Their guest house was a two-story building with a sloping roof covered in dark gray tiles. Lanterns hung from wooden posts, their soft, golden glow of the sort that made weary travelers feel relieved to finally reach their destination after a long journey.
The innkeeper's wife, a middle-aged woman with a brisk demeanor, greeted them enthusiastically. "I'm so glad you've finally arrived," she beamed, clasping her hands together. "With the festival in the capital, every room in the area has been taken. It would have been a shame not to let someone else use the rooms, but my husband insisted we hold them for you until morning."
It wasn't entirely clear whether she was serious or exaggerating for effect, but Kakashi was quite relieved they had a roof over their heads for the next three days. He felt mentally exhausted. Perhaps he was getting old, but spending the night anywhere other than in a proper room with a bed seemed like punishment at this point.
"What festival?" Sakura asked curiously.
"Oh, you don't know?" The woman's face lit up. "The Grand Literary Festival! Writers, scholars, and book enthusiasts from all over the region have come to the capital. They're hosting readings, discussions, and even a marketplace for rare manuscripts. It's a wonderful event!"
"We probably won't have time," Genma murmured apologetically to Sakura, with a pointed side-eye at Kakashi, as if their packed schedule was entirely his fault. Sakura rolled her eyes and shrugged, offering Genma a small conspiratorial smile.
At once livid, Kakashi tightened his grip on the room key and strode toward the staircase, his jaw set. Better to leave before he said something he'd later regret—like pointing out that Genma was welcome to take all the time he wanted for sightseeing since he was neither needed nor wanted here.
His mood still sour, Kakashi's first thought upon entering his assigned room was that it was far too spacious—a waste, really, for someone like him who only needed a bed and some quiet to sleep a few hours. But Shizune always insisted that his rank demanded a certain level of luxury. When he hated luxury.
With a sharp tug, he wrestled the Hokage's armband off his arm and threw it on top of his travel bags. He caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror when he washed his hands. His eyes looked hard, his expression strained, and his hair—predictably—appeared as though it had its own agenda for a sneak attack. He scoffed at himself and turned away to join the rest of the group in the dining room, where a light, simple meal awaited.
The fare included steaming bowls of miso soup, fluffy rice, an assortment of seasonal vegetables, and grilled fish delicately garnished with a touch of grated daikon. The meal was accompanied by warm sencha tea and a few bottles of shiso juice—a tangy, refreshing drink made from perilla leaves, apparently all the rage here at the moment.
They were served by the innkeeper's daughter, a young woman bustling about and throwing frequent glances toward Sakura. Kakashi remembered her from the last time he'd stayed here, back when she'd been an awkward teenager with a braid and shy manners. Now, she carried herself with a new confidence, and judging by the way her gaze sparkled with curiosity every time it landed on Sakura, she was an avid reader of a certain book series.
Genma, who had spent most of the meal looking like he might fall face-first into his bowl from sheer exhaustion, perked up remarkably at this realization. It took all of two questions about Sakura's Adventures in the Cherry Blossom Lands for him and the innkeeper's daughter to dive into a spirited conversation about plot twists, character motivations, and all manner of minute details, while Sakura alternated between bemusement and discomfort, her face reddening subtly as she chimed in.
Kakashi found the entire display baffling and Sakura so lovely it hurt. Could their timing be any worse? A book festival with book enthusiasts from all over the region? He'd have to throw a head-scarf over Sakura's head when they left the hotel! But of course Genma would make him out to be the spoil-sport once again and… enough.
Good that he had no reason to stay any longer than necessary. He finished his meal with minimal fuss and excused himself. Without so much as a backward glance, he made his way to his room and shut the door. He had work to do.
Meetings with the Fire Daimyo could go one of two ways. On a good day, the man would listen attentively, seek advice, and often follow the Hokage's recommendations without much resistance. On a bad day, however, his mercurial moods turned him into a petulant, vindictive ruler, making decisions on a whim without regard for the damage he might cause.
Kakashi had prepared meticulously. The quarterly reports showed promising numbers, but he wanted to go over his notes again to ensure he highlighted the most critical points. Chief among these was the proposal to expand Konoha's hospital capacity—a cause Sakura had poured her heart into. Kakashi had no doubts about her ability to make a compelling case; her passion and expertise would shine through. He wasn't worried about her performance.
What did worry him was the Shinobi Union. The topic was bound to be contentious. Many political leaders, including the Fire Daimyo, were skeptical of the new governing body. The Union, founded on principles of equality and collaboration rather than competition, threatened to undermine the Daimyo's current powers. Chief among its proposals was a centralized system for allocating shinobi missions. Under this framework, the Union would select teams from all the hidden villages, ensuring equal opportunities and fair distribution of work.
It was a noble idea, one that Kakashi passionately believed in. But it also required persuading men like the Fire Daimyo—leaders deeply invested in preserving their steady streams of income—that a united front among the shinobi was in their best interests. How could he make such an argument when war felt like a distant memory and peace seemed firmly in place? How could he convince a man who consistently prioritized his and his family's immediate comfort to think beyond his narrow scope, to consider the fragile threads holding this hard-won peace together?
Trust among the shinobi nations was still tentative at best, built more on shared necessity than genuine reconciliation. The centuries of hatred and betrayal that preceded the war hadn't simply dissolved now that the common enemy was gone. Kakashi knew the lingering bitterness could easily fester if not actively managed. A structure like the Shinobi Union could solidify bonds and ensure equality, but it needed time and commitment to flourish.
With yet another sigh, Kakashi sat down at the low table by the window, spreading out his notes and flipping through the reports that Shizune had printed for him. He picked up a pen and began to underline key points and circle sections that needed the most careful framing.
He tried to concentrate. He failed.
Now that his mind had time to wander, it began to buzz with fragments of irksome images and unsettling thoughts. Pangs of desire struck sharp and sudden when it strayed to the night before, to Sakura in his arms—the feel of her skin, the look in her eyes, the sound of her voice when she moaned his name. But those sweet memories were quickly overshadowed by a twisting ache in his chest as he tried—and failed, again and again—to make sense of what had transpired since.
All day, she had acted as though nothing had happened—or worse, like it hadn't been meaningful in the least, like funny, carefree Genma was the much better company. It gnawed at him that she was this unaffected about their night together. It wasn't just that it had been good; it had been that—undeniably so. It was the way he had felt, so startlingly alive, as if something long dormant inside him had been awoken. It was, undoubtedly, the best sex he'd ever had. Yet she had slipped away before the morning, leaving him to wake alone. All day, she hadn't said a word about it, hadn't so much as hinted at her reasons for sneaking out. He could only guess. None of the explanations he came up with were very flattering.
And there it was, the crux of it all.
He was supposed to be the one keeping distance between them, not driving himself mad over why she was so distant. He should be relieved that she wasn't clingy, grateful that she wasn't making this harder. But instead, he found himself wondering why—why a woman known for being emotional and attached was the exact opposite in his case.
After a while, Kakashi gave up.
Letting out a slow breath, he turned toward the sliding door to his balcony. Opening it, he stepped outside, letting the cool night air wash over him. The moon hung high in the sky, its pale silver light casting long shadows across the small, enclosed garden behind the guesthouse. He lifted his hand to greet a shadow: Hebi, guarding the back entrance.
The urge to smoke suddenly took hold of him then—perhaps that would bring the peace of mind he needed. He went inside to retrieve his stash from his backpack—carefully wrapped in oil paper and stored in a battered tin box. His fingers shook slightly as he unwrapped it, brushing over the smooth, worn edges of the container. The tin box had been his father's once.
A memory surfaced with startling clarity—a fishing trip, long ago. It had been a sweltering summer day, the kind where the sun seemed to linger forever, beating down relentlessly. They'd gone to the river early, long before the streets of Konoha stirred to life. Kakashi recalled the heat on his skin, the sluggish flow of the river as they sat on its banks, rods in hand. His father had kept the worms in this tin box, opening it every so often with a wry smile as they baited their lines.
At the time, it had been just another moment, ordinary and unremarkable. But now, looking back, it felt like the kind of memory you wished you'd known to cherish as it happened.
Alarms went off in his head. Kakashi shut the box abruptly, forcing the memory back where it belonged. Dwelling on the losses of the past was an absolute taboo for him, because once he lost himself in that, he was truly lost. This was why he needed control over his emotions. This.
With practiced hands, he rolled the cigarette, the familiar movements seemingly from another lifetime. He lit it, the flare of the match briefly blinding him, and inhaled deeply. Strong stuff. Kakashi willed the tension in his shoulders to ease as he leaned against the wooden railing of the balcony. He brought the cigarette to his lips, taking another slow, deliberate drag. The paper crackled softly as the ember flared. The smoke curled upward, dissipating into the night air. He held it in for a moment before releasing it in a steady stream, watching as it mingled with the silver glow of the garden below.
Smoking would bring him peace of mind? Of course it didn't. But it brought clarity of the unpleasant sort. Genma was right—he had been a total ass. And Genma was right again: he was jealous.
Jealousy wasn't something Kakashi was used to, and it felt foreign and unsettling. He, who had mastered emotional suppression long ago, had no idea how to deal with it. He tried to analyze the feeling. It was ugly and useless. So he tried to reason it away. If Sakura liked Genma more than him, well, he'd have to accept that, wouldn't he? Genma was considered handsome—Kakashi knew that much from hearing women talk—and he was easy-going, jovial, and gallant. Kakashi, by contrast, was guarded, too busy, and the opposite of fun. He couldn't bring any lightness to Sakura's life, and that was exactly what she deserved. What she needed.
That he had told Genma not to surprise Sakura for her birthday made him feel like a real scumbag. She deserved the surprise, deserved to be celebrated. She was probably expecting something too—it was customary, after all, for friends and teammates to mark each other's birthdays.
It was close to midnight, a look at the stars told him. Still time to tell Genma he had changed his mind. Even if the thought of Genma knocking at her door and Sakura smiling at him, happy and radiant, sent something hot and sharp burning through Kakashi's chest, the truth was, he didn't own Sakura. She owed him nothing, and he had no right to interfere. Whatever her choices were, they were hers to make.
He was still wrestling with the idea to wake up Genma to undo the damage, when a sharp, brief knock interrupted his thoughts.
Startled, he nearly dropped the cigarette, his nerves instantly on edge. A glance into the garden revealed it was empty: Hebi, who had been standing guard, was gone. Kakashi stubbed out the cigarette, then moved to the door, silent and cautious.
"Kakashi?" The voice was barely a whisper. "Are you there?"
For a moment, he froze. "Sakura?" he replied, his pulse racing. He cracked the door open, his gaze searching for the dark of the corridor behind her. "Is something wrong?"
What a stupid question. Everything was wrong.
"No, nothing is wrong," Sakura whispered. "Can I come in?"
"Y… yes?" He opened the door further. Sakura sniffed the air as she brushed past him, but didn't say anything.
"Happy birthday," Kakashi said, silently closing the door behind her. His voice was stiff, uncertain. Why was she here? She seemed agitated. Dared he hope…? "Do you want a drink…?" He gestured to the minibar, a towering assortment of bottles and glasses.
"A drink…?" She echoed, her eyes scanning the room with a distracted frown. "No. How are you feeling?"
"Feeling…" Kakashi scratched the back of his neck, trying to buy time to compose himself. He was feeling too much and was going to make a fool of himself. "I'm feeling… okay?"
"Yesterday, I saw the match with the food pills in the lab and rushed straight to the Tower," Sakura began, pushing her hair back behind her ears with both hands. "I went back afterwards, but it was late and now I'm not sure… I got the very unpleasant feeling that I missed something. What if the poison is not only in the food pills? Can I examine you?"
"Now?" Kakashi blinked, doing a double take. "It's midnight, Sakura."
"Yes, now," she said firmly. "It's never the right time with you. And tomorrow's schedule won't permit any breaks as we have already established."
It crossed his mind then that she might be just as unsure about this whole thing as he was, and that this might just be an excuse to come see him. He searched her face for any clues, but she seemed preoccupied and quite certain about what she wanted. Whatever that was.
"Okay," he conceded.
She pointed at the futon he had unrolled earlier in the evening. "Lie down."
"Do I… do I undress?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.
At her nod, he pulled his shirt over his head, hesitating for a moment before lying down on the bedding. The mask stayed on—it felt safer that way. But he couldn't stop himself from watching her closely as she knelt down beside him. He watched how she worried her bottom lip between her teeth for the briefest of moments, how her hands trembled ever so slightly as she extended them toward him.
"Be gentle," he said, unable to resist the teasing remark.
She flinched, her brows drawing together in a frown. "I'm always gentle," she protested.
"Nope," he said, shaking his head. "Yesterday, you were not."
Her face went crimson, the blush spreading quickly to the tips of her ears, and he found the sight unexpectedly satisfying. He hadn't actually been referring to anything beyond her treatment of him in the hospital, but he couldn't deny he enjoyed the unintended implication and her flustered reaction.
Sakura scowled at him but didn't rise to the bait. She placed her hands lightly on his bare chest, her fingers cool against his skin, and began to channel her chakra. The sensation was immediate, a sharp, tingling hum that made every nerve feel alive and on edge. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it wasn't pleasant either.
"Are you punishing me?" he asked, his voice tight.
"No," she replied curtly, her hands steady on his chest. "Hold still."
"You need to tell me if I did something wrong," Kakashi continued, his jaw clenched as her chakra probed deeper. "Normally, women are very satisfied."
"What?" She jerked her hands away, her touch vanishing for a moment before she put them back—this time, even less delicately. Now it really hurt.
"You… didn't like it?" He figured he might as well get the inevitable over with before she decided to kill him outright.
Her eyes, huge and luminous, fixed on him. In the dim light, they seemed to burn with eerie intensity.
"What gave you the impression that I didn't like it?" she hissed. "No, apparently I'm just like all the other women."
"None of them sneaked out of my bed in the middle of the night," he shot back before he could stop himself.
"Then perhaps," she replied icily, "they didn't have work to do, bags to pack, and proposals to finish. I'm actually a busy woman, Kakashi, and have better things to do than bolster your male pride."
"It's not about my…"
Her hands flared with chakra again, sharper this time. Kakashi winced and shut up. This conversation wasn't going in the right direction. The flush on her cheeks was impossible to miss now, and the slight tremor in her fingers had intensified.
"You're angry," he said softly.
"Yes, Kakashi, I'm angry," she snapped. "How very observant of you."
"Why?" he pressed.
Her hands stilled, the glow of chakra fading as her gaze dropped to where they rested against his chest. "Because I know you," she said, her voice quieter but still charged. "I know who you are, and I knew what I was getting into. But it still hurts to be treated like I'm just one of your 'other women.' You don't need to rub your experience in my face."
Kakashi stared at her, utterly baffled. Was she making sense to herself? Because he sure as hell couldn't make sense of what she was trying to tell him.
"Don't worry, though," she added quickly, almost defensively. "I know you don't want emotional entanglements. Which is good, because neither do I."
"You made that very clear today," he replied, his voice sharper than he intended. The bitterness in his tone surprised even him. "Fine with me!"
Her eyes narrowed. "You asked why I'm angry, and I told you. Why are you angry now?"
"Would you please take your hands off my chest," he said, once again aware that a healer's hands could do as much harm as good. When she complied, he sat up, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I wanted to understand why you ran away and didn't talk to me all day and now I know. So why should I be angry?" He even managed to shrug. "We're good. It was fun, but that's all it was."
The words barely left his mouth before he saw their impact. Her reaction was immediate and visceral—a flinch as though he'd struck her, her lips parting as if to speak but unable to form the words. She stood there, trembling, and the look on her face cut deep.
"I didn't quite mean…" he started, stumbling over the attempt to take it back, but she didn't let him finish.
"I liked it, okay?" she blurted out, her voice trembling with raw emotion. "I liked it too much. And then I woke up in your arms and realized it wouldn't mean the same thing to you that it did to me. So yes, I left as quickly as I could—because I needed to protect myself. I'm glad I did, I really am. I'm sorry I'm so inexperienced and stupid."
Her words landed like a punch to the gut. "Sakura," he said, his voice uneven as he reached for something, anything to fix this. "It wasn't—"
"Don't," she cut him off, shaking her head. Her eyes glistened, too bright. "Just don't."
Before he could move or speak, she stood abruptly, retreating a step as if to put a physical barrier between them. His instincts screamed at him to reach out, to stop her, to undo the damage, but he couldn't move.
"There's nothing there," she said softly, her voice a fragile thing that barely carried in the quiet room. She pointed to his chest, avoiding his gaze. "Sorry to disturb you so late at night."
And then she turned and walked out, the door clicking shut behind her. The silence that followed was suffocating, filled with the weight of everything left unsaid. Kakashi sat frozen, stunned, and aching with shame and regret.
Create distance? The thought mocked him cruelly now. He had lost the ability to do that the moment she had walked into his office and caught him without his mask. It wasn't just that she had seen his face—it was how she had looked at him.
Her gaze had been open and unguarded, a mixture of wonder and something he hadn't dared name. Her cheeks had flushed faintly pink, her breath catching for just a moment as though the world had shifted. And in that instant, he should have known: Known that with her, it wouldn't be just another fleeting connection, a casual encounter he could neatly compartmentalize and walk away from.
With Sakura, it was all or nothing. There was no in-between, no safe middle ground. To have known her was to love her. Entirely, or not at all.
It was the story of his life that he was realizing this too late. Too late to take back the things he had said, too late to undo the hurt he had caused. Too late to be the person she deserved.