Chapter Text
The blue light of the laptop screen illuminated the deep, purple bags under Kakashi Hatake’s eyes.
Syntax Error on Line 143.
Kakashi stared at the blinking cursor, seriously contemplating whether throwing his laptop out of his fourth-floor apartment window would be ruled a homicide or a mercy killing. This was his third major change in two years. Computer Science to Pre-Law (too much reading), Pre-Law to Applied Math (too much existential dread), and now, crawling back to Computer Science just in time for his second year to realize that, yes, he still hated coding with every fiber of his being.
"I'm dropping out," Kakashi announced to the empty pizza boxes on his coffee table. "I'm going to drop out, move into the woods, and let the moss reclaim me."
"You can't drop out. Minato-sensei would literally weep, and then he’d give you that disappointed look. You wouldn't survive the disappointed look," a voice called out from the kitchen.
Obito Uchiha, wearing oil-stained jeans and a t-shirt that had definitely seen better days, walked into the living room. In his hands, he held the gutted remains of Kakashi’s toaster, a soldering iron, and what looked suspiciously like a taser. As a Mechanical Engineering major, Obito treated the world as his personal, highly flammable playground.
"What are you doing to my toaster?" Kakashi asked, his voice entirely devoid of panic. He was too tired to panic.
"Upgrading it," Obito said with a grin, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "If I wire this bad boy right, it'll toast bread in exactly three point five seconds. If I wire it wrong, it might blow out the power grid for the whole block. Pass me the duct tape?"
Kakashi didn't even blink. He reached over, grabbed the roll of silver tape off his desk, and tossed it at Obito’s head. "Do the building grid. If the power goes out, I don't have to submit this project at midnight."
"That's the spirit!" Obito cheered, ripping off a piece of tape with his teeth.
They were a terrible influence on each other, and they both knew it. It was a dynamic forged in blood, sweat, and dingy basements three years ago. Before Kakashi aged out of the foster system, he had kept himself fed and housed by throwing fists in illegal underground fighting rings. He’d been lethal, entirely reckless, and completely alone—until a loudmouth Uchiha with a surprisingly mean right hook started showing up to the same fights.
They had beaten the absolute hell out of each other in the ring, gotten tacos afterward, and had been inseparable ever since. Obito’s fighting career had ended abruptly when his strict, terrifying uncle Fugaku caught him sneaking in at 3 AM with a busted lip. Kakashi’s had ended two years later, when Minato Namikaze—his senior high school who had practically pseudo-adopted Kakashi—found out. The three-hour lecture on self-worth, followed by Minato crying, had been significantly more painful than any broken rib Kakashi had ever endured.
Now, Kakashi was officially part of the Namikaze household, which meant he was legally obligated to be a role model.
Right on cue, Kakashi’s phone buzzed on the desk.
[Nart]: KAKASHI. ARE U COMING TO MY SOCCER GAME TMRW OR WAT?? DAD SAID YOURE BEING A DEPRESSING NERD AGAIN. DONT FLAKE DONT FLAKE DONT FLAKE.
Kakashi stared at the screen, letting out a long, slow sigh that ruffled his silver hair. His fingers hovered over the keyboard before he tapped out a quick reply.
[Kakashi]: I have work. Very srs stuff
[Kakashi]: When is it
The three grey typing dots appeared immediately. Kakashi didn’t even have time to set the phone down before it buzzed violently.
[Nart]: 4 PM!!! BE THERE OR IM TELLING DAD U SAID U HATE HIS COOKING
[Nart]: BRING OBITO!! AND RIN IF SHE ISNT CUTTING UP DEAD BODIES OR WHATEVER!!
Kakashi shoved his phone away face-down, resting his chin on his desk. "Naruto has a soccer game tomorrow at four. He is threatening to tell Minato I hate his cooking if I don't show."
"Whoa, extortion. They grow up so fast," Obito said, sounding genuinely proud. A concerning bzzzt noise came from the toaster, followed by a faint smell of ozone. "Tell him we’re in. I have a Thermodynamics midterm on Thursday that I haven't even looked at, so going to a high school soccer game to scream at teenagers is exactly the kind of distraction I need."
"You're going to fail," Kakashi said dryly.
"I'm going to cram," Obito corrected. "There's a difference."
Before Kakashi could point out that Obito's coping mechanisms were just as self-destructive as Kakashi's sudden desire to run away and become a lumberjack, the front door unlocked.
"If either of you ate my leftover Pad Thai, I am legally allowed to declare your cause of death as natural," Rin Nohara announced as she pushed the door open with her shoulder.
She looked exactly like a second-year pre-med student: her brown hair was tied back in a messy bun, she was wearing scrubs from her shadowing shift at the clinic, and she was clutching an iced coffee like it was a holy relic. She kicked her shoes off and paused, taking in the scene.
Kakashi, pale and looking like a Victorian ghost in front of his glowing laptop. Obito, sitting on a tarp, holding a soldering iron next to a toaster that was faintly smoking.
Rin took a slow sip of her iced coffee. "Obito, why is Kakashi's toaster smoking?"
"I'm supercharging it," Obito said proudly. "Hey, Rin! Wanna come to Naruto's soccer game tomorrow at four?"
"I have a bio lab until three-thirty, but if you guys pick me up, I can make it," Rin said, immediately stepping over Obito's mess to flop onto Kakashi's ratty couch. She looked over at Kakashi. "You look like a corpse, Kashi. Please tell me you aren't dropping out again."
"I’m starting an OnlyFans."
The apartment fell completely silent, save for the ominous humming of the toaster.
Rin didn’t even blink. She just took another long, deliberate sip of her iced coffee, staring at the back of Kakashi's head. "You hate being perceived. You won't even let the barista at Starbucks learn your name."
"I'll wear a surgical mask," Kakashi replied, his voice completely deadpan as he slumped lower in his desk chair. "It’ll be niche. 'Burnt-out former underground fighter stares blankly at Python code while contemplating the futility of human existence.' I bet some rich tech bro will pay twenty bucks a month just to fix my syntax errors for me."
"Bro," Obito breathed, dropping the soldering iron onto the tarp. His eyes were wide with genuine, unironic awe. "That’s actually genius. I’ll be your manager. I can build you a custom ring light. I'll even moderate the chat."
"You would get banned from your own chat in ten minutes for picking fights with the subscribers," Rin pointed out.
"I'm passionate about brand loyalty!" Obito defended, gesturing wildly with a screwdriver. "Look, I'm just saying, Kakashi has the brooding, mysterious, scarred bad-boy aesthetic down to a science. If he takes his shirt off, we could pay rent for a year. Do you know how much a textbook on fluid mechanics costs, Rin? Do you?!"
Kakashi finally spun his chair around to face them. He was wearing his favorite oversized black hoodie, pulled up to his chin to hide the faint, jagged scar running down the left side of his lip—a souvenir from a particularly nasty match when he was eighteen.
"See? Obito supports my entrepreneurial spirit," Kakashi said. "Minato won't even have to know. I’ll just tell him I got an internship."
"Minato will find out within a week because Naruto will somehow stumble across it, and then Minato will have a stress-induced heart attack, and I will have to try and resuscitate him," Rin said smoothly. She reached over, snagged a throw pillow, and launched it at Kakashi’s face. He caught it effortlessly without looking. "Finish your code, Kashi. If you drop out now, I'm making you pay for my MCAT prep materials."
Kakashi groaned, letting his head fall back against the chair. "I hate you both."
"Love you too, buddy," Obito chirped. He poked the toaster with the screwdriver. Sparks shot out in a vibrant arc of blue electricity, followed instantly by the entire apartment plunging into pitch blackness.
The silence stretched in the dark.
"Obito," Rin’s voice was dangerously calm.
"Uh," Obito said. "Good news? I think I solved Kakashi's coding problem for tonight."
Kakashi let out a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. "I'm going to kill you, and then I'm going to sell your organs on the dark web to pay our electric bill."
A click echoed in the dark, followed by the harsh, blinding beam of Rin’s phone flashlight. She aimed it directly at Obito, illuminating him like a suspect in an interrogation room. He was holding the screwdriver up like a shield.
"In my defense," Obito started, his voice cracking slightly, "Kakashi specifically requested I blow the building grid."
Kakashi didn't move. In the dark, his voice sounded entirely hollow. "Obito."
"Yeah, Kashi?"
"Did you hear my laptop make the little *ding* sound?"
Obito swallowed hard. "The... what sound?"
"The autosave ding. I set it to go off every ten minutes so I don't lose my mind." Kakashi finally turned his head to look at his now completely dead, uncharged laptop. "Did it ding, Obito?"
"...It did not ding."
Rin sighed, reaching out to pat Kakashi’s shoulder in the dark. "I'll help you bury him. I know a guy at the crematorium who owes me a favor."
The Next Day - 3:45 PM
"If this car explodes, I am haunting both of you," Rin said, gripping the holy shit handle above the passenger door as Obito took a corner at a speed that heavily disregarded local traffic laws.
"She's not gonna explode! I tuned the engine myself!" Obito yelled over the sound of the rattling muffler. His car—a 1998 Honda Civic that was currently three different colors of primer—sounded like it was begging for the sweet release of death.
"That is exactly why she's going to explode," Kakashi muttered from the backseat. He was slumped against the window, wearing sunglasses indoors (well, inside the car) to hide the bags under his eyes. He had spent from 2 AM to 6 AM rewriting his code by candlelight after the building super finally flipped the breakers back on, cursing the Uchiha bloodline the entire time.
"Hater," Obito scoffed, smoothly whipping the Civic into the parking lot of Konoha High School and sliding into a spot right next to a pristine, obnoxiously shiny black Audi. "Ha! Take that, Fugaku. Uchiha parking dominance."
"Your uncle isn't even here, Obito," Rin pointed out, unbuckling her seatbelt.
"It's about the principle."
The three of them piled out of the car, stretching their legs as they walked toward the sprawling green turf of the soccer field. The bleachers were already packed with parents, students, and an alarming number of signs.
It didn't take long to spot their target. Down by the benches, a shock of bright blonde hair practically vibrated with energy. Naruto Uzumaki, wearing his neon orange cleats, was currently gesturing wildly at a dark-haired boy who looked like he’d rather be literally anywhere else in the world.
"SASUKE, PASS THE BALL TO ME TODAY!" Naruto’s voice carried over the entire field. "IF YOU HOG IT AGAIN I'M GOING TO KICK YOU IN THE SHINS!"
Sasuke Uchiha just shoved his hands in his pockets and rolled his eyes. "Try it, loser, and see what happens."
"Aw, look at my little cousin," Obito cooed, wiping a fake tear from his eye. "So angsty. So full of rage. Takes me back."
"You threw a chair at my head the first time we met," Kakashi reminded him dryly.
"Like I said. Nostalgic."
Before Kakashi could retort, a warm, slightly exasperated voice called out from the bottom of the bleachers. "Kakashi! Obito! Rin! You made it!"
Kakashi flinched. He slowly lowered his sunglasses, peering down the steps.
Minato Namikaze was standing there, looking like he had just stepped out of a catalog for 'Perfect Suburban Dads'. He was wearing a stylish windbreaker, holding a thermos of what was undoubtedly premium coffee, and beaming at them. Beside him sat his wife, Kushina, who was currently holding up a massive, terrifyingly glittery sign that read *UZUMAKI STRIKER #1 (MURDER THEM, NARUTO!)*.
Minato’s blue eyes locked onto Kakashi, scanning him from head to toe. The smile softened, turning into that dreaded, hyper-perceptive look.
"Kakashi," Minato said gently as they approached. "Have you slept at all?"
Kakashi froze. He briefly considered throwing a smoke bomb, but he hadn't carried those since he was nineteen. He glanced at Obito and Rin for help.
Obito whistled, looking at the sky. Rin suddenly became very interested in her fingernails. Traitors. Both of them.
“There was a power outage.” Kakashi said slowly. “Obito caused it. In fact, he shut off the power grid for the entire block."
Obito’s head snapped sideways so fast his neck audibly cracked. "Bro! Snitch! You absolute *rat*!"
"He's telling the truth," Rin chimed in helpfully, stepping neatly out of the splash zone of Obito’s impending doom. "He supercharged a toaster and blew a fuse. Kakashi lost three hours of code."
Minato let out a soft, devastating sigh. It wasn't angry. It was worse. It was the sigh of a disappointed father figure. "Obito... are you tampering with high-voltage appliances again? We talked about this after the incident with the microwave."
"I was trying to optimize it!" Obito defended, throwing his hands up. "And for the record, Kakashi literally asked me to blow the grid so he wouldn't have to do his homework! He was gonna start an Only—"
Kakashi’s elbow shot out, catching Obito sharply in the ribs before the word 'OnlyFans' could leave his mouth. Obito wheezed, folding in half.
"Start a what?" Minato asked, blinking.
"An online study group," Kakashi lied smoothly, not breaking eye contact. "But I'm too tired now. Because of the toaster."
Before Minato could dissect that incredibly flimsy lie, Kushina leaned over the bleacher railing. Her fiery red hair blew in the wind, and her dark eyes locked onto Obito with the intensity of an apex predator.
"Obito Uchiha," Kushina said, her voice dropping to a terrifying, honey-sweet register. "Did you deprive my Kashi of his sleep? Look at him! He looks like a freshly dug-up corpse, ya know! If you make him fail his classes, I am going to use your intestines as jump ropes for Naruto's PE class."
"It was an accident!" Obito squeaked, hiding behind Rin. "Auntie Kushina, please, I'm a fragile engineering student!"
"Come here, sweetie," Kushina completely ignored Obito, reaching over to grab Kakashi by the front of his hoodie. She hauled him forward and began violently squishing his pale cheeks together. "Have you been eating? You're nothing but skin and bones! I swear, the minute you moved out, you forgot what a vegetable is. I'm packing you leftovers tonight."
Kakashi couldn't really speak with his face squished into a fish-puckered expression, so he just patted Kushina's hand in defeat. He had fought guys twice his size in underground basements, but Kushina Uzumaki was a force of nature no man could withstand.
"MOM! STOP SQUISHING HIS FACE, HE LOOKS WEIRD!"
A blur of bright orange and blonde barreled into the chain-link fence separating the field from the bleachers. Naruto was clinging to the fence like a hyperactive spider monkey, grinning from ear to ear.
"Kakashi! You actually came!" Naruto cheered, his blue eyes shining. "Did you bring the thing? The thing you promised?"
Kakashi finally managed to gently pry Kushina's hands off his face. He reached into the oversized pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a battered, tape-wrapped camcorder.
"Got it right here," Kakashi said, his voice returning to its usual lazy drawl. "Just like you asked."
"Yes!" Naruto pumped a fist in the air. "Okay, you have to record every time I score, and specifically get Sasuke's stupid face in the background when I do! I'm making a compilation!"
"I'm pretty sure that's cyberbullying, squirt," Obito laughed, leaning against the fence next to Kakashi.
"It's not bullying if it's true!" Naruto declared loudly. From down the field, Sasuke flipped Naruto the bird without even turning around. Naruto immediately started foaming at the mouth. "OH, YOU'RE DEAD, DATTEBAYO! I'M GONNA DESTROY YOU!"
As Naruto tore off back toward the bench to threaten his teammate with bodily harm, Minato chuckled, clapping Kakashi on the shoulder.
"Thanks for coming, Kakashi. I know you've got a lot on your plate with the... applied math? Or was it pre-law?" Minato asked, genuinely trying to keep up.
Kakashi stared blankly at the soccer field. "It's Computer Science again."
Minato’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. "Oh. Well. Coding is... very practical."
"He hates it," Obito supplied helpfully, rubbing his ribs. "He stared at a wall for an hour yesterday contemplating becoming a lumberjack."
Minato gave Kakashi a look of profound, gentle concern. "Kakashi, you know if you're struggling, you can always talk to me, right? You don't have to figure everything out at twenty-one. You have a safety net."
Kakashi’s chest tightened, a familiar, uncomfortable warmth spreading through him. Even after three years, he wasn't quite used to people giving a shit about him.
"I'm fine, Minato-sensei," Kakashi deflected, lifting the camcorder and turning it on. "Really. Just... debugging. It builds character."
Before Minato could push the issue, the referee's whistle shrieked across the turf.
"Ooh, they're starting!" Rin said, sliding into the bleacher row next to Kushina. "Ten bucks says Naruto gets a yellow card in the first five minutes."
"I'll take that bet," Obito said, grinning. "I give him three minutes."
It took exactly two minutes and forty-five seconds for Naruto to get a yellow card.
"HE TRIPPED ME!" Naruto screeched, pointing an accusatory finger at a very smug-looking midfielder from the opposing team, the Suna Sand Cats. "REF, ARE YOU BLIND?! HE STUCK HIS FAT FOOT OUT!"
"Language, Naruto!" Minato called from the bleachers, though he was massaging his temples in a way that suggested a migraine was rapidly approaching.
Kushina, on the other hand, was standing on the bleacher seat, waving her glittering sign like a weapon. "HE DID TRIP HIM, YA KNOW! GET SOME GLASSES, REF! MY BABY DID NOTHING WRONG!"
Kakashi kept the camcorder perfectly steady, completely unfazed by the chaos unfolding around him. The grainy viewfinder framed Naruto stomping his feet, Sasuke face-palming in the background, and the referee blowing his whistle aggressively.
"Fascinating," Kakashi muttered softly, zooming in slightly on Sasuke’s expression of pure, unadulterated suffering. "Obito, you owe Rin ten bucks."
"Bullshit, I said three minutes, that was practically three minutes!" Obito argued, leaning over Kakashi’s shoulder to look at the tiny screen. He smelled faintly of motor oil and burnt toast.
"Two minutes and forty-five seconds," Rin corrected without looking away from the field. She took a sip of her iced coffee. "Pay up, Uchiha. My MCAT books aren't going to buy themselves."
Obito grumbled, digging into his oil-stained jeans to fish out a crumpled ten-dollar bill, passing it over Kakashi’s head to Rin.
The game resumed, and despite his earlier outburst, Naruto was undeniably good. He played with a chaotic, relentless energy that forced the opposing team to constantly scramble. Sasuke, on the other hand, played with terrifying, calculated precision. When they actually managed to pass to each other without insulting one another, they were unstoppable.
About twenty minutes into the first half, Naruto broke away from the defenders. He was sprinting down the right flank, the ball glued to his bright orange cleats.
"He’s open," Kakashi murmured, tracking him with the camera.
Sasuke was cutting across the center, perfectly positioned for a cross. "Pass it, loser!" Sasuke yelled.
Naruto didn't pass. Of course he didn't pass. He planted his foot, wound back, and kicked the ball with enough force to launch it into low orbit.
The ball sailed beautifully over the heads of the defenders, bypassed the goalie completely, and slammed straight into the upper right corner of the net.
The bleachers erupted. Kushina screamed so loudly Kakashi actually felt his left eardrum ring. Minato jumped up, cheering and clapping.
Down on the field, Naruto was running in circles, screaming at the top of his lungs. He slid on his knees across the turf, pointing emphatically at Sasuke, who was just shaking his head with a tiny, barely-there smirk.
"Did you get it?!" Obito yelled, shaking Kakashi’s shoulder. "Did you get the shot?!"
Kakashi hit the stop button on the camcorder. "Got it. Framed perfectly with Sasuke looking mildly annoyed in the background."
"You're a visionary, Kashi," Obito praised, patting him on the back.
As the game settled into halftime, the trio made their way down the bleachers toward the fence. Minato and Kushina stayed behind to chat with the other parents, specifically Sakura Haruno’s parents, who looked thoroughly exhausted by the sheer volume of the Uzumaki-Namikaze family.
Naruto jogged over to the fence, chugging water from a bright orange sports bottle, sweat dripping down his face.
"Did you see that?!" Naruto beamed, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm. "Totally styled on 'em! I'm the best striker in this school!"
"It was a good shot," Kakashi admitted, leaning against the chain-link. He reached through and handed Naruto a sports drink he had snagged from Obito’s car. "You should have passed to Sasuke, though. Your angle was garbage. You got lucky the goalie hesitated."
Naruto scoffed, taking the drink. "Lucky? That was pure skill! Sasuke wouldn't have made it anyway, he's too brooding to shoot properly."
Sasuke, who had walked over to grab his own water bottle, paused. He shot a glare at Naruto, then looked at Kakashi and Obito. "Don't encourage him. He's going to be insufferable for the rest of the week."
"Hey, little cousin," Obito grinned, ruffling Sasuke’s sweaty hair through the fence. Sasuke immediately swatted his hand away with a scowl. "Good to see you're still a joy to be around. Fugaku still making you do the scowl exercises in the mirror every morning?"
Sasuke narrowed his dark eyes. "Shut up, Obito. Shouldn't you be off failing a midterm or blowing up an appliance?"
"I'll have you know I blew up an appliance last night, thank you very much," Obito countered proudly.
Rin sighed, resting her chin on her hands as she watched them bicker. "Kakashi, remind me why we hang out with Uchihas?"
"I don't know," Kakashi said deadpan, pulling his surgical mask up slightly. "I think it's a trauma bond at this point."