Roses {Kakashi Hatake}

11. Competition

At the age of ten, Akahana was promoted to jounin. She continued to train with her teammates and shibi, as well as learning more from Shikaku. There was one thing she did notice about him, something had happened that made him act nervous whenever she mentioned his lovelife.

This made Akahana even more curious as to what he was hiding from her and was determined to find out, she was just going to have to investigate it on her own.

And of course she dragged Kakashi along.

As the two tailed the said jounin, they found Inoichi and Chouza hiding in the bushes, "Who's that girl over there?" Akahana asked them, pointing at the dark haired girl Shikaku seemed to be walking towards.

Both jounin remained calm as the two ten year olds went to stand next to them, "We don't know, that's what we're trying to find out," Inoichi replied, "Do you have an idea?"

Akahana shook her head, she had never seen the woman in her entire life, she hadn't even seen it coming that Shikaku would deliberately be with any other woman aside from her. She wasn't quite sure what had made him decide she wasn't as troublesome as he claimed most women were. Or rather, all women.

"Yoshino, sorry I'm late," Shikaku said as he approached the said woman.

"You better have a pretty damn good excuse, Nara," she retorted.

"Let's go somewhere else," Shikaku suddenly stated, having noticed he was being watched by the four jounin in the bushes.

Inoichi looked at Chouza, whilst Chouza looked back at him, "Don't you know how to mask your chakra?" Inoichi questioned, "We were so close to finding out his secret!"

"You're blaming me? It was your idea to follow him around!"

"Maybe you're both to blame?" Akahana suggested, earning a glare from the both of them, "I mean, maybe he sensed you both?"

Chouza accused her of being the reason they were found out by their teammate, "Or he sensed you."

The inexperienced jounin was a perfect target for accusations, it actually sounded reasonable, "He could've sensed us all," Akahana eventually said, "But does it even matter? Finding out his secret is more important."

"Dammit, she's right," Inoichi stated, "Let's go look for those two."

***

Finding the two adults proved to be hard, as Shikaku didn't want to be found in the first place, neither did he want for his teammates and student to know about his relationship with the girl just yet.

Quite frankly, the relationship didn't excist yet, he had yet to confess to the woman.

The first, and biggest, step for the jounin was coming to terms with his feelings. He knew the woman was bossy and could get overprotective, she was occasionaly sweet.

"Why did you want to go elsewhere?" Yoshino asked him as she sat across from him in a restaurant, "It's not like we were planning anything romantic."

"Well, I wanted to make sure we'd be away from prying eyes," Shikaku replied.

"So you bring us to a crowded restaurant?"

"We were being watched," Shikaku told the girl, "by nosy teammates, a girl I'm tutoring and her friend. At least no one will pay attention to us in here."

---

Just a couple blocks away, Akahana and Kakashi were looking around. The four shinobi had decided to split up in pairs and tell each other their foundings later.