Somehow, I started shipping a strange couple. They're sort of cute.

Random idea that popped into my head.

Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me, because a wild baby Sasuke has appeared! (Izuna)

Chapter 35: Date

She couldn't quite put it into words. It was a strange day — rainy, but not, and sunny, but also not quite, as if the sky was confused. Maybe the Konoha weather was trying to send messages, though about what, Mariko could not quite tell. She was sure it was not about her issue with this dastardly centipede that was stalking her — seriously, it was stalking her — or even about the growing life in her belly that she had not told Tobirama of yet, but more about the awkwardly blooming love of teenagers. She quite enjoyed watching it unfold.

The moment the word date came out of someone's mouth, it shot around the community like an infectious disease carried by Obitopede itself.

"Date?" asked Biwako.

"Date?" murmured Homura.

"Date?" parroted an Akimichi boy.

"Date?" echoed the Nara and her friends.

"Date?" chortled Torifu.

"Date." Danzo was not amused.

"Date?!" exclaimed Shiro.

"Date…" Aki looked rather confused, almost as if he couldn't comprehend the word with the image of the two who were bound to go on this date. And he had good reason to think this way, for no one had expected the first date to come from Kagami's mouth, playboy or not. With bated breath, they waited for her reaction, for the girl to smack him across the face and break his nose, or hurtle thousands of senbon needles at point blank range. They waited for Kagami to emerge a human porcupine, but he did not (sadly, for some people).

She said, "What time?"

Hiruzen nearly passed out.

"DATE?!" he hollered, almost in Tobirama's ear. The white-haired Senju pushed away his student and chewed on the thought on his own. All that came up was, huh, accompanied by an intrigued nod.

"This is interesting," Mito chirped.

"This is not," sighed Tobirama.

"Oh, you know it's interesting," snipped Toka, rolling her eyes. And they all knew that somewhere deep inside, this was amusing Tobirama to no end.

And thus began the preparations, the place, the time, the setup. The endless torture that Kagami would inevitably be subjected to simply because he had asked the one and only Utatane Koharu on a date.

"Well, it was nice knowin' ya," said Shiro, patting the Uchiha on the back.

"Get back here, dog boy," hissed Kagami, folding his arms. "What do I do now?"

Everyone shrugged.

"I'll buy you a casket," murmured Danzo, who was picking at their untouched dango, rather satisfied that he got to eat most of it.

"I'm not dying," Kagami said forcefully. "Yet."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Hiruzen.

"Figure it out, monkey."

"I call hair."

"I call makeup."

"I call clothes!"

And this was the trouble of being a kunoichi. Koharu wanted to punch herself in the face for agreeing to this. She was now the poor, tortured little guinea pig for teenage girls that were squealing uncontrollably with delight at the fact that she of all people was going on a date with Kagami. Because he's like, so hot, according to everyone.

"Hair down," Biwako said. Koharu shook her head vehemently.

"Hair up," she replied.

"Nope. Hair down," Biwako insisted.

"I'd rather be one of Chiyo's puppets."

"Hair down."

And there was no arguing with the woman that would become the Third Hokage's wife someday.

Whoever had suggested karaoke would die tomorrow. This was what Kagami swore, because karaoke was a group thing, and thus, several people were accompanying them. This wasn't even a date, not the real thing, not yet. That was supposed to be on Friday. But lo and behold, someone — most likely Hiruzen and Shiro — had organized a Wednesday night karaoke outing for all of their friends.

It didn't help that there was a doe-eyed, blue-haired woman at the door, smiling mysteriously as they entered. It also didn't help that behind her, a tall, white-haired Senju wearing full blue armor and a face guard raised an eyebrow at him. But the worst part was that when he raised his eyebrow, Koharu dodged behind quite a few other girls before entering. What the hell was that.

(On a side note, Kagami sensed a heat, a small swirl of chakra emanating from Mariko's belly, and had this strange realization that they were going to expect blue-haired Senjus. Hopefully not everywhere.)

On that fateful Wednesday evening, it was discovered that Hiruzen had the voice of a god, Danzo was surprisingly sexy when he sang, and Shiro sounded like a goat. Aki sounded like a cheese grater, while Biwako sang in an overly high-pitched voice. Koharu didn't sing, and Homura mumbled into the microphone, while Kagami did his best to keep up with Torifu's excited lyric-chanting.

Someone began dancing, and then everyone was dancing, and because this was all a conspiracy to produce some impossible love story, Koharu and Kagami were pushed together. And, of course, someone just had to bump into Hiruzen, who slammed "accidentally" into Koharu, effectively knocking her into Kagami's chest.

It was a good plan, to be honest, but at the same time, it failed miserably. Koharu's head hit Kagami's mouth, and Kagami bent over, lip bleeding because he'd bitten it. He swore, a string of oaths that should not be repeated in front of young children — or any children, for that matter — and someone laughed.

"HIRUZEN, I WILL—"

"Room service!"

"WHAT THE HELL."

Why is there room service in a karaoke club?

"Sir, would you like a napkin?"

And then there was a teeny blunette staring at him, offering a towel. Kagami was so, so confused, and he looked up to see Koharu glancing down at him worriedly — that was just great, he moaned inwardly — and then the rest of the group trying not the laugh, silenced when Koharu hissed at them. It occurred to Kagami that Tobirama was probably watching them, hence why his pregnant wife was kneeling in front of him, sort of amused but mostly worried. He accepted the towel, but wondered why in the world a Senju that despised the Uchiha would be watching him.

Oh wait.

Koharu. Koharu was his student. He supposed that that made some sense…sort of. Then again, why should he worry if there was a group of idiots with them? Oh wait, he should worry about that too.

Actually, Tobirama just wanted to watch something funny happen.

Koharu was ready to murder people, and if someone let out a dozen crazy Kiri nin before her, there would have been a slaughter. She could demolish a Chuunin Exam, she could bust a hole in the Hokage mountain, she could eat a freaking Obitopede, she was so angry. That moment, right there, when her impatience peaked — even if one was Obitopede, running was the best option.

Nonetheless, her girlfriends cooed around her and straightened her hair, clipping it back fancily and then dusting her eyelids with a pretty color that she didn't even know existed as makeup.

Somewhat on the other side of the village, in the Uchiha complex, Shiro was clicking his tongue at the sloppily put together Uchiha.

"It's artfully thrown together," Kagami claimed.

"Even I wouldn't be so messy," scoffed the Inuzuka, rolling his eyes. "And you smell…interesting."

"He smells like apple pie," Hiruzen commented. "Because he just baked it for his sister."

"Shut up, Hiruzen!"

"Ah. Well, I think apple pie will do," Shiro declared. "Now put this on."

"What are you, a woman?"

"No, I'm smart. And we don't want you to die. PUT IT ON."

Kagami changed his clothes obediently.

Tobirama was done waiting for something interesting to happen, because now he apprehensively regarded the Uchiha waiting at the corner of the street, looking better put-together than Madara on a bad day. Which made a lot of sense, actually, because Madara was a very well-dressed man (most of the time).

Meanwhile, alongside his worries that Koharu would fall for a hooligan like Kagami — as her teacher, he was an aggressive second father — Tobirama had other issues that were currently eating holes in his health. Mariko had mysteriously started getting sick in the morning, trying unsuccessfully to sneak to the bathroom and vomit. Tobirama had never been a heavy sleeper, unless in an otherworldly state of fatigue, and had immediately sensed her movement away from the bed.

Padding into the bathroom, he held her hair away from her face and rubbed her shoulders until she curled up into a nauseous ball of sapphire-topped girl in his lap. He wondered, mistakenly, if there was a stomach flu going on. He made a mental note to go ask Mito.

(Mito would tell him that she'd heard of some kids getting sick — entirely untrue, but Mariko had sworn her to secrecy for now — and would shake her head at his lack of perception. For a man known to be a top sensory shinobi, how could he fail to sense that his own child was in his wife's belly? Oh well, Mito thought. We'll tell him eventually. At least there was no need for the village's strongest shinobi and her relatives to sit inside a secluded cave, operating one of the highest level seals in existence just for her to have a child…)

But the current matter was Koharu, and she was rounding the corner. She nearly bumped into Kagami, who offered his arm in a very gentlemanly manner. Almost robotically. Even so, Koharu seemed pleased, taking his arm lightly. Kagami had obviously been trained, perhaps by Biwako, who had been stalking to and from the Uchiha complex back to Koharu's house on Thursday.

Another issue involved romantic activities. After date, the word kiss zoomed around like a storm, and then other things as well. Activities that no one really wanted the particulars of, but were terribly interested in. Twisted.

Tobirama touched the rooftop he was crouched on. In an instant, he felt the presences of six other shinobi, all of them doing quite a good job hiding themselves (except from him, of course). He spotted Shiro, first. When Kagami made a move to grab something off a shelf and buy it, the Inuzuka gestured wildly. No, he screamed without screaming. Kagami recalled his hand.

Now this was amusing. The boys were desperately trying to coach Kagami during his date, and Koharu was sort of just ambling along, rather content. Tobirama had assumed that Koharu, as the female party, would have been much more worried. Then again, Koharu had never been the fussy type.

"This dango is so good," someone said too loudly to be casual.

"Yum, yum," said the next person.

Tobirama wanted to slap his forehead, because the person who claimed that the dango was delicious hadn't even eaten a bite, most likely because she was still feeling sick and didn't feel like washing her blue hair again. The next girl was Tobirama's cousin, and was making a big deal of stuffing dango into her mouth indulgently.

And Koharu liked dango, Tobirama knew.

Kagami made a gesture, and Koharu nodded. As soon as they entered the dango shop, three ninja came tiptoeing out of nowhere in particular. One was Biwako, who cleverly dressed herself in too-large armor and headgear that disguised her face. The next was Hiruzen, who was kneeling on top of the shop itself. The last was Shiro, who was nervously tugging nothing from his dog's coat.

Then:

"KAGAMI YOU IDIOT!"

That was the sound of rejection, that poor Uchiha. One could only hope that he wouldn't go nuts and become as full of angst and unreasonable despair as the rest of them. (It would probably comfort Tobirama to know that Kagami never became an angry old man, like his clansmen, but instead stayed the carefree, relaxed character he always was.)

As fate would have it — the same fate that deemed that Kamui-land would be connected to Tobi's eyehole, and that Tsunade, later to be chopped mercilessly in half, would have the strength of ten elephants, and the same force that graced Sasuke with a face stunningly similar to Izuna's — Kagami had spilled his tea all over Koharu. Hot tea, burning tea, steaming tea, all over the outfit that her fellow kunoichi had poured hours and hours over, deciding the right blouse. Stupid blouse.

"I'm so sorry, let me—"

"Don't touch my chest, pervert!" she hissed.

"I'm not—" Deflated, Kagami gave up as Koharu ran to the nearest restroom to clean herself up. He slumped backwards in his seat, sighing. He seemed genuinely disappointed in himself, which surprised Tobirama.

Then, to Tobirama's dismay, Mariko turned around and tapped the Uchiha's shoulder.

"The first one's always bad," she consoled. Then, laughing, "If it makes you feel any better, my first five were bad. I always ended up falling in some unfortunate puddle or getting shot at with arrows."

At this, Kagami's eyes widened, and he flashed a meek smile. He would try again, of course.

Not that Koharu was in any mood to continue this date at the moment.

Somewhat behind the local news, Hashirama stood up abruptly in his office.

"Him?! With her?! ON A DATE?! And she said yes?!"

Mito the messenger nodded smugly, and watched in wonder as Hashirama turned on his heel and peered out his window, incredulous.

"It's too bad he couldn't consult Madara…that man had fabulous fashion."

"Unlike you?"

"Yes, unlike me."

Obviously, seeing as the Hokage was still wearing his pajama flannels by accident. (Mito decided not to tell him, smiling to herself.)

Etsuko likes dango. She also says hi ~

Besides that, OH KAGAMI. YOU SO SILLY.

I read a little Kagami x Koharu blurb, and it was hilarious and cute.

I have the oddest headcanons, so I just spit them out for you. Hee hee.