Between Life and Living

 

Between Life and Living

Chapter Six: Five Stages of Grief and Loss

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"Sometimes I forget that at the end of the day, and we go home we're all just human,"

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Flashback

Shortly after his meeting with the Hokage, Sai exited the blonde's office with her last words still lingering among other thoughts as he went over the details of his mission. There are things you will need to learn, she had told him. I want you to take the next few hours to attune yourself to normal civilian life. Everything that has to do with shinobi or ANBU, I want you to put aside for the time being. This will be very important for your mission.

There were just a few minor problems with that request though, Sai had silently argued. Shinobi life was all he knew. Without any knowledge of his previous life before entering ROOT, Sai was at a loss for a solution to his dilemma. All the way home, and even during the night's painting session, he thought and thought about what he could do, but his contemplation had proved to be fruitless.

It was the very next day that the nin had come to a decision. In the center of the village was a small library he would pass everyday on his way to ANBU HQ. Aside from drawing and painting, Sai found small pleasure in brushing up on his knowledge on all sorts of shinobi tactics as well as the village's history and would visit it often. The library had a vast amount of books, though he had never really bothered to look at them, as the majority of them were nothing more than children's books and novels of fiction. The ANBU, as simple-minded as he was, figured that if there were instructional guides on things as ridiculous as learning how to properly throw a shuriken, then there had to be some sort of manual in regards to how one behaves in normal society. With this being his new resolve, the pale shinobi went through his usual morning ritual and headed down to the village square to acquire said material.

 

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Upon his entry into the small library, Sai was greeted by the librarian; a woman with dark frizzy hair and black framed glasses. A cute splash of faint freckles dotted across her nose. She waved at him, a small blush touching her cheeks as she wistfully surveyed her most frequent visitor.

"S-Sai! What brings you here today?" she asked in a tiny voice. The artist gave her one of his polite, mechanical smiles and strolled over to the counter from behind which she stood.

"Hello, Miss Rin. I am here to find a book on human interaction. Might you have something in likeness to that?"

Rin tilted her glasses up onto her nose and elicited a small sniffle. Despite the affection she held for the young man, she couldn't help but admit he could be sort of…strange at times. "You want…a book on human interaction?" her voice squeaked slightly at the end of her sentence. "Um…well, there are some books on psychology over at the section in—"she pointed a finger to the left side of the library, "that direction". Before Rin could ask if he needed further assistance, the stoic nin was already making his way over to west part of the room. After watching his black-uniformed figure disappeared behind the shelves, she sighed and slumped back in her chair with a dejected sigh. "Geez…" she mumbled. "What a silly person…"

Sai strolled down the carpeted aisle in the direction of which he had been referred to, his dark eyes wandering over the names labeling the spine of each book.

"Dealing with Emotional Stress"

"Coping With Depression"

"How to Rid of Your Imaginary Friend"

And,

"Why Did My Lover Break Up With Me?"

Well those last two might have been arguably misplaced, but…

 

The various titles were all intriguing and he thought that maybe, if he ever had time, he would come back and read them when he wasn't on a mission. As he reached the last aisle, Sai frowned at the realization that none of these books were what he was looking for. Maybe nothing like it even existed, after all. With a small sigh, he turned the corner and started back up the second aisle; until a small red book caught his eye.

"Learning How to Make a Friend: Volume One"

The nin studied the title's bold white lettering for a hesitant minute before reaching over and sliding the thick book off of the shelf and carefully opening it. The dust that cascaded into the carpet as the hard cover fell back, and the faint, musky scent of the yellowing pages told Sai it was likely that the book had not been touched for a very long time. Carefully, as to not rip the thin paper, he turned the pages one by one, eyes widening gradually with each chapter he came across. After a brief re-evaluation of what the book contained, Sai closed the guide and strolled back to the counter where he found Rin idly drawing hearts around something written inside of a small notebook.

"Oh, Sai…"

"Yes, Miss Rin. I have found the book that I was looking for. I am ready to check it out now,"

"Ready to…oh, that's good Sai…Sai!" the woman scrambled to sit upright in her chair, pushing the glasses up on the bridge of her nose and knocking a few innocent books to the floor under her desk in the process. Sai bent forward and captured one that had all but neared the edge and set it next to its re-gathered kin. "Th-thank you…" the clumsy librarian mumbled sheepishly. She took the book that Sai handed her with a smile and checked it out in his name, a smile of her own tracing up on her lips once she caught a glimpse of the title.

"H-have a good day, Sai!" Rin called out, leaning over the edge of her counter as the nin exited the library. When he was gone, she sat back down in her chair and hunched over with her chin in her hands. Her carmine eyes stared off somewhere behind tipping glasses as she giggled to herself. "How to Make Friends, huh? Maybe you aren't so strange after all…Sai"

End of Flashback

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Kakashi shot Sai a questioning look as the artist stepped into the room. Instead of his usual ANBU attire, Sai's choice of clothing was a non-descript black t-shirt and a pair of jonin pants. Shining that fake smile for all the world to see, he strolled over to a slightly concerned Kakashi and said nothing as the man stood up to greet him.

"Sai," the copy nin began, a small unhappy crease forming in his eye. "What's…what's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong, I can assure you Hatake," the ANBU replied evenly. A smile made especially for the young woman sitting on the bed with an equally confused expression graced his lips, and he nodded politely in her direction. Kakashi glanced between Sakura and his partner and then arched a graying brow. "Well, then…can I ask why you're here?"

"I am here to visit Sakura. Just like you," Sai replied stonily. Kakashi lifted a hand to rake his fingers through his unruly hair, shaking his head all the while.

"For me?" Sakura repeated, finally having found her voice. The strange new visitor had nearly scared her into a panic. That face. And those eyes…she shook her head, shaming herself for thinking that even for a minute, she was looking into the face of her former team mate. Readjusting herself into a more comfortable sitting position, Sakura gathered her long hair into a handful and pushed it over one shoulder. The first thing she planned to do once she was released from this frigid white hell was have a trim. Short hair was something she had grown accustomed to since the time she'd started cutting it many years ago, but once she had caught a glimpse of how she looked through the mirror in one of the hospital's bathrooms, she decided it was rather flattering and it did the rest of her new appearance justice. Albeit, she might have looked like some princess straight out of a fairy tale, she didn't plan on walking around looking like Rapunzel for the rest of her life.

"Yes, you" the pale man replied, tilting his head as his smile faded, leaving his eyes with an unfeeling stare. Sakura stared right back, gradually becoming uncomfortable under the weight of his relentless gaze until she looked away with tremor of chills running through her body. What a creepy guy…the pinkette thought. Her green orbs strayed back to Kakashi, who was regarding her almost worriedly. She gazed back at him with mutual perplexity, until the third person in the room made a sound as if to bring himself back into attention. The copy nin's eyes lingered on his former student for a moment longer, before he turned back to his partner with an expectant look.

"Hatake—"

"Sai," Kakashi interrupted. The ANBU fell quiet for a beat, but pressed on with what he had to say.

"I believe it said that when your friend is speaking, it is important for one to listen to what they have to say"

Kakashi's eye widened and narrowed warningly all in the same instant. Whatever it was, he didn't bother to ask. Sakura, still seated on the bed, jumped with a start at the sudden rise and flare of the man's chakra. "Do you consider me your friend, Sai?"

"I do," the pale nin replied without hesitation. Silence descended over the room, with the exception of the wavering hum of the AC that blasted a cold draft over Sakura's bed, keep both the air and the girl feeling chilly.

A soft sigh fell from the sole Sharingan user's lips, and the tension in the room dissolved. "Then come with me Sai. I would like to speak with you outside,"

"Very well," the artist complied.

Sakura watched without a word as the two men headed for the door. Kakashi, now extracting that shameful orange book from his back pocket, turned to look over his shoulder and gave the pinkette a friendly wink. "Stay here," he told her, seeing the worry that betrayed in her jade-colored orbs. "I'll be back. I promise," and then, with that said, let the door fall closed behind him.

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Once out of earshot and into the hall, the silver-haired nin leaned against the wall beside the door, and slid his Icha Icha novel back inside his pocket. Sai, looking for all the world disconcerted and at a loss, stood before his partner and waited silently for him to say something. Kakashi surveyed the pale man for a measurable moment, and then sighed and crossed his arms. "Sai…"

"Yes, Hatake?"

"Tell me why you are visiting Sakura,"

"It is my mission," the artist replied with brief apprehension. He had no qualms about relaying the details of his assignments to his partner, the severity of whatever it entailed great or not. The visible eye of the jonin narrowed with suspicion.

"Mission?" he all but repeated. The two shinobi stared at each other, exchanging looks of discretion.

"Yes…" Sai replied. "Lady Tsunade has asked that I help 'Sakura back on her feet'"

The copy nin wasn't sure of whether to laugh or growl in anger. Sai? Help Sakura recover? From an extreme psychological disorder? Sai had to be the most socially inept person he'd ever known. Kakashi decided that being angry was the appropriate response, because if he couldn't do anything to help the poor girl that he saw more of a daughter than anyone else, no one could.

"Impossible," was the nin's gruff response. His fingers twitched to the book nestled in his back pocket, but he fought the urge to pull it out. The man before him fixed him with a dark and unavoidable gaze until the gloved hand fell dejectedly to his side. Sai was, to anyone's surprise, a very perceptive person. On the day that they had met during their preparation for the fourth shinobi war, he had analyzed that the silver's nin's orange book of smut only made its appearance when Kakashi found himself in an uncomfortable situation. Sai had been seeing a lot of that book lately, without a doubt due to his former student's increasing disability.

The artist had his own method of dealing with those types of things; he wondered if the man had yet to figure it out…

"I understand that Sakura is a very precious person to you," Sai continued, now having claimed Kakashi's absolute attention. "But you should know that, as an ANBU the failure of a mission is unacceptable. This is no exception; I will complete it without flaw".

The copy nin shook his head, having already anticipated such words from his routine, professionally-behaved partner. "Sai, this is…different," he began, wary at first that he would be interrupted. When he paused and realized Sai was waiting with a blank look of expectance, he continued. "Sakura is mentally unstable. She's been like this for over three years. There are reasons why that you wouldn't understand and I, myself, am still having a hard time trying to get her to move on—"

"Your reasoning with her is all bias," the ANBU interrupted. Kakashi's mouth fell open behind his mask, but he quickly snapped it closed.

"What?"

Sai shifted onto his other foot and straightened himself out. Without having realized, he'd assumed a stance similar to that of his partner. It was true, what they said about your friend's habits rubbing off on you over a gradual amount of time. Sai would have thought it to be most unbecoming, but without Danzo constantly barking into his ear about presentation this and professionalism that, he hardly thought to give a damn. The bastard was long dead and gone before the start of the shinobi war anyway; the deed, having been done by yours truly.

"Your reasoning…Sakura has been given too much space to dwell upon her loss. No, perhaps worded that way, it sounds a little…" the artist's brows knit for a lack of a better word. "Cruel,"

Kakashi's eye squinted, but he said nothing in reply.

"Your reasoning has compelled you to give Sakura an ample amount of time to recover from what she has lost. Any one person who has lost a loved one will naturally grieve for a period of time and begin a gradual recuperation. But that hasn't happened to Sakura. Do you know why?"

The silver-haired shinobi quirked an eyebrow. "Where are you going with this Sai?" the translation meant for the man to continue, but Sai answered responded to both in the same sentence.

"There are five steps to loss and recovery. First, is denial and isolation. They are normal reactions that are meant to rationalize the person's conflicted emotions,"

Kakashi's eye slowly became downcast, suddenly finding an unexplainable interest in the polished marble floor. Sakura had certainly gone through that, and had apparently still been coping with the second part up until the previous day; mainly because of the fact that she had been forced away from her home. A couple years ago, he could recall the pinkette bouncing about the town with a smile and a blithe demeanor that was almost a little too forced to be real. Sakura had laid on the content façade evenly enough to fend off her friends' concerning questions, but Kakashi knew her just a bit better and had seen right through. Unfortunately, the girl had deeply submersed herself into every idle activity she could think of, leaving her sensei no room to confront her about her ridiculous pretense; if she really had to hide her sadness that well, then a talk was clearly long past due.

But Sakura continued to evade him.

Over, and over and ignoring his calls. He was starting to feel a little self-discouraged, being the notorious nin that he was and having no clever way to feat in trying to sway his student into confiding in him about her abjection. Eventually, Kakashi decided that it was best to wait for her to come around and sure enough, within the month she had completely moved on. Just not to what he had expected.

"The next step is anger. Said victim will often use both physical and verbal forms of anger as an outlet to expressing the magnitude of their emotional distress,"

Anger. If there hadn't been worse things to come, Kakashi would have been sure he had seen the worst side of Sakura possible. One day, for seemingly no reason, Sakura had decidedly taken it upon herself to punch Lee square in the face and knock him clear across the street into a house full of people, when all he had done was simply present her with a small bouquet of flowers to express his hope of seeing her soon in better days. Shortly after a brief apology, and having to mend the many broken bones in the poor taijutsu specialist's body, Sakura disappeared into what Kakashi now assumed was her only safe haven to silently reflect on what she had done; her place of isolation.

Her home.

Many others had suffered the blunt force of inhuman strength Sakura had mastered through the teachings of her equally barbaric sensei, and the numbers began to pile up until everyone she knew ended up in the hospital, harboring some sort of near-fatal injury that she would end up fixing herself. But despite her repetitive assault on their bodies, Sakura's friends never gave up on her and continued to return each time with a new tactic in hopes of finally simmering the girl's restless spirit. Try as they might, they were never quite successful, though with time, the pinkette did finally resolve…to something different. Something unimaginably worse….

Sai tilted his head in order to capture a glimpse of the somber expression marring his partner's face. A frown of his own descended onto his lips, placing it carefully. This is how one looks when they are sad he reminded himself. Strangely, I don't feel that recreating such an expression is such a difficult task. Could it be that I too…? The artist's thoughts were interrupted by Kakashi, who lifted his head and spoke.

"There's more…"

"Pardon?"

"There is more…isn't there"

It was a statement in fact, not a question. "Yes. There is more," Sai confirmed and then continued. "After anger, is bargaining. This is commonly said victim's reaction to the feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. They will often use this method to better gain self control,"

Bargaining. To listen to all of Sakura's what-ifs had been so depressing that Kakashi had nearly entertained the idea of shutting himself inside for an entire week. Sakura would often rant on about how she could have done things differently in order to prevent what had happened to her team mates. What was worse had been that Kakashi had found himself nearly wishing he could have made some of his own changes as well.

"If only I had gone with Naruto when Sasuke had…"

"If only I could have told Naruto how much I truly did care about him, Kakashi. Do you think he knows now?"

"If only I had been stronger! If only I could have…gotten to Sasuke first. Do you think they knew I was going to be too weak to…?"

On and on, and on and on. Kakashi just couldn't take any more of those what-ifs. Just when he thought his head was going to explode from all the frustration, Sakura had suddenly ceased her incessant bargaining and hadn't said much since then on. That was the last time she'd said much of anything to him. In fact, it had been the last time he'd seen her since…

"Sakura has been coping with the second half of stage one and is currently stuck in the entire process of the fourth," Sai concluded, before Kakashi could string together his thoughts. "It appears to be a sort of glitch in the procedure. It's uncommon, but it has been known to happen. The reason for it is clear though. Now I will ask you again, Hatake. Do you know why?"

The copy nin finally lifted his gaze from the floor, and for the first time since two had stepped into the hall, he looked directly into the ink user's coal black eyes. They were hard, and focused and waiting for an answer. Kakashi regarded him apprehensively, and then elicited a small sigh.

"I know…" he admitted in a low, remorseful tone.

There had been too many times; too many chances where, if he had just pushed himself a little harder, he knew he could have gotten through to the pinkette who was wallowing in excessively in her own hopeless abandon. The strong exterior of the girl who had grown and strengthened before his very eyes had been ripped away to reveal the shell of a girl who had been hurt and ridiculed by life's unkindness in a number of ways, but never this. No matter how prepared a shinobi—no, a person, could be told to make themselves for death that could steal them or their loved ones at any given moment, it was impossible.

Kakashi had been through it. Been through the hardship of unexpectedly losing one friend for the sake of his own life, and then in gradual time, slowly losing another. Time was all he thought he needed and that was all he was sure had gotten him past his lonesome days. Now he realized what it had been to help him through them all along. It was everyone around him. Every smiling face of every friend he had made over the years that had not let him even dwell for an instant on the past or what he had lost. Sure, there had been times where he would think briefly on it, but Kakashi had clearly moved on.

It was his friends. It was the village. And it had especially, been team seven.

"I didn't try as hard as I could, " Kakashi confessed, tensing up and crossing his arms over himself in order to fight the overwhelming urge to reach into his pocket and grab for his book. "I only let her go through all of it by herself because that's the way I learned to get over my own pain. As a shinobi, I…" the man paused and shook his head dismissively. "…I thought it was the best way, but I was wrong. Sometimes I forget that at the end of the day, and we go home we're all just human,"

Sai's brow creased in deep thought as he soaked up the words of his partner. Kakashi continued. "We're all just human…" he repeated, a sort of smile playing on his lips behind the mask as an unknown memory played behind his eyes. He lowered his gaze from the ceiling, and then looked at Sai with new resolve glinting clearly in his single dark orb. "Acceptance," he finished. The artist only looked at him. "Acceptance is the last step," he leaned away from the wall and turned his back from the ANBU to make begin making his way down the narrow hall way of the hospital. Sai watched him momentarily, and then calmly called out to him.

"So does this mean that…you don't have any objections about the mission I've just told you about?"

The masked nin halted his footsteps, but he did not turn around. "Not at all…" he replied, and then resumed walking. The artist stared on, watching his figure saunter comfortably down the hall with a new countenance he was sure he had not seen about the man until this moment. After the man had disappeared from sight, Sai's frown melted into that of his usual, stoic outwardness and he reached for the handle on the hospital door before him.

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Kakashi walked out of the hospital with his hands slipped in his pockets, feeling slightly more confident that his student was in the hands of someone surprisingly more capable than he. A new demeanor, and feelings he hadn't come to terms with in years overwhelmed him and he stopped to gaze up at the sky. It's been this long and I still haven't even acknowledged the fact that I've officially moved on… a gentle breeze picked up and carried over the land as if in response to his next pleading thoughts. Sasuke. Naruto. Sakura needs to move on. I'm going to do my best to help. I realize my actions haven't been very beneficial in the past, but it's going to be different this time; I promise.

With a brand new resolve, the copy nin disappeared down the corresponding trail that lead away from the hospital building. Reflections on his past and thoughts that he had once been afraid to think of visited his memory, but he welcomed them kindly. And not one time, did Kakashi Hatake reach for the book in his pocket.

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A/N: I had to do my research for this particular part. I already had the concept in mind that there had to be some sort of steps a person goes through when coping with a loss. Personally, I've had only a few losses, but honestly I didn't know them enough to have the same sort of difficulties Sakura is having. The five steps of grief and loss are legit as I had to look them up. The only thing I really fabricated about it (or at least I think) is Sakura's glitch in the process. I wouldn't doubt if it is possible, but as far as I know I totally made that up.

Until next time~