Work Text:
The Hatake clan, while known for their immense shinobi prowess, were less known for their specific kind of genetic color-blindness. In a world of bloodlines passing on powers unknown to ordinary humans, Hatake Kakashi thought it was irrelevant to mention his monochromatic world to others. His parents had taught him how to navigate well enough, to dress himself properly and subtly double check the correct colors by asking shopkeepers the right questions. Luckily for him, shinobi preferred consistency so it was hardly ever an issue.
What perhaps was more notable was that the colorblindness had everything to do with love and soulmates, and even as an adult Kakashi had a difficult time imagining that he out of all people in this village would be subject to such a ridiculous bloodline limit. Supposedly the world would become color when he met ~The One~ and…well, then what? As he lost his mother to illness and his father to heartbreak and shame, love didn’t really seem worth it. So what if his father could see colors? His stupid sense of love led him to a shameful decision and abandoned his son at a young age.
When Obito died and passed on his Sharingan, Kakashi was confident this was the expense and reality of true love. Sure enough, he saw the world differently now as a result of one person’s selflessness. The Sharingan was a clearer example of that than his own eyes. And that would be enough for him this lifetime, he decided. Traditionally the Sharingan helped identify chakra types by color, but even that was at odds with Kakashi’s own colorblindness. But he learned to see the way fire chakra crackled around a hand, that wind chakra fluttered and whistled its arrival, and so on.
Until that stupid day he walked into the classroom to meet his potential genin team, and color greeted him for the first time. This must be the blue Jiraiya writes about in Icha Icha, he pondered, as he noted the Uchiha’s dark clothing, the sky outside, the band of fabric at the top of the other boy’s jacket, and, when Naruto was done laughing, those clear eyes.
Oh hell no.
“How can I put this… my first impression of you all is that…you’re unbearable.”
No way past the eight gates of Might Guy hell was he going to fall in love with one of these brats.
Over the course of their first mission together and the Chuunin exams, as he watched them fall and himself fail over and over again, he felt the sparks of what he felt that day Obito had inspired him to live a different life. Perhaps soulmates just meant the people who would teach his soul a lesson? He had no one to consult, but he could live with that, these three annoying kids with so much to learn and unwittingly, so much to teach him. They made him laugh. They surprised him. He wanted Sakura to learn her true strength, beyond what she thought all lied in her infatuation with a boy who would never look her way. He saw so much of himself in Sasuke, prodigious and arrogant and broken, and he couldn’t stand to lose another Uchiha because of his mistakes.
Nature’s green and sky blue now available to him because of them. He had to admit it didn’t change too much in terms of the comfort he got from a sitting by the water for a long time, or the peace he felt when the leaves rustled in the wind to protect his presence. But it certainly was nice to see the details in a different way, to notice the clarity in Naruto’s blue eyes and the resolve in Sakura’s green from the day she cut her hair in the Chuunin exams.
But the day he came across Naruto’s unconscious body by the river, everything was grey again.
The next two and a half years passed in relative quiet. Slowly blue and green came back to him, and the beginnings of a new color. He could feel it even though it hadn’t yet arrived. He took many missions. Checked in on Sakura from time to time. Learned how to forgive himself for arriving too late to save either of his genin from a fate that, just like his own bloodline, perhaps he ultimately had little control over.
And sure enough, that next color came, a shock of golden yellow when Naruto poked his head out of the Hokage’s office window and beamed at his former teacher.
“Sensei, you haven’t changed at all!” Naruto said. But Kakashi did his best to keep cool as he surveyed the boy, who did much more than grow taller. He finally understood why everyone said the boy resembled his father and didn’t note the softness of his features that pointed more to his mother. He understood now, years later, the meaning of the Yellow Flash. He understood now, what people meant when they said Naruto was impossible to not notice, because how could one ever miss the searing heat of sunlight?
He knew when he disappeared from the office in a puff of smoke, they would attribute it to his desire to read the Icha Icha, which wasn’t entirely off. But in reality, he had reappeared a short distance away in an alley, gripping the strange tightness in his chest.
Oh hell no. It can’t be…
But time came to prove his instincts right. “I’m really starting to like you, Naruto!” he exclaimed, with such a sincere and almost naïve tone that day. But his heart clenched again as Naruto scrambled away from him and the infamous orange of Naruto’s jumpsuit illuminated his vision.
He denied the colors for a long time after that. Pretended he didn’t notice orange in his periphery every time he encountered it. Pretended oranges weren’t orange, maybe they were green like limes or whatever color lemons were. Pretended he had nothing to say upon the realization that Icha Icha Paradise, a book he had held close to him for years now, was that blasted orange. It couldn’t possibly…after all this time…didn’t his feelings emerge purely for Team 7 when this first started? How could that skipping in his heartbeat just show up whenever Naruto was around now?
Naruto, a goddamn minor. Naruto, his former student. Naruto, the son of his teacher and former Hokage. Naruto, the boy who reminded him so much of Obito sometimes it hurt to look at him.
In some ways he was grateful to be losing his vision gradually with use of the Mangekyo Sharingan, as the battles waged over the years. A literal eye for an eye, he felt, for such ugly feelings.
I shouldn’t feel this way about him. He can’t possibly be… This is all just a mistake.
Yet the day he woke up after Hiruko possessing his body, the violet mass of energy swirled around him and it was then he couldn’t deny it anymore. He shouldn’t feel such a softness in his body at still being alive when it meant the mission had clearly gone wrong, shouldn’t feel so grateful that he could live another moment to see those ocean-blue eyes look at him with relief and such gratitude.
But he made a promise, right then and there, that stupid soulmate kekkei genkai or no—he would do anything for Naruto until the very end. He would give up everything. His body. His Sharingan. His vision. Every color that every existed in this world for the man who brought him color in the first place. This was what loved would mean to him.
So Hatake Kakashi never expected to see the world in all of its colorful possibilities. What he had seen would have to be enough. Even after Naruto gave him another eye, he knew there were just some things he would never have access to, and that was enough for him.
It was with this promise in mind that he finally perfected his own jutsu, one that could stand on its own just as Kakashi now would see on his own without Sharingan, the Shiden that fractured the sky itself with purple lightning.
The night before Kakashi officially assumed the role of Hokage, Naruto invited him to a celebratory dinner. Kakashi insisted on ramen, despite Naruto’s very mature declaration that they could go for Kakashi’s favorite and he had found a grill that made eggplant so exemplary even Naruto’s mouth watered at the sight of it.
But Kakashi wanted to hear Naruto’s satisfied sigh after a full bowl of tonkotsu broth, wanted to see the way the blond ran a hand from his forehead through that messy head of hair in contentment. To see him content and happy was more satisfying than any food Kakashi could dream of.
“Ne, Kakashi-sensei, that red and white is going to look good on you,” the young man remarked quietly as they walked away from Ramen Ichiraku. “Not as good as red looks on me, but close enough.” Blue eyes winked at him. Kakashi laughed.
“Maa, I hadn’t really thought about it before.”
“No way! I think you’re gonna look so cool in red. It’s not flashy the way orange is, but it just…seems heroic.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. But I suppose I’m not very good at seeing heroism for what it is then. I’m a bit colorblind, you know.”
Naruto whined. “What the hell, Kakashi-sensei! I’ve known you all these years and you couldn’t be bothered to tell us you’re colorblind? I thought not seeing your face under the mask was too much already…”
Kakashi didn’t know why he kept going. After all these years, after all this time, he had told himself it would be enough for Naruto to not know these parts of him. “It’s a family thing, actually.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard men are more likely to be colorblind?”
“Uh, no, Naruto, I mean it’s a kekkei genkai.”
“No way! You had Sharingan and another limit? The hell, some people have all the luck.”
“Says the kid with demonic powers, senjutsu, and Six Paths senjutsu…”
“Okay fine, but I’m not a kid! I’m a man now!” And Naruto sized himself up close to Kakashi, their noses nearly touching as blue eyes glared right into dark brown ones. The jounin felt it again, that tightness in his chest, the warmth in his stomach, that temptation to jump into a whirlpool and never come back up.
“You really see me that way, don’t you, Kakashi? As a man?”
“Yes.”
And he knew Naruto had seen something of himself flicker. Didn’t know what to do with the way those blue eyes took him in now. A serious, unknowable gaze Kakashi had never had directed at him before. “So what’s the point of you being colorblind for your kekkei genkai?”
“It uh…is supposed to tell me who I’m in love with. Who I’m meant to be with this lifetime.”
“And you can’t see any color?”
Kakashi didn’’t know quite how to respond. “Once. They’ve come to me, over the years. Only red is left. Not sure if I really feel its absence though.” I have enough to see you, Naruto, he thought to himself. Naruto’s eyes, the light whisker marks on his cheeks, the golden hair that tied the man to Minato-sensei, the orange so beloved and inherent to the man’s outfits and personality.
“You’re really sure about that?” the younger man whispered. Kakashi felt a thrill down his spine. “Because, a funny thing, all these years I thought I didn’t need to see things too. If I could just feel the presence of my precious people, that would be enough. If they were around and I could protect them, then I could keep going.
“That time you left the village to…when Hiruko took your body…that night I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw you walk away from me. I couldn’t…I couldn’t feel you. That was Kakashi-sensei’s body but Kakashi, you…weren’t there anymore. I hated that. I knew then I’d go to hell and back to bring you back again.”
Kakashi felt a hand on his face, cupping the mask gently. His hands were slack by his sides. He felt paralyzed. Naruto continued, chuckling darkly. “I was such a kid back then. Embarrassed when everyone said we were in love. When you…when you did for real, when I couldn’t feel your chakra, I…I wanted to tear down heaven and break apart the earth to find you again.”
And there, there they were, Naruto’s lips pressing against his own through the mask, and he still felt paralyzed despite knowing that his hands were enmeshing themselves in blond hair, feeling every inch of Naruto’s body as it pressed up against him.
When Naruto pulled back, he grinned, his expression soft and faintly hazy. “What the hell is wrong with you, Kakashi? Thinking could live without seeing red? Seeing this?” And the jinchuuriki held up his right hand, extending his little finger. It took a moment to come into focus, hard to discern in the moonlight.
An unmistakably red thread tied around the pinky.
Kakashi’s eyes trailed downward to follow the thread, seeing it loop downwards and then up…
Right to his very own little finger on his left hand. No way. How could he not have seen it all this time?
“Do you see it?”
Kakashi nodded.
“It’s always helped me find you. Wherever you are. I didn’t see it for a long time. But after you came back, after Pein…honestly it was easier to focus on finding Sasuke and everything because then I didn’t have to worry about you anymore. If the red thread was on my pinky, then you were close by too.” Naruto crinkled his eyes as he grinned. “I actually didn’t know what it meant, just thought it was a cool Sage thing! Scary Sakura-chan hit me on the head and told me I should have paid attention in school when we were kids, but what did I need red threads for if they didn’t make a Hokage cloak?” He snickered, but took Kakashi’s threaded hand into his own.
“So, Kakashi…do you see me now? All of me? And everything about the world we live in? Because…I see you. I want to see you. With me. For the rest of my life. And I understand—or at least, I’ll try to understand if you don’t want to. Maybe you’ll be too busy for me as Hokage or maybe you want kids or maybe I’m still too young and maybe I have a lot to prove to you still but—”
And despite himself, despite every feeling he’d shoved down deep all these years, and the colors he never wanted to acknowledge, Kakashi looked forward at the man in front of him. Uzumaki Naruto, Konoha’s Number One Knuckleheaded Ninja, the person he promised to support to the end of his days. Watched those blue eyes widen in surprise as he pulled him in closer by the waist, using his other hand to pull down his mask, and kissed him deeply. Fiercely. Like the world was disappearing—and indeed one world was. A world where he thought he could live without color was gone now. How could he possibly go back, ever, when a Naruto who wanted to kiss him, a Naruto who was flushed a delectable pink with want, was right here? (He definitely wanted to see more color in that face, heaving and breathy).
He stopped kissing Naruto for a moment, and whispered against his cheek. “You know, I’ve never actually seen this Sexy Jutsu of yours…you think you could try having my children that way?”
“You creepy perv!” Naruto snarled, but went right back to kissing him, arms linked around his neck.
When Kakashi closed his eyes that moment, everything was dark, but for the first time in his life, the future felt truly alive, truly possible, vibrant with every possible color in the world.