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She all but snarls at him when he bothers her that morning. That not unusual, but there’s something like hurt in her eyes and Kakashi pauses. They’re outside the hospital (Sakura to drop off some files, him to interrupt gai’s physical therapy appointment and remind him of their Thursday dinner plans, but actually to check that he isn’t spiralling) and he slides into step alongside her, considering. She’s quiet today, and by the time they’re near the training grounds her responses are almost Uchiha-en in their shortness.
He stares at her for one beat, two. Something softens in his gaze and his eyes flicker to training ground 3 in a silent question. Her lips curl up and she bares her teeth, rocks back on her heels and then tips forward into a sprint. He’s not caught completely off guard – he’s fought alongside her for years; knows she doesn’t wait around to give the enemy an advantage – and he plants his feet a little in preparation.
He's gotten distracted though, and she catches his inattention and uses it. Kakashi’s focus is suddenly being split three ways – a kunai from the left, a whisper of leaves to his right, a shout and a punch aimed at his jaw. Wait, but that was a clone – he spins around in time for a fist to glance off his ribs. They feel bruised but that is infinitely preferred to whatever spinal damage Sakura was hoping to inflict today.
She grins, all teeth and charged muscles. What a terrifying student he has. Fuck, but she’s gotten stronger. During these matches she doesn’t enforce her blows with chakra and he lays off on the ninjutsu, which means she’s been hitting the gym – or more likely, doggedly following Lee around in his morning routine – and that is. A thought. An awful thought that will lead to an awful future of bruises and sore bones unless he starts dodging more frequently.
Kakashi takes three steps back, assessing. She’s still twitchy, riled up and itching for a fight. If he’s honest with himself, he feels the same way – Sasuke and Naruto have been an absence felt keenly. He knows it’s not the same – they’re coming back, it’s not like before – but some days are more difficult than others. It’s a little pathetic – one diplomatic trip to Kumo and he’s whining and drooping like a neglected girlfriend. His thoughts get a little derailed as he moves towards what, can’t admit you care about someone? Gonna make a joke out of this, too? So he swiftly shoves them in a little box and jumps back into the fight.
He means that literally – he’s curious as to whether an enemy coming from above will throw Sakura off a little. She laughs and steps aside, unwilling to answer that question for him. It does give him an opportunity to adjust his fall, dropping to a crouch and sweeping a leg around in Sakura’s direction. He doesn’t expect it to connect; instead, he palms a kunai into his hand and rolls out of the way of the answering blow. Pushing off the ground in the direction he’s just come from, he shifts his grip on the kunai and takes a swipe at her back. She snaps her gaze to him, substitutes with a stick and he turns, tracking her. She’s to his east, then behind him, and then too fast to follow and he realises she’s fucking genjutsu-d him. A hand sign later and he catches the wrist coming for his collarbone.
She laughs at the expression on his face and twists his grip on her hand, forcing him to lurch forward. She spins behind him and raises a leg to kick him to his knees, but he is jerking his head backwards and clocking her directly in the chin. It is, perhaps, not the most sophisticated of shinobi moves but he’s taught her better than to sacrifice a fight for honour or dignity. Reaching behind him, he grasps an arm and flips her over his shoulder and into the ground. Sakura blinks a few times, calls him a bitch and then bites the hand still pushing her down. What the fuck. He’s the one with dog summons why are her teeth like that? Does she coat them in fucking poison? He’s going to have a conversation with several people if she’s gotten into that without him. He loves poisons.
She is cackling at him and then she is standing up, holding a hand out to pull him up. He takes it and is promptly heaved up, bitten hand (because of course she’d made him use that one) twinging. They make their way out of the training ground and towards a new sanma stand that’s opened. As they go she heals his ribs (fucking hell) and hand as he needles her about the teeth-thing. It turns out that yes, there was something on her teeth, no he didn’t need an antidote – it was just a metallic-like substance that makes her teeth feel like they’ve been lined with glass and barbs. It also turns out that she has discovered this via Shizune, and Shizune is a menace he will not be fucking with so he lets it go with minimal protesting and a promise that she will come to him next time she wants to kill people in interesting ways.
She’s paying – she pays when she loses, and she loses when she bites. It had been close – he had very nearly scratched at her and thus lost himself, but he is glad for his restraint. Kakashi may have money, but he’ll die before he’s not a cheap bastard. Ordering double just to annoy her, he listens to her gush over Tenten’s latest batch of weapons, interjecting with thoughts of his own.
Their feet carry them to the memorial stone. He’s been visiting it less recently, or at least less obsessively and not alone. They stand there for a half-hour, Kakashi allowing himself to get caught up in his own thoughts (although it’s true that they’re more cohesive now, less of a terrible cycle of rin rin minato obito rin and more of a conversation.) She appears to be doing the same, seeming not-there and uncomfortably aware at the same time.
He counts to ten and decides she can be depressing another day. It is a Saturday today, and a cloudless one at that. Kushina always used to rave about cloudless Saturdays – seizing the day and enjoying the sky and blathering about relaxing so much he’d considered the idea that she was secretly a Nara. (He’d once squinted at her hairline for any sign of spiky-ness or receding, but she thought he was having a stroke and it took 20 minutes and two separate trips to the hospital to convince her he was fine while also avoiding the reason he was burning a hole in her forehead. “I was checking if your hair was fucked up. Not because you’re old, but because you’re weird.” was possibly not an answer she would appreciate.)
Cracking his back, he hands Sakura his second samna no shioyaki and she blinks back to the present. She takes the food, smiles at him and then shepherds him towards the Yamanaka’s flower store – chattering about new stock and showing her appreciation to Tenten and Lee and Chōji and Yui (who?) and whichever other poor soul had been caught in her orbit. Kakashi resolves to find some fuck-ugly dandelions for the boys, knock over at least one pot and then coerce Sakura into buying him a new spool of ninja wire from Yui’s (who is, now that he thinks about it, most likely the Yui receiving flowers) weapons shop. Sakura steps on his foot when he forgets to respond to whatever she’s talking about, and he flicks her in the arm. The day feels very seize-able.