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Kakashi carefully cradled his little carton of eggs as he walked next to his mother. A loud metallic clatter at his side made him jump a little and he jostled his eggs. He frowned and darted a glare at the offender.
Iruka grinned broadly and grabbed another can off the shelf to throw in his tiny shopping trolley, giving a jaunty toss of his head as it clanged against the wire frame. His hair, caught up in a small ponytail, wagged with him.
“Don't do it,” Kakashi ordered, stepping away from him. Iruka threw him a challenging look and grabbed another can.
“Don't–”
The can slammed home.
“If you're bad, you won't get any presents,” Kakashi warned, hands tightening on his egg carton as Iruka reached for another can.
“I just have to be good right before Christmas,” Iruka proclaimed, blinking as the can was plucked from his grasp.
“I didn't know you liked canned beets,” Jiraiya mused, inspecting the can before putting it back on the shelf.
“Hate it!” Iruka declared, sticking his tongue out in disgust.
“You have a cart full of them,” Jiraiya informed him, pointing at the cans piled in his little shopping trolley. “That's an odd way of hating them.”
“I'm throwing them,” Iruka grinned. “They're better when you make a big noise!”
“I told him not to,” Kakashi added, determined to make sure he wasn't implicated in any way. “He never listens.”
Iruka blew a raspberry at him and made a face. “Old man,” he whined.
“Now, now,” Jiraiya cut in, poking at the cans and boxes in the shopping trolley. He paused.
“What are you two shopping for anyhow,” he mused.
“We're making cookies,” Kakashi told him, clutching his egg carton to his chest and thrusting it out at the same time.
“Pirate gingerbread!” Iruka crowed.
“Pirates?” Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. “Not ninjas?”
“And ninjas,” the brunet instantly corrected.
“Why ninjas,” Kakashi muttered. “It's Christmas. It should be Christmas stuff.”
“Ninja gingerbread!” Iruka shouted, waving his arms with excitement and jumping up and down. “Ninja ginger! Ginger ninjas! Ninjabread men!”
“Ninjas aren't Christmas!” Kakashi protested.
“No one made Christmas have rules,” Jiraiya said, patting the boy on the head and ruffling his hair. “Ninjas can be Christmassy. You just have to change their clothes.”
“Santa ninjas?” Kakashi looked doubtful.
“Or that,” Jiraiya snorted. “Instead of shuriken, they can throw gifts at people and use ribbon for...”
A slightly lascivious and sleazy look ghosted over his face, chased away when Kakashi muttered a disgusted “ew”, Nanori rolling her eyes as she shoved at Jiraiya's shoulder.
“Hey!” Jiraiya yelped, sounding offended.
An hour later and Jiraiya was scrubbing madly at an egg white stain on his red jumper while grumbling that he was not a housewife, not noticing the way he was spreading powdered sugar all over his elbow. Behind him, the hospital cafeteria's kitchen was a bustling wreck of both children and spilt ingredients. Egg was dashed across the white tiles above the sinks. Flour dusted ovens and table tops, smooth powdery fields broken up by random hand prints and sticky globs of brown. Bowls were stacked up higgledy piggledy and cookie cutters were being wielded with extreme prejudice.
He felt something sticky on the rolled cuff of his jumper and groaned as he saw a smear of cookie dough settling into the fibers. He sighed and gave up, turning to inspect his ruinous kingdom, cringing at the sight of so much partially supervised chaos. How he had gotten roped into this, he couldn't say. One moment he was cruising the super market for ice cream and the next he was helping his cousin-in-law unload ingredients in the cafeteria's kitchen before a bevy of kids. As it turned out, Nanori had arranged a bit of a free day for the healthier pediatric patients and they had all come down to help bake cookies. It was just bad luck that left him in the crossfire.
A tug at his trousers had him cringing at the thought of more sticky residue and the smile he turned on the child trying to get his attention was more of a grimace than anything else. He managed a weak, “Yes?” just as a floppy raw doughy ninja was thrust up to his face.
“Made you something!” A little boy with spiky hair shouted.
“Ah, very good Kotetsu-kun!” Jiraiya praised awkwardly, carefully catching the drooping cookie dough man. “Let's get him on a tray, shall we?”
Kotetsu grinned and trotted after his hero. Jiraiya-sensei had, after all, been treating his leukemia for quite some time now.
Seated at the finishing bench were a blonde boy with bright blue eyes and a green-eyed girl with an orange scarf wound around her head. Between them were Kakashi and Iruka, the latter of whom was standing on his chair and hopping with a tube of red icing in his hand. The icing was dribbling down his fingers like Candyland blood.
“I'm telling you, ninjas aren't orange,” Minato complained, trying to take away Kushina's orange icing.
“And I say they are, -tebane!” she shouted back, squeezing the tube as she pulled, a half orange ninja kicking at nothing in front of her.
“Let's make everything red!” Iruka interjected, shaking his icing covered fist. Ninja gingerbread cookies were spread out in front of him, red icing all over, even on their faces.
“Green!” a voice piped up, tiny hands appearing at the edge of the table as the top of a chair slid into place. A brightly smiling face popped up and Kakashi groaned internally.
“And red!” Iruka shouted, shaking his fist again, not realizing he was starting to splatter the icing.
“And orange!” Kushina declared, squeezing the icing tube so hard the cover popped off and hit Minato on the cheek. He frowned and she stuck out her tongue.
“And ORANGE!" Gai shouted with excitement, bouncing on his chair. He loved both green and orange!
Kakashi ignored them and carefully squeezed white icing on a dab of black before stirring them together with a toothpick to form a swirl. He squeezed gray icing on a shuriken shaped cookie and used a popsicle stick to spread it out. He was just starting to add little black lines to his shuriken when the nozzle of an icing tube appeared in his sight.
“No!” he cried, just as a thick spray of green icing came out.
“Now it's fuzzy!” he accused, pointing at it. “How can it kill things if it's fuzzy!”
He paused.
"And green!"
“But it's pretty!” Gai protested, trying to squeeze more icing on it. Iruka gingerly picked up the black and white icing swirl Kakashi had made, the disc semi-hardened.
“Stop touching Kakashi's weapons!” he shouted, swinging back his arm.“Whirling Blade Attack! Boosh!”
Minato and Kushina froze mid-battle and stared as Iruka flung the icing disc towards Gai.The icing disc struck the boy right in the middle of his forehead, a monotone swirl plastered to his head for a moment before it fell to the table. Gai looked stunned.
Then he smiled.
“That. Was. SOAWESOME!” he screamed.