This is a collab with waiting4morning spawned from one of our AIM chats. I don't own Naruto, and neither does she... at least I don't think she does.
When Kakashi reached the modest house that Ayame lived in, he was a bit surprised that she wasn't already out to greet him. Her father Teuchi, the owner of Ichiraku ramen, used to spy on them from the living room window, so they were usually quick to be on their way, but Kakashi flattered himself that the cantankerous old chef was growing rather fond of him.
Usually when he picked her up for a date, Ayame watched out the window and then walked out to meet him before he even reached the house. But he had been late for the past couple of weeks, so maybe she was killing some time somehow? Some dim electronic music from within became louder as he reached the door, accompanied by theatrical combat sound effects. Perhaps Teuchi-san was watching TV. He knocked on the door.
"Come on in, Kakashi!" he heard Ayame's voice call, sounding unexpectedly strained. The silver-haired jounin slid the door open and stared in mute shock for a moment.
Ayame and her father were sitting on floor pillows in front of a TV, twin scowls of concentration on their faces. They both held some sort of controllers in their hands, and their eyes were glued to the screen.
"Argh! Not again!" Teuchi roared, his arms jerking to the left with his controller.
Ayame giggled. "How many times do I have to tell you, Tousan? You don't need to move your arms to move your ninja. Just use the little control stick!"
Bemused, Kakashi looked at the TV screen and realized that they were playing a video game. On the screen, two figures circled each other in what appeared to be a battle ground. Ayame had said "ninja" but the characters on screen were like no shinobi of Konoha: they both had huge, outlandish weapons strapped to their backs and wore garishly colored kimonos.
"Ninjas don't look like that," he said, bewildered.
"Hush, Kakashi! I'm winning!" Ayame said, her tongue going to the corner of her mouth in concentration. The young woman's thumbs flew over the buttons and knobs of the controller so quickly, Kakashi almost wondered if they were aided by chakra. Meanwhile, her father had resorted to mashing buttons with his knuckles and was moving the controller so much he appeared to have a live fish in his hands.
Ayame let out a gleeful whoop and the figure on the right of the screen – who appeared to be using an oversized katana and nun-chuck simultaneously (well, that wouldn't work at all, thought Kakashi) – fell to the floor in a spray of fuchsia blood. The other "ninja," which seemed to be made of rock and wielded an axe taller than he was, began flexing his muscles and growled, "You can't STOP this!"
Ayame pumped the air with her skinny arms and mimicked the rocky ninja's taunt (very badly). "You can't STOP this! One more round, Tousan?" She grinned at her father, and her eyes twinkled.
Teuchi grunted, his expression stony, "No – I've been humiliated enough today." He began to get up from the floor.
"Aww, Tousan, don't be a sore loser. You almost won last time! Come on!"
"No. Maybe Kakashi will play you, I'm tired of losing." The ramen chef offered the controller up to Kakashi, who eyed it with some trepidation before taking it.
"Why not? It can't be harder than the real thing, right?"
"Hm," was all Teuchi said.
"Have a seat!" Ayame patted the cushion her father had just vacated. Kakashi sat and Ayame began to point at buttons on the controller, rattling off information. "The A-button makes you punch, usually, unless you're playing with Gorgathamat, who usually kicks instead of punches – oh, and if the ninja has a weapon, that button will use the weapon. B is your alternate attack—"
"Wait – what kind of a name is Gorgathamo?"
"Gorgathamat."
"Sure."
"I dunno, It's a name. Anyway, for special movies—holds and stuff—you can use the Z trigger on the back, and you move around with that joystick right there." Ayame indicated the grey knob under Kakashi's left thumb.
"What about this one?" Kakashi indicated a garish yellow knob.
"Oh, you don't use that one for this game."
"Alright…"
"Are you ready?" Ayame's eyes were twinkling.
"Um… Sure?"
Ayame pushed a button and together with the TV screen, she hollered, "Let's fight!"
Kakashi's and Ayame's ninjas circled each other on the screen, the remains of her last opponent mysteriously fading away. He used the brief lull to remember what he'd seen of her fight with Teuchi. Her character seemed to be a typical close range fighter, all he had to do was gain some distance and with a few well-timed ninjutsu, the battle would be over.
The controller vibrated in his hand and with a shock, he saw his character fall to the ground, spatters of animated blood flying everywhere.
"Wait a minute, what just happened?" he protested as Ayame cheered in chorus with her character on screen. She laughed.
"Don't just stand there, silly. You have to press the buttons like I showed you. At least block me—that's the right trigger—if you're not going to attack."
Kakashi looked at his controller with dismay. "Where's the button that does ninjutsu?"
Ayame bit her lip, looking as if she was holding back another laugh. "This isn't real ninja stuff. There is no ninjutsu. Well," she scratched her chin with a thoughtful expression, "there is a part in the quest section of the game where you have to search for chakra points and stuff, but it's basically just a measure of how healthy you are; not something you use while fighting."
"I take it that means no genjutsu or taijutsu either?" he added with a plaintive note to his voice. Now she did laugh at him and reiterated the various functions of the buttons.
Settling down into his pillow Kakashi trained his eye on the screen and in the next round managed to last a few more seconds than the first time before Ayame's ninja decapitated Kakashi's character with a spray of blood and "PLAYER 1 TRIUMPHS!" flashing across the screen in bold red letters.
He stared at the screen as Ayame whooped with victory. Finally she settled down and, still grinning, sat back on her pillow.
"So, you ready to go?"
Kakashi shook his head. "Let's… play again. One more round. I'm sure I spotted a weakness in your attack that time."
Ayame smirked. "You're on!"
On the third try, frantic use of the "blocking" trigger and A-button resulted in about 30 seconds of play before Ayame's boulder ninja got Kakashi in a headlock and threw him across the screen. The fourth time, Kakashi experimented with the yellow joystick and found that Ayame hadn't been lying when she said it did nothing – his character was walking in circles while Ayame's sliced him in half from head to toe. On the fifth try, Ayame's character managed to call down lightning on the ineffectual katana/nun-chuck ninja, but before he was zapped, Kakashi discovered that pressing the buttons in a certain order made his guy lunge forward in a rather useful way. On the sixth try, Kakashi used his newfound lunge move to actually take health away from Ayame's bar before she pounded him into the ground with the broad side of her axe like a stake and a mallet. Kakashi was getting tired of hearing "You can't STOP this!" Try seven, Kakashi used the lunge again and again until Ayame sighed in annoyance and made her character jump over Kakashi and decapitate him from behind. On the eighth go, Kakashi tried Teuchi's button mashing technique and discovered several cool combo moves but couldn't duplicate them afterward no matter how hard he tried.
Round 25 was interrupted by an enormous growl emitting from Kakashi's stomach, and they both realized it was rather too late to go to Dango because it closed at 9 P.M.
Ayame grabbed some instant udon and popped a few leftover crab wontons in the toaster oven while Kakashi tried frantically to discover how he'd made his ninja fly into the air like that, whipping the katana around in a cool move that virtually obliterated any defense that the other ninja tried to establish. No good. With a sigh he released his controllers, wincing as newfound pains started shooting up his fingers and wrists. His thumbs were red and smashed looking; he'd have blisters tomorrow—that is, later today.
Casting a sidelong glance at Ayame, who was pouring boiling water into the styrofoam cups, he considered tweaking his forehead protector up. Would the sharingan give him any advantage in this kind of battle? He lifted it a bit squinting through the barely revealed crack of light, but shut it again quickly. Apparently, his sharingan didn't quite know what to make of the TV screen; it had been a whirl of colors and radiating some kind of energy, but nothing useful at all.
"Still hot," Ayame cautioned, coming over to hand him chopsticks and noodle cup.
"Thanks." Kakashi peeled back the lid of the cup, his stomach grumbling more now that food was within reach, lifted the chopsticks, and promptly dropped them as his aching fingers refused to bend into any shape except one that would hold a video game controller. Ayame laughed at his bewildered expression.
"I forgot that you've never played before. I call it Gamer's Gimp. Might want to take some aspirin later; it'll hurt tomorrow."
"Later today," he corrected glumly.
She grinned. "And tomorrow too."
He looked so forlorn that she took pity on him and gave him a fork to use for his noodles.
Ayame munched the last of the crab wontons and eyed her gaming partner of the last five hours. "One more go?"
Kakashi raised his eyebrow. "You're on."
Teuchi stumbled out of his bedroom the next morning, rubbing his eyes, and hoped that Ayame had remembered to put the coffee on after coming back from her date. Then he stopped and stared out into the living room. Ayame lay curled up asleep on one of the pillows, a blanket haphazardly pulled up around her while her date stared at the TV his fingers twitching over the controller in his hand.
Teuchi finally found his voice. "Have you been playing all night?"
Kakashi stared up at him with surprise, and Teuchi saw that his single visible eye was bloodshot. Even his bushy silver hair seemed to droop.
"No, of course not, Teuchi-san. It's only…" he trailed off as he glanced at the digital clock on the bookshelf. "Oh." A moment later, the video game console gave a feeble beep and the TV went blank.
Kakashi blinked. "Where'd it go?"
Teuchi rubbed his forehead. It was too early for this… "It shuts down if it gets too hot. I think it's time to quit, Kakakshi-san." Inspiration hit. "I bet Naruto-kun and Sakura-san are looking for you."
Kakashi, still staring at the TV, shrugged. "I'm always late. Today won't be any different. But this time I'll have a good excuse."
It was on the tip of Teuchi's tongue to ask the jounin what his idea of a bad excuse was, but Kakashi stood, joints cracking with the movement, walked over to the couch, and dropped into it. Within seconds Teuchi heard faint snores as the silver-haired ninja fell asleep.
"So did he win at all?" Teuchi said softly.
Ayame yawned and then smiled with mischievous glee. "Not even once."
FIN
If you want to see more of this pairing, check out my "Itadakimasu" series, "Civilian Status", and waiting4morning's fic, "Kakashi's Girlfriend". Ciao!