Chapter 2, medium rare.
Kakashi is definitely sick, and by the next day he can no longer deny it. Though he can stop himself from exhibiting the telltale symptoms, the fact is that he has to go out of his way to stop himself from coughing or sneezing every fifteen seconds instead of not needing to do it in the first place. And stopping them is such a hassle, because they happen so often. Every fifteen seconds might be an exaggeration, but the amount of mucus he's dripped on and sneezed into the inside of his shirt since he put it on in the morning was enough that he changed into another one before leaving for work. His throat is so sore and scratchy that he can barely excuse himself for being four hours late for training.
"What was that, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asks, her cute little face contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated irritation. "I didn't quite catch whatever completely unapologetic justification you have for making us wait around all day for you to show up and train us like you're supposed to!"
Kakashi clears his throat and swallows his spit and clears his throat again before repeating himself. "Actually, I did apologize this time," he claims, in words now decipherable. "I'm sorry I'm so much later than usual! I had a little trouble waking up this morning."
"'This time' is right! You never even pretend to care about how late you are!" Sakura puts her fists on her hips and glares at him. All three of them glare at him, even Sasuke, normally too dignified to act like he's been phased. Apparently his patience runs out before the four hour mark, because even he looks like he's about to start complaining out loud. He even opens his mouth to say something, but Naruto beats him to it.
"My time is too valuable for you to be wasting it!" he roars, shaking his fist in front of his face. "How am I ever gonna be Hokage at this rate?"
Sakura nods in agreement. "Do you expect us to train ourselves? Honestly!"
Apparently Sasuke is no longer interested in complaining as well, because he's back to looking away furiously and acting like he hasn't been paying attention.
Kakashi tips his head back and squints up at the sky. A single cloud floats just outside of his peripheral vision, languidly drifting out of sight behind the trees. Other than the one cloud, a couple of unidentifiable birds gliding by, and, of course, the sun, the sky is empty. The trees surrounding them on all sides are green and enormous and completely immobile because there hasn't been a breeze since he got here and it's incredibly hot outside in the still, stale summer air. It's much hotter than it was just yesterday. The shirt under his shirt under his vest is collecting sweat. No wonder the kids are so mad at him. Even out in this grassy field, it's positively broiling.
Lazily he rolls his head back into an upright position and stares at his students for several seconds. "Yeah..." he says, addressing the space between Sasuke and Naruto's heads. "Well, I would hope that you would have enough initiative to do at least some kind of training in the mean time, instead of just whiling away the hours waiting for me. You know, you could have been practicing the exercise you didn't master yesterday."
"Are you seriously-" Naruto begins, but Kakashi continues, heedless of whatever it is Naruto is having a hard time believing.
"But, regardless of how you handled my exceptional lateness, it really shouldn't have happened in the first place, and I am very sorry for wasting your time." He has more to say, but beforehand he has to very loudly snort a large amount of mucus back into his sinuses. And then he has to simultaneously cough violently and sneeze several times so as to flush out said uncooperative sinuses again. And then he has to listen to Sakura being shocked and horrified that some kind of thing is happening.
"You are sick! I knew it!" she exclaims, as she wipes droplets of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "And it's even worse than it was yesterday!"
"Oh crap, I completely forgot about that! Are you okay, Kakashi-sensei?" asks Naruto, all traces of anger suddenly absent from his throaty, dehydrated voice.
Kakashi closes his eyes and lets loose an exasperated sigh. A shinobi must never question their commander; while he doesn't normally subscribe to this rule so strictly, he wonders if he should pretend he does.
"Yeah, so, guys, no," he says, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Let's not care about this again, okay? I'm trying to be sorry or something."
"Kakashi-sensei, you said yesterday you weren't sick, but here you are today and you're even worse than you were!" Sakura repeats. Her forehead is beaded in sweat again, but for the time being she ignores it. "Isn't it worth caring about now?"
"I also said that you shouldn't care about it even if it does get worse."
"Well, clearly it's worse than you expected, if it's so bad you had to sleep in that late!" Sakura looks at her teacher with wide eyes and frowning lips and clenched hands; for the first time since she began accusing him of being sick, she seems genuinely concerned.
Naruto scoffs. "I don't think his lateness has anything to do with it," he grumbles. "I think he's just lazy."
"Naruto!"
"Shikamaru should have been on your team, you would have got along great."
"Naruto!"
At the best of times, listening to the incessant bickering of his students for too long makes Kakashi's head hurt. On a day like today, with the sun bearing down on his overly dressed body and his sinuses heavy with excess mucus, it doesn't take them even half as much effort to annoy him to the point of physical pain. He releases his nose and massages his temples instead.
"Sakura, being late is not a symptom of a cold," he replies, coughing in between words. "Um, that is, I guess."
"Yeah, it is," she says. She approaches him with her hand stretched above her head, tries to clap it over his forehead. He steps out of the way so abruptly that she missteps and stumbles a little. She regains her balance quickly enough and scowls at him. "Hey, I almost tripped."
"Sorry, sorry. But you know, I don't have a fever. I promise."
"Are you sure? You wouldn't necessarily be able to tell."
"Why not? I mean, it's happening to him, right?" Naruto asks, looking at Sasuke for some reason even though he's addressing Sakura. Sasuke sneers at him and snaps a twig in half with the bottom of his foot and continues ignoring everyone.
Sakura rolls her eyes. "Of course you wouldn't know, you can't even tell when you're eating month old food until you're barfing into the toilet for three day straight."
Naruto closes his eyes and frowns. "I resent that."
"Guys," Kakashi interrupts. "How about I put it this way. Training isn't an official mission, but it's your mission to be trained by me, okay? One of the first rules of shinobi conduct is 'a shinobi must always put the mission first.' So, care about your mission instead of my or Naruto's respective health status."
Unperturbed, Sakura completely ignores his request and once again reaches for Kakashi's face. "Just let me check, it takes like less than a second."
"Hey," Sasuke interjects, finally joining the party. He pulls at the front of his shirt flaps it back and forth like a completely ineffectual fan. "How about Kakashi just admits he's sick so that Naruto and Sakura can get off the subject and we can actually get anything done before we all die of heat exhaustion."
Kakashi is not just a little bit pissed that it only takes a minute of Naruto being needlessly offended before everyone drops the subject and picks up a rock.
Yeah, so that was cool. I don't like this chapter as much as the last one, but whatever! Thank you for reading! Have a nice insert-time-of-day-here.
