Ryouma restrained himself—just barely—from pointing out that Katsuko had actually guessed right. For the first time, at least, and a few thereafter. Maybe the children’s counting rhyme hadn’t been such a bad way of choosing.

He glanced back at Katsuko in time to catch the dangerous edge of her brow-raising smirk. “Don’t worry,” she told Kakashi sweetly. “I was on my way out!”

Her stomach rumbled. Katsuko grinned. “Right after I take some of your granola bars for breakfast.”

“We can do better than granola bars,” Ryouma announced, setting the trophy down gently on the kitchen counter. “Kakashi, you haven’t eaten yet either, have you?”

Kakashi shook his head. He was still watching Katsuko as if he expected her to snap at any moment. At least his hands were back in his pockets, though that didn’t actually mean much; Ryouma was fairly sure Kakashi could launch a killing attack without ever actually shifting out of his carefully nonchalant slouch.

Well, he didn’t kill teammates. (Didn’t, even if he’d hurt Ginta; he hadn’t killed.) And he’d insisted that he didn’t care about Ryouma’s involvement with Katsuko. The tension in his shoulders said that might have been a lie, but maybe now he could make a start at turning it true. Katsuko, at least, was doing her part.

(Or maybe, judging from that smirk, she just liked watching. Better not to ask about that.)

“Bacon,” he said firmly, heading for the fridge. “And eggs. I’m supposed to be eating several small meals a day anyway, an’ I’m good at eggs. So long as you like ‘em scrambled.” He straightened, hands full of egg carton and bacon packet, and gazed levelly at Kakashi and Katsuko.

“You two play nice, or you get cayenne in your coffee.”

Katsuko held her hands up, palms open, fingers extended: Look, Ma, no weapons! “Hey man, I’m getting free breakfast. I’ll do a pirouette on the table if you want me to.”

Kakashi glanced askance at her. “Please don’t.” At Ryouma’s stern look he added, a trifle defensively, “I said ‘please.’”

The only table was a low, heavy four-legged thing that lurked under the bed for all but the most formal of meals, anyway. Pirouettes only a foot off the ground probably wouldn’t be worth it. Ryouma waved the bacon packet vaguely in the air. “Try just talkin’, friendly-like. I need to concentrate.”

And he’d never actually cooked for Kakashi before—or for Katsuko, aside from a pair of campfire-roasted brook trout. Not that bacon and eggs and toast were a particularly impressive demonstration of his meagre home-making skills, but he had to start somewhere.