Chapter 64!
Title: 'But I didn't… Part 2'
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Note: Hope you enjoy.
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Disclaimer: I own nothing!
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I took a moment register those words.
'Bite marks'?
Bite marks?
You never bit me like that.
You wouldn't leave those kinds of marks on me.
My stomach tightened grotesquely and my eyes widened slightly when I realized what he was talking about.
Hiroki.
…The feeling of his teeth on my skin came back as well as the way his tongue swiveled over the sore bites after he made them…
Oh, God.
Just the fact that that man had left some type of mark on me was disgusting, so disgusting I felt like taking a scolding shower and scrubbing my neck for hours.
But the fact that Kakashi-sensei, not Kakashi, saw these marks without any explanation in his memories… when he could just jump to any conclusion… was sickening to the point I didn't even want to be here anymore. I could feel my breathing pick up, my heart start racing, shame filling my chest with a disgusting, oozing, substance that was grating the inside of my lungs with every breath.
But everything seemed to stop in an instant.
A pair of cool, slightly-roughened fingertips brushed along the skin of my neck, circling. He must've been tracing the marks.
That didn't seem like something I thought Kakashi-sensei would do.
But I didn't want him to touch me, especially those marks. The marks he didn't leave on me.
I leaned away from him, not harshly enough to repeat my previous mistake.
"Those…" I started, swallowing, "Hiroki… he left them." I said aloud, feeling the shame only sink in further after I said those words. I lifted my hand to my neck, covering them. My other hand tightened around my open shirt.
I felt so exposed right now.
I saw Kakashi's posture stiffen a little, his hand curled into a fist before falling away from me,. I felt like he was disgusted with me. I knew he wasn't… but I kind of was… "The other mark… was from someone else." I added a little hurriedly, not wanting to blame the mark Kakashi gave me on a man like Hiroki.
But the moment I said it, I regretted it.
…
I should've just let him believe Hiroki had done everything.
….
But I couldn't take it back now.
…
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She started unzipping her shirt slowly, facing away from him.
He suddenly felt like this was wrong.
There was something very wrong about Sakura being here, sitting on his couch, taking off her shirt like this.
He felt like he should just tell her to go to the hospital.
But he quickly lost all his thoughts when her shirt fell past the nape of her neck, not that her body was distracting, but that the marks on it were.
He sat there in silence for a moment.
He couldn't really believe this.
He wondered if it was only a trick of the light or if they were just cuts from battle, but he wasn't naïve enough to let himself believe that.
He slowly raised his fingertips to her skin. She started talking, he wasn't really paying attention, he could only listen to her words long enough to reply.
His eyes never left the single circle on her neck, that looked almost red, and the several semi-circular indentations that decorated her pale skin.
Kiss marks. Bite marks. Sloppy abrasions all along her neck.
What happened to her?
Whatever had happened was extreme.
Too much for a girl her age.
…
I thought she hadn't even had her first kiss yet.
That thought shook him harshly when he realized it visibly wasn't true.
He knew that girls her age were going to start dating and start searching for love… but… this… this didn't look like it was 'loving'.
He couldn't help but remember the little thirteen year-old he met that day, obsessed with romance and boys. He never thought he'd see her like this one day.
That that little girl would grow up to know this type of… abuse.
The marks on her neck looked angry and violent.
He couldn't imagine her letting some boy to this to her on purpose.
Her voice went on, describing something he knew he should be listening to. Something he'd been wanting to know. But his eyes and attention couldn't be shaken from the abuse on her skin.
He noticed, immediately wishing he hadn't, that the bite marks along the side of her neck were too wide to belong to any adolescent boy. Or a man under thirty.
He could feel something like a mixture of disbelief and… anger… start to bubble inside of him, though he couldn't portray it. Not when he heard her voice again.
"What's wrong?"
…
He couldn't say anything.
…
He couldn't even decide whether or not to just ignore this.
…
The thought of ignoring what had happened to this girl seemed revolting the moment it crossed his mind. He had to say something.
He couldn't speak.
But that was all for the best, he had no idea what his voice would sound like now. Besides, he couldn't stop his hand before his fingers already met the reddened skin on her neck, just barely making contact.
She seemed to understand immediately.
She leaned away, looking shocked.
She spoke up after a moment, "It's just a bruise." He could tell she knew he knew it was a lie.
But the way she tried to dismiss only the single kiss mark was strange.
At that he couldn't stop himself from answering her one-worded question. 'What?'
"The bite marks…"
A moment passed.
She crouched away from him with something like shame growing in her face, he wondered whether or not this was why she didn't want to go to the hospital. Or why she reacted so harshly when he touched her collar earlier.
Either way, this hadn't been what she wanted.
He immediately wished he hadn't had brought it up. It hadn't been his place to. As a teacher he shouldn't delve into her personal life like this. He crossed a line just now.
But he couldn't care.
He couldn't care about anything but her right now.
All of this was so surreal.
He never thought he'd know a moment like this.
But he couldn't stop staring at her.
Something about her.
He just wanted to reach out to her. Wrap his arms around her. Hold her against him.
He had no idea why.
He was never the type of captain or teacher that would treat sorrow or shame with closeness, he'd show them respect and distance, knowing how much they wouldn't want to be pitied… but right now.
This wasn't pity.
He had no idea what it was… but he just wanted to reach out to her.
Before he could think of not doing it, he did. His fingertips found her skin again, tracing along the marks.
As if looking for an explanation, as if trying to reassure her that she didn't have to be so ashamed.
She still flinched away from him.
"Those…" she started weakly, he listened intently. "Hiroki… he left them." She had trouble with the name again. Now he knew why.
The slight feeling of anger built in him now that there was a name to those bites, but it was forgotten altogether in a moment.
"The other mark… was from someone else."
…
What?
…
Why would she tell him that?
She didn't need to.
Maybe whoever did give her the kiss mark was someone she didn't want to sully with that man's abuse.
For a moment he felt a fraction better.
Knowing that, before she could feel that type of abuse from a man probably more than twice her age, she knew something else.
She started pulling her shirt back up. He wasn't going to stop her. If she wasn't comfortable anymore because he spoke out of turn about this issue, then he couldn't stop her from walking out right now.
But he took this chance to try and turn things around.
He didn't know if his instincts as a teacher were finally kicking in or if he just felt somehow responsible for making her feel this way, but… he didn't want her to stay like this…
She showed up at his doorstep depressed, now he knew why.
Maybe talking about this boy who belonged to the kiss mark would help.
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I started to put my shirt on.
I didn't want him to see me anymore.
I just wanted to be warmer again, to cover up, and leave.
This was too much for me right now.
I needed to go.
I'll just take the bandage and try to put it on myself later at home.
But his voice stopped me altogether.
"So, do I know him?" He asked lightly.
I was immediately confused. I looked back to him with probably a weird expression.
Who is he talking about?
He smiled a little warmly after a second, already making me feel a little better. But I just felt worse when I figured out what he was talking about.
'him'
He was talking about the one who hadn't been Hiroki.
'Do I know him?'
That question made me want to crumple, to just give into how weak my muscles felt and left the pain take over.
I didn't let it.
I just stared at my shirt, tugging at it a little as if I was fixing it.
He must've taken my silence wrong.
He spoke up, his tone just as casual as before, but lighter. It was as if he was doing his best not to sound as seriously worried as I knew he felt. "It's okay." He started, "I know there are rules against you kids going out at this age, but nobody really cares. We all had things when we were young." The way he made us sound like we were from different worlds was more than a little painful, but they way he smiled with his eyes closed, his hand scratching at the back of his head as if he felt old just talking about this…. It was cute.
It definitely reminded me of the him before we were together. He was fun to be around, too, sometimes.
Again, the feeling of happiness to be around him seemed to meet the pain this conversation was giving me. But even if my numb balance had been found again, everything seemed to have been pushed to a new height. The pain and joy both more extreme than before.
But all that was forgotten for a moment with his next questions that just shook me with surprise.
"Who is he?" He asked suddenly. "Have I seen him around?"
This was just…
Everything about today was getting so surreal, and even now I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was playing a joke on me somewhere. But I took a breath, thinking about his questions.
I wanted to answer him quickly.
He was trying to make me feel better, probably… and even if it was tearing me up on the inside, I couldn't let him know it was. Besides… the fact he cared enough to lower himself to talk to his student about their teenage love-life was enough to make me wonder if he cared more than usual. The Kakashi-sensei I remembered wouldn't have bothered with this. Not that he wouldn't have cared… He would've said something encouraging and kind, but he wouldn't have gone this far as to start up a conversation like this.
"Yeah, sort of." I answered after a moment of hesitation.
I could've said no. I could've said it was some normal boy from the village or from out of the country, I could've said he didn't exist.
But…
I couldn't lie to Kakashi-sensei.
Even if I knew he would probably never find out… I still… a part of me wanted to hint towards the truth. I kind wanted him to figure everything out, while a larger part of me was hoping he never would.
He seemed to take an interest in my answer.
"Why didn't you mention it? Did you get my blessing?" I bit back the pain as I tried to focus on his words.
I didn't mention it because you knew the whole time.
And I didn't need your blessing because it was you… And you aren't my father or anything anyways.
Even if he was acting a little weird, I knew he was being the same old Kakashi-sensei, joking around like that. I had learned that even though he could play around a lot, he really wasn't as much of a comedian as he acted sometimes. Almost like it was just another fake persona to make people feel at ease around him. I didn't get a chance to answer his last questions when he asked another one, probably trying to keep up his 'fun' persona.
"Is he still around?"
That turned my nerves cold.
No matter how much I thought I could handle this before. Now I really wanted to leave.
I took a breath.
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"We're not really… anymore." Her voice got quiet.
He stepped on a landmine just then, didn't he?
This is probably what she'd been so upset over… if it wasn't about what that man had done to her, at least.
He winced at the thought.
He leaned back in his seat a little, sighing lightly.
He got the feeling that even though he was trying to help he was just clumsily messing with her personal life wasn't he?
He never knew how to handle teenagers.
Even when he was one, he never quite understood them.
… but…
Maybe that was the problem.
He'd been trying to treat Sakura like any other teenager just now.
Didn't he already think through this today?
She wasn't a little girl anymore.
She was hardly even a 'teenager'.
She's been exposed to the world of adults ever since she was little.
The way that sounded in his mind, his eyes found the side of her neck, which was curtained by her pink hair now, and realized that she'd been exposed to the crueler side of adults, too.
He was such an idiot.
He nearly smiled at himself wryly as he brushed his hand over his face.
He didn't need to try and make her feel better like she was a kid. He didn't need console her as an elder. She was strong enough to figure everything out for herself.
He didn't have to talk down to her.
He just needed to talk to her.
"I see." He spoke up after a moment. Almost smiling, but hiding it. His voice sounded more serious than he felt. "Don't worry." He said lightly, "Another one will come along." He noticed that she leaned further onto her seat, as if lost in thought about what he just said."I'm sure he was just an idiot anyway." He dismissed whatever boy had made her cry easily, feeling some sort of childish pleasure in calling that boy an idiot.
He didn't know why but he was a little happy that this girl wasn't caught up with whoever that kid was anymore. Maybe she can find someone who wouldn't leave her like this.
Someone who she could know what a relationship with love was really like instead of the little fickle flings teenage boys make every other month.
Maybe she could find someone who she could care enough about to forget whatever was hurting her now.
To forget what that boy did to break her heart.
To forget what that man did to make her feel so ashamed.
Again he could feel something like anger growing in him with the thought that some man out there was responsible for the way she had pulled away from him so fearfully today. An idiot boy was easy to dismiss, youth was full of those love-life lessons. But a grown man doing something to hurt her this way when he should've known better.
His fist clenched slightly.
He glanced at the pink-haired girl for a moment, she was still quiet with thought.
A broken heart could be forgotten easily, but the kind of trauma that man must've given her. That doesn't heal as quickly. And by a man so much older than her, too, a man who would hurt her in such an angry way without knowing any limits or caring to listen to what she wanted.
The anger built against his will when his mind actually pictured it for him. He hadn't heard how the mission had ended, but he hoped he killed 'Hiroki' for what he did to her…
He suddenly realized he didn't know exactly what had happened to her.
His blood seemed to run ice cold when his thoughts arrived at the worst.
It was difficult to even think about.
…
He knew he shouldn't bring it up again, but something in him wanted to know.
He needed to know he didn't have to track that man down again just to kill him, if he hadn't already.
"Sakura…" He asked, leaning forward in his seat seriously.
She seemed a little shaken by his voice. He must've let the anger slip through on accident. He calmed himself for a moment. He wondered why it was getting so hard to control his emotions right now. He must be tired.
"What?" She asked quietly.
He took a breath.
He couldn't believe he was in a position to ask this.
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He sounded serious again.
I was just trying to get over the mental bend of having him say those words…. 'Another one will come along'…
It had sounded nothing like him. The Kakashi I knew… at least the one who loved me… would get jealous so easily and wouldn't even think about giving me up to 'another one' that 'will come along' unless he had no choice.
But my focus had been called away from the hurt that gave me when I finally heard him speak up again.
"Did he do anything else?"
I froze.
The way he asked that. The anger weaving into his voice. It sounded so familiar. Almost like Kakashi. But I couldn't think about it when I realized I was going to have a hard time answering when my heart was beating this fast and my lungs were being filled with that oozing shame.
My silence lasted too long. I saw his hand shift as if he wanted to reach out to me. He spoke up again worry clouding the anger I heard just then. "He didn't-"
"No…" I stopped him quietly.
He didn't seem to relax though.
I found my voice again, tugging at my shirt as I did, "He was going to."
He tensed next to me.
"But you stopped him…" I added lastly, almost smiling at the memory.
A moment passed.
"I'm glad."
The way he said that. It sounded more like a 'Thank God'.
…
The way he was talking about this just now.
It reminded me of the hug he gave me after he saved me.
The way he just wanted to make sure I was safe. How almost desperate he was to make sure he hadn't gotten there too late.
My pained smile showed itself a little.
"Are you okay?" His voice asked after another moment, sounding more like the team captain he was than the man he used to be, again.
No.
"Yeah. I'm getting there." I said with a little smile, letting myself look in his direction, but not at him.
A moment of quiet passed.
I just tried to enjoy the feeling of him sitting next to me.
"I should probably do my job." I spoke up after a moment, turning to him dutifully.
I lifted my hand, unsure of what I was planning on doing. But he stopped me anyways.
Even if I had been ready to drop the moment from before, he still seemed serious when his hands stopped mine from reaching his bandaged arm. My arms still felt heavy, but when he touched them, pushing them away from him gently I felt like I wouldn't be able to hold them up any longer.
But, just like before, his touch only stayed hesitantly and disappeared after only a moment… as if he was scared of hurting me with his touch.
He didn't know how much it did hurt. But I didn't want him to. Because then he wouldn't do it again.
"I don't want you hurting yourself just for me." He reasoned, knowing I was still weak.
His ironic word choice shook me a little.
I am hurting myself for him.
I didn't have to be here.
I could've left.
I could've gone to the hospital.
I could've let us grow apart and make this all easier.
But I didn't.
"Yeah, I'm still not really-" I agreed, trailing off…
I have had enough of all this.
This rollercoaster of a conversation.
I was getting so tired.
So tired.
I lifted myself from the couch as steadily as I could.
He stood up too.
"I understand." He said casually, offering an arm for support.
Just for the sake of feeling his arm again, I thought about taking it.
I didn't.
"I'm a bit better now." I lied.
I started walking down the hallway, he followed a few feet away. As if he didn't want to get too close. I guess that was best.
I stepped into my sandals tiredly. "I'll see you tomorrow." I said lastly, stilling not turning around to look at him as I heard him walk up beside me. He opened the door for me.
"Bye." He said first.
I walked out of the room.
"Thank you." Was all I could think of saying.
And as soon as he closed the door, with a little smile, on this awkward situation, I could feel that pain.
That pain I knew was coming.
It starts at my fingertips and toes, travelling with a chill up my arms and legs as I took weak steps down the stairs, slowly creeping into my stomach, raising up to my heart, grabbing hold and pulling downward, my throat tightening with the stretching.
I could feel the burning at the corner of my eyes.
I knew this would happen.
I knew this would hurt.
I knew this would…
… it wasn't what I thought it would feel like.
It was worse.
So much worse.
I couldn't go home right now.
If I went home I would just collapse and never get back up.
I needed something else.
Before I made a conscious decision I found myself walking towards the old Academy.
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