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Tenzō slams the door shut, instinctively putting his back against it to prevent anyone else from coming in.
"Yo." Kakashi-senpai doesn't even take his leg off the bench, running the razor over the inside of his groin in a move which simultaneously screams danger to the back of Tenzō's brain and makes him flush with embarrassment.
"Senpai?" He can't wipe the confusion off his face though, and there's no handy mask to obscure his expression, so he knows his bewilderment is clear. "What are you doing?"
"Shaving." Kakashi-senpai wipes soap off the razor on to the towel draped around his neck, and Tenzō struggles not to follow the line of his collarbones under the tight black ANBU top.
Sometimes being a teenager is hell.
"What did you think I was doing." Kakashi-senpai's foot flexes on the wooden seat and Tenzō whips around before his team captain can swap legs and he sees something he won't be able to wipe from his memory.
"... I thought we weren't, uh, supposed to grow hair." Tenzō fixes his gaze on the door and tries not to listen to the barely audible sound of metal scraping over skin, a sound all ANBU are conditioned to interpret as a threat but which is now juxtaposed with some really confusing mental images. "You said it was a chakra exercise."
Thinking back on it though, Kakashi-senpai's exact words had been "a test in precision and control" and Tenzō feels a horrible suspicion growing within him.
"Did I?" Kakashi-senpai's voice is mild and amused, the way it almost always is outside of combat, as if life is one long joke which he views with detachment from a long way away. "I don't remember."
"You..." Tenzō takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he is not allowed to strangle his team captain. "You don't remember."
"Remember what?" The door opens and Tenzō finds himself staring over the head of his youngest team member. "Tenzō, why are you blocking the door."
It's not a question despite the phrasing, and Tenzō wordlessly steps aside to reveal their team captain's betrayal.
"Oh." Itachi's eyes momentarily flash red and Tenzō fights off the urge to cover his eyes, reminding himself that this boy has seen much worse than Kakashi-senpai's naked legs.
And other things.
"You finally caught him then." Itachi shoulders past him, heading for the lockers, and Tenzō feels his mouth drop open.
"You knew?" He can't believe this. "How!"
"Happened to one of my ancestors." Itachi's voice is muffled as he drags his mantle over his head. "Two generations ago I think? He recorded it into the clan archives as a warning not to be deceived, along with instructions to do it to one of the descendants of the man who tricked him."
"Any specific number of generations after?" Kakashi-senpai inquires, rinsing his razor off. "Or would any descendant do?"
"Minimum of three generations in order to allow the personal grudge to be forgotten, but no more than five so the names are still remembered." Itachi recites the formula from memory, messy hair falling around his face. "Applied to any descendant to join ANBU or become a member of the flower and willow world."
It's times like this when it's really obvious that Itachi is the most well read of the three of them, heir to a founding clan and so very Uchiha.
Their memories are long and their vengeance feared, for very good reasons.
"I suppose you're shaving too," Tenzō remarks bitterly, not bothering to hide the accusation. "Since I don't see any hair on you either."
"I'm too young to grow hair, senpai." Itachi looks at him pityingly. "I haven't reached puberty yet."
Oh gods.
Yes, of course.
Tenzō owes Kakashi-senpai a debt he can never repay for breaking him free of ROOT, but there are times when he really wonders how different ANBU is from the place where he began his life.
But then he sees the Uchiwa carefully stitched onto the mantle Itachi is putting away in his locker and that is the difference.
Itachi has a family.
Tenzō has none.
Still, family can be made and it was Kakashi-senpai who showed him that. Which doesn't mean he's going to let this go, of course.
"You're not even original, senpai." Tenzō yanks armour out of his locker, strapping it into place as Itachi does the same.
"Well, it's hard to surprise an Uchiha." Kakashi-senpai steps into a pair of pants, dragging them up over narrow hips. "They've seen pretty much everything."
"Blowjobs later, guys." Genma-san sticks his head into the room without knocking. "Mission time now, sex can wait."
"... did everyone think Kakashi-senpai was giving me a blowjob." Tenzō thinks back to the sheer number of times their colleagues have walked in on his team captain ostensibly checking him for pubic hair and bangs his head on his locker door. "They did, didn't they."
"Of course they did." Itachi snorts, adding a few more bandages to his weapons pouch, always a necessity on missions with Kakashi-senpai. "I heard some of them cooing over your 'teenage romance'."
"Did no one explain." Words cannot describe how mortified Tenzō is by this. "Why."
"Of course Kakashi-senpai didn't explain." Itachi makes for the door. "And it wasn't any of my business."
"Not your - !" Tenzō grits his teeth, slamming his own locker shut and following his teammate. "You're both such bastards."
"Excuse you, my parents were married." Kakashi-senpai slides his mask on over his usual mask, deadening the words, but his amusement still comes through.
"Emotional bastardry seems to be a requirement to be in ANBU, though." Itachi muses thoughtfully from behind his own mask. "You might want to take that into consideration in future, senpai."
"Yeah, keep up Tenzō." Kakashi-senpai trots off, heading for the mission briefing room. "You're too sweet to me, that's the trouble. You've got to be more awful."
"... I hate you all." Tenzō shoves his own mask over his face, glad not to have to hide his blush any longer. "Forever."
It's a lie of course, but they do that here in ANBU.