Work Text:
Sasuke doesn’t like sweets.
Anyone who knows the kid knows that, above all else.
It’s one of the only things he isn’t secretive about. He doesn’t like the way sugar makes his tongue tingle, he doesn’t like the nerves it brings, he doesn’t like the way his stomach cramps afterwards, he doesn’t like–
He just doesn’t like sweets.
It’s simple.
It’s easy.
His goddamn overenthusiastic gym teacher knows that and yet–
Sasuke stares at the three cakes in the kitchen.
He stares at the opened boxes of cupcakes on the counter, piled around the sink. Pakkun sits beneath the table trying to lick up the icing that’s fallen on the tiles. All the cakes say, in delicate pink, sugary font, is “happy birthday, Sasuke”.
There are so many things wrong here.
“It’s not my birthday,” Sasuke tells his adoptive father, who is bowled over the dining room table, silver hair lying in empty cupcake wrappers, “and I hate sweets.”
Kakashi groans, peering up at Sasuke with bleary eyes.
“S’ske–“ he whispers, “is that you? It’s Wednesday why aren’t you in class?”
“It’s Friday,” Sasuke corrects, taking in the wreckage around him, “and it’s now winter break– are you having a mid-life crisis?”
Oh, look, there are even more cakes in here–
“No, just–” Kakashi groans again and buries his face into the wood of the table, “happy birthday.”
Sasuke has a headache. He’s had a headache for the entire day. He had a headache on the bus, he had a headache throughout school, he had a headache on the bus ride back home and now it’s only worse.
“You’ve snapped,” Sasuke tells him, “and I’m too tired–”
“Wait,” Kakashi sighs, reaching out a hand but Sasuke stays rooted ten feet away with his arms crossed so the effect is pretty weak, “help me. I can’t move.”
“That’s not my problem,” Sasuke says, “you ordered…five cakes?”
“It’s your birthday,” Kakashi points out.
“Only it’s not,” Sasuke argues, “what is this?”
Kakashi doesn’t answer but Sasuke is slowly beginning to figure it out.
“Oh,” he says, a grin forming, “it’s that baker.”
Kakashi’s head snaps up so fast Sasuke can hear it crack. There’s icing smeared on his cheek. His left eye is still covered by his patch and even that has a few sprinkles across the material.
Sasuke is used to his stepfather looking like a walking disaster but this…this is new.
“It’s– he–” Kakashi’s face is red and Sasuke never thought he’d have this much leverage in his life– “he’s a good cook.”
“Right,” Sasuke says, “so good you lied about my birthday and bought the entire shop?”
Kakashi let’s his head fall back onto the table with a smack.
“You don’t get it,” he grumbles, his words slurred and Sasuke figures he’s got about ten more minutes before all the sugar gets to him and he passes out, “he’s very… smiley.”
Sasuke looks at the only consistent authority figure in his life and takes a picture.
Itachi will enjoy this just as much as him.
+
Kakashi doesn’t usually enjoy sweets.
He doesn’t mind them, but Sasuke has no sweet tooth and Itachi took all the sugar cravings with him when he moved out four years ago. So this– all these cakes– is beyond Kakashi’s repertoire.
He decides to give them to his neighbors and when their eyes narrow at the “happy birthday, Sasuke” written on the tops he simply smiles and promises that there was a mix up at the store and they made too many he’s not a bad dad, he swears–
He has no excuse for being here. Again.
It’s cold, the wind is heavy and biting, and Kakashi has his face buried so deep in his scarf it’s a wonder he’s even able to breathe. The bakery in front of him is small and cozy, tucked between two brick apartment buildings and there’s already a gathering of high schooler’s inside, sitting at the circular tables and booths with red leather seats, sipping hot cocoa with handmade marshmallows and cinnamon sticks and it’s all so picturesque that even if Kakashi didn’t have a heart-stopping crush he’d be inclined to stop and–
“You good man?” a vaguely familiar voice asks and Kakashi looks to his right.
A blonde boy– well, not boy, he’s around Sasuke’s age– is standing next to him, orange beanie pulled over his unruly hair, skin dark against his pink and orange scarf and it takes Kakashi a minute to place him.
“You work here,” he says.
The boy smiles, wide and bright. Kakashi blinks. He’s not used to smiles that big, or that unprecedented–
“Sure do,” the guy says, and then snaps his fingers and points right under Kakashi’s nose– “you’re the guy that ordered like, fifty cakes from us last week!”
Kakashi backs up.
“Not– not fifty,” he begins but the guy plows on with a wild laugh.
“Oh god, Iruka was so– he was like “wow someone really loves their kid”! You almost killed me, man, I thought my arms were gonna fall off!”
It hits Kakashi, for the first time, that he made this kid and Iruka do so much work, everything in the bakery is handmade and he hadn’t even considered the effort– shit. That hadn’t been his intention.
“I didn’t mean to overwhelm,” he begins, “I just–”
“Kinda overcompensating, huh?” the kid asks, crossing his arms and nodding sagely and Kakashi isn’t really sure what he’s supposed to do with that–
“So were you gonna go inside?” the blonde continues and Kakashi feels like he’s on the end of a very long, energetic, one-sided conversation, “’Cause my shift starts in ten. Unless you like just standing out on the sidewalk staring at…”
Blue eyes shift to the tables of high schooler’s, narrow, and then return back to Kakashi with an edge that is entirely misplaced–
“Nope,” Kakashi says before the kid can jump to absolutely disgusting conclusions, “definitely not– lead the way, uh– your name?”
The blonde brightens and holds out his hand. Kakashi shakes it with less gusto than the boy in front of him.
“Uzumaki Naruto,” he says, that wide grin spreading across his face and highlighting the white scars on his cheeks–
“Kakashi,” he said, taking his hand back, “your last name– Japanese?”
“From my mom,” Naruto tells him and pushes open the doors of the bakery like he owns the place and Kakashi is stuck trailing behind with his heart rabbiting in his chest because Iruka isn’t behind the counter but a girl with pink hair is and if Iruka isn’t here then is there really any point to this– “my dad’s American though.”
“Right,” Kakashi says because he’s already forgotten what they’re talking about.
Naruto ducks behind the counter and into a back door and is gone as soon as he appeared but the pink haired girl is studying him with a warm smile and bright green eyes.
“What can I get you?” she asked politely and Kakashi didn’t know how to ask if her boss is here without it being weird because there’s no way Iruka even knows who Kakashi is, well, Naruto did so maybe–
Maybe he’s known as the overcompensating guy with grey hair who ordered fifty cakes.
“Uh,” Kakashi can’t focus. “Hot cocoa please.”
“Would you like white or dark chocolate?”
“…Dark?”
“Marshmallows?”
“Ah, no thank you.”
“Peppermint?”
“A little would be nice.”
The girl nods and rings him up and Kakashi tries to peer over her head because maybe he’ll be able to see into the back kitchen through the window divider–
“Sakura!” Naruto barges through, the door banging against the wall and the pink-haired girl– Sakura– barely blinks at the outburst.
“What?” she hisses, all pleasantries gone from her tone, “I’m with a customer!”
“He’s always here, he’s fine,” Naruto says and Kakashi wants to argue on principle but, well, he isn’t wrong– “where’s Iruka?”
Ah.
Yes, Kakashi cares now.
“He’s–”
The bell above the front door rings. Kakashi freezes. He never freezes.
“Naruto, you’re late,” the soft voice chides– anything but angry – and a person breezes past Kakashi, ducks under the counter as Naruto had only five minutes prior–
“Technically I got here on time,” Naruto wheedles, “but then I talked with the cake guy–”
Kakashi’s eye twitches.
Cake guy? The kid knows his name now, he knows–
Iruka turns and Kakashi decides that he’ll be called cake guy if that means the cute baker is staring at him.
“Oh,” Iruka says, then smiles, warm like everything in his store, “of course, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m trying to remember– Kakashi, right?”
Iruka gives a polite wave and Kakashi mirrors it and then forgets to put his hand back down for an extra five seconds.
“Yes,” Kakashi says, glancing at where Naruto is grinning manically.
“Cake guy,” Naruto corrects, “hey, Sakura, what’d he order?”
“Naruto, be polite,” Iruka hisses and Naruto shrugs, unbothered, as he twirls on his heels and grabs a frilly pink apron from a hook on the wall without an ounce of shame–
“It’s fine, Iruka, we’re pals now!” the blonde calls out before disappearing into the kitchen, tying the apron on tight as he goes and then it’s just Sakura staring at Kakashi and Iruka staring at Kakashi and Kakashi’s forgotten what he even ordered–
“Hot chocolate,” Sakura says, gently, but with a glint in her eyes that Kakashi doesn’t appreciate, “dark chocolate, and a little peppermint. It’ll be $6.50.”
Right.
“How was your son’s birthday?” Iruka asks, expression relaxed and warm. “I don’t think I’ve ever had an order that large before.”
Kakashi laughs but it sounds like he chokes and he covers it by passing Sakura all the money in his wallet–
“He loved the cakes,” Kakashi says and then without thinking, without even questioning– “he actually has another celebratory party coming up and I was wondering–“
+
“You’ve lost it,” Sasuke tells him.
Kakashi can’t… argue that.
There are three boxes of cookies in the kitchen, not to mention all the old cake, and Sasuke’s beginning to think Kakashi really has walked off the deep end.
“Just send them all to Itachi,” Kakashi grumbles, biting into the best fucking caramel chip cookie he’s ever had– “he won’t complain.”
“Hn,” Sasuke says and makes a show of stepping over a cake box–
“I need you to do me a favor,” Kakashi wheedles and Sasuke simply glares– “pretend it’s your graduation and go pick up a cake for me?”
There’s a heavy silence.
“I’m going upstairs,” Sasuke says.
“No dinner?” Kakashi calls after him "We have so much–"
Sasuke's door slams and Kakashi sits back in his chair with a sigh, Pakkun licking up the chocolate from his fingers.
+
The bakery is cute and warm, and thankfully not crowded and Sasuke would rather be anywhere but here because this is everything he doesn’t like in one establishment–
There’s a blonde kid staring at him with too much red eye shadow and a pink frilly apron and he’s smiling so wide that Sasuke’s concerned his cheeks might crack–
“What?” he snaps.
The blonde doesn’t even react. He just narrows his eyes and keeps that dumb, bright smile in place–
“You’re really pretty,” he says seriously and Sasuke kind of blinks and short circuits because what– “and I’m really pretty and I think we’d look really pretty together.”
He winks.
+
Kakashi comes home but he can’t open the door.
It takes maneuvering, and he can hear Pakkun barking, and then he just has to shove the door open and something squishes– he can feel it–
The kitchen is covered, tiled floor to ceiling, in cake boxes, in cookie boxes– pink and delicate and sugary and Kakashi has to take a second to double check that this is indeed his house because he hadn’t ordered anything too recently–
Sasuke is standing, hands stuffed in his pockets, face red and hoodie pulled up in the middle of the kitchen and Kakashi grins, wide and pleased and oh this is too good–
“Sooo,” he says slowly, squeezing his way inside, “you met Naruto?”
Sasuke glowers but all the pink cakes surrounding him dampen the effect.
“I used your card,” Sasuke says but Kakashi isn’t taking the bait although he probably should–
“What’d you tell them?” Kakashi asks.
Sasuke grins. Then he just shrugs and leaves and Kakashi is left in this overwhelming kitchen, with twenty cakes and cookie boxes and he really should deliver all these to the nearby shelter… still, he approaches the nearest cake and reads the cursive icing crammed on top:
Happy Retirement Kakashi!
Oh, he’s gonna kill him.
Right after he makes another order.