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Kakashi stared down at his bare hands, wondering what he was doing with his life. Almost a year had passed and Sasuke’s departure still stung. Another failure in the long life of Kakashi Hatake. Some days he felt he’d lived too long. Others he remembered he was still a useful tool of the village. Every time he snuffed out a life he told himself it made the village a little safer. He had to tell himself something to get through the day.
He glanced over to the calendar on the wall starting at today’s date, September 15. Happy birthday to him. He scoffed at the thought. Who the fuck had expected him to live to see 28? He certainly hadn’t. What did he have to show for it? He’d been pulled out of ANBU because the Hokage saw him slowly killing himself with every mission he took, so he was given a genin team. What a fucking joke? He had messed that up so badly he doubted they would ever trust him with genin again, not that he wanted another team. Now, Sasuke and Naruto were gone and he barely saw Sakura thanks to her training with Tsunade.
He was back in ANBU, which was probably a terrible idea, but the Hokage had asked and he couldn’t say no. He knew Gai suspected, but so far his friend had yet to call out his poor decision. If he knew Kakashi was in town he’d be beating down his door to drag him out to do some nonsensical challenge, but he was tired. He could barely function when he wasn’t on a mission, so he had avoided everyone when he’d returned the previous day. He would spend his birthday alone. He told himself that’s how he wanted it and tried to ignore the aching in his chest.
He must have dozed off at some point because he was startled awake by a soft knocking at his door. He sent out a small pulse of chakra to see who was disturbing him. He frowned at the door, wondering why Iruka Umino was there. He didn’t even realize the chunin knew where he lived. Iruka. The man was everything he wasn’t: kind, loving, and soft. He knew way too much about the man because of Naruto. The boy was lucky he’d had someone like Iruka in his life growing up, though it reminded him too much of Minato and that was not something he wanted to think about.
The soft knocking came again and he stood with a groan. He was getting too old to fall asleep on the couch. He wearily opened his front door, not expecting the sight that greeted him. This was not the prim and proper chunin who regularly scolded jounins for their poorly written reports. He was in civilian clothing that fit him far too nicely. He would never admit it, but as Naruto droned on and on about Iruka, he developed a passing interesting in the man. It was a good thing he never wore pants that tight to the missions room or every available shinobi would be chasing after him. Also, he’d never seen the man with his hair down.
Iruka was staring at him and he realized he’d been standing there for several minutes not speaking. “I wasn’t expecting you, sensei.”
This made the chunin blush for some reason and he found he didn’t mind it. “Forgive the intrusion, Kakashi-san. I wanted to bring you something from Naruto.” Of course. That made more sense than the chunin dropping by for a social call.
Kakashi stepped back, opening the door so Iruka could enter, which surprised both of them. The chunin was too nice to turn down the invitation. He took the opportunity to openly stare at the other man’s ass as he walked by. It aroused him and made him realize how awful he looked right now. He was wearing sweat pants and a shirt that had been better days. He sighed and closed the door. Before he could ask Iruka what Naruto had sent him, several packages were thrust into his hands. “Happy birthday, Kakashi-san.”
He stared at Iruka, flabbergasted. “Um, thank you.” He carefully took the offered presents. One of them was very clearly from Naruto. The packaging was damaged and very poorly wrapped, familiar handwriting scrawled across the top. The other was so beautifully wrapped it was almost perfect. He stepped into his small kitchen so he could set the nicer looking one down. He tore into Naruto’s gift, finding a note and a handwritten book. From what he would decipher of Naruto’s handwriting, this was Jiraiya’s latest book. A copy had been sent to his publisher, but the original was now apparently in his possession.
“Naruto sent it to me a few months ago, asking me to hang onto it for your birthday.” He looked up at Iruka, almost forgetting the man was still there. “He gave me your address and asked that I bring it to you. I hope that’s okay.”
Kakashi smiled for the first time in weeks. “I appreciate it, sensei. Who’s the other gift from?”
Iruka looked away, cheeks turning red. “Well, I figured since I was bringing you something from Naruto that I should also pick you up a gift.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said as carefully tore open the wrapping paper. Iruka didn’t know him very well. They were acquaintances at best, though Naruto probably told the chunin about him in great detail knowing the boy. The present was unexpected and made his heart flutter. He pushed that bit of feeling away, letting his cold ANBU persona slip over him. Iruka was just being nice, taking pity on the lonely man. It just showed how desperate he was for some sort of human connection that he wanted the gift to mean something more. He wanted some of that love and warmth Iruka showered Naruto with to be directed towards him.
The cold and unfeeling act lasted until he got the wrapping open and saw what was inside. It appeared to be some sort of photo album, a picture of team 7 displayed on the front. He flipped it open and was in for another shock. He was expecting pictures of just team 7, not that many existed, but instead, there were pictures of him with Gai. He quickly flipped through the pages finding pictures of him with so many of his friends, with Minato and with his father. How did the chunin even find all of these photos? Towards the end, there were pictures of team 7 from when they were pre-genin. He stopped on one of Iruka and Naruto grinning at the camera. Next to it was a picture of Team Minato.
“Kakashi, are you okay?” Iruka asked, hesitantly. Soft fingers reached up to brush tears away that had leaked out from under his hitai-ate. Obito’s eye was weeping, which it had never done in all the years he’d had it.
“How?” He managed to get out wanting to press his face against Iruka’s warm hand.
The sensei gave him a shy smile. “Well, after I got Naruto’s letter asking to deliver his gift I realized that everything with team 7 happened right after your birthday last year. I thought it might be a hard one for you and I wanted to get you something that would make it easier. After the Kyuubi attack, my friends found every picture they could of us and my family. They gave me a shoebox stuffed with pictures and I just thought maybe I could do the same for you. So I asked Gai and I guess some of the other jounin wanted to help. I honestly don’t know where they got all of these and then Sakura gave me some.” He rubbed his hand over his scar, looking bashful. “There’s more, but they just gave them to me a few days ago and I didn’t have time to get another photo album. I will bring them by sometime for you to look through.”
Kakashi moved without thinking, pulling Iruka against his chest. He wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in the curve of the teacher’s neck. The jounin hated crying, hated feeling that weak, but standing in Iruka’s arms he broke a bit. The chunin’s kindness opened the floodgates from the past year and all of the pain and guilt came spilling out. He choked out how he’d failed the team, how he didn’t deserve such a thoughtful present. Through it all, Iruka held him and gently stroked his back. What felt like hours later, Kakashi finally pulled away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all of that on you, sensei. I’m sure you have more important plans than comforting an old man on his birthday.” He tried to make it a joke, but it came out just a touch bitter. It was bad enough he’d broken down like that. He honestly wanted to just crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment.
“And leave you alone on your birthday? That’s not going to happen.” The chunin put his hands on his hips. “Naruto said you love eggplant. I know this great place I can get food from. You need to eat and celebrate. No one should be alone on their birthday.” He stared at Iruka in wonderment. He had just cried on his shoulder and his response was to offer to buy him food. “I can be back in about thirty minutes or so.”
Iruka turned to leave and, in a panic, Kakashi grabbed his arm. “Stay!” He half-shouted, startling them both. “I have food. I just want you to stay…” He trailed off, letting go of his arm. “Sorry about grabbing you. I’m sorry I’m a complete mess today and that you have to put up with all of this because Naruto asked you to come over here.”
“I’ll stay, but if you think I did all of this just because of Naruto, then you’re not the genius everyone claims you are.” The chunin stepped closer and pressed a soft kiss to the small bit of Kakashi’s forehead that was exposed.
“Oh… Oh!” Was he saying that he liked Kakashi? It had been a long time since someone had rattled his cage and made him blush like that, but Iruka just burst into his life with open arms and soft kisses. He glanced over to the photo album and wondered how much time he’s spent tracking down those photos. He made it sound like it was nothing, but it showed he cared. “Did you dress up for me, sensei?”
Iruka gave him a cheeky grin. “What do you think, genius?” Kakashi knew he was being teased, but it felt good. Maybe birthdays weren’t so bad after all.