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 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.

Alone With You

For #KakaSaku Month 2021

Week 1, Day 4, Same Age AU

Rating: G

Pairing: Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi

Summary:

Kakashi was the misunderstood pariah, and she was the school’s takane no hana. He comfortably pined for her from afar until prom when all he wanted was – at most – a dance.

Maybe it was the long scar on the left side of his face or the atrocious beauty mark. Maybe it was the menacing way he looked at his classmates or the sarcastic quips he gave in conversations. It couldn’t be his hair – silver, smooth, and the length of a mullet. They should have loved him for that, but instead, they set him a level above eccentric bordering on deviant. Nonetheless, he was their school’s pariah.

And what can a pariah actually do to get close to a takane no hana? Haruno Sakura - pink hair, jade eyes, rosy cheeks, and plump lips. She was a cherry blossom tree growing in the highest mountain, and to get there one has to go through multiple quests and surrender treasured items. He would have set on this journey a long time ago if not for her making it clear that she didn’t intend to date. He remembered her announcing it in the middle of general assembly when a guy confessed to her on stage for the umpteenth time. So that was how it came to be, stealing glances and moments she doesn’t even know of.

Chapter 2 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Sasuke skipped out during the cultural festival just like he did back in the last year of his middle school, content in hearing nothing but his own breath, the bustle outside his window, the sporadic chirping of the birds in early mornings and late afternoons, the shuffle of feet from his neighbors and the occasional clanking of dishes. When hours extended late into the evening, the activities would be replaced by the muffled night life that seemed like eons away but was actually just five blocks far and so he would pick out the drums, the bass drops, and the rave chaos and fall asleep when the crowds pack up, but not all days were like these. He would stay awake well past the closing time with silence confronting his consciousness, and his only friend would be the CD collection of a Japanese artist called The Charm Park from a previous tenant who left it behind. He spent his winter break like this.

When spring term came around, Sasuke noticed a shift around Naruto. The tiptoeing was still there, but it lessened to an extent where his classmates would greet him ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’ while they walked to their hideout. He was right in not asking because the blonde eventually overshared everything.

The second years held an impromptu race before the culmination. Naruto, eager to get the front seat view, pushed against the crowds, incidentally landed on the track, became the representative of the first years, and won the race. Ultimately, it ended on a good note despite the rookie athletes being overshadowed, and Naruto’s bully magnet has transformed into some sort of people magnet. His classmates have asked him for lunch several times in the presence of Sasuke, but Naruto turned them down.

“You can ask for shares in their bento boxes or struck gold and have them make you one,” Sasuke said. “You don’t need to litter around here.”

“I feel sorry for you,” Naruto replied, grinning while handing him a juice carton.

It was cherry tomato flavored – an unusual choice for the simple-minded Naruto who would easily settle on an orange or grapefruit juice. Sasuke understood this was the blonde’s kind of pull on people, and he heard what he tried to say between the lines. “It’s the stares.”

“And the request for the background story no one really wants to hear.”

Sasuke sipped the last of the juice from the carton. “Just think of it as your villain origin story.”

“But I want to be a hero and do main character things!”

Chapter 1 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Sasuke’s first year was rather uneventful. He wasn’t in the same class as Naruto and Sakura, and thank God he wasn’t because from what he heard in the hallway and in the classroom during breaks, they were described as having uncontrollable bursts of energy. The other likable, the other a menace to mankind. He kept to himself most of the time, never went to class late, recited perfectly, ranked first on all tests. When there were group works, he would submit a finished output before they could even hold a meeting. He didn’t bother with his classmates’ workarounds – hanging out in cafes just to discuss menial matters or having sleepovers as an excuse to make a move. He didn’t have the energy to bother. And so from orphan genius, he became the stuck-up genius. That was okay with him. He had been called worse names before.

He didn’t know when it exactly started, but the yard behind the library had turned into his refuge. No one really visited it because of the tall piles of recycled materials, but there was a small clearing hidden by thick vines and untended trees. There, Sasuke found small minutes of peace.

Past the shrubbery and the foliage and the fence, one can see the lake behind the school. It was deep and wide enough that dragonboat teams would practice in it during summer. Couples would frequent it after school hours and think no one can see the kisses, the hand-holding, the hugs. Beyond the lake was a museum he frequented when he was a child, and then the city center wherein all roads connected to the train station. One can get on it, travel for three stations, and disembark on the fourth. It usually took thirty minutes if one strictly walked on the streets, but Sasuke would cut across the mini-bamboo forest in that area, emerge behind the bakery, still have the time to buy his favorite cream puffs, walk past two houses, and arrive at their family house. It was closed since then, the sales proceedings wrapping up after months. It would take another three years for the trust fund to be entirely turned over to him. By that time, he would be safely out of the clutches of his memories.

I’d like to fall into the rabbit hole that is KakaSaku provided that the fics and art I’m consuming are same age, no implied grooming, no war arc pining and other shenanigans (cos Sakura is a minor there)

Sometimes I gotta take a rain check on myself.