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“Is my happiness not a good cause?” Kakashi asks, hopeful as always that Iruka will indulge him one more time.
“It is not,” Iruka says, posture stiff in the chair and voice Academy headmaster flat. “There’s your happiness and then there’s lying to all of Konoha.”
Kakashi rubs his temple and sighs. “Do you want Naruto to be Hokage this young?” Kakashi asks.
He hates the inherent implication of manipulation when he says it, but the rumors are growing loud in Konoha, enough so that the council has called him in. Kakashi is too unpredictable and unseemly to be Hokage, the legacy of his failed clan overwriting Kakashi’s own achievements. Naruto is the savior of the village, the hometown hero, and Kakashi is the fuckup they’d like to sweep under the rug of the collective memory.
Iruka’s brow is furrowed, his hand wrapping around air in the twitch of someone holding back ideas from paper. “They’re that serious about this.”
“Yes,” Kakashi says, leaning back in his chair. “I was given a handful of options—marry someone of their choosing, resign my position, or procure my own partner.”
“They didn’t care that Tsunade-sama wasn’t married.”
Kakashi grimaces. “I think that was more sexism on their part than anything else. Worried a man would take control of the office, like this is a monarchy.”
“But Tsunade-sama is—.”
“A lesbian, yes, but try telling them that.” Kakashi doesn’t pretend to understand their reasoning, and he suspects that most of the council was aware during her tenure, except they decided not to push it. Perks of being the first’s granddaughter, perhaps.
Iruka’s hands are twisting in his ponytail, only relaxing his fingers when his hair comes tumbling down.
Kakashi has never seen Iruka’s hair loose like this in all the years they’ve known each other.
It’s longer than it appears when pulled back, and the dark brown strands framing his face make Iruka seem somehow softer.
“I’m the best hand from a rigged deck,” Iruka says, running his fingers through a tangle in his hair.
Kakashi is mesmerized, watching the movement more openly than is technically polite, even given their familiarity with each other.
“I’d rather say you’re my first choice.”
Iruka doesn’t answer him initially, focused on redoing his hair. “I want a public proposal,” Iruka says, meeting Kakashi’s gaze.
“Oh, sensei. I didn’t figure you the type.”
Standing up from his chair, Iruka shakes his head. “It needs to be believable, and everyone loves the dramatics of a public proposal.”
Not you, though, Kakashi thinks, taking in the blink of sadness in Iruka’s eyes. And that won’t do.
*
It perturbs Kakashi that no one seems surprised when he starts making plans and inquiries for the public proposal that Iruka requested. Teuchi, in fact, is relieved that they’re making it official after “all those wonderful years together”, and is only too happy to help with his plan.
He doesn’t warn Iruka when it will be happening other than to say soon, because genuine surprise—as much as they can manage—will play better than none at all.
Slipping Teuchi instructions to make the bottom of the ramen bowl say ‘Will you marry me?’ is simple.
The gnawing guilt in his gut doesn’t go away even after he finishes his takeaway Ichiraku.
*
Naruto happens to be with them for the planned ramen proposal, although that wasn’t part of Kakashi’s plan. He shrugs at Teuchi’s raised eyebrow. They may as well serve Iruka his special, top secret ramen now.
Plus, spending time with Iruka and Naruto together is always nice; Naruto being an example of one of the few things he got right as a jounin sensei. Regardless of the fact that he himself, and likely most of the village, would argue the credit for how Naruto turned out goes to Iruka.
Kakashi opts for a half portion so that he won’t miss Iruka’s face when he gets to the bottom of the bowl. His stomach flips when Iruka shoots him a look of concern at his small order.
He’s read the same page in Icha-Icha six times even after his half bowl of ramen is cleared from the table. Naruto is telling a story, chopsticks flying, and Iruka is transfixed by the narrative.
It would be rude to tell them both to eat faster, so he tries to listen to Naruto’s tale. He’s jittery, though, and the glance Iruka shoots him makes it clear that he’s noticed. Kakashi shrugs, and pretends he gives a shit what the protagonist in his book is doing by gluing his eyes to it.
“Oh,” he hears Iruka say, his voice faint.
“Ehh, Iruka-sensei, what’s the writing in your bowl?”
Kakashi lowers his book upon the sound of Naruto’s squawk. Iruka is blushing, and Naruto is bright red, although he suspects for a different reason.
“Iruka,” Kakashi starts. He gave this portion of the process considerable thought. He could have gone to Gai for assistance, but he did pick Iruka, and what he says should reflect his emotions. “You’ve changed my life innumerably, and I can’t imagine my days without you in it.”
All true.
“Will you let me show you what you mean to me, for the rest of my days?”
Kakashi hears shattering in the background: Iruka may as well be the only person present, because a sharp noise that should have him on high alert fades into nothing for the little it grabs his attention.
“Yes,” Iruka says, shifting himself to face Kakashi. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
There’s a whooping noise, maybe from Teuchi, and the whole world shifts as Iruka kisses him over the mask. Iruka’s hand cups his face, blocking Kakashi’s face from the view of others, and tugs down the mask. Kakashi can’t move, doesn’t even think about kissing Iruka back, until Iruka’s tongue presses against his lips.
And this is the thing Kakashi has fantasized about in his weaker moments—Iruka demanding to have his attention, and not over Academy expenditure reports or tales of Naruto’s latest exploits. The performativity of the kiss escapes and melts into the softness of Iruka’s lips, and makes Iruka’s sigh deliquesce into the slim space between them.
“Thank you,” Kakashi says, and the proposal is far from his mind. The kiss alone is worth more than Kakashi can repay.
Iruka kisses him again, and Kakashi knows he won’t want to let go of this when he has to.
*
A barrage of congratulations surrounds and winds around them as they twist through the streets to the Hokage residence. Gossip is a time-honored shinobi tradition, and with Naruto’s presence at the proposal and his inability to keep quiet, especially when it comes to Iruka, Kakashi is expecting multiple nice bottles of sake by dinner time.
The blush on Iruka’s face is verging on permanent, particularly when Kakashi links their hands together as they walk.
“Not too unpleasant, I hope,” Kakashi says.
Iruka bumps against him. “As long as I don’t need to check the bottom of every ramen bowl from now on.”
He suspects Teuchi ranks Iruka’s happiness slightly below Ayame, maybe even above Naruto, but he doesn’t want to force Iruka into a surreptitious life of checking each empty bowl.
Shikamaru is the one who set up the Hokage residence while they were out for lunch. If Shikamaru suspects the falsehood between the two of them, he’s declining to say. Kakashi may be Hokage, but Iruka shaped them all at the most important stage of their formative years. If Iruka is going along with this, then Shikamaru is unlikely to pipe up to anyone.
The wards surrounding the Hokage residence are a known quantity to a handful—ANBU captains, Shikamaru, Tsunade (somehow, even though he changed them upon their positions changing), but Iruka is the outlier. Kakashi picked the wards out himself, making them flexible and with a degree of their own decision making quality. Friends have been able to access him in times of emergency due to that.
He hadn’t thought about how the wards decided Iruka merited access, without Kakashi consciously adding him.
Iruka’s hand is on the door and the wards shimmer, unlatching the lock easily. Kakashi finds himself hovering in his own doorway, nervous about walking Iruka into the next room.
Maybe this isn’t what Iruka wants.
Kakashi knows he isn’t.
The kotatsu is set with dessert, a simple dark chocolate ganache that Kakashi is certain Iruka will enjoy. Despite his uncertainty, Kakashi enters his home and closes the door. The wards are quickly restored.
Iruka is standing stock still, eyes fixed on the kotatsu, and maybe his intel has been wrong.
“What is this?” Iruka asks, the look on his face unreadable despite knowing each other for over a decade.
He doesn’t drop to one knee—old habits of shinobi vulnerability die hard, and he suspects his knee won’t enjoy it—but he grabs Iruka’s hand.
“I will make you happy,” Kakashi says, a promise for fools and lovers both, of which he and Iruka are neither. “Will you marry me?”
A wave of daring strikes him and he brings Iruka’s hand to his mouth, brushing a kiss on his fingers.
“Okay,” Iruka whispers.
It’s not enough for Kakashi, but Iruka lets him kiss his hand again before gently pulling away.
“So, did you make this?” Iruka gestures to the food on the kotatsu, and the setup of the bottle of chilled sake.
“Which answer makes you more likely to enjoy it?”
Iruka laughs, and Kakashi’s heart rises, light and unburdened.
*
“The engagement isn’t enough, is it?”
Kakashi sighs, lifting his head from the stack of paperwork that Shikamaru pressed into his arms as he left his office long past dinnertime.
Iruka is standing in the doorframe of Kakashi’s home office, more ponderous than Kakashi prefers.
“There are concerns that my behavior may drive you away,” Kakashi replies, “but I am working at dissuading them from that thought pattern.”
What’s so absurd is that having Iruka around has made Kakashi into a far better person than he has been before—even when they were only comparing notes on Naruto’s training and abilities.
“They want me to tame you,” Iruka says. “Don’t they remember I was the prankster?” Iruka steps inside the office, slipping into the most comfortable chair. (The one that Kakashi claims is the second most—so that Iruka won’t try to give it up to him.)
This village has taken almost everyone Kakashi has ever loved. They should be honored that Kakashi still chooses to give.
“Well,” Iruka says, sliding his feet onto the edge of Kakashi’s desk, barely edging the paperwork over, “we could get married. What will it change for us?”
Practically speaking, there’s no reason for Kakashi to protest. Iruka lives in the Hokage residence, the money he saves by giving up his apartment going into an emergency account for Naruto. They have their own bedrooms, sleeping in the same room only when they have guests.
Kakashi barely knows the touch of Iruka’s chest against his back.
The universe has tried its damndest to beat the romance out of him, but Umino Iruka makes him want it. He wishes Iruka would protest and say that this is a step too far, because Kakashi is too selfish to say it, but Iruka is a nobler shinobi than Kakashi, more dedicated to the continuity and wellbeing of the village.
“They’ll want a big wedding,” he warns. “Any opportunity for the daimyo to show off to the kages.”
“Well, now that you mention it…” Iruka’s smile is mischievous, so gleeful that Kakashi sees a flash of Naruto’s face in it. “I might have had an idea or two.”
*
No one is foolhardy enough to tell the Hokage and his fiancé that they can’t take a long weekend to travel to a hot spring, especially when the Academy is on break. Kakashi waves off half of his normal guard by inviting Gai along, and Iruka invites Naruto.
A nice family and friends weekend.
It’s a strange coincidence when Tsunade happens to be at the same onsen, but it is well known for its privacy, and she does tend to indulge in her retirement.
And if Gai declares that it’s a shame for Kakashi and Iruka not to have sealed their love, with tears streaming down his face, it’s only appropriate for Kakashi to make things right with his oldest friend.
Tsunade marries them in the honeymoon suite, while Gai clings onto Naruto and cries, and Naruto looks a bit affected as well.
For a fake wedding, he’s managed to have so many of his important people with him: Tenzo is one of his ANBU guards for the weekend.
Tsunade surely knows the stakes of this, and the untruths they’re hiding, but he suspects she’s too familiar with the pressures of the job to blow their cover.
He wants to ask her how she survived relatively unscathed.
*
“They’re going to be furious,” Kakashi says, on the futon that night, unable to hold back all of his laughter.
Iruka is smug next to him—another escapade pulled off, and this one involving two hokages. He laces his hand in Kakashi’s, rolling to face him.
“It’s our wedding night, you know.”
Kakashi swallows the anxiety threatening to burst from his lungs like a paper bomb and murmurs in agreement.
“We should enjoy it, don’t you think? We might even forget by the morning.”
Iruka’s eyes flash at him, and Kakashi recognizes the out Iruka is offering to him. They can have this night, have fun, and discard it like an unwanted present when they wake up.
There’s no real answer other than to kiss Iruka and to slide his hand across Iruka’s back.
With Iruka’s hands fisted in the sheets, Kakashi can only focus on stripping away that shinobi sense of control. He wants Iruka vulnerable with pleasure, chakra senses dull in pursuit of other joys.
“I won’t forget,” Kakashi says, after, when Iruka’s breathing has slipped into steady snores.
He can’t, not when this night feels like a prize he’s stolen, a jutsu sealed and guarded.
*
The marriage paperwork is passed off to Shikamaru, who Kakashi trusts to file with the appropriate timing, for maximum impact.
*
It happens again, on an evening when a congratulatory gift from a lord contains a bottle of nice sake and Iruka’s favorite kind of chocolate truffle.
Iruka rides Kakashi until he comes, Kakashi’s hand on the small of Iruka’s back keeping him upright. He leans forward, placing a soft kiss on Kakashi’s chin before looking him in the eyes. “I don’t know if I can come again,” he says, “but I’d very much like you to fuck me until you do inside me.”
Kakashi’s hips jerk up into Iruka who moans with the movement.
“Anything you want,” Kakashi swears. He carefully moves so that he’s on top of Iruka, who wraps his legs around his back.
Iruka sighs beneath him, soft noises, and curls his fingers into Kakashi’s hair. It’s sex between two people with no other option, Kakashi tries to remind himself.
But if that’s the case, why does Iruka sink his teeth into the juncture of Kakashi’s collarbone and smooth it with a kiss?
The murmured encouragements singe Kakashi’s skin, and when he comes, Iruka’s fingers dig into him hard enough to bruise.
*
He wakes up to cold and empty sheets. Kakashi listens for puttering in the house, but all he hears is quiet.
Kakashi gets up and walks toward Iruka’s room, still hoping he’ll hear Iruka making breakfast in the kitchen.
The door to Iruka’s room is ajar, and he’s cuddled peacefully under the blankets, clutching a pillow the way Kakashi wishes Iruka would hold him.
There’s a lump in his throat that he can’t—won’t—identify warring with the knowledge that Iruka didn’t want to stay.
*
“You know,” Kotetsu says, perched in the chair across from Kakashi’s desk, “Iz and I had a long running bet on when you two would get together.”
Kakashi raises an eyebrow. Despite Kotetsu and Izumo being Iruka’s closest friends, Kakashi has never spent much time with them.
“Honestly, we gave Iruka shit for keeping it a secret from us! Of course you had your reasons for doing so, but after all the years he spent blabbing about you…”
“I’m sorry?” Kakashi asks, knocking his knees on the underside of his desk.
“Kakashi looks so good when he’s in civilian clothes,” Kotetsu says, his voice an uncanny mimic of Iruka. “We went for dinner and—”
Kakashi is pathetically grateful for the cover of his mask.
“And then we find out you two are engaged!”
The routine Iruka and Kakashi fall into should be enough for Kakashi. He has more of Iruka than he ever allowed himself to imagine. Iruka’s smiles are genuine.
But as Kotetsu talks, Kakashi wonders about an existence with more.
*
The hard part is not maintaining the fiction in public, but perpetuating it at home. Naruto is happy for them, even though he occasionally glares daggers at Kakashi when Iruka isn’t looking.
Sitting with Iruka at the kotatsu, across from Hinata and Naruto, leaning into Iruka’s side, he wonders if this is how his father and mother felt.
“Hey, gross, stop staring at him like that,” Naruto says. “Don’t try any Icha Icha stuff with him either.”
Kakashi wonders if he should explain the concept of marital intimacy to Naruto. He isn’t sure he’d survive the experience, but it is tempting.
“Don’t talk to your Hokage and my husband that way!” Iruka’s interjection has Naruto’s expression flop into a pout.
Iruka squeezes his hand, above the table, and Kakashi wonders how much more Iruka will let him take.
*
Their one year anniversary is today.
Not the engagement, or the wedding. The only one that really matters to Kakashi, when Iruka agreed to help him.
The anniversary of Iruka agreeing to pretend to feel for Kakashi what Kakashi has cultivated for years about Iruka.
He leaves his paperwork at the office, brings home Ichiraku early, and basks in Iruka’s delighted surprise.
*
Kakashi chokes down and demolishes the love ladden words he wants to baldly declare. Iruka is doing him—Konoha—a favor, and Kakashi should accept that for what it is.
But sometimes Iruka kisses him when there’s no one to observe, a casual gesture that burrows so deep into Kakashi it hits his chakra pathways.
He hoards these moments he knows he won’t be allowed to keep.
*
“When you retire,” Iruka says, “what will we do then?” His tone is the careful, professional neutral Kakashi has heard him use at hundreds of meetings.
Kakashi doesn’t comprehend what Iruka means: he’ll be retired, sure, but Naruto will need help easing into the position, and Kakashi imagines he’ll be stuck on some advisory council.
Iruka clears his throat and fidgets. “I meant about us.
“Surely you’ll want to choose someone to spend time with.”
“I have you,” Kakashi says. That was the whole point of the—arrangement.
Iruka’s features furrow with exasperation, all the little signs and tells Kakashi has studied for so long. “I’m not a thing to have, Kakashi.
“Don’t you want something real? A kind of connection?”
He wants to say that what he and Iruka have is far more meaningful than anything else he’s attempted. Kakashi knows what Iruka looks like in flannel pajamas and where there’s a streak of grey growing in at the underside of his ponytail.
He can’t imagine tangibility that doesn’t involve Iruka. Not now, not ever.
“How is this not?” Kakashi counters.
“I didn’t agree to do this charade forever.”
Their marriage vows and paperwork say otherwise, but Kakashi isn’t going to argue granular semantics with a career teacher.
Kakashi clears his throat, churning through thoughts in the seconds it buys him.
“I’m not planning on retiring anytime soon.”
A pivot, a detour, a dodge.
Iruka’s face flashes with anger before he visibly shutters his expression.
He barely has Iruka. Kakashi doesn’t want to think about giving up this amount.
*
The bag of takeout on the counter waiting for Kakashi feels harsher than a lack of food could be.
He dutifully chews through the food, wishing instead that Iruka was singing offkey while making rice.
Iruka’s light in his room is on but the door is shut. Even with their private, separate rooms, closed doors are rare.
Kakashi hovers outside the door for a moment anyway, reassuring himself that Iruka didn’t leave by sensing the presence of Iruka’s steady, soothing chakra signature.
*
He processes more paperwork in one day than he has in the past two weeks, all while listening for the timbre of Iruka’s laugh down the hall.
It’s easy to meld his schedule around Iruka. He times his departures so they don’t overlap.
Kakashi slips past the kitchen, unwilling to confirm whether his absence has been noted.
*
Three nights later, Iruka crawls into his bed at 1AM. It’s so easy to settle against Iruka and imagine the hand over his heart and the person it's attached to won’t leave.
“We still need to talk,” Iruka says.
The bed moves and Iruka’s lips are on the back of his neck, pressing soft closed mouth kisses to his skin. Iruka’s hand moves and dips under Kakashi’s shirt.
“Now?” Kakashi rasps.
Iruka disentangles himself and nudges Kakashi to be flat on his back. With Iruka straddling him, it’s harder for Kakashi to focus on the reasons Iruka has been gone.
The kiss to his lips makes Kakashi feel aflame, and he surges up against Iruka, dragging Iruka down to him more firmly.
He’s missed Iruka’s skin and the soft moans he makes when Kakashi brushes his hand along his side. Kakashi revels in stroking through Iruka’s long hair, undone in a fumble that has them both laughing.
Iruka’s hair ribbon ends up lost in the darkness of the room.
Maybe in a different universe, all of this is real.
In another place, Kakashi doesn’t wonder if Iruka wants to be gasping someone else’s name.
*
“Why did you pick me?” Iruka asks, the afterglow long dissipated into a comfortable silence. “You could’ve chosen anyone.”
It burns in his chest. At the time, Iruka had seemed safest. They had their long friendship, and much of the village has worked with Iruka, been taught by him, or had family that were under Iruka’s tutelage.
“Hell, you could’ve married whoever the council plucked from the ether for you.”
“I didn’t want to marry a stranger,” Kakashi says.
He reaches to smooth a curl of hair across Iruka’s forehead.
“Are we not still strange to each other?”
Kakashi kisses Iruka, unsettled.
*
Does Iruka truly not know?
He fantasizes about the years ahead, when no alarms buzz and Kakashi can press kisses to Iruka’s cheek anytime of day.
But Iruka has to want him for that to matter.
*
“Do you want a divorce?” Kakashi asks from across the kotatsu, interrupting Iruka as he fills out paperwork.
Iruka straightens the stack of papers and places his pen diagonally on top, a gesture Kakashi has seen hundreds of times. He wants to let Kakashi down easily, maybe. Iruka has always been kind.
“You asked about post-retirement and—if there’s someone you want to be with, even now, I won’t trap you.”
The only sound is the hum of the kettle warming water.
Worse things have befallen Kakashi than this; his past is a history layered with dust and death.
“My divorcing you for someone else certainly wouldn’t help your image,” Iruka says. “And isn’t that the point of us being together?”
“Not for me,” Kakashi says. “Not anymore.”
Iruka’s inhale is sharp and impossible for Kakashi to disentangle.
“I want to be yours, and that’s not what you agreed to.”
Nausea sloshes over him, and it’s all Kakashi can do to smile tightly before he stands and makes his escape, not turning back when he hears Iruka say something.
*
Kakashi rolls onto his back, fidgeting on his bed, the one Iruka has shared infrequently. The front door hasn’t slammed and there’s been no chakra flares. Maybe Iruka is quietly packing his things, ready to make his escape.
The tiny, hopeful voice Kakashi thought died with his father tries to suggest that there’s silence because Iruka feels the same.
Creaking, the bedroom door opens, and Kakashi scrambles to sit upright. Iruka is still in his around the house yukata, Kakashi notes, which sets some of the thumping of his heart at rest.
“Do you know why I agreed to this?” Iruka asks, standing against the doorframe.
Iruka approaches him slowly, like he’s afraid Kakashi will bolt, when Kakashi is the one waiting for Iruka to vanish.
“I thought,” Kakashi says, “it was just a favor.”
The bed shifts as Iruka sits down beside him.
“You had me from the beginning, Kakashi. But I was afraid you’d eventually retire and you wouldn’t need me.”
Kakashi seeks out Iruka’s hand, lacing their fingers together. There’s no one to watch him do it, the act is for them alone.
“Your happiness does matter,” Iruka says. “It does to me, you know, even if others struggle to see your worth.
“I did this for you, Kakashi. Not Konoha.”
Kakashi kisses Iruka, imagining that he can express everything he wants within it.
“I meant my proposal, and my vows, Iruka—every word.”
“I was hoping,” Iruka replies, “that our happiness could stay entwined.”
The best kinds of deals, Kakashi has found, are sealed with a kiss.