| [May. 25th, 2015|04:47 am] |
The fish was swiftly demolished, along with its delicate accompanying dishes. They traded stories of their own first chakra appearances — Kakashi’s lightning had set a cherry tree on fire; Minato’s wind had blown an annoying uncle into a garden pond; Rin’s water had brought down indoor rain on an ailing succulent — and despite much laughing encouragement, Naruto wasn’t able to summon up a repeat performance, though he tried until the effort turned him bright red.
When the dishes were cleared away, Ogata reappeared carrying an elegant red tray. The smell of dark, rich chocolate hit Kakashi first, like a golden spike wrapped in cacao and sugar. Re-lit candles made light gleam on dark frosting. Ogata wasn’t given to frills, which suited Kakashi; the cake was a tall, simple circle of decadence carved out of a karmic reward Kakashi wasn’t sure he’d earned, but definitely didn’t intend to argue with. Ogata placed it in the center of the table, with a silver knife laid precisely down next to it.
One light grey eye rested for a moment on Naruto, glinting warmly. “Well done, Naruto-kun,” she said, which made Naruto beam like he’d scaled a mountain range by himself. She nodded at the rest of the table and withdrew.
Kakashi stared at the cake.
“Go ahead,” Minato said, laughing. “It’s for you.”
“It’s too pretty to eat,” Kakashi said. “I just want to look at it.”
Naruto made an anguished noise that stretched out and made the candlelight waver: caaaaaaaaaaaaake!
“If you do that, Naruto might die,” Rin said, but her mouth was curving.
Even with that, it took Minato’s highly amused insistence to make Kakashi cut the cake and dish it out, once it had been firmly established that Ogata wouldn’t fly back out of the kitchen and murder him with a spatula for ruining her masterwork. Naruto abandoned his own seat to climb up in Kakashi’s lap and ‘help’, which mostly took the form of filching licks of frosting and making sure his piece was cut large enough. He stayed there as they ate, a warm weight cuddled up against Kakashi’s chest, and made rapturous chocolatey noises that faded into sleepy murmurs as the evening wore on and the lights dimmed.
Kakashi propped his elbow on the table, resting his chin on his hand, and curled his other arm around Naruto’s waist, listening as Rin and Minato traded the old, good stories that made them smile. His mouth tasted of chocolate and his stomach was full of warm, perfect food. Naruto had fallen asleep, exhausted from his first nearly-deliberate energy use. Kakashi could feel himself drooping, too, as the efforts of the day caught up with him, but he wouldn’t have moved even if Sagara-sama burst in the door and ordered him out.
Somewhere between the retelling of Rin’s first successful jounin mission and Minato’s fourth attempt at asking Kushina out, he fell asleep, and barely woke when warm hands lifted Naruto off him, pulled him gently up, and steered him to bed.
He had good dreams.
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