Work Text:
Sakura doesn't jump when another shadow materializes next to hers. She just tilts her head slightly in greeting, murmurs a perfunctory "Sensei," and keeps walking.
"That's all I get?" Kakashi's voice is as blithe and lazy as ever. Any other day, any other time, and Sakura would be annoyed and comforted by the sound in equal measures. "Not even a spare glance for your favorite teacher?"
She should have a comeback for that, she thinks. Something huffy and exasperated, some familiar jab — how could he be her favorite, when most days he can't even be on time? She knows that's what he's expecting. Knows every second she lets go by is another missed cue. Knows it should bother her, and bother her more that it doesn't. Any other day, any other time.
But not today. Not right now. There's a nauseous ringing in her head that hasn't let up in the three days since Zaku hit her. For one brief, blinding moment, Ino's fist had paused it, compacted it back into itself, played it back in destructive interference — and then Sakura woke up and had to fight not to puke all over Ino's shoes. She's not quite that sick anymore, but exhaustion and leftover vertigo have pooled in every crevice of her being like standing water after a basement flood, and there just isn't enough room left to play along.
Sakura stops in the middle of the street, squinting one eye against the setting sun when she turns to face Kakashi. "What do you want?"
She hadn't meant to say — that. Or at least, to say it like that, so thoroughly sanded of any tone or grace or edge that it couldn't even be called rude. She should apologize, maybe. She should at least be embarrassed.
She doesn't, and she isn't. There isn't any room for that, either.
Kakashi stops in tandem. Sakura's had plenty of practice deciphering his moods from that one uncovered corner of his face, but she can't quite figure out this one. It's not surprise, exactly, and she's certain it can't be worry, but there's something—just there that could—it's almost—
"Let's get tea," Kakashi says.
Sakura does not want to get tea. But it's not like she wants to go home, either — not now, not with her parents and their questions awake and waiting — and Kakashi's hand on her shoulder leaves no room for argument as he steers her down the street and into the shop on the corner. Sakura balks at the entrance, the knowledge that every inch of her body is caked in dirt and blood and sweat and oh my god she hasn't changed her underwear in five days coming back to her in a violent rush, but she's too slow to focus her chakra to her feet, and Kakashi manhandles her across the threshold and into a seat without so much as blinking. The proprietress seems equally unbothered, greeting them with a warm smile as if bedraggled shinobi stagger out of the forest and into her shop without showering every day. Maybe they do. Sakura wouldn't know. She lives on the other side of town.
Kakashi orders hot barley tea and hanami dango. He pushes the dango towards Sakura as soon as they arrive, and when she drains her tea in a single go approximately five seconds after it's set down, he pushes his cup towards her as well.
"Maybe let this one cool down first," he suggests, then nudges the plate again. "And eat your dango."
Even now — numb and dirty and bruised, her feet screaming as the hours of aimless, relentless walking hit her all at once — part of her wants to slide the plate back his way and insist Kakashi have some too. It's become almost second nature at this point, this endless quest to see what's behind his mask. But no sooner does the impulse hit than Sakura realizes that even if she succeeds today, she'll succeed alone, and that would be—
Hollow. Insignificant. It wouldn't be any fun.
When she reaches for the plate of dango, it's only to tug it closer.
Kakashi tilts his head with a slight hmm. "Did you see the medics before you left the tower?"
Sakura frowns at him before following his gaze down to where she's fidgeting with the dango skewers. And then she frowns again. Half of the back of her right hand has swollen into a livid purple bruise, from her ring and pinky knuckles all the way down to her wrist.
Huh. She's pretty sure it didn't look like that a few hours ago.
"It's fine," is all she says.
"I see," Kakashi says, and after a pause adds, "I suppose that orbital fracture is also fine," because he's a tool.
"It doesn't hurt."
Kakashi nods with another considering hum. "That's probably the concussion talking."
Sakura scowls — and then stops scowling, because it hurts her face. She tucks her right hand out of sight under the table and reaches for Kakashi's tea with her left. "Did you bring me here just so you could list my injuries at me? Couldn't you do that outside?"
"Well," Kakashi says, "I needed better lighting."
Sakura scowls again, and keeps scowling.
"'Cause of—" he points at his covered left eye "—y'know. It's a joke."
She crosses her arms.
A bit desperately, Kakashi says, "You can laugh."
"I know I can," Sakura says, "but it's not funny."
Kakashi wilts so thoroughly and so visibly that she almost feels bad about it. Almost. Mostly she's just embarrassed about being out in public with a man who has no shame about looking so much like a kicked puppy when he's more than twice her age.
"Eat your dango," he repeats miserably. "You can't bully me if you're chewing."
Bet, Sakura almost says, but the burst of energy that first cup of tea had granted her is already fizzling out. She doesn't really want to kick off another round of verbal sparring, even though she's not at all hungry and has never loved dango unless it's all but drowned in anko. But Kakashi already paid, and the proprietress was so nice even though Sakura looks and probably smells like she just crawled out of a grave, and Mebuki didn't raise a fucking animal, so Sakura squares her shoulders and forces herself to at least try.
Kakashi's gaze is heavy on her trembling fingers as she reaches for a skewer. Sakura grits her teeth and forces her hand to still before taking a bite.
Eugh.
Maybe she really should have waited for her tea to cool down earlier. The dango tastes like nothing at all to her burnt taste buds. She can't even take pleasure in the texture, the inside of her mouth too scorched for the entire experience to be anything less than skin-crawling. Sakura sets the skewer back down with two balls left on it and forces the half-chewed dumpling down her throat with a long sip of Kakashi's tea.
Kakashi gives her a pointed look. Balefully, Sakura picks up the other skewer and eats the other pink dumpling — for symmetry — then firmly shoves the plate back his way.
Kakashi does not seem impressed — but that's fine, because he's never impressed with her, and if Sakura tells herself it's fine enough times she can make it come true — but he lets it go. "Anyway. I'm your teacher, I'm supposed to tell you off when you don't do what I say. You can't get mad at me for doing my job."
Sakura tries to snap, "You didn't tell me to see the medics," but her mouthful of dango makes it come out thick and garbled. She swallows this one dry — ugh ugh ugh owwww bad idea ow — and finishes, "You just told me to get the details of the third round."
"Ah, right," Kakashi says, far too casually. "I did tell you to do that, didn't I?"
Oh.
So that's what this is about.
Sakura isn't disappointed. She isn't. How could she be? Being disappointed would mean she thought he'd come for her and her alone. Not because of any imminent threat, not to save her life. Just to check in and make sure she's okay. And how could Sakura ever think that, when she'd known from the moment his shadow had appeared on her right side instead of her left that it wasn't true? He'd asked if she could spare a glance for her favorite teacher. What a laugh that was, when he himself couldn't spare one for his least favorite student.
And she means that: it was a good one. It was funny. If she wasn't so tired — any other day, any other time — she would have laughed about it. She still might. It's still funny.
If her next sip of tea goes down bitter and thick, no one else needs to know.
Kakashi props his chin on his palm. "What are those details, anyway? Since we're already talking."
Sakura's hand clenches on Kakashi's teacup for one, two, three breaths before she can force herself to let go. She brings it down to rest in her lap with the other.
"It's just a standard tournament," she says, and her voice doesn't shake even a little bit.
"Mmm, it usually is. Makes for easy betting for the daimyo. What are the matches?"
Sakura recites the bracket with the same ease as any answer she'd ever been called on to give in the Academy. She doesn't even have to think about it; it's automatic. It gives her the space to think about the way Kakashi's head tilts when she tells him Naruto will be fighting Neji, how he drums his fingers when she says Sasuke is up against Gaara, the spark of interest in his eye that wasn't there until she mentioned that they could fight each other in the second round if they both win.
Sakura wraps her left hand around her right and squeezes until the fractured bones grind together.
When she's finished, Kakashi crosses his arms, leaning back in his seat as his gaze drifts to the ceiling. He's silent for a long, thoughtful moment. Sakura glances up briefly as well, but she finds no answers and no comfort among the warm wooden beams and the well-dusted lights.
Finally, Kakashi says, "Well." He sounds intrigued. He sounds almost impressed. He's still looking at the ceiling. "Well, well, well. Naruto and Sasuke certainly have their work cut out for them."
She should ask how he plans to prepare them, how he's going to make sure Neji doesn't stop Naruto's heart and Gaara doesn't crush half the bones in Sasuke's body. She should ask if Sasuke is even going to be conscious by then. She should ask if all the half-swallowed whispers and hushed rumors she heard about Naruto growing up are going to be enough to save him.
Instead, Sakura asks, "What about me?"
Kakashi's gaze snaps back to her. "What do you mean, what about you?"
It would be so much kinder, she thinks, if his eye was narrow with annoyance instead of wide with surprise. So much easier to bear, if she was a grievance instead of an afterthought.
"I mean" — she takes a slow, steadying breath — "I mean, what should I do now?" Now that it's over. Now that I've failed.
"Take a break," Kakashi says immediately. "Go home, get some sleep, and for god's sake, go see a doctor. I still can't believe I have to tell you that, you know. I thought you were the sensible one on this team."
The sensible one. Right, of course. That's why she's counting one breath after another — five counts in, hold, five counts out. Because she's the sensible one. The one who doesn't start shouting in public. The one who keeps it together when she asks, "What about after that?"
"After that you rest . That's an order, Sakura. If I hear that you so much as went for a light jog before that concussion is fully healed there'll be consequences."
Five counts in. Hold. Squeeze until the bones grind together. Five counts out. "And after that? What do I do for the rest of the month?"
Kakashi's brow furrows. "Why are you asking me? Just do whatever it is you usually do in your time off. Read a book, maybe? You can do whatever you want, really, just as long as you don't coop yourself up in your room for the whole month. Get out a bit, see your friends, be around other people. It's good for you."
Breathe in. Hold. Squeeze. Breathe out. "But what about my training?"
"Your training?" Kakashi rubs his temples, exasperation finally creeping in around the edges of his tone. "Sakura, no one else from Konoha had more than one student make it to the final round, you know that, right? And as rookies, no less. With the kind of preparation they'll need, and with — just, look, it's a bad time, it was already hard enough finding someone to watch over Naruto for the next month, and I need to keep an eye on Sasuke. I don't have another to spare for you right now."
Sakura stares at him. Unmoved, Kakashi stares back.
She thinks: It's a joke.
(It has to be.)
And then: You can laugh.
(She needs him to.)
Even: It's funny.
(If she says it enough times she can make it come true.)
Kakashi heaves a sigh. "I guess if you really need something to do, you could ask Iruka-sensei if he wants help at the Academy, or—"
Sakura is on her feet and out the door before he can say another word.
From a thousand miles away, she hears the scrap of his chair, the ringing of the shop bell, the call of her name as he scrambles after her. It barely even registers. All of it is swallowed up and spat back out by the war drum pounding of her heart.
"Sakura—"
She keeps walking. She never should have stopped. Her feet burn and pulse and howl in agony as she forces them one in front of the other in front of the other and she thinks, Good.
"—Sakura, hey—"
The sun has long since set, though a splash of bonfire orange still clings to the very edges of the horizon. Not that it matters much either way; it's high summer in Konoha, and every shop she storms past has their door propped open and their shades drawn up, light and music and laughter overflowing into the street. The air is heavy and still and warm, and Sakura is so achingly cold.
"Sakura!"
For the second time that night, Kakashi's hand comes down on her shoulder. She leans into the movement as he hauls her around to face him, chakra gathering like a storm in the palms of her hands, and shoves him as hard as she can in the chest.
Kakashi staggers back. His eye is wide, wide, wide.
"The Academy?" Sakura screams. "Are you kidding me?"
Kakashi starts to raise a placating hand. Whatever he sees on her face makes it falter.
"So it's like your stupid bell test, then?" Her whole body shakes. Her nails bite bloody half-circles into her palms. She can feel her heartbeat in her broken eye socket, in her swollen hand, in the back of her closing throat. "That another thing you forgot to tell us when you signed us up for this? Mess it up and that's it, you're done, it's back to the Academy with you, you're not good enough for the great Copy Ninja Kakashi to waste his precious time on!"
Low and ringed with hurt, Kakashi says, "That's not what I said."
"It's what you meant!"
"No, it's not." Already the hurt is gone, so quickly and thoroughly scrubbed from his voice that Sakura wonders if it was ever there at all. In its place is a steady dispassion that grates her nerves like nails on a chalkboard. "Sakura, you need to calm down. You're causing a scene."
She knows she is. Even she can hear it, how wrong she sounds, how high and manic and unsettled. She can feel more and more eyes on them, on her, the longer she carries on. The crowd slows and parts around them. The berth gets wider and wider. Every sentence cracks through the summer street like a lightning strike, every word punches out of her chest like a sob, and still, still, Sakura can't stop herself from shrieking, "Oh, I'm sorry, am I being too loud? Am I not being sensible? Is this a bad time?"
Kakashi sighs again. Sakura wants to throttle him for it. "What you're being is selfish. Naruto and Sasuke need—"
"Naruto and Sasuke?" Sakura wants to tear the rest of her hair out. "You mean my teammates?" She wants to tear Kakashi's hair out. "You mean my friends?" She wants him to remember. "I thought the three of us were one, right? That's what you taught us! The three of us! And now you want me to just — to just sit here, and — and — and let them — keep going — without me?"
"You don't have a choice, Sakura. They moved on—"
"In the Chunin Exams!" She closes the distance between them just so she can shove him again. "Who even cares about the Chunin Exams!" Kakashi doesn't move. "What about after!" So she shoves him again. "Why do I have to keep asking you that!" And again. "What about after, when they're even stronger, and I'm still — this!" And again. "All that talk about teamwork." Not a single one works. "You have to protect your teammates, right?" She keeps trying. "People who abandon their friends are worse than scum, right?" She has to. "And if I can't even keep up with mine—" every hit feels like Kin's hand in her hair "—isn't that—" tastes like Zaku's blood in her teeth "—aren't I—" and none of it matters, none of it changes a single goddamn thing, and still "—and you want me like this! "
Kakashi grabs her by the wrists. Sakura's head whips up.
Her breath catches.
Sakura knows so many of her sensei's expressions. Has memorized so many subtle shifts of brow and lid and cheek just from long-term exposure. But this , this wintry and pitiless rage, she has only ever seen once, six months and a hundred lifetimes ago. Sensory memories burst across her body like heat lightning: the crisp smell of ozone as the thunder rolled in, the aftertaste of umeboshi on the back of her tongue, the sharp whip of the wind across the Third Training Ground. It had been an act, back then. One last test before Team Seven earned the blessing no one else had.
The anger rolls off Kakashi in cold, collapsing waves. It is not an act now.
So Sakura doesn't waste any time trying to tell him to let go. Instead she thrashes in his hold like a rabid animal, twisting and pulling and hissing with all her might. It doesn't work; Kakashi just adjusts his grip with her movements. She kicks at him, stomps with all her might on his bare toes, does her best to knee him in the groin. It's more back-alley wrestling than taijutsu, and it does absolutely fuck-all, but she keeps going. Sakura knows he's letting her do it — knows he wants her to wear herself out, to waste all her energy now so there's nothing she can do but sit there and take it when he finally tells her off — but she doesn't care. He's never made anything easy for her. She's sure as hell not going to make this easy for him.
When she goes to bite his wrist, though, his patience runs out.
Kakashi yanks his hands out of the way without letting her go and shakes her by her twisted, aching arms. "Enough." His voice is low and soft and dangerous, the whisper of a knife on leather as it's drawn from its sheath, and he leans in as he says, "Enough. Aren't you embarrassed?"
Another sensory memory from the Genin Exam: the terrified scampering of her rabbit heart. She had cowered, back then. Hadn't been able to face Kakashi's anger until her teammates had spoken up.
Sakura leans in too, eyes narrow and teeth bared. She will not cower now.
"Aren't you?" Her voice matches his, quiet and all the crueler for it. "All that talk about teamwork, Sensei, but where's your team? Do you even have one? I mean, people who abandon their friends are worse than scum, right? So where are yours?"
Kakashi's eye goes wider than it had when Sakura first hit him. He sucks in a sharp breath, his jaw moves behind his mask, and then—
And then he shuts down.
It's the only way to describe it. It's not the dramatic pouting from the tea shop, but this, too, Sakura has seen before. Just once, in a faraway land where summer snow fell on a bloodstained bridge, as Kakashi cradled their enemy like a child and laid him down to die at his companion's side.
The light in his eye goes out. The tense line of his shoulders bends, drops, shatters. His hands slip quietly from her wrists.
Sakura staggers back, unbalanced by her sudden release as much as by his crash-landing. Her heart is racing again, although she's not sure why. Her eyes dart all around his face, trying to make sense of what she's seeing. She didn't—she hadn't meant—are they—god, he looks so—
But her feet hurt from the walking and the stomping and the kicking. Her throat hurts from the too-hot tea and the yelling. Her wrists hurt from his hands.
And the indignation in her chest burns in spite of her hammering heart, too hot and too bright to be put out by his sorrow. Even though she wants to feel bad. Even though she wants to apologize.
She doesn't, and she can't. There's no room for it among the flames.
Sakura turns her back on Kakashi's broken expression and walks away without another word. This time, he doesn't follow.
When she gets home, there's a note signed with a henohenomoheji taped to her balcony door.
**
Sorry about all of that. I overreacted. We'll talk about it soon, but don't worry so much, okay? You're doing fine.
And seriously, go see a doctor.
**
Sakura tears the paper to shreds. She wishes she kept matches in her room.
Six days later, Sakura buys two daffodils. As it turns out, she only needed the one.
In the ninety seconds of calm between when the nurse runs shouting into the hall and when Sasuke's empty hospital room swarms with frantic medical staff, Ino presses two fingers to the back of Sakura's broken hand.
"Do you think he's with Kakashi-sensei?" she asks, before wrinkling her nose and taking Sakura's hand fully. "Don't make that face at me, Forehead." Face? What face? "I mean it, did Kakashi-sensei tell you anything?"
Sakura takes a slow look around the ransacked room. She tries to stay focused — tries to stay there, in the hospital, hand in hand with her best friend for the first time in years — but it's hard. Maybe she really should have gone to the doctor; she can't keep herself straight. Every time she blinks there's something else from that night etched on the inside of her eyelids.
She looks at Sasuke's unmade bed — blink — she looks at the pools of lamplight on the street. There's the empty closet — and there's the tea shop — and then the chart on the door — and the note on her balcony — and —
We'll talk about it soon, the note had read. Was that another one of his jokes?
"Sakura?"
She breathes in for five counts. The air tastes like lemon disinfectant and barley tea. Her stomach turns as she breathes out.
"No," Sakura says softly, squeezing Ino's hand not even half as hard as she'd squeezed her own. She closes her eyes, stares at the burning memory of Kakashi's shattered face, and wishes she'd kept screaming when she had the chance. "No, he didn't tell me anything at all."