Never say Never (Kakashi x OC)

A mutual surprise

Due to meeting his sister, Naruto had all but forgotten about his sensei being in hospital. Only later that evening he remembered and told Hajita he wanted to visit his teacher the following day first thing in the morning. Hajita nodded and agreed "That's a brilliant idea. I'll come with you. I promised I would check on him and see how he's doing."

As they arrived, Hajita wanted to talk to the doctors and nurses about Kakashi's treatment first, but Naruto couldn't wait any longer and entered his sensei's room without her.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto shouted. "How are ya feeling?" He didn't even wait for the answer and simply blabbered on "I have a sister now, can you believe that? And she is really cool, ya know!"

Kakashi smiled and told him that he already had met her. When Hajita entered the room and warmly smiled at him, he felt his stomach turn into a knot. There must be something wrong with this hospital food, Kakashi thought and pretended to listen to Naruto's blabbering. As sensitive as usual, Naruto hadn't noticed anything about his sensei's distraction and rambled on about their new house and what stories his sister had already told him about their parents. Hajita on the other hand looked at her former patient and thought to herself, that looking that handsome when you're feeling that miserable simply was just not fair. I bet he has a lot of admirers, she mused as her eyes went through the room and got caught on the many flowers, pink boxes of chocolate and get-well-cards he had gotten confirming her theory. She caught herself wondering whether he had a girlfriend and felt a peng of jealousy at that thought. Telling herself that she didn't even know this man, she forced herself to focus her attention back to the people in the room with her.

Unlike his student Naruto, Kakashi seemed to be quite aware of the people surrounding him. He had attentively followed Hajita's gaze and was surprised to find her staring sulkily at his presents. Why would his get-well-wishes make her mad? Shouldn't one be happy about someone else getting presents? He mused and concluded, that he simply didn't understand women. When Naruto finally was done with his stories about his newly discovered sister, Hajita and Kakashi exchanged a few polite words before parting again. She asked him how he was feeling and told him that she was content with his recovery so far but that he should at least get a few days more rest.

The urge to see the man with the silver hair and the dark eyes again hit Hajita way before it was supposed to. Certainly, it is because of my training as Iryonin, she reassured herself. Every medic ninja should care about their patients and see that they are recovering well. Thus, she decided to visit Kakashi one more time at the hospital. Naruto told her he would rather exercise that day, so she went by herself. On her way to his room, she worried about the effects the torture might have had on his personality. She talked to the doctors for the last time and they confirmed her misgiving by telling her that he would never sleep while it was dark outside but only take naps during daytime. Hajita sighed and somehow felt responsible for making him feel better. After all, it had been her former best friend who had done this to him. There must be something she could do about this, she pondered while entering his room extra quietly in order to not disturb him in the case he was asleep. But to her great surprise, Kakashi was reading.

Ever since she was a kid, Hajita had been good at sensing other people's feelings by analysing their chakra. Seeing him so at ease and relaxed was so heart-warming to her, she could have watched him all day. But she was curious and wanted to know what kind of books he liked to read and thus cleared her throat to get his attention. Kakashi looked up and his book almost fell out of his hands. His face grew as red as a tomato and he quickly hid the book under his blanket.

"Why are you hiding your book?" Hajita asked curiously.

"Well..." Kakashi thought frantically about the best excuse possible and came up with what he thought was an excellent idea. "It is about secret war tactics. Only Konohan ninjas are allowed to handle this information." He looked apologetically at her but could instantly tell, that he had hurt her feelings by saying this. Oh great, he thought, that had exactly gone as planned.

"Ok, ok, I lied. It's nothing about war and also not just for green leaf shinobi. You can have a look at it if you want. But promise me you won't get mad, ok?"

I never thought I'd show this to a woman, Kakashi thought embarrassed, but what more damage could it do? It looked like she was already mad at him for the comment about not belonging to the leaf and he just did not want her to feel excluded. She looked at him still a little hurt and didn't say a single word but nodded. He took all his strength together and handed over the book. The moment she took it and eyed it her jaw fell open. Kakashi felt so ashamed he wanted to sink into the ground when Hajita began to laugh so hard she started crying. Maybe it was because he had not been prepared for this kind of reaction, but it took him by surprise how beautiful she looked when she laughed like this.

"What's so funny?" he wanted to know.

"Well" Hajita explained after taking a deep breath and wiping away her tears of laughter "I would NEVER have guessed that. When someone would have told me that my little brother reads stuff like this, I wouldn't be surprised. But someone like YOU? I imagined you wouldn't need this kind of stuff."

"Someone like me?" Kakashi furrowed his brows and asked "What do you mean by that?"

Her cheeks turned pink and she glanced over to the table and the pile of presents which had grown to a ridiculously huge amount since the day she last had visited him. She shrugged "I guess I expected you to have so much romance in your life that you wouldn't need these fantasies."

He shrugged and looked as indifferent as always. "I guess I like the characters. And the plot. It always makes relationships look easy."

Now Hajita was the one taken by surprise. Even though he hadn't commented on her assumption about his love life, his answer gave her the impression that he was not the man to have many girlfriends. She wondered why that was. She tossed him the book and grinned. The fact that he was already able to be so calm again assured her that both his mental and physical recovery had progressed well. On top of that, she couldn't sense any abnormalities in his chakra and decided that there was nothing else she could do for him that moment. As she headed for the door, she turned around and glanced at the handsome young man once again.

"You know, I understand why you read this kind of fiction. People are difficult, but books are easy."

And with that she left a startled Kakashi behind. She just had put into words how he always felt when reading those books. The thought that someone else could feel the exact same way about relationships had never crossed his mind before. It seemed that with Uzumakis you should never say never, Kakashi thought and buried his nose in his book again, a slight smile on his face.