The Beast and Kakashi (Ch. 5)

"I wish I didn't remember it all, but I do.  Every single detail is like a ghost, haunting my mind.  It was on my way home……"
"You were attacked, right?"
"It was……an ambush.  I sensed danger in the air, but when it finally came I just wasn't quick enough.  They surrounded me."
"Who?"
"I'm not sure what you'll think of this, so I'll just come out and say it.  The people who surrounded me were……women.  That in itself wasn't a complete shock, but there was something else."
"Let me guess……  They were naked?"
"Exactly, as I mentioned in my rambling…..  Putting that aside, I didn't waste time being amazed.  They all had hard, determined looks on their faces, as if bracing to attack.  I was prepared to defend myself, but I couldn't have been prepared for what kind of attack they had in mind."
"Did they…..by any chance……turn into wolves?"
A pause.
"Not just wolves.  Snarling beasts that stood on two legs and has the strength of several.  I tried to run, of course.  But they all set upon me at once, ripping, tearing, and clawing.  I managed to fight them off, but not before the biggest of the group had sunk its teeth into my shoulder.  I think my mind did come a little unhinged for a while afterward, though.  A part of me wasn't completely ready to accept what I had seen, despite the proof all over my body."
A dour smile spread across the man's lips.
"But you don't believe me, do you?  You've changed your mind.  I'm a lunatic who likes to make up ridiculous stories about wolves and other nonsense.  Or I'm a compulsive liar."
Sakura cleared a throat, a look of discomfort present upon her features.
"Of course I believe you, Kakashi-sensei.  If you say that's what happened, I have no choice but to believe you."
Kakashi searched her visage for a sign of jest or perhaps pity.  But her eyes brimmed with sincerity, her mouth seemed innocent of the tell-tale twitch known to accompany impending laughter.
A large measure of anxiety flowed from his body.
She did not think him a fabulist.  Nor did she think he was simply attempting to fob her for one reason or another.  She truly believed him.
"You have no idea how nice that sounds."
A light laugh issued from the female's mouth, but one innocent of malice.
"I have a few ideas, actually."
Then, to the man's boundless surprise, she kissed his cheek.
"I'll be back tomorrow, okay?  I have some questions for you, but I think I can wait."
The man met these words with a slight nod, his hand journeyed to his cheek as if some sort of agony spawned from it.
Sakura departed with an odd sort of smile playing across her lips.
Kakashi stared at the door for moments proceeding, wondering why so much heat had rushed to his visage.

Naruto turned the pages of the volume without interest.
"What are we doing?"
Sakura gazed at the other over the top of the colossal slice of literature she was currently buried within.
"Nothing.  Absolutely nothing."
She returned her mind to the many brutal adjectives and fear-inducing verbs of the text.
"If it's nothing, can I go?"
Without glancing up from her book, Sakura uttered in a serene tone,
"Sure.  No free ramen for you."
Perhaps Naruto can be excused for not raising complaints, as well as not taking his leave, after such words scurried over the female's lips.
"What are you reading, anyway?"
Sakura's grip upon the volume tightened.
"It's best if you don't know.  Yet."

Kakashi hadn't felt like Make-Out Paradise lately.
His interests were becoming more and more distant as the days skulked by.
If he spent anymore hours staring out the window gazing at a possible future, he thought, his senses were sure to be dulled beyond comprehension.
Perhaps he should have told Sakura the entire story.
Seconds proceeding this thought, the door opened and Sakura entered the room.
"You're early today."
"I skipped breakfast to visit.  How are you?"
"Bored.  Filled with pent-up energy.  The usual."
For once, Sakura did not seize a seat upon the man's bed.  Rather, she stood gazing at him with great interest, as if he were an exotic fish darting amongst a sea of commonplace minnows.
"Sakura-chan, there's something I need to tell you.  Something that's undoubtedly going to frighten you to death, but it needs to be said."
Sakura did not offer a response, prompting Kakashi to plow ahead with immense force.
"I'm a werewolf."
The corner of Sakura's mouth gave an odd twitch.
"Oh."
Kakashi arched his eyebrows at the other, a series of bemused thoughts sliding over the surface of his brain.
"I think it was the bite that did it."
"Right.  The bite."
Sakura's tone was so obese with serenity that the man actually felt a bit put out.  The image of a terrified-looking teenage girl with a shriek climbing up her throat had neatly evaporated, replaced by something he was somewhat more wary of.
"The horrible thing is that I, to the best of my knowledge, change every night.  Becoming a howling beast…..  It's painful, but there's a certain peace lurking inside me before the metamorphosis washes over my body."
"Peace.  Of course."
"I become a raging beast, my only thought to rip and tear and claw and kill.  I can feel it, even now, welling up inside my chest.  Any day now, I will have lost my mind and body to the wolf entirely."
"Definitely.  Makes perfect sense."
Truth be told, Kakashi was annoyed at the female's response.
Here he had revealed that he had become a danger to both himself and her, yet there she stood calmly as if the information had gone in one ear and out the other.  Where was the gasp, the scream, the recoil?  Naught but that same business-like, utterly tranquil tone.
And then a thought struck him like a stone.
"Did you……know?"
Sakura turned away, her features unexpectedly filling with pain.
"Not until I looked it up in the library.  Until then, I was just in denial."
She uttered, in a rather small voice,
"Can I tell Naruto-kun?"
"No,"  Kakashi met her query with measured firmness.  
To her surprise, a smile spread across the man's lips.
"This is a special secret between sensei and student.  Please promise me you won't think about it anymore."
"I……promise."
But my fingers are crossed, the girl thought with contentment.