Me again :) FAST update huh? :) hope you will enjoy!
The morning was horrible. The morning was painful. These kinds of morning feelings were usually reserved for Mondays. Each sound was piercing her brain like a sharp senbon being thrown through her head. Sakura could hold her liquor, she was trained by the best, but the one thing she always forgot about was the morning after. She could not hold her mornings after. The massive hangover she was now sprouting was the painful remembrance as to why exactly she didn't drink excessively that often.
When Sakura woke up it took her few minutes to gather her wits and deduce where exactly she was. Her brain slowly loaded the information from last night, not remembering how she got to Ino's room at the end but was nonetheless thankful she didn't wake up next to Kakashi in this state. She wanted to groan but the quiet whimper she released a minute ago when the sun hit her eyes told her that any sound, coming even from her is not a good idea.
She slowly sat up and found a painkiller and a glass of water sitting on the bed table next to her unladylike drooled-on pillow. Thankful that Ino remembered how bad it was for her in the mornings she analyzed her stomach movements and decided it was safe to take the pills now without the need to visit the toilet.
One of the reasons for shinobi not to drink was that chakra manipulation was really, really hard when you had alcohol in your system especially if you had too much alcohol in you and you had trouble to concentrate. A medic-nin has to have a very good chakra control, and to have good chakra control you needed to be mostly sober to perform the easiest types of healing, hence another reason why Sakura didn't get drunk so often, because her hangovers were usually that bad that she couldn't even help herself and had to rely on pills to get rid of the splitting headache.
She managed to drink the whole glass of water when Ino came back into the room holding Sakura's bag in her hand.
"Thought you might not be up to the task. Kakashi wants to leave within the hour. Will you manage to eat something?"
"I'll think about it in the shower." Sakura tried to keep the image of food out of her mind for the time being, at least until the pills kick in.
"How is your head?" croaked Sakura with her hangover raspy voice.
"Not good enough to help either of us. Sorry." This time she actually looked apologetic.
Sakura carefully stood up and took clean travel clothes from her bag and went to have a refreshing shower that would hopefully make her feel more like a human.
It took her nearly forty five minutes to get cleaned up and come out of the shower in presentable state. She found a plate of plain onigiri and some herb tea on the small table. She took a sniff and a sip of the deliciously stomach-calming tea and actually managed to eat two onigiri balls before she noticed the time.
One really infuriating thing about Kakashi Hatake was his perception of time. In Konoha he was always late, no matter the circumstances, even for the departure on missions he managed to be late, keeping his customers and teammates waiting. The only exception was once the mission was finished and he set a time for departure he managed to be precisely on time, even going so far as to chastise anyone who dared to be late for most of the time it took to get back home.
Sakura knowing about his annoying habit made sure to show up on time as she really wasn't in the mood to listen to him or to even talk to him for that matter. She was stubbornly refusing to think about yesterday, not wanting to deal with any of it at the moment. She was looking forward to going home so she could either lock herself up in her apartment and process the whole week emotionally, alone and without witnesses or burry herself in work at the hospital not allowing herself time to even think about it until it would just fade away like a dream she doesn't want to remember.
All of the inhabitants of the ryokan were gathered in the front garden near the main entrance, wanting to say goodbye to trio. Kakashi was just in a reluctant hug by Ayako who had him swear to keep in touch and stop by anytime he was near. Sakura noticed that Mochi and Izumi were holding hands and both were sprouting a nice red blush on their cheeks.
When all goodbyes were said they made their way back home. Sakura refused to make eye contact with Kakashi, managing not to speak to him directly and she knew he was punishing her by setting this breakneck fast tempo, knowing full well that she would not protest as there would be another lecture about alcohol coming from him if she dared to speak up and request a more slower tempo. He didn't have understanding for drinking excessively on a mission, even though technically she was just on a holiday, she knew she drunk way too much and should they be attacked on their way back she wouldn't be able to use her powers and skills at 100 percent.
So she just swallowed the breakfast that was for the umpteenth time making its appearance from her un-cooperating stomach and tried to not lose Kakashi from her sight. She chanced a glance at Ino and knew she was better off, her hangover long gone and she was actually smiling. If she had the energy to run and talk at the same time she would have asked her what's so amusing.
They made just a short break to drink some water and have a toilet break and they were off for another round of running at high speed. Within few hours Kakashi finally slowed down and Sakura let out a grateful sigh. Kakashi didn't even stop as he pulled out his book and started reading and walking towards Konoha that was just fifteen minutes walk from them. There was no need to alert the patrols and gate watchers by running in at full speed. It was an unwritten rule that if there is no emergency, such as injury or highly important information, one does not enter Konoha in full throttle and startle the guards unnecessarily.
As they were walking right now Sakura managed to actually think and talk without the fear of losing her footing due to lack of concentration. When the gates were almost visible on the horizon she remembered one very important piece of information she forgot to share with Ino. She would have slapped herself if she wasn't afraid of the headache coming back.
"Oh, Ino. Hold on a second." She wanted Kakashi to be mostly out of earshot.
"What's up forehead?" Ino stopped impatiently looking at her friend and back toward to the Konoha gates, trying to see if by any chance Choji was waiting there.
"Could you not tell anyone about Kakashi and me?"
Ino frowned at her request. Did they split up? Was that why she drunk so much yesterday? "Why?"
"Because I lied to you? We were never going out and we pretended to be engaged so he could get Kaori off his back. It was supposed to be just for that evening, but then Ayako came and the whole mission.. Just don't tell anyone as there is nothing to talk about really."
Ino's mouth just came open as she looked at her friend. She wasn't really angry at her, she didn't believe she was really going out with Kakashi in the first place, but the way he was looking at her at the ryokan when he thought no one was looking, and how happy Sakura seemed in a long time, she thought it was real. Then she remembered the note she sent to Choji and paled at the implications.
"Oops.." Ino slipped the word involuntarily.
This time Sakura gaped at Ino as she saw her pale and mutter the oops. "Oops? What do you mean by ups? There should be no oops in this conversation. What did you do Ino?" Sakura's voice kept getting louder with each word and Ino just gulped afraid for her wellbeing if Sakura got over boiling point.
She brought her hands up defensively "I kind of sent a note to Choji yesterday night."
"To Choji….?" Once again if she wasn't afraid of the headache coming back in full force she refrained from slapping her forehead.
Little known fact about Choji Akimichi was that even though he didn't look like it he was the worst gossip-spreader in Konoha right after Ino Yamanaka. His daily trips to different shops and food stalls and restaurants made him an easy target to pry information out of him by the gossip hungry villagers and having the one weakness Choji had, food, he was easily susceptible to sharing this information with them, thus actively spreading rumors around Konoha.
Sakura just hoped that Choji didn't have time to spread this juicy gossip around Konoha yet but it was soon crushed as when she looked towards Konoha she could see dust rising from the road as one orange clad man was running full throttle towards them and screaming on top of his lungs.
A vain popped at her forehead and Ino was glad that her attention was directed at the fast approaching kyuubi container. Sakura ran forward to intercept Naruto as he reached Kakashi and was about to do something stupid. She punched him on the head so hard that he stayed seated on the ground with a questioning and hurt look.
"Baka! What do you think you are doing?" She kept her fist menacingly in front of his face trying to calm down.
"But Sakura-chaaaan. Kakashi-sensei is being pervert! I'm just trying to protect you." Naruto wailed from the ground, not wanting to provoke her more by standing up and massaging the place of impact on his head.
"Why do you think I need protecting, baka?"
They didn't have time to continue as two masked ANBU appeared and announced that they are to escort Kakashi and Sakura to the Hokage.
Just few minutes later they were all, including Naruto in the Hokage's office staring at an angry Tsunade.
"Baa-chan, he was making indecent proposal to Sakura-chan!" accused Naruto the stoic copy-nin standing near the doors, his book pocketed when he entered the Hokage's office. Sakura followed his accusation with another punch at the blond head.
"Naruto!" she ground through clenched teeth, "I already told you that nothing happened! I was just helping Kakashi with the mission."
Tsunade had a frown on her face and was quietly assessing the situation.
"Uzumaki Naruto!" Tsunade raised her voice on the intruder. "Out! Now!"
He was about to protest when Sakura took another step closer to him. Having two punches in a row from her was enough for today. He would just wait for her outside and make sure she was alright.
Once the doors were closed behind him she turned her attention to Kakashi.
"Is that true Hatake?" Aksed pointedly Tsunade the copy-nin looking into his droopy eye.
"The engagement was pretended as Sakura has already explained." confirmed carefully Kakashi, not willing to go into details as Sakura was adamant about putting all that happened between them behind her.
She wanted to pry more when Sakura interrupted her.
"Shisou, please. Could you not make a big deal out of this? All of this is just a misunderstanding." When she saw that the Hokage has calmed down a bit she continued. She wanted to get out of here as soon as possible and visit her shower and bed as early as possible. "May I be excused now please? It was a tiring trip and I would like to prepare for tomorrows shift at the hospital." She asked as politely as possible.
Tsunade just nodded her head and watched as Sakura exited the room and as Kakashi was about to follow her out.
"Hatake, where do you think you are going?."
"Is there something else Hokage-sama?" asked Kakashi trying to look innocent and praying to any and all gods that Tsunade had a good day and would not pry anymore into the now non-existent relationship with Sakura.
A cruel smile spread on her face as she looked at Kakashi and a sudden storm appeared outside, basking the office in a sinister light. He could swear half of the Konoha had to hear him gulp when he took a shaky step towards the Hokage and cold sweat run down his spine.
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