Chapter Text
“Have you been slacking off in your training while I've been gone, Kakashi? You're like a newly-graduated genin! It must be all the sugar! I mean, I know I haven’t had that much time to train you lately, but to fall this far behind? You’ve been lazy,” Minato taunts Kakashi as they spar.
Big Kakashi is very helpfully laughing at Kakashi’s misfortune.
Kakashi is almost nailed in the head by a high kick from Minato, and he has to dodge at the last second. He can’t even counter it—he’s completely on the defensive by now.
“I've totally been training! Just—I just haven’t had the time to do the . . . the bigger things! I have a busy life!” Kakashi tries.
‘Totally’ is a lying word, mini-me. Keep that in mind for the future.
Kakashi swears at Big Kakashi.
“Oh, you’ve totally been training, huh? Because Kushina told me you didn't train at all while she was here! Said you just watched her garden, and sparred with her once. And got four fingers broken. We’ll need to train overtime until you're back in shape!” Minato says.
“Overtime?” Kakashi complains.
Minato sure is an absolute demon while training, isn’t he? Big Kakashi asks.
“Overtime!” Minato cheers. “And you’ll be on a strict diet with next to no sugar and as much protein as I can shove into that tiny little body of yours until you're back to your previous level or higher! Preferably higher.”
“You can’t take away my sugar! That's just cruel! That's like depriving Kushina of ramen!” Kakashi complains.
Minato freezes for just a second—almost imperceptibly, and Kakashi doesn’t even realize that he’s stopped moving until seconds after it happens. The spar continues, and Minato uses a jutsu to blow a huge blast of air at Kakashi. Kakashi uses the only earth jutsu he knows to quickly bury himself underneath a foot or two of dirt, and pops back up behind Minato. His teacher is too quick to catch, though, and he quickly spins around to face Kakashi.
“Alright, fine. Sugar is limited but not completely removed. And I mean limited, Kakashi.”
You know, if you'd been training, you could've taken advantage of that moment when he froze, Big Kakashi points out.
Shut up! Kakashi whines. I’ll get better, and then I’ll really show him who’s boss!
Sure you will.
Kakashi hates Big Kakashi. Hates.
For the entire three weeks that Orochimaru is gone—not including when Minato is beating the shit out of him and only slightly pretending that it’s training—Kakashi sulks around the house. He does train by himself, and he does take Kushina’s advice to convert the garden into a sort of mini-training ground, which Sakumo helps him with and which takes about half a month to finish.
They set up three dummies in the yard and store ten extras in their shed; Kakashi and Sakumo work together to erect a few wooden poles scattered all around the place; and they build a shallow pond for Kakashi’s chakra control exercises, so that he doesn’t have to walk to the river or to the lake just outside of Konoha to practice. Kushina helps them to fill it with water.
Chikara is good company, but just as Orochimaru had said, he’s clumsy. Kakashi has to keep him in his room, and not the living room, because huge twenty-foot snake summons and knocking things over is a disastrous combination at best, and a downright calamity at worst.
Big Kakashi complains the whole time about snakes and snakes and please don’t pet him again, I think I’m going to cry, he’s so cute—
And he has to buy real, physical locks for the sake cabinet, because Chikara had gotten into them once, and that situation had been one that Kakashi is not willing to repeat. Chikara is a menace while drunk.
(Read: hanging from ceilings and licking the face of whoever dares to pass underneath him; curling up in the doorways; terrorizing Sakumo; prying open the door to Sakumo’s bedroom slash office and initiating a hostile takeover of his bed; eating a bottle of shampoo and vomiting all over the bathroom—although Kakashi suspects that Chikara vomited just to be difficult, and not because he was actually sick; and eating all of the sugar in the house, forcing Kakashi to go out and buy more.)
Luckily, Chikara doesn’t seem to want to put in the effort required to break the lock, so he spends most of the rest of the three weeks out on the back porch basking in sunlight, and watching Kakashi struggle to set up the thick wooden training poles.
Sakumo, conversely, spends most of his time inside of his bedroom slash office. Kakashi suspects that his dad is either a) hiding from Chikara, b) writing up that mission report, or c) catching up on the sleep that he’d missed.
Kakashi wonders if it’s all three at once.
Orochimaru and Tsunade arrive back in Konoha, looking world-weary but uninjured. Probably the result of Tsunade’s expertise in healing, but Kakashi wonders if they are just that good.
In any case—Kakashi breaks into a run as soon as he sees Orochimaru, and then he flings his arms around their waist. “Orochimaru!” he says. “Chikara got drunk!”
That’s seriously the first thing you say to them? Big Kakashi asks.
“Please, spare me the details,” Orochimaru sighs. They look a little confused, like they don’t know what to do about Kakashi’s sudden hugging of them, but they eventually rest a hand on the top of Kakashi’s head. “But—were there any major damages to the house? I will reimburse you in full if that is the case.”
“No, he didn’t destroy anything. But he did vomit shampoo all over the bathroom after he ate a whole bottle of it. Are snakes allergic to shampoo?” he asks curiously.
“Most beings,” Orochimaru says, “will have adverse reactions to consuming shampoo. However, the answer, in this case, is no. I’m sure that Chikara was just being difficult.”
“Oh, okay. He’s really good to sleep next to, though. He’s super big.”
“I am aware of this,” Orochimaru responds. “I have known him since he was newly-hatched. How have you been while I was away? I hope you’ve been keeping up with your training.”
“Only some D-ranks, and a lot of training with Minato-sensei,” Kakashi says enthusiastically. “My dad kept complaining about how he’d wanted to train me with the dog summons, but I was as good as set for the snake one. Is that true?”
Orochimaru hums, as though they hadn’t considered this. Knowing them, though, they probably have. “Perhaps. Would you like the snake contract?”
“That would be so cool. If I could get—” Kakashi pauses, and then rattles off the names of all the snakes he knows. “Ikuyo and Chikara and Hideto and Morie and Kaori and Jin and Genko and Hitomi and Han and Kenji and Kikue and—”
“I think I understand your point,” Orochimaru says. “You will have to ask your father for permission, of course, and the contract will have to wait until you achieve jōnin rank. As of now, your chakra levels and control are . . . extremely lacking. The snake summons require a higher level of precision than most, and if you summon them often the drain on your chakra will be dangerous at your age.”
“Okay,” Kakashi says excitedly. “I’m gonna go ask him right now. Do you and Tsunade wanna come over?”
Orochimaru exhales slowly. “Unfortunately, Tsunade and I must report back to Sarutobi-sensei. The mission was—not very successful. Almost everyone we were sent with is dead.” They lower their voice so that anyone passing by won’t be able to hear them speaking. “And Tsunade in particular has had a rough time of it.”
“We’re also the Sannin now,” Tsunade adds, glancing at Orochimaru with a weird expression on her face. “Which is—well, it’s not the worst name we could have, but the circumstances weren’t exactly—good. So we need to go handle our important business now. And drink. Go ask your dad about that snake contract, or something.”
Ask her if she’s okay. I think I know what happened.
“Are you okay?” Kakashi asks her.
Tsunade stills and turns to him. “Truthfully . . . no. I lost a very good friend during that battle, and I couldn’t heal him in time.” She laughs, rubbing at her face with her hands. “Orochimaru had to practically drag me back to Konoha, and they helped me remember some things. Important things, like: I’ve still got people here. That I can prevent things like this from happening again. I will see to it that med-nin have a place on every team.”
Orochimaru smiles, and they look almost—proud of Tsunade. “Yes. Well, in any case, Kakashi, you had better go home now.”
Kakashi nods, detaching himself from Orochimaru, and gives them one last look before rushing off toward his house.
A snake contract. How cool is that, Kakashi says to Big Kakashi.
I had the dog contract, Big Kakashi says. This isn’t fair.
What isn’t fair? Kakashi asks.
Big Kakashi is silent for a moment—pouting, probably—before he says reluctantly, I wish I had the snake contract. Snakes are cool. But good gods, I love—loved—my dogs. You know what? No. Nevermind. Dogs rule!
Kakashi laughs happily. They are! They’re the best!
Maybe not the best, Big Kakashi says. But they’re pretty close.
Whatever you say, Big Kakashi. Whatever you say.
“You know what?” Sakumo says to him when he asks about the snake contract. “Sure. I can’t even see you without it now. They like you so much, I’m not sure if the dogs would accept you by this point. But I really did want you to have that contract . . . ”
“We could get a pet dog instead!” Kakashi suggests. “We can have dogs and snakes. And we should get a cat.”
Chikara perks up when Kakashi says “cat.”
“No cats,” Sakumo says. “I am allergic to cats. And judging from Chikara’s reaction . . . I wouldn’t trust him around one.”
“Allergy medicine,” Kakashi says. “You can use that, and then we could have a ton of animals. Don’t worry about taking care of them. I’m a capable shinobi. I can take care of a pet or two.”
“We’ll see about that,” Sakumo says. “Dog? Yes. I can visit the Inuzuka compound later. They know me. But we’d have to wait a while to see about a cat. Having multiple pets is much different than being a shinobi.
Kakashi pouts. It’s probably not that different. But he’ll take it.
“Jiraiya is in Amegakure training some orphans,” Orochimaru explains later that day when Kakashi remembers that oh, Jiraiya’s missing, and asks them about it.
Orochimaru has finished giving their verbal report to the Sandaime—all important missions require verbal reports—and has come over, with Tsunade in tow, to Kakashi’s house, and is seated at the dining table working on the written report. Kakashi is opposite to them, drinking tea out of his favorite mug. It’s a black mug with the characters for "wineglass" written on it. Kakashi appreciates the humor.
Chikara and Jin are both down under the table. Well—Jin is curled up around Kakashi’s feet; Chikara is trying, and failing, to get up onto the table because Tsunade has brought a few bottles of sake over.
Tsunade looks like she wants to give Chikara some of it. Orochimaru looks like they are dangerously close to having a conniption fit.
In any case—
“He’s . . . training another country’s orphans,” Kakashi says slowly, not believing a word of it.
Actually, it did happen, Big Kakashi says.
“Yes. Konan, Yahiko, and Nagato, I believe their names were,” Orochimaru says, pen scribbling across the paper almost faster than Kakashi’s eyes can trace it. Tsunade is filling out papers almost as quickly. They probably both have atrocious handwriting, Kakashi thinks.
Tsunade’s got the worst case of doctor handwriting that I’ve ever seen. From what I’ve heard, Orochimaru does too, Big Kakashi informs him.
“Huh. Is that legal? In wartime, especially?”
Tsunade shrugs, and takes a long drink from her sake bottle. She looks tired, but not defeated, and Big Kakashi says that it’s better than how it was when he was in Kakashi’s place. “Probably not.”
Orochimaru scans the paper they have just finished writing on, and sets it aside in one of the piles of paper on the table. “Most definitely not. But Jiraiya said that he sensed potential in those three. If he brings them home, and they have proper training—who is to say that they will not be accepted?”
“Hmm . . . I guess so,” Kakashi says.
“You might even find yourself making friends with them,” Tsunade suggests. “They’ll probably be relieved to see someone their age.”
“Tsunade,” Orochimaru interrupts, “they are all at least two years older than Kakashi.”
“But we could still be friends!” Kakashi says. “I can show them around. Tell Jiraiya to let me and not some random person.”
“I will see what I can do,” they reply. “But they will be detained in Torture and Interrogation for a while after they arrive. Not too long, though; as I’ve heard it, their parents were civilians. I cannot see that they would provide any sort of valuable information.”
“Okay,” Kakashi says. It seems weird that some people around his age would need to go into the torture and interrogation department, but, well. It is how it is, he guesses. “I still wanna be friends with them, though.”
Two months pass in the blink of an eye.
Kakashi’s ninth birthday comes and goes, for one. Sakumo seems to want to make a big deal out of it, as do Minato and Kushina, and Orochimaru and Tsunade. They give him a stupid, pointy, green birthday hat that he takes off as soon as he can, and they get him a cake, which he doesn’t eat because he just doesn’t really like cake.
In the end, Chikara devours the thing whole, much to the chagrin of Tsunade, who is actually looking forward to eating it. She vows never to give him sake again, and then breaks that vow the very same night. And Chikara does get drunk, because that is what he always does, but Orochimaru sends him back to Ryūchi Cave quickly, and summons Kaori instead, who is very happy to see Kakashi.
All in all, it is a good night.
He trains more with Minato, too, improving and improving and improving his taijutsu until Kakashi is better than he was when his teacher left on the mission.
Kakashi takes endless D-ranks, and a fair amount of C-ranks, too. He does one B-rank with his dad, a mission to travel to Sunagakure and see how the new treaty is working out, and surprisingly, absolutely nothing goes wrong—except that everything does, because for some reason everyone in the village hates Sakumo, and they encounter a band of low-rank missing-nin that had previously been thought dead.
Minato drills him relentlessly after that, stating that the war is worsening, that he’s sad to see Kakashi have to grow into his role as a shinobi so early but that it’s necessary, that he can’t stand by and let Kakashi be under-trained.
Orochimaru starts coming to Kakashi’s training. First to observe, and then to occasionally give tips on stances or chakra control or— anything, really. They are a veritable well of knowledge, and Kakashi isn’t dumb enough to turn that kind of valuable advice down.
And then, about a month and a half into this rigorous and exhausting training regimen, Kushina barges into his kitchen—through the window, of course, because anything less would be too boring for her—and announces that she’s inviting him along to the Uchiha compound because Mikoto’s friend’s son has just turned two years old, and that he has absolutely no choice in the matter.
So Kakashi agrees to go and see the toddler slash baby.
And as soon as he sees the little Shisui, babbling and giggling and drool running out of the corners of his mouth, he feels a little bit of his heart melt.
“He’s in his terrible twos,” he hears Shisui’s mother—Manami, Kakashi thinks—say to Mikoto. “Kept me up all last night whining for treats. Dango, taiyaki, the like. He’s got a monstrous sweet tooth. He hasn’t said his first word yet—but I swear to every god in heaven and hell, if it isn’t sweets, my name isn’t Uchiha Manami.”
Definitely Manami, then.
“Can I hold him?” Kakashi says suddenly. Shisui turns his head over to Kakashi quickly and grins, toddling over to him and making grabbing motions at his legs. Kakashi looks to Manami for permission—she nods—and he gently picks Shisui up, shifting him so that he rests on Kakashi’s hip.
“Looks like he’s taken a natural shine to you, Kakashi-kun,” Manami says.
Shisui drools all over Kakashi’s sleeve. Kakashi stands there for a moment or two, feeling a weird combination of affection and disgust, and then Manami rushes over to give Shisui his pacifier. Shisui purses his lips and turns his head away. Kakashi thinks that everything is fine for a few moments until the kid bites him on the fucking shoulder, what the fuck—
Big Kakashi laughs obnoxiously at him. Kakashi himself simply holds Shisui away from his body to glare at him.
Manami drops her head into her hands and sighs. “This again . . . I’m sorry, his teeth are coming in. I can go get his teething toys, wait here a moment and—” she cuts herself off as she runs to the other side of the kitchen and opens the freezer. She shuffles things around a moment before returning to stuff a cold, oddly shaped . . . something, into her son’s mouth.
It kind of looks like someone tried to make a two dimensional peanut and failed horribly, Kakashi thinks.
That’s a teething toy, Big Kakashi says exasperatedly. But I wouldn’t expect you to know that.
Hey! I totally knew that. I was just . . . commenting on its looks.
Sure you were, Big Kakashi says.
“There we go!” Manami exclaims. “All better now, huh, Shisui?”
Shisui grins up at her, the toy falling out onto the ground. Kakashi has to try his best to hold back a laugh, and fails very, very miserably.
She sighs again.
“Jiraiya’s back in Konoha. He just stepped through the gates,” Orochimaru says off-handedly, while the two of them are knitting in Kakashi’s living room. Chikara has taken up his usual space beside Kakashi, and is trying his absolute best to impede Kakashi’s efforts to knit Minato a scarf.
It’s not as much of a disaster as it would have been two months ago, so even if it has some dropped stitches here or there and the scarf is too thin or too thick in random places, he’s come too far with it to give up now. Orochimaru is still working on their blanket. They haven’t had time to knit lately, what with frequent mission assignments and doing—doing something with Minato and the Sandaime all the time, so they’re making up for it now, on one of their rare days off.
“How do you know?” Kakashi asks. On the one hand, he’s tempted to believe that Orochimaru’s perception is just that good, but on the other hand, he really doesn’t think that anyone can be that good.
You’d be surprised, Big Kakashi mutters.
“Seals,” Orochimaru says shortly and without elaboration, and packs away their knitting to stand up. “Would you accompany me to fetch Tsunade from the hospital and to greet Jiraiya? No doubt that people will hound him once they’ve seen the children with him.”
Kakashi nods, sticks both his knitting needles into his ball of yarn, and gives Chikara a stern look and a warning to not get into any trouble while Kakashi is gone. Chikara gives him the stink eye and flicks his tail, but says nothing—and more importantly, he promises nothing. But Orochimaru is standing in the doorway and is waiting for Kakashi, so he gives the huge snake one last look and then joins Orochimaru, making sure to shut and lock the door behind him.
“Is Tsunade busy today?” Kakashi asks, once they’re well on their way to her workplace.
“No,” Orochimaru answers, “not particularly. Just paperwork and more training to take over as head of hospital. Oh—and drinking, no doubt.”
“Isn’t that really bad for you?” Kakashi asks.
“Isn’t sugar unhealthy?” Orochimaru questions in return.
I feel dirty, agreeing with Orochimaru, of all people. Big Kakashi pouts—Kakashi isn’t actually sure, but he’s probably pouting, so—whatever. But he’s actually kind of right.
They continue, “Yes, it is, but Tsunade has a remarkable metabolism, and she heals herself should she become too drunk to function properly. Don’t you worry about her. Instead, worry about the more important things, such as whether you will be able to improve your chakra control to a sufficient degree that I see fit to give you the snake contract.”
Kakashi gives them a sheepish glance. “I’ll work on my chakra exercises more. But you’ve seen me training. Minato-sensei works me so hard, ” Kakashi complains.
Stop your complaining, little Kakashi, you’ll survive, Big Kakashi says teasingly.
“That he does,” Orochimaru agrees. “But exercises may be as simple as meditating before bed. Not all of them must be so complex and time-consuming.”
Kakashi frowns at that, because meditating brings up an entirely different crop of problems, such as having to see Big Kakashi face-to-face.
You could avoid that, Big Kakashi informs him. You’re expecting to see me every time you meditate, which is my fault, okay, but you’re only seeing me because of that. If you can shake off the expectation, you’re good to go. But that might take a few weeks of practice.
Yes, and they’ll notice if I slack off on exercises for a week. So that’s not really an option, Kakashi says. For now, at least.
“It’s okay. I think I can make some time for the better exercises. I think Minato-sensei finally feels bad about training me so hard,” Kakashi says. “So he’s been kind of letting up lately.”
Letting up, as in, taking more missions so that he’s busy and not explicitly saying that he’ll be training Kakashi less.
But Orochimaru doesn’t—can’t—know that.
I wouldn’t be so sure, Big Kakashi warns. Orochimaru has a way of finding things out that they really shouldn’t know.
“There she is,” Orochimaru murmurs. “Of course she would be the one waiting for us. Tsunade makes no one wait for her.
Kakashi turns his attention outward, and indeed, Tsunade is standing in front of the hospital doors, hands on her hips.
“Orochimaru! Hey! Jiraiya’s back, is that why you’re here?” Tsunade says, once they’ve gotten close to her. “Hope he’s whipped those little brats into shape. Or else I’ll have to do it myself. And I’m honestly not sure that they’d be too happy about that. But the kunoichi showed promise. I might just have to take her on anyway.”
Orochimaru shakes their head in amusement. “Yes, that’s why we’re here. Kakashi seemed eager to meet the children, so I asked him to accompany me.”
The three of them exchange some more small talk, and then they head quickly toward the village gates.
Jiraiya is there, signing some documents and waving various shinobi away from him. Three children—all of whom look older than Kakashi—huddle behind him.
“Look,” Jiraiya says, loudly, to one of the gate chūnin. “They’re nervous. Konoha is much bigger and livelier than Ame. Can you please back off and give them some space? And if I hear you say that again—”
The chūnin frowns, points to the three kids, and interrupts Jiraiya, saying something too quietly for Kakashi to hear. Orochimaru and Tsunade seem to pick up perfectly on what the man says, though, because Orochimaru frowns and Tsunade’s expression darkens.
Orochimaru crosses the distance between themself and Jiraiya quickly, and Kakashi, not knowing what else to do, follows suit, as does Tsunade, although she looks considerably more in-the-know about the whole situation.
“Image?” Orochimaru asks, once they draw near to the gate-guards. “I was not aware that bringing in war orphans could damage my good friend’s image in any way.”
“Look at them,” the chūnin says. “They’re dirty, they seem like they probably haven’t been eating right, and they’re probably undertrained. What’s that gonna look like for Jiraiya-sama? To be followed around by a bunch of scraggly kids? I shouldn’t let them in. It would be for your own good. All of you. Maybe you can’t see it now, but these kids are trouble.”
“Dirty children can be bathed,” Orochimaru says calmly, and Kakashi knows how to look underneath the underneath, so he knows that the calmly is actually scathingly.
They’re gonna rip this guy a new one, Big Kakashi says amusedly .
I hope so, Kakashi responds.
“And,” they continue icily, “Jiraiya is doing this not for how it looks, but because he cares about the futures of three children who have had their pasts ripped away from them. He does this because he sees potential in each and every one of them. Let me reiterate: he does not do this because it could make him look good, or because it could do exactly the opposite. Narrow-minded fools such as you are would not be able to read the situation properly; perhaps I should spare you any charges of insubordination on account of your apparent idiocy. Do charges of insubordination sound extreme to you? I assure you that they are not. After all, what you have done is no small matter. You have insulted and disrespected three of Jiraiya’s charges, and attempted to deny them entry into Konoha, and then you went on to patronize three of the most powerful ninja in the village. I must say that it would be most unfortunate if this incident were to be mentioned to the Hokage. Temporary removal from active duty sounds appropriate, wouldn’t you think?”
Holy shit, Big Kakashi whispers, almost reverently. I haven’t seen a verbal curb stomp like that since someone tried to kick my student out of a weapons store.
The chūnin takes a deep breath, and Kakashi turns back to watch him try to defend himself. But the man doesn’t—he simple pales and apologizes. “I apologize, Orochimaru-sama. I will not disrespect you or Jiraiya-sama in this way again. All that I ask is that you would not report my misbehavior.”
“Good. I will consider your request,” they say, and turn around, robes fanning out behind them dramatically. They rejoin Kakashi where he is standing about fifteen feet away from the whole situation. Tsunade is smirking, and the expression sits comfortably and victoriously upon her face.
There’s that flair for the dramatic, Big Kakashi observes. I’ve seen it on almost every Konoha shinobi I’ve known.
Am I gonna be that dramatic? Kakashi asks.
Yes, Big Kakashi says, completely without hesitation.
Kakashi rolls his eyes, and then focuses his attention onto the three kids that are hiding—hiding? Yes, definitely hiding—behind Jiraiya. One of them is a kunoichi with dark hair and bright-amber eyes. She looks cleaner than the other two, who are a boy with straight, vibrant red hair, and a boy with a spiky shock of orange hair.
“Hi,” Kakashi says, coming closer to them.
The girl swallows visibly, but steps forward and sticks her hand out. “I’m Konan."
“Konan,” the boy with orange hair—who is a great deal shorter than the other two—hisses, “you can’t just do that. You don’t even know who he is— ”
“He’s with Jiraiya-sensei’s friends,” Konan says, and then turns back to Kakashi. “Sorry about him. That’s Yahiko, and the other one is Nagato. They’ll come around.”
“You like snakes?” Kakashi asks.
You are awful at socializing, Big Kakashi says. Horrible. Bad. Egregious. No wonder I had no friends back then. Snakes? Are you serious?
Snakes are cool, and they’re a good topic for conversation, Kakashi says defensively. I could talk about them all day. So back off.
And that’s the problem, Big Kakashi says. You could talk about snakes all day long. They probably can’t.
“Never mind,” Kakashi says. “Um."
“I like snakes,” Nagato says.
“That’s cool,” Jiraiya says, butting into the conversation, “but toads? Far better.”
Kakashi sticks his tongue out at the man. “Blech.”
“What about slugs?” Tsunade says, smiling.
Kakashi fakes turning around and barfing. “Eugh. Gross.” He pauses consideringly, and then adds, “But your slugs are cool.”
Tsunade laughs and ruffles Kakashi’s hair. “Okay. We better go and let Jiraiya get settled in. And, Jiraiya, they can stay with us until you find them an apartment. Gods know our house is big enough.”
Orochimaru nods. “I have no problem with that arrangement.”
“Great,” Jiraiya says. “That’s one less problem to deal with immediately. Actually—Nagato, Konan, Yahiko, why don’t you go with them? You can go get cleaned up and then go shopping to get materials, clothes, and whatever else you need. The guest rooms are . . . kind of empty. You might want to order some furniture? I didn’t really think this through.”
Orochimaru smiles. “Very well. Tsunade, I advise that you take the rest of the day off to come with us. I suspect that Konan would benefit more from your advice. And you should rest more.”
“Maybe I should,” Tsunade says. “I’ve already cleared my schedule for the day.”
Kakashi tugs on her sleeve excitedly. “Yeah! It’s been forever since we hung out.”
Tsunade ruffles his hair again—a habit which Kakashi pretends to be bothered by but ultimately doesn’t mind—and nods. “Okay. Orochimaru, round up the Ame brats. We’ve got a shopping trip to go on.”
“Absolutely not,” Konan insists. Nagato and Yahiko have similar mulish expressions on their faces.
“Why would you share the smallest room when you could share the biggest? Or better yet, just sleep in separate rooms?” Tsunade asks incredulously. The group is standing in front of a furniture store, pretending not to argue.
Kakashi knows they’re arguing. Tsunade and Orochimaru certainly know they’re arguing. But none of them will admit it, and Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan refuse to back down.
Yahiko huffs, crossing his arms and turning away.
Konan frowns, reaching out to rest a hand on Yahiko’s shoulder. Nagato doesn’t do much, but he does move to stand a little closer to the other two. “And I suppose if you were in a foreign country for the first time with only the two people you’re most comfortable around for any real sort of company, you’d sleep in separate rooms? During a war, as well. Safety in numbers, Tsunade-san.”
Tsunade is speechless, trying to come up with a reasonable response.
Orochimaru nods, looking both satisfied and intrigued at the same time. “I suppose I see your point. Your reasoning is strong. Very well, then. Three twin-sized beds or one queen?”
Konan blinks, startled, and Yahiko drops his arms and stares at Orochimaru.
Nagato answers for them, quietly, “One bed. King-sized, actually. If—if that’s okay.”
Orochimaru nods again, pleased.
Kakashi feels like laughing at the situation, but instead he opens the door to the store for everyone to enter. “We should probably buy the mattress and bed frame and seal them in a scroll before we look for anything else,” he suggests.
Big Kakashi agrees. Good thinking.
“Sounds good,” Tsunade says. “Let’s get to shopping."
Hey, actually, I was thinking, Big Kakashi says to Kakashi, as everyone enters the store.
What? Kakashi asks. He has his attention mostly on Big Kakashi, but does keep an eye on the rest of the group so that he won’t fall behind. Nagato and Yahiko are crowded around a dark oak bed frame and Konan, although she looks as excited as the two of them, is showing a little self-restraint and is standing back at a respectable distance.
Those three, they’re a team, you know? Big Kakashi says at last. Kakashi frowns in confusion. Of course he knows they're a team. It's obvious. Big Kakashi continues speaking, Maybe—maybe we should start looking for ours. Obito and Rin.
A team? Kakashi asks. That—that sounds nice. Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.