Chapter Five: Chocolates & Bubble Bath
Unhurriedly Kakashi made his way to the gate; his team for this mission would be waiting for him there. Granted they had probably been waiting well over two hours for him, but he wasn’t particularly concerned. No one that knew him ever expected him to be on time anyway, and since Naruto and Sasuke had both been assigned to this mission he figured they at least knew what to expect. Since Sakura had turned her focus to her work in the hospital he, Naruto and Sasuke were assigned to missions and teams as needed. Only occasionally did the three of them work together and even less often did Sakura join them as the fourth on their team.
He had to grin to himself at what he had been doing to cause him to be late. The Copy Ninja hadn’t anticipated it taking as long as it had, but he knew it had been more than worth his while. Unfortunately he wouldn’t be around to witness the results, but he knew he would hear all about it from various sources upon his return.
The last mission he had completed about a week previous had taken him to the Land of the Waterfall where one of the local lords was having issues with his business rivals. The man’s family had built a vast empire out of the family recipes for sweets, most notably their chocolates. Unfortunately one of his candy competitors had made threats against him and his family and he had immediately sought help. The mission had been a simple consultation, a sort of defense trial. They were to look into the lord’s security and advise him of the flaws from the strictly professional perspective of a shinobi from a different hidden village, rather than the biased opinions of those who had helped him set up his defenses.
It wasn’t a particularly difficult mission, one he had returned from unscathed and bearing a rather heavy box of gourmet chocolates. The lord had been over awed by his presence and had pressed upon him as much chocolate as he could in thanks for his help in securing the protection of his family. Kakashi had tried to politely refuse and had managed successfully … or so the elite shinobi had thought. At least, until he unpacked after proving to his self-appointed medic he was not in need of her services and sending her on her way, and discovered the unwanted box of chocolates hidden with his belongings. Kakashi had cursed himself for not unpacking before she had arrived as then he could have pawned them off on her as a thank you for coming even though he didn’t need her and been done with it.
Instead it had sat on his book shelf for a week while he tried to figure out what to do with it. Eating it himself was not an appealing idea seeing as he didn’t particularly care for sweets. Since he couldn’t quite bring himself to throw it away he was left with only one option – to give it away. Unfortunately since Kakashi hadn’t seen anyone since he discovered the unwanted chocolates on whom he could easily dump the gourmet gift, to whom had been a problem until that morning.
The silver haired man had been on his way to jonin headquarters and just happened to pass by a small café often frequented by shinobi. As he passed the large open air terrace Kakashi had heard two of his former students planning something. It distinctly sounded as though they were planning another one of their ambushes – though as far as he knew his third former student wasn’t dating anyone at the moment. Last he had heard of Sakura’s love life she was still determined to believe that dating wasn’t worth the trouble. He groaned as it hit him that they were now working their little routine on guys before they asked Sakura out, a sort of preventative measure he figured.
Kakashi let it slip from his mind as he entered the building – intent on getting a new mission to assuage his boredom. Now he smiled to himself as he approached his waiting team; the chronically late man was fairly certain that at the very least it would brighten the pink haired medic’s day and probably make her wonder what the hell was going to go wrong. For a moment he almost wished he wasn’t leaving the village so he would get to see the repercussions first hand, almost.
Once the gate came into his sight he was accosted by an angry voice.
“Kakashi! You’re late! Where the hell have you been?! We’ve been waiting for over two hours now!”
As only he could the elite jonin raised his hand to the back of his head. “Oh, am I now?” He smiled at the angry blonde currently pointing at him and just barely able to keep himself from hopping up and down in his irritation.
The blonde continued to glare at him, the two remaining members of his team also shooting him less obvious but still quite annoyed stares. He sighed and translated what he was actually doing into one of his usual excuses.
“You see I was on my way here when I ran into this poor little girl. She was very unhappy; I guess she had just missed out on something that could have been really good. She was so upset that I thought the only courteous thing to do would be to get her some sweets to make her feel a little better…”
The angry blonde rolled his eyes and sighed. “Liar.” Having long ago learned not to expect a straight answer from the Copy Ninja he accepted the clearly fabricated excuse.
~*~*~*~
Quickly Sakura made her way to the hospital. She had over slept and was now very nearly late for her shift. Hopping down from the last rooftop the medic hurried inside just as her shift was due to begin.
Absently she nodded to the two nurses manning the reception desk before continuing on to her office, completely missing the identical cat like grins they were sporting and the fact that they had abruptly stopped talking as soon as she was within hearing distance.
The first thing she noticed upon opening her office door was a rather large gold colored box sitting in the middle of her desk. Cautiously she drew closer to the unfamiliar item, wary of any number of possibilities. As she approached though she recognized the package for what it was: a box of premium chocolate truffles. Lifting it from the table, she examined it before opening it and found a little scrap of paper.
‘To make a bad day better.’
Mentally she shook her head. This certainly did not bode well. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out to what her former teacher may be referencing, but figured that sooner rather than later should would.
Several hours later Sakura found out what the chocolates were supposed to make better. While completing her rounds she came across one of the new medics laid up in traction. Upon entering his room she found that she didn’t have to ask what had happened as he almost visibly recoiled from her with fear clearly present in his eyes. She sighed as she realized that it was the one who had started very cautiously flirting with her only a couple weeks prior. Her boys, minus one, had struck again.
Absently Sakura wondered what sort of new game her third boy might be playing. His latest gift was sure to cause her no end of trouble. Mentally she sighed as she realized that she was going to have to deal with the Konoha gossip mill once again, and just as the talk of her and her ‘secret admirer’ was starting to die down too.
~*~*~*~
Inwardly Sakura groaned as she flopped down on the grass under a tree. The pink haired medic was definitely allowing some of her skills to become rusty and this sparring session was unquestionably taking a harsher toll on her than she would have thought or would have liked to admit.
“Tired already?” her sparring partner asked with amusement clearly in his voice as he stood over her, temporarily blocking the sun from her eyes.
“Ugh,” she wiped her forehead as he took a seat next to her, pulling his ever present orange book from seemingly nowhere. Annoyingly enough she noticed that even through he was wearing far more clothing than she was, he had barely broken into a sweat while she was drenched more thoroughly than she had been in recent memory.
“You know something, Kakashi?”
“Hmm?” he didn’t bother to look up from his book, but she knew he was listening.
She raised herself up on her elbows so she could turn to look at the man next to her. “I’ve just learned something today.”
“Oh, and what’s that?” He looked up from his book questioningly.
She nudged him lightly. “That no chakra equals no fair when sparring with you.”
He chuckled. “I taught you better than that Sakura. You should be able to hold your own against me, at least for a little while.” He eyed her for a moment. “That is, of course if you were thinking.”
“Kakashi!” she growled pulling herself completely up to a sitting position to smack the generally stoic shinobi lightly upside his head. “That’s not fair! I thought I was coming down here,” she narrowed her eyes, “on my day off to help you with your training not mine.” She sighed dramatically, “I could have spent the entire day at the spa as Tsunade suggested, getting pampered instead of pounded.” She glared at him, only halfway seriously.
He laughed and put his book away. “Okay, okay. Fine, the usual it is.”
She nodded and rose to her feet. “Good. Vest off please.”
Kakashi got to his feet and raised an eyebrow questioningly at her.
“It’s uncomfortable.” He looked at her and she grinned. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that for years.” She paused and looked at him thoughtfully. “Oh and probably your jonin over shirt too, too baggy – I’ll slip right off.” She giggled a little at the thought.
He laughed and obliged before positioning himself on the ground and waiting expectantly. Once the older man was still she took her customary place on his back while he did his usual regime of one fingered pushups. He groaned silently to himself. Kakashi had been dreading the day she demanded he remove his vest. There had been a reason he had never done so in the past despite the mutual discomfort it provided. It had served as a barrier between his body and that of his former student. While wearing it he couldn’t feel her, and therefore when she squirmed on his back once boredom set in he could ignore the curves he knew she had acquired as she grew older. Kakashi really hoped she wouldn’t squirm too much and that he would be able to get the bulk of his pushups done before she started to lose interest and consequently begin to unintentionally distract him.
After he had done the first hundred or two her mind began to wander as boredom found her. She shifted a little on his back, watching as the world went up and down as he continued with his push-ups. Sakura knew it occasionally annoyed him when she squirmed too much but when she was bored she didn’t really care. Finding herself to be not quite comfortable she shifted a little again so that she was on her stomach instead of on her back, finding the position to be much more comfortable.
“Kakashi?” she asked, not really wanting to ask him anything in particular, really just wanting to hear his voice and hope that he could perhaps alleviate her boredom.
“Hmm?” he asked noncommittally, doing his best to focus on what he was doing rather than what she was doing.
He had known she would begin to lose interest if he didn’t talk to her. Unfortunately his concentration had begun to slip the moment she had shifted herself from lying on her back to lying on her stomach. The silver haired man knew she had, in the process of becoming a woman so to speak, acquired breasts. Nevertheless, he really didn’t need to have them pressed, however briefly, into his back to remind him that she was a grown kunoichi.
Kakashi didn’t even want to begin to think about the fact that her hips were currently pressed into his lower back as she lay propped up by her elbows.
Still lacking anything particularly meaningful to say she squirmed a little, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to make herself more comfortable than she already was and that she was probably annoying the older man. Sakura’s eyes settled on the shock of silver hair in front of her.
“When was the last time you had a haircut?” She asked him finally, her fingers already reaching for the almost irresistible mass of silver hair in front of her. Almost absently she removed and discarded his forehead protector, having decided that it was in her way.
He sighed silently, knowing that Sakura had just found a way to occupy herself almost indefinitely. The elite jonin knew there would be a price to pay for having her help him with his training. There always was. When she was younger more often than not it would be listening to her prattle on and on about Sasuke. However he couldn’t actually remember the last time he had heard one of her monologues on the distant Uchiha. Thinking about it he couldn’t really remember when she had apparently gotten over her school girl crush on him. Then again it had been a while since she had helped him with his pushups and at least the last dozen or so times in recent memory she had brought medical scrolls to study. Briefly he wondered why she hadn’t brought some with her this time.
When Sakura was younger, if she wasn’t chattering about Sasuke then her second favorite thing to do had been play with his hair. Kakashi hadn’t been particularly thrilled when she had first picked up the habit, but at the time it had been more than preferable to hearing her chatter endlessly about her dark haired teammate Though, now that she was older, it was something that could potentially be just as distracting as her squirming. The older man couldn’t for the life of him figure out what she found so amusing about his hair. The dark eyed shinobi couldn’t complain though as it was something that had kept her entertained for hours when she was younger, doubtlessly keeping her out of trouble. Regardless, he was thankful that it ceased her squirming and practically guaranteed she would stay occupied until he finished his pushups.
Kakashi was faintly surprised at just how distracting it was to him. He had held onto the shred of hope that the facts that she was his former student and fourteen years younger may help bolster the thin layer of fabric that was his sleeveless under shirt currently separating them. Unfortunately she had just blithely proved that his hope had been in vain.
“Uh, I dunno. I seem to remember taking a kunai to it after a mission a while back…”
Her hands paused in whatever it was that they were doing, braiding he guessed as the most likely by the light intermittent tugs on three different sections of his hair.
“You cut your hair with a kunai?” She asked in disbelief.
He could feel her hands moving again, tugging strands up for closer inspection and he laughed at the incredulity in her voice.
“It was the only blade handy at the time.” If he could have, he would have shrugged at the offhand comment. “Besides I seem to remember a certain someone doing the same…”
She thumped his head. “Hey, that was different! You didn’t have an enemy kunoichi holding you down… by… it…” she trailed off not wanting to open that particular door. She sniffed. “If I had been granted a choice I would have had it done properly in a salon.” She huffed noisily as she regarded the gravity defying bush of hair in front of her.
He grunted noncommittally in hopes that she would let his comment go and either continue to play with his hair or find something less distracting to occupy her time. The less morally sound part of him wanted for her to return to what she had been doing. However the more honorable part of him, thankfully still in control, was disgusted with himself and hoped rather fervently that she would flip over onto her back and find something else to occupy both her hands and her mind.
After a moment, she seemed to accept his grunt as the only apology she was likely to receive and her hands returned to his hair – much to his delight and then self disgust. “It’s no wonder you always look like you’ve got a distressed paintbrush stuck to your head.” Her hands started moving again, this time tugging at different bits comparing their length. “It’s all uneven too!” she exclaimed, though why she should be so surprised he couldn’t quite figure. “I always thought it stuck off to your left because of the way you use your headband to cover your Sharingan… But, it really is shorter on the right than left… What happened, get tired of cutting so you just stopped part of the way through?”
“I suppose you think you would like to fix it then?” Kakashi asked warily, trying to dodge her question and wondering how he could convince her otherwise. He wasn’t really one to care too much about his appearance, but the elite jonin rather liked his fairly distinctive hair. And, the thought of her doing such a thing bothered him more than it should.
“Are you kidding?” Sakura asked almost scandalized. “If someone were to tame your hair I think the world might come to an end.” She paused for a moment in thought before continuing. “Besides I don’t think you’d be you without this untamed mop you call hair.” She ran her fingers through his hair pulling it straight away from his head in all directions before flattening it out and doing it again.
“You don’t say?” Kakashi asked somewhat distracted by the sensation of her fingers running though the strands of his hair. He wished fervently that she would stop allowing her fingers to brush against his head before gently running the length his hair – if she avoided brushing her fingers across his scalp so often it was much easier for him to ignore what she was doing. Again the smaller less rational part of him thoroughly enjoyed the all too distracting sensation.
“Hmm, I do say…kind of like Guy.” She giggled. “I don’t think he’d be Guy without that hideous bowl cut of his.”
“You know Guy didn’t always favor that hairstyle.”
“What?” she asked incredulously, her hands stopping in the middle of trying to pat his hair into the semblance of a mohawk without actually shaving the sides of his head.
The older shinobi paused in his pushups. “Hang on changing fingers.”
Sakura lifted herself away from his neck so he could switch hands, lowering herself as soon as he settled himself, though not replacing her hands in his hair. Instead she placed her arms under herself as she leaned on her forearms, her hands resting on the wrist he had just placed on the back of his neck. Once he started again she waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t she prodded him. “Well?”
He chuckled silently to himself at her curiosity. “Well what?”
“Aw, c’mon Kakashi! About Guy’s hair! What the hell happened? There has just got to be a good story there!”
“Ah, that…”
“Yes that! Now get on with the story!” She shifted his wrist slightly and poked his neck.
He laughed. “There isn’t much to say about it really, it was a long time ago now.”
“Kakashi!” She squirmed a little knowing it would get his attention, though misconstruing the reason it usually annoyed him.
Kakashi groaned as she shifted against him, desperately trying to redirect his thoughts. Between her squirming and running her fingers through his hair she was doing one hell of a job of dredging what he found to be extremely inappropriate thoughts to the surface of his Icha Icha corrupted mind. Sluggishly it occurred to him that if he told her the story she might stay still long enough for him to finish his pushups.
“Alright, alright. It was way back when I was a chunin. Guy had already decided he needed a rival and unfortunately I happened to be on hand at the time. Anyway, one of the first things he challenged me to was a staring contest. Loser had to cut their hair to the specifications of the winner…”
“Oh no… you didn’t!” She cried unable to stop herself from laughing.
“Yes, I did. I was annoyed that he had disturbed me in the middle of my lunch. So I grabbed the nearest bowl, dumped the contents and handed it to him. I told him to put it on his head and cut anything that wasn’t covered by the bowl…”
“Oh now Kakashi, that’s just too funny.” Sakura continued to laugh, having to grab hold of his shoulders or risk falling off his back. Once she had managed to calm herself down enough so that she could speak again she asked, “So how long did he stipulate in the stakes? For life?”
“Funny that you mention it… I was under the impression that it was a one time deal… But, from what I heard he still has that ramen bowl from Ichiraku and still uses it to measure and cut his hair…”
~*~*~*~
The next morning she awoke feeling as though she had gone a few too many rounds with a heard of elephants. Grumbling she made her way to the hospital, realizing that she could definitely stand to extend her regular workouts and training sessions as she was clearly starting to get a little out of shape. Granted, her former sensei beating the tar out of her was nothing new, but usually she didn’t feel quite so trampled the day after.
After Kakashi had finished his pushups he had somehow managed to convince her, she was still unsure how he had done it, to go another couple rounds with him. Inwardly she had halfway hoped that he would be at least a little tired from the couple hundred one fingered pushups he had just completed with her on his back. Unfortunately she had been wrong, very wrong and he had knocked her around like a rag doll. Belatedly, the pink haired medic realized that Kakashi probably had thought he was doing it for her own good, and wished that he had been able to find a less painful way to get his point across to her.
Upon entering her office Sakura found a large bottle of purple liquid and a bright yellow rubber ducky sitting on her desk.
“Ugh, the nerve of that old man!” The irritated medic growled to herself as she inspected at the purple liquid which upon further examination turned out to be lavender scented bubble bath. When she picked up the ducky she found a small scrap of paper under it. Against her better judgment she lifted the scrap of paper to find, what was becoming an infuriatingly familiar scrawl:
‘To sooth your aches and pains on the day after.’
~*~*~*~
Across town a certain silver haired jonin laughed to himself at what he could only imagine her reaction would be to his latest gift. Kakashi had to admit that he may have found a new and thoroughly enjoyable way to amuse himself at his former student’s expense.
He’d been cleaning out some of the clutter from his apartment and found the bright yellow rubber ducky – his prize for winning some silly challenge or other with Guy. While contemplating it he happened to wonder just how sore his former student would be that day since he really had been quite merciless in their spar the day before. It hadn’t taken much for him to decide to drop by the medic’s office with another gift. The lavender scented bubble bath had been a last minute impulse buy to go along with the rubber ducky. The look the clerk at the pharmacy had given him when he had placed his purchases, bubble bath and the newest volume of Icha Icha, on the counter had been absolutely priceless. He was really starting to enjoy himself at her expense.
Absently he wondered what the Konoha gossip mill would make of his most recent gift. The chocolate, he had found out upon returning to Konoha, served to infuriate her to no end since the little old ladies were practically falling over each other to follow her wherever she went in the hopes of catching a glimpse of her ‘secret admirer.’
Apparently it had made quite the massive mess when she was assigned to show a visiting male dignitary around the village for a couple of days. They would probably be a little more cautious in their assumptions and attempts at espionage after being chastised by Tsunade. It seemed Sakura had lucked out in that the dignitary had a sense of humor and had found the whole incident to be humorous instead of taking it as some sort of insult. Kakashi rather suspected that if Sakura were to ever visit the man’s country she would be an instant celebrity judging from what he had heard of the extent of the dignitary’s enjoyment of the whole incident.
Though she had been absolutely pissed with him she had, after screaming and hitting him several times, begrudgingly admitted to him after the fact that the chocolates had been some of the best she had ever eaten. Mentally he made a note to pick up some more the next time he was in the Land of the Waterfall. Absently he wondered if he could arrange to deliver them again just before another foreign diplomat was due to visit the village. The Copy Ninja smirked in anticipation. Next time he would make sure he would be in the village to enjoy the show.
