"So, Ryoka-san, what's up with the flower-clip in your hair?" He asked nonchalantly, his head turned to face the sky. It wasn't that he really wanted an answer to that question, but her mysterious attitude left him wondering about her. Any information to try piece together who she was was greatly appreciated, after all, Kakashi liked knowing things, and from the day Ryoka suddenly showed up about a month ago and quickly became the Hokage's apprentice he just couldn't stop his curiosity from wondering. The flower in question was clipped tightly to the base of her blue bun, just where it always was, every day.
"It looks like it's just a little plastic piece of kids jewelry, doesn't it?" She replied, avoiding his gaze as usual. "But it's quite important to me, it... its a reminder for... for something." She finished hurriedly. He leant back against the tree they were sitting at and looked at her. She was holding onto her knees and looking away from him at the sky. She rarely let out any emotions, God she was more closed off than him. When he asked Tsunade about appointing this newbie as her own apprentice, she simply replied, 'she's good at what she does'. The Hokage wouldn't even tell him where she came from. All he knew was that she was very obviously a ninja, although one who absolutely didn't stick to anybody's rules about what she was to wear as one. She wore black thigh-highs which clipped onto garters that disappeared underneath her short pants, barely covered by something that would generally be called a skirt, but it was more like two pieces of fabric connected for about a centimetre at the hip. For God knows what reason she wore a corset with sleeves, and underneath a black tight shirt that with sleeves almost reaching her elbow. In Kakashi's opinion, that corset couldn't possibly be comfortable to fight in. Her blue hair as always pulled up in a tight bun, she always looked professional, apart from her left side where her hair was shaved off, and a multitude of earrings poked out of her ear. It made Kakashi only wonder more.
They sat there for a bit in silence, watching the trees shadows dance in the falling sunlight. Some people would have considered it romantic, but the only reason they sat together like this was because he wanted to talk to her. She was always busy with the Hokage, so he could never get a chance to, but today he caught her walking home and decided he defiantly should say hello.
"Kakashi," She said suddenly, "Why do you wear a mask?"
Slightly surprised by her sudden question, he raised his eyebrow and looked at her.
"I like wearing a mask," was his simple answer.
She looked slightly disappointed and quickly looked away. Suddenly a load grumbling from Ryoka's stomach made her blush and she quickly got up.
"Um, sorry for just leaving, but I think it's time for me to go home now, I just realised I haven't eaten in some time," She stated. She began to walk when she realised that the copy ninja had gotten up and started walking beside her.
"Your apartment is on the way to mine, we may as well walk together," he said. He was completely lying, his house was in the opposite direction, but he wanted to see where she lived. Although not in a stalkerish way, he quickly told himself. They walked in silence, and he had no problem with this, as he didn't talk much normally either. This girl had barely any friends. Apart from Shizune and the Hokage she talked to no-one. Maybe it was pity he felt for her? She seemed like a sad individual most of the time, Kakashi would bet anything that something very bad had happened to her in the past, which would be a good reason for Tsunade completely avoiding his questions.
"Thanks for walking me home, I guess," She said, slowly coming to a halt at the gate of a cute little apartment building. "Time for me to have some oh-so delicious ramen," she said with much sarcasm, attempting at small talk.
"You don't like ramen? He questioned.
"Not when it's the only thing I've eating in two weeks." She answered truthfully, "Ramen is the cheapest thing to buy at the moment, so I bought way too much and now I hate myself," she added with a small smile. She really did use to like ramen. But even the best things can become disgusting after your apartment even starts smelling of it.
"Huh, well I'll see you tomorrow then, Ryoka-san," He said, one small conversation and he already knew so much more about her. She was actually a pretty fun person to hang around with, she didn't annoy him with talking constantly like a certain blonde idiot did, even though the first time he looked at her he could remember simply thinking, 'huh, this shinobi is defiantly someone not to mess with', but now surprisingly she seemed a lot more innocent and nice than he would have thought just judging by her outward appearance.
She waved goodbye and walked into her house, dropping her keys onto the kitchen bench. She dropped onto the sofa and pulled off her black boots and gloves. Tsunade had her do a lot of paperwork today, not even a bit of physical activity, just sitting in her chair the entire day having to smile at people coming into the Hokage's tower. It was surprisingly tiring. She sighed in relief as she thought of the hot shower waiting for her. Wasting no more time, she quickly got up and went to the bathroom next to her room.
Kakashi was halfway to his house when he smelled some delicious food coming from the take-away shop. Suddenly an idea popped up in his head, after all, who could resist mouth-watering curry?
She grabbed some clothes haphazardly from the growing pile that was meant to be her bedroom floor, sighed silently and grabbed out her hair-dryer from the closet opposite to her bed. She really should be keeping this place clean. Tsunade gave her this apartment for free, in exchange for her becoming her apprentice. The least she could do was keep it clean. Seeing as she was at home, she generally couldn't be bothered to put on a bra, however for some reason she felt as though today she should. After drying her hair and quickly putting it up, she ended up wearing a black rather lacy bra, as it turns out all her other ones smelt like ramen, and a short crop top with a black skirt, making it look like she was wearing a short dress, and her favourite black thigh-highs, and seeing as it was really starting to get cold she put on a long sleeved white cardigan, leaving all the buttons undone as she always found putting them up to be really restricting. Man, today's ramen will have to be mixed with something stronger than water if she was to actually get it down, she just wanted to pass out already, but knew what lay in store if she forgot to eat again. Tsunade has an annoying habit of knowing exactly if she had eaten that day. Although to be fair, she had a day off tomorrow, but wanted to spend it training, so not eating would not be good. She regretfully reached for her cupboard of ramen when there was a sudden knock at the door.
Her head popped up from behind the counter and she slowly walked towards the door. Was it Shizune again? She couldn't feel any chakra behind the door, someone was masking their presence and it was making her very uncomfortable. She quickly did up her cardigan, as her top showed way more cleavage than she would be happy with others seeing. Grabbing a kunai quickly from the table next to the door, she yanked open the door ready to fight.
"Kakashi?!" She said, accidentally dropping the honorifics. She quickly dropped the kunai held against his throat, and he looked at her quizzically.
"Sorry, Ryoka-san, I didn't mean to surprise you" He said.
"Kakashi-senpai, what are you doing here, you completely masked your presence, it scared the crap out of me!" She breathed indignantly.
"Oh, I'm sorry about that, that tends to happen even when if I don't think about it," He answered, hand rubbing his hair. He thought it was pretty funny that he could get a rise out of her for such a stupid reason however.
"On my way home I passed this lovely little take-away shop and seeing as I don't have anything to do today, I was wondering if you would like to have dinner with me?" He said as he lifted the bag of food he was holding.
She eyed the package, and sniffed the aroma it was releasing. It smelled so absolutely delicious that she almost began to drool. She hadn't had good food in a while, and spending an evening with Kakashi might not even be bad. He was nice to her, and it even seemed like he was trying to be her friend. Most people were put off by her scowl. She decided she may as well seeing as he was offering such nice food.
"I guess you can come in then, anything's better than ramen." She said as she walked back into her apartment. Kakashi noticed two things then. One was that she was not wearing the gloves she normally wears. Two was that she had a surprising amount of tattoos hidden on her hands. This girl really confused him, she was very kindly natured, but her tattoos pretty much screamed badass that doesn't give a shit. He followed her in and noted the smell of ramen, she really hadn't been lying. There hadn't been any other food in this house for a while now. She gestured over to the table in the living room as she walked behind the counter of the kitchen.
"Would you like a drink, Kakashi-senpai?" She asked, "I have pretty much anything and everything when it comes to drinks."
He dropped the food on the table and walked over to the counter.
"Well, Ryoka-san, I didn't think you were that much into alcohol." He stated as he saw an entire cupboard filled with every type of alcoholic beverage available.
"I..I'm not! This stuff technically belongs to Tsunade-sama, but when Shizune gets annoyed with her drinking on the job, she throws her alcohol out. And with 'out' I mean my place because Shizune is feels bad wasting things." She quickly said, "Don't tell Tsunade I have this here, she would probably kill me." She quickly added, short-lived panic flashing across her face.
He smirked in the direction of the cupboard, "Well then I guess we should have some good old Konoha ale."
She gave him a weird glance before saying, "Are you sure about that? This stuff could knock out a horse. I don't have work tomorrow so I don't care, but.."
"Ill be fine, Ryoka-san, believe me I've drunk way worse and been fine." He assured her, "You're not a lightweight are you?" he added.
"Of course not," the stubborn side of her said. "I can handle my alcohol just fine," she said as she filled up two generous glasses. It wasn't hard seeing through her lie, although he'd feel bad if she got a bad hangover tomorrow, so he should probably keep her from drinking more than two glasses.
On the way to the table, Ryoka grabbed her hair tie and pulled it out of her hair, she was much more comfortable with her hair down. Kakashi didn't miss this and looked at her as her straight hair fell on her face and down just past her shoulders. What surprised Kakashi was that her hair fell in such a style that looked really goddamn sexy. This girl was so much more than what he thought. He really shouldn't be thinking this sort of thing right now however.
They kneeled at the table and Kakashi took out the food from the bag, two containers full of curry. He passed one to her and she took it off him with a quick thank you and began eating. Once again he noticed her tattoos and now that she wasn't pressing a kunai against his neck, he could properly look at them. On her right hand, every finger had a different small tattoo on it, there was an anchor, a heart, a small set of wing, a crown, and on her thumb, a key. He noticed on her other hand in the exact same place the key was there was a lock. Her sleeve was too low for him to read the writing tattooed to her right wrist. He decided she should probably drink her cup first before he asked her about them, knowing how damn secretive she was.
Ten minutes later, the food was half gone and both cups were empty. Kakashi filled up his cup again and was about to fill up her cup when she stopped him.
"Kakashi, I probably shouldn't have anymore, I'd rather not get to drunk," she said simply. Her thoughts however weren't so simple, she was getting hot and bothered because her cardigan felt like it was choking her. She believed she was only buzzed but she was well on her way to slurring words.
"Sorry Ryoka-san, I didn't realise you had such low tolerance," he said as he put down the drink, thoughtfully looking at her. He was definitely feeling buzzed, man he forgot how strong this stuff really is as he took another gulp. But hey, it's free alcohol right? As he thought she quickly grabbed the bottle on the table and poured herself another glass. What a stubborn woman.
"I told you earlier, I can handle my alcohol perfectly fine!" she snapped at him as she took a rather large mouthful. No one can boss her around. She really shouldn't have any more however, as much as she wants to she tends to get 'grabby' when she's drunk. Oh well, she'd just blame Kakashi for it, after all, it was his fault she was drinking more than she should be. Subconsciously she button down her cardigan and took it off. She leaned backwards and sighed.
"That feels muuuuuch better," she said, more to herself than anyone in particular.
"Ryoka? Are you..." He couldn't finish his sentence as he was too busy looking at her body, she took her goddamn jacket off. Without thinking he licked his lips as his gaze travelled up her arm, past another tattoo on her shoulder, and settled at her collarbones. Slowly he lowered his gaze and he found himself staring right at her breasts. Barely covered by a black tank top he could see the lace poking out from underneath, the top straining to contain her.
"KAKASHIIIII!" Ryoka suddenly shouted very loudly, she had leaned forward again without him noticing and crossed her arms and glared at him. "You were staring at my boobs, weren't you!" She accused.