It was a rare occasion when Kura could have Kakashi over these days. Guy visited often, seeing as he and Kura had conveniently similar schedules. Kakashi, however, was a very busy man. Despite his lax personality, he seemed almost constantly occupied with one mission or another. HIs reputation of power and skill likely goaded that on, along with the fact that he seemed to enjoy avoiding social obligations. Sometimes, though, Kura would find him sitting outside on her porch with the silent offer of company in exchange for a meal or two.
He was sitting at the low table in the main room of her little cottage, occupied with reading a book. Kura was busy buzzing around her kitchen, preparing something. She had been fairly vague about it, so Kakashi assumed she was making a large dinner for tonight that he would have to promptly escape from before it started. It seemed like she was making soup of some kind though, and it smelled quite good. Maybe he would steal some takeout…
"Where's Gakuto today?" He asked, looking up from his reading.
"She heard your chakra incoming this morning and decided to visit with her parents. She'll be back this evening."
"Ah." Kakashi replied, nodding. He had gotten used to the girl's distaste for him, but it still managed to be amusing to him. The image of her nose wrinkled in disgust passed through his mind. Still, some part of him wished she had stuck around. Hearing her mean little quips always managed to brighten his day.
A few more beats of comfortable silence passed between them, and then he spoke up again.
"Kura, I have a request for you."
"Hm?" She replied, raising her eyebrows to acknowledge him. A silent "go on" hung between them. She was focused on chopping an onion.
"Tomorrow, I'm going to need three lunches-"
Kura blinked, pausing in her work...and then suddenly smiled. "Three? Oh for you and your stu-Wait. Aren't there four of you? You, plus three genin. Four. So really you need four lunches? Okay well-"
"No, no. Just three."
"Just….just three?"
"Yes Kura, you can count, three." He held up three fingers at her, as if to stress his point.
She squinted at him. "Did one of your students drop out? Are they just not going to be there orrrrrr-"
"No, I'm still going to have three. And I'm going to test them for the first time tomorrow morning. I met them yesterday." Kakashi replied, turning a page in his book. How he managed to multitask reading and speaking with her always managed to boggle her. Maybe he was faking the reading part in order to make her stop questioning him so much.
"Oh? So you met them?" Kura turned, wiping her hands on a rag and turning to look at him. A slow smile formed on her features. "What do you think of them?"
"Oh, I think I hate them," Kakashi turned another page in his book, speaking in a casual tone.
His companion's face puckered into a sour expression. Kakashi did well to ignore it, or at least tried to. Sadly, Kura was very loud, and also happened to be one of the most stubborn people he had ever met. Her voice slammed into him from across the room, and he felt his shoulders rise up on instinct.
"Kakashi, they're kids-"
He raised his hands defensively, trying to assuage her irritation. She'd always had a short fuse with him in moments like this, Kura had never coped well with his dry wit. Or at least what he liked to consider his dry wit.
"Kura, I think if you met them you'd understand."
"Oh? Is that so?"
Kakashi dared to look at her, and instinctively shrunk down a bit. He knew that posture: hands on hips, eyes narrowed, shoulders squared. He wasn't getting anywhere good with this conversation, and if he didn't dig his way out soon he was going to get an earful from her.
"...well, perhaps I'm being too harsh." Kakashi relented, closing his book and setting it aside to engage with Kura fully. He hoped that move might smooth her ruffled feathers a little bit, and he was right. That combination of words and action made her shoulders relax a little, and she turned back to her cooking before she spoke up again.
"Perhaps you are. Help me understand, then. What are they like?" She asked, giving him a sidelong glance.
"Well, that Uchiha boy is one of them. You know, last of his clan and all." Kakashi shrugged. "As you would expect, busy hating the world and all who inhabit it. Obviously thinks he's mature already. Everyone's been blowing air up his ass about how talented he is for years now, it's made him pretty unbearable. Even for a twelve year old:"
Kura raised her brows. "Sounds like you as a kid." She responded bluntly.
Kakashi responded with an exasperated glance. "Haven't you been mean enough to me today? I thought you were happy to have me over."
"Someone has to be. And I am, but I'm also an honest woman. Can't help but tell you what I think." She shrugged, letting a sharp toothed smile slip over her mouth. Kura seemed satisfied with her work in the kitchen for now, coming to sit with him at the low table. She leaned over, placing an elbow on the table and propping her chin up with her palm. "So we have a little reminder of your past self. What about the other two?"
"The next one...a girl. Not from any clan I really know of. You can tell she was a good student, book-wise...but she's got little practical experience. You can tell, and it makes me worry for her already. Knowing how these things go, she's going to end up practically babysitting the other two for as long and they're all a team." He trailed off, creasing his brow a little. "I'd be lying if she didn't remind me of Rin, though. You know the type, smart, good natured. More of a temper than she ever had, I'll admit"
Kura's face faltered when he said that, and the string of words hung heavy between them. Her face softened, and she started to shift and place a hand on his arm- but she stopped when he spoke again.
"The last one is a real loudmouth, like you. Piss poor test scores, but a lot of heart at least. Gets along terribly with the Uchiha kid, and rubs the girl all wrong too." Kakashi paused, before delivering another heavy string of words. "He's Minato and Kushina's boy. I recognized him immediately."
Kura's lips parted in surprise, brows shooting up. Suddenly, so much made sense. Of course he didn't feel comfortable teaching these kids. If anything, they all just served to be reminders of people he lost. Obito, Rin, Minato, Kushina...all people he blamed himself for the loss of. Her brows immediately were dragged down, and she scowled.
"Is this some kind of fucking joke? Who arranged this? Who though this was a good idea?" Kura's fist clenched, and she brought it down on the table. She was halfway to standing, face a mask of rage, before Kakashi attempted to stop her.
"It's a coincidence. We're just projecting." He insisted cooly, pointedly not making eye contact with the woman. One of his hands curled tensely in on itself. "They're a team composed of an absolute failure, a practical prodigy, and a written test expert. They were assigned together to balance each other, nothing more, Kura."
A few beats of tense silence followed, before Kura forced herself to sit back down and unclench her fists. As she did so, Kakashi finally looked at her, giving her a closed eyed smile.
"You should be careful, getting so quick to defend me. Someone might think you actually like me, Kura." He taunted her, chuckling softly. "Were you actually going to go and chew someone out over this? How meddlesome of you."
"Ugh, hush." Kura rolled her eyes, managing a dry smile in response to his attempt to lighten the mood again. "So testing them tomorrow then? I'm wishing them luck. Despite your attempts, I have a solid belief they're probably pretty good kids."
"Oh, they'll need the luck. If they fail I don't plan on teaching them-"
"Kakashi- be more lenient-"
"Listen, Listen, I have a good reason. It isn't a hard test. I promise you that, and I also promise you that you wouldn't want to teach anyone who failed it either." He motioned vaguely. "It isn't so much a skill thing, as it is a moral thing. You should actually give me a little more credit."
Kura narrowed her eyes, squishing her cheek into her palm and still seeming very suspicious. Finally, she sighed, standing up and stretching a little.
"Fine. I trust you. You know I can't help it." She placed a hand on her hip, and looked down at him. "To cover the important things, what do you want in the lunches?"
"Hm, you know miso vegetables are my favorite...is eggplant in season?"
"No, sadly not.I don't think eggplant is super popular with pre-teens anyway."
Kura snickered slightly. "Oh? So you hate them, but you want to make sure their lunches are kid friendly?
"It just seems like something you would consider, and I wanted to be proactive." Kakashi shrugged, plucking his book back up from the table. It seemed the time of having his full attention had finally passed for Kura. "Will you have them ready for me in the morning?"
Kura smiled, and nodded firmly to him. "Yes, four lunches will be ready for you in the morning."
"I said three, Kura."
"Right, three. Sorry about that."
When Kakashi had rose late the next morning, it had been sitting on the table in his kitchen: a neat package wrapped in cloth. He also found his kitchen to be...slightly neater than it was before. Suspiciously so. 'Meddlesome woman.' The thought passed through his mind sluggishly, as he rubbed his eyes a bit. He had heard her come in early that morning, it interrupted his sleep briefly, but the familiar feeling of her chakra had settled his nerves again. Not an intruder, just a houseguest...though she wasn't exactly invited. Or perhaps she was? He had asked her for this favor, and he should have been used to her simply barging into his house by now.
Coming to investigate the package she left, he unwrapped the cloth and peeked in...to find four neatly packed bento.
A note was stuck to the one on top, scrawled in Kura's rough handwriting. For someone who did that much writing, she surely didn't know how to write neatly. Perhaps it was because she was always writing so fast, he mused. Either way, he had been receiving notes from her for a long, long time, and had gotten used to deciphering her script.
'Just in case you decide to go easy on them.' It read, and Kakashi hummed to himself in amusement. She was stubborn, but that came to no surprise for him. He flipped the note over. "P.S. I did find just enough eggplant for your lunch, maybe that will put you in a good mood. The rest are karaage."
Oh, that did put him in a good mood. Eggplant was hard to find in late winter like this...she must have gone looking for him. Must have been pricey, probably imported from warmer regions. Kakashi noted this, and expected her to hold that over his head later.
He crumpled the paper up, and slipped it into his pocket absentmindedly.
That was a nice attempt at bribing him, but he wasn't going to go any easier on them.
A double portioned lunch sounded very nice, and he felt like he deserved it a little for what he would have to put up with that day.
