Backslide-Blackkat

Chapter 12

Iruka comes home to find all the lights on in his apartment. He lets himself in with a resigned sigh, sets his bag down by the door, and then makes his way towards his bedroom.

As expected, there's a big lump of jounin flopped out on top of the covers.

Studying the man, Iruka gives in with a faint roll of his eyes. He tugs off his chuunin vest, takes off his hitai-ate, and nudges Kakashi over to the right a little more before sprawling next to him. He rolls onto his back, studying the plain white ceiling for a long moment, and then says, "You know, if I were dating someone, they'd get entirely the wrong idea about this. You look like your lover cheated on you, not like you ran headfirst into the brick wall of your emotions."

Kakashi doesn't move the arm draped over his eyes, which is unusual—most of the time the damage isn't so bad as to keep him from making eye contact. Or at least, not anymore. Bouts like that were reserved for his ANBU days. He just hums softly in acknowledgement, and though he looks relaxed, Iruka has known him long enough to recognize the bewildered tension in the set of his shoulders, the near-panicky slant to the mouth hidden under the ever-present mask. There's no other sound, no indication of what's happened to send him spiraling into the uncharted territory of feelings.

Realizing that whatever conversation takes place here, the majority of it will be up to him, Iruka strangles another sigh, resigns himself to babbling, and says, "Did you know that Naruto came to see me today after my shift at the Missions Desk? He said that newfound cousin of his is teaching him sealing, and that he's already learned to make sealing scrolls and explosive tags with varying effects. I'm not sure whether to be happy or horrified—it's not exactly the best news for the village, but I remember the unit we did on sealing in class. Naruto's test came back with a picture of a frog on it and nothing else. Kurama-san must be a very good teacher, to dump all that information into Naruto's head so quickly."

It's subtle, but Iruka catches the faint twitch at the mention of Naruto's cousin, and the even more blatant of one at his name. This has something to do with the other jounin, then.

There's silence as Iruka considers what he knows, his old Intelligence training coming back—Iruka has never been much of a frontline fighter, but he's a damn good spy when he has to be. So Kurama has done something to make Kakashi think about emotions and feelings, has pushed him clear out of his usual routine of porn-training-missions-repeat. From what he remembers of Kurama, it's unlikely to be exceedingly traumatic, if only because the redhead is polite enough not to mentally scar his colleagues without a good reason. And, as aggravating as Kakashi can be, he also knows when to stop pushing.

"I can hear you thinking." Kakashi lifts his arm and gives Iruka a sardonic glance. "Stop it, I came here to wallow."

Iruka rolls his eyes right back. "No, you came here because somewhere in that twisted mind of yours you understand that you need the more complex emotions that usually get shoved to the back and ignored, and you want me to help you deal with them."

Kakashi doesn't deny it, which might as well be conformation with him. He drops the arm and clasps his hands on his stomach, gaze trained on the ceiling like it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen. Iruka studies him again, more carefully this time. There's no outward indication of what's wrong, and it's likely that no one else would ever even guess that something is wrong. Kakashi hides things well, after all—all ANBU do. Genma does it as well, smiles and laughs and acts normally even when stress and unhappiness and guilt are all tearing him apart inside.

And then, out of the blue, Kakashi says, "Did you ever have a crush on Genma?"

Iruka chokes.

"I mean," Kakashi continues, ignoring the hacking, wheezing chuunin next to him, "it would be reasonable, right? He's handsome, and he appeared out of nowhere and completely changed your life, and he's very kind."