The Girl Under the Mask-Kakashi x OC Romance

Chapter 9

Kakashi plopped into the bar stool, unsure of what to think.

"He doth grace us with his presence." A voice joked behind him with a gasp. He only spared a sideways glance to see Anko pulling out the stool next to him.

Kakashi turned back to his glass of whiskey with a shrug. "So I came for a drink." He brushed her joking aside.

"So you came for a..." Anko didn't bother to finish repeating with a shake of her head. "Of all the joints in Konoha, I've never been able to get you to go elsewhere. Then you show back up after disappearing for 5 months and your response is a shrug?" Anko stated the facts with clear disbelief that it was nothing.

"So who is she?" Out of nowhere Gai appeared, leaning on his elbow on the bar top and wiggling his brows at Kakashi. While Kakashi grumbled under his mask over the arrival of Gai, Anko gasped again-this time in excitement by Gai's prospect. Anko twirled around the barstool and sat with her arms slung over the back of it as she straddled the seat. "What's her name?" She whispered like it was some big secret. And some nights that's exactly how it felt.

Kakashi glanced at them both in his peripheral, then sighed. "Atsumi."

"And what did you do?" Anko asked, making Kakashi give her a look.

"Why do you assume I did something?"

"After 5 months of chasing her you ended up back here with us hopeless losers."

"Hopeless loser?! I will have you know I asked a girl for her number just last night!" Gai prtotested.

"And did you get it?" She asked. Kakashi turned towards Gai as well, honestly curious. Gai just turned his head away in response, only silence following. He dramatically bit his fist as he tried to hold in his emotions. Anko turned back to Kakashi.

"So what happened?"

With a sigh, Kakashi stared deep into his glass as he filled them in on his 'relationship'.

Gai let out a long whistle at the end "Woah."

"Yeah, 'woah'."

"So she has a child." Anko shrugged her shoulders, "something like that, people tend to know instantly if they're going to let that run them away...so are you?" She asked the hard question.

"I already told her I loved her no matter what, and even now that I know I still do...so, I guess not...but she won't even give me the chance to show that. Why won't she trust me?" As he talked to Anko and Gai, he realized that was the real question that bothered him.

"You said it yourself, she's a single mother that frequently moves from village to village-she may even leave here soon. It's not that she doesn't trust you, it's that she doesn't want to break her son's heart by letting him come to love you and then tearing you out of his life when she leaves." Gai told him.

Kakashi looked at Gai in shock. "That actually makes sense." His voice didn't hide the surprise that Gai had given him rational advise-no 'power of youth' crap.

Gai sat up proudly and smiled, a bright glint coming off his teeth. "You have to know the heart of a lady to be a lady's man such as myself" He stated proudly to Kakashi's unasked question. Anko fell off her chair laughing...some booze might have helped her fall.

"Then I'll just tell her-"

"Woah woah woah-" Anko's hand slapped against the vinyl stool top as she pulled herself up, "tell her what? You've already scared this struggling single mother with the idea of a second rugrat-"

Gai squealed excitedly, "a little Kakashi! What a fountain of youth he'll be!" Kakashi and Anko just gave him an irritated stare, but he paid no mind as he dreamed of little spiky haired babies running about.