Vacation
Tsunade takes one look at them and scoffs. Sakura isn't sure whether she should feel offended.
After a week-long mission in which she and Kakashi roughed it in the woods, Sakura knows she looks a mess. She hasn't slept more than five hours all week, and the only things keeping her upright are caffeine and soldier pills, which the medic in her knows is unhealthy, and the shinobi in her has ignored for the sake of the mission. There are leaves in her hair and dried mud and many other unidentifiable substances all over her, and she knows she must smell. Still, there's no reason for Tsunade to chastise her for it! She knew what kind of mission it was when she gave it to them.
Kakashi hands the Hokage their mission report, and Sakura can't help but scowl at him. While he is just as dirty as she is, he doesn't look nearly as ragged. He must have trained his body throughout the years to ignore its basic needs. And, to Sakura's sleep-deprived brain, that made it perfectly acceptable for her to be irrationally angry.
Tsunade makes a shooing motion with her hands. "Go home, both of you. And I don't want to see you again until next week."
Sakura frowns. "But tomorrow I'm supposed to help Shizune at the hospital. We're going to—"
"I don't care what you were going to do," Tsunade interrupts flatly, her amber eyes narrowing. "You two have been running yourselves ragged. As of now, no missions, no hospital. I'm officially forcing you to take a vacation."
Sakura's eyes widen in disbelief. She doesn't have time for a vacation! There already isn't enough time in the day, and the list of things she needs to do would only get much longer if she ignored it. Being on vacation would only make her more stressed! Her shishou can't be serious.
She looks to Kakashi, trying to find an ally. She knows that he hates staying idle as much as she does. He has been a shinobi all his life, has made being a shinobi his life, and when that is taken away from him, he doesn't know what to do with himself. Still, Kakashi doesn't seem to react to the pleading looks Sakura is giving him. In fact, he doesn't seem to react to anything. She wonders if he is comatose, and actually more tired than he puts on.
"Go home," Tsunade orders again. "Neither of you are any good to me like this. Go home and relax. Do something fun. I don't really care, so long as you come back to me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."
Sakura slumps in defeat, but Kakashi gives a slight nod, proving to everyone in the room that he is, in fact, still alive. "Yes, Hokage-sama."
"Yes Hokage-sama," Sakura repeats.
Sakura goes home and crashes, and when she wakes up, she realizes she has slept all through the night and most of the next day. She is groggy and her body is lethargic, but she drags herself off the couch and into her bathroom, where she proceeds to scrub until her skin is pink and she no longer smells like a swamp. She ruffles a towel through her wet hair and puts on a pair of sweats and an oversized t-shirt that she somehow managed to steal from Naruto. Knowing that she hadn't bothered to go grocery shopping before her mission, Sakura exits her apartment, on a quest for sustenance.
She runs into her knuckleheaded teammate a few blocks away, and he cringes at the sight of her. "You look like shit, Sakura-chan!"
She wants to bop him upside the head, but can't find the energy. Instead, she glares. "Thanks, Naruto. Exactly what every girl wants to hear."
Naruto has the sense to looked ashamed, and offers to buy her dinner at Ichiraku. Sakura accepts.
She quickly learns how famished she actually was when she manages to eat half of what Naruto does. Teuchi and Ayame watch her with a gross fascination, but Naruto looks proud. Sakura tells him about her forced vacation.
"That sounds like a great idea, Sakura-chan," he responds, mouth full of noodles. "You work too hard."
"I don't have a choice," she snaps. "Things have to get done."
"And now they don't. Because you're on vacation," he points out, pouting childishly. "Man, I wish I could get a vacation."
Sakura smirks. "Hokage in training don't get vacations," she teases. "You can help me fill up mine though. What are you doing tomorrow?"
Naruto looks at her apologetically. "I'm leaving for a mission tomorrow morning."
She feels herself deflate a little. She didn't get a lot of free time to spend with Naruto, or any of her friends really, and had assumed that she could hang out with them during her vacation. "For how long? With who?"
Naruto rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "With Shikamaru and Hinata. It's supposed to take two weeks, but it could take longer, since Shika hasn't seen his girlfriend in a while and Gaara always likes to throw us this big dinner."
Sakura groans, disappointed. But she nudges her teammate's shoulders with her own, waggling her eyebrows. "Hinata, huh? You guys sure have been spending a lot of time together."
She is rewarded by the red that overtakes Naruto's face. The hyperactive ninja isn't one to embarrass easily, and Sakura takes this as a good sign. "She's a nice girl," he mumbles into his ramen.
"Yes she is," Sakura laughs. She gives him a playful swat to the back of the head. "Took you long enough. Idiot."
The next day is Tuesday. Sakura is annoyed to find that both Ino and Tenten are out on their own missions, leaving her stuck in the village alone. She wonders what to do, and decides to at least go grocery shopping. Her refrigerator is still empty, and a girl's gotta eat.
She happens upon Pakkun at the butcher's, and she can't help but laugh. He is obviously looking for handouts, giving his best puppydog-eyes to whoever looks his way. "That's not going to work," Sakura informs him. "The butcher's immune to begging."
"Can't hurt to try," the little pug grunts, and Sakura laughs again. Finding a few extra coins, she gets the butcher to sell her a single sausage, and she gives it to the ninken. Little grunts of pleasure escape him as he eats it.
"Where is your annoying partner, anyway?" Sakura asks, kneeling to pat the small dog on the head. His tail wags reflexively.
"Annoying? Really, I thought we were closer than that, Sakura-chan," a voice behind her says, and when she looks over her shoulder, there is Kakashi, holding a few grocery bags of his own. He sighs. "I really wish you wouldn't spoil him like that."
"Everyone deserves to be spoiled every now and then," Sakura says airily. Pakkun makes a noise of agreement.
"You're going to get fat," Kakashi tells Pakkun pointedly.
Pakkun finishes the sausage, licking his chops, and looks him straight in the eye. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."
Sakura snorts, scratching the pug behind the ears affectionately before standing. "So, Kakashi-sensei. How is your vacation so far?"
His eye smiles at her. "Long."
"You too, huh?" she sighs, ruffling her hair in frustration. "I don't know what to do with myself! Now that I'm stuck in the village, everyone else is gone. I'm starting to get antsy!"
Kakashi mmms in agreement, and that's when it hits her. She isn't sure why neither of them haven't thought of it before.
"You're bored," she says slowly. "And I'm bored. And we're both stuck in the village. Why don't we just be bored together?"
He looks at her for a long moment. "I don't see how that would be any better."
"It will be," she snaps, hands on her hips. "We could figure out things to do. Like train. Why don't we meet up tomorrow to train."
Kakashi rubs his masked jaw thoughtfully. With their busy schedules, it had been a long time since they had trained together.
"I don't know what you're thinking about. It's not like you had plans anyway," she huffs, annoyed.
"Well, actually—"
"Planning to sit around and read porn does not count," she retorts. He smiles sheepishly. "Meet me at 9am."
And after that, they sort of fall into a routine of seeking each other.
On Wednesday, Kakashi meets her at the training field, only an hour late, and they decide on taijutsu. He is good, and he is fast, but Sakura holds her own. When they finally call it quits, hours later, he ruffles her hair, impressed with her growth. Sakura shakes him off, annoyed. He used to do that when she was a child, and she isn't a child any longer.
They separate to shower off all the sweat and grime, but meet up again for dinner.
On Thursday, it is Kakashi who searches her out. He explains that he is washing all his dogs, and if she is as bored as she claims to be, would she mind giving him a hand?
Sakura agrees, not realizing what this would entail.
It turns out ninken, as respected as they are, are truly still dogs at their core. Sakura learns this when she is quickly covered in soapy water.
"Be still, Uhei," she says for the hundredth time. But try as he might, the reddish dog can't stop himself from wiggling in joy as she scrubs soapy circles into his fur.
Kakashi rinses off Akino, and Sakura suddenly finds herself showered with water as the dog shakes himself dry. "Hey!" she yelps. "Watch it!"
The tan dog looks embarrassed at his behavior. "Sorry, Sakura-chan."
Kakashi laughs, and Sakura scowls. "Quit laughing and rinse him off," she snaps, scooting Uhei in his direction and picking up Pakkun. To her annoyance, she soaps the pug down using her own brand of shampoo—despite having changed it years before for this very reason.
"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" she accuses.
He shrugs, as well as a little dog can shrug, anyway. "You have good taste in shampoo. Smells good, and it always makes my coat nice and shiny. Gets me lots of compliments."
All of a sudden, they are both splashed with so much water, Sakura comes out of it sputtering. Her hair, once in a bun, now hangs in damp strands around her face. She turns to the culprit, and finds Kakashi rinsing off Bull, who guiltily won't look her in the eye.
"You were the one who wanted to spend time together," the copy ninja reminds her, obviously amused.
Yes, and she is starting to wonder why.
"Can you get a little more behind my ears?" Pakkun pipes up.
Her teeth start to grind.
On Friday, they agree to read each other's favorite novels. This, of course, means that Sakura finds herself sprawled on Kakashi's couch reading Icha Icha Paradise.
"The second one in the series is the best," Kakashi gushes. He's going to read one of her favorite mystery novels, but is much more excited about Sakura reading Icha Icha. "But you have to read the first one to understand the plotline in the second."
"There's a plotline," she deadpans. "I thought this was porn."
"It's a masterpiece," he responds, and Sakura can't help but snicker at his enthusiasm. It's porn.
But six hours and a few takeout boxes later, Sakura closes the book and looks up with new eyes.
It was fantastic. The plotline was amazing, the characters fleshed out and relatable, and the sex—
She's getting hot just thinking about it!
"What'd you think?" Kakashi asks excitedly.
Sakura just stares unseeingly at the neon cover. "Junko…"
"I know."
"And Aki…"
He just smirks at her.
Sakura blinks. "Where's the next one?"
On Saturday, Sakura convinces Kakashi to go out with her. Saturdays are when she usually goes out with her friends, but no one is in the village, so Kakashi will have to do.
He rolls his eye at being her backup, but comes along anyway. They sit at the bar and talk about Icha Icha and accidentally get shit-faced on sake and pretty cocktails that Kakashi protests at first, but ends up drinking anyway.
Late Saturday or early Sunday (Sakura isn't sure; it kind of blends together), they apparently have sex. Sakura is sure of this, because Sunday morning she wakes up naked in her bed with Kakashi Jr. greeting her ass good morning.
She shrieks, mortified, and tries to remember what happened the night before. He is awake instantly, and his arm unwinds itself from around her middle. She watches as he sits up and blinks both of his eyes blearily at her before he slowly realizes what happened.
He slowly wipes a hand down his still-masked face, sighing deeply.
Sakura covers herself with the sheet, though she knows she's being ridiculous. He has already seen her, probably has her memorized because of his Sharingan. Still, it makes her feel slightly more in control of the situation.
"Kakashi," she says quietly. She purposely leaves out the honorific—it would be awkward, and besides, they're obviously past that now. "Do you remember what happened?"
"Not really," he admits. "You said something about wanting to act out Icha Icha. Then it all gets hazy."
"Oh god." She is mortified, but as she looks at him, completely naked save that stupid mask of his, she is also annoyed. "We had sex and you wouldn't even take your goddamn mask off?!"
"It adds an air of mystery," he sniffs.
"Take it off," she snarls. There's no way he would be allowed to see all of her if she couldn't do the same. "Now!"
For a few moments, he looks at her like she's being unreasonable. Then he slides the mask down until it hangs around his neck.
Sakura feels her mouth go dry. She stares for an uncomfortably long time, and doesn't stop until Kakashi awkwardly clears his throat. She watches his adam's apple bob in fascination before meeting his mismatched eyes.
"What part of Icha Icha did I want to act out?" she asks softly, her face red.
He stares at her long and hard.
They spend Sunday in the comfort of Sakura's bed.
On Monday, Sakura reports to the Hokage. Tsunade is livid.
"I thought I told you to take this time to relax!" she seethes. "And I'm pretty sure I made it clear that you're no good to me unrested. You look like the walking dead, Sakura!"
Sakura apologizes, the heat rushing her face.
"And why on earth are you limping?"
A/N: Don't ask me what this is. I have absolutely no idea.