Chapter 1
Kakashi adjusted his slanted headband one last time before he left his car and strode across the Recreation Center parking lot, hands pushed deep in his jean pockets. He had gotten used to the mask covering the lower portion of his face since his recovery at the burn ward; the soft fabric stretched from his throat up to his nose and stayed in place by being hooked behind his ears.
But Kakashi was still working with the headband, the one the covered the massive scar through his left eye. He’d worn an eyepatch for a long time in the hospital, but too many children had interpreted it as a sign that he was a pirate. He was not about to have that same conversation again with these kids too.
Even though it was far too late in the day to still have so much energy, Gai was predictably alert and chipper on the edge of the soccer field, shouting inspirational messages to his three students. He was in his standard green spandex shirt and loose black-and-white athletic pants, the very same thing he used to wear during their first year of college before Kakashi joined Special Ops. He seemed to still have the supernatural ability to sense when Kakashi was nearby: he turned around and grinned broadly at Kakashi as he approached the training field.
“Kakashi!” Gai greeted him with all the enthusiasm missing from Kakashi’s soul. “Come over here and meet your students. Iruka-sensei is relaying his final wonderful words of wisdom!”
It was strangely comforting to see Gai in his natural environment again, but Kakashi certainly felt out of place. He came to stand beside his old friend, who immediately slapped him hard on the back, which sent Kakashi stumbling forward. Before Kakashi could throw him an irritated glare with his one good eye, Gai grabbed his shoulder and yanked him backwards into a hard half-embrace.
One benefit of his mask and headband was how much it covered the blush on his too-fair features. Flushing at the close contact, Kakashi stared at the ground, away from his friend, as Gai tried to announce quietly, still a bit too loud for Kakashi’s comfort, “I am glad you are back. Konoha was not the same without you.”
“Yeah,” Kakashi replied, utterly inelegant.
Gai had visited him frequently in the burn ward and participated in the full length of his at-home recovery, including his physical therapy. The only thing that Kakashi had resolutely refused to let Gai do was help him moisturize and medically clean his face and throat, even though Gai promised loudly and repeatedly he would do it blind-folded if Kakashi needed him to do so.
It was Gai who suggested the local after-school program, the one centered on exceptional middle-schoolers who needed further guidance and discipline. Konoha College had certainly gotten more involved in the local community since Kakashi had left four years ago. Gai said he had personally been ambivalent about the program, but then he had spotted a young boy who he assured Kakashi was a true force of nature – and also someone in need of immense support.
Enrolling again in Konoha College was not the most pleasant thing that Kakashi could have done, but he wanted his Bachelor’s Degree and the G.I. Bill provided him more than enough to finish his coursework. But he’d been truly irritated the first few weeks of classes, lurking in the back of every classroom, scribbling endlessly when he wasn’t reading his romance novels.
Gai had noticed, of course, and confronted him late one night at the Hokage Tower, their old favorite college bar. He had forced Kakashi to stop drinking in the shadowed back booth and dragged him back to Kakashi’s new apartment, giving him a 3 A.M. pep-talk that consisted primarily of ‘HELP YOURSELF BY HELPING OTHERS.’
Kakashi had agreed mostly to shut Gai up. He only remembered what he promised when he woke up the next morning in his empty bath-tub, his cell-phone pinging with a new notification. He had stared blearily at the tiny text before realizing it was a reminder to fill out the Recreation Center safety forms for the ropes course.
And so there he was, a week later, standing beside his old friend, staring at various groups of middle school children practicing team sports at the Rec Center fields. Kakashi ignored the stares he was already getting. Even with most of his scarred and burnt face hidden under dark cloth, he knew he looked peculiar, but he wasn’t too concerned, not with his mask firmly in place.
Kakashi kept his typical indifferent slouch, his hands in his pockets, as he studied the field.
Gai gestured forcefully at three nearby students – two boys and a girl playing soccer – and declared, “That is my team!”
It was so incredibly obvious which boy Gai had been discussing the last few months: the kid looked just like Gai except smaller, younger, and leaner. He even had the same bowl-cut and dark burning eyes, as well as the same green spandex shirt, just in juvenile size. Interestingly, he was doing a one-handed hand-stand while his two teammates kicked a soccer ball to each other.
Kakashi made a soft sound of interest in his throat, and Gai seized on it passionately. “Yes, that is Rock Lee!” he cried, absolutely overjoyed in his mentorship of the boy.
Kakashi didn’t move his single-eyed gaze from the kid. He felt a twinge of admiration when the girl on Gai’s team kicked the soccer ball at Rock Lee, who easily swung down one leg and kicked it towards the other boy as he maintained his hand-stand.
Kakashi’s eye soon drifted, seeking out who Gai had mentioned when Kakashi got his assignment from the Rec Center. It was easy enough to spot the sole blonde boy in bright orange clothing in the soccer field. He was joined by the somber-faced boy and absurdly pink-haired girl that Gai had so vividly painted in his earlier verbal description.
While the blonde was grinning ear-to-ear and had his attention fixed on the stocky brunette man standing in front of them, the other boy was looking away from them both. The girl was looking at him in turn, looking dumbly love-sick in the way only prepubescent kids could.
“That is Iruka Umino, but we all call him Iruka-sensei,” Gai explained, pointing directly at the adult man clearly giving his final lecture at the three students. “And that is Naruto,” the blonde, “Sasuke,” the dark boy, “and Sakura,” the aptly named pink-haired girl.
Gai leaned too close to Kakashi for comfort, especially since his time in the military, but Kakashi adamantly refused to budge. He wasn’t going to let Special Ops steal his friendships as well as his skin. Seemingly oblivious to Kakashi’s distress, Gai too-loudly whispered at him, “They are a handful, Kakashi! Iruka-sensei has worked very hard to make sure they do not terrorize the other students, but Naruto has tremendous energy, and Sasuke has quite the chip on his shoulder! And Sakura is trying to find herself in all the wrong places.”
Gai practically swooned as he sighed in a single mighty heave. “Poor Iruka-sensei! He wasn’t supposed to have a team at all. He usually trains the younger students, but those three needed a mentor, and no one else stepped up.” He looked towards Kakashi with dark, serious eyes. “You are doing a very good thing helping Iruka-sensei and the children, Kakashi.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kakashi answered dismissively, tilting his head as he better examined this supposedly heroic Iruka-sensei.
The man looked just a bit younger than he and Gai, and a tad less fit. That wasn’t totally unusual. Gai had worked out religiously since childhood; he would have been considered a terrible brute if he didn’t cry huge manly tears about once a day. Kakashi knew his own lean, lanky form hidden underneath his bulky leather jacket and Levi’s jeans didn’t radiate muscular strength, but he enjoyed the illusion. Furthermore, his burns hadn’t slowed down his exercise routine.
If anything, Kakashi’s wounds made him want to refine his body even further.
Iruka wore his dark brown hair in a high pony tail, exposing the nape of his neck. His skin was darker than Kakashi’s by many shades, an interesting tan hue that seemed to match the surrounding woods. Even from a distance, Kakashi could see a long scar bisecting Iruka’s face through one cheek, across his nose, and then into the other cheek.
He tried not to be impressed that Iruka was able to walk around with his scar unhidden.
Instead, Kakashi found himself walking towards his new team with Gai shouting earsplitting encouragement from behind him. He slid up beside Iruka, catching only the attention of the boy, Sasuke, but no one else. He managed to hear the final pronouncement of the other man –
“ – and if you think you’re going to get away with pulling pranks on Hatake-sensei, you are sorely mistaken, you hear me? You will respect him. Or else.”
Kakashi amused himself by asking aloud, “Or else what?” which startled Iruka so badly that he jumped nearly a foot in the air, spinning around and grabbing at his own chest.
His eyes were darker than his skin or hair but still in the same brown theme. The scar crossed through Iruka’s face in a single even line; Kakashi thought it might have been made by a knife. Iruka stared wildly at Kakashi, clearly taking him all in, as Naruto helpfully proclaimed, “You scared Iruka-sensei!”
Sasuke snorted, and Sakura finally glanced away from him, looking at Kakashi curiously. But Kakashi was still considering Iruka, whose scarred face was rapidly darkening, a frown drawing down his features. He could tell that Iruka did not appreciate being made a fool, which hadn’t been entirely Kakashi’s intention.
But, then again, he could admit to himself that he hated the idea of anyone being as a lauded sacrificial hero, let alone his predecessor.
He had definitely wanted to unnerve Iruka… put him in his proper place.
Kakashi smiled in the way that he’d learned showed on his one visible eye. It wasn’t particularly a kind look on his face; it could seem genuine or artificial depending on whatever he decided to say next. “You must be Iruka-sensei,” Kakashi remarked, unwilling to leave out the smug pleasure in his voice at having caught the other man so off guard.
Iruka obviously heard Kakashi’s cruel satisfaction. His frown stayed in place as he corrected Kakashi tersely, “Call me Umino-sensei.” Ignoring how Kakashi’s good eye sharpened on him and his body tensed in irritation, Iruka simply smoothed down his blue athletic shirt and looked towards his former students. “You three behave yourselves. I’ll be on the field with the elementary school kids today. If I catch you –”
Kakashi viciously disliked the cold rejection in Iruka’s correction, and he found himself interrupting the other man, his tone apathetic but cutting, “Yeah, yeah, you’ll jump twenty feet off the ground and pass out. You can get going, Umino-sensei.”
Iruka jerked his head back to stare at Kakashi with furious dark eyes that screamed pure violence. The muscles of his jaw bunched as he gritted his teeth behind closed lips. Iruka’s voice was threaded extremely tight as he nearly hissed at him, “Good luck, Hatake-sensei.”
Kakashi took dark unbridled pleasure watching Iruka stalk away from him.
Good. The world didn’t need any more knights in shining armor.
But the next hour of getting to know his team made Kakashi realize that at least knights had hulking armor to defend themselves against peasant revolts. He didn’t expect to be outwitted by Sasuke, or to run out of energy before Naruto, or to nearly lose his mind directing Sakura not to be a twelve-year-old girl. He looked longingly at Gai on more than one occasion, unfathomably irritated that his friend’s team managed to work together without murdering each other.
The second time he had to separate Naruto and Sasuke, Kakashi realized that someone was staring at him, and he turned around to catch Iruka smiling spitefully at him from across the soccer field. Before he could stop himself, he angrily narrowed his good visible eye at the other man. He realized he was truly, fully, glowering at him when Iruka’s face cleared up and filled instead with a strangely embarrassed expression.
Kakashi watched Iruka disappear with his gaggle of much younger children into the next training field, inexplicably feeling as if he had done something wrong, not Iruka. He glanced back at his own team, only to recognize that the silence was due to Sasuke choking Naruto unconscious while Sakura observed with what could only be described as hearts exploding out of her eyes.
He finally had enough: Kakashi demanded that the three students run laps around the soccer field until they could solve a word puzzle that he’d once heard from a fellow soldier before they dropped behind enemy lines.
He didn’t know the answer; his companion had died in the subsequent fire-fight.
Kakashi sulked on the side of the soccer field, observing his students run like little ungainly children, discussing not a thing between themselves.
This was going to be hard. Too hard. And he didn’t think it would help him at all.
Much later in the evening, Kakashi said as much while drinking whiskey straight from the bottle, having refused to venture out to the Hokage Tower, wanting to rest in the safety of his apartment. He lounged across his old couch, unable to look at Gai or Tenzo, who had taken their usual positions in chairs opposite each other. As always, they both had the grace not to look at him while he drank or ate, but today he found himself unwilling to look at them when his mask was down. He felt incredibly exhausted, not just physically but emotionally.
After Kakashi pulled his mask back up, Gai noted solemnly, “You have done much more difficult things than discipline twelve-year-olds, dearest rival.”
Tenzo leaned forward in his chair, not bothering to glance at Gai. “You don’t always know what will help you,” he commented, studying Kakashi intently. “You should give it time.”
Kakashi glanced between his friends, not nearly as amused as he normally was by the tension between the two men. He had known Gai much longer than Tenzo, through most of his schooling and then into college, but Tenzo had been his ROTC subordinate for years and then served in Special Ops with him. They had seen completely different sides of him in such a short period of time.
For the two of them to exist in the same room was only a depressing reminder that Kakashi contained multitudes – and those multitudes were at odds with each other.
Kakashi leaned backwards, staring at his ceiling with both eyes – the fully functioning right and the half-blind and scarred left. He’d tossed aside his headband as soon as he entered his apartment; he felt no shame in either Gai or Tenzo seeing his scar, unlike his burns.
The heat of alcohol relaxed his throat a bit too much. He started talking before he knew what he even wanted to say. “That Umino is a jackass,” he suddenly remarked.
Gai instantly cried, “What! Why do you say that? Iruka-sensei is a saint!”
In response, Tenzo murmured something under his breath, and Kakashi just barely caught Gai giving Tenzo a displeased glare. Kakashi shrugged against the couch cushion. “He thinks he’s such a good person, but there’s nothing remarkable about keeping shitty kids in line.”
He could tell he was offending Gai, but he didn’t particularly care. Kakashi scratched at the end of his facial scar before he rubbed at the burnt part of his neck still hidden by his mask.
“He gave me this look – this look of ‘I told you so, dumbass,’” Kakashi added, recognizing that he sounded hurt. He immediately tore his vulnerability to pieces by concluding flatly, “He’s an embarrassment of a man.”
Much to his surprise, Gai suddenly stood up and declared in a conspicuously even tone, “I will see you tomorrow, Kakashi. Do not drink too much more tonight.”
Gai didn’t look back at Tenzo, nor did he make any further comment. And just like that, Gai left Kakashi’s apartment, not even stopping to take his portion of the leftover takeout.
Kakashi turned his messy dual gaze towards Tenzo, blinking in inebriated confusion.
“Was it something I said?” Kakashi asked, mostly rhetorically, but he also did feel some sincere perplexity at what had just happened. He could count the number of times that Gai had willingly chosen to leave his presence, and the number did not make the double digits.
Instead of answering, Tenzo stood up as well, silently gathering his things from the kitchen. Feeling abruptly abandoned, Kakashi found himself sulking on the couch, staring at the carpet.
When Tenzo made his own way much more slowly to the door, Kakashi was about to say something snidely to him, but Tenzo interjected with an innocent-seeming statement in a tone that sounded nothing but cutting and critical, “Don’t mistake kindness for weakness, senpai.”
Suddenly alone in his apartment, Kakashi took off his mask before removing the rest of his clothes, piece by piece, until he was nude, sitting on the couch, holding the half-empty bottle of whiskey. He flexed his bare feet in front of him before he took another swig and placed the glass down on the carpet. He wandered into the bathroom for one purpose and one purpose alone: to see himself in the mirror.
Kakashi only managed to study himself when he was drunk. He could still envision what he looked like just a few years ago, and it seemed surreal that he’d been swamped so quickly by scars and burns.
It was better than being dead, but…
The upper portion of his chest and his neck had caught most of the fire of the roadside bomb, burning through the layers of cloth and body armor. The flames had climbed up under the protective gear for his face, laying waste to his chin and wild splashes of his cheeks.
A well-meaning doctor had told him at least his lips were intact.
Kakashi had asked the doctor if he wanted to trade faces with him. The answer, of course, had been uncomfortable silence.
The scar through his left eye was somehow more tolerable.
The shrapnel had cut into him at such a strange angle that it had been like a stone skipping across water, slicing across his cheek, through the top-center of his eye, and then his forehead. He could pretend on some days, when he was the right kind of drunk, that the scar made him look dashing, but most of the time, it just reminded him of the explosion, and he wanted to hide it and everything else, from the memory to the physical markers.
Tonight, Kakashi was not so terribly surprised to find himself once again in the bath-tub, pressing his nude body against the cool pale plastic, staring at the back of the shampoo bottle. He touched the burn closest to his lips, slowly running his finger on the edge of the injury.
For some reason, he thought about Iruka Umino and the scar running horizontal across his face.
Even up close, it seemed that Iruka had done nothing to conceal his scar, obviously not hiding it with cloth like Kakashi but also not obscuring it with makeup either. Iruka hadn’t particularly seemed to notice or care that Kakashi had definitely stared at his scar, even when Kakashi had very clearly looked just below Iruka’s eyes at the injury when he first scared the other man.
Well, fuck him. He hadn’t survived war and fire and shrapnel. His scar might have been deep and long and centered on his face, but Iruka’s wound was – well it was –
Kakashi shut his eyes tightly.
It was attractive. Iruka’s scar – and Iruka himself – was attractive.
Kakashi managed to think of little else before he passed out in the bath-tub.