I Don't Think You Understand

As always, please refrain from thinking that I own the rights to Naruto...though the thought of owning an older Naruto has its appeal....::hurriedly wipes away the beginnings of a nosebleed::

Enjoy!


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Kakashi never did discover what about Iruka intrigued him so, aside from the man’s amazing display of taijutsu. He wasn’t even really able to discover more about the man beyond what was already common knowledge, but he still kept watching.

Waiting.

Running away when the man glared at him for being late with a mission report or in public. It never amounted to much, but the weeks just kept going by without much to show for it.

So, out of sheer frustration, he challenged the chuunin to a fight. Taijutsu only, weapons-free, no Sharingan. Hell, for this occasion, he even put away his beloved book.

He got his ass kicked.

During the fight, he couldn’t seem to move fast enough to avoid the slightly smaller man’s kicks and punches. It was nearly as hard as being taken on by Gai in fights of similar magnitude. Only by dint of sheer endurance on his part was he able to land a telling blow (one of only about three) on the chuunin that ended the fight.

The blow was a rude one, right to the crotch, but Kakashi had found himself desperate to end it in a way he’d only felt during the most life-threatening of fights.

At the choked-off shriek of wordless agony, he winced, colored red, and transported them right into the office of a surprised Tsunade-sama. It may have been his appearance (clothing torn in places, bruises visible on every exposed part of his skin, a few cuts) or it may have been poor Iruka-sensei curled up in a ball moaning incoherently, but she fell to healing without needing more explanation than his shamefaced, mumbled “groin shot.”

Needless to say, he beat feet out of there. If he got banged up this badly after a mere taijutsu fight with the chuunin, who knew what would happen in a full-out brawl?

It wasn’t until later on that evening, as he debated even stepping off a very high tree in the middle of the forest surrounded by very well set-up traps (protection from the potentially irate chuunin), that Gai happened by. They had a conversation where Gai, much to Kakashi’s surprise, mentioned that Iruka was one of his frequent sparring partners when he felt himself in need of more training...which was always.

“After all,” the self-proclaimed Beautiful Green Beast of Konohagakure added as a thought, “youthful energy always being on the rise, the talented Iruka-sensei must make sure he is always above his students’ youthful vigor! Therefore, he started training with me around the time the vibrant young Sasuke-kun left for Otogakure!”

Flashing a trademark smile, he put in a few final comments before challenging the cyclopean jounin: “He was truly a quick pupil! A mere fortnight and he was already capable of nearly beating me! Such a credit to me, his teacher!”

As he leapt out of the tree to avoid the first of Gai’s attacks (moaning quietly as the stiffness of his previous bout with Iruka made itself known), Kakashi knew he had enough to think about for a while.

***||***

Iruka had had enough.

After Tsunade-sama had healed his amazingly swollen groin (kindly keeping herself from laughing as she advised him to stay away from peoples’ kicks and sex in general for a few days) and he’d limped out of the office, he realized that either he did something about Kakashi (the man was STILL tailing him, though he had curteously not chosen the times when Iruka was naked or sleeping to do it) or let this go on until the crazy teacher of his former students had whatever the hell it was he wanted from him.

Iruka wasn’t sure what that was yet. He knew, though, that he wasn’t going to put up with years of scrutiny just to satisfy one man’s strange desire to know more about him.

“He could just ask,” Iruka muttered, limping as gracefully as possible toward Ichiraku.
“Could just ask what, Iruka-sensei?”

Summoning up a smile (he always smiled around Naruto), he turned around to greet his favorite student and honorary little brother. “You know you don’t need to call me that anymore, Naruto-kun,” Iruka said warmly, hugging the tall young man unashamedly.

At two meters, Naruto was taller than he was, even taller than that idiot Kakashi, on the level of Naruto’s current teacher, Jiraiya-sama. Iruka was so proud of him; he was a truly lovely sight, all grown up and strong. Iruka was always glad to see him.

“Habit is hard to break, Iruka-nii,” Naruto said softly, grinning down at his former teacher. “Want to eat at Ichiraku? I’ll treat this time.”
“Sure,” Iruka agreed with a laugh. “I was hoping to meet up with you there anyway.”

The walk didn’t take long, and by the time they were comfortably seated, sipping water and awaiting the arrival of their bowls of ramen, Naruto had had enough time to remember the question he had asked before. “Could just ask what?”
“Huh?” Iruka, too glad to be off his feet (and take pressure off his groin) to think, said.
“You were mumbling something about ‘he could just ask’ when I walked up. Who were you talking about?”

Iruka sighed, but was delayed from replying as the cook set two large bowls of miso ramen down in front of them, and bade them enjoy their meal. After taking a few slurping bites, the chuunin sighed. “Did you know your former teacher, Kakashi, has been following me around these past few weeks?”

The look on Naruto’s face was priceless as he nearly choked on his ramen, but he was coughing so hard he couldn’t reply. After getting his breath back, he asked in a fairly calm voice, “Do you know why he is?”
“No,” Iruka growled. “And frankly, it’s beginning to annoy me more than a little bit. That man has been staring at me for the longest while, while I eat, while I sleep, while I fucking get dressed in the morning--”

Naruto jumped at the use of language (he wasn’t used to hearing it from him), but Iruka kept going, heedless.

“--why the hell is he doing this?!” Iruka nearly wailed, almost putting his head down into the bowl of ramen as if it could hide him from the world. “Why can’t he just ask me what’s on his mind? Why does he have to drive me crazy, always being at the edge of my vision, but never coming into sight....”

Iruka trailed off. He stared into space. He did a very good impression of a stone statue for about five minutes as Naruto waved a hand in front of his face, poked him in the ribs, and did everything he could to make his “Iruka-nii” animate again, but he didn’t feel any of it. He was having an epiphany.

That crazy bastard Kakashi...fucking LIKES me.

It explained everything. He’d initially compared the man’s conversational skills to the children he spent nearly all his time in, and what did children do when they wanted to get someone’s attention? Stayed near them all the time and generally made nuisances of themselves.

That stunt this afternoon, challenging him to a fight? Classic child; can’t talk to the person they like, so they either virtually declare war on the person of their fixation or do something equally destructive to--once again--gain that person’s attention.

And just like a child, the elite jounin couldn’t even think he was doing anything wrong, because--oh, the epiphanies were coming thick and fast today--he’d never had anyone tell him differently. No parental guidance as to the (more or less) proper behavior around a potential companion, no one his own age to talk to; above all else, no role models.

Knowing how to kill didn’t mean one knew how to love.

He was willing to bet a year’s worth of ramen that even Kakashi didn’t know he was interested in Iruka that way. Anyone who was a legal adult in Konoha could pick up a porn book and declare himself mature, but it didn’t mean they had the first clue in how to deal with lust or desire in themselves.

Coming back to himself, he reassured Naruto of his continued existance, finished his ramen, and gave his “little brother” a fond goodbye before going straight back to his apartment.

He had a few more things to think about.

***||***

Kakashi’s life was a routine now; one so familiar that he hardly needed to think about it anymore. Wake an hour before dawn, train (sometimes with Sasuke; after that strange little wake-up call from Iruka, he wasn’t late for those again), tag along after the tanned, scarred teacher, eat occasionally, read occasionally, sometimes get challenged by Gai, sleep, then repeat.

Life was good. Life was peace.

Then something came that threw things into confusion.

It started one Thursday evening. Kakashi had come home from a long day of training, talking, and watching Iruka, when he stumbled across it.

It was an innocuous looking thing. Tubular, bound with colorful two-toned blue ribbon, and bearing his name in elegantly written kanji. It was a scroll.

Kakashi quickly performed an inspection of the area and came up with nothing suspicious. He did a dispell-jutsu to make sure it was really there. It continued to lay there. He bent to inspect that it did not have an explosion tag inside or attached to something ready to go off.

Nothing.

The scroll appeared to be simply...a scroll.

Semi-paranoid delusion cleared up, he picked up the little thing, pulled off the ribbon, and unrolled it to read its contents.

In the same handwriting as was on the front, it said, simply, “do you think about me?” It was unsigned.

Scratching his head thoughtfully, he walked into his apartment.

It wasn’t the last time he received a scroll. One would come each week for the next month, in the same handwriting, each one asking a cryptic one-line question.

The second one read, “am I always on your mind?”
The third: “do you dream about me?”
The fourth: “do you worry about my safety?”

Kakashi wasn’t a dumb man; far from it. However, if he was getting these letters from the person he was thinking of, why was Iruka asking these strange questions? Wasn’t it obvious what the answers were?

Yes, he thought about the chuunin. There were days where he couldn’t seem to get the man out of his mind, to the point where visions of the tanned visage haunted his restless sleep at night. The fourth question was the only one he wasn’t surprised about, because it wasn’t readily obvious.

Even with the passage of time, people still remembered what it was like to go to war with an opponent that might beat them. Konohagakure may be at peace now, but it wasn’t the case three years ago. That weighed heavily on peoples’ minds, but for the ANBU, it never left. At any moment their Hokage could call them to battle again, and they would answer her call. They were people of their word.

Admittedly, during those intervals where Kakashi would dream about Iruka, those times could more accurately be described closer to nightmarish. There were some pleasant dreams, but far more often in the chuunin’s visit to his dreams was he impaled with weapons of death, or dying slowly...with Kakashi helpless to defend him.

Again, Kakashi wasn’t a dumb man, but when it came to things of a more emotional nature, things that didn’t respound to logic and quick bursts of inspiration, he...wasn’t brilliant.

It had taken him the first few months of near-constant tailing for him to realize (getting yelled at by the very person he was stalking notwithstanding) that his feelings toward the teacher were more than simply platonic. Another month went by before he noticed his mouth getting dry when Iruka walked around his apartment in anything less than his typical chuunin uniform, or when the man was close enough to smell. He smelled good. Like warm, clean things.

What was that strange dry-mouth thing, anyway? It didn’t happen around everyone, just that man. He knew getting a dry mouth meant someone was thirsty, but since when did someone become spontaneously dehydrated at the mere sight of a person?

It didn’t correlate with what he knew of the human body. As far as he knew (nearly photographic memory helpfully pulling up a page of a recently-read book on human anatomy), dehydration was only likely to happen in warm, dry climates and when a person didn’t drink enough water. Alcoholic beverages and salty things only made the feeling worse. Left unchecked, thirst could kill within a week.

Kakashi couldn’t understand it. He didn’t think he felt thirsty around Iruka, but if the information in that book was anything to go by...was it supposed to mean that he could DIE if he spent a week solely in the presence of the chuunin?!

No, no! He laughed shakily as he tapped the hitae-ate over his transplanted eye. “Some genius I am,” he muttered in amusement. “People can’t possibly die just from being in someone’s company, unless that person wants to kill them.”

The man may have been angry at him, but Kakashi sincerely doubted any bloodlust generated by that man would not be directed at him. Was Umino Iruka capable of bloodlust? Certainly, but as to whether or not he’d see it displayed (I wonder if his bloodlust aura is anywhere near as freaky as his battle aura?) was anyone’s guess.

Following the strange new routine Life has decided to gift him with, he placed the fourth scroll in the middle of his table with the other three. The scrolls stood proudly on a glass coaster, two-toned ribbon retied around them.

Until he figured out why he was being sent them, he decided that they would be the first and last thing he’d look at...if their sender didn’t drive him crazy first.

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Your reviews hearten me! I thank you all deeply from the bottom of my heart. If I could, I would send you all wonderful Kage Bunshin clones of the hot characters in Naruto to thank you, but alas, my control over my own chakra only extends to keeping me alive :-).

A lot of this story is pre-written. What I've posted so far was written a while before I even considered posting it, so a lot of you asking me to "have Iruka kick Kakashi's ass in a fight" was a little surprising to hear since I had already written that out, but with some luck, I'll manage to throw a few suprises in a little later on.

...before I forget, you have no idea how much hearing that my grammar is great pleases me. Seriously. I was glowing. I beta-read my stories myself, and hearing that just makes me want to jump up and down with joy (and for a few minutes, I was actually doing that).

I will attempt (which means "most likely will") continue updating once a day until this story is finished. It will be my first finished one. I will not give up on it.

As always, I love reviews, so please leave me one at your leisure. :-)