| [Aug. 1st, 2016|10:28 pm] |
No arguing with that order. "Thanks," Ryouma said, balancing the warm plate on his lap long enough to extract the bottle from his pocket.
Kakashi folded up on the floor with his own plate, leaning back against the bed. Ryouma could see only the crown of his head, with its thick thatch of springing silver hair, and the tense set of his shoulders. A movement of the left hand near his face; he picked up the chopsticks with his right and began to eat.
Ryouma chased two horse-sized pills with a gulp of water and a bite of okonomiyaki. Then another. "This is good."
That earned him an indignant huff, but Kakashi's shoulders eased a little. "I'm choosing to ignore your surprise."
"Well, we did pretty well with rabbit stew, our first time out," Ryouma allowed. "But that was a team effort." He took another bite. "It's gonna be you and me on kitchen prep duty all the time, now. Which may be a step up. I dunno if you remember anything we ate in the safehouse bunker…"
Kakashi shuddered. "Matcha sugar sludge is not food."
"Hot and caloric's the best you could say about it," Ryouma agreed, finishing off the first okonomiyaki. "I'll play kitchen helper forever, if this is what we get going forward."
"So long as you don't mind eating the same thing," Kakashi informed him. "Outside of campfire cooking, I know six good recipes." He set his chopsticks and empty plate down, pulled his mask into place, and turned to look up at Ryouma. "Are you going to be all right?"
He wasn't asking about cookery.
Ryouma focused on picking up a lone bonito flake with the tips of his chopsticks. "This's happened before. Losing a teammate, or having one reassigned… I just wasn't expecting it this soon, with this team. ANBU teams usually last at least a year, right? Unless someone gets killed or injured, but— You always know that's a possibility, but you do your damndest to see it doesn't happen. Which we've done."
Genma could've died beneath the mountain, paralysed by demon venom, but Kakashi'd saved him. Raidou'd dragged Ryouma out of rotted demon guts. Ryouma'd stopped that Kiri captain from killing Kakashi.
Death hounded their steps every time they left the village, but they knew it. They could fight it. That was what they were for.
Watching someone walk away…
Well, he was experienced at that too.
"Maybe they'll reassign Ayane," he said, pulling a slice of bacon off of the second okonomiyaki. "She's a kenjutsu specialist too. But she says her captain's doing better, so they might get Team Three reformed. We can handle the kenjutsu element okay ourselves."
"There are other sharp edges," Kakashi said, and managed to sound almost not bitter. His nose wrinkled. "Also, I think Ayane hates me."
Ryouma blinked. "Why would— Oh, you mean from the Trials? No, I told her and Hakone all about you exploding Iebara. They were very impressed."
Kakashi's brow arched curiously. "Oh?"
"Hakone'd heard of him. The Phantom Terror of Mist. Is that in the Bingo Book?"
"Was," Kakashi corrected, his voice rich with satisfaction. Then he frowned. "I've asked this before, but you didn't answer. Do you not know the Bingo Book?"
Ryouma hitched a shoulder. "I know the pictures. And the village symbols, where they're from. I didn't recognize Iebara the way you and Genma did—" He broke off at the dawning horror in Kakashi's eye. "It's not like there was details on his jutsu in the Bingo Book anyway!" he said defensively. "All the information we've got is from Kiri's version of the Book. Hakone told me, no Konoha team has ever survived an encounter against Iebara before."
Kakashi's lips parted, beneath the mask. Closed. Opened again.
Without a word, he stood and left the apartment.
Ryouma fiddled apprehensively with the second okonomiyaki. He'd only managed two more bites when Kakashi returned with a ragged, much annotated binder.
Kakashi shoved a pillow away and sat beside Ryouma on the bed. He flipped open to the first page and yanked out a stapled photo to hand to Ryouma. "Repeat after me: Abukara Chinatsu, Iwa-nin, female, twenty-seven. Rank: jounin. Speciality—"
Ryouma reached behind him, snagged the pillow, and thwacked him over the head with it. |
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