-1Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of those characters.

Ch.3

"I miss our sparring."

There was a pause.

"Huh… what was that?"

"Sparring… I miss our training together."

Hazel orbs lit by the December, morning glow, peer at him over the top of his book, delicate face framed in sienna locks. Setting the book in his lap, he put his full attention on the kunoichi who sat with her arms wrapped about his right, bent leg, chin resting stop his knee. His hitai-ate was pushed up and mask pulled down, something he did often and almost always when he was just with her. He noticed both her eyes watched his piebald left, something the woman did often, and he chuckle inwardly to himself. You're lucky I know you so well, he mused in thought. She blinked lazily when his eyes creased in amusement, the corners of his lips gently upturned in a smile, and her eyes then swept between the crimson and black spotted sharingan, and the other, deepening grey, every few moments.

"They aren't really necessary… you're more than better now," he told at last, answering her question. Feeling the grip from her long, slender fingers of both hands tighten gently about his leg, he waited for her response. But, first she lowered her head so her brow was flat to his kneecap, her hair curtaining about it. Slowly, her hand trailed down his leg to the dark blue holster to unsnap the little catch, then re-snap it over and over again. It made him think of people who attacked those squishy foam balls to relieve stress. He learned to drone out the snapping noise some years ago, and waited for her to submerge from her 'hiding spot'. He knew she almost had it all out when the snapping increased its tempo, then slowly receded until she snapped it shut for the last time, her hand returning to its former perch on his leg.

"I know," she started to respond, her voice muffled slightly, then her head lifted and her chin plopped into his knee once more. "I'm just sayin'." His other leg rose, she between the two, and he leaned it to her, nudging her in the back. She frowned and filled her cheek with air, they puffing out like a squirrel, until it slowly leak out when her lips barely parted. Her eyes looked past him, blank, he figuring she was lost in thought. His foot slid out until his leg lay flesh with the earth once more, and he lifted his book back up and continued to scan the familiar pages.

"It's Shiranui, isn't it?" he asked after a few minutes of silence. Her head rose slightly as she opened her mouth and then snapped her jaw shut, earning a tap from her pearly teeth as they connected, which sent a small vibration through his leg. Another thing she did when she was reminiscing. Her eyes closed as she let out a soft sigh, arms wrapping tighter about his legs, she started swaying. She felt him tense his muscles so she wouldn't topple over as she did so. After hearing the soft pop from what she concluded was the joint of his femur and his pelvis, she stopped and frowned.

"Sorry…"

"It's alright… but you didn't answer my question."

Her eyes opened to see he had set his book back down in his lap, his eyes boring into her own. Such an intense stare he had, she found it slightly made her timid, and made her think about their past all at once. With a groan, she gave in and nodded. He had thought as much; rumors tend to spread quickly through Konoha, especially through the elite due to one, overly observant, Mitarashi Anko. Biting down on her lip gently, she shook her head and averted her eyes.

"Eh… I feel like I'm twelve again," she mumbled, and he didn't have to ask what she meant by that. "…Genma might be a good guy… but he's also a good whore…" This drew a chuckle from the silver haired jounin she lounged on like a lazy housecat. She decided that if she had claws, she'd use his leg for a scratching post at that moment. Instead, she lifted her head and not too gently gave him a bite on the knee. "Don't laugh," she said through a mouth full of dark, navy jounin pants. The grin he wore was genuine, but he ceased his chuckles.

"He is a good guy, but he does have his quirks. You'll just have to be patient, Tsuka," he told, using that little nickname to address her, knowing she didn't really enjoy it all too well, made clear when she gave his leg a little pinch. But, she did take heed of his words with a 'hmm' and let the bunch of pant fall from her teeth. Lately, when she concerned herself and Genma, she felt like a small portion of his many meals of women. An appetizer while others tended to be the main entrée. Others who she knew to be quite open in what they were willing to offer. She wasn't nearly as willing as them most of the time.

On those night filled with sake and lust, things tend to get out of hand. She wasn't overly proud of herself, but being honest with herself, she wasn't getting any young. That made her grin. Here she was saying this where she was merely in her twenties and practically at her peek. Perhaps Genma noticed this only when all other woman became a bore and he wanted something a bit more conservative. She didn't really think of herself as a conservative person, but her demeanor and expressions often spoke for her when her mouth moved naught. She wondered what he thought on those nights after she'd slip out of his apartment back to her own, or he from hers?

After that May day when he walked her home, he and her spent the next month becoming more acquainted, until their time together dwindled to very little the month after. Currently, she'd find him lounging upon her door step after a long day's training, or she'd find herself wandering past his in hopes that he'd be returning from the pub, which more than half of those times he was doing just that. Although, not as gifted as Kakashi, Genma was one to praise. She silently blamed Kakashi, thinking he started this all when he allowed Genma to come unaccompanied to train her that day. Whatever made her soften up to Genma was unknown to her, and she learned she really didn't change the flirting jounin one bit when it came to women over the past months.

Coming back to reality, she noticed her lazy friend reading, his eyes slowly pursuing the lines of the book in his hands. She had a brief encounter with her life a few years ago as she watched the former man in her life become engrossed in a world she really never cared to discover for herself. But, of course he knew her eyes were on him, soaking him in and tracing his strong jaw line and the scar that ran over his left eye. Although he knew the way she hung on him was innocent and meant nothing, he knew that she secretly wish that it could still mean something. It did still held the same effect, though, and he had to admit that even though she didn't mean to flirt or subconsciously taunt him, that was the very thing she managed to put forth.

When he felt the weight on his leg disappear, he didn't have to look up from his reading material to know her next move. Just as quickly as her warmth and weight had left him, it was back in the form of her arms wrapped about his waist and her head buried into his chest. Holding the book in one hand, he wrapped his arms about the woman, his hand resting with a comforting affect on her hip. A sigh escaped her lips and she secretly wanted the embrace to be more than one shared between friends. He had to close his eyes for a brief moment himself, and allow thoughts of stealing her away and relieving her of his flirtatious friend to pass, remembering that he could probably cause the woman much more pain than Genma.

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The lights in her tidy apartment we all off. The kitchen cast in a celestial glow from the moon, along with the fluorescent glow of a street light, that poured through the window, the blinds pulled back to allow its entrance. The only noise came from the soft ticks of a clock on the wall, and the chirps of crickets outside her window. She sat at her kitchen table, clad in but a simple robe of forest green. Staring lazily out the window at the lamp post, her keen eyes could make out the flickering forms of moths trying to absorb the warmth.

Damn…

The clock on the wall with its perpetual ticking told her it was almost five in the morning, she could see the dark sky above Konoha begin to fade away into the beginnings of a lighter azure mingled with gold on the horizon about the tops of the buildings and trees. Leaning back in her that cold, metal chair, she made her bare feet lay flesh against the cool tile, sending a shiver up her body, making the delicate skin become flushed with goose bumps.

He had come again that night. After spending the rest of the day with Kakashi in the clearing, then the ramen stand after her offer of dinner, she returned home to find him waiting for her in the shadows of her doorstep. She was a bit surprised, it had been a few weeks since last he came. She remembered watching her breath become wispy vapor in the cold December air. With a handsome smirk, Genma took her into a warming embrace, and that's when the two found their way inside.

He always leaves at four…

It was true, he'd leave usually at four in the morning, sometimes earlier. She'd always find herself at the table she currently occupied, running over the night's events, trying to decide what she really wanted from the senbon loving jounin. She did have a mission briefing in a few hours, and decided that during her time gone, she could think about it then. Rising from her chair, she headed off to shower clean sweat and Genma's rich and alluring cologne, a smell that had also managed to find her way into her sheets most nights he stopped by.