It's a somewhat chilly day when he decides to allow her into his home, and to this day he still can't quite figure out why he'd done it in the first place.
The sun had just begun to set, he remembers, and he's walking home from the market, a select few bags of groceries dangling from his fingers. Being a shinobi meant he was hardly ever home, and so he always makes sure to buy as little as possible that lasts as long as possible; nothing like buying fresh fruit and vegetables and coming home after a month-long mission to find it stinking and covered in flies.
He's about halfway home when a flash of pink saunters up beside him, and he looks over to find Sakura walking next to him.
"Hey, Kakashi. How you doing?"
He blinks, eyelashes brushing against his headband. "Uhhmm...nothing much. Just walking home with some groceries. You?"
"I just got done sparring with Naruto a little bit ago. Tried finding Shikamaru for a game of go but apparently he's out on a mission with Ino and Choji."
"Ah."
They walk for a bit, chirping birds and crunching footsteps accompanied by the rhythmic rustling of grocery bags filling their silence.
"...So you live close by?" Sakura asks, her chit-chatty demeanor failing to hide her blatant curiosity.
"I live right behind the library."
Her hair whips in surprise. "You do?"
Kakashi nods, closing his eyes jovially. "Yep, just down the way. You're welcome to come and clean my dirty apartment if you want."
He says it in jest, but Sakura takes it a step further to accept his invitation.
"Alright, then. I think I will!"
He pauses, blinks, as though unsure of what to do (which he is), and tries to decide where to go from here.
He opens his mouth to tell her he was only joking, but the words that end up coming out are, "...Okay, then. Follow me. That is, if you can keep up."
He smirks at her dumbfounded expression before leaping off into the evening sun, disappearing around a building as he makes his way home. The thought of slowing down doesn't even cross his mind because he knows she's right behind him; Sakura has never been one to enjoy letting herself be last place for anything, even friendly races such as this. As they near closer to his apartment, he wonders why he had agreed to let her come; after all, he had never felt the need to let any of his teammates know where he lived, save for Guy and the Fifth. So why change that policy now? What made Sakura so special that she got to be fortunate enough to become the third person on the planet to know where he resided?
But ultimately, he brushes the thought aside and just barely beats her home.
