Surprisingly enough Kakashi and Sakura managed to show up at the academy more or less punctually. More or less being late by Sakura's standarts, but early time for Kakashi. As they arrived Sakura jokingly remarked that those who already liked to gossip about the Hokage's very young and very female assistant would probably squeal with glee at the sight of both of them arriving together and a little. Kakashi did not seem to see anything funny in this.
The day turned out to be a busy one, giving them no chance to talk. On the few occasions that they actually were alone in the office (or as alone as one can be, in a room crowded with four dogs), Sakura could not get past the impression that Kakashi was ignoring her. But she felt too tired to try and get his attention, and she wasn't in the mood to start yet another argument.
At something past five Kakashi snapped the file he had just been reading shut, placed it on the stack that was to be archived, and got up.
"I'm going" , he informed Sakura, his hand already on the doorhandle.
"But-", Sakura began to protest.
"We'll talk later."
"Are you still mad at me?"
"What for?"
"Being a naive, idiot child", Sakura suggested. She could see Kakashi's brow furrow.
"I never said that", he said.
"No, but you meant it."
Kakashi sighed. He made one halfhearted step towards her, stopped, for a second his eye lingered on her – Sakura couldn't rid herself of the feeling that she had done something wrong – then he shook his head.
"I just need some time on my own. We'll talk later."
"Hm", Sakura nodded. „I'll be at your place around ten?", she timidly suggested.
Kakashi shrugged his agreement, was already half out the door, when Sakura called after him what she should do about the paperwork he had left behind. Kakashi gallantly pretended not to hear her.
"Great!", Sakura huffed. She considered calling it a day as well – it wasn't her problem, if Kakashi decided to just wander off. No, she corrected herself, it was her problem, as officially it was her job to clean up after him. It was easy to forget, as he generally did not leave a lot behind to clean up. Actually, she thought, she should be grateful that she had ended up being his personal assistant and not that of Tsunade-sama.
And then she remembered something. She couldn't see Kakashi tonight. Tonight she had agreed to let Kiba formally introduce her to his family. It wasn't that she was particularly keen on getting sniffed at by the rest of the Inuzuka-Clan (she somehow doubted that in this case the sniffing would be metaphorical only), but twice she had already backed out of a planned family-meeting. To make matters worse, shortly before Kiba left with his sister for their camping-trip, he and Sakura had a run in with her own mother, and before giving it another thought had invited her along.
They were going out for a month – Sakura tried to force her attention back to her paperwork – there was no need to act, as if they were about to get married! A brief image of her sitting in a kitchen, surrounded by an odd number of loud and wild and hyperactive children and ninken, rose infront of her eyes.

She finished work at half past eight, left the office and went home to take a shower. She wondered if she should dress up a little, prayed that her mother would not make any attempt to assimilate to the "weird shinobi fashion", and eventually settled for a red dress that looked a little less casual than her everyday clothes, while still allowing her to move freely.
She undid and replaced her hitai-ate several times, before she decided to leave her hair open tonight, then picked up the eyeliner she had not used for – weeks? Months? Sakura wasn't sure. She didn't really feel like wearing make up that often anymore, didn't feel much like it today, but had to do something to cover up the shadows under her eyes.
She had just finished painting her lips with a descreet red („It matches your hair perfectly!", Ino had exclaimed years ago and insisted that Sakura would buy the lipstick), when she heard her window creek.
She stepped out of her bathroom to find Kiba squatting on her bed.
"Can't you use the door, like a normal person?", she greeted him.
"You really shouldn't leave your window open like that", he contered "This place is crawling with ninjas!", then pulled her close to him and did an admirable job in ruining the freshly applied lispstick.
"You ready to go?", he asked somewhere between kisses.
"I was", she laughed at the smudges of pink in his face.

"This is going to be awkward", she later sighed, while they waited at her mother's door for her to join them. What had she been thinking? To introduce her thoroughly ordinary, maybe even a little boring mother to Kiba's family was absurd! Still, this wasn't Sakura's biggest worry. On their way she was engulfed in trying to come up with a convenient excuse to get away, while Kiba made light (and remarkably easy) conversation with her mother.
Dinner was set for nine, Sakura reckoned, so, if only she came up with a good reaon to leave, she might be able to make it to Kakashi's at around eleven. Which was fair enough – she had never said she'd be there at ten precisely, and even if she had – Kakashi was the one person she felt absolutly justified to keep waiting.