Chaoter 2 - In which this procrastinating writer delves into some shounen-ai

... KakaGai

"Sorry I'm late. I didn't sleep until four last night."

Sakura and Naruto both blinked. "That's … an almost normal excuse, sensei," his blond student told him in wide-eyed awe.

"Maa … it's get's difficult to keep thinking of creative ones, and sometimes I just tell the truth," he shrugged.

It was a good time as any to bring the issue out into the open. If Gai had his way, he would be yelling it from the rooftops. But it had already been a month and frankly, it was getting harder to keep it concealed. And who better to find out first than his cute students? Sure they were twelve, but it was quite obvious and Naruto and Sakura were both budding perverts, and Sasuke needed practice in making other types of facial expressions from his usual nonchalance.

"So," Sasuke began dryly. "Why were you up late? Were you on a mission?"

"No, I was with Gai."

Naruto's face scrunched up in confusion. "Bushy-brows-sensei was with you?"

"Yes."

"What were you and Gai-sensei doing, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked innocently.

He smiled under his mask, "you know how he always challenges me."

She nodded, "I know. You're losing by two points, aren't you sensei?" She was a smart kid, and she kept track of the little things that others tended to miss.

Kakashi shook his head, realizing with not a little glee that this was dangerously fun. "Not anymore. I won last night's challenge. Now I'm winning by three points."

"A five point challenge?" Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "Aren't your challenges usually only for one or two? Last time you ran around the village and beat him in speed, you only got one."

He grinned, "this was a special challenge, and it deserved more points."

"What was the challenge?"

Kakashi ran a hand through his hair, "maa, we were seeing who would come first." There, that would do it. Now he could just watch their interesting reactions…

"Well duh, of course," Naruto said matter-of-factly. "All challenges are based on who comes first. What were you coming first in? A race? Another round of rock-paper-scissors? Gosh, your challenges are actually really boring, sensei."

Oh, right. They were twelve. Kakashi deflated. Boring? Was that what they thought he was? He was tempted to tell them exactly what he had come first in, but Sandaime-sama would probably have a word with him if he did that.

That was when he noticed that Sasuke's eye was twitching.

Oh. So the Uchiha wasn't as innocent as his teammates. This was interesting.

"Actually, in this challenge the winner was the person who came second," he replied airily, keeping one eye trained on his third student. "Gai came first by almost thirty seconds, actually. I won."

By this point, Sasuke was visibly reddening.

"Well, of course you won," Sakura stated. "You're a lot cooler than Gai-sensei, Kakashi-sensei. But you haven't really told us what the challenge was."

"Forget it," Sasuke muttered, averting his eyes. "Let's just start training."

"No!" Naruto exclaimed. "I wanna know what Kakashi-sensei beat Bushy-Brows-sensei in!"

"Shut up, usuratonkachi."

"What did you say?!"

"Naruto, stop fighting with Sasuke-kun!" Sakura yelled shrilly.

Kakashi stood by and watched his students glare. He waved a hand, "well, if you're not interested, I suppose I'll just assign you three some chakra exercises…"

"We're interested!" Naruto told him. He paused. "But it was probably just rock-paper-scissors."

"It wasn't. It was a more interesting challenge. Best six out of ten, actually. It took most of the night to complete."

Sasuke coughed into his hand. By this point, the redness was beginning to spread out over his cheeks.

"Stop evading it, sensei!" Sakura huffed. "Now that you got us interested, you have to tell us.

"Do you like chocolate, Sakura?" He asked. "You see, Gai keeps giving me boxes of it and I don't eat that many sweet things." That had to do it. "How about flowers?"

"That's so nice!" The girl erupted. "He's a really great friend of yours after all, even though he's so weird!"

He drooped. How did one explain these things to twelve-year-olds? Instead, he turned to Sasuke. "Sasuke, you know what my challenge was, right?"

Sasuke crossed his arms. "I'm not an idiot like those two, and I'm perfectly aware that you do sketchy things. My oka-san used to warn me about people like you."

"Oi! Teme, don't be mean to Kakashi-sensei! He could kick your ass any day!" Naruto leapt at him.

While the two of them somehow managed to have the most one-sided fight in recorded history, Sakura was slowly growing pink.

"Um … sensei. Does he mean that you and Gai-sensei are like … boyfriends?"

"No one above the age of twenty uses that word, Sakura," he deadpanned.

"But … it's true?" She said slowly. "You do … um … dating, and stuff?"

"Dating? What's dating?" Kakashi smiled, "we have two conditions. First, I'm not allowed to read Icha Icha around him. Second, if he even mentions the word 'Youth' in bed, we switch positions."

He watched as she ran out of the training grounds. Well, that was fun. Now it was time to see how well Gai was doing with his own team. His students were older, so it had to be more interesting …

A few minutes away, training ground nine:

"…and my Eternal Rival and I are having passionate nights of Eternally declared love, and no matter what he says, Kakashi's is shorter than mine! How much it grows does not count!"

In front of him, Tenten and Neji were hurriedly covering Lee's ears.

.

... SasuSai

"Sasuke-kun, I would like to build a bond between us like I've built with Sakura-san and Naruto."

Sitting in his apartment, Sasuke blinked. The boy who had slipped in through his window was now standing in his living room and smiling a weird, bland smile. Sasuke vaguely recognized him as 'Sai', the extra member of team seven who had been made to replace him while he had been gone during the war.

"What? Bond?"

"Indeed," the pale boy took a book out from his pocket and began to flip through it. "It says here that bonds are very important when you are trying to make friends."

"You … want me to be your friend," Sasuke tried, eyes narrowed in concentration. This boy was part of the anbu. This was clearly an infiltration trick.

"Yes, Sasuke-kun."

"Stop calling me that."

"Oh, right," Sai tapped his chin. "Friends usually refer to each other with pet names, don't they? I should make one for you." He paused. "But Sakura-san wasn't very happy with the one I made for her. She didn't like being called 'Ugly', although I thought it was very fitting. You see, I once read that you must tell girls the opposite of what you think. But it didn't seem to work on her."

Great. So team seven now had two Sakura fanboys. Such an improvement. Clearly, his departure had lowered what little quality they had. Sasuke leaned back on the couch. "Get out of my apartment. I never invited you in."

"I invited myself … Beautiful."

There was silence in the apartment. Enough silence that the dripdripdrip of the faucet he had yet to fix was startlingly loud.

"What … did you call me?"

"Beautiful." Sai smiled, "Ino-san liked being called that, so I thought you would like it too."

"My name is just Sasuke. Now get out."

Sai shook his head. "We must bond."

"I don't want any stupid bonds. I have enough fangirls chasing me as it is," he retorted.

"I have noticed, Sasuke-kun," Sai nodded, and helped himself to a seat beside him. "How did you get all those kunoichi to see you so favorably?"

"I don't know. I just sit here hating the world and they flock to me."

"Sasuke-kun hates the world?" Sai wondered. "Well, maybe through our bond I can change that. You see, my book states that friends must help each other."

"Leave."

"But Sasuke-kun-"

"Leave. I have work to do."

Finally, Sai looked down with a slightly more dejected expression. He sighed and reached into his pocket, drawing out a folded piece of paper. He held this out to Sasuke. "Sasuke-kun, take this. Sakura-san told me to use it as a last resort whenever my interactions with other people do not work as I wish them to."

Purely out of curiosity, Sasuke took the little note and opened it. His eyes scanned over Sakura's painstakingly neat handwriting.

If you are reading this note, then you are probably with my teammate Sai, and you might have done something to confuse him. Please note that Sai was once part of an emotional conditioning program that divulged him of all usable emotional capability, and act accordingly around him.

-Haruno Sakura, Konoha General Hospital

(PS: if he pisses you off enough, feel free to burn that book he carries around. I've been trying to get at it for months now.)

Understanding dawned slowly. Sasuke looked up and handed back the note. "I see."

Sai nodded. "Does this mean bonding with you will be easier?"

But Sasuke was thinking of something else. Something so profound that he couldn't believe it could actually be possible. "Wait," he held up a hand. "Allow me to understand properly. You," he pointed, "don't have much emotion at all."

Sai nodded again.

"…and you therefore don't come with any emotional baggage."

Nod.

"…and unlike the fangirls who suffocate me with their perfume, you'll actually act logically and do what I say. And you won't scream in excitement every five minutes."

Nod.

"…are you free tonight? What about every night?"

Next day morning, training ground seven:

Sakura eyed her former-anbu teammate skeptically. "Sai, there's something different about you. I can't exactly pin it down, but …" Maybe it had something to do with the glow of his face and the slight stiffness of his walk. It contrasted rather heavily with his usual grace.

Sai smiled. "I believe the term, Sakura, is 'I got laid'."

.

... KakaNaru

"Tou-chan, this is actually my first time visiting this memorial by myself. Sensei sometimes spends hours out here, but … I don't actually know what to say. Life as Hokage is fun and peaceful but also kind of dull, because I don't get to kick anyone's butt anymore. But on the bright side, my idiot teammate finally proposed to Sakura-chan, even though she told him that she'd not interested in helping him repopulate his clan. That's a pretty big step for him. On the subject of proposals and stuff, I really hope you weren't expecting an heir, or anything. I mean, you're not, right? I already passed down the rasengan to Konohamaru in exchange for him naming one of his future children after you or Kaa-chan. If he doesn't keep up his side of the deal I won't nominate him for Nanadaime. Because this is serious stuff. And I probably won't have an heir. Which is a good thing, because Sakura-chan says the world would be a better place if I didn't have kids to spoil. Because I'd totally be like Ero-Sennin and spoil them rotten! I bet kaa-chan wouldn't have spoiled me, though. The last thing she ever told me was to eat vegetables. Yuck. But ever since I told that to Kakashi-sensei, he's made a pact with Ayame-chan to secretly add vegetables into my ramen. Ew. It totally ruins the taste of the ramen. But anyway, what was I talked about. Oh, right, heirs …"

Later that evening:

"Minato-sensei, forgive me for not bringing flowers this time. The Yamanaka shop was closed. But I brought this nice leaf that Mr Ukki grew recently, and I hope you like it. More importantly, I hope you don't mind that I'm sleeping with your son."

"Epilogues":

Kakashi and Gai proceed to announce their relationship to the village. No scratch that, Gai proceeds to do such announcements. Announcing to his students was really enough for this Copy-Nin. The village doesn't really pay much heed, because they're Gai and Kakashi. Gai and Kakashi are weird.

Sai rather likes the fact that Sasuke-kun is taking this 'bonding' thing to a whole new level. When asked, Sasuke prefers the term 'mutualism'.

Namikaze Minato is trying his level best to claw himself out of the Shinigami's stomach.

Again, this is not to be taken too seriously. And many of you already know that I actually ship some of the pairings I make fun of in this fic :P

Anyway, this chapter was an overdose of shounen-ai (recommendations from 'The Goliath Beetle'). The next chapter will be completely shoujo-ai to make up for it (though I don't actually read shoujo-ai so the only common one I know of is InoSaku). The weirdest pairing request I've gotten so far is Itachi/Hana ('Lady Braus'), which actually isn't too weird (it shall go in chapter 4). Come on, use your imagination! I wish to be challenged!

Review ^^