“I’m going to start cleaning through those chests alright, just yell if you need me,” Iruka calls, barely in his peripheral, before vanishing altogether.

Kakashi flips the next page of his book and hums.

He should be the one doing it. Rightfully. It’s his father’s things, and surely twenty-seven years is enough time for the wound to scab. But no, the wound is still fresh, he’s still picking at it, and he’s not… able to go through those items himself. He laughs, wholly mocking himself for his weakness.

Fuck. It’s nearly been thirty years since his father died and he’s still not over it.

He considers Sasuke, when he first met him, still deeply affected by his family’s murder. Maybe this was normal?

Iruka’s humming drifts through the house, and Kakashi decides probably, but they’ve just never been properly adjusted to the death of loved ones. If Iruka is an example to go by, being able to look at the boy containing the monster that killed his parents and being able to decide that boy was family.

… being able to look at Kakashi and deciding he was family, even after all the crap he’s done trying to push him away.

What an idiot he’d been then; thinking Umino Iruka was a force to be stopped once he had his mind set. Thinking himself better off alone.

He closes his book, puts it to the side and hugs himself, breathing in the scent on the fabric; he’d stolen this shirt out of Iruka’s drawers. It smells clean, but Iruka’s natural scent from it being worn and old remains in the fabric, and it brings a stupid grin to his face.

Iruka likes him. Loves him! They’re together!

He should really go help Iruka clean up his father’s chests. They’re not even married, so Iruka’s probably overstepping… not that Kakashi would know. Iruka would have better sense of that. And probably would have worried himself over it if there was anything wrong about it.

But, well, Kakashi’s pretty sure he’s never going to be able to let Iruka go now, so even if they have a falling out on the scale of Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Marada, he’s going to force Iruka to be by his side when he dies.

“Wow!”

Kakashi bolts to his feet, shit, did his father booby trap those chests— he’s racing down the hallway one second and opening the shoji door the next, and he’s staring at a lump of fabric on the tatami mats.

“Ruka?” he asks tentatively.

The mass shudders. As if laughing.

He allows himself a second to better understand the situation, surveying the room, he finds an assortment of items, a photo album, clothes, some trinkets he hadn’t known existed.

The lump if fabric, Kakashi realizes, is actually an old futon. It’s rather large, and the shape reminds him more of a kimono than a futon. He blinks, an old yogi? Where had his father gotten this?

The shape begins to move, in much the same way a cat would wiggle before pouncing. Or a man would shake his ass in the air, inviting.

He grins, Iruka sure was feeling playful, and squats down to be at level with the mass, “Ruka?” he tries again.

An opening appears, though it’s still too dark to see anything under the comforter. He waits, wondering what to say next, when a hand pokes out, and suddenly grabs his ankle and pulls, so quick and strong that Kakashi is lying on his back wondering what happened.

And then he’s being dragged somewhere.

He blinks once more and finds darkness, his senses overcome by warmth, and a body flush against his.

And the overwhelming stench of musty old fabric.

“Ruka,” he says, disgusted, feeling the man’s grin against his skin.

“I can’t believe you had a yogi, we could have saved so much on heating bills,” Iruka laughs, wrapping his arms around his chest.

Kakashi laughs, still baffled by Iruka’s frugality; he knows Kakashi would empty his bank account so he wouldn’t need or want for anything, so a whole house warmed, that was fine, a given even. “You—” he starts, realizing he probably shouldn’t say any of that, he tells the other truth instead, “I didn’t even know it was here.”

Iruka hums, understanding, snuggling into him in that particular way he does when he’s ready to go to sleep, “my parents had one. Ma said it was a wedding gift from pa’s parents. Though, pa said it was a gift from her parents. They never agreed on where it came from, but it was nice. Spent some cold nights sleeping with them, the three of us wrapped up in it.”

Kakashi hums. He doesn’t have any memories like that. The closest thing he has is his ninken all piling around him… but they do that now, with Iruka.

He could picture it, his vague recollection of what jounin leader Umino Ikakku looked like, with his vivid memory of his first ANBU captain Umino Kohari. He can’t picture Iruka any smaller than he was when he was twelve, but he can still picture the scene of the family. And his heart pangs at the tenderness of it.

“It’s probably long gone now,” Iruka sighs.

Kakashi nods, Iruka’s childhood home had been outside the destruction the kyubei left, but the house had been in worse shape than his own. Years of negligence, the garden overgrown beyond recognition, it’s roof had caved in and had even become a tanuki den.

“I wonder where this one came from…” Iruka says, definitely succumbing to the idea of sleep now.

Kakashi sniffs, there’s still something in the fabric, underneath all the age and dust.

And he finds it, it’s faint, nearly non-existent, probably a pure figment of his imagination, but it’s there, Sakumo’s scent.

“I can smell dad…” he mutters.

“Wow,” Iruka gasps, wide awake now, “you can still smell it under all that must!”

“Oh, I thought your nose was broken, this stinks, real bad.”

Iruka laughs, brightly, loudly, and pulls the yogi off, over their heads, the cool fresh air rushes against them but is entirely welcome.

He turns his head to Iruka, and finds the man smiling at him, loose hair falling from his ponytail, face flushed from the heat, eyes sparkling.

“… what?” he asks.

“Nothing really. Just glad I got to be under a yogi with you.”

That’s. A little much.

“Do you want to keep it out or put it away? I’ll still need to clean it…”

“It would be nice to sleep together like this…” he muses.

Iruka grabs his hand, smiling brightly, “it would, wouldn’t it.”