Interlude
In the end, it's not a pill Kakashi takes every day. (A bit troublesome on missions, don't you think?) Nor is it the implant that goes just under the skin of his left arm. (Something like that will disrupt your chakra pathways, Kakashi. Use your head.)
No… the solution, Minato decides, will have to be a bit more customized.
Civilian methods just aren't always practical for high-level shinobi like us, he tuts as he walks his student out of the clinic. Kakashi places a careful hand over his lower abdomen, and says nothing. He knows he shouldn't be able to sense anything, but he would bet his entire jonin paycheck that he can still feel the burn from the sealing jutsu his sensei placed there, even through his shirt.
At least he's not pregnant anymore.
At home, Kakashi strips and inspects the seal. It's certainly one of Sensei's—the specific sigils and general shape speak to the style of fuinjutsu Minato learned from his darling Kushina. Bits and pieces look familiar, but the overall shape is not like any seal Kakashi's ever seen.
The next day, at the shinobi records office, he pours through the library of documented sealing techniques. The window of time it would have been appropriate to query Minato about it would have been when he was applying the seal, but Kakashi was too caught up in the hair-raising sensation of his sensei’s hand on the skin of his belly to think about asking any questions. Kakashi chides himself for his negligence as he takes another box of scrolls down from the dusty shelf.
It takes several hours of research, but by the end of the day Kakashi is at least able to identify the contraceptive portion of the seal. A series of jagged lines interrupting the swirling sigils at the bottom of the mark, just below the waistband of his pants. There's a bit at the top of the seal that Kakashi still thinks looks vaguely familiar, but it will remain a mystery for now. Even after closely examining the library's entire collection, Kakashi is no closer to making sense of it.
He bumps into Obito on his way out of the records office.
"Hey," Obito says, awkwardly adjusting the goggles on his forehead. He's blushing, and refuses to meet Kakashi’s eyes. They haven't really spoken… not since Obito crawled back through Kakashi's window, tears dried on his face and hair askew.
Kakashi thinks he needs to get over it, already.
"What's up?" Kakashi asks, deadpan. His voice doesn't betray anything. Not his memories of the last time he and Obito were together, not the fact that he's just spent practically the past day holed up in a stale basement, all alone—and certainly not the new, aching secret that marks the skin of his lower belly in bloody red.
"I've been looking for you all day, you know,” Obito says. “You weren't at your apartment and Asuma said he saw you come into the office this morning, but… I didn't think you'd still be around here. Were you looking at mission records?"
"Jutsu research," Kakashi says.
"Oh," Obito says. "Agh…! Kakashi, you're so…" he clenches his fists, and before Kakashi can worry about what pitying bullshit will come out of his mouth next— "so responsible!"
Kakashi hums. Perhaps Obito was going to leave things alone, after all. "I'll see you around," he says, walking past his teammate with no more than a brush of their shoulders in the doorway.
"Wait!" Obito tries, "Kakashi, I really wanted to talk to you. I think we should maybe—"
Kakashi waves a hand in the air without turning around. "Later," he says, and heads back home. Alone.
Team Four is split up the next day—temporarily, at least. Minato, busy with preparations for his inauguration, pawns them off as additions to other shinobi teams and all three leave on separate missions within the next week.
Kakashi’s team is gone the longest. They don't come back to the village for a month, and by the time they return to Konoha, Obito and Rin have already come and gone—left on a C-rank together that will keep them out of the village for at least another few weeks.
Later is cast aside. Maybe even forgotten about.
The next time Team Four is back together again, Minato is taking the hat. The watchful eyes of the entire village are on Kakashi, Obito, and Rin as they cluster close together at the base of the Hokage tower. The attention itches almost as badly as the scarring beneath Kakashi’s shirt that seems to only have just started to heal.
Kakashi has to remind himself not to scratch.
Rin glues herself to his side, smiling shyly and bowing her head in thanks when necessary. She can’t stop squeezing Kakashi’s hand and he doesn’t bother shaking her off. Even Obito, who usually loves attention, has started to bristle under the praise from shinobi and civilians. It seems like everyone and their mother wants to offer the new Hokage’s precious students their congratulations. Obito’s eyes dart to the side after every interaction, looking to Kakashi as if to ask: hey, you doing okay?
Kakashi flashes him a smile that starts and ends at his eyes.
He’s used to this kind of thing. He’s lived his entire life in his dad’s shadow. Whether that darkness originated with the village’s favor or its disgust hardly changed things. Kakashi’s hated being watched out of the corner of his eye by his so-called community all the same.
The darkness is cast upon him as he looks up at the silhouette of his sensei scarcely feels different.
His shoulders feel numb as friends and strangers pat him on the back. The acute feeling of being watched seems to dull after a while. His ears are full of cotton and he misses most of Lord Third’s speech.
Obito steps into his line of vision and it takes Kakashi a moment to recognize him. The other boy is blurry around the edges. Kakashi watches his lips move as if from underwater, offering an eye-smile when it feels appropriate.
Obito’s hazy features twist into a frown.
The ceremony goes by quickly. One moment Kakashi is floating and the next he’s back on the ground, right in the middle of the cacophonous roar as the Fourth Hokage takes the stage.
He’s suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that Obito and Rin are on either side of him, holding his hands. The touch is… nice, he decides. His palms tingle and he feels warm all over when he feels his shoulders brush his teammates’.
It’s only when Kakashi focuses his eyes on the dais on the roof of the mansion and locks eyes with their sensei that the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Amongst the entire crowd, Minato is staring directly at the three of them.
Kakashi quickly looks away, but not quick enough to miss Minato’s lips hardening into a firm line.
It takes a long time for either Minato’s seal or his new job to change anything tangible about Kakshi’s life.
Sure, Team Four gets sent on some more A-ranks than they’re used to, even though Rin and Obito are still chunin. And sure, their sensei is around a lot less than he used to be. But Kakashi has already been jonin for a while now and is used to handling things on his own.
Kakashi can tell Rin wants to try for a promotion next—to make tokubetsu jonin and, hopefully, a permanent placement in the hospital—but that would require asking Minato for a recommendation, and their sensei’s been a bit hard to pin down lately.
Kakashi thinks Obito might also have privately discouraged her from initiating the conversation, at least for the time being. The older boy is still the weak link of their team, but ever since the incident surrounding Kakashi’s last heat, he seems to have grown up a bit. He’s a lot more aware. Of himself, and of others.
Kakashi can trust Obito to look after himself on assignments now. Even left to his own devices, he rarely gets hurt, even on his blind side.
A dozen missions come and go, and Kakashi realizes he’s starting to trust Obito to look after him and Rin, too.
It’s only after another dozen missions that Kakashi realizes his period is several weeks overdue.
Pants undone and shirt rolled up and tucked below his chin, Kakashi examines the seal again, in the privacy of his bedroom.
It’s been nearly six months since Minato applied the seal, and though the dark, red lines are fully set into Kakashi’s skin, the flesh around the mark still smarts a tender pink. Sometimes, Kakashi finds himself reaching for it before he catches himself, picking at the tiny flakes of skin that itch like hell under his thin mail undershirt.
His finger traces the intricate lines of the mark, and he is reminded just how much of it he still doesn't understand.