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Kakashi summons Mirai to the entrance of the hot springs with a flare of his chakra. It only takes a second for her to appear in a blur of black and chūnin blues, but it takes her a moment longer to notice the stack of towels on Gai’s lap and Kakashi’s cheery wave. She’s alert, which is commendable, and she twirls one of Asuma’s chakra blades over her knuckles with a fierce expression, but there’s nothing here to fight except maybe the curtain leading into the spring. The receptionist squeaks as Mirai narrows her eyes, the red spirals sharingan-like at a glance. Kakashi waits as she assess the scene: Gai fiddling with the pins in his hair bun and Kakashi slouched against the counter, the hotel-room keys and not, in fact, a kunai spinning around his finger. They’re both dressed down in robes, forehead-protectors absent and Kakashi smiling behind his mask, and eventually Mirai sighs.
She pockets the chakra blade. “There’s no mission, is there?” she realises, although it’s taken her two days to do so. This seems to pain her to say, which is understandable. On paper, she’s their bodyguard for the duration of the trip, a week-long venture into the Land of Hot Water. In reality, neither Kakashi or Gai need anyone to protect them, and this is just as much a vacation for her as it is for them. Nobody told her that though.
“Nope,” Kakashi replies, popping the ‘p’. He takes one of the towels from Gai’s lap and deposits it into her arms. “Have fun.”
Mirai glances towards the entrance-way of the women’s hot spring and then back towards towards them. Gai offers a thumbs up that even her withering expression cannot deter.
“I’m still on duty.”
“That’s cute,” Kakashi says, shepherding her towards the curtain. “Go. Relax. Don’t drown.”
If Mirai wasn't on duty, she would argue. She inherited a quick wit from her mother that Kakashi has revelled in over the years, but it works at odds with her father's unwavering loyalty. If she was a lesser person - if she wasn't a Sarutobi - she wouldn't feel the need to be on duty. But as it is, she shakes her head without protest and disappears into the springs. Kakashi pretends he can't hear her grumbling to herself: whatever you want, Lord Sixth, she says, and he smiles.
“She reminds me of a boy I once knew,” Gai notes as they duck under the other curtain.
Kakashi laughs, startled by the comparison. The hot springs are empty this time of evening, and they will remain so as he taps a seal into the entranceway. Nothing malicious of course - just a simple deterrent. Forty years he’s been hiding his face; he isn’t about to reveal it now. “I wouldn't have given in that easily,” he says, following the squeak of Gai’s wheelchair into the changing room.
Gai calls him out on his bullshit with a simple hmm. “You looked up to Minato. Mirai looks up to you. It's not so different.”
“Isn't it?” Kakashi muses, glad that Mirai isn’t plagued by the same depression, for one. She grew up a happy, well-loved, and trauma-free child. Now, she’s a charming seventeen year old with her sights on achieving jōnin rank and joining the Hokage Guard, and she’s not had to fight in a single war. There are plenty of differences between them - and Kakashi's thankful for all of them.
But he understands where Gai is coming from. Minato wasn't in his life for as long as Sakumo (though brief a time that may be) but Kakashi can't deny that Minato was, in many ways, a parental figure. Pre-teen Kakashi certainly would've denied it, but that makes it no less true. Regarding Mirai, Kakashi most definitely hasn't and never will replace her father, but she's never been shy about calling him Uncle 'Kashi. It's not the same but - it's not so different.
“I guess she is our niece,” Kakashi concedes, dodging away before Gai can smack him with a victorious kiss.
Gai parks his chair by the lockers. Still debating the matter (“isn’t it wondrous that our family has grown so large?”), they strip and wash without fanfare, and then head outside to the hot spring. The building extends into decking and then stone, disappearing under the water. Although outside, the spring is secluded, hidden beneath the mountainside and the vast, volcanic wood. Vibrant, almost too-vibrant, trees and other plant-life surround the pool, great leaves reaching up and shrubbery huddled together in a blur reminiscent of Gai's jumpsuits. Sunlight breaks through the canopy and sparkles on the water and in the steam.
It's a peaceful sight until Gai practically dive-bombs into the water. Even approaching senility, he's a pyromaniac. Kakashi lowers himself gingerly, adjusting to the heat. Clouds of steam blur his vision, flushing him red. He’ll be as pink as a newborn pup when he leaves. Gai resurfaces and spews a lungful of water out like a fountain, thick strands of hair slipping free from its tie. Even after all these years, the thermal burns from his Eighth Gate discolour Gai’s chest; they discolour Kakashi too, handprints of red like blood staining his skin.
“Kakashi, you’re supposed to bathe naked.”
Kakashi sinks down beside his husband, his wry smile bare. “Maa, I am you know,” he says, habit imploring him to lift a hand to his mouth. His fingers brush the slightest of stubble and that damn beauty mark. “I even took off my mask.”
These words usually encourage a noise of interest, but today Gai hrrmphs at the evasion. “You can't slip anything by me, Rival.” Rival, even after all these years. “I saw something strapped to your leg.”
“Oh this?” Kakashi slides the kunai free and twirls it around his finger. Droplets of water scatter across the surface of the pool, disappearing into the steam. Gai’s sigh is immediate and knowing, but Kakashi still can’t resist adding, “I have no idea what this is.”
Gai tries to smother a smile where anybody else would roll their eyes. He wraps his arm around Kakashi’s waist and pulls him closer; wavelets bob across the spring like a tiny sea crashing in the space between them. “We are most safe here, my love. Even if Mirai wasn’t doing a wonderful job to protect us, we are not so old that we are out of practice.”
“You’ll never be out of practice.”
“And neither will you.”
Kakashi reheathes the blade, saying nothing. Although he may wish for it, it’s not in his nature to sit idle – and it’s certainly not in Gai’s. Even if he did retire, he would have to be armed and in-shape. Ready. Alert. He's given too much to the village to simply abandon it now; his parents, his team, himself (for a while). That ridiculous Hokage's hat isn't something he'll miss, but there were perks, he supposes, he would answer if pressed, of leading the shinobi capital of Fire through a long era of peace.
(If it's possible to be at peace).
“It was wishful thinking, wasn’t it?” Retirement, he doesn’t have to say.
Gai is quiet for a moment. He's physically incapable of sitting still, though, and he sweeps his hand back and forth through the water, pushing it up against their chests like a tide. “Sometimes, love, what you and I wish for are very different things.”
Humming, Kakashi rests his head on Gai's shoulder and blinks slowly enough that it might be a doze. He can quite confidently say that he's rested on every part of Gai's body over the years. His hair would probably be sticking up Gai’s nose right now if they weren’t in a hot spring. Kakashi’s glad they are, though. This vacation has been a long time coming. He can’t remember the last time he left the village without the Hokage’s Guard circling around him. Now he just has Gai and Mirai, but they’re family so it doesn’t count.
“Well, I do like to make things difficult,” Kakashi says. The Konoha council - both old and new - would certainly agree. There was a lot to clean up after the war - and a lot to clean up from before it, too. Naruto's going to have it easy.
Gai presses a smile into Kakashi's crown. “I like that about you.”
“You like everything about me.”
“Of course. If you are only realising this now, then I will endeavour to remind you every day.”
Kakashi rolls his eyes. This is an age old argument that never seems to end. The day it does will be a sad day indeed.
“I suppose I wouldn't mind. If you must. Mirai might kill you though,” he says, mumbling sleepily into Gai's shoulder. He could doze here for a few minutes; he think he might. There's only a risk of drowning if the hot water sends Gai to sleep too. Kakashi can imagine the headlines now: Freak accident as Lord Sixth drowns in bath.
Gai laughs. “If she wishes to challenge me, then I welcome it! I am honoured to fan the flames of youth in the next budding generation!”
Kakashi loves this stupid man too much. “Not what I meant, but all right,” he drawls, unable to resist a smile. Mirai can probably hear them from the women's hot spring; she's probably thinking of ways of drowning them herself. He laughs to himself, looking forward to the rest of this vacation. “Did you see the table-tennis in the hotel lobby? Let's have a match.”
“Only one, Rival?” Gai all but cries. “Your stamina is not what it used to -”
Forget Mirai, Kakashi will drown him. That will make the papers talk. Ex-Hokage murders husband in hot spring. Turns rogue in Land of Hot Water. Niece traumatised. And he would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for Gai’s inability to die and stay dead.
Mirai will tell him later that everybody in the hotel heard manic splashing and laughter, but for now, Kakashi doesn’t care.