Archive of Our Own

“My hip and youthful rival!” Guy stage-whispered at him, and Kakashi’s well-honed instincts bristled in the face of certain, impending doom, “I am pleased to see that you are finally indulging in the rewards of springtime blooms!” 

As usual, the words that made perfect sense individually had been strung up in a nonsensical order, so Kakashi slid his attention away from the shinobi that he had been watching to meet Guy’s painfully shimmering eyes. 

“Huh?”

Guy shook his head dramatically, fist clenched against his chest as he warbled, “My friend! Of course I mean the path of lovely blossom, the road of cherished, amorous passion that you walk!” 

Kakashi stared. 

“Tut tut tut,” Guy raised a hand to place it emphatically on Kakashi’s shoulder, and Kakashi slipped just out of reach. They continue like that for several minutes more, and Kakashi only relented when it became apparent that Guy seemed to consider making a Challenge out of it. Passerbys gave a wide berth as they walked around them, pointedly ignoring the crazy fucking jounins as they stared ahead. Guy continued smoothly like there had been no interruption before, “I see it written all over your face! The lovestruck expression of affection and romance!” 

Huh?

Guy was nodding to himself now, stuck in some kind of terrible, insane monologue, “Your fire is truly inspiring, Kakashi! The depths of your spirited ardour clearly knows no limits, as you coolly make clear to all who see the far-reaching extent of your fierce love!” 

Sound alone was clearly inadequate in expressing the rapid confusion that rose in Kakashi, and no good shinobi would allow themselves to remain stuck in this situation of lopsided, disadvantageous information asymmetry. Cleverly crafted words needed to be wielded here, in order to carve a decipherable path through this inane mess. 

“What?” 

“Ah, my rival, there is no need to be shy!” Guy powered on with no regard at all for the remaining vestiges of Kakashi’s sanity, “I have borne witness to the heartfelt look of longing as you watched Iruka-sensei from a distance, and it fills my heart with joy to see your beautiful display of youthful romance! Not to fear - I strongly approve. Iruka-sensei is not just a great man, but a good man! Come, allow me to introduce you!”

And then, to Kakashi’s absolute horror, Guy bellowed down the street, calling out for the target that he had been observing. 

Kakashi fumbled momentarily, and picked up the nearest object to duck behind - they were standing next to a used bookstore, so it was a bright orange book that he had grabbed to feign interest in. He blamed it on his time in ANBU; Kakashi had become far too used to having a physical, porcelain mask between him and the world, and if the expression on what limited exposed face he had was anything even as one-tenth as stupid as Guy’s description, then he really needed a moment to school it into some semblance of dispassionate neutrality.

Not that he should have needed to do so to begin with. Kakashi certainly was not in love with someone that he didn’t know, and all he had been doing was trying to figure out why looking at this unknown shinobi carefully holding on to the hand of Minato-sensei’s son as they did their shopping brought to mind the memory of sensei and Kushina-san fawning over their then-unborn child. It’s just his bad luck that not only did Guy catch him in the middle of working through those feelings, but that he actually knew the man himself. 

Kakashi got half a minute or so before he heard a second voice greet them, and the smooth tenor of this new sound left some inexplicable part of him feeling warm, to his continued confusion.

“Guy-sensei,” Iruka greeted, and Kakashi lowered the book slightly to survey his changed environment, “Naruto? Do you remember Guy-sensei?” 

Naruto mumbled something incoherent, but Iruka waited patiently until he eventually stopped staring at the grey spot on the ground before them and remembered his manners, “hi Guy-sensei.” 

“I’m pleased to see you again, Naruto-kun,” Gai said in an uncharacteristically subdued voice, “have either of you met my good friend Hatake Kakashi?”

Kakashi swallowed when Iruka turned towards him, feeling nervous all of a sudden, and he settled for watching over the edge of his book. At least his internal shaking didn’t manifest itself physically. Up close, Iruka’s sharp features were intriguing, and it left him wanting for something he didn’t have words for.

“It’s a pleasure to be introduced, Hatake-san,” Iruka said, bowing slightly. Kakashi grunted some sort of reply in response, not really trusting himself to be eloquent in this unfathomable social setting. Next to Iruka, Naruto dipped his head as well, but his bright blue eyes were fixed on Kakashi with interest. 

“Whatcha reading?” Naruto piped up. 

“A very fascinating read,” Kakashi drawled. He had no idea what the book was about, but he thought he could get away with hiding his face behind it like some pre-genin if he pretended the book in his hands held the secrets of the universe or something. 

“Is that so?” Iruka’s gaze turned steely and his voice cold. Kakashi didn’t miss the way he tugged Naruto behind him slightly. No subtlety there at all. Perhaps a deliberate display of protectiveness? Kakashi knew dogs were known to do that for their pups in the face of a threat, and Kakashi was generally considered a threat. “Well, Guy-sensei, Hatake-san, I’m afraid we must be going.”

The both of them bowed politely and Iruka picked Naruto up in his arms and body-flickered them away before either he or Guy could say a word. How rude. 

Guy turned towards him, and then a pained expression crossed his face. Remarkably, he floundered for a moment, as if struggling to find the right words - Kakashi counted this as a win! He had rendered Guy speechless! - and his face continued to contort itself for a while before he eventually exhaled sharply to speak. 

“My friend,” Guy said carefully, “your commitment to your passion is truly unparalleled, if somewhat unorthodox. Do not take this as a criticism, however, when I say that your fervent excitement might come across as… intimidating?” 

Huh?

Kakashi turned the book over to read the cover. The title, ‘Icha Icha Paradise’, glared up at him without any real meaning, so he flipped it back to the page it was open at. 

“Yukio-san!” Shira moaned deeply as her beloved pressed into her, embracing the hot fullness that throbbed against the walls of her-

Kakashi’s eye widened in shock as he dropped the book like it burnt. Because it surely did, being the single cause of the urgent heat rising through him as he attempted, poorly, to process what he had just read.

“Did you not know?” Guy faltered slightly in concern, “The Icha Icha series is a very popular erotica publication. Ah, perhaps your straightforward proposition was unintentional?” 

How the hell was Kakashi supposed to know something like that? The last few years of his life had been nothing but a blur of covert S-rank missions, and before that, not-so covert S- and A-rank missions done on the official roster. When exactly was he supposed to be picking up information on pop-culture, between running assassinations or sabotage operations? Kakashi did not scowl even though he wanted to, but picked the book up again as he met Guy’s eye coolly. 

“I have no interest whatsoever in this Iruka,” Kakashi lied, placing the book back into the box it was originally from, “I simply thought this was a limited edition copy of my favourite book. I see I was mistaken.” 

“Right.” Guy said, but without his typical verbosity, the disbelief was clear in his voice. Sensei had always mused that Kakashi had a curious propensity to childish pettiness at times, and Kakashi could almost hear his voice berating him lightly now. Only almost, because the man was dead, and dead men did not have real voices.

“Anyway,” Kakashi shoved his hands into his pockets, “did you need me for something?” 

Maybe it’s a moment of mercy that Guy decided to offer Kakashi when he refrained from broaching the subject again, so Kakashi decided to not look a horse gift in the mouth and let Guy drag him away to lunch at a quiet yakitori spot.

It took him perhaps a fortnight of continued discipline before Kakashi caved in and picked up a set of Icha Icha books, mostly to satisfy his personal curiosity. 

And alright, fine, maybe he had spent most of it out of the country on another mission - playing bodyguard to some high-level dignitary returning to the capital - but he had various opportunities to buy them in the different towns that they passed through, and the point was that he did not.

When he returned to his dormitory with a brand new box set of the books, he had managed to somewhat convince himself that it was a matter of research. In learning human social behaviour. Because the Sandaime had pulled him out of ANBU (an obvious demotion) with some tale about how Kakashi had spent too much time in covert operations and risked losing his humanity (a weak excuse). 

So now, there was no longer Inu, accomplished ANBU captain. 

Just Hatake Kakashi, Konoha jounin. 

Who the hell even was that anyway?

Still, whatever his justifications, nothing had prepared him for the sheer everything that the Icha Icha books turned out to be. He devoured them all in a single sitting, only realising that he had stayed up all night reading when the sound of morning birds tittering outside his window pulled him from his trance as he finished the last words in the final book.

His rapid heart-rate could be attributed to one of two things - the adrenaline from the cliffhanger that was Shira’s pained departure her lover Yukio, or the fact that it was his fourth consecutive sleepless night in a while. Possibly both. It was a pretty decent read, if Kakashi was honest, despite being somewhat unrealistic in many areas.

Nonetheless, Kakashi had learnt a lot, not necessarily about human relationships that he could apply in the real world, but it offered an interesting insight as to why so many people were so utterly stupid about sex. If lovemaking could be as remarkably colourful and intense as described in the novels, he supposed he could see the appeal. 

Well, Kakashi wasn’t like them, he mused as he put the books aside to settle in for a quick nap. He’d never had much of an interest in such affairs anyway, because he understood that he was first and foremost a tool that existed to serve the village. 

Kakashi dozed off quickly, but instead of the dreamless sleep that he was accustomed to whenever he wore himself out thoroughly, Kakashi found himself captured in vivid fantasies where the soft domesticity associated with watching families bled into lingering touches between him and a beautiful man with rich, tanned skin and a striking scar that ran from cheek to cheek. 

He woke up with cold dread and a wet, sticky patch in his trousers, horror rapidly dawning on him.

Guy had gently suggested to Kakashi that he ought to consider apologising to Iruka for possibly giving off the wrong signal in reading a piece of pornography in front of him, but Kakashi resisted that notion. Why should he apologise when he had done nothing wrong? If Iruka thought he was being propositioned because Kakashi was reading Icha Icha in front of him, well, that’s on him for his narrow-mindedness. 

Shinobi lesson number something something - never prejudicially assume something without first clarifying it from trusted sources. 

Kakashi was doing Iruka a favour. Many agents in ANBU sought the mentorship of Inu, and here Kakashi was, doling it out for free from the goodness of his heart. 

Furthermore, an event was only notable if it was exceptional; if, on the other hand, it occurred with habitual recurrence without any other common underlying cause, then it was simply a very normal and mundane happening. Kakashi was ready to commit to the act of publicly reading Icha Icha on a frequent basis. That society found it repugnant, as Guy had emphasized patiently, sounded more like a bonus than any real bane. 

Besides, Kakashi reasoned, like every poison that his body had learnt to resist, the only way to effectively desensitise and immunise himself from his newfound, unwanted reaction to this issue of sex was constant, repeated exposure. He had to resolve this growing curiosity before it became a serious impediment in his work, and what safer way to do it than by reading the Icha Icha books a few hundred times?

In any case, when he finally remembered that for public missions, a documented report was required for submission in the mission room, Kakashi pulled out the relevant paperwork from where it was used to prop up a wobbly chair and dragged himself to the Tower, book in hand. The expressions of shock directed at him as he made his way through the village vindicated his conclusions, and Kakashi was pleased to learn that he was, as usual, right. 

Finding Iruka in the mission room was a blessing, providing him with an opportunity to test his new hypothesis. He fell into Iruka’s line casually, scribbling in the post-mission form on his open copy of Icha Icha and basked in the attention deliberately averted from him. By the time it was his turn, Kakashi handed over the documents with his posture pulled into a slouch of casual disinterest at his surroundings, his attention devoted entirely to the book. 

There was a very lengthy and flowery description of Yukio going down on Shira, and it helped that Iruka wasn’t a girl and therefore didn’t have the requisite parts for such an act, and therefore Kakashi couldn’t imagine Iruka in the context of the book. 

Ah, serendipity , he told himself even as he felt himself growing warm. It must be the fever, sweating out the toxins. 

“Hatake-san,” Iruka said politely. Kakashi offered him a lazy gaze from the top of his book, “your report is unfortunately inadequate. You’ve failed to fill out sections two through four, and in the place of your signature, you have instead drawn-” Iruka turned the document around so Kakashi could see it. A pointless act, really, Kakashi was capable of reading upside down, “-a smiley. Please revise with the appropriate amendments as I am unable to accept this report.” 

Kakashi narrowed his eye at him slightly, his lips pulling downwards in mild confusion, “that’s not a smiley, that’s my signature,” he leaned over the table, the book still pulled up to his face as he plucked the pen out of Iruka’s grip to sign it again. “See? He-no-he-no-mo-he-ji.” 

He dropped the pen on to the table and spread his palm open with a flourish. He doesn’t say ta-da, but he believed his intentions were adequately conveyed.

Iruka stared. 

Really now, Kakashi thought that was obvious. He tilted his head slightly in wait. 

Suddenly, he realised that the faint smell of paper wasn’t just from his book alone, but from Iruka as well, mixed with a somewhat peppery scent. It’s a confusing thought of no general utility, but he filed it away anyway as he pulled away slowly to retain a clear head free of such pointless distractions. 

It helped, but only marginally.

“And your excuse for the empty sections?” Iruka said eventually, still watching him coolly.

“Well, now that I’ve signed the form, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Kakashi shrugged. 

Iruka’s face reddened beautifully for a moment, and then he exhaled, tempering the blush that looked so good on him. It’s somewhat disappointing, Kakashi thought, for Iruka to regain composure so quickly. Well, at least it was a sign that Iruka made for a decent shinobi. 

Hang on - his priorities seem to be out of order. 

“Very well, Hatake-san. If that’s the case,” Iruka pulled opened one of the drawers on his desk and pulled out a stamp. Without breaking eye contact with him, Iruka slammed it loudly on the inkpad, and then again and again against every page of Kakashi’s report. The silence in the crowded mission room was palpable - only the harsh sound of the loud stamp banging against wood reverberating through it. On each page, Kakashi saw that the words ‘REJECTED’ were stamped across it in bright, angry red ink. Iruka gathered the papers and handed them back to Kakashi, “please rewrite your report to an adequate standard, along with appendix five describing why your original report was rejected.” 

What the fuck? 

Kakashi stared down at Iruka, taking in the details of his stiff chunin vest and the heated glare in his eyes. Kakashi might not have had much of a presence on the public roster in the last few years, but he was certain he had a certain, stubborn reputation that persisted. Iruka was either very foolhardy or plain silly, an unfortunate thing for him. Kakashi had a lifetime of experience in staring down unruly, uncooperative shinobi, the first rule of which was to never back down. Most of the time, his notoriety was enough to break weaker men, so all he had to do was wait.

Iruka refused to crack, still meeting him with burning defiance, a heat in his eyes that could easily be imagined in other contexts. 

“You’re holding up the line,” Iruka said neutrally, Kakashi’s rejected paperwork still held out. 

Bizarrely, it occurred to Kakashi that rather than the sweet and passive Shira he had imagined, Iruka was really more like the hot and cutting Yukio. That changed everything, including Kakashi’s initial perception of the possible dynamics in his relationship with Iruka. 

Wait, wait, wait, what the fuck?

“I’m not dealing with this,” Kakashi remarked, channelling boredom into his tone, and body-flickered himself out of the mission room before anyone else could catch on, before he lost control of his tongue to the swirling mass of fluster running rampant in his mind.

So perhaps Kakashi had miscalculated. No problem - no plan was perfect from the get-go. 

It wasn't sex in and of itself that bothered Kakashi then, but Iruka. That made sense. It was staring at Iruka and trying to decipher him that got Kakashi into this mess to begin with, so he made a slight adjustment into this strategy - instead of merely repeated exposure to the pornographic material in his book, Kakashi would seek to increase the number of interactions he had with Iruka. As a bonus to this hypothesis, historical data had proven that increasing one's time spent in close proximity to a person only led to one of two conclusions - they were either boring/tedious enough that, where possible, a natural parting would occur, or that they would somehow actually be likeable enough to endear themselves to him. 

Considering that Kakashi had lived twenty odd years and needed less than one hand to count the number of people that fell into the latter category, it was a risk that he was willing to take.

Finding out about Iruka wasn't a particularly difficult affair. Kakashi placed himself somewhere in the village where Guy would "accidentally" find him and he wordlessly went through their challenge of the day - running backwards around the perimeter of Konoha while reciting the founding principles of the village. It ended with a late lunch at an okonomiyaki restaurant, and Kakashi made it a point to place his copy of Icha Icha on the table as they sat down to eat. When he saw the way Guy wrinkled his nose, he was confident that Guy would bring up Iruka again.

True to form, Guy did as expected. Kakashi liked that he was predictable that way.

Kakashi learnt that Iruka was three years younger than him and had recently passed his exams to take up a role as a teacher at the academy - making his previously established relationship with Guy understandable. Guy occasionally offered taijutsu lessons at the academy, so an acquaintanceship from that direction made sense. He also learnt that Iruka had adopted Naruto last year, and that sensei's son had been staying with the young chunin ever since. It led to Guy bursting into dramatic tears about how noble and pure-hearted Iruka was, but Kakashi reserved judgment on something so subjective. Iruka might be the bleeding heart type, or just as possibly a cunning opportunist. 

Worming his way into Iruka's life was also just as easy. Kakashi had the clout to march into the Sandaime's office and ask to see Naruto, so he did. He doesn't add that the Sandaime owed him that, after nearly a decade of near back-to-back missions outside the village, even though he could easily say as such. 

No need to play all of one's cards in one go. 

The Sandaime exhaled on his pipe. Kakashi returned the stare. Eventually, it’s mentioned that someone named Iruka had adopted him. Kakashi feigned surprise in a raised eyebrow. Five minutes later, he had the address to Iruka's apartment memorised in his head.

It's all very above-board and by the book. Kakashi could have just as easily broken into the records room, but some niggling sense told him this was better, and Kakashi had never been one to doubt his instincts. 

Iruka lived in a decent enough neighbourhood in the civilian sector. It's not somewhere that Kakashi had ever found himself in, but the streets were clearly marked and it was easy to find his way around without having to jump around from roof to roof. Briefly, he wondered how much money Iruka received under the table for his care of Naruto. 

Rent, as Kakashi had gathered from the complaints of his colleagues that lived outside the military barracks, was always a too high expense and a general pain to deal with. It’s a problem that Kakashi would never encounter. He was likely to live alone in the shinobi barracks for the rest of his equally likely short life, and in the improbable event of retirement at an elderly age, there was always the good old dusty Hatake compound to rely on.

There's a little doorbell next to Iruka's front door. It’s so quaint. Kakashi hadn't seen one since he was a child, since he traded the concept of a home for a dormitory in the barracks. Military houses were not designed to have friendly callers and social visits. He pressed the buzzer and waited, his weight falling on the back of his heels as he shoved his hands into his pockets. 

Kakashi even made sure to take Guy’s advice into consideration - the weight of his Icha Icha book sat idly and unfamiliar in one of his pouches - though he would sooner stab himself than admit this nicety to Guy.

The door swung open a moment later, pulling inwards. On the other side, Iruka stared at him, wearing the standard shinobi blacks and a frown on his face.

"I am here to see Naruto," he announced, a bundle of justifications ready on the tip of his tongue. Kakashi was a genin on Team Minato, and it was an open secret that Naruto was Minato's son. He’d spent most of the last few years outside the village on highly secretive missions outside of Iruka’s purview, and therefore couldn’t see him until now. All very obvious things, even if they didn’t sit entirely right, but now wasn’t the time for that. Intimate thoughts like that were reserved for Kakashi’s private relationship with the Konoha memorial stone.

Iruka shifted slightly, folding his arms in consideration. What Kakashi would give to know what was running through his mind. No, really, what would he give? The more he thought about it, the more his bidding offer seemed to increase.

In the end, Iruka moved aside, allowing him into his house with little more than a few sharp words. “Only if you keep that book out of sight at all times.”

So much trust on his part, Kakashi marvelled. 

"Imagine if I was an assassin," Kakashi said mildly as he stepped over the threshold. 

"If you were indeed an assassin, I highly doubt you would be ringing a bell." Iruka snorted as he shut the door, "And if you had indeed subdued the two ANBU guards without raising an alarm, then, well."

"Hmm!" Now that's a thought. So Iruka was conscious of Mouse and Rabbit posted close by. Was he told that, or did he figure that out in his clever little head? He asked Iruka as such.

"Please don't patronise me." Iruka said sharply as he turned into the living room, "and take your sandals off already."

Kakashi did as he was told, and arranged his footwear neatly next to a haphazard pile of sandals in two distinct sizes. The casual homeliness of it upset him, like a continued reminder of all the things he didn’t have.

He studied the rest of the tiny apartment, only slightly bigger than his more-spacious-than-average dormitory. Two doors were left ajar, offering him a glimpse of two similarly messy bedrooms, differentiated only by the dominant colours in the space (one of them was very orange). A tiny kitchenette sat adjacent to the living room, separated only by a small dining table which seemed to spend more time as a shelf for holding clutter than fulfilling its actual responsibilities. Lined up along the windowsill was a small row of potted plants, neatly labelled with handwriting too small for him to read from this distance. 

In the living room, Naruto was sitting at the kotatsu and working on what was presumably homework. He looked up when Kakashi entered the space, and the distinct blue eyes that fell on him seemed to see through Kakashi in a soul-piercing way. He didn’t remember either Minato-sensei or Kushina-san scrutinising people with that kind of spectacular intensity - if anything, it felt more so like the fierce, quiet gaze he had come to associate with Iruka.

Interesting. 

“Do you want a cup of tea?” Iruka asked without waiting for an answer, already filling up the kettle by the sink. His back was turned, and Kakashi thought that was very careless of him. 

“What are you doing here?” Naruto shot suspiciously at him.

“To see you.”

“Why?” Naruto obviously had no compunction about asking silly questions. Kakashi should have thought ahead, but he hadn’t expected Naruto to be less reserved with him then he had been with Guy. There’s still all that official stuff from the Sandaime about not revealing Naruto’s true heritage, blah blah blah.

Kakashi shrugged, “why not?” 

Naruto’s face scrunched up at him, “Iruka-nii says it's rude to answer a question with a question.” 

In the kitchenette, Iruka’s shoulders were definitely shaking slightly from poorly held back laughter. Bastard. 

Kakashi wasn’t sure how to handle this, unequipped with the appropriate skills to deal with a nosy child. Digging through his mind, he didn’t find any reasonable frame of reference that might helped. Not to mention that Kakashi had never been much of a child himself, and what he remembered of his time with his father were all kept under tight, psychological lock and key. Still, he sifted through his earliest memories, carefully staying far away from the last time he saw his father’s - ah, there we go. 

“Do you like dogs?” 

Naruto lit up immediately, and Kakashi felt a bit of relief at that. Naruto was almost as easily distractible as Kushina-san had been, and Kakashi swiftly went through the hand seals to summon Pakkun. 

“Yo,” Pakkun said as he appeared with a puff of smoke, and then padded over to Naruto to give him a sniff and a lick.

“That tickles,” Naruto said, and then reached a hand out to carefully rub Pakkun behind his ears. Pakkun indulged him, even though he could see that Naruto was petting him wrongly. Back and forth against his fur, not side to side, Kakashi wanted to say. In between that, Pakkun shot Kakashi a look that promised that they would be having words later, but that’s a problem for another time. 

Iruka pushed a warm mug of tea in his direction, and Kakashi accepted it wordlessly. Curious, he hadn’t heard the kettle go off. Iruka was still studying him quietly, as if in thought, though he stayed just slightly out of reach. Kakashi decided that he wasn’t going to drink the offered tea. It might well be poisoned. 

Instead, he watched the way Naruto interacted with Pakkun, and his dog seemed to enjoy it too much for it to be an act. Pakkun seemed pleased, and Naruto seemed pleased, so Kakashi was pleased. He hadn’t thought that Naruto’s state of mind would have an effect on him, and he filed that piece of information away neatly as well. 

In the end, it was Iruka who spoke first, “we’re headed out for dinner in a bit. Would you like to join us?” 

Iruka wasn’t looking at him when he spoke, carefully directing his line of sight towards Naruto and Pakkun, but the distant look in his eyes suggested that he wasn’t paying attention to them, not really. 

Kakashi accepted the invitation, delighted with how well his plan was working out. 

Dinner with Iruka and Naruto was nice. 

They’re stuffed into a tiny booth at a teishoku restaurant a few minutes from their apartment, likely run by civilians. It’s a place that they were evidently familiar with, judging by the way Iruka made small talk with the waitstaff, and how they were all wink-wink-nudge-nudge about having reserved a store special for them. He wasn’t particularly hungry, so he went along with whatever they were getting, more intent on continuing his information gathering. 

The store special turned out to be a tonkatsu set meal. Kakashi disliked fried food, so he fed most of it to Pakkun under the table. Naruto was an eager and enthusiastic chatterbox that filled in the space for most of the conversation between them, while Iruka carefully made sure that Naruto didn’t forget to eat as well, occasionally wiping a stray rice grain or a smudge of sauce from Naruto’s face while reminding him not to talk with his mouth full.

It’s a lot of information, most of them more so sensory and emotional in nature. Iruka’s expressions were affectionate as he listened to Naruto patiently, grinning and placing the right verbal probes to keep Naruto going. Naruto, for his part, was clearly comfortable with Iruka, and leaned against his side as he stabbed at his food while he regaled them with stories about his classmates or some adventure he read about in a comic book. Naruto doesn’t just tell the story to Iruka either, but constantly kept looking at Kakashi to see if he was listening, to make sure that he knew that Naruto acknowledged his presence there too.

There’s something very soft about the whole affair, and he was starting to see a more defined shape to the explanation of this mystery, why watching the two of them reminded him so much of Minato-sensei and Kushina-san. It’s the kind of love that they’ve been unashamed about when talking about their child, the embarrassing cooing and fawning and all-around tender, protective affection. 

Well. It’s good that Naruto continued to receive such devoted parental care, even in the absence of such parents. 

In fact, dinner with the both of them was so nice that somehow, Kakashi found himself constantly returning for more in between missions, a habit that continued to persist for the better part of a year. Over time, with each meal they shared, Iruka became slightly less guarded, and just slightly more cordial. Warmth was an emotion that Iruka wore well, and increasingly, Kakashi found it directed towards him, like he wasn’t just conveniently caught in the blast radius of Iruka’s limitless love for Naruto. 

The both of them asked nothing of him, had no expectations of him except his presence, and Kakashi let himself luxuriate in a fantasy that they actually desired his company for some reason.

So he kept dropping in unannounced and letting them ferry him to some local joint that he never would have considered, where the security was crapshoot but the ambience somehow as comforting as the food served to them on cheap tableware. 

Kakashi told himself that it’s because he’s only resolved one part of the equation, only understood the first question that had come to pass. 

Recognising the familial bond that Iruka and Naruto shared didn’t explain the continued desperation of physical need that followed Kakashi into his sleep, or the unexplained hollowness that arose every time they parted ways, a cavity which only seemed to flare in greater intensity after their time together. But even then, taking care of the physical aspect of the problem by himself wasn’t even enough, and in the aftermath of it he’s still confusingly haunted by a yearning that resembled the one he felt when he watched Minato-sensei and Kushina talk about their family.

It’s frustrating, that even after a year’s worth of collecting intel, he still didn’t have the answer, even when Kakashi knew more about the pair than he knew what to do with the information. Like their shared love of ramen, reserved only for special days. The fact that they ate out because Iruka couldn’t cook for nuts (his words), but remained insistent about eating a balanced diet. That Naruto had an antagonistic relationship with the last living Uchiha, but got along fine with the youngest Inuzuka boy and Shikaku’s son. That Iruka had to jump through twenty-seven administrative hoops to be allowed to continue teaching Naruto. That Naruto was bad with chakra controlled jutsus but was steadily improving with taijutsu under Guy’s guidance. That Iruka’s birthday was on May twenty-sixth and how he lit up at the navy terracotta pot Kakashi had procured for him during his last mission in the Land of Waves, how he looked even prettier than the planter’s deep blue glaze.

Or even Iruka’s habit of occasionally asking oddly worded questions when Naruto was in the bathroom, and then biting his lower lip and looking away as if holding back laughter at Kakashi’s answer. Kakashi never sensed any malice from it, and all that stirred in him, rather than anger, was wanting to know how Iruka’s mouth tasted against his tongue, how it would feel to have those lips dragged against his skin.

Kakashi knew he was on the cusp of a revelation. He had all of this data, this information, that he had to be close to figuring everything out. 

Maybe, Kakashi thought as he plunged his armful of bright, electric lightning into the chest of his target, his problem lay in the fact that Naruto presence tended to obfuscate the data, tended to pull to surface his memories of sensei. As he carefully took down the missing nin’s friends, he considered a new hypothesis, that the reason why Iruka still reminded him of Minato-sensei and Kushina-san was only because of Naruto. 

If Kakashi could isolate his interactions with Iruka, then he might have a new perspective on the situation, and thus finally understand why Iruka inspired such dichotomous feelings of both physical lust and familial yearning. 

Delighted with this new plan, Kakashi brushed bloodied mud from his person and gathered himself, returning to Konoha with what could only be anticipation in his blood. 

Having determined Iruka’s shift at the mission room, Kakashi dawdled outside in wait so that he could time his entrance to join Iruka’s line just before his shift change, and therefore create an opportunity to walk with Iruka, just the two of them. He pretended to work on the report that he had already finished, mostly admiring with pride at how well-written it was, marred only by the handful of mud splatters and bloodstains in its margins. 

A handful of people tried to strike up conversation him for one reason or another, so he returned to the highly effective deterrent of pulling out Icha Icha so that he could be left alone in peace. As he read, it wasn’t long until there were only ten minutes to go on Iruka’s shift, and he fell into place. In the mission room, Iruka was a force of nature to behold, a highly efficient worker that took no shit from anyone else, even sounding fantastically bossy at times. 

Privately, Kakashi considered what it might feel like to have Iruka order him around. It’s an exciting thought, even if highly unlikely. Iruka clearly had no ambition towards reaching jounin, and as such, had no chance of taking over Shikaku’s position as jounin commander. Still, he felt the stirrings of interest warm in his chest, and he raised his book higher as he watched Iruka, just in case Guy was around to read his face.

“Hatake-san.” Iruka greeted him politely when Kakashi stepped up to his table, perfectly professional with no indication at all that the both of them had any acquaintanceship outside of this mission room whatsoever. 

“Iruka-sensei.” Kakashi acknowledged, and he watched as Iruka scrutinised his report. In the end, Iruka seemed satisfied. 

“Thank you for your hard work, Hatake-san,” Iruka said as he stamped the documents in approval and filed them away in his cabinet. The bell rang as he did, a testament to Kakashi’s impeccable timing. “Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you. Do you mind waiting for me while I finished up here?"

Kakashi nodded, secretly pleased. How wonderful. He didn’t even have to ask, he thought gladly, as he took up his position outside the mission room again to wait. 

It took another five minutes or so before Iruka ducked out the room, a brown satchel strapped to his shoulder, and the both of them walked out on to the streets, pink-hued from evening light. Kakashi followed Iruka to a tea stand where he got warm tea in takeaway paper cups for the both of them, before leading the way to a bench in the middle of the park without any tall trees in sight. Kakashi appreciated that - without any obvious hiding spots, it would be difficult for any eavesdropping shinobi to listen in.

"Hatake-san," Iruka said once they were both settled down, "Is that really your favourite book?"

"Yes?" There was an accidental lilt to his response that made it sound like a question, but Kakashi could pass it off in some fashion of why are you asking something so obvious? After all , he had already announced it several times, sometimes in the mission room, usually when Genma or Anko was harassing him about it. 

Iruka hummed as he took a sip from the cup, staring ahead at the playground some distance away, "what do you like about it?"

His voice was relaxed as he spoke, casual in a way that was at odds with his polite demeanour.

Kakashi struggled to answer that question easily. He had enjoyed the books, undoubtedly, but the truth was that he loved them more so for their function in keeping people away, and especially for its use in hiding his face. He wasn't about to admit that to anyone. There was also the fact that he kind of hated the books, hated how easy it was to superimpose the image of Iruka into its pages, how his subconscious did it for him when he was asleep. 

"Hmm, well," he drawled vaguely, shifting the book even higher up his face, "I've found it useful."

"Oh, how so?"

God damn it. Was this what it was like to speak to Iruka without Naruto around? This wasn't at all helping his investigation; if anything it sounded like Iruka was turning it against Kakashi. He could appreciate the clever play. Still, Kakashi considered himself an expert in reading people and manoeuvring out of difficult situations, so he offered Iruka a challenge with the expectation that it would change the subject.

"Shall I demonstrate?"

Iruka turned his attention on him in full now, his face tilted upwards slightly to look at Kakashi through those long lashes of his in a way highly reminiscent of the way Yukio did when seducing Shira - and wait, what?

"I'd like to see you try." Iruka whispered sweetly, and it sent a desperate flash of heat through Kakashi immediately. 

Hang on a second. This was not at all how this plan was going to go. 

Actually, for that matter, what was his plan again?

"Erm," Kakashi raised the book even higher until his vision was flooded with just printed text on paper, feeling an all-encompassing warmth spreading across his skin, "I don't- I think- we-"

"Perhaps you would like me to demonstrate?" Iruka purred, leaning in just a little bit as he did. That, coupled with the idea of Iruka doing Icha Icha things to him, along with every dirty thought he had ever had about Iruka suddenly coming to mind at once, was far too much for one man. There’s a hot giddiness that Kakashi didn’t know what to do with it at all, a startling reflection that he was definitely, absolutely out of his depth here. 

In most situations, Kakashi was the furthest thing from a coward. Today, however, he accepted that he had to beat a tactical retreat, and body-flickered himself away and back into his dormitory before he overheated right there and then. 

Back in the safety of his house, Kakashi flung the cursed book across the room and marched himself into the shower for a freezing cold rinse, along with a reluctant acceptance that he had clearly, clearly , gone very wrong somewhere. 

It's about two hours since Kakashi escaped from the park and made a solemn promise to himself to never go anywhere near the bewitching siren that was Umino Iruka again, when there was a casual knock on his door. He eyed the door warily. No one, except for the jounin on this floor, ought to know where he lived.

"Hatake-san!"

Kakashi felt his blood freeze.

There was another series of knocks as Iruka called out to him again, and Kakashi briefly considered escaping through the window. He could just wait it out, he reasoned. Pretend he wasn't home.

He exhaled when there was a break in the knocking, but didn’t get a chance to fully feel the relief when instead he heard Iruka talking to someone on the other side of the door. Kakashi strained his ears, and to his horror, realised that it was Guy. 

Guy, who lived on the other end of the hallway and had a positive relationship with Iruka. Guy, who had no penchant for kicking his door down as he had done so many times in the past, leaving him with the painful annoyance of getting it fixed himself. Guy, whose volume control on his voice ranged from Loud to Loudest.

Kakashi really didn’t want his business spilling out into the public space of the hallway, so he rearranged his face into a very respectable scowl and flung his door open before any more damage could be done.

Guy shot him a bright, gleaming thumbs up as he looked from Iruka to Kakashi. “Well then! I leave him in your care,” he declared loudly before marching away, evidently pleased with himself. 

It’s hard to say for sure who his comment really was directed at, and Kakashi let Iruka into his house sullenly, making sure to stay just out of arm’s length. With the door firmly shut, Iruka surprised him with an apology. 

"I am so deeply sorry, Hatake-san." 

Kakashi was not expecting this, and eyed Iruka suspiciously. 

“I… I only intended on teasing you for a bit, but clearly, I’ve taken it too far.” 

“Explain.” 

Iruka sighed. 

“Look,” he took a quick glance at the door behind him, “just so you know, if you try to kill me for this, I’m not going to make it easy. Also, Guy would know - we had an agreement to check in later.” 

Kakashi wrinkled his nose - since when had Guy and Iruka become such good friends - but gestured wordlessly for Iruka to continue. 

Iruka seemed to struggle with his words for a moment, and there’s a red blush that spread across his face as he wrangled with his thoughts, a flush that triggered a deep ache inside Kakashi, an urging to do something, anything, “honestly, I didn’t really like you at first. But Guy insisted that you were really pure at heart-” Kakashi snorted rudely here, “-and then you started coming over for dinner with Naruto and I all the time and I just… do you know you have a really expressive face? I mean, I guess it’s supposed to be hard to tell under all that, but it’s actually pretty obvious. How you soften when you see Naruto playing with your ninken, or when he’s telling you about his day, or when he reaches out to hold your hand when we’re walking home and I just - I just really think you’re cute.” 

Kakashi stared. Cute was the last thing that could be used to describe him. Cute was the full-blown redness stretching across Iruka’s skin like it did now, cute was Naruto treating his vegetables like an alien shinobi to conquer, cute was Pakkun happily rolling over for belly rubs even when he pretended he was above that. Kakashi was not cute, he was an (ex) ANBU captain, a dangerous shinobi with nicknames like Friend-Killer and Cold-Blooded. 

“I am listed in fifteen different bingo books as Do Not Engage,” Kakashi said, mouth suddenly dry. 

“Well… sure?” Iruka said, like the two concepts were not mutually exclusive even though they clearly were, “but you’re also, you know, you? You light up when a restaurant’s daily special is grilled saury with eggplant miso soup, you sign your mission reports with a smiley face and genuinely don’t seem to understand the problem with that, and you walk around with a pornographic book in your hand even though I’ve seen you stand around in the mission room for forty-five minutes without turning a single page.” 

“It’s my favourite book.” Kakashi insisted weakly. 

“And even though you keep saying that,” Iruka pressed on, “you just don’t seem to understand any come-ons at all, but you get all flustered when you finally do? I mean, I once said - nevermind.” 

“What did you say?” Kakashi demanded, moving closer to Iruka, his resolve to stay away firm with the integrity of a wet paper bag.

Iruka didn't flinch, only buried his face in his hands as his ears burnt brightly in a hue that left Kakashi aching with want. It’s a very silly move, careless, even, and Kakashi still didn’t know why Iruka trusted him enough to let his guard down like that. 

“I once asked if you liked your aubergine polished and you said it would make no difference in taste.” 

Kakashi frowned. “Because it doesn’t.” 

“Oh my god,” Iruka bemoaned hotly, “it’s a sexual euphemism. For your, for a, you know?” 

He waved a hand rapidly and vaguely around his crotch, and then suddenly, Kakashi understood. 

“Oh.” 

He’s grateful for how much of his face was covered - he was sure the heat rushing from his body could easily rival Iruka’s. Kakashi wanted to reach out to touch him, to run his fingers across Iruka's bare neck to see if he ran as hotly as he felt, even as his mind was reeling from the idea that Iruka had said things like that to him, the suggestion that perhaps Iruka had thoughts about him the way Kakashi did towards Iruka.

“This was awful,” Iruka said, and when he lifted his face to meet Kakashi in the eye, it was with defiant bluster, not the seductive charm from earlier in the day. Kakashi wanted to drag Iruka to a mirror and say, there, that is what cute looked like. “Anyway. As I said. I’m really, really, sorry. I - god, I can’t believe how poorly I’ve misjudged everything - I should just go-” 

But Kakashi had a hand on Iruka’s wrist before the other could move, and he held on tightly, even as his mind attempted to ascertain his own intentions. Despite the thick fabric of his gloves and Iruka’s uniform sleeve, Kakashi could feel the compelling, feverish warmth radiating off him.

“No. Stay.” 

“O-okay?” Iruka was staring up at him wide-eyed, and the small height difference between them was suddenly more apparent, a gap that begged to be closed.

Kakashi swallowed, a loud thundering in his ear that might easily render him permanently deaf. He’s hyper-conscious of every minute detail of his own body and of Iruka’s, didn’t miss the way Iruka’s own breathing mirrored his own rapid pants, and he drew in just a bit closer until their chests were nearly touching. 

“Show me?” 

Slowly, Iruka nodded, even as the expression on his face remained dazed.

He let Iruka lead the rest of the way, let his body be carefully navigating through grazing touches of hands and lips against his skin, littered kisses that filled and drained him all at once, and he knew he wanted more, needed more. Kakashi learnt the way Iruka felt against him, learnt what it was like to fulfil a deep-seated yearning, and when Iruka took the both of them into his hand until they were both groaning, shivering in ecstasy, it was then that Kakashi found a renewed clarity on his situation in the afterglow. 

It’s not at all like Icha Icha, he realised, watching the way Iruka flopped next to him tiredly as they rode out the waves of adrenaline. It’s not the lust-laden, animalistic hunger illustrated in the books, or worse, the obligatory rush to meet a simple physical need. It’s something far more profound, more complex, deep layers intertwined in a way that he knew he’d only touched the surface of. 

Once upon a time, Minato-sensei had told him that love was the acceptance of the whole, a willing embrace even with his secrets laid bare. Kakashi had never understood it, but here, exposed as he could be in every definition of the word, it seemed that he had found an inkling of it. He knew he was being greedy here, but he wanted more of everything that Iruka had ever given him, and everything else that Iruka would be willing to give. And in return, he knew he would give the same, or even just tenfold more.

“Hatake-san,” Iruka's words were still caught on stuttering breaths of their climatic rush, and Kakashi found that to be a wonderful sight.

“I think we’ve past that point,” Kakashi replied, memorising each line in this moment, full from the satisfaction at finally knowing how far down his body Iruka’s flush ran, “don’t you think?” 

“Well then, Kakashi,” Iruka remarked, beautiful and golden, “I thought you might want to know that you’re smiling again.” 

Kakashi could feel the way his own lips pulled, knew with certainty the source of it, and it didn’t bother him at all. He tugged Iruka closer by the waist, acknowledging the perfect pieces falling into place as he's finally figured out the question that had puzzled him all this time.

“And so I am,” Kakashi grinned, barefaced and all, a lightness in his heart for the first time in years, “shall we have dinner?” 

Epilogue

(some years later)

Kakashi had been away on a mission with Team 7 when the new Icha Icha was released, but Iruka, the wonderful man that he was, had assured him that he would toss his prim-and-proper reputation aside and get in line for the midnight release for a limited edition signed copy, just for him. He had no doubt that Iruka would make good on his word, and it was the thought of Umino Iruka standing in the queue with all those other perverts that really got him through his time in the Land of Grass.

"We're home," Kakashi and Naruto chorused together as they stepped through the doorway of their cosy apartment, pulling their sandals off to place them on the tidy shoe-rack, ordered in three sizes from largest to smallest.

On the dining table, there was a brown, book-sized package that sat idle, and the large words “NARUTO, DO NOT TOUCH” were printed across it in Iruka’s neat writing with a bright red pen.

Naruto shot it a dirty look as Kakashi unwrapped it carefully, complaining about how he wouldn’t go near it even if you paid him fifteen bowls of ramen to do so, and on that subject, he was absolutely starving so could they please go to Ichiraku’s some time like, right now.

“Welcome back you two,” Iruka said as he looked up from his grading, pressing a kiss on Naruto’s forehead and then against Kakashi’s masked lips in turn, “was the mission alright?” 

“Mmmm, I don’t know,” Kakashi said, slumping bodily against Iruka so he could speak lowly into Iruka's ear, “it was terrible. I missed you so much."

Iruka laughed, and in the background, Naruto shrieked loudly about his innocent eyes and the corruption of good, saintly senseis by perverted ones as he stormed into his room, like he hadn’t already seen this every day in their last four years living as a family unit. If Naruto wasn’t his son, Kakashi would delight in clarifying for him exactly who was teaching whom what. As it was, the knowledge that it was Iruka that had given him physical context and a brilliant memory to each explicit scene in the Icha Icha books was something that Kakashi held very close to him.

"Quit bullying Naruto," Iruka admonished heatlessly even as he leaned into Kakashi, his presence so wonderfully warm and familiar in his arms.

"But he torments me all the time, sensei," Kakashi wheedled with practised petulance, "he gets into so many fights with Sasuke whenever I'm not looking."

Iruka chuckled beautifully, gently pulling the brightly coloured book out of Kakashi’s hands, "if all your attention is going into this, then maybe I should be withholding it from you?" 

Kakashi pouted, "then I guess I'll just have to go out to Konoha with my face like this."

"Hmm," Iruka said in faux consideration as he hooked a finger onto Kakashi's mask to tug it down, "perhaps not then. I think I'd like to keep this sight for myself."

Iruka understood him so well, Kakashi thought pleasantly as he leaned in, "my sentiments exactly."