ImmediatelyWriting's One Shots

#47. Naruto - Kakashi/Gai) Sandwiched in Between

Summary:
Two bakeries. Two owners.
Both trying to prove themselves worthy.
Battling fervently, with just one street sandwiched in between.
For Kakashi, it's already nerve-wracking enough that he has to take over his father's bakery. This gets even harder when the owner of the bakery on the other side of the street decides to challenge him to battle for the title of best bakery in town.

Fandom: Naruto
Ship: Kakashi/Gai
Genre: Bakery AU

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Everyone was born with one goal in life. That was what Kakashi was raised to believe.

Daily training, learning his father's skills through trial and error, that was what his father put him through for Kakashi to eventually reach his goal. It'd been a long road, and not an easy one, considering the times Kakashi had shed blood, gotten burned or simply failed the entire mission.

But now? The day that Kakashi'd thought he'd never reach had come. There was no postponing allowed anymore, now that he'd gained the skills needed to succeed his retired father.

Kakashi felt his heart beating faster as he approached what had recently become his. It looked so much bigger now, now that he'd realized that he wouldn't be working under his father's orders anymore. He'd be doing this all on his own from now on; following the path that his father had set out for him.

Kakashi exhaled calmly and grinned underneath his oversized scarf. He waited until the fog coming from his mouth had cleared before he turned the key and pushed open the big doors.

He closed his eye as the smell of yesterday's anpan and melon bread greeted him.

This—He thought to himself as pulled down his scarf a little and inhaled deeply.—is home.

When he opened it again, he noticed how he felt all warm inside, and no, it wasn't because of the temperature difference between the wintery outside air and this cozy bakery. This warmth was more of a feeling, soft and comfortable in his chest.

He walked further into the bakery that had become somewhat of a second home to him over time. Absent-mindedly, he slid his fingers across the counter's surface and recalled all the times he'd accidentally dropped trays of food because he always managed to ram into the corner of the counter because of his blind spot. He chuckled, wondering how many more times that was going to happen now that he had to run this bakery all by himself; there was no one to back him up or quickly bake some fresh bread for customers when their order had been carelessly dropped on the floor.

And there it was, neatly folded and lying on the wooden counter; it was just a piece of fabric, an old and worn one for that matter, but to Kakashi it was much more than that. He picked up the apron, stroked the elegant characters that'd been hand-sewn into the fabric, and as he did so he felt the roughness of the apron as it had lost all of its softness by being washed so many times over the years.

He needed to take a deep breath, convince himself that he really deserved to wear this apron after seeing his father wear it day in and day out for as long as Kakashi could remember. "You have worked hard, Kakashi," his father's words of last Friday evening reached him. "You've earned that apron."

I'm worthy, Kakashi reminded himself, so he took off his coat and scarf and replaced them with the off-white apron and a facemask to keep everything in the bakery hygienic.

Now that he was wearing this apron, laying his eye upon this bakery was different from all the times he'd done so before; sure, he had helped out his father since he was tall enough to reach above the counter, but never had he looked at it through the eyes of the owner. The moment his father hung up his apron and passed it on to Kakashi, he had given his beloved bakery a new owner. There was a new Hatake ruling Sakumo's Sandwiches and that was his son. That was Kakashi.