Work Text:
Sakura wakes to the sun tickling her nose, and an arm curled around her side.
She eyes the alarm clock on the nightstand. If she gets up now, she can read the newspaper while having breakfast, a treat she hasn’t had the time to do in ages.
But, the bed is warm, and even though sleep isn’t quite pulling her under again, someone else is.
“Five more minutes,” Kakashi mumbles into her shoulder, the hint of stubble tickling her skin. “We’ve got plenty of time to get ready.”
She quietly agrees, turning a little so she can kiss him.
She likes him like this, all warm and pliant in her arms,
The next time she turns her eyes toward her nightstand, time has moved forward quite a bit. Not enough to get worried over it, but enough to swing her legs out of bed.
They don’t even make it to the floor.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Kakashi asks, pulling her back under the covers. “It’s cold.”
Sakura laughs. “I need to get to work.”
“No, you don’t,” he huffs, pulling the blanket fully over her head. “See? It’s still dark out.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I’m the Hokage.”
“And I’m the Director of the Hospital,” she points out proudly, tapping his chest with her pointer finger. “I’ve got work to do.”
“You wound me,” Kakashi decides, dropping on his back with a pout. “You prefer work over me.”
“Well, if you put it like this,” she sings under her breath, kissing him once more. Breakfast is overrated anyway.
-
“Late again?” Shizune asks as Sakura rushes through the doors. “That’s the third time this week.”
“I was held up,” she claims. “By, uh, a bundle of dogs.”
“You said that on Monday,” Shizune reminds her with a smile. “Could it be that you’re no longer single?”
“Taken? Little old me?” Sakura laughs, but it sounds fake in her own ears. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“I won’t,” Shizune promises, her smile growing. She leans in. “But maybe you could get Lord Kakashi to become a little more punctual instead of the other way around.”
Sakura sighs. “I’ll try.”
---x---
Kakashi hasn’t seen her in a while. Work keeps them busy.
Naruto comes by regularly, gets assigned a mission, and stays for an hour instead of leaving right away, telling him everything Kakashi could want to know - he doesn’t care, most of the time - and failing at retaining anything Kakashi is trying to teach him about the Hokage title. But it’s his boy, so he doesn’t quite mind.
He hasn’t seen Sasuke in a while. He drops in from time to time, they share a cup of tea, Sasuke reluctantly offers a tidbit or two about his private life - he’s expecting a kid with some red-haired girl with glasses, Kakashi can never remember the name off - and leaves again.
But Sakura… well, she’s got a life to live. Director of Konoha’s hospital, and the youngest one to date. He’s proud of her, though he doesn’t think she owes anything to him. They don’t call her Tsunade’s student without reason. He’s barely taught her anything but center Chakra into her feet and to make sure the other guy is paying before you sit down for dinner.
So he’s surprised to catch her on the street one night, hair up in something that looks terribly complicated, and a dress that shows the pale skin of her neck.
She’s pretty, distractingly so, and she looks like she’s coming home from a date.
“Surprised?” She asks, taking his arm. She doesn’t seem to care about what this will look like to others. Like they are dating. Each other.
To say he’s panicking would be an understatement.
“Yamato asked me out,” she reveals, walking him down the street. Her touch is warm, the bracelet on her wrist cool against his skin. “And I wanted to give him a fair chance. We had a good time, but we agreed that it wasn’t a good match.”
“Yamato?” He echoes, doing math in his head. Yamato is his age. Shouldn’t she feel weirded out by that age difference? Or is it because Yamato’s genetically modified? Does that make him younger? Is it the grey hair?
“Yeah, you’ve got a problem with that?” Her brows furrow adorably. Kakashi regrets having thought of that word.
“Not at all. Just thought he might be a bit old for you.” He laughs. It sounds awkward, even to him.
Sakura looks up at him through her lashes, and he’s convinced she’s doing it on purpose.
“He’s your age, is he not?”
Kakashi sighs. “So, old.”
She laughs, a twinkly sound he’s only ever heard from women that very trying to flirt with his friends - or, rarer, with him. Wait, is Sakura flirting with him?
He stops in his tracks to take her in.
She’s a formidable Kunoichi. The fact that Yamato let her walk home on her own, dressed like this, is a testament to it - or maybe his bad character, who knows at this point - and she’d been more than able to avoid him if she so pleased.
But, he concludes, if she’s not flirting with him and he’s asking her about it, it would be weird. Very, very weird.
“Everything okay?” Sakura asks, looking up at him.
“I just realized I forgot to pay for my dinner,” he lies, taking a step back. “I should probably-”
“Ach,” she pulls on his arm. “Everyone knows you. Just pay them back later and walk me home.”
And Kakashi can’t really argue with that, can he?
---x---
Kakashi is early to his morning meeting, a thing that has never happened before and will probably never happen again. At least if he can help it by making sure Sakura moves in with him immediately and never attends a girls' night ever again.
Shizune eyes him with a knowing look. Kakashi’s pretty sure she knows something.
Or maybe she’s bluffing. She’s been working with Tsunade for long enough to have a poker face by now.
“I have to say,” she whispers now, leaning in to pour him a cup of tea. “When I asked Sakura to be a more positive influence on you, I didn’t think she would succeed so quickly.”
He glares so hard at her, he almost activates his Sharingan.
Shizune swallows her laughter. Some of the Shinobi attending the meeting send them questioning looks, but the dark cloud of bad mood visibly hanging over Kakashi’s head has them turn away again. God, he hates waking up alone.
-
Sakura squeals as he pulls her inside, closing the door behind her.
“What?” She asks, breathless after a much-needed kiss. “Don’t tell me you missed me.”
“I hate girls' night.”
“Oh, but I like it,” she insists, carding her hands through his hair. “Ino has absolutely no clue what’s going on. She insists on setting me up with someone from the Intelligence Division.”
“If you say Ibiki, I’m going to fire Ino on the spot.”
Sakura kisses him. “Ibiki,” she whispers, her tone teasing.
She’s late to work again in the morning.
---x---
As the new Hospital Director, Sakura isn’t supposed to be doing menial tasks like check-ups on active Shinobis.
But it’s Kakashi. Surely the Hokage would only want the best of the best.
And if she’s being honest with herself, she just wants a chance to see him without his mask on.
-
Kakashi eyes her warily. Without the Hitai-Ate holding it up, his hair is drooping a little lower, covering his scarred eye.
She reaches out without realizing at first, but he doesn’t flinch away from her touch.
“Does it bother you at all?” She asks, unsurprised when he shakes his head.
“She did good work, didn’t she?”
“The best,” he says, his voice cracking.
They stay like this for a moment, her all but cradling his face.
He’s gotten more vulnerable with her, and she’s not sure what to think of it.
She’d quietly hoped he’d see her on her date with Yamato, wandering the streets after. It felt a little silly then, and it still does so now. She’s a grown woman. Their age difference isn’t that big, but maybe she’s still wishing for a kind of attention she’ll never really get.
“Well, anyway,” she takes a step back, clearing her throat. “Would you remove your clothes?”
He takes off his vest. The mask stays on, a thin layer he doesn’t really have to get rid of for the main part of the exam.
His stats are good, considering all the things he went through.
All the broken bones in his files have healed well, and his Chakra Levels are steady, even if not the biggest. She hesitates.
“Can you take that layer off as well?”
She does have a reason for it. Even old scars can cause problems.
Kakashi does as he’s told, and Sakura can’t help but realize that they’ve never been more even in power than they are now. She’s the Hospital’s Director. The only one above her is the Hokage, and yet he can’t order her to write him a clean bill of health. If she takes him off the roster, there’s nothing he can do but accept his fate and wait for her to change her mind.
The prospect is thrilling. She tries not to let it get to her head, even as the mean little voice inside her head freaks out about it. And promptly gets a mental nosebleed at the sight of these abs.
Funnily enough, the mask stays on.
She examines his torso. Taps the corner of his mask with a smile. “That too, Kakashi.”
“Are you really going to make me?”
“Do you want to stay on the roster?”
“Why do I feel like you’re enjoying this a little too much?”
“Maybe I am?” She grins. “Can’t blame me, can you? I bet a lot of money on this mask.”
And just like that, the mood shifts. He turns away, if only a little.
Sakura bites her lip. Sighs. Throws her caution out the window.
“I don’t care about the bet,” she says, even though it truly is a lot of money. Enough to know it would hurt both Naruto and Sasuke to pay it back. And just think about the boost to her pride. But in the end, it’s just money and pride. She can live comfortably with what she has of it now. “Show me, and no one will ever know.”
“Why would I show you?” Kakashi asks, turning back.
“Because…” She hesitates once more. This could get really awkward real fast. “Because I’d like to know… if I’d still want to kiss you as badly without the mask on.”
Silence seeps into the cracks between them. Kakashi doesn’t look away, but hooks a finger into his mask, pulling it down.
Sakura steps forward and taps the side of his mouth, right where a tiny mole sits that looks oddly familiar. “And the Genjutsu too, please.”
She kisses him for the first time that afternoon.
---x---
“Kakashi-Sensei!” Naruto barges in through the door, stopping dead in his tracks. “What are you doing here?”
Sakura is glaring at him from the kitchen table. She’s wearing one of Kakashi’s sleep shirts, and it’s a little too big on her, exposing one hickey-marked shoulder.
“Have you never heard of knocking?”
“Eh, sorry,” Naruto shrugs, eyeing the breakfast spread hungrily. “Can I get some? I’m starving.”
“You’ve got your own stuff at home, you greedy little-”
“Stop it,” Kakashi demands calmly, and they stop squabbling long enough for him to pull a chair out. “Sit down. What’s the problem?”
“Oh, nothing,” Naruto picks up a piece of bacon and pops it in his mouth, narrowly avoiding Sakura’s leg kicking at his shin. “I was just about to go train and wondered if you wanted to join.”
“I do not,” Kakashi points out. He’s wearing the matching pants to the top Sakura’s wearing, and the only plan he has for today contains his backyard, a blanket, and her head in his lap.
“Fair enough,” Naruto decides, swiping an egg and a breadroll off the table before getting up. “I’ll go ask Shikamaru then. Temari’s here to visit, maybe she can show me some cool tricks.”
“Do not-” Sakura starts, but Kakashi’s a little faster, catching Naruto by the sleeve. “You know who you should ask? Hinata. Your Taijutsu could always use a little polishing, and Byakugan is great for practicing that.”
“Oh,” he brightens. “Great idea. Thanks, Sensei. See you later, Sakura.”
“No!” she calls after him, grumbling when he forgets to close the door. “This idiot, I tell you!”
Kakashi pulls her onto his lap when she comes back from closing the door, kissing away her anger. “Hey, at least now we know he’s got nothing against us being together.”
“You were worried about that?” She asks, sounding surprised.
“You weren’t?”
“No. Everyone who disagrees can shove it. The only opinion I cared about was yours, anyway.”
“Glad to hear that,” he lets his head rest in the crook of her neck. “Does that mean we’re going to tell-”
“Nah,” she says, laughing her little manic serial killer laugh. “I want to wait until Ino gets it and then rub it in her face that she’s the one leading the Intelligence Division.”
“You’re cruel.
“You love it.”
“That I do,” Kakashi admits with a content sigh, kissing her.