The Moon and the Lake

The mission report arrived on a Tuesday, as most of them did. Kakashi slid it across her desk with the practiced nonchalance of a man who had long ago accepted his role as the village's most glorified courier. Sakura did not look up from her patient files immediately. She had learned patience. But her fingers itched. When she finally lifted the thin folder, the familiar weight of extra pages met her palm. He was getting bolder. The official report consisted of three dry paragraphs about border skirmishes and troop movements. But tucked between them, a single sheet of rice paper, its edges rough as if torn from a traveling sketchbook. On it, a charcoal drawing. A moon—full and heavy—splitting its reflection across a still lake. At the water's edge, barely visible, the suggestion of a figure. His figure, she knew. The line of his shoulder, the way he stood with his weight on his back foot, always ready to leave. Beneath the sketch, in his tight, angular script: "Found this place. Reminded me of the pond behind the Academy." A laugh escaped her, soft and sudden. The pond behind the Academy. Where she had chased after him with a love letter she never delivered, where she had tripped over her own feet and he had caught her by the elbow without a word. He remembered. She read the line three times. The sketch four. Then she pulled out a fresh sheet of hospital letterhead—official, professional—and uncapped her fountain pen. "Sasuke," she wrote, then paused. The formalities felt absurd now. She crossed it out and started again. "I do recall that pond. You never mentioned it before. Funai was the one who named the turtles, and Ino always complained about the algae smell. I sat there during our first mission assignments, terrified I'd be paired with someone who hated loud teammates. Turns out I got you." She bit her lip. Too much? No. This was the point of the margins. The space between official words. "The hospital has been chaotic. We lost a child yesterday—a boy from the orphanage. His lungs were too weak from the fever. I held his hand until the end. I don't know why I'm telling you this. Maybe because you won't say the wrong thing. You never do. You just draw me moons." She signed it with a small sakura blossom, sketched hastily beside her name. Then she sealed the folder, addressed it to the Hokage's office for forwarding, and placed it on the corner of her desk. Kakashi appeared at her door an hour later, holding the folder with an expression that hovered between amusement and exasperation. "You know, when I became Hokage, I didn't expect to run a postal service for two emotionally constipated ninja." "We're not constipated," Sakura said, not looking up from her charts. "We're thorough." "Mm. Thorough. Is that what you call writing three pages about a lake?" She finally met his eyes. His visible one crinkled with warmth. "He draws, I write. It's efficient." "It's romantic," Kakashi corrected, dodging the clipboard she threw at him. "I'll make sure it reaches him. Next stop, the Land of Rivers. He's been tracking a missing-nin group. Dangerous work." Sakura's chest tightened. "Then he'll need something to read when he's camped out in the rain." Kakashi tipped the folder in a mock salute and disappeared. Alone again, Sakura looked out her window at the evening sky. A thin crescent moon hung above the Hokage faces. Not full yet. Not like his drawing. But growing. She wondered if he looked up at the same moon tonight, if he thought of the pond behind the Academy, if he remembered catching her by the elbow. She touched her arm where his hand had been, so many years ago. Tomorrow, she would write another letter. Today, the one on its way would have to suffice.