Chapter Text

Week Four: Confront yourselves!

They were summoned for a mission as Team Kakashi for the first time since the trial had started. Which meant that it was over. Kakashi and Naruto were irrevocably married. Technically it could be revoked but it would lessen their individual overall worth on the marriage market. For which Kakashi did not care one single bit. Neither was he planning on divorcing Naruto. Even the mere thought was repulsive.

The four of them, Sakura, Sai, Naruto and Kakashi were headed towards the Hokage Tower when Kakashi was called. Turning towards the origin of the voice, Kakashi froze. The woman hurried to them as three quarters of Team Kakashi looked at him confused as to why he was uncomfortable.

“Hanare...” Kakashi mumbled her name as a greeting and an explanation. Beside him, Naruto regarded the woman, he obviously had no recollection of.

“Idiot!” Sakura chimed him. “Remember when we children? Hanare-san was a spy for the Hidden Lock and Kakashi was charged with watching her.”

“Yes, I remember you three falling from a tree with a bouquet of flowers.” Hanare smiled at them politely. “You sure have grown.” It was then when his teammates understood Kakashi’s uneasiness. Standing before them was Hanare. Who had confessed being in love with Kakashi Hatake. Hanare, to whom the genins had given their blessings. Hanare, who Kakashi had let go in favor to serving his village. Naruto just blinked. His mouth opened wide while he vividly remembered handing the kunoichi the bouquet.

“What brings you to Konoha, Hanare-san?” Kakashi regained a little of his composure.

“After the war, I helped in smaller villages. Rebuilding. Even protection. Now that everything has settled down a little...I thought...” Hanare started to blush. “I thought I could settle down myself...Having a new start once again.” She looked at Kakashi shyly. “Maybe getting to know you better.”

“Sorry, Hanare-nee-chan! We’re in a bit of a hurry here. Got a meeting with Hokage-sama.” Naruto grabbed him by a sleeve and dragged him away.

“Maaaa, Naruto-kun. Tsunade-sama does not expect me to be punctual anyway.”

“You’re with m...us now. So we will be on time.” Sakura and Sai hurried after them, bowing to Hanare apologetically. The kunoichi on the one hand stood there, dumbfounded. Kakashi on the other hand had to fight a grin back. He was perfectly aware of the fact that he should not be happy about Naruto’s antics. But he was. So ridiculously happy. He had never had interest in Hanare to begin with. The bouquet, the kiss, her confession and his team following him. It was meaningless. In the end he would have chosen the village over her every single time.

W hen they reported to Tsunade, Naruto remained silent. By his frown, it was save to say, he was thinking hard about something. Kakashi let him be. If Naruto was ready, he would talk to him. They were always like this. Naruto came clear on his own while Kakashi had to be teased into telling what was bothering him.

It had been an easy mission. Delivering a scroll to a minor trade partner of the Leaf, nothing serious. Nothing vital. Not unexpected considering that Tsunade had to reevaluate Kakashi’s and Naruto’s compatibility as teammates. If they were too overprotective over one another, one of them would have to be removed from Team Kakashi. What was unexpected to Kakashi was Naruto’s distance. The first evening he had marked it as an act of professionalism. Neither wanted to leave the team, so they worked hard to be considered an invaluable asset to it. That being said his husband did not even talk to him! He responded when addressed but for the most part, he just kept to himself and contemplated. It was starting to eat on Kakashi’s patience.

K akashi prided himself for being a moderate person in a way that most shinobi were not. He did not snap a lot. He did not freak out, did not shout. Eccentric, yes, but not loud.

But he was close to a freak out. A different type of freak out that did not have anything to do with annoyance over an overly excited friend. It had to do with his husband moving out of their bedroom. Without an explanation. Kakashi did not know what to do. So he had followed. Followed Naruto to another room and refused to leave. And for the first time since their mission, Naruto had grinned. Padded the other side of the bed and allowed to bury his nose in his husband’s neck.

“How can you be so cuddly?”

“Am not.” Kakashi mumbled into Naruto’s shoulder.

“Kakashi-san!” The jounin turned to see Hanare run up to him. He stopped to see what she wanted. “Kakashi-san! I’m so glad, I’m meeting you here.” The woman smile at him. “I was wondering if you would like to go have dinner with me some time?”

The jounin smiled at her apologetically. “I’m sorry, Hanare-san. But my evenings are spent with my husband.”

Her smile fell. “Husband?” She echoed.

Kakashi sympathized. Nevertheless there was no way he would leave Naruto. “Yes. We’ve been married for a few months now.”

“I see.” She forced a smile. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you.”

The next day, she was gone.

So was Naruto. That evening, Kakashi walked into their home to face a shadow clone of Naruto. Who did not look pleased with the task he had to fulfill. “Kakashi-sensei.” The clone stated. “I...am filing in for a divorce. I’m sorry.” Without another word he dispersed.

The next day, Gai found him still standing at the same spot when Naruto had dispersed. Carefully approaching, Gai asked what had happened. Kakashi was treated like a warrior in shock. Maybe he was? As Kakashi did not react, Gai gently dragged him to a training field for a challenge.

Gai observed him. Kakashi had lost the challenge. The blue beast had pinned him down on the ground. The silver haired jounin did not plan to leave. Gai would leave soon enough.

“You were not focused, rival.” His friend stated. He did not wait for Kakashi to come up with a lie. “I heard from Shikamaru. Naruto left your house?”

“Filing in a divorce.” Leaving him behind. Because he was not good enough.

“Did you ask why?”

“No.” What was there to ask?

“He loves you.”

Kakashi did not answer.

“You know he does.”

Kakashi did not answer.

“Does he know, you love him.” Of course, of course, Gai thought he was the reason Naruto left. Because Kakashi was not the one opening up!

“Of course he does!” Kakashi shouted, kicking Gai off of him. He stood, took several kunai and started to train his aim on one of the dolls. He hit deadly.

“Then why...” Gai was interrupted by Iruka who appeared beside them.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?! Naruto is crying his eyes out in my apartment.”

“Right.” Dead center.

“Did you cheat on him? Is that why he left?!”

“No.” Again.

“Then what did you do?!”

“I am the one who is being left behind.” Another hit. “He wants a divorce. He left our home.” Another.

“Are you blaming Naruto now?!” Another.

“No. I am simply pointing out that I might be hurting, too!” Kakashi turned around, facing his friends. “My husband left me without a reason. And everybody dotes on him while everybody accuses me!” Kakashi whirled around, throwing another kunai. “I am happy, he has so much support. I am.” He turned to them again. His eyes burned. “I just wish, he would not need it because he had stayed.”

Behind him, Iruka and Gai remained silent. They watched Kakashi as he threw one kunai after the other.

“They were on a mission, do you remember, Kakashi-san?” Iruka began after a while. His tone was careful and low. Kakashi did not turn around. His voice did not hold the reproach it had earlier. “I don’t know if he ever told you why they got together back then. Naruto saw tidbits and instances in which Hinata talked of her love or acted because of it. He had to be confronted with the raw emotion itself...to understand it. Even when she was willing to die for him during Pain’s attack, he had not come to understand that she loved him.”

“What are you trying to tell me? That I should ask a Yamanaka to show him my thoughts or die for him.” Kakashi let his arms sink.

“All the current you can do is protect the current Naruto, isn’t that right, Kakashi-san? Everybody knows if you could make the choice you would want to die protecting Naruto. If an enemy would attack now, despite everything, you would rush to Naruto and fight by his side.” Kakashi did not answer. He just wanted to go home whatever that was. “I just want to point out that Naruto is exceptionally dense in regards to … romantic feelings directed towards him.”

Almost all her life, Hinata had pined after Naruto. Fainted, stuttered, fought to become an equal. What could Kakashi do…what could he possibly do...what had he done to provoke any of this?

“YOU STUPID IDIOT!” They heard Sakura’s voice roar from a neighboring training field. A hitting sound and Naruto landed in front of the trio. The genin did look battered up and utterly destroyed. He stayed on the ground, eyes cast downwards. Sakura landed in front of Naruto. Shikamaru appeared in a cloud of smoke next to her.

“It’s troublesome to admit but he deserved that punch.” Shikamaru said, turning towards them. Sakura had not yet realized their presence, too immersed in her rage fit.

“MORON! What were you thinking?!” Sakura clenched her fists, the gloves grated because of the strain. “Don’t you dare answer that! I don’t want to hear your stupidity again!”

“Sakura-chan, please. Not here.” Naruto whispered. His eyes still fixed on the ground. Kakashi desperately wanted to gather him up and hug him. But it was not his right to do so anymore. It hurt.

“Kakashi-sensei must be devastated.” She grabbed him by his collar. Lifted him up so he was forced to look at her. “You can fall apart and cry your heart out but Kakashi-sensei cannot! Do you not understand what that might look like! To everybody else it looks like Kakashi-sensei is the bad guy!”

“Don’t cry...” Naruto mumbled. It hurt. His eyes burned.

“I can’t help it! You left him!”

“Sakura.” Shikamaru intervened as the medic looked like she wanted to go for another punch. “Behind you.”

Sakura turned around. Her tear-filled green eyes widened as they spotted Kakashi. “Sensei.”

Kakashi tried to smile. Curving his eyes into his eye-smile he said. “Ma, Sakura-chan, I’m fine.” When he opened his eyes again, he looked into angry green ones.

Sakura threw Naruto in front of him. “Tell him.” She ordered. Naruto stayed silent. “This is not the time to be stubborn. Tell him.” Naruto remained silent.

Shikamaru sighed. “He thinks, it’s the best for Kakashi if he left him.” Naruto shot him an angry look. “Neither of you is going to be happy if you deny it now.” He shrugged. “At least give him a reason why you left. Don’t you think you owe him as much?” It burnt.

Naruto eyed Shikamaru for a while, his eyes turned to Sakura who had once again started to cry when she looked at Kakashi. When his look landed on Iruka, the teacher stood behind Kakashi, looking disappointed. Lastly he glanced at Kakashi who tried to eye-smile again.

“I fucked up, huh?” When Kakashi opened his eyes, they eyes met. Naruto’s eyes were filled with regret. “I really think, it would be for the best.” Naruto took a deep breath. “I’ll explain but please, Kakashi, please stop looking like that.”

“Like what, Naruto-kun?” It was different from the times his teammates had died.

“Like you died inside.” It was different because it felt like he could not have changed a thing about the outcome. Like the happiness he just had found was ripped from him not because he had let down his friend and teammates or his father or the Hokage. It was gone because he had not deserved it in the first place.

“I don’t think that’s physically possible, Naruto-kun.” But he would rather die than lose Naruto as a teammate as well. The genin had sat up during the exchange. Watching him, he slowly crawled towards Kakashi. Who stepped back. Naruto stopped.

“I...rob you from your happiness.” Naruto murmured. “You deserve more than I can ever give you.” His blue eyes shone from tears again. “I cannot live for you exclusively. My dream, my life...I...cannot belong to you alone.” He laughed humorlessly. “I cannot even give you my body because a giant fox lives in here, too!” Naruto kept his eyes fixed on Kakashi’s. “I’m just an idiot...just a kid. You’re already grown up. What can I possibly give that you don’t have already? Hanare-nee-chan would turn the world around just to be with you! Gai-sensei always knows when something is troubling you! They could keep you warm for the rest of your days! What can I give you? The nights I don’t spend in the office signing stuff. The lunch times I don’t have lunch-meetings. There are so many people who would truly make you happy...” His voice trailed off, choking on a sob.

Kakashi did not hesitate. “Being with Gai? Are you serious? That’s disgusting.” He heard a muffled protest from behind. “What is this supposed to be, Naruto? A weird, twisted version of the older-younger-relationship-problems? What am I supposed to say now? ‘You’re wrong? I’m being too old for you, knowing your father, being your teacher. This is wrong.’ Is this the ground you want us to split?” Kakashi cut Naruto’s answer short with a wave of his hand. Distantly noticed his hand shaking. “Have you at one point even considered how I might feel about your heroic sacrifice!” He had it. It was enough. “Your talk about friendship and comradeship and peaceful cooperation but have you truly understood what that means?” He saw Shikamaru and Sakura wince while Naruto was still as stone. Kakashi remembered the past weeks in which he had opened up to Naruto. “I doesn’t mean you have to shoulder all that responsibility by yourself and be alone and miserable for the rest of your days.” Naruto had initiated the cuddling and the first mask-kiss. “Yes, there will be lots of overtime, meetings and times you will think ‘Oops I started a war.’ But that DOES NOT MEAN THERE IS NO ONE WILLING TO WAIT FOR YOU!” Kakashi shouted at the top of his lungs. Finally making Naruto flinch.

For the longest time Naruto had stopped moving in their relationship. He received. He complained. But he did not allow himself to accept. Or believe. “What constitutes my happiness is for me to decide, Naruto. And whether it makes me happy or not to wait for you until dawn and sit at a kitchen table with cold dinner and breakfast and lunch it’s my choice you are robbing me from!” Naruto did not believe Kakashi would stay. He saw himself as an interim arrangement until Kakashi found someone better. Witnessing how close Gai and he really were, not just rivals but akin to what Sasuke and Naruto were. Witnessing how Hanare still was interested in Kakashi. He thought the time had come to be the better man.

Kakashi did not want the better man. Without another word, he turned and left the training field.

“Isn’t this the part, where you turn and call me so we can go home?” Naruto asked to his retreating back.

Kakashi did not stop. “Do you still think I would be better of without you?” This whole divorce, this whole break-up was ultimately not about him. It was about Naruto’s trust issues and the way he felt responsible for everyone’s happiness. And how he did not believe that Naruto himself could make someone happy. How he was the bringer of peace and happiness but never its bearer.

“I honestly think, it’s for the best.” What could Kakashi do to convince Naruto from the contrary? Had he not shown what Naruto meant to him? He had. He had shown him how deeply trusted Naruto was. They had agreed upon their scents that they belonged, had they not?! Kakashi had thought that it had meant something. To him. It meant something to him. What could he do to fix this?

“Then why linger around?” Nothing.

With that Kakashi performed a shunshin to the memorial stone. He did not stay there long. No doubt Gai and the others would try to find him. He took a room in a little inn just outside the village. In the privacy of his room, close enough to Konoha to still feel protected, Kakashi allowed himself to silently cry.

The next morning, Kakashi felt Naruto’s chakra signature in front of his room. The genin was alone. He stared at the door, waiting for Naruto to act. A soft knock sounded through the room. Slowly, Kakashi made his way to the door and opened it.

Naruto was pale, Kakashi noted. His left hand was wrapped in bandages, reaching up until they disappeared in his sleeve. He favored one leg over the other. Blue eyes, one bedded in a purple and puffy bed, looked at him.

“Hello.”

“You look awful.” Closing the door behind him, Kakashi motioned Naruto that the would talk while taking a walk.

Naruto chuckled lowly. “Yes, after you left Sakura-chan, Gai-sensei and Kurama teamed up to ‘explain my mistakes to me in means I understand’.” Another low chuckle. “I screwed up big time. That’s the bottom line of the explanation.”

“What part does Kurama play?”

“Well, as you see, I do not heal beyond what’s necessary to survive.” They were headed for the forest surrounding Konoha.

“I see.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And you think it would make things better?”

“I understand now...”

Kakashi interrupted Naruto with a snort. “What do you understand? That I love you? You should have understood that when I forgot to wear my mask. Or do you think I forget to wear it on a regular basis. You should have understood when I told you your scent bothered me. It meant I do not want to be apart from you. Or do you think my scent just changes randomly depending with whom I drink or am on a mission? Because it does not. You should have understood when I kissed you without my mask, happily, soberly and most of all on my own volition. Do you know what it meant? That I was completely aware what was happening and what it meant and that I was fucking happy to do it!”

“You’re forgetting the confessing part.”

“So you heard that, too? Well then, tell me. You understand that all now but when will you start doubting again? You questioned me once before. Wondered if I was being truthful. Now you are wondering if you deserve me because of what? Because of your dream? Not only did you have proof that I was happy and in love, no, you construct the ridiculous idea that I might be better of with Gai or Hanare? Because you are going to be Hokage? I am an active jounin. If anything, you will come home to an empty house. I will be on missions, I will train brats, be on training trips. And still I honestly believed we made it. What will happen if I forgive you now? What comes next? Will you start being angry that I’m a shinobi in the field? Will you blame me for your possible unhappiness?”

“I’m here to bring you home.”

Kakashi stopped walking. Remembered their promise from seemingly years ago although it only had been weeks. ‘I may doubt you from time to time for I am not flawless. You may doubt me for you are not flawless. But will you promise me to keep bringing me home when I am lost or weak? I promise you, I will do the same.’ Observing Kakashi’s reaction, Naruto took a deep breath. “I doubted you again and you doubt me right now...although I think you do have better reasons than I do.” A grin was spreading on his face. “Man, you really grounded me yesterday.” The grin faded. “I just thought...I really want to see you happy. In like, really, really happy forever, you know? And I started wondering if I can make you that happy? And then I thought, I wanted to make Hinata happy, too, and failed. Maybe that’s how it goes? Maybe I’m supposed to be alone to truly commit to my dream.” Kakashi wanted to disagree but Naruto stopped him. “Even if it’s supposed to be like this, doesn’t mean it cannot work any other way right? And what I’m supposed to do isn’t really the issue here, either.”

Naruto who had stood a few steps away from Kakashi, stepped closer. Kakashi allowed it. “What really is important right now is what you want.”

“And how did you come to this brilliant conclusion?”

“Somewhere between your speech and the beating of a lifetime it just came to me!”

“And you want me to believe that?”

“It’s true!”

“You came all by yourself to the conclusion that everything you feared takes second place to what I want?”

“As I said, there’s your speech in which you might have hinted something like that and Sakura’s tear stained face shouting that the whole damn world does not circle around me and my stupid angst, don’t I dare to become a second Sasuke.”

Naruto was standing really, really close to him. Almost touching.

“I see.” Kakashi smiled. “I want to go home.”

His husband threw his arms around him. “Of course.” His mouth was close to Kakashi’s ear. “But first let me renew my promise, yes?” Without moving, his body flushed against Kakashi’s. So close and warm. “I may doubt you from time to time for I am not flawless. You may doubt me for you are not flawless. But I will promise you to keep bringing you home when you are lost or weak. For I know, you will do the same.” A soft kiss right behind his ear. “I promise you, I will do everything in my power to make you never regret us. I promise you all this because I am in love with you. For as long as I love you I will keep this promise. And you know what? I’ll love you for as long as I live.” Naruto held onto him, just breathing in his scent.

“I love you, too.” And like that, he had promised the same. There would be arguments. There would be accusations.

After a while, Naruto pulled back. “Now that that’s settled. Let’s start dating!”

“Huh?” Nobody said it had to be perfect.

“We’ve never really went on a date! What about eating dinner?” Naruto’s face crunched up in thought. “Dinner outside would be uncomfortable for you...how about I cook?” His husband navigated them towards the market. “We’ll buy everything now and I make your favorite at home.”

“How is this any different from our usual dinner.”

“I’ll light up candles or something.” Kakashi laughed. It would not be perfect. For they were not perfect. But they knew they had a place to return to. The place they belonged to. A home. At each others side.

The next morning, an invitation to an interview with the council was handed to Kakashi by an anbu. Subject matter? Recent rumors of their marriage. When Kakashi showed Naruto the letter, his husband snorted.

“Took them long enough to notice we’re together.”

“You’re one to talk.” Kakashi shot back.

After watching his pouting husband for a while, Kakashi reached down, tipped his chin up and gave Naruto a soft kiss.

END