Of all the lousy missions Sakura had ever been assigned, it just figured that the worst would have to be one she was doing for free.
It was a mixture of guilt, foolishness and some misguided sense of duty that lead her to accept the responsibility of being Ino's maid of honor. For one, just the guest list was enormous. Between Ino's finicking, her relentless workload at the hospital and the veritable cat herding that was getting shinobi to commit to social activity, Sakura was about at the end of her rope.
But for the sake of Ino, who at certain points during the ordeal Sakura had to remind herself was her friend, Sakura had endured long weeks of arguing with flower shops, picking napkins, and chasing down guests who had failed to RSVP. Then she had go home to make up the reading of medical texts she ordinarily did during her free time. At long last, however, the wedding was nearly upon them.
At least, Sakura knew, all this work would be well worth it. The wedding would be the talk of the village, a very large portion of which was attending. She did a quick run through of the guest list once again. Ten Ten was coming. Shino, Kiba and Choji were coming, Hinata was coming, Neji, surprisingly, was going, Lee was overjoyed to be coming, Kurenai, Gai and Shizune were coming...
In fact, there was just one last guest who had failed to RSVP and needed to be confirmed.
Completely unsurprised, Sakura sighed and bounded off to find Kakashi.
She found him reading under a shady tree near the training grounds. He looked relaxed, one foot up, leaning against the trunk almost in a mockery of the long, long, long week she had had. Knowing his aversion to social gathering, commitment and keeping his engagements - all of which were at play here - Sakura cornered him before jabbing him in the chest with a finger with quite a bit more force than necessary.
"Kakashi! You've had weeks to respond! Are you coming to the wedding or not?"
He looked up and blinked at her, seemly undisturbed by her small display of violence. He tilted his head to one side.
"Will it be catered?"
He was inadvertently pushing her buttons like he really, really wanted to die.
"I don't have time for this," she all but growled. " We need a head count now and I will not have you stand between me and - sweet jesus – freedom at last. Are you coming or not?"
"I believe so," Kakashi said, ignoring his former pupil's slightly unhinged glare. He was already turning back to his book.
"Do you believe so, or do you know so?" she pressed.
"Is there any difference between knowing and believing?" he shot back, eyebrows raised behind his book.
"Of course they're different. Knowing and believing are…" Sakura was actually fooled into a few long seconds of contemplation before scowling at the Copy Ninja and raising her voice. She did not have the patience to play this game right now. Team Kakashi had made a habit of pushing each other's button for sport. It was a game that Kakashi was clearly taking great pleasure in playing right now.
"Is there any difference between being obtuse and being obnoxious?" she snapped back. Insults were virtually second nature to her, having spent enough time with Naruto and Kakashi, although on occasion there was just no getting through to her boys with anything short of a solid right hook.
Karachi's lips quirked up under his mask at that. "Such a temper. Don't you know that it's not becoming of young ladies to yell at people?"
"And don't you know that it's not very becoming of grown men to waste people's time?" Sakura countered, still frowning.
"Ah, Sakura," Kakashi said, bowing his head and closing his eyes in mock solemnity. "Time you enjoy wasting is never wasted."
Sakura scoffed. "And I'm supposed to supposed to be enjoying what now?"
There was that signature shit eating grin. Eye curving happily, Kakashi placed a large hand on top of her head with not significantly more difficulty than back when they were genin. "You are enjoying my wonderful, dashing company, and I am enjoying yours."
She looked at him indignantly from under his hand, falling into the familiar pattern of their exchanges. "Judging by what else you keep company, I should be insulted," Sakura said, looking pointedly at his orange book.
"Oh Sakura-chan," Kakashi said, jiggling her head a little before finally removing his hand. "Don't knock it till you try it. Jiriya-san sets quite the bar quite high for the burgeoning porn industry.
"A high bar for low brow entertainment."
"Art, Sakura. Sex is undeniably art!"
"I'll show you art. Art is the vast list of medical jutsu I could use not to kill you, but to turn you into a catatonic vegetable in under a minute," she replied, but with less of the intent to destroy things that had characterized the beginning of their conversation. He had already distracted her from the issue at hand. There was just no point in getting angry at this man and his sly and somehow charming circumvention of responsibility, she sighed to herself. Kakashi was the most endearingly frustrating man on the planet when he tried to be. For all her best efforts she could never stay made at him.
And knowing that she could only hit him because he let her sort of killed the fun of it.
"Remember when you used to respect me?" Kakashi sighed dramatically.
"Before I knew better. Getting you to behave respectably now would be a quite a tall order," she said wryly.
"For a tall man," Kakashi noted, pointing redundantly at the top of his head. Sakura stifled a chuckle. She couldn't even tell whether he was still trying to get her goat or just being his bizarre self. But she had to admit that she did enjoy their little exchanges. These verbal sparring matches reminded her of the ridiculous play-fights team seven would have back in the day. Sometimes violent. Often silly. Always affectionate, under it all.
"Only because you have your head in the clouds," Sakura retorted.
"Better that than in medical scrolls, cadavers and tedious wedding plans," Kakashi chided and she cursed his keen sense of perception.
"Now those are three things I hope never to have to deal with simultaneously,"
she said, trying to brush off the memories of time spent with each of those throughout her long week.
Kakashi noticed. "Have you been overworking yourself again? I worry about you, you know." And the look of genuine concern in his eye was touching in the few seconds before he ruined it by pinching her cheek affectionately like a fat aunt. "I can see that you're tired."
She rolled her eyes. Some things never changed "I can look after myself. I'm a big girl now."
"I can also see that." Kakashi said, immediately dropping his aunt gesture and looked her up and down in an exaggerated fashion before she swatted at him none too gently. She felt her face redden. Some things never change, but she couldn't remember them ever playing like this before, joking or not.
"Kakashi! You still haven't answered me. Are you going or not?" she snapped, blushing hotly and ignoring his vigorously wiggling eyebrows. The man was infuriating.
"My apologizes. You're… distracting" he replied, deliberately suave all of a sudden. Was he flirting with her? If the wolfish glint in his eye was any indication, the answer was definitely. He was enjoying her reaction to stop now. He had found a new button and it was one that he very much liked to push. But Sakura found that this new game, which seemed to emphasize that he was a man… and she was a grown woman, was intriguing.
"My stunning good looks aren't to be blamed for your stunted attention span," she shot right back.
She could tell he liked the direction of this new game too by the way by the way he was grinning under his mask. "Oh, I'm not complaining."
"But I am!" Sakura said, attempting once again to get her job done. "Why can't you give me a straight answer? Ok, you know what? I'm just going to decide for you. You don't have a life. You are going and you are going to make yourself presentable for once so I'm not embarrassed to be seen with you," she said, choosing to ignore him.
"Looking forward to being seen with me?" His eyebrow raised suggestively again and damn it he could be charming and damn it if she wasn't enjoying this new spin on their game too. She had no answer but to blush again.
"You… wouldn't be able to look or act like a gentleman if you tried," she sputtered.
"Good thing I've no need to be a gentleman. Although that doesn't preclude me from being someone's gentleman caller," Kakashi replied, winking. And Sakura knew that she had lost this one.
Kakashi bent to meet her at eye level, smiling his trademark smile once again. "Do you have a white flag, or shall I buy you one?"
"If you're to buy me anything, let's make it dinner," Sakura said, grinning despite herself.
"I believe I'd like that," Kakashi said, straightening and grinning as well.
"You know you'd like that, old man."
"I'd best not pay. That would be awfully gentlemanly." Still grinning at her, he moved his hand deliberately towards her bottom as if in defiance of this idea.
Neither of them seemed to mind when she caught the hand and laced her fingers through it.
"I don't think you're in any danger of that."