House Calls

Chapter 4

Kakashi was a private person. He kept the life that he had as a shinobi and the life he lived in his empty, little apartment separate. And it worked for him; quite nicely for a good, long time, he might add. But then a horrible thing happened.

Well, technically three horrible things happened, but the third had run off some time ago and the affect he had on the situation acted more as the backdrop for the other two horrible things to do their work. And they weren't nearly so passive. Hokages knew that nothing was passive about Naruto. Or Sakura, for that matter (passive-aggressive didn't count).

Despite being the famed shinobi that he was, the Copy-nin couldn't quite pinpoint when the brats had infiltrated his life, but he figured he was well in over his head when he found himself lying around on Sakura's couch and not feeling particularly out of place or overwhelmed with the need to escape. He was reading, scratching Pakkun's ears, and listening to Naruto and Sai, who were seated behind him at the dinner table and dressed casually for a night out.

The situation was actually very… comfortable.

"You just can't, Sai! We've been over this a million times," Naruto objected, sounding rather exasperated, which was par for the course when talking to Sai.

"But what does it matter? Is a woman's perception of her self-worth tied to her body mass?"

Kakashi couldn't help but answer in unison with Naruto's much more empathic, "Yes!"

"If you want to compliment a girl, stick to telling her that her eyes are pretty or that you like her hair," Naruto instructed. "Weight is a touchy thing."

Sai huffed, still not understanding. "What if I compliment her figure?"

"You'll probably get slapped," Kakashi replied, turning a page in his book.

Sakura, as if summoned by Fate herself, stepped into view, wearing a thin, pink bathrobe. Every time she made an appearance she seemed to be just that much more put together. This time, her make-up was done, but her hair was still damp and splayed messily around her shoulders.

"Sakura." Sai turned to the girl as she was rooting around in her purse for something. Preemptively Naruto planted his face into the table and covered his head. "Your figure is delightfully svelte."

It was out of sheer, morbid curiosity that Kakashi glanced up from his book. Predictably, Sakura did not look impressed, but she did smile and rewarded the boy's efforts with an affectionately pinched cheek. "Nice try, Sai," she said before turning away, back toward her bedroom.

"I'm being sincere," Sai argued, looking rather confused.

She shrugged. "It sounds like a line."

"You always say that."

"I'm being sincere."

Sai scowled. "You're teasing me now, right?"

She grinned at him and pinched her fingers together. "A little."

With that, Sakura disappeared back into her bedroom and nudged the door closed with her foot. Kakashi smiled a little and returned to his book. He never participated in these little 'lessons'. He figured that he had tried his hand at teaching and it had ended in a spectacularly horrible way that would be discussed for years. As he had suspected upon being assigned a team of Genin the first go around, he was just not cut out to be an educator.

"Didn't help that you kinda pointed out that she's flat-chested," Naruto muttered.

"I did not."

"Svelte?"

"It means elegantly slender, dickless. You're the one that just called her flat-chested." Sai snorted derisively. "I learned not to say that ages ago."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. It probably didn't help that he just didn't have Sakura's patience in that area.

Sakura. Patience. Those weren't two words he would've naturally strung together seven years ago to describe the girl. Back then, she hadn't been able muster enough will to tolerate Naruto. Sai, even with his improved understanding of human interaction, could be far worse than the loud-mouthed blond on any given day with half the effort.

But the former-ROOT member had come a long way since first joining the team. Still awkward, still ignorant in so many ways, but better and not given to quite so many fake smiles or insulting nicknames. Simple things still seemed to elude him, but he was perpetually curious and, luckily for him, Sakura was perpetually willing to explain.

Naruto jumped like a startled cat when the door was suddenly kicked open. A part of Kakashi—the part that was bitter and had become accustomed to expecting horrible things to happen—expected a cry of "Dynamic Entry!" to follow, but it didn't and for that he murmured a quiet thanks to the Hokages.

Instead, Ino stepped inside.

Scratch that.

Ino stalked inside, her fists clenched and her teeth bared and the men present, all connected by the wonder of testosterone, pondered the words "cat fight". Or at least that was true for Naruto and Kakashi. Sai simply greeted Ino with a wave, a tip of his head, and a compliment about her womanly figure.

"Naruto, have you seen—eek!"

Kakashi cocked an eyebrow. The frightened squeak that came out of Sakura, who appeared for all of a second in the doorway of her bedroom before vanishing again at the sight of her rival, was positively feminine and hilarious, if Naruto's giant grin was anything to go by. He'd undoubtedly razz her later for it.

"Forehead!"

Sakura's attempts to escape were half-hearted at best. She could barricade her door with a pinkie if she wanted, but Ino easily burst through and then slammed it shut behind her. What followed was the sound of shrieking laughter and the part of Kakashi—the part that had no qualms with picturing former students doing such things—contemplated a possible pillow fight.

Naruto turned to him once the laughter had quieted. "Kakashi-sensei, you sure you don't want to come with us tonight? It won't be just the Rookies. I think Kurenai and Iruka are coming."

"Ah, I would, but Sakura-chan ordered bed rest for me and she is the medic."

Naruto scowled and cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah," he drawled, "because you always listen to Sakura-chan when she tells you not to do something."

"He does if he wants to keep any of his chest hair."

Sakura appeared then, wearing a pale pink dress with a red shawl draped around her shoulders and her hair swept up in high ponytail. Kakashi would've been tempted to say she looked 'delicate', if this was not the girl who routinely punched straight through solid objects like trees and boulders with minimal effort; who was the cholericly-tempered student of a legendary and equally choleric kunoichi.

Kakashi blinked when he realized that Sakura was staring at him in return. "Something wrong, Sakura-chan?"

"Ah, no," she replied with a sheepish smile. "Pig, we should get going now! We'll be late meeting the others!"

"Don't take that tone," the blond snapped back as she appeared, flicking her hair and preening as she shrugged into a sweater. "We get here the other night, you've got a situation—" Kakashi noted the finger-quotes around this—"and then I don't hear anything from you about it. Then, when you do stop by, it's to ask my dad to ask me to get hold of one of Shika's uniforms! I revoke your bossy privileges."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Just go."

Ino shrugged and then moved over to Naruto and Sai, grabbing them by a wrist each and dragging them out of their chairs. "Let's move, boys. Forehead will catch up in a minute."

"But—!" Naruto was cut off by a sharp tug on his arm and he and Sai vanished out of the door.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at this and then looked back to Sakura. She smiled as she approached the couch. "So… we're alone," he began suggestively.

She laughed and dropped into the cushion beside him. "Indeed," she replied with a playful raise of her eyebrows. "I just wanted to talk to you about something."

"Shoot."

Sakura nodded, opened her mouth to explain, and then stopped short. She huffed irritably and pursed her lips in thought. Kakashi smiled faintly at this and her brow furrowed deeper at him "Okay," she started with a decisive sweep of her hand, "So, you recall when I told you to let the other guys know that I'd treat them if they came here?"

"I recall it."

"Well, they took me up on it. Now, I don't really like the idea of going out anyway, but Ino was super insistent about this because of… well, a thing the other night, but that's pretty irrelevant." She played with a charm bracelet dangling from one wrist. "I'm just worried about leaving because I don't know when someone might stop by."

Kakashi smiled at this. She really couldn't help it, could she? Worrying about everyone just seemed to come natural to the girl. "I see. By the way, you have blood on your tile grout in the kitchen."

She cringed. "Is it that noticeable?"

"By my age, you get to know blood stains on sight. Bleach helps."

"How strangely domestic of you," Sakura replied with a roll of her eyes. "What I'm saying—"

"I'll have Pakkun find you if anybody comes around," Kakashi cut in and the way she beamed at him made him smile a little wider. "Anything else?"

The girl hummed softly. "Don't worry about Shiba and Bisuke sleeping on my bed, they asked me if they could, help yourself to the leftovers in the fridge, and no porn on my television."

"Oh, c'mon," he protested. "I'm an ailing old man and you're taking away something that might make me feel better."

"Sorry, doctor's orders." Sakura jumped to her feet and reached out to pull the throw blanket off the back of the couch. He rolled his eyes when she began to tuck him in. "There you go, Jii-chan." She spared him a condescending pat on the head that reminded him of how he used to ruffle her hair. No wonder she hated it. "I'll be back later. Now don't stay up too much longer, old men like you need their rest."

She smiled at him and then swept her keys off the table and disappeared out the door.

"What are you laughing at?" Kakashi muttered, squinting at Pakkun in annoyance as the little dog chuckled.

"Nothing," the little Pug replied as he shook his head and settled back down. "Jii-chan. Heh."

The thoughts always seemed to sneak up on him. Like how Naruto and Sakura had wormed their way past his defenses and forced themselves into his life, these thoughts came unbidden, unasked for with no discernable point of origin. They were simply there one day about a month into his last mission, as if they were as natural as the grass growing from the earth.

In short, he had missed Sakura.

Yes, he had, in some small… small way missed Naruto and Sai too, but he didn't think of either of them as often as he did the pink-haired medic. He didn't look forward to seeing them as much either. It was why he had stopped by her place first (well, that and his nearly-punctured lung, which Sakura had informed him of with a backhanded smack, something he found counter-productive to the healing process).

Kakashi chalked it all up to the fact that Sakura had become one of his closest friends in the last several years. This was aided greatly by the fact that she had made it a point, even more-so than Naruto, to butt-in on his life in ways that went beyond just being his doctor. But it was nice when she'd stop by his apartment to drop off a bag of groceries just to make sure he had something around the house. It was nice when she stopped by sometimes just to check on him. It was nice to know that she cared.

"Jii-chan, are you awake? I'm home."

Kakashi wandered out of the kitchen and propped himself against the doorframe as Sakura stepped through the front door with two take-out boxes tucked under her left arm and her shawl slouching low on her elbows.. She smiled when she saw him. "I thought I told you not to stay up late," she teased, kicking the door shut behind her. "People your age need their rest."

"You realize that when I called myself old you were supposed to jump to my defense and insist that I wasn't that old," Kakashi replied, doing his best to pout with a mask in the way and one eye shut. His forehead protector had been abandoned somewhere in the living room.

Sakura shrugged easily. "Well, you are the more experienced of the two of us, so I thought I'd just trust your judgment on it." She smirked and then held the two carry-out boxes to him. "If you plan to be up for a while, you can keep me company while I enjoy my desserts."

"Hm, do I get any?"

She rolled her eyes. "You won't eat it in front of me anyway, so no."

Kakashi snorted as she placed the boxes lightly in his hands and then turned away toward her bedroom. "What'd you get?" he asked as he turned into the kitchen.

"Not sure," she replied. "It was some stuff the owner gave me."

"Which restaurant is this? Sounds like my kind of place." Kakashi was pleased when he sat both boxes down and then popped open the lid of one container to find slices of chocolate cake and what looked like some sort of pink cheesecake. "Are you friends with the guy or something?"

He heard Sakura's unladylike snort from the kitchen and it made him smirk. "Definitely not friends. I stop there every once in a while with Ino and the other girls after my shifts at the hospital and the owner's gotten to be kind of sweet on me, I guess. Put that fork down, Kakashi. If you touch any of that, I'll break your arms and reset them backwards"

Kakashi, who was standing poised with a fork over the cake and a hand on his mask, frowned and glanced back at the doorway. Screw it. She'd never…

"Hatake Kakashi, I'm not kidding! You will be able to out-crabwalk everyone in the whole village."

He dropped the fork quickly to the cupboard and pouted at the sweets, which were surely taunting him now. "May I ask when you managed to develop the Byakugan?"

The only answer he received was in the form of light, feminine laughter. Not long afterward, Sakura appeared, raking her hair with one hand and pulling at the falling strap of her dress with the other. "Aw, how kind of you to not start without me," she gushed with saccharine sweetness.

"Yes, of course."

He watched her as she slipped around him to inspect her prizes and then seized her by the shoulders and leaned in over her. Sakura let out a startled snort of laughter. "What are you doing?" she demanded with her otherwise dangerous tone tempered by humor.

He picked through a few strands of cotton-candy colored hair. "Just checking for extra eyes."

Sakura swatted at him and he easily leaned out of her reach, smiling when she glanced back over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at him. "I'm a ninja," she explained breezily. "I have skills."

"I have no doubt of that. I just question when Tsunade taught you how to see through walls."

She snatched the fork he had dropped off of the counter and twirled it deftly between her fingers as she hopped up onto the cupboard. "I'll never tell." She stabbed the cheesecake and took the first bite. What followed was a little salt-in-wound rubbing, with her making an overly dramatic show of pleasure at the taste that had him rolling his eyes. "So, how long as you going to be around?"

"Hm, hard to say. How long do I have to hang around before you give up and buy groceries for me?"

Sakura tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Well, I don't use my couch much, I like having the dogs around, and you're housebroken, so there's no reason to kick you out right away." She grinned at him. "I guess we're just going to have to be roomies now."

"Guess so." Kakashi let himself slouch against the cupboard beside her.

"Terrific."

"Wonderful. I'll bring my stuff over tomorrow."

"Peachy. We'll work out a laundry schedule."

She took another bite of cheesecake and then smiled at him from around the mouthful. Kakashi found himself smiling back. He had probably missed this most whenever he was away. After all, he didn't have this level of comfort with anyone else. In fact, if right then an arguing Naruto and Sai were at the breakfast table, it would've felt downright homey.

"Sakura-chan." She'd call foul play, but he was a ninja and since when were they required to play fair?

"Hm?"

He looked to her and when their eyes met he tipped his head slightly to the side and said, very simply, "Please?"

Sakura's expression went from intrigued to exasperated in mere seconds, her mouth pinched unattractively and her eyes narrowed. "Fine. I have a few things I need to get from the market tomorrow anyway," she spat out and it would've been rather contemptuous sounding if she wasn't hamming it up so much with the eye-rolling and lip-pursing. "I'll pick up some stuff for you."

"You're the best, Sakura-chan."

"You're only saying that because you'd starve without me around."

"In my defense, Naruto and Sai are just as bad." It was a weak argument (as eloquent and mature as the ever popular "Did not!"), but it allowed him to use against her the one weakness she always bowed to: he was one of her boys. Sakura couldn't resist the urge to 'care' for anything in the world when it concerned people in general, but that protective streak seemed to run especially deep when it came to "her boys". In some respects, it was rather reminiscent of Tsunade and therefore frightening.

But, he had to admit, it was nice to be a part of that collective.

Sakura didn't make an attempt to argue further; she just rolled her eyes in response and took another bite of dessert. Then, frowning and squinting at him, she leaned forward. "I never checked your Sharingan," she muttered. Without anymore warning than that, she hooked a hand in his collar and pulled him closer.

Kakashi let himself be led. Sakura was never off-duty and arguing didn't stem her determination to poke and prod him. Nor did fighting; it had been some time since he was physically stronger than her. And using the Sharingan was just out of the question. Out of the question because she had been keeping it in working order for nearly two years and that was a bit like biting the hand that fed him. Or healed him, rather.

"Tsunade could just look at it tomorrow," he offered.

"Tch, she's already studied the Sharingan," Sakura replied loftily. Her fingers pulled at his eyelids, up and then down, her eyes methodically searching for something that he had never been very clear on. "I haven't and recently she's let me poke through what remained of Kabuto's old notes. He did a lot of research on dojutsus and while I don't really want to think about how he acquired his research specimens, his conclusions were very impressive."

Kakashi quirked an eyebrow. "You sound delighted by that."

"It was fascinating."

"Kabuto? The same insane sadist—"

"Yes, yes I know." She waved him off and then placed her left hand to this temple, fingertips glowing as she did so. "But he was a genius. If he hadn't ended up such a rat bastard I might have gone to him for supplemental tutoring when Tsunade first took me on."

Kakashi decided not to answer and instead watched her lazily as she worked, her right hand coming to rest on his forehead with her fingers nestled in his hair. Her chakra burned a little as he felt it tracing a path through his system, but it was a familiar and almost comforting.

"I didn't use it much," he supplied just to break the silence.

She smiled. "I can tell." Her eyes were closed as she focused. "The nerves are only mildly inflamed. How's your vision?"

He shrugged. "It's all right. Not any worse, I guess." He paused and she pulled her hand away form his forehead, leaving the other at his temple as she pumped chakra into the irritated nerves. "Sakura, I know you want to find a way to fix this for me, but you don't need to. Even if it dies, I'll still have one good eye. Besides, once mine is gone the Sharingan will be dead for good and learning how to reverse the process of going irreversibly blind because of it won't serve anyone."

"Except maybe you if I can figure it out before the irreversibly blind part sets in." She cracked open one green eye to glower meaningfully and then slid it shut again. "And you're right; once this one is gone the Sharingan will just be a legend of the past. The mystery there will be dead, without a resolution. Do you know how insane that'll make me?"

Kakashi grinned a little at this, at the way she bared her teeth at the thought. "Our Sakura, so greedy for knowledge, so eager to learn," he teased. He sobered almost immediately at his own words and her eyes opened, a small frown touching her lips as if she had sensed the change in him. "I wish I would have paid more attention to that when you were a Genin."

"You wouldn't have been able to teach me anything if I didn't think that it'd win Sasuke's undying affection," Sakura replied just as soberly. Her hand dropped to his shoulder, the glow at her fingertips fading. "Besides, you were handed the supposedly last Uchiha and the Kyuubi Vessel. I'd say your hands were full without the addition of an obnoxious twelve-year-old."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," he chided. "All three of you were obnoxious."

The girl let out a bark of laughter and lifted a bare foot to Kakashi's chest to push him away from her. "Besides," she began, smiling from ear-to-ear, "You don't know anything about being a medic. If I hadn't gone to Tsunade, I might have never found my place. Then God only knows where you and the boys would be by now. And by that I mean you'd be so dead about a million times over."

He chuckled and nodded as he watched her take one last bite of cheesecake and then hop lightly off the counter. "Thank you," he said at length while she was putting the boxes into the fridge.

Sakura turned toward him and smiled while sucking the last bit of the dessert from her fork. "It's no problem, Kakashi-sensei." A pause as she tossed the utensil into the sink. "So, you're leaving tomorrow?"

"I'll probably be gone before you wake up."

"I figured. Are you on leave for the rest of the week?"

"It'll probably be two weeks if you and Tsunade have your way."

"Good. I'll be around to make sure you don't end up confined in your apartment with mold in your hair and your skin fused permanently to one of your dirty books."

"Aw, you care."

She laughed on her way out of the kitchen. "Good night, Kakashi-sensei."

"Good night, Sakura-chan."

1. Freakin'. Long. Also, Kakashi is damn hard to write.

2. Speaking of Kakashi, may I introduce you to snarky, less sullen and angst-filled Kakashi? He smells like leather and chocolate. (Why? For the same reason that people's kisses always seem to taste like strawberries in fanfiction.)

3. I also tried to limit pervvy-thoughts to a minimum right out of the gate.

4. Might I say that Sai is FUN to write? 'Cause he is. Naruto too actually. (On that note, I introduce you to a more subdued Naruto who is matured and well on his way to Hokage-dom.)

5. Jii-chan: Yeah, Sakura's calling him 'grandpa' (I hope I used the right term).

6. Enter Description of Mallet Assisted Plot Beating Here

7. I didn't include Japanese desserts because frankly none of the ones I read about sounded remotely appetizing.

8. It always seemed sort of weird to me that everyone always seems to think that Kakashi will go totally blind once his Sharingan craps out on him. Correct me if both my math and my basic understanding of the human body are totally wrong, but he'd still have one good eye, right? Even if the totally blind thing is canon, that doesn't make much sense to me. Like. At all. (My urge to babble about all of the ophthalmology gibberish I just learned from Wiki is really intense. But I shall refrain.)

9. Kabuto not being a rat bastard and tutoring Sakura. There's a crack plot for you. (Mmm, crack. ... DON'T JUDGE ME!)

10. Have I said yet how much I love you guys? Cause I do. Lots.

Now I'm officially rambling.

Please review cause it's (August 17th) my birthday!