Chapter 27!
Title: "Wounds and Wants"
Disclaimer: I own nothing!!
Note: Sorry for the wait!
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Every blurry face we passed in the streets looked at us with confused eyes, but I didn't care.
My feet weren't moving fast enough, but I was still meters ahead of Naruto.
I hadn't realized till today just how far my house was from the hospital… I wished that I had just left the groceries at the market and hadn't dropped them off at home in a panic.
I looked over my shoulder to Naruto, I had to know what was going on, I couldn't wait for an explanation till we got to the hospital.
"What happened to him?!" I called out, trying to control my overly-worried tone… I couldn't bring myself to say his name… it felt, that if I did, this would all feel too real.
Naruto took a second to answer, I really didn't like that pause.
"Nobody knows…. He showed up at the gates, but passed out before anybody could ask him what happened!" Naruto shouted over the roaring wind in our ears.
"When did they find him?!" I asked, my voice still didn't sound calm enough.
"A few minutes before I got to you!"
I felt a fraction of a bit better, knowing that I hadn't been clueless about all of this for too long. But that infinitesimal feeling of relief didn't survive the answer to my next questions.
"Did you see him?! …What kind of wounds did he have?! How many?!" I elaborated my real question almost frantically.
Naruto's long moment of hesitation really tore at me.
"Yeah… I saw him..." His said solemnly, "His wounds, I couldn't tell how many…. there was too much blood…"
My entire body immediately felt cold…
How is this even possible?!
……………
"Where's Kakashi?!" Naruto yelled at the receptionist behind the counter, showing no mercy for her eardrums.
I thanked god that I was here with Naruto, who could vent my desperation for me as I tried to control my nervous shaking.
"He's still in emergency treatment." The lady said, startled. I was thankful that she didn't have to look up which patient was 'Kakashi', that she could give us a direct answer right then.
"Where's that?!" Naruto shouted, scaring a few of the nurses walking by.
"I'm afraid you two can't go in there when they're treating a patient…" She was suddenly monotonous, reciting rules that she probably enforced strictly.
"We need to see him!" Naruto wasn't going to accept any rules that separated us from our teacher… me from my…
"You'll have to take a seat in the waiting area…" She pointed towards the couches in the corner with her pen, her annoyed eyes were cold.
"We aren't gonna wai-" I interrupted Naruto's defiant yelling, tugging his arm away from the countertop with a swift pull.
"Follow me!" I shouted as I started running.
I had spent a considerable amount of time here, studying medical jutsu… I knew exactly where the emergency treatment room was.
We ran through a pair of brown double doors marked with an 'Authorized Entrance Only' sticker that Naruto and I cared about just as much as we cared about the fact that the receptionist was yelling at us as we ran down the hospital hallway.
I would've usually followed the rules… but this was different.
It didn't take long before we heard several loud voices shouting orders at each other.
Naruto and I hid behind a corner when we saw a doctor walking down our hallway.
He didn't notice us, and turned into a room, raising his voice over the others to ask about the new patient.
"What kind of injury are we dealing with?"
Naruto and I inched towards that doorway.
I snuck past Naruto, trying to hear exactly what they were saying.
"Several lacerations below the sternum, crossing over the chest to the patient's left ribs."
"Have you stopped the bleeding, yet?" The doctor asked the nurse, sounding distracted.
"We've tried…. Ninjutsu's barely doing anything!" Another nurse spoke up, her voice a little panicked.
"What?" The doctor sounded more serious.
I could hear my own heart beating nervously.
Nobody said anything for a few seconds… I was dying for any more information.
I felt my fingernails dig into my palms, waiting painfully.
Jutsu was supposed to heal any type of cut or laceration… why wouldn't it work?!
"His body temperature's going down …"
I couldn't focus on anything else… I had to see what was happening, I had to see if this really was Kakashi-sensei, I had to see what he looked like… if I didn't know, my imagination would drive me crazy.
I peeked around the corner, hoping no one would notice me...
As my eyes found the group in the room, I saw that nobody was looking at me… everybody's eyes were stuck on the silver-haired man, who was lying on the hospital bed.
His body was writhing painfully…
His eyes were closed, cringing tightly…
His gloved hands curled into fists…
It was him…. This was real… the blood leaking onto his shredded chest plate was really his…
This wasn't an illusion or a replacement…
He was actually lying there… wounded and in pain…
I could feel tears of frustration sting my eyes, my vision blurred… The sight of Kakashi-sensei turned into a water-colored mess of reddening gray and black… I felt so useless… I couldn't do anything for him… I could only watch… I couldn't do anything!
Kakashi-sensei…
"His wounds… they've been infused with chakra... his body is too busy trying to reject that chakra to respond to treatment…" I heard the doctor explain mostly to himself.
"He's losing too much blood… we have to stop it now…" One of the nurses that had been trying to heal him with that familiar green glow suddenly stopped, looking towards the doctor expectantly.
I kept my eyes on his face…it hurt to see him in pain like this.
"If ninjutsu doesn't work, we'll have to stop the bleeding physically… Everybody clear the space!"
There was suddenly in frenzy, people moving tables and carts.
A few of them crowded around Kakashi-sensei, blocking my view of his face.
I heard the chest plate hit the floor, the cloth of his shirt tearing.
I couldn't keep my eyes on him when I saw the red running along the skin of his chest in several horizontal slashes.
My heart throbbed painfully with fear.
When I quickly looked down to the ground, unable to take eveyrthing in, my eyes met a pair of shoes.
"You shouldn't be here!" One of the male nurses yelled at me. He walked through the door. His voice rose when he saw that Naruto was here, too. "You have to leave immediately!" He yelled louder, causing a couple of heads turning this way.
"But!" Naruto wanted to fight back.
I reached up to his arm, grabbing hold of it.
"We should go…" I tried to say calmly.
I could feel myself shiver with frustration, helplessness, panic, and fear… I couldn't control any of these horrifying feelings… but I could control myself, and keep myself out of the way of the people who were trying to heal the one I was feeling this much pain for…
"Sakura?..." Naruto was suddenly calmer, worried…. I only grimaced at my feet as I started pulling him towards the exit. "Don't you want to see Kakashi-sensei?" he asked me…. My heart literally felt like it was being torn open.
Of course I do!
All I wanted to do was run to him, to brush my hands along his face, along his chest, to take away that pain, to make him open his eyes and look at me… I wanted to see him smile…
I wanted to kiss him, touch him, feel him, to hear that endangered heartbeat against my ear as strong and as deep as I loved it!
But right now… if I were around him… I'd only complicate things.
"We can only get in the way if we interrupt them now…" I said coldly… I hated the way I sounded.
We walked through the double-doors, I drug Naruto to the couch, not even looking at the smug receptionist as we passed her…. She said something unnecessarily rude… I didn't care.
………
We sat on that couch for a long time.
I didn't even look at the clock once… I knew that if I did, I would only have to scream with frustration at the fact that it either hadn't been an hour… or that it had been several, and we still hadn't heard any news of Kakashi-sensei…
People kept wandering in and out.
Some of them I knew, some others I didn't.
Many of them asked for Kakashi-sensei, but were told to wait.
Some would leave after a while of waiting….
The others who stayed were sitting on these couches, faces just as lost and nervous as Naruto's.
I couldn't imagine what I must've looked like… I didn't want to.
I was leaning against the armrest, staring at the floor…
I knew all of the people around me, a few were talking with each other… but I couldn't really focus on their words or faces.
I was too lost in what the doctor had said…
"His wounds… they've been infused with chakra... his body is too busy trying to reject that chakra to respond to treatment…"
Chakra-infused wounds?
I didn't know where I had heard that before… probably in one of my medical jutsu books.
But I remembered how dangerous that type of injury was.
Not a lot of people were capable of that kind of attack.
Kakashi must've fought with a powerful, but ruthless man…
My hands clenched tightly at the thought of whatever type of person would do this to him…
It was practically understood between villages that that kind of technique was forbidden…
To have chakra pushed into your wounds, to have an alien type of chakra molded into your cells… it was nearly impossible to cure the infected wounds with medical jutsu…
I didn't want to imagine what kind of pain Kakashi-sensei had gone through, but I couldn't wash the sight of the slashes across his chest out of my mind. That scary image was painted on the inside of my eyelids… I couldn't let myself close my eyes for too long.
"Hey, the doctor's coming!" I heard Naruto exclaim from my right, he jumped up from the couch quickly.
Everybody went silent, I finally snapped out of my catatonic state.
I looked for the doctor, but my eyes landed on all the others first.
There were so many here: Naruto, Sai, Yamatou-taichou, Gai, Asuma, Kurenai, Anko, Iruka, even an obviously impatient Tsunade-sama, who was currently walking towards the doctor determinedly.
Even though there were a few people here who had been a source of major personal unrest for me, right now, everybody was here for the same reason… to see their comrade, teacher, colleague, friend… I shared many of those relationships with Kakashi-sensei… along with another, secret, connection to him, one that would devastate everyone in this room who didn't already know... but in the end, we were all here for Kakashi, nothing else mattered…
I staggered up from my seat, my legs had fallen asleep… I hadn't even noticed it.
The doctor walked up, looking a little nervous next to Tsunade-sama.
"We've managed to stabilize him… we've closed up and bandaged his wounds… but he's still severely dehydrated, as well as fatigued… but he's alert and is willing to accept some visitors."
The doctor wasn't prepared for the sudden uproar from our more excitable members of this group.
Gai, Naruto, and Tsunade showed their joy with yells and raised fists.
I immediately felt like crashing back onto that sofa, smiling and crying at the same time… but I held it in…. I tried to bury this overwhelming and overpowering relief, it was almost as difficult to bury the suddenly resurrected and consuming desire to run to Kakashi-sensei and kiss him, to touch him in ways that would blatantly reveal my true feelings for him for everyone here to see.
I was so focused on staying in one spot that I barely noticed when everybody was already flooding those brown double-doors, loudly eager to see their teacher and friend.
I followed after them a little desperately.
I took a deep breath… trying to adopt the mindset of only being his student…. Trying to think back to how I would react before …..
It didn't work…
I still wanted to see him as soon as possible, but I couldn't get past everyone else.
The doctor tried to calm them as they we were walking down the hallway that Naruto and I had recently infiltrated, but as soon as he pointed to Kakashi's room, nobody paid attention to him anymore.
In the end, I was the last one to get into the room.
"Kakashi!" Gai yelled warmly.
I saw the top of his bobbed hair walk towards Kakahsi's direction, everyone else was in the way.
Tsunade shouted Kakashi's name, too.
Everybody else greeted him more calmly, Naruto was trying to fidget his way through the crowd, probably saving his especially loud greeting for when he was face-to-face with Kakashi-sensei.
"Hey…." I heard his voice… it was weak, a little raspy… but he still had his usual, casually polite, tone.
Those tears of relief almost started falling.
I felt so weak for being so close to tears… but I couldn't help feeling this strongly.
I wanted to see him.
Everybody started talking, all of them mixing their voices and stories together, sharing their thoughts of Kakashi-sensei's condition, how they heard about it, how they were happy that he seemed to have bounced back just fine.
I couldn't say anything.
I stood there, getting a little impatient.
I really needed to, at least, see him.
He must've had the same thought…
"Is my team here?" His voice asked up, politely clearing away the ruckus.
I opened my mouth to say something.
"I'm here, Kakashi-sensei!!!" Naruto yelled louder than I could in that moment.
He started pushing his way through; people cleared a path for the galloping Genin. I saw Sai walk out from the crowd and approach Kakashi's bedside calmly.
"Ah, hey Naruto, Sai…" Kakashi greeted them weakly.
"You feelin' better?" Naruto asked… not really thinking about what Kakashi would be feeling right now… he was probably still in a considerable amount of pain… it was always hard for Naruto to understand that we didn't all heal as fast as him.
"Better than this afternoon…" I could almost imagine the casual smile he would wear when saying that. "Hey, Naruto… do you know if Sakura's here?"
I jumped when he said my name. I hadn't really expected it for some reason.
I hadn't expected him to actually call for me… I thought he would wait.
I didn't really think about why he was impatient to see me… I was just happy that he was.
"I'm her-"
"Yeah!" Naruto shouted happily, drowning out my voice. The crowd of people parted, Naruto pointed over to me.
I could finally see his face.
He was still masked, but I could see his eyes narrow happily when he followed Naruto's directions over to me. His head fell back onto his pillow calmly, like he was relieved.
I walked towards him, not blinking…. Staring into his face, trying to take in every detail of him… he stared back to me with the same kind of expression I imagined I was wearing.
Is this strange?
Will anybody notice anything?
A part of me didn't care.
I reached out before I got to his bedside.
I didn't know what I was going to do.
I had wanted to touch his face… his hair… his lips….
But I couldn't do any of that right now…
He saved me, lifting his hand up to mine, our fingertips touched lightly.
As soon as his skin touched mine, I wanted to feel more of it, I needed to feel his whole hand, his arms, his chest, everything that he was, I needed to feel him, to make sure he was still here, with me…. But with only our fingertips touching for barely a spare moment, it ended.
Nobody seemed to even notice that we touched… we could've been waving for all they knew.
It was slightly depressing that the limit of our public affection was such a small touch.
I wouldn't be able to survive off of that moment for too long…
He dropped his hand back to his side, I folded my hands together, forcing myself to look away from him.
If I kept looking at the genuinely appreciative expression he was giving me, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from reaching out to him again.
My eyes followed down his arm, I noticed his shirt was in tatters, only his mask remained intact, and my eyes inevitably found the red-stained bandages running all across his chest. He was half-covered by the sheet.
I couldn't control a twitch in my expression from seeing him like that.
I could feel his eyes on my face, his ungloved hand quickly pulled the sheet over his bandages… like he didn't want me to see.
I wanted to look back to his face and see what expression he had, what he was trying to tell me… but I was immediately interrupted.
"I'm sorry if I worried you guys." Kakashi-sensei was back to normal, speaking to all of us.
"I would punch you, Kakashi, if it didn't mean that you would have to spend a few more days in here." Tsunade-sama joked… I think.
Everybody laughed anyways… I could feel how relieved everybody else was.
That looming, nervous tension from the waiting area was suddenly gone…
They all started chattering with carefree voices.
Naruto was pestering Kakashi-sensei about future missions that he wouldn't be able to go on, before quickly switching over to the subject of rotten hospital food.
I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Anko-san was leaning over Kakashi's bedside a little too close… he ignored her, talking with Naruto and Sai.
I didn't even feel bothered by it…
Yamatou-taichou talked with Iruka-sensei comfortably.
Tsunade and Gai-sensei were joking about Kakashi.
I tried to keep my eyes off of Kakashi-sensei, so that nobody else could see my feelings for him as obviously as you could see them in Anko-san.
As I looking around the room, I managed to see Kurenai-sensei quietly slip a simple bouquet of flowers into a small vase by the window. She walked back to Asuma-sensei.
They smiled at each other as he wrapped a hand around her waist.
I heard that they were involved but I had never seen them act like it before…
I felt really happy for them… secretly hoping that Kakashi-sensei and I could be that free with each other someday…
I tried not to think about it seriously though….
The bustling voices carried on, adding a brighter atmosphere to this scary day.
But before I could join in, the light mood suddenly shifted when Tsunade-same spoke up…
"But it is strange to see you in the hospital after such a small mission, Kakashi… You don't usually let your guard down so easily…" She didn't sound angry… but she was definitely skeptical of something.
I saw Sai flinch a little. He must've been curious about this, too, since he knew exactly what kind of leader Kakashi-sensei was in ANBU.
"An ambush had been planned, just for us…" Kakashi's tone immediately turned serious. Even when he was this badly injured, his voice still had that demanding quality about it that stole everyone's attention.
"What did they want?" Tsunade questioned further.
This suddenly felt like a real meeting.
Everybody else went silent, listening to the details just as eagerly.
"They didn't say… their leader did most of the talking, but it wasn't about their objective…" Kakashi's voice grew a little stronger.
"What about the leader, did you recognize him from any villages or clans?" The Hokage asked, crossing her arms, staring down at Kakashi.
There was a long pause.
I forced myself to forget about not looking at Kakashi-sensei.
My eyes found his face.
His eyebrows were furrowed a little edgily, like he was remembering something… probably the battle earlier today.
"Asaka…"
He said finally.
Tsunade took a moment to respond to that, her tone suddenly changed.
"I understand… we'll talk further about this later, in private…" The group's suspense was suddenly lost. The tension left the room. "Right now, you have something healing to catch up on… so we should let you rest…"
I whipped my head over to Lady Tsunade…
Since when does she act so responsibly?!
Maybe what they were talking about just now was actually a lot more important than I thought it was.
'Asaka'?
What kind of family name was that?
What clan was responsible for this?
I had to look it up later.
I quickly pushed the matter aside when I realized that Lady Tsunade was now herding everyone out of the room, following behind them.
Asuma, Kurenai, Sai, and Yamatou-taichou all left quietly with Tsunade-sama, saying their farewells in different ways… Anko was the next to leave, moving from Kakashi's bedside a little hesitantly, wishing him a 'good night'.
Gai-sensei gave Kakashi-sensei a reckless pat on the shoulder, and a twinkling grin, before joining the others, walking out the doorway.
Even as Naruto finally shouted 'bye' to Kakashi and was walking over to me expectantly, I still wasn't ready to leave… I couldn't leave now…. Not before I said something to Kakashi-sensei… not before I could be alone with him….
"Come on, Sakura..." Naruto started walking towards the door, telling me to follow him.
I couldn't say I wanted to talk alone with Kakashi-sensei… that would be too suspicious… and I definitely couldn't say or do as I wanted when Naruto was in the same room.
I looked back to Kakashi hoping for a miracle that would give us a few minutes together… he was looking towards the doorway, at somebody else.
I followed his line of sight, hearing a familiar voice before I could see the person.
"Naruto, why don't we go for some ramen?"
"Ramen!?"
With that, Naruto forgot all about me and was running towards a smiling Iruka-sensei in the doorway. "Go on ahead." Iruka said warmly.
Naruto ran out the doorway excitedly, following the bustling voices of the rest of the group.
Iruka-sensei lingered in the doorway for a second, looking between me and Kakashi-sensei.
"Two minutes…" He lost that warmth in his tone.
I saw Kakashi nod his head respectfully in the corner of my eye.
And with a slightly-bothered sigh, Iruka-sensei heaved himself off of the door jam and walked out of sight.
Iruka-sensei?...
Did he actually just answer my internal call for a help?
Did he actually just give me and Kakashi a few minutes together?!
I accidentally wasted a few seconds staring at the doorway in surprise.
"Sakura…"
His slightly weak voice sounded impatient.
I turned towards him immediately. My feet carried me to his side hurriedly, trying to make up for lost time.
I knelt down a little, trying to get closer to him.
He couldn't sit up yet.
"Kakashi…" I called out his name, my voice finally sounded as desperate as I felt.
His hand quickly found the side of my face. His battle-roughened fingers didn't waste any time grazing along my jaw, brushing along my lips, across my cheek, into my hair, down my neck.
It felt like he was trying to feel me with as much desperation as I had to feel him.
I placed both of my hands on his face, my fingers ran along the sides of his temples, curling into his hair.
He closed his eyes slowly, like he was trying to feel everything.
"Kakashi…." I could only say his name again… I almost felt those belated tears well up.
His eyes opened again, looking directly into my eyes.
I felt his hand reach around to the back of my head.
He pulled me in.
"Don't look so worried." He ordered me lightly.
His thinly-masked lips pressed against mine.
It wasn't the first time I had felt his lips like this, but I was still surprised about how deeply he could kiss me even when there was fabric between us.
And though this wasn't a real kiss… this wasn't about actually kissing, it was about being as close as we could get to each other.
I knew he would've taken off the mask, but we probably didn't have much time…
As if the universe was agreeing with my guess, I could hear footsteps travelling down the hallway, towards the open doorway, again.
That's the shortest two minutes I've lived through....I inwardly complained.
The feeling of his lips left mine.
"Come back… at eight." He still sounded impatient for more.
"Okay…" I responded, hearing my own eagerness.
I kissed his covered lips again. My fingers traveled further into his hair. I never wanted to let go of him.
I heard a familiar voice clear their throat noisily…
I tried to immediately pull away, but Kakashi's grip in my hair was still holding me to him.
It felt like he really needed more.
"Enough of that, Kakashi…" Iruka-sensei's voice called out sternly… he sounded upset, but mostly embarrassed.
His fingers loosened, falling down my back slowly, letting me go… A part of me had wished that he'd disobey Iruka-sensei for a bit longer.
"Later tonight…" He promised weakly, his hand slowly brushing along my waist.
"At eight…." I responded, smiling to myself.
I couldn't control the red rushing to my cheeks as I walked towards Iruka-sensei… who still seemed really bothered by seeing his young student semi-kissing his colleague like that.
I thought I saw Iruka give Kakashi a quick glare before I walked passed him.
As we reached the waiting area, I was met by a jumpy Naruto who was still jonesing for his ramen.
"Sakura-chan!" He ran up to me. "You're coming too, right?!"
"Of course she is…" Iruka spoke for me, smiling a weaker version of his usual smile.
I wondered just how much it bothered him when he saw us just now… must go against the grain of his teacher-nature to make time for another teacher to kiss their student.
At that thought I couldn't help but notice that there was something really weird about this whole situation, but I couldn't really think about it as we left the hospital, making our way to Ichiraku Ramen…Naruto galloping several feet ahead of Iruka and I.
I was completely distracted by this overwhelming relief and anticipation.
I would get to see him again… to be with him…
Time couldn't go fast enough.
My mood instantly shifted when I heard Iruka-sensei speak up."Why?"
"What?" I turned over to him, looking up at his placid face, surprised that he'd even talk to me, since he was probably already trying so hard to forget what he just saw.
I wasn't ready for his next question.
"Why are you… and Kakashi… like this?" His words were vague, cautious of any listeners.
…
…What?!….
…
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