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Worse than being annoyed by the same words over and over again was knowing that Obito wasn’t repeating them because he needed the reminder; he just liked the sound of them. Kakashi breathed slowly through his nose and tried his best to hold on to that last thread of patience. Surely there were worse situations he could have been in – near death, for instance – yet at that very moment nothing else seemed like it could possibly be worse than hearing those three words again.
Swish, flick, zip
Kakashi’s eye twitched as he heard the three fucking words again. They hadn’t even been spoken out loud. It they had been then he could have found a way to deal with it such as blocking the sound or vacating the area and thereby removing the source of his irritation. But no, rather than out loud those words had been spoken directly inside his head in Obito’s voice.
After a mission which had taken them past the borders of Suna his teammate had become enamored with the chakra strings they’d seen one of the foreign shinobi use to fight. Once they made it home Obito had begged sensei to show him how to do it and Minato had obliged with the warning that he really only knew the basics of the technique, just what he had picked up from a Suna shinobi before tensions between their villages exploded. Now armed with as much knowledge as his sensei was able to give him, Obito was putting his all in to learning the new technique.
Swish, flick, zip.
Trying to learn a new skill should have been a good thing. And it would have been if not for the other consequence which had followed them home from beyond the borders of the desert. Minato had been lecturing Kakashi on teamwork a lot more lately and he was just annoyed enough to make an effort when push came to shove, if for no other reason than to say that he had. And what had that gotten him? It had gotten him tangled up in to some really weird jutsu which connected his own mind with that of his biggest annoyance.
Obito hefted the shuriken in his hand and narrowed his eyes at the target.
Swish, flick, zip.
Even from all the way across the training field Kakashi could feel the older boy’s chakra gathering, which meant that he was gathering too much for such a delicate ability as he was trying to use. So it really wasn’t all that much of a surprise when the shuriken released and no chakra string manifested to ‘zip’ it back to its owner. Obito scowled and stomped his foot but refused to give up, reaching back in to the pouch hanging off his waist to fetch another one.
When his fingers touched nothing but empty pouch, Kakashi could hear his silent mumblings of surprise before he trotted across the field to retrieve all of his scattered weaponry. For a few moments it seemed as though there would be mental peace. Really, Obito could think about anything he wanted as long as it wasn’t those three little words that he’d been repeating to himself – and therefor to Kakashi as well – all day. It was enough to drive anyone mad, especially a young boy who was well known for having a short temper when it came to the teammate he regularly called useless.
Just as Kakashi began to relax, however, he heard them once again.
Swish, flick, zip.
“I will swish, flick, and zip your useless brains out!” Tossing down the manual he’d been trying to read, Kakashi marched across the field to step in front of Obito and shove his face up close with an intimidating scowl. His teammate looked back at him with eyes wide in confusion.
“Eh? What’s your problem, Bakashi?”
“If you think ‘swish, flick, zip’ one more time I will flick that shuriken right in to your eye socket and zip your jacket over your stupid head!”
For a moment he thought Obito would start yelling back in his face the way he always had and surprise filled him when instead the boy gave him a sheepish look, both shoulders slumping and his eyes filling up with a familiar look of guilt. He looked just the same as whenever Minato-sensei had to scold him for bothering someone.
“Oops,” Obito murmured. “Was I doing it again? I forgot you could hear me.” He toed to grass under his feet and offered a repentant grin. Kakashi stared at him, rapidly deflating. Between the two of them neither was more likely to apologize when they managed to annoy each other – which was often enough to drive Minato-sensei up the walk on a regular basis. He really hadn’t expected the older boy to give in so easily and he felt a little like a pot which had been pulled off the burner just before it’d been about to boil over.
“Uh…yeah. Good. Stop or…whatever.”
“It’s just so catchy!”
“I will end you.” Kakashi narrowed his eyes, temper flaring again in an instant, but Obito only chuckled as he skipped away to gather the scattered shuriken.
Feeling slightly off-kilter after their encounter hadn’t gone nearly the way he expected it to, Kakashi trundled back over to retrieve his book. He hadn’t spent so much time around another human being since his father died and it was as comforting as it was jarring to have so much company. There wasn’t much point to separating when they could hear each other’s thoughts even if they stood on opposite sides of the village – and it was easier for Kakashi to yell at Obito for thinking stupid things if he stayed close anyway.
Once he had settled himself down and spread his book across both knees as it had been before, however, he found himself unable to concentrate for an entirely different reason. Although Obito had actually listened for once in his life and stopped repeating that stupid phrase over and over, the effort he was going to in order to think of anything else would have been nearly audible even if their minds hadn’t been connected by some foreign jutsu. It was evident in the way his thoughts were now skipping around willy-nilly, focusing on whatever happened to pop up first. And it was annoying as hell.
Before he could do more than scowl at the pages before him, Obito was cringing over by the targets.
“Sorry!” he called. “Look, I’m trying!”
“Pick something and stick with it,” Kakashi hollered back, resisting the urge to rub at his temples. Kushina-nee kept telling him it made him look like an old man whenever he did that.
Nervous laughter floated over towards him and Kakashi rolled his eyes, hunkering down over his book, determined to read and ignore his stupid teammate.
Peace reigned for perhaps a good twenty minutes, during which Kakashi was able to lose himself in the jutsu manual he was trying to learn from. But he should have known that it was too good to be true. Just as he was getting to the most interesting part, the part he’d specifically chosen this book to learn about, he distantly felt Obito gathering his chakra again as the older boy’s voice absent-mindedly picked up a familiar chant inside both of their minds.
Swish, flick, zip.
“Really!?” This time he didn’t even bother to get up, choosing instead to simply hurl his manual across the field to smack Obito square in the nose.
“Ow! Sorry! I didn’t mean to!”
“You were supposed to think of something else!”
“I’m trying!”
“Well try harder, dead last!”
Huffing, Kakashi flopped back in to the grass so he could glare over top of his head and enjoy the sight of Obito rubbing the back of his neck guiltily. Satisfaction filled him until Obito raised his head to lock their gazes together and pull out the one weapon which he’d never dared try to use on Kakashi before: the dreaded puppy eyes.
Obito had his sad puppy eyes down well enough to sway even Kushina on a fairly frequent basis. For such a caring woman she had a heart of steel and yet somehow she melted in the face of Obito’s pathetic begging. He had not, however, tried to use such an impressive expression on Kakashi before, probably because he hadn’t thought it would have the slightest effect on the stoic boy. Even Kakashi would never have thought it would. He realized how wrong he had been the moment their eyes met.
Cute…
“What!?”
“W-what?”
Obito dropped the pleading expression in favor of staring at him in shock. “Did you just call me cute?” he demanded. Kakashi spluttered.
“No! Of course not! Why would I call you cute?”
“You did! I heard you!”
“Don’t be stupid!”
Trying very hard to ignore the hot blush spreading out underneath his mask, Kakashi rolled over and sprang up on to his feet, not looking back even for a moment as he took off across the field. Obito’s voice called after him but he was already too far away to hear anything passed the teasing tone of his words.
He made it three blocks away before a voice startled him and made him trip, almost sending him tumbling in to the corner of the closest building.
You can’t run from me, Bakashi.
Get out of my head!
Tried. Can’t. I think I like it in here, anyway. You think I’m CUTE.
No I don’t!
Picking up speed as though he could outrun his own internal monologue, Kakashi leapt up to the rooftops and threw himself across the village. Maybe if he ran fast enough he could get far, far away and really test the limits of their connection. Inside his head he could hear Obito laughing at him and it depended both his scowl and his blush, made his feet run faster, made his heart beat quicker. Whatever these weird sensations running through his body were they were an absolute nuisance.
Bakashi’s got his very first crush, Obito cooed at him.
I don’t!
Do.
Don’t!
I’m honored, really.
Shut up!
Kakashi grabbed the sides of his head and tried to shake the older boy’s voice away to no avail. His feet carried him from rooftop to rooftop in a straight line away from the training fields, hoping against hope that he could find a distance too large for this stupid jutsu to work across.
As he ran Obito continued to tease him and Kakashi turned a few harsh thoughts towards his sensei. The next time Minato-sensei asked him to work on his teamwork some more he was going to spit at the man’s feet. Nothing was worth this kind of embarrassment.