Disclaimer: As always, I can't claim credit for the wonderful world of Naruto because all characters, places and references are the copyright of the genius that is Masashi Kishimoto, and everything else is simply a figment and work of my imagination.

A/N: It's been a while since I wrote some good old fashioned rom-com fluff and this idea popped into my head after reading Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth Chapter 22: Icha Icha Kiss-kiss Cutesy Lovey-Dovey Cuddly Heart Throb. Various pairings: KakaSaku, GenShi

Lovebug

Chapter 1

"Tiger – Ram - Ox."

A faint red glow surrounded the scroll, the 'Ai' kanji in the middle glowing so brightly the entire flaxen surface seemed to have caught fire, shimmering and dazzling red-gold before suddenly fading into nothingness, leaving the small room shrouded in near darkness again.

Adjusting the small wax stump that was all that remained of her last candle, Shizune straightened and wiped her sweaty brow with a relieved sigh. "Phew, I didn't realise it had gotten so late. Thank Kami that was the last seal sequence. Now, if this little thing works just the way Kurenai said it should, by this time tomorrow I'll have him eating out of my hand!" A mischievous giggle quite unlike her usual stoic self escaped as she started carefully rolling up the small flaxen scroll.

"There you are, Shizune-senpai!"

Startled at the sudden click as the door opened, Shizune dropped the scroll that had been loosely gripped in her right hand. Feeling a small flurry of panic, the dark-haired medic watched in horror as the small scroll teasingly rolled away from the table, landing tantalisingly out of reach and just before the sandaled-foot of a puzzled Haruno Sakura.

"Eh, what's this?"

Before Shizune could call out a warning, her pink-haired kohai had already picked it up and spread it open. Almost instantly, the scroll emitted a faint crimson glow similar to the one it had given out earlier and an odd, glazed expression flashed across Sakura's startled green eyes before disappearing as soon as it had come.

Shock paralysed her limbs.

Sakura remained motionless for a few more seconds, before slowly blinking. "That felt…odd. What just happened?"

A feeling of dread was beginning to settle in the dark-haired medic's stomach. "Ahaha, it's nothing much Sakura-chan," she laughed, trying to cover up the sinking feeling. Snatching the scroll from her still-stunned colleague's hands, she quickly pocketed it. "Just a little joke scroll Anko gave me that she's planning to use on Iruka. It ah…lights up when you open it."

"Okay." Sakura was still squinting suspiciously at the spot where the scroll had been mere seconds ago.

Another knock sounded on the door. Instinctively, Shizune turned her head to see who the newcomer was.

"Sumimasen, Shizune. But Hokage-sama was asking urgently for you…"

With a gasp of horror, Shizune suddenly realised that Sakura had also turned to look at the shinobi who had just entered the room.

As the two shinobi locked gazes, a red spark seemed to flash across the pinkette's eyes and Shizune suddenly felt her growing dread crystallise into one of all-encompassing terror.

EARLIER THAT WEEK

"I'm a failure, Kurenai," Shizune mumbled incoherently, downing half the sake bottle in one go as the brunette genjutsu user watched, stunned. Hiccupping loudly, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "Thirty-five years old and still unmarried. And I promised Uncle Dan I would give him a couple of grand-nephews to remember him by!"

Kurenai exchanged a helpless look with Anko; the tokubetsu jonin merely rolling her eyes at the drunken display of emotion before them. It wasn't often they managed to get Shizune down to The Dancing Shinobi with them, and Kurenai was just beginning to remember just why they usually didn't want to. She patted her fellow jonin sympathetically. "You still have some way to go to match Tsunade's record," she tried to joke, firmly but gently nudging the sake bottle away from the inebriated medic.

Shizune buried her head in her voluminous black kimono sleeves, thumping her fists wildly on the table top and causing Anko to frantically make a grab for all the shaking glasses and bottles. "Kuso!" she cursed, as a glass to her far left wobbled violently before crashing down onto the floor.

"All I ever wanted was to make jonin, and to have a nice husband and two pretty kids. Is that too much to ask for?" came the muffled wail. "I never had big dreams to become Hokage, or to become a hero…" she made another wild swipe for the sake bottle but Kurenai was faster. "Never had plans to reinvent the kunai or make the centre-spread of Shinobi Weekly. All I wanted was to become just like you." She raised her bleary, alcohol-glazed eyes towards her.

"Me?" The ruby-eyed genjutsu mistress shared another half-amused, half-exasperated look with Anko, the latter merely raising a sardonic eyebrow in response. "Geez, she's almost as bad as Gai."

Shizune gave another drunken slur. "I knew I should have sat next to Asuma at the Academy instead of Ibiki…I knew no good would come out of a guy who wore all-black and had an unhealthy obsession with mental torture at the age of SEVEN. I knew…" She hiccupped loudly again.

"Well," Kurenai winked slyly at both kunoichi. "I can't claim all credit for myself. I did have a little helping hand along the way."

"From what? A lighter?" Anko sniggered.

Smirking, she placed a finger on her lips. "I actually got the idea from Rin. Remember how she used to be crazy about Kakashi?"

"An understatement to say the least," Anko snorted. "The girl actually read Icha Icha just so that she would have something to say to him!"

Kurenai continued. "Well, it was actually her idea to use a love jutsu."

The purple haired tokubetsu jonin made another scoff of derision. "You're kidding me."

"I swear it upon the heads of Hokage Mountain."

Anko's mouth dropped open.

Kurenai smiled. "We actually found the formulae for the jutsu in the Konoha Library. It's called the 'Love-at-First-Sight' technique. It's a jutsu that causes anyone to fall in love with the first person he or she sees as soon as they're exposed to the jutsu!"

Anko gave another snort. "That's ridiculous. No jutsu in this world can manufacture feelings or love, no matter how much we wish they could. If it was so easy, nobody would ever have to go through the whole bullsh*t of falling in love."

The jonin gave Shizune a conspiratorial wink. "Don't be so sure about that."

It hadn't been terribly difficult to find the book containing the 'Love-at-First-Sight' technique. Lurking in a bright corner of the 'Children's' section, Shizune tried to ignore the weird looks she was sure Iruka was giving her as she nonchalantly dusted it off the shelf before fleeing to a more private corner to read.

Love, she read, tracing her thumb over the red and orange kanji that dotted the page, the bright colours and cheery pictures guiltily nagging her that this book was probably meant for impressionable and naïve kunoichi aged twelve and below, not single and jaded kunoichi aged thirty-five and above; is one of the most basic emotions that humans cannot live without. Everybody dreams of falling in love and finding their one true lov…

"What are you reading?"

"Aheeeeee!" Shizune nearly jumped three feet in the air, as she struggled with the dual challenge of trying not to fall over in shock and frantically slamming the book on love jutsu shut.

Shiranui Genma chuckled, twirling the senbon between his lips casually. "Did I scare you?"

Although her cheeks were probably now an unflattering shade of neon pink, she couldn't help giving an annoyed huff. Her heart was beating a tattoo on her chest, running mad circles around and around. Calm down, she hissed at her inner self. You are a mature, grown-up woman of thirty-five, not a 10 year-old pre-genin swooning over her first crush. Oh, of all the people that had to pass by, why did it have to be…?

Undeterred, the bandanna-wearing shinobi merely gave another chuckle. "Sorry, it's just that you looked so intense I couldn't help but feel curious about what you were reading. Mind if I take a look?"

"NO!" she yelled instinctively.

He raised an eyebrow. "You're touchy today."

Covering her mouth at her reflexive outburst, Shizune tried to cover her increasingly scatty thoughts with whatever semblance of dignity she had left. Stammering, she replied, "This is a uh…top-secret jutsu that Tsunade has asked me to research. No one but the Hokage and uh…myself are allowed to see it." The pink patches on her cheeks glowed even brighter with her obvious lie.

Thankfully, he didn't pursue it. "Sure," he shrugged, sticking his hands back into his trouser pockets. "Anyway, I have to go. Kasumi is waiting for me."

A surge of jealousy shot through her, but she faked a casual laugh. "Another one of your weekly conquests, or a mission?"

Surprisingly, it was the Hokage guard's turn to look slightly embarrassed. "Oh no," he smiled, scratching the back of his head in a slightly adorable show of awkwardness. "She claims I promised to take her out for lunch weeks ago so she's come to collect on her promise. I'll see you around, Shizune. Ja ne!"

As she caught a glimpse of Kasumi's brown curls waiting for him at the entrance, she looked at the book and back to the entrance.

And made her decision.

If only she could dismiss everything as nothing but a bad dream.

But the longer she stood there staring at Sakura, the more the reality of the mess she had gotten herself into was starting to sink in.

Kakashi was utterly bewildered at the scene before him, but he coughed softly. "Sumimasen, Shizune. But Hokage-sama has an urgent mission for you." He reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a red-sealed scroll. "Aoba's team are in pretty bad shape up in Kumo and she wants you to head the rescue squad."

Willing herself out of the daze she had been beginning to sink into, the jonin medic quickly shot back. "What, now?!"

Kakashi gave her another odd look. "They are in pretty dire straits," he said baldly. The shinobi was feeling slightly confused and more than a touch irritated. Why was she reluctant to leave? It wasn't like Shizune to delay when her comrades were in obvious danger.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a pair of arms wrapping themselves around his waist. "Kakashi-sensei," a voice purred next to his ear, warm breath sending shivers down the back of his neck.

The silver-haired jonin froze.

Shizune gulped. So Kurenai had been right.

"Tell me you're joking."

"I'm afraid I'm not."

The jonin's lone charcoal eye widened considerably with something closely resembling fear.

In all the years she had known him, she had seen Hatake Kakashi face fifty-feet tall Bijuu and S-ranked shinobi three times his size without blinking an eye but for the first time in her life, the Copy Ninja truly looked frightened.

"You mean to tell me that…" he echoed weakly as Sakura lovingly stroked his silvery spikes, cooing how "soft and wonderful" they felt, "Sakura's…in love with me? Thanks to some jutsu you found in a children's book?"

The dark-haired medic wrung her hands. "I'm really sorry, Kakashi. I never meant to get you or Sakura involved, and I never meant to test it out until I found a counter-jutsu!" She collapsed again. "And I don't have time now, thanks to this mission from Tsunade-sama."

Nervously backing away from his pink-haired student, who had progressed to nuzzling his neck, Kakashi tried to detach himself from the part that was screaming bloody murder back to the rational, analytical side of him that had saved his hide on so many occasions. "Do you know how the jutsu works? That might help us in figuring out a cure."

"Kurenai might, but she left on a solo to Kiri yesterday."

He cursed internally. "Could I have a look at the scroll then? My Sharingan might be able to decipher the mechanism behind the jutsu."

Shizune shook her head. "It's too risky. You might fall under its influence too, and I think we've already caused enough havoc for one night."

"Hokage-sama should be notified about this."

"No!" she yelled, before getting a grip of herself.

Kakashi gave her an incredulous look. "We have to." his voice was markedly raised, signalling at the usually laconic Copy Ninja's growing alarm. "We can't just leave Sakura and me in this…this…state! What will people think!"

Trying to break the tension in the air, Shizune joked, "What's wrong with Sakura? Not your type?"

The fierce glare he sent her extinguished her lame attempt at humour. She hung her head. "Please. I don't want her to know."

The male jonin shook his head. "What were you…" He sighed. There was only one explanation why Shizune would be messing around with a love jutsu like this, and Kakashi didn't need to have been a genius to know why. Feeling a slight jolt of pity for his long-time friend, he replied, "I'll make you a deal. I won't tell the Hokage about this for as long as you're on this mission, so you'll have about a week to think about a cure. But if you still haven't found a solution by then, I'll have to spill the beans."

Despite herself, she couldn't help a small smile; she supposed the solution was quintessential Kakashi; pragmatic and effective, but with the extra hint of compassion so often lacking in shinobi. And it was more than what she had expected from him. "Accepted. So in the meantime, will you be alright looking after Sakura?"

Letting out another of what he suspected would be the first of many sighs that week, Kakashi swallowed. "I suppose…I have a new girlfriend."

"So let me get this straight." Pakkun's sleepy eyes were wide open with disbelief as he took in the sight of the pink-haired kunoichi snuggling into a very reluctant Kakashi's embrace. "You're going to be her boyfriend for a week?"

"Just a make-believe one," he retorted snappishly, just in case the pug was getting the wrong idea. "Until Shizune can come up with a counter-jutsu."

Pakkun continued eyeing her dubiously. "She's not going to be staying here is she? I like the couch."

Kakashi exhaled heavily. "Try reasoning that with her…"

A/N: What on earth has Kakashi gotten himself into?! How are Naruto, Sasuke, Tsunade and the rest of the village going to react when they find about Kakashi and Sakura's new "romance"? Will Shizune be able to find a counter-jutsu? Love it or hate it, please drop a review! Concrit and feedback are most welcome Apologies as well if it's a departure from my usual style of work, but work on Omiai is going very slowly (especially since I started work) and the mood tends to get very serious and intense. Been needing something to lighten up with as a distraction.

PS In case you didn't catch the little hint up front, 'Ai' is the Japanese kanji for love. Gaara has this kanji tattooed on his forehead