8

06: By foot and horse

"Hatake," I stated simply.

Kakashi looked at me. His eyes obviously had difficulty focusing on me. He seemed to be tighter than expected. "I felt like I had to puke, but I didn't puke, but now the world is spinning, and I honestly don't know which way my home is." He plunged, exhaled deeply, and sent his booze into my nostrils. Yep, tight as my ass.

I groaned. My brain just decided for me, and yes, it was probably right to do that. You couldn't leave him out here in the cold as baked as he was. "Come with me. I have a pull-out couch where you can sleep. But woe betide you if you vomit all over! It's just one year old and was fucking expensive." Maybe I was exaggerating, it had only cost just over a thousand bucks, but for me that was still a lot of money.

Kakashi squinted his eyebrows, buried his face up to the tip of his nose in his collar and now asked with a frown, "Are you serious?" Fascinating to have his thought process visualized in such a way.

"If you freeze to death, it will come back on me in the end," I explained in a neutral tone. "And boi, I really don't feel like corpses in the neighborhood."

"But you have to beacon me," Kakashi grinned cheekily.

"Do you have your leash with you?"

He sucked in air with a hiss. "Forgot it at home."

"Definitely with the diving suit in the closet," I giggled and nodded down the street. "This way, you mutt."

"Woof," Kakashi said and slowly started moving. He took one step back for two steps forward and scraped his shoulder along the wall of the house, crunching loudly. Gosh, even tight as my pussy! It's amazing how someone else's inflated alcohol level made my own shrink. When I saw him staggering along, I no longer felt so drunk as I ought to be.

"Oh my goodness," I murmured, caught up with him, although that was no difficulty, hooked myself to him and led him straight along the sidewalk like a blind man with hearing impairment. "At this pace, you haven't arrived in the new year."

"Heyy, I told you you had to beacon me, Beanie. Beacon-Beanie.. Heh."

"Hatake, don't always call me 'Beanie'," I sighed exasperated. "It sounds so ignominiously from your mouth."

"And you don't always call me 'Hatake'."

I stopped.

Kakashi had registered that too late, was pulled backwards by my arm and stumbled towards me, just managed to catch himself and shook like a dog with water in its ears. "What's up?"

"Hatake is your name, why shouldn't I call you that?" I asked skeptically.

"I noticed that you only call people by their last names that you hate. Izumo, Kotetsu, Hidan, Zetsu.." He suddenly laughed out loud. "That rhymes, awesome."

I did not go into further detail about his lyrical talent. "That's right, I call them all by their last names.."

"See? I see through you!" He nudged his index finger on the tip of my nose. "And that impli.. implisted.. im.. shows that you don't like me."

"So, you think I hate you?"

"Hate is so hard.." Kakashi sighed melodramatically.

"You started it, I would have called it something else."

"How?"

"Fucked up."

"Fucked up.." he repeated. "You're fucked up with me."

"You're definitely right about that."

"Why?"

"Because you're an arrogant sack who constantly acts as the biggest pike in the puddle."

"Why do you think I'm arrogant?"

Did he really mean that question...? "Okay, I'll explain it to you. When I started at KGI, you were a real ass to me. You treated me as if I didn't understand the simplest things, as if you were better than me. And that hasn't really gone away since then. I mean, ok, admittedly: It's a bit better now than it was two and a half years ago, but still."

Kakashi looked sadly to the ground and pulled up his nose. "I'm really sorry about that, Beanie. I wasn't in the best shape back then and had a short fuse. Is that why you're fucked up with me?"

"Yes, because of you I almost quit after a few weeks. That's why, and because you call me 'Beanie'," I said emphatically. "Has it ever occurred to you that I can't stand this?"

"But Ino also calls you that.." Kakashi interjected quite correctly. "Are you also fucked up with her?"

"No. My friends are allowed to."

"So I am too."

That tore me completely out of my intoxication. My head twitched as if it had trouble processing what was being said. And somehow I did. "You.. Do you see us as friends?"

Kakashi smiled shakily. "I like you, Beanie. I like to argue with you."

Wow. I would not have expected this development of the night. I sighed heavily, indicated a shake of the head and hooked to him again. "Come.. Kakashi." It was strange to call him that, but he had just confessed his platonic affection to me. Who knows, maybe a friendship developed between us. He wasn't really that bad, at least my fucked-up liver currently believed. And honestly, it felt better to let a friend spend the night on my couch than a self-loving bastard whom I wished the plague on. "Ok, you mutt. If I am to consider you a friend, I need to know more about you, otherwise you will rise from your status as a run-down Office-Mare to a fleeting acquaintance who constantly penetrates me with coffee questions. I mean, at least it would be progress for you." I skillfully stopped him from stepping into a pile of poop in the snow. "Let's start small: Favorite music?"

"Mhhhh, disco stuff from the seventies and eighties and nineties and stuff like that," Kakashi murmured. "But.. Hold on.. Office mare?"

"Shut up," I replied. "Disco, well. Favorite movie?"

He exhaled deeply and sent a hazy cloud ahead of us. "I think, Mamma Mia."

Oh God. A musical fan.

"But now wait a minute.." He stopped. "Office mare?!"

I ignored him and pulled him on. "Favorite color?"

"Blue."

Stereotypical. "Favorite food?"

"Jamba.. Jambala.. Jumba-doodad."

Quite unique for some white dude outside of the Bayou, but it still was a famous dish and he could have also said "curry". Did this man even have a personality of his own? "Early bird or night owl?"

"Cleeeearly early bird."

Mh. "What are your hobbies?"

He slipped on a small patch of ice, but quickly caught himself again. "Watching and doing sports, camping, meeting friends.."

He really didn't make it easy for me to like him. "Do you like horror?" A damn important question! If there came a "no" here, this friendship was over before it had even begun.

"Are you stupid?" he laughed. "I hate horror."

All right. He was a boring, plain philistine. If I would ever buy an autograph book again, he would be allowed to sign on the last page, if at all, and mainly out of pity. Well, I had tried at least. Because it seemed to be so important to him, I would still call him "Kakashi" in the future, but I didn't have to do more with him. What even? Should I watch hockey with him or forgo my personal comfort aka modern civilization?! He can go whistle for it! I could never like him so much that I jumped over my comfortable shadow.

"And you?" he asked, bumping his shoulder against mine. Whether this was supposed to be a well-intentioned push, or he had simply lost his balance again, we would never know.

"Dark phonk and metalcore, depending on the mood sometimes J-Pop, Hot Fuzz, lavender, onión soup, I don't sleep at all, but I prefer to be awake in the evening or at night, I like to dance, binge movies and series, read manga and manhwa, boy's love, hrr, probably not your genre, sometimes I draw and I'm the biggest horror fan in Konoha," I rattled off the answers to my own questions and pulled Kakashi around the corner. Now we only had to go up the hill and could finally get into the warmth.

"Hah," Kakashi blurted out. "I am the South Pole, you are the North Pole."

"Eh!" I punched him in the stomach with my fist – gently, of course, I didn't want to provoke vomiting. "You get cute penguins and I'm a slowly melting clump of ice and cause flooding..? Thank you too."

"Mh, I meant that you are something special that you won't find again in this world, and I'm so far away from you that I could never hold a candle to you," he muttered into his collar.

Irritated, I looked at him from the side. "You're pretty cheesy, do you know that?"

We stopped and looked at each other. Again, there was a tingling sensation somewhere in me that I couldn't really place. Probably only a rare bladder infection. Then Kakashi blinked, put on a big grin and said, "Gotcha! You should see your face.."

"You fucking bastard, honestly."

Snorting, he threw his head back. "I'm just teasing you, Beanie. Or am I going to experience you being really bitchy now? That scares me!" He shuddered contrivedly. "Oooooooooh!"

My brain simply responded to this template. "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?"

"SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS," he suddenly shouted, flinging his arms in the air as if he had just intoned an epic anthem.

I slapped my hand over his mouth. "Are you fucking crazy, you whoremonger? It's the middle of the night, shut the fuck up! Where's your James when you need him, eh?"

Kakashi gently bit my finger. Shocked, I pulled my hand from his face and wiped his drool off on my tights. "Blaaargh, you're just as brainless as SpongeBob, honestly!"

He huffed and pointed at himself. "I'm brainless" – he pointed at me – "you're brutally bitchy" – he pointed at himself again – "and I need a piss." He flicked forward somewhere next to my head.

I completely forgot to counter at this rapid change of topic. Kakashi broke away from me, followed his own hint and clumsily scrambled through the freshly planted seedlings of a hedge to stagger towards a thick willow in the front yard of an apartment building.

"Eh, Kakashi, come back here!"

"No, I have to piss!" he grumbled back and waved his arms in my direction. This caused him to lose his balance and fall to the side like in a bad slapstick sketch, where he landed in a thick pile of snow and now nothing but his outline could be seen on the surface.

I couldn't help it and laughed out loud, holding my stomach and asking in a choked voice, "Is.. everythin'.. okay..?"

A black sleeve emerged from the snow with a thumb sticking up.

Still giggling maliciously, I wiped my eyes, ignoring my make-up, which certainly hadn't been in place for hours. "Do you need help...?"

The arm disappeared, but reappeared with a raised thumb again.

Shaking my head, I elegantly climbed over the fresh hedge, strode over to him and bent curiously over the Kakashi-shaped hole. Its creator was lying in his mini-igloo with his arms above his head, panting heavily. "Have you seen the stars tonight? Absolutely beautiful."

"Don't act like you did that on purpose," I warned him and held out my hand.

"Heh," he groaned in amusement and took it. His fingers were icy, as if they had already died. "I totally can't have any secrets from you, huh?"

"You've certainly got enough." With a tug, I pulled him at least into a sitting position and now he looked like a snowed-in meerkat that had peeked out of its burrow and realized that the ice age had broken out. Grinning, I knocked the snow out of his hair and off his back and grumbled, "Honestly, you can't be left alone for two seconds."

"Then don't do it," Kakashi replied and gave me a reproachful look from below.

I frowned at him. "You also want me to help you piss or what?"

His face, slightly reddened by the cold, showed a sly grin. "Beeeeaaaanieee, is that what makes you wet, huh? And just so you know, if you want to touch my cock, all you have to do is ask nicely."

"You're disgusting," were my last words to that statement and I followed in my own footsteps to get back to the strewn sidewalk. Behind me, I heard Kakashi grunting and panting as he struggled to his feet. When I had snow-free ground under my feet again, I stomped my boots clean and watched the half-white Kakashi as he made another attempt to approach the tree, struggling and swaying. "What a douchebag," I murmured to myself and crossed my arms with a painfully raised eyebrow. As he reached the tree, I heard a zipper, a relieved moan, and I saw between his legs a steaming stream of clear liquid hitting the bark. He tilted his head back, shouted a "Hallelujah" to heaven and coughed hoarsely.

I waited impatiently until the stream finally stopped – which really took forever, he must have been about to burst – the ratcheting of the zipper sounded again and he trudged back through the cracking snow cover. "Boi, honestly, you can pee at my apartment. All this effort was for NOTHING. Now you're almost freezing to death just because of something like that. Whether you believe it or not, I have a working toilet, you know?"

"Yes, but I had to urgently," he justified himself, tangled his trouser leg in one of the gnarled seedlings and hopped around on one leg to free himself from it, fell on me and I could only with difficulty prevent him from sliding completely to the ground. He clung to me, stumbled, found a secure footing and moaned again. "Wowsy fucksy, I'm drunk.."

"You don't say," I agreed rolling my eyes and tried to push Kakashi away from me, but he didn't let go of me, clawed into my jacket and unmistakably pressed his skull deep into my scarf, so that his cold nose touched my neck and his tousled hair tickled my face. I blew some of the soft, unruly strands out of my mouth. He inhaled deeply. "Why do you smell so good..." he whispered so softly that I honestly believed it wasn't meant for my ears at all – even though he was so close to me that I would have to be completely deaf not to hear it.

"Prada Paradoxe," I said simply, although my voice trembled slightly and I could barely suppress a shudder. Why was he talking about my smell of all things..

"Huh? What?" Now he was actually rubbing against my neck! I just let it happen, I couldn't do much now anyway. And somehow I found it quite pleasant how his cold nose stroked my skin. Cooled down my excitement a bit. "What is paradox..?" he mumbled.

"My perfume, Prada Paradoxe."

Finally, Kakashi took his head out of my scarf, straightened up at least halfway and his eyes popped out despite his lids being gooks. "What makes you say that?"

I made a perplexed grimace. "You asked why I smell so good, the answer: Prada Paradoxe," I explained, doubting that he could process any information at all.

"Who?"

"What?!"

"Who asked that?"

"Eeh?! YOU!" I didn't understand the world anymore.

"Nope," Kakashi lied brazenly and nudged the tip of my nose again. "You hear voices, Beanie." Apparently, his words had not even been intended for his own ears. He pushed his index finger over my nostrils to my cheek to the place where my dimple always appeared. "Smile for me.." What the fuck was just going on with him?!

I slapped his hand away angrily. "Are you fucking crazy?! Don't touch me with your cock fingers, eh! First you get him out unnecessarily in this cold and now you wipe your piss into my pores. Thank you very much."

"Unnecessarily?!" Kakashi croaked. "You're going on half a trip around the world with me and expect me to hold it? No, Beanie, not like that. I don't know how long it will take us to get to you, so I'll get him out as I want and have to."

I clicked my tongue in annoyance, pulled him 33 feet up the hill by the elbow and turned onto a cleared footpath that led to a front door, to which I pointed with a stern expression. "You wouldn't have been able to hold on that distance?"

Kakashi's jaw dropped. He seemed to be absolutely flabbergasted until he realized the comedy of the situation and burst out laughing.

"Yes, my housing association will also be happy that you fertilized their willow," I snarled and unlocked the door. "And now be quiet, I don't want to wake up the neighbors. There may be some still asleep despite your vocal performance."

Kakashi snorted a little, but clearly tried to pull himself together. "Alright, sure, I'm calm." He grunted amusedly again, then rubbed his cheekbones and nodded vigorously. "I'm calm."

I led him to the attic to my apartment, where I let him in and switched on the light in the hallway. Just now I was even happier than in the afternoon that I had had this spontaneous energy boost and tidied up everything. I didn't want to impose my chaos on anyone, especially not someone I hardly knew and who couldn't assess me as a person. "Shoes off, otherwise you can wipe right away."

Kakashi obeyed well-behaved. He laboriously stripped off his wet jacket, hung it next to mine on the coat rack and while I struggled out of my hooker boots without falling over, he curiously poked his head through my open bedroom door, behind which he could see nothing more than the freshly vacuumed, round carpet in front of the chest of drawers and the rough outlines of my furniture. I unabashedly grabbed his sweater and pushed him down the short hallway in front of me, said at the second door on the left, "Bathroom, if you have to pee again" and finally parked him straight ahead in my living room. "And here is your sleeping place tonight."

"Mh," Kakashi said, looking around in the semi-darkness. I didn't want to turn on the lights in here because I could operate them with an app and flipping the light switch would break that connection—and I found using my cell phone so exhausting right now—therefore he was left with the hallway light shining in, so he wouldn't stumble or hit his toe somewhere. "It's best to take your pants off immediately, otherwise you'll catch a cold."

"Mh," was his answer again.

Without further ado, I took care of freeing my couch from pillows and blankets and reminding myself of the function of the folding mechanism. Since I had set up the sofa – all alone, by the way, and with a cold – I had only sat or lain on it, but never slept on the hidden mattress. Despite the cold and the short walk, I wasn't sober enough to make it right away and muttered to myself, cursing softly. Everything was driving me nuts here. Unceremoniously, I slipped out of my miniskirt to have more freedom of movement and took off my pullover because I was sweating far too much because of the thick fabric and the turned-on heater, before I threw myself back into the battle. Better, but still way too exhausting. God damn it, wasn't Ikea supposed to be user-friendly?! But the Swedes probably didn't take into account that someone would want to make a bed for an unexpected guest at three o'clock in the morning, half-sozzled.

"You like to collect, don't you?"

"Heh?" I asked in a gruff tone and came out of a yoga-worthy position with a hairy hustle and bustle.

Wordlessly, he pointed to all my Funko Pop's on the wall shelves.

I blew a strand of hair out of my face and said, "Uh, yeah. It's an addiction, ya know? I love owning stuff."

"How much money is on here?" In his tired eyes I could read that he didn't mean this question disparagingly, he was simply interested.

"Actually I don't think I want to know," I smiled in disgust. "But man, you're still wearing your pants. Are you challenging your immune system?" I grumbled and, sighing with exasperation, went back into the fight with the folding mechanism. After centuries of fiddling around, I found the loop in the back of the sofa crack, pulled the seating area forward and up at the same time and revealed to me and my guest the thin foam mattress stretched into a frame. I proudly put my hands into my sides and nodded. "There we go. Now we're missing bedding and we can finally go to sleep."

"Are you sleeping on it, too?" Kakashi asked to my greatest surprise, and I stared at him with a pinched face. "Are you bonkers? I don't struggle my ass off and win a war against my sofa when I have a fully functional bed. No, that's all yours. But remember: Don't. Puke!"

Kakashi grinned mischievously. "I'll try to control myself."

"Otherwise you'll buy me a new one."

"I'll be trying the dickens to control myself."

"Fine."

I covered the thin mattress with the bed sheet I had bought especially for it and threw the pillow and blanket on it. A soft jingling made me turn around. Kakashi was standing next to my dining table and was just finally getting rid of his jeans, which he hung on the back of the upholstered chair. Then he slipped the knitted sweater over his head, lay down on his freshly made bed in his underpants and T-shirt and pressed his face into the pillow, groaning. "Fuuuck, now everything's spinning again.. But fuuuuuck, I like your detergent. That smells fucking awesome."

While he was speaking, I registered out of the corner of my eye that his buttocks were slightly twitching – and that they looked quite nice in those tight, black boxers. I tore my gaze off his ass and asked, "Do you want water?"

He nodded without taking his head out of the pillowcase.

I went to the kitchen, filled a plastic cup with filtered tap water from the fridge and put it on the floor next to the sofa before sitting down on the edge of the bed. "It's right here, yah? Maybe try not to spill it, I have laminate."

Kakashi turned his head a little and blinked at me out of one eye. "You really don't trust me to do anything, do ya?" he asked dully into the pillow filling.

In response, I raised my middle finger, but grinned.

He laughed, but quickly stopped and moaned again. "I hope the carousel will stop soon.."

"Wellps, you wished for the rounds, so bear them now," I grouched in an arrogant tone.

Kakashi dug his right arm out from under the pillow and poked me in the waist. "Stop bein' so brazen, you noodle!"

"I'm allowed to, it's my apartment," I grumbled, poking him in the side and actually eliciting a squeak from him. "Don't! I'm ticklish."

He shouldn't have said that. I jabbed my index finger into his flesh more often and watched in amusement as he squirmed and tried to slap my hand away. "Stop it, fuck, please stop, I-AAAH" A loud crack had filled the air. I immediately stopped pestering Kakashi and asked guiltily, "What's wrong?"

"Hahh, vertebrae.. Nerve..." he groaned in despair and waved his arm around at his shoulder, panting painfully.

"Wait." I swung onto him with my legs apart and ran my thumb over his upper back. For the first time, I was happy to have worked for a physiologist for six months – until Covid had forced the business to its knees and I had had an excuse to give up my contact-friendly job. Massages required touching, I could have guessed that beforehand. And even though I had secretly hated this job, the knowledge I had acquired was now more than helpful.

"Further up, a little to the left, no, down again, there!" Kakashi gasped in agony and let out a loud yelp when I pressed with targeted force on a hardening next to his fourth thoracic vertebra and it cracked softly again. "Fuck yeah..." he moaned and his muscles relaxed noticeably.

To calm the nerve again, I massaged the surrounding tissue in spiral movements. Although my days as a budding physiotherapist were long gone, I could still clearly feel how Kakashi's body was under a lot of tension. "Mh, the stress isn't doing you any good," I mumbled and let my thumbs circle around his shoulder blades. "Arms up."

"What?" Kakashi's head jerked out of the pillow.

"I said, arms up," I ordered impatiently, forcibly pushing his elbows up and pressing his skull back down. "You're completely stiff, Kakashi, I can't stand this."

"That... Well, the vertebra is just a remnant of an accident I had as a child, you don't have to..." he stammered, but I slapped him on the upper arm and thus silenced him. "Shut up and just feel honored. I don't really do that anymore and normally you would have to be half-naked now and I would use baby oil, but I think that would be going too far now, especially as I only have silicone-based lubricant as a substitute."

"Pfrrr, for massaging or for other things?" Kakashi teased.

For this comment he caught another slap. "Just relax, will ya?"

And Kakashi definitely did. He sighed heavily, positioned his head more comfortably in the pillow and let out a dark rumble every now and then when I worked a particularly hard spot in his muscles. "Mhhh, why are you so good at this..." he murmured, without using much of his lung capacity. His entire upper body vibrated.

"Learned it," I replied simply and gave his back a good kneading.

"Why don't you do it anymore?" He mumbled it, was barely understandable.

"Because I don't like physical contact."

"Huh." After a silent minute, he added, "Then it's understandable that you quit. But then I'm truly honored that you're jumping over your comfortable shadow because of me."

I blinked in confusion and it took my alcohol-fueled brain a moment to realize that I had thought of that phrase in reference to him not too long ago. Fascinating. We weren't even that dissimilar. "Very good. At least you appreciate my work."

"I always do," he murmured and I pinched his side for this lie. He flinched briefly but didn't respond any further, instead continuing to enjoy my rolling palms, which I let glide along his entire spine in large circles down to the waistband of his shorts.

Kakashi growled softly and lifted his hips slightly, inevitably pushing me up a few inches. "Hatake, you have to keep your back straight or I'll do even more damage," I reprimanded and tried to push his pelvis back down, using gentle force on his lower back on the one side and more body weight on the other, but he stiffened and resisted me.

Despite the dim light and black T-shirt, I could see Kakashi's torso tense up a little. He pulled his shoulders back and then said quietly, "I can't."

I stopped my massage, looked down to where I was abusing his cold ass as a saddle, and understood. A dirty grin spread across my face. I ran my hands up to his neck, leaned forward in a fluid movement until I was lying on his back and whispered in his ear, "Why can't you do that, Kakashi?"

He hissed, his pelvis moved restlessly again, and he whispered, "You know why."

"Nh-nh," I purred diabolically. "I was just giving you a massage. Nothing more."

"Anko.. Please..."

"What, please?"

"Please get down, it hurts."

"What hurts?"

"My.. You know what."

"Your what?"

"Please.."

"Say it, Kakashi."

"My.. My..." His muscles tensed beneath me and again his hips twitched up as far as my body allowed.

"Say it."

"My cock hurts."

"Why?" Shit, torturing him like that was getting me aroused myself right now. I was indeed developing a sadistic streak. Wasn't that good, we were both far too drunk not to make any irrational decisions.

Kakashi exhaled heavily and as if he wanted to get the words over his lips quickly, he said tersely, "Because I'm hard."

"Why are you hard?"

"Because I.. Because I like that you… well.. the way you touch me.."

"Mhhh, in that case..." I tucked my knees up a little, thus giving his hips more room, and he was able to lift them, moaning softly. However, I didn't want to free him completely from his cage yet, and although I wasn't sure if what I was doing here was entirely smart, I stroked the back of his neck playfully with my index finger. His skin was glowing and covered in a thin film of sweat. In his dark, half-hidden profile, I recognized a deep red glow on his cheeks. "Kakashi, do you want me to continue?" I whispered so close to his ear that he almost headbutted me as his skull shot up.

"Anko..." he pressed out and buried his face in his arm, probably to prevent me from seeing more of his ashamed expression. Or maybe he didn't want to look at me anymore out of the corner of his eye. "If you do, I don't know if I can control myself."

"Is that a threat or a promise?" I giggled, feeling that I really should stop now, because the heat and the smell of his body beneath me was making me far too fuzzy.

Kakashi groaned softly, lowered his hips again and shuddered slightly. "Probably both."

I snorted in amusement. "Okay, Kakashi. I'll stop." I descended from him and watched, crouching on the edge of the bed, as he pulled his right leg up, tilting his pelvis and freeing his face from his arm. The dark coloring of his cheeks was far from gone and his one visible eye sparkled at me through his wild strands of gray hair. "You did that on purpose."

"Massaged you? Yes, I wanted you to relax." I had to smile at his narrowing eyebrow. "I can't help it if you relax THAT much."

Kakashi no longer seemed to have the strength to counter, instead just groaning choppily.

"Can you sleep with that thing or do you need to take care of it?" I asked with serious concern. The thought of him pleasuring himself made my crotch warm up for a moment. Should I perhaps give him a hand..? No. That was just the alcohol thinking.

"Mhh," Kakashi grumbled and closed his eye. "It has to work, I'm too exhausted to do anything anyway."

I suppressed the urge to offer him a blow- or handjob, swallowed dry and decided that I should leave it be for today. "Well then, sleep well, Kakashi," I smiled, patted him on the shoulder, pulled the blanket over his back – also to keep me from getting randy by his firm ass cheeks or what was slumbering underneath – and stood up.

"You too, Beanie.." he grumbled, though he sounded a little disgruntled. But maybe I was just imagining things. Before I left the living room with my carelessly discarded clothes, however, he stopped me. "By the way, you have pudding at the corner of your mouth.. I wanted to tell you.. I forgot.. I'm sorry.."

"Thank you very much," I replied in an ironic tone, adding in my mind, 'Forgot my ass, that was intentional' and wiped my lips. In the bathroom, I took off my makeup, washed the heat out of my face with much-needed cold water, brushed my hair and stuffed everything I had used into my toiletry bag on the windowsill so that I wouldn't forget it later the day when I went to Oto. With heavy legs, I dragged myself into my bedroom, closed the door, took off my leggings, top and underwear in the dark, slipped into my pajamas and fell into my bed, completely exhausted and still a bit aroused.