| 保護 Protection |

Chapter Five [EDITED]

Kakashi glanced sideways at her, noticing how her face was still tinged pink and how she was looking everywhere except at him. He laughed nervously and actually looked at her; he understood why they would think they were together. She was very pretty; her black hair was vibrant with midnight blue hues in the sunlight, matching her eyes. He wanted to know why she had a singular braid on her right side that was longer than the rest. He would have thought that she was an Uchiha if not for the fact that her eyes were a deep shade of blue.

"Why are you staring at me, Kakashi-san?"

Now it was his turn to blush and look to the side, "I was admiring the view."

Yoru was surprised that he had just said that to her, leaving her mouth open. Was he calling her pretty?

He realized his mistake and scrambled to fix it. "Uh, the sky. It's really pretty at this time of day, a great view," he internally cursed at his stupidity, how was she affecting him this much?

They had arrived at the Hokage tower, and Yoru awkwardly coughed and headed inside, Kakashi following close behind. He stepped forward to knock, before entering. The Hokage took a puff of his pipe before nodding to the two jounin, each giving their reports of the mission. He was surprised that the mission had escalated to a B-rank, almost into A-rank territory. The two jounin signed off on their mission report and were given the ryo to be split among them. On the way out, Yoru asked if he minded running to the store with her, she was not sure that they had the milk they needed. He accepted and led the way to the marketplace.

She made her way to the milk, selecting a gallon of two percent and a gallon of extra calcium and made her way to the cashiers. Kakashi was going to ask her about the extra calcium, but she had already started walking away. Since Kakashi was somewhat behind her, he noticed the amount of males that were blatantly staring her down. He rushed over to her while she was at the cashier, feeling jealousy spike. He was confused and became even more so when he heard the last bit of Yoru's conversation with the cashier.

"-very lucky to have him," she said cheerily to Yoru while looking at Kakashi.

"Oh no, uh, we're not-," she was interrupted by Kakashi slinging his arm over her shoulders and grabbing her bags with his other hand.

He thanked the cashier and gave her a closed-eye smile and then proceeded to lead Yoru out of the store. He kept his arm around her, but would not look at her. He felt her gaze and hoped she would not say anything. He did not know what came over him, but the way those guys were looking at her, he could not handle it.

"Kakashi?"

"Hm?"

"What was that all about?"

"You were taking too long; you know how the kids complain when I'm late."

She looked up at him, not quite believing him, but going along with it anyways. With a twist, she gracefully took the bags from him and rotated out from under his arm, ending up on the other side of him. She looked at him playfully, her eyes daring him to make a move. He rolled his eye at her and pulled out one of his infamous Icha Icha Paradise books. She read the cover and asked him what it was, she had never heard of them before. He looked at her once before giving a, "Find out yourself," and then looking back at the book.

She was devising a plan to steal it when he stopped her and double checked to see if it was her house. She nodded and pulled out her keys to unlock the door. When she entered she heard voices coming from the kitchen mixed with a lot of 'ttebayo's, dobe's, and baka's. Yoru chuckled, slipped off her sandals and headed to the kitchen. On the table was an assortment of cherry tomatoes, umeboshi, and apples. She walked forward and kissed Naruto on his head while setting down the milk. As she walked towards the cabinets, she asked Naruto to put away the milk while she got the ingredients for tonight's dinner.