Naruto // One-shot // Strange Gravity
Focus: Kakashi + Sakura
Rating: K
Warnings: None.
Wordcount: 3566
Summary: Kakashi and Sakura, sitting in a tree / dis-cuss-ing hu-ma-ni-ty.
Notes: Not sure why this fic exists. This is kind of how it went:
Me: Okay, I give up, I want to write Kakashi/Sakura. You win, muse.
Muse: Awesome. So, let's make it pretentious pseudo-psychological genfic.
Me: Okay, cool, WAIT WHY
And then this.
Strange Gravity
Kakashi hadn't meant to go looking for her.
He was just going for a walk, that was all. A nice, calm, soothing walk thirteen miles out into the forest in the middle of the night. It was late autumn, and clear. The windchill was nothing to sneer at. He knew how to circulate chakra to keep himself warm, but taking a moment to use his head and grab a jacket before heading out would have done just as well and made him look like someone with actual sense.
Why tonight was different was something he spent most of his very casual stroll trying to figure out. She did this all the time. This was the third time this week alone. He'd always wanted to follow her, but had always decided against it. Everyone deserved a little privacy when they clearly wanted it. Sakura had certainly earned all the trust from him she could ever need.
And yet, here he was.
Something about the line of her back, he decided, when she'd gone flying past his window. It had been a little too bent, like some strange gravity was pressing her down into herself from all sides, inescapable no matter how fast she ran.
That wasn't the back of someone who needed to be alone.
Sakura had been his student. She was a chuunin now, and would be a jounin whenever Tsunade got around to the next round of promotions, and was easily his equal on the battlefield, not to mention everywhere else. He wasn't responsible for her safety anymore, let alone her happiness.
And yet, and yet.
It took him nearly half an hour to catch up to her. She had gotten faster again. Much longer, and he wouldn't be able to catch her at all. That kind of speed was a good quality for a medic to have. Their job was staying alive to save as many of their teammates as they could, after all. They didn't need offensive power for that, just the ability to get away.
Then, as she came into sight, he realized he hadn't actually caught her at all. She'd stopped, and was standing on a high branch with her back against the bole of the ancient, gnarled tree. Waiting for him.
"Uh," he said when he alighted on the branch beside her. "Hello, Sakura. Nice night for a walk."
"What do you want, sensei?" she asked. There was a weariness to her voice. It had been there for quite a long time now, but it was getting worse recently, and a fair bit faster than it had in the previous year. "In case it wasn't obvious, I'm out here because I want to be alone."
"About that," he said, then paused. How to go about this? Even he didn't know what he was here to do. He couldn't bring Sasuke back, or distract Naruto from his suicidally focussed mission to do the same, so what exactly could he do for her? She didn't even want his help. He was just being selfish, because watching her suffer made him unhappy. She had the right to her suffering. It wasn't his place to try and take it away. But still. "You come out here a lot," he said, inventing something semi-plausible on the spot. "I wondered if there was something you were doing out here I could help with."
"You could have asked me anytime," she pointed out. "You see me every day. In the village. In the daytime."
He forced down the impulse to fidget. "I'm sorry," he said frankly. "I was just curious." That was close enough to the truth, he thought, for her to buy it.
With a long sigh, she sank down cross-legged on the broad branch, heedless of the cold and stray needles and sharp-edged bark.
Seemed he was right. Since it was only polite, he sat down too, at a respectful distance.
"Why?" she asked at last.
"Uh," he said again, but this time nothing else came out after it, despite his best efforts.
This was stupid. He was an adult, and he had known her for years. It shouldn't be this hard to talk to her. But when he looked over, she had drawn her knees up under her chin and was hugging them like an anxious child. There was that painful hunch, again, bending her spine forwards and inwards. And that look on her face he'd been doing his best to pretend he couldn't see, because he didn't think it was something she wanted anyone to see.
He tried again. "I'm sorry," he said, in advance this time. "I know I shouldn't, but I still… Sakura, you worry me. Taking care of you may not be my job anymore, but I don't want to just leave you alone when you need me, either."
"What makes you think I need you?" she mumbled into her knees, but there was no anger or sarcasm in it at all, only the defensive posturing of someone who didn't want to show their vulnerability.
Wrestling with himself, he bit his lip, thankful for the invisibility his mask provided. "Should I go back?" he asked at last. He didn't want to. He knew she did need someone to be here for her, and there was only him right now. But if she told him that was what she wanted, he would have to respect it, no matter how badly it grated.
Though he'd never been much for superstition, he crossed his fingers.
It took her a long time to answer him. She was wrestling with herself, too, he realized, and that made him a little bit relieved. There was still hope. He could still get through to her.
"You should," she said eventually, startling him. He'd really thought- "You should, but… don't. Please."
"All right," he said, and that was all.
The moon rose, slowly. The forest was dense, but conifers always let light through better than deciduous trees, especially those still carrying most of their leaves. The clear illumination filtered down through the bristled branches to spill over the forest floor, thin and elusive through the shadows. The chill deepened. The wind slowed.
It was very, very late. If either of them wanted to get any sleep, they would have to go back soon, but Sakura showed no signs of wanting to do anything of the kind. She was still huddled up three feet away, staring off into the maze of needles and moonlight, completely silent.
He had no idea what to do.
"Sensei," she said suddenly. "Thanks for coming after me. Even though you are making it a lot harder."
"You're very welcome. But wait, making what-?"
"Argh," she said. "Fine. Fine. You're almost as annoying as Naruto. It looks like I just can't manage to keep secrets from anyone I actually like. But it's really… really nothing big, honestly. Just the same old crap. Every morning I wake up and think about Sasuke and feel horribly, uselessly weak. I spend all day training, getting stronger, and it works. Even Tsunade-shishou says I'll be better than her in less than a year. But I don't have a year. Naruto's gotten so much stronger, and I can't help but compare myself to him and I feel like I'm standing still, and it's so frustrating.
"But you know all of this already. I've whined to everyone who would listen - including you - lots of times already, and it never helps anything. I got sick of it. So now, whenever I get the urge to go running to Ino, or to you, I come running out here instead until it goes away. It works okay. Nothing was getting better anyway, and at least this way I don't have to feel pathetic for always needing shoulders to cry on."
"Oh, Sakura," he said. "That's it, I'm coming over there. Stay put."
"Don't," she said weakly, "don't, I don't want to-" But the tears were already coming.
Carefully, thankful for the sturdy broadness of the branch, he moved her away from the trunk and crammed himself into the space behind her, arranging his long limbs around her scrunched-up knot of a body, wishing he had a blanket to wrap her in. She seemed so small from this angle, though he knew her height and weight measurements were squarely in the average camp for someone her age. He was a little taller than average, but a bit on the thin side. He shouldn't have felt so much bigger than her.
That strange gravity seemed to be compacting her down into increasingly smaller, denser bundles of misery. If it kept up, soon enough she would vanish altogether, too small to see but sad enough to drown the world.
Not on his watch.
"Sakura," he said gently, "Sakura, it's all right. I understand. I could tell you how stupid you're being for comparing your growth rate to Naruto's, since he's a jinchuuruki and it's not just him in there learning and growing. I could also tell you you're stupid for going to these ridiculous lengths to hide from your friends when you need them most. I could tell you a lot of things right now, but I won't, because that's not what you need. You already know all of that. Right?"
"Right," she whispered, though it sounded as if the word had left her throat without her permission.
She was shaking. He was trying not to touch her too much, giving her as much space as he could without too far away to share his body heat with her, but he could feel it. She always put so much effort into everything she did. This adopted stoicism was not an exception, it seemed.
"I'm not going to lecture you. I'm not your teacher anymore. I'm just here as a friend. And I came specifically to listen to you, so talk."
"I don't want to," she said.
"Sakura," he said reproachfully, but she shook her head.
"No, that's not what I meant. I mean I already said everything I wanted to. I don't want to talk just for the sake of talking. What I want… I… I don't really know how to start explaining this, but I'll try. Before I started coming out here, I usually went running to Ino. She's my best friend, you know, even though we fight all the time and she can make me cry with just a few words when she's in a bad mood. But there's always a… distance, because she loved Sasuke too, but she doesn't want us to rescue him anymore. We just sit across the table from each other and talk about nothing most of the time.
"When I talk to Naruto, it's never for long, because seeing my face reminds him of his promise and fires him up. He always starts fidgeting right away, and runs off to train after a few minutes." Sakura hesitated. "There was always a distance with you, too, because you still thought of yourself as a mentor to me, and kind of looked down on me a little. Not in a bad way, not condescending, but… you know what I mean."
He did, and regretted it now. She was right, he'd never condescended to her, but he was very used to looking at her and seeing the child she'd been when he first met her. She'd come so far from there. It wasn't fair to her, to keep looking at her and not seeing her as she was now.
In every aspect, she was his equal. He had nothing to teach her. She could probably teach him a few things, at that. She was an adult, a mature and forward-thinking woman he had immense professional respect for. But somewhere within himself, he'd still been looking at her and seeing an eleven-year-old girl. And he'd never realized.
"I do," he said, then immediately, "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize," she said. "I'm not mad. I'm just… I'm just… argh, I don't know. Lonely, I guess."
At last, he thought. At last, they'd gotten to the heart of it. She finally felt that she'd been properly heard out, but it wasn't enough, not nearly. Naruto was too blinkered by his obsession to look at her properly, Ino too uncomfortable with their tangled past. And he, too blinded by old habits.
Nobody was looking at her. Nobody was standing beside her to hold her up.
Sakura was strong in so many ways, but she was still an ordinary person underneath them, and every ordinary person had things they needed, even if they didn't feel they had the right to ask for them.
Nobody had made her feel safe enough to ask for what she needed.
The guilt was crushing. Again, and again, he kicked himself for missing something so obvious. How much pain could he have saved her if he'd been paying attention and caught it earlier?
"I'm sorry, Sakura," he said again. "I really am."
"What-"
He didn't have an answer for the question he could hear coming, so he just wrapped his arms around her slender shoulders and pulled her back into his chest. Though he'd expected her to startle and pull away, she only turned to curl up more comfortably against him. Her fingers caught at his vest and held, a gesture that should have seemed childish but didn't, not quite. She looked as though she was trying to hide inside the cage of his limbs. That was all right. He could do that for her.
"Listen," he said, "and don't argue, let me finish. In the future, when you get frustrated and want to talk, please don't swallow it and run off into the woods where no one can hear you. I'd be happy if you came to talk to me, but really, anyone would be better than this. I understand why you chose this, now, but it's just making it worse. You're hurting yourself."
"But I don't want to complain either!" she cried. "That hurts, too. If I can't complain, and I can't run, what-"
"We could talk about other things," he said. "If you really feel that talking about those particular things is intolerable, talk about something else. Or do something else. Just do it with someone else there beside you."
Her fingers tightened in his vest, and she drew her legs up closer, but she had no room now to tie herself in knots, even if that was her aim. So instead, she buried her face in his chest and burst into messy tears. "I'm sorry," she gasped. "I'm so sorry, I swore I was done crying on people's shoulders, I thought I was stronger than this, but I just-"
Kakashi favoured the top of her head with an invisible smile. "Honestly, Sakura. One of these days, you're going to have to accept that even though you're a ninja, and a fine one at that, you're still a person, and you still have feelings like everyone else."
She held in her sniffles long enough to lift her head and ask, "When did you accept it?"
He winced. He hadn't thought that one through, but there was no backing out now. She was being honest with him. He could do no less. "Well… actually… I didn't, really. After my teammate died and gave me this eye, I spent most of my nights over the next few years staring at nothing and trying not to think, because if I thought about anything I felt things, and I completely believed that I wasn't supposed to. He fell in the line of duty. Happens all the time. You're supposed to expect things like that and move on immediately, put the mission first. I couldn't, and I was really angry at myself for that for a long time."
"What changed?"
The sniffles had stopped entirely now, but her eyes were still a bit leaky. Without pausing to think about it, he wiped them clean with a gloved thumb and continued.
"Nothing, for years and years. I was messed up to begin with, and it just got worse. And then…"
"Then?"
He grinned, helplessly. "Then, they pulled my number for tutor duty and dropped some annoying little brats on my doorstep. Dealing with you three was hard work. I was so busy and distracted, the past began to slip away behind me where it belongs. And then, after a while, I realized that while you were annoying, you were also interesting, brave and clever - well, two of you were clever, anyway - and I started feeling things again. Since I had to keep you safe, it was really important that I make sure feeling things didn't get in the way of taking care of you, so I was forced to admit that they existed and deal with them."
"That's…" Sakura trailed off, obviously searching for the words. "That's tragic, sensei," she said at least, "but it also makes me want to laugh. Am I a terrible person?"
Kakashi laughed, thereby giving her permission to follow suit and giggle a little. "No, of course not," he said. "Here I am, lecturing you about how to deal with your feelings, when I only just figured out how to admit I even had them without getting all guilty about it. I still haven't really gotten the hang of talking to people about them. Or even started to. Actually, you're the first, I think. How's that for irony?"
"It's pretty up there," Sakura said, still giggling. "But really, if you don't do it, why would you tell me to?"
"I don't want you to end up like me," he said honestly. "It took me a long time to figure out what I should be doing, and it's taken me an even longer time to actually start acting on it. And all the years in between were miserable. I don't want you to be miserable when you don't have to be, Sakura. That's why."
"Sensei," she said.
There was something in her voice he couldn't quite put a name to. Something gentle. Something that made him want to cry on her shoulder.
"Thank you," she said then, and enveloped him in a rib-cracking hug that nearly knocked the wind out of him. "You have to promise me that you'll talk to me, then, too," she continued sternly. "It's not really friendship if it's all one-sided, right?"
"Yes," he said, faintly taken aback. "You're right, of course. You always were the most observant and perceptive of the lot. I should have expected you to turn the tables on me."
She nodded, smiling. "You should have," she agreed. "Too late. It's a deal, then?"
"It's a deal."
Suddenly, she pulled away to sit up and face him, leaving his chest feeling suddenly cold and a bit naked against the night wind. Sakura held out her right hand. "Shake on it."
He raised an eyebrow, but took her hand and squeezed it. "I promise, Sakura," he said. "And thank you. I was hoping to be able to help you when I followed you out of town earlier. I wasn't expecting to get helped myself, but I'm grateful."
He couldn't quite tell through the gloom, but he thought she might be blushing. She was weak to praise, after all, and loved nothing more than being useful to the people she cared about. He smiled fondly at her.
He still had a hold of her hand. Instead of letting go, he let out a long sigh and shivered. "What do you say we head back to town? I don't know about you, but I'm freezing."
"Okay," she said. "I'm not sleepy, though. Maybe I'll do some studying."
Inspiration struck. "Or," he said, "you could come over. I'm not tired either, and I have an extensive collection of movies I've never actually gotten around to watching."
"Who buys movies and doesn't watch them?" Sakura asked, mystified.
"People who are interested by the blurb on the back, but are prone to forgetting that they're not nearly as much fun when you're by yourself."
"Oh," she said. "Oh. That's… true. Okay, I'll come over. But I'll warn you, I'm one of those people who yell at the characters onscreen as if they can hear me. Ino thinks it's really annoying, but I can't seem to not do it."
Kakashi laughed. "That's fine. I have no idea what kind of movie-watcher I am. I might be even more annoying, you never know. Oh, and also, before I forget."
"Yes, sensei?"
"That. I'm not your teacher anymore. Call me by name. That'll make it easier to stop seeing you as my student, too, naturally."
"That makes sense," she said. "Might take a bit of getting used to, but it's a good idea. Kakashi." She stumbled over it, awkward but endearingly determined.
"Good," he said. "Let's go, then, before my toes start falling off."
The thirteen miles back to the village passed much more quickly than they had earlier, going the other direction. Wasn't that always how it was? he thought. The way home always felt shorter than the way out, because one's feet already knew the road.
He was glad he'd followed her. This was a hard road, but one they both needed to walk, and there was no sense walking alone if they didn't have to.
How far past the horizon would they have to go to find the end?
A/N: Somehow I don't think many people start writing a romance and end up with family. (This is fandom. That's backwards.)
Rating: K
Warnings: None.
Wordcount: 3566
Summary: Kakashi and Sakura, sitting in a tree / dis-cuss-ing hu-ma-ni-ty.
Notes: Not sure why this fic exists. This is kind of how it went:
Me: Okay, I give up, I want to write Kakashi/Sakura. You win, muse.
Muse: Awesome. So, let's make it pretentious pseudo-psychological genfic.
Me: Okay, cool, WAIT WHY
And then this.
Strange Gravity
Kakashi hadn't meant to go looking for her.
He was just going for a walk, that was all. A nice, calm, soothing walk thirteen miles out into the forest in the middle of the night. It was late autumn, and clear. The windchill was nothing to sneer at. He knew how to circulate chakra to keep himself warm, but taking a moment to use his head and grab a jacket before heading out would have done just as well and made him look like someone with actual sense.
Why tonight was different was something he spent most of his very casual stroll trying to figure out. She did this all the time. This was the third time this week alone. He'd always wanted to follow her, but had always decided against it. Everyone deserved a little privacy when they clearly wanted it. Sakura had certainly earned all the trust from him she could ever need.
And yet, here he was.
Something about the line of her back, he decided, when she'd gone flying past his window. It had been a little too bent, like some strange gravity was pressing her down into herself from all sides, inescapable no matter how fast she ran.
That wasn't the back of someone who needed to be alone.
Sakura had been his student. She was a chuunin now, and would be a jounin whenever Tsunade got around to the next round of promotions, and was easily his equal on the battlefield, not to mention everywhere else. He wasn't responsible for her safety anymore, let alone her happiness.
And yet, and yet.
It took him nearly half an hour to catch up to her. She had gotten faster again. Much longer, and he wouldn't be able to catch her at all. That kind of speed was a good quality for a medic to have. Their job was staying alive to save as many of their teammates as they could, after all. They didn't need offensive power for that, just the ability to get away.
Then, as she came into sight, he realized he hadn't actually caught her at all. She'd stopped, and was standing on a high branch with her back against the bole of the ancient, gnarled tree. Waiting for him.
"Uh," he said when he alighted on the branch beside her. "Hello, Sakura. Nice night for a walk."
"What do you want, sensei?" she asked. There was a weariness to her voice. It had been there for quite a long time now, but it was getting worse recently, and a fair bit faster than it had in the previous year. "In case it wasn't obvious, I'm out here because I want to be alone."
"About that," he said, then paused. How to go about this? Even he didn't know what he was here to do. He couldn't bring Sasuke back, or distract Naruto from his suicidally focussed mission to do the same, so what exactly could he do for her? She didn't even want his help. He was just being selfish, because watching her suffer made him unhappy. She had the right to her suffering. It wasn't his place to try and take it away. But still. "You come out here a lot," he said, inventing something semi-plausible on the spot. "I wondered if there was something you were doing out here I could help with."
"You could have asked me anytime," she pointed out. "You see me every day. In the village. In the daytime."
He forced down the impulse to fidget. "I'm sorry," he said frankly. "I was just curious." That was close enough to the truth, he thought, for her to buy it.
With a long sigh, she sank down cross-legged on the broad branch, heedless of the cold and stray needles and sharp-edged bark.
Seemed he was right. Since it was only polite, he sat down too, at a respectful distance.
"Why?" she asked at last.
"Uh," he said again, but this time nothing else came out after it, despite his best efforts.
This was stupid. He was an adult, and he had known her for years. It shouldn't be this hard to talk to her. But when he looked over, she had drawn her knees up under her chin and was hugging them like an anxious child. There was that painful hunch, again, bending her spine forwards and inwards. And that look on her face he'd been doing his best to pretend he couldn't see, because he didn't think it was something she wanted anyone to see.
He tried again. "I'm sorry," he said, in advance this time. "I know I shouldn't, but I still… Sakura, you worry me. Taking care of you may not be my job anymore, but I don't want to just leave you alone when you need me, either."
"What makes you think I need you?" she mumbled into her knees, but there was no anger or sarcasm in it at all, only the defensive posturing of someone who didn't want to show their vulnerability.
Wrestling with himself, he bit his lip, thankful for the invisibility his mask provided. "Should I go back?" he asked at last. He didn't want to. He knew she did need someone to be here for her, and there was only him right now. But if she told him that was what she wanted, he would have to respect it, no matter how badly it grated.
Though he'd never been much for superstition, he crossed his fingers.
It took her a long time to answer him. She was wrestling with herself, too, he realized, and that made him a little bit relieved. There was still hope. He could still get through to her.
"You should," she said eventually, startling him. He'd really thought- "You should, but… don't. Please."
"All right," he said, and that was all.
The moon rose, slowly. The forest was dense, but conifers always let light through better than deciduous trees, especially those still carrying most of their leaves. The clear illumination filtered down through the bristled branches to spill over the forest floor, thin and elusive through the shadows. The chill deepened. The wind slowed.
It was very, very late. If either of them wanted to get any sleep, they would have to go back soon, but Sakura showed no signs of wanting to do anything of the kind. She was still huddled up three feet away, staring off into the maze of needles and moonlight, completely silent.
He had no idea what to do.
"Sensei," she said suddenly. "Thanks for coming after me. Even though you are making it a lot harder."
"You're very welcome. But wait, making what-?"
"Argh," she said. "Fine. Fine. You're almost as annoying as Naruto. It looks like I just can't manage to keep secrets from anyone I actually like. But it's really… really nothing big, honestly. Just the same old crap. Every morning I wake up and think about Sasuke and feel horribly, uselessly weak. I spend all day training, getting stronger, and it works. Even Tsunade-shishou says I'll be better than her in less than a year. But I don't have a year. Naruto's gotten so much stronger, and I can't help but compare myself to him and I feel like I'm standing still, and it's so frustrating.
"But you know all of this already. I've whined to everyone who would listen - including you - lots of times already, and it never helps anything. I got sick of it. So now, whenever I get the urge to go running to Ino, or to you, I come running out here instead until it goes away. It works okay. Nothing was getting better anyway, and at least this way I don't have to feel pathetic for always needing shoulders to cry on."
"Oh, Sakura," he said. "That's it, I'm coming over there. Stay put."
"Don't," she said weakly, "don't, I don't want to-" But the tears were already coming.
Carefully, thankful for the sturdy broadness of the branch, he moved her away from the trunk and crammed himself into the space behind her, arranging his long limbs around her scrunched-up knot of a body, wishing he had a blanket to wrap her in. She seemed so small from this angle, though he knew her height and weight measurements were squarely in the average camp for someone her age. He was a little taller than average, but a bit on the thin side. He shouldn't have felt so much bigger than her.
That strange gravity seemed to be compacting her down into increasingly smaller, denser bundles of misery. If it kept up, soon enough she would vanish altogether, too small to see but sad enough to drown the world.
Not on his watch.
"Sakura," he said gently, "Sakura, it's all right. I understand. I could tell you how stupid you're being for comparing your growth rate to Naruto's, since he's a jinchuuruki and it's not just him in there learning and growing. I could also tell you you're stupid for going to these ridiculous lengths to hide from your friends when you need them most. I could tell you a lot of things right now, but I won't, because that's not what you need. You already know all of that. Right?"
"Right," she whispered, though it sounded as if the word had left her throat without her permission.
She was shaking. He was trying not to touch her too much, giving her as much space as he could without too far away to share his body heat with her, but he could feel it. She always put so much effort into everything she did. This adopted stoicism was not an exception, it seemed.
"I'm not going to lecture you. I'm not your teacher anymore. I'm just here as a friend. And I came specifically to listen to you, so talk."
"I don't want to," she said.
"Sakura," he said reproachfully, but she shook her head.
"No, that's not what I meant. I mean I already said everything I wanted to. I don't want to talk just for the sake of talking. What I want… I… I don't really know how to start explaining this, but I'll try. Before I started coming out here, I usually went running to Ino. She's my best friend, you know, even though we fight all the time and she can make me cry with just a few words when she's in a bad mood. But there's always a… distance, because she loved Sasuke too, but she doesn't want us to rescue him anymore. We just sit across the table from each other and talk about nothing most of the time.
"When I talk to Naruto, it's never for long, because seeing my face reminds him of his promise and fires him up. He always starts fidgeting right away, and runs off to train after a few minutes." Sakura hesitated. "There was always a distance with you, too, because you still thought of yourself as a mentor to me, and kind of looked down on me a little. Not in a bad way, not condescending, but… you know what I mean."
He did, and regretted it now. She was right, he'd never condescended to her, but he was very used to looking at her and seeing the child she'd been when he first met her. She'd come so far from there. It wasn't fair to her, to keep looking at her and not seeing her as she was now.
In every aspect, she was his equal. He had nothing to teach her. She could probably teach him a few things, at that. She was an adult, a mature and forward-thinking woman he had immense professional respect for. But somewhere within himself, he'd still been looking at her and seeing an eleven-year-old girl. And he'd never realized.
"I do," he said, then immediately, "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize," she said. "I'm not mad. I'm just… I'm just… argh, I don't know. Lonely, I guess."
At last, he thought. At last, they'd gotten to the heart of it. She finally felt that she'd been properly heard out, but it wasn't enough, not nearly. Naruto was too blinkered by his obsession to look at her properly, Ino too uncomfortable with their tangled past. And he, too blinded by old habits.
Nobody was looking at her. Nobody was standing beside her to hold her up.
Sakura was strong in so many ways, but she was still an ordinary person underneath them, and every ordinary person had things they needed, even if they didn't feel they had the right to ask for them.
Nobody had made her feel safe enough to ask for what she needed.
The guilt was crushing. Again, and again, he kicked himself for missing something so obvious. How much pain could he have saved her if he'd been paying attention and caught it earlier?
"I'm sorry, Sakura," he said again. "I really am."
"What-"
He didn't have an answer for the question he could hear coming, so he just wrapped his arms around her slender shoulders and pulled her back into his chest. Though he'd expected her to startle and pull away, she only turned to curl up more comfortably against him. Her fingers caught at his vest and held, a gesture that should have seemed childish but didn't, not quite. She looked as though she was trying to hide inside the cage of his limbs. That was all right. He could do that for her.
"Listen," he said, "and don't argue, let me finish. In the future, when you get frustrated and want to talk, please don't swallow it and run off into the woods where no one can hear you. I'd be happy if you came to talk to me, but really, anyone would be better than this. I understand why you chose this, now, but it's just making it worse. You're hurting yourself."
"But I don't want to complain either!" she cried. "That hurts, too. If I can't complain, and I can't run, what-"
"We could talk about other things," he said. "If you really feel that talking about those particular things is intolerable, talk about something else. Or do something else. Just do it with someone else there beside you."
Her fingers tightened in his vest, and she drew her legs up closer, but she had no room now to tie herself in knots, even if that was her aim. So instead, she buried her face in his chest and burst into messy tears. "I'm sorry," she gasped. "I'm so sorry, I swore I was done crying on people's shoulders, I thought I was stronger than this, but I just-"
Kakashi favoured the top of her head with an invisible smile. "Honestly, Sakura. One of these days, you're going to have to accept that even though you're a ninja, and a fine one at that, you're still a person, and you still have feelings like everyone else."
She held in her sniffles long enough to lift her head and ask, "When did you accept it?"
He winced. He hadn't thought that one through, but there was no backing out now. She was being honest with him. He could do no less. "Well… actually… I didn't, really. After my teammate died and gave me this eye, I spent most of my nights over the next few years staring at nothing and trying not to think, because if I thought about anything I felt things, and I completely believed that I wasn't supposed to. He fell in the line of duty. Happens all the time. You're supposed to expect things like that and move on immediately, put the mission first. I couldn't, and I was really angry at myself for that for a long time."
"What changed?"
The sniffles had stopped entirely now, but her eyes were still a bit leaky. Without pausing to think about it, he wiped them clean with a gloved thumb and continued.
"Nothing, for years and years. I was messed up to begin with, and it just got worse. And then…"
"Then?"
He grinned, helplessly. "Then, they pulled my number for tutor duty and dropped some annoying little brats on my doorstep. Dealing with you three was hard work. I was so busy and distracted, the past began to slip away behind me where it belongs. And then, after a while, I realized that while you were annoying, you were also interesting, brave and clever - well, two of you were clever, anyway - and I started feeling things again. Since I had to keep you safe, it was really important that I make sure feeling things didn't get in the way of taking care of you, so I was forced to admit that they existed and deal with them."
"That's…" Sakura trailed off, obviously searching for the words. "That's tragic, sensei," she said at least, "but it also makes me want to laugh. Am I a terrible person?"
Kakashi laughed, thereby giving her permission to follow suit and giggle a little. "No, of course not," he said. "Here I am, lecturing you about how to deal with your feelings, when I only just figured out how to admit I even had them without getting all guilty about it. I still haven't really gotten the hang of talking to people about them. Or even started to. Actually, you're the first, I think. How's that for irony?"
"It's pretty up there," Sakura said, still giggling. "But really, if you don't do it, why would you tell me to?"
"I don't want you to end up like me," he said honestly. "It took me a long time to figure out what I should be doing, and it's taken me an even longer time to actually start acting on it. And all the years in between were miserable. I don't want you to be miserable when you don't have to be, Sakura. That's why."
"Sensei," she said.
There was something in her voice he couldn't quite put a name to. Something gentle. Something that made him want to cry on her shoulder.
"Thank you," she said then, and enveloped him in a rib-cracking hug that nearly knocked the wind out of him. "You have to promise me that you'll talk to me, then, too," she continued sternly. "It's not really friendship if it's all one-sided, right?"
"Yes," he said, faintly taken aback. "You're right, of course. You always were the most observant and perceptive of the lot. I should have expected you to turn the tables on me."
She nodded, smiling. "You should have," she agreed. "Too late. It's a deal, then?"
"It's a deal."
Suddenly, she pulled away to sit up and face him, leaving his chest feeling suddenly cold and a bit naked against the night wind. Sakura held out her right hand. "Shake on it."
He raised an eyebrow, but took her hand and squeezed it. "I promise, Sakura," he said. "And thank you. I was hoping to be able to help you when I followed you out of town earlier. I wasn't expecting to get helped myself, but I'm grateful."
He couldn't quite tell through the gloom, but he thought she might be blushing. She was weak to praise, after all, and loved nothing more than being useful to the people she cared about. He smiled fondly at her.
He still had a hold of her hand. Instead of letting go, he let out a long sigh and shivered. "What do you say we head back to town? I don't know about you, but I'm freezing."
"Okay," she said. "I'm not sleepy, though. Maybe I'll do some studying."
Inspiration struck. "Or," he said, "you could come over. I'm not tired either, and I have an extensive collection of movies I've never actually gotten around to watching."
"Who buys movies and doesn't watch them?" Sakura asked, mystified.
"People who are interested by the blurb on the back, but are prone to forgetting that they're not nearly as much fun when you're by yourself."
"Oh," she said. "Oh. That's… true. Okay, I'll come over. But I'll warn you, I'm one of those people who yell at the characters onscreen as if they can hear me. Ino thinks it's really annoying, but I can't seem to not do it."
Kakashi laughed. "That's fine. I have no idea what kind of movie-watcher I am. I might be even more annoying, you never know. Oh, and also, before I forget."
"Yes, sensei?"
"That. I'm not your teacher anymore. Call me by name. That'll make it easier to stop seeing you as my student, too, naturally."
"That makes sense," she said. "Might take a bit of getting used to, but it's a good idea. Kakashi." She stumbled over it, awkward but endearingly determined.
"Good," he said. "Let's go, then, before my toes start falling off."
The thirteen miles back to the village passed much more quickly than they had earlier, going the other direction. Wasn't that always how it was? he thought. The way home always felt shorter than the way out, because one's feet already knew the road.
He was glad he'd followed her. This was a hard road, but one they both needed to walk, and there was no sense walking alone if they didn't have to.
How far past the horizon would they have to go to find the end?
A/N: Somehow I don't think many people start writing a romance and end up with family. (This is fandom. That's backwards.)