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(I don't own any characters etc etc)
Sakura ducked under the low hanging branches of a tree, frowning as she saw Naruto. Sasuke appeared a moment behind her.
"Why did you make us come all the way here?" she sighed, sitting on the ground with the blond, and Sasuke followed suit.
"We had to be somewhere private!" Naruto shouted, and Sasuke rolled his eyes.
"Then don't yell," Sasuke sighed, and Sakura giggled.
Naruto frowned, but lowered his voice. "Fine, but we had to be somewhere just us. We've got a big mission!"
"What's that?" Sakura asked, frowning as she thought about it. "And shouldn't Kakashi-sensei be here then?"
"Kakashi-sensei is our mission!" Naruto informed them.
The others were silent for a moment.
"What?" Sasuke asked.
"His birthday is coming!" Naruto said, triumphantly.
Sakura and Sasuke exchanged a glance.
"It is?" she asked, and Naruto nodded. "How do you know?"
"I was stalking him one day to see if I could see under his mask, and I heard Gai-sensei talking to him about it. Kakashi-sensei was saying he didn't want to do anything and hoped no one else would. So, naturally, we need to do something for it! We're his bestest team ever!"
Sasuke frowned. "It sounds like he doesn't want anything. So we should probably ignore it."
Sakura scowled. "But it's his birthday! And as shinobi, we have to value each and every one," she said, and inner-Sakura nodded. "We should celebrate it!"
"You're agreeing with me? Really?" Naruto asked, surprised.
Sakura smiled at him. "Well, I'll admit it's a good idea. When's his birthday?"
"In a week."
The group sat in silence again.
"That doesn't leave much time, but we can still come up with the perfect gift if we really put our minds to it," Sasuke said, and the others looked at him in surprise. "What? If we're going to do this, we're going to do this right. I don't half-ass anything."
Naruto jumped up. "That's the spirit! Let's go get ramen and plan!"
_____
The genin got hard to work, brainstorming every chance they could.
"Cake?"
"He doesn't like sweets."
"We could write the mission reports for a while?"
"We already do..."
"Alcohol?"
"How would we buy it?"
"His adult books?"
"We'd get kicked out of the store..."
"We could wash the ninken?"
"How would we summon them without him knowing?"
"Clean his gear?"
"Too messy!"
"Sharpen his tools?"
"Too dangerous!"
"Buy him dinner?"
"We already do half the time..."
____
Growing frustrated, the genin decided to get additional support, and asked some people who would know their teacher well.
Kurenai-sensei suggested something practical. Asuma-sensei suggested food. Gai-sensei burst into tears, so he was no help.
The Hokage granted them an audience and smiled warmly at them, suggesting that anything would be appreciated by Kakashi.
Iruka-sensei was passing by in the hallways of Hokage Tower after their meeting with the Hokage, and quietly suggested that their new teacher may not want anything flashy.
"How does he even know what we were talking about with the Hokage?" Sakura whispered as they continued to head to the exit, and the boys shrugged.
"Iruka-sensei just knows everything!" Naruto shouted.
An ANBU wearing a cat mask stopped them just before they left the tower.
"You might be discreet when gifting your sensei something," the ANBU said, before leaving in a swirl of leaves.
"Seriously?" Sasuke said, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Everyone's up in our business today!"
The genin continued to the exit and headed to sit in a nearby garden area.
"We got some good suggestions," Sasuke said, "but nothing definite."
"Let's see what we know about Kakashi-sensei's daily routine," Sakura suggested.
"He wakes up, leaves, goes to the memorial stone, and comes to us late," Naruto sighed.
"He changes up what he does after the memorial stone," Sasuke agreed. "Sometimes just sitting reading, sometimes meeting up with another sensei, sometimes probably just sleeping..."
"Lazy sensei," Naruto sighed.
"Then he meets us, we train, sometimes we go out to eat after, and he does a number of things when we part ways," Sakura commented. "He'll probably want to spend dinner and the rest of the night with his friends."
They sat in silence as they thought about it.
"Well, what if we combine all the suggestions?" Naruto asked. "They probably all make sense..."
The others nodded slowly as they thought about it, and the group began to plan.
_______
Kakashi woke feeling refreshed on the morning of his birthday. It was always a bittersweet day, as not all of his friends got to see another birthday.
"Still, I suppose I should be nothing other than grateful," he said to himself. "Hopefully no one says anything though..."
He ate a regular breakfast at home and left at a reasonable time to go to the memorial stone, perhaps taking a slightly more out of the way route so as to avoid others for as long as possible.
No one was there when he arrived, and he nodded, pleased.
Approaching his usual spot, he was surprised to see a small bouquet of flowers in front of his loved ones.
He delicately picked them up, examining them before returning them to their place.
"Morning glories," he said, smiling. "The flower for September," he commented, having received them once before, many years ago.
Kakashi flared his chakra, but did not detect anyone. He turned his attention to the names of his loved ones.
"Anything anyone wants to tell me?"
______
Kakashi eventually finished at the memorial stone, where he always spent a little longer on his birthday. Looking at the sun in the sky, he figured he had more time to kill before meeting his team, as he couldn't alert them to anything being different today.
He popped into one of his usual bookstores to browse, greeting the front desk clerk as he entered.
"Oh!" they said, looking at a ledger on the counter. "Kakashi-san! You have a 25 ryo credit at our store, I was told to let you know the next time I saw you."
"What?" Kakashi asked, confused.
The clerk checked again. "Yep! No expiration date, of course, so take your time with it."
Kakashi frowned underneath his mask. "Who paid for it?"
"No clue," the clerk responded, shrugging as they checked.
"When?"
The clerk shrugged again, and turned the ledger so Kakashi could see. Sure enough, it was written and highlighted, but no other information other than his name and the amount.
It was Kakashi's turn to shrug as he thanked the clerk and walked around. Nothing caught his eye today, but then again, he was distracted.
He eventually waved goodbye and left to finally meet his team.
"Late again!" they snapped at him, and he smiled to himself. Finally, something normal!
"Maa, what can I say?" Kakashi began, but he was quickly silenced by Naruto.
"Just don't try one of your stupid excuses today," the blond sighed. "Let's start training already!"
Kakashi agreed and they set off to work on some teamwork and target practice exercises.
Over the course of the morning, he could have sworn that his genin were actually working together better than usual, but he told himself he was probably just distracted from the other events of the morning.
That, and about thirty minutes into training, he had pulled out his trusty book, so he wasn't really giving them his full attention today.
He was reminded of this when they stopped for a late lunch, and Sakura pulled out a bag he hadn't noticed.
"My mother was doing a lot of cooking last night," she said, "and we had so many leftovers that she packed bento boxes for each of us. You too, Kakashi-sensei," she said, passing out the boxes.
Kakashi thanked her as he accepted it, curious. He felt like he could recall this happening once before, so it probably was nothing to do with it being his birthday.
Mere coincidence, he told himself.
That is, until he opened it.
"Eggplant and saury?" he half-laughed.
The genin shrugged.
"With rice," Sakura pointed out.
"It's free, I'll take it!" Naruto said, beginning to eat.
Kakashi looked at his genin in turn before sighing.
"Is there any particular reason your mother made this, Sakura?" he asked.
She smiled sweetly at him. "No, Kakashi-sensei. She was trying a few new recipes, and this wasn't a favorite of hers, so we thought we might as well pack it for today and not waste it."
Kakashi hummed to himself as he studied his team again before thanking her and starting to eat.
They ate largely in silence, and when they were packing up, he finally spoke up.
"Anything on your minds?" Kakashi said aloud.
The genin looked at him, still sitting for lunch. They blinked at him, curiously.
He sighed, again.
"Something about....today? That you'd like to share?"
They exchanged a look before looking back at him, and collectively shrugged.
He sighed, yet again.
"I know you know what today is. It's too obvious."
"What's today?" Sasuke asked.
Kakashi shook his head. "The flowers at the memorial stone? The bookstore credit? One of my favorite meals?"
"This was one of your favorite meals?" Sakura asked, and Kakashi rolled his visible eye.
"Just say it," he said.
"Say what?" Sasuke asked, but Naruto jumped up before they could say anything else.
"Happy birthday!" he shouted, scaring birds from a nearby tree. "I bet you thought we didn't know! But we did! Ha!"
"Naruto!" Sasuke and Sakura shouted, frowning.
"We weren't supposed to say anything!" Sakura hissed, but Naruto shrugged, still standing.
"What? He already knew, believe it! He was just trying to get it out of us."
They looked at Kakashi, who gave them a trademark eye smile.
"He's right," Kakashi said.
"For once," Sasuke sighed.
"Happy birthday, sensei," Sakura said, smiling.
"Thank you," he said. "everyone. This was a pleasant surprise. And quite thoughtful."
"Really?" his team asked in unison, surprised.
Kakashi gave them another eye smile. "It was. Dare I say, but it might have been the perfect gift."
"Ha!" Naruto cheered. "We did it!"
"In fact," Kakashi said, "it was so perfect, and you clearly acted as a team for it, that I have high hopes for your training this afternoon. I expect you to put as much effort and focus into your sparring as you did for this, for the next...oh...five hours?"
His team groaned and Kakashi smiled under his mask.
"Ah, the sound of miserable genin. Another perfect gift!"