Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ What He Wants ❯ Part 15 ( Chapter 15 )

Part 15

 

 

Kakashi feels as though he's been turned to stone. His mind can't make any sense of the image in front of him. All he knows is, if this is a genjutsu, he'll kill anyone who tries to dispel it.

 

“Kakashi-san? Are you quite alright?” Iruka asks.

 

That annoying, courteous politeness laced with just a touch of officious impatience is classic Iruka. It knocks him out of his rigid stupor. “You're here,” he says breathlessly, taking a few steps toward the chuunin. “You're back.”

 

Iruka blinks at him, but doesn't restate the obvious.

 

“Does…does the Hokage know?”

 

“Of course she does,” Iruka scoffs. “Can you imagine her not knowing something like that? Ibiki knows too, before you ask. No one else does.”

 

“What…why..? Are you staying here? In Konoha?” He's never seen Iruka's face so unreadable. He has no idea what's going through the chuunin's mind.

 

Fuck, it's good to see him. He advances another step before he can force his feet to stop, breathing deeply to calm himself.

 

“Let's talk inside, Kakashi-san.”

 

Inside. Iruka wants to come into his apartment. Is that a good idea? He doesn't want to end up making Iruka mad. He doesn't want Iruka to leave. Kakashi doesn't think he could handle watching the man walk away from him again. Should he suggest they go somewhere else…?

 

Fuck it.

 

He hurries to his front door and reaches for his keys, which aren't there. He searches his pockets frantically, until Iruka taps him on the shoulder. Kakashi stares at him, wide-eyed, frozen again by his proximity.

 

“You dropped your keys over there,” Iruka says, pointing. He is close enough that Kakashi can smell his hair, which is down, and longer than he remembers.

 

It's too much, far too much. It's been so long, and there's no enforced distance between them, no glass wall separating them, and Kakashi knows Iruka will not appreciate his touch but he will gladly let the man tear him into pieces after he… if he could just….

 

He tears his mask down and hauls Iruka into his arms, burying his face in Iruka's neck and inhaling deeply. The scent is like coming home, and it may be a home he's not welcome in anymore, but he missed it so much he can't make himself let go.

 

He's shaking, violently, and his knees buckle, but Iruka steadies him as his hands fist and claw at the chuunin's back.

 

Iruka steadies him. He doesn't fight or yell at him, doesn't kick him onto the shattered glass Kakashi knows is behind him. He doesn't embrace him, either, just keeps him from falling.

 

It's a dream. It has to be.

 

Panicking, afraid Iruka will disappear, Kakashi fists a hand in Iruka's hair and grabs his jaw with the other, raising his face to look into Iruka's eyes and opening his mouth to say something, he's not sure what.

 

A sharp, unmistakable pressure against his throat stops the words from forming. He goes completely still.

 

“There's a limit to how far I'm willing to go to let you get this out of your system, Kakashi-san,” Iruka says quietly, pulling the kunai back just enough that Kakashi can sense its presence without actually feeling it on his skin. “Please don't push it.”

 

Kakashi realizes that Iruka probably thinks he meant to kiss him. “No, no, I just…” He lowers his hands to Iruka's shoulders, then pulls away entirely, leaning back against his door and scrubbing his hands over his face. They come away wet.

 

He looks up as Iruka moves away from him, and it takes all his will not to reach for him again, stop him from leaving. Iruka doesn't leave, though, just squats down to pick up Kakashi's keys, tossing them over his shoulder. The jounin catches them reflexively.

 

Iruka stands back up with the wet box of take-out and the other, undamaged bottle of wine, kicking the bag they were in and the broken bottle out of the middle of the walkway. “You can clean that up later,” he announces, coming near again to stand by the door. “Inside. Now, please.”

 

Kakashi stares at him for a moment, torn between uneasiness and elation. Too many questions are crowding in his skull. Unable to pick out just one, he finally turns and unlocks his door, pulling his mask back up. He almost holds the door open so Iruka can go in first, but stops himself, allowing Iruka to follow him in. If the chuunin comes to his senses and realizes he doesn't want to be alone with Kakashi in Kakashi's home, he'll be able to escape more easily if Kakashi's not hovering behind him.

 

Not that Kakashi wants him to be able to escape. Not that he doesn't want to dig himself a basement to chain Iruka up in so he can never, ever go so far away again.

 

He stalls for several minutes, taking his food and wine from Iruka, putting it away and futzing about in his kitchen, turning the contents of his cabinets upside-down looking for the bancha powder that Iruka likes. He knows he has some left, but for the life of him—

 

“Kakashi-san, will you please quit wasting time? I didn't come over here for tea, or whatever it is you're looking for,” Iruka huffs impatiently.

 

Kakashi shuts the cabinets and leans his head on one, pulling in a deep breath. He turns and walks over to his apartment's cramped little sitting area, pulling his desk chair in front of the tiny couch Iruka is on, so they can face each other.

 

Though Iruka was so impatient, it looks like he's having a hard time figuring out where to begin, now that he has Kakashi in front of him. Kakashi uses the time to really study the man, take him in. He looks a little thinner, but not much. It mostly shows in his face, which looks more angular, stronger than before, though the long hair framing his cheeks softens it. The flesh around his eyes is a little bruised-looking, as though he hasn't been sleeping well. Other than that, though, he looks pretty healthy.

 

“You're not looking too good, Kakashi-san,” Iruka comments, unintentionally mirroring his thoughts.

 

Kakashi waves the observation away. Hell, they might as well start with small talk and then segue into the harder stuff later, instead of just sitting here floundering. “Been on too many missions with short rations lately, you know how it is. How long will you be in the village? Naruto will be livid if he finds out you came back and he missed you.”

 

Iruka stares at him. “Naruto doesn't even know I've been gone.”

 

Kakashi can't believe he just said something so dumb. He forces a laugh. “Ah, you know what I mean.”

 

Iruka shakes his head, but doesn't comment on Kakashi's plummeting intellect. “I might be back permanently,” he says quietly.

 

Kakashi's eye feels like it's going to fall out of his head. For a moment, he's so happy he can hardly sit in his chair, but then crashes back to reality when he realizes that means he'll have to watch Iruka and Shiko loving each other right under his nose. He doesn't know how much of that he can take before he snaps.

 

Is she his wife now? Why would she agree to come back here, where the evil jounin who almost destroyed their relationship could be lurking around any corner? Kakashi won't do anything else to her or Iruka, but she doesn't know that, and wouldn't believe it anyway, most likely.

 

“What does Shiko think about that?” Kakashi murmurs.

 

Iruka's expression is level, but his eyes briefly close for a few seconds. “I wouldn't know,” he finally says. “She didn't come back with me.”

 

Kakashi's heart stops briefly.

 

“You look surprised. Though how I can tell that with almost all of your face covered is a mystery to me. This wasn't part of your plan?” Iruka asks, glaring venomously.

 

Kakashi's hands fist on the arms of his chair. “My plan ended when you—” When you told me you loved and trusted me, he doesn't say, because Iruka doesn't remember that. He only knows what happened to him from reports, and Kakashi knows that their last conversation isn't in any of them. “It's been over a long time, Iruka-sensei.”

 

“But there's something you haven't told anyone, something that's still affecting me, isn't there?”

 

There is, of course; it's not just Iruka that it's affecting. But it seems to Kakashi that for Iruka to know what it is might do him more harm than good. It'll almost definitely do Kakashi more harm than good, but Kakashi's way past caring about himself.

 

“Tell me what happened,” he suggests, to buy time.

 

“Tell you what happened?” Iruka echoes. “Like you don't already know?”

 

“I don't,” Kakashi says truthfully.

 

Iruka's eyes narrow. “Okay. I'll try and summarize. I woke up one day to find that my mind had been brought to the brink of destruction and back by a crazy jounin stalker, who violated my body as well as my brain. I was advised to leave my home village with my fiancée for our own safety, to go to some country across the ocean that I'd never even heard of. I wouldn't have gone just for myself, no matter what my stalker had done, but since there were questions about Shiko's safety I had to go.” His voice hardens, turns poisonous, as his eyes accuse Kakashi. “Because she meant everything to me.”

 

Iruka hates him, Kakashi realizes with despair. Actually hates him. He hadn't thought the chuunin was capable of such a thing. “Meant?” he asks, trying to stay focused.

 

“Yes, `meant'. Because after we left Konoha, something weird started happening to me.”

 

Iruka falls silent, his face sad and frustrated.

 

“Tell me,” Kakashi urges softly.

 

“You have to understand,” Iruka murmurs. “I loved her so much. She was my haven from the shinobi life, something I didn't even know I wanted—needed—until I met her. Around her I was able to be someone I hadn't been since my parents died. She accepted everything about me, even the things I wouldn't tell her, didn't want her to have to know. She was my family. Her family was my family. She even let me share her friends, even though I didn't share mine since they were all ninja, and I wanted to keep that away from her. Maybe it was fucked up and selfish, but it worked. I was happy.”

 

Kakashi feels sick. He wishes he'd gotten drunk with Genma before coming home. “So what happened?”

 

“You happened,” Iruka snaps.

 

“No, I mean…what changed after you left?”

 

“That's what I'm talking about. I started thinking about you, all the time. At first it was just going over my copies of the reports, thinking, `How could anyone be that insane? Thank goodness he's hundreds of miles away.' I was also really pissed at you for hurting Shiko the way you did, for making her think she'd lost her mind, for making me hurt her too. Furious for making me cheat on her with you.”

 

Iruka goes quiet again, staring down at his fidgeting hands. He looks almost afraid of what he has to say next. Kakashi refrains from encouraging him to speak, since he doesn't want to distract him.

 

“I would go over all my memories of you, trying to figure out what it was that got you so hung up on me, why it was my life you chose to ruin. At first I thought it was just your twisted revenge on me for brushing you off and rejecting you, but…little as I wanted to give you any credit, that seemed too flimsy to explain the time and energy you invested, and the levels of manipulation you sank to.”

 

Kakashi winces internally at Iruka's wording.

 

“I couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer, but I also couldn't stop going over the memories. Almost…greedily. Analyzing your every word and movement, even if at the time I had barely been paying attention to you. It took me a while before I realized I wasn't searching for clues, anymore, I was just…thinking about you.” He looks up, meets Kakashi's eye with a gaze filled with baffled wretchedness. “I missed you. Why did I miss you, Kakashi? I had no reason to. Even with everything you've done to me aside, I barely know you. We weren't friends; we were barely acquaintances. You were someone on my periphery. I—”

 

Any joy Kakashi gets from hearing that Iruka missed him is instantly destroyed with his next words. “Okay, okay. I get it,” Kakashi growls thickly, cutting him off. “I didn't matter. I got it.” Iruka can't possibly understand how much he's tormenting him right now. If he did, Kakashi wonders if it would be more helpful in making him stop or spurring him on.

 

“It's not that you didn't matter. You just didn't matter any more than anyone else in the village.”

 

And that, right there, is exactly what Kakashi has dreaded hearing Iruka say from the very beginning. He never, ever wanted to know that. He stands up abruptly, hands shoved in his pockets, and walks across the room to look out of the window next to his bed. He desperately wants to lash out at Iruka, force him into an argument that will have him storming out before he can say anything else devastating.

 

“Does that frustrate you so much because of your ego, Kakashi-san?”

 

“Say what you came to say,” Kakashi grinds out, “then leave me alone.”

 

He hears Iruka approach him and stop at the desk, leaning against it. “Am I hurting you?” he asks, sounding genuinely curious.

 

Kakashi grits his teeth against the lump in his throat. He considers lying or making a joke of this, but what would be the point? He's not sure he can right now, anyway. He shoots a seething glare over his shoulder. “Yes, you are. Happy? I deserve it, right?” He hadn't meant to sound so childish, but can't bring himself to care.

 

Iruka eyes him a moment, then sighs and looks away. “Yes, you do, but I didn't come here to hurt you.” He pauses. “And no, it doesn't make me happy at all. Nothing about this makes me happy.”

 

Kakashi turns to the side so he's not quite facing Iruka but not facing away. He crosses his arms and stares at Iruka's reflection in the glass, which is becoming clearer as the sun disappears. This needs to be over with sooner than later. He forces his tone into indifference. “Sorry, didn't mean to sidetrack you. You were saying something about missing me?”

 

“Yes. I missed you. I wanted to see you, and talk to you, hear your voice. I thought it was just because I wanted an explanation from you in your own words, but that didn't fit with the…the longing. And instead of fading with time and distance, it got worse.” His voice starts shaking, just the tiniest bit. “It got bad enough that Shiko noticed something was up, even though I tried my best to suppress it. I was distracted all the time; I would drift out in the middle of conversations with her, thinking about something you'd said or something someone had said about you. I couldn't…” Iruka laughs a little. There's a note of hysteria in it. “I couldn't even get into having sex with her, after a couple of months. I couldn't get it up at all, sometimes. I thought it was because I was having trouble adjusting to a new culture, a new country, a new way of life. Shiko thought so too. I even went to see both a medic and a psychiatrist about it. But you know how I realized that wasn't the problem, Kakashi?”

 

Kakashi shakes his head slowly, still looking only at Iruka's reflection.

 

“Because I started having wet dreams about you, almost every night. I didn't even have wet dreams when I hit puberty. Even then, I could have written it off—people have sex dreams about all kinds of strange people, right? Just because someone dreams about sleeping with their sister or their dog or whatever the hell people dream about, it doesn't mean anything.”

 

Kakashi's eyes widen at the mention of `their dog'. He hadn't told Iruka about the dreams where he and Bull…?

 

No, no fucking way. Those dreams always make him wish there was such a thing as brain detergent. There's no way he would have told anyone about them, not even Iruka, and if he had, Iruka wouldn't remember it anyway. “Right, it means nothing,” he says, a little too quickly.

 

Iruka doesn't seem to notice his minor freak-out. “But it was impossible for me to ignore when I started reacting the same way when I thought about you during my waking hours,” he continues. He laughs, high pitched and tremulous. “Imagine my consternation when I couldn't get aroused by my beautiful, sexy girlfriend wrapping her tongue around my cock, but the memory of you trying to force your hand down my pants and asking me to sleep with you couldn't have made me harder if it had turned my dick into a lead pipe.”

 

Kakashi's limbs suddenly feel like wet noodles. He catches himself on the windowsill to keep from falling to his knees. “Shit, Sensei…”

 

“I thought you had just turned me gay,” Iruka goes on. “There was something about that in the report that I couldn't really understand, about making me receptive to men.”

 

Kakashi fixes on that to help bring his focus back. “I never made you gay, Sensei,” he says. “That was—”

 

“I know that now,” Iruka interrupts impatiently. “After Shiko and I discussed it—”

 

“You discussed this with her?”

 

“I wouldn't have kept it from her,” Iruka retorts. “After we discussed it, she suggested I try getting aroused by other men, just to see what would happen. She even found gay clubs for me to go to. But even though I noticed I had an aesthetic appreciation for some men that I'd never had before, I was never once attracted to any of them to the point of arousal. I tried the same thing with other women, reluctantly, with the same results. Shiko concluded that you'd made me `Kakashi-sexual.'”

 

Kakashi snorts before he can stop himself. “That wasn't my intention, Sensei.”

 

That is apparently the wrong thing to say. “I don't give a shit what you intended!” Iruka hollers. “It doesn't matter, and I'm not sure I believe that, anyway! You still did it, whatever the hell it is!” His breath hitches a little as he goes on. “I called your name out in bed with Shiko. Do you have any idea how much that hurt her? We couldn't even try having sex again after that. She started to suspect that I'd had feelings for you even before you changed my memories. I tried to convince her it wasn't true, but I don't think she believed me. She never really understood what you're capable of, what ninja are capable of. We started fighting, all the time. Not just about you, about everything. She was so angry, and had no one else to take it out on. I was the same. And we were both so fucking homesick.”

 

Iruka's voice begins to thicken. “I started talking about coming back to Konoha. Tsunade-sama made it clear that she thought we should stay away for at least a year, but she told me that she'd never turn either of us away. I said all sorts of things to try and convince Shiko that we should come back early. I talked about her parents, about not wanting to be away from the village when Naruto came back—Naruto was the only ninja I ever discussed with her, before you. The closest thing to family I had that I could share with her. I talked about how much I missed my old duties, how I missed going on missions and filing shitty reports. I had a job teaching civilian children, but I didn't like it at all. The kids were scared of me, and I was too hard on them because they seemed like spineless slugs, compared to the ninja kids I'm used to. Isn't that terrible?”

 

Kakashi finally looks away from Iruka's reflection to the man himself, and smiles. “Awful,” he agrees.

 

Iruka stares at him a moment, lips twisting. “I told Shiko that I didn't believe you'd undone as much as you could have, and that maybe we could get you to fix whatever is still wrong with me. I went over all sorts of possibilities like that. I talked about you so fucking much that finally Shiko told me flat out that she didn't believe I really cared about any of that. She said she thought the main reason I wanted to go back to Konoha was so that I could see you again, and that everything else, however important it might have been, was just an excuse.”

 

“Sensei, I'm sure that—”

 

“She was right.”

 

Kakashi's words gasp to a halt.

 

“She was right,” Iruka repeats, softer, as a tear runs down his cheek.

 

Never have three words incited so many conflicting emotions in Kakashi. Even more than “I love you” and “I trust you”.

 

“We couldn't stay together, after that. I told her that she should come back here, since it's her home and she has family here, that the Hokage would protect her in case you still had it in for her. I said I wouldn't follow her, if she wanted to return. She told me…” He chokes off for a moment. “She said she never wanted to live in a ninja village again. I woke up the morning after that conversation to an empty apartment and a long, apologetic farewell note that gave no indication where she'd gone.”

 

Kakashi doesn't know what to say, what to do, so he stands mutely, watching as Iruka trembles.

 

“What could I do, after that, but come back to Konoha? I wrote to Tsunade-sama, told her what happened, told her I was coming back but that I didn't want you to know. I wanted to see if I could be helped without getting you involved. I didn't want you to have the satisfaction of knowing that you'd won.”

 

Kakashi raises a brow. “Won? Won what, Iruka?”

 

Iruka waves a hand. “You know what I mean; I don't want to quibble over semantics. I don't…” He sighs and shakes his head. “Ibiki-san showed me a very interesting surveillance tape earlier today, Kakashi-san. In this tape, you and I had a very strange conversation. I'm sure you probably remember it even though I obviously can't; it ended with me breaking my nose on the wall of your cell, right in front of your face.”

 

He'd forgotten that had been recorded. Of course Ibiki would have kept it. He doesn't know how he feels about Iruka having seen that encounter. The memory of it still fills Kakashi with helpless, burning grief. “I remember,” he whispers. “Of course I do.”

 

“You seemed pretty adamant that you couldn't reverse what you'd done.”

 

“I told you I'd do whatever I could, and I did, Iruka-sensei. I did as much as I could.”

 

“But it wasn't enough.”

 

Iruka's crying silently now. Kakashi hates this. “No, it wasn't.”

 

“I told you some surprising things during that little heart-to-heart.” Iruka's voice gives away his tears with its depth, but it is steadier than it's been for a while.

 

It is very difficult to keep from bashing his head against something to hold at bay the memory of what Iruka said that day. “Yes.”

 

“I don't understand why I said them. From what I understand, I remembered Shiko while I was talking to you, but I still told you I trusted you and lo—”

 

“Iruka-sensei, I remember everything about that conversation. There's no need to rehash it.”

 

“I don't think you expected me to say those things. I don't think you forced them out of me, or manipulated me into admitting them. I think I really meant everything I said.”

 

Fuck, but Kakashi loathes the feeling of tears burning in his eyes.

 

“And here, look at this,” Iruka says, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out.

 

He walks up to the jounin, holding out his hand. In it is a somewhat crumpled origami dolphin, with Iruka's name written on it. Kakashi takes it, staring in amazement.

 

“You made that for me, right? I recognize your handwriting. This has been like my talisman. I could never understand why I held on to it. I kept thinking one day I would throw it away, or at the very least forget to take it out of my pocket and it would fall apart in the wash, but I never forgot. Not even if Shiko was the one doing the laundry. It was the only thing I ever lied to her about; I told her it was from Naruto.”

 

Kakashi covers his masked mouth with his hand for a few moments. Pulling it away, he says, “I can't believe you kept that thing all this time. I left that for you in—”

 

“It doesn't matter where it came from. I just…” Iruka grabs Kakashi's biceps. “Kakashi-san, will you please, please tell me why I feel this way? Please, tell me why I had to lose the woman I loved, and why I'm so—” He chokes for a moment on a shuddering breath, and presses the back of his hand over his mouth, his other hand fisting in Kakashi's sleeve. “Tell me why, after all you've done, it's so fucking good to see you. I'm begging you. I need to know. I won't tell anyone else, not even the Hokage, I swear. I swear.”

 

Kakashi looks at Iruka for a few moments. He starts pulling his mask down, then changes his mind and pulls the material from around his neck over his head, taking the hitai-ate with it, and tossing them with the paper dolphin onto his bed. He curls his hands around Iruka's forearms and squeezes gently. “You don't need to swear, Iruka. You don't need to beg. I'll tell you. You can do as you like afterwards, tell anyone you like. I don't really care what happens to me anymore, so I won't stop you.”

 

“Please don't lie to me, Kakashi-san. No more misdirection, no riddles.”

 

Kakashi guides Iruka gently to sit next to him on the bed, and holds up his right hand. “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me god.”

 

Iruka wipes at the tear tracks on his face and raises a brow. “What are you swearing on, Icha Icha Paradise?”

 

Kakashi reveals nothing more than a cocky grin, but inside he's almost delirious with relief that Iruka can make a joke right now. “That's probably the book I'm the least likely to bear false witness after swearing on, so, sure.”

 

Iruka grins faintly. “Get on with it, then.”

 

Nodding, Kakashi takes a deep breath, and begins.