68 Hours and Counting

Kakashi considered himself sufficiently caught up with the lives of Genma and Tenzou. While sitting in Tenzou's living room, he had heard about Genma's new girlfriend, the several S-ranked missions he had been on, the new set of senbon he had received for his birthday, and the new protocols at ANBU. After this riveting spiel, Tenzou had had ample time to discuss his stint with Team 7, his thoughts, concerns, and opinions (mostly that Kakashi's team was crazy), his new wood-style jutsu that he had created, how his taste in food had changed, and how he had gone through several unsuccessful relationships. Kakashi didn't mention that those relationships had probably fallen apart because of the terrifying faces Tenzou pulled whenever he wanted something. There was no reason to hurt the man's feelings, so Kakashi simply stored that information away for when it might come in handy in the future.

In other words, Kakashi had had quite enough of his ANBU buddies.

"So, what about you, Kakashi? What have you been up to since we last talked?"

"My team fell apart, which Tenzou already knows about, of course. I died, had a conversation with my dead sensei and dead teammates, and got resurrected. Other than that, not too much."

The two ninja fell silent. After several seconds, they exchanged uncomfortable glances. "Well," Tenzou volunteered, "I'm glad you got resurrected."

"That makes one of us, then," Kakashi muttered, standing up. "It's been fun, but it's getting dark. I think I'll just head out."

"Catch you later!"

"Yeah, see you around, Kakashi!"

As he got a foot out the door, it hit Kakashi that he couldn't actually leave without a chaperone. And there was no one in the street right now. Lovely. He turned around and sat back down in a chair facing the window.

"You're… sitting down again?" Tenzou's look of confusion was back.

"Yup." He smiled and said absolutely nothing else for the next ten minutes. Genma and Tenzou tried to make small talk, but the lack of response from their friend was frightening, to say the least. In the end, they just settled on awkwardly making eye contact with each other and glancing at Kakashi every now and then to make sure he was still breathing. When Kakashi finally stood up, they both let out the breaths they'd been holding.

"I'm leaving for real this time." He waved and stepped out the door.

Tenzou and Genma didn't even try to hide their looks of relief.

Shikamaru was taking a cool evening walk, enjoying the solitude it offered.

"Yo!"

Clearly, it didn't offer as much solitude as he was hoping. "Kakashi?"

"How's the shadow master doing tonight?"

He sighed. "Alright, I guess. How about you?" Why on earth was Kakashi talking to him? He could count on one hand the number of times they'd voluntarily had conversations outside of missions.

"About the same."

"Good to hear."

"Where are you off to, then?"

"Um, I was just taking a walk before meeting up with Chouji and Ino."

"Wonderful! I haven't seen them in a while, so maybe I'll tag along. I heard you've been working on that Ino-Shika-Cho combo; is that right?"

"Yeah," Shikamaru's face lit up a bit. "We've been getting rather good at it, actually. Pretty soon it'll be ready to be used on missions regularly."

"I can't wait to see it in action sometime."

"I'm sure you will, soon enough."

They arrived at the Yamanaka flower shop, and Shikamaru pushed open the door. Ino was sitting on the counter, and Chouji was contentedly munching a bag of chips.

"Hey, Shika!"

"'Sup, Shikamaru?"

"Oh, you know, same as usual." He slouched against the nearest wall and watched the looks of bewilderment cross his friends' faces as Kakashi waltzed into the shop.

"Kakashi?" Forgetting his chips, Chouji looked over at Shikamaru, wordlessly searching for an explanation.

Shikamaru simply shrugged. "He followed me home?"

"Don't mind me," Kakashi gave his signature one-eyed smile. "I just thought I'd pop in and see how you were doing. Shikamaru's been telling me about that Ino-Shika-Cho combo."

"Yeah," Ino said slowly. "It's… it's good, Kakashi. Are you…" she floundered for some polite words to ask exactly what she was thinking. Why on earth are you here? Too blunt. You never talk to us. Why now? No, that sounded both accusatory and angry.

"Do you mind if I use your bathroom?"

"Um, y-yeah, sure. Down the hall, first door on your right."

"Thank you."

As the silver-haired man disappeared into the hallway, Ino rounded on Shikamaru. "Ok, seriously, why is he here?"

"Beats me." He shrugged again. "Like I said, he just kinda followed me here."

"What's his deal? Is he trying to spy on us, make sure we're up to par on the Ino-Shika-Cho?"

Chouji had resumed his snacking.

"No, that's not it," said Shikamaru. "He seemed pretty impressed with what he'd heard, and he'd have no reason to figure out how good we were. Who would he report to? What would the point even be?"

"What if it's not Kakashi? What about someone pretending to be him?" Ino crossed her arms.

"Maybe, but again: what's the point?"

"But it could be a spy," she insisted. "He's definitely not acting like Kakashi."

"If someone wanted to spy on us, they would have been someone other than Kakashi. There's no way they would've chosen to impersonate him, since everybody knows that we and Kakashi never talk."

"Maybe they're from another hidden village, and don't know how often we and Kakashi hang out."

"That's ridiculous, for one main reason." Shikamaru crossed his arms, mirroring Ino's stance. "If someone was going to pay someone to infiltrate Konoha, they wouldn't spy on us."

His friends sighed.

"I guess you're right."

Chouji stuffed another handful of chips into his mouth. "Well, I think we're cool enough to spy on."

"So, what do you think is up with Kakashi? He's not acting like himself."

Shikamaru smirked. "I have a theory."

"And what's that, then?"

"Gai. The only time you'll see Kakashi doing something stupid or weird is if Gai put him up to it. I bet this has something to do with a challenge."

"Weird challenge. I'm more for the classic eating contest, myself."

"No surprises there, Chouji."

"Hey, at least I'm consistent, unlike a certain masked weirdo."

"Masked weirdo?" Chouji flinched violently as Kakashi walked back into the room. "You shouldn't make fun of the ANBU, Chouji. They've never done anything to you… yet. "

The chubby boy shivered visibly.

Kakashi ignored him, smiling as he seated himself in a corner. "Well, carry on. Don't let me interrupt your conversation."

"Well," Ino sat back on the counter, "I heard from Hinata that Team 8 wants to spar with us sometime this week. What do you guys say?"

"We can totally take 'em! Let's do it!"

"Shika?"

"Yeah, I guess so. It's a bit troublesome, but we'll get to try out some of our new techniques, at least."

As they discussed battle strategies, they soon forgot about the time. They perfected their battle plans and moved on to village gossip, and then to their opinions of the graduating genin. Finally, after several hours of friendly conversation, Ino happened to glance over at their unusual visitor. "Wait a minute, guys. Is he asleep?"

"Looks like it."

"This is so weird," Ino shook her head. "I don't think I've seen him sleep before. To be honest, I was kinda convinced he didn't sleep."

"Well, he is human."

"That what you think," Chouji said. "For all we know, he could be hiding tentacles under that mask of his."

Then they all stopped.

They looked at each other.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" asked Shikamaru.

"There are very few times that I can say yes to that, "Chouji replied. "This is one of those times."

Ino smiled. "Sakura's gonna be so jealous that we saw his face before she did."

They stared at him.

"Do we just… go for it?"

"It just seems so… anticlimactic that way."

"Who cares?" Ino jumped off her perch. "If you won't, I will!" She tiptoed up to the sleeping jounin. "Here goes nothing," she whispered.

As she reached out a hand, Kakashi's eye flew open. She screamed, jumping back.

"Now, now," he drawled, "I didn't think I was quite that frightening." He looked around to see the three of them crowded around him. "Wait, don't tell me." He sighed. "You were trying to see under my mask."

"Well…"

"Um…"

"Yeah, basically."

He rolled his eye. "Everyone's the same. Well, I guess I've intruded on your hospitality enough." He stood up and grabbed Shikamaru's collar. "I'll go bother someone else for a while." With a whirlwind of leaves, they disappeared.

"Did he just…"

"Take Shikamaru hostage? Yep."

"Huh."

Thanks for sticking with me so far, y'all. More fun to come, I promise! If you're in the mood (or even if you're not; I'm not picky), drop me a review and tell me what you thought.

Stay awesome.

~JillianWatson1058