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|| [Hatake] : Fascination : [Kakashi] || [Part XX] ||
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Oriko sighed heavily, and closed her eyes trying to quell the irritation within her,
“No. He doesn’t like me; well I hope he likes me enough that I don’t get on his nerves or anything, but he definitely doesn’t like me like ‘that’,”
She shot the pink haired girl a serious look, silently telling her to drop the subject; and although she did as ‘ordered’ the slightly bewildered, if not dazed and shocked look didn’t leave her face as they continued to their destination. Oriko felt progressively more uneasy by Sakura’s words and actions,
“What’s your name? How do you know Kakashi?” She asked as they stood just outside of the door, the girl seemed to click back to reality,
“Oh! I'm Haruno Sakura,” she bowed politely, “And Kakashi-sensei was my Jounin instructor when I first graduated from the academy, but I am currently under the tutelage of Tsunade-sama,” She explained a thankful smile appearing on her face,
“Ah, that explains it; then…may I ask you something?” Oriko lowered her voice a touch, worrying someone would over hear, Sakura nodded, not fully understanding the other woman’s hesitance, “Was Kakashi as…‘uninvolved’ and, well, lazy with your training?” Sakura thought for a moment, recalling her days under Kakashi’s tuition but firmly nodded,
“He left most of it for us to figure out and just supervised really…besides we only really did missions with him,” She recalled, observing Oriko’s thoughtful nod,
“Okay, cool! That settles that then, I’m Oriko, by the way,” A pleasant smile found its way to her face as she stepped back and bowed gently, Sakura internally smiling at the relaxed nature of for-the-time-being colleague.
Sakura opened the door to reveal a small room, almost completely taken up with one large table (buried under countless pieces of paper) and a number of filing cabinets – all of which empty,
“Geeze…Tsunade-sama can be so lazy sometimes!” Sakura grumbled as she walked into the room, followed by Oriko, the pink haired girl sighed heavily, “Well, we need to organize all of these medical files according to date and alphabetically,”
Oriko’s shoulders immediately slumped at the sudden weariness which came over her, despite it being only quarter past ten in the morning. They began and set to work, Oriko not hesitating to pull over a spare chair to her and being piling pages onto it, in a tall (and albeit shaky) tower of paper; as she pulled off one report she organized it by dates first, then alphabetically.
They’d been sorting and filing sheets for a good hour before Sakura piped up again,
“Oriko, are you sure that Kakashi-sensei is…uh, ‘just your friend’?”
“Yes, Sakura! We’re just on good terms is all, I have the occasional beer with him…well, he’s really more of a Sake man, but whatever,” Oriko shrugged, her eyes darting over yet another report and placing it down in the correct pile, before reaching for another, she looked up to Sakura who held a very weird expression, as though unable to imagine Kakashi in a bar. Oriko couldn’t hide the smile which crept to her face at Sakura’s expression,
“What?”
“Uh…I…nothing,” She shook her head, turning her attention back to another report; Oriko grinning a little more to herself at Sakura’s look of disbelief, somehow the younger generation can never understand that the elder was young at least once…though I wouldn’t describe Kakashi as old…
Eventually, Oriko and Sakura had ordered all the files away in the cabinets and the room was clear, both the kuniochi breathing sighs of relief,
“Wow, I never would have thought we’d managed to finish that…let along so quickly!” Sakura spoke brightly, eyeing the clock on the wall, 12.27 it read as they both exited the room and made their way back to Tsunade’s office,
“Tsunade-shihou?” Sakura questioned, as the Hokage looked over the top of the scroll she was holding,
“Hmm? Is there a problem?”
“No, we’ve finished organizing the files,”
“Already? Well, then it’ll be a while before I’m done with this…you’re free to leave for lunch, Sakura please report to me when you’re done,” Both kuniochi nodded and left the office, Oriko thinking that she may as well find lunch of some description then head to the library to read up on chakra weapons.
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Oriko allowed a happy smile to come to her face, even though she wasn’t in an especially joyful mood, she was quite happy. It had been a…strange, to say the least, week and a half without Kakashi and although he didn’t ‘teach’ her much per se, she definitely missed his presence, her morning training sessions felt a bit ‘lack lustre’ somehow; and her days seemed a little directionless with sudden and dramatic change in schedule.
Although Oriko didn’t really rationalize it in so many words, she did think of Kakashi often, and hoped that he was alright, that the missions were going well. She was still having trouble with her fan and her card jutsu although they were a little closer to completion than before, it still wasn’t quite right and it nagged at her.
She’d had a lot of time to train as she hadn’t seen Anko or anyone else for quite some time, not after Kakashi had left and couldn’t help but feel a touch lonely – it managed to surprise her.
She met up with Sakura once more during Kakashi’s absence and didn’t particularly dislike the kuniochi; rather she simply got the feeling from the girl that she represented a lot of what Oriko didn’t.
She struck Oriko as such a girly girl that it seemed so misplaced next to her intelligence…although she didn’t like to think of her in such bad terms – it just seemed a little odd was all, and not to Oriko’s tastes.
The slightly older kuniochi was walking down the streets of Konoha, on her way to meet Kiyoshi for lunch; she’d made fast friends with the man, enjoying his relaxing company and sense of humour. Oriko was in no way attracted to the man, as a matter of fact he had a girlfriend whom he was very loyal to, but he seemed to her to be a more brotherly figure; Oriko and Kiyoshi were good friends and that was as much as either wanted from the other.
“Hey, Kiyoshi, I haven’t seen you for ages,” She greeted kindly at the small café-like shop walking up to the outside table he was sat at, he raised his eyes to meet hers, a smile forming on his face,
“Yo! It’s good to see you again,” He smiled, standing up to greet her as she took a seat, “How’ve ya been? Training going well?”
“Well, yea, I’m making progress, that’s for sure; but I…hmmm…well my Jounin instructor’s been away for the past week and a half and I…well I supposed I feel a little directionless, haha. It’s pretty pathetic really, I can train myself and it’s no big deal, but I guess I’m just used to...having him around really,” She scratched the back of her head as a mild blush came to her cheeks, feeling suddenly stupid for openly admitting that she missed Kakashi. Kiyoshi shot her a reassuring smile,
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of, if you’ve only been training for a few months rather than the years most students get with their instructor then it’s quite natural;” Although Kiyoshi was barely seven months older than herself, they shared a definite sibling relationship, Oriko almost always found herself encouraged by his words. “When will he be back?”
“Uh…I dunno really, he said ‘in a week or two’ a week and a half ago, but I don’t think even he really knew; I’ll just have to make sure I’m at the top of my game for when he gets back,”
“Why’s that?”
“We’re supposed to spar when he gets back, apparently ‘to see how well I cope on my own’,” She rolled her eyes in fake frustration recalling the fond memory, as Kiyoshi raised an eyebrow,
“Well, at least you have actually been training…besides, you have that fan right? I’d love to see someone counter that when it’s used properly,” He grinned,
“Ha, yea, now if only I could learn to use it properly!” She retorted, resulting in them both breaking out in laughter.
Oriko eventually calmed herself as a waitress walked up to them, looked a little unsure due to their manic laughter,
“Uh, may I take your order?”
“Oh! Yes please, some green tea and two sides of egg rice please,” She smiled at the waitress who gave her a strange look,
“Uh, anything else?”
“No thank you,”
“For you, sir?” She turned awkwardly to Kiyoshi,
“Uh, some dango, a green tea also an egg roll and a side of meat buns,” He smiled happily as the waitress bowed to them and walked away,
“She was expecting you to order a main with that,”
“Ahah, I know, I’m just in a rice mood today,” Oriko smiled back, as she leaned back in the chair, observing Kiyoshi’s playful ‘you’re hopeless’ expression, but she could feel a familiar presence, she sat up a little, turning her head over her shoulder in an attempt to find the source to check if it were what she thought it was.
“Something wrong?” Kiyoshi asked, frowning slightly out of concern, Oriko didn’t answer immediately,
“Oriko?” A very familiar voice broke the momentary silence as she whipped her head around to face him, I knew it!
“Kakashi! You’re back?” He looked worn out, and like a long nights sleep would do him the world of good,
“Hmm, a little while ago,” He commented quietly, his eye averting to her companion, he nodded in a greeting, not bothering to introduce himself, “Good week?” He queried, eyeing the free seat, but not taking it,
“Yea, sort of, just like a week and half’s worth of day-offs really,”
“Heh, I feel like I could do with a week and a half’s worth of days off,” He let out a heavy sigh, Oriko furrowed her brow in mild concern,
“Bad missions?”
“Not more so than usual, but that’s when I tackle them one at a time,” He rolled his eyes at Tsunade’s demands, noting her tiny smile at his words, “Well, I should leave you two too it,” He continued, flicking his eye over to Kiyoshi, “We’ll meet the day after tomorrow,” Oriko opened her mouth to say something else, but he had already half turned to walk away,
“See you then, Kakashi,” She smiled a strange half-smile, hoping that his abruptness was more to do with his fatigue than the situation they were in, Kiyoshi nodded a goodbye to Kakashi which the shinobi didn’t quite return before he had his back to them and disappeared around a corner, presumably on his way home.
Kiyoshi couldn’t help but sigh a little as he recognized what had just happened,
“Ya know,” He began, drawing Oriko’s attention off the shinobi and to himself, “I’m starting to think that we must really give off a the wrong impression if everyone thinks we’re a couple,”
"Eh!?!” Oriko nearly snapped at him, not quite believing what she’d heard,
“He obviously thought we were dating or something,”
“Nah…”
“He did; didn’t you see that look he gave me?” Kiyoshi smiled in vague amusement as he eyed Oriko’s rather harsh facial expression,
“No, I didn’t…and after the hard time Iruka gave you, you’re just paranoid!”
“Oriko…that guy-”
“Kakashi,”
“Kakashi is far more intimidating than Iruka is, and...is he your Jounin instructor?” He asked, coming to a sudden realization,
“Yea, why?” Kiyoshi raised an eyebrow in surprise, but shook his head, as though mentally dismissing his thought, “I think you’ve just got relationships on the brain because your ‘plus one’ has been away for so long,”
Oriko smiled in triumph as the waitress reappeared with their food. Kiyoshi snapped his chopsticks together, just as he picked them up, pointing them at Oriko, resting his elbow on the table;
“You and me both, sweetheart,” He grinned, earning one in return from Oriko as she scooped a little ball of rice up in her chopsticks.