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It's around noon, and he's been reading peacefully for about an hour or so before the familiar cry of "Hey, Captain Yamato!" sounds out from somewhere beyond the edge of his page.
Yamato looks up. Naruto is waving a small scrap of paper in his face excitedly.
"Captain Yamato," Naruto repeats. "Hey."
"Uh, hey, Naruto," Yamato says, setting his book down with a wistful glance at the nearly finished chapter. "What can I do for you?"
The piece of paper is thrust at him again. "I found this," Naruto says, looking excited and puzzled at the same time. "It was in Kakashi-sensei's wallet-"
"And why did you have Kakashi's wallet?"
Naruto shrugs. "Sai took it. He wasn't gonna pay for ramen otherwise. But, look, we found this picture in there, and we were wondering if you knew where it was from. You were in the ANBU with Kakashi-sensei, right?"
"Yes," Yamato says, noting Naruto's switch from 'I' to 'we' to shift culpability for the picture's theft. Well, a team of three would be the only way to separate Kakashi from his wallet and its contents, anyway - he's tried enough times himself to figure that out. He takes the picture and examines it, and finds, to his surprise, that he recognises it. It shows Kakashi dressed in his old ANBU uniform, eyes crinkled in lieu of a visible smile, with his arm around another ANBU member with long hair tucked behind his shoulders and a huge grin on his face.
"Sooo do you know who the other guy in the photo is? Because, he looks really familiar, but we couldn't figure out who it was." Naruto wrinkles his nose. "Maybe it's because his hair kinda sucks, you know?"
Yamato smiles and fixes Naruto with a hard stare, eyes hopefully wide enough to impart a twinge of fear into the kid. "That's me."
He's somewhat gratified to see Naruto automatically recoil in horror for a second before pressing on as Naruto always does. "Uh - um, I'm sorry. I couldn't tell who you were with the-"
"The hair, I know." The photograph is faded from about ten years of aging, but he can still see the faint flush on his own face if he looks close enough. That brings back a lot of memories. "I can't believe Kakashi still has this."
"It was behind all his photos of us and his old team. Maybe he just forgot about it."
He hopes that's not what happened, but knowing Kakashi, it's entirely possible.
"Anyway," Naruto says. "You used to have really long hair, huh?"
"Yeah," Yamato says absently, still studying the picture. He looks back at Naruto. "Maybe I should try growing it out again."
Naruto screws up his face. "Yeeeeah - I don't think so, Captain Yamato."
"Why not?"
"Because," Naruto says, and then stops dead when he notices shadows pooling under Yamato's eyes in the beginning of that horrifying ghoul face of his. "Because, I, uh, I gotta go talk to Sakura about something, uh, see you later, Captain Yamato!"
He leaves as quickly as he arrived, abandoning the photograph still clasped in his captain's hand. Yamato looks down at it again. A smile returns to his face.
He has an idea.
~~
As it happens, Naruto is the first person he runs into the next day, humming tunelessly and patting self-consciously at his head as he walks through the village on the way to their team training session.
"Hey, Capt-"
Yamato smiles innocently at Naruto's flabbergasted expression. "Good morning, Naruto."
"W-w-w-" Naruto splutters. "What the hell!" He points a finger at Yamato, eyes wide in disbelief. "You - your hair!"
"My hair," Yamato says. He reaches up and runs a hand through said thick, brown, and somewhat longer than normal hair, wondering vaguely if Sakura might have a hair-tie he can borrow. The jutsu he'd used had accelerated the growth perhaps a little too much.
Then again, unexpected side-effects weren't something he hadn't been prepared for, considering that that jutsu is meant for growing plants.
Naruto is still staring at him in shock.
"Come on, Naruto. You don't want to be late for training, right?" Yamato says, stepping forward and tapping him on the shoulder lightly. "It's sparring today."
"Uh," Naruto manages. "Okay. Yeah, let's go."
~~
They make good time to the training ground. Naruto stays completely silent for about five minutes, sneaking glances at his captain's hair, before finally exploding in a flutter of questions - 'why? how? are you really going to keep it like that?' - that Yamato does his best to answer as they move.
Sai and Sakura are waiting for them when they arrive. The latter waves at their approach, initially squinting through the heavy sunlight, but her eyes widen the closer they get.
"Good morning," Yamato says. Naruto joins Sai leaning against the fence, leaving Yamato standing alone against all three teenagers.
Silence. Sakura's formerly waving hand is frozen in the air.
"Is Kakashi here yet?"
"No," Sakura says. She glances at Naruto, who shakes his head at her and shrugs. "Uhh, Captain Yamato-"
"Are you wearing a wig?" Sai finishes for her.
"Sai, that's not what I was going to say!"
"Ah, no," Yamato says hastily, putting up a hand to halt the rapidly brewing argument on the horizon. "It's definitely my hair."
Naruto pushes himself off the fence. "He used some kind of jutsu," he says, obviously pleased to have more information than his teammates. "To grow it all out last night."
"A jutsu?" Sakura looks thoughtful, staring at his hair. They all look thoughtful. Yamato begins to feel self-conscious again.
"Um," he says. "Sakura, do you have a hair-tie? I didn't have time to get any myself."
Sakura nods slowly, and dips her hand into her pocket. After a moment of fishing, she comes up with a bright pink band and hands it over to him. "It's a bit too long to just wear it tied on missions," she comments, watching as he struggles to get it to sit into a messy ponytail. "Do you need some help?"
He's more out of practice than he thought. "Yes, please."
It takes Sakura a minute or two to fix it, which Yamato suspects is not all his fault. "Ino and Chouji are better at this than I am," she says apologetically. "But," she adds, and gives the whole thing one last vicious tug that makes him wince, "It's okay for now. Maybe you should braid it."
That last comment apparently sparks something in Sai, who turns away from his unusually quiet conversation with Naruto with an odd gleam in his eye. "Sakura, did you say braid?"
"Yes?"
"One of my books said that braiding each other's hair is a practice common amongst friends," Sai says. "But the book failed to provide a description of what exactly braiding is."
"Well, it's..." Sakura says, trailing off. "It's hard to explain. It'd be better to... demonstrate."
She looks at Yamato.
He thinks about it for a minute, then sighs. "Alright."
~~
"Hold your head still, Captain Yamato," Sakura says. Her tone is strangely similar to the one she uses during delicate medical operations. "Sai, take these carefully, okay? Or you'll lose everything I've done."
Yamato sits as motionless as possible, cross-legged on the ground with his palms resting on his thighs. He can't see exactly what they're doing behind him, but Sakura has informed him that the braid is going well, and she's about to transfer it to Sai for him so that he can have a try.
"Okay. Ready?"
"I am ready," Sai says gravely.
Just as the bundle of hair is about to change hands, a huge puff of white smoke startles both Sakura and Sai - and Naruto, who has been watching intently behind them. Yamato can feel them both lose their grip on the braid.
"Hey, guys," Kakashi says. He looks up from his trademark dirty novel, and Yamato has the rare pleasure of seeing him do a double-take as he attempts to grasp the scene before him. "Er... What's going on?"
"Captain Yamato grew his hair long again with this weird jutsu and-"
"I wanted to observe hair-braiding in action but-"
"We were so close, Kakashi-sensei! Why do you always have to come in at the wrong ti-"
"Okay," Kakashi says, interrupting the flow of raised voices. "I think I get it." He snaps his book shut and stows it away in a pouch. "Well, I'm here now, so you can start training."
"But Kakashi-sensei," Sakura says, sounding aggravated. "We were in the middle of doing Captain Yamato's hair, and then you popped in and ruined all of it. We have to try and finish it or it'll look weird."
Yamato doesn't want to find out what 'weird' means. "Kakashi-senpai-"
"I'll do it for you."
Four pairs of eyes blink at Kakashi.
"Get going," Kakashi says, pointing at the training field. "Naruto, you're against Sakura first. Sai, watch them and give them a report on their performance when they're done. Then," he continues, ignoring Naruto's moan at the 'performance report' part, "switch up opponents until you've all sparred. I can handle Yamato's hair."
Sai nods and says, "Yes, Kakashi-sensei," followed by two far less enthusiastic responses from his teammates before they all head out to a safe distance from their team captains to begin their practice.
Kakashi takes Sakura's place behind Yamato, although his height affords him a more comfortable sitting position than the others' kneeling one. "How did you get all this?"
"I modified one of my wood-style jutsus to work on human hair," Yamato says. He feels Kakashi pick up the loose bunches of hair that had dropped earlier and start to thread them around each other slowly. "It's been a while since you did this, huh?"
"Mmm. At least ten years." Out on the field, Sakura punches the earth with a huge crack that resonates through the air. One of Naruto's shadow clones puffs out of existence. "Were you feeling nostalgic?"
Yamato taps one of his palms against his leg. "Maybe," he says. "Naruto showed me a photograph he found in your wallet of us, in the old days. I just thought... it might be nice to try having longer hair again. For a while."
"Oh, that thing," Kakashi says carefully, pulling on his hair a bit.
"Yeah. I'll give it back to you later."
Yamato turns his gaze back to their younger teammates, engaged in strenuous battle. The day is cool and pleasant - the sun drifts lazily behind a cloud when he glances up at it. There's a light breeze that carries Sakura's yells and Naruto's shouts and Sai's sly digs across the field to them, but they're muffled. He could almost fall asleep like this, to the smell of grass and the feeling of Kakashi's hands tangled in his hair.
Said hands have stopped moving, actually. "Kakashi? Are you finished?"
The light pull he'd felt before resumes. "No," Kakashi says. "Sorry, I was distracted."
He could swear he hears Kakashi mutter "It's so soft..." under his breath.
~~
Naruto, Sakura and Sai stagger back from their practice a few minutes after Kakashi finishes the braid, tying it off with another bright pink band he produces from one of his pouches. "To match," he says.
"Thanks, senpai," Yamato says, smiling. He tugs gently on his hair to make sure it's secure before he gets to his feet. Kakashi follows suit after brushing a stray hair or two off his clothes.
Heavy breaths alert them to the other three's approach; they look pretty tired from the fight, despite Naruto's loud protests that he could totally go another round or two, especially if Sai insults the size of certain parts again. Sakura gives Yamato a thumbs-up as she gets closer. "Looks good, Captain Yamato."
"It's okay," Naruto says, breaking off his 'conversation' with Sai. "It still looks we- I - I mean, yeah, it looks good," he finishes hastily. Yamato's not sure if it's Sakura's pointed elbow or his own darkening face that made him change course.
Sai follows Sakura's example and gives him a thumbs-up, along with a small smile. "Kakashi-sensei is quite a talented hair braider."
"Thank you," Kakashi says. "Now-"
"Kakashi-sensei-"
"Now, Naruto, you can all tell me the results of your training over some ramen."
Naruto beams. "Thanks, Kakashi-sensei."
"And I suppose I'll pay," Kakashi adds. "Since you'll probably try and take my wallet again if I don't."
Judging from the look on Naruto's face, Yamato thinks he's right.
As they set off in the direction of Ichiraku, Sakura asks him, "How long do you think you'll keep your hair like that?"
"I don't know," Yamato says. "Until it gets caught on something while i'm on a mission and we have to cut it off with a kunai?"
"Oh no," Kakashi protests from a few steps in front of him. "We are not doing that again, Tenzo. I thought you would never forgive me for last time."
"Last time?" Naruto, Sakura and Sai ask in relative unison.
Yamato smiles. "I'll tell you after we eat."
Yes, he decides, reaching up and pulling the braid down over his shoulder. He might keep his hair like this for a while.