The worst part wasn't that Obito was back. It was that he was everything Kakashi had been missing for half his life, and you could see the hollow spaces in Kakashi’s chest filling up every single day.

You sat across from them at the corner booth of the dango shop, the wood rough beneath your fingers as you picked at a napkin. Kakashi was reading his usual book, but his posture was looser than it had ever been when it was just the two of you.

"You've been quiet today.” Kakashi noted, closing his book with a soft thud. He reached out, his gloved hand resting on the table just an inch away from yours. "Everything alright at the headquarters?"

"Just tired.” You lied smoothly, pulling your hands back to rest in your lap, out of reach. "The post-war paperwork never really ends, does it?"

“You should delegate more.” His tone was warm, though you could see his fingers twitch before he withdrew. His hand brushes against the fabric of Obito’s dark cloak as he slid back into the seat.

"What are we talking about?" Obito asked, leaning his weight heavily against Kakashi's shoulder, and popping one of Kakashi’s dangos into his mouth. "Are we talking about how the sensory unit is still messed up? Because I told Tsunade I could fix the barrier seals, but she still doesn't trust me near the core."

Just like that, Kakashi’s attention shifted, and the conversation moved away from you. You weren’t mad, you didn’t hate Obito, and you didn’t want to be the sole object of Kakashi’s affections— you just felt like an intruder at a table you had been invited to.

Kakashi still called you, still asked you to join them for dinner, still treated you like a fixture in his life, still trained with you; but it wasn’t just the two of you anymore. And that was the worse part of it all.