Ruminant

xxiv

24.

Uchiha Obito knew that Kakashi was hiding from him.

Obito didn't know if Kakashi knew that Obito knew that he was hiding from him, but this has to stop.

Even if he was a bit slow on the uptake sometimes, Obito could see that glaring grayish-white hair and masked figure a mile away.

If Kakashi actually wanted to hide, he should have dyed his hair first that idiot.

Obito didn't know if it was Kakashi being Kakashi, the insufferable little prick thinking that Obito couldn't see him when Kakashi wasn't even trying that hard to hide but-

Obito felt kind of insulted.

He was getting mixed vibes, damn it.

Does Kakashi want him to make the first move? Is that why he's being strangely coquettish right now in his attempts in concealing himself?

Like-

It's downright unprofessional to always see him running away unsubtly as if he wanted Obito to know!

It's been going on for almost a month now.

(Going on for far too long than what was comfortable, because due to the frequency of it happening, Obito was starting to get the illusion of a shy maiden hiding from her love interest vibe from Kakashi's-running-and-hiding-but-getting-seen- enough-to-leave-an-impression stunt.)

(Which he knew was ridiculous what the fuck but-)

(It didn't stop him from overthinking that damn it.)

Does he want Obito to make the first move?

Obito knew it was probably from a mix of guilt and all that complicated stuff in Kakashi's mind right now, especially with some of his asshole relatives pressuring Kakashi about the eye Obito gave during their mission but-

Minato-sensei and his favorite aunt, Mikoto-sama, fixed that already.

As far as he was concerned, that particular issue was considered dropped with Kakashi keeping his Sharingan and them being the best of friends forever with that guy as his best man in his wedding with Rin or whoever he would take as his wife in the future.

And so, Obito finally took it with his own two hands to build the bridge and all that good shit since it seemed like Kakashi wasn't getting tired of running away from him anytime soon.

Approaching Rin for advice yielded good results and after talking to Gai for a crash course on "How to find your Kakashi?", Obito finally decided to take the short route and bribe the hell out of his four-year-old cousin Uchiha Itachi-chin with dango instead, so the younger Uchiha could divulge the whereabouts of the best friend his younger cousin acquired while Obito wasn't looking.

The Nara heiress - Nara Shikari.

If he used Gai, Kakashi might run away. The radar the so-called rivals had with each other goes two-way with Kakashi eventually developing that preternatural instinct whenever Gai comes close.

Using Shikari, on the other hand, seemed to be a much more practical alternative since, during the time Obito was in Madara's tender mercies, Kakashi changed into someone with a soft spot for babies.

Especially to precocious toddlers like Nara Shikari apparently, since according to Gai, Obito's teammate didn't even dare curse or explicitly tell the kid to fuck off and instead tried dissuading her as gently as he could whenever the kid would hound him for spars.

Yes, spars.

Shikari was Gai's most outstanding disciple from that poor excuse of a crash course that mostly relies on luck and animal instincts with the Nara baby even surpassing the master - having regularly caught Kakashi as she challenged him to a fight because it's her idea of a past time according to multiple sources verified by Obito himself (because he still couldn't quite believe it after hearing it the first time or the second time).

(Itachi privately confided to him while seriously munching on his bribe that Shikari knew that she couldn't take on Kakashi now as she was and that she understood that Kakashi wouldn't be able to fight her properly since her father, Shikaku, explained already about how Kakashi didn't know how to hold back.)

(However, Itachi's best friend was still doing it because she liked how creative Kakashi gets in order to avoid fighting her.)

Obito didn't know much about Shikari but from what he was hearing, he was liking her more and more.

(That changed when he actually met the girl though because after doing so he nope-ing it out of there like a madman.)

(At least bonding how the little brat was a demon in human form made him found common ground with his wayward teammate - kickstarting the best bros relationship with Kakashi that Obito was dreaming of, so there's that to take comfort in at least.)

...

..

.

(Obito didn't know that several years from now when he asked Kakashi about his actions during this particular time period to reminisce about the past like an old man-)

(He wouldn't have expected that no-)

(Kakashi wasn't half-assing it at all and yes, although it was partly due to Obito becoming badass due to Madara's loving care, it was mostly due to a brat that never failed to smash Kakashi's efforts into smithereens. Kakashi couldn't sense her presence apparently and didn't even know how in the hell did she manage to find him despite Kakashi covering all his bases as best as he could.)

(Obito was seriously scared when he saw how dangerously stifled his white-haired prick looked as he explained himself to Obito in that ominous bland tone he hadn't heard in years.)

(It wasn't a surprise by that time though, because, after years in the village, he already got familiar with how Nara Shikari operated.)

(He could only light up candles in his heart for his poor brother and swept the issue under the rug to let Kakashi regain a bit of his dignity back.)

-----

Kyoya looked at his new prey, pleased as he brandished his newly-acquired tonfa courtesy to Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina on his thankfully without much pomp and very low-key birthday.

(The two deserved to be called by their names because they got him a pretty good set and wasn't like that babified kunai his father sent him, that idiot.)

He patted Itachi's head in satisfaction, smiling as he got not one but two omnivores to torment.

The other one was the promised bodyguard of Kushina-san that was lauded by the amusing grey-haired herbivore as "very strong" so-

His pet did very well this time.

"For bribing a person of our organization," Kyoya said softly, feeling exorbitantly entertained as they looked at him with wary eyes, "And lying to an upstanding toddler of society, I-"

He smiled.

"I'll bite you both to death."

-----

A/N: In which Kyoya is growing up to be a little shit who decided to just have fun with this simulation if he wasn't getting out of it anytime soon. His birthday wasn't celebrated because too much shitstorm and shinobis aren't big with birthdays in general. Hana's in the early chapters was an exception cause it was tradition to get dogs at that age and they have to celebrate that cause it's an important mark in her life.

Next chapter according to my outline: Shikamaru.