Disclaimer: I, Lady Sassy Sas, do hereby disclaim all rights to the wonderful world that is Naruto.


"Oooooi! Shikashi! Took you long enough," Akio waved his arm in the air in greeting.

"Hmm, I s'pose,"

He glanced to the right of Akio where he saw Aiko lying on the grass, arms behind her head, eyes closed and basking in the heat of the sun. He smiled as her brown hair fluttered in the slight breeze.

Then she opened an eye to look at him, "It's been a long time since Team Nine has hung out, ne Shikashi?"

Shikashi smiled and flopped down beside her, "Ah, it has," he froze slightly as Aiko shifted and then rested her head in his lap, "Comfortable, Aiko?" he asked sarcastically.

"Very. Now, what has kept you so busy that you haven't had time to see your old team members? ANBU?"

"I…guess you could say that, yes. What about the two of you?"

Akio dropped from the handstand he was doing and fell on his back beside the other two before snorting, "She's been a little harlot of late,"

"Akio!" the only girl the trio screeched in indignation.

"Hey, it's okay. I honestly don't care who you do just as long as I don't have to see or hear anything," Akio shrugged which turned into a wince as his cousin's fist crashed into his stomach, "Aow, Aiko…"

"You deserved that, Akio," Shikashi pointed and smirked when his best friend's glare turned to him.

"Hmph,"

"Well you did,"

Shikashi sighed and rand a hand through his hair as he also closed his eyes and let the heat of the sun drench his face. It was the middle of summer in the Fire country and the heat waves were in full swing. This meant that the streets in Konoha were swarming with people trying buy air conditioner's or trying to find someone to fix them.

The park was crowded with families and couples out for picnics or to take a dip in the river that ran through it. The shinobi who were in the village were using their time off by training in the grounds so it was lucky that this one was free…sort of.

He heard a pair sparring far across the other side of the field but none of the three cared. As long as they weren't interrupted and could stay here without hassle they were fine.

"I wonder what the temperature is," the softly spoken Hyuuga girl mused.

Akio answered, "Don't know or care, as long as it keeps up,"

"Hmm," Shikashi agreed.

"Hey, hey! Shikashi do you remember-"

"I remember a lot of things, Akio. You're going to have to be more specific than that," his interruption and teasing earned him a giggle from the girl resting against him which made him smile fondly.

"Hahahaha, funny; not!" the other brunette scowled.

Shikashi wasn't entirely sure but it seemed the blonde from Naruto's side and the blue from Hinata's side both skipped him and he ended up with the colour of his grandfather, aunt and uncle and second cousin. This always intrigued him a bit but he never paid much attention to it.

Shikashi motioned his shoulders towards Aiko, "She seems to think so,"

Akio snorted again, "She doesn't count,"

"And she has a name and is sitting right here so can we use her name and stop referring to her in the third person?"

"Yes, let's. As I was asking before I was so rudely interrupted. Do you remember the time we were on that mission to Cloud with Chouji-sensei?"

"Yes, what about it?" Aiko asked in irritation.

"Well, I was wondering if either of you found out what that scroll was about? Or what the Raikage's response was?"

Shikashi had tensed ever so slightly at the mention of that mission. He knew what that mission was about: his mother. He didn't know if the Raikage had ever given his consent, however. He also wasn't about to tell either of them about it since it was classified.

"Nope. Shikashi?"

"I'd actually forgotten about it. What made you think about it, Akio?

The male was silent as he thought about his reply, "No reason, actually. I was just sifting through all the missions we did and that one piqued my curiosity a bit,"

They fell into a comfortable silence and watched the world go by until Akio inevitably broke the silence.

"I'm thirsty; Shikashi go get us a drink,"

"Why me?"

"Because you're the first that came to mind,"

Shikashi snorted, "Go get yourself a drink, you lazy ass!"

"But that involves energy I have no inclination to expend!" his team-mate whined.

Shikashi froze in his retort, "Since when did you learn words like that?"

Aiko's head shifted about as she laughed. Shikashi's gaze fell to hers and not for the first time he felt an unexplained warmth seep through his body.

"Shut up," huffing in indignation before he turned his attention to his cousin, "And for laughing at me, Aiko, you can go get us drinks,"

"Haha-wait, what!? Why do I have to go and get something you want?" she bolted upright to glare at Akio.

"Because you laughed at me and I'm older,"

"So? Shikashi's older than either of us but you don't see him trying to pull the I'm-older-than-you crap!"

"That's because I couldn't care less. Hey, doesn't that cloud look like a water dragon jutsu?"

Both of the cousins stared at him before rolling their eyes, "You spend way too much time with Nara-san," Aiko sighed before telling them she'd be back in a bit and went to retrieve the drinks Akio had none to politely requested.

Then Akio suddenly turned to face Shikashi with a serious expression which made Shikashi instantly wary and mildly curious. He raised a pink eyebrow, "Yes?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Hatake. You know,"

"Dumb? Hatake? Know?" more like perplexed.

"Yes, yes and yes! Unlike your father, you can't use blindness as an excuse,"

Shikashi narrowed his eyes instantly at the last sentence, "Akio, you know as well as I that he isn't blind. You might not know what happened to his eye exactly but if you ever try to insult him again, I will not refrain from hitting you repeatedly,"

Akio flinched slightly but who wouldn't? The boy had perfected his dad's glare to a perfection and had his mother's temperament when it came to his family. He could go from being calm as a cloud to being a volatile thunder storm in a second and then you'd have to wait for him to cool down again – that or have someone who could make him smile and forget his anger almost instantly much like Naruto had done with Sakura.

"Sheesh, Shikashi. Calm down, you know I didn't mean to insult him," he saw his pink-haired friend's glare dull some before he spoke again, "Anyway, back to my main point,"

"Which was what, exactly? I'm not Aiko, Akio; only she can tell what you're talking about when you start halfway into a point,"

Akio held up a finger and pointed at him, "She is my point, Shikashi,"

"What?"

"Aiko. She's my point,"

"Akio…if you have the hot's for your cousin that's great but I-"

A smacking sound was heard and Shikashi rubbed his head where he'd been hit while glaring at Akio once more, "What was that for!?"

"Being a moron and jumping to conclusions. I don't follow old traditions; personally I don't agree with in-breeding but I'm not going to voice my opinions to the rest of the clan unless they want to marry me to someone in the clan. No, my point is Aiko loves you, Shikashi."

"I know, I love her too. What of it?"

"No, you don't get it. She's in love with you,"

Shikashi scrounged up his face, "She…what?"

"She's in love with you,"

"…How would you know?"

"She told me. She's told me a thousand times. Shikashi, she's loved you since we became a gennin team – before that even,"

Shikashi stared at the man sitting in front of him but not really paying him much attention. Aiko was in love with him? How on earth could he not see that? How was he supposed to react to this? What was he supposed to do with this information?

"She never said anything to me," he frowned as he spoke more to himself than his companion.

"Of course she hasn't! Shikashi, she never really had the correct time to do it and when the time did come she was too scared to actually admit it. She was certain for a while back that you had a girlfriend considering you were always off somewhere and never had the time to just sit and hang out. It wasn't until Uzumaki-san told us that it was a mission that she actually stopped believing it,"

Shikashi's frown deepened as he processed this. It was true, he had put off sitting and chatting with a lot of his gennin peers and friends because of the intel gathering he was doing on his mother's death. He had neglected all of them and now that Akio had given him this to deal with, it didn't sit well with him at all. In fact he felt terribly guilty.

"Did she tell you to tell me?"

"No," Akio sighed, "Look, Shikashi. I might be the closest to her in terms of family and maybe even friends but she doesn't tell me everything that's going on with her. But because I've grown up beside and with her my whole life I rarely don't know what's going on with her. She never asked me to speak with you about this and she doesn't have to. The only reason I'm telling you this is because it's eating her up inside and has been for a few years now. She feels like she's losing you or has lost you.

"I also know that you like her; maybe not love her like she loves you but it's there. All I'm asking is you give her a chance after whatever it is you're working on is over. She may tell you herself at some point and I do plan on giving her the chance sometime this afternoon but don't let on that I told you," Akio breathed and lay back down, an air of nonchalance quickly surrounding him.

Shikashi quickly got rid of his surprised expression and put on a façade of serenity as he tilted his head back to the sky as he felt the topic of the conversation reappear beside them. He heard a grunt and grumble and liquid sloshing around in a bottle, "Ouch! Aiko, what was that for?"

"Being a lazy bum. Here Shikashi, I got you some too,"

Said man opened his eye a little to see a bottle of ice-cold water being held in front of him. He opened his eyes fully and looked at the woman's face to see a small smile and a slight pinkness on her cheeks. Whether it was from the heat or if she was blushing he couldn't tell.

Instead he grabbed the drink and held it up in thanks before swiftly gulping half of it in one go. He hadn't realised he was parched. Or maybe it was the information that Akio had given him that made him thirsty.

He mulled it all over in his head as he listened to their banter.


True to his word, Akio did leave them as day turned to evening. There was a comfortable silence for a while each of them were off in their own worlds. One was thinking of how to go about discussing their feelings while the other was still trying to make sense of the other's feelings.

"Shikashi..?" Aiko started uncertainly.

He paused in stroking her hair, "Aiko?"

"I..um..I.."

He sat up and pulled her up with him turning her so she was facing him, "Aiko? What is it?"

She sighed and tried to look him in the eyes but was too shy to. He breathed out silently before reach forward and lifting her chin up gently. After a few seconds she looked at him hesitantly. She couldn't make out any sort of expression except for curiosity in his gaze.

She breathed in deeply and opened her mouth to begin, "Shikashi, I don't know how to say this but…I…" he could see her struggling and he didn't like it but neither was he too inclined to let her know that he knew in case she backed away.

He was much like Kakashi in that he had no idea how to handle girls or their romance. He wasn't as socially awkward as his father had apparently been but he still was unsure in these situations.

He had many offers for dates in the past from both men and woman and he turned all of them down in a polite way. It wasn't that he was a-sexual as some had come to believe; he just wasn't really looking for a relationship.

So why was it that his heart rate had picked up slightly?

Tension continued to grow as the silence carried on and they shifted and Aiko looked like she was ready to run.

"I'm sorry, nevermind. I-I have to go,"

Before Shikashi could even utter a word, the woman sprinted across the field in her escape.

Shikashi thanked Kami that he had inherited his father's reflexes and speed. He was up and bounding after her before he even realised it. He caught her by the wrist and then teleported them over to a secluded area of trees just past the training ground they had been in.

He pressed her back into a tree and all but surrounded her, making sure she couldn't escape. Her eyes were wide in surprise but she didn't have time to voice her opinion as Shikashi pressed his lips to hers.

Taken by surprise, she only responded after he brushed his fingers against the side of her head, her hair threading through them. And respond she did. She threw her arms around his neck and deepened it.

This in turn caught Shikashi by surprise before he pulled away, "I know."

She panted before raising her eyes to look at him again, "How?"

"You were always easy to read," he smirked before kissing her again.

So maybe he'd told a white lie; Akio would have killed him if he had told the truth but in the end it wasn't really a lie. She was easy to read…as long as he paid attention.


Okay...the second part may seem a bit rushed and for that I'm sorry.

I just wanted to get this chapter out and move on to editing the last two (maybe three) chapters of this story. I can't believe I've nearly finished this...O_O Is it normal to want to cry because of this?

...Sadness...

Anyway, a little bit of romance for Shikashi. He deserves it. Plus! Something light-hearted and not very angsty to break up the melancholy of the story...did it work?

Read and review! I reply to all as long as you're not a guest!

And please vote on my poll if you haven't already...pwease? *gives her puppy dog look*

Lady Sassy Sas xXx