Tea on Wednesday
a drabble by the butter of flies
disclaimer: not mine
written two years ago but rediscovered today. enjoy!
On Wednesday morning, Iruka had tea.
His usual staple, coffee, sat in an unopened bag on the kitchen counter, feeling quite neglected. (Which is only possible if coffee beans had feelings. And in this story they do.)
In that same, domestic, ordinary little shinobi kitchen (if shinobi kitchens can be desribed thus) also stood a great personage, revered like a hero, whose mere name struck horror in even the hearts of Konoha's bravest inhabitants.
His name, dear reader? Why, none other than the great...
"Kakashi, how can you drink this god-awful stuff?" demanded Iruka, chuunin-sensei, brandishing a cup of "god-awful stuff" in the feared ANBU's cloth-covered face.
"Hm?" Answered Kakashi valliantly in what Konoha historians now refer to as the Valliant Kakashi Voice.
Against that counter also leaned Hatake Kakashi, his languid pose suggesting that he was quite at home. His two hands cupped a bowl of steaming tea between them. The thick scars with rough edges, coiling like snakes from outside of hands and into calloused palms, seemed surreally distanced from the creamy white of the porcelain bowl.
Kakashi took a sip from his bowl. "See," he said, smiling through the mask like a cat with a warm bowl of cream (which is really the same thing as Kakashi with tea), "tea is good."
Inwardly, Iruka disagreed. Coffee, in his most expertly-unbiased opinion, was worth its weight in gold. Tea was more the scrap-metal type.
But the mood of Konoha in early morning was too good, and he rather liked Sharingan Kakashi smiling and satisfied against his kitchen counter, thought Iruka blushingly, so he bravely took a swig of the dark liquid.
"So?" Even with his mask, superior shinobi disguise and underneath-the-underneath whatnot, Kakashi couldn't hide the anticipation in his voice. "How is it?"
Iruka gave a delicate shudder.
Finally, when the ground did not open up into hell, and the sun did not spontaneously combust, he said, carefully, "I don't know," and looked out the window as if the sky would grant him divine inspiration.
"Hm," said Kakashi, and stared hard at the tea leaves in his cup.
The kitchen was silent for a long moment with Iruka forlorningly turning his cup and Kakashi settling for watching the morning summer sun climb leisurely over the ragged summits of Hokage Mountain...
It was Wednesday morning, and Iruka was having tea.
