"It's sticky." Sakura's cheeks burned. Kakashi just lifted his chopsticks and gave a dubious poke to the gelatinous blob that sat on the plate in front of him. "Is it…supposed to jiggle like that?" He sounded almost as if he expected it to leap off the table and attack him.
"No," Sakura grumbled in disappointment.
Kakashi hummed in contemplation, then heaved a sigh as he murmured, "Well, nothing for it, I suppose." With that, he dug the chopsticks in to the blob and made a valiant effort towards actually obtaining a piece of it. Unfortunately, while it was indeed sticky, it didn't really stick together very well. The food – if it could have been called food – crumbled away from his grasp on every try. Sakura felt the heat in her face kick it up a notch as she looked on in shame.
"You're not actually going to try to eat that, are you?" she asked. This was so embarrassing. She'd just wanted this one evening to go perfectly, to show Kakashi that she was an adult now and convince him that he should see her as such, and she felt like she'd blown it already. How could he see her as an adult if she couldn't even cook him one proper dinner? Her one-time sensei continued to wage war against the mess in front of him even as he turned to give her a reassuring smile above his mask.
"You went to all the trouble of preparing it," she noticed he avoided saying 'cooking'. "What kind of guest would I be to refuse it?"
"Urgh!" Sakura reached out and snatched the plate away from him, getting up from the table and walking over to dispose of her embarrassment in the trash bin under the sink.
As she rinsed the dirty dish and set it aside for later she was further humiliated by the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. What an excellent way to show maturity, she thought to herself, cry like the little crybaby you were when you were twelve. For a few minutes silence reigned throughout her small apartment. Sakura fiddled about, keeping her back to the older man at the table so he wouldn't see her tears. She could feel his eyes on her though and she wished he would just look away for a few moments. Finally she heard him shift in his chair.
"Sakura, it's not that big a deal, you know? It's just dinner. I've eaten worse. Probably." He actually sounded as if he were trying to think of when.
The rag in her hand made an unsatisfying soft noise when she tossed it down on the counter and spun to face him. "It is a big deal! This was special!" Kakashi blinked at her, surprise open on the visible half of his face. "I wanted us to be friends." The surprise grew even more evident as his eyes widened farther than she'd ever seen them.
"But we are friends," he contended. That brought her up short.
"You see me…as a friend?" she reiterated in surprise.
Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck in confusion as he replied, "Well, yeah. I thought you knew that? Or it that…too weird?"
"What? No! That's awesome!" Sakura gushed. "That was the whole point of this! I was going to cook you a really nice dinner and try to convince you that we should be friends! I mean we've known each other for years but I know absolutely nothing about you because you're so elusive all the time and – I'm rambling. I'm just glad I don't have to convince you." She beamed at him in triumph, glad that her evening hadn't turned out to be the utter failure she'd thought it was going to be. She was utterly confused when Kakashi broke out in a blush and kept rubbing the base of his hairline, his gaze now trained on the tabletop in front of him.
"Oh so this wasn't-? I thought you'd asked-. Uh, never mind. Yeah. Friends." He looked immensely uncomfortable for a few moments. Then he seemed to give himself a shake, though she could see traces of strain in his expression when he graced her with a smile and said, "So. You don't cook a lot, huh?"
Sakura wiped the drying tear tracks off her cheeks and snorted, "No. Mom never let me help in the kitchen before I moved out and since I've been living on my own I've been…trying to learn. As you saw, it hasn't been going very well."
"If you like, I could teach you." The offer startled her for more than one reason. First of all, he was actually volunteering to spend time with her. This from a man who usually preferred to hole up in his own apartment and ignore everyone else. Second of all…
"You can cook?" He gave her a wry look.
"I've been living on my own since I was five years old. If I hadn't learned to fend for myself I'd be living off of ration pellets and instant ramen. Besides I'm, you know, a genius and stuff." He shrugged. "I learn most things pretty quickly." He didn't say it like he was boasting about his own abilities. He said it like it was simply a boring fact. And it probably was to him, she realized. He been hailed as a genius since before he even entered the academy. To him it was just the way things were. Sky is blue. Grass is green. He is a genius.
"Well, if you're offering, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'd love you forever if you taught me how to cook!"
She watched in fascination as his entire face turned a shade of crimson that she usually associated with Hinata. She stuttered a few times while leaping out of his seat like it had suddenly caught fire, bumbling his way out of the kitchen. She could hear him mumbling quietly, "Um, yeah, not now, probably not now, busy y'know, got some – er – stuff to do?" Unsure what had set him off, Sakura simply followed at a safe distance, watching Kakashi mumble to himself some more as he moved through the apartment to her front door. It was a sign of how flustered he was that he even used the door instead of the window as he usually did. He paused at last with one foot out on the terrace and turned back to her, face still lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Are you…okay?" she questioned with a measure of concern. He nodded almost frantically.
"Yeah I'm good! I'll see you later. For cooking. As friends. Bye. Friend." They stared at each other for a long minute, then he turned and bounded over the rooftops in what she noted was the wrong direction if he intended to go home.
Sakura watched the older man go until he was out of sight, then slowly closed the door, lost in wonderment. She'd never seen him act like that before. She'd known Kakashi since she was twelve years old. In the thirteen years between she had never seen him blush before and now somehow she'd made him blush twice in the space of ten minutes.
It wasn't until she'd made it back in to the kitchen and happened to glance at the seat he'd been occupying that it came to her. She replaying the hesitating words he had spoken when he had first blushed in her head.
"Oh so this wasn't-? I thought you'd asked-. Uh, never mind. Yeah. Friends."
Sakura stared at the empty chair in wonder, unable to move a muscle. He had thought she'd asked him to dinner as a date! And he had said yes! He'd thought it was a date and he had actually shown up! Shock and awe fought for dominance in her whirling mind until they both settled down in to a warm, pervasive glow that spread throughout her entire body. It seemed like Kakashi already thought of her as an adult – an adult that he was interested in dating.
An image of the two of them kissing sprung up in her mind and Sakura sighed dreamily even as a wicked smile stole across her lips. This evening might not have had any romantic intentions. Next time, however, she was already making plans for. And she'd make damn sure that Kakashi knew it was a date.