Chapter 8

Panting, Yukiko wiped the sweat off her face with her sleeve. She then prepared herself to leap to the closest branch upside-down. She detached from the branch as she diverted chakra away from her feet. Quickly, she refocused chakra back to her feet so that she could be safely attached to the next branch. Unfortunately, her timing was not perfect. Gravity pulled her downwards, head first.

The Chuunin sighed as she flipped in midair and landed skillfully on the ground. She looked up and saw Kakashi only a few feet away from her. He looked scared. "What's wrong?" she pondered as she laid herself on the grass, exhausted.

"Uh, nothing," the fear on his face was instantly replaced by relief. The truth was, the Jounin had been watching his trainee from far, his heart had almost popped out when he had witnessed her drop from a 30-feet tall tree. He should've known better that a Chuunin should be able to land safely even if she had fallen from a height of 50 feet. Without thinking, he had dashed out, intending to 'save' her. Of course, he had just sort of embarrassed himself.

"It's already lunchtime?" Yukiko asked with her eyes closed, still panting.

"Right," Kakashi immediately went back to his hiding place behind some trees to grab the ramen he had bought earlier. Yukiko sat up, looking at the boy in a weird way. "Why did you put the lunch over there?"

"I bought beef ramen, is that good?" he avoided the question.

"Sure," the girl eyed him suspiciously as she took the ramen and a pair of disposable chopsticks from him. "Thanks."

She snapped apart her chopsticks and got ready to eat. Yukiko paused as she noticed something interesting. She stared at Kakashi, wondering how his face would look like under the mask. This was the perfect opportunity to see his 'secret identity'.

The Jounin froze, sensing the curious stare. Slowly, his eyes met hers. "What are you staring at?"

"You of course."

Blushing, he inquired, "Why?"

"I have never seen you eat before, just wondering how handsome you would be maskless," Yukiko sucked up with her best smile.

His face darkened and turned away quickly. A slurping noise was heard and she grabbed his shoulder in order to spin him around. His face remained masked. She looked at his empty ramen bowl and pouted, "YOU SUCK!"

"Why do you want to see my face anyway?" he asked.

"Why don't you want me to see your face anyway?" she asked back.

"..."

"Is it because Gai's better-looking than you?" Yukiko asked intentionally, aware of the rivalry between the two boys.

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "No way! Of course I'm better looking!"

"Sure you are," she said sarcastically, beginning to eat her lunch.

'Crap, now she thinks I'm uglier than Gai! Is that even possible? I cannot let her believe such ridiculous lie!' Kakashi panicked. As he was trying to think of a way to clear the misunderstanding, he felt his mask being pulled down suddenly. Yukiko had successfully revealed the biggest secret of his when he had lowered his guard.

She stared at his most handsome face, mesmerized for a moment. Every feature on his face looked perfect except that it looked like he hadn't shaved for a while. "Why in the world would you hide your face?"

Kakashi turned away roughly, putting back his mask in place. "Don't look!"

She could not understand why he had to hide his face, especially, in her humble opinion, the boy was quite hot.

"I didn't shave."

"Is that why you wear your mask?!" The Chuunin started to laugh, hoping that was not the only reason he hid his face. "You are kidding me!"

"NO! Well, when I was a kid, I thought that ninjas are supposed to look mysterious. That's why I started wearing the mask," Kakashi paused then added, "to look cool."

Yukiko found it amusing that Kakashi had tried to look 'cool' when he was a kid. She held back her laughter and motioned him to go on.

"Afterwards, I got a tan line from doing too much outdoor training, so I had to hid my embarrassment," he scratched his head, looking rather embarrassed. "Later on, I discovered that I wouldn't have to shave often if I put on a mask and I figured that if I put on suntan lotion, I could fix the tan line problem."

"You...put suntan lotion on your face? Or, rather, around your eyes?" she gave him a 'you-are-a-weirdo' look. The boy looked away, upset that he had totally ruined his 'image' in front of his crush.

"Take it off," Yukiko told him.

"Take what off?" Startled, Kakashi asked.

'Oops, that sounded bad,' Yukiko realized as she blushed slightly. "Your mask! What else?"

"No," The Jounin simply said.

"How do you kiss a girl with your mask on?" She inquired, a hand supporting her chin. A shade of red crept up Kakashi's face as he wondered, 'Does she want to kiss me?'

"Well, why would I want to kiss a girl?" he tried to avoid the question.

Yukiko arched an eyebrow, "You would want to kiss...a guy instead? I thought you said you didn't like Iruka."

"When did I say I didn't like Iruka?!"

"So you like Iruka?" For some reason, she found herself disappointed that her trainer might be a homosexual. Yukiko wondered why she had this uneasy feeling. She should be joyful instead since she had always wanted to set them up.

"NO! I never said anything about liking or disliking Iruka! I like girls! I like you!" Kakashi blurted out his confession without intending to.

Silence fell. The deep-red Jounin closed his mouth slowly and gulped. He stole a glance of Yukiko quickly. She was just staring back in awe. Various thoughts were processing in her head, 'Did he just confess? What should I do? He is the popular genius. Not to mention the handsome face I just saw. Why the hell is my heart beating so fast like it's gonna jump out of my chest?! I feel so hot right now. Damn! My face must be burning red!'

"OK," she cleared her throat, desperately finding the right words to say. She slowly spit out some words, "So I guess you aren't gay."

Kakashi frowned, wondering if that wasn't obvious enough. "No, I am not."

"Good."

Silence fell once more as a squirrel walked by. Their gaze followed the creature until it disappeared in a bush.

"So..." Kakashi's heartbeat accelerated as he thought, frustrated. 'Can't she just say something?! It's killing me! At least let me know if I'm being rejected or not!'

"I ...suppose I like you too," she finally said, eyes still on the bush in which the squirrel disappeared. She felt heat on her cheeks. The boy blinked several times, making sure he wasn't dreaming. A smile finally spread across Kakashi's face as he took his mask off. Yukiko looked over and asked, "Why are you taking your mask off?"

"Just in case you wanna kiss me," he grinned at her happily like a fool.

Her eyes widened slightly and hit his head with her elbow violently, "In your dreams!" while the Inner Yukiko smiled just as happily as her new boyfriend did.

A/N: Sorry about the grammar. I don't have time to look over it! Umm...I'm glad you like my fic. Please continue to review!

JoyC ~ In all my other Naruto fics, I had made up names for my OCs: Makiko and Kyome. They sound Jap, but seriously, I don't even know if they are real Japanese words. I got tired of making up names, so I just used Yukiko this time. About the meaning of the name... why don't you ask Yukiko? XD