Title: Innocence, Part 1
Author: x-ChocoLatte
Rating: T/PG-13
Theme: Teacher's Pet
Pairing: KakaHina

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Kakashi had a system, of sorts, when dealing with young school girls and their exasperating school teacher crushes.

"You don't love me—you love the idea of a handsome older man loving you."

"You're young, I'm old. This will never work."

"You're living in a fantasy world with a fantasy crush. I'm sorry, but this isn't a fantasy."

School girls had a silly notion that falling in love with a handsome male teacher was part of a normal high school love life. Kakashi really wanted to strangle the person that had come up with that particular idea.

Didn't they have any idea how society viewed the teachers in those kind of relationships? As sick, perverted men who just wanted to fulfill their kinky sexual fantasies.

A hormonal girl just out of puberty stuck in a short skirt with knee-high socks wasn't Kakashi's idea of "appealing."

Kakashi stared at the blushing brown-haired girl in front of him, a sigh on the verge of escaping his lips.

"You don't love me," he said bluntly. The girl looked up at him, shock written all over her expression.

"I-I do, sensei! Honestly… I love you!"

As if to prove this, she thrusted a flower-print envelope into his unwilling hands, her blush coming back full-force.

"Everything's written in the letter, Sensei. I lo-"

"It's better not to say that so many times," said Kakashi as he threw the envelope back into the girl's arms, speaking over the girl's loud protest. "You'll really fool yourself into thinking that you love me."

He was being rather harsh, he supposed, as he walked back into the school doors, but that girl had been one of the more persistent ones. Her obsessive crush had bordered on stalker/insane psycho. It had gotten to the point that if he looked over his shoulder, he would always see her wide brown eyes staring back at him.

Suppressing a shiver, Kakashi walked into the teacher's lounge, hoping for a cold drink to wash away the weariness settling in his limbs. Settling into a soft sofa, Kakashi leaned back in the seat, enjoying the way the cold drink numbed his fingers and the quiet peace the nearly empty school provided.

It was at times like this that he wished he had a small book in his hands. In particular, the one sitting on his kitchen table. But no, Kakashi thought with a sigh, reading such hard-core erotica at school would probably invite people and their rumors. There were already plenty going around, all having to do with the girls and their insane crushes on him. Being a teacher was really starting to be a nuisance. If he gave up now, though, Obito would probably laugh at him from the heavens above.

Kakashi didn't really want to think about how divine mockery would feel like.

Sighing, Kakashi heaved himself off the increasingly comfortable couch and walked out of the room, hoping that the halls would already be empty so he wouldn't have to deal with any… school-girl confessions, or Kami forbid, school-boy crushes.

Scanning the hallways and finding their emptiness satisfactory, Kakashi decided to make a stop in his classroom for his bag and jacket. Loosening his tie and unbuttoning his top few buttons—Kakashi thought it would be fine since no one was around—he turned the corner, his hand just about to slide the door open…

"I love you."

Good Kami, those words again.

But thankfully, this time around they weren't directed towards him.

"Y-your words have always inspired me... Always. I-I... almost went the wrong way... but... your determination was s-so strong. Your optimism a-and stubbornness... Your smile saved me."

It was a heart-warming confession, Kakashi had to give the girl that. The soft stuttering voice behind the door, the faintest hint of wistfulness in them... Kakashi had to say that this confession had a quality to it that so many of the ones directed towards him had all lacked.

Hope.

"I... love you. I always have… Naruto-kun."

It was quiet on the other side of the door for the next few minutes, save for the girl's loud breathing, hesitance in every breath. Coming to the conclusion that a rejection was quite near, Kakashi decided to help the girl save face.

Sliding open the door, Kakashi nonchalantly walked in, trying to school his features into one of shock at seeing two young teens with heavily blushing cheeks facing each other and-

His single eye scanned the room, surprised to see only one occupant in it.

A petite girl with a curvaceous frame, looking to be a junior or senior, was staring at him in shock, her pale lavender eyes contrasting sharply with her inky indigo hair. A pale hand flew up to her mouth to keep in a surprised 'eep' and a blush instantly colored her porcelain cheeks.

"K-Kakashi-s-sensei! I-I d-didn't..." The girl fumbled with her words, her blush deepening with every passing second.

As the situation processed in Kakashi's mind, he felt his cheeks start to heat up, just the slightest. Rather than helping the girl save face, he'd actually worsened the whole situation.

Really now, who confessed... to no one?

"It's a surprise to see anyone still here, Hyuuga-san," he said in a light voice, trying to make the best of the... situation he had unwittingly landed himself in.

"Y-yes..." The girl's cheeks started to recede to her normal pale color as she scrambled around her desk, picking up her things. She gasped when she accidentally knocked over her pencil case, spilling out its contents.

Kakashi walked over to her and helped her pick up the assortment of pencils and pens, handing them to her with a look of indifference on his features. "Here you go."

Pale, pearly eyes stared into his own dark one, making his widen slightly. He felt his breath hitch in his throat at the color of emotions in them: embarrassment, surprise, and the faintest hint of curiosity. The way they gazed so intensely into his... He felt his heart beats gradually slow, beating in time with the inhale and exhale of his breaths.

And then the gaze was broken as the girl bowed her head, dark bangs covering her face.

"T-thank you," he heard her murmur just as she rushed out of the door.

For the first time, he felt his gaze follow a young teen girl's form, one twelve years his junior.

--

If someone were to ask Kakashi how his week had gone, his reply would be a faint, "Good."

If that someone were to press on for more detail, Kakashi would only have a shrug of his shoulders to answer them, because quite honestly, he had no recollection of this past week's events. Only the vaguest memory of pale, blushing cheeks and beautiful, opalescent eyes drudged through the filters of his mind.

'Beautiful,' was something that had ran through his mind quite often this past week, though.

That particular word had chosen to show up at the most inopportune of moments for Kakashi. A shuffle of papers at his desk would make him look up, only to see a familiar, blushing face. He would turn around from the black board, in the process of explaining some of the finer aspects of his subject, only to stop in the middle of his sentence, captivated by the sight of indigo strands shimmering down small shoulders and the way pale fingers cupped around a delicate chin. A bump of the shoulders and he would find himself apologizing, only to stop in the middle of it, an expression of mute shock on his face as he stared into deep, endless pools of pale lavender eyes.

Needless to say, he'd received some strange looks from Hyuuga Hinata this past week.

Kakashi couldn't help it, though, this strange curiosity that bubbled up in him at the sight of the petite girl. He found himself admiring her smooth gracefulness that her clumsy steps always managed to conceal, the way a shy smile would always flit across her delicate features, and the way her eyes could focus so intensely on something... or someone.

It was a mystery to him how Uzumaki could miss that beautifully intense gaze that was always focused on him, relaying utter adoration and an underlying hint of fondness, heightened by the soft giggles that would emanate from her pink lips at his antics.

Kakashi knew that if he had that look focused on him, he'd do anything to make it increase tenfold.

He wanted to know what it felt like, being on the receiving end of such a loving gaze.

A love so pure...

Kakashi couldn't deny that he wanted it to be from Hyuuga Hinata, and only from her.

That even a man as tainted as himself couldn't resist.