Chapter Text
Kakashi wanted to retire.
His precious genin were still just that: genin. They hadn’t passed the chūnin exams, though they had been through hell during them. There was another Hokage in the village. Naruto and Sasuke were fighting more than usual. And Sakura was… strange. Stranger than a kunoichi her age should be.
Among other things that were happening, Kakashi decided he’d had enough and that he wanted—quite justifiably—to retire. Or at least take a couple of weeks off, because otherwise he was going to lose his mind with every justification imaginable and end up committing treason.
Well, maybe not treason.
But he would definitely end up doing something bad. Something that would earn him punishment for insubordination, which would be awful because then his genin would get dragged into it, following his example after seeing him act out—and if his genin got involved by following his lead, then the disasters would only get worse.
Kakashi did not want things to get worse. Not after how fragile the village already was following Hiruzen’s death, barely holding itself together under Tsunade’s leadership.
“Sensei?”
Damn.
“Sakura-chan.” He greeted her, watching the girl and inhaling subtly. The scent of floral shampoo clung to her, mixed with that sweet smell children carried during their youth, and a hint of lavender he was certain came from her clothes. “Why are you here?”
Why was she standing outside his apartment?
How did Sakura know where he lived?
A shy look crossed the girl’s face. “Uh…” she murmured. “I just… thought I’d stop by.”
“Did you?” This was completely unlike Sakura. Kakashi grew concerned.
He tilted his head just slightly—a nearly imperceptible gesture that, to him, meant full alert. Sakura was not the kind of girl who “just stopped by.” Sakura was methodical, direct when it came to training, loud when it came to Naruto or Sasuke, emotionally transparent even when she tried not to be. That hesitation, that uh left hanging in the air, didn’t fit any version of his student that he knew.
And Kakashi knew his students. Or at least, he had always believed he did—ever since he’d spent days watching them, ever since he’d begun training them.
The hallway outside his apartment was quiet, broken only by the distant murmur of the village and the soft scuff of someone’s sandals several buildings away. He could feel the chakra signatures of other shinobi nearby—likely in their own apartments or lingering close by, as many of them lived in the area. He was used to it, but it didn’t make him feel any better knowing that most of them weren’t exactly stable and could, therefore, pose a danger to his small student.
“Uh…” Sakura stared at him, green eyes filled with curiosity, wary caution, and a timid nervousness that felt out of place, especially because she had never looked at him that way. Not once.
Kakashi noticed how she rocked faintly on her feet, as if unsure whether to step forward or back, how her hands twisted together at her abdomen, gripping the fabric of her dress with unnecessary force. She was clean—too clean for someone who had been training. Her chakra, usually vibrant and slightly chaotic beneath the control she wielded over it, felt restrained, compressed inward, as if she were deliberately holding it back. As if she were trying to hide it as much as possible.
That, more than anything else, made him frown beneath his mask.
The pink-haired girl dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Thinking about stopping by doesn’t usually bring people all the way here,” Kakashi said gently, his lazy tone carefully kept free of accusation. For now, he chose to ignore the fact that one of his students apparently knew where he lived—strange, considering he’d never shared that information with any of the three genin. “Did something happen?”
Sakura looked up then, and Kakashi cursed himself silently for asking.
There were faint shadows beneath her eyes—almost invisible to anyone not trained to notice the smallest details. Tension lingered in her jaw, as if she’d been clenching her teeth for hours and her gaze… it wasn’t broken, thankfully. But it was tired. Tired in a way that didn’t match her age, not even for a genin.
Kakashi had seen that look before. Too many times. Reflected in mirrors and puddles of water after missions that had gone wrong.
“No,” she answered too quickly. “I mean—nothing happened. It’s just…” She swallowed. “Are you busy, sensei? Am I bothering you?”
There it was.
That was the exact moment unease lodged itself in his chest like a thorn he wouldn’t be able to remove until this was resolved.
Sakura never asked that.
Sakura barged in. She demanded. She claimed attention as if the world owed it to her, because, like it or not, she was a bright child who had been doted on while growing up. Not to the extent of the heirs of Konoha’s major shinobi clans, but she had clearly been given most of what she wanted. So this—asking for permission, hesitating, seeking confirmation before stepping forward when she was usually a little rude with him—this was…
It was unnatural.
Something was wrong.
Kakashi stepped aside from the doorway without thinking. The motion was automatic, instinctive, as if his body had decided before his mind caught up.
“Come in,” he said. “I was… reading.”
A small lie. The book was still open on the table, yes, but he’d been staring at the same page for at least ten minutes without truly seeing it.
Sakura hesitated for another second before crossing the threshold, as if entering her sensei’s personal space were a line she wasn’t sure she was allowed to cross. Kakashi closed the door behind her with a soft click and watched her again—more closely this time—registering the way her shoulders tensed when she found herself enclosed by the apartment’s silence.
She sat down at one of the chairs by the table in the center of the room without him prompting her, knees together, back rigid. Kakashi took a seat across from her, keeping a respectful distance, even as every fiber of his being screamed that something was wrong.
Very wrong.
“Naruto and Sasuke…” she began, then stopped, as if the words weighed too much. “They’re okay, right?”
The question caught him off guard.
“As okay as they can be,” he answered honestly. “The exams were rough. For all three of you.”
Sakura nodded slowly, but she didn’t seem reassured. Her fingers began to worry at a loose thread on her sleeve, pulling at it absentmindedly. Kakashi followed the movement with his eyes, noting the automatic, almost surgical precision with which she tugged at the thread.
A distraction, an anchor.
“Yeah, I know. But that’s not what I mean,” Sakura said. “I mean what happened the other day… at the hospital.”
Ah, yes.
When his two blockheaded students had nearly killed Sakura while fighting each other.
Kakashi was still angry at them for that. He just hadn’t done anything about it yet.
“They’ll be okay?” Sakura asked softly, head lowered. “We’ll still be a team, right?”
“Yes,” Kakashi replied without hesitation. He wouldn’t allow his team to be broken apart. He wouldn’t abandon these kids.
Silence settled between them again.
“Sensei…” Sakura said quietly. “Can I stay for a while?”
Kakashi felt his stomach twist, not because he didn’t want to say yes, but because he wanted far too much to understand why. Sakura wasn’t seeking company. She was seeking shelter. And that terrified him more than any S-rank mission ever had.
“Of course,” he said at last. “You can stay as long as you like.”
“No, sensei.” Sakura bit her lip. “I mean… stay here. For a while.” She looked uncomfortable, nervous. “Like—live here.”
“…Eh?”
Kakashi felt cold sweat break across his skin.
“My parents wanted me to quit being a ninja after the Orochimaru incident, and they never liked Naruto and Sasuke to begin with,” Sakura rushed on. “I told them no—that I wouldn’t stop being a ninja just because they wanted me to. That they couldn’t force me to quit because I’m legally an adult since I graduated from the Academy and started taking missions outside the village.” Her words tumbled out faster and faster. “I recited the entire shinobi law article to them. They didn’t like that and said, ‘My house, my rules. If you don’t like it, leave.’ So I said I would and now I don’t have anywhere to go and…”
Her large green eyes brimmed with thick tears.
“I’ve been sleeping at the hospital, but after the boys fought, I didn’t want to anymore… and yesterday I camped in a tree near the Nara forest, but I felt other ninjas nearby and I got scared and… I don’t have anywhere else to go, sensei.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Kakashi said, trying to calm the girl who was hyperventilating and crying at the same time. “You can stay here.” He assured her, though he wasn’t entirely sure why he’d said it, and now it felt far too late, and too cruel, to take it back. “Stay as long as you want.”
It was only afterward that Kakashi realized he’d said stay without conditions, without thinking about what came next. The word hung in the air like an activated seal.
Sakura looked at him as if she hadn’t understood—like she was waiting for him to retract it, to laugh and say it was a joke. When that didn’t happen, when he didn’t add anything else, her shoulders dropped just a centimeter.
It was a tiny movement, almost imperceptible.
To Kakashi, it was like watching someone set down a burden they’d been carrying far too long.
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand in an awkward, childish way, sniffing without any dignity. Kakashi said nothing. He didn’t move. He gave her the silence he knew how to offer better than any speech, one that demanded no explanations, no repayment.
He watched as her breathing slowly steadied, as her chakra—once compressed like a clenched fist—began to expand cautiously, still uncertain, but no longer locked in absolute tension.
“Thank you…” Sakura murmured, so softly it almost sounded like she was ashamed to need it.
Kakashi nodded once. Nothing more. He didn’t want this to become a favor, or a debt. Children shouldn’t feel like asking for help was something they’d be charged for later.
He stood calmly and moved to the small kitchen. The apartment was simple, organized in a functional, almost impersonal way, clean surfaces, few personal belongings, the bare minimum for someone who rarely spent more than a few hours at home. He put water on to boil without asking; he’d learned long ago that offering tea was a reliable way to anchor someone to the present.
The sound of the water heating filled the silence without making it uncomfortable.
Sakura remained seated, her hands now resting on her thighs. She looked around with restrained curiosity, careful not to seem intrusive. Her eyes lingered on the open doorway to the bedroom—on the bookshelf, the neatly arranged ninja equipment in one corner, the window cracked open to let in the evening air scented with damp earth and leaves. There was a plant on the windowsill beside the books, photographs, and the bed positioned near the window as well.
Her gaze shifted to the other door, probably the bathroom, and then to the rest of the apartment, suitable for one person, far too small for two. But she would stay here. Safe. Protected. With her sensei, who would make sure to guard her and chase danger away.
Kakashi noticed her draw a deeper breath, as if this place—spare and quiet—offered her something she no longer had at home: Predictability. Safety.
“You don’t have to explain anything else today,” he said without looking directly at her, breaking the silence when the water began to bubble. “We can talk later, if you want.”
She nodded immediately, too quickly, as if afraid the offer might vanish if she hesitated. “Yes… thank you, sensei.”
He poured the tea and handed her a cup. Sakura held it with both hands, seeking warmth. Her fingers trembled slightly. Kakashi sat back down across from her, attentive to every small detail, the way she avoided meeting his eyes, the stiffness that still hadn’t fully left her posture, the exhaustion that went beyond the physical.
Thirteen years old.
Too young to bear legal decisions, to shoulder the responsibility of defending her calling against adults who should have protected her.
Kunoichi, he reminded himself. Sakura was a kunoichi. But before that, she was a child. And Kakashi couldn’t see her as anything else: a child. His child. His pup. One he was meant to teach and protect.
“I don’t want to be a burden,” Sakura said quietly, with a seriousness that didn’t match her height or her age. “I can help. Clean, cook… train harder, sensei. I won’t be a bother.”
There it was again.
'I won’t be a bother.'
He realized, with a clarity that made his skin prickle, that Sakura wasn’t just asking for permission to stay, she was justifying her existence. And then something uncomfortable twisted in his chest, an unpleasant echo of thoughts that made him want to look more closely into Sakura’s family life, and that made him wish—very strongly—to have a serious conversation with his two male students as well (Sasuke, in particular) about how they treated their female teammate.
“Sakura,” Kakashi said, more serious than he’d intended. “You are not a burden.”
She blinked, as if she hadn’t quite understood. Or as if she wanted to, but didn’t dare.
The apartment was too quiet. Kakashi became aware of every sound: the nearly inaudible tick of a pipe, the soft brush of fabric as Sakura shifted slightly in her chair, the distant murmur of the village drifting in through the half-open window. Even the air felt tense, heavy with things left unsaid.
“You can use the bed,” he continued, breaking the silence. “I’ll sleep on a futon here in the kitchen.”
“No, no, sensei, it’s fine,” she hurried to say. “I can—”
“It’s not negotiable,” he told her gently, but with a tone that left no room for argument.
Sakura nodded slowly. Her shoulders relaxed by barely a centimeter, but Kakashi noticed. He noticed everything. From the tension that slowly eased out of her, to the way she looked at him as if she believed he could eliminate the greatest threat imaginable just to protect her, with a blind trust that made him feel nauseous and warm in the chest all at once.
“Sensei…” she murmured again, hesitating. “Why… why aren’t you angry?”
The question caught him off guard. “Should I be?”
“With me,” she clarified. “For not fixing it. For not… staying at home.”
Kakashi tilted his head slightly, his visible eye curving in what anyone else would have taken for a carefree smile. Inside, however, his mind worked with surgical clarity.
“If I got angry every time one of my students didn’t know how to handle a situation that no adult ever bothered to teach them how to handle,” he replied with practiced lightness, “then I should have been angry a long time ago. And trust me, Sakura-chan… I would’ve lost my voice by now from yelling at Naruto or Sasuke.”
She stared at him, unsettled.
Kakashi watched her in silence for a few seconds longer, not invasively, not like an interrogation, but like someone assembling a puzzle with pieces that had always been there, only now fitting together differently.
Sakura Haruno had grown up an only child to civilian parents. There had been no clan pressure, no inherited expectations, no early brutality of a shinobi environment. There had been toys, clean dresses, warm meals, relatively normal schedules. Praise for being smart, for being pretty, for getting good grades. Comfortable, easy affection. Affection given when it cost nothing.
And it showed.
It showed in the way Sakura expected—almost instinctively—to be heard. In how frustrated she became when she wasn’t. In how unused she was to being told no without explanations. In her tendency to dramatize emotions because, for years, that had been the most effective way to get attention. In her childlike—almost arrogant—confidence when it came to knowledge, born from constant praise for being clever. And it showed, too, in her absolute fragility when the world stopped revolving around her.
“But…” Sakura insisted. “I yelled. I ran away from home. I behaved badly.”
“Scolding you for things I didn’t witness would be more work than I already have,” he replied lightly. “And you know how much I like avoiding unnecessary work.”
Sakura let out a small, almost involuntary laugh that faded quickly, as if she’d realized she shouldn’t laugh so easily. Kakashi noted that, too. The reflex to correct herself. To hold back. A child who had grown up being told she was special, brilliant, well-behaved… but who had likely also learned, at some point, that affection could be withdrawn if she became inconvenient.
“Besides,” he added, leaning back slightly in his chair, adopting that careless posture he used when he didn’t want anyone to see him think, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Sakura frowned, genuinely confused. Not indignant. Not defensive. As if the idea simply didn’t fit in her mind. “But I argued with my parents. I yelled at them,” she confessed quietly.
“I told them they didn’t understand anything about my life. That they were unbearable and to leave me alone.” She lowered her gaze to the cup. “And then… I left.” There it was. Kakashi didn’t need her to say more.
He’d heard similar versions too many times growing up, spoken in different ways. Civilian parents with shinobi children tended to swing between two extremes: smothering overprotection, or complete disengagement once reality became too dangerous to process. In Sakura, he saw traces of both.
She had been cared for. Spoiled, even.
But there was also that crack. That empty space where steady emotional attention should have been. Listening. Real presence, not just rules and expectations.
“Yelling isn’t a crime,” Kakashi said with a shrug. “Otherwise Naruto—and half the shinobi in Konoha—would’ve been sentenced to life in prison by now.”
Sakura pressed her lips together. Her fingers tightened around the cup, as if afraid it might be taken from her while she thought. “They always say they gave me everything,” she murmured. “And it’s true. I never lacked anything.” She swallowed. “But when I talk about being a ninja… when I talk about Naruto, about Sasuke, about you… it always feels like I’m talking about something annoying. Something they’d rather not hear.”
Kakashi didn’t answer right away. Not because he lacked words, but because he knew that anything too direct would make her shut down. Sakura didn’t respond well to having her wounds pointed out; she preferred discovering them on her own, even if it meant tripping over them again and again.
So he simply nodded. “Mhm.”
That small sound was enough for her to look up, uncertain, searching for more.
Kakashi watched as Sakura waited for a correction, a lesson, a long adult explanation—something that justified why feeling this way was wrong or exaggerated. She seemed to have grown used to that: being told she was overreacting, that it wasn’t that bad, that she should be grateful.
He didn’t give it to her.
Instead, he changed the subject with an almost irritating ease.
“Tomorrow we’ll have light training,” he said. “Nothing intense.”
“Eh?” Sakura blinked. “Light?”
“Mhm. Fundamentals review. Teamwork.” He glanced at her. “You’re very tense.”
She straightened immediately, offended. “I’m not—!” She stopped. Closed her mouth. Took a deep breath. “…A little,” she admitted at last, reluctantly.
Kakashi suppressed a smile. There she was, the Sakura he knew. Proud, a bit spoiled, used to being pushed and to pushing herself.
“You can relax here,” he said casually, as if discussing the weather. “Your amazing sensei will handle everything.”
Sakura shot him a skeptical look. “You really… don’t mind?”
There it was again. That constant need for confirmation.
Kakashi noted it mentally, along with many other small things: how she asked permission for some things but not others, how she measured her words when she wasn’t being driven by emotion, and more.
“No,” he replied simply.
She nodded again, more slowly this time. The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. Sakura took a sip of tea and leaned back against the chair—just a little—as if testing rest were something new.
Kakashi watched her from behind his book, not really reading. He wasn’t going to confront her. Not today. Not head-on. That had never been his style.
But he was going to look more closely.
He would pay attention to when Sakura raised her voice and when she fell quiet. To when she demanded things and when she asked for permission. To when she acted like the spoiled child the world had allowed her to be… and when she seemed like the exact opposite.
Kakashi turned a page with exaggerated slowness, as if he were truly reading and not using the book as an emotional shield. “…Although,” he added suddenly, without looking up, “if you start snoring, I may reconsider this entire arrangement.”
Sakura snapped her head up. “I don’t snore!”
“Mhm,” he replied, entirely unconvinced. “That’s exactly what someone who snores would say.”
“Sensei!” she protested, frowning, her tone rising just a little, and there it was. Kakashi noticed immediately: the familiar, unruly Sakura peeking her head back out. Not the restrained, careful girl from minutes ago, but the one who allowed herself to get indignant with him without fear of consequences.
A good sign.
“And besides,” she continued, crossing her arms, “you don’t really get to talk when you read that garbage in public like a total pervert.” She pointed at the book with clear disgust.
“Sakura-chan, don’t be mean to your sensei.”
“I’m not even remotely close to being mean,” Sakura shot back, rolling her eyes. “And Naruto and Sasuke-kun would say much worse.”
Kakashi knew denying that would be pointless, so he simply pretended he hadn’t heard her.
Sakura hesitated for a second, watching him, then spoke with blunt, almost childish honesty. “I thought you’d be more… angry. Or uncomfortable. Or that you’d tell me this wasn’t appropriate.”
“It isn’t,” Kakashi admitted. “Probably.”
Yes, he knew how it must look from the outside: a barely-genin girl suddenly moving in with an adult—a jōnin—she’d only known for a few months. Worse still, an adult who openly read romantic pornography around the village like it was nothing. It would look bad. Maybe not as bad because he was her sensei, but still bad.
And letting his students stay overnight with him was, in fact, inappropriate. Quite a bit, actually. No jōnin sensei did that, not unless they’d been a team for over a year, and not with just one student. But Kakashi had never cared much about what people thought of him anyway.
Sakura looked at him, alarmed.
“But,” he added immediately, in that tone of his that always made things sound less serious than they were, “half the things I do as a jōnin aren’t appropriate. And the other half is questionable.”
That earned him a wider, genuine smile from her.
“And Tsunade-sama?” Sakura asked suddenly, as if the thought had just struck her. “Won’t she be upset?”
Kakashi tilted his head, thoughtful. “Mhm… probably.”
Sakura opened her mouth, nervous.
“But you’re my genin,” he continued. “What I do or don’t do isn’t her concern as long as we do our job properly.”
“And besides,” Kakashi added calmly, “if Tsunade-sama gets mad, I can always say it was your idea.”
Sakura stared at him in horror. “What?!”
“Kakashi-sensei, innocent victim of a manipulative genin,” he continued, pressing a hand to his chest in cheap dramatics. “A tragic story. I think it’d work.”
“That’s a lie!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “I would never—!”
She stopped mid-sentence, realizing she was yelling… and that he was looking at her with that curved eye that clearly meant you took the bait.
“…Sensei,” she muttered through clenched teeth.
Kakashi shrugged. “See? You’re already much better.”
Sakura sat back down with a huff, arms crossed. But she wasn’t shaking. She wasn’t holding herself back.
She was just… being Sakura.
Kakashi turned another page of his book, satisfied.
“So,” she said after a few seconds, feigning indifference, “what am I supposed to do here?”
“Sleep,” he replied without hesitation. “Eat. Train. Not die.” He paused. “In that order, preferably.”
She frowned at him. “That sounds… surprisingly reasonable, coming from you.”
“I am an elite jōnin,” Kakashi replied, because for some reason his students tended to forget that.
She snorted, a nasal laugh slipping out before she could stop it. Then she looked around again, this time with less caution.
“Do you always live like this?” she asked, gesturing vaguely at the apartment. “It’s… really empty.”
Kakashi looked up from his book, surveying his home as if seeing it for the first time. “Mhm. Never complained.”
“But there’s nothing fun,” Sakura insisted. “No colors. No—” She stopped in front of the plant by the bedroom window. “Is that thing actually alive?”
“For now.”
“Sensei…”
“I talk to it every day,” he defended himself. “That should count as care.”
Sakura shook her head, incredulous. “You’re impossible,” she said. Then she looked around again. “Can I decorate a little?”
Kakashi thought he might regret this—but he said it anyway.
“Sure.”
And he went back to reading