Chapter Text
The Start.
Everyone—and by everyone Kakashi means Naruto and Gai—is oblivious here except him.
“So, you’re like their father figure?”
“Well, I definitely love them as my own blood, so yes, Naruto.”
Gai's trademarked big grin flashes, filled with pride, memories, and good work, and Naruto’s blue eyes light up, tracing it with admiration. Not the usual admiration, though. This one is a little more…
Well, Kakashi lightly shakes his head, shifting his eyes from them to look in front of him, keeping a fast walking pace while Gai maneuvers his wheelchair without a problem. All the while Naruto remains on Gai’s lap, being carried in quite the extravagant manner despite having become the tall shinobi he’s now. Quite comical too, yes.
Even without looking at them any longer, Kakashi is closer to having a big migraine, either from the massive brightness in those blue eyes, the proud but oblivious smile of Gai while talking about his former team, or that familiar jumpsuit as dazzlingly green as ever under the shiny sun.
Is this Kakashi’s reality, truly? This was supposed to be routine, to bring his important lazy-ass presence outside the village near the north border and demonstrate he isn't an unapproachable person. He just wanted farmers to feel reassured that everything would continue fine two years after the Fourth Shinobi War. Kakashi wanted to show a nice image, ensuring to those farmers that supplies and materials are still being negotiated with the Damyō, no problem there.
It’s basic politics, showing his face and saying that they're sorting out everything inside his office in the Hokage Tower very accordingly. He went there and told them that their concerns are heard despite the cataclysmic event of two years before. They’re not alone in dealing with the lingering effects of the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Hence, beside the ANBU guard following him, Kakashi’s entourage had been small.
Bringing Naruto with him was logical; his former student wants to know everything about everything regarding the Hokage labor. To see closely what being such a leader entailed. And since it had been a short distance, Gai’s company didn’t require any planning; it was proposed as an honest gesture to the man, a little statement that he's still an appreciated asset.
(By now, they all know that the man will only remain an in-site mentor, but field trips like these should not be difficult. Well, except for one or another danger that never ends.)
(Except for what had just happened one hour ago.)
“Please, don’t reply back to him, Gai,” says Kakashi with oh-so much unfiltered tiredness.
“Shh, man. Let him speak,” Naruto says to Kakashi, his superior, his former sensei, the same man that could have been his older brother’s figure if... Uh, if things had been different in the past. But that’s not the problem to reflect on now. The problem is the lack of honorifics, the fact that Naruto’s voice had been pronounced a little too sharply at him, a little too disrespectfully towards his forever superior leader (until, of course, the blond young man becomes himself the next Hokage. But that means years until then, so no reason for this bratty behavior.)
Naruto hasn’t even looked once at him for a full fifteen minutes, even if both older men had been concerned about him, and not even if Kakashi had been the one who helped him to stay on his feet in the first place after the… dust? sparkling substance? pinky unknown stuff was thrown at Naruto’s face. Unfortunately, the blond shinobi inhaled it while being attacked by a violet-haired missing-nin before Kakashi neutralized her.
Now, while there’s no sign of any physical damage on Naruto’s body, it becomes clear that something is still not quite right. Not visibly great changes in Naruto’s limbs, chest, and face, but mentally? Ah… that’s the thing.
And, apparently, this sudden infatuation could have been directed to Kakashi if he had been the one Naruto had seen first after the attack, but it had been great Maito Gai who was in Naruto’s line of sight after several blinks, the dark-haired shinobi rushing to them with the high strength of his upper body while drifting in his wheelchair.
And just like this, the journey until they could reach Konoha’s gates is getting longer despite only five minutes remaining as blue eyes keep glued to the face of Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey, from his squared chin to thick unconventional eyebrows.
Naruto opens his mouth again. “So, you saw these kids back then and put them all under the protection of your big arms?”
“Thank you, that’s a nice compliment, my eternal rival's student!” Gai doesn't see it, but Kakashi rolls his eyes in agony, then looks at the sky as he swallows a groan of frustration. Or maybe asking for divine intervention. “And I dare to say that I first took special attention to my dearest Lee, but it didn’t take me a long time to help Neji and Tenten become friendlier. And whatever they needed I was always right there for them.”
“Oh,” Naruto pronounces it with a higher note. “So, like, you’re a good and strong daddy?”
This ends here, Kakashi finally thinks, forcing Gai’s wheelchair to come to a halt as well.
He catches Gai's eyes above Naruto's blond crown.
“OK, this is enough. And Gai, you really don’t understand what’s going on here?”
It’s not even borderline flirting. It’s full of stubborn, weird, intricate seduction. A very bad one that Gai genuinely isn't registering in his silly mind. Too much time training his whole life may have impeded him from learning these sorts of… social cues. Such a nerd.
“What do you mean, my rival? And why did we stop? We need to take Naruto to the hospital so they can check what’s in his system! What if it's something dangerous like a venom?”
“Really…” Kakashi mutters under his mask, frustration not clearly heard by the others.
“Huh? Nothing’s bad with me!” Naruto replies with a slight confusion plastered on his face, finally looking at Kakashi but with an expression as though it were the first time he had ever heard about the word 'hospital.' Or seen Kakashi’s face.
Kakashi blatantly ignores him, focusing on Gai and giving him a more serious expression. “You know what? I’m fucking worn out. We’re going directly to Tsunade-sama. Resolving an indecent conflict is not going to be on my agenda for next week. Not if there’s too much work to prepare for this upcoming Union Summit...”
Despite his choice of words and rudeness, Gai’s eyes brightened at the mention of his best friend's status as Hokage and participation in such an event, even if it has already been two whole years since Kakashi’s Hokage inauguration.
This also resulted in Naruto’s eyes brightening ever more too while watching Gai’s face.
“Oh, MARVELOUS, MY RIVAL! Wonderful weeks are awaiting you! These big responsibilities only show how you’re—” The faint sound of the unconscious body of Naruto now resting on Kakashi’s arms startles Gai before he could do or say anything else. He looks up dumbfounded at the silver-headed veteran. “Kakashi?”
“Gai,” Kakashi only replies as a goodbye with a brief nod, without care to offer any explanation, just the slightest guilt for leaving his friend alone, before turning into smoke and disappearing with a 19-year-old unconscious Naruto in his arms.
Knowing about pressure points is always handy.
.
.
“Yes, it changed my… brain chemistry, I don’t know. Temporarily? Oh, Kami, I hope? Like the man smells incredible to me. Just a sniff and he smelled wonderfully like some mix of grass and herbs and flowers—all things I like, y'know?” Naruto grumbles as he stares down furiously at the report he's writing down. Then, with a bit of a dramatic gesture, he adds, as if in agony, “Please, just kill me, Kakashi-sensei. I know you can. It’s too embarrassing!”
“Ah, this is such a drag.” Shikamaru, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looks like he wants to be anywhere but here, in Kakashi’s office, in the presence of the man and Naruto’s new suffering.
Ugh, Naruto’s always into something.
Apparently, Tsunade-sama isn't in town for half a day more, and for the last two hours Shikamaru has been asked to babysit Naruto. To hear about this sudden admiration and infatuation for a man who uses extended green spandex as his uniform—not to mention how Shikamaru’s mind had forced itself to ignore the age gap thing or how the whole ordeal sounded like a creepy plot from a weird edition of Icha Icha.
After those two hours, the effects seemed to clear off from Naruto's mind, but it seems to work as long as there’s no contact between the young shinobi and Gai-sensei. So that’s why Naruto took his time to write a report, conscious enough that he might keep his distance from the older dark-haired man. Cheeks still flushed while doing so.
And what better place than the Hokage's office as a safe refuge?
“Well, I was there,” Kakashi says with a sigh. “So I formally ask you for this not to be included in any report. No need.”
The corners of Shikamaru’s lips tipped down before ‘scowling’ his Hokage. “I am sorry, Lord Sixth, but you are very well aware that that’s not the correct procedure. Troublesome, but everything that a shinobi sees pertinent to add in an official document is—”
“Maa, I should quit this job, then.”
“It hasn’t even been six years, which should be—despite previous Hokage tenures—the average to lead a village, in my opinion,” Shikamaru says lazily. He misses his bed.
“Okay, whatever,” Naruto pronounces, oddly concentrated, drawing both their attentions back to him. “I do remember seeing Gai-sensei first after the hit. Does that mean that if I saw you right after, I would have been in love with you by now, Kakashi-sensei?”
“You're not in love,” Kakashi grunts.
“I felt butterflies, y'know?”
Fake ones, and yet everyone knows who Naruto might actually be in love with, but neither Kakashi nor Shikamaru intervenes.
And anyway, Sasuke is probably coming soon if any of this has reached his ears somehow.
It’s after a little pause that Naruto finally looks up, probably after adding the description of what he remembers he felt. “It's a little like… It reminds me of—uh, no, I mean, I remember my stomach doing flips with Gai-sensei around, y'know? Like utterly enthralled with him. And it kinda reminds me to—. It’s like, um…”
“Don't want to hear any of this out loud. I was there.”
“Right, right. I’m just trying to share my trauma. One that I know isn't fixed. Something in me wants to see Gai-sensei… It's the worst jutsu ever created. Like, what does it help to obtain?”
Shikamaru crosses the office, standing close to Naruto only to squeeze one of his shoulders while softly shaking it. “C’mon, Naruto. You know about the differences… Not a jutsu but a poison. Probably for espionage. It’s weird she hit you with it when you clearly were in company, so maybe it was a rookie mistake. However, in other circumstances, she might expect to obtain confidential, classified information if the target's mind is corrupted by it, activated by proximity, and obeying what their temporary ‘beloved’ asks them to do or say. You may say it’s a version of stripping away a target's free will.”
“Oh. That makes total sense.”
Kakashi lets out a heavy sigh, busying himself with some paperwork in front of him.
“Just keep writing. Don't talk.”
Hopefully, Tsunade is right around the corner.
(She wasn't; Kakashi is not that lucky. She came back until the next day.)
.
.
It’s been four days since Naruto was ‘poisoned.’
And it has been two days since it was a nightmare. The sight that unfolded in front of Sasuke two days ago had been a nightmare, without real warning beside Kakashi’s little confirmation that was sent back through a note with,“Yes. A very strange issue regarding Naruto happened yesterday. A hit. Cannot disclose its particularities, though no visible physical impact yet."
And such a sight had been Naruto on Maito Gai's lap for too many seconds before one serious Tenten, quite comically, pulled him by his ear while the man in the wheelchair had both his hands raised and pressed together in a ‘sorry’ gesture.
A personal hell, and Sasuke has experienced a few of those.
One thing had been coming to terms with the realization, three years back, that he’s in love with Uzumaki Naruto, his former teammate, the one who looked for him and didn’t stop until Sasuke was pardoned, yet had never planned to tell him because they’re best friends.
Now, at nineteen, another very different thing is looking at the man one’s in love with throwing himself in the arms—or wheelchair—of another man.
So it has been two days in Konoha since Sasuke has felt physically sick at the thought of willingly facing Naruto.
He is supposed to be a strong shinobi. He has killed. He knows how to subjugate and overpower people before threatening them to slice their throats. There are so few things that could make him flinch besides his beloveds being hurt, so he shouldn’t be this mess over hidden romantic feelings, suddenly like a useless coward.
“Geez, Sasuke, someone might says you’re the biggest homophobe around here…”
Sasuke only grimaces, hearing Ino’s voice close to his ear with an obvious giggling tone, the blond kunoichi standing on tiptoes behind him. Both their heads were peeking through the doorways as Sasuke cautiously observed Naruto walking away. The blond shinobi was with Iruka-sensei.
Ah, right. Just a few seconds ago, when Sasuke saw them on the opposite sidewalk walking towards his direction, he couldn't do anything besides freeze and go inside whatever first local shop was on his left.
The Yamanaka’s flower shop, it is.
“Can’t understand what you’re saying,” Sasuke practically growled.
“Well, poor Naruto-kun will cry as soon as he knows that his friend can’t support his forbidden but flourishing same-sex love.” Ino knows what she’s doing, and she smiles when she turns on her heels, leaving an irritated Sasuke behind.
Years before that would have been unthinkable, always looking for a way to get the attention of the handsome boy, but she knows better now.
So Sasuke’s eyes drift from the now Naruto-empty street to the counter where Ino is now taking place behind, her fingers drumming over the wood surface in small, repetitive movements. If he had his two arms, Sasuke would have crossed them over his chest. Instead, he rests his right hand on his hips.
“Tch,” Sasuke clicks his tongue. “For someone who’s about to become a clan head, you’re pretty immature.”
“I'm plenty mature,” she says, overly confident, a big knowing smirk on her lips as she props both elbows on the counter and perches her chin in the back of her hands. “Unlike you, I got an awesome and caring boyfriend after resolving my insecurities and being honest with my feelings.”
Since—in Sasuke’s ears—those words might change into the ‘wouldn’t you give a chance to Sakura’ topic, telling him to choose any flower to give her, Sasuke refrains from moving to a shelf with sunflowers—which highly likely Naruto has grown—and rushes to say, “I’m not asking Sakura to date me. We have agreed that we value our friendship and will remain as such.”
“Oh, I know that, Sasuke-kun. It becomes clear after a little while… Like, it’s not hard to guess, you know? You send notes to wish happy birthdays—to everything. May Lord Sixth get attacked by an infiltrated secretary? You wish him a good recovery through a note after a month. May Sakura get promoted to top-tier medical ninja in record time? You send another one. Oh, but may Naruto get a little injured and you forget about your traveling, don’t you? I think we know who I was referring to by being honest with feelings.”
Sasuke frowns. She’s talking too much and is probably teasing him, probably wanting to get something from him while blatantly undervaluing his journey of atonement and exaggerating the times he had indeed come back to Konoha in regard to some ‘Naruto issue,’ but before he could reply back, three elderly women enter the small shop, so Sasuke sees himself in need of moving further inside and giving them space, opting to ignore Ino’s previous words.
So, in front of the sunflowers, he slightly smiles.
No need to buy them, not even one, but he raises his right hand to brush with his fingertips the soft texture of a petal. He thinks absentmindedly how beautiful they are, something feeling tight in his chest by the mere notion of Naruto’s hands wrapped around the stems, bringing one to his nose to smell the pollen.
He ignores the voices of the three old women approaching Ino with a lot of inquiries and greetings and whatever other gossip Sasuke doesn’t pay attention to. And it’s like that for about two minutes until Ino’s chirping voice raises and asks, “Hey, Grandma. What would you do if a taller man stole someone else’s innocent girlfriend with a love potion?”
Sasuke jerks his head toward Ino. What?
“Oh, dear! This is not about you, is it? Sai-kun is so adorable, I cannot believe something bad might happen between you both," one of the women, with brown hair, starts to talk with a condescending tone.
“Right?! He always helps us with our shopping when he’s here. Such a darling,” another old woman, the most petite one, adds.
Sasuke could have grunted and huffed in such an impolite way. Right, Sai being ‘adorable’ or a ‘darling.’
“But wait, a love potion, you say?” the third of them asks as though she’s truly offended, making a big gasp with her too-red painted lips. “Who could come to such instances and force someone to love him?”
Facing the sunflowers again, Sasuke tunes out the voices again and rolls his eyes. ‘Love potions’ don’t exit. Exposure to potentially harmful chemicals? That’s what exists, and, apparently—as had happened to Naruto—they can alter the mental perception and behavior when administered into the body, and regarding the 'love' matter, they can induce affection and make the victims strip away their inhibitions when they begin to believe a lie.
However, like fantasy love potions, it isn’t fatal. It’s all a mental issue.
‘Pff, don’t come here looking like a nonchalant brat while questioning me why I haven’t fixed it yet. Like I said to the others, stop this nonsensical worry. It’s not fatal; for a civilian, it would take them a few months for total recovery, plus psychological support. Naruto? Ha, that brat’s body is already metabolizing and excreting it. However, the detoxification won’t clear Naruto’s mind immediately, but as long as the system isn’t fed with more poison, any effect will fade. Give it a week, top.’
Tsunade also talked about the cerebral cortex, already altered no matter how the rest of Naruto’s body is dealing with it, so since the mental part is something more delicate to handle, it’s better to wait without any external help.
Well, in the field or more dangerous scenarios, they could use the help from people like the Yamanakas, but otherwise, it’s not such a big fuss.
It is to Sasuke, though. However, pointing his katana out to a former Hogake wouldn’t look good with his precedents, right?
However, now, one precise word—and loud giggles—pulls him from his thoughts.
“A kiss?”
“Yes! A kiss! I agree with Keiko. A kiss as a demonstration of real love.”
“Yes, dear girl. I know what I’m talking about. I have been on this earth for a long time, and although I can't take control of people's minds like the Yamanaka part of your family do, I have studied it in other ways. Where do you think the idea of a magical kiss from a prince charming helping the princess comes from?”
“Oh, you hear that, Sasuke-kun? A kiss can fix all that mess.”
“Oh! Is he the one whose girlfriend was stolen? What a tragedy," the same older man who previously gasped says now, and Sasuke has to grind his teeth to not snap at them.
“No, ma'am. I am not."
So the old lady ignored him, grabbing one of Ino’s hands with her wrinkled but wise hands.
“Well, tell your friend to try with a kiss, and it might work. No, I know it’ll work! Ha! It sounds too simple and silly, like a fairytale for kids, but a kiss naturally releases brain chemicals that in turn trigger stronger, deeper feelings than those fake ones. It might… overpower the induced feeling of attachment and euphoria of the love potion. Even wash them out.”
“Great! A simple kiss… And those princesses are always in love with the charming princes, aren’t they?"
Sasuke thinks about it critically for a moment. He feels Ino’s eyes on his back.
He wants to fix Naruto’s issue as soon as possible so he can be able to see him again.
But kissing him would mean no longer shoving his feelings back into the safe, deep corner he has them in. It means Sasuke had to tell him.
And it might not even work. It might result in Naruto thanking him for these feelings but confirming that Sasuke’s small hope isn’t entirely possible.
Then no.
He’s not going to kiss Naruto.