Alright my darlings. You asked for it so here it is.

The next chapter of Blackmail.

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An hour later-

Kakashi rubbed his bruised jaw and glanced across the room and Naru. He couldn't figure out what he had done wrong. One second she had been putty in his hands and willing to start on those kids he promised her, and the next...

He had been punched in the face and had called him everything but scum. Then retreated back to the bedroom where she had hidden from him until just a few minutes ago. He narrowed his eyes at her back as she stood in the kitchen making something for lunch.

Apparently nearly breaking his jaw had made her hungry since she had skipped breakfast while he hadn't been able to move his jaw well enough to so much as chew his food and had nearly choked to death a number of times. And not once had she come out to check on him.

Not once!

It was like she had ice water in her veins.

"Kakashi would you like something to eat?" Naru asked in a sickly sweet voice as she turned her head to glance at him. He gave her a pained smile and said.

"Why yes Naru, on the condition that you chew it for me."

Naru gave him a funny look and scrunched up her nose a little bit then looked away and muttered. "Ew. No." Oh she was a cruel woman. Kakashi mused. Yet oddly enough even though she was a cruel woman who seemed to have ice water in her veins, he couldn't help but think that if she was a push over; he'd walk all over her.

But that was neither here nor there.

He needed to find out what he had done wrong and set things right between himself and Naru before his promises to her became more difficult to keep. And the first step to doing that was to talk to her.

Naru finished what she was doing in the kitchen and grabbed a plate from the cabinet and put her food on it then grabbed a bowel and poured something into it then grabbed some silverware from the drawer and picked up her plate and bowel and walked into the living room and set the bowel down in front of him on the coffee table and said, "Here. Since it apparently hurts you to chew then eat this."

Kakashi blinked at her then looked at the bowel of chicken and rice soup and found himself flushing a little bit because she had thought enough about him to fix him something that he wouldn't have to chew. "Uh...thanks." He said awkwardly as she handed him a spoon. He took it from her and stared at it for a second then asked.

"Naru are you still mad at me?"

"Do you know what you did to upset me?" Naru asked him curiously. He shook his head no and she sighed.

"Then it's pointless to stay mad at you when you don't know what you did." Naru said in an irritated tone as she sat down on the far end of the couch next to him and started eating.

Kakashi opened his mouth to ask her if she was going to fill in the blanks for him, but abruptly shut his mouth when it occurred to him that she was probably waiting for him to figure it out for himself that way he would learn not to do it again.

Whatever it was.

He picked up his bowel of soup and took a bite and blinked in surprise at the taste before swallowing. Naru had made the stuff from scratch if the taste was anything to go by. And it was absolutely delicious. "This is really good."

"Thanks. It's a family recipe."

Kakashi looked slightly startled as he turned his head to look at her. The question 'what family' came to mind. But he wasn't willing to utter it and take the chance that he might end up wearing the soup. God knew that she was touchy about things when it came to mentioning her family.

They sat there in silence for several minutes while Kakashi polished off his food and set the bowel aside and glanced over at Naru who seemed to be ignoring him when he said, "I still don't know what I did to upset you Naru. But I'm sorry that I did."

Naru licked her lips and set her plate down on the coffee table. "Do you want me to tell you what you did wrong?"

"No. I'll figure it out for myself. But I can pretty much make an educated guess that asking you to start on the kids that I promised you is more or less the root of it." Naru made a humming sound and smiled a little bit. Leave it to Kakashi to make a mistake and then take an hour or so to figure out the heart of the problem.