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It sounded like a whimper. A small plaintive whine echoing through the unfurnished rooms. Once and again and again, each pin scrapes against plaster until it pulls free with a quiet pop. Poster after poster curl in on themselves and drop to the floor, the pinholes in their corners the only sign of wear. So many glossy images to be discarded before they are even used. So much waste.
The rest of the house was pristine. Not at all like the heavily subsidised apartment Iruka had uncomfortably occupied as a genin at the age of twelve, or the scruffy little flat he split with Anko once she had returned to the village and they were both finally promoted to chunin. No, this place was his. He had bought it himself on the back of endless hours of missions, administrative work and educating over half of the next generations of clan heirs.
He bought this place, clean and open and bright, as a kind of offering for the life he had ahead of him.
It was a notebook new and unmarked, fresh from the store like the dozens he handed to his class at the beginning of each term. And like his students he had been too brave, too full of excitement for his newest start, oblivious to the spelling mistakes and awkward shapes they scattered around their hand crafted cover page.
Iruka gave up on pulling the pins out one by one and started yanking them down by the paper. The awful tearing sound eerily similar to those pages being ripped from their book by those same hopeful student eager to try again.
Again and again and again he’d watched on with an indulgent smile as his kids realised that the indentations of their brightly coloured pencils had carried through half a dozen sheets of paper and the last page now hung outwards at an awkward angle. They furrowed their brows as they began to regret their hasty excitement. Maybe they should have been more realistic in their new designs. Maybe they should have left it blank.
Iruka would hide his amusement at their crestfallen looks. He saw the bigger picture, he knew that if he did his job well, the notebooks would transcend paper and ink and indents. It would simply be a reminder of his lessons, a container for the knowledge they had gained and the steps they had taken in their journey to discovering their own ninja way.
Perhaps if Iruka hadn’t settled into desk work so readily, or if he had taken to his teaching like a professional and maintained even a sliver of emotional distance from his charges, having some small pinpricks in his home wouldn’t feel like heart break. Instead, the mistake would be small, like the notebook that would be forgotten the second graduation was over.
Instead this was his home. New and still wet in the corners that sunlight didn’t quite reach, it felt tainted beyond repair.
With the final poster taken down Iruka allowed himself a moment to lose himself in thought and he stared at the wall that was both too blank and too full until his eyes started to sting. He couldn’t quite find it in himself to blink away the welling tears, even as he felt the subtle shifting atmosphere that announced Kakashi’s arrival.
Still staring at the pinholes in the wall, he allowed himself to be gently pulled backwards into a hug and in turn felt his partner let out a heavy breath again his neck. “How would you feel about using this as the master bedroom?”
Iruka’s laugh was closer to a sob. “Kakashi, I can barely stand to be in here. I’d rather seal it off so I don’t have to see it from the lounge room.”
“Oh? And what were you thinking of sealing it off with?”
“Preferably exploding tags.” In response, Iruka felt a Kakashi huff and tighten his hold around his waist for a moment.
“Kind of my point. It’s not going to stop being Naruto’s room until we turn it into something else. I’m serious! Picture your bed in here and you could hand your parent’s scrolls where the posters were. There’s still enough room for your bookshelves in here. It could be a space just for you, or, us.”
The soft tone and thoughtful words encouraged Iruka to sag more comfortably into the embrace. He began to imagine the house in the way he had only really considered in passing whenever Kakashi had gently reminded him not to get his hopes up.
“What would we do with the master bedroom?”
“Turn it into a room for the dogs.”
Iruka’s laugh was a little more genuine this time. “You’d give them run of the whole house wouldn’t you?”
“Absolutely. But if you didn’t want that you could turn it into an office or dedicate it to Icha Icha,” he went on, ignoring the playful jab to his side, “or you could use it just for storage. It doesn’t matter what you do with it, just something easy for now.”
“Something temporary?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s not exactly homey.” Iruka pouted a little. He supposed walling off an entire room wasn’t how he had pictured building his are home either. “What would we do with it when your ‘temporary’ is up?”
“Well, you could use it as a guest room for your friends who are barely able to find this place themselves sober, let alone after whatever it is you get up to-” Iruka’s elbow had a little more power behind it this time, as did his voice.
“Or Guy after a challenge!”
“Or Guy after a challenge.” Kakashi nodded against him. “You might even find more students who could use a big brother and a spare room.” Kakashi paused for a moment, planting a reassuring kiss to Iruka’s temple before he continued with an even softer tone. “Or maybe, one day, when Naruto is old enough that the council can’t argue about his guardianship and whatever else they can get their grubby hands on, it can be a room just for him again.
You know, the Hidden Villages were built during war, to act as centres of the countries’ strength in combat and espionage. Of course Konoha is beautiful too, full of all of our precious people and surviving through the Will of Fire, but it was built in war. The war might be over, but the administration is constantly at battle, changing and reshaping itself to defend from both external attacks and internal politics. It wasn’t a place built to last, but to change.”
Iruka squirmed a little in his arms to turn and face Kakashi, and show off his playfully deep pout. “You know, you were doing a really great job at the whole comforting thing until you started talking about politics.” They stood together in silence for a moment until Iruka thoughtfully spoke again. “Are you trying to tell me it was ridiculous to hope that it was ridiculous to think that I could become a permanent part of Naruto’s life when he’s also something important to Konoha?”
“What I’m saying is,” Kakashi responded, shifting his arms to hold Iruka firmly against him once more. “One day, when the power shifts or the city collapses or the old crones on the council finally get so old they turn to dust and get replaced, maybe we’ll get another chance. It won’t be a new beginning and you might never stop regretting that you couldn’t take him in sooner, but there will be another opportunity. A chance to officially make him a part of your family.”
Iruka closed his eyes against the heat that threatened to overwhelm them. “So, everything is built to collapse but that’s a good thing?”
Standing in the bright, open space of Iruka’s new home, Iruka and Kakashi stood together. “Yeah,” Kakashi replied “But not everything.”