Week 2: Hunger — May 10: starvation/jealousy | prompts by KakaSaku Haven on tumblr
Sakura huffed out breath and squared her shoulders as she went to answer the knock at her door. She knew what she'd find behind it, and she wasn't pleased. Yanking the door open, she glared up into the masked face of her most infuriating friend. The sight of what was clearly a shit-eating grin under his mask had her mood plummeting further. "Of course. The only time you're actually on time is when it comes at my expense; just, get inside already."
Chuckling to himself, Kakashi squeezed past her, as she made no move to accommodate his entrance, and made his way to her kitchen. As he went, his sing-song voice taunted, "Why, Sakura, I'm overcome with the warmth of your welcome."
When she finally dragged herself after him having run out of ways to postpone the inevitable, Sakura found Kakashi unloading the grocery bags he'd brought, laying everything out in a seemingly haphazard manner on her limited counter space.
"I can't believe shishou is doing this to me." Who even knew there was such a thing as remedial cooking classes? It's not as if she'd flunked her home ec course at the academy; she just didn't particularly excel at it. At all.
"Tsunade-sama did seem concerned that you might accidentally poison your teammates with your current culinary skills." Eliciting the response he was clearly after with that remark, Kakashi smirked when he heard Sakura snarl behind him and start ranting. "Bullshit! She's just pissed that she didn't like my bento box, which she stole from the communal fridge because her hungover ass was too lazy to order a minion to get her her own damn food! There's nothing wrong with my cooking!"
Kakashi chose to ignore that last remark as they both knew he had years of mission meals to present as evidence of the inaccuracy of her claim. But he did send her a raised eyebrow. The slight flush that rose up her neck told him his message was received.
Sakura still had a slight ringing in her ears from Tsunade's earlier tirade. Her outrage was rather impressive, she thought, considering the impetus. Sakura was almost enjoying the karmic justice of Tsunade dry-heaving over her stolen lunch, but then her stomach dropped at Tsunade's next command. Turning to the ANBU guard closest to her, Tsunade had barked out, "Get me that lazy, good-for-nothing team leader. If he resists, tell him I'll assign him a new genin team." Thirty minutes later, Kakashi entered the office with a slightly accelerated saunter. Tsunade knew well what truly terrified the copy ninja.
Kakashi spared Sakura a brief glance before making his way to Tsunade's desk. Sakura watched on in mortification as Tsunade demanded Kakashi rectify the glaring oversight in her apprentice's education and Kakashi's easy, immediate, and deeply suspicious acquiescence.
Deciding to stop before she dug herself any deeper, Sakura crossed her arms with a huff and demanded, "Well, what are we making then?"
Spreading his hands out grandly at her now over-crowded counter, he happily said, "spring rolls, of course." At her unimpressed look, he continued, "A versatile dish that can be paired with many things, can be eaten noon or night, and will give you practice with fine-motor prep skills."
That earned him an eyeroll, "Pretty sure as a surgeon and ninja, I'm good with the fine-motor skills."
Sakura was not good. She might be able to employ sharp objects for delicate procedures in the field, but apparently it did not translate into vegetable-cutting skills. Goddamn recipes calling for goddamn julienned carrots. Sakura realized she probably should have eaten before she embarked on this exercise in humility. As if in agreement, her stomach rumbled loudly, shattering the general quiet of the kitchen.
"Hungry?" Kakashi asked with an amused look. "That should help motivate you to pick up the pace. Did you know you are still on your first carrot?"
Gracing him with a decidedly unamused face, tinged the tiniest bit red, she put on her best medic voice. "Starvation does not, in fact, enable someone to perform optimally and with great dexterity and speed." She ended by lifting her nose up in the air and giving a slight sniff, for good measure.
"Oh, starvation, is it?" He countered with a smile. "Well, I guess we better do something about that," he relented with a sigh. Picking up the rice paper wrappers, he carefully separated one from the pack and unfurled it, patting down the edges softly. He reached out and dragged the bowl of butchered carrot slivers toward his station without glancing up from where he was smoothing out a small wrinkle in the wrapper. Scooping up a measured amount of carrot and a pinch of celery, he rather tenderly, Sakura thought, laid them out just so onto the wrapper.
While watching the mesmerizing show of Kakashi's hands, Sakura found her mouth slowly drop open as his assembling progressed. He's being so careful, she thought, almost loving, and look how he's holding that slice of unagi. She forcibly pinched herself at that. I will not be jealous of a piece of eel, she shouted at herself. But look how his soft-but-firm hold massages that plump morsel! purred Inner Sakura. Sakura's mouth went a little dry at the sight of the unagi being tenderly laid atop the carefully arranged vegetables. Swallowing hard, she supposed it had been a while since she'd had any bedmates. She'd been joking earlier, but maybe she really was starving. She mentally groused that it was a shame food wasn't what she needed to satiate this hunger.
As she felt herself spiraling a bit, Kakashi finished his last bit of adjustment on his spring roll and plated it. But instead of handing it over to her to appease her intermittently growling stomach, he moved the plate further away and brought forward a few small bowls. There were herbs and spices in a few of the bowls and some dollops of sauces in others. Taking an empty bowl, Kakashi began to methodically combine the various substances. Sakura admired how deftly he manipulated the materials with his chopsticks. Was there nothing this man didn't excel at? She despaired. Why despair when you could be benefitting from all that expertise, Inner Sakura cackled. Sakura felt her cheeks pinken.
It was just as she wondered how long her blush would last that she realized Kakashi was talking to her. Or at least trying to. "Sorry, what was that? I got distracted by an idea for a patient." She hoped her smile was convincingly innocent looking and that her blush would be attributed to embarrassment at spacing out on his cooking instruction.
Kakashi was convinced that whatever had distracted Sakura—and she certainly was distracted—had nothing to do with a patient. He'd noticed how intently she'd followed his earlier movements, which offered some interesting suggestions in and of itself as to what had her so captivated. He also knew he wouldn't get any closer to confirming his theory if he called her out on her excuse. "I said, I don't want to make the dipping sauce too hot, so give it a taste and let me know if you want it hotter."
"Oh! Sure—" it was then that Sakura looked down and saw that Kakashi was holding up his index finger to her, the tip of which was coated in the dark, thick sauce. She gulped and felt her face suffuse with heat. Clearing her throat and casting a quick embarrassed glance up at a clearly amused Kakashi, Sakura ducked her head down toward his raised finger. Softly parting her lips, she exhaled a hard breath against his skin before dipping further and taking the tip into her mouth. Gently, almost reverently, Sakura grazed her tongue over the pad of his thumb, thrilling at the feel of the ridges of his fingertip across her sensitive muscle as it lapped up the hot and sweet sauce.
It was Kakashi's turn to swallow audibly. He had expected to feel a swell of smug satisfaction at confirming his suspicion as to the nature of Sakura's distracted mind. He was not, however, prepared for what he actually felt in that moment: heat coiling in his abdomen. His mind blanked out briefly before being bombarded with all his hypersensitive senses were committing to memory: her hot, wet mouth, with its slick, firm tongue; the way she bathed his fingertip with little licks before swirling her tongue around the entire tip, ensuring the capture of every last bit of sauce. His imagination was overwhelmed with ideas of how else to utilize her talented mouth.
Clearing his throat as she finally released his finger with a pop, Kakashi watched, with a heated gaze, his finger follow after Sakura's mouth as she raised her head. His still-wet index finger slid lightly across her bottom lip, tracing its seam. At Sakura's startled intake, Kakashi met her confused-yet-aroused gaze.
As he felt his eyelids droop, he brought his head towards her face. "Suddenly, I find I'm not all that hungry for spring rolls," he breathed out before replacing his finger with his lips.