What the New Year Brings

Well, I guess everything I write from here on out is "How things could've been." Damn you, Kishimoto, you heartless bastard!

For those of you who don't follow, this is what I'm referring to: onemanga.com/Naruto/431/03/

Chapter 48-The First Time Kakashi and Sakura Move In Together

"What's this for?"

"To congratulate you on finally getting out of here."

"Aww...That's really sweet of you. Thank you!" I smile up at Kakashi, reaching my hands out to accept the large bouquet of white daffodils from him, and instinctively bring one of the floral trumpets up to my nose to breathe in its sweet scent.

"You're welcome. I know that they're your favorite and considering what they represent, I thought they'd be perfect."

"You're right, they are my favorite and they do suit the occasion seeing how they represent rebirth, but how did you know all that? I don't remember ever telling you any of those things."

"Well, you see, I was standing in a field of flowers, trying to figure out exactly which ones to get you, when a sow saw the lost look in my eye, and decided to pass on some highly valued, highly regarded pieces of information over to me."

I pause in smelling my lovely flowers to look up at Kakashi.

"You've been talking to Ino, haven't you?" I ask, raising an eyebrow up at him.

"I was in her parents' flowershop. I didn't know what the heck I was doing." Kakashi admits, slumping his shoulders and shaking his head in defeat.

"Well, why didn't you just say that in the first place?!" I laugh at him.

"Because old habits die hard." Kakashi says, slumping his shoulders even more and bowing his head down in further defeat.

I close my eyes and shake my head, unable to keep myself from smiling.

"So did she also tell you that they just happen to be my birth flower, too?"

"No, she didn't, but thanks for telling me. Now I know to get them for you on your birthday. See how good my ninja skills are? I didn't even have to pry that information out of you. You just spilled the beans aaall by yourself." Kakashi says smugly.

"What is wrong with you today?!" I laugh at him.

"Nothing! I'm just happy today, that's all. So are you ready to go home?"

"Absolutely!" I say, carefully placing my flowers on my lap. "I only plan to come back here when I'm the medic and not the patient! Now roll me away, please!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Kakashi says with evident humor in his voice. Then, he walks around my wheelchair so that he can push me home. Our home.

...And I quickly come to realize what drug Kakashi is on and start to feel the high of it myself.

~*~*~*~

In all the ten years that I've known Kakashi, I've only set foot in his apartment a handful of times. The reasoning behind this is quite simple: If we needed to meet up for a mission, we always met at Shishou's office, or the red bridge, or the Great Konoha Gates. If we needed to meet up for training, we met at the training ground itself. If Kakashi needed to be healed in the middle of the night after a not-so-smooth mission, but to his preference not at the hospital, he usually came straight to my apartment. And lastly, if we ever needed to find him for one matter or another, he could usually be found reading his "Icha, Icha" on the administration rooftop, or under a tree, or in the tree, or hanging upside down from the tree...you get the idea.

I had always known Kakashi to be one to dodge questions about himself and keep people out of his personal life the best he could, but I just didn't realize how successful he'd been at it until now, so the fact that he's letting me into his life for the rest of both our lives is truly humbling. Of course, it's also flattering and quite an ego boost. In all his 36 years, countless of women have undoubtedly crossed the Copy Nin's path, yet it's a woman 14 years his junior, and his former student no less, that he finally decides to open his world up to. And as quickly as things have been happening between us, from our first seemingly random kiss on New Year's to his equally seemingly random marriage proposal under a scraggly desert tree, it becomes clear to me now that none of it was without thought or foresight at all. He knew...all along. He knew it would be me. And that is humbling.

"Make yourself at home." Kakashi smiles at me. "I'll bring your stuff up and put these in water," he says, taking my daffodils from me.

"Thank you." I say, and watch him disappear into the kitchen before letting my eyes wander around his, I mean, our apartment because this place is as much mine now as it is his.

Convincing my parents to let Kakashi be the one to take care of me once I was released from the hospital was quite a feat. Getting them to agree to let me move in with him was even more so.

"We've been very, very understanding about your relationship with Kakashi," my dad had said. "He's saved your life more times than we can count and we're forever grateful to him. We even accept your choosing him from all the other young men you could've chosen because we know him, we know what you two have been through together, and we trust your judgment, but Sakura, don't push your luck. Your mother and I still have our limits."

"I know, Dad, and I really appreciate how understanding you and Mom have been, more than most parents would have been in the same situation-"

"Got that right," my dad grumbled.

"...But I'm going to have to ask you to trust me even more on this. As a medic, I'm telling you that taking care of a full grown adult when she's physically disabled is difficult. It involves lifting and pulling her up several times a day, and sometimes you have no choice but to carry her. It's not the same thing as taking care of a small child."

"But there's two of us," my mom protested. "And it's not like you're paralyzed, you're just really weak right now. If your dad and I work together, I'm sure we can take care of you just fine!"

"No offense, Mom, but you and Dad aren't exactly young anymore. Taking care of me like that isn't just a physical risk to both of you, but to me as well. What if Dad hurts his back while he's lifting me up, or your arthritis suddenly acts up? Then all three of us will just end up sprawled helpless on the floor! That's why having Kakashi take care of me makes more sense. He's still young and strong and lifting me up several times a day won't even faze him!"

"But why do you have to move in with him? Why can't he just temporarily move in with you?"

"Because as much as I'd prefer to be in the comfort of my own home, he'll be the one constantly moving around and it'll just be easier on both of us if he's someplace where he already knows where everything is."

"I don't know, sweetheart. It would be one thing if you were moving in with Ino - and I the know the reasons why that's not an option," my mom quickly added when she saw me about to open my mouth in protest. "But to have you move in with a man..." she trailed off uncertainly. "And I know that you're an adult now and I know that times have changed," she cut in when she saw me about to open my mouth again in protest. "But it doesn't change the fact that people still talk when a woman moves in with a man, especially when they're not married to each other."

"Mom, everyone knows what happened to me and knows that I need to be taken care of, and on top of that, everyone knows that Kakashi and I are already together. I'm pretty sure people will understand if I have to turn to my boyfriend in a time of need."

"Sakura, sweetie, it's not just about what other people might say or think, it's about your dad and me caring about you and only wanting the best for you, and your moving in with a man you aren't married to, even in a time of need, just doesn't seem in your best interest. And the fact that you and Kakashi are dating is even more reason why you two shouldn't be moving in together so soon. Your relationship needs time to grow, and as much as we trust the both of you, that kind of living situation can't help but move things along faster than they might otherwise, do you know what I mean?" my mom asked with a pleading look in her eyes, one that told me that she was genuinely worried about my welfare and not just about what other people might say behind our backs.

Up until that point I had never been ashamed of my relationship to Kakashi. So what if he's so much older than me? At least his maturity level is equal to mine rather than below it! And so what if he used to be my teacher? "Used to" being the operative words. Besides, he was my teacher for only one year and Shishou was my teacher for all the rest, but at that moment, speaking to my mom, I did feel ashamed of my relationship to Kakashi. I felt ashamed because I let things happen between us so quickly. My mom was right, in a relationship things should unravel in a timely fashion, not rashly and all at once. The ironic thing is, I had always thought of myself as grounded, as being able to think things through before I jumped headlong into them, but with Kakashi everything had been different. I let him sweep me off my feet so easily. I let him bed me so quickly. I agreed to marry him without a seconds thought, but then again...

"Mom, Dad, thank you for trying to protect me, but this relationship I have with Kakashi, it's not really something you can compare to other relationships. We've known each other for ten years. Ten years. That's more than enough time to have a relationship develop and grow between two people. If anything, Kakashi and I have been a long time coming, so even though things seem to be happening fast between us, they're really not. We're just catching up to where we should've been by now."

My parents had been quiet, as if trying to take in everything I had said. Then, my father finally spoke up.

"You're talking about more than just moving in with him, aren't you?" he asked, as if having learned the lesson "Look underneath the underneath" from Kakashi himself.

"Yes, I am." I admitted. "I'm sorry, I've been meaning to tell you for awhile now, but the timing just never felt right. You see, Kakashi and I we're not just dating each other, we're...engaged." I said quietly.

"You're what?!" my mom shouted.

"Engaged." I repeated. "He asked me to marry him during our last mission, before all that bad stuff happened to me, and I said 'yes' because it felt right to say 'yes' to him. Even now I don't regret saying it and wouldn't dream of taking it back. He really is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with." I smiled back at my parents.

"It just seems so sudden," my mom said. "Even though you two have known each other for a long time, your relationship in a romantic sense is still very new."

"Well, we're not planning to actually get married until some time next year." I said, trying to make amends.

My mom seemed somewhat appeased by this, but my dad...

"Are you pregnant?" he asked coolly.

"What? No! Of course not!" I said honestly, not bothering to mention the pregnancy mix-up during the last mission. That would just be a whole other story that I simply wasn't prepared to get further into with my parents right now. "Is that what you think of Kakashi? That he'd only marry me because he got me pregnant?" I asked angrily.

"When you first left for your mission, rumors of you and Kakashi being together were merely that...rumors. Then, when you come back, you two are already engaged, so can you blame us for thinking that?" my dad asked.

"No," I said in defeat. "But that's not the reason why we're getting married. We're doing it because we truly believe that we're a good match for each other and will be good for one another. I'm 22 years old and I haven't been able to keep a relationship with anyone because I either intimidate them because of my shinobi status or my strength, or I scare them off with my short temper. I don't intimidate Kakashi because we're on equal ground, and I don't scare him off with my short temper because he's used to it by now and too cool-headed to be bothered by that sort of thing to begin with. And as for me, he says that he sees in me the kind of life he never dared to imagine for himself before: settling down and having kids and just living a quiet, content life. He says that I'm his constant, that he can't see living life that way with anyone else. So he asked me to marry him. So that we can always be each others constant."

"Sweetheart, those are all lovely reasons to want to get married," my mom had said. "But do you have any idea just how serious a commitment marriage is? It's not always going to rainbows and butterflies."

I smirked knowingly, causing my parents to look confused and uncomfortable at me. Then, I reiterated practically word for word what Madam Shijimi had told me about the flip side of marriage.

My parents had been floored. They hadn't thought that I had put so much thought into the seriousness of marriage. They hadn't believed that I knew just what I was getting myself into with Kakashi. They had thought I was simply lovesick, blind, and rash, but I had already done all those things with Sasuke and had no intention of repeating those same mistakes with Kakashi. Whatever relationship I had with him now would truly be a grown up one with me fully aware of the consequences as well as the perks. I'd grown up and grown wise without any of my parents' knowledge.

...And that's how I find myself now moving in with Kakashi with my parents' blessing.

~*~*~*~

The apartment is surprisingly minimal and clean...for a straight male bachelor pad, and just as Kakashi tries not to reveal too much about himself, the same seems to go for his home. With the exception of a black leather sofa, everything else from the moderate-sized TV, to the lamps, to the wooden coffee table and side tables, seem to have come straight from a cheap motel room which also attempts to be as nondescript and impersonal as possible.

Beyond the living room, a counter/bar divides it from the small kitchen. The only unique thing about that are the two barstools pulled up to it, pointing out the fact that the counter/bar also triples as a dining room table since there is no dining room, much less a table.

To the right of the kitchen is the bathroom and to the right of that the only other room left in the apartment: the bedroom, made apparent by the bed corner visible from the slightly open door.

In the few times that I had visited Kakashi at his apartment in the past, we usually only spoke at the front door. At most he'd let me in to quickly use his bathroom, or to sit and wait on the sofa while he got dressed for whatever emergency we needed to run off to next, but I had never set foot in his bedroom.

"Are you tired? Do you want to lay down? I saw you looking towards the bedroom." Kakashi says, interrupting my thoughts as he reenters the living room and places my daffodils, now placed neatly in a clear, water filled vase, on one of the wooden tables next to the sofa.

I feel my face immediately heat up, embarrassed at having been caught looking so eagerly towards the bedroom in the first place, but am grateful for Kakashi's misinterpretation of the reason.

"Um, yeah, that'd be nice." I agree, since now that I think of it, I am feeling a little bit fatigued. It's going to be awhile before my body fully recovers and I can get most of my stamina back.

"Door's a bit narrow for the wheelchair. Do you mind if I carry you over there instead?" Kakashi asks.

"No, that's fine." I say.

Kakashi bends down and slides one arm behind my knees and the other behind my back and lifts me up easily from my wheelchair, as if lifting someone who's 100 pounds is nothing to him at all. At the same time, I wrap my arms securely around his neck and rest my head against his shoulder as he walks us both slowly towards the bedroom.

At that moment, I feel grateful for having chosen him above everyone else to take care of me. If it had been my dad, he surely would've hurt his back lifting me up like that, and if it had been Ino, she wouldn't have even tried to carry me. The most she probably would've and could've done was wrap one of my arms around her shoulders and let me lean against her as she helped me hobble to wherever I needed to go.

As Kakashi lightly kicks the bedroom door fully open with his foot, I'm shocked to see that, unlike the rest of his apartment, Kakashi's bedroom actually has personal touches here and there.

The first thing that catches my eye is the full-sized bed pushed up against the far left corner of the room, not only because it's the biggest piece of furniture in the room, but because of the distinctive olive green, shuriken patterned quilt covering it. Interesting, since it's not something you'd normally find in the home decor section of a store, but considering the fact that Kakashi is a shinobi, and an elite and well known one at that, it's absolutely fitting.

Kakashi bends back down and gently sits me on said bed with my legs dangling from its side. Then, he looks at me like he expects me to immediately lay down and fall asleep, but my curiosity keeps me from doing so. From the position I'm in, I let my eyes wander around the room which has been a mystery to me up until now.

On the long wooden windowsill that also serves as a bookshelf and the bed's headboard sits an array of different objects. One of them is a well cared for houseplant which is, again, a surprising find in a straight male's bachelor pad.

"Isn't that the plant Naruto gave you a long time ago?" I ask.

"Yes, it is."

"Wow, Kakashi, I have to admit that I'm impressed. I'm surprised that you've been able to keep it alive for this long!"

"Well, it's not really that difficult to take care of. Naruto called it a 'succulent' and said it pretty much takes care of itself. Apparently, he was right. I can't even remember the last time I watered Mr. Ukki."

"Mister Ukki?" I repeat, enunciating each syllable slowly while smiling incredulously up at Kakashi.

"That's what Naruto called him when he gave him to me and the name just sort of stuck." Kakashi explains, blushing right above his maskline and scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Him?" I ask, pressing my lips together and inward to suppress a laugh that's just waiting to erupt.

"Leave Mr. Ukki alone. He's done nothing to you." Kakashi says like a petulant child.

"Oh, I have no problems with Mr. Ukki, Kakashi, believe me." I say laughingly.

"Well I haven't done anything to you either."

"Two words for you Kakashi: Pregnancy. Mess."

Kakashi's eye widens in shock.

"You'll never forgive me for that one will you?"

"Oh, but I do forgive you, Kakashi. You saved my life and now you're taking care of me, so you're more than making up for it. I just won't ever let you forget it is all! It's quite useful in times like these, you know what I mean?" I smile playfully up at him.

"Okay, so let's just get this straight, if you do something to me that's equally embarrassing-"

"But I won't."

"You don't know that."

"I won't, Kakashi!"

"Okay, let's just say that you do, hypothetically."

"Alright, fine. So what happens then...hypothetically?"

"...Then I get to do the same to you. I have to forgive you, but get to tease you forever and always about it," he says with a hint of a smirk in his voice.

"I try to be a fair person, so sure, why not? As long as we promise to tease each other about it and not get angry about it."

"You gonna shake on that?"

"Are you serious?!"

"Just want to make sure you keep your promise is all." Kakashi says, shrugging his shoulders.

"Fine." I say, holding out my hand for him to shake. "I promise."

Kakashi takes it and shakes it firmly back.

"It's a deal then. You do realize that I'll be watching you like a hawk from now on just waiting for you to goof up."

"'All's fair in love and war,' Kakashi."

"You said it not me."

"Why do I have the feeling that this is going to bite me in the ass someday?" I ask him.

"Because it will?"

I shoot him a dirty look, which he merely laughs at, then let my eyes continue to explore the various personal effects on his windowsill. Right next to Mr. Ukki I see something that strikes me as extremely ironic.

"An alarm clock? What's the point in that?!" I laugh.

"I like to be reminded of how late I am?" Kakashi says, blushing ever more furiously.

"Wouldn't it be better if you actually set the alarm instead?"

"I do, and I usually get up right when it goes off, but that's not what usually holds me up anyway."

I'm about to ask Kakashi just what he means by that when a much younger Kakashi looks back up at me from a silver framed photograph. I look at the picture more closely and immediately recognize another familiar face in the group, the handsome one of our Fourth Hokage. Remembering what Kakashi had told me at the memorial during our New Year's Day date, I deduce that the remaining boy and girl in the photograph must be Kakashi's old teammates, Obito and Rin.

"That's them, isn't it? They're the ones who make you late for everything."

Kakashi says nothing and simply nods his head.

Back when Team 7 was still whole and Naruto, Sasuke, and I had agreed to find out what Kakashi looked like underneath his mask, I remember wondering what the heck Kakashi was doing, standing out in the rain just staring for hours on end at the memorial stone. It never occurred to me that his always being late and his ritual at the memorial stone were connected. It had just been easier to pass off his tardiness on his laziness and blatant disregard for the rules.

"You know, you really should stop blaming yourself the way you do. It can't be healthy for you." I say gently.

"I know. I stopped doing that a long time ago. Now I just do it to remind myself to be grateful for the life I have, the one they sacrificed their own lives for. I'm not punishing myself anymore, Sakura. I'm thanking them."

I smile a sad, small smile back at him and look at the people in the photograph again, trying to commit to memory the faces of these people who saved the life of the person who's saved my own life several times over.

Sitting slightly behind Kakashi's old team photograph is another photograph, one that I'm familiar with and have sitting on a table in my own apartment. It's a picture of Team 7, complete in a way that it never would be again, but I concentrate on how young we all look instead and how it's only Kakashi and me who are smiling and happy. It seems ironically fitting now.

The similarities between the two pictures is not lost on me. It's not just that everyone is standing in almost the same positions, but that the people themselves look like near mirror images of each other: Young Kakashi scowls the same way Sasuke did in our own team pic. Obito and Naruto have the same spiky hair, and if Naruto had still been wearing his goggles instead of his hitai-ate, his likeness to Obito would've been even more exact. Older Kakashi has obviously taken the place of his own sensei, and Rin and I...I know that I'm looking at someone else, someone who took this picture long before I was even born, but the shape of our faces, the widow's peak at the top of our heads, and even the way we squeezed our eyes shut as we both smiled...the similarities between us are uncanny.

Mixed emotions tug at me. I know I have no right to be since this girl passed away a long time ago, but I'm jealous. Kakashi had said at the memorial that he loved Rin as a sister, but it makes me wonder if he wasn't telling me the whole truth, that maybe he had actually loved her the same way he loves me now. And if in fact he did, then it makes me wonder if history isn't merely repeating itself and Kakashi is just falling for the same type of girl, or worse, just seeing her when he looks at me, like I'm some kind of secondhand substitute for the real deal...

"You okay, Sakura? It seems like all the blood just drained from your face."

"I'm fine, Kakashi. I just need to lie down." I smile weakly up at him.

"Oh, okay," he says, and helps me carefully raise my legs up on the bed so that I can lay down. Then, he crawls into the bed himself and carefully hugs me from behind so as not to hurt my still healing body. "Feel better?" he asks.

"Yes, thank you. I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed I guess."

"That's understandable. You've only been out of the hospital for about half an hour."

It would be so easy to let him misinterpret my actions yet again, to let him think that I was referring to what was going on with my body rather than what was going on in my head.

"Actually, Kakashi, that's not what I meant. What I meant is that this - you and me and moving in together and everything else that's been happening between us - is a huge step for me. I've never done anything like this before and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed."

"Oh!" he says in surprise. "Well, if it helps any, I'm scared, too. I've never done anything like this before either."

"Really?" I ask, turning my head to look at him over my shoulder. I can already feel most of my jealousy and concern lifting away.

"Yes, really," he smiles at me. "Everything we're doing from here on out is as new to me as it is to you. So how 'bout we just do things one step at a time and concentrate on getting you better. Sound good?"

"Yes." I smile back at him, feeling genuinely relieved.

"Good. Then we both agree to be scared shitless together."

I laugh and so does he, and when our laughter finally dies down, we doze off and end up taking our first afternoon nap, on our first day living together, warm and secure in each others arms, effectively postponing "scared shitless" for another day.

To be continued...

~*~*~*~

Links:

- Sakura and the daffodils, episode 55:

vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=3243933

- Daffodils, rebirth, and Sakura's birth flower:

marriage.about.com/od/flowers/a/flowermean.htm

- The red bridge, episode 20:

vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=3287152

- Kakashi's apartment and room (scroll down):

leafninja.com/locations.php?p=fire

- In episode 83:

vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=2033430695

- In "Shippuden" episode 7:

imeem.com/people/MfLQ_eF/video/Z90TIt8R/dattebayo_naruto_shippuuden_episode_6_7_animation_video/

- Mr. Ukki's origins:

naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Naruto_Uzumaki#Personality

- "Kakashi's True Face," episode 101:

vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=16750276