Yes.

It felt like a key fitting into a lock, like the final handseal that opened up the conduit for chakra to flow through. Like Ryouma’d turned a corner in an unmapped city and found himself on the broad straight road leading to the Hokage’s Palace. He knew what to do, finally. He wouldn’t go wrong.

He tucked his chin, slid his thumb down, and pressed his mouth carefully to the outline of Kakashi’s lips.

Ryouma’s abortive fantasies had never quite dealt with the problem of kissing through a mask. There was pressure, and a very faint fuzziness of close-woven cloth. No slickness of spit or taste of teeth, but when he let his lips part very slightly, he felt the veiled movement of Kakashi’s mouth against his. Eager, almost hungry, opening in return: Ryouma could feel the warmth of his filtered breath.

He found the masked border of Kakashi’s lower lip again, and drew it very gently between his own.

Kakashi made a surprised little huff of breath, but it rumbled into a note of deeper approval before Ryouma could break off. He dropped his hand to grip Ryouma’s shirt, tugging him in. The other hand drifted along the edge of Ryouma’s cheek, then sank into his hair, flexing against the shape of his skull.

Ryouma gave in to long-buried yearning and spread his own hand along the sharp edge of Kakashi’s jaw, below the velvet of his earlobe, to the nape-grazing fringe of his overgrown hair. It was as thick and soft as in Ryouma’s memory, the bones of his skull strong and clean beneath it. The collar of his mask came up only to the third cervical vertebra; there was bare skin above it, a finger-thin strip beneath his hair, like some forbidden secret. Kakashi shivered.

Slow. Don’t push. Whether Ryouma had seven days to live or seven years, he didn’t want Kakashi hating him after this; he didn’t want to hate himself. He teased his tongue over the shape of Kakashi’s lip beneath the mask, and murmured, “Changed your mind yet?”

Kakashi pulled back. He was faintly flushed above the skewed border of his mask, and breathing harder than two minutes of mild exertion should account for. “About topping or bottoming?”

If Ryouma didn’t redden even more, it was only because most of his blood seemed to have already fled southward. Where there wasn’t really room for it, between the tightness of his uniform pants and the secure fit of his protective cup. Why were they still in uniform again?

Don’t push.

He drew a deep breath. “Don’t need to worry about that, if you’d rather not. This… this’s good.”

Kakashi gave him the long, thoughtful look that meant gears turning behind his eyes, then leaned up again. His mouth pressed against Ryouma’s, firmer, insistent; his mask was damp in a way that felt almost like skin. Ryouma felt a groan climbing up his throat.

The hand tightened in his shirt. Kakashi spoke against his mouth, voice a rumble. “Tell me what you want to do.”

You was not a helpful answer.