Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Curative Career of Kaori the Ninja Nurse ❯ First Date ( Chapter 18 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Author's Notes: Many stories have Kakashi either humping every man, woman, boy, girl, in sight or living as a monk. I like to take a more normal middle ground. He's experienced but not a rutting dog! Also, I have nothing against yaoi, yuri, bestiality, Lolicon relationships, etc. as long as all participants are consenting adults and no animals were harmed in the process.

First Date

Kakashi reluctantly agreed to Kaori's terms - three dates. To get rid of Gai, that seemed to be worth the effort.

Kaori then informed him that they would have dinner together the next day to get to know each other, or rather it would be a crash course on their “relationship” before Kakashi met her family that weekend. The third date she would save for later.

But first things first. Kaori had promised Kakashi that she would get rid of Gai. She really wasn't sure how to get rid of him, but she decided the direct approach was best. It was something she should have done a long time ago, if it weren't for her cowardice.

In her past relationships, when she was no longer interested in the guy, she would become silent and pensive until he asked her what was wrong. That easily opened a door for her to say “this relationship isn't working out” or “it's not what I expected” or some other excuse. But she didn't actually have a relationship with Gai and it seemed he was oblivious to her moods. The direct approach of telling him she was in love with Kakashi did not exactly work either. Gai apparently thought he still had a chance. This time she would have to take a direct, but different approach.

Though it was already late, Kaori took a chance and went out to look for him. Lee was no longer staying at the hospital, but it usually wasn't too difficult to track down either one of them. They were most likely in one of the outdoor or indoor training areas. She found Gai surprisingly by himself in the training area with the wooden dummies. It was not difficult to differentiate which was the live dummy since the wooden ones were brown, not green.

When Gai saw Kaori approach, to her surprise, instead of running up to her, he threw his arms over his face and declared, “I am not worthy to face you! I have yet to handily defeat my eternal rival.”

“Er…yes…about that…can you please stop challenging Kakashi-sensei.”

“Why? Are you two no longer an item?”

The dangerous spark of hope in Gai's eyes forced Kaori to say, “We are but…”

The light dimmed.

“I never meant to lead you on. You should find someone more appreciative of your..."

“Never! There's no one else but you. You are the woman of my destiny. Kakashi is just a bump in the road of true love. You have just been temporarily blinded. True love must be tested!”

`Sigh, this is not working. Okay, attempt number two.' She tried again. “I'm sorry, but I'm just not attracted to you…”

“What do you mean?” The sudden pathetic look in his eyes stopped Kaori from saying more.

“I'm sorry, it's not you it's me…” She now tried the usual break up approach, which she had originally planned to use before she accidentally blurted out her feelings for Kakashi, but after Gai's meltdown, there was nothing else she could say at the time.

`Of course it's not me. I'm perfect. There's definitely something wrong with her!' Gai waited for Kaori to explain herself.

“It's just that… well…I'm not really in love with Kakashi. I just said that as an excuse. The truth is…” Kaori thought frantically for another excuse. “I'm gay and I'm involved with my coworker Otoha!”

“What? What?! WHAT?!” Gai grabbed his perfectly combed hair with both hands, pulling it into disarrayed strands. His whole body twisted in agony as if he were being consumed by fire. An unnatural scream reverberated in the cool night air. “NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

`How is it possiblethatanotherwoman I desireisgay?' Gai rationalized it was because he was naturally attracted to that type of women, not realizing that being gay was their most desperate excuse.

Kaori did not mean to let loose such an atrocious lie, but there was just something about Gai that drove her to desperation. It seemed he would never let her go if he believed she preferred his rival or any other man. She hadn't meant to involve Otoha, but at the last second, she decided that if her reputation was going to be destroyed, she might as well take down her rival, too. And she figured no one, but Gai, would really believe Otoha was a lesbian, so it was likely that they wouldn't believe Kaori was either. Now if it got back to Otoha, Kaori could just say Gai was mistaken. It was getting to be a very complicated mess.

But it worked!

-…-…-…-…-

“So we're going to get some tonight!” The Obito voice proclaimed happily to the Kakashi in the mirror who was trying to (not) fix his hair before his so-called date.

“There's no `we' and it's not even a date. It's blackmail,” Kakashi replied, satisfied that his hair stood up just at the right angle.

“Ha-ha! She got you good.”

“Well, it seems she kept her end of the deal. No sign of Gai all day.”

“She's pretty bright, not like some of those bimbos you've been with. And she's nice, not like some of those kunoichi you've been with. Bed time should be interesting.”

“No bed time, just dinner,” Kakashi insisted.

“The nurse's outfit is every guy's fantasy.”

“I'm not going to have her cosplay for you!”

“You are no fun at all! I wonder if she knows certain medical jutsu…”

-…-…-…-

Otoha suspiciously called in sick the next day so Kaori was lucky she did not have to face her fake paramour. There was no sign of Gai either, so Kaori was free to relax, or rather to obsess over what she was doing with Kakashi. She was, in essence, blackmailing a man to go out with her. How could she have fallen so low? But it was a fair exchange for having to deal with Gai and possibly having her reputation ruined.

She hoped Kakashi could withstand her family's scrutiny. She knew they would be asking him all sorts of questions to ensure that they were in a genuine relationship, and that she did not just grab any available guy to pretend he was her boyfriend just so they'd leave her love life alone. Problem was, Kaori was supposed to have been seeing Kakashi for months, not days. And somebody in her family was likely to know that Konoha's copy-nin had been in a coma. How could she reconcile all that?

How could such an upstanding citizen like herself weave a web of so many lies that she trapped herself?

Kaori spent the day brooding over her problems. Then she waited for Kakashi to pick her up at the hospital after his mission, and waited and waited.

Over an hour after her normal work hours, he showed up saying, “Sorry, I'm late but…”

Kaori didn't give him a chance to finish. “It's fine. I know you're busy with your missions,” she said good-naturedly. She accepted his lateness as part of the erratic schedule of a shinobi. She didn't realize he had spent the last hour arguing with his long dead best friend and playing with his hair.

Kakashi happily reported that he had not seen Gai all day. But when he asked how she got rid of him, Kaori said evasively, “I just told him I'm not interested in being involved with any man at the moment and that you and I are just acquaintances.” Then she quickly added, “But remember, he can pick up right where he left off if he thinks I've changed my mind.” It was a not so subtle threat in case Kakashi thought of reneging on their deal.

Kakashi followed Kaori as she took him around to several places to pick up food for dinner. He walked a bit behind her so she could not hold his arm and so it would not appear to anyone that they were actually dating. To the casual observer, he looked like her errand boy.

“We're going to pick up my favorite foods at my favorite places - remember them when you meet my family.” They first went to Ichiraku where Kaori wanted to show off Kakashi to the ramen girl. She ordered two House Specials and gave Kakashi a look that indicated he should pay and carry the bag. The poor ramen girl looked rather sad, but Kakashi paid her no mind at all. Kaori began to wonder how much of what Otoha told her was true.

Next stop was the dumpling house where Kaori ordered a half dozen steamed pork and cabbage dumplings and a half dozen pan fried pork and chives dumplings. Then the sushi bar where Kaori ordered an assortment of sashimi and sushi rolls.

`I can't believe how much she eats! At least she didn't order the most expensive ones,' Kakashi noted to himself.

`Tell her to get the octopus-that's supposed to be an aphrodisiac!' suggested the Obito voice, which Kakashi pointedly ignored.

Final stop was the desert shop where Kaori ordered two bowls of tapioca custard and a box of assorted mochi ice cream. Her date's brow furrowed at his emptying wallet, but consoled himself that the next date was dinner with her parents, where he didn't have to pay for anything.

They walked in silence back to Kaori's abode, with Kakashi mentally calculating how much money he just spent, and Kaori calculating what she should do next.

Kaori lived in one of the more restrictive buildings that did not allow children or pets. It was a well maintained building, both inside and out, with tasteful but austere decorations, which said a lot about its inhabitants. When they entered her apartment, instead of eating immediately, Kaori put the food aside and said officiously, “Now down to business…”

Business was Kaori explaining to Kakashi about her family and what he had to do to impress them. “You see, it's like this… My parents have been trying to marry me off for a while. They've set me up on a number of atrocious blind dates. While you were in a coma, Gai sensei got it into his head that I'm his destined one and he crashed our family dinner. My family actually liked him! So I told them I was already seeing someone. At the time I was thinking of you. I know it's pathetic with you being in a coma, but I was desperate. Anyway, I promised that they'd get to meet you, so tomorrow's doomsday.”

Kakashi suppressed a great urge to laugh. `This girl's quite interesting,' he thought. But it was strange - she didn't seem like the same woman who had dropped by his home. On those occasions, she was nervous, a bit shy, and obviously love struck. Nor was she the same sympathetic, compassionate nurse he remembered from the hospital. Now she was cool, direct, and businesslike. It seemed she wasn't interested in sleeping with him at all.

`She doesn't want us in bed? No way!' said the Obito voice in his head.

`There's no us!' Kakashi mentally replied.

“You have a near photographic memory, right? As a jounin you should be able to remember all this fairly easily. Now my family consists of my parents, my younger sister Sumire, her husband… what's his name… Kazu… Kazuhiko, I think. Well, he's not important. They have three kids - a girl and two boys. Don't worry about their names - I have a hard time keeping all my nieces and nephews straight, too. Then there's my younger brother Akira and his crazy bitchy …Ooops, sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I promised myself I'd be more tolerant…his wife Sadako and their spoiled brat daughter. My mom runs a beauty salon and my sister helps out when she can. My father and brother-in-law are accountants. My brother is a dice dealer and his wife was a hostess, but she's now a homemaker...”

This was something different. Kakashi was used to the women he dated to either be all over him, or obviously playing hard to get. They would ask him questions or talk about themselves, not drilling him on his memory for details. He nodded as Kaori rambled on about her family. `She's lucky to have such a large family,' he thought sadly. `I wonder what it's like to have siblings that drive you crazy. Well, I guess I have…er, had Obito…'

“Now my family is bound to ask you certain questions or mention certain events to see if you're good enough for me, or to see if you're really going out with me.”

Kaori then got up from the table to retrieve a notebook from her bag. “This is, in essence, my life. Try to memorize it by Sunday night.”

“A diary?” he dared to ask.

“Oh, no, I'd never let anyone see something like that. I stayed up last night and worked on it all day at work. I've included everything I can think of that my family might ask you, including some childhood stories, so you can say, `I remember that Kaori mentioned…' for conversation.”

After a few more tips, which Kakashi barely paid attention to, Kaori finally declared, “So that's about it for now. I guess we should have dinner before it gets cold.”

The overwrought young woman felt way too tense and now tried to relax into a more normal date mode. It was strange - a couple of days ago she would have been all giddy and excited to be with the man of her dreams. Instead, she just felt annoyed that she had to prep him before meeting her family.

“Umm…don't you think your family knows about me being in a coma for months? You told them we've been seeing each other for a while. How will you explain that?” asked Kakashi curiously, expecting an amusing answer.

“I've thought about that. I'm going to tell them we went out before your coma and I wanted to stay faithful to you despite your condition. I couldn't say too much about our relationship for fear they would convince me to abandon you for someone else,” Kaori replied as she went to get the food.

“I see… that's pretty good.” Kakashi was impressed. She sure didn't seem like the lying manipulative type when he first met her.

“You don't think it's bad of me to lie like that, do you? I really hate lying, really, but I don't know…ever since you and Gai…sigh, I really hate lying but sometimes it's so hard to find another way.” Kaori decided to change the topic from lying to something she felt a little less guilty about.

She placed the containers of dumplings and sushi on her small dining table. “I'm sorry I didn't ask whether you liked this stuff or not, but I need you to remember my favorite foods and I forgot about learning yours.” She sighed again and sat down across from her date. “Anyway, just so you know, I'm not a crazy stalker or anything, but I have had access to your personnel records since you were my patient,” she admitted, “but I need to know more about you, or my family will sense something is up.” She waited for Kakashi to reply but he just shrugged.

“So what are your favorite foods?” she prompted.

“I like boiled mackerel and eggplant.”

“Boiled mackerel and eggplant? Really? Those dishes are so… boring - I mean simple. Eggplant is so…slimy and it's not really nutritious. It's just bulk food for vegetarians,” Kaori criticized.

Kakashi shrugged. “They're simple but easy to make. But I'm not a particularly picky eater. This is good too.” Kakashi reached for the chopsticks.

`How different than Gai. I remember Gailoved spicy, flavorful food. He put a lot of pepper on that turkey…' Kaori thoughts were interrupted when she saw Kakashi lower his mask to eat.

She instantly went from her cool efficient mode back to a shy schoolgirl with her eyes widening at the wondrous sight.

`That face! When was the last time I saw that face? It was when they brought him in…that first day. I've almost forgotten how perfect he looks!' she thought. His beautiful visage struck her mute as she watched the man of her dreams reach for a dumpling.

Then some sort of madness came over her. All these months of thinking about him, wanting him, having him so close now, how could she resist? Kaori quickly cleared the table with one swipe of her arm. All the dishes and takeout containers clattered to the floor. For a second Kakashi thought he was about to be attacked and reached for his kunai. But Kaori was already on top of him, pressing her lips to his, unzipping his vest.

She could feel him responding underneath her…

-...-...-...-...-

Author's Notes: It seems I'm always writing dinner scenes for Kakashi. His favorite foods are officially mackerel and eggplant.