Second Time Around
By Frozzy

Chapter Ten

Naruto was livid.

"The cheating bastard did what?"

She had honestly considered not telling him, but she knew that he would pick up on it sooner or later. The guy was a lot more perceptive than he let on.

"Naruto, I only told you because you promised not to freak out. And I would like to talk to him myself before you go and play the protective card, alright?"

"Well, when is that gonna be?"

"Whenever I feel like it," she answered curtly. "And don't pout. You're a grown man. It looks wrong."

They were wandering about in the village, choosing random roads and alleyways, and had now passed the Hokage Tower for the third time in the past hour with the sun baking down on them from a cloudless sky. Neither of them had been hungry, but they had both been reluctant to cancel their lunch date. This had led them to where they were now as they walked around aimlessly on the streets of Konoha, discussing Sasuke's misdeed and the repercussions of it.

"It's mean. Telling and then pulling this prohibition on me. When I meet him tonight, I can't do shit," Naruto said.

"Tonight?"

"We're gonna have a couple of beers. Guy night."

"Let's change the subject," Sakura said. "When did you last go on a date?"

Technically, they had talked about this during the Sakamoto mission. But Sakura couldn't decide on any other topic to bring up. They all seemed to lead back to Sasuke.

"Do-"

"No, they do not count," she answered. "Shoving your dick into a random girl up against the wall of your apartment on a Saturday night nevercounts, all right?"

He stared at her with his mouth slightly agape. Kakashi had been rubbing off on her as of late. Beating around the bush had never been her style, but it had grown a lot more pronounced in the past weeks leading up to now.

"I haven't seen Ino lately," Sakura said. "You know anything about that?"

"You're the one who practically lives with her," Naruto said. He still looked thrown by her previous comment.

"She's not on a mission. She would have told me. How about Shikamaru's place?"

"He hasn't said anything."

His eyes roamed the street stretching out before them. They were in the more trafficked part of town. His blue gaze zeroed in on something ahead of them. By habit, Sakura followed his line of sight and very nearly stumbled over her own two feet with the punch to her gut that she took. There was no mistaking that hair and the accompanying slouch. But what threw her off balance was the familiar dark hair and pouting mouth of the woman attached to Kakashi's arm. Sakura knew that woman. She had never seen Kakashi with the same woman twice, but if it had to happen, she would have preferred for it to be a woman who hadn't witnessed her Sasuke breakdown.

"Kumiko," she said. Next to her Naruto raised a brow.

"Who?"

"The woman."

"Well, I can see that. What do you think he's doing?"

In the moment, Sakura considered asking Naruto to be her boyfriend. He didn't kiss her without her consent and he didn't work two women at the same time. So far, he was the one with most long-term potential.

"I have no idea," she replied truthfully and watched the couple advance on them. They hadn't noticed the medic and thejonin standing still in the middle of the crowded road. An absurd picture, really. It was like a horror movie. You knew what was going to happen and yet you could do nothing but stand by and let it happen. She knew there was going to be a confrontation. She could feel it in the harsh heaves of her chest where anger was pooling rapidly. And on some level that suited her just fine. She wanted a confrontation. She wanted to yell at the insufferable bastard and call him every insult she could think off. She hadn't yelled at Sasuke because she had felt sorry for him. She didn't feel sorry for Kakashi.

"Kakashi-sensei!"

Naruto's yell reached across the heads of several citizens before it reached the couple. Upon hearing the yell, both Kakashi and Kumiko turned their attention in Naruto's direction. The direction which also happened to be the direction of Sakura who looked about ready to smash someone's face in. She felt about ready to smash someone's face in.

"Naruto, Sakura," the older man greeted with a wave that looked more like he was swatting a fly. Next to him, Kumiko smiled at them. She was pretty when she smiled. She was pretty in general. Sakura wanted to wipe that smile off her face. With a flying fist preferably.

"How are you do-?"

"I need to talk to you," Sakura cut Kakashi off. She didn't give him any time to respond before she turned around and walked away. She knew he would follow. He wasn't enough of an idiot not to.

Five minutes later, she decided that there was finally enough space between her and Kumiko.

"Jealousy doesn't become you," Kakashi remarked when they came to a halt. From their position in the alleyway behind a random fruit and vegetable stand, they were perfectly hidden from public eyes. It wasn't reputation which held Sakura back from punching the man in the face. It was the knowledge that she would be the one to clean up the mess afterwards. And then the guilt would be harder to ignore.

"Jealousy becomes no one," she countered. There was a brief pause in which both of them sized the other one up, trying to figure out if they should play on offense or defense. In the end, Kakashi broke the heavy silence.

"We're adults, Sakura. If you can't accept that I'm not waiting around for you, we should stop this now."

"You demand of me to find an answer and yet you can't keep it in your pants until I've met that demand? You told me that there was no deadline. Sure, you said there was an expiration date, whatever that difference is, but you never said you would two-time me," Sakura said, her voice taking on an incredulous tone that civilians on the other side of the fruit stand would have heard if she hadn't had the sense to lower her voice towards the end. It had nothing to do with her receiving a sharp look from the man standing before her. She chose to lower her voice, thank you.

"Really, Sakura, must you always take the fun out of life? This waiting is hard enough, already."

"I don't appreciate that pun. And don't patronize me either. I've told you this before."

"Only you would mistake flirting for patronizing."

"Flir—shut up, you don't flirt, you turn lewd and perverse."

"If you have the energy to be jealous, you should use it working on that answer instead."

"I'm not working on anything. It's not a mission. And stop calling me jealous, thank you."

He seemed to search for his next sentence. He was probably trying to piece something together that wouldn't make her blow up furtherer. During that short pause, Sakura realized just how ridiculously small the overall space of the alleyway was. The lack of space made breathing entirely too difficult. Consequently it also put them at way too close quarters for her self-restraint to remain in control. She couldn't stretch out her elbow without having her palm touch Kakashi chest. For a brief moment she entertained the idea of doing just that. Then the other jonin spoke up and she broke free from her reverie.

"Why should I stop calling you jealous?"

She blinked, having lost her voice for a second.

"Because you're the one in the wrong here," Sakura said. "You with that woman."

"I doubt that."

"I don't."

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, the stance of the Copy Ninja turned authoritative. Sakura found herself backing up by instinct. Her shoulder blades brushed against the stones of the wall behind her and ultimately stopped her backwards retreat.

"And at what point did I agree to go exclusive?" Kakashi asked her. Sakura had lost her voice entirely. "I said there was an expiration date. Not that I would sit around on my ass and wait for you. You should be grateful I'm willing to tolerate this mouse and cat game we've been playing for the past month. If anybody is in the wrong here, Sakura, it's you."

The reprimand in his voice made her lower her eyes to the ground. She missed the flash that flickered across Kakashi's face.

"What if I said it now?" she asked.

He stared at her, pretending not to know what she was talking about, but she knew it was so much simpler than that. He wanted to hear her say it. And to some extent she probably needed to hear it from her own mouth as well.

"What if I said that I would like it if you didn't mess around with others? Until I've figured out what I want from you?"

She hadn't realized how much she was asking of him before she had said it out loud. She was asking a lot. A whole lot. Her legs were shaking. It was a motion that would be invisible to the untrained eye, but Sakura knew that Kakashi's eye was anything but untrained. Suddenly, she was thinking back on the last time that adrenaline had done such a number on her body. It had been during a mission with Naruto, Hinata and Kiba a year ago. Naruto had taken a deathly blow to the chest for her. She had healed him okay, but the reminder wasn't in the flesh. It was in the mind. And her legs still shook whenever that particular memory woke her up at night. Her entire body did.

"Have sex."

Her eyes shot up to Kakashi's face.

"Sorry?" she asked.

"I'll agree if you narrow it down to full-scale sex," he said. "And leave other options open."

"What other options are there?" Sakura asked, pursing her lips.

Immediately, she knew that she had asked the wrong question. The glint in Kakashi's eye turned outright deadly. And not because he was angry.

"No, don't answer that," she added quickly and held up a hand up to almost physically stop him from answering. She only lowered the hand when she was sure that he had no intention of replying. He was looking at her – staring, really – and she was once more reminded of the lack of personal space separating them. And also the fact that she didn't know what to make of it.

"I believe it's only fair that the conditions are equal for us both, is it not?" he asked. Sakura snorted.

"Kakashi, who would even-"

"I can name one," Kakashi said.

"I know full well what you're hinting at. And I don't appreciating such a low blow," Sakura said. "You know I'm not interested in him. Even if he kissed me."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that this was the first true argument they had ever had. All other arguments had stemmed from confusion rather than discontent.

"Maybe I'm not sure how you express interest. Maybe I think you're interested in him," the older man said with a perfectly poised indifference to his words. Sakura felt like a child next to him. Her arguments lacked solid fundament and her legs threatened to give out under her if the discussion went on much longer. She almost felt physically ill being this close to him and having this argument at the same time. To top it off, she had no idea what Kakashi had just insinuated, and as always Sakura went for honesty when she was confused.

"I don't understand what you're implying."

"I want an answer soon, Sakura," Kakashi said.

"Well, that's some awful mood swings you have there," Sakura tried to joke, but the joke turned out feeble and hesitant. "A few days ago I couldn't even get you to-"

He took a slow step forward, invading her space to where it was virtually non-existent. Her jaws clamped shut as if they were bound by elastics. Her stomach was one big knot. She knew that panic was visible in every muscle of her body. There was nothing she hated more than having her control taken away from her. By herself no less. She took a deep breath to get her body's adrenaline level back under control. She had miscalculated the distance between her and the other jonin, however, because the motion made her breasts push up against his chest in a decidedly suggestive manner. She recoiled back against the wall as if burned. She thought she heard him exhaling above her, a harsh sound too, but the blood was pounding too loudly in her ears for her to be sure.

"You say my name too much," she said quietly. She hoped to distract Kakashi from what had just transpired. She knew it was a long shot. And true enough, the Copy Ninja completely ignored her remark.

"Uncomfortable?" he asked.

"You in general make me uncomfortable," Sakura said.

She was distracted by the soft hum to his voice. If their knees hadn't touched right then and alerted her of his physical presence, she would have missed the fraction of an inch that he moved closer. There, in the stupid alleyway on this stupid day, she was reminded all too vividly of that night so many weeks ago. That night by her doorstep where he hadn't even been as close as he was now, but where she had been reminded that he was a man and she was very much a woman. Emerged in thoughts, she almost flinched in surprise when she felt fabric rub against her palm. She looked down and found her fingers buried in Kakashi's sleeve.

"That's my sleeve," Kakashi pointed out unhelpfully.

She didn't let go.

She probably should have.

"You're contradicting yourself, you know," she said.

"If you hadn't gotten jealous, I wouldn't be doing this," he replied. They were assassins. Killers. They enjoyed nothing if not the chase of the kill. Their current predicament was a testament to that. Kakashi wasn't backing up. With Sakura being Sakura she opted for violence.

"I should punch your eyes out of their sockets right now."

"I suppose so," Kakashi agreed. His voice was heavy with something that she couldn't decipher.

"Kakashi."

"Mhm?"

"You should back up now."

"Did you know I have a weak spot for medics who are too proud to admit that they have a possessive streak?"

Sakura didn't have to strain her ears to hear him even though he had lowered his voice further. Their close proximity took care of that problem. She could hear him breathing. Every breath. She could feel it on her face.

"I don't—this is public."

"I know."

For a long moment, none of them moved.

"Back up."

"Let go of my sleeve, so I can."

There was a loud yell just outside the fruit stand. The reaction was immediate. Sakura let go of Kakashi's sleeve and Kakashi backed up against the wall of the opposite building. He looked at her face once. Then he took off without any explanation or a goodbye. She was actually grateful. A word from him and she would have pounced.

"I don't know if that was more disturbing than disgusting."

She whirled around, her heart high up her throat, and found Naruto leaning up against the entrance of the alley. He had a small smile playing on his lips and that was probably the one thing that kept her from freaking out on him.

"For me? Definitely disturbing," she answered and shook her head to clear her mind. "Though for you, I would guess disgusting."

He waited for her to come up next to him. "Not really. You should thank me though. I swear to you, this must be some amazing hook-up place I don't know about, because I had to chase away a gazillion smooching couples while you were in here."

If she had had any blood left in her brain, she would have paled. As it was, she felt tapped from all of her blood. If there was a single drop left, it was down south and not up north. At her lack of response, Naruto's face turned worried.

"You okay?"

They left the alley and she got some of her composure back. Enough to ask the one question that stood clearest in her mind, at least: "What happened to the woman?"

"She got impatient and left. I dunno."

Pause.

"Hey, you up for some food?"

Sometimes she didn't know if her friend was just overly accepting or selectively blind. This was one of the times where she truly feared the answer.

Ino was there when Sakura stepped through her front door. From behind the stove, the blonde took one look at her friend, and that was that. Sakura knew she was transparent in basically everything but missions, but she hadn't expected for Ino to read and analyze the entire alleyway encounter from just one look at her face.

"I know," Sakura beat the other woman to it. "And no, it did nothing for my decision."

"Really, Sakura," the other woman reprimanded. "You need to just go for what you want."

"I don't know what I want, remember?"

"You do. You're just afraid or confused or whatever," Ino insisted and stirred the soup with the ugly blue wooden spoon that her mother had given her for Christmas. Sakura vaguely wondered if there was enough food in there. She felt severely disinclined to start cooking another portion and had half the mind to simply go to bed without food.

She didn't want to admit that she indeed knew what she wanted. The topic of her inner debate was the consequences of that want. What would happen if she really did just go for it? Like she wanted to?

During her years in the Academy, the one rule above them all had always been to know what you stepped into.

You didn't structure and order an attack without having thoroughly studied a map of the territory. Teammates would die.

You didn't impersonate a man without knowing his life history and past. Teammates would die.

You didn't cut off somebody's head unless you were absolutely sure it was the right head. Teammates would die.

The principle was drilled into her psyche. She had no idea what she was stepping into with Kakashi. And this fact, coupled with her field experience and Academy training, was holding her back. She backed off, leaving both her and Kakashi at a stalemate with her inability to act beyond the ethical and practical boundaries of their world. The boundaries of survival.

Sakura had her answer. She knew why she was drawn to Kakashi. He was virtually everything that her previous boyfriend failures had been. Yet he wasn't a failure.

"That frown looks hurtful?" Ino asked.

"Just thinking about how messed up we get from chopping heads off for a living," Sakura said.

"I could've told you that years ago. Look at Sasuke."

The sudden stillness in Sakura's body was a clear sign that she still hadn't fully processed the Sasuke issue yet.

"I guess. I just never really thought it applied to us."

"What? You mean the two of us?"

She nodded and watched as Ino finished up the soup.

"Every single one of us is fucked up," Ino said. "Naruto is a megalomaniac. Shikamaru has trust issues rivaling only those of Neji. Sasuke should be the poster boy for insanity incarnated. And you have a fear of intimacy. They call that a commitment phobia, you know."

"I do not have a commitment phobia. And even if I did, it wouldn't be because I kill people."

She was an emotional wreck, yes, but an actual phobia was taking it a little too far. If she absolutely had to have a phobia, kakorrhaphiophobia would be the most fitting one. Never accept defeat. That had been the second most important rule at the Academy. You lost an arm in battle and you were heroic. You lost your life in battle and you were a legend. But if you fled a battle with your body intact, you were a coward. Branded for life as the one that nobody would want to cover their back.

"Kill enemies," Ino corrected her.

"Right," Sakura smiled ironically. "'People' sounds too human."

"You're in a good mood, huh?"

"The idea of different moods is an illusion. There's one mood and then the rest is positive or negative influences," the medic replied tiredly, running a hand through pink hair that felt like sandpaper. The strands caught on skin that should have been too rough to be a woman's. Sakura generally didn't have problems with not feeling specifically womanly or feminine. But lately her lack of femininity, both in mannerisms and in thoughts, had bothered her.

"And pessimistic too."

That couldn't be anything new, Sakura thought to herself.

"What's in the soup?"

"Vegetables. On a diet, remember?"

"Yes, when are you not?" Sakura remarked, her voice dull. As a professional assassin, nutrition was alpha omega. As a medic, Sakura knew this all too well. It was acceptable to forgo proper nutrition while in the field. It was when you got home, however, that you needed to make up for that lost nutrition. By constantly dieting, Ino did no such thing, and even though Sakura hated it, she had stopped trying to make Ino see sense years ago. Despite the fact that Ino herself was well-schooled in the medicinal study – and with Sakura as her mentor no less – the blonde woman still preferred to thoroughly blind herself when it came to outer appearance. It wasn't that big of a surprise, really. Ino was vain. Sakura had always known this. She had accepted it. There was nothing wrong with it. It was just different than herself. Perhaps Kumiko was vain as well? Did Kakashi like women vain?

"There's that frown again."

"It's my face," Sakura responded unenthusiastically and slurped down the first spoonful of soup. It tasted surprisingly good. A bit salty, but good. Sakura was a lousy cook. Lack of practice. Or interest.

"It's an ugly face," Ino said. "Change it."

"Soup's a bit salty."

"My hand slipped. Not too bad though?"

Sakura shook her head.

"I feel a bit bad for Tenten."

Sakura looked up from the pieces of leek floating around in the soup. "Tenten?"

"Yeah. With the arranged marriage and everything."

"Tenten is getting married?"

This time Ino sent Sakura an exasperated look.

"No. Neji is. You know Tenten has always had a thing for him. Really, Sakura, Neji's marriage is the juiciest news all around the village. The true heir of the Hyuuga main branch settling down and all. Seriously, where are you keeping your head these days?"

Wherever Kakashi was, it seemed.

"I don't do town gossip," Sakura said.

"You used to," Ino pointed out and Sakura thought she heard disappointment in there somewhere. Alongside accusation. "He's fucking you up, you know. Kakashi. And not in the way you want him to. He's going about this the entirely wrong way. You both are."

"Why don't we discuss your life for a change," Sakura said and stared hard at the spoon lying immobile in her hand.

"Because the juice in your life has officially upped mine," Ino said.

Ino couldn't see it, but Sakura smashed her nose in right then.

"It's not 'juice'. I'm not having the time of my life here, Ino."

"I'm trying to take your mind off the negative side," Ino replied, her voice tight.

"I know."

It didn't matter how much salt that was in there. The soup had lost all its taste by then.