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There was something off about Umino Iruka.
Kakashi would not have been able to pinpoint when Iruka became a person of interest. He hadn’t paid much attention to the kid—orphans after the Kyuubi attack were everywhere, especially those with shinobi parents. And Kakashi had cared more about drowning his own grief in ANBU to care about a random pre-genin. He knew it wouldn’t have been what Minato-sensei would have wanted for him, not when his sensei had only allowed Kakashi into ANBU to keep him close. But the Fourth Hokage was dead and the Sandaime did not have the luxury of allowing an ANBU-level shinobi on domestic missions even if he was barely fifteen.
By the time that Kakashi had finally managed to lift his head away from the blood on his hands and the numbness of cold steel at his core, word of Iruka Umino had been spreading through the ranks.
In the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack, any vaguely competent pre-genin was ruthlessly promoted. The fledgling initiatives that Minato-sense had only barely started to increase the minimum graduation age had been put on hold. Genin were vital to keeping the day-to-day of the village running as as chunnin and above reinforced their borders and maintained Konoha’s reputation among other hidden villages.
Iruka should have been a below-average genin, graduating from the Academy by necessity rather than any actual skill. Instead, Iruka had been quietly and almost unceremoniously seen as one of the biggest rising stars. There were rumors of his skills in sealing, a much-sought after skill that had been rapidly dying in the last generation since the fall of Uzushio. The number of seal masters were less than a dozen for the entire village and covetously hoarded by almost every department.
That explained why the Sandaime himself had taken him under his wing as an unofficial apprentice, sharing the various scrolls and tombs from his late wife.
But it did not explain why Iruka had been slowly and unceremoniously worming his way into the lives of other high-profile individuals.
And among them was the jinchuriki, the Kyuubi vessel, and his precious sensei’s son. Kakashi had not agreed with the Sandaime’s decision to inform the common populace about Naruto’s status--and that hadn’t changed in the intervening year. Kakashi had done his best to report the obvious neglect of the orphanage, the way civilians sneered at a newborn, but it would never be enough. He had been fourteen when his sensei died, and without Jiraiya stepping in to raise the boy, there had been no other option but the orphanage.
That hadn’t stopped Iruka. The first time Kakashi had seen the genin around the village, the small blond baby wrapped in a cloth sling and gurgling nonsense, he hadn’t known how to feel. When others had given glares, spitting at his feet or hiking prices, Iruka seemed uncaring. He carried the boy almost everywhere with him—taking him for grocery deliveries or fence painting, wrapped tight against him and looking out at the world with impossibly blue eyes.
And the Sandaime didn’t protest, didn’t do anything except rework Naruto’s ANBU guard schedule to revolve around Umino’s mission schedule.
And then there was the boy. The boy that Kakashi should not have officially recognized, who was barely nine with unassuming brown hair, deep black eyes, and the mokuton. Kakashi had met him as Kinoe, with the empty eyes of a child who had never been a child, who would have held a knife to his own throat and had never known how to not be a weapon.
But Kakashi watched from afar as the ROOT operative clung to Iruka’s hand like a real child, who managed the smallest smile when the older boy cracked a joke, and who answered to his newly given name Tenzou. And the young Tenzou looked at Umino like he was both starlight and sunshine, who had once uttered the affectation nii-san and was answered with a blinding smile from who should have been an unassuming genin.
Kakashi should not be spending his little time off duty watching the odd trio. None were children by the village's standard—a demon, a weapon, and a soldier. But it was hard to tell sometimes when watching them, when Iruka dragged Tenzou to the park. Tenzou was carrying the jinchuriki in a harness across his chest, arms wrapped almost protectively around the small child as he watched Iruka lay out a large blue blanket, worn and dotted with daisies, under a tree, just within sight of a playground that neither would use. And he unrolled a scroll, unsealing it with the barest flicker of chakra to release a spread of food containers.
Kakashi watched as Iruka handed Tenzou a salmon onigiri before he opened a container full of sliced apples and bananas that he set before Naruto, who busied himself stuffing a handful into his mouth.
Iruka then pulled out another sealed container, opening it to reveal a neat array of egg salad sandwiches. And then, to Kakashi’s shock, he looked straight up at the tree that Kakashi was hiding in and waved. “Kakashi-kun,” Iruka said, mild and friendly, “are you going to join us for lunch today?”
Kakashi couldn’t help the startled flicker of his chakra that escaped his carefully suppressed field. He didn’t know how a genin would have been able to sense him—his chakra cloaking was one of the best in ANBU.
Iruka rolled his eyes, as though amused by Kakashi’s hesitation. “I made extra today for you.” He grabbed another container, opening it to show some stir fried eggplant. “Miso is your favorite, isn’t it?”
Tenzou didn’t look surprised, taking a bite of his onigiri in silence, as eyed the spot where Iruka had indicated Kakashi was.
Iruka didn’t seem deterred by Kakashi’s silence, seeming comfortable as he set the disk in any empty space on the blanket, setting a pair of chopsticks over the top. “Do you prefer green or oolong tea?” he asked, nonplussed as he checked the contents of two thermos.
Kakashi didn’t know how to respond. He considered running, using a body flicker to hide away and pretend that he had never been there. But another part of him was tempted by the offer by a genin who was no older than twelve who had somehow taken both the jinchuriki and a ROOT agent and were treating them like—like children and more than just weapons. Who made them lunch with sweetened tea and wiped smeared bananas from their faces.
“Kakashi-kun,” Iruka said, looking up and somehow right at Kakashi despite being hidden among the leaves, and his face was round and kind and young yet something in his eye that felt like loss and peace, happiness and yearning. “Please join us for lunch.”
Kakashi looked away, clutching at the fabric of his uniform pants as the words brought up an old memory of Kushina doing the same. He could picture it— Obito offering her the first choice of wagashi while Minato-sensei tried to sneak a bite of dango while his wife wasn’t looking. This wasn’t the same—not his genin team but a group led by another child with too old eyes, but it was close enough. It had the same heart at its core—the same offering of family and understanding and something more, something intangible that Kakashi had not thought possible since he was five.
Kakashi exhaled and jumped down.