I wrote this Kakashi one-shot for a request, though by the time I finished it the person who requested it didn't even remember they requested it -- Lame, huh? However, this is the second most popular of the creations I have posted on Quizilla!! so, I'm assuming it's pretty good :D Not to mention, I quite like it. However, it is loosely-inspired by a KakaSaku one-shot titled Twenty Questions, I think it's one of the stories I have favorited on here :D Please, enjoy and review!!

Oh, and the parts written in italics were written by myself, not anyone else XD They are not lyrics to some song or whatever. Some people have mistaken it for such...

:xTreading x in x Deep x Watersx:

--Everyone is a body of water, varying in depth, purity, and cleanliness. There are the lakes and ponds, both normally shallow and clear; it‛s easy to see where they come from and who they really are. But others can be as deep as the ocean and just as murky, too. The tide can push you away or pull you in, but it‛s for the ocean to decide.--

The scent of tea, mochi balls, odango, and other sweets reached my nostrils easily inside a modest tea shop in Konoha. The steam from the tea made the air in the shop slightly more humid, bringing a small curl to my waist-length hair colored of shamrocks. Gloveless hands with lightly colored pink fingernails clutched my cup tightly, as my lavendar eyes nearly burned a hole into the man sitting in the seat across from me. My kimono was colored the same as my nails, but the obi and lining of it were colored light purple and there were a few designs of four-leaf clovers in light green.

The object of my anger, sitting with his normal relaxed posture, was none other than Hatake Kakashi. His left eye watched my state in interest, the other being hidden by his Hidden Leaf headband. I could not tell his other emotions for the rest of his face was obscured by his dark blue mask. Like many other jonin, he was in uniform, consisting of a forest green chunin vest, a dark blue long-sleeved shirt with a red swirling circle on each sleeve and matching pants.

"Are we finished yet, Natsuka?" he asked in a bored tone. "There is something better I could be doing right now . . ."

"Not yet, Mr. Copycat. I still have a few questions left that you promised to answer and I plan on taking advantage of every one. It‛d help if you would give more direct answers, though."

"Ah-ah-ah--remember what I said?"

Pouting, I quoted his words from when we first entered the shop about half-an-hour ago, "‛Okay then, Natsuka. You have twenty questions that I probably won‛t answer straight, but some will be true.‛ And then you tweaked my nose. Do you get a kick out of treating me like a child?"

He gave the impression of a smile. "I might."

I kicked him beneath the table, saying in a dark tone, "Well, you do now. So, next question, then?"

"I thought that was one of them."

I kicked him again. "No. It wasn‛t. Can we get serious now?"

"Is that one of the questions?"

My eyes glinted from beneath a sudden dark shadow cast by my bangs.

"Okay, okay. I think you‛re giving me a bruise. Shoot."

With a sigh, I contemplated my next question. I suppose it may be a little obvious by now, but the reason for Kakashi being the object of my anger is that we are playing a little game of twenty questions . . . and he has not answered a single one directly. A little frustrating on my part. Especially since the point of me wishing to ask questions was so I could sort of get into his head; a feat that I am really close to dubbing as "impossible."Also, I am one who comes to understand things in a more literal sense, or, as Kakashi would put it, my "mind is in a box" (whatever that means) and I can hardly decipher any of his answers.

At this point in our game, I could safely say that I was only in the shallow end, feet barely touching the cold low tide of Hatake Kakashi. He was like the ocean: deep and holding many a mystery. I was only barely at the surface of mystery, only learning things I already knew or did not need to know. To understand and solve the mystery before me, I would have to go deeper. Probably deeper than I have with anyone else . . .

"What‛s your favorite color?" I mentally kicked myself for asking that question. So popular and annoying, and in reality, I was not sure if I could figure out much of anything from it. But, colors are supposed to have a certain mood or personality to them, so I supposed it was worth a shot.

He thought it over for a moment, tapping his chin as his eye drifted to the ceiling in an attempt to seem thoughtful. "Blue."

A dreary color in most case scenarios. Blue is often used, in art at least, to bring on a feeling in similarity to grief or sorrow, especially when mixed with black or other cool colors. However, when with white or if it was meant as a lighter blue, then it could be linked with peace or serenity. Blue was an answer with too wide a range of psychological possibilities and it did not tell me anything I did not already know. I needed a deeper question, but still discreet . . .

"Why is the sky blue?"

"I believe they taught us this in the Academy, you don‛t remember?

If I had been gripping the cup any tighter, it would have broken. "Just answer it!"

"The sky is blue because of correspondence of visible light with the sun creating it as such . . . or something like that. Next."

"Why are you always late? I‛ve heard that you had no problem being on time before becoming a jonin some time ago."

"Multiple reasons."

"That doesn‛t give me an answer in the slightest, Kakashi. Are you secretly seeing someone or something like that?"

"Something like that . . .," he replied distantly and I knew, right then, that I was beginning to tread in deep waters. Still shallow enough that I could keep my head above the surface. I could feel my feet brushing against some dark memory he had locked away inside himself. A part of me was saying to just leave it as it is and not go any deeper--got back to more shallow water, even.

But I have to know. He had intrigued me from the first moment met him about a year ago. I wanted to know more about him for reasons I did not know, and I hated it. The feeling of missing something or not knowing was something I did not like at all.

In a calmer and kinder tone than I had been using recently, I asked, "d-do I know this ‛someone‛?"

"Probably not. They‛re not in Konoha anymore."

"I . . . I see . . . You said that some of your closest friends are on the K.I.A stone, one time . . . Do you think of them often? Visit them? Miss them . . ." I finally put two-and-two together from the answer he had given to me from my last two questions. "Is this ‛someone‛ on that stone?"

". . .," He stayed silent while staring out the window, no longer as playful as he had been a few moments ago. I was finally submerged into the murky depths of the water and could only barely make out his form in the distance. I was getting closer, at least.

"How long ago? And . . . who?"

"Why do you want to know?" he asked, glancing back at me.

"It‛s still my turn to ask questions. It‛s Uchiha Obito, isn‛t it? You stare at his name just about every time we‛re at the stone . . ."

"I could be looking at any name on there. What makes you think it‛s that particular one?"

"It‛s the same place you look at every time, and as a specialist in weaponry that can cut a particular strand if hair from twenty feet away, you would think I would be able to tell at which point in a sea of names your eye was looking at."

"It seems I‛ve been outsmarted. Obito . . .was a friend and former teammate. We‛ll leave it at that."

But deeper I continued to go, him becoming clearer in my eyes. As much as I wanted to respect his wishes, the concept for knowledge and understanding was running strong. With him in the deep end was where I wanted to stand.

"And you‛re sharingan, how did you obtain it?"

"Good question. How about another?"

"Okay then, did you obtain it from Obito?"

". . ."

Calmly, I drank some of my tea, feeling its warmth run down my throat as I carefully thought about my next question. I had only one left, and I was unsure of what to ask. I could sense his discomfort, but could not find the desire to stop. That‛s just like me . . . Never knowing when to quit.

With a wry smile, I slid my left hand across the table to take a hold of his right one warmingly, hoping that the gesture would help the situation in some way. "It‛s fine, Kakashi. You don‛t have to keep it to yourself . . . I‛m here to listen and I want to know. No matter what you say, I won‛t think the lesser of you."

Remaining almost distant, he withdrew his hand and crossed his arms, sinking slightly in his seat. "One more question . . . Shoot."

My heart sinking deeper and deeper into a different watery depth, I slowly retracted my hand and held my cup again; minus the vice grip. I could feel a warm sensation in my cheeks in contrast to the chill of the rest of my body, and I asked a question that surprised even myself. "Who am I to you?"

It caught him off guard, and he answered slowly, "you‛re . . . you."

"That‛s not what I mean . . . who am I to you? Or rather, what am I? Friend? Less than a friend? Something more . . .?" Love?

". . . I don‛t know," was his only reply as he turned to the window again and closed his eye, "I don‛t know . . ."

"Kakashi . . . maybe one of these days your mystery won‛t stun me and maybe you‛re life won‛t be such an object of curiosity for me. Maybe someday, you can trust me enough that you‛ll share your troubles with me, but from your answers today, I think I know how you feel about me . . . And it‛s okay. I get it . . . Real friends cry together, and you just don‛t see me as a real friend," I said, staring at the table with a soft expression. "Maybe you‛ll always have this spell over me . . .

"There‛s no one in this world that knows me like you do, either. I mean, I act like you annoy the heck out of me when you do it, but I kinda like it when you treat me like a little kid--It‛s something you really only do with me and you‛re the only one I let away with just a small bruise when you do it. At first I wondered why I was so interested in you, and why I had so much trouble learning a thing. And now I know.

"You push people away, Kakashi. And this relaxed and nonchalant attitude is only a cover-up for how much you‛re hurting on the inside. You‛re drowning in a sea of sorrow, almost and no matter how much someone tries to swim out to reach you, it‛s like you somehow have control of the tide and they‛re forced back to the shallow end. I may not have any questions left that you‛re obligated to answer, but . . . Maybe this one can make you think: Do you want to be alone?"

He did not answer right away nor give the impression that he had listened to my speech. Throughout it, he acted as aloof as ever, but it was not an answer that I had been seeking and for him to have answered it quickly, then it‛s purpose would not have been fulfilled. "Give it some thought, ‛kay?" I lingered only for a moment longer as I pulled out enough money to pay for the tea and mochi balls I had consumed and left the shop to wander Konoha and try to get thoughts of negativity out of my mind.

I had gotten so close, and yet I still feel so far away. He knew so much about me and even after the analysis I had made, I still feel like I don‛t completely know him. I was being pushed back by the tide and no matter how much I tried to swim forward, the tide would overwhelm me. Do you want to be alone, Kakashi-kun?

Suddenly, I was stopped in mid-step and pulled back slightly to the point in which I felt like I was falling and opened my mouth to yelp when a pair of lips came to mine. My eyes fell upon the handsome and maskless face of Kakashi as he broke the kiss with a smile and I stared at him with wide violet eyes.

"I don‛t want to be alone anymore, Natsuka, and if you‛re willing to listen, then I‛m willing to tell," he said while helping me to regain my footing. "And if you‛re willing to have me, then I‛d like to be more than your friend."

"Y-yes! I‛ll be yours!" I exclaimed while wrapping my arms around him and trying to keep myself from going into a screeching frenzy. This time, I kissed his lips and repeated my exclamation of "yes!"

--Into the deep it can pull you in, or back to the shallow end it can push you out. But no matter how deep it takes you, there‛s always a way back to the surface. Especially as I stand, my hand in yours, in these deep waters that we tread. No matter how long I am treading in deep waters, I know that you‛ll save me from myself, and I won‛t forget the way you loved me.--

End of :xTreading x in x Deep x Watersx:

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