I Don't Think You Understand

This chapter was the hardest to do. Now that I've done it...I am not sure where the hell I'm going now, but I'm sure it'll be interesting.

I don't own Naruto...but since we all already know that, would it be okay if I took Sasuke home for a while?


***||***

The fifth scroll arrived on Thursday, as usual. The one-liner? “Do I make you hot?”

Well, now that Kakashi knew what that kind of statement actually meant, he could finally answer at least one of the questions in its deceptive simplicity.

“Yes, you tanned bastard,” he said softly, putting the fifth (and if he had anything to say about it, final) scroll in among the four on the table. He knew what he had to do now. He could do it. He could. Really.

...why the hell am I still standing here?

Granted, he had never asked another person (much less another man) to take a walk with him before, but it couldn’t be as difficult as it sounded.

...yet I’m still standing here. Huh. This whole “asking someone out” business is tricky. Sure, it sounds easy, but if it’s so simple, then why the hell can’t I do it?

If he had to be honest with himself (and he tried to be), Umino Iruka scared him shitless. The man was practically his total opposite. Dark where he was light, honest where he was (outwardly) deceitful, pure where he was (again, outwardly) perverted...he didn’t think he needed to go on.

Stranger ideas than the possibility of Kakashi dating Iruka had come up before and the world hadn’t imploded yet, so perhaps it could take this one and add it to its list of success stories.

Nodding, he took a few minutes to remember where Iruka would be at this time of day (he had stopped tailing the man a day or so ago; the need to think about where this whole fiasco was going had been overwhelming), traded his eyepatch for the more typical hitae-ate, and surveyed his reflection in the mirror.

There were many reasons he wore a mask, family tradition being the main one. He wasn’t an ugly man; few people in his family had been ugly, but the masks had been part of the typical Hatake dress for as long as his family had lived in Konoha, and he saw no reason to discontinue using one now.

Some people thought the mask was worn out of vanity, since several ninja had multiple scars upon their faces as mute testimony of a life built of violence. Kakashi wasn’t one of them; the only scar on his face was the one slicing his eye in a vertical line, and he didn’t particularly care if people saw it or not.

If he had to give a reason, right at this moment, as to why he continued to wear a mask when all his family was dead and vanity wasn’t an issue, he would have simply said, “because it’s funny the way it drives people absolutely insane.”

Not counting the mask, he admitted to himself that he cut quite a nice figure. His body, very lean, honed and in-shape (few shinobi allowed themselves to get out of shape; the only symptom of such a disease being rapid death) looked very nice in the tasteful light green button-down shirt (NOT skintight; he didn’t need to scare people into thinking he got his fashion sense from Gai), comfortable looking khaki cargo pants that were currently housing his “in home territory” arsenal, and typical strapped sandals.

On a whim, he decided to add a silver choker with a shuriken pendant to his outfit. In addition to being rather spiffy, it was also his holdout weapon. Few people ever suspected the pretty piece of jewelry as a weapon, after all.

“Okay,” he muttered to his reflection. “I’m ready.”

Time to bite the kunai.

***||***

Hands moved in the familiar teleport jutsu, and the masked man was off on his self-imposed mission. The figure in the background waited a few minutes to ensure that Kakashi had actually left before venturing into the apartment, avoiding the traps set around the window with negligent ease.

The figure helped itself to a seat on the table, snorting at the way the scrolls took up the display space. It had certainly taken the silver-haired man a while to figure out the meaning behind those things, it thought with amused scorn. One would think the silver hairs were caused by age instead of being natural.

Dismissing the thoughts as being unworthy, it took one last look around before teleporting away. Maybe the idiot will realize that happiness is better than porn books and bothering people.

Stranger things had happened.

***||***

Taking the papers from the tired-looking young woman assisting him, Iruka graced her with a small smile. “We’re done after I put these away,” he reassured her. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep? You certainly did more than your share today.”

The exhausted woman’s face lit up a little. “That would be very good of you, Umino-san,” she said softly. “You sure you don’t need any more help?”
“Not a bit,” he replied. “Go on home. I’ll sign you out.”

Thanking him with a bit more energy, the woman, instead of teleporting, limped her tired body out the door, Iruka watching her for a little to make sure she didn’t collapse. Nodding as he saw her leave his line of sight, he turned back to his task of putting the papers away.

Working the mission desk didn’t take up much of his time, but the pay was good and Iruka found that he enjoyed the routine of reversing entropy. Taking chunks out of entropy took energy, sure, but he found he didn’t mind donating his to the cause.

Besides, if someone didn’t do it, the shinobi who did missions wouldn’t be paid, and that would just be bad. Unpaid shinobi were unhappy (and in some cases, mentally unstable) shinobi.

Having filed the papers, he took a few extra minutes to tidy the small room up for tomorrow, set the requisite traps (and a few of his own) to ensure the files in the room stayed safe, signed both himself and his associate out, and locked the door behind him.

He stretched both his arms above his head with a content sigh. A good day’s work; talking to people, learning new things about medical jutsu, and best of all, I haven’t seen that moron Kakashi for at least a day! Really, life is soooo--

“Excuse me, Umino-san?”

...correction. Life WAS so good.

Sighing, he turned to face the stalker-jounin, and blinked. Not only was the man not wearing his usual uniform, but he looked...nice. Less insane, but more...determined, somehow.

How he could even tell all of this about the man with that damn mask in the way was a miracle in itself, but he knew he was right.

“Yes, Hatake-san?” He forced himself to say with a genial expression on his face. “What can I do for you?”

The blue-eye widened a little, then relaxed into a happy curve. “Yes,” the man replied slowly, “you can. Would you mind coming on a walk with me?”

Iruka stilled for a moment, polite smile frozen on his face. ...what?

“I mean,” the jounin continued, seemingly unaware of Iruka’s shock, “I would really like to spend some time with you, so it’d be great if you can come out with me to tour around the training grounds--”

Dear gods, he’s cracked. He finally wants revenge for that taijutsu match, and he’s taking me into the woods so he can quietly kick my ass and then come back and claim not to know what happened to me when someone finally notices my absence--

“--so if you’d do me the honor of joining me, that’d be nice,” Kakashi finished, scratching the back of his head nervously.

All of a sudden, Iruka could have collapsed into a hysterical fit of giggles. “Yes, I would be happy to, Hatake-san,” he replied, holding in his laughter with every ounce of self-control he had. When the hell did I get so paranoid? If he wanted to kick my ass, slightly superior taijutsu notwithstanding, he could have done it by now even if you can more or less pick him out in a crowd...

“Great!” Kakashi said, his eye curving even more happily, if that was possible. “Did you want to go eat somewhere first? I know this great--”

He sure uses that word a lot...

“--little teriyaki place; do you like teriyaki?”
“I do, and I am hungry,” Iruka admitted as his stomach gave a gurgle.
“Okay, then we’ll eat,” Kakashi chirped. He bounced ahead of Iruka, reminding the chuunin vaguely of a large rubber ball, before coming back to his side and gently taking hold of a forearm. “Let’s go!”

He’s unusually thrilled... Iruka shrugged and allowed Kakashi to continue holding his arm. “Sure, sure, right behind you.”

***||***

Dinner was excellent; grilled chicken and vegetables with delicate seasonings and rice went down very well after a long day of work, and Kakashi proved himself to be surprisingly gregarious. He listened to Iruka talk about his day, then offered opinions that Iruka, to his delight, found he could actually put into practice.

The vast majority of them, however, were too amusingly, amazingly insane to even contemplate...except to laugh about them.

“I swear it works!” The jounin protested as Iruka collapsed into stitches across from him. “Works nearly every time, even! All you have to do to get them to a jutsu correctly is offer them their very own katana, and then when they do it and you obviously don’t and can’t give them said weapon, just say that if they do some other thing you’ll give them a set of shuriken, and it goes on until they forget what they were working toward in the first place!”

Iruka just continued to laugh.

“Hey, come on now,” the masked man pouted (how does an eyeball manage the expression for pouting, anyway?). “It worked for Gai and Lee-kun.”

“Gah!” Iruka choked, laughing so hard he felt himself try to throw up. “Don’t mention them! It isn’t something that works for everyone!”

A sly expression entered that dark blue eye. “Well then,” Kakashi drawled, looking around quickly before leaning in real close, “if all else fails, just threaten to make them wear the godawful jumpsuits that Gai and Lee-kun wear.”

That did it. Iruka fell off the chair in an astonishing display of gracelessness, laughing so hard he couldn’t even make a sound, even when the jounin crouched down next to him and asked with some worry if he was okay. A few minutes later, he was able to stand up again, but it wasn’t until he’d gulped down half a glass of water that he was capable of speech again.

Was I laughing so hard because the threat would actually work, or the mental image? He smiled at the other men, enjoying the flush of pleasure on the exposed bits of the other man’s face. Must be the company. I didn’t know he was so much fun!

“Want to take that walk now?” Kakashi asked after he paid (he’d insisted) for their meals.
“Sure,” Iruka said agreeably. “After that meal, I need to walk off some of the weight.”

It was Kakashi’s turn to laugh, then; most ninja had such high metabolisms that they had to virtually consume their body weight every two hours, and the idea of gaining weight, for most of their kind, was an absurd one.

A comfortable silence came upon the two men as they made their way to the training grounds of Konoha. Birds sang lazily as they prepared for the night, and a few owls hooted in reply. A soft wind ruffled the grass (where it still grew after being scorched, frozen, and torn up so many times with so many different jutsu) and carried the scent of flowers to Iruka’s sensitive nose.

The scene was perfect.

...too perfect.

Iruka started feeling somewhat wary. When a situation is this idyllic, it can only mean that something’s about to go down.

“Umino-san...”

Shit. I was right. “Iruka,” he said, unpleasantly surprised to hear his voice crack a little. “You can call me Iruka.”
“Iruka-san,” the masked man temporized, hesitating before visibly steeling himself. “I think I owe you an apology.”

***||***

Kakashi was a logical man, though he didn’t often expose that side of himself. He thought every action through, was often two moves ahead on a battlefield and in most cases, two moves ahead in a conversation as well. Tactically, he was better than most. When he fought with the Sharingan exposed, he attributed his skill to the fact that “he could read into the future,” though the implanted eye had nothing to do with it.

Expecting the unexpected, he almost always emerged victorious, if not necessarily unscathed.

Despite his acceptance of whatever the future held for him, he still found himself completely and utterly astonished when the ponytailed man took a faceplant right after he finished making the statement.

An eyebrow cocked in puzzlement. Should he help him up? Inspect him for injuries? Beat the accumulated dust off his back?

And why do I like the mental image of doing that so much, anyway? His body was annoying him with all these strange signals. Why should the thought of touching the other man practically make his nerve endings sing in anticipation? Were his hands supposed to be flexing like he was about to reach for a kunai?

And I thought just asking him out was the difficult part...

“Umi---Iruka-san?” He asked, trying to sound concerned and not confused. “Are you okay?”

A grunt, muffled by the ground, sounded similar to a “yes.”

“Would you like some help up?”

Negative noise.

“Okay.”

A few moments later, the Academy teacher picked himself off the ground, wrinkled his nose (I always forget he’s got that scar across his face; guess it just adds character), and started brushing the dust off of himself. The swipes of his hands made soft swooshing noises as the earth came off him.

Before he knew what he was doing, Kakashi’s hands were working alongside of Iruka’s, pushing the dirt off.

The material of Iruka’s vest and pants were faintly texturized to the touch, warmed by the body heat of the man wearing them. The skin under the concealing cloth jumped and shivered a little with each brush of fingers...then the contact was abruptly gone and in its place, he felt two angry eyes boring into his lowered forehead.

Realizing he’d committed a serious breach of personal space (and why hadn’t he realized he was doing it earlier?), he backed up and raised his hands, trying to ignore the way they were tingling. Why do I want to touch him so much? It’s insane! “Forgive me, please,” he found himself saying. “That was uncalled for--”

“A lot of what you’ve done so far has been ‘uncalled for,’ Hatake-san,” Iruka said, mild rebuke in his words.

He lifted his head and met the dark brown eyes of the chuunin. They was anger there, but he thought he detected curiosity too...and why were those eyelids lowered, those lips parted like that? Why did that expression make him want to touch him more?

Sighing, Kakashi forced out the words he’d thought of before. “I realize I haven’t been acting very mature,” he began haltingly, “but I didn’t know what else to do.” To his shock, his voice wavered, but now that he’d started talking, he couldn’t stop. “I didn’t know why you fascinated me so much. I had to know, so I--”

“Started following me,” Iruka interjected.

“Yes,” Kakashi muttered, gulping. No reason to wonder why my mouth’s dry now. I haven’t been this damn nervous in ages. “I thought that if I watched you, I’d find out what it was that...that made me wonder about you.”

Iruka made no comment, so Kakashi continued to pour out what he knew. “I found out I liked the way you smell, the way you move...” To his horror, his voice gave out.

When this is over, I’m going to take a bath in a tub full of fucking drinking water and not come out until I’m ready to burst.

He dared another glance at Iruka, and found the expression on the man’s face hadn’t changed, but he had acquired a very intriguing blush across his cheeks that made the scar stand out more.

I can’t stop. Either this comes out now, or it never will... “But I don’t know why!” He exploded. “I don’t know why I feel this way!” Lowering his voice and his head, he whispered, “please help me.”

Done. It’s out there. He kept his head lowered but detected movement from the smaller man. Whatever happens now happens, but if he tells anyone about this, I swear I’m going to deny it.

A hand came under his chin and forced his head up with ease. Brown eyes stared at him. “You don’t know what attraction is,” Iruka said neutrally. It was not phrased as a question. “You didn’t know, and you didn’t ask.” The thumb on his chin absently ghosted over the cloth laying snug there, and Kakashi fought to keep himself from jumping out of his skin from the contact.

After a too-long pause, Kakashi realized he was supposed to answer. “No, I didn’t,” he said, not bothering to hide his confusion.

Iruka made a strange noise in the back of his throat and released him, and Kakashi was shocked at himself for wanting the hand back. Watching him for a second, the smaller man stepped forward again, and Kakashi forced himself not to flinch, but he couldn’t stop his eye from closing, his face from firming into the expression of a man who knew he was about to die--

--then something firm and supple pressed against his masked lips with steady pressure.

His eye wide open now, Kakashi got a view of the chuunin’s strong jawline and nearly sagged against the man as warm breath touched his ear. “Bad boy.”

A soft whisper of air later, he was gone.

One second passed. Two. Three.

Then the recollection of what just happened hit him, and his knees gave out.

Hatake Kakashi, jounin of Konohagakure and one-time ANBU, known as the Copy Ninja and famous for knowing over 1000 jutsu, collapsed in the middle of the training grounds, shaking with the aftermath of what had just occured.

Furthering his befuddlement, he also found that his penis was hard and every shudder he made caused him to groan as his pants rubbed the swollen flesh. But...he...didn’t....touch...me....like...she did...

“Guess it didn’t matter if he did or didn’t,” he gritted out through pleasure-clenched teeth.

This is what...attraction feels like?

“Seems like it,” Kakashi said, the shudders finally calming under the force of his will. “At least I have a word for it now.”

He tasted the flavor of it in his mouth, feeling his lips tingle as he remembered the pressure the chuunin had given him there. “I’m attracted to him.”

Great. Now...why can’t I stand up?

His groin chose that moment to throb at him, and feeling almost as if he was in someone else’s body, he watched his hand dip inside his pants and curl around the source of the ache.

I guess a ninja never stops learning... was his last coherent thought as Kakashi caressed the first evidence of desire he’d ever had in his life.

***||***

One of the first and most confusing parts of growing up is learning about the reactions one has to the gender of their interest. Boys get erections for no reason and their voices crack. Girls suddenly find themselves unusually self-conscious around the guys or girls they've always spent time around and unconsciously keep their thighs together more. Until we all hit puberty, we essentially have no gender identity (that hasn't been spoonfed to us), and thus, no reason to be uncomfortable with anything.

This is what I think happened to Kakashi. Far, far before he was physically mature, he was painfully brought into full mental acuity by tragic events and his own genius. Though some people would beg to differ (friends of mine, mostly), I firmly believe that it's possible for a person to NOT have even a flicker of sexual desire until something sparks it...because the mind is so powerful that it can channel the energy going toward arousal into other things without the person in question noticing it as more than a strange moment of discomfort.

If I had to classify it with a name, I'd call something like this "sexual deferrment;" he literally (though I don't think he realized it) put off the time of his sexual flowering until it was triggered by the interest in something he couldn't understand.

However, for a fully adult body, the sensations of coming into one's sexual maturity can be somewhat...overwhelming.

This chapter is somewhat controversial, so now more than ever, I would appreciate some feedback.