Chapter Text
The bell goes to work with its signature ting-a-ling as the front door to the shop swings open. Apparently, it’s a vintage piece, a solid brass bell that had probably been shiny once upon a time, with a cast iron hook embellished with delicate leaves. The shop owner, a retired plant biologist turned old grouch bookstore entrepreneur named Chiyo, had apparently seen it at an antique sale and felt the holy rays of divine inspiration fall down upon her, insisting that this was the final touch that would tie the shop together. (As if there was anything that could tie together a bookstore specializing in books about poison, murder mysteries, puppets, and cacti.)
The bell is melodic sounding, at least, rather than the jarring buzzer that her university liked to employ when making announcements, but still—there are only so many times that she can hear the same ringing sound over and over before it starts to feel like Groundhog’s Day.
In any case, the chime signals that her momentary break from having to deal with customers is over and it’s time to get back to it. Giving herself a quick second to finish the sentence she was on, Sakura slides a notecard between the textbook pages as a placeholder and prepares to slip into customer service mode.
Quickly glancing up to scope out the situation, she can see a tuft of silvery hair from her seat behind the tall checkout counter and immediately wilts. Just the crop of snowy salt and pepper is enough to trigger a sense of impending doom for the sort of conversation she’ll have to put up with.
Let it be said, Sakura has the utmost respect for her elders and is always happy to volunteer at the senior center when she has the time, but the older folks who visit the shop always, always have lots of comments to make… About how young people shouldn’t be dying their hair such outrageous colors, and is there a public restroom, and why are books so expensive these days, and on and on and on. Still, she wants to be a doctor, and her bedside manner undoubtedly needs work, so she mentally braces herself and channels her most courteous smile, justifying the retail sales experience as good practice.
It’s not until she stands up from her chair and can see past the countertop that she realizes, 1) the newest prospective customer is definitely not an old man, more likely in his late twenties / early thirties, and also 2) he is in fact, very cute verging on wildly attractive in a sort of not trying ruggedly hipster monochrome lumberjack type of way.
A little bit entranced, Sakura stares at the man whose slouching posture does nothing to hide the fact that he’s tall, easily 6 foot or more, and whose black on black on black outfit somehow perfectly contrasts his pale pale skin. He’s almost like a character out of a young adult vampire novel, a classic tall, dark and handsome except for the floof of silver-white hair that springs up from his head, looking remarkably lush and oddly spikey, with a few wayward pieces draped over his eyes.
Ignoring her suddenly dry lips, she promptly closes her mouth and crosses her arms awkwardly, giving an equally awkward and probably far from attractive smile. Lucky for her, the well-rehearsed store greeting is automatic at this point and requires no higher brain function: “Welcome to The Page Sage, your local independent bookshop. Please let me know if you need help finding any…”
It’s then that she hears an unusual scratching sound and trails off with a frown. Standing on her tiptoes, she leans over the counter so that she can get a good look, her eyebrows scrunching further when she sees the smushy dog making itself home on the carpet.
The brown pug looks straight at her, his nose twitching and beady eyes seeming oddly analytical for a moment, as if he’s sizing her up, and then—he blinks dismissively, turning away to sniff his ass. Charming.
Righting herself, she glances back up and makes eye contact with the man once more.
“Sorry sir, we don’t allow pets inside the store,” she asserts with the Chiyo-approved blend of polite adamance.
The man’s head cocks to the side in question, messy strands shifting with the movement to expose half-lidded charcoal eyes that give the impression he might fall asleep on the spot. (Ironically, it’s the same vibe that she’s picking up from the dog.)
Pursing her lips, Sakura raises her hand to point towards the shop entrance where the boldly printed ‘no pets allowed’ sign hangs plainly in the window. The man’s head turns marginally to glance at the aforementioned sign before looking back at her with an impassive expression.
“Hm?”
(For some unidentifiable reason, she finds the slight throaty edge to his humming and the way it makes his Adam's apple bob instantly maddening.)
“Your pug,” she clarifies in a crisper tone, not sure if he’s intentionally trying to mess with her or had just completely ignored what she said (though neither option made him look good).
“Pakkun,” he counters immediately, his voice a richer baritone than the humming had implied.
“What?” she responds after a moment of confusion.
“His name is Pakkun,” the man elaborates in a lazy drawl, accompanying the statement by leaning over to pat the canine raisinet whose tongue is now lolling out and dripping drool onto the carpet.
Lovely.
“Right, well…” she starts, feeling unbalanced by the strange conversation and almost missing the customers who berate her for her bright hair. “We don’t allow any pets in the shop. Unfortunately,” she tacks on in a pseudo-apologetic tone.
“I see.” The man nods thoughtfully, as if in deep contemplation. Frustratingly, she can’t tell if he’s having an off-day or just completely full of shit, because he’s still standing there.
The ensuing silence is heavy and awkward, and Sakura has always been bad with awkward pauses so she just starts chattering to fill the space, hands fidgeting together behind her back: “Sorry about that. He’s very cute, and it’s not my rule, but unfortunately, I have to enforce—”
“Service dogs are permitted, correct?” He stares at her with an unreadable expression, the sounds of his dog now licking himself making the atmosphere even more uncomfortable.
“…Yes?”
“Mahh, then there’s no problem.” He smiles with an accompanying eye-crease before continuing in a rather breezy tone, “Pakkun’s my service dog.”
“A service dog,” she repeats dubiously, giving the pug a scrutinizing stare which he seems to send right back at her.
The hot obnoxious customer hums again and the sound provokes a new record for how fast her expression can shift into pure annoyance.
“Right…” she responds with complete and utter (in)sincerity and (dis)belief. “Where’s his vest then?”
Seeming entirely unphased by her brusqueness, her newest pain-in-the-neck retorts almost gleefully, “It irritates his skin.”
“His skin,” she echoes doubtfully, as if waiting for him to call himself out for his spectacular fail of a lie. (He doesn’t.)
“Aren’t those required for service dogs?” she pushes in a slightly snippier tone, eyebrow already twitching.
“Mahhh, Cherry-chan, some people might find that line of questioning rather rude.”
“Hey—!”
He blathers on without missing a beat: “But since you seem rather worked up about it. Pakkun here has a special dermatological condition. Luckily, it doesn’t affect his life span. But for the sake of his well-being and his comfort, it means that I have to bathe him with a custom shampoo ordered from overseas, procure a special medication from the veterinarian, and of course there’s the daily regimen of moisturizing, canine acupuncture, a special diet…”
He waves his hand in a circular ‘et cetera’ gesture before continuing, “As you might imagine, it can become quite expensive. But—”
He pauses theatrically, his eyes shifting over to her for a split second and she swears she can see a twinkle of amusement slip through the facade before the unusually serious intensity is back as he looks at his dog.
“—he’s worth it.” The man squats down, resting his hand on top of the pug’s head and adopting a solemn tone. “Even if his poor affliction means that sometimes he doesn’t get the proper respect he deserves as a loyal service companion.”
Said service companion looks up from licking himself at the final few words, gazing up with earnest puppy eyes at his owner. The man stares back unflinchingly into the melty chocolate eyes, scratching his accomplice appreciatively behind his ears. “Good boy Pakkun. Thank you for your hard work.”
Just—
Disbelief. Complete and utter incredulity.
Sakura gawks at the spectacle, looking between pug and provocateur, the latter now in full slouchy standing posture and seeming smug despite an inscrutable outward expression, and gives up.
Her motivation fizzles out like a deflating balloon, and suddenly, fighting with the stubborn ass just doesn’t seem worth it. There are better uses for her barely-above-minimum-wage time, and the customer is always right, right? Maybe if she lets him off the hook, he’ll buy a book or two from the shop.
Besides, it’s still morning. She’ll have plenty of time to vacuum before Chiyo stops by.
Probably.
“You know what,” she concedes with a heavy sigh. “It’s fine. Just… don’t let him pee on anything.”
The man sends another eye-smile her way, this time with dimples and a head tilt that comes across as an infuriating mix of charming and condescending.
“Of course not. We’re both fully house trained.”
He winks at her, sending a cluster of obnoxious monarchs fluttering around her stomach, and she forces herself to pointedly look away, sitting down back at the computer and trying to make herself seem unbothered. She definitely does not think about the perfect dimples and cute eye-creases and slightly asymmetrical grin. No siree, she does not dwell on the silky looking hair or tight shirt or weirdly enticing snark…
Flipping open her book, the page gets turned a little too aggressively, and she winces at the condemning ripping sound.
“Crap,” she mutters under her breath.
Unbothered. Totally.
—
Once the man has passed out of her periphery and made his way towards the back of the store, Sakura lets out a long exhale she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in. It feels like that one peculiar interaction managed to simultaneously drain her social battery and make her feel like she had chugged a triple espresso on an empty stomach. Stupid butterflies. Stupid brain.
Rubbing her tired eyes, she slides her elbow across the desk, using her fist to prop up her cheek while her eyes half-heartedly skim through the pages sprawled open on the keyboard.
She’s just barely made it through the final paragraph of the chapter when her mind registers the fact that not only is her right foot abnormally warm, but there’s a wet, cold something pressing against the bare skin of her ankle.
She jerks in her seat, very nearly sending the spinny chair crashing backwards. Meanwhile, the pug who was curled up around said feet makes a displeased harumph sound before readjusting and plopping right back into place without further ado.
“Hey! ” she hisses hotly, sending death glares at the—currently rogue and unleashed—slobbery pooch. “Get! Off!”
She wiggles her toes, and when that doesn’t work, starts aggressively jiggling her knees, trying her best to evict the sleepy lump of fur without causing undue harm.
Yet apparently, the pug cannot be bothered. Her attempts at forcibly relocating the stubborn creature are wholly ignored, with the dog seeming perfectly content as is; not reacting to the jostling other than to shoot her a judgemental look. (How a pug can appear judgemental, she doesn’t know, but this one is managing a particularly bombastic side eye.)
“What are you—ugh, ” she huffs irritatedly, dropping her head with a thunk on top of the textbook.
She can only hope that today is not the day her boss decides to stop by unannounced. Or if she does, maybe pug-man’s irritating eye-smile will also be able to sway Chiyo into the believability of his service dog story.
Ugh, wait, is that what happened? Did she seriously—no matter. First things first, get the drooling pug who smells almost exactly like her certainly not shipped from overseas shampoo, off of her foot.
Letting lose a gargantuan sigh, she gathers the shattered remains of her customer service persona and tries her best to piece it back together.
“Hey, uh…” Wait, what’s his name? Pug-guy? Dogman? Aggravating but slightly hot customer?? Absolutely not.
Going with her tried and true method, she clears her throat audibly to get the man’s attention and gives a small but meaningful little wave when he turns around. She beckons him over with a raised eyebrow and a strict look that she hopes clearly communicates her ‘get your ass over here, you miscreant, you’ attitude. (Based on the amused quirk of his lips, she thinks her efforts may have been unsuccessful.)
He walks over to the desk area in what can only be described as a maddeningly slow place, though surprisingly he does respect the ‘employees only area’ sign and remains on the other side of the rope.
His eyebrow raises in question and she levels him with her best stern glare, reaffirming her don’t mess with me mentality and trying her best to make herself look intimidating despite still sitting in the low chair.
“Aren’t you supposed to have your service dog with you, sir?” (The added honorific is more out of spite than anything else.)
Anddddd the grin is back. Ugh.
“It’s Kakashi.”
Her eyebrows squinch together in a confused frown, glancing down at the dog making himself comfortable on her feet. “I thought you said his name was Pakkun.”
His smirk broadens, pale pink lips parting to display those pearly whites once more and canines that are defffffffinitely pointier than average.
“It is. My name is Kakashi.” His head does that cutesy tilty thing once more that she does not find endearing or remotely adorable. (The medical part of her brain is mildly concerned that such abnormal head positioning could be indicative of a problem with his spine, but she pushes it aside.)
“Right, well,” she clears her throat again, trying to remember why she called him over… To drool at the tight-fitting dark T-shirt under his jacket that was definitely not unbuttoned earlier?
Instantly flustered again, her eyes snap upwards as she stammers with false bravado, “Your dog can’t be over here.”
“Aaa,” he murmurs with a curious lilt to his tone. “Why?”
The nerve of this man, questioning her every fucking move. She scoffs impatiently, “Well for one, it’s employees only behind the desk.”
For whatever reason she doesn’t understand, his eyes crinkle in amusement at her snarky response.
“What if he wants to submit an application?” he quips in his dumb dumb stupid charming voice.
She suppresses the urge to strangle him, instead contemplating if perhaps she should start searching for an online job that requires zero human interaction. Something must show on her face though, because he seems to have sensed that her frustration-o-meter has reached the red zone.
“That was a joke,” he quickly backtracks with a sheepish look. “But not a good one, I apologize.”
He gives her a smile that comes across as more genuine than any of the previous and it makes the butterfly gang go on overtime which is completely unnecessary and ugh. She is determined not to let weird rando hot guy get the better of her. [You know it’s Kakashi, some evil part of her brain whispers. There’s no point in making up names for him now.]
“Anyways,” she states in a voice that is maybe a bit too loud but resolutely steady, “I’m pretty sure service dogs are meant to stay with their owners.” “On a leash,” she tacks on with a scowl.
He gives a small shrug. “Mahh, usually I suppose, but Pakkun has a freeform approach. Who am I to deny him the way he prefers to work?”
You’re his freaking owner, that’s who! Her jaw tightens, teeth grinding together as she mutters something unintelligible and assuredly too offensive to be spouting out in her workplace.
“Are you hiding treats in your pocket?”
“What—” her head nearly snaps with the abrupt speed as she jerks to glare daggers at him. (Nevermind that with her still sitting and him standing, he’s well over 3 feet taller than her at the moment.)
“It’s just interesting,” dogman continues in an amused voice, smiling down at the pug as if she hadn’t just practically snarled at him. “Pakkun’s generally quite standoffish with strangers.”
“He seems to be quite taken with you, though,” he adds playfully, glancing back up to smile at her, and—is it just her mind playing tricks or did his eyes just do a bit of a slow once-over?!
“Er…”
He’s flattering you. Don’t let him win!
And she wouldn't, except—he’s smiling that oh so tempting smile, the one that puts her head in a daze and makes her heart go pitter-patter, and his pug is snuggling up against her ankle, and although she’s trying to mentally muster her indignation, she’s having a hard time staying mad at him.
Her stomach flip-flops. The heat is crawling up the back of her neck, the little baby hairs at her nape tingling like a spidey sense. Honestly, did the cooling system break or something?
“By the way, I was wondering…”
Kakashi leans forward, resting his elbow on the counter and then placing his chin in the palm of his hand. He’s close enough for her to notice that his eyelashes are remarkably dark compared to the rest of his coloring, more of a slate gray flicked with platinum than the near-white color of his hair and eyebrows. Every slow blink of his eyelashes accentuates their shape, the hooded look halfway between sensual and sleepy.
It’s positively unfair, she thinks. He’s the sort of beautiful where she could study him for a million moments and would still inevitably notice some new feature of his face. (And it drives her mad.) The man is fume-worthy. Why does he have to be equal parts obnoxious and attractive? Why is he so insistent on teasing her? Why does he have to have such a dumb looking stupid cute dog? Why does he—
“Is this a meet-cute?” The five little words, spoken in such a matter-of-fact tone, jolt her thoughts like whiplash.
“What?” she squawks loudly, her voice cracking midway, and probably making her sound (and look) like a crazy person.
“A meet-cute,” he repeats in a candid tone, looking entirely serious and unperturbed by her reaction. “You know, the funny first encounter before the characters get together?”
“I don’t—ummm,” she stutters incoherently, blushing wildly and trying to will the heat away from her cheeks.
“It’s just my initial impression,” he muses out loud, “but it strikes me as pretty romantic.”
“What!” she squeals once more, her voice coming out at an ungodly frequency that’s probably only audible to dogs. (Pakkun makes a pitiful whining sound and moves his paws over his ears.)
Kakashi levels her with a look that’s almost adorably confused, silver brows squashed together with a small wrinkle between them.
“You have to admit the scenario is a classic. Two enemies trapped in a small space, forced to reconcile their differences?”
Aaaand now she’s officially stumped.
Since when is being in a public bookstore the same as being trapped in a small space? And clearly the man’s annoying, but he’s practically a stranger! Not even she’s dramatic enough to consider him as her literal enemy with such scant motive. (Maybe Ino would be, but Sakura is far from reaching that level of theatrical.)
As she stares, gaping at him wordlessly in fluster-induced silence, her face a tomato and her brain a tangle of knots, he continues to just watch her with a quizzical expression, waiting for her response.
And then she catches sight of the book that he’s holding in his other hand.
The book. The book.
She recognizes the glossy black cover instantly. It’s a recently released, highly acclaimed spy novel that’s been insanely popular as of late, outselling all the other texts in the store by leaps and leagues (much to Chiyo’s chagrin and thus inducing a series of [unprompted] spiels to Sakura about how ‘young people are so vapid and have no real interests anymore’). The cover of the novel depicts a stereotypically blonde twenty-something wrapped around the latest iteration of James Bond 4.0, with bold text printed diagonally across the cover that reads, ‘Will they still be enemies when the worst is over?’
Kaka The customer’s choice of wording finally clicks, and the first thing she does after the realization is stare resolutely at her fingernails. She’s far too embarrassed to maintain eye contact anymore. Is she really that egotistical? That delusionally self-centered to think that just because an attractive man was visiting the store, he must have been flirting with her? That he was hitting on her when he was really just asking about the plot of a stupid book?
But, but… what about the eye contact, the proximity, the teasing?! Was she just making it all up in her head or was he intentionally trying to mess with her? Ugh this is such a mess. This is why she doesn’t dare try to date anymore. It’s much too confusing.
“So, is it any good?” he prompts when the turmoil of her embarrassing realization extends the awkward silence for a few seconds too long.
Sakura clears her throat, trying to scrounge some of her wounded pride and ironically now finding it fairly easy to cool her cheeks and keep the direction of her thoughts in check.
“It’s very popular,” she says in a tone that’s all-business. Purely professional. She gives herself a mental little pat on the back.
He frowns at the evasive response. “But what do you think?” he asks in a pushy tone.
Her mouth opens for a split second before she hesitates, her conviction wavering at the strangely attentive look in his eyes. When he first entered the shop, the man looked blasé to the point of boredom, but now… His gaze is pinned on her with such a fixated intensity that she can feel sweat droplets tingling at the back of her neck. The easiest thing to do, she knows, would be to just give the book a generic glowing review and hope he buys it and leaves as soon as possible. Yet something about him is making her weirdly compelled to tell the truth.
Is it logical? Nowhere close. Is it a poor sales tactic? 100%. But –
“I haven’t read it,” she admits weakly.
“Hmmmm…”
She taps her fingers on the keyboard nervously, waiting for the verdict. This strange, strange enigma of a man has made her more nervous than she’s ever been with a customer. More nervous than she was for her job interview even. She wishes she had something to throw back in his face, something to make him unsteady for once in their bizarrely bantery encounter, but that’s the sort of plotting that would require Naruto or Ino’s input.
Eventually, he gives that inscrutable eye-smile, and finally (finally?) backs up a bit, taking with him the bundle of nerves that she was starting to think had permanently settled in her stomach.
“I’ll need to think about it a bit more,” he announces after an especially long humming intermission.
What.
“Pakkun, come,” he orders in a firm command, the pug immediately jolting awake and scrambling to his tiny paw pads. “Thanks for your help, Sakura.”
So thrown off by hearing his silky voice say the name that she never remembers giving, she hardly registers the pins and needles sensation of feeling returning to her toes with the pug’s departure.
“How did you…?” she asks tentatively, equal parts wary and curious.
Kakashi grins, and it’s a dangerous smile this, one that makes everything inside her do somersaults and swoon all at once.
“Do you really want to know?“
She gulps at the ominous overtone to his voice, but doesn’t shake her head or move to tell him no. Smirking, he glances to each side conspiratorially, as if checking for eavesdroppers. Then, beckoning slightly with his finger and angling his chin, he leans forward at the same time she does, shrinking the gap between them. It puts him even more into her space than before, enough that she can pick up an intoxicating citrus tang, like the scent that clings to your fingers when peeling an orange, mingling with the not as off putting as it should be scent of burnt rubber.
Although he’s still half a foot away, she feels his voice buzzing in her mind as if he had whispered the words directly against her ear.
“You’re wearing a name tag.”
His voice is rich and teasing, sounding like he’s most certainly wearing an ear-splitting grin, but she wouldn’t know because her eyes had evidently decided to shut of their own accord. By the time she remembers to breathe, he’s suddenly out of her space, leaving behind a weird sense of loss.
With cheeks that are probably the brightest shade of fire hydrant red that they’ve been all day, her eyes flick down to the employee name tag pinned to her chest, cursing the laminate for making her feel stupid. She had practically forgotten she was wearing the tacky thing, the large rectangle clearly emblazoned with both the shop’s name and her own, and nearly rips it off just because.
“Pakkun, say goodbye,” Kakashi quips cheerfully, seeming to have reverted back from his strange and mysterious persona to light and aloof once more.
The pug huffs, a sound that sounds entirely too human before prancing forward on his stumpy legs, licking his tongue up her ankle (to her screeching horror) and subsequently trotting away to follow his owner as he makes his way to the exit.
The door opens and shuts behind them, and she hears the bell once more, that clanky ringing that might as well be the soundtrack of her rapidly diminishing sanity.
For a moment, she wonders what would happen if she ran after him. If she followed him, would she see him tell the same story to the next shopkeeper? Pull the exact same stunt on whatever unsuspecting person was working somewhere else that day? For unfathomable reasons, the idea that he might, that this all might be just a strange ‘bit’ of his, makes her feel weirdly unsettled, maybe even jea—nope.
No time for silly little thoughts like those. There’s too much to be done, and the obnoxious dogman has just given her one more thing to add to the pile. And without even buying anything! Figures.
Sakura grabs the vacuum from the closet, humming mindlessly while she starts to clean, and resolutely filling her head with any and all colors in the spectrum other than gray.