Chapter 76!
Title: UNEDITED PREVIEW
Note:
[EDIT: Thank you Patruelis for notifying me about the Error Fix that was stopping me from updating!
You're so awesome!]
AAAAH!
2 months!
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Let's just say it was an unplanned hiatus!
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And this is just a preview!
An [UNEDITED] preview for a very long chapter(s) to come!
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I just felt like it was necessary all of a sudden. It's like when you're waiting for class to start and you think you have all the time in the world to read or mess around on your phone until you look at the time and realize that class starts in under a minute or something.
I'm just worried that some of you guys have forgotten about all this.
Please let me know you're still here, just a little review of 3 words or something is fine!
Anywho, hope you enjoy this preview!
**Translation Note:**
'Nanchatte': it's a very casual, implicative way of saying 'Just kidding.', but it's usually used in the context where you lead them up to a conclusion and then let them know it's only a joke only after they take it seriously.
(I used this because I constantly try to tie back dialogue to how it would sound in Japanese, and it sounded more natural in this form than 'Just kidding.~')
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Disclaimer: I own nothing!
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The door opened and the thoughts that had been dizzyingly running through my head in the moments I had been waiting stopped and the day suddenly felt as surreal as any day I could see him smile at me like that.
I barely even noticed he had his mask on.
He looked down at me for a moment of quiet, as if he thought I was going to say anything first. I really hadn't thought of anything to say, I was too focused on the piece of fabric in my hands.
"Hello, again." His voice sounded as playful as it had last night.
My smile widened into a stupid grin, aided by the memory.
"I brought back the hostage." I replied, immediately ashamed of how cheesy my idiot grin made those already cheesy words sound.
But he didn't seem to notice neither my cheesiness nor shame. He just smiled like he always used to when I did something that was only funny for him and reached out to take his shirt back.
"But we never negotiated a ransom." He played along.
I stammered for a moment, clinging onto the shirt for a second longer, trying to think of something witty to say back.
I didn't get a chance to.
It was only a split second before I felt him tug the shirt a little, pulling me too.
"I'm afraid I don't have much to offer, though, but a kiss."
There was a moment of severe silence that only the stuttering of my heart interrupted. I had no room in my head for any sort of logic he had to say something like that, or to keep staring at me so deeply.
But just I was about to open my mouth and say something really stupid-
"Nanchatte.~"*translation note*
His voice was suddenly full of immature humor while my brain was still trying to catch up.
"Ah, sorry Haruno, but you walked into that one. I had to finish the line or it would've gone waste."
"What 'one', what?" I woke up a little.
"That was a famous line from Tactics… though I guess you wouldn't know. Are you alright? What, did your heart skip a beat?" He asked, freezing me. "I'm sorry, Haruno, but I'd never date a student. Besides, I have a thing for older women."
The rollercoaster of his attitude right now was enough to give me mental whiplash, but that last comment….
Hundreds memories and insecurities flooded my limbs and filled my heart to the rim.
I suddenly felt so… stupid.
God… But he's nothing like he used to be.
Still… even if he couldn't know how deep that had cut me… it was as if he knew exactly how to hurt me.
I shut up and handed the shirt, still trying to act as normal as he was, even forcing a little laugh. And yet, the moment he took the shirt from me, I swear… something about him flickered.
For just a split second he didn't seem so 'normal' either.
But I wouldn't let myself focus on that, I needed to spend all my mental energy to try and forget what just happened.
… … … … … …
He could see a trace of discomfort in her smile, a twist of wry in her laugh, but he still wasn't sure.
He had known exactly what he was saying with his last comment: that he not only didn't remember a thing about her, but that he didn't even think about her in the way he knew he definitely had before a week ago.
The only thing he didn't know and the only reason he was deciding to push this further and 'innocently' jab at her weak spots was because he had no idea how his comment, or himself entirely made her feel.
What she felt for him, how she thought of him, why she kept everything from him.
He needed to know what was left of him in her thoughts. He needed to know whether to let her go or to fight for her. And a small petty part of him would be happy to see her squirm after all she put him through by keeping their past a secret.
But when she handed him his shirt, right when he couldn't decided if she was hurt or nervous, or if he was smug or confused, something interrupted his thoughts painfully; an extra scent.
Iruka.
He reminded himself mentally of the night before, his conversation with that man who had admitted to…
He shut his brain off from that, but the same part of him that wanted to see if his words could hurt her was going through a considerable amount of pain right then, too, feeding his own vindictive spirit.
He acted as if none of these thoughts existed and started to walk her into the apartment .
Silence stretched between them.
"I'll be right back." he said more curtly than he had wanted as he left the room without looking at her.
… … …
Everything was so quiet.
I didn't know if it was just me or if this silence wasn't actually uncomfortable.
I glanced up at him carefully.
He was still reading, it looked like some kind of report.
His expression was so… focused.
He almost seemed… comfortable, though.
Like I was alone with my uneasiness.
I looked away quickly and back to the little cuts on his left arm that were closing up completely now. I tried to stay focused on my own work, too, since if I made a big enough mistake the cuts could heal too fast and become scars.
The silence continued.
It hadn't been broken in the ten minutes since I first walked into the room.
Had I done something wrong?
Said something rude?
Or was he just so uninterested in me?
That last one would've made sense to me if last night hadn't happened. Last night he seemed so close to being the man I got to know over the past months… but it was gone now.
He's was 'normal' again.
With what he said… 'I'd never date a student'… I know he was just joking, but that's what made it so much worse. He felt like it was something to joke about.
…
He really didn't remember anything.
…
But that's what I wanted, right?
I just want him to have the same kind of life as before, when he wasn't worried about me or… us. And it would probably be better for me to have that life back, too.
Everything about him has interrupted my life these past months so thoroughly that I've forgotten and pushed away my previous life. When my biggest worry was falling behind in training or losing focus in battle.
This is what we both need, right?
What we both want for each other, right?
… I don't know if I really believe that anymore.
What if-
Wait…
I'm worrying too much…
Think back to what Iruka-sensei said.
I closed my eyes for a moment, still careful with the pressure of chakra at my fingertips, trying to remember.
It only took me a moment to realize I couldn't really remember anything Iruka-sensei had said right now. I could remember his voice, his laugh, my own intertwining within it, his smile and his face, but his words were lost from me. And yet, I remembered the feelings they gave me.
Warmth. Solace. Care.
I was smiling to myself before I knew it.
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"Something funny?" He heard himself ask her without really thinking. He could hear the sternness in his own voice, and had made no change to it as he asked, but the moment she recoiled and her smile left he regretted making it leave.
"Uh, no… I was just thinking about… something my friend said…" She looked back at his arm, focused.
…
A tug of war in his chest raged.
A part of him sank lower into a pit of jealousy while another pleaded to himself to give up the act and fight for what had once been his.
He listened to neither side right now, knowing better.
"Last night?" He asked, his voice still hard.
She gave him a puzzled look, "Yeah… How'd you-"
The tug of war sank lower into the pit. He needed to do something.
"Haruno." He caught her attention, "Could you look at something for me?" He placed the report folder on the table in front of the couch as he leaned up and forward, closer to her.
Just as she was about to inch away he caught her hand and lifted it to his neck just as his other hand pulled down the side of his mask which struggled to hide his face but was made to show his neck.
He pulled her closer until he could feel her body heat against his chest.
He knew he shouldn't be doing or saying what he was, but at this point reason had no room in his mind.
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"Huh?" I asked nonverbally as he pulled me closer.
He led my fingers to the exposed skin of his neck. I could feel my heart clamor against my ribs when I realized how close I was to him.
I barely had enough sense to listen to him as he spoke, "This bruise on my neck, it's healed faster than the others."
I could feel my blood run cold.
We both knew it wasn't a 'bruise'.
Ne probably knew because of experience, and I knew because I put the mark there.
"Did you see if I was with a woman any time in the last mission?" He asked, skipping any explanation, his voice dangerously familiar now that I was this close to him, I could see his adam's apple bob with every word, but I couldn't really focus on the words after I gave them meaning.
Woman?
"I-uh…" I couldn't think.
I couldn't think.
I couldn't think.
I couldn't think.
"She probably would've been my own age, or a few years older, tall and full-figured. At least that's my favorite type." He explained casually. So casually that it snapped me out of my shock.
I felt a stab of pain when I realized his 'favorite type' was the complete opposite of who I was.
"I didn't see anyone like that." I answered as casually back, but I think my voice shook a little. I pulled away from him, my closeness with him suddenly felt unwelcome and rude.
But… I had no idea what to feel right now.
Nervous? Anxious? Sad? Angry?
My mind decided on all four of them when he spoke up again.
"Oh, I guess it doesn't matter. If it was anything important between us, she would've contacted me after a few days anyway." My heart felt like it collapsed in on itself when he said that so… flippantly, when I realized that he had no sense of loyalty or gratitude in this state. "It was probably only a one-night-"
"Kakashi-sensei." I cut off what was going to be one of the worst things he could say right now. "I don't think you should be talking to me about that." I debated through my teeth, focusing on his arm again.
He paused.
I could feel him looking down at me.
I hid my face behind my hair.
I didn't want him to look at me, I didn't want him to see how effected I was by what he was saying.
I didn't was to see him right now, either.
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She was trying so hard to hide herself from him, but he could see through her body language just how upset she was.
He shoulders her scrunched upward and close, her posture slumped a little. She wanted to make herself as small as possible, to hide from what he had been saying. She felt something. Something towards what he was saying. Guilt or pain, he couldn't tell, but he knew she couldn't handle his questions… or maybe the adult way he was talking about this.
He had a thought of continuing.
Maybe this was what she needed to hear.
He had gotten the feeling that whatever they had had together was very… tame. Of course he couldn't imagine himself sinking low enough to take advantage of a girl who is so inexperienced, but he wondered whether he had sheltered her from himself as well.
If he had actually hidden what adulthood is in relationships; how casual, how coarse, how mindless and unromantic it could be.
Did she have any idea what he was protecting her from?
Did she know what kind of relationships he had had in the past?
He knew he should've never brought the subject up, and he was very sure this should've been the time to drop it. But he couldn't.
Not until he got an answer.
"Why not?" He asked back to her last comment. "You're supposed to help me remember everything, right?" He flipped the situation over to her with that. As if she was shirking on her responsibilities by telling him to stop talking about something that he actually didn't need to talk about.
She didn't say anything, she only hid herself farther from him, but she nodded after a moment.
If she had been looking at him, he wondered if she could've known he was frowning.
Not because she was easily manipulated, not because he wasn't above manipulating her right now, but because… just for a moment he could sense that guilt he had suspected from her before.
If he was right, and she did feel guilt for what she was hiding from him, he knew he was going to hate himself later for treating her like this. But for right now… he didn't care to stop for that.
"Well…" he started again with a playful tone, feeling nothing of the sort, "I guess it's rude to just talk about me." He paused. "How's your love-life, Haruno?"
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I, again, felt another jolt of pain.
This time it wasn't just because he still insisted on calling me 'Haruno', but that question.
That question.
Why that question?
Hadn't we talked about this enough?
"I-" I was about to say I didn't have any 'love life' right now in a snootier tone that I needed. I think I probably would've given him an accusing look, as if I was saying his own 'love life' was something bad… but what would have been my authority to do that?
Right now, he doesn't care about what I think of him and his 'favorite type' or his kiss mark. Though, it seemed strange that he had brought it up at all. Kakashi-sensei was always a very private man; he wouldn't mention these kinds of things to us before…
But I didn't have time to think about that any further before he interrupted my premature sentence.
"Has Naruto confessed yet?"
"No…" I blurted after a moment of computing, "Naruto really isn't… I'm not really focused on that…. I'm just trying to focus on my abilities no-" My stuttering voice and stuttering chakra came to a halt with his next, unpredictable, question.
"What about Iruka?"
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What?
…
Silence stretched between us again.
I looked up at him, as if I could read the answer to my mental question in his masked face, but I only got that stony look he always wore when he was talking about something serious. I could never decipher what he was thinking behind it, not even when we were together.
I would've asked him what he had meant but the way he voice had sounded in those three words… cold, unfeeling, even icy.
I felt like he wasn't looking for an answer as much as he was giving himself his own.
He spoke up again when the silence had only lasted a few very long seconds.
"From what I've heard you two must be happy together." My brain glazed over. I could almost literally feel the moment my nervous system refused to do what I wanted it to do: to make me ask what the hell he was talking about. But in my paralysis I noticed the beginning of that sentence and just how dangerous all of it's implications were. 'From what I've heard?' "Though I'm surprised a man like him -a teacher-… he didn't seem like he could get caught up with a young girl."
'Young girl'?
My paralysis wore off when I remembered having a fight with him just a few weeks earlier about Iruka… he had called me a 'young girl' then, too. It had upset me that he still saw me that way, but right now, I was so much 'upset' as spiraling into frustrated confusion.
"What ar-" I raised my voice to ask, he interrupted as he always seemed to do, his voice always just loud enough to shut me up.
But I found myself speechless by just how stony his expression stayed, just how stern his voice sounded when he said something that dug deep into my chest, stirring my insides into a heavy knot.
"But I'm shocked that you could handle a relationship with an older man, especially with what happened to you during this last mission. Unless you actually prefer older me-"
"Kakashi!" I nearly yelled, interrupting him this time. I could feel my fingers shaking with something like anger if I wasn't so… sad.
"What?" His voice asked after a moment, "Did I say anything I shouldn't have?"
He sounded so innocent.
As if I this was a civilized conversation I'd overreacted to.
How could he think that?
How could he think that saying those things to me were ok?
That he could accuse me and lecture me like he wasn't guilty of the same thing he thought Iruka-sensei was. Like he wasn't an 'older man' I'd actually learned to handle a relationship with?
… But he doesn't know that, does he?
He doesn't know anything about us.
To him, he's my teacher, my leader… to him, he probably feels like it's his job to scorn my for getting involved with an older man, to lecture me.
He thinks I'm… that Iruka-sensei and I….
Maybe I should just… let him believe all that.
It wasn't true… but maybe we need this.
I've been selfishly hoping he'd remember something, that maybe fate would take this responsibility from me and curse him with the memories of me again… but with the way he is right now… he's not going to remember any time soon.
And he's already replaced any evidence of me with a woman he'd actually be attracted to.
He can't even think of me in the way I still feel for him.
So maybe…
This could be what we need to separate us enough.
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He needs to be my leader, I need to be his student.
That's how we should have stayed.
…
With that thought, the knot of my insides tightened almost unbearably, but I knew what I had to do now.
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"Did I say anything I shouldn't have?" He asked, leaving behind his coldness and adopting an innocent demeanor.
He had been half-surprised when she yelled his name like that, not only interrupting him, but dropping the honorific after his name.
She must've fallen back on some sort of habit from their time together, calling him by only his first name. Something inside of him reacted when she had said it, as if an important memory was connected to that, but he didn't focus on it since he was paying all of his attention to her expression as she dealt with his question.
She seemed angry at first, but her eyes quickly changed as they looked away from him. They seemed resigned… sad.
For a moment he though he had gotten his answer, the answer he'd been pushing her for since he saw her in his doorway, but he got her verbal answer before he thought through anything else.
"Uh, no… I guess not." That surprised him.
So he hadn't said anything wrong?
Was she actually confessing to her relationship with Iruka?
A moment of pain and a hurt grimace in his features went unnoticed by the pink-haired girl in front of him as she looked down, standing up.
"I'm done. I need to go." She said quietly, already walking away.
He had forgotten the real reason she was here to begin with, after this talk both of them had. He stood up to say something but he didn't know what, but in the moment he thought of seeing her walk through that door and leaving everything like this, leaving her with Iruka and him an emotionally manipulative bastard, he had to say something. He could only think of one word right now.
"Sakura."
His voice was softer than he had ever heard it, but he hoped that there was a part of her that felt the same as he did when she had said his name.
She turned around in response to his call.
The moment she did, he got his answer.
Her eyes, she could never hide what she was feeling as well as he could, and for a moment he wished she could've. At least that way he couldn't have seen the pain he had given her. The pain she took onto herself.
The answer to his question, the one that had seemed so goddamn important to him that he had played with her feelings wasn't the one he wanted.
The jealousy in him had wanted her to have left him, to have forgotten him, so he could hurt her and feel like it was worth it… but this answer was the one he had been afraid of.
She still felt something for him.
However small or weak it was, however much stronger she felt for Iruka, the fact what he had said had given her that pain… some part of her still held onto him.
And now that he knew that….
There was no going back.
He couldn't let her go now.
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But despite his realization she left only a moment later, leaving the same silence with him.
It took all of his sense not to follow after her.
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Ok, I know this is very very very very short, but, again, it is only a preview.
I know what you're thinking: "You've been gone for almost 2 MONTHS, why don't you have like 4 chapters ready to go?"
Well... my only excuse is not having an excuse.
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I know, shameful, but I got distracted by life-stuff again.
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But I'm back in the writing-groove, you guys, the full version of this will be out within the week, I PROMISE!
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Anyways, please forgive the unintentional hiatus, hopefully your still enjoying the story... even with all the emotional speed bumps.