Dirty Little Secret

CHAPTER 4



The walk back to his apartment in the early, still chilly morning hours, was nice. Kakashi was feeling sore all over, both his back and inside, and that slow burn contrasted with the sharp tug he felt in his leg with each step. In fact, he quite enjoyed it – the bruising from last night gave him something else to focus on rather than the fact he walked with a cane and might continue doing so for the rest of his life. The matter of his Sharingan, or more likely, the lack of it, was carefully tucked in the deeper recesses of his mind, locked behind closed doors with no lights on. Limping around was something he could deal with, somehow. Coming to accept the fact that he had lost the one memento he had left of Obito was an entirely different thing. He knew, theoretically, that he would have to force himself to face that issue as well, somehow, someday. Soon, probably. But for now, he luxuriated in the sensation spreading over his back and inside of him with each movement he took. Kakashi missed that, for the last several months of the war – he had had too little time and had been too exhausted physically to try and engage in that sort of activity, even if Tenzo had been anywhere in the vicinity in order to indulge him.



The apartment building appeared behind the corner of the darkened street, looking like a squatting giant, its dark, broken windows staring at him like gouged out eyes. He almost snickered at himself for the bad pun, considering his current situation.



When he finally walked up to the front entrance there was a young, baby-faced man wearing a chuunin uniform waiting for him, carrying a small bag of something that appeared to be rice. He bowed a little and offered Kakashi the bag:



“The Hokage-sama sent me to bring you your rations Kakashi-san. I’ll come back in three days for more.”



Kakashi accepted the offering and said:



“Thank you. Where is the delivery station? You don’t have to make that trip every three days, I will go and wait for my share like everyone else.”



The young man shook his head.



“Orders from the Hokage-sama himself, I’m sorry, Kakashi-san.” When the Copy nin frowned at him, the young man hurriedly said “I will deliver your words to the Hokage-sama though. Perhaps he’ll order something different then.”



Kakashi nidded and bid the young man a goodbye, then finally went home. His stomach growled and he walked inside what used to be his small kitchen – now another thrashed corner of his apartment and dug around the mess on the floor until he found a small metal pot. Thankfully, electricity and water were back on, at least in his neighbourhood, so he put some of the rice on the stove to simmer, amusedly thinking that the marauders hadn’t seen a point to take an electric stove if there was nothing to plug it in.



His chairs were gone, so the jounin sat down on top his rickety kitchen table and slowly began to devise a plan. He needed to begin fixing this place as much as he could, and he had to start training again, exercising and stretching his leg as much as possible. If he was to go back to active duty he’d have to learn to fight without his Sharingan. It would be difficult, as he had learned to count on it so much, building his entire style around its abilities, but should not be an impossible feat. After all, back in his childhood he had been considered a genius and he had two perfectly normal eyes. ‘Not that it helped you save Obito or something.’ A snide little voice spoke in his head but Kakashi chose to ignore it. He was used to it by now.



Hopefully, if he proved to Naruto that he was still someone the Konoha citizens could look up to, he wouldn’t hide him away like a dirty secret. Kakashi knew all about dirty secrets.



Making up his mind about the future made him feel a little better about himself – he was always able to think more clearly after one of his sessions with Tenzo, another reason to be pathetically grateful to the younger man.

After eating the bland rice with a pinch of the salt he found in a jar that had rolled behind a fallen over cabinet, he went back to the bedroom and curled up as much as he could on top of the sheetless mattress, covering himself with the sole blanket he had left. He was too sore to train now – tomorrow he would start fresh.



He did start the next morning, and, taught by long-accumulated experience of ending up in the hospital and then getting back into shape, he started up slowly. Just simple stretches at first, walking as much and as fast as he could, going up and down the steep forest paths behind the Hokage mountain. He was well-aware that this time would be different, that the injury was much graver than anything he had gone through before – but Kakashi was an obstinate, stubborn man when he wanted to be. So he worked day in and day out, until his leg cramped impossibly and it hurt too much to move an inch – in those cases the jounin simply went home and relaxed back onto the mattress. He really wished for some hot water – soaking in it would do him good, but that was too much to ask in the circumstances, so he made do with what he had.



The baby-faced chuunin Naruto sent appeared a few more times until Kakashi one day just ignored him and went to the delivery station to get his own rations. Staying in the long queue drew open, curious looks from people, more often than not focused down at the cane he leaned heavily on and the lack of a eye-patch over his new eye. Kakashi firmly ignored them and got his rice, then limped back home. After that occasion, the young man stopped coming – apparently the news of the jounin’s determination had reached Naruto’s ears.



Almost four months later, he was capable of a light jog, despite the pang that ripped through him at every step. He began working on adapting his jutsus to the lack of the crutch that was the Sharingan and to his delight, he realized that while it had been a great help, he was almost as good at it as before. The loss of speed was certainly something to be concerned about, but with his leg, he doubted he could perform a Chidori successfully just yet, even if he still had Obito’s eye.

In the mean time, he saw the changes that swept through the ruined village – people, those that had survived – slowly cleaned up the rubble and began fixing their own homes. True, it was a rough patchwork of wooden boards nailed onto broken windows, nylon stretched over holes in the roof and the walls but it made the place look a bit less like a ruin and more like a home. The day when the hot water came back he treated himself to a long soak in his long abandoned bathtub – and promptly fell asleep in it, waking up frozen to the core. Still, it felt damn good.



Seven months later, he walked back in Naruto’s office, his shoulders squared, cane missing and head held high. He did still limp, but he had learned to cover that very well over the weeks of exercise.

The Hokage headquarters were situated on the first floor of the new Tower -still in the process of being built – filled to the brink with workers and all sorts of construction junk, but apparently Naruto was in a hurry to make a show of power. Not that Kakashi blamed him – in their situation, bravado was everything.



The blond was standing behind the same large desk as before, in a scene that eerily reminded Kakashi of the last time they had met. When he looked up, he was almost taken aback by the worry-lines that creased the corners of his eyes and his forehead, the thin, tightly pressed set of his lips – responsibility over the well-being of so many homeless, starving, ruined people took its toll on the young man, Kyuubi or not. Still, the fiery eyes burned brighter than ever when they focused on Kakashi’s form.



“Welcome, Kakashi.” He said, voice surprisingly hoarse.



The jounin bowed respectfully.



“Hokage-sama. Reporting for duty, sir.”



Naruto smiled then, a real genuine smile, the first that must’ve graced his features for the past several months, if not more.



“I can see that. Are you sure?”



The jounin nodded.



“Quite. I won’t get any more healed than I already am.”



The Hokage nodded, then looked to one of the secretaries at his side – Kakashi recognized the young woman as one of the Hyuuga’s branch house, a small, mousy girl with short-cropped hair and upturned nose whose name currently evaded his memory. The girl handed Naruto a file and the blond leafed through it.



“I do have a mission for you. And Tenzo, actually. He turned out to be great at bargaining, you know…” he mumbled as he kept reading the file.



“So I heard, Hokage-sama.”



Naruto nodded again, then handed Kakashi the folder:



“Here. You and Tenzo are to go to Ayazaki, that’s a small town at our border with River country – and guard the goods that will be arriving through the border – food and medicine supplies.” His mouth twisted with displeasure “We’re still in desperate need for those, until we can fix the infrastructure completely and get a decent produce from the fields. A few other nin will be going with you, but you and Tenzo will be the highest ranking ones, so I am counting on you. There are still marauding bands in the area, despite our best efforts to clean them up, and I want the convoy safe. You are leaving tomorrow morning.”



Kakashi nodded and bowed, then left without another word.



On his way back home, he felt practically elated. Finally, after months of waiting and training and worrying, finally he was useful for something. He hated being idle, feeling useless, unneeded – it brought back bad memories, old fears and he despised those from the bottom of his heart.



When he got back in the house, Kakashi checked the hot water – and joy, it was on again, despite its otherwise elusive nature lately. Another long soak in the bathtub was in order, he decided.



Dropping his clothes, he washed himself quickly under the cool shower, then filled the tub and eased himself in, sighing when the hot water loosened cramped muscles. It felt really, really good. He rubbed a hand over his newly muscled chest, pleased that his body had begun to revert to its previous shape, courtesy of all the hard work that he did. The warmth of the water and mental elation from finally feeling needed again brought on a mood that he hadn’t had in years, the kind of mood that Jiraiya’s books were sometimes able to induce, even if he had shied from reading those ever since the man had died.



Kakashi began slowly, rubbing his hands over his flat stomach, trailing up to pinch at a pale pink nipple until it hardened underneath his touch, his other hand going to his lips, hot and wet and slick from the water and it wasn’t difficult at all to imagine that it was something entirely different than his fingers sliding in his mouth as he suckled on them and mewled softly around them as he thrust them slowly in and out.



Hooking both his legs over the rim of the bathtub, he allowed his other hand to wander further down and cup his balls, play with them, roll them between his fingers and squeeze them gently. Then it travelled further south, rhythmically pressing against his perineum, stimulating his spot from the outside, his pinky rubbing over his entrance.



Kakashi was moaning very softly as he shook with need and sloshed the water over the rim of the bathtub, body straining from the pleasure he inflicted on himself. That sort of gentleness was something he allowed only when he was by himself, unable to bear the thought of someone else treating him that way… Like he was something precious. Every time someone tried, he was assaulted of memories of blood and accusing eyes – blue and red and brown, all staring down at him from rotting, decaying faces. Only when he was alone he sometimes indulged in that forbidden fantasy of gentleness, safe with the thought that he was not sullying anyone with it.



Finally, when slid his index finger inside and pressed Kakashi saw bright light flashing behind his closed eyelids and he came almost explosively, his seed mixing with the warm water. He lay there for a few more minutes, then drained the bathtub and washed himself once again, then crawled up in bed. He needed his rest – tomorrow was a big day.