@netsurai // he didn’t show up for training today. in his defense, he tried— he made it as far as his coffee table before the fever brought him back down. he’s just laying there now, a blanket dragged from the couch half-heartedly over his shoulders. guess this is how he dies. how embarrassing.
did you ever see a robin weep / when leaves begin to die?
Kakashi would never tell his cute little genin this, but he usually checks in on them at the arranged meeting times, just to make sure they're all there, on time, before he moves on to doing something else. Sometimes that's staring at the memorial stone, zoning out. Sometimes it's clearing detritus from the rotating cast of grave stones of his father, of Obito, or Shisui, or Kushina, or... Rin, he visits, but her mother keeps her grave immaculate and even laying down flowers feels intrusive. Sometimes he just goes grocery shopping, if he didn't feel like doing it after training the day before.
When they are late, he likes to make them pull extra training, though he never tells them why.
Sasuke isn't there on his second check-in, which makes him over an hour late. Sakura's mouth is pulled into a worried little frown, and even Naruto has a little wrinkle between his brows when he stomps his feet and waves his arms around and rants about how 'the bastard' (a moniker that earns him a slap to the back of his head from their little kunoichi, though it hardly slows him down) is picking up Kakashi's bad habits.
That simply won't do. No student of Kakashi's is going to get in the habit of being this late to morning training. Everyone would think he's slacking, and that simply won't do.
He knows where all his students live; Sakura with her adorable, saintly parents, and Sasuke and Naruto in the genin barracks, with all the rundown decor and creaky stairs and mysterious water stains. On account of the mysterious water stains and the creaky stairs, Kakashi likes to enter the boys' apartments through the windows, whose crumbling sills present an interesting challenge when trying to stick to them with chakra. There are no signs of life within the apartment, other than the cracked window to air out the faint stench of sickness, and Sasuke's static little ball of chakra, crackling erratically from somewhere in the dark living room.
He slides the window open further, steps inside, and sighs softly when the boy doesn't so much as twitch. He closes the window-- there's a dusting of frost on the grass, or at least there was before the sun started to come up, and the way Sasuke's breathing sounds in the sudden quiet of the apartment makes Kakashi think maybe the cold wasn't so good for his breathing-- and steps closer, bending down to peer at Sasuke's barely exposed cheek and part of his forehead. He can feel the warmth radiating off of him from here, and it makes him sigh softly.
He weighs nothing, it's easy enough to arrange his limbs and pick him up once he gives up on sleepily shoving Kakashi's cold hands away. His adorable little genin (singular) is dropped back into his bed, and then manhandled until he's back under the blankets. The back of his hand against Sasuke's forehead suggests he might have an infamous Uchiha Fever. A sigh, as if Kakashi is terribly burdened, and then he leaves him with a cool, damp rag laid over his throat.
Kakashi decides he'll get some grocery shopping done, then, once he peruses all of the kid's cabinets and discovers Sasuke doesn't have any fever reducers or soup stock. Miso, some bone broth, little bite-sized bits of wood ear mushroom and some tea with licorice and marshmallow root and ginger. He's sure it will taste like shit, but he'll be shocked if Sasuke is even awake enough to protest when he tries to pour it down his throat later.
He returns with the bags of groceries, now an hour and a half late for training with Sakura and Naruto. Sasuke hasn't moved from the bed except to kick the blankets off his legs and roll onto his side, bunching them up around his torso. He's snoring a little, in the way sick kids sometimes do. Kakashi tosses the ingredients together for the soup, boils water for the tea, and then absently picks around in his head for a jutsu, something to make the air a little more humid in the apartment.
He fusses over Sasuke, swapping out the drying cloth for a new one, and freezes when the boy mutters a quiet, "Mom, I'm okay, I promise." Kakashi doesn't reply, he ducks back into the kitchen.
When he leaves, he has succeeded in making Sasuke suck down a mug of foul-tasting tea, a bowl of soup, and an anti-inflammatory. There's a note on his nightstand next to a glass of water and a couple more pills. It reads, in Kakashi's distinctly cramped handwriting:
Last dose: 0915. Next dose: 1215
Soup in refrigerator, stay hydrated. Don't come to training until Monday. I will check in on you soon.
He is three and a half hours late to training, and takes Sakura and Naruto both to task for not taking initiative while he was busy with very important matters-- he doesn't elaborate, or explain where Sasuke is.