Just a quick note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed and a special thanks to the people who pointed out the Gondaime error! I'm not so great with all the Japanese terminology but I'll do my best . Anyways, onwards to Chapter 2…
Sakura woke up to the incessant drone of her alarm clock, before smashing her fist down on it to stop the noise. Once again surrounded by the blissful silence she stared up at her ceiling from the warm covers of her bed in her newly settled in apartment. An apartment whose landlord Tsunade had been kind enough to convince by threats of bodily harm to rent out to her.
The apartment wasn't bad, much better than the one she had been allotted in Sand. Its only downfall was the slight fraying on the curtain by the kitchen window, apart from that it was roomy enough to move around in, however small enough to be considered cozy.
Languidly stretching out her limbs, Sakura let a groan before sitting up onto the edge of the bed. She'd always been a slow riser and had learned over the years that the hellish process was always made much more feasible when taken in small steps. She was met with an infinitesimal rush of vertigo for her efforts, and she looked at the clock that read 7 AM. Why was she up so early again?
Ah, now she remembered. She had meant to get an early start in order to get back into the rhythm of Konoha; it being her first full day back and whatnot. Her fridge was also in desperate need of restocking; a situation that would have to be rectified immediately. And if she had any hope of completing the task it would have to be before the group training session at 10 with Team 7, the one Naruto had badgered her into agreeing to attend. If there was anything Sakura remembered from Konoha, it was that the word "no" meant as little to Naruto as the word "sulcus". It just had no place in the boy's life. So, not being one to indulge fruitless endeavors, Sakura had given in.
Stretching out her limbs one more time Sakura stood up and lazily walked over to the bathroom to prepare herself for the long day ahead of her. With a quick turn, water came gushing out of the shower drain as she quickly retracted her hand and waited for it to heat up. Looking into the mirror in front of her as she brushed her teeth she noticed she hadn't been this well rested since her mission to Sound. She supposed there was some level of comfort that could only be found in your hometown.
With one last gurgle she set her toothbrush back into place before stepping into the now scalding hot water of the shower. She let out a quick hiss before abruptly adjusting the left handle until a warm stream cascaded down her peachy locks. A small smile broke out against her face before she could help it; they never had hot water in Sound.
Once thoroughly sanitized she stepped out of the shower and headed into the living room after pulling a towel around her middle. Now completely awake, she quickly glanced at the clock across the room. A clock which now read it was already 10 past 8.
"Shit!" She cursed, as she hurriedly rummaged through her drawers to pull on her maroon top, before pulling on some underwear and a black pair of shorts.
"Shit shit shit." She mumbled, "I am so late."
Grabbing her wallet and a small pouch of kunai she sped out the door.
Now thoroughly pressed on time she tried to manage quick calculations in her head as to how much time she could allot to grocery shopping, taking into account the time it'd take to go back to her apartment to put them in her fridge and then head toward training ground 3.
Searching frantically for a plastic bag after having reached the market she estimated it was now approximately 8:30, which left her about an hour at the market, and allowed her thirty minutes to restock her fridge. Hustling through the fruit stalls as she picked up various items, she surmised it would have to be enough.
…
Exactly 1 hour and 40 minutes later and just leaving the market, Sakura, yet again, found herself behind schedule.
"Shit!" She cursed rather loudly as she rushed back to her apartment, earning a few odd stares from bystanders.
She was already 10 minutes late, 10 whole minutes! Sakura was never late to anything. Ever. If she was late on her first day back with Team 7 she just knew they wouldn't let her hear the end of it. Well, sans one Uchiha avenger seeing as how he would in all actuality most likely deem her too annoying to reprimand but would have no qualms about giving her his own patented version of the stink eye.
That boy was such a diva. He probably spent more time getting ready in the morning than she and Sai combined. And she knew for a fact that that ex-Root member spent a good hour every morning on exfoliation.
An unbidden image of Sai and a loofa popped into her mind before she could stop it, and a cold shiver ran down her spine. Ugh. He probably practiced social interaction scenarios with the thing.
With that disturbing thought in mind Sakura found herself at the steps of her building. She quickly shoved the key in before stepping into her living room and setting down her grocery bags. She stumbled once in her haste to get all the items to the fridge, almost dropping a bag in the process, however managed to steady herself.
She quickly swung the fridge door open and began hastily packing the contents inside.
At 10:40, with a sufficiently stocked refrigerator, Sakura headed out to training ground 3. As she passed by the market for the second time that morning, a feeling of dread overcame her. Oh god, Naruto was probably going to force her to buy him ramen for a week. And with the recent payment for the month of rent she was already short on cash as it was.
A scowl quickly formed on her lips, and she unconsciously began nibbling her bottom lip in frustration. Stupid Naruto and his stupid ramen. Stupid, stupid, ugly ramen—
"Ugh!" She exclaimed as she suddenly bumped into a hard chest, causing her to stumble backwards. A strong pair of arms latched on to her shoulders to steady her.
"Looks like I'm not the only late one for once," A male voice, presumably belonging to the pair of arms that now released her, exclaimed.
Sakura slowly looked up in horror to find herself staring back into her ex-sensei's face. If there was anything more embarrassing than being late to her first day back of training, it was being later than Kakashi-sensei. The man looked perfectly at ease, staring down at her from his intimidating height, with his hands placed lazily in his pockets. He had a full head and a half of height on her; it simply wasn't fair!
She gulped, "Kakashi-sensei," She answered back in greeting.
His one visible eye crinkled in response, "I'm not your sensei anymore Sakura."
"Well what else am I supposed to call you, Kakashi?" Her nose crunched at the unfamiliar title.
"Yes. That is exactly what one would call another person; by their name." He explained as if speaking to a young child.
"But you've been my sensei for seven years!" She snapped, fully exasperated with the situation.
"You make me feel so old," He sighed dramatically, and lifted a hand to his heart to showcase his emotional turmoil.
Sakura only rolled her eye in response, "You're like what, 45?"
"23, actually."
Sakura snorted at the blatant lie, causing a frown to appear underneath her ex-sensei's mask.
"Youth these days, no respect." Kakashi shook his head in mock disappointment.
"Careful now Kakashi-sensei you're beginning to sound like Gai."
The man before her only grunted to show his disapproval, "Aren't you late in getting somewhere?"
"Aren't you?" She rebutted.
"Ah." He only said, before giving her an odd once over, spending an inappropriate amount of time on the area just below her neck, leaving her feeling thoroughly irritated. Sakura continued to glare at him as his eyes traveled back to hers.
"Well I'd hurry getting there if I were you," He said cryptically before passing her to head towards the place she'd initially been headed.
She let out an exasperated huff as she watched his figure walk farther and farther away before turning to kick a rock in his general direction.
Asshole.
"Oh, and Sakura?" His voice called out nonchalantly from twenty feet ahead of her unmoving body.
"What!" She snapped as she turned back to face his retreating back.
"You may want to provide more coverage to certain…areas before showing up for training." He spoke without breaking his stride.
Sakura only stared at him in confusion before looking down at herself to understand which 'areas' he was referring to. As her eyes landed on her breasts she realized she'd never put on a sports bra that morning in her haste. Her expression immediately turned livid.
She let out an indignant shriek, and he only raised a hand in departure in response.
…
With a severely darkened mood and a clock that now read 11:10 Sakura, for the third time that morning, hurried out her apartment door. After her impromptu rendez-vous with a certain infuriating Copy Nin she had had to make the, now redundant, trek back to her apartment in order to provide herself with some better 'coverage' as he so aptly put it. Sports bra, and kunai intact she once again headed for the training grounds.
She couldn't help but let her thoughts wander as she headed towards the fields, thoughts of Kakashi pervading her mind. Had their dynamic always been like that? Had he always been so perverse? Well yes, yes he had been, but had he always been so perverse with her? She couldn't think back to a time before her departure from Konoha when he had. And if her memory served her correctly and he hadn't done so, and he was now, then something had changed. But if so, what? Him? Her?
Maybe she was just reading too much into the whole situation; something that often tended to be an awful habit of hers. Maybe it was just the fact that she was older than she had been when she left, maybe he just felt more comfortable exchanging more adult-like commentary with her. And who was she to begrudge the man comfort? Maybe he'd begin to take her more seriously as well, view her as more of an equal, perhaps even a friend, rather than some ex-pupil.
Once there, the scene before her comprised of a certain nine-tails and Uchiha clan avenger extraordinaire duking it out, as well as a doodling, half-shirt-wearing artist, and a lazy spiky haired jonin reading a certain orange book on the tree above.
She huffed. Fun times.
Naruto seemed to take this as his cue to notice her presence, at which point he bounded over to her, which in turn caused Sasuke to look over to her as well. An eyebrow rose in response.
"Sakura-chan!" He immediately enveloped her in a hug, which she begrudgingly returned.
"Why are you so late!" He pulled back to look at her accusingly.
"Uh…got lost on the road of life?" She said, deciding take one from a certain copy nin's book.
"Hey! You were even later than Kakashi-sensei!" He cried indignantly, pointing at the aforementioned man in emphasis.
"Yes you were," Kakashi decided to pipe in as he leapt down from his branch, and consequently directly in front of her, with all the grace of a cat, "and why was that exactly?"
The look in his eye told her he knew exactly why and only enjoyed the uncomfortable situation his teasing invoked. Well she most definitely wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
"Because I forgot to put on a bra," She spoke succinctly, looking straight into his eyes without blinking, almost as if in challenge.
The brief look of surprise that washed over his visible features was definitely worth it. Even if she knew the rest of her male teammates were now most probably staring at her breasts. She whipped her head over to Naruto who was making no attempt in being discreet.
"Idiot!" She screeched as she gave him a good whack on the head, then another for good measure, as she crossed her arms and decidedly looked in the other direction. Only to be met with the rare view of an Uchiha rather riveted with the space below her neck.
"I went back and put one on you morons! That's why I was late!" She yelled, which seemed to awaken them from their stupor and tear their eyes from her chest.
"Let's get back to training," Kakashi added curtly before returning back to his tree with one graceful, seemingly effortless, leap. He seemed irritated, though with what she couldn't guess. Wasn't he the one who started this whole thing anyway?
Whatever. Maybe it was just his time of the month. Seeing as how Naruto and Sasuke had already regrouped to continue their spar Sakura headed over to the only member of team 7 who didn't seem at all interested in her undergarment dilemma.
"Spar with me?" She asked Sai when she had reached his shaded post beneath the tree.
"Sure, ugly," He answered easily with that plastic smile of his.
Once they had reached a suitable distance away from their other teammates battle, the two stopped and faced one another. Sakura touched her pack, trying to remember how many kunai were left in it, when Sai suddenly started walking up to her like he didn't have a care in the world. She immediately fell back into a defensive stance, and searched frantically for some sort of trap. This wasn't Sai's usual approach to combat, what was he doing?
She was still running through possibilities in her head when he was suddenly right in front of her, and before she could assess what was happening, began to overtly fondle her breasts, all whilst retaining his signature fake smile.
Before she could even register what was happening and slice his hands off with a chakra scalpel, a tall figure flashed in front of her and slapped his hands away.
"What exactly do you think you're doing Sai?" Kakashi asked in a deceptively calm voice with his Icha Icha still covering the better part of his face, however his stiffened posture told her he wasn't as calm as he seemed to be. Sakura was still too perplexed to even formulate a question of her own.
"Well, I wanted to better understand the female anatomy, and why there is a need for bras at all Kakashi-san," He answered back, as if he hadn't done anything even slightly wrong. And in Sai's defense he was probably still too socially inept to understand he had, but he did just fondle her boobs for Christ's sake!
"You don't violate your teammate's person Sai." Kakashi explained as he set his book in his back pocket, "100 laps around the village."
Sai nodded his head in assent, however seemed a little confused, as he headed out of the training grounds to the village.
Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose in a gesture of frustration before turning towards her, and searching her face.
"What?" She asked in response, still in partial shock, which turned into complete shock the moment he sheathed a kunai. Instinctively her arms came up to guard.
"You wanted to spar didn't you?" He raised an eyebrow at her antics.
Sakura looked towards Naruto and Sasuke, she'd much rather spar one of those two, because combat with Kakashi with only taijutsu and kunais was just torture. Sure Naruto had the nine-tails and Sasuke was an Uchiha, but on an even playing field, without any of those things, Kakshi could wipe the floor with all of them. And Sakura was definitely not in the mood.
Looking at Sasuke and Naruto, she realized neither of them had even noticed the entire fiasco, they were still preoccupied in their own match. She cast a doubtful glance over to Kakashi, who was only staring at her with his usual aloof expression. How had he seen what Sai had done? How had he noticed? And he had acted so quickly, he seemed to appear from nowhere.
Once again, it seemed Sakura was reading too much into a situation. He wasn't the esteemed motherfucking Copy Ninja for nothing. He wasn't one of the highest ranked shinobi in the Bingo Book or anything like that. No of course not. It's not like, being a legendary ninja, he would have such supreme observational skills. Of course he did. Nothing missed this man's eyes. Kakashi was a genius after all. Albeit still a rather pervy one.
Still not at all happy with the prospect of getting a thorough ass-whooping, Sakura relented, because after all this time she wouldn't be seen as weak. Not anymore. She was no longer one to turn down a challenge. And she hadn't fought this man in years; he had no idea of the amount her skills had increased.
She smirked as she slid back into an easy crouch; a silent answer to his previous question. Yes, yes she did want to spar. And she would be doing the ass-whooping thank you very much.
Author's note: So let me know what you guys think in the reviews, until next time!