Chapter Text
Sakura had found the ideal apartment.
Through the sister of a friend of a cousin, she had managed to find a graduating Ph.D. student who had lived in the same two-bedroom apartment for the last seven years. It was rent controlled, shabby but clean, and only a ten-minute walk from campus. In other words, it was basically fictional. She couldn’t sign the lease transfer papers quickly enough, reasoning that it wouldn’t be that difficult to find someone to fill the extra empty room.
Unfortunately, Sakura was beginning to realize her expectations were a little… unreasonable. She had spent her first year in medical school in a dull, caffeine-fueled haze and shared a one-bedroom apartment with Ino, who was completing her graduate degree in clinical psychology. Sakura loved Ino dearly, but she quickly realized it was better for the sake of their friendship that they live separately.
Ino liked to wake up early to complete an elaborate self-care and beauty ritual, which Sakura just called obsessive grooming. Sakura stayed up late into the night, drinking stale cups of re-microwaved coffee and confronting her mortality when it hit 5am and she still felt unprepared for that day’s anatomy quiz. (She was beginning to realize that part of medical school was being made to feel constantly unprepared as a motivating factor.)
Ino was also a more social human than Sakura was, and although Sakura was technically an adult, she had never been able to stop herself from pouting childishly when Ino’s friends came over on a Friday night for a healthy and normal social evening that Sakura should have participated in. Sakura always felt like hissing whenever Ino directed gentle and concerned clinical language towards her—you need to make sure you engage regularly with a support network—but deep down, she knew Ino was right.
There were the other little things too: the dishes left in the sink, the piles of dirty laundry, the usual bad habits that drove roommates insane. It was time for a fresh start, Sakura had decided. Before she and Ino ripped each other’s heads off.
Sakura posted in the university housing Facebook group and started conducting roommate interviews, but she began realize she was looking for a mythical and perfect roommate that didn’t exist. There had been plenty of undergraduate students interested, but Sakura decided that she felt old and decrepit enough that she would probably have a complete emotional crisis if confronted with youth and self-discovery on a regular basis. She needed another mid-to-early twenties person undergoing the same panic of figuring out how to be a functional and self-sufficient adult.
She met with a few MBA students who seemed too fun to be trusted. She met with another med school student who Sakura had immediately clocked as someone who would never, ever clean anything in the apartment. She met with a computer science grad student who had acted overly superior enough to bring her blood to a boil. She met with a linguistics grad student who had seemed all right until she revealed she had a long-term boyfriend, and would it be fine if he stayed with them for a couple weeks every month? (Without chipping in for rent? Sakura’s internal voice had griped. Hell no.)
Sakura was beginning to lose hope, and she knew with the amount of med school debt piling on her back that she could not afford to pay the rent on a two-bedroom apartment by herself. She had one last interview that weekend, and she was praying for what had started to feel like a miracle.
She was sitting at the little table she had singlehandedly hauled into the apartment from a flea market sale when a knock sounded at the door. Her head shot up from her textbook, and she realized she had lost track of time. She glanced at her watch and felt her jaw drop. If this was the person coming by to see the apartment, he was over an hour late. Prepared to deliver a searing lecture that would make him the scapegoat for everything else going on in her life, she went over to the door and yanked it open.
“You know, it is super rude of you to be so la—”
She broke off when she realized she was talking to half of a face. Blinking in surprise at the black bandana, her gaze traveled to the dark grey eyes above it, and then to the mess of—was that grey hair? She stared in consternation; it seemed too pretty to be truly grey. It was really more of a silver, though it would have been nice to live with someone as stressed out as she was.
“Are you going to keep telling me off, or am I allowed to come in?”
Sakura jolted back to herself, realizing that she had been mindlessly staring. Maybe medical school had ruined any semblance of social skills she had once possessed.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, disconcerted as she gestured him in. He had asked his question in a dry tone of voice, with something like amusement flickering in his eyes. Apparently unfazed by the fact the door had been opened to reveal an angry and yelling person. Sakura scowled and followed him back into the apartment.
“Is there a reason you’re wearing something that covers half of your face? I think it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t a bank, and I can tell you now that there isn’t really anything worth stealing here.”
He shuffled into the general living area, peering around himself. “That’s fine, I’m planning on robbing the bank after this. Didn’t want to have to change outfits.”
Against her will, she felt herself crack a smile. A sense of humor was a bonus. Most people needed a sense of humor to coexist with her.
“Sorry, I forgot your name,” she said.
“Kakashi.” He looked around the cramped living space that was half-living room and half-kitchen. He made his way over to the window at the far end of the room and gazed out onto the street. “This is nice,” he muttered, gesturing vaguely at the view of the building across from them. “That tree will look nice when it changes colors in a couple weeks.”
Sakura raised her eyebrows. She supposed it wasn’t an odd thing to notice. Maybe the world around her had faded into a blur because she had been so caught up in getting through pre-semester material and wrapping up her summer research. She found that she was almost glad he had pointed it out: now it was something to look forward to.
“And you study….” she trailed off in question.
“I’m doing an MFA. I have another few years left.”
Ah, a creative type. Sakura scanned him critically, searching for signs that he would throw unpredictable fits and make messes in the name of his art. He was tall and lanky, and he stood with a slight slouch. Judging by what she could see of his face, he was also in his early or mid-twenties, despite his grey hair. He wore clothes that were regular enough—jeans and a baggy black t-shirt with a jacket. He looked like the majority of male grad students wandering around campus. Composed but slightly rumpled, as if he had come from a long lecture or spent the previous night buried in some library. He was decidedly normal, except for the bandana.
Sakura began to ask about it again, but then she stopped herself. He had neatly dodged her question earlier with the air of someone who was used to doing so. There was a myriad of personal reasons he might be wearing it: to conceal a birthmark he was insecure about, an old scar perhaps… Her bedside manner training kicked in, and she decided it wasn’t really any of her business.
She cleared her throat and pulled up the list of questions on her phone. He turned and raised two grey eyebrows at her.
“I have a few questions to make sure we would be compatible living together.”
“By all means, go ahead,” he said, his eyes amused.
“What are your cleaning habits?”
His bandana shifted and she could tell he was smiling underneath it. “I don’t like messes, but I’m not a saint. I have a sensitive nose, so I don’t like things left sitting out or in the sink.” He shrugged. “I’ll pitch in for a deeper clean once a month or more often if that’s something you do.”
Sakura nodded and looked back down at her list. “Do you like having friends over, and if so, how often?”
“No.”
She looked back up in surprise. “You do have friends, right?” She blushed when she realized she had asked something a little personal. So what if he didn’t have friends—it just meant more quiet time in the apartment to herself. His eyes gleamed and she wondered if he was teasing her.
“I do have friends, yes, but I like being able to come home to a quiet space. You can’t leave a social event if it’s happening in your apartment.”
Sakura thought that if she had a clipboard, she would have scribbled a very enthusiastic checkmark next to that box, maybe a couple stars and exclamation points. Sakura wasn’t completely introverted, but med school was turning her into a recluse. She needed quiet time to recharge without worrying about who would be in her space each weekend.
“When do you usually go to bed?”
He raised his eyebrows higher but she just jutted out her chin. She had endured enough sleepy screaming matches with Ino at 4am when she accidentally knocked something over while studying, and she had also known the hell of waking up to someone bustling around to prepare an elaborate breakfast mere hours after she had finally gone to sleep. The waking hours of whatever human she ended up living with was necessary information.
“I’m a night owl, but I try to be asleep before 2am. I typically don’t make a lot of noise though, so—”
“That’s fine,” Sakura cut him off as hope bloomed. He checked all the main boxes, and she was getting excited. “Do you have a partner or someone who might need to stay here long term?”
“You’re pretty thorough, aren’t you?”
She scowled at him. “What, you’ve never had to deal with someone you live with inviting their significant other over for months at a time?”
“Can’t say I have, but to answer your question, no.”
“One last question. Or, I guess, two last questions.”
The bandana twitched with what she was beginning to think of as his version of a smile. “Go for it.”
“How would you describe your lifestyle, and what do you want in a roommate?”
He leaned on the side of the counter. “Hmm…” he gazed at the wall for a moment and then shrugged. “My lifestyle is simple. I read, I eat, I sleep, and I spend half the day in classes or workshops. I like coming home to a quiet and comfortable space. As for what I want from a roommate…” His eyes flicked back to her with an appraising look in them. “I want to live with someone who lets me go about my days in peace.”
Sakura had to resist the urge to hurl herself across the small kitchen to hug him. He was perfect. She wouldn’t have to third wheel with the linguistics Ph.D. student and her boyfriend after all.
“That is great,” she said with an enthusiasm that she might have been embarrassed by if she wasn’t so thrilled. “Absolutely great.”
“Can I see the room?”
“Yes, yes,” she said, walking him down the single tiny hallway in the apartment to the door that was directly across from her own.
He opened the door and poked his head inside, glancing around the empty space and bare walls. His eyes stopped on the window that looked out onto a small side yard and the side of the neighboring building. She found that she wanted to ask if he noticed anything about this window the way he had with the one in the shared living space.
Taking a slow step forward, he said, “This is nice. West-facing window. More light during the evenings.”
She grinned. She was beginning to like this odd man. He noticed things that she was either too busy or too stressed to pay attention to, and she wondered if she would get more of these interesting little observations over the course of living with him.
He turned back to her, gaze darting down to the smile still on her lips and then back to her eyes. “I can move in tomorrow. And you’ll have to remind me, your name is…”
Sakura stuck her hand out, feeling a little silly and old-fashioned but thrilled at the same time. “My name is Sakura.”
He looked at her hair as he shook her hand. “Of course it is,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah, start planning your jokes now. I’ve literally heard them all.”
He just shrugged. It seemed like his favorite way of communicating, or more accurately, not communicating at all. “As long as you don’t call me old man, I think we’ll get along fine.”
“So your hair is natural,” she asked, curious despite herself. It looked like the silvery hair artsy people tried to achieve with lots of expensive and carefully applied bleach, but the med student in her was trying to come up with allele combinations that could result in such a color.
“Is anything natural?”
She regarded him warily. So he was only of those philosophizing MFA types. Not as bad as the computer science grad student, but he still might be a little annoying from time to time. Then his face broke out into amusement, his eyes crinkling at her.
“Just kidding. So, is there anything I need to sign?”
Sakura blinked. “Uh, yeah, I have some new tenant papers in the kitchen. I’ll scan them and send them to the leasing agency tonight.”
She led him back to the kitchen and they sat at the table. She was interested to see that he read very carefully through each line of the five-page leasing contract—she herself had just skimmed for incriminating things and signed in a hurry. Whoops.
“So what are you getting your MFA in?”
“Creative writing,” he said with his eyes still on the paper.
Sakura could not be more thrilled—books! There would be no messy art supplies, no loud instrument playing, no theatric monologue rehearsals. Books were literally the quietest thing he could be getting a graduate degree in, and she loved him for it.
“That is wonderful,” she said, sincerely meaning it for entirely selfish reasons.
He glanced up at her in amusement. “I’m glad you think so. Most people studying the sciences seem to have a bit of a superiority complex.”
“How did you know I was studying something in the sciences?”
He gestured to her anatomy notes that had been hastily shoved to the side at the other end of the table. “You’re either in med school or you’re very invested in learning how to properly disembowel someone.”
Sakura frowned at her notes and the reminder that tonight would be another long, long evening of cramming her poor brain with more information. “Who says it’s not both,” she muttered under her breath.
He chuckled and she looked at him in surprise. He signed the papers with a deft flick of his wrist and handed them back to her. “Here’s to hoping that I’m not the first person you disembowel when you finally snap.”
“As long as you don’t leave your dishes in the sink for longer than half a day, I think you should be fine.”
He nodded and stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow then? Probably around twelve?”
“Sounds good." She led him back out of the apartment. “I would offer to help you move stuff in, but I’ll have to run by my lab at one.”
They exchanged goodbyes and contact information and Sakura shut the door behind herself, both satisfied and surprised. She wondered if she had been a little hasty in offering him the room so quickly.
She realized he had never told her why he had been late, or whether his hair color was actually natural.
So what if he was a little sneaky and good at slithering out of personal questions? It would be fine! She just needed someone to read quietly in the second room and pay half the rent while she chugged energy drinks and rammed herself through med school.
Everything would be fine, she decided, as she scanned the lease papers with her phone and typed a quick email to the landlord. He didn’t seem like a serial killer or anything, and he seemed quiet and inclined to leave her alone. What else could she ask for in a roommate?
Sakura’s phone finally went off at 12:30pm and she sighed in relieved irritation. He was half an hour late; not as late as he had been the day before, but late enough that she had been stressed about how to get him his set of keys before she left for her lab. She jogged down the stairs as she ran a jittery hand through her hair. She had a meeting with Tsunade to discuss the paper they were trying to get published, and she was afraid that Tsunade wouldn’t like the way she had written her sections.
Dragged the apartment building door open, she found herself faced with Kakashi, who had what looked like the end of a very heavy metal bed frame slung over his shoulder. She could see a second person’s shoulder at the other end.
“Hello,” Kakashi said in a bright tone. “Can you help us navigate up the stairs?”
“You’re late,” she grouched, holding the door open so they could haul the bed inside the building.
“Am I?” he puffed, the only sign of his exertion as he made his way up the stairs. “Hadn’t noticed.”
They made their way down the hall as Sakura jogged ahead to open the apartment door for them. She heard them setting the bed down in what she would now have to think of as Kakashi’s room, and then a brown-haired man with shoulder length hair strolled back out and dusted his hands.
“You can handle the rest, can’t you, Kakashi,” he drawled.
“Very funny, Genma,” Kakashi called from his room.
The man, who was apparently named Genma, swiveled and saw Sakura standing impatiently in the doorway. His gaze traveled over her from head to toe and she had to resist the urge to roll her eyes as a sly and flirtatious smile curled across his face. She had met plenty of men like this in the bars around the university, all with long hair and easy smiles. They were, as she considered them, male equivalents of Ino.
“Well, hello. Kakashi never told me his new roommate would be so pretty. And you are?”
“I’m late, annoyed, and not interested.”
Kakashi poked his head back out through his door as Genma guffawed. “Late Annoyed And Not Interested, would you be willing to hold the door open for us when we bring up the desk? It will only take a moment, and then you will have the opportunity to change your name to Annoyed And Not Interested.”
Sakura glared, but she felt a tug at the corner of her lips. It was a dumb joke, but she was a sucker for stupid puns. “Fine,” she grumbled. “But if I’m late for my meeting, you might need to start calling yourself Skinned Alive.”
Stomping back out of the apartment, she heard Genma whisper theatrically, “I like her,” while Kakashi just grunted noncommittally. She directed them back up the stairs without incident and checked her phone—12:45. That was fine, if she left now.
“Here,” she said, unceremoniously snatching Kakashi’s hand and dumping his keys into it. “Big one is for the building, small one is for our apartment. I’ll be back in a couple hours, and unlike you, you can expect me to show up when I said I would.”
He raised his eyebrows, but the amusement in his eyes made it clear that he was in no way thrown off by her rudeness.
“Aye, aye, captain. I’ll guard the apartment well in your absence.”
She rolled her eyes but smiled as she turned and left.
Sakura dragged herself back up the stairs to her apartment, feeling both deliriously happy and exhausted. Tsunade had, against all odds, liked the sections of the paper that Sakura had written. Of course, even with the approval came feedback, and Sakura had a long night of editing ahead of her. Classes officially started in two weeks, and the sooner she wrapped this all up, the longer of a break she would get.
She let herself into the apartment, half expecting there to be a giant moving-in mess in the hallway. Everything looked as she had left it, and she smiled. He might be chronically late, but at least he was tidy.
Then she heard jingling and the clatter of small claws on wood. She stared blankly as a small pug rounded the corner and trotted up to a point a few feet away from her. Its wrinkled face watched her as if she were the one out of place. It plopped itself down resolutely, directly in her way.
“Kakashi,” she heard herself call distantly, wondering if she was hallucinating. “Why is there a dog in here?”
Kakashi’s door swung open and he ambled out. “Ah, I see you’ve met Pakkun.”
Sakura stared down at the small pug. “And what, exactly, is Pakkun doing here?”
Kakashi’s eyes crinkled in a smile, and she could just imagine that he was wearing a shit-eating grin underneath his bandana. “Did I forget to mention? Pakkun is my dog.”
“Your what?”
Kakashi leaned on the wall, a hand going to his chin underneath his bandana. “I could have sworn I had mentioned—”
“You absolutely did not,” she hissed. “I watched you read that whole contract, and there are no pets allowed!”
“Hm. I don’t remember that being in there.”
“I watched you read it," she shrieked.
“You know, I’m kind of bad at reading.”
“You’re getting an MFA in reading!”
“And writing,” he said, holding up a finger. “And quite frankly, I’m better at the writing.”
“Oh my god." Sakura slumped against the wall as Pakkun continued to stare at her balefully. “We’re going to get kicked out. I’m going to lose this lease. I’m going to have to go back to crying when Ino wakes me up at six every morning.”
“Pakkun is a good dog,” Kakashi said with a new note of seriousness in his voice. “He doesn’t bark or create messes, and he's easy to sneak out in a jacket for walks. He’s lived with me in no-pet apartments for years and no one has ever noticed or said anything.”
Sakura just stared at the small dog. Her eyes traced over its wrinkles and floppy little ears. He was cute, and she had been dreaming about getting a pet when she finally graduated. There was nothing she could do now that he was here, anyways. Kakashi had signed the damn leasing papers, and they had been approved.
She felt the anger come back with a searing righteousness. “What if I had lied about having some pet, huh? What if I had a cat that I had just neglected to tell you about?”
“Pakkun likes cats.”
“But what if my cat didn’t like dogs?”
“It would like Pakkun.”
“But what if it didn’t?”
Kakashi shrugged, a mounting humor growing in his eyes. “Then the cat would have to go.”
“Like hell my cat would be the one to go—”
“Sakura,” Kakashi interrupted gently. “You’re becoming concerningly attached to this hypothetical cat. Do you want to adopt a cat? We could go down to the shelter and find one Pakkun gets along with.”
Sakura let out a colorful stream of foul language and Kakashi’s eyebrows shot up. She gesticulated with her hands and nearly smacked her knuckles against the wall.
“Wow,” he finally said when she finished, slightly breathless from her tirade but feeling marginally better. “That was impressive, but it's clear that I’ve upset you. How can I make it up to you?”
“You can finish my fucking medical degree for me,” she snapped. She stepped carefully around Pakkun and brushed past Kakashi on her way to the kitchen. She yanked open the door to the refrigerator, then deflated when she saw her empty shelves filled with nothing but sauce jars and a package of thawing tamales that had been frozen six months ago. She felt Kakashi approach behind her and peer cautiously over her shoulder.
“Ah, I see,” he said. Sakura resisted the compelling urge to turn around and punch him. “How about this— once each week, you get to order UberEats with my card. Anything you want, as long as it is less than $20. You can consider it pet rent.”
Sakura turned around and eyed him suspiciously. “Anything I want?”
“As long as it is less than $20. I am in graduate school, too.”
Sakura closed her eyes and rubbed her temples: the beginning of a vicious headache. She could continue to fight him on this, but she didn’t really have the energy. She might regret it later, but right now she was hungry, and all she wanted was some form of spicy noodles. Besides, she liked dogs.
“Fine,” she said, opening her eyes to find him grinning at her with just his eyes. “This doesn’t mean I forgive you, though. This just means I’m hungry and tired of eating frozen things.”
“I completely understand." He opened his UberEats app and held his phone out to her. “I promise that Pakkun will grow on you. He’s a good dog.”
Sakura rolled her eyes. “The word of a liar means very little.”
Kakashi just hummed, sauntering off to the hallway where Pakkun was still sitting and scooping him up in his arms. Sakura wondered if it was her imagination, but Pakkun seemed to be regarding her with a much kinder look in his eyes. She cracked a small smile, then scowled when she saw Kakashi looking pleased.
“This doesn’t mean you and I are friends,” she snapped at Kakashi. “Far from it.”
He just smiled with his eyes, patting Pakkun’s head. “I hope that changes, Sakura. I think you’re fun.”
She huffed with exasperation. She set his phone on the counter after ordering dinner and stormed off to her room with just the right amount of curated indignance and melodrama. As she shut the door behind herself, she felt an infuriating grin break across her face, despite her best efforts to smother it.
Kakashi seemed fun, too.