Chapter Text
Kakashi knew exactly what the cloak stood for, but the black cloak with red clouds didn’t deter him. The man was a shapeless blob in the cloak, with the only outstanding feature being the garish orange mask concealing his face. He ordered food and drinks for the entire bar, including Kakashi, but he never touched the food or alcohol. Kakashi needed a photo, just one simple image to take back to Konoha, just a hint at the man’s identity, but he made life difficult on purpose. From the end of the bar, Kakashi felt too much like a stalker. He watched and waited for a time that would never come. The makeup on his face and his green trench coat made the warm interior of the bar almost unbearable. He’d already removed his long scarf, and it sat on the bar just to the right of his untouched drink. Like the nameless Akatsuki member, he had no interest in drinking. His mission required sobriety, but it didn’t require an empty stomach, so he snacked on ginger soy edamame as he fiddled with the camera hanging around his neck. At least the food was decent.
Bars were prime spots for gossip, since alcohol liked to loosen lips. But his target was immune to its effects. Kakashi wanted him entirely inebriated, but the wish went unfulfilled. Three days of subtly observing the man told Kakashi absolutely nothing. He was often loud and upbeat, and he was easily manipulated and bullied by patrons, but none of the poor treatment bothered him. He was unshakable. Kakashi had never met anyone like him, and that was intriguing on its own. His interest in the mission never wavered, even as his hopes dwindled. Akatsuki liked to stay moving, so the fact that the man had remained in the sleepy village for more than one night was unusual. The mission felt more like a game. Kakashi wondered when he would eventually fail his mission, his first failure in almost five years. After a sigh, he took a drink of his untouched sake and finished off his edamame. It was almost closing time, which meant the third day had been wasted.
“Huh?” Kakashi watched the bartender slide another bowl of edamame towards him. With a smirk, the guy pointed in the direction of his target, who seemed equal parts eager and bashful. “Thank you,” Kakashi mumbled to the bartender, forcing a warm smile. He didn’t trust the food at all. There were two empty seats between the Akatsuki member and himself, and he watched from the corner of his eye as the man comically slid from seat to seat, nearly knocking one of the stools over. “Ah, my secret admirer, perhaps?” He smiled, because people found his smile disarming, and it had the man gasping.
“You’re pretty!” The man gushed, his tone alone raising doubt. He sounded like a simpleton. There was no way that the man was an active member of the terrorist organization. Kakashi wondered if the intel was wrong. He would have wasted days chasing the wrong lead. “How did you get so pretty?” The man turned in his seat and rested an elbow on the bar so he could lean his head against his fist. Kakashi had been called many things, but not pretty. It was a feminine term of endearment that had him chuckling.
“I’ve never been called pretty before. That’s new,” Kakashi hummed, looking over at the remainder of his drink. He stopped toying with his camera to lean to the side and check on the man’s forgotten beer. The glass was still full, the foam long gone. “Maybe I could get your name, shinobi-san?” There was no pause, no hesitation, just energetic nodding that had Kakashi feeling as if he were dealing with a child. Maybe he was. The mask made it impossible to tell, and puberty could have explained the height.
“Tobi! And what should Tobi call you?”
“Sukea.”
“Sukea,” Tobi repeated, his voice suddenly dark and sultry. Startled by the sudden change, Kakashi bumped his bowl of edamame and the beans spilled onto the bar. He tried to use his napkin to clean up the mess, but Tobi touched the back of his wrist. “Let’s leave it, okay? I could really use a walk! I was sitting there for hours, waiting for you to get up the nerve to approach me, Sukea.” He raised his arms into the air for a dramatic stretch, then he sighed in relief. They had been sitting there for hours. Kakashi should have realized that the man wasn’t a complete idiot, not at all how the man had originally acted. Tobi made a show of feeling for his pockets, then he shook his right sleeve and money fell onto the bar, clearing both of their tabs. “What do you say, Sukea? Can I have a walk with a pretty man?”
Dread surfaced, a knee-jerk reaction that he’d grown accustomed to over the years. As the feeling of dread faded, he considered his options. Kakashi didn’t think he would get another chance with Tobi, not when Tobi made it perfectly clear that he’d been spotted observing the man. He only needed one photo. Tobi probably wasn’t the man’s name, so there was no chance of tracing a vague name to a hidden village. Maybe Tobi was nothing more than a clown acting like a villain, or maybe it was the other way around. Kakashi had a feeling that he would regret his decision, but he was confident in his skills, if he had to blow his cover. He finished off his sake, then he motioned for Tobi to lead the way. He never expected the man to link arms with him and half drag him from the establishment.
“So you’re a photographer then?”
“I am. I’m an artist looking for his muse.”
“Can I be your muse, Sukea?”
Tobi was flirting with him. The purple marks on his cheeks couldn’t disguise his blush. His target was a decent romantic, underneath the mask and ridiculous voice. He asked himself how far he would go to obtain a photograph of the man, and the answer made him uncomfortable. He would do almost anything to unmask the man, even if it meant engaging in playful flirtations. He didn’t trust his voice, so he leaned against Tobi and let the man lightly pet his hair. The wig he had on was secure, his hair a boring brown color, so he let the man touch him. There was nothing interesting about their walk, since the village wasn’t very big. Tobi led him down to a small stream, and they stared at the reflection of the moon on the water. The lighting was poor for a picture, but his camera had a flash that would startle the hell out of them. He should have enjoyed the privacy they had, but he didn’t. He was parading with the enemy.
“You look hot in your cloak,” Kakashi remarked, trying to subtly guide Tobi into revealing more of himself. Tobi looked down at his cloak, then he unlinked their arms and pretended to fan himself, as if the heat suddenly bothered him. He looked over at Kakashi, eye traveling down the length of Kakashi’s green trench coat. “Ah, yes, well, I’m from a tropical climate and I’m used to this weather,” Kakashi lied. He swore he heard Tobi snort, so he turned his head away to hide the fact that he was biting his lip to keep from laughing at his own lame excuse. “That mask must be hot too.” Kakashi tried building on the same storyline, but he lost subtlety with his approach. Tobi wagged a finger at him.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Tobi said, words spoken in a sing-song voice. Kakashi looked down at his coat, as if he were contemplating getting rid of his disguise, then he shrugged his shoulders. It was worrisome that Tobi recognized he was disguised, but he wasn’t going to admit it out loud. “So what will it be, Sukea?” Tobi leaned into his personal space, but the shadows concealed the lone eye the mask revealed. Kakashi smiled and held up his hands in defeat. Blowing his cover wasn’t an option. “Thought so! I could be wearing this mask to hide my horrible ugliness. Maybe I’m missing my nose! I could have buck teeth too! Who knows, Sukea.” Tobi shrugged his shoulders and linked their arms again, then they left the stream to head back to the village.
“I’m sure it isn’t that bad.”
“Why don’t you try buying me dango first, hm?”
Kakashi sighed, but he let Tobi lead him towards a sweets shop. He had no interest in anything the shop sold, but he could pretend to find something delectable. At that time in the evening, the shop was empty, so they didn’t have to wait in a line to order their food. Tobi happily ordered four sticks of mitarashi dango, then he shoved his hand into Kakashi’s right front pocket and felt around for ryo. Kakashi blushed and tried to shove Tobi away from him, but Tobi had already found the ryo he had on him and handed it over to the woman at the register. Tobi squeezed his arm in an affectionate way and giggled; he wondered if Tobi had something wrong, some mental illness or other disorder, something to explain the man’s oddities. He opened his mouth to ask, but he changed his mind. When the plate of dango was in front of them, Kakashi took a picture of the food. The skewers were organized in a particular way and the glaze shined in the light, a perfect picture to fill his roll of film. Tobi took the whole plate and they went to sit on the engawa outside of the shop entrance.
“Mmm!” Tobi rubbed his gloved hands together in excitement, then he pointed at all of the skewers, trying to decide which one to take. Kakashi handed him one of the skewers and he made a kissy noise. The man was acting outside of the mission and didn’t know how they’d gotten to that point. “Sukea, have some! It’s really, really good,” Tobi said, still holding onto his skewer. He hooked a finger under the bottom of his mask and slowly began to lift it, while Kakashi watched with parted lips, in awe of the private moment. And then Tobi turned his head away and ate the dango. “Yum, yum!”
“How did someone like you get mixed up in this?” Kakashi motioned to his cloak, so he looked down at himself and gasped, as if he hadn’t known he was still dressed in the Akatsuki cloak. He was aggravating, and he knew it. He enjoyed frustrating the people around him, something he would never admit. He dropped his empty skewer back on the plate and swung his legs back and forth.
“Tobi knows people who know people who know people,” Tobi said, happily taking another skewer of dango. He didn’t offer Kakashi another skewer. After he dropped the second wooden skewer onto the plate, he took another and just held onto it. “I used to think you were annoying. Now I think you’re just incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. It’s dangerous, Sukea. You’re better off not asking questions. Why would a photographer need to know anything about Akatsuki, hm?” He worked his way through the remaining two skewers, then he sighed and patted his stomach. Kakashi frowned, then looked down at the camera hanging around his neck. “I’m staying here for two more nights. Decide how much that photograph really means to you, Sukea.” Tobi brushed his gloved hands together to get rid of the crumbs, then he patted Kakashi’s thigh.
He left Kakashi sitting outside of the sweets shop.