Comments: Part 3, wherein more little stuff happens, and Kakashi's life continues to sort of waft by him. This chapter is shorter than the last one. Also, let me apologize ahead of time for my inconsistent suffixes. And the way I waffle back and forth between words like ninja and shinobi.

Sountrack for this chapter: Cracker - "Low"

Lucid

3 – And then I'll hide and let you find me

He was watching Sakura eat. What the hell was he doing here? Asuma. Asuma was to blame for this. Asuma brought Choji who brought Ino who brought Sakura who neglected to mention to him at the Hokage's office that she was meeting with Ino for dinner, and now here they all were and Kakashi was staring at her as she ate. She'd lift one mushroom in her chopsticks, bite the head off, and chew it thoughtfully. Kakashi wondered if he could get Asuma to buy him a beer so at least he could have something other to do than stare at Sakura eating mushroom heads.

He snagged a passing waiter. "Two beers please. One with a straw." Since his new very good best buddy Asuma was paying, Kakashi figured the man deserved one too.

"Make that five," Ino said, and snuck a sidelong glance at her former sensei. The jounin was so used to her he didn't even blink. Kakashi could admire that.

"Ino." Her best friend conjured up a respectable frown. Across the table, shoving a spoonful of rice into his mouth, Choji sent Ino a thumbs up when Sakura wasn't looking, and pantomimed guzzling the whole bottle.

"No worries!" the other girl assured Sakura, "Asuma has it covered. He always gives us one beer if we ask at the right time." The ninja in question took his cigarette out to protest this, but Kakashi stopped listening because his beer had arrived and that was a far more promising target for his attentions.

Sitting on a free full stomach and enjoying the taste of a cold drink, the Copy Ninja took the time to look at something other than his former student, and reassess his mental state. So he had a sex dream about a teenage girl. Sakura was young and hot and he'd seen her punch through a wall the other week—which as equal parts scary and interesting. She wore high boots and short skirts and she giggled when she was happy; who wasn't going to look at that? Kakashi was just a man, and men had illicit fantasies about teenage girls all the time.

"My birthday party is in three weeks, and everyone is invited. Including you Asuma. And you too Kakashi, if you can manage not to be too late."

In less than a month Sakura wasn't even going to be sixteen anymore. Seventeen was a whole year past the legal age of looking.

Ino said something along the lines of, "I can't believe your parents are letting you have free run of their house." Still lived with her parents. That was a sign. Kakashi took another long gulp of beer through the straw under his mask.

The pink-haired kunoichi stole the last piece of chicken before Asuma or Choji could get to it, and said in between bites, "They're gone for the weekend, and they said it was fine as long as it was sparkling clean when they got back. Besides, I think they're going to offer to help me rent an apartment as a birthday gift."

She was getting her own apartment. That's what shinobi did when they grew up. Why was he rationalizing this? A dream was not looking. He had nothing to apologize for.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said. Shitfuckdamncocksonofawhore.

"Huh?" The whole table turned to him. "What for?"

"For..." What he needed was something funny and not at all awkward or sincere. "For missing your last birthday." Dammit, that came out unhealthily sincere.

"Oh that's okay." Sakura smiled breezily. She added, "I think you were on a mission that month, and the Hokage was running me so ragged I only had a small dinner with my family. That's why this year, we're going ALL OUT!" Ino and Choji cheered in the background, but Kakashi was busy counting the months. April, March, February, that thing in November... as a matter of fact he had been on a mission last time. He supposed that was a pretty good excuse, and tucked it away for possible use in three weeks.

Did he want to go to her birthday party? It was a dilemma, but he was leaning toward not. Even if Asuma and the other former genin-instructors went, it would still be filled with kids and Kakashi would probably be so bored out of his mind he'd spend the entire night (thanks to that nasty dream) wondering when it was time for Sakura to eat cake and lick the frosting off her lips and fingers. Would she take dainty bites and make exclamations about preserving her figure, or would she throw herself enthusiastically into the campaign for sugar and eat so fast that bits would get stuck on her nose or chin, where someone would have to reach out and—

He was watching her jaw move again. Fuck.