| [Aug. 23rd, 2014|04:52 am] |
Raidou pulled Kakashi from the fascinating thought of wondering who drugged spiders in their free time, by asking, “Who taught you to braid hair?”
“Hm? My mother,” Kakashi said. He raised a hand and flexed his fingers. “It’s good for dexterity.”
Raidou’s expression did the same unreadable, complicated thing Katsuko’s had done when Kakashi told her that Obito cried, then he switched topics. “Valentine’s day plant-theft was the lie. I’ll take Tousaki’s logic.”
She’s not dead, Kakashi thought, but explaining required effort. He rolled his head back to look at Katsuko, and just about managed to avoid toppling into her lap. “What’s your guess?”
“I told you already, clouds-for-brains,” she said, bracing him up. “The old people discount. You don’t look that old. Maybe sixty, or a very spry seventy.”
Kakashi laughed at clouds-for-brains. He felt cloudy, a half-step divorced from his body. Everything was glossy and warm, glimmering slightly around the edges, like someone had laminated the world in mirror-world plastic.
And that had to be the fifteenth pet name Katsuko had called him.
Kakashi blinked up at her. “Do you just not like my name?”
She blinked back at him. “I, uh,” she floundered. “No, your name’s your name. I just…”
He’d never seen her at a loss for words before. Kakashi watched, surprised and delighted, as Katsuko tripped over a direct question. He should have asked her weeks ago.
“Did you forget it?” he suggested.
“No...” Katsuko said, stretching the word out. Noooooo.
“You call everyone else by their name,” Kakashi said.
“Well, yeah, but—” She gave a flailing gesture that explained nothing. “It’s not like I don’t like your name or anything.”
Kakashi waited. “But…”
Katsuko made a cryptic squawking sound of frustration.
Kakashi let the moment drag out just enough to pay back a month’s worth of increasingly bizarre pet names, and then relented. “It’s okay,” he said, reaching up to pet her wild hair. “Words are hard.”
“You’re har—” Katsuko began. She paused and switched to, “Your face is—”
That insult failed her, too. She ran aground to a sputtering halt, and snapped her teeth at Kakashi like an irritated turtle.
Kakashi looked at the rest of the team. “Did I just win?”
Ryouma patted his ankle. “Two points.”
Katsuko made another outraged sound and Raidou laughed. “Congratulations, Hatake,” he said. “This’ll be a meaningful moment if you ever remember it.”
“I won,” Kakashi blissfully. “Now she can only call me nice things.”
“I always call you nice things,” Katsuko said, disgruntled.
Ryouma jostled Kakashi’s foot gently. “And you’ve got to admit it. You are kind of a delicate snowblossom.”
“S-ranked delicate snowblossom,” Kakashi said, because he’d run out of energy to get offended. And he’d probably collapsed one too many times to convince them he was made of iron at this point. But he’d killed everyone he needed to first, so he was still in the black.
“Wonder if that’s your Bingo Book description anywhere,” Genma said, looking faintly amused. “Hatake Kakashi: Fainting Snowdrop of Konoha. S-rank. Has Sharingan.”
“And Iebara’s head,” Kakashi said, with a quick, wolfish smile.
Genma’s mouth curled. “Damn right,” he said. |
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