a/n: this is an excerpt from a kakasaku fic I've been working on for a little while now...the backstory is that Sakura has been working as Kakashi's assistant; she isn't married to Sasuke but she still had Sarada (who's about six years old here). everything else is pretty much the same. this is basically what happens on their night off lol.
the rest of it isn't quite coming together yet, but I felt compelled to at least post this part since it's been cracking me up for the last week and a half.
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Sakura gracefully lifted her heels onto the small table before crossing her ankles and taking a sip of her drink. It was cold and sweet and coated in condensation from the balmy evening. Tiny paths of water flowed down her wrist and palm, making soft pattering sounds when they dripped onto the fabric of her shorts, and a droplet or two made its way from her glass to her chest. Cicadas blared in the distance, sounding like heat itself, but the mellow rosy shade of approaching sunset and the iced tea were keeping her relatively cool. It was a pleasant evening.
Kakashi, on the other hand, looked like he should have been roasting on a spit in his sweater and sweatpants and mask and socks. Summers in Konoha were not kind to those who chose to dress in layers, not even the Hokage himself.
"Aren't you hot? It has to be a thousand degrees under there." She pressed her glass against her warm cheek and reveled in the feeling.
Kakashi leveled his eyes at her in a way that indicated a good-natured smirk beneath his mask. "If you want a striptease, you don't have to beat around the bush, Sakura-chan."
Years ago, this would have sent Sakura straight into the tenth circle of embarrassment, but now she just indulged him in an eye roll. "If you're not going to drink your tea in front of me, at least take your sweater off. I can go find you a t-shirt or something."
"No need," he conceded as he leaned forward to pull his sweater off and lay it on the back of the chair in one smooth motion. In typical Kakashi fashion, he was still wearing his black undershirt. Sakura snorted under her breath when she noticed the sheen of sweat on his pale arms.
"Better?"
"Mm." His bare feet joined hers on the porch table when he reclined. There was a beat of comfortable silence between them; the humming of delivery trucks, people in the streets below and distant chirping bugs filled the air instead.
Sakura got lost in thought and felt the muscles in her shoulders slowly unclench. When she came back around she noticed Kakashi staring at her.
"What?" The back of her hand swiped over her cheek and she glanced at it, finding nothing when it came away. "Is there something on my face?"
Kakashi's eyes crinkled warmly. "Nah. It's just nice to see you relax a little."
Another snort, loud enough to be heard this time, cut from her nose. "Have you ever known me to relax in all the time we've known each other?"
"Valid point." He scratched absently at the dark nylon covering his stomach. "But you at least appear to be unwinding. That counts."
"What happened to 'underneath the underneath' and all of that?"
A shrug rustled the clothes he was sitting on. "It sounded cool at the time."
They both chuckled before Sakura took another sip of her drink and sucked thoughtfully on a cube of ice.
"No," she began, dragging the word conversationally once the ice dissolved, "it's not necessarily that I'm relaxed. I think I'm just enjoying an evening without paperwork"—she sent him a pointed look—"or Sarada asking me about her father, or Ino coming over with dinner as a reason to rant on and on about her sex life." A grimace contorted her mouth. "Her sex life. With Sai."
Kakashi had the decency to attempt a similar expression through his mask.
"Not to mention she pesters me about what—or who—I do in my spare time, as if I'm not raising my daughter and running a hospital and still assisting the Hokage, all by myself." Her bangs abruptly shot up as she huffed out a breath, but then she grew a little wide-eyed when she fully processed what she'd said. "Ah, sorry…that wasn't to make you feel guilty or anything. I'm fine, you know."
His hand waved dismissively in front of him. "I know. You're pretty much running this country singlehandedly," he told her without an ounce of sarcasm or condescension. Sakura smiled in return. "I'm at your mercy."
"Yep. I'm just biding my time." She took another long drink of her tea, and Kakashi smiled too.
"I'm curious, though," he started after a short pause. One of Sakura's pink eyebrows lifted to invite his question. "Does Ino talk about anything besides sex?"
A laugh escaped Sakura's throat before she could help it. "I guess it seems like that. And really, it feels like it too. She's a good best friend when she wants to be." She stopped for a second before another laugh bubbled out of her mouth, light and unrestrained. "There are some things I could never tell her though. Either everyone in Konoha would find out in an hour, or she'd murder me before I could tell anyone else."
"Such as?"
"No," she said around an uncontrollable giggle, "I'm not telling you."
"Mah, that's no fun." Kakashi's voice was casual but amused. "Come on. I'm the Hokage. I keep secrets for a living."
"Nope. No way." It was a struggle keeping her composure; the laughing wouldn't stop the longer she thought about it. "Okay, fine." Her lips mashed together as she paused dramatically, waiting until he leaned toward her with apparent interest before she did the same and stage-whispered:
"I lost my virginity to Shikamaru."
The man beside her didn't move for a solid twenty seconds, and Sakura began to worry if he'd heard her at all.
"Is that it?" He sounded mildly disappointed and sat back. His assistant was stunned into silence.
"What do you mean, is that it?" Tea sloshed onto her leg when she whipped toward him. "We never told anyone! There is no possible way you could have known that, Kakashi. You hardly even knew I was Tsunade's apprentice until three years after I started."
"You were fifteen, right?" Clearly unfazed and ignoring most of what she'd said, his voice was even as ever. Sakura blinked owlishly, appalled.
"How!"
"It was obvious. The kid couldn't walk straight for the better part of a week." His brows lifted with evident curiosity. "What did you do to him, anyway?"
Sakura met his eyes with a narrowed, irritated glare; her mouth puckered as she chewed the inside of her cheek. After a short staring contest, Kakashi gave up with a quiet chuckle and stuck his hands in his pockets. Her legs shifted to a pretzel shape as she put her drink down and defiantly rested both hands on her calves.
"Well, fine then. Did you know—"
"Kankuro, too? Yes."
Sakura mumbled some curse under her breath. "He told you?"
"Yeah."
"No stone left unturned, huh. He told everyone."
"He still does." Kakashi rolled an ankle, the movement slightly jostling the table on its uneven legs. "He might have even sent me and the other kages a few hawks for annual reminders."
"See, you are at my mercy. My game is so strong it's inspired an era of peace among the nations." A playful flick of her wrist sent a strand of pink hair over her shoulder. Kakashi shook his head, feigning exasperation.
"I'm almost scared to know who else might have been subject to your…game."
"You're scared?" Sakura scoffed. "Please. Enough about me. Let's peek into your skeleton closet now, Hokage-sama." Her expression melted into a mischievous grin as she awaited his answer, but Kakashi was set on looking out toward the rest of the village.
"Hm. Not much to tell, I'm afraid."
"A man who reads porn more than he eats or sleeps doesn't have much to say about his own history?" She rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her palm. "Even if you are a little eccentric, I find that hard to believe."
"Maybe I don't have a lot to tell you because I read porn more than I eat or sleep." His hands spread in front of him with palms upward, but he still didn't turn to face her.
"Touché." The fingers of her free hand drummed the bare skin of her leg. "But there's no way you're a forty-year-old virgin. Nobody is stupid enough to believe that."
"Well, I never said that," he countered melodically. When he didn't elaborate, the words hung in the air. He was so goddamn annoying when he wanted to be—usually that was at least twenty-three hours of the day. The drumming on her leg only got louder.
"Who's the lucky lady?" Sakura finally asked, poking the silence like a senbon through a balloon. "Is it Gai-sensei?"
With that, Kakashi glowered at her with a murderous scowl in his dark eyes. The figurative balloon had effectively been popped. "I'm cutting your pay in half." The young woman just snickered.
"No, smartass," reluctantly, he continued. "It was Anko, actually."
"Hah! I could have guessed that, honestly. I don't think she's worn a bra since before I was in the academy." A pause. "Or ever, really, now that I think about it. She and Tsunade seriously have to teach me that jutsu."
Kakashi cleared his throat awkwardly after his eyes most certainly did not flicker down to her own chest. "In any case, it was—"
"Wait, hold on a second." There was a revelatory quality to Sakura's voice that made Kakashi finally regard her with his full attention. Then, out of the blue, she sputtered out a laugh that quickly escalated to a wheeze.
"What?" Kakashi pressed. He inched away from her slightly and had no idea what to expect when he saw tears of pure mirth forming in the corners of her eyes.
"I—" She sucked in a huge breath to compensate for the amount she was squeezing out in nearly silent laughter. "I can't believe—oh, God!" Her face was nearly the color of her hair as she clutched weakly at her chest and collapsed against the back of her chair. The noises coming from her sounded more like they belonged to his ninken.
Kakashi was losing whatever small amount patience he normally reserved. "What, Sakura."
"I'm crying," she moaned, laughing still as she wiped fat tears from beneath her eyes with shaking fingers. "Holy shit, I'm"—cough—"laughing so hard I'm sweating!" When she started fanning herself and coughing even more, but seemed to be calming down a bit, Kakashi simply waited with an unamused glare. "Oh, good god, it's too much!" She wiped under her eyes again and her cheeks stuck in an almost painfully huge smile. "It's too much."
"Care to share what's got you so tickled?" His eyes crinkled again, this time in that fake way that meant he was pissed.
"Oh, absolutely." Sakura patted her chest a few times, trying to open her airways back up before she started laughing again, delirious from whatever was cracking her up so severely. "I can't believe you and"—another deep giggle—"you and Orochimaru are eskimo bros!"
As she continued to wheeze hard enough to overpower the buzz of cicadas, Kakashi's sleepy eyes drooped to near slits. He slid his legs down from the table and stood in a fluid movement, grabbing his sweater and discarded Hokage robe from the back of his seat.
"Better go ahead and nominate Naruto for my job. I'm letting my dogs eat me for dinner." When he moved to open the screen door, Sakura limply motioned her arm in his general direction.
"Don't go yet," she breathed, hoarse from her fit of hysteria but finally coming to. "This is just too fucking good. Gimme a minute." A fist pounded on her chest again, hopefully without any of her renowned strength. Kakashi stayed put until she ultimately calmed down and grinned widely at his displeased expression. "Okay, I'm—"
"Mama?" a soft voice inquired from the other side of the screen. Sakura and Kakashi simultaneously turned to find Sarada standing there in her nightdress, rubbing one eye sleepily.
"Oh, honey, no! I'm so sorry! Did we wake you up?" Though the sun was still fading behind the horizon, it was still pretty late into the evening.
"Actually, I think that was just you," Kakashi deadpanned. Sakura stuck her tongue out in a very Naruto-like manner and then got up to go inside, barely brushing by him as she stepped back into the house to put her daughter back to bed.