Chapter 10

Charades

Tsunade hasn't done anything for the past hour or so. A pile of documents, to be reviewed and signed, sat side by side her board of 'to-do' stickies Shizune organized for her. In the center of it was a blazing, neon yellow sticky that chirped, 'Review Chunin Exam Write ups!'

She groaned out loud and heartily groused about the hardships of life. Depressed and unmotivated, she oozed, for the lack of a better word, out on her desk, her head miserably slacken against the table. At the edge of her peripheral vision, she saw the two bottles of saké hidden under her desk. She squirmed in her seat.

'I'm going to save them for tonight,' she thought tragically. But surely such a dire situation could be an exception.

'I really shouldn't,' she tried to insist. Just a little bit, Tsunade. You may as well.

Resolve shattered, she quickly perked right up and reached for her beloved wine. She kissed the neck of the glass and took a deep swing straight from the bottle. Happy, Tsunade swerved her swirly chair around and gazed out lovingly at her village through the wide windows. Everything looked warmer with alcohol humming in your veins.

She watched Konoha bustle around, the people the size of mice, meeting and breaking off with other fellow mice. She liked to people watch, while they nosed around the market, joked with the cashier and check themselves out in compact mirrors when no one seemed to be looking. It entertained her to no end and she liked to pass time like this as the head of Konoha.

Tsunade squinted when a particularly fast mouse sprinted pass the woman she was watching. It was a flash of red and pink that ran in an odd jagged pattern, as if it was hurt or something. Sakura. The blonde leaned closer to her window and frowned, watching the girl abruptly stop, and start running again just as suddenly, finally disappearing into the hospital.

What was wrong with that girl? She shook her head and turned back to her desk. Sakura was already handicap. She couldn't cause any real trouble now, anyways. She ignored it, licked her finger and took the first page from the pile of paperwork.

She pushed through the doors, a hand pressed against her temple, looking around frantically.

"Sakura-san?" a worried voice beckoned to her.

She made eye contact with the mousey nurse at the front desk. She stumbled forward and tried to form her question between shallow breaths.

"He's here," she said eagerly, understanding the look in her eyes, "Come with me."

Her legs immediately gave way. On the way down, Sakura's cries erupted from her throat. Her sobs racked her hunched frame, causing her to choke on her own breath. Several heads popped up, concerned and curious, while the nurse quickly skipped around the counter and patted Sakura's back.

"Sakura-san, everything is okay, everything is okay," she repeated soothingly.

By now, everyone knew about Sakura's episode in the hospital a while back so the nurse wasn't about to let it happen again. She tried to tilt the girl's chin forward so they could make eye contact only to realize the girl was smiling. Sakura was smiling at herself. The pinkette placed a hand against her forehead and weakly laughed, her eyes shiny, but clear.

"Man, am I a mess," she joked, her voice pitchy.

The relief was blatant in the nurse's eyes, but she just smiled and asked, "Why don't you go rest in the on-call room? I can even set up a bed for you if you'd like. The hospital has been pretty quiet lately and-"

Sakura shook her head and squeezed the nurse's hand. "I'm fine, let's go."

As the nurse led her down a familiar hallway, Sakura didn't know how to mentally prepare herself. She has always been on the other side at these situations, the doctor. Even though she knew many of her patients already, there was still that distinct boundary of the professional medic that kept her safe from the worrisome persona every visitor, of a patient, donned.

She was torn between asking the nurse for his charts and a detailed summary of his injuries...or holding her breath and looking at him through the eyes of just Sakura, his pupil. To see him just the way he looked and not have to worry about any internal bleeds or invisible complications. To leave all that hard stuff for others for once because she didn't think she could handle...Kakashi.

"I want to see his charts," she said abruptly, interrupting their silence.

More than anything though, she wanted him to live.

"I would be happy to show you his charts, but..." The elevator lights buzzed in rhythm to the robotic tings that signalled every floor they passed. "I won't be able to allow you into the operating area or even the gallery."

The final ting ringed and the elevator doors opened. Sakura fumed beside the nurse as they continued walking.

"Not this again! I told you, I can-"

"Sakura-san," she continued nervously, "Right now, you will only be a...liability to him. Kanpo-sensei is with him right now so you don't have to worry."

"Kanpo?" she frowned, "You brought in the corps?"

"It is Kakashi-san, after all."

Sakura smiled tightly, her heart heavy. She wanted to scream in a pillow, run around in a circle a few times and throw a tantrum on the floor.

"We are here." she paused in front of OR 6's doors. Naruto's had been in OR 2. "Sakura-san, we are only going in for a quick glance, okay? You will have plenty of time later to watch him recuperate. I really shouldn't even let you in, but you are part of-"

"I promise I'll be quiet."

When it comes to medicine, she could turn into a kakashi herself. With her wits intact and everything, she fell into her medic self. Composed. Indifferent...kakashi.

The nurse pushed one of the double doors open and led her into the scrubbing part of the room, where the taps of the sinks still dripped beads of water. Even though a glass wall separated them, Sakura could hear the hmph and sighs of the ventilator on par with the cardiac monitor's beeps. The medics in their white scrubs all crowded around the operating table, the fluorescent overhead beams turning their heads white. If she squinted hard enough, she would've seen specks of grey peeking through the bodies of the surgeons.

The nostalgia was overwhelming. It was so ironic that she started to believe there really was an almighty God up there that controlled the lives of humans. It felt like just hours ago Naruto was as helpless as him, vulnerable and open on the table. She shuddered to think of Kakashi like that...vulnerable. It actually made her uncomfortable.

Her resolution faded and she became a meek deer. Sakura didn't go in, even if she was allowed to.

"He okay?" she whispered.

She didn't want to startle the beeps and humphs of the machinery, scared she would trigger some sort of accident in the room.

"We'll find out soon enough."

Sai was back on regular shinobi duty. His doctor had deemed him mentally and physically recovered, but that also meant that he was stuck with the most banal missions. It was an unspoken tradition. The longer period one is active, the better missions one will get. Every time a shinobi takes a vacation, gets hospitalized or say, gets their pinkie chopped off, their time resets to zero. Sai's time was exactly one day. Not very impressive.

So that was how he found himself moving boxes out of a rotting warehouse on an otherwise beautiful day. The degrading wooden walls filled the place with a thick musk of driftwood, mixed with the slightest tinge of sourness likely coming from the boxes.

A thin layer of sweat covered his body and he stopped for a second to run his hand across his forehead. Then, he rolled his shoulders, grasped the next box and almost missed it. Almost. Just before he turned around to stack the cardboard box on the impressive pile outside, he spotted a patch of bright pink. It was a pink lunch container, the kind that had four little wings on each side that clicked when the container was closed shut.

Sai had to take a double take to make out what it actually was because it was almost completely camouflaged by the rusty paint splattered on it. The funny thing was that he could see the S of Sakura scrawled on it and he knew that it was hers since he'd seen her use it a couple of times. Yet the even...funnier thing about it was that on close inspection, it was definitely not paint and definitely blood.

"An absolutely miraculous recovery, really," a fumbling nurse remarked as she flicked the little glass tube of the uv drip, "It's almost frightening how well he is recovering. I guess an elite like himself must be equipped with a super immune system. I can't believe I get to be so close to him right now."

She looked over at Sakura's blank face and let out an embarrassed titter.

"Aaaaaand I'm whining to one of his team members. Right. Awkward. Anyways..." she trailed off.

Sakura tried to quirk her lips into a quick smile, but it turned into a grimace instead. She didn't have the heart to. Because there was something in the room that repulsed her. She was beginning to break into cold sweat. Kakashi was less than a metre away from where she was yet she wanted to bolt. There was something sickening in the atmosphere that she couldn't exactly pinpoint, yet it was strong enough to remind her of its presence every other minute.

The nurse scribbled the last of her notes on his charts and walked out.

For the first time, they were alone but this was definitely not what she had fantasized the reunion to be like. God always has an uncanny knack to give you the one result or future that you'd never think would happen.

"Just wake up won't you."

She rubbed her eyes with her hands and sighed deeply.

"Alright."

Her eyes flew open and connected with Kakashi's. His face was turned towards her, gaze mild and amused.

"Holy shit you-"

"Don't tell anyone," he shushed her instantly, eyeing her keenly, "I want some time with you first...Haruno Sakura."

"The fuck-"

"Foul mouth I raised you to be, I see..." he mused.

Sakura snapped shut, shooing away her previous misgivings to give room for the adrenaline. She crept closer to him and stared him right in the eyes, studying his small wrinkles and pale lashes. She then turned straight to the pupil and fell in, absorbed in the vast pits of his heart and soul. They weren't close enough to kiss yet not far enough as not to be intruding into each other's personal space.

"How..."

Are you here, are you alive?

"Are you?"

Kakashi scoffed, and said, "good."

She was speechless and uncomfortable. Her endless supply of witty quips was nowhere to be found. Kakashi drew a hand out from under the sheets to pat her shoulder, an awkward movement.

"I will come see you later, Sakura, we shouldn't talk here. For now let me rest. And don't tell the nurse I've waken up, would you? She sounded jittery enough already."

Mesmerized by the lilt of his voice, she could only agree numbly. "You come find me straight away. Or I'll fucking hunt you down instead."

For a moment Kakashi stared at Sakura, the strokes on her shoulder stiff.

"Okay chick-a-dee, of course."

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand tightly before scurrying out of the room.

Her heart unclenched the moment she walked out. Sakura carried herself out of the hall, out of the hospital and down a few blocks before she was able to coax herself to stop.

"What am I going to do?" she whispered softly to no one in particular.

Yesterday she would've trudged through hell and heaven to see his eyes look back at her. Today, she was driven to hide from him like a cockroach to the sun. The terrible things Attachment does to a person.

As Kakashi watched her go, he blew out a low sigh. He lifted the his sheets and stared at his bandages mirthfully. He peeled back all the gauze and rubbed the pink new skin underneath, grateful to finally satisfy that itch. What he'd give to free himself of all that stuff white cloth.

A shuffle could be heard from outside his room.

"Hey give me his charts, I call shots on this round. You got to drool all over Hatake last time."

He groaned softly to himself and braced himself.

'What fool actually volunteers for this crap,' he thought to himself.

Another hearty sigh escaped his lips before his eyes rolled back and his pink new skin started to tear again into precise surgical incisions. He threw in a few recovering scab for good measure. When he pulls this off, Sasuke better love him for it.

With every stride he took, his cotton satchel brushed against his thigh, swaying in rhythm to his footsteps. Normally, it wouldn't bother Sai as nothing really did, but every brush only reminded him all too soon again of the little wrapped up box he felt extremely uncomfortable carrying.

'She is a medic after all,' he tried to reason, 'a shinobi at it too; blood is like a little dirt or dust to her now.'

His strides quickened.

'She must've took it to a battlefield once. Must've stored a transplant-able organ in it once.'

However, lately, Sakura has worried Sai much more than he would've liked. He was bright enough to know that she wasn't just annoying Sakura anymore, but a collaborator with Kakashi. Those two were such a troubling pair. Back in his Root days, they should have been reported the moment Kakashi ordered him to withhold information. But they were also much too important to him for that. He really did care for the girl and he was worried that this cumbersome lunch box might be a piece of evidence to a puzzle she doesn't want solved.

First he needed to make sure the evidence was in a secure place. Then he'd need to gather up enough courage to confront her about it.

In the meantime, he would find the other partner in crime, Kakashi. Sai went straight for his apartment, but his analytical eyes stopped him from knocking. The keyhole was scratched and scraped as if a frustrated soul attempted a quiet break-in.

In a single day, Kakashi was already well enough to limp around the hospital. Or so she heard.

The pinkette hasn't been back to the hospital since she fled it with her tail between her legs, not even for comatose Naruto.

Instead she opted to celebrate life by eating alone at the blonde's favourite ramen stand. Chopsticks untouched and soup cold, she fled into her internal daydreams for the nth time that year.

"No good?"

Sakura snapped back in place to find Ayame scrutinizing her.

"It's the best," she said absent-mindedly, picking up her chopsticks to stir around the congealed noodles.

The naruto slices bobbed back to the surface. Images of him waking alone consumed her more wholly than her fear of Kakashi did. She pulled out a few bills, and quickly marched to the hospital.

Naruto was suppose to be out of the ICU by now, but due to Tsunade's (and hers) protective nature, he was still stationed there, just to be sure. After a few initial scares, his conditioned has stabilized. He still needed a nasal cannula for enough oxygen, but he was going to be alright.

Sakura ran her fingers along the cream hospital walls as she made her way to his private room. The lights casted a warm glow on the speckled white floors. She turned another quiet right continued walking down the hall, peering into the door windows to catch a glimpse of Naruto. Her hand was just a breadth away from the doorknob when she stopped, frozen.

The sight of Kakashi made her knees weak again. It had never really registered until now that well, he was here. She stood there, hovering outside the door staring in. Even through the tinted window she was mesmerized by his wispy grey strands and silhouette and the shape of his arm stroking Naruto's face. Stroking? No.

Her fond haze quickly dispersed into frenetic doubt as she realized he was not so much as stroking as tugging. Her hovering hand slipped from the doorknob and Kakashi's head snapped up.

His expression was of a man caught red-handed. He immediately jerked back his hands and went for the door, eyes narrowed and jaw set. Instinctively, she turned to run like any smart prey. Just when she managed to whip around and take her first stride, a hand snaked out and dug its fingers into her arm.

"Sakura."

Although it frightened her, she had to look at his face. Wait, why was she frightened? His headband was pulled up and his eyes were so keenly focused on her it hurt. His face broke into a soft smile.

"Hey" he said softly, his grip turning soft.

His winning grey and scarlet orbs made her deflate, forgetting what ailed her just a second ago. "Hey yourself. What are you doing here?"

He looked at her with mild surprise and gestured at the room, as if the answer was obvious. "Naruto, what else? He was my pupil, after all."

It didn't sit well with her, but she let it go.

"How come you're out of bed so early?"

He smiled and scratched a non-existent itch on his neck, almost sheepishly. "I was pretty darn lucky. Nurses told me that non of my vitals were damaged."

Her face twitched a little as she processed Kakashi's lie. She could've sworn that the data she saw on Kakashi's charts, when they first wheeled him in, ranged from fatality to a comatose state. She shook her head slight; Kakashi was likely still strung on pain meds.

"I..." she began. Her voice was caught in her throat just like the first time she saw him since he got back. The dying daylight bled a toasty citrine over the room and she caught one of his hands in both of hers. She squeezed tightly for a second, much to his surprise and sighed loudly.

"What the hell happened to you?" she asked, "You...you don't just prepare yourself for that shit and come back totally unscathed-"

"Unscathed?"

"And leave me to drown in my own worries and guilt and my god don't act like everything is okay, because you are not okay and I am not okayandthis-"

She broke off suddenly, her breath quick.

His eyes studied her curiously, light dancing off his moving pupils as they tried to figure something out. They softened as the imaginary lightbulb went off.

"We're in love, aren't we?"

Sakura's gaping mouth and silence was all the confirmation he needed. He whistled softly as the girl tried to stutter something comprehensible.

"Teacher and his student. Some hole Kakashi dug up for himself," he murmured to the window.

She looked up, confused and said, "What?"

"Nothing," he smiled, his mind racing.

What does he do now? He shook his head with exasperation. This changes the entire profile he was given, the entire game plan. Haruno Sakura and Hatake Kakashi. Who saw that coming?

Sakura's heart palpitated roughly enough to quiver her entire body. Having heard him say it out loud was a cross between a breath of fresh air and having her head dunked in water. He said they were in love. Once given the label, Sakura could not let go of that idea. That she was in love with him and that that love was mutual. This was something she never though Kakashi was able to understand, much less say out loud.

She cupped a timid hand around his cheek and tugged gently. Kakashi acted on the cue and leaned forward while she wrapped her hands around his neck and opened her senses to his body. But underneath all the overwhelming signs that screamed kakashi, that uneasy nausea just wouldn't go away.

She pushed herself off of the cliff and tried to take a leap of faith. This was only going down in two ways.

"Won't you kiss me," she whispered in his ear.

"Of course," he hummed quietly and nuzzled her jaw line.

She allowed herself to close her eyes for just a second, bathing in what Kakashi's affections would've felt like. How his warm breath tickled her cheeks, how intimately he held her, like he would give the world to her. Every pore on him bled out his scent, seducing her to hold on tighter. Then, she abruptly drew back, eyes clear and focused. The real Kakashi would've never obliged.

"Who are you?"