Work Text:
Kakashi’s day starts with the receptionist yelling at him about missing receipts. To be frank, Kakashi has never paid much attention to what exactly a receptionist is supposed to do, so he’s a little bewildered that the pleasant looking man with the ponytail who usually lives at the front desk is in his office saying some very cutting things about expense reports.
“—where you got the idea that harlequin novels were remotely appropriate to be billed to the company.” The receptionist slams a hand on top of the charges to Kakashi’s card.
“I do most of my reading on the clock.” In reality, Kakashi just completely forgot to switch which account he was using during his late-night impulse buy, but this guy doesn’t need to know that.
Kakashi expects that comment to stun the raging man into speechlessness (it works in the courtroom 90% of the time), but the receptionist fires back immediately. “I see, and your billable time includes every time you giggle to yourself like a teenage girl at the saucy bits?”
“You really shouldn’t insult teenage girls like that.”
“True, any comparison to you would be an insult. At least teenagers are equipped with some measure of responsibility. Something you seem to be wholly deficient of, Hatake-san.”
Kakashi raises his mental eyebrows. This guy knows who he is and yells at him anyway. “You have me at a disadvantage, receptionist-san.”
“Not the last time I’m sure,” throws in receptionist-san for one last barb. “I’ve just been reassigned to this section as secretary. Umino Iruka.”
Umino gives a perfunctory bow.
“Hatake Kakashi, but I guess you already knew that.” Good, he doesn’t want to introduce himself as the section leader and have another voice calling ‘buchou, buchou’ whenever he crosses their path.
Umino’s face scrunches up in something that probably shouldn’t be cute on a full-grown man, but it’s so honest, Kakashi has to hold back a laugh. “And I suppose you should know that you have two client consults in the next half-hour as well as a meeting with the prosecution at 1pm. Please don’t be late.”
With that, Umino stalks out the door like the room did him some personal offense. “And turn in those receipts!” he calls before the oak slams behind him.
What a pain. If Kakashi never has to see an overbearing secretary again, it will be too soon.
--
“Overbearing secretary-san!” Kakashi calls as he steps off the train at his stop.
Two cars down, Umino swivels his head to find Kakashi in the crowd of commuters trying to get home. As soon as they meet eyes, Umino’s face darkens, but he smooths it out to something passably professional.
Because Kakashi is a professional bear-poker (see: his entire rivalry with Gai), he jogs up to his coworker and matches his pace as they leave the station.
“You live all the way out here too, Hatake-san?” Umino asks politely, while glancing up and down the front of the station like he’s hoping Kakashi will head the opposite direction he will.
Kakashi shrugs and follows him because his house really is that way. “I have eight dogs, they need room to run about.”
“Eight? Yeah, I can see why the long commute might be worth it.” Kakashi’s town—their town actually—is a suburb of the city, but it is a hell of a commute. But at least there’s more room to move than those box apartments he still has nightmares about.
“And you, Umino? Why are you all the way out in the boonies?”
“I just moved here actually. It’s cheaper than my old place and we needed the room.”
“We?”
“Me and my uh, kid.” Umino scratches the scar across his nose bridge, suddenly self-conscious. “He was in a tough spot and a change of location after the orphanage was probably the best move for both of us.”
Kakashi can pick up on subtext. “Orphanage? You must care for him a lot to adopt a kid so young.”
“Well, adopted is really a strong word. But it’s not like anyone there is going to notice he’s gone anyway.” Umino’s expression gets darker than Kakashi thought possible, after seeing what he was capable of just a few minutes before. “No one in that place cared for him at all. I might not be rolling in it, but at least I care.”
They walk an entire block before Umino freezes.
“Just realize what you admitted to?” Kakashi says lightly.
Umino buries his face in his hands. “I know you’re my boss or whatever, but can you just ignore everything I said about the very consensual kidnapping I took part in?”
“I don’t know Umino-kun, I am supposed to uphold the law as an attorney. I took an oath and everything.”
Umino lifts a few fingers and glares with one eye. “I know what goes on in that company, don’t try to tell me about upholding the law.”
“My my, secretary-san, you’re not supposed to come out and say it.” Kakashi agrees, whole-heartedly, but it’s not like he has much latitude to say anything as the consistently highest performing attorney.
“I don’t plan to be at the company any longer than necessary, anyway.”
“Saving up by working in corporate to pursue your real dreams?”
Umino glares and starts walking again. “Are you mocking me?”
Kakashi just shrugs. He has to admit he’s a little curious, but he won’t pry.
“I want to be a teacher, one that makes a difference to kids.” Umino’s shoulder’s reach to his ears, but his tone is confident. Sure in himself and his ability to change the world around him. “But I don’t have any kind of degree beyond high school, so I have to save.”
Kakashi means to say something about that temper and how it shouldn’t mix with children, but all that comes out is, “That’s a good dream, Umino-kun.”
“Iruka, seeing we’re neighbors.” They’ve walked 15 minutes past the station, still heading the same direction. The probability of this coincidence is likely mathematically staggering.
“Then, Kakashi,” he returns, sticking out his hand.
Iruka shakes it, smiling slightly. He looks away when they release hands, his cheeks darkening noticeably even in the dim light of the night. “And I’m sorry for yelling this morning.”
Kakashi waves him off. “It was probably justified.”
Iruka smiles at him again. Kakashi’s day ends much better than it began.
--
It becomes a habit. After the first night of discovering they lived only a few streets away from each other, 20 minutes from the same sleepy station, Kakashi makes it a point to walk to and from work with Iruka every chance he can. Sometimes one has to stay later than the other, but it helps they both work in the same section, so they can call quitting time together.
Kakashi finds it dangerously addicting.
--
“What do you think you’ll bring for the company cook-off for the holidays?” Iruka asks.
Kakashi groans. “Probably nothing. Or dog food.”
Iruka sticks his tongue out at the thought. “Is that allowed?”
“I don’t really care what’s legal at the company mandated ‘bonding-time.’”
The laugh that echoes in the early morning air is big and honest and quickly becoming one of Kakashi’s favorite sounds. “Under all those records and reputation as the company’s face, you’re really just ready to throw off the shackles of the people, huh?”
“You have no idea.”
Iruka hums. “It’d be nice to bring something, just to say I did. My family used to make this casserole thing, potatoes and beef and apple cider? I think? It’s good winter food.”
Kakashi bumps his shoulder. “Sounds good. You should.”
Iruka rubs the back of his head as he juggles his gloves into his coat. “I’m not much of a cook. And I think the apple farm we got the cider from burned down.”
Kakashi holds the door open to the side entrance to the station. “Well, that’ll put a damper on things.”
--
“What are your parents like?” Kakashi asks, a few weeks later, still trying to discover all the pitfalls between them.
Iruka looks up from trying to open his convenience store canned coffee. “Good people. They died when I was 10.”
“I’m sorry,” Kakashi says, even though whenever people used to say that to him, it never helped. But what else do you say?
“Thanks.” Iruka wraps his hands around the rapidly cooling warmth of his drink. “I miss them, and the orphanage sucked, but I wouldn’t have met Naruto otherwise.”
Kakashi, who has met Naruto and in turn introduced him to eight dogs who are happy to gallop around the neighborhood with one who can match their energy, knows that Iruka would give up anything for the boy. But Kakashi’s pretty sure that’s just the kind of person Iruka is, a heart too big to contain.
With a start, Kakashi realizes he’s been staring to long at his companion, pink cheeked from the cold and chapped lip tucked between his teeth. Probably inappropriate thoughts to be having for my technical subordinate. He quickly boxes up that train of thought.
“Even bad things have silver linings, I suppose,” Kakashi says, just to say something instead of acting like a creep.
The look Iruka gives him for his meaningless platitudes is so sweet. Is that gratitude? Kakashi doesn’t deserve it, but his heart stutters anyway.
--
“Do you mind,” says Iruka carefully, a month later and loosening his scarf in the melting early spring, “if I ask about your family?”
It’s only the fact that Kakashi has been anticipating this question for weeks of walks to work and back home that keeps him from missing a step.
“Come from a line of farmers. The name, y’know.” Kakashi likes growing things in the tiny part of the garden that isn’t run over by dogs, but he hardly has the time. Hasn’t for years.
The cough he’s been nursing springs up at that moment. Iruka hands him a tissue and a cough drop instantly, both of which he’s taken to carrying around the past week.
“I uh, never knew my mom,” Kakashi rasps, no real emotion but the general ache of something he never knew. “My dad was a good man though, an honest, small-town lawyer who made it big with some fluke case. We moved to the big city after that but.” In the near two decades since, Kakashi has never figured out how to phrase the tragedy that took place afterwards. How he felt betrayed and prideful and ashamed and sorrowful.
“But the city or the company or the case, I don’t know, kind of killed him. There was a whole scandal, but he kept his head up, even as he was collapsing. He stuck around until a few years ago, but I guess—”
Another coughing fit. Kakashi bends over and Iruka rubs his back. It doesn’t do much for the pain in his lungs, but his heart feels a bit lighter just from the touch.
“He sounds like a good father. I’m sure he’s so proud of you,” Iruka whispers after the rasping stops.
Kakashi laughs a scratchy cackle. “He would have liked you.” Even if he wouldn’t have liked me much at all.
--
Kakashi goes to leave, turning away from the front of Iruka’s apartment building. It’s a tiny not quite decrepit place, but according to Iruka, the rent is cheap and there’s enough space in the neighborhood for Naruto to run around to his heart’s content. Naruto is also allowed to run around in Kakashi’s fairly sizable backyard, so the boy isn’t wanting for space.
It’s been six months since Iruka yelled at Kakashi in his own office and they started spending at least two hours commuting together every weekday.
Iruka snags him by the hand before he can get too far, dragging him back to the halo of fluorescent light.
“This is a terribly personal question Kakashi-san,” Iruka says, only polite in the way he gets when he’s nervous.
“When has that every stopped either of us?”
Iruka rubs his scar with his free hand. “I suppose you’re right.” He steels himself, gripping Kakashi’s hand tighter.
And, well, Kakashi certainly isn’t about to complain about that.
“If you could forget all of it, forget obligation and company loyalty and money and the comfort of routine, if you could start over, where would you go?”
Anywhere, as long as you’re there, comes the immediate thought, so strong and present Kakashi almost blurts it out on instinct. Luckily, his brain to mouth filter is enough to preserve their working and personal relationship.
Not! Appropriate! He thinks as he shoves all of it into the ever-growing box in the back of his mind reserved for thoughts about Iruka that involve anything beyond perfectly platonic. He needs to not wreck this relationship. These walks with Iruka, sometimes silent, sometimes not, are the only barrier between him and the crushing awfulness of his corrupt, self-serving job.
Kakashi makes a show of tapping his finger to his chin. “Hm. Maybe I should get back to my farmer roots. Maybe I should find an orchard to take over, I hear there’s a growing need for young people to get into agriculture. Get you that all important apple cider for your recipe.”
“It’s April, hardly apple season,” Iruka says, an odd note in his voice, like he didn’t get the answer he wanted. “I wouldn’t take you for a farmer on first glance.”
He drops Kakashi’s hand, which feels cold suddenly, even in the warm night. Iruka steps back and gives Kakashi a look up and down. “But I guess I can see it. Firm stock under all those suits and sweats. Good hands. Reliable.”
Iruka smiles and bids him goodnight. Kakashi wonders if perhaps he’s not the only one wishing the box would open.
--
“I’m very good at my job.” Kakashi releases that one into the June night air, just to see how it feels.
Iruka glances over at him, eyebrows quirked in the way that Kakashi knows means he’s decided to humor his weird coworker. “I know. I’m the one that compiles the reports on the year end statistics. Yours are impressive.”
In anyone else’s mouth, that would be a compliment. To Iruka though, it’s just a fact, something that makes up the mosaic of Kakashi, but doesn’t define him. Kakashi is so unbelievably grateful for that attitude it makes him dizzy sometimes.
They pass by the convenience store that indicates they’ll need part ways soon. At least once a week, they stop for a bite to share. Kakashi knows that Iruka will elect not to eat if the hour gets too late, and then forget to eat again in the morning if he’s in a rush to the station, which he often is. How many times has Kakashi been banging away on his computer only to find Iruka staring him down mid-morning with unwarranted irritation due to unknown hunger? Honestly, this man.
Kakashi doesn’t want to part ways from Iruka. It’s not an unfamiliar thought, but the topic of conversation they’re teetering over amplifies and intensifies his need to keep Iruka at his side. But that’s such a selfish thing to ask.
Iruka glances back when he notices that Kakashi’s near-silent footfalls don’t follow him down the quiet suburban streets. “Kakashi-san? Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m good at my job.” Kakashi doesn’t think he can take another step without making sure that Iruka understands this about him. Understands that Kakashi isn’t good like Umino Iruka, who stole a needy boy from an orphanage and dreams of being a teacher in a small town.
No, Hatake Kakashi is a very skilled lawyer, the kind that twists and bends and manipulates and always wins, usually without even having to step foot in court. He lives and breathes laws and all their contradictions, all their loopholes and exploitations. Kakashi knows exactly where and when to apply enough force, enough money, enough influence, to get his clients the outcome they paid him for. That’s the name of the game. That’s what he signed up for half a lifetime ago, when he barely knew what he was getting into.
Though that’s hardly an excuse. Kakashi can’t fight the system, can’t change it from the inside, so he let himself get swept away. How cowardly. Kakashi disgusts himself sometimes.
But Iruka, who has a spine of steel and twice the heart given to a normal man, doesn’t hesitate. He merely returns to where Kakashi has found himself rooted to the ground, face gentle, but set. Firm in his convictions. Firm in his belief in others.
Under the streetlight casting its singular glow on the wisteria-lined street, Iruka meet his eye, face to face as equals, open and understanding. It’s very close to everything that Kakashi secretly craves. And maybe for no other reason than that, Kakashi is forced to reveal just what he dreams of when he’s covered in doghair and half-remembering romance plots.
“But I wish I wasn’t. I want so much more.” The world is quivering, there’s something in his eyes, and his hands feel like there’s lightning coursing through them. Putting this out in the open must be forbidden. Hatake Kakashi isn’t allowed to want things beyond restoring the family name and putting smiles on clients’ faces.
Iruka grasps both of his hands in his own and pulls them toward his heart.
“Is that too selfish?” Kakashi feels like a child, asking for permission. “Am I allowed to want?”
And this man, this beautiful man, closes his eyes and bends down to press his lips to Kakashi’s knuckles, first his right hand, then his left.
When Iruka meet his eye again after a long moment, there are tears running down his cheeks.
“Anything you want, anything at all,” he says.
And Kakashi starts to believe it.
--
On a sticky slow day in late August, Kakashi stands on a desk in the middle of his department, all his belongings from his office in a box at his feet. The rest of the section moves around him, too used to the strange frivolities of their head to try and parse him out without the liaison that is the department secretary there to sort him out.
As soon as Iruka enters with the CEO, CFO, and owner of the company, all there to present Kakashi with yet another award for the terrible work he does for them so well, Kakashi throws two sets of resignation papers right in their faces.
What happens afterwards, Iruka will delight in telling for years to enraptured audiences of friends and family, the story getting more complex and dramatic with every turn. Kakashi, for his part, loves the additions of himself as romantic lead, sweeping his love off his feet and kissing him silly in front of both of their bosses.
What Kakashi actually said to the heads of the company and the declarations he made to the employees in general is largely lost, but what he said to Iruka at the end of it isn’t.
As the chaos rages behind them, a hundred phones ringing off the hook as billionaire clients get the news that their beloved attorney who got them out of so many pinches is quitting, another two hundred when the same clients find that much of the information they entrusted to the company, to their attorney has been leaked to the appropriate news sources and government agencies, as Kakashi doesn’t quite cripple the company, but leaves quite an inconvenience—
In the middle of it all, Kakashi pulls Iruka aside into a place that’s not as quiet as their usual talks. “I know I’m doing this all out of order and the words are coming out wrong, but you’ll understand right? You’ve always understood.”
“Kakashi,” Iruka says simply, “whatever you want.”
“What I want is—” Kakashi gasps then stares the man he hope will be his future right in the eyes. “I want to quit and never come back to this terrible place, I want you to quit too.” He pauses. “I actually might have already quit for you, oops. I want to move out to the middle of nowhere, where there’s space and air and land. I want to try my hand at growing something instead of tearing it down. I want you to study and become a teacher. I want to see you achieve your dream and help me find mine. I want you to come with me, out to somewhere that fits both of us, and Naruto and the dogs. I want there to be an us.”
Kakashi chest feels tight and free all at once. Iruka’s eyes shine but he’s smiling, so wide and brilliant Kakashi knows he’ll never get sick of it.
Iruka grabs one of Kakashi’s hands and scrubs at his eyes with the other. “Do you—did you think this through at all?”
“Nope.”
Iruka groans, but he’s still smiling. “Of course. Well, it’s a good thing I did.”
“Is that a yes?” Kakashi’s hands hover around Iruka’s waist, waiting, wanting.
Iruka takes a step closer and slides right into him. Kakashi’s hands close automatically. “You never asked.”
“Will you come with me?”
Iruka smiles, he never stopped smiling, but his lips widen and his eyes crinkle, so Kakashi counts it as new. “Yes, always.”
And then Iruka kisses him.
The shouting behind them might get louder, but Kakashi barely notices.
--
(“So, Yamanashi prefecture, right?”
“Huh?”
“Yamanashi prefecture has a very good university and lots of farm space.”
“Do they grow apples there?”
“I think so? They’re famous for their peaches.”
“As long as they have apples.”
“You’re the farmer Mr. Scarecrow, you figure it out.”)
--
“I think I found it,” Kakashi announces, dropping a piece of paper onto his lover’s lap, which is full of books and notes.
“Kakashi, I literally have a test tomorrow, do you know how long it took me to get Naruto to leave me alone for more than an hour?” Iruka runs his hands through his loose hair. It’s not the time right now, but Kakashi really likes doing that too.
“Is that why it’s so quiet? Anyway, it took me over a year, but it’s called beef and cider pot.” Kakashi preens a little like a cat, but he really is quite pleased with himself.
Iruka snatches at the paper. “What are you talking—?” He trails off as his eyes scan the ingredients.
“We still have a good few apples on the trees, I’m sure I can get Tenzou to teach me how to make cider, and we have a cold snap this weekend. I figure it’s the perfect time to try it out.”
Iruka’s school supplies crash to the tatami of their cozy farmhouse.
Kakashi finds himself with an armful of soon-to-be-sensei and can’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.
--
(“Huh.”
“Not a word, Naruto.”
“I don’t think huh is a word. You said it wasn’t during scabble last night.”
“I’m equally surprised, I literally turned my back for one minute to feed the dogs and you managed to inflict this much chaos to our kitchen. It’s actually impressive.”
“Everything just kind of happened all at once?”
“Iru-nii! Even I’m not this bad.”
“And that’s a pretty low bar.”
“Kakashi, you are not helping.”
“There is one positive to this.”
“I just ruined our kitchen and this very meaningful recipe that I haven’t eaten in literal decades, what, pray tell, is the positive?”
“We’ll always have enough apple cider to try again!”)