Chapter Text
Sakura was late to training for the second time in a week. This was odd not only because Sakura is nearly never late but also because she was both times even later than their habitually tardy Jōnin sensei.
The three boys are waiting on the bridge in the midday heat accompanied by the surrounding cicadas off the summer chirping loudly until a pink haired kunoichi runs across the bridge madly, halting at a skid in front of them.
"Late again Sakura." Kakashi says hoping down from the bridge as she pants heavily, resting her hands on her knee's.
"I'm so, so sorry sensei, my mother needed me to help out with some home issues."
"You had a similar excuse earlier this week." His tone is unforgiving and one of the few times he felt truly authoritative. "Once is excusable but twice is a habit and that is something I do not appreciate."
Naruto tilts his head dramatically, frowning at his teacher. "What tHE- but you're late all the time?"
"Yes well I said I don't appreciate it not that I am above it." Kakashi replies quickly in a teasing tone moving his head side to side as he speaks. But it only spurs Naruto on further as he begins shouting about the principles of teachers, shinobi and setting a good example to the impressionable youth.
Once Sakura calms down, catching her breath she slaps her palm on Naruto's arm shouting him up. "Who do you think you are to talk to sensei like that idiot!" She screams, glaring aggressively, "It's all well and good to defend me, I appreciate that, but I'm in the wrong here alright?"
She straightens up and relaxes her face bowing towards Kakashi and Sasuke who was predictably uninterested in the dramatics. "Sensei, Sasuke I promise this won't happen again. Next time my mother asks me to do a stupid household job in the mornings i'll just ignore her."
"Maybe I could talk to her instead," Kakashi suggests as Sakura stands upwards again, "It's important to respect our parents-"
"Ha! She won't listen," Sakura states distastefully, "My mother won't listen to anyone but herself and before you ask about my dad he's just as bad. Always joking, never taking anything seriously. Respect is pointless with people like them."
The boys are all looking at her strangely, as she finishes talking but she wasn't looking at them as she spoke - she was remembering. A unfamiliar tension sitting between the group, one Sakura is unfamiliar with. "Uhm," She scratches the back of her head under the intensity of their gazes. "So what's todays mission?"
"Ah right." The three of them snap there eyes away and return to the status quo as Kakashi explains their newest D-rank mission, cleaning the litter from the riverbank to which they all had differing reaction with a similar theme, fuck this.
*
"Sakura!" Kakashi shouts as she runs down the path to the garden where the team 7 boys where waiting for their newest mission. "You're late."
"I know, I know I'm so sorry I couldn't get out of it-"
"Unacceptable." Kakashi sighs dramatically running a hand through the greys on his head like any other disappointed teacher (despite him only arriving for the mission minutes before her). Sasuke rolled his eyes having been here longer than them all, while Naruto had already begun shouting about the disgusting hypocrisy of the person who should be their role model. "Talking about late when you're the least dependable jerk i've ever met!"
"I'm sorry. This was the last time, I promise everyone." Sakura bows apologetically. Kakashi waves her off as he increasingly became more annoyed with Naruto than Sakura's tardiness. But even Naruto was starting to see how much of an issue lateness could be and while Naruto is late everyday, he never turns up later than Kakashi sensei which is apparently a much bigger offence. Someone as meticulously organised as Sakura arriving after Kakashi is strange indeed.
Again today she blamed her mother, explaining some dramatic family emergency that required Sakura's presence all morning. She says it like it's typical but the three of them were simply unable to relate after having to manage themselves for much longer than most other new gennin.
The day after it was a problem in the house. Sakura arrived late at the residence of their client who's garden they had been hired to clean. She had a fresh bruise on her cheek where the pipes in her house had apparently burst and a metal cog flicked her in the face. The story has only made Kakashi more suspicious than before.
The day after, she was late because her mother needed her to run errands around the village early in the morning that had her running wildly around desperate to be on time. On her way to the meeting point she spotted Kakashi on his way and broke into a sprint, determined to arrive before he did but as she arrived to where Sasuke and Naruto had been arguing on the bridge that they'd both obviously been waiting on for a while, Kakashi-sensei was already there.
"Tsk, tsk late again Sakura." She hangs her head in defeat, allowing her bangs to cover the redness of her eyes as Kakashi walks towards her slowly. "Either I talk to your mother or I talk to the Hokage, your choice."
Sakura doesn't look up for a second, she shivers, eyes wide and dark with something old and forgotten. But then she relents, her face contorts into something ordinary that should have felt more natural than it did. "Fine, but you should come speak to her now before she gets busy, that's when she's the most troublesome to talk to."
Kakashi hadn't seen or spoken with Sakura's parents before, nor been to her house, or neighbourhood. He'd been informed that unlike her teammates she just lived with an ordinary family in an ordinary life.
So when she leads the three of them through the streets to her house he slowly gets more and more concerned.
All of them had been at least mildly irritated with Sakura in recent weeks not simply for her tardiness but for how she had justified it. How she spoke about her parents was at best uncomfortable for the three orphans and at worst rude and disgusting.
However, Kakashi's concerns seemed to wash right over those grievances as Sakura talks the same as she aways does while leading them through streets he never expected her to know.
She turns the corner up a steep hill into a neighbourhood in the village that had largely been abandoned for years. It was a neighbourhood that Kakashi had remembered reading about as it was destroyed in an attack from traitorous ninja a couple years back. Very few survived.
But Sakura walks through the empty streets, abandoned homes and destroyed building as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Don't mind my father." She says as they walk past an old house that had been burned to the ground, "He's probably still at home but if he says anything weird just ignore it."
"You live round here Sakura?" Sasuke asks, a brow raised curiously as even he starts to notice how uninhabitable this part of the village was. So much so it was never rebuilt, just abandoned. Even the Uchiha district got better treatment when Sasuke move out, realising he could not live there alone.
"Yeah it's not much further just up the hill." She replies nonchalantly.
Naruto might have been the least suspicious of the three but even he turned up his nose each time a rat scurried past or after walking over a fallen lamppost.
They pass one or two people in the entire area by the time they reach Sakura's house. None of which seemed like regular citizens of that area and just as Kakashi was about to say something they arrive at a perfectly normal looking house.
"We're here."
Similar to some of the ones in town, Sakura's flat was up a small flight of stares in a row of neat, non-demolished apartments. The lights in her window were on and there was movement to be seen behind those nice pink curtains. Even the streets immediately around her house were cleaner and more liveable then others they passed but despite this, Kakashi still had questions for his tardiest students parents more and more with every second that passed.
They follow her up the steps and Sakura instructs them each to remove her shoes.
"Mom, dad it's me." She calls out sighing as she opens the door. She turns back to her team and smiles weakly, "Once again I apologise in advance for anything weird they might say or do."
*
"I'm really sorry." Sakura mumbled towards her teammates sitting around her dinning table, leaning on her hand.
"They can just be like that. So difficult to talk to."
The three opposite don't respond and she doesn't blame them. After being faced with her weirdo parents and their habits she wouldn't be surprised if they never looked at her the same again.
Her mother calls her to bring drinks to her teammates, fetching the tea that she had left boiling.
"Anyway, we should get back for our mission soon-"
"Sakura what the hell is this!" Naruto shouts, standing up and banging his fists on the table. She flinches back, startled at his abruptness, setting down the tea pot gently and frowning at him confused. Her mother shoots her a look from the kitchen area as she puts away the washed dishes.
"Don't shout Naruto, that's rude!" She tells him as calmly as possible, "We can leave the tea and go now if you'd like, damn."
But it's like her words go right through him, Kakashi whispers something quiet in his ear and he sits down again clenching his fists and refusing to look up. Her dad walks back in the room from the toilet and cracks a corny joke as he passes her and her team. None of them laugh and Sakura cringes for her father, who doesn't seem to bothered himself.
Sasuke has been staring at her for a minute now and she flushes pink under his gaze. This was never how she imagined him meeting her parent but at least he was making a better impression than her parents were being as polite as he is. But all of a sudden, Sasuke's eyes grow cruel, angry.
"Sakura you know this isn't funny." Sasuke states calmly, his eyes hidden behind a curtain of dark hair as.
"Sasuke don't." Kakashi growls, turning to him immediately.
"-Do you think any of us are laughing, that we find this funny?" His tone has grown deeper, darker and suddenly he looks as angry as she had ever heard him. "No one is laughing"
Sakura doesn't know what to say to that. She's so confused and can only watch as Kakashi reprimands him quietly. "She obviously doesn't know, she's not doing this as a joke now stop it now."
"Sakura can't you not see them they're-"
"Sasuke I will not warn you again." Kakashi says authoritatively, raising his hand in front of him. Sasuke grits his teeth and looks away.
"What are you guys talking about. Sh-should we leave now?" She asks the three of them, hoping it would alleviate the strange tension in the room. Sakura stands up, putting back the teapot and the kettle.
"Pour me a coup would ya Sakura?" Her father asks.
"Sure thing dad." She nods bringing him a cup before going to put her sandals back on but they all watch her like she's crazy and it just makes her want to leave as soon as possible.
"Mom, dad we're heading out now. See you later and thanks for nothing." She mumbles that last part lowly, they'd embarrassed her. That's why. That's why they're looking at her like that. "Come on guys, we should go."
None of them move, they all just stare at her with a strange mixture of pity, sadness and confusion which is strange because she didn't think her mother was so rude or her father so corny to warrant such reactions. They were bad yes, they were always bad. Always doing something to embarrass her but their pitiful gazes are starting to creep her out and could very well start to offend her.
"Guys? We should go now."
Kakashi is the first to stand up, walking over to her slowly getting on his knee's so he is eye level with her. His hand rests on your shoulder.
"You've been living like this for a while now haven't you Sakura?"
Her head tilts in confusion, "What do you mean sensei?"
"I- I know they can be strange but they're my parents yaknow. Difficult yes, but I love them."
"Aww do you hear that she loves us." Her dad says and she holds back the urge to roll her eyes.
Kakashi nods with understanding and a gentle smile laced still with a pity that makes her stomach twist. She doesn't like this, they should all go.
"Look at them Sakura."
"Huh?"
"At them. Your mother and father, look at them. Can you do that for me?"
"Um, okay." Her eyes glance up at her mother washing dishes and her father with the newspaper and a cup of oolong tea on the settee but Kakashi seemed unsatisfied still, telling her to look again. "I don't understand."
"Just look Sakura look at them. Do you not see it? Can't you see." Kakashi's grip on her shoulders tightens as he repeats the command again and again until she finally forces her eyes upwards and towards them properly towards them.
She stares and stares at them confused as to what she should be seeing. Why she is seeing it, why?
"I still don't- sensei, I still don't understand." Heat stings behind her eyes and she feels like crying for a strange reason she can't quite place. "Can we go now, sensei. Guys," She reaches out to the other two who are watching so solemnly, so pitifully it's scary to see on those two's faces. "Let's go."
"Sakura what do you see when you look at them." Kakashi asks but she just shakes her head. "Sakura-"
"No, let's just go please, the mission- I- it has to be done soon right?"
"You have to see it."
"No, no!" she shakes her head getting louder and louder as she speaks, "No I won't! I told you this wasn't a good idea, I told you, I told you!"
"You see what we see right? You can see that they're puppets right?"
The world halts and they all fall still.
"Puppets?" her mother says turning to face her and Sakura is forced to see the lines of wood and bends of joints that scream puppetry before her. The stiff bends and varnished finish vanishing the illusion. The world goes cold.
And she screams-
*