Chapter Text
Kakashi was the sort of kid that sat at the back of the class on his phone for every lecture, and then was always in the top ten, if not five, every exam period. Iruka sort of hated him for it, though he shouldn’t resent anyone for their test taking skills. It didn’t mean he was less intelligent, just that he wasn’t as good at test taking— and they were usually pretty close anyway, it’s not like it mattered.
Iruka was very ready to not be a student. Unfortunately, third year stretched out before him like a highway to hell, and even after that he had to conquer university before he could be a teacher. It would be worth it, though, because teachers were the best thing someone could be out of anything, only opposed by doctors.
On that topic of Kakashi Hatake, slacker extraordinaire. He wore a surgical mask at all times, no one had ever seen him eat, and he was missing his left eye with only a scar to show where they sewed it shut. He didn’t cut his corn silk white hair and it was a mess, always in a perpetual state of bed head like he just rolled out and slouched into his seat.
As stated prior: Iruka sort of hated him. This annoyance bordering on ire was not aided when Sarutobi-sensei forced Iruka to sit at the same desk as him. It was a classic tactic, one that Iruka had been put under multiple times throughout his middle school career— but as he had transferred, no one here (save Anko) knew about his past of troublemaking. The thing was that Kakashi didn’t cause trouble per se, he was just distracting himself during class and getting good grades— though apparently he didn’t turn in any homework? Glancing at the doodle on his open notebook, Iruka felt a large sense of dread. He wasn’t so egotistical to think that he’d be able to “fix” Kakashi, but he hoped at least he could help. If the guy wasn’t taking any notes and was still acing exams, Iruka was almost of a mind to leave him alone.
As it happened, Kakashi initiated their move from classmates to acquaintances. He was sleeping— or so Iruka thought— during a psychics lecture, while Iruka was scratching out the equations on the board. They were in the back of the classroom, Kakashi’s preferred haunt, and the other guys who dressed alt were also sitting around, lounging. Iruka looked to be the only straight-laced one– he laughed a little to himself about it, thinking about his visual kei revival days.
“You missed that one,” Kakashi said, his one eye barely cracked open. Iruka noticed he was wearing fingerless gloves as he pointed one long white finger at the equation. “It’s on the board, can’t you see?”
It sounded like he was smiling, but Iruka couldn’t see anything beneath the blue paper mask, it was only the casual upturn of his one working eye that gave him any hint.
“Oh,” Iruka glanced between his notes and the board. “Thanks. I thought you were sleeping.”
“Usually am.”
“Why don’t you take notes?” Iruka asked, a little curious and a little trying to do his “job” as assigned by Sarutobi-sensei.
“Maa,” Kakashi said, flashing his phone screen toward Iruka, just a white smear before it was under the desk top again. “I got better things to do if I’m not sleeping.”
His eye was upturned again, mostly closed, his head resting on his arm, his body curled towards Iruka. Iruka had tried to take a nap at one of these benches once, back in first year when he was still feeling his middle school angst. They were not comfortable in the slightest, but Kakashi almost made it look like he was in bed.
He was correcting his notes when he asked.
“So you don’t take notes.”
“Mhm.”
“So how do you do so well on exams? Do you cram well or something?”
Kakashi just eye-smiled at him and shrugged. Iruka clenched his jaw and reminded himself that getting mad was completely unreasonable. It wasn’t even ire… it was just annoyance. It was fine to feel annoyed. He sighed.
Kakashi put his head back down and was on his phone.
Iruka was curious, so sue him. He leaned over slightly, half his attention still on the lecture. He caught names he recognized– Anthy and Utena.
Was this guy fucking reading yuri fanfiction in the middle of class??? Iruka felt his mouth drop open. Kakashi glanced over again.
“Hah,” he said.
“Are you fucking reading Ao3 in the middle of class???”
“Hey,” Kakashi said, still eye smiling. “You’re the one that knows it just from looking, Iruka-kun.”
“Shut up,” Iruka said, feeling himself go red. He blushed easy and wished he had something to blame, but he didn’t.
“Ha,” Kakashi said more than laughed it. “I’ve revised this already anyway.”
“You do a lot of self study?”
“Mhm.”
Kakashi turned away, obviously ending the conversation. As Iruka continued to write his notes, he thought about the fact that it hadn’t been the normal font for Ao3– in fact it looked like the dyslexia friendly font Iruka had tried to get Naruto to use before they realized that Naruto wasn’t dyslexic, he was just nearly illiterate.
Huh. Interesting.
The period ended and Iruka put away his physics notebook, leaving his backpack hanging on his chair. He stood up, stretched a little, and glanced down at Kakashi, who hadn’t moved in about twenty minutes. Well, there had been twitching, but Iruka thought it was the sleeping.
“Aren’t you going to get lunch?”
Kakashi jolted out of his seat, half standing, before he collapsed back and looked up to Iruka. His one eye was wide, his brows high, and even the sewn eye had widened, or gave the impression it did. Upon realizing it was only Iruka, he settled.
“Maa, Iruka-kun,” he said, trying to look nonchalant. “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t have any food let me buy you something.”
Kakashi raised his good eyebrow.
“Why?”
“Everyone should have lunch.” Iruka said very firmly. It had been engrained into him as a young child, a little before the Uminos had adopted him. Everyone deserved to eat and if you could feed other people it was your moral responsibility to do so. Kakashi was smiling at him again.
“Well I won’t complain if you’re buying.” With that, Kakashi unfolded himself from his seat. He wasn’t tall tall, but it was more than Iruka’s height, and his skinniness lent him an almost Slender-man-like appearance.
Iruka laughed a little to himself at the thought, and Kakashi looked at him quizzically.
They ambled out toward the school store. Kakashi lingered in front of the stuffed breads, while Iruka nabbed his typical rice porridge that could be microwaved in the student council room.
Kakashi picked out two red bean filled buns, and Iruka bought them. Internally he winced at the thought of the money leaving his account, but that was living. In the doorway, Iruka paused as he saw that Kakashi was still following him.
“Do you want to eat with us?” He asked, knowing he should have checked with Anko first. Kakashi raised his good eyebrow again.
“Us?”
“I always eat with Anko.”
“… Mitarashi-Chan? That’s not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?” Iruka couldn’t help but ask.
“Someone more studious, for one.”
Just because Anko didn’t get top grades… Iruka shook his head, trying to bite down his grin. He beckoned Kakashi to follow him, and they went to the art classroom, which saw habitual use but no real lovers save Anko. She was already at the window, staring out at the yard while mindlessly eating a sandwich.
“Yo,” Kakashi said. Anko startled.
“Jesus motherfucking Christ, what are you doing here?” She said, whipping her head around. “Sensei, there’s a creep!”
“Anko,” Iruka said with the weight of a thousand annoyances.
“Sensei?” Kakashi perked up a little, eye smiling again. Anko laughed while Iruka exhaled a put upon sigh.
“Iruka-sensei here is going to be a teacher,” Anko said, grinning in an evil way. “So I’m only desensitizing him to it.”
“It’s going to be years before I’m a teacher,” Iruka walked over and flicked Anko on the forehead. “She’s only being a bastard.”
“So crass!” Kakashi said, sounding obviously gleeful.
“Hm,” Anko gave Kakashi a judging look. “You’re alright, I guess. But why aren’t you off galavanting with whatever angsty chuunibyou friends you have?”
“Iruka-sensei is my only friend,” Kakashi moved his finger in the mockery of a tear along his face. “He’s so very dear to me, after all, he bought me lunch.”
“You didn’t buy me lunch, Iruka-sensei!” Anko playfully hit him. With that, Kakashi was accepted by Anko– much in the manner of a quite particular cat making a friend. Instead of taking off his mask, Kakashi sat a seat away from them both, pinched off parts of his bun, and then snuck them under his mask. Iruka watched, of course he watched. Everyone knew that Kakashi didn’t take off his mask, that he lost his eye from cancer at three years old, that he lived all the way across town. There were always a few students that got gossiped about, the highest and the lowest on the social totem, and especially the ones who floated outside the ladder. Iruka and Anko were talked about, her being the sort of troublemaker Iruka used to be, and Iruka being class president and all.
Back in class, Iruka saw that Kakashi was doodling spirals in his open notebook while their literature teacher droned on. He wasn’t exactly the most engaging man in the world, Iruka had to admit, and he found himself thinking about dyslexia and students that have trouble reading.
He wanted to be a teacher to help kids like himself and Naruto, and maybe kids like Kakashi. The kids who got shafted by the system and needed to claw their way back. What if they didn’t have the resources for such a hike? They shouldn’t need to struggle like that. So he jotted notes about thesis ideas and daydreams about university and the future at large.
Kakashi slept and read fanfiction and didn’t even give the illusion of paying attention. Iruka decided to stay back for some self study, and he wondered about Kakashi. Today had mostly been about him in Iruka’s mind, he could admit that, and it was all Sarutobi-sensei’s fault.
If he thinks it like that it sounds better.
--
Today has been almost delightful, Kakashi thinks, face down on the desk. His face hasn’t itched very much, he got a new desk mate who doesn’t seem annoyed by his presence, and Iruka is funny and smart and kind, weirdly enough. No one has ever bought Kakashi lunch before, not like that… so Iruka was interesting, so Kakashi would try to hang around. He felt it as Iruka stood up, wondering if he was leaving already. Kakashi would hang around until the building closed, and then he’d be on his way.
Then Iruka was gone, and Kakashi was alone, and he considered what he’d do next. He’d been trying to read this fic for the past few days– it was someone Jiraiya had recommended, but he was having a lot of trouble, there were a lot of words that weren’t familiar, so he had to look them up. Jiraiya took care of him– he made sure that they were readable, even for his fans like Kakashi.
Maybe he should go out there this weekend, see the dogs and Jiraiya and maybe Tsunade. She didn’t like him too much, or she said she didn’t, but she fed him, so who knew?
Kakashi huffed a laugh and tried to glance at the board. He didn’t remember what it was like to have two eyes, not really, but he had to imagine it was easier and hurt the neck less. He always found his head at a tilt, good eye in the middle, like he was a cyclops.
Not being able to read also didn’t help him in regards to being a good student. However, seeing Iruka so studious… well, wasn’t it inspiring to have a good example? It seemed to be, in Kakashi’s mind.
Iruka came back holding a bottle of some sort of soda Kakashi didn’t care about with the tips of his fingers, it knocking against his thighs as he walked. Good thighs, Kakashi thought, and promptly erased it. He wasn’t going to go down that route. Iruka looked somewhat surprised to see him.
“You’re not heading out?”
Well, Iruka had sat at the front of the class these last few weeks, and to Kakashi’s knowledge, they’d never shared a class. So of course he didn’t know that the janitors kicked Kakashi out.
“Nah,” he said, settling in. Perhaps he should try to do some reading– Jiraiya’s or otherwise. Maybe he should even try to look at his books!
He wouldn’t. It was a false start, as it would always be. Kakashi pulled out his phone and resumed his reading. Utena was confused about Anthy’s intentions, it was another cycle, and she remembered and at the same time didn’t. Kakashi imagined being there, seeing a ghost of a ghost of a memory when looking into someone’s eyes, while they only smiled sadly, like they were remembering too.
Iruka huffed as he worked on practice problems.
Kakashi was good at math, when it didn’t have letters. He considered asking Iruka if he needed help.
“Those problems treating you okay, Iruka-sensei?”
Anko was right to call him that, it was fun and helpful. How would Iruka be a teacher when he flushed red just from hearing his title?
“Huh?” Iruka asked, and then the question registers. “They’re alright. What, are you about to offer tutoring?”
“Well I’ve been told I’m a genius at math.” It had been when he was getting criticized for not taking notes in class and then doing well on exams, they loved to tell him that if only he paid attention more he’d easily be the first in all of them. Authority figures were never happy when they learned that your best wasn’t what they believed your best to be.
Iruka scrutinized him, then shrugged, pointing at a particular problem.
“Help me with this one.”
Well, he had just solved one that needed the exact same process, but wasn’t friendship a sort of test? Or at least to his mind it made a lot of sense that Iruka would test him. Thus, he explained the problem, and Iruka was satisfied. He smiled a little bit, directed at Kakashi, and Kakashi closed his eyes.
He dozed. He didn’t get much sleep at home. The scritching sound of Iruka’s pencil was much better than the white noise Kakashi usually used.
The sound of the windows clicking shut woke him, and he sat up, startled. It was raining, and Iruka was mostly in shadow as he closed the windows. Sarutobi sensei had left hours ago, and it must have been late. The rain was probably making it prematurely dark.
“Do you have an umbrella?” Iruka asked, coming back over. What a good class president… Kakashi yawned, instinctively covering his face despite the mask.
“No,” Kakashi said. “And I bike.”
“Eesh,” Iruka replied, shaking his head. “I have one, but I walk.”
“Well,” Kakashi said, thinking that everything was going well today. “I have an idea.”
It was a bad idea, functionally, but it worked. Of course it worked. It was also illegal twice over, but who cared? Kakashi was riding and Iruka was on the back, holding onto him and also holding the umbrella aloft.
“Ah,” Iruka said as they rolled to a stop in front of his house. “The umbrella.”
“Oh,” Kakashi had also forgotten. “It’s alright, I’m not far away.”
“Hmph,” Iruka stared up at his building. He thrust the umbrella into Kakashi's hand and dashed under the awning.
“Huh?”
“You take it, just bring it to school tomorrow!” Iruka called out from the shelter. He was smiling, his hair already wet and sticking to his face as it wisped out of his ponytail. Kakashi grinned back, unsure if Iruka could tell.
“I will,” he said. Iruka threw him a thumbs up and turned to leave. Now it was down to being one crime, which was basically nothing. He biked home still smiling, thinking about what a good day it had been.