Si Vis Amari Ama - candlewix (2024)

At the end of all things, it wasn’t as if there was much difference between like and love,after all. At the very least, there wasn’t much difference between the like and love between Naruto and Sasuke. In fact, those words happened to fall exceptionally short when it came to their relationship - mostly because there weren’t any words that could describe it. And it wasn’t as if they weren’t friends, or rivals, or soulmates. Because they were all of that - in a way that nobody was really capable of understanding in entirety. Much less Naruto and Sasuke themselves.

Or maybe it was just Naruto. It appeared that Sasuke understood implicitly; though it didn’t make much of a difference. It was only Sasuke who knew why he was in so much pain when looking at Naruto - the other just endured a torment unbeknownst to him.

Though not entirely unknown. Naruto knew better than anyone - of that Kakashi was certain. There had been a fragile moment he’d witnessed three years prior, when Naruto was hospitalized after his fight with Sasuke in the Valley of the End. He would visit Naruto periodically during his recovery, and one of those days Kakashi unintentionally came across something that he was quite certain that Naruto did not want him - or anyone, for that matter - to see.

Naruto had summoned a shadow clone - which was surprising in itself, because he’d been nearly completely drained of chakra in the days following the fight. Despite his exceptional regenerative abilities, Tsunade had informed him that he was by no means to abuse them for anything other than recovery. Kakashi had come to a complete halt outside the hospital room, as he saw two silhouettes behind the curtain drawn around Naruto’s bed.

And they weren’t speaking; merely facing each other in tentative quietness.

Unless Sasuke had miraculously changed his mind and returned to Konoha to sit on Naruto’s hospital bed and stare at him, it was most certainly a shadow clone. Which Naruto appeared to summon for the sole purpose of sitting within an unbroken silence.

Kakashi left them - him, rather - alone. It was something he was not meant to see.

He’d never witnessed another moment quite like that one, but he didn’t really think he wanted to. Or needed to, anyway. It told him enough.

What, exactly, it told him, Kakashi hadn’t known at the time. It was those kinds of moments he’d reflect upon years afterwards, with a kind of reproach - because he’d been far too stupid to think about it in a way that would have spared him a lot of grief. He had a conversation with Shikamaru in passing, when Asuma was too busy to play shōgi with him and entrusted that duty to Kakashi instead. At fourteen, Shikamaru happened to be much better at shōgi than he was - which was disconcerting, to say the least. As it turned out, Shikamaru happened to be much better than Kakashi at a lot of things.

It was the conversation they had during the game that gave him such an impression. Shikamaru had promptly captured one of his pieces and removed it from the board, before saying, “Naruto should be coming back soon.”

“Uh-huh.” Kakashi was much more focused on not letting distress from losing the piece show on his face. He distantly sympathized with Asuma, who was one of the only people who willingly subject himself to being constantly brutalized by Shikamaru in shōgi.

Shikamaru merely glanced up at him, unimpressed. “You think he’s still dumb enough to go after Sasuke?”

“Oh, without a doubt.” Kakashi was most definitely going to lose the game, to his regret. “I s’pose that makes me dumb, too.”

“Well,” the younger jōnin replied, “yeah. It does.”

As if to add insult to injury, he took another one of Kakashi’s pieces.

“Human beings aren’t bound by logic,” Kakashi pointed out, watching him remove the captured general from the board. “Surely you would go after Ino or Choji if they became missing-nin.”

“Surely,” Shikamaru agreed. “But I’d reconsider if they tried to kill me.”

Tried to, Kakashi was tempted to remind him. Couldn’t.

“Fair enough,” he said, instead. In any case, it appeared that Naruto hadn’t reconsidered. It didn’t look like he reconsidered, behind that curtain in the hospital room.

And Kakashi didn’t know what to make of it, not really. Because he could have understood if Naruto made a clone of Sasuke just to punch his lights out - but he hadn’t. Rather, he seemed to have summoned that clone just to sit with. In silence. What the hell was he supposed to interpret from that?

It was, most of all, a pointed reminder that Kakashi did not know Naruto as well as he’d once thought. And yet, he understood implicitly that it meant something - something that had been impossible to put into words at the time.

“Isn’t it-“ Shikamaru began, uncharacteristically hesitant. “Don’t you find it a little strange?”

“Strange how?”

He gave Kakashi an odd glance - slightly taken aback, if not (in retrospect) utterly confused by his obtuseness. “Whatever,” Shikamaru said, finally. “Have you ever had a girlfriend, Kakashi-san?”

Kakashi happened to take offense at the skepticism in his tone. “That hardly seems like an appropriate question.”

“You haven’t, huh?”

He wondered if Asuma would take kindly to Kakashi beating up one of his students. Not just because he was offended, per se, but on principle. He decided against it, just since it might have appeared as if he beat up Shikamaru because he lost to him in shōgi. “It’s not really my thing.”

Shikamaru nodded. “Might be why you don’t find it strange.”

“Dunno what you’re suggesting.”

“Well…” the little bastard gave him a pointed look. “That’s ‘cause it’s not really your thing, isn’t it?”

Kakashi didn’t like hanging out with Shikamaru as much as he did his students. They didn’t make him feel stupid, for one. He supposed he deserved it (also in retrospect), because how did Shikamaru pick up on something he couldn’t? How was the unfathomable mystery of Naruto and Sasuke so paradoxically clear, and yet impossible to get in its entirety?

It was, somehow, altogether uncomplicated when Sasuke was thirteen. Because Kakashi could understand in theory what unreciprocated love was like - condensed in the simpler context of what it was like to be thirteen. The rare moments in which Sasuke would invite himself into Kakashi’s house during the middle of the night were not difficult to understand; despite not being personally familiar with unwanted dreams of a certain kind that Sasuke happened to be afflicted by.

Perhaps afflicted was not generally the right word to use, but that was certainly the way Sasuke made it seem. The way he would sneak into Kakashi’s house was always through the window - in a way that was distinctly indicative of guilt.

At a certain point, Kakashi would just leave the window open every night before he went to sleep. It felt like the only mercy he could offer Sasuke, because he did not know how else to alleviate his shame.

Kakashi could tell him, over and over again, that there was nothing inherently wrong with him. The only reason he didn’t was because Sasuke wasn’t capable of believing it. Sasuke was, if anything, convinced of an inherent wrongness in his existence.

It did not help, obviously, that he was now afflicted by certain dreams he did not want. Dreams that, though Sasuke was unwilling to delve into the details, involved a suggestiveness that a thirteen-year-old might consider inherently wrong.

Because there was a defining characteristic of Uzumaki Naruto that was impossible to ignore. Several, actually - but the most damning of all was that he was a boy. More accurately, and something that Sasuke was never going to see as anything but a wrongness: that he was Uzumaki Naruto.

Sasuke used to spare him the awkwardness of confrontation in the mornings following his uninvited appearances at night; in the sense that he would make himself scarce before Kakashi woke up. There had been a single incident in which Kakashi had opened the door to his own room, expecting to see what always had been an empty bed - and was instead faced with Sasuke still curled up under the sheets, pressed against the wall and staring blankly back at him.

Kakashi had really not known what to say, still half-asleep and lingering stupidly in the doorway. There were, he was certain, over a hundred different ways he could have approached the situation - ones that were potentially helpful or at the very least comforting. Obviously, none of them had come to mind at the time. “Want breakfast, Sasuke?”

“Okay,” he just said hollowly.

“Stir-fried eggs and tomatoes?” Kakashi offered.

“Okay.”

That was how they ended up sitting across from one another at Kakashi’s kitchen table, both picking at their respective breakfasts and trying to pretend there wasn’t a subject of discussion hanging in between them like a loaded gun.

It wasn’t as if Kakashi felt nervous around Sasuke. He did, however, give off the distinct feeling of a boiling kettle threatening to overflow. Kakashi found that he was not particularly worried of burning himself, so to speak, but rather that the kettle would eventually explode. There were only so many fissures he could pretend he didn’t see.

Kakashi took a bite of his eggs, not really partial to the tomatoes. Sasuke seemed to like them, so he picked the tomatoes off his own plate and put them on his. Neither of them decided to comment on it.

It looked like Sasuke hadn’t gotten any sleep, not that he could blame him. He had dark circles under his eyes and a distant expression that reminded Kakashi of himself during his time in ANBU. He most certainly could sympathize with unwanted dreams, but didn’t quite know how to make them any less unwanted. “Sasuke,” he began, suddenly exhausted by the tense silence. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No.” The answer came immediately and decisively. He stabbed at his tomatoes, somewhat aggressively. “I don’t.”

“It’s really not as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be.”

The glare Sasuke shot him was incinerating. Kakashi just rolled his eyes (a lesser man might have winced). “I know it feels weird, but it’s normal. Everybody has those - uh, those sort of dreams.”

“Do you?”

Oops. “Well, no, but-”

“You don’t understand a single f*cking thing about me,” Sasuke snarled, slamming down his chopsticks as if to reiterate. “Leave me the f*ck alone.”

“Language,” Kakashi said mildly. “Also, this is my house. If anything, you should be leaving me the f*ck alone.”

“You just said not to say f*ck,” he muttered.

“I’m an adult. I can say f*ck whenever I want.”

In truth, the arsenal of profanities his students possessed had been learned from Kakashi. There were only so many times he could bite back a swear word in front of them; and the first time he’d said f*ck the three of them had stopped what they were doing to stare at him in open-mouthed wonder. Sakura’s mother had later approached him and kindly inquired as to why her daughter told her the lesson that day had been “f*cking awesome.”

Sasuke’s expression soured even further in a way that Kakashi found to be almost impressive. He happened to be quite adept when it came to expressing hostility - but instead dropped his gaze to redirect that hostility to the breakfast Kakashi made for him. “What’s wrong with me?” he mumbled.

“Nothing.” Kakashi pulled up his mask. “I mean, nothing apart from having questionable taste in-“

It was probably best not to be entirely honest, it occurred to him, as Sasuke stabbed his tomatoes even more aggressively at the words questionable taste. Kakashi stopped abruptly before deciding upon how to continue. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with you. I know that you and Naruto aren’t - uh - aren’t on the best of terms, but you’re not just rivals. And you know that, too.”

Sasuke’s eyes widened dangerously, and Kakashi sensed an imminent threat towards his belongings in their general vicinity if he kept going. He was relatively certain that Sasuke wasn’t going to make an attempt on his life (as he so often did); but there was a very real possibility that he would take his anger out on other things, such as the plate Sasuke was apparently trying to break with the way he was stabbing at it.

Kakashi stood up and leaned over the table to collect the plate, as well as his own. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said amicably, before turning away to place them in the sink. “This is why you aren’t a joy to be around.”

“What?” he asked, miffed.

“Nothing. Y’know, the least you could do is pretend like caring about your friends isn’t torturing you. They might start taking offense.”

Kakashi found that he understood Sasuke well enough to not take offense - though his student was quite convincing in the way he expressed his hatred. It was, in the end, rather uncomplicated to recognize the way Sasuke expressed his affection. Which happened to be through expressing hatred, funnily enough.

“It’s not torturing me,” Sasuke’s voice was icy. He didn’t deny Kakashi’s statement, which he didn’t point out. “I don’t have time for friendship or - or anything else. I have to-”

“Yeah, yeah. You have to kill your brother. I’m aware.” Kakashi leaned against the kitchen counter, studying his student contemplatively. He looked taken aback, still sitting at the table and looking unequivocally like a thirteen-year-old child. He could only regret the kind of inescapable suffering that Sasuke had already faced at such an age, that would follow him for the rest of his life.

It was uniquely tragic that he had feelings for Uzumaki Naruto - because he might have been able to avoid an untimely heartbreak had he not been Uchiha Sasuke.

“It’s not something you can control, though, isn’t it?” Kakashi asked. “Haven’t you tried?”

Sasuke just stared at him, and as much as he tried to hide it, his voice trembled slightly as he responded. “I will. I can.”

And it didn't sound sufficiently convincing to Kakashi. Rather, it sounded as if he was trying to convince himself, more than anyone.

“Well,” he replied, eventually. “Good luck trying to get Naruto to do the same, then.”

Sasuke opened his mouth, but no sound came out. “He cares about you,” Kakashi reminded him. “You know what he’s like.”

There was a tentative pause.

“He doesn’t have those dreams, though,” Sasuke said quietly.

He did not sound particularly regretful, or even disquieted at all. He merely stated a fact - or what was, to him, unquestionably a fact. Perhaps, if Kakashi knew how to handle a thirteen-year-old’s emotional stability more carefully, he would have attempted an encouraging maybe he does!

But Sasuke wasn’t stupid enough to believe that, and thankfully Kakashi wasn’t stupid enough to try convincing him.

There was no point in trying to give him any sort of false hope - but he could at the very least make Sasuke feel less like sh*t about it. In any case, they were both quite certain (with what was an actually very unfounded certainty) that Naruto did not have those kinds of dreams. About someone in particular, anyway.

Well, it wasn’t like Kakashi was going to ask. He left his window open every night following Sasuke’s departure from Konoha - out of habit or wishful thinking, he wasn’t sure. Regardless, Naruto had yet to appear (much less Sasuke).

He still left the window open, though. Wishful thinking, most likely.

It was only much later that Kakashi had been able to pick up on a very different manner of expressing feelings. He might have had a little too much faith in Naruto to assume the boy even knew what kind of feelings he had for Sasuke, anyway. The gravity of their relationship was exceptionally simple to Naruto, probably because Naruto’s mind worked in exceptionally simple ways.

He either loved someone or he did not. Naruto was quite incapable of differentiating between anything apart from that. It was probably why he thought he had a crush on Sakura - because he loved her like family and because she was a pretty girl; which he decided must have been true romance.

For that reason (Sasuke’s failure to be a pretty girl), he hadn’t shown up to Kakashi’s window at night. He might have, if Kakashi had ever bothered to tell him that not everybody has those kinds of thoughts about Sasuke. And Naruto would likely object in a similar manner as he did nearly four years later; to which Kakashi would respond with something like you see, people don’t usually have those kinds of thoughts about their friends - because, ahem, when a man and - um, another man love each other very much…quit staring at me like that, you look like an idiot.

Unfortunately, they had to have that conversation at a much later period in time. Which was actually even worse, because Naruto at sixteen-years-old was much less receptive to Kakashi’s wisdom. In fact, at that point all of his students seemed to have realized that his wisdom was much less wise than they’d once thought. At that point, Kakashi had additionally realized that even nearly four years after his conversation with Sasuke about the subject in question, he was still no good at talking about it.

Kakashi had known, for what was quite possibly a very long time, that he wasn’t any good at being a teacher. It felt unnecessarily cruel, that he was shouldered with the responsibility of three kids that shouldered even more responsibilities than his own - because, naturally, he began to feel as if they were his own. They had been dear to him ever since…well. Maybe not ever since he’d met them, because they were kind of lame and annoying back then. In any case, he now held an immense love for them in a way that he’d previously not known he was capable of. It was why their suffering was one he did not know how to bear.

He tried, somewhat hopelessly, to hold it for them. Sakura’s intention to kill Sasuke herself had been, among other things, one of those burdens.

The Third Hokage had, in all the years leading up to his death, maintained a lingering affection for Orochimaru that he’d never known how to dispose of. Kakashi had never really been able to understand it - though Orochimaru had been his student, he’d long-since transgressed the capability of redemption.

And yet, even though Orochimaru had been the one to kill the Third, Kakashi suspected that his lingering affection remained. Irrepressible, even in death.

Sasuke’s fingertips had sparked with chidori when he moved to strike Sakura from behind - in what was decisively a killing blow. It was distantly ironic, that he would use the very technique that Kakashi had taught him all those years ago; the technique that killed Rin. He’d been able to intercept the assault just as Sakura had turned with a startled intake of breath - and the way Sasuke’s eyes flickered to meet Kakashi’s made him realize, irrepressibly, why the Third could never quite get rid of that affection for his student.

He had meant to kill her, Kakashi knew, the moment he pulled Sasuke’s wrist out of the way - only an instant away from connecting with Sakura’s back. “You’ve-” he managed, feeling the energy surge up his own arm with nowhere else to go. “You’ve fallen so low, Sasuke.”

Sasuke tore his wrist out of his grasp, and Kakashi narrowly avoided the swing to his head with his other arm. It was also, unmistakably, one with intent to kill. Which had not connected, but it might as well have, with the way Kakashi felt a sharp stab of grief to his chest.

Sasuke pulled back, his face twisting in a mocking smile. “They just keep on coming, huh?”

Kakashi turned to look at Sakura - who just stared back at him with a stricken expression. She clutched a kunai to her chest like a lifeline, her eyes bright with tears but jaw set with conviction. “You were trying to kill Sasuke on your own, weren’t you?” he said quietly.

It was not really a question, which she appeared to know.

“There’s no reason for you to shoulder this burden by yourself.” He straightened, facing Sasuke. “As the leader of our team, I…blame my own personal shortcomings for our failure.”

Sasuke’s smile twisted into something that was even more grotesque. It looked almost painful.

He had told Sakura, many years ago, that everything would go back to the way it was eventually. It had been childish and irresponsible - because he hadn’t been trying to convince her as much as he was himself.

Kakashi had known, for what was quite possibly a very long time, that he wasn’t any good at being a teacher. For the same reason that a parent wasn’t any good at being a teacher to their own children.

“I apologize,” he said, not sure if he was addressing her or Sasuke. “I’ve been a terrible teacher to you all.”

The blood from Sasuke’s eyes streamed down his face and dripped steadily from his chin. It reminded him of that moment in the stream, so long ago - one that they would never be able to return to.

“Sasuke,” Kakashi called to him. “You know I hate having to repeat myself, but I’ll say this one last time.”

His smile twitched.

“Give up on your obsession with revenge.”

There was a pause - as if the wind stopped blowing, the trees stopped rustling, and the entire world waited for his response with bated breath. Kakashi realized that it was not actually the world at all; he himself had stopped breathing, and the blood rushing in his ears drowned out any other noise apart from his own irregular heartbeat.

Sasuke then burst out laughing - in what was an uncontrollable, almost feverish laughter. Sakura stiffened by his side, just as unsettled by the hysteria as Kakashi was. “Bring back Itachi!” Sasuke screamed, making them both flinch. “And my mother, and my father - and my clan! Bring them all back! Then I’ll stop!”

Kakashi did not know how the Third had ever been capable of fighting Orochimaru. He could not find it within himself to kill Sasuke.

“I don’t want to kill you,” he told him, his heart breaking.

“You think you can?” Sasuke replied vehemently. His twisted smile had returned, accompanied by a manic glint in his eyes. “Don’t act like you’re still my teacher. That time…has long since been over.”

It might have been for Sasuke, but that had never been the case for Kakashi. It had never been the case for the Third, either.

“It’s not something I can control, though,” he replied, pulling up his forehead protector. “I’ve tried, Sasuke.”

It was possible that Kakashi was not a good teacher - not because he loved Sasuke unconditionally, but because he tried not to. In that sense, Naruto was ironically the only person that could ever be a good teacher; because if he was good at anything, it was loving Sasuke unconditionally. Without any desire to stop.

Kakashi had reminded Sasuke, that morning three years prior when they were sitting around his kitchen table, that he would never be able to convince Naruto not to care. It was likely the only thing Kakashi could congratulate himself about, because he had been incontrovertibly right - albeit slightly wrong about why.

It was undeniable that Naruto did care, and could never stop caring; and just because Naruto had never come to his window at night, the reason why had eluded him for three years.

At the very least, he’d been able to eventually come to the realization - obnoxiously late, as per usual. Kakashi happened to be really good at that.

Sasuke’s eyesight had begun to fail him in the same way it had Itachi. Which was to be expected - overuse of the Mangekyō would, eventually, blind its user. It still felt cruel, like a punishment designed specifically for the moment Kakashi took it upon himself to kill Sasuke.

The fact that Sasuke would not be able to look Kakashi in the eyes and see him felt like an insult. He would be the one that had to watch his student die by his own hand - and it would undoubtedly remain engraved in his memory forever, in the same way that Rin was. At the very least, she had been able to look back at him.

Kakashi had failed in being a teacher, and Sasuke would not grant him the kindness of returning his gaze. Like he was just another rogue ninja that Kakashi was meant to dispose of, and nothing more.

Behind the shimmering purple aura of Susano’o, Sasuke appeared to weep tears of blood. He wiped it away from his chin and it smeared traitorously across his face, like warpaint. His ragged breathing from maintaining the avatar could be heard from where Kakashi was standing, underneath the arch of the bridge.

The surface of the water rippled under his feet as Kakashi approached, implicitly aware of the way Sasuke tensed with every step. Kakashi had just used kamui, and there would be no way to deflect another one of the attacks from his Susano’o. Still, he approached - and Sauske’s eyes widened at his daring. “Hatred can’t be the only thing left in your heart, Sasuke.”

Because, after all, Sasuke’s greatest weakness was the way he loved; mercilessly and to the point of self-destruction. He was not capable of knowing what to do with all the grief that came with love that had nowhere else to go.

“Still reciting the same old pleas,” Sasuke snarled, and the Susano’o tensed accordingly. “Stop pretending to know me.”

“I do,” he said. “And you know it’s not just hatred, too.”

Sasuke was not capable of knowing what to do with love that had nowhere to go. He could only hold it close to his chest in an iron grip - and yet, it would bleed through his fingers anyway. It was too all-encompassing to repress; so he expressed it through rage. Somewhere along the way, Sasuke had realized that hatred came much more easily to him than grief.

Or love, but they were synonymous to him, anyway. That happened to be something they had in common.

Kakashi supposed that was the curse that he had unknowingly passed unto his students - because he did not know how to make love feel any less like loss. Sasuke had accepted it long before he had even become Kakashi’s student - Sakura had yet to.

She could not kill him, despite it all. The point of her kunai had stopped just before piercing the vulnerable spot in between Sasuke’s shoulders - he had not been able to sense her approach, unsteadied by the sudden impairment in vision from maintaining Susano’o. The avatar’s flesh melted off its skeleton, the purple aura flickering and dying out as Sasuke brought his hands to his bleeding eyes, crying out in what was undoubtedly excruciating pain. “f*ck!”

Language, Kakashi thought, disconnectedly.

But Sasuke was not the same thirteen-year-old that had sworn at him over his kitchen table - it was just that Kakashi was incapable of helping him, even now.

As he watched Sasuke wipe the blood from his eyes, he realized distantly that he could kill him - while he was still disoriented and the Susano’o had fallen. He could easily close the distance between them and force his own chidori through his student’s chest, and Sasuke would die.

Kakashi knew all of this - and yet, he could not move.

Sakura had taken it upon herself to (yet again) do what he could not; and, in the same way, failed. She had forcibly brought the kunai to a halt; her expression crumbling in something that Kakashi was all too familiar with. Because no matter how much she tried to rationalize it, her sentiment was one that he shared. The burden of executioner was impossible to bear when it was that of executing Uchiha Sasuke.

Kakashi had assumed that the curse he had unknowingly passed unto his students was one that made love feel like grief. All of the people he loved felt like they existed under a condition of being irreparably lost - it was only a matter of time. For that reason, he couldn't help but feel resentful of it. Like love was something impossibly heavy that he had no choice but to carry; the weight of it only growing more strenuous with every person he lost.

Naruto was not affected by this curse in the same way that Sasuke and Sakura were. He was not capable of resenting the love extended to those he cared about - because he was not capable of accepting loss. That had been why he’d followed them; with the kind of desperation of someone that refused to not care.

He had pulled Sakura out of the way, moments after Sasuke had wrestled the kunai out of her hand and brought it down with a decisiveness that could only indicate his intent to kill. It had narrowly missed, grazing the side of Naruto’s face and leaving him with tiny pearls of blood beading from the paper-thin cut on his cheek.

Their eyes met - Sasuke squinting through the shower of water from the broken surface of the river, and Naruto’s eyes wide with some unnamable emotion that was neither anger nor alarm. It may have been something akin to determination, but it was decidedly not the same determination that had been in Sakura’s eyes.

She had steeled herself to kill Sasuke - Naruto had steeled himself to do something entirely else.

He set Sakura down on the surface of the river, behind Kakashi. She was breathing heavily, clutching the sides of her cloak as if in shock. He couldn’t blame her - Sasuke had tried to kill her, twice, without even thinking about it. As if she had been an annoying insect buzzing around his head.

“You’ve got even better timing than me, Naruto,” Kakashi said, as Naruto straightened. “I didn’t think you’d come, but…I’m sure as hell glad you did.”

Of course, he did. Kakashi had known that he would ever since they had been thirteen. It was stupid to assume that something like a panic attack would keep Naruto away from him. They were like the polar ends of magnets, but still irrepressibly drawn to one another just the same.

“Sasuke,” Naruto said, his voice uncharacteristically steady. “Sakura is part of Team Seven, just like us.”

Sasuke’s eyes were still unfocused, but the words brought a mocking smile to his face anyway. “In case you forgot,” he snarled, “I’m ex- Team Seven.”

Kakashi could not watch Sasuke try to kill Naruto in the same way he had Sakura. It had been torturous enough the first two times. “Sasuke’s not the same person anymore, Naruto,” he said, taking a step forward to put himself in between them. “You…can’t convince him.”

In the same way that Sasuke could not convince his own reflection to stop looking back at him, Naruto could not convince his reflection that he never would.

A history of hatred had turned Sasuke into what he was at that moment - his face drenched in fresh blood, barely upright from the amount of chakra exhausted up to that point. The only thing that kept him on his feet was anger: at the Leaf, at Danzō - whom he had killed, but did nothing to relieve the rage that had nowhere to go.

He was, most of all, angry at Naruto. Because, no matter how much resentment was in his glare, Naruto did not return the hatred in his gaze.

A very long time ago, Kakashi had proposed a hypothetical to a thirteen-year-old Sasuke that his student had initially dismissed through whatever spectacular ability he had of lying to himself.

Hypothetically, if he cared what Naruto thought, he would want Naruto to hate him. Because Sasuke was like Kakashi in that way - weighed down by a love so heavy he could only resent it. And it would only be a little easier to bear if the people he loved resented him back. Like Kakashi had told him, all those years ago, the opposite of love (he had used the word like) was not hate. It was, rather, an extension of it.

At that moment, it was undeniable that Sasuke hated him just as viciously as he loved him.

The ineluctable rivalry between Naruto and Sasuke was really just that - ineluctable to everybody else.

He’d convinced himself that, by killing his comrades, he would be freed from the diseased legacy that endured since the Uchiha massacre. Sasuke was no longer capable of realizing that the love he warped into hatred would persist endlessly; and without an outlet for either of them, it would kill him.

And Naruto had come to this realization, as well. He might’ve, perhaps, understood even better than Kakashi did.

“You already know that if we fight again,” Naruto said to him, that day. And his voice did not falter in the slightest, unlike the way Kakashi’s had. “We’re both gonna die.”

Sasuke had not been able to respond.

“It’s inevitable if you really do attack the Leaf,” he continued, clenching his fists. “So keep your hatred. Use it all on me.”

Kakashi and Sakura would have never been able to kill Sasuke - because the weight of becoming his executioner was impossible to bear. It was not as simple as an execution to Naruto, however. To him, it was sacrifice; one that he would take upon himself, over and over. Because he would either save Sasuke or die trying, and not regret it in the slightest.

“I’ll bear the burden of your hatred!” Naruto shouted across the river. “And we’ll die together!”

That was probably something along the lines of what he’d actually said. Kakashi had really just heard I love you, I love you, I love you.

And Sasuke could only hear it, too, from the look on his face.

“What the f*ck is wrong with you!?” he screamed, suddenly more enraged than Kakashi had ever seen him. “Why do you care about me so much?”

The only thing Naruto could say in response was exceptionally simple - in a way that explained everything, and nothing at all. “Because I’m your friend.”

I love you, Kakashi heard, instead. It meant the same thing to Naruto, anyway.

The war came like all things did, to Kakashi - oftentimes with an exceptional amount of notice beforehand, as if with a poignant reminder that he should be prepared for it. It was almost sympathetic, in the sense that the universe appeared to be telling him, you’re gonna hurt a lot real soon! Watch out!

In any case, the poignant reminders didn’t end up doing him much good. The war came like all things did, to Kakashi - quite suddenly, despite all of the foreboding omens that suggested it had been a long time coming. He’d really just end up thinking something along the lines of, damn, it really did end up happening.

Predictably, the times he saw Naruto were few and far in between - not that it mattered. Ideally, he would be locked up in Tsunade’s basem*nt until the war was over, but Naruto would sooner painstakingly chew through iron shackles before he didn’t participate in the battle. Not that he’d ever done so before, but Kakashi wouldn’t really put it past him. That was just the kind of guy he was.

So, naturally, they could not keep him away from the war - though it was commendable that they tried.

The war, and the confrontation of the man who claimed to be Uchiha Madara, came like all things did. Quite suddenly, despite being a long time coming.

He probably should have known, since the very moment he’d met the gaze of the single resentful eye behind the spiral mask of the man named Tobi . The way he stared at Kakashi betrayed the hatefulness that churned just underneath the surface - one that did not seem indicative of who he claimed to be.

No, the unique hatred in his eye was reserved especially for Hatake Kakashi. Which he hadn’t realized, the first time around.

Nor the second, or the third. To be fair, he had more important things on his mind at the time.

Kakashi always had quite a lot of respect for the people in his life - for the most part, they had much more resolve than he did. The most obvious example was Naruto, but even still, most of Kakashi’s acquaintances possessed a kind of nearly unfounded determination that he himself did not. That, if anything, was his “type.” He found himself consistently in awe of the people he surrounded himself with.

Obito hadn’t liked him, back when they were in the Academy. Perhaps it was not a dislike of sorts, but rather a largely one-sided rivalry on Obito’s part. Whichever it was, he had been crushed by the impression that Kakashi was better than him. And he might have been, when it came to meaningless things like throwing kunais and controlling chakra. Despite that, Kakashi had known (ever since they had been kids, really) that Obito was infinitely a better ninja than he was. He couldn’t even explain why, exactly - but he had known with a certainty that seemed unwilling to fade over time. The day he had given Kakashi his Sharingan had been the first time he felt so irreversibly ashamed of who he was as a shinobi.

Kakashi really had no qualms about calling Gai his best friend - if he was being entirely honest, he considered his students to be his best friends as well, but there was something so distantly pathetic about it that Kakashi decided not to admit such a thing. Regardless, he found himself in tentative awe of Gai, time and time again.

Their rivalry was not a serious one, unlike (heavens forbid) Naruto and Sasuke’s. Kakashi was rather content with competing over rock-paper-scissors and whoever could piss the longest and suchlike. They remained tied, most of the time - which felt slightly wrong, somehow. After all, Gai was also infinitely better of a ninja than he was.

They had come to Naruto’s aid once the Tailed Beasts joined the battle. A moment in which Gai had remarked, “seeing Naruto having grown this much…makes me feel really old.”

Kakashi had felt unreasonably distressed - which was less about the fact that they were up against the ominous figure of hatred incarnate, perched on top of the husk of the Ten-Tails and glaring at them like they were causing him personal offense. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t we agree that the springtime of our youths isn't over yet, please?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Don’t say something like that again, though.”

The resurrection of the Ten-Tails, in theory, would bring about the destruction of the world. It was not even to be considered a Tailed Beast, really - rather, a progenitor of all that existed. Ocean-swallower, land-splitter, mountain-breaker. Which Kakashi thought was needlessly poetic of a description, but he decided not to tell Kurama so. He did not need the Nine-Tails to harbor any sort of resentment towards him.

Tobi did not need the Ten-Tails to do any such thing, in any case - its power, from consuming a single piece of the Eight-Tails, already vastly eclipsed the lesser beast. He did not possess such lofty goals of total destruction; but the loftier goal of total salvation. Or what he thought was salvation, anyway.

The infinite Tsukuyomi. The singular, collective dream of a perfect world.

Kakashi should have known, from the first time Tobi had glared at him with a hatred that felt familiar. A one-sided rivalry, in the single visible Sharingan behind his mask.

The resurrection of the Ten-Tails could only be marginally more destructive than the resurrection of Uchiha Obito, he was certain. To him, at least.

The mask had split and broken into several pieces, falling from Obito’s face as if in betrayal. A betrayal of who, exactly, Kakashi wasn’t sure - because it felt like his own. It was not as heart-wrenchingly painful to kill the faceless Tobi as it was to watch Obito die, again.

He watched Rin die enough times in his nightmares, anyway. For that reason, it almost felt righteous to let Obito kill him.

Kakashi couldn’t do either, as it turned out. Sentimental fool that he was.

One of the things that the edo tensei of the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, had in common with himself in life, was that he always had some sort of amusem*nt in his voice. Everything he said was tinged with a warm laughter, as if he found the world to be that much kinder if he was kind to it.

“If there’s someone here that can really understand Obito,” Minato said to Kakashi, with that same gentle mildness that only tightened the unforgiving grip of nostalgia around his heart. “It is you, Kakashi. His friend.”

He looked at Obito, under the point of his kunai.

“Isn’t that right, Naruto?” his sensei added - and Kakashi didn’t need to glance up at him to know that he was smiling.

Naruto just looked at Sasuke, and said nothing.

The infinite Tsukuyomi bloomed like a single, great eye - one that looked upon the world in contempt. And Kakashi could only wonder distantly what the perfect dream would have looked like, to him. A world in which he did not have to grieve.

Sasuke had protected them with his Susano’o, and the light of the moon did not reach him. That was just fine with Kakashi, he supposed, watching his team bicker among themselves as they did when they were thirteen. His perfect dream must not have looked much different.

The distraction to seal the deity of limitless power and ancestor of all chakra had been in accordance with most of Naruto’s so-called brilliant ideas: exceptionally stupid. His distraction had been a jutsu that he assured them he’d practiced even more than the rasengan.

Naruto proudly called it the sexy reverse harem jutsu. Which didn’t need any further explanation.

The dawn of October the tenth came with an understanding that it was the end of all things - whether or not there would be a new beginning remained to be seen. It was on that day that Sasuke had resolved to kill Naruto; with the same determination which Naruto resolved himself to save him. Funny how they worked that way.

Sasuke had put Sakura under a genjutsu, because he understood her well enough to know that she would follow.

“Sakura really wanted to save you,” Kakashi called out to his retreating figure. And the words sounded wretched, as if he told Sasuke she wanted to kill him.

“Was she enjoying herself, daydreaming about love?” Sasuke replied, casting an indifferent glance over his shoulder. “I don’t see what she likes about me. And I…don’t have any interest in her at all.”

You should know, he might as well have added.

“She wanted to save you,” Kakashi told him a second time, unable to keep the bite out of his voice. “There’s nothing more to it. She nearly lost her life to you…she still cries when she thinks about you. Because Sakura loves you so much it feels like it’s killing her.”

Naruto’s hardened expression faltered, only momentarily. Sasuke did not deign to respond - and did not even spare her another glance from where she remained unconscious by Kakashi’s feet. He merely left. Headed towards the end of all things.

“I made a promise,” Naruto piped up, watching him go. “With Sakura, when we were kids. I told her I’d definitely bring him back.”

“Naruto…” Kakashi began, but there was nothing more to be said.

“Sensei,” he replied, looking at him a little reproachfully. “You already know how I work, don’t you?”

He did. It was moments such as those in which Kakashi wished he didn’t.

“I’ll be back!” Naruto said cheerfully, giving him a stupid little salute. Because his hope was not really hope at all - it was belief. Complete and utter certainty.

“Yeah,” Kakashi could only respond, “be careful, Naruto.”

At the end of all things, they found themselves at the Valley of the End. Exhausted, drained of chakra, and bleeding to death. The cyclic nature of Naruto and Sasuke’s love and hate had come to a final, resounding halt.

The valley had been utterly destroyed - Hashirama and Madara’s statues blown to rubble. Sakura had torn away from where she had been supporting Kakashi’s arm around her shoulder, down to the battered and broken figures of the two idiots she loved so much it could kill her.

Kakashi watched her crouch between them to stop the steady flow of blood from their missing arms. “Sakura-” Sasuke began, and she shook her head fiercely.

“Shut up,” she replied, her voice trembling. “I need to concentrate. Shut up.”

“I’m sorry,” Sasuke said to her, the words coming out hoarse. “I’m sorry. For everything.”

“You’d-” Sakura bent over, her face screwing up as she began to cry. “f*ck, you’d better. You two are so much trouble… stupid…”

Kakashi did not go over to them. He did not feel the need to, even as Naruto and Sasuke managed to sit up and exchange a single brief glance that did not need anything else. And he especially did not feel the need to, once Sasuke smiled - his face heavily bruised, swollen, and covered in blood.

“Jeez,” Kakashi muttered, pulling his forehead protector back over his eye. “They’ve finally gone back to normal.”

At the end of all things, Naruto and Sasuke got to their feet and undid the infinite Tsukuyomi. They reached towards one another to perform the hand-seal, and when the genjutsu fell, neither of them seemed willing to let go. They turned to face each other, and had nothing to say. Because there hadn’t been the words.

Naruto leaned forward to gently tap his forehead against Sasuke’s. And they stayed there, just like that.

It was during the reconstruction effort following the war that Kakashi resolved to himself to amend the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke. Of course, they themselves have amended it for the most part in the only way they knew how - by almost killing each other. He liked to think that he didn’t have to make them almost kill each other a second (unofficially a seventh) time, but with the way Naruto was stubbornly dense about the topic in question, Kakashi was beginning to realize that they might have to.

He’d first approached the subject in a deceptively casual manner, which was probably his first mistake. It was likely Kakashi’s nonchalance that made Naruto significantly less able to grasp what he meant.

It had been shortly after Kakashi had been appointed as the Sixth Hokage. He hadn’t been particularly happy about it, additionally. It was actually quite distressing to see his own giant head carved onto the side of the mountain, beside Tsunade’s. It looked needlessly serious, because the sculptors had denied his request to give him a silly face or put a cigarette in his mouth. Kakashi was certain Asuma would have found the latter to be a riot.

In any case, his own intimidating likeness staring down the village was just one of the questionable perks of being Hokage - because other than that, it came with a shockingly abysmal pay raise and the ability to (more or less) pardon Sasuke for his crimes.

And he told Sasuke so - in a way that might have been just to hold it over his head.

“You know,” he said, just outside the opened gates of the village. He’d come with Sakura to see Sasuke off. “You would totally be in jail if I weren’t the Hokage.”

Sasuke, to his credit, repressed what was undoubtedly an eye-roll.

“The only reason you’ve been pardoned is because you helped undo the infinite Tsukuyomi,” Kakashi reminded him. “Also, because Naruto would throw a fit otherwise, and he’d drive me nuts.”

He apparently couldn’t hold back the smile that twitched on his face that time. He was such a lovesick little bastard. Kakashi wanted to slap him over the head. “So take it easy and don’t go crazy on me again, please?” he asked, instead. “It’ll be my neck on the line this time. His, too.”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Um - sorry.”

“You’re leaving already?” Sakura fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. “Tsunade-sama’s just about to finish your prosthetic hand. You really should-“

“I can’t accept it.” Sasuke shook his head. “It’s - it’s not part of my atonement.”

What is? Kakashi might’ve snarked. Running away from Naruto? Punishing yourself by punishing him, again?

But he didn’t. Probably because he didn’t really feel like getting into it. In any case, Naruto would do it for him, sooner or later.

“What if-” Sakura began, hesitantly. “What if I came with you?”

“You have nothing to do with my crimes,” he told her, surprisingly gently. “I have to walk the road to redemption on my own.”

She sighed, hanging her head. Sasuke smiled then, raising his hand to tap her on the forehead with two fingers. “Maybe next time, Sakura.”

It was entirely possible that was the moment Sakura knew he would not ever return her feelings. There had been nothing romantic in the gesture - rather, it was comforting in a way that had surprised the both of them. Because he loved her, loved Team Seven, and understood that he didn’t have to hate himself for it anymore. The smile on his face was the kind of affection that Kakashi had watched him force down for years.

“Hey!” Naruto’s voice hollered from behind them, just as Sasuke turned to leave. “Hey, where the hell is he going?”

(Kakashi had said that Naruto would end up reprimanding Sasuke for him, sooner or later. And what a reprimand it was!)

They all turned around to watch him stomp over, visibly annoyed. “Sasuke!” he shouted, and the other ninja winced like someone who knew he was doing something wrong and got caught for it. “You forgot to tell me that you were going somewhere!”

“Because I knew you would react like this,” Sasuke said exasperatedly, as Naruto grabbed him by the collar of his cloak and shook like he was trying to knock some sense into him. “Quit shaking me, Naruto, I’ve already made up my mind.”

“What?” he replied loudly, looking back at Kakashi and Sakura in disbelief. “You guys were just gonna let him go?”

“Whoops,” Kakashi offered. Sakura made a noise that sounded like a snort of laughter, despite herself.

“Are you an idiot?” Naruto asked, turning back to Sasuke - who was watching him a little hopelessly. Lovesick little bastard, Kakashi thought, again. His ears had turned red.

“I-“ Sasuke began, but Naruto barrelled over him.

“Why are you leaving again? After all I - I’m just gonna come after you again, dumbass! How many times do I-“

“I’m only officially pardoned,” he replied, somewhat stiffly as he tried to pull his cloak out of Naruto’s fist. “It - it would be selfish to stay, when the village doesn’t want me h-“

“I want you here!” Naruto bellowed in his face.

That was pretty much the end of it.

They had all fallen silent for a long while, Sasuke staring back at him with what was sincerely the most emotionally conflicted expression Kakashi had ever seen in all his years of living. He’d taken sh*ts that were less constipated than the look on Sasuke’s face.

Sasuke stayed. Needless to say, he was a lovesick little bastard.

In what was a sudden urge towards benevolence (and no desire to perform the duties expected of the Hokage), he had decided to offer a similarly helpful suggestion to Naruto as he did to a thirteen-year-old Sasuke. Because, surely, he would not take it half as badly as Sasuke did.

He’d first made mention of it when Naruto had visited him in the Hokage office, about a month afterwards. Kakashi kept his feet propped up on the desk, ignoring the growing pile of paperwork in front of him (that was truthfully growing increasingly harder to ignore).

In the weeks following the war, his students had been working quite diligently to keep Konohagakure’s operations functioning. Sakura spent long hours at the hospital with Tsunade, and whenever she came to Kakashi’s office to report, she would end up unintentionally falling asleep on the couch (and then get furious with him when he did not wake her).

Sasuke was given the odd jobs that nobody else wanted. In truth, Kakashi might have been feeling a little petty - but Sasuke had given him enough headaches. He could handle chasing a few cats and fetching Kakashi’s dry-cleaning every once in a while.

Anyway, if he thought it was beneath him, he didn’t really show it. Except for throwing down the bag of Kakashi’s laundry on his desk slightly too forcefully.

Naruto was surprisingly quite good with the kids at the Academy, so that was where Kakashi assigned him. He had come to the Hokage office for what was initially to deliver some documents (which Kakashi added to the untouched stack of documents on his desk), but ended up sticking around and chattering his ear off about nothing in particular. “Naruto,” Kakashi interrupted him, after a while. “Sit down.”

“Sure. Hey, I’m hungry. D’you wanna go get some ramen?”

“Maybe later.” He peered at him over the stack of paperwork. “I’m giving Sasuke an escort mission to Sunagakure. I figured you might wanna go with him.”

“Oh, cool. I haven’t seen Gaara in a while.” Naruto had just sat down before springing to his feet again. That boy really had too much energy. Kakashi felt tired just watching him. “Is that all?”

“Uh…” Kakashi returned his gaze, contemplative. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Oookay…” Naruto prompted, impatient like he had somewhere more important to be.

“Do you…” he felt ridiculous. It was actually rather unthinkable that he had to hold his sixteen-year-old students’ hands and pretend to be competent at romance. “Like Sasuke?”

Again, Kakashi’s first mistake was that he sounded quite noncommittal about it. Which was probably why Naruto looked a little confused, if not surprised, as if Kakashi had become a typical idiot that had just asked an extremely stupid question. “Well, duh. He’s my best friend.”

“I mean-” Kakashi tried again, “a different kind of like, Naruto.”

Obviously, he was already implicitly aware that Naruto did indeed possess that different kind of like towards Sasuke. It happened to be quite a hassle to make Naruto aware of it, however.

“...Yeah?” Naruto said tentatively, now sounding audibly concerned about Kakashi’s sanity. “We’ve kinda been through a lot, y’know? It’s not the normal kind of like.”

He was so damnably stupid. Kakashi sincerely wished he could be upfront in the same way that he was upfront with Sasuke - but on the slightest possibility that he was wrong, and Naruto did not reciprocate a certain kind of feeling, well. He was quite certain that Sasuke would strangle Kakashi himself, redeemed or not.

Though he highly doubted that he was wrong, Kakashi had never been any good at reading that sort of thing. It had taken him three years to realize it was a possibility in the first place. For that reason, there were quite a lot of ways that making Naruto aware could go very irreversibly wrong.

So Kakashi resolved himself to be subtle. Which had never been something he was any good at in the first place.

“You feeling okay, Kakashi-sensei?” Naruto asked, leaning closer to inspect his face curiously. “I can ask Sakura to stop by.”

“No. I’m fine.” He sighed, falling further back into his seat. At the very least, the Hokage office had a nice chair. It almost (almost) made doing all the f*cking paperwork tolerable. “Go away. You’re giving me a headache.”

Naruto didn’t seem to take that personally, which was too bad, because Kakashi had really wished he had. He never seemed to be able to cause his students half as much grief as they would cause him.

Sasuke had been the next person to visit - covered in cat scratches and looking understandably weary. “I’ve caught damn near every cat in Konoha,” he said flatly, sitting in the chair that Naruto had been in only fifteen minutes prior. “If you want to punish me, you can just say so.”

“No need. You’ve been punished enough.” Kakashi fiddled with the pen he had been using to (torturously) sign a few documents. “I’ve asked Naruto to join you on your escort to Sunagakure.”

There was a pause.

“Why?” Sasuke asked, a little sharply in a way that was reminiscent of when he was thirteen and significantly more annoying.

“Just because.” It was probably not a good idea to tell him that Kakashi just wanted to stir the pot. He really could’ve asked any other shinobi to accompany Sasuke - but that wouldn’t be any fun. “He said he would.”

Sasuke chewed on that for a few moments. He always had an intimidating stare; even more so, now, with the Rinnegan. “Are you doing this on purpose?” he asked quietly.

“What?” Kakashi played dumb. He was really good at it, from the way Sasuke briefly looked like he wanted to kill him (redeemed or not). Some things would never change, he supposed.

“You know,” he said, his voice suddenly a lot more icy. “This. This - thing with Naruto.”

If Kakashi had been any more cruel of a person (or any more tempted to continue punishing Sasuke in petty ways), he would’ve asked innocently what thing?

He was feeling gracious, and spared Sasuke the embarrassment of saying it out loud. Kakashi found that it was a lot funnier when he said it out loud, anyway, because Sasuke’s scandalized expression was one of the more hilarious things about him. “Well, you still have feelings for him, don’t you?”

Sasuke stood up abruptly. “If that’s all,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’ll be going.”

“Okay, okay.” Kakashi took his feet off the desk, as if to show him that he was now taking it more seriously (he wasn’t). “I’m not messing with you, Sasuke. I think we’ve gotten to the point where we can talk like adults, right? Sit down.”

He just looked down at Kakashi suspiciously, before slowly lowering himself back into his seat. “I’m not-” he began reluctantly, “I’m not thirteen anymore. I - things have changed.”

Kakashi almost felt insulted that Sasuke thought he might have believed that. “Naruto hasn’t changed,” he pointed out, too tired to argue with him about the feelings they established he had three years ago.

“That-” Sasuke’s ears turned pink, and Kakashi tried really hard not to sigh too loudly. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Well, I dunno.” He glanced out the window. The sky was a deep, endless expanse of blue - dotted with wisps of cloud that looked like fat white rabbits chased by the wind. It was a day to be anywhere except indoors. Being Hokage sucked pretty bad on suchlike afternoons (he almost felt a new kind of respect for Tsunade). “How are you so sure that Naruto doesn’t - uh…”

“He does,” Sasuke muttered. “Just not - not like that.”

Kakashi could have told him that he was not so sure - because Sasuke had been witness to the gravity of Naruto’s devotion, but not all of it. He had not seen Naruto fall to his hands and knees to beg the Raikage for Sasuke’s life. He had not seen Naruto struggle to breathe, hyperventilating at the very idea that Uchiha Sasuke was going to be executed for his crimes.

He had not seen the clone that Naruto made to resemble him, just to sit on his bed in the hospital in resounding silence.

Well, whatever. Kakashi wasn’t going to tell him. Sasuke felt guilty enough as it were - it was entirely possible that knowing Naruto reciprocated his feelings the entire time would feel even worse.

It was, Kakashi realized belatedly, much more complicated than he’d thought. They might have been able to mend the turbulent relationship between them, but not entirely. And Naruto might have been able to grasp what needed fixing the first time around - but Kakashi doubted he could even come to the realization that something was still wrong.

Well, maybe not wrong. At any rate, something that might become very wrong in the future - when they would get married to women, have children, and realize they were unfathomably miserable. Missing the other half of himself, he supposed.

“Go with Naruto,” Kakashi told him, still fiddling with his pen. “Talk to him. That’s an order from your Hokage.”

He looked miffed. “Why are you doing this?”

“I thought you needed a hand. Haha.”

Sasuke gave him what was probably the most scathing stare he was capable of, before getting up to leave in sullen silence.

In all honesty, Kakashi didn’t really know why he was doing it. He might have been able to blame it on feeling bad - because Sasuke had already suffered through so much in his wretched life, and was still needlessly suffering over loving Naruto nearly as much as he suffered hating him.

“Break a leg,” Kakashi called after Sasuke as he left, “or lose one.”

The day before they were scheduled to leave for the escort to Sunagakure - escorting what was really just an envoy out of courtesy - Kakashi had summoned Pakkun to practically get on his knees and beg him to spy on the mission. It might have been a little undignified, but at that point he couldn’t find it within himself to care.

The dog stared at him, unimpressed. “I’m not doing that.”

“Come on,” Kakashi pleaded, only distantly aware of the fact that he was quite literally performing dogeza for a dog. “You can’t do this to me. I need to-”

“Snoop?”

“You’re my dog. And I'm the Hokage. I’m giving you an order.”

“Okay,” replied Pakkun, with a long yawn. “I’m not doing that.”

“Good for nothing,” Kakashi told him, exasperated. He sat up, and the dog just looked down at Kakashi’s feet like he was contemplating pissing on them.

It was Pakkun’s refusal that led to all of the other ninken to refuse unanimously; thus forcing him to resort to even less dignified measures (less dignified than performing dogeza for his dogs, that is). Measures in which involved shadow clone techniques and reconnaissance.

In truth, Kakashi did not have nearly as much chakra as Naruto did - and could not maintain a shadow clone for quite as much time. However, if he sat in the Hokage office and focused really hard without doing much else (which was, admittedly, something he had already been doing), he could probably keep the clone going for a good long while. For reconnaissance, obviously.

So that was exactly what he resorted to, just because his very own ninken were unhelpful little bastards that refused to do the only thing they were good for. They were less of dogs and more of sheep, really. He made sure to tell Pakkun so.

He summoned the clone not thirty minutes after he had seen them off. Kakashi had come to the village gates, where Naruto was talking the envoy’s ear off and Sasuke waited with his arms crossed and what looked like a painful grimace. “Yo,” Kakashi called to them as he approached. “You all ready to go?”

“I don’t understand why you have to see us off,” Sasuke replied in a clipped voice.

“Because I’m the Hokage, Sasuke. I can do what I want.” Kakashi looked down at the envoy. She couldn’t have been much older than fifteen - and she inclined her head politely to him. The gesture which he returned without thinking. “It shouldn’t take you all more than a week. Don’t linger,” he directed towards Naruto. “Gaara is just as busy as we are. He doesn’t have time to hang out.”

“Man,” Naruto whined. “You’re running a dictatorship.”

He had learned that term from Sakura, no doubt. Kakashi was also quite certain that Naruto thought it meant bossy.

“Come on,” Sasuke said to him, giving Kakashi a suspicious glance. “I’m sure Hokage-sama has more important things to do.”

“Don’t call him that,” Naruto complained, as the three of them turned to leave. “It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“You know people are gonna call you that?” Sasuke replied, the words irritable but his voice irrepressibly warm.

“Damn,” he said, like it had literally never occurred to him. “Now that’s weird.”

Kakashi waited until they disappeared down the trail leading out of the village. He then returned to his office and promptly summoned a shadow clone to follow them.

Gai had visited him shortly afterwards - wheeling himself into the office triumphantly, red in the face and drenched in sweat from what was undoubtedly an arduous journey to get up the stairs in a wheelchair. How he did it, Kakashi didn’t bother figuring out. Gai had an inhuman capacity of determination he had long-since given up on understanding. “Kakashi!” he roared. “I’ve almost forgotten what you look like. Where the hell have you been?”

“Oh, you know.” Kakashi said casually, waving his hand. “Here. The bathroom, sometimes.”

It was actually quite admirable that he spent so much time in the Hokage office, and the stack of paperwork on his desk never seemed to get any smaller. Gai wheeled himself closer, eyeing the documents sympathetically. “Hard at work?”

Hardly working might have been more accurate - but Kakashi truthfully was hard at work, albeit an entirely different kind. Maintaining the clone had yet to become tiring, but he wasn’t (as previously mentioned) particularly blessed with an abundance of chakra. “More or less. How’s it rolling?”

There were a handful of people that had told Kakashi his wheelchair jokes were in poor taste - he only kept making them because Gai would quite literally start hollering with laughter every time he did. Tsunade looked scandalized the first time Kakashi called him Wheels, but her reproach had been drowned out by Gai bellowing uproariously like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

“Ah, you know.” Gai wiped a tear from his eye. “Takes getting used to, but it's worth making Tsunade-sama chase me throughout the hospital.”

Kakashi snickered. “How did she let you out, anyway?”

“She didn-”

As if on cue, the door to the office flung open a second time - for a red-faced and puffing Tsunade to glare at both of them, like it was somehow also Kakashi’s fault that Gai was there. “I’m gonna handcuff you to your bed,” she threatened breathlessly, her hands on her knees. “How on Earth did you get up the stairs…?”

“Ah, it’s because I’m still in the springtime of my youth, my dear…”

“What’s with you?” Tsunade addressed Kakashi, straightening to brush herself off. “You look like you’re taking a sh*t.”

He hadn’t realized his brow was furrowed with concentration. Naturally, maintaining a shadow clone was not particularly difficult; but they were decidedly short-term in the sense that he had not maintained one for much longer than a few hours. “Ahem, as Hokage, I forbid you to speak to me in that way.”

She rolled her eyes, coming to take the seat beside Gai. “Sakura mentioned you sent your boys to escort the Sunagakure envoy. You already know we can’t really spare more than one shinobi on an escort, don’t you?”

“What’s she snitching on me for?” Kakashi complained. “I’m her sensei.”

“This isn’t that, is it?” Tsunade asked, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, surely he isn’t still…?”

“What?” Gai leaned in. “Who?”

“Beats me,” Kakashi lied.

He had not gotten the chance to see just how long he could maintain his clone - because approximately seven hours following its departure, it was punched decisively into smoke.

The events his clone witnessed went as follows:

Naruto, predictably, did not shut up. The entire time they trekked through the Land of Fire, he appeared to be making up for all the time lost between them. He talked about all the stupid sh*t he had gotten himself into over the last three years, training with Jiraiya, his personal tier list of ramen broths and a subsequent tier list of toppings. He talked about Sakura and Sai, about Kakashi helping him develop the rasenshuriken, and showed Sasuke how many burn marks he had on his hands from the amount of times he spilled boiling water making cup ramen.

At any rate, the envoy had started to look like she desperately wanted their company to be attacked by a rogue ninja around thirty minutes into the escort. Sasuke, however, listened attentively.

He had never been, to most people, the expressive sort. Sasuke’s face remained spectacularly impassive throughout Naruto’s rambling - but Kakashi had always found it exceptionally simple to read him. He did, after all, remind Kakashi of himself.

So that was probably why he was able to notice every small smile that tugged on his face, and every time his inscrutable gaze melted into a gentle affection that Kakashi felt sincerely nauseated by. As they walked, Naruto swinging his arms and chattering about whatever he could think of, Sasuke watched him with the kind of wordless devotion that felt incredibly embarrassing to witness - as if Kakashi was intruding on a very private and intimate conversation (which was really just Naruto monologuing).

The envoy looked like she had it much worse, anyway. Kakashi could only sympathize with her, because he hadn’t thought about his matchmaking plot in depth enough to account for how undeniably uncomfortable it must have been - something she would probably have to endure the entire way to Sunagakure.

If Sasuke had thought to use his Rinnegan, it was most likely that Kakashi’s shadow clone would be discovered without much of a fighting chance. He, surprisingly, did not - though likely not because he had faith in Kakashi not to follow them. Rather, he seemed to have just forgotten. Like just being in Naruto’s presence had struck him dumb.

The worst part about it is that Sasuke was not aware of just how besotted he looked. What might’ve been even worse was that Naruto wasn’t, either.

Kakashi seriously reflected on getting them to fight just one more time (hopefully involving less missing limbs) - because those appeared to be the only moments in which they understood each other implicitly.

The escort to Sunagakure was, as expected, peaceful. It had been out of courtesy more than anything - but Naruto and Sasuke didn’t seem to mind. It was to them, rather, not unlike a leisurely stroll and chat. Even if Naruto was doing most of the chatting.

They settled for the night on the banks of a stream, where Sasuke pitched a tent for the envoy - which she gratefully ducked into and zipped up after herself, like she couldn’t bear subjecting herself to Naruto’s incessant talking any longer. They busied themselves with making a fire as it began to get dark, before sitting by it and lapsing into a comfortable silence (that, strangely, felt just as embarrassing to watch).

“You can go to sleep,” Sasuke told Naruto, who was poking at the fire with a stick. “I’ll take first watch.”

“Nah, I’m not tired.” Naruto looked up at him. He was awash from the warm glow of the campfire, a silly grin beginning to spread across his face as he returned Sasuke’s gaze.

Sasuke just raised an eyebrow. “What are you grinning about? You look like an idiot.”

“I dunno. I’m happy.”

Kakashi’s clone nearly fell out of the tree he was perched in. Perhaps that would be the day they would finally get somewhere.

Sasuke looked like he was chewing on the inside of his cheek, lowering his eyes to the fire. There was something about being looked at with such affection that felt unfamiliar to him, Kakashi knew. Which he couldn’t help but feel a little exasperated by - because Naruto had always looked at him that way.

“Me, too.” Sasuke replied, picking up his own stick to prod it into the fire.

The stupid smile on Naruto’s face was so endearing (which Kakashi felt a little disgruntled to admit); and it just seemed to get impossibly wider. “I missed you, y’know.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

“Everyone else did, too. Sakura and Kakashi-sensei - I mean, he was really good at hiding it, but you could tell. Sakura still really likes you. She never stopped.”

Sasuke’s expression shifted into something slightly more guarded. “Yeah.”

“Since you’re staying…” Naruto continued, somewhat mischievously. He leaned a little closer to him, like they were conspiring. “Have you ever thought about…y’know?”

Sasuke’s stick snapped as he shoved it slightly aggressively in the embers. He pulled it out of the fire to inspect the charred end - but the look in his eyes was distant, like he wasn’t even seeing it. “I can’t.”

“Why not? You don’t think she’s cute?”

“I-” he hesitated. “She’s…like a sister to me.”

“Jeez.” Naruto leaned back to his original position, picking a piece of dried bark from his stick. “I don’t get you. What about…Ino?”

Kakashi briefly felt like hopping out of the tree and giving the dimwit a very offensive slap across his blithely unaware face.

“Uh…” Sasuke seemed to have become incapable of looking at him - his grasp on the stick in his hand tightening. “I don’t think so.”

Naruto watched him thoughtfully (an expression that was altogether unusual on his face). The fire crackled, sending a spiral of embers into the sky that blinked in the darkness like fireflies. The gentle stitching of crickets pierced the summer night air like a needle at work on a cotton cloth. And the tentative quietness between them held, until Naruto spoke. “It’s kinda too bad one of us isn’t a girl, huh?”

It was as if Kakashi had stopped breathing. The fire seemed to stop crackling, and the crickets seemed to have all fallen silent - like the world itself had come to a loss for words at Naruto’s sheer stupidity. From the look of it, Sasuke had apparently done the same; and the stick snapped a second time as he inadvertently crushed it in his fist.

“What-” his voice was slightly strangled. The light from the fire flickered over his features, making his loss of composure that much more apparent. “What do you mean?”

Naruto laughed, a little nervously. He turned his own stick over in his hands, like he was suddenly unsure what to do with it. It appeared as if he hadn’t thought about the words before they even left his mouth. “I mean - um, well - it would be a lot…easier, if you were-”

Kakashi’s clone fell out of the tree. Actually, that time.

He really couldn’t have helped it - because as Naruto went on, his grip on the branches slackened like he’d been petrified. In retrospect, Kakashi was actually quite glad he did fall out of the tree; since he wasn’t exactly sure he wanted to see how Sasuke would respond.

They both reacted immediately - jumping to their feet and reaching for their weapons, zeroing in on Kakashi’s clone like hawks. First-rate shinobis, indeed. They hadn’t been aware he was following them until he’d fallen out of the f*cking tree. “What…?” Naruto said, flabbergasted as he watched the clone climb out of the bushes and tried to look as dignified as possible (as much as one could when falling out of a tree). “Kakashi-sensei?”

He didn’t pay much attention to Naruto, because there was a much more imminent threat at that moment - from the way Sasuke was staring at him, and how he didn’t seem willing to put away his kunai…well. Kakashi was pretty sure that Sasuke instilled the fear of every god to ever have been worshipped into his clone at that moment.

He could only watch timidly as Sasuke stalked over to him, silently seething with rage as he grabbed Kakashi by the front of his collar. “I hope you had fun,” he snarled, quiet enough to just be out of Naruto’s earshot. “Because I will f*cking kill you when I get back.”

With that, he punched Kakashi’s clone into smoke. In a way that might’ve ruptured some of his organs, if he’d been there in person. Sasuke really had no aptitude in anger management.

Win some, lose some. Kakashi was not quite certain which one he had just experienced - because he was pretty much sure that he had just lost, so to speak, but was also quite relieved he did not have to witness that conversation continue.

In that case, success! Kakashi felt irrepressibly giddy once he became aware that the clone had been dispersed - so giddy that Shikamaru, who had stopped by to give him a report, gave him a strange look. “Are you all right?”

“Splendid,” he replied, taking the document that the jōnin had offered him. “Hey, how about a game of shōgi?”

Sasuke had graciously not followed through with his threat of murder once they returned to Konoha - he did, however, make his displeasure known by storming into the Hokage office and telling Kakashi off. With a few choice words that were (to say the least) more than a little unkind.

“Are you sick in the head?” he spat, instead of a greeting. Kakashi let his head roll back to look at the ceiling, already exhausted from the verbal abuse to come. “What the hell was that? Is spying on me one of the better ways to waste your time?”

“Yo,” Kakashi said, disregarding all of his poignant remarks (especially the insinuation that Kakashi wasted a lot of his time. Which was true, but still insulting). “How was the escort?”

“You should know,” Sasuke seethed, before taking what appeared to be a brief pause to calm himself down. His fists remained clenched, however. “...Nothing. Out of. The ordinary.”

“Oh, wow.” Kakashi lifted his head to look at him, genuinely impressed. A few weeks prior, Sasuke would have actually killed him for his transgressions. “Did that hurt?”

Sasuke’s face then twisted into a grimace that really did look painful. “Can you keep out of my private affairs?”

“Truthfully, no.” He sighed, leaning as far back as his chair would allow. “There are only so many times I can reread Icha Icha, you know.”

It was only half-true, but the way Sasuke’s expression soured even further was so funny Kakashi decided not to tell him he was kinda joking. “Anyway, I don’t see what you’re so upset about,” he continued, picking at the skin around his fingernails absently. “Shouldn’t you be jumping for joy?”

The mental image of Sasuke jumping for joy was one that he filed away to amuse himself with later. He didn’t think Sasuke would find it quite as funny as Kakashi did, if he started cackling over his own choice of words. “And why should I be doing that?” he replied coldly.

“Naruto?” Kakashi prompted, adopting a tone of voice that he’d used when his students had been much younger and much less prone to catching on. “What he said?”

Sasuke just stared at him. As agreeable to talk to as a brick wall, indeed.

“You know,” Kakashi said, once his convincing impression of a statue started to get old. “There was a time when you were actually pretty smart.”

“What?” he asked, irritable.

“Nothing. What I meant is that he’s not a complete idiot. He doesn’t not have feelings for you, Sasuke, he just doesn’t understand them like you do.”

It really was that simple. Naruto had put his foot in his mouth and told Sasuke he wished he was a girl - because that was the only way his feelings made sense to him. Obviously it didn’t matter whether Sasuke was a girl or not; except for the fact that if he were, Naruto would have no doubts about having feelings for him. How much more simple could it get?

“It’s complicated,” Sasuke muttered.

“Of course you would think so. You already know that he loves you. Why’s it so hard to believe it's in that way?”

His gaze hardened, and Kakashi knew that he had just (yet again) failed in a futile attempt to convince Sasuke he was worthy of being loved. “Is there anything else you’d have me do, Hokage-sama?”

Kakashi sighed, waving him away. “No. Get lost. And quit calling me that, it gives me the creeps.”

In the following weeks, he’d managed to painstakingly get through the paperwork that he’d been avoiding. None of it had been important enough to care about, anyway - fund requests for miscellaneous projects and personnel, then subsequent signing off on securing said funds, it didn’t interest him in the slightest. Being Hokage, for quite some time, felt exclusively like signing his name on hundreds of pieces of paper. While his own giant foreboding head stared down at him accusingly whenever he went for a walk.

“You can’t hang out here forever, you know,” Tsunade had pointed out to him, on the fourth consecutive day he spent several hours in an unoccupied hospital bed reading Icha Icha Tactics (it happened to be his favorite volume). She had pulled back the curtain to snatch the book from his hands, crossing her arms and scowling. “I don’t think lazing around is in the job description.”

“I’ve learned from my predecessor,” he’d told her solemnly. Which had gotten him barred from the hospital until further notice (and his book remained confiscated).

Afterwards, he found certain other ways to avoid the Hokage office. Many of them included getting into increasingly dangerous competitions with Gai, which ended up becoming less about competing and more of Gai suggesting they ride his wheelchair down a hill. Something that Kakashi enthusiastically agreed to, naturally.

His afternoons were devoted to accompanying Sakura on her lunch breaks - which she seemed to want to spend anywhere but within the hospital (which was quite agreeable to Kakashi, given he was no longer welcome there). What was less agreeable was that she would almost always make him pay, but he found that he didn’t really mind after a while. Sakura groaning about work and the last stupid thing Naruto had said to her was infinitely more interesting than signing documents. Listening to her bitch about Sasuke was also, admittedly, really entertaining.

“...getting on my last nerve, those two,” she complained one afternoon, stirring her pink lemonade. “It’s like, they think if they almost bleed out together it’ll solve every f*cking problem they’ve ever had - but men don’t know how to talk to each other, so they just accost me at work asking me stupid sh*t like have you talked to Naruto today? or has Sasuke said anything to you recently? while I’m elbows deep in open heart surgery trying not to sever an artery, thinking to myself, how did those two manage to save the world a month ago?”

“No kidding,” Kakashi said. He found that she preferred to monologue during their lunches, and that all he really needed to do was offer a few words of sympathy sometimes.

She fumed quietly, twisting her straw around one finger like she was imagining Naruto’s neck. “f*ck, I mean - I love them to death, really, but - ugh. Men.”

“Men,” Kakashi agreed.

Sakura huffed, but a smile tugged at her lips. “Is it stupid if I still like him, a little?”

He wondered what was the romantic appeal in Uchiha Sasuke. He was good-looking (allegedly), but other than that, there were few things Kakashi could think of that inspired the kind of love Sakura had for him. Perhaps the indescribable charm of Sasuke was just that - incomprehensible to everybody except for Sakura. And Naruto, but that went without saying.

“Maybe it is, but love always makes people stupid.” Kakashi shrugged. “From what I’ve seen.”

She studied him, taking a sip of her lemonade and picking at the fries between them. “How come you don’t have a girlfriend, Kakashi-sensei?”

“Well, it must be because I’m not stupid, you see…”

That made her giggle.

His evenings were usually spent in the company of Naruto - who, between him and Sakura, were really starting to put a strain on his wallet with the amount of times Naruto would convince him to get ramen. When they weren’t making regular appearances at Ichiraku’s, Naruto was showing him how many times in a row he could catch a piece of konpeitō with his mouth. Or something like that. In any case, it was still more interesting than paperwork.

They spent a lot of time walking aimlessly throughout Konoha, and (on occasion) Naruto would suggest they sit on Kakashi’s giant head that had been carved into the mountain. An idea that Kakashi had yet to warm up to.

Regardless, he would acquiesce, just because Naruto could get really annoying about such things when he wanted to be. It was one of those evenings when they found themselves sitting on his (needlessly serious) head, imbuing pieces of konpeitō with chakra just to see how far they could throw them.

Naruto had been the one to bring up Sasuke, right after he’d achieved the farthest konpeitō throw (which had landed shockingly close to the main gate, about 40 kilometers opposite to where they were sitting). “Have you talked to Sasuke recently?”

Kakashi briefly thought about Sakura. She had likely told Naruto off about coming to her with pitiful inquiries about Sasuke, and he had nobody else but Kakashi to talk to. “I sent him to Tanigakure to follow up on some banditry reports. He should be back by tomorrow night. Why?”

Naruto sat down beside him and offered him the bag of konpeitō. “I dunno,” he confessed. “I guess I…said something weird. He’s acting like a bastard, though. Avoiding me.”

“Sounds like him.”

“Right?” he complained. “I know I pissed him off, but can’t he just punch me and get over it?”

Kakashi popped a konpeitō into his mouth. It may have been just like Sasuke, to avoid confronting his problems - but it was also just like Naruto, who assumed every problem between them could be solved through a life-threatening punch (life-threatening to anybody else, that is). “What did you say?” he asked, already fully aware of what it was that Naruto said.

Naruto looked sheepish, poking his finger through the tiny hole in the knee of his pants. “You were…” he mumbled, “you were there. Your clone. Didn’t you hear it?”

“Uh…” Kakashi played even more spectacularly dumb, tilting his head back like he was deep in thought. “Nah. I dunno what you mean.”

Naruto, his face lit only by the streetlamps far below them, seemed to have flushed a truly striking shade of red. The tiny hole in the knee of his pants was considerably larger with the way he was picking at it. “C’mon. The…the girl thing.”

“Ah, right. What about it?”

“It was kind of a weird thing to say, wasn’t it?”

“Well…” Kakashi turned his head to observe him. Naruto’s flush had creeped down his neck and disappeared under his collar. Sasuke, at the very least, had the grace to remain (more or less) impassive when he was embarrassed. Naruto, on the other hand, looked like someone could fry an egg on his face. “Did you mean it?”

That was, apparently, the worst question to have asked him - in the sense that it made Naruto short-circuit and start blustering like an idiot. “I - wh - mean it? I don’t - it's weird, so-”

“I dunno,” Kakashi interrupted, looking back towards the sky. The stars were much more visible than within the village. He suddenly gained a tentative fondness for sitting on his own head. It, additionally, had the added benefit of being far away from certain nameless former-Hokages that pestered him about doing his job. “Don’t you think you would have feelings for him, if he was a girl?”

He was really playing a dangerous game - there were only so many things he was good at, however, and making pointed suggestions for Naruto to pick up on had started to become one of them. Although there were some people that might have referred to his suggestions as manipulation. If that were the case, Kakashi would accept it as a badge of honor. Sometimes all Naruto needed was a little manipulation to help him come to certain realizations.

“I-” Naruto began, hesitant. “I mean…he isn’t.”

“He isn’t,” Kakashi agreed, and left it at that. Those kinds of things took time, probably.

A loud ripping noise made them both look down. Naruto had torn his trousers from the hole he dug at with his finger, the scrap of fabric dangling from his now-exposed knee. For a moment, they stared at the giant hole in Naruto’s pants and said nothing.

“Man,” Naruto muttered, after a while. “Sakura’s gonna be so mad at me.”

The following weeks proceeded in a similar fashion - riding Gai’s wheelchair down every steep hill in the Land of Fire in the mornings, buying Sakura lunch every afternoon, and throwing konpeitō off the Hokage monument with Naruto in the evenings. Which might not have sounded very fulfilling, to most people. Ironically, it was probably the most Kakashi enjoyed himself in years.

His quality of sleep, however, turned out to be that much less enjoyable - because at the very least, Sasuke being gone for three years meant he was allowed to have three years of uninterrupted sleep at night.

Sasuke had rung his doorbell at approximately 2:13 a.m, around two days following his return from Tanigakure.

Kakashi had dragged himself out of bed, muttering incoherent curses as he stumbled through his house in the dark to pull open the front door. He squinted blearily at the figure standing before him, wrapped in a black cloak and expressionless like it was a casual visit at a normal time of day (as opposed to an ambush at a godforsaken hour). “Forgot how to climb through the window, or what?”

“Why aren’t you living at the Hokage residence?” Sasuke asked, as opposed to falling to his knees and begging for Kakashi’s forgiveness for waking him at that time of night.

Kakashi rubbed his eyes, pushing the door open wider and moving to the side to make room for him to pass. “Whatever. Get in.”

That was how Kakashi found himself leaning against the kitchen counter and staring dumbly at Sasuke, who was sitting quite placidly at the table and not offering a single word of explanation as to why he was there.

“Coffee?” Kakashi offered, after the silence had really begun to feel insufferable.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Sasuke pointed out, like he was the weird one.

Yeah, Kakashi might’ve agreed, yeah, it really f*cking is. “Um…” he scratched his head, instead - scanning the countertop for anything else he might have to offer. “Soju?”

“I’m sixteen.”

“...Right.” Kakashi grabbed the bottle anyway, unscrewing the cap to pour himself some. He really couldn’t think of anything better to do. “Why are you here, Sasuke?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed, looking down at his hand folded on the table. “I can’t sleep. It…felt right.”

He was actually rather touched, but decidedly took a swing from his soju to avoid betraying himself. It was far too sweet and tasted like strawberries - Tsunade had gotten it for him as a consolation gift for accepting the role of Hokage. And then apologized, because she allegedly didn’t have time to swing by the pet store for dog food.

Sasuke glanced up at him, picking at the hem of his cloak as if he were nervous. “Do you…” he began, apparently unsure of what he wanted to say. “Do you miss your Sharingan?”

The question took him aback - he fully expected Sasuke to come to him about some Naruto-related issue, as he so often (begrudgingly) did. “It wasn’t mine to begin with.”

“Still, he - Obito gave it to you. And-”

“And it’s gone,” Kakashi agreed, swirling his glass of soju and feeling that all-too familiar ache once again. “I don’t miss it, Sasuke, I miss him.”

“Even now?”

“Yeah, even now. I can’t help it.” He downed the rest of the alcohol, the sticky-sweet burn stinging his throat. “Love makes you stupid, ha ha. Him…and me.”

And Naruto, he could have also said. That wouldn’t be entirely true, though. Naruto loved not because he couldn’t help it - but because he chose to. He loved willingly. Devotedly.

Kakashi figured he needed to get properly sh*tfaced to have a sincere conversation with Sasuke. It was actually too bad that he was underage - because Sasuke seemed like the type to be a lot more upfront when he was a couple of drinks in. Sure, Kakashi liked his student plenty; but he was exceptionally annoying when it came to talking about his feelings.

“Do you ever regret it?” Sasuke asked. “Caring about him.”

“No. Is that a serious question?”

“Yes,” he replied, a little put-out.

“Of course not. You can’t live if you don’t love people, Sasuke. You should know.”

He looked slightly stricken by the accusation. Kakashi decided that he was perceptive enough to know that what he said was true; because as much as people thought they knew Uchiha Sasuke, they were fundamentally mistaken about a single aspect of who he was as a person - someone who loved with his entire being. Loved until it felt like hate, sometimes.

“I wish I-” Sasuke swallowed. “I wish I didn’t.”

“Too bad.” He poured himself another drink. “You’re loved, anyway. Doesn’t matter if you love him back or not, so you might as well.”

It wasn’t even really just about Naruto - it was that Sasuke did not feel worthy of the love that was given so freely to him. He did not feel as if he deserved to be there, sitting at Kakashi’s kitchen table; because both of them knew that he was always welcome to. Sasuke struggled to accept the fact that Kakashi’s window remained open, every night before and after he had left Konoha three years prior.

“I wanted to kill you,” he told Kakashi. His voice broke, despite himself. “I wanted to kill Sakura. And him.”

“I know.”

“I don’t…deserve your forgiveness.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kakashi said, again. “Do you want it?”

Ever since then, Sasuke had not come to his house in the middle of the night - through the window or otherwise. It wasn’t even because of embarrassment, really. Rather, Kakashi had the distinct feeling that he’d finally been able to get a good night’s sleep; for what had been undoubtedly the first time in years.

He had, in what was quite possibly the most unfathomably evil idea of his entire life, proposed an excursion for Team Seven a couple of months into his mission to amend the turbulent relationship between Naruto and Sasuke. Which had been progressing at a spectacularly slow pace, prompting Kakashi to consider more drastic measures.

The idea had been almost entirely not his own, hilariously enough. In fact, it had been thanks to a conversation in passing in which Kakashi had come to appreciate the unwitting brilliance of Sai.

The conversation had begun when Sai found him sitting atop the Hokage monument - due to his newfound appreciation of its privacy, where he could read Icha Icha Paradise and lament the loss of Tactics. Sai apparently couldn’t take the hint that he wanted to be alone, finding him shortly after returning from the Land of Waves and giving Kakashi the report on the Ryūha Armament Alliance he’d been investigating.

“I see,” Kakashi said, closing Icha Icha Paradise with a sigh. “When are you heading back?”

“Tonight. I was going to ask you to assign a shinobi to-”

“Whoever you want.” He waved it away. “Ah, not any of my students, please. They’re working on something.”

Sai blinked. “I saw Naruto flicking spitballs at the Hokage office windows earlier.”

“Is he the one that’s been doing that? Are you serious? It’s ‘cause I told him to stop messing with Ebisu’s lectures at the Academy, the little sh*thead-”

“Can I bring Ino, then?”

“That’s fine. She’s helping Shikamaru with…” he couldn’t remember for the life of him. It probably wasn’t that important, anyway. “Something. Go ahead and ask her.”

Sai nodded, tucking his notebook back into his pocket. “What’s Naruto working on?”

Besides flicking spitballs at Kakashi’s window, apparently, not much. “Ah…top-secret, highly classified…emotional stuff. With Sasuke.”

He looked a little disgruntled (as disgruntled as Sai could get). “Emotional…?”

“They’re having a fight,” Kakashi told him.

“Oh.”

Sakura had been able to explain, quite effectively, the fundamental problem between the two: that, being men, they did not know how to talk to each other. Kakashi briefly bemoaned the fact that they were not girls (for what was not the first time). Because, yet again, the issue would have been wrapped up within a single afternoon.

Again? Sai kinda looked like he wanted to say. Kakashi wouldn’t have blamed him - it seemed the default state of Naruto and Sasuke was always a little pissed off at one another, at the very least.

“Remember when I first joined your team?” he asked.

“Uh…” Kakashi, truthfully, only remembered with the utmost clarity how much pain he had been in; considering he dragged himself out of the hospital with a splitting migraine from overusing the Mangekyō. And a dream. “Yeah?”

“Naruto and I didn’t really like each other.”

“Riiight.” He could remember that much.

“You made us go to a hot spring, because you thought it would help us get along.”

Did he? Kakashi tried to think about it. That might have been what he said, but it seemed more likely that he just really wanted to go to a hot spring. “Uh-huh.”

Sai just looked down at him, deadpan.

It hit him. Kakashi might’ve started cackling if he didn’t care about his image to a sixteen-year-old - as the first inkling of a diabolical plan began to take form. “Oh, sh*t. Sai, do you want a raise?”

“You have to run that by Shikamaru,” the jōnin reminded him. “I’ll be off, then.”

The most unfathomably evil idea of his entire life was, in that way, thanks to Sai. Kakashi could have almost sent him flowers.

He summoned his team to the Hokage office shortly thereafter - taking a seat behind his desk to maintain some semblance of authority. Kakashi momentarily considered donning the Hokage’s cowl, but decided that would be overkill. His authority might’ve been slightly diminished regardless, considering the windows were covered in dried-up spitballs.

Naruto and Sakura arrived together, Sasuke only a few minutes later. “Yo,” Kakashi greeted them, as Sasuke closed the door behind him and gave Kakashi a (warranted) suspicious glance. “How’s it going?”

“What’s this about?” Naruto asked excitedly. “Are you giving us a mission?”

“Uh, not quite.” He leaned onto his desk, trying not to let his (admittedly nefarious) amusem*nt show. “I was thinking we’d go on an excursion, just the four of us.”

“Ooh,” Sakura said appreciatively, just as Sasuke pulled a very obvious grimace. “Where to?”

“The Land of Steam,” Kakashi replied cheerfully, ignoring the way Sasuke’s grimace got even more pronounced. “They have some great hot springs. How about it?”

Naruto’s smile flickered, and Sakura squealed as if he had just offered her a pay raise of a hundred thousand ryō as opposed to a vacation. “How long are we staying? Oh, I gotta go pack my bags and tell Tsunade-sama - when are we going?!”

Sasuke had stiffened like Kakashi had suggested they go on a suicide mission instead. Naruto just looked understandably conflicted; casting a glance towards Sakura before his gaze trailed furtively towards Sasuke. “I dunno,” he began hesitantly. “I kinda got a lot to do for Ebisu-sensei…”

“No, you have a lot to do for me.” Kakashi pointed accusingly at the windows. “Starting with scraping off your spitballs, Naruto.”

“Dictatorship,” he muttered. “Who told you?”

“Aren't there more important things to be doing?” Sasuke spoke for the first time since he’d stepped into the office. His voice wasn’t quite strangled, which Kakashi privately congratulated him for. “For you, especially? You might as well tell Shikamaru he’s the Hokage.”

“Don’t complain,” Sakura told him in Kakashi’s stead, giving Sasuke a slight push (that might’ve been more of a shove). “This is great! It’s been so long since we’ve spent time together!”

Sasuke did not appear to think it was as great as she did. Rather, he looked like he just bit into a lemon. It had apparently also started to give Naruto the same reaction.

“We’re leaving in a couple of hours,” Kakashi said pleasantly, leaning back into his chair. “See you at the gate.”

It would take just under two days, at a leisurely pace, to reach Yugakure. Kakashi felt quite enthusiastic about the journey - not because he was particularly interested in being caught within the insufferable silence between Naruto and Sasuke, but because he hadn’t really had the chance to leave the Land of Fire since becoming Hokage. And even though two-thirds of his company was not interested in being good company, Sakura seemed to be in such high spirits he could hardly care. They had a delightful conversation for most of the trip, half of which was just gossip. He mentioned that Sai had chosen to take Ino on his investigation of the Ryūha Armament Alliance, and she screeched like he’d told her that Sai had proposed instead.

Naruto and Sasuke lagged behind them the entire time. Not speaking, obviously. Kakashi glanced over his shoulder a few times - and both of them returned his gaze almost pleadingly. Which he ignored.

Their arrival was well-met; Yugakure was a peaceful village, reflective of its pacifist country. He got a few respectful bows, and a child no older than ten years old asked Naruto for his autograph. Which he got a little flustered by, but brought a stupid grin to his face that didn’t go away until they got to the hot spring.

It had been early in the evening when they got settled - the owner of the onsen offered Kakashi an upgrade to their rooms, which he gratefully accepted (because being Hokage didn’t pay as well as he once thought, and he’d originally gotten them rooms that were slightly less than respectable).

The second phase of his diabolical plan had been to get Naruto and Sasuke a single room - meant for two people, naturally. If it were an Icha Icha novel, all the other rooms would have been booked, and they would have to tragically share a single room meant for one person, and thus one futon. To Kakashi’s disappointment, there had been plenty of rooms available; but he booked them one to share anyway. Which then allowed him to reflect that he was perhaps a little too invested in their relationship.

“Why does Sakura get her own room?” Naruto complained loudly at the check-in. “That’s not fair.”

“She’s a girl,” Kakashi reminded him.

“But - you have your own room, too!”

“That’s because I’m the Hokage,” he replied gravely. To which both Naruto and Sasuke gave him a dirty look.

Around fifteen minutes after check-in, Sakura hopped out of her room wrapped in a white robe and positively glowing with excitement. “You’re the best, Kakashi-sensei!” she squealed, wrapping her arms around him in a hug that felt like she was trying to crush his ribs. She really was Tsunade’s apprentice, he groused to himself, massaging his unmistakably bruised ribs as she practically skipped away.

He would not do something quite so undignified as to spy on Naruto and Sasuke’s room. Though the notion was tempting.

They emerged not long after Sakura did, also in white robes and identically unenthusiastic, like they would much rather be anywhere else. Kakashi suspected that Sasuke really would have preferred a suicide mission.

The third phase of his diabolical plan proceeded almost exactly like he’d expected - with Naruto and Sasuke pressed against opposite sides of the hot spring, with Kakashi between them feeling more exasperated than he thought he would.

Naruto had sunk underneath the surface until half of his face was submerged in the water, his eyes roaming around the onsen to feign interest in literally anything apart from the two people in his company. He amused himself by blowing bubbles, which Kakashi was only mildly grossed out by.

Sasuke, on the other hand, was giving Kakashi the most pissed-off glare since the time he’d stared at him with killing intent. “You kids are going to give me gray hairs,” Kakashi remarked to break the silence, instead of looking back at him.

The other half of Naruto’s face emerged. “Your hair is white,” he pointed out helpfully.

“It’s-” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s an expression, Naruto.”

Naruto sullenly sunk back into the water, his eyes drifting towards Sasuke. He didn’t even seem to be aware of it - until Sasuke caught his gaze, and quickly looked away. Kakashi solemnly considered drowning himself in front of them. Maybe they would be willing to talk if they had some privacy.

He would not do something quite so undignified as to spy on Naruto and Sasuke’s room. However, he was significantly more willing to spy on their conversation in the hot spring. If they had one, which he had yet to find out. It was, after all, phase four of his aforementioned diabolical plan (which he could lie about and say hadn’t intended to involve spying, but there was really no point).

“I’m a little dizzy,” Kakashi lied cheerfully, climbing out of the onsen and grabbing his towel. “See you guys in a bit. Have fun.”

“It hasn’t been fifteen minutes,” Sasuke said, his voice dripping with venom.

“Hasn’t it? Time flies. Later.”

Kakashi wholeheartedly did not want to see anything beyond a heartfelt discussion of feelings - not because he had little respect for their privacy, but because he would have been well and truly nauseated if he had to watch them kiss or something. Which they almost certainly wouldn’t, but (going entirely off the logic of the Icha Icha series) just in case, he resolved himself to dismiss his clone if either of them unglued themselves from their side of the onsen.

They did not speak for a long while - averting their gazes for what felt like an eternity. Every once in a while they’d make eye-contact, and one of them would tear his head away in a knee-jerk reaction like he’d witnessed something scandalous.

“Hey,” Naruto said, after about ten minutes of their ridiculous wordless exchanges. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“For what?” Sasuke replied stiffly.

“You know. For that stuff I said.”

He sighed. “I’m not mad, Naruto.”

“Yeah, you are,” he argued. “You’ve been avoiding me. I’m sorry, all right?”

The steam from the hot spring was not helping Sasuke look any less flustered - his entire face was pink and his hair had plastered itself to his forehead. And his ears had turned a striking shade of red, obviously.

“It’s fine,” Sasuke muttered, addressing his reflection in the water. “Just - drop it.”

“I meant-” Naruto continued, because he had never been the type to drop it when instructed to. His voice had started to sound a little desperate, and Kakashi winced. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) he did not have a tree to fall out of. “Well, it’s just ‘cause - you know, we’re really good friends, and…”

Sasuke’s eyes widened - only marginally, but most certainly indicative of being less than thrilled as to where the conversation was going. Again.

“And…I like you a lot, so if - if you were a girl-”

Naruto had intended to apologize, but quite spectacularly screwed up by doubling down.

“Naruto,” Sasuke said, cold and sharp enough to feel like the tangible edge of a blade, cutting through the thick steam of the hot spring with a single slash. “Enough. Shut up.”

He did.

It occurred to Kakashi that his diabolical plan must have backfired - but from the way Naruto had turned astonishingly red in the face, much redder than any onsen could get him, he decided that it turned out to be quite a success.

“I messed up again,” Naruto declared, once he came to Kakashi’s room only moments after he managed to disperse his clone. He was still wet from the hot spring, and dripped water all over the tatami mats as he walked across the room to sit at the tea table. And, predictably, helped himself to Kakashi’s complimentary snacks.

“Have you?” Kakashi said innocently, taking a sip from his tea.

“Yeah.” He shoved a handful of salted edamame into his mouth. “Hey, did they give you any meat?”

He ignored the question, putting down his tea and wondering how to approach the situation at hand. “How did you mess up again, Naruto?”

Naruto sprayed him with bits of edamame as he replied crossly. “Sasuke again, duh. Why doesn’t he get it? I’m trying to tell him that I don’t like him. I mean - I like him, but not in a girl way. He’s pissing me off. I get all tongue-tied and forget what I wanna say when I’m lookin’ at him.”

Kakashi just rolled his eyes, wiping pieces of chewed-up edamame from his face. What was he put on Earth to do, besides point out the obvious?

“Good-looking guys are the worst, ‘cause you get all stupid when you try to talk to them-”

“Pardon?”

“You know,” Naruto said, apparently annoyed by the interruption. As if he wasn’t intruding upon Kakashi’s room and eating all his salted edamame. “When you’re lookin’ at Sasuke and start acting stupid.”

Kakashi decided not to point out that Naruto was always acting stupid - because there was a much more urgent matter at hand. “I don’t…start acting stupid when I look at him, Naruto.”

“No, everybody does,” he insisted. “That’s why I developed that sexy reverse harem jutsu, remember it? The one I used on Kaguya?”

Kakashi had, in all honesty, tried to dismiss it from memory. Unfortunately, Naruto bringing it up had made all of his attempts unsuccessful. “...Naruto,” he said faintly. “Remind me, why did you develop a sexy reverse harem jutsu?”

“Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about Konohamaru’s boy-on-boy jutsu, y’know? And then I got to thinking-”

“What?”

“I said, I got to thinking that it might be useful f-”

“No, I meant...” Kakashi let his head fall into his hands, struck by the sudden urge to start laughing hysterically. “You couldn’t stop thinking about what?”

Naruto just looked nonplussed, still astoundingly unaware as to what Kakashi was getting to. He finished with the edamame and moved onto the almond tofu, using Kakashi’s chopsticks to shovel it into his mouth. “Uh, Konohamaru’s jutsu?” he said, now spraying Kakashi with bits of tofu. “Don’t you remember?”

“What-” Kakashi peered at him over his fingers, grappling with the temptation to reach over the tea table and literally strangle him. “Why couldn’t you stop thinking about it…?”

“I dunno. I mean, it really does work as a distraction, doesn’t it? So I thought-”

“It doesn’t.” He felt like ripping his hair out. “Naruto, it doesn’t work as a distraction unless you think it’s sexy.”

To think this would be how Kakashi got him to realize - over something as incredibly stupid as his reverse harem jutsu, which he had allegedly practiced more than the rasengan. He had once assumed helping Naruto come to this realization would be satisfying; but at that very moment, it made him feel f*cking deranged.

Naruto laughed. “What d’you mean? It’s a reverse harem, y’know, with dudes?”

Kakashi spent many years fostering a commendable patience that he suddenly could not remember what for.

“Naruto,” he said gently, “I need you to listen to me very carefully.”

“Sure. Can you ask them to bring some meat? Hey, actually, d’you think they have any ramen?”

Kakashi let his eyes fall closed for a moment - trying to remember how exactly he had proceeded with such a conversation the first time around. And his memory failed him, naturally. “Not everybody…starts acting stupid when they look at Sasuke.”

“Uh, yeah, they do. He’s a handsome guy, isn’t he? Well, not as good-looking as me, obv-”

Kakashi cleared his throat. “No, uh…you see, people usually don’t have those kinds of thoughts about their friends.”

Naruto just looked as mystified as ever, his cheeks bulging from the sheer amount of almond tofu he was helping himself to. “Yeah, they do,” he repeated. To his credit, he started to sound slightly petulant. “Sakura does.”

Kakashi sighed - because no matter how good Naruto was of a shinobi, he had yet to accept the undeniable truth that he was still a f*cking dumbass. “Sakura has a crush on him, Naruto.”

That seemed to have done the trick. His mouth dropped open, and Kakashi got a very disgusting good look at what was supposed to be his almond tofu.

“I don’t have a crush on him, though,” Naruto said thickly. “He’s - he’s a guy. I’m a guy.”

Kakashi hadn’t thought about what to say when they got to that point - because getting to that point had taken up the better part of his thoughts for over a year. “Well, ahem, when a man and - um, another man love each other very much…”

Naruto just looked back at him like he’d gone senile.

“Quit staring at me like that,” Kakashi told him irritably. “You look like an idiot.”

He swallowed his mouthful of tofu, setting his (Kakashi’s) chopsticks down on the tea table. “Are you - are you messing with me? This isn’t - I don’t think it's funny. I don’t like guys.”

“Forget him being a guy,” he said, suddenly exhausted by it all. If it had been an Icha Icha novel, that would have been about the time he dog-eared the book and read the rest of it later. “Haven’t you ever thought about kissing him, or something? Um…again? Don't you think that you might want to?”

In a similar manner to Sasuke nearly four years ago, Naruto said nothing - absolutely nothing for such a long time, Kakashi began to wonder if his diabolical plan had been a good idea in the first place.

He got up and left, dripping more water onto the tatami mats on the way out.

It had been several hours after his conversation with Naruto, late into the night, when Sasuke made his appearance. A lot of their interactions happened to be at night, he reflected.

He was sitting outside, watching the steam from the hot springs gently rise and dissipate into the sky. He was well and properly sh*tfaced this time, off the suspiciously expensive sake the owners had given him. It was a warm night, and the moon was a perfect crescent half-hidden by the clouds.

Sasuke slid open the door to come sit beside him. And for quite some time, neither of them spoke.

“Naruto kissed me,” he said.

Kakashi glanced at him. “Congratulations,” he offered. “Sake?”

“Sure.”

He passed him the bottle and Sasuke took a swing from it, before hacking and coughing as he set it back down. “f*ck, that’s gross.”

“Watch your language. You’re still just a young boy, after all…”

“Shut up.”

Kakashi couldn’t help but laugh - and Sasuke tentatively returned his smile, his expression melting into something genuinely and unmistakably content. The weight that he had carried with him all his life, dissipating like the steam of the hot spring.

It was uniquely tragic that he had feelings for Uzumaki Naruto - because he might have been able to avoid an untimely heartbreak had he not been Uchiha Sasuke. However, something that neither of them had counted on, was that Kakashi wasn’t any good at being a teacher. Because he could not bear to let them hold their own burdens; even if they were untimely heartbreaks.

Sasuke had gotten his heart broken enough times, already. He deserved to have it mended - and even more importantly, he wanted it to be.

“How do you feel?” Kakashi prompted him. He didn’t even need to ask. It was already on Sasuke’s face.

“Happy,” he said.

“Is that all?”

Sasuke just looked up at the sky. The clouds had parted, and the crescent moon shimmered in the steam from the onsen. “Does there need to be anything else?”

“No,” he agreed. At the end of all things. “No, there doesn’t need to be anything else.”