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“Gai…” Kakashi says slowly. “This looks…questionable.”
An understatement, it looks positively vile, caustic, bordering on inedible except by the most desperate or foolish of men. The dish bubbles in a practically threatening manner.
“You aren’t afraid of the challenge, are you Eternal Rival?!” Gai booms from next to him and Kakashi curses that stubborn little voice deep down inside him that has been yelling back ‘Of course not!’ every single time Gai has done this since they were kids. He stirs the noodles cautiously with his chopsticks and Kakashi gulps at the hot and sour plume of steam that rises from it once the surface is disturbed. Oh god, it makes his uncovered eye water.
No. No. This is a matter of his health. He will be paying for this all weekend if he partakes, doubly so if he can’t finish the whole bowl as the challenge calls for. He really shouldn’t…
But Gai’s students, staring him down from over his rival’s shoulder, don’t help his resolve to back down; nor do his OWN students chattering in encouragement from the other side of him.
“You can do it Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto crows, Sakura trying to hold him in his seat. TenTen and Lee are likewise whooping, while Neji and Sasuke stare each other down like dogs on guard.
And Gai is looking at him with that familiar beaming smile, with that spark of determined delight in his dark eyes that Kakashi has never really properly been able to refuse.
Screw it. He can do it, it’s just a bowl of food.
If he eats fast he’ll probably hardly taste it!
“Oh alright then,” he groans, to a chorus of cheers from the genin, pulling his mask down around his throat and limbering up his hand for the chopsticks.
He and Gai bump fists and clap hands as is tradition before Gai points his utensils at Teuchi, who is standing ready with a stopwatch on the other side of the counter.
“Alright,” Gai declares, hunkering down. “We’re prepared!”
Kakashi lowers his head into a ready position over the bowl, chopsticks poised, sweat beading on his brow as he gets a face full of the pungent spices again. Fuck. He is making a mistake.
He is not going to STOP making the mistake, but he sees it for what it is which is something, right?
“Three… Two… One… GO!”
The first mouthful hits like a punch to the face. Kakashi slaps his free hand on the counter, groaning as his eyes immediately water up so much he can’t see. He blindly scoops another helping onto the chopsticks and keeps shoveling noodles into his mouth, chewing the absolute minimum amount needed to get the ramen past the back of his throat. His lips and mouth and tongue are on fire and the intensity just keeps climbing. What the hell did Teuchi put IN this?!
Gai bites on something that makes him yell through a full mouth and he throws his head back in Kakashi’s peripheral vision, struggling to swallow whatever he’s stumbled into from the sounds of it. Kakashi hits the offending item himself a second later, a whole stewed pepper in the depths of the broth that makes the roof of his mouth water intensely and his tongue go practically numb with tingling pain.
He groans in discomfort but keeps going, grabbing up the bowl from the counter and tipping it to his mouth, hoping he can drink down the last of it before Gai makes it through the pepper.
Kakashi slams his empty bowl down a split second before Gai does the same, throwing both arms in the air with a whoop of victory that his genin echo in spades, jumping and high-fiving each other.
“1 minute, 27 seconds!” Teuchi declares, raising a hand over Kakashi’s head. “New record!”
Gai, rivers of tears still pouring down his bright red face, turns to Kakashi and thumps him so hard on the back that the copy ninja almost throws up his whole bowl in what would have been a thoroughly disqualifying manner.
“A fair defeat, rival!” Gai croaks, bent over the counter and coughing hard into his fist. Kakashi nods in agreement, but he thinks he would be enjoying winning a lot more if he could feel his frigging face or stop his eyes from watering. How does this keep happening to him? Why does he have no self-control when it comes to this big green idiot?!
“How do I keep letting you talk me into this stuff, Gai?” he groans, fanning his burning mouth with one hand, and his rival gives a booming laugh laced with a spice-induced wheeze.
“All I ever have to do is ask if you’re afraid to take me on, Kakashi!”
“…Well,” Kakashi admits, still panting. “You have me there.”
Teuchi leans on the counter and gestures between the pair of them with a raised brow.
“Soooo, you two want some ice cream?”
“YES!”