sunshineverse | [CLOSED] her dirty paws and furry coat

Who: Konayuki Itezora and Kakashi Hatake with special guest celeb Obito Uchiha!
Where: Konoha, the park and then Kakashi's apartment.
When: Evening on the 9th.

It had been long weeks of non-stop travel, from the mountainous eastern mountains of Ice Country to inner Fire, and Konayuki was both tired and farther from home than she'd ever been. It was lucky, really, that she had been tagged and rounded up before reaching the village, because it meant that her actual time spent wandering and getting hideously lost in the largest settlement she'd ever seen was cut short. Instead, she was sat on the ground in a park, nibbling on dango and marvelling as the surrounding buildings disgorged more and more people as the evening wore on. She'd never seen so many people in one place before. She'd never seen so many buildings in one place before.

She'd also never seen a place with so few animals to hunt. With so many people in the village, she supposed the immediate area was hunted clean and they'd have grounds farther out, but how to ask about it, when she was a foreigner? Maybe she could do what the Itezora children always did in the festivals or gatherings in Kanna, and trade hours of work building, fetching and carrying for the coins ground-dwellers used, since everyone seemed to be using those to buy food from the stalls in the park. How many coins would she need? A lot, she guessed. It gave her something to puzzle over as Uncle Obito sent out bird after bird, apparently using them to find Kakashi like her grandmother had used her two rabbit sisters.

"How will they find him in such a big place?"

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The walk from the park was a short one, but after they'd said goodbye to Obito the reality of the situation seemed to start to settle in, and it made those few short minutes feel like hours... Walking back to his house with company - company he'd just practically adopted, no less - was not by any means something he was used to, but now he supposed that it (and many things like it) would fast become a regular occurrence now that he had responsibility, and a position of support to play in another persons life.

It was terrifying. Of course it was. Kakashi hadn't put himself in this position since ANBU for the fear of the damage he might do-- but Kona was resilient and determined to say the least; after the bond that had formed between them in Ice, and after the monstrous journey the little one had made to be close to him... How could he turn her away, even if he'd wanted to? They would take this journey together, and face whatever it might throw at them together.

Having tucked her ridiculous sword out by the back of the complex, he led her up the stairs to his floor. Once outside the door he glanced at her, unable to help the twitch of a smile at the view of Eien's little face practically swamped in the tuft of silver atop her head, and then took in a deep breath before unlocking the door and pushing it open.

"Well," he announced, with the tone of voice that made it sound more like an apology. "This is home."

Konayuki, conversely, had had the entire duration of their conversation and the walk back to mull over her new situation. It wasn't like she objected to the decision, but the blind panic that had set her scrambling down the mountain towards a distant, unknown village was fading in the face of other people, and she was guiltily aware of how selfish she was being by going along with them... but Kakashi felt less like an obliging foreigner and more as though he was a distant relation. Was it so bad?

She'd keep being selfish for now, she decided, and managed a bright smile as she pattered past Kakashi into his apartment and released Eien back into the wilds so she could pull off her boots. And then onward to investigating.

"It's high up!" was her first conclusion, as she hopped up to the desk via the bed. She thought about that, took in the row of photographs and the little carving, took in the tidiness and lonely feel, then laughed more genuinely as relief surged through her. It wasn't just selfishness. She could help him too. "I can't really call Uncle Kakashi a ground-dweller any more, huh?"

Kakashi looked for a fraction too long at the little pair of boots sitting at the side of the door. There hadn't been shoes there for a quite some time, and even when they had been, they'd always been visiting shoes that would leave within a few hours or less. He carefully picked them up and placed them on the mat, soon joining them with his own before he padded into the apartment after her.

"There are higher points in Konoha," he said with a small smile, trying not to feel self conscious at how suddenly bare and lifeless his apartment felt when surrounding Konayuki. "Like the mountain.. but yes, I suppose we're quite far from the ground right now."

"If we'd tried to build something this high on Mount Odori, it would have blown over super quickly," she confided.

Given that she'd been living in a cave on the dregs of her village's stores, the apartment was practically bustling. When she spun and hopped back down onto the head of the bed, there was nothing but interest in her expression, which shifted back to the more dangerous facet of curiosity as she hopped once more and went to investigate the kitchenette.

Or the counters of the kitchenette. Being small was hard and no one understands. Back to the main room, then.

"I think it's great! Where should I put my pack?"

Kakashi watched her plod around with her defiant curiosity, Eien skipping about by her heels-- and all of a sudden, that lonely and empty view he'd had of his apartment shifted and made a sharp turn into it's opposite. Suddenly, surrounding Konayuki's brightness and Eien's life, the apartment was starting to feel less like a room and a bed and more like something vaguely resembling a home.

He paused for a moment, however, when she mentioned her pack, and realised he wasn't entirely sure where he'd been intending to have her sleep.... Oops.

"Anywhere you want. You can tuck it in the cabinet there," He pointed to the little storage unit at the side of his desk. "Or you can put it on top of the desk."

Meanwhile he moved over to open the doors of his closet and rummage around in the bottom of it.

"Got it!"

Most of his time spent rummaging, she spent looking between her satchel and the cabinet with a child's heavy doubt. It didn't look very sturdy. But once she'd taken out her flask and the last packs of food and placed them on the carpet for Eien to sniff enthusiastically, there was enough give that she was done with time to spare.

Which meant, naturally, that she was obliged to pad over to stand next to Kakashi and announce, "Done!" in his ear. She might have been the weakest in the village, but she was one of the best when it came to giving her elders mild heart attacks.

Out of his closet he started to pull a mess of blankets in varying stages of softness and use; some of them he hadn't seen since he was a child, and others were more favoured by his dogs, but he intended sort through them all to find something for Konayuki. As much as he was well aware she had a tent and probably could have easily assembled it in what little floorspace he had clear, he thought an actual place of rest might prove more grounding for his new lodger and companion, even if it would temporarily be a nest of soft things.

His thoughts were musing over where exactly he was going to set up her bed when her voice rang loud in his ear, and like a terrified cat his hair stood on end, his balance failed and he wobbled from his crouched position to a sprawled heap on the floor with a defeated thud.

He couldn't help it. The surprise had been too perfect, and his reaction even moreso. He laughed, honest and loud, right from his chest, the expression creasing his eyes and pulling at his mask.

She'd already started to giggle the moment he'd jumped, but by the time he was laughing on the floor and Eien had decided this meant playtime and had bounded over to start barking helpfully at Kakashi from atop his chest, she was beaming brightly enough to cause third-degree burns.

Eien's barking turned into a startled yip as she tugged the blankets he'd gathered out from the cupboard and placed them over Kakashi's torso - and over the puppy - but she wriggled back out fast enough and took up residence under his chin instead. At least her barking was replaced with enthusiastic licking, whilst Konayuki used the distraction to fetch her sleeping roll from her pack.

"This will work, right?"

Kakashi pushed the little dog away with a gentle hand as he moved to sit up. Eien seemed to have no problem at all in licking his chin despite the fact it was covered by his mask; she seemed entirely unphased by the presence of the fabric, and in fact licked all the more enthusiastically as if to compensate for his skin being covered. It was adorable, that much was true, but it left his mask with an inconvenient damp patch and he grimaced at the feeling of cold, wet saliva sitting against his jaw. He'd have to change.

"For now. I'll find you something a little more appropriate tomorrow, I have a friend-" He paused. He needed to check that Yamato was actually in the village before promising anything bed-shaped out of him. He let the sentence die into silence, looking from Kona to the mess of blankets, to the barren spaces in his apartment. "...I should have prepared a little more."

[CLOSED] her dirty paws and furry coat

later on when they're actually at his apartment

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