11.
The moment Minato-sensei slipped a blindfold over his eyes Kakashi knew, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that his team had planned him a surprise party.
He let Rin steer him through a doorway. He let Obito's clumsy (why still clumsy? he was a chūnin already, he should act like one ) fingers pull off the blindfold. Minato said, "ja-jaaaang!", and the lights came on in sensei's apartment. The banner, Happy 11th Birthday Kakashi! was strung across the wall. The kanji were written by someone's neat hand, but whoever it was hadn't thought out the spacing very well, resulting with the letters of his name being clustered messily at the end. It wasn't sensei's work, then. A sealing master would've never made that amateur a mistake.
Minato was standing behind a table with a cake on it. Kushina was next to him, both of them grinning, looking hopeful. At least the cake had no candles. It didn't look big enough to support eleven of them, at any rate.
"Happy birthday, Kakashi!" Rin said, pressing a wrapped box into his hands.
Kakashi stared at it blankly. It was palm-sized, and decently weighted. It was too big to put inside his shinobi pouch. What was the etiquette here? Hold onto it? Put it down on the table? Open it? Rin's smile was faltering. He should at least thank her. "Thank you."
She beamed.
Obito was already poking around the cake and getting fended off by Kushina for his efforts.
"At least give Kakashi his present before you eat his cake, 'ttebane!" she cried at last, hands on her hips. Kakashi noticed two small packages, wrapped, next to the stack of plates. Those must be sensei and Kushina's gifts. Was he supposed to carry all of them home? Without a bag?
Obito was grumbling even as he came up to Kakashi, but he pulled out a squashed little parcel from his shinobi pouch and shoved it at Kakashi. "Here. Happy birthday or whatever, Bakakashi."
Kakashi could tell, just by feel, that it was a new set of shuriken, barely padded with safety sponges. The wrapping paper was nowhere as pristine nor pretty as Rin's, or even the two parcels on the table. Clearly, Obito did not put a lot of thought into his gift. Likely he just snatched up the first thing he saw in a shop.
Despite never celebrating his birthdays nor ever buying any gifts for anyone else, Kakashi found himself snorting quietly at the lack of thought. It's the principle of the matter.
Obito was loudly clamouring for cake, claiming that's the only reason he showed up. Rin was chiding him, and the minute she opened her mouth Obito's cheeks grew pink and he quieted considerably. Minato was doling out plates while Kushina cut and transferred pieces of cake.
It was, by all accounts, quite a lively riot. Kakashi took one step towards them, shining hopeful spots of light and noise and life , then another.
"—the birthday boy, the birthday boy gets the first slice!" Kushina held a corner slice of cake over her head and out of reach, pointing a finger into Obito's face. He was making a face at her. "Your turn next year!"
"Bakakashi, get over here! I'm starving!"
"Kushina-san, the cake—"
Minato darted behind his girlfriend and saved said slice of cake from becoming a wasteful splatter on the ground, but in the ruckus the slice had lost its corner shape, cream and dressing and cake all smeared together.
Kushina scowled at Obito, who wandered nonchalantly over to the other side of the table. Rin sighed, but when she picked up another cake-laden plate to give to Kakashi, she was smiling.
Then they all waited for him to eat it.
He stared at them all, droll, plate in hand, fork untouched, mask on.
"Oh," said Minato, sounding disappointed.
"Oh," said Kushina, and burst into laughter.
Rin, bafflingly, flushed red and fumbled for her own plate. If she was trying to hide her face, cake wasn't the best choice—
"Oh, my God , you guys can do whatever, I'm not about to be stopped by some idiot with a mask refusing to eat his share!" Obito pounced on the remaining plate of cake and started shoveling it into his mouth, cream first, as though he hadn't just eaten dinner with the team.
Kakashi set his plate down and leaned against the table, watching Rin chastise Obito's … everything. He seemed to … preen? under her attention.
"Kakashi?"
Kakashi turned.
Minato stood a few feet away, with one hand still in contact with the table, as though he was carefully approaching something that might bite. Kushina was pretending to not look their way and only mostly succeeding.
Sensei smiled, tentatively. "I'll pack the leftovers for you to take home, is that alright?"
Kakashi nodded.
Minato's smile wavered, then he appeared to hold onto it with a burst of will, and added, "Happy eleventh birthday, Kakashi."
"Thank you, sensei."
As Minato bustled off into the kitchen for a takeaway box, Kushina came over. She had a fleck of chocolate on her face from cake cutting, and didn't seem to realize. Kakashi didn't say anything.
They regarded each other quietly for a bit, until some shade crossing Kushina's purple eyes suddenly reminded Kakashi that she too had lost all her family at a young age. The stone that had taken up residence in his stomach flipped. But Kushina just looked at him evenly for a few more seconds before she reached over to pat the gifts. "Happy birthday, you little brat," she said, and smirked. "Yes. You're carrying all these, home, and the cake, and Rin-chan isn't going to help you."
9.
Autumn in Konoha was cold, this year.
Kakashi struggled up the steps with the grocery bags. His fingers stung with cold from so many trips without gloves, but it was his third and final trip of the week, so he wouldn't have to go shopping again for … oh, two days.
There was a note, taped to a strip of peeling paint on the door of his apartment.
Happy birthday! I put leftovers for you in the fridge. Don't forget to pick up your gift on the way in! — Minato-sensei
To the side of the door there indeed sat a little wrapped box, bright and shiny. It hadn't been there long.
Kakashi crumpled the note in his hand and threw it over the railing.
He did not pick up the gift on his way in, nor afterwards.
Over the next few days he noticed it peripherally, gathering dust, until it wasn't there anymore. He figured sensei must've came over to pick it up, and put it out of his mind.
He didn't have time for birthdays.
14.
The only concession Kakashi made for the occasion of his birthday was the special sauce. Rin had helped him make it, and he hadn't been able to recreate the blend. Rin and Obito would've wanted him to at least try to be happy on this day.
But every bite of food he put into his mouth tasted like ash, and quite soon he was glad he'd only made so little and used so little sauce. He didn't have an appetite.
It was good that he hadn't bought that cake, then.
With efficient movements Kakashi cleared the table, washed the dishes, and went to bed. He did not sleep well that night, not that anyone else in the village would, with the specter of the demon fox hanging over their minds.
26.
Gai was the first to show up. That wasn't unusual, just as it wasn't unusual for Kakashi to completely ignore him.
Just because the Sandaime forced him out of ANBU didn't mean he was socially available.
When Anko came in through the window with a six pack he was annoyed, and expressed that displeasure by grunting loudly and shifting the belt of his — standard attire blues, again — trousers, and gave Icha Icha Paradise a hard shake. I'm reading porn, guys, go away.
Anko snorted and sat down on his bed, placing her beers on the headboard. Kakashi's eye twitched. She kicked off her boots and got comfortable on his bed, on his shuriken-patterned decade-old covers, and cracked open a beer, precariously not dripping sticky fermentation all over his impeccably kept floorboards.
Then Genma let himself in via the front door. Kakashi had not given Genma a copy of the key. In fact he hadn't given Gai a spare, either, he did not have a spare ever since Gai kicked his door in and he had to get a new set, but locks weren't going to stop the Green Beast of Konoha. Looks like locks didn't stop Shiranui Genma, either.
He was toting two packs of smokes, and lifted one in Anko's direction, as though he expected to see her. She shook her head, guzzled what sounded like half the can, and said, "Where's Raido?"
"On duty, can't come," Genma replied.
"Most unfortunate," Gai said.
"Okay," Kakashi said, flatly, closing Icha Icha Paradise and tucking it safely inside his shinobi pouch where the book had gained all the creases it was ever going to gain. He sat up. "What—"
Kurenai burst through the door holding a covered platter, as though she just walked all the way from Yakiniku-Q with a pilfered tray of barbecue pork. "Hot stuff coming through!" she called, and Genma ducked under her arms to get out of her way.
Anko snickered.
Kakashi had never thought of his apartment as small. It was plenty of space for one person, after all. But it was starting to get cramped.
"What are you doing here," he said, finally out of patience.
"Celebrating Asuma's return, of course," Kurenai answered, distracted. Gai shook out a collapsible stand for her to set her tray of illegal meats on, and— where'd he even kept that? A sealing scroll?
"What?" Kakashi repeated.
"He's scheduled to return to Konoha today," Genma said. "I saw it on Sandaime-sama's schedule."
"We have Genma to thank for supplying us with the date!" Kurenai said cheerily, pulling out packets of disposable chopsticks and setting them on Kakashi's desk. "Aoba is meeting him at the gates and bringing him here, do you have any mugs, Kakashi?"
"But—" Kakashi said, even as he felt his hackles lowering. None of them had come bearing wrapped parcels, not even Gai. Asuma had been away from the village for a while, and by all accounts these people gathered in his apartment were the cohort that had gone through the war together. It was logical and understandable that they would want to come together to welcome one of their own back. But— "Why my place?"
"It's your birthday too, of course," said Kurenai, busy flipping open cabinets, on the hunt for mugs.
"Though we didn't bring any gifts," Genma added, and Kakashi was alarmed to find the carton of orange juice he'd bought a week ago in Genma's hands. He takes his eyes off Shiranui for one minute and the guy ransacks his fridge.
"That's okay," he said, feeling strangely warm, and just as Kurenai emerged from the back of his cupboard, victorious, a pack of disposable cups in hand — he didn't even remember buying those, wow — footsteps and voices sounded on the stairs.
Half a minute later, his apartment was truly crammed full of people. Anko had snuck off his bed in some earlier moment and took off the aluminum foil on the yakiniku tray and the delicious smell of Konoha's best grilled meats wafted through his apartment. His apartment, which didn't even have an en-suite kitchen, was smelling like cooked food.
Kurenai was welcoming Asuma and Aoba at the door. Asuma looked at all of them, arrayed before him, astonished. Genma went in for a one-armed hug and tucked the second pack of smokes into Asuma's chest pocket. Gai wiped a manly tear and said something about youth. Anko darted in for a sucker punch that Asuma blocked at the last second. Cackling, she yanked the man down for a hug, too. Kurenai demurred, pink in the face, then sputtered, "Oh, fine," and hugged Asuma too. Afterwards she seemed to be struck with a severe case of the giggles.
Asuma wandered up to Kakashi — it was impressive, how the man managed to make five steps look like a wandering — and said, "Hey, it's good to see you. Isn't it your birthday?"
Kakashi, gazing around at his friends and comrades and surrounded by the smell of home, said, helplessly, "Yeah, but I don't want any gifts."
16.
"Hound-taicho, happy birthday!"
Hound did some quick mental calculations. It was not September 15th. It wasn't even autumn. Finch was fucking with him.
"Taicho has a birthday?"
He ignored Carp too, just kept walking towards his locker.
"Yeah! Inauguration, remember?"
"Ohhhhh. Quick, did anyone put powder in his socks?"
"Too easy. I'd put allergens in his gloves."
"Too simple. I prefer contact glue under the mask, myself."
"Cowards, I'd just swap out his whole locker for a party trick."
"You are all monsters," Hound informed them, pulling open his locker, braced for something- anything- to jump out at him.
Nothing.
There was the sound of absolute silence behind his back as his team waited for him to do … something.
Hound stared at the inside of his ANBU locker. Regulation change of clothes: check. Spare mask: check. Maintenance bag: check. He did not turn to glare at his team. The door seemed to work just fine on the out swing. Nothing creaked. He sniffed surreptitiously: no smell. Nothing scuttled in its depths.
He reached into his locker.
Nothing bit him.
He reached for the weapons maintenance pouch, careful avoiding the clothing that his team had so kindly speculated about — not that he really thought they'd be so obvious as to outright tell him their target, but ANBU were notorious for double- and triple-crossing their hints, so at any rate the pouch, which they had conspicuously not mentioned, seemed both the likeliest and unlikeliest point of attack—
The pouch was too light for what it should've held.
In one smooth movement, Hound unzipped the bag and tipped it over. Out fell—
Condoms. Lube. A little book cramply titled "Sex Ed 101 for the Uninitiated", clearly hand-made.
He spun around, free hand whipping to the tantō still mounted on his shoulder—
"He's found it—"
"—scatter!"
Every single one of them employed their time-honed battle-hardened skills to dive out the door in record time, their unprofessional laughter bouncing around the empty ANBU building.
Left on his own in their metaphorical dust just a mere half-second after he'd begun turning, Kakashi allowed himself a smile.
3.
"Happy birthday!" cried Sakumo, lifting his son onto the dining table so Kakashi could get to the candles.
Kakashi squealed in laughter on the way up. After he gained his balance on the table he shouted, "I'm three years old!" to the picture of his mother on the wall, and waved his arms about.
Sakumo laughed. "Yes, you are! Now concentrate on the candles, and make a wish."
His son tucked his arms to his sides, affecting what he thought to be a serious pose but just made him look extra cute, closed his eyes, and started mumbling under his breath. Sakumo didn't make an effort to eavesdrop, but Kakashi's whispering voice was not much different from his normal speaking voice — prodigy or not, the physique of a kid made its own pace — and Sakumo clearly heard, "—a good, strong shinobi, so Dad won't have to work so hard or be gone so long, oh- and- give me a friend at the Academy, someone just like me, just as smart, as strong—"
Sakumo let it go on for another few seconds, then warned, as though he just remembered, "Just one wish, Kakashi. Or it won't come true."
Did he want his precious son to go to the Academy so soon? Just next year? What would his wife say?
"Just one," Kakashi repeated, looking resolute, and bent his head again, silent this time.
Sakumo pushed the thoughts of shinobi and training and missions out of his mind. Today is a day of joy.
"Alright, then let's blow the candles!"
Eagerly, his son turned around to the cake. "Ah, wait!" Kakashi cried, rearing back. He almost toppled off the table. Sakumo caught his shoulder, but the boy barely noticed. "I forgot to wish for Wind Release!"
Sakumo held back his laughter and said, "Next year's wish, then."
Kakashi looked at him for a moment, considering who knew what in his brilliant mind, then nodded vigorously. He sucked in a breath so large it was as though he was preparing to exhale a typhoon— and extinguished all three candles with one gust.