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It was raining today. This in itself wasn't a bad news, and it was quite common for this time of year.
Team 7 had no missions or training scheduled for today, and Kakashi thought he was going to be able to have a quiet day.
What a mistake.
Because when Kakashi had envisioned this day, there was something he had forgotten to consider. He was now living with his students. Three 12-year-old teenagers. Who couldn't sit still and stay quiet to save their life.
"Kakashi-sensei! Why can't we go outside?" Naruto asked for the 5th time in 10 minutes.
"Because it's raining and you'll get sick." Kakashi replied without looking up from his book.
“But I never get sick!”
“It's still a no, Naruto.”
“But I'm bored!”
“We all noticed that.” Sasuke muttered.
The young Uchiha was sitting in a corner of the living room and had chosen to sharpen his weapons, but Kakashi felt that even he was becoming restless.
"Naruto, don't you want to calm down a bit and... I don't know, pick up a book?" Sakura suggested. The pink-haired girl was reading on the sofa, with Bisuke curled up next to her.
"A book?!" Naruto repeated, as if it were the worst possible insult.
"Yes, a book." Sakura repeated, rolling her eyes. "Or something else, I don't know. But sit down in a corner and stop making noise, you're annoying."
Now, Naruto looked like a kicked puppy with his head down and his arms dangling.
Kakashi shook his head and tried to convince himself to let it go. Naruto would eventually find something to do.
And indeed, Naruto found something to do. It just so happened that this something consisted of seeing how close he could get to Sasuke before the latter reacted.
Naruto started quite far away, sitting cross-legged on the ground a little over 3 meters from the Uchiha.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked coldly.
"I'm sitting down and not moving! You're the one who asked me to, you need to know what you want." Naruto exclaimed indignantly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Hmf.” Was Sasuke's only response, as he resumed his task, refocusing on his kunai.
And Naruto remained motionless. For a whole minute. Yes, it was quite an achievement for him. And then, after a minute, he moved slightly, as if he were simply stretching, but Kakashi, out of the corner of his eye, saw that the blond had moved a few centimeters closer to his teammate.
This whole charade continued for several dozen minutes, until Naruto found himself less than 50 centimeters from Sasuke, the latter regularly sending fiery looks to Naruto, who responded only with small, innocent, and absolutely unconvincing smiles.
The young Uchiha had had enough when he could feel every breath of Naruto against his skin and changed his grip on his kunai, making a gesture as if he was going to attack Naruto.
"Aahhh!" Naruto cried out, doing his best to get away and falling backward. "Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke tried to stab me!" He then reported, pointing an accusing finger at the other boy, who pretended to have returned to his kunai.
"Not even true." Sasuke muttered.
As if Kakashi hadn't seen the whole scene. Nearby, Sakura sighed heavily, suggesting that her classmates' behavior was exasperating her to no end. But Kakashi knew his students well and saw the glint of mischief in Sakura's eyes, and the urge to cause trouble herself.
It was at this moment that the jōnin decided to intervene. If he didn't do something quickly, if he didn't offer something to his little monsters, things would quickly escalate.
Kakashi then slammed his book shut, immediately attracting the attention of his students. "Since you've decided you can't be good and entertain yourself, I'll entertain you." Kakashi announced, getting up and heading towards the kitchen. "Come here."
"It was Naruto who was acting like an idiot, why do we all have to be punished?" Sakura complained, getting up anyway.
"Who said anything about punishment?" Kakashi said simply, smiling his half-reassuring smile.
"What are we going to do then?" Sasuke grumbled, approaching the kitchen suspiciously.
“I promised you the other day that I would teach you how to cook. Here we are.”
"But it's only 2 PM?" Naruto remarked, puzzled.
“There’s no set time for cooking.” Kakashi replied with a shrug. “In the field, you won’t always be able to eat at 8 a.m., noon, and 8 p.m. When you’re on a mission, you have to eat when you have time, not when it’s the ‘right’ time. And besides, now is the perfect time to cook what I’ve planned to teach you.”
"And what have you planned?" Sakura asked, raising an eyebrow.
"A chocolate cake." Kakashi smiled.
"A... chocolate cake?" Sasuke repeated, dubiously. "Will that be useful on our missions?"
"You never know. And besides, it's not all about missions. You're shinobi, sure, but you're human beings first and foremost. And I don't know a single human being who doesn't like chocolate cake."
"I don't like sweets." Sasuke retorted, sulking.
"Stop being a spoil sport, Teme!" Naruto exclaimed. "Where do we start, Kakashi-sensei?"
“First of all, all three of you go and wash your hands.”
"What? But why?" Naruto complained.
"Before cooking, we wash our hands, it's a simple hygiene rule," Sakura replied, grabbing Naruto by the sleeve and dragging him to the bathroom, Sasuke following them with shuffled feet.
Kakashi sighed. This was going to be more complicated than he'd anticipated. The jōnin then made the mistake of catching Pakkun's eye, who was lying on the windowsill. "Don't look at me like that, you asked for it." The pug simply retorted.
Kakashi sighed again. Pakkun was right, and he knew it. And the worst part was that Kakashi didn't regret nothing. Well, almost nothing. But regardless of his own feelings, getting Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura out of their previous living situations had been essential. If Kakashi had to sacrifice a few quiet afternoons to take care of his kids and give them a better life, then so be it.
His children soon returned and then waited for his instructions.
“Okay, now we need to gather the ingredients. For this recipe, we'll need chocolate, sugar, flour, eggs, and butter. Naruto, grab the flour and sugar; Sasuke, get the eggs and butter; and Sakura, you take care of the chocolate.”
Kakashi then led his gremlins, guiding them through the recipe. He barely touched a thing, letting his kids do all the work. So yes, this cake wouldn't be perfect, but that was the charm of homemade cakes. Besides, the point of the activity wasn't to make something perfect, but to keep his kids busy.
And it was working rather well because all three of them were really invested in the cooking. Even Sasuke's gloomy expression had softened a little.
Kakashi simply had to intervene to prevent a war.
Yes, you see, when Naruto started pouring the flour into the bowl, he went a little too hard and a cloud of flour rose from the bowl, directly into Sasuke’s head, who was watching the preparation closely.
"Dobe, I'm sure you did it on purpose." Sasuke groaned, wiping his face.
"Hey, the world doesn't revolve around you, y’know!" Naruto defended himself.
"You could have been more careful, Naruto," Sakura added, shaking her hair, which had picked up some flour.
"You're ganging up on me!" The blond boy exclaimed indignantly.
"What if we are? What are you going to do?" Sasuke replied provocatively.
Kakashi chose to intervene at that moment because he felt that a war could quickly break out in his kitchen over a little spilled flour, and he honestly didn't have the energy for that.
"Calm down, everyone." He asked, quickly getting his students' attention. "Accidents happen, and there's no point in constantly blaming each other. You'll never get anywhere if you only think about yourselves."
"Yeah, yeah, those who don't think about their teammates are worse than trash, we know." Sasuke scowled.
But despite his apparent bad mood, Kakashi saw that he had calmed down and was no longer 2 seconds away from lunging at Naruto.
His two other students were thankfully in the same frame of mind. So much the better, scandal and war avoided, well done Kakashi.
“Come on, continue with the cake, you're almost there.”
Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke then went back to work and shortly afterwards, the cake was in the oven.
"How long do we have to wait now?" Naruto asked, his face almost pressed against the oven window.
"At least 30 minutes." Kakashi replied.
"Ohhh, that’s so long!" the blond lamented, already looking bored.
Sakura then gave Kakashi a look. A look that promised a thousand sufferings if he didn't immediately find something to do to occupy Naruto.
And fortunately, Kakashi didn't have to look very far to find something to do.
"It's good that we have to wait a bit, we'll be able to clean up the kitchen." Kakashi said.
Indeed, even though they had tried to be careful, the kitchen was in a terrible state, as it always was when his students cooked.
Naruto sighed and Sasuke grumbled, but they both got to work tidying and cleaning the kitchen. It took them almost 10 minutes to realize that Sakura wasn't helping at all, having stayed by Kakashi's side to watch them work.
Obviously, neither of them was happy about this and they both forced Sakura to help them, which the girl did without really protesting.
A little over 45 minutes after putting the cake in the oven, it was finally ready to eat and all three of his students were sitting at the table, enjoying the fruits of their labor.
And Kakashi fully appreciated the reverent silence that resounded in the house while the three of them were busy eating.
"Yeah, still too sweet." Sasuke muttered after finishing licking his plate.
Obviously, his remark prompted a reaction from Sakura and Naruto, and the silence was quickly broken.
Kakashi felt like sighing, but watching his students argue like the children they were, he couldn't help but smile a little.
Perhaps he wasn't such a terrible teacher after all if he was able to offer them these kinds of moments.