Naruto Oneshots + Imagines

Obvious (Kakashi Hatake x Anko Mitarashi)

Kakashi Hatake rarely finds himself craving romance. Usually, he's too busy, but with Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke all pretty much out of the picture and the conflict in the village calming down, he doesn't have a ton to do aside from the occasional mission. So, when he sees some of his friends start to go on dates and some of his former academy classmates and ANBU squad members getting married, he's a little jealous.

He's never had the time to date, and now he does. Naturally, he can't help being curious, but since there's no one in particular that catches his interest, he bides his time by completing mission after mission.

When he's assigned to watch over Anko Mitarashi for his next mission, he does so without question. It's considered an A-Rank because of Anko's skill level, though Kakashi figures it isn't anything he can't handle. Tsunade only assigns him to the mission because she's concerned that Anko was planning to sneak out of the village to find Orochimaru herself. After what happened to her during the Chunin exams, Kakashi knows that she- just like him- would end up dead if she went and tried to fight the Sannin herself, so he agrees to the mission; for the sake of keeping a comrade with good intentions safe.

The next few weeks are spent with him trailing Anko any time she's not working at the academy, on a separate mission, or at the mission desk.

In those weeks, he notices the little things about her; how she reads romance novels in her spare time, how she feeds the stray cats that linger outside of her house, how hard she trains during the night. Little things that make her more human than he ever would've thought her before this. When Tsunade tells him that his mission is over and that Anko has been cleared of any suspicion, Kakashi backs off, but he'd be lying if he said that he didn't still try to show up at places he knew Anko would be and linger around in hopes of seeing her.

It's the first time he's ever felt this way for anyone, so he doesn't know what to do. Should he just go up to Anko and tell her that he wants to get to know her better? Should he ignore it? Should he tell his friends?

It's a warm summer day when Kakashi finds himself at the local dango restaurant with Asuma, Kurenai, and Guy. For whatever reason, they've tolerated and loved him all these years, so he tries to take them out to eat every once in a while- to show that he appreciates them no matter how distant he may seem at times.

The four sit at a booth table with Kakashi and Guy sitting in one seat and Kurenai and Asuma sitting in the seat across from them. Meanwhile, Anko sits at the bar a few yards away, happily chatting away with Shizune. The two women down stick after stick of dango. Kakashi wonders if they're together. Then, he hopes they're not. The thought makes him jealous, which he hates, but then again, this new crush of his has been making him feel a lot of unsavory things lately.

Looking at Anko has him totally distracted from his food. She's beautiful with light brown eyes that he swears have constellations in them and hair the color of blossoming wisterias. Her smile is infectious, so Kakashi finds himself smiling under his mask when Anko chuckles at a joke that Shizune tells. His heart beats slow yet hard within the confines of his chest.

"So, Kakashi," Asuma starts, snapping Kakashi out of his lovestruck trance. He glances at the couple sitting across from him as if he hasn't been zoned out for the past ten minutes. He realizes that everyone at the table is staring straight at him. "When did you start having a crush on Anko? Seems like a relatively new development."

"What?" Kakashi blinks.

"What, do you not?" Kurenai questions while sipping from her drink. "You've been staring at her for, like, ten minutes. We've all been trying to get your attention for the last five."

Kakashi glances over at Anko and, much to his embarrassment, she meets his gaze, smiles, and winks. He averts his visible eye and flushes bright red. Thankfully, the restaurant is bustling with enough noise that she can't hear the grilling his friends are currently putting him through.