Chapter Text

Kakashi's flower shop opened its doors to the public at eight-thirty in the morning, but his real day — the quiet one, the one that smelled of earth and truce — began at seven. That was when he moved through the shop's twilight, watering slowly, pruning stems with the clean snap of his shears, and rearranging the bouquets that had spent the night sleeping in the lethargic cold of the walk-in fridge, waiting for the daytime air to restore their elasticity. It was a small space, the kind you grow fond of precisely because of its visible seams: recycled wooden shelves he had sanded and varnished himself until they gleamed with a warm shine, a green-striped awning that creaked with the gusts of wind like the tired canvas of a sailboat, and a dense, almost chewy atmosphere where the damp, primordial aroma of wet earth intertwined with the sweet, almost insolent perfume of ripe gardenias.

There was also the cat.

The feline wasn't his. Kakashi didn't have pets, not from a lack of sympathy for the animal kingdom, but because the emotional commitment of keeping another being alive seemed like an astronomical responsibility for someone who already spent nights awake, staring at the ceiling, turning over thoughts that led nowhere. But the cat — a notably lanky tortoiseshell specimen with a war notch in its left ear and an Olympic indifference to human affairs — had appeared one Tuesday in winter and installed itself, without asking permission, in the box of satin ribbons by the back door. Kakashi pretended the animal was invisible. The cat pretended the human was a piece of furniture that came with the inventory. They both maintained this fiction with impeccable domestic comfort.

That Monday morning, the sky stretched out in a pale, almost translucent blue, the kind that foreshadows the heavy heat of midday. Kakashi had just wrapped a bouquet of white carnations for a widow from the neighborhood who always repeated the same refrain ("the same as last week, young man, my husband loves them, wherever he is") and was about to clean the blades of his shears on his linen apron when a movement at the end of the street interrupted his choreography from the corner of his eye.

The neon sign for "Moons and thorns" remained off on the opposite sidewalk. It was barely nine o'clock, and the tarot reader never opened before ten — the stars, according to him, required a certain hourly indulgence. Nevertheless, someone was advancing towards it with a firm step that echoed on the pavement. Someone with chestnut hair pulled into a delightfully chaotic bun, a black leather jacket despite the imminent swelter, and a body language that Kakashi recognized instantly, even though the distance still prevented him from focusing on his features.

Iruka.

A strange surge, a kind of warm swell, shook his stomach. It wasn't fear in the strict sense, nor the residual shyness he dragged after having survived eleven sessions in that cubicle steeped in the smell of sandalwood. It was more of a biological alert. An electric tingle at the nape of his neck that his ancestors would have interpreted as the proximity of imminent danger. Or maybe not danger. Maybe it was just Iruka approaching, which, for Kakashi's precarious emotional stability, amounted to exactly the same thing.

"He's going to lecture me again," he murmured to himself, seeking refuge among the plants, while his fingers wound a strip of green satin ribbon around the stem of a carnation with precision worthy of a florist. "And the worst part is, I'm going to stand still and listen to him."

Because he knew it. Self-awareness was his worst flaw. From the very first moment Iruka had looked him straight in the eye across a purple velvet tablecloth to deliver an implacable: "The cards don't lie, Kakashi; the only one lying here is you," in that firm voice of someone who has no time to soften the edges of reality, Kakashi had been left hanging by a thread. He had left that first consultation feeling flayed alive, exposed, and, contradictorily, strangely relieved. That's why he had returned. Once. Twice. Eleven times. Not because he had suddenly become a devout believer in destiny illustrated on cardboard — he remained a recalcitrant skeptic, or so he repeated like a mantra before sleep — but because Iruka said things with a clarity that stung like alcohol on a scrape: it hurt, yes, but it cleaned the wound.

To top it all off, the Reddit thread was still open in a tab on his phone browser, hidden behind the counter. He could have sworn he had closed it, but there was the lit screen. The strangers' comments had been mostly brutal, demolishing his romantic dilemma with the usual cynicism of the internet; however, amidst the thicket of criticism and mockery, Kakashi had rescued a couple of crumbs of comfort. A user named StarGazer had written: "Tarot readers read energies, not an immutable future; they are as human as you." And another added: "If you feel you should fight for him, fight." Those words had stayed tucked away in a corner of his memory, warm and comforting, like holding a porcelain cup between your hands on a freezing night.

"Love can do anything," an anonymous romantic had declared at the bottom of the page.

Kakashi clung to that cliché with the desperation of a shipwreck survivor embracing a splintered plank in the middle of the Atlantic. It didn't matter that the wood was eaten away by salt. It didn't matter that the ocean was immense and the currents worked against him. As long as there was a minimal surface to cling his fingers to, he wasn't going to let go.

Iruka crossed the street in three long strides without looking both ways, a reckless habit that always made Kakashi's hair stand on end, as if the tarot reader harbored the firm esoteric conviction that the universe would stop motorized traffic out of deference to his aura. He planted himself in front of the flower shop's facade. For an instant, Kakashi held his breath, expecting him to immediately push the door with that impulsive energy of his that never asked for permission.

But no.

Iruka paused for a couple of seconds in front of the display window. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, tilted his head back slightly, and contemplated the hanging geraniums as if he were mentally reciting the lines of a complex speech. Then, without warning, he pushed the wooden and glass frame.

The small brass bell tinkled, shattering the morning silence with a singing echo.

"Good morning," said Iruka. His tone pretended to be casual, that of any neighbor stopping by to say hello, but the subtext vibrated with a wireless tension that altered the air in the shop.

Kakashi, still petrified behind the counter with the shears in his hand as if they were a shield, needed a good couple of seconds to force his vocal cords to function.

"Good morning," he replied. His voice came out deeper and rougher than usual, a victim of the sudden dryness in his throat.

In the ribbon box, the tortoiseshell cat half-opened a yellowish eye, evaluated the figure of the newcomer with the disdain typical of its species, and curled back into itself. Clearly, this was a human drama and not within its competence.

Iruka took a couple of steps inside, letting his gaze wander over the high ceiling and the hanging plants as if evaluating a museum collection. His leather boots gave a slight squeak on the geometric-patterned hydraulic tiles. His eternally restless fingers — those hands that shuffled major arcana with hypnotic agility — reached out almost instinctively to brush the edge of a huge monstera leaf growing by the shelf of organic fertilizers.

Kakashi watched him, losing himself for a second in the contrast of that skin against the bright green of the plant, and, desperate to break a silence that was becoming too thick, blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"I didn't know you liked plants," said Kakashi, and immediately regretted the phrase. It sounded stupid. Of course Iruka would like plants, or not, but either way, it wasn't a brilliant opener.

"I like everything that grows," Iruka replied without turning around. His voice carried that perennial sarcastic drawl that Kakashi knew by heart, but this time it came wrapped in a softer nuance, a warm, unprecedented note that Kakashi couldn't quite decipher. "Besides, the smell relaxes me. In here it smells like... I don't know. Life, I suppose."

Kakashi nodded silently, although the gesture was lost in the air because Iruka still had his back to him. But it was an indisputable truth. The flower shop exuded an aroma of pure existence: black, fertile earth, the fresh sap oozing from freshly cut stems, and the subtle sweetness of jasmine carried on the air current whenever the wind blew from the back room's open window. It was, in fact, one of the very few places in the world where Kakashi felt the air entered his lungs cleanly, without that chronic weight that usually oppressed his chest.

"I came to..." Iruka spun on his heels suddenly, and for a fraction of a second, their gazes collided in the space. "To buy flowers."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, unable to hide his bewilderment.

"Flowers?"

"Yes. It's a fairly elementary botanical concept, Hatake. Flowers. Plants. Those green things that sprout from the earth. Are you going to sell me something, or do I have to go to the competition?"

The smile accompanying his words was tiny, a barely perceptible hint at the corner of his lips, but it was there. And Kakashi, who had spent eleven entire sessions observing Iruka sheltered behind the mystical solemnity of an implacable judge, found himself completely disarmed before this version of him, much more earthly and lighthearted.

"What kind of flowers are you looking for?" he asked, making a conscious effort to recompose the fragments of his professional composure.

Iruka shrugged, a careless movement that made the silver rings adorning his fingers jingle.

"To be honest, I have no idea about flowers. You're the expert. Give me something that can brighten up a table. Something that won't cost me an arm and a leg, because my cats will try to destroy it at the first opportunity, and that doesn't require a PhD in botany, because I tend to forget that plants need water to live."

"That sounds like a pretty irresponsible commitment to a living being," Kakashi commented, unable to prevent the retort from slipping out with a hint of dry humor, almost mischievous.

Iruka looked at him, visibly surprised, and for an instant, his brown eyes opened a little wider than usual, catching the morning light. Then, he let out a short laugh, a clean, spontaneous sound that Kakashi had never heard from him in the tarot studio.

"And you lecture your clientele on plant ethics? If so, you should hang a warning sign at the entrance: 'No mistreating the flora. Offenders, straight to therapy.'"

"I'll take it into consideration," Kakashi replied.

As he said it, he was already moving lazily among the rows of pots, letting his fingers brush the texture of the stems and his nose instinctively discard options. Finally, his eyes settled on a pothos: a hanging plant whose heart-shaped leaves displayed a beautiful white marbling. It was resistant, noble, practically indestructible. He placed it in a terracotta pot, lifted it to chest level so Iruka could assess it.

"This one. A pothos. It tolerates lack of watering with astonishing dignity, doesn't tolerate direct sun, and if you forget to look at it for a whole week, it won't hold the slightest grudge."

Iruka examined the specimen with a seriousness so rigorous it bordered on the comical, as if he were auditing the terms of a lease agreement.

"And those discolored spots? Are they normal, or is the creature sick?"

"It's its natural variety. It's called Pothos Marble Queen. It's pretty, don't you think?"

"It looks like someone accidentally splattered white paint on it," Iruka declared, although he reached out his hands to take the pot with an unexpected delicacy, holding it against his body as if protecting a small animal. "Alright. I'll take it."

Kakashi nodded and retreated behind the counter. His fingers, guided by habit, keyed the price into the old cash register with a rhythmic tapping.

"Seven hundred yen."

Iruka took out his wallet from his jacket pocket, slid a bill onto the counter, and while Kakashi counted out the change, his free gaze began to wander over the surface. His eyes moved over the pot of pruning shears, the rolls of satin ribbon, the battered order notebook, and finally landed on the cardboard coaster that Kakashi had been jealously keeping on the lower shelf for weeks.

The one printed with the drawing of a dog with a flower covering one eye.

Kakashi intercepted the trajectory of his gaze and experienced a sudden wave of heat that lit up the tips of his ears.

"That's nothing," he hurried to say, with a haste that completely betrayed him.

"I didn't ask anything," Iruka replied, and this time the smile was clearly audible in his voice.

Kakashi handed him the coins. As he did so, the tips of his fingers brushed Iruka's palm for a brief second. It was an ephemeral, almost accidental contact, but Iruka pulled his hand away with unusual swiftness, as if he had just received a shock of static electricity. Or perhaps, Kakashi told himself to calm his pulse, it was nothing more than a dirty trick of his own imagination.

"Thanks," the tarot reader managed to say, slipping the money into his pocket. "For the plant."

"Thank you," Kakashi returned, and the phrase left a bitter aftertaste of hollow formality, unnecessary distance.

Iruka pivoted on his boots and headed for the exit. The little brass bell sang again when he pushed the door, letting the golden light of the outside sun flood in, cutting through the shop's twilight and illuminating the dust motes floating suspended in the air like tiny stars.

However, right on the threshold, before disappearing into the street, Iruka stopped dead.

"Hatake," he said, keeping his eyes fixed ahead.

The air froze in Kakashi's throat.

"I know about the post."

The silence that fell over the flower shop became dense, leaden, almost solid. In his corner, the tortoiseshell cat opened both eyes at once. The monstera leaves seemed to tremble at the passage of an invisible gust.

Kakashi was left without resources. His mind turned into a viciously wiped blackboard, an absolute void where the walls of his skull were only capable of echoing one single word: Shit.

"Don't worry," Iruka continued, and his tone dropped an octave, taking on a confidential, almost intimate quality. "I have no intention of throwing it in your face. But I wanted you to know that I read it."

There was an eternal pause. From his position, Kakashi contemplated the back of Iruka's neck, the chestnut strands rebelling against the bun in the street wind, and the slow sway of his shoulders rising and falling to the rhythm of a deep breath.

"And I also wanted to tell you..." Iruka went on, and his voice trembled barely a millimeter, so subtly that Kakashi almost attributed it to a trick of his own ear, "... that you don't have to be alone in this."

Then, without granting him the benefit of a reply, he crossed the threshold.

The bell gave one last tinkle, and the door closed with a soft, definitive creak.

Kakashi remained petrified behind the counter, the pruning shears still suspended in his right hand, his gaze fixed on the empty space where Iruka had been floating moments before. The shop suddenly seemed three times larger, emptier, buried in an overwhelming muteness. The tortoiseshell cat stretched with insulting slowness in its ribbon cubby, let out a shameless yawn that showed its fangs, and curled up again to continue its nap.

Kakashi set the shears down on the wood with a dull thud. He ran a hand over his face, pushing the rebellious bangs out of his eyes, and only then noticed that his fingers were trembling slightly, rhythmically.

It wasn't from fear.

They trembled for a completely different reason. For something that, at least for now, had no name in his vocabulary.

The following days took on a new, strange cadence, one that Kakashi hadn't asked for but didn't know how to stop either.

Iruka started showing up "by chance." With mental quotation marks that Kakashi placed every time the tarot reader pushed the glass door and the bell announced his arrival with that tinkle that used to be neutral and now sounded like an invasion alert.

He couldn't forbid him entry. He owned his shop, yes, but he was also a merchant, and merchants don't throw out customers without a good reason. "I don't like him" didn't count. "He makes me nervous" didn't either. "Every time he comes, I feel like he's reading my mind, and it terrifies me" sounded like paranoia, and besides, it was true, but it wasn't something he could argue in court.

So Iruka would come in, and Kakashi would receive him with forced courtesy, and they would both pretend this was normal.

The tortoiseshell cat, meanwhile, watched everything from its box of satin ribbons with a mix of feline boredom and wisdom. If it could talk, it would probably say something like "this is going to end badly," but it preferred not to get involved.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, when the sun was already beginning to tilt and the light came in golden through the shop window. Kakashi was rearranging the peonies — the pink ones had gone limp and needed replacing with the newly arrived white ones — when the bell tinkled.

Iruka walked in with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket — the same one as always, smelling of old leather and incense — and an expression that tried to be casual but looked suspiciously neutral.

"Hi," he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"Hi," Kakashi replied, who had already learned not to be surprised.

Iruka scanned the shop with his eyes, that characteristic gesture of evaluation. His fingers brushed the leaves of a sansevieria, caressed the petals of some hydrangeas, and finally stopped in front of the small bouquet display.

"I need a bouquet," he said, and the phrase sounded almost painful, as if admitting he needed flowers was an intimate confession.

"For what occasion?" asked Kakashi, already behind the counter, preparing the shears and wrapping paper.

"For my table," Iruka replied, and then added, in a tone that tried to be casual but betrayed a certain resignation. "The cats destroy everything. The last ones I bought lasted two days. Mochi mistook them for a snack and chewed them up completely."

"Mochi?"

"The orange one. He's a glutton. He even eats plastic plants if you don't watch him."

Kakashi couldn't help but smile. The image of an orange cat devouring flowers like they were potato chips was ridiculous, and yet, it fit with everything he had started to imagine about Iruka's domestic life.

"What flowers can withstand a gluttonous cat's attack?" he asked, because the question was professional, but also because he wanted to keep listening to Iruka talk about his cats.

"I don't know. You're the expert."

Kakashi examined the options. Roses were too delicate, daisies too fragile, lilies too tempting for feline teeth. Finally, he chose some small lavender-colored chrysanthemums, resistant, with firm stems and no particular aroma attractive to a cat's palate.

"These," he said, showing them to him. "Chrysanthemums are hard to chew. Your cat will probably bite one once, realize they taste bitter, and leave them alone."

"And if he doesn't?" asked Iruka, raising an eyebrow.

"Then you come back, and I'll give you others. It's warranty policy."

"You have a warranty policy for flowers chewed by cats?"

"From now on, yes. Just for you."

The phrase slipped out before Kakashi could stop it. He realized what he had said when it was already too late, and felt his ears start to burn under his bangs. Iruka looked at him with an expression Kakashi couldn't decipher — surprise? amusement? something more that he preferred not to name? — and then looked away towards the flowers.

"They're fine," he said, his voice slightly lower. "I'll take them."

Kakashi wrapped the chrysanthemums in kraft paper, tied a jute twine around the stems, and added a small tag with the flower name and watering instructions. He did it all with a professional care bordering on delicacy, cutting each stem at an angle, removing leaves that would be submerged in water, adjusting the position of each flower so the bouquet had volume without looking overdone.

Iruka watched the process in silence. Arms crossed over his chest, rings glinting in the late afternoon light, gaze fixed on Kakashi's hands. And Kakashi, who knew he was being watched, concentrated on his work with an intensity that wasn't just professional. It was also a way of not having to say anything. Of not having to ask why Iruka kept coming back.

"Here," he said finally, handing over the bouquet.

Iruka took it carefully, as if it were a fragile object, and brought it to his nose to smell it. His eyelashes closed for an instant. Kakashi stared at the gesture, not knowing why it seemed important to him.

"Thanks," Iruka said, opening his eyes. "How much is it?"

Kakashi charged him, and while Iruka took out his wallet, he asked himself the same question he had been asking since the first day: was Iruka being friendly, or did he simply enjoy watching him squirm?

Both options were equally unsettling.

Iruka paid, put his wallet away, and when he already had a hand on the doorknob, he turned around.

"Hey, Hatake."

"What?"

"The bouquet is very pretty. You have good taste for someone who's an emotional disaster."

And he left before Kakashi could answer.

The tortoiseshell cat, which had opened one eye during the exchange, closed it again with a sigh that sounded like "this has only just begun." And Kakashi, Kakashi felt his cheeks tinged with a soft pink as a strange warmth enveloped him.

It happened two days later, a Thursday with overcast skies and a leaden gray that threatened to break into a storm at any moment. Kakashi was attending to one of his regular customers — a middle-aged woman with unruly curls and theatrical-sized sunglasses she insisted on wearing despite the darkness, who always came to buy identical red roses to decorate her hair salon — when the bell on the door announced a new visitor.

He didn't need to look up to identify the intruder. The dry, magnetic aroma of sandalwood incense filtered into the shop a second before the sound of his steps.

Iruka walked in with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, slid naturally to the corner with the peonies — Kakashi's favorites, though he would never admit it out loud — and began to incline his head over the buds with a studied slowness that bordered on liturgical.

"... and these carnations, young man, do you guarantee they will last?" the customer inquired, floating in a bubble of absolute ignorance regarding the electric current that had just invaded the room.

"Carnations resist perfectly for up to two weeks if you take the precaution of trimming the stems and changing the water every two days," Kakashi managed to reply, gripping the counter and injecting his voice with all the professional rigidity he could muster. "It's an extremely profitable investment, I assure you."

"Oh, how wonderful. Well, give me a dozen of the white ones, please."

Kakashi nodded and proceeded to select the stems, but the woman, blessed with insatiable curiosity and absolute blindness to detecting others' tension, turned her body toward Iruka. She gave him that condescending, disarming smile of people who assume anyone inside a shop works there.

"Oh, what an idyllic shop you have here," she commented, directing her artillery of friendliness straight at the tarot reader. "Are you a florist too, sir?"

Iruka pulled his nose away from the peonies with exasperating, calculated slowness. His brown eyes blinked once, lazily. Then, the corners of his lips lifted into that half-smile laden with fine irony that Kakashi had learned to fear.

"No," Iruka declared, employing a tone so strangely flat it sounded like it came from an answering machine. "I'm the one in charge of telling your friend the florist uncomfortable truths during the afternoons."

Kakashi's blood ran cold; he could have sworn he felt the floor tiles crack under the soles of his shoes. He wanted to evaporate. He wished, with an intensity almost mystical, that the earth's crust would split in two and swallow him, or failing that, to have the agility to bury himself inside the walk-in fridge and not come out until Iruka, the customer, and the entire solar system had ceased to exist.

However, the woman, far from being shocked or calling the authorities, let out a shrill laugh that echoed among the pots.

"Oh, what a witty remark!" she exclaimed, giving Iruka a complicit slap on the forearm as if they had just shared a clever quip worthy of a Parisian salon. "What a special sense of humor you two have, don't you?"

"We're like thumb and index finger," Iruka finished, holding Kakashi's gaze without blinking.

The florist had to press his teeth against his tongue to bury a curse of considerable magnitude.

The good woman paid for her carnations, said goodbye wishing "you two flower artists" a prosperous day, and left the establishment wrapped in a gust of her own sweet perfume and blissful innocence. The bell tinkled as the door closed, and the silence that settled in the shop became so thick and tangible that an axe would have been needed to cut through it.

Kakashi fixed his gaze on Iruka.

Iruka held his ground, unperturbed.

In his satin corner, the tortoiseshell cat barely lifted its head, weighed the levels of environmental hostility, and determined that the matter didn't justify the energy expenditure of getting up. It went back to sleep.

"Thumb and index finger?" Kakashi repeated finally, forcing a voice that pretended to drip indignation but ended up sounding like pure existential fatigue.

"It was a piece of humor, Hatake. The lady grasped the tone perfectly."

"It wasn't humor. You lack the humor gene."

"And you lack the elasticity needed to take a compliment."

"Do you expect me to take that as a compliment?"

Iruka shrugged his shoulders, ignoring the weight of the accusation. His long fingers returned to the peony foliage, caressing the petals as if the fate of the world depended on the touch of that plant.

"Interpret it at your own risk. I was just being descriptive."

"Descriptive about airing the fact that you spend your afternoons dismantling my sanity?"

"Are you going to deny it's a proven fact?"

Kakashi took a breath and parted his lips to articulate a crushing retort, but the mechanism of his voice jammed. Because the damn tarot reader was right. Iruka had been throwing bare truths in his face for weeks: in the mystical twilight of his studio, in the middle of the flower shop, in every damn exchange of words. And the truly tragic thing — what sent a shiver to his stomach — was that Kakashi could no longer discern whether this irritated him or if, on the contrary, in some dark, masochistic recess of his mind, he had started to become addicted to that sting.

"You are a deeply insufferable person," he declared finally, resorting to the only handrail available.

"I get told that often," Iruka replied, giving him a smile that, for once, lacked any trace of sarcasm. It was a clean gesture, almost... protective. "But you love it."

And before Kakashi could formulate a flat denial — because he intended to deny it, with all the vehemence he could muster, even though he knew perfectly well that no one would buy the lie — Iruka spun on his heels and headed for the exit with a light step.

The brass bell gave its classic singing alert.

The tortoiseshell cat let out a dull yawn.

And Kakashi stood motionless, surrounded by the scent of peonies, the lingering memory of sandalwood, and a racing heartbeat in the center of his chest that refused to fit into any definition in his dictionary.

It happened on a Friday, the most indolent and measured day of the week. Sales usually collapsed in the mid-afternoon, just when regular customers started shifting their mindset towards the weekend and stopped buying flowers to focus on their nocturnal leisure plans. Kakashi usually took advantage of this lull to immerse himself in invisible tasks: taking inventory, dusting the wooden shelves, and thoroughly watering those varieties that suffered from the neighborhood's heating.

So when Iruka crossed the threshold with his usual leather jacket and a worn black-covered notebook under his arm, Kakashi felt a disconcerting duality. He didn't know whether to feel relieved — at least the afternoon would have a counterweight to the monotony — or secretly alarmed, because Iruka never carried that notebook.

"Hi," the tarot reader greeted, using an intonation as natural as if this were part of a routine signed before a notary.

"Hi," Kakashi returned, who by this point in the story had already given up on his capacity for surprise.

Iruka didn't approach the display of fresh bouquets. He didn't incline his head over the peonies or brush the satin edge of the monstera with his fingertips. Instead, he headed straight for the rustic wooden bench placed next to the hanging geraniums — a piece of bargain furniture that Kakashi had rescued from a Sunday flea market, stripped with patience, and painted moss green so visitors could wait while he wrapped orders — and sat down.

"Don't get worked up," Iruka said, opening the notebook to a clean, blank page. "I just came to sketch a bit. The street sounds inspire me."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, incredulous. The street sounds. Of course. That avenue was world-famous for its artistic mystique, especially when you combined the roar of buses, the jackhammer from the corner construction site, and disoriented tourists loudly demanding directions.

Despite his skepticism, he preferred to remain silent. He just went back to his tasks: beveling stems with precision, tying raffia, and stripping bushes of any wilted leaves. However, out of the corner of his eye, his attention remained magnetized to the figure on the bench.

The tarot reader worked absorbed in his paper, his brow slightly furrowed and the tip of his tongue barely peeking out at the corner of his lips, an oddly childish gesture that betrayed creators when the task completely absorbed them. His right hand moved with feline agility, drawing lines and shadows that Kakashi couldn't decipher from the safe distance of the counter. Every so often, Iruka would pause the stroke, lift his gaze to examine a random corner of the shop — the hanging pots, the underside of the green-striped awning, the slightly fogged-up window from ambient humidity — and lower his chin back to the notebook to continue his work.

They spent an hour like this. Or maybe two. Kakashi lost track of time, suspended between the methodical rhythm of the shears and the imposing presence of Iruka on the moss green wood. It was unheard of to shelter someone in the shop without the pretext of a commercial transaction; it was unheard of to share a silence of that nature without the silences feeling heavy or demanding explanations. The truly unheard-of thing was admitting that it didn't bother him in the least.

By the time Iruka closed the notebook covers with a sharp snap and stood up, Kakashi had already barricaded himself behind the counter, putting on a perfect farce of a busy man who had never dared to peek.

"I'm leaving," Iruka announced, interlacing his fingers to stretch his arms above his head. "Thanks for the use of the space."

"This isn't the municipal library, Umino," Kakashi retorted, although the tone of his voice betrayed his intentions, coming out considerably warmer than he intended.

"I'm aware. That's why I brought you a stipend."

Iruka placed an object on the polished surface of the counter. A small item, square-shaped, with a pressed cardboard feel. Then, without adding a single nuance, he pivoted on his boots and headed for the exit. The bell tinkled its farewell. The balsamic trace of sandalwood began to dissipate slowly, once again devoured by the persistent perfume of the gardenias.

Kakashi waited for the wooden and glass frame to close completely before approaching to examine the offering.

It was a coaster made of thick cardboard. The kind Iruka confiscated from neighborhood taverns and recycled to jot down his impressions on the go. But there was no hasty address or list of pending errands here; instead, there was a drawing.

A sketch with sharp lines, executed in black pen with swift, supremely confident strokes. A dog. A stray dog sporting a flower superimposed as a patch over its right eye.

And it wasn't just any flower. It was, with absolute clarity, a gardenia.

Kakashi immediately recognized the relief of the fleshy petals, the suggested shine of the leaves, and the crown of the center. The same gardenias he carefully placed each morning at the entrance threshold; his favorites, the ones that held the secret code of his childhood and a longing he still didn't dare to name.

Right at the foot of the illustration, in small, angular handwriting, was written:

"The insufferable tarot reader."

Kakashi stood still, devouring the cardboard with his eyes for an indefinite period.

The tortoiseshell cat approached with a lazy step, sniffed the perimeter of the coaster, determined that it didn't alleviate hunger, and returned to its voluntary exile in the ribbon box.

Then, Kakashi opened the small wooden compartment where he kept the warehouse keys, the reserve change, the pending invoices, and the things that truly mattered. He slid the coaster inside.

He placed it with reverential delicacy, flanked by invoices and monthly receipts, treating it with the care one gives to an indecipherable relic.

He couldn't find a logical explanation to justify the gesture.

But he did it, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Kakashi didn't realize he was changing.

That's how cracks work, after all: they make their way in without asking permission, silently, while you keep your gaze fixed elsewhere. They don't hurt at first. At first, they're just an imperceptible line in the enamel of habit, an almost invisible thread of fresh air slipping in where nothing used to be.

Others notice the fracture.

Ino, the young woman who worked as his support on Saturdays and Sundays, was the first to put it into words. She said it without a shred of malice, because Ino lacked second intentions; hers was a frontal honesty, a torrent of frankness that often bordered on impertinence.

"Hey, Kakashi," she commented, while securing a bouquet of lilies with a bow of purple ribbon. "Lately, you seem more... calm?"

"I'm always calm, Ino," he replied, without taking his eyes off the order notebook.

"No, calm isn't the word. Calm is the state you're in when nothing's happening to you. You seem... — Ino narrowed her eyes, catching the exact word in the air — less sad. That's it. Less sad."

Kakashi stopped his pen and lifted his head to look at her. The girl stood with her arms crossed, flaunting fingernails painted a loud, insolent yellow, and an expression on her face that swung between pure curiosity and a slight, little-sister-like concern.

"I wasn't sad before," he declared, and the weight of the lie landed in his stomach immediately.

"Of course you weren't," Ino replied, using that condescending drawl used with people who know you too well to swallow your pretenses. "Anyway, the point is, the change suits you. Whoever is achieving it, I hope they keep it up."

Kakashi didn't bother asking who she meant. There was no need.

That same night, in the twilight of his empty apartment, while eating dinner in a silence only broken by the hum of the TV turned off, Ino's words returned to his mind. He felt an uncomfortable tingle, a warm touch at the base of his neck. He wasn't changing, he lied to himself. He was just... tired. Yes, that was the logical explanation. He was exhausted from thinking about Obito, from orbiting the same pain over and over, year after year. That's why, almost without realizing it, he had stopped checking his profile on social media every night before sleeping. Not because the memory had stopped mattering, but because dragging that chain had become a physically exhausting task. That was all.

"I'm just tired," he whispered to himself in the darkness of the kitchen, and for an instant, he almost believed it.

The signs, however, continued to accumulate underground.

For example: he had started to smile every time Iruka crossed the shop's threshold.

It wasn't a broad smile, far from a premeditated gesture. It was just a slight, almost imperceptible movement at the corners of his lips; a sudden softening in the muscles of his jaw that activated reflexively, long before his brain could send the order to hold back. Iruka would walk in wearing his perennial leather jacket, his delightfully messy bun, and that grumpy expression that seemed like his daily uniform, and Kakashi's face would simply light up.

It's a strict matter of courtesy, he justified to himself later, when the tarot reader had already left and the smile lingered on his face a little longer than strictly necessary. A meticulous merchant must smile at his clientele. It's called professional ethics.

However, the farce fell apart on its own: Kakashi didn't smile at everyone. And certainly not like that, with an involuntary, clean warmth that sprang from some internal recess completely beyond his control.

The tortoiseshell cat, acting as a silent witness from its fortress in the satin ribbon box, seemed perfectly aware of the situation. Sometimes, just when the bell announced Iruka's departure, the feline would fix its yellow eyes on Kakashi with that gaze laden with almost compassionate condescension, as if to say, "Seriously, do you expect anyone to buy that story?"

Kakashi chose to ignore him olympically. After all, self-deception had always been his greatest specialty.

It happened on a Wednesday, right in that suspended interval following lunchtime, when the first deep crack tore the varnish off his routine.

Kakashi had closed the flower shop for a couple of hours — the classic "Back in 15 minutes" sign hanging on the latch while he ate a quick, impersonal lunch standing up in the backroom's twilight — and decided it was the perfect time to cross over to Iruka's studio. It wasn't due to any urgent reason, he justified to himself. He just wanted to ask him an unimportant detail about the purple-hued flowers he had requested the previous week. Or perhaps question him about the origin of the coaster. Or, being honest with his own mental map, any halfway decent pretext that would legitimize the act of crossing the street.

That was the lie he repeated to himself as his steps devoured the asphalt.

The headquarters of "Moons and thorns" welcomed him with its usual olfactory symphony: a floating blend of herbal incense, the clean chemical trail of tattoo ink, and a third element Kakashi couldn't categorize; a warm, vaguely musky aroma that his brain invariably associated with Iruka's skin without fully understanding the scientific reasons. Behind the reception counter, carved from dark wood that absorbed light, was Sakura. She had bright pink hair pulled into a high, neat ponytail and sported a furrowed brow of absolute concentration as her fingers tapped against the computer keyboard.

Kakashi knew her perfectly. Sakura was Ino's partner, and running into her at the company dinners Ino organized with overwhelming enthusiasm and the others endured with stoic resignation was already an unwritten tradition.

"Kakashi!" Sakura pulled her eyes away from the monitor and gifted him a smile whose warmth bordered on complete complicity. "What wind brings you to this sanctuary? Looking for another card reading? Because I warn you, Iruka left me precise instructions to charge you double if you dared to request another consultation."

Kakashi felt a sudden wave of embarrassment that tinged the edges of his ears red.

"I'm not here as a client," he managed to articulate, faltering on the spot as he realized his alibi lacked solidity. "I came to... ask him a technical question about some botanical species. For a special order."

"What a fascinating turn," Sakura commented, resting her chin on her palms with an expression that was far from innocent. "A career florist crossing the street to consult a tarot reader about botany. Smells like low-quality strategy, Hatake."

"I'm a meticulous professional. I like to cross-reference sources, that's all."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say."

Sakura got up from her chair, stretching with a feline gesture, and indicated the hallway leading to the inner cubicles with a nod of her head.

"He's in the third room. Today's his shift for needles, not arcana. He's in the middle of a session with a client, but you can peek in if you want. I doubt your presence will destabilize his pulse."

Kakashi nodded with a slight murmur, heading down the hallway to avoid the receptionist's insidious interrogation. The corridor walls displayed a unique art gallery: astronomical prints, maps of Renaissance constellations, and, unexpectedly, a couple of eighties horror movie posters. This strange, seemingly illogical mix fit perfectly with the mental picture he was forming of Iruka: an individual built on contradictions that, by some sorcery, worked in perfect harmony.

The door to the third room was slightly ajar, open by a few inches. Kakashi pushed it with his fingertips, with almost surgical caution, and stood still on the threshold.

The interior atmosphere was dim, filtered, of almost liturgical intimacy. A floor lamp focused a circle of golden light on the leather couch, while the corners of the room were relegated to a soft twilight, guarded by the flicker of candles Iruka lit before starting his workdays; a landscape Kakashi had already memorized during his eleven tarot sessions and now decoded as part of his personal liturgy.

Iruka was working bent over the arm of a young dark-haired boy who seemed to have fallen asleep or, at least, was pretending absolute slumber to tolerate the pain. The tarot reader held the machine in his right hand, showing a face where concentration had erased any trace of his usual sarcasm.

He wore a loose, sleeveless black t-shirt that revealed the anatomy of his arms. And Kakashi, whose retina only held records of Iruka sheltered behind a counter, resting on the moss-green bench, or wrapped in the loose robes of his mystical consultations, found himself stranded contemplating that musculature for no apparent reason.

They were arms sculpted with thin but firm lines, devoid of weakness. The tanned skin appeared buried under an intricate ivy of ink: lunar iconography, geometric tracings of mathematical precision, and a couple of floral motifs Kakashi quickly identified as Japanese chrysanthemums. With each subtle oscillation of the machine, the bundles of muscles tensed harmoniously beneath the epidermal surface.

Iruka was biting his lower lip. He did it systematically while guiding the stroke, an unconscious habit that curved his mouth and occasionally offered the pale flash of his teeth. His brow was slightly furrowed, and his brown pupils were fixed on the client's dermis with an intensity bordering on mystical devotion.

Kakashi found himself unable to break the visual spell.

It wasn't just the technical mastery; it was the way Iruka wielded the tool as if it were an extension of his own skeleton, the rhythm of his breathing synchronized with the monotonous, electric buzz of the motor, the millimetric tilt of his head to the left when tackling a delicate relief.

It was the whole package. And it was too much for his defenses.

He became aware, with an internal jolt, that he had been standing petrified under the door frame for a considerable time, his jaw slightly slack, his arms hanging at his sides like a wax figure. He didn't know why he had walked there, what he intended to resolve, or what his task was in that room. He didn't hold a single certainty except one: that Iruka, bathed in that amber light, with his skin exposed and his lip captive between his teeth, was...

Don't you dare verbalize it, he scolded himself with mental ferocity. Don't think it, don't analyze it, don't—

"Well, well, Hatake."

The inflection of Iruka's voice tore through the lethargy. The tattoo artist barely shifted his pupils for a fraction of a second, keeping the needle operational on the client's arm with millimeter regularity.

"What can I do for you?" he inquired, immediately returning his gaze to the ink line, treating Kakashi's intrusion as a footnote, a domestic interference in the middle of his work.

Kakashi parted his lips. Sealed them again. Attempted a second phonetic approach.

"Nothing," he managed to pronounce, suffering from an unforeseen hoarseness that betrayed the dryness of his throat. "I intended to... ask you something. But I forgot."

Iruka didn't abandon his target with the needle, but the corners of his mouth curled into a tiny, slippery line of amusement that Kakashi caught immediately because he had become an expert in deciphering his micro-facial expressions.

"It happens," Iruka commented with indifference. "The deterioration of immediate memory is a classic toll of maturity."

"I don't have an age that justifies cognitive collapse, Iruka."

"Of course you don't, Hatake. Go on, go back to your greenhouse. This requires a surgeon's steady hand, and having you breathing down my neck isn't good for me."

The words lacked hostile edges; it was a private code, a veiled plea for him to stay that both combatants deciphered in unison. However, Kakashi, overwhelmed by managing that volume of emotional information, attempted a retreat step, then another, and fled down the hall with his cheeks burning and his heart pounding somewhere between his sternum and throat.

Reaching the foyer, Sakura measured him with a look pregnant with amusement that was far from any corporate manual.

"Was the botanical consultation productive?" she inquired, widening a smile of poorly disguised malice.

"Nothing worthy of mention happened," Kakashi cut short, heading for the public exit before the receptionist had time to formulate a sharper retort.

The outside world welcomed him with a gray, leaden atmosphere, but in his judgment, the sky seemed to project an absurd, almost blinding brightness. Or perhaps it was just the congestion in his temples, that rhythmic echo reminding him he had just spent ten minutes of his existence contemplating Iruka with the amazement of someone discovering fire for the first time.

Nothing happened, he convinced himself as he retraced his steps to his sidewalk.

Absolutely nothing happened, he hammered into his head as he pushed open the door of his business, listening to the cheerful jingle of the brass bell.

Nothing happened, he formulated in his last mental redoubt, as the tortoiseshell cat stared at him from the satin ribbon box with an expression that was the living portrait of absolute disbelief.

But the truth was that something had happened.

And Kakashi was fully aware of it, no matter how much he insisted on denying it before his own internal tribunal.

The evidence of his emotional crime continued to pile up: tiny details, seemingly insignificant, but which became an impossible-to-ignore verdict when viewed together.

For example: the matter of the purple flowers.

It had all started with a throwaway comment, during a dreary afternoon when Iruka had taken shelter in the flower shop waiting for the storm to ease. They had chatted about trivialities — the weather forecast, feline dynamics, the dilemmas of an indecisive client who wanted to tattoo a frog but couldn't decide on the design — and, at a lull in the conversation, Iruka's eyes had drifted to a bunch of wild lavender.

"These have a special charm," he had said casually, using a falsely distracted tone. "My grandmother grew lavender in the backyard. They smell like... I don't know. Like home, I suppose."

Kakashi had just nodded with a slight murmur, filing the information in some armored compartment of his memory, and apparently hadn't retrieved the memory again.

Until, exactly one week later, he found himself managing the new order with his regular supplier.

"Lavender, Kakashi?" the warehouse girl had asked, frowning with bewilderment. "But you never order lavender. Especially not in the middle of this season."

"It's a subtle seasonal novelty," he had replied, coating his voice with a corporate firmness he was far from feeling. "I've noticed the clientele is starting to demand softer tones. They harmonize perfectly with the aesthetic of spring bouquets."

The warehouse employee raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical, but recorded the order on her clipboard. The floral shipment arrived three days later, and Kakashi took care to place the stems right at the entrance threshold, at the exact angle where the first morning light would bathe the buds with that violet, translucent hue that made them look much more ethereal and floating than they actually were.

When Iruka crossed the door that same afternoon, his gaze immediately collided with the lavender display. He blinked once. Twice. His long, tattooed fingers reached out to brush the purple spikes with a tactile delicacy that sent a physical lurch through a corner of Kakashi's chest where he hadn't expected to feel anything at all.

"Lavender?" Iruka inquired, keeping his eyes fixed on the stems.

"Seasonal novelty," Kakashi limited himself to parrying, and the protocol lie tasted like dry earth in his mouth.

Iruka didn't add a single comment. However, when he headed for the exit, he carried with him a small bunch firmly held in his hands, and Kakashi stood still behind the counter, contemplating the metal of the cash register with a completely foolish smile that took him several minutes of conscious effort to erase from his lips.

The matter of the bouquet, however, was infinitely worse.

It happened on a Thursday morning, in that lull before Ino's noisy arrival, when Kakashi found himself creating an unparalleled floral arrangement. It wasn't for the whim of any regular customer. It wasn't in the records of any pending order. It was a bouquet conceived exclusively for Iruka, even though the tarot reader had never suggested such a thing and, to tell the truth, didn't even suspect its existence.

He selected white roses, as the emblem of a new beginning. Added lavender stems, to invoke calm. Interjected a couple of gardenias, because they were his personal weakness and he felt the unprecedented urge to share them with someone. And right at the heart of the composition, almost buried among the foliage and main petals, he nestled a dandelion.

Iruka had confessed one afternoon that he felt a fondness for those wild creatures. "They have the indomitable nature of a weed," he had declared, using that inflection of voice where cynicism dueled with a hidden sensitivity. "They sprout on the margins, where no one has invited them and no one bothers to water them, and yet, humanity insists on blowing on them to entrust their wishes. They hold an undeniable poetry."

Kakashi had held onto that monologue in his frontal lobe for weeks. And now, as he secured the composition with a strip of moss-green linen ribbon and placed a small cardboard tag he had been trying to write for three days, he seriously questioned the course of his sanity.

The first draft read: "For the insufferable tarot reader. With affection, the florist who is learning not to know how to be alone." Too explicit. He tore it in half.

The second attempt was: "For Iruka. Eternal gratitude for the uncomfortable truths." Too clinical. It ended up on the floor.

The third essay said: "I don't know why I'm making you a bouquet. I only know I needed to do it." Too exposed. He shredded that one too.

At the end of the ordeal, the tag remained a sepulchral blank. The bouquet was relegated to the lower shelf of the counter, hidden from view, while Kakashi served the morning clientele, sporting a floating smile and a litany of questions pounding his temples: Should he give it to him? Was it a strategic mistake? If he did, what real implications would it have? And if he chose to retreat, what did that say about him?

An elderly parishioner — the same gentleman who each week bought long-stemmed red roses for his wife — pointed to the floral hiding spot with the ferrule of his wooden cane.

"That piece, young man, is it for a special order? It has a truly beautiful quality."

Kakashi hesitated for a whole second. Then, he mustered that prophylactic smile of his, which never managed to reach the wrinkles around his eyes.

"It's a little something for a friend," he lied.

The old man nodded benevolently, paid for his roses, and headed out to the sidewalk. Kakashi returned to the solitude of his business, sharing the space with a bouquet with no destination, a mute tag, and the uncomfortable conviction that the term "friend" was flagrantly inaccurate. The tragic thing was that he lacked an alternative vocabulary to define the situation.

The bouquet did not leave the back of the counter.

The blank tag found its final rest at the bottom of the trash can.

And that night, in the silence of his bedroom, Kakashi fell into a fragmented, clumsy sleep, fruitlessly turning over a concept that stubbornly refused to be named.

The real turning point emerged on a Friday, right at the edge of dusk.

Kakashi had been forced to delay the flower shop's closing considerably longer than usual. A last-minute order — a sizeable wedding arrangement that had to be delivered first thing Saturday morning — had kept him beveling stems and tying silk bows until the daylight turned orange, then ashen gray, and the streetlights began to flicker on with that electrical, hesitant hesitation that precedes the wounded night.

He headed out the back door, the one leading to the quiet of the alley, and stood still for a few moments under the lintel to stretch his spine. His fingertips retained the olfactory trace of fertile earth, bruised petals, fresh sap, and satin. His linen apron showed patches of mud and chlorophyll. He felt a dense tiredness, but of that noble, satisfying type that comes after a day when the craft has been well executed.

And then, the silhouette cut through the twilight.

Iruka was stationed at the back entrance of his own studio, just a few meters away. He wasn't smoking — Iruka wasn't a smoker, even though Kakashi had once caught him holding a cigarette between his lips, a gesture that owed more to the theatricality of a pose than a genuine addiction. He was consuming something. A compact bunch of dried leaves, bound by a white cotton thread, releasing a thick, whitish, strongly perfumed smoke.

White sage, Kakashi identified immediately. The tarot reader himself had revealed the mystery during one of their eleven ritual consultations. "It has a purifying effect on energetic flows," he had stated, swinging between mystical gravity and his signature irony. "The clientele usually leave the cubicle dragging miasmas and dense vibrations. It's advisable to sanitize the environment before resetting the board."

At that moment, sheltered by the amber glow of the municipal streetlamp, Iruka handled the smoking bundle with the solemnity of someone carrying a pagan censer, describing slow, circular orbits in the air to let the mist envelop him. His face, silhouetted by the orange sparks of the embers, looked devoid of tension, surrendered to an almost meditative silence. He wore the same sleeveless garment from the previous afternoon, and the choreography of his tattooed arms had a fluidity Kakashi internally cataloged as hypnotic.

He didn't know how many grains of sand had fallen in the hourglass while he stood there, secretly observing. Could have been a few seconds. Maybe a full minute. Time seemed to have acquired an elastic, strange quality, as if the sage swirls had also infected the chronological density of the alley.

Suddenly, Iruka looked up.

Their eyes intertwined through the floating darkness.

There wasn't the slightest trace of surprise on the tattoo artist's features. Nor a gesture of discomfort or retreat. Only a plain serenity, a tacit, mute acceptance that Kakashi inhabited that same geographical coordinate, watching him, and that the fact was neither extravagant nor out of place.

Iruka raised his free hand, the one not holding the smudge stick. It was a dry, sparse greeting, devoid of protocol ornamentation. A gestural code that essentially said: "I see you, I acknowledge your existence, and I have no intention of altering the course of this moment."

Kakashi responded by raising his own in identical correspondence. The smile didn't quite form on his lips — he didn't have the strength for that — but the framework of his ribcage experienced a deep dilation, forcing him to inhale more air than strictly necessary.

Then, Iruka returned to his liturgy of smoke and concentric circles. And Kakashi pivoted on his heels, secured the lock on the flower shop with a clean turn of the key, and began the journey back to his apartment, dragging with him fingers that still exhaled the scent of earth.

The apartment welcomed him with its usual emptiness.

Not that this circumstance was anything new. He had been living alone in that perimeter for years, a space he had only furnished with the strictly necessary: a gray-upholstered sofa, a dining table devoid of ornaments, and a bookshelf crammed with volumes he never bothered to re-read. The walls stretched out in a hospital white, bare of paintings, orphaned of photographs. He didn't have a single plant — enough botanical toll was already paid at the shop — and the kitchen atmosphere exuded a perpetual trace of industrial detergent and archived solitude.

Kakashi took off his boots at the doorstep, abandoned his linen apron on the back of a chair, and stood still for a few moments in the middle of the living room, disoriented, without a clear purpose.

The TV screen remained black. Inside the fridge, only a bottle of water and the dry half of a lemon resided. He had no appetite. He wasn't thirsty. He only retained a sharp image, burned into his retina: Iruka silhouetted under the public streetlight, the sage swirls coiling around his physique like a subtle albino serpent, and the unconscious rhythm of his tanned arms moving in the twilight.

Kakashi let himself fall onto the sofa.

He rested his skull against the backrest and closed his eyelids. He wasn't seeking sleep — he had the mathematical certainty that Morpheus would deny him access — but the mere purpose of structuring the drift of his thoughts, of aligning the fragments of a puzzle that stubbornly refused to fit.

However, the ideas refused order. They tangled together, pushing, colliding in the void. And at the epicenter of that mental chaos, acting as a gravitational star around which everything else orbited, stood the figure of Iruka.

Iruka and his surgical sarcasm. Iruka and that infinite, paradoxical patience for dispensing truths that stung the conscience. Iruka and his silver-laden hands, the same ones that shuffled arcana, guided the course of a needle, or cradled the smudge stick smoke as if guarding a sacred mystery. Iruka and the tiny curvature of his mouth, which materialized stealthily when he assumed Kakashi wasn't watching.

Kakashi opened his eyelids.

The room had been buried by the night. Only the residual glow from the street filtered through the windows, projecting a dance of elongated, spectral shadows on the parquet. The silence felt dense, corporeal, interrupted solely by the monotonous hum of the refrigerator and the echo of his own pulse pounding inside his ears.

He didn't know how much time he had spent in that paralysis. Ten minutes. Maybe twenty. But at some point during this nocturnal voyage, he noticed that his mind had closed the file on Obito.

It was no longer about Obito. The focus belonged to Iruka.

Iruka's arms under the streetlight. The habit of biting his lip in the middle of an ink stroke. The exact inflection with which he pronounced his last name — "Hatake" — giving it a musicality that seemed to savor.

Iruka.

Only and exclusively Iruka.

Kakashi released a sigh that trembled markedly as it broke the air. He brought a hand to his face, pressing his palms against his eyes, then let his limbs fall onto his lap, exhausted. His fingertips still exhaled the aroma of damp earth and petal sap. Gardenias, he concluded inwardly. Jasmine. The unmistakable trace of a man who spent his days buried among flowers and who, all of a sudden, found himself incompetent to manage the beats of his own heart.

"Shit," he articulated in the twilight.

The echo of his confession bounced off the bare walls, acquiring the resonance of a liturgical revelation.

Because this wasn't a vulgar blasphemy or a gratuitous lament; it represented the act of capitulation before something that had been germinating in the margins, in absolute silence, for weeks. Through the eleven tarot consultations. Through the tiny bouquets, the stolen peonies, and the quick strokes on cardboard coasters. In every meeting of gazes, in every sharp retort, in every silence that had required no translation.

The issue wasn't just that he had stopped orbiting the ghost of Obito; the real rupture was that a flesh-and-blood tenant had taken over the empty space.

And that tenant was Iruka.

The insufferable tarot reader. The man who had told him bluntly that he suffered from chronic emotional illiteracy. The guardian of three felines and a needle temple that smelled of sandalwood. The chestnut-haired man with severe pupils who wielded destiny's cardboard cutouts as if they were daggers.

Iruka.

Kakashi remained motionless in the darkness, his fingers impregnated with floral fragrance and his chest filled with a substance that refused to be labeled. It bore no resemblance to funereal nostalgia. Nor to obsession. It didn't resemble the poisoned, codependent affection that had chained him to Obito for years.

It was a different substance. More subtle. More fearsome. More real.

"Shit," he repeated, this time lowering the volume, as if reducing the decibels had the property of subtracting truth from the verdict.

The refrigerator continued its domestic hum. The street sank into a definitive lethargy. And somewhere in the city, on the other side of the asphalt, Iruka would be asleep, or devouring the pages of a book, or stroking the backs of his cats, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just stormed the mental redoubt of a florist who had sworn before his own dead not to risk his heart again.

Kakashi remained on the sofa until the minute hand touched two in the morning and the weight of his eyelids became unsustainable. When he finally got up to seek the shelter of the bedroom, he felt the numbness in his limbs and a mind reduced to a blank slate. However, in an inaccessible recess of his consciousness, a certainty was beginning to take root with the stubbornness of a weed:

He was no longer a solo character in his own biography.

And that, he pondered as he slipped between the cold sheets, was simultaneously the most terrifying scenario and the most absolute miracle that had happened to him in an alarmingly long time.

He slept a disturbed sleep, as his temple diagnosis had predicted. However, upon emerging the next morning, with the Saturday light filtering through the slats of the blinds and the image of Iruka under the streetlamp still intact in his memory, he didn't feel the chronic oppression that usually crushed his chest.

He felt a different vibration.

One that, if he weren't so pathologically stubborn, he would have dared to name hope.

Kakashi doesn't know what to do with this new feeling.

He's spent a whole year building his identity around the loss of Obito. A year in which pain has been his only certainty, the only firm ground amidst the shipwreck. He's gotten up every morning with the weight of that absence on his chest; he's learned to move with that sadness as a roommate and has filled his sleepless nights with the memory of what was and is no longer.

Who is he without that pain? What is he supposed to do with the empty space?

The question terrifies him more than the suffering itself. Because suffering, at least, is familiar. Suffering doesn't demand change; it only asks you to sink into it, and that Kakashi has done with almost monastic dedication for twelve months.

But now something is moving. A crack. A crevice through which a light he didn't ask for is seeping in.

And that light has a name, a surname, three cats, and a tattoo studio on the same street.

The idea comes one sleepless night, when the pillow is too hot and the sheets smell of cheap detergent and loneliness. Kakashi has been turning something over for days, something he doesn't know how to express, and suddenly, like a flash, he understands what he has to do.

A tattoo.

Not just any design: a lotus flower on his wrist. Small.

The meaning isn't for Iruka — or maybe it is, maybe it's for himself, a reminder on his skin that something is beginning to bloom where there was only mud before — but the real reason, the one he doesn't dare utter even in the silence of his apartment, is that he wants Iruka to touch him.

He wants to feel his hands on his wrist; his ring-laden fingers holding his arm with that professional firmness that Kakashi finds intimate. He wants the buzz of the needle, the smell of ink, the dim light of the lamp, and above all, an excuse to be near him for a whole hour without having to justify himself.

It's pathetic, he knows. But it's also the truth.

So on a Tuesday afternoon, when the flower shop is quiet and the tortoiseshell cat is napping in its ribbon box, Kakashi crosses the street, pushes open the door of Moons and thorns, and stands in front of Sakura's counter with a determination he doesn't entirely feel.

"Hello again," says Sakura, looking up from the computer with a smile that is already becoming familiar. "Another excuse to see Iruka?"

"It's not an excuse," Kakashi replies, and hates himself a little for how quickly the denial comes out. "I've come to get a tattoo."

Sakura raises her eyebrows. It's the first time she's seen him without a tarot reading in between, and curiosity dances in her eyes.

"Really? What are you getting?"

"A lotus flower on my wrist. Small."

She nods, jots something down in a notebook, and gestures towards the hallway.

"He's in the third room. The tattoo one, of course. Go in, I'll let him know."

Kakashi walks down the hallway decorated with astrology prints and horror posters. Upon reaching the slightly open door, he stops for a moment. He hears the buzz of the needle, Iruka's concentrated breathing, and the complicit silence of someone immersed in their work. Then, he enters.

Iruka is finishing a design on a young girl's back — a butterfly, it seems, wings spread over her right shoulder blade — and doesn't look up when Kakashi crosses the threshold. He just says:

"Sit down. I'll be with you in a moment."

There's no surprise in his voice. As if he had been expecting him. As if he had always known that Kakashi would end up in that room.

Kakashi obeys. He sits on the black vinyl chair by the wall and watches. Iruka works with absolute concentration, moving his right hand with a precision that seems mechanical but is pure instinct. The needle buzzes, the ink settles under the skin, and the girl breathes slowly, eyes closed, trusting.

When he finishes, Iruka cleans the area with gauze, applies a clear cream, and covers the tattoo with protective plastic. He speaks to the client in a low voice, gives her the typical aftercare instructions, and dismisses her with a professional smile that vanishes as soon as the door closes.

Then he turns to Kakashi.

"Well," he says, cleaning the machine with a cloth. "What brings you here, Hatake? Another reading? Because I already told you, if you come asking about Obito again..."

"I'm not here for that," Kakashi interrupts him, and the firmness of his own voice surprises him. "I've come to get a tattoo."

Iruka raises an eyebrow. It's the gesture Kakashi has learned to recognize: contained surprise, disguised curiosity, and a pinch of skepticism.

"You? A tattoo?" he asks, putting the cloth down on the metal tray. "I didn't see you as the type of person who gets tattooed."

"What type of person am I?"

Iruka looks at him for a moment, assessing him. His eyes scan Kakashi's face, go down to his hands, and go up again.

"I don't know," he admits finally. "The type who doesn't need to mark his skin to know who he is. But maybe I'm wrong."

"Maybe," Kakashi replies, and there's something in his tone that invites no further questions.

Iruka nods. He approaches the couch and gestures for him to get comfortable.

"What do you want?"

"A lotus on my wrist. Small."

"Really small? Or one of those you'll later ask me to enlarge?"

"Small. I don't want it to scream. I just want it to be there."

Iruka looks at him for a moment longer, as if searching for something in his eyes. Then he nods, turns around, and starts preparing the materials.

"Take off your jacket and roll up your sleeve," he says without turning. "Left or right wrist?"

"Left."

Kakashi obeys. He takes off his linen jacket — the day is warm, almost humid — and rolls up his white shirtsleeve to the elbow. His left wrist is bare, pale; the fine skin reveals the bluish veins beating beneath the surface.

Iruka turns around with the metal tray in his hands. He places it on an auxiliary table, adjusts the lamp, and sits down in front of Kakashi. Their knees almost touch. The warm light envelops them, and for a moment, Kakashi feels like they are alone in the world.

"Show me," says Iruka. Kakashi extends his arm.

Iruka takes his wrist with his left hand. His fingers are firm, sure, but not rough. The rings he wears — silver, black stones, an old signet ring on his index finger — press gently against his skin. That minimal contact, that small portion of warmth, sends a shiver through Kakashi that runs up his arm and settles at the nape of his neck.

"Nervous?" asks Iruka, without looking up.

"No," Kakashi lies.

Iruka smiles. It's not a sarcastic smile, but one of complicity.

"Relax," he says, releasing his arm to take the needle. "It doesn't hurt as much as it seems. And if it hurts, you'll just have to bear it."

"I always bear it."

"I know."

Iruka places the needle on Kakashi's skin. Before starting, he looks up and meets his eyes.

"Sure?"

"Sure."

Iruka nods, lowers his head, and begins.

The buzz of the needle fills the room. It's a constant, hypnotic sound that envelops the silence and makes it dense. Kakashi feels the tip piercing his skin, a tiny vibration spreading across his wrist like an echo.

But he doesn't look at the needle; he looks at Iruka's hands.

He's seen them before, of course. During the eleven tarot sessions, when Iruka shuffled the cards with unconscious elegance or pointed at the arcana with his black-painted nail. He's seen them in the flower shop, brushing the petals of the peonies or leaving coasters with dog drawings on the counter.

But he had never looked at them like this. With time. With permission.

They're beautiful hands. Not in the classic sense — they have ink stains between the fingers, small scars on the knuckles, and an old burn on the back of the right one — but in a more real sense. They're hands that have worked. The rings adorn them without hiding them, and when Iruka moves the needle, his tendons tense under the brown skin, drawing shadows that Kakashi follows with his gaze as if they were maps.

There's something about them that feels intimate. Something that tells him that Iruka isn't just a tarot reader or a tattoo artist, but someone who has lived, who has suffered, and who has built his craft with patience. And Kakashi, who has spent a whole year clinging to a loss, feels that those hands could hold him without judgment.

It's silly, he knows, but he can't stop thinking it.

"You're falling asleep," says Iruka, without looking up.

"No," Kakashi replies, and his voice comes out softer than he intends. "I'm just looking."

"Looking at what?"

"Your hands."

Iruka stops for an instant. The needle stops buzzing. He lifts his head, and his eyes meet Kakashi's. There's something in his gaze — surprise, perhaps, or a kind of unprecedented vulnerability — that makes the air denser.

"My hands," Iruka repeats, as if the word tasted strange. "And what's so interesting about them?"

"Everything," says Kakashi, and it's not an exaggeration.

Iruka blinks once, twice. Then he lowers his gaze again, turns on the needle, and continues working. But Kakashi notices that his fingers tremble slightly; a minimal tremor that the needle hides, but that he feels because his wrist is still trapped in that firm, warm grip.

Minutes pass, maybe an hour. Kakashi loses track of time, trapped in the buzz and the warmth of Iruka. It doesn't hurt. Or it does, a little, but it's a good pain, a pain that anchors him to the present, that reminds him he's alive and that he's there, in that room, with that man.

When Iruka finishes, he cleans the area, applies the cream, and covers the design with protective plastic. Then he leans back in his chair and looks at him.

"Done," he says. "A lotus flower. Small."

Kakashi looks down. The flower is there, newborn, with clean lines opening on his skin. It's delicate, precise, beautiful. Like a secret only the two of them know.

"Thank you," he says, his voice rough.

Iruka nods. He stands up and starts to pack up the materials, but Kakashi stops him.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing," Iruka replies without turning around. "It's a gift."

The words resonate in his chest like a tolling bell. Kakashi falls silent, not knowing what to do with them.

"I can't accept a tattoo as a gift."

"You can, and you will," Iruka replies. This time he turns around, a cloth in his hand and a small smile on his lips. "If you want to pay me back, invite me to dinner."

Kakashi blinks.

"To dinner?"

"To dinner. Real food. Not the bento I devour daily in the back room. Do you know what that is, Hatake? Eating with another person?"

"Yes," Kakashi lies, because he can't remember the last time he had dinner with someone. "Tonight. Does that work for you?"

Iruka raises an eyebrow, as if he didn't expect him to accept so quickly.

"Tonight... Okay. I close at nine. I'll pick you up."

Kakashi nods. He stands up, adjusts his shirtsleeve to cover the plastic, and walks towards the door. Before leaving, he turns around.

"Iruka."

"What?"

"The hands. Really. They're beautiful."

He leaves before Iruka can answer, but even so, from the hallway, he hears the sound of his laughter.

Nine o'clock at night arrives with deliberate delay, as if time knew Kakashi was waiting and decided to mock him.

He closed the flower shop early — for the first time in months, he hangs the "Closed" sign at eight-thirty, ignoring a last-minute order from a regular customer — and changed his shirt three times. The first was too formal. The second, too informal. The third, a light blue linen one that Ino gave him for his last birthday and he never wore, seems adequate.

Or not. He's no longer sure of anything.

The tattoo on his left wrist itches under the protective plastic, and every time he feels that itch, he remembers Iruka's hands holding his arm. His pulse quickens.

It's just dinner, he tells himself. To pay him back for the tattoo. Nothing more.

But it's not nothing more, and he knows it.

When nine o'clock strikes on the church clock, Kakashi goes out to the street and stands by the door with his hands in his pockets. The night is quiet. The streetlights project orange circles of light onto the asphalt, and the air smells of recent rain and the flowers from his own shop window.

Iruka appears after a few minutes. He's walking from his studio, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, his chestnut bun slightly looser than usual. When he reaches Kakashi's height, he looks him up and down with an expression Kakashi can't decipher.

"Did you change your shirt?" asks Iruka.

"No," Kakashi lies.

"You're lying."

"I know."

Iruka smiles and starts walking. Kakashi walks beside him, not knowing where they're going, but without the slightest intention of asking.

"I know a place," Iruka says, as if reading his mind. "Ramen. It's two blocks away. It's not fancy, but the food is good."

"I don't need fancy."

"I know. That's why I'm taking you there."

They walk in silence. It's not an uncomfortable void, but rather a pause of expectation, as if both were saving their words for the right moment. Kakashi watches his profile under the streetlight: the line of his jaw, the edge of the scar crossing his nose, the way his bangs move in the wind.

He's handsome, he thinks. The idea seems so obvious that he doesn't understand why he hadn't formulated it before. He's not a classic beauty — his face is rather hard, marked, with that scar that on another person would be intimidating — but there's something about him, in the way he looks at the world, that makes him beautiful.

The ramen shop is at the end of a small alley, lit by red paper lanterns. The owner, an elderly man in a white apron, greets them with a wave of his hand and points to two empty stools by the counter.

"The usual, Iruka?" he asks, his voice hoarse with age.

"The usual," he replies, sitting down. "And for my friend... what will you have, Hatake?"

Friend. The word turns his stomach.

"Same as him," says Kakashi.

Iruka looks at him, surprised.

"You don't know what I ordered."

"I don't care."

He raises an eyebrow but adds nothing. The owner nods and starts preparing the bowls, moving between steaming pots with an agility that belies his age.

The ramen arrives boiling: tonkotsu broth, marinated egg, chashu, and green onion. Kakashi blows on the first bite and tries it. It's good. No, it's more than good: perfect. The broth is creamy, the meat falls apart, and the egg has that sweet touch only found in traditional shops.

"What do you think?" asks Iruka, while devouring his own bowl with almost obscene slowness.

"Good," says Kakashi. "Very good."

"I told you."

They eat in silence for a few minutes until, suddenly, Iruka lets out a laugh.

"What?" asks Kakashi, his mouth half full.

"Nothing," he replies. "It's just that I didn't imagine this."

"Imagine what?"

"Eating ramen with you at a street stall. You in your Sunday blue shirt and me in my worn-out leather jacket."

Kakashi looks down at his clothes and feels his ears heat up.

"It's not a Sunday shirt," he mutters.

"Of course it's not."

But Iruka keeps smiling, and Kakashi can't help but imitate him. It's a small, clumsy, but genuine smile. Realizing that he's genuinely smiling, without forcing himself, he feels a tingle in his chest that he doesn't know how to explain.

They talk about unimportant things. About Iruka's cats — Mochi destroyed another plant, Sombra learned to open the fridge, and Urano is still a gray hermit who only appears when he wants. About a client who asked Kakashi for a black rose and how he had to explain that they don't exist in nature, that the ones sold are dyed because black isn't a natural color for flowers. About the latest minimalist tattoo trend, which Iruka hates because "if you're going to mark your skin, do something worthwhile, not a thin line that will fade in five years."

Kakashi listens. Nods. Asks. At some point in the conversation, he realizes he's not pretending. He's not playing the part of the friendly florist attending a neighbor. He's not hiding behind his gray bangs and courtesy.

He's being himself. And the other, without knowing it, is the mirror reflecting that image.

"Can I ask you something?" says Kakashi, when the bowls are almost empty.

"Go ahead," replies Iruka, drinking the rest of the broth directly from the bowl.

"You know about astrology... what's your sign?"

He puts the bowl down on the counter and looks at him with an amused expression.

"Now you're interested in astrology? I thought you didn't believe in that stuff."

"I don't," Kakashi admits. "But I'm interested in what you believe."

Iruka blinks. The answer seems to throw him off, and Kakashi notices how his cheeks turn a barely perceptible pink under the lantern light.

"I'm Gemini," he says finally, his voice lower than usual. "May 26th. Textbook Gemini: indecisive, chatty, and prone to getting bored if something doesn't interest me."

"You don't seem indecisive."

"Because I've learned to hide it. The years teach, Hatake. And you?"

"Virgo. September 15th."

"Virgo," repeats Iruka, and a smile forms on his lips. "Of course. Analytical, perfectionist, prone to overthinking everything. The sign of those who think too much and feel too late."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Neither one nor the other. It is what it is."

Kakashi nods and falls silent for a moment. Then, almost without thinking, he adds:

"I have Gemini rising."

Iruka stops the chopsticks he was about to drop on the tray.

"What did you say?"

"Gemini rising. My father told me once when I was little. I never paid attention, but I remembered."

"Gemini rising," Iruka repeats. Now his cheeks are definitely flushed, a warm pink rising from his neck to his ears. "That means... your astrological chart has a lot of Gemini in it. That even though you're Virgo inside, outwardly you project a Gemini energy. Curiosity, versatility, the need to connect..."

He stops. He bites his lip, and Kakashi, who is watching him intently, feels his heart race.

"You're blushing," he says. He doesn't know why he does it, but the words come out on their own.

"I am not," Iruka replies, but his voice sounds slightly higher than normal, and his hands twist on the counter. "It's the heat from the ramen."

"The ramen is cold by now."

"Then it's the wind."

"There's no wind."

Iruka looks at him. There's something in his eyes — a mix of embarrassment and something else that Kakashi doesn't know how to name — that makes the air thick.

"You know what, Hatake?" he says, almost in a whisper. "You're very handsome when you're stubborn. But I'm not going to tell you again."

Kakashi feels the blood rush to his cheeks. Now he's the one blushing, and there's no ramen or wind to hide it.

"I..." he starts, but doesn't know how to continue.

Iruka smiles. It's a soft, warm smile that erases all the habitual sarcasm from his face.

"You're Virgo rising too," Kakashi blurts out, because it's the only thing he can think of to change the subject. "Right?"

He raises an eyebrow.

"How do you know?"

"I've noticed. In the way you organize the cards. In how you clean the table before each reading. In how you notice details others ignore."

Iruka is silent for a moment. Then, very slowly, he nods.

"Virgo rising," he confirms, in a voice that seems to come from very far away.

"So we're compatible."

The phrase comes out before Kakashi can stop it. Once in the air, there's no way to take it back.

Iruka looks at him. His brown eyes shine under the lantern light with a mix of question, hope, and doubt that makes Kakashi want to explain himself, but also run away.

"Astrological compatibility," Iruka says, very slowly, "is more complex than just the sun and rising. You have to look at the whole chart. Houses, aspects, moons..."

"And?"

"And..." Iruka stops. He bites his lip again. His fingers, resting on the counter, drum a nervous rhythm. "And yes. We're compatible. Quite."

The ensuing silence is dense, charged with unspoken things. Kakashi feels he should speak, do something, move a hand towards his, but his body doesn't respond. He's paralyzed by the intensity of the moment, by the awareness that they're alone in a ramen shop, under the streetlights, and that the world seems to have shrunk to the distance between their stools.

"Iruka," he says finally, his voice barely a thread.

"Kakashi," he replies. It's the first time he's called him by his first name.

The shop owner coughs behind the counter, breaking the spell. Iruka looks away and asks for the check in a voice that tries to feign normality, but Kakashi pays before he can protest.

They leave the shop and walk back towards the main street. The night air is fresh, almost cold, and Kakashi feels his skin prickle under his linen shirt. Iruka walks beside him, so close their shoulders almost touch.

"It was nice," says Iruka, not looking at him. "Dinner."

"Yes," Kakashi replies. "It was very nice."

They reach the flower shop. Iruka stops in front of the door, hands in his pockets, contemplating the window display lit by the streetlights.

"Are you opening tomorrow?" he asks.

"I always open."

"Then see you tomorrow."

"See you."

Iruka turns around and starts walking towards his studio. But after a few steps, he stops.

"Kakashi."

"Yes?"

"The thing about compatibility..." He's silent for a moment, as if searching for the right words. "It wasn't just about the astrology."

And he resumes walking without waiting for an answer.

Kakashi stays at the flower shop door, his heart pounding in his temples and the echo of those words repeating on a loop.

It wasn't just about the astrology.

And he, who has spent a whole year clinging to a love that no longer exists, feels that something new is sprouting in the empty space. Something small, fragile, barely a bud.

But it's there. And he wants to take care of it.

Days pass, and the tattoo heals. The lotus flower on his left wrist lightens; the pink and white petals settle under the skin as if they had always been there. Kakashi often looks at it while cutting stems, arranging bouquets, or serving customers. And every time he looks at it, he thinks of Iruka.

Of his hands. Of his laugh. Of the blush under the red lanterns of the ramen shop.

The routine becomes more bearable. Not because the sadness has completely disappeared, but because it no longer occupies all the space. Now there's something else: a counterweight, a faint light at the end of the tunnel.

And then, one Friday afternoon, it happens.

Kakashi is sweeping the entrance of the flower shop when he looks up and sees him on the other side of the street, crossing towards the gallery. He has his black hair blowing in the wind and the same brown jacket from the day they ended things.

Obito.

He stands still, broom in the air, heart stopped. He waits for the punch. Waits for his chest to contract, his breath to catch, the world to wobble, as has happened every time he's crossed paths with him over the past year.

But the punch doesn't come.

He only feels a muted sadness, faint and diffuse, like the memory of someone else's pain. Like the echo of a song that played so long the lyrics have faded, leaving only the melody; and even that feels distorted.

Obito walks away without seeing him. He continues towards the gallery with that confident stride of his, the stride of someone who has left behind what Kakashi was still dragging.

He watches him until he disappears around the corner. Then, he breathes.

He inhales deeply, fills his lungs with fresh air, and notices that his chest doesn't hurt. That his shoulders don't feel heavy. That his legs aren't trembling. It's not that it doesn't matter; it's that it matters less. Much less.

He puts away the broom and locks the flower shop door, as it's almost closing time. When he turns around, he sees him.

The light in Iruka's studio is still on. But it's not the cold, white glow of neon, but the warm, golden clarity of candles. Through the window, Kakashi makes out a familiar silhouette.

He's not working or attending to a client. He's sitting on the wooden bench with his legs crossed, reading an astrology book as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if he were waiting.

Kakashi crosses the street. Opens the studio door without knocking, and the little bell tinkles as he enters.

Iruka looks up. Their eyes meet, and for a second, neither says anything.

"I ran out of coffee," Iruka says finally, in a tone as casual as if he were talking about the weather. "I thought you could buy me one. Since we're here."

Kakashi smiles. It's a wide, sincere smile, born from somewhere he can't name.

"You're lying," he says.

"And so are you, Hound," Iruka replies, and there's a tenderness in his voice that Kakashi has never heard before.

They don't talk about Obito. There's no need.

Kakashi sits beside him on the bench, so close their shoulders touch, and for a moment they sit in silence, contemplating the empty street through the glass.

"What were you reading?" he asks after a while.

"The Lovers card," Iruka replies, closing the book. "I wanted to check if the universe was still wrong."

"Was it wrong?"

Iruka turns his head and looks at him. His brown eyes shine in the candlelight, and he gives him a small, intimate smile, exclusive to him.

"I don't think so," he says. "I think the universe was right from the start. We were just too stupid to realize it."

Kakashi feels his heart race. It's not the violent, frightened lurch caused by the guilt of loss, but a living beat, an urgent reminder that blood still flows under his skin. The hair on his arms stands up, and suddenly, the outside world — the empty street, the weight of the last twelve months, the ghost of familiar pain — fades completely. Everything shrinks to the minimal distance separating their shoulders, to the gentle rhythm of Iruka's breathing, to that dense, almost sacred atmosphere that smells of burnt incense and the fresh ink of the designs hanging on the walls.

"Iruka," he says, his voice barely a whisper, an exhalation containing the fear of breaking the spell.

"Kakashi," he replies.

This time, there's no protective irony, no calculated distances, no defenses raised. It's just his name, pronounced with a reverence and clarity that resonates in his chest like a silent promise. Hearing his own name in that voice, Kakashi feels he regains a part of himself he thought lost in the shipwreck of his grief.

They don't kiss. Not that night. The moment holds such delicate gravity that a more abrupt gesture could shatter it. Instead, their hands seek each other in the twilight of the geranium bench. The touch is subtle, almost a deliberate accident. Kakashi feels the cold, firm pressure of Iruka's rings against his own knuckles; a contrast of metal and skin that, far from freezing him, injects immediate heat. It's an electric spark that runs up his arm, rises to his shoulder, and settles definitively in the center of his chest, where until recently only a dull oppression resided.

This, Kakashi thinks, closing his eyes for an instant to fix the sensation in his memory. This is what I didn't know I needed.

For three hundred and sixty-five days, the only certainty giving structure to his life was Obito's absence. Pain had become his home, and the future, a dark abyss not worth looking into. But now, with Iruka's fingers brushing his, that architecture of suffering crumbles silently.

For the first time in a whole year, the future no longer seems like a threat or a sterile void. It reveals itself, instead, as virgin territory. A garden he hasn't planted yet, but whose soil is already ready to be tilled. A space full of hidden possibilities, fragile sprouts, and flowers not yet born, but that already have a reason to bloom.

A future that, finally, is full of Iruka.

Kakashi knows he's in love.

It's not a lightning bolt. It's not an epiphany with violins or fireworks. It's more like realizing, one ordinary morning while watering the geraniums by the entrance, that he can no longer keep pretending he doesn't.

He's known for weeks, actually. Since the night of the ramen; since Iruka said "it wasn't just about the astrology"; since their hands brushed on the wooden bench and time stopped long enough for him to understand that it wasn't a coincidence.

But recognizing it is one thing. Acting on it is another matter entirely.

Kakashi has spent a whole year clinging to a dead love, and now, when he finally has something alive in his hands, fear paralyzes him. He doesn't know how it's done. He doesn't know how to tell someone "I like you" without it sounding like an irreversible sentence. He doesn't know how to build from scratch when the only foundations he knew collapsed so long ago.

But he knows flowers.

He knows they speak, that they have their own silent language that sometimes says more than words. And if he can't find the right phrases, maybe he can find the right plants.

He spends an entire afternoon preparing the bouquet.

It's not just any order. It's not one of those he dispatches for clients in five minutes, with quick shears, kraft paper, and a jute tie. He builds it with the slowness of a ritual, choosing each stem as if it were a word in a love letter he dares not write.

He starts with the sunflower.

He cuts it from the tallest stalk, the one that has been growing by the back window, which he has tended carefully for weeks without really knowing why. Silent adoration; that's what it represents. An "I follow you even when you don't look at me." The devotion he has been secretly feeding, afraid to name.

Then he adds the lavender.

He plucks it carefully, with slightly trembling hands, and places it next to the sunflower's gold like a whisper of calm. Peace. An "I feel good when I'm with you." The certainty that Iruka, with his skepticism, his rings, and his way of saying his last name as if it were a shared code, has managed to quiet something Kakashi thought was broken forever.

The white rose goes in the center.

White like an untouched canvas. Like the blank tag he didn't dare fill out. It symbolizes a new beginning. An "I want to start over with you." Proof that he is willing to leave behind the pain, the guilt, and the story that has held him captive for twelve months.

And lastly, almost hidden among the larger petals, a dandelion.

It's not a beautiful flower; it's a weed, as Iruka said that afternoon. It grows where it isn't called, no one tends it, and yet, people entrust their wishes to it. Kakashi has remembered that phrase for months. He has thought about it during his sleepless nights, in moments of doubt, every time he felt that what he had was too fragile to name.

The dandelion is a wish. And he is about to make it.

He ties the bouquet with a white satin ribbon — he never uses white, he always prefers green or purple, but for this, no other will do — and holds it in his hands, looking at it as if it were a small animal that could escape at any moment.

The tortoiseshell cat watches him from the ribbon box, with that look of his that seems to sentence: "Finally, human, finally."

"Shut up," Kakashi tells the feline, and leaves the flower shop.

The Moon & Thorn studio is dimly lit when he arrives. The candlelight flickers behind the window, and the "Open" sign is still hanging, though no clients remain. Only Iruka is there, sitting behind the counter, shuffling a deck with that elegance of his that turns a daily gesture into something akin to magic.

The little bell tinkles as Kakashi enters.

Iruka looks up. His eyes scan the bouquet, travel up Kakashi's arm, and settle on his face. He doesn't say anything. He just raises that eyebrow that Kakashi has learned to read like a one-line poem.

Kakashi advances. His legs tremble, but less than he expected. His hands are sweaty, his heart is racing, his mouth is dry, but he doesn't stop; he knows that if he turns back now, he'll regret it for the rest of his life.

He places the bouquet on the counter, right between the deck of cards and the half-empty tea cup.

Iruka looks at the flowers. Looks at Kakashi. Looks back at the bouquet.

"Is this...?"

"I don't know what this is," Kakashi interrupts, and although his voice wavers slightly, it doesn't break. "I don't know what to call it or if it has a name. But I wanted you to know."

He pauses. He inhales deeply, feeling the words accumulate in his throat, pushing each other, and lets them out without ordering them too much:

"It doesn't have to mean anything. I don't expect anything, and I'm not here to ask for anything. I just... needed you to know. I needed you to know that you're good for me. That I don't know who I am anymore without all this. Without your sermons, without your readings, without the way you say my name as if it were a problem you've decided to solve. I've been wanting to be where you are for weeks. When you're not there, I look for you; and when you are, I can't look away."

He falls silent. He hasn't said "I love you" or "I like you." He hasn't uttered any of the phrases he rehearsed in front of his apartment mirror with his fingers smelling of earth. But he has said everything that mattered.

Iruka doesn't move. He remains still behind the counter, the deck between his fingers, looking at the bouquet as if it were a hieroglyph to decipher. His hands, always restless, have stopped moving. The rings glint in the dying candlelight.

The silence stretches. Kakashi feels insecurity start to crawl up his back, and that inner voice repeating "this was a mistake, a mistake, a mistake" grows louder with every second that passes without a response.

But then, Iruka bites his lip.

The scar on his nose crinkles in that gesture Kakashi knows by heart; the one that means he's processing something too important.

"You're an idiot, Hatake," he says finally, his voice so soft Kakashi barely recognizes it. "A complete idiot."

He takes the bouquet carefully, as if the petals might disintegrate just by looking at them. He brings it to his face and inhales the scent with his eyes closed, breathing slowly. When he opens them, there's an unprecedented vulnerability in his gaze. Something that looks a lot like hope.

"You've been coming in here for months," Iruka continues, his tone regaining some firmness. "Taking up my time. Sleeping on my geranium bench..."

"I don't sleep there," Kakashi protests, a smile escaping without permission.

"Figuratively," he insists, and he smiles too, that small, crooked retort of his. "The point is... damn it, Hatake. The point is, you haven't stopped appearing. In my shop, in my head, and in my fucking cards."

He sets the bouquet down on the wood delicately and stands up. He walks around the counter until he's standing in front of Kakashi, so close that Kakashi can smell the incense on his clothes, see the fine lines around his eyes, and count the lashes on his lids.

"The cards already warned me," Iruka whispers. "The Two of Cups. The Wheel. The Knight of Cups. The universe is a nag, you know? It throws the answer in your face over and over while you spend months pretending not to see it."

"I don't believe in tarot," says Kakashi, and his voice trembles, but it's no longer from fear.

Iruka raises an eyebrow.

"You're lying."

"Yes," he admits, and now he gives him a wide, sincere smile, born from a corner of himself he thought extinct. "But I want to believe in this."

The atmosphere changes. It's no longer the tense void of uncertainty, but a charged, dense, electric silence. One of those moments where both know exactly what is going to happen, but neither dares to take the final step.

Iruka looks down and bites his lip again. Without a word, he steps back a millimeter, reaches out towards the counter, and draws a single card from the deck resting next to the tea. He doesn't ask anything. He doesn't offer explanations. He just turns it over.

The Lovers.

The cardboard falls on the wood with a dull thud, but to Kakashi, it resonates in his ears like a bell.

"What a coincidence," Iruka murmurs, and his half-smile is as sarcastic as it is trembling, as if he's hesitating between laughing or crying. "Or not."

Kakashi can't help it; he lets out a clean laugh, a burst that shakes his chest, moistens his eyes, and strips him of all the weight he'd been dragging for a whole year. Iruka looks at him, surprised, before joining in with a low, hoarse laugh that mingles with his in the dimness of the studio.

"You're impossible," Iruka says when the echo of the laughter fades.

"I know."

"You're stubborn, you're foolish, you're an emotional illiterate..."

"I know."

"And here you have me, at nine o'clock at night, with a bouquet you made yourself and with a fucking dandelion in the middle because you remembered a phrase from months ago..."

"Iruka."

"And I, who didn't want anything to do with anyone, who swore I wouldn't get involved with clients again, who's a professional with three cats waiting for me and a reputation to uphold..."

"Iruka."

"And yet, damn it, yet..."

Kakashi doesn't let him finish.

Kakashi steps forward, reduces the last trace of air between them to zero, and kisses him.

It's not a planned kiss. It's not soft or delicate or any of the perfect choreographies Kakashi imagined in his sleepless nights. It's an urgent, almost rough clash; a lurch where their lips meet before their brains have time to process it. It's Kakashi's nose brushing against Iruka's scar; it's Iruka's hand clutching the linen of his shirt as if it were a burning nail in the middle of a free fall. It's the thick taste of tea, the touch of teeth, and a sudden heat that hits them both in the mouth.

And then, the hesitation dissolves. The kiss mutates, becomes voracious.

Iruka's lips part with a stifled sigh, and Kakashi delves into that invitation, deep, losing control immediately. He feels the outside world switch off, time folding in on itself, and the accumulated pain of a whole year dissolve, scorched by the liquid fire of that contact. Iruka's tongue seeks his with a shared desperation, wet, hot, claiming every corner with a rhythm that ignites an electric current straight to Kakashi's core.

Iruka's hands grope their way up his chest, firm, leaving invisible marks of pressure through the fabric, until they tangle in his gray bangs. The silver rings scrape deliciously against the skin of his nape, pulling him down, demanding more weight, more flesh. Kakashi, who didn't know the human body could hold such intensity, responds by cornering Iruka against the edge of the counter. He presses him against himself, feeling the hardness of his pelvis against his own, the racing beat of their hearts aligned, the firmness of his tense muscles under their clothes.

They smell of incense and flowers. Of the studio's fresh ink, clean sweat, and the lavender from the bouquet now forgotten among the arcana.

The kiss lengthens, devouring the minutes. It becomes slower, but infinitely more erotic and deliberate. It's a surrender that sucks, that gently bites the other's lower lip, a sway of mouths that asks for permission and grants it simultaneously. A silent pact that pleads "I've been waiting for you," "stay," "take me."

When they finally separate by a mere millimeter, the air between them burns. Their breaths are broken threads and staccato gasps. Iruka's cheeks are flushed, his lips red, swollen, and slightly parted, and his damn brown eyes shine with a liquid, dark desire Kakashi has never seen in him before.

"Hatake..." Iruka whispers, his voice deep, scratched by excitement.

"Kakashi," he corrects, brushing his wet lips as he speaks, his tone broken.

"Kakashi," Iruka repeats, and the name in his mouth is no longer a shield, it's a damp caress, a contained moan. "You're an idiot."

"I know."

"But you're my idiot."

Kakashi's stomach contracts in a wave of pure heat. His legs tremble, his hands sweat; every fiber of his body vibrates with a physical need he no longer intends to hide.

"Your idiot?" he asks, looking down at the other's mouth.

Iruka smiles sideways. It's that small curve Kakashi has sought so much, devoid of sarcasm, completely surrendered.

"I didn't say that."

"You did."

"It was a translation error."

"You're lying."

Iruka lets out a hoarse laugh that vibrates directly into Kakashi's chest, because they're still pressed together, belly to belly, sharing the same air.

"Yes," Iruka admits. "I'm lying. Like you. We're terrible liars."

"But we're good at other things."

"What things, Hatake?"

Kakashi doesn't answer with words. He leans in and traps him in a second kiss, this time charged with erotic, shameless patience. His tongue traces the outline of Iruka's lips, savoring the trace of his own saliva, exploring with a slowness that both tortures and fascinates. His hand slides down Iruka's neck, caressing the line of his jaw until it buries itself in his chestnut bun, loosening it a bit more.

Iruka lets out a muffled moan against his mouth. A low, guttural sound that resonates in Kakashi's bones and tempts him to push him straight towards the back room.

"This," Kakashi whispers, nibbling gently on Iruka's lip. "I'm fucking good at this."

"Conceited..." Iruka protests, but his hands dig into Kakashi's nape, preventing him from moving away a single millimeter.

The bouquet of flowers remains on the counter, abandoned to its fate. Beside it, the tarot cards rest face up, revealing the Two of Cups, the Wheel of Fortune, the Knight of Cups, and The Lovers. The universe, for once, has stopped shouting. It only whispers.

And what it whispers is an echo of intertwined names, like the roots of two plants that have grown too close and whose identities are confused beneath the soil.

When the kiss finally yields — because the flesh needs oxygen, even if the soul wants to last forever — Iruka rests his forehead against Kakashi's. Their noses brush again. The scar on his face is a pale line under the golden flicker of the candles.

"And now what?" asks Iruka, his voice muffled, small, and strangely fragile.

"Now," says Kakashi, his voice regaining the firmness of someone who no longer holds a single fear, "you invite me for coffee. Or tea. Or whatever you drink in your apartment at ten o'clock at night."

"I have warm milk with cinnamon. It's an old man's drink."

"I love warm milk with cinnamon."

"You're a liar."

"I know. But I want to stay with you."

Iruka is silent. His eyes scan Kakashi's features, memorizing the disheveled bangs, the line of his jaw, his lips still flushed from the encounter.

"Okay," he concedes finally, with the cleanest smile Kakashi has ever seen on him. "But you add the cinnamon. Last time, I went overboard."

"Deal."

They close the studio together. Iruka blows out the candles in one breath, tucks the cards into their silk case, and takes the bouquet with a delicacy that stabs Kakashi straight in the heart. The studio bell rings one last time as they leave, and the night welcomes them with its mantle of damp asphalt and twinkling streetlights.

They walk towards Iruka's apartment, shoulders brushing with every step. And halfway there, without a word being said, their hands seek each other in the shadows. Iruka's fingers, laden with cold rings, intertwine firmly with Kakashi's, bare and pale.

"Kakashi," says Iruka, keeping his eyes forward.

"Yes?"

"The dandelion... was it a wish?"

Kakashi smiles in the darkness of the street. He tightens the grip of their fingers, feeling the metal and the warmth of his skin.

"It's already come true," he replies.

And they keep walking, together, towards the future the universe had already written and that they, out of pure fear, had been stubbornly delaying.