Chapter 37
Sakura felt the warmth of his breath by her ear before she heard his words.
"It's almost dawn, Sakura-chan," Kakashi murmured, his voice husky, and in her drowsy state, she didn't resist the urge to nestle further into the comfortable expanse of his chest. He tightened his arms around her and gave her a lingering kiss on the outside of her ear. "You should probably get up before your daughter does …"
At that, she snapped awake, breaking his hold to sit straight up and turn to look at him, her eyes wide. "Kakashi … what -" she sputtered.
He gave her a tender, teasing grin in response. "You fell asleep," he replied simply.
"Why didn't you wake me up? Did you keep watch the whole time? Aren't you tired?" The questions tumbled out of her mouth as she tried to get her bearings.
He chuckled quietly. "I didn't wake you up because I like you being asleep in my arms. Yes, I kept watch the whole time. And I'll live," he answered, then slid his hand over her cheek into the hair at the back of her head and dragged her into a gentle kiss, a hint of a roguish smile curling at his lips as they met hers.
Still disoriented, Sakura allowed herself to be drawn to his mouth, even allowed herself to deepen the kiss, but it lasted barely a minute before she came back to reality and remembered that her daughter would be getting up sooner rather than later. Much sooner. Pulling away, she frowned at him. "Don't do things like that," she grumbled.
"Yes, yes," he said dutifully, putting on a contrite expression but not bothering to disguise the wicked little sparkle in his eyes as he took his hand from her head, his fingers brushing over her neck along the way, and lifted his mask up to cover his lower face. "I'd better get into my sleeping bag before your overly curious offspring sees anything she shouldn't …"
With a quick tap of a finger on her nose, he flashed to his bedroll, and she had to admire the way he could move that fast and climb under the blanket without making a single sound. Smiling softly at his seemingly sleeping form, she leaned back against the trunk of the tree where he'd been moments before and did her best to look like she'd been keeping watch her whole shift.
Sarada awoke about ten minutes later, and Sakura thanked her lucky stars that she and Kakashi were where they were supposed to be as her daughter scowled down at the "sleeping" Copy-nin.
"Is he going to stay like that all morning?" the dark-haired girl asked after several minutes had passed without Kakashi so much as twitching.
No sooner had she spoken than she found herself suddenly flat on her back on the ground.
"Oof," she groaned, rubbing her spine as she sat up slowly. "What the heck?"
Standing, Kakashi looked down at the perturbed genin and wiggled his fingers. "Don't let your guard down, Sarada-chan," he said, crinkling his eyes and reaching out to help her up. "You never know when an enemy might be deceiving you …"
Gritting her teeth and furrowing her eyebrows angrily, she took his hand and let him lift her up. "But you're not my enemy …" she argued and puffed her cheeks out indignantly.
He shrugged. "I have become something like your teacher, though. It would be remiss of me to let go of an opportunity to help you become a better ninja."
Sarada sighed. "I suppose that's true …"
"Indeed," the silver-haired man agreed, then turned a sly gaze up at the pinkette still sitting in the tree. "Anything of interest happen on your watch?"
Sakura narrowed her eyes at him. "Not a thing," she replied firmly, but her tone was undermined by the slight upward curve of her lips. She hated that he could always seem to make her smile in spite of herself.
Hopping down, she had to resist the urge to stick her tongue out at the Copy-nin and instead addressed her daughter. "Sarada, why don't you prepare breakfast? Kakashi and I will get the equipment ready."
"Okay," Sarada nodded and proceeded to unpack their rations while her mother took no small pleasure in ordering the former Hokage around.
After they'd eaten and cleaned up the camp, Sakura pulled out the map again and pointed to the lines she'd drawn on the open area where the chuunin had encountered the poisonous grass.
"I think it would be best if we took a grid approach," she began. "Sarada, you'll be working between Kakashi and me, and I want you to make sure you're within sight of one of us at all times. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Mom," her daughter replied immediately.
"Kakashi also brought headsets so we can communicate with each other. If you find the grass, do not touch it; call to us through the headsets, and we'll come to you. Got it?"
Sarada nodded.
Sakura handed her a long stick. "We'll use these to brush aside other plants and grasses, not our hands. Based on the samples from the chuunins' shoes, we know the grass we're looking for grows at least four inches high, but it could grow taller. And we don't know how many spears grow together - whether there are clumps of the grass or if the blades are fairly spread out. My guess is the latter, since we found only one in each of the shoes and there haven't been many incidents that we know of. Unfortunately, if that is the case, it could take us awhile to find any specimens …"
Her two teammates were quiet.
"Okay … any questions before we head out?" Sakura asked, folding up the map and tucking it into her bag.
Sarada shook her head. "No."
Sakura turned her eyes to the silver-haired man at her side. "Do you have anything you want to add?"
Kakashi crinkled his eyes, then ruffled her hair. "No, Sakura-chan, I think you've got everything pretty well worked out."
Frowning at him while her daughter giggled, Sakura fixed her hair. When it was back to normal, she sighed and slung her bag over her shoulder. "Alright, let's go," she said.
At an average run, it took them about twenty minutes to get to the field, which was a few miles from their campsite. Once there, they split up according to Sakura's directives.
With an approximate distance of thirty paces between each of them and given that the field was more of a slight hill, Sakura was able to see Sarada but not Kakashi, which was just fine with her … that man was too distracting for his own - let alone her - good, and between the other night by the sink in the kitchen and the previous evening in the tree, she was quickly learning that she couldn't trust herself around him, even when her daughter was nearby.
She frowned as she used the stick she'd brought to poke through the grass along her path. Yes, she knew that Kakashi had excellent senses and almost forty years of experience as a ninja, but he could still make mistakes, and she couldn't afford to have Sarada catch them doing anything inappropriate … she needed to make herself resist his charms, and she needed to make him see that he couldn't do those sorts of things - he couldn't hold her to his chest or kiss her or give her heated looks.
No matter how much she liked it.
She sighed and rolled her eyes skyward, pausing her search. How did she end up in a situation like this? Sometimes it seemed so unreal, like it must be a dream. There was no way she was actually having an affair - the word itself still made her stomach flip unpleasantly - and with Kakashi of all people …
Right?
She turned her attention back to the grass.
If she were really honest with herself, she would have to admit that she'd had a few fleeting moments over the years where she'd noticed that he was an attractive man, but they were just the sort of abstract observations one naturally made about people of the opposite sex they spent time around …
Or so she'd thought.
… Again, though, if she were really honest with herself, she would have to admit that she'd never considered Shikamaru or Naruto or Sai or Kiba like that …
Well, okay, maybe Kiba once or twice … when she'd had a few drinks ... but who could blame her? The guy was basically all raw, wild sexuality … pretty much the opposite of her perpetually contained, controlled husband ...
She shook her head. Nevermind about Kiba. His smirk, while hot, held nothing on Kakashi's anyway …
She groaned. Why couldn't she seem to get that obnoxious man out of her head for five minutes? It was worse than with Sasuke when she was a girl, and that had been pretty bad.
… What did that mean?
And what was up with her thought a couple of nights ago … had their relationship actually not always been as platonic as she'd believed?
She really wasn't sure anymore … just as she had to admit that she'd never thought of Shikamaru or Naruto or any of those guys as sexually attractive (except Kiba), she had to admit that she would never let any of them (even Kiba) invade her personal space the way she let Kakashi invade her personal space.
... Well, Naruto, she supposed ...
And abruptly stopped walking. Oh god …
Her heart dropped into her stomach as she realized that she'd never viewed Naruto's invasion of her space the same way she'd viewed Kakashi's …
No, Naruto was like a brother to her, like family …
Her heart sank further as she realized that she'd never thought of Kakashi as a brother, and she'd never really thought of him as family either … She'd thought of him as one of her precious people ... but not family.
Why? Why had she never thought of him that way?
She took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She had a sinking suspicion that she'd never thought of Kakashi as family because she'd always been aware of him on some level as a man, and one didn't typically think of their brothers or father as men, not like that.
Not like a part of her had always thought of Kakashi.
Her eyes widened.
He'd been one of her best friends for years. How had she not seen this? How had she not seen that he'd always been something different to her - different than anyone else? Different even than -
Suddenly, her heart stopped and her head jerked around as she felt a familiar chakra headed her way. Moments later, a black-haired man she knew all too well stepped into view, and she froze.
"Sasuke …"
A/N: You knew it was coming ...
Also, the one thing that sucks about writing this story is that I haven't been letting myself read any other Kakasaku fics because I don't want to lose my characterization of the pair. I miss reading Kakasaku fics ... :(