Rin came back two days after Obito woke up and now they spent all the time together. Kakashi tried to reason, he really did. Rin had also suffered with Obito's death, they've been best friends since diapers, they missed each other, so this was perfectly normal and Kakashi shouldn't be feeling so jealous over his crush seeing his own unrequited love again. But he felt the electricity of his chidori tingling under his skin in annoyance, making him jumpy and eager to punch the nearest wall. Especially when Rin hugged Obito like that.

"Sage Obito, I still can't believe you're alive!" She hugged him tighter at her exclamation, her arms holding him tight against her while she was sitting beside him on his hospital bed. And he hugged her back just as good.

Why couldn't it be Kakashi and Obito? Why couldn't he just be honest with his feelings? Why couldn't Obito just love him back? Why did he have to stay hung up on Rin when she already told him she didn't like him romantically? Why-

He turned his head away to avoid looking at their blatant display of affection, even if it was just platonic affection on Rin's part. He rarely wished to be more like his peers, but right now he really wished those things - trust, friendship, affection, touching - came as easy to him as they did to Obito and Rin.

They were both there for detailed examination from several specialists, and Kakashi was just hanging around for as long as he could and his missions would let him. They both had become invaluable weapons to Konoha overnight, Obito with his long lost mokuton and Rin as the Three-Tails' jinchuriki. So they were treated as such, with ANBU guards on every corner, seals everywhere, the best medical shinobi, the whole entourage. Minato-sensei and Kushina-san were also frequent visitors at the hospital, checking Rin's seal constantly to make sure it was stable and working.

"And you shot up! You're taller than me now, that's so weird!"

A small purple flower bloomed near Obito's ear and he gave her a cheeky smile.

"Don't tell him that, Rin, you'll only inflate his unfounded ego." Kakashi shook his head and crossed his arms. If Rin started complimenting Obito his silly crush would only get worse. And yes, he'd become insufferable.

"Your opinion is invalid because you're the shortest in the team now, shorty!" Obito laughed at him and Kakashi just muttered that he'd always been the shortest in the team but nobody paid him no mind.

"And what is this?" Rin thumbed the petals of the purple flower in Obito's hair carefully but Obito tried to shy away from her touch. "I noticed that you had flowers in your head the first time, but I didn't know they were growing out of you! I thought the nurses made a flower crown for you or something while you were committed."

"No! This- this- I don't know why they're growing from me!"

"I guess you do have mokuton now if you can make flowers grow from anywhere." Rin wondered out loud as Obito became redder. Like before, another bud sprouted from his cheek, small and timid, it looked like the flowers from the garden outside again, but purple instead of pink, and also instead of white like the ones growing in his hair before. Kakashi didn't know why they changed color, maybe it was the weather? Something in Obito's diet? He couldn't guess.

"You have to let me check those later, they're so interesting…" Rin continued to poke around like the biology nerd she was, wanting to know everything about everything. "Did you see this too Kakashi?"

"Yes, it happens out of nowhere sometimes." He explained from his spot against the window. "Though I liked the white ones better, they were pretty."

Kakashi had learned that for some reason the more he made Obito self conscious and shy, the more the flowers grew, and that was what happened when he complimented the flowers, several white ones started blooming and opening up from his hair and skin, contrasting with his dark hair and the two purple flowers that had grown before.

"Wow! They grow so fast!" Rin's eyes twinkled and Obito pulled the hospital covers over his head.

"I know! I can't stop them! I don't know what's happening with me!" Obito sounded frustrated and Kakashi felt a bit guilty for using his knowledge against Obito, even if it was for such a small and inconsequential thing.

Rin's face sobered up fast and she petted Obito's shoulder. "Look, Obito… I know what it's like… I mean, sort of, now I have a tailed beast inside me, I feel like my body isn't mine anymore… I keep hearing its voice, I don't know what I'm feeling and it's like I don't know how my body reacts to stuff anymore… I'm always hungry, and jumpy and waiting for something and Kushina-san told me it's normal, but I don't like it that this changed me so much. I can't even imagine what it's like for you that half your body is Hashirama cells, your body is going to act up and do strange things that you can't help it, but me and Kakashi and Minato-sensei don't mind, we're just happy you're here, right Kakashi?"

He nodded repeatedly at Rin's little pep talk. "Of course, we thought you were… that you were dead Obito, we're happy you're back." He tried to match Rin's tone but he felt awkward. But he tried. For Obito. To make him feel better.

Obito let the light covers slide out of his head where even more white and purple flowers were growing. "Really?"

"Really. Don't worry, we'll figure it out together." Rin hugged him tight again and Kakashi wished he could jump in and hug them too, but his feet remained rooted on the floor.

How did Rin do this? How did she always know exactly what to say, especially to Obito? Yes, they were friends since forever but how did she- Kakashi just wanted to be there for Obito, just wanted to be good for him as much as Rin was. Since he had already decided he would never act on his crush on Obito, and they couldn't be together, Kakashi wanted to at least be a good friend for him, like Rin was.

But he was the bastard-annoying-stuck-up-uptight-always-with-a-stick-up-his-ass-Bakashi, who broke his promise to the boy he loved and almost killed the girl he loved. Sage, he needed to be better. Be stronger to never put Obito in a situation he needed to save Kakashi again, to protect Obito from any danger, be better as a friend, be more supportive and keep his promises.

Since Obito came back with a new ability, Minato-sensei had asked them to train together to hone their new skills, so Kakashi and Obito had been meeting daily and spending a long time testing out all the limits of Obito's mokuton. Except today he was late. Well, later than normal. So after 20 minutes of doing katas to pass the time, Kakashi decided to drop by his place, but when he knocked on the door he got the weirdest answer.

"Don't come in, Bakashi!"

"Why not? … Obito?" He asked again at the lack of answers.

"It's just- just… the house is a mess! Yeah!" Obito was too naive if he thought he could lie well, and to Kakashi of all people. Whenever his lies did work, it was only because Kakashi thought he was so cute when he blushed that he'd let them slide.

He rolled his eyes and opened the door and followed the incriminating sounds of things getting knocked to the floor and muttered curses, so Kakashi ended up in Obito's bathroom. It was a bit of a mess, with all the hair in the floor and in the sink, Obito's clothes were dirty too, all covered in tufts of hair and wet, but the biggest mess was Obito's hair, which instead of long waves and spikes that he had since he came back to Konoha, now looked like a bird's nest.

"Bakashi!" He pointed at Kakashi with that same outrage as always and Kakashi rolled his eyes again. Though Obito was cute when he did childish stuff like that. "I told you not to come in!"

"What baka Obito?" Kakashi crossed his arms with a teasing smirk on his face. "You got tired of being a good for nothing shinobi so now you became a good for nothing hairdresser?"

"Shut up! As if your hair doesn't look like a scarecrow!"

"Oi! Watch it!" Kakashi reprimanded Obito, but he couldn't stay mad for long. He approached the other boy from behind as Obito looked at himself in the mirror with a grieving face. Kakashi examined said bird's nest from behind, then in the mirror, trying to think of a plan to tackle this problem, then let his eye fall on his teammate's face. Obito was blushing only lightly, but it was enough for the smallest buds to start to grow in his cheeks.

For all his brashness and loud demeanor, Kakashi liked when Obito acted coy like this. He looked embarrassed and Kakashi didn't want to make it worse, so he dropped his voice and tried not to sound demeaning, but ended up sounding too fond, his affection for Obito showing.

"Do you want some help?"

Obito's blush deepened and the little buds in his cheeks bloomed, into small flowers, and new buds appeared on his hair. These were different from the ones Kakashi had seen in Obito before, they had a darker center and had less petals, but looked just as pretty, all white. Obito hastily brushed his hands against his cheeks and the flowers became undone, petals falling to the floor, and Kakashi had to control his impulse to kneel and grab some to feel them between his fingers.

Obito shook his head repeatedly and the moment was gone just like that. "No… I'll just shave it all off."

"What? No!" Kakashi exclaimed louder than he meant to.

Obito looked at him puzzled. "Why not? It's just hair."

Kakashi hesitated. Even if he hated to admit it, he thought Obito was… cute, and he had really liked his long hair, but now he was afraid a bald Obito would become ugly, he had his doubts. Plus, he liked the flowers, would they grow back if Obito chopped off everything?

"Why don't you let me try it? If it's horrible you can shave it after." Kakashi talked slowly and took the scissors from Obito's hand as if he was trying not to scare a wild animal.

"I guess… it doesn't get worse than this, right?"

Kakashi sighed in relief and went to get a chair from the kitchen because somehow Obito was a whole head taller than him and what were they feeding him while he was away?! "C'mon, sit here." Obito muttered a shy thanks and a full bloom grew from the top of his head.

It was such a pretty color, the black center in contrasting with the white petals. Kakashi reached out to touch it gently, giving into what he wanted to do since that first day the Obito woke in the hospital and came back to them. "What about the flowers?" He whispered carefully as they bloomed.

"They grow back Kakashi, just cut them off." Obito answered softly and Kakashi just assented.

First step was to brush Obito's wild hair that had gotten even worse after his attempts with the scissors, and Kakashi marveled at the strangely intimate act. Tufts of hair and petals fell alike in the bathroom floor, and Kakashi could smell the flowers even through the mask, or maybe it was Obito's shampoo, he couldn't tell. His hair was so soft, it was shiny and heavy, and different from Kakashi's own which was lighter and thinner. He ended up brushing for much longer than needed, but Obito didn't seem to mind, and Kakashi hurriedly reached for the scissors when he noticed it had been a few minutes already. He moved on to straighten out the edges, and make all the hair the same length, occasionally asking Obito whether he should cut more or not.

"Couldn't you have asked Rin for help?" He asked at some point and Obito shrugged saying that she was busy with jinchuriki training and didn't want to bother her. Kakashi left at that, not wanting to give Obito ideas about how he could ask Kushina-san next time, or maybe one of the several Uchiha grannies that he enjoyed helping instead. If he did a good job on his hair now, maybe Obito would ask him again in the future when he needed another trimming again, and Kakashi wouldn't mind that.

"I think I'm done, what do you think?" Kakashi shifted his eyes from Obito's hair to his eye and caught him staring back for some reason. Obito scrambled to run his hand through his hair looking nervous for having been caught.

"It's good, it's great really! I feel like myself again now!" Obito's tone seemed genuine and Kakashi allowed himself to smile at a job well done. His choice of words was curious, he didn't know that Obito had been feeling like that, not like himself. "I had to know you bastard would be perfect at everything Bakashi."

They were at their old dynamic again and Kakashi shifted his smile to a smirk. "Ma, the bar is low if you're comparing me to yourself."

"Goddamn bastard!" Obito got to his feet and soon they were arguing and the moment was gone again. He had enjoyed cutting Obito's hair, how they were talking kindly with each other and being civil for a change and now Kakashi knew how good it could feel to just be affectionate with Obito. As affectionate as a traumatized shinobi like him could be, at least.

He knew it was their typical dynamic to just chew each other's head off, and that he was especially hard on Obito, but he didn't know why. Why couldn't he be softer with the person he loved? More affectionate, more caring like he did just now? He could see it the way Kushina-san looked at Minato-sensei, and in the way he kissed the back of her hand in return. He could see it in the way Obito always protected Rin and always agreed with her on everything, and even in the way she laughed at his dumb jokes.

Maybe someone as horrible as him just couldn't know what tenderness was. Too much blood on his hands already.

Then Obito suddenly swung his arm around Kakashi's neck as they walked down the living room. "C'mon Kakashi, let's go training!"

Kakashi looked up to see Obito's sunshine smile blinding him and the same flowers growing again from his short hair this time. He took the opportunity to sniff a bit of Obito's always homey smell that now had a sweet tinge of flowers. Whether he deserved or not to be close to Obito like this after being such a horrible friend and betraying his trust, Kakashi wasn't that big of a person to drive the other boy away for Obito's own sake.

Kakashi was ashamed to admit that he was not good with plants. Maybe being so good at killing made you bad at keeping things alive.

So he started with a cactus. He bought it at a gift shop on a whim, thinking that since they could survive the harsh environment in Suna then Konoha would be a breeze for them. After a week Kakashi killed the cactus. He decided to head to the library instead, and try his hand at what he was good at, which is being a good student and doing some research. He left with a couple of books and scrolls on the Shodaime, the warring states era, mokuton techniques and a book called Gardening for Dummies rented for a few weeks.

He learned a lot about all shinobi related info and was even able to apply a little of it while training with Obito later. Mostly he just threw the scrolls at his teammate and told him to go study. On the green side of things, they weren't so great. He managed to kill a lot of cacti, more than he was comfortable admitting, and he decided that maybe he should just skip the cacti phase and go straight to something more complicated. So he bought a snake plant. So far it was still alive.

He gave the books and scrolls about mokuton to Obito and returned the rest to the library, still feeling something was missing. He wanted to be better and learn to help Obito and understand him, but he knew he couldn't and he felt foolish for trying but- he wanted- Sage, he felt so stupid.

He just wanted to be close to Obito, but it was so hard when he had all these feelings and nowhere to put them, while he tried to be there for him, as a friend.

He shoved his hands in his pockets in frustration for not being better at feelings. As he passed by the Yamanaka flower shop he noticed red roses on display. He didn't know how they managed to grow roses even as the weather started to change and grew chillier, but sure enough romance was always in the air, so roses were needed all year round. Maybe he should buy the flowers that were in Obito's hair to grow them at home, either those from when he came back or the ones he saw recently, the ones with the darker center. They would look nice next to his snake plant (which was still alive and fine), but would it be too obvious that those flowers were because of Obito? Gods it would, wouldn't it? And Rin and Obito would drop by his place and mock him and it would be mortifying.

"Oh Kakashi-kun!" He heard a deep voice and shifted his eyes from the red roses on display to Yamanaka Inoichi's face. "Want to buy flowers for someone special?"

He was leaning leisurely by the door waiting for customers, but Kakashi wasn't one. "No, Inoichi-san."

"You were checking the roses, right? Has someone stolen your heart?" Inochi guessed probably just trying to chit chat a bit during work, or trying to get Kakashi to buy something, but he hit the nail so right in the head that now Kakashi got self conscious.

"No, no, Inoichi-san, just-" At that moment Inoichi's wife Noriko, exited the shop carrying a plastic bucket full of bright red flowers that caught Kakashi's attention, because despite their color, their shape was the exact same they had seen growing from Obito's hair while he was cutting it weeks ago. "Hey, what's the name of these flowers?

"Sage, Sakumo's kid's as rude as ever, uh?"

"Don't mind him sweetie…" Inoichi rested his hand on the small of her back as she settled the bucket on the ground. "These are anemones, Kakashi-kun."

"Anemones?" What a difficult name. Kakashi's knowledge about flowers could be summed up as roses and not roses, and even after reading Gardening for Dummies he didn't learn much on identifying different flowers. Maybe he should get a more specific book next time.

"You like them?"

Kakashi touched the bright petals carefully. He didn't have to think about the question that much. "The white ones."

"Yeah, they're pretty." The woman chimed in gleefully. "I like them because they're not hard to grow and are perfect for fall. But they're not so popular."

Kakashi raised his eyes in questioning and Inoichi answered for the couple. "They're not very romantic… they represent death, and forsaken love."

Kakashi pulled his hand away from the flowers as if it had burned him, stood up and took a step back in a second. Certainly Inoichi was using the Yamanaka clan's world famous jutsu for reading minds. If not, how could he know Kakashi had an unrequited crush on Obito? He muttered some lame excuse and turned away to leave, hearing the couple bickering as he left them behind.

"C'mon, you bum, I have some heavy stuff for you to move in the back!"

"Of course sweetie."

He felt his face getting hotter in shame for them finding out his secret and he was grateful for his mask. He just wanted to get home as fast as possible and get rid of the ridiculous romantic notions the Yamanaka couple had planted in his head. But even as he got home, he had little time to pull himself together, because soon there was a knock on his window. Rin was there perched up on his windowsill waving at him and opening the window by herself as she entered, as if she lived in the apartment.

"You both really need to stop just appearing in my place like this." Kakashi just wanted a moment of peace at his own apartment to digest the shame he'd just been through. Was that too much to ask?

"If you really wanted that you'd close and seal off the window, Bakashi."

He didn't like that Rin had picked up on Obito's stupid nickname for him. It almost made him miss the days she had a naive crush on him and treated him so well. Almost being the imperative word.

"What do you want then?" He bit back but Rin didn't let him spoil her smile.

"I needed to check with you if you could cover for me on a mission."

"Do I have to do everything around here?"

Rin punched his shoulder a bit too hard. But he liked this. Being friends with Rin, it was better than her being in love with him or whatever. He didn't know when the change took place, he could pinpoint Obito's death as being the beginning of some change maybe.

"Alright, what's the mission?"

She handed him the mission scroll and started giving him some details. "It's a week long delivery to Kumo's damiyo, with Gai and Raidou, they leave the day after tomorrow, it's a regular B rank, which I know is too low for his majesty Kakashi, but I have some really important training during this week at the hospital."

Kakashi sent her a glare that only made her grin grow wider. "It's not too low for- argh, gods, ok, whatever, I'll do it, but I don't know any medical ninjutsu, so are you sure you want me to substitute you ?"

"Well Bakashi, if you don't know any medical ninjutsu don't you think it's about damn time you learned some from me?"

Kakashi rolled his eyes, annoyed at her for being right. "Idiot, you know what I mean, did you already talk to Gai, Raidou and Shikaku-san about this change?"

"Yeah, yeah, and they're ok with accepting you despite your very obvious shortcomings."

Kakashi wanted to take it back, Rin was way more tolerable when she was in love with him.

"Ok then, I'll do it."

"Oh of course you'll do it, I already told them you'd take it." Rin snickered again and Kakashi wanted to punch her. "And what's with this plant here anyway? The cacti didn't work?"

With Obito and Rin constantly barging through his window and making themselves at home in his apartment like the leeches they were, they happened to witness Kakashi's journey with his plants. They saw his collection go from one cactus to one dead cactus to several types of cacti to several dead cacti, then back and forth, and now his most recent endeavor in snake plants. It was humiliating that Rin and Obito of all people had to witness him fail so miserably at something, and it frustrated him to no end that he was failing so badly in the first place.

"I decided to move on." Kakashi tried to answer non comitant but by the way that Rin eyed him from the corner of her usually-big-doe-eyes with some foxy smirk in it, he could assume he'd been caught lying. Lying as in yes, the cacti didn't work. But at least his snake plant was holding together for a month now!

"Sure. Has Obito seen your new family member?"

"Maybe, I don't remember the last time he was here." He answered truthfully but the way Rin hummed in acknowledgment to him had a bit of mirth to it, and he couldn't ignore it. "Why are you asking?"

"Me? Oh, nothing." She singsonged as she strolled through Kakashi's living room checking the plant from afar. Yes, just waltzing through his place with nothing to worry about.

She must have somehow noticed that the plants had something to do with Obito, because Rin always knew, she was freakish that way, with a sixth sense for what he and Obito were thinking. But even if Rin knew what this was all about, there was no way she could understand Kakashi's situation.

Because she wasn't the one crushing on their straight teammate.

She already had Obito's love and devotion. She didn't know how it was to struggle with feelings that he knew would never be reciprocated. She had already won the race he couldn't even run, and didn't even care about collecting the prize, just kept Obito hanging on.

Kakashi sighed at his ugly feelings. He was jealous. He was jealous and resentful and being petty and- gods.

He sighed again.

"What's up with all that sighing? If it's some injury you can tell me." There was an underlying tone of worry in her voice, but soon it turned to light teasing. "But if it's a problem of the heart I might not be able to help."

Kakashi looked at Rin, really looked at her. She was trustworthy, she didn't gossip, and she was in touch with reality enough that she might give some good advice. And she was a good friend, she really was, she'd been there for him before, when Obito had died, even if he kept pushing her away. And she was having such a hard time controlling the Three Tails since the Kiri incident, but never let herself fail with her friends, Kakashi could see how hard it was for her during her training sessions with Kushina-san, which were still going on despite her belly becoming huge towards the end of her pregnancy. She had told Rin to give up some of her hospital work to focus on that, but she didn't, because she's pigheaded like that, thinking the village was worth any sacrifice from her.

So yes, Kakashi was envious of her, but he couldn't get himself to be mad at her, at least not for long, after all, she didn't ask to be in this position of their little love triangle. Still, Kakashi would rather die in several different ways before confessing his love for Obito out loud, even to try and get advice from his friend.

"I'm sighing because my apartment was just broken in and the perpetrator is still inside if you can believe that."

"Alright, alright, I'm going, just make sure you talk to Raidou and Gai." She sent him a cheeky smile before jolting out of the window again, leaving Kakashi alone to bask on his ugly feelings.