Chapter Text
Tsunade sent him on more missions than before, now that tensions were slowly increasing.
Kakashi would sometimes get a little note from Naruto that he could share with Iruka-sensei, and sometimes Iruka would share the letter he got from Naruto with Kakashi too. The sky was always startlingly blue and beautiful, as if unaware of the building tension among the little people bustling around below it, and Kakashi tried to take notes of how beautiful it was whenever he had the chance.
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it, Kakashi-san?” said Iruka. He turned back from the window he was looking out of to face Kakashi.
“Yes,” agreed Kakashi. It is almost as untouchable as your smile.
“Kakashi-san, here is your new mission. Do your best and come back safely.” Iruka’s dark eyes stirred in Kakashi, memories of love and war and fire and threatened to swallow him whole, so Kakashi just smiled and closed his eye.
The brush of skin was so unexpected that it was almost painful, a jolt of shock more startling than lightning. Kakashi almost dropped the mission scroll, but Iruka-sensei didn’t flinch, nor did he release his fingers. Kakashi’s eye opened from its forced smile, and it couldn’t be helped that it was drawn straight into Iruka’s direct, searching gaze.
He may have chosen not to be a jounin, but the instinctive analysis of a comrade or a situation, accurate judgment, and air of command were still an inherent part of the man. No wonder Tsunade was keeping him in this position of high security clearance. Though it was most certainly unintentional, Iruka had once again correctly analysed and understood the main part of Kakashi’s feelings, when Kakashi himself had no idea what those feelings were exactly.
“…Be careful, Kakashi-san.” Iruka’s eyes were unrelentingly piercing, but infinitely soft at the same time. It was the same look he used to get from the Sandaime, the same look he got from Tsunade. Iruka-sensei could see he was still only a soldier; only a lost child.
Kakashi bowed his head. What else could he do in the face of generations of wisdom and care?
Iruka’s warm fingers unwound from the cold scroll, leaving no trace of having ever been there at all.
*
Naruto came back, and Kakashi looked at him with pride; and at the same time felt even more helpless at the turmoil and anguish in both Sakura’s and Naruto’s eyes. He couldn’t save Obito, Rin, or even help Minato-sensei; and now he couldn’t even help Naruto, Sakura or wayward Sasuke.
“Kakashi-san!”
A clear voice cut into his heavy musings. Iruka-sensei waved at him from Ichiraku, the warm yellow light of the ramen shop spilling out onto the darkened street from where Iruka’s hand was holding a flap open.
“O-i! Kakashi-sensei!!” Naruto’s head poked backwards out of the opening, too. “Come treat me to seconds for being an awesome student!”
“That’s not how you invite people to dinner, idiot!” Iruka tapped Naruto’s head.
Kakashi came over and saw that Naruto had already eaten more than just seconds, judging from the pile of dishes stacked next to him.
Kakashi grinned. “If this was a plan to get me to pay for this leech, I’m afraid you won’t get me that easily, Iruka-sensei.”
Iruka blushed red and choked on his mouthful.
“No!! Of course not, I would never think about doing something that underhanded –“
“Haha!! He got you there, Iruka-sensei!” Naruto yelled happily through his mouthful. “Kakashi-sensei has a way with words, and he’s super stingy too! Last week, Kakashi-sensei tricked Yamato-taichou into paying for all three –“
Kakashi quickly slapped Naruto’s back, making him choke a little on his words. He didn’t want Iruka to think he was stingy, when he really wasn’t, damn that big mouth of the brat.
But seeing Iruka laughing and Naruto spluttering and protesting, lit by the warmth of the shop and enveloped by the smell of ramen and a little chalk, chased away the black rot inside his mind and papered it with orange.
Walking home with Iruka under a deceptively peaceful night sky was precious to him; something so ordinary but at the same time so fragile. He wondered how many more nights like this he would be allowed.
“Thank you for dinner, Kakashi-san. Though you really need to let me treat you next time.” Iruka smiled at him, and his scar shifted and his hair was lit up by the mundane street light, making him look like forgiveness on earth.
Kakashi kept trying his best.
Every time he felt helpless, someone would somehow end up dragging him back up; and this person was all over the place, offering him a hand in the form of Naruto, Sakura, Tsunade, Asuma, Gai, Tenzou, and most often, Iruka.
*
Jiraiya-sama was dead.
He tried to take on six Peins at once, when only three had razed Konoha to the ground.
Kakashi jumped across fallen rubble, mind categorizing and formulating any sort of plan.
He saw one suddenly appear in front of two figures on the ground. Kakashi put on a burst of speed as he recognized the distinctive facial scar of the crouching man.
“Where is the nine-tailed beast’s host? Speak, or I’ll kill you.” The voice of this Pein held no emotion.
“I won’t tell you anything,” said Iruka. His voice was unwavering and strong, and Kakashi’s stomach dropped as he saw Iruka’s acceptance of death in his eyes.
Kakashi barely made it in time, but he managed to stop the metal pole from acting out one of his nightmares in real life. It inflamed his fury, though it didn’t surprise him, that the pole had not shattered with the force he had used in stopping it.
“Take that injured man and get out of here, leave this to me.”
“Right,” said Iruka. Iruka looked at him for the smallest of a second longer than necessary, and it gave Kakashi all the incentive he needed to risk his life and attack the puppet with everything he had.
He was a genius shinobi, but he knew he wasn’t perfect. He couldn’t stop himself from feeling ordinary emotions like panic and rage. His mind whirred with plans and he had already decided on and was executing one; but intense anger at his opponent in trying to kill Iruka-sensei made him make a slight error and he formed a lightning clone instead of a shadow one, which took away half his chakra reserves.
With Chouji and Chouza, he was certain he could disable the puppets, but they were more skilled than he thought; and he used all his chakra and closed his eyes, thinking of all the people he would leave behind and all the people who would be waiting for him.
*
Walking forwards slowly in the darkness, he saw a small campsite with a campfire like the ones he and his father would make, a long time ago. The dark figure sitting beside the figure was overwhelmingly familiar, and Kakashi let go of all his sadness and pain and anger.
“Is that you, Kakashi?” Sakumo’s voice was soft and regretful. “Will you tell me about yourself?” The words, spoken hopefully, hesitatingly and reverently from his father told him everything he needed to know, and Kakashi sat down beside his father and smiled, greeting his father gladly for the first time in over twenty years.
“Sure. It will take a long time, but I want to tell you everything, dad.”
*
Something like a breath shot through his chest, and suddenly the darkness started to fade. Kakashi looked at his father, afraid to blink and uncertain whether he wanted to leave.
“Looks like it’s not your time yet. You still have things to do.” His father smiled his gentle smile. “I can move on… I can finally see your mother again.”
*
Kakashi woke up to the smell of dust and smoke and physical pain. The battered faces of Chouza and Chouji and all the other village ninjas showed the same type of disbelief and wonder, and Kakashi knew Naruto had made it. Naruto really was the child of the prophecy; the one who could change the world.
And as childish as it was, his pride for Naruto and his achievements brought on a sudden rearrangement of his own perspective; he was the Copy-ninja, Man of a Thousand Jutsu, but he was, and had only ever been just a skilled soldier and no more; a soldier who had been skilfully but blindly perpetuating the shinobi’s cycle of pain and hatred.
Kakashi shook his head, and tried to dislodge some of the blackness of his mind. It unnerved him that only a jumble of ordinary memories of Iruka-sensei could push away the black. Iruka-sensei shouting at jounin; Iruka-sensei eating ramen; Iruka-sensei smiling at Naruto. He needed to get to Naruto. Kakashi pushed himself up with a groan, and jumped to the forest where he knew Naruto would be coming from.
The blonde hair of Minato-sensei’s son was dirty when Kakashi saw him stumble through the trees.
“Good work, Naruto.” Kakashi caught the exhausted teenage boy on his back, and carried him back to Konoha.
Naruto’s blue eyes opened wide as he saw the village that once shunned him welcome him with gratitude; and as Kakashi saw Naruto accept their gratitude, he knew that Naruto was a bigger man than he had ever been.
Kakashi leaned against a tree and saw Naruto being lifted up onto Konoha’s shoulders and celebrated. He saw Naruto’s friends cheering him on, he even spotted Iruka in the distance, rubbing moisture from his eyes as he felt Naruto’s joy; and Kakashi was grateful that he could be lucky enough to smile wholeheartedly with them.
***
Kakashi never doubted that Naruto would be able to pull it off and save the world.
He did wonder whether Sasuke would be redeemable, but Naruto managed to pull him back, too.
Obito found it in himself to forgive the world and forgive him, and he took back his Sharingan when he went to move on to see Rin.
The shinobi world was still as active and brutal and busy as it had been before, and Kakashi was kept constantly occupied as the Rokudaime Hokage, sending his shinobi to deal with bands of rogue ninjas who were dissatisfied with reality and were otherwise confused by such a big upheaval of the world.
The difference was that the sky smelt different; it was higher are bluer and somehow more crisp and still cold. Kakashi could see the bright green of new leaves bursting everywhere, and the wafts of pollen making people sneeze; but to all this activity, there was a pervading sense of adolescent hope and joy. Was it because it was spring? Or was it because the biggest war in shinobi history was over? People started pairing up left, right and center, and went around sobbing and giggling and laughing like idiots.
It annoyed Kakashi.
It annoyed him and the annoyance was amusing to himself at first – who knew he could even feel annoyed? – but everyone seemed to take it as their mission to pair up the Hokage and this annoyed him to a level of irritation that he hadn’t known existed.
And what made everything worse, was that Iruka-sensei was kept busy with his responsibilities as the Academy Head and would more frequently send Shikamaru to do parts of his job, like helping Kakashi out with reports and general upkeep.
“Hokage-sama, you forgot to sign here again,” sighed Shikamaru. Shikamaru wasn’t even looking at the papers, instead he stared out the window.
“Oh. Sorry,” said Kakashi.
“Troublesome…” drawled Shikamaru as he slouched out of the room.
Kakashi wouldn’t normally have been irritated at that but his nerves had worn thin lately, and he had half a mind to send Shikamaru on some D-rank mission for showing that attitude.
Brat. All of them, a bunch of brats. He would fill out, sign and stamp that mission scroll as soon as he finished one of those piles of paperwork. And as soon as he could find where the order forms were.
Maybe he should organize his desk.
That reminded him, he needed to organize all his shinobi around Naruto’s wedding.
What do I need to do, thought Kakashi. He didn’t know whether it was acceptable or not to pull shinobi in the middle of missions, for a wedding. Or just straight out make the whole wedding a mission itself. But then, wouldn’t other couples complain and want all their friends at their weddings too? Did this mean he would have to halt all missions for a month to keep all these marrying couples happy? And why were there so many couples forming all of a sudden? Surely they were too young for it.
Kakashi was startled when he realized that it was already dark outside, and the pile of paperwork he had been attacking still loomed over him ominously.
Another late night, he sighed. He slowly stretched his back, getting settled for another night, when he heard a knock and the door opening without a wait for an answer. The only person who was confident enough to do that was one of his brats or Iruka-sensei.
Kakashi peered over the side, and his pulse fluttered at the view of Iruka’s handsome smile.
I’m glad I agreed to change the uniforms, he thought gleefully and guiltily, looking at the way Iruka’s shoulders and chest were outlined by the simpler cut of the new material. …I am a pervert.
“…it’s even stacked from left to right, so it’s obvious which one you should have gone for first.”
Kakashi honestly missed the first half of what Iruka had said. But it sounded like Iruka was telling him to do something.
“I told you, Iruka-sensei, to call me Kakashi.” This was no lie. It was a secret fantasy, having Iruka-sensei call his name so familiarly.
Kakashi smiled at Iruka’s rolled eyes, but then he remembered that it was Sunday night, and Iruka really shouldn’t be working so late.
“I hope you’re not overworking yourself, sensei. It’s Sunday night and you really should be resting.”
Kakashi thrilled silently in the throaty laugh he got from Iruka at that. And he was even more thrilled at the warm weight of Iruka’s hand gently gripping his shoulder.
“It’s funny you should say that, when you’re the one almost buried under these piles. Why aren’t you home yet?” asked Iruka. If being sexy was a crime, the man’s voice should be locked up.
Kakashi was the Rokudaime Hokage, and this was his desk. So he felt completely entitled to slouching whichever way he wanted on his own desk. He did not feel the need to explain to the Anbu guards on guard nearby, or to himself, why he ended up leaning slightly more on Iruka-sensei’s warm hand.
“The paperwork isn’t really the problem, sensei. It’s this,” said Kakashi, nodding at Naruto’s wedding invitation.
And with a quiet chuckle, Iruka solved the bureaucratic problem of the wedding, the headache that had plagued him for the past three days, in five seconds. And just as Kakashi was about to thank him, he found himself suddenly with a face full of Iruka; staring directly at Iruka’s tanned neck, the line of the Adam’s apple showing just below the sharp, smooth line of his jaw.
A split second later, Iruka-sensei’s smell followed, spinning Kakashi’s head and making his heart beat more erratically.
Kakashi could see the silent, smooth inhale and the slight dilation of Iruka’s nostrils as the man reached over and stretched – exposing a bit of his collar bone – to grab the wedding invitation on the other side of his desk. He should have put the damn thing more to the side.
And how Iruka did it, he had no idea, but he located the mission request form easily, and proceeded to fill it out while periodically ruffling through the Mission Roster with assured strokes of his fingers.
Each flick of the tan wrist raised Kakashi’s temperature, and Kakashi almost lost it when those fingers seared the exposed white skin of his wrist when he brushed the skin as he picked up the Hokage stamp.
Kakashi’s throat seemed to have seized up, and a cough wanted to force its way out of his chest as he choked a little on his own tongue.
Iruka-sensei’s dark eyes shot over to him in concern. It killed Kakashi a little that there seemed to be nothing else there except for friendly worry.
“I think you should go home, Kakashi-sama.” Oh Kami. Kakashi-sama? The voice, the proximity, and the double-edged words shot straight into the heart of his fantasies and Kakashi felt his face heat up noticeably.
As Iruka dragged him out of his office, Kakashi tried to simultaneously will away the blood from his face, while at the same time glaring threats at the minutely shifting wall, an obvious sign of his Anbu bodyguards, primarily Genma, laughing.
The cool night air brought Kakashi a little more to his senses, and Kakashi nodded to Iruka’s easy conversation.
The topic was Naruto’s wedding, and Iruka made him laugh a number of times. He really had a way with words; making people feel at ease and happy. Kakashi could only do it when he had an ulterior motive, and it was so refreshing to listen to Iruka’s lively voice.
“I’ve decided to get a life-partner of my own. I can’t lose to Naruto,” said Iruka lightly.
Kakashi thought the darkness was suddenly attacking him, and his stomach suddenly disappeared, leaving only a knot in his throat and chest.
Iruka turned to glance at him with his dancing, captivating dark eyes.
“I know at least three lovely kunoichis that have been pestering me to give them any job that entails going into your office, if you’re interested in getting a partner of your own,” he said jovially, not knowing that he was shattering Kakashi’s heart.
Kakashi sighed and looked at the night sky.
“I don’t really have time for it,” he said.
Iruka grinned at him, and Kakashi would have thought that there was a flicker of sadness there, had he not been so focused on the pain in his chest.
“You might feel differently if you found the right one, Kakashi-sama,” said Iruka, smiling and stepping on his fragile dreams. “You would probably end up making time for that person.”
I thought I already had found you, Iruka-sensei.
*
Iruka seemed hell-bent on giving him a migraine for every second of every day.
First it was Naoki, then Reiko, now this buffed up, corny youngster from Iwa, what was his name, Yoshiro? More like, NOshiro.
He had thought that Iruka-sensei would have left him in peace to lick his wounds and recover from such a brutal crushing of his dreams (not that Iruka-sensei actually knew about his feelings) but it seemed Iruka had many evil plans for him, judging from the covey of simpering messengers he kept sending into his office.
The headache was the reason why he was drinking alone and had purple makeup over his eyes, and was wearing a wig that itched a little; not the fact that Iruka-sensei was downing his third bottle of sake while in the company of the Iwa pufferfish.
And Kami, he would not be held responsible for his actions if he ended up chidori-ing NOshiro’s face off if he continued to check out Iruka-sensei’s well-formed butt.
Wait, if NOshiro was checking out Iruka-sensei’s butt, that meant Iruka-sensei was facing –
“Kakashi-sama.” Shiver. “I hope you’re here to apologize to our emissary.”
Apologize? Hell, I apologize for not sending his ridiculous pompous face into another dimension.
“Iruka-sensei. I hope you’re here to apologize for making my life hell for the past month,” glared Kakashi. And he was sure Iruka would have apologized if only he saw what he had been through in the last four weeks.
Iruka only glared at him, and made him make small talk with NOshiro.
And the bastard NOshiro must have been aiming to get Iruka-sensei drunk, because he himself was hardly drunk at all. He picked up on the little tensions in Kakashi’s facial and body language, as appropriate of a diplomat, and excused himself early while sending Kakashi a half-admiring, half-resentful glance.
On the walk home, Kakashi was still trying to piece his wounded heart together, though the amount of sake he himself had drunk on an empty stomach was getting to him a little. And Iruka-sensei was more worse for wear, staring a little grumpily at the bright stars above.
“You’re so picky,” said Iruka abruptly.
Kakashi found this to be unbearably hilarious at that moment.
Yes, he was picky. He had only ever liked two people in a non-familial way; and they had both been Uminos.
“So far, I know that you like deeper voices, lean muscle and a silent type,” muttered Iruka into the night.
Kakashi did not look at the man, but only grinned up at the cold sky. I’m pretty sure you’re not the ‘silent’ type. What the hell. Maybe he should just get it over with, once and for all.
“No. I like deeper voices, lean muscle and a caring type.” Kakashi stopped walking, suddenly nervous and sober now that he had voiced his thoughts so dangerously openly.
“Worrying about the reputation of the village and the Hokage, getting angry at others for even the slightest ridicule of the Hokage…” Kakashi swallowed dryly. His throat seemed too small, all of a sudden. The memory of watching Iruka wipe away tears of joy in the Academy yard, after Naruto had invited him to the wedding stirred his resolve to see this through.
“…being caring enough to shed tears in joy when a special student wants him to be a special guest at his wedding.”
Iruka looked stunned, and his eyes were suddenly so full of emotion, though they glanced away and fell onto Kakashi’s favourite tree.
Why didn’t Kakashi realize before that it wasn’t only him who had been hiding emotions, afraid of being hurt?
Kakashi was left waiting, his fragile, child’s heart fluttering in his throat as he waited for Iruka to look at him again.
“But that leaves only one person that I know of,” Iruka finally said lightly.
And the joy and sorrow and wonder in his eyes made everything worth it; and Kakashi leaned forward, as though drawn like water falling over a cliff while at the same time Iruka leaned towards him too, and the first touch of soft lips against his sent every nerve in his body scorching and frizzling out into oblivion and he couldn’t help relishing Iruka’s strong arms around him or himself holding Iruka against his body for more.
*
Epilogue
Kakashi checked his hair one more time in the bathroom mirror. It seemed as though he couldn’t really change the way it stood up all over the place, no matter how hard he tried.
“Kakashi, we’re going to be late,” Iruka grumbled from the entranceway.
“I’m coming, coming,” he said, grinning as he walked out to the living room, where Iruka was waiting.
The early afternoon sunlight lit up Iruka’s skin to a soft gold, and his hair glimmered chestnut and bronze as he turned to smile at Kakashi, making Kakashi wonder what he had done to be allowed to be this happy.
No matter what sort of kisses Iruka gave him, Kakashi was never prepared for the overwhelming sensations; and as he doubled checked his pockets for Naruto’s wedding present, his hand happily clasped in Iruka’s warm ones, he wondered at how little effort it took to smile brightly at everyone who greeted them on their way to the ceremony.