Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions,

Oh let's go back to the start…

Shikamaru gave a jaw-popping yawn as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I think I'm going to call it a night," he said, and started to rise.

Ino's hand snapped out, dragging him back down into their booth. "You're paying for the next round, remember?"

"I don't want another round," he said plaintively.

Ino didn't care. "You're still paying for it."

"Hey, it's eleven o'clock. If I'm not back before midnight, my mom will have me whipped," he explained, giving her a shrug.

Chouji snorted over bag of chips. "I think she already has."

Ino nodded her agreement. "You're not getting free drinks out of us this time, Shika," she told him firmly. "Go buy us the next round, then you can go."

Shikamaru sighed. A true genius would have found an ingenious way to escape by now… but sadly, one bottle of sake and a fizzy drink was enough to bring him down to the level of the average moron. "Alright, alright…" he started to stand.

He froze the moment a familiar voice rose above the general hum of conversation in the bar.

"I have till six to lose my virginity. Is anyone inter… in… intertrest… is anyone going to help me?"

Ino shot out of her seat to peer over the side of their booth in aghast shock. "Sakura!"

Shikamaru joined her just in time to see said girl slide straight off her bar stool and onto the floor in a dignified heap. Chouji leaned out of the booth far enough to regard the prone girl. "Sakura's a virgin?" he asked lightly, then resumed eating.

Ino grinned nastily, her fingers curling into fists. "I knew it!" she hissed gleefully. "I knew she was frigid!"

Shikamaru looked on in bemusement. Sakura didn't look particularly frigid at that moment. "Maybe you should take her home, Ino?" he pointed out. "The dogpile is going to start any moment now and then we'll never dig her out…"

"Hah," Ino flicked her glamorous hair back over her shoulder. "As if Sakura could attract anything more than a swarm of flies." Even so, Ino was well aware that half the men in the bar were converging on the drunken girl, ready to help her up and offer her more drinks if necessary. Ino rolled her eyes. Typical. She only hoped that Sakura was too plastered to be able to remember this come morning. Having the power to seduce half a bar with a single badly formed sentence was a power that Sakura need not know she possessed.

Jumping out of her seat, Ino began beating a path through the men to help her rival up off the floor. "Hey, Sakura. Can't hold your drink, I see?" she announced brightly as she pulled the girl up by her arm.

"Blergh…" Sakura shrank away from her. "What are you doing here?"

"You looked like you needed help," Ino remarked dryly as she levered Sakura towards the door.

The drunken girl eyed her blearily. "Thanks for the offer, Ino-pig… but you're a bit too female…"

Shikamaru shook his head as the two girls tottered out into the street. "Who knew Sakura was wild enough to get drunk alone?" he remarked to Chouji. "Anyway, I'm off home. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See ya."

Genius Shikamaru struck again. This was another night he'd avoided paying for his round. He'd have to thank Sakura in the morning…

Stepping out of the bar into the cool night air, Shikamaru turned in the direction of home. He was about to move off when someone taller and broader suddenly stepped into his path, blocking out the street lights and lanterns to cast a long shadow over him. Shadows didn't scare Shikamaru though, and he looked up to meet the one-eyed gaze of his accoster.

"Shikamaru-kun."

"Kakashi-san."

Oh, great. Just what he needed: another delay. His mother was so going to have his head...

Sakura learned several very important facts come sun rise.

1. She had no tolerance for alcohol.

2. She seemed to forget this every time she got depressed.

3. Ino was a rotten caretaker. She'd bundled Sakura into bed the way most people threw banana skins in the trash and had walked off with Sakura's favorite pair of shoes with a vague promise of returning them.

4. Her virginity was, sadly, still intact.

5. It was six-thirty.

Sakura scrambled out of bed so fast that she was already brushing her teeth by the time the head rush hit her. She blinked in confusion at her long hair before her memory supplied her with the necessary details of the salon trip last night. She didn't know if it made her look younger. She'd have to ask Kakashi.

Stumbling back into her room, Sakura moved to her wardrobe and flung her clothes aside in search of something suitably old and 'orphan-ish'. She had three yukatas to her name, two of which were heavily patterned to suit her colorful tastes. The third was the one she wore whenever she caught the flu. It was brown, worn bare in patches and had been with her since she was ten.

Irritatingly, it still fit. (Albeit, it showed more ankle than it used to.)

Sakura flung it on haphazardly and shucked her feet into a pair of old sandals that were hiding beneath her boots. Beneath her yukata went the shuriken halter around her thigh (she knew Kakashi would probably confiscate this, but she refused to travel without it), and around her middle went her second best white obi. She wouldn't normally have bothered, and she preferred to avoid obis all together as they had a habit of making her even more shapeless than she already felt, but in this case, anything that hid her narrow waist was welcome.

Unfortunately, she lacked the necessary number of hands to tie it properly, so bundled it over her shoulder and headed out to the designated meeting point with Kakashi. She stopped long enough at the janitor's door to tell him she would be leaving for a week or so, and could he possibly be a sweetheart and make sure no one broke in?

Sakura felt quite self-conscious as she hurried through the streets to the city gates. So maybe she had toned down the vanity problem after the chunin exam, but couldn't a girl have a little pride in her appearance? The yukata was just embarrassingly shabby…

Kakashi, unsurprisingly, wasn't at the gates when Sakura arrived. She looked around anxiously, trying to catch her breath before flopping down onto the earth in relief. A whole hour late and she'd still gotten there earlier than him. Although he didn't have to know that. She had every intention of making him think she'd been waiting since six o'clock. Sakura wasn't beneath a guilt trip.

Ten minutes later, the air flickered before Sakura and Kakashi appeared in his typical whirl of smoke. "Yo." He raised a hand in greeting. The other was employed in holding up the latest copy of Icha Icha Chaos.

"You're late," she accused.

"I'm not," he rebuked. "I was here at six thirty. I was just off looking for you."

Damn. "Ah…"

Sakura picked herself up from the dusty floor and held out her obi to Kakashi. "Would you mind helping me with this?"

Kakashi accepted the garment slowly, is if he was picking up a dead snake. "Right… how exactly does it go on?"

"Ever seen a butterfly's tongue?"

"Yes."

"Something like that. Just keep rolling."

After several minutes of twirling and tugging, they managed to tie off the obi in some sort of semblance of a real bow. Kakashi stroked his masked chin thoughtfully. "Well, I doubt it'll be setting trends, but at least it won't come off."

Sakura was breathing with slight difficulty. "No, it won't. Ever."

"You ok?"

Hardly. "I'm fine…" She just had to take a leaf out of Lee's book and pretend this was some sort of amazing new endurance training. She turned to face Kakashi and held out her arms. "How do I look?" she asked.

He looked her up and down, sighed, and shoved his hands into his pockets. He gave her a frank look even Naruto would have been able to read.

Sakura gave a pained smile. "Good" She carefully appraised Kakashi's own appearance. "You look suitably… um… the same as usual."

That wasn't quite true. His Konoha uniform had been traded in favor of something plainer and less conspicuous, but still made it rather obvious that he was a ninja. The hitai-ate had been replaced with a leather eyepatch that let his hair fray in a more relaxed way around his face, though it made the scar running down his right brow and cheek more visible. The infamous mask was still in place, but the flak jacket was gone. His shirt had been traded for one with short sleeves and no insignias, and he'd covered his arms in what looked suspiciously like Anbu gloves and arm guards. Everything else was pretty much the same.

"You only have about three outfits, don't you?" she guessed, realizing he was actually wearing some of the clothes he'd word to the Third's funeral – the only time she'd seen him out of uniform.

Well… there had been that time when she'd knocked on his door to find him in a pair pajamas with patterned dog bones on them…

"Is there any need for more than three?" he asked.

"Well, maybe civilian clothes would have done better…?"

Kakashi shook his head. "I still need to look like a fighter. Matsura will know the minute he sees me that I'm a ninja. If I'm attempting to look like a civilian, he'll just be suspicious of me."

"Wait," Sakura held up a hand. "Won't he know I'm a ninja too?"

"Not with those shoes," Kakashi looked pointedly at her feet. Sakura realized she tended to totter more than sneak when she was wearing them. "Even so, we'll say you're a dancer. That should explain away any exceptional grace you demonstrate. You'll have to lose the shurikens though."

"I'm not traveling defenseless," she argued.

He shrugged uncaringly and looked ahead to the road that wound off into the trees before them. Like the lazy gentleman he was, he spread his arm to the path briefly before letting it drop back to his side. "After you, miss."

Sakura tottered all of three steps before she gave up, kicked her sandals off, and resumed stomping away down the beaten dirt road. Kakashi followed at an easy pace, nose buried deeply in his book.

It was just like the old days.

Sans the fox and the Uchiha. And a lot less conversation and heap more anxiety. Sakura looked back at her masked partner and chewed her lip. He was still reading, and would have looked completely oblivious to his surroundings did he not keep miraculously stepping around potholes and rocks. Something Sakura should have been keeping her mind on, she discovered, as her soft bare foot landed on a particular sharp pebble.

Sakura hissed and froze. Kakashi pulled to a stop just behind her. "Something wrong?"

"No…" she let out her breath in a whoosh and continued on, valiantly trying not to limp. The last thing she wanted to do was show weakness in front of Kakashi. He'd trained her. She didn't want him to look at her in disappointment because she'd stepped on a stupid piece of dirt!

They walked on in silence, with only the occasional, "You alright?", "I'm fine," and "Turn left here," to break up the monotony. Even so, seven words in three hours felt a little stilted.

Occasionally they passed other people on the road. The first was a farmer with a horse and a cart of cabbages. He nodded politely to Sakura (who smiled sweetly and nodded in return) and bowed a little deeper for Kakashi (who ignored the man much the same way he ignored everything else).

The second person they passed was an old woman with a cane. She glowered disapprovingly as she hobbled past, although Sakura couldn't be sure what she was offended by. Maybe she didn't like ninjas? Or scruffy orphan girls? Or maybe she was just old fashioned and didn't like seeing a young girl and a grown man without a chaperone?

In all likeliness, it was probably Kakashi's book.

Whatever.

Nuts to you, madam, Sakura thought rudely in the woman's wake.

The third person who passed them was another farmer sitting atop a large cart that was loaded with bales of hay and boxes of apples. As he'd been going in the same direction, he pulled his two horses to a stop beside the traveling pair. "Do you need a lift?"

Sakura and Kakashi looked at each other. What could be the harm? And Sakura's feet did hurt…

"Thank you," Kakashi said graciously and helped Sakura up onto the hay bales while he himself found a seat on the apple crates.

The farmer snapped the reins and they moved off. Sakura bounced about slightly on her mattress of straw and stretched her feet out before her. Below her, Kakashi engaged his book again. From her vantage point, she could actually make out the words over his shoulder.

She'd always been curious as to what was in these Icha Icha books that could captivate her teacher's interest so completely, but she'd never quite been brave enough to buy her own copy to find out. Naruto had gotten free editions from the author himself, and it was through him that she had an idea of what to expect. But still… it would be a good opportunity to sneak a peek without anyone being any the wiser. She leant forward imperceptibly and squinted.

Michiko's heart raced. Her soul soared and blossomed like a budding rose in a midsummer heat. She'd been waiting for this her whole life! "Take me!" she cried wantonly to Jiro. "Enough games! I don't care who sees us! I must have you now, or else this desire will burn me up from the inside!" She tore her blouse asunder in her haste to remove all barriers between them before wrenching Jiro's head down to her chest to lap at her-

Kakashi turned the page. Sakura let out a mewl of protest, far too close to his ear to be missed. Ever so slowly, the older jonin turned his head and regarded her through a hooded eye. Sakura was staring resolutely at the passing fields as if she'd been doing nothing but for the last five minutes.

A long pause stretched out.

Softly, Kakashi sighed and shifted around slightly, angling his body to face her so that his book was not. He resumed reading and Sakura had to find her own entertainment.

Counting trees grew old rather quickly. The sky was too blue to allow for any cloud watching. The farmer was slightly deaf, so any attempts at conversation with him generally didn't progress much beyond, "Pardon?"

Sakura turned her attention back to Kakashi. "Can I have some water?"

He wordlessly reached into his pack and tossed her a clear bottle. Sakura drank more than she needed, mostly because she had nothing else to do. If Naruto was there, he would probably be occupying her with inane chatter and hyperactive games of eye spy. He used to annoy her greatly, but on her first mission without the blonde bombshell, she realized how much she missed his comforting, if not pointless conversations.

Sometimes she regretted graduating. It seemed that she'd effectively killed Team Seven the day she'd become a jonin…

Sakura looked at her former teacher who was giggling naughtily to his book. Sometimes she worried about him. Not about his sanity – that clearly a lost cause. However, there were some days when she thought back to Team Seven's early days and she wondered if the choices his students had made had… hurt him in some way. But he was so distant it was hard to tell what he thought or felt. If each of his students systematically leaving him for stronger teachers had hurt him, then he did a good job of hiding it.

It was entirely possible that he just didn't care.

Plus, he was busy with his new team now. Why would he bother with the defunct Team Seven when there was a new generation of warriors to train?

Somehow, Sakura couldn't help but feel like a child who'd been kicked out of home by a father who was now too busy raising a new family to care for the older one. They'd been usurped. Kakashi would never be anything more to them than a teacher and a commander. He didn't want to be anything more, apparently.

Sakura felt a heavy pang of nostalgia for the days when they'd been a whole team. It just didn't feel right that they'd all split up and gone their different ways, but it seemed like she was the only one who felt this way.

All the talk and focus on teamwork had been what had bound the three together in a way that some might have called… unhealthy. Even after all the betrayal and attempts on each other's lives, it couldn't be said that Team Seven didn't love one another. They were inseparable. But it seemed that the moment that there was no official 'team', the man who'd inspired it all was saying, "Goodbye, sunshine! You're on your own now. I have better things to do!"

Sakura shouldn't have been too surprised. Kakashi had friends – people he'd probably known all his life – but he tended to treat them as nothing more than casual acquaintances. It seemed to make sense that the students he taught would grow up to be treated the same, if not even more distantly.

Why had she expected more?

So Sakura dropped the subject with a weary heart and lay back on the hay to watch the tops of the trees roll by. She tried to put Kakashi's distant personality out of her mind, but that only opened the way to dwelling on the mission ahead. Sakura shuddered despite the cold day. Her half-baked plan to lose her virginity last night in a whirlwind of passion and alcohol had backfired somewhat. Not that losing her chastity to a complete stranger in a whiffy bar was her idea of a good time, but compared to what the mission had in store for her…? Sakura would take drunk beer patrons over dangerous perverts any day.

But it wasn't Sakura's place to complain. Tsunade had often explained to her what it meant to be a kunoichi.

"Just like any other ninja, your body is a tool," she'd said. "Women are looked down upon because of their physical weakness in comparison to men, but a kunoichi's body can be a weapon greater than that of any man. You can use it to run, jump and kill… but you can also use it to entice and distract. Mm… I'll probably explain this in more detail in another lesson."

Sakura had yet to receive that lesson, so she was still pretty clueless as to what enticing and distracting required. The knew the basic mechanics of sex. She had seen naked men before (it was pretty hard to avoid in a hospital), but she often struggled to figure out exactly how those floppy bits of flesh accomplished anything.

Sakura glanced across at Kakashi. He sat with one leg stretched out and one bent to rest his elbow against. Without thinking, Sakura's gaze dropped between those legs and she idly wondered just how big-

No! Stop thinking about Kakashi-sensei's floppy bits!

Flustered, she looked back out across the fields and inwardly berated herself. How the hell was she supposed to carry out this kind of mission when the mere thought of those places had her in a fluster? How was she supposed to cope with a super pervert when she couldn't even cope with her thoughts?

Some of those thoughts must have translated onto her face, because Kakashi chose that moment to speak up. "Thinking about the mission?"

Sakura nodded mutely, hoping to high heaven that he hadn't noticed her staring at his crotch.

"Ah," Kakashi suddenly laid down his book on his thigh and reached a hand into his pack. "I forget to mention… I got this off Tsunade-sama this morning."

He tossed a clear glass tube to her, the kind often used to hold perfume samples. Somehow Sakura didn't think it was just plain perfume though. "What is it?" she asked.

"Something to ensure your safety," he said. "Tsunade said you'd recognize it."

Sakura pulled the stopper off the tube and took a curious sniff. Nothing. That could only mean one thing. "It's scentless," she said, "meaning, it's meant to go undetected. A poison? For Matsura?"

Kakashi nodded. "According to Tsunade-sama, one drop can knock out a horse for a few hours. It has a bitter taste, so the moment the victim receives a dose, he'll know about it, but Tsunade assured me that it works fast to make up for that."

"Oh," Sakura murmured. Suddenly this mission didn't seem so bad. "So I should just put it in his food or something?"

Kakashi said nothing.

"His drink?" Sakura guessed again, in a small voice.

"Sakura… I doubt there's much you could slip into this guy's food and drink without him knowing."

Sakura wanted to pull her hair. "Kakashi-sensei… don't tell me…?" At his blank, yet ever so slightly guilty look, she groaned aloud. "Oh, god!"

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "It's the only way I can think of."

"I AM NOT SMEARING DRUGS ON MY BODY SO SOME OLD FART CAN LICK THEM OFF!"

Birds took flight from the nearby trees as the horses whinnied and pranced in fright. The farmer looked a little flustered while he attempted to calm his animals, obviously not being quite deaf enough to miss that rather loud comment. Kakashi remained unmoved and unfazed her outburst. He'd heard worse. This probably only reached an 8.5 on the Sakura Tantrum scale.

Soon the local wildlife had calmed down and the horses were back on track. Sakura flopped further back on her bale of hay and crossed her arms over her chest. She glared at Kakashi with venom, waiting for his response.

"Don't you take your job seriously as a ninja?" he demanded coldly, surprisingly Sakura with the harshness of his tone. "You don't want to do something because it makes you uncomfortable? It offends your sensibilities? Then why did you accept this mission? Why did you even become a ninja?"

Sakura was twelve years old again, being criticized harshly by her teacher for caring too much about Sasuke.

"Do you think that you're the first girl who's had to use her body as a means to an end?" The lazy anger still encompassed his words.

Sakura clenched her fists. "It's alright for you!" she snapped. "No one's ever going to ask you to lie down and let some disgusting old man violate you for the sake of a mission! I'm supposed to just accept it because I'm a girl – because I'm weak – and this seems to be the only way I could possibly be of use!"

Kakashi said nothing.

"Stupid men…" she seethed. "If you weren't all so stupid, and weak-willed, we'd be able to do this mission properly! With kunais and jutsus – not breasts and ass!" Some part of her was fairly mortified for saying that. Another, much larger part was quite satisfied, especially when Kakashi lowered his gaze.

"I know," he said quietly. "It's not right. It's not fair. But it has to be done. If not by you then someone else. This is the safest plan, I assure you."

Sakura turned away unhappily with every intention of freezing her former teacher out for the rest of the journey.

"But you're wrong about one thing," he continued.

Sakura ground her teeth. "Oh?"

"I have been asked to sleep with disgusting old men," he said lightly. "And what's more, I did it without complaint."

Sakura's mouth fell open softly and she cast a startled gaze at her teacher. The embarrassment she felt at such an admission was outweighed by the horror. "What?"

Something that could have been regret flashed through Kakashi's eye before he abruptly opened his book again and began to read. "That was all a long time ago, though," he said in a final tone.

End of discussion.

Sakura swallowed hard. That had been a little too much information for her taste, but she couldn't help but feel slightly honored (and appalled) that he'd been willing to tell her. And the farmer. Although Sakura would overlook that as the man probably hadn't heard.

So it wasn't just the kunoichi who got used in this way. Why did that surprise her? After all, she knew perfectly well that nothing ever ran in clear lines of black and white. Not all men desired women, and allowances had to be made. But now Sakura felt guilty. Here she was complaining rather loudly about the injustice of her body being used this way, and there Kakashi was, already used and discarded and silently accepting it as his duty.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

He shook his head but didn't look away from the book. "It doesn't matter now. I just wanted you to understand that I know what it's like." He gave a great sigh. "But anyway. You said yourself that you have experience, so at least you won't be heading into unknown territory here. Just put up with the nasty man for a while and then we can go home."

Sakura would have liked to think of it that way, had she not completely lied about the whole experience thing.

She had nothing to prepare with.

She was going into unknown territory.

Another few miles down the road, and Kakashi finally spoke up again. "Food?"

"Yes, please," Sakura held out her hand and took the food parcel he gave her. Unwrapping the napkin, she gasped in delight. "Mochi! Yum. Love mochi."

There were six. She stuffed two in her mouth straight away and offered Kakashi one. For a moment he looked as if he was about to accept it, but then he dropped his hand. "I already ate before we came out."

"That doesn't mean you're not hungry," she pointed out. She hadn't missed that eager hand.

"Well…"

"You still won't eat in front of me?"

Kakashi looked up, about to retort, when his eye widened suddenly and he pointed behind her. "Gai!"

"Where!" Sakura simultaneously ducked and twisted around to see where he was pointing.

There was no one there.

When she turned back, three of the mochi were missing from her hand and Kakashi was chewing delicately under his mask, eye back on his book. "Delicious," he muffled.

"…that was incredibly cheap," she told him, thoroughly annoyed that he'd managed to outwit her. For a brief moment there she'd thought she was about to get a glimpse of what lay beneath the mask.

"A ninja must use whatever tactic necessary to win," he retorted cheerfully.

Is that so? "Ah… I guess," She finished off the last mochi before rubbing her hands together and folding the napkin up. "Well, I understand why you don't want to show anyone. I mean, if it really is as hairy and discolored as they say, I'd want to wear a mask too…"

Kakashi stopped chewing. Sakura watched the horses, purposefully ignoring him.

But he didn't rise to the bait; he just went back to his book.

Not one who liked to be called on her bluffs, she continued nonchalantly. "Naruto reckoned it was because you had thick lips."

"Did he now?" drawled Kakashi.

"But I said that was ridiculous. You'd see the bulge under the mask!" Sakura feigned a laugh. "So then Sasuke began to think it was because you had buck teeth. So, you remember that time we gave you that clay sandwich by accident?"

"Um…"

"Well, it wasn't an accident. We examined the teeth marks later, and it turns out you have fairly straight and even teeth," she went on. "So we thought… if there's nothing wrong with his teeth, and his lips are normal size… what could be so bad that he has to hide it beneath a mask?"

"And?" Kakashi was looking at her.

Sakura paused dramatically. "A hare lip!"

Kakashi blinked ever so slowly.

"Am I right?" she asked.

He sighed. "You'll never know…" And then he went back to Icha Icha Chaos.

Sakura slapped her hands against the hay. "No – I know! It's because you have zits! It's zits, isn't it?"

"Why don't you just take bets with each other?" he asked dryly.

"Oh, we do," she said, nodding. "Like I said, Sasuke bet on the buck teeth, Naruto's positive about the thick lips and I… um…"

"You what?" he quirked an eyebrow at her.

She'd bet on the most probable outcome – that he was moderately attractive looking, judging from the responses of the few people who did get to glimpse his face (people who were often too busy blushing and swooning to form a proper description for the curious trio). Although that was a little embarrassing to admit. "I… bet that you had a really bad wart…" The thought had crossed her mind.

He considered this carefully, before shrugging and resuming with his book. Sakura clucked her tongue. "Can I see it?" she asked.

"See what?"

"The wart."

"There is no wart."

"Oh, just admit it. You're ugly. That's why you don't want to show anyone," she admonished him. "You can show me. I'm very good at keeping my reactions in check – I won't recoil in disgust or anything. And besides, I'm about to get intimate with an old man - I could do with a good shock beforehand to prepare myself."

Kakashi remained unmoved.

"I won't tell Sasuke or Naruto," she offered.

He didn't budge.

"Well, I might mention it, but I won't describe it."

No reply.

"Please?"

Nothing.

"Pretty please? Pretty, pretty please?" She clasped her hands together into a beg. "I'll… give you a massage if you let me see."

He tilted his head. "A massage?"

"Sure!" she enthused. "At the hospital I'm pretty famous in the physiotherapy unit. Everyone's always asking me to kneed their corns and poke their love handles. I'm the second best masseuse after Tsunade herself – and even then patients like me better because they think she's a little too rough."

"Well," Kakashi stroked his chin through his mask. "I don't know about love handles or corns, but you can do my shoulders."

Sakura nearly flew into a delirium. "You're going to show it to me!" she squeaked.

"Just a little look," he responded coolly.

Sakura tried to calm down to match his austere composure… and failed spectacularly. She'd been waiting for this moment for five years! Her excitement could hardly be contained. She almost missed his hand moving to his face, gripping the hem of the cloth rather uncaringly, about to drag it down from his face…

"Wait!" Sakura leapt forward at the last moment, scrambling down onto his crate of apples to seize his hand and prevent it from moving. A little bit more nose had been exposed, but he was still covered. He blinked at her in confusion.

"What is it?" he asked.

Sakura didn't know. She was waiting for something. Possibly a fanfare and a drum roll. You didn't wait five years to see someone's face and then have them whip it out recklessly like it was nothing. It was all about the anticipation! Why blow a spectacular build up with such a rash finale?

"Do it slower," she told him, releasing his hand. "There's no way you're rushing this for me."

He gave her a hooded look. "You want me to striptease too? That might cost extra. Love handles may have to be poked-"

"Sensei, please." She pouted gently. The same pout that often got Naruto stammering and made Sasuke do whatever the hell she wanted if only she just stopped. It had been quite effective on Kakashi too in the past.

"That was only cute when you were twelve," he told her.

The pout was joined by wide, shiny eyes and tilted eyebrows. Puppies everywhere would look at her in disgust.

And Kakashi wasn't quite as immune as he thought. With a sigh, he nodded. "Fine," he said.

True to his word, he released the edge of the mask and grasped his eyepatch. It came off over his head with a gentle tug, exposing his sharingan, and with slow, deliberate movements, he folded the strip of leather and pressed it into Sakura's hand. The girl blushed. He really was doing a facial striptease for her!

When his index finger hooked into his mask again, Sakura felt a pang of momentary panic. What if she was disappointed by what she saw? What if she'd been imagining his face for so long that the real thing just didn't live up to those expectations? What if he really was ugly?

But before she could wrestle up any more doubts, the mask was tucked beneath his chin and her teacher's face was bare for the first time since she'd known him.

Everything went oddly quiet in Sakura's head.

With a mild frown, she reached out slowly and sunk her fingers into the hair on either side of his face. She ignored the peculiar look he gave her and simply started brushing her fingers through the coarse locks, arranging them around his face. Her cool fingertips glanced across his scalp, as she combed hair that probably hadn't been near a brush in over thirteen years. When she was done she sat back and examined him.

Then laughter bubbled up inside her like water from a spring. Color exploded onto her cheeks and she jabbed a finger at him in childish glee. "Hah!" she cried loudly. "I knew it!"

Kakashi was nonplussed. "Knew what?"

"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" She was up, scrambling across the hay bales to grasp the cart driver by the shoulders. "Farmer-san, I'm right, right?" she asked loudly. "Isn't that man back there the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?"

The driver peeped over his shoulder curiously at the girl and then Kakashi, who was looking like he wanted to fall off the cart and let the earth swallow him up. The old farmer blushed slightly and turned back to the road, muttering something to himself.

Sakura hopped back down to Kakashi's crate, maintaining her rather uncanny impression of a certain blonde idiot. "See, see, see!" she settled down before him. "AND you do have a wart!"

"It's a beauty spot," he corrected calmly.

Sakura poked it happily where it sat three centimeters to the left of his nose. "And it's so cute!" she snickered. "Now why would you want to cover this up?"

Kakashi just looked at her blankly, the same look he'd given her a hundred times in the past, but this time it meant something different. His lips were quirked in a slight smile. How many times had he smiled in the past and she'd just completely missed it? "I have allergies," he said with a shrug.

Sakura devoured the way his lips moved when he spoke, despite the fact that what had just spilt from them was a complete lie. "If you had allergies, you wouldn't be sitting amongst all this hay," she reminded him.

"Ah… well, I'm a hypochondriac, you see. All these invisible germs…"

Probably another lie. Sakura didn't think he'd ever tell her why he wore a mask. But for now she was just satisfied to know what lay behind it. Breaking out into a grin, she said, "Thank you, sensei."

"It's really nothing, Sakura," he offered, a little sheepish. It was strange seeing the whole expression after living with just a smaller corner of it for so long. But the whole picture made the fake smiles and grins just that bit more obvious.

Sakura shook her head. "No, it's everything," she said. "Thank you."

His smile relaxed into something genuine. Sakura near burst out into a tizzy all over again. His smile was just as lazy and indolent as his eyes.

He was so unbelievably Kakashi.

A beat passed where they just smiled daftly at each other.

He really is quite handsome… possibly more so than Sasuke…

"Ok!" She clapped her hands to break the spell and moved to sit on the hay bale. "If you want a massage, put your back here," she said, patting the edge of the bale between her knees.

Up went the mask, out came the book, and within moments everything was as it was. Only now a secret smile was playing gently on Sakura's lips.

Just wait till she got home and told Naruto and Sasuke about this! If becoming the first jonin hadn't been enough to make them sick with envy, then this would definitely finish them off.

TBC