Second Time Around
By Frozzy

Chapter Eight

When Sakura found herself standing outside Kakashi's apartment complex at nine o'clock the following morning, she blamed it entirely on Ino.

Ino could work her mouth when she really set her mind to it, and clearly that mouth had rubbed off on Sakura's judgment. This was why the pink-haired medic now found herself ascending the stairs that led to Kakashi's apartment on the second floor. She wondered why it was that everybody of their profession tended to picked apartments from the first floor and upwards. They of all people, with their paychecks and ability to kill with a hand stroke, really had no reason to be paranoid about thieves. Then again, you had little chance of not becoming paranoid when there was the constant risk of you being ambushed by a vengeful foe in your sleep.

Sakura could feel the bones rattle around in her body. She knocked twice on the badly done paintjob of Kakashi's door.

"Sakura," Kakashi said and his tone was bland from where he stood in the doorway. He wasn't wearing his headband, which made his hair fall heavily down the left side of his face to cover the Sharingan.

"Can I…." she trailed off and gestured vaguely towards his apartment. It didn't help her eloquence one bit that the other jonin was giving her his patented Look of Doom. This look told Sakura that she had committed the greatest felony of them all and that she should crawl back into her corner and repent. She could just as well have turned up at his door butt naked. She felt that exposed.

"Is this an appropriate time?" she asked at last.

"It's nine in the morning," Kakashi said. Nonetheless, he pushed his body off the doorframe and stepped aside. His hand held the door open for her. She entered the apartment before he could change his mind, and he closed the door behind her with a soft thud.

"What can I do for you this fine morning?" Kakashi asked Sakura somewhat drearily and threw her an expectant look. She knew it was expectant because she noticed the twitch near his eyebrow. The angle from which he was standing made the light from the lamp above fall onto his face in a distracting way that made her forget what she had been about to say.

"I wanted my shirt back," she said. "The one that I used to bind your ribs with."

"What could you possibly need it for at eight in the morning?"

"Nine," she corrected him automatically. "Nine in the morning."

"Nine," he said and stepped around her. She followed him from the hallway into the sparsely decorated living room. He continued on into the kitchen. They came to a halt and he motioned for her to sit down on one of the rickety kitchen chairs. She did as asked and then watched him in silence as he poured two cups of coffee. She didn't know why he poured two. He never drank or ate in front of her, even though she had seen his face plenty of times. The domesticity of the situation was awkward, and when the older man sat down in the chair positioned directly opposite of hers, Sakura knew that by accepting the mug of coffee, she had unknowingly agreed to participate in an unofficial interrogation.

"You coming here," he began. "That would be the part where you don't separate emotion from desire. Love from sex. Like we talked about. Remember?"

He had finished the sentence with an upwards motion of his eyebrows, indicating pointedness, and the seat of Sakura's chair felt hard and cold beneath her thighs. Maybe she was fed up. Or maybe the other jonin's straightforwardness simply didn't seem so straightforward to her anymore. After all, she had been heavily subjected to it for the past many weeks. At any rate, Sakura surprised herself by answering Kakashi's question quite diplomatically.

"Some of us don't feel the need to do that. For some us it's the same thing. You know me. Even if you haven't been around much for the past year or so, you still know me. You know that I don't want just anybody. And I don't act on want alone. That's not me. And you know me."

She watched the coffee swirl around in her mug for the whole time that she spoke. Even though she hadn't stammered or blushed throughout her small speech, she felt nowhere near strong enough to say the words to the man's actual face.

"I suppose that's correct," Kakashi said.

"Don't do that," Sakura said. "Don't talk to me like we're on a mission. This is not a business call. I'm not a business call."

"You would rather be the booty call?" the other jonin shot back readily. His voice had taken on a lowered tone that caught both of them by surprise.

"Sorry," he said. "That was-"

"No," Sakura said. "See, that is what I don't understand. One moment, I think we're flirting, and I'm pretty sure that we are, but then one of us turns around and it's two steps back and none forth."

"It was a slip of the tongue," Kakashi said.

"This is what I don't get," Sakura said and pushed her mug of coffee away from herself and towards the middle of the table. "Am I supposed to get it? This back and forward thing that we're doing? That you're doing?"

Kakashi ran a hand across his face, fingers dragging along the smooth material of his mask. She felt compelled to ask why he didn't just take it off, but maybe now was not the right time to deprive him of the security that his mask obviously provided him with.

"What do you see when you look at me, Sakura?" he asked. His mismatched eyes met hers and she found that the casualness of the situation made him look so much older than his thirty odd years.

"I'm not sure what you mean," she said.

He reached out and took a hold of her cup of coffee standing rejected in the middle of the table. He turned it so the handle pointed towards her. The invitation was not lost on her, but her hand made no move to reclaim the cup. She sat still in the chair, still as death.

"I don't know what I see," she said at last.

"Hence why you're here," Kakashi said and finished for her. He sounded weary and worn down. She almost felt guilty if the conversation hadn't been so long overdue.

"I really can't change your mind about this, can I?" he asked.

"No."

He nodded, appearing to be thinking it over.

"Let's make a deal," he proposed, and she sent him a curious look.

"What kind of deal?" she asked hesitantly.

"You figure out the answer to my earlier question. What do you see when you look at me? And then you come tell it to me."

Sakura fell further back in her chair. "Why does everything have to be some sort of test with you?"

"It is?" he asked, genuinely looking as though he was considering her words.

"Never mind," she continued before they went off track. "What happens afterwards I've given my answer?"

"Depends on the answer."

"That's a stupid deal."

"It's what I'm willing to offer," he told her. She could see his point. That was just typical.

"Agreed," she gave in after a brief pause, accepting his terms. A sense of closure washed over her. It was that sense of closure – of finality and of a goal to pursue – that made Sakura reach out and take a sip of her coffee. As she swallowed the lukewarm drink, she ruminated over the situation and how she should go about it.

"And you insisted this wasn't business," Kakashi said in a voice that indicated amusement.

"You were the one who started proposing deals," she said and stopped her rumination just to prove him wrong.

"Are we pointing fingers now?" Kakashi asked and tapped his blunt nails against the handle of his mug. He hadn't touched it yet. Of course. She suddenly realized that he wasn't wearing his gloves.

"Because I have some good ones that I have saved for such a day," he said.

She sent him a flat, unimpressed look over the rim of the mug that she was clutching in her hands.

"I guess we aren't then," he concluded. Sakura couldn't see his smile, but she could very well hear it.

"You're an ass," she said and took another sip of the coffee to preoccupy her mind.

"But you want my ass, so that shouldn't be a problem," Kakashi said nonchalantly.

"Sorry. I meant smartass."

He laughed at her witty reply, low and relaxed, and the sound went straight to Sakura's stomach. Her attention was brought to his hands again. It was odd. She had seen his uncovered face more times than his hands. They were nice, she concluded. Slender, yet strong-looking, with the one lonesome vein peeking out whenever the light hit from the right angle. She never normally noticed hands. Or pretty much any other body part. She liked to think that she wasn't shallow like that. That was what frightened her about Kakashi. With him, the outside seemed to count more than what she was comfortable with. And what she liked to admit, as well. Ino would say the man was sexy-ass gorgeous. And he was. And his personality was just a bit too messed up to win her over without his looks. It was a package deal. Looks and personality outweighed each other. If one went away, the other would lose all appeal.

"Something on your mind?" Kakashi asked.

"No," Sakura said. "I don't understand why you don't just take it off."

"That's going for third base pretty quickly, isn't it?"

"Your mask," she elaborated and managed not to let his remark get to her. It was only when you encouraged certain behaviour that you got more of it.

"I like it," he said and rubbed his chin as if to stress the fact.

"I don't believe that for one second."

"Why would I wear it if I didn't like it?"

"I don't know. Because you're a coward?"

The sentence was supposed to go on after that. She was supposed to continue with 'and hide behind a piece of mouldy fabric'. But somehow that part didn't get through out loud, and the sentence stopped there.

"Taking the time to think matters through doesn't make you a coward, Sakura," Kakashi said.

She didn't know what they were talking about anymore. She knew that he had answered her question. The problem was that she didn't understand what that question was.

"Not taking initiative does," she said.

"You do what is right," Kakashi answered. "Not what is easy."

"What? You're saying I'm easy?" Sakura asked. "That I take the easy way out?"

"Don't twist my words, Sakura."

"I'm not twisting anything."

He raised a brow. "Sakura-"

"Don't Sakura me," she cut in with a frustrated shake of her head. "You say my name too much. It makes me feel young and stupid again."

Something in his eyes shifted. She realized her mistake.

"I didn't mean it like that," she said and stared hard at the table even though she very clearly sensed his attempt to make eye contact. There was a brief pause and Sakura feared that the other jonin would be able to hear her unsteady breaths. She felt like throwing up. She wondered if she could throw up her heart. Perhaps then it would stop beating so fast.

"I need you to look me in the face for this, Sakura," Kakashi then told her. His voice was gentle and she wondered if the name was deliberate. At any rate, it made her lift her eyes and meet his calm ones. She had to give him credit that he was facing the storm in her eyes without faltering.

"Tell me," he started in a thoughtful voice. "Tell me that you understand what you are asking for."

It wasn't an order, but it wasn't fully a request either. She would have preferred it if he had asked her to lick his boot instead.

"I get it," she said. "I'm not as naïve as you think."

He made a contemplative sound. "Hot-headed would be more accurate."

"Oh, thank you," she said, sarcasm apparent even in her resigned state.

There was a long pause.

"So, let's say that when you figure out your answer, I'll take the initiative that you're speaking so highly of," Kakashi said. "How does that sound?"

At least they were back to a safe topic, Sakura reminded herself. She would be stupid not to accept the olive branch that the older man was handing her.

"Like you're casting away the responsibility to someone else," she said. She still felt rather shaky, and she tried not to picture just in what ways Kakashi intended to take initiative. She failed. Of course. And the result went straight down below her stomach, and made her cross her legs beneath the table. It never occurred to her to keep the movement subtle until she noticed how Kakashi's eyes trailed down her torso and came to rest at the lowest part of her body that wasn't hidden beneath the table. That only fuelled the heady sensation in her stomach, almost making her thighs cramp up, and she felt like she had to speak up and draw his attention back up her face. Then again, her face was burning hot, so she really was choosing between two evils.

She cleared her throat. "So there's a deadline or something?"

His eyes were brought back up to her face. Good. She viciously hacked down the part of her that felt disappointed.

"Do you need one?" was his somewhat apathetic reply.

"I don't think so."

"You need a refill?"

She blinked. "What?"

He motioned towards the mug in her hand.

"Oh," she said and felt dumber than the goats that regularly wandered Tsunade's backyard and feasted on her kitchen garden. "No, I should be leaving. I have to drop something off at my mom's place and then train with the boys."

Just then, as if to mock her, the very same blond skidded into the room through the open kitchen window. He was followed closely by one Uchiha. They were bickering, the friendly kind, but came to a decisive halt when their eyes fell upon their female friend. Sakura herself was glued to the chair. Kakashi stepped in.

"That would be why I keep my mask on," he spoke aloud to no one in particular. Sakura was the only one who got the reference. Perhaps 'stepped in' was too much credit.

"Sakura?" Naruto asked, his voice taking on a tone that Sakura decided she didn't like and thus refused to encourage.

"What are you doing here?" Sasuke asked and his indifferent tone was one she would respond to.

"Discussing the outcome of the mission," she answered. "I felt there were some loose ends."

The speed with which she rattled off the lie surprised even herself. She had never been a very good liar. The fact was only emphasized by how she could feel Kakashi's eyes boring themselves into the side of her face. He ought to be thanking her, the idiot.

"Then it's a good thing we stopped by, huh?" Naruto said and the look in his eyes spoke volumes. She dearly hoped that she was the only one who sensed those volumes.

"What loose ends?" Sasuke inquired as he sat down on the vacant chair beside Kakashi. She realized then that she should have picked a lie that wouldn't have had any interest to Sasuke and Naruto. Unfortunately, the three men's interests were somewhat similar, and there was no way in hell she could have claimed that she had been discussing shampoo and conditioner choice with Kakashi. The man would never even engage in such a conversation.

"Uh-"

"Fukuda's condition. Or lack thereof, I guess it would be," Kakashi saved her.

The whole situation was absurd and Sasuke was quite possibly the only person within the room who didn't get it. Did Kakashi know that Naruto knew? What did Naruto even really know? Had she unknowingly confirmed anything to him?

"Boring," Naruto exclaimed quite unceremoniously and stepped up onto the chair next to Sakura. He sat down on top of the backrest and balanced his weight by setting his feet on the edge of the table. If Kakashi was worried about his furniture, he made no move that indicated it.

"Get off the chair. You'll break it, dumbnut," Sakura said and shoved him with her elbow.

"Yeah, you're too fat," Sasuke cut in with a smirk and leaned further back in his own chair.

"Shut up," Naruto said, but nevertheless sat down properly in the chair. Sakura suspected it had more to do with her than Sasuke.

"And so to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Kakashi eventually addressed the two men. Both of them shrugged, neither of them really knowing why they had decided to stop by. Randomness tended to rule those two.

"We tried Sakura's place first," Naruto said almost defensively. "Then we went here."

He then turned towards the pink-haired woman to his right. "Funny coincidence you happened to be here, Sakura-chan."

She felt like punching him for that one.

"Funny, yeah," she agreed with minimal enthusiasm. "Why were you at my place, anyway?"

The gleam in Naruto's eyes turned deadly.

"Well," he began, dragging out the one syllable. "Sasuke said he missed you since you've been gone for so long-"

"I did no such thing," Sasuke cut in with a dull voice.

"-and he wanted to kiss you hello-"

"Don't make me stand up from this chair, Naruto."

"-but then I told him that he already had Megu-"

"All right, so, I think I've got the gist of it now," Sakura quickly inserted herself into the conversation. From the spot in his chair, Kakashi quietly observed the banter of his three former students, wondering if they were even aware of the home away from home that they provided for each other. He supposed they were the ideal example of siblings in everything but blood. He didn't want to think about what that made him. Not with what had just transpired minutes earlier with Sakura, that vexing woman.

"Right, sensei?"

"Hm?" he asked, focusing his attention onto Naruto who had addressed him.

"He's not your teacher anymore," Sasuke pointed out in the background.

"Well, I gotta head home," Sakura said and stood up from her seat. "Mom's expecting me."

"I'll follow you out," Kakashi offered and stood up as well. He received odd looks from the two younger men, but Sakura was already headed for the front door. The two of them stopped by the door. Sakura looked expectantly at Kakashi.

"There's no deadline," he said. "But there may be an expiration date to how long I'll wait."

"I don't need that long," she told him. He handed her a coat that she recognized as being her own. She didn't even remember having brought one. "Besides, isn't patience supposed to be one of your better traits?"

"That depends on the scenario."

"Figures," she commented with a small smirk and began buttoning her coat. "When a piece of ass is on the line, the great Copy Ninja loses his calm."

"You're not a piece of ass, Sakura."

A button slipped from her fingers and she tried to cover it up by coughing into her fist.

"I'll come around sometime," she finished in a croak and turned towards the door.

"Sakura."

She stopped.

"Just to make it clear," the older man began. "In this scenario, I find my patience very much lacking."

She could feel the air around her shift, a sign that the body behind her was moving. Kakashi stepped up behind her, slow and easy, and his distinct smell of pine, rain and earth wafted into Sakura's nose, her body thrumming in response. He reached around her and put his hand on the doorknob. With his arm pressed up against her side, he turned the doorknob with a deliberate slowness. Stunned into silence, Sakura watched as his hand turned the knob and pulled the door open. Fresh air rushed in, yet it triggered no flight response in her brain. She most of all wanted to slam it shut and not leave.

And Kakashi's amused voice alerted her of just that.

"Taking liberties, are we?" he asked.

She whipped around and looked at the man.

"If anybody is taking liberties, that would be you," she said and pulled her coat tighter around her body. "What was that all about, anyway? Crowding me like that."

"Sorry," he apologized, sounding anything but sorry.

"Cheater," she mumbled, a smile pulling at her lips, and his response was a chuckle.

When she got home from her mother's place two hours later, Naruto sat in Ino's favourite armchair and flipped through a random magazine. He put it down when she entered.

"So," he said. He didn't have to say more. He had figured it out. And Sakura knew.

"Yes," Sakura admitted and closed the door behind her. "Is Sasuke aware?"

"It's pretty obvious," the blond said. Sakura sighed. She wasn't willing to deal with that just yet. She put down the bag of groceries she had been carrying. Then she bent down to untie her sandals and deliberately prolonged the process.

"You two didn't kill him after I left, right?" she asked, half in jest and half in worry.

"I don't know about kill."

"Great," she huffed to herself. "Now I'll have that on my conscience. I bet that grope was his last wish."

"Grope?" Naruto immediately perked up, but Sakura brushed him off.

"Ino's not here?" she asked.

"No," the blond replied.

"Yeah, I bet. She would have kicked you out for being obnoxious."

There was a pause and Sakura waited for it to happen.

"Sakura-"

"No," she said. "Naruto. Can you please just not do this?"

His jaw and shoulders tightened. She could just about taste his objection to her request.

"I'll back down tonight, but I can't say anything about tomorrow," he said.

"Tonight is all I need," Sakura said and sat down on the couch. Naruto gave her a wary look. She shook her head.

"What is it about him?" he asked. He sounded as though he wanted to be somewhere else. Sakura knew that it wasn't obligation that kept him here. Naruto's sense of loyalty had always been remarkable. Perhaps that was why she bothered to answer him truthfully.

"It's funny," she said. "He asked me the exact same question three hours ago."

"What did you answer?"

"I said I didn't know," she admitted. Naruto sent her a suspicious look.

"Really. I told him I didn't know," she repeated. "Do you think I would be this stressed out if I did know?"

"Well, I guess not. So, what, you're gonna move in together and sprout kids now?"

"But I'm already pregnant," she responded to his joke. "You didn't hear?"

For a moment, he didn't know what to say. "You're kidding, right?"

She kept up the façade. "Why would I be?"

"But-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence, since the front door flung open just then and Ino walked inside. She was carrying a dress that Sakura distinctly remembered she had gone out to fetch from the drycleaner earlier that morning. The cleaner was just around the corner. Chances were that Ino had stopped by Shikamaru's place afterwards and had lazed around for the majority of the day. Technically, the two of them didn't live together, but sometimes even they got confused about it.

"Hey," Sakura said to her.

"Sasuke is outside," the blonde woman informed them.

"Ah, I thought it was him," Naruto said and jumped up from the armchair. Sakura admired his ability to change mood as effortlessly as Ino changed style. Well, perhaps 'admired' was too strong a word. Sometimes she hated it, too.

"I don't get why he still won't go inside," Ino complained with a shake of her head and stepped aside so Naruto could sprint out the door and yell his obnoxious greeting to the Uchiha. "I really don't believe he's been traumatized that badly by either of us."

Sakura didn't bother to tell her friend that Sasuke only refused to go inside when Ino was there. That would just be cruel.

"Close the door, will you?" Sakura reminded the other woman. "You've been out all day?"

"Yeah," Ino confirmed and closed the door as Sakura had asked. "Went by Shikamaru's."

"Sounds like you had a good day."

Ino raised a brow at the offhand remark.

"Sounds like yours sucked," she replied.

"I'm gonna go see if I can catch up with those two," Sakura said and got to her feet in the hope of distracting Ino. She wasn't that lucky. Ino eyed her doubtfully, but she didn't object when Sakura headed towards the door. She had gotten as far as the coat rack when Ino decided that she couldn't let her friend leave while having gotten the last word.

"I'll still be here when you get back," she called out somewhat bossily.

"I don't doubt it," Sakura shot back, and slipped out the door before Ino could respond. Sometimes, when you spent time with somebody on a daily basis, they just got too close. The same counted for missions. When you spent time rubbing shoulders with somebody every hour of the day, your flesh would eventually merge together, becoming one. And the open wound that would be left behind when you pulled back was nastier than anything else Sakura had ever had to endure in her life.

Yes, Sakura thought to herself as she headed for the training grounds.

She really needed to figure out that answer soon.