Chapter 20

When we got to the hospital the day after, Hidan and I were kindly asked to stay in the waiting room as the nurse escorted Kakashi to his examination. Hidan and I sat down beside each other, only a small white table with a bunch of magazines on it separated us.

I had been in a bit of a hurry that day when Hidan had suddenly showed up and told me that he had promised to take Kakashi to the hospital in one of the bigger cities for a check up because Kakashi had not exactly been amiable enough to provide me with that information the day before. So I had to hurry up and help Kakashi with getting dressed and find some breakfast for him and so on before we had to drive to reach the hospital in time for his appointment. Therefore I had not gotten to eat anything myself and neither did I get to brush my teeth, wash up nor brush my hair.

That was the reason why I was wearing my hair in a bun instead of a ponytail that day and it was also the reason why I was sitting with my arms pressed uncomfortably close to my body. Hidan had already let me know that I stunk when we had been sitting in the car although he had not noticed that I was the one who had made the entire car stink. "Wow, what is that smell? Is it coming from outside? Yuk!" And that exact remark was the reason why I had been sitting like this ever since we arrived.

Hidan yawned loudly and if it was not because I did not know him all that well, I would have asked him to moderate his behavior when we were together in public. "Man, I'm tired. Why do they even make appointments with patients this early?" he asked and I did not even bother to look at him.

"That's because most people don't consider 11:30 to be early in the morning." I picked up a magazine from the table in between us and pretended like I was reading. It did not appear to be stopping Hidan from bothering me, though. I had to admit that it was not his fault that I was grumpy and that I did not want to speak with him; I did not speak much when I had only just woken up. Especially if I had not slept all that well.

My back was killing me. Why would Kakashi even offer me to sleep on a mattress that was harder than rock when I had already said that I was fine with sleeping on the floor? At least my back would have been spared just a bit more if I had not slept on that tool of torture.

I felt that Hidan was staring at me and it slowly began to tick me off for good. My jaw moved from one side to another in a mildly irritated movement. What was it he wanted?

Finally, I stared back at him without moving my face into the direction of his gaze. When the staring contest had gone on for what felt like more than a minute, I gave up. "What?" I asked in an annoyed tone, the message obviously not getting through to Hidan as he started smiling. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Hidan crossed his arms over his chest and answered, "I was just wondering why you're always wearing you hair up?"

"And why are you wondering about that all of a sudden?" His question seemed irrelevant and stupid to me, at least while I was still in this mood.

"It wasn't tugged into a ponytail, as it usually is, when I first came this morning."

"Well, I had just gotten out of bed when you came. What did you expect? That I sleep with my hair in a ponytail? Do you have any idea of how uncomfortable that is!" Hidan raised his hands up in front of his face and shook his head slowly with an insecure smile crossing his lips.

"Calm down, I just asked why you prefer having it in a ponytail. That's all, geez!" I let my chin drop to my chest and looked down at the magazine again with a loud sigh escaping my lips.

"I'm sorry, Hidan-san, I didn't mean to snap at you. I just got out of bed on the wrong side this morning."

"Don't worry, I didn't take it personally. But why is it you always wear your hair in a ponytail?" I flipped through the magazine while trying to think of an answer for his question. Why did I wear it like that? I did not think that there was actually a reason for it, I just did.

"Old habit. I'm not very good with changes," I replied flatly. Hidan just made a small 'hm' sound in the back of his throat and leaned back in his seat.

Kakashi did not return until almost an hour later and Hidan and I had sat in complete silence ever since the conversation about my hair. I had not even noticed what he had been doing, I just sat with the same magazine in my hands while sitting in my own thoughts.

I was wondering what the next couple of days would be like and if Kakashi and I would even have anything to talk about. We had not really talked before. Sure, we had started off talking when being on breaks, smoking cigarettes together, but it was not anything out of the ordinary that we spoke about. Even though I hated to admit it, I did not really know anything about him. I did not know which town he had lived in before moving to my village or what he used to work with and stuff like that. The question that bothered me the most, though, was why he was wearing that damn mask.

The doctor and Kakashi walked up to us, interrupting my perfect flow of thoughts.

"So far it looks like your spleen and liver are doing fine. We'll call you with the final results later on," said the tanned doctor, who's hair was hidden beneath a tight fitting, light blue surgeon cap, and sent Kakashi a wide smile.

"Okay, that sounds great." Kakashi's voice had gotten worse and it was almost impossible to make out what it was that he was saying.

"Oh, and you should gargle salt water once in a while. It's good for your throat as long as it's sore." Kakashi nodded and smiled back at the doctor with his eyes. There was something strange about this doctor. Something about the way he talked and moved, but I could not really put a finger on what exactly it was he was doing.

"Thanks for everything, doc." They shook hands and they both looked over at us. The doctor seemed to be focusing on Hidan, for some unknown reason.

"I'm sorry, b-but are you interested in becoming a blood donor?" I looked over at Hidan whose head finally bounced up from its lazy position. The doctor obviously had not noticed that he had been asleep, "Oh, I-I'm sorry, I didn't know you were sleeping," he apologized when Hidan looked around confusedly and he did not answer until he had used a couple of seconds to orientate himself about the situation.

"I'm sorry, what?" The doctor scratched the back of his neck carefully and pointed at the blood donor brochure Hidan was holding, "This?" he said and waved the brochure around lightly, "I was just reading. I don't really know anything about it."

The doctor glanced up at a clock that hung inside the waiting room before looking back down at Hidan. "If you're interested, I-I could tell you a little about it now?" he stammered. The doctor reminded me of someone and so did his nervous behavior, but who? And why was he even stammering? He was not just a second before when talking to Kakashi.

"Uhm, sure... Do you mind waiting a little longer?" both he and the doctor looked shiftily at Kakashi and me and we shrugged and nodded in sync. They then went out of the waiting room together, leaving us looking in the direction they walked off to.

When Kakashi turned back towards me, he sat down on the chair, which Hidan had been sitting on and craned his neck to look at the magazine I was holding. "What are you reading?" he asked with that hoarse voice he could not get rid of.

I did not know what it was I had pretended to be reading and I just threw the open magazine onto the table so he could take a look at it himself. He took it and leaned forward in his seat, placing both his elbows on his thighs. He put a finger in between the pages I had sat with for the past hour and he turned the magazine to look at the cover.

"Greek – Your guide to healthy and safe sex," Kakashi read out loud, a small giggle rattling from his throat. "That should be interesting."

I wanted to literally facepalm myself for choosing to grab that magazine out of all the magazines that had been available to me. I could not stop my cheeks from turning a slight red even though Kakashi did not seem to be mocking me because of my choice.

He flipped open the magazine again at the same page where he had put his finger as a book mark and started reading. I looked up at the clock with a loud sigh, my legs jumping up and down in an impatient pace. I sure did not hope that this was going to take much longer.

Suddenly, I froze. Kakashi was staring at me out of the corner of his eyes and he had a weird look on his face. I too was looking at him from the corner of my eyes, but he did not seem to notice. What was wrong, why was he staring at me? Was it something that I had done?

Quickly, I led my hands behind my head and checked if my bun of hair was still in place. Nothing strange appeared to be happening up there. Then I looked down at myself. I had all my clothes on and there were not any stains or buttons that were buttoned wrong so I just could not figure out why he kept on staring like that.

Was it because I was smelling? I pulled my arms closer to my body, hoping that it was not my body odour that made him send me those looks.

Luckily, the doctor and Hidan chose to appear when the situation could not get anymore tense.

"Thank you, Kakuzu-Hakase. I'll definitely consider this blood donor thing." Kakashi got up from his seat as Hidan spoke and he dropped the magazine onto the table. I noticed that the magazine was open and that it was still on the page which Kakashi had read after me. I tilted my body a little to the side and cocked my head so that I could read the article.

"I'm glad to hear that. Make sure to ask for me if you decide to do it." As the three of them were saying their polite and formal goodbyes, I sat in terror, not being able to read on after just the first few sentences. The article was about how to safely pleasure someone when having anal intercourse... This was a men's magazine... a magazine for gay men! Kami, why me? What did I do to deserve this? Please, just kill me already!

oOo

After we got home, it was time for me to go to work. The hours there did not feel as long as they usually did, but I still felt tired when I finally got back to Kakashi's place.

Kakashi was lying on the couch when I walked in, doing nothing out of the ordinary. It appeared like he was watching some movie, but it did not really look like it was his cup of tea. The hand closest to the couch was placed in his greasy hair to support his heavy head. He had not taken a shower for as long as I had been there and my guess was that he had not even taken one the days before I came either.

I locked the front door and walked over by him with a plastic bag of groceries in each hand to see what it was he was watching. I did not recognize the movie and decided that it was not anything for me.

Looking down at him, I was confronted with his greasy hair once again. I gulped and I could not hold myself back any longer, I was not able to prevent the words from escaping my mouth. "Don't you think it's time for a shower?" Kami, how could I be so rude? And it was not just anybody that I was in the middle of offending. It was Kakashi. Hatake freaking Kakashi! My impoliteness made me wonder if it was bad karma that lately had kept stabbing me in the back whenever I was not prepared for it.

"Huh, why? Do I smell?" he asked, lifting one arm to take a sniff, the other hand never leaving its spot in that silvery, messy nest he had on top of his head.

"No. No, it's not that. I just thought maybe a shower would be stimulating?" I was not sure if that would make me sound less rude.

"Nah, I don't really feel like it right now. Besides, I'm too tired. I would probably be out of breath before I even got to the shampoo part." Yeah, we cannot have that, now can we? What the hell does a man have to do to get another man to take a bath? "Unless of course you would volunteer to help me?" he said and looked up at me for the first time.

I was in shock. No, that was actually an understatement. Was he joking or did he really mean that? It was not always easy to tell when he did not mean what he said because he did not add that sarcastic tone like normal people did when joking. It was freaking annoying. How was I supposed to react to something like that? Was he testing me?

"Uhm..." I started carefully, "I'm not sure that I would be comfortable with doing that," I tried to sound confident as I walked to the kitchen to store the groceries I had bought. I figured leaving the conversation at that was for the better sake. I did not need to get myself into another embarrassing and easily misinterpret-able situation. It did not looked like I was going to have any luck with getting Kakashi to shower anyway. Maybe I would have to be even ruder than I had been just to get him to consider it.

As I placed some of the groceries on the top shelf of the food cupboard, I was reminded of my sore back and I doubled up with pain, the can I had placed on the shelf balancing on the edge of it.

"Damn," I whispered, placing one hand on my back as I stood up straight again. The pain could not just be from sleeping on that mattress. Carrying Kakashi to and back from the emergency doctor had been harder on me than I had first thought. He was a heavy man - not that he was fat - it was his big muscles and height, which made him difficult to carry for someone like me who was not nearly as strong as him.

When I was done unpacking the groceries, I made us both some green tea and did not go back to the living room until I had two cups of fuming tea in my hands, Kakashi's cup was of course made out of disposable plastic.

Kakashi watched as I carefully walked over to the coffee table by the couch, slowly so I would not spill any of the tea..

"Here you go," I said as I placed the tea in front of him.

"Thank you." His sore throat made it sound like he was hissing at me, but I could tell that he was not from the thankful look on his face.

"I thought this would be good for your throat. By the way, I noticed that you haven't touched the ice cream I've brought you yet, how come? Don't you like vanilla?"

"No, it's not that. It's just that ice cream isn't exactly healthy for you."

"Maybe not, but it'll make your throat hurt less."

"I'll just settle with the tea."

"Since when did you become all crazy about being healthy? Don't you drink alcohol like every weekend or something?"

He chuckled without sound, "I've always liked a good party. Alcohol is my weak spot when it comes to being healthy. But when I don't drink, I try to stay healthy and I can't drink anything anyway for the next couple of months so I might as well stay completely healthy." It should have been obvious to me that he ate healthy food since he was pretty fit, but it just did not seem logical to me to try and be healthy when you drank as much as he did. Well, at least he was not allowed to drink for a while and in a way it did not really surprise me that that was about the only fact that he could remember about his illness.

"I still don't think it would hurt to just eat a little once in a while."

"It wouldn't if I was allowed to exercise, but the doctor said that if I strained my body by lifting weights and such, I would risk bursting my spleen or something like that."

"I can see why you don't find that thought very flattering." I had never really seen Kakashi as someone who was obsessed with his body. I had actually not even considered that he had to work out and eat right to get the kind of body he had. Apparently, I just assumed he was born with it.

An angel passed the living room, at least that was what you would think when we suddenly went dead silent. I could not stop thinking about the fact that I did not really know Kakashi all that well, especially not when he was the only one I was close to considering my friend. Now the thought of it began to prey on my mind. I wanted to get to know him better, but how would I do that? Should I ask him something? In that case, where did the limit go to what was appropriate for me to ask?

I ended up just blurting out the first thing that came to my mind, the question being related to pretty much the only thing we had in common. Work. "What were you doing before the supermarket?"

Kakashi raised a brow at me. "What, you mean like work?" I nodded and he continued, "I was a fitness trainer."

"Really?" I sounded a little too surprised and it looked like Kakashi took it as an insult. "I mean, it's not like it isn't obvious when I look at you. You're very fit and manly and masculine and handsome... Wait... No, that didn't come out right!" his expression then turned into an awkward smile. Half of him seemed praised while the other half appeared rather disgusted. I flushed; when did I learn not to speak my mind?

"Thanks, I guess," he laughed carefully, "Well, I was a dietician as well, tough. Not very manly or masculine. It's actually kind of embarrassing, but I needed the money." Kakashi looked away from me and started coughing behind the white mask, which was probably already filled with all sorts of germs by now. I could not tell if he was trying to mock me.

None of us said anything for a minute or two, we only sat beside each other, taking a sip of our tea occasionally. So far, there had been a lot of silence between me and whoever I had been with throughout the whole day. But then Kakashi spoke.

"I think it's your turn to tell me something about yourself, like, how did you get that scar?" He pointed at the scar I had across my nose. Either he was reading my mind or else we were just thinking alike. Did he really want to get to know me too? The question did not thrill me, though. The answer to it was kind of embarrassing and I did not like to look back at my childhood memories.

"This?" I too pointed at my scar. "I was in a fight," I replied simply. Kakashi did not look satisfied with my short answer.

"Must have been a tough fight when that was the outcome. What happened?" I resisted the urge of biting my lower lip to keep myself from speaking. He probably would not stop asking further into it until I had given him a more detailed answer. I could tell him the truth, right? It was not like he was going to tell anyone else or laugh. It was not my entire childhood he was asking me about. I could just give him a quick summary.

"I didn't exactly hit it off with this one boy from school. So... one day he really pissed me off and when I took a shot at him, he accidentally cut me with his pocket knife in self-defense." I bended the truth a little at the last minute. I just wanted Kakashi to get off my back with this. The subject made me feel uncomfortable.

"Wow... Wasn't it a little drastic to draw a knife at you?" I shrugged my shoulders and thought that there was not any need for a verbal answer to that.

In an attempt to leave the conversation behind, I drank the last of my tea and said, "I'm hungry, I'm gonna make us dinner now," Kakashi just watched me as I got up and took both of our empty cups and brought them out to the kitchen.

I had a strange feeling in my stomach. Something was slowly changing in our relationship. We did not act towards each other as we usually did. We were more open and straightforward. I was not as stammering and unsure of myself around him any more and Kakashi seemed to be removing a part of that polite mask he constantly wore. But was this change in our relationship a good thing?

We ate dinner late that evening and when I was finally done with washing the dishes, Kakashi relapsed. I gave him some ibuprofen for the fever and wished that it was not going to repeat itself every night until he had recovered completely. I felt sorry for him and I had to strain myself so I would not start acting like some mother hen towards him.

When I had practically "put him to bed," I got myself ready for bed as well. Kakashi refused to sleep in anything else than his loose, gray jogging pants even though I told him that he would get rid of his cold sooner if he made sure to keep himself warm at night, but the fever made it almost impossible for him to wear any clothes at all.

I, on the other hand, could not get myself to sleep shirtless so I put on a white t-shirt and my pajamas pants before brushing my teeth, walking back into the living room where I got under my duvet quickly.

The coffee table was between me and Kakashi, but because I lay so low compared to him, I was able to look up at him without the table being in my field of vision. He was wearing his mask even when sleeping. I could not take this for much longer, I needed to know what was under that mask.

"Why are you wearing that mask?" Kakashi was lying on his back, but turned his head to the side to look at me when I spoke. Was it Kakashi that gave me these rude tendencies even though he was not very rude himself? Or was this just my actual self? I would not be able to tell since before Kakashi I had not interacted with anyone since I was a child.

"Because I don't wanna infect you," he said, sending me his signature eye smile. So he was going to play it like that. Fine by me.

"I don't care. Wouldn't it be nicer without it?" I bet it got all hot and sweaty behind it.

"Maybe, but I don't mind." We lay in silence for a few minutes. He was making up excuses so he would not have to answer my actual question. The only way around it was to ask him directly so he could not avoid answering.

"Kakashi-san?"

"Mmm?"

"I..." I was hesitating all of a sudden. Would it really be a good idea for me to ask? Carefully, I continued, "If you don't mind me asking, why are you always covering your face?"

"Huh?" Now he was playing dump, but I guess I kind of understood why since it appeared like he had a big problem with it. I just wanted to know why.

At the end of the day, I could not go through with the rude straightforwardness. I was purposely putting him in an awkward position. It was not my style so even though I knew that saying anything further would only give him an excuse not to answer, I chose to add, "I mean, you don't have to answer if you don't want to." He of course took me up on that.

"It's a long story, I'll tell you some other day." He turned so he faced the backrest of the couch instead of me. I was kind of disappointed even though I had not really believed that it would be that easy for me to find out what he was keeping from everyone.

"Oh, okay." I guess I just had to bear with him. Whatever his problem was, it had to be something that was really bothering him. I had never seen anyone who did so many things just to keep people from seeing something you found embarrassing. I figured it was better to drop it, but if he was going to keep it from me for much longer, I could not promise that I would not rip the mask off in his sleep.

oOooOooOo

I admit it! This is far from being one of the best chapters I've made so far. You might even say that it's one of the worst -_-' But I tried doing the best I could at the moment. I don't know if I'm in lack of inspiration or if my language just keeps getting worse and worse. Blah... at least it's done now and hopefully you can see that the story making progress even though it might not appear like that to everyone.

By the way, what just happened? We are already at chapter 20! My, my... how time flies when you are in good company^^...

And I just want to note that the story is not far now from hitting 100 reviews. Which means the lucky reviewer will get a one shot :D!
(Still owe Mr. Nancy one, but she won't give me the specifics... Damn you, girl xD! May you be forever alone! - in-house joke, sorry ^^'!)

Oh well, hit me with a review and tell me what you think. At least I'll know what to do better next time!

So long ^^!