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He wants his little spat with Kakashi to be water under the bridge. Long, long, long behind them. He's reluctant to admit it aloud — to anyone but himself in the late hours of the night, but he does miss the man's company. Though, maybe he was just excited to be able to share fond exasperation over Naruto with someone. No one else seems to get it the way he does, the way Kakashi does.
Or did. Maybe. There's a chance that Kakashi never really did get it. At least not the same way, the way that he wants Kakashi to get it. He thought, assumed it was the case, with how all the rumours and monikers making Hatake Kakashi different, othered from the crowd, but maybe he was just being delusional. Too stupidly hopeful. Just completely crazy, seeing things that weren't actually there. That weren't ever going to be there.
Desperate for connection with someone his own age.
Now anytime he catches sight of Jounin Hatake Kakashi in the village, seldom as it was even without Naruto forcing each other into orbit, their last exchange immediately comes to mind: the man's patronizing tone, all the words that had spewed off his tongue. It all becomes the sole occupation of Iruka's mind. That apathy towards his students could ignite anger in Iruka just by seeing Kakashi's face, he's certain. And so irritation floods through his veins, ready to have him erupt with indignant rage at the man's audacity once more.
To save himself the trouble, the shame, he flees; runs away before he's noticed, an utterly vain hope in a ninja village, some part of him knows Kakashi was acutely aware of his presence. But he also knows if Jounin Hatake Kakashi so much as steps within earshot, he'll likely say or do something he'll ultimately regret. It'd feel good at first, when the shame of insubordination isn't consuming him. And then maybe a bit later when he thinks about it. It'd probably feel so good to chew the man out. Regardless of whether Jounin Hatake Kakashi actually acknowledged his presence or not.
Because he had tried to apologize for his behaviour after the meeting. He wasn't… in the right to argue like that, completely out of line, speaking like that to a superior officer, and he knew that. He knew that very well. Hiruzen had taught him.
So it was only the shame of his inappropriate behaviour, the concept of disappointing Hiruzen, that had moved his feet in the direction of the jounin. Had him bowing at the hip, clearly announcing his apology for Hatake Kakashi to hear, "my behaviour earlier was out of line, forgive me, Jounin Hatake," he had said.
Typically, such formal apologies had the other party respond after a second or two just as formally, with as much respect.
Not jutsu themself away, avoid the interaction altogether.
Of course this only pissed him off more.
Not even Gai's optimistic and frankly pathetic excuses for Kakashi's behaviour could fix his deteriorating opinions of the man. How the old rumours were suddenly starting to make a great deal of sense. Cold blooded Kakashi? He was, that was certainly true. Friend-killer Kakashi? Well, Iruka worries his lip, he doesn't want to believe it, he knows it isn't true, but, with the man's disregard for Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke… there might be some form of truth in that one.
Two weeks after their little spat, Hatake Kakashi's voice is still bouncing around his head, mocking him for caring, for giving a rat's ass about a bunch of kids. So of course he's pained when he faces Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke after they pass the second exam. He's pained to find them confident about this direction their lives are going in. He's pained about how young they are.
He's proud, he is so damn proud of what they've accomplished.
Fuck .
But he can't help but to worry about what this means for their future. Naruto's only eleven, Sasuke's barely twelve while Sakura's been since graduation. They're way too young for this.
What he wouldn't do just so they wouldn't have to experience this for a couple more years. Or ever.
He thinks of Naruto, and the scar on his back suddenly feels fresh, and he knows he'd die for them, to protect them from this. "A parent's duty is to protect their children," his pa had told him… he might not actually be their family, certainly not their father, but… being their teacher counts for something, right?
Why the fuck doesn't Hatake Kakashi understand how they're too young to be experiencing this kind of thing.
He's their teacher too.
He listens to Inuzuka Kiba demand to know why they're even participating in the chunin exams and it guts him. Maybe he was wrong about thinking Kurenai-san was a perfect fit for Kiba if she hadn't even explained that much to them—
The rest of his graduates react to Kiba's question, he sees their little tells, and he knows for certain that none of them know the answer to the question. Neither Asuma nor Jounin Hatake Kakashi explained fuck all to the kids. They don't fucking know why they're experiencing this.
It takes all of his will to not act on the rage boiling in his veins and turn around and clobber the graduates' jounin instructors. Though Asuma and Kurenai-san are nothing in his peripheral: it's Jounin Hatake Kakashi who's the sole focus of his undivided attention. His fury.
He wonders if his control on his killing intent is slipping when Hiruzen spares a second to look at him pointedly.
After the speech, as everyone disperses to where they belong, Hiruzen catches him, doesn't say anything, just points off somewhere with his hat. Iruka follows the line of sight to find Jounin Hatake Kakashi standing with Team Seven. He's mildly startled to see that the man is already focused on him.
He looks away once Iruka's eyes are on him though. Pretends he hasn't even been looking, his stupid, awful, garbage reading material already posed to obscure what little of his face there was to see.
Iruka scoffs, indignant.
He wasn't going to try again so soon.
He leaves, much too angry to stop and wish Naruto or the rest of Team Seven good luck.
A month is an awfully long time to wait.
Wait for what, all the resolutions to everything he's worrying about. How Naruto's training with the Great Sanin Jiraiya went, how the boy's match in the third exam will fare, for summer break to finally end so he can get back to teaching, Jounin Hatake Kakashi's apology for ignoring his apology.
Thankfully, a few of those things coincide with another; Naruto's training will pay off with his match, and the third exam happens to be the same day the academy resumes classes. The other thing, he hadn't much expectation that it'd happen within his lifetime.
He'd apologized to Naruto that he couldn't see his match, and he had genuinely meant it from the bottom of his heart. He'd even teared up a little at the prospect of missing out.
The academy bell rings and he hears the distant cheers from the stadium through his open window. He frowns.
But he knows, ultimately, it's a blessing that he's forced to miss it. He knows seeing Naruto, Sasuke, Shikamaru and Shino fight in that arena will no doubt piss him off. And he's definitely going to do something he'd regret if he so much as caught sight of Jounin Hatake Kakashi's idiotic head.
He doesn't have a class until eleven, so he hides away in the prep room, sorting through things to keep himself busy. It doesn't work, not really, he's left the window open for fresh air and because he likes hearing the village. So he's also catching the crowd's unanimous shouts from the arena and getting reminded of it.
So he starts daydreaming about what he'd do if he ever got his hands on that jounin. Probably slam the man's face into the floor.
Oh, that'd be so nice.
Then he'd quickly restrain the man and start swinging him around and—
Hm. That's a stupid amount of blood to be coming out of his chest. He blearily blinks, it's, kinda gushing, torrenting from his body like a raging waterfall.
That can't be any good.
Probably an exaggeration. But. It's still not very good, all things considered.
Well, at least Konohamaru and Udon and Moegi were put back into safety before this. He'd probably feel much worse than he does now, hurting them like that.
He slowly looks up, and surveys his surroundings, it looks like his opponents are all dead. That was nice. Warm sorta nice. Like the blood warming up his cold fingers was nice.
One, two, five, ten, fifteen, ah, nineteen Sound and Suna shinobi trying to take him down. Foolish.
Don't they know teachers protect their students?
But. Well. He's pretty sure they ended up getting him too.
With all the really nice, pretty, warm blood coating his hands, drenching his clothes.
He's glad Naruto…
Naruto… where was Naruto?
Right. At the exam. He thinks he won his match. He's glad. He should tell him that.
He dabs his finger against his torso and smiles at how warm it feels, he's pretty cold, and writes in the dirt, "good job!" and hopes, prays, Naruto himself won't see it. That someone will relay that information to him without explaining that it was a last message written in his own blood. Maybe his enemy's blood. He's not so sure who's blood this is. Or maybe by some miracle, he'd get to say it himself and they wouldn't even need to acknowledge the words written in blood by his corpse.
That'd be so nice. Like how nice and warm the blood is.
But. There's too much of it not inside him. That's not very nice.
Naruto… he was safe. Because he was with Kakashi-sensei. Kakashi-sensei would protect him. He was his teacher. Teachers did that: protect their students.
Like how parents protect their kids.
How parents die doing it.
Kakashi hopefully wouldn't die doing it. He was strong.
Twenty. Twenty-two. Twenty-six.
Iruka wasn't that strong. He'd die doing it. Hell, he almost died doing it once before, for Naruto.
Strange. His back scar didn't ache remembering it.
Thirty. Thirty-three. Thirty-eight.
Kakashi… there was something else about Kakashi… oh. Right.
He needed to apologize. It wouldn't be very good to die without doing that much.
Forty-four. Forty-seven.
He writes "I'm sorry," in the dirt. It doesn't convey half of what he wants to say, he doesn't have the time or blood to write all that, but, hopefully Kakashi will acknowledge it. Accept it, even if Iruka wasn't there to witness it.