i. the hardest hue to hold

When the ANBU application landed on his desk that morning, Kakashi glanced at the candidate's photograph and looked up at Shikamaru. "No."

His young advisor ground his teeth and rubbed the back of his neck—a habit of his when he was annoyed, which, Kakashi had realized early on in his career as the Sixth, was quite often.

"Lord Hokage," Shikamaru said. It was Tuesday morning in the Hokage's office and his boss was already acting up. "I know it's not easy, but you can't just—"

"I can, and I just did, Shikamaru." Kakashi settled into his big leather chair and shooed away the offending document with an imperious wave of his hand. The early light flooding in through the window behind him grew warmer against his neck. "Next candidate."

Shikamaru's old man never told him the Hokage's advisor was basically just a glorified babysitter. Throughout his years, he realized there was some weird, inverse correlation between strength and emotional intelligence—the more one had of the former, the more lacking one was in the latter department. Other case-in-point: that monster duo from Team 7.

Actually, maybe it was just a Team 7 thing.

"Kakashi-san, Haruno Sakura would be a spectacular asset to ANBU, you can't deny that. Besides, the Village charter dictates that all able-bodied applicants be given the opportunity to go through the selection trials. You need to sign off on this."

Kakashi stuck a pinky in his ear, making it clear his auditory canal was occupied by matters more pressing than the utter horseshit Shikamaru was trying to shovel in. Sakura was a spectacular candidate, there was no denying that. His female student was on the fast track to becoming a legend, and some had heralded her as the second coming of Tsunade—trained by two Hokages, teammates of both the Savior of the World and The Last Uchiha—not only was her resume resplendent, but she had also had the right pedigree.

But she did not belong on ANBU. Whatever bureaucratic gimmick Shikamaru was trying to push onto him, Kakashi wasn't buying that snake oil.

Unfortunately for him, stuffing Kakashi's ears with bureaucracy was exactly what Shikamaru was paid to do. The young man brought both hands down on the desk and skewered Kakashi with the cut-the-bullshit-you-fucking-flake look he had picked up from Temari.

"Kakashi-san, you can't let your emotions get in the way. You're the Sixth Hokage. ANBU is suffering from a shortage of bodies at the moment. We took a heavy blow to our black-ops forces during the Fourth Great War. And you've read the reports—even if the nine nations are calling it The Great Peace, there're those who've been exploiting the post-war instability. There are talks that Matsuoka is beginning to make moves."

"Shikamaru!" Kakashi snapped his fingers and sprung to his feet. His advisor looked at him, hope beginning to break across his face just like the early morning light breaking through the windows behind them.

"I just remembered! Today they're selling the special dangos at Ushikawa-san's store."

"Kakashi-san!"

"Don't worry." Kakashi slipped out of his robe and tossed it onto the coatrack behind him. "I'll be sure to get you some, too."

And before Shikamaru could give him another earful, Kakashi clapped one hand on the young man's shoulder and then disappeared from his responsibilities, quite literally, leaving nothing more than a puff of smoke for Shikamura to reckon with.

On mornings like these, both men hated their jobs.

[xxx]

Old District was one of the few areas that had been spared by Pain's attack, an event now dating almost a decade before. Unlike the newer architecture that rose above the trees in all their shiny steel and glass glory, the apartments located in the Old District were outdated, cramped, andwildly sought after by most of Konoha's younger population. The price was unbeatable: nowhere else could Sakura get a studio room for same price as two weeks' worth of groceries. Sure, the toilet from the unit upstairs was leaking through the ceiling, and maybe she'd seen more than a handful of roaches scatter whenever she flicked on the lights, and yeah the two left burners on her stove didn't turn on, but like most young shinobi who didn't hail come from famous clans, she wasn't exactly rolling in it at the moment.

The calculus was simple: the higher the risk, the higher the pay, and the most dangerous missions were also the most lucrative jobs, but in this new era of peace, those were growing increasingly hard to come by. Lately she'd have a better shot at seeing Hatake Kakashi's face beneath his mask than an S-rank mission. All the real juicy assignments involving blood and subterfuge—when they did arise— seemed to be going to the ANBU guys.

Case in point, that morning she had just returned to her apartment from another drudgery of a mission: a rather cut and dry escort gig between Konoha and Suna. Back in the day, escort missions still had a frisson of danger running through them, especially for the higher profile clients. Ambushes, assassination attempts, and double-agents were all very real possibilities that used to keep Sakura awake at night and on her toes when she was on the job.

Her latest client, however, had been a six-year-old girl whose estranged father in Suna had demanded to see. The girl's mother had hired a shinobi escort to make sure her ex-husband wouldn't take off with the daughter in violation of their custody agreement. The greatest bodily danger Sakura had faced was a papercut when the father had thrown a bunch of legal forms into her face.

Sakura unbuckled her weapons pouch and set it on her coffee table and took the five short steps to her bed, flopping face-first into the lumpy mattress in a travel-weary heap. The mission hadn't been technically difficult and Sakura generally liked children, but her young charge had a the lungs of an elephant and a mouth that ran faster than Naruto's ever did. At least with Naruto she used to be able to shut him up with a right hook when they were kids.

She had been weighing the merits of taking a shower (Pro: she wouldn't have travel funk on her anymore. Con: she'd have to get up) for scarcely a minute when a loud rap at her door interrupted her thoughts. She shut her eyes—telling herself she had been about to fall asleep, which was effectively as good as being asleep. She slowed her breathing and stilled herself. Her visitor knocked again. She willed herself to sink into the mattress, willing herself to sink down into that dark, deep abyss of sleep—

"Sakura," a familiar voice said through the thin metal door. A pause followed, long enough to sow seeds of hope her teacher had given up and gone away.

"Sakura, I just saw you go in."

She groaned and flopped over, scooching off her mattress in a mess of pink hair, her mouth and shoulders sagging in reluctance as she dragged herself to greet her visitor. She recognized the voice as Kakakshi's, Hokage of the Hidden Leaf and Supreme Commander in Chief, a.k.a. Everyone's Boss. He could've been The Grand Poobah for all Sakura cared. The only reason she had gotten out of bed was because the last time she tried ignoring his house call, he had come in through her bedside window.

And by "come in," she meant he had removed the glass sliding pane and chucked it down the thirteen-story drop, smashing it to smithereens in the alleyway below. As these things went, Sakura's landlord hadn't believed the Sixth Hokage was responsible for the heinous act of vandalism, and not only charged her for the replacement, but had become noticeably unresponsive whenever a maintenance issue arose in her unit.

Shoving her waist-length hair into an approximation of a bun, she cracked her front door open and pushed her head between the space.

"Kakashi-sensei. Hi. I was trying to sleep."

His brows flew up in a dramatic show of surprise. "Oh, were you? But it's not even noon."

Sakura began to inch back into her apartment, trying to ease the door shut. "I just got back from a mission. I'm really tired, so if I could just—"

Kakashi grabbed the door's edge, his smile looming through the narrow opening between them. He held up a plastic bag in his free hand and let it dangle from his fingers. "Ushikawa-san's dangos."

Her green eyes widened a fraction, transfixed. "What? How? Those are impossible to get a hold of! I remember I waited in line two hours before opening and they still all sold out."

"Nothing's impossible for the Sixth Hokage," he said, taking advantage of his student's momentary distraction to press his way into her apartment. Before Sakura could gather her wits about her, he had already kicked off his shoes and was halfway across the her studio—in her defense, it was a short distance—laying out the small boxes of dango, practically worth their weight in gold these days, onto her scuffed coffee table. He flopped onto the pink shag rug she had laid out to cover up the scratched wood flooring and leaned back to rest his weight on his arms as he glanced her way.

From experience, Sakura knew she had been outmaneuvered, though that didn't mean she needed to be a good sport about it.

She dropped into the beaten up couch pushed up against the opposing wall—a free hand-me-down from Naruto after he moved in with Hinata—and crossed her arms. "I didn't even have time to change."

Kakashi watched his student reach across and grab a box of dango, her eyes alight with holiday excitement as she pulled open the lid. "I thought you were sleeping."

"I was. I was going to change after," she said, her attention fixated on the six plump rice cakes in her lap, a thin skewer running through their soft centers. She had heard the secret was in the rice flour derived from crop grown in Ame's paddies and hand-milled by Ushikawa-san himself.

Kakashi didn't have much of a sweet tooth, but watching Sakura's face light up like a Christmas tree with each bite almost made him want to try one himself—almost. As she chewed through her last piece, her green eyes landed on the second box by Kakashi, who noticed her gaze and pushed Shikamaru's portion towards her as an offering.

"Here, you can this one, too."

"Are you sure?" She asked, already reaching for the box without waiting for further confirmation.

"Of course," Kakashi said. It was only natural that he'd butt heads with his advisor, but Shikamaru had grated against his nerves particularly hard this morning. He still felt raw around the edges, and watching Sakura imbibe Shikamaru's portion of dango felt nice against his petty grudge.

"So what're you doing here?" She asked.

He kept his gaze steady on her. "Your application came across my desk today."

She pulled another skewer of dango out of the box, holding it before her to both in marvel and mourning. It was the last piece. Who knew when she'd next be able to taste such perfection again?

"Which application? I send in so many forms now days, it's hard to keep track." Though, there was really only one application that would send her lazy flake of a teacher tearing across town on a Tuesday morning.

Kakashi reached the pocket of his pants and pulled out a folded square of paper. He placed it, unopened, onto the coffee table between them, staring at it instead of meeting her gaze. "Your application for ANBU, Sakura."

She slid the skewer lengthwise across her mouth, her teeth ripping off all three rice cakes in one pass. Her molars ground against their soft bodies. "And?"

Kakashi picked an infinitesimally small microbe off of his vest. "I rejected it, of course."

She wasn't done chewing, but she forced the masticated pieces down anyways. "What! Are you even allowed to do that? Sai told me any jonin can at least try for the selection trials as long as they get a recommendation. I got five nominations!"

"Really now?" Kakashi would have find out their names later. He brought up a leg from the floor, letting his arm rest across his knee. "Sakura, as your teacher—"

"Former teacher."

He winced. The girl really knew where to stick it where it hurt. "As your former teacher, I have to tell you, ANBU really isn't for you."

She felt her pride shaking out its mane in her chest, preparing for a fight. She fiddled with the bamboo skewer, still sticky from the dango, between her fingers. "Weren't you ANBU?"

"That was a long time ago."

"That still doesn't explain why I can't at least try."

"Why do you want to join?"

Sakura's gaze shifted away from him. She stared at the edge of her coffee table. "For the money?"

"Does Sasuke know about this?"

Her face soured like she had bitten into something bad. "What does Sasuke-kun have to do with it?"

It seemed from her reaction, he had everything to do with it. Kakashi decided not press further lest he became embroiled in a lover's spat. Or ex-lover. Whichever one they were at the moment—it was so hard to stay up-to-date on his two students' non-relationship relationship these days.

"It's dangerous, Sakura. And, I'm not talking just physically, but mentally. We're in an era of peace, but there are still unsavory jobs that need to be done, people who needed to killed to make sure this peace is long-lasting—you're a healer."

The skewer snapped beneath the press of Sakura's thumbs. "I would tell you I once punched a goddess in the face, but you were there."

Kakashi knew from experience he had a better shot at getting past a fortress replete with guards armed to the teeth than Sakura's obstinacy. He suddenly felt his thirty-nine years fall across his shoulders and a crumpled sigh left his lung. First it was Shikamaru with his paperwork, and now Sakura with hers—all these young bucks would send him to an early grave.

"Listen, Sakura, to put it frankly, the guys in ANBU are all insane. Literally. I've read their clinical reports. Not everyone starts off that way, but it's inevitable. Even I can't say I came out of it completely whole, and that doesn't need to happen to you." Kakashi wouldn't let it happen. "So, I'm going to leave this here—" He inclined his head towards her folded up application between them "—and we're going both pretend it never came across my desk, all right?"

He felt the heat from her furious green eyes on him as he stood up, felt them continue to burn holes into his back as he turned around and made his way back to the front door. He tapped his feet back into his sandals, and raised a salutary hand without a glance back. "Have a nice nap."

He shut the door behind him just before the thrown remote could crack open his skull.

[xxx]

For the coming weeks, not a single strand of pink hair appeared in Kakashi's sightline. Undoubtedly, he had pissed her off.

Granted, ever since the village elders had plopped him into the Hokage's chair, he hadn't been able to spend as much time with his students. They themselves were off busy making names for themselves in the shinobi world. He rarely ever saw the boys in particular, but Sakura still made it a point to occasionally drop in, if only to nag him about his procrastinating.

It wasn't that he didn't think she was good enough; the real problem was that she was good enough—too good. Probably a little overqualified. The elitists in ANBU would snap her right up and return her broken. He hadn't been exaggerating when he had told her everyone in Black-ops was a fuck-up—it was practically a part of the deal. You didn't turn into a crazed killing machines for free.

So, did he regret inciting Sakura's wrath for her own good?

After dwelling upon it for a grand total of two minutes and forty-eight seconds in the shower, Kakashi decided he didn't, and that was the end of it.

Sakura would come around, and if she didn't, he knew a baker's dozen of Ushikawa-san's sticky dangos would mend the rift in no time.

Thus, the weeks passed as he spun in the Hokage's chair, watching the spires of neglected paperwork at his desk continue their upward climb, waiting for the day that Naruto would finally relieve him from his post. Other than the slight hiccup with Sakura, the rest of life moved forward with clockward predictability: during the day he was at the office signing papers (when the occasion struck him), and at night he was home winding down in bed with Icha-Icha and a cold bottle of beer for company.

He figured he'd give Sakura another week before making it down to her apartment with the dango.

Clockwork. Predictable. Simple.

The disruption arose when someone—Shikamaru, most likely—grabbed him from his chair, hauled him into a large room, and plunked him behind one of those wood-laminate tables with folding legs. Someone else shoved a stack of papers into his hand. Looking to his left and right, Kakashi found he had been placed between the Village Elders' wrinkled masses.

Before he could lean over and ask Homaru-san what was going on, the double-doors in front of them swung open. A man Kakashi recognized as part of the office staff stepped in, eyes trained on the clipboard in his hand as he read off of it in a drawling tone.

"Candidate #001. Call number 99452-70-18."

The staff member stepped aside and a gorilla-chested specimen dressed in the village's standard-issue fatigues strode into the room. As was tradition, a plain black wooden mask hid his face from the examiners' view. If Call Number 9952-70-18 came out on the other side of the next six weeks mostly intact, he'd get to trade it in for its more infamous white counterpart and a rather uninspired red tattoo on his shoulder to boot.

Kakashi absent-mindedly ran his thumb up the side of papers in his hands, noting the stack's thickness. He guessed there were probably about thirty sheets. Thirty-three if there had been money involved. That was thirty-three candidates he'd have to slog through for the next five, possibly seven hours. Depending on how strong of an applicant pool they had, these things could drag on forever.

If Kakashi had it his way, he'd just wrangle up all the potential hires and set them loose in the Forest of Death in a free-for-all Capture the Flag type of deal. Maybe unleash some giant man-eating tigers into the fray to really test their mettle. Admittedly, it would not be the most accurate indicator for who was ANBU-worthy, but at least it'd be fast.

Plus, in his view, the whole thing was a bit hokey. He knew the kid in front of him was Aomichi Shigeru—there was no way he wouldn't recognize that shock of pale blue hair spring up around the mask. He also knew Aomichi Shigeru did not have the temperament to be ANBU material. The kid had the physique of a great ape, but Kakashi had read a mission report a few months back recounting how Aomichi had screamed bloody murder upon discovering a scorpion in his sleeping pallet. Under normal circumstances, such trite details would not have made it into the report if hadn't also been for the fact his team was running a covert reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines; the cell leader needed to explain the blown cover and all the broken bones to the higher-ups.

If Kakashi's perfect-recall served him right, that mission had been A-ranked. Why the hell were they even wasting time with this guy? Sure, Aomichi was generally well-liked, maybe a bit slow by some people's standards, both physically and mentally, but no matter where you stood on the issue of his intellect, he was overwhelmingly not ANBU material. As soon as Kakashi recognized Aomichi's hair, he would have barked "next" on the spot and be done with it, saving everyone, especially Aomichi, grief and time.

But it was always about cloak and daggers with the Black-Ops guys. They were also cultish in their adherence to traditions, always doing things on the basis of "that's how it's always been done." And so, here Kakashi was, forced to watch an under-qualified applicant waffle his way through an exam Kakashi knew he was doomed to fail, all because "that's how it's always been done."

As Kakashi had guessed, the whole thing was horrifically boring. Despite how amusing it could be to watch grown adults get reduced to a whimpering sack of tears, it got repetitive after the fifth time and boring after the eighth.

Suspicions confirmed that yes, this would indeed be a painfully drawn-out ordeal, he had just resigned himself his fate, when the office staff announced to the table of examiners, "Candidate #19. Call number 99520-79-07."

Kakashi lifted his cheeks from his hands, and for the first time since entering the room that day, the his expression shifted, turning away from dullness as recognition sparked behind his eyes. He knew that call number. Beneath his mask, his mouth slumped down into a frown.

He could be wrong, but that was rarely ever the case.

Kakashi straightened in his seat, as did the examiners at the table, and he could feel the air grow tense with their silent expectation as a candidate stepped into the room. Just like the eighteen candidates before her, she was dressed in standard issue fatigues and had her face obscured by the mask, no personal affects to give away her identity, but Kakashi could pick out that pretty little frame from of a line-up of a hundred—a thousand—others dressed to similar anonymity. He had been her captain for so many missions, had been her teacher for so long, had known her for so many years, even her gait was a dead giveaway.

And even if one weren't privy to all the minute idiosyncrasies of her form from years of close proximity, you'd have to be dumb as a box rocks if you couldn't place the owner of that pony-tail tied tight behind her like a flag, as riotously pink as a bough laden with those blooming spring flowers.

He clasped his hands atop the table's surface, the pads of fingers biting into the back of his hands.

He was going to kill Shikamaru.

A/N

1. It lives! This has been sitting in the drawer since the summer, and I decided to pull the lever and zap it to life. Behold! My latest little monster.

2. Kakashi's POV has recently been really fun and easy for me to write, so this was more self-indulgent than anything. Maybe it's his being old and jaded with emotional baggage thing, idk. That's definitely not me though.

3. (It's definitely me).