Lovebug

A/N: Apologies for the long wait – hope everyone still remembers the plot! Shoutouts to Hakkuchi, Seikura, agata, harvestangel99, Kashi, annashina, Laurie, Pixychick84 and q-e17for the lovely reviews – your kind words keep me going.

Chapter 3 - DAY TWO

If life were a fairy tale, Kakashi would have been kidnapped in the middle of walking down a narrow Konoha alley down a manhole to a hidden paradise where every girl who had ever appeared in the Icha Icha series would be incarnated in living, breathing flesh.

There, the sun always shone and the girls always said yes.

Life would be one big Icha Icha Paradise.

But sadly, this was a shonen anime not a fairy tale so Kakashi had to contend with being kidnapped in the middle of walking down a narrow Konoha alley on the way to the Pink bookstore and being dragged unceremoniously down a manhole into a dark room with a single light bulb.

There, the sun never shone and the four girls glaring at him didn't look as if they were in any sort of agreeable mood.

Life sucked.

"Konbanwa, ladies." He said calmly, his hands itching to reach into his back pockets for Icha Icha Tactics but they had tied him up with chakra restraining wires. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting?"

They narrowed their eyes.

"Whatever you've done to her," Ino hissed. "UNDO IT."

Kakashi widened his lone charcoal eye innocently. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Tenten stepped forward, brandishing a rather lethal-looking spiked ball with an equally impressive chain. "We know what's going on," she scowled.

The silver-haired jonin sighed. When he had signed up to become Sakura's temporary boyfriend-to-cover-Shizune's-ass, no one had mentioned anything about torture and interrogation under ANBU conditions. "Do you?" he shrugged laconically.

"You've got Sakura under some sort of love jutsu using that Sharingan of yours," Ino whispered menacingly.

Kakashi sighed internally; Shizune had just earned herself a lifetime debt of massages. "And if I did?"

Predictably, his show of infuriating nonchalance only served to incense the assembled kunoichi there even more.

"We'll see how well you hold up under torture, Copy Ninja," Ino glared, an evil glint in her baby blue eyes.

Again, Kakashi tried not to sigh. "I must warn you girls," he replied as blithely as he could. "I passed my Torture and Interrogation training in ANBU with flying colours. Even Ibiki gave me a lollipop after he gave me my scores."

Tenten blinked. "Who said anything about torturing you, Kakashi-sensei?"

Slowly, she held up a familiar orange book in her right hand, and a pair of kunai in her left.

"Gomen nasai," Kakashi mumbled as he cradled the sorry-looking Icha Icha Paradise in his arms, futilely trying to stick the fraying pages Tenten had viciously hacked with her kunai with sellotape. "I couldn't protect you in time."

After nearly ten minutes of failure, the jonin moved on to smoothing out the blatant dog-ears Ino had made over his favourite chapters, their ugly lines and creases now marring Jiraiya-sama's lyrically beautiful prose. Kakashi regarded his once-beloved companion with great sadness. They'd blacked out his favourite drawings with calligraphy ink too, he couldn't see the girls' nude bits anymore.

"You look like a teenage girl's romance book now," he said out loud.

Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to wallow in misery as an energetic rapping soon sounded on his door. Sighing heavily, he opened the door to reveal a beaming Sakura who promptly threw her arms around him in a big bear hug. "Where have you been, anata?" she pouted. "I tried finding you around the entire village but no one claims to have seen hide nor hair of you. You haven't been hiding out in the Pink Bookstore again have you?"

Not wanting to go into any detailed explanations of the psychological trauma her friends had just inflicted on him by making him watch his lifetime companion get ripped to shreds before his very eyes, he nodded dumbly.

The pinkette tutted loudly. "Now now Kashi-kun, you really shouldn't be going into that trashy place anymore," she scolded him gently. "You have me for your personal entertainment now!"

The silver-haired man felt his jaw clunk downwards in shock at her reaction, notwithstanding the light blush staining his cheeks at her last comment. The Sakura he was used to would have punched his ribs into the next building and loudly denounce him as a pervert for the entire neighbourhood to hear.

Ironically, this new, "Sakura-in-girlfriend-mode" was decidedly just plain scary.

Taking his silence as acquiescence, Sakura grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the door. "Come on, we have errands to run."

As they made their way through the village, Kakashi became acutely aware of people staring. At him.

Or more precisely, his right hand.

Which was at this very moment, being held in a vice-like grip by his "girlfriend", as she mercilessly half-dragged, half-led him through the streets of Konoha.

He glimpsed an open-mouthed Genma staring at him from the dango store while some passers-by literally stopped to gawp at the strange pair.

"Sakura," he muttered so as not to arouse suspicion from their watchful audience. "I'm not very comfortable with such public displays of aff..."

The rest of the words died in his mouth as he saw the beginnings of a thunderstorm gather on her face. Evidently, the love jutsu hadn't quite cured her of her monstrous temper.

Feeling more and more awkward by the second, Kakashi let himself be obediently led like a dog on a leash through the winding alleys and streets to Konoha's main market place.

"Why are we here?" It was perhaps the stupidest thing he had said all afternoon.

Her eyes already fixed on the vast spread of Konoha's finest agricultural produce before her, the kunoichi merely replied, "Isn't it obvious? We're going grocery shopping."

His heart sank. For Kakashi, "grocery shopping" usually meant a quick trip to the corner grocer once a week whenever he got back from missions and realised that he had nothing to eat. And even then, he only ever spent time in the take-away and processed food aisle. Half an hour, tops.

Sakura, arming herself with two huge baskets as she scanned the numerous stalls and traders for the best bargains, looked like she meant serious business.

For the first hour or so, he tried to take an interest whenever she asked him whether this green cabbage was better than that green cabbage, or whether the oranges from that stall were better than this one. By the end of the third hour, he had decided that he couldn't really care anymore whether this stall's apples were green or red or yellow; they could have been black for all he cared and he would have still asked her to buy them so that they could go home.

When they finally did reach home, Kakashi was still moodily slouching next to her when he realised that this was the first time he was stepping foot in her apartment.

"I'll just get dinner started," she said, disappearing into the kitchen as Kakashi took in the neat one-bedroom studio apartment his ex-student had been renting for the past three years. As expected of Sakura's neat and almost obsessive-compulsive disorder for all things orderly, the furniture was all matching and colour-coordinated; pine wood and soft ocean-blue cushions. A bookcase filled with medical scrolls and books sat in a corner of the spotless living room, while sitting on the mantelpiece in the place of honour was a very familiar framed picture. The whole place smelt of something gently floral and fragrant, a smell Kakashi realised he usually subconsciously associated with Sakura.

He walked over to the far end of the room. Sakura had placed several potted plants on the window ledge as well as the balcony, and Kakashi was greeted by several pots of blooming chrysanthemums and miniature sculpted bonsai as he stepped out into the narrow ledge. Walking back towards the kitchen, he also noticed the neat stack of trivia board games placed underneath the wooden coffee table in the middle of the lounge. There was even a battered looking shogi set buried underneath the pile.

There was so much he didn't know about Sakura, Kakashi suddenly thought. In his mind's eye, he'd always imagined Sakura to always be the girlie, gigglish type of girl whose home would probably be furnished entirely in pink, lacey and poufy things; maybe even with a couple of old Sasuke plushie or two. This apartment was the home of a mature young lady with refined hobbies and intellectual pursuits. She was all grown up now, and Kakashi had somehow missed the entire process.

"Dinner is ready, anata." Her voice broke through his wandering thoughts, and he visibly started.

"Mmm?"

"Isn't your favourite dish miso eggplant with broiled saury?" she raised her eyebrow, beckoning him to the table where the most delicious amalgam of smells was assaulting his senses. Maybe this girlfriend thing did have its perks.

"When did you learn to cook?" he couldn't help himself from blurting out as she ladled him a generous helping of rice and eggplant.

She smiled slightly. "Ever since I made jonin and moved out of my parents' place? I burnt a couple of stoves but I think I managed to get there in the end."

As she turned away to fetch some more plates, he pulled down his mask and tried a little. "You could think about giving up your day job," he called after her. "This is better than the corner shop's miso eggplant any day."

"Are you saying I'm a better cook than ninja?" she challenged him, a playful smirk playing on her lips. This was such a typical Sakura answer that Kakashi almost forgot that he was only playing a make-believe role; he was so much at ease around her that it was easy to believe that it was all real and that they really were dating and sharing a romantic dinner.

Romantic dinner date. With Sakura. He couldn't believe that those words had just crossed his mind.

Get a grip, Inner Kakashi smacked him hard across his proverbial face. We only need to keep this charade up for another six days until Shizune is back. Don't lose focus on the task.

That's all it was, he chided himself. A task and a favour.

All through dinner, Kakashi watched her watching him suspiciously as he somehow managed to chew his entire way through three courses and one dessert without showing her even a sliver of his face. Of course, the secret was to gulp things down when her eyes were on her food and take his time chewing when she did look up at him but she didn't need to know that.

"When are you going to show me your face?" she asked him later as they were washing up. "

Placing another dish on the dish rack, he shrugged. "In due time," he replied. "After all, we've just er…began to er…date. You can't expect me to learn all my secrets in one night can you?" He gave her a charming eye-crinkle.

Watching a familiar pout form on her lips, Kakashi turned back to drying the dishes when he felt a pair of arms cage his waist. "Oh definitely, I look forward to many more nights of unravelling your secrets."

Kakashi froze. Not again.

"Sakura", he grunted, trying to push her off him. "I don't think now's the time for…"

"Not the time for what, sensei?" she grinned, licking her lips and looking him up and down like a predator eyeing up a particularly juicy morsel of meat. "If we don't start now, we're never going to learn now are we?" She started caressing his lower back and thighs, her soft fingers running sensous circles down the fabric of his ninja trousers.

Oh no, he groaned. Shizune never said anything about dealing with love-jutsu-ed and infatuated medics! Pushing a little harder against the kunoichi, he was just debating whether to make a dash for it using the Body Flicker Jutsu when she felt him squeeze his butt.

Just a light one, but still!

That's when Kakashi spun her around. "All right Sakura," he replied, grabbing the kunoichi and pulling her close to him. "Two can play at this game."

The pinkette looked delighted. "You mean I'll finally get to see your face as well?"

Ignoring the question, the masked ninja removed his headband and leaned in towards her. Rather distractedly, he noticed that Sakura lips were stained with the same colour of the strawberries they had just eaten for dessert, and she unconsciously kept darting her tongue out to lick her lips; a sure sign of her nervousness. Just before she closed her eyes and leant forwards towards him, he opened his Sharingan eye.

In a matter of seconds, her green eyes became glazed and she slumped over his shoulder. Sighing with relief, Kakashi carried her to her bed and tucked up the slumbering kunoichi securely. While the mild Sleeping Jutsu he'd used on her wouldn't erase her memory when she woke in the morning, at least it would give him enough time to disappear from her apartment at least for tonight.

Taking one last look at Sakura's peaceful face, he slipped out of her window and into the night.

A/N: If you check the databooks, Sakura's hobbies are reading medical scrolls and playing trivia games while Kakashi's favourite food is miso eggplant and broiled saury.