Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Kakashi's Research ❯ Blink or Wink? ( Chapter 1 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto or any of the characters in the series! I simply borrow them to do my bidding is all….

A/N: My first attempt at a humor KakuSaku fanfic. =) It has no real plotline and I’m for the most part making things up as I go along. To my credit, I do have several ideas in store for it though! Please R & R

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Kakashi’s Research

Chapter 1: Blink or Wink?
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“So, what do you think they‘re up to?”

Sakura frowned, her eyebrows pinching together as she peered over at the pair in question. “I don’t know,” she hummed with a grimace, “it’s too hard to tell from way over here…”

She and Naruto stared suspiciously into the backs of the two figures, the more thickset of the pale-haired duo leaning towards the latter to relate to him a maddeningly quiet remark.

“Well, if they would just speak louder!” Naruto fumed impatiently as he craned his neck in attempts to angle better, his butt just wiggling off his seat before an annoyed hand yanked him back downwards.

“Sh!” Sakura hissed, doing her best not to lose her cool lest their currently unsuccessful eavesdropping session be blown. “Stop it, Naruto!”

Naruto looked sheepish as two jade eyes bore threateningly into him. Eager to redirect Sakura’s attention, he whined in a determined whisper, “But I really want to know what they’re talking about!”

Naruto breathed an inward sigh of relief as the pink-haired girl’s gaze drifted back to the former objects of interest.

“I know, so do I. But if you draw everyone’s attention and blow our cover, we’ll never get to know why they’ve been hanging out lately!” Sakura reasoned, adding on quickly with a wry smile, “Just think of it as a mission!“

Sakura couldn’t have scripted it better!

As expected, the self-righteous blonde fell for it, leaning back in his chair, fisting his hands in the orange material of his pants and a scowl on his face.

To be honest, he looked constipated.

But drawing from past experiences, Sakura knew that he was carefully thinking.

This…. could take a while.

However, as steaming bowls of ramen were placed in front of the three chunin, Naruto’s short spanned thinking session quickly evaporated. Even Sasuke, who seemed to have lost interest in the operation a long time ago, was more keen on indulging in his ramen.

“Mmm!” Naruto chirped as he snapped apart his chopsticks… not that he would be even using them much. “Barbequed pork, eggs, pickles, and those yummy crunchy things! My favorite toppings!” The blonde practically dived head first into his ramen, though not without receiving several disgusted glances from Sakura.

Sakura rolled her eyes. Naruto had the attention span of a maggot. Boys.

Looking back over to the still conversing individuals a couple tables down, Sakura gritted her teeth, now cursing the side of the Ichiraku restaurant they chose their table. She would have attempted reading their lips, but considering how she couldn’t see through the back of their heads, she immediately dismissed that idea.

Oh, how she sometimes wished she’d been born into one of the clans with one of those incredible kekkee genkai techniques like Neji or Sasuke!

But then again, maybe she didn’t have to…

“Sasuke!” she chimed, emerald eyes meeting onyx as the said boy next to her regarded her with an arch of the brow. “You have Sharingan!”

As soon as she said this, Sakura wanted to kick herself in the shins for how incredibly stupid her little outburst sounded. No duh! She’s known that for like, ever!

Evidently, Sasuke was on the same page as he simply narrowed his eyes. “I’m so glad you’ve noticed,” he intoned dryly, before taking a delicate bite out of his ramen.

Sakura quickly flustered, her cheeks tinting pink. She hated looking like a ditz in front of this boy! But then, it was hard not to when she felt as though those two dark eyes of his were constantly nitpicking her faults.

With a small smile she murmured, “I was wondering, Sasuke…. if you could use your Sharingan to read what they’re saying?”

Sasuke’s disinterested gaze flickered over to the two bleach-headed mops of hair for what couldn’t have been more than a moment before he looked back to Sakura matter-of-factly. “My Sharingan isn’t able to read the back of people’s heads.”

Naruto, bless his heart, piped up through a bite of ramen spraying bits of noodle and pork as he spoke, “Yeah, well why doncha’ go somewhere where it can read what they‘re saying?”

Sakura nodded eagerly, swatting at one of Naruto’s hands as they seemed prone to sought out her own bowl of ramen even in the midst of inhaling his own.

The black haired boy sighed.

As much as Sasuke seemed to lack interest, both Naruto and Sakura knew that he was also curious as to why Kakashi-sensei and the one Naruto deemed ‘Pervy Sage’ were associating lately.

Especially when their sensei felt it necessary to dismiss their training sessions way early to meet up with the sannin. This had been going on for a couple of days and evidently his students felt that they were fully entitled to know why!

“Alright. I’ll do it.”

-

Jiraiya smiled before reaching a hefty hand to clap Kakashi on the back. Beaming down at the array of papers scattered on the table in front of him, he then regarded the passive ninja to his right with a grin. “I don’t know whether or not I should be pleased or worried! I might have some competition here, if you should ever decide to ever get this published, Kakashi-san.”

Kakashi’s lone eye peered at Jiraiya inquisitively before it crinkled in a smile. “Do you really think so?” he asked offhandedly, though anyone who knew the Copy Nin would have been able to tell that he was flattered.

The old sage smirked with a throaty chuckle, taking a large spoonful of ramen into his mouth. “Sure,” Jiraiya replied with a nod. Taking a couple more bites from his bowl, he then glanced at Kakashi and his ramen, untouched. “Aren’t you going to eat that?”

Kakashi nodded simply. The sannin reminded him uncannily of a certain blonde idiot. “Yes. I’m just waiting for it to cool down a bit.”

Jiraiya stared at Kakashi’s bowl of ramen.

It was frigid.

Other than raising an eyebrow at the peculiar ninja, Jiraiya didn’t push the subject. Come to think of it, he had never ever seen this one elusive shinobi eat anything in public or at all for that matter and he doubted that Kakashi would want to risk revealing his face for the sake of ramen.

He, along with everyone else in the whole of Konoha knew that Kakashi was an odd person and that his practices should rarely be questioned. Lest they be bombarded with strange if not bizarre excuses.

“I think I’d better get going,” Kakashi was saying as Jiraiya next glanced at the Jonin. “Would you…?” he trailed off, gesturing towards the pile of papers strewn before the Toad Sage.

“Of course,” Jiraiya nodded as he began collecting the indicated papers to form a clumsy heap. Offering the stack to Kakashi, he smiled warmly with a chuckle, “Here you go.”

The silver-haired jonin accepted it graciously, tucking the stack into some invisible cavity within his green vest as he returned the smile. “Thank you for reviewing it, Jiraiya-sama,” his voice came muffled as he climbed to his feet. As if automatically, he quickly lodged his hands into his pockets before turning on his heel curtly. “Same time, same place tomorrow?” He paused, awaiting Jiraiya’s simple nod before sauntering off.

Jiraiya watched as Kakashi strolled out of the restaurant, before smirking to himself.

His expression quickly died off his face with the sudden realization that the contents of Kakashi’s ramen bowl had been sucked clean and the offending ninja was no where to be seen, once again leaving him with the bill!

Kakashi left Ichiraku, the squawks of a particular infuriated sage ringing in his ears and fueling the bit of briskness in his walk.

Apparently he had no intention of sticking around to see exactly why the legendary sannin were as famous as they were.

Little did the Copy Nin know, he was being pursued.

Or at least, that’s what his stalkers were convinced.

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Sakura distanced herself from Kakashi as she tailed behind him down the busy street, though she was near enough as to where she could keep close tabs on him.

She weaved through passing pedestrians, sometimes losing view of her target until she caught site of a bobbing silver mop floating through the crowd.

Sure, he seemed to walk at a leisurely rate with that all too familiar orange book Sakura could have sworn he’d read for the umpteenth time clutched in his hand and his other hand wedged idly in his pocket.
But sometimes, she wondered if he was actually zigzagging her through all the people on purpose!

It sure wouldn’t have been a shocker considering how Kakashi specialized in ticking people off.

But, that wasn’t possible.

There was no way that he could have known that she, Naruto, and Sasuke had all been tracking him since he’d left Ichiraku’s.

Not when they’d sat there and planned this out. Not when it was Naruto and Sasuke who had readily agreed to Sakura’s ingenious plan!

There was simply no way.

As the Copy Nin turned onto another significantly less crowded road without even looking up, Sakura narrowed her eyes. It was certainly remarkable how the jonin could avoid things from something as simple as a pothole in the road to an incoming fist aimed for his face sans so much as even batting an eye from his ex-rated book.

Perhaps she had once upon a time been impressed by his ability to function perfectly while reading his brain-numbing smut, but now, Sakura found his ‘talent’ was incredibly annoying. Especially when she could hardly keep on her toes when she wasn’t distracted!

Upon sighting an orange blur flitting from the roof tops of one building to the next, Sakura smiled, her gaze immediately scanning the area for Sasuke.

She should have known that the Uchiha was too much of a perfectionist to allow himself to be seen so easily.

Sakura drew in a sharp breath of anticipation, figuring that both Naruto and Sasuke were readying to carry out the next step to their plan. While Sakura was busy scoping the area for the intended cue, she was completely ignorant to the sudden cease of footsteps before her.

Big mistake.

Bam!

Before she knew what hit her, Sakura’s cheek collided into something big, black and green. Stumbling backwards in recoil, Sakura didn’t even have to look up to know what she’d bumped into.

“Yo.”

Sakura grimaced, one eye squinting shut as she rubbed at her smarting cheek, her other glaring into the offending back of a certain silver-haired jonin.

“Rule number twenty-four, section B, of the ninja handbook declares that a shinobi should always remain acutely aware of his surrounding area at all times no matter his environment,” Kakashi chided gently before peering at her from behind his shoulder. “I expect you of all people to have known that, Sakura.”

The girl inwardly seethed, but never-the-less, Sakura nodded with a flustered smile, “O-of course! Understood, sensei.”

Kakashi’s eye crinkled as he reached out to tousle her hair gently, though it was not without an indignant squeak on her behalf of course! Sakura could have sworn she’d just then heard him chuckle, “Cute.” But, she assumed that it was her imagination during the spur of the moment.

Heat rushed to her cheeks as Sakura quickly brushed aside his hand, shaking her head as she waggled a disapproving forefinger at him. “I told you before, I’m not a kid anymore, sensei. So, you don’t have to treat me like one! How would you like it if I ruffled your hair?” she scolded shortly.

Kakashi couldn’t help but to notice how she adopted that all too familiar pose she usually succumbed to when reprimanding Naruto. Her hands resting on the gentle slope of those ever so slightly angled hips, her slender shoulders shrugged back giving one ideal assessment of her fairly endowed chest…. supple and pert, and those large green eyes narrowed fiercely as those lips… those deliciously curved lips puckered together in a slight pout.

“Mm. Well, to be honest, I wouldn’t object, Sakura. You see, if you stroke me just right, I’ll purr like a kitten,” he bemused, his hooded gaze lifting from his book to regard her blankly…. if not curiously.

Sakura’s mind malfunctioned for a moment, her brain hiccupping on her sensei’s last comment like a record player to a glitch. Sakura stared up at him questioningly, not sure how she should have taken that last remark. She searched his face for a clue, a hint, anything, but his expression was as vacant as ever.

Or at least, from what she could tell.

Damn that mask!

What promised to turn into an awkward silence between them was quickly shattered when the knuckle-headed idiot we all know to be Naruto came galloping out of no where, to Sakura’s relief!

“Gaaah!“ he shrieked as he leapt straight for Kakashi, of who simply side-stepped to send the boy catapulting into a heap of stacked crates.

There was a crash and a spray of dust. And then Naruto wheezing in a fit of coughs and sneezes.

“Oh my,” Kakashi arched a brow as he glanced at the grumbling blonde tangled in the crates, most of which he‘d managed to smash to smithereens in his little bout. “I can see the effects of our training.”

“That’s the problem,” came Sasuke’s voice as three heads turned to see the Uchiha leaning nonchalantly against the pale wall of some old beaten down apartment building. Apparently, he’d sensed that the original plan had fallen apart and decided to come out of hiding. “No thanks to you,” he scoffed.

“Mm?” Kakashi hummed as though he had no earthly idea what Sasuke was referring to.

“Don’t play dumb Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto screeched, teetering to his feet and patting down his orange and black jacket before dusting his rear. “You’ve been dismissing our training sessions a hellova’ lot early for the past coupla’ days to go and hang out with Pervy Sage and we wanna know why!”

“Yeah, sensei! What’s going on between you and Jiraiya-sama?” Sakura questioned.

“We saw you exchanging papers with the old man. What were they?” Sasuke more so demanded than actually asked.

Three sets of eyes burned fiercely into him. The spotlight was on Kakashi.

“Oh, I’m hurt,” Kakashi sniffled, pressing his hand melodramatically to his chest. “My three favorite students… my students that I’ve poured my heart and my soul into raising and nurturing for six long and treacherous years… have not even an ounce of confidence in their poor old sensei?”

His injured innocence act fell on deaf ears. All three of his ‘favorite’ students droned at the same time, “None.”

Kakashi frowned, clenching at his chest feebly, fanning his face with his book in the other, “I’m not sure how much more my sore heart can take of this….”

“Quit acting like such a drama queen, Kakashi-sensei! We’re serious here!” Sakura reprimanded shortly, prodding him bitterly in the chest.

“Okay, okay….” Kakashi sighed, holding up a hand submissively. “So, there was a reason behind stalking me was there? And I thought my students simply had an obsession--”

“--Yeah, yeah,” Naruto interrupted with a grimace, “Don’t flatter yourself, sensei! We were going to ambush you and snatch all those papers to see why exactly that you’ve been sneaking off with Pervy Sage and have been neglecting our training! That is until Sakura blew the plan…. her own plan…”

Sakura wanted to crawl under a rock. Cheap shot!

“But anyways! That’s not the point!” he continued being on the receiving end of one of Sakura‘s signature death glares. “If I don’t get any stronger, I’ll never be able to become Hokage! And you know that Sasuke-bastard has that whole overly dramatic ‘I’m an avenger! Need to kill that certain someone….’-bull going on!”

Sasuke glowered. It was safe to assume that Naruto was going to pay for that one later.…

“So what is it? What’s on those papers?” Naruto interrogated ruthlessly after successfully digging his grave, “Why’ve you been meeting up with the old pervert? And why‘re you neglecting my-- I mean our training time to do it, hn?”

“Yeah, and it better be a good excuse,” Sasuke practically threatened, his arms crossed as he leaned coolly against the wall.

Kakashi opened his mouth to speak but was cut short when Sakura interjected, “And it better not be one of those lame excuses like you come up with when you’re late either. There will be none of that ‘Well, I was on my way…. when a giant sparrow scooped me up and carried me away’-crap!”

“Oh, so you’ve already heard that one, have you?” the jonin chuckled, scratching at his temple uncertainly.

Apparently, his students failed to see the humor in this.

“Well… I’ll tell you what,” Kakashi said, his gaze dropping back down to his Icha Icha Paradise edition. “Meet me at the training grounds in front of the big oak tree at nine tomorrow and I’ll teach you all a new genjutsu. I admit, I’m beginning to run out of things to teach you guys and soon you‘ll have acquired enough techniques to move on…. But, to my credit, your old sensei still has a couple aces up his sleeve.”

“You mean it?” both Naruto and Sakura chirped at once, obviously thrilled. Sasuke remained as he was, though it was easy to see that he was intrigued.

“I mean it,” Kakashi repeated with a nod, leaning over to ruffle Naruto’s hair, who in turn snickered, before reaching out to do the same to Sakura. He stopped mid-way as if catching himself in the midst of a bad habit, probably remembering their little chat from before, and simply let his hand slide back into his pocket.

As much as Sakura was convinced she was too old to have her hair rumpled, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment when her anticipated hair tousle never came. She peered up at Kakashi as he turned away to depart, the slightest of frowns tugging at her lips.

It was then that any sense of let down was obliterated, when Kakashi’s lone half-lidded eye swept over her face, that Sakura could have sworn that he had winked at her. She was positive! The way his eye lingered on hers, even if it was only for a split-second… Sakura was sure that he winked!

Was he pulling her leg? Did he even think about these things he said and did before he did them? Did he do these things just to see her go red?

Well, if he did… to Sakura’s dismay, it was working!

But then, she had to give him the benefit of the doubt here. It easily could have just been her imagination. Just like it had been her imagination when she’d thought she’d heard him call her ‘cute’ just a little while ago... Sakura, never being one to overlook reason, was sure that there was a logical explanation behind the comment. There always was. Even if he had called her that-- Sakura couldn’t stress the word ’if’ enough-- he probably just meant as in ’puppy-dog cute’. Probably.

But just now, when he had winked at her….

Sakura grimaced.

There was a always a chance that it was merely a misconstrued blink. Albeit a misconstrued blink that was oddly suggestive….

Now, when any other person winked, there was always a second eye and mouth one could refer to be sure.

But Kakashi….

Kakashi….

For the second time that day, Sakura found herself cursing that mask of his!

As the maddening silver-haired Copy Nin took his leave, he called behind him lightheartedly, “Remember, nine o’clock. And don’t be late!”

“You ‘don’t be late’,” three irritated chunin voices retaliated venomously, their gazes following their whimsical sensei until he disappeared behind a street corner.

There was a brief silence.

“Is it just me, or did Kakashi-sensei not answer a single one of our questions?” came Sakura’s voice, irritated.

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A/N: This chapter was more or less to give out a general setting. Reviews would be mucho appreciated!