Rewritten as of 4/5/23

- Wants & Needs -

Kakashi isn't expecting it when Sakura knocks on his apartment door, nor is he expecting the obvious disheveled state she's in. He can't tell if she's just been in a fight or just come back from…doing something else.

He doesn't know why the thought sets him on edge, but he knows that neither option agrees with him. When he questions her about her flushed appearance, she stumbles awkwardly over her words. Her voice cracks like a fire log and her face is practically a furnace.

"Sorry, it's just been a long day-" She babbles, pushing through into his dining room. She begins unloading a series of items onto his kitchen table.

He reminds her it's only 11am, and that you can't lie to a liar. He means his teasing to come out playful and relaxed, a distraction intended to set her at ease. Instead, it only makes her embarrassment sink in further. She grows more disorganized in his presence. She searches through her market tote, unsure of what to do with her hands. He can't help but think it's kind of cute before he has to reprimand himself for thinking so.

"I hope you're not this distracted in Suna." He says, watching her avoid his gaze.

"Don't you put that evil on me." She replies, body tense with stress. "I'm already having nightmares where the Daimyo all laugh at me."

"Just imagine them all naked."

"Ew, no. Gross."

He winces when he walks over to her, the tiniest hint that his ribs are still bothering him. She seems to catch herself after that. Her limbs slow to clean, precise movements. It's like watching a light switch flip inside her. Who ever she was before arriving at his doorstep, she is Dr. Haruno again. He's disappointed to see flustered Sakura go, but likewise is glad to have their normalcy back.

He wonders absently who his student has been kissing, if she has been kissing anyone at all…

She points to his solitary dining chair, instructing him to sit. Her voice make's it clear there's no room for refusal. Reluctantly, he does as she says, hobbling over to her makeshift workstation.

"Are you all set to leave tomorrow?" He asks, watching her unzip her med pouch. She's busy organizing an assortment of supplies. Gone are her fumbling and awkward movements. Her hands know their business now.

"Very nearly." She says. She points yet again to his dining room chair, urging him to sit.

But his mind flashes to the last time she'd worked on his ribs, her body kneeling between his legs like a dangerous wet dream. He was still trying to work through the complicated feelings that moment had inspired, so no. She will not be kneeling for him again.

He is, at heart, a contrarian anyway. He's use to doing what he likes. He chooses to sit up on the table itself, putting his head well and safely above hers. Her glare is half annoyance, half resignation.

"Are you planning on being difficult again?" She asks.

"I would never dream of it." He lies.

She rolls her eyes, walking over to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. "Good, because I don't have time to deal with you today. My hospital is already full of uncooperative ass patients."

"Excuse me, my ass has been very cooperative." He props himself back into a casual lean, evoking an air of offense.

But she is unmoved by his feigned pettiness. Upon seeing he has no soap, Sakura slips her hands under running hot water. Instead of drying them on his one dirty towel, her palms flare red and yellow with chakra, vaporizing the water dripping from her skin. He lifts his visible eyebrow in a question, noting the billows of steam that puff from her palms.

"Makeshift steam sterilization." She says, returning to his side. "Field medic trick."

"…Interesting."

She smiles, noting he's clearly impressed. He stores her trick away for future use. But then she goes to lift up the hem of his shirt, and it triggers something in him he doesn't like. Her hands are yet another thing he likes too much, dangerous in more ways than he wants to admit. With them, she could break anything she'd like. The ground, solid stone, his heart, his resolve….

His hand is on her wrist, stopping the touch before it can happen. Her skin is fire and he longs for her heat. But he remembers who she is to him, and that all choices have consequences. He will not let their relationship be one of them. Anyone but her.

"I can do it myself." He tells her quietly. The silence stretches on.

She is caught off guard, if only for a moment. Then she's back in business mode. He pulls his arms out of his sleeves, leaving the shirt to bunch around his neck. The gathered fabric covers the bottom of his mask, a physical barrier he's learning to appreciate for new reasons.

Clinically, she removes the bandages on his ribs, peeling the med-tape gently from his skin. Instead of swabbing the wound herself, she hands him the prepared supplies, instructing him on which anti-bac gels to use and how much.

"I'll be gone for over a week. You might as well get use to changing them yourself." She says. He dislikes the way she avoids his gaze, but is grateful for it all the same.

An unspoken tension stretches between them. He flinches at the sting of the anti-bac, and notices Sakura's hand twitch like she wants to take over. He knows he shouldn't name the elephant in the room, but the words are out of his mouth before he can catch them. He wants to put himself out of his misery, because he can't keep doing this to them both.

"Something has been different about you lately." He says. It's a statement, not a question.

Her shoulders become tense with the accusation. He waits patiently for her to reply, the silence stretching to a fray. When she remains uncomfortable, he pushes further into territory he's been too afraid to touch.

"Something has been different between us."

Her eyes lock onto his, and it cuts him through. Her gaze is a macabre mix of vulnerability and horror. He wonders momentarily if he's guessed wrong. Wonders if he's unintentionally overplayed his hand only to realize his partner wasn't even playing at all.

Because of course his inappropriate feelings are one sided. How could they be anything but.

But the muscles in her neck are tight with tension he doesn't know how to read, so there must be something there. His Sharingan lets him peak beneath the skin, to map a persons chakra networks and see underneath the underneath. But in the end, he is unfortunately just a man. This makes him predictably terrible at reading women, and even worse at reading her.

"I'm your sensei. You can tell me anything." He promises. He's begging her with his voice to put him out of his misery. He was never any good at leaving things alone.

Her voice wavers when she speaks, and he hopes to god they are on the same page. A page he equally does and does not want to be on with his last remaining student.

"There's actually…something I've been meaning to talk to you about. But the subject matter is somewhat sensitive."

A clock hand ticks on the opposite wall, filling the silence. Tick, tick, tick…

This conversation was bound to happen eventually. He's felt this moment approaching like a landslide, world-shattering and unavoidable for weeks. It's part of why he keeps leaving the village, to throw himself out of their intersecting paths.

His heart begins to race, and his apartment feels too stuffy. The surrounding walls are too small, too confining. His resolve is torn between hearing her out and throwing her expiditedly out the front door. How had he thought this conversation was a good idea? There's only two options now. He can lean into the delicious tension, or cutting it off before it can kill him entirely.

He needs to put this unspoken thing between them to bed.

He wants to drag her to his bed indefinitely.

But they are first and foremost teammates. No, she's his student. They will need to find a way to get through this, even with his conflicting thoughts. It might hurt at first, but eventually they would be fine. Maybe not immediately, but what other choice did they have. Tension unacknowledged could have lethal consequences, both on and off the battlefield.

Better to bring things out into the open now, to deviate from this path before they travel too far down it.

While he tapes the fresh bandages onto his sides, she paces awkwardly around his kitchen. She looks at his floorboards like she's dropped her words there. He's afraid if he says anything now, he will spook her and the moment will be gone. When she finally looks at him, her face is set and determined. He's proud of them for facing this together.

She takes a breath, and he braces himself for the thing he does and desperately does not want to hear.

"I've been…developing a new Jutsu." She says, and this is so not what he was expecting her to say that he has to blink away his surprise.

"A Jutsu." He repeats, the word foreign in his mouth.

A jutsu. A Jutsu.

Something rumbles in his chest. Suddenly, he's laughing at the absurdity of it all. His body is flooded with a rush of adrenaline. He is beyond disappointed and he is high on relief.

He lets out a giant, soothing breath and covers his visible eye with his palm.

What on earth had he been expecting? Sakura making a love confession to her haggard, aging sensei? He feels stupid and crazy, and such a fool. Her answer is liquid-cool relief flushing the heat away from his body. His inappropriate thoughts towards her are blessedly one-sided. He's never been happier to be wrong. They were going to be okay.

"I'm sorry-" He says, regaining his composure. Her face is tense and darkly unreadable. "I must have hit my head in that last fight. I thought you were going to say something else."

"Do I even want to know?" She asks, but her voice has become a forced civility. He knows that he's offended her, but even that's better than the alternative. He's too relieved right now to care. He's been spared from having to fully pull away from her. The only feelings he will have to contend with are his own. But he's willing to be the warden of his thoughts as long as nothing changes between them.

He can't lose another friend.

"Probably not." He replies, voice higher than he would like. He's still reeling from how badly he's just misread the situation. "I'm sorry, tell me about your Jutsu."

She lingers on her words before finally replying. "You know, it's all a bit complicated right now. I wouldn't even know where to begin…I'll tell you about it when it's ready, I promise."

He feels guilty at having ruined the moment, and hopes he hasn't ruined her trust. She's still tense when he awkwardly thanks her for the house call and wishes her safe travels. When she leaves, there are no lingering goodbyes between them like there have been lately. He doesn't know if this development is better or just different.

She gives a quick wave as she heads out the door, and Kakashi is finally left alone with his thought. The rest of the day, he replays their conversation on repeat, wondering what Jutsu she could be developing.

- Miscomunications -

As for Sakura, she spends the day immersing herself in her notes, rehearsing for the summit. She says goodbye to Ino and obsessively cleans her kitchen. She scrubs. She folds. She stays distracted. She occupied every spare second she has until it's time for bed.

She feels like a power outlet with too many wires. She's never felt so embarrassed in her life. She can't even bring herself to summon Yume-Kakashi after that train wreck of an afternoon. She's torn between fury and devastation, and ultimately decides that sleep will dull her wounds.

'Something has been different between us.'

What a fucking joke.

She knew that eventually her feelings would become known to him. Her past taught her she was terrible at controlling her temper, but even worse at disguising her love. When he'd broached the subject of their changing dynamic, she'd figured her time had finally run out. Hands shaking, she'd had every intention of telling him the truth. About her feeling and her Jutsu too. Maybe not the whole truth, but at least the relevant parts of it.

That she'd loved him for uncountable years. That she knew they had even more years between them, but those things didn't matter to her. How she hated it when he threw himself into danger, and wanted to be by his side the next time he did. She'd been ready to spill her heart and her guts entirely. Prepared to bleed bloody all over his kitchen floor.

But at the last moment, something had held her back. A memory of the last time she'd confessed to someone- to a dark haired boy who had once been her whole world. How she'd lost that world immediately after.

She'd hesitated just a second too long, deciding to talk to him about her Jutsu first.

She hadn't expected the obvious relief he felt when she'd diverted the conversation. He'd laughed because he had been expecting her love, and obviously didn't want it. If he'd waited a second longer before reacting, she probably would have spilled her guts anyway. Her deepest shame would have been poured out for him to see.

He didn't love her. Maybe he never would. When was she finally going to accept the truth?

Stupid, stupid, stupid-

But she was an adult, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not. She wasn't going to wallow, no matter how much as she wanted to.

…Okay. Maybe she would wallow a bit.

In a way, their conversation was a blessing in disguise. Now their working relationship could continue as normal. Or, as normal as it had ever been. This way she'd at least gotten her answer without having to make that double or nothing bet. In time, she would find a way to move on. She's grateful at least to have him in her life. The last piece of team 7 she hadn't fully lost.

At least now she knows outright what she's always subconsciously expected- that her feelings for him would never be reciprocated. He would always see her as his student. He still didn't see her as his equal.

She tells herself that this is still enough, even as she falls asleep in the hollow echos of her room.