Work Text:
(1. a feeling)
Minato spends all of the first day holed up in their room, a dozen bokuju bottles in echelon formation at his side, tatami mats sketching crisscross impressions across his skin. Kakashi would liken the patterns to constellations, if he were poetic. But he's not.
Kakashi leaves first thing in the morning to scout out the city; finds nothing and no one whom he is looking for. By the time he returns, hands stuffed beneath his scarf and snow dusting his hair, half of the bottles are empty.
Minato he finds in the middle of ordered chaos, unfinished drafts scattered about him like a fledgling's first down. Kakashi has seen illustrations less perfect than this: Minato seiza-form and brush held perfectly upright in his grasp, index and middle fingers pressing the brush lightly to his thumb.
Jiraiya can write entire passages about the sliver of skin revealed when a geisha pours a cup of tea, about the angle of her wrist and the rotation of her palm. But Kakashi looks at Minato and the only thing he can think to say is, "Your writing is atrocious."
The noise startles Minato. His wrist flicking to the side, leaving a thick, ugly line on the scroll.
"Ah," Minato murmurs, shaking his head at the state of his scroll. He makes short work of rolling it up, sending a quick burst of heated chakra so the ink doesn't smear. Kakashi has to admire how easily he does that, with just the right amount of heat; the ink doesn't even crack.
"As if you're one to speak."
Kakashi hums in agreement. In truth, Kakashi's academy scrawl is probably worse than Minato's script, which at least maintains an illusion of style, a messy sōsho cursive. A draft by his feet looks less like characters and more like the lines of a landscape, an illustration in a story that will never be written about them.
"Kushina's better at calligraphy," Minato laments. He pushes himself off the ground, tapping a toe against the mats and shaking the tingling out of his feet. "I should have asked her for some pointers."
It's true. Kakashi has seen Kushina working on her fūinjutsu, has seen a glimpse of Kushina as only Minato gets to see. It is a strange thing to see a woman so animated suddenly become still: to see her eyelids droop low, to see her locks of flying hair settle and pool over her shoulders, to see her energy turn inward and bloom across a scroll. Maybe that is it- the contrast. Maybe that's what makes Minato love her.
Minato paces about the room, collecting scrolls, feet barely making any noise as he passes. If they were characters in a story, there would be a metaphor to be made: he steps so easily and lightly through one's life, but the footprints he leaves are like chasms.
"Are you done for the day?" Kakashi asks, because it hadn't been his intention to make Minato stop. It makes Minato pause, glancing over his shoulder, arms are full of half rolled-up scrolls and cheek tidily smudged with ink. Kakashi resists the urge to wipe it away, offering Minato a handkerchief instead.
"Truthfully, my hand was starting to cramp and my feet are falling asleep. Some food would be appreciated too." As if on cue Minato's stomach rumbles loudly, but he places a hand over it unselfconsciously. "We passed by a ramen stand on our way into the city, which smelled promising."
There's an invitation tucked between the words so the next minute finds Kakashi back on the street, Minato walking ahead of him, three paces to the right.
Kakashi reminds himself: this is not usual. This is change. This is discrepancy given form.
In Konoha, Kakashi walked on Minato's right side, because Kushina always claimed his left. But in the Land of Iron, where neutrality is law but not always thought or action, Minato is no longer in his blind spot.
Minato leads and Kakashi follows, measuring the distance between their hands.
(2. our ghosts)
Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu make up the other half of their four-man team, for all they barely interact with the two. It's rare for Mitokado and Utatane to be away from the Council, let alone out of the village, but their sharp eyes catch everything: Minato's gestures and Minato's smiles and the ink that stains Minato's hands.
But it is not what they see in Minato that Kakashi worries about.
The inn that they're staying at is old. The floors creak easily and the walls are paper thin, but it's supposed to be some sort of historical monument. It fits their cover as traveling tourists but Kakashi would be just as happy staying at a less famous inn, if only it had proper heating. The seals written into the plaster only manage to keep the cold just shy of lethal.
The first night Kakashi and Minato roll out their futons, side by side, a habit from nights spent out on the field, and a necessity due to Minato's scrolls claiming an entire quarter of the room. Kakashi goes to sleep grumbling over the smell of ink permeating the room, and wakes up with his nose buried into Minato's shoulder.
"You're freezing Kakashi," Minato murmurs, "can you even feel your toes?"
Kakashi can't. Minato tuts over the exposed portion of Kakashi's skin, touching each lightly in turn and commenting about their temperature. His fingertips, his arms, the soft skin on the inside of his elbow; Minato's touch feels muffled and distant, making it just possible to bear.
"I don't know how you even managed to survive through the night," Minato comments, but when his hands travel up to Kakashi's eyes, Kakashi grabs both his arms and pushes away, refusing to look at Minato's eyes.
"Don't."
Fussing over Kakashi and tending to his wounds; these are the things that Rin used to do. If he looked at Minato's expression there would be nothing but comprehension. Yet Minato's kindness is in his silence and he doesn't say a word.
Mitokado and Utatane expressions are flat and disapproving when they come down for breakfast, which is usual, but the extra set of weight in their brows is not. The walls of the inn must be thin enough for Minato's voice to pass through. Kakashi doesn't trust his expression, so he drinks his miso through his mask.
Kakashi tests out his hypothesis that night, but even with his ear pressed to the floor he never hears a whisper of footsteps from the other room.
"They're quite famous in their own right," Minato says, frowning when he presses too hard and the ink makes a fat smudge. "So you shouldn't expect to get anything from spying on them."
There are names associated with heroes which rise to fame and others which fade into obscurity, but Mitokado and Utatane are neither. They are skilled and important, but in the wake of the Sandaime's reputation they are remarkable for their lack of remarkability.
Kakashi sends him an irritated glance at Minato. He hadn't thought he was being obvious. Now Mitokado and Utatane are going to think he's been gossiping about them with Minato.
"We are gossiping about them," Minato says reasonably, adding, "they're probably doing the same about us."
Gossip is not a description Kakashi would use to describe the most esteemed members of Konoha's Council, but Minato smiles and asks, what do you expect, they've known each other for half a century.
Minato's own team mates died weeks prior to the war, when the conflict was still small enough for people to consider war avoidable. Minato had cancelled training to attend their funerals, and now their names are carved into the Memorial Stone, thirty seven rows above Obito's own.
This is but one of a growing list of things Kakashi cannot ask Minato, but he wonders what it'd be like, to have team mates for a lifetime.
(3. a future)
Here in the Land of Iron people don't care about political alliances or shinobi rules. Almost no one carries a bingo book, and wouldn't be able to recognize the entries if Kakashi asked. Kakashi doesn't, of course; he doesn't talk to them at all. In truth Minato is the only person Kakashi truly talks to, and in that way the Land of Iron is exactly like Konoha.
The streets are full of sights and sounds, the heavy bustle of midday traffic. There are carts clattering down the street and people shouting at each other from both sides of the sidewalk, some in anger, some in confusion, some just to say hello. The street vendors call out to him, but only as another potential customer, another person on the road. Most look at him and judge him too young to call to at all. Here he is not Sharigan no Kakashi, is not the son of Konoha's White Fang. Here Obito's eye is hidden beneath fabric seals and he's left his father's tanto back home, and the absence of it all itches, like a scab Kakashi wants to pull.
A grey smog hangs over the sky, a mixture of pollution and the threat of snow. His gloves leave his fingers exposed; Kakashi spends the day rubbing his hands together, trying to relieve the cold. He thinks of the last time his hands were warm, lighting-burned and slicked with blood, and rubs harder.
"-so what would you like?" Minato is asking, held tilted towards Kakashi rather than staring at the road. Kakashi looks at Minato blankly and the other man clarifies, "As a souvenir."
Kakashi has never bought a souvenir before. The only time he's been on foreign soil has been for missions requiring stealth, or destruction or, for particularly high ranking ones, both simultaneously. There have been classified documents which Kakashi has procured which could technically be classified as souvenirs. But that is probably not what Minato is referring to.
"I don't want anything," Kakashi says, as if saying it out loud will make it true. He wants for nothing, that could be bought on the streets of Iron.
But Minato is skilled at remaining oblivious to things that don't suit him. When an old woman calls him over, Minato signals Kakashi to wait, two fingers pressed against Kakashi's right shoulder.
Kakashi cannot tell why Minato chooses this woman out of all the possible vendors. They are all selling the same sort of metal trinkets, the same iron charms. If it were him, Kakashi would ignore the woman based on sensibilities alone. Her hair is frizzled and stringy, the color of old dirt. It might be her natural color or an unfortunate side effect of not bathing. Her fingers are discolored, black and dirty from the nickel undoubtedly mixed into her gold. Her posture is slumped, as if from a recent burden or an abiding loss. Her clothes smell of old grief.
Kakashi watches Minato point at something on the table, watching the pictures Minato sketches with his hands. A striking slash. Sketchy letters. Something he best translates as a flock of birds.
When Minato returns there is a paper bag nestled in the crook of his arm. He turns out the bag for Kakashi to see, iron trinkets clinking together as they tumble into his palm.
"They're charms," Minato explains, rolling a trinket with a thumb. They have no distinctive shape, though if Kakashi squints he may be able to make out hilts and the curve of a blade. "The locals have a superstition. They say that every living being has a true name, different from the name they are given when born into the world. It's the true name that the soul identifies with. If you carve a dead man's true name into one of these charms, you're supposed to be able to capture his soul."
Minato says it like he's reciting from a textbook. Kakashi can't tell how the charms are meant to be worn, but Minato pulls out his dog tags from beneath his vest, looping the metal hook over the chain. The metal plates glint in the morning gloom. Identification number, date of birth, blood type, Kakashi reads. He thinks: these are too inadequate to be the summary of a man.
"The shamans are supposed to be able to divine a person's true name. Some locals carve the name and bury it outside the walls to ward off ghosts. Others wear it as a necklace to always keep their departed loved ones close."
"That's a convoluted superstition," Kakashi remarks as Minato hands him the second one, the last vestiges of Minato's body heat transferring from the iron trinket to the exposed portions of Kakashi's hand.
"But since it's not perfectly packaged, doesn't that make it sound more true?" Minato asks, in his best lecture voice. "Even if it's not true, does that mean we should just dismiss it?"
Minato tone is light and he doesn't smile. There is something muted in his gaze.
"Sometimes, people need these sort of things."
(4. our duty)
It's cold enough for them to get first degree frostbite if they're not careful. They've been waiting outside the tower for what's quick approaching the first hour, and there's no sign of the other party. Kakashi wonders if that is Kiri's final strategy - to kill them with the cold.
"Stop thinking undiplomatic thoughts," Minato chastens him. I'd stop thinking undiplomatic thoughts if they'd stop performing undiplomatic gestures, Kakashi wants to snap. But all things considered this is not the worst thing Kiri has done.
There is a sudden warmth on his arm as Minato places a steadying hand on Kakashi's shoulder. Kakashi keeps his mouth shut and swallows his more bitter thoughts.
There is a breath or two of pure breathing, in which Kakashi lets himself enjoy the soft warmth of Minato's palm. His fingers find the ridges of his cuffs, where the metal presses lightly against his chakra points, and steps away. It wouldn't do to have the Kiri nin see the gesture and think in any way that Konoha is weak, and both Mitokado and Utatane stand like stone sentinels at their side. Minato lets him go without any complaint.
If he had his chakra he could use it to warm his blood, but each of them have been fitted with iron dampers at the gate of the city, and being cold is no reason to risk the end of a war. It is a treaty that will be won through a careful balance of ignorance and bluff and weary mistrust, if there's a treaty to be made at all.
By the time the Kiri nin arrive Mitokado and Utatane have gained an extra layer of frigidity in their silence. Minato's smile is as easy as ever and the only sign of his discontent is that he is not the first to offer a greeting. Neither do the Kiri at first, a large bear of a man and his skinny boyish companion, two others lurking on the rooftops just outside the shadows. But eventually the larger man dips a stiff bow, his own damper glinting in the shadowed sun, and apologizes for their lateness.
His name is Chikyusho, or at least that's the name he gives to be called. His hands are large, twice the size of Minato's own, and his eyes are mild if not necessarily kind. He reminds Kakashi of an Akimichi. It is with as much realization as resignation that Kakashi thinks: so there are men like that, too, in Kiri.
He ends up on guard duty with the skinny wraith of a boy, while Minato and Chikyosho enter the building to begin the discussions and Mitokado and Utatane jump to the rooftops to patrol with the other Kiri pair. The seals around the door frame flare briefly as Minato and Chikyosho pass. Kakashi feels a slight sting from standing so close, but to anyone else on the street there is nothing remarkable about the building, nothing significant about this moment. There is no reason why it should be.
They won't speak openly of the treaty outside of sealed quarters, but that is really only limited to the treaty. Minato will ask him later how his side of things went, and Kakashi will glare and chatter his teeth, reporting that it took three minutes for the Kiri nin's breath to stop condensing to steam, and that tomorrow it looks like it'll snow.
It'll be a lie of omission.
This, now, is the moment that Kakashi will choose not to tell: when the Kiri boy leans into him, smiles, and asks, "Honestly, do you care if this even works?"
When the boy laughs, like sharing a joke, and says, "Yours killed my brother. I hear ours killed your friend. Do you think if they talk amongst themselves long enough, they can balance it out with lumber and fish and steel, and call it an even trade?"
In time he'll forget the boy's face, the color of his hair and his eyes. But Kakashi will always remember that breath of a moment in which he weighed Minato and all of Konoha, and related more to a Kiri nin.
(5. us)
A week later Kakashi dreams of cutting lightning, of conduction and convection and his chakra touching the sky. When he wakes the space beside him is empty, the indentation already cooled.
There is a note waiting for him on the pillow, and for a moment he stares at it uncomprehendingly, thinks, self-proclaimed best-seller number three, Jiraiya's One Thousand Ways to Say Goodbye.
Out drinking with Chikyusho, says the message, cheerful and messy, like it was written in a rush. I think he's finally warming up to me, but can never be too sure. Should be finished by sunset. See if you can scout out some good ramen stands for dinner- or just meet me at the first one we went to if none of the others seem promising. Kakashi reads the warning in the wording, the orders to keep a lookout for possible threats. It gives him instructions, but it also, for the next eight hours, leaves him with exactly nothing to do.
He ends up scouting, even though the warmongers, having not found them yet, are unlikely to find them at all. Kakashi wanders the streets, trying to navigate the market stalls through memory, but they've all seemed to have shifted overnight. One stranger's face looks just as suspicious and unfamiliar as the one before it.
As he walks he turns the charm that Minato bought over and over in his hands, memorizing the indentations of the metal. He wonders if he could write any kind of name on there. If he could write the name of a fear. The name of a feeling. There are many things he'd like to bury, here in the Land of Iron.
Sometime into the third hour Kakashi catches a glimpse of the Kiri boy rounding a corner down the street. He pauses for a moment, but doesn't try to follow. Doesn't try to call out, because he doesn't know the boy's name.
At sunset Minato stumbles into the ramen stall with a drunken stagger that's too exaggerated to be real, triumphantly waving a scroll through the air in way that's too audacious to be conspicuous.
Back at the inn Minato unfurls it enough for Kakashi to catch the tail end of the agreement, and the two signatures at the end. He envisions how Minato signed it: brush at a perfect perpendicular angle and hand whisked with a flourish. Kakashi touches the edge of the kanji, almost expecting it to smudge, but it has long since dried. His hand leaves no impression at all.
"We can go home now," Minato says, and for all he can control his emotions Kakashi hears the careful joy in his voice. "We can start heading back to Konoha, first thing in the morning."
Minato is sick for a home Kakashi has very little impression of, and it is this thought that keeps Kakashi up, long after they've climbed into their futons. He stares at the ceiling and thinks of rows of names carved into a stone, of hospital rooms that are too empty to wake in. He thinks of a village that needs a new hope, a new Hokage, of a woman with flaming hair and a unborn child without a name.
At some point during the night Kakashi rolls over. He stares at the outline of Minato's back in the dark, the slow movement of Minato's breathing in his sleep. The slight drain in chakra leaves him feeling colder, but Kakashi pushes up the edge of his seals to capture the lines in memory, to let Obito say hello.
This is the one thousandth, he thinks. This is the one thousandth and first goodbye.
Kakashi doesn't pull in closer to Minato. He doesn't close his eyes to sleep.
(why couldn't we stay forever?)
(there weren't enough reasons for us to stay)