Author's Note: Hi everyone! This is the fourth installment for the Naruto's Couple Event on Tumblr. The prompt was 'In another World' and for some reason my brain came up with a genie AU. I had too much fun writing this so, I will be expanding it into a series of interconnected one-shots. I hope you all enjoy!
event: naruto couple's event 2018
prompt: in another world
pairing: kakashi x sakura
genre: fantasy / humor
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, they belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
Let me know what you think by reviewing! Favorite and follow, also!
Just Rub, Three Times
Chapter One
I Dream of Genie
It was hot.
The air was thick and dry, making it difficult to breathe. It blanketed them with its unbearable weight, and after hours of it boring down, it was becoming harder and harder to tolerate.
Despite the ceiling fan twirling furiously above, sweat still beaded on her forehead and the nape of her neck. Cherry colored bangs clung to her brow and the side of her face. No matter how many times she swiped at them, those unruly locks kept falling in front of her eyes and obscuring her vision.
"Sakura-chan…," Her bunkmate whined, voice raspy from lack of use. "It's hot."
Sakura turned her head marginally, glancing at Naruto out of the corner of her eye.
The blonde, who had long ago abandoned his project, was laying on his back, sprawled unceremoniously across the floor in a haphazard pile of limbs. He had stripped down to just his shorts, the sweat-dampened shirt piled into a makeshift pillow behind his head.
"I think I'm dying," He groaned softly, chest heaving with excretion from the act of merely speaking.
Sakura scoffed and looked back towards their worktable.
"You're not dying idiot," The pinkette assured. "You're probably just dehydrated. I told you, you have to drink a lot of water."
Her fair-haired teammate groaned as he rolled over onto his hands and knees. For the next few minutes, Sakura divided her attention between cleaning her tools and watching Naruto half crawl, half drag himself across the room to where their mini-fridge resided.
There were a few soft grunts as he struggled with getting the cooler to open, but before long, the blond released a cry in triumph, which was followed by the sound of him scouring through the contents of the refrigerator.
Sakura was distracted from her tasks when the door to the room was tossed open, revealing a rumpled looking Sai.
His black hair was drenched, pulled back from his face by a headband that Sakura could have sworn she saw Ino wearing earlier that morning. He, much like Naruto, had foregone a shirt, but it wasn't the sight of his half-clothed body that caused her to pause.
No, what caught Sakura's immediate attention was the vibrant, blotchy red pattern that was painted across his pale skin.
The jade-eyed woman winced in sympathy before she called out, "Naruto, grab the aloe while you're over there."
"Thanks, Hag," Sai murmured as he entered the dorm, closing the door behind him.
He traversed the space between them with small, struggle-filled shuffles. The dark-haired male grimaced as deposited himself in the chair directly next to her, simultaneously tossing his rut sack on the wooden surface.
Before she could question Sai on the particulars of his time at the job site, something cold pressed against the side of her cheek and Sakura jerked in her seat.
Whirling around, she found Naruto grinning at her, a water bottle held out in her direction. Amusement danced around in those bright blue eyes as he took in both her reaction and Sai's appearance.
"Thank you," Sakura hummed in a grateful tone, taking the refreshment from his grasp.
"No problem," He chirped.
Without any prior warning, he tossed the container of aloe in Sai's direction.
The projectile was caught with relative ease and immediately Sai opened the jar, releasing a tiny sigh of relief as he began to rub the cooling gel along the expanse of his chest and shoulders.
"Serves you right," Naruto chided. "You should know better than to go out to the dig site without a shirt on."
Black eyes narrowed minutely, but Sai chose not to rise to the taunt, more focused on garnering relief from his sunburn.
Sakura clicked her tongue before she said, "Leave him be Naruto. None of us are used to dealing with Suna's heat."
In response to her comment, Naruto's shoulder's slumped as he seemingly remembered the particulars of their current situation. The last few days have been predominantly hard on them.
"This is all granny's fault," Naruto grouched in a sour tone.
Viridian eyes rolled skyward and Sakura lightly shook her head in exasperation. She licked her chapped lips once, twice, then opened her bottle of water and took a generous sip.
"We signed up for this," Sakura corrected. "It's no one's fault."
"Yeah Dickless," Sai cut in. "This comes with the territory of being anthropology students."
At his friends' reprimands, Naruto averted his gaze and crossed his arms, all the while, murmuring curses under his breath.
"Either way," The blond declared after a moment's pause. "The school could have at least found us a place with a working air conditioner!"
That, Sakura found herself agreeing with.
Sai, Naruto, and herself were studying anthropology at Konoha University. The trio met their freshman year and though there were a few rough patches in the beginning – mainly Sai's uncouth mouth – they quickly became friends.
As a part of their curriculum this semester, the department head granted them the opportunity to be a part of an archeological dig in the middle of the Suna desert.
Initially, all the students in the department jumped at the prospect of being assigned across the country, and after the teams were appointed and the formalities taken care of, the excitement began to set in.
Despite being supervised by faculty from the university, the sense of wonderment and freedom that came with this type of task was unparalleled.
The giddiness of finally leaving their campus behind was swiftly stomped out after their first day on location. The arid, scorching heat during the day, paired with the plunging, frigid temperatures at night made working in their destination less than ideal.
After the second day, Naruto was ready to go home.
After the third, Sakura was ready to join him.
The extreme fluctuation in climate forced them to adopt odd work hours.
Most of the students worked at the site in the early hours of the morning or late at night after the sun dipped below the horizon. The afternoons were spent indoors; most people hid away in their rooms to either sleep or battle heat stroke.
Suddenly remembering Sai's pack, Sakura turned her attention to the onyx-haired male.
"Did you find anything this morning?" She inquired, gesturing towards the canvas bag with a tilt of her chin.
Sai deposited the bottle of aloe on the table before he reclined further back in his chair, arms resting loosely in his lap.
"Nothing that out of the ordinary, just a few petrified knick-knacks."
Sensing the curiosity his comment brought out in his team members, the sunburnt male added, "Go on and look."
Needing no further prompting, Naruto dove on the backpack, opening and extracting the contents with a particular, practiced gentleness that not many knew he was capable of. Sakura eyed the findings laid out in front of her with intrigue, fingers twitching in anticipation.
Once Naruto was finished, he tossed the rut sack over his shoulder, reaching for the item closest to him. It appeared to be a hilt of some type of sword, broken from the steel that once made it deadly, now covered with hardened sediment and rusted with age.
"This is pretty cool!" The boisterous blond exclaimed, tossing the broken weapon into the air a few times.
"Idiot! Be careful with that!" Sakura snapped, though there was no real animosity in her tone. "We're here to extract and preserve our findings, not fling them around like they're a Frisbee!"
The cerulean eyed male remained unaffected by the scolding and merely smiled, eyes perusing the other objects on the table.
Something across the desk caught his attention and Naruto stilled, raising a brow.
"Sakura-chan, what's that? The one next to you."
Shifting her gaze to the item in question, Sakura reached out and delicately plucked what appeared to be an ornate bottle from the pile of findings.
Restored to its former glory, it would have been beautiful. It was narrow-necked, flowing down into a broad circular base. Under her fingertips, Sakura could feel where swirling patterns and trimmings were etched into the decanter.
Instinctively, she reached for one of the small brushes she had been cleaning earlier.
"I was surprised when I found it whole and still in good condition. It must be made of some type of metal for it to have maintained its shape after all these years," Sai commented, watching as Sakura ran the coarse hairs of the excavation brush over the surface of the bottle.
"You think it's worth anything?" Naruto asked, a hopeful note in his inquiry. "Maybe if we bring it to Tsunade she'll upgrade our room so we don't have to deal with this heat!"
The rosette grunted a noncommittal noise, continuing to try and cleanse away the layers of caked mud.
They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, both men watching Sakura expectantly as she poked, picked, and prodded at the flask.
Her air of concentration gave way as she brought the artifact up towards her face for closer inspection, a small frown twisting on her lips.
"I think...," She started slowly, green eyes narrowing as she tried to distinguish whatever it was she was looking at. "I think there's something written on here."
Naruto materialized behind her, leaning excitedly over her shoulder.
"What does it say? What does it say?!"
"She can't tell if you're hovering over her and hogging all the light Dickless," Sai drawled from his seat.
Though he may not have been as forthcoming as Naruto, Sai was now leaning forward in his chair, seemingly interested in what his pink haired teammate found.
Sakura elbowed Naruto gently, forcing him to give her a wider berth.
"I can't really tell," She muttered, attention still focused on the bottle. Shifting her hold, Sakura tilted the ornate object forward, hoping that the light would catch its surface better with the new angle.
Placing the brush down, Sakura began to blindly reach for her microfiber rag, which Sai pushed across the table and into her grasp.
"Whatever it says, it's in another language. I wouldn't be able to understand it," She murmured, beginning to rub small, gentle circles on the surface of the bottle.
Abruptly, the temperature in the room spiked, then drastically dropped.
The hair on the back of Sakura's neck began to rise in warning, but before any of the students could figure out what was going on, the bottle suddenly began to glow. The light grew steadily, enveloping the entirety of the room and blinding the trio.
Sakura was forced to drop the decanter on the table so that she could use her hands to shield her eyes.
The moment that the bottle touched the wooden surface, a plume of black smoke exploded outward, its driving force knocking Sai and Sakura out of their chairs and causing Naruto stumbled back a few steps.
Then, just as sudden as it appeared, the light faded and everything returned to normal.
Sai scrambled to stand, while Naruto rushed to help Sakura to her feet.
The three of them shared a wide-eyed look, before slowly shifting their gazes to the bottle which was laying on the tabletop, eerily tranquil.
"Just what the hell was that?!" Naruto screeched, looking back and forth between both of his bunkmates.
"That," A voice spoke out from the opposite side of the room. "Is what happens when the lamp senses it has a new master."
Naruto, Sakura, and Sai all tensed, then with slow, measured movements, the trio spun to face the source of the unknown voice.
Naruto's grip on her bicep tightened in apprehension and Sakura was sure that there would be bruises marring her pale skin later on that afternoon.
Standing in front of the entrance to their dorm room what she could only consider to be a man, though she highly doubted he actually was such.
He was tall, lanky with board shoulders and long limbs, topped off with a head of gray hair that was disheveled; tussled in many different directions.
His eyes were his most striking features; the pair was mismatched, one as dark as a raven's wing and the other a bright red like a blood rose in full bloom.
The remaining details of his face were hidden behind a black mask, but Sakura could make out the outline of a broad jaw and sharp pointed nose.
He was wearing a pair of plain, black, loose-fitting harem pants held up by a hunter green sash that rested low on his hips. A matching pair of thick, gold bangles wrapped around both of his wrists, and beyond that, he wore nothing else. There were no shoes on his feet nor was he wearing anything to cover his torso; chiseled, cut cords of sun-kissed muscle were proudly on display.
Sakura was instantly mesmerized by his appearance and judging from the silence that reigned throughout the room, so were Naruto and Sai.
Unbothered by their shocked stupor, the stranger raised his hand in greeting, eyes crinkling as he smiled behind his mask.
"Yo!" He chirped happily.
At his warm reception, all hell broke loose.
Sai yanked Sakura from Naruto's hold, situating her so that she was behind Naruto and himself. Her blond best friend spun on his heel, snatched the old sword hilt that he was admiring earlier, and turned back so that he could launch it across the room towards the newcomer.
The mysterious man vanished into thin air before the broken weapon could hit him, and the artifact clattered against the back of the door, shattering into smaller pieces when it collided against the floor.
"Well, that wasn't very nice," That same voice called out from behind them.
The group rotated, shifting their stance so that the gray-haired male was once again in their field of vision. He was poised at the foot of Naruto's bed, expertly balanced on one of the wooden posters which made up the bed frame.
This time it was Sai that moved forward to strike, sidestepping the table and chairs in an attempt to reach his target.
"How aggressive," The stranger sighed, put off.
Their unwanted visitor raised his left hand, flicking his wrist in Sai's direction and the dark-eyed male abruptly froze, mid-stride.
Sai's breath left him in one long swoosh as the sudden stillness hit him. His entire body trembled, the tendons in his neck tensing as he seemed to struggle within himself.
"I can't move!" He forced out through gritted teeth.
"W-what!?" Sakura squeaked, mouth agape.
Her stricken cry caught the attention of the man – creature? – and he disappeared from his perch on the bed, only to suddenly reappear on the table in front of her. He crouched down on his haunches, leaning over so that his face was incredibly close to her own.
Fear kept her rooted to her spot, trapped within his mismatched gaze.
Only when she felt his breath caress her cheeks, did Sakura try to move away, craning her neck in an attempt to increase the distance between them.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted. "You get away from her!"
"So loud," Their mysterious visitor childishly whined. Without removing his eyes from her face, he commanded quietly, "Please, be quiet."
The words ghosted across her skin, leaving a warm, tingling sensation in their wake.
The silence that quickly enveloped the room caught Sakura by surprise and jade eyes sought out Naruto.
The blond was clutching his head, staggering slightly. When he seemed to gather his bearings, Naruto shifted his attention back to the man on the table, lips parted so he could release another reprimand.
Except, when his mouth moved, forming his intended exclamation, no sound passed his lips.
Cerulean eyes widened a fraction and the blonde stiffened in surprise. Naruto tried to speak again, but it was to no avail as he was met with the same forced muteness.
"Ah, that's much better." The stranger chuckled lightly before he stated, "You should probably sit down."
The chair next to Naruto sprang to life, sliding across the floor and barreling into the back of his knees.
The blond tumbled back into the seat, pausing only briefly to collect himself before trying to stand. When his body refused to budge, Naruto began to struggle in the chair.
"Sakura? Naruto?" Sai queried, his tone panicked. "What's going on? I can't move my head. I can't see what's happening!"
Mismatched eyes slid to look in Sai's direction and the gray-haired male clicked his tongue.
"I forgot about you. Follow your friend's example and be silent."
Sakura couldn't see Sai's face from where she stood, but she was sure that he was probably just as astonished as Naruto with his sudden inability to speak.
With both of her teammate's taken care of, the stranger turned his attention back to her, reaching out to grasp her chin, in a gentle but firm hold. He tilted her head to the left, then right, before he raised her face towards the ceiling.
"Well, aren't you a pretty little thing," He hummed with approval.
Cocking his head to the right in a considering gesture, he ran thumb ran across the fullness of her bottom lip as he muttered, "I've never had a female master before."
"W-what…," Sakura stammered, trailing off. Emerald eyes screwed shut, and the pinkette released a long, shuttering breath. "What are you?"
She opened her eyes at his soft chuckle, heat instantly flooding to her cheeks at the sudden fondness that was swimming in his gaze.
"You can call me is Kakashi," He said in a friendly tone that caught her by surprise with its warmth. "And I, my dear, am your genie."
Thank you everyone for reading!
Make sure to leave a review so I know what you think!
word count: 2,939
last edited on: 05/17/18
ja mata ne
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