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“No.”
The diner isn’t busy. The eggs and toast here are the soggiest combination she’s had so far – they picked this place for the distance to the hospital, apparently. But then again, Naruto has always thought with his stomach first.
“Sakura.” Her oldest friend sits a little taller. His mouth sets into a determined frown. “Let’s talk about it,” he pleads.
“I said no.” Her coffee is getting cold. At some point, she decides, she should revisit just how good a friend Naruto is to her. Does he show up at holidays? Sure, it depends. Does she like Hinata more? Probably, but he does too, so they do have that in common. “I’m happy to say again,” she points out, raising an eyebrow.
“Sakura.” Naruto frowns. “I would –”
“I am the last person that you should send there, wherever there is, given our history,” she says. “And you know it. Besides, he’s never once taken me seriously in this capacity.”
Naruto shakes his head.
The diner is relatively quiet now. There is a lot to process. She picks looking to the window, watching the cars pass. She plays a little game with herself, something she used to do when she was in training – pick a person, decide a story. The man that walks hand in a hand with a woman that wears heavy makeup? Not his wife. The two kids in uniform running towards the stationary store? Cutting class.
Her mind wanders further. Naruto is asking her to go see Kakashi. She doesn’t remember how long it has been. They were in the service together. Her parents weren’t going to pay for school and Sakura, if anything, has always been resourceful. Or impatient, depending on the day. The military was her only direct route to medical school and despite her parents’ dismay, she was an excellent medic and grew into her role quickly.
But it wasn’t easy. Her unit was full of egos. Their mentor, Kakashi, was only interested in results, in Naruto and Sasuke’s development, and she happened to be an odd addition. He didn’t mistreat her, but he never connected to her – this wasn’t counting the odd moments that they used to have, the ones where she’d patch him, where she would be privy to the demons that haunted him, the ones that came out when he was drinking, bleeding out, or trying to save their lives.
She knew more about Kakashi than the rest of them and she kept his secrets. There was no way to come back from them either.
“I know he hurt you.” He’s still trying, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Naruto kicks her under the table too. “Look,” he says. “I do get it. I get that he isn’t the easiest person.”
“Naruto.” She is ready to reach across the table and hit him. Her fist clench. “Use your big boy words and be straight with me.”
She finally looks at him.
“I’m desperate,” he admits, and finally, her friend is honest. “Look, I know, I know it’s complicated between the two of you and I promise, after this? I will never, ever ask you for anything like this ever again.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“It’s complicated.” He’s serious, so suddenly that it makes her really uncomfortable. She can count the number of times that Naruto is serious, particularly about work. “Sasuke –” She freezes, wide-eyed. “Shit,” he curses, “shit. Look, I can’t get into it and I know I’m throwing two people at you that you really, really don’t need or want or whatever it is about protecting your peace, but I need help and you are literally the only person that I trust. I need Kakashi’s expertise and Sakura, he told Tsunade to fuck off.”
Her mouth opens. Then it closes.
“Sakura, I’m desperate,” he says again. “Sasuke got into some shit.”
Her coffee is ice cold now. Her irritation is brimming against the surface.
“Fine,” she says.
-
The drive to the cabin is long.
Sakura is uneasy. The last time she saw him, she had stitched him up, called him an asshole, and sent him on his merry way. He wasn’t interested in what he had to say and out of the three from his unit, Sakura was the first to pull out, the first to move on, and the first to not look back. I don’t have space for people who don’t have space for me, she had said simply. They had left it at that.
But it doesn’t surprise her that he’s moved to the middle of nowhere, where the highway merges into a small back road, where the trees become thick and greener, and the snow starts to seem a little bit higher. When the cabin comes into view, it seems rather stark, the only other contrast a large truck parked off to the side.
“This is so stupid,” she mutters, parking, and when she gets out of the car, she stretches her arms above her head. What is she going to say? I don’t want to be here, but Naruto asked me to come grab you. Or her personal favorite, don’t know why they think you’ll say yes to me.
There’s a loud click. A gun presses against the back of her head.
She sighs. “Seriously?”
“Why are you here?”
Sakura considers answering. In fact, the entire drive up, she considered answer. Naruto called in a favor. This wasn’t my idea. But hesitation is dangerous around Kakashi.
Instead, she decides to hit him first.
She’s fast, he might be faster, but the snow and surprise are on her side. She anchors her heels and boots into the snow, using force to propel herself. She grabs the barrel of the gun, twisting it out of his hand and launches her fist into his face. There’s a solid crack and he drops on a knee, his hands covering his face as she clutches the gun.
“Fuck.”
“You deserved it,” she snarls, snapping the magazine free. She pockets it, throwing the handgun to the snow.
The bastard laughs.
“You’re prettier than Tsunade,” he says, and she gives him the finger, moving away from him and towards the house. It’s hard not to think about that night together, the mess of alcohol and tears and stupid, desperate memories that they decided to share. He was gone the next morning, but her expectations were always low.
Oh yeah, she thinks. She did sleep with him too.
It’s complicated, of course. That one night, the night that passes through her memories – it stands out, stark every time she thinks about him, every time she comes and compares a date to the one, unattainable man in her life. She meant what she said about knowing about his secrets, knowing about Rin and Tsunade, her own mentor, knowing about how he couldn’t bring himself to look at her because he’s haunted and his version of letting her down gently was to ice her out and sleep with her.
“I don’t even know why I fucking agreed to this,” she mutters, and she’s at his front door, opening it and letting herself in. If she stopped to look, the cabin would be as sparce as she would expect: empty walls, neutral tones, a large bookcase full of nonsensical books, romance novels and how-to manuals to distract anyone from pinpointing who he is.
Sakura still moves around like she belongs in his space. In the kitchen, she pours herself a glass of water.
“Did I hurt you?” She ignores him. Kakashi’s easily on her heels. “Did I hurt you,” he asks again, his voice full of some kind of amusement.
“You’re so irritating.” She moves around the island, opening drawers until she finds a spoon. Her next objective are the cabinets, where she finds the table salt. When she makes the salt water, she throws it back and gargles, spitting her blood into the sink. “I don’t even know why I let Naruto talk me into coming here.”
“You love him,” he says easily. He’s already made himself an ice pack. She’s clocked him solidly, she decides, studying the bruise that’s forming on the side of his head. “I forgot how hard you hit, Sakura.”
“Thank god I reminded you, right?”
“Brat.” He’s affectionate and she hates it. Her eyes narrow when he grabs her hand, his fingers running over her knuckles. They’re a little bruised. “They’re bruising,” he states.
“Haven’t had the need to punch someone in the face, I guess.” She pulls her hand back, cradling it against her chest. Neither of them mentions that his handgun is probably now lost to the snow. “Thankfully,” she says, “I have no surgeries scheduled.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m guessing he’s found Sasuke. Or Sasuke got into some trouble. I have no idea.” Her fingers press into the bridge of her nose. “I usually don’t find out until one of you ends up in my emergency room, bleeding out.”
“Okay.”
They all have complicated feelings about Sasuke. Hers are more on par with Naruto. They were kids, thrusted into some dark things and instead of banding together to survive, Sasuke used them and moved on. Naruto, if anything, is still fixated on finding the good in him. Sakura patches Sasuke up because she loves Naruto.
“Okay?” Sakura blinks. “Okay?”
He shrugs.
“Why?”
“It’s Sasuke,” he says, as if it explains it all. As long as she’s known Kakashi, he’s always looked out for the three of them, no matter what. Except her. She’s always been the exception to the rule and she’s never understood it.
In fact, she’d even venture to say that they had a falling out at the end of her tenure in service. She was really in it to pay for school. Not to patch him up. Not to patch them up. Medicine saved her. She saved herself.
“Okay? And?” She looks around his kitchen. “I really am over this narrative that I’m still carrying these feelings for Sasuke, waiting with bated breath for him to come home.” She honestly doesn’t understand where it came from. I slept with you, she almost throws at him. You.
“Sounds like it to me.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” she snaps. “The most I want to do? Is punch him in the face too.”
“You could talk to someone.”
“Do you enjoy pissing me off? Be better, you asshole.”
“Maybe,” he says.
Her eyes narrow. He smirks and she might hate him just a little bit. At least, right now.
“It really is good to see you,” he says quietly.
-
Sakura cooks. Kakashi lets her.
“You’re not going to ask?”
“Ask?” She looks up, nursing her glass of wine. The soup is still boiling. “About you living in the middle of nowhere? No, not really.”
“Tough crowd.”
She studies him. “Would you tell me?”
“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “Right now, I’m looking at you and I don’t know what to do. You’re not at all what I expected.”
She could ask him – what did you expect? It seems like the easiest path.
“You’re exactly what I expected,” she murmurs, and she puts the glass of wine down, stepping into his space. She feels a little vindictive. “You’re still you,” she says. Her head tilts. They both know he’s handsome. “Although,” she says too, reaching out and letting her fingers graze the corner of his mouth. There’s a sliver of a scar. “This is new.”
“Yeah.” His mouth quirks underneath the tips of her fingers. “A bear.”
“Uh-huh.”
“A really big one,” he adds. He searches her gaze. “You’re still really pretty,” he says quietly.
For what it’s worth, she knows he’s going to kiss her.
Sakura lets him.
-
Her skin is slick with sweat.
His sheets are flannel. They scratch her back each time he thrusts inside of her.
“I still like seeing you this way,” he says, his voice scratchy and low. His gaze is sharp. Her nipples peak when he drags a hand over her breasts. “All spread out for me,” he says.
Kakashi would still be into dirty talk. Given his consumption of really shitty romance novels, it doesn’t surprise her. What surprises her is that she likes it too. She likes how filthy it makes him and that she can see him this way. She’ll think about this a lot later, how it feels like he’s peeling her apart. And how much she hates it too.
“What else do you like,” she breathes, gasping. She’s greedy, of course. Wants to know if she haunts him like he haunts her too.
“Nuh-huh.” He leans into her, pushing his hips against hers until she is way too aware of him, of the skin-to-skin contact, of the friction that is building in the pit of her stomach. “Not now,” he teases, “right now – fuck.”
He kisses her hard, all teeth, biting into her lip as she whimpers. To be aware of her body, like this, right here, is another way to edge her into her orgasm, the sensation of his cock pushing just a little deeper into her cunt, the way her cunt squeezes around him, the way she can feel pump into her and then he’s spent. Her orgasm hits her hard, she may or may not cry out, but her fingers are twisted in his hair and he’s murmuring her name, over and over again, just as waves pulse inside of her, just as his come makes a sticky mess between her legs and she’s stated, stupidly stated, for the first time in a really long time.
“I know you’ll be gone in the morning,” she tells him, voice muffled into his shoulder.
His fingers are in her hair. He doesn’t have to say anything. They both know she’s right.
-
Weeks later, Sasuke shows up in the emergency room with a black eye and a missing arm. Naruto, of course, is at his side. She doesn’t ask questions. Not because she can’t, more because the answer is probably going to piss her off.
“It’s like he’s a harbinger of stupid shit,” she complains to Ino on the phone. It’s eight hours later and she’s finally coming home, her eyes burning for sleep. “Because after they showed up, we had a bus accident and a kid that shoved a toy car so far up his nose, he nearly broke it.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” her best friend says dryly, “I think I’d lose my mind.”
They talk about stupid things after that. Ino tells her about her latest boyfriend, the one that pretends he’s a professional boxer but is better suited to art, or something of that matter. Ino seems happy. That’s really what she cares about.
When she gets to the door, the lock is broken.
“Um.”
“What?”
“Well.” She blinks. Then, against her better judgment, she nudges the door with her foot. “Either I got robbed,” she says, “am getting robbed, or am probably going to have to hurt someone so if I don’t call you back in an hour, call someone.”
She hangs up, pocketing her phone.
It happens to fast. There’s an arm around her waist and she reacts immediately, swinging her body back hard, her elbow ready to connect. A large hand catches it, squeezing into her skin as her body is immediately slack against another.
“Hi.” He’s grinning against her ear, breathing heavily. “You said to visit.”
“Do you need me to pay for therapy?”
“Nah,” he says. “Just wanted to see you.”
Her hands cradle his face. She checks him almost instinctively. He’ll bruise around the jaw.
“I told you to call,” she mutters, heaving a sigh. Their foreheads press against each other. There’s an apology in there somewhere too. Kakashi is Kakashi, whether she likes it or not. And unfortunately, she may like it a little too much.
This is the problem. “You told me to be better,” he says, as if she is supposed to know what that means.
There is still a hole in the wall.