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Kakashi finds himself hesitating at the doorstep, wanting to turn back and spare them. Despite all the anecdotes about him being a harsh teacher, no one could ever accuse him of malice or trampling on the feelings of others, at least when it came to his special students. He’s the type to spend too many meandering hours in the past, tripping over the brambles of solemn memories, and not much time observing the outlay of the distant future, missions aside.
According to those wiser than him, the present is the best place in which to live, so he tries. Sometimes desperately.
There – the horizon splits like skin, unfolding into existence in only a moment. Like a cut sustained, colors rush in and bleed into the sky like a bruise. He’s left this too late and a passing thought crosses his mind that perhaps he should have brought some type of peace offering for this difficult conversation. Always tripping in the memories of his early years, wandering down dark tunnels of nightmares, so many things that turn away from the light his unconscious attempts to shine on them.
When has her house become home base? This isn’t the intention and yet they find themselves rotating here, twinkling planets on oblong paths maintaining equal distances in trepidation. Blinking in the breaking dawn, a weary sigh escapes, and he sees the reflective signs of life: A ceramic frog most certainly concealing the thousandth iteration of the extra key they shouldn’t even have, eyes painted off-kilter; pots of different flora here and there in an attempt at domesticity, including one solitary tomato vine (not yet bloomed or picked clean? He would have to ask); chimes, for some inscrutable reason, playing at normalcy. What was this, what were they? What did clans keep outside their front doors, what were their superstitions and traditions to proclaim the delicate combination of collective loyalty and subtle display of superiority to their common man? Kakashi could only remember vague notions of those things in the context of his famous surname.
Sure enough, he muses on these things, delaying his unwanted task further but luckily, he’s brought back to earth by the sound of something landing, solidly and bodily in one of the front shrubs.
“Ooof!”
Frustrated by being caught unawares, he curses under his breath and makes a ghost of a motion to pull out a kunai knife, but relaxes because innate instincts already sense Naruto’s spastic, overwhelming chakra. Caught up by his keen senses, he’s not startled to see young Ino Yamanaka and Sai sliding down the gutter pipes. Now they meet his gaze and stiffen, holding it awkwardly as if they have no other choice, children caught in a game they know is wrong, an activity for which they would surely be disciplined.
Sai recovers easily, straightening up after his slide and slapping his hands on his thighs to brush himself off. Naruto is struggling in the shrub, a whirl of blonde hair and fists as he tries to extricate himself from the branches. Kakashi leans his weight on one hip and resists the urge to rub his eyes; tries to project some semblance of authority, but Sai is typically expressionless and even Ino lifts her chin a little defiantly as her feet hit the ground.
“Hi, Kakashi-sensei?” She tries out the honorific, clumsy on her tongue.
“You don’t have to do that,” he responds, chuckling. “You’re not kids anymore, you know.”
Tossing her long blonde ponytail over her shoulder, she hmphs with a grin. He can see where Sakura may have absorbed just a touch of sass, the mainstay mentioned far and wide of fiery, homegrown, Konoha kunoichi. “Worth a try.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Kakashi continues, though of course he is. “Do I even want to—”
“Kaka-sensei!” Naruto somersaults out of the bush, small tears in his clothes and a glassy look in his eyes.
And now he’s tilting his head at them standing before him, looking young and nervous, noticing the odd, effulgent brightness in all of their eyes and color in their faces. Sai remains perfectly unruffled, while Ino is putting on her best stage performance of normalcy possible and admittedly making it work. Naruto runs both of his hands furiously through his hair, making it stand on end, an odd sweat beading on his temples and collar definitely yanked roughly around. There’s still a while to go before the sun rises, and a cold chill wafts through. It seems to go right through them: They’re exhausted, fragile and thin like tissue.
“Can I ask you, and this is just for your safety . . . are you all experimenting with some type of drug?”
Ino chuckles, sounding incredulous but also strangely relieved. “Kakashi, please.”
“It was a serious question,” he says. Folding his arms, trying to again to reassert dominance, assume the form of an older and wiser confidante. “I don’t care if you are, but you all look—”
He hears it out of her stubborn, sarcastic mouth before she says it, I already have a dad, thanks, except she swallows it, remembering. Another instance, sweet and familiar, of words bursting forth from the heart before the pain catches up. Surprisingly, it’s Naruto who jumps in to spare her feelings, letting the flash of grief appear on her face and then a chance to tuck it away so no one’s the wiser.
“We were just drinking, Kaka-sensei, maybe too much, heh.” He’s twitchy, uncomfortable, now rubbing the side of his neck and shaking his head like a soaked dog, clearing images from his mind and trying to keep himself in the sharp present and not muddle away, sinking into the edges of his conscious. If one of those edges catches, he’ll never be able to pull himself out; they’re too muddy and dark to test the buoyancy. “Why are you here so late?”
“Early,” he corrects, casting a glance at the sky splitting open, layers in the color peeling back, an opening bud. “Well, technically, still late. I was really supposed to come by last night but you know how that goes.” Illustrating his long-held habit of tardiness with a blithe wave of the arm, he sees the three exchange significant, wide-eyed looks with one another. “Okay, you three, what is really going on?”
“Nothing now,” Ino giggles. Hiccups. Kakashi, tired of the subterfuge, sighs heavily. Young people’s games, their poor alcohol habit to fill in holes in their soul from war, their myopic idea that no one else understands and no one else has been through it. Going through the motions only to take several steps backward into the nightmare when left alone. Seeking comfort in complicated, alternative ways. A pain, indefinable, a cloud or a whisper, settles somewhere in Kakashi’s stomach at the thought of his sunniest student losing his grip on that. Indeed, it was the only sparkle that kept them fighting, more than once.
Smiling kindly, he says, “I would like to talk to all of you – you, Sasuke, and Sakura. A team meeting of sorts.” He hopes the crinkling under the mask conveys itself as harmless, a placid pond.
“He’s already here, so,” Sai says, voice characteristically flat, betraying nothing. What does is Ino pulling in her lips into a grimace and Naruto’s eyes lighting up in habit, but the suggestive snicker ringing just a little hollow.
“Does this have anything to do with you all sneaking out of the window?” Tone purposefully soft, seeing who takes the bait.
Ino breaks first: “They were fighting—”
“Fucking.”
“Sai!”
“I don’t know why you’re tiptoeing around it, Ino.”
“You’re just so blunt—”
“Also,” Sai adds, directing Kakashi’s attention, “We had an ‘emotional moment’ as well.”
Invisible pieces start clicking into place, and the only indication Kakashi has any feelings about it is his eyebrows raising a fraction higher than usual. I truly don’t know if I’m equipped for all this. Very messy.
“’We?’” he prompts, against his better judgment.
Sai opens his arms to figuratively encompass Ino and Naruto, standing on either side of him, in his circle of reference.
Kakashi’s eyes close for one lengthy, pronounced moment before reopening. He’s decidedly not a metaphysically motivated or praying man of any sort, but the idea of asking some figure or spirit for patience is still a throwaway option he could use. Just in case.
“Great, then we’re all where we need to be. We’ll get you inside, Naruto; you look a bit cold and could probably use breakfast.” It feels like a good moment to ruffle his hair, even though it’s already a mess, and Naruto breathes in and hums like he’s capturing the comfort in a bottle. Kakashi swears his past pupil nuzzles his palm back. Putting an arm around him, preparing to steer him inside, he raises a hand to the other two. “Be careful, it’s still fairly dark out here.”
“’Night,” Ino waves, stifling a yawn. Her and Sai head down the street, stumbling slightly and leaning on one another. Moving a bit slower than they should be.
Giving Naruto an imperceptible squeeze, he lets him go and nods to the house. While he’s shuffling off, the older man effortlessly, memory and rote, forms the familiar hand signs to summon his squat brown mutt with a blue headband.
“Do you know what time it is?” Pakkun grumbles.
“Make sure they get home. Watch for other people following them, too, and report to me later.”
When Kakashi crosses the threshold, Naruto’s perked up; he can hear him upstairs stomping around like he has lead in his shoes, joyfully exchanging words with Sasuke, whose response is predictably sharp and terse. It’s a bit early for everyone, but leave it to the sprightly young Naruto to wake up the entire household. He bounds back down and then heads to the kitchen, where he’ll leave a mess for someone else to clean up. He can hear the clinks of dishes and a fridge being opened twice, thrice, some groans of frustration because likely there’s nothing in Sakura’s fridge that he’ll personally consider edible.
He waits in the front sitting room, watching the horizontal bands of color reach across the sky, shades of blues, purples, oranges, and pinks fractioning, deepening in hue as time passes, soothing sounds of existence as the backdrop. He’s lost in thought, mildly dazed by the early hour and his many difficult missions of the week, and seems mystified by Sasuke’s sudden presence; the latter drops into the cushion on one side of the couch with a huff, pale from the unexpected rousing, and grants his gaze to the window along with him in silence.
Sharply, it comes into focus, and if he hadn’t known him so long it might be difficult to assess. Rarely is Uchiha Sasuke able to be viewed in this way, and arguably he isn’t quite sure what it is, what’s different. Something in the way his spine doesn’t seem quite as straight, lets himself sink slightly deeper into the couch than he would usually consider befitting. No metal and weapons weighing him down, and perhaps no dark thoughts, in the quiet moment between emerging from dreams and taking on the burden of another day. Quietly sighs. Brow furrowed mildly, an almost tepid expression, like musing on a choice in color or tea.
And then—he’s hit with it all at once, pressing, wholly consuming and humming and ardent, a scent in the air and an odd chakra lightness emanating from the man across from him that’s never felt quite like this. Observing Sasuke as he absorbs the sunrise, he’s curious what notes are reverberating in the head and heart of a man loved so fiercely, and what that shine might do to a soul of soot.
“Sakura-chan will have to make you tea, I don’t know what half the stuff is in those cupboards,” Naruto squawks, much more in the vein of his hyperactive self, throwing himself on the middle cushion next to his teammate.
Kakashi notes his fleeting consideration of a morning routine for another person. What has he fallen into with these three? Touching in a way he isn’t ready for, could this be maturity?
Sasuke doesn’t answer, just blinks slowly in the soft light of the morning, looking for all the world a still, tranquil lion.
“Where is Sakura-chan? You said you’d get her up,” Naruto whines, nudging Sasuke; there’s no head turn or acknowledgment.
“She heard, idiot. She’s coming.”
Kakashi closes his eyes briefly again as Naruto erupts into suggestive sniggering, wrapping his arm around himself in a hug. Snorts a little. “I bet!”
Surprisingly, Sasuke only briefly raises his eyebrows, letting it pass over him. Kakashi’s a bit concerned, wondering if he’s been concussed, or poisoned? Drugs? Somehow all these possibilities seem more likely than his kids being calm and mature. Well, relatively.
Sakura’s slipper-clad footfalls hit the bottom of the stairs, and she looks at all three of the men in her living room. Groans. She shakes back her long sleeve and rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand, then brings her forearm across her mouth to cover a yawn. In plain leggings and a shirt suspiciously too large and baggy for her frame, slippers dragging as she crosses the wood floor, she delivers a swift, sharp slap to Naruto’s skull before taking a seat on the other side of the couch. “I heard that.”
There she is—gentle, silken, sweet, sharp at the end. The cacophony of emotions in the room overwhelm the senses, and he remembers why delving into the feelings of others, even with honed instinct, is akin to masochism and madness.
Her eyes are soft as she focuses on Kakashi, some shade that reminds him of tranquil seas, the shades in her iris conveying a pulsing depth, something of the surf. “Good morning, Kaka-sensei.”
“Ah, Sakura, I know it’s early.”
“Wow, so that’s the greeting he gets?”
“You’re making shitty jokes too early,” she bites back, folding her arms and pushing Naruto with her shoulder like a petulant kid. Still, she smiles like the sunrise, flashing all of her teeth for a brief moment and letting out a contented sound. “I hope you didn’t ransack my kitchen again,” she adds, pushing her hair behind her ear.
“You don’t have real food in there,” Naruto says. His tone, deadpan. “I’m starving, too.”
“What did I tell you, Naruto? You don’t live here, so no, I don’t buy special groceries—”
“So, that’s a great segue into what I’m here to talk about—”
“You have this guy’s favorite teas here, though.”
“Be fair, Naruto! I have your quilt here too. You know, the one that was made for you as a special gift—”
“I don’t know how you know that’s my favorite, but guys like me, who save the world you know, don’t have a favorite blanket—”
Naruto abruptly reaches for Sakura’s hair; her fingers are on his wrist so fast he cries out and winces. Kakashi reflects that perhaps it would be better to write them letters instead, send a courier, or just pledge allegiance to another village instead of agonizing through this, and as Sasuke continues to look out the window, wonders again if the Uchiha might be poisoned, or force-fed a love potion, or anything that explains his uncharacteristic under-reaction to everything around him.
“What the shit do you think you’re doing?” Sakura growls.
“Sorryyyy,” Naruto whines, yanking his hand from her grasp. “I’ve never seen you wear earrings before! They’re nice, they’re . . . pretty!” His eyes snap fully open, as if struck dumb. “You bastard!”
Only now does Sasuke let out a long-suffering sigh, as if he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay out of the conversation. Wishing well his momentary peace, he runs his hand through his dark hair and faces forward, folding his arms. Whipping around to face him, Naruto fails to modulate his voice as he erupts in a stream of babble:
“You got her a gift? When did you do this?! I didn’t even know you were human and knew how to give people gifts. Why didn’t you ask me for help? AreyouandSakura-chandating?”
“You’re so loud, idiot,” Sasuke says, but it’s a cushioned, soft rebuke.
“But when did this happen?! Who knows? Are you official? If you told other people before me, I’m going to beat your ass. We’re best friends!”
The only response is another deep, aloof sigh. Even Kakashi, who truly feels pressure with the important messages he has for them, is watching Sasuke with interest despite himself. So many surprises today, all of them fascinating.
“Why does everything have to be a family affair?” Sakura says, complete with a roll of the eyes. “Don’t bother Sasuke-kun; we didn’t really talk about that specifically—”
“Well yeah you were too busy to talk, clearly, but if he gave you a present and he’s staying in your house and he beat up Kiba over you, I think it’s pr-e-e-t-t-y clear,” Naruto draws out his words in an irritating sing-song warble, and Sasuke’s brow folds into his forehead deeper. Approaching the danger zone. Kakashi wonders if he’ll have a chance to discuss any of the important topics on his agenda. He tries again.
“So, about that whole fight—”
“I’m a fucking lady, Naruto,” Sakura snaps. “I don’t want to be asked to be someone’s girlfriend in my living room. Come to think of it, this isn’t how I envisioned this going at all, talking about my sex life with you and my old sensei!”
Sasuke makes some strained, quiet noise of disapproval; whether it’s at her language or the topic, Kakashi’s not sure.
“Let’s,” Kakashi says loudly, “move on. I really do have some things to talk about with you all.”
“Well, if I’m going to be here—”
And this is the moment in which Sasuke decides to be involved, voice low as he cuts off Naruto curtly. “You don’t live here.”
“So here’s the thing, ah, well, he might need to.” Kakashi lobs the statement and waits.
Naruto and Sasuke frown, whereas Sakura looks up at the ceiling, like she may be asking to be struck by lightening, killed on the spot, anything so she can melt to the floor and exit the conversation. Jaw set stern, she continues to stare at the ceiling, and her tone is icy, every word crystalizing. “What do you mean?”
“Ah, there’s a housing shortage,” he replies in a rush, hoping he can get through everything quickly and before his still immature former team erupts. “You know, a lot of the village was destroyed during the war, and while progress has been made, it will continue to take time. Meanwhile, there are still many civilians displaced. So, that’s one thing.”
“One thing?” Sasuke asks, startling them with his contribution. While seeming uncomfortable about the elephant in the room, the effects of the war, the color’s back in his face and his temper’s starting to fill out the room, the emotions of all three starting to twist and dance. A tension.
“Yes, there’s some other things. Your fight,” he says pointedly. Elbows on his knees as his gloved hands come together and extend to him, pointing. Index fingers parallel. “I have to level with you here, we did what we could, but you technically violated the rules you agreed to upon getting released from prison. You’ll have to have a meeting, or hearing, I’m still finding out what that will look like for you. It might need witnesses.”
“Kiba provoked him!” Naruto exclaims, shaking his head. “And it was just a friend-fight, Kiba probably isn’t even mad. Him and I fight all the time!”
“That’s irrelevant,” Kakashi says sharply. “It’s about violating probation.”
“I’ll do what I need to do,” Sasuke mutters. Eyes taking on a steely glint, the texture of flint. Pretends to sound even slightly gracious.
“This is important, Sasuke. I’ve been trying to get you back to training and being able to go on missions. This could set that back,” he warns. “I know it’s hard to be cooped up, feeling aimless. I know it doesn’t help.”
His reward for his vulnerable attempt at a connection is a vague shrug and smirk, lofty and rude and something closer to his usual self.
“At least he has things to occupy him now,” Naruto jibes, pleased with his own suggestive joke.
“I’m moving,” Sakura says abruptly, dreamily. She’s sunken into the couch, chin on her chest, staring into space. “Anywhere. A lonely underserved village. A castle. The bottom of a well. Change my name. I’ll kill someone otherwise.”
“That’s dramatic,” Sasuke says drily, without changing tone or expression.
“Did you just make a joke? Sakura, what did you do to him?”
Kakashi leans in closer, voice low. “Are all of you quite sure you’re haven’t taken anything funny?”
“Kaka-sensei thinks we’re all on drugs,” Naruto stage whispers to Sakura, saying it behind his hand for full effect.
Sakura scoffs loudly. “You come and drop all this on us and we’re the crazy ones?”
“Is there anything else?” Sasuke asks, an impatient bite. Kakashi rubs his face with both hands and sighs, completely confused at what bizarre dimension he’s fallen into.
“Yeah, I’m starving,” Naruto complains.
Ignoring pretense, Kakashi asks, “This is important. Have you felt or seen anyone following you?”
It’s this that shuts them up, a heavy atmosphere settling in the room. The wood floor feeling cold beneath their feet, the light a few degrees softer and brighter but no less bleak, each of them avoiding one another’s eyes and their sensei’s, not, again, unlike children caught in a compromising situation. Like they were complicit in this discomfort and fear, unable and unwilling to share and burden him.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” His voice is imploring, hurt, and the sting magnifies in the space.
“You were so busy with all this important stuff,” Naruto starts, lowering his head to hide his ocean-blue eyes, a little misty. “We didn’t want to bother you.”
He looks from the blond to Sasuke, who again looks out the window in lieu of sharing feelings or any sliver of vulnerability. The way his jaw tightens, though, along with his fingers, perched on the arm of the couch, gives him his answer. Finally, he turns his gaze on Sakura.
“I thought it was nothing,” she says distantly, still sunken low into the couch, body limp and languid. There’s something unsettling about the flat quality in her voice, and he knows what it means; that she’s somewhere else far away, lost in the swirl of something vivid and painful. He’s remembering the moments she’s done this, wondering if he’s been overlooking crucial signs in those he loves. “I’ve been so tired, I thought it was exhaustion.”
Before he thinks about it, his hand lands on her knee, and there’s that crinkling smile, the one to spare her feelings. “We’re not sure yet, but we have reason to believe that it’s happening. That’s why we’re careful, why we have the notes and signals. I don’t need to tell you there’s some contention and struggle in the vacuum left from the war, on all levels. It’s why I may have been distant, too.”
Sakura softly smiles, while Sasuke watches Kakashi remove his hand, watches him watch her, watches her watch him. An expression passes Sasuke’s face, the swoop of the wing of a bird, swift and then gone.
“I would offer guard,” he continues, “but you’ll likely be more powerful than any guard you end up having. So I guess the ask is, please watch out for each other. Watch out for your comrades. And tell me if you notice anything out of the ordinary. I mean it.”
They nod in unison, momentarily brought down to earth, serious. Connected in the way he’ll never admit he misses, in the way they’re desperate for, chasing it endlessly.
“Sakura, expect Tsunade to approach you with a proposition about your work. You will probably have more to do in the field and at the hospital. I know all of you have been a bit lean on missions lately, and there are reasons for that. But,” he says cheerfully, “soon you’ll all be back out there. Speaking of, she’s going to summon us today, which is why I came to tell you all this.”
“How do you know?” Naruto asks.
“Trust me, Naruto.” He waves his hand in that carefree manner, deflecting. “All of our signals and passwords are still in effect, so remember those. If you need to get information to someone, you can always bring it to Tsunade or I and we’ll figure it out. Even your letters are likely being monitored. Especially you,” he nods to Sasuke.
“Good thing he’s writing all those letters,” Sakura jokes, making Naruto laugh. Sasuke doesn’t, though he doesn’t frown, either, and the corner of his mouth kicks up for a fraction of a second; by the time Kakashi focuses on him, it’s gone.
“Wait,” Naruto starts, spine straightening up as if doused in cold water. “Does that mean we’ll all be a team again?”
Naruto’s eyes are sparkling; Sakura’s, expectant but slightly guarded. Sasuke’s apprehension crosses his face in an instant, like so many of his emotions, and the ripples flatten again, placid. This is why shinobi mask their chakra and feelings to others, and why those that sense them well insulate themselves from it; the emotions are blended, interwoven, swirling, confused, difficult to pick out any one thread but undoubtedly impossible to unravel.
“This is something Tsunade will likely ask you,” he lobs evasively. “She’ll probably ask you separately as well, so I would think about your answers.”
Last sentence lost uselessly in the churn; he knows that they know it’s an endless orbit in the chilly darkness, the string leading into the pitch-black unknown, and that the only warmth to soothe what’s buried deep down, cracked open to the air, glass whistling in the universe’s wind, are their hands on one another’s and arms linked against the onslaught of the relentless existence, of what it means to be the protector of a society’s legacy and a polished tool of the system.
Knowing he has no earthly way to keep them apart, watching something legendary form and collapse and reform and intertwine before him, a biological process observed daily in nature yielding no progress, but viewed in long stretches of time, in the skips and leaps and yesterdays he can only reflect on outside its moment. The generation that will one day, hopefully, wander by his headstone, visit him when he’s passed.
He hopes he’ll see more of what they become.
“My stomach is so empty, I’m dying,” Naruto whines, jumping to his feet. “We can keep talking over breakfast, right? He can stay, right?” he pivots to Sakura, still sunk low in the couch.
“Have I ever said no to Kaka-sensei?” she asks, but her teammate’s already in the kitchen, banging and crashing around in her cabinets for sustenance. She sighs. On her feet, brushes past Kakashi, touching both his sleeve and Sasuke’s in the time between blinks.
“I’ll be right back.”
It’s odd to watch Sasuke watch her, but then, it isn’t. It’s been there in moments he files away deep in his mind; them stumbling out of the forest, clinging to one another. Her fingers always touching him like she’s afraid of him breaking, holding him together a fragile vase. Did she know sooner than him, even with his practiced eyes and keen instincts? Was there something a young girl, bright-eyed and overwhelmed and desperate to keep her friends out a darkness so looming and dangerous, instinctively felt? Was it something he turned his eyes to, fearing losing those he loved, failing them again? He regrets his mistakes endlessly.
Sasuke’s eyes have a glint, clear and sharp, and they track her from the moment she rises from the couch and follow her into the kitchen.
But once she’s out of sight, Sasuke turns them on his sensei. The question is abrupt. “What was that?”
Kakashi knows better than to be playful or coy, but he’ll die before he breathes a word of the subtle something that Sasuke’s picked up on. Promises, promises. “Sasuke,” he begins. “We need you out there. To be frank, I think you need to be out there.”
Sasuke’s face is impassive, but his eyes are uncomfortably focused; in the shifting light from the sunrise, there’s always this threatening tinge of red. Irritation at being redirected.
“I know you lied. I know you did it to protect her, and I’m not angry. And keeping an eye on someone like you, protecting you, is a difficult feat, considering. I’ve been doing a lot to try to keep you in the village’s good graces. But the truth is, that’s fine. I feel obligated to. My concern,” and here his voice has a hard edge, a tone laced with threat, “Is for Sakura.”
Arms folded, an unruffled expression, bored. Even knowing it’s all an act, hiding his temper and true feelings out of habit, forever altered by his circumstances, it’s so defiant and frustrating.
“She did a lot for you, and she still is,” Kakashi says harshly. “But she’s also not like you two.”
Blinks slowly, a hint of amusement. Turns his handsome head to look out the window again, a streak of orange or is it red? falling across his face. Focusing on Kakashi again, Sasuke speaks in that odd, soft tone he used before with Naruto; like it has some give, like you could push back on it. “You know that’s not true, Kakashi. She belongs here.”
A silence settles between them. In the intervening pause, Sakura returns with a tray and hands a steaming mug of tea to Kakashi, flashing a smile. Naruto is at her heels, face buried in a bowl of whatever edible thing he’s found in her kitchen. “It’s cold this morning, this early.”
“Hmm,” he agrees.
And as she turns to hand the next one to Sasuke, Kakashi sees it; her hair parting differently as she turns, fanning across her shoulders in just the right way. He can sense rather than see her smile to him. Wordlessly taking the mug from her and their fingers brush; with them, it’s something delicate and intimate that he feels like he’s intruding on. The red and white fan stitched into the back of the shirt, the shirt too long for her, that clearly doesn’t belong to her.
His eyes as they touch, in a moment that to Kakashi feels like years, say everything.
She takes the seat next to Sasuke instead, and Naruto dutifully sits on the other end of the couch, still stuffing his face. Running her index fingernail against the grain in the ceramic mug, a precise scraping sound, a soothing habit. Sasuke drinks quietly, not a single sound, watching her without turning his head as she shakes back her sleeve, tucking hair behind her ear. The grey-haired man watches him watch her watch Naruto stuffing his face, not wanting to break the scene, knowing this question will upend the moment.
“There’s . . . one more thing.”
Sakura and Sasuke both turn back to Kakashi, still mollified by something he can’t discern; Naruto continues to eat, glancing expectantly over the rim of the bowl, waiting.
“It may not be a very comfortable discussion, but I’d think about how to talk to Tsunade about—this,” he says hastily, nodding to Sasuke and Sakura in turn as they periodically sip tea. The latter’s eyes raise up to the ceiling in a spectacular eye roll, and she makes a face.
“It’s not really her business. Not important—”
“You and I both know that’s a weak excuse at best,” Kakashi says sternly. He pauses, unsure of how to proceed. “Sakura, erm, you know Tsunade and her gambling habits, right?”
“Kaka-sensei, what are you getting at?” she sighs.
“Okay, well, don’t get upset, but, sometimes she bets on very ah unconventional things, and some of those things might involve certain people, and maybe the things those people have done, or, how do I say—”
Naruto surfaces from his bowl, gulping loudly. Belches. “I thought the bet was on if they were dating, not, you know,” he makes a suggestive face, “the one night stand part.”
Sasuke chokes, hot tea landing in his lap, scalding; drops land on the couch, on Kakashi’s face, on Sakura’s. The mug hits the floor, ceramic on wood, a tangy, heavy clatter.
“Naruto.” Sakura’s voice is threatening, the rumble of a distant thunderstorm. “Why do you know so much about this?”
“The betting or the other thing?”
“Both!”
“Easy, Ino won her bet, she was talking about it. She told me everything.”
“Wait, if you two are undefined, that means,” Kakashi’s face falls, and he brings a hand to his head, “I actually lost.”
Sakura moans, upending her own tea mug and dropping her head into her hands. “I’ll kill her!”
Sasuke stares at the liquid on the floor, anger rising, dangerously still.
“As for the second thing, well,” and Naruto balances his bowl on his knees, counting off on his fingers, face screwed up in concentration, “How many nights and stands is it before it’s not ‘one’ anymore?”