kakashi likes red.

it's the color of yachiru's hair, a girl he liked. the sunbird has scarlet in its feathers when he spots it flitting across branches. sometimes, the sunset has the same shade, only more striking.

he never thought he'd see so much of it on his hands. his fingers are unable to trap the growing pool of liquid that he lets them flow from his skin to the fissured earth. there may be hope yet for the end of the ten-year drought if only the soil takes blood as water.

he sits upright from his fetal position and looks up at sakura whose hair is a lighter shade of red, rose in its diluted form.

those silky tresses frame her face and body, and her lightness of being is a stark contrast to the corpses on her feet. she passes them like wind to the leaves and arrives at his side, only to kiss his hands.

The Day Sakura Stopped Being Human

For Kakasaku Halloween Week 2022 @kkskevents | AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42752997

Sakura gives up lighting the candle. The wind is strong, and the rain seems to have no intention of letting up. It’s a good thing she deferred on buying flowers. She only had enough until next week. She tightens her hold on her umbrella as she feels the gusts come her way. No use; it bends upwards, drenching her from head to toe.

Time and elements have eaten away the letters on the stone on the fifth floor of a grave apartment. To a stranger, it’s unmarked. To her, it’s a brief interlude of sunshine. How cruel — to have someone’s life be remembered through a bunch of lines.

Sakura waits for the tears. It’s always better to cry when it’s raining.

Kakashi thought he already came to terms with the phantom pain he carries throughout his life, a burden of ghosts forever latched on his back, bringing him closer, inches by inches towards the same ground that sprouts life.

With war gone on the horizon, he wonders if it’s time. 

He quickly gets to the roster of missions, especially those on the forgotten corners of the world, so he could lose himself in the familiar process, and the high of accomplishment, and the penultimate sense of purpose. This is his anchor at a time when he feels dislodged from the shifting transitions.

For what is a soldier without a war? How does he exist in the planes of peace? Where is his place in all of these? All his soul and limbs have known are grime and blood and loss and sacrifices. He is geared to recognize that happiness is fleeting and ephemeral, a weapon waiting to strike at the most vulnerable. And he learned that love, true love, the kind that makes you believe, that keeps you going, the strings that bind you to move and live, true love stares at you in the face only once and then it slips away.

He wonders if it’s time.

The cuts get deeper and take longer to heal in every mission. Wounds eventually close and new skin will cover the old, and he sinks further each time this happens. It would only take one slash across the throat or a stab into the heart or a jutsu to carve a hole on his side —

— it would only take rose hair and viridian eyes to die.

Sakura pulls him inside his half-opened door and sits him on the edge of his couch. His drab quarters look alive in the luminosity of her existence despite her cheerful disposition currently gone. Her scent trails with her movements, and he savors each whiff and note as if a forest has grown overnight in the coldness of his floors.

“How could you do this to yourself?” She could yell if she wanted to, but she chooses to give him the ice cold constraint.

He tried so hard to rid himself of her, like cleaning away all dirt and crusted blood except she was water and he was filth. He doesn’t want to remember Haruno Sakura. 

He doesn’t want to see her long strands playing in the wind as the sun breaks over the village from the top of the hokage tower. He doesn’t want to taste her brewed coffee, punctuating his days and nights and in-betweens. He doesn’t want to hear her laughter, chimes that hang on his every word, as if he’s the source of her brightness. He doesn’t want to feel the silk of her cheeks and the inside of her mouth. He doesn’t want to memorize her bodily indentations or crave the warmth of her skin when sunshine proves to be desolate on most days. 

A cherry blossom never blooms in winter.

“A band of hundred,” he chuckles it off. “Maybe I’m getting rusty.”

“This is sloppy work.” Her hands are miracles, taking away lines in red to black gradient. He’d like to believe that the cuts still fester underneath, but these too she seems to soothe away. “You’re just letting them get to you.”

“Maybe.”

The word brings her hands to his face and he sees for the first time how much she’s hurting.

“I’m meant to do this Sakura,” he whispers, “The war is over for you, but not for me. I could never stay by your side. Not like this.”

“Stupid. You’re so stupid and dumb and careless and selfish.” She shakes her head. “There’s still war, but I have long surrendered to it.” She brings him closer, foreheads touching, the warm green light enveloping Kakashi in an embrace.

“I don’t know how.” The admission feels like the last piece of a puzzle. 

“Surrender to me Kakashi.”

He allows himself to kiss her the way it always starts — tentative and hesitant. He notices the assured movements from her end, the certainty, the consciousness and awareness of this connection. She exists in this moment and she pulls him with her. Like an anchor to his floating existence.

True love is staring at him right now.

“Kakashi?” His name is music on her lips.

“Hmm?”

“Kawazu-zakura. They bloom in winter.”

The sunrise during their first mission together was slow.

It peeked out of the horizon and crept through the landscape until it reached the forest canopy. The rays filtered through the green curtains and fell on her closed lids under which was the same forest green. Sakura shifted at the contact of the warm light, but they refused to open yet. It will take another five minutes more until she fully wakes up. She was never a morning person, Kakashi learned.

xxx

Blue and clear, steady in its rise.

Kakashi didn’t get any sleep with the council fussing over the formalities of his inauguration. He hid on top of the hokage tower, looking for a quick reprieve from the chaos, a few minutes to himself, but somehow Sakura still found him.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t alert anyone,” she assured him. Between her hands was a thermos of coffee. “Congratulations, sensei.”

He didn’t tell her then how she was the first one to tell him that. He only smiled and accepted her morning gift, but more than the coffee, he found that he liked this. The silence with her as the day springs on the edges of their feet.

He understood that this shifted the planes of his universe, how he now started to look for the pair of viridian, how the sight of her gives him peace.

xxx

It was hard to make out when the dawn broke into the morning. The downpour ceaselessly kept on. Kakashi stood by under a shelter as he watched her wait.

And wait. And wait. And wait. For several days.

Kakashi knew he had no place. He wondered for a while if there could be another chance, another one great love in his life. He knew the magnitude of Sakura’s love and the intensity of Sasuke’s guilt — both hurting in ways and depths he couldn’t comprehend.

He had no place and yet….he yearned.

The rain, he hoped, will eventually stop.

xxx

Cherry blossom petals dotted the sky. Spring has always been beautiful. Sakura was beautiful. On the day she and Ino launched their program for children’s hospitals across countries, Sakura shone brighter than the sunrise.

xxx

He didn’t know exactly when they started treating each other as sanctuaries.

With paperworks and administrative duties as excuse, nights quickly melted into mornings in his office, sometimes in hers, the presence of each other and time the only constants.

Sunrises also meant that she had to leave for hospital rounds.

He dared not say it out loud. He hoped she cared enough to watch his feelings spill out of him — their abundance too strong to capture inside his fragile cages. But in the dead silence of the dark when he thought she was sleeping, he confessed.

“Just a few more minutes Mr. Sun. Don’t take her away from me yet.”

xxx

He planned to leave a week after Naruto’s inauguration. It wasn’t a year-long mission, he only wanted some time away from the village. She didn’t believe him.

Sakura waited at the gates, her feet shifting under her anxiety. Kakashi could see the fear in her eyes, see all doubts form, see the unsaid pleas and promises.

Come back to me.

As the sunrise dissipates the velvet night sky, he could also see the same words form in her eyes.

Since when did she start looking at him like that?

Like she loved him too.

xxx

Kakashi woke up surrounded by Sakura’s scent, her hair on his lips, his limbs around her, the sunrise long gone, and the day already half spent. He snuggled closer, wanting to revel longer in this privilege.

"Good morning," he murmured against her skin.

She stirred in response, only to burrow into his chest. Her hand instinctively reached out for his, clasping them together and bringing it to her lips, kissing every joint on his knuckle, their gold bands glinting against the rays.

She never was a morning person, he remembered, but he can now spend all his mornings with her.

wip???? prompt???? idkkkkk

Hatake Kakashi is a man of few words – I learned after two months of our engagement. That his eyes are expressive – I only knew after meeting her. Her with the most vivid emerald eyes. Her with the gorgeous rose tresses flowing like water on her back. Her with the trinkling laughter which bring out the crow’s feet on the side of his lids.

I don’t mind, really. This is a political bond through and through, but I’d be lying if I say my silver-haired fiancé lacks the magnetic pull of a bachelor in a prime position of power and wealth. I mind that despite the fact, he chooses to suffer in silence.

As if I am a living doll, not privy to the slightest tightening of his hold on my shoulders, the clenching of his hand against my back, the effervescent smile turning grim, whenever the sight before him conjures up Haruno Sakura with a different man every time.

She turns to him in the most muted conveyances, most of which only I am able to pick up, and him none out of pure ignorance and endurance of pretension. Sorrow bridges whatever gap is between us, and an understanding, no matter how convoluted, is met. I will spare her the infinite glances, the wishing, and yearning, and she will spare me the legitimacy of a bond she wished she had with him.

I mind that despite this palpable pulse of passion transcending lifetimes, they choose not to see it through. But who am I really – but a sheltered high society lady living vicariously as a voyeur in two people’s fatal journey of love.

Of a man from a well-established family of counts and lords, and a woman escort to the same titles.

Kakashi stays at the door to breathe in the lingering remnants of vanilla and lilac in the air, a quick pang of regret with the realization he missed her by minutes. He allows the scents to stick on his skin and bury themselves in his pores, spaces once filled and overflowing but have since emptied out after a year.

He sighs and gets to the most arduous task of arrival. Sakura’s neurotic tendency to place things exactly where they are is a convenience. Unpack, unroll, pile, open, and close. His only memento of the foreign place, so cold and distant to him now, is a snow globe of fuyuzakura. He gives it a shake for the white flurries to cover the pink blossoms, but it slips and rolls over to a small, opened box, rather new in its appearance.

Would it be possible to feel as foreign as he did when he got assigned to another country while he sits on the floor of the home he and Sakura built two years after their wedding? The pile of postcards on the carpet beside the fallen snow globe, unsigned yet imprinted with ‘his’ hands; envelopes of letters with almost torn flaps in fits of yearning and loneliness; and an unmarked cassette tape.

Surely, Kakashi has self-preservation. This is what he tells himself as he presses play. Valse Sentimentale, Tchaikovsky.

Notes linger in the air as much as her scents did, but longer, longer than they were allowed to stay, and he wallows in the deafening silence that ensues on the outside and a chaotic maelstrom on the inside, unwanting to escape the broken bubble of his commitment.

But yes, he has self-preservation so he returns where everything is supposed to be, the snow globe beside their wedding photo; vibrant spring Sakura on his arm, no longer a bride once abandoned at the altar. Frozen in that moment was his naïve belief that he could truly make her happy, that time would chip away at Sasuke’s fleeting hold on her orbit, and her axis would tilt at him, if only ever so little.

He flinches when the door opens, and her eyes widen at the sight of him. He suspends his reality to savor her embrace, his own longing too acute to ignore, and he welcomes the drowning bliss of ignorance.

All efforts fall short as he is perfectly attuned to her slight glance at the box, and the too tight hold around his waist, less of an assurance and more an unspoken question of why. She buries her face on his chest as she takes in all of him, and maybe, maybe, maybe for a few seconds he replaces whatever fragments of Sasuke are left in her system.

“Sakura.”

“Hmm?”

“Kiss me.”

In his periphery, he sees their wedding band on her finger, and it triggers an overwhelming pain, that even with this physical assurance, he is constantly fighting for a place in her changing world where he should be the constant in spite of.

It’s days of nuanced tiptoeing and veiled sidestepping that she comes out with a knife.

“I’m pregnant, love.” She smiles; oh his beautiful, lovely, budding spring. She closes her eyes as she hears his sharp intake of breath. Where seconds almost seem to stretch to hours, Kakashi wonders what she expects from him.

He kisses her, so ardently but piercing, demanding, almost pleading. She allows her tears to escape her restraint, as does he. It is a selfish thing, to hinder a lost love trying to walk its meandering path back to its truest soul, its meant to be, its forever, not with its placeholder. But is it really self-interest to stop a heart from being broken again by a man who couldn’t meet his bride at the altar? Or to follow the beat of a soul who let go of one too many love of a lifetimes for someone else?

“I promise I’ll be a good father.” He begs in between the words.

It’ll be a black-haired babe with his eyes.

“Dummy. I know you’ll be.”

But he’ll stay, Kakashi echoes with the spaces, he’ll love the child as if it is his own.

And they cry harder at this stupendous turn of a sad, beautiful tragedy of foregone freedom and second chances.

Kakashi learned he loved Sakura's lingering floral scent a little too much for comfort

It was a coincidence; Sakura wanted to monitor a critical anbu case until the next day and Shikamaru insisted he finish signing important trade documents. So there they were, drinking coffee in the hokage's office, too worn out to talk, too tired to walk at 3 AM.

Kakashi drowsed off for what he hoped was just five minutes but woke up to the sun alight, his signatures forged on remaining papers (and very well done he might say), and her doctor robes on him. He learned he loved her lingering floral scent a little too much for comfort.

Sakura's stubbornness was not her greatest suit, even as it gave her fever on the brink of collapse.

"Your house is close by. I can rest there," she insisted.

"No, you can't." He didn't need to spell out the implications for her.

"It's the anbu's last critical day. I can."

Her scent stayed on his furniture and walls even after she was gone the next day. Was it ever possible for perfume to linger this long?

So he actively sought for it.

He made excuses to get glimpses and whiffs, and by some coincidence, so did she.

He knew he was a stopover, an interlude, in the interim. It wasn't a surprise really that she stopped dropping in his front door when her real sanctuary came home.

But somehow, her scent torturously lingered.

Chapter 11 - Student Council President Sakura / Graduation Chapter

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Youtube playlist for your reading accompaniment

They held a run-through of the graduation ceremony on the last day of class and technically the last day of the trio’s high school life. Unlike their first general assembly, Uchiha Sasuke was to deliver the graduation speech but not without great sulking from Haruno Sakura who landed a close second despite ranking first in their final exams.

And obviously, not without Sasuke trying to give up his speech privileges by campaigning instead for Sakura.

In the end, all three of them were granted speech slots – one for Sasuke as valedictorian, Sakura as student representative, and Naruto as the school’s first national MVP. It was this debacle that led the three of them to brainstorm in an empty AVR after the dry run.

“Done!” Sakura yelled like the diligent student she was. “Let me look at yours!”

Sasuke presented her a blank paper while saying, “It’s all prepared in my head”, and Naruto showed her his baseball doodles.

“Oh God, you’re all so hopeless.”

Chapter 10 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

To Sakura, world still revolved normally; nothing changed between them, nothing mattered enough for her to behave differently. To Sasuke, the world shifted in its axis, having revealed a glimpse of his true feelings to her however falsely convenient she deemed them to be; everything changed between them, everything mattered enough for him to behave differently.

Like flinching at her slight grazes on his skin or his ears picking up her voice in the middle of the crowd noises or his eyes following the trail of her rose hair tied up in a ponytail, bewitched by the sway of the strands as she tousled to get to the front of the fray, her fingers burning a hole through his sleeve.

Chapter 9 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Sasuke wondered for the umpteenth time since three in the morning why he agreed to go with the baseball team for their summer camp and wondered more why the student council had to do its orientation and team building event at the same time. He supposed it was to cut down on expenses, but both trips could have gone on without his presence.

Well, it turned out his shoulders were needed as pseudo pillows for the sleepyheads duo. On one side, he can feel the wetness of Naruto’s drool dripping every minute onto his linen shirt, and on the other, Sakura’s vanilla shampoo was arresting his senses. Five hours after a rough roadtrip, the two awake beside a very grumpy Uchiha.

Chapter 8 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

“Oh, hello there Sakura.”

She almost lost her balance when she saw her next customers. Standing beside Kakashi with her arm entangled in his was a brunette, a spitting image of Dr. Aki Nohara, a giveaway that this was her sister. Sakura’s surroundings dimmed out of focus, and her hearing became muffled as if she was submerged underwater.

“Couldn’t mistake that green eyes for anyone,” Kakashi continued. “I’ll have a caramel butterscotch with extra whipped cream – make it super heavy – and Rin –“

“That’s supposed to be my order, you dummy,” the woman replied beside him. He chuckled in fascination and tightened his hold on her arm. “Besides, you don’t like sweets.”

“You’re still on a specialized diet so allow me to eat and drink whatever you want while you stick with – “ Kakashi glanced at Sakura, and she immediately mustered a tight-lipped smile. “One iced americano in your smallest size please. Thanks, Sakura.”

Chapter 7 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Sakura went to her shift a little bit giddier than usual for a variety of reasons despite the busy holiday season; it was nearing Christmas after all. The first one – having finally tied with Sasuke in their recent exams, and the second – the approval of her personal project. There was also a third reason, but she was unresolved of what to feel.

Kakashi met with her alone after their monthly council meeting. It was the usual talk, the heavy administrative concerns they do not bother other council members with, reminders about problematic behaviors among the student body or personal problems that faculty or students were plagued with that needed intervention. He said an apology just as she reached the door.

“Sakura?” Kakashi asked, turning in his chair.

She looked back at him with a neutral expression. While she knew she wasn’t overtly passive aggressive in her actions, he might have noticed a change in her cheerful disposition towards him. Her clumped fingers anxiously fidgeted with the rubber band on her wrist, his rubber band that she didn’t use anymore to tie her hair. “Yes, sensei?”

Chapter 6 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

“When’s your birthday, Sasuke?” Naruto asked unprompted. He was eating an onigiri in one hand and writing in a notebook with another. “Captain Haru gave me a journal and told me to fill in the dates.”

“Why are you treating it like a slam book?”

“What’s a slam book? Why are you even changing the topic?”

“July 23.”

Naruto went silent for a moment as he jotted down Sasuke’s name. “Oh, last week? During our sleepover?”

“You mean, hostage sleepover.”

“Ah shit. We didn’t get you a present. Sorry, grumpy.” Naruto’s face was sincerely apologetic and Sasuke was on the verge of nonchalantly assuring him that it was all right when he heard his following reply. “But make sure you get me one okay. It will be on October 10.”

“I wish I was allowed to physically harm you right now but your training next week will suffice,” Sasuke jested right back. “I’ll put in a word with Haru to make you suffer.” He would have said more clapbacks if they didn’t hear loud footsteps running their way.

Their two heads popped just a few inches above the bushes that lined behind the fence and saw a disheveled Sakura catching her breath with bent knees and her arms full of folders. Sasuke surmised she might have come from a council meeting.

“It’s Sakura – “ Sasuke covered Naruto’s loud mouth with his palm.