"Sakura-chan! How about this?! Or this? Or maybe this?" Sakura's new personal retainer said as he held up item after item with boundless enthusiasm. Saukra continued her efforts to ignore the piles of finery he heaped into her arms, but it was hard to block out his mop of platinum blonde hair and grating voice.
"Look at all of these pretty things, Sakura-chan. I can call you Sakura-chan, right Sakura-chan?" The boy babbled on. "I know that I'm not a girl, so maybe I'm not the most cut out for picking out hair accessories, but you're so beautiful and –"
He was abruptly cut off by Sakura's hand crashing into the back of his head, "Naruto! That's enough, you idiot!"
"Hey!" Naruto whimpered while rubbing the lump that was forming at the base of his skull. "I know that temper of yours has a short fuse, but did you have to do that?"
Indeed, it was true. Sakura was infamous in the upper classes for her temper which could flair at any given moment. She had worked for most of her adolescent and teen years to keep a tight grip on her anger, but this new personal retainer had managed to push all of her buttons in less than five minutes. It wasn't her fault that he was asking for physical abuse. Her father must've been playing a cruel trick on her, sending her this man. There was no way he could "keep her under control" as her father had suggested. Rather, he made her loose all of that carefully kept control.
"Oh dear Kami, why was I sent hyperactivity in a bottle for a new assistant?"
"Well," Naruto began, "you can be a handful. There aren't many people who would accept this job offer, but I did! Do you want to know why?"
"Not particularly," Sakura huffed in annoyance while fingering through some necklaces with blue beads.
"It's because you're so pretty! And I figured that if you were so angry all the time, you'd never find a husband willing to accept you, and then I'd be there to comfort you in your old age…" Naruto shrank back as Sakura glared daggers at him. "Not that old! But you know, when you were older, and then because there wasn't anyone left for you to marry, you'd have to marry me! And I'd have the most beautiful wife in all of Nagasaki!" The blonde beamed from ear to ear.
Sakura had to take a moment to breath before speaking not only to avoid hitting him again but to avoid blushing at his compliment. "I can find a husband," she said curtly. It might not be Kakashi, but I'll find one. She amended in her head.
The blonde frowned in doubt, but quickly resumed his cheery attitude, "Hey, how about this one?" He pulled a long, white obi with intricate floral beading down from the top of a stall.
"I actually kind of like it," she said as she looked at the small, black beads that wound a cherry blossom pattern around the obi. It was so delicate it looked like lace.
"Well, I just thought you'd like it because it's Sakura flowers, like you!"
The young woman sighed. This boy meant well, but his sense of tact was severely lacking.
"Hello, miss, I believe that you dropped this," a voice came suddenly from behind Sakura.
"No, I don't think that I've dropped—" She turned around to see a man with an unruly mop of silver hair bowing deeply, holding an earring. Her breath stuck in her throat at seeing Kakashi. "Oh! Yes, thank you." She fumbled to correct herself and plucked the earring from his fingers.
"Hey! You! Back away from the girl," Naruto interrupted, stepping between a stunned Sakura and a still-bowing Kakahi.
"I was only giving the lady back her belonging. You wouldn't want someone so pretty to lose something and then ruin their appearance by crying because they'd lost it." Kakashi's voice remained calm and polite.
"I don't believe you. A guy dressed in rags like you is probably looking to steal something from my Sakura!" Naurto pointed an accusatory finger straight into Kakashi's face.
Kakashi raised his head slightly to lock eyes with his opponent, "Or I was hoping that the lady would be so grateful she might treat a poor beggar like me to a meal." Kakashi's exposed eye creased, the lines around it deepening in the sign of a forced smile. "A poor man like me, I don't even have both of my eyes. Look," he lifted his head fully to reveal a worn patch over one eye, "it's lucky that I saw the madam's earring at all."
"Well, She's not going to give you –"
"Naruto. Go to that stall over there and buy the nice man some dried fish," Sakura commanded, placing a hand on Naruto's shoulder.
"Saukra, you trust strangers too easily. What if he tries to hurt you?"
"I said, go get some dried fish. Over there," she squeezed the blonde's shoulder painfully.
"Ok! Ok!" He said through gritted teeth before walking slowly in the direction of the fish vendor's stall. "But I'm watching you."
When Naruto was just out of earshot, Kakashi pulled Sakura in close by the arm. The contact made his skin tingle, but he suppressed the feeling long enough to whisper to her, "I'm coming tonight. I've got something to tell you."
"First you sneak up on me and now you surprise me with this? What were you thinking? You can't be so close to me in public," Sakura seethed quietly. "And you can't risk being there tonight. I don't know if Naruto will be near me or not."
"Him," Kakashi grunted.
"Yes, Him. The new "personal retainer" my father hired."
"I wasn't aware you needed a bodyguard."
"Neither was I," Sakura sighed, looking Kakashi in his eye. In a swift moment the hostility of their conversation dissipated. Kakashi's eye was soft yet urgent, and Sakura knew that he needed to see her that night, whatever the reason ended up being.
"Sakura," he cooed with his voice questioning and anxious.
"Alright. You can come," she relented, relaxing into the hand that was still on her arm.
"Shit. I think he's coming back," Kakashi panicked as Naurto reemerged from the crowd. Doing the first thing that came to mind, he took Sakura's hand and kissed it delicately.
"I thought I told you to stay away from her!" Naruto bellowed at the couple.
"I apologize, sir," Kakashi instantly dropped Sakura's hand to raise his own in a sign of surrender. "I was only trying to thank the lady for the great favor she is doing me," Kakashi glanced to Sakura before bowing again.
"It's fine, Naruto. Really," Sakura blushed and covered the hand Kakashi had kissed with her other.
"Here's your fish," the young bodyguard tossed two skewered and dried snapper at Kakashi.
"Thank you again, m'lady," Sakura's lover said and dissipated into the crowded market.
"I tell you, Sakura, this is why your father doesn't like you being in public. Look at the kind of people that you talk to. You're lucky I'm the only one who saw that, and I'm kind enough not to tell anyone," Naurto chastised.
"Sure. Mr I'm-So-Intimidating," Sakura mocked and started to walk away.
"I am! I'm a manly man. You can't deny it! I had that rat cowering in fear! I'll prove my worthiness to you yet; I won't give up," he said following the cherry-blossom.
As they continued to walk having a heated argument over Naruto's incompetence, Sakura couldn't stop the burning feeling on her skin resulting from Kakashi's kiss. His velvet lips had touched her hand in public. As they had caressed the back of her hand everyone witnessed it. She thought they could even feel her erratic heartbeat and see the tenderness in his touch. Even now she thought everyone that looked at her could tell what had happened, and the memory of his lips would not go away.