Chapter Text
“Nii-san! Nii-san!”
There’s a tornado going through the hospital, forcing staff to press up against the walls and upsetting innocent potted plants. It splits at the end of the hall, resolving into two boys, one blond, one dark-haired. They collide with two medics who have long since braced themselves.
“Hello, Naruto.”
“Hello, Sasuke.”
Kakashi and Itachi exchange indulgent smiles over their little brothers’ heads.
“What have I told you about running in the hospital?” Itachi says.
“But I missed you,” Sasuke whines.
“Me too!” Naruto shouts, not to be outdone. “I missed you both! And so did Sasuke, because Kakashi-nii is the best!”
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“Is not!”
The trainee supervisor pokes his head out of his office, spots the source of the commotion, and rolls his eyes. “Uchiha, go home. Your shift’s almost over anyway. Hatake, you’re not even supposed to be here.”
“Just helping my precious kohai, here,” Kakashi says, ruffling Itachi’s hair.
Itachi glares at him, mildly, like a kitten with a wet nose, which is why Kakashi hangs around pestering him at every opportunity. It’s impossible to see the man Itachi might have been in this cheerful, easy-going medic-in-training. Kakashi didn’t worry about it more than a week after meeting him. Okay, maybe a few weeks.
The supervisor huffs. “Right. Get lost, both of you. Some of us are trying to work.”
Itachi tries to apologize, but Sasuke and Naruto drag him away, out into the warm spring day.
Kakashi follows them, hands in his pockets, whistling. Pointing Itachi out to Orochimaru had been one of his better ideas. He’d heard from sensei that his graduation record was being challenged, and really shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was when he went to investigate and found a very young and very tiny Uchiha Itachi.
He might possibly have overreacted.
He yelled at the Academy sensei, he yelled at the school board, and he yelled at his own sensei, who had no idea what he was going on. He would have yelled at Fugaku, too, but Mikoto unexpectedly took his side and handled that for him. Leaving him free to yell at other people. Specifically Orochimaru.
“Do you even know this boy?” Orochimaru asks, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Maybe,” Kakashi says. He did see him in the Academy that one time, before he started yelling at everyone.
Orochimaru glares at him, like he knows exactly what he’s thinking.
Time for his trump card. “I have a bad feeling.”
Itachi is not allowed to graduate early.
Fugaku is livid, and tries to make Kakashi’s life difficult for a while, but he’s embarrassingly inept at it. What can he say that hasn’t already been said? What can he do to one of Konoha’s most successful young medical ninja?
But it bothers sensei, so Kakashi sics Naruto on him.
Definitely another one of his brilliant ideas, because the ensuing chaos is hilarious, and Kakashi gets a lot of surreptitious thumbs-up for that one.
“This isn’t going to be a repeat of the Hyuuga Incident, is it?” sensei asks, when Kakashi and Naruto are both called onto the carpet for a scolding.
“No,” Kakashi says virtuously.
But he doesn’t want to get Naruto in trouble—not that Naruto particularly minds, and anyway Kushina high-fived them both behind sensei’s back—but it’s the principle of the thing, so he tries another avenue.
“Get out of my office,” Orochimaru says.
“I think you should visit the Academy,” Kakashi says.
“No. Did you know that last time someone was actually eating dirt? Never again.”
“You should see Itachi,” Kakashi says. Maybe he’s a tiny bit motivated by the lingering need to check that Orochimaru isn’t secretly going evil again, but mostly he just wants to annoy Fugaku, and maybe help Itachi a little.
Orochimaru pushes his glasses back. “I thought you said he was dangerous.”
“I said he shouldn’t be allowed to graduate early. It’s unhealthy. Look at me. Look at Anko.”
Orochimaru frowns thoughtfully. “Those are two very good points, which is why he wasn’t allowed to graduate. I still don’t see why I have to be further involved.”
“But he has such excellent chakra control,” Kakashi wheedles.
Orochimaru understands right away. “The Uchiha clan traditionally doesn’t think much of medics.”
Idiots, Kakashi thinks. “Idiots,” he says.
“Quite.” Orochimaru fidgets with his glasses, a sure sign he’s wavering. “Very well, I suppose it’s about time those little miscreants were reminded what being a ninja is all about. But indoors, this time.”
Orochimaru is impressed by Itachi, of course—who wouldn’t be?—and it is not without a certain sense of irony that Kakashi helps smooth the way for Itachi to be taken on as Orochimaru’s student when he graduates (at ten, like everyone else).
Even though Orochimaru isn’t a medic himself, he gets all the credit for training Kakashi, and Fugaku is the only one surprised when Itachi also chooses a medical track.
The Uchiha clan is honored by such a prestigious placement, Itachi finds a way to be both a ninja and a pacifist, and Kakashi gets to annoy Fugaku. Everybody wins.
Kakashi watches Naruto and Sasuke pestering Itachi for attention, sweets, training, whatever it is, and his slight smile is fond, no trace of doubt or ambivalence.
He’d worried many times, over the years, if his third first meeting with Sasuke was going to be another round of barely-repressed anger and emotional upheaval.
Worried needlessly, as it turned out.
He was walking Itachi back to the Uchiha compound, sometime in Itachi’s first week at the hospital when Kakashi was rather ineptly trying to be friendly, when it happened. Sasuke came running out to greet them—well, greet Itachi really—and Itachi knelt down to swing him onto his back.
Sasuke grinned at them both, showing off his missing front teeth, and babbled cheerfully about his day and got a lollipop stuck in Itachi’s hair.
It was so far from any of Kakashi’s memories of Sasuke that they might as well not even be the same person. Which of course they aren’t, not really, but somehow he just… hadn’t really understood, not until he saw that bright, uninhibited, surprisingly sweet smile.
The very next day, he brings Naruto with him to pick Itachi up.
“I really do know where the hospital is,” Itachi says, slightly muffled because Sasuke is clinging to his face.
“Hey, hey,” Naruto says. “I’m Naruto, want to play?”
“Of course you do,” Kakashi says, smiling pleasantly. “But we share a sensei now, and it wasn’t so long ago that I finished the trainee program myself. It’s my responsibility to look after you.”
“We are playing,” Sasuke says, pulling Itachi’s hair for emphasis. “Together. Without you.”
Itachi sighs and attempts to free his hair. “That really isn’t necessary, senpai.”
“Well, Kakashi-nii is the best ninja in the whole village, so he doesn’t have time to play with me right now because he’s too busy,” Naruto says, puffing up importantly.
Kakashi’s smile broadens. “It is my honor, kohai.”
Sasuke actually stops mauling his brother. “No way, Itachi-nii is the best! He could beat anyone in the village in five minutes!”
“…right,” Itachi says. “Thank you.”
“Oh yeah? Well, Kakashi-nii could beat them in five seconds! Even the Hokage!”
“Could not!”
“Could too!”
Kakashi smiles fondly at Naruto, who is bright red in the face and waving his fists at Sasuke. He catches Itachi with the same smile, watching Sasuke’s chibi, gap-toothed version of Fugaku’s scowl.
It’s a better source of rivalry than their mutual childhood trauma, at any rate.
They do end up getting into a scuffle, and Naruto proudly tells everyone in the village that Sasuke knocked out one of his baby teeth, and they’re fast friends from that day on.
Kakashi is starting to fall behind the others, but since that means Itachi is the one getting climbed over, he isn’t too eager to fix that.
“Oh, Kakashi!”
He stops and waves a little, before putting his hand safely back in his pocket. “Rin. Baby.”
She smiles indulgently. “He has a name, you know.”
“Hmm,” Kakashi says. He watches the baby from a safe distance. It isn’t that he’s afraid of babies, it’s just that he has a healthy respect for how fragile they are.
“I’ll be back to work in a few weeks,” she says. “I hope you and Itachi haven’t burned the place down by then.”
“Still standing,” Kakashi assures her. “Itachi is disturbingly responsible.”
“Well, one of you has to be.”
“It’s not healthy, that much responsibility. He’s lucky to have me.”
“I’m sure.”
The baby starts to cry, and Kakashi remembers that he has an urgent need to be elsewhere. “Well, you know, nice to see you. Time to do… things.”
She huffs a laugh. “I swear, you’re worse than Obito, and he’s actually famous for his klutziness. You don’t need to run away from the baby.”
“But… things,” Kakashi says, and slinks away.
He’s lost the other three in the barely-contained chaos of the midweek marketplace, but that’s fine. They’ll eventually find their way to the Uchiha compound, or the house, or convince Itachi to take them somewhere to play.
Itachi falls for this every time. Kakashi is filled with the warm glow of a job well done.
Since he’s here, he considers buying a vegetable, as evidence that he’s a competent adult now, but then he might have to eat it.
Best not to risk it.
~*~
Kakashi kicks off his shoes, dropping them on top of someone else’s in defiance of the space carefully left for him. “Sensei?”
There’s a thump, the crash of something that’s probably broken now, and the patter of small feet.
“Ka!”
He obligingly holds still as Mito makes her unsteady way across the hall.
He has to rush to catch her when she collides with his shins and almost bounces off, but she’s really getting much better at that, even just since yesterday.
“Ka!” she announces again, triumphantly.
“Yes, hello,” he says. “Still not your mother.”
Sensei appears around the corner, wearing that same pink apron he’s had for years now, lovingly patched over with whatever was handy and orange by Naruto. “You’re late.”
“Eh,” he says. “I was waylaid by roving bandits.”
“I’ll take that to mean that you’ve left poor Itachi with Naruto and Sasuke again. I’ll be sure to set an extra place for him.”
“And I’m not late until dinner is on the table,” Kakashi adds. He tries to move further into the house, but Mito is clinging to his leg. “We’re not doing this again.”
She dimples, showing off her somewhat erratically placed teeth.
He sighs, channels just a little chakra, just in case, and stomps into the house with her still hanging off him, shrieking with delight.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Kakashi says.
Sensei doesn’t even bother to try and rein in his soppy look. “You’re so good with her.”
Kakashi is not, by any stretch, good with children.
By the time Naruto was born, he had mostly managed to contain his fears that he would be replaced with the next model, but that had not at all prepared him for the squalling, smelly reality of a new person.
Sensei had probably never been happier, fussing over Naruto, fussing over Kushina, and fussing over Kakashi when he held still long enough to get ambushed. He was a natural at being a father, of course, relentlessly cheerful even when Naruto puked on him (which was often), and peed on him (that was only once), and kept the whole building up with his wailing (that was all the time). Kushina had to practically pry Naruto out of his arms in order to get any time with her own son.
Kakashi retreated to a safe distance after the baby arrived, mostly doing odd chores and fetching things for Kushina, who was bedridden for a few weeks.
It wasn’t even any of Kakashi’s business, not really, but he couldn’t help his incredulous amusement as everyone from the Hokage’s wife on down tried to convince him that pregnancy can be complicated (which won’t ever affect him so he doesn’t care), and sometimes babies are late (he’s not so ignorant as to think that a ten-month pregnancy is normal), and it’s normal, new father paranoia to take Kushina out to an isolated cabin and cover her with seals during delivery (exactly how stupid do they think he is?).
Kakashi was actually there for the delivery, much as he’d rather forget it, because he’s an excellent medic and an excellent sealmaster and that’s a very specialized niche.
It becomes ridiculous, after a while, the lengths they go to avoid telling him that Kushina is a Jinchuuriki.
His personal favorite is when sensei tried to explain why Kushina named their daughter Mito.
“They’re part of the same clan,” sensei says. “Kushina wants to feel connected to her heritage.”
“She wants to have a tie to her home village,” sensei says, “and as the wife of the Shodaime, Uzumaki Mito was instrumental in bringing this village together.”
“It’s part of her campaign to be Hokage,” sensei says.
Kakashi just rolls his eyes. He rather thinks sensei lost the argument when Kakashi got promoted to jounin after the successful delivery. There’s no way that’s normal. Anyway, sensei named his kid Naruto, so going to such lengths to explain is suspicious in itself.
Sensei must know that he knows about Kushina. None of this would have been necessary if not for the Sandaime’s determination to make life as difficult as possible for his successor. Not only did he forbid anyone from talking about the Kyuubi, ever, which makes even less since this time around because there hasn’t been an attack, but he wrote a whole bunch of reforms of the police force without consulting Fugaku, and then fired the entire Elder Council.
The Yondaime did not have a good first week. And that was before Kushina got back from her mission.
Kakashi and Mito arrive in the spacious dining room, where Kushina is sneaking bites of frosting while something burns in the kitchen.
“Aahh!” sensei cries, sprinting past them to try and rescue whatever it is.
“He knows you bought out Ichiraku’s, right?” Kakashi asks, claiming his favorite chair. Time to begin the process of transferring Mito from his foot to his lap. It should have its own procedural manual.
“You know how he is,” Kushina says. “He gets more excited about Naruto’s birthday than Naruto does, and he’s going to be just as bad with Mito.”
That’s true, and considering how excitable Naruto is, also terrifying. “But Mito isn’t even old enough to know it’s her birthday.”
“And you think that matters to him because…?”
A valid point. “Happy birthday,” Kakashi tells the baby, helping himself to some frosting.
Mito doesn’t stop gnawing on his knee.
“I saw that!” sensei hollers from the kitchen.
“Saw what?” Kakashi calls back.
“I’m thinking about moving,” Kushina says.
Kakashi stops eating the frosting. “What?”
“It’s not that I don’t love this house…”
He coughs. When the Sandaime decided he and his wife wanted to down-size, he offered sensei and Kushina the official Hokage residence.
It was the first time she stopped complaining every time she saw him at being left out of the debate over who got to be the Yondaime Hokage, so it was a pretty blatant act of surrender.
Kakashi suspects Orochimaru had a hand in that decision.
But it’s looking very much like Kushina will be the Godaime Hokage, so it’s fitting that she raise her family in the residence.
“…but I think Minato is taking the number of rooms as some kind of personal challenge.”
Kakashi considers the size of the Hokage residence. It’s an alarming thought.
“Or you could have some children,” she says.
“Absolutely not.”
She sighs. “But you’re so good with them.”
Where do people keep getting this idea?
“No.”
“I’ll keep working on Gai.”
Kakashi sighs.
~*~
It’s kind of a long story, how Gai ended up at the Hokage residence with them. Kakashi still isn’t quite sure how it happened, and he lived through it.
He supposes it started when Dai met a woman. Romantically. Obviously he’d met women before then.
Gai’s mom died when he was fairly young, and he has some memories of her but doesn’t like to talk about her. That’s fine; Kakashi doesn’t push. He doesn’t talk about his birth parents, either.
Kakashi and Gai had been chuunin for a few years by then, and when Dai sprung the news, and obliquely (for him) hinted that he was considering moving in with the woman, but it was a small place, well, Gai was eighteen and offered to find a place of his own.
It was only natural that Kakashi should look with him. They spent all their time that Kakashi wasn’t at the hospital (working!) and Gai wasn’t on missions in each other’s company, and it wasn’t totally unheard of for them to drop in on each other even then. Also, of the two of them, Kakashi had more experience with apartment hunting. He knew to ask about things like whether you could paint the walls orange.
And it’s not a complete surprise, when people assume that by looking for apartments together they’re ‘looking for apartments together.’ After all, they’ve been assumed to be a couple since Kakashi became a chuunin (which, he was ten? Kakashi will never understand people), and sensei and Kushina accidentally moved in together so that’s a thing that happens. Neither of them are overly concerned with what other people think, so it doesn’t bother them.
How they get from apartment hunting to Gai moving in with Kakashi, that’s a little less clear.
Gai is a fearsome shinobi and a wonderful friend, but when it comes to money management, well… Kakashi can say, unequivocally, that Gai is not the worst he’s ever met.
But only because he’s met Tsunade.
Gai is determined that he doesn’t want any financial help, that he can do this on his own, so everywhere they look is basically a dive. He seriously considers one place with only half a roof, but Kakashi talks him out of it.
They don’t want to disrupt Dai’s plans for a wedding, because Gai wants to show his father that he supports him one hundred percent and is in no way upset about this turn of events. So when the big day comes and Gai still doesn’t have an apartment, they just quietly forget to mention it and Gai’s stuff migrates over to Kakashi’s place.
Kakashi’s in the Hokage residence by that time, so it’s not like there isn’t room. He has some kind of semi-private suite, with three bedrooms, a simple bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette all to himself, so it’s not like he doesn’t have the space, even with his seven dogs.
And… then Gai doesn’t move out. He has a number of back to back missions, and he decides to support some new project at the Academy and suddenly has no money again, and it just seems like a lot of unnecessary bother to keep exploring the seedier parts of the Konoha real estate market.
Kakashi finally brings it up with sensei and Kushina, because this is their house after all, and it turns out they, like the rest of Konoha, just assumed that he and Gai were secretly dating this whole time, and were only wondering why it took him this long to tell them.
“I hope you like dogs,” Kakashi says when he goes back to his side of the house.
“So they said yes?” Gai asks, fretfully.
“Of course they said yes. I don’t know why you were even worried about it.”
“It’s kind of unexpected.”
“Not really.”
“Hmm,” Gai says, puttering around the kitchen.
Kakashi doesn’t care what most people think but if even sensei and Kushina are wondering… “Are we dating?” he asks.
Gai trips over Bisuke.
So is that a ‘you finally figured it out’ or a ‘how could you say such a ridiculous thing’ trip? “Just, you know how I miss things sometimes.”
“I would tell you,” Gai says, now industriously looking through the cabinets.
“Okay. Well, good.”
Kakashi isn’t sure what Gai could be doing in there that’s so fascinating, since neither of them can cook and there’s nothing in their kitchen besides expired takeout, a bowl of melons, and a ton of dog food.
Gai really likes melons for some reason. It’s weird.
But Kakashi suspects that, contrary to Gai’s claims, he is missing something critical in this conversation.
“So. Will you be bringing people back here?” Kakashi asks finally. He turns that idea over in his mind. He doesn’t really like people intruding on his space, but Gai probably won’t find anyone too horrible.
“Probably not,” Gai says to the sink.
Kakashi hates when Gai is evasive, especially since it happens so rarely.
“What about you?” Gai asks.
“I don’t date,” Kakashi says. “It’s just being friends, but with a lot of misplaced spit and pointless angst.”
Gai coughs a few times, then grins and everything is normal again.
Kakashi congratulates himself on successfully navigating the conversation.
Kakashi’s sleeping situation his greatly improved over the years, but he’s still prone to having nightmares. At first, Gai lets him deal with it himself. After about a week of attempting to be discreet, which must be some kind of record for Gai, he makes tea and offers to talk about it. And then falls asleep in Kakashi’s room.
It takes Kakashi an embarrassing three weeks to realize that they are sleeping together.
“So,” he says, waking up with Gai’s arm securely around his waist. “This?”
“Okay with you?” Gai asks sleepily.
“Yeah?”
“Okay.”
Sometimes Kakashi is confused by his own life. But if Gai’s happy, and he’s happy, he’s not going to stir up trouble, and the dogs happily go back to sprawling all over Gai’s room and the one that is supposed to be for them (and Kakashi’s, too; it’s amazing how they can take up so much space).
In all the time they’ve been friends, they’ve only had one major fight. It went on for weeks, and for a time Kakashi thought they were never going to speak to each other again.
It happened before they moved in together, when Gai was still a young chuunin eager to prove himself and Kakashi wasn’t yet a jounin but only because he didn’t want to take time away from his research and medical training for a promotion that would be largely meaningless.
Kakashi wasn’t even really paying attention when Gai told him about the exciting new technique his father was teaching him, and how he hopes to apply for the jounin exams in a few years. The medic in charge of the trainees was convinced that Kakashi had reached stardom through favoritism and was determined to prove it before Kakashi got someone killed on the operating table.
Meaning he had to do a lot of extra work, and somehow always got assigned the most tedious jobs. It’s interesting, being treated like a normal person for once. He’s kind of enjoying it, actually.
“I’m up to two gates already,” Gai had said.
That time, Kakashi was listening.
And then he totally flipped his shit.
He was not proud of himself, then or after. Sensei had to mediate, with Kushina and Dai representing their errant teenagers, because they refused to be in the same room as each other. Kakashi didn’t believe in his friend. Gai was too reckless. Kakashi wanted all the attention. Gai was throwing his life away.
Around and around it went.
Finally, Kakashi did what he should have done in the first place. He sneaks into Gai’s room, gets a black eye for his efforts, and tells him a story not very well-disguised as a nightmare that happened to someone else. About a boy whose father killed himself, because he thought a legacy was all he or his son had to offer. About a man whose friend gave his life for him because he thought the other’s was worth more.
“At the heart of it, it’s a suicide jutsu,” Kakashi said. “It… it’s not fair of me to try and dictate your decisions about your life and your career. I’ll stop. But… I don’t know if I can handle it, knowing that you’re learning this, knowing that you’re consciously choosing not to come back one day. It’s selfish, I know, I just…”
Gai saved him from having to continue that excruciating conversation by tackle-hugging him. They break a table. They both cry.
And Gai declares that he’s going to make jounin using his own power, and the matter of the Eight Gates is dropped.
He still makes it, of course.
~*~
“I want to be jounin-sensei,” Gai says.
“Okay,” Kakashi says. “I’m sure you’ll be great at it.”
Gai looks at him. “You don’t think I’m too young? Too new at being a jounin?”
“No.”
“Well, okay then. I’m submitting my application today.”
Kakashi writes him a letter of recommendation.
A few days later, the Hokage calls him to his office.
“This is hardly professional,” Orochimaru says, waving the letter.
“Those are supposed to be confidential,” Kakashi says.
“Not from me.” Orochimaru crosses his arms, burying them in the long sleeves of the Hokage robe of office, and glares at his former student.
The ANBU guards try very, very hard to be invisible, except one. She flicks a hand in an ANBU wink.
“I thought I made several good points,” Kakashi says.
“You wrote that he had me as a jounin-sensei and turned out fine, and that we couldn’t possibly do worse.”
Said ANBU starts snickering.
“Yes, that’s what I meant.”
Orochimaru huffs.
“You already know what he’s like,” Kakashi says. “You taught him.”
“Yes. I know.” Orochimaru says this with much feeling, none of it positive.
“He’s great with kids. He’s dedicated to his work and inspires dedication in others. Besides, Kushina voted for him.”
“Now that is supposed to be confidential.”
“She didn’t tell me, I guessed.”
Orochimaru pinches the bridge of his nose. “How did I end up with such a disrespectful student?”
“You have Itachi?” Kakashi offers.
“Just get out of here. And tell that woman that she had better buckle down and attend that Council meeting she’s dodging or I’m giving the Hat to someone else.”
Kakashi gets out of there, and is unsurprised when he is joined by the snickering, winking ANBU.
“You should drop by more often,” Anko says. “Even I can’t irritate him like you do.”
Anko is as dedicated as Gai, in her own way. It’s just that the thing she’s dedicated to is finding new and exciting ways of poisoning people. She does well as Orochimaru’s bodyguard, because he considers the occasional poisoning attempt a good way to keep alert, and a sign that it’s time for her to go on a mission.
She fits right in with ANBU.
“I’ll consider it,” Kakashi says.
“Great; I have a few cool new ideas.”
He’s considered it, and he’s staying far away from the Hokage Tower for a while.
~*~
No matter how busy he is, Kakashi tries to visit the Hyuuga compound at least once a day. It only took three weeks of persistent nagging and not-so-subtle reminders that he’s the former student of the Hokage before the guards stopped bothering trying to keep him out.
He wants to keep being allowed in, so he avoids the clan elders and tries to behave himself.
“Ah, I was wondering when you would stop by,” Hizashi says. “I should have known it would be snack time.”
“Pure coincidence,” Kakashi says.
“Uh huh.”
Hizashi’s wife waves to them as they go by, but doesn’t stop washing dishes. She’s quintessential Hyuuga branch family, traditional and quiet, and Kakashi doesn’t really understand what Hizashi sees in her, but she isn’t Kakashi’s wife, so, he doesn’t have to.
Hizashi settled down a lot after he passed the chuunin exams. He made a sort of peace with his twin, and was thinking about trying for jounin when Neji was born.
Now that Neji has started at the Academy, he’s thinking about it again.
“I think Gai still has some of his books lying around the house,” Kakashi says. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you borrowing them.”
“Thank you,” Hizashi says, inclining his head.
Neji is out on the veranda, eating slices of fruit over an open textbook.
He quickly shoves it under the bench when he sees his father coming.
Hizashi sighs, and Kakashi suppresses a smirk.
“We have a guest,” Hizashi says. “And not just one, I see.”
Hinata waves at them shyly.
Neji inclines his head, exactly like his father does, and waves them to a seat, pushing the little tray of fruit closer to the middle of the table.
“Neji, Hinata,” Kakashi says. “No cookies today?”
“I’m training to be a ninja now,” Neji says. “I have to eat healthy.”
Hinata slips him a cookie under the table.
“Learn anything interesting today?” Kakashi asks.
Since Neji thinks everything is interesting, that’s all it takes to have him off and running, describing in detail everything he did at the Academy today, with references to the rest of the week where appropriate.
Kakashi interrupts only to ask questions, winking at Hinata when she hesitates to be the one interrupting. She’s starting at the Academy next year, and hangs on Neji’s every word.
Neji isn’t an unhappy child, this time around, but he’s quiet and studious. He and Naruto met only once, and immediately took mutual vows of eternal loathing.
Kakashi was a little alarmed, Kushina is optimistic that they’ll grow out of it.
They’re just very different people. Naruto delights in being as disruptive as possible, and the only thing even close to misbehavior that Neji indulges in is tolerating Kakashi’s visits. Kakashi is still a bit of a persona non grata around here.
You drop water on the clan heir one time…
But Neji greatly admires his father, who likes Kakashi, sort of, and Kakashi is an endless fount of knowledge about the shinobi arts, which is Neji’s sole obsession.
“I had a question…” Neji ventures, moving to take his textbook out again.
“Not while you’re eating,” Hizashi says.
Neji considers this, then stuffs four pieces of melon in his mouth at once. He pushes the rest towards Hinata and takes out his book.
Hizashi sighs.
~*~
“I have that mission for you,” Orochimaru says.
Finally.
“I don’t know why you’re pushing so hard for this. In all the time since you made chuunin, you’ve never once challenged your restriction to the village.”
“Unofficial restriction.”
“When it’s my report, and I’m the Hokage, it’s an official restriction.”
Okay, point.
“I haven’t forgotten how to fight, Orochimaru-sensei,” Kakashi says. “I mean, Hokage-sama.”
Orochimaru steeples his fingers together. “That’s not the issue, and you know it. There is no evidence whatsoever that you won’t freeze up on this mission the way you did as a genin.”
Well. Ouch. “But you still granted my request,” Kakashi says.
Orochimaru sighs. “You are very persistent. The Missions Office tells me that this is the four-year anniversary of your weekly mission requests. At this point, I am adequately convinced that you aren’t going to explain and you aren’t going to stop.”
“Am I unqualified for the mission?” Kakashi asks.
Orochimaru crosses his arms and glares at Kakashi from under his hat. “We both know there isn’t any mission that you aren’t qualified for. If you can hold yourself together. There are S-rank ANBU assassinations that I would consider you for, if you were so inclined.”
He so, so isn’t.
Orochimaru sighs. “At some point, I will learn your secret. Here’s your assignment. Don’t mess it up.”