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A shinobi did not cry. They could grieve, they could feel sorrow, they could be melancholic, but they didn't cry. Many had always detested the said rule. Some didn't know how to feel about it. They all understood its point, however, and therefore vowed to act according to it.
For one, there rarely was an opportunity to cry when maintaining the facade was the only means to succeed on a mission. For two, crying meant that other unfavorable emotions became known as well: fear, dread, panic, longing, shame, anger, rage, hurt, only a few to be named. They were labeled as emotions that could cause the mission to fail. What was worse, they could cloud one's thinking and thus lead to an even worse result than what it had been at the beginning, multiplying the number of bad news in a flash.
Hence, they did not cry. Not when refraining from tears counted the most, at least.
In that sense, Iruka supposed that some were understandably upset by his tears.
Granted, he had never been condemned unfit for his profession because of his emotional reactions, which were quite alarmingly open to everyone paying attention. Over the years, the tan tokujo had come to the conclusion that it was most likely the fact that not many operating in their ranks could any longer connect so well with their emotions after experiencing a certain amount of traumatic situations where they had to suppress them. In that sense, witnessing a colleague crying openly could be disorienting, to say the least.
There were, however, those who let the ones capable of mourning to do so. For them all.
Nevertheless, despite his own manner of displaying emotions, it didn't mean that he couldn't recognize other forms of sadness and sorrow, the ones that so many times were overlooked. When working with both children and adults, the dark-haired headmaster had become aware of the fact that to bear an emotional burden, it didn't necessarily mean that one wanted it to be expressed to the public. It was the kind that became visible when one knew where to look: the dark rings under the otherwise smiling eyes, the odd pause in the conversation, the passing, distant look in the eyes of those who had a fragment of a memory triggered in that moment – a smile that didn't reach the eyes.
Those were his thoughts when he leaned against the door frame and looked at the man with whom he had begun a new chapter in his life – an elite shinobi who, according to all the rumors, had practiced the act of suppressing himself into a form of art.
It had taken him longer than usual to return home after the day, mostly due to tutoring Naruto on the jounin test materials and seeing the young man off for the night after they had finished with the day's topics. During the day's lessons he had started to question his lover's strike of genius to provide the village's hero with private lectures and mentoring, seeing that some of their shared time was spent bickering over the new ramen flavors that Ichiraku had put on their menu. His greeting to his partner and the report on the day's events hadn't gotten past his lips, however, when he had arrived home and had noticed there only to be light coming from their shared study, with the rest of the apartment bathing in darkness.
There he stood then, leaning against the frame, his keen eyes observing the man who sat by the wooden office desk, the silver-haired jounin seemingly focused on something that he held in his hands, the object being hidden from the view by the broad back and shoulders.
“Welcome home,” the man suddenly said, his voice quiet and low, and yet Iruka was startled by it.
“I'm back,” he said in response, and added for the lack of anything better to say: “Have you eaten yet?”
A single shake of the silver-haired head was the answer, which he readily took. While making sure that he made sufficiently noise, the tokubetsu returned to their kitchen and started the preparations for the night snack, his body falling into the well-set routine for providing nourishment for them both before going to bed. It was somewhere between brewing himself a cup and putting the pickled radish on the table when he sensed the other's presence press against his back, the intensity of it stopping his puttering before a pair of pale arms circled his waist and a chin was dropped resting on his shoulder.
“Kakashi?” he asked, not alarmed yet not overly familiar with the mood he sensed, either. Before he could ask anything else, the pale chin rose from leaning on him and instead he felt the man's lips press against his neck, a slow sigh of breath following the otherwise silent gesture.
Then, a long intake of breath, a pause, and an exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Iruka couldn't guess how long they stood like that in the kitchen, with his lover embracing him and breathing against his neck, the warm breath brushing against his sensitive skin and causing tremors in his body, a reaction that the older nin most likely registered when holding him so close.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Before he knew it, he no longer cared about the time, or the past hours of the day, him being lulled into the rhythm of the jounin's steady breathing, the heat of the lean body that pressed against him, the weight of the silent burden that pressed down on them both. He could feel the other's chest rise and fall with each breath, sense the tensing and relaxing of the arms that kept him in place, the minute tremor in their muscles that he had detected when he had placed his own hands on top of them. He let himself stay put, let himself become the rock against which his companion could lean on; to be the one who held the other standing instead of being the one needing to be held.
Inhale.
Exhale.
“I'm being difficult again, aren't I,” Kakashi's voice suddenly rumbled against his skin and Iruka took in a sharp breath at the sensations the low bass created in his body when it resounded deep from the pale man's chest. “Troubling you like this after a long day.”
“No, you're not,” Iruka answered quietly, letting his fingers rub the pale-skinned knuckles and the long fingers, finding pleasure of the way the other's hands responded to his touch.
“You're too kind,” the jounin countered softly, letting the unsaid words be still heard in his tone, and Iruka let out a huff of his own. Suddenly, he felt an expression form on the other's face. Before the tokujo could label the twist of the thin-lipped mouth as something that wasn't a smile, the older male continued: “How was the brat?”
“His normal self, well, as normal as a hero can be, and as vehemently against homework as he was when he was twelve,” Iruka chuckled a bit when he spoke, briefly enjoying the flicker of a memory that was Naruto's stunned face when he had announced the weekend's workload. Then, a waver of emotion passed over his face, moistening his eyes and pulling down the corners of his mouth. “He...really is something.”
A hum of a noncommittal interest left Kakashi's side, and the pale chin nuzzled against the other's darkly clad shoulder. “How is that?”
He didn't mean to let it out as unchecked as it was, but Iruka let a breath push out of his lungs. “He thanked me today. Of accepting him as he was...a boy, a student, a human...as himself.”
“He is right in that,” was agreed against his neck by the other man, a sliver of a teasing smile lightening the mood around them for a bit. “You paid for his ramen, didn't you.”
“I'm sure our budget can handle a splurge every now and then,” Iruka teased back, reveling in the slight easing of tension he could detect in the pale man's body. Playing his odds, he let himself lean back against the solid chest, if only to keep the contact unbroken between them. “...It's...always a bit overwhelming. Realizing just how much our actions weigh in their lives. How their future shapes within our reality.”
Then, all was silent. No remark, no tease, nothing coming from the man he had grown to love over the passing seasons, and Iruka felt his heart give a heavy thud. Yet, he kept his body relaxed, and his eyes closed, waiting for the other to find the needed words.
“...I never asked for this.” The voice, usually so smooth and convincing, carried sentiments that made the time still for a beat. “Any of it.”
“...No. Nor did I. Nor did others.” Iruka amended, letting his voice drop low and soothing. He let his fingers rub over the knuckles of the hands that held him, conveying unspoken comfort, things he had trouble finding words for as badly as the jounin who had seen so much for so long.
“...It's easy to disappear.” Soft, almost non-spoken, were the words mouthed against the tokujo's skin.
“Yes. It is.” Iruka spoke quietly before settling to look at their shared reflection in the kitchen window, taking in the shadows in the steel-gray eyes, the tension in the exposed jawline – the quiet question in the man's expression that screamed at him. At the sight, he felt his heart fill with sudden longing to stop the flow of time, to cease the new dawn from forming; to have enough time to chase away the doubts, the past mistakes, the haunts from the intelligent man's gaze. “I won't let go.”
There was no answer, but the change of posture, the tightness in the arms that held him, the way the man's breathing sped up, was enough for him to know, to hold on tighter on the hands that trembled against his ribs and stomach.
“I won't let go,” he repeated, softly, while watching the silhouette of their village outside the window. His eyes and cheeks were wet again, his mouth pulled into a hard line like it had been a few hours prior, and his shoulders shook, but should all that be enough to bear the burdens of his partner, to carry light to the morning that will evidently arise after yet another dark night – then so be it.
He cried the tears of those who no longer could.
He would not let go.