Chapter Eight: Intervals
Feeling more drained than usual Sakura tiredly made her way back to her apartment with every intention of heading for her bed. She had just finished an overnight shift followed by a lunch date with her blonde friend. They had enjoyed spending the pleasant hour planning the smaller details of their upcoming trip to the hot spring resort. Turning a corner, she found herself flushing faintly for a moment upon seeing her former sensei casually propping up the wall of the convenience store at the end of her street, his nose buried in one of his ever present little orange books. Sakura had hoped to find out what had happened to her dream guardian before running into him. Somewhere in-between getting sick and recovering she seemed to have misplaced it, and the fact that she couldn’t for the life of her remember what she could have done with it or find the soft doll after almost tearing her apartment apart, was driving her nuts.
It wasn’t monetarily valuable, though it did hold great sentimental value to her as well as the great potential for embarrassment of truly horrific proportions. The sheer humiliation alone of the possibility of her former sensei finding out what she had done with the silly little doll he had given her when she was a genin was enough to make her go running for the hills, never mind the fact that she still had the adorable little plushie and occasionally sought comfort from it.
“’Afternoon Sakura.” Kakashi smiled, careful to keep the ear to ear grin he was feeling on the inside at the faint blush she had managed to control fairly quickly, correctly attributing it to the fact that he had taken her dream guardian. Though she had no idea that he was the one who had taken it, or perhaps that it had been taken at all, yet. Silently Kakashi mused that he had been right, it hadn’t taken very long for her to notice it was missing and he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it or how he should feel about it. Mentally shaking his head to clear it he closed his book, putting it away with practiced ease, and joined her in walking toward her apartment.
“Hello Kakashi, what are you doing in this part of the village?” Sakura smiled at him as best she could through her haze of exhaustion, unable to keep her weariness from her voice but still able to mask her surprise at seeing him so close to her apartment – most likely with out a real reason. As tired as she was she managed to find some energy for the silver haired man. He could be tiring when he chose to be, but his company was for the most part always welcome.
He shrugged; “Just trying to fill the time before my next mission with a good book…” Kakashi looked at her more closely, actually seeing just how tired she really was and starting to feel just the slightest bit guilty for it. Clearly she must have been overworking herself again, on the fast track to having a relapse of her earlier bout of exhaustion. The older man tried vainly to convince himself that it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her missing dream guardian.
The medic laughed. “I see. So there’s no particular reason for you to be in this part of the village then?” As she spoke with him she found some of her energy coming back to her, a second wind so to speak, though not nearly enough to actually do much of anything but just enough to keep her from falling asleep on her feet.
He pretended to think about it for a moment. “Well you see, as I as on my way to one of my favorite reading spots I came across this cute little girl. She was very upset; apparently her kitty had run away and while she was chasing him she had gotten lost and couldn’t find her way home. Though, she did manage to catch her wayward kitty. She’s an agile little thing, should enter the academy…”
The pink haired woman groaned realizing she shouldn’t have asked for and expected a straightforward answer form her former sensei. “Let me guess, you walked her back home and just happened to end up here?”
He feigned surprise, quite well she thought. “Why yes, how on earth did you guess?”
“I’ve known you too long not to know where that particular story was going.” In spite of herself she had to laugh, feeling a little less bone weary, but still drained and tired.
He openly grinned at her. “Once I was here I figured it was as good a place as any to catch up a little on my reading.”
“I see. Is that what you had planned to do all day then?” Sakura asked looking for a possible hidden agenda. He was following her home after all, though for the life of her she couldn’t imagine what Kakashi might have wanted from her since he was clearly not in need of any medical expertise – not that she could provide him with any sort of healing since she was so exhausted with her chakra almost depleted.
“I had thought I might eventually come across someone to spar with later on…” He eyed her from the corner of his eye and adroitly changed the subject. “You seem absolutely exhausted. Long shift?”
She sighed, feeling her cheeks tint a little at his comment. “Yes and no. Or, rather, it wasn’t longer than any of my usual shifts… It was just…” Sakura gestured with her hands vaguely, hoping to get the point across since words were failing her. She was not about to tell him she had been losing sleep since realizing the silly little doll he had given her when she was a child had gone missing – never mind the fact that she had dressed the ridiculous little thing like him and was terrified someone would actually find it.
“So if it wasn’t the hospital, why are you so tired then?” The dark eyed man pretended to have an epiphany. “Oh! New boyfriend keeping you up at night?” He asked, knowing he would illicit an adverse reaction from the tired medic and hoping it would bring some of the energy he was used to seeing in her back.
“Kakashi!” Sakura exclaimed giving him a half hearted swat and looking around them to see if there were any people within hearing distance, horrified at the thought of what that particular comment may do to the gossip mill. Things had actually started to go back to normal until he had left the cactus on her desk. It had been met with great approval by the little old biddies, a beautiful and thoughtful gift. Some of the village girls were actually starting to express a little jealousy over her supposed ‘secret admirer.’ Shaking her head of the unwanted thoughts she pulled her mind back to the present and her search for any of the well known gossip mongers hanging around the area. Upon finding none she hissed, “You know I’ve given up men for the time being. Not worth the effort…” Some more of her energy came back to her and she shot him a dirty look. “Not that your recent actions have made that particular area of my life any easier you know…”
Kakashi chuckled unapologetically and ignored her unspoken accusation over his series of teasing ‘anonymous’ gifts. “So if it’s not a man keeping you up at night, what’s the trouble then?” For a moment he thought to ask her if it was a girl keeping her up at night, but he figured that may be a little much for the marginally livelier but still drained kunoichi to handle at the moment.
Sakura glanced at him out of the corner of her eye with suspicion for a moment before shaking her head to clear the silly thoughts – there was just no way he could have had anything to do with the disappearance of her dream guardian. Finally giving in she figured to tell him the truth. “I just haven’t been sleeping very well lately, that’s all.” She sighed. “Must still be a little tired I guess.” The younger woman smiled, hoping he would buy her little half truth.
“Hmm,” he vocalized. Feeling just a little bit more guilty, but not quite guilty enough to ignore an interesting idea as it occurred to him. Instead he decided to act on it. “Since you’re obviously not in any condition to spar, why don’t you come help me with some of my training then?”
“I don’t know Kakashi, I’m pretty tired… I had every intention of going home to sleep for the next day or so…” She yawned for effect, more to tease him than anything else; she knew she would help him with his training – she always did. The medic was tired, but not that tired, already after speaking to him she had felt some of her energy return. He rarely sought her out so when he did she always made an effort to accommodate him.
“C’mon Sakura, no effort is required on your part… and when I’m done I’ll even buy you some gelato.” He tried, knowing she would give in – she always did. He just had to offer her the right item in exchange to suit her mood.
“Ooo, gelato?!” She exclaimed allowing her sweet tooth to override her flagging exhaustion, although she did have to admit to herself that she would have eventually agreed if he had been persistent enough.
He chuckled, realizing that he had found the right weak spot for the day, and decided to file it away for later exploitation. “Come on then.”
“Alright, but I’m not forgetting about your promise of gelato. You’d better deliver old man otherwise you can forget about me helping you with your own training ever again.”
Kakashi laughed and changed direction to head toward his favorite training ground.
Once they arrived he didn’t wait to be asked to shed his vest and over shirt, instead he removed them and positioned himself ready for her to arrange herself on his back. Absently he hoped she wouldn’t fidget too much this time. He had only just been able to shake the feeling of her squirming against his back the last time she had helped him with his pushups from his mind –he wondered if his subconscious was doing this to himself on purpose.
After thinking about it a bit more Kakashi couldn’t help but question his actions. Had he been conning her into helping him with his training because a part of him wanted to spend time with her? He could have just as easily used some of Guy’s weights, or asked any number of people to take her place, yet he never did – the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind until just then. And, now that she had insisted upon him removing his vest and over shirt, was he asking her because it was something they always did together or because of a deeper reason than simply needing more resistance for his pushups to be effective training?
The pink haired woman sighed to herself and quickly settled herself on his back with minimal fuss and shifting around. Sakura chose to lie on her stomach, rather than her back as she had found it was just plain more comfortable for her and she wasn’t in the mood to annoy the older man with moving around trying to find the one spot that didn’t have one of his scapula poking her. Yawning the medic folded one of her arms under her head and found herself truly relaxing for the first time in several days before he had completed his first dozen pushups.
The Copy Ninja kept his mind on what he was doing, only barely managing to block the all too pleasant sensation of her entire body pressed against his. He chose not to say anything as he felt her shift into a comfortable position on his back, ending up with her head pillowed on one of her arms, the other dangling comfortably over his shoulder. He was not surprised to feel her relax completely against him after a few moments, obviously asleep. Quietly he sighed, realizing that he now had plenty of time to question his subconscious motives with her all too familiar weight sprawled out on his back – he knew it would be a long afternoon.
~*~*~*~
Kakashi laughed to himself at the dirty looks his team shot him as he arrived at the gate. They’d been waiting for at least three hours, probably closer to three and a half, but none of them would say anything to him about it. The team he had been assigned to for this particular mission did not know him very well and all of them were of much lower rank, so he would probably not hear any complaints about his tardiness from the clearly annoyed shinobi.
As he passed through the gate he mused absently at what she would do upon receiving the Polaroid. The elite jonin felt only a little bit guilty at the fact that she hadn’t been sleeping very well since he had abducted her dream guardian, though after some thought he had been able to rationalize his own actions to himself and he dismissed it as probably a coincidence. She was 22 and a more than capable kunoichi, long past the age where the presence of a doll could provide any real comfort. The pink haired woman was probably just still suffering the after effects of her bout of exhaustion and dehydration. Sakura had gone back to work far too soon in his non-medical opinion. Tsunade had been right in her assertion that she could easily burn out at the rate she was going if she didn’t slow down or start spending time working on less strenuous medical areas.
He consciously chose to ignore the fact that she had fallen asleep on his back while he had been doing his pushups the day before and the long internal dialogue he had held with himself about his own motives for his most recent actions. In the end he hadn’t liked the conclusion he had reached, and had decided to ignore it – though he did have to admit on a much deeper level that his conclusion was correct and not something to be ignored.
Becoming better and better at rationalizing things to himself he had decided that she had just been tired form a long shift at the hospital and a general lack of rest and had fallen asleep, just as she had when she was younger after a long day of training and a general lack of sleep, end of story. The only difference between the two incidents being that this time she had proved to be almost too much of a distraction with her full length pressed against his back, separated by only the thin material of her uniform, his form fitting under shirt and his thankfully thick baggy jonin pants. It had taken all of his willpower to continue on with his usual pushups as though nothing was amiss regardless of the fact that she was blissfully napping on his back and his mutinous mind kept trying to point things out he would rather not know about.
As he walked along with his team he couldn’t seem to pull his mind from his former pink haired student. Despite his thoughts on the subject the day before, he couldn’t help but wonder if she really didn’t need him as he had implied in the note he had just spent the past couple hours mailing to her. Kakashi also couldn’t prevent his mind from slipping to what the Hokage had said to him before his last mission with her. The pink haired medic was nothing if not fiercely independent – he couldn’t possibly be holding her back, could he? She would never let him, would she?
~*~*~*~
Wearily Sakura collected her mail from her box in the lobby of her apartment building. As she was closing the little door of her mail box she heard the distinctive tread of her the superintendent. She cursed quietly to herself; the kunoichi was still having some trouble sleeping and was consequently too tired to have to deal with him just then. The blasted man just couldn’t seem to take a hint sometimes. He could be worse than Lee given the right circumstances and the added fact that he was her landlord did not improve matters. The annoying man was smart enough to never overtly make a pass at her, knowing all too well of her two former teammates and their penchant of beating the living daylights out of any man foolish enough to try and romance her. Silently she hoped she was wrong. Unfortunately the tired woman’s hearing proved correct as the older bespectacled brown haired man rounded the corner – stopping as soon as he noticed her standing by the bank of mailboxes.
“Well hello Sakura! It’s not often that I’m granted the pleasure of seeing you.” He smiled and let his eyes wander her form from her neck down to her toes and back up to her eyes, inwardly she shuddered at his blatant show of interest. He always paid her a little extra special attention, though never actually acted upon whatever it was he may have found appealing in her and something about him had always made her skin crawl just a little.
“Hello Hideki, nice to see you too.” Sakura smiled, though the expression didn’t quite reach her eyes. To all appearances he seemed like a nice enough guy, but there was just something about him that made her distinctly uncomfortable. He wasn’t a shinobi and had no training in any sort of fighting, but deep down on some level she just didn’t feel quite at ease with him. Yes, she was a well trained and competent kunoichi that could easily take someone like him out if necessary, but there was just something on a more instinctive level about him that warned her away from the unctuous man.
He stepped closer, and she stifled a groan realizing that he was going to attempt to strike up a conversation with her, it wasn’t something he often tried, but when he did it was almost impossible to get away from him. As exhausted as she was, she just wasn’t in the mood.
“So Sakura… I was thinking…” he started, almost hesitantly – though she knew instinctively that his hesitancy was feigned.
Deciding she could afford to bring him up short just this once she interrupted his little charade. “I’m really sorry Hideki, but I’m absolutely exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping very well lately and I just finished a double shift at the hospital. I don’t think I can stay awake much longer. I was just on my way back to my apartment to sleep for the next day and a half.” Sakura tried an apologetic smile, hoping he would buy it and take pity on her enough to let her go, but not enough to either try and escort her to her apartment or try to ascertain just what it was that was causing her sleeping difficulties.
His expression flickered for a moment; if she had blinked she would have missed it, before taking on what appeared to be a sincerely concerned cast. “Oh! Please excuse me then! Go, go to bed. I’m sure I’ll catch you again…”
Feeling slightly guilty and kicking herself for it she decided to throw him a bone. “Maybe another time?”
He smiled and made an aborted motion toward her before settling on an awkward little wave.
As hastily as she could while still exuding an aura of exhaustion, Sakura beat a retreat to her apartment, heaving a huge sigh of relief once the disconcerting man was out of her sight. As the tired medic made her way down the hall to her door she shuffled through the envelopes setting most aside as either junk mail or bills. One caught her attention as clearly neither and she kept it at the top of her little stack as she unlocked and entered her apartment.
After setting the pile down to start a pot of tea she finally sat down to open her mail, starting with the envelope that had caught her eye as having contents that were not immediately identifiable. Carefully opening the envelope Sakura found only a Polaroid with no note or letter. Curiously she examined the photograph, the color draining from her face as she did so, finding that it was of her dream guardian propped up somewhere high with the Hokage Monument in the background. Looking for some sort of explanation she checked the envelope again before flipping the photo to find the curious block writing:
‘Sakura,
Since you were feeling under the weather and no longer needed me I decided to take the opportunity to do a little traveling. Don’t worry I’ll keep in touch.
Yours,
Kakashi’
She felt her stomach fall about fifty feet, and was happy that she was seated when she read the message. Someone had her dream guardian and was clearly having a little fun at her expense. Up until that point she had hoped, really hoped that she had somehow misplaced the personalized plushie somewhere in her apartment and that it would eventually turn up once she stopped looking for it.
Unfortunately the Polaroid crushed the hope she had been so vainly clinging to and confirmed one of her worst fears for the little doll. Still not quite panicking she sat trying to logically think her way through it. Someone was playing a joke on her, the largest question being who with why following close after. How was another good question, but was rather easily solved as she knew it had happened while she was sick and anyone could have easily entered her apartment and taken it while she wasn’t at her best. The pink haired woman’s embarrassment flared at the thought of someone not only finding the little doll but finding out the personal fact that she had dressed it as her former sensei. On a deeper level the actual message itself troubled her, though she couldn’t quite put a finger on why.
~*~*~*~
Sakura smiled to herself as she finished getting ready for dinner. Thoughts of her missing dream guardian were banished from her mind as it had been weeks since she had received the Polaroid and she hadn’t heard anything or received another photograph. Now her blonde and dark haired boys were back in the village and had insisted on taking her out for dinner. She had been more than happy to agree to go with them on the one stipulation that they not eat at Ichiraku, much to Naruto’s disappointment.
Just as she was finishing with her hair, adjusting the combs Kakashi had given to her for her birthday – she only wore them for special occasions – her boys materialized on her balcony. After allowing them in the first time they had shown up on her balcony she had found that she had set an occasionally irritating precedent. It was now impossible to get them to use her ‘front’ door like normal guests.
Their affinity of using her balcony to enter her apartment, usually unannounced, had already caused no end of trouble and embarrassment for her. Both of them had seen her in various stages of dress as well as completely undressed on more than one occasion. The only satisfying thing for her from those instances was the fact that both of them had on more than one occasion acquired nosebleeds for their trouble, much to her complete amusement and inner gratification. Sakura had to suppose that it was probably a good thing that after the first few instances, her modesty as far as her boys were concerned became non-existent. This was especially true since they had interrupted her nocturnal activities with her then-current beau not once but twice – much to her chagrin. After hastily getting dressed she had tracked them down on a rampage and flown at them in fury, yet they continued to use it as their preferred point of entry to her apartment, despite the massive punishments meted out to them after each indiscretion. After that, she was smart enough to limit all nocturnal activities with male companions to their places rather than hers as to avoid a repetition of what had happened the previous two times her boys had interrupted.
“Hey Sakura, you ready yet?” the ever impatient blonde asked as he entered her bedroom, his dark haired compatriot following him closely. “You were supposed to meet us outside ten minutes ago!”
She turned from her mirror to greet her two friends with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. It’s been a while since I’ve gone out somewhere nice so I had a little trouble finding something suitable to wear.”
“You look fine,” the dark eyed man assured her, after a quick up and down glance to take in her appearance.
She blushed a little at the unexpected compliment from her usually uncomplimentary former teammate. “Thanks,” she murmured as she turned back to the mirror for one last adjustment to her hair. “Okay, I’m all set. Let’s go.”
The blue eyed man followed her hands to her hair as she finished her adjustments. “Those are nice… hair… things.”
She laughed at his not very well thought out, but still sincere, compliment. “Thanks Naruto, Kakashi gave them to me for my birthday.”
The blonde man elbowed his friend none too subtly. “Speaking of gifts Sakura…”
Sakura groaned; she had been waiting to hear from them about this. Actually she was surprised it had taken them this long to work up the tenacity to ask her about it. But expecting to hear them ask and having them actually do it were two very different things.
“We were wondering,” the blue eyed man continued, completely oblivious to the sudden change in his female friend’s demeanor, “about all those gifts you’ve been receiving lately…”
The Uchiha rolled his eyes at his friend’s total lack of finesse. “What the idiot means, is that we are a little concerned about the source of those strange anonymous gifts you seem to have been intermittently receiving at the hospital… from a secret admirer I presume?”
She laughed. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing for you to concern yourselves with.”
The excitable young man stepped closer to her. “So you do know more than you’re letting on!” He jabbed an elbow at his friend again. “I told you she knew!” He turned his attention back to his female friend. “So, just who is this anonymous friend of yours then?”
She widened her eyes in feigned surprise, actually feeling a little surprised at the dark haired man’s sudden genuine interest in the conversation as he leaned forward ever so slightly as if to better hear her answer. “Oh, I’m sorry Naruto. I have no idea who is leaving those gifts for me…” she trailed off hoping both men would buy the right out lie. Lying wasn’t one of her strong suits.
“Aw, Sakura! C’mon, you must know something!”
“You wouldn’t continue to accept those gifts if you didn’t at least suspect where they were coming from…” The dark eyed man suggested, trying and failing to hide his own interest in her secret admirer.
Silently Sakura cursed as she found a slight hole in her plan to go along with the village’s idea that the gifts were from a secret admirer. “I don’t have much of a choice now do I?” she asked, careful not to show her annoyance. She hadn’t used her acting skills for quite some time and was beginning to wonder if she would be able to pull off not knowing who her ‘secret admirer’ was to the two people who knew her better than most of the village.
Knitting his brow in slight confusion, “I don’t understand. What do you mean you don’t have much of a choice?” The occasionally dense blonde man asked.
“Well, since I have no idea where the gifts are coming from I certainly can’t refuse them… They might be from someone important or,” with effort she managed a light blush, “someone I might actually be interested in…”
The two men’s eyes narrowed at her seeming confession, both of them thinking the same thing: if he wasn’t willing to show himself and face the two of them one way or another, then he didn’t deserve to be with their kunoichi, end of story.
“But surely you must have at least some idea where they’re coming from…” the Uchiha started before she cut him off.
“Sorry, he wouldn’t be a secret admirer if I knew who he was, now would he?” She eyed them looking for signs of them accepting that she didn’t know who her ‘secret admirer’ was, at least for the time being. Upon seeing the beginnings of grudging acceptance she hastily changed the subject. “Come on you two, we’re going to be late and miss our reservation.”
~*~*~*~
As usual Kakashi heard the familiar knock on his door, signaling that his former student was there to ensure he had returned without injuries. Steeling himself he went to the entrance, having decided while on the mission he had just returned from that he would push her away – thus making sure that he wasn’t holding her back from doing what she wanted to do. Granted, it would probably take time since he had let it go on as long as it had, but he was willing to give it all the time necessary. If she no longer felt that it was necessary for her to stop in to check up on him after all of his missions, it might ease the slight sense of guilt mixed with something he couldn’t quite identify that he had been annoyed to discover while away from the village.
The elite jonin blamed one of the younger shinobi who had been assigned to his team. The foolish man couldn’t have known of Kakashi’s previous student-teacher relationship with the oft sought after medic. The shinobi had loudly complained, when the topic of women had been brought up, that it seemed like every time he managed to land himself in the hospital the medic he had spent his free time fantasizing about hadn’t been available to treat him. Consequently he had then blamed it all on whatever it was that tended to sporadically pull her from her duties at the hospital before continuing on with exactly what he would like to do with her if he were ever to be granted the chance to spend some time alone with her. With an act of supreme self control the silver haired man was able to ignore the idiot’s comments and continue on with the mission. Though, Kakashi did ‘accidentally’ manage to take the foolish young man out while on their return trip during an impromptu sparring session to demonstrate several additional ways of disarming an opponent that he had used during the course of the mission and his teammates had never seen before.
The knocking on his door became louder as he dawdled; causing him to hastily pull his thoughts back to the present and unlock the door. Upon opening it and seeing the genuine concern in her eyes he found himself, despite all of his intentions, unable to send her away. Inwardly he sighed and opened the door wide enough for her to enter.
