The click of the bathroom door opening skirted entirely under Kakashi’s radar. His complete focus was on the puzzle beginning to come together in his hands, metamorphosized by the corner piece Ryouma had provided. Lightning shape and Mist influence balanced around the inverted fire tri-point, crippled by the dead spaces that made everything unstable, but now he had the angle to replace those...

Ryouma had to shout twice before his voice registered. “Kakashi! If I get takeout, will you eat?”

“What?” Kakashi waved him away, not really listening. “I’m fine, I don’t need anything.”

A warm, bony weight draped over his shoulders, smelling like salt-stung illness and fading shock. He stiffened, and Katsuko wrapped her arms around him, pressing a kiss into his hair.

“Kakashi,” she said, sing-song. “If you faint from hunger it’ll just take longer to solve my seal. Eat something. It’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.”

She was kissing his hair.

And she smelled like tears.

He twisted around, half-breaking her hold, and pulled her out of his blind spot. She was paler than she’d been a moment ago, lips blanched and eyes reddened, damp-spiked hair dragged back from her face. Her breath smelled of fresh mouthwash. Kakashi stared at her, then raised his chin to look for Ryouma.

Ryouma was by the door, shrugging into his leather jacket, fastening his sheathed knife at the small of his back. He strode to the kitchen counter to fetch his new wallet, then one-eightied back to the door. “Don’t break him before I get back,” he told Katsuko, cheerfully.

Kakashi stared at him, too.

“What--” he began, but Ryouma was already out the door, seals flaring back up behind him.

Katsuko rubbed her chin on top of Kakashi’s head.

“What the hell did I just miss?” Kakashi said.

She laughed, shaky and scoured raw. “Nothing much. Just me realizing there's a chance I might get to see the end of the year in one piece, and making a tactical retreat to the bathroom to vomit and cry like a baby.”