Archive of Our Own

It starts at Ichiraku — something an older, wiser Kakashi will look back on and recognize for the clever ruse it was. Framing the initial meeting as a happy coincidence so that he'll keep his guard down…yes, that makes perfect sense. He'd never put it past her.

But the Kakashi of the present is blissfully unaware and so he only crinkles his eyes in a smile when Sakura ducks into the ramen stand. "You're looking well, Sakura."

Sakura blinks at him in clearly feigned surprise, confirming his suspicions that she's only come in so that she can see him again. It warms his heart, really — some part of him has been concerned that Sakura might be mad at his rather abrupt disappearance following the finalization of her apprenticeship under Lady Tsunade. It's been three months since then, three months where he's very rarely in the Village, and even more rarely in his normal Jounin fatigues. For Sakura to find him now of all times, and for her face to slowly be overcome with a smile…Kakashi can almost pretend that she's his cute little Genin again.

She sits herself down at the stool right next to Kakashi's, greeting him before giving Ayame her order. Kicking her feet in the air since they still don't reach the ground, she says, "How've you been, Sensei?"

"All right," says Kakashi, picking a single strand of noodle out of his bowl with his chopsticks. "I just finished battling a princess for a dragon's honor." He pauses. "Or was it the other way around…?"

Sakura giggles at him, all adorable girlishness. Everyone thinks his stories and excuses are amusing when they're not being used against them. "Dragons aren't real, Kakashi-sensei," she says admonishingly once her laughter wanes.

"I don't know," says Kakashi. "It had the head of a lizard and the wings of a hawk and the claws of a tiger —"

"Sounds like one of Orochimaru's experiments to me."

Kakashi snaps his fingers. "That was the princess's name, too! Doing all those dastardly things to that poor little dragon…what has the world come to?"

Sakura laughs so hard that she ends up choking on her noodles and he has to thump her back until she stops coughing.

The rest of the hour spent in the ramen stand is just as amusing. In the back of his mind, Kakashi's genuinely shocked by how well it's gone — while on Team Seven, none of the dinners had gone nearly as well. Then again, they all included Naruto and Sasuke arguing in the background, and though he'd come to find it a soothing enough source of background noise out of sheer necessity, he hadn't realized how much those incidents frayed at his mood until now. Sakura seems to be doing better, as well, not having to get in the middle of a fight (or, more accurately, take Sasuke's side and tease Naruto).

But that's not really all. Before, even when Kakashi was alone with Sakura, he'd felt the looming responsibility of being a proper teacher, guiding her to Chunin status. Every interaction felt tinged with purpose — purpose he ran from, of course, but purpose nonetheless.

But Kakashi's not Sakura's sensei anymore — no, she's the apprentice of the great and powerful Fifth Hokage, Tsunade Senju, one of the legendary Sannin. He no longer bears the burden of her professional success, and that makes talking to her all the easier.

It's almost like he's just talking to a friend.

That night, after Kakashi had bid Sakura a cheerful farewell and returned to his own apartment, Kakashi stares up at the ceiling in contemplation.

He's friends with a twelve-year-old girl.

…Well, it's not like this is the absolute lowest point in his life.

He goes to bed.

Two weeks later, Kakashi is back in the Village after a borderline disastrous assassination-turned-seduction mission and he's in a phenomenally bad mood.

"Well," says Tenzo, who's accompanied him into his hospital room, "it could be worse."

Kakashi, who is covered in spines and a not insignificant amount of lip-plumping lip gloss, glares at him. "You're not the one who feels like a radioactive porcupine." His general face area gives another vague throb from the lip gloss, not enough to cause him actual pain but definitely enough to discomfort him, and he instinctively raises up his arm to wipe the oily substance off. Immediately, he freezes — pain thrums through his arm as the poison-covered spines jostle around. He lets his hand drop.

"The mission was a success," Tenzo continues soothingly.

Kakashi almost says something slightly treasonous, like Fuck the mission!, but manages to stop himself so he can clear his head a bit. After it's cleared, he says, "Fuck the mission!" The sheer effort it takes to make the statement has all the spines quivering again, along with glowing a faint, sickly green. His skin turns around the same color when a new wave of pain registers.

Tenzo leans back, glancing at him nervously. "Maybe I should go call a medic…"

He leaves before Kakashi can decide whether or not he agrees with the statement.

The next several moments are spent in tense silence on Kakashi's part. Normally, he'd be trying to escape the room by now, but even he can admit that the spines are not something he's capable of handling on his own — he wishes the medics would just knock him out and get rid of them, though, instead of making him wait!

He's never had to wait for medical help before. Usually, the medics rush to him!

…But, also usually, he's presenting with severe injuries on account of only going to the hospital with issues he can't take care of himself. His intake here proved that the spines, while painful and coated in poison, were not actually life threatening, and so he got tossed to the bottom of the list of patients to attend to.

God, this is boring. He'd pull out Make Out Paradise if the mere thought of moving his arms didn't fill him with dread.

Like a savior from the heavens, the door to his room finally opens again. "Took you long enough, Tenzo," he starts, only to freeze when the newcomer enters his field of vision. "Sakura?"

Sakura, dressed in the kind of nurse uniform she'd worn when Sasuke was in the hospital, smiles at him brightly. "Hi, Kakashi-sensei!" she chirps. "Your friend with the face armor said you needed some help."

He looks between Sakura, who's advancing on the clipboard with his medical notes, and the door, which is distinctly Tenzo-less. "And where is my friend now?"

"He had to use the restroom," Sakura says flippantly. Her eyes are still glued on his medical records and Kakashi is struck with the absurd thought that she's absorbing as much information about him as she can manage. He wouldn't put it past her — that brain of hers is like a wet sponge.

He also briefly mourns the loss of Tenzo, who will surely not be coming back any time soon. The only bathroom that non-patients and non-staff can use is several floors away and, for some reason, medics have always been all too happy to chat Tenzo up — even when Kakashi, objectively more attractive Kakashi!!, is right next to him.

Turning his attention back to Sakura reveals that she's now studying him with intensity. Or, rather, his spines. "Poison, huh," she mumbles to herself. And then she reaches out and touches one.

Kakashi hisses in pain and says, "Don't."

"You might as well get used to it now," Sakura says dismissively, turning away to pull on some sterile gloves and start rummaging through the cupboards.

"What do you mean?" Kakashi asks with dread.

"Well — you know your allergy to fire sap? And how you can only take a specific type of anesthesia? Well…the poison the spines are coated in reacts badly to it, which means I can't numb you at all." She looks vaguely apologetic as she turns back around but all Kakashi can do is eye the giant pliers that she's holding. Surely those things are overkill? But Sakura doesn't seem at all concerned.

Leaning back slightly, Kakashi says, "Can't you just knock me out? A good hit to the pressure points —"

"No, you need to be awake so you can tell me if the poison from the disturbed wounds starts entering your bloodstream." She advances on him and Kakashi thinks he can be forgiven for the slight whimper that leaves his mouth because Sakura really does look unhinged. "Don't worry," she says kindly, "I'll try to be gentle."

The dichotomy between Sakura's sweet countenance and pliers she's holding in her hands, not to mention the sheer pain she's promising to deliver, has him actually attempting to scoot away, only to get incapacitated by blinding pain. He doesn't physically react, too used to hiding his reflexes when pain gets this severe so as to not tip off his enemies, but it still takes him a few moments before he blinks the spots out of his vision and the ringing leaves his ears.

And then —

"Why are you laughing?" Kakashi rasps.

Because Sakura is bent forward, clutching her stomach as she giggles uncontrollably. "You should have seen the look on your face, Sensei!" she gasps. "You looked so scared!" She starts laughing all over again, though she finally straightens up and carelessly tosses the pliers behind her head. Kakashi's gaze tracks them as they make a perfect arc before landing neatly in the still open cupboard. Sakura doesn't even acknowledge it. Instead, she asks, "You didn't really think I was gonna do that, did you, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Well, you're wearing the nurse's uniform," he says slowly.

Sakura tugs at the collar of it and rolls her eyes. "This is only issued to volunteers who don't have any official training — which I do! And anyway, nurses wouldn't be cleared to actually perform medical procedures, they're just around to help feed and entertain patients."

"So you're not going to be pulling my spines out?" he asks weakly.

Sakura shakes her head. "No, I'm not. But one of the medics I'm shadowing will be here soon…" She glances out the door to the hallway, looking both ways before sliding the thing shut. Then, once she's out of sight of the hallway, she brings her hands into the tiger seal and her nurse uniform vanishes in a puff of smoke, replaced by standard trainee medic scrubs. She once again returns to his bedside, trying her hair up into a ponytail. "I'm actually supposed to be prepping you for the procedure but, well, I couldn't help myself."

Kakashi considers this. He could tell her that her little stunt has just caused him bone-shaking pain…but she seems so pleased with herself. And, once he puts aside the fact that he's a tiny bit offended, it really was a funny joke.

He decides to let the whole thing slide, reluctantly amused. "At least I don't actually have to feel the spines being removed."

Sakura frowns. "Oh, I wasn't lying about the anesthesia thing. Or the pliers."

Kakashi grows steadily paler. The medic chooses that moment to walk into the room as Kakashi resigns himself to his terrible future.

The next fifteen minutes are…painful. Very, very painful. Kakashi grunts and groans and eventually goes silent, but even that isn't enough — he manages to enter a new stage of pain with every spine tugged out of him. To Sakura, he says, "You really should knock me out. If I die, I die."

Sakura says, "I don't agree with that assessment."

"Please," Kakashi grits out. "I really, really don't mind."

Sakura frowns thoughtfully even as she holds him down. "Does it really hurt that bad?"

The medic finally speaks for the first time since he started pulling out the spines. "Haruno," he says sharply, yanking another one from Kakashi's sternum, "doubting a patient's assessment of their own level of pain is a great way to end up with an angry ninja on your hands." Another one is tugged out, this time from around his left collarbone. "Sometimes we have to perform procedures regardless of how painful they are — denying the pain is just rubbing salt in the wound." Another from the top of his left shoulder.

Kakashi, finally completely de-spined, takes a shuddering breath. Once he ascertains that movement won't cause him any (unbearable) pain, he throws a lazy hand in the medic's direction and says, "What he said."

Sakura stays silent all throughout the process of cleaning and dressing the new holes covering him from the neck down. Eventually, the medic notes something on Kakashi's chart before leaving, telling Sakura she should be able to handle everything from here. Sakura looks at him, shifting uncomfortably, before finally bursting out, "I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei!"

"Oh?" he asks, suddenly exhausted.

"Earlier when I scared you and you moved — that must have been really painful! And I just stood there and laughed at you!" She bows sharply, a full ninety-degrees, and says, "I promise to be more mindful in the future!"

Kakashi blinks at her sluggishly. It's not that he's surprised he's getting an apology, it's more that he's surprised she noticed. From what he remembers of her bedside manner, it was always earnest but poorly done — she's naturally quick tempered and a staunch perfectionist, not to mention her chosen coping method for frustration being physically taking her anger out on the nearest inanimate object/blond(e) ninja. As much as Sakura cares, he's come to realize that she's not very good at it.

But she's clearly trying. With a sigh, he says, "All is forgiven. Just…try not to give your poor sensei another heart attack, yeah?"

"Yeah," Sakura says despondently. She all but twiddles her thumb, looking deeply anxious.

Kakashi sighs again. "It was kind of funny," he admits.

Sakura perks up. "Really?"

"Really."

With a pleased smile, Sakura sighs and finally picks up his chart again. "Okay," she says, "the only thing left is that someone mentioned some sort of oil on your face?"

"Oh? That's nothing."

"It's not nothing if it's in the chart," Sakura says stubbornly. "What is it? Topical poison? Tell me!"

"It's really not an issue —"

"Sensei, so help me, I will examine your face myself!"

"Fine!" cries Kakashi. "It's lip gloss, okay?"

Sakura blinks. "What's the point of wearing lip gloss if no one's gonna see it?"

"It's not my lip gloss!"

"Why would your face be smeared with someone else's lip gloss?" Sakura asks. Kakashi just stares at her — out of all of his former Genin, Sakura should be the one most able to figure it out! And she does, understanding dawning on her face…which scrunches up in disgust. "Oh my god, ew!"

"What?" Kakashi asks in offence.

"Someone kissed you?"

"I don't like your tone."

Sakura continues to scrunch her nose up in disgust as she begins rummaging through the room's drawers. "No offense, Kakashi-sensei," she says as she does so, "but you're not exactly a looker. And you're unreliable, and petty, and you never pay for your food, and don't you know that if you want to get a girlfriend, you shouldn't be covering up ninety-five percent of yourself?" She shakes her head. "I'm not sure showing skin would help either — I bet you have blimp lips! Or buckteeth." She nods sharply to herself, satisfied, before hurling something over her shoulder at him.

Kakashi snatches it out of the air, too bewildered to respond to Sakura's words. He looks down at the thing in his hands and finds himself holding a bar of scentless facewash.

"The patient bathroom is down the hall," Sakura says. "That should be enough to get the lip gloss off. Let me know if that doesn't work — I probably have some makeup wipes in my bag…"

Kakashi shakes his head. "Such hurtful things followed by such practical advice. I'm getting whiplash."

Sakura cracks a smile at him. "Don't worry, Sensei," she soothes, "I'm sure you'll land a girlfriend one day. Then you won't have to kiss a woman who turns you into a porcupine."

"Brat!" Kakashi calls out, but Sakura has already exited the room.

And, despite it all, Kakashi is smiling.

Four days later, when Sakura corners him at the Mission Desk, Kaksahi begins to suspect that a pattern is emerging. He's still young and innocent, though, so he doesn't suspect any sort of foul play — he merely assumes that Sakura is seeking him out and is unusually lucky.

"Iruka-sensei seemed really upset about the mission report you turned in," Sakura says brightly. If he were a lesser ninja, he'd think that she simply spawned into existence right next to him, but he's very well trained and has been tracking her approach since she stepped foot into the room.

Kakashi smiles down at her, closing Make Out Paradise but not yet slipping it into his pocket. "Well, Iruka-sensei is used to this kind of thing. I'm sure he can handle it." It's not like Kakashi is awful at mission reports — just mission reports that don't matter. In deference to the probable psychological trauma of his last ANBU mission, Lady Tsunade sent him on a cushy noble escort job — still highly ranked but more due to the nature of the client than the mission itself. Something about "good optics" or some nonsense like that.

Anyway, the mission report didn't need to be personally given to the Hokage so Kakashi restarted his Mission Desk shenanigans. It's just as amusing as ever.

"I don't know," says Sakura. "I think you might be wearing him thin. Have you ever had Iruka-sensei yell at you? Like really, really yell? It's scarier than Zabuza!"

Kakashi has certainly been yelled at by Iruka before but perhaps not really really. He settles for a vague shrug. "I'm sure I've dealt with worse." He gives her a light bonk on the head with his book before continuing, "And what are you doing here, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be training at the hospital or something?"

Sakura shakes her head. "I don't have any shifts at the hospital today and Lady Tsunade is too busy to train me so I'm here to pick up some D-ranks."

"Any in particular you want?" Perhaps he could conspire to get her a decent one. It's no fun for Sakura to miserably slog through the sewers when he's not around to giggle at her expense.

"Maybe…a house cleaning?" Sakura muses. "Cleaning always calms me down, you know? Yesterday was a little tough at the hospital." Her smile dims and she gets a far away look in her eyes, but she shakes it off just as quick, declaring, "Yeah, a house cleaning is just what I need!"

Kakashi nods — and then snatches her up by the back of her collar. "Kakashi-sensei!" she shrieks, trying to swipe and kick at him, but he's grown used to dangling bratty Genin off of his hand so she never makes contact. He marches past the long line of ninja waiting to return their mission reports and re-establishes himself right in front of Iruka's desk.

Iruka looks behind the calm and collected Kakashi and the increasingly feral Sakura before slowly saying, "Can I help you?"

"One house cleaning D-rank, please!" he says cheerfully.

Iruka raises an eyebrow. "You want to go on a D-rank?"

"Sakura wants to go on a D-rank," he corrects, shaking the Genin in question. Sakura ends up using the momentum to grab onto his arm and tug herself upward, giving a harsh bite to his palm. Kakashi's smile strains but he doesn't react past shaking her harder.

"Well, this is certainly…unorthodox, but I suppose that you were her Jounin Instructor," Iruka muses. He begins shuffling around some scrolls under his desk before pulling one out and peeling it open. Just as he goes to write on it, Sakura manages to land a kick on Kakashi's groin and he drops her like dead weight. She lands properly, of course, but she's still all mussed up and glares up at him.

Kakashi can't believe her nerve! He's doing her a favor here!

"Here you go," Iruka says brightly, tossing the mission scroll in Kakashi's direction. "Good luck on the mission. Next!"

The Chunin he'd cut off in line shoves past him and Kakashi stumbles backward. He stomps out of the Mission Office and into the hallway, Sakura hot on his heels. "Are you sure that's the right mission?" Sakura asks anxiously. "Because Iruka-sensei really doesn't like you. What if he gave the wrong one just to spite you!"

"He may not like me but he certainly likes you," Kakashi says with as much confidence as he can muster.

"Well, check!"

With a roll of his eyes, Kakashi flicks open the scroll. "Yep, house cleaning D-rank for a home in the civilian sector, assigned to Sakura Haruno…and Kakashi Hatake?" He squints at the scroll. "What?"

Sakura blinks. "Huh. He must have thought we wanted to do it together."

Kakashi hasn't done a single D-rank since Team Seven disbanded! Iruka absolutely did this to mess with him without having to also mess with Sakura. Snapping the scroll shut, he says, "Let me go talk to him —"

"No!" says Sakura, throwing herself between Kakashi and the entrance to the Mission Office. "We can do it together! It'll be fun!"

Less than five minutes ago, Sakura kicked him in the groin. He glares at her and does his best to telepathically convey his thoughts but Sakura stubbornly refuses to understand. Sakura continues, "What? You think you can't do a little D-rank?"

"Taunting me won't work," says Kakashi. "What am I, twelve?"

"You sure act like a twelve-year-old! And come on, it really is just a D-rank. Do you have anything better to do?"

Well. Not really. He's not cleared for another mission until tomorrow anyway and all his friends and acquaintances don't seem to be in the Village right now. His original plan was simply to go home and lie down on his bed and reread Make Out Paradise for the millionth time, even though his body is buzzing for some kind of physical activity. He could go train at one of the training grounds…all by himself…

Dammit, he's lonely, isn't he? The escort job he did was a solo mission and he'd spent it surrounded by shitty rich people who kept trying to make him do tricks like he was some circus monkey. Reading alone, training alone, being alone…well, he's an introvert for sure, but even this is a bit much. He wants to hang out with friends.

And right now, the only friend he has access to is Sakura Haruno.

Gritting his teeth, he says, "Fine."

Sakura's face brightens. "Really?"

"Don't push your luck."

Sakura rapidly nods her head before snatching the mission scroll out of his hands and looking down at its contents. "Let's see…standard clean up job, plus a few minor renovations…civilian district…oh!" She looks up at him with a smile. "This is my neighbor's house!"

"Oh?"

"This will be fun!"

That should have been his sign to RUN.

The house itself is a very modern looking thing, unlike the home Kakashi grew up in. He probably saw it a year ago when he came by the neighborhood to meet Sakura's parents but he hadn't paid it any mind — hadn't paid much of anything any mind, anxious over meeting Kizashi and Mebuki Haruno. Parents is not a forte that he has any experience in, after all, but the two had been amicable enough.

When they walk up to the client's home, Kakashi lets Sakura go forward, expecting her to take point on the mission since she probably already knows the family. He does not, however, expect Sakura to open the door without knocking and let herself inside. "Hi, Aunty Suzumi!" she cries into the house, leaving Kakashi scrambling after her.

"Shouldn't you have knocked?" he asks.

"Why? It's Aunty Suzumi! She would have been offended if I did."

From the direction of what he assumes is the kitchen, a woman approaches. An old woman. If Kakashi didn't know better, he'd say that she's old enough to have seen the founding of the Village, so ancient that he can practically hear her bones creak every time she moves. She smiles warmly but the loose skin of her face pulls in all the wrong places, leaving her looking downright ghoulish. "Sakura," she says, throat dry as sandpaper. "Come, why don't you have some cookies?"

"Maybe later, Aunty," says Sakura to a woman who could clearly be her grandmother! "Kakashi-sensei and I are here to do the mission you filed for, actually!"

Aunty Suzumi blinks slowly, like her brain is trying to recalibrate. "Ah," she says eventually. "Yes, yes. Come with me." The old woman leads them to her stairway and stands at the base of it. "You see, for the past few years, my knees have been…aching. I can no longer go up the stairs so that part of my house is untouched and in disarray. My granddaughter is coming to visit soon and I want her to stay in my guest bedroom upstairs, but I can't go up to clean it. You two need to make the second floor presentable."

Sakura brightens. "Honoka is coming to visit! Oh, I can't wait to meet her!"

Feeling distinctly left out of the conversation, Kakashi does his best to blend into the shadows until Sakura finally starts all but skipping up the stairs. He follows at a far more sedate pace, wincing at every creak that can surely be heard throughout the entire house.

When he reaches the second floor, he stares. The place is dark and dank and generally dismal — he's been in torture dungeons brighter than this! "What is this?" he asks. "How long has it been since it's been cleaned?"

Sakura shrugs. "Probably since Aunty Suzumi stopped being able to come up here."

That woman must be much older than he'd initially suspected. Perhaps Orochimaru should be studying her for the secrets of immortality.

"Well," he says slowly, "they say you should start cleaning from the top down, right?"

"Right," Sakura responds cheerfully. "I'll take the bedroom, you take the bathroom." And then she flounces off, ignoring the thick layer of dust on the floor that would have anyone else slipping.

Forlornly, Kakashi realizes that he's not going to get much social interaction after all, and that he's signed himself up for an entire evening spent on chores. At least he's not entertaining bratty nobles by transforming into them…

The bathroom is not in good shape but luckily doesn't seem to be disgusting — Kakashi contents himself with grabbing a broom that Aunty Suzumi had provided and using it to brush the dust off the ceiling and tug away the ever-present cobwebs. After a moment of thought, he figures he might as well take care of the rest of the ceiling, too. When he steps out into the hallway, climbs onto the vertical walls and walks over to the nearest corner, sweeping the ceiling like it's the floor. He whistles some nonsensical tune that brings back vague memories of Hot Spring Country — god, he needs to convince Lady Tsunade to send him on another mission there soon — as he does his work. Ten minutes later, though, he pauses and looks up.

Is it just him or does the hallway seem…bigger than before?

He walks slowly toward the far corner of it, hopping over the doorways, and surveys the entire area. He hadn't inspected the outside of the place so he has no real confirmation…but this area seems impossibly larger than expected. Just as he's about to create a Shadow Clone to go inspect the outside for him, he hears a thud and Sakura's muffled, cut off scream.

Immediately bursting into action, Kakashi vaults into the room it came from — the guest bedroom, apparently. He lands on the floor once again, his one visible eye darting around. He can't see Sakura anywhere even though he's certain that the sound came from this room. Slowly, his gaze descends to the floor. There, he sees disturbances in the layer of dust, leaving behind negative footprints. He follows them and sees that they go straight toward the closed wardrobe.

Walking over as silently as he can manage — keeping these floors from creaking is a nightmare but he figures it out — he quickly wrenches the thing open. Sakura blinks at him in surprise for a moment before launching herself at him, wrapping her limbs around his torso like a limpet as she shrieks, "There's a bat in the wardrobe!"

On signal, the bat lets out a screech and shoots out of the wardrobe, flapping frantically around the room. Sakura shakes in terror, shoving her face into Kakashi's flak vest as she says, "Kill it kill it kill it kill it!"

Kakashi looks between the frightened Genin and the even more frightened bat before sighing. With Sakura wrapped around him like this, he can't move much, so instead he uses the handle of his broom to reach over to the window and shove it open. Then, carefully, he shoos the bat out the window before closing it again.

Sakura, still shaking, doesn't move.

"The bat is gone now," Kakashi says patiently.

Sakura whispers, "What if there are more?"

"Then you can open the windows and shoo them out."

"Can't you do it?" she whines, though she does finally peel herself off of him. "You don't have to do anything else! Just follow me around and shoo away the bats!"

Kakashi considers this. On the one hand, he could say no and keep sweeping the ceiling…but on the other hand, he could just let Sakura do the work and take care of any surprise bats. Kakashi smiles at Sakura cheerfully and says, "You've got a deal."

Relieved, Sakura takes the broom out of Kakashi's hands and re-enters the hallway.

Kakashi pauses. "The hallway is bigger than before."

Sakura tilts her head to the side. "No, it's not."

"Yes it is," Kakashi says stubbornly. Then he points at the window at the end of it. "And that's new!"

"What?"

"The window!"

"Kakashi-sensei, there is no window." She frowns. "Are you feeling all right? Take off your forehead protector, I can check if you're running a fever —"

Kakashi ignores her, instead bringing his hand up in a seal and disrupting his chakra. "Kai!"

Instantly, the hallway shortens back to a reasonable length and the window at the end of it disappears. It still remains dark and dismal, but no longer at such a state that it causes him any concerns. "Why," he says slowly, "was I under a genjutsu?"

Sakura blinks. "Oh. Oh!" She laughs and says, "Aunty Suzumi was a ninja way back when — I guess she was a genjutsu specialist!"

Kakashi seals his eyes shut. Ninja clients are always the worst kind — and clearly, Aunty Suzumi is very skilled, managing to cast an illusion on him without him noticing. The impossible physical changes should have clued him off but he suspects the genjutsu had included certain calming notes meant to convince him nothing was wrong until it was too much to ignore.

Aunty Suzumi is a little bit terrifying.

"Change of plans," he says. "We're both going to clean and we're both going to get out of here as soon as possible."

Sakura shrugs. "Okay."

The rest of the mission is done quickly and efficiently and they only encounter three more bats along the way. By the end of it, the second floor is perfectly presentable for Aunty Suzumi's granddaughter and Sakura smiles in complete satisfaction. "When all the windows are open, it really is a nice place," she declares.

Kakashi, who keeps eyeing the hallway and waiting for it to start growing again, says, "Sure."

They leave pretty quickly after that. Aunty Suzumi bullies him into accepting a few cookies, but when he looks into the sun room and sees that one of her potted plants is datura, he decides to take the cookies home and burn them. And also keep an eye on Sakura, who has eaten seven of them thus far.

Once they're far enough away from the house, he asks, "What is a retired ninja doing in the civilian district?" That's got to be a safety hazard or something.

Sakura shrugs. "I mean, my family is in the civilian district, too."

That's right — both of Sakura's parents are retired ninja. He saw their records when he officially accepted Team Seven — her mother was a Chunin who specialized in running courier missions between the Leaf Village and Tanzaku Town; her father was a Genin who received a career-ending injury at the Battle of Cypress River, relegating him to administrative work for the rest of his time in active duty. Both of them had retired following the end of the Third Ninja War.

But a retired Genin and Chunin is entirely different from whatever Aunty Suzumi is.

Kakashi sighs, knowing that he won't find any consolation in Sakura. "I suppose you're right." And then, because he's a vaguely responsible adult figure, he says, "Give me your cookies."

Sakura blinks in surprise before clutching them closer to her chest. "No! Just because you like them doesn't mean I'm giving any to you." She grins. "But they are pretty addicting, aren't they?"

Yes. Deliriants do, in fact, cause addiction.

Eventually, he decides that since Sakura has clearly ingested the cookies before and hasn't had any issues, it's probably fine. He dumps his own into her arms and vanishes in a cloud of smoke, leaving her to turn in the mission report, as well.

He's sure she'll be fine. He, meanwhile, needs to go home and scrub the cobwebs off of himself…

For two more months, Kakashi is stuck on back-to-back ANBU missions. Any injuries he sustains are handled either by him or by the infirmaries scattered around Fire Country, and though his jobs are a little bit soul-crushing, it's nothing he hasn't done before.

But, for some odd reason, he feels a tiny bit relieved when he sustains an injury severe enough to get him sent back to the Leaf Village for treatment at the hospital. Gai accompanies him in the hospital room for as long as he can manage before he gets personally summoned by the Hokage, leaving their game of extreme thumb war unfinished. Kakashi smiles as he bids Gai good luck, but then his hospital room is empty once again and there's no one to smile at anymore, is there?

He lies back in bed and contemplates how he's going to escape this time. He needs to be monitored to make sure none of the airborne poison is left in his system but he's so bored!

Unfortunately, his limbs are too weak to properly cooperate so he finds himself well and truly stuck in bed.

In a fit of desperation, when a nurse finally wanders in, he asks, "Is Sakura Haruno on shift?"

The nurse blinks, surprised, before shaking her head. "No, not today."

Disappointed, he leans back in bed and says, "Ah. Thank you."

The next two hours are sheer torture, lying still in bed and staring at the ceiling as various nurses and medics come by to take his vitals and try in vain to make him more comfortable. He tries to sleep but the fluorescent lights are too bright and the medical personnel come by far too frequently, and so he's dreadfully awake throughout it all.

He wishes the medics back in the infirmary hadn't confiscated his Make Out Paradise…

He suddenly hears a faint tapping and blinks, forcing the world to come into focus as his gaze travels to the source and —

It's Sakura, crouched horizontally on the outside of the room's window. The moment she realizes that she's grabbed his attention, she smiles brightly and waves at him before prying it open from the outside. Is that actually possible? Kakashi wouldn't know — he's usually trying to break out of this place, not into it. This seems like a security risk!

He can't bring himself to care when Sakura crawls into the room and bounds up to his bedside. "Hi, Kakashi-sensei!" she chirps.

"Hello, Sakura," Kakashi rasps back. "What are you doing here?"

Sakura shrugs. "Today was supposed to be meant for training with Lady Tsunade but she had to talk to Gai-sensei pretty urgently. I figured I might as well do something productive in the meantime, so…" She gestures at two items she'd dropped on the floor after entering his room: a spray bottle and a rag. "I'm doing a D-rank! I'm cleaning the hospital windows."

Kakashi blinks. "That seems like a lot of work for one Genin."

"Oh, I'm on a squad with four others for this one. I was just doing my section of it and then I saw you!" She smiles down at him. "I was bored… Can I hang out with you?"

Kakashi pretends to consider this even though his answer is already decided: "Sure, why not?"

Sakura's smile turns blinding and she snatched up his medical chart before collapsing at the chair that had been occupied by Gai several hours prior. "So," she says, flipping through the chart, "airborne poison, huh?"

"Yeah," Kakashi responds, miserable. "Here's some advice — if your enemy's skin starts smoking, run. Getting closer to try physically subduing them will not be as effective as you may think."

"No, I should be fine," Sakura muses, flipping another page. "I've got enough of a tolerance to this stuff to get away with a mild stomach ache."

"Lady Fifth is already training you for poison tolerance?" Kakashi asks, surprised. Sure, all Academy students are trained for basic tolerance in some of the more common poisons but whatever he has in his system seems unique to the enemy he fought in Valley Country. Sakura being immune to something so random is odd.

"Oh, it's not Lady Tsunade. My parents asked Aunty Suzumi for help with —"

Kakashi, pained, rasps, "Stop." Every time he remembers that woman's existence, he feels another year fall off his life. Then, after considering the question a little bit more in context, he asks, "Sakura…were those cookies she gave us laced with something?"

"Not yours. Mine were, though. Honestly, it adds flavor."

One week Kakashi is going to kidnap her and make sure she eats nothing but bland porridge and boiled vegetables. Her stomach deserves a break — her choices on a normal day include fare so spicy it makes his eyes water but this is a bit much! When Kakashi was her age, he didn't do anything this unhinged! Okay, that's a lie. He distinctly remembers once tying down a dying enemy ninja and serenading her with all his life problems. Her last words were I'd genuinely prefer it if you killed me. Listening to your sob story is just depressing.

He'd like to think Sakura is a little more well-adjusted than that. She has two living parents, after all — that's got to count for something.

He decides to leave aside Sakura comparing drugs to seasoning for now. Shifting gears, he blandly asks, "What is Lady Fifth training you for these days, anyway?"

"Well, medical techniques, obviously, and her fighting style. Now that I can heal bones, she's holding back on her punches a little less — after each sparring session, she supervises me while I heal myself." She's still reading his medical chart (surely there isn't that much information on it?) but she does wiggle the fingers of her free hand as if that's how she does her healing. Kakashi is fairly certain that's not how that works.

"I could spar with you, too, if you want," he offers magnanimously. "I might not be as good of an opponent as the Hokage but I could probably make it worth your while."

At this, Sakura finally puts down his chart and looks at him skeptically. "The only time we've ever sparred was during the Bell Test. After that you just threw me, Sasuke, and Naruto at each other and told us not to kill each other but otherwise go ham."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"They kept ignoring me to fight each other."

Kakashi winces. He does vaguely remember that, yeah. "Right. Um. About that…" He scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Maybe this is a too little, too late kind of situation but…I really am sorry, Sakura."

"About not supervising the spars properly?"

Oh god, she's doing this on purpose, he can feel it in his bones. There's no way she doesn't know what he's talking about. Teeth grit, he says, "No, I'm sorry for. Well. Not being a good teacher. I'm glad you've found adequate instruction now, though."

Sakura stares at him with wide, shocked eyes and Kakashi wonders if she's really so shocked that he apologized. Avoiding his flaws is his bread and butter but even he can recognize when his actions have hurt others! No one was expecting him to be the best Jounin Instructor ever but he suspects that he did manage to achieve a whole new low in it — he wonders if Lord Third regretted his decision before he passed, if he recognizes just how out of his depth Kakashi was. Well, he'll never know now. All he can do is apologize.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura says slowly, "I appreciate the apology but…I don't really blame you for not paying me much mind, you know? I wasn't very motivated myself — I was always content to do the bare minimum. I've always been a good study but I can't say I'd ever been a dedicated ninja until I petitioned Lady Tsunade for an apprenticeship." She looks down at her hand and makes a fist — not out of anger but rather demonstration of her newfound strength and technique. "I'm learning a lot of stuff besides medical skills and combat, too. Hard work and determination are things I should have already had, but I didn't. Yeah, I guess you didn't meet me halfway, but I didn't try to meet you halfway, either."

Kakashi just frowns back at her. "A good teacher would have tried to reach out to you, anyway."

Sakura rolls her eyes. "Did I say I thought you were a good sensei? All I said is I don't blame you. Honestly…" She scrunches up her nose. "I don't think you should have been put in charge of fresh Genin. I could tell that you had no idea what you were doing."

"That's what I told Lord Third, too, but he insisted." He shakes his head. "All my experience training others is associated with ninja that are older than you." And in ANBU.

"I guess the three of us were too bratty for you, huh?" Sakura muses. She shakes her head. "Well, Kakashi-not-sensei, it really is fine."

"That's a mouthful to say."

"Kakashi-sensei for short, then."

And Kakashi, officially dubbed the status of not-sensei, smiles.

The rest of their conversation flows much easier, with Sakura telling him about what she's been doing over the past two months — training, hanging out with her friends, watching movies at the theater, other such hobbies that Kakashi never really managed to pick up. It's…soothing.

Then his room's door opens with another nurse that's come in to check his vitals. The woman says, "Sakura?"

Sakura looks like she's been caught attempting to assassinate the Hokage. "Ayaka!"

The nurse, Ayaka, asks, "What are you doing here? I know you're not in rotation today and visiting hours are over."

"It's all right," Kakashi says. "She was just washing the windows with her team when she saw me and decided to say hello."

Ayake frowns. "Washing windows? They were washed three days ago by staff specifically employed by the hospital."

Silence reigns as Kakashi turns to look at Sakura, who looks back at him, who looks at her, and on and on for ten solid seconds. And then Sakura goes red and yells, "Shut up!"

"I didn't say anything," says Kakashi.

"But you were thinking! Stop it!"

"How am I supposed to stop thinking?"

Ayaka, perhaps taking pity on Sakura, cuts them both off. "Maybe you should…leave, Sakura. Technically you being here is against the rules."

"Don't have to tell me twice!" says Sakura, snatching the spray bottle and rag off of the floor and vaulting out the still-open window.

Kakashi watches her go, suppressing his chuckles as Ayaka shakes her head. The nurse closes and locks the window before finally checking Kakashi's vitals and leaving. In the ensuing silence, Kakashi realizes that he probably should have realized something was suspicious about Sakura's visit — first of all, it's eight in the night, and D-ranks usually aren't distributed at this time. Furthermore, a single bottle and rag seems a bit lacking when faced with all the windows on an entire section of the Leaf General Hospital. Yes, both of these things should have tipped him off about her ruse immediately.

But…Kakashi had been so bored, but then Sakura arrived and he wasn't bored anymore. The fact of the matter is that he didn't care if it was a ruse — he just wanted to talk to his friend.

"Hm," says Kakashi.

He's stuck in the hospital until the next morning, and it is certainly boring — but replaying Sakura's embarrassment in his head keeps him surprisingly entertained, all things considered.

One week later, following a simple acquisition mission that left him entirely uninjured, Kakashi wrenches open his apartment door at five in the morning and says, "How do you keep doing this?"

Sakura stands on the other side, a bag of take out in her hand. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I never told you where I live."

"Every Jounin lives here," Sakura says dismissively.

"That's blatantly incorrect," Kakashi mutters. Sakura ignores him, shoving past him into his tiny, cramped apartment. He lets her because what else is he gonna do? Shove her out and slam the door in her face? He's been awake for five hours and has another five before he needs to present himself for another mission and he has no intention of sleeping in the middle. Yet again, most of his companions are out of the Village or otherwise indisposed. His entire time back so far has just been spent with Make Out Paradise in his hands, rereading it for the two millionth time. Obviously it still holds up, but he's definitely feeling restless.

Sakura pokes around his place, eyeing the small studio layout with general distaste. "Why is your bed next to your desk? No, why is your kitchenette right next to the front door? Why does your bathroom share a wall with your bookshelf?" She lays the take out down on his desk before putting her hands on her hips. "Are you broke? Poverty-stricken? You know, my cousin probably has an actually decent apartment she could rent you for cheap."

"My apartment is fine."

"You only have one chair!" Sakura says stubbornly. "Which I'm taking, by the way — you can eat on your bed, since it's right next to your desk anyway."

"I don't like your tone," Kakashi says warily, though he does sit on his bed as Sakura ruffles through the bag and pulls out a styrofoam box and a pair of cheap wooden chopsticks for him. "What are you doing up this early, anyway?"

"I'll be reporting to the hospital in two hours," Sakura responds. "I like to get up early and have a big breakfast." Sakura finally sits herself down onto his chair with her own box.

Kakashi, who has yet to open his box, says, "How did you even know I was back?"

"Kotetsu saw you at the gates," Sakura says.

"How did you know I'd be awake?"

Sakura frowns. "Well, you weren't at the hospital and I know you always wake up at five no matter what. I remember the mission to Wave Country, you know."

Kakashi accepts both of those answers and instead focuses on his most pressing question: "How do you know where I live?"

"It's in your medical records," Sakura says flippantly.

That sounds like an abuse of power. …Oh, who is he kidding? This is a ninja village and Sakura is the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage. Of course she has access to his medical records. He says, "Surely you have better things to be doing at five in the morning than having breakfast with your shitty not-sensei."

"I never said you were shitty," Sakura protests. "And all my friends are still asleep. Now eat your food."

Kakashi finally obliges, eating in quick bursts when Sakura is not looking — only to realize that Sakura never looks at him, not even once, not even casually. She's resolutely looking down at her own food or at the rest of his apartment as she chews on her udon, humming to herself. This irks him so much that he says, "You can look, you know?"

Sakura blinks. "What?"

"You don't have to avoid me when I'm eating."

"I just thought. I mean. I thought you wouldn't be comfortable," Sakura says awkwardly.

Kakashi frowns. "Why wouldn't I be comfortable?"

"You keep eating when I'm not looking! You don't want me to see your face, right?"

"Of course you're not going to see my face," Kakashi says calmly. "What do you take me for?"

"But if I look away, you can eat in peace."

"But that's boring," Kakashi points out. "What's the fun of eating with adorable little Genin if they don't even try to see my face? What joy can I have without seeing the look of frustration and disappointment on your face?"

Sakura finally does look at his face, long and hard. She's still chewing her udon and Kakashi, vindicated, makes sure that a significant portion of his own food disappears into his mouth when Sakura blinks. Sakura, incensed, declares, "You're really just an asshole at heart, aren't you?"

"I'm wounded," says Kakashi.

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not."

And Sakura starts full-belly laughing — eyes clenched tight, hands around her belly, the whole shebang. Kakashi of course takes the opportunity to finish off his food, leaving Sakura to laugh even harder once she notices. "I'll get you one day," she threatens. "In ten years I'll be stronger than you and I'll catch you without that mask. It's going to happen."

"If you say so," Kakashi responds with exaggerated skepticism, which prompts Sakura to throw her chopstick at him.

So, yes, his place is a little cramped and he should probably grab another chair for entertaining purposes but breakfast with Sakura is…nice. Or, at least, amusing.

And when he goes to get his next mission, he finds himself in an oddly better mood.

Three months later, the rate of missions suddenly starts slowing down significantly. His returns to the Village become far more frequent, his layover times much extended, and the nature of his missions no longer as dangerous. He begins seeing more and more of his Jounin colleagues as he walks the streets and has a brief fit of shock when he realizes just how many are in the Village at once.

He realizes with a start that things must have finally settled down — the ninja that had been injured to the point of needing a long recovery period are back up and running, new Genin have graduated to take over some of the more menial labor that Chunin had been covering in double shifts, operatives from long-range missions at the borders or in foreign territories have finally been called back. Whatever it is, the strain is lessening.

Kakashi is no stranger to back-to-back missions…but he's grown soft, dammit, and it relieves him to see a little more leisure time in his future.

He spends an embarrassing amount of time with his friends — all together in the same room for the first time in ages, or in various unlikely combinations of three or four people — and finds himself being less and less bored in his downtime. He does his best to act like he couldn't care less (he has a reputation to uphold, after all) but seeing Gai and Asuma and Kurnei and Aoba and on and on all alive and well and in the same place…he luxuriates in it, a little bit.

He's so caught up in catching up with his friends that it takes him two weeks to realize something is off.

Sakura has yet to seek him out.

Matter of fact, he hasn't seen her around the Village once — not at the hospital, not at the Mission Office, not in the streets or even in Hokage Tower. Now that he's paying attention, it's almost as if she's vanished out of existence.

When he drunkenly mentions as much to Asuma, the man says, "Well, the Chunin Exams in Sand are coming up soon, aren't they? She's been training with Ino and Choji so that she can participate with them." He shrugs. "She's probably just busy. But I'm sure she'd appreciate it if you offered to provide some guidance, though."

No, she wouldn't — and, quite frankly, he doesn't want to give guidance, either. He wasn't kidding when he said that he was a bad teacher and that his interactions with Sakura have been so much easier ever since the burden of her professional career hasn't been on his shoulders. Offering to teach her stuff for the Chunin Exams…he could do it, but that's not what their relationship is anymore. He can't banter with her nearly as well when he feels the crushing weight of trying to help her to promotion.

But if she came to him and asked him to train her, he would do it. If she sincerely thought that training under Lady Fifth and with two-thirds of Ino-Shika-Cho wasn't enough then he wouldn't contradict her — she would know better than him.

But she never does that. She stays mysteriously absent from his life. When the Leaf Delegation departs to travel to Sand for the Exams, Kakashi sees them off the Gate and he finally catches sight of Sakura. He waves at her, and she smiles and waves back, but she doesn't come up to talk to him.

And he just…stands there. Staring.

After the exams are over, he gets word that Sakura has been promoted — she's officially a Chunin.

"She did it," he says happily to Gai, raising his beer in a silent cheer to Sakura from across the forests and deserts.

Gai laughs and says, "For a youthful blossom such as her, it was inevitable!" Gai doesn't drink alcohol and so has contented himself with some tea. "So, my rival, what are you getting the young Sakura on this occasion?"

Kakashi blinks. "What?"

"A gift! For her promotion!"

Ah shit, that's something that people do, isn't it?

Three days of searching finally culminate in the perfect gift that Kakashi keeps on himself at all times. He doesn't know when the Leaf Delegation will return to the Village or when Sakura will corner him now that she's free so he figures he might as well make sure to have her present on hand.

And then he's assigned to an assassination mission.

Damn it.

What was supposed to take one week drags out into five. Kakashi returns to the Leaf Village on the back of ANBU Crane, who carries her unconscious Captain all the way to the hospital before passing out herself. Tenzo is missing. The other three squad members are definitely dead.

Kakashi wakes up after a three day coma to a vase of fresh flowers on his bedside — and he knows it's from Sakura because they're arranged just like they were when she brought flowers to Sasuke when he was in the hospital.

He tries to stumble his way to Hokage Tower to demand to go on a mission to find Tenzo and retrieve the bodies of his fallen comrades, only to stop short when Lady Fifth assures him that she's already sent a team to do it — Tenzo has been found, the bodies have been retrieved, and everyone will be back home in about seven hours. So Kakashi lies back down and stares at the ceiling blankly.

Even when he was taking back-to-back missions, none of them had gone this spectacularly wrong. Bad intel and unlucky choices led to the deaths of three of his subordinates and his thoughts slip-and-slide down an endless spiral of self-hatred.

Gai comes to visit (bringing a bag of Kakashi's essentials from his apartment), and then Ebisu, and then Asuma and Kurenai. It lightens his heart just a little bit and he finally manages to sit himself up in bed and truly concoct escape plans.

But he also, in the back of his mind, keeps expecting Sakura to walk in and pull another prank on him, or to climb through the window after faking another D-rank. She does neither of those things. He doesn't see hide nor hair of her and would almost think she hadn't visited at all if it weren't for the flowers at his bedside.

When he sees the same nurse from last time — Ayaka — he asks her whether Sakura Haruno is currently on shift at the hospital. Ayaka tells him that she had been on shift for the previous twelve hours but she's just gotten off. She does not visit Kakashi that night.

She's probably just tired from her shift.

When Kakashi gets back to his shitty apartment, he crashes in bed and takes a nap. She does not knock on his door in the morning. When he goes grocery shopping the next day, she doesn't ambush him in the middle to critique his food choices, and when he gets waylaid by an old woman in need of aid on the side of the road, Sakura isn't there to help out.

Of course, she's not the only thing he thinks about — he has other friends who do end up visiting him, but Sakura is the one whose promotion present is practically burning a hole in his pocket.

When he finally does see her, it's on the other side of the street from him and she nods at him like they're acquaintances. When he passes her in the Mission Office, she seems in a hurry to get started on her work. When he stops by the hospital to donate supplies, she's always doing something more pressing inside the building. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he realizes this is the longest time he's spent in the Village without truly interacting with Sakura in a very long time.

It all comes to a head when he's sitting in Ichiraku, all alone, and he hears the distinctive sound of her footsteps approaching. Tense with anticipation, he leans back and moves the hanging cloth out of the way until they both have an unobscured line of sight to each other. He smiles at her and says, "Hello, Sakura."

And Sakura stares at him. After an uncomfortable moment of silence, her face twists into some expression he doesn't recognize and she suddenly turns around and marches in the opposite direction.

Kakashi lets the cloth drop.

All his life, people have been clamoring for his attention and friendship — Gai, for example. Obito and Rin, when they were alive. Every friend he's achieved has done so through hard work and dedication, convincing him to lighten up and spend time with them. He understands in the vague, back-of-his-mind sense that Sakura skipped the entire ordeal on account of their trauma-bonding over the disaster that was the rest of Team Seven, but still…

This is the first time someone he genuinely considers a friend has rejected him.

Is this what Gai felt all the time over all those years of denial?

He owes that man a million favors.

Kakashi leaves his ramen half-eaten, paying his tab and fleeing Ichiraku entirely.

The next day, Kakashi finally does what he's been avoiding for this entire ordeal: he hunts Sakura down.

It's easy, at the end of the day — she might be a Chunin but she's no match for him. He doesn't even need to bring out his ninken to get the job done, personally tracking her down to a slightly upscale sushi restaurant at around eleven in the morning.

He sees her there, sitting at a table with Ino Yamanaka, Hinata Hyuuga, and Tenten, and he briefly ponders if he should confront her now or wait until after brunch date is over. The decision is made for him when Hinata — damn the Hyuuga's naturally sharp eyes — catches sight of him and kindly greets, "Hello, Kakashi-sensei."

Guess he's doing it now — if he leaves he'll never get up the courage again.

Approaching the table lazily, he says, "Hello, girls. Congrats on the Chunin promotion."

They all thank him, still excited over their new rank, but Sakura stays silent, staring at him. Ino is the first to notice that something is off with her friend, cutting off what was probably going to be the start of some nicesties to look at Sakura, and then at Kakashi.

She says, "What did you do?" Kakashi raises an eyebrow. Ino scoffs. "Oh, please — Sakura wouldn't be looking at you like that if you didn't do something."

"It's fine," Sakura says, speaking for the first time. Her voice is hard and icy. "He didn't do anything."

Tenten says, "Sakura —"

"I said he didn't do anything!"

Kakashi, realizing that the other girls are probably unintentionally inflammatory presences, decides he's allowed to be a little bit of an asshole as he grabs Sakura by the back of her collar and lifts her into the air just like he did in the Mission Office that one time. "Excuse me, girls," he says, "but Sakura and I have a few things we need to discuss." And then he vanishes them both in a puff of leaves.

The venue he chooses for the confrontation is a training ground in the far reaches of the Village — remote enough that it's rarely used. Now it lays abandoned, giving the two of them some privacy.

Sakura, who's clawing at his arm, suddenly aims a kick at his groin. Kakashi is smart to her tricks now, though, so he drops her to the ground before it can connect. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she spits, twisting to land on her feet.

"You're avoiding me," Kakashi accuses.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I saw you at Ichiraku last night. You can't deny that."

Sakura purses her lip. "Okay, yes, I avoided you at Ichiraku. But that was one time!"

"When I saw you on the street the other day —"

"I didn't avoid you! I was doing something!" She crosses her arms, furious. "Take me back to the restaurant."

"No," says Kakashi. Sakura's scowl deepens and she goes to march past him, doing her level best to bodily shove him. Kakashi is having none of it, once again snatching her into the air and depositing her in front of him. "Tell me what's wrong," he demands. "Maybe Ino's right — maybe I did something. Tell me what it was and I'll apologize."

"You didn't do anything," Sakura repeats.

"Clearly I did."

"I said you DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" Her voice erupts in an angry shout, so sudden that it stuns Kakashi into silence. Sakura, suddenly teary-eyed from the force of her own emotion, turns away from him to wipe away any developing tears. "What do you care, anyway?" she asks dully. "It's not like we're friends or anything."

No one has ever dared to call Kakashi emotionally intelligent but even he recognizes that some fundamental disconnect has occurred. Shoving down his own hurt feelings, he says, "I thought we are."

"I don't believe you," says Sakura. "If you really thought we were friends you would have done something."

"Done what?" Kakashi asks. "Why are you being so vague?"

"Visit! The moment all your actual friends were in the Village again, you didn't seek me out once!" She points at him angrily. "You just hung out with them and left me behind."

"I never sought you out before that, either," Kakashi asks, confused. "Why is it just a problem now?"

"Because before you were running back-to-back missions! And so was everyone else! Lady Tsunade was talking to me about how concerned she was about the mental health of the Village's Jounin —"

Kakashi puts his hand up and Sakura has enough muscle memory ingrained in her to immediately fall silent. "Sakura," he says, voice blank, "did you only hang out with me because Lady Fifth asked you to?" In that case, everything makes so much more sense. Why would Sakura independently seek him out? She said it herself that time in the hospital: he's unreliable and he's petty and Sakura obviously has friends other than him. And why else would she always know where he was? He can't even be upset with her for following orders, or with Lady Fifth for having reasonable concerns about his mental state, or —

"What?" Sakura asks. "No! Lady Tsunade didn't ask me to do anything, you jackass! She was concerned that all the Jounin in the Village were going on back-to-back missions and that made me realize that your only other friends are Jounin and. And I didn't like the thought of you being lonely!"

On autopilot, Kakashi says, "I'm not lonely."

"Not anymore, clearly."

"That's not what I meant," he says. He closes his eyes to really consider this. Sakura, concerned that her shitty not-sensei would get lonely, decided to start seeking him out and befriending him. Sakura, upon seeing Kakashi's free time increase and seeing him interact with his once again available friends, decided to give him some time to catch up with them all properly. Sakura, realizing that her not-sensei has been seeing his Jounin friends more and more but hasn't once sought him out — not when they see each other on the street, not when she does rounds in the hospital, not even walking up to her to properly bid her farewell as she departed for the Chunin Exams.

Well.

Kakashi closes his eyes as clarity finally hits him. "I'm really bad at this," he prefaces.

"What?"

"At being friends, I mean," he explains. "I am aware that I'm not an accommodating person and I don't tend to think of relationships beyond my experience in them." God, this is worse than that time a Rock nin ripped his fingernails out with pliers. Still, he perseveres because some part of him understands that if he doesn't do this now, he never will, and that would estrange Sakura entirely. "I do consider you my friend, Sakura. I promise."

"Then why didn't you seek me out?" she asks. "This entire time I've been the one coming to you and coming up with things to do — you couldn't have tried once?"

Silently, Kakashi pulls Sakura's gift out of his pocket and presents it to her. Sakura looks between it and him with confusion before accepting it. When she opens it, her eyes widen in shock — it's a poisoner's kit, meant for sterile collection of plants and drugs and controlled storage in cool, dry conditions. It's a niche and slightly expensive thing but Kakashi remembers Sakura's tolerance for drugs and her equating poison to spices — this kit will give her the means to properly pursue the study of poison if she's so interested. Kakashi says, "Congratulations on the promotion."

Sakura looks up at him with wide eyes, clutching the kit close to her. She stammers, "This doesn't make up for it."

"I know. I just…" He pauses, struggling to figure out how to phrase this. "I got this as soon as news reached that you'd been promoted. I have been keeping you in mind — I didn't just put you aside." He scratches his head and sheepishly continues, "I was waiting for you to visit me so I could give it to you…but I guess I should have sought you out myself. I'm really sorry, Sakura — I don't have experience with this kind of thing before. All my other friends are the ones who drag me into get togethers, as well, so it never occurred to me that I should reach out to you."

"That's kind of pathetic, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura says.

"Yeah…but I'll try to do better. If you're willing to forgive me, of course."

Sakura squints up at him with startling intensity and Kakashi stays still, bearing her analysis in silence. Finally, she slouches and says, "Yeah, I do. But I'm holding you to that! This isn't a promise you get to back out of!"

"I won't," Kakashi says in complete seriousness.

"Good," Sakura says, nodding. And then, once again incensed: "Now take me back to the restaurant! I can't believe you crashed Hinata's birthday brunch for this!"

Kakashi laughs and obliges, making sure to apologize to a flustered Hinata and the irritated wait staff when he reappears right beside the table.

Before he leaves, Kakashi asks Sakura, "So…any time?"

"If it's a bad time, I'll tell you," Sakura promises. "Just…try."

"Okay," says Kakashi, and then he leaves.

The next morning is a beautiful, sunny-skied day in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Kakashi finds Sakura struggling to carry some medical tomes to the check out desk in the library.

Callously stacking three more on top, he says, "I've found these ones to be particularly helpful."

Sakura screeches, "Asshole!" But she's laughing.

Ah.

Kakashi is very happy that he tried.

"Say," Kakashi says, seated next to Sakura on a park bench as she feeds the pigeons obscene amounts of bird feed, "how did you keep finding me back then? There's no way you personally kept tabs on me."

Sakura looks up and shrugs. "Yeah, I didn't keep tabs on you. Honestly, it was a mix between asking around and people just…coming up and telling me."

"What?"

"Once your Jounin friends realized what I was doing, they would tell me when they had to leave and they thought you'd be lonely and then I'd go find you. Gai-sensei actually did it in front of Lady Tsunade once…it was kind of embarrassing." She lets out a small launch, tossing out some more seeds. "It did make it really convenient, though."

"So you all were conspiring!" Kakashi accuses.

"Well, maybe a little."

"I knew it!"

"You did not," Sakura says with a scoff.

"I absolutely did!"

The two of them bicker well into the evening, until they don't remember what had started their petty argument at all. But that's all right.

After all, what else are friends for, if not silly arguments?

Kakashi absolutely makes his Jounin friends' lives a living hell for a little while, though. Just for shits and giggles.

"If you wanna find out who’s a true friend, screw up or go through a challenging time … then see who sticks around." - Karen Salmansohn