Reading his book, as always… when he's supposed to be teaching me something. He is no longer my sensei, but I've grown accustomed to his didactic musings, and I think he likes showing me the ropes. The only problem is that we waste time because he would rather read than actually teach me half of the time.

I sit in front of him, facing him, as he sits underneath a tree, cross-legged, peering down into his bright green paperback. "Yes, Sakura?" he says without looking up at me.

I sigh. "Kakashi, when are you going to stop reading those stupid books and actually teach me something? I'm bored."

"They're not stupid," he replies calmly, turning a page. "They're romance novels."

Upon hearing the word "romance," my eyes autonomously roll to the back of my head. "Pft, romance," I scoff. "What do you know about romance? You're the most anti-romantic man in Konoha."

He blinks, sighing. "Perhaps that's why I read these books. I would like to be romantic, really. But if I can't do it myself, then reading about people who can is the next best thing, right?"

I narrow my eyes and purse my lips suspiciously. "Is it that you can't be romantic, or that you haven't found someone you love enough to be romantic with?"

"Sakura. I've been in love before. I've lived a lot longer than you have."

"I've been in love too, Kakashi," I assert.

"You're only nineteen years old. I doubt you know what love is," he says nonchalantly, still perusing his book.

Oh, this man is infuriating! "Oh yeah? Then what is it?" I ask hotly.

After a moment or two in complete and utter silence, Kakashi's unmasked eye slowly moves up, away from the pages and looks me directly in the face. His eyebrow is cocked. "Would you really like to know?"

I gulp. His stare is so intense. I'm not afraid of him or anything, but there's something more than unnerving about his gaze. "Yes," I answer.

He closes his book and his eyes, bowing his head, and then deliberately rises to his feet. "Let me show you something," he tells me.

I follow him as he casually walks over to a cherry tree and plucks one of its lovely flowers from a branch. He hands it to me. "It's a cherry blossom," I say, unimpressed.

"How do you feel about it?" he asks me.

I observe the flower crosswise, tilting my head and scrunching up my eyebrows in confusion. "I guess… it's pretty?" I say, more like a question than an actual statement.

"That's what you think of it. I asked you how you feel about it."

My lips sink into a frown. "I don't know," I mutter. "It's a flower."

"Do you like it?"

"I suppose," I shrug.

"You like it," he confirms. "And what do you want to do with it?"

"I want to put it in my hair," I smile, tucking the blossom behind my ear and twirling a lock of my pink tresses around it.

"And why would you want to do that?"

"Because it compliments my features," I laugh playfully.

I can see a smirk playing on Kakashi's face, behind his mask. "Indeed it does," he says in a matter-of-fact tone.

"But what does this have to do with love?" I inquire.

Without missing a beat, he explains, "You like the flower. You feel that it compliments you. Multiply those feelings by ten thousand."

I pause, doing the math in my head. "Ok," I say slowly. "Is that all?"

"No. Imagine that the flower has feelings of its own. Pretend like it has a unique mind that produces its own thoughts. Act like it has hopes, dreams, goals, ambitions, and fantasies. And that you love, cherish, and adore everything about this flower."

Each dreamy word that comes out of his mouth enters my mind and comes up as an image. I'm closing my eyes and imagining the flower as a person – an attractive, kind, thoughtful, hard-working person – a man. Suddenly, the images stop as Kakashi falls silent. "That's it?" I ask, cracking one eye open.

He snaps back to reality from his wistful gaze. "Sorry, there was something caught in my throat," he mumbles quietly. But something in the way he sheepishly scratches the back of his head and squints his visible eye as he does it tells me that there wasn't. I shut my eyes again and ponder the implications as he continues with his imagery. "You want this… cherry blossom… to accomplish its goals and fulfill its dreams. You want to tell everyone about it, to share your enthusiasm about it with others. You want it to feel the same way about you as you feel about this cherry blossom, because it brings out the best in you. You want to be with it always, and even if you can't, you still want it to live a long, successful life. Most importantly, Sakura, you want it to be happy… because when the cherry blossom is happy, you are happy."

A warm, fuzzy feeling swells inside of me. I can sense the broad smile on my face as I imagine my attractive, kind, thoughtful, hard-working man's happiness. I feel as though nothing else in the world could make me any happier. I open my eyes to a real man, a misty-eyed Kakashi. His expression somehow reflects longing and serenity, angst and hopefulness. My head suddenly feels ten times lighter and my face feels ten times hotter. "Oh… I've – I've never felt this way about a person before," I stammer.

Kakashi smiles knowingly. He leans toward me and reaches his hand around my head, gently un-wrapping my hair from the cherry blossom's stem while his other hand simply holds the flower at its neck so that it doesn't fall out. I find myself holding my breath as I feel his fingertips glide against my temple, lingering ever so slightly. His face is so close to mine that I'm sure from any outside angle it would appear as though he and I are kissing. I can feel him looking at me out of the corner of his eye, even though his stare is fixated on the blossom. I watch his sleepy eyes as they briefly glance into mine. It is only for a moment, but it feels like forever. Once the flower is free, Kakashi delicately twirls it between his fingers and smiles at it. "That's what love is, Cherry Blossom."