Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sakura finds the dog by the river on an evening where a shift at the hospital leaves her especially emotionally and physically drained. His leg is caught in a trap and a thick looking rope connects his leash to a lamp post. When she tries to approach him, he looks up at her with big brown eyes and tries to run away in fear, before the trap tightens around his leg and he whimpers in pain. 

He’s clearly a stray and not the kind of purebred upper class civilians like to walk around town, and neither is he a ninken. He’s a black dog but the tip of his nose, ears and tail is white, and Sakura thinks that if it had been night, she would have missed him completely. But she’s glad she didn’t; his ribs show through his fur and his tail is firmly in between his legs. Her heart breaks. 

Her first reaction is rage - which piece of shit could do this to him - before her good sense kicks in and she realises she’s not equipped enough to get the poor thing out of its predicament. But who should she call? Any Inuzuka would be an ideal option, but she doesn’t know many clan members and doesn’t know who would be close enough to get here fast. Kiba was out with Shino and Hinata on a mission last she checked, too. She wipes sweat off her brow as she looks at the dog and tentatively takes another slow, small step. It doesn’t work. He screeches and moves his leg further into the trap. 

Fuck.

Kakashi-sensei? Sakura had barely spoken to him since Sasuke defected and Naruto left to train with Jiraiya-sama, other than patching him up after a couple missions and chasing him access the village to drag him back from a bar to the hospital to heal properly. Thanks to that particular adventure, she knew that he hung out at a bar close to where she was every Friday with his strange jounin friends. It’s Friday today. Deciding to take a chance, Sakura sprints as fast as she can to the little shinobi bar she found him in last time. 

As it turns out, her bet pays off and she sees Kakashi-sensei sitting with Anko-san and some other jounin she doesn’t recognise. 

“Sensei!” She bursts out. Suddenly, she’s uncomfortably aware of the fact that she, a fifteen-year old, is in a bar filled with older, menacing jounin. The bartender gives her a look, and people are staring.

“Sakura-chan?” Kakashi-sensei looks genuinely surprised to see her. “What’s my precious student doing in a place like this?” 

Precious student my ass. I haven’t been his student in months. Maybe I’ve never been his student. 

Sakura ignores her bitter inner monologue to focus on what’s important. “I found a dog near the river. He’s clearly abandoned. He’s not letting me near him, and his leg is trapped. He looks really bad, sensei, clearly he’s hungry and some piece of shit abandoned him–” 

“Sakura,” Kakashi-sensei is already putting on a jacket. “Save your breath for the Inuzukas when we get him there to heal him. Lead the way.” 

They run there in silence, and she hears Kakashi-sensei inhale sharply when they reach the river and he sees the dog. The poor thing starts to panic when he sees another person, but Kakashi-sensei is able to calm him down, even if from a distance. He shushes the dog gently and offers out just his hand like a sort of peace offer. Tentatively, the dog reaches out to sniff it. Deciding Kakashi-sensei isn’t a threat, the dog sniffs his hand again and comes closer. Kakashi-sensei then takes a tiny step forward and holds out his hand once more. The dog sniffs again. Sakura watches as this back and forth goes on for quite a while until the dog finally allows sensei to come close enough to touch him and stroke his head slowly, muttering reassurances the whole time. 

Sakura, as usual, feels slightly stupid and very incompetent watching the whole thing while doing nothing. She supposes she should be used to it - this seems to be the default setting for her when she’s around anyone in Team 7 - but it still manages to sting, even after all this time. But she can’t help the tears that escape when Kakashi-sensei gets the metal trap off the dog’s leg and picks him up slowly, still talking to him softly. The dog’s leg is bleeding, and Sakura is fast in pulling out a strip of cloth to wrap it loosely around the wound, functioning as a makeshift bandage until they get him to more qualified medics. 

Sakura once again leads the way to the Inuzuka estate while Kakashi-sensei holds the limp dog in his arms, and they hand him in directly to Inuzuka Tsume, who, thankfully, was standing outside the estate as they approached. 

“He needs surgery,” she says grimly. “And fast. His leg is broken. Poor little guy, he must have been standing there for days. Lousy fuckers, a thousand curses on whoever did this to him.” She looks up at both of them. “You two were good to bring him here, and just in time too. If you’re willing to stick around, we can arrange to have him patched up and back to you. Otherwise, he can join the Inuzuka shelter. As you wish.” 

Sakura and Kakashi look at each other. Sakura had only met the dog barely an hour ago, but she couldn’t stand the thought of abandoning him again, even if it was to people who would care for him. And it only took one look at Kakashi-sensei to know he thought the same. 

And so Sakura and Kakashi-sensei are left in the waiting room of the Inuzuka veterinary clinic in an uneasy silence while they wait for good news regarding the dog they’d rescued. 

“Uh, sensei.” Sakura starts. She’s starting to feel very tired. “What do we do with him?” 

Kakashi-sensei turns a lazy eye to her. “What do you want to do?” 

“My apartment is too small for a dog. Dogs…should have space to run around and be a little free.” 

He raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you live in a one-story independent house? Seems like plenty of space to me.” 

Sakura looks at her shoes. “I moved out of my parents place a couple months ago. I live in an allocated genin apartment. It’s like, eighteen metres squared.” 

“Why on earth would you do that to yourself?” 

Sakura loves her parents, but living with them had become endlessly complicated before she took the plunge and moved out. They didn’t approve of her decision to pursue a career as a kunoichi, for one, and there were only so many comments about her hospital shifts and ‘shinobi attitude’ she could take. Sakura thinks their relationship has improved by leaps and bounds since she started living apart from them. They’d slowly even come around to the idea of Sakura becoming a kunoichi for good, but that had been an extremely recent turnaround. 

“It’s easier,” she says instead. “It’s closer to the Hokage tower and the hospital. And the training fields. Especially those.” At least that’s true. Tsunade-sama does a number on her every other day, fighting her to a pulp and then asking her to heal herself. It's good training, but Sakura appreciates the shorter distance between the fields and her bed. 

“Sakura,” Kakashi-sensei says. “Those apartments are depressing.” 

Why on earth is he pretending to care? “It’s alright, sensei. I’m barely home anyways. And a smaller apartment means less space to clean and do chores to and all.” 

He sits back and exhales. “Well. If it suits you, then I suppose it's alright. This means the dog will go with me, I suppose?” 

“Yeah.” 

Sakura takes a deep breath. 

“I mean, if I could visit him sometimes-”

“Of course you can.” 

Oh. “Oh.” She takes another breath. “Do we give him a name?” she asks. 

“Not for a week.” He doesn’t have to explain himself further. It was best not to get attached, in case the dog suffered complications even after surgery. 

“I understand,” she replies. When she gets up to refill her cup of water, the room sways a bit and she remembers how hungry she was before she found the dog. She supposes she’ll pick up some instant ramen on the way home, then. There’s no way she’s leaving before she knows if the dog made it. 

“Sakura-chan,” Kakashi-sensei’s voice sounds deceptively uncaring. “Have you eaten dinner?” 

“No,” she answers truthfully. “I’ll pick up something on the way home.” 

“I think you should eat right now, actually. You’re quite pale.” 

She stops herself from tsking in annoyance. “I’m alright, sensei. I’ll eat later.” 

He looks at her for half a minute before getting up and walking out of the room. Actually tsking this time, Sakura peeks out of the window to see where the man had gone, but realising he’d already made it out of her sight, chooses to leaf through the magazine in the stand. A couple minutes later, Kakashi-sensei makes a reappearance, holding out a box and a pair of chopsticks towards her. Under his arm, he carries two bottles of juice. 

The box is hot. 

“What is this?” she asks. It smells really good. 

“Mixed rice with chicken. Not the most elaborate meal, but the best I could find on short notice. I hope the apple juice makes it more palatable, though.” 

“I actually like mixed rice. And apple juice.” Sakura cracks a bottle open. “Thank you, sensei.” 

“Maa, anytime. Don’t go hungry for long periods of time often, alright?” 

Sakura holds back a scoff. If only he knew. She thinks she began feeling her collarbones to see if they were showing when she turned thirteen. That’s how you know you’re in shape, her grandmother had told her. If you can’t feel your collarbones, or see your jawline, or see a pointed chin, you’re overweight. 

It became yet another part of her body she had to keep track of, adding to her worries about her big forehead or strange pink hair. Her formative years in the academy had been brutal; she’d studied as hard as she could to avoid taking flak for being a civilian kid amongst a class of clan children but was instead bullied relentlessly for her looks and flighty personality. It took her an embarrassingly long time to admit to herself that she quite liked the colour of her hair.

She’d thought that when she graduated at the top of their class at the genin exams, she’d earn recognition for all the hard work she’d put in, but she was instead placed in a team with Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke  and largely ignored by their nonchalant teacher. Oh, how she had wanted Kakashi-sensei’s attention, at least for one more chance to prove that she wasn’t just canon-fodder. And with another bout of cosmic unluckiness, it was also the time Sakura started breaking out in bouts of acne, leading to hours spent in the mirror wondering if her precious Sasuke-kun would mind a splotchy faced-girlfriend. It’s your eating, her grandmother had said. Cut out the sweets, Sakura. You’re an actual ninja of the village now, and you have to grow up sometime. Sakura loved sweets. She stopped eating them anyway. 

Sakura stopped eating sweets, and Sakura trained her heart out trying to keep up with her teammates and impress Sasuke, and Sakura cut off her beautiful pink hair, and Sakura remained utterly useless. She wasn’t stupid - she began to suspect there was a reason Naruto and Sasuke were put on the same genin team for, and Kakashi-sensei had a lot to do with why. His Sharingan, for one. She could not ascertain his connection to Naruto, but she knew there had to be one. Then she found out that he was the jinchuriki, and it all made sense. But one thing she couldn’t understand was why she was on the team. Yes, she was good at tests and Iruka-sensei had told her she had the best chakra control in their graduating class, but she had no physical prowess or clan jutsu to back these feeble strengths up. When Sasuke left, all she could do was pant in the dust as Naruto fought him and tried to hold him back and failed. Her greatest contribution to that godawful retrieval mission had been providing comfort to her heartbroken teammate. Kakashi-sensei barely spared her a glance as she begged Naruto like a child to bring Sasuke back. 

When that didn’t work, Naruto went off to train with Jiraiya and Sakura’s worst fears were confirmed: with Sasuke with Orochimaru and Naruto off galavanting with Jiraiya-sama, Kakashi-sensei didn’t think she was good enough to train. What Sakura had suspected the whole time was true. The higher-ups, or whoever was pulling the strings in the academy, wanted Naruto and Sasuke on one team and simply picked the most book-smart kid from the academy to give Kakashi-sensei enough students for a three-person team. She’d never been good enough for Team Kakashi on her own. She’d simply been civilian cannon fodder all along, just a filler student providing the illusion of a three-member team so that Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto could train with Hatake Kakashi of the Sharingan. It hurt more than it should have, considering Sakura had, after all, known she was weak since the beginning. 

Would Sensei and the others have cared at all if she’d died all the way back in the Land of Waves? Would Sasuke have? 

Probably not. Sasuke definitely wouldn’t have, for sure.

“Sakura? Sakura-chan?” Kakashi-sensei’s voice breaks through her train of thought. “Are you alright?” 

“Huh?” Sakura picks up the chopsticks. “Yes! Why do you ask?” 

“You…kind of zoned out, staring at your food.” Kakashi-sensei is holding his beloved porn novel with just his index finger and thumb, a classic sign that he’s feeling uneasy. 

“Just thinking about things I need to do for tomorrow,” she lies easily. 

“Hm,” 

They lapse back into silence, and Sakura tucks into her dinner. However annoyed she had felt when he did it, Sakura is grateful Kakashi-sensei had brought her dinner. Her energy levels had been dangerously low, and she’s sure she would have dozed off from exhaustion if not for the food. The apple juice washes down the rice nicely, and she’s in considerably better spirits by the time she’s done with dinner. 

She looks at the clock. “Sensei? How much longer do you think they’ll be?” 

“Maa, I don’t know. He was badly hurt, after all. Hopefully they don’t need to amputate the leg completely.” 

Sakura hadn’t even considered amputation. She couldn’t bear the thought of the little dog losing a leg, and she brushed away a few stray tears in embarrassment. Kunoichi don’t cry. Only stupid little girls cry. Thankfully, she doesn’t think Kakashi-sensei sees. 

“I hope it doesn’t. Come to that, I mean.” 

“Yes.” 

She doesn’t remember it being awkward, back when they were still a team. Team 7. It feels like a dream now, but Sakura remembers being happy with her three teammates. Life was easier when the only thing to worry about was the rank of the next mission they’d be assigned. She wonders if Team 7 would have lasted if it was made up of anyone else. Or maybe she was the problem, maybe the team needed a stronger glue, a better ninja, to hold it together. She wasn’t stupid, she knew that she was the least valued, least favourite member of the team for all involved, the sensei included. 

The worst part was probably that Sakura couldn’t bring herself to hate them all for it. She still wanted to catch up to Naruto, who was improving his skills as a ninja under Jiraiya-sama in leaps and bounds. Still wanted to impress Sasuke even though she didn’t have an embarrassing crush on him anymore, still wanted Kakashi-sensei to notice her as a student with potential, to ruffle her hair like he would sometimes ruffle Naruto’s, and say good job, Sakura. I knew you could do it. 

Sakura had sat in front of her mirror for hours the week after Naruto had left and taken a long look at her own reflection in the glass. I wouldn’t have wanted to train me, either. Stupid, naive, weak little girl. The sadness had given into rage, primarily at herself, and then a feverish sort of desperation that had led her to Senju Tsunade. In retrospect, apprenticing under Senju Tsunade was the best thing that Sakura had done for herself. She knew she was growing - as a person, and as a ninja, most importantly - but she couldn’t help but feel sad every time she saw Team Asuma’s post-mission parties, or Kiba and Shino flanking Hinata around the village. 

It wasn’t her fault she was placed in a team that was made to fall apart. But even she herself wouldn’t have picked anyone to be on a team with her in the first place, disliked as she was. Where does that leave her? 

“How have you been, anyways?” Kakashi-sensei asks. Sakura wonders if the stupid porn book is just a cover while he prods into her personal life. 

“I’ve been good, sensei, what about you?” Sakura replies, polite as always. Maybe back when Team 7 existed she would have poked fun of him, but those days were gone, now. 

He narrows his visible eye. “Nothing exciting to report on my end, I’m afraid, unless A-ranks and S-ranks excite you.” 

Sakura wants to cry, all of a sudden. “Better than cleaning someone’s small intestines at the hospital, so I’d say A-ranks excite me very much, in comparison.” 

She thinks Kakashi-sensei smiles, under that mask of his. “Gods. Please tell me that was research and not something that happens to actual patients.” 

“Unless you show up with a bacterial infection in your intestines, sensei, I think you’ll be spared.” 

“I guess I’ll have to eat more vegetables.” 

Sakura scoffs. “Your jokes are still the same, sensei.” 

“Brilliant and well thought out?” 

“Lame.” 

“You should be looking up to me as my student, not brutally hurting my feelings.” 

She’s not his student. Not anymore. 

He must see something shift on her face, because his expression becomes more serious. “Sakura, I–” 

The door opens, and a young man in scrubs enters. “Hatake-san, Haruno-san,” he bows. “The surgery was successful, and the dog’s leg did not have to be amputated.” 

Sakura lets out a cry of relief, and Kakashi-sensei’s shoulders relax. 

“We can confirm that the dog is around one year of age, male, and mixed in species. He’s not a ninken, and was probably a domestic dog that was discarded by its previous owner. Details of his blood type and some vaccinations we’ve given him are on a standardized report we’ve produced. Hence, the recovery should be relatively simple, if the dog is fed and cared for according to the strict instructions we have drawn up. Inuzuka-san wants to know if you’ll be keeping the dog. I assure you, if he stays with us he’d be in the best hands.” 

“We know that,” Kakashi-sensei says, “but we’d like to keep the dog. Can we take him home today?” 

“Give us three days to monitor him,” is the reply. “We’d like to keep him under observation today. And that’ll be enough time for the anesthesia to wear off as well. You can see him before you go, though!”

The little guy is fast asleep in a dog bed, his hurt leg wrapped securely in bandages. He doesn’t wake up when they enter - probably a result of the anesthesia - but he looks at peace. Sakura is immediately relieved after seeing proof that the dog is going to make it, and she shoots Kakashi-sensei a smile that he returns wholeheartedly. 

After that, forms are signed, feeding bottles and other supplies are bought, and Sakura and Kakashi-sensei begin the long-ish walk back from the Inuzuka estate. Sakura is beginning to feel blissfully sleepy after a long day and a late dinner, and she walks slower than she usually would, the chirping of the crickets lulling her into an almost meditative state. But she can’t help think of the little dog that they’d left behind. Was he scared, alone amongst strange new humans? Would he trust anyone again, after what had been done to him? How long would he need before he could eat little treats again? 

“I have a good feeling that we’re going to name him soon,” Kakashi-sensei breaks the silence. Clearly, he’s also thinking of the dog. “He seemed to be doing well.” 

“I’m glad. But I’m not really good with names, we never really had pets growing up. I mean, we had two fish once, but my name suggestions were too stupid to be chosen.” It was true and she’d meant for it to come out jokingly, but Kakashi-sensi’s forehead develops a little crinkle nonetheless.

“I think you should pick the name, then.” 

“You have more experience right? I know they come with names, but…” 

“So I’ve never really named a dog either.” 

“Sensei, I’m probably gonna pick something lame.” 

“If you do, I’ll give you feedback! It’s my job, after all, as your mentor.” 

Sakura rolls her eyes, yawning. “Fine. Your funeral, sensei. And that poor dog’s.” 

He turns to look at her. “On the contrary, Sakura, I think that dog is really lucky.” 

“Huh?” 

“Because a person like you with such a kind heart found him. And now, he can live well. Not just live, but live well.” 

Sakura sprays perfume on herself, counting one spray for her wrists, pulse point, behind her ears, and neck. Kakashi-sensei’s probably going to think she’s vain, but he already thinks that, so it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that the perfume hides the smell of cigarette smoke that’s doubtlessly sticking to her. He might smell the smoke on her – the man has the nose of a hound – but what’s important is that she fools him into thinking that she wasn’t the one who was smoking. 

“Don’t forget your hair,” Tenten advises, putting out her own cigarette stub on the ground. Shikamaru crushes it with his foot. “It sticks most there. Trust me, after having Guy-sensei literally sniff me to test once, I learnt the hard way.” 

“Good point, thanks.” Sakura spritzes a couple sprays into her hair and fluffs up the bob again. 

“I don’t think Asuma knows I smoke,” Shikamaru says. 

“Ironic, since you probably got the idea from him.” 

“Hey, you do it too.” 

“Because you asked me if I wanted a drag!” 

“Well,” Shikamaru flicks a lighter on and off. “In my defence, you looked like you needed it.” 

“I did, so thank you for offering, I guess.” Sakura puts the small tube of perfume safely in her pocket, but decides against it and shoves it in her bag. “God, we’re way too young to smoke.” 

“We’re all gonna die young anyways. It’s part of the lifestyle.” Tenten remarks. “And if that means less time spent with Lee and Guy-sensei, I’ll take what I can get.” 

“At least you have a team,” Sakura responds, pulling on her jacket. 

“Fair enough,” 

“I’m just stuck with the older nurses. And Tsunade-sama, most of the time. I appreciate her, but when she gets really drunk, she starts talking about boys.” 

“At least you have your hospital crush?” 

“He’s gay,” Sakura says despondently. “I think he has more than platonic feelings for his best friend.” She says the last two words with air quotes. “And he hasn’t realised it.” 

“Every guy you like is gay.” Shikamaru says. “And always in the same way. Maybe it’s you, you know. This is why you shouldn’t waste your time on things like this. So troublesome.” 

“Don’t remind me,” Sakura says darkly. She should have clocked Sasuke earlier, but she was too infatuated to notice he was equally obsessed with Naruto in his own weird way as Naruto was obsessed with him. “Anyways, I’m off to see Noodle.” 

“I still can’t believe you guys named him Noodle. ” Shikamaru said. “Not when the Inuzukas have a whole book of names at the ready.”

“Unfortunately, it was the only word he responded to, other than ‘walk’. And ‘food’. And I think it's cute!” 

“It kind of is? But more for like…a cat, maybe?” Tenten says. “I bet Kakashi hates it.” 

“Whatever,” Sakura says. “He said I could name him, and I warned him he’d regret it. Anyways. I’m off! I’ll see you guys next time.” 

Shikamaru raises one hand in goodbye while Tenten beams, and then Sakura’s off. Smoking together was something just the three of them did from time to time. It had all started when Sakura, after a particularly Bad Mental Health Day and a brutal training session with Shishou, had seen Shikamaru smoking by the river and decided to, instead of chastise him, ask to join him. Tenten joined them a couple weeks later because she wanted to ‘see what it was like’, and it became a semi-regular thing. Sakura never bought a pack for herself, never smoked alone, and tried not to smoke more than once every two weeks. The nicotine just eased things, when the stress of continually trying to get better and the loneliness overwhelmed her. And she’d made two friends in the process, so who was she to complain? 

She knows it’s bad. As a medic-nin in training, she knows. But life gets hard sometimes. She’s allowed this. She thinks. 

Entering Kakashi-sensei’s massive apartment complex, she made her way to his penthouse and stepped in as the wards let her through. Before they found Noodle, she’d only been to this place once, after a mission in the early days of Team 7 had left them so fatigued and chakra-exhausted that they’d all collapsed as soon as they re-entered the village. Kakashi-sensei had put them all in a large shopping cart and strolled them here, placing the three of them on his king-sized guest bed to sleep the tiredness off. When they’d woken up in the morning, the four of them had made a haphazard breakfast of eggs and rice, eating together at the dining table. 

Sakura smiles at the memory, neatly placing her shoes and bag in the genkan. A delighted bark comes from in the apartment, followed up by Noodle trying to walk towards her as fast as his little legs allow him to. 

“Whoa, slow down, baby!” Sakura says, picking him up and cradling him in her arms. “I’m right here. Right here, with you.” He’s still so light. It’s been two and a half weeks since Noodle had come back, and he was still on the path of recovery. It had taken him three days to become fully comfortable around Kakashi-sensei, and even longer for him to come around to her. But ever since he’d decided she was safe, he loved hanging out with her, and Sakura couldn't be happier about it. 

“What do you wanna do today, huh?” Sakura asks him, patting the soft fur in between his ears. “Do you want to do medical research with me?” 

“Woof,” Noodle replies. 

“I know, it’s so fun. We can learn all about skin abrasions…” 

She puts out a blanket on the couch – even though Kakashi-sensei insists that he’s ok with fur shedding – and settles on the couch with Noodle to get some work done. She makes a face at the Icha-Icha Paradise novel she sees lying on the table. She and the boys used to be tempted to see what the books were about, but now she’s sure she doesn’t want to know what kind of porn her ex-sensei is reading. Ugh . 

Noodle and her are halfway through the second chapter when she hears the door open and Kakashi-sensei’s voice. 

“Sakura, I’m home!” 

“Ah, hello sensei,” she says. “I think Noodle needs his milk and food in half an hour.” She underlines another important part, and when she looks up, he’s walking into the living room. She can see when he smells her perfume, his nose wrinkling just so. Sakura smiles to herself. Good. If her perfume was cloying enough that it discouraged him from investigating further, then she was safe. 

“Studying?” he asks, peeking over her shoulder. He picks Noodle off the couch to give him a head pat before the dog exerts himself making his way to Kakashi-sensei.

“Yeah.” 

He sets Noodle back down. “I never envied medic-nin trainees. Good luck.” He ruffles her hair absentmindedly and she resists the urge to smile at the kind gesture, instead choosing to school her features into a newly practiced neutrality. “Have you eaten?” 

“Before I got here, sensei.” 

“Good, good.” 

She tries to focus only on her notes, but she can hear the sound of him placing a pot on the stove and sloshing water in it. 

“Do you want tea?” he calls out. 

She does not want to impose. “No thank you, sensei. I’m alright!” 

“Maa, are you sure?” 

“Yep!” 

He settles on another couch across from her, setting a cup of tea down. Sakura would bet her next mission’s salary that he’s not going to touch it before it gets cold. 

“How’s the dog?” 

“So you do hate the name!” 

“I think we could have gone with something more innovative, Sakura, I don’t hate it.” 

“It’s the only thing he responds to, sensei, and I think it’s nice.” Sakura shuts her book. “I did warn you, I’m not very good at the whole naming thing.” 

“Noodle? Not even noodles plural?” Noodle looks up at the sound of his name, tongue wagging happily. 

“See? Case in point, he responds to Noodle.” 

Kakashi-sensei looks at the dog. “I think Dumpling would have suited you more. Why couldn’t you have liked dumplings, huh?” 

Noodle puts his head on his front paws and goes to sleep. 

“I don’t think he likes talking to me.” Kakashi-sensei says. 

“That’s a personal problem,” Sakura mutters under her breath, before realising she’s said it out loud. “Shit. Uh. I was joking! Didn’t mean to say that.” 

But Kakashi-sensei looks amused instead of offended. “Where was this side of you back when you were twelve?” 

Sakura sighs. Might as well be honest, right? “I thought Sasuke would like a well mannered girl. I was a stupid kid, I know.” 

Kakashi-sensei shakes his head. “You were twelve, Sakura.” 

“Weren’t you like, Kage-level at twelve?” 

He exhales a small chuckle. “I don’t count. I’m not what you should be comparing yourself to. And especially not on the emotional front.” 

Of course he doesn’t count. Apparently neither do Sasuke or Naruto, yet those are the kinds of people Sakura’s surrounded by all the time. It is a reaching, stupid comparison to make, she knows, but she makes it anyway. 

“What’s that?” he asks suddenly. 

“Huh?” 

“That expression that you made just now. Sometimes I say something and you just…shutter up. You just did it.” Since when did the man get this perceptive? Not knowing what to do, Sakura feigns ignorance. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sensei.” 

“Hm,” he says, in a tone that doesn’t sound convinced in the least. 

Around thirty minutes pass in comfortable silence, both Sakura and Kakashi-sensei reading their books (a medical textbook and that ridiculous Icha-Icha respectively) before Noodle wakes up and starts being fussy. He’s a very expressive dog, and unfortunately some of that expression is sometimes physical. At first he nudges Sakura’s thigh over and over, and when that doesn’t gain her full attention he starts gnawing on her shirt and his blanket. 

“Noodle, what’s wrong?” She asks, her mind still stuck on the process of healing burns.”Are you hungry?” 

“I think he just might be.” Kakashi-sensei swings up from the couch. “I’ve got this, Sakura, don’t disturb your studies.” 

“Thanks, sensei.” 

He walks around to the larger couch where Sakura and Noodle are sitting to pick up the dog, but pauses. “Sakura-chan, don’t hang around people who smoke, ok?” 

Sakura freezes, her breathing automatically becoming a little more difficult. You’re not caught yet, don’t freak out. “Alright, sensei.” She looks up at him and shrugs. “All sorts of people hang out near the hospital. Waiting for loved ones is stressful, you know.” 

Kakashi-sensei shakes his head. “As long as Tsunade isn’t passing on her drinking habit to you…” 

She exhales in relief when he finally walks away. That was close, she tells herself. Alright: new rule. Never smoke before coming to Kakashi-sensei’s place. That dog-nose of his is too keen to be underestimated, even with the perfume. I mean, I anticipated him smelling it on me anyways, but still! 

But when she shakes herself out of it and attempts to reorient herself, her focus is already broken. Somewhere behind her, she can hear Kakashi-sensei hum and talk to Noodle as he sets out some milk and rice with chicken. 

“Make sure to mush it enough, sensei!” she calls out. 

“Yes, yes,” 

Sensei walks back to the couch a few minutes later with a dog bowl filled with small, digestible amounts of rice and chicken and sets it down for a very eager Noodle, and the three of them continue to exist in comfortable companionship. Sakura watches Noodle as he eats happily. He goes so fast that Kakashi-sensei has to take the bowl away from time to time to ensure he doesn’t eat so fast he chokes or throws up. Sakura is just happy he’s healing well. 

“I received a letter from Naruto a couple days ago,” Kakashi-sensei finally breaks the silence. “Has he been writing to you as well?” 

Sakura looks up from her textbook, glad for a distraction. “Yes, actually. His handwriting is as abysmal as ever, isn’t it?” 

“Absolutely awful.” Kakashi-sensei shudders. “To be completely honest, I couldn’t make out half of it, but I’m happy he wrote anyway.” 

“A lot of my letter was just him begging me to ask Shishou for blackmail material on Jiraiya-sama. And the rest was a long list of bathhouses they visited and the kinds of noodles they ate.” She shakes her head, but she can feel herself smiling. “Typical Naruto.”

Sensei raises his eyebrows. “Are you going to oblige? Regarding the blackmail, I mean.”

Sakura shrugs. “If I’m bored, then maybe. Why not? One non-ninja-related perk of being Tsunade-sama’s apprentice is gossip, after all. I think she’d be fabulous in intelligence.”

“Oh god. I hope she hasn’t told you awful things about me.” 

Sakura wriggles her eyebrows. “If she did, I’d never tell. Unlike some people ” 

Sensei sighs, leaning back. “Ah, I suppose you were always the most intelligent one on the team.” 

As if. “Ha, ha, ha, sensei.” Sakura decides it's a great time to restart her studying. Your jokes remain awful.” 

But sensei looks at her, his visible eyebrow crinkling as if he was confused. “Why do you think that’s a joke?” 

Is this some sort of trick question? What’s she supposed to say? That she knows she’s Sensei’s least favourite student and has been all along? That she knows he just taught her because she was there and refused to leave? “Uh.” 

“Well?” 

Sakura looks pointedly at Noodle, wishing this conversation never started. She never should have made that stupid joke about Naruto’s well known lack of secrecy. “I was so immature back then, Sensei. And I was such a fangirl. Yuck.” 

“As your Sensei, I observed that you were the one who followed my instructions at the times when it was most essential that they be followed, such as on missions and the like. And you were the one who put in most effort to work together as a team, whereas both Naruto and Sasuke preferred to spend their time trying to outdo one another when neither of them were very good in the first place. I think your ranking is well deserved.” 

“Oh.” 

Sensei puts down his book. “Why does this seem to be surprising you?” 

Sakura purses her lips. “I always thought Sasuke was your favourite.” 

“I took a special interest in Sasuke due to…obvious reasons. But I never had a favourite.” 

Well, you definitely had a least favourite, that’s for sure. And you’re definitely lying about having a favourite. 

“There you go again!” Sensei is looking her right in the eyes. “Sometimes I say something and you get this faraway look in your eyes. Like you stop being present with me.” 

Sakura tries to smile lightheartedly but she’s sure that it must come out tight and forced. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sensei. I’m right here.” 

“Hm,” Sensei says, but it takes a few seconds for him to look away from her this time. “If you say so.” 

Sakura is lounging on the banks of the Naka River, the latest edition of her favourite romance series in her hand and Ino next to her. It’s a spectacularly breezy afternoon, and the two of them have decided to spend their rare Sunday off lounging by the waterfront and reading.

Sakura feels pleasantly full from the lunch they’d both had at her parents house a little earlier. Stretching sleepily, she curls up a bit more into her side of the bench, contemplating asking Ino if she wanted to do a grocery run and pick up some dango to share. Now that she doesn’t have to interact with her grandmother every other day a second helping of dessert won’t kill her, right? 

“Oi. Sakura,” Ino nudges her with her foot. “Which part are you on?” She’s holding another copy of the same book Sakura’s reading. It’s the third installment of a very long and very cliched romance series about a ninja and a kunoichi living in enemy villages and all the obstacles that stand in the way of their true love. Said obstacles include: continuous fighting between their villages, an assortment of second-lead love interests for both of them, a generational curse on the ninja, the kunoichi’s controlling family, and a variety of other comical happenings. Every time it seems like the two can be together, something ridiculous happens, forcing them apart again. The books just keep coming out; the lady at the bookstore had told them she was unsure the series would ever end. Safe to say, Sakura and Ino are obsessed . 

“Uh…” Sakura looks up from her page. “After Emi-chan is stabbed by her ex-fiance.” 

“Oh.” Ino’s face scrunches up. “Get to the next chapter. You won’t believe who makes an appearance.” 

“Who?” 

“I’m not gonna spoil it for you, Forehead.” 

Sakura scowls. “I’m literally almost there, Ino-pig. Just tell me.” 

Ino smiles. “It’s Suguru-kun!” 

“Oh my god, he’s so hot.” 

“I know right!!!” 

Suguru-kun is the second male lead of the moment, with black eyes and black hair and broad shoulders, and a pretty face to boot. Sakura and Ino are convinced he’d make a much better boyfriend to Emi-chan as compared to the actual protagonist of the series, Haruto. Suguru-kun is tall and mysterious and ever so slightly morally grey, whereas Haruto is getting seriously predictable, and is described as the most generic looking guy! 

“Wait,” Sakura straightens up. “Don’t tell me Suguru-kun’s the one who rescues her.” 

Ino nods. “Haruto’s so useless in this book!” 

Sakura swigs some water from her bottle and nods earnestly. “He couldn’t even defend himself when Emi-chan’s family accused him of stealing their ancestral sword even though it was clearly the ex-fiance.” 

“He’d better redeem himself in the rest of the book or my priorities are going to shift permanently to Suguru-kun…” 

“Ino-pig! Suguru-kun is already mine, pick another favourite!” 

Ino glares at her. “When did you call dibs on him? He’d like me better anyways!” 

“Oh please. You complain about everything and only nag your team to go on missions regularly when the pay is good. Suguru-kun will like me for my integrity.” 

Ino scoffs. “He likes blue eyes, remember?” 

“But green eyes are rarer and more coveted, loser.” 

Neither of them mention that Suguru-kun is very much fictional, and hence incapable of choosing between them at all. Sakura doesn’t care though. This is so much better than fighting over Sasuke like they used to. She still can’t believe that she got so stupid over a boy that she stopped talking to Ino! Ino, her very best friend! Her sister from another mother! 

“Sasuke actually kind of sucked, you know?” Sakura had told Ino at the hospital the day after Sasuke defected. 

“Well, he’s certainly a traitor now…” Ino had replied, looking like she wanted to agree with Sakura, but was still torn over wanting to portray herself as Sasuke’s perfect girl. 

“He was actually mean to me long before that. He never used to listen to what I had to say, and constantly insulted me, like in training and even on missions. Like, in front of Naruto and Kakashi-sensei”

“What? He made fun of you?” 

Sakura had nodded miserably. “It was like being bullied all over again. Not to mention he just left me lying in the middle of the road when he defected…” 

Ino had looked indignant then. “What the hell? Why didn’t you stop him bullying you? And I can’t believe he just left you there! What if there’d been some awful guy who just—”  

Sakura had shuddered. “Don’t. I don’t want to think about what could have happened. And, I…I thought he’d like me more if I improved and changed for him. I think it was only when he finally left that I realised that he was never going to like me, and he was actually making me like myself less. I don’t want to like someone like that. I want to date someone who actually likes me.” 

“Wow.” Ino had scratched her head delicately. “That’s like…the opposite of what a crush is supposed to make you feel.” 

“Yeah. He’s not good enough for you either, Ino. You’re pretty and smart and talented. You deserve a lot better than a mean, lonely, bitter guy, you know?” 

“Well, I’m not going to like any guy who’s mean to my best friend,” Ino had declared. “My crush is so over. Screw him, and screw our stupid rivalry!”

“For real?” 

“Of course! We were friends first, idiot.” 

And just like that, they fell back into their friendship like they had never left it in the first place. Sakura had forgotten how much she missed her best friend while they’d been dedicated to their stupid rivalry. Ino was fun, and so much more interesting than everyone else, and they were both into the same weird things, and Ino just got her. Both of their parents respectively were overjoyed that they were talking again, especially since both girls were on otherwise all-boy teams, and you usually ended up hanging out with your teammates more often than not. That’s how Ino had ended up at Sakura’s parents’ place for a Sunday lunch. 

Sakura’s mama had cooed over Ino, making it obvious that they’d never stopped welcoming her into their house while she and Sakura had been fighting. 

“Why don’t you and Sakura ask to do missions together?” Sakura’s papa had asked. “I mean, you girls get along well. You’d probably do great together!” 

“That’s not how it works, papa.” 

“But if you make a request–” 

“Haruno-san,” Ino had said, “At the moment, our abilities don’t really suit each other well on a mission, unless we’re assigned to a chunin or jounin who has the skill to utilise our strengths together. Plus, Sakura’s been training with Tsunade-sama, and I just finished a short internship at T&I, so we haven’t had time to work or train together, really.” 

Sakura’s dad had looked a little consoled by that, but he still wasn’t completely satisfied. “I just think our Sakura deserves a better team than what she was assigned last time, right? The Uchicha traitor and the Uzumaki kid. And that incompetent sensei who never taught her. What’s his name? Kakahin?” 

“Kakashi-sensei, papa.” Sakura had said, wincing. “And I told you, we’re getting along a lot better now!” 

Her mama had humphed. “I still don’t like him very much. Sakura, you bring that little dog over sometime and we’ll take him out for a nice long walk near the lake, alright?” 

Sakura had smiled, extremely glad for the change in topic. “Ok, mama. That sounds great!” 

“Hey, Ino.” Sakura says, remembering her friend’s internship. “How are you feeling? Like, after your internship at T&I.” 

Ino, due to the nature of her abilities, often struggles with anxiety and the occasional bouts of depression. Sakura supposes it can’t be easy, looking into people’s chakra signatures and minds so often, and then transmitting that information to others. How many bad things has Ino seen against her will, when she searches for information? How many chakra signatures make her ill due to their evil nature? 

Ino looks down back at her book, her feet kicking in the air. “Why’d you suddenly turn so serious?” 

“No reason,” Sakura says, putting a bookmark down and shutting her book. “I was just thinking about lunch at home today.” 

“Ah,”

“Yeah. Do you…is it bad that I asked about it? Do you…do you not wanna talk about it?” 

“No, it’s fine, I mean…I don’t really wanna talk about it, but I suppose…if I were to talk about it then I’d come to you, you know?” 

Sakura smiles at her. “I’m glad I’m still someone you trust.” 

Ino kicks at a pebble on the ground absentmindedly. “I mean, I knew that I kind of wasn’t ready for this internship, you know? Even though I didn’t really do much myself, it was mostly observing interrogations of B and C ranked enemy nin, and a few A-ranked. And helping write reports. Lots of reports.” 

“Did you get to practice chakra sensing?” Sakura asks. 

Ino nods. “On all of them. Just to see. But…I figured it wouldn’t be too hard, you know? Just something to train while Asuma finishes his mission. But I don’t know, Sakura. Most Yamanaka clanspeople who are Shinobi work at T&I. But I’m the only one unable to face the consequences. And I’m the heiress. ” 

“Hey,” Sakura grabs Ino’s hand, clutching it within hers. “You’re not an idiot,” she says, repeating what Tsunade-sama had said to her numerous times. “You’re fifteen years old, Ino. I’m sure those adults you’re comparing yourself to have literal decades on you. Years to get used to the effect the exposure will have on them.” 

“But this is our thing, Sakura. It’s what we do! And I already suck at it!” 

Sakura hates when Ino gets like this. She’s used to the confident, self-assured Ino who knew who she was and what she wanted. But she’s reminded – more often, as they grow up –  that no one is truly as confident as they portray themselves to be. And what else can she do but support them as they face their fears? 

Sakura thinks for a second, wanting her response to actually be meaningful and helpful instead of verbal drivel meant to console. “Ino, have you spoken to your papa about this?’ 

Ino looks up at her, confused. “My dad? Why would I do that?” 

“He might be able to help you. If anyone believes in discussing mental health, it would be him. Why haven’t you?” 

Ino looks down at her book again. “What’s he gonna think, when he finds out his only child is a loser?” 

“Ino!” 

“What, Forehead?” 

Sakura scoots a little close to Ino, ensuring the other girl is looking at her. “Listen. Nothing I say about the situation is gonna be valid, because I’m not a Yamanaka and I don’t…encounter those kinds of situations every day. But if there’s anything I’ve learnt from Tsunade-sama, it's that no one is born with legendary skills or tolerance. There’s only potential. I’m so sure there’ll be at least someone else who would understand what you’re going through. Please go talk to them? Keeping it in only makes it worse, Ino. You were the one who told me that I was too scared to complain to Mizuki when I was getting bullied.”

Ino sniffs, some of her composure returning. “Well. Now we know that Mizuki probably would have bullied you too.”

“You’re skipping my entire point.”

“Right.” Ino straightens up. “Um. I have an objection.” 

Sakura waves her hand. “By all means.” 

“Dad is going to think I’m such a loser, and then he won’t give me any responsibilities because he thinks I’ll be a bad clan head, and then–” 

“Ino, for God’s sake.” 

“How are you so sure he won’t judge me?” 

Sakura tries to make her facial expression as convincing as possible, because Ino’s situation sounds extremely relatable and real, and Sakura is very sure she’d be saying the same thing in Ino’s position. But she wants to do whatever she can to help her friend, and she knows Inoichi-san, and he would never make fun of his daughter like that. That has to be enough, right? 

“It’s better than not trying at all, Ino.” 

There’s a long pause. Then: “I suppose you have a point, stupid.” 

“I do, don’t I? You’ll really talk to him?” 

“I’ll think about it.” Which, from someone as stubborn as Ino, is as good as an affirmative. A success! 

“But don’t think I’ll be taking lots of advice about saying what you really feel or approaching adult figures from you, Forehead.” 

“Huh?” 

“I’m talking about Kakashi. Suddenly he wants to hang out with you again after you started training with the Hokage and everyone discovered how cool and powerful you actually are?” 

“...What?” Sakura had never thought about it that way. “I never thought about it that way…I mean, we found Noodle, and that’s how we started talking again…”

“Sakura,” Ino says. “He didn’t give two shits about you when you were on Team 7.” 

I’m still on Team 7, Sakura wants to object . And also, ouch. True, but ouch. 

“You told me how he always pushed you aside in front of Naruto and Sasuke. And now that you’ve started training with Tsunade-sama and are building your strength and becoming a damn good medic, he wants to start hanging out again?” If Ino didn’t actually look so sincere and genuinely concerned about her, Sakura would actually question if Ino wanted to plant the seeds of self-doubt in her. 

But Ino is still talking. “The way I see it, he just wants to train a prodigious student. It was Sasuke at the beginning, but then he lost Naruto after Sasuke left, and now, you’re the last option. I’ve mapped out the motivations of so many weird ninjas, Sakura. It’s all about legacy for half of them. They either want to be remembered for their deeds, or how their deeds influenced the next legend.” 

“But–” 

Ino raises her hand. “I think you should just tell him to fuck off. Or like, ask him why he’s so interested in talking to you again after months of silence. Just like you asked me to talk to my dad. Sorry for using the F word.” 

“But Ino, he’s not even training me!” Even saying it stings, but it’s the only thing that defends her side. “Like. We just play with Noodle and sensei’s pack of ninken, and get food sometimes. Oh! And we take Noodle on long walks. Short ones at first to get him used to being outside again, but then they got long. I started joining his jogs with Gai-sensei and Lee, but that’s about the extent of it. Wouldn’t he actually be training me, if he wants to leave a legacy or whatever?” 

Ino looks confused. “He’s not training you? Maybe…maybe he’s warming up to asking you. I still don’t trust him. I don’t know why Asuma is such good friends with him. And he reads porn in public!” 

Those stupid Icha-Icha books had become so intrinsically linked with Kakashi-sensei that Sakura had stopped considering them porn. Even though they were porn. Highly explicit porn. Gross. 

Sakura looks down, feeling ashamed, suddenly. “I don’t know. I guess it never occurred to me because I kind of liked spending time with him. It reminds me of the time in Team 7, when the four of us used to lounge around between training, and Naruto would ask us all to get dinner, and then dessert, and then we’d all be roped into a singalong night.” Sakura doesn’t even realise she’s smiling until she can feel her cheeks hurting slightly. 

It’s so pathetic to say this, but I’ve started to see Kakashi-sensei as…a father figure of some sort. My own papa doesn’t understand life as a ninja, so Kakashi-sensei’s started to fill some of those gaps for her. Life as a ninja is hard, and often cutthroat, and the feeling of safety and reassurance I used to get when Kakashi-sensei ruffled my hair or smiled until his eyes turned into crescents and told me that he had my back always is something i seek out unconsciously. 

Shishou is a great teacher, but she’s often harsh and unyielding. I admire her for sure, but there was a softness underneath her first ever teacher that I miss. Deeply.  

“Hey,” Ino taps her on the shoulder, and she realises she’s zoned out staring at the river. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just…want to look out for you the way you look out for me. I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Sakura says, and she means it. The days where she and Ino would try to pull each other down are over. “I’d like to believe he isn’t like that, but I’ll keep what you’re saying in mind, ok?” And then she gets an idea. “I’ll keep it in mind, as long as you promise me you’ll talk to your father.” 

“Ugh.” Ino makes a face. “I thought we were talking about your problems now.” 

“We both have problems.” 

“But I thought we were paying attention to yours now.” 

“Yours are more urgent.” 

“Whatever,” Ino rolls her eyes. “I’ll talk to dad. Satisfied?” 

Sakura smiles. “Very.”

“You just…keep what I said in mind, ok? I don’t want you to get picked on even in adulthood. That’s so troublesome.” 

“Shikamaru’s starting to rub off on you, I see.”

Ino makes a face of pure disgust. “Please. Yuck. I’ll wash my mouth out with soap before I start to permanently sound like that guy. Sakura, the next time I say ‘troublesome’, please punch me with your newfound strength, ok?” 

“Done,” Sakura laughs. 

“I think the idiot is picking up on Asuma’s smoking habit too,” Ino says darkly. “He’s very good at covering it up so I don’t have any evidence to shove in his face, only suspicion, but when I finally catch him…” 

“Ahahahaha, I’m sure he’s not, Ino…” Sakura is suddenly very interested in how the water laps at the banks of the river. Waves are fascinating! So are the clouds and birds! “You might be overthinking it.” 

“Do not, ” Ino whips to face her. “Say that to me. Now you sound like him. If he wasn’t actually a genius, he’d actually be the dumbest guy on earth. Actually, he probably is. He has the emotional intelligence of a used tea strainer.” 

“Ouch. Why’s the tea strainer used? Why can’t he be a brand new tea strainer?” 

“It's what he deserves for making me pay for Choji’s post-mission meal at Yakiniku-Q.” Ino says venomously. “I swear to god, I’m never going to another post-mission meal with my stupid team ever again. Asuma’s such a spendthrift, and I’m sure he’s loaded too, which makes it so much worse. Isn’t the sensei supposed to pay for his students? What’s he even saving up for? More cigarettes? Or roses, for Kurenai? Both are useless. Kurenai likes lilies better, she says so every time she visits the shop.” 

Sakura laughs at Ino’s mini rant about all the ways her team has annoyed her recently, and desperately misses Team 7. 

What would we have looked at if we’d made it this far? Would we be taking the occasional mission with Kakashi-sensei? Would Sasuke and I be arguing over who pays for Naruto’s post-mission meal because Kakashi-sensei’s also a spendthrift? 

She pushes those thoughts out of her head. What cannot happen doesn’t matter. Even if, through some miracle, Sasuke came back to the village, Team 7 the way she remembers it would never be the same and it was useless to waste tears on it. 

So Sakura wills the tears away, puts on an engaged smile, and enjoys the rest of an enjoyable afternoon with her best friend. 

Two weeks later, Sakura is with Tenten and Shikamaru at their usual spot, taking a well-deserved 6 o clock smoke break after a gruelling early morning sparring session with Shishou and an equally awful shift in the hospital. She’s begun to really look forward to these little hangouts. She wishes Ino joined them sometimes, but Ino would definitely try to pummel all three of them into the ground if she ever found out they smoked. 

“...and then Guy-sensei and Lee decide it’s the right time to have a hand-stand running race.” Tenten seems genuinely distressed. “In the middle of Earth country, where Leaf-nin are infamously hated. Apparently it was something about ‘Maintaining the Great Spirit of Healthy Competition for Personal Growth’ even in tough times.” 

Shikamaru stifles a laugh, ashing his cigarette into the empty soda can they’ve carefully balanced in the middle of their little huddle.

Sakura’s cigarette goes out, and she nudges Shikamaru for a light, which he obliges. She takes a drag, and feels the nicotine kick in. She exhales, happy.

“Don’t you dare laugh. I would have done the Earth-nin a favour and killed them myself if Neji hadn’t intervened–hey, is that a dog? Wearing a little ninja headband?” 

Sakura’s first thought is that Noodle has somehow escaped Kakashi-sensei’s apartment and has followed her through hazardous territory all the way here, but when she turns to face what Tenten is pointing at, it’s not Noodle’s little black body she sees. Instead, it's a small dog the colour of a biscuit that she immediately recognises as one of Kakashi-sensei’s ninken summons. 

“Bisuke?” 

“That’s me.” The little dog looks grim.

“He talks?” Tenten exclaims. Shikamaru raises his eyebrows and looks at Sakura questioningly. 

Bisuke ignores them.  “Hello, Sakura-san. The boss told me to tell you to feed Noodle. He’s not going to be back until late tonight.” 

“Is he alright?” She and Tenten ask at the same time. 

“Yes,” Bisuke says. “He’s alive. He’s on his way back.” 

Oh fuck. 

“Bisuke,” she starts, but something tells her to stop inquiring in front of people who Sensei doesn’t know that well.  

“Just feed Noodle. He’s making his way back.” He seems to decide he’s said enough and waits expectantly for her to move, glaring at all the cigarettes in view. The three of them immediately begin ashing their cigarettes and Sakura is quick to shove her wallet back in her book satchel. 

“I’m gonna go feed Noodle.” She says to the others. “I’ll catch you guys later?” 

Shikamaru mimics a yessir and Tenten blows her a kiss, still sneaking unsubtle glances at the talking dog. Sakura runs towards Sensei’s apartment, Bisuke beside her, her thoughts racing. As much as Kakashi-sensei was a genius, he had absolutely no self-preservation skills when it came to his own well-being. 

“Bisuke,” she asks. “I assume Sensei isn’t doing well, judging by your expression. Or that his mission went awry. Why is he using his chakra reserves to summon you?” 

Bisuke sighs. “I’m not the one in the pack who questions his stupid decisions. His mission went awry, and he’s been compromised. He wanted the dog fed. I’ll go back as soon as you reach his apartment."

Sakura sighs. She couldn’t help but worry as she ran, hopping on the tallest buildings in the village to make her way easier. “You can head back now. I’ve got it. We need to ensure that Sensei has enough strength to return. Does he have backup?” 

“He insists he doesn’t need it.” 

“Of course he does.” 

Sakura stops abruptly in front of Sensei’s apartment building, almost missing it in her haste to get there. True to his word. Bisuke disappears as soon as she walks into the building. Sakura pulls out the spare set of keys she’d been handed the week after they’d found Noodle and lets herself in. Sensei’s apartment is bare as always, and empty but for the noise of Noodle’s little footsteps as he tries to run to her eagerly. 

“Hello, my love,” she coos. “Hungry?” 

He pants up at her, tail wagging and mouth already trying to bite her shirt. 

“Yes, you are. You’re hungry, aren’t you, my love? Come on, I’ll get you some dinner.”

Noodle crowds her space excitedly as she methodically mixes rice, milk, and chicken. She sprinkles in some multivitamin powder as per the vet’s instructions. She works efficiently, but her mind is occupied. She can technically leave after she feeds Noodle - she’s been looking forward to collapsing in her bed since she woke up - but something holds her back. She can’t bring herself to leave when Bisuke had told her Sensei was in trouble. Thinking of it, the ninken needn’t have even stayed until she reached Sensei’s apartment. She’s sure that he knows that she knows how to make her way there without running into trouble. And all this for a regular dog feeding request? 

“Woof,” Noodle says, making himself known. 

“I’m almost done, baby.” 

Adding a little water to make the mixture a little more digestible, Sakura sets his bowl down in his usual feeding spot, and the little guy is lapping it up in an instant. She uses his distraction to re-fill his water bowl. 

The more she thinks about it, the more she’s sure Bisuke lied about being instructed to stay until she reached Sensei’s apartment. He probably wanted to warn her about Sensei’s condition away from prying ears. He hadn’t said too much, but Sakura had spotted the worry in his eyes. So Sakura, after putting down Noodle’s water, decides to remain in Sensei’s apartment and wait for him to return home. She felt a little uncomfortable spending so much time in his apartment recently, but it didn’t matter if the man himself wasn’t around for most of it, right? She certainly doesn’t try to seek out his company, even though he’s been a lot nicer to her lately than he ever has, and she’s not going to fool herself into thinking he actually likes hanging out with her. And most of all. she couldn’t just leave him to come home, possibly injured while she spent the rest of her evening comfortable in bed with a romance book. It wouldn’t be right. 

Three hours later, Sakura is still sitting on his couch. Noodle lies curled up in her lap, and she uses his back as a convenient book rest as she uses the waiting time to go over some notes regarding the dreaded Burn Wounds chapter. She hated learning how to treat burn wounds; Tsunade-sama had always said Sakura was much more adept at handling poison extractions. And Sakura found it more intellectually stimulating to treat poisons, as perverse as it sounded. It was fascinating, studying poisons and figuring out the chemistry that it was made up of and in turn, the chemistry that would undo it. When she told Shishou this, the woman had simply laughed and said that all medical-nin had a field they found interesting in ways that were not always completely moral. What makes the difference, she’d explained soberly, is whether you use that interest to hurt others to expand your knowledge. The second you perform that evil deed, you are lost. Do you understand?  Sakura remembered nodding seriously, internalising what she said. It was obvious who Tsunade-sama was using as a silent example.

Sakura glanced at the clock once more and sighed. While she was mildly annoyed that she was spending her evening waiting for someone who might have the good sense to spend the night in hospital, her limited knowledge of her ex-jounin sensei told her he might not bother with one, or might not even have made it back to the village yet. So she continued to wait. 

It’s close to midnight (and two mini snack intervals for Sakura and Noodle) when she hears the door to the apartment creak open and someone stumbles in. She immediately recognises the chakra as Sensei’s and shifts into automatic high alert. From the ungainly pattern of his movements, she knows he’s not doing well. 

“Sensei?” She calls tentatively, and then dodges a kunai that would have taken her eye out if not for Tsunade-shishou’s training. Noodle whimpers, immediately hiding behind her. 

Fuck. Focus. He must be really out of it if he can’t recognise your chakra signature. Don’t panic. 

“Sensei, it’s–” Another kunai is hurled her way, and Sakura ducks, picking Noodle up. Feeling slightly dazed, she looks around the room until she spots an empty fruit basket. She dumps Noodle into it and places him on top of a crockery cabinet filled with books, high enough that no kunai would fly towards him if Sensei was targeting someone of Sakura’s height and stature. 

Noodle whimpers, terrified, but she tries to send him a reassuring grin. “Stay,” she tells him. “Don’t move.” He claws at his basket in response, but thankfully doesn’t attempt to get out. 

A third kunai comes flying, and grazes Sakura’s face as she manages to just miss it. She could have dodged it, if she hadn’t spent an extra second looking at Noodle’s scared face. 

“Sensei, it’s Sakura!” she tries yelling, a little desperate. Noodle barks once, twice, thrice. 

Kakashi-sensei comes stumbling into view as he turns the corridor. Oh, for the sake of all things holy. He’s definitely not doing well. 

Loss of coordination, sallow and green-ish tinted skin, and faint bruising around his lips. Sakura’s mind provides her with all the symptoms as she spots them on her Kakashi-sensei. They’re all clear symptoms, she realises with growing horror, of Kusa Doku. 

“It’s a chlorofume toxin.” She remembers Shizune explaining to her. “A signature Grass-nin poison made from toxic flowering plants enhanced by nature chakra. Remember Sakura, it enters via cuts or inhalation and works silently over hours. Effects include internal bleeding in microcapillaries and eventual progressive paralysis. And the worst part is that it destroys the victim’s ability to mold chakra.” 

“So healing is harder, or even impossible?” Sakura had asked. 

“Exactly.” 

If Sakura was recognising the symptoms right, Kakashi-sensei was in serious trouble. He needed immediate medical attention, what was he even doing here? Why didn’t he go to the hospital? 

“Sensei–” she tries again, before he looks up and she meets his visible eye. It’s bloodshot and dilated. 

“Get out,” he says. “Before I kill you.” 

It’s clear he’s already having difficulty moving, as she watches him fumble in his weapons belt for another kunai. But his control and strength is impressive even while incapacitated, and Sakura braces herself to face a side of her Sensei she never had to witness. Knowing she’s nowhere near matching his level yet, Sakura lunges for her satchel just as Sensei lunges at her, tearing her bag open in her haste to open her emergency medical kit and pulling out a tranquiliser. It was the heaviest strength, as her rounds often meant she had to treat psychologically traumatised and unstable shinobi of jounin or ANBU level strength. She just never expected she’d have to use it on Kakashi-sensei. 

Just as he punches her on her cheekbone with a brute force that honestly terrifies her, she stabs his upper arm with the tranquiliser and he abruptly collapses. She maneuvers him into a more comfortable position and takes a step back, assessing the situation. It’s only then that she realises that Noodle has been barking the whole time, a sound that she’d filed away as her own head ringing from panic. The cut on her cheek from the kunai sears with pain, and her face throbs where Sensei had punched it, and Sakura fights back the urge to burst into tears. 

No. He needs medical attention. It doesn’t matter that he tried to attack you. It could even be good that his senses and body are still capable of defensive action! Focus. Shift into medic-mode. You have done this before. You chose to stay back in case he needed your help, and now he does. You can’t afford to mess up now!  

Forcing her emotions into submission, Sakura collects the scattered items in her medical kit and surveys the damage. Up close, Sensei’s skin is sallower than she initially thought, his eyebrows are twitching like he’s experiencing a headache, and the characteristic bruising around his fingertips and lips confirm Sakura’s suspicions: it’s definitely a bad case of Kosa Doku. To make things worse, she can detect asynchronous chakra flow between his heart and his spine which is a telltale sign of nerve disrupting poison. As soon as she confirms this, though, Sakura can feel the emotional, reactive part of her brain turning off and the logical, medically-oriented one kicking in. 

She runs a chakra diagnostic scan first, as Tsunade-sama had taught her to do. His chakra pathways were, as she suspected, blocked and unable to heal the growing damage being done to his nerves and microcapillaries. 

But all of this is just confirming what I already know. This needs healing, and I don’t have an antidote right now. 

What should she do? Try to contact Tsunade-sama or Shizune or a medic-nin? No. There was no time. There was only one thing she could do. Tsunade-shishou had only taught it to her once, with her practicing on a poisoned deer that was found in the forest that morning. 

“An extremely complex way of extracting poison when you don’t have access or time to mix an antidote.” Tsunade-sama had explained. “It requires incredible levels of chakra control. Essentially, you’ll be using your own chakra to pull the toxins out of the victims bloodstream by reversing chakra flow through a node. Do you get it?” 

“A reversal?” Sakura had asked, a little confused. “Wouldn’t that require chakra polarity?” 

Tsunade-sama had ruffled her hair affectionately. “I knew I made the right choice taking you on as an apprentice. For humans, it's easiest to use the chest and the dominant wrist. Minimal incision should do.” 

So that’s what Sakura does. She ignores the way her hands shake at the prospect of attempting a complex chakra technique on a human - her sensei - for the first time. Methodically, makes a small incision on his right wrist, nowhere deep enough to cause real damage. And just like Tsunade-shishou taught her, she places her left hand on his heart chakra node and her right hand on his wrist chakra node and begins slowly extracting the poison out using her chakra to draw the poison out of the incision in his wrist through the node on his chest. Thankfully, the procedure doesn’t require her to remove his mask from his face - only his headband, to check the bruising around his Sharingan eye - which Sakura is relieved not to do. Unconscious or not, it would still feel like a huge violation of his privacy and she refuses to do it unless it is essential to save his life. 

But, the extraction still requires an insane amount of chakra regulation on her part, and it's extremely different from when she performed the extraction on the poisoned deer. There are so many more active chakra pathways, primarily, and hence so many more ways she can cause permanent damage to chakra networks if she allows the poison to travel outside of the route she has crafted for it. But what she’s doing must be working, as she sees a dark green evaporation from just above the wrist incision. Sakura tampers down the passion-fuelled ecstasy she feels at simply having accomplished such a task, and forces herself to maintain and balance the levels and pressure of chakra needed for all the poison to be extracted. 

Once all the poison is finally cleared from his system, she fixes his microcapillaries through channeling the Mystical Palm technique into a microscopial output and targeting the damaged capillaries - a technique that she’s grateful to have accomplished prior. She can feel herself calm down as she knits together more of his vessels and his fingers begin to twitch. The worst is over. She feels her chakra pulse underneath his skin, and realises that the next step would be to use her chakra to re-stabilise his, as there was no way his chakra network could handle healing such an intense disruption on its own.    

It’s just like what I did for Naruto in the Forest of Death, right? Sakura reasons. No need to panic. Just implement it…on a bigger scale. 

She closes her eyes and focuses, using her grasp on Kakashi-sensei’s chakra pathways to align its rhythm with her own. Slowly, she can feel the pulsing of his chakra - previously erratic and frazzled from the poison and healing - even out to resemble her own, as well as his breathing. 

When she deems everything to be normal, Sakura finally extracts her chakra from Sensei’s system, closes the incision on his wrist, and takes another overview of his physicals. His pulse and breathing seem to be normal, and the bruising seems to have cleared up. His skin is still sallow, but the green tinge is gone. His skin is warm, indicating a rising fever, but Sakura knows that’s a side-effect of his body fighting off the last of the toxins. If managed with medicine and cool compresses, it won’t be too serious. Her job is done. 

Sitting back, Sakura looks at the ceiling and begins to cry. 

When Sakura cries herself out, she can hear faint whimpering. Looking up, she sees Noodle trying unsuccessfully to get out of his basket and to her. It manages to shake her out of her haze, and she rushes to free him from his makeshift prison. As soon he realises she’s coming to rescue him, he starts yipping excitedly and bites her hand in joy as she picks him up. 

“Noodle, baby, I’m so sorry.” She holds his little body up to her face and begins to cry again, unable to hold back her tears. He smells faintly of shampoo and dog, and it's exactly what Sakura needs to comfort herself. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. But Sensei wasn’t himself, ok? He was poisoned and he’s getting better now.” Slowly, she makes her way to the switchboard and turns off all the lights so Sensei can sleep better. 

Noodle licks a tear off her face and gingerly puts a paw on her shoulder. Sakura knows it's probably not a gesture of comfort, but chooses to interpret it as one anyway. It makes her feel better to know that she’s not alone, even if it's just a puppy who keeps her company. She places Noodle down gently, and he makes his way to Sensei on the couch. His approach is hesitant at first, but then more confident once he realises Sensei isn’t a threat anymore. When he finally makes his way onto the couch he licks Sensei’s face a few times, tries to nuzzle into his neck, and then attempts to sleep on his chest before Sakura swiftly picks him up. 

“No sleeping on his chest.” She tells the pup. “It’ll stifle his breathing, and that’s not good. Ok?” Still, just in case, she places a hand above his nose to check if he’s breathing through the mask, which he is. Steadily. Thank god. 

Noodle just stares back at her with those big brown eyes of his. Sighing, she picks up his dog bed and puts it down next to the couch. “Is this better?” 

In lieu of an answer, Noodle makes his way to the bed and settles down, sniffing in Sensei’s direction as if making sure he’s still there. When Noodle falls asleep - astonishingly quickly for a dog that might have just experienced the first time its new owner showed hostility towards it after being abandoned by its previous one - Sakura busies herself once more. She refills Noodle’s water bowl, picks up all the kunai that Kakashi-sensei had thrown at her, cleans up the mess by the entryway (a broken vase, fallen table and collapsed coat hanger) and finally comes back into the living room to see how Sensei is doing. 

His fever is still high. God. I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t–

Taking a deep breath, she forces her thoughts into submission and opens the kitchen cabinet she knows contains kitchen towels and paper towels. She wets the whole lot, grabbing some ice from the freezer just in case, and prepares herself for a long night of nursing. She holds the wet towels and wrapped ice to his forehead and armpits in 10 minute intervals as she’s been taught, but the fever continues to grip her Sensei. At some point - she doesn’t know how long it’s been - she crushes some fever reducer into water and opens her mouth himself, forcing him to sip and swallow the whole thing. 

What if he dies from the fever? Then it’ll be my fault. I didn’t do enough to stop it in time, probably. How long is this fever going to last? 

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything substantial since lunch. Sakura didn’t even want to look at the clock, figuring it would be better for her mental state to not know how long past midnight it is. She looks down at Sensei’s drawn face, still not believing that this was Kakashi-sensei. Kakashi-sensei, who handled even the toughest enemy-nin with that cool, nonchalant expression, and made jokes after his victory. The same Kakashi-sensei who reassured them that he’d always have their back on their stupid D-rank and C-rank missions, so no harm would ever come to them. How could this be the same Kakashi-sensei? 

Stupid girl. Of course he’s not invincible. No one is. It’s just that I’ve never seen him like this before. Stop being stupid and childish and immature. I extracted the poison, didn’t I? I just need to stay awake long enough to make sure the fever doesn’t take him instead. I’ve done this a million times. I’m only freaking out because it's Kakashi-sensei. Get yourself together! 

She’s so hungry. She can make out the shadows of the furniture in the dark of the room. She can’t make out Noodle, whose black colour all but camouflages him. She’s so, so hungry. 

It feels like forever before his fever finally breaks. Sakura swears in relief, using words she once heard Tsunade-sama say that Shizune made her promise she’d never repeat. She doesn’t remember much after that, though. 

When Sakura wakes again, she sees sunlight filtering in through the windowpanes, and feels a weight on her chest. For a second, she thinks she’s dying and flails before realising that Noodle is sitting on her chest and trying to lick her face. 

“No,” Sakura says. “Bad Noodle. Get off.” She pushes him off of her, and tries to ignore his eager prodding as she makes sense of her surroundings. 

Right. Sensei’s apartment. 

When she pulls herself up to sit – why is she on the couch? – she’s hit by a wave of extreme dizziness. She tries to blink the lack of sleep out of her eyes and squints, looking for the clock. It’s 8:30 in the morning, which means she’s missed her morning training with Shishou. She sighs, supposing it was better to miss it than show up in the state she’s in, especially after the night she’s had. 

And then it hits her all at once: waiting for Sensei to return, Sensei attacking her, the poison extraction technique she’d had to go for the first time on a patient she knew, the wait for the fever to break. Immediately, Sakura looks around the apartment from the bad vantage point she has, trying to find him and trying to ignore the now-familiar wave of panic that hits her. If she’s on the couch, where is he? Had he put her there? Did that mean he was feeling better? Sakura tries to sit up, but a wave of dizziness hits her so hard that she hits her head on the handrest of the sofa in her haste to get back down. Her whole face throbs in response, and she remembers Sensei clocking her in the face, and the kunai that grazed her cheek. 

Not good. This is not good. I can’t miss training with Shishou! No. Wait. First things first. Where the fuck is Sensei? Focus. Move slowly, get up, and look for him. He might have collapsed somewhere. Or maybe he’s better? I still have to check up on him. And then maybe have a ration bar. Or five. 

Sakura tries sitting up again, slowly this time. Her head pounds, and the dizziness is stronger, but at least she didn’t collapse! Noodle watches her quietly from his perch on the other end of the couch. Now, first to the kitchen– 

“Sakura?” A familiar voice sounds from behind her. Sensei. Relief washes through her. He doesn’t sound injured, or on the verge of collapse. 

“Sensei?” Sakura tries to turn her head around, fighting the dizziness. 

Sensei is walking towards the couch carrying a couple bottles of electrolyte and a first aid kit, the expression on his face unreadable. He looks…completely fine, actually. His movements are not stilted, his complexion is as healthy as it ever is, and there is no bruising on his face. Her crazy gamble worked! Holy fuck, I just did a poison extraction. I saved Sensei! 

“Sensei–” she starts, unable to hold back the happiness in her voice. 

“Sakura, what on earth were you doing here, waiting for me?” He sounds disappointed and angry. 

Sakura suddenly realises the gravity of what she’s done. She’d waited in his apartment, uninvited, completely barging in on his privacy! How rude! She was just supposed to feed the dog…

“You were just supposed to feed the pup.” Kakashi-sensei says, as if reading in her mind. “ Not wait here. What were you thinking?” 

Sakura feels herself getting to the verge of tears, and wants to kill herself. 

Of course Sensei would be mad at me. I overstepped by bounds, and did a dangerous extraction. Would he be less mad if it was Sasuke or Naruto who’d stayed behind? Probably…because they would have been able to handle the situation better. All I could do was get beat up and cry. I know I did the extraction, but I should have been able to stand well against Sensei when he didn’t recognise me. I’m still so useless in his eyes…

To her horror, the tears sting the cut on her cheek when they fall, and she realises she’s probably just been staring at Sensei instead of actually replying to him. Stupid idiot! 

But Sensei doesn’t say anything, and visibly flinches when she feels the tears fall on her cut face. It seems to wake him from some kind of reverie, and he immediately shifts closer to her. With shaky hands – shaky? Kakashi-sensei? She wouldn’t have ever believed it if she weren’t seeing it for herself! – he carefully wets cotton and dabs lightly at the cut on her face. She holds back her whimper when it stings a lot more than she expected, and realises that it feels a lot more like a gash than a mere cut. Whoops. 

“Sakura,” his voice is a lot more gentle now. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to…say it like that.” 

“Huh?” 

Apparently happy with his initial cleaning, he sits back. 

“You saved my life.” he says, one visible eye holding hers. “I am deeply indebted to you.” 

Oh. 

“Uh,” she manages, not sure what to say. Then: “It’s nothing you haven’t done for me, sensei. Numerous times. So. It’s about time I did the same, right?” She was going for a humorous tone, but she doesn’t think he finds it funny at all. 

“I didn’t mean to sound angry at you.” Sensei looks down at the first aid box, and back to her. “I’m angry at myself. For allowing myself to hurt you. You’re my student, Sakura, I am the last person who’s supposed to hurt you.” 

Sensei’s not mad at me? Sakura feels a massive sense of relief hit her, and is intensely embarrassed to realise she’s crying again. Sensei’s not mad at me! Sensei just thanked me! I’m not useless after all! 

He seems to be struggling seeing her cry though, his eye twitching and his expression deeply disturbed, so she wills herself to stop. No use proving yourself as useful if you ruin it all by being a crybaby. Any respect he has for me will go away if I cry like a loser. 

“Actually,” she says, remembering her thought process from the night before, “as…difficult as that was, I was glad you were at least attempting to defend yourself. That meant the poison hadn’t completely paralysed you yet, and your mental faculties were still working. Ultimately, it was a good thing.” 

“I’m still sorry, Sakura. I reacted harshly because I would not have wished myself on anyone in the state I was in last night. I didn’t even recognise you until I woke up this morning. I just attacked who I thought was an intruder in my apartment. I…I was upset that I had forced you into a confrontation with myself.” 

Sakura looks down at her blanket covered lap. “It was my choice to stay back, sensei. I decided to do it when I saw Bisuke look extremely worried. And I’m glad I did. You should have gone to the hospital, the state you were in.” 

He chooses to ignore that last remark. She hears him sigh. “Look up, Sakura. Let me bandage that for you. And when did you last eat?” 

She looks up, choosing not to answer his question. If he can be evasive, so can she! 

He dabs another piece of cotton with antiseptic and dabs gently on her cheek. Sakura holds back her wince. “Sakura, I’m serious. Whatever you did last night has given you extreme chakra exhaustion. Your chakra levels are dangerously depleted. As soon as I clean this cut, you’re going to drink every bottle of electrolyte I have in this apartment, and I’m taking you to the hospital. Understood?”

Sakura nods miserably. 

He places a temporary bandage on her face, looking troubled, and then hands her a bottle of electrolytes, looking at her expectantly. He takes it back, cracks open the seal, and hands it back to her. Sakura drinks it in sips, Kakashi-sensei waiting awkwardly for her to finish it. When she’s done with two bottles, she really can’t drink anymore. Sensei seems to understand, because he helps her off the couch. 

“Sensei?” she whispers. “You’re really ok?” 

He pauses, like he’d stopped considering himself as injured. “Yes, Sakura. Extremely ok. Whatever you did last night saved my life. Are you ok?” 

Whatever. He already thinks you’re a loser. What’s a little more humiliation?

He crouches down next to her to meet her eyes at their level. “Sakura? What’s wrong?” 

She looks up at him and feels herself starting to cry, for the third freaking time! “I thought you were gonna die, sensei. You were! Dying!” she can hear herself heaving for breath as all her panic from the night before pours out. “You were all green, and there was bruising around your eyes and fingertips, a-and your limbs were getting paralysed, and I h-had to fix your microcapillaries w-which were g-getting paralysed too, and when I w-was doing the Reverse Chakra Extraction I-I’ve never done it on a human before, and y-your’re much more complex than a d-deer, and I was s-so scared you were gonna die, and i-if you’d died it w-would have b-been because I couldn’t s-save you!” 

Sensei pulls her into a hug, still mindful of her injured face. Sakura cries into his plain white t-shirt and he allows her to wet the material with her tears and gross snot, even though Sakura gets the feeling he’s pretty unfamiliar with hugging someone. It feels reassuring to feel him solid and warm and breathing, and when he puts his hand on her head comfortingly, she feels safe and protective, kind of like being hugged by her dad. This is the sensei she was used to, the one who patted her head and told her everything would be ok. 

As childish as it was, she’s sure seeing the vulnerable side of him and his well-being riding on her expertise instead of the other way around has at least mildly traumatised her. 

When she finally cries herself out, she parts from him and looks down at her lap again. “Sorry for crying,” she mutters. “That was childish of me. I’ll handle myself better next time.” 

“Sakura,” Sensei is looking at her with a very serious expression on his face. “You did so well in a tense situation. Crying would be an expected reaction, do you understand? You managed to not only constrain me when I attacked you, but also saved my life. It’s not childish to cry after seeing a sensei you considered invincible in a vulnerable position for the first time.” His expression tells her there’s a story behind his understanding, but she doesn’t press it. “And you are a child. My precious student. I’m sorry that I put you through this, but I’m selfish enough to still say I’m deeply grateful that you were there.” 

“Really?” Sakura sniffles. 

Sensei smiles for the first time that day, his visible eye crinkling. “Really. Can you let me help you out now?” 

She nods mutely. 

He picks her up full princess carry and takes her to hospital, running over the rooftops of Konoha to make the journey shorter. As much as the electrolytes helped, the emotional exertion from crying and the feeling of knowing that Sensei isn’t dead combines with her chakra depletion, and she feels herself falling back into comforting darkness. 

According to Tsunade-shishou and Shizune, the poison extraction Sakura had done had been nothing like what they’d seen before and a feat of absolute chakra genius, especially for someone so young and runty. The praise made Sakura warm inside with pride and happiness at being complimented. Shishou had promised to start teaching her how to extract poison from her own body as soon as she got better. Sakura is excited at the prospect. Apparently, it’s a complicated technique which you needed to do while fighting your own failing organs, and it had taken Shizune herself a year to master, but Sakura’s just happy she can start learning it soon, and that her skills are good enough. 

Kakashi-sensei had initially refused to leave the hospital room that she was put into, hovering like an awkward dog as nurses bustled in and out. When her parents had come to visit, he had apologised curtly but profusely at placing Sakura in such a predicament, before bowing out respectfully.

“Sensei, like I told you before, I chose to stay because I was worried about you!” 

“Sakura, let me talk–” 

“No, Sensei.” Her mother had interjected. “Though we are angry at Sakura” – a pointed glare at her as this had been said – “at choosing to stay in your apartment without instruction, we are glad your life was saved. You do not need to apologise for being poisoned in your own apartment.” 

“You could have refrained from punching her though, eh?” Her father had added a little unkindly, and she winced at the way Kakasi-sensei’s face had fallen. For god's sake, it wasn’t his fault! Did her papa have to make his dislike so well-known when Sensei had just been poisoned? 

Sakura appreciated how her parents had handled it – mostly – but knew she’d be in for a big lecture later. Her parents' dislike of Kakashi-sensei had probably only increased after this interaction. Great. They’d probably yell at her to stay away from such a dangerous man, and their distaste would solidify into thinking Kakashi-sensei was unworthy of her saving. 

But her parents had spent a day cooing over her and giving her food and hugs, so Sakura couldn’t complain too much about their visit. Although she’d grown used to living on her own, she’d missed her parents’ warm hugs and affection. It was clear they didn’t know heads or tails of chakra or medic-work, but they’d been proud of her apparently genius affinity to chakra controlled healing anyways. It was so much better than before, when they didn’t want her to become a kunoichi at all. Little by little they were becoming more open to her choice to become a successful kunoichi, and that was all she had ever wanted. 

But what if they finally only appreciate me because they realised I’m more useful than I initially thought? It’s such a mean thing to think, but what if it's true? Ino said Kakashi-sensei might be like that, too…

She tries to beat those thoughts away with a metaphorical stick. It had to be her old insecurities coming up again. Her parents had not always been happy with her choice of career, but in no way had they ever been demeaning towards her. 

That had only been Sasuke, right? 

Her parents only leave in the night when they both have to report for a work emergency, and promise to be there the next day to check her out of hospital and have a nice dinner. Her friends have been in and out all day: Ino brings her the fourth book of Emi-chan and Haruto’s (mis)adventures in love even though Sakura was only going to be in the hospital for a night, Shikamaru and Tenten drop in over lunch, asking how the hell a talking dog had led her to the hospital. Even Gai-sensei and Lee stop by, and Lee holds her hands earnestly and exclaims what a Function of Passionate Youth Sakura’s healing ability is. It’s over the top but sweet, and Sakura thanks him sincerely.  Sakura feels a little bad being so fussed over when Kakashi-sensei was the one who’d gotten poisoned in the first place! Surely her healing couldn’t have been that good that no one even noticed he’d been poisoned? 

“Oh, your healing was absolutely that good,” Sensei tells her that night, when she asks him the same question. “I feel as good as new, so much so that I’m a little concerned.” He’d dropped by to get her some ‘real dinner’. His hatred for hospitals is still strong. She’s pretty sure she saw three of the nurses make the evil eye protection symbol when he walked in at 7 pm.  

“Oh. Really?” 

“Absolutely. You’re incredibly talented. You shouldn’t doubt yourself. But Sakura-chan,” he fixes her with a stern look, and Sakura is suddenly and unpleasantly reminded of the laps he made Team 7 run around the village when they chose to spend the afternoon chasing cats instead of practising tree-walking. “I have another little thing I want to talk to you about. Maybe this can wait until you get out of here, but I’m going to warn you now in case you ever think about doing it again.” 

“Huh?” 

What did I do wrong? I haven’t offended him in any way…is it my parents? Is it what Papa said? Maybe I should apologise again for sitting in his apartment all night? Shit, maybe I was supposed to feed Noodle again this morning? 

He stands up. “Don’t ever think about going anywhere near a cigarette again.” 

Shit. 

Oh god. Shit. The realisation dawns on her. In all her haste to get to Sensei’s apartment the previous evening, she never expected to actually meet him, and so didn’t bother with her usual cloying perfume. Without the usual excessive amount of perfume to cover it up, he would have smelt the smell of cigarette smoke all over her. All over her as in not she’d-been-hanging-around-smokers but in the she’d-smoked-two-cigarettes way. What is she going to tell him? 

God. Did Mama and Papa smell it too? They’d kill me. Actually murder me, resuscitate me, and then kill me again. But…but Mama has a good sense of smell, and would have had no qualms screaming at her in the hospital itself if she’d found out. No. They couldn’t have smelt it, then. Then she remembers! Right. She took a sponge bath before they got here. That means Sensei must have smelt it in the morning, or while he was carrying her to hospital. 

Wait. Wait a minute. 

So. There’s no way he’s actually going to be mad about this right? Not in the way Mama and Papa would be. He basically stopped being my teacher after the boys left, which means he stopped being my direct superior, with a say in my health regimen. I’m considered an adult by shinobi standards. So why does Kakashi-sensei even care that I’ve been smoking? In fact, why have I even been covering it up all this while? It’s not like he cares about me in the way he would care if Naruto smoked, or his precious Sasuke. 

Alright, then. It’s time to backtrack. 

“Ah, Sensei,” she tries for a cool tone, but she sounds like an Academy kid getting caught trying to skip a taijutsu class. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it!” 

His eye twitches. “Don’t worry about it?” 

Sakura desperately wishes the chakra exhaustion had just sent her into a coma. “Yeah! Come on, Sensei. It’s alright. You don’t have to care about me anymore, now that the boys aren’t here. I know it’s bad for you, I’ll…figure it out, ok? It’s just a dumb little passtime.” She wrings her fingers together, trying to find the right words to tell him he doesn’t have to pretend to be her Sensei anymore, that she’s on her own now, so she’s responsible for her own actions. “What I mean is…you stopped training me and everything after the team dissolved. You don’t need to waste your time or your energy on me anymore, not for something as stupid as this. Right?” 

Judging from the actual flicker of hurt on his face, she’d chosen exactly the wrong words. 

You blustering, idiotic fool. What have I done now? Look, now he hates me! 

Kakashi-sensei doesn’t say anything for a few terrifyingly silent moments. Then, he looks up, gaze serious. “Very well, Sakura-chan. Tsunade says you’re to be cleared for missions and training tomorrow evening. I want you to meet me in training ground six at 7 sharp the day after tomorrow. We’ll start one-on-one training, continuing until I say so. Additionally, we will have a chat about your little passtime, do you understand?” 

Sakura gulps. “But. Uh. Training with Tsu–” 

“I’ll talk to her. 7 o'clock the day after tomorrow. Is that alright?” His expression is stern, but she thinks she can see a sliver of fondness – and is that concern? For me? – coming through.

“Yes, Sensei.” 

What the fuck?

Chapter Text

Kakashi-sensei is late, but Sakura knows better than to be annoyed now. 

At 7:30 in the morning, a whole half an hour past their assigned meeting time, Sakura sits under a large tree in training ground six eating a lovely breakfast with the fourth installment of her favourite romance series. She isn’t expecting Kakashi-sensei for at least another hour. 

Hey, if I have to skip training with Tsunade-sama, then a sweet breakfast and a book at breakfast is a sweet deal. And if I’m lucky, Kakashi-sensei won’t show up and I get the whole morning to myself! 

While she kind of hopes that Kakashi-sensei won’t show up, but a small part of her knows that if Kakashi-sensei doesn’t show up even after he was mad at her two days prior, then whatever tentative kinship her and her former jounin sensei had had would be for nothing. That he didn’t care about her all over again because Sakura smoked. Sage above, because she smoked. If she’d known it would anger him that much she never would have done it before going to his place, ever. But she wasn’t expecting her last visit to his apartment to spiral the way it did, so it technically wasn’t her fault…

If he shows up, the most I’m going to get is a lecture. Maybe a couple of punishment laps, like the ones he used to give Naruto and Sasuke when they fought too much and didn’t do their assigned exercises. I really, really hope he won’t give me punishment laps. Those suck. But if he doesn’t show up? Would that mean he hates me? Would I get to see Noodle again, or am I banned from his apartment forever? I mean, his active dislike has still got to be better than the usual indifference, right? Now I’ll be Haruno Sakura, Underage Smoker instead of Haruno Sakura, Powerless Loser. 

Sakura belatedly realises she’s been turning the pages of her book without reading the words, and she’s missed an entire chapter in Emi-chan’s POV. She itches for a cigarette. To cope, she bits into her anpan like she’s out to destroy it, and winces when her teeth bite her gums instead. 

Ok, Sakura. Time to restart this chapter. Do not think about being disowned. Or the fact that you weren’t even close enough to Kakashi-sensei to be disowned in the first place. Also, doesn’t disownment only happen when you’re related to someone? I’m not related to Kakashi-sensei, so I wouldn’t really be disowned. Am I afraid of being disowned? Actually, I think the fear of being forgotten is the right way to put it. Yes! Or the fear of being left behind. 

Taking a deep breath, she starts to read. 

When Kakashi-sensei does show up, it’s 8:30am, and Sakura’s finished half the book and all of her breakfast. 

“Yo,” he says, swinging down from the tree above her. 

“Sensei,” she says. She’d sensed his chakra seconds before he’d appeared, so it wasn’t like he’d surprised her. She mentally congratulates herself on not flinching at his speed and proximity to her, but keeps her face nonchalant.

I have to look cool and unaffected! 

“Sorry I’m late,” he acknowledges. “I see you’ve already eaten. We’re already off to a good start, then.” 

Sakura nods. For the amount of times she’d agonised over what would happen in this training session since he’d scheduled it, she has no idea what to say now. Does she apologise? Ask him why he suddenly wants to train her, other than to obviously have the authority to tell her not to smoke anymore? 

Obviously I’m not going to stop smoking just because he tells me to. He couldn’t give two shits about me before I found a cute puppy he could adopt, and smoking has sure as hell been more helpful than he has. 

“Anything you want to say before we begin, Sakura?” 

Should I say it? Should I tell him straight, or apologise? I should probably apologise…underage smoking is technically illegal. Argh! I’d better apologise before he tells Shishou, or worse, my parents! 

“I’m sorry for smoking,” Sakura says, dutifully. She can tell by the quirk of his eyebrow that he doesn’t believe a word she’s saying. 

“Are you now?” Well, that confirms my suspicions. 

She looks at her book, channeling some of her Team 7 personality - relatively subdued, and extremely eager to please. “Yes, Sensei. I shouldn’t have done it, especially since as a medic-in-training, I know better.” 

He exhales, settling himself properly next to her. “You should try again when you actually mean what you say, Sakura-chan.” 

She turns to him in outrage, but he only lifts his eyebrow in response. Now it’s Sakura’s turn to exhale, slouching again as she absentmindedly thumbs through her book. 

Should I? Oh well. Fuck it. Might as well. 

“Sensei, if you’re only training me so you have jurisdiction as my direct superior again to tell me not to smoke, that’s really disrespectful, and, and–” Sakura winces as she loses steam, “and if that’s the case, I’d prefer to keep up my training Tsunade-sama.” 

Ugh, that was supposed to come out in a cool and collected manner! 

She thinks she catches a glimpse, just a glimpse, of true shock on Kakashi-sensei’s face before he collects himself again and turns to her. “Sakura,” he begins. For half a second, she thinks that he’s going to say something serious, before he backtracks. “I’m offended that you would even think that!” 

Sakura fights the urge to roll her eyes. That’s got to be the most insincere I’ve heard him sound. Her admission that she suspected that he was only training her to order her to stop smoking was supposed to be her trump card, the thing that pushed him to confess that he was disappointed in her. And then she would be able to stop feeling the absurd guilt that’s plagued her since he smelt the smoke on her at the hospital. 

“Well, I had reason to.” She kicks a pebble, and watches as it bounces its way down the slope. “It’s not like you really…well, trained me, ever since Naruto and Sasuke left.” 

“Ah,” Sensei says. “You know the village has been low on manpower since the chunin exams. I’ve been called on more missions than usual. But I do apologise, for not training you. It seems I’ve neglected my duties as your sensei, haven’t I?” 

Sakura doesn’t mention all the times she’s seen him slouched around the village reading those stupid books of his for hours on end. She’s long accepted that she’s just not important to him as a student, but admitting it to him is another matter altogether, and utterly too humiliating. 

“I understand, Sensei.” she says simply. She doesn’t know what to add to it, though. “Thank you for meeting me here. I won’t smoke anymore.” Taking a deep breath in, Sakura begins to gather her things, placing her book back into her satchel and putting the empty breakfast box back into the paper bag it had come in. “Can I still come and see Noodle, though? I didn’t mean to meet him right after smoking, last time.” 

“Sakura, where are you going?” 

“Huh?” 

Sensei pats the space next to him. “Come back here.” 

She tentatively takes the satchel back off her shoulder. “To train?” 

“Maa, You don’t need to sound that surprised.”

“Sorry…?” 

Kakashi-sensei sighs. “I suppose I deserve that.” 

She doesn’t know how to reply to that. 

Kakashi-sensei sighs. “Listen, Sakura. I won’t disrespect you by lying to you.” 

Shit. Here it comes. Brace yourself. 

She steels herself internally as he continues to talk. “I did ask to train you so I’d have the power to order you to stop smoking. I’m not going to apologise for that. I’m also not going to waste either of our time explaining all the ways it's bad for you. I’m appalled that you even picked it up. Actually, who taught you to smoke?” 

Sakura looks at him balefully. She’s sure she looks like Guruko when he stole the last piece of steak from under Bull’s nose. 

Kakashi-sensei lets out a weary sigh. “Of course you won’t tell me.” 

“You’re the one who told us to look out for our friends no matter what, Kakashi-sensei.” She replies innocently. 

He raises his index finger in chastisement. “No. You don’t get to be funny when you’ve done something wrong. And thank you for letting me know it was one of your friends, by the way. That narrows it down for me.” 

“I’ll never tell you which one.” 

He shrugs. “Better than you picking it up from some suspicious looking guy on the road.” 

“Silver linings.” Sakura chuckles. 

“Ah, ah, ah,” Kakashi-sensei says. “I’m glad you’re finding this whole thing amusing, but don’t think you’re getting away with it. Smoking is horrible for you and your lungs, and if I ever catch evidence of it on you again I assure you that you’ll regret it.”

“Alright, Sensei.” I have to be more discreet about it now. Maybe only smoke when I know he’s away from the village?

“Glad that’s settled. But…you’re right. I’ve been negligent of my precious student, and it’s high time I start training you again–” 

“But–” 

Sensei raises his hand. “--and I don’t mean fake training as an excuse to boss you around. Though, that is a perk. Your chakra control is impressive. Perhaps even prodigious. I know Tsunade is teaching you to concentrate it, probably, because there’s no way you could have healed microabrasions in my veins and tissues with a simple Mystical Palm technique.” 

Sakura nods. Prodigious? Her? And it's Kakashi-sensei who thinks so? 

“I can complement that, if you wish to learn how to do it. I can teach you how to manifest and control it better – not just when you heal and fight – with the main focus on building your stamina throughout. Your stamina has always been your weak point, and there’s no point in performing chakra miracles if you collapse at the end of it.” 

Sakura gulps. 

Kakashi-sensei beams. “Are you up for it?” 

Ino’s voice suddenly echoes in her head. The way I see it, he just wants to train a prodigious student. It was Sasuke at the beginning, but then he lost Naruto after Sasuke left, and now, you’re the last option. I’ve mapped out the motivations of so many weird ninjas, Sakura. It’s all about legacy for half of them. They either want to be remembered for their deeds, or how their deeds influenced the next legend. Ino’s words ring in her head, unpleasant and loud. Was she right all along? Kakashi-sensei had never cared about her when he didn’t know she had ‘prodigious’ chakra control. But now he wanted to train her? 

Oh, Ino-pig, I shouldn’t have dismissed you so quickly. You’re way more perceptive than people give you credit for, and I’m going to tell you that the next time I see you. 

But even though Ino could be right, Sakura would be stupid to refuse. To get one-on-one training with both Senju Tsunade, legendary sanin and Hatake Kakashi, the infamous Copy-Nin and one of the most deadly ninjas ever known, is an opportunity other people would kill to get. She’d be utterly stupid to turn it down. 

And I would finally get Sensei’s full attention, as a teacher. Everything I never got when Team 7. If I took up his offer to train, I wouldn’t lose the friendship that’s developed between us in the last couple months. Or the chance to keep seeing Noodle. 

Sakura smiles, and it’s genuine. “Sure, Sensei. Um. As long as it doesn’t clash with my training with Tsunade-sama.” 

Kakashi-sensei waves a hand. “All that can be sorted out. I might come out of that meeting with a couple bruises, though…” 

“Shishou says you always deserve what she doles out to you.” Sakura puts her satchel back down where she’d left it and sits down next to Kakashi-sensei. 

“Sakura-chan, you place too much blind faith in that teacher of yours, do you know that?” 

Sakura shrugs, unable to hide her smile. “It’s worked out well for me so far.” 

“Maa, that’s because you’ve never been on the other side of her punches.” 

“I have, actually. For like, three months, my training consisted of her basically pulverising me and then me healing myself.” 

Sensei turns to her with the same expression of shock she’s slowly becoming familiar with. “She made you heal yourself after she beat you up?” 

Sakura looks at her feet. “Yeah. I mean, it’s no big deal. She said that’s what was required if I needed to tackle advanced healing techniques as the medic-nin of the team. The ability to heal others and yourself through a haze of pain. It’s a basic requirement, really. I barely passed half of those training sessions.” 

She feels a warm hand on her shoulder, and she looks up to see Kakashi-sensei looking strangely concerned. “Sakura, you do know that’s a feat that not many people can pull off, myself included.” 

“But you’re not a trained medic–” 

“And those are not normal injuries, Sakura. You were beat up by Senju Tsunade. I know you consider her familiar now, but she isn’t your everyday jonin kunoichi.” 

Sakura blinks, not understanding him. Surely if she could do it, anyone could. “Of course, Kakashi-sensei.” 

Kakashi-sensei sighs. “We’ll have to work on that too, it seems,” he mutters, but it sounds like he didn’t mean to say that out loud. Sakura doesn’t even want to ask what ‘that’ means. If anything, it only reinforces that she’s still lacking. She doesn’t know what she’s lacking in, but it’s still something, clearly. And she needs to remain strong and perfect if she wants Sensei to keep training her. He didn’t care about her when she was weak, so it made sense that he’d only want to keep training her if she was strong, right? 

She tampers that feeling down. I’ll deal with that later. “So, Sensei, where are we starting? Meditation? Tenketsu simulation?” 

Kakashi-sensei cracks an amused smile that Sakura recognises, with an old, familiar sense of growing horror. “Not so fast, Sakura. You still have to make amends for your little passtime, don’t you think?” 

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. 

“How about 50 laps, to start? Around the village, I mean. Around the perimeter and weaving through the main streets for each lap. It’ll allow you to build your stamina, too!” 

“Sensei,” she manages. “I don’t think I’m that sorry quite yet.” 

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, are you not? Don’t worry, I can arrange it so you’ll be doubly as sorry, Sakura-chan.” 

Sakura gulps. “Fine. Will you be joining me, at least?” 

Kakashi-sensei pulls out a lurid orange book from his flak vest. “Sadly, I have a book to read. The bookstore asked me to review it for one of their display boards! I’m very honoured, and hence I've committed myself to giving it my best shot.” 

“Of course you are.” 

“Now, now, Sakura-chan!” He settles himself down under the tree, looking as cozy as one can at 8:45 in the morning. “It’s a long exercise, best get started so you can make it to your shift, right?” 

Perhaps I’ll use my anger as motivation to finish these stupid laps. Maybe my reward will be getting to curse him for good. 

Sakura takes a deep breath and starts running. 

“I don’t understand what he wants from this.” Sakura tells Noodle. They’re out on a picnic at a shady spot near the riverbank, settled comfortably on a picnic blanket. Sakura is munching on dried seaweed snacks and an early dinner. Noodle gets the occasional bone and dog treat. 

“All he’s made me do for the last two weeks is run. Run!” Sakura gesticulates using her seaweed. “First it was plain laps, and then it got worse. I’m running on walls. Running. On. Walls. Whole laps, Noodle, with just my chakra. I know it's supposed to be helpful, but I’d rather whack my brains out with his stupid porn book than run another chakra lap.” Noodle looks up at her and blinks slowly. 

Cooing, she strokes his soft black head with her left hand. His ears are still a little too big for his head so he looks like he’s losing balance every time he cocks his head. “Of course, you wouldn’t know how that feels, would you? A trip from the couch to the kitchen is exercise for you.” She’s teasing him, but she’s glad that Kakashi-sensei spoils him. It’s far better than the abuse his previous owners must have thrown at him. 

“I hope they burn in hell.” She says out loud. Lighting doesn’t fall from the sky and take her out right there for wishing death on people, so she assumes she’s justified. Ha. 

“Anyways.” She picks the little guy up and sits him on her lap, despite his mild protests. “He said something about Guy-sensei joining us next week.” She shudders just thinking about it. “Have you seen the kind of training he and Lee do? I can’t do that! I suck at taijustu! Wasn’t this just supposed to be about me controlling my chakra better. He’s taking the stamina part way too seriously for someone who doesn’t even join me in doing the stupid laps he forces on me.” 

“Woof,” Noodle agrees. 

“Right?” 

She feels a little stupid, honestly, talking to the dog as much as she does. And about deep and meaningful things too, not just baby-doggy talk. The truth is that all her friends are often out on missions more often than not, and unlike the rest of them, Sakura doesn’t have a team to spend her time with. The path of a medic-nin differs from the average shinobi, and so Sakura spends most of her time training with her Shishou and doing hospital rounds than the conventional missions shinobi of her rank are doing. This meant that while her medic training is focussed and one-on-one, she doesn’t get to enjoy the camaraderie that many other shinobi do. 

She’d woken up that morning and felt the loneliness of it all engulf her more than usual. Kakashi-sensei, too, had been out on an S-rank for the last three days, so she’d used her opportunity to feed Noodle and turned it into a little picnic day for her and the pup. It didn’t really raise her spirits the way hanging out with Ino, or Tenten and Shikamaru would have, but Noodle brought her a different kind of familial comfort. 

Maybe I should have a second dinner with Mama and Papa today. It has been a while since I’ve seen them…but I have evening training with Shishou today and they’ll hate to see me covered in bruises. Argh. Stupid Kakashi-sensei, messing up my entire schedule! 

Because of course, even though he was out of town, he instructed her to complete her laps each day and informed her – a little too ominously – that he’d know if she hadn’t done them. 

“But I have to keep being perfect,” She tells Noodle, outlining his silky ears with the tip of her index finger. “Because if I slip up, he’ll stop training me. I’ve just gotten his attention.” 

Noodle grunts and curls into a more comfortable position. Sakura absentmindedly picks up her chopsticks and toys with the convenience store sushi she’d bought for dinner. They hadn’t given her enough wasabi, as usual. She should really just stick to mixed rice, next time. 

Reaching over to her satchel, she pulls out her book and flips to where she’d left off. Thanks to her new training with Kakashi-sensei, she’s barely gotten time to read. Mercifully, it’s easy to slip back into the lives of Emi-chan and Haruto, and Suguru-kun, and all the rest. Sakura finds romance a blissful form of escapism from how bleak and draining shinobi life can be. She’s self-assured enough to admit to herself she likes how easily things work out for Emi-chan and Haruto. She likes knowing that no matter what life throws at them, they’ll find their way back to each other. She likes how when Emi-chan gets into a sticky situation that even she cannot fight her way out of despite being a strong kunoichi, there will always be someone who rescues her. It’s not just the romance, it’s the certainty. 

She smiles as she finishes the chapter she’s on. After Suguru-kun rescued Emi-chan, he challenged Haruto for Emi-chan’s hand in front of her family, and Emi-chan’s family is now in favour of her marrying Suguru-kun instead of Haruto. Personally, Sakura agrees with them, but the story has now swung into a valiant duel between Haruto and Suguru-kun for Emi-chan’s honour. 

“It’s so stupid.” She tells Noodle. “Why does Emi-chan have no say in this? She clearly prefers Haruto. I mean, I wouldn’t but she does.” 

Noodle is getting squirmish in her lap. After trying and failing to get him settled, Sakura moves out of his way and he goes to a nearby bush to do his business. The rest of the afternoon passes in a similar fashion, and Sakura is happy to finish quite a few chapters of the fourth instalment of the book. Wait till I tell Ino how much I read while she was out slugging it with her team! 

The joy is short-lived, though, because Sakura knows she would much rather be doing some inane D-rank with Team 7 like the old days instead of sitting alone, with only Noodle for company. Choosing not to dwell on that thought, she decides to get ready for training with Tsunade early. She drops Noodle off at her parent’s, though, as it gives her a chance to see them before she inevitably becomes bruised and bloody. 

“Why don’t you come over for dinner, sweetheart?” Her father asks, holding Noodle like a baby. “Mama’s making udon.” 

“I don’t know how late training will run, Papa.” She says truthfully. “And I’ll probably be too exhausted to talk.” 

“But–” 

She gives him a kiss on the cheek. “I promise I’ll be back soon. I have to pick Noodle up tomorrow, anyway. I’ll have dinner with you guys then?” 

Her father doesn’t look happy, but he nods anyway. “Don’t hurt yourself too much in these training sessions, ok?” 

Ha. “I’ll try!” And then she’s off. 

Training with Tsunade-sama is brutal, as usual. 

“Harder, Sakura!” her mentor yells, easily blocking a punch Sakura hurls at her. “Concentrate your chakra into the tenketsu in your knuckles. Gather it and dispense it in short, explosive bursts!” She dodges another one of Sakura’s punches and Sakura finds herself accidentally shattering a small boulder. 

“Very good,” Tsunade-sama pants. “Now, use that force again. Stamina, Sakura. Aim at my ribs, come on. Short, explosive bursts.” 

Interesting. What Kakashi-sensei said last week about Tsunade-sama’s chakra use is true. It’s very combat oriented when she wants it to be, and dynamic and explosive. If I master maintaining long-term control of my chakra as well as learning Shishou’s style, what all could I accomplish? 

Sakura whirls around, concentrating chakra into her knuckles. She gets Tsunade-sama’s stomach and she gets it good, judging by the small grunt of pain her mentor lets out. She feels the exhaustion of the effort hit her immediately though, and cannot help her mind from drifting to the possible outcomes of Kakashi-sensei’s chakra and stamina maintenance training. Imagine how many times I’ll be able to land a hit on Shishou then!  Suddenly motivated, Sakura launches another punch quicker than she usually does, getting Tsunade-sama’s shoulder. 

Her teacher looks slightly impressed. “Good timing. Let’s work on improving that, shall we?” 

As usual, Sakura ends training banged up and bruised, and left to heal herself under Tsunade-sama’s tight supervision. Training might be brutal, but it’s never unsafe, and her Shishou will always heal any wounds she deems that Sakura cannot handle.  

But when Sakura stumbles her way into her tiny studio and takes a shower, she’s again overcome by a desperate sense of loneliness. It’s like the absence of her friends and team has opened his deep, dark chasm in her chest, hollow and all-consuming. Her world looks so small and empty, and as she surveys her room in the darkness of the night, she cannot think of a single thing that makes her want to get out of bed the next morning. 

Maybe I should have spent the night at my parents place. How many nights can I spend like this, feeling lonely and sorry for myself? The situation isn’t temporary. I’m dedicated to becoming a medic-nin, I made the decision to move out of my parents house and I’m teamless, nonetheless. I can’t keep doing this to myself. 

Unbidden, the tears come rushing down her face and Sakura sobs in ugly, heaving grunts. She can’t help but remember nights spent with Ino at sleepovers, evenings spent at Ichiraku and Yakiniku Q with Team 7, and nights spent curled between her parents on the sofa. 

Why am I always left alone? Why did I have to be the one with the messed up team? Why me? Why me, why me, whymewhymewhyme–

Sakura sits up in her bed, wiping her tears away with the bottom of her sleep shirt. “I can’t keep doing this,” she says out loud. 

Great. I’m talking to myself now. Some medic-nin I am. 

“I can’t keep feeling sad.” 

But the empty space inside her wouldn’t close up, and the tears would not stop.

Ok. Focus. Assess your situation. What can I fix now, and what can I fix in the morning? Right now, my priority is to stop crying. God, I want a cigarette. I want a cigarette so bad. 

Sakura sits a little straighter. Huh. 

Actually, a cigarette might be great right now. And it’s not like Kakashi-sensei is here, anyways…

She gets out of bed and methodically dresses in jogging civvies. It’s settled. She’ll get a cigarette now, even though she’s never smoked alone before, and tomorrow, she’ll fix everything. She’ll get herself a proper routine, maybe spend a couple days with her parents and make some non-shinobi friends. But right now, she needs a cigarette. 

It kind of scares her, this craving. She has smoked when she’s felt down before – that was, primarily, the reason she started after all – but never, ever alone. Always with Shikamaru or Tenten, and almost always pre-planned. But she feels a little better about it when she tells herself it will only be the one time. Tomorrow, she will be more responsible. Tomorrow, she will be more healthy. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. 

A glance at her watch tells her it’s only half past midnight, so it's not too late to acquire one last minute. She starts to make her way down to a little coffee and cigarette stand a little into the civilian district run by a middle aged man who doesn’t look twice at the age of his buyers. The stand isn’t skeevy, strangely enough, and is always open until two in the morning. 

As she’s crossing the genin district into the civilian one, she passes Guy-sensei who looks to be returning home from one of his insane training routines. 

“Sakura! What are you doing up so late at night?” He says, wiping the sweat off his brow. 

“Ah,Guy-sensei!” Sakura tries her best at a smile, hoping he doesn’t notice her red rimmed eyes and disheveled hair. “It’s not really late, I’m just going for some air.” She pauses. “What about you?” 

“I’m returning from 2000 handstand-jumps around the village. It’s easier to do when there are no people to avoid, you see. But I understand, of course it must not seem as late for someone in such an early stage of her Springtime of Youth as you are! Enjoy your night!” 

Crisis averted. 

There’s really no reason why Guy-sensei should think Sakura’s doing anything wrong. People take night-time walks all the time, especially Shikamaru who enjoys the quiet and crickets. She’s only being conspicuous because she knows she’s doing something wrong. Whatever. 

The little stall is thankfully open when she gets there, and she asks the man for a singular cigarette, hurrying to the rooftop of an empty building nearby to smoke in peace. The first drag brings with it a sense of blank peace, blurring the edges of her loneliness into a muted, static kind of joy only nicotine induces. Sakura smiles into the night without realising it, letting out a little chuckle as she enjoys the lightheadedness. 

This is exactly what I needed. 

Even ashing the cigarette into a little paper cup is satisfying. It gives her the sense of control she always lacks when she spirals like this. She’s finished almost all of it before she realises it, and the sweet clarity of the nicotine fades into the sour smell of tobacco and ash. Sakura finds that the crushing sense of loneliness returns just as the nicotine makes its exit, and she’s once again forced to think about how alone she feels. 

Should I get another one? 

No. That’s objectively a bad idea. She’s already broken one of her rules and smoked alone. If she allows herself to indulge further, who knows how far she’ll let herself go? 

But what else do I do? Trudge back to my apartment and cry in bed again? It’s way too late to show up home and ask to sleep, and Mama and Papa will certainly want to know what happened. So that’s a no-go. I don’t know what to do. If I don’t want to be in my own apartment, then where do I go? 

She wishes she had Noodle. Warm, affectionate, cheerful Noodle who is always open to a cuddle or a walk. She wants to hug Noodle, hold him tight in her arms and kiss him on the forehead. Anything, anything, not to feel this alone anymore. 

She can feel herself starting to break apart again, but lets it happen this time. The tears keep falling, and she lets out choked out sobs that have her wheezing for air. She hugs her own midriff in a pathetic attempt to comfort herself, but her arms fall to her side, her elbows pressing into her sides as she cries. She vaguely notes that she’s crying on the grimey terrace of a building that’s probably from the Shodaime’s time, but she couldn’t care less. 

She doesn’t know how much time passes, but the sobs soon abate and she can take long, calm breaths again. Sitting up, she looks at the roofs of Konoha, lit up silver by the moonlight, and forces herself to relax. Five things I can see, three I can feel, and one I can touch. The small mental exercise helps, and Sakura tries standing, feeling gross and groggy. 

Ok. I’ve had my mental breakdown. In public, no less. Time to go home now. Sleep or no sleep, I’m far too tired to be out now anyways. And I’ll probably have to shower again. Ugh. I’m definitely not doing Kakashi-sensei’s stupid laps tomorrow. 

Wait. She should probably do the laps. She had to keep being perfect, or he’d drop her, how could she have forgotten? Plus, he was scheduled to be back from his mission after lunch, and if he’d certainly ask her about the laps when she went to his apartment to drop Noodle off. Sakura had always been a bad liar, and she’d never be able to look him in the eye and tell him she’d done it. 

Sleep deprivation it is! 

When Sakura gets back to her apartment, she showers, brushes her teeth, and falls into bed. She only falls asleep two hours later. 

“Ino?” She says, surprised by who she sees when she opens the front door of her parents house. “What are you doing here?” 

“You don’t need to sound that happy to see me,” Ino retorts, her smile betraying her tone. 

“Hi,” Sakura says, stepping forward and engulfing her in a tight hug. After the night she’s had, her best friend is exactly who she needs to see. “Why’d you come when I wasn’t home?” 

“I saw Noodle on your terrace and thought you’d be here. I wanted to catch you before you started your insane Kakashi training. We got back from a mission like, three hours ago.” 

“Oh, yeah, my bad. I left him here for the night. I’m here to pick him up now. Sensei will be back from his mission post lunch, so I’ll bring him back to his apartment then.” 

“Sakura!” She hears her mother’s voice behind her, and turns to see her holding a whisk in one hand and a can of milk in the other. “Just in time for breakfast. Ino can join us too, can’t she?” At this, she turns and looks to Ino, who nods. 

“”Of course, Haruno-san. I’m starving, actually! It was a long mission,” she says, and Sakura’s mother beams. 

“Perfect. Kizashi, help me lay the table!” She turns back briefly. “The dog is snoozing in the sun upstairs, Sakura. Don’t wake him.” 

“Alright, Mama!” 

Sakura enjoys the company and breakfast more than she can say. In the daylight and warmth of her home, the darkness of the night before seemed almost like a fever dream. Surrounded by her parents and her best friend, Sakura feels the chasm in her chest filling slowly, and she vows to herself she’d stop by her parents house more often. 

“Sakura-chan,” her father says, trying to push his glasses up his nose by scrunching it. “Why don’t you have another omelet? You’ve barely eaten…” 

“I would, Papa, but I have to run laps for Kakashi-sensei’s training after this, and I don’t want to throw up.” 

Her mother tsks, scowling. “You look all pale and wan today, Sakura, and you’re not eating either? I told you not to train with that old sensei of yours…” 

“It’s not his fault, Mama. I just couldn’t sleep last night!” Sakura tries for a wide smile, but catches Ino’s suspicious look and gulps guiltily. There’s no way in hell she’s telling Ino she had a breakdown because she felt lonely. That’s so deeply uncool. 

“Isn’t Tsunade-sama already doing enough of a number on you?” Her mother ploughs on. “And now you want to add to that? I thought you said that man was training your chakra control. It seems to be he’s just making you run circles around the village.” 

“Yeah, Sakura,” Ino adds unhelpfully. Sakura glares at her, hoping the expression conveys how much she wants to murder Ino for siding with her mother. “He’s only been making you run laps.”

“I’m trusting he has a plan..” Sakura says truthfully. “His training has always been weird, but it’s worked.” When he’s deemed me good enough to train. 

“Isn’t this the same guy whose first mission with your little team turned out to be a secret S-rank?” Her father retorts, shoving a piece of omelet into his mouth. “Hell of a lesson that turned out to be.” 

“Like I said, Papa, that wasn’t his fault. The client lied! How was he supposed to know?” 

“I’m just saying, Sakura,” her mother says, looking serious. “I’m not going to lie. I was happy when you said you wanted to pursue medical ninjustu, because that’s a good, proper job that keeps you away from most of the insanity of the shinobi world. But recently, it just seems like the teachers you insist on surrounding yourself with are just working you to the bone.” 

Sakura cannot believe her parents. She’s reminded, with sudden clarity, why she decided to move out. “Are you forgetting that I successfully extracted a deadly poison from my dying Sensei a couple weeks ago? I am doing medical ninjustu! I want to be strong as well!” 

“Sakura’s become ridiculously strong over the last year, Haruno-san.” Ino is quick to jump in to her defence. Thank the Sage. Ino might dislike the whole Kakashi-sensei training business, but she’s always firmly on her side even against Sakura’s parents. “She can smash boulders! And to be a successful medic-nin, one of the first rules is to be the last one to be injured or die on your team so you can heal people who need your help. So really, the strength training is only helping her medical profession.” 

There’s a beat of silence. 

“I still don’t like it,” her mother says, and raises a hand just as Sakura opens her mouth to protest. “You tell me if you feel like any of your teachers are overworking you, alright?” 

Sakura smiles weakly, touched by her concern but still getting over her temporary anger. “I will, Mama. Don’t worry.” 

“And no slacking off on your eating!” Her father says. “I know your grandmother was strict with your diet, but you’re a proper ninja now. I want to see you eating enough protein and carbohydrates, alright?” 

“And no more getting distracted by boys! Not if you want to take the chunin exams next year.” Her mother adds. 

Sakura shares a look with Ino and rolls her eyes. The only reason she’s not horrified that Ino’s here to witness the impromptu lecture is because she has been over at the Yamanaka residence for many such fights between Ino and her parents. It's always funny to see the influential head of the Yamanaka Clan lose his mind – and his temper – over how Ino doesn’t help out enough at the flower shop.

Sakura is just happy that she’s not being told what to eat anymore. Her grandmother lived with them on-and-off during her last year in the academy and first year as genin, and had loved interfering in Sakura’s dietary habits. Sakura shudders just thinking about it. Every time she reflects, Sakura realises how much better her relationship with her parents is. When her grandmother lived with them briefly, things were horrible. Her parents still didn’t want to be a ninja then, and her grandmother’s control over her diet had made her perpetually tired and irritable, and even more prone to stupid arguments with them. Additionally, the diet her grandmother put her on made training and missions next to impossible. When her grandmother had moved out, her parents had realised just how much the older woman had been influencing Sakura’s eating habits, and had a long, guilt-filled conversation with her about what she should be eating as a young genin. What had seemed to them as a kind offer from Sakura’s grandmother to handle her meals – relieving her already busy parents of one more thing to do in the morning – had actually ended up affecting Sakura physically and mentally. 

It’s safe to say that even the fact that her parents want her to attempt the chunin exams is progress. 

Sakura sighs. “No boys, Mama. I promise.” 

Her mother waves a finger. “Good. And Ino-chan, what about you? You’re a very pretty girl, I’m sure you have boys following you around everywhere you go. Make sure to beat them all back with a bat. You girls shouldn’t be thinking about those kinds of things for years.” 

Ino blushes, but laughs it off. “I’m too focussed on my missions at the moment, Haruno-san. Plus, there’s no one I like.” 

“Good.” Sakura’s mother says, and Sakura stops herself by rolling her eyes again by taking a huge sip of tea. 

“Guys,” she says. “I really have to go now. If I’m supposed to be done with these laps before I meet Sensei, I have to start as early as possible.” But I’m so sleepy, how will I even do those stupid laps? 

Her parents grumble, but they don’t press her to stay. The memories of the night before cause her to hug them extra tight, and she promises she’ll spend the coming weekend with them. And this time, she means it. 

Her and Ino begin the walk back to the Shinobi district, Noodle sniffing Ino’s shoes most of the way. Ino tells her about how the proprietor of a small hotel they were staying in was trying to hit on a very oblivious Asuma-sensei, and how her and Chouji might have encouraged her advances for comedic purposes. 

“And by the way,” Ino says, stopping when they reach a fork in the road. “Thanks for um, telling me to talk to my dad about the T&I thing.” 

“You spoke to him?” Sakura asks. 

Ino nods. “Turns out…it’s a common thing? To be initially disturbed by our Clan abilities. I didn’t know that.” 

“I’m so glad you’re not the only one!” Sakura exclaims. “Wait. No. I mean, it sucks that other people have to experience it, but I’m glad you can find a support system.” Sakura yawns, mouth opening a little wider than she would have liked. “Ignore the yawn, I’m exhausted, I’m so sorry.” 

Ino smiles and nods, looking at her feet. “No worries. And yeah, it was good. To talk to dad, I mean. He understood some of the…symptoms.” 

Sakura grabs her best friend’s hand. “Ino, I’m so glad you asked for help. Are you…are you going to see someone about it?” 

“Yeah. He said he’ll refer me to the Clan’s therapist. Nothing drastic, apparently there’s already a name for people like me. They’re called Adjustment Sessions. For when, like, younger Yamanaka start using their justu and are disconcerted about it.” 

“See? You’re not a loser and a failure heiress. Now with some help, I know you’ll be able to feel better soon!’ 

“Hopefully,” Ino muses, but Sakura can hear the optimism in her voice. “I’m just glad I’m not the only one. That would have been…bad.” 

Sakura gives her a hug, with Noodle trying to join them by wriggling between their legs and licking their shoes. Ino giggles, the tension in her voice breaking at the little pup’s silliness, and she parts from Sakura to reach down to pat his head fondly. “You should really bring him to dinner sometime soon. I think I’ve told mom and dad so much about him that they want to meet him.” 

Sakura too bends down and ruffles his fur. “You hear that, Noodle? You’re sure getting popular around here.”

“Hey, Forehead.” Ino says, flicking her forehead and pulling her up by the hand. “Thank you for talking some sense into me, and like, asking me to go talk to my dad about this. I would have wallowed forever without that push, I think.” Her eyes are big and luminous, and she looks dead serious. “I really appreciated it.” 

Sakura smiles and hugs her again. “What are best friends for, if not to pull each other’s head out of their ass?” 

“Damn straight,” Ino mutters, pulling away. “Speaking of, you seemed a bit off this morning. Is everything ok?” 

Where do I even start? “Um…” 

“Do you wanna do a sleepover tonight?” Ino diverts the topic, not pressuring Sakura to talk about it, but offering her company anyways. “We can get dinner and read together.” 

“I’m gonna stay at my parents house tonight,” Sakura says, a little apologetically. “How long are you going to be in the village?” 

“We don’t have another out-of-mission village for at least a week, so I can do it anytime!” 

“Day after, then?” 

“I’ll let mom and dad know.” 

“Thanks, Ino-pig.” Sakura smiles a little guiltily. 

“Hey,” Ino nudges her with her elbow. “What are best friends for, if not to pull each other’s head out of their ass?” 

Sakura scowls. “Don’t use my own advice on me.” 

“You know you love it!” Ino dances away from the pebble Sakura half-heartedly swings her way. “Ok. I’m off! Goodbye, Noodle! Sakura, can you bring him when you come?” 

Sakura nods. “Yeah. I don’t think Sensei would have an issue with it.” 

“Good,” Ino says. “I’ll see you around!” 

Ten minutes later, Sakura walks to where she usually starts her laps, Noodle in tow, and sighs despondently when she looks at the track ahead of her. 

I don’t wanna run laps today. I don’t want to run on the walls with my chakra. I’m sleepy. I want to sleep. My eyes are closing as I walk.

She looks at the pup, who’s currently chasing a grasshopper towards a tree. 

I mean, what he doesn’t know won’t kill him, right? Just today. Just today, I’ll relax. Plus, if I run that much with this little energy, there’s no way I can push myself to also do Tsunade-sama’s training. And honestly, if I had to pick a training to slack off on…it’ll be easier emotionally getting dropped by Kakashi-sensei than Shishou. Kakashi-sensei already knows I’m a failure, and this will just give him an excuse. 

Sakura looks at the track again, fighting back a wave of sleep so strong she almost stumbles forward. 

But if I don’t do my exercises, Kakashi-sensei will drop me for sure. There’s no way he’s going to keep training a loser who also doesn’t obey instructions. I really like training with him…

Sakura then looks at the walls of the village she’s supposed to be running on. Sending enough chakra to her feet to manage the adhesion will definitely knock her out. But if she takes just a little 30-minute nap, she should be able to do it, right? She might have to cut down on a few laps, but at least she’ll be able to look Sensei in the eye and say she tried. 

Ok. A little nap it is. Just a small one, enough for Sakura to get her energy back up to attempt the running. 

She looks around for Noodle, who’s nosing his way through the grass near a big tree. Hm. A tree nap doesn’t sound bad at all, actually. Especially when the ground is so hot. Sakura’s slept in trees before, during Team 7 missions when they were hiding from rogue ninja and the occasional bandit. She knows it’s shady and comfortable if you find a branch wide enough, especially when you’re doing it for fun and not to save your life. 

She makes sure that Noodle sees her climbing the tree and finds a branch low enough that he’ll be able to get to her if anything happens. Then, blissfully, she shuts her eyes. 

***

When Sakura wakes up, the sun is in her eyes. 

It’s blazing hot, even in her tree, and Noodle is somehow curled up in her lap, his warm body making her even hotter. 

Sage, what time is it? 

Sakura blearily lifts her left wrist so her wristwatch is positioned in front of her face, and then promptly falls out of the tree in shock. 

2 pm? 

Noodle has, fortunately, fallen on Sakura instead of the ground. He looks annoyed at being awoken so rudely and takes out his anger by trying to burrow a hole into her stomach and sleep there instead. 

Sakura pushes him away, panicking on the inside. “Not now, Noodle. We’re fucked. We’re really, really, fucked.” She stumbles up, shouldering her satchel. “Come on, baby.” 

Noodle doesn’t seem to want to move from his comfortable position, so Sakura picks him up in one hand and runs to Kakashi-sensei’s apartment, one hand on her side holding the pup like she would lift a briefcase.  

When she finally reaches his door, she takes a deep breath. She’s one and a half hours late, and she smoked last night. She hopes he only yells about the former. 

“Ready, dog?” She asks Noodle, who only shoots her a disgruntled look at being carried like a shopping bag. 

Sakura knocks. 

Sensei opens it, holding a pair of cooking chopsticks in one hand and wearing a bright green apron patterned with shuriken and kunai over his standard jonin tack. It’s absolutely hideous, and Sakura can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out of her. Then she remembers the circumstances. 

“Sorry I’m late, Sensei.” She says. She puts Noodle down. “I’m here to apologise. And return Noodle.” 

Kakashi-sensei’s visible eye squints at her for just a moment before opening the door to let her in. “Come in, Sakura-chan,” he says. “You’re just in time for lunch.” 

Huh? 

Sakura walks in anyways, moving out of the way so Noodle can make his way to his doggy-bed and fall asleep there. The kitchen is organised chaos, with pork sizzling in a frying pan and some kind of noodle soup on the stove. The electric rice cooker is also on. Sakura has never seen her Sensei using so many kitchen appliances at the same time. 

“Are you…are you expecting someone?” She asks, hesitant to sit down. “Like, am I interrupting something?” 

Sensei’s brows furrow. “Not at all. Since someone,” he gives Sakura a pointed look, “didn’t make it to our meeting, I decided to make use of the free time to make myself a nice, home-cooked meal.” 

“Right,” She didn’t even know he could cook such a variety of food. The most she’s seen him do is make instant ramen, and occasionally roast rabbits that they’d caught on missions in which the Team had gotten delayed and run out of food. This whole scene is…absurdly domestic for Kakashi-sensei. 

“Maa,” he puts his hands on his hips, which when combined with the apron looks godawful. “Don’t tell me you’re under the misguided belief that I don’t know how to cook.” 

Sakura frowns. “It wasn’t really misguided, Sensei,” 

He puts one hand over his heart in mock offence. “Nonsense and slander. Cooking is one of the first skills a ninja should master. Complete self-sufficiency is key to successful missions. Take that as another learning from your sensei, ok?” 

Sakura nods. The food smells really good, actually. It had almost caused her to forget why she’s here. Which is to apologise, chief amongst other things. 

“Kakashi-sensei,” she says. She can feel herself fidgeting with the end of her dress, but she can’t seem to stop her fingers. “I’m sorry I’m so late. I uh, meant to get here on time.” 

Sensei turns from where he’s stirring the soup. “That’s alright, Sakura. Did you finish your laps this morning?” 

Sakura winces. She’s always been an awful liar, and she doesn’t like lying. “...no. I’m sorry, Sensei.” 

His eye narrows. “And why didn’t you do your laps?” 

“I was tired.” Why does she always sound like a seven year old Academy student in front of him? He’s definitely going to stop teaching me now…what kind of stupid excuse is that? Naruto and Sasuke would be laughing at me if they were here. 

Sensei looks at her for another moment, and then shrugs. “Alright.” he says. 

Wait. What? 

“Just make sure you get a good night’s rest and we’ll do them afresh tomorrow, ok?” 

He’s not…he’s not mad at me? What happened to all the talk about dedication and hard work he used to give us when Team 7 was still under him? I used to give him this kind of thing all the time then, and it used to be so obvious he judged me so much for it. No. I need to show him I’m better now, and different than I used to be back then. I need to make up for my missed training so he won’t be disappointed in me again. So he won’t leave me behind, like the others did. 

“Sakura-chan?” Sensei says, and Sakura realises she’s just been standing there looking at him in silence. 

“Oh! I was just–anyways. I’ll make up for it, Sensei. I’ll do the laps after my session with Shishou. No worries!” 

“There’s no need for that,” he says simply. “We will do it tomorrow.” 

No, no, no, no, no. I can’t let him think I’m slacking. I’ll just do the laps quickly after training with Shishou, and then if I’m really fast about it, I can get home by 9:30. I’ll be able to catch that hospital radio drama with Mama then. Ok. That’s what I’ll do. Sounds like a plan. 

“Sensei,” she says. “I rested enough this morning. Don’t worry, I’ll be able to manage it. I don’t want to slack off.” 

“Sakura, we will start the laps tomorrow, and not today.” He suddenly sounds serious. “You’ll do as I say, ok?” 

Sakura looks down at her feet, because she knows that she can’t lie to someone’s face. “Ok, Sensei.” 

Even if he’s not there, I can’t afford to skip the stamina boost a day of training will give me. If I slack off, Sensei will drop me. I can’t be dropped. Not again. I know I decided I was ok with it when I took my nap, but I’m not. I’m not.

“Good.” He turns back to the stove. “Now, lay the table for two, will you? I’m starving.” 

I’m invited? 

“Yes, you are.” he replies, and Sakura realises she said that out loud. “You look like you haven’t eaten much today. Unless you don’t have time to have lunch with your sensei?” 

Her growling stomach makes her answer obvious. 

Sensei’s apartment is filled with pleasant conversation as they share their meal, and Sakura doesn’t realise exactly just how hungry she is until she puts rice into her mouth. And though she does enjoy the benefits of training with her Sensei, she also likes spending time with him. Though it kills her to admit out loud that he isn’t an old, lame pervert, Sakura knows deep inside that he’s a pretty fun guy to hang out with. Journeys with Team 7 – whenever their legendary abysmal luck hadn’t struck –  had been pretty fun, and she and Sensei had become walking buddies and partners-in-judgement of Naruto and Sasuke’s stupid and incessant squabbling. 

Not to mention the whole lunch is a golden opportunity to try to see what’s underneath his mask. But the jerk only seems to want to take a bite when Sakura’s attention is drawn to her food, and he’s a ridiculously fast eater. 

Sakura feels lovely and full after the meal. “Sensei, I really didn’t know you could cook so well,” she says in wonder. 

“I’m offended that you didn’t. Maybe I’ll take a couple more opportunities to rectify that, huh?” 

Sakura nods, still thinking of how crispy yet juicy that pork had been. “I would appreciate that.” 

“Now,” he glances at the clock on the wall. “It’s almost 3:30. When’s your training with the Hokage?” 

Sakura wilts, thinking of the pummeling that was coming her way. “Soon,” she says. “I should probably go warm up, or take a walk or something. I ate so much…” 

Sensei stands. “I’ll handle the clean-up, then. You run along, now. I don’t want you to be late for two training sessions in one day!” 

Oh. 

For some stupid, delusional reason, Sakura had loved the lunch and conversation so much that she had thought he was going to ask her to stay for a bit and hang out some more. It was nice to spend time with Sensei. And definitely much, much better than being alone again. 

What did you think he was going to say? Of course, he has his own life. I’m the one here lonely enough that I want to hang out with my teacher. What a loser. 

“Oh,” Sakura smiles. She can feel the urge to cry in her stomach, and wills herself to suppress it so Sensei doesn’t see what a loser she is. “Yeah. Of course.” 

He gives her another one of those unreadable looks as she gets up, gathers her things, and gives a sleeping Noodle a kiss on the head before heading to the door. But she stops right as she has her hand on the knob. 

“I’m sorry again, Sensei.” She says, hoping the genuine intent comes across. “I really didn’t mean to mess up so badly today.” 

And hopefully, I’ll be making up for that tonight. 

“Maa, Sakura, like I said, it’s alright.” 

“Ok. Uh. Bye, Sensei. I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

“Bright and early!” 

She rolls her eyes, making sure he can see. “I’m sure I will be.” 

“I won’t apologise for getting lost on the road of life.” 

“You won’t apologise for getting lost in your adult literature either, then.” She darts away before he can get out anything more than an indignant squawk, laughing into the summer sky. 

Her happiness doesn’t last very long. 

She’s bored again while warming up for her training with Shishou, and without Noodle to keep her company, Sakura feels the loneliness seep back into her bones. Shikamaru and Tenten are both out of the village on missions, and she knows that Ino has a family function until 9 that night. So unless she wanted to sacrifice her training and her night with her parents, Sakura can’t see her best friend until the next day. She walks along the banks of the river a little aimlessly, trying to distract herself by spotting birds and different kinds of fish. 

At least her training with her Shishou gives her someone to talk to, even though it’s obvious Tsunade-sama is taking it a little easier on her today. 

“Are you alright, Sakura?” her master asks in between sparring sessions. 

“Yeah!” she answers, panting from exertion. “Why do you ask?” 

Tsunade-sama squints, her expression nauseatingly like Kakashi-sensei’s. “You look drawn, kid. And exhausted. Sleep early tonight, and eat a good dinner.” 

Sakura nods. After my laps. 

Though Shishou goes easy on her, Sakura still leaves her training exhausted as usual, and manages to down a cup of instant ramen – thinking a little sadly of Naruto, and what he must be doing right now – before heading back to where she started her day. Thankfully, she didn’t need to expend extra chakra healing herself as Tsunade-sama had done it for her this time, claiming she looked too tired for it. 

She starts the laps with her usual determination. She manages around thirty around the village – only because she cheats and uses a bit of chakra in the final ten to give her an extra push – before she starts the true challenge: the wall-running. Sakura does these slower, and she plans to start with a slow jog, speeding up to a jog, and then end the laps running. Usually she jogs and runs them all, but it’s already night and Sakura’s tired from her lack of sleep and training already. 

She’s done with around half of the wall-running before she realises she’s way more tired than she had initially calculated for. Instead of switching to a jog, she maintains a slower pace to reserve energy and chakra. But the lower chakra usage means that she feels more nauseous more quickly, and soon she’s panting with exertion and barely able to keep her feet moving. 

Red bean buns, her mind supplies unhelpfully. Sushi and ramen and barbequed pork, and a warm bowl of sticky rice topped with fried onions. 

She feels her stomach growl again, and a wave of exhaustion hits her. 

No! I can’t stop now! If I can’t even do these laps, Kakashi-sensei will deem me too weak to train and I’ll be alone again. 

She allows herself to stop for five minutes before starting her jog again. Shinobi returning to the village give her strange looks as she passes the stretch near the gates of Konoha, and she blushes furiously as a group of stupid-looking pre-genin laugh openly at her. 

Ok, I suppose I can’t really blame them. I’m sure I look like a crazy person. 

But even her thoughts are getting sluggish, and as she completes more laps, all her attention is forcefully diverted into keeping herself awake and moving. Her heartbeat is loud in her ears, complemented by the ugly sound of her own panting. Her calves burn like crazy, and the nausea makes her want to throw up. 

I have to keep going. Naruto would have been able to do double the laps I did at a faster pace, and Sasuke would have already completed them. I can’t show Sensei how weak I really am. 

But it’s getting harder and harder to breathe, and Sakura feels the exhaustion of her training with her Shishou show through the various aches on her ribs and legs. The warm, yellow lights of the village start to blur, and Sakura can barely make out the shadow of a ninja jumping lightning fast through the trees and rooftops and the wall she’s walking on and straight towards her before her legs give out and she can feel herself falling off the walls–

–only to be caught by a familiar pair of arms. 

She thinks she sees a black mask and silver hair before she surrenders to her exhaustion. 

***

The first thing Sakura does when she wakes is retch. 

It’s unpleasant. There’s barely any water that she can vomit out anyways, and she can hear herself gagging as she heaves into the grass. 

When she’s done, she lifts her heavy head up from the ground to look for her water bottle. Her throat is dry, and it’s painful to swallow. She spits out whatever saliva she collects on her tongue after the first swallow, instinctively scared to hurt her throat more. She seems to be settled on a soft patch of grass, and judging by the trees near her, close to the part of the wall that surrounds the shinobi residential district. 

Shit. This was where I saw that shadowy ninja–

She looks around in a panic, before turning her head and seeing Kakashi-sensei looking straight at her, his visible eye looking absolutely furious. 

Fuck. 

But Sakura is too tired to really say anything, and only distantly registers that him catching her doing exactly what he told her not to do is surely the end of whatever tentative relationship they’d managed to build. 

“Can I have some water?” she asks instead, barely managing to get the words out. 

He nods wordlessly and hands her a cool bottle. She cracks it open and brings it halfway to her mouth before he puts a gentle hand on her forearm, slowing her movement down. 

“Slowly.” he says. “Or you’ll throw up again. Take it in small sips.” 

She nods and sips the water. The first few sips are painfully dry, but she can feel her throat ease up gradually as the cool water moisturises it again. Some of the nausea and dizziness subsides, and when Sakura thinks she’s ready to handle more, she takes a tentative gulp. She only looks up when she gets through three-fourths of the bottle. 

She clears her throat, and opens her mouth, but stops. She doesn’t know what to say. 

I’ve really fucked it up, haven’t I? 

But thankfully, she’s saved from speaking first. 

“Are you alright?” Kakashi-sensei asks. His voice is tight, like there are a dozen emotions he isn’t letting himself express. 

Sakura nods. “That was you, wasn’t it? You ran towards me, before I–” 

“Fell off the wall?” he finishes for her. “Yes. You’re lucky I was able to get there in time. The number of bones you would have broken…” 

Sakura shudders. “Thank you, Sensei.” 

He nods, turning around and pulling something out of a scroll. He hands her a warm takeout box and a banana. “Eat the banana first. See if you can handle it. If you can keep it down, there are chicken dumplings in the box. I’m guessing you haven’t eaten since lunch.” 

“I had ramen,” she says, feeling defensive. 

“Instant, I suppose?” 

Sakura looks down. 

Sensei sighs. “You don’t need to eat until you feel like it. But I hope you don’t mind if I keep you company here while you do.” 

“No. I mean, I don’t mind.” Sakura looks up at him. “Thank you, Sensei. And I’m sorry. Again.” 

He looks at her, and there’s an expression in his eye she can’t read. “Why did you do it, Sakura? Why did you disobey the instructions I gave you so clearly? I said we’d attempt it tomorrow. You just had to wait one night.” 

Sakura opens her mouth, and closes it again. She feels much too tired to be having this conversation. 

Sensei sighs again. “When I tell you not to do something, it's because I know it’s going to hurt you, or push you more than what you can handle.” 

Sakura takes a bite of her banana. To her pleasant surprise, she doesn’t retch it back up. Tentatively, she takes another bite, and then another. It all stays down. She sees Kakashi-sensei hum in satisfaction. I guess it was the thirst that got to me more than the hunger. Thank god I ate that instant ramen. 

Kakashi-sensei seems to judge her well enough to keep lecturing, apparently, because he keeps talking while keeping a watchful eye on her. “If you keep pushing yourself past your limits, there will come a time when your body can no longer keep up. And then no matter how hard you’ve trained all this time, you might have to delay, or worse, give up on a shinobi career. Is that what you want?” 

I bet he never would have said this to Sasuke and Naruto. Sasuke trained all the time, sometimes even all day, and he never said anything. And Naruto could go hours without tiring because of his freaky chakra. 

“I’m sorry, Sensei,” she mutters, crumpling the banana peel and keeping it next to her to throw away later. How is she going to walk home? She’s so tired she could sleep here. “I won’t do it again.” 

“You said that this afternoon, Sakura.” Sensei says. “How can I trust you to not push yourself too hard?” 

Sakura stares at the box of food he’d brought her, not trusting herself to say anything. It was happening. She’d finally done it. She’d breached his trust, and now he’d tell her he cannot train her anymore. And the worst part is, she can’t even blame him for it. He’d told her not to do the laps today, knowing she was too weak to do it, and she’d gone ahead and done it anyway. And he was right. She was too weak to do his training. And now on top of being weak, she’s proven herself untrustworthy. 

All she’d wanted was to prove to him that she’s strong now. That, even if she’s still not capable of catching up to the boys, she’s finally good enough to train and be taken as a serious kunoichi. That’s she’s gotten over her stupid pre-teen obsession with Sasuke and her ridiculous vanity. That she’s a good enough student that he will never ignore her or leave her behind again. 

But the more Sakura tries, the more a lesson becomes clear to her: that in the shinobi world, Sakura is destined to be left behind. By her best friend, by her genin team and her Sensei, and soon, if things go as disastrously as they have been, probably by her Shishou as well. Team-less and lonely whenever she dons her flack and picks up a kunai. 

Sakura only realises she’s crying when she hears Kakashi-sensei take in a sharp breath and attempt to reach out, before pulling his hand away. She gathers her knees into the bracket of her elbows, placing her head in between them. The pain is so great that she feels it’ll explode all around her into the trees if she doesn’t gather it all up into herself. The tears fall, nonetheless, hot and wet over her stinging cheeks. 

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—

Suddenly, Sakura feels a warm hand stroke her hair gently. She looks up, slightly startled, and sees Kakashi-sensei’s eye on her. She sniffs, trying to wipe her tears away with her sleeve and tame her unruly hair, but Sensei stops her and hands her a handkerchief instead. She takes it, and wipes her face, but the smell of the talcum on the kerchief reminds her of the old days with Team 7, when Kakashi-sensei used to carry multiple kerchiefs around to give to them when they would inevitably get nosebleeds from sparring or incorrect chakra use. Sakura’s struck with a piercing sense of nostalgia, making her predicament seem a thousand times more pathetic. 

The tears come again, and she feels her face crumple as the tears come again. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of her lungs, and she has to take deep, gasping breaths to push it all back in. Just when she thinks she’s going to succumb to despair, she feels a pair of arms around her, and she’s enveloped by Kakashi-sensei’s rough jonin flak. He allows her to cry into his jacket for an embarrassing amount of time. She only emerges when she literally doesn’t have the energy to cry anymore, and she feels like she can talk without tears falling from her eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

Kakshi-sensei looks a funny mix of distressed and concerned. He’s strangely twitchy, like she’s an explosive tag and he doesn’t know when she’s going to blow up. She’s only mildly offended. “Maa, you don’t need to apologise.” 

“Still,” 

He looks at her, expression rife with an emotion she cannot recognise. “Are you feeling…better, at least?” 

She nods. She owes him an explanation still, for betraying his trust. It’s the least she could do after getting her tears and snot all over his jacket. 

“I’m sorry, Sensei.” She says again. “I’m sorry…for not listening to you. When you said I shouldn’t do the laps today.” 

She can’t bring herself to look at his face, so she stares at the nearest tree instead. 

“Sakura, you don’t have to talk ab–” 

“I get it. If you don’t want to train me anymore. A dishonest teammate is a threat to the well-being of the team.” He’d taught them that lesson on one of their earliest C-rank missions, after Naruto lied about not being hungry and then proceeded to faint from low glucose levels. 

“Sakura–” 

“It’s just that I didn’t want to be weak,” her voice breaks on the word, her resentment for the very concept of weakness resurfacing. “I wanted to show you that I wasn’t weak anymore. That I’m good enough now.” 

He’s not even interrupting her anymore, staring at her once again with that emotion she can’t place. 

Suddenly, she’s too tired to keep talking. She wants to end this as soon as possible. “You’re only training me now that I’m strong. Like the boys were. I thought if I was weak, you’d…” Leave me. I was going to say leave me. “...stop training me again.” she finishes. 

There’s a minute of silence, which Sakura spends with her head between her knees and arms, staring at the ground resolutely. She closes her eyes. When Sensei ends their training, she’ll accept the blow with grace, and apologise again. That’s all she can do. What will be difficult is finding her way back home. While she’s not retching anymore and has successfully eaten a banana, she’s still drop-dead exhausted. And dealing with her distressed parents will be a whole different situation…

“Sakura,” Kakashi-sensei says. “While no one can deny that you’ve become stronger now then what you were, that’s not why I’m training you.” 

Sakura’s heart swells with treacherous hope for all but ten seconds before she remembers the actual reason he’s training her. 

“Oh. Right. It’s because of the smoking.” She looks up at him. His expression is back to being unreadable, which is a lot more familiar than the strange, panicky one he’d worn when she’d been crying. “I promised I wouldn’t do it again, Sensei. You don’t have to keep wasting your time on this anymore.” 

Sensei sighs, closing his eye for a second before honing in on her again. “You smoked last night.” 

How on earth did–

“Guy-sensei.” She says, the realisation hitting. Of course it was Guy-sensei. She’d passed Guy-sensei on her way to the cigarette stall, but why would he have followed her? While she had done drills with him and Tenten a couple of times, she doesn’t know him well enough for him to be following her.

Sensei nods. 

Sakura sniffs, not able to stop a fresh round of tears from falling down her face. Of course, the one thing that could have possibly eroded his trust in her even more had been revealed. And worse, he’d found out from someone else. She’d proven herself an untrustworthy liar not once, but twice. There was no way he’d want to keep training her, or even like her as a person anymore. She knows from experience that Kakashi-sensei tolerates a lot of bad behaviour from his subordinates, but draws the line at betrayal and dishonesty. 

Sakura can feel her face crumple with tears for the third time in one evening – loser, weakling, liar, untrustworthy – and allows herself a minute before looking up. 

Oh no. 

Sensei has that twitchy, strange expression on his face again. 

Suddenly, it hits her. She’s upsetting Sensei with her crying. He must not like it when she cries, because good shinobi don’t show their emotions. So on top of being an untrustworthy, dishonest student, Sakura has also shown herself to be emotionally unreliable. 

Great. Maybe if I self-sabotage once more he’ll write to Shishou to tell her what a loser I am. Maybe he was right last year, not to pay me attention. Not when I’m such a pathetic shinobi. 

But she wipes her tears away determinedly. 

“Sorry.” She says. Sensei’s eye twitches. “Again, I mean. Sorry again. Uh. I didn’t know Guy-sensei was spying on me. I mean. I’m sorry for smoking.” Sakura nods. “I won’t do it again. For real, this time.” 

“Sakura–” Sensei starts, but she’s quick to butt in. 

“I understand if you want to stop training me.” She says quickly. His eye grows wide, as if she’s surprised him. “I lied to you twice, and disobeyed direct instructions. I’m really sorry, Sensei.” She hates how weak her voice grows on the last sentence. “I’m really sorry. I appreciate all the time you’ve spent on me, especially since I know you’ve probably been busy with missions. I mean, Tsunade-sama told me the village was putting more pressure on the jonin after the…invasion, so I’m guessing the time you’ve spent on me must be coming out of your personal time.” 

Sakura knows her words are starting to slur together, and she’s so tired she doesn’t exactly know what she’s saying, but she soldiers on anyway. “But I swear, this time I’ll really stop smoking. And then you won’t have to waste so much time any more. Again, I’m really sorry, Sensei. Especially tonight. I probably would have broken a couple bones if you hadn’t caught me. And I’m sorry for making you come all this way chasing me because I did something stupid.” 

Even though she’s not crying anymore, Sensei’s expression is still strange. She doesn’t understand. She’s not crying, and she’s trying to be as logical and apologetic as possible. Why does he still look like that?

She tries harder to assure him that he doesn’t need to waste anymore energy or time on her. “And I can make it home safely too! So really, I’m so sorry again, Sensei. I’m truly really grateful. To you. Yeah.” 

Sakura tries to get up and begin the slow walk home – partly because it’s getting late, and partly because she wants to show Kakashi-sensei that she’s not an absolute failure – but her legs give up on her as soon as she puts weight on them, and she tumbles forward. Sensei catches her before she falls nose-first back on the ground. 

He sets her back down against the trunk of a wide tree. Sakura’s too tired to protest. 

He looks at her for a second. “You’re not ready to walk yet, Sakura. Your legs took quite the strain, especially after a session with Senju Tsunade. You need to rest more before you attempt walking.” 

“Right,” Sakura looks down at her useless legs. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

Sensei winces. “You don’t need to keep apologising.” 

“I’m sorry,” Sakura says on instinct, and Sensei gives her a look. 

“Right.” 

He puts his hands on his hips, in a blatantly obvious what-am-I-going-to-do-with-this-girl gesture. Sakura desperately wishes Ino were here. The last thing she wanted to be was a burden on him, and that’s exactly what she’s being. Ino has always made her feel wanted, and like she was enough. 

“You’re going to have the next week off from any kind of physical activity,” he says. “I’ll talk to Tsunade-sama about it. No strenuous activity, no training, and no high-intensity medic work.” 

Sakura gasps. “But, Sensei–” 

“That’s a direct order,” he says. “Don’t tell me you’re going to disobey another direct command after this lesson?” 

Sakura flinches; he might as well have slapped her. 

Sensei winces. “I–Sakura, I didn’t mean to be harsh. I just–” he puts his hands in his pockets. “Guy told me you weren’t in a very good place…emotionally…last night. I assume you didn’t sleep until very early in the morning, which would explain why I found you asleep in a tree with the pup when I went looking for you this afternoon. I just don’t think you should be training for a bit. I don’t want you to push yourself too hard and risk your well-being.” 

The humiliation of it all makes her cheeks burn. Guy-sensei had…seen her having a literal mental breakdown? God, they must both think she’s such a loser. And now she was being grounded because Sensei thinks she’s a looney, or a flight-risk, or something worse. 

How does this keep getting worse and worse? First the training mess-up, then the smoking, and now the mental breakdown? 

“Oh,” is all she can manage. “I’m sorr–I mean. Alright.” She can barely bring herself to look up at him. 

It isn’t until she feels a warm hand on her head that she looks up. Sensei is crouched in front of her, and probably giving her a small smile, judging by the sad upturn of his eye. “Sakura-chan,” he says. “I want you to trust me when I say that I’m doing this out of concern, and not derision.” 

“Alright,” she says. “I understand, Sensei.” 

He sighs. “And I also want you to know that I’m going to keep training you.” 

At this she looks up. 

“What?” 

No. This isn’t what I thought he’d say. I’ve been a shit student today, I’ve disobeyed his orders. I’ve broken his trust. 

“Sakura, everyone makes mistakes. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop training you.” 

“But I broke your trust–” 

“You didn’t do it maliciously,” he says, like it’s final. “You’re not the kind of student who would break my rules with bad intentions.” 

Sakura looks down again. 

But his belief in me makes me…happy. Happy and…relieved? I thought he would only liked training me when I was strong and didn’t make mistakes. Does this…does this mean that he likes training me for me? For Sakura, and not Sakura-the-apprentice-of-Tsunade-sama?

No. I shouldn’t get my hopes up again. He probably wants me to stop smoking. There’s no way he wants to continue training me when I’ve proven myself to be such a loser. The new mission is to find out why, though. It’s the smoking…and what? Does he think I’m mentally unstable and wants to ensure there are no…mental defects? 

Sensei picks up the box of food that had fallen on the grass when she’d stumbled, and hands it back to her. “But I think that’s a conversation we need to have when you’re better. Are you feeling good enough to eat?” 

Sakura nods mutely – temporarily stopping her train of thought – and takes the box even though she doubts she’s hungry. When she puts a dumpling into her mouth, though, she realises how hungry she is and quickly goes through the rest. She continues to sit in silence even after she finishes the box of dumplings, and appreciates that Kakashi-sensei allows her to wallow in peace.

She doesn’t know how much time passes before he clears his throat gently. “Sakura,” he says. “It’s getting close to eleven. Maybe I can drop you off at your parents’?” 

Sakura nods, feeling extremely sleepy. “There’s no need, Sensei. I can make it there on my own. I’d feel bad keeping you any more.” 

He gives her a look. “Can you still walk?” 

Sakura nods quickly and tries to stand again, but stumbles. She leans against the tree she almost face-planted into and takes a deep inhale, trying not to cry, when she feels herself being lifted. When she opens her eyes, she finds that she’s sitting, piggy-back style, on Kakashi-sensei’s back. 

He looks back and her and gives her a little smile. “It’s ok, Sakura-chan. Let your sensei carry you back home?” 

She nods, too tired to protest, and allows herself to be carried through the trees. She watches as they start slow, and speed up until the trees stop being trees and start to become a tunnel of green. When she falls asleep, it’s to the steady rhythm of Sensei’s feet.