Title: i too have known autumn too long

Summary: It’s a long way to spring.

Prelude: While The Dark Earth Spins

He sounded so lost, with all the guile and innocence of an eight-year-old child. Her still-beating
heart was in his hands. She could feel the hold he had on it, fingers digging in.

“Can you hear the birds, Sakura? I can hear them, a beautiful song in the lightning. I feel them
in my heart.”
He smiled.

“Can you feel them in yours too?”

A kiss from Sasuke that was so tender and loving that she knew it wasn't actually happening,
would never happen, that it was only a dream—

Sakura woke up with a choked-off scream in her throat. She clutched at her chest to make sure
it was still whole, but the unmarred flesh was so strange when she felt so hollow. The moon was
out; the cold light spilled out from the window and onto the bed.

Sakura wondered if Sasuke was looking up at the moon now too.

“Mmm… What are you doing up?” a low, rough voice spoke up from next to her in the bed. A
voice of old wars that had been softened into something tender by the secret parts of the night.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you,” she said, her body relaxing at the sound of him. Then, as
almost an afterthought, hidden in the shadow of a meaningless platitude: “Kakashi.”

She never said his name when they were together, never even addressed him without the
‘sensei’ tacked onto the end. In his name were a million questions she would never give voice.
Kakashi, do you know what we’re doing? Kakashi, do you care that I have a husband? Kakashi,
do you care about me? Kakashi, do you—

do you—

Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi—

ACT I. The Hollow Men

part one: summer

(form prayers to broken stone)

“Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi—”

“Why aren’t you calling me sensei? Maa, I thought you respected me,” he said, and then turned
a page. His eyes were trained on his book. Reading was just the same as it used to be, even
with newfound depth perception.

“Kakashi!”

He let out a mock sigh. “Yes?” His novel snapped shut, and he turned to observe her.

Sakura grinned at him, slightly swaying on her feet, cheeks flushed, eyes shining like polished
opals under the festival lights. Her joy was infectious. He felt a smile make its way across his
face despite everything and couldn’t bring himself to feel bad about it.

“Our world is alive. We’re alive. It seemed a bit shaky in the end there, but we made it. We
survived this war, Kakashi!”

She threw her head back in a joyful laugh, ringing bright and clear through the air and the noise
of the revelers around them. Wisps of hair came loose from her already haphazard ponytail.

“Indeed. The war to end all wars,” he murmured in agreement. Then, because he couldn't resist
teasing her, “I suppose that all that's left now is downhill from here.”

“No!” Her smile fell, and he regretted teasing her now if only for the loss of that smile. “Thinking
about the future in terms of the past, letting yesterday define tomorrow: that only leads to regret,
and misery.”

“Hm? How so?” Comparing Naruto to Minato-sensei and Kushina, Sasuke to himself, Sakura to
Rin… Thinking about the future in terms of the past seemed to be the only thing he knew how to
do. “How could we not think about the future in that way?”

Her eyes, luminous, seemed to pull him in inexorably, inextricably. “You said ‘downhill’, but an
experience is an experience; there’s no need to categorize it as better or worse. The heart…
there’s no way to measure such a thing,” she argued, impassioned and intoxicated. What a
philosophical drunk she was.

“Then what do we do, if not take things as good or bad?” he wondered, curious to know what
she would say in response, inebriated as she was.

The smile was back. “We leave the idealism to people like Naruto and Sasuke-kun. We take
things as they are, day to day. We look at what’s right in front of us.”

Look at what’s right in front of us. He looked—he stayed silent. The words held the air of
something devastating and he didn't understand why.

Not that it mattered as Sakura didn’t notice his lack of response. Her little speech seemed to
take a lot of energy, and when she listed forward she didn't catch herself, stumbling into his vest
and gripping the fabric in her fingers.
She continued to mumble on, having moved onto the innate beauty of life, her thoughts going in
circles in the air and he looked at her, drunk on victory and plum-wine, and was struck out of the
blue with the sudden and strange thought that, in truth, there was nothing more beautiful than
her.

The moment passed, fleeting as the brush of his hand on her face—sun and storm clashing in
the heavens, the world trapped in a dream while Sakura herself was in a nightmare, she opened
her heart to Sasuke and was cursed for it, and he’d never felt so old—

Kakashi tucked the memory away in the hollowness of his ribcage along with all the other things
he didn’t let himself think about.

“Alright, I think it’s time for you to sober up, Sakura-chan,” he said, patting her head.

He didn’t think she’d heard him, but was proven wrong when the rhombus mark on her forehead
flared out the slightest bit, signaling her speeding up the metabolization of the alcohol in her
cells. After she was finished, she took her face away from where it was pressed onto him but did
not move any further.

Her gaze went up. She stared at him, serious and solemn, and he stared back, amused at the
blatant abuse of such a powerful and complicated jutsu. He found his hands drifting to her waist.

There was something bewitching about the hour. The relief and joy and celebration in the air,
the epicenter of calmness around them, the warmth of her pressed up against him, those green,
green eyes. He felt like a thief stealing this moment with her and could not bring himself to
regret it. His chest ached as he looked at her; she was so small in his arms.

It probably wasn’t the best time to be remembering what she looked like naked. He did so
anyways, and with the memory came the unbidden question of whether it would be as good the
first time if it happened a second time.

“Do you…” He wasn’t sure how to say it without sounding like an ass, wasn’t sure of what he
even wanted to say—Do you want me to touch you? Kiss you, taste you, hold you? Do you want
to feel me as much as I do you?—and it trailed off lamely.

Communicating didn't come easy to him, at times like this.

She seemed to ignore him, but they were thinking on similar wavelengths. Closing her eyes, she
went in for a kiss to seal the deal. It missed his lips and landed on his masked nose. She had
reached too high.

“Let’s go to your place this time.”

It was just like he remembered… but no. It was even better.

The first and only other occasion it happened, it was still good, but it was rushed, fumbled. This
time? Not so.

Their lips met in a mutual expression of joy and relief and Kakashi knew with certainty that no
matter what happened tomorrow, neither of them would regret this. Unhurried, untroubled; he
tasted her simply for the sake of tasting her. She was wine on his tongue and he drank her in.

He liked the way she tasted, and while part of him felt bad for doing so, most of him just couldn’t
care. He liked the sounds that came rushing up from her throat. He liked the smell of her (not
cherry blossoms like one would assume, but wisteria), and he liked looking at her, and feeling
her—her skin, so soft under his hands—and he liked her eyes, deep and verdant like the forests
around Konoha, and he liked her hair, the ridiculous pink that it was. He liked—

He liked—

He liked her, he realized, with equal parts guilt and wonder. All of her.

That was the long and short of it. He just liked her, more than he had any right to. He’d never
had a woman before her. He wasn’t sure if he wanted another one.

She broke apart from him first, gasping, and he couldn’t complain, not with the way she moved
against him, the way she called his name. But he would not be idle. Not here, at least.

“Kaka-nnng—sensei,” she said, breath hitching as he mapped out the dips and curves of her
through his fingertips and traced up-down each and every scar he could find, “w-why did you
agree to, ah! To—” She broke off into a mess of half-moans and half-gasps.

To talk of such things? Now? Well, at least he knew what to say to this.

“I agreed because I wanted to fuck you in my bed.”

It was truth and untruth. Different answers, different questions. Evasiveness was practically a
trademark of his and oh, he did love to tease her. She hissed at him like an angry cat in
response and her kisses gained the slightest bit of bite to them.

He’d had worse hurts—he didn’t mind. He took her again, and again. And again.

He woke up the next morning to the faintest impression of warmth and an indent on the sheets
beside him. He got up; he stretched; he yawned. It was clear outside, but he could tell that a
storm was coming. His old injuries gave him phantom aches and pains with changes in weather.
An old dog, Kakashi was.

For something between a moment and eternity, he looked back at the bed and stared at the
strands of pink hair clinging to one of the pillows, and he breathed. Her scent still lingered.
Then, to the bathroom, where the shower walls and floor were wet. In his mind’s eye he saw her
standing amidst the tiles, lids shut and fully nude as water ran down her skin.
He noticed that some of the shampoo he owned with built in scent blockers had been used; a
smart move on her part. After he turned on the shower and stepped under the spray, he moved
to use it too. Checked the clock when he was done washing up. It was nine in the morning.
Tsunade-sama had mentioned on the journey back from Lightning Country that he was to meet
with her as soon as they reached Konoha, and they had arrived a day ago.

He had some time to kill.

Since his refrigerator was empty save for a moldy, half-full container of miso paste, he decided
to search for something to eat. Out the window he went, because doors were for other people.
Crossing the rooftops in lieu of the lively streets and perhaps guided by some unconscious
force, he found himself at a familiar place.

Ichiraku Ramen.

“Teuchi-san,” he greeted with the sun shining on his back. “I see you’re still open.”

The older civilian man shrugged. “Life goes on, even after the moon turns strange and the world
gets trapped in a dream. The laundry still has to be done, dinner still has to be made, the bills
still have to be paid. It’s life, Hatake-san.”

He made a noise that was neither agreement nor disagreement. “Aa…”

Teuchi smiled at him. “Still as quiet as ever, I see. What would you like, Hatake-san?”

“Hm, I have no preference. Whatever you think would be good, Teuchi-san.”

“Coming right up!” Teuchi chuckled. “Ah, you haven’t changed, even after all this time.”

It was true, wasn’t it? Kakashi stayed silent. He couldn’t deny it.

“Kaka-sensei!”

He turned to look in the direction of the call. Sakura was there, a bright smile on her face as she
waved at him with one hand and held onto Sasuke with the other. He waved back, and she
began to walk over to him, letting go of Sasuke’s hand even as the man followed silent as a
shadow in her footsteps.

“Good morning, Sakura-chan, Sasuke.” He spared a nod for the Uchiha.

“Morning!” Sakura chirped, even as Sasuke loomed over her shoulder. “This place sure brings
back memories, doesn’t it. Wait, are you eating ramen for breakfast?”

“I am,” he said, in blithe ignorance of her incredulous tone. “What are you two up to?”

Sakura glanced at the boy standing next to her, her expression turning quickly to something sly.
“I decided to take him out for a walk.”
“You shouldn’t say it like that. I’m not a dog,” Sasuke muttered.

Kakashi had to agree. Sasuke was more like a cat, only twice as homicidal and nowhere near
as cute.

Sakura let out a laugh. “I know, Sasuke-kun.”

Ah, and how familiar she was when she said his name. Teuchi set a bowl of miso ramen in front
of him, so terribly nostalgic, but he made no move to touch it. He looked at them. Sasuke,
clothed in inky black, spectral and unknowable, and Sakura, red and vivacity and tendrils of
green. Shadow and spring.

What a picture they made (and he did not think of the brush of his hand on her face).

“Why…”

His voice caught in his throat. He didn’t know what he’d say anyways—Why are you talking to
him like that? Why are you looking at him like that?

Memories all too fresh came to his mind. Of Sasuke stating Kakashi and Sakura just happened
to be there, that’s all, icy and distant, of her falling unconscious after staring at those cursed
eyes, and of helplessness welling up in him so hot and thick Kakashi almost couldn't breathe as
he stood in a silent vigil over Sakura’s still form.

Say something, anything, something in him cried out. He wanted to. He couldn’t.

A harried-looking chuunin jogged up to them, interrupting the standoff that one side wasn’t even
aware was happening.

“Hatake-san! I… er,” the oblivious man trailed off, catching sight of Sasuke and paling.

Kakashi cleared his throat, grateful for the distraction. “Yes?”

“Ah!” The man started at the reminder. “The Hokage asked me to tell you, uh—” He visibly
braced himself, before saying, “If Hatake doesn’t get his ass over here, I’ll come and find him
myself, and I won’t be nice about it!”

What did she mean by that? It was so tame. Usually she summoned him to her office with much
more graphic threats.

Sakura looked surprised too. “Is she in a good mood, or a bad?” she piped up. “I can’t tell. You
should go see her, Kaka-sensei.”

She tried to make eye contact with him, imploring, and he had to look away. “I probably should,”
he agreed. “I’ll see you two around, then.”
He dusted off his pants and got up. Shadow and spring. He hoped he didn’t, and he slinked
away.

In the light that spilled through the window, Tsunade’s eyes shone amber.

“Ready to serve, my lady,” he said with a flippant salute.

“Hatake, you brat.”

She didn’t look mad, didn’t say anything else. Just leveled him with that heavy stare.

The irrational thought crossed his mind that she could pluck his thoughts out of his head, and
with them see the memory of last night. Blonde she may be, Tsunade was Senju, not
Yamanaka.

He still could not meet her gaze.

“I’m sure you know what this is about,” she said.

He did not stiffen on purpose, but inside, he panicked. Was he wrong? Did she know?

“Ah. Yes…” He tried to sound sure, but knew that it didn’t come across that way. His lack of
composure, however, could be excused by a very real fear for his life if she found out what
happened last night.

She rolled her eyes, reaching behind her desk to produce a jug of sake and two cups and
setting them down on the wooden surface. She pulled up a chair when the drinks were laid out.
There was no verbal command, but it was an obvious order all the same. She wore authority
well, he had to admit.

“Get over here and sit down,” she snapped when he didn't move. The fine muscles above her
eyebrow curled into a little arc when she was growing irritated but trying not to show it, he
noticed.

"What is this about?"

After staring him down for a bit longer, her will seemed to run out, and she slumped. "Get over
here and sit down," she repeated, quiet.

Concerned, Kakashi took an involuntary step forward. Then another, and another, drawn in
inexorably by the curve of her bowed shoulders.

"Tsunade-sama…?”

His hands reached towards her before halting in their motion for a suspended moment and
falling back to his sides, unsure of what to do. Tsunade was the strongest woman in the village
but at the moment she looked so fragile. Kakashi sat down in the chair next to her, all too aware
of the lack of a desk between them.

"I'm exhausted," she said, eyelids drooping. Candid, and blunt.

This, he knew. “Aren’t we all?”

She let out a laugh. “Indeed. Too bad you’re the one who has to be Hokage now.” Deceptively
light, she took a sip from her drink.

He sighed. So this was what she called him here for. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not.
Declarations in the heat of battle were different from actual responsibility, and Kakashi did have
to admit to himself that he was terrible with the latter.

“I guess.”

Tsunade snorted, incredulous. “You guess? You guess? You’re going to be in charge of this
village, and that’s all you can say?”

Kakashi couldn’t help what he said next: “I guess.” She walked right into that one.

Her fingertips massaged her temples, something she did when she was trying to stave off a
headache. “You need to treat this seriously, Hatake. This is going to be an undertaking.”

She looked honestly frustrated, so he relented. “I know. I’ll take care of the village.”

Her brows furrowed, and she nodded. “I trust you. But, it’s going to be hard,” she said slowly.
“We’re in a new era, now.”

He knew as much, saw as much, in the midst of accompanying Tsunade to her meetings with
the other Kage after the Infinite Tsukuyomi ended. With the end of the most recent war, chances
of such conflict continuing in his lifetime were slim, since good relations between the
chakra-wielding warriors of the nations of the world were at an all-time high.

In the very least this was because of Naruto; his actions in the war made him a centerpiece in
this new era. And he wouldn’t die anytime soon, barring any bigger apocalyptic threats. Which
would have to be watched out for, of course, because it wouldn’t do to say nothing like that
would happen again and jinx everyone.

Speaking of possible apocalyptic threats, he had to ask: “What are you going to do about
Sasuke?”

“What would you do about him?” Tsunade returned, shooting him a sharp look.

“Naruto and Sakura would never stand for execution, even with Sasuke’s former criminal status,
and he’s been compliant with being under supervision, so I have to admit, neither would I.” It
galled him to say, but it was true. “At the same time, he can’t stay in the village. Not with the
crimes he’s committed.”

Killing Danzō, burning off the Raikage’s arm, attacking the Raikage’s brother, attacking a
diplomatic summit between the five nations, being a member of Akatsuki, killing some samurai
from the Land of Iron… Sasuke got around.

“True,” Tsunade acknowledged. “So?”

“So,” Kakashi said, “if we can’t kill him, but he can’t stay here, we might as well use that. We’ve
been made forcibly aware that threats exist out there beyond our comprehension, and he has
the power to watch out for such things. The solution is obvious.”

“I came to the same conclusion,” she said with a nod. “To be honest, I don’t want to kill him that
much either, because at least he got rid of Danzō. And the whole war thing, I guess.”

“Now who’s the one that’s guessing?”

“Shut up, brat, you know what I mean.” She smacked his arm and he had to hold back a wince.
Her strength was, as always, formidable.

“In his defense, Danzō did want to protect Konoha,” Kakashi offered.

Tsunade’s glare would have made lesser men wet themselves. “Don’t speak to me about what
he wanted,” she said coldly. “It’s what he did that remains. He plotted left and right behind the
Hokages’ back for years, starting conflict after conflict. For Konoha? No, for his image of
Konoha.”

“Still,” he insisted, “don’t we all want to protect our image of Konoha?”

“He desecrated the bones of my ancestors.”

Kakashi closed his eyes. He had forgotten about that. Stupid of him, really.

“I’m sorry.”

Tsunade took a long drink straight from the bottle, and grunted.

“Ah,” she said. “That’s the stuff. I could spare a chuunin to go and fetch this for me, since the
rebuilding efforts from the Shinju’s damage are going well.”

“I noticed,” he said, thinking of Teuchi’s words. “Life goes on. The laundry still has to be done,
dinner still has to be made, the bills still have to be paid.”

She sighed, an unhappy expression on her face. “That’s peacetime for you.”

He knew exactly what she meant. Sure, peace was always a good thing. He’d never liked war,
and would never seek it out, not after it had claimed so many of those who were precious to
him. At the same time, though, he dreaded peace, because in an awful, sick way, war was
almost comforting to him. It was a familiar sort of drug. Without it, he was forced to sit down and
think: what next?

Instead of being able to spend his days in service of Hokage and country, honoring the
memories of the dead, Kakashi actually had to find something else to make the days go by.

He raised his drink in a toast. “To the end of an era.”

The alcohol burned—Tsunade always liked her spirits strong—but he ignored it. The end of an
era, the decline of a generation, the slow onset of decrepitude. What a cruel thing, time was. At
once too quick and too slow, its flow continuing on, and on, and on.

The number of days he had left was not what it used to be, and he felt that more than he had
ever felt it before. When Pain rained judgement upon Konoha and he stared death in the eyes
as it wore his father’s face, he still did not feel his own mortality as keenly then as he had begun
to feel in the days after the war, in the midst of diplomacy and travel and negotiations.

The days slipped through his fingers like smoke with about as much substance in them. He
drifted. Making the days go by… if only it was that simple.

“What are you going to do when you retire?” he asked her.

“Hm. Actually, I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe I’ll travel? I have the rest of my life ahead of
me, so whatever I’m going to do I want to enjoy it.”

“Sounds boring.”

Tsunade rolled her eyes. “Shut up. At least I know how to enjoy myself.”

That much was true. It was probably the biggest difference between them. Tsunade turned to
the pursuit of pleasure, to hedonism, while he clung to structure and order and the rigidness of
duty.

Kakashi could admit that his life was kind of messed up from the moment that he knelt in front of
his father’s cooling corpse. Things got worse as he continued to lose those he cared about. As a
result of this, in order to keep himself going, he had to find something to focus on, no matter
how unhealthy it was, be it guilt, or war, or Team Seven.

It wasn't just making the days go by. It was more than that, bigger and distant and beyond
himself. It was a beacon for him to reach towards in the dark labyrinth of his thoughts. It was a
distraction from the memories that kept him awake at night. It was something to help him move
despite his crippling self-hatred. It was giving him a reason to get up in the morning instead of
waiting to die.

His guilt was stale, wars in his lifetime were over, and Team Seven was grown up. So what was
he to do? What next?
Green eyes, pink hair. His chest tightened.

“You know, perhaps you’ll do alright,” Tsunade said. She sounded tired but there was a laugh in
her eyes. “I certainly wouldn’t bet on it.”

On the morning he was to be officially made Hokage, Kakashi started the day in the same way
that he started all his days: at the Memorial Stone. Bouquet of white chrysanthemums and lilies
in hand, he sat on the plateau, carefully arranging the robes as best as he could to keep them
from getting mussed.

He didn’t like them. Like a shoe on the wrong foot, not the wrong size, but still not right. He
wasn’t sure if they’d ever fit him. Sixth Hokage was emblazoned on the back (as if people
couldn’t count which one he was) but they still didn’t feel like his. The Hokage was the face of
the village and the position was better suited to someone who wasn’t used to hiding behind a
mask.

He laid down the flowers. Let his fingers trace across their names.

Uchiha Obito.

Nohara Rin.

Namikaze Minato.

And he took a moment of silence for another name, not engraved on the stone, but still kept
close.

Hatake Sakumo.

Then, he paused. He wasn’t sure of what to say. How’s being dead? No, that wouldn’t do.
Maybe it would be better to start simple.

“Hello.”

Silence. He looked down at his lap. His customary book had stayed at home out of a sense of
respect for the dead, but since putting down the flowers he felt awkward without something in
his hands.

“I’m becoming Hokage. Just like you wanted, Obito.”

He sighed, running a frustrated hand through his hair. Even saying it felt wrong. What was he
doing? Paying his last respects to a golden memory? Perhaps even the memory itself was a lie.
He’d gotten the Sharingan after Obito died so what he remembered with the most clarity was
not his funny excuses or smiles, but his broken body, and his face twisted into a hateful snarl,
with none of the brightness of the boy he once knew.
“I’m sorry; I’ve never been very good at this. And I’m worried. There’s so much ahead. It seems
daunting, thinking of it all.”

Again, no response. And he expected as much. In the early days, when the wounds were still
fresh, he would try to imagine what they would say, had they been there. Carrying out entire
conversations in his head that would never happen, even going as far as to use genjutsu to
make the illusion more lifelike. It helped, in its own way, giving him the strength to keep going, to
think of them, to ensure they wouldn’t be forgotten.

As time went by, carrying their memories grew more and more painful, deepening the wound
until it was raw and weeping. When he grew older and their faces never aged, when the echo of
laughter began to fade from his mind, he was forced to acknowledge over and over the truth of
it: he was alone.

“I wish you were here.”

But Kakashi had always gone through life as a walking memorial.

“Kaka-sensei! There you are!” Sakura exclaimed upon seeing him. She huffed. “I’ve been
looking for you.”

He paused in his casual stroll through the market district. Of course she’d sensed his chakra
through his henge. “Hello to you too, Sakura-chan.”

She threw up her hands in exasperation. “You’re supposed to be there now, sensei. Where were
you?”

He hummed. “Visiting some friends.” The truth, for once.

She burst into laughter, before bringing a gloved hand to her mouth to try and stifle it.

“Laughing at your poor sensei?” There was an aborted twitch of his fingers—he didn’t catch her
wrist and bring her hand away.

“I was just wondering what kind of people would be friends with you,” she shot back.

He put on an affronted look. “I’ll have you know that I’m very popular.”

Eyebrows raised, she was the definition of unimpressed. “Mhmm.”

“Ah,” he brought a hand to his chest, “you wound me. I can hear your doubt. Do you really have
no faith in me?”

Her expression grew serious. “No,” she said. “I do have faith in you.”

“I was joking, Sakura-chan,” he said, feeling awkward all of a sudden.

“I know you were. But,” she took a deep breath, growing firm, “I’m not! I trust you. If you’re
feeling nervous about becoming Hokage, just know that you have people on your side, and I’m
one of them.”

She spoke so earnestly, and her eyes were so warm.

“You can do this, Kaka-sensei. I believe in you.”

But he had to ask. “What prompted this?”

She grew sly. “Well, I thought maybe you were getting cold feet. So I figured a pep-talk couldn’t
hurt. Now come on!” She took ahold of his wrist with a grip like iron and began to physically drag
him to where the ceremony was being held.

Kakashi rolled his eyes. “You make my life an endless struggle,” he grumbled. It was a good
line, actually. Perhaps he could use that…

”Life is an endless struggle.”

The audience broke out into murmurs. Kakashi held back a smirk. A fortuitous opening line for a
Hokage’s first speech, indeed.

“We built our lives on money gained by blood. We met our deaths in war. We sent our children
out to battle, and they came back to us as veterans.”

Silence. Grief. This was their reality.

“As shinobi, we endure. To suffer, but go on—that is who we are.”

It was the foundation of shinobi life. He knew this, and he was sure that everyone else here
knew it too, in some way. Now, though…

“Almost a year ago, we stood together in the face of gods, demons, forces that should have
been beyond our reckoning. We survived. And that means something.”

It was probably very out of place for him to do, but since he’d just seen her, he found himself
thinking of Sakura. Of her words, on that autumn evening.

“I say this to you not only as your Hokage, but a shinobi: not everything is going to be better.”

We leave the idealism to people like Naruto and Sasuke-kun.

“But we will take our challenges, and we will go onto a brighter future.”

We take things as they are, day to day.

“Eat, drink, and be merry! Cherish the fact that we are here, today, and alive.”
We look at what’s right in front of us.

He smiled. He had stayed silent then. Not now, though.

“We have a long road ahead of us, but I’m ready. Are you?”

ACT I. The Hollow Men

part two: autumn

(let me also wear such deliberate disguises)

He hadn’t summoned the ninken for awhile.

He tried to, regularly. But between looking at mission requests, mission reports, mission
assignments, and client complaints, the profiles of recent immigrants for security purposes,
proposals for additions to the budget, trade agreements, and revisions on their stance on
weapons development… Altogether, the amount of work that kept piling on had him swamped.

Being Hokage was both everything and nothing he’d expected. Hard, but somehow gratifying.
He felt needed. He felt busy. It was tedious work, but necessary. No less than those slitting
throats and razing castles in the name of Hokage and country.

There wasn’t as much of that, though—not anymore.

Immigrant profiles, while numerous after the boom in prosperity for the hidden villages and
touchy after the influx of pardoned missing-nin who participated in the fourth war, were easy to
review. They were already extensively researched by the immigration department, and all he
had to do was give them the final once-over and his stamp of approval. Budget proposals
involved more effort, but he was pretty good at separating wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
The most of what it took was time, something he was in short supply of.

Trade agreements were a bit hard, and negotiation was always a pain. People were still sore
about Sasuke’s actions as a rogue. But really, the whole mess that was Konoha’s foreign policy
overall needed to be untangled if this new era of peace was to be a happy one.
Revising their current stance on weapons development was also a nightmare. Ninja in general
(and he was saying this as a ninja himself) were paranoid and never stopped sleeping with one
eye open, and Kumo in particular was full of crazy bastards who didn’t know when to quit—he
was sure that they had something crazy cooking to increase their military power.

All of this was speaking separately for each of those things.

Sending Sasuke off was for the best. However, it made the other countries anxious that
someone with as much firepower as him was running loose around the world, with a known
(albeit very hard-won) allegiance to Konoha.

It seemed Kakashi was very alike to him in this respect. After living a life of one tragedy after
another, there came the inevitable fear that your chances would run out. Uchiha Obito, Nohara
Rin, Namikaze Minato, Hatake Sakumo. He thought of fire, and trial, and running. He thought of
war. He thought of being a veteran at sixteen and going downhill from there.

How can you just act like you’re okay, he wanted to shout, all I want is for you to be happy but
how can I help you when you smile at him like that?

Kakashi liked Sakura. He liked her in the truest sense of the word. She was beautiful, certainly.
She was smart. Caring, too, and strong. Yet also humble, and sweet. He liked that about her.

He liked a lot of things about her.

He liked her.

However, he wasn’t the type to want good things for himself. So while he realized that these
feelings in anyone else would spur attraction, and then an eventual pursual of the object of such
affections, he had no such thing happen to him.
He’d always been a bit of a nut; he could acknowledge that. She obviously felt some fondness
for him, and that could develop into something more. And they’d work well together. But Kakashi
was used to denying himself happiness and staying aloof. It was just safer. More comfortable.

There was a knock at the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. Kakashi pushed back the
floor length blackout curtains to see who had found him.

He closed his eyes, took a breath, stretched his limbs. He felt good.

Better than he’d felt in a long time.

Day to day. One step at a time.

Sakura burst into his—and how strange it was, to call it that—office, bringing with her the smell
of wisteria and hospital disinfectant.

“Kaka-sensei,” she said with an imperious toss of the head. “You’re still here.” Her hands were
on her hips, her lips pursed.

“Yes?”

She rolled her eyes. “You shouldn’t stay up doing work for so long. It’s bad for your health.”

“You’re here, though,” he pointed out. If she was here, she had to be doing the same thing he
was. “You were—”

The tips of her ears turned red. “Anyways,” she interjected, continuing as if he hadn’t said
anything, “let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving.” She stared at him expectantly as she
waited for his response.

He scrutinized her in turn, wondering. Why did she come here, then?
He rested his thumb on the smooth skin of her inner wrist, felt the beat of her heart even from
that one point of contact—it was too much. He let go.

Her lips quirked up into a soft smile. “I’m going to marry Sasuke,” she said, and she was so very
far away.

The words, I’m going to marry Sasuke, they echoed off each other in his head, growing louder
and louder until it was just a cacophony of meaningless noise and there was just one question
that rang out above the chaos.

“But why?”

“Because I love him and he loves me,” —and she said this with the air of someone who had
repeated it to themselves many times.

“Has he told you he loves you?”

She looked at him like he was being silly. Perhaps he was. But he had to hear it, had to
know—her smile did not fade.

“Not out loud, no.”

She still… She still… He took a breath, let the flow of air bypass the knot in his chest.

“I see.” He didn’t see. He didn’t want to. He closed his eyes in a smile.

“Kaka-sensei,” she said, shaking her head but with a distinct fondness to the action, and oh, oh
how he hates that title. “Thank you. You know, I do think you’d be a wonderful husband. You're
going to make some lucky lady very happy when you find her.”

It was so friendly, so familiar. For a blinding moment he was so terribly angry. At the world, at
Sasuke, at her. Angry at himself, for hoping. I tasted you like wine on my tongue; I held your
hand in mine. You cried for me like it mattered. We looked at the stars and shared our fears, and
I felt our hearts beat in time.

I thought we had something, he wanted to shout, I thought—

I thought—

He opened his eyes, but even as he spoke his voice was measured. “Why would you say that?”
Did she know that he felt…
He scrutinized her face. She didn’t. How could she not know? Even his reaction, his questions,
should have given her some inkling. But no: there was just that guileless expression on her
face, full of support for someone she considered close to her.

Sakura was a smart woman, bright and intuitive. She was someone who was able to grasp
anything if she set her mind to it. Was she just being obtuse on purpose? After the time they
spent together, how could she not know?

“Because I believe it. I’ve seen it, from the way you’ve been so kind to me.” She reached across
the table and put her hand on top of his, and his heart seized painfully. How could she think it
was just kindness?

Then again, how could she not? He thought of her previous experiences with love. Once bitten,
twice shy: Sakura had opened her heart and gotten cursed for it both times. Her hopes for the
world and herself had been dashed so many times. Her declarations of love had amounted to
nothing. After such definitive proof, how could her views on love not change?

“Do you regret it?”

He didn’t dare specify what he was talking about.

She tilted her head to the side, looked at him with such awful tenderness.

“I don't.”

Truth but also untruth. Different answers, different questions. Ah, what a teacher he was.

He thought of that autumn evening those years ago. We look at what’s right in front us, she had
said. The words took a new, awful meaning, and he understood at last the sense of devastation
he’d gotten.

What happened, he wondered. What happened to the girl who wanted only what she thought
was the best of the best as her fairytale prince, who had the balls to approach the Hokage
herself for training, who would snatch the stars out of the sky if it suited her? Living from day to
day? Accepting what was right in front of her? Was Sakura starting to settle?

It felt like a stupid question, all of a sudden. Of course she would settle, to spare herself the
pain.

He’d done the same thing.

Posture relaxed and voice forcibly light, with the words carried on a sigh. “I’m gonna have to
give Sasuke the ‘if you hurt her you answer to me’ talk. Come to me if there are any problems,
okay? I’ll try to help you sort it out.”
He had to hold back a wince right after he was done saying it. Did that sound like a euphemism,
or was it just him?

Her eyes darkened from something he couldn’t recognize. Her smile still did not fade, eternal in
sweetness the way her namesake could never be.

“Kaka-sensei doing his duty, hm?”

Duty, honor. He’d shirked such things many times. But perhaps now he was too old, too tired to
run.

“Maa, I suppose I am.”

Look at what’s right in front of us, her voice echoed. What a fool he was.

ACT II. Wanted

part one: winter

(i talk in a daze, i walk in a maze)

Little feet pattered against traditional tatami floors. Sakura paused in preparing dinner and
glanced at a young face set into a grave expression.

“Mama,” Sarada said, dark eyes wide, and on her childish features it almost looked like she was
pouting. “When is Papa coming home?”
Sakura turned back to the tomatoes she was chopping. “It's a very long and hard mission.” She
felt tired. Sarada had started asking where her father was last week. “He’ll be back as soon as
his mission is done,” she said, repeating what she’d told her daughter the first time.

Sarada was silent for a moment, but piped up again with the insatiable curiosity of a child, too
small to know that some questions were best left unasked. “Does,” she paused, “Does Papa not
care about us, Mama?”

Sakura was shocked. Out of all of her husband’s faults, amidst the cold attitude and past murder
attempts, she’d never considered not caring to be one of his failings. In fact, he cared too
much—so much that it caused him terrible, terrible pain, and he did his damndest to shut out all
contact with his feelings in order to spare himself the agony. Some hearts loved too strongly and
the kindest souls were some of the easiest to turn cruel.

His life had been a giant tragedy for so long. After so much time of finding solace in hatred and
purpose in death, after so much time spent denying good things, how could he not be
floundering when presented with acceptance, love, happiness, and a family?

She didn’t blame him for needing some time to find himself.

Sakura’s smile was sad. “You and I are very precious to your father. That’s why he can’t come
home,” she said, and she mourned the young, bright boy that she had fallen in love with. “I don’t
think you can understand it now, but there’s going to come a time when you will.”

Sarada’s eyes welled up with tears, and Sakura pulled her into a hug. Both of them needed one.
She didn’t blame him for needing time, she really didn’t, but she dearly wished that he would
come home because—because Sarada needed him to be there for her.

(Sakura needed him to be there for her.)

She felt her daughter begin to squirm in her arms. “Mom, you’re crushing me!”

Sakura let go. “Sorry,” she said with a little laugh. “Now, no more of that, okay? I just can’t help
it, whenever I see you crying.”

Sarada nodded, using the heel of her palm to wipe at her eyes. After her tears were dried, she
got a mischievous look on her face, her emotions turning different with the usual changeability of
a child.

“Mama… have you and Papa ever kissed?”

She blushed. She didn’t think she would need to discuss this with her daughter yet! “What?”

Once the surprise wore off, though, she laughed, and it was only a little melancholy. Ah, to be
young and think that kisses were the ultimate declaration of love.
Her husband wasn't one for kisses. They had kissed before, certainly, but they weren't what left
an impression on her—and she remembered his face, so different, like a dark and cold room
that had been given a new light that chased the shadows away, and she remembered his voice,
gentle as she'd never heard it before, I’ll see you soon—thank you, and the brush of his fingers
against her forehead, and the inexplicable feeling that he’d just shared something incredibly
intimate and private between them…

Sakura shook her head with a soft laugh.

“What is it?” Sarada looked curious now.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” she said in between chuckles. “You just made me remember something nicer
than a kiss.”

Sarada wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, mom! That’s so gross.”

“Huh?” She realized then what her daughter was thinking of. “No, no! Not that!” she hastened to
assure her.

“Oh.” Sarada cocked her head to the side, previous expression of disgust wiped away. “Well
what’s nicer than a kiss?”

When she was younger, Sakura herself often wondered the same thing. What could be nicer
than kisses, and declarations of love, and marriage, and building lives together? Wasn’t that
what love was, with the one you wanted to spend the rest of your days with? But no: while that
could be love for some, all she had known from that sort of love was rejection, and lonely nights,
and heartache.

She looked at Sarada’s face, open, wondering, and she knew she would not tell her daughter
this. Because she didn’t want to burden her with such things, and—it was only partially true.
Yes, her marriage had wrought her tears, and pain, but it also gave her a daughter.

And she wouldn’t trade Sarada for any amount of her own happiness.

Sakura smiled and brushed her fingers over her daughter’s forehead, because it was what her
husband would have done in her place. She could give Sarada at least this part of her father.

“We’ll talk about that some other time,” she said gently.

“Mo—om!” Sarada really did pout this time and stomped away.

Sakura laughed again as she watched her daughter go, the action trailing off into a sigh. Lost in
thought, she tugged at a strand of her hair, wondering when she should cut it. It was getting
long.
When her husband got home. She would have him cut it for her. He seemed to like her short
hair, seemed to like the reminder of the girl who stood in a forest once and declared she would
not be left behind. Immortal in memory, invincible in will, and so very, very young.

She wondered what that girl would say if she saw her current life. She’d probably say something
about all her dreams coming true.

And yet…

The cherry trees bloomed in the spring; the leaves turned gold in the autumn. Her husband was
Uchiha Sasuke. The summers were long, air ripe with stifling heat; the winters were cold, the
world touched by frost. She bore him a child. The sun rose and set, and the moon continued to
shine just as bright as it always had. Sarada had no memories of her father.

These were ineffable truths that she could not deny. While the girl of yesteryear might have
waxed poetic about true love conquering all, Haruno Sakura knew in her heart that the girl of
times past would not be truly happy with this marriage.

But did it matter? When Sakura was very small, she didn’t want to be a ninja, and now she
wouldn’t have it any other way. She loved her work. She loved helping people; she loved healing
them.

She loved working magic with her chakra, feeling cells come to life under her hands. She loved
the way her patients smiled at her after she healed them; the gratitude of a young, talented ninja
after she fixed what would have been a career-ending injury and a grandmother’s gentle thanks
as the pain from her old aches was eased. She loved her village, the green and growing of
Konoha. She loved her friends, Naruto, Ino, Sai, Hinata, all of them dear to her in their own
ways. She loved her daughter, dark and bright and beautiful Sarada.

Still, despite all this, despite the happiness she had, there was one thing, just one little thing:
she loved her husband, but he didn’t love her back.

She was grateful for all the love she had in her life, her heart so full it could burst sometimes.
She really was. It was incredibly selfish of her to carry the hurt she did about this, she felt.

However, Sakura was older, not wiser. She knew herself to be the same fool she’d always been.

To love—yes, she was a fool.

Is this it, she wanted to cry, is this our grand peace? Toy soldiers in toy wars? Naruto, you
bastard. You were supposed to fix it! You were supposed to make it all go away…
Sakura dreamed of birds and could not scream.

ACT II. Wanted

part two: spring

(i cannot get out, said the starling)

His voice was breaking. She wondered if he was going going to kiss her. And for a terrifying
moment, she thought that maybe she wanted him to.

Kakashi saw her, the depth and scope of her, and he—he… she would not let herself think the
word.

The brush of his hand on her face was almost gentle, almost tender, almost intimate,
almost—and she could not think the word.

She began to tremble. She could barely get the words out.

“Will you…” She swallowed, and then tentatively reached out her fingers towards his. He
reached back and twined their hands together. It felt warm.

“Will you stay with me?” she asked.

There was a aching smallness in her, like the barest hint of green beneath a frost, and she felt a
terrible, terrible hope that maybe, just maybe he would stay (and she was not thinking of
Sasuke). He let go of her hand and turned away.

Sakura’s heart stopped.

This is it, she thought, and there was a sinking feeling in her stomach because this was what
would finally break her, this is it this is it this is it this is it—
He pulled off his dark colored vest and let it fall to the floor.

Her thoughts shuddered to a halt.

Sakura wasn’t sure if she was still breathing, wasn’t sure if she should feel shocked or happy or
guilty. But even though she would not let herself think it, she still knew inside what she did feel.

He reached up and tugged his mask down. There were crow’s feet around his eyes but the rest
of his naked face looked ageless, suspended between old and young. He slipped under the
covers of the bed, and once he’d made himself comfortable, he took a moment to study her.
She shifted on her feet, suddenly feeling unsure of what to do.

“Come here,” he said, reading the question in her eyes and patting the pillow next to him.

Sakura walked over, knees feeling weak, and she lowered herself onto the bed. She inched her
way closer, moving carefully, cautiously, until she was nestled up against him. He drew the
covers over them both and then cupped her cheek in one hand and for the first time in years
Sakura knew what it was to have the heat of a man next to her.

It felt right, she had to admit to herself. It felt… She remembered what things like this usually
meant to her—pain, and sadness, and loneliness, and rejection—and in the place between
sleeping and waking, she let her mind go to places she normally would never let it go, and she
let herself think the word secretly, quietly, but rushing forth inexorably: love, love, love, love—

It encompassed so many things, had so many uses and meanings and faces. She thought
about the excuses she made and she thought about the lies she told herself but maybe
this—maybe his hand on her cheek—maybe this, too, was close to the truth of it…

“Ah, Sakura. No more thinking. Let’s sleep, okay?” Kakashi said. In the words there was
devastation.

Love, love, love, love—

His hand and her cheek were the only things in the world that were real, if she pretended hard
enough.

Coda: I Have Slept With You, All Night Long

.
.

He sounded so lost, with all the guile and innocence of an eight-year-old child. Her still-beating
heart was in his hands. She could feel the hold he had on it, fingers digging in.

“Can you hear the birds, Sakura? I can hear them, a beautiful song in the lightning. I feel them
in my heart.”

He smiled.

“Can you feel them in yours too?”

A kiss from Sasuke that was so tender and loving that she knew it wasn't actually happening,
would never happen, that it was only a dream—

Sakura woke up with a choked-off scream in her throat. She clutched at her chest to make sure
it was still whole—but the unmarred flesh was so strange when she felt so hollow. The moon
was out; the light spilled out from the window and onto the bed.

Sakura wondered if Sasuke was looking up at the moon now too.

“Mmm… What are you doing up?” a low, rough voice spoke up from next to her in the bed. A
voice of old wars that had been softened into something tender by the secret parts of the night.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you,” she said, her body relaxing at the sound of him. Then, as
almost an afterthought, hidden in the shadow of a meaningless platitude: “Kakashi.”

She never usually said his name when they were together, and certainly not without the ‘sensei’
tacked onto the end. In his name were a million questions she would never give voice. Kakashi,
do you know what we’re doing? Kakashi, do you care that I have a husband? Kakashi, do you
care about me? Kakashi, do you—

do you—

Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi—

“It’s alright. I’ll be here if you need me,” he murmured, bringing their joined hands to his lips and
pressing a soft kiss, and her mind quieted. She didn’t doubt him.

fin.