Naruto - "Green-Eyed Monster" - Giftfic
Title: Green-Eyed Monster
Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairings: Genma/Sakura/Kakashi, Ino, Shikamaru
Rating: Hard R
Warnings: Non-explicit sex.
Summary: Hatake Kakashi was really not cut out for matchmaking, particularly when it came to his student and Genma. He should never have agreed to this in the first place.
Notes: This is my kakasaku gift exchange fic for sensuelles! KakaSakuGen was requested (though I suppose it sort of fills your other request for sex, too >:3 ). It kind of turned into a monster, because I'm too verbose for my own good. It leans a little more heavily towards Kakashi/Sakura, but I hope you enjoy it anyway :)
Green-Eyed Monster
“Hey Kakashi, you know Sakura, right?”
Hatake Kakashi was personally of the opinion that when one asked a stupid question, one probably deserved the stupid answer they received.
He closed his book over his pointer finger to save his place and tapped the spine against his chin. “Sakura, Sakura,” he mused, as if in deep contemplation. “About this tall,” he indicated his shoulder, “pink hair, green eyes, could punch a hole through a boulder?” He grinned a mischievous grin, though the only part of it that showed was his one natural eye closing in an amused curve. “Nope, never heard of her.”
Genma switched the coffee stirrer from one corner of his mouth to the other and glowered at his friend. “Don’t be a smart-ass,” he snapped.
Kakashi sighed. “What do you want to know?”
Genma looked like he was about to say something, then decided against it. He pushed his foot up against the table he was sitting at and tilted his chair back onto two legs. Finally, he asked, “how’s her training coming?”
Kakashi blinked. What an odd question. “Fine,” he said, for lack of a better response.
“Why’d she ask to train with you, again?”
Kakashi shrugged. “Said she’d been spending too much time in the hospital. She wanted to get mission-ready.”
This time Genma smirked at him. “And you, who hate teaching, said yes.”
“Yeah, well,” Kakashi put a hand behind his neck in a nervous gesture, “I kind of neglected her when she was a kid. I feel like I owe her some of my time.”
The coffee pot on the counter he was leaning on finished brewing (Genma had, once again, violated the unofficial Jonin break room rule that whoever took the last of the coffee had to brew the next pot, so Kakashi had to do it for him) and Kakashi took the opportunity to turn his back on his friend to help cover up his lie by pouring himself a cup.
He’d told the truth, but not exactly the whole story. It was why he’d said yes, but not why he continued to meet her, day after day, even though she was now not only mission-ready, she was managing to hand his ass to him on her good days (and present a challenge on her bad).
Kakashi was not a man who marked the passage of time by hours and minutes, as anyone in his acquaintance could grumpily attest. He woke when his body told him to. He ate when he was hungry. It was Friday when Genma showed up at his apartment to take him to the local shinobi bar. It was morning when his feet guided him to the memorial cenotaph and his fingers traced ghost names. In the same way, every other afternoon had come to be marked by her smile.
It wasn’t even just her smile, per se, because she gave that readily and easily if one could catch her in one of her better moods. It was more the manner in which he won it. Her smile seemed better earned when she was sweaty and beat up, her bright eyes nearly glowing in the dying light of sunset. He couldn’t quite describe the clenching feeling it inspired somewhere around his chest, but he was becoming addicted to it, and in the same way that a smoker measures time by when they have to light up, he counted on those hours with her.
It was a little alarming.
When he turned around Genma had put his arms behind his head and was looking at the ceiling. The coffee stirrer made irregular, bobbing circles as he chewed it around his mouth. “Seems odd to do it now. Do you think she’s preparing to go for ANBU?”
Kakashi walked across the room and sat in the seat adjacent to Genma-his back was to the door. He shrugged and pulled down his mask to take a sip. “Dunno.” He pulled his mask back up and gave Genma a measured look. “What’s with the questions?”
Genma didn’t answer. The stirrer bobbed towards his nose, then down to his chin, then to the left and right before swirling around in a slow circle. “Do you know if she’s seeing someone?” he asked rather abruptly.
Kakashi couldn’t even begin to hide his surprise: his eyebrows shot up. “Uh… no,” he said, haltingly.
Genma scowled at his tone. He picked his feet off the table and let his chair slam down on all four legs. “Don’t give me that.”
“I really don’t like where this conversation is going.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t get overprotective on me. What’s your problem?”
Kakashi gave him a level look. “She’s a lot younger than you.”
“So?”
This statement brought Kakashi up short. He knew there should be some kind of objection to such a thing-in fact, he was fairly certain there should be several-but he couldn’t think of one at the moment. Instead he chose a different tactic. “You should know better than to turn her into one of your conquests. Naruto will have your hide.”
“Kakashi,” Genma said, and there was a reluctant, but honest, expression on his face. “It’s not about that.”
Kakashi was stunned into silence by this admission. Genma didn’t entirely deserve his reputation as a lady-killer, but it was true that he was generally less serious about his romantic endeavors than the women he pursued were. For him to be this earnest, he must have liked Sakura a lot.
Kakashi wondered how Genma knew her well enough to form such an affection, but decided he really didn’t want to know. He sighed. “What do you want, Genma?”
Famous last words.
-----
Ino and Sakura’s bar of choice was significantly chiquer than the one Kakashi and Genma frequented on Friday nights-then again, the latter could only charitably be called a “dive.” The only thing that brought them there was loyalty to the owner, an old acquaintance of both of theirs from ANBU who’d retired from the shinobi occupation entirely after the war. The strong survived the war; only the very strongest (or, Kakashi sometimes thought, the most foolish) kept their forehead protectors when it was over.
This particular bar was obviously designed with the younger set in mind. There were neon lights and modern-style furniture and a wood dance floor. Kakashi felt a little uncomfortable sitting there, off at one of the side tables, because he was pretty certain that he and Genma were the oldest people here.
Still, his friend was paying for the drinks, so Kakashi kept his complaints to himself.
A half an hour after arriving, Genma elbowed Kakashi in the side and tilted his head toward the bar. “There,” he said.
Kakashi glanced that direction: sure enough, there sat a figure in a pretty red dress sitting next to her blond friend. He sighed. “If you wanted a matchmaker, you should have spoken to Yamanaka Ino. She knows Sakura better.”
Genma snorted. “Yeah, if I wanted the entire village knowing about it.” He shifted the senbon to the side to take a sip of his beer. “Come on. Just go over there and get her over here, then make yourself scarce.”
“Aw, Genma, I know you don’t mean that.”
Genma scowled at him. Kakashi shrugged, downed the last of his beer, and dutifully stood up to meander through the crowd towards the bar.
He came up behind Sakura, and because he didn’t know what, exactly, he should do in such a situation, he settled for getting her attention with his customary “Yo.”
She tipped her head back, a bright smile splitting her face. “Yo, yourself.” She turned herself around in her seat so her back was to the bar. “I don’t normally see you around here.”
“Yes, well,” Kakashi put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders a little. He felt like such a sore thumb. Sometimes he hated being tall. “Genma wanted to try someplace new.”
“And you’re along for the ride.”
“Basically.”
“Sakura, I’ll be there,” Ino cut in from Sakura’s left, pointing to the crowded dance floor. “Don’t wait up for me, okay?”
Kakashi probably imagined the shrewd look she sent Sakura and the light blush that spread across Sakura’s cheeks. “Sure,” Sakura replied, and Ino left to merge into the cloud of moving bodies.
Sakura returned her attention to Kakashi, patting the stool Ino had vacated. “Sit,” she said.
This all seemed oddly convenient, but for once Kakashi neglected his philosophy of ‘looking underneath the underneath.’ He sat obediently (when had he started taking orders from his student?), leaning his elbows on the bar and crossing one forearm over the other, doing his level best to look like he wasn’t really there.
Sakura tilted her body toward him, crossing her long, shapely left leg over her right. “So,” she said, “how are you?”
“I’m fine,” he replied. “Trying not to stare at your legs, but fine,” he kept to himself on the grounds that she’d punch out his teeth.
“Whoa, Kakashi. Don’t tell me too much, I can’t process all that information.” Ah, Sakura was in one of those moods.
“My life is pretty boring. Seriously.”
“I think you just like keeping up the air of intrigue. It makes you seem mysterious.”
“Well, now that you’ve discovered my secret, I’ll have to kill you.”
Sakura grinned and knocked back the rest of her bright, girly drink. “Bring it, Sensei,” she quipped.
Kakashi couldn’t help it. He laughed.
Sakura tossed her hair confidently and leaned back on the bar herself, resting her arm on it. Her hand lay scant inches from his own, a fact he was suddenly acutely aware of. All at once there was an urge to reach out and cover her small, calloused hand with his own larger one, to thread her fingers in between hers, and maybe to lean a little closer…
“Why’d Genma pick this place, anyway?” Sakura asked.
The question brought him out of whatever daze he’d been in with a shock. It sharply reminded him of his true purpose to speaking to her at all. “Actually,” he said, swallowing, “he was hoping to run into you.”
Sakura blinked. “Me?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Damn, he was no good at this kind of thing. He sighed and looked over his shoulder to point at the table he’d left Genma at. “He’s over there. You should go talk to him.”
Sakura’s hand retracted quickly, going up to push her hair behind her ear. She looked distinctly flustered. “Oh,” she replied haltingly. “Yeah, sure, okay.”
She hesitated for a second, then got up and walked away.
Kakashi didn’t watch. He very specifically didn’t watch. The stupid sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach was bad enough as it was. He ordered another beer and took his time consuming it, instead.
Only when he’d finished did he risk looking. Genma was smiling his most charming smile, and Sakura’s head was tipped back in laughter.
Kakashi got up and left the bar.
-----
There was no change in their routine. Kakashi continued to train with Sakura Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday after her morning shift in the hospital. She continued to improve. It felt good to finally feel like he’d had a hand at shaping her into a kunoichi the village would be proud of, even if Tsunade had done most of the rough work.
Kakashi saw them together for the first time two weeks after the night at the bar. They were at the market. Genma had two bags of groceries propped in the crook of one arm, and Sakura was arguing with him.
“I’m perfectly capable of carrying my own groceries, Genma,” she groused.
“I know,” he said, then used his free hand to tilt her chin up and press a quick kiss against her lips. “But I want to.”
She huffed in annoyance, but let him.
And it was all right, really. Kakashi could recognize his jealousy for what it was, now. He didn’t understand it, but he recognized it and could deal with it. Genma was happy. Sakura seemed happy. It was fine.
If Sakura’s smiles at the end of their spars seemed bittersweet, he knew it was his own riotous emotions getting the better of him.
A month after Kakashi set them up, Sakura met him at their designated training field with an apologetic look on her face. “Kakashi, I’m going to have to cancel today,” she explained. “There’s some party that Genma wants to go to and I have to get ready.”
Kakashi waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You sure it’s okay?” she asked, wringing her hands in front of her.
“Yeah,” he said, “Go have fun.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Kakashi.” Then she turned and bounded away into the trees.
He watched the direction she’d gone in for a minute before beginning to train by himself.
He felt off-balance.
-----
Kakashi’s route home happened to pass by the Yamanaka’s flower shop. It was many hours later, past dark, and though the shop was technically closed the door was open to the warm night and the lights glowing inside. He could have gone another way, and he could have gone across the roofs instead, but the same masochistic part of him that dragged him to his spars with Sakura set his feet moseying past the building.
“What date is this, again?” Ino’s voice came from behind the counter.
“I have no idea,” Shikamaru answered with perfect honesty.
Ino tapped the chrysanthemum she was working with against her nose. “It’s their seventh, right?”
“I don’t care,” Shikamaru grumbled.
“It is,” Ino concluded, completely ignoring him. “Good. Sakura always puts out on the seventh date. She needs some action, I think.”
Shikamaru sunk down in his seat and put his hands behind his head, like he was trying to hide. “I don’t care,” he complained, but Ino babbled right over him about how Genma would certainly take good care of her friend.
This hit Kakashi like a punch to the solar plexus. He took care to wander past at his normal, sedate pace, but once he thought he was out of sight he virtually scampered away.
Because of that, he missed the fact that Ino had leaned over the counter to watch him as he ran off. She grinned a positively terrifying grin. “That,” she remarked with pride, “was too easy.” She looked back at Shikamaru. “And that’s how it’s done, Shikamaru-kun.”
“You are such a pain,” he whined.
Ino patted him on the head like she would her favorite pet. “Yes, yes.”
-----
If ever Kakashi wished he could purge his entire knowledge of pornographic literature from his head, it would have been at that moment. Because even though he knew it was none of his business, and even though he told himself he never, ever wanted to imagine Genma having sex, ever, he couldn’t help the scene from unfolding in his mind.
Genma would walk her home, his arm around her waist. Sakura would go to her door and turn, demurely asking if he’d like to come up for some coffee. Genma would accept, because he knew there’d be no drinks of any kind served.
Genma would slip the senbon he normally chewed on into his weapon’s pouch as they reached her door, and brush her hair away to kiss the back of her neck. She would lean away from him and ask what he was doing, coquettishly, and Genma would reply “nothing,” in little more than a murmur, and Sakura would shiver.
When she finally got the door open, she’d turn, and before either of them could think to remove their shoes he’d kiss her, hard and demanding and open-mouthed and hot, and she would reciprocate easily. Genma was, by reputation, a master of feminine geography, and he would trace her soft curves with expert hands and she would melt into him, eager fingers pulling off his bandana. It would drop to the floor with a sharp clatter that neither of them would notice.
They would not be in a hurry: they would stand there for a whole ten minutes, kissing and groping and learning what made her gasp and exactly in which way he needed to be touched to make him moan. Finally, she would jerk on his shirt and walk backwards, leading him to her bedroom, and he would offer absolutely no protest.
When she closed her bedroom door behind her, he would push her back up against the door roughly, taking initiative, and sink down onto his knees as his fingers found her panties under her dress and pull them down. Genma would lift one of her legs over his shoulder and turn his head to press his open mouth against the side of her knee. Her high-heeled shoes would still be on. Slowly, slowly, Genma would work his mouth up her smooth, muscular thigh until his face and his actions were hidden beneath the skirt of her slinky dress.
He would do something that would make her gasp and grab at his shoulders. He would keep doing it, his hands holding her hips firmly against the wood door, and Sakura’s mouth would drop open into a euphoric smile and she would plead to heaven and-
Before Kakashi could even fully register his actions, his body snapped into motion, leaping up to the nearest roof and switching direction, streaking toward Sakura’s apartment. Had he been thinking rationally-hell, had he been thinking at all-he would have realized that this was a phenomenally stupid idea, but he wasn’t, because all he could think about was the way Sakura would whisper Genma’s name when she came and the way the imagined sound made him feel nauseous.
He didn’t bother with the front door, because if both of them were in there they wouldn’t answer. Kakashi knew her apartment well enough to find her bedroom window, and with the same lack of thought that had brought him here, he crept down the branch outside of it to look in the open window.
Sakura was in there, alone. She sat in a chair next to her desk, an open jewelry box in front of her, and she was taking off her earrings. Her dress and her bed looked undisturbed.
“Come in, Kakashi,” she said, and when he looked up she was looking at him in her mirror.
He felt distinctly uncomfortable, but there was nothing to do now but accept her invitation. He slipped in through her window.
She sifted her focus back to taking off her necklace. “What brings you here?” she asked.
Moving farther into the room, he surreptitiously looked around the room for some evidence that someone had been here-an article of men’s clothing, maybe, or a condom wrapper-but he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he was a complete and utter moron. “Uh,” he began, sheepishly, but when he looked up she’d turned and given him her full attention.
“Were you maybe expecting I’d have someone over?” she asked, and though she spoke quietly it sounded like thunder. She was pissed.
“Um,” he hedged, “maybe.”
“And this would concern you why?” she said in a voice like ice, louder this time, her eyebrows drawn together angrily and gearing up to the yelling she did so well.
“I don’t know,” he said, before he realized his mistake. “I mean, it doesn’t.” But the words were a lie, because he wanted it to be his business even if he had no right. He sighed and sat down on her bed, pressing a palm against his face. After his blatant disrespect for her privacy, she probably deserved better than untruths, but as he didn’t know what the truth was all he could do was sigh and repeat, “I don’t know.”
There was a pause, and then he heard her get up and move across the room. Sakura pulled his hand away from his face and studied him, her face markedly calmer.
“Kakashi, why did you set me up with Genma?” she asked.
“Because he asked me to,” he said.
“Did you want to?”
“Not really,” he admitted.
“Why not?” she pressed.
Kakashi didn’t answer.
Sakura watched him contemplatively for a moment. He could see her come to some sort of decision, and then she was sitting on his lap, both of her legs straddling his. Kakashi could not have been more shocked, and it showed. His hands clenched in her bedclothes to prevent him from taking advantage and touching her.
She ignored his reluctance and pulled his forehead protector up, then off his head entirely. He really, really wished she hadn’t done that, because the Sharingan was picking up all the subtleties of her motion and she was sitting on his lap and the increased sharpness of his vision made it all so much more erotic than was healthy for his sanity. Sakura reached up and held his head with both palms, moving closer, and Kakashi either wanted to lean back or lean forward, he wasn’t sure which.
“Kakashi,” she murmured, “if you want me I really wish you’d say so.”
He was stunned, struck completely speechless. He couldn’t think of what to say. What did he want? In the end, though, there was the truth of matters, a truth he’d known all along if he thought about it, and he closed his eyes. “Yes,” he confessed, “I do.”
He didn’t open his eyes, so he felt, rather than saw, her fingers hook into the mask under his ears, then trace under the edge until she came to the place under his eyes before dragging it down to hang under his Adam’s apple.
Sakura kissed him. Both of Kakashi’s eyes flew open and he very nearly pulled away because it tasted a little bit like forbidden fruit, but mostly it felt so good, so instead he threw his strong arms around her small body and pulled her close.
She pulled away after a minute, but didn’t go very far. A very traitorous part of Kakashi that he hated very much found his voice and asked “Genma?” against her lips.
Sakura pulled her face back to look at him, earnestly, and smiled. She shook her head. “This is what I want,” she told him, and kissed him again.
And that was all that Kakashi needed.
Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairings: Genma/Sakura/Kakashi, Ino, Shikamaru
Rating: Hard R
Warnings: Non-explicit sex.
Summary: Hatake Kakashi was really not cut out for matchmaking, particularly when it came to his student and Genma. He should never have agreed to this in the first place.
Notes: This is my kakasaku gift exchange fic for sensuelles! KakaSakuGen was requested (though I suppose it sort of fills your other request for sex, too >:3 ). It kind of turned into a monster, because I'm too verbose for my own good. It leans a little more heavily towards Kakashi/Sakura, but I hope you enjoy it anyway :)
Green-Eyed Monster
“Hey Kakashi, you know Sakura, right?”
Hatake Kakashi was personally of the opinion that when one asked a stupid question, one probably deserved the stupid answer they received.
He closed his book over his pointer finger to save his place and tapped the spine against his chin. “Sakura, Sakura,” he mused, as if in deep contemplation. “About this tall,” he indicated his shoulder, “pink hair, green eyes, could punch a hole through a boulder?” He grinned a mischievous grin, though the only part of it that showed was his one natural eye closing in an amused curve. “Nope, never heard of her.”
Genma switched the coffee stirrer from one corner of his mouth to the other and glowered at his friend. “Don’t be a smart-ass,” he snapped.
Kakashi sighed. “What do you want to know?”
Genma looked like he was about to say something, then decided against it. He pushed his foot up against the table he was sitting at and tilted his chair back onto two legs. Finally, he asked, “how’s her training coming?”
Kakashi blinked. What an odd question. “Fine,” he said, for lack of a better response.
“Why’d she ask to train with you, again?”
Kakashi shrugged. “Said she’d been spending too much time in the hospital. She wanted to get mission-ready.”
This time Genma smirked at him. “And you, who hate teaching, said yes.”
“Yeah, well,” Kakashi put a hand behind his neck in a nervous gesture, “I kind of neglected her when she was a kid. I feel like I owe her some of my time.”
The coffee pot on the counter he was leaning on finished brewing (Genma had, once again, violated the unofficial Jonin break room rule that whoever took the last of the coffee had to brew the next pot, so Kakashi had to do it for him) and Kakashi took the opportunity to turn his back on his friend to help cover up his lie by pouring himself a cup.
He’d told the truth, but not exactly the whole story. It was why he’d said yes, but not why he continued to meet her, day after day, even though she was now not only mission-ready, she was managing to hand his ass to him on her good days (and present a challenge on her bad).
Kakashi was not a man who marked the passage of time by hours and minutes, as anyone in his acquaintance could grumpily attest. He woke when his body told him to. He ate when he was hungry. It was Friday when Genma showed up at his apartment to take him to the local shinobi bar. It was morning when his feet guided him to the memorial cenotaph and his fingers traced ghost names. In the same way, every other afternoon had come to be marked by her smile.
It wasn’t even just her smile, per se, because she gave that readily and easily if one could catch her in one of her better moods. It was more the manner in which he won it. Her smile seemed better earned when she was sweaty and beat up, her bright eyes nearly glowing in the dying light of sunset. He couldn’t quite describe the clenching feeling it inspired somewhere around his chest, but he was becoming addicted to it, and in the same way that a smoker measures time by when they have to light up, he counted on those hours with her.
It was a little alarming.
When he turned around Genma had put his arms behind his head and was looking at the ceiling. The coffee stirrer made irregular, bobbing circles as he chewed it around his mouth. “Seems odd to do it now. Do you think she’s preparing to go for ANBU?”
Kakashi walked across the room and sat in the seat adjacent to Genma-his back was to the door. He shrugged and pulled down his mask to take a sip. “Dunno.” He pulled his mask back up and gave Genma a measured look. “What’s with the questions?”
Genma didn’t answer. The stirrer bobbed towards his nose, then down to his chin, then to the left and right before swirling around in a slow circle. “Do you know if she’s seeing someone?” he asked rather abruptly.
Kakashi couldn’t even begin to hide his surprise: his eyebrows shot up. “Uh… no,” he said, haltingly.
Genma scowled at his tone. He picked his feet off the table and let his chair slam down on all four legs. “Don’t give me that.”
“I really don’t like where this conversation is going.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t get overprotective on me. What’s your problem?”
Kakashi gave him a level look. “She’s a lot younger than you.”
“So?”
This statement brought Kakashi up short. He knew there should be some kind of objection to such a thing-in fact, he was fairly certain there should be several-but he couldn’t think of one at the moment. Instead he chose a different tactic. “You should know better than to turn her into one of your conquests. Naruto will have your hide.”
“Kakashi,” Genma said, and there was a reluctant, but honest, expression on his face. “It’s not about that.”
Kakashi was stunned into silence by this admission. Genma didn’t entirely deserve his reputation as a lady-killer, but it was true that he was generally less serious about his romantic endeavors than the women he pursued were. For him to be this earnest, he must have liked Sakura a lot.
Kakashi wondered how Genma knew her well enough to form such an affection, but decided he really didn’t want to know. He sighed. “What do you want, Genma?”
Famous last words.
-----
Ino and Sakura’s bar of choice was significantly chiquer than the one Kakashi and Genma frequented on Friday nights-then again, the latter could only charitably be called a “dive.” The only thing that brought them there was loyalty to the owner, an old acquaintance of both of theirs from ANBU who’d retired from the shinobi occupation entirely after the war. The strong survived the war; only the very strongest (or, Kakashi sometimes thought, the most foolish) kept their forehead protectors when it was over.
This particular bar was obviously designed with the younger set in mind. There were neon lights and modern-style furniture and a wood dance floor. Kakashi felt a little uncomfortable sitting there, off at one of the side tables, because he was pretty certain that he and Genma were the oldest people here.
Still, his friend was paying for the drinks, so Kakashi kept his complaints to himself.
A half an hour after arriving, Genma elbowed Kakashi in the side and tilted his head toward the bar. “There,” he said.
Kakashi glanced that direction: sure enough, there sat a figure in a pretty red dress sitting next to her blond friend. He sighed. “If you wanted a matchmaker, you should have spoken to Yamanaka Ino. She knows Sakura better.”
Genma snorted. “Yeah, if I wanted the entire village knowing about it.” He shifted the senbon to the side to take a sip of his beer. “Come on. Just go over there and get her over here, then make yourself scarce.”
“Aw, Genma, I know you don’t mean that.”
Genma scowled at him. Kakashi shrugged, downed the last of his beer, and dutifully stood up to meander through the crowd towards the bar.
He came up behind Sakura, and because he didn’t know what, exactly, he should do in such a situation, he settled for getting her attention with his customary “Yo.”
She tipped her head back, a bright smile splitting her face. “Yo, yourself.” She turned herself around in her seat so her back was to the bar. “I don’t normally see you around here.”
“Yes, well,” Kakashi put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders a little. He felt like such a sore thumb. Sometimes he hated being tall. “Genma wanted to try someplace new.”
“And you’re along for the ride.”
“Basically.”
“Sakura, I’ll be there,” Ino cut in from Sakura’s left, pointing to the crowded dance floor. “Don’t wait up for me, okay?”
Kakashi probably imagined the shrewd look she sent Sakura and the light blush that spread across Sakura’s cheeks. “Sure,” Sakura replied, and Ino left to merge into the cloud of moving bodies.
Sakura returned her attention to Kakashi, patting the stool Ino had vacated. “Sit,” she said.
This all seemed oddly convenient, but for once Kakashi neglected his philosophy of ‘looking underneath the underneath.’ He sat obediently (when had he started taking orders from his student?), leaning his elbows on the bar and crossing one forearm over the other, doing his level best to look like he wasn’t really there.
Sakura tilted her body toward him, crossing her long, shapely left leg over her right. “So,” she said, “how are you?”
“I’m fine,” he replied. “Trying not to stare at your legs, but fine,” he kept to himself on the grounds that she’d punch out his teeth.
“Whoa, Kakashi. Don’t tell me too much, I can’t process all that information.” Ah, Sakura was in one of those moods.
“My life is pretty boring. Seriously.”
“I think you just like keeping up the air of intrigue. It makes you seem mysterious.”
“Well, now that you’ve discovered my secret, I’ll have to kill you.”
Sakura grinned and knocked back the rest of her bright, girly drink. “Bring it, Sensei,” she quipped.
Kakashi couldn’t help it. He laughed.
Sakura tossed her hair confidently and leaned back on the bar herself, resting her arm on it. Her hand lay scant inches from his own, a fact he was suddenly acutely aware of. All at once there was an urge to reach out and cover her small, calloused hand with his own larger one, to thread her fingers in between hers, and maybe to lean a little closer…
“Why’d Genma pick this place, anyway?” Sakura asked.
The question brought him out of whatever daze he’d been in with a shock. It sharply reminded him of his true purpose to speaking to her at all. “Actually,” he said, swallowing, “he was hoping to run into you.”
Sakura blinked. “Me?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Damn, he was no good at this kind of thing. He sighed and looked over his shoulder to point at the table he’d left Genma at. “He’s over there. You should go talk to him.”
Sakura’s hand retracted quickly, going up to push her hair behind her ear. She looked distinctly flustered. “Oh,” she replied haltingly. “Yeah, sure, okay.”
She hesitated for a second, then got up and walked away.
Kakashi didn’t watch. He very specifically didn’t watch. The stupid sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach was bad enough as it was. He ordered another beer and took his time consuming it, instead.
Only when he’d finished did he risk looking. Genma was smiling his most charming smile, and Sakura’s head was tipped back in laughter.
Kakashi got up and left the bar.
-----
There was no change in their routine. Kakashi continued to train with Sakura Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday after her morning shift in the hospital. She continued to improve. It felt good to finally feel like he’d had a hand at shaping her into a kunoichi the village would be proud of, even if Tsunade had done most of the rough work.
Kakashi saw them together for the first time two weeks after the night at the bar. They were at the market. Genma had two bags of groceries propped in the crook of one arm, and Sakura was arguing with him.
“I’m perfectly capable of carrying my own groceries, Genma,” she groused.
“I know,” he said, then used his free hand to tilt her chin up and press a quick kiss against her lips. “But I want to.”
She huffed in annoyance, but let him.
And it was all right, really. Kakashi could recognize his jealousy for what it was, now. He didn’t understand it, but he recognized it and could deal with it. Genma was happy. Sakura seemed happy. It was fine.
If Sakura’s smiles at the end of their spars seemed bittersweet, he knew it was his own riotous emotions getting the better of him.
A month after Kakashi set them up, Sakura met him at their designated training field with an apologetic look on her face. “Kakashi, I’m going to have to cancel today,” she explained. “There’s some party that Genma wants to go to and I have to get ready.”
Kakashi waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You sure it’s okay?” she asked, wringing her hands in front of her.
“Yeah,” he said, “Go have fun.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Kakashi.” Then she turned and bounded away into the trees.
He watched the direction she’d gone in for a minute before beginning to train by himself.
He felt off-balance.
-----
Kakashi’s route home happened to pass by the Yamanaka’s flower shop. It was many hours later, past dark, and though the shop was technically closed the door was open to the warm night and the lights glowing inside. He could have gone another way, and he could have gone across the roofs instead, but the same masochistic part of him that dragged him to his spars with Sakura set his feet moseying past the building.
“What date is this, again?” Ino’s voice came from behind the counter.
“I have no idea,” Shikamaru answered with perfect honesty.
Ino tapped the chrysanthemum she was working with against her nose. “It’s their seventh, right?”
“I don’t care,” Shikamaru grumbled.
“It is,” Ino concluded, completely ignoring him. “Good. Sakura always puts out on the seventh date. She needs some action, I think.”
Shikamaru sunk down in his seat and put his hands behind his head, like he was trying to hide. “I don’t care,” he complained, but Ino babbled right over him about how Genma would certainly take good care of her friend.
This hit Kakashi like a punch to the solar plexus. He took care to wander past at his normal, sedate pace, but once he thought he was out of sight he virtually scampered away.
Because of that, he missed the fact that Ino had leaned over the counter to watch him as he ran off. She grinned a positively terrifying grin. “That,” she remarked with pride, “was too easy.” She looked back at Shikamaru. “And that’s how it’s done, Shikamaru-kun.”
“You are such a pain,” he whined.
Ino patted him on the head like she would her favorite pet. “Yes, yes.”
-----
If ever Kakashi wished he could purge his entire knowledge of pornographic literature from his head, it would have been at that moment. Because even though he knew it was none of his business, and even though he told himself he never, ever wanted to imagine Genma having sex, ever, he couldn’t help the scene from unfolding in his mind.
Genma would walk her home, his arm around her waist. Sakura would go to her door and turn, demurely asking if he’d like to come up for some coffee. Genma would accept, because he knew there’d be no drinks of any kind served.
Genma would slip the senbon he normally chewed on into his weapon’s pouch as they reached her door, and brush her hair away to kiss the back of her neck. She would lean away from him and ask what he was doing, coquettishly, and Genma would reply “nothing,” in little more than a murmur, and Sakura would shiver.
When she finally got the door open, she’d turn, and before either of them could think to remove their shoes he’d kiss her, hard and demanding and open-mouthed and hot, and she would reciprocate easily. Genma was, by reputation, a master of feminine geography, and he would trace her soft curves with expert hands and she would melt into him, eager fingers pulling off his bandana. It would drop to the floor with a sharp clatter that neither of them would notice.
They would not be in a hurry: they would stand there for a whole ten minutes, kissing and groping and learning what made her gasp and exactly in which way he needed to be touched to make him moan. Finally, she would jerk on his shirt and walk backwards, leading him to her bedroom, and he would offer absolutely no protest.
When she closed her bedroom door behind her, he would push her back up against the door roughly, taking initiative, and sink down onto his knees as his fingers found her panties under her dress and pull them down. Genma would lift one of her legs over his shoulder and turn his head to press his open mouth against the side of her knee. Her high-heeled shoes would still be on. Slowly, slowly, Genma would work his mouth up her smooth, muscular thigh until his face and his actions were hidden beneath the skirt of her slinky dress.
He would do something that would make her gasp and grab at his shoulders. He would keep doing it, his hands holding her hips firmly against the wood door, and Sakura’s mouth would drop open into a euphoric smile and she would plead to heaven and-
Before Kakashi could even fully register his actions, his body snapped into motion, leaping up to the nearest roof and switching direction, streaking toward Sakura’s apartment. Had he been thinking rationally-hell, had he been thinking at all-he would have realized that this was a phenomenally stupid idea, but he wasn’t, because all he could think about was the way Sakura would whisper Genma’s name when she came and the way the imagined sound made him feel nauseous.
He didn’t bother with the front door, because if both of them were in there they wouldn’t answer. Kakashi knew her apartment well enough to find her bedroom window, and with the same lack of thought that had brought him here, he crept down the branch outside of it to look in the open window.
Sakura was in there, alone. She sat in a chair next to her desk, an open jewelry box in front of her, and she was taking off her earrings. Her dress and her bed looked undisturbed.
“Come in, Kakashi,” she said, and when he looked up she was looking at him in her mirror.
He felt distinctly uncomfortable, but there was nothing to do now but accept her invitation. He slipped in through her window.
She sifted her focus back to taking off her necklace. “What brings you here?” she asked.
Moving farther into the room, he surreptitiously looked around the room for some evidence that someone had been here-an article of men’s clothing, maybe, or a condom wrapper-but he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he was a complete and utter moron. “Uh,” he began, sheepishly, but when he looked up she’d turned and given him her full attention.
“Were you maybe expecting I’d have someone over?” she asked, and though she spoke quietly it sounded like thunder. She was pissed.
“Um,” he hedged, “maybe.”
“And this would concern you why?” she said in a voice like ice, louder this time, her eyebrows drawn together angrily and gearing up to the yelling she did so well.
“I don’t know,” he said, before he realized his mistake. “I mean, it doesn’t.” But the words were a lie, because he wanted it to be his business even if he had no right. He sighed and sat down on her bed, pressing a palm against his face. After his blatant disrespect for her privacy, she probably deserved better than untruths, but as he didn’t know what the truth was all he could do was sigh and repeat, “I don’t know.”
There was a pause, and then he heard her get up and move across the room. Sakura pulled his hand away from his face and studied him, her face markedly calmer.
“Kakashi, why did you set me up with Genma?” she asked.
“Because he asked me to,” he said.
“Did you want to?”
“Not really,” he admitted.
“Why not?” she pressed.
Kakashi didn’t answer.
Sakura watched him contemplatively for a moment. He could see her come to some sort of decision, and then she was sitting on his lap, both of her legs straddling his. Kakashi could not have been more shocked, and it showed. His hands clenched in her bedclothes to prevent him from taking advantage and touching her.
She ignored his reluctance and pulled his forehead protector up, then off his head entirely. He really, really wished she hadn’t done that, because the Sharingan was picking up all the subtleties of her motion and she was sitting on his lap and the increased sharpness of his vision made it all so much more erotic than was healthy for his sanity. Sakura reached up and held his head with both palms, moving closer, and Kakashi either wanted to lean back or lean forward, he wasn’t sure which.
“Kakashi,” she murmured, “if you want me I really wish you’d say so.”
He was stunned, struck completely speechless. He couldn’t think of what to say. What did he want? In the end, though, there was the truth of matters, a truth he’d known all along if he thought about it, and he closed his eyes. “Yes,” he confessed, “I do.”
He didn’t open his eyes, so he felt, rather than saw, her fingers hook into the mask under his ears, then trace under the edge until she came to the place under his eyes before dragging it down to hang under his Adam’s apple.
Sakura kissed him. Both of Kakashi’s eyes flew open and he very nearly pulled away because it tasted a little bit like forbidden fruit, but mostly it felt so good, so instead he threw his strong arms around her small body and pulled her close.
She pulled away after a minute, but didn’t go very far. A very traitorous part of Kakashi that he hated very much found his voice and asked “Genma?” against her lips.
Sakura pulled her face back to look at him, earnestly, and smiled. She shook her head. “This is what I want,” she told him, and kissed him again.
And that was all that Kakashi needed.