Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Kakashi's Research ❯ The Sty ( Chapter 2 )

[ 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: I hope you like this chapter, ’cuz I know I did writing it! Enjoy!

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Chapter 2: The Sty

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Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose wearily, her eyes closing briefly as she let out a heated sigh.

She had just left the boys a little while ago, their bickering and aspirations to outdo one another being simply maddening! Especially, Sakura noted bitterly, when she often found that she was the one who had to play both referee and medic when things got out of hand…

But, then Sakura couldn’t talk. She’d have been a complete hypocrite if she said that she and Ino were perfectly compatible. In fact, it was quite the contrary, really. The bond that Sakura and Ino shared was something much more complicated than Naruto and Sasuke’s never ending conquest for male dominance…. beyond a simple rivalry among friends. They were more or less friends because they were rivals!

Even though their relationship had been stitched together since their little falling out a million years ago and they‘d since accomplished becoming almost obsessive best friends and even roommates in a two-bedroom apartment, Sakura had to admit that what they had--whatever it was-- was drastically more mentally grating than any frivolous Alpha-male competition and essentially… more exhausting!

Shops seemed to be closing for the day as surrounding peddlers could either be seen stowing away their merchandise and goods or haggling with last-minute shoppers to achieve the best swindle. Sakura trudged on through the market place, her gaze resolutely staring at the ground before her feet with eyes that were obviously dazed in thought.

As much as Sakura had tried willing the reoccurring thoughts away to the back of her mind, Sakura could not stop thinking about Kakashi and his peculiar behavior towards her earlier today!

When he’d most likely called her ‘cute’ while he messed up her hair… albeit the unwarranted messing up of the hair that she had persuaded herself that she was way too old for, but secretly…

Sakura frowned.

When he’d made that questionable comment that left her tripping over her own tongue like an idiot! … About him if being stroked correctly, he’d ‘purr like a kitten’…

Sakura grimaced, her cheeks visibly coloring.

And then when he was turning around to leave… when he’d maybe-possibly-probably winked at her!

Her face was positively on fire now! Tomatoes everywhere would hang their heads in shame.

She couldn’t help but to notice that there sure were a heck of a lot of “maybe’s” in her perceptions though! If she looked at it from a practical point of view, it wasn’t like he’d particularly said or done anything that was exactly abnormal… well, ‘abnormal’ to Kakashi in any case. It wasn’t like he’d done anything that couldn’t just have been merely ill-conceived. Now that she thought about it, he could have just been being friendly. She’d always known Kakashi to be odd and vague, so misconception was easy when it came to him. Was she simply looking too much into this? She had to be.

After all… was she trying to insinuate that her sensei had been making discreet passes at her?

Sakura massaged at her temple heatedly with a heavy sigh. “Man, I need a boyfriend,” she groaned bitterly as she approached the great Konoha Bridge.

If she was going to assume that her teacher was hitting on her when he was simply being friendly, it was obvious that she was in dire need of a boyfriend! Who knows…Maybe she should take Ino up on one of her offers to set her up with one of her many guy friends? God knows, that Pig had tried on a daily basis!

Sakura began to cross the bridge less hurriedly, her soft footsteps thumping hollowly on the wooden boards as she could glimpse the water beneath them in the small gaps between the planks. She had always come to admire the great old bridge. She’d always enjoyed crossing it when returning home. It was just one of those convenient places that just helped her to relax, if only for a moment… before she returned back to the apartment only to have Ino mither her endlessly about everything and nothing at the same time as if she had nothing better to do! Which, Sakura didn‘t fail to notice, she usually didn’t.

A particular favorite of Ino’s, though, was to prey upon Sakura’s not having a boyfriend or any real sexual experience.

Sakura could remember one of their previous conversations:

‘Hey, Forehead!’

‘What is it, Ino-pig?’

‘I was wondering…. You haven’t ever had a boyfriend and when I try to hook you up, you always throw lame excuses in my face. Not to mention-- I think that Kakashi-sensei’s ridiculous excuse-making logic is rubbing off on you.’

‘…’

‘And all my friends are hot! Since when do you refuse dates with single, smoking’ hot guys to go and walk your mother’s cat? Your mom’s allergic! There is no cat! And you don’t even walk cats! … do you?’

‘…’

‘ But, anyways! This all brings me to the same conclusion! Sakura, are you gay?’

‘Depends… If I say yes, will you leave me alone?’

The pink-haired girl scowled. Sometimes she’d wished Ino would just stick to calling her ‘Forehead’. As much as she’s always hated that nickname, she’d rather it than Ino-pig’s snobby teasing about her love life… or, in her case, lack there of!

Both Naruto and Lee were still infatuated at their wit’s end about her, but they were simply out of the question in terms of boyfriends. And Sasuke… Sakura’s obsession for that boy had died a long time ago. She remembered a couple years back when she simply had given up on him. She had been fed up with his daily rejections and to her, he was simply out of reach. He was simply one of those unattainable people. An untouchable. Too good for plain old Sakura.

It wasn’t like she couldn’t get a real boyfriend, because she could. She’d certainly caught the men in the village leering at her as she walked down the street plenty enough. Even though, she noted sourly, most of them were either old withered geezers or guys that already had a gal latched onto their shoulders! The pigs.

She’d had past boyfriends. But, every time things had become intimate, things would come to a screeching halt. Sakura didn’t understand it herself… When it came to sex, Sakura supposed, she was easily intimidated.

Sakura slowed before leaning over the railing to gaze out at the horizon. It was truly a beautiful scene, she thought appreciatively. It was well into the evening and the sun was setting. The sun peaked over the many roof tops and trees of the village in the distance, an array of blinding reds and oranges painting the dimming sky and clouds like a canvas.

It would be dark soon, Sakura figured, so she turned and continued walking on.

If she went to bed early tonight, she’d wake up fresh as a daisy in the morning! Yes, then she’d go out to grab a bite to eat somewhere, having long since abandoned her attempt at maintaining a diet many years ago… which wasn’t so much of a diet as it were fasting. And then, at nine o’clock, she’d meet up with the others and Kakashi-sensei could teach them that new genjutsu of his! That is… providing he did show up on time. Best not to get any hopes up…

Sakura couldn’t help but to smirk at this. After six years of knowing Kakashi, one quickly learned to never get their hopes up much when it came to him. Lest they be greatly disappointed, of course. Team Seven was without a doubt accustomed to this and could safely depend on his undependability-- as funny as that sounded.

“Guh…!”

In the midst of her reminiscing, Sakura nearly doubled over when her foot slipped on something and sent her sprawling. She stumbled awkwardly, only just having the presence of mind bring her hands to her front before her face was unpleasantly introduced to the concrete road. What Sakura slipped on-- whatever she slipped on, skidded some to the right of her foot.

Her fall had bent her into an awkward bridge-like position; her hands pressing flat against the rough concrete for support, her butt sticking up in the air foolishly, a single knee grating painfully into the ground as her other struggled straight in attempts to keep her from completely toppling over!

“… the heck?” Sakura hissed, peering venomously at the offending object below her with gritted teeth. She blinked. Paper? She slipped on a stack of paper? Some ninja she was!

Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin when a passing man deftly slapped her on the rear! “Sweet ass,” he grunted as he shot her a cheeky glance.

Her butt was flat on the ground in an instant, either of her hands clamping on her bottom indignantly. Sakura visibly went red, whether or not from being embarrassed or infuriated, it was hard to tell. “I suggest you keep your hands to yourself! Unless you want to lose ‘em!” she shrieked after him before he disappeared onto the next street.

Sakura hastily climbed back to her feet and straightened, promptly patting herself down with a scowl. She peered around heatedly to see if anyone had witnessed this, but discovered there hadn’t been many people around and the people that were present didn’t seem to either notice or care. She probably should have been annoyed about that no one had the common courtesy to come to her aid, but Sakura rather felt relieved. Last thing she needed was a misconstrued rumor floating around and Ino cawing in her ear.

Peering down at the object that had caused this whole mess in the first place, she grimaced. Paper. “Harrumph!” Sakura huffed. Didn’t people know better than to litter these days?

Her eyes widened a fraction before they squinted. There appeared to be some writing on the paper… “Come to think if it… didn’t Kakashi-sensei…?” she trailed off as she hesitantly gathered the disoriented stack, her eyebrows instantly shooting into her hairline as she caught a glimpse of the writing.

‘… Tetsuya wrapped his arms around her waist and tugged Yura against him, reveling in the sudden closeness of their bodies. Yura allowed her own arms fall around his nape, letting one of her hands sink into his hair as she clenched his neck in the other. She pushed her chest against his, savoring the way his breath caught in his throat as her--’
Sakura swallowed, her breath increasingly shallow.

‘--hardened nipples pressed against him through the flimsy material of her shirt. She tilted her chin up and trailed a series of warm kisses down the underside of his jaw.’.

Sakura licked her lips subconsciously. She was becoming acutely aware that all the blood in her body was being directed to two places. Her face and the pit of her belly.

‘Tetsuya leaned into her, and cupped her tight rear, enjoying Yura’s shiver of pleasure as he pressed his hard, pulsing coc--’

“Ah. I see you’ve found my… papers, Sakura.”

Sakura jolted with shock, successfully managing to drop half of what she was holding as she wheeled around to face... him.

Kakashi!

Sakura could hear her heart drumming away in her ear with an such an intensity that she wondered if Kakashi could hear it too! “Oh! Ka… Kakashi-sensei!” she stammered, having a hard time spitting out her words and feeling as though all the breath had been sucked out of her lungs.

The jonin simply watched her, an amused glint in his eye that unnerved her even more. Other than that, Kakashi remained as indifferent as ever, his back typically slouched and his hands thrust into his pockets.

She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze and couldn’t bring herself to quite look him in the eye. “So, um…th-these papers are… are yours sensei?” she murmured, tripping over her words in a way that would give Hinata a run for her money!

“Mm,” Kakashi hummed curtly, the same hint of amusement in his wordless tone.

There was an awkward silence. It was the kind of awkward silence in which both of the participants waited expectantly for the other to say something. While Sakura positively cooked in it with realization, Kakashi seemed perfectly at peace. These where his papers? These where why he was neglecting their classes to meet up with Jiraiya-sama?? Because he was writing… writing…. porn! Of all the times that Naruto appeared out of no where, Sakura had never wanted him to pop up more so than she did now! But, he wasn’t coming.

Sakura quickly squatted to collect the rest of the dropped papers, her hands shaking clumsily and successfully managing to make her repeat several times over before she could seem to get a grip. Straightening herself, she then offered the pile of papers to the silver-headed jonin. Sakura was becoming increasingly aware of the way he simply stared at her hands, scrutinizing. Take them and leave. Take them and leave.

Sakura nearly whooped aloud when he reached a lazy hand out to finally receive the papers. But, what she didn’t expect was to find that not only did he accept the manuscript, but he’d confiscated her hand in his own in the process. His was large and strong in comparison, thick and calloused after enduring infinite years of fighting and… book holding.

Sakura‘s breath quickly died in her lungs as a beet-red blush rapidly colored her cheeks. “Sakura…” Kakashi crooned, tugging at her hand until it was palm-up. His solitary eye swept over it briefly before it looked into hers. Sakura felt her stomach flutter. Either that, or it was tensing in her body’s preparation to make a run for it! Sakura wasn’t sure she was relieved or disappointed when he murmured his excuse for holding her hand, “You’re injured?”

For a moment, Sakura found that her mind was drawing a complete blank. Her train of thought was currently something along the lines of-- Hand. Paper in hand. Hand. Holding Kakashi-sensei’s hand. Hand. Kakashi’s hand. Hand. Injured hand?

“Injured?” she repeated, staring at him through incredulous eyes. “I’m not--”

Kakashi gave her hand a gentle squeeze and she hissed, snatching it clean out of his.

“Oh,” she groaned as she peered at her smarting palm hesitantly. The skin on her palm was swollen and raw, the pink of her flesh throbbing with what seemed to be it’s own heartbeat. And only now that she’d realized the thing, she was overwhelmed with the sudden aftershock of the aching she had since been ignoring. She must have skinned it on her little ‘trip’ from before. Albeit a trip that a certain silver-haired ninja’s pornographic documents had induced! Well, it could have been worst… “It’s nothing, sensei. It’s only a scrape.”

“Mm,” Kakashi hummed offhandedly. He paused briefly before dipping his head to nod to her right knee, “And I suppose that that is a simple scrape too?” Sakura blinked up at him uncertainly before she realized that she’d unconsciously been favoring her left until he mentioned…

Sakura gasped. Knee. Blood. Lots and lots of it.

“Sensei… I think I’m gonna faint,” she whispered coarsely as she paled, pulling her hand to her brow and wiping the bead of sweat that had formed there.

“Sakura, you’re not going to--” he broke off as she teetered dangerously, quickly extending his arm to steady her lest she swoon, “… okay, you weren‘t kidding.” He gently ushered her to the wall, of which she practically clung to for dear life.

“Kakashi-sensei, tell me… how bad is it?” she croaked.

“It looks as though they might have to amputate…”

“Kakashi-sensei!”

“Alright, alright,” he chuckled. She contemplated homicide. “It isn’t serious. It just looks to be a minor flesh wound…”

Sakura calmed.

“Just hope it doesn’t get infected,” Kakashi added unnecessarily.

She twitched.

“You know how those infections can be. Septic and painful, bacteria-infested and...”

Sakura blanched.

Kakashi broke off as though he was suddenly aware of how his words were settling with her. Good thing too, because he was just about to go into graphic detail about pus… “I’ll take you to the hospital,” he said instead, leaning forward to offer her a hand.

“I can walk,” Sakura declined it grimly, a look of determined nonchalance on her face. She hesitantly pushed away from the wall, swallowing her groans of discomfort. She knew that Kakashi wasn’t fooled though. “And I’m not going to the hospital.”

“And why not?” Kakashi asked, his eyebrow tilting as he regarded her curiously.

“Well for one,” Sakura scowled, “This isn’t a big deal. You said yourself, it’s just a nick…”

“… Correction, flesh wound--” Kakashi interjected.

“--Second of all, I can’t waste the money on medical expenses…”

“…God forbid loss of limb be a sufficient excuse--”

“And lastly, hospitals just creep me out! They smell funny.”

There was a brief pause in which Kakashi stared pensively at the darkening sky. He seemed to be debating whether or not Sakura’s feeble excuses were reason enough to exempt a simple hospital visit. “Well, I’m no doctor… and my medical skills aren’t exactly up to scratch…” he sighed, “but my apartment is just up the road.”

Sakura didn’t say something for a long moment as she watched his expression inquisitively, as if she were weighing his proposition’s value. “Well, alright,” she said before regarding him with a frown. “But, only for a minute. I’ll never hear the end of it from Ino if she catches me sneaking in at night.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

-

“I don’t expect visitors often,” Kakashi’s voice was saying half-heartedly as he pushed open the shabby door of his apartment. “Sorry, if it’s a little messy.”

Sakura’s face was contorted in a grimace as she followed him over the threshold of his home. The expression was more or less one of compressed misery as the pink-haired chunin had discovered that when blood dried on a regularly used joint, there was unavoidable stinging. The stairs… were a living nightmare!

Apparently Kakashi had apprehended her foul sense of agony as he hadn’t tried to hurry her as they ascended the series of stairs. He even refrained from making any wisecracks as she stiff-limped almost comically. Oh, how it must have eaten away at him inside! But, Sakura noted sourly, she hadn’t failed to see that his eyes was curved upwards, humored. She remembered begrudgingly letting it slide. The last thing she wanted to do was get riled up.

Sakura peered around his apartment and immediately her face twisted with disgust. ‘A little bit messy??‘ That was an understatement! There was laundry literally littering the floor! He had trash and stale food items positively everywhere! And he had junk all over! She didn’t even know humans could survive under such living conditions! It was sickening. Sakura bet that she was more liable to get an infection from inside his home. Or a disease…

“Kakashi-sensei…”

“Mm?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you live in a pigsty?”

“Why yes, Sakura-chan. All the time.”

“So, then you’re probably used to people calling you a slob?”

“Naturally.”

“I assumed you would,” Sakura deadpanned.

“Well, you might as well get comfortable. I’ll find the first aid kit,” Kakashi said as he maneuvered through the array of junk through the living room before he disappeared into the hall. He must have been thoroughly used to his apartment being so messy to move which such expertise while not managing to fall and break his neck. On one hand, it was mildly inspiring while on the other it was just plain disturbing.

“…Might take you a while,” Sakura grumbled as she tip-toed around various items, passing by things as common as a candy wrapper to oddities like a kunai knife… of which still had dried blood on it Sakura was quick to notice! Taking a seat on his couch, not after dusting it off first of course, Sakura looked around. He had a fair-sized apartment, she noted. It wasn’t exactly the first thing one noticed when walking through the front door. Sakura had always supposed her sensei to be disorganized, but this, this… It was one thing to hear about it, but it was another to actually being the one to witness his home in all its filthy glory. Hm, come to think of it… she doubted that either Naruto or Sasuke had been here. She was probably the first in a while ever to be invited into his house! Er-- as much of an honor that was…

“What are you smiling about?” sounded a voice and Sakura jerked around to see Kakashi towering over her, next to the couch. His eyebrow was quirked as he watched her curiously, bemused. He had an old white first aid kit clutched in his hand with a red cross on it’s front.

“Oh, nothing!” Sakura smiled cheesily, a delicate blush on her cheeks. Kakashi was unconvinced, but he didn’t push the subject. He only threw her a perplexed look before he kneeled down at the foot of the couch, settling himself between her knees. She watched as the Copy Nin rummaged awkwardly though the medical kit and Sakura chewed on her bottom lip, finding herself becoming increasingly worried!

Did he even have the slightest idea of what he was doing?? Suddenly the hospital visit didn’t seem to be such a bad idea any more…

But as Kakashi began collecting some items, Sakura felt herself sigh in relief. Ah… so he did know!

“So,” suddenly came Kakashi’s voice.

“S-so?” echoed Sakura’s, confused.

“So…” he prompted. “What did you think?” he asked simply as he gently pushed up the material of her shorts that rested just above her knee. Sakura didn’t catch the way his eye lingered unnecessarily on her exposed lower thigh for a moment before it lowered to her weeping knee.

“What did I… think?” she repeated, perplexed.

“Yes,” he affirmed with a nod as if he were prompting a particularly shy child, his eye crinkling in a smile. “The manuscript. Surely you have got an opinion?”

To be honest, Sakura had almost completely forgotten about the thing! She was caught completely off guard when he asked her opinion! “Y-yes. I mean, I didn’t… I didn’t read much!”

“But, you did read some?” Kakashi unscrewed the cap of the small half-empty bottle of whiskey before he extracted a cotton ball out of his pack.

“Well, yeah--”

“--Then you can tell me what you thought about it.”

Sakura frowned, her eyes narrowing as they glared into Kakashi’s blank one. He regarded her expectantly as she peered inquisitively at the manuscript in her hands. “Okay,” she said. “To be honest…”

Kakashi held his breath.

“… It sucked.”

There was a long pause.

“Sorry, come again?”

It was Kakashi’s turn to look skeptical. His visible eye widened a fraction as his eyebrow tilted upwards. A slight shift in his jaw hinted that his mouth had indeed fallen open. He looked as though he had just been slapped in the face! As though someone had just bitten a clean chunk out of his ego. In this, Sakura secretly gloated, a smirk tugging at her lips. Oh, how she wished she could have snapped a photo of him! She was sure Gai would pay an arm and both legs…

“I thought,” Sakura said, enunciating her words slowly and with deliberate bluntness, “it sucked.” It had come to her immediate attention that as soon as she said this, there was an overwhelming scorching sensation in her knee and Sakura yelped in pain. It felt as though someone had poured liquid fire into her open wound before smashed a lemon into it! Sakura’s cry of pain warped into something reminiscent of a whimper as the pain melted away almost as abruptly as it had begun, simply leaving her throbbing flesh wound with an unpleasant prickly feeling. “Dammit, Kakashi…” Sakura rasped, “you could have warned me!”

“Sorry,” Kakashi deadpanned, “must have slipped my mind.” Oddly enough, Sakura failed to hear the sympathy in his tone. The jonin brought the offending bottle of whiskey up to where Sakura assumed his mouth would be and tilted it to take a measured drought from it through his mask.

Sakura’s eyes narrowed. She resisted the compelling urge to comment about the link between his alcohol intake and his lack of brain cells.

“It was unfair of me to ask your opinion anyways. You’d obviously only gotten to read a tiny bit of it…” he was next saying after he sat the bottle down next to him. A brief silence flitted by in which Kakashi filled by playing medic. He dabbed the cotton to her knee injury with gentle but thorough strokes until all the whiskey and crusted blood was wiped away, leaving her knee tender, but clean.

Her gash wasn’t that bad, really. It had bled more than it’s actual significance. It was a deep-seated scrape, the tiny shards of glass having embedded themselves to instigate the exaggerated bleeding and ultimately-- pain being neatly removed.

“No, I read it all,” Sakura lied to prolong the moment of seeing her sensei piqued.

She reveled in his sense of dimwittedness, taking to it like a fish to water! She could hear Inner Sakura guffawing in the back of her mind. Wait until she told Naruto and Sasuke that she was the one who’d dumb stricken Kakashi! They’d fall head over heels! Of course, she’d have to leave some trivial details out of it though…

“It just didn’t flow, sensei. It could have done with some more detail,” she lied. She racked her brain for things she could pass for believable yet valid criticism. It had to be vague, though. She wasn’t able to give him anything specific! After all, she’d only read a microscopic portion of his manuscript and it wasn’t like she could bag on any particular scenes or anything without proper evidence! He’d see right through her! “Not to mention, your handwriting is ghastly!” Yes. She was definitely running out of things to say. Sakura shook her head and crossed her arms. “I just wasn’t feeling it, Kakashi-sensei…”

Sakura blinked at how incredibly wrong that sounded in her head. She hoped to God that he didn’t perceive that in the way! Apparently, that was too much to hope for… Her cheeks reddened as she caught his arch of the brow and that amused little glimmer in his eye. “You could have fooled me,” he said nonchalantly. Sakura’s eyes went wide. “Because, you sure seemed as though you were ’feeling’ it while you were reading.”

“Well, I didn’t!” Sakura immediately bristled. She was humiliated! How long had he been watching her? When did he get the chance to see her er-- feeling it? And she wasn’t! She was just picking up the sheets when her eyes happened to see the pornographic scribbles! So what if they lingered a little bit? She hadn’t exactly known that they were his and what if somebody had lost important documents? It was only natural that she try to find a name or something! How was she to know that there was that on those papers!?

“Mm,” Kakashi hummed incredulously, obviously entertained by her frustration. His discreet skepticism and apparent amusement only served as fuel to Sakura’s explosive temper. Sakura could almost hear him grinning! “Well, Sakura-chan,” he paused only to see how she‘d react to his use of the added suffix. She expectantly glared. “You’ve made it clear that you don’t like my story. But, if there was out of the whole thing a part that you didn‘t entirely hate, which would be your favorite?”

Sakura stewed in her thoughts for a small eternity. Did he know that she hadn’t read the whole thing? He had to! Why else would he ask her that? Sakura grimaced. But like hell she’d ever let him know that she didn’t! Besides, it wasn’t completely a lie. She had read a part of it. .. A teeny, tiny portion of it. But it would have to do if she was to keep Kakashi off of her back.

“Oh. I thought the part with Takuya and Yumi was okay…”

“You mean Tetsuya and Yura?”

“Yeah, them!”

“Which part? The whole story is based off of them.”

“The part where they are…” Sakura trailed off, blushing. She wished she’d read a less obscene part.

Kakashi quirked a brow.

“…”

“Are…?” he prompted with a gesture of his hand.

“Well, they were hugging and kissing…”

“Which they do often.”

“…And then there was the part where…” Sakura’s voice shrunk into an incoherent mumble.

Kakashi positively wallowed in her discomfort, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I said,” she hissed with a grimace, her face ablaze. Kakashi was surprised she didn’t spit real venom. “Where her chest is rubbing against his! And she gasped or something… as he pressed his…” Mumble, mumble. “…against her!”

“His what?”

“His co--” she quickly bit off the end of the word, almost grinding her teeth to pulp in the process. If he looked real hard, Kakashi bet that he could see a spark… “Wait a second! You wrote it! So you should know what happens, sensei!”

Damn. And she was so close, too!

Kakashi simply nodded, his eye crinkling again as he smiled. “Yes. But, it‘s much more fun to see you say it.” Sakura hated Kakashi. No, wait-- she was beyond it. She was loathe for this man. It was as simple as that. If she listened carefully, she was sure she could hear that aneurism convulsing in the back of her brain…“--Being the writer and all, it has also come to my attention that your favorite part is one of the more explicitly intimate scenes of my manuscript…” he stopped to watch her expression twist in horror. “Who knew our very own innocent Sakura-chan was such a pervert?”

“Me? A pervert?” Sakura’s voice came in a high-pitched shriek, her attempt at nonchalance significantly unconvincing. Dogs everywhere would be in pain. “I’m not the one who’s writing this dime-store smut!”

“You read it,” commented Kakashi pointedly, his voice and expression as level-headed as ever.

“Yeah? Well! Well…” Sakura began to stumble over her words again, her mind going into overdrive as she vigorously searched for something cynical to say. She couldn’t think of anything fresh. So she instead settled for saying something she’d known to stomp on his ego before. “…It wasn’t even any good anyway! It wasn’t very believable.”

“Is that a fact?” Kakashi asked, his half-lidded eye regarding her now with something other than amusement. A different something that sent a chill creeping up Sakura’s spine.

“It is,” she affirmed hotly.

“So, you’re saying… that the conditions in my manuscript aren’t believable?” he intoned in a voice that diminished Sakura’s courage like a fire extinguisher to a flame, “…that if you, Sakura, were placed in any one of those ‘unbelievable’ situations, that you wouldn’t feel in the least bit compelled to…?”

Sakura could only shake her head with a vigor that was more ferocious than she felt. She wasn’t sure she wanted Kakashi-sensei to finish that question! Her shaking of the head was jam-packed full of mixed emotions. Sakura stared resolutely at her feet. Things were getting way too odd and they were getting odd fast.

“Somehow,” next came Kakashi’s voice and Sakura’s gaze whipped up only to see the him towering before her, “I find that unbelievable.”

Sakura scarcely had a chance to gasp in shock, before she was pushed back against the cushion of his sofa. “Kakashi-sensei! What the heck do you think you’re doing?” she all but squeaked as he slowly bridged himself over her, the couch dipping with the additional weight. His hands propped on either side of her head as his hips deftly settled between hers.

Her wide emerald eyes stared uncertainly into his black one. She frantically searched for some sort of an indication-- an answer, but found none as his gaze was the same as always. Hooded and unreadable as it bore into hers. “You‘re… you‘re kidding, right?” she asked with a forced jaunty smile as she brought a hand up to jab at his shoulder playfully. “R-right, sensei?”

Sakura fully expected Kakashi to climb right off of her and say, ‘You’re right Sakura-chan. I’m only joking!’ And from there they would share a laugh. Sakura would go home. And they would never speak of it again. The end.

Or at least-- that’s what she wanted to happen!

However, Kakashi remained silent. He did not climb off of her like she’d anticipated. And instead he pressed close, laying his torso flat against hers. Sakura’s face had never been a brighter shade of pink! Her breath froze in her throat for a moment before it came out ragged, her heart hammering away in her chest. Sakura could feel the distinct muscles of his torso as it squared into hers. She could feel the soft rise and fall of his chest -- steady, as she was sure her chest was heaving more spastically-- perhaps on the brink of hyperventilation! Kakashi was silent for a long moment, his eye burning into hers with an intensity that made her want to melt.

“Wh-what’re you…? S… sensei??”

-

A/N: Cliffhanger, I know! XD Luckily there’s another chapter behind this one! Review!