Chapter 2
A few days after Sakura made her resolution, it was a sunny Saturday morning with the perfect light breeze to keep it from being too hot. She wandered through the market, weaving around stalls and selecting various fruits, vegetables, and meats to use in the following week's meals. She loved the bustle and the way voices carried through the street, hawkers promoting their goods, customers haggling for better prices, friends and family catching up … this was her Konoha: warm, lively, happy.
She stopped at her favorite fruit stall. As she said hello to the proprietor and reached for a peach to add to her bag, someone bumped into her from behind, and it was only by virtue of being a ninja that she managed not to knock a bunch of fruits off the table. She started to turn around to yell at the person when a very familiar arm reached from behind her to snatch up the peach she'd dropped when trying to stabilize herself.
Gritting her teeth and letting out a slow breath, she looked up over her shoulder and gave the offending individual a withering look. "Ka. Ka. Shi …"
"Ah, Sakura-chan, how nice to see you! It's a lovely day, don't you think?" The frustrating former Hokage smiled his signature crinkly-eyed smile and raised the hand not holding the peach in greeting.
Sakura promptly elbowed him in the gut, causing him to grunt and drop the peach. She snatched it out of the air and tucked it into her bag. "Yes, it is," she replied.
Ignoring him, she added another three peaches to the bag and paid the stall owner. She moved on to the next stall, aware that the tall, silver-haired man followed behind.
"Sakura-chan, it's not very nice to ignore people," he said. She wondered how he could sound equal parts hurt and amused. She knew that if she looked at him right now, he'd be wearing a kicked-puppy look. She also knew that if she removed his mask right now, the kicked-puppy look would be utterly ruined by the smirk curling up from the left side of his mouth. Obnoxious man.
"It's not very nice to bump into people either, Kakashi," she groused, unable to keep the slightest of smiles out of her voice.
"It wasn't my fault! This little old lady came barreling out of nowhere, shouting something about a super sale on prunes. If I hadn't moved out of the way, I might have died!" He paused briefly before muttering, as if to himself, "Can't get in the way of old people and their prunes. Dangerous business."
Sakura slid her gaze toward him and tapped a finger against her lips contemplatively. "Very true, very true, Kakashi ... Don't let me keep you from the super sale."
Kakashi looked wounded. "Now, now, Sakura-chan. I'm not THAT old. I'm only, what? 34?"
"Kakashi, you were 34 ten years ago," Sakura replied matter-of-factly.
"Lies."
He pouted. She couldn't help but giggle at his furrowed brow and accusatory stare. When he looked like that, like a petulant child, it really was hard to believe the man was 44. It was also hard to stay irritated with him. Which was irritating in and of itself.
She reined in her smile and sighed dramatically. "So what can I do for you then, jiji?"
Kakashi glared at her for a moment, then smiled that crinkly-eyed smile and said, "Ah, nothing really. I just saw you over there and wondered if you needed help deciding which peach to get."
"I'm more than capable of deciding which fruits to buy, Kakashi," she stated with narrowed eyes.
"Ah, right, right. Well then, I'll be on my way. I'm sure there are plenty of young women around here who would value produce-purchasing advice from the Rokudaime Hokage …" He turned away and began walking in the opposite direction she had been headed.
"Argh. You are so infuriating," she grumbled as she grabbed his collar and yanked him toward her. He pulled out his tattered copy of Icha Icha Paradise and allowed himself to be dragged along. She glanced backward when she heard the turn of the page, then announced, "Yup. Can't trust you around young women at all, ero-Hokage."
Kakashi hmm'd in agreement and turned another page.
Sakura abruptly let go of his shirt. As expected (but disappointingly), Kakashi didn't fall on his ass. He just stood straight as if nothing had happened and followed behind his former student, nose buried in his book. He stopped with her at each stall she visited, occasionally throwing out suggestions ("That looks like a delicious zucchini there, Sakura-chan," or "Can't go wrong with that head of lettuce, Sakura-chan" or "Ah, Sakura-chan, what about that watermelon? It's a great day for watermelon").
By the time she reached her last destination, Sakura was one "Sakura-chan" away from murdering her ex-sensei. It was a testament to the man's many years of experience that he sensed her killing intent and refrained from commenting on anything at the final stall.
After she had paid, she turned to him and said, "Well, I'm on my way. Thank you for your …" She raised an eyebrow. "Company."
He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. She couldn't hold back a lopsided grin at that familiar action. "Although I was only protecting my own life-" he began.
Sakura snorted.
He cleared his throat. "As I was saying, although I was only protecting my own life from a bulldozing senior citizen-"
She snorted again. He glared. "I suppose the least I could do to make up for bumping into you is help you carry those groceries home." He finished his offer with a gentlemanly flourish.
Sakura considered for a moment. How much more time did she want to spend with arguably the most annoying person next to Naruto? Nodding finally, she handed him one of her bags, and they walked in the direction of her house in a comfortable silence.
He broke the quiet. "Where's Sarada-chan?"
"Ah, she's on a mission with her team."
Kakashi grimaced. "I hope Boruto isn't giving her too much trouble … One would have hoped Hinata's influence would have had a greater impact ..."
Sakura laughed. "Well, she's my daughter, so she's quite skilled at putting Boruto in his place."
"And by 'skilled' you mean 'has fists of doom and isn't afraid to use them,'" Kakashi teased, giving her a quick wink without fully turning toward her.
Sakura responded by bopping him on the head.
"Hey now," he pouted, rubbing the sore spot with his free hand. "No need to get violent."
"Oh please, you liked it," Sakura said before sticking her tongue out at him cheekily.
Kakashi made to protest, but she interrupted him with a dismissive wave. "You'd have dodged otherwise. We both know you could have."
He looked toward the ground, letting out a long breath of defeat. "Ah, I suppose that's true."
"Of course it is; I'm always right" she retorted. With that, Sakura sauntered ahead of him up to her door, opening it without setting her bag down. He stood on her porch. "Well, are you coming in or what?" she asked impatiently.
He obediently walked inside and followed her into the kitchen, setting the bag on the counter. "No locks?" He asked, gesturing toward the door.
"No one wants to mess with two sets of 'fists of doom,'" she responded with a shrug.
He considered her statement for about a half-second before nodding in agreement. "Good point."
While she busied herself with putting away the groceries, he looked around the kitchen and living room. He realized how rarely he visited her when it became apparent that very little of the furniture and decor was familiar to him.
Ah, well, some things couldn't be helped, he thought. He'd been busy being Hokage and then busy running diplomatic missions after retiring from being Hokage. It didn't leave much time for visiting former students in their homes.
Which is not to say that he hadn't seen a fair amount of Sakura during the years after the fourth ninja war. They had, after all, worked together quite a bit as leaders of the village once she took over the hospital, and he had found her input into diplomatic relations both insightful and helpful on more than one occasion. In fact, he mused, tilting a photo frame up to look at the pictures, it was rather surprising how well a woman who typically responded with a punch could navigate the political world when she wanted to.
Running a thumb gently over her image, he set the frame back down and returned to the kitchen from the living room where he had wandered. Sakura was putting the last of the groceries in the fridge.
"Would you like to stay for lunch?" She asked, closing the door. She gestured toward the ingredients she'd left on the counter.
"That would be great, yeah," he replied. "Anything I can do to help?"
"You could chop up those scallions over there." She pointed.
He nodded and pulled a knife from the block on the counter.
They worked in relative quiet, and when they finished, they brought their food to the table. Without preamble, he slid down his mask and brought a spoonful of miso soup to his mouth. Sakura, used to seeing his face by now, also began to eat.
"So, what have you been working on lately?" she asked.
"Hm," he swallowed. "Actually, I've got to go to Ame next month and give some kind of speech to bolster relations between our villages."
Sakura grinned. "Oh, I'm sure you're looking forward to that. You just love giving speeches, right?"
Kakashi scowled. "No need to rub it in my face."
She giggled, then said, "Ah, now I see why you tried to knock me into a peach stand." Her tone was understanding.
"I didn't try," he protested, then muttered something under his breath. She made out the words "avoiding," "death," and "constipated old lady."
Laughing at the self-righteous pouty-face that no 44-year-old man should have been able to pull off, Sakura waved away his objections. "You want me to help you write your speech, don't you?"
Kakashi's pout disappeared and his eyes shone with hope, but he didn't say anything.
Sakura sighed. "Fine, fine. I'll help you."
Kakashi smiled, pleased, and scooped up some rice. "Thanks, Sakura-chan. I owe you one."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Kakashi, if I ever decided to collect on all the 'ones' you owe me, you'd be spending the rest of your life as my bitch."
Kakashi chewed thoughtfully. "Hm. There are worse fates, I suppose."
He smoothly dodged the pickle tossed at his head and took another bite. "So violent."
Sakura glared. "Such a baby."
"But Sakura-chan," Kakashi asked slyly, "How can I be both an old man and a baby?"
"I hate you," she deadpanned.
Kakashi laughed, and Sakura smiled in spite of herself. "Alright, when do we start?"