Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, all rights belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
Mission Scroll Number: 2 – "Uncomfortable Comfort"
Mission Specifics: It's uncanny how certain things only sound right in certain situations.
Mission Rating: G
Targets: Grown-up!Haruno Sakura – FOM!Hatake Kakashi.
Team -
Mission Strategist and Weapons (writer): Kat
Logistics and Inventory (beta-reader): nakenochny a.k.a. smashleeash (LJ)
Kunai and Shuriken Count: 661
Uncomfortable Comfort
Unbeknownst to the majority of the population, The Great Copy Ninja had a problem with a certain word.
It was a word that had haunted him since he was little.
It was a word that he had heard countless times, even if he couldn't quite pinpoint the situations due to their ancient nature, heard between cooing and attempts to pinch his cheeks.
It was a word that he thought was highly inappropriate for the son of the White Fang.
It was a word that made him uncomfortable, and had prompted his use of the infamous mask that covered his face.
And that word, was… cute.
It was flabbergasting when he had been an infant. He didn't understand why women had the impulse to try and grab him and squeeze so much he felt his chakra would slip right up the top of his head, just like a toothpaste tube.
"Oh dear! What a cute little boy he is!" they said. It still made him shudder when remembering it. It was just… annoying. Especially, when you are a young genius, who doesn't really have his mind set on how he looks. He was a boy. Period. Cute was a word meant for little girls, and puppies and ki—well, not kittens.
As time progressed, so did the reason for the piece of dark cotton that covered his face evolved.
Having the distraction that his face seemed to be, covered, the target of attention when it came to him fell solely upon his superb achievements.
It served to hide so much more, after disgrace struck the Hatake clan, with his father's passing.
It became a good feature, since the mask helped him through the attacks of smoke bombs.
It was—well, all in all, Hatake Kakashi was very, very adamant on keeping his mask on at all times, and it became as important to him as a pair of pants—no it is not a weird analogy; he felt absolutely naked without it.
The lower portion of his face was as intimate for him as his privates: having it out in the open was tantamount to moon-flashing someone –which he had no inclinations to do whatsoever, out of the occasional drunken bet where his word was given without the proper reasoning of a sober mind, but that is another story altogether.
That was the reason why he kept it hidden still, why he had developed a flawless eating tactic with speed that would have made the Yondaime proud and why he wore a second mask under the main one when the occasional "curiosity bouts" from his colleagues threatened his… modesty.
So he was actually extremely dumbfounded right now, as his cheeks tainted with a darker shade than usual – pink hued – his hand wrapped around a feminine waist, a shapely leg draped over the crook of his elbow, his other hand—he really didn't want to think where his other hand was, for the sake of the propriety of his thoughts— and a slender female hand rolled about the bunch of cloth around his neck, formerly known as his mask.
Extremely confused, as she (his ex-student, current partner Haruno Sakura) seemed transfixed, gawking at him after falling from a tree and landing on this position – for he, as the gentleman he was deep in the recesses of his being, had tried to catch her before she hit the ground, never mind her catlike reflexes – her soft voice muttering in a breathy tone:
"…Cute!"
And why was he so confused? Because even being fairly naked, by his standards, and being uttered the vilest word he could think of… since it was Sakura, it actually felt damned good.
