A/N: Wrote this in one shot, two hours, I hope it's okay! I really enjoyed writing it, it just feels right ^_____^

PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, if I did I would so be published by now ...

Ramen

Jiraiya had asked Minato if he really knew who his students were.

'Come on, it's only a game!' laughed Jiraiya. 'What about Kakashi? If his identity could be summed up in one object then what would it be?'

'Why do you even want to know? These questions are getting ridiculous.'

'You can't think of an object, can you?'

The next day Minato had come across Kakashi reading on a log at the edge of an empty training field.

'You're a dirty little pervert,' said the Yondaime in a light voice over his student's shoulder. 'Do you know that?'

The orange book snapped shut and the silver-haired boy whipped around, his eyes staring wide at his sensei. Minato knew he was smiling, he could feel it on his face. But still he was a little shocked. He could tell Kakashi was blushing even under that mask of his.

'Sensei! It's -- er -- I was reading this for training purposes only, to help make me seem unsuspecting...' Kakashi trailed off.

'Oh really? And where, pray tell me, did you get your hands on that book?'

In all truth Minato didn't mind - some part of him was glad that Kakashi wasn't as socially deprived as he had originally thought - but this was porn.

'Erm ...' Kakashi looked away. 'I -- I -- found it on the floor, when I was walking home yest--'

'--Liar. Who gave it to you?'

Kakashi shot him a glare. Minato's grin had been growing bigger and wider since the beginning of the conversation.

'Sensei,' said Kakashi in a deadpan voice, 'I can't help but think you're making fun of me.'

'Are you going to tell me who gave it to you? Was it someone from the corner shop, did you ask them to get it for you?'

'Sensei!' gasped Kakashi, mortified. 'I don't stand around asking adults to buy things like that for me, i'm not some kind of addict. Jeez.'

Minato laughed. 'Okay, okay.' He clapped a hand on his student's shoulder. 'It's your day off, how about we go and find Rin and Obito and I treat you all to some ramen?'

No more than fifteen minutes later Team Minato were gathered at Ichiraku's, sitting along from each other, watching Taucho as he skillfully whipped up some Miso Ramen for them. Rin sat next to Obito, who sat next to Kakashi, who sat next to Minato. The rich aroma filled the small tent and Minato felt his mouth begin to water. He'd always had an affinity for ramen, for some reason. Obito liked ramen, but not as much as himself. Rin didn't seem to mind. Kakashi, however, was the one who always watched his sensei with an emotion close to disbelief when he ate ramen.

'Whuuzet Kshi?' asked Minato around a mouthful of Miso Ramen.

Kakashi blinked. 'It's just that you seem to manage to fit a whole bowl in your mouth at once. It's unnatural for someone to love ramen so much.'

Minato gulped. 'I bet you anything, Kakashi, one day you'll come across someone who loves it even more. Ramen is the ultimate comfort food.' He moved onto his second bowl, brandishing chopsticks.

'I highly doubt it,' said Kakashi lowly.

Minato watched carefully from the corner of his eye as Kakashi stared down at his own untouched bowl. He supposed it was cruel to treat the boy to ramen when he clearly had issues about taking off his mask. At first Minato had thought that Kakashi was just being stubborn when he refused to eat with them, but after trying it dozens and dozens of times over the past few years, it had become clear that there was possibly another deeper reason that that navy-coloured material never revealed the face hidden beneath. He couldn't help but feel bad. His eyes darted to Rin and Obito who were chatting together about something lighthearted, both eating away at their bowls. He wondered if the reason Kakashi was down was because he was hungry.

He swallowed. 'Hey, Kakashi,' he said to the boy. Those dark eyes took their time in looking at him. 'Why don't you want your ramen?' he asked as casually as he could. 'Don't you like it?'

Kakashi sighed. 'It's not that, sensei.'

'Then what?' he asked again, gently.

'I ...' Kakashi began. 'I just ... I've never eaten in front of anyone before. Not even my father.'

Minato realised that Rin and Obito had stopped what they were doing, having become curious about what was going on between their sensei and their teammate.

'Hhmm,' he said, resting his chopsticks in his bowl. 'Well that's not a problem,' he said simply.

Kakashi looked at him quickly. 'Really?'

'Yeah! If you're worried about being a sloppy eater then don't. Or if you have bad eating habits it's okay, we can excuse any loud slurping or--'

'--Sensei, i' no sloppy eater. And i don't slurp,' said Kakashi.

Minato smirked. 'Oh? So then what's the problem?' he asked, a little more defiantly, teasingly.

The tiny bit of cheek revealed at the top of Kakashi's mask flushed pink. Kakashi focused his eyes on his hands, which were clenching at his knees. He mumbled something.

'What was that?' asked Minato, unconsciously leaning closer. Rin and Obito were practically on the edges of their seats.

'I said, you'll stare at me.'

There was a pause in which Kakashi still didn't meet their eyes, and Minato exchanged a raised eyebrow with his other two students, who were smiling on at their teammate. Rin was smiling sympathetically, while Obito's seemed to be a little more devilish. It was no secret that the three of them had often sought to purposely rid Kakashi of his mask, just so that they could see what he really looked like. And here they were, in a situation where Kakashi was contemplating actually taking it off by his own accord.

They waited. Kakashi seemed to sense that there was something strange going on when, after a few minutes, no one had eaten anything.

'Are you finished already?' asked Taucho as he approached them, a disappointed expression on his face. 'Is there something wrong with my recipe, I mean I only added less salt in that last batch ...'

'No, no, Taucho,' laughed Minato reassuringly, 'you're ramen is genius. We're just feeling the day catch up with us is all, it's been a long one, you know, full of training and missions and such. It's hard on them, they'll finish eating before the hour's out.' Even Minato realised what a lame excuse that was. Taucho shrugged and moved away to stir his ramen, while Kakashi seemed to be threading on.

'You'll stare at me,' he said again, this time his voice was harder and accusing.

'Kakashi, you'll go hungry. And we promise to look away when you eat, don't we you guys?' Before Minato had managed to get that sentence out of his mouth Obito was protesting in a very un-modest way, and Rin was up from her chair.

If possible Kakashi looked even more depressed. Minato felt a very protective feeling overwhelm him and in that moment he truly knew he would look away when Kakashi ate his ramen, and he would hold down Obito's and Rin's heads on the tabletop if he had to. He was concerned for the silver-haired boy more than he was curious of his facial attributes.

'Obito, Rin,' he said sternly, fixing them with a gaze he only used on the battlefield. They froze immediately, attentive. 'This is an order: do not look at Kakashi when he is eating his ramen.' He turned to Kakashi, who was looking up with a disbelieving glint in his eyes - and if Minato wasn't mistaken there was also a hint of awe there.

'S-sensei,' he began, 'it's okay, i'll just eat when i get home ...' Kakashi said as he moved his head from Minato's face to the ramen. If only Minato could see the expression beneath that mask, he would know whether Kakashi was smelling the ramen or not - because it certainly looked like it.

'Just eat it,' he said gently. 'I promise on the divine abilities of my being a ninja, that no one will stare at your face.'

Kakashi didn't move. He seemed to be waiting for something.

Minato started, flapping his hands at Obito and Rin and Taucho and his son Teuchi, who were all staring at Kakashi who was staring at them all in return. At the flapping of his hands, Taucho and Teuchi whirled around, muttering something about ramen, and busied themselves in their duties. Rin turned around in her chair, and was looking at the empty street behind them, the evening advancing closer and closer. Obito's eyes had to be diverted by force, which came in the form of Minato's nimble-fingers pulling down his hitai-ate over his eyes, then pulling his goggles over it.

Kakashi was still staring in somewhat disbelief onto what was happening.

'Sensei, you're still looking,' Kakashi pointed out.

'Oh!' Minato turned away. He mentally imagined himself jumping in front of any pedestrians who would wander past and unnerve his silver-haired student just then. He didn't doubt he would tie a hitai-ate around even the Hokage's eyes if he wandered into Ichiraku's at that moment.

'You can't think of an object, can you.'

'That porn book ...'

'Don't give me that! Wait, what "porn book"?'

'YOUR one, pervert-sensei. Alright ... there is no object that can sum up Kakashi. Kakashi is Kakashi. But there is definitely one thing that I always think of when I hear his name ...'

'... Kakashi.'

Time seemed to be passing incredibly slowly. Only a few minutes had gone by but they felt like years. Minato scratched an annoying itch on the back of his head. Obitio had resigned to laying his head in his arms, staring down the length of the tabletop, away from Kakashi, the goggles on but the hitae-ate returned to it's usual position. Rin was resting her chin in her hands, her elbows on her knees. Someone was tapping their foot - oh, wait, that was Minato - he stopped. Then he sighed.

By the sounds of it Kakashi was chewing a mouthful, then he swallowed it. So, Kakashi was a gentle eater.

Minato possessed plenty of good qualities, however one of them didn't seem to be patience. Obito and Rin were doing a better job than he was. And Teuchi and Teuchi seemed to know that they were forbidden to look in Kakashi's direction at least until Minato asked to pay the bill.

After what felt like another ten-thousand years had passed, Minato cleared his throat.

'Er, Kakashi?' he asked. 'Are you done eating yet?'

There was no immediate answer.

Minato waited. He noticed how Obito and Rin were unnaturally still, staring their ears.

Still there was no answer.

'Kakashi?' asked Minato. 'Kakashi, are you finished? Do you have your mask on, can we look now?'

He frowned. He heard no sound that indicated Kakashi was still sitting on the stool behind him, and it crossed it mind that maybe the silver-haired boy had left. He fought the urge to turn around.

'Kakashi?'

'Sensei.'

'Finished?' he asked tersely.

'Yes, I finished my ramen ages ago,' came the reply. 'It was really nice, thank you.'

'You're a little shit!' Minato said - he rarely called his students by names other than their given ones, but he saw this as a healthy exception.

Minato made to turn around but before his head could reach over 90o to where Kakashi was sat he felt two hands clasp his either side of his head. Kakashi-sized hands. Then, before he knew what was happening, he was looking directly into a strange and familiar face. It was strange because he'd never laid eyes on it before. But it was familiar because he'd known it - he'd know that the chin was like that, because that was how it looked when Kakashi was a silhouette. But this time there was no blankness but detail. Flawless detail. It crossed Minato's mind somewhere in the back of his head that keeping a ninja-mask on a face protected skin better than any cream could. Kakashi's face was as milky as he had imagined. Kakashi had a nose and lips. Over the years Minato had let his imagination run wild and sometimes became convinced that Kakashi had blimp-lips or even buck-teeth, for some reason. But that was just crazy. Kakashi had one of the most handsome faces he had known.

'Kakashi ...' he said. 'You're showing me your face...?'

At that Obito and Rin jolted so quickly that they both abruptly fell over themselves in their rush to get up from their stools and ended up clustered on the floor. They both began arguing, fighting to get to their feet and see what their sensei was seeing.

'I probably should have told you this first, but it only takes me a few seconds to eat food. That's just the way I eat. But I do like to chew gum.' Kakashi let the little lump of white be seen from within a small part of his mouth before he started chewing on it softly again. It occurred to Minato that perhaps Kakashi perpetually had chewing gum in his mouth. No one would ever know. 'And it's a really nice evening, I couldn't really tell before but now there's a breeze on my cheeks. I think I like it, it's weird.'

Minato wondered why his face was hurting, but then he realised it was because he was grinning.

Ramen.

~Ten years later~

'But Kakashi-Sensei! You said it was our day off today!'

'And?'

'And, no missions!' declared one Uzumaki Naruto as he watched his sensei, who was standing upside down on a branch of a tree, their faces level. 'What happened to the rest and the relaxation?!'

'Where on earth did you get the idea that I was here to take you on a mission? I promised you a day off and I'm not about to go back on it, Naruto.'

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest and pulled a suspicious expression. 'So then what are you doing here, Kakashi-Sensei?' the boy asked, his voice quieter.

'I saw you practicing. I know you've been throwing shuriken since before the dawn.' He took a moment to read Naruto's face. The boy looked surprised, but then mentally wiped his face clean. 'How about we go and find Sakura and Sasuke and I treat you all to some ramen?'

At that Naruto's face lit up. It was amazing to watch emotions come and go with Naruto, the boy was so expressive that it was impossible to not know what mood he was in. Kakashi leapt down from the tree.

No more than fifteen minutes later Team Kakashi was gathered at Ichiraku's Ramen Bar, sitting along from each other, watching Teuchi and his daughter Ayame as they skillfully whipped up four bowls of Barbeque Pork Ramen. Sakura sat next to Sasuke, who sat next to Naruto, who sat next to Kakashi. The familiar aroma filled the small tent and Kakashi felt a trip down memory lane coming on. He'd never really had an affinity for ramen but he couldn't deny that he loved the noodles. If someone were to ask him what his favourite food was he would say ramen. And that wasn't because of the taste. To him it didn't really matter whether it was Miso or Barbeque or Vegetable or Curry, it was ramen.

'Hey, Sensei,' said Naruto. He was still suspicious. 'Why are you treating us to ramen?'

'I always treat you to ramen.'

'Yeah,' said Naruto, still confused. 'But we haven't done anything this time. We haven't completed a mission in a while ... today's just a day off.'

'Now is as good as any time,' said Kakashi vaguely.

Ayame set their bowls in front of them and they all broke their chopsticks in their unique ways, before tucking in. It took Sakura the time in which to half-chew one mouthful to realise what exactly she was seeing from the corner of her eye, and she nudged Sasuke in the arm, who growled and death-glared before he realised too. Sasuke then rammed Naruto in the arm and the blonde-haired boy yelled. It took Naruto the time in which to nearly eat his first bowl to realise what exactly was going on in the seat next to him occupied by Kakashi.

Kakashi had deposited his chewing gum in a napkin, and as he ate his ramen at the pace a normal person would, he thought to himself. Sakura liked ramen. Sasuke, for all the things he hated, probably hated ramen the least, which was as good as liking it. And as for Naruto, he loved ramen. Maybe even more than Kakashi did.

Thank you for reading!!

Please review!