Before, she would have giggled.
"Tsunade-sama expects a lot… and… I kinda prefer being busy. Your turn: what are you doing here? I've heard you were always out on mission."
"Er… I've been kindly asked to take a little rest." He eye-smiled, scratching the back of his head. He looked at Sakura, who was sipping her tea. The front of cheerfulness disappeared, letting way for a more serious face. He knew she knew. Though he did not expect her to make the first move.
" You've seen Iruka-sensei, haven't you."
He nodded.
"What happened to him?" He did not add 'He did not notice I was there.' He did not know why. Maybe because it would have sounded a bit personal. Because it would have sounded stupid. Because he would have sounded like a child, which he had almost never been. He stared at her. She sighed before answering, voice lower, staring at her hands crossed in her lap.
"I truly don't know. He came, or was brought in, something like a week ago. I've visited him once. He's under so much painkillers he doesn't react to anything." Well, Kakashi thought, it explains that.
"You have no idea how he ended up in this state ?" he asked in the same tone. He mentally kicked himself for not have take a look to the report he had given to the Hokage. But it could have been the report of another mission.
Sakura shook her head, making pink locks flying around her face. Her pale face.
"I suppose it was mission-related, that's all. Seems he was regularly outside for missions lately. The Academy isn't open everyday."
The windows of the cafeteria were opening on the hospital park. Usually it was a place fully of life, bright, where shinobi and civilians mixed together, with future fathers, future brothers and sisters, people waiting, people learning how to live again. Today, with the rain and the lack of light, the place was rather miserable and dead-looking. Bleak. The trees in the park seemed dead, darkened by the water, adding an eerie aura to the light coming through the picture windows.
They felt silent, Sakura fidgeting her empty cup, him watching her. Then she talked again, head bowed.
"Sensei… do you have… do you have any news?"
Kakashi smiled for real this time, although sadly, behind his mask.
" I've heard a strange white-haired pervert guy got thrown out of a thermal village earlier in the month…"
Sakura made a little smile.
"I hope Naruto will not take Jiraya-sama bad habits."
"Bad habits? What bad habits are you talking about?" asked innocently Kakashi, a hand moving like he was going to take his infamous book.
"Sensei-i…" warned Sakura, left eye twitching slightly.
Kakashi held out his hands in a "not-me" gesture. He stood up, ready to leave.
"I'm sorry Sakura." Sorry. An apology for another. Sorry. Sorry I have not heard anything about Sasuke. Sorry I had not been good enough. Sorry I did not care about you all enough. Sorry I had been a sorry excuse for a teacher.
Sakura was looking at him with wide eyes. So she had understand, even the thought part. She always had been bright; right she was a little inattentive at the time, but she knew how to make her brain works. She mouthed something before putting sound louder.
"You have nothing to be sorry about Kakashi-sensei."
On an impulse, she stood up and hugged him. She was just a head shorter than him now. He carefully put his hands on her shoulders. He had never been a people person, never been a social animal. Touch were limited to one-night stands, blows, training, and further away, friendly, loving touch faded into memories.
She took a step back, discreetly wiping her eyes.
"I was glad to see you Kakashi-sensei."
"It was good to see you too Sakura-chan." Kakashi found that it was the truth he was telling, as surprising as it could be.
Kakashi managed to get to one of the take-out restaurant he used to go before drowning while walking outside. He took enough food for two meals, not planning to step out of his apartment any time before the rain stopped. When he reached his apartment, he locked himself in the bathroom until he felt human again, and not like something that had drowned and died in the gutter and had been brought back home by the dog.
He ate, tidied his kitchen a bit, found back two scrolls he did not remember he had put in a cupboard between two pack of instant food, took a book, read a bit, switch off the light for the night, the rain a steady and low pounding on the roofs around.
There, in his silent house, in the dark, his mind got back to a particular Chuunin, trying to analyze what it could, trying to understand, trying to classify what he had felt, why, how.
Hatake Kakashi found it surprisingly difficult to fall asleep that night.
Just to remind you, this is a KakaIru fic, not a KakaSaku. I'm pretty sure I've mess with the verbs this time. Please, tell me if things looks weird to you, I'll know what to do better, or what to explain in details next time. What seems to me logical can seems to you really odd. Especially when I've done most of it at school, between math and literature classes.
Thanks for reading. I don't know when will be the next update, since I will not have access to any computer for Easter break ( and Easter break is two weeks long here). Maybe you'll be lucky enough to find a nice real long chapter. Encouragements ?