Chapter Twelve
The Red Weave of the Bridge
Sakura stopped a smile from curling over her lips as her teeth clamped down on them. The build up twirled in her stomach and she was careful not to ruin it by letting her eyes drift lower on the page, hand covering the words. The heroin and her romantic interest were in the middle of a heated argument, one that could only be resolved with a passionate kiss.
It was one of Kakashi's books, the ones he had been buying throughout the months of them living together and were now spilling from the bookcase.
Sakura had told him she preferred to have them locked in a box and hidden under their bed where none of her guests could see them and their lurid covers with half-naked men and beautiful women. He had glanced back at her as if she had insulted his own mother.
She was no longer embarrassed of them anymore. The man had corrupted her, all starting when he pulled her into the trap of his soap-opera evenings, glinting with the simplicity of childhood and long-lost nights shared with her mother. A time before the turmoil of her teen years turned them into something obsessive and tried to make them carry more than they did – a measure of reality that was never the purpose of them.
After one of their lunches together, Kakashi had forgotten a book on her office desk. Sakura had stared at it when her night shift ended, mind tired and a pinch of loneliness growing when an empty apartment waited for her, Kakashi having left on a mission. Now she wondered if her sneaky husband had deliberately left it there, an irresistible temptation for that moment of weakness.
The book had been a pleasant surprise, when she had expected heavy sex scenes from the first two lines what she had gotten were pages upon pages of longing gazes, misunderstandings and enough sexual tension to frustrate a dead person.
It had been the gateway that Sakura hadn't been too keen on closing and now she couldn't understand why she had shunned away these type of stories for so long.
There were reasons, the fear of the inadequacy they poked at in her life, the shame for that silly girl whose eyes were full of dreams that had all been chipped away year after year, until all that was left was a whole where they had been, but they had turned weightless, powerless.
The two characters had just gone silent, leaning into each other, breaths still heavy from the shouting. Sakura bit out a squeal of excitement as her hand slid to reveal another column of words.
There was only disappointment, her belly still quivering. Someone had burst through the room and interrupted the two would-be lovers.
At the touch of a heavy gaze on her, Sakura lifted her head from the opened pages. Kakashi's dark eyes were on her, something soft in them and yet with the power to pierce through her ribs and reach at her tender beating heart.
"What?"
"Nothing." Kakashi let out, pen twirling between his fingers from where he was filling a mission report. "It's just that I could probably guess the plot of that book by all the little reactions you make."
Sakura almost relented to the impulse of throwing the ninken in her lap at him, but instead flung the pillow next to her. Poor Shiba didn't deserve to suffer for his contractor's sins.
He evaded it with practiced ease and stretched before standing, as if the flying pillow had been the perfect excuse to get away from finishing his work.
Her eyes followed him as he walked towards the kitchen, the sight of his slow steps more enjoyable than the ruined moment between the two characters of her book, especially when he bent down to search the fridge, the opened kitchen door allowing her the perfect view.
"Why don't we go out for dinner?" Kakashi mumbled, his face still buried inside the fridge.
Sakura may or may not have been admiring the fit of his pants and may or may not have struggled to pull her eyes up to his face once he stood to look at her over his shoulder.
There was definitely a cocky glint to Kakashi eyes and she knew she had been caught. But she wouldn't let him win so easily.
"Like a date?" Sakura asked, all nonchalance.
The ears of the ninken speckled around their living room perked up. If there was anyone rooting for the success of their marriage it was them.
"No, not a date. It's just that there's no food and we do need to eat something, don't we? So I thought maybe we could go out, but I can go get us some take out if you feel like it. It's not a date date, just… dinner."
After his little rant, which charmed a smile out of her and that she mercifully hid behind her fingers, Kakashi finally gained the courage to look at her, gaze cautious.
"Unless… you want it to be a date…?"
"Let me go change." Was all Sakura said.
She put on the same clothes she would wear to any other dinner and came out of their bedroom to find Kakashi in the genkan, sandals and winter coat already on, and entirely absorbed in the unremarkable artwork she had on the wall at the entrance of the apartment.
"Ready?" He asked, eyes not quite meeting hers, after helping her put on her coat. With a nod from her, Kakashi opened the door to let her pass.
This was a precarious step over the nebulous boundaries of whatever this thing between them was.
Still it was entertaining to watch him revert to a teenage boy that didn't quite know how to be while he walked beside his crush, Sakura stealing glances from the corner of her eye.
It wasn't as if it had to go well so he could buy himself another date or a chance to get laid. There was also no reason for things to turn out wrong, but if they did, they would still go back to their apartment and learn how to ignore it until it faded away.
Since her small epiphany at her office where Sakura had decided this could be a lot simpler if they let themselves be taken by the flow of it and be what came naturally to them, she had been spared many head and heartaches from overthinking every little thing between them.
And this dinner, whether or not a date, was exactly the same.
Her shoulder bumped his as they entered the bustling food district of Konoha and Kakashi startled like a scared doe. "So what do you feel like eating?"
His head pointed towards a sushi restaurant, not the fanciest in Konoha, not even in that single street, but definitely fancier than any other place she had ever eaten at with Kakashi, especially when for him the sleaziest and cheapest the better. It was also the type of traditional restaurant with dim lights and aesthetic décor that couples went for to set the mood of the night. The last time she had gone there had been a couple of years ago with Raidou.
Okay, so his choice of restaurant definitely spelled out date.
Still there was no need to overreact, no need for her heart to speed against her ribs as the fluttering wings of a bird or her fingers to grow faint with nervousness, for her cheeks to heat against the cold of a winter night until she could barely feel it.
It didn't help that Kakashi refused to glance her way, apparently too invested in watching the people strolling around them and pressing a hand to her back to guide her between the gaps in the crowd, warming her body more than the coat curled around her.
Their table was farthest away from the window, but had the advantage of being in a booth in a secluded part of the restaurant. Not that Kakashi and Sakura had any need for secrecy.
And then there was silence.
Not the familiar silence of a connection that ran deeper than any word or sound, but the uncanny stifling one of two people standing over the edge of a cliff and looking down at the unknown abyss between them.
They had had dinner together hundreds of times in the past months and now it was the unnamed possibility opened up on that low-lit table that left them stumped. The comments on the place, food and sake, with a few apologetic looks and bashful smiles at each other, only made their predicament more painful.
Any other time Kakashi wouldn't have held himself from noting the awkwardness cemented around them with a well-placed comment, but now his wit seemed to have lost its magical and infuriating touch.
And so they drank, the sake flowing smoothly down their throats and loosening their tongues into a semblance of normality.
Slowly, in proportion with the sinking amount of liquid on the bottle, they chipped away at their rigid self-consciousness over the erasure of this one boundary and what that meant for them in the future.
Kakashi fumbled with his chopsticks, a piece of sushi landing on his soy sauce and splashing back against his navy uniform. Sakura locked a snorted laugh against her pressed lips as he glared with something akin to loathing at that soaked piece of food.
"I've seen you catch flying blades between your fingers but this is where your dexterity goes to die? Sushi?"
The glare snapped up against her delighted eyes and he couldn't hold it longer than a second against the sound her giggles.
"Not sushi." He grumbled, slightly disgruntled still. "A date."
Her chuckles died out in the same second. "Oh."
Sakura hadn't expected him to voice it, at least not at the beginning when the mood was entirely uncertain and uncooperative. And apparently neither did he, as Kakashi's hand froze where he dabbed the napkin against his chest.
Letting it gain too much weight could break the thin thread piecing things together, already so fragile.
"Ah, now that explains why you were chronically single for so many years."
Kakashi's head slumped down on his hands with a groan of pain. "You're always so cruel to me, Sakura."
"You like it."
His dark eyes turned up to watch her through silver lashes. The look unfurled in her belly as a cool swirl, Sakura swallowed.
It washed away from his gaze in the same instant, only a sudden flash of piercing intensity. Kakashi gave up on wiping his clothes and slumped back, deciding instead to drown his embarrassment in a gulp of sake.
"And now I'm going to smell like soy sauce for the rest of the night."
"It's okay, Kakashi, I've never minded the hint of salt on a man."
Kakashi choked on his sake at the suggestive purr of her words, a blush spread from his cheeks to his ears.
"So cruel." It came out as less of a whine and more of a rumble.
He stilled, watching her, drawing the images that circled in his mind into the burning colour of his eyes.
Somehow that piece of banter, with a few veins of not very concealed flirting, was all they needed to swat away the remains of their awkwardness.
They settled into a dynamic similar to the routine of their dinners, which meant that most of the talking came from her own mouth while Kakashi listened with a mild expression on his face.
Her voice became too high and hands frantic as Sakura traced on the surface of the table a scientific explanation for her own epiphany that had saved the life of a poisoned comrade earlier that week. She lifted her eyes to see if he was following her little chemistry class.
"Stop staring at me like that."
Instead she found Kakashi with his chin propped on a palm, a placid warmth in his gaze, definitely pinned to her face and not the illustrating movement of her fingers, a soft smile hidden behind the creases of his mask.
"Like what?" He asked with perfected innocence, head bobbing with the movement of his jaw.
Like he was drinking in her enthusiasm with the utmost care and fondness, oblivious to anything she was saying.
Somehow it curled with something vicious in her chest.
Her hands slid away from the table and fell to her lap. "I bet you're not even listening to me."
"I was. You were just describing how the toxin was neutralised by binding its ions—"
"Okay, so you were listening, but still…"
Still what?
Even Sakura herself couldn't understand the ball of aggression prickling in her. It felt somewhat reminiscent to all the times she had punched Naruto as an outlet to her own embarrassment or shame.
"Why did you always pretend not to listen?" Somehow those were the words to spill out from her.
"Why do you hide behind your smiles?" He countered instead.
Sakura let out a small chuckle. "Now that's more like you."
But Kakashi didn't react with mirth at her teasing, a faint line pressing down between his eyebrows. He looked to the side, eyes absently roaming the other patrons in the restaurant.
"For a long time," Kakashi started, voice quiet. "until I met three little pests," His eyes flickered to her as they shared a smile. "I lived with the purpose of not getting too attached and not letting people expect too much of me."
She softened. "Not very successful were you?"
"When you're out there putting your lives in each other's hands things aren't so simple." He shrugged, propping his weight back on an arm. "But I was worse, a lot worse than when you met me."
"You were bad when we met you, Kakashi! You told us you hated us in the first second of knowing each other!"
A self-satisfied smile gleamed in his eyes at her outburst. "Can you really blame me for that?"
"Now it's fairly obvious the Sandaime forced you to pass us, the Kyubi jinchuriki and the last Uchiha, but—"
"And Haruno Sakura."
"-you didn't have to traumatise us like that with the bell test. I'm sure you were pissed off, being stuck to three fairly unhinged kids. But…" Her mouth curled up in a tender smile for him, for all that he had been to her before. "You did turn soft very quickly."
She reached for his hand, just resting there on the table, demanding to be touched, without his glove, blue veins pressing up against marbled skin. Her gaze followed the trail she brushed over his long fingers.
Sakura glanced up at him. "Silly sensei."
A blush coloured his cheeks right above his mask at the reminiscent name she had called him as a genin. Kakashi had never blushed at it before.
Not for the first time that evening, Sakura wished they were in the secrecy of their own home where his face would be bare to her, with all his little reactions to these trembling and daunting steps they were now taking together.
"There was something about Sasuke's looks of disdain that could melt the hardest hearts."
Her head slumped forward in a loud laugh at his words, hand slipping away from his to press to her mouth and control the volume of it as it shuddered through the crowded restaurant. Across from her, Kakashi shined, always delighting himself every time he made her laugh.
As Sakura quieted, twirling her chopsticks in her soy sauce, the ache of nostalgia for those days grew, for that boy that could still hold hope and care in his heart.
After her unresolved feelings for Sasuke slipped out of her secretive heart into the open air between them, Kakashi hadn't asked for any more explanations, hadn't demanded that she justify it, that she move past those lingering childish things.
There wasn't a sliver of shame, anger, disdain in him. He simply accepted them in his kind understanding hands.
Kakashi accepted her.
"He really admired you, you know?" She commented in a soft wistful whisper.
It made it easier to talk of Sasuke, made something in her heart lighter. As if the words, as they had washed away from her lungs, had dislodged and freed something trapped in her.
"I won't let my comrades die." Sakura murmured, slow and solemn, the purpose Kakashi had burned into her on that first true and deadly mission as a shinobi, as Team 7. Her gaze lifted to him, a smile in it. "When you whip out something like that… how could we not admire you?"
"It's a common sentiment in the shinobi world."
Of course Kakashi would dismiss it, would undervalue himself.
"You're still silly."
Her hand reached for his but, at the last second, it lifted to his face instead, a red string tugging it higher. She brushed the strands of his silver bangs away, free to cascade down his eyes without the hitai-ate, her fingertips glided over the soft skin of his forehead and down his temple.
"Silly husband."
The words simply slid out, a naturalness to them in her lips.
Kakashi's skin burned with a raging red, the tint in his cheeks slithering up to his forehead. Her fingers could feel the warmth of it as they rested over the cloth of his mask.
His eyes had fled away from hers, that endearing shyness in him returning once again. Sakura clamped her lips together, an attempt at controlling the elated grin and not to make him suffer too much.
"You three changed me. And now…" Kakashi confessed in a quiet, shy murmur.
He held the hand cupping the side of his face and brought it to his masked lips, pressing a kiss to the back of her fingers in the shape of his words.
"You're still changing me."
Kakashi lowered their hands to the table, turning the conversation around until she was the one with red printed down into her chest, a speeding heartbeat and too many emotions coiling inside of it. One ruled stronger, a burning compassion that always seemed to tear her apart and build her anew.
There were sudden moments of stabbing anguish, almost too much to bear, her heart was burning itself to ash, of when Sakura became painfully aware of the pain in her precious people's lives.
In Kakashi's shy hopeful eyes of now, Sakura could see the lingering shadow of a broken boy as he carried the burden of too much grief, too much loss for such a young and kind heart, how he shaped himself into a detached man.
The children's clinic Sakura was building was for Kakashi.
It was too late and nothing she did could wash away that past. But, for that shattering boy and for the man holding her hand now, she could try to rectify an unconcerned cruel village that didn't see and didn't care for all the young children suffering inside its walls.
"What is that sad look for?" Kakashi asked, his fingers interlaced with hers and he gave her hand a little shake. "Is this going that bad?"
Sakura gave him a reassuring smile. "Just thinking about work."
"Maa, when aren't you?" Her hand tightened around his in a painful hold as retaliation for his words. Kakashi didn't even flinch. "Don't you ever stop to think about the man you're married to?"
"Oh?" Sakura gave an affected shrug, resting her chin on her palm and leaning towards him to whisper, "I barely remember who he is most days."
"I'll have no trouble reminding you then." His voice lowered into a sensual low rumble.
Her belly clenched at its sound and mind made up all the ways his eyes promised to mark him into her own flesh.
Kakashi was paying her back for making him a bashful thing with her comment about his silliness. But the blush that rose to her cheeks didn't have a hint of bashfulness, it was the reflection of the heat swirling in her veins for him.
"How?" She asked, only a breath.
His jawbone raised against the fabric of his mask, Kakashi swallowed. His lips opened, no sound leaving them as he measured his words.
And then he settled for the very non-sexual, "Clean the dishes for a week."
'Coward', her lips shaped, slow and teasing, and she watched as his lidded eyes lowered and lingered on the cocky curl of them.
"I'm not a man agreeable to negative reinforcement, wife."
Sakura let out a dry huff. "You definitely are. Nothing drives you more than knowing someone is better than you at something."
Her hand slipped away from his as she leaned back on her seat, taking her cup of sake.
"And I'm better at flirting than you are." She took a small sip, her mouth turning in a smirk. "Husband."
"No cleaning the dishes then. Got it."
His dismissive answer loosened a chuckle from her along with the feverish edge of her want. Kakashi was a coward, never willing to go as far in the sexual side of their relationship as she was, but his eyes still glinted with a challenge, a promise, as he sank back as well, downing the rest of his cup.
She relished in Kakashi's creased smile, the grey shade of his eyes as it flickered with the candle between them, a small pocket flame that mirrored the light of a bonfire.
Sakura had pushed down the longing for those years after the war, for the partnership they had been forced to sacrifice for the Council's whims, reducing them to marionettes. It rushed up now in a ruthless wave.
"This reminds me a little of our missions." Sakura commented.
The warm glint in his eyes, the dimness of the restaurant like the cover of night, the shared complicity as they huddled on their secluded booth against the murmur of talk that sat outside of them, the underlying edge of being caught by someone they knew. All like the bond of their partnership on the field, where it was them against the world.
Her chin came to lean on her palm. "Don't you miss them?" Sakura asked. One of the sacrifices from this thing was that Tsunade had stopped sending them together. "Just us, the wilderness and our objective. Honestly I miss it, I miss it a lot."
"They were my favourite."
Sakura smiled, her eyes saying 'They were my favourite too'.
"We could spar."
Kakashi's answer to her proposal was to raise a cheeky eyebrow at her.
"We haven't sparred in ages."
"Tonight?"
"I won't fall for that, you know my chakra hasn't replenished since the surgery yesterday."
Sakura leaned onto the table with narrowed eyes and Kakashi countered by lifting the cup to his lips casually, an innocent tilt to his eyebrows.
"And I know that with you, Kakashi, I'll need all my stamina."
He didn't let himself fall back, Kakashi was one competitive man. It kept him alive in the field and made him one of the best shinobi in the world, and it also meant he never liked to lose their teasing battles.
He leaned into the table as well, closing the distance between them. His eyes flickered down to her lips, lingering on them, before he raised them to meet her own.
"Let's spar." Kakashi murmured, his voice low and soft, with a hint of something dangerous in it, the type of cadence that turned innocent words into an invitation into his bed.
His bed that now happened to be her bed too. Their bed.
Why hadn't they fucked yet?
There were definitely sensible reasons, reasons that her mind clouded by her want couldn't make out as it looked at the shape of his lips under the mask, curled in a lopsided smirk, and his dark eyes foretelling images of their pleasure with the flickering of the candle.
The waiter returned to clear the empty plates and they pulled back from each other to let the man work.
They ate and most of all they drank, the sake cool and soothing on her tongue, until they were the last clients on the restaurant.
This was different from any other of their dinners, even from those long nights on the sofa, enduring in their talks, reluctant to break apart, while the horizon lightened with the sign of a new day. There had already been a different edge to their interactions then, a different mood haunting around them, but it had been only a sliver, only the few beginning rays, not acknowledged and therefore concealed.
The formality of a date seemed to have made it all burst free between them, to materialise their feelings, touchable and undeniable, to illuminate the romantic dimension of them, until Sakura could barely contain everything that moved in her for Kakashi.
Their words, their touches, their eyes, all free to be the expression of romance, desire.
The waiter neared their table with an apologetic smile and laid the bill down. Their eyes lowered to it only to turn back up at the same time.
Kakashi gifted her his most charming smile. "Split it?"
Her hand was already in her purse, fishing for her wallet. "If you're willing to sacrifice the chance of a second date."
"I don't need to buy you dinner, my charm is more than enough to secure it."
She shrugged. "If you want to bet on that."
"That and much more, Sakura, I bet I can even get you to kiss me by the end of the night."
Fuck, they were drunk and because they were drunk they could say what they wanted without the weight and the consequences of the real sober world.
Sakura glanced at him through her eyelashes. "Why do you assume I'm the one being seduced and not the other way around?"
"Maybe you've seduced me long ago." He told her with a silly smile.
Her head fell back in a loud laugh, blending into snorts, as she picked her purse and herself up from the seat on the floor. Her hand extended for him and he took it. The realisation that his hands were warm and large, so much larger than her dainty feminine ones, always hit her when they held hands.
Sakura yanked him roughly and they both staggered with the force of it, her head leaning towards his chest as she giggled, his arm resting around her back.
Outside, the cold air of winter soothed her red cheeks from the sake and Sakura breathed in the smoky smell of the fireplaces. Her eyes admired him from the side, hands inside the pockets of his coat.
She loved it on him, made him seem taller, broader, hiding the always there slouch of his shoulders and giving him the effortless elegance of when he danced against their enemies, all grace and nonchalant power.
"Take a walk?" Kakashi asked as he looked down at her and presented his arm.
It was definitely a good idea, arriving home tipsy, her skin feverish with the presence of him at her side and her prudence hidden under sake, could only spell trouble for them. In public Sakura felt less inclined to rip his clothes off, even if no less tempted.
Their walk was quiet, languid, through the empty silent streets of Konoha, curled into each other and against a few stray gusts of wind.
It wasn't a surprise when their feet took them to the red bridge. Sakura leaned over the rail to watch the ripples as they scattered moonlight across the water. She hopped to sit on it, still not high enough to be taller than Kakashi, whose eyes were cast down to the river, arm pressed to her thigh.
The last time they had been here together alone, in the night, had been almost half a year ago. The day her future had been robbed from her own hands and she had seen a sliver of a possibility in his tempting words 'your choice'.
All had seemed too dismal then – the thought of the next day, the next month, the next years, like doom, a heavy dark cloak falling to hide them from her eyes.
How things had changed in so few months.
It wasn't dire anymore. Sakura found light in tomorrow, in yesterday.
"Remember when you offered to help me defect?" She finally voiced what they were both thinking.
Her mind couldn't even conceive what her life would be now if she had made that choice. A layer of dread frosted in her chest from knowing that it had been a real possibility, from knowing that she could have chosen it and let all the dearest things to her fall like grains of sand between her hands.
"I still will, if you want to."
Sakura shook her head at his words, her hand reaching to squeeze his shoulder. She knew they were loving, just as they had been loving when he had written them on that note, still saved inside her desk drawer, but somehow they only hurt her.
"Is our date being so terrible, you're trying to get rid of me, Kakashi?" She joked.
"Did you know your voice gets really high when you're talking about something you like?" His eyes twinkled with a tease, a smirk hidden under his mask. "I'm sure a few more decibels and only the ninken will be able to hear you."
"I'll throw you in the river."
Her fingers sank into his shoulder, a bite of chakra behind them, and tugged it to show for her words. Kakashi let himself be tugged, crashing slightly into her side.
His face was too close to hers, cocky eyes in line with her uncertain ones, heart thundering in her ears and every cell of her body coming alive under the heat of him pressed to her.
"And you can't take criticism without threatening violence."
"And you" She pointed her finger at his nose and he clasped it in his hand. "don't know the difference between criticism and an insult."
"Why did you assume it was an insult? I love dogs."
Her mouth hang open and she tore her finger away from his hold. "Don't compare me to dogs!"
"Why not? They're cute, loyal and they're incredibly lovable."
"And they're hairy."
"Fluffy and soft."
"Smelly."
"Humans can get pretty smelly too."
"No opposable thumbs and walk on all fours."
His head tilted to the side as if he was pondering her comeback. "Not the worst position to be in."
The marked lewdness in his voice was enough to shove her next argument away and under the sudden flash of him behind her, knees sinking into the mattress, hands fisted into the linen.
Her fingers pressed to the bridge of her nose in dismay, legs clenching together. Even then there was a chuckle bubbling up her chest, but letting it out would only encourage him.
"Why do I even take you seriously?" She huffed out.
"I ask myself that every day."
Her eyes opened to watch him from above her fingers. "And talking from personal experience?" Sakura dropped her hand and leaned in closer, close enough that only a slight sway would bring their noses together. "Husband."
"That's something for you to find out. Wife."
There was a hint of sake in the familiar scent of his breath and it shot down right between her legs. The muscles of her thighs twitched, Kakashi had to have felt it against his forearm. He didn't show it, his eyes were unreadable as they watched hers, as he waited, and Sakura couldn't see in them what he expected.
There was only that single point of contact between them, layers of clothes separating their skin, and still the simple presence of him right there, one single lean away, the murmur of his voice trembling against her chest, the lighting of his chakra, those eyes attentive to her alone. All of it was enough to make her breathing uneven and the dull ache where her legs were pressed together grow, soak.
Could he smell her? Sakura had always careful with that nose of his, even if her care had been lacking in the past months with the increasing familiarity of their living arrangement.
She drew back.
"Then you should have paid for dinner."
Her fingers lifted for his face, resting over the edge of his mask, feeling the reassuring heat of a blush on his skin. Kakashi didn't stop her and so they curled around the hem and slid along it in teasing touches.
"I don't put out on the first date anyway." He said, the puffs of his voice on her wrist.
Her lip curled in a small smirk as he admitted once against that this was a date. There was no doubt of it, but it was still good to hear it.
Slowly Sakura dragged the mask down his face, baring it to her once more. The back of her fingers stopped over his throat where the fast beat of his heart pressed up against the thin warm skin.
"Not even for your wife?"
"Especially not for my wife."
A hint of seriousness waved behind the tease, something Sakura had learned to hear with increasing clarity. Kakashi couldn't be trusted to be straightforward and this was a loud enough sign of his boundaries for the night.
Still she couldn't understand why and that missing piece opened up a treacherous place for the bitterness of rejection.
Sakura threw him one last glance with narrowed eyes. She turned her body to glance down towards the water, her leg shoving his arms off the railing in the process.
Difficult as always, Kakashi took that as a sign that he could use her thigh for support instead and she didn't fight it because her need for him rose above her pettiness. She even leaned against his shoulder, the wind had become too cold, even for her own pride.
"You're very mellow." He murmured against her hair, arm sliding around her back to press her closer.
"Don't flatter yourself, Kakashi, it's just cold."
"Of course."
When all was dark and silent around them, the constant prickling at the back of her chest rose to the surface, needing to break out, especially when she was watching the same river Sakura had watched on the night when her life had split into an infinite number of paths.
She had stepped into one but not alone. The moment Sakura didn't choose to defect, the moment she told Kakashi she wanted to give this thing a try, whatever this thing was - an order, a marriage, a family - she had dragged him along behind her.
Duty. Kakashi's purpose in this was duty.
'What else is there besides that?' He had told her.
At the tolling sound of it, Sakura had realised she had wanted to hear something else, something fuller. But what could be fuller than duty? It was what made up the foundation of her life, of Kakashi's life, what drove their days and shaped their way of being. Yet it felt too small.
Sometimes Sakura found herself forgetting this was an order for Konoha. As tonight.
Most times she didn't even have the clarity of realising she was forgetting. As until this very moment.
Had Kakashi forgotten too?
Had his purpose changed?
What was he thinking – feeling – as his arm curled around her back and he leaned into her, cheek resting over her hair?
Kiba had hated being in her apartment, always whining that she turned neurotic inside of it. She had spent the nights in his instead. When they didn't fight about the state of her belongings and the cleanliness of her apartment, they fought over everything else, explosive shouted arguments where their tempers only fed into each other.
He had grown tired of her at the end of seven months and broken up.
Raidou had complained that she didn't give them enough time, she didn't give him enough space in her heart, him the only one compromising, the only one investing in their relationship.
In their breakup, he had confessed he felt uncherished – not unloved, not when Sakura had never said the words to him – and that had broken her more than if he had told her he didn't love her anymore.
Eleven months this time.
An old fear, almost forgotten and still always there, had risen in her that night, the pebbles of raindrops hitting the glass of her window as she stared, unfeeling, unsurprised, into the nothing outside. A softer reenactment, without the deadly and destructive violence, of a devastated battlefield and whispered dying words.
It was here still, always present on the marked surface of the defective, failing and small vessel that was her heart.
A fear that she would always fail at love.
Sasuke had never loved her and her love had never been enough to make him whole.
Even her own parents had left her behind, had cut themselves away from the weight of loving her. The sight of their fading backs was still one of the most painful memories of her life.
Sakura curled deeper into Kakashi's warm embrace, needing him to quiet down the voice that didn't belong in her mind that night, that could only taint, demean it, as it always demeaned the bonds with her precious people.
There was Naruto but his heart was infinite, always too kind, he loved everyone, it said. Sai was misguided, too unlearned and inexperienced, while also starved for meaningful bonds. Ino liked that she could boss Sakura around. Yamato tolerated her, but was always distant. Tsunade had a streak of self-flagellation to her. Shizune a hint of pity.
She couldn't shut down the loudest of all, the one about Kakashi.
Perhaps it was all one-sided, is whispered, this half year frayed his nerves and patience, drove his mind insane, while he remained silent in his duty.
Kakashi was always silent in his endurance.
His true one, that demanded fortitude and strength against the pain, the one that manifested in crinkled smiles that didn't stretch the mask around his mouth and that careless way of being with Icha Icha up to cover his face. Not the playful endurance of being healed, the discomfort lasting only minutes, expressed in whines, sulking pouts and spoiled demands.
"Kakashi…"
"Hmm?" He drawled, voice thick with sleep.
"If… if it's too much, if you're…" Unhappy, miserable, uncherished. "I mean, if I annoy you, you'll tell me, right?"
Kakashi pulled back, a gust of wind reaching deep and hardening the ice in her chest. His hands held her shoulders as he looked at her turned down face. Sakura wanted to punch herself for completely ruining the moment.
"Why would you ever think you annoy me, Sakura?"
She watched her fingers around the red wood, just the sound of the word was like tight vines around her chest, melting her tongue into silence.
"Sasuke was an idiot."
A sad scoff rasped in her throat. "But it wasn't just Sasuke, was it?"
Her mouth shaped the words for itself. It seemed she couldn't keep them down any longer, hidden where they loomed below the surface.
"I never thought you were annoying. Maybe a little misguided and completely unprepared, but never annoying and never an idiot, Sakura."
She tilted her head back to look at him.
"Of course I was unprepared, Kakashi. Your job was to prepare me." Her voice was harsher than she wanted it to be, broken, carrying too much emotion. His hands dropped away from her. "Did you know how much I wanted you to acknowledge me, to just look at me, teach me one single jutsu. You told me I was a genjutsu type and you couldn't even teach me one? Nothing?"
Only as it was said, free and heavy in the open air and away from the hidden box of her heart, did Sakura realise how much resentment lingered there, how much hurt.
Her loathing that always prickling at the thought of that little girl was rooted in love, in compassion, in understanding. That little girl was as alone now as she had felt then, and now it was Sakura's turn to take her in her arms and defend her, even through the foolish, the useless, the shallow.
"And every time I did something right, like walk up a tree my first try, you always used it to stir Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry, instead of making it about me and my own progress, my own skills."
Her hand slumped to her lap and her gaze turned down, a lump tightening against the walls of her throat, until she could barely breathe through it.
"I felt…"
Worthless.
"useless… I felt like I could never be a shinobi… I admired you so much and if you didn't believe in me, then why would I?"
"I believed in you, Sakura, if I thought you couldn't be a shinobi I wouldn't have kept you in my team."
Her lip curled over her teeth in a frail sneer. "You certainly never showed it."
The comradeship had been the only thing that made her stay, the team abating some of her loneliness.
Her own hadn't been earth-shattering as her three other teammates, orphans and outsiders, but it was there, an ache in her confused heart, a neediness that found contentment in sleeping huddled together in bed rolls, in sharing stories and meals by the fire, Naruto's annoying loud voice, and Sasuke's shy hidden smirk, Kakashi's dry comments mocking them or the simple safety of his presence.
A sad smile bloomed in her lips, something prickling at the back of her eyes.
"I'm sorry I failed you, Sakura." Kakashi's voice was strained with pain, with guilt.
Her eyes clenched closed at the sound of it, nails biting into her knees. She was the reason for it, but a part of her needed this, a large part of her, the lingering spoiled and hurt little girl demanded it.
It was fitting that her selfish hands would shatter their wonderful date, a flourished finish that consummated it into failure.
"But why?"
"I didn't know how to deal with you. Sasuke and Naruto I understood, two orphans, with ambitions of being great shinobi. They were a lot closer to me than a teenage girl throwing lovesick eyes at her teammate, from a perfectly content civilian family. And…"
His lips parted and closed, teeth clenching as he searched for his words, measured, always measured into something gentler and less honest.
"You had an innocence, a naïveté… and maybe, as much as I wanted to protect it, I resented it, I resented that you had everything all of us three could wish for and decided to throw it away for a boy."
For a boy
It retched up her chest with the burn of a chidori.
"That was ruthless."
Before he could spill words to match the guilt in his eyes, she lifted a sharp hand.
"Honest, which is all I've ever wanted from you, Kakashi. No rose-coloured reassurances, no careful tentative words. Like I'm too weak to handle them."
"There's a difference between thinking you're too weak to handle them and simply not wanting you to."
"I was just another person that wanted to be better, that needed to be challenged. And I was silly and immature, too worried about pleasing Sasuke, but… but I've always wanted to do well, to be a good shinobi."
To be perfect.
"I know that now…" His hesitant fingers rested tentatively on her knee and a small smile laced his voice as he said, "I've known that since you unburied me with your fist. I guess you intimidated me more than they did…"
Sakura pinned him with unimpressed, doubting eyes. "So the great Hatake Kakashi, S-rank ninja, possibly the future Rokudaime Hokage is scared of a teenage girl."
"Are you kidding me? Teenage girls are terrifying! With their cunning eyes, judging you, watching you like you're the biggest embarrassment to ever walk this earth."
"Now you're just describing Sasuke."
A few soft chuckles loosened from them at the absolute accuracy of the description and, when they gave way to silence, her face waned into sadness.
Kakashi pulled her to him, hand cradling her head to his chest, fingers massaging her nape. She let herself be held, her arms wrapped around his waist and nose pressed to his clothes, breathing in the scent of him, safe and steadfast.
"I bet on the wrong student."
Sakura shook her head, disentangling from him to mark her words in him. "You didn't. I'm glad Sasuke had you to love him, Kakashi."
His eyes only shadowed with a harsher misery, lines carved down into the corners of his mouth. Sakura knew it too well, shared it with him, the failure all of Team 7 carried in their hearts for Sasuke.
The back of her fingers brushed across his cheek, as if it could smooth his skin, wash away the sorrow. "You didn't fail him."
"I failed you."
Sakura gave him a smile, voice gentle, "A little. And only that first year."
"I don't know how to make it right."
"You already did, Kakashi. I just really needed to get this out."
And to do justice for that little girl, to defend her against Kakashi, against herself, that little girl, whose eyes had seen only the porcelain skin and cool gaze of a boy.
That little girl who remained in her now and whose heart had always burned with the need of being loved and always shook with the fear of being unlovable.
"Thank you… for listening, for being honest. For your place in my life."
Why had it taken her so many years to finally voice it?
It was so easy with him, the burdens shedding around her heart, the wounds closing, the vulnerability freeing.
Her fingertips trailed down the curve of his face, the line of his jaw, as it dropped down to the lapel of his coat. Sakura smoothed it down, nails tracing the soft stitching, eyes obliviously watching the movement.
"And now… do you like me?"
Even without seeing it, Sakura could feel the infuriating weight of his unimpressed, patronising stare.
Her head snapped up.
"What?" She barked. "Can't a girl ask a question?"
"It's a stupid question. Of course I like you, I…"
His voice faded but his lips moved still, as if he was trying to find the rights words to carry the meaning of that piercingly tender gaze.
"Sakura." Kakashi always said her name in the softest voice. "I..."
His eyes followed the movement as he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, fingers gliding over the curve of it, a shiver trembled down her neck. He cupped her face, demanding that she look at him.
"You're amazing." His thumb brushed the raise of her cheek. "Never doubt that."
There was a vulnerability in the dark grey of his eyes that made Sakura believe his words were true. A vulnerability that shared in her own and made her gravitate into him, as Kakashi gravitated into her.
That decision half a year ago on this same bridge seemed to have been leading her forward, leading her – them – here.
They leaned into each other until they shared the air that they breathed. They moved in closer, lids draping down, noses brushing together, her fingers curling in his clothes, until there would be no space between them, nothing to break them apart.
The thread of their bond bright red, natural, inevitable, weaved in and through all time.
A single kiss could consummate it all.
It was too much. It suffocated her. It reached right into the core of her heart and laid it bare, ready to be broken.
Sakura was the one to pull back, her head turning to the side. It didn't embarrass or deter him, it was as if it relieved him, as if it was what he had expected for them. Kakashi leaned his forehead to her temple instead, hand dropping from her face.
"I was the idiot that couldn't see it sooner." He whispered, before laying a kiss there instead.
The warm softness of his lips made regret twist through her. Why was there always so much confusion, so much fear in her, keeping her from moving?
Her arm snaked around his neck and she pressed her face to his throat.
"What are we doing, Kakashi?"
The question left her in one breath, shoved down and hidden for too long, the first pant after breaking through the surface of the water.
They already knew the finishing line expected of them - a child – the word always panged through her entire being. But Sakura felt so far away from it.
His throat bobbed in a swallow against her forehead.
"I don't know…" Kakashi combed down her hair. "And… I have no idea how these things work, I'm so scared of messing up." Kakashi tightened his hold around her. "Of losing you, Sakura, hurting you."
It had to be a good sign that they shared the same fears and not one that pointed to how they were stumbling together towards doom, failure.
"I… I think I need to take this slowly…"
All her relationships had rushed too fast, her fingers ravaging down the path to find something that hadn't been there and that she had never allowed to grow. Sakura wanted to take all the right steps, she needed to do things right this time, needed for it to be different of everything before, something good, true, lasting.
She pulled back to look at him. "Is that okay with you?"
"Of course, Sakura, of course. Anything for you."
Kakashi hadn't stopped moulding himself around her.
A bittersweet smile cracked through her. "I also want this to be for you."
"It is. The control is yours, Sakura."
Her mouth opened to cut through that repeated idea, but Kakashi was faster, eyes certain against hers, fingers pressing down on her thighs.
"I need it to be yours. Because I… I don't know how to say it, but I…" He measured his words again, the full meaning of his thoughts hidden behind his gaze. "I don't feel that we're even in this."
"What? Why not, Kakashi? You were as dragged into this order as I was."
He shook his head, a flash of a war tearing through his expression before he contained it under the clench of his teeth, his jawbone raising against his skin.
"Yes, but I…" His voice fell with a small shaky smile. "Slow is perfect for me."
His words were honest and still they were shaped like a mask.
Sakura nodded, knowing which battles to choose and when to choose them. "We need to talk more. And I've been terrible at that, I know, even worse than you, which is bad…" They shared a small chuckle. "I'm trying."
"I'm trying too."
His fingers curled around her nape and Kakashi pressed his lips to her forehead, right over her byakugou. They shared one last hug, arms tight around each other, hands pressing down into the other's body.
Somehow things seemed more uncertain, more undisclosed, now than on that day of their first decision, their first promise to each other.
Before, the certainty of a decided endgame blinded them and now they were deep into the actual path that they needed to build together to reach it, reach it in the way and shape that they wanted for each other.
Sakura jumped down from the railing and glanced over her shoulder at him. "Home?"
Their walk back was spent in silence, slow, each step dragging on the unpaved streets, as they stretched what they knew was the end of their night, their date. They stretched this moment, this impasse they were stepping through, this beginning at the middle of everything.
The sight of the front door of their building was bittersweet.
Something felt still unfinished. Her fingers held onto her key and pushed it in. Something felt as if it was slipping through her fingers and Sakura needed to hold on to it this time.
She spun around to look up at him, hands behind her back, leaning against the door.
"I guess there's no awkward moment where I wonder if I should invite you up for tea." Her voice slowed as she added, "Or where you try to understand if you should kiss me goodbye…"
It was strange in itself. It was their first date and they were already living together, their first date and they were already married, their first date and they already had their future together planned out for them.
And somehow her belly was coiling in vicious anticipation, more intense than any date she had ever had, than with any men she had ever taken this step with.
That giddiness of the unknown, that feeling of a possible future, that anticipation of standing at the edge of something that could become anything, all of them were still there, electric tingling in her skin.
"And you deserve that." Kakashi said, that familiar guilt lacing his voice.
"We both do."
Sakura took a step towards him, settling her hands on his chest where they could feel his heartbeat hammering against his ribs. Kakashi felt all of this too, she knew that he did, she didn't know where this certainty rose, but Sakura knew.
Maybe it was the alcohol still buzzing in her veins, maybe it was a newfound wave of confidence from hearing his faith in her and that drowned that lingering wound of rejection from the weeks past, maybe it was the prickling of regret from pulling back at the perfect moment in fear of failing it.
There was no pretention for perfection now. It was an act of normalcy, folded into the formula of dating and romance that a million of others had shaped themselves into, the normalcy stolen from them when their own situation was anything but normal.
It wasn't the red token of their own lives and forever-changing relationship, the red token of their marriage, it was the colourless token of a million other people, impersonal, safe, and always, most of all, uncompromising.
It would be done without finality, a step that they could easily excuse and take back.
And still, ruling over all the excuses she could slap on it, there was the tightness of red around her heart.
It urged her forward as Sakura rose on the tips of her toes before the front door of their building, hands moulded to the curve of Kakashi's chest, head tilted back as it neared him, seeing him seeing her, dark lidded eyes on her waiting lips.
It was an act of reclaiming what was stolen from them.
"You can kiss me, Kakashi."
He stilled, arms slack on his sides and never lifting to touch her, gaze captive of her mouth as it had shaped the words. Kakashi leaned in, slow and hesitant. Her lids fluttered closed when she felt the promising fan on his breath against her face, skin quivering with anticipation.
Sakura felt – finally – a soft press of his masked lips just at the corner of her mouth.
For a moment she had thought that was all Kakashi would allow himself to give her. Perhaps he did too, but even his iron control couldn't endure the force of gravity as they hovered around the edge of this cliff. Not after tonight.
A small strained sound at the back of his throat was like the snap of a string and then there was shuffling fabric.
His hands came to rest on her waist, a slight tremble in them, fingers burning into her even through the thick layers of her clothes. He took a step closer, the drag of his feet was lightning in her nerves.
Kakashi's mouth pressed against hers once more, the pliant warm touch of naked lips on naked lips, gentle, tentative as they learned and fell into a rhythm together, not one drop of hesitancy left as his mouth moved with hers.
His hands slid up her back, their touch shuddered down her spine, and drew her body forward into his.
Her tongue glided over the seam of his lips and Kakashi parted them for her. His tongue brushed hers and a small hum rumbled in her throat at the tantalising taste of him, the sake lingering still. The wet heat of his mouth curled low in her belly and flared between her legs.
Sakura's fingers trailed up his throat and sank into the wild strands at his nape. She tugged at his hair, he whined as she coaxed him into a new angle where she could kiss him deeper, the gentleness drowning under the eager pace they were falling into.
She felt herself burst in their kiss, his mouth searing her, hands branding down into her flesh, chakra electric against her own pathways.
Why hadn't they done this before?
And still Sakura needed more of him, her arms wrapping tighter around his neck and shoulders, body shaking with restlessness. She needed him closer, harder, deeper.
"Kakashi…" Sakura whispered, a needy sound between a sigh and a moan.
His arms tightened around her body with ignited fervour, her front flush against his, feet no longer touching the ground. The full weight of her in his arms made them stumble back, but their mouths didn't break apart.
His arm planted on the door to stop her back from crashing against it, the rattling of glass an unheard whisper, drowned in the taste of him, the irresistible heat of his body on hers, not close enough, never close enough.
Her fingers plucked at the collar of his coat, frantic around the buttons as they popped one then another, trying to pry it open where she could feel the touch of his skin on her. Her hand slithered inside his sweater, tongue curling around his, and she traced down the feverish naked ridges of his stomach.
A whimper ripped from him, muscles fluttering under her touch.
Kakashi pulled his lips away from hers with a groan of effort, displeasure. His face buried in her neck, the puffs of his heavy rasped breaths making the sensitive skin of her throat shiver.
He rested her back on the ground gently, her feet soundless on the stone of their front door, but Kakashi still wasn't willing to let her go, his hold on her strong, fingertips pressing down into her nape.
Sakura had forgotten where they were, she hadn't cared, her mind teased away with the taste of him on her tongue. Only Kakashi could still find a semblance of control and a part of her prickled at it, taunted with the need to kiss him until there wasn't one single thought left on his mind, burnt to ashes in the pleasure, the lust of it.
They rested their foreheads together, heavy breaths shared between them and cool against wet lips, as they tried to stumble back down from their high.
Her lids fluttered open to see Kakashi, flushed cheeks and closed eyes, bruised red lips from kissing her. But what panged through her was the lingering strain in his expression, as if he was still battling the need to crash their mouths together once more and allow their bodies to drown in each other, deeper and further, all the way.
A small giggle of giddiness rasped in her throat, thumb tracing the edge of his warm cheekbone, up to his scar, and his lips turned up in a smile as he followed with a chuckle.
Even this moment now, being like this, as they caught their breaths together and let the full realisation of this step, this wonderful step, settle between them, was making Sakura burst, too many things winding in her chest, joy, contentment, rightness – a sense of being exactly where she was meant to be.
Kakashi leaned in again for a softer kiss, their smiling lips brushing with each other.
A throat was cleared behind them.
Sakura wouldn't even have noticed if Kakashi hadn't frozen, his mouth stilled against hers. She disentangled herself from him and peeked around his large frame to find an old woman with an apologetic, embarrassed smile.
"I'm so sorry, Himeji-san." Sakura bowed, the redness of her cheeks flaring with shame.
She shuffled to the side to let their next-door neighbour pass. Kakashi remained the best impression of a stone statue, mask already up, and blocking the path of the possibly traumatised woman. Her hand grabbed his arm and yanked him away from the door.
"No, no, love. I'm the one that is sorry." Himeji-san said with another smile, this one twisted with something a little more devious. "But it's well past my bedtime. You see, I was with my grandchildren and my son and his wife lost track of time on their date. So I couldn't simply take a walk not to disturb… the end of your own night."
"Of course, I'm glad you didn't. I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing you're going through so much trouble for us, Himeji-san." Sakura helped the woman up the steps, an arm around hers, and opened the door, her own keys still hanging on the lock. "And how are your grandchildren?"
"Now, now, I'll tell you all about them later, Sakura-chan, when I've had my sleep. Old age, my dears! It's unforgivable. It's good to see you enjoying it while you're young!"
Himeji-san freed herself from Sakura's hold, giving her hand a few gentle pats before dragging the front door shut between them without any lingering formalities.
"I wish you the rest of a lovely night." The words ended with a poorly concealed giggle as she winked at them through the glass and scurried up the stairs.
How the woman had managed to sneak up the backs of two of Konoha's best shinobi was slightly concerning for their village's military standing.
Sakura watched her go, a few chuckles of her own spilling from her lips, her kiss-swollen lips. Her fingers tingled to press to them and, with the touch, mark the reality that it had happened, save it forever in her body.
Her back sank against the door as she looked at a still dumbfounded Kakashi, entirely dishevelled with his coat half opened, rumpled shirt beneath it and tousled strands of silver hair, the haziness of lust remaining in his eyes. The sight of him throbbed between her thighs and she crossed her legs together.
"That was…"
"Mortifying." He finished.
Sakura rolled her eyes, her fingers clamped to the lapel of his coat and dragged him back closer to her. She smoothed his navy shirt against his chest and tugged his coat down around his frame.
"No it wasn't, you idiot. Himeji-san was lovely. If it was the woman from the 3B, we would have a complaint for indecency over our heads in less than a day."
Kakashi's hands came to rest on her hips, weightless with hesitation. "So she'll keep watering your flowers when we're both out on missions?"
"Before… this, she was always trying to get me into finding myself man. I'm sure she'll be even more delighted to do so."
"You didn't exactly find me." That familiar hint of guilt twisted through his voice.
"I did. The past months have been a constant journey of finding you, Kakashi."
Sakura blushed at her own words, tasting as a confession of sorts.
Her voice was quieter as she added, "I am. Still."
The Council had found her for him but Sakura was discovering for herself who Kakashi was and who they could be together. No order or sense of duty could force what fevered between them now, the promise of something in their slowly blooming and changing relationship.
Her fingers played with the button of his coat, teeth worrying her bottom lip. Her green eyes glanced up at him between her lashes to find him looking down at her with an amused glint.
Her lips were burning for his to crash into hers once again. Her want not satisfied with the kiss, not appeased, but only deepened and enticed into the surface of her flesh.
But Sakura didn't ask for more. Kakashi could be like a wary animal, if one took to many steps close to him, if one demanded too many pets, he would scurry away.
His warm hand cupped her jaw and coaxed her head to tilt back and in line with his, as he broke the distance between them once more.
"You've turned very coy all of a sudden, Sakura." He purred, his teasing with that familiar edge of condescension to it, but she couldn't find any hint of annoyance in her pride. Not when his fingers plucked the hem of his mask and pulled it down to bare his face, bare those irresistible red lips from kissing her.
Apparently he wasn't mortified enough to end it there.
Kakashi brushed his nose against hers and leaned in to leave the fluttering touch of his lips against hers. They moved to the side, to the corner of her mouth and farther, pressing a trail of soft kisses to her cheek, her jaw, and back to the edge of where Sakura wanted them.
"You're a tease." Sakura whispered with a smile that he could feel with his own mouth, giving her his own cocky smirk.
Kakashi hummed, his voice trembling through her. "Just as impatient in this, I see…"
He was infuriating. Sakura was ready to yank him into her and slam their mouths together just to shut him up and ruin his own devious pleasure in teasing her, but he never allowed her that victory.
His fingers curled around the back of her neck as he finally kissed her. Whatever annoyance remained in her quickly washed away in the soft brush of his lips on hers. They melted and relished in the sweetness that hadn't lasted long before.
"Would you like to come up?" She spoke it like a joke as they broke apart.
Her need to enact the end of a successful date remained, the need to fit themselves into the normal steps of a healthy relationship.
His body remained unmoving, eyes closed, as he puffed out a 'yes'. Her arms looped around his arm and pulled him inside.
In their apartment, the routine was the same as always, Sakura moving back and forth to get ready for sleep, not giving it space for things between them to get uncomfortable, while Kakashi had yet to break out of his sudden daze.
"I'm going to bed." She told him, peeking around the corner to where he sat on the armchair, Icha Icha opened in his lap.
"I think I'll stay here for a little longer and read."
There was a frown carved down into his expression as he looked down to his book, fingers tapping against his lips.
"Kakashi." At his name, he met her gaze. "Don't overthink it."
She smiled.
"Goodnight, Sakura." He wished with another smile back, but Kakashi couldn't hide the conflict warring behind his eyes.
This chapter really got away from my hands, but we have some progress! Let me know what you think :)