A/N: This is very much inspired by a movie I watched recently, and if you can guess which movie it is, cookies for you! I would tell you, but I don't want to give away the (painfully obvious) plot. Anyway~ I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Comments, criticism (constructive, please!), reviews, and the like are all very welcome. Thank you for reading! :)

"We have to do what now?"

"I know it seems ridiculous," Tsunade said. "But-"

"Seems ridiculous?" Sakura snapped. "This is the dumbest mission I've ever been assigned. What's the point?"

"I have no qualms," Kakashi interrupted.

"Nobody asked you, Kakashi. And you're a pervy old man, of course you don't have a problem with it."

"I resent that."

"Both of you, shut up!" Tsunade demanded. Putting these two on the same mission, regardless of her reasoning, may turn out to be a disaster waiting to happen. "Look, I haven't seen Rai in years. We've been writing each other and I told him when he finally came to visit, he'd find Konoha to be a much more romantic village than it was when he was last here." She ignored Sakura's scoff and continued, "When I'd said that, I was hoping there would be at least one marriage here. But no, apparently every shinobi in this damn village is romantically inept."

"And civilians?" Kakashi said. "I'm sure there have been a ton of civilian marriages in the past few years."

"The civilians don't concern him," Tsunade explained. "He comes from a small village where there are no shinobi. He's used to civilians, and he knows that they get married all the time." When her hands folded under her chin in thought, and a small smile showed that she sometimes agreed with her old friend, she added, "He's not so sure if our ninja - if any ninja - have heart."

"So let me get this straight," Sakura said. "You want us to pretend to be married so your old friend doesn't find out you lied to him?"

"That's the gist of it," the Hokage replied, too fed up with their behavior to try and argue that she wasn't exactly lying. "I figured you two were the only ones mature enough to take on this kind of a mission."

"Well you figured wro-"

"We'll do it," Kakashi agreed. "Sakura will just have to learn to deal with it, won't she?"

Sakura crossed her arms over her chest and gave a short huff. "I'll do nothing of the sort."

"Excellent," Tsunade exclaimed. "I'll organize a crew to move some of your stuff over to Kakashi's and-"

"Why can't he move into my house?" Sakura whined.

"Your house is pink."

"At least it doesn't smell like dog!"

Tsunade groaned and let her face fall into her palm. "What have I done?"

Kakashi threw Sakura's bag onto the sofa in the center of the room and said, "That's where you'll sleep. Don't make yourself too comfortable."

"Uh, no, I'm not sleeping on the couch." She picked up her bag and peeked into the closest door, cringing at the sight of the bathroom behind it. "Where's the bedroom?"

"You don't think I'm gonna let you share with me, do you?" Kakashi asked.

"Oh, gross, of course not. You're going to be a gentleman and take the couch."

"Now hold on just a minute, this is my apartment."

"What's yours is mine, darling," Sakura retorted smugly.

Kakashi sighed, feigning defeat. "Alright, but keep in mind, I have fucked on that bed before."

"Couch it is!"

Holding back a pleased snicker, he told her, "There's a blanket on it already, if you need one."

"Don't you have sheets or something?" she asked.

"You're going to make this difficult, aren't you?"

"I'm not trying to make this difficult," Sakura barked. "I was trying to be polite! Would you rather me have said, 'I need sheets because I'm sure all three thousand of your god damn dogs have pissed on this thing.'?"

Kakashi frowned. "My dogs are very well trained, I'll have you know."

"Okay, I'll give it to Pakkun, he can find better marking grounds than your ratty sofa, but I wouldn't put it past any of the others."

With a roll of his eyes, he pointed towards a tiny linen closet in the corner of the living area. "If they're dirty, you're on your own." He then dismissed himself into his room for a bit of peace and quiet, but Sakura's clearly audible, unamused mumblings on the other side of the bedroom door almost ruined it for him.

She flung open the door to the closet, cringing as it banged against the adjacent wall. A squeal escaped her throat as a massive moth fluttered out, but she soon composed herself and begrudgingly, she began to dig through the contents of the small storage room until she found the set of bed sheets with the least offensive smell clinging to the fabric. If she was being honest, none of them really smelled all that bad, but she didn't like the idea of admitting to herself - or anyone else, for that matter - that Kakashi's scent was almost comforting to her.

She smoothed the bedding onto the sofa and flopped herself down on it, shifting around for several minutes until she found a reasonably comfortable spot to fall asleep in. When she shut her eyes for a well deserved eight hours, it felt nothing like her house. It was too quiet, it smelled different, and she could tell her surroundings had changed drastically. But, oddly enough, it didn't feel like a far cry from home.

"Tsunade, you haven't aged a bit!"

Tsunade regarded the stout, balding man in front of her with slight distaste. She thought back on her younger years and clearly remembered Rai being a much more attractive man. The person in front of her couldn't be the same boy she'd met in that casino so long ago. She lied, "Ah, neither have you!"

"You're too kind," he chuckled. "So where are the lovebirds you're always telling me about? The way you talk about this town, I imagined they'd be all over the place!"

"Oh, they're probably all in today, doing the whole romance thing," she fibbed. "But that reminds me, I want you to meet some friends of mine." She hoped Kakashi and Sakura weren't too busy fighting to remember their mission. "Come on, I'll show you where they live."

They walked to Kakashi's apartment complex at a very relaxed pace, reminiscing about the days of their youth. Rai talked about the new casino he was about to open up and Tsunade shared the trivial duties she must attend to as Hokage. When they reached the apartment, to her dismay, they heard loud crashes and shouting from within the building's walls.

Bang! "I told you I'm allergic to blueberries!" Crash! "I'm never letting you cook for me again!"

"Please stop throwing pans at me."

Tsunade knocked and the screaming stopped. She heard some whispering right behind the door and after a full minute, it swung open to reveal Kakashi and Sakura in an over-dramatic, totally-in-love pose. His arm was wrapped around her with his hand resting on her hip and her head was leaning on his shoulder. They had matching, cheesy grins.

"Hokage-sama!" Sakura greeted cheerily. "How nice of you to come visit!"

"Ah yes, and you've brought a friend," Kakashi added. "Welcome, come in."

They all sat around the coffee table in the living room, with Rai and Tsunade in the lounge chairs and Kakashi and Sakura cuddling on the sofa.

"So, how long have you two been married?" Rai asked.

"Just going on one year!" Sakura answered enthusiastically.

"Ah, young love," Rai chuckled.

"Young?" Sakura giggled. "I wouldn't say young. Kakashi-kun here is pushing 33!" She held back her smug grin when she felt her "husband" cringe at the nickname.

"Well, I wouldn't call that old, either. How old are you?"

Sakura was about to blurt out "almost 19!" But she caught Tsunade's expression out of the corner of her eye, clearly instructing her not to reveal that bit. She opened her mouth, but with no lies prepared and nothing to say, she only sat there with her jaw slack like a gaping buffoon.

"Silly Sakura," Kakashi laughed, his eye creasing in a forced smile. "She's 28."

"Five years, that's quite the age gap," Rai commented.

"I like to think it's not as bad as it could be."

Sakura shot Kakashi a discreet death glare, warning him to keep quiet. This was a mission, after all. However stupid it might have been, they couldn't afford to blow their cover. Especially if Tsunade kept watching them with such a close eye.

They continued to chat for about two hours, before Kakashi started getting sick of the house guests and made some bullshit excuse about having a candlelit dinner planned for his "lovely wife". Tsunade gabe him a quick thumbs up as he ushered them out the door. With an air of relief, he slammed the door behind them and leant with his back against it.

"That wasn't so bad," he tried. Sakura just made a sound similar to a dog's growl and headed into the bathroom.

With nothing else to do, Kakashi lounged around the living room, waiting until he had a chance to shower. He read the rest of the latest installment of the Icha Icha series in about two hours, then watched some cheesy sitcom about a foolish doctor and his black best friend on television for another hour and a half. When Sakura still didn't come out, he decided it was time to take control of the situation.

"Sakura!"

Sakura continued to hum happily as she took her time washing her hair, working in the shampoo and rinsing out the frothy suds afterwards. She'd forgotten to bring her own soap, so she was forced to use her sensei's. Though she couldn't say she minded the smell. It might have been a bit robust for her, but the foresty, musky scent was actually quite soothing.

"Sakura, you've been in there for hours!"

She chuckled to herself as Kakashi continued to bang on the door. The effort was futile though. She didn't plan on coming out any time soon. Sure, her shower was almost done. But after that, she had her skin care routine to take care of and she'd need at least a half hour following that to make sure her hair was done up properly for bed.

"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do," she chirped innocently when she stepped out of the shower. "You can go down to the public baths if you really need to clean up."

"Why the fuck would I- This is my house, Sakura. I have every right to bathe in my own shower," he shouted through the door.

"Then you can wait." She wrapped one of the dark green, shuriken emblazoned bath towels around herself and headed over to the bathroom counter to begin her nightly routine. However, when she got there, she realized that she'd forgotten to bring her toiletries in with her. With a small grumble, she swung the door open and shoved Kakashi out of her way. "Where's my stuff?"

"Jesus, you're indecent. Put some clothes on."

The small comment prompted her to think back on all the times he'd seen her in the buff over the years, just as a result of their constant pairing on missions, and her eyebrow twitched. Angrily, she snapped, "I've got a towel, you can't even-"

"It's more of you than I ever wanted to see."

Her fist clenched, and without warning, she spun around on her heel and smacked Kakashi clean across the face. "You're damn lucky to be seeing any of me, you asshole!" In a huff, she stomped further into the living room, picked up her bag and carried it back into the bathroom with her, slamming the door in Kakashi's face in her wake.

"What did I say?" he mumbled to himself.

Their mission might not be so dreadful if Sakura wasn't entirely unbearable. Kakashi bought lunch for himself and himself only, because over the past few weeks of forced proximity with the fiery kunoichi, he'd learned that making or picking up meals for her could only lead to disaster and flying cookware. With a sigh, he wondered when an act of kindness began to call for screaming and throwing pots and pans.

It wasn't that she was unpleasant to be with. If they were just sitting there, talking about any old thing, she made for good company. It was when he really needed her to be cooperative that she was not. If he needed to use the bathroom, she was in it. If he wanted to watch the television, she was catching up on seventeen hours of missed soap operas.

The worst was when he wanted to have Genma over for a beer or two and she'd gotten the dining and living area filled with what always seemed like every damn female in the village. When did his house become a watering hole for women? On days such as those, he usually just brought Genma in anyway, and they would stick it out for the sake of alcohol consumption. But no amount of brain bleach would ever clear the painful memories of Ino and Sakura talking about their menstrual cycles loudly enough to be heard from the next room over.

Fortunately, the next time such an event occured, Kakashi didn't have any friends with him to witness the horror of a pack of women swapping seduction tips or squealing about attractive men over a plate of questionable brownies. (Really, though, they looked disgusting - he was a damn good cook and he knew how to bake, why wouldn't she just let him help her out every once in awhile?)

Upon seeing the group of girls, his survival instinct was to grab his book from the shelf and disappear into his bedroom in hopes that the words on the page would distract him from the ruckus in the living room. But as he was about to pull the novel from between two others, Sakura said, "Kakashi, could you bring that picture over here? Shizune wants to see it."

She pointed her finger at the group photograph of Team 7 in it's early, unbroken years. Kakashi silently mused on how much sweeter and purer Sakura had been in those days, but heartbreak and three years shy of a decade of grueling training under Tsunade's watchful eye had hardened her.

Wordlessly, he brought the frame over and set it on the table to be devoured with the 'aww's and 'how precious's of the visiting ladies. Before he could disappear, Sakura asked, "Can you also get me a bottle of water?"

"You won't let me make you a batch of brownies but you'll make me your personal butler?" Kakashi remarked.

Sakura's only response was a wide grin and a high-pitched, "Pleeeease?"

He rolled his eyes, almost bemusedly, and shuffled over to the refrigerator. There wasn't a lot of food in there, but there were plenty of empty containers that neither of them had had the energy or motivation to clear out, so he had to search for her water. While he was sifting through empty tubs of margarine and jugs of expired milk (he really needed to pick up some groceries soon) he heard, for once, a particularly interesting point in their conversation.

"Kakashi was quite the looker then," Shizune giggled. "How long ago was that - seven years?"

"Hell, he still is!" Ino chimed in. "I mean, you'd never get me to live with him for the sake of a mission, but he's damn fine. I bet that's the only reason you agreed to this whole thing, Sakura!"

Sakura spoke in a hushed tone, "You realize he's right behind you, right?"

"Oh, what's he going to do, tell Genma what I said?" Ino scoffed. "That man doesn't give a shit what I'm doing, unless it's him. Talk, Forehead. No woman in their right mind would live with Kakashi - he's stone cold and pretentious as fuck."

"Ino, you don't even know him," Sakura snapped. "The only attachment you have to him is that you're dating his best friend. He's not cold at all, and he's far from pretentious."

"He seems like a dick to me."

"Well... He's not, so let's just drop the subject."

The ensuing pause in conversation told Kakashi that it was safe to continue his search. He finally found a bottle on its side in the back of the fridge and pulled it out just as Hinata was quietly changing the subject, "You know, Naruto asked me to move in the other day."

Tenten squealed and leaned in, demanding to know all the tiny details, including what Hinata's answer had been and just when the move would take place. With the talk directed elsewhere, Kakashi had a perfect opportunity to slip in unnoticed and deliver Sakura's drink.

She took the plastic bottle from his hand, letting her fingers rest over his longer than necessary as a silent apology for her blonde friend's words and behavior. "Thanks," she said.

"No problem." At last, he managed to get into his room where he settled down to finish another chapter of the infamous Icha Icha. A pleased smile hid under his mask, just waiting to be seen. He figured if she could live with him, he could live with her. Knowing that she didn't entirely despise him like her closest friend seemed might just be enough to get him through the mission.

The next day was like any other. Kakashi woke up to his pretend-wife not making him breakfast. He read his books for an hour and twelve minutes exactly and took his daily shower immediately afterwards. But something was off. Something was different.

He spied Sakura silently reading the daily news at the tiny kitchen table. She looked quite uninterested in the boring recent happenings in the village, but she had that same face every other time she'd read the paper in the morning. Why did she look so different on a day that was, except for the sudden change in her appearance, the same as the last few had been? He sat down across from her to observe further.

For a long time, she didn't seem to notice his gaze boring into the top of her head. But as she finished scanning the publication, she folded it back into its original shape and lifted her head to glare at him. "You've been staring at me for twenty minutes, now," she pointed out, proving to Kakashi that her perceptivity had greatly improved since her genin years. "Do you need something?"

"No," he assured her.

She gave an aggravated sigh and murmured something about a 'creepy old sensei' before rising from her seat and throwing the gazette into the garbage bin by the door. Kakashi wasted no time in his investigation - he followed suit in getting up and shadowing her as she made for her bag.

She pulled out a novel - likely a romance, judging by the intimate couple pictured on the paperback cover - and turned around, almost bumping right into the copy nin. "Christ, what the hell do you want?" she snapped.

"Did you get contacts?" he asked.

"What? No, I don't need them." After brushing off the absurd question, she shoved past her former sensei in a futile attempt to sit down and read in peace. But Kakashi appeared seemingly out of thin air directly in front of her, and her hand flew to her heart as she started. "Was that necessary?"

He put his hands on her shoulders to hold her in place and tilted his head, scouring her appearance for something out of the ordinary. "You did something new with your hair?" he guessed.

She glanced up at her pink fringe, just starting to hang down over her eyes, then rolled her emerald optics back in place to give him an incredulous glare. "I just woke up, my hair looks like shit," she said simply. "Now, if you don't mind."

She brushed past him once again, and this time, he let her go. But he plopped himself down in an adjacent chair and continued to watch her intently, attempting to disguise his interest by pulling out one of his books from beneath the cushion and pretending to read it. Something about her had changed, but he just couldn't put his finger on it.

Deciding that he just couldn't see her face clearly enough with her nose shoved deep into the pages of her silly book, he got up and stepped in front of her, lifting her chin with his thumb and index finger. The look he got from her was a priceless, put upon expression.

She huffed out a bitter breath and grumbled, "What is up with you today?"

"You look different."

"Well, I haven't done anything new with myself, so can we let it go now?" she whined. "I really would like to finish this book today."

He held her head in place as she tried to turn back to the pages of her steamy paperback. With a heavy, exasperated breath, she realized that she wouldn't be left alone for some time, and reluctantly backed down, allowing him to carefully look over her.

"Your eyes are greener today," he said.

"They're the same color they've always been."

"You got taller."

"I've been five-foot-three for awhile now, sensei."

He narrowed his eyes, determined to place the source of this change in his student-turned-colleague. She begrudgingly obliged when he turned her face up and to each side, then down, as if the roots of her hair would offer him any explanation. They didn't. After at least three minutes of close examination, Sakura tore herself away from him and sprung up from the couch.

"Look, I don't know what's gotten into you, but it's really annoying that you're all but scrutinizing me. Allow me to give you a distraction." She pointedly stomped into the kitchen area of the large living room and pointed to the fridge. "I skipped breakfast because there's not a damn thing to eat in this house. Make yourself a useful spouse and go get some groceries."

He debated piping up with a joke about how that should be the woman's job in a relationship, but eventually decided against it, realizing that the likely end result would be less laughs and more bruises. So he responded with a lazy shrug of his shoulders, grabbed whatever money he could find in his bedroom, and headed out.

The village, for a Saturday afternoon, was calm and quiet. He guessed, since the weather wasn't as nice as it could be, that people were staying in, wary of the gray clouds floating above. They didn't even phase Kakashi. His sensitive nose told him that rain wouldn't fall for at least another day.

The supermarket - usually hard to navigate due to the large numbers of people - was empty, for the most part. The only people in there were the cashiers, about three civilians, and Kakashi himself. So he ran into no delays as he gathered the food he thought they'd need.

Some bread, milk, instant ramen. He moseyed into the snack and candy aisle and almost grabbed a pack of bubblegum because it reminded him of Sakura's hair. When he sauntered through the produce stands, eyeing up every fruit and vegetable to decide which ones were in the best condition, he had to stop himself from grabbing too many green apples. They were the exact color of her eyes. While this was actually going on, he thought nothing of it. But after he'd payed for everything and continued on back to his house, the realization hit him and he almost dropped the paper grocery bags.

He rushed back to his home and all but tore the door down upon his arrival, launching himself inside. Slamming the newly purchased food on the kitchen counter slowed him down but three seconds, and in his haste, he managed to catch Sakura right as she was coming out of the bathroom.

She jumped and gasped, "Fuck! You scared me."

"Sorry. Let me look at you."

"What?"

"Just let me see you for a second." He took her face in his hands and brushed his thumbs over her smooth cheeks, examining the whole of her face thoroughly one more time. Slowly, verging on cautiously, he dipped his head into the crook of her neck and inhaled deeply. He felt her skin heat up as it flushed bright red, the way it always did when she was either infuriated, embarrassed, or a mixture consisting of equal parts of both.

"What are you doing?" she squeaked, giving a half-assed attempt to smack him away.

"Damn it." He dropped his hands and retreated into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him and leaning his forehead against it. His eyebrows met in the center of his forehead as he attempted to come to terms with what he'd just realized.

Sakura was beautiful.

It was not exactly what one would call an epiphany, though. She'd been pretty for awhile now. And if he thought back, that feeling in the pit of his stomach that gave him a nearly uncontrollable urge to grab her by the waist and pull her close had been there for about as long. But it had since gotten worse, presumably due to the fact that she'd been forced into his proximity. Whatever emotion he'd felt towards her before the mission started had burgeoned tenfold. It wasn't enough to make him drag her to the closest alter - not yet, at least. But he might venture to say he was in love with her.

So what does that mean for the mission? he asked himself. The way he saw it, it could now go one of two ways: His coming to terms with what he felt for her might could their chemistry more believable in front of the Hokage and her guest, or the whole thing could come crashing down on them.

Sakura was grateful for the alone time when Kakashi said he was going out. But it was only natural for her to get suspicious when he'd told her he was just leaving to pick up a movie. Since when did he watch movies? All she'd ever seen him do was sit around and read those damn books all day. She knew very well what the novels contained, and it made her worry about Kakashi's return. Whatever movie he decided to bring home would likely be one she wouldn't want to watch. Not with him in the room, breathing down her neck and watching her every little move at least.

However, much to her surprise, he came back with a very innocent looking film. It was described as a romantic comedy on the back of the plastic case, so it couldn't be too harmful. The only thing peculiar she could catch just by looking at the packaging was that the characters printed on the front looed eerily similar to herself and Kakashi. Though the female lead didn't share her emerald eyes, her hair was almost a perfect color match, maybe only darker by a shade or two. And the man might have done his hair more prudently than Sakura's own counterpart, but it was the same silver color and he had the same charcoal grey eyes. The only thing missing, really, was the Sharingan and the mask.

Aside from that, though, it appeared totally harmless. With her mind wrapped fully around that comforting frame of mind, she completely forgot to check the rating. Twenty minutes into the movie, after they'd settled down in comfy positions for the feature presentation, it occured to her that it might have been sensible of her to find out, but now that she was sunken into the cushy lounge chair, she couldn't be bothered to get up. And asking Kakashi was not an option - he would lie, if only just to make her mad. So, against her better judgement, she trusted him to have selected a family film and kept her eyes on the screen, making the fateful assumption that the movie was innocent.

And except for the shameless swearing and the odd innuendo here and there, it was just that. Until about a half hour later, when she belatedly began to regret the decision to let the film rating go overlooked. The next scene in the film opened on a dimly lit bedroom, and she knew that in just a few seconds, the comedic couple would stumble through the door, with their arms wrapped around each other and their hands in places they would never be in a public setting. It was not pornography - far from it, judging by the well acted romance - but it worked the same as any adult film she'd ever watched in that it didn't fail to make her hot between her thighs.

For all she could tell, Kakashi's eyes were staring straight ahead at the television. But really, he was watching her out of the corner of his eye as she self-consciously squeezed her legs together. After having known her for almost ten years, he could read her like a book. He smirked. While he'd had no corrupt intentions upon purchasing the DVD, he had to admit that the result of his choice was quite satisfying. He could smell the evidence of her wanton desire soaking through the thin fabric of her panties. It was just too easy to reduce her to mush. All he had to do was tug lightly on one loose thread, and the entire thing would come to unravel in the palm of his hand.

She bit down on her lower lip, worrying it with her front teeth. Of course it was just the sex scene turning her on, right? After months of not having been able to satisfy her personal needs, this kind of movie could really have no other effect on her. But, in all honesty, the actors' uncanny resemblance to the two shinobi watching their production probably had a lot more to do with her flushed cheeks than she was willing to admit.

She couldn't take much more of it. Too quickly, she pushed herself up from the armchair and dismissed herself with a quiet squeak of the word "bathroom", already walking quickly to the small, green restroom. She locked the door behind her and stared at herself in the mirror, wondering what had gotten into her. She was usually above this kind of behavior, though it wasn't something she could control much. Why had that character's silver hair and coal black eyes made the intimate act so much... hotter? Twisting the knob on the sink to cold, she splashed the brisk water on her face to clear her thoughts. She had to get back in that room and brave the rest of the movie before Kakashi started to wonder. If he hadn't already.

She put on her brave face and exited the tiny, tiled room, only to bump right into the man she'd been so concerned over just seconds ago. With a squeal, she jumped back against the door she'd just closed behind her.

"Hi Sakura," Kakashi said cheerily, his only visible eye creasing.

"Kakashi," Sakura replied shortly, with a slight quaver in her tone. She tried at a smile, but the result was likely an awkward grimace. She'd never been any good at awkward confrontations such as this one.

Kakashi, as always, saw right through her. "Is something wrong?" he asked, feigning concern.

"No, nothing at all," Sakura lied.

"You look a little hot." He placed the back of his hand on her forehead, pretending to feel for a sign of fever.

"Yeah, I, uh," she stuttered, "I think I might be coming down with something."

"Oh no." From what she could tell, a devious smirk stretched across his lips beneath his mask. "Well, you'll be coming, that's for sure."

Her heart stopped. He was teasing her. He had to be. Damn him to hell - he was good at it, but it wasn't funny. Not in the slightest. "Pardon?"

"I've seen my fair share of lustful women, Sakura."

She faked an angry frown and tried to step around him and back into the living room. He stopped her, extending his arms out to place his hands on either side of her head, essentially trapping her. "I don't know what you mean," she sputtered.

"Oh?" He was leaning down now, whispering directly into her ear, his words coming out short and husky. "I think you know exactly what I mean."

"This is extremely inappropriate and- and just-" She searched for the right word, but her mind wasn't exactly in the right place, so it took her a moment to get her bearings and muster up some courage. Finally, she came up with, "This is unacceptable!"

"God, when did you become such a prude?" He pressed his clothed lips to the sensitive skin of her neck, chuckling as he felt her stiffen under his touch. "Don't act like you don't want this."

Now she knew she was really blushing. The conversation was too much like the one she'd imagined she would be having with him if the two of them were actually about to try and have sex. "Want what?" His hand came up to the zipper at the top of her shirt, but she smacked it away before he had a chance to tug down on it. "Kakashi!"

"Sex, Sakura," he growled out. "You've had it before. Lord knows I've had it before. Don't freak out because you think this has to be anything more than just sex."

"This doesn't have to be anything."

"But you want it to be," he murmured, carefully leaving out the fact that he wanted her just as badly, if not more. His lips traveled down to her collarbone, biting under the thin fabric of his mask. The action made her squeak, the delicious sound doing unspeakable things to his body and causing any blood he might have had in his head at one point to rush quickly south.

The second she felt his teeth pressing into her skin, something snapped inside her. Her squeal turned into a hushed moan at the second nip, and her hands flew up to tangle in his mess of silver hair. "Fuck," she gasped. "Sex is sex, right? Just do it already and quit messing with me."

"'Atta girl," he chuckled against her skin. With something akin to permission now granted to him, he dropped his hands to her buttocks and lifted her, prompting her to wrap her legs around his waist. He wasted no time in getting her to the bedroom and all but throwing her onto the mattress.

While he was busy removing his long sleeved shirt, she ran her hands over the sheets beneath her. They were soft, those silken threads of fate, but they felt very wrong. In a good way or a bad way, she couldn't tell just yet. She would find out in due time, though. There was no time to dwell on it when he crawled over her, his shirt cast away somewhere but his mask still concealing most of his face.

The fact that he kept it on during sex was not only perplexing, but quite irritating. How did he go about kissing with a layer fabric over his mouth? She reached up to tug the piece of cloth down, without even registering the fact that she'd never before seen his face. However, he grabbed her wrist to stop her before it could reach him and pinned both of her arms above her head. There would be no game playing at a time like this. He was not about to let this turn into romance, even if a small voice in the back of his head kept telling him to try it out for once.

"How are you going to-"

"I'm not," he said simply, reading her mind. "That'll only make this more than it is." In his head, he was trying to come up with a convincing argument against just ripping the blasted piece of cloth off and crushing his lips against hers. Because God, did he want to. But the fact of the matter was that he knew Sakura, and if he kissed her while he did the very dirty things he had in mind, he was sure she would think of it as more than just a casual fuck. What he wasn't not so sure of is, if their lips did happen to touch at some point during their current rendezvous, if he'd be able to tear himself away.

"Oh." The disappointment in her tone was almost enough to change his mind on the spot. Was he really about to have sex with someone who so clearly would rather be making love? "Okay. No kissing then." She didn't give him the chance to turn back as she assisted him with stripping her of her clothing. Anyone else, and she would have been bashfully covering herself up. But Kakashi had seen her in the nude countless times because of their constant closeness to each other on missions and such, so this time around, it hardly registered at all that she was completely naked before him.

Seeing him unclothed was an entirely different story. Of course, for the same reasons, she'd already seen every inch of him but the lower half of his face. But as he removed his own pants, she realized belatedly that she'd never before seen him aroused. But before she got the opportunity to open her mouth and say something about it, she was face to face full-frontal nudity and suddenly, it was quite clear that he was lusting quite obviously for her. Or at least for a tight, warm place to stick his dick.

She laughed at the thought, but quickly cut it off before she could go into hysterics. The sight of his member completely hard and unclothed made her nervous, and when she was nervous, she had a tendency to laugh. It wasn't because the situation that gave her such a flustered mindset was funny. That wasn't it at all. The thing was, once she got thinking about the very comedic things that could go wrong in the same setting, it was hard to stop herself from writing a damn sitcom in her head with herself as the main character. A hilarious sitcom, at that. Kakashi knew this, but still, he muttered, "That's offensive."

"It's not you, it's-"

"Yeah, I know."

There was really not much room for foreplay with Kakashi's mouth under wraps. He couldn't fully kiss any of her sensitive spots, though the friction of his mask against her skin wasn't entirely undesirable. There was definitely no hope for her when it came to oral, and there was no way in hell she was ready to put her mouth on him. Sure, her sense of mind was a little twisted in that she was all too prepared to be penetrated but she couldn't even bring herself to give him a quick blowjob. But Kakashi evidently had no issue with it as he slowly entered her, sighing when he filled her completely.

"This is so weird," Sakura giggled.

"You're making it weirder than it needs to be," Kakashi told her, pointedly pushing himself deeper within her sex to put an end to her girlish chuckles. "We're just-"

"God, I know, get on with it," she whined.

In her young life, she'd had sex with only two people. When she'd done it with Lee, it had been nothing short of a disaster. He'd been very unsure of himself, had failed to please her, and had come prematurely. The situation had been quite embarrassing for both involved, but Sakura had comforted him and lied, telling him it wasn't as bad as he thought. But that was the second time. She'd lost her virginity to none other than Naruto, and while it hadn't been amazing - the first time never was - it had still been good. Because she'd thought she was in love with him. And although Ino and Tsunade constantly told her that it was no better with someone you loved than it was with a random stranger, she'd felt that if she'd lost her virginity to anyone else, it wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying.

Neither of those experiences, though, could have given any insight as to what sex with Kakashi was like. Naruto had simply thrusted and Lee's movements were awkward and jerky. But Kakashi... Instead of just moving in and out of her like all the porn she'd ever seen, he moved in a more gentle way. She noticed that his hips sort of rolled instead of bucking. And while it was almost teasingly slow, it was good.

Really, really good. Her giggles subsided, giving way for her moans to resonate against the walls of the room, louder and louder each time he rolled his hips against hers. His matching groans in her ears told her that, undoubtedly, he was feeling about the same as she was, regardless of the fact that she was just laying there, letting herself be fucked. Maybe that was what he got off on. Submission.

He felt himself coming closer to the edge, and he desperately wanted to kiss her. Maybe this whole thing wasn't as great an idea as he'd thought it would be. The temptations were almost too strong for him to resist. It might be bizarre, he thought, that he had to deny his urges to kiss her lips before his desire to have sex with her. But sex can be just sex, where as a kiss, in Sakura's mind, went much further than just that.

Not that he didn't want to be more to her than just a way to get her rocks off, but he had more than a few doubts in his mind that she wanted to be anything more than just a lay for the night. She was not a whore - far from it - but she was not above helping close friends get off, evidently. And while he was thankful for her and her... provisions, it did nothing to extinguish the burning need he felt for her to be with him outside of the bedroom.

When he finally came and the deed was done, Sakura was, of course, sexually satisfied. But after witnessing Kakashi just throw some pants on and nonchalantly settle himself beneath the covers, she suddenly felt an unexpected emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Yes, Kakashi was attractive, and yes, it had seemed like an excellent idea after some convincing on his part. But what was she if she was only having sex to fulfill their sinful desires? A slut? A whore? Was she stupid for letting herself think that this was just another step in their relationship and, sooner or later, they would be more than just friends with benefits? It seemed unlikely the more she thought about it, and the more his breath evened out as he fell into a deeper state of sleep, she felt more and more ashamed of herself.

She didn't dwell on it. Instead, she figured he at least owed it to her to let her stay the night in his bed, and she curled up under the sheets beside him, though she pointedly kept her back turned. It was nice while it lasted.

The next morning was not awkward or quiet or weird in any way. The hollow feeling still resided in Sakura's gut, but when Kakashi noticed her hand hovering over her belly, she covered up by telling him she was only hungry. So he made her a quick, easy breakfast which, while she usually wouldn't let him, was nice of him and very much appreciated. However, it did little to ease her stomach's incessant backflips. She carefully concealed her inner tossing and turning around him, though. Better to suffer in silence than let him know her inner turmoil was a direct result of what he'd done to her the previous night.

Last night hadn't been something she ever thought would happen, though she couldn't say she'd never wondered about it before. But when it came to Kakashi - a man considered quite mysterious throughout Konoha despite the fact that Sakura could usually read him like black and white newspaper print - what woman hasn't fantasized about him? As a result of being just about the only honest person he could talk to, she knew about all of his sexual endeavors, within and without the bedroom, and recognized that she was probably just another notch in his bedpost.

But why her? Of all the beautiful women he'd slept with over the years (see also: Kurenai and Shizune), Sakura thought she was probably the least attractive and nowhere near as experienced. Maybe he just needed to get laid as much as she did, but he could just as easily have gone down to the bar and picked up the first girl to glance his way.

She picked at the last of her breakfast morosely, before throwing the remainder of the meal away. Kakashi noticed and asked, "Not feeling well?"

Her cheeks flushed pink, recalling a similar statement he'd used against her the night before. "I'm just not too hungry, I guess," she replied.

"Well, try to work up an appetite." He closed the dirty book he'd been reading and walked her way, seating himself on the kitchen counter closest to her. "Tsunade says we're to go out to dinner with Rai tonight."

Sakura groaned. "Perfect."

"Hey." He hopped off the countertop and closed in on her, bringing one of his hands up to brush the hair out of her face. It occurred to him that he might be getting too close for comfort, but after last night, where was the line drawn now? "You sure you're okay?"

This was beyond the realm of normalcy. She knew he cared about her. She'd always known it. But usually, it was in a very distant way. If she looked ill, he'd tell her to lay down. If she was sad, he'd listen to her vent but would hardly speak a word of advice. So the concern itself wasn't as much as a surprise as the way he was expressing it. But it was comforting. She liked it.

"I'm fine," she insisted, giving him a half smile. "Really, don't worry about me."

He knew, for an absolute fact, that her mood was the result of the previous night's events. But he couldn't begin to imagine why. There was nothing awkward about it in his own head. She seemed to have enjoyed it well enough when it was actually happening. But did she regret it now? He sighed, and proceeded to do something he only did once in a blue moon.

The second his arms came around her middle, her breath caught in her throat. The last time he'd hugged her was about three years ago, after he'd heard the news that her father had passed - she'd been so heartbroken and struck with grief at the fact that he would never get the chance to walk her down the aisle, it seemed like the only appropriate thing for him to do at the time. He'd never been the type for physical affection, unless you counted sex, which wasn't always an affectionate gesture with one Hatake Kakashi. But his hugs were perfect, every time. They were awkward, but always gentle, and it was hard to believe that a man with such a terrifying reputation could provide a sense of comfort within the same arms he'd used to bring and end to so many lives.

She relaxed in his hold and draped her arms around his neck, like she always did when he hugged her. His nose settled into the crook of her neck and he breathed in deeply, like he was taking in her scent, which she couldn't quite remember if he did every time, but nonetheless, she didn't mind it.

"I know this sucks for you, but he's leaving in a week," he murmured into her skin. "Then you can go home and forget this ever happened."

"Yeah, okay," she sighed. When he pulled away from her, she reluctantly let him go and head into his bedroom, presumably to change into something more presentable than a pair of flannel pajama pants. She sat back down at the kitchen table and ran a hand through her messy hair, wondering how one minute, she hated the guy, and the next, she wanted him to hold her like he just had forever. All she was sure of at this point was that she didn't want to go home. And she definitely didn't want to forget about the few weeks she'd spent with Kakashi.

But how could she think of a way to tell him that in seven days? For all she knew, he wanted her gone.

From the information they'd been given, Rai would be treating them to quite an expensive meal. The restaurant was said to have a five-star rating with exceptional food and service. Their stern instruction was to dress nicely - as formally as possible - and be beyond polite to anyone they may come across. And while they both considered their mission dubious as a whole, neither of them wanted to disappoint, especially when faced with the prospect of a well-prepared meal, completely free of charge.

Kakashi was ready in a snap, long before Sakura even got her dress on. He looked absolutely smashing in a tux, she couldn't help but notice. The mask, of course, stayed on. He was not going to give up what had pretty much become his entity just for a pricey evening out. She wondered briefly how he planned to eat with it on, but she didn't voice her thoughts. After all, how many times had he sat with Naruto and herself at Ichiraku and quietly downed his bowl without them managing to catch even a peek at the face he'd kept hidden for so long? He obviously had effective methods. She only smiled and said, "Great, now that you're dressed, you can help me get ready."

"Kinky."

She frowned as her face went red. "God, you're so weird," she remarked. "I just need you to help me lace up."

"Tell me when you're ready for me." He sent her off with a wink of his exposed eye.

With a quiet giggle, she disappeared into his bedroom where her outfit was hung up in perfect condition - not a single wrinkle in sight nor a ribbon out of place. She shook her blush away as she pulled the expertly crafted gown from the closet and laid it out across his bed. The smooth, silky fabric was a warm peachy color, similar to her skintone. The tulle lining made the floor-length skirt of it poof out, much like a standard ballgown but slightly less puffy. The bodice had an intricate, black lace overlay that ended at a beautifully tied sash at the waist.

It had cost her a fortune, but it was definitely proving to be worth it.

After shucking her daytime clothes off, she slipped into the satiny garment and exited the room, holding it up at the neckline so it didn't slide down on her trip out. She shuffled over to Kakashi where he waited on the sofa, silently reading his book, and turned her back to him, telling him, "Okay, tie me. But make it look nice, please."

He set the novel open on his lap and continued to read while somehow managing to lace her up blindly. Skeptically, she checked his handiwork in the bathroom mirror and noted that it was, in fact, well done. With a shrug, she opened up her pack and took out her cosmetics and hair supplies.

"This could take awhile," she warned him.

"We've got an hour before we have to leave," was his reply.

She pursed her lips in thought before deciding that yes, sixty minutes would be just about enough time. First, just to get it out of the way, she did her hair by pinning the sides of it back so instead of falling straight down, her pink locks curved around her ears and over her shoulders. She took a curling iron to her whole head, brushing each ringlet out to turn them into something more like soft waves. Then, she stuck to neutral colors as far as make-up went, except for the cherry red shade she painted on her lips.

"Okay," she said, "let's get this over with." With a final discreet adjustment of her strapless bra, she stepped out of the bathroom and lightly kicked Kakashi to attention. "You ready?"

Kakashi started to look up, the word "yes" already halfway out of his mouth, but he couldn't find the rest of it when he caught sight of her. He'd already thought her beautiful, but in that gown and with that lipstick? She was absolutely stunning. It was a good thing the mission called for his eyes to be on her, otherwise he'd have a lot of trouble keeping them off.

She gave him an inquisitive look and prompted, "Well?"

He shook himself back to reality before he could be caught blatantly staring any longer. "Yeah, let's go." He grabbed his wallet and stuffed it into the inner pocket of his coat, then made to open the door. Sakura stopped him.

"You're forgetting something," she pointed out.

"Am I?"

With a slight smile, she held her arm out, bending it at the elbow, and said, "Your wife."

He laughed and slipped his arm through hers before leading her out the door and into the chilly night.

"I'm glad you two could make it this evening."

Rai pulled two chairs out for Kakashi and Sakura, gesturing for them to sit down at the lavishly decorated dining table. There was already a bread basket filled with wheats and whites in the center of the table, fixed between two short candles and three wine glasses. A bottle of wine that likely cost the same as two meals was already open and ready to be poured.

"We can always make time for a friend," Kakashi said. He let go of Sakura's hand to sit down, though the warmth of it remained tingling in the center of his palm.

"Yes, and thank you for treating us," Sakura chimed in.

"Of course, of course!" Rai insisted. "I wasn't in town for the actual wedding, so I had to give you some form of a gift."

The talk was more harmless than Sakura had been expecting. Rai brought up few questions about their "marriage", instead spending most of the conversation time bantering about his memories of his previous visits to the village. He even revealed a few hushed facts about what Tsunade had been like as a child - not surprisingly, she hadn't been a bit less fiery than Sakura herself. All this while they ordered and waited for their food. True to the facility's reputation, the service was speedy. The waiter returned only a half hour after taking their orders.

Rai took amusement in the fact that Sakura had ordered a heavier meal than Kakashi. While she'd opted for the seasoned steak, Kakashi had ordered just a salad. Rai interpreted this as an indication of his weaker stomach. Sakura knew it was because of the damned mask.

The talking slowed down while they were eating, which always made Sakura feel a little bit awkward. But the second Rai opened his mouth up again, she wished the quiet would come back.

"So have you guys thought about having children?"

Kakashi choked on a lettuce leaf and Sakura almost inhaled her fork. Her eyes watered as she swallowed down a barely chewed chunk of beef. "Pardon?" she asked when the meat is out of her airway.

"Well, you have been married for a year now," he reasoned. "You are going to have children, right?"

Kakashi and Sakura shared a glance, and for a minute, she could see his dark eyes on a baby girl. With her pink hair and her peachy skin. Crying for her father, who would calm her and put her to bed peacefully. What would they name her? They'd probably choose a name to honor someone one of them had known. While she herself would tend towards Jiraiya not only to keep the old sage in their hearts, but to appease her blonde, whiskered friend, Sakura thought that Kakashi would probably want to name her Rin.

But Kakashi probably didn't want kids, least of all with Sakura. And the thought, though it had never occurred to her before now, brought an aching pain to her heart. She felt her lungs constrict slightly and feared that she would start to hyperventilate there at the table. So she stood, excused herself, and rushed off to the lady's room.

Rai frowned. "She couldn't have answered my question first?" he wondered aloud. He looked to Kakashi in search of some sort of explanation.

The most Kakashi could do for him was shrug and admit, "I have no idea what's gotten into her tonight." He turned his head in time to see her disappear down a long, ornate hallway and sighed. "Here, let me go find out if she's alright."

"Yeah, you do that."

Kakashi cringed. Their benefactor sounded none too pleased with Sakura's outburst, and there was no doubt in Kakashi's mind that Tsunade would hear of this. And when that happened, they were both as good as dead. He rose from his seat and followed Sakura determinedly, a hint of unrestrained anger in his step. The sign on the women's restroom didn't hinder him, not even for a split second. He stepped right in.

Sakura squealed as the door swung wide open, but calmed down when she saw it was only him. She was sitting on the toilet with her hands in her lap, her thumbs twiddling around each other. The first words out of her mouth were, "Please don't yell at me."

She must have noticed he'd been about to. He deflated and walked over to her to rest a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know how much longer I can keep up this lie," she sighed. "I mean, it's one thing to pretend we're married. With the way we are around each other, we might as well be. But..." She struggled to find a way to explain her thoughts. There was no way to do it well enough without also letting him know how she'd recently discovered she felt about him. So she lied. "It's just that, we hate each other half the time. How are we supposed to convince him that we love each other enough to actually start a family?"

For a moment, she thought she saw him frown under his mask. Like the words had hurt him. Like he did love her enough to have kids with her and like he thought about it all the time. But she dismissed it as wishful thinking and he replied, "We've managed to pull off the charade up until now. You're just going to have to try a little harder."

"I may have reached my limit."

His eyebrows met with a wrinkle in the center of his forehead. Without giving himself time to doubt his choice of action, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up and against him, with his other hand resting on her smooth cheek. "Half the time you want to stab me with a steak knife and the other half, you're my best friend," he pointed out. "What does that mean to you?"

"I- I don't-"

"We understand each other, and we care about each other, and that's what keeps us from wringing each other's necks. Because neither of us want to lose the one person we can truly confide in." He tried to make eye contact with her, but it was hard when her gaze kept flickering from his face to his hand. "For us, that's the closest thing we have to love, so it has to be enough to get us through this mission. That, or Tsunade will have our asses."

Her hand twitched self-consciously at her side as she contemplated his words. But her mind was a little fuzzy, probably due to mere centimeters separating their lips from meeting. He could probably feel the pounding of her heart as clearly as if it were his own, but if he did, he said nothing of it. He just kept staring at her, and finally, she breathed, "Okay, I think I can do this. But what will we tell him now?"

Kakashi smiled and reluctantly pulled away from her. "I've got this all figured out," he told her as he pulled her back toward their table. "It's sad, but pretend it's true for me."

They sat back down across from their companion, but he didn't smile at their return. He only asked, with a frown plastered across his features, "Have we figured everything out?"

"Yes, it's just that..." Kakashi sighed melodramatically. "You see, we've been trying to conceive for awhile now, but all our attempts have been unsuccessful. The mention of it just got Sakura a little bit emotional, didn't it?"

She played along easily, "Oh, yes. I want a baby so badly, but it seems that the gods are not on our side."

Rai couldn't help a sympathetic quirk of his lips. "It's only bad luck, dear," he tried. "I'm sure you'll find yourself a blessing in due time."

Sakura smiled softly at him and said, "Thank you, that means a lot to me." She then cast her eyes back down to her hands, one of which was still held in Kakashi's, and bit her lip. Kakashi couldn't help but notice how well she was playing up the act, as if such a situation would truly hurt her as deeply as she was pretending.

A bit of an awkward silence ensued before Rai finally said, "Well, I've already paid the bill, so we can leave any time we want."

Kakashi quickly stood and extended his arm to shake Rai's hand. "Thank you, again. I hope we didn't upset your night."

"No, not at all," Rai insisted, giving Kakashi's hand a firm shake. "It was an absolute pleasure." He turned toward Sakura and didn't hesitate in giving her a warm hug. "And good luck. To the both of you."

Sakura patted him on the back and smiled, "Thank you."

"I don't know if I'll see you two again before I catch the train back home. But I hope the next time we cross paths, there'll be a little Hatake in the picture."

Sakura blushed, and with a discreet glance up at her "husband", she agreed, "Yeah, me too."

"Kakashi?"

Sakura entered his room with all her make-up removed and her hair gone from its elegant 'do to a messy ponytail. He noted how she still looked beautiful, even without the layer of cosmetics and dosage of hair products to enhance her appearance, but he quietly kept the thought to himself. "Yes?"

"Can you help me get untied?" She turned her back to him and shuffled backward until she felt his hand against her back, already outstretched to assist her. A warm blush crept up her neck as she felt his cool fingers work at the intricate lacing at the back of her gown.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Kakashi commented, still working deftly.

"It could have gone better," she sighed. "I just wish I hadn't have gotten so worked up like that."

"You couldn't help it." He untied the last of the silky ribbon keeping her enclosed in the dress, but instead of letting her go, he pulled her against his chest in spite of his better judgement. Instead of tensing like he expected her to when his arms came loosely around her waist, she relaxed in his hold with a loud exhale.

"I could have if I'd tried," she mumbled. "God, I'm so stupid."

"You're not." He couldn't imagine how he'd go about telling her exactly how he felt. That she put herself down too much. That she was so amazing and having to live without her would be a fate worse than death. "You're the smartest woman I know, and I'll be damned if I'm going to stand here and let you talk yourself down like that."

She smiled at that. "You're amazing, you know." Her eyes widened and she bit her tongue a second too late. The words were already out in the open. To fix her mistake, she quickly amended, "And one day, you're going to make one lucky lady very happy."

"Hm." He doubted it. If he couldn't have her, he didn't want anyone. Suddenly, her words in the restaurant bathroom came back to him, and he thought how he'd never wanted kids. Before her. And he'd never wanted to get married. Before her. But now that he was put in a situation where he had to pretend like he was her life partner, married and ready to start a family with her, he realized that he wouldn't actually mind it. He might even like the idea.

She smiled and turned in his arms to face him. "You don't believe me?" she asked. "You have your pick of the ladies, and when you finally decide on one, you're going to make her the happiest girl alive." As happy as you've made me, she thought. Before the rational side of her had time to object, she pressed a soft kiss to Kakashi's masked cheek. "Thank you. For everything you said tonight."

She started to walk away, but before she could get completely out the door, he said, "Sakura." When she glanced over her shoulder in response, he told her, "You don't have to sleep on the couch tonight. I mean, if you don't want to."

"Noted," she replied simply. Then she left, presumably to change into something more comfortable, and Kakashi settled himself into bed.

With his eyes shut, he could still see her face, smiling up at him. Telling him all these things about how great he was and how happy he was going to make his future wife. He didn't want to make anyone happy except her. Just as he sensed he was about to fall asleep, he felt the other half of the bed dip, and a warm body slid in close to him.

He smiled, and his tired, fuzzy brain made him think it was okay to tug his mask down and curl his arms around her middle and hold her against him. He nosed the back of her head, breathing in the scent of his own shampoo on her hair.

"I thought I should let you know," she said, "that you were right and you are the only person I can confide in. And I don't want to lose you."

"Okay," he murmured. "Then I think I should tell you that you are the only woman I would ever have kids with."

Her heart tried to pound out of her chest and her stomach flip-flopped at the confession. But she dismissed it with a quiet, "I think you had one too many glasses of wine tonight. Go to sleep, Kakashi."

"As you wish."

When she felt the press of his lips against her shoulder, she almost gasped at the feeling of skin. And... was that stubble? But she shook her head, willing herself to stop imagining things, no matter how badly she wanted them.

When Sakura's eyes fluttered open the next morning, she was at first confused at her surroundings. Having spent the last few days sleeping on the sofa, she was accustomed to waking up to the sight of a blank television directly in front of her. But this time, her wake-up call was the warm, filtered sunlight creeping in through the thin curtains on the wall before her. It took her a moment to remember where she was.

Kakashi's room. For the second night in a row. Only this time, it wasn't the morning after. It was simply the next morning. She couldn't recall exactly why she'd decided to spend the night in his bed with him - only that at one point or another, she'd been given permission, and that she'd originally tried to sleep on the lumpy sofa. But, apparently, she'd taken him up on his offer. It just went to show that there was no logic to human behavior. People just did what felt right. What made them feel most at home in unfamiliar territory.

When she shuffled out of the room, she was almost taken aback by the overwhelmingly delicious scents taking over the kitchen. The first thing to hit her was the coffee, which made her exhale a relieved sigh. Then, gradually, she picked out everything else: eggs, orange juice, buttered toast, pancakes. Anything she could possibly be hungry for was available to her.

"Why don't I let you make breakfast for me more often?" she wondered aloud.

Kakashi turned around and smiled at her, blindly scrambling the eggs in the pan in front of him. "Because last time, I did something wrong and you gave me a concussion with a frying pan."

"Oh..." She chuckled nervously. "Sorry about that."

He turned back to his cooking, trying to focus on the slow solidification of the eggs instead of the nagging voice in the back of his head telling him to man up and just tell her already, before it was too late. In just a few short days, she would be leaving, most likely with a sense of resentment at their time spent together.

If only he'd realized his love for her sooner. Then maybe his mind wouldn't be in constant battle with itself on what to say, and when, and how. If he didn't suck it up and tell her soon, then she was going to go back home. To her pink house to sleep in her pink bed without him, and to cook in her pink kitchen for no one but herself. It was nothing short of unbearable, knowing that after she left his house, they would only see each other in passing. Or during his rare hospital visits.

Living without her would be hell. More hell than her constant explosions. More hell than the way she liked to start fights over every little thing. In all honesty, he loved that she cared enough to scream at him about blueberries in pancakes. He needed her, if only because she filled in that empty hole in his life he'd never liked to admit was there in the first place. But, if he didn't speak up, he knew it was only a matter of time before he lost the only thing he had come to have.

When Kakashi walked in on Sakura in the bathroom, he couldn't help but wonder when people stopped locking doors. And when he first saw that flash of pink through the doorway, he thought he was going to get his ass kicked. But it turned out that she was completely decent - she was only fixing her hair.

"Going somewhere?" he asked as he slipped through the small space behind her to get to his medicine cabinet.

She pushed a bobby pin through her bangs to keep them out of her face and replied, "Yeah, Ino asked if I wanted to go out for-"

"Coffee. Genma, too," Kakashi chuckled. "Can't those two just go out alone together for once?"

"Hey, I'm not complaining," she laughed. "At least they're going out at all and not staying in bed all day. If you know what I mean."

"You really think they've had sex?" He grabbed a stick of deodorant and discreetly applied it to his underarms by sliding his arms up his shirt. Sakura politely made a point of not staring at the sliver of his hipbone he consequently exposed. "I mean, I know Genma is a dog but Ino is such a prude, it makes me wonder. You know Genma has endured far worse than a talkative, virginal blonde for nookie."

"I'm sure he has." She grabbed an unidentifiable spray bottle and gave her hair a good spritzing before she tousled the pink locks with her hands. Almost like magic, her hair began to curl up around her jawline. Kakashi may never understand feminine haircare products, but their inner workings were no matter to him as long as they continued to make Sakura's hair frame her face just perfectly like that. "I'm not saying they've gone all the way. But seeing as Genma's a reputed sex god, they've probably done something they'll go to hell for."

"That's a kind way of putting it."

She whirled around to face him with a smug grin on her face and said, "Our friends have given into the deadliest of sins."

"If you're referring to lust, then you're in no place to judge," he snarked as he brought up his hand to ruffle her hair.

Her cheeks flushed bright pink and she batted Kakashi's hands away from her recently styled hair. Instead of addressing his comment, she chose instead to whine, "Hands off, I don't have time to redo my hair. I have to meet Ino in-"

"Five minutes, I know." He gestured gallantly towards the door for Sakura to step through before him and said, "We should get going."

"Yeah, let's go." After checking herself one final time in the mirror, she shuffled out of the room and to the front door. Just as she was about to let herself out, she cursed, "Shit, I don't think I have any money."

"Don't worry about it." He opened the door and placed his hand on the small of her back, urging her forward. "I'll cover you. You can pay me back later."

The nerve endings on the patch of skin where the heat of his hand burned through her t-shirt sparked up, demanding her attention. She smiled, not only at his kind gesture but at the warm sensation at the base of her spine. "Thanks," she said, forcing herself to keep a smile when his hand moves away.

As soon as they were out on the public streets, Kakashi's ever present book was in front of his eyes. Its presence, however, didn't seem to hinder him in the slightest. He somehow managed to make his way through the village without bumping into a single person, all while reading at a steady pace. Without the Sharingan, which just made it that much more impressive. And even more surprisingly, when they reached the coffee shop, he stopped in front, put his book away, and opened the door for them.

Sakura watched all of this and didn't even attempt to hide her amusement. He'd always been good at analyzing his surroundings, but the fact that he could do it without even looking ahead of him was a marvel to say the least. It was almost like he lived in a world of his own making, where instead of getting out of the way of others, the Earth simply turned in his favor and moved the obstacles for him.

When the tiny bell above the door gave a small clang, Ino looked up from the magazine resting on her table and nodded to Genma from across the room. They both ot up simultaneously to greet their respective companions, but for the first few seconds of their rendezvous, they were ignored.

"What do you want? I'm gonna get us some drinks before the line gets long," Kakashi asked.

She put her finger to her lips in contemplation for a moment, and the way her eyes tilted up to the ceiling almost made it seem like she was spacing out. But after just a few seconds, she turned her gaze back to the masked jonin and decided, "Just a non-fat latte in the smallest size, I think."

"Non-fat?" He seemed surprised. With a chuckle, he pressed, "You don't think you're fat, do you?"

"'Course not, non-fat tastes better to me," Sakura explained. "And it's healthier." She gave him a silly grin, as if she actually cared about the healthiness of her caffeinated beverages. But then her smile fell as a slight sense of guilt came over her. "Hey, are you sure you wanna pay for me? I don't have to get anything."

He smiled, though the expression couldn't be seen through his mask, and assured her of his intentions with a simple nod. "You and Ino go sit down. I'll bring it to you."

Ino urgently tugged on her arm, forcing her to leave his side and take her seat. As she was being pulled away, she mouthed a quick "thank you" to her former sensei and flashed him a grateful smile. When they got to their table, Ino shoved Sakura into one of the chairs and demanded, "What was that all about?"

"What?"

"That." The blonde flicked her head towards the two men at the counter and gave her friend an expectant look. "I thought you couldn't stand him? Now you're making googly eyes at him, like Naruto having some ramen for the first time in a decade."

"I was not!" Sakura exclaimed. "And I never said I couldn't stand him. I just. Well, he's different, that's all."

One of Ino's eyebrows perked up and her lips pursed as she incredulously glared at Sakura. If she was not mistaken, the same pink-haired kunoichi had been griping about Kakashi's inability to hold a normal conversation and the fact that the inside of his home constantly held a tinge of that wet dog smell just a week ago. Then, like a fly against a windshield, the realization hit her. Her lips curled up into a smug, cheshire grin as she gasped, "You're in love with him."

Sakura's jade eyes stretched wide open in shock. Had her friend no shame? Anyone could have heard that. While it was the truth in its most straightforward form, Sakura hadn't even said the words to herself yet, so to hear her best friend holler them right into her face in the middle of a populated cafe was not entirely desirable Ino really needed to learn how to keep her fat mouth shut. She stuttered, "It's not- I mean, I don't- It's actually really complicated and I don't want to talk about it right now."

Ino blew her response off completely by rambling on, "It makes sense, now that I think about it. You defending him last time you had us all over, and how he's pretty much the only man you can stand in this whole village. I mean, it was only a matter of time before you fell for him, and he's obviously got it bad for you, too. He is treating you."

"He's not treating me, he's just-"

"-paying for her because she's a little short," Kakashi explained. "I'm sure you'd do the same for Ino."

A sharp laugh escaped Genma's throat. "Hell no, man," he chortled. "She's deceitful, devious, and cruel. And she hasn't kept a single one of her promises since I met her."

"And you're obsessed with her, aren't you?"

He chuckled as Genma's bitter smile turned downward, but he was soon shut up by, "Oh no, we're talking about your relationships here, not mine. Speaking of which, why aren't you and Sakura together? You'd make a-" Genma paused and his eyebrows furrowed for a moment, but then he was continuing, "Well, you'd make a couple. I don't know about a good one, but you'd definitely make a couple."

"Two people, typically, do make a couple," Kakashi agreed. "But I don't know. I think she only sees me as her old sensei."

"So you're not denying it, that's good. Denial is bad for your health." They stopped talking for a moment so Kakashi could place their order, and then they moved off to the side to allow the next customer through. "But come on, it's obvious by the way she acts around you that's you're a lot more to her than that."

"Well, you know how women are. They always convince themselves they're in love with the guys they sleep with."

Genma choked on his next breath and took a good two minutes to cough himself back into composure. "Wait a minute, you-"

"-slept with him!"

"Keep it down, will you?" Sakura snapped. She twisted her neck to see behind her, fearing that Genma and Kakashi had heard her friend's outburst. Fortunately, the two men were caught up in their own heated discussion and didn't seem to notice the commotion on the other side of the store. "It wasn't like I just whored myself out to him. I mean, if you'd gone for so long feeling so sexually frustrated, you'd take it where you could get it, too, wouldn't you?"

"I know you," Ino sighed. "You don't just sleep with guys. They have to mean something to you. Like I said, you obviously love him. Why don't you just-"

"Because I don't!" Sakura argued. "He's- He's an enigma, you know? I never know what he's thinking not just because he's so hard to read with that damn mask on, but he never talks about it. And he's always got his nose in that damn book, and-"

"Sakura." Ino's small, delicate hand came to rest on Sakura's comfortingly, but also with an assertive pressure. "Listen to me. If you're always trying to find reasons why you can't be with him, you'll never find a single reason why you should."

"That's my point," Sakura whined.

"No. It's not that there's nothing there," Ino insisted. "You just refuse to see it. He's the best thing that's happened to you since Sasuke left town. You need to stop brushing him off as just your sensei - because you know damn well he's much more to you than that - and give your heart-"

"-what it deserves," Genma finished with a flourish.

"That's deep, " Kakashi remarked blandly.

"I heard Ino say it to Hinata once," Genma shrugged. "But that's beside the point. I can tell you love her. But I can't tell her that."

"It's not that I don't want to." The bell on the pick-up counter rang, and Kakashi blindly fitted their drinks into a cardboard tray and started walking over to the ladies' table. "I mean, I don't want her to go home. Don't you think I've tried to think of a way to tell her? I want her to stay, I just. I can't think of a good way to say it."

"Say what you mean, man," Genma advised under his breath. As they approached the table, their conversation came to a halt, and by the guarded looks on the girls' faces, they'd also stopped in the middle of an important discussion.

Kakashi pulled Sakura's latte out of the cardboard tray and handed it to her with his signature eye crinkle. "It came to two-seventy," he told her. "You can-"

"I've got some money at home. I can pay you back as soon as I go back to my place. Is that okay?" she asked.

For a minute, she thought she saw his mask crease in the shape of a frown. But when he gave her a seemingly cheery "of course", she passed it off as her imagination and accepted the drink. Neither of them noticed that their hands touched and lingered longer than necessary, and Genma and Ino were both polite enough not to mention it in the presence of the other. In fact, they both remained relatively silent until Kakashi retreated to his own table with Genma.

"Kakashi, dude, maybe this is the wrong thing to say at the wrong time, but she's fucking hot." Kakashi casted him a one-eyed glare, prompting him to add, "And also really smart and stuff. And I can tell you can't live without her, and all that emotional crap. So why don't you just ask her to stay? The worst she'll do is go home. It's not like that wasn't already part of the plan."

"I don't know," Kakashi sighed. "Maybe. I should, but, I just think that- Well, when I think about my loneliest moments, there was usually someone sitting right next to me. I might be better off letting myself be alone."

"Don't pull that crap on me," Genma groaned. "Try this on for size. Think about your happiest moments. Was there someone there also?"

Kakashi's lone visible eye casted downward in thought for a moment. Genma was not the type to voice it out loud like Ino was, but he could see all sorts of things playing out on Kakashi's visage. Finally, Kakashi lifted his eye and said, "Yes. There was."

"And who was it?"

Kakashi didn't speak. He didn't have to. His gaze slid over to where the two women were conversing. And it was definitely not Ino he was looking at.

Genma smiled. As a man who had experienced many women in many different ways, he knew how hard it could be to find the right one. Especially if you closed yourself off as much as his friend did. Knowing that the reputed lone wolf had finally found someone he could stand to be next to for the rest of his life - or at least most of it - was not only touching, but it brought a smile to his face. He loved seeing his friends happy, and though Kakashi hadn't one-hundred percent gotten there, he was well on his way.

"You gotta do it," he said quietly. "She's not gonna give a shit how you do it, her answer isn't gonna change. But if you don't at least try, you're gonna regret it forever."

After taking a long swig of his plain, black coffee, Kakashi nodded his agreement. He was about to ask for advice on how he should finally say it to her, but before he could get a word out, he felt a gentle weight on his shoulder. He looked up and was met by Sakura's brilliant gaze.

"Is it okay if we go now?" she asked. "I need to get some packing done. You know the mission's over today."

Though the expression wouldn't be visible through his ever present mask anyway, Kakashi carefully kept his frown in. He nodded his understanding and said, "I bet you're pretty excited to get home."

She shrugged, and for a minute, he almost let himself believe that she was going to miss him as much as he was going to miss her. "I think I mostly just want to have my bathroom back," she giggled. "I miss my shampoo. And my pink walls."

"What," Kakashi laughed as he stood up and grabbed Sakura's empty paper cup. "My green walls aren't good enough for you?"

She chuckled along with him as they made their way to the exit. Sakura threw Ino a parting glance, and her blonde friend met it with a pointed gaze of her own. She mouthed what looked like the words "just tell him" before Sakura rolled her eyes and tried to leave, but instead, ran right into a fluffy man on his way in.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I-" She looked up to see a familiar, round face smiling at her. "Rai! I thought you were heading home today."

"I am," he told her. "But I've got a long train ride ahead of me, so I thought I'd grab some coffee on my way out. I'm glad I caught up with you before leaving."

She flashed him a small smile to show that the feelings were mutual. The large, warm hand that slipped its way into hers was no longer surprising, especially in Rai's presence. The only thing that made her uncomfortable about it was that it was all just an act put up on Kakashi's part to keep Rai believing that they were a happy couple.

"Hey," Ino whispered to her senbon-chewing partner. "Who's that?"

Genma squinted his eyes at the group by the door, his gaze falling lower and lower until he saw the clasped hands of the two lovebirds still hiding from their own feathers. "Well they're holding hands in public," he noted. "I'd venture to guess he's the reason they got 'married'."

"You mean the reason Tsunade put them on this stupid mission in the first place?" Ino laughed. "Yeah, he looks sleazy enough to be friends with her."

"Shh," Genma shushed. "I want to hear what they're saying."

"Yes, it's good to see you, too, Rai," Kakashi mused. "I wanted to thank you again."

Sakura, looking just about as confused as the stout man before her, casted a quick glance up at her silver-headed companion in a silent question as to what in the hell he was talking about.

"Thank me?" Rai asked. "You mean for dinner? I already told you, it's the least-"

"No, not that, though I do truly appreciate it," Kakashi said. "I never did thank you for saying what you said to Sakura that night. I've never seen my wife in such high hopes and spirits since then, and as I'm sure you've seen, her smile is one of the world's greatest wonders. I've been seeing a lot more of it lately, courtesy of you, my friend."

Sakura's lips curved up in a slightly embarrassed smile, only serving to prove Kakashi's point. But this time, it hadn't been to keep up with appearances. She'd never heard him say such flattering things about a girl, and she'd never expected to hear those words said about herself. "Yes, thank you." She said it as though she was speaking to Rai, but her eyes remained fixed on Kakashi's masked face.

"It's my pleasure," Rai assured them. "And again, I say there will be a youngster joining your family soon enough. You've already been blessed by the Gods with so much love between the two of you, I can't see why they would stop at that without at least giving you a family to show it."

"They're having kids?" Ino gasped.

"Quiet down, woman," Genma snapped. "You want them to know we're listening?" He gave her a pointed glare before turning back to the conversation with a final note of, "And calm yourself. It's just another lie to keep him believing they're in love."

"We'll send a letter as soon as we have good news to share," Sakura told Rai.

"So I'll be hearing from you soon, I hope," he chimed. "It won't be long now. It was good seeing you two, but I'm afraid I'm going to run late."

"Have a safe trip," Kakashi said. "We'll tell Tsunade-sama you've gone home."

They exchanged parting words and Kakashi and Sakura finally exited the building, the two of them sighing simultaneously and reluctantly releasing each other's hands once they were out of Rai's line of vision.

"Thank God that's over," Sakura chuckled nervously.

"Yeah," Kakashi sighed, though he sounded a good deal less relieved than she did. "Thank God."

The key twisted, and the lock snapped to an unlatched position, and finally, after the longest walk of her life, Sakura was back - well, she wasn't back home, but it was close enough. Once inside, she let out the heavy sigh she'd been holding since the whole damn mission started up. "Well, I'm glad that's over," she mused. "But really, why'd you pull that big lie out of your ass?"

As Kakashi latched the door shut behind him, he asked, "What lie?"

"The 'oh my wife is the most happy beautiful thing in the world!' bull," Sakura laughed. "It didn't seem necessary to me."

"I had to say something," Kakashi explained. "He's got an ego. I was just petting it. And it was really only a half-lie."

"Oh?"

"The thing about your smile, that was the truth," he admitted, but to keep the moment from becoming too tender for her liking, he didn't make eye contact with her when he said it. "But this isn't the happiest I've seen you."

"And when's the happiest you've seen me?" Sakura giggled. She didn't redden at his compliment, nor did it even phase her at this point. After living with him for the past few weeks, she'd begun to recognize that when he said something nice about her appearance, it was usually just an off-hand observation or he had an ulterior motive.

"The day you moved in," Kakashi joked.

"You're funny," Sakura deadpanned, though a smile was still trying to pull at the corners of her mouth and show her teeth in an amused grin. "Hey, I need a little help packing."

Kakashi's smile fell, and he was again thankful for his mask and its ability to keep his emotions a secret. He gave a short nod and asked what he could do to lend a hand.

"Can you grab my bathroom bag?" she asked him, already on her way to the bedroom to get her clothes all sorted away. "I think it's in the shower."

After giving her another affirmative nod and heading towards the bathroom, he marveled at the way she spoke of his home. Not even two weeks ago, it would have been his shower instead of just the shower. Anything that had been a piece of his life had started to become natural to her as well.

Now, he pondered as he shuffled into the tiled room, that could mean one of two things. Either she had become comfortable enough in his home to consider every room just another place to be, like the supermarket or the hospital, or it had begun to feel like her own. Both scenarios were a step forward, but the latter, to Kakashi, was preferable.

The shower, he noticed, smelled like her. Probably because she'd been the last one to use it, but that was irrelevant. At this point, how the scent got there was the least of his concerns. But God, was he going to miss that smell when it faded over the next couple of days. If he didn't take Genma's advice, that was.

There it was, precariously perched in a small cubby-hole in the wall that served no purpose to Kakashi, but was probably built there to hold lady things, such as Sakura's pastel pink colored toiletry bag. It was embroidered with petite flowers of multiple complementary colors and it was just the type of luggage he would expect her to own. It was filled, to the point where the rubbery material tugged at the edges of the zipper, with deodorants and perfumes and tampons and all the things he would be happy to go out and pick up for her if she would just stay.

With a sigh, he grabbed it out of the small shelf and used one of his shuriken emblazoned towels to wipe it dry of the small droplets of water that linger. He was going to miss seeing the little accessory nestled in the little nook in the wall, taking up the space in which he could normally keep his razor. It was not like he desperately needed a razor, he wore his mask all the damn time. The bag could stay. But would the girl want to?

When he exited the bathroom, Sakura was no longer waiting for him in the living area. If his nose didn't deceive him - and it never did - she had retreated into his bedroom, most likely to pack the one pair of pajamas she'd left in there. He approached the room quietly, the only noise he made being the squeak of the door inching open just a bit more as he entered and knelt down beside her, snaking his arm around her to place her small toiletry bag in her larger pack.

"Thanks," she said while patting her clothing down so it all fit in one bag.

Kakashi made a soft, noncommittal sound at the back of his throat. Once all of her belongings were packed away for her trip back to her own place, they both rose from their places on the floor and migrated to the familiar living area. With the mission nearly over, there was only one thing left to do.

Say goodbye.

"Well, uh," Sakura began, shuffling one foot awkwardly against the hardwood flooring. "This was fun." She let a small smile play on her lips as she joked, "I may even miss the wet dog smell."

All Kakashi could think to say was, "Well, try not to miss it too much."

They stood there, facing each other in comfortable silence, each of them with words left unsaid burning on their tongue. Finally, Kakashi took the quiet moment to pull her in and hold her against his chest in one of his awkward, gentle hugs that she loved so much. The rare gesture that almost made her forget all of the gruesome, terrifying things his hands had done to human skin and bone. And with a track record like his, that was not an easy thing to accomplish.

With the ticking of their last few minutes together pounding against her eardrums, Sakura reluctantly slipped out of his grasp, turned away and inched towards the door. Her hand was on the doorknob, and fuck, Kakashi knew he needed to say something now or forever hold his peace. But he didn't know what to say. Hatake Kakashi, while he was not famous for being talkative, was also not known for ever being at a loss for words. When he did speak, he usually had something of value to say. So he couldn't help but wonder, why was right now any different? And as he was wracking his brain for the right words, he remembered what his best friend told him - whatever he finally said wouldn't matter if her mind was made up. He just needed to say it. So he opened his mouth and just let the first words that came to mind tumble out.

"You could stay." Her hand was already on the doorknob when she heard it. And it stayed there when she turned her head over her shoulder, prompting him to add, "I mean, if that's what you want."

"What?" She turned her whole body to face his this time. "Why would I-"

"You wouldn't have to sleep on the sofa," he tried. "We could get you your own room. Or you can share mine. Whatever it is you want, you can have it." In the only bashful move she'd seen from him since the day they met, he shoved his hands deep into his pockets as he said, "But you don't have to leave."

"I'm not sure what you're saying," she insisted.

"How can I put it?" His hand came up out of his pocket and in front of his face, where he brought his index finger against his masked lower lip and tapped it there in thought. A simple 'I love you' would never do. It just would not convey the entirety of his feelings. There was really only one thing he would say that would truly get the picture through her head. So he said it. "Marry me."

Sakura's cheeks flushed a soft pink. She stood there in a stunned, embarrassed silence for a few seconds before she snapped, "That's not funny!"

"Good," Kakashi said simply. "It wasn't a joke."

"No."

"Sakura."

"I don't believe you."

"Oh? And why's that?"

"Of all people - of all the mature, experienced women in this whole village - why would you choose me?" she pressed.

And so he began. "For one, I like how your cheeks turn the same color as your hair when you're embarrassed - like right now." He barely suppressed a chuckle as she self-consciously turned her head away, hiding her face from view. "Aside from the fact that I think any other woman would have bolted right after I asked, there are other reasons. You're kind of a bitch, but I think I'm getting used to you." Sakura's jaw dropped and her fists clenched at her sides. But Kakashi didn't give her enough time to hit him before he's continuing, "I like that you talk incessantly, and that you treat me like shit. I think it's funny, actually. I kind of enjoy it."

The temperature she felt on the skin of her face only grew hotter as he listed the reasons why he claimed to want to marry her. But this was Kakashi. This was someone she'd always recognized as an enigma - a dangerous, tempting one, but an enigma all the same - and here he was, spilling his guts and his heart right out on the floor beneath their feet, and now they were standing in a puddle of all this mush and Sakura was stuck between washing her shoes of it or going for a swim. With the apples of her cheeks still glowing with a natural blush, she turned back to him and demanded, "Prove it."

"Tell me how and I will."

Her eyes ran over the only visible half of his face. She recalled how strange eye contact with him had felt in her younger years - what with his asymmetrical gaze. And on top of that, it had been just plain awkward to only see part of the man's face. Now it was only natural to her. But that was just it. It was natural to her because over time, she'd learned that no one had ever seen the face beneath that navy blue piece of cloth. He'd always avoided any situations in which he might have to take it off for more than a fraction of a second at a time. It had always been a part of his entity. She'd seen every body part of his from the neck and downwards, but she figured if he wanted to make her his wife so badly, she had every right to see the one piece of him that had been his best kept secret for so long.

"Take off your mask."

For a moment, he seemed stunned by the proposition. And Sakura almost thought she defeated him. But her breath caught in her throat when his fingers curled around the edge of the breathable fabric and he gave a good tug. Deliberately, he gathered the fabric under his chin, effectively turning his long sleeve shirt into a turtleneck.

He stepped forward to stand directly in front of her and his hand travelled over to rest on her cheek as he brought himself closer still. With their noses just touching at the tips, he told her, "I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life with someone other than you."

"Alright," she breathed. "Now tell me what you really want."

This time he didn't try to hide his laughter. Without asking her consent first, he pressed his lips to her forehead in a soft kiss and said, "I love you."

"This isn't happening," she tried to convince herself.

With another kiss, this time to the round tip of her nose, he added, "I need you."

"I'm not hearing this."

Finally, he touched his mouth to hers in a short, but honest kiss. One more time, he said, "Marry me."

She stayed silent. In any other situation, Kakashi would just walk away now and not wait for any form of answer. He was not what one would call a patient man when all it came down to was a simple 'yes or no' question. If she had nothing to say, let her be speechless. And if it had just been some sort of joke, he would be curled up on the floor in laughter by now. But this was an entirely different situation. He needed a yes or a no just as much as he wanted one, preferably the former. And he would stand there until he got one.

Finally, her hands came up to mesh with his disheveled, silver hair and she took a deep breath. At long last, her lips parted and she answered, "Okay."

"Okay?" he breathed.

"Yeah, okay." Her mouth curved into a tiny, satisfied smile. "I'll marry you."

With a grin plastered onto his features, he moved in to kiss her again, but she stopped him with a finger to his lips. "One condition."

"Anything," he promised.

"We paint the bathroom pink."