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Sasuke has a problem.
The problem is that during missions, Sasuke starts the night at the very edge of the group, and by the morning he’s somewhere completely different.
Sure, he moves around in his sleep at home, always fitfully sleeping amid nightmares and weird dreams, but on missions it’s like he teleports in his sleep.
Normally, the formation is this: Kakashi sleeps on one side of the fire, and the genin sleep on the other side. Sakura sleeps in the middle of the two boys because Naruto and Sasuke need their space or else they’ll squabble at bedtime, and Sakura is the token sacrifice keeping them separated. To her credit, Sakura keeps an even distance between herself and each boy. She doesn’t scoot farther away from Naruto than she has to, nor does she sneak her bedroll closer to Sasuke’s than is appropriate. They have all figured out a sleeping formation that works for them.
Which is why it’s odd when Sasuke wakes up one morning and he’s sleeping with his head where his feet should be and his feet resting on top of his pillow. At some point in the night he had turned himself upside down. He’s lucky that he rises early because he’s out of his bedroll in a flash, secretly grateful that nobody is awake to see what happened. He speaks of it to no one.
It’s even odder when, another night, Sasuke wakes up and finds that Naruto is sleeping in the middle. That had certainly not been the case when they’d all laid down to sleep last night. Sleepy and confused, Sasuke is slow to process the situation, until his mind offers him an explanation for this anomaly.
Naruto did not, actually, sleep in the middle. More accurately, Sakura slept in the middle, and Sasuke somehow migrated his way around Sakura and Naruto until Naruto was the one in the middle.
It’s such a bewildering thought that Sasuke doesn’t even bolt out of his bedroll to hide the evidence. Instead he lays there for a few minutes and contemplates how the fuck he got himself and his bedroll on the other side of Naruto without waking anybody up.
God, he hopes he didn’t wake anybody up. Not because he cares about their sleep (though admittedly Sakura is…scary when she doesn’t get enough “beauty rest”) but because he does not want any witnesses to what happened.
A few minutes later Sasuke is already back in his designated sleeping area, packing up his things and pretending like he hadn’t basically teleported in his sleep. It’s fine, he thinks. No big deal. Sleepwalking isn’t uncommon, and anyway nobody saw him. He can pretend it didn’t happen. This won’t be a problem for him.
The first time he realizes this is going to be a problem for him, Team 7 is on a mission patrolling along the borders of Fire Country, and it’s pouring rain outside. That means they’re sleeping in tents, two to a tent.
Normally Sasuke and Naruto are paired in one tent while Sakura and Kakashi share another tent. On the first night of this shitty mission, Naruto and Sasuke fight so viciously over the cramped space in the tent that Kakashi is forced to separate them in the middle of the night.
It’s not Sasuke’s fault, obviously. It’s Naruto’s fault for spreading out like a starfish in his sleep and being so goddamn annoying even when he’s unconscious. If he has to share a tent with Naruto again in this lifetime it’ll be too soon.
Because they have to be separated, Sasuke now has to sleep in a different tent. For the second night of their mission, Sasuke shares a tent with Kakashi and tries not to feel bad about abandoning Sakura to deal with Naruto. He sleeps well, despite the cold rain outside.
Naturally, karma comes back to bite him in the ass, because in the early morning Naruto is violently woken up by a punch to the face. Apparently, in his sleep he had snuggled up to Sakura — and Sakura, a particularly violent sleeper, had accidentally socked him right in the nose. Luckily, her punch wasn’t full force, or else she might have broken Naruto’s nose. But still, despite how profusely Sakura apologized (because for once, she hadn’t intended to hit him), Kakashi decided that for the third night, Sakura and Sasuke would share a tent.
By that third night, everyone is tired, uncomfortable, and sick of the rain. The mission itself is perfectly routine, but none of them have gotten a good night’s sleep since the mission started. None of them enjoy being in such close quarters inside the tents. Sleeping outside usually affords everyone plenty of personal space. Sleeping in a standard-issue tent offers maybe an arm’s length of distance. Overall, Team 7 has been having an exceptionally hard time coping with the tent situation.
Tonight starts out fine. Sakura blushes when she moves her bedroll into Sasuke’s tent, but she doesn’t say anything weird, and she stays approximately an arm’s length away. She also doesn’t snore; neither does she want to stay up chattering about inane bullshit. These things instantly make her a better choice than Naruto, which Sasuke is silently grateful for. And as long as Sakura stays an arm’s length away, Sasuke doesn’t consider himself to be in danger of any flailing limbs.
It doesn’t take long for either of them to fall asleep, tired as they are from the previous nights of interrupted sleep.
Sasuke wakes up warm, which is a relief — it’s been pouring rain every night, and he’s glad to wake up without a bone-deep chill. He’s so warm and comfortable that he fights the urge to wake up, for once wanting to sleep in like Naruto usually does, regardless of the fact that it’s improper to sleep in. He was having a pretty pleasant dream, too. He keeps his eyes shut and chases the tail end of his dream.
He dreams that he’s petting one of the stray cats that live in the Uchiha compound, a little gray cat that Sasuke privately thinks of as Pebble, because as a kitten he looked as small as a pebble. Mother always told him not to feed stray cats, but now the stray cats of the compound depend on Sasuke. Sometimes he thinks he should send them all to Neko-baa, but selfishly, he enjoys their company. He hates to think of the bloodstained streets of the Uchiha district completely devoid of life again.
Pebble is a good cat. He usually roams around the training grounds Sasuke likes, possibly because he knows Sasuke will be there. Sasuke combs his fingers through Pebble’s soft fur and admires the feel of his healthy, shiny coat. It almost feels like the real thing.
He presses his face deeper into the pillow he’s holding and is startled by the feeling of hair in his mouth. Weird. His hair doesn’t grow long enough for it to get in his mouth. Did he get cat hair in his mouth?
He sleepily brings up a hand to wipe the hair out of his mouth and finds that the hair is everywhere. When he reluctantly opens his eyes to investigate, his vision is taken up by the color pink.
Sasuke freezes as he processes the situation.
He hasn’t been holding a warm pillow, he’s been holding Sakura.
Worse, he hadn’t been petting Pebble. He’d been petting Sakura’s hair.
His whole body heats up with acute embarrassment, his face so hot he thinks he might burst into flames. Thank every god in existence that Sakura is facing away from him so she can’t see how red his face is.
Actually, thank every god in existence that Sakura hasn’t woken up yet. He can’t possibly explain what’s happened here — he certainly hadn’t done this on purpose.
Had he rolled over and latched onto her in his sleep? Had he once again dragged his bedroll in his sleep, this time across the arm’s length separating him from Sakura?
His traitorous body is apparently doing things without his permission while he sleeps, and it’s almost beginning to freak him out. Mostly it’s pissing him off. How dare he cuddle Sakura in his sleep? How dare he pet her hair?!? Just the thought of it makes him too embarrassed for words.
Very, very delicately, he tries unwrapping his arms from around Sakura. This is more high-stakes than any mission he’s ever been on, and he almost died in the Land of Waves.
If Sakura wakes up, she’ll never let this go.
Worse, it turns out that the still-sleeping Sakura doesn’t want to let go either. She has one hand laced in his, making it extremely difficult for Sasuke to move without moving her. She’s curled up possessively around where his arms wrap around her thin frame.
This close, Sasuke can actually feel that she’s not as thin as she used to be. Ever since she quit her stupid dieting, she’s been building up a small but not insignificant layer of muscle, a much-needed development. She’s not as bony as he would have thought. If anything, Sakura is pretty comfortable to hold, despite the way her clean-smelling hair had somehow gotten into his mouth. Distantly, Sasuke is satisfied by the knowledge that Sakura is no longer the frail-looking skinny girl he once knew, but this satisfaction is buried beneath layers of mortification.
Wait, is he really thinking that holding Sakura feels nice?
Sasuke throws all caution to the wind and yanks his arm from around Sakura’s middle, inevitably stirring her in the process. She’s already waking up before he can scramble away quickly enough.
“Eh?” Sakura mumbles sleepily.
Then she turns her head to look over her shoulder and sees Sasuke.
He can’t imagine what he looks like. Probably he looks bewildered and as red as a tomato, which is a deeply unfortunate sight for Sakura to see. Instinctively, Sasuke freezes like a prey animal caught in a predator’s line of sight.
Sasuke’s face is much closer to Sakura’s than she expected it to be. Eyes suddenly widening with alarm but not with recognition, she shrieks and launches her elbow backwards into Sasuke’s face. “PERVERT!”
Sakura apologizes so profusely that she looks like she’s about to cry. Sasuke hates when she cries. She already looks contrite enough that he can hardly even be angry at her, so he waves her off. He just wants all of this to be over and forgotten about.
In her defense, Sakura had the appropriate response to what she believed was a pervert. Nearly broke his nose on instinct. He’s lucky he got away with just a bloody nose. Sakura is stronger than she looks, even half-asleep and uncoordinated as she was.
Sakura is so busy apologizing and fretting over him that she doesn’t seem to realize what had actually happened, which is that Sasuke had gotten too close to her, not the other way around. She thinks it’s her fault, and Sasuke isn’t going to disabuse her of that notion. He would feel bad about the misunderstanding, except he’s already paid the price in blood.
Now Sasuke and Naruto have matching black eyes — for committing the same crime, although nobody but Sasuke knows that.
Sasuke spends the entire day dutifully patrolling the area, staying at a distance and avoiding eye contact with anyone, just to be safe. He knows his team is going to think he’s just being moody about the situation, but again, he isn’t going to disabuse them of that notion. He really doesn’t want anyone to see the way he turns red when he remembers waking up to pleasant warmth and soft pink hair.
That night Kakashi gives up and lets Sakura have a tent all to herself, citing her sleeping habits as a “danger to herself and others.” Sakura seems torn between appreciating the privacy and being ashamed of her unintentional violence, but she takes the tent without resistance.
That leaves Kakashi, Sasuke, and Naruto sharing a single tent. It’s the last night of the mission, thankfully, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
To fit everyone inside, they all sleep back to back. Kakashi settles into the middle to keep the two boys separated, his single eye conveying his utter exasperation with the situation. He’s not even the one with a black eye, Sasuke thinks moodily.
Naruto snores all night, but at least Kakashi serves as a useful buffer against his starfish tendencies. The snoring becomes mere background noise after a while. Kakashi himself sleeps perfectly still, breathing so quietly that Sasuke has to strain to hear him.
As Sasuke falls asleep, he thinks that at least he doesn’t have any room to move around much in his sleep. He’s physically confined to his side of the tent; there will be no teleportation tonight. He also sincerely doubts that he will wake up holding Kakashi. He simply won’t entertain the idea. He has nothing to worry about.
His last thought before he loses consciousness is that it’s actually pretty nice, having his teammates at his back. He feels warm and safe, just like he did this morning — and that’s what finally lulls him to a peaceful sleep.
Sasuke’s problem doesn’t go away, but he takes measures to prevent another incident.
He places his bedroll as far away from his team as he can get away with, even though sometimes Sakura gets a look of regret on her face when he does. He ignores her feelings on the matter. He doesn’t think he could survive another incident.
As an additional security measure, Sasuke makes sure to place his backpack between his bedroll and the others. Having the additional barrier makes him less worried about moving around in his sleep.
He even debates leaving some of his kunai on the ground so that he’ll wake up if he rolls over onto one of them, but it’s a bad idea for several reasons. Maybe the only thing worse than petting a teammate in his sleep (Sasuke still turns a shameful red when he thinks of it) would be to injure himself on his own kunai in his sleep.
He still considers it, though.
He also practices sleeping more lightly, so that he’s more likely to wake up if he ends up somewhere he’s not supposed to be. This is more difficult than it seems, but after a quick scan of the Uchiha library for any relevant info, Sasuke finds some helpful tips.
He wishes he could be like Kakashi, who somehow can both sleep like a rock and be awake and alert at the drop of a hat. Kakashi also stays unnaturally still when he sleeps. It’s a little unnerving, honestly, but it also seems like it’s probably the hallmark of a good shinobi — being disciplined even when unconscious. Sasuke does his best to emulate Kakashi in this regard.
The next time it happens, there’s nothing special about the circumstances, no warnings as to what is to come.
Team Seven is traveling to a nearby village, and the local innkeeper is kind enough to let the shinobi stay in his inn for a slight discount. It’s a good deal and it sure as hell beats sleeping out in the cold, on the ground.
The room they stay in is spacious enough to house all four members of the team comfortably, with a generous amount of space between futons. Sasuke still drags his futon to the wall, but he’s secretly pleased with his accommodations.
Sakura no longer sleeps in the middle, given her…history. She sleeps on the other end of the room. Kakashi now serves as a buffer between Sakura and the boys, to Sakura’s unending mortification. This new and improved sleeping arrangement places Sasuke on one end, followed by Naruto, Kakashi, and finally Sakura.
This formation has worked for the last month, despite Sasuke’s proximity to Naruto. Keeping his backpack between their bedrolls helps, so he can block out Naruto’s face from view.
Tonight, there’s no changes to the rotation, and no reason to worry. It’s even the right temperature inside, not as cold as outside but not stuffy either.
The accommodations are nice enough and the conditions are ideal for sleeping.
Sasuke lays down for bed without a thought, secure in the knowledge there will be no incident tonight.
He dreams that he’s been assigned a D-rank to capture the local kitsune, a mission that should be easy thanks to practice catching Tora. The kitsune isn’t much bigger than Tora is. Should be a piece of cake.
For some reason it’s only Sasuke chasing the damn kitsune, but whatever, it’s not like he needs his teammates for such an easy mission.
And then he spends what feels like hours chasing the goddamn kitsune through Konoha. He runs up trees and dives into bushes in his attempts to catch the foxy little fucker, but nothing works. The kitsune keeps laughing at him with that stupid, shrill laugh that foxes have, and it’s starting to piss Sasuke off just to look at the thing. Since when are foxes so damn annoying? This thing is worse than Tora.
By the time Sasuke manages to catch the damn thing, the miniature kitsune has flopped on its back, like it’s letting Sasuke capture it. It makes Sasuke grit his teeth in irritation, and when he wraps his arms around it, he seriously debates squeezing the spirit to death. The fox just laughs at him again, quietly this time.
Why does that laugh sound so familiar?
When Sasuke opens his eyes, he’s met with nothing but bright orange, and he once again takes too long to process what that color means.
But even if he had had the sense to scramble away as fast as possible, it would have been too late.
By the time he looks up, he meets Naruto’s gaze, wide awake and grinning at him so smugly it makes Sasuke want to punch him in the face harder than a half-asleep Sakura.
“You like to cuddle,” Naruto says in a singsong voice, like it’s some kind of victory.
Sasuke could explode from the embarrassment of hearing those words said aloud.
“Shut up!” He hisses lowly, looking around to make sure nobody else is awake to hear.
“You’re still cuddling me,” Naruto points out smugly, but when Sasuke, horrified, tries to pull away, Naruto pulls him back.
“It’s not a bad thing,” he clarifies, with an air of magnanimous patience and something fragile. But his voice is still too loud, always so goddamn loud, and what if somebody hears —
“Shut up!” Sasuke hisses again under his breath, trying to squirm away, but Naruto is now holding onto him with surprisingly more force than he expected. Sasuke would need to put up significant resistance to get away, which would result in a tussle loud enough to potentially wake the others, and God this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him twice —
“You shut up,” Naruto snipes back, but he’s lowered his voice a little. Only a little. Not enough to make Sasuke’s anxiety go away. “It’s way too early to be awake. Just go back to sleep.”
It’s such an idiotic suggestion that Sasuke actually stops struggling to glare at him. “How am I gonna sleep like this?”
“You were doing just fine earlier,” Naruto whispers with a grin, teasing. “Don’t be so uptight, bastard. I promise I won’t tell your secret.”
“Let go of me — wait, what secret?” Sasuke says apprehensively, suddenly worried he must have done something else in his sleep. Did he unconsciously say something weird? He swears that if he petted Naruto’s hair in his sleep he will walk into the forest and disappear forever.
“You cuddled Sakura, and that’s why she punched you,” Naruto whispers with a shit-eating grin.
Fuck. The idiot figured it out. The blood drains from his face and then returns in a furious blush as Sasuke goes absolutely still with complete and utter mortification.
“Guess it’s my turn. I’m not complaining, so you shouldn’t either,” Naruto continues, snuggling into his bedroll and holding onto Sasuke’s arm with an even firmer grip, apparently to keep Sasuke from getting away. “It’s not like I’m gonna punch you or anything. Just go to sleep so you’re not grumpy tomorrow.”
Then he shuts his eyes and, as simple as that, falls asleep holding Sasuke’s arm hostage.
Sasuke gives up trying to get away.
He gives up on life, actually. He doesn’t see how he could ever live this down.
He could do other things, maybe. Become a rogue ninja. Find another way to earn a living. He doesn’t really need a genin team to get stronger. There are plenty of successful missing nin out there.
Naruto starts snoring softly into his arm, and the only positive about this situation is that his snores are slightly muffled. By Sasuke’s arm. Which Naruto has yet to let go of. So really, there are no positives to the situation.
Sasuke lays there motionlessly and contemplates his situation. He considers the various ways in which he could rudely awaken Naruto and then start fighting him viciously, but…it’s the middle of the night, and Sasuke knows Kakashi’s patience for middle-of-the-night shenanigans is wearing dangerously thin.
Then he considers the alternative, which is to lay here and let Naruto cuddle his arm for a few more hours before it’s time to get up for the day.
It sounds very, very tempting to yank his arm out of Naruto’s grasp and get violent.
Only the knowledge of how many laps he’ll have to run tomorrow if he does that stops him from getting violent.
Unfortunately, it looks like Sasuke is stuck with this idiot drooling on his arm for another four or five hours at minimum.
At least Sakura didn’t drool on me, Sasuke thinks miserably. And then he wants to punch himself for bringing that memory up unwarranted.
I’m not complaining, so you shouldn’t either. The idiot makes everything sound so simple. There’s plenty to complain about, in Sasuke’s opinion.
Then Naruto nuzzles his head into Sasuke’s arm and mumbles something incoherent, and Sasuke freezes again.
He just got nuzzled. By Naruto.
This has to be some kind of cosmic revenge for petting Sakura’s hair in his sleep. God, he hopes Naruto doesn’t try to do something gross to him in his sleep. Does he need to stay vigilant in case this behavior escalates somehow?
…Is it worth teasing Naruto about it tomorrow?
No, that just opens up an opportunity for Naruto to tease him back about this whole cuddling thing, and Sasuke needs him to keep his mouth shut about that. Unfortunately, there will be no teasing about this tomorrow. If Naruto does open his mouth, there will only be violence.
Why does he get the feeling that Naruto won’t say anything, though?
Maybe because he heard something vulnerable in Naruto’s voice earlier. Which doesn’t make sense, because Sasuke is the one who woke up in a compromising position, so he doesn’t understand what the dobe had at stake. Naruto was the victim. And he wasn’t even mad, or grossed out, or anything. He was just smug about having some embarrassing blackmail over Sasuke, which makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense is why he forced Sasuke to keep cuddling him.
Sasuke can’t fathom the ulterior motive behind this, except for it being some kind of unconventional power play. Hell, it’s cold outside, but it’s not so cold that they need to be huddling for warmth; plus the guy is basically a living space heater, so there’s no excuse there. He can’t really see how this gives Naruto any more ammunition to tease him with, either.
Naruto could have laughed him out of the room and caused a scene. He should have laughed him out of the room. Sasuke’s not sure why he didn’t, or what that means.
He turns to look at the unconscious blond in consternation. What the hell is the idiot sleeping so peacefully for, when Sasuke’s stuck thinking about stupid things like feelings? Sasuke can admit that it would be more productive for him to be asleep right now than lie awake ruminating, but how is he supposed to sleep in these conditions? When at any moment, he’s in danger of being nuzzled?
Is this his life, now? His traitorous body moves of its own accord, and now he’s basically trapped for the whole night? Is this going to be a never-ending cycle? How many C-ranks until Sasuke can start going on solo missions?
He feels like his whole body is overheated with embarrassment, but then he realizes that Naruto is partially responsible for that warmth. The other boy must naturally run hot, because Sasuke’s already starting to sweat a little bit just from the proximity.
Being warm is objectively better than being out in the cold, he supposes. Even though he’s sweating a little bit, he still prefers this to being outside, or else he would already be outside. If he thinks too hard about why he prefers this, though, he might lose his mind, so…it’s not even worth thinking about. He’s not in the mood to do the mental math.
And who does he have to justify himself to, anyways? Naruto is holding onto him with an iron grip. He wants Sasuke to stay there.
Sasuke…tries not to think about how that makes him feel.
But it’s not a bad feeling.
Maybe if he were Sakura, or even Naruto, he would spend more time trying to categorize his feelings into more than just good and bad, but frankly that’s a waste of time. It’s enough to say that what Sasuke is feeling right now is not a bad feeling, although he thinks that by all rights, it should feel bad. Now that he’s calming down, though, it just…doesn’t.
He stares at the ceiling and thinks that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Naruto’s hardly even snoring anymore, and the drool…is still bad, but acceptable. Sasuke can cope with having some drool on his sleeve. At least the idiot isn’t awake and crowing about how the last Uchiha is secretly a cuddler.
Sasuke shudders. That is not a trait he wants associated with the Uchiha legacy.
Before his thoughts can turn darker, Naruto suddenly stirs. Sasuke makes himself extra still, and after a few moments, Naruto’s breathing evens out again. Sasuke feels a little relieved that Naruto didn’t wake up again. Then he wonders why he even bothered to be considerate and avoid waking the blond up. There’s no good explanation for why he’s letting himself be held hostage like this. He hadn’t let Sakura hold him hostage.
…Although, in his haste to get away, he had certainly paid the price. Next time — God forbid, but if there’s a next time — he’ll let Sakura hold him. It’s not so bad. Definitely better than the alternative.
Maybe that’s the reason why he lets Naruto hold onto his arm like it’s a warm pillow. Maybe he learned his lesson from last time, that it’s easier to just give in.
No, that’s not right. Since when does Sasuke just give in to anything (tonight’s incident notwithstanding)?
Maybe Sakura was always destined to smash in the face of an unexpected cuddler. And maybe Naruto was always destined to be a moron.
But why is Sasuke still willingly suffering the indignity of cuddling? Does it mean anything? That’s what he can’t figure out, and it frustrates him.
Sasuke’s downward spiral is interrupted by his own yawn. He frowns at himself, wondering how he went from being wide awake to suddenly tired again. All this thinking in circles about feelings is actually physically exhausting.
He can’t quite tell how much time has passed, which is a flaw he should remedy later. But from the way the sunlight has only just begun to creep through the window shutters, he knows it’s far too early in the morning to be thinking so hard.
It must be nice being Naruto, he muses, not having any thoughts in his head to keep him awake at night.
Frustrated with himself, Sasuke decides to put the issue to bed, as it were.
He’s here because Naruto is holding him hostage. He’s not getting away because it isn’t worth the consequences. He’s huddled close for warmth because it’s better than being cold.
And none of it has to mean anything.
Sasuke tells himself this repeatedly until he finally, against his own intentions, falls asleep.
Kakashi has been aware of Sasuke’s “problem” since the beginning. He never said anything, obviously, both because the boy would be embarrassed to death, and because it’s honestly funnier if Sasuke genuinely thinks he could get away with moving his bedroll 20 feet without Kakashi noticing.
Kakashi has been a shinobi nearly twice as long as these kids have been alive, and Sasuke isn’t a particularly stealthy sleepwalker. But it’s cute that Sasuke wakes up earlier than everyone else so that no one finds out he was cuddling one of his teammates in his sleep.
Tonight they’re sleeping in one of the border outposts, a simple cabin built for patrolling squads and the occasional injured shinobi who can’t make it all the way to the village.
Kakashi took first watch tonight. When his time is up, he soundlessly enters the cabin to wake Sasuke for his shift.
What he sees is enough to raise his eyebrows up to his hairline.
In spite of all logic, Naruto and Sakura are both curled up around a sleeping Sasuke. Naruto has a leg thrown over Sasuke’s and Sakura has both arms wrapped around his arm in a bear hug. All three of the genin are sound asleep beneath a bearskin blanket foraged from the cabin’s supplies.
Kakashi curses himself for not bringing a camera. This is a blackmail opportunity that Kakashi could use for years to come.
It’s also very cute. But as much as it softens his ice-cold heart, Kakashi is thinking more about the potential bargains he could make with Sasuke to keep such a picture private. Sasuke has a reputation to uphold, after all, and a little cuddling would ruin his image. Who knows? In five or ten years, an embarrassing childhood photo could have been a valuable trump card….
Oh well. At least he can quickly memorize the scene with his sharingan, if for no other reason than to preserve the memory of his cute little genin.
There’s no need to debate if he’ll wake up Sasuke for his watch. Waking up Sasuke at this point would wake up the other two, and while that does sound hilarious, he’d rather not have them freak out in the middle of the night. The little shits can rest, for now.
Looks like Kakashi’s on watch for the rest of the night.
Kakashi sighs, feeling a little more fond of the genin than he really means to, and silently exits the cabin. He sits down on a log, leans back against the wall, and cracks open Icha Icha Violence.