Chapter Text
Danzo walks into his office at ANBU headquarters at five am sharp and stills. There’s a piece of paper and a sticky note next to the paper that wasn’t there when he left before. No one else is even in the building yet.
He walks closer and inspects it. At first he doesn’t even recognize the handwriting before he realizes it’s because it's the handwriting of two different people.
The paper itself is odd enough. It’s a copy of what would usually be the form all new ROOT members have to fill out with the words “No thank you” written big and red on it. Every word is underlined at least once and the “no” has been underlined three times.
He doesn’t understand. He’s unfortunately lost his jurisdiction for some reason early this morning. He was told by Minato that the blond believed Danzo was in no way able to run a functional department by himself and essentially told he wasn’t trusted. Hence why he’s here to clear things out so the new department head can take over.
That’s when he sees a name he recognizes.
He’s never picked up a piece of paper quicker. It reads,
Dear Danzo,
Thank you for the invitation, but next time you try to bribe someone into joining your cult of ninja that have nothing to live for, make sure you have no rats. I appreciate you being so patient with me, but as I hope you can tell from the other (very clear) message I’ve left, I’m not interested. Thank you.
Sincerely, Kakashi Hatake.
Danzo stares down at the message and almost crumples it before he realizes there’s another message written directly below it. In a different handwriting.
Old dude or whatever,
Stay away from my clan and our eyes pls, we don’t want u!!!
Obito.
The second message is much less eloquently written and he almost wants to pour bleach in his eyes after being forced to see these messages on the same note.
For the love of god Minato just shooting him would’ve been better than this.
-
Kakashi has absolutely zero idea of what he’s doing when he ends up in front of Rin’s door the next morning. Better sooner than later Obito had said sometime before he ended up going home after he had so rudely fallen asleep on his bed.
Kakashi wants to puke.
He’s just glad Obito isn’t here for this part. The part where he paces awkwardly outside of Rin’s house for a solid twenty minutes before he even considers approaching the door. The part where he doubts if he’s really ready for this at least thirteen separate times on the way here. The part where he looks like a cat terrified of the doorbell sound with the amount of times he’s run away from the door after just standing there staring at it.
C’mon Kakashi, you can do this, he tells himself. She’s not even that scary. Unless she’s angry, which she hopefully would not be angry right before you confess your undying love.
He has absolutely nothing to be scared of. Rin is kind and pretty and soft-eyed.
Which is exactly what he’s scared of.
Oh for the love of god just knock!
Kakashi sits down on a curb a little way away from Rin’s door and genuinely questions what the hell he’s doing here. This isn’t something he thought he could ever see himself doing. If you had told Kakashi a few years ago that he would be standing here having a breakdown over knocking on a girl’s door (his literal teammate) he probably would have looked at you like you belonged in an asylum and walked away.
But here he is doing it. And now there’s no getting out of this situation. The box in his pocket is already weighing down his whole person like a man strapped to ankle weights.
Wait.
Yeah.
Kakashi is a man. He can do this. Easy peasy. Lemon squeazy, even.
…
…
Kakashi is not a man.
The white-haired boy shakes his head before steeling himself. This is one thing. He can do it. Just go up and knock on the door. Rin is expecting him and she’s not going to be happy if he takes too long.
That thought is what makes him get off his ass and to the door.
He knocks. Okay. Hard part over. Now he just needs to get inside, say what he has to say (which he meticulously planned out while Obito snored), wait for her reaction, and then cry either way. The crying might be of joy or of sadness. Either way.
The door swings open and Kakashi is met with the brightest smile on Rin’s face that he’s ever seen.
He’s short circuiting.
“Kakashi, hi.” She says. “Come on in. We can go to my room!” She says.
Her room.
Oh my god.
Kakashi follows her to her room and looks around the place. He’d only been here once before that one night. It was much darker then and he hadn’t paid much attention to the way it was decorated. It was about what you would expect from a girl like Rin.
There were pictures of her friends and family everywhere. The bed was made, not the neatest but it was made. She had an almost organized chaos kind of feel to her room that made Kakashi want to smile like an idiot thinking about how much sense that made for her.
Kakashi watched as she moved to her bed and sat down, swinging her feet as they dangled off the side of the bed. “Do you wanna sit?”
“Right. Sure.” He awkwardly moved to sit on the bed.
She pulled one of her legs up and hugged a pillow that was sitting beside her. As Kakashi awkwardly took his seat on her bed she let out a little giggle that was definitely not good for the situation. Kakashi willed himself to calm down and not just burst out.
“So,” he said carefully, “do I just start?”
Rin’s gaze softened and she smiled. “Do whatever feels comfortable. There’s no rules to how this has to go.” She says. “It’s about being honest.”
“I’m in love with you.” He blurts.
Rin’s cheeks turn a light pink and she smiles. “Good.” She says.
Kakashi nods.
“You wanna know what I think?” Rin asks, still smiling wide. Kakashi nods. “I love you and I have for a while now. Honestly it could be ever since we were really little, but I doubt I really understood it then. But then we were always put together and everything with Obito happened and that really cemented things for me.” She says.
“So, you’ve known for a while then?” Kakashi asks.
She nods. “Well, yeah. I’ve always been pretty in tune with my emotions. Especially with my parents and the way I was raised.” She explains. “It’s always been natural for me. It’s okay if it’s not natural for you, Kakashi. Everyone is different.”
“I guess I only really noticed because I thought you were in love with Obito.”
Rin blinks. “Wait—what? You thought I was in love with Obito!?”
“Well, yeah.” Kakashi huffs. “You two were always attached at the hip. You helped him with everything, you let him get away with so much, and it was obvious to me that he was infatuated with you even if it wasn’t the kind of love I thought it was.”
Rin bursts out laughing as soon as Kakashi is done talking. He sits quietly while she has her fun, laughing her ass off and letting out adlibs like “I can’t believe you thought that” and just saying “me and Obito” and then laughing harder.
She sits up so fast it almost gives Kakashi whiplash. She moves closer.
“Kakashi.”
“Yes?”
She looks deep in his eyes. “If I kiss you are you gonna run away?” She asks.
Kakashi shakes his head.
It feels better than any other time they’ve kissed. Maybe it’s the knowing that the other feels the same but Kakashi feels himself melting into her so much easier than before. Rin feels it and laughs into the kiss before reconnecting them and tangling her hands in the ends of his hair.
When Kakashi pulls away to breathe she smiles at him.
“Wow, I’m so proud. You stayed the whole time.” She says, grinning with mischievous eyes.
“I can’t stand you.”
“You love me.”
Kakashi just nods. Rin laughs. She knows it’s enough.
They both do.