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Kakashi is late again and this time, he’s not getting away with it! Sakura stomps ahead, Naruto and Sasuke scuttling behind as they make their way down the apartment building’s hallway. When they get to Kakashi’s door, for a second, nobody does anything, just staring at the door. Is he out? Usually, he’d have reacted to their footsteps by now. Oh—that must be it. He’s pretending not to be home! Well, that’s not working today!
“ Tch , aren’t we knocking?” Sasuke mutters. Sakura’s done with him. He might be cute, but his cute little ass isn’t rescuing him today, because Sakura is on a witch hunt, and on witch hunts one does not knock.
“No,” she says. “We’re breaking the door down. Hell yeah!” And with one punch to the lock, they’re in. Which is awful security, but when you’re a shinobi as high level as Kakashi, she supposes it doesn’t really matter.
She shakes out her hand absentmindedly as she walks into the apartment, keeping an eye out for booby-traps. Ever since Wave, she’s been more cautious and it’s been paying off. Wave did a lot to all of them: Naruto got a bridge named after him, Sasuke nearly died, and Sakura? Sakura got serious.
Nothing is out of place in the apartment. Except for one thing: the toddler standing in Kakashi’s kitchen. His hair is rather peculiar; one-half red, one-half white, his head split neatly down the middle in a way that makes Sakura think “axe target” all too readily. What’s more pressing, though, is the fact that the child is reaching up to the stove. Before she can make a move, Sasuke’s already there, snatching the child away from the open fire.
That’s her Sasuke-kun! Ever the hero!
Naruto frowns. “What did you do that for, bastard?”
Sakura can’t believe this. Is Naruto really that stupid? Sasuke regards Naruto with a deadpan expression. “You get burned if you touch fire , idiot.”
Exactly!
Naruto cocks his head. “Burns only last like three seconds, though. I don’t see what’s so bad.”
Does... Does Naruto have a healing factor or something? What’s even going on here?
The kid, right there on the ground where Sasuke put him down, tugs on her skirt. “I’m thirsty.” He says, heterochromatic eyes wide and innocent. The scar around the blue one, quite clearly a recent addition, startles her. Yeah, she’s definitely not letting him near the stove. Moving forward as requested, she takes the tea kettle out of the cabinet.
Then the kid starts screaming. Sakura drops the kettle, but that only makes him cry louder and he scrambles backwards when she tries to soothe him. The door next to the kitchen bangs open and Kakashi appears, his eyes frantically searching for the little boy. “Shouto!”
His eyes fall onto the tea kettle and he curses, immediately putting it back into the cabinet and slams the door shut. The minute it’s out of sight, the sobs get less harsh, but not any less shocked. As Sakura’s heart is going at breakneck speeds because w hat is happening, Kakashi kneels in front of the child.
Shouto—presumably his name—doesn’t flinch away from Kakashi, but he doesn’t stop crying either. Kakashi’s hands kind of pat the air around the boy before finally settling on his shoulders, as if not quite knowing what to do with them. It’s awkward and unpracticed. Kakashi snatches a bag of jerky off the counter and offers it to Shouto in an obvious attempt to distract him. “Here, have breakfast!”
Shouto’s sobs slow as he takes a piece, nibbling on it quietly. His arms reach up for Kakashi, who doesn’t get it. He gestures even more vigorously before Sakura has had enough: “He wants you to carry him, Kakashi-sensei!”
Kakashi gives her a look, but complies, lifting Shouto up and offering him another piece of jerky. Crisis averted.
Sakura can’t help but sigh at the two of them, though. “That is not what you feed a child, Kakashi-sensei.”
All three of her male teammates blink at her and Sakura can’t help but grumble. Orphans! No sense at all!
Kakashi shrugs. He looks a bit bizarre with a child on his hip. “Well, I don’t have anything else, so we’ll have to go shopping.”
Kakashi takes Shouto’s hand and they’re off, Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke trailing after him. Some people gossip under their breath when they walk by, their eyes on Shouto’s scar; Naruto starts to walk in such a way that he mostly blocks their sight of Shouto on his scarred side. Sakura’s a little touched by that, for all it makes her ashamed to recall not defending Naruto in their academy days. If there’s anyone who knows how it feels to be scorned for something you can’t do a thing about, it’s Naruto.
“So…” Sakura says as they get closer to the shopping district, “Any reason why you of all people would be taking care of a child, sensei?” After all, the boy does have features that resemble Kakashi’s.
Kakashi lifts Shouto on top of his shoulders as the crowd becomes more tightly packed. “This is Shouto, my cousin’s youngest. He’ll be living with me for now.” The little boy tries to hide from their gazes by ducking his head behind Kakashi’s, but reluctantly waves when the man pokes him in the leg.
Sakura melts, and she’s pretty sure Naruto and Sasuke do too. Naruto’s got stars in his eyes and Sasuke’s digging his hands deeper into his pockets which, for him, is basically screaming from the rooftop that he thinks something’s cute. He hastens his pace and they quickly follow him into the shop. “We better be getting the animal crackers,” Sasuke says.
Kakashi stares. “The what?”
Sasuke glares. “How can you not know about animal crackers?!”
It’s the most Sakura has heard him talk in a week and it’s beautiful. She can’t help but smile as Kakashi gapes at their resident strong and silent type.
Sasuke narrows his eyes. “Tch. You know what? I’m in charge of this shopping trip now.”
He’s good at it too, gruffly asking Shouto what he wants and drawing the little boy out of his shell. Sakura really hadn’t expected Sasuke to be good at this, but well. Someone who wants to… um, repopulate his clan someday would have to be, she guesses, blushing.
There are several more outraged cries during the trip. “He has been walking around in that outfit for how many days?!” Sakura exclaims at the clothing store.
The toy store they visit after reaches new depths: Kakashi hands Shouto a real kunai, which Shouto accepts with big eyes. “Never too late to start learning how to murder!” their sensei says cheerfully, his one eye curving as he talks to the little boy, “When I was your age, I was already a chunin!”
Sasuke’s head snaps up, glaring at their sensei like he’s about to murder him in cold blood. “We only give them real kunai when they’re eight! Nobody wants to create another freak like you or—” he cuts off there, but the message is clear. He snatches the kunai out of Shouto’s hands as Kakashi looks like something that can only be described as sheepish.
The boy pouts. Sasuke doesn’t budge but doesn’t protest either when Naruto slips a wooden kunai into their shopping basket with all the subtlety of an elephant.
They eat out at Ichiraku ramen, Naruto cheerfully babbling about all the different kinds of ramen they have. Shouto mostly just likes the noodles, nodding along on Kakashi’s lap until he falls asleep. It’s adorable and Sakura almost regrets it when they have to wake him up to go back to Kakashi’s apartment.
“It’s my turn with Shouto now!” Naruto declares once there, hiding Shouto behind his legs. The little boy clutches his pant leg, peering up at them from behind him. Sakura melts once more.
“Good,” Kakashi says, tiredly rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Get him a bath, then.”
Naruto cackles, lifts Shouto up above his head, and runs off to the bathroom. Sakura can’t help but giggle at the sight. Sasuke scoffs and Kakashi shakes his head. “At least he’s enthusiastic.”
Kakashi throws himself on the couch, slumping over it like he’s an actual scarecrow, devoid of life, limbs those of a doll, completely limp. Sakura sits down on one of the chairs across him, Sasuke on the other. She bites her lip.
“Kakashi-sensei, what’s your cousin doing here?”
Kakashi swallows. How to explain… But he can’t brush this off. Not after this morning. His team is not unfamiliar with the cruelties of the world and they need to understand what to avoid when Shouto’s around. “My cousin Rei, Shouto’s mother, was in a… bad relationship. She got herself and her kids out, but her husband is a powerful man and he’s fixated on Shouto because of a combined kekkai genkai. He married her solely to try combining them, and Shouto, as the youngest, was the only success. Rei had to get him out of there, but couldn’t keep him with her.”
Sakura gasps, her big green eyes wide. “So—so Shouto’s father gave him that scar?”
Kakashi drags himself into a sitting position, taking a deep breath. “No, Rei did that. One more reason why he couldn’t remain with her, no matter how much she loves him.”
Now Sasuke’s mouth falls open too. “But if she loved him why would she—”
“People do many twisted things for reasons that don’t make sense to the people they love,” Kakashi says, thinking of his father, dead because of perceived shame, dead before his seventh birthday, his body left to discover by his son who needed him so desperately but didn’t know how to tell him that. “In this case, Rei was seriously damaged because of the abuse and thought Shouto was his father for a moment.”
“But he’s so small,” Sakura whispers.
Kakashi doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the small things get crushed with the most ease. There’s silence until Naruto exits the bathroom, a freshly bathed and pajama-clad Shouto in his arms. He deposits the child in Kakashi’s arms. Shouto’s warm and he snuggles into Kakashi’s side. He can’t bring himself to mind it. He hums as he rests his chin on top of Shouto’s head. Ready to get comfortable, he grabs his eyepatch from between the couch cushions, switching it out with his headband.
Shouto twists around to watch him at it.
“Are you like me?” He asks quietly, pointing at the still healing burn scar on his face.
Something in Kakashi gives. It’s right next to the place where his own childhood is buried, deep within his own chest, and it cares. His team lives there, both his own genin team and the one he teaches, and now Shouto’s making a home for himself there.
It’s a place of pain, but it’s a place of hope too, and Kakashi thinks he can live with this. As long as this tiny child will stay on his lap, asking difficult questions, he can live with it.
“Hmm, we match. Want to try on my headband?”
Shouto nods eagerly. Kakashi chuckles and hands him the headband. The boy puts it sideways on his head, just like Kakashi wears it. It doesn’t cover his scar completely, but that’s fine. “You look handsome,” Kakashi says, softly.
Shouto grins and turns to show it off to Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke. “Very handsome!” they all echo enthusiastically.
Kakashi knows that by tomorrow, he’ll have to get a blank headband without Konoha’s emblem for Shouto to wear. Otherwise, he’ll never hear the end of it.
“Off to bed with you now,” he says, sweeping Shouto up in an embrace. The boy giggles, but he’s so tired it ends in a yawn. He’ll sleep well tonight and if he has any nightmares, Kakashi will be there. And if he knows his team at all, so will they be, sprawled all over his living room floor.
Thank god he got those spare futons. There’s no way Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto are going to leave the cute new honorary addition to their team.
There’s a lot Kakashi still needs to learn about childcare. There’s far more he needs to learn about Shouto in particular. But seeing how today went, he thinks it might just be alright. He and Shouto, neither of them are alone anymore. The three rascals sleeping on his spare futons in the living room made sure of that.
They’ll be alright.