Dear my readers, I'm so sorry for the delay, it took me so long to decide what I should write next when this story really developed out of my pre-set plan, now it becomes much longer than I thought (nearly 30,000 words in stead of 13000) and I really don't know when it will end, but I still try to keep the number of chapters under 10.

Thanks for all of your comment and alertness ,

PLEASE ENJOY YOURSELVES!

Secret - Chapter 7

The freezing chamber

Traversing the lawn leading to his memorable place, Kakashi was drawn to amazement when he realized that there was some one else had already been there, sooner than he, in this thin blanket of dull white morning-frog since a gloomy but melodious violin's song which was spreading through every grass and tree's leaf, flooding the boundless serene space and merging in the isolate breeze, had instantly fell into his audible range when he strolled to the cenotaph.

The melody seemed to give life to those soulless things and turn them into connoisseurs of music, who were so engaged in this beautiful song that they accidentally let the infinite sadness and forlornness imbrued in the melody soak in their every sense and beleaguer them like a never-ending ocean of wretchedness. Everything seemed to be adrift forever in that interminable flow of emotions.

Watching those half green half yellow blades of grass swinging sullenly in the zephyr like desperate couples sharing their last dance before separation, Kakashi felt like he was no longer a mere observer but a bewitched listener who could not jerk out of his stupor caused by this music anymore.

"Why was it so sad?" – he didn't know but clearly it had reeled his stomach and nearly brought tear to his eyes. As an electric-shock-like wave of the sound penetrated Kakashi's senses, the bridge of his nose, without a warning, stung keenly. If he had not a man, a very strong man in actuality, those liquid would have formed at the corner of his eyes.

It was a blue moon to have some one came here earlier than Kakashi because he really wanted to be completely alone to have a talk with his old friend. But it was even rarer when one appeared in this unlikeliest place to play the violin with such unhappiness. To understand how the players' feeling was could not be less palpable…

Finally, the player appeared in front of his eyes.

The person he did not want to meet the most at this time and also the only one he needed to meet the most…

Cherry short hair slightly stirring in the wind….

Spotless white dress, moony in the slim curtain of chilly frog…

Slender shoulders, fair complexion, delicate figure…

Her eyes peacefully closed down to let her soul dipped into the flow of melody and her trim figures moved in a smooth rhythm, helping the violin sing its own exquisite song…

Kakashi wanted to go away right at the moment he saw her before the cenotaph since he could not arranged the confusion in his mind to look at and talk to her as calmly and nonchalantly as ever. But something clung on to his steps, settled him down on the ground and made his confusion grow wilder and wilder… He just could not fight back, not until he could hear all the melody clutching his soul back by their imaginary gentle digits, making his heart beats became quieter in a way and agitated which sent electric shiver to his spine in another. The more he listened to the sound, the more it swirled his inner-self with melancholy emotions, wrenched his heart with deserted feeling and connected his soul invisibly to the violin's player's by an ephemeral thread…

In this very instant, everything seemed to disappear, sink into oblivion, melt away without a trace, left behind only the two people and the violin's song…It had reached the deepest part of his soul…where loneliness and loss ruled forever…

When the song died down, the sentiment it left behind still fresh and overflowing in his mind, he just wished that it never thawed away like so many other things made their way out of his living…

"Kakashi-sensei…"

She turned back to regard him with surprise blatant on her face. Emerald eyes churned his gut gallingly, since when her presence made so much discomfort and ambivalence to him? Releasing a heavy breath which deemed to go totally unnoticed to Sakura by the distance between them, he managed a fake smile with eye-crease towards her:

"Morning, Sakura…"

"Ah, morning, Kakashi sensei"

She hastily bowed her head a little bit when took in her ignorance of greeting to him. Then the awkwardness materialized between them as they recalled the incident two days ago at the hospital. And Kakashi was the first to break the silence as he, after all, was the faulty one:

"Sakura, about that time, I'm sorry, I didn't know what came over me…"

It's ok … She cut him gently and tightened her hand around the violin's handle …I meant every one sometimes acted strange, I don't blame you for that, really…

Well, that was not this easy and simple; he knew it and knew that she knew it too. To have Kakashi acted in such an uncontrolled and cruel way, terrible things must have been occurring. And especially when you treated your beloved student who had saved your life by risking herself and did nothing except for kindly took care of you that rude, you had to regret awfully a lot if you had a great conscience. But if she decided to lay down the topic so he did not have to return the table to complicate the matter. He smiled again this time, a real one:

"Thanks Sakura"

She did not reply him, just gave him a smile and turned around to knee down on the grass before the monument to put her violin into its box. The atmosphere around them became far more light-heated and Kakashi could not back up from the urge to ask her about the instrument:

"You surprised me Sakura, I never knew that you can play violin, especially this good, since when you played it?"

I have a lot of things you'll surprise, sensei …she paused to shut the box. A hint of hilarity in her voice – like you are always the mystery for the three of us or the entire village.

Yeah, she was right, he was nowhere to argue that when he kept secret all for himself, so, it did not mean others did not have any.

I played since I was six, the dream to become a ninja was just stronger than the dream of being a violin artist, so I quit, but I still practiced them regularly at home, it's my pastime hobby. Sasuke caught me playing my violin once when he accidentally walked past my room six years ago, It was the first time he complimented me on something…so today, I wanted him to hear something nice…

Yeah, today was Sasuke's death day; It may be part of the reason why her violin's sound that heartrending. Even when he figured out that there was still something even more profound than just the remorse of a precious late-friend, he could not make out myriads of feelings mingling in this song. He did not know since when he could not read his only female student like an open book just like when she was twelve and fifteen. She had become an enigmatic girl without his awareness – well may be she was affected by him – the most unfathomable man in Konoha. Kakashi changed the subject when noticed the other strange thing:

"Where's Naruto?"

"Still sleeping, he was too tired yesterday helping the villagers to complete the hanging bridge, I did not want to wake him too early…oh, it's raining..."

She said naturally without any surprise in her voice, as if she had anticipated it well before the first tiny drop of summer's rare drizzle placed itself coolly on Kakashi's cheekbones. He replied with a quiet "hmn" hanging habitually in his throat as he faintly raised his chin to watch those light and limpid celestial tears dropping gloomily down to the silent earth.

His mind was lost in the sudden curtain of rain, lost in thoughts and lost in her mystifying world…

Watching her holding her palm upwards to catch the falling tiny dews which were perching on her pinkish silken tress like chains of hazy pearls, his eyes suddenly became too dazed to distinguish between what he was seeing was actually veracity or fantasy. Bewilderment assailed his mind as right in front of his own raven orb; her surrounding space grew to be wavered between reality and dream. Sakura was still standing there, only several arm-lengths from his place, with a vague smile on her gracefully-curved lips together with the misty glint in her eyes which made she look like a fog pixie, so elegant and so pure that everything around her in this earthly world seemed to sink into oblivion to mutely admire her flimsy beauty as if only a small sound could make it vanish for good. This was why she abruptly seemed to be caught in a so faraway place where no one could reach. He blinked his eyes, reminding himself of illusory imagination but the scene just did not go away, once again dipped him in the sea of mysteries. Was it his own sentiment in a strange flap of time playing some trick on his inner eyes or was it her who really created ethereal images before his gaze ?…He did not know…just witnessed them all soundlessly…

She blended so well under the rain…

As if she was melting…into the light rain…

As if she would soon, so soon, very soon, go away…

Evaporated from this world like the raindrops which buried themselves deep down into the quiescent and wintry earth…

And then a light smile painted her lips…

A sad smile which brought a squeeze of pain to his heart, a smile drenched with rainwater. Bizarrely, even when she was smiling, she looked like a sakura-blossom crying silently under the rain,

so stunning…

so frail…

but so easily withering under the freezing touches of nature…And that scared him to death…

No…

He did not hear his own scream but it still reverberated through his mind for the reason that it did not come from his vocal cords or anything in that sound-making mechanism; it came from his inner thoughts when he rushed to her, grabbed her upper arm in his abruptly shivering hand, frightened by the silly idea that she would fade away into this drizzle…

Right after that, reality struck him…

She was still there, real, soft and cold under his touch, eye widen by his astonishingly weird action:

"Kakashi-sensei"

Embarrassed by his illogical panic out of nowhere, Kakashi hesitatingly undid his fingers around her arm and muttered under his breath:

"Uhm, sorry, I…"

He lost for words, he did not know what to say or to explain, how could he do that when he did not even get it himself with all of those estranged, abnormal and volatile feelings out of the blue emerging in his mind? He became emotionally unstable due to even the slightest things around this girl…He hated those feelings; it was jarring his sound brain in the most unpleasant way. Things like this happened only once in a person's life as controlled and calm as Kakashi's and he was really confused in dealing with it, what would you do when you supposed to have never experienced it before? You simply had no key to solve it, you did not even have the background knowledge to ponder upon it…Evading her orbs still directing to his, examining his face to find out the root for his peculiar behavior, Kakashi said it quickly:

"I have to go"

No sooner had he turned his head to walk a way from the cause of his unbalanced state of mind, than she voiced her thoughts:

"Kakashi-sensei, what happen? Why are you acting so strange these days …around me?"

Even his back now faced her, and the monotonous sound of the rain invaded his ears, he could still sense the spicy and stinging taste of tear so touchable in her voice and her hesitation when her sentence broken down into the last two words "around me"… But this was the time he should be cold and nonchalant, lukewarm and distant:

"You shouldn't ask Sakura, you shouldn't…"

After a short pregnant pause, she let it go in submission and a little bit disappointment:

"Yeah, I shouldn't ask…"

"Because it's none of my business, and I can never be that close to you, can't I?"

That was all she could mean with the two simple words "shouldn't ask", which was totally perceptible to Kakashi but he could not take his words back either. A pang of regret struck the back of his brain, he found himself so willing to eliminate the discomfiture around them but powerless to do so… Things had got out of his hand, between them, suspicion and disbelief burning like hell and it was obvious that when mistrust appeared in any relationships, when people close to each other no longer believed each other, their bond was marred, their link was on the verge of being broken…

"Tell me Sakura,"

This time he turned his head to face her

" …Do you love Naruto?"

and stared straight at her eyes to mull over it, to find any indications of deception inside those emerald eyes:

"I do, I do love him so much…"

She responded easily, still looked straight into his eyes. There no hint of trickery. Just confidence and truth… but intuition told him something different, he could not name it exactly but he knew it there, something was not right…He had once been so confident that he could see through his disciples including Sakura, know them so well to place his faith in. But since when, he could not read hers anymore, although honesty written on her face, he did not know what was underneath. It was just like he meant something and she meant the difference…

"Goodbye, Sakura"

He turned away at last and strode out of the memorial lawn, still sensed her eyes following his back…

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Cursing yourself for committing the most stupid sin which you should never made if you intended to lead a reclusive life was not Kakashi's force of habit. What done was done. He could not turn back time to change anything or blamed himself ceaselessly for ever falling in love without weighing up the consequences. Yeup, had he ever considered the aftermaths of having an affair with a total stranger and determined not to succumb to her sweet temptation, he would have never fallen so hopelessly in love like he was now. Now there was a silly paradox that he himself found it hard not to laugh at. At first, he tried every hints that his analytical mind brought about to discover who his lover was, and even filtered those who were his associates but now Kakashi prayed so hard to the God that he seldom believed in that she was an entirely, totally alien. She could be anything, a blood-sucking monster, a spy or a dangerous criminal rather than being one of his acquaintances, especially being Sakura. He could handle any terrifying kinds of human or non-human his girl could be without flinches but he did not know what to do if he was the one who stole away the love of his dear student's life and for the worst part, deflowered his only female protégé he ever taught. He could not stand that fact even he had once tried to prepare himself for that. All the culpability, guiltiness, shame, sinfulness and self-torment made him suffer like an acute disease in the last phases or like a horrendous migraine torturing him every second.

Needless to say why he felt this way, every one knew Hatake Kakashi since young took in the fact that he was a man of morality. He never had distorting or lewd thoughts about his students or lust after her especially when she was 14 years old younger than him and he was her teacher, her team-leader, her protector ever since she was twelve. The thought of viewing Sakura as a woman or more explicitly an attractive woman (even when he knew that she's quite a looker amongst Konoha's ninjas) never crossed his mind. She was very beautiful, sure, but in Kakashi's eyes, it was just like a realistic fact that Jiraija was the Konoha's number-one pervert and Naruto was so loudmouthed and impulsive. It did not contain any other sexual desire in that kind of comment. He was not a pedophile and she was not a jailbait (as he once believed). For six years together, there were no inappropriate moments which were unsuitable to their ranks, their status and their terms, just pure friendship and a family-like relation (at least to his mind). Never had he have to question that bond. It was him who set up all the proper manners and behaviors between them and it was her to respect him and behave so decently and correctly. Had nothing happened recently, he could have never imagined such a well-brought-up, graceful, serious girl like Sakura could do something so outrageously bad. Even at this very moment, when he was stalking her, he would not believe it.

He wanted to know the truth and he had to know it since it became one of the most critical decision in his life. The incident challenged everything his moral system work out for 32 years, his belief, his dignity and his only love. If his girl was Sakura, all of his system would be ruined but if she was not, he at least lifted this heavy, clamp-like heartache off this chest. This was 50-50 chance and he decided to take risk.

Right after he came home yesterday and received his girl's letter (a printed paper without hand-writing) stating that she had important business to do and had to stop meeting him for a period, he fixed on his plan. Vanishing in this moment made her more distrustful than ever. And when he could never collect enough courage to unearth her true identity when he faced her in their nights of wild passion, it was a good thing when he found another way to do it without directly hurting her.

Spying was normally a very tedious and tiring job, requiring far too much patience and sometimes left one empty-handed and furious after up to a few months of painstaking following and calculation. Kakashi knew that it would not be easy to crack that impenetrable shell of that ostensibly innocent, honest and proper facade. But he had two most essential possessions for scouting: time and persistence. Sooner or later, he would gain what he needed.

This time he really had to see underneath the underneath…

Choosing an unobtrusive place behind the large trunks of the century-old tree facing the front of Nartuto and Sakura's house and masking his own chakra, Kakashi could easily see the kitchen inside the upper floor of the flat through the large window and the small balcony. It was Sakura's idea to place the kitchen in the second floor as she insisted that the smell of cooked food could easily be withdrawn to the open door and the house would be much dryer and airier, and Naruto had nothing to argue with his thoughtful fiancé. Kakashi never thought it as an advantage up to now, when it actually let him see the full-morning activities of the couple although he felt so guilty for doing this.

Without any missions and emergencies in the hospital, Sakura started a day like any other normal girls. She woke up quite early at six and opened the window to welcome the fist lights flooding into her small world. Her face looked peaceful and unperturbed as she relaxed her shoulder's muscle and inhaled a huge breath into her lungs. After a few moves for the morning exercises on the balcony, Sakura returned to the kitchen and dressed a blue apron over her pink-hearted pajama to prepare the breakfast. She looked quite oblivious to the surrounding, which was no surprise to Kakashi since he was sure that after all those years, she still could not be proficient enough to uncover his masked chakra that went unseen even to the fifth Hokage and the Sannin when needed. Kakashi was not known as one of the greatest tracker in the ninja world for nothing.

Shortly after the breakfast was finished, Naruto with a wash-cloth around his neck appeared from the stairs, strode to the kitchen and said morning to Sakura along with a long yawn. Sakura quickly moved towards him and kissed him on the cheek which made Naruto blushed profusely (which also made Kakashi chuckle in his mind, after all those years Naruto still could not for once act normal around Sakura). However, her kiss became lingered longer on his cheek than necessary with just a simple peck, and it swiftly turned into something lustier as she moved her lips to his ear and nibbled its rim, which made Naruto stiffened a little bit before catching up with her zeal by enclosing the small of her back in his right arm while the left hand supporting her nape in the most gentle way the Jinchuriki container could afford. Then he kissed her avidly with his eyes slit shut, showcasing his pure passion and love and red blush still tainted his cheeks, reminding Kakashi of a certain Hyuga girl. Kakashi's gaze on the young lovebirds did not last as long as the kiss simply because, as a privacy-worshipper, he himself could not stand violating others' privacy in such a way, and additionally, there was something else in another part of his brain, something so-called "uneasiness" turned up out of nowhere.

When his lone eye returned to his two students, they already broke their kiss but still in each other's arms:

"You have an appointment with Shishou this morning, don't you?"

"Yeah, Anbu's stuff I guess. Baa-chan get so pissed off recently and I really don't want to be anywhere near her at this time."

Naruto pouted his lower lip dispiritedly when Sakura placed her forefinger on the tip of his nose and pushed it teasingly:

"So don't be late, if you don't want to be under her wrath. Now, go eating your breakfast."

And she undid herself from Naruto's hug decisively, making the young man start to feel abandoned and wanting more:

"You've ruined the game, Sakura, you instigated it…"

"Well. We had plenty of time tonight, Naruto" – She cut him shortly with a devious grin and sat down at the table.

The breakfast past by with a few more chit-chat about works they were going to do and people they were going to meet. Certainly, Kakashi had gained the information he needed – Sakura was going to the supermarket to shop for the whole week, which left him a bunch of time to make his detour around the house later. After the breakfast, Naruto dressed on his jounin's uniform and left the house after planting a heated kiss on his wife-to-be's face. Sakura did the washing-up and left home one hour later.

Wasting no time, right after seeing Sakura lost from view amongst Konoha's alleys, Kakashi entered the house with complete ease and with a set mind to find out some of the clues for his final conclusion. Having been here several times gave Kakashi no difficulties rummaging the house in the most careful and undetectable way. No one would ever find out the Copy Ninja had been here with his accumulative experiences.

The house has too floors, the living-room was in the first floor, right to the left of the main passage leading from the main door. A bedroom for guests was opposite the living-room and a laundry room, which lay next to the back door leading to the back yard, was behind the stair directing to the second floor. The second floor included the kitchen, the bed room for the couple, a toilet and a bathroom. In fact, Kakashi had no specific idea about what he intended to find but intuition just told him to go through the house to find special-raising-interest-objects beneath those seemingly clueless rooms.

After nearly one hour spending on ransacking the house (and finding a medicine cabinet full of bandages, cotton, antiseptic, antibiotic, tranquillizers and birth-control pills; a dressing-table with an ivory-comb and a few make-up, a sweet smell of room-spraying perfume, a bathroom with several types of shampoos and shower cream, hair-conditioner), Kakashi leaned his back on the bedroom door, hand supporting his chin and tried to think of what he had missed during his search. He knew there was something not alright with all these perfectly normal furniture and household stuffs but could not clear his mind to uncover what was truly wrong here. Then it hit him that he had overlooked the guest-room on the first floor because at first, he considered it to be unnecessary…

Disappointment quickly plagued Kakashi's thoughts as he once again stood in an absolutely ordinary well-lit room with a large bed and a wardrobe (with only a pajama hung inside and a warm-blanket at the bottom). The room looked spacious and plain, but neat and tidy and had a very faint smell of ramen (which made Kakashi think or guess that may be Naruto occasionally hid away from Sakura to stealthily eat his favorite Ramen cup in this room to satisfy his addiction while everyone knew that his lover detested ramen). Sat down at the bed wearily, Kakashi started to think that may be he was over-sensitive, may be he just irrationally suspected Sakura of an extremely unreasonable act, then accidentally, something caught his eyes. At the foot of the wardrobe, there was a dim rectangle trace of wooden floor, the color of which was slightly darker than other part. The different ranges of color were separated by a thin white straight line, which, no mistakes, was made by the moving of the wardrobe. Hastily, after examining the trail carefully, Kakashi tried to pull the back of the wardrobe aside to see what was behind it. The wardrobe was surprisingly much more heavier than its appearance, it had to be made from a very special type of wood – may be millennium cypress – typical for building the village's gate or blocking underground tunnels because of its anti-chakra, soundproof qualities and many other utilities. Nevertheless such an object could not pose any threats which could decline the Copy Nin's reputation since he already knew dozens of jutsus to infiltrate secret tunnels. Gathering chakra to his hands, Kakashi formed a seal and the next minute he could effortlessly push the wardrobe aside to reveal a door behind it. Stimulated by both curiosity and a little bit displeasure (mostly caused by the fact that his two beloved students having something to hide from him, something was very, extremely likely to be a dark secret – if not, why bother buying a house with an underground hideout in it?), Kakashi opened the door to disclose a murky stony staircase. The air happened to be strangely frosty, and the deeper he stepped down the narrow spiral stairs, the colder the air became. Unconsciously rubbing his upper arms for warmth, Kakashi fumbled in the jet-black darkness to follow the declining steps. When he left the last stair and reached the bottom, the iciness was nearly to the point of unbearable. Forming another jutsu to light up the room, Kakashi was stunned to realize that he was standing in a large freezing chamber with a huge ice at the center of the room and numerous smaller ices messily leaning on around the room's walls. On the face of the biggest ice, an extremely outlandish incantation circle that Kakashi himself never once witnessed was carved deeply. Withdrawing from all his previous experiences, he just guessed that this was a kind of sealed charm. Examining the chamber's walls, he realized that they also made from a very special type of granite which could keep the room's temperature at its lowest point.

Kakashi's head was swamped by thousands of questions: Why do Naruto and Sakura need a clandestine chamber in the house? What is that spell? What do they want to do with it? – But he had no time to find out now as the freezing air had been biting his fingers, his toes and icing up his nose. The coldness inside this room was extraordinary. If one used the phase "to be frozen to the marrow" to describe it, it would still be an understatement. For such a skilled ninja like Kakashi who had been through countless extreme kinds of weathers and climates, this frostiness could be compared to the worst time when he nearly lost his life in Snow Country with a severe injury on his back. If he could remember; this ice seemed to be the legendary ice-stone in the eternal snowy mountain – Shirahima of the Snow Country, which could remain its ultimate frostiness for five hundred years after being removed from Shirahima. Question after question continued to overwhelm Kakashi's mind like a sudden outbreak of disease, still, he had to hurriedly leave the room and moved the wardrobe back to its original place.

The guest-room's temperature was just cool and pleasant 15 minutes ago now became oddly hot and stuffy in comparison with the chambers. Kakashi sat down at the bed and mulled over what he had just seen. On the way discovering a secret, he happened to know another secret.