Author's note: In case you're wondering, though this is a slow burn, Kakashi has a big role throughout the story, as do Minato, Shisui and Rin at different times and they will be fleshed out to the best of my ability. Many canon events that don't make much sense in canon will get twists and better explanations. Cough, Uchiha massacre, cough. Also, don't expect this to stay as lighthearted as the first chapter, because the moment Danzo comes in things don't generally stay that way. This being said, the main character will not be Danzo's puppet. I figure that I'd anyone would be able to more or less resist Root conditioning and brainwashing techniques, it ought to be a Yamanaka with a large backbone, cue Inoue :)

Mostly I decided to write a Kakashi/Oc where the Oc is from Toot because it would to a lot of drama and I'm a sucker for the "forbidden love" "enemies to lovers" etc kind of tropes… so here you go! (:

Misnomer

Our first encounter went rather badly, but I suppose that was due to my little toddler brain thinking that sneaking a tadpole into his mask would be a great way to make friends. Not so. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It all began, as many things in Konoha are wont to do, with stuffy clan heads and their stuffy clan head business. As usual, one of the clan heads – Hyuga something something – organized a party, but unlike usually, my daddy deemed me old enough to go. I was four and would be enrolling into the Academy in two weeks, after all, so it was high time, the elders said. Then again maybe they pressured daddy into it because he didn't seem all that eager to take me to any parties. For the entire week leading up to it, he treated me to a daily, long-winded rant about not pulling anything funny during the party and acting proper, and he made it such a big deal that I was really excited to go, plus when the time finally came, he looked rather fidgety and kept shooting me glances.

Of course, I returned my most innocent smile and gave him a reassuring peace sign. Let it be known that I had had no intentions of pulling anything funny while daddy ranted at me, and maybe even at the beginning of the party, but by the middle of it I'd forgotten. There were a bunch of other kids there. Big shot's kids, like Asuma Sarutobi, who was a big shot for being the hokage's son. I wasn't one for politics but even I knew that one – he was one of the few clan heirs close to my age, after all. However, Asuma Sarutobi was kinda busy being cooed at by the adults and I didn't want to hang out with him in case I got cooed at too.

But there were barely any other kids around. There was this Inuzuka heiress girl, but she was a teen. I liked her dog though. Then there were a bunch of other older kids too but I paid them no mind, and then there was him. He was the only one besides for Asuma who looked my age, but unlike Asuma, he seemed to understand how horrible it was to be cooed at because he'd made a concentrated effort to get the cooing moms off his back, I'd noticed. He looked kinda weird, with his gray hair and adult-y clothes, plus his hair was so unruly that it almost covered his eyes. It looked cool though, like a dried nettle. I like dried nettles. What made me hesitate in approaching him was the surgical mask he was wearing. It made him look like a doctor, except we weren't at the hospital and I knew the only other people who wore those were sick people who were contamious… umm… contgagious? Never mind. In any case, I was sort of scared of approaching him because I figured if he was wearing a mask, then he must be sick, and I didn't really want to catch any bugs. I'd be joining the Academy in two weeks after all! No way was I missing that! However, my boredom and curiosity eventually won out. He seemed interesting and I wanted to be his friend, so I walked up to him and asked him if he wanted to play. He looked at me with this dead-fish, kinda intimidating stare and flatly intoned: "no".

Needless to say, I had not seen that one coming. Being a clan heiress myself, I was rather used to people playing with me whenever I wanted. And I really wanted to play with this boy right now! I thought maybe he was shy or something so I decided to introduce myself first and then ask him to play, like a proper lady. See, daddy? I can have manners when I want to! So thus went my second try:

"Hi. I'm Inoue. I have some mad hopscotch skills, you know? But I'm also really awesome at exploring and hide and seek." I was really hoping my resume would impress him. I was met with an awkward silence though, so I added: "now do you wanna play?"

The kid leveled me with his dead-fish stare again and said: "no."

Excuse me? This time I was kinda getting pissed. "Why not, though?" I objected. "You're not even doing anything interesting." I cast a pointed glance at his lap. He was reading a scroll. How boring could he get?

"You know, I don't recall asking for your opinion," he replied condescendingly.

I flushed. "Huh?! Oi, don't get smart with me!"

"Not my fault if you're the very opposite."

I gaped at him for a moment. Did he just… did he just call me stupid?! "You… you're a dumb butt!" I shouted at him angrily and snatched his scroll away. "Anybody knows reading stupid scrolls is boring!" He stood up and made to snatch the scroll back, but I didn't let him and chanced a glance at it… it was a ninja scroll. My mood did a one-eighty. "Hey! Is that a ninja scroll?!" How cool was that? Daddy never let me get my hands on any!

He finally snatched it back and gave me a look that said I was an idiot. "What else would it be? Boiled saury?"

"W-well it could be a story or something!" I was blushing in embarrassment. He made me feel like an idiot!

"A story?" he gave me a highly incredulous look. "Like a fairy-tale? Pff." With this one syllable, he told me just what he thought of children who still read stories. Me being one of them, I was getting madder and madder by the second. My grandpa was always reading them to me and I really enjoyed those moments, since my parents were often away or made me do clan-business things. But grandpa never did. He just read to me and I loved those quiet moments.

"Hey, what's wrong with stories! They're the best! Maybe you'd say so too if you read the ones that I know," I added petulantly. Since I liked him, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The boy just rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say." This was said with such derision that it was practically dripping out of his mouth (mask?) and taunting me. Then, as thought that weren't enough, he turned back to his scroll, completely dismissing me. And that was the last straw.

I was so mad at his condescension that I decided I'd show him. Hot-cheeked, I left him there without another word and walked straight to the little pond that the Hyuga kept in their garden. I'd seen it earlier. There were frogs and fish in there. Stupidly for him, the boy followed me, hands in his pockets. Apparently he hadn't really returned to reading the scroll, he had just pretended to ignore me in order to annoy me. And now that it was me doing the ignoring, he was the one who got annoyed. I might have taken his following me around as a peace offering if it weren't because he was looking at me as though I were a funny little hamster performing parlor tricks. He really thought himself that far above me, huh? Well, I'd show him parlor tricks!

Thus, I crouched patiently by the pond and waited. One minute passed, then two.

"What, you trying to catch a tadpole or something?" The boy was still standing next to me, eyebrows raised. "You know that's not how you do it, right? It's not just going to swim into your hand–" He cut himself off, for a large tadpole had done just that. They always did, eventually.

I smirked at him smugly. "You were saying?"

"Tch. Beginner's luck."

"Oh, yeah?" I said, turning back to the tadpole. I pictured myself throwing it at his stupid mug and how the tadpole would wriggle around and make trouble. That would teach the jerk!

And then I did just that.

Lightning quick, I chugged the tadpole in his direction, aiming for the face. He hadn't been counting on that, and I watched wide-eyed, almost like it was happening in slow motion, as the tadpole landed smack dab on the boy's forehead, and then slimily slipped down, down, down… and into his mask. There was a moment of silence, where he just stared at me incredulously, as though he couldn't quite believe my nerve.

And then the tadpole started wriggling under there.

It was glorious. The boy jumped a mile and tore his mask off, accidentally making the tadpole fal into his shirt. I saw it wriggling down and the boy trying to desperately remove it, but it was slippery and small…

I couldn't hold it in and started laughing. "So… what'd you say again? Beginner's luck? Maybe you should call me professional instead!"

The boy's following glare could've cut diamonds. One second I was standing there, laughing at him, next second I was somehow falling into the pond.

"GAH!" It was cold and wet and unpleasant. "You pushed me!"

"Ha." The boy gave me a superior smirk. Happily, it was quickly wiped off his face when the tadpole acted up again.

This is the scene the adults walked into: him flailing and hopping about, trying to get the amphibian off him though resembling someone who really needs to pee because the tadpole had slipped into his pants. Me in the pond, splashing about and gurgling, clinging to a bird fountain because I couldn't swim. Both of us yelling bloody murder.

Needless to say, daddy was not pleased with my performance. After he had rescued me from the pond (which was apparently waist deep for an adult) and I had made an idiot out of myself in front of everybody for not knowing how to swim, daddy lead me to some empty part of the Hyuga garden and gave me a strict talking to.

Apparently, the target of my tadpole was called Hatake Kakashi and his dad was a village big shot, which made sense with him being at the party, but apparently he was a really powerful bighsot plus an old friend of his. Needless to say, daddy was not pleased with my actions. I tried to defend myself but Daddy wouldn't hear it. He angrily informed me that he was beginning to think I was spoiled, that the clan was spoiling me. I was mad and hurt by this accusation, but daddy cut me off, saying that educated people do not go about sneaking tadpoles into people's shirts after a rejected friendship offer.

"But the boy acted so arrogant," I tried to explain. "Like stories are stupid! Like I am stupid!"

"Arrogantly, Inoue-chan." Inoichi corrected with a sigh, seeming to soften. "Look… I'm the first to be bothered when others look down on me, but you have to understand the situational context here."

I frowned. "Uh?"

Daddy explained gently. "See, Inoue, the thing is… Hatake Kakashi is a prodigy. That means he's very smart and used to hearing that constantly. He has a much easier time than other children in picking up some skills, plus his dad is really talented and devoted to his education… and he pushes Kakashi-kun a lot. There's much hard work behind his achievements, but from what I've heard, they are quite amazing for someone so young. That's why… can you blame Kakashi-kun if it gets to his head a little?"

I did understand, but I was still annoyed. Most notably because no one had ever told me that I was particularly smart or a "prodigy". I wanted to be one too!

"Well I disagree!" I huffed. "If he's so smart he should know that he won't get any friends by acting so standoffish! And everybody knows having friends is the best part of the Academy. So he's kinda dumb, in the end."

Someone chuckled. Daddy almost jumped a mile high but I didn't. I was kinda used to people constantly sneaking about soundlessly and random moms appearing out of nowhere to grab my cheeks and coo, so the surprise factor had kinda worn off. I turned around and was relieved to see that the person who'd chuckled wasn't a cooing mom or anything.

"Who're you? Daddy and I were having a talk, you know," I reprimanded him. "It's kinda rude to interrupt us like that."

Daddy was flushing weirdly and covering his face with his hand.

"Ah, don't mind Inoue-chan, Sakumo," he said quickly, putting a hand over my mouth to silence me. I bit his hand, trying to get free, but daddy didn't so much as flinch and kept smiling at this Sakumo.

The guy had white hair and a long ponytail, just like daddy's, except spiky. His eyes were so dark they looked black and there were slight laugh-lines on his face.

Sakumo chuckled again and shook his head. "It's fine, Inoichi. My son's just as mouthy as your kid so I'm quite used to it." Wait… was he the rude boy's daddy? Oh… whoops?

Clearly oblivious to my realization, Sakumo got a more serious look on his face and crouched down, so his face was level with mine. I was expecting the worst. "You know," Sakumo told me, "that was a pretty brilliant sneak attack, Inoue-chan. I know Kakashi can be a little shit sometimes so it's good you put him in his place. He was quite startled, I think!"

Wha…? I blinked at him, confused. Oh, so he understood me!

"Well I think you should read Kakashi some fairy-tales, sir," I confided seriously. "I really wanted to be his friend but I can't be friends with anyone who doesn't know any stories! What would we even talk about? And Kakashi acted like liking stories is bad." I was sort of hoping that would clear things up. If Sakumo saw just what an infraction Kakashi had committed, then he'd understand why I'd felt the need to throw a tadpole at him.

"Ah, well…" There was a silence. "My wife passed away at birth, you see, and I'm afraid I don't know any fairy-tales I could tell him," Sakumo said lightly.

"Oh." I gaped at him. "You mean he doesn't know any?!" Also, what did passing away mean?

"'fraid not," Sakumo said, still in that light tone.

I was so shocked I was at a loss for words. "But… but if Kakashi doesn't know any stories, then how can he think they're bad?!"

My daddy chuckled. "You know, to answer that question I fear we'd have to call some of our best anthropologists here, Inoue-chan." I blinked, wondering what that was supposed to be, but Sakumo seemed to agree:

"Human nature makes little sense, nor does it follow any logic. Even we shinobi rarely do, though we should." Sakumo's thoughtful look disappeared and he turned back toward me. "Anyway, Inoue-chan. I'm afraid I didn't just come here to tell you that your prank was brilliant. I also wanted to ask you to avoid sticking anything into Kakashi's mask in the future, please."

I was oddly upset at this. I should've known he'd be boring like all adults.

"But… but you said you thought my prank was brilliant!" I reminded him, hoping his reason would return.

"That I did," Sakumo said, "however, I'm afraid I must still ask this of you." He explained why too, which is pretty rare for most adults, but Sakumo did. He told me that Kakashi had something called a split lip and that it could get infected and become dangerous for him, which is why he had to wear a surgical mask over it; so that it didn't get infected. And then he explained to me that pond water is bad because all sorts of infections and bacteria swim around, and that by chugging a tadpole from a pond down his mask, I'd practically made sure his split lip would get infected and that would be Bad.

I… really hadn't expected that. First, to learn that Kakashi was forced to wear that stuffy mask already made me feel really bad for him, but second, that he would get an infection and that it was my fault… I really didn't mean for that to happen! I started thinking of how grandma died from an evil bacteria and then of Kakashi and how he didn't know any stories and his mom had passed away, whatever that meant (but it sounded bad), and before I knew it I was crying my eyes out and bawling that I didn't meant it and that I didn't want Kakashi to die even if he was a jerk. The two adults were busy sharing glances and being adult-y, as if my concerns weren't perfectly valid!

Suddenly, someone chopped me in the head. "You clearly don't know anything about bacteria, or you'd realize I'm not gonna keel over from this," someone said behind me. "Besides I already got it looked at by a medic that was here so it's fine. Hope you catch a cold though, that would teach you. Ha." My sight was kinda blurred but I'd recognize the voice anywhere.

"Kakashi?!" The adults laughed, but I didn't. The jerk wanted me to get a cold!