Kakashi tilted his head. “I thought medics took an oath to do no harm.”

“Civilian medics do,” she said, and sipped her wine with her free hand.

Distantly, Kakashi wondered if other brand new ANBU had this problem, or if he was the first one in history to have a high-level medic offer to subtly eviscerate the people who were mean to him.

Then he thought about Rin meeting Ryouma.

And Katsuko.

And, somehow, things seemed much brighter.

“Thank you,” he said, and squeezed Rin’s hand before letting go, picking up his chopsticks again. A seedling of her chakra stayed pressed into his palm, spreading warm, calming tendrils through his coils. “If you ever do go after Tousaki, you should shave him bald. He seems like he’d be hair-proud.”

“Then that won’t be the only thing of his I’ll shave,” she said sweetly.

Kakashi paused, laughed—and kept laughing. He had to lay his chopsticks back down and put a hand over his face, shoulders shaking. It wasn’t that funny, but the tensions of a long, difficult week ruptured like a bubble, and the future contained the possibility of Ryouma sunburning his shiny bald head (and other things), so laughter, low and hoarse, spilling up like a fountain that didn’t stop until he dissolved into a coughing fit.

When he pulled himself back together, Rin was watching him, soft and a little worried.

Kakashi cleared his throat. “So, if you don’t practice that, it injures you.”

“I thought I was going to have to give you rescue breathing,” she said, worry shading into amusement.

“Just dinner,” Kakashi said, reaching for another bite of red snapper. “You are paying for this, right?”

Rin’s look would have skewered a lesser mortal. “We’ll go halves,” she said, uncompromising as an iron girder.

“Who do I go to when you’re not treating me well?” Kakashi inquired.

Rin smirked. “Try Minato-sensei.”

Might as well try carving sympathy out of a mountain face; one that would landslide and then mock him. Kakashi gave up and said, “Want to get dessert after this?”