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ikemenomegas · 2 years

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Kakashi, Young

Kakashi is quietly panicking on many levels, springing over rooftops, scanning them and the ground below.

Konoha was a big village.

Pakkun was a very, very, small dog.

He'd known that going into the exercise, but Pakkun insisted. An unwilling part of him grudgingly admitted that he was probably owed some of the stubbornness.

It was still a stupid decision to let a seven pound pug try and run on the rooftops.

"It's not like you could have known," Rin pointed out, as though she had read his mind.

She loved the puppies and while he had initially been resistant to it, he was glad to have her around now.

"Bisuke was about the same size when he started training with you, and Pakkun is already faster. I'm sure he's fine."

"If he was fine, he would have already found us," Kakashi replied.

Rin fell silent.

He felt a little bad, but Pakkun had never failed a tracking exercise before. The only thing he could figure was that adding a restriction to rooftop travel alone had resulted in some kind of incident.

"We should split up --"

"No," Rin interrupted. "What if he's still looking for us? Splitting the scents won't help."

She was right, and he sighed.

-- Across the village --

"Are you sure it's this way?"

You'd always suspected part of the reasons the village shinobi stayed on the roofs wasn't just to keep out of the way of civilians.

Confined to the ground yourself and with a little passenger in tow, it was very clear that the two of you were getting lost.

"I'm sure," growled the little pug. "Put me down. I'll find the boss on my own."

You looked skeptically at the bandage you'd wrapped around his back leg and then quickly away when he twisted his ears back.

You looked up into the sky, maybe this "boss" would find you two before you found them. In the mean time, the pug was cute. So cute. Too cute. Especially when he wrinkled his wrinkly little nose and growled at you like that.

"No way," you say, turning in the direction the little pug is still facing. "That leg needs to be treated. Are you sure you don't want me to take you too the hospital instead? Or maybe the Inuzuka compound?"

The puppy's little whine almost breaks your heart. You really wish that you could get up on the roofs too, but walking around with your crutches hoisted over your shoulder so you can carry him is really about all you can do right now.

"Left," he says sulkily, as you trail down yet another narrow street.

"At least put me over your shoulder," he grumbles finally, when your right leg shakes again, protesting the weight placed on it too early.

You pause, admittedly tired, but putting the dog on your shoulder seems a bit unstable.

You put him gently down on top of a barrel and shrug out of your jacket. It's a bit of maneuvering to make it into a serviceable sling but you do actually try to pay attention in the academy's survival classes so it doesn't take that long.

The dog seems much more comfortable in it while you click down the street at a slightly more even keel.

"By the way, what's your name?"

The dog is silent for so long you look down at him. He's swinging his head to-and-fro to catch whatever scent he has you tracking.

"What's yours?" he asks, gruff.

When you give it, he tells you to turn left again.

"I'm Pakkun," he says finally.

"It's nice to meet you, Pakkun."

He just humphs and tells you to turn right.

"Are you sure you're ok--"

The dog, Pakkun you remind yourself, glares at you.

"-kay with the sling?" you quickly tried to cover.

Pakkun grumbled and then told you to pause. "It's fine," he said. "You're in the academy, right? We need to go west."

You dared to stick a hand in the sling to pat Pakkun's back. "That's probably easier than trying to navigate the alleys. Just let me know if you loose the trail."

Pakkun tensed under your hand so you withdrew. Ninken weren't like normal dogs and this dog wasn't like a normal ninken.

"Maybe if we get to a more open area your boss will be able to see us better?"

"Just keep walking," he muttered so you did, making your slow way west. It took you a moment to figure out that the little thump at the edge of your ribs was probably what you'd feel getting hit by a little wagging tail.

Pakkun was right. It was easier to simply head in the right direction without having to decide which exact path was right.

It also so happened that you could head west and south a bit and end up passing the hospital, which is probably where you would look if you ever lost a teeny tiny ninken after he'd tumbled off a roof.

A cold nose touched the tip of your finger as you neared the end of a wood area.

"Wait."

The rest of Pakkun's adorable head followed, his soft puppy fur brushing your wrist.

Kidnapping, erm dognapping, wasn't exactly a crime in the ninja world as long as you didn't get caught and the dog was willing, right? If you told Pakkun how adorable he was maybe he'd let you dognap him just once a month... you and your teammate stole things from one another all the time. It was good training in tracking.

Light as air, a boy with grey hair and a mask landed in front of you, hands in his pockets.

Your eyes widened in surprise and you leaned back a bit on your crutches, stabilizing Pakkun with a hand on his very soft chest when he nearly leaned out of the sling.

The boy glanced at you with a dark, unreadable eyes before looking back down at the dog.

"Hey boss," the pug said, half sheepish, half grumble, but you could feel his curly little tail again.

A second later, a girl with short brown hair landed behind the boy.

"Pakkun!" she exclaimed, "what a relief."

He grunted. "This," he looked up at you, half lidded eyes still skeptical as he said your name, "found me."

This?

The girl came forward, which seemed weird since the dog clearly belonged with the boy, but she was also more patient as you rearranged the crutches and lifted the sling over your head.

"I found him limping, so I bound the leg, but I think he needs a healer."

Pakkun glared at you and you shrugged sheepishly. Just because ninja were trained to hide injuries in the field didn't mean you should hide them among allies.

"Pakkun! You should have gone directly here. What's with the trail we picked up behind the west side scrap iron shop?" The girl scolded, already unwrapping your jacket, her hands burning green.

You blinked in surprise, "You're a healer?"

"Mhm," she said, immediately distracted. You looked up at the boy to see him standing in a way that seemed a guarding position and then stepped back to look at the scene properly.

Both of them had their hitae-ate, so they'd probably seen battle already.

Pakkun had his leg extended as the girl moved her hand around it. Even though you wouldn't exactly be able to fight like you were used to with your leg the way it was, or really needed to in the village, you sharpened your awareness too, paying attention to what was going on around you instead of with her healing, even though you would have preferred to watch.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw the boy glance at you and one shoulder sag back into a more relaxed position.

"Okay," the girl stood up, wiping sweat from her brow. She picked Pakkun up with one arm and offered him to the boy, who finally took back the dog with what seemed an intentional lack of expression, and then gave back your jacket.

"Thank you for finding him," she said. "We were getting really worried."

The boy turned his body away in a way you were sure was meant to convey that he was both done with this conversation and had not been worried, but his fingers were already buried in Pakkun's short fur, checking over the girl's work.

"Ka-"

A boy with orange goggles and spiky black hair all but fell from the tree behind you.

You tumbled back, wincing from the noise, although the girl seemed unperturbed.

"Where were you," she immediately changed tack to launch into the familiar chiding tones of someone who had said this exact same thing before. "We already found Pakkun."

The new boy rubbed the back of his head, "I think I followed that weird trail through the alleyways. You know they took three lefts?"

You barely covered a cough of laughter but the ninken's sharp ears, and apparently the grey haired kid's too, picked it up enough for Pakkun to send you another twist-eared look. The boy, you thought, might be similarly embarrassed, although he stood so stiffly he was doing a decent job of hiding it.

The dark haired boy and the girl were standing shoulder to shoulder, the way old friends often did. She glanced once at the other boy and then seemed to somehow resign herself.

"Anyways, thank you," she said with a kind smile. "See you around sometime."

And then they were turning away, bantering back and forth in a familiar rhythm as they took to the trees and were gone.

"I'm want to go through a few of the boxes today, is that okay?"

Kakashi clearly didn't want to leave your still-new home and you didn't want him to go, but he had some sort of clan meeting to go to. And Tsunade had been on your ass about making him.

Unfortunately, this was the kind of thing he couldn't be late for.

He sagged further into his flak jacket collar, which for someone so tall shouldn't make him appear cute but it did.

"It's fine," he murmured, looking around at the scattered boxes of stuff you'd dragged from his home when he'd made it clear that he wanted to start doing something about the mess of his clan's records. He really had let it pile up over the years. "Are you sure you don't mind?"

You grinned, showing just a little too much teeth, "I keep hoping to find some more pictures of you as a kid. I want to have evidence so you'll believe me when I say how adorable you are."

He looked down at the ground and sighed. "Well good luck. There weren't many of those to begin with."

Carefully, so he had time to pull away, you wrapped your arms around him. He didn't return the embrace but he did nuzzle against the scent gland under your jaw and seemed brighter when he straightened up.

"Well I'm off. Have... fun."

There was no intentionally audible sound of his stepping away so you figured he had probably used a shunshin. He had been understandably territorial after the move, taking circuitous routes to get here and back and concealing himself more than usual until the new space had finally started to smell of the two of you again.

You moved toward a promising looking box, Guruko padding through the maze behind you.

It wasn't Kakashi's fault really. A lot of the village's smaller clan records had been made into an absolute chaos when the Kyubi had attacked and fairly interval attempts on the village infrastructure hadn't really slowed down from there. The fact that Kakashi had mostly kept things from his old house packed away in boxes had likely been what kept it from being literally tangled into a hopeless mess.

The box you chose had worn edges, more than some of the others, and you sat down cross legged to slowly sort through the documents.

In a corner, about halfway down, was another smaller box. It was also half-squashed given that it wasn't all the way full, but all that padding had kept the treasure inside near pristine.

You purred to the empty room with delight when your mate's face, younger than even in his genin photo, appeared at the top of the stack.

There were a lot of shinobi in the village and there was a lot of your mate that you would never know because for a long time you hadn't known him. In that way you envied Asuma and Kurenai. Theirs was the kind of romance you'd dreamed of as a kid. They knew everything about one another because they'd lived so much of it.

Kakashi told you things, if you asked, but he was used to keeping his silence, pushing the past as far into the dark as possible, and you didn't often know what to ask about. He preferred to talk about you, but you adored him and wanted to reciprocate that interest.

It made you proud how far he'd come since you first started sharing glances across the room, back when you were the new person being pulled into the orbit of people Kakashi associated with over dango and stories of stupid choices made during promotion tests.

At least one of the photos was obviously an academy school photo, plane background and your mate in an incredibly nerdy little scarf.

A lot of the other photos were later, and equally cutely, of the pack as puppies.

Some of them had clearly been captured by an inexpert hand, the picture blurred with laughter as Kakashi tried not to trip on a very excited young Shiba, and a cute girl, Rin you knew, carefully wrapping Uhei's paw while Pakkun watched.

You frowned at the photo, something tickling the back of your memories.

A few more pictures gave you that same feeling, including a picture of Kakashi and Pakkun alone, looking comically similar with their half-lidded expressions and awkward postures, clearly being forced to try and pose.

You knew Pakkun now of course and it was obviously him, but something about that picture seemed awfully familiar.

Guruko wagged his tail when he asked you to find one of him and you couldn't refuse so together you dug through the box. There were even the dogs' first collars in a sturdier wooden box under a few old papers that looked like academy assignments.

You were still in it, Guruko rolling around and telling you stories about training as pups, when Kakashi came back home.

Kakashi smiled fondly when both you and Guruko immediately rolled upright and went to him.

"Look what I found," you tugged his sleeve in excitement and pulled him to the couch and coffee table where you had carefully place the pictures. "I'm so glad these survived. Look at how little the ninken were. Look at you," you pointed to another slightly shaky picture that showed Bull and Uhei "playing" a game of tug of war where Bull had to do very little to win while Kakashi was clearly laughing in the background.

You didn't miss the slightly sad scent that began to cling to your mate or the way his fingers shook when you handed him the photo.

You leaned shoulder to shoulder and went quiet while he sifted through the pictures. Stored in the box as they had been, they didn't look nearly as old as they clearly were.

"Obito took these," he finally said, softly.

You should have guessed you suppose. There were far fewer pictures with the dark haired boy in it, and of those most were selfie like and cut off part of the person he was with or his own brightly smiling face.

They were youthful photos of a much different time.

You pressed a kiss to the back of your mate's hand and tried to hold onto some of the weight that settled all too easily on his shoulders.

You pressed gently on the scent gland at his wrist when he'd hit the vague edge of the limit you'd sort of agreed on for guilty pining, in the event you found some new memory of his he'd never shared before. You let a whine build in your chest, just enough to let him know you were getting worried, and he slumped over on you, pressing you into the couch with his whole weight.

It was a funny little thing he did that you weren't sure if he had learned from Bull or Bull from him. Usually it meant he was redirecting his stress into literally using his body to protect yours.

For now, you allowed it. You didn't like the implication of value there, but you also knew it soothed your mate in an important way. And he did let you gently tug him so he was more just laying on top of you and he could feel the rumbling purr you were making.

You rubbed circles into his back while he opened his one sharingan and perused the photos again.

When he got to the one that had stopped you before, you finally spoke, keeping your words to a low murmur.

"There's something weirdly familiar about that one, like I've seen it before."

You allowed yourself a little snicker when Kakashi held it up and that expression, which he still made but in a slightly less petulant way that still mirrored Pakkun's more committed sulks, came back into full view.

Your mate's mask had slipped as he sometimes rubbed his face against the juncture of your neck and shoulder and you could feel the tired quirk of his smile against your skin, the way he huffed a faint laugh.

He even gifted you with a little purr when you tugged your fingers through his thick, soft hair.

"He does still make that face."

You snorted and felt like the sun had lit up your chest when Kakashi chuckled.

Kakashi would have happily fallen into a doze like this, but neither of you were in the particular habit of napping, unfortunately. There were dogs to feed and yourself to feed, clothing to unpack, bedding to air out.

He swiped the photos off the table and back into their box, to be stowed away for now, but a few days later he gifted you the one of him and Pakkun in a new protective frame.

The others ninken of course saw it and slowly, gently, demanded that Kakashi find some of them too, claiming that the captain couldn't be the only one with a photo around the house.

Pakkun gave you a weird look when he caught sight of your staring at the photo one day, grinning to yourself and pushing away again that feeling like you were missing some detail in looking at it.

It hit you a week or so later when you were alone again, trying not to fret about your mate being out on what should be a relatively safe information retrieval mission. Others were busy and he'd wanted to go out for a while, so he'd gone and left Pakkun with you.

This reassured you he didn't think the mission would be that tough, but it also had the downside of having the little pug's judgemental little face watching you find things to do to distract yourself after your own work was already done for the day.

"What?" you finally asked him, after trying and failing to read a book. "You've been staring at me for days. Is there something I should know?"

"Do you really not remember?" Pakkun asked, skeptical and gruff.

You frowned and looked where he did, at the shelf where the photo was leaning.

"I--"

"I never forget a scent," Pakkun said somewhat haughtily.

You had all but memorized the picture yourself by now. Pakkun's wrinkled baby face. "No way."

One of his adorable little eyebrows raised.

You looked back at the photo.

"It was his decision start courting you-"

You amusedly decided not to bring up the reality which was less like courting and more like the local tomcat adopting you via a series of birds brought to your door.

"-so we didn't say anything, but I told them all you remembered."

"I've met you before!"

Pakkun's adorable little tail was starting to wag.

"But I don't remember where."

He slumped into a sulk.

"Sorry," you said, patting his head in apology and going into the kitchen to get him some ham.

"Hmph." He followed you anyways, toenails clicking on the wooden floor.

"It was a long time ago though. Maybe it'll come back to me."

He leapt onto the counter and grumbled some kind of vague agreement, taking the meat delicately from your fingers.

You leaned against the counter while he ate, looking around the apartment. Kakashi's discomfort was shared. Your mate could be away for days or weeks at a time when things were busy or something bad came to the mission desk.

Having a space you owned, that wouldn't be subject to change every few years, somewhere for him to come back to, had seemed like the right call.

It was the right call, you reminded yourself firmly. Both of you needed some kind of stability, if only to help Kakashi start to unravel years and years of avoiding a majority of physical and emotional attachments.

But the time it was taking to really make the apartment feel like home could be frustrating. You missed having Kakashi's scent just being around as a consequence of his frequent presence.

"Don't worry too much," Pakkun said, gnawing on the little bone in the center of the ham. "The Boss will be back before you know it."

Boss. Hmm.

You shook your head, "I suppose finally putting together some of the cabinets will make it easier to put things away. Want to learn how to use a hammer?"

Pakkun licked his lips and looked up at you. His steps were so light you almost couldn't feel them when he sprang up to drape on your shoulder.

"You know dogs don't have thumbs right?"

"That hasn't stopped you before."

Pakkun just huffed ham-scented breath into your face as you went into the bedroom.

#prompt fill #kakshi hatake #kakashi's ninken #pakkun #a/b/o dynamics #omegaverse #alpha!reader #omega!kakashi #sorry this became about alpha's relationship with the dog instead of kakashi #i think it's cute though #one of my favorite trope is “they met as kids” but I think its even cuter when it doesn't factor into the dating aspect #makes it feel more they were meant to meet later so they have a near miss #this was a cute combo though. immediately thinking of young kakashi i couldn't help connecting his puppies #i don't know if its canon but i love the idea of him training every single one since they were small #and i went hmm what if alpha did meet kakashi's team just once #if they remember i'm not sure they tell kakashi #since it was like ships in the night rather than a true meeting #but they treasure the feeling of knowing they saw the people who cared for kakashi when he was younger #gn #reader insert #io.omegas

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r--kt · 6 months

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Do you like Kakashi's dogs? Let's talk about why there are eight of them.

another example of naruto's ✨cultural code✨

contents | the eight dog warriors chronicles · legacy · eight confucian virtues. also look at the cuties love them sm

Naruto Vol. 10 CH 90

[ one dog is wonderful, I'm saying as the owner of a sweet little york terrier. two dogs are good, they won't be bored together. three dogs? yeah, cool! how are you going to walk them though? four? yes... look, maybe we have to draw the line h- wha- EIGHT? Excuse Me!? ]

surely, it's worth starting with the fact that eight is a lucky number in Japanese culture — everybody watched Hachi. of course, this is not the only cultural detail where the eight is mentioned. I want to pay special attention to a thing that I didn't know about until I googled it, and this is clearly what Kishimoto was doing homage to with Kakashi's eight ninken.

The Eight Dog Warriors Chronicles

Better known as Nansō Satomi Hakkenden. and it's not just some kind of book, it's a novel, consisting of 106 booklets written by Kyokutei Bakin in XIX century. Hakkenden is considered the largest novel in the history of Japanese Literature. this is one of the main representatives of the gesaku genre, which includes works of a frivolous, joking, silly nature. further I will emphasize a few more times how damn popular this work is and how often it is reflected in culture.

here are some illustrations for these books

now let's talk about the plot. It's weird, but it's weird at samurai-dogs-story level so stay here.

In brief, the story tells about the commander Satomi Yoshizane, whose native lands were attacked by the army of a man, whose forces surpassed those of Satomi, and the samurai in despair swore to a dog named Yatsufusa that the dog would get his beloved daughter Fuse as a wife if he chewed that man's throat. surprisingly, the dog not only understood the owner, but also fulfilled his wish! after that the commander refused to keep the promise. however, Fuse, true to her word of honor, went with Yatsufusa to the mountains and became his wife. upon learning that his daughter was pregnant, Satomi, in a rage, sent a samurai to kill Yatsufusa and bring Fuse home. she stood up for the dog anyways and died with him. at that moment, eight pearls with hieroglyphs that denoted the foundations of Confucian virtue burst out of her womb. (...cheers for mythology, I guess)

Soon, eight dog warriors who were Fuse's spiritual children were born in different parts of Awa province. after going through hardships, they got together and became vassals of the Satomi clan, then won the battle, and soon reached peace.

some more illustrations made by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. from left to right: Inukawa Sōsuke (the dog warrior), Inumura Daikaku (the dog warrior), Princess Fuse (their mother).

the novel mainly tells about each individual warrior dog and his shenanigans in a funny adventurous way. huge fame has led to excerpts from Hakkenden being staged at the Kabuki Theater and mentioned in the anime and manga, such as Inuyasha, Dragon Ball, as it turned out, Naruto and so on. there's also a lot of films and video games.

The eight virtues

these are loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, love, honesty, justice, harmony, and peace.

they relate more to Chinese culture, but basically Hakkenden was inspired by it too. since I did not read the whole novel, I would still like to mention at least the values on which it is based, and which were embedded in the symbolism of this story. It's quite interesting to apply this to Kakashi's dogs. gives them more weight and depth.

It is also interesting to note that the reason why Fuse gave birth to dogs was also that her father was cursed earlier in the story in a way that his descendants would become depraved like dogs. in Japanese culture, dogs embody the duality of character: the same mentioned filth and depravity, and devotion and bravery. so as samurai. but this is a different conversation, more related to Kakashi and his dog poetry.

Did you get here? Here's an additional discovery for you✨

Pakkun's name (パックン) is derived from the Japanese onomatopoeia “pakupaku” (パクパク) which reflects the sound of munching.

Kakashi, that's very sweet of you.

thank you for reading this to the end ♡

#kakashi hatake #kakashi #naruto #naruto shippuden #Kakashi's dogs

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ludwigplayingthetrombone · 9 months

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Your kakagai proposal comic has given me brainrot in the best way <3 but I can't help but to think that Gai already had a pair for kakashi. So did Gai already have a set and kakashi beat him to the punch or was Gai still looking for the perfect set?

Oh gai had them made already absolutely but never found the right time

I wanted to show gai's gifts to kks, so here's some extras and then gai's response gift under the cut!

[gai giggling] Kks: I'll see you at home, gotta pick up some things. Gai: Notice anything different? Genma: You got new chucks? Gai: From kakashi. Aoba: You're still not believing that are you? Gai: Papa, no wonder these fools are single Naruto: YOU'RE ENGAGED? Gai: I AM! Narts: You're not moving out of kakashi's are you?? Sakura: ....

Kks: hmm? Hello?...You were the odd smell then. Who- [for my beloved soon to be husband] Kks: Madman. Absolute lunatic [kissing noises] Gai: I heard that.

Kks: Good. you're a menace. You dont have enough dog hair on you yet? A small sacrifice! Kks: Hmm enabler. I can't tackle you so-... Did not expect the engagement puppy

Gai: I couldn't let you out-do me; what kind of rivel do you take me for? I know your heart as well. Plus she reminded me of a certain someone. Kks: You think so? Bull's not the baby anymore. Gai: Don't say that! He is to me!... I knew you'd give her an amazing life full of love and care. Like the rest of us here

Gai: Oh, last thing. Here's your set.[blows dust off box] Kks: Oh thank goodness, I thought you didn't love me. Gai: I KNEW AOBA WAS FULL OF IT Kks: Woah! Gai: You can run lightning through them! Kks: Holy shit, gai

Kks: You'll teach me some moves, right? Gai: I would love to!! Kks: New pack puppy! Ninken: New meat! Puppy?

#kakagai #kakashi hatake #maito gai #naruto #my art

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ladykissingfish · 7 months

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Naruto: Sensei … you and Bushier-Brows Sensei have been together for a long time, right?

Kakashi: Mm, we have.

Sakura: When did you first confess to each other?

Kakashi: Actually, Gai confessed to me on Valentine’s Day.

Sasuke: That’s pretty cliche, isn’t it?

Sakura: Cliche?? That’s romantic!

Gai, coming into the room: Not really. We were about 15 years old, I told him I loved him … and he pulled down his mask and bit my arm.

Naruto: … what the heck?!

Gai: *rolls up his sleeve and holds out his arm* See? I still have the marks!

Sasuke: Kakashi … what the hell, old man?

Kakashi: Oi; in my defense, I was raised by my ninken. And they taught me that when you love something, you put your mark on it, to show that it’s yours.

Kakashi, to Gai: You should be flattered! I immediately returned your confession with one of my own!

Gai: NEXT TIME JUST USE YOUR WORDS, RIVAL!

Kakashi: Words fade, but a bite mark lasts FOREVER!! Just like my eternal love for you, idiot!!

Gai, tearing up: Eternal love? Awwww, Kakashi! That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me!

*the two start making out*

Naruto: S-sasuke ... if ... if I wanted to bite your ... Sasuke, holding out his arm: I thought you'd never ask. Sakura:

#KakagaiValentinesWeek2024 #snsvalentines24 #kakagai #sns #Valentine’s Day #naruto uzumaki #sasuke uchiha #sakura haruno #love bites #kakashi hatake #gai maito #sasunaru #narusasu

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dira333 · 7 months

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1,2,3 - you can count on me - Kakashi x Reader

A/N: Reader could be seen as a Ex-Root-Member?

tagging: @revasserium because your Zoro piece is still in the works

Falling in love had always been such a mystery to Kakashi.

He never knew his parents as a couple, but he’d seen how Minato acted around Kushina and even Asuma and Kurenai had acted as unwanted examples of something he never really understood.

There was a point in friendship, that he understood. He had friends, he liked having friends and he would sooner give his life than betray these friendships. But love?

Love was something for people who had less trauma to carry, for those who did not wake up at night screaming or gasping for air or wishing to go back in time and switch places with a friend.

But here he was, staring dumbfoundedly into a cup of tea he was preparing.

He didn’t even like tea that much but he had more than enough at home - because he was in love - and knew how to make it just the right way - because he was in love.

He blew softly at the rising steam and set it down at the table in front of you.

“There you go.” He said softly and watched in fascination as you lifted the cup, brought it to your face, and sniffed before taking the first sip.

Kakashi had half a mind to wonder if you had noticed his beginning crisis in the kitchenette or if you noticed how utterly pathetic he was being, besotted by something as ordinary as you drinking tea.

Was that what love was? More than just knowing the tiny things that made you you - because he knew a lot about Guy as well and he did not enjoy that knowledge half as much - but being moved by that knowledge?

He knew how you liked your tea and when you liked it.

You’d mentioned once that going through mission reports was much more enjoyable with a cup of tea and ever since then he’d been careful to always have enough of it at hand.

You preferred white tea over black and jasmine over green and it was a testament to both his attentiveness and foolishness that his cupboards were filled with both white tea and jasmine.

He’d thought that your sniffing was a testament to your past - always attentive and always on your toes, never taking a simple beverage for granted lest it could have been poisoned - but realized that it wasn’t just that.

It was - and he’d never admit that out loud - cute.

Kakashi would never have thought that in a relationship with him, he’d be the saner one.

But here he was, going to argue with Tsume over something that could have been thoroughly avoided if only he could have been a fool at the right time. But he wasn’t.

“Why do you need another puppy?”

Inuzuka Tsume looked at him as if he had just pissed onto her shoes.

“It’s not for me.”

Wrong answer. Absolutely wrong answer. Her eyebrows were doing things they shouldn’t be able to do.

“Look.” He said and he cringed at the way his voice sounded. He sounded like he was begging. Which he was, kinda, but that was beside the point. “I came to you because I know you can keep a secret.”

Tsume blinked. That was a good sign. She had not kicked him out of the house yet.

“I am seeing someone.” Tsume blinked again, more rapidly this time. That wasn’t as good a sign as the first one, but he soldiered one. “And she’s well… I want to give her a puppy. It would be our anniversary, kind of and she never had a pet before and she loves the dogs but they are Ninken and not pets, and well, I heard you’ve got a new litter. It would mean the world to her.”

“You don’t want to give her a Ninken and you came to me?” Tsume asked, her voice carrying a weird pitch he did not like.

“Well, I was hoping you’d have like an odd one of the bunch or something like that.” Her mouth did something he really did not like and he backpedaled right away.

“Or better yet, she can raise it to be a Ninken, which was my first idea anyway. She would bond so much more with it that way.”

“She’s here? Not on a mission?”

“Uh, no.” Where was this going?

“Be here at three. Don’t be late.”

“It’s actually a surprise-” He started but she threw him a glare that shut him up.

“Don’t be late.” She reminded him again.

They were late by thirty minutes but Hana opened the door and Kakashi considered that evening it out. Hana sent him a look that told him that she knew exactly what was going on here but she stepped aside and smiled at you.

“Hi, are you excited?”

“I don’t know.” You truthfully explained, your bluntness another reminder of why he’d fallen in love with you in the first place.

The puppies were in a separate room, six fat little bundles of fur and noise, running around each other and play fighting their brothers and sisters.

Kakashi could tell right away that you were overwhelmed. He had wanted to avoid just that, had planned to pick the dog out himself, knowing you’d get in your head about the choice and what it all entailed and what did one do with a dog anyway?

“Hey.” He grabbed your elbow and pulled you back towards himself until his chest pressed into your back. “Why don’t you take a seat in the kitchen and we’ll bring them to you, one by one?”

“Is that possible?” You asked and Hana nodded slowly. “Mom’s in the kitchen. Just go right through there.”

Kakashi wasn’t sure if leaving you alone with Tsume was the best idea but Hana was waving at him to move and pick one of the puppies up and you had already left anyway, eager to get away from the noise.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Hana asked as he looked down at the dogs. Akamaru’s white fur had mixed with the black of the mother, leaving five of them with interesting patterns of black and white and one slightly smaller one who was a soft grey. He picked him up instantly and Hana threw him a look.

“Not that one. Kiba wants him for himself.”

Kakashi sighed and put the little one down, picking up another one instead that had a black streak right under his nose, making him look like he’d grown a beard.

But as they walked through the door towards the kitchen, a lithe black body pressed through the door that led to the garden.

It was a large dog, it’s fur completely black. Kakashi could instantly tell that it had been a powerful Ninken but it had grown old, its shoulders sagging a little as it walked. Hana tensed next to him and Tsume, seated at the kitchen table opposite to you, looked at the dog approaching them.

“What is it, Ume?” She asked the dog that stopped, looked at Tsume, and then turned towards you with a determination that scared Kakashi.

“What is she-” He started but Tsume threw him a glare.

The dog stopped in front of you, seized you up, and put his head on your lap without a moment of hesitation.

Silence fell over the table as you looked down at the massive head that covered your legs.

“What do I do?” You asked, your shoulders stiff.

“You can pet her,” Tsume said, but the pitch of her voice was too wobbly for someone as headstrong as her.

Kakashi watched, utterly fascinated, as you lowered one of your hands and carefully caressed the soft fur between the eyes of the dog.

“Hello Ume,” you murmured. The dog let out a low whine and your head snapped up right away, your eyes searching for Kakashi.

“She likes it.” He tells you softly. “She doesn’t talk like Pakkun.”

He barely notices that Hana takes the puppy from his arms nor that Tsume grabs his elbow and pulls him towards the table.

“Ume,” Tsume starts, “Was Takumi’s dog. He died a few weeks ago.”

Your hand on Ume’s head stills softly.

“I’m sorry.” You tell her and she nods, her eyes not leaving the dog. “Ume’s too old to train with someone else. She was too old to go on missions either but Takumi still took her with him anyway. She’s been refusing contact with anyone but me and she only let me feed her and that was all. She’s been griefing. The fact that she’s choosing you of all people to touch her…” Tsume stops and you look up but not at her, your eyes searching Kakashi’s as if to ask for approval.

“My mother’s name was Ume.” You explain softly. “Grief recognizes grief sometimes.”

You look at Kakashi again, another silent conversation. Kakashi wonders when he started to become the saner one in their relationship. The voice of reason in this mess.

“She’s old.” He tells you softly when looks alone can’t spell out what needs to be said. “She should stay with Tsume.”

Tsume looks at him with furrowed brows then back to you.

“You want to take her?” There’s no saying what that tone means. But with Tsume, every tone is a dangerous tone.

“Why would I take a puppy if this dog needs love?”

If Kakashi had to describe you in three words, stubborn would be one of them.

He’s seen you stare down anyone and anything. Sometimes it’s cute.

Right now it’s a bit more concerning.

“Why are you staring at the pot?” He asks. His hands itch to hold your waits but first he needs to make sure you’re going through something. Last time he’d been a bit too blind to the signs and ended up with a Senbon in his thigh. Good times.

“I read that if you look away for a second, the milk tends to boil over.”

“Okay?” Kakashi takes a step closer. It’s not unreasonable to not want the milk to boil over. Carefully, cautiously, his hands inch closer to your waist. You sense him coming and lean into him, your focus never wavering.

“What are you cooking milk for?” He asks, content now that he has you in his arms. He drops his nose in the crook of your neck and inhales, pretending to sniff you exaggeratedly to get you to laugh. It works like a charm today and your laughter rings through the kitchen, making more than up for the fact that you’re still not letting the pot out of your sight.

“I wanted to try a new recipe. Hinata mentioned that Hot Chocolate is good for the Soul. I’ve never tried that before.”

“You’ve never tried Hot Chocolate before?” Kakashi’s careful to keep his voice neutral. You don’t take kindly to a tone that might sound of pity. He’s never pitied you once in his life, but he does occasionally sound like it, it seems.

“Have you?” You ask, pulling his arms a little tighter around you. Ah. Sensitive topic.

“Occasionally.”

“Tell me about it.”

Memories wash over him. His father used to put Cinnamon into it, a testament to his late mother. Rin always brought bars of chocolate on long missions, and melted them down in a cup of water if there was no milk around.

His breath hitches. The last cup of Hot Chocolate he shared with his Sensei, just a few days before Naruto was born. The one and only Cup of Hot Chocolate he managed to bribe Itachi with, tense silence as he tried to make sense of the younger boy.

Warm lips press onto his. You breathe into him, pull him out of his memories. He blinks, only to realize that he’s still here, that you’re still with him.

You don’t ask if he’s okay. He doesn’t have to pretend he is.

For a moment that’s all there is, the shared of comfort of each other's body being close, the well-known taste of lips you’ve learned to love.

Something heavy nudges him to the side, breaks the two of you apart.

Ume whines loudly.

“The milk!” You gasp and whirl around. The pot sits calmly on the stove.

Kakashi steps closer, furrows his brows.

“Honey,” He can’t help smiling. “You have to turn the stove on too.”

#my writing #Kakashi x Reader #Kakashi fluff #Kakashi Hatake #Naruto x reader #Naruto fluff

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