Chapter Text
Obito waits on the steps of the library, seated on the sun-warmed stone that still holds the heat of the day. Night is falling, and further into the village the Tanabata festival is starting. Music rises like heat waves, carried on the laughter, and there are already stars showing through the dusky violets and blues of descending twilight. He’s alone, dressed in his best kimono, deep green with golden stalks of bamboo reaching up one side and trailing down a sleeve, over a golden brown under-robe. Minato suggested dressing formally, and this is the nicest outfit Obito has.
He’s not worried about this date, not really, because this is Kakashi, and even if Obito does something stupid they can laugh it off and move on without hesitating. Really, it’s Kakashi, and Obito can still pinpoint the exact moment when he looked at his best friend and felt the entire world shift and resettle. Not tremble, not rearrange itself, but firm up and steady. He had looked over at Kakashi as they left Minato's office, content with another mission completed perfectly, and knew in the space between heartbeats that he loved the other boy, bastardly tendencies and all. Knew that he’d die for him and live for him and do absolutely anything for him if he even so much as hinted that he wanted it.
Love is like that, for the Uchiha clan. Obito isn't grateful for it, but he doesn’t hate it, either. It’s simply the way he is, the way they all are, one step different from everyone else and capable of falling into the world’s most destructive, devouring, all-encompassing, incredible love as easily as others blink an eye.
So this date isn't so much a chance as it is simply a moment. Whether something comes of this or not, Obito loves Kakashi so much that it steals his breath away. Kakashi returning or rejecting that won't change it. Oh, Obito would like for it to be returned—he’s not some sort of masochist—but he doesn’t need for it to be. Kakashi asked him out, after all, and that’s already as good an indication as any that Kakashi at least feels something. Being as he is, even if Kakashi eventually loses interest, Obito will still love him.
Regardless of broken hearts or hurts or deaths or anything, Obito will still love him.
Obito doesn’t sigh, and he doesn’t check the time, though some of the couples walking by keep giving him pitying looks. They clearly think that he’s been stood up, and Obito wants to laugh at them. He’s waited on Kakashi for hours before; a measly thirty minutes isn't going to do anything. Of course, he’ll still give the jerk a hard time when he finally makes it, will hold this over his head forever—but that’s a given, as is the fact that Obito won't even begin to lose hope until the sun comes up again. And possibly not even then.
Kakashi brings him flowers, deep crimson and twilight blue and soft, gentle peach. They're beautiful, and smell incredibly sweet. Obito lifts them to his face to breathe them in, and to hide the way he’s laughing at his best friend. Kakashi catches it anyway, because he’s Kakashi, but there's no offense in his deep grey eyes as he grins, too, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he says abashedly.
Obito smiles at him, lowering the small bouquet, and says honestly, “I love them. Thank you.” Grateful that he’s let his hair grow a bit, he pulls out the tie out and then rebinds the loose tail with the flowers wound through it. A small touch of mokuton ensures they’ll last the night, and he can put them in water when they get home. Because that’s what you do with flowers, right?
(Truthfully, Obito has no clue; no one’s ever given him flowers before, and he hasn’t really given them to anyone else, either. Maybe, if it were anyone other than Kakashi giving them to him, he’d be dismayed at being treated like a girl, but Kakashi never thinks about those kinds of things. To him a shinobi is a shinobi, and gender doesn’t factor in beyond deciding who to send for a seduction mission.)
There's a faintly awkward moment where they both hesitate, Kakashi hovering and Obito not certain which direction they're headed, and then a loud cheer in the distance breaks the spell. Kakashi relaxes like a wire’s been cut, and before Obito can so much as blink he’s got Obito's arm tucked through his own and is guiding them down the crowded street.
“The festival?” Obito asks, letting himself be steered.
Kakashi hums noncommittally. For once his porn is nowhere to be seen, and even though he’s still wearing his mask, he’s actually out of uniform. Obito remembers Minato's aggrieved expression earlier and has to fight back a grin. There's little doubt in his mind who gave Kakashi the advice to plan this date, and that’s just vastly amusing.
“Do you…like fireworks?” Kakashi asks out of the blue, sounding nervous in the way missions and shinobi stuff never makes him, and Obito wonders how he can be. He stops, pulling his best friend to a halt in the middle of the street, and turns him around so that they're facing each other. That grey eye is wide and uncertain, and suddenly it hits Obito all over again that no matter what love is like for the Uchiha, it’s not like that for everyone else.
“Kakashi,” he says seriously, and confusion bordering on panic slips into Kakashi's expression. Before the taller boy can even start speaking, though, Obito reaches out and places a finger over his lips. “Kakashi,” he repeats, “it’s you. That’s the whole point of this, isn't it? I don’t care what we do, I don’t care what you wear, as long as it’s with you. I don’t know any way to make that more obvious.”
For an endless, suspended moment, Kakashi stares at Obito and Obito gazes back. And then something softens and eases in Kakashi's face, settles into lines of humor and hope. He gently wraps his fingers around Obito's and pulls his hand away, then kisses the back of it. “I…hoped,” he admits, almost shyly. “But Kushina kept ragging me about how it had to be perfect, and…”
Obito rolls his eye and uses his captured hand to tug Kakashi a step closer. “It’s Kushina,” he points out. “I'm surprised she didn’t tell you to take me snowshoeing in your bathing suit.”
Kakashi laughs at that, like it’s been surprised out of him, and Obito grins back, even as he reaches forward, grips Kakashi's ear, and pulls him down.
As far as first kisses go, Obito's pretty sure this one tops the charts.