Ninth Kiss: Dash

"Your spelling is atrocious." Kakashi looked up from his scroll that he was wrestling out a report onto. A pair of legs propped up on a table crossed at the ankles spoke to him. He wanted to ignore Kurenai's astute barb, but couldn't pass up the chance to retort.

"If you think you could do it any better-"

"Don't you even think about shoving any of it onto my lap," Kurenai ruffled the newspaper she was scanning languidly, "do your own reports, for once, Hatake Kakashi." The chair screeched on the yellowing parquet and she stalked over to the coffee maker to refill her red mug. The foggy brown-stained glass pot was empty; Kurenai churned it watching the final few drops rotate at the base. She huffed and knelt down to retrieve the tea tin and kettle from the cabinet underneath. Running the tap she filled the dented green metal kettle and firing up the hotplate she sat it on the charred and scorched range. She pulled out a lemon from the fridge and dropped a slice she cut into her washed mug. Hovering over the slowly heating kettle Kurenai tilted a hip impatiently, that myth about watching water causing it to boil slower may hold some truth to it. Kakashi's warm clasp on her shoulders kneading her taut muscles got her hackles rising.

"Talk to me please."

"You do have atrocious spelling." Kurenai evaded. He leant over and kissed her one exposed shoulder.

"Wrong answer."

Since he was not willing to play nicely, she had no choice but to pull out the big guns. "When was the last time you visited his grave?" The pleasant back rub Kurenai was receiving ceased and Kakashi recoiled, but not of either disgust or anger.

"I never visited… if that makes you feel better."

FWEEEEET!

Kurenai turned off the hotplate and wrapped a grease-splotched pea green daisy print potholder around the kettle's handle as she filled her mug. She dropped in a rose teabag and spun facing her lover.

"Let's go after your shift is up." Kakashi's slumped shoulders rose and fell from his sigh, and plunged his hands into his pockets.

"What got you on this kick, if you don't mind me asking?" Taking her time, Kurenai decided to drag out the suspense and stirred the sugar and cream into her tea, tasting it to test the temperature.

"Gai isn't as stupid as you think."

Kakashi scratched the back of his gray head. "I never said he was," he rolled his eyes. Kurenai slit her ruby ones menacingly at him.

"He found that letter you wrote in a dumpster. If you wanted to get rid of it you should have destroyed it first." Kakashi faintly recalled scribbling a message posthumously to his father… in his atrocious spelling.

"And he came to you with this?" Kakashi's quick mind was already devising plans to exact his revenge on his eternal rival that hopefully wouldn't punt him off the mortal coil.

"You know perfectly well how I felt about your father," Kurenai snaked her arms about his neck attempting to charm Kakashi into dancing to her tune.

"Sometimes I wonder about that."

"What do you mean?"

He cupped her ass invoking a shiver to zing up her spine. "Think I don't know about that chocolate you made for him for Valentine's?"

"I was 12, Kakashi," Kurenai jerked a wisp of his wiry gray hair. "Ever heard of hero worship?"

"I am the jealous type," he shrugged. Kurenai shoved him.

"Nani!" He pulled her to him an effort to decrease the tension between them. "Dumbass…" Kurenai growled.

"Don't be like that," Kakashi nipped at her ear unsuccessfully. Kurenai jabbed him in the ribs with a scroll, yellowed and torn from the unkind passage of time.

"So you'll do it?"

————————

The headstone of the White Fang was ill-kept and abused by vengeful Konoha citizens. Sunken into the mossy earth obliquely, the short granite obelisk bore Hatake Sakumo's name accompanied by rust stains and a labyrinth of cracks. Chunks of the stone had been wrenched out and Kakashi toed the upturned earth with the sole of his boot, the marker was recently reset in its original position having been most likely kicked over.

Kurenai placed forget-me-not's into the conical iron vase welded onto the stone and watered it. After lighting a pair of incense sticks and a brief meditation he left his scroll by the gravesite and the couple departed. A comforting wind blew through the graveyard rolling the scroll just a touch and the old parchment crackled as the aged wax seal broke unraveling it.

'Dad,

Can you understand my heart-ache?'

OWARI