Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Kakashi’s new kids might have to practice the art of patience for longer than anticipated, because no sooner has he exited Gai’s house (through the window, despite Gai’s grumbles) and sprung down to street level, than a trio of enemy shinobi skulk from the bin alley behind the bakery. They hold a tight formation as they prowl towards him, radiating lethal intent.

Kakashi straightens from his crouch – legs only slightly shaky, thank you very much – and extracts one hand from his pockets for a lazy wave. “Yo,” he says. “Lee, Tenten, Neji.”

Lee’s scowl shrinks by a few degrees of magnitude. He tugs at Tenten’s sleeve. “Look! He remembered our names!”

Tenten wrenches free. “Low bar.”

“High standards,” Kakashi counters.

“Hardly! You really think you’re good enough for Gai-sensei with that attitude?”

No, Kakashi wants to snap. He chews the word to pieces and swallows it. “I don’t think either of us gets to tell Gai who is or isn’t good enough for him. Why are you stalking your sensei’s house?”

“Because Lee wanted to sleep over last night, but he saw you were there.” Tenten’s eyes flash dangerously. “You and Gai-sensei. Canoodling.”

Yikes. Kakashi tries to recall if the curtains in Gai’s bedroom had been shut this morning. Please, please say they’d been shut. They’re shinobi, for Sage’s sake – being aware of their surroundings is supposed to be the first point on their skillset. At least he’s relatively certain, given the position of Gai’s sofa relative to his window, that all Lee would’ve seen last night is the back of his head, not his face.

“I fail to see how what your sensei does outside of training is any of your business,” he says, glacially cool.

Neji folds his arms. “It’ll interfere with our training, if you make him cry again.”

Right. Gai cried once, in front of his students, because of Kakashi. That’s a thing that happened. But Kakashi can’t let that guilt devour him. He’s already spent over a decade in that beast’s belly. Gai helped him drag himself out, and Kakashi can’t put his effort to waste.

“I don’t intend to make him cry again.”

“You expect us to believe you?” Tenten demands. “After how you toyed with his feelings in the past? After you treated his love like it was yours to play with?”

Kakashi opens his mouth to defend himself. Surprisingly, he doesn’t get the chance.

“Wait!” Lee, of all people – Gai’s most devoted acolyte; chief missionary of the School of Spandex; Lee – steps in front of him. “Kakashi-sensei has a point. We don’t get to dictate Gai-sensei’s feelings! We must trust that he would only have chosen the most honest, wonderful person in Konoha to love.”

“Hm,” says Neji, somehow managing to encapsulate all his doubts as to Gai’s ability to judge character in a single syllable. Kakashi can’t say he disagrees.

But Lee remains adamant: “Do you remember everything he told us about Kakashi-sensei?”

Oh? This ought to be good. No doubt, Gai’s sung his praises. What’ll he have told the kids? That Kakashi’s the coolest jonin in the village? A legendary warrior, who has protected Konoha since he first wrapped his hitaii-ate around his forehead at five?

“He told us that he cares so very deeply for others, even when he tries to hide it from the world – and from himself.” Lee gazes at Kakashi with eyes that are disturbingly shiny. “He cares for all of us and protects the Leaf. He’s a genius in everything but knowing how to let others protect and care for him.”

Kakashi’s only consolation is that Neji and Tenten cringe just as hard as he does.

“Gai-sensei,” growls Tenten, “is clearly compromised.” She rounds on Kakashi, and though Neji rolls his eyes at this entire show, he stays right by her side. “I’ll ask you what I asked before, and this time I expect a proper answer! What are your intentions with our sensei?”

The kids are concerned, and Kakashi can’t say he blames them. If Gai had settled for someone who’d treated him like Kakashi had – someone else – wouldn’t Kakashi be first in line to slam them up against the wall and seethe in their face, and explain in graphic detail exactly what would become of them, should they ever break Gai’s heart?

It’s been a day – and a night – of confessions. Of digging truths out of his guts like shards of shrapnel that his body had grown around, even as they poisoned him. Why not gouge out one more?

“My intention is to love him,” he says.

That makes the kids stand straighter. Even Neji’s pale gaze snaps to his. Though he has yet to activate his Byakugan, Kakashi has the distinct sense that he’s assessing every miniscule motion, down to the tick of his pulse under his mask.

Kakashi rubs the back of his neck. The sun is suddenly unbearably hot, the fabric of his mask itching. He pitches his voice low, so the kids have to lean in to hear – and, hopefully, so the civilian patrons of the bakery can’t.

“Gai taught me the importance of never giving up. And… and of pushing yourself further than you could possibly imagine, in order to achieve what you thought was beyond you. I think you guys have learnt that from him, too.”

“It was why we passed his test,” Lee chimes in. “We kept fighting.”

“Yeah, well. I guess in some ways, that means you’re stronger than me.”

That catches Neji’s attention. “How so?”

“I didn’t fight for him enough. Not to start with. Not for a very long time.” Though admittedly, his opponent had been one of Konoha’s highest-ranked and deadliest operatives. Aka, himself. “I don’t know how to convince you that I mean what I say. I don’t know how I’ve managed to convince him. But he trusts me, and for as long as we have left in this world, I’m going to fight – “ against every doubt, every hiss of self-hatred “- to earn that trust. I will be by his side, loving him, for the rest of our lives.”

This proclamation is met with three equally gobsmacked stares. Seems the kids didn’t expect quite such a heartfelt outpouring. Kakashi empathises; it was a shock for him too. He strokes the edge of his mask, nursing a brief, rare flare of longing for Hound. The sliver of bared skin around his right eye is far too vulnerable, his flush creeping out from under the navy fabric.

Lee’s underlip wibbles dangerously. “Kakashi-sensei,” he burbles, voice hitching up an octave as he clasps his bandaged hands. “Such glorious passion… You truly are Gai’s one true match, his eternal rival! I aspire to a romance as pure as yours!”

Kakashi clears his throat. “Right. Great.” Taking his book from his shuriken pouch, he flips open to a random page. Ah, yes; morning-after sequence three. One of his favourites. “I should be off.”

He makes it all of five paces – marching briskly in the opposite direction – before Tenten’s holler breaks against his back: “You’d better mean what you said! Or you’ll answer to us, Kakashi-sensei!”

Kakashi slouches behind his book and walks faster. Maybe he should correct them, point out that he’s not a sensei yet. But it’s only a matter of time before Gai bustles out to scold them for causing such a commotion, and if he discovers the topic of their conversation, no doubt he’ll take it upon himself to demonstrate those ‘glorious passions’ Lee mentioned.

Kakashi can’t take being swept into a dramatic dip-and-smooch in front of an audience. Not yet.

Still, he can’t help but smile as he skims over Akari’s stuttering admission, before she shoves Hirayuki naked from her apartment and slams the door in his face: “Don’t you know I love you, you idiot?” Gai’s kids are pretty cool. He can only hope his own compare.

That hope is swiftly snuffed. The brats are insufferable.

The chalkboard eraser he took to the head might just be the highlight of their meeting. That prank had potential: it could’ve been the result of three friends teaming up to exact vengeance on their very (very, very) late sensei. But no. Within a minute of entering the vacated classroom (even Iruka had given up and gone home) the dynamics of the squad become apparent.

First up: Uzumaki Naruto. Unrepentant shit.

Apparently, being denied any adult attention in his formative years has left him craving it, positive or otherwise. He causes trouble just to be seen – or perhaps, to exercise control over the hatred held for him in so many Konoha citizens’ hearts. If he’s pissing them off, it means he understands why he’s loathed. Which is all very tragic – but also really fucking annoying for any teacher tasked with taking him under his wing.

Then you have Haruno Sakura. She makes vague attempts to dissuade Naruto from his mischief, which allow her to feign innocence when he gets in trouble – but all her attention spirals around Uchiha Sasuke, like water circling the drain.

Uchiha Sasuke himself barely seems to know she exists. He glares out the window and pretends he’s too good to breathe the same air.

Still, at least they’ve got goals, right? Wrong. They can’t even manage that. Naruto has set his sights on the Hokage’s office, despite housing the monster that killed the last man to claim the hat. Sakura seems to care less about becoming a shinobi than becoming the next Mrs Uchiha, while Mr Uchiha is swimming in lethal intent towards his own brother.

Huh, Kakashi finds himself thinking, as Sasuke glowers at them from over his interlocked fingers. They might be even more fucked up than I was.

“So that’s it?” Naruto asks, tightening the knot on his hitaii-ate. “We’re your students, now?”

He sounds enthused at the prospect. Kakashi wishes he could return the sentiment.

“You wish,” he says, angling his slouch so the light glances off two silver bells, knotted around his belt loop. “Let’s get started.”

Suffice to say, he has minimal expectations. By the time he’s lashed Naruto to the tree stump at the centre of the clearing and retreated into the forest to spy, they haven’t been met. All three kids have yet to show him anything but reasons why they ought to be sent back to the Academy.

Naruto jumps ahead, flinging himself face-first into battle. Kakashi catches himself thinking Minato-sensei would never, before giving himself a firm shake. Naruto takes after his father only in looks. Kakashi is glad for it – he’s already made up his mind to treat the kid as his own person, and Naruto makes that exponentially easier by dint of being, as far as Kakashi can tell, a loudmouth knucklehead with none of his father’s genius or his mother’s charm.

In contrast, Sakura is far too timid, waiting to take every cue from Sasuke, while Sasuke himself… Well, his fireball was impressive. Kakashi hasn’t felt sweltering, eyeball-drying heat like that since he fought side-by-side with Itachi, so many years ago. But this isn’t a test of skill.

If Naruto and Sakura had gotten in the way of his jutsu, would Sasuke have hesitated?

Kakashi doubts it.

He’s planning what he’s going to tell Hiruzen – they’re not cut out for this line of work, or even have you considered upping the minimum genin graduation age again? – when he hears Naruto gasp. Shit. Sasuke had better not have taken the opportunity to stab him. Kakashi pokes his head out from behind the tree in time to see –

Sasuke’s outstretched arm. A bento box, upraised. As Kakashi once held out his lunch to Obito.

Sakura hesitates only a second before copying him – we’ll have to work on that, Kakashi catches himself thinking. Get her more confident in making her own decisions…

But then Naruto gratefully gulps down bite after bite from both sets of chopsticks, and the training field buzzes with his happy giggles and Sakura’s hissed remonstrations to pipe down, cha, or sensei will hear! and the satiated gurgles of three little stomachs, and oh, what’s this feeling, bubbling out of Kakashi’s chest?

Surprise.

Disbelief.

Fear too, at the thought of taking these kids (when did twelve start seeming so young?) out into the world.

But there, under it all…

(A puff of white smoke, an entry more dramatic even than Gai’s specialty. He leans over his trio of brats, snarling behind the mask, right eye an obsidian slit. “You…”)

A warm, golden curl of pride.

(“Pass!”

“Ehhhh?”)

Kakashi’s feet take him to Gai’s apartment rather than home. This directional heading is magnetically fixed inside him, like a bird migrating for the winter. He doesn’t fight it. There’s still so much to figure out about this relationship – who sleeps where, for how long, etcetera – but they’ll have to play that by ear.

It’s kinda nice, Kakashi thinks, not feeling like he has to come up with a tactical overview of everything. A plan of attack. Gai’s always been good at going with the flow of life, and Gods know, Kakashi hasn’t the first clue what a healthy level of co- and interdependency looks like. Best if they just feel this out as they go.

Since Gai’s not there, he breaks in through his window and lounges on his sofa until heavy footsteps bound up the stairs. Gai shakes the building to the foundations, but Kakashi’s willing to bet they did worse this morning. He hopes there weren’t any noise complaints from the bakery.

“Yo,” is his greeting, when Gai puffs in. “You need better security.”

Gai’s smile goes all squiggly. He toes off his sandals, then crosses the space between them in two strides and drags Kakashi to his feet. Fingers hovering at the edge of his mask. “Can I…?”

“Draw the curtains, first.” He can’t shake his suspicion that Lee and co. have staked out the opposite roof with binoculars. Once Gai has obeyed, he swerves around his coffee table, back to Kakashi, narrowly avoiding hip-clocking a flower-stuffed vase. Kakashi shuts his eyes as his mask is tugged south. The cool air on his bare face contrasts with Gai’s flame-hot fingertips, as they tilt him up for a short, sweet kiss.

“Welcome home,” breathes Gai, when they part.

“Shouldn’t I be saying that?”

Gai’s cheeks go pink. “You were talking about security instead. And – well, I’ve always wanted to say that to someone. Um. To you.”

Something scratchy sticks in Kakashi’s throat. Home. Yeah, he likes that. Truth of it is, Gai’s been home to him for a very long time.

“I meant it about the security,” he says, instead of anything so saccharine. Gai sweeps his thumb under Kakashi’s lopsided hitaii-ate, cupping his cheek. His black eyes crinkle at the edges from how hard he’s smiling, and Kakashi gets the sense he knows what he means.

“If my lack of explosive traps makes me more likely to find you on my couch, it is a risk I will gladly take! Now, tell me all about your new students!”

“You don’t know if I passed them or failed them.”

“Of course I do.” This time, Gai’s thumb brushes Kakashi’s thin lips, the quirk at one corner, the white point of a fang. “You’re smiling.”

And, Kakashi realises, he is. He gives his grin free reign as Gai flings himself on the couch beside him and pulls his feet up to sit cross-legged.

“Yeah, okay. They passed.”

Gai whoops loud enough to startle a pigeon off the roof. “Excellent! I was certain that one day, you would find students to dedicate yourself to, onto whom you could pass your will of fire – but I am excited to hear that you will be training three with such potential! When do I get to meet them?”

…And this is the part Kakashi is simultaneously really looking forward to, and dreading. He sinks into the sofa, scratching the bridge of his nose, where the lip of his mask usually rests. “Well, about that…”

“Oh,” says Gai, after Kakashi makes his request. “Okay.”

“Really?” It doesn’t sound it.

“Yes – just. I understand.” Gai draws himself up like he’s facing an enemy. Sets his shoulders, squares his jaw. “I just mean… If – if you don’t want to be open about us, if you are ashamed of our relationship… Or if not ashamed, then just… If being seen with me romantically would be too embarrassing, or too great a disruption to your cool, hip image…” His hands flutter at the air a moment, like he’s trying to catch half those words and stuff them back into his mouth, before slowly sinking to settle on his lap. “If that’s the case, it would be fine.”

It categorically would not be.

Kakashi gnaws his lip. “Just one month,” he promises. “Then the whole world can know.” He drops his own hand on Gai’s, sandwiching it to his spandex-clad thigh. “I could never be ashamed of you, Gai. And anyone who thinks I ought to be will never be a friend of mine. So, you’d better not talk like that about yourself, mm?”

That threat is a joke – Kakashi knows how hard it can be, to batter back one’s own insecurities. Still, Gai nods fervently, eyes agleam. “Thank you, rival! Yes – indeed, you are correct! Negative self-talk is not conducive to one’s health or fitness! If I ever catch myself engaging in such behaviour again, I shall perform a thousand pistol squats on each leg!”

Kakashi’s hamstrings twinge in sympathy. He isn’t sure that’s healthy, as far as coping mechanisms go, but eh. He’s no expert.

“But,” Gai continues, tapping his forefingers together, glancing up at Kakashi from under his fringe. “If it is not embarrassment that keeps you from publicly announcing our relationship, I don’t understand your motivation. Why would you –“

Kakashi tells him.

Gai’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says. Then: “Ohhhh. That’s devious.”

“And?”

“And hardly the action of a responsible sensei.”

“Mm. And?”

Gai’s grin glints in the low evening light. “And very you. Yes, I can do this. In fact – why stop at a month?”

“You want to go longer?”

“Why not?” There it is: the cheesy wink-and-thumbs-up combo, classic Gai. “We’ll make it a challenge!”

Kakashi hasn’t said no to one of those in a long time. He doesn’t intend to start.

So, he takes Team 7 on their first mission. And their second, and their third, and their fourth – though he doubts the poor cat will ever recover, or Old Mrs Yumi’s flowerbeds. They go to the Land of Waves on a simple C-ranked escort job, only for it to spiral into blood and brutality, mirrors and mayhem. The mission ends with a boy coughing blood over Kakashi’s arm, Chidori impaling his chest.

Later, as they stand over Haku and Zabuza, laid out to rest side by side, dusted with fresh-fallen snow, Naruto’s little hand fists at the back of Kakashi’s flak jacket. He considers shrugging him off. Perhaps he should turn this into a teaching moment about how this is a cold, harsh reality. About how shinobi don’t get a childhood.

But he’s starting to think they deserve one.

Kakashi bows his head, snowflakes catching on his lashes. He lets Naruto hold onto him as the world bleeds white.

Though he doesn’t try to shelter his kids from the cruelties of the world, he makes damned sure to protect them. Until, of course, he doesn’t – but that comes later. For now, there are chuunin exams to enter. Team 7 probably won’t make the grade this year – too young, too inexperienced – but next year, they’ll be top candidates.

After that, they’ll have no obligation to continue working with Kakashi. But he hopes they’ll choose to stay under his instruction for a little longer. Until they’re eighteen, at least. Why? Simple. Because they’re so much softer than he was at their age, unfamiliar with warfare and harsh decisions, the crackle of dried blood on their palms. Because they’re young and malleable: Naruto so desperate for attention and approval, Sakura still learning to define herself outside of Sasuke, Sasuke so warped by hate.

Because Kakashi will miss them, when they move on.

Team 7 sail through the first exam, with Naruto impressing even Ibiki with his gutsy – or, some would say, thick-skulled – approach. And finally, Kakashi gets his opportunity. A short lull separates the first and second exams – a span of time Kakashi intends to stuff with training and ramen dinners, before tossing his kids into Anko’s forest of death. One day, as his team stroll back towards Ichiraku Ramen from the training grounds, another squad rounds the corner of the street ahead.

A Hyuuga. A girl with a scroll on her back. A boy in green spandex, and a man in a matching outfit behind him.

A man who really ought to be in Team 7’s lives.

Kakashi’s smirk creases at his mask. It’s been well over a month by this point. Just for once, he figures he can throw the challenge.

So, as his team passes Gai’s, Kakashi says “Hi babe,” and smacks Gai’s ass.

And without losing a beat, Gai says “Good morning, my love!” and returns the favour.

They keep walking. Their students don’t.

“Um,” says Sakura, faintly. “Are – are we going to talk about that?”

Naruto looks shell-shocked. Sasuke has aged a thousand years. Kakashi is thriving.

The reaction from Gai’s team is, predictably, more explosive. They’ve known about their relationship far longer, but thus far, Kakashi’s done a good job of keeping their squads separate – plus, Lee had his cute crush on Sakura to distract him, when they all first met outside the exam hall. Now, he lets out a resounding whoop and punches the sky.

“You are finally announcing your affection for one another in public! Congratulations, Gai-sensei!”

“About damn time,” grumbles Tenten, but not even she can hold back her snigger at the three matching gapes from Team 7. Sasuke looks in danger of catching a fly.

Kakashi shoots his students a smile that reaches far beyond the scrunch of his visible eye. “Gai and I have been dating since before I became your sensei,” he says, nonchalant, like it’s no big deal.

Naruto’s screech ricochets off every face carved into Hokage mountain, and Kakashi’s day is made.

(“Was I cool?” whispers Gai, that night.

Kakashi snuggles up to him, tucking his knees against the backs of Gai’s, resting his forehead between his shoulderblades. Looping one arm around his waist. “Mm, you were perfect.”)

Things change, after that. And things stay the same.

Friday nights at Gai’s become a much larger occasion – there’s scarcely room for both their teams to cram around Gai’s dining table. Though Kakashi suggests their teams alternate weeks, the kids spurn the offer. Kakashi grumbles at having to dismantle the table entirely and eat on the floor, but he can’t deny there’s something nice about dodging around genin and bowls of half-eaten curry to squat in his favourite spot in the corner: wall against his back, door and window in his sightline, all his family in front of him and safe.

His life has never contained much nice. One day, he might get used to it.

Sometimes Sasuke shows. Mostly he doesn’t – and it aches to imagine him alone in his room on the other side of town. But though you can drag a soldier to a medkit and force them to bandage their wounds, not all injuries are so easily treated.

Some will only heal when the wounded shinobi is ready. Some will never heal at all – but oh, that doesn’t make anyone broken. Or at least, not beyond repair.

Kakashi reiterates the invitation every week, regardless of how long it’s been since Sasuke last accepted. He tells himself it’s enough (it’s enough, it’s enough). All the way up until the day when it isn’t.

“You can’t save everyone,” Gai whispers into his hair. The words are slurpy from how much he’s been crying. He curls tight around Kakashi as if his burly body is a tortoiseshell, a shield to protect him from every kunai flung by the world.

“I know.” Kakashi shuts his dry eyes and wishes, not for the first time, that Gai didn’t have to weep for him (though he’s so very grateful that he does). “But I could’ve saved him.”

The world goes hazy for a while. Sasuke leaves and Naruto leaves and Sakura leaves. And though he’s not proud of it, Kakashi leaves too.

It’s too much, that’s all. Walking around the village like nothing had changed, while Naruto gallivants across the continent with Jiraiya and Sakura spends every waking hour at the hospital with Tsunade, and Sasuke does god-knows-what with god-knows-whom…

How is he supposed to visit the memorial stone without thinking of his new team, as well as his old one? How’s he supposed to walk past Ichiraku ramen without listening for Naruto’s bright laugh? Or pass where the old Uchiha district once stood – now razed to the earth, tabula rasa, Konoha covering up all of their greatest (his greatest) mistakes?

Kakashi has thought many things of himself, over the years. Heartless. Worthless. Scum. He never thought of himself as a coward, until he scrawls Gai a note and sneaks away at midnight.

Thank you.

I love you.

I’m sorry.

Then a quick addendum at the bottom, so messy as to be almost illegible: P.S., I swear I’ll be back.

Nowadays, Kakashi only keeps his old apartment out of some desperate, mulish need to cling to distance - from Gai, from the kids, from everything. He crashes there sometimes, after exhausting missions when he doesn't have the energy to deal with anyone but his own reflection in the mirror. And, of course, he uses it for storage. When he reaches under the bed, a part of him hopes he won't find what he's searching for. But there it is, just as he left it: a cobweb-crusted box, a porcelain face staring up at him.

Tenzou is more than happy to welcome him into the ranks again. So he claims for the first week, before he remembers how exasperating Kakashi can be. Still, he bears every ruffle of his hair with a grit of his teeth and falls back into the habit of calling Kakashi taichou, even though they’re at the same rank now, running their own individual teams. It looks like it annoys him every single time the word slips from his mouth, which of course means it delights Kakashi.

ANBU feels different, this time. He wears Hound, not the other way around.

Or maybe he just tells himself that.

But regardless, once the mission is complete, he takes off one mask and tucks it away. He crosses town, following the smell of sweet syrup-glazed bread, and cracks the lock on a familiar window, sliding into an undefended house. He creeps back into the bed he vacated, tucking up behind a warm, muscular body. Slipping off his other mask too, he presses his lips to the burn scar on Gai’s left shoulderblade and lets himself rest like he never left.

Only he did.

And he’ll leave again.

Each time he absconds from their bed, Kakashi hopes it’ll be the last – but it’s never long before his memories take chisels to him, etching him like the surface of the memorial stone. Gai isn’t happy about this arrangement. That much is obvious. He always says ‘welcome home’ and twists around to plant a sleepy kiss on him, but his smile is stiff as a fresh-healed wound. When he asks Kakashi what his missions are like, where he goes, what he does, Kakashi can’t tell him. He dodges the questions with his usual nonsense about lost grandmas and cats stuck up trees. If he has to lie to Gai, he can at least do him the courtesy of being obvious about it.

Gai doesn’t seem especially grateful. Thinking about it, Kakashi can’t exactly blame him.

Still, Gai never tries to stop him going. And when he comes back, he always lets him stay.

Kakashi isn’t naïve enough to think Gai’s lenience will last forever. There is being understanding, there is being patient – and there is letting the person you love take advantage of your kindness, as Gai is so prone to doing, and Kakashi so prone to relying on. It’s high time that pattern changed. So, in a way, he’s grateful when, one night, he flips back the covers and leans over to press a kiss to Gai’s temple, and Gai doesn’t even feign sleep. He slivers a dark eye and gives him a squint that’s almost a glare.

“You’re leaving?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hm.” Gai rolls away from Kakashi, burrowing into his tortoise plush. “When my students say that, I tell them not to, unless they mean it. Unless they’re going to try to change their behaviour for the better.”

Ah.

Kakashi sits a moment. Letting the truth of that percolate through his ribs.

“I stopped trying,” he says. It’s no revelation. More like peeling off blood-soaked gauze. He knew this wound was there already, but the crusty, stinking bandages hid its depth. “Didn’t I?”

Gai’s lack of reply says all that it needs to.

Kakashi stares at the ceiling. At his lap, at the wrinkled, mint-green sheets that smell of him and Gai. More the latter than the former, nowadays. “Can I start again?”

“That’s up to you, I think.”

When did Gai get so wise? Stupid question. Kakashi has this sneaky suspicion he always has been. “I want to.”

“So do it.” Gai’s hand seals warmly over his thigh. When Kakashi finally dares peek at him, he finds his mouth curled up, just faintly, at one edge. A small, tired smile. “Consider it a challenge.”

Kakashi swallows. “We haven’t done one of those in a while.”

“Maybe we should start that again, too.” Gai’s thumb sweeps gently over the line where his thigh muscles curve together. “Maybe we should restart a lot of things. Sakura was complaining last Friday that she hadn’t seen you in a while.”

Right. Kakashi winces. When was the last time he showed up to their weekly dinner?

“You should take her out for lunch at some point,” says Gai. It’s not a suggestion. He lifts Kakashi’s nearest hand and sighs at the dried dark crust under his nails – residue from his last mission. “But be sure you wash up, first. She’s growing into a fine kunoichi, and a finer medical-nin, but she shouldn’t have to eat with you while your hands are bloody.”

Kakashi croaks a laugh. “A fine kunoichi, huh? No thanks to me.”

“A little thanks to you,” says Gai, charitably. There’s no bite to the words. It’s nice, Kakashi thinks, having someone see your ugliest parts, all the ways in which you’re a fucked-up failure of a person, and care about you regardless.

It’s nicer when they still hold you accountable, and push you to be better.

When Gai tugs at his wrist, Kakashi lets himself be pulled, sinking back into the bed, dragging the covers over him once more. Wrapping himself around Gai, arms and legs, like he can’t bear to pry himself away.

Although, of course, he has to.

“I really do need to go,” he whispers, against Gai’s throat. “Tenzou needs back-up. But I’ll be back tomorrow, and I’ll take Sakura out, and we’ll do a challenge.”

“Not if you’re too tired.”

“We’ll do a sleeping challenge, then. Tomorrow night. Who can pass out for the longest.”

“Hm.” Gai’s exhale rolls over Kakashi’s scalp, a pleasant, warm prickle of sensation. “That means you have to stay in bed. No running off.”

“Promise,” says Kakashi, and though he’s given Gai no reason to trust him, he swears another oath to himself that he’s going to start.

Dinner with Sakura is painful, given that they haven’t seen each other in three months. But it’s a good kind of painful, like the itch of healing skin under a scab. After the first grating ten minutes, conversation eases and starts to flow: a mountain stream during the slow spring melt.

Sakura is, true to Gai’s words, flourishing under Tsunade. After a little encouragement, she shares a few successes: “I did my first chakra-only treatment of a peripheral oedema, following an infected summons-bite! It’s so interesting, sensei – how you can mould the water and infuse it with your chakra, and draw out impurities in the blood. You have to be careful to balance the patient’s electrolytes after, though – I didn’t realise how dangerous diluting blood can be. I was thinking it might work better if we used a saline solution instead of pure water – though Tsunade says that’s too hard for most medic-nin to master, I’m sure she and I and Shizune could handle it…”

Kakashi has never held an interest in medical ninjutsu – less than none, since Rin’s death. After that, spending time in hospital was about as fun as his torture-training module in ANBU. Still, he listens, attentive, trying to absorb as much as possible without uncovering his sharingan. He doesn’t even think about pulling out his book.

The passion in Sakura’s voice… It’s nice, to hear it directed at something she wants out of life. Her own hopes and goals and dreams, not those of the boy they won’t talk about. The boy they both lost.

Once it comes time to pay the bill, they reach for their wallets simultaneously. Kakashi shakes his head. “Hey, what’s this? Aren’t you and Naruto always making me pay?”

“Well, I’m almost a grown-up now.” Sakura pointedly readjusts her flak-jacket. “Chuunin and all. I can pay for myself.”

There’s a fire in her eyes. It seems Tsunade is pushing home the point of how important it is, for Sakura to foster her own independence. Kakashi’s glad. That was one lesson he never quite managed to impart to her. Not that he put in much effort.

“Right – when was it? You passed your exam… uh…”

He thinks he’s so clever, pretending the answer’s on the tip of his tongue, just a momentary lapse of memory rather than one that never formed. But Sakura is clever, too. She crosses her knife and fork daintily over each other – they’re at one of the new western-style barbeque places; Naruto’s gonna be so mad to come back and find his choices of ramen joint depleted – and leans back in her chair.

“Gai told you to come tonight,” she says. “Didn’t he?”

Kakashi can’t deny it.

“It’s okay.” Her smile isn’t entirely happy, or sad. Isn’t much of anything, really. Kakashi wishes she hadn’t learned how to create such an expression, but given that he guided her through her first battlefield kill on one of those in-between missions before Team Seven’s first disastrous attempt at the Chuunin exams, it’s not like he can complain about his little lady growing up. “We all know he’s a lot better at this than you.”

On that, she and Kakashi can agree. He fakes a smile of his own. “Thankfully for us all, he’s also a very good teacher.”

“And you’re a terrible student,” says Sakura, flatly, but she cracks a laugh when Kakashi dramatically slumps in his seat, clutching his chest like he’s taken a shuriken to the heart. “Let me pay for myself, sensei.”

He knows why she’s insisting. Because this peace offering makes up for nothing. Because he still has a long way to go, and Sakura wants him to know that. Studying the intense, brittle green of her glare, he finds himself reluctant to push. Best drop the subject and work his arse off to make this better. Maybe then (one day, some day) she’ll nag him to foot the bill again.

He shrugs, slipping his wallet back into his hip pouch. “Eh, who’m I to turn down a free meal…”

“Hey, I said pay for myself, you moocher!”

Still, once they’ve settled with the waiter, Kakashi clears his throat before Sakura can head for the door. There’s so much he wants to say. I’m sorry for neglecting you is at the top of the list, but that seems a vapid platitude, after so many years.

Don’t say sorry unless you intend to improve, Gai told him. Perhaps he should hold back the apologies until he can show his student – and his boyfriend, and himself – that they have meaning.

“I’m proud of you,” he settles on.

He’s not sure that’s any better. Why should Sakura care what he thinks: the guy who overlooked her for the single year he was in charge of her training; who dismissed her as a basic kunoichi, destined for the mid-ranks? Even if that had been true, it wouldn’t have been fair of him. It wouldn’t have been right. As it is, Sakura has proved him so wondrously wrong.

Still, something in his words must hit home. Sakura glows and beams. Perhaps she can tell how much he means it.

“Dog has a new solo going spare, if you’re interested,” Tenzou tells him later that same evening, as they amble out of the ANBU training field together, stiff from practice.

When Kakashi shrugs, stretches, and gives a mild: “Nah, I’m good,” Tenzou looks a touch disappointed. But he looks glad too, somehow. Or maybe the expression on his face is something else entirely; it’s always hard to tell, with him. Either way, he claps Kakashi on the shoulder and lets him steal his reed bottle of water – typical Tenzou, always so prepared – for a drink.

That night, Gai gives Kakashi a wary, sidelong glance as he strips down and crawls into bed.

“Are you…?” he asks, and lets it trail like he used to, when they were kids.

How does that sentence end? Staying? Going?

Kakashi rolls back, lets Gai curve around him, their bodies slotting together like stacked shells. He grasps Gai’s arm and drags it over his torso, tangling their fingers. Like this, Gai’s heavy bicep on his, he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to.

“I’ll be here,” he mumbles. “In the morning. We have a sleeping challenge, remember?”

The tension floods from Gai’s muscles like the dam burst up the valley. He cuddles in against Kakashi’s spine, eyelashes feathering shut, tickling his nape. “Good. Though I may lose it.”

“Oh?”

“It’s leg day tomorrow, and rival, I would love to make good on your old suggestion of a work-out routine.”

He’s asleep before Kakashi can sputter out a response. Or at least, pretending. His snores are a bit too guttural, and definitely too loud. He must be flushing something fierce; heat beats Kakashi’s back like he’s stood in front of a furnace.

“What a proposition,” Kakashi manages, eventually, and Gai’s raucous mouth-breathing is interrupted by his laugh.  

Here is what he’s learnt, over the years. Life can be many things in quick succession.

It can be a cage.

(Once, Sukea led his kids around Konoha on a mission to see his own face. When the students called his name ("Sukea, Sukea!") a grocery assistant glanced up from where she was stacking mangoes.

“I knew a Sukea once,” she said, cautiously. Knuckles white, clutching her crate. “It was a very long time ago.”

Sukea looked her over. The right age, he reckoned; his, or younger, though her sun-weathered face added both wrinkles and years. He gave her his usual bland smile.

“Then it is lovely to meet you again,” he said, meaning ‘I’m so glad I didn’t kill you back then, when I thought it would’ve been a kindness’. He stepped around the woman and kept walking, without looking back.)

Life can be a shogi board.

(So many pieces in motion: Akatsuki and Danzou and Orochimaru and the boy Kakashi once called his top student. And in the midst of it all, Asuma.

Kakashi’s old friend falls, his last cigarette guttering out.)

Life can be an absence (his father smiles from the darkness.)

Life can be torment (Obito, please - ) and it can be terror like he’s never known (Gai streaks towards Madara, all Eight Gates unlocked. His flesh splits like continental plates, the power of a god crammed in a mortal body that cannot hope to contain it. He is magnificent and horrifying, a comet of muscle and bared teeth, burning, burning, burning for the last time…)

A man can be many things, too. He can be a cold steel kunai, and he can learn how to love. He can lose everyone he’s ever cared for, and he can construct a new family from the embers that remain. Though surrounded by people, he can be utterly alone – or, conversely, he can face a mad God with only three students at his side, yet feel the future of the whole world blazing bright in his chest.

When everything is over, some things continue. Madara is impossibly dead and Gai is impossibly alive. When he faced off against Kaguya, Kakashi hadn’t dared let himself hope – but that feels illogically cruel, in the aftermath. Of course Gai wouldn’t have left him; of course he would’ve battled back the Shinigami rather than let Kakashi lose one more person he loved.

(And yes, Kakashi knows death doesn’t work like that. Death isn’t merciful and death isn’t fair – but Gai is both of those things, isn’t he? If a little part of his nature has rubbed off on Kakashi, maybe the same goes for the reaperman, too.)

The point is, he can’t rescind every reckless, stupid move he made against the Moon goddess, or regret their every time he thought to himself well, if I die here, at least I’ll be in good company. He definitely can’t take back that last thoughtless sacrifice, his body moving of its own accord – the moment he leapt in front of Sasuke, Obito right there beside him for the very last time.

He wouldn’t undo it, anyway. Not even for Gai.

But the one thing he can do is look to the future, like Gai always taught him.

And so, Kakashi keeps vigil by Gai’s hospital bed. He converts his room into an office, spreading his handover paperwork on the mattress, hanging the hokage’s hat on the back of his chair. That’s a hard wooden number that he’s become painfully familiar with. Tsunade swings by once a day to pry him out of it, grousing that she can’t have her successor crippled by a slipped disc.

It’s ridiculous, really. Kakashi never thought he’d willingly spend so much time in hospital. It seems all the doctors needed to do to keep him here was to have Gai bedbound, limbs suspended in slings, a tube replacing every bodily function and a beeping machine to monitor them.

But Gai heals. Slowly. They all do. And, out of the window, Kakashi watches Konoha heal, too.

Tenzou is at the heart of it all: shaping new buildings, toiling tirelessly through the day and night. He seems glad to be doing something other than ANBU work, though equally uncomfortable with the attention brought upon him by his contributions. Kakashi wonders if he’s given any more thought to ditching his mask. He won’t force him out, like Hiruzen did to him – but if Tenzou ever asks to leave, Kakashi will have the right answer ready.

Anyway, the ANBU of tomorrow will be quite different from the one Kakashi knew. ROOT has been disbanded, for a start.

Kakashi hasn’t talked over all his reform plans with Gai. Some dirty work will always be required, and Gai holds far too naïve a view of such things. Sure, Kakashi’s come to appreciate that naïve view – treasure it, in truth. And he knows Gai is a shinobi first and foremost; he would conquer the part of himself that protests against any cruelty, for Kakashi, if he had to make that choice.

But Kakashi doesn’t want him to put him in that position. So, Gai gets the censored version of his proposals, and voices enthusiastic approval of veteran centres and mental health clinics, as well as the restrictions Kakashi wants to place on the ages of recruits. Now the council are the only ones whose sanction Kakashi needs to worry about. When Tsunade swings around on her nightly endeavour to force him back to the official Hokage’s residence to sleep, he tells her his goals, sotto voce, so as not to wake Gai. Tsunade cackles – then, more worryingly, sobers.

“I wasn’t the best Hokage,” she says, to which Kakashi makes a disagreeable noise, and not just because he doesn’t want her to hit him. “But I was damn good in that war. I’m a commander, whether of a hospital or of a military force. Peacetime needs something different – and that’s something the council are going to have to learn to understand.”

Kakashi puts on his best pleading face. “I’m sure you can help me convince them,” he says – which only sets Tsunade off laughing again.

“You wish, brat. You’re on your own.”

Kakashi laughs, too – because he isn’t, anymore. He hasn’t been on his own for a very long time.

When Gai can be touched without his skin sloughing off in bloody radiation-burn sheets, Kakashi leans over him. He slips down his mask and gives him a slow, sleepy, and long overdue welcome-home kiss.

Gai tastes of hot ashes. Kakashi can only imagine the amount of pain he must be in, wrapped head-to-toe in antiseptic-slathered gauze. He doesn’t fake a smile for Kakashi, which is the kindest gift he could’ve given him.

“Rival,” he croaks.

“Rival,” Kakashi echoes. Gai’s eyes go a bit starry, from what Kakashi is ninety-percent sure isn’t the morphine. “What?”

“You don’t usually call me that.” Gai’s voice is reedy and small. Kakashi doesn’t care – not when there was a time he thought he’d never hear him speak again.

“Maybe I should,” he says, running his thumb over the tender new skin on Gai’s lips. “I mean, you are my eternal rival. My man of destiny.”

Gai’s weak laugh holds more derision than Kakashi’s ever thought him capable of. To make it worse, it’s all directed at himself. “I’m afraid I’m not up for a challenge.”

“Yet.” Kakashi carefully intertwines their fingers, dulling his fear that one of Gai’s might snap. “We have time. For now, I just challenge you to get better.”

“But it’s not a challenge unless you’re doing it too!” Gai shakes his head before the words have left his mouth. “No – I mean – not that I would wish this suffering on you, rival! I am so incredibly glad that you are well, that you are here beside me.”

Kakashi gives his hand a delicate squeeze. “Hey. I am doing it too.”

“Eh?”

“I’m getting better.” He raises Gai’s hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the least blistered of his knuckles. “I’ve been getting better for years, thanks to you. I still have a long way to go. And while I’ve had a head start, I’m sure my rival will throw his all into catching up.”

Gai’s smile wobbles out, tiny yet indomitable. Kakashi leans down to taste it.

He barely yanks his mask up in time for Lee and Tenten to bash in – at which point, Gai appears to inflate. He sits, hiding his wince, and stretches his worn-down smile into a grin. Though Kakashi can see how much energy it costs him, like hell is he going to knock him down in front of his kids by telling him to take it slow. He sinks on his chair, arms folded, and watches Gai carefully for the first hint of a sign he might collapse.

“Lee, my beloved student! Tenten!”

The third, unspoken name hangs between them. All wars breed loss, but Gai has lost far more than his fair share.

“Oh, so I’m not beloved,” Tenten grumbles, to which Gai spouts effusive apologies and assures her that he’s so very proud of the kunoichi she’s become. Once sure Gai’s not about to keel off the bed, Kakashi leaves them to it. He pokes his head into the corridor as Lee dramatically weeps over X-rays of Gai’s shattered tibia. He spies three heads: one blonde, one pink, one black. Naruto, Sakura, Sai. They hang back, giving Gai a moment with his family – but Kakashi waves them closer.

They’re family too. And Gai’s not the only one who’s proud.

Every romance book follows a structure. Kakashi didn’t realise this, when Jiraiya first gave him Icha Icha Paradise, but he’s read it – and others in the genre – enough to spot the patterns. At some point in the third act, a conflict threatens to drive the main couple apart. With the well-written stories, you can’t conceive of how they’ll wind up back in each other’s beds and assorted orifices – but they always do, in the end.

Why does Kakashi like those stories? They’re antithetical to everything he values: too predictable, too sentimental, too trite. Why read books when you know they’re going to turn out the exact same way?

Perhaps he likes the comfort of that guaranteed happy ending. Perhaps that’s no bad thing.

His third-act conflict with Gai might have been and gone. It might still be on its way. It doesn’t matter; Kakashi has given up living in fear of it. Let the world throw monsters in his face, gods and demons, maniacs from Konoha’s past. He and Gai will face them together, side-by-side.

Things continue to change and stay the same. Naruto grows into a beacon of hope for the world – and, more importantly, a warm-hearted man with an infectious smile, who (occasionally) pays for his own ramen. Sakura spearheads Kakashi’s plans for integrating mental health care into Konoha’s medical system, tackling the task with the same pinpoint accuracy of her chakra control. Tenzou takes Sai under his wing in the remodelled ranks of ANBU. At twenty, he’s the youngest member – the youngest that, from this point on, there will ever be.

As for Sasuke, he rarely enters the village. Given the part Konoha played in the genocide of his clan – the eradication of his entire culture – Kakashi can’t blame him.

Though trying to kill his team? Yeah, he still blames him for that. Just a little.

Not enough to turn him away, though. Never, ever again.

That choice pays off. Over the next few years, an occasional knock sounds at the door of the Hokage’s residence on a Friday night, just in time for dinner. On those nights, one of the two empty spaces at their new, larger table will be filled. Kakashi is grateful to Gai’s habit of always keeping a bag of frozen vegetables on hand, so he can bulk out a meal.

That’s kids for you, he figures. Always showing up without notice, expecting you to provide. He might gripe about it if Sasuke didn’t seem so skittish, ready to bolt at any moment and vanish forever.

Speaking of that final, forever-vacated spot at their family dinners… Gai doesn’t accompany Kakashi on his nightly trip to the memorial stone. Even so, their paths regularly cross. Gai always shuts up when he sees Kakashi coming, but Kakashi knows he talks to Neji. The two of them stand in silence, letting it bear the weight of all they want to say, until one of them takes the other’s hand and pulls them gently home.

It used to be Gai who did the pulling, but they share that burden, nowadays. They share so very much. And they deserve it, Kakashi thinks. To share in each other, like this, after everything.

He can’t right every wrong he’s ever committed in Konoha’s name. No penance will never be enough. But it isn’t about enough, is it?

It’s about smearing nerve agent on a porcelain cup – and, several days later, receiving news from the daimyo’s household that his daughter-in-law suffered a fatal heart attack, brought on by her fondness for sake. (Natural causes, assures the ANBU medic who writes up the official autopsy report.) It’s about Kurenai leading Mirai around town, her first time walking outside her stroller, her podgy little legs wobbling with the effort of keeping her upright, clinging to her mother's hand. It’s about Naruto’s laugh when Kakashi casually drops into conversation over dinner that Sasuke is still, technically, a genin – and Sasuke’s snort when Sakura snaps back, “Baka, so’re you!”

That night, after Kakashi has conned Lee, Sai and Tenzou into doing the dishes, he curls under the covers on his side, languidly turning the pages of his book. Gai’s wheelchair is downstairs – he still uses it, on bad days. If he was alone, Kakashi suspects he would struggle through without it, because that’s Gai – but he’s not alone, and Kakashi won’t let him. His prosthetic rests beside their bed, alongside a pair of crutches in case Gai needs to get up and piss in the night. The darkness is dewy with mid-autumn humidity, the air thick with the promise of rain.

Kakashi grunts at the arm that curls around his waist, the hot breath that fans his nape. “One more chapter,” he says.

“Rival. You said that last chapter.”

“Mah, did I? I must be getting forgetful, in my old age.”

Gai tuts. “All the more reason to turn off the light,” he says, in that voice that means he’s gearing up for a lecture. “Sleep is the key to maintaining one’s power and youth, and – “

“Okay, okay.” Age must’ve mellowed Kakashi too; he’s far more content nowadays with letting Gai win. He skims the final paragraph of the chapter and shuts the book. “You’ve got to let go of me though, so I can reach the switch.”

A huff of a laugh. A kiss to the silver star of scar-tissue on his back, where Obito ran him through. “Ah, but where’s the challenge in that?”

Kakashi heaves a sigh far more frustrated than he feels. He strains at Gai’s grasp, wriggling away from him, worming over the sheets until he can flick off the nightlight and slot Icha-Icha Paradise onto the bedside table. He’s read it cover-to-cover more times than he can count. The final line echoes in his head as he turns to face Gai and bonks his head faux-grouchily on his chest.

“Well?” he grumbles, one knee bumping Gai’s, the other resting against the knotty twist of his residual limb. “Are you happy?”

“Utterly ecstatic,” comes Gai’s sincere reply.

Kakashi grins. Yeah, he thinks to himself, dropping a quick kiss on the brand of the Eighth Gate, etched in fire above Gai’s heart. And they all lived happily every after.