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When Sakura woke up, her head was a thick ball of pain and her mouth tasted like something had crawled into it and died. She groaned, rolling over and promptly falling off the couch before she could realize she was not, in fact, on her bed. She stared up at the ceiling from the floor as her body pulsed with pain and wondered what she possibly could have done to deserve this.
“Ino,” she called, her voice cracking halfway through. “Are you alive?”
“Shut up,” came the muffled response from somewhere in the apartment.
Sakura continued to stare at the ceiling and tried to remember how she had created this situation for herself. She also tried to remember what it used to be like to wake up hangover-less at twenty-one. Each year that brought her closer to thirty also rendered her less and less capable of wild nights with Ino.
Their drunken blowout had something to do with Sasuke—not that it was a jealousy-related reason. That ship had sailed a long, long time ago. It had something to do with the fact that he had found himself an obnoxiously attractive man to be his fiancé. And he was thoroughly enjoying his new ability to tease her about it in his annoying, subtle ways.
It must be hard to be a resident, Sakura. I heard from Naruto last week even he was bringing—ow stop!
She knew he was only doing it because of all the speeches she had made when they were in college. She had claimed that he and Naruto were bi disasters that would never manage to find people to put up with their respective brands of chaos and insanity. She herself was (obviously) a functional and exemplary bi non-disaster. A hot young doctor who would inevitably be snapped up by some interested party.
Teasing wasn’t really Sasuke’s thing, but smug revenge definitely was. The tables had turned. Sasuke found himself a man with prettier hair than his own, and Naruto’s boyfriend was better at putting on eyeliner than even she was.
And Sakura? Well, Sakura had 80-hour work weeks and 16 hour night shifts at the hospital. Not particularly conducive to finding herself a partner.
As the fog in her head slowly cleared, she remembered why today had been the auspicious day she chose to start with a hangover. It was Sasuke’s wedding rehearsal—an event that had been orchestrated against his will by his snooty family and the snooty family he was marrying into. Sasuke might have been less than thrilled about the party being thrown in his honor, but he hadn’t wasted the opportunity to quietly torture Sakura with it.
Are you bringing a date Sakura? Funny how life plays out sometimes. If you pinch me one more time, I swear—
Today would not be a good day. For many reasons.
Sakura decided to stay on the floor until she could remember how to walk, but then she heard a knock at the door. She frowned and checked her phone. No, she had not invited anyone over or ordered any food without remembering. She decided to ignore it, but then the knock came again, more firmly.
“Ino,” she called. “Get the door.”
“Shut up,” Ino groaned back for the second time that morning.
Sakura slowly propped herself up and decided to crawl to the door before she had to stand up and open it. No one would see, and she was far beyond any illusions of possessing even a sliver of dignity at this point.
Kakashi checked his phone again and wondered how long he would have to keep knocking until Rin, Obito, and Gai decided he had been sufficiently shamed. He was at the right address, but that was not a particularly comforting thought.
He was just turning to leave, already fabricating excuses, when the door creaked open. “Hello?” a scratchy voice said.
He looked down and found a pair of very green eyes, though they seemed bleary and were ringed with purple bags. He took in the rumpled pink hair and the stubborn chin and grudgingly had to admit he had been sent to the home of an attractive person, just as Rin had hypothesized he would be. This did nothing to make him feel better.
“I’m here for Sakura and—” he checked his phone briefly, confirming the spelling “—Inko.”
“Inko,” the girl repeated dully.
He shrugged.
“And why are you here for Sakura and Inko?”
“I’m here for—” he checked his phone again, feeling that specificity would be important here “—the spite date bitchfest.”
The girl’s jaw dropped. “The what?”
Kakashi sighed and wordlessly extended his phone to her so that she could read the demented Craigslist ad that his friends had found as his punishment.
SPITE DATE BTCHFEST:
SKRURA AND INKO NEED HOTT PERSN TO F L A UN T ON ONE (1) DATE!!!!!!
SHOW UP TOMORROW LOOKING READY2FUCCCKKK
****no acktual fuckung, this is purely FORSHOW you will be used to PRIVE A POINT and thats IT
Must b:
-full of spite
-willing to lie
-fancy
in exchange u will be given DINNER but no money because we dont have any
Her jaw dropped even lower as he watched her reread the ad several times. Yes, he thought to himself as she grew more and more incredulous. I know.
The girl’s head shot up from the phone as she turned around to yell into the apartment.
“Ino! Did you try to hire me an escort on Craigslist?”
There was a long pause and a bang from somewhere in the apartment before a rumpled looking blonde woman emerged to join them at the door. She had a hand pressed to her head and her eyes were squinted.
“Uh, I’m not saying that’s something that I wouldn’t do, but if I did, I don’t have any recollection—“
“Thanks a lot, Pig.”
“I’m not an escort,” Kakashi said, thinking it would be important to clarify this. “Or at least, not a professional one. I’m here because I lost a bet.”
The girl with green eyes blinked at him owlishly. “A bet?”
Kakashi sighed. “Yes. A bet.”
“Hey, wait a minute…” The blonde girl scrubbed the heel of her hand over her eyes and peered at him more closely. “Aren’t you Rin’s friend?” She snapped her fingers suddenly. “Kakashi! That’s who you are!”
Kakashi didn’t know whether he should be baffled or relieved by the fact that she knew who he was. This odd coincidence made it less likely that these strangers would try to murder him, but it made it more likely that the joke his friends were playing on him was more elaborate than he had originally believed it would be.
“That’s me,” he said wearily, wishing that it weren't. “How do you know Rin?”
She grinned at him. “She’s Sasuke’s cousin’s soulmate or whatever.” She jabbed the pink haired girl in the ribs with her elbow. “See Sakura! The plan worked! I reeled in some hot guy we kind of know through the friend of a friend, and now you can take him to the party and pretend to be in love!”
Sakura winced and rubbed at her ribs. “How do we know he’s not some crazy serial murderer?”
“I can hear you,” Kakashi said, feeling very tired.
“I don’t like this plan,” Sakura snapped as though he hadn’t spoken. “Why would I want to go to an already awful party with a weird stranger that loses bets?”
“I can still hear you.”
They both ignored him.
“Because otherwise Sasuke is going to preen all night and keep making indirect jokes about you becoming a spinster to entertain himself.”
Sakura groaned loudly and rubbed her temples. “Fine.” She cast Kakashi a guarded look as she and Ino stepped aside so that he could enter the apartment.
The apartment itself seemed clean enough, though there was a superficial layer of empty cans scattered around the kitchen. He wrinkled his nose with displeasure as he was hit by the sticky smell of spilled beer and other drinks. Perhaps something like the sour tang of tequila.
“Fun night?”
Sakura grunted and ushered him over to the table, one hand pressed against her head. “Sit there while I get Advil.”
Kakashi did as he was told and waited for her to come over and sit across from him. She studied him over the rim of her large glass of water. “So what bet did you lose?”
Kakashi frowned, unpleasantly reminded of his match with Gai. “I thought I could eat more food than my friend. I was wrong.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s weird.”
He didn’t contradict her.
“So you’re willing to pretend to be my boyfriend for the evening?”
He shrugged haplessly. “I suppose. But I’m not very good with people.”
“I can work with that.” She checked her phone and leaned back in her chair. “So according to the terms outlined in the ad, you are… Full of spite?”
“Yes.”
“Willing to lie?”
“Yes.”
“Fancy?”
“Not really.”
A small smile curled at the corners of her lips. “Neither am I. If we manage to ruin this event by inadvertently making a scene, I’m taking it as a win.”
Kakashi felt a flicker of interest for the first time since he had arrived. He eyed the woman across from him, her green eyes pensive as she sipped at her water and tapped her fingers on the lid of her advil bottle. A small piece of hair was stuck up in a cowlick.
“So you don’t want me to help you make an ex-boyfriend jealous?”
She snorted. “God no. I mean, I suppose technically we dated for a little while in college, but it was all very weird and awkward and painful. We try not to remember that.”
“So what is the endgame here?”
“You exist and Sasuke is foiled.”
He raised an eyebrow at her and she sighed. “Maybe when I was younger, I might have said some unkind things about him being a disaster who would never ever find love. And now, maybe, he has found love and I have not and this brings him a large amount of glee.”
“I see.”
She gave him a crooked smile. “Yes, I do tend to dig myself holes. We should get to know each other if we’re going to pull this off.”
Kakashi was beginning to feel less and less averse to the idea.
Sakura tried to take a sneaky look at the man sitting in the passenger seat of her car. He was reclined in the seat, his floppy silver hair hiding his eyes as he read a book.
When he had shown up, she had been too hungover to really do anything other than argue and chug water. She had left him reading in her kitchen after they shared some basic life details while she went to get ready.
He was definitely more attractive than she had initially thought he was through the blur of her headache. He had sharp grey eyes, a long nose that oddly suited his face, and a jawline that made her want to do things. He was wearing a plain white button up and slacks that she thought would probably be a little less fancier than everyone else’s, but it wasn’t like she could fix that problem.
Having crawled over to answer the door while looking like a piece of hungover roadkill had likely killed any potential of things escalating between them. One did not typically bounce back from those kinds of first meetings. Although, he had given her a brief look of something like interest when she had emerged from her room in the fancy dress that she would have to wear for the evening. She had a feeling that he was uncannily good at hiding his thoughts.
She had told him that she was a surgical resident and an essentially nocturnal creature who worked days at a time. He had told her that he was a postdoc in literature at a nearby university. She had told him about her friends and he had told her about his. It seemed that they had ended up in mirror friend group branches on the Uchiha family tree. That might make it more plausible that they had simply happened to meet, which Sakura found exciting.
“We’re almost there,” she said.
He glanced up and closed his book. “Do we have a mission plan?”
“You kind of just have to exist as a buffer between me and Sasuke. But if you want to slip in some details about what a wonderful and well-balanced girlfriend I am, that would be fine.”
“So why do I even have to do this?”
Sakura cast him a dangerous look from the corner of her eye. It was way too late for him to back out now, and she would give him a piece of her mind if that’s what he was doing. “I thought you lost a bet?”
“Why didn’t you just find a real date?”
Sakura let out an ugly honk of laughter and immediately regretted it. “It’s kind of hard to hold down a partner or even just date when you disappear for days at a time for work.”
Kakashi shrugged in the periphery of her vision. “I think you could have found someone.
Sakura felt a giddy little smile spreading on her face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said.
She felt his eyes on her and struggled to breathe normally and focus on driving.
“Sakura.”
At the sound of Sasuke’s voice, she latched her hand onto Kakashi’s and slapped a beatific smile on her face.
Sasuke emerged from the crowd of fancy people in his own Very Fancy black suit. He had an expression like a smug cat on his face until Sakura lifted her and Kakashi’s linked hands, as though they were performers about to bow. It probably looked very odd, but Sakura was feeling a little crazed at that point and she couldn’t really find it within herself to care. The priceless moment of Sasuke’s smugness slipping back into the face of cool disinterest that he wore with strangers was something she wished she could bottle.
“Sasuke! How are you?”
He cast a searching looking between her and Kakashi, whose hand was warm and strangely comforting in her own.
“I’m fine. Who is the guest you brought without notifying us? You realize there will be tables with numbered place settin—”
“This is Kakashi! My boyfriend!”
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”
Sakura gritted her teeth in what she was sure was something of a manic smile. “Yes, really.”
“Yes,” Kakashi said in a pleasant but dry voice. “Sakura is a wonderful and well-balanced girlfriend.”
Sakura wondered if kicking Kakashi would ruin the charade.
“That is… surprising to hear.”
Sakura continued to grin at Sasuke, though her cheeks were beginning to hurt. She would not lose this battle.
Neji slipped out of the crowd of people and lightly touched his hand to Sasuke’s shoulder in one of their quiet and simple little gestures of support. Although neither of them were particularly open or warm people, Sakura knew they had created a small language of care and intimacy between just themselves. She was painfully happy for Sasuke, but it also sent a small wave of longing crashing over her. She’d love to have someone to create a language with.
“Neji, this is Kakashi. Sakura’s boyfriend.”
Neji’s pale eyes traveled over Kakashi. “Very interesting.” He turned back to Sasuke. “Your aunts are terrorizing Naruto. I’m going to try and put a stop to it, but I would appreciate some help when you’re free.”
He slipped back into the crowd and Sasuke watched him go, a soft expression briefly traveling over his face.
“You two seem happy,” Sakura said.
Sasuke smiled. “He understands me.” The smile disappeared as he returned his attention to Sakura and Kakashi. Sakura could tell he was searching for a way to call their bluff. “I’m going to go greet some family members, but you and your boyfriend should enjoy yourselves. I look forward to learning more about how you met.”
Sakura grinned. “Don’t worry. We’ll have lots of fun.”
Sasuke scowled and left to intercept a contingent of stuffy looking Hyūgas. Sakura was left standing with Kakashi.
“He’s very handsome,” Kakashi observed diplomatically.
“And he has a very large stick wedged firmly up his pale ass,” Sakura grumbled. “Both literally and figuratively. I would know. Back in the day, I used put it there for him. Any more comments?”
Faint amusement touched Kakashi’s eyes as he watched her. “No further comments.”
Sakura was having fun.
While she had initially thought Kakashi was a very distant person, she had started to realize that he had a dry and subtle sense of humor. She hadn’t felt so alive in months. She had crisp champagne bubbling on her tongue and she was leaning on a good-smelling man’s shoulder as he murmured something funny in her ear. And it all felt very good.
The party passed in a blur, and she tried to cling to each little bittersweet second. Having a companion in a bigger crowd of people with a secret shared just between the two of them was very new. Or— not new— but something she hadn’t had in a long time. Sakura didn’t need a relationship to make her life complete, but she did crave intimacy and comfort.
She wondered if Kakashi was having a good time, too.
“Hey,” she whispered, leaning up so that her lips brushed his ear. She felt him grow still beside her.
“Yes?”
“I bet you ten bucks you can convince that group of grumpy uncles that you’re a long lost Uchiha.”
He turned and looked down at her, grey eyes dancing with amusement. “With my hair? That hardly seems like a fair bet.”
Sakura shrugged. “I bet you could pull it off.”
He watched her carefully. “And what are the stakes here? What do I get if I win?”
Sakura thought about it for a moment. “One free surgery of your choice? I can write you a coupon.” He rolled his eyes and she snickered. “Okay, fine. What do you want?”
“A real date.”
Sakura’s jaw dropped. “A date? With me?”
Her surprise seemed to amuse him. “With you.”
“But—I work weird hours!”
“That’s okay.”
“I’ll be tired and crabby!”
“That’s okay.”
“I won’t be dressed up like I am right now!”
“That’s okay.”
Sakura gulped. “A real date?” she repeated in a soft voice.
He nodded solemnly. “A real date.”
“Alright,” she said, trying very hard to keep her composure. “I guess that would be alright.”
His eyes crinkled. “And what do you want, Sakura?”
She stared at him for a moment, thinking there was very little that she didn’t want from this man.
“I get to pick where the date is.”
He extended a hand to her. “Deal.”
“It is happening,” Rin hissed under her breath to Obito as she jabbed him in the side with her elbow. “I swear it’s happening.”
He watched critically, one eyebrow raised. “How do you know they’re not just pretending?”
“She’s whispering in his ear.”
“So?”
“That’s intimate, you dingus!”
Ino crept up to join them. “Is it working? Please tell me it’s working.”
Rin grabbed Ino’s arm. “You were so right. When I asked you if you had any friends to set him up with, I didn’t know you had the friend to set him up with.”
“You don’t think he'll be thrown off by her lifestyle?”
Obito barked a laugh. “I don’t think Kakashi could be thrown off by anyone’s lifestyle.”
Rin clapped her hands. “And they like each other,” she said in a hushed voice as Kakashi returned from speaking to a cluster of Uchihas and surreptitiously slipped his hand into Sakura’s. “They really like each other.”