Chapter Text
When Iruka stepped off his porch today, he immediately knew something was different.
First, it was a Saturday. Game day, Naruto had once told him. It was later in the afternoon, closer to 2 or 3 pm. The boy had three black stripes painted on either cheek, giving him the appearance of whiskers. His soccer uniform was streaked with grass stains.
Second, there was a man with Naruto this time. He was tall and lanky and had crazy white hair that fell all over his face (maybe it was dyed, or maybe it had gone white early from stress). His hands were shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts and he was slouching so hard that his shoulders almost rode up to his ears.
Naruto had one hand fisted in the back of the black tank the man wore. It looked like it had once been a t-shirt before the sleeves got cut off. The ragged fabric exposed all of his arms and some of his shoulders. There was a curious curl of red tattooed on his bicep.
“This is Coach ‘Kashi!” Naruto proudly proclaimed as if he were showing off some new novelty.
The man’s gaze followed him as Iruka wove his way through all the no dogs! signs on his lawn. His eyes were dark and beady, barely visible between his wild hair and the top of the blue surgical mask he wore. It was a bit of an odd fashion choice, but Iruka got it. As an elementary school teacher, he learned the hard way that children carried the plague like rats, and he always came down with whatever cold or flu that went around each winter.
Iruka glanced down at himself. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt (dolphins and loud colors), khaki shorts, and flip flops. The other man sported some horrific combo of socks and sandals.
There was already some intense clash of energy going on between the two of them. Like they were two sides of the same coin, similar, yet incredibly different. Warring. Maybe one of them needed to change.
(The Dad energy was off the charts.)
Iruka marched up to him, somewhat peeved that his usual hangout with Naruto had been intruded on.
The man looked slightly familiar.
Iruka froze. Then he jabbed a finger at him in surprise. “Dog man!?”
The man shifted his weight onto one foot and crossed his arms. “Hose guy.”
“How’s Fifty Shades of Grey?” Iruka snarked. That man really shouldn’t be allowed around children.
“What’s Fifty Shades of-?” Naruto began, but Iruka quickly cut him off.
“It’s a book,” he said, because he knew Naruto “hated” reading like the elementary school delinquent he thought himself out to be. As he had correctly assumed, the kid immediately made a disgusted face and, thankfully, dropped the subject.
He instead glanced between the two of them with shifty eyes. “You two know each other?”
Iruka was about to give an emphatic no, but the man cut him off.
“We do.” He set a hand on top of Naruto’s messy hair. “After Naruto told me about the ‘nice man with the hose’, I wanted to tag along to see if he was the same guy that liked to water damage literature.” He shot Iruka a meaningful look.
So what that Iruka might’ve accidentally hit the paperback novel the man was reading in his quest to get him and his dogs off his lawn. “I wouldn’t go so far to call that book literature.”
“All stories are literature, even fanfiction,” the man said evenly.
Iruka glanced around, suddenly worried about the fate of his lawn. “Where’s your like, fifty million dogs?”
“I only have eight.”
Eight!
Iruka grit his teeth and stuck out a hand. At least all eight of those dogs were safely off his lawn. “I’m Iruka Umino.”
The man removed a hand from his pocket to shake his. “Kakashi Hatake.”
His hand flopped around like a limp noodle in his grip. Iruka got the idea that this Kakashi fellow was not one to socialize. So what was he really doing here, then? He watched the man’s eyes rove around his lawn, taking note of the hose lying unused in the grass, the no dogs! signs, and the child-sized soccer net.
“Nice set up you got going on here.” Kakashi put a hand on Naruto’s head again. Then he tilted his own head and his eyes curved up into a smile. “Thank you for taking care of Naruto.”
Thank him??? As if it weren’t the responsibility Iruka had taken upon himself to shoulder over the past couple of weeks. Kakashi had made it sound like he was Naruto’s primary caretaker while Iruka had just done him a favor.
“No, no, thank you for coaching his soccer team,” Iruka shot back. Two could play this game.
Kakashi’s expression remained unchanged, but something in his eyes stopped smiling. “Of course. I do what I can, as do you.” He nodded at the small goal Iruka had bought Naruto. “Care for a friendly game of soccer?”
Something about his tone set him on edge. “Um,” Iruka gulped.
It’s a trap it’s a trap it’s a trap, his mind so helpfully supplied, but for the life of him he could not figure out why. It seemed innocent enough.
“YEAH!” Naruto answered for him. “COACH ‘KASHI VERSUS MISTER ‘RUKA! WHO WILL WIN!?”
“Oh, well,” Iruka continued bashfully, rubbing the bandaid on the bridge of his nose. He had a bad habit of worrying it when he got nervous. “I haven’t played since college, and even then it wasn’t serious…”
“C’mon, it doesn’t even have to be a full game, just a kick.” Kakashi circled around the lawn until he was in front of the child-sized goal. He took a wide stance and put out his arms. “I’ll stand here, and you try to kick the ball in.”
His voice was calm and patient. With a start, Iruka realized he must’ve been using his coaching voice, typically reserved for little kids. He crossed his arms and tried to put on an air of nonchalance. “Sure, one quick game won’t hurt.”
He prayed that was the case.
Iruka kicked his flip flops off and retrieved the kid-sized soccer ball he had bought Naruto for their practices. He set it on the grass in front of the goal.
Across the lawn, Kakashi stood in a low and steady stance. His eyes were curving into that damn smile again. Okay, so what if Iruka tried to nail him in the balls…. He shook his head frantically. No, that would be setting a bad role model for Naruto.
A warm summer breeze stirred between them. The birds began chirping ominously in the trees.
The back of Iruka’s neck prickled with unease. Sweat beaded on his brow and ran down the side of his face.
It was just a game.
It was just a game, and yet, why did it feel like something so much more? Why did it feel like there was so much more on the line?
So what that this guy was Naruto’s soccer coach. Iruka was the one making sure that the kid didn’t die from dehydration, had a healthy lunch after practice, and helped him with his drills. It had taken about a month of their back-and-forth before Kakashi had finally bothered to show up to figure out who was spraying his student with water. Iruka was the one that was always there for Naruto. He couldn’t let Kakashi take that role from him.
His resolve hardened, and he stared down at the ball. His vision narrowed until it was all he could see. All he needed to do was to kick the ball into the goal, the man who happened to be standing in between them be damned.
(Looking back, Iruka would later realize that he had felt his position as Dad™ being threatened and had acted accordingly.)
Iruka took a running start, swung his leg back, and channeled every ounce of rage and desperation into one powerful, absolutely devastating kick.
There was a loud SMACK! of skin on plastic as Iruka’s foot collided with the ball, and then an even louder SMACK! when the ball hit Kakashi in the face. His head snapped back and he toppled backwards onto the ground.
Something round and heavy landed in the grass next to him with a thump! It bounced a few times and rolled to a stop. The sunlight reflected oddly off of it.
There was a moment of silence as the two remaining parties stared at the fallen soccer coach. Their eyes drifted to the goal he had successfully defended at the cost of his life, and the soccer ball slowly rolling to a stop on Iruka’s lawn.
Then Naruto erupted in cheers. “HEADSHOT!” he screeched, thrusting his fists into the air with all the pure glee and bloodlust only found in small children.
“Oh fuck- shit!” Iruka cut himself off quickly, realizing what he had said in front of Naruto. Not that his correction had been any better.
Thankfully, the child was too busy jumping up and down in excitement. He ran over to where Kakashi was sprawled on the lawn and stared down at him. “Coach ‘Kashi, are you okay?”
“...yeah.” The man made a strangled sound from the ground. He sounded slightly winded.
“Okay!” Naruto scampered off to examine what had fallen in the grass. He crouched down next to it to get a better look. Iruka, too, curiously followed his gaze to the object.
It was a glass eye, glinting darkly in the sunlight.
Naruto reached a finger out to poke it.
“No don’t- don’t touch it!” Iruka rushed forward and pulled the kid away.
Naruto turned around, an expression of absolute awe on his face. Iruka would’ve cried in joy at the sight, if it weren’t for the deed he had committed to have earned such adoration.
“YOU KNOCKED HIS EYE OUT!” Naruto screeched, tugging excitedly at Iruka’s clothes as if the situation wasn’t so serious. “YOU KNOCKED HIS EYE OUT, MR. IRUKA!”
“Oh my god.” Iruka covered his mouth with both hands. “Oh my god, I killed him!” He scrambled towards his porch, to where his phone would be inside on the kitchen table. “I- I gotta call an ambulance! I knocked his eye out!”
“No, no, it’s fine.” The downed man stuck an arm up and waved limply at him. His hand flopped around on his wrist. “I was in the armed forces, I’ve taken a lot more than this.”
The day couldn’t get any worse. Iruka had just assaulted a disabled veteran.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Iruka settled for grabbing the limp arm and pulling Kakashi back upright so that he could sit on the grass.
His mask was all askew from where the ball had hit him square in the face. His left eye was closed, presumably covering the empty socket, but there was a twinkle in his remaining eye. “That was one hell of a kick, Mr. Umino,” Kakashi hummed appraisingly as he adjusted his mask back into place.
“Just Iruka,” Iruka corrected him automatically, his face flushing. He’d just hit the man in the face hard enough to knock an eye out, and yet here he was, complimenting him? “No formalities, please.”
“Likewise.” Kakashi dropped his hand away from his face in favor of keeping himself propped up on the grass. “Could I possibly get an ice pack?”
“Yes, yes, of course, right away!” Iruka dashed off into his house. He reemerged with an ice pack and a long strip of bandage to tie it to his head so that Kakashi wouldn’t have to constantly hold it in place with a hand.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Iruka offered sheepishly as he passed the ice pack off to Kakashi, “Naruto got me in the face with the hose once. So yes, I have tasted my own medicine.”
As if the sound of his name had summoned him, Naruto appeared. He walked up to them and dropped the glass eye into Kakashi’s lap like an obedient dog.
“Naruto, I told you not to touch it!” Iruka scolded him. “It’s not polite to touch other people’s things, you know?”
Naruto ignored him and threw himself down in the grass between them. “Can you get a cooler eye, Coach ‘Kashi?”
“Cooler?” Kakashi tipped his head at him. The ice pack tied around his head made his hair stick up like an unruly hedgehog. “How so?”
“Maybe like, red. With a slit pupil. Or glow in the dark! Like a dragon!” Naruto thrust his fists into the air.
Kakashi set a hand on his head. “All nice suggestions, Naruto. Maybe I will.” He picked the eye up, wiped it once on his clothes, and with no further warning- popped it back into his empty eye socket.
“Oh!” Iruka jumped, surprised by the suddenness of the action. “That can’t be sanitary!”
“Yuck!” Naruto agreed. He squeezed his eyes shut and stuck out his tongue.
Kakashi fiddled around for a bit, blinking rapidly as he set the glass eye back into place. When he was done, he turned and gave Iruka another one of those eye-smiles. “All good. No harm done.”
Part of him still worried. Iruka was a teacher after all, he was used to dealing with playground injuries all the time. “Hang on just a minute.” He caught Kakashi’s shoulder with one hand and tried to glance at what little he could see of his face.
Kakashi shied away, his functioning eye suddenly looking elsewhere.
“Stay still,” Iruka scolded, holding him in place with a firm hand. “Look, your pupils- er, pupil-” Singular. “-Is dilated. You might have a concussion.”
In response, Kakashi just put his hands up between them and made that floppy handed wave at him again. “It’s alright, it’s just bright out.” He sounded evasive. “Besides, I’ve blocked plenty of soccer balls with my head in the past. It’s not dangerous if you use the right technique.”
“Is immediately crumpling to the ground afterwards considered the right technique?” Iruka shot back.
“Yeah, Coach ‘Kashi, what was that about!?” Naruto suddenly chimed in. “How did you let dorky ‘ol Mister ‘Ruka hit you in the face? I thought you were a lot cooler than that!”
“Hey!” Iruka yelled in indignation, heat flaring in his cheeks. “I’m not dorky, or old!” After all he’d done to win Naruto’s favor, this is what he got in return?
Kakashi put his palms up in a helpless gesture. “Well what can I say? Dorky ‘ol Mister Iruka has a good kick.”
The compliment caught him off guard again. “I-!” Iruka jumped, “It was- it was a….” He settled for vigorously rubbing the bandaid on his nose. “Uh, I didn’t mean to. I’m really sorry,” he said again, “I really didn’t think I’d actually hit you.”
“Yeah, about that.” Now Kakashi was the one sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “I… might’ve let you hit me,” he admitted as casually as one would admit to having left their wallet at home. “-on purpose. I just decided not to move out of the way.”
“You WHAT!?” Iruka exploded, just narrowly dodging a second use of the f-word in Naruto’s presence. That bastard. Iruka had thought he had won, but Kakashi had robbed him of his victory by… letting him win? Now it felt like Kakashi had won instead.
Kakashi just took in the furious look on his face with a content eye-smile. “Well, that settles it!” He tilted his head and gave Iruka a wink. “Looks like we’ll have to do a rematch sometime!”
The following Monday, Iruka opened his door to find both Naruto and Kakashi on his lawn.
This was going to become a thing now, wasn’t it?