Chapter Text
“‘Uneventful?’”
Kakashi very nearly straightens out of his slouch as the shrill voice echoes down the corridor, around the corner, and down into the stairwell he occupies. One hand in his pocket, the other skimming the handrail, Kakashi freezes as he weighs his options: teleport away and face Iruka’s wrath another day, or bear it now so that he can know peace.
It’s simple when he puts it like that.
He doesn’t want to sleep with one eye open.
“Maa,” he hedges, turning his head to look over his shoulder as Iruka barrels around the corner. He’s got an armful of scrolls, steely fury in his eyes, and carries the scent of ramen. He must’ve had a quick dinner before heading in for his shift at the Mission Desk. “It, uh—”
“You wrote in your report that the mission ‘went as expected,’” Iruka shouts, his sandals slapping loudly against the polished concrete step as he glares down at Kakashi from above. “You told me that it went well!”
If he weren’t cornered in the stairwell, Kakashi might cast a glance around to see who could be listening. As it is, he does his best to minimize the collateral: “And it did, sensei,” he insists, both hands up to placate as he smiles softly. “Everyone made it back to the village on their own two feet.”
That only enrages Iruka further.
“Yes!” he shouts as he stomps down the stairs. “After only a month of recuperation!” He nearly loses a scroll, but juggles it back into the pile. “A reliable source informed me that—that their teammates almost died,” Iruka accuses. He’s so red in the face that Kakashi’s not surprised to see a vein start throbbing in Iruka’s temple. “You included!”
Kakashi can practically hear the way he grinds his teeth.
“Like I said, sensei,” he says a bit more firmly, “We all made it back. Safe and sound. There’s nothing I can do—”
“You can stop being so goddamn reckless,” Iruka hisses, leaning in close to shake Kakashi by the shoulder. “You can stop leading by example and teaching those kids that the ends justify the means! You c—”
Scrolls tumble out of his grip and spill down the steps; Iruka reaches after them, then overbalances as if he hadn’t realized there was one last step. He lands on a scroll—rolls his ankle—and Kakashi catches him by the shoulders. Inertia fights him, but Kakashi uses the momentum to spin Iruka and press him to the wall, keeping him from taking a nasty tumble down the next flight of stairs like half of his poor scrolls.
Iruka stares at him, wide-eyed, pink in the cheeks, seemingly forgetting that he’s still squishing the last couple of scrolls between their chests. His chest heaves a bit, and Kakashi’s gaze snags on the split of his plush lips. They’re a bit shiny from all of the jaw-flapping. Kakashi wonders, for a brief moment, if that’s what they’d look like after he’s just been kissed.
And then above them, someone coughs.
Hagane Kotetsu’s silhouette shakes at the shoulders. Backlit, Kakashi can’t make out his expression, but Iruka bursts into activity, shrugging out of Kakashi’s grip and barrelling up the stairs, all but two scrolls abandoned at Kakashi’s feet. He’s a flurry of hands and hair:
“Don’t you dare—”
“Ohhhh,” Kotetsu says, “so it’s like that.”
Kakashi blinks.
Kotetsu’s laughter bursts free as he sprints away, and Iruka’s enraged screaming trails after him—“Not a word, Kotetsu!”—echoing down the stairwell.
The scrolls still sit piled at his feet on the landing and spilled over the bottom stairs. Given that they’re a tripping hazard, Kakashi bends to pick them up, muttering under his breath about clumsy chūnin, workplace safety, and double standards all the while.
With an armful of scrolls, Kakashi sighs and follows the shouting.