Sideways

By Neech

Written for the 1sentence challenge.

1. Walking

Sakura can't count the number of times Kakashi's been incapacitated to the point that he's unable to walk home (and there are many), but the funniest one amidst them all involves a very drunk Kakashi and her being forced to carry him home, bridal-style; she supposes she could have tweaked his liver and helped him along with the purging of his system but the sight of him puking his guts out into the rhododendrons was satisfactory blackmail enough to last for a couple of centuries.

2. Waltz

There is a moment when she hates him with every fibre of her being: Hatake Kakashi waltzes into the restaurant like he owns the place, decked out in jounin standard wear and blood for extra measure, smiles that stupid eye-crinkle smile that is an image of innocence and all things great and beautiful, only it makes every civilian curl up into a ball and shudder (there's a measure of bloodlust in that smile, the stupid bastard), walks up to her table and takes her without so much as a word to the guy who's brought her out for dinner, and God she wants to punch his lights out because she knows she'll never get a date after that, ever.

3. Wishes

Sometimes, he reflects upon the afternoon he came back with Sasuke in tow, bleeding and bruised in ways he'd never thought possible, much less inflicted by his former student; he remembers the way Sakura's eyes looked (large and round and so filled with tears, but surprisingly, none of them overflowed) as she stood at the gate, strangely still yet full of emotion, and the way she seemed to be murmuring 'Thank God" under her breath over and over again.

4. Wonder

They'd always wondered what Kakashi-sensei hid behind his mask: perhaps it was fish lips, a cleft palate or even god-awful buckteeth; none of them expected him to arbitrarily remove his mask of his own accord after a particularly strenuous training mission- scratch that, none of them had expected him to be so breathtakingly good-looking under that mask of his, that even Sai stopped and stared.

5. Worry

He was never the type to be too concerned about previous students' well-beings (all of them were jounin-rank, after all, and more than capable of holding their own in a fight); that changed when Sakura came back bruised and bloody and still wearing the tight, revealing dress worn specifically for her undercover mission, and he couldn't help but feel a twinge of something unfamiliar- uncomfortably so, until he reminded himself she no longer was the twelve-year old girl he needed to protect.

6. Whimsy

Kakashi is above all a creature of habit- he wakes before six, bathes at six oh seven and hangs upside down and does inverted pull-ups until his hair has achieved a satisfactory level of gravity-defying polarity at six eighteen; all it takes is for a cherry-haired kunoichi to walk into his apartment and mess up his entire schedule by dragging him out and across town to pick strawberries, but he doesn't mind (at least, not as much as he complains), because there is an innocence that's rather adorable about her whims and fancies.

7. Waste/ Wasteland

They've laid waste to the lands of training grounds three- he's hiding under the cover of night and dense vegetation, waiting, and he can hear her breath as clearly as if she were standing next to him: in-out, in-out, slow and steady as if she's out on a walk instead of a no holds barred training spar with her sensei- there is a rustle in the leaves, a whisper of exhaled breath (he smirks because he knows she knows he won't be caught out by a chunin trick like that) and he readies himself to move, but there is the cool sensation of sharp metal pressed against his neck and he smiles; she's the first of his brats to have done it.

8. Whiskey and Rum

He always pegged her for a Shochu kind of girl: delicate and gentle with a touch of earthy undertones below the overlying sweetness, or perhaps the type who favoured a glass of Baileys after dinner with dessert, light on the liquor, extra chocolate; when he catches her at the pub with thirty-seven empty whiskey glasses and an inebriated Genma slumped under the table, he can't help but be proud of the girl whom he's taught almost everything he knows: courage, loyalty and how to metabolize alcohol in seven seconds flat.

9. War

It starts out as a prank: her leaving ice-cubes in your bed on April Fools Day- but it isn't all that funny when you've just come back from a S-rank mission and all you want is 24 hours of undivided attention to sleep- in retaliation, you kidnap her clothes while she's at the hot spring along with all the yukata stocks from the gift shop; you pass her on her way home and she's dressed in nothing but three flimsy towels pinned together using senbon, the glare she sends you tells you to watch your orange books really, really closely next year.

10. Wedding

She's dreamt about getting married before, but never as vividly as this: 'this' being the feel of summer winds whistling across her skin, the weight of her obi, tight against her chest and the sight of Naruto standing by her side, proudly, defiantly family; she looks around, curious about who's she picked, but it's Sensei who's standing beside her, dressed formally in a haori and kimono, and she gasps because it occurs to her- but then the thought is gone and this is how 'this' ends: she wakes.

11. Birthday

The gifts pile high during your birthday celebration and you're pleasantly surprised that you know so many people, much less people who like you enough to give you gifts; there is booze at the party and you totter around to hug everyone for coming- there is someone to catch you when you stagger, a familiar voice mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like 'Happy Birthday, cherry blossom' or something equally cheesy, and when he places a small box in your grip, there is a blush that colours your cheeks pale pink, and you doubt it's from the alcohol.

12. Blessing

No one is surprised to see Lee suspended by one ankle from the highest tree in Konoha when he attempts to visit the boys-plus-one for Sakura's hand in marriage; when asked, Sasuke merely grunts while the Jinchuuriki starts ranting about stupid green beasts, but it is the last one that smiles and says nothing at all (it's his rope, after all).

13. Bias

He's well aware of that fact that she hated him for a while when he just picked up and left them behind (it's only later that she acknowledges it was more likely because he left her), and she throws herself into training and improving herself because his voice has replaced hers in her head, telling her to get stronger, that he never focused on her training because she was the weakest of the lot- he shuts her up with a gentle hand on her shoulder; there is guilt in his eye when he murmurs that he never meant that at all.

14. Burning

There are plenty of things that change with time- unfortunately, Sakura's penchant for setting off the smoke alarm while cooking is not one of them.

15. Breathing

Blood colours his vision and for a few seconds he can see nothing but black; he can hear Rin's voice (he hasn't heard her voice in twenty years, he wonders why) whispering soft words he can't quite catch, until Obito shoves him away, empty eye socket blindly staring- 'Live,' he says, and Kakashi wakes to the feel of Sakura's mouth forcefully exhaling air into his lungs; there is blood and tears and snot on her face, but for some reason he can't seem to think of a time he's seen her looking more beautiful.

16. Breaking

For Sakura's sake, Kakashi tries very hard to be a model patient; the last straw is when she forces him into accepting a sponge bath- at that point it was either teleporting far far away (and into the coldest, chilliest environment possible) or pressing her against the wall and letting his renowned 'self-control' snap into tiny little pieces.

17. Belief

Sakura stops believing in the concept of romantic love at age eighteen- all it takes is for an awkward not-quite rejection to floor her (she, who's been hurtling down the path of unrequited love for close to a decade), but not once does she let herself cry in front of him; she ruffles his hair and they make promises to stay friends, but once he's gone, she's falls hard and fast and she nearly lets herself go; ironically, Sensei's the one who's there to catch her.

18. Balloon

He's dreaming about a woman tonight: fair, moderately-sized breasts and lily-soft skin, only she has flowing pink hair instead of the formulaic blonde shade found on all his imaginary fuck-buddies- he wants to taste the furrow of her collarbone and trace the curve of her cheek with his tongue, but the dream ends with a quiet 'pop' and the splash of freezing water upon his skin, and Kakashi swears to torture Naruto in the most painful possible way he can think of.

19. Balcony

There are far too many books crowded on the tiny bookcase by the side of his room; to Sakura's surprise there's more to Kakashi's taste in literature than pornographic books as she leafs through a well-loved novel written by some guy called Shakespeare, and she can't help but chuckle slightly at the fact that her old sensei was sentimental enough to bookmark some of the pages with squiggly, illegible handwriting; she chokes especially at the annotation that reads: 'how to confess'.

20. Bane

On his less sober nights Kakashi imagines his hands are soiled with blood (that much is apparent by his mumbling about bringing death to whatever he touches), and Sakura walks him home to his apartment and stays the night; "Obito died yesterday," he says quietly after she wakes, and he lets her take his hands and hold them.

21. Quiet

Sakura's taken to spending her free time in the confines of his apartment, perched on his couch and flipping idly through his books; the most disconcerting thing about their current situation isn't that his privacy doesn't feel quite as violated as it should, but on how easily he's unconsciously accommodated her into his quiet, mundane lifestyle, until the next hospital emergency or mission pulls one of them away- he hates the small not-quite-filled feeling it leaves him.

22. Quirks

Sakura doesn't like to think she's falling in love- especially not with Hatake Kakashi, porn master extraordinaire- but it hits her one day that she knows exactly the way Kakashi likes his toast done and how he raises his left eyebrow when he sleeps, and shit, that is the moment she figures she is gone far beyond the point of turning back, ever.

23. Question

He never stops asking himself why- why he's let her in, why he's let her get so thoroughly under his skin, why it's even her: his little strawberry-topped kunoichi- and he wonders why he wants her in a way he's never wanted any woman before (and of course, the memorial never answers).

24. Quarrel

He's almost forgotten about her fiery temper until he makes a less-than-tactful comment about her dating status (why else would she be spending all her time with her stodgy old sensei if she hadn't hit a dating dry-spell, he wonders); what shocks him more than the mug she hurls at his head are the multitude of angry tears that drip down her cheeks and he's almost too shocked to chase after her.

25. Quitting

Sometimes, Kakashi thinks about retiring from the shinobi lifestyle- his joints ache and creak and he has enough health problems to plague him at fifty (fast approaching, oh God); the truth is that no one ever quits being a ninja, and he enjoys fieldwork a bit too much- so when Tsunade offers him the mantle of Rokudaime, Sakura laughs and laughs and laughs as she watches the copy-nin struggle to reject the promotion politely while trying not to shudder or choke on his spit in horror.

26. Jump

"Do you trust me?" he asks, his hand tucked around her waist, comfortably, securely (and the truth is she does feel a little more calm); she nods, not trusting her voice to carry in the roaring wind, and he pulls her close to him as they jump.

27. Jester

She's wet, dirty and exhausted and she knows she reeks of wet dog- the fact that the bastard's laughing at her like she's the fuckin' funniest thing on this side of Fire Country makes 'male castration by senbon' sound infinitely more appealing.

28. Jousting

Their latest 'mission' is fetid and has the temperament of an irate iguana; the first thing he does upon rescue is call Sakura ten types of incompetent and still possesses the breath to insult her honour; Kakashi's no knight in shining armor, but for a moment, he contemplates killing the bastard like the scum that he is, except Sakura reaches forward to press the pressure point at the base of man's neck with practiced ease; it's only after the guy's out like a light that he sees her struggling with her fury.

29. Jewel

She wore a kimono in the palest pink he'd ever seen, jasmine petals tracing the span of cloth from collar to hem; if Kakashi were any good at poetry he'd tell her she shone brighter than the Morningstar and more beautifully than the opals that graced her neck- as it is, he told her she looked pretty, and she blushed like he had paid her a thousand compliments.

30. Just

Sakura doesn't expect Kakashi to be able to dance- ultimately he's the one who steals nineteen of the twenty-five moments she spends on the dance floor, and she spends the last song with her face buried in the crook of his neck and breathing in his smell of ashwood and cinnamon; there are romantic clichés running amok in her head but she doesn't care: the moment is just perfect.

31. Smirk

She finds him sprawled on his bed with his feet half-on the floor, his eyes closed, mask askew and his hair pointing in every possible direction; she wants to trace the near-invisible lines at the corner of his eyes and test the angularity of his jaw with her fingers, but she doesn't- she misses his knowing smirk when he looks at her later.

32. Sorrow

Sakura loses her father and mother in rapid succession one cool autumn afternoon; consumption, they say, there was nothing she could have done, but the point is Sakura never even gets the chance to try, and Kakashi worries more than he lets on when she doesn't even cry, because he has no freakin' clue how to save her from herself.

33. Stupidity

She starts walking through life like she's ready to die: first into foray, last to leave enemy site; the errant kunai hits the spot three inches from her heart if she were still standing there, and Kakashi finally loses his composure and shakes her- the chilly anger in his voice makes her cry but it's that which truly saves her.

34. Serenade

Despite his protests, Kakashi had a fairly pleasing singing voice to the ear: a warm, husky baritone that caressed the gentle consonants of words; when he sings the lyrics of a lesser-known love song with a tint of colour at the bridge of his nose, Sakura's mind briefly flits to thoughts of courting and the like, but with a tinge of regret, she refuses to let her thoughts go there.

35. Sarcasm

Kakashi never stops trying to play with her head, but by age twenty, she's developed her scathing wit into something mind-numbingly terrifying; when Naruto looks at him with suspicious eyes and tells him to 'change Sakura back', it is with no amount of tiredness in his voice that he says he gladly would, if he could.

36. Sordid

The Konoha gossips burst out in tittering fervour when she moves into his apartment one July afternoon, and by God she's sick and tired of telling them that the only thing that's happened is her ancient air-conditioning unit has finally succumbed to decrepitude, that this arrangement is temporary, that he's just like her other boys, only bigger and older and with a greater penchant for getting into trouble, that there's nothing going on and there never will be- because the truth hurts, no matter how she wishes it were otherwise.

37. Soliloquy

"Are you out of your bloody mind- oh wait, stupid question, get your ass back into hospital, you stupid, stupid man, you have thirteen broken bones, punctured liver, skull fracture, nerve damage, internal bleeding- don't make me kill you before you manage to do it yourse-", he notices idly that he's caught her red-handed (she's gripping one of his freshly laundered shirts behind her back), and he's so tired of fighting with himself and failing, so he shuts her up by kissing her.

38. Sojourn

Kakashi hated hospitals with an unhealthy passion borne of years of traumatic experience- but it wasn't quite as terrible with his favourite green-eyed medic sleeping in the chair next to his bed, her hands fisted in the sheets and using his right thigh as her pillow (he looked forward to her flabbergasted expression when she attained a higher level of cognizance very much).

39. Share

Their days don't change very much- she still threatens to burn Icha Icha when he leaves the toilet seat up, and he leaves his mask on at home, mostly, but there are things that do change- when she eats the peach ice-cream mochi that he discovers he has a taste for, he no longer has to ask to share the juicy sweetness that covers her lips.

40. Solitary

She never quite understands how she's managed to stomp through his door and invade his notoriously private life with the subtlety of a lumbering gorilla- what was more shocking was that he'd let her- but she comprehends more than enough to leave him be when she loses him to splinters of broken, painful memory; nevertheless she waits with a cup of tea, a smile on her face and unsaid words that would mean much less if spoken- at those moments, she thinks she might love him.

41. Nowhere

"Don't you have somewhere to be now?" Sakura whispers, her mouth slowly traversing the pale column of his neck to linger at his throat, and God, he can't be more emphatic in voicing his thoughts when he holds her in his arms and murmurs, "Nowhere i'd rather be than here."

42. Neutral

To the boys, Sakura was always neutral territory- a person who loved both of them unequivocally, equally and settled their arguments with fair fists and acerbic wit; when she sided with Sasuke in an argument for the first time in five years (on the 'cool factor' of Rasengan vs. Chidori, no less), Sasuke was suitably suspicious about Sakura's strange female-like behaviour (heaven forbid she liked him again) and he resolved to ask Kakashi-sensei about that tomorrow.

43. Nuance

There are little things- tiny things- that give their relationship away: he tousles her hair like she's still twelve and burgeoning, and she growls and glares like she's always done- except now, there's a secret depth in those green eyes that shines and winks in the distance, and if Tsunade looks carefully and quietly, she thinks she can see a hint of a real smile on the copy-nin's lips.

44. Near

It was down-right infuriating, the effect she had on him; not just the physical manifestation of desire but the fact that she made him want to reach out and tangle his hands in the strands of her hair, or tease her till she made threats that held far too much innuendo and too little understanding, and he hated that she was so tantalizingly tempting, like a pitcher of water to the man in the proverbial desert- but she didn't even know it.

45. Natural

He says the words over and over in his head, but they never come out quite as effusive and sincere as the moment when they have mere seconds together in the heat of battle and surrounded by torrential rain- he thumbs her cheek with a bloodstained hand, and she ignores the mark it leaves; "I love you," he says, and her eyes widen, but he's gone.

46. Horizon

She thinks it's worth it, in the end- the tears, the fear, the jagged edges of fingernails she'd bitten half away in worry- when she sees him standing with the setting sun as his backdrop; the horizon never looked more limitless.

47. Valiant

Needless to say, the boys are furious when they find out about Sakura's dalliance with their teacher, of all people- Sakura chuckles as the boys yell at each other and shoot evil looks at Kakashi; "Well, it was a valiant effort trying to keep it a secret anyway," she jokes, and Kakashi glares at her; "Brat, you're not the one who's going to bear the brunt of it," and Sakura just smirks.

48. Virtuous

Ino asks for the juicy details about their relationship ("c'mon forehead, what size is he- he must be a six-incher at least- anything smaller would be a cocktail weenie between those legs"), but Sakura can offer nothing but a shake of her head and a blush, because it's the truth- their relationship isn't like that: she's still a virgin (unfortunately), he still thinks he's far too old for her, and though he's head over heels in love (and in lust) with her, she wakes up every morning wrapped in his arms, fully clothed and pure as driven snow.

49. Victory

"You know, molesting me just to get at the bells is distinctly cheating at this exercise- you won't have to violate a rogue ninja in order to steal his scrolls or stolen artifacts- I mean, you practically stuck your hand in my-" and Sakura presses Hatake Kakashi against a tree and tells him in her nicest voice to just shut up and kiss her.

50. Defeat

Not all stories end with 'happily-ever-after'- ninja know so, when happy endings are a chancy thing like a game of dice with fate (ultimately, it's only a question of 'how long' when you face death every other week); their story, like all others, ends with death and pain and sadness, but at this fool's game of love, neither of them gave up or accepted defeat.