Title: Standard
Summary: Sasuke's being his usual antisocial self. Kakashi drops by with an invitation.
"So you are the infamous Copy Ninja." Karin crosses her arms under her bust, running an appraising eye over the visitor.
Kakashi glances at her, just enough to get a brief blur of her general appearance, before returning his gaze to the boy staring passively at his cup of tea. His easy dismissal has her bristling slightly, before she returns to pretending he isn't there.
"Sasuke-kun," she coos, adjusting her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
"Leave," Sasuke orders, as if she's the one interrupting.
Karin narrows her eyes but resists the urge to complain. She pouts at him and turns around on her heels. She brushes past Kakashi with a huff, intent on knocking shoulders with his. He slouches into the room instead, causing her to stumble, and a sandaled foot slides the screen closed. Kakashi tracks his way across the thick carpet and settles in front of Sasuke, on the other end of the table, without invitation.
Sasuke doesn't offer his guest a drink. Instead he lifts his cup to his lips to sip at the steaming brew inside.
"That's no way to be treating a teammate," Kakashi remarks lightly.
The cup descends smoothly onto the table.
Kakashi hums thoughtfully at the silence, leaning his cheek on the palm of the hand on the low table. He reaches into his back pouch with his other hand.
He takes note of the slight twitching of a thin brow when he reveals an orange-covered book. His eye curves into a quick smile and agile fingers open the book two-thirds of the way into the story. "I taught you better than that, Sasuke-kun." There's another barely noticeable twitch.
Kakashi trails a lazy eye over the all-too-familiar words of the particular chapter.
Sasuke brings the cup to his mouth again to hide the threatening frown. It's like Chidori training all over again, with the same blasted page of the cursed book that always distracts Kakashi.
After a few flickering pages, when Kakashi gets to a certain part that Sasuke has no doubt is inappropriate outside of personal privacy, he lets his cup land on the table with a jarring clatter, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. It's thankfully empty of any tea.
"What do you want?" he says finally, but that does little to get the man to raise his eyes from the words inked onto the grainy paper. "Kakashi."
"Kakashi," Sasuke says again.
A dark, disinterested eye flickers up to him, before dropping back to the heated scene that's apparently much more interesting than Sasuke right now.
"Sakura's organizing a picnic," Kakashi says, thumbing over to the next page, and that's all he says.
Sasuke makes a sound from the back of his throat. It's not really a growl, but not really anything else either. It's too restrained for Kakashi's liking, but it's something resembling the Sasuke of the past.
With a smile crinkling the corners of his eye, Kakashi refocuses his gaze on Sasuke. "Yes?"
"And?"
"You're invited." Kakashi beams in a way that even the curve of his smiling eye is insincere.
Sasuke stares at him, unsurprisingly silent, though perhaps a bit contemplative.
"Oh, she did say something about revoking the invite if I happen to see someone with red hair lurking about...?" Kakashi rubs thoughtfully at his chin. "Aah, did your teammate have red hair? I can't seem to recall…"
Sasuke gives him a flat stare.
"She did?" Kakashi tries to look as apologetic as he possibly can't, which isn't very much, what with how he always appears to be half-asleep and bored to death. "Ahh." Kakashi rubs at his hair with an open palm. "And it's such a lovely day too." He looks mournfully towards the open sky just beyond the window.
One of Sasuke's brows slightly creases and twitches almost unnoticeably. Had he been the Sasuke three years prior, it would have been an obvious look of disbelief.
Kakashi beams again. "But you look very busy right now."
"…"
"Careful," Kakashi warns, suddenly solemn. "Your face might get stuck that way."
And then Kakashi laughs, and pretends he doesn't see the slight almost-smile teetering at the corner of Sasuke's lips.