#this weirdly became a new years fic as well. On jan 31. oh well

[ikemenomegas]

Hatake Kakashi x Reader

Another day, another year

Request: For the Make a Wish I've picked Kakashi and number 10- birthday candles ❤ nice to see you again ❤ anon! a/n: In EAsia, birthdays were traditionally celebrated kind of new year adjacent bc of how age was calculated, and otherwise wasn't a huge deal. Now celebrating on your birthday can be more of a modern couple's holiday or time to have a small gathering of friends if you do anything at all so I tried to sort of combine these things. no c/w here as far as I know. c/w for cake? I love a good cake. It's one of the stereotypes I happily subscribe to. Kakashi apparently hates sweet things. Boo fine, more for me.

In honor of the New Year, Tsunade had sent you and Kakashi out of the village to the Land of Hot Water. Officially it was a mission to monitor a meeting between two merchant families from Fire country and Wind country who were a test case for the tentative new alliance. Since the Land of Hot Water was hosting, it was you and Kakashi and a small team comprising both chunin and jounin who were responsible for preserving the peace, as well as ensuring no interested third parties had the opportunity to disrupt the festivities.

Unofficially, this seemed to be Tsunade's way of getting you two out of the village on a date.

Despite the tension of being on a mission, it had been almost fun playing a bit of dress up. It had been oddly nice to be one of the faceless cast of characters that swirled around your clients in elegant kimonos and it had been a while since you had been out of the village. And you'd gotten to see Kakashi in pale red and a fur edged cloak pulled up over his mouth instead of his usual mask.

It had made him look very dangerous and seductive, which did a number of things to your brain. Things which you hadn't been able to properly deal with until the signed agreements were safely away with shinobi couriers and the merchant representatives with their guardian shadows.

The Hokage's last note had strongly suggested that the two of you take some time to rest in the Hot Water village while the rest of the team quietly departed in their own assigned twos and threes. It meant you would be away from home over the holiday and you wanted to do something new for your mate.

That was how you had ended up clambering around on the dark side of a tile roof in warm civilian clothing. There was a tiny little viewing pavilion that you weren't exactly supposed to be in, but if nothing else shinobi excelled at getting into exactly those kinds of places.

After a lot of awkward crouching to wiggle through a narrow opening on the shadowed side of the pavilion, where you were grateful you couldn't see Kakashi likely watching you shuffle and bend so that neither you nor your supplies would fall off the slope on the way in, you sat down to wait him out.

You didn't have to wait long before he was coming up over the other side of the rooftop like some kind of romance novel protagonist climbing a hillside... perfectly perpendicular to the steep slope. It made you feel a little better about your own undignified scramble up here, even if he did slip into the enclosed space with much more grace.

"Fancy running into you up here," he said, sitting down beside you.

As though you hadn't been the one to invite him.

"Must be my lucky night," you said, leaning again his shoulder and nuzzling under his jaw.

He was always tense after a mission, slow to come back down from the hypervigilance and hyperawareness. It took him less time lately to be more present, to let go of that cool distance, but it was very much still a process. Sometimes the best thing to do was to do something as different as possible.

"When's your birthday?"

"Are you trying to figure out how old I am?" he asked.

You traced a long unbroken line on his palm. "We've never celebrated it."

Kakashi scoffed. "We're not children. It's not like it's a big deal anyway."

You knew Kakashi didn't necessarily like when there was too much attention on him. He could play it off for a job, but he didn't really do parties. This wasn't about a party though.

"You're a big deal to me," you wheedled.

He glanced at you and then away, leaning his head against his raised knee with a surrendering huff. He hadn't left, or dragged you off to run around in the woods so you decided to open the box you'd carried up here.

Kakashi looked with disinterest at the cake inside, frosted white with glistening winter strawberries on top. He held it as you carefully stuck long skinny wax candles around it and shielded the candles from the wind as you pulled out a box of matches and lit each one.

The firelight illuminated his face and finally allowed you to see the color of his kimono. You had to admit cool colors were sort of his thing. The pale grey silk and the deep blue scarf matched his complexion even though seeing him in other things had been fun.

You ran a chilled finger over the top of his cheek, which was just peaking out over the scarf.

"I love your face so much. They should make a holiday for your face."

"My face which no one ever sees," he said, amused at your nonsense.

"Right. It'll be like a secret holiday, just for me," you let the words drop a little deeper and enjoyed watching Kakashi's eyes so clearly dilate in the flickering candlelight. It didn't have to make sense, you'd found that if you said things in a certain register, it would have a particularly enticing effect on him.

He coughed once. "You know I don't like cake, right?"

"Oh, I know. Don't worry, you don't have to eat it." You crouched in front of Kakashi and cupped your hands under his to hold it up. "The cake isn't the point."

As you spoke, the flames fluttered.

"It's another year," you said softly. "Blow out the candles and make a wish, Kakashi."

Kakashi went quiet and his eyes focused slowly on the points of light. They reflected in his dark grey eyes.

You waited while the candles slowly shrunk smaller and golden light played across the face of your favorite person in the world. You stroked your thumbs across his knuckles at random intervals, feeling the familiar faint bumps of old scars.

A shuddering sigh ruffled the flames and he pulled his face back from the cake with an almost panicked look, glancing at you in worry. You rumbled at him, the low vibration filling the little open pavilion.

"This is for you," you reminded him, so quiet that it was almost hidden in the tail end of the noise.

He was clutching the box so hard that there were little dents where he was holding on.

He took one shaking breath, and then two. And then he blew out the candles.

In the way of shinobi, you said nothing about the slightly glassy sheen to the reflection of light in his eyes.

In the way of lovers, you stretched out a hand in the dark and brushed your fingers under his uncovered eye.

You held so much more of him in your heart than you ever would in your hands. Your heart was already full of him and all yet you knew you could give him more.

You sat quietly as Kakashi pressed his face into your palm, the cover of night letting him pretend for a moment that he was not needed anywhere else, not needed to be anyone else.

When he pulled away, you very wisely said nothing about the wetness lingering on your fingertips.

Your eyes had adjusted well enough to see by moon and starlight alone. Kakashi lifted one of the strawberries off the cake and offered it to you, almost shyly.

The incredibly thin sugared layer around the strawberry broke between your teeth with a crack.

"I haven't celebrated my birthday since joining ANBU," Kakashi said with the faintest hint of embarrassment. Cute. He didn't need to justify anything to you though and you just barely let your teeth press into his fingers to distract him when you went in for a second bite.

This one was even sweeter.

"It's not an obligation," you replied carefully. "It's just something people do sometimes. And I wanted to do it for you."

He still had trouble at times with worrying about whether his lack of understanding about some things was somehow disappointing to you. Especially if they ended up hitting some kind of old wound.

"I know you don't care for it, but do you want to taste some anyway?" you reached for the utensils the bakery had given you.

Kakashi shook his head. Then he twisted around just as the first firework burst in whites and blues across the sky.

The fireworks marked midnight with a very high rocket sent up at the exact moment to explode gold and red at the turn of the year, at the exact moment you and Kakashi shared a long, lingering kiss.

You broke away from one another, panting slightly for air.

"Happy new year," Kakashi said, voice low and a little breathless.

"Happy new year, Kakashi."