They slipped into some sort of routine. Almost always having lunch together, going out for drinks with the rest of their colleagues, sometimes he would invite Obito over on Thursdays or Fridays, maybe over the weekend to help Kakashi review the games. Or eat something, or just talk. It was comforting.
Obito's smell was starting to stick around his house, specially the couch where they spent most of their time, and Kakashi found himself sleeping on it at least half the time. It's not the most comfortable, but it was the place where he slept the easiest, no need to roll around the bed for hours waiting for sleep to come, just sleep on the couch. He's never been a good sleeper, he felt like he never really rested in his life since his father died, maybe it was all those months sleeping in hospital chairs and bed, maybe it was the grief.
While Kakashi was living with the Nohara family after his father's passing, he slept in the same room as Rin for the first year or so, where he would keep tossing and turning around the futon, and take hours to sleep, sometimes waking her up with his restlessness, but she never complained once. When he got his own room at the Nohara household it was better because at least he wouldn't wake Rin up anymore, well, unless those times he would wake up screaming and she came over to check on him and sleep beside him. Geez, what an embarrassment he was, god, he could still remember how eager he was to start college and move out, stop being such a melodramatic dead weight for everyone.
When they grew up enough for her to realize that not sleeping was a problem for Kakashi, she wanted him to go see a doctor, which he obviously refused. The only doctor he liked was Tsunade, but this wasn't her area of expertise, and he wasn't ready to go to the hospital again. A bit before they went to college, Rin's parents begged him to see a psychiatrist or something like that, and he only agreed because it wasn't in a hospital, it was on a private practice clinic, which he still hated, but was less bad of an option. The pills never worked, you name it, he's tried it before, melatonin, benzodiazepines, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, sertraline, SSRIs, therapy, psychoanalysis, meditation, guided sleep, yoga, aromatherapy, praying before bed, rituals, dreamcatchers, energy crystals, exorcism, banging his head on the wall… nothing ever worked. With time he'd given up sleep, and just occupied his time as best as possible, reading, playing, coding, studying, whatever he could do to not feel like a waste of time.
Who'd have thought that Obito's scent was calming to the point of putting him to sleep?
"I don't think it puts you to sleep, I think you just feel safe enough to sleep, and you have around 20 years of bad sleep to catch up on." Rin theorized with him over coffee on a Sunday, because that was the only meal of the day she had time for him.
"No, Rin, you don't get it. I almost instantly pass out, it's bizarre." Kakashi had fallen asleep while he was over so many time by now that Obito must think he has no manners at all. But he couldn't help it, it was the best scent in the world, and Obito never complained either, so Kakashi hoped it was ok to him.
"Kakashi, I doubt Obito smell like propofol, I'm telling you, this is psychological."
"I'm not letting you psychoanalyze me until you have a degree on that." Rin turned to him with narrowed eyes and put her tongue out for him, just like she did when they were seven.
And if there's something he was certain Rin would never pursuit in the field of medicine, it was psychiatrics. She knew the field wasn't for her, she bonded too much with the patients, she wouldn't make for a good professional, which was ironic, since a doctor should care for their patients like she did.
"Fine. At least you're sleeping, it's all I ever wanted for you. Any nightmares now that you're sleeping more?"
Kakashi had to consciously force his jaw to unclench. Fuck, he hated how well Rin knew him, it was almost humiliating in a way, how far they go back, enough for her to know all his weaknesses.
"Not anymore… I'm telling you, they got better since I went to college."
"Yeah, because you gave up on the concept of sleeping at all. Can't have nightmares if you don't sleep."
Not this discussion again, he hated how she acted all superior shaking her shoulders like that. Hypocrite. "I'm not taking advice from you of all people, Miss Quadruple Espresso."
He would never let Rin forget that it was her who presented him to the quadruple espresso, which was the maximum number of espresso shots Japanese coffeeshops could put on one single beverage according to law. His life got so much better after learning about this.
"Just because my life isn't the best, doesn't mean I can't give you good advice."
"I could say the same about me giving you advice about your workplace crush." Rin always teased him about Obito, when she herself was in the same situation with a certain medical prodigy under Tsunade's wing.
She narrowed her eyes at him because she knew he was about to bring her crush on Shizune up. "How can you dismantle my arguments so fast? You're the sleep deprived one, you shouldn't be this sharp."
"I've adapted and evolved. I'm the next step in human evolution."
"God, I hope not."
Eventually even Rin, a firm believer of the scientific method, to whom everything and anything had to have a tangible explanation, agreed that Obito's scent was the best sleep medicine for Kakashi, and they tried to come up with excuses for him to steal a shirt away or something.
Rin was a pain in the ass sometimes, with her goody two shoes attitude, but you could never, ever fault her for not being a loyal friend. He's dragged her to the most insane endeavors before, and she complained and called him an idiot, but never abandoned him, and always jumped headfirst together with him. That would come in handy when he got arrested for sexual harassment and stalking for stealing one of Obito's underwear for, you know, medical reasons, and he'd need Rin to break him off jail.
"Oh Kakashi, I only noticed when I got home yesterday, I forgot my dress shirt at your place!"
"You did? Ma, didn't even notice it." Kakashi did notice it. In fact, he was the one who moved the shirt from where Obito always leaves it on the couch's headrest to another, more hidden place saying it would get dirty and hoping Obito would forget about (it was Rin's suggestion, his always partner in crime). In fact, he was ecstatic when Obito indeed forgot the shirt, and he grabbed it promptly to take it to his bed and proceeded to have one of the best night's sleep of his life, cuddling with the shirt on his bed and thinking of Obito.
"Yeah, is it okay for me to drop by and get it later?"
"Ma…" Kakashi tried to smile to cover his nervousness. He couldn't let Obito go back to his place to find a crumpled shirt in his bed probably covered in Kakashi's own horny pheromones as if he was trying to mark territory or something. "I'll bring it to you on Monday, no worries."
He tried to wave it off casually and was relieved when Obito just shrugged and easily agreed. Kakashi was able to squeeze three more good nights of sleep before having to take it to the dry cleaning (the clerk even made a face when he got the shirt out of the bag, so Kakashi guessed it really was stinking like himself by now) and give it back to Obito smelling like fabric softener. His crush said he'd wire the money to pay for the laundry services, but some very smutty scenes crossed Kakashi's mind and he said it was a gift or whatever and Obito accepted it. Yeah, well, Kakashi jerked off to that shirt a couple of times, even if he was very careful not to dirty it, the least he could do was to pay for dry cleaning.
Apparently Obito's scent was also sticking to him and his clothes, which he wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for Kurenai.
"You're starting to smell different."
Kakashi clenched his shirt. "Am I dying Doctor Yuhi?!"
She slapped the back of his head and he laughed harder at her. "You're smelling like him."
He asked innocently. "Like who?" He knew who. The man of his dreams, his non-crush turned non-love. The man that dropped by his apartment at least once a week. The man whose smell welcomed him into sleep better than any medication Kakashi was ever prescribed. The man he imagined fucking him while he jerked off, and who he fantasized about during his rut. That man.
"Obito! Who else? You two are tied to the hip anyway, goddamn pay-for-one-take-the-other offer."
"You should be glad for working with two handsome men like me and Obito." He got slapped on the head again. Kurenai was turning into a violent person, she wasn't like that in college until she started hanging out with Anko, he blamed it on her influence.
"I would be glad if you weren't such a pain in my ass! C'mon we have a meeting, lazy ass!"
Even though he was apparently already smelling of Obito, that wasn't near enough for him. He wanted more, he wanted to open his chest and crawl inside Obito. He didn't know when he got these feelings. He was just walking around some day and instead of thinking "I love Obito's smell" or "I love Obito's body", "I love Obito's sense of humor", it became simply "I love Obito". He remembers that when he noticed that sentence running around in his head, he stopped dead on his tracks in the middle of the hallway and his hot-colleague-turned-crush-turned-friend-turned-love bumped against his back and they almost fell face first in the middle of the hallway. It wasn't pretty, but at least it was an excuse to touch Obito some more.
When did he started pinning after Obito so hard? He was in the company for maybe four months? When had his feelings developed to such a degree? Kakashi hated himself for loving a guy he could never get, why couldn't he fall in love with someone attainable, who could reciprocate his feelings? The answer was unfortunately very simple: there weren't a lot of people like that on the world. Until Obito came along, he never felt like he was walking on the fucking clouds just by standing beside someone. He was fucked for sure.
"Oh, shit, I gotta run!" Obito noticed the watch on his wrist and scrambled to his feet to get his things.
"What?" Kakashi turned to his phone, it was 23h57. "Fuck! Forget it Obito, you're not making it on time." They really should extend subway hours during Friday nights, some people liked to go out and stay late. Not that Kakashi knew anything about that.
"No, they keep the gates opened if they see someone running over." He was already jumping on the genkan with trying to put one shoe while hopping in one leg and he looked adorable like that.
"Geez Obito, just sleep here." He rolled his eyes like it was obvious, but Obito just froze on his spot, precariously balanced in one foot, holding fifteen different things in his hands and arms.
"What." What a fucking dork. So cute.
"Yeah, sleep over, I'll lend you a shirt or something, tomorrow you go back."
Kakashi tried to sound suave while saying that, but he was anything but on the inside. He blurted out this suggestion on a whim, he'd offer that to any close friend of his that needed to catch the subway and missed the time. But then it hit him that it was Obito. He was inviting the guy he was in love with to sleep at his place, in a friendly way, a platonic way, a way he mostly didn't want, but he'd take it anyway if it meant more Obito. Now he was just praying that he would accept and stay over so they could have more time together.
Kakashi just didn't wanna say goodbye to Obito yet, was that too much to ask?
"No, I can still take a taxi anyway and-"
"Relax, just stay over." Kakashi waved his worries away as if he was cool with whatever Obito decided. He wasn't. He wanted Obito to say yes and stay.
"Are you sure?"
"Oh my god, yes! Stop asking, c'mon we still got a lot of things to go through." He turned to the video game and Obito laughed coming back to join him on the couch and Kakashi held his breath not to release a relieved sigh when the couch dipped with Obito's weight as he settled in comfortably.
"I know! Since you're staying, we should watch a movie."
"I'm not getting a good feeling from this." Obito groaned in annoyance and Kakashi loved it. His deep voice felt like honey no matter what he said, even during dull power point presentation of cost management projects.
Kakashi tried to hold back his laughter as he already knew what movie would be perfect to watch with Obito. "Wanna watch Megashark 2?"
"Jesus fucking Christ."
Kakashi laughed hard at Obito's exasperated tone. "It's not scary I promise! Well, I didn't watch the second movie, just the first, but c'mon it's a shark movie, it's not like it will ever happen to us. We're in land. It's not Sharknado."
"You're telling me there's a movie about a tornado made out of sharks?" Obito stopped playing and stared at Kakashi with big black eyes in fright. They were so pretty. Kakashi couldn't tell where the iris ended and the pupil started, and it was uncannily beautiful. Right now, it wasn't beautiful in an ethereal-beauty kind of way they usually were, but in a scared golden retriever kind of way. Kakashi loved both Obitos.
"No, it's just a tornado that grabs sharks from the ocean and when it ends, the sharks fall on land."
Obito looked a bit green, geez, he was so cute. "Oh my god, I'm not gonna sleep anymore. I didn't know I should be afraid of that, but now I'm very afraid of that."
"No, no, no, Obito, you're missing the point! These types of movies are supposed to be silly, not scary!"
"You'remissing the point ofscarymovies! They'rescary! C'mon let's watch something normal."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, there's this new romantic comedy that- shut up you mother fucking idiot!"
Obito slapped Kakashi as he doubled in laughter. That was the night Kakashi found out his crush not only didn't like scary movies, but he also loved romantic movies. This manlovedlove. Such a golden retriever person indeed. He learned that Obito grew up watching melodramatic soap operas with his granny and since then, he's watched a worrying number of chick flicks, and when Obito started ranting about how 'they just don't make romantic comedies like Nora Ephron in the 1980s' Kakashi almost cried from laughter.
"You're such a hopeless romantic!"
"Not you too! Shut up!"
They ended up not watching anything, because for one, they weren't able to agree on a movie, and for seconds, it was late already, and both had a long week and needed to rest. Obito took a bath on his bathroom and Kakashi tried not to fangirl too hard about that, he needed to keep his scent under control somehow, to he tried to think of wholesome and chaste things, otherwise Obito would notice the difference in the pheromone smell around the apartment. It didn't work, especially when Obito got out of the shower and one of Kakashi's looser t-shirts was looking a bit tight around him.
"Everything alright?" He tried not to stammer as he looked down on his phone and opened any app at sight, which ended up being Settings.
"Yeah, the t-shirt is good, just need a toothbrush, do you have any?" Yeah, that t-shirt was fine, it was more than fine. Kakashi moved from the language settings to the date and time settings, while he controlled his nerves and his own thoughts.
Kakashi offered a new toothbrush and then he offered to share a bed with Obito because he was being a completely reasonable host, yes, yes, being very normal about his crush sleeping at his place, and not having any feelings whatsoever about this. But Obito declined it politely saying he'd sleep on the couch, to which Kakashi cooly shrugged and nodded, while crying and whimpering on the inside. Maybe he's been reading too much Icha-Icha, with steamy scenarios happening when there's only one bed and got carried away.
It didn't matter in the end, as Obito's scent carried through the whole apartment and had Kakashi cradled in his bed, and sleeping had never been easier. And if after Obito left in the morning, Kakashi hugged the shirt he used and slept with it by his side, he preferred not to think too hard about his feelings for his coworker.
Kakashi's door opened to show a very disturbed looking Kakashi.
"Oh no. No. I don't like this."
Rin ran a hand through her hair annoyed at her childhood friend. "God, how can you be so impolite? I swear."
"We came all the way here like you wanted Kakashi. C'mon, help us out." Even always-so-patient-polite-and-perfect Shizune was breaking under Kakashi's stubbornness. That and her being up since six in the morning, probably.
"I have a bad feeling about this. Why are you here?" He was shifting his narrowed eyes between them with suspicion and Rin had been on her feet since 11pmyesterdayand she really, really didn't need an annoying Kakashi right now. She gritted her teeth trying not to sound too angry.
"We came to collect your data."
The asshole had the guts to roll his eyes at her. "Ma, Rin, please, it's almost nine can't you-"
"No, we can't. C'mon Shizune." She barged through the door pushing him to the side to let them both in.
"Now who's being impolite?" He tried to annoy her some more as Rin took off her shoes at the entrance and stepped inside even more tired now than she was just a minute ago. Shizune got inside too and they met what Rin guessed was Kakashi's reason for being more annoying than usual.
"Oh, hey Obito." She deadpanned surprised, but he just smiled easily at both of them.
"Hey Rin! How are you?"
That made sense, Kakashi probably wanted his alone time with Obito and now she and Shizune were cockblocking him. But if what Kakashi's been telling her is true, there was nothing at all for them to block. He was still just an idiot with a crush. But she could see why, Obito was very handsome, though not her type. As in, he wasn't a woman. But she could still relate with the whole crushing-hard-on-your-coworker-and-friend thing, after all, Shizune was right there with them.
"You know each other, right?" Kakashi asked with his hands in his pockets, looking overall annoying.
"Yeah, we met once before." Obito smiled warmly at them and Rin was happy that at least someone in the goddamn apartment had manners.
"Obito, this is my senpai at the hospital, Kato Shizune. And Shizune, this is Kakashi's colleague, Uchiha Obito."
"Uchiha-san."
"Please, just Obito."
"Just Shizune then." They both said as they did a small bow before being cut by the menace that was her childhood friend.
"Ma, now that everyone knows everyone, can we just get on with this? Why are you both here anyway? Usually it's just Rin, and on Sundays." He smiled obnoxiously at them and she wondered how this man grew up to be so impolite. They were raised together since they were seven, for god's sake.
"Shizune is sleeping in my place tonight, her apartment has a leaking."
Kakashi let out a wolf whistle and she immediately regretted her words. "Look at you Rin, finally getting some action, I bet-"
"Don't you dare say another word Kakashi." She raised a finger at his face and he obediently let go, but that was somehow even more irritating.
"Ok, ok, I won't." Kakashi was still sending her his teasing smile and she could see it written all over his damn face, she just wanted to kick him.
Shizune sighed and helpfully explained why they were here today, seeing as any interaction between Rin and Kakashi always ended up in one of them pissed off at the other. "Next week we have a big conference at the hospital Kakashi, we won't be able to come here to get your vitals, so it needs to be today."
"You came at this time of the night? Ma, look at you, busy women." There was so malice in his smile, but Rin still wanted to punch him. Maybe she was just very tired, it had been a long day.
"I'll take your stats Kakashi, let's go." Shizune sighed again while she turned Kakashi to his bedroom.
"I'll help you Shizune."
"No worries, Rin, rest a bit, your day was worse than mine."
"Ok, if you say so." She accepted the offer, since indeed, her day's been seven hours longer than Shizune's. She flopped on the couch besides Obito who was just looking at the whole exchange with curious eyes. "God, this couch is so good."
"It really isn't, you're just tired." He laughed at her, but she agreed.
"Maybe you're right. Shit, I could sleep here." She could sleep anywhere, she almost slept standing on the train just now coming here and almost lost their stop, the bar for a sleeping spot was low.
"No, you don't, I got a stiff neck last time."
Rin smiled again at Obito. He was just like Kakashi liked his men, tall, handsome, strong, but still a bit of a softie inside of them. She knew about his type not because Kakashi managed to find a lot of men that fit this description, quite the opposite he was very picky about partners, but because she had to hear him whine time and time again about how hard it was to find someone dominating who wasn't a jerk. Her friend had very specific tastes. Though just like the first time they met, she still couldn't smell Obito's pheromones very well, and still couldn't understand what Kakashi kept saying about his scent being strong, amazing, one of kind etc.
"Kakashi told me you're spending some time over, like, playing games?" Better try to get some conversation going or she'd be sleep in a heartbeat for sure.
"I'm beta testing his games."
"You're a what?" What does secondary gender have to do with video games?
"I'm giving it a first try to see if there're any issues."
"Oh ok. That's a beta?" Now that's a definition she never heard of beta but whatever, not like she's gonna hear it again in her not-gamer life.
"I'm a beta tester for him." Obito looked at her and probably noticed how her face showed only confusion and laughed. "You have no idea what Kakashi does for a living, do you?"
"Nope, not a clue." She admitted with no shame at all. Every time he tried to explain it to her, she felt like sleeping midway through the conversation. Her job was much easier, she just puts people to sleep, among other things, but the basics of it were easy. "When people ask me, I just say he makes video games."
"Well, it's almost that." Obito chuckled and turned his head to the TV again. Rin turned her face to the ceiling. Holy shit her neck was stiff, she wanted to just run home and sleep for a week. "Sorry to ask but… what is Shizune-san doing? I didn't understand."
She turned to look back at Obito and her head felt like made of lead. He was smiling in an apologetic way, and if it were a stranger she would've said it was private stuff, but she figured if the guy was sleeping here every other day, there was no harm in letting him in the Kakashi soap opera a bit. "Call her Shizune, she doesn't mind, really. And remember that time Kakashi had to go to the hospital? We've been keeping tabs on some of his vitals since then, just to make sure he's fine."
"I'm impressed. Must be nice, having doctor friends, with these at home consultations."
"Yeah well…" She shook her head wondering how much Kakashi must have told Obito about his fear of hospitals and/or about being dualsexual. She concluded that zero. Kakashi must've said absolutely nothing to Obito on this because he's a goddamn idiot who likes to keep people at an arm's length. "It's a very long story."
"But he's not sick, is he?" Obito looked worried with her forced smile, but she tried to calm him down.
"No, no, just keeping track of his health."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, he's much better since that last time."
"Thank god." Obito looked genuinely relieved, and Rin felt a smile tugging on her lips.
"Yeah." It was kind of good to see Kakashi making friends with good people, in this case it was a crush, but either way, she felt like Obito's presence in his life would be a good thing. It was already helping Kakashi to sleep better, and apparently Obito forced him to eat meat, so Rin already liked him a lot. It was heartwarming to learn that Kakashi's friends worried about him, it made Rin's heart a bit lighter. During his weak on the hospital, she got tons of messages from Kurenai, Anko and even from Gai, who haven't seen Kakashi in a while but still worried. It's nice to know they cared for him like she did.
Obito got to his feet and went to the kitchen. "Want some tea or something? It's not my home but it would be impolite not to offer anything."
Rin snorted. Where did Kakashi get this guy? And how did he convinced and perfectly fine and normal person like Obito to come to his apartment? "No, it's fine, we're going back as soon as Shizune's done."
"Alright… so…." Obito returned with some iced tea in his hands and sent her this apologetic smile while he rubbed the back of his neck. He looked like he wanted to ask something, and she didn't mind making conversation, or else she would become the impolite one, sleeping in front of a visit. "How did you and Kakashi become friends?"
"Oh, we've known each other since we were babies."
"That's cool, you're almost family then."
"Yeah, he's like my idiotic younger brother." Rin laughed because he surely gave her as much headache as a little brother would.
"Your age difference is big?"
"No, just a year, but I feel like I'm the older sister that needs to worry about him all the time."
Obito snickered at her. "Yeah, that sounds like Kakashi to me. Saying he's fine and making everyone else worry."
"He is a moron."
Rin agreed and Obito laughed as Shizune and Kakashi came back to the living room.
"Alright we're done."
"Am I going to die Shizune?" Kakashi asked dramatically as if this wasn't a weekly routine for him.
"Unfortunately, not." Rin laughed at Shizune's straight face.
"C'mon let's go. We both could use some sleep." She got up from the couch and headed to the entrance.
"You both need to get laid that's what." Kakashi snickered at them and both women turned to him with a death glare.
"That's it, your home visits are revoked, now you go to the hospital, see if I care!" Rin turned away from Kakashi and went to put her shoes on, she could still hear Kakashi pleading with her when she dragged Shizune out of there.
"No Rin wait, you can't do that, Rin? Rin?!"
Shit, she would never tell Kakashi nothing ever again. He used the secrets she trusted on him to torture her, he was a terrible friend. And an asshole. She should've never told him about her crush on Shizune. Kakashi should be ruled as a hazard to public health.
"Thank you for coming with me Shizune, you know you could have gone home ahead of me and-"
"Rin, please, no problem, I swear." Shizune sent her a sweet smile that calmed Rin on the inside. She turned her face down to watch her steps, and maybe hide a bit of her own dopey smile.
"Thanks anyway, besides, I know Kakashi's a handful."
"That he really is, not gonna lie."
"I know… how were his stats?"
Since the first month they found out Kakashi was dualsex, they've done a series of exams in him, most of them returning normal, so Tsunade relieved him from doing exams at the hospital. They still needed some routine stuff like checking his blood pressure because it was one of the side effects of his new medication, a quick instant blood test for hormones that was as easy as pricking his finger and dabbing the blood on the test, also rubbing some metallic stripes on his scent gland to measure pheromone levels, and also some routine questions about his symptoms that he always half assed.
Most of the tests and exams he could do by himself, but Rin had volunteered to help keep track of those, make sure Kakashi was doing fine and being particularly incisive on the questionnaire part. And also, she was worried. She didn't want to be called in at the last possible minute like last time, if anything bad was to happen she wanted to be able to help, she's been helpless enough as it was for Kakashi, with uncle Sakumo and his night terrors and all, so she'd try to make this work. And it had been working, he was healthy, tests were normal, and she got to see him at least once a week, which was fun, no matter how much she complained about him.
"Everything was normal, though the omega hormones keep increasing steadily, I'm pretty sure they're bit higher than last week's figures, but I'd have to check."
"That's so strange, like, he always had the alpha hormones on the lower bound and the omega hormones on the higher bound, but it was stable for every time we tested since forever."
"No need to tell me that, I'm the one that had to recover his medical history on the hospitals archives. I didn't know we were storing stuff from 15 years ago until today."
"Tsunade-sensei is nothing but cautious."
"Except with her money!" Shizune exclaimed good heartedly.
"Except with her money." They both laughed at their teacher.
Shizune was closer to Tsunade since she was her niece, but everyone knew that Tsunade had a problem. And she no longer had any assets to her name, since the banks and loan sharks came after everything she had. She lived off couch surfing between the hospital, Jiraya's and Orochimaru's places depending on her mood. Not what you expected out of a legendary genius doctor that revolutionized the intrauterine surgery area and that's been successfully running the biggest hospital in Tokyo for a decade now. Maybe being a failure in her private life is what made Tsunade so good, it humbled her in several ways and never let her get too comfortable around herself. That and her hangovers.
"Are you gonna repeat the imaging exams too?"
"Not for another six months." Shizune passed her card on the ticket gate and waited for Rin to come in the station too. "The recommendation for someone our age is to repeat it every 2 to 3 years, but we'll keep track of Kakashi once per semester, after all, changes are happening on his body as we speak, it could be affecting stuff inside him too."
"What about behavioral stuff from the questionnaire?"
Shizune shook her head no and sighed. "Nothing. Same old, same old."
"Seriously this shit still bugs my head so much, how did we never notice this before?"
"It's not uncommon for dualsex and intersex people to go undiagnosed, be it because of their presentation and or lack of medical knowledge and support, so it doesn't surprise me."
"You've been reading uh?" Rin smiled. Tsunade had send her that same article too, so she knew what Shizune was referring to. Seriously, how could she not admire Shizune when she worked so hard like this?
"Of course, he's our patient." Shizune cleared her throat trying to pretend she wasn't embarrassed but didn't work. She'd get this small frown between her eyebrows when she felt shy, almost as if she was angry at being embarrassed, and Rin noticed this little frown on her face. It was cute. "What does surprise me is how there're changes happening to his body right now, for no apparent reason. Is it environmental? Maybe an organ failure we can't pinpoint? This worries me much more."
Rin pondered Shizune's words carefully, wondering what triggered the changes and where they were heading while their train reached the station. She sighed loudly. Since Kakashi was so afraid of hospitals and doctors since uncle Sakumo's disease, it's no wonder they missed somethings. Maybe these changes had been going on for a long time like how Tsunade-sensei supposed? Maybe something triggered a chain reaction that was too sudden for his body to handle like Shizune mentioned? She had no idea, she wished she could be like Dr. House from TV and crack a brilliant diagnose in just one episode.
"I'm so glad that Kakashi's got you and Tsunade-sensei."
"And you too Rin."
"Oh, please, I can't do anything, I'm just an anesthesiologist." Rin waved her off, always remembering Tsunade's comment on the sidelines of medical residencies.
"I meant not as a doctor, but as a friend."
"Oh, er, no…" Rin felt her eyes grow wider at Shizune's compliment, it had taken her off guard. "I'm not that good of a friend."
"Rin, you changed your routine to accommodate visiting him every week, so he doesn't have to go to the hospital."
"Of course, he's scared to death of hospitals after what happened to uncle Sakumo." Shizune wasn't there back then, if she'd seen what Kakashi went through, she'd also try to help Kakashi with this.
"See? You're a great friend, trust me. I know it." Shizune laughed and bumped shoulders with Rin as they waited for their stop.
Rin wished she could be more than just a great friend for Shizune. She groaned inwardly as she got unreasonably giddy at the smallest physical contact between them. Really, she had no grounds to criticize Kakashi, she was also inviting her crush to sleep on her apartment in a nonromantic way, just like Kakashi, just like a fucking loser.
"What do you want for dinner today?" Thankfully Shizune changed topics, Rin didn't know if she could take anymore compliments from her.
"Oh shit, I don't know, I'm more sleepy than hungry."
"It's best if you don't skip dinner, you know it, c'mon I'll cook you something." Rin got a bit of butterflies thinking of eating Shizune's cooking, which was great, just like anything else she did.
"Maybe... just some soup of some kind? It's getting chilly these days."
"I'll see what you have in your fridge." Shizune started laughing hard, covering her mouth with one of her hands. "You're not a disaster of a human being like Kakashi-"
"Wow thanks."
"-but you spend so much time in the hospital that your fridge is depressing."
Rin couldn't help but put her hands on her hips and stare at Shizune. "It's not depressing."
"There's only beer and shoyu Rin."
"I'm not hearing this from you, of all people."
"At least having to take care of Ton-Ton makes me have the bare minimum of a routine." Shizune's pet pig was staying with another friend of hers that worked from home while her landlord fixed her plumbing. It would be better for Ton-Ton to have someone to watch over him during the day too, but this friend only had a 15 square meters studio loft, so that's how Shizune ended up sleeping at Rin's for two nights.
"What's even the point if Tsunade-sensei is gonna keep you after hours anyways?"
As soon as her plumbing was fixed, Shizune would return to her place and this little happy vacation of Rin's would end. She was a bit sad about it. She really needed to do what Kakashi kept telling her to and invite Shizune on a date or something. Shit. She didn't want to give that idiot any more reason, but she really did need to get laid, and with Shizune, and soon.