"So, I hear nobody has ever drunk you under the table," demanded a voice from behind his seat at the bar.
Kakashi turned in his booth, where he had been discussing future training possibilities with Kurenai, and looked at the woman sitting behind him. The girl was shorter than he was, with a mass of purple hair pulled back and tied haphazardly. She was smirking at him from the other booth, and Kakashi noted that more than a few sake containers sat empty on her table. He realized that he knew this woman, and with that realization came a small internal sigh.
Kakashi was passingly familiar with Mitarashi Anko. The girl had been an apprentice to Orochimaru of the Sannin, and when he had fled the village, he had dragged her along. They eventually found her again, with no memory of the recent past and a cursed seal that did nothing but cause her pain before it had been locked down by another seal placed around it. She worked in the Torture and Interrogation section of the shinobi forces, the only place where her reputation as the student of a traitor seemed to be accepted. Her reputation for being a woman without style or class, however, was well earned by her lack of manners, and her outfit did little to discourage that sort of opinion.
Kakashi was suspicious of Anko, not because of her past, but because her habits fit her role as a tough girl a little too closely to be genuine. She worked regularly with Morino Ibiki, and he had a thing for mind games and role playing during interrogations. Kakashi idly wondered who played the good cop during those times...
"Someone has been telling tales from ANBU, Mitarashi-san. Care to say who?" His eye darted to his own companion, who was smirking. How do they ever have the energy to do this to me, he thought. One would think that jonin, in life or death situations often enough to astound any outsider, would be more serious or grim, but in Kakashi's experience, they tended to be far more troublesome than any genin squad, mostly because they were so good at causing trouble.
"Nope, but sounds like I found the right white-haired shinobi, at least." Anko smirked and turned fully in her seat, stopping to tug at the edges of her long coat, conveniently revealing her skimpy fishnet shirt. Kakashi managed to hold back a sigh at such an amateur act, and let his eye dip down slightly. He heard Kurenai grunt behind him, signaling she saw his eye move. That's what you get for setting this up, he quietly thought to himself.
Anko leaned forward, her eyes narrowed. "I saw you checking the goods," she said with a smirk. "Even the ever stoic Hatake-san cannot resist my bountiful charms!" She leaned fully across the back of the booth, leering in a manner she probably thought was suggestive, but which came across as predatory instead. "If you're a good boy, maybe you'll get another peak during the contest."
Kakashi resisted the urge to roll his eye and turned to face Kurenai. "I'm not getting out of here without another ridiculous contest, am I," he said in leaden tones. Kurenai shook her head, smiling slightly. "We're only here today, now, to discuss training, because you set up this encounter, aren't we?" She nodded, her grin growing. "And she's just tenacious enough to bug me for the rest of my life if I don't just get it over with, isn't she?"
"Damn right," said Anko, slipping into their booth next to Kurenai, setting down to bottles of sake in front of them. "Drinking contest. One for one. First to fall over or spew loses." She poured two saucers, then lifted her own.
"You're no better than Guy sometimes, I swear," he muttered to Kurenai, who at least had the decency to look miffed at that comparison. Kakashi turned to Anko and stared at her. "Stakes," he said flatly. He who knew better than to accept without knowing the goal of this particular attempt to ferret out his secrets.
"I win," Anko said with a smile, "and you let me see what's under your mask."
"Declined." And she knows it.
Anko shrugged and took a sip from Kurenai's cup.
Kakashi pushed his opinion of the specialist jonin up slightly. There was no way he would ever agree to that, and the way she brushed off his refusal, she knew ahead of time she would be denied. Either she had been very well coached on this, or she had done her research.
"I win," she said after a moment, "and you take me on a date." She smirked at him.
"Declined." What's the game, here? Most people could be pressured into agreement if given a much more acceptable request after an initial refusal. In theory, Mitarashi-san should have made such an offer immediately in the hope of his acceptance. But Kakashi's unwillingness to do anything even remotely romantic was as infamous as his desire to keep his mask on at all times, and rumor told him that both were prime objectives amongst some of his former ANBU allies.
Anko stopped to think for a moment, tapping her finger on the table. "Fine. I win, and you let me read that book you're always looking at." Kakashi opened his mouth to agree, but she raised her free hand. "Your copy, Hatake Kakashi, not any random copy."
Kakashi shut his mouth and stared at her. Nobody sees my book, that's as solid as the other two. She keeps trying to increase the pressure on me. Never go along with another person's plan. It would do little enough harm if she saw, but still… "I will agree, if you promise to never tell anyone else what you see in it."
Anko nodded, smiling like the cat who got the mouse. She raised the saucer to her lips, then lowered it slightly. "And my stakes," she asked, going for another leer. "Maybe you want to see a little more of Anko-chan?" She leaned forward, arms tucked under her chest to bring forward her assets.
She is really, really bad at this seduction thing. This time, Kakashi did not let his eye move. "I win, and you never challenge me to a drinking contest again."
Anko's eyes darted over to Kurenai. "Yes," said Kakashi, letting a little of his tired frustration into his voice, "That's why she roped you into this. You, and the previous five women. And it's always women, I might add," Kakashi said to Kurenai, who was sitting in her spot and quietly exuding an air of innocence. "And they always try the seduction routine on the infamous pervert Hatake Kakashi. One would think you were trying to set me up again, Yuhi-san."
"I accept," said Anko, smirking at Kurenai, who was smirking a little herself.
Kakashi sighed and raised his own saucer. "Let's get this over with."
Anko stared in confusion as Kakashi drank the sake through his face mask. Kurenai meanwhile was watching him very closely, like she always did during these little moments. For some reason, the mask was always a thing for everyone he met. He'd heard rumor that there was a bounty back in ANBU for his mask or a picture of him without it. Those rumors claimed that everyone from the owner of the ramen stand Naruto loved so much to Danzo Shimura himself had chipped into the pot. After he developed his 'Another Mask' routine, where he pulled down his mask on request to show another mask beneath it, the Hokage had confirmed the rumor, and had added to the pot, telling Kakashi that it was good practice for the newer members of ANBU in impossible problem solving and a morale boost for the older ones who got the free entertainment of watching the new members try to collect.
Kakashi set his saucer down, his face the same literally emotionless mask as before he began to drink, and said, "Your turn."
Kakashi looked at Anko, who was leaning back in the booth with her head leaning over the edge and into the booth behind her, her eyes closed, her breathing even but heavy. He'd called for her to drink three times, and she had yet to react. "I'm going to assume we're done here, Kurenai. Please pull her forward. That's unhealthy." Kurenai reached out and pulled on Anko's jacket slightly, until the girl slumped forward onto the table with a solid thump, upsetting her last saucer of sake as she did so.
Kakashi shook his head. "Less than two bottles? You've become desperate, Kurenai. You usually choose champion drinkers."
The red eyed woman sighed, but she nodded in agreement as well. "What would it take to get you to just tell me how you do that? I've seen you drink enough to kill a civilian, yet I've never seen you so much as burp, never mind stumble. How on earth can you drink that much?"
Kakashi kept the surprise from his face. "All you want to know is how I drink so well? Not what I look like without the mask, or how I eat and drink though it?" Kurenai nodded glumly.
The choices are to either tell her, and end this stupid routine once and for all, or keep quiet, and have to deal with damaging someone's liver every few months. Not a hard choice. He leaned forward conspiratorially, raising one hand in a theatrical manner, as if imparting a great secret. "Promise to never set up another drinking contest with me, and that you'll never tell anyone else about it, and I'll tell you how I keep winning the drinking contests. It'll save us both the grief from repeating this over and over again."
Kurenai nodded in agreement and leaned forward expectantly.
Kakashi tugged his mask slightly away from his face and squeezed it, releasing more than a little liquid. "The fabric is absorbent, as is my undershirt, which it is connected to. I drank maybe a single saucer's worth tonight. The rest is either in my shirt, or slowly pooling on the floor at my feet."
"You cheated," said Kurenai, her face grim.
"I cheated," he said, his smile reaching his eyes for the first time that night.
Anko's head immediately popped up from the table, her eyes clear and her smile huge. "You cheated," she crowed at the top of her voice as Kakashi leaned back in surprise. "Hah! You should have waited for the contest to be over rather then assuming it was, then." She smirked at Kurenai, who looked quite pleased with herself. "Cheating is as good as a loss. Let's see the book, Hatake-san. Or are you going to welch on a bet?"
Kakashi fumed quietly. He could probably argue that she had not responded to her turn of the challenge and lost before the confession… but it would not matter. The story would revolve around him being a cheat, not her losing, and once that got around, every jonin in the village would declare open season on him. So far, he'd managed to convince them to leave him alone when he was at home, because he enjoyed sleeping peacefully without highly trained assassins sneaking into his house to poke at his face. That would end if he fought.
"Fine, fine," he said, waving his hand. "You win. I'll show you, and only you, my book."
Kakashi and Anko swapped back to her booth, and after a careful look around to ensure nobody else was watching, Kakashi reached into his bag and pulled out his well thumbed copy of Icha Icha Paradise and handed it over.
Anko smirked triumphantly and opened the book… then frowned. She flipped one page, then another, then began to thumb through them quickly. She opened her mouth to complain, then stopped under the heat of his glare. "No trick. That's the real deal. Our little secret," he said. "Or would you welch on a debit?"
Anko slowly handed the book back, staring aghast at Kakashi, then turned around in the booth to face Kurenai, who had been desperately trying not to show any interest in what was going on. "You're buying," Anko said. "I need a drink."
It had taken two more bottles before Anko started to wobble a little. It took another two before her words started to slur. And it took one more bottle before she finally stopped going on about how she could not believe Kakashi owned that book.
Kurenai had gotten up to leave around that point, stopping only to point out to Kakashi that a gentleman who wanted to sleep easy with his mask on would see the poor drunk woman home. He would have taken her opinion more seriously, if he didn't see her wink at Anko, who was very, very careful not to react, but who also went through the trouble of slowly crawling out of the booth, showing off her curves in a number of highly impractical poses while doing so, before finally tripping over her coat with a very obvious pratfall and stumbling into him. "Can't wait to getcher mitts on me, eh," she slurred, rubbing against his arm as she tried to pull herself up his body.
Kakashi merely shook his head and went to pay his tab.
The two of them made it down a single street before Anko had to make an emergency stop at the side of the road. The next street, she started to wobble so bad that he was forced to pull her arm over his shoulders and walk with her. By the fourth street, she managed to fall over in spite of his help.
Kakashi sighed and helped her up, dragging her arm back over his shoulder to help her stay up. "'Choo jus wanna feel," she said, clenching the same arm tight over his shoulders and leaning into him.
"Mitarashi-san, you have been fairly throwing yourself at me most of the night, and I half suspect it's all Kurenai's fault. You've seen inside my book, so I think you know by now that your charms are not so effective as you might think."
Anko snorted. "Mayyybe I fine you cute, Kakakakashi-chann."
"And I find you are seriously drunk."
Anko nodded sagely, then stumbled away from him slightly and pulled a little book out of her jacket. She started flipping through it casually, and it took Kakashi a few moments to realize it was his book, and she'd apparently picked his pockets for it at some point. "Yeahhh, bu' this, this," she shut the book and waved it at him, "this thing. This thing. Unreal. Never guessed. Nobody believe it."
He snatched it from her roughly, then pulled her arm back over his shoulder and marched her along. "Our secret, though, right?"
Anko nodded and leered at him. "Our secret."
The next day, Kakashi set up Sasuke and Tenten to practice after the morning disappointment with Neji, then pulled out his book and flipped it open. He giggled slightly and turned a page to look at the next crisp sheet of blank white paper.
Everyone knew that Kakashi was a pervert. Everyone knew, because he was always reading that perverted book, that book that anyone could buy or even look up in the library. And they always got their own copy, and looked, and assumed. Eventually, when in the fullness of time they wanted to distract him, they always tried for seduction because Kakashi was so obviously a pervert, and he obliged them with wandering eyes and carefully held breaths. It was a very convenient way to tell when a woman was trying to manipulate him, and it boggled Kakashi's mind that none of them questioned it!
Kakashi gave another false giggle and flipped another page. Only unlike every other page in the book, this page was no longer blank. Instead, across the page in an uneven scrawl was a message that Kakashi had completely failed to see her write in his book.
Had fun. Not nearly as drunk as you think. I see your act, and raise you mine. Try again? -Anko
Author's Notes: Those of you who care about such, I hope you found this an amusing take at the usual pairing. I noticed that Anko has a few fan-assumed traits, and generally comes across as either a slut or a dom in stories that mention her. How could I possibly resist twisting that idea around to what a ninja really is, a master of deception?
A guest reviewer commented that in the first chapter, when Kakashi pulled out the square wrapped in foil out of his bento, they thought it was a condom. Not going to lie, I laughed myself silly on reading that, because one can infer from that review and the circumstances that they feel Sasuke should eat dick. I LOL'ed.
As always, thanks for the reviews, even just a "good chap" post is a statement of approval. My numbers give me warm fuzzies, which are used as currency to produce more goods, which I trade for more warm fuzzies, until I can swim through fuzzy tokens of exchange like Scrooge McDuck. So thanks, you capitalist pigs ;)
Brittany Bennett: Honestly, and this is not judgmental in any way, but many fanfic readers and writers are in the age bracket where relationships hold immense fascination, doubly so for a shonen manga/anime. It's just the nature of the age category. Unfortunately, with that also comes highly stylized and often painfully inaccurate concepts of what a relationship is, and how people in one act around each other. I appreciate your words, and I assure you, this is not going to turn into Naruto screaming at his foes and going Super Saiyan over the fallen body of CENSORED BY THE BOARD OF THE SHIP SINKER PREVENTION SOCIETY, or 20 chapters on how Lee and CENSORED BY THE BOARD OF THE SHIP SINKER PREVENTION SOCIETY go on a wacky date. I am actually a huge fan of the old Star Wars EU, which tended to either avoid relationships, or else approached them in a moderately realistic and non-sexualized way, and certainly not as a primary component of the story.