Note June 2014: So the first four chapters of this were written years ago, right when Naruto went off with Jiraya and the future of everyone was still in question. So keep in mind that's what it builds off of.

She undeniably hated it. The feeling, seething through her, racing through blood and veins until it settled mellow quiet, into her very bones, so that she would walk with it no matter how much blood she lost. No matter how many battles were fought,-mentally, physically, verbally-until she herself seemed to forget, because she had learned to live with it. The same as one learns to live with the grief of death.

She hated how she let them screw her over so many times. Them, those so-called men. All men with hidden red eyes. For her mere 18 years of life, she decided she had undoubtedly encountered more than her fair share of red eyed men, all stupid, arrogant, and power-hungry.

Sasuke and Kakashi with their deadly hidden Sharingan, Naruto with his ferocious Kyubi eyes.

These men who had effortlessly worked their way into her heart and then, just as effortlessly, left her, walking off one day and never looking back. First Sasuke when she was twelve. Her first love, because even though she was had been inanely young and naïve and selfish, that was what she had felt for him and no one but she could say what feelings she had experienced. Then soon after Naruto, whom she had slowly grown to love as well, though in an affectionate way, a sort of sisterly love that infused her entire being and made her feel, as silly as it sounded, as though he belonged to her. And then one sunny day he had simply left her behind. Walked away with Jiraya without a thought as to how it would affect her. Well, perhaps it was with a thought, for Naruto wasn't, hadn't ever been, truly as imperceptive as he appeared, but that thought had not been strong enough, urgent enough, to stop him from leaving her.

Time had passed until finally on a quiet spring day he had left her. Left her with a pat on the cheek and an affectionate smile she could see under his mask. She still hadn't seen his face, she had long given up on that goal. Kakashi was Kakashi, face mask perpetually included, and she hadn't wanted it any other way. She had needed a constant in her life and he had been there. There, though a bit distant, when Sasuke had gone. Then when Naruto had left and he was the only one who remained, the loneliness had slid into her mind until she began to seek him out constantly. Over and over, until he gradually becoming an important fixture in her daily life. A necessary fixture. If she had needed to train, which was often, he was there. He'd been there to take her home safely, make sure she ate -the little things that she seemed to effortlessly forget about.

She had cried openly to the world when Sasuke left. In private when Naruto had, but still he had known, and when she had arrived with puffy eyes hidden by the magic of concealer he had still known. He never spoke it aloud, but it was in the way his voice quieted and his touch somehow turned even more gentle. Those days he would not pat her on the head as usual (he knew it infuriated her when he did. She claimed the gesture made her feel like a dog or a small child being rewarded for completing a task), instead he would lightly rest his hand on her shoulder. And though the gesture was a quick one, it meant that he knew and she loved him for that. She loved him for the quiet way he had done everything. She loved that even when he'd seemed engrossed in that dirty book he constantly read, he always, always was aware of everything around him, aware of her. And that was why his leaving had hurt the most.

The night before he left, she had kissed him softly on the cheek, even when a blush stained her cheeks and his eye widened the slightest bit. They had been training as usual, and during a break she had simply leaned forward and kissed the skin exposed above the mask, so that she felt his warm skin beneath her lips, along with something she had never felt before. It wasn't love for him, since she had already loved him for so long, it was something more, and it made her realize that he was not just Kakashi-sensei. He was someone who had been with her in her life, and perhaps she could not just love, but be in love with. That revelation shocked her into a small, "thank you for everything".

A simple gesture, that she could blame on the fact that he was going on an extremely dangerous mission the next day, and hell, she might never see him again.

The curse of the ninja life.

She had waited and trained. Days, that slowly slipped into weeks. Weeks that fell into months. Time a lot longer than necessary, though she managed to push that fact into the back of her mind. And as time grew, along with the sadness, the hatred for them all grew until she was a jumble of bones and tears and angry thoughts that she never revealed. So she'd waited, until one day Ino had come running, crying that Shikamaru was back, and the others… they were missing. Shikamaru was not sure if they were dead or alive. They'd been ambushed their second month there, and separated, Ino told her. He had not heard or seen any of them for the time he'd been held captive. Shikamaru on sheer luck and genius smarts, had escaped when a boat his captors had taken him on, was taken over by other enemies of his captors , and he had pretended to be a corpse floating in the water. Which given his emaciated and blood-cracked, tortured body, had not been a hard feint to pull off. He had swam to shore, slept for two days, walked for three, until he discovered a tiny village. He'd stayed for a week and then left to return to Konoha, to report what had happened, to return back to Ino. And Sakura, eyes empty, had held Ino while she cried from relief of Shikamaru's safety.

Sakura received the news without feeling surprised. She had known when he'd failed to come back, though this knowledge had not stopped her from feeling her shattered heart disappear all together. He had promised her he would return when he could, and Kakashi always kept his promises, though some arrived late. She had known as she still knew now the only thing that could make him break one, to let a comrade down, was death itself.

And this knowledge slowly distinguished her hope.

So when, a little under a year later, just at the start of the month of her nineteenth birthday, she felt she should have known better. Known because it was him, and even if he faced death, he would still escape it and shatter the world that she had slowly built since then. Therefore, when Ino came running to her again, with the news he was back and he actually had kept his promise, albeit very late, she was not surprised with him.

Yes, she had dropped a perfect gold lacquered teacup, smashed it into a million golden pieces that glinted like fallen stars as she sank slowly to the floor. She had been surprised at the news, but not at the fact that he was back, because it was just so undeniably Kakashi, to return on a hot summer day, when Sakura was getting along just fine, and completely change her world.

She had felt relief and happiness and worry, but most of all, she had felt anger. She knew it was stupid and unreasonable anger. She knew it wasn't his fault that things had turned out the way they were. It had been his duty to go. But the anger still flared up because she did not need her life to change once again.

That day was a week ago. The knowledge was a week old. She knew, but still, she did not want to know. She did not want to start loving him again after getting used to loving the memory of him. She couldn't handle the possibility of repeating such anguish. Which was why she had not visited him in the hospital once. This was also the reason why, even though he was being released today, she did not run to his apartment nor was she going to attend the celebration tonight at the newly opened, larger Ichiraku. She was going to train, just as she had every other day, then go to the market, then go home and sleep. Perhaps read a book as well. Normal things that would distract her and would not hurt her. So she did so, even as she heard the music from the block over floating through the air. It was to this music she was lulled into sleep.

In the morning she woke to the chirping of the birds and the hot bright summer sky slipping in through her slightly opened window. She lay in bed, content for a minute. This time of day was the only time she was completely calm. Her mind was too fuzzy from sleep to remember what was bothering her, even if it only lasted for a minute.

She got out of bed and showered. Made herself tea and sat at her table, slowly sipping, until the doorbell rang. She glanced at the clock and guilty sprang to her feet. 8:30. She was half an hour late for meeting Ino for breakfast. She had forgotten all about it.

She ran to get her purse and to open the door.

Stopped as the person standing before her turned around.

"Yo."