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Kakashi never thought too much about his future because he never expected to get very old.
Part of it was the times he grew up in. When he was a kid, anyone with potential was sped through the Academy and quickly recommended for the next levels, simply because the village needed the manpower at the time. Had he been born a few years later, he might have avoided that and graduated after attending the full course program without skipping ahead. It probably would have made him a different person, one with enough time to make plans, one with dreams.
It never bothered him. There was no point in grieving an alternative version of reality.
The way things were, he quickly acquired skills. Quickly became someone others could rely on. Quickly grew up. His whole life felt like a race during which he tried to outrun his past, stumbling toward the finishing line.
Sooner or later, he would make a misstep. Sooner or later, someone would take his place. Sooner or later, life would continue as usual.
It wasn’t supposed to matter.
He figured he would eventually die during a fight, so when it happens, it feels like something that had long been waiting for him. He did what he could. He knew he had overstepped his limit but fleeing wasn’t an option when Pain destroyed the village. All in all, it’s as expected. He was lucky to have made it this far.
But as he takes his last breaths, debris weighing him down, darkness lulling him in, something bothers him. Something that makes him try to keep his eye open, try to hold on to the world around him. Something he needs to make sure of.
When he sees his father, he isn’t too surprised. It’s his confirmation that this truly is the end of his road.
They stay in silence for a moment but he eventually starts talking.
He talks about the Chunin Exam he passed. About becoming the youngest jonin in the village. About Minato and Obito and Rin. About the sharingan, and the rivalry with Gai, and standing among the rows of other Anbu, and the jutsu he acquired over the years, and the genin he taught, the genin he lost to Ochimaru, the Nine-Tail destroying the village, Minato’s son, the fights that left him battered, the books he read, the many stays in the clinic.
There is only one part he leaves out.
As he continues to talk without aim, his father just nods, looking at the fire.
There is one more thing that needs to be solved. One thing he meant to settle.
“Whatever the outcome, you did the best you could,” Kakashi eventually says. “I understand that now. You breaking the rules to save others is something I can now think of with pride.”
There is a pause. He feels his father’s eyes on him. “Thank you,” his father says.
This should be enough. This was how it was always supposed to end.
But as that realization sinks in, it bothers him more than ever.
“There’s someone I left behind,” he says.
Another pause.
“A wife?” his father asks. It sounds as if he wants to ask more but hesitates.
“No,” he says.
It’s a strange thought, the idea that his father could assume there to be a wife. As if Kakashi had ever had in him to build any kind of family. Then again, what is a family even supposed to look like? He and his father were one but he can barely remember those times.
He thought he was over that. It had always just been about his father ignoring orders to save other shinobi. He could forgive him for that, forgive him for a rule that had been cruel in the first place. It had never bothered him to be alone. But now that he died without considering the aftermath, it all feels wrong.
He rubs his face, staring at the flames until his vision is nothing but light. “I’m not sure if he’s okay,” he says. “I could create a diversion to let him escape but there’s nothing I can do if something happens to him now. Even if he survives, he’ll be alone.”
It sounds foolish, said out loud. It would be preposterous to assume that Iruka needs him to live. Someone will eventually replace him. Someone will fill the void.
But as he thinks that, he also remembers all the moments when he felt that he was important, not as a capable shinobi but as a presence in the life of one person.
Iruka telling him that he hated being home alone and then never leaving. Iruka spending his mornings in the kitchen humming while preparing lunch boxes. Iruka rolling out a sleeping bag next to his hospital bed. Iruka being asleep wearing one of his masks when he came home from a mission outside the village.
Maybe Iruka would do all those things for anyone. Maybe Kakashi is just being selfish. But he doesn’t like the thought of those moments stopping to matter.
“I’m sure he understands,” his father says but doesn’t sound convincing. He wouldn’t have been sure that Kakashi understood, or else he wouldn’t have waited for him like this. He would also know what it feels like to be the one left behind. Kakashi can’t remember his mother but he remembers her absence in their lives.
“Yeah,” he says. Iruka would understand. He would know that sooner or later, it would end like this. But that doesn’t make it less disheartening.
He could wait like this. Wait until Iruka turns up one day, hoping that he lived a fulfilled life, constantly wondering if it would be best to be forgotten.
“Kakashi,” his father says after a long moment of silence. “I’m sorry that I–”
He says more but Kakashi can’t hear him when a jolt goes through his body. It’s the same pain. The same pain he felt when he ended up here.
His father shouts something and smiles when Kakashi throws him a look. And then–
He falls back through the nothingness and is blinded by much too bright light, gasping for air.
“Kakashi-sensei!” someone shouts.
“Kakashi, too?” someone else asks.
There’s hard ground below him, ground that feels more tangible than the emptiness around the campfire. “What–?” he asks, his voice hoarse. When he sits up, rubbing his chest, he only slowly begins to make sense of the situation. He’s alive. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know why but as he begins to hear the shouts of people around him, he’s very sure of that fact. He’s alive. Which means–
When he looks up, Iruka is there and the relief hits him like a punch in the gut. He’s okay. It’s going to be okay.
“Iruka,” he says, holding out his hand, only to realize that something is off.
Iruka doesn’t move. He kneels next to him, looking at him in bewilderment. “Sensei, I’m fine,” Kakashi says, lightly bumping the back of his hand against Iruka’s knee, trying to joke the strange feeling away.
Iruka follows the moment with his eyes and then hesitantly takes his hand. It’s just a slight touch but it visibly sets something loose in him. “It's warm,” he says, sounding puzzled, sounding broken.
There’s no time. One of the Hokage’s summoned slug clones gives them an overview of the situation. As far as Kakashi can see, the village has been destroyed but if everyone survived, they can easily rebuild it. People are more important than things.
He tries to follow and focus but is distracted by the way Iruka grips his hand with a vacant expression.
It’s only when the slug tells them that Naruto is on his way back that Iruka seems to rouse from his stupor. He looks in the direction of what used to be the entrance to the village. “Someone should get him,” he says, attempting to get up.
“I’ll go,” Kakashi quickly says. Iruka looks as if he’s about to protest, so he adds, “I’m as good as new, so I’m probably the fastest.”
Iruka searches his gaze for a moment and then lets go of his hand.
People flock around them when they return to the village, so he doesn’t immediately get away. Naruto is the one who saved them all, so everyone tries to get close to him, thank him, make sure that he’s okay. Whenever Kakashi attempts to leave the scene, someone stops him.
He keeps scanning the crowd but Iruka isn’t there. He doesn’t like the implication. Out of all the villagers, he would have assumed Iruka to be the first to ensure that Naruto was being taken care of.
Day turns into evening when he reaches what remains of the Academy, not sure where else to look. Around the rubble, people are building temporary shelters. Tents are rescued from buried storages and Tenzo has started raising wooden structures, the sound of which interrupts the quiet bustling of the people.
There are people carrying boxes with documents from the skeleton that is the main building on the Academy grounds.
“Have you seen Iruka-sensei?” he asks the first person he recognizes as one of the teachers. His face is covered in soot and he looks exhausted, so he might be among those who weren’t meant to die.
“Iruka?” the teacher asks and looks around. “I don’t think he’s here. Maybe he went home?”
It’s a laughable thought. There would be no home. Still, he heads in the direction of the apartment building. Judging by the radius of the destruction it would have been destroyed but it would still work as a meeting point. It’s better than nothing.
When he finds him, Iruka sits on a pile of rubble, staring at the emptiness in front of him. He looks up when he notices him approaching and holds up a book. “This is the only one I found.”
Kakashi comes closer and sits down next to him. When Iruka hands it to him, he can’t immediately make out which of the books it is and has to wipe some of the dust off the cover.
“It’s one of the illustrated ones,” Iruka says. His words are casual but there’s something ghostly about his tone.
Kakashi turns it in his hands and flips open the cover. It’s Icha Icha Paradise, the one that was sold out almost immediately. “If I get Jiraiya-sama to sign this, it’s probably going to be worth a fortune.”
Iruka raises the corner of his mouth into a phantom of a smile but doesn’t join in on the joke. “Maybe there’s more if we dig a little but–” He looks at the destruction around him. Splintered wood and broken concrete are covered in bits of metal, fabric, and paper. If not for the book, Kakashi wouldn’t even be sure that this was the house they lived in.
They can always buy more books and clothes. Things can be replaced but what Kakashi isn’t sure he can disperse is this feeling that something else broke.
“Naruto is fine by the way,” he says. “He’s getting looked at by the medical-nin but all things considered, he looks more lively than most villagers.”
Iruka nods, looking at his hands. “I’ve seen him.”
So he was there after all.
“I was so happy for him, I ended up crying,” Iruka says. “He made fun of me for that a lot. He said I was crying all the time. As if he was any better. But as I thought that, it hit me that I didn’t cry when–”
He rubs his face. There’s a long pause before he continues.
“When my parents passed away, I cried for days,” he says. “I cried until my eyes were dry and my mind empty. But when I pulled you out of the rubble and you were just lying there, I was– I didn’t feel anything. I just thought, ah, so that is the end of that dream. As if I finally had to lose something that wasn’t supposed to be mine in the first place.”
This is what Kakashi never wanted to happen but it’s still strange to hear. It’s a story without him in it.
“You didn’t lose anything,” he says. “I’m still here.”
“I know,” Iruka says. “I know but– You weren’t breathing. Your heart wasn’t beating. You were–” He folds his hands on his lap, his knuckles turning white. “You were cold.”
“I’m warm now,” Kakashi says. It seems like an easy thing to prove but when he takes his hand, Iruka winces anyway. When he wraps both his hands around Kakashi’s, it feels as if he’s afraid that he will disappear if he doesn’t.
Touch is supposed to feel easier than this. For over three years, they spent so much time around each other that each other’s presence was a given but suddenly, there’s a rift. Iruka doesn’t resist when Kakashi pulls him closer but his motions seem wooden.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do if this happens again,” he says against Kakashi’s neck, his voice barely audible. “I don’t think I can take it.”
There’s nothing Kakashi can say.
He never planned to die, he just figured it was part of his path. Still, it’s not something he knows he can actively avoid. He isn’t immortal. He will still have to fulfill his duty as a Konoha shinobi. Pain wasn’t the last enemy they will ever have to face. It could happen again. It probably will happen again and next time, he won’t be able to cheat his way out of it. He could lie but they would both know that it’s not true.
It never mattered but for the first time, he hates that he can’t see a future.
For the night, they’re assigned one of the tents where they’re rolled up next to others who don’t belong to any of the big clans. One of the walls of the tents slightly flutters in the breeze.
At first, Iruka has his back turned to him, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Eventually, he rolls around, wrapping an arm around him for warmth. It’s a small step forward. One step toward their old life.
During the next couple of days, there is no time to breathe. The rubble needs to be cleared and everything still worth anything has to be sorted. Craftsmen are called from outside the village because Tenzo alone can’t rebuild hundreds of houses. With the Fifth Hokage still unconscious, the stability of the village is at risk.
Still, everyone works together and they slowly move forward. The village has always been resilient like that.
They barely get to talk. Kakashi is sent around to escort visitors and Iruka tends to the children who have to be kept out of the way.
At night, they lie next to each other, sometimes touching, sometimes not.
It takes time. It all takes time.
After about a week, when their tent group is assigned housing in a new building with small units, they stand in front of the floor plan. Kakashi didn’t explicitly tell anyone that he would live with Iruka but they were immediately offered the choice between two apartments, so the selection might be based on old records. They were registered at the same address.
“I’m fine with either,” he says. Both look more or less like their old apartment but even if it was smaller, he wouldn’t mind. He just hopes that a new place with proper walls will slowly ease the tension.
Iruka frowns at the paper, looking as hesitant as during the past few days. Maybe he’s looking for a way out. Maybe he thinks it would be better to live separately. Maybe that would solve all their problems. Kakashi wouldn’t even begrudge him.
Eventually, Iruka points at one of the two. “This one has a balcony next to the living room. It’s better to have wide windows for sukiyaki nights. Otherwise, the smell might linger.”
It’s like a conversation from a different life. They used to have this discussion when they moved in together before. When they looked at places, Iruka always considered where to place the living room table to make sure that the whole place wouldn’t constantly smell like soup. He made sure that Kakashi could sleep while he did schoolwork and that there was a space for all the visitors that kept inviting themselves over. Thanks to him, the place felt more comfortable than any other home Kakashi ever had after his father’s death.
It’s an outlook. Something tangible to hold onto.
He only realizes that he started laughing when Iruka throws him a worried look. “What?”
“Well,” he says. “I was just thinking that I’m really looking forward to eating sukiyaki.”
It’s just a small thing. A part of their lives that should be insignificant. But it happens then. Iruka smiles. Properly this time.
It will be fine. Things will be fine. Nothing is for certain and things might fall apart at any minute but there is a future.