Chapter One: It Started With A Seat
"You're sitting in my damn seat."
Hatake Kakashi paused - and turned from the dango counter. Mitarashi Anko stood before him, hands on her wide hips and a fierce scowl on her curvy, heart-shaped face. It was a hot May day, and though it was hard to tell, Kakashi was sweating underneath all his layers of long-sleeved black and green flak vest and cloth face mask and hitai-ate. Anko was sweating, too, he could just see a bead of sweat moving between the breasts of her open, revealing dress made of chain mesh armor, framed by the long trench coat filled with explosives.
Anko was fifteen. Kakashi was sixteen. The Fourth Hokage reigned.
Kakashi thought no one could tell how much suffering he was under, but Anko could and she thoroughly enjoyed it. Kakashi had a penchant for wearing really slim, tight-fitting, long-sleeved black; he was lithely muscular, being an ANBU Captain, and currently covered in sweat stains. For some people, that might have been a turnoff.
Anko, a hardass feminist kunoichi with a firm belief in the erotic power of suffering, was not some people.
Anko caught the flick of Kakashi's single visible eye between her breasts and grinned. "Like what you see, Hatake?" she asked playfully. The messy purple hair tossed up behind her head in a clip somewhat added to the mischievous, girlish effect. Her amber eyes shone in the fading sunlight of beginning summer.
Kakashi's handsome dark eye flicked back to her face and he fell back on his usual frigidity. "I don't know what you're talking about. And this isn't your seat," he said, faux mild. "I don't see your name stamped anywhere on it."
"Ah, so you're an arguer. That makes you much more interesting," said Anko cheerfully. "And you're a total dick. Some girls find that hot, you know."
"Yet again, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Says the guy who has an erotic novel stuck in the pocket of his vest. The brand-new one from that anonymous pseudonym beginning author? The one that's been such a breakout hit?"
"I know the author personally."
"Uh-huh," Anko said slowly, her vicious grin widening. "So, what -?" It wasn't always wise to needle an ANBU Captain, but Anko was confident in her fighting abilities. "You're that guy who reads porn but never actually does anything about it? That's lame," she announced.
"Alright, let me be more explicit," said Kakashi sharply, and a kind of fierceness had entered his tone as his visible eye narrowed at her. Oh, yeah. Now that was hot, Anko thought. "Some girls find that very hot," said Kakashi sarcastically, "until they find out I'm not showing them the face underneath my cloth face mask and they then find out I like reading erotic fiction."
"You're mysterious and into kinky shit. That's pretty cool," Anko announced, grinning. "And that is my seat."
Kakashi blinked at the sudden change in subject.
"I sit there every day for lunch. It's one of the only vices I allow myself. I have tea and dango dumplings," Anko snapped, her changeable face falling into thunderhead again. "Look, this is -" She looked around. "This is one of the only damn places that'll let me in and not bother me, Kakashi," she hissed, seeming embarrassed. "And that's my seat. You can have any other fucking seat you want. No one gives a shit about you. Why do you have to have that one?"
Kakashi was surprised. "People still care that your old Sensei experimented on you, turned missing nin, and then abandoned you?"
Few had ever been so cripplingly blunt.
Anko sighed. "Yeah," she said broadly, equally blunt. "Unfortunately, they do."
Kakashi frowned. "That's dumb. Anyone can see you are loyal to the village, you hate Orochimaru, and you are surprisingly stable."
"Surprisingly stable. What a compliment," Anko smirked. "Hey, you won't get any arguments from me, man. I know it's dumb. Will you give me my damn lunch seat?"
Kakashi paused - and then, revealing very little, he slid himself and his lunch over to the stool beside Anko's lunch seat. Anko hopped up beside him, surprised but pleased.
"Company, huh? I'll take it."
"... You were incorrect."
Anko looked around curiously, in Kakashi's eyes surprisingly innocent.
"I am an orphan. Both of my childhood teammates have died tragically in battles I was involved in, one in a mercy killing at my hand, the other giving me an invaluable fighting technique right before he passed. I am a ruthless ANBU Captain. Do you know what they call me?" Kakashi smiled humorlessly. "Friend Killer. With all unproven that it implies."
"Damn, that's shitty!" said Anko indignantly. Then she sighed. "But predictable," she admitted, calmer and more sympathetic. She didn't seem fazed. "Anyone can see you're not a friend-murderer, and I should know, because I was taught by one; some people are so terribly unperceptive. Well, considering how the Snake Bastard abandoned me and how much older he is, wherever he is out there… I don't think my Snake Bitch nickname is much better in implication.
"Buy a drink. Doesn't have to be sake. Let's make a toast to people sucking."
Kakashi raised an eyebrow, but did as she asked. "Tea, like her," he requested, his mug was slid across the table beside hers, and they clinked cups. "To people sucking," he admitted, feeling more raw and human than he had in a good while.
"You should come to one of my tea ceremonies," said Anko, sipping. "You're a real quiet type; I think you'd be good there, and for obvious reasons I never attract quite enough good foot traffic to the teahouse when I host. Oh, and that book? Novice stuff in the world of kink. I can recommend better."
"Do you know, you are almost a stereotype," Kakashi mused, eyeing her chain-mail dress, explosives coat, and vicious smirk.
"Ah, but not quite!" Anko pointed at him and grinned. "Way too much of a spazz! That's my secret!"
Kakashi chuckled despite himself.
"What else do you read?" he asked.
"Not much," said Anko. "Which is why you in turn can help me."
Kakashi paused, even his mess of premature silvery hair stilling above his young face. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking underneath the cloth face mask and low-slung hitai-ate.
"Come on," said Anko. "I need someone to hang out and eat lunch with every afternoon, and I need another extra at my tea ceremonies. I'm not asking you to sign your life away in blood.
"I could. That sounds cool. But I won't."
"Definitely starting you in the Gothic horror romance genre," Kakashi decided aloud, and Anko knew she'd been accepted.
"The fact that you have any idea what that is at all," she declared, "is totally awesome."
Kakashi did as promised. He started attending Anko's tea ceremonies, where both he (with his solemnity) and Anko (surprisingly well behaved and smiling serenely) were able to meet in the middle a little more than they usually would have. They quickly fed off of each other as budding tea connoisseurs.
Kakashi and Anko also lent each other books during lunch meetings at the dango bar. Anko had a big, unashamed appetite; Kakashi could appreciate that, after some of the fangirls who chased after him. Sometimes Anko smoked outside afterward and Kakashi stood beside her, reminding her patiently about health. He took good health seriously and personally as a control thing; she said she smoked, with a bitter, vicious smile, because she knew "her old bastard of a Sensei would have hated an invaluable student risking her health that way."
But mostly they talked about books. It only took Kakashi a few meetings to deduce that half the things in most erotic fiction would be totally impossible to achieve in real life; it took Anko an even shorter period of time to deduce that so many of the women in Gothic horror romance were what she termed "pathetic, shrieky victim women."
They were arguing one afternoon at the dango shop, big plates in front of them and brand-new packets of obscure teas to try on the counter between them.
"The aesthetic is amazing, but the women suck!" said Anko indignantly. "What if the chick wants to drink the dude's blood, not the other way around? I demand to see that story!" She pounded the table with a fist, a Gothic romance on the table near the tea packets.
"Okay, okay, Anko," said Kakashi, raising his hands, good-naturedly exasperated. "Maybe don't shout so loud about blood-drinking in public."
"It was also rapey, which was weird? Kink is about both people enjoying the process of dominance and submissiveness, so if one person is obviously distressed or upset, that's not kinky - it's just rapey. Speaking of which, what did you think of what I lent you?" said Anko, grinning. "Not rapey! And some of it sounded surprisingly doable, right?"
Next to the Gothic romance was an erotic book full of massive (and actually correctly presented, Anko had insisted fiercely) kink.
"If by some of it, you mean, fifty percent of the sex instead of forty percent of the sex…" said Kakashi skeptically, "then yes."
"And it was hot!"
"I'm not contesting that. Again, maybe a bit too much shouting."
"See, in books like this, women actually do drink male blood. A lot. It's a whole BDSM type of thing. Some people even do it in Gothic outfits," said Anko casually.
Kakashi frowned down at the book. Then looked back up at Anko. Who was grinning just that little bit too much.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"No," said Kakashi immediately, turning back toward the counter.
"Liar," said Anko casually. "Come on, Kakashi. You're not curious? You said it yourself: you don't know any other women who are into kink. And I promise I'll never ask to see underneath your mask, and there are absolutely no strings attached to this offer.
"You have kind of a dignified gentleman vibe to you. I dig that. I decided last night."
Kakashi gave her a fondly exasperated look. She'd just decided last night to have sex with him?
"So what is it? Too hot? Damaged goods?" Anko leaned back, faux casual and deceptively dangerous, in her seat at the counter.
"... You're sure you want to have sex with me? The frigid asshole people call Friend Killer?" Kakashi asked skeptically in return.
Anko grinned. "I think we're perfect for each other," she said, in a voice that went right up his spine. There was a challenge in her eyes - she wanted to see if she'd met her match, a true kunoichi to the end. "Come on, Hatake. Get out of your own head for once."
He looked her dead in the eye, rising to her challenge. "Deal," he said heatedly.
Anko liked that look. She liked it a lot.
Back at Anko's place - a small house, decorated in rich dark velvets and potted plants, better than his bare apartment - despite how impulsive it was and always would be back then, it took a few false stops and starts. Kakashi found himself to be embarrassingly awkward at physical intimacy, incapable of just letting go.
Anko, it was obvious, hadn't been lying - she did have a lot more experience than he did.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Kakashi," she finally said, threw her arms around his neck, surprised him, and kissed him in a whole different way - kissed him fiercely. She was like a tidal wave of force, and finally he got the basic point, which was to give up and drown.
They did the kink they had promised, Anko had delicious and mischievous fun doing it, lending a refreshingly light, teasing tone to the sex, and as Anko had promised she never asked to see underneath his mask. But the interaction was… complicated. Anko was hands everywhere, almost manic under the pressure, but forceful, with no emotion to it - after a while it was all domination for her, like he wasn't even there.
Finally, he put out his hands - tentatively, gently - and she paused. "Let's try this," he said, and they fell into something more gentle, touching, and surprisingly tender. The end of the sex became soft, quiet. They came together, slowly, as one - each emotional for different reasons.
Kakashi felt high, wild - more human than he had in years. For a short, blessed while, he just let himself feel, short circuited, frayed wires - and the way they ended up doing it might have seemed fucked up to some, but he realized he'd have a hard time letting it go in private. And it meant something to them.
They lay there beside each other on the bed afterward, breathing quietly.
"Sorry," Anko said at last. "The Snake Bastard did actually fuck me a couple of times." She looked over at him with her practiced hard expression, her heart secretly pounding. "It's not why I'm kinky, you know. Healthy people have kink.
"But it is why I have other issues with sex. The whole forceful, you're-not-there thing. He did fuck me. I don't let people know - don't like to give them the satisfaction.
"That's where he got the idea of this nifty little seal he left me with on my neck looking like some permanent, fucked up hickie."
But Kakashi's eyes were gentle, handsome dark and scarred swirling red Sharingan both. She wondered if he'd always remember this, and in a weird way she liked that, being a little imprint on his physical memory. "It's okay," he said softly, sympathetic, and for him it was simple, that was all it was for him. "... I sort of shut myself off after my father killed himself," Kakashi admitted. "I just walked in on him, and he hadn't done it in front of me, but he was just laying there with his guts spilled out of him."
"Honor death," Anko agreed, wincing.
"Yeah. I was five," said Kakashi. "The trait runs in my family, but that's when my black hair turned silver. Like my father before me, it's also why I started wearing my mask. Then my teammates died, one after the other, both in battle… So I've never really done this before. Gotten close.
"It's nice," he admitted, "doing it with you."
He was oddly sincere in the way of the inexperienced. Anko snorted, but smiled. He was weirdly endearing. "Of course it is," she said, and grinned. "But thanks."
He rolled his eyes but smiled.
"Yeah," Anko admitted, "Orochimaru picked me out of an orphanage. So I don't really know what any of that's like."
Kakashi paused in surprise. "... It was a good pick," he said quietly. "From a horrible man." He didn't hate very many things, finding it to be an irrational urge, but he decided he hated Orochimaru.
"Yeah," said Anko neutrally, shrugging, "he always did have an eye for people. Mostly people who could do something for him." Anko was above all things practical.
Kakashi paused, and then reached up to his cloth face mask.
"Well, hey," said Anko in surprise, half raising herself up on her elbows, her eyes widened, "I didn't mean it in a guilt way, you don't have to -"
"I know. I want to," said Kakashi. He paused, "Is it… is it okay?" he asked awkwardly, hoping in the weirdest, most embarrassing way for acceptance.
Anko paused, and smiled. "Yeah," she said, deciding Hatake Kakashi was a big, lovable dork. "It's okay."
He pulled down his mask and showed her his face. Few people had ever seen it - Hatake Kakashi's true face. Anko reached out and touched it in wonder. It was a good face - slim with high cheekbones but a strong chin, above a lithely muscular, pale chest beaded with sweat, covered in a top of messy silvery hair, the kind of sign of premature aging no kid should ever have in the kind of perfect world Anko didn't believe in.
Despite all her proclamations of raw strength, she knew the score. In legend, compared to Hatake Kakashi, even a former student of Orochimaru was nothing. And Hatake Kakashi had just willingly shown her his true face.
Their eyes met. They leaned their heads forward on the sweaty pillows, bruised and slightly bloody, and shared a soft, hot breath of a kiss, their hands meeting to hold each other's.
They were in bizarre costume, but well, in their eccentric eyes, that was just life.
Then abruptly Anko leaned back. "I'm making breakfast in the morning," she said. "But only because it's my place. Same rules apply to you. Order out if you have to."
"Of course, of course," said Kakashi in amusement, exasperated.
"Good." Anko rolled over and switched off her deep red hanging-chain bedside lamp. "Then go to sleep."
Kakashi's eyes followed the soft curvature of her shoulders on the dark velvet round bed, her long dark purple hair falling messily around her neck, the black seal so rarely exposed, everything imprinting itself onto his memory. He knew Anko, or he thought he did. This was her tough act. She was trying to pretend like this whole evening hadn't gotten to her.
In a way, he supposed he could understand that. It was why they were well suited.
"Goodnight, Anko," he said, rolled over and willed himself to sleep in that way only a skilled ninja could.
"... Goodnight, Kakashi," she said softly.
Summer had begun in earnest. They would spend the remaining half of May and all of June together.
A lot fit itself into that month and a half.