They get married in a boring little office by the administrative building’s side. It is a quiet affair, fast and unusually low-key, at least for Gai, who is loud- too much, complains the general public, he’s always too much— in practically every facet of his life ; so full of life ( too full ) and eager ( too eager ) and living always to the fullest extent ( reaching- surpassing— obliterating the limits that dared stand in his path; challenging the World, almost ). Laughing; exuberant, youthful, and giving it his all, if not more-so. But, really, it fits right in with Kakashi's personality.
Perhaps it is not a so surprising thing, though, as neither of them are the sort to talk about their private lives; concealing the intimate beneath the obvious— perhaps, probably, maybe they were both too good of a shinobi to be comfortable with anything else.
So they sign the papers. Neat little kanji for Kakashi and blunt, dark lines for Gai's slightly too vigorous brush use.
They later engrave the other’s initials and number in their tags, as ninja tradition dictates, ( but also to the underside of their headband plates- just for sentimentality’s sake ), and ...that’s all.
Nothing really changes.
Shizune is the first to notice ( although saying notice is a bit misleading )— when she is filling out forms for Kakashi’s latest stumble into the hospital, ( chakra exhaustion, again )— and she sees that the little square next to the ‘married’ option is ticked off. She thinks nothing of it, guessing a simple mistake is the cause. And Gai, like always, is added in a lazy scrawl to the bottom of the page as the person of contact in an emergency. But, as previously said, that was nothing new.
They have been each other’s person of contact since they were both eighteen years old and they had nobody else to turn to.
So, in actuality, it takes time for people to really notice, a month, two and a half at most, but when they do... — it might as well be a new invasion taking place; it's chaos.
Gossip flies and grows and turns into this huge thing that everyone won’t stop talking about, civvies, random sweet old ladies in the street, even an Inuzuka dog or two, and people keep looking at them weird ( more than before, if such a thing was possible ), and conversations seem to drop around them at an allarming rate.
When they ask Kakashi, he has a myriad of handy excuses ready, with just enough nonsense mixed in with the truth that it even sounds plausible.
' We challenged each other to get married before we hit thirty. ’ ’ I didn’t want to keep paying rent. Moving in with Gai seemed logical. ’ ’ We’re saving on taxes. ’ ’ He brought me flowers this one time and I was really moved. ’ ’ I liked the idea of being the pampered young wife. ‘ ' We were playing charades and overdid it a little. '
Gai, in the other hand, didn't need anyone to ask- happy to boast about the fullness of youth and the springtime of love and eternal fulfilment and other such headache-inducing, sappy and saccharine-sweet speech- riddled with more exclamation points and tears than it was really needed. Plus thumbs up to whoever was looking.
They didn’t really understand.
Naruto had a hard time grasping his head around the fact that Kakashi and his ‘eternal rival’ were even a couple. He probably wasn’t the only one.
But that was alright, too.
They needed no understanding but their own.
They wanted no acknowledgement- no recognition but the other’s.
And, truth was, their married life was no different as before. Exactly the same, in fact.
Their days had been intrinsically linked, bound together for years and years now.
Making it official was, well, something they might as well do and get over with.