Chapter Text
Sakura needs to sit down and reassess her life’s decisions.
She’s fourteen. Turning fifteen in nine weeks. She spends her mornings in a hospital, tending to demanding patients and squalling children. Her afternoons are taken up by training with Tsunade, a blur of pain and endless lectures and the crack snap pop of bones breaking. Her nights are spent lying in her shitty, rundown apartment, trying to ignore the phantom pains long enough to sleep.
This is isn’t the life she wanted.
She signed up to the Academy because Ino was and Ino was the pinnacle of what a girl should be. She passed all the tests because Ino was now her rival, and Sasuke might see, but nothing could have prepared her for this.
Except she did sign up for Tsunade’s training, and she never asks to stop, even when blood is a constant taste in the roof of her mouth. Her efforts are showing, evident in the instant it takes to heal minor injuries and the first time she smashed a boulder into dust with a punch, but even that might not be worth it.
Naruto is off with the Toad Sannin, no doubt getting better without having to pulverize his bones because he’s jinchuuriki and he’s Naruto.
Of the original Team Seven, she and Kakashi are the only ones left in Konoha, and he’s already kind of the exception because he never takes breaks between missions.
She hasn’t spoken to him in two months.
She should probably get on that. And try to find a reason to keep living. Who knows, maybe they’ll coincide.
x
It’s not a surprise to see that her first glimpse of him in a long while is in the very hospital where she was just finishing up.
Mildly annoying because she is tired and sore and she’s fairly sure that Kakashi, like any other ex-ANBU jounin, isn’t a good patient, but she’ll come anyways. They were supposed to be friends.
Sakura taps the nurse on the arm, peeking over his shoulder to spy Kakashi’s medical chart.
“I can take over,” she says, and the nurse accepts, because of course no sane person wants to treat the Copy-nin.
Kakashi has his eye closed but she knows that he’s alert when his chakra spikes at her approach.
She leans over his still face. “Kakashi. Open your eyes.”
He doesn’t, opening his mouth instead to drawl, “Sakura. What pleasure do I owe you?”
“Nothing. You’re at the hospital for-” she checks the chart again. “A stab wound, and I’m here to treat you.”
“I could have dealt with it at home,” Kakashi grumbles, and yeah, that’s the man she knows. “I cleaned it and everything.”
Sakura snorts. “Wrong. Not even you can sense infection setting in this early. Let me see.”
She bats his hands away from the darkening spot on his pants, pressing her own on top with a slight nudge of diagnostic jutsu. It’s a surprisingly clean stab for an enemy made wound, so she just seals it up from the inside out, chakra spreading through his system as she fixes and rights the broken blood vessels along the way.
And- it’s a little worrying how easy it is to push her own chakra into his. There’s way too little resistance for an adult jounin, especially as competent as he is.
“Kakashi,” she says, eyebrows knitting together. “How large are your chakra reserves usually?”
“Huh?” he looks at her slowly. “Normal? I’m not sure.”
She takes his wrist (too thin) and sends another pulse through his body, only to draw back with a huff.
“Hmm.”
“Hmm what?” he stares.
“Your levels aren’t right. The chakra in your body is spread too thin, when it should be circulating equally.”
“Ah. That probably has something to do with this,” he says, pushing up his hitai-ate an inch. The sharingan stares back at her.
Her frown deepens. “That sharingan is seriously going to kill you, Kakashi. It takes almost half your chakra constantly to sustain your vision, and that’s not even mentioning mangekyou.”
“I know that,” he sighs. “You’re not the first medic-nin to come up with that diagnosis.”
Sakura watches him tug the hitai-ate back down. “I can’t ask you to have it removed, because almost all your styles depend on the sharingan, but you should know how damaging it is to your body. You’re too dependent on your right eye from having the other covered up, and you’re going to need glasses sooner or later.”
“A monocle, then?” he huffs good naturedly.
“Goggles, more like,” she scoffs, and notices his easygoing act drop just a fraction.
“Anyways,” Sakura says awkwardly after the sudden change in atmosphere, “you should go get dinner with me, after you’re cleared. I can tell you’re underweight.”
“I don’t think it’d be good practice to go to a bar with my former student, but alright-”
“Idiot!” her cheeks light on fire, warming at the implications. “That’s so gross! We’re going as- as friends.”
“Friends?” he blinks.
“Yeah, friends. We used to be a team, remember?”
Not that Kakashi ever taught her anything, but the point still stands. She got over her bitterness from being ignored the first time Tsunade slammed a fist into her gut and shattered two ribs.
“Uh. Sure.” He looks uncertain, but that’s fine because Sakura is not losing contact to another member of Team 7. Once was enough, and she hasn’t seen Naruto in a year and a half.
“I’ll meet you outside the hospital. My shift was supposed to have been done twenty minutes ago.”
She scribbles out a hasty report on Kakashi’s injury, stripping off her gloves as she strides out the room before he can say anything.
x
They end up going to the bar anyways, as that’s apparently the only restaurant Kakashi knows besides Ichiraku and Sakura doesn’t want to eat ramen at Ichiraku's without Naruto.
She orders two dishes when Kakashi only gets an appetizer because he needs to eat more. And she’s a medic, technically.
He does stop her when she asks for a drink and gets alcohol, despite her status as an adult since she was twelve. She decides not to tell him about the times she drank from Tsunade’s bottle after training.
They don’t really talk but that’s fine, she’s starving after skipping lunch in favor for some more training in between. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, so she eats and occasionally pushes pieces of food to Kakashi’s plate as well. It’s very different from any of the other meals she’s shared with Ino or Shikamaru or Choji.
It only takes him two glasses of something smelling dark and spicy to start talking.
“Listen, Sakura,” he starts, setting down his chopsticks. “I’ve been meaning to say this, but I was too busy, up until now.”
She looks up from her plate, tilting her head. What’s this about? Does he have some sort of information on Sasuke? Or maybe a bad update on Naruto’s travels with the Toad Sannin?
Kakashi hooks a finger on the edge of his jounin vest, shattering any expectations she had with, “I was wrong, in leaving you, back when you were genin. I should have been- I was a shitty teacher. To you especially.”
Her heart leaps, relief flooding in her head before something stranger and angrier replaces it. Why is he bringing this up now? Two whole years after Sasuke left? Just to get the guilt off his chest? It’s what she wants, what she’s been waiting for since Sasuke left and she started training until blood became a permanent taste in her mouth, but it’s still not enough.
“It’s whatever,” she says stiffly. “I know Naruto and Sasuke were more important.”
“It’s not like that, I-”
“Not like what. Not like what, Kakashi?” she snorts, gripping her spoon until it groans under her hand. Right. She has to take care not to break stuff, now.
“I didn’t prioritize you less than the others.” the edges of his mask tighten, a sign he’s grimacing, probably.
“I said it’s okay. Sasuke’s the last Uchiha and Naruto is the jinchuuriki, and I’m just the buffer between them to keep the team running smoothly. Right?”
Kakashi falls silent at that, back straight.
“Except I failed. Sasuke left and all I did was cry and then the Toad Sannin came and took Naruto, and I’m only an apprentice because the Hokage took pity on the weak civilian girl stuck between soon-to-be legends.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and she can’t stand the pitiful look on his face, even if half of it is covered.
“Forget it,” Sakura sighs. “I didn’t come here to dump my own weakness on you. I don’t need you as a teacher anymore.”
“I’ll train you,” Kakashi says quickly, eye widening like he hadn’t meant to say that.
“What? Did you not just hear me?” she scowls.
“I mean it,” he exhales. “I really do regret not- not helping you. And it’s just you and me, now.”
She eyes him, searching for any sign of a lie, but he only looks slightly uncomfortable
“Sure. I can’t complain if you’re willing to help me get stronger,” she shrugs. “But first, you have to come to my afternoon to see Tsunade and I spar.”
If you could even call it a spar. She shudders to think about how many bones will be broken, and how many she’ll have to heal herself.