The Boy in the Park

Chapter Fifteen

"And so Kakashi-sensei arrived three hours late, really!" Naruko huffed as she flailed wildly with her arms. "I can't believe he said he didn't like us! Then we had to present ourselves and Sakura went all 'I like Sasuke-kun! And I dislike thieving cats and whatnot' and then Sasuke went all broody and angst and muttered darkly 'I want to kill a certain person!' really, Aniki! I've got the worst team ever!"

He hummed contently as he went through his bank account's notes to check on the new salary —it was quite a substantial increase.

"Aniki, are you listening to me?" Naruko whined. "I've got to take an important exam tomorrow! Survival training, yeah! The baka-sensei said I don't have to eat breakfast because I'll puke and…"

"If you don't puke after thirteen bowls of Ramen, you won't puke even if he were to gut you," he dryly remarked with an amused tone. "And I'm listening Naruko, I'm just looking how much money I can put aside this month with the bills and the rent."

Naruko scrunched her face up in thought. "Oh! I'll be starting missions soon! Then I'll become ultra-rich Aniki! Do you think I'll save a princess first and she'll make me a princess too? Or maybe I'll be battling evil ninjas and saving their hostages?"

Her eyes were sparkling as she came up with missions after missions that were clearly impractical to give to a Genin. He wondered just how far her imagination stretched sometimes, when she began to rant about how she'd totally be able to defeat some sort of giant metallic golem of death and doom if it ever crossed her path.

"I'm sure you will," he soothingly said back to her, "But Naruko, shouldn't you be training if tomorrow you have a test?"

Naruko smiled brightly as she simply sat down next to him, her head dropping down against his shoulder.

"I'm the most awesome kunoichi ever 'ttebayo! I don't need to train for tomorrow: it'll be a cinch!"

"Do you know what they say of pride and arrogance?" he retorted to her with a knowing look, as Naruko mocked having fallen asleep on his shoulder. "That they blind you to your defeat."

Naruko feigned snoring, as she dropped her head from his shoulder to his arm and then —most unconvincingly— nudged herself on his lap to sleep.

He grumbled beneath his breath something about buying a cat pillow for her, but smiled softly as he returned to his accounting.

It was as he was tapping his pen on the result that he saw a glint of silver hair coming from the 'hole'.

The 'hole' was one of Naruko's genius ideas of doom and despair. Naruko couldn't cook or wake up to save her life. She couldn't even clean or fight off the 'invaders' known as ants or cockroaches. Thus her idea was to always ask him for help —which meant that for a few days, he actually ended up walking from his apartment to hers on a minute-per-minute basis.

Then she had taken to eating breakfast at his apartment —because she always forgot to buy the eggs. Since they were neighbours, he had admitted defeat when she had begun leaving her stuff both in his and in her apartment.

Then Naruko had ended up doing a 'training' accident which had unfortunately resulted in a slightly torn wall —just so casually once more of the same size as Naruko— and that had even been hastily covered up by a horrendous painting found in the garbage. He could swear the eyes of the woman depicted on the picture were following him as he walked around the room.

"Aniki," Naruko softly moaned nuzzling herself closer to his chest. "I love ramen…" she actually began to drool at that. He rolled his eyes at that. Calmly, he hoisted her up —much to his back's chagrin because the girl weighted— and settled her down with a blanket on the sofa. Then, he went to look through the hole.

He saw nothing of importance, except a wooden basket filled with groceries.

He frowned, and then went outside —he would never pass through the 'hole'. He had the keys after all to both their apartments. He opened the door to Naruko's own flat and entered, before sighing to himself at the chaos.

"That girl…" he mumbled, shaking his head. If she had bought groceries, she should have placed them in the fridge —otherwise they were just going to spoil.

He finished putting everything in its place, storing the basket away, and then left to return to his apartment. Of course, Naruko was simply sprawled with her mouth wide snoring on the sofa, the blanket cast aside.

He placed the blanket back on her and hummed a small tune as he began to put away the stuff on the table. He supposed he'd have Naruko stay for dinner —it wasn't difficult to just add more rice and place less side-dishes around.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts, as he went to open it. He raised two surprised eyebrows at the sight of a silver haired shinobi with a forehead protector covering one of his eyes, and a mask on his face.

"Yoh," the man said with a hand up in salute. "You're Haruno?"

"Yes?" he hazarded.

"Good! I'm Kakashi Hatake," the man replied calmly, keeping his only visible eye sort-of morphed into a smile —how he did that was beyond him. "I heard around you're the one who keeps an eye out for Naruko, right?"

"And you want to know…" he began back only to widen his eyes for a moment, "Ah, you're Kakashi-sensei, right? Do you want to come in? Naruko's sleeping, but I can wake her up if you need something."

"It won't be necessary," the Jounin shook his head. "I just wanted to tell you something," he said conspiratorially as he moved closer. "I will most probably fail Naruko's team, and the fault will be yours," at those words, he frowned.

"W-What are you talking about? I never even met you!" he hissed back. "Naruko doesn't…"

"Haruno-san," he rolled his only eye. "Konoha values teamwork above all…and two of my potential team members nearly fought each other in front of me. Unless you can make a miracle happen, that team is bound to fail."

So that was what the 'thieving cat' meant to Sakura.

The girl just acted spoiled.

"Why not simply change the teams then?"

"Mah, it's a matter of tradition," the Jounin shrugged. "The dead last of the class goes with the rookie of the year and the first in class."

"So what? You want me to apologize to my sister?"

"That won't be necessary," the man smiled through his mask. "I just have the perfect exercise in mind, you see…"

That was the first time he actually agreed to do something for Naruko's benefit that placed him at risk…then again, it wouldn't be the last.