Imagine your OTP+ arguing about the color of mistletoe berries. Bonus if they have no access to the Internet/other resources so there's no way to look it up.


Disclaimer: still don't own. :(


~Mistletoe~ Part 2


Kakashi had tried not to think too much about their little moment out on the field. Or the feelings swirling in the pit of his stomach ever since. He still didn't know why he had done it – tugged her to him and held her – but ever since then, he couldn't meet her gaze without his face flaming. Which was absurd, the Copy nin did not blush.

As much as he had tried to not think about it, he couldn't escape the way it had felt holding her in his arms like that. Which –again- was absurd, over the years he had held her many times when she was injured or scooped her up away from danger. Maybe it was that he hadn't had to do that in … well, years now that he thought of it. No, Sakura didn't need saving any longer. In fact, she had saved each of the members of Team Kakashi more times than he could count. For Kami's sake, she had given Sasuke and Naruto arms after they had gotten them destroyed in the last war. No, Sakura didn't need saving; Sakura did the saving.

Even so, this did not explain these feelings. …or maybe it did. She wasn't that young girl any more, hadn't been for years. She was a full blown kunoichi and a damned fine one at that, apprentice to the Sanin Tsunade and in plenty of bingo books herself.

Then there was what she had actually said. He still couldn't wrap his mind around that. To say he felt undeserving was an understatement. No one would argue that he had been a lacking teacher to Sakura as a young Genin – well, no one would argue except Sakura, apparently. It had made him feel… warm? Was that it? The way his chest both constricted and swelled at he took in the fire and strength behind her beryl eyes as she told him in no uncertain words exactly what she thought of him. It had felt… nice. He decided.

Even these feelings didn't explain away his reaction to holding her. In short, he had found it hard to let go, a concept impossible to understand for one who avoided getting close to anyone. Yet Sakura and Team 7 had always had a way of wriggling in past his defenses, hadn't they. Team 7- no, the fondness he had learned to reluctantly accept that he felt for the odd gang did not match up with how he felt for this new Sakura.

Then again, she wasn't really a new Sakura, was she? Maybe it was just that he was finally seeing her. And not the Genin she used to be.

This Sakura was a strong, confident, powerful, skilled, brilliant, feared, loved, revered, loyal, giving, loving, beautiful woman.

Kakashi stopped in his tracks. Beautiful? He looked over his shoulder to the visage of his inner musings waving to people of the village as she walked with him away from Hokage Tower. Yes, he smirked, letting out a small chuckle, she was beautiful. And very much a woman.

"Kakashi-san?" Sakura's voice snapped him back to reality and he smiled at her dropping of the honorific.

"Yes, Sakura?" his eyes locked onto the way she worried her bottom lip between her teeth.

"You were staring. Is there something on my face?" her cheeks as pink as her hair.

He blinked. Had he been staring? "Oh? Was I? I hadn't noticed."

She smirked teasingly, "yes, you had. You kept staring as though you were studying me. Was there something you needed to talk about?"

He swallowed before breaking her gaze. A smirked returned to his face as something still hanging in a nearby archway caught his eye, left up still from the Holiday they had missed while out on their mission. "Actually," he tugged her hand as he stepped to stand beneath it.

"Kakashi-san! What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

He just smiled as he snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him. Upon meeting her startled gaze, he merely pointed up to the bundle of berries hanging over their head. A look of recognition flitted across her face before he tucked his finger under the edge of his mask and quickly pulled it down. He gave her no time to register his movements before he had tilted his head to envelop her lips with his own.

The feel of her satin lips melded with his own sent fire shoot from their connected lips to pool at the pit of his stomach. He nearly whimpered when he felt her hands burry into his unruly hair, her nails lightly scratching his scalp enough to make him have to shoot his arm out to brace them against the beam behind her. Sweet Kami, he had never had a kiss like this. Then again, he had only ever kissed one other woman without his mask, and that had been a very, very long time ago.

Slowly parting, both panting in desperate need for air, his eyes fluttered closed as her hands moved to cup his bare cheeks - only to have them fly open at the feel of his mask being put back into place.

He took in her soft smile and flushed face; she looked thoroughly kissed, with mussed hair and swollen lips, "Kakashi, you know that that is holly, not mistletoe."

A laugh rumbled his chest as he leaned his forehead against hers, trailing a hand down her arm to intertwine her hand with his, "yes, but I figured that I could play off of my early confusion of the two and use it for my advantage."

Her laughter burst forth causing him to chuckle as he pulled away from her giving her hand still interlocked with his own a gentle squeeze - only to freeze as he noticed his surroundings. It would seem that he had passionately made out with his fiery, pink haired team mate in the middle of the main street market in front of a large portion of the population, his friends, all of the Konoha Eleven, and each member of Team Kakashi.

Flashing his eye crinkled smile, he sheepishly rubbed the back of his head with his free hand, "Yo."


And there you go.

Merry Ho-ho and all that jazz.

Hope ya'll enjoyed it!