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Chapter Text

Kakashi woke up as the last remnants of a dream filled with laughing blue eyes faded away like a whisper. He was pleasantly warm all over. It felt as if an ocean of sunlight was inside of him, warm and encompassing. A bit like chakra, but so much of it that he expected it to burst out of him at any moment. He knew instantly that something was horribly wrong.

Kakashi groaned, shut his eyes against the morning light and dragged the duvet over his head. Morning could damn well wait until someone stopped making the world spin and his chakra was back to normal. It took some time for his sluggish brain to notice that something was very different. The pillow and duvet were both fluffier than he was used to. Secondly, and far more alarmingly, everything around him smelled faintly of Naruto. 

He stilled. Took a deep breath through his nose. Yep, that was Naruto’s scent alright. Sort of. It was a shadow of what it usually was: lacking a lot of the details he could normally smell and far fainter. Had Naruto visited in the middle of the night and then aired out his entire bedroom?

Kakashi peeked out from the covers and saw the familiar wallpaper that was not his own. Gingerly he sat up in Naruto’s bed in Naruto’s bedroom, vaguely aware of the duvet sliding down his bare chest. Why was he in Naruto's bed? Kakashi could swear that he'd fallen asleep on his bed with his pack around him. He felt no other presence in the apartment, and the sheets next to him were cold. Kakashi glanced down on his hands in his lap and saw one bandaged arm and one covered in tanned skin. Wait. Tanned? 

Kakashi raised his left hand and brought it to his face. That was not his hand. It was smaller and with shorter fingers than his own. It was also entirely without any scars or imperfections.

He looked down at flawless, golden skin over a toned six-pack. He knew that torso. He had spent many sparring sessions seeing hundreds of it at once.

Kakashi closed his eyes, drew on some chakra and then glanced down. Yep, that’s the seal alright.

"Fuck," the voice was not what he expected, but still almost familiar. 

Cursing under his breath, Kakashi got out of bed, Naruto’s bed, because he was in Naruto's body and this was a new way for his dreams to torment him, wasn’t it? He bit harshly into his thumb, felt the sting, and watched numbly how the blood barely had time to surge to the surface before the skin was already healed, leaving no mark. He cursed again. 

Then he closed his eyes, made the tiger seal, and focused on gathering a small fraction of the enormous sea of chakra eagerly rushing to his command. He took a deep breath and disrupted it. No dice. His sense of smell was just as dulled as before and as he opened his eyes he was still in Naruto's apartment. His right arm, Naruto’s right arm, tingled and felt heavier than his other one. Had it been a bad idea to sleep with the bandages wrapped around the prosthetic? Though presumably, he’d woken up like how Naruto went to bed which meant he’d fallen asleep without removing the arm. Kakashi had never thought to ask if the younger man slept with the arm on or not.

His mind was screaming at him because no, this was not a dream. Kakashi was actually in Naruto’s body and he couldn’t sense Naruto in there with him. This wasn’t something like a Yamanaka mind sharing jutsu. Where was Naruto? Was he alright? Was he in Kakashi’s body? There were so many things wrong with that thought. The primary thing was the idea of someone like Naruto trapped in his own scarred and weary body just seemed wrong. Naruto should not have any scars, especially not the ones on Kakashi’s right arm after thrusting his hand over and over through a torso, the shattered ribs cutting into his wrist.

"Naruto?" A female voice asked from the window. A glance towards it revealed ANBU Cat on the window sill. The feline mask revealed nothing, but the unerring focus made Kakashi very aware of how he'd left Naruto's body in only a pair of blue boxer shorts. They had tiny spirals on them. Orange, of course. 

"Eh… Yes?" Thankfully Naruto was not known for his composure so Kakashi could freak out a bit without that seeming out of character.

"I sensed a large chakra disturbance," there was both genuine concern and affection in Nagata Yui's voice and it left Kakashi feeling a bit disconcerted. Why would one of Kakashi’s ANBU know Naruto? "Is everything alright?"

Of course. A small fraction of Naruto's chakra would still be a ridiculous amount to a sensor type actively monitoring the area.

He rubbed the silky smooth nape of his neck and closed his eyes and laughed sheepishly. 

"Sorry, sorry," he said, doing his best to imitate Naruto's way of speaking. "I was just trying something Kakashi-sensei taught me!"

"I'm sure Hokage-sama didn't tell you to use enough chakra to blow up the moon," a hint of gentle teasing was there, clearly affectionate. Kakashi tried to recognise the chakra signature in an attempt to get used to his situation, but reaching out with Naruto's chakra made everything so very bright and loud. It was hard to get a read on the ANBU when he could sense countless chakra signatures, blending into a confusing mish-mash of natures. He sniffed the air, but Naruto’s nose was nowhere near as sensitive as his own. He could barely smell anything. And he wasn't used enough to Naruto's chakra reserves to safely channel some to his nose to increase his sense of smell. He didn't want to accidentally blow up Naruto's face.

"Speaking of Hokage-sama, we found a note saying that we wouldn’t be able to find him before noon today,” she said with a shrug. “Something about testing his new guards. They’ve been looking for an hour. Then Shikamaru-san said to find you.”

Honestly, if his guards couldn’t think of the most obvious solution without Shikamaru’s help he should mess with them far more often.

"Heh, I’ll find him for you!"

With a bow and a quick hand seal, the woman was gone. 

Given that Kakashi had peacefully gone to bed in his own room and woken up in the wrong body with no village-wide alarm, it seemed safe to assume it was not a widespread thing. The working hypothesis had to be that Naruto and he had swapped bodies for some reason. There were both jutsus and seals that could result in similar effects so it was hardly that farfetched. Any other possibility could not be considered before he saw proof of it. Naruto was not-

No. 

Kakashi looked around the bedroom for Naruto’s clothes so he could get dressed and, most assuredly, meet up with Naruto in Kakashi’s own apartment where he had planned to have a bit of a lie-in. It was gratifying to know that the genjutsu he had placed had been effective at keeping people from discovering him in his bedroom. It meant that no one would disturb them.

While Naruto was hardly a slob these days, he still tended to forget the importance of cleaning up after himself to Sakura’s everlasting despair. His pants, mesh shirt and jacket had all been thrown over a nearby chair. He had just gotten dressed as he felt his, no Naruto's, bladder making itself known.

He glanced towards the hallway where he knew Naruto's bathroom was. There was no helping it.

While Kakashi believed in taking responsibility for one’s past mistakes, he could not figure out which sin in his bloodstained past had made him deserve this specific torment. He looked at the toilet bowl, which seemed to mock him in its porcelain perfection. At least Naruto kept a sparkling clean bathroom. 

No ninja had ever created a jutsu which would remove the need to urinate. Normally this was not something Kakashi ever thought about. This specific day he cursed every single enemy ninja whose technique he had ever copied for not being more utilitarian. 

As he sat down he hoped dearly that the problem would be resolved before he needed to take a shower. He was not sure he’d be able to deal with such intimate knowledge of Naruto's skin. Wet, glistening and smooth underneath his hands. 

Kakashi shook his head in disgust. He had to get a grip. Naruto was not his to touch. Would never be his, period.

Afterwards, as he went to the sink to wash his hands he made the mistake of looking into it before brushing his teeth. He sagged against the sink as he saw Naruto's face looking back at him. Kakashi was not ready for this. Not at all. He glanced up again and blinked at the vision of whiskered cheeks, blue eyes and golden lashes from a closer distance than he was used to. This close he could make out the individual eyelashes and see that Naruto didn’t have a single clogged pore or tiny scar. The only thing marking his face were those familiar whiskers. Absentmindedly he reached up with his left hand to stroke one perfect cheekbone. 

The skin was incredibly sensitive. It was silky smooth. Of course it was, as expected of skin that always healed perfectly. Kakashi started to realise just how bad this situation was.

Oh, what do we have here? A wolf in fox's clothing?

Wait. He knew that voice and silently changed his assessment and realised he had been wrong before. The situation was much, much worse.

“Kyūbi?” He murmured, feeling a bit silly for talking aloud. 

Come here, Kakashi-brat. Let’s talk face to face.

"I don't know how."

With a strange sensation - something that felt a bit like being tickled, a bit like falling and mostly like his mind was touched by a swipe of fire and fur - he was suddenly somewhere else, in his own familiar body. The world looked and felt normal, even if the world was no longer Naruto’s bathroom but a large, shadowed room. Though rather than Naruto’s familiar face he was staring up-up-up at a humongous nine-tailed fox, with glowing red eyes and teeth larger than Kakashi flashed in a grin.

No bars separated them, no seal kept the fox away. A shudder went through Kakashi at the huge mass of chakra surrounding him. It felt different than during the war. This was not softened by Naruto's chakra.

“Kakashi… This is a surprise.”

“It is indeed, Kyūbi-sama.”

The huge fox huffed in amusement and lowered its head so it was right next to Kakashi. The teeth were even more impressive from right up close. Still, this was Naruto’s dear friend who Naruto had missed when they'd been separated and who had allied with Konoha. Kakashi was safe. He knew that on an intellectual, if not instinctive,  level and he forced himself to relax.

“Now that’s a level of respect I’ve never heard from any of my vessels before,” the Kyūbi said, and the puff of air from its mouth felt like sitting just a bit too close to a campfire. “If only my current one could show me that.”

Kakashi imagined for a second hearing Naruto call anyone or anything with the honorific sama and couldn’t help but snort. 

“Speaking of Naruto, Kyūbi-sama...”

“Currently in your body,” the fox replied with what looked like a shrug. “Sleeping soundly.”

Kakashi sat down on the ground in front of Kurama when his legs gave in to his relief. 

Then he realised he had a lot to learn about the connection between a tailed beast and its host. "You're still connected?"

"He's my Jinchūriki, even if you're renting his body right now," the fox said. “And call me Kurama. I’m currently in your stomach. Or well, we’re both in the interesting situation of being inside Naruto. No need for formalities.”

That only left him with more questions. "I have to admit that I don't know what that means, Kurama."

"You'll learn."

“I see,” Kakashi said and smiled up at the fox. “You don’t happen to know what happened?”

“That former Hokage of yours sent Naruto a letter with a seal formula that he was testing out yesterday evening,” Kurama said and gestured with his tails. “It should be on his desk."

“Did Naruto do anything wrong when working on the seal?"

"I might have been sealed by sealing masters and into masters, but the knowledge doesn't transfer like that," Kurama said with a grin, or a grimace, the fangs made it hard to tell. "The effect of the seal was meant to last for only a few days though, according to the idiot. So you're probably in luck with it not being permanent."

"Ah, that's a relief," Kakashi said and prepared himself for waving goodbye to his sanity. A few days in Naruto's body was far more than he was ready to deal with. Speaking of dealing with it… "Kurama, would you be able to hold on to some Naruto's chakra for me? I'm not used to his reserves."

"Heh, I noticed that. What were you trying to do?"

He rubbed the back of his neck and winced. "Dispel an illusion."

Kurama snorted, and the puff of air was like entering a sauna, before giving in to laughter. "That'd be some illusion, kid." 

Kakashi opened his mouth to comment on the nickname. Then realised that he was talking to a creature around a millennium old. 

The fox stopped laughing at him to nod and smile in a way that was, perhaps, meant to look reassuring. "Sure, I'll grab some of his chakra. I'll let it filter back into your system as you're getting used to it. Maybe a third of it at a time? You managed well enough with a boost during the war."

"Thank you, Kurama."

The fox tilted its great big head. This time it was clear that the flashing fangs meant a smile. "You are a strange human, Hatake Kakashi."

Kakashi blinked at that. "Oh?"

"Few humans would willingly offer a tailed beast more power. Especially if it's their own. You could level nations as you are now."

"It's not my power to use,” he said, shrugging. “And you can safeguard it more safely."

"Who the power belongs to rarely matters in my experience."

Kakashi bowed his head, conceding the point.

Kurama lifted his head and looked at something Kakashi couldn't see.

"What is it?"

"Naruto is about to wake up, you might want to be there when he does."

"Ah, yes," Kakashi answered, looking up at the creature. He felt reluctant to leave this mindscape. The perspective of something, someone, like Kurama would be invaluable to learn from. This was a being that considered the Sage a father and who had been there during the foundation of Konoha. The amount of knowledge he must hold was staggering.

Kurama lifted a furry eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Would you mind talking more later?"

There was a flash of something unreadable in those great glowing eyes. The fox got up on his haunches and stretched up and up. Then a huge clawed hand reached down in a fist and held it out in offer.

Kakashi reached out and tapped his own fist against Kurama's furry knuckle. The fur was silky smooth and rippled like water. It was beautiful. Last time he had seen this creature in full, his village was falling underneath mighty claws. And now, thanks to Kurama’s bond with Naruto, Kakashi could get close enough to touch. If Mito-sama or Kushina had managed the same, maybe Konoha would never have been attacked. It was a sobering thought.

"Sure, we'll talk. Think of where you were before I pulled you in here. Imagine being back in Naruto's body, rather than yours. It'll take you back."

And with that Kurama lied down again, curled up, covering his head with his great fluffy tails.

Kakashi smiled at the sight. Then he thought of the sights and muted smells of Naruto's apartment. The cold, hard sensation of porcelain against his hands. The scratch of bandages against his arm.

Kakashi opened his eyes and was met with cerulean rather than dark grey. He blinked. Took in the soft, intimate smile on Naruto's face and couldn't help imagining it turned on himself, but for real. The whiskered cheeks blushed prettily as he felt his cheeks heat up. He bit his lip to focus and regretted the decision as soon as he saw it in the mirror.

"Get a grip, Hatake."

He brushed his teeth and made sure to look into the mirror while doing so. No one looked at their best when brushing their teeth or gurgling their spit. Naruto’s face stared back at him, wide eyes looking at him over bulging cheeks, stretching the whisker marks. It was kind of adorable. Kakashi stared into the mirror and warm, blue eyes and told himself he was, in fact, a grown man and an elite ninja who had survived two wars rather than a blushing civilian with his first crush. So what if he’d never been in love before Naruto had crawled under his skin and nestled like a stubborn burr in his heart? He could deal with this. 

How hard could it be?

Chapter Text

Rather than staying in front of the mirror and pining for the impossible, he grabbed the sealing scroll from Naruto's desk and Shunshin’d into the Hokage manor and his own bedroom. And there, curled underneath dark blue blankets slept the body of Hatake Kakashi, surrounded by eight dogs.

Kakashi looked down at his own body and considered whether or not he should transform into himself before waking Naruto. Then again, Naruto would then wake up in Kakashi’s apartment and see his old sensei standing there. There was no way he’d react well to that. And the blond was used to his own clones. Maybe he wouldn’t find it too strange to wake up to himself? Kakashi shook his head in amusement at the thought. This whole situation was surreal and yet he was getting used to it. 

As he walked closer his pack woke up.

Ūhei looked at him. “Naruto? What are you doing here?”

Akino frowned at him. “Is Boss needed?” 

“He needs sleep,” said Pakkun, curling closer to his summoner’s head on the pillow. “The fool overworked himself again.”

“Hello Naruto!” said Bisuke and leapt into his arms, tail wagging.

Kakashi smiled, scratching his dog under the furry chin just like Bisuke liked it. “Oh, I know I needed rest. It’s me, guys.”

Shiba cocked his head in confusion. “Boss? What happened?”

“Some seal, apparently," he said, patting the pouch where he'd put the scroll. "I need to look at it later. For now, I’m in Naruto’s body and he’s in mine.”

They snickered at him and ignored his glare entirely. 

“You poor bastard,” said Pakkun, teeth bared in a canine grin. Kakashi resolved not to give him treats for a week after he was back in his own body.

“Oh, haha, laugh it up.”

“You look cute with that glare, boss,” Urushi snickered, ears perked up in happiness. “Like a kitten.”

Kakashi sighed at his dogs’ obvious entertainment and went to wake up Naruto. He reached out to shake Naruto’s shoulder and had his hand promptly slapped away.

“Go away,” said the voice of Hatake Kakashi in a whine. Kakashi blinked. He’d never heard his own voice sound like that before.

“Naruto,” he poked his own nose this time, saw it twitch. “Wake up.”

Two dark eyes opened, glaring. Then they blinked. “I didn’t make any clones before going to bed.”

“I’m not a clone.”

Kakashi leaned back as Naruto sat up. Then he laughed as Naruto promptly covered his masked nose with his hands.

“What is-? It smells so much!”

“Welcome to my nose, Naruto.”

“Your nose?”

It was still off-putting to see his own face look at him in shock, knowing the cause for the expressive faces was Naruto. Naruto in his own body. Okay, no, he was not over that part yet.

“Wait, this isn’t my apartment. This is Kakashi-sensei’s place,” he looked down at the smiling ninken surrounding him. “And that’s his pack. Hey, guys. What am I doing here?”

“Look at your right hand, kid,” said Pakkun.

The mouth of Hatake Kakashi, Rokudaime Hokage of Konoha, opened in a scream.

“That’s not my hand,” Naruto said with a glance down at Kakashi’s torso. “This isn’t my body. Kakashi-?”

“Yes,” Kakashi said with a smile and sat down on his own bed, still holding Bisuke.

“Sensei?!”

Kakashi nodded. “We’ve swapped bodies.”

“What the- how!?”

Kakashi shrugged. Naruto swore. Loudly. Since he still clutched his own nose the explosive language was very nasal. Kakashi smirked at seeing his own body act in such an undignified manner. 

“Kakashi-sensei…”

“Yes, Naruto?” He replied, putting Bisuke down on the floor with a final scratch.

Naruto looked a bit pale, well paler than Kakashi usually was, as he grimaced. “How do you deal with all these scents all the time?”

“Same way you deal with not smelling anything,” he said, shrugging. “The world seems so flat when you can’t smell.”

“I can totally smell!”

Kakashi lifted a blond brow. 

“Oh, shut up, sensei,” Naruto said and the mask stretched as if he was attempting to stick out his tongue. "I can smell like a normal human."

“I didn’t say anything. Now breathe through your mouth. It'll help. I also have some peppermint oil you can use underneath your nose to block out most smells.”

Naruto lowered his hands. “Where do you have the oil?”

Kakashi went over to his desk and opened the bottom drawer. There, at the back beneath some old folders, a slightly dusty glass flask clinked against a pair of dulled practice kunai fit for a toddler. It had been ages since he’d needed the help to focus through overwhelming scents. He grabbed it and tossed it to Naruto who caught it without any trouble. It was reassuring to see that heir reflexes weren’t affected that much by the change. 

“There you go, perfume for you, you big baby.”

Naruto glared at him and pocketed the flask. Kakashi smiled at the predictable defiance. Certain things didn’t change with age. 

“Maa, no need to frown like that. You’ll give me wrinkles.”

Naruto snorted. “As if! You’ve not aged a day since I met you.”

“My old, aching joints would disagree with you,” he said, doing his best to look the very picture of misery and taking good advantage of Naruto’s blue eyes. “I’m old and deserve retirement.”

“Old? At 33?”

“It’s been thirty years since I joined the academy,” Kakashi sighed mournfully. “After almost three decades of active duty, I am ancient in Shinobi years.”

“That a bit like dog years?”

“Yes, indeed,” Kakashi said, nodding sagely. “Now, are you getting up? You’ll have to get used to that nose of mine at some point. Just like I’ll have to get used to having frankly disturbing amounts of chakra.”

At that, Naruto blinked. “Did you meet with Kurama yet?”

“Yes, pretty much as soon as I woke up.”

“Heh, sorry about that, sensei,” Naruto said, rubbing the back of his neck with a flustered grin. “It must be a bit confusing to share your body with someone else.”

“It’s alright, he was quite cordial,” Kakashi said, and wondered if he should react more strongly to having had a pleasant enough conversation with the nine-tailed fox. “ And agreed to help me get used to things.”

Naruto grinned. “He likes you so I’m not surprised.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t have given you his chakra during the war if he didn’t. He was stingier early on.”

“Understandable, perhaps.”

His own face softened as Naruto smiled at him. “And you wonder why he’d like you.”

“Hm?”

“Well, y’know, humans weren’t great to him,” Naruto said with a look that was hard to decipher through the mask. Kakashi began to understand why his cute little gremlins had attempted to see under it during the early days. “You talked to him during the war.”

“Acknowledgement, right?”

Kakashi looked on as Naruto plucked at Kakashi’s sheets, avoiding his eyes. He was frowning underneath the mask.

“It feels good when people notice. Less lonely.”

“Ah, I see,” Kakashi said. Then he got up from his bed and held out his left hand out for Naruto to grasp. “And it must be lonely to suddenly be alone.”

Naruto’s smile wobbled a bit as he grasped the hand in his and allowed himself to get pulled out of bed. “I was without the cranky bastard for a while during the War. I’ll be fine.”

Kakashi hummed. “It’ll be strange for both of us.”

“Yeah…” Naruto said, looking down at his hands again and flexing his fingers. “It feels weird to have two flesh and blood arms again. I have to get readjusted. Again.”

“In the meantime, get dressed,” Kakashi said and leaned against his bedside table. “The Hokage can’t sit in his office in his pyjamas.”

“I’m pretty sure you can do whatever you want.”

Kakashi smiled. “True. But some traditions should be honoured.”

Naruto went to Kakashi’s drawers and pulled out neatly folded clothes. He glanced up at Kakashi, hesitant. “Eh…”

“Maa, it’s literally nothing I haven’t seen before,” Kakashi said, wagging his eyebrows. “Given it’s my own body."

The pale cheeks turned pink. Really, that mask hid nothing.

"It's just weird when it's not my own, y’know?" Naruto muttered but pulled off his shirt.

Kakashi decided to not put too much thought into if Naruto checked out Kakashi’s torso or not. That way insanity lied. "I'll make sure to come to watch you get dressed as soon as we swap back and we can see if it's more or less weird."

"Pervert."

Watching his own body strip down to his underwear while knowing it was Naruto was strange. It felt intimate. Private. He could almost imagine that he was looking at Naruto because of the mannerisms. As Naruto removed his boxer briefs, Kakashi glanced over and noted that the scar just below his right ass cheek had healed nicely. Summoning a clone for the stitches had almost killed him from chakra exhaustion. At least he’d managed a clean enough job for the scar to look a lot better than the old one he had on his back. 

Once Naruto was dressed in Kakashi's standard attire he looked at his sensei with a slightly lost look in his eyes."Now what?"

"Breakfast, then my office,” Kakashi replied with a wide grin. “I, well you, have work to do”

“What?”

“You, my dear Hokage-sama, have paperwork to deal with,” he said, delighting in the horror that crept across Naruto’s face.

“But- I’m not the-”

“You’re in the body of the Hokage,” he interrupted gleefully. “My ANBU would get suspicious if they noticed Uzumaki Naruto under a henge. No, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to be me for the duration of this little mishap. And this includes my paperwork.”

Dark eyes narrowed at him. This was a look he was familiar with. “You’re taking advantage of this to get rid of paperwork, aren’t you?”

“View it as great training for when you’re Hokage!”

“If you buy me ramen for lunch,” Naruto said, arms crossed and pouting.

“You realise that your taste buds are different now?”

“No matter what, I’ll always love Ichiraku,” his former student replied with a shrug.

“Fair enough. You do my paperwork while in my body, and I’ll buy you lunch each day.”

“Let’s go!”

And with that uncharacteristic exclamation, Hatake Kakashi was skipping on his way into his own kitchen, his normally energetic student close on his heels with an uncharacteristic slouch.

Kakashi was starving, something that was rare for him in the morning. It was clear that Naruto needed more food than he was used to. It shouldn’t be a surprise after seeing him eat ramen. Still, that meant he needed to cook a richer breakfast than just his normal miso soup. He grabbed some rice from a cupboard and started boiling some water.

"Rice, miso soup and eggs fine?"

"Sure, sensei," Naruto said, sitting down by the kitchen table and pulling down the mask covering his face. "Oh, I'll finally learn what you look like! I just need to find a mirror!"

And with that he poked his face, tracing the line of Kakashi's nose and jaw. 

"Maa, you will at that," Kakashi said, doing his best not to think about how he had imagined Naruto seeing his face for the first time. It had been a recurring theme in fond daydreams for a year or so now. Blushing face and soft, spit-slicked lips and blue, blue eyes fluttering open after their first kiss. That would never happen now. Not that it had ever been particularly likely, given the many reasons why Naruto should and could find someone infinitely better for him than his old former sensei. 

He looked at his own face and chuckled at the sight of Naruto poking at his teeth. There was no denying who was inhabiting his body in the face of that satisfied grin. Still, he had to ask. "What are you doing?"

"Well, we didn't know why you were covering your face;” Naruto said, around his fingers. “We thought it might be something strange. But your face seems normal. You don't even have proper fangs, just sharp teeth and canines."

Kakashi furrowed his brow at that. "Why would I have fangs?"

"You know, the dog thing," Naruto replied as if that was an obvious connection.

"I didn't realise that you had warts from summoning toads,” Kakashi retorted, gesturing at his crotch. ”That'll be a fun surprise later."

Naruto removed the hand to give him the finger.

Kakashi smiled and pulled out plates and glasses. Then he poured rice into one pot of boiling water and miso paste into the other.

His own body came over, grabbing the tableware and started to set the table. "If you don't have a strange nose-"

"You'd see that through the mask," he interjected, and stirred the soup.

"- or really thick lips-" Naruto continued, a bit louder.

"While black is slimming it's not that slimming."

-"or some nasty scarring from when you got burning oil on your nose a kid..." his own face looked at him with a needling smile. 

"I'm not that vain or that clumsy," Kakashi commented, laughing at the memory of Gai challenging him to a cooking competition a few years back. They’d both gotten some hot oil on their hands, but that was nothing to a pair of shinobi trying to fry the perfect squid.

Silver hair flopped to one side as Naruto tilted his head in confusion and frowned. "Then why do you wear your mask?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I just like it."

Naruto scrunched up his nose at him. “That’s it?”

“Yeah,” he said before his stomach rumbled. He laughed and opened the fridge to pull out some eggs.

As they were frying in a pan, he glanced over his shoulder at Naruto to catch his attention. 

"Can I ask for one favour?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't run around the village without the mask, please," Kakashi said, looking down at the eggs again. They were done so he moved them off the stove and poked a bit at the rice.

"Of course not!" Naruto exclaimed with a louder voice than Kakashi expected. He turned around to see his pale face flushed. "You know how many times I've tried to see what you look like, sensei? No way I'll let everyone know that easily! Your face is mine!"

At that Kakashi took a deep breath before straightening up and turning around with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. 

Naruto blinked at him, confused. "What?"

"My face is yours, huh?"

Kakashi didn't even know he could blush like that. 

"Shut up, not like that!"

"If you say so," Kakashi replied, going up on his toes to pull out some teacups from the top cabinet. "Want some black tea?"

"Sure. Want me to start on the tea?" 

At Kakashi’s nod, Naruto stepped up and started the kettle. Then he looked through the cabinets to find the tea. As he pulled down the jar he sniffed the lid.

“Your nose is amazing, sensei! Everything smells so much!” Naruto said, putting the jar down on the counter and walking over to Kakashi, sniffing the air again. “Is that how I smell?”

“Surely you know your own scent?”

“Not like this,” Naruto said, smelling his own body. Kakashi leaned back when his own face nudged into his shoulder. “Huh, that’s strong. Do I stink to you? Does everyone smell this much?”

Kakashi thought of a smell that was a mix of summer rain, miso and citrus. It was hardly one he’d call unpleasant. “I’m used to using my nose to gather information about people. Where they are, their moods and if they’re injured.”

“Their moods?”

“Humans release pheromones depending on mood. Certain hormones are released too. So anger, fear, disgust and arousal are all easy enough to pick up. Same if someone is sick.”

“So I’m about to know far more about people than I should?”

“Well, pretty much,” Kakashi said, rubbing his nose and frowning at how he got nothing. “Once you get used to identifying what different smells mean, at least.”

“Awesome!”

“It’ll be distracting at first,” Kakashi said. “That oil I gave you will be useful. I had to use it before I joined the academy.”

Naruto looked at him and smiled. “So what, when you were three? I should be able to deal with it now.”

“Maa, it’s not about our respective ages but about how you’re not used to filtering out countless of different scents. While my brain will do some of it automatically, I’m sure, your mind is not used to it and you’ll notice strong scents at inopportune moments. Do you really want to make a fool of yourself by accidentally figuring out people’s private business?”

He grinned at the way Naruto grimaced in disgust. “You can smell if people have had- if they-?

“If they’ve had sex, yes,” he smirked. “And with who.”

Naruto furiously shook his head. "I don't want to know that!"

"Then don't memorise people's scents," Kakashi replied, pouring soup for them both. Then he went over to the fridge and pulled out the beef cuts he’d prepared the night before and added them to the many dog bowls placed along the window wall.

Naruto grabbed the rice and eggs and plated that too. He placed the majority of the rice and eggs on one plate and gave that to Kakashi.  

"Thanks for the food!"

Kakashi dug into the food and took a moment to analyse how different food tasted with a much weaker sense of smell. Naruto's taste buds were sensitive enough to still give the food an interesting flavour, but it was strange to eat something when he couldn't identify each individual ingredient in the miso paste. 

Still, as Naruto was happily chattering and his ninken made their way into the kitchen for their own meal, he found that it was the most pleasant breakfast he’d had in a long time.

Chapter Text

Kakashi glanced, again, at the locked door to his own bathroom and considered the repair costs if he just broke it down. Thanks to his newly acquired fancy hat, as Tsunade had put it, he could just order Tenzo to repair it so it was tempting. Naruto had entered his bathroom a few minutes ago and he heard no sounds from it at all. No running tap, no toilet lid being lifted and no sound of a toothbrush brushing against teeth. What was the young man doing in there?

He knocked. “Naruto?”

No response.

He knocked a bit louder. “Are you still in there or did you jump out of the window to run away and show Sakura my face? If you did, no ramen for you.”

“Mmm, what?” That was his own voice, finally. Of course, Naruto would react to a threat against his precious ramen.

“Are you alright in there, Naruto? It shouldn’t take that long to brush your teeth.”

“Oh!”

The running of tap water was heard and then the sounds of a toothbrush brushing against teeth and gurgling. Kakashi shook his head and waited in the hallway for his companion. 

A bit later Naruto exited the bathroom, mask in place, but with pink dusting Kakashi’s cheekbones. Despite the blush, pale eyebrows were drawn down into a determined frown.

Kakashi looked at his body and felt a strong sense of foreboding. Naruto was like a dog with a juicy bone whenever he latched onto an idea. A whirlpool, dragging everyone and everything with him.

_____

As they arrived in the Hokage office the ANBU guards appeared quickly enough to bow towards Naruto before they melted back into the shadows.

“Eh?” Naruto exclaimed, before looking at Kakashi with his eyes wide in confusion.

“They’re not going to stick around and guard their Hokage as he’s dealing with paperwork if he’s guarded by the Hero of the Shinobi world, Naruto,” Kakashi said, patting Naruto’s shoulder. “That’s an incredible waste of their time if they can train instead.”

Naruto blushed at that. “I was hardly doing it all on my own.”

Kakashi looked at him incredulously but chose not to say anything. Naruto was still strangely humble about his contribution during the war and seemed to not understand why people now adored and, in some cases, worshipped him. Kakashi had seen many a woman and man in Konoha look at Naruto with a far too familiar look of want. 

The Hero of the World went up to the desk and then glanced in Kakashi’s direction. The uncertainty was strange to see knowing that the mind inside his body was Naruto’s. Hesitation and Naruto went together like oil and water. The knucklehead should always charge ahead, sure of his convictions and ready to change the world if that’s what it took to get others to agree with him.

Kakashi sat down on a nearby chair and looked on in amusement as Naruto picked up the first document with a frown and twirled around in Kakashi’s chair as he read it aloud. “A request to publicly reveal the identity of the former ROOT members?”

“Ah, that one,” Kakashi replied. “It’s been brought up before. Tsunade and I discussed it yesterday before she went on that trip.”

“What did you decide on?” Naruto asked, putting down his feet to stop the rotation of his chair. 

“Now, now, let’s hear what you’d do, Hokage-sama.”

Naruto leaned back in the chair and twirled it back and forth a few times, humming. “They were loyal to Konoha, even if it was not our Konoha. They were never enemies or traitors-”

“A ROOT agent was once tasked with assassinating the Third,” Kakashi interjected to give the acting Hokage all of the relevant information.

“What?!”

“Mmm,” Kakashi said, nodding. “It was shortly after your birth.”

Naruto looked at him with wide eyes. “How do you know that?”

Kakashi just looked at him and smiled while thinking back to that day.

“Sensei?”

“Danzō came to me shortly after Minato-sensei and Kushina died,” Kakashi answered, not knowing how else to start. “I was… I was not in the best state of mind.”

Naruto said nothing but walked around the desk to perch on it, facing Kakashi and sat there, silent and still.

“It’s not something I’m proud of,” Kakashi said, looking at his hands. “I was standing by the memorial stone and Danzō… He knew exactly what to say to a lost boy who was so very, very angry. He suggested that it was Sandaime's ideals that had caused the war to drag on. And he reminded me that I was kept away from the fighting when the Kyūbi attacked. And, of course, he insinuated that it’d been planned to grab back power. I can’t say if I believed it entirely, but I did resent Sandaime.”

“What happened then?” Naruto asked when Kakashi had gone quiet for a while.

“I broke into Sandaime’s library to read up on Wood Release,” Kakashi continued, thinking back to a dark office and a betrayal. “Sandaime found me with a classified folder in my hand. He told me everything. He told me about experiments on children to give them Wood Release to combat the Kyūbi. He told me about how they all failed. So many volunteers died. But there had been children that had gone missing. He suggested that they had been experimented on.”

“That’s how Yamato-taicho got his Wood Release, right?”

Kakashi nodded. “Exactly. I infiltrated ROOT to learn more. Which is how I properly met Tenzō. I had proof that Danzō had kept someone with Wood Release hidden the entire time. I realised, of course, that a ten-year-old wouldn’t have been able to stop the Kyūbi. Danzō had kept the existence of a safeguard from Konoha. Once I learnt of the plot it was easy enough to stop it.”

“You told the old man?” Naruto asked, looking down at the form in his hands.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked me to be his right-hand man,” Kakashi replied with a shrug and a smile. “And so I was, for eight years. Until he ordered me out of ANBU after the Uchiha massacre.”

“How long had you been in ANBU at that point?”

“A bit more than a decade,” Kakashi replied, thinking back through the haze of mission after mission. “I joined on your father’s orders.”

“So you know how ROOT think, sensei.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding and moving over to his desk to pull out a folder with the names of the former ROOT agents. He held it out to Naruto, who shook his head. Kakashi smiled in approval and put it away. “Sai recommended that they all turn to me after Danzō’s death. Since at that point they had me slotted as Tsunade’s replacement if she didn’t wake up from her coma. It was a relief when she woke up, to be honest.”

“You’d have done a great job at that point, sensei!” Naruto said. “Just as you’re awesome now.”

“I haven’t done that much,” Kakashi demurred. “Tsunade started a lot of it. I just continued where she left off.”

“You’ve been focusing a lot on developing the village, don’t lie,” Naruto said, smiling at him. “Iruka-sensei told me last week all about the academy reform you have started. He was really excited about it. Something with more chakra control earlier? Tree and water walking? And basic medic jutsu?”

“Ah, yes.”

“That’s great, sensei! Tsunade-baa-chan and Sakura-chan must be over the moon as well. We need more medics.”

“We do indeed,” Kakashi said, handing him the latest request for more hospital funding. “But enough about me, what would you do about our former ROOT members?”

“If Sai is anything to judge by, they need to get back to normal people and learn how to socialise…” Naruto said, after glancing down at the photo of Team Seven on Kakashi's desk. "And normal people would be uncomfortable knowing that the people they’re getting to know used to be loyal to Danzō. I think it’s best for the village to not tell everyone. The former ROOT agents have a right to be themselves and be recognised for their actions, not their past. They were only kids when recruited.”

Kakashi nodded. “That’s how Tsunade-sama and I reasoned as well. Well done.”

Naruto smiled and rubbed his neck. “Thanks, sensei!”

"Now, on to the next document," Kakashi said and nudged at Naruto to get him to sit down by the desk. 

Naruto picked up a folder tied together with an orange string and Kakashi stilled, waiting for the explosion.

"What the hell?" The Hokage exclaimed, holding the thick folder up to the light. "Why do you have a Naruto folder?"

Kakashi laughed. "Open it."

And Naruto would erupt in three, two, one: "Marriage?!"

"You are a political figure now, Saviour of the World," Kakashi dragged out the title to make Naruto blush. "Of course you'd be an attractive prospect for any wealthy lord wanting to marry off his daughter."

"But- I-"

Kakashi walked over to his student and leaned against the desk with a smile. He patted a tense shoulder and picked up one of the letters. "Here's one for an inter-village marriage with Iwa to further our bonds after the war."

Naruto banged his head into the desk and refused to budge.

"Maa, careful with my face. I don't heal as easily as you."

"You're not helping, sensei," came the muffled complaint, as silver hair swayed back and forth. “There’s a folder of marriage proposals for me at your desk.”

"Now, now, a Hokage should act with more decorum, Naruto."

Kakashi looked down at the grey hair and knew what would make Naruto look up again. He reached for the folder and pulled out the envelope that Kakashi had hid in the bottom of the pile yesterday when he received it.

"Here's an interesting one…"

There was a muttered curse. A gloved hand crept up to give Kakashi the finger.

"Someone is offering his firstborn-"

Naruto turned his head to glare at him, before burrowing his face in his arms. "What's special about that? I saw three similar offers before I gave up."

"Ah,” Kakashi exclaimed, brandishing the letter written on the finest paper available in the Land of Fire. The lettering was gilded by the most delicate of inlays. “But you see, this child isn't even born."

That did it. Naruto sat up and pulled open the third drawer in the desk, swiped a finger around the edges and opened a secret hatch. A sake bottle and two cups were pulled out.

"I know I'm only nineteen, but I'm in the body of a man in his 30's," Naruto said with something dark in his eyes. "And I need a drink after that."

"Ah, so that's where she hid it," Kakashi said, doing his best to stop himself from laughing at Naruto’s suffering.

"You didn't find it yet, sensei?" Naruto said, and held out his treasure. 

"I've been Hokage for a few weeks, Naruto," Kakashi replied and took the flask and glasses to pour them both sake. "I didn't focus on finding Tsunade-sama's secret stash on my first few days."

They knocked their glasses together and drank their sake in silence.

"Not even born,” Naruto said, shaking his head in befuddlement. “What is the father thinking?"

"That you're a good, powerful match," Kakashi replied with a grin. “Get used to it.”

"It's not even the age difference,” his former student muttered. “Had I been 40 and she'd been 20, then she's at least an adult in every single way, even by civilian standards. But marrying off someone who isn't even born yet? Giving them no freedom at all?"

"Not conceived, in fact."

Naruto whipped his head around at that. "What?"

"The lord and his lady-to-be are yet to be wed," Kakashi said, pointing to the relevant paragraph in the long, effusive letter.

"Sensei," Naruto whined, looking at him with puppy dog eyes that would have been far more effective had they been in their respective bodies. Looking at yourself pouting was more humourous than adorable. It did wonders for Kakashi’s ability to not give in.

"Mm?"

"What should I do with all these?"

"Respond to them, one by one. Let me look over them once you're done though. We don't want you accidentally promising yourself away or causing a war with a foreign power."

"Oi, I wouldn't!"

Kakashi decided it was best to say nothing and pulled out the sealing scroll and note from Tsunade instead. Naruto glared at him for a moment, but started to work through his, hopefully very polite and respectful, refusal letters from the Hokage on behalf of his former student. 

He opened the envelope first and pulled out the note. As soon as he touched it, there was a puff of smoke and a new note popped into existence. He took the note and unfolded it.

“ Kakashi, congratulations on becoming Hokage. I have arranged a little gift for you. I got sick of the pining. Have fun these coming three days!

This is for all those years you knocked off my lifespan, you idiot.

Suffer!

Tsunade”

He crumpled the note in his fist and quickly slid it into a pocket before Naruto would notice and demand to read it.

“What was that, sensei?”

“Oh, nothing,” Kakashi said after a brief pause. “I just looked into the seal.”

At that Naruto perked up. “Oh, did you figure out how to fix it?”

“No need,” Kakashi said, staying calm thanks to decades of training. “It will fix itself after three days.”

“That’s not too bad, sensei,” Naruto replied, smiling beneath the mask. “We should be able to deal for a few days.”

Kakashi looked at his own face, smiling widely at him, and he knew he was doomed.

Chapter Text

As Naruto penned refusal letter after refusal letter - and it felt good to let him deal with that because Kakashi had not known how to react when Shizune handed him the folder with a smirk the day before- Kakashi figured it was time to see if he could find himself back in Naruto’s shared mindscape with Kurama. He closed his eyes, thought of that concrete room and the towering presence of the fox and being in his own familiar body. The sensation of falling was there, and as he shuddered to a stop he took a deep breath.

“There you are, Kakashi,” a voice like thunder rumbled far above him. “Welcome back.”

Kakashi opened his own eyes and smiled up at Kurama. “Thank you.”

Kurama pulled his lips back over shining fangs and curled up on the ground to look at Kakashi through an eye that seemed taller than Kakashi himself. His entire body showed in the reflection of those burning eyes. “Now then, human, why did you want to speak with me?”

“I realised that you are near a millennium old and have seen things I can scarcely imagine,” Kakashi said, looking straight into the eye. “And I would love to listen to anything you would want to share. Be it Shinobi history or what came before.”

The great eye blinked in astonishment. “You want to listen to me tell old stories?”

“It’d be an honour.”

Kurama narrowed his eyes. “Give me your word that you won’t tell other humans.”

“I promise, Kurama.”

The fox huffed in amusement before shifting around to get more comfortable, resting his head on his forearms. Then he spoke. And Kakashi sat down on the ground in front of him and listened to tales of a world before ninjutsu when chakra was used guided only by intentions and not signs and seals, though it was an elegant way to give a language for the songs echoing throughout the world. Kurama spoke of the conflict between nature and man's greed. How the earth seemed to cry when humans mined it for minerals, but how man-made constructs benefitted other animals, simply shifting the balance. He felt sorry for humans who could not sense natural energy since they could not comprehend what their actions meant in the grander scheme of things. They would never be part of nature that way, always other and strange. A parasite.

He talked about what was at the bottom of the oceans, creatures that looked like they were out of this world. Because they were, of course, made for a pressure that would crush any lifeform made for land. It was an entirely different world down there, of constant darkness and sparse food.

Then he moved on to how humans starting to form nations lead to nothing but conflict. The wars before the Shinobi villages spread across the lands, how they'd rely on only cutting swords and bone-breaking hammers rather than earth-shattering jutsu. Countless deaths that were supposedly for glory but ended up with corpses nourishing the crops in time for a new invader trying to claim the land again. He spoke of places on the other side of the world and languages and songs Kakashi would never hear because the people singing them were long dead. 

After what might have been minutes or hours, Kurama went quiet and looked at Kakashi with a curious glint to his eyes.

He bowed in gratitude because what else could he do in the face of such knowledge and the goodwill required to share it? "I’m honoured, Kurama. Thank you for telling me this."

The fox laughed and leaned forward to nudge Kakashi with his snout. "You are a strange human, Hatake Kakashi."

"Thank you," he said because he had heard enough about humans from Kurama to know it was a compliment. It made him realise that there was one more thing he wanted to ask. "Could I ask you one more thing?

Kurama cocked his head and then shrugged. "Why not? It's a novelty to have anyone be this curious."

"Throughout your stories, it's clear how destructive humans have been throughout history. You compared them to parasites. But now you don't seem to mind us as much. What happened?”

"Naruto never told you?"

"No," Kakashi shook his head. "He only told me that you'd agreed to work together during the war. Afterwards, you seemed to have become friends, so we never questioned it. It was something we didn’t think we could ever hope for. I don’t know if anyone thought to ask."

“No matter how they say it, humans always say the same thing to us,” the fox said, lips curled back over his teeth in a disgusted snarl. “That thrice-cursed Uchiha had the audacity to tell me I was a mindless beast and needed to be enslaved to have control. That first Hokage of yours said I was too powerful to be free. His wife told me I was only capable of hatred if I used my power. And my second Jinchuuriki told me she planned to keep me at bay. They never took the time to think about why I'd be so full of hate."

"And then you were sealed in Naruto," Kakashi murmured, thinking back to that day filled with blood and terror.

"And then I was sealed in that brat,” Kurama confirmed, with a twist to his mouth. “He asked me to lend him power as a way to pay rent as his tenant."

"He did what?"

"When the old toad threw him off a cliff as part of his preparation for that bloodbath of an exam," Kurama replied, unaware of how Kakashi thought back to the Chunin exams and the toad sage's promise to look after Naruto. "I was entertained. And didn't want to go through the bother of my most recent vessel to die and myself reforming over a long time. Not when I could just take over his mind at some point in the future. The Yondaime's seal made it easy, of course, and so I started to keep a closer eye on the boy. At first, he seemed like the others. Wanting my power for himself. His intended use was to protect his previous few precious people, but it was still about power."

Kakashi sat down on the ground and glanced at the restless tails lashing in the air behind the fox. "But later?"

Kurama laughed. "He said that he wanted to get rid of all that hate of mine someday. During the war, he told Son Goku that he couldn't stand the idea of us being sealed away and ignored. He even told that ridiculous ape that he wanted to be my friend."

"A human being friends with a tailed beast, huh?"

"As the prophecy foretold,” Kurama said with fondness in his voice. “But it only said the day would come one day. That it was Naruto was down to his own choice. Before he let me lend him chakra against that Uchiha, he thanked me and called me by name. He released the seal and called me his teammate.”

Kakashi would never truly understand the bond between them or how easily Naruto had forgiven the great demon who had threatened his very existence. But he knew how Naruto had flourished once people had treated him like a boy instead of a monster. It made sense in a way that he’d look at what everyone else saw as a monster and treat it like a friend. 

“He decided to trust you," Kakashi murmured as he realised just how peculiar that was. "And humans don’t normally trust the Bijū.”

The fox nodded. "Indeed. The first human to truly bond and work with his beast was Gyūki’s newest one.  The loud and obnoxious rapping guy who trained Naruto.”

Kakashi nearly laughed at anyone used to Naruto calling someone else loud and obnoxious. Then again, the idiot had his charms.

Kurama glanced down at him and curled up on the ground again. "Naruto wanted the same. I told him to prove himself. Pretty words mean little after centuries of deceit."

“Thanks for being willing to talk with me, Kurama,” Kakashi said. “There are still so many things I’d like to ask you if I’m honest. And, of course, if you’d want to ask me anything I’d be happy to answer. But I’m not sure if I have anything to offer.”

Kurama got up, stretched out his great body with his claws flexing close to Kakashi before he sat up and looked down at the human before him. Then he cocked his head and a furry ear twisted around, seemingly listening to something far above them.

“That’ll have to wait for our third date, Kakashi. Naruto is trying to get your attention.”

The great eyes closed in a lazy blink, making Kakashi think of a cat napping in the sun. He wasn’t sure if the fox would appreciate that comparison. But he recognised dismissal when he saw it, so he said his goodbyes and then closed his eyes against the dizziness of returning to both the physical world, but also Naruto’s body. 

As he opened his eyes again he saw his own face look at him sheepishly. “Hey, sensei, I think I’m done.”

“That quickly?”

Naruto laughed at that and rubbed his stomach. “It’s been four hours and I’m getting hungry. I take it you’ve been talking with the old grump?”

Kakashi nodded and smiled at yet another disrespectful but affectionate nickname. “He’s a millennium old, after all. And we can learn a lot from him. The time passed by remarkably quickly.”

It was strange to hear himself voice laugh like Naruto. Wild and carefree, just like his student. Kakashi looked over at his own body, eyes closed in happiness, and wondered if he’d ever been that happy himself. 

Naruto leaned back in his chair and patted his stomach. "Yeah, I'm sure he'll love the opportunity to complain about me."

"We both have our share of stories," Kakashi said, rather than commenting on the obvious fondness between boy and fox. "I never thought I'd commiserate with the Kyūbi about one of my former students, but sometimes you just have to vent. And Tenzō is always stingy with paying for food."

The smile turned into a frown. "I wasn't that bad, sensei."

Kakashi walked up to his desk and leaned against it, saying nothing. He picked up the first refusal letter and skimmed through it. Polite and impersonal, if a bit short. Naruto had managed to not promise himself away or be insulting. Ah, how the little Genins grow and leave the nest.

“I wasn’t!” 

He raised a brow at Naruto who grumbled about how he was hardly a prize as a sensei either, what with constantly being late and being allergic to paperwork. Kakashi was about to respond with what Naruto had told him on his last birthday but got interrupted by a knock on the door. Instead, he nudged Naruto, who glanced over at the door and called out an invitation.

The door opened to let in Shikamaru, carrying a folder. Kakashi was relieved to see that it was a thin one.

“I see Naruto found you, Hokage-sama,” his assistant said as he placed the folder next to Naruto. “That note of yours didn’t explain why you’d be late.”

Naruto closed his eyes in a smile and gave a lazy shrug. “I got lost on the road to life as I tried to walk in someone else’s shoes.”

Kakashi beamed in pride as Shikamaru rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to know. But you have excellent timing, Hokage-sama. The council wanted you to look at this.”

“Thank you, Shikamaru,” Naruto said and placed the folder on his desk, on top of the pile of rejection letters. “I’ll look over it after lunch.”

“It’s not that urgent, but it also shouldn’t take a lot of time,” Shikamaru said with a shrug. Then he glanced over to Kakashi and smiled. “What are you doing here, Naruto? Don’t you have a few days off after your latest mission?”

Kakashi chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck as he thought of a good reason for Naruto to hang around in his office for the duration of this little mishap. There would be pandemonium and tests after tests as Konoha’s best seal experts would try and break a seal which would cancel itself after three days. There would be no need for it and would just mean three days of people poking and prodding at him. And the only way to prove that the effect was temporary would be to show people the note from Tsunade. It was not the way he wanted the entire village to know that he was in love with their hero. It was not the way he wanted Naruto to know that his former sensei, a fourteen years older and broken man, had not only given him his life but also his heart.

He looked down at the refusal letters and then grinned like Naruto, closed eyes, flashing teeth and all. “Kakashi-sensei thought it’d be a good idea for me to learn more about what it means to be a Hokage. Iruka-sensei is bogged down with the upcoming exams, so I had to take a break in my studies anyway.”

Shikamaru smiled at that and cast a knowing glance over at Naruto. “Well, the sooner you become Nanadaime, the sooner the Rokudaime can retire and laze around even more.”

The Rokudaime nodded solemnly. “It is my sacred duty to nurture the next generation.”

“With no ulterior motive at all, of course,” replied the Hokage’s assistant and shook his head. He clapped Kakashi on the shoulder and smiled at him. “Good to see you back, Naruto. Join my team for dinner soon, alright?”

Kakashi smiled widely and nodded. “Of course!” 

With a pleased nod, Shikamaru walked towards the door. As he grasped the handle he turned around and looked over at Naruto. “Oh, before I forget, there’s a letter from Kazekage-sama about the next  Chūnin Exams. It arrived this morning.”

“Thank you, Shikamaru,” Naruto said. “I’ll make sure to respond to Gaara later today.”

And with a nod and wave, Shikamaru was gone. 

As the door closed behind him, Naruto looked at it with a frown. “Hey, sensei...”

“Yes, Naruto?” 

“Would it be easier if we just told people?” 

Kakashi had prepared himself for the question which made it easier to keep a straight face. “I suspect the result would be a lot of tests in the hospital-” here Naruto winced. “-and since it will be resolved in three days I don’t think it’s worth the bother.”

“Do you think we can fool everyone?” 

Kakashi hummed, considering. “Maybe not Sakura, but she’d probably just laugh at us.”

“That does sound like Sakura-chan,” Naruto said and nodded. “Alright, yeah, no hospitals. I agree.”

“Oh, and you might want to avoid Gai,” Kakashi said as he counted the days since he’d last seen Konoha’s Noble Blue Beast. “But our last challenge was a few days ago so he shouldn’t try and challenge me for a bit.”

Naruto looked at him with amusement in his eyes. “I didn’t realise there was a schedule.”

“It is, apparently, more youthful if we have time to rest after each challenge.”

“What was the latest one?”

Kakashi took one of the wedding proposals that had been written on a delicate piece of square paper and folded it into a nine-tailed fox. “Origami.”

Naruto plucked it out of his hands and looked at it from all angles. “Who won?”

“I did,” Kakashi said. “We decided to see how many different animals we could fold. I managed three more than Gai.”

“And you needed a break after folding some paper?” Naruto asked as he carefully placed the fox in the top drawer of the Hokage desk. 

“The papercuts were fierce,” Kakashi said with a sad sigh. “You don’t know what it’s like when you don’t heal up in seconds.”

“I guess I’ll learn,” Naruto said and looked outside. “Speaking of, sensei, we should spar later. To get used to each other’s bodies a bit more.”

There was some wisdom to it. While Kakashi would prefer not to learn Naruto’s body better in this manner, they should be prepared in case of an attack. Having the two strongest shinobi in the village out of commission due to unfamiliarity with their current bodies would be irresponsible. 

“This evening. Taijutsu and basic ninjutsu only,” Kakashi said, “I don’t know what would happen if you tried out lightning. Or if I tried out Sage Mode.”

Naruto smiled widely enough to show through the mask. “Sure, sounds like fun!”

Kakashi shook his head. Fun was an interesting word for the experience of fighting in Naruto’s body. Of learning exactly what his body could do. Still, it would be an interesting experience to see if he could even put a dent in Naruto’s stamina. 

“You’ll probably struggle with getting used to my style,” Kakashi said, thinking about how Naruto had never needed to conserve any chakra in his life. “You’re not one for self-restraint.”

He frowned as Naruto blushed and coughed, before looking down at the folder that Shikamaru had brought and scratched his cheek, making the mask move up and down a bit. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Can I participate in the next exam without a team, sensei?”

Kakashi raised a brow at that. “Why would you? It’s in my power to promote you to Jōnin once I think you’re ready. Going through that exam would just be a charade and some villages might even take it as an insult. Having you fight kids that can barely walk on water seems a bit tasteless, don’t you think?”

“Straight from Genin? I kinda thought I’d need to be a chūnin first.”

“Honestly, I could just promote you to Chūnin right now,” Kakashi answered and skimmed through Gaara’s letter where he suggested a joint exam between Iwa and Konoha this time rather than Suna and Konoha. “You showed enough leadership during the war. And your strength is unparalleled. But there’s never been a promotion outside the field or the exam in decades though. I don’t see the point given that the village gets requests for you specifically. Seems easier to just skip it. It wouldn’t make any difference at all for you in regards to missions or pay.”

He pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down a quick reply in favour. A joint exam would be a good way to foster the alliance. The other nations had been grumbling a bit at the close bonds between Suna and Konoha even before the war. Then he grabbed his seal and stamped it before scribbling down his signature. 

“And Jōnin would?”

“Well, you could become a sensei yourself,” Kakashi said with a shrug. “That’d be the only difference for you. It’s not like I’ll put you off S-ranks if you’re the most suitable person for the mission.”

Naruto looked down at Kakashi’s desk and picked up the photo of Team 7. A gloved hand gently stroked the frame. “A sensei, huh?”

Kakashi glanced at how his own eyes grew a bit teary and he smiled into his hand. “Well, someone should carry the tradition of Team 7 forward, right? With Sakura being busy at the hospital and Sasuke being Sasuke, it seems like you’re our only option.”

“That’d be nice,” Naruto said, looking up at Kakashi with tears still in the corner of his eyes. “In a few years.”

“You’ll get a group of cocky graduates,” Kakashi said, remembering many iterations of the bell test. “Thinking they can take you on. It’ll be cute to watch.”

Naruto scrubbed at his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “Think I’d do a decent job as a sensei?”

Kakashi took the photo from his hands and placed it on the desk again. “I’m sure you’ll be amazing.”

Chapter Text

There were two major differences in walking down the streets of Konoha as Naruto, Kakashi discovered. The first one was something he had been prepared for and that was his startling lack of smell. It was something he’d noticed as Naruto and he had gone to his office earlier in the day, but that morning he had been distracted by Naruto and more confused in general. Now he had a few hours as Naruto under his belt and, with his chakra controlled through Kurama’s assistance, he no longer felt overwhelmed by the unending ocean within. The lack of smells was easier to notice now that his chakra didn’t feel like it would burst out of him at any moment.

The second thing he needed to get used to was the attention. Now that he was the Hokage, he’d sometimes get children running up to him to say hello. And before that, when he was only the legendary Copy Nin, he had gotten some appreciative glances from his fellow shinobi. His skills were renowned, after all. His bounty in other villages Bingo Books had been sizable. 

The heavy gazes that followed him now were not by curious children or his former colleagues, they were by teenage girls. It made sense. Kakashi remembered little from the short window between puberty striking and him joining the ANBU where the mission came first, and he lived each day in a haze of bloody mist, trying to drown out his ghosts. But there was a foggy memory of girls giggling as he passed by and gifts handed to him with a blushing smile. While he’d never had a crush like that as a young teenager, he recognised the signs. Of course, he did; the girls were hardly subtle. And these days Naruto was popular. Saving the world would do that. The fact that Naruto grew up to have strong shoulders, chiselled features, golden skin and brilliant blue eyes certainly didn’t harm his popularity with the girls.

A fact Kakashi was made uncomfortably aware of as he kept seeing groups of them stare at him and giggle. He glanced down at himself but no, he had Naruto’s clothes on properly. 

“Naruto-senpai!” A voice called and he had time to steel himself to let his arm get caught in a vice-like grip. Kakashi glanced down at the young thing coquettishly blinking up at him through eyes lined with kohl. He breathed through his nose to calm himself and even Naruto’s nose could pick up the perfume. “Want to go for lunch with me, senpai?”

Kakashi closed his eyes against his screaming instincts to break out of the hold and neutralise the threat. It’d been hard enough to allow a stranger to touch him like this, nevermind stay close when they were not welcome. Instead, he laughed and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “I’m sorry, but I’m getting lunch for Kakashi-sensei.” 

The girl pouted and moved closer, pressing her breasts against his arm. “Can’t you send a clone and come and eat with me instead?”

He looked down, wracking his brain for any memory of Naruto mentioning a girlfriend. Was his former student dating someone? Was he dating this girl? She was pretty, he supposed, with glossy black hair and deep brown eyes. She had the slim physique of a kunoichi not yet weathered and tested. Rounded cheeks and slender limbs compared to the muscles that would form once her training would truly start. Was this something Naruto liked? Kakashi couldn’t remember Naruto ever telling him about any relationship, nevermind a few dates. Then again, Kakashi had avoided the subject like a plague for some time now as he realised that the love he had felt for his student had grown and changed into something new and terrifying after the war. Had he missed Naruto dating someone? Was he supposed to say yes to this girl or at least promise her a lunch another day? 

One problem at a time. He did not want to go on a lunch date with this girl and, of course, it would be inappropriate and morally dubious to date someone under these false pretences. It would also be far more awkward than Kakashi was willing to deal with, even if Naruto did like this girl.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” he said and shrugged. He started walking towards Ichiraku again and was not surprised that the girl fell into step next to him. The hand around his arm tightened as well. Kakashi frowned down at it and wondered about how bad it would be to just Shunsin away. “Sensei had something he wanted to talk about. Hokage’s orders, right?”

The fluttering eyelashes stilled as the girl frowned in disappointment. Then her face cleared as the girl smiled, triumph in her eyes. “How about tomorrow then?”

Kakashi was reminded of his dogs when he’d give them a juicy bone as a treat. The single-mindedness was impressive, if only it was aimed at something other than trying to get a date with Uzumaki Naruto this particular day. Or any other day if Kakashi was honest.

“No, sorry, same thing tomorrow,” he said. Hopefully, Naruto wouldn’t mind company each day for lunch. He’d promised to buy him ramen as long as Naruto did his paperwork, maybe eating together had been implied as part of the deal? 

“Aw, senpai,” the girl said with an exaggerated pout that he realised was designed to draw attention to red-bitten lips. “So mean!”

Given that she called him senpai rather than Naruto-kun, or far worse, just his name, it seemed safe to assume that they were not dating. And if Naruto was dating someone, surely he would tell Kakashi? 

Kakashi smiled at the girl and missed his mask because it was tempting to bare his teeth at her. “Sorry, sorry! But duty calls.”

He tugged at his arm with a raised brow until the girl sighed and let him go. As he turned left down the street to Ichiraku, he hoped it was enough to not have her hound him later in the day because he didn’t know anything about Naruto’s dating life past his old crush on Sakura. 

It hurt in a way to realise that there might be a part of Naruto’s life that he was not privy to. That there was a boundary between them where certain topics couldn’t be discussed. But it wouldn’t be strange. The bond between a sensei and student didn’t necessarily cover romance advice and even then, ever since Kakashi had taken the hat he’d not seen any of his students as often. Now, if they were needed for month-long missions he sent them out from his office and then waited for their return. They didn’t need him. They hadn’t needed him for years. 

Had a few sparring sessions a month and a few lunches when they were all in the village made him miss Naruto falling in love? If he hadn’t, would the day come where he wouldn’t know because he’d only see Naruto whenever he reported to the Hokage?

As Kakashi walked down the street he noticed more girls looking after him, giggling and waving. He did his best to smile back and his right hand felt empty without a book to bury his nose in. Instead, he was forced to look at people around him and the constant smiling faces made his skin crawl. Kakashi had never really liked people and had always struggled with relating to civilians and lower-ranked ninja. He’d been happy to realise that they tended to leave him be if he walked around reading. 

The smell of miso made him look ahead. Never before had it been such a relief to see Ichiraku Ramen. It was easy to smile as brightly as Naruto always used to do as he dodged under the flaps. His stomach rumbled at the smells and he chuckled at how Naruto’s body seemed trained to respond to ramen. 

“Ah, Naruto!” Teuchi said with a big grin. “How are you today?”

“Hello, pops!” Kakashi said and sat down on the stool. “I’m good! How are you?”

“Sun’s shining, business is booming and I get to talk to my favourite customer!” the older man said with a wide smile. “Life’s good!”

“Hello, Naruto-kun!” Ayame said as she walked into the stand from the back. “How are you?”

“I’m good, Ayame-nee-chan,” Kakashi said and smiled up at her as she handed him a glass of water.  “Thanks!”

“What do you want today, Naruto-kun?”

Kakashi patted his belly and thought about Naruto’s normal appetite. “Three miso with extra pork, pops. And then one miso with eggplants, thanks.”

“Oh, are you bringing some lunch to Hokage-sama?” Ayame asked, and turned around to start boiling the water. “It’s been a while since we saw him.” 

Teuchi looked up from where he’d started chopping vegetables and glanced over at Kakashi. “Is he alright? He must have been working really hard lately. We’ll add some extra eggplant on the house!”

“You should drag him out of his office one of these days, Naruto-kun,” Ayame said and added the noodles. “Even the Hokage needs a break sometimes.”

Kakashi looked at the two civilians who’d been kind-hearted enough to feed the village pariah when no shinobi stepped forward. They were good people, and it heartened him to realise that he had made their list of people that they worried about. 

He smiled at them and wondered if he could do anything to help the store as the Hokage. “Will do, nee-chan!”

Teuchi nodded in satisfaction. “We’ll put all of these in boxes for you then, Naruto.”

“Thanks, pops!”

He drank the water and enjoyed the quiet as the two chefs bustled around in the kitchen. Behind him, the days of his villagers’ continued and his office beckoned with countless things that needed to be done, but here and now he could sit and enjoy the peace.

“There you are, Naruto!” 

He turned around in his seat to see Sakura dodge under the flaps and drag a flustered Hyūga Hinata after her. His former student held the former heiress in a grip that reminded Kakashi of the girl from before. 

“Sakura-chan!” he called and grinned brightly. “And hello Hinata! How are you guys?”

“I’m good,” Sakura said and slipped from Hinata’s left side to her right with an arm around the flustered girl’s shoulder, then she nudged Hinata forward with a murmured encouragement. The manoeuvre had ensured that Hinata ended up on the stool between Sakura and Kakashi. He looked at the blushing girl next to him and noticed her nervous fingers and how she could not meet his eyes. This probably did not bode well.

Sakura sank onto her seat with an exhausted sigh and smiled in thanks as Ayame handed her some water. Then she gave her order with extra everything. 

Kakashi leaned forward over the counter, doing his best to pretend not to notice how it made Hinata blush a fiercer red, and looked at the exhausted medic-nin. “You look tired, Sakura-chan.”

“I had a long night and morning at the hospital. A surgery took twenty hours,” she replied and rubbed at her temples. “But the patient lived. We weren’t sure if they’d regain full cognitive function since we had to operate on the chakra coils in their frontal lobe, but it looks promising.”

“We-well… well done, Sakura,” Hinata’s voice was soft enough that Kakashi had to focus on it to decipher the words above the general sounds of a busy street and the clanging of pots in front of them. He remembered Kurenai talking about how her self-esteem had improved over the years and wondered how bad it had been when she first got her team. Or it could just be that she was more confident as long as she wasn’t around Naruto. Kakashi had never interacted with the former heiress before, at least not without having Naruto somewhere nearby. During the only mission assignment he'd had the time to give her team so far, Kiba had been the talkative one. To absolutely no one’s surprise.

Sakura grinned at the still blushing girl and patted her hand. 

Kakashi thought back to the first time Sakura had ever healed him. It had been a minor cut and it had taken her minutes. His former student had come far and it was easy to break out into one of Naruto’s beaming smiles. “That’s great news, Sakura-chan. It’s amazing what you can do!”

She glanced at him and smiled, affection and amusement clear on her face. “Thanks, Naruto. Wanna buy me lunch to congratulate me on a job well done?”

“Sure,” he said, because Sakura deserved free food after a complex operation. “But I’m off to Kakashi-sensei’s office with my order. You could come along if you want to!”

Green eyes narrowed at that and the greatest medic-nin in a generation or two hummed in thought. She glanced at the now pale Hyūga before looking back at Kakashi with a frown. “Are you having lunch with sensei?”

The two women deflated a bit at his nod. “Yeah, we’re going over some things I need for my Jōnin exam at some point. So I’ll eat in his office for a few days.”

It seemed like his sense of foreboding had been correct. This appeared to be yet another attempt to create a scenario where Hinata would finally muster up the courage to talk to her longtime crush. Kakashi had heard about the plans laid out by Sakura and Ino in the past and had quietly wished for them all to fall apart at the seams. The timing of this latest one was dreadful and Kakashi did not look forward to having to avoid the poor girl while he was in Naruto’s body. There was no way he could reciprocate a confession if it happened, and he did not know if he’d be able to stay away from the Hyūga without his sense of smell. At least not without making it obvious to the young woman that he was avoiding her. It seemed like a bad idea to make her think that Naruto was running away from her given that he didn’t know if Naruto liked Hinata or not. A small voice told him that running away in the most public of displays was a great idea. He knew better than to listen to that side of himself though.

“Ah, no, I’ll just eat here and let you two discuss old treaties and world history all alone, Naruto,” Sakura said with a laugh. “But Hinata is heading over to the tower, aren’t you Hinata? You can walk together!”

The blue-haired woman blanched at that and couldn’t meet Kakashi’s eyes when he looked down at her. “Are you, Hinata?”

There was a soft mumbling coming from his side, but he wasn’t sure if it was a yes or a no. 

Kakashi felt a stab of terror as the woman steeled herself and looked at the region around his chin.

"Na-Na-naruto-kun, I was- I wanted to," Hinata said, wringing her hands as Sakura looked on, approving. "Would you, I mean..."

She sighed and bowed her head gracefully and the overhead light illuminated her long, silky hair. While she wasn’t Kakashi’s type (which had once been non-existent and had now solidified into blue eyes that lit up whenever they saw Kakashi like he was something good, someone they wanted to see) he could see that she was beautiful. The Hyūga were renowned for their elegance and poise and Hinata showed that, even when mortified in the face of the man she loved. She’d make Naruto a good partner. He knew that much, even if he did not like to think about it.

No matter his own feelings on the matter, today was not the day for Hinata to confess her undying love. He bit the inside of his lips to distract himself, drawing blood and felt how the cut healed as soon as his teeth were clear of his flesh. 

Kakashi hummed, considering, and then leaned down closer to Hinata’s blushing face and looked deeply into her eyes when she glanced up. She gasped and ran off with a hurried farewell to Sakura. 

Kakashi looked after her, feeling relieved and a bit dirty for using such a simple trick but it got the job done. If he was lucky this failed attempt would keep Hinata from attempting another confession anytime soon. He felt sorry for the girl, he did, but there was also a voice in the back of his mind that crowed out that Naruto wasn’t hers, that she had no place in the pack and that she did not deserve Naruto. 

It was an unworthy part of him because he was painfully aware that Naruto was, rightfully, far out of reach for Kakashi as well and that he had no claim to the young hero either. Few people were good enough for Naruto, but the kind and generous Hyūga Hinata came close. If she ever grew more confident around Naruto, he could see them have a similar dynamic to Minato and Kushina. The calm and supportive harbour wild waves could crash against. 

It seemed like she’d won Sakura’s blessings as well, because his calmest student glared at him. 

"What?"

"You're not surprised by her running away," she said, considering. "It looked like you expected it."

Shit.

He closed his eyes in a grin and hoped it looked bashful and not guilty. "What do you mean, Sakura-chan? Hinata has always been a bit odd, right?"

She said nothing. Kakashi peaked his eyes open and saw her give him an unimpressed look. 

"There's something else to it but I'm way too tired and hungry to figure it out right now," she grumbled and kicked his shin. "I'll figure it out tomorrow."

Kakashi was convinced she would and didn't mind. It'd result in some teasing, but she'd trust his judgement about the duration. He could even say it was a prank from Tsunade and she'd let it play its course. 

“Here’s your food, Naruto and Sakura!” Teuchi handed a bowl over to Sakura and two bags to Kakashi. “Hope to see you soon, Naruto!”

“Of course,” he said with a wave. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

As soon as he had his order he rounded the corner into a side street and used a Shunshin to get his own office. He did not want to deal with any more social interactions today. 

“Hey, sensei,” Naruto said, smiling at him from the Hokage desk. He’d set up another chair next to the desk and moved the piles of reports to the floor to give them some room. 

Silver hair swayed to the side as Naruto looked at him with a curious tilt to his head. “Did something happen, sensei?”

“Not really,” Kakashi replied and walked over with the food. “Most interesting thing that happened was a run-in with some of your admirers.”

Naruto sighed. “Sorry about those, sensei. They’ve been a thing since after the war. Every so often they run up and want to eat. I usually agree when there’s a group of them.”

“Why only when it’s a group?” Kakashi asked, curious about the reasoning.

“Then it’s not a date, right?” Naruto said with a shrug. “I don’t mind eating with some of them after I’ve helped them with some taijutsu or something, but I don’t know any of them. They’re also all thirteen or something. I don’t know.”

“Ah, I see,” Kakashi said and released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Then he sat down in front of Naruto and handed the Hokage his eggplant ramen and grabbed one of the ones with extra pork for himself. 

Naruto pulled down Kakashi’s mask and smiled. “Thanks for the food!”

It was an interesting experience to still be hungry after one entire bowl of ramen. His mind told him he was full, but his stomach demanded more. Kakashi shrugged and inhaled the two remaining bowls as Naruto watched with a pout on Kakashi’s face.

As he leaned back in his chair, Kakashi considered his own face with Naruto’s familiar smile on it and realised that he’d like to eat lunch with Naruto every day.

There was something he needed to address first and he hoped that Naruto would allow him to ask about this. “There was something else that I need to ask you about, Naruto.”

Grey eyes looked up at that. “What is it?”

“I ran into Hinata and Sakura at Ichiraku’s,” Kakashi said and noted how his own eyes darkened at the mention of Hinata’s name. “It seemed like Hinata was trying to… well…”

Naruto winced and looked down at the desk in front of him. “Confess?”

Kakashi relaxed. “So you knew?”

“She did tell me during the Pain invasion,” Naruto said with a strange look on Kakashi’s face. “I just had other things on my mind. I had lost Ero-sennin and you, sensei. Everyone was dying and I was so angry. But yes, I remembered her saying she loved me.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Naruto said with a shrug.

“Nothing?”

“It slipped my mind with the summit and then the war,” Naruto replied and leaned forward on his forearms. “It’s just… I guess a part of me didn’t believe her? How could she love me, after all?”

Kakashi felt his hackles rise at that. How could anyone not love Naruto? Bright and shining like a sun, drawing people close and loving them so fiercely. What sort of fool wouldn’t fall for that?

He sucked in a breath through his teeth and spoke, voice like a still river. “What do you mean?”

Naruto plucked at the seam of Kakashi’s uniform and Kakashi reached out and tapped the back of the hand with his fingers. His former student stopped playing with a loose thread and looked up at him again. “It’s just, we’ve never really talked. I don’t know what about me she loves ‘cause she doesn’t know me, y’know? I don’t think you can love someone you don’t know. Not really. Ino once said something about love being dealing with someone’s flaws and I think that makes sense. No one is perfect, right? All my precious people have things that bug me, but I love them anyway, even when they’re annoying. And I know I can be an idiot as well. Often, even. But I think… Well, I hope that my precious people… like me too.”

Kakashi said nothing, but he thought back to a boy who’d demanded acknowledgement by everyone and who turned into a man who wanted to be loved back by his friends. Naruto had grown up well. He looked at the other man and couldn’t help but smile. 

“And I’d want a person who loves me for me, y’know? Not for who they think I am,” Naruto said as he looked down at his restless hands again. “Does that make sense?”

Something in Kakashi’s chest ached at the sight. “Yes, it does. So if she tries to talk to me again while in your body I should just try and avoid the subject?”

“Yeah,” Naruto said and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll have to talk to her once this is all over. She might be amazing and great, but right now I don't know her well enough to even consider her a friend. It's a bit weird.”

Kakashi heard the right now and knew that that could change. It wasn't something he liked thinking about.

Instead, stroked his chin and carefully didn't react to how soft Naruto's skin was.  “While we’re on the subject, is there anyone else who might approach me that you’re actually interested in?”

His own cheeks went a bit red. “Are you asking me if I’m in love with someone, sensei?”

Kakashi leaned back in his chair in a casual sprawl. “Not one of our normal conversation topics, but we’re in not in a normal situation, Naruto.”

Naruto looked at him with that strange glint in his eyes again. “No, you won’t run into anyone like that, sensei. What about you?”

“If anyone walks up to you and wants to go for a drink, feel free to turn them down,” Kakashi said since he didn’t think it was likely that any of his subordinates would approach him for a casual fling. Kakashi had established himself over a decade ago as someone who wasn’t interested in a quick fuck and becoming Hokage had strengthened that barrier. As for someone walking up to Hatake Kakashi to confess their love? It didn’t seem likely. 

“No love confessions then, sensei?”

Kakashi looked into grey eyes and wished they were blue. “There won’t be anyone I’d want you to reciprocate for me. Don’t worry about that, Naruto. I just wanted to know what to expect after today.”

Naruto looked relieved as he nodded decisively. “Alright, that’s good. I was not looking forward to dealing with that.”

“After having lived through it, I can’t say that I recommend it.”

Naruto broke down laughing and Kakashi looked on, smiling in relief. His chest felt lighter as he realised he hadn’t missed Naruto falling in love yet. The day would come because Naruto had too big a heart for him to not fall head over heels for someone, but it was not yet. Kakashi could still make sure it was a good candidate, someone he could trust to look after Naruto and that heart of gold that he so freely offered a place in. Especially to people that were far too undeserving. People like Kakashi who should know better than to linger around.

Chapter Text

Having Naruto respond to the many marriage proposals had been a boon in two ways. It had saved Kakashi from having to go through it himself and he had dreaded it for weeks. Which was the second reason for why it was a relief. Kakashi had postponed responding to them all and focused on more urgent village matters, which meant that his workload for the rest of the week had eased considerably now that Naruto had been put to the task. 

And people said procrastination is the mother of all evil! 

Clearly they had not poured all of their genius intellect into reforming a broken system to be able to distract themselves from dealing with emotional matters. It meant that he only needed to see what Koharu and Homura wanted and read through some mission reports for the day. Then he would need to sort through all of the inbound reports and requests into what Naruto had the clearance to read and what was still classified to everyone but the Hokage’s eyes. Even if those eyes were currently blue rather than grey, certain rules were sacred. 

The first few reports were for low-ranked missions from newly graduated teams. He put them to the side, thinking he could guide Naruto through them even if they only needed his seal of approval. Those were always about rescued cats, painted fences and normal escort missions that didn’t involve a revolution, mercenary armies and encounters with S-ranked missing-nin. Normal C-ranks for normal genin teams. 

“You can start reading through and approving that tall pile, Naruto. They’ll be D- and C-ranks,” he said and put the B-ranks aside for the moment. Those they could discuss together tomorrow. 

He grabbed the folder from Shikamaru from its place on top of the precarious pile next to Kakashi’s cup of tea and perched on the edge of the desk, facing Naruto so he could keep an eye on the Hokage as he read through children’s rambling, badly written descriptions about how they caught a cat or sorted the archives.

The letter from the council was a complaint about his recent plans for ANBU reform, of course. He wasn’t surprised that the two council members were reluctant to accept the idea of an ANBU that stepped out of the shadows and had regular check-ups with Yamanaka specialists, but this was something he would not compromise on. His own time in the ANBU was still mostly a blur of nightmares and impaled bodies, dying on his arm and recorded in perfect detail. It had given him purpose when he had none, but he could look back at it now, a decade later and see how he’d balanced on a knife’s edge and fought to survive only to succeed his mission. To realise the peace Naruto wanted to usher in, ninja needed to view themselves as humans rather than weapons. 

He scribbled down a reply which thanked them for their thoughts and that he’d consider them before formalising his suggestion. Kakashi would, in fact, not do that at all. Still, he had not spent years on diplomatic missions without picking up some common sense. 

“What did they want, sensei?” Naruto asked, still looking down at his current D-rank and tapping the pen against his masked lips. 

“They wished to caution me against too radical a reform in ANBU,” he said, reaching for a pile of higher-ranked mission reports. “I gave them my thanks and replied I would take their advice into careful consideration.”

Naruto snorted. “Meaning you’re not, sensei. That’s the one you’ve been working on with Sai and Yamato-taicho, right?” 

“Yes, exactly,” Kakashi said, and started skimming through an A-rank report about an escort mission to the Land of Silence. “Their perspective is understandable if outdated. For the world to change, we have to change. Though, of course, any major change is always accompanied by drawbacks and problems you never expected.”

Naruto said nothing for a long time. Kakashi glanced up from the report he was reading and was met with a blank look. It made him think of waking up in the middle of the night and stumbling into the bathroom and seeing himself in the mirror in that odd, dreamlike moment while you’re still caught in the dregs of sleep. Then Naruto blinked and the spell was broken.

“Sensei?”

“Yes, Naruto?”

“Why do you keep those two around?” Naruto asked with a furrowed brow. “Tsunade-baa-chan never liked them either and called them old fossils whenever she got drunk. You’re the Hokage so why not replace them?” 

Kakashi looked up at that and smiled. “Can you see any benefits to keeping them around, Naruto?”

Naruto hummed and rubbed at his chin, bunching the mask over his nose. He huffed and fixed it. “I won’t get used to the mask before these three days are through. Honestly.”

Kakashi said nothing and raised a brow in question. 

“Well… they are old and have been on the council for ages,” his former student started, looking out of the window at the Hokage monument. “They were trained by the Second, so they’ve seen three different Hokages before you. I guess their experience is useful?”

“Well done, Naruto,” he said and held up one finger. “But that’s only one reason. Any other?”

Silver hair flopped back and forth as Naruto shook his head.

“Only a conceited man surrounds himself with people who never challenge him,” Kakashi said with a shrug. “It’s easy to simplify matters in your head and not see all angles. To make an educated decision, it’s important to consider multiple perspectives. For that, having advisors who will not always bend to your will is invaluable.”

Naruto said nothing for a while. Then he laughed. “As if you’d ever only think of one perspective, sensei! You overthink everything with that genius brain of yours. But I guess I’ll have to have some contrary old geezers when I’m Hokage.”

“Besides myself and Tsunade-sama?” Kakashi asked and was grateful he didn’t blush at the way Naruto tended to compliment people as if their virtues were as obvious as ramen was delicious. 

“As if you’re that old, sensei!” Naruto said, grinning. “But I agree with the contrary part, you annoying bastard. It’s impossible to have you join us for lunch these days.”

“I’m not sure if me being busy every day makes me contrary, Naruto,” Kakashi said, smiling at the way his own face lit up with a familiar smile. It meant that Naruto had thought of something brilliant.

“I could just come by your office with lunch each day!”

Kakashi blinked at that. And he let himself imagine seeing Naruto every day rather than once every few weeks for team dinner when they were all in the village. He had spent all of today with Naruto, doing nothing but eating breakfast together and talking. It was far too easy to imagine this being a regular thing once everything was back to normal. Those blue eyes smiling at him from across the desk as they sat, away from everyone else in their own little bubble. The domesticity of it would ruin him.

“I’m not eating ramen every day, Naruto,” he said, making sure his voice was as calm as ever. He’d learned long ago that half-truths were the way to go when dealing with stubborn people who refused to let him stay alone with his dogs. “Some of us enjoy homemade, healthy food full of vegetables.”

“I’ll cook then, sensei,” Naruto said with a shrug. “Iruka-sensei has been on my case to learn how to cook more dishes anyway. So you can be my taster!”

He should have known better than to underestimate Uzumaki Naruto on a mission to spend time with his precious people.

Once upon a time, he had suffered through Sakura’s tentative attempts at medical jutsu as she was learning. Then her experimental versions of more nutritious food pills. He knew his stomach could deal with Naruto’s experimentation in the kitchen. His heart though? That was a different matter, entirely.

Kakashi sighed because he recognised defeat when it was smiling softly at him. “If you manage to cook something decent once we’re back in our own bodies, I’ll consider it.”

Naruto smiled so widely his eyes shut. “I’ll add all the vegetables, I promise!”

“Maa, if you say so," Kakashi replied and waved goodbye to the last thread of his sanity.

“It’ll be delicious, sensei!”

Instead of replying, Kakashi hummed and turned to the pile of mission reports to start and read through the classified A- and S-ranks, alongside the ANBU-classed ones. He opened the first one and scanned through the dry, encoded text. No complications, the correct targets were assassinated, the information retrieved, the clients escorted, the nuke-nin dispatched. Each report was carefully read and he copied vital information over for the cypher team. Then in the last report, he saw the casualties. Three gravely injured and one dead. The deceased was Tanaka Itsumi, codename Weasel, and the woman who picked up the mantle as Itachi’s replacement in their ranks. Kakashi had met her once or twice in the ANBU before he was discharged on Sandaime’s orders. After that, he had never paid attention to her unless they were sent on the same mission. It was rare that he got sent with another Jōnin. Most of the time he’d been used as the leader for a team of Chūnin, or alone.

She’d been reliable with an impeccable mission record, if not as extensive as Kakashi’s own. Perhaps because her speciality was infiltration rather than assassination, even if any ANBU was capable of striking the final blow. 

ANBU Weasel had no parents, no children and no lover to notify. It made his job easier. He stamped his seal on the report and made a note that the mask needed to be burnt. There was an old superstition about the masks in Konoha and all ANBU followed it. You may take the name of a dead agent, but never their mask. 

His own was kept in a box under his bed. Until he died, there would be no ANBU Hound. 

“Sensei?”

Kakashi glanced up and smiled at Naruto’s worried frown. He managed to be expressive even with half his face covered. “Yes?”

“What’s happened?”

“Oh, not much,” he said and put his stamp on the final report. “Are you done?”

“Yeah, I am,” Naruto said with a smile wide enough to show through the mask. “The citizens of Konoha can rest easy now that all of the gardens have been properly weeded and a lot of dogs have been walked.”

Kakashi got up with a stretch and glanced out at the late afternoon sun. “Excellent news. Those dog walking missions can be tricky as I’m sure you remember.”

Naruto got up from Kakashi’s chair with a dirty look thrown his way. “Only because you had us try and catch up with your ninken, sensei.”

“A ninja who can’t even keep up with some cute puppies would not be a very good ninja,” Kakashi said and held the door open for Naruto.

“You had them scatter and forced us to find them,” Naruto said, with an arched brow.

“One of my cute little students could make hundreds of clones,” Kakashi replied, mouth twitching and he regretted the lack of a mask when it made Naruto frown at him.

“You forbade us from using ninjutsu!”

Kakashi saw that the window next to them was open and decided to poke the bear. “And you were very good students who blindly followed my orders!”

He caught the tension in Naruto’s frame a split second before he lunged and he’d already Shunshin’d away to a few rooftops over as Naruto swung at empty air.

Why not run , Kakashi? Let me show you.

And energy like nothing he'd ever felt rushed through him like a crashing ocean rather than the pond he was used to. Everything around him lit up in thousands upon thousands of impressions and he felt his chakra stretch out and cover Konoha like a blanket. Every person and animal lit up like fires around him and he felt invincible. The power was a rush to his senses and his body came alive.

  Kurama? What is this? 

This is natural energy, Kakashi. Sage Mode. I wanted to show you what we talked about.

The bond between all living things. Tying them all together, the push and pull, life and death. Of course.

Thank you.

There was nothing else to say because this was an experience rarer and more precious than any other. It was beyond words.

He felt or heard Kurama chuckle in his mind, soul, chakra before fading away, going to sleep. It was hard to tell what was what.

He ran and it was like flying. The speed was incomprehensible but he could react to it all before he crashed into anything. One leap and he was halfway across the village, soaring through the air. The earth called out to him and he felt Life itself around him. The air sang and he sensed everything. He knew his place and understood it.

The village gave way to the forest and the tall, proud trees of his village were old and their root system dug deep, protecting not only Konoha but small animals. They murmured about sunshine warming their leaves, their roots collecting water and nourishment from the earth. And the earth sang back, like ice in the early winter. It was the home of countless lifeforms, the source of nourishment for all plants. Its energy was slow, old. Rocks rolling and churning. 

He came to a stop by Training Ground 3 and his soul vibrated at the frequency of the world around him. 

It wasn't long before he sensed chakra like an approaching storm, sharp and contained. His body calmed down, settled, and Kakashi was astonished to realise that it was an instinctive reaction. 

Then Hatake Kakashi landed next to him and his heart skipped a beat at the eager look on Naruto's face.

"Doesn't it feel good, sensei?"

Kakashi chuckled and shook his head. "Good is an understatement. This is everything."

"I don't really use sage mode out of battle, so I don't feel all of this most of the time," Naruto said and gestured with his arm. "Maybe I should do that more. Meditate like I did to master it. Or use it in sparring."

"Speaking of a spar," Kakashi said and let the energy fade away and it was like losing a sense. The world was quiet and still and the earth and air no longer sang to him. "It seems fairer to drop it for our light session, no?"

"I could take you!"

"Which one of us are used to fighting with limited chakra and against a small army of clones?"

Naruto huffed. "I can do more than just throw shadow clones at the problem!"

"This is an excellent time to prove it," Kakashi said rather than laughing at how a pout looked through his mask. He held up his hand in the Seal of Confrontation. "Rules are what we agreed on in my office."

Naruto nodded and raised his hand in turn. 

A second passed.

It would be easy enough to put Naruto on the defensive. His form was solid, of course, trained as he was by Jiraiya and Kakashi himself, but Kakashi knew his style and his dependency on his clones to trick people. 

A quick seal and he made twenty clones for Naruto to contend with as he leapt away and concealed himself. 

"Come on!" Naruto hollered and did his best to cut through the mass of Naruto's.

Each clone with more chakra than Kakashi would normally use in a spar and each of them used to fighting against Naruto. Of course, Kakashi himself would have used an earth or lightning jutsu to dispel them all at once. Unless he felt like getting a light taijutsu warmup, in which case he'd cut them through personally. 

It was strange to see himself fighting like Naruto. The explosive blows were designed to create an opening. Low, swiping kicks, headbutts, and elbows to the face. An effective style when you could be anything between one and a thousand at once and could take a beating in turn. 

Kakashi's clones waited for openings. And with twenty of him surrounding Naruto, there were plenty of opportunities for a quick slice or jab.

He smiled, dispelled them all at once, and used the resulting smoke as cover. A split second later he stood behind Naruto, kunai at his neck.

"You know," Naruto said, near vibrating with excitement. "This is making me appreciate your taijutsu more, sensei.”

Kakashi smiled.

Then they moved.

An elbow to his ribs. Blocked.

Deflect the strike, metal glinting in the setting sun. Strike the elbow, turn the momentum against the attacker.

A twist, then a kick for his head. He caught the foot with a smirk.

Naruto forced him to let go by trying to kick with his free foot, pushing against Kakashi’s grip on the other foot.

One on one, Naruto's style was still aggressive, direct. The style of someone who loved fighting and came alive while trading blows.

It was quick, energetic and dirty. Dust kicked up to blind, the swish of kunai flying through the air.

He dodged them, twisted and moved into a kick.

It was strange to fight without smell. 

It was exhilarating to fight in a body with endless stamina.

He misjudged a swing and pain bloomed and faded in an instant. The healing faster than Kakashi's mind could process. 

It'd been far too long since they sparred together.

Naruto's laughter, familiar yet strange echoed around him.

Mocking challenges were called out, goading him. 

His body sang. Blood pumped through his veins. His chakra danced. It was limitless and eager, rushing to any limb before conscious thought. 

Time sped up and stretched out. Was measured in the moments between blows. 

He gave himself to the fight and it was instinct. His body knew what to do before he thought it.

Then he had Naruto pinned down beneath him. His heart beating a staccato beat against his ribs. For a split second, he thought of pressing closer and down.

Naruto had been so sweet lately. Making him want. 

His teeth bared.

The eyes looking into his were wrong. 

Gray instead of blue. 

Pale skin flushed pink.

No whiskers. No gold. No wide grin.

The hair spread out underneath him was a dusky pink in the setting sun. The sweat at pale brows making parts of it a dark lavender.

It was supposed to be burnished gold.

The smell was all wrong. Gone, muted. 

Kakashi blinked down at his own body and his head cleared. 

Pale skin around grey eyes crinkled as Naruto smiled. "That was fun, sensei!"

Kakashi stood up in a flash and offered his hand, carefully making sure it wasn’t shaking. "Maa, that was interesting."

"I didn't know what to expect, but wow, I'd never paid attention to all the smells before," Naruto said and grasped his hand to pull himself up. Blissfully unaware. "Not adrenaline, but the sun against the earth and then metal. Oh, and the weapon oil! And wow, bodies smell a lot differently mid-combat."

"The body releases pheromones in the sweat," Kakashi said and started picking up Naruto's stray kunai littered around the field. "There's a chemical reaction that makes it change when it dries, creating that stale sweat smell."

"That's why you always have an easier time finding someone you've been searching for a long time, right?"

"Yes, it helps when tracking," Kakashi said because people preferred tracking enemy combatant to hunting down his prey , even if his pack had other thoughts. "And to catch a pursuer off guard. It helps since few shinobi are natural sensors. The smell is quite potent."

Naruto's eyes widened over the mask. "Shower!"

Kakashi was thankful that he'd come to the same conclusion hours earlier. It made it easy to look over with a raised brow. "What?"

“We’re gonna have to shower,” Naruto said and the flush of exertion made it hard to tell if he was blushing or not. “Because of this spar, I mean.”

“Well, yes,” Kakashi said and was glad his voice sounded normal. “We’d have needed to no matter what. Three days without a shower would get the Inuzuka on our case and rightfully so. Don’t worry about it, we’re both men.”

“But, I mean… Eh, it’s just-” Naruto broke off and muttered something under his breath that Kakashi couldn't hear. 

He won’t look at Naruto coming to terms with having to touch Kakashi’s body. Instead, he turned away and waved over his shoulder.

“I trust you,” Kakashi called out. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

With a quick seal he was gone, only to hear Naruto curse behind him. “You pervert! I’m the one who shouldn’t trust you!”

_____

As Kakashi stood in Naruto’s bedroom he thought that the younger man had been right. He was the one who should be nervous about Kakashi having unrestricted access to his body. Not that Kakashi would do anything inappropriate. While his morals were questionable in many ways, occupational hazard, he would not force himself on the unwilling. And while the circumstances were extreme doing anything sexual while in Naruto’s body would be so wrong. Even if he’d had no morals, Kakashi wouldn’t, couldn’t. Because there was exquisite torture in giving in to a pale imitation of what he wanted, and knowing it wasn’t real. It’d be like making a clone and having it transform, to see Naruto in his bed and know it wasn’t him. A twisted form of masturbation. 

That way madness lied. 

This shouldn’t be hard. It was just stripping down and taking a shower. Like hundreds of times before. Just scrub off the sweat, grime and blood. Rubbing soapy hands over soft, delicious skin he’d wanted to kiss-lick-bite-mark for over a year now. Seeing it slick with water, touching it. Feeling the pulse beat against a soft, vulnerable throat.

Fuck.

He bit his tongue to ground himself.

Look at him. Almost three decades as a ninja, and brought to his knees at the idea of a shower. Pathetic.

He pulled down the zipper of his jacket in one smooth motion and shrugged it off. Then came the mesh shirt. It'd gotten no tears during their spar, so he let it fall to the floor with a metallic slithering sound.

Then the weapon pouches. Carefully sorted through and controlled. Nine kunai and twenty shuriken. All sharpened and polished meticulously after the spar. He’d done that after cooking and eating his dinner. 

Anything to avoid this a bit longer. 

He unwrapped the bandages around Naruto's thigh with slightly trembling fingers. The right arm acting up, most likely. 

They'd been to the baths together in the past. He knew what Naruto looked like naked. Not that he'd been trying to see on purpose or anything. Active service made you casual about bodies. About many things. Thick steam didn't cover everything. Nor was it possible to go on missions together, sleeping next to each other and keeping watch and not see more of each other than you wanted. 

Knowing how someone’s body looked was different from stripping them and feeling the warm skin. 

Disgusted at himself, he rubbed his right hand through his hair. Felt the bandages and figured Naruto probably removed them before showering. The knot was easy enough to untie and then the bandages unravelled, leaving white skin behind. 

It tingled as it got used to the temperature in the room. Kakashi ran his other thumb over it, gingerly, and saw the goosebumps form in its wake. It was ethereally pale, skin just as soft as the rest of Naruto and the fingertips free of any whorls.

He cursed under his breath and pulled down his pants and boxers in one swift move and stepped out of them. 

Then he headed to the bathroom, naked and studiously not looking down as he was conscious for once about parts brushing against skin, and wondered what he’d done to deserve this.

There was a towel hanging next to the shower. Big, fluffy and white. Kakashi had almost expected it to be orange. He focused on that as he walked in and only saw a glimpse of blond hair and tan skin in the mirror.

Kakashi stepped into the shower cubicle that was smaller than his own, turned the water on and noted that it was slightly colder than what Kakashi would normally use. He always liked letting it beat across his back and shoulders, loosening the tension of the day.

He washed his hair, enjoying rubbing the tip of his fingers deep into the scalp.

The soap was the same Kakashi used. Standard issue, without any special scent added to it. He poured some in his hand, lathered it, sent a quick apologetic thought to Naruto and started rubbing it in. First his face. A straight nose that’d never healed crooked, and skin with no imperfections. It was unnaturally smooth, and Kakashi got distracted running a finger over a high cheekbone.

Closing his eyes, he wondered if Naruto would mind warmer water. If he’d mind the company. If he’d lean back against the tiles, cold against Kakashi’s heated skin as he copied the imagined motion. Would he tilt his head, putting that neck on display?

He felt blood rush to his dick, Naruto’s dick, and stopped that line of thought. He breathed in. Counted to ten. Breathed out. 

Did not look down as his, damn it all Naruto’s, dick still throbbed. 

Kakashi turned the water to icy cold.

Once he had calmed down, he turned up the temperature again and scrubbed himself with soap. Naruto’s ribs were sensitive and so were the inside of his thighs. Kakashi did his best not to let his thoughts linger on those details.

Glancing down he sighed, closed his eyes, grabbed Naruto’s cock in one hand and pulled back the foreskin with his fingers and gave a quick rinse. It was maddening. He didn’t think too deeply about the feel of it in his hand, the veins, the pulse beating against his wrist. There was no way he’d indulge. Naruto wasn’t his, would never be his. He couldn’t pretend. It’d break him.  

He grabbed the soap and cleaned the rest of him. Not thinking about what anything felt like. What anything was.

And, when he let a soapy finger glide over his, no Naruto’s , perineum and then the slightly loosened opening he refused to think about how the dick twitched. Or that the ring of muscle had been more relaxed than he’d expect.

Kakashi rinsed himself off, turned the water to cold again to take care of the resulting problem. Then he took a shaking step out of the shower. 

That had gone both better and worse than he’d feared.

The towel was warm and soft against his skin as he rubbed it against his back. 

As he got back to Naruto’s bedroom he grabbed a fresh pair of boxers and an oversized shirt he’d never seen before. It was soft and threadbare and smelled like Naruto’s detergent. 

He drowned in sheets smelling like comfort, warmth and Naruto.

Kakashi stretched out his right hand in front of him, brushing against the cold sheets next to him. In the dim light of a moon partially hidden by clouds, he could ignore the lack of scars. 

It almost looked like his own.

Chapter Text

Kakashi woke up in his own bed. His own chakra humming, vibrating like lightning.

Soft cotton sheets slid against him as he stretched, keeping his eyes closed to enjoy the moment. The remnants of a pleasant dream leaving his nerves on fire.

He breathed in, luxuriated in how his room smelled like both him and Naruto, scents mixing. The smells were rich and vibrant. He could pick up the hint of sweat and pheromones. 

Male arousal. Coming from Naruto in waves. Who was in his bedroom.

Kakashi wanted to grab him and press close, drinking the taste from his skin.

He opened his eyes to the soft light of dawn and turned around to see Naruto standing there, fidgeting with whiskered cheeks flushed red.

“Naruto?” he murmured, voice heavy with sleep and lingering arousal. “What are you doing here?”

He couldn’t help but notice how Naruto shivered at his voice, pupils dilating. 

Kakashi’s mind sang with the possibilities as he breathed in and bit his lips to keep from moaning. Naruto, reacting like that. To Kakashi’s voice. Heat flooded his gut, dancing like Naruto’s chakra curling around him, lighting him up from the inside. A thrill ran through him. 

He sat up and idly scratched at his belly, making his shirt ride up and show some skin. Naruto’s eyes darkened and narrowed in on the strip, highlighted in the morning sun. 

He glanced at a golden throat as Naruto swallowed thickly and took a step forward. Kakashi licked his lips as he imagined biting down on the flesh, leaving a mark. It’d heal, of course. A pity, but he could mark the skin again, and again. Worrying it with teeth and tongue. A reminder.

“Good morning, Naruto,” he said, voice not much more than a whisper to not break the spell, but doing nothing to hide its deeper register. “What are you doing here?”

Naruto gave a shuddering exhale and blue eyes were near black. He took another measured step and a shaking hand moved to the zipper of his jacket, pulling it down. Sharp teeth worried soft-looking lips and Kakashi wanted to ease a finger inside, feeling that tongue against his knuckles.

“Morning, sensei,” he said, voice hoarse and guttural. “I needed… I wanted to talk with you."

Kakashi watched, transfixed, as the black jacket fell to the floor and Naruto was left in a t-shirt and sweatpants. They were baggy enough to conceal anything interesting, but then, when Naruto took another step forward he could see the outline of an erection tenting the pants as they shifted. 

Kakashi felt his own blood rush to his very interested cock, sleepiness forgotten. “About what?”

Naruto’s bandaged hand slipped down to the hem of his shirt, plucking and twisting at the thin fabric, and Kakashi wanted nothing more than for that damned piece of clothing to join the jacket.

“I, just… I wanted,” the younger man broke off with a frustrated groan, running a hand through his hair. Kakashi followed the path with his eyes, imagining doing the same like he’d done so many times before, but gripping this time, forcing that stubborn, brilliant and irresistible force to bend around him. To give in.

He could see and smell that Naruto was nervous though, so he got up from his bed and moved in front of Naruto in a flash. Dark blue eyes blinked once, whiskered cheeks flushed and Naruto tilted his head back a bit.

Kakashi placed one hand on Naruto’s shoulder, holding his breath as he tested the waters. He’d clasped his shoulder countless times before. It could be considered innocent if it wasn’t for how he stood closer than normal, aching dick testing the limits of his pyjama bottoms, and his everything calling for him to wrestle Naruto down on his bed and take him. Show him how good he could make him feel, making sure he’d never want to leave. He wanted, so badly. Had wanted for a long time. And now, Naruto, beautiful, wonderful, too-good-for-him Naruto with those warm eyes and gentle smiles, stood there, trembling at his touch. Pupils wide, whiskered cheeks flushed, smelling like Kakashi and arousal and it was an intoxicating smell. Warm, inviting, his. 

When Naruto leaned into it with a sigh, Kakashi breathed out and slid his hand closer to that delicious-looking throat. He let his thumb stroke up and down the smooth skin, feeling how the pulse was faster than normal.

His own beat in time, nerves singing. Naruto swallowed and his real hand reached out for Kakashi’s free one, interlacing their fingers. Naruto’s palm was warm and slightly damp in his grasp and Kakashi squeezed the hand in his, smiling at how brave Naruto was. As always, he led and Kakashi followed. It was impossible not to. 

"After this whole swapping bodies thing," Naruto said and glanced down at their hands before looking into Kakashi’s eyes again, determination shining through even as his lips were red bitten and the eyes dark. "It's been torture, hasn't it? It made me realise something. Being you was really annoying, because I wanted to be with you, y'know? Because... I love you, sensei.”

Kakashi’s chest tightened as Naruto took a deep breath and darted forward, pressing a kiss to a masked jaw. The touch felt like a brand. When Naruto moved away, he shifted his hand from a tense shoulder to the back of that silky neck to hold him still. He leaned in, brushed his lips against Naruto’s spit slick ones and hummed in contentment when Naruto pressed back.

“I love you too,” he said, breathless with the realisation that Naruto loved him, Hatake Kakashi, when he could have anyone he wanted. As he pulled back to look at Naruto, his heart felt like it’d burst at the smile on Naruto’s face. It was soft, secretive and one he’d never seen before. It was a shame to give up the hold on Naruto’s neck, but it was worth it to pull down his mask and taste that smile.

Naruto gave a content hum against his lips and pressed closer. Kakashi took the offering and brushed against the plump lips, moaning as he felt Naruto’s lips stretch in a wider grin. He dipped down, catching the lower lip between his. Nipping with his lips. Then Naruto groaned and copied the movement. A bit hesitant, a little bit slow and with the tip of an eager tongue licking at his lips. Kakashi slowed down the pace even more, moved back so their lips just rested together. 

“Slow down, Naruto,” he murmured, lips tingling when they met Naruto’s, and raised their entwined hands to his cheek, encouraging Naruto’s curious touch with a nuzzle. The hand slid into his hair, tracing the ridge of his ear, scratching at his scalp. Thumb resting against his cheek still, poking at the dimple Kakashi knew was there. “We have hours to enjoy ourselves. And I want to take my time with you.”

Naruto huffed against his mouth, but gave in with a nod, right hand resting at the small of Kakashi’s back. “Alright. Show me then.”

Always a physical learner. Kakashi pressed his smile against Naruto’s, running clutching, trembling fingers into soft hair he’d touched before, but never like this, tilting Naruto’s head back to better the kiss. He moved closer, his other hand moving to Naruto’s hip, catching Naruto’s upper lip between his, tugging gently. Then he nudged his nose against Naruto, encouraging him to do the same.

Naruto, as always, followed along brilliantly. 

“Well done,” Kakashi murmured as soon as his lips were released and Naruto shuddered against him, hips pressing closer and he felt the thick outline of Naruto’s dick against his. The reaction piqued his interest and he deepened the kiss. Caught the bottom lip between his teeth, running the tip of his tongue against it before pulling back, tugging at his prize. 

As Naruto copied it, he hummed in satisfaction. 

“Just like that,” he said, and then he took a chance. “Good boy.”

Naruto broke away with a shudder, burrowing a blushing face in Kakashi’s neck, huffing against his skin. Hips stuttered against his, urgent, seeking friction. Kakashi smirked and tightened his grasp on blonde hair. 

“Look at you,” he said, letting himself speak the truth in the face of Naruto’s pleasure. “How sweet you are for me. Gorgeous.”

A keening noise erupted from Naruto’s throat and a strong thigh slipped between his. Kakashi slouched back a bit, spreading his legs to welcome Naruto closer. The hand on Naruto’s hip slid around, spanning over Naruto’s lower back and encouraged those searching hips to press up. He thrust against him, riding the wave, loving how Naruto muffled his groan by biting into his neck.

“That’s it, Naruto,” he crooned as he slid both hands under flexing cheeks, finally giving that tempting ass a friendly squeeze as he picked up Naruto in his arms. “You’re so perfect for me.”

“Ka- kakashi,” Naruto gritted out, making Kakashi's blood sing as strong legs wrapped around him. “Your voice, fuck.”

Kakashi did nothing to smother his groan at how sweet his name sounded. Just his name. By Naruto, in a tone he’d never heard before. Breathy and dark, the most sinful thing he’d ever heard. 

He put Naruto down on his bed and pulled his shirt over his head as Naruto wrestled with his own clothes. The sweatpants came off with a final kick, leaving him in only boxers. They were tented and Naruto’s left hand trailed down a trembling belly to grasp at the base of his cock. Kakashi would have smiled at the impatience, but he cursed and took off his pants. His dick strained against his boxer briefs, but he kept them on for now. Some barrier between them seemed wise, he didn't want to come in seconds.

Instead let himself give in to the ever-present pull and fell onto the bed, moving closer. He crawled over Naruto, flushed and stretched out on his bed, under him. The saviour of the world, cursing at Kakashi’s slow pace, straining for him. Kakashi settled over him, knees on either side of his hips, making sure not to touch.

The almost familiar erection twitched under him and Kakashi thought back to how good it had felt in Naruto's hand in the shower. Now he'd get to see it himself, as himself. Touch it, kiss it, swallow it down and enjoy it. 

He reached down with one hand to trace the outline of it. The heat radiated through the fabric as Naruto swore and canted his hips up, trying to encourage more touching. 

“Come on, sensei,” he said, reaching for him with grasping hands. 

Kakashi grabbed both wrists and pressed them down over Naruto’s head with one hand, knowing that Naruto wouldn't get out of the hold without channelling chakra. And the poor thing was a bit too distracted to manage that right now. 

Muscles danced under tan skin as Naruto strained against his grip, undulating in one smooth motion to press up and closer. Kakashi looked on, feeling helpless against the wave of fire crashing through him.

Kakashi held fast, shifted away even if the display made him want to press down-closer-in, and shook his head. “No.”

Blue eyes blinked in confusion. “What? Kakashi-sensei?”

Kakashi smiled, enjoying how Naruto glanced down at his mouth with a hungry look. “No, say it again.”

He traced an idle finger around Naruto’s belly button, delighting in the quivering and raised skin. The man underneath his hands clenched his eyes shut as he arched off the bed. Kakashi drew away with a smile, feeling drunk on power.

“Wha- what?” Naruto murmured. His eyes fluttered open, uncomprehending. “Touch me. Please?”

“Try again, Na-ru-to,” he said, tracing idle patterns against the skin covered in goosebumps. Letting the finger slide down and under the elastic, going further and twirling through the coarse hair he found there. 

“Fuck, Kakashi," Naruto rasped, voice deep and aching. More sultry and sweet than Kakashi had ever imagined.

“Yes, like that,” he said, ducking down to kiss those tempting lips. Licking inside, tracing the insides with the tip of his tongue, wanting to chase every last flavour. He pulled away to whisper a confession against whisker marks. “I’ve wanted to hear you say only my name for so long.”

Naruto thrust against his hand and did his best to kiss him again. Puffs of air blew against Kakashi's cheeks, cool against his flushed face.

“Kakashi, please, touch me,” he said and the desperation made Kakashi hiss out a yes into a burning cheek.

And Kakashi believed in positive reinforcement, so he slid his whole hand down and wrapped his fingers around Naruto's cock. It felt different at this angle. Better. Because now he could focus entirely on how to touch, to stroke, and he could see Naruto fall apart. It was his right to do so, he was allowed. Naruto wanted him to. 

"That's it," he murmured into Naruto's ear before nibbling at the lobe, tugging with his teeth. Then he moved down to his chin, cheek, neck. He gnawed a bit on the tendon, stark under golden skin as Naruto threw his head back, trying not to come. 

That wouldn't do.

Kakashi had plans. 

He moved his hand to the head, trailing a finger over the slit, back and forth. Collecting precum and smearing it down the rest of the fat cock. His thumb paying extra attention to the vein he'd found in the shower. 

"Ka-" Naruto broke off as Kakashi switched his grasp, wrapped his fingers tightly around the wet, slick heat and dragged his hand up and down, knuckles brushing against tight balls at every stroke. "Kakashi!"

The morning sun danced across Naruto’s skin as he writhed, muscles and tendons in his arms dancing underneath skin. A growl erupted from Naruto’s throat as he tried to break free again. “I want to touch. Kakashi. You fucking bastard. Let me-”

“What sweet nothings you call me, dear,” he replied, chuckling, but let go of his wrists in favour of digging his fingers in wild locks, nosing up the straining throat until he met lips again. “Like poetry.”

“I’ll show you poetry,” Naruto grumbled into his mouth and twisted. Kakashi followed the motion and found himself on his back, Naruto straddling his hips. His hips stuttered forward desperately. “You teasing asshole.”

Kakashi was going to say something about showing some respect to the Hokage, he was, but he got distracted by how Naruto leaned down, rubbing against him. Skin against skin. Cock sliding against cock.

He ran his hands over the bunching muscles of Naruto’s back and pressed down, wanting the other one closer. Wanted the full, delicious weight pinning him down.

Lightning chakra danced through his coils as he slid his left hand down to that firm ass, cutting away the boxers. Naruto only groaned and his thrusts grew jerky, desperate as Kakashi plucked away the fabric and ran his hand between them, wetting his fingers with precome. Then he trailed down between flexing cheeks until his fingertips found wrinkly skin.

Naruto slid shaking hands into his hair, murmuring yes and please and Kakashi against his neck.

With that permission, he rubbed against the rim, petting it. Holding down his fingers over the opening, not pressing inside, just a promise. Naruto, gloriously impatient, pushed back with a bit-off moan. Kakashi moved it away and Naruto whined at the loss, tugging at his hair.

He felt a nip at his throat and hoped Naruto would worry at it with teeth and lips to leave a mark. He wanted something to press into, see in the mirror. Proof of the impossible.

“What now ?” Naruto asked. Only Naruto could make it sound both bratty and wanton.

“Need something,” Kakashi said. “Lube or spit. I have-”

Naruto cursed and dragged Kakashi's hand up to his mouth, sucking on the fingers with a wet, slurping noise. A clever tongue danced around them, twirling around one and then the other. Soaking them all. Kakashi looked on, breathless, at Naruto’s cheeks bulging around four of his fingers. He traced one with his thumb, feeling both his fingers and that slurping tongue move around.

The younger man pulled off with a defiant grin. “That's enough?”

Kakashi nodded, unable to speak, hand resting against Naruto's ass, now slick fingers teasing at the opening. His other hand landed on the sharp jut of a hip, nudging him further up Kakashi's body for better access.

“Then touch me.”

And he did.

One finger slid in without much resistance. It was tempting to drag it out, but more than anything else he wanted to see how many orgasms he could wring out of the man in his arms. 

Pull and stretch, one after the other until Naruto was gaping, relaxed, ready. Then he focused on it, that soft, slightly spongy spot. He grinned and pressed both fingers against it. Naruto shot up with a cry of Kakashi’s name, and Kakashi could finally see the pleasure slack expression. Flushed cheeks, flaring nostrils and dark eyes blazing. 

He slid his free hand over the broad back, down to the firm ass, the top of a softly haired thigh, stroking at the inside of one, grabbing that slick heat in a tight grip, jacking it off. Staring down between then, transfixed, as the flushed head grew wetter and wetter. Thrusting into his hand, the glide so sweet. 

Those lust-blown eyes clenched shut to try and rein it all in.

"Be a good boy and open your eyes for me," Kakashi whispered and felt the dick twitch at the words. He smiled, delighted, and stroked up Naruto's dick, adding a twist over the leaking head. "I want to see you."

Golden eyelashes fluttered open and hazy, dark eyes struggled to focus on him. 

"There you are," he murmured and tenderly petted that spot inside again, rubbing and circling. Never letting up. "Look at you."

And it was a sight to behold. Naruto’s warm body above his, pressing down but never close enough. Sweat dripping down from glistening temples, running down a toned chest, trailing along heaving pectorals, kissing quivering abdominal muscles, slipping into the groove between lower abs and obliques -that dragged Kakashi's gaze down to that pretty dick he was getting finally, properly acquainted with- and vanishing into the coarse hair. He wanted to lick and bite down the same path. 

He took a deep breath, memorising the scents and the sounds. The salt and musk, the telltale smell of sex. Naruto panting and cursing him, hands scrabbling at Kakashi's chest. Rubbing against scars and imperfections. 

A hand snuck down Kakashi's chest, tickling his belly on the way into Kakashi’s underwear and he removed the hand on Naruto's dick to grip it in his, pulling it away. 

“Feels so good, Kakashi,” Naruto said, biting his lips. “Want to touch you too. Make you come.”

Kakashi closed his eyes briefly, refusing to give in. “Not until I see you fall apart, shatter against me, under my hands.” 

Naruto gave a full-body shiver and his dick twitched in Kakashi’s hand. He smiled and rubbed his thumb under the head, playing a bit with the pulled back foreskin.

“Then I’ll lick up the mess, spear you open on my tongue, make you sloppy and wet, dripping from both ends,” he purred, feeling how the hot, throbbing length in his hand twitched and started coming. He looked on, enraptured, as Naruto threw his head back with a scream of his name and Kakashi wanted the whole damned village to hear it, to hear how Naruto called for him. “Not letting you touch yourself so you’d have to come untouched if you want any relief, from just my tongue.” 

Trailing his hand up and down gently as the member in his hand grew softer, Kakashi gazed as Naruto, flushed and radiant, came down from his high. He cupped his hand around the soft, sopping cock, gave it a gentle squeeze in parting and guided Naruto to lie down on him. 

“Oh, Kakashi, what about you?” Naruto asked, huffing against his neck, voice hoarse from shouting his name. Kakashi reached up a hand to rub the back of it, wondering if he’d sound like that after sucking cock. The guy had no gag reflex, after all. His hand slid around, rubbing over Naruto’s larynx and thought about how sweet Naruto would look on his knees.

Perhaps in his office, slipped under the Hokage desk, nestled close and safe. 

Those soft lips stretched around Kakashi, whiskered cheeks bulging. Throat tight and slick, swallowing around him. Taking him deep.

“Maa,” he replied, heady with arousal and possibilities. “I have some ideas.”

Naruto chuckled, wrapping his arms around Kakashi’s neck, pulling him in for a languid kiss. “How about you show me, Kakashi?”

They were in Naruto’s bathroom. The tile was familiar. Warm water cascaded down his back where he kneeled, steam rising around him. 

He was less concerned about the change in scenery compared to the sight of a naked, wet Naruto spreading his legs before him. 

Tanned, wet and round cheeks took up most of his vision and he helped himself to two handfuls of them. Massaging them, spreading them. Seeing that hole, loose and open from his earlier fingering, wink at him. 

“Please, Kakashi, do something!” The dark, breathy voice from before was back, as demanding as Naruto’s body language, pushing his ass towards Kakashi. “Or I’ll murder you, see if I don’t.”

“Threatening your Hokage, Naruto?” he said, digging his nails into the supple flesh in his hand, dragging them down to leave red lines, decorating the toned cheeks beautifully. “How traitorous of you.”

He sighed and leaned forward, nosing the inside of one thigh, rubbing the other with his hands. “And here I was going to make you come quickly.”

A low thud was heard from above as Naruto cursed and bumped his head into the wall. One hand reached back and down, trying to clutch at his wet hair.

“It is a pity that I have to take my time now,” Kakashi continued, ducking the grab and took the opportunity to bite up one thigh, nosing at tight balls and then biting down the other. His tongue darted out, to chase the taste of salt and joy. “I guess it can’t be helped. Part of my duty is to discipline my shinobi.”

He leaned back with a hum, and noticed that the lovebites barely showed against Naruto’s darker skin. It meant he had to bite around each one, sucking in tightly and worry at the soft, salty skin with his teeth. A shame, of course.

It was a heady scent and he inhaled deeply as Naruto spread his legs more, making it easier to lick at his perineum. His nose nudged against the rim, and he leaned back in time to see it clutch at empty air. 

A tan hand entered his peripheral, but this time it went for that twitching hole. Kakashi let Naruto rub himself, once, twice, then he grabbed the hand in a vice-like grip and pressed it to the tiles in front of them.

“No, you don’t get to touch yourself, Naruto,” he said and stroked the outside of strong legs that were shuddering against his hands in an effort to keep Naruto standing. “Don’t you remember? On my tongue or not at all.”

“Kakashi!” The call was desperate, guttural, pleading. It shook Kakashi to the core, resonating in his very bones. It might be Naruto who was spread apart, vulnerable before him, but Kakashi was the one on his knees in supplication. And he was ready to worship.

His hands moved up as if on their own accord, stroking and petting until his fingers dipped into the cleft between those round, delicious, cheeks and spreading them apart.

Naruto gritted out his name again, leaning his bowed head on his crossed arms before him and stilled, waiting patiently for once in his life.   

Kakashi dove in, inhaling deeply and his brain lit up at the earthy musk and salt. He pressed a kiss to the tailbone, then continued down. Peppering kisses as he went until he reached his goal, lips brushing against the slight bump. He groaned at the way it twitched against him, mouth salivating at the taste. The way Naruto cursed and pushed back, whining, as Kakashi breathed out over it. He smiled and pursed his lips, blowing out again. As Naruto shivered from the cold sensation, he leaned forward to warm him up again. He ran his tongue over him in large, broad swipes. Whenever he felt the tight little ring, he let his tongue dip in, just a bit, before moving on. 

“Fuck, that feels strange,” the blond said, voice a bit muffled against his arms. “And good. I didn’t know, never imagined, not even when I used clones-” Kakashi’s dick twitched and he was going to comment, but his tongue was busy with something more important as he circled the tip of his tongue in tighter and tighter spirals. His imagination happily painted a pretty picture of multiple naked Narutos, spilled out in his bed. Miles and miles of flawless skins and multiple mouths on him, hands everywhere. “-I’ve never tried, didn’t know it’d feel this good. That you’d do this. I’ve thought about you-”

The earth-shattering stream of words cut off and Kakashi moved back to see Naruto bite into his arms, trying to muffle any noise. “Don’t hide, Naruto, let me hear you.”

The back of his ears blushed red and he turned his face away. “I talk too much. You don’t need to hear… I know I run my mouth.”

Kakashi relaxed his grip but didn’t move his hands away. Then he stretched up and pressed a kiss to the tense spine. “You don’t think I’ve thought about you? Besides, I like listening to you. In or out of the bedroom. Or well, shower.”

A flash of blue as Naruto looked at him over his shoulder. “Really?”

Kakashi looked into those gorgeous eyes and smiled. “Really. And right now I’m trying to make you scream for me. You letting me know what feels good and not helps. It’s also really arousing. So, please, let me hear you.”

Naruto’s eyes opened wide and he stared down at Kakashi for a second, two, then the skin around his eyes crinkled in a smile and nodded. “Alright.”

Satisfied that he’d get to hear that wonderful voice again, drenched with lust, he nibbled his way down to his prize again. When he was face to ass with it, he spread those luscious cheeks again to dive right back in.

He worried the rim with teeth and tongue, his name a constant song from Naruto’s lips, and when Naruto started pleading again - please, Kakashi, it feels so good, please more, you’re making me feel so fucking good - he cursed and speared his tongue inside, aiming for that smooth spot a few centimetres in.

Naruto wailed and scrambled against the wall. “Oh yes, Kakashi, there!”

Never let it be said that Kakashi wasn't an obedient shinobi at heart. 

The wet, slick sounds of his tongue rubbing against Naruto's prostate, the rush of his blood, his muffled breathing and Naruto's hitched breathing, moans and loud praise drowned out the rest of the world. There was nothing but the two of them.

Kakashi lost track of time. He couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when Naruto keened so sweetly whenever he flicked his tongue over his prostate. Not when the smell went straight to his cock, throbbing and calling out for relief.

His jaw started protesting the strain, but he had suffered more for less. Any discomfort mattered little when the pitch of Naruto’s moans changed and grew more desperate. His hips stuttered, pressing back incessantly. And Kakashi smiled, moved away for a second to slip in two fingers with his tongue and Naruto’s ass flexed as he thrust once against the slick tiles, coming with a hoarse shout of Kakashi’s name. His knees finally gave out and Kakashi stood up in an instant to catch the panting, glorious mess against his chest.

Boneless arms flopped over his shoulders and Kakashi gave in to the pull, feeling Naruto pant against his jaw, cheek, upper lip as he tried to find his way to Kakashi’s mouth. He found it with a triumphant murmur and licked inside, heedless of where it’d just been.

“Amazing, you’re amazing,” Naruto rasped against his lips, and the words shot straight for Kakashi’s dick. 

He groaned, rutted against a strong thigh. Once, twice, just to take the edge off. Then he stilled as a pale white hand grasped Kakashi’s throbbing cock and slid up to the head, twisting over it carefully. 

Kakashi took the hand in his, raising it to his lips to give it a kiss. He looked into those marvellous eyes he’d dreamed about for ages and he froze. 

Naruto, sweet and awe-inspiring Naruto, who’d shouldered the world on his shoulder because it was the right thing to do, was looking at him as if he was the miracle. As if Naruto was the lucky one.

“What do you want, Kakashi?” he asked in a murmur, lacing their fingers together. “You can have anything.”

Birds were chirping. Wind ruffled his hair. The bright midday sun was beating down on Kakashi’s neck.

Naruto, eyes glowing gold and shaded with orange, was pinned underneath him. Radiant against the lush green grass. 

This time, this glorious time, everything was right and good. His body sang as he caught the smell of himself on Naruto. The man underneath him smelled of citrus and petrichor and of the earthy, salty musk of sweat and arousal. Blood sang in Kakashi’s veins, rushing to his cock that hung heavy, huge between them. 

He thought, once more, of pressing closer and down. Kissing and biting that smiling mouth, leaving marks for everyone to see down that soft, vulnerable neck.

Naruto had been so sweet, riding his hip, pressing back against his tongue. Letting him want, demanding it even. With his pleas and his touch. 

He was gorgeous, keening and trembling as Kakashi slid a third finger in, lube making the glide easy. It ought to be, he’d spent ages opening him up. With one finger, then two, scissoring and stretching. Biting into that straining neck, vibrating against his tongue with the force of the moans that kept slipping out.

Kakashi cursed at the sight and grabbed the lube bottle again, slid his fingers out to pour more of the cold slick on his fingers before rubbing it, heating it up. This time his fingers slid in with a positively squishy sound. He twirled them around, making sure not to bump against Naruto’s prostate because the dick twitching against his was already wet with precome. Kakashi wanted Naruto to come on his cock this time. It could be as he finally, gloriously slid in, stretching him more than three or even four fingers ever could. It didn’t matter. Kakashi would just fuck him through it and bring him to a second orgasm. He had faith in Naruto’s stamina and refractory period.

“Please, Kakashi, just… fuck me,” Naruto said, panting and throwing his head back and forth against the grass, golden strands glinting in the sun, golden eyes looking otherwordly. “It feels so much. Everything is… Your chakra, it’s singing to me. Kakashi, I can feel you. Fuck. So good.” 

“Not yet,” Kakashi said and leaned down to kiss that tantalising mouth before he was tempted to give in. “I need to stretch you more. I’m not… I won’t hurt you.”

Naruto groaned and reached down to try and drag Kakashi’s hand out. “You’ve got three fingers in me already.”

Kakashi shifted in place, staring down at where his fingers disappeared inside. He pulled them out a bit to spread them, forcing that twitching rim open a bit more. A drop of lube trickled out, because he’d make sure to use plenty of it. Excessive amounts, probably. But Kakashi was big, he knew that much, and he would never hurt Naruto during sex. Not when Naruto was barely coherent, drunk on his touch. 

A fourth finger joined the others and he twisted them around, pressing against the walls, where he could feel the racing pulse, rubbing his knuckles against them. His thumb worried at the ring of muscles from the outside, prying it open, making sure that nothing tore. He couldn’t smell any blood, only sweat and tears as Naruto blinked, looking up at him with hazy eyes.

He kept his fingers deep inside, pouring more lube between them, swirling them around to heat it up. Thumb circling the rim over and over until he could feel it relax, loosen.

“Still with me, Naruto?” Kakashi asked as he slipped his fingers out and dried them on the grass, then wiped them on his discarded shirt. 

When Naruto didn’t reply he slid those same fingers to Naruto’s smiling lips, tapping gently. Nostrils flared, scenting, and awareness returned to Naruto’s face. 

"What?" He asked with a cocky blond brow arched as Naruto's tongue darted out to lick Kakashi's fingers.

“Welcome back,” he replied, pulling the hand away with thoughts about having Naruto suck on his fingers some other time. He poured more lube in his wet, messy hand, using it to slick up his throbbing erection before nudging the tip against an opening that fluttered as it tried to open around him. “Are you ready for me?”

Strong legs wrapped around his waist and that glorious body undulated against him, rubbing a leaking cock against his stomach. “I feel like I’ve been ready since we were in your bed. Come on, I want to feel you, all of you.”

Kakashi bit his lip as he bore down, holding his dick steady as he pushed, slowly, slowly and felt the head of him sink in. “Push out, Naruto, it’ll make it-” he broke off with a gasp as Naruto did just that and his head popped in. “-easier, fuck.”

Golden eyes looked up at him, all-seeing but intent. Wide and amazed by the pleasure, but focused on Kakashi. “Come on, sensei, I can handle the rest.”

“You can, can you?” He said, staring down at where they were connected. Him, in Naruto. Finally. He gave a small thrust, testing. When Naruto’s body sang for him, dick twitching and absolutely drooling precome, Kakashi gritted his teeth and pushed, a slow and smooth glide.

Naruto scrabbled at his shoulders, his ass, his back, trying to get him to move faster. Always so impatient.

“I still want to take my time,” Kakashi said, withdrawing again and Naruto screamed his name in frustration. He stilled, shocked into silence when Kakashi pulled his legs over his shoulders, pressing down and folding that stubborn man in half under him. Naruto couldn’t move, could do nothing but take what Kakashi would give him. Kakashi smirked down at the frustrated twist of red-bitten lips and rubbed the head of his cock against that gaping opening. It fluttered, kissed the tip of him, a silent plea.

It was so easy to slip back into that delicious, maddening heat. Then he waited, body coiled and ready, for Naruto to look at him again. “Will you be a good boy and handle the rest? Take all of me?”

A needy high-pitched sound tore itself out of Naruto’s throat, and it almost sounded like his name.

“Maa, I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, raking one trembling hand into Naruto’s hair, holding him still. Then he slid in, in one firm move, not stopping until he bottomed out, balls deep. Tight and hot, crammed into Naruto. His former student. His. 

He nosed at the Adam’s apple bobbing underneath him as Naruto swallowed. Then the hollow of his throat, the vulnerable line of his carotid artery. Then he groaned and buried his teeth in Naruto’s neck, needing to leave a mark.

Nails dug into the dirt as he pulled out, so only his head remained clutched inside heat, slick, tight, Naruto. Then he angled his hips, aimed for that bump again and thrust back in, harder this time. Pleasure coiled tight, down low in his stomach, in his soul. 

He wanted Naruto. To see him fall apart, crashing underneath him. He’d never wanted anything or anyone like this before.

And Kakashi had him. Bent in half, wide-open and burning hot. As bright and welcoming as always.

His hips started moving in full-body thrusts, grinding, flexing, pushing inside.

It’s not long until Naruto tensed up, so close to his peak. Kakashi wasn’t there, not yet, but he wanted to see Naruto come on his dick, then get fucked stupid. He’d milk him dry if that made him happy, if that would make him stay.  

“That’s it, come for me,” Kakashi said, mindless with pleasure, wanting to see Naruto light up. Feeling everything, being everywhere at once and yet focused on Kakashi. On his cock. “Just my cock, look at how you take me. You can feel everything but you don’t care, do you? You just want to come. Do it. Naruto, come. So good for me.”

Then he felt Naruto clamp down around him. Pulsing spasms that feel so good, making Kakashi think about letting Naruto have all of him. He gritted his teeth, doing his best to weather the storm that was Naruto. Naruto, thrashing on his dick, head thrown back, bite marks on display. 

Kakashi slowed his pace through it, breathing through his mouth to not smell it as clearly and reigned himself in. Softly pressing as deep as possible and holding there, to feel Naruto move around him. Then, as Naruto went limp and breathless in his arms, grinning at him goofily, Kakashi leaned down to kiss him. Then he picked up the pace again. And Naruto let him, welcomed it with hands stroking down Kakashi’s back. A murmur that could be Kakashi’s name, could be anything. He couldn’t hear it, not when Naruto’s entire body was open, welcoming, drawing him in. 

He thrust again, and again. Rutting like a wild dog, doing his best to let Naruto’s warmth consume him. Naruto smiled up at him, sated and trembling. He started to lose track of time. His heartbeat irrelevant compared to how his every nerve was on fire. As if lightning was crackling under his skin.

With a shrug of Kakashi’s shoulders, Naruto’s legs fell down to his sides instead. Out of the shadows of his legs, his torso glistened from both sweat and his own come. Kakashi groaned at the sight.

“Naruto.”

He ran a hand over a quivering belly, scooping up some come with a hand before grabbing Naruto’s soft dick in a gentle grasp.

Naruto’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t say stop or pull away. So Kakashi worked his cock with light, barely-there touches, hoping the slick would be enough as he slid a hand up and down the velvet skin. 

Thrusting again and again, as if he could carve out a piece of Naruto and curl into it, he let the momentum do most of his work on Naruto’s dick. It was enough. That loud and smiling mouth open, crying out in a mix of pleasure and pain as the length in his hand started to harden. 

“Yes, you’ll come again, won’t you?” Kakashi asked, demanded, pleaded against Naruto’s jaw. Biting down on it, gnawing lightly. Mindless with the feeling of Naruto growing hard again. Thrusting into his hands.

“Fuck,” Naruto whined, drawing him in closer with his knees. “I’m hard again. What did you do to me?”

“I fucked you through it all, Naruto,” he replied, feeling both pride and overwhelming lust. “You’ll come again for me, won’t you?”

He changed his pace to slow, dragging thrusts to try and hold off his orgasm a little while longer. Meanwhile, the hand stroking Naruto sped up, added a twist. Ran a finger down a vein, pressed against the most sensitive spots. Rubbed the new, beading precome over the sensitive head.

“Kakashi, please, what do you want?” Naruto asked, voice decadently rough and gold, gold eyes focused on him entirely.

“One more, Naruto,” he whispered darkly, never breaking eye contact. “Come for me one more time.”

“I can’t-”

“Oh, you can,” Kakashi responded. “Be a good boy for me, Naruto.”

And Naruto’s eyes flickered between blue and gold as he arched back and screamed. 

Kakashi hummed, please, and thrust once, twice and then a third time. Pressed as deep as he could as Naruto’s spasming body clutched at him as that pleasure erupted and he came and he-

- woke up, panting, in a body not his own. 

He stared up at Naruto’s ceiling, arms spread out across cold, empty sheets. 

Then he looked out the window and saw it was not yet dawn.

Fuck.

He glanced down his, Naruto's, body and saw the t-shirt, ridden up along his belly, showing off golden skin and the tent in the boxers. 

That wasn’t something he could or should deal with. Not if a mere shower had made his imagination light up like that. 

He sat up and glanced down at the white, prosthetic arm. It itched a bit.

Sleep wasn’t an option to pass the time. So he made two clones, sent one for ointment and one for wrapping his arm. Their flushed faces, straining erection met his startled gaze and he dispelled them with a frown.

In an instant, his mind was flooded by seeing two flushed, aroused Narutos looking back at him with pupils blown wide.

He sighed and headed for the bathroom. 

Another shower might be for the best.

Chapter Text

Water pelted down on the top of his head, icy cold and unforgiving. He shivered at the sensation of it hitting his spine when he moved forward. Hoping it would wash away his sins. 

It was reminiscent of past missions sitting huddled under the awning of a curved roof as he observed his target. Waiting in the silence until a vulnerable flash of skin showed through the dark. A flick of a wrist and a kunai sliced it open, rain washing away the fine red mist in an instant. Thunder hiding the thud as a body hit the ground. Moving through the earth until he was under his target, burying the evidence in an instant. Then melting into the dark. Using the heavy downpour as a shield.

A quick, clean kill. Uncomplicated.

Kakashi had appreciated the straightforward nature of the Anbu. The rigid structure. The certainty of the next blow. Emotions had been discouraged, put aside. They were meant to be shadows within shadows, the assassins of shinobi and the tools called for things too unpleasant for the rest of the rank to sully themselves with.

It had been a way to carry on existing when he lacked the willingness to live. Moving in the background and staying away from others had been clean and ordered. Each day a repeat of the next. Wake up, get dressed, listen to the mission brief, travel, kill, return, sleep.  

Life was only messy in the act of living it.

Perhaps that was why he’d been unprepared for Naruto.

Kakashi sighed, disgusted at himself. Not being ready to feel full to bursting didn't give his heart any right to beat faster when Naruto smiled at him. What a foolish old thing. He knew better.

He ran his right hand through his hair, scrubbing at his tense neck. The arm felt stiff and unyielding. Naruto had complained once about how his prosthetic sometimes acted up in the cold. Kakashi had smiled behind the safety of his trusty Icha Icha Tactics as Sakura called him an old, rickety geezer.

The next day she’d tossed Naruto a jar of ointment to rub into his arm to stimulate blood flow. 

As Kakashi wrapped himself in one of Naruto’s large and fluffy towels he went on a hunt for that jar. He dug it out from a well-stocked first aid kit, a copy of the one Kakashi had been given by Sakura years ago, though this one had a thin layer of dust on it. The card from Sakura had no dust on it. He smiled at the well-used crease on the pink slip of paper and tucked it away again.

The scent of medical herbs hit his nose, strong enough even for Naruto’s nose to pick up the spicy tang. He sniffed it, curious, but couldn’t discern what herbs had been used. 

The heat tingled through his arm as if he was summoning lightning chakra to the flexing fingers. Kakashi glanced down at the small jar, feeling warm.

-----

Breakfast was a lonely affair.

Yesterday had been pleasant, dangerously so even. The contrast was stark in the predawn light. 

The food tasted worse. The chair opposite him was empty. The kitchen was quiet and too big. There was no cheerful babbling from Naruto as he carried on about his latest mission. No nails clicking against the floor as Kakashi opened the fridge to get the meat out for the ninken. A sound they'd always hear from across the house even if their ears mysteriously clogged up when he told them it was bathtime. There was no delightful laughter as Naruto saw his ninken act like the dogs they were as they nipped and showed at each other to get their bowl filled first. 

Kakashi missed his pack. While he was no stranger to being without them out on missions, it was alien to know he was safely back in Konoha and yet eating breakfast by himself. They usually crowded around his kitchen table, especially since moving into the Hokage manor had given them plenty of room to laze around in.

If he went to his home now he could wake up Naruto, lure him into the kitchen with the smell of food and sit down, surrounded by warmth and noise. His pack would join them and sprawl around all over the large kitchen that would look small despite its size. He could have another small taste. An imitation of what he wanted and one as permanent as a dream.

Dreams were dangerous things for a ninja.

Kakashi glanced out the window in the direction of the Hokage mansion. Looked across the table at the empty chair. Scratched his chin with a hum. 

He wolfed down the rest of the eggs and headed for the door. 

-----

"I read somewhere once that we fall in love where the lightning strikes, rather than where we choose,” Kakashi murmured, reluctant to break the silence. “I didn’t put much stock in it back then. I must have been nine or so. I was training to become a Jōnin, so I had far more important matters to worry about compared to such frivolous things. I was such a brat, wasn’t I, sensei? Valuing nothing but the rules.”

The stone in front of him said nothing. The air around him was filled only with fog, illuminated by the rising sun. There were no ghosts around him, they’d left him alone after the war. Or rather, he’d let them rest. He knew now, with absolute certainty, that they were waiting for him on the other side and he was in no hurry to meet them. They’d want him to have a long and rambling story to tell. These days, Kakashi wanted that as well.

“Yet they make no sense,” he continued just as softly as before. “We must be loyal to our village in order to die for it. We celebrate the idea that the entire village is like a large family unit and that we love, believe, cherish, and fight to protect the village, as previous generations have done before us. No wonder all Shinobi wrestle with these warring concepts. How can we kill our reason to fight? How can we protect what we don’t care about?”

He traced the name Namikaze Minato in the stone, then Uzumaki Kushina.

“ A Shinobi must kill his emotions ,” he mused. “I was never very good at it. I tried my best, buried it deep and far away. It didn’t do me much good. Your son… he’s stubborn. I never thought I’d meet someone as unwilling to concede defeat as you, Kushina. Well, this one’s worse. I’m sure you’re really happy about it too.”

Kakashi smiled behind his mask. It had felt wrong appearing in front of the stone as Naruto. This was a matter between Kakashi and his dead. A quick henge as he’d approached the memorial had made him feel more settled.

He kneeled in front of the stone, running his fingers through the grass. It was wet. It must have rained during the night.

“You both gave your lives because you had hope in the future and faith in Naruto,” he said. “I’m glad you got to see your faith rewarded, sensei. You’ve told Kushina all about him, right? And how she doesn’t need to worry. You were so proud, seeing him inspire such a large force of shinobi from the five villages. He’s the strongest of us all, the brightest. I didn’t think I’d ever see something like him. I don’t think anyone was ready for him.” 

A flock of birds flew away from a nearby tree in a flutter of wings. Normal, regular birds rather than the messenger hawks of the village. There had been less cause to send them out these days. He looked after them as they sang and danced through the air, chaotic but choreographed. 

Then he looked back at the memorial stone and chuckled. “I wasn’t. Lightning struck and I can’t make it undone. I’ve tried, you know. It would be easier if I could call it an idle thought. That I saw that he’s grown, that he’s beautiful and then never noticed it again. But I… it’s like… I’m calm around him, comfortable. I want him to stay. With me. It’s selfish, isn’t it? I know I’m too old for him, too closed off.” 

He sighed and shook his head with a wince. “I know what you told me, Kushina, but this is Naruto. He’s too good for me.”

-----

Many years ago he’d sat up, shaking and gasping, in a hospital bed. Lightning chakra had crackled around his hands, drawn unconsciously to ward off the dreams. He’d looked down at his right hand and the smell of blood had been overwhelming.

It had been the night after he got back from Kiri. After his failed mission to rescue Rin. 

There had been a knock on the door. Once he’d managed to force out a soft Come in! Kushina had entered the room, carrying a fruit basket. 

She’d sat next to him on the bed, not touching but close enough that he could lean against her if he wanted. Then she’d talked. About a fierce battle between the Uchiha and the Senju, the duel between Madara and Hashirama. Death and despair. The trump card in the form of a giant demon fox, summoned and controlled by Madara to wreak havoc and destruction on them all. She’d told him about one of her clansmen, Uzumaki Mito, and her decision to seal the demon in herself. The first known Jinchūriki of the Kyūbi, but not the last one.

He’d looked up at that. Gazed into violet eyes and they were heartbreaking in their understanding.

Kushina had told him of her clan. Strong and wild, with chakra especially suited for sealing. Their techniques were powerful enough to summon death and to seal away demons. They were the perfect candidates for becoming Jinchūriki. Few others could hope to survive the process. And, even then, some would fail to hold the beast.

She had told him about being selected for her unique chakra, trained and moulded to become the next vessel. That she’d been sent to Konoha mere months before her home was destroyed because of fear and greed. And how multiple of her clansmen had discussed the process with Uzumaki Mito before their destruction. That the design of the seal had been carefully considered from multiple angles before they’d agreed to let her adamantine chains do most of the controlling. 

Kakashi had sat still, transfixed by her tale, as she told him of the agony on Mito’s face and how the legendary kunoichi had screamed as the demon was ripped away from her and placed in Kushina. The woman had died shortly after, it was only her Uzumaki heritage that had kept her alive after the extraction.  

There was no way a normal ninja would survive becoming the vessel for long. The beast would either break free, killing the Jinchūriki or it would consume them. Turn and twist them, until the body burnt up from the malevolent chakra and only the will of the demon remained. She'd smiled, bittersweet, as she had carried on talking about how extracting the beast would kill anyone not of her clan as well. After the chakra coils adjusted to having such an inhuman amount of energy surging through them, they'd bleed open and empty after the beast was removed. 

Kakashi had sat still, not pulling away, and she'd turned her head, long hair brushing against his shoulder, and gently stroked his hair. Like she'd done after Minato had found him next to his father's cold body, covered in dried blood.

"I wanted you to know that Rin was dead as soon as the beast was sealed in her," she'd said as Kakashi burrowed into her shoulder to hide the tears from Obito's eye. "She didn’t have enough chakra for a reliable seal, because the Uzumaki way relied on our reserves. We could have removed the Sanbi and sealed it into someone else, but it would have killed her. It's an agonising and slow death, with your chakra coils burning. I know it's poor comfort, but Rin chose her death. Sadly, she felt like she had to use you as a tool to carry it out, but you are not to blame. You gave her a quick death on her own terms."

Kakashi had said nothing, with his throat having been too clogged to make a sound. 

"I wanted you to know from a Jinchūriki and someone pretty good at seals, y'know? She died a better death than most Jinchūriki could ever dream of. We don't get happy endings. Mourn her still. But blame the kidnappers, not yourself."

"I should have kept her safe," he'd muttered, keeping his eyes shut to stem the tears. "I promised."

Kushina had sighed and slid an arm around his shoulders. "You were out of the village when she was taken. You could have done nothing."

Like how Kushina had been sent to Konoha before her home village was destroyed.

He hadn’t known what to say. He’d never been good at offering comfort. The way she’d smiled into his hair when he’d leaned into her side told him she’d understood. Kushina has always been good with people, even stubborn geniuses like him.

Minutes had passed in silence. He’d breathed in and out, trying to focus on the present. It had been hard not to see Rin’s pale, blood-spattered face as she screamed his name over and over and over . 

“I know it is hard, but we are shinobi and we endure,” she’d said. “Find something worth carrying on for, grip it tight and refuse to let it go.”

If only it was that easy. Things tended to leave him. One by bloody one. “What did you find, Kushina?”

“Love,” she’d said. “A different love than what I felt for Uzushio, but not lesser. It didn’t replace it, y’know? Every time you love something or someone it’ll be different, but no less true.”

Kakashi had pulled away, grimacing behind his mask. “ A Shinobi must kill his emotions. ”

Kushina had laughed at him and shook her head. “Those rules make no sense. You’ll understand when you get older.”

“I graduated from the Academy eight years ago. I’m an adult.”

She’d ruffled his hair with a grin. “Sure you are, brat! Just remember what I told you, alright? Find it, take a hold and don’t let go.”

-----

Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck with a grimace. “I don’t think you ever expected for that thing to be your son, huh? Would you tell me the same thing if you knew?”

The stone did not answer. 

“My Eternal Rival!”

Kakashi turned around to see Gai furiously wave with one hand and wheel himself forward with another. 

“Hello Gai,” he said, and walked closer. He didn’t know much about manoeuvring a wheelchair, but he didn’t think it would do well on wet grass. “What are you doing out here this early?”

His rival smiled brightly, turning around in his chair to grab something from the bag hanging at the back. As he turned back, he brandished a large bouquet of hydrangeas. “It is Neji’s birthday today and I wanted to spend some time with him before going for lunch with Lee and Tenten. All of us will visit again later.”

Not knowing what else to say Kakashi looked at the flowers. “Hydrangeas are beautiful flowers, Gai, I’m sure Neji would love them.”

Gai nodded, the smile growing softer. “Our dear Ino told me they symbolise pride. And I want him to know I’m proud of him and his youthfulness. He had a dream and he strived for it with the utmost of his passions.”

“I should get some flowers too. Bluebells, perhaps,” Kakashi said and walked around the wheelchair to grab the handles to steer them both towards the cemetery.

“What do they mean?”

“Gratitude,” he replied. “It’s been many years since I learned about hanakotoba. I’ve forgotten if there’s a flower that symbolises freedom. I’ll ask Ino as well.”

Gai said nothing for a while before he bobbed his head in a decisive nod. “Sounds like an excellent choice. Just what I’d expect from my rival!”

Kakashi hummed and walked on, pushing the wheelchair through the wet grass. It went about as well as he’d expected. 

“What were you doing out here this early, Kakashi?” Gai asked as he arranged the flowers in his lap. “You normally visit after work, don’t you? And there is something off about you.”

Kakashi looked down at the man in front of him and considered it. If Gai got it into his head that Kakashi needed to talk he’d hound him until he gave in. And if he sought out Kakashi later in the day he’d meet with Naruto and notice that something was wrong with his rival. 

“Maa, I’m currently in a henge, Gai.”

“Why?” Gai asked and tied a large blue ribbon around the flowers. “Did Naruto prank you in some way?”

”Not quite,” he replied dryly. “Naruto and I have swapped bodies for a few days and it is a strange experience.”

Gai’s laughter was hearty and loud, as always. “How did that happen, rival?”

“A seal mishap,” he said, unwilling to reveal Tsunade’s part in the ordeal. Or her motivations. “But it won’t last for long. Which is why we didn’t bother making a big deal out of it. Especially since it only means I have to guide Naruto through being the Hokage for a few days. It’s hardly a security issue.”

Uncharacteristic silence met his words. Kakashi leaned forward and around to catch a glimpse of Gai’s thoughtful frown.

“Gai?” Kakashi prodded, feeling a bit foolish at his hesitation.

“You’ve had less time for your comrades outside of a professional capacity ever since becoming Hokage,” Gai replied after a few moments. “Seeing more of your most youthful student should fill you with joy. Even if the circumstances are a bit strange they wouldn’t affect your cool. Something else is bothering you, rival, and it wouldn’t be noble of me to ignore a friend in need.”

Of course. They had been rivals for more than twenty years.

He winced and thought back to last week. “How about a challenge instead, Gai? We could see who can fold the largest origami animal in an hour.”

Gai leapt up from his seat and turned around, fire in his eyes. “Oh, how typical of you, dear rival! Do not sully our challenge with your attempts to distract me!”

Kakashi held up his hands in case Gai got it into his head to leap over the wheelchair and throw himself at him for a hug or a grapple. One could never know with Gai. “Alright, alright, I won’t.”

Gai crossed his arms over his chest and stood still. “Then tell me. I’m not moving from this spot until you do.”

“You’re meeting with your former team later,” Kakashi said with a raised brow. “It will be hard to eat lunch if you don’t move away from here.

“They’ll find me and we can have a picnic to commemorate our dear comrade and friend,” Gai replied, looking as unmoving as a great oak tree.

Kakashi glanced ahead to Neji’s grave. Had he been there, the young Jōnin would have sighed and rolled his eyes at the undignified display. But there’d be fondness mixed with the exasperation. Today, of all days, Neji should be spared the embarrassment. Perhaps he’d appreciate that more than some flowers.

“Alright, alright, I’ll tell you,” he sighed. “Just sit down, alright?”

White teeth gleamed in the rising sun as Gai gave him a thumbs up. “Of course!”

The other man sat down in his wheelchair again, looking ahead towards Neji’s gravestone.

“You’re right that I’ve not seen my old team as much lately,” Kakashi said. “And I found that I’ve enjoyed this experience too much.”

Gai hummed encouragingly.

“Naruto and I had breakfast and lunch together yesterday,” he continued with a sigh. “Today I ate alone. I didn’t like it.”

He grasped the handles again and started walking.

Gai, for once, said nothing.

Kakashi stared ahead and made sure that the wheels didn’t skid across the slippery grass.

“I swore I’d help Naruto on his path to fulfilling his dream, Gai,” he said and shook his head. “That should be enough, right? To be there should he stumble.”

Gai reached up behind him with one hand and patted one of Kakashi’s. “My dear rival, it’s good to hear you want something for yourself. It is the most youthful thing when love blossoms!”

Kakashi blinked at the genuine warmth in his rival’s voice. “Love?”

“Of course, Kakashi,” Gai said and glanced back over a green-clad shoulder with a wide grin. “It makes me glad.”

"Ah, I…"

The grin didn't waver.

Kakashi sighed. He walked on in silence until they were almost at Neji's grave. It seemed best to spare the poor guy from listening to his old sensei give the Hokage relationship advice. Kakashi hadn't known Neji well, but he remembered how the young man would look at them both with despair in his normally stoic face, Tenten standing nearby and groaning.

It had always made Kakashi want to push their next challenge into something far more embarrassing. In comparison, Sakura would mutter about idiots while Naruto would happily agree to Lee's offer for a spar or a new way to have a ramen eating contest. 

“Naruto is far more... youthful than me, Gai,” he said after a while as he tried to put the problem into words. “In more ways than one.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, rival! There’s plenty of youth in you yet.”

Kakashi chuckled at that. “That might be true, but Naruto’s fourteen years younger than me. I was his sensei. I'm the Hokage and he'll be my successor."

Gai waved his hands in dismissal, the flowers adding a colourful emphasis. “You are both adults, you were his sensei for a few months and then you were teammates after his most triumphant return to the village. And the whole Shinobi world is expecting him to become Hokage. No one will think you simply handed him the role if you were lovers. He has earned the dream he fought so passionately for thousands of times over. If you love each other, those are just details."

"That's a rather big if, Gai."

"But the reward would be even greater if your passions are returned!" Gai called out, loud enough to startle some birds a few trees over. “Why do you hesitate to woo your sweetheart?”

"Well…"

Gai poked him in the leg with the bouquet.

"I'm not- " good enough, used to want someone closer, able to give him what he needs, convinced I’d known what to do with so much happiness, sure I’d know how to tell him I love him "-the most open person," he said, wincing behind his mask at the understatement.

His rival turned his wheelchair around to look at him with a solemn look, burning through him. “Kakashi... Naruto’s heart burns most splendidly with passion. He’s the brightest flame in the village. He is stronger than all of us. You entrusted the fate of the world to young Naruto two years ago. Trust him to decide for himself if he wants to be with you. Surely you know that you are not a bad man for wanting him?”

Kakashi glanced away from the earnest look. “It’s not that simple.”

Gai smiled at that. “For once, dear rival, you are missing the obvious. Love isn’t easy, you will have to fight with all the passion of youth for what you want. You will have to support and cherish him, but you do that already. You will have to let him in, but you've already done so. The important part is loving each other with an enduring passion. That bit is that simple. The heart will want what the heart wants. Listen to yours, my friend!”

Kakashi stared at him. “Why?”

“I believe you can make each other happy, Kakashi,” Gai said with absolute certainty. “Let yourself be happy, rival. You deserve it too, you know.”

He was glad for his mask in that moment as he felt his cheeks warm.

Gai looked at him for a while. Then he gestured around them. “Shinobi are not guaranteed a long life or even a happy one, but we have fought for peace and many of our comrades died for it. Why not honour their memory by enjoying it? Do you want to continue living with regrets?” 

Kakashi hummed. “I will think about it.”

Gai nodded and gave a wide smile, shining teeth and thumbs up. The flowers were still in his hand, almost thrust into Kakashi’s face. “That is most excellent to hear, dear rival!”

With that, they headed for Neji’s grave. Gai handed him two flowers and Kakashi thanked him with a nod before heading over to talk to Rin and his father.

He had plenty of things to tell them.

Chapter Text

After a hearty pat on the back from Gai, which was youthful enough to dispel the henge, Kakashi made his way back towards the village proper. His walk was accompanied by Gai’s effusive and loud apologies for breaking his cool and hip disguise. Kakashi waved them off with a shrug.

Then he looked towards the village and considered his options. 

It had been a quiet morning so far, even with Gai's appearance at the graveyard, and he felt reluctant to break the silence. The new day had begun in Konoha and he wanted to keep the peace and quiet afforded to the Hokage rather than the attention given to Naruto. He reached out with his senses and channelled a minuscule fraction of Naruto’s chakra to his nose to enhance his sense of smell. The result was nothing compared to his normal one, but sufficient to ensure that no one was close enough to see him. He glanced around and then transformed back into Hatake Kakashi again. As long as he stayed away from people who knew him, the henge should fool people long enough for him to get back to his house and meet up with Naruto. 

As he leapt from rooftop to rooftop, he observed the storeowners that moved their stock around while calling for their assistants. Children were running in the streets, shouting and laughing as they played games. Civilians were minding their business and shinobi were moving across the rooftops, flickering from spot to spot and undetectable to an untrained eye. It was all supervised by his Anbu who melted into the shadows when he looked in their directions. He caught a new one in the corner of his eyes and he grinned under his mask as Anbu Crow startled at Kakashi giving him a friendly wave. The new agents were so fun to mess with.

Pausing above his favourite grocery store, he looked down and considered both Naruto’s kitchen and his own. He’d been planning to buy some groceries for a few days now, and Naruto’s cupboards were not the most well-stocked ones. While he had plenty of fruit lying around, the guy had never really adapted Kakashi’s teachings about including vegetables when cooking. It made him curious about what Naruto was planning to cook for him once they were back to normal. 

It made him think about why Naruto would want to bring him lunch.

Kakashi jumped down and walked inside, taking in how the well-lit store was already getting crowded despite the early hour. Walking over towards the fruits and greens aisle, he waved at the people bowing their heads in greeting and plucked some miso paste off the shelf on the way. He slowed down as he spotted the familiar store assistant where she stood right by the vegetables, doing an inventory check. Something was different about Matsuda Yua today and he took a second to observe her closer as he walked over, grabbing a shopping basket on the way. He made sure to make noise as he approached. Civilians tended to get nervous otherwise.

The finely lined face lit up in a smile before she bowed her head, making the overhead lights highlight her glossy braid. "Good morning, Hokage-sama! What wonderful weather we’re having." 

"Good morning, Matsuda-san," Kakashi replied and glanced outside. The clear blue sky and the warm morning seemed to confirm the weather prognosis of a heatwave. He pitied the poor shinobi out on missions. "It is certainly warm."

With that exchange hopefully done, he looked away in favour of the eggplants. 

Kakashi grabbed two and sniffed them before putting them in his basket with a pleased smile. He could pick up some saury on his way past the fishmonger. It would be nice to make his favourites for dinner once he was back in his own body to properly enjoy it. He'd already planned to notify Shikamaru about taking the day off in two days' time. Maybe Naruto would join him to celebrate being back to normal? Unless the younger man would have grown tired of Kakashi's company by then. Spending time eating lunch and talking over paperwork was not the same thing as going on missions together, after all. Kakashi had never been good at entertaining people. 

There was the shifting of fabric next to him and he glanced back at his companion when he noticed that she’d not walked off. Yua stayed still with an expectant air around her as she kept noting down the wares. 

He kept himself from sighing and felt his fingers twitch, but he had no Icha Icha to hide behind. Instead, he let his thoughts wander to the work he would need to do later. They danced away from him and lingered at having to spend two more days closer to Naruto than he had ever been. 

It seemed wise to start focusing on the present, so he gave her a cursory glance and took in her intricate braid - different to her customary tight bun, and her colourful yukata - more flattering and attention-grabbing than normal. The warm eyes were highlighted and she was wearing a hint of perfume. Lilac and citrus. In his experience, even the smallest change in routine had a purpose. Matsuda Yua was a creature of habit and had worn the same work outfit for as long as she’d been working as an assistant in the store.

He noted her relaxed shoulders and eager smile. Her wedding ring was still in place, she did not smell pregnant and no festival was coming up. 

Glancing around, he did not see the owner anywhere in the store. 

“I take it that congratulations are in order, Matsuda-san,” he said, smiling down at the woman. “I am sure you will do a fine job running the store.”

Pale cheeks flushed as she chuckled, but she looked pleased about it. Something about her made him think of Genin teams fresh back from their first-ever mission. 

“Of course you figured it out, Hokage-sama," she said, bowing again. "Thank you. My mother told me yesterday that she’s getting too old to run around after customers all day-” Suzuki Himari had loved to sit down near the register and gossip about everything with everyone “- and that it was time for me to take over.”

Kakashi smiled wryly, thinking about a muttered 'Stop being lazy, brat, and take the damn hat already so I can go on a vacation' and brown eyes narrowed in annoyance as he tried to weasel out of it once more. “Sounds familiar." 

She smiled back before her eyes widened in recognition. "Oh! Well, running the village is very different from taking over a store, of course. But I was still nervous about the additional responsibility. My husband bought me some new clothes for the role and told me I would do fine."

"The scale of the responsibility is not the most important thing," Kakashi said and smiled as he thought of his former team and their kind if awkward words of encouragement (Tenzō and Sai) and insistent nagging (Sakura and Naruto) once they thought he'd procrastinated his inauguration long enough. “Great support when taking it on is what matters.”

Yue smiled and nodded. “I’m thankful for the support from both my loved ones and my village. The encouragement was greatly appreciated.”

Kakashi thought back to the encouraging words he'd gotten and smiled wryly behind his mask.

-----

Last year, back when Kakashi was named the Rokudaime for a second time but before he had taken on the role completely, Sakura and Naruto had shown up at his place and dragged him out for dinner to celebrate his birthday. Tenzō and Sai had been waiting in a private room. Seeing them all together, smiling and laughing after the war, had felt like a blessing. 

Maybe that was why he'd let his two former students have some alcohol despite neither of them having turned twenty. They'd sat on either side of him and steadily gotten more and more drunk. Sai had looked on as the two got more loose-lipped and affectionate, with a slight flush to his pale cheeks whenever they smiled in his direction. Kakashi had hidden his amusement and let the former Anbu order his teammates stronger and stronger drinks. After all, Sakura and Naruto had to figure out their limits at some point. And to figure out when someone was trying to ply them with alcohol to gain information. The fact that they were chatty and affectionate drunks was only a bonus.

They had not done it that night. He'd looked down at them both, and chuckled at how sleepy they both looked. Apparently, Kurama did nothing for Naruto’s tolerance, or maybe he’d decided to not do something to help. Because Naruto’s cheeks had been flushed and his eyes had been glassy and wide as he’d loudly proclaimed that Kakashi should go ahead and accept the damned position already. 

Sakura had hooked her arm in the crook of his elbow and downed her sake. Then she'd patted his captured limb and told him that You'll be a great Hokage, sensei. I know you wanna change things instead of just waiting for the idiot to do it. But if you really don't want the hat I'll punch any asshole who tries to force you. Naruto, not one to be outdone in either the moral support or lack of personal space department, had leaned closer with a murmured You're the best, sensei, you'd be awesome at it. Only if you want it though.

Kakashi should have moved away, but the familiar scents of Sakura and Naruto had registered as safe to his slightly tipsy mind. It had proved to be a false sense of security. What remained of Naruto's right arm had ended up over Kakashi's shoulders and he'd gotten so close that their noses almost brushed when Kakashi turned his head to look into those blue eyes, open and soft and so very, very warm as Naruto smiled at him. Kakashi had frozen at the look and how Naruto's hand ended up on his thigh for balance. He'd licked his lips under his mask and kept still, not wanting to break Naruto out of whatever trance he'd landed in. Whiskered cheeks had blushed a fetching shade of pink, those beautiful eyes had looked darker than normal due to pupils blown wide and those smiling lips had been red and shining. And he'd known because he was a rational man not prone to flights of fancy, that the flush was caused by alcohol, the large pupils due to the intimate lighting and the lips slick from sake. Still, it made it too easy to imagine how Naruto would look after a kiss. 

His breath had smelled like plums from the wine and Kakashi had thought about chasing that sweetness past smiling lips. Kakashi had never liked sweet things. But for Naruto, he'd make an exception. It wouldn't be the first time he'd given in, smiling, to the person who kept surprising him.

A knock on the door had broken Naruto out of his strange mood. Flushed cheeks had scrunched up in a smile with a muttered And we'll be here, you know that right? Like how you were always there.

Sai had gone to accept the desserts from the waitress with a smirk in Kakashi's direction. The knowing glint in his eyes had made Kakashi frown. Was he that obvious?

He'd relaxed as Naruto had slumped into his shoulder with a huff. Then his breath had hitched as the teen burrowed closer, and threw his arm over his stomach. It had brushed against Sakura because she'd wrapped delicate arms that could crush mountains around him. They'd squeezed him into a hug, ignoring how he squirmed at the attention. 

"No tree can grow without strong roots supporting it," Tenzō had said as his lips twitched in an attempt to keep from laughing at Kakashi's wide-eyed look. "And it looks like you have some loyal ones, senpai."

-----

“A tree needs strong roots to grow,” Kakashi said as if he was imparting great wisdom. "I'm glad to hear you feel supported by Konoha. We can only prosper together as we work to rebuild."

"Indeed. Thank you, Hokage-sama," Yue said with a bright smile and glanced away as someone called for assistance a few aisles over. "Well, I'll leave you to your favourite vegetable then. Good day, sir."

Kakashi looked after her and thought about asking about the parting comment. Had he not paid her enough attention as they talked while picking them out? Probably not. There had been a twinkle to her eye though so he didn't think she was upset with him not paying attention to her. No civilian would be able to pick up the fact that most of his attention had been somewhere else. And two eggplants were hardly an excessive amount to buy.

Rather than pondering on the idiosyncrasies of the civilian hobby of small talk, he went down the aisles towards the tea. On his way, he saw the instant ramen cups and cursed himself for being a fool as he grabbed two of them. 

After picking up some tea, some oranges and the new type of Ūhei’s favourite dog shampoo brand that he had wanted to try, he headed for the counter. 

Once out of the store he took to the rooftops again. Shinobi knew better than to try and socialise with someone staying off the main roads.

As he got to the Hokage mansion he headed into his kitchen with his groceries. On his way, he ran into Ūhei who barked once in greeting. 

“Hello, boss!” The ninken sniffed the air and huffed out a laugh, wagging tail and all. “Did you get more eggplants?”

Kakashi glanced at him in silence and raised a brow in question.

The tail stopped wagging and large brown eyes widened in consternation. “Forget I said anything.”

“Ūhei,” he replied and kept the smile out of his voice. “Are you hiding something from me?”

Ūhei sat down on his haunches and turned away with a bitten-off whine. “No!”

Kakashi leaned back against the counter and considered his tense dog with a smile hidden behind his mask, amused by how worried the dog looked over some vegetables. “You sure about that?”

“Yes!”

“So you wouldn’t know anything about why the shopkeeper commented on me buying eggplants today?" He asked with a raised brow. "Despite me not doing any grocery shopping at her store in weeks and not buying eggplants for over a month?”

Brown ears flopped as Ūhei shook his head with a vengeance. “No!”

“Ūhei," he replied and let disappointment colour his tone. "Pack must trust each other.”

The dog flinched away and whimpered, tail tucked between his legs. “Boss!”

Kakashi looked on and crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me.”

Ūhei looked at him with large, sad eyes and whimpered with a hunched spine. Kakashi looked up, deeply unimpressed by the acting skill on display. After knowing them all since they were puppies he knew his pack well. One did not raise and train eight ninken successfully without developing an iron will against puppy dog eyes. Especially not insincere ones when they wanted to distract him.

Puppy eyes turned into bared teeth as Kakashi shook his head.

Ūhei huffed in annoyance and straightened up. Once again looking like a fierce ninken rather than a begging puppy. “Naruto asked me not to!”

Kakashi leaned forward, looking at his dog's scowling face and wondering why he'd attempt to guard this secret so fiercely. 

“Naruto is not your master, I am,” Kakashi said and kneeled in front of him, cupping the tense jaw in a hand and forcing Ūhei to look at him. “Tell me.”

“He got eggplants, miso paste and saury to practice making your favourites,” Ūhei finally muttered, looking away as Kakashi's hand went slack. “He was cooking yesterday evening so we could all smell it. Akiro asked him and he said he's not great at cooking so he had to make sure you’d like your bento. He said something about an important bet."

He was frozen in place and his heart ached at the warmth that spread through him, flushing his cheeks.

“Naruto wanted to surprise you, boss,” Ūhei said with a slight whine. “And we promised we wouldn't tell. I didn't want to lie!”

Kakashi took a deep breath. No one had cooked for him since his father's death. Kushina had sometimes brought their team lunch for longer missions or lured him inside with promises of food as he was guarding her during her pregnancy, but that was different to spending time practising making dishes specifically for him.

Ūhei huffed and nudged at his leg. "Boss?"

“Ah, sorry,” he said and then rubbed behind silky ears to show there was nothing to forgive. Dogs responded better to actions than to words, even trained ninken. He smiled as Ūhei leaned all of his weight against Kakashi’s side, panting happily at the scratching. "I know you didn't. And I’m not mad. Thank you for wanting to help Naruto."

They sat in silence while Kakashi’s mind raced with possibilities. Why would Naruto care this much?

“I got you that shampoo you wanted to try,” he continued after a while and patted the greyhound over his sleek flank. “If you want I can wash you now and help you with your bandages.”

It is alright. It is forgiven. We are pack.  

Large brown eyes shone and a pink tongue lolled out in happiness. “That’s fine, boss, we can wait until things are back to normal. Naruto said it would be three days right?"

Kakashi nodded in agreement. "Yes, so you'll have to contend yourselves with me from the day after tomorrow."

A wagging tail was his only reply as Kakashi got up with a final pat and a treat. “How has it been in here? How was last night?”

“It’s been good,” the hound said and licked his chops. “Naruto’s nice.”

It looked like he wanted to say something else, but he huffed and shook his head instead. 

“That he is,” Kakashi replied and made three clones, two for making breakfast for his pack and Naruto and one that went to sort out the groceries. He started to see why Naruto relied so heavily on clones in his daily life. The chakra drain wasn’t noticeable at all even if he was down to a quarter of the staggering amount that simmered in him. Naruto’s chakra was still an unending ocean within him, eager to do his bidding. “Now, let’s get you all some food and I’ll go and wake up Naruto if he’s still sleeping.”

“He probably is,” Ūhei said and kept careful watch over the one clone that headed for the fridge. “I heard him walking around during the night.”

“Oh?” Kakashi said over his shoulder as he started to head out the kitchen. “I best check in on him then.”

Then he dropped the henge before walking up the stairs to the second floor with the master bedroom. He heard the telltale click of claws against the wooden floor; his pack were making their way to the kitchen. The alluring scent of fresh beef being taken out of the fridge was a beacon for any dog with a nose worth its salt. And his ninken were the best trackers in the shinobi nations.

The door to his room looked strangely intimidating in its ornate elegance. It would be an echo of last night's dream. A nervous Uzumaki Naruto in the bedroom of Hatake Kakashi. Blue eyes soft and adoring. His own thoughts expressed in Naruto's husky voice. It's been torture. Being you was really annoying because I wanted to be with you. I love you. 

Tanned skin flushed and sweaty. Soft lips nipping at his. A hot, silky length twitching in his grasp as he made Naruto sing at his touch.

Kakashi shook his head, annoyed at himself for losing himself to dreams and wishful thinking, before walking inside. There he found what was expected. A maskless Hatake Kakashi sleeping sprawled out on his belly. He didn’t stir as Kakashi walked inside despite how he made no attempts to walk quietly.

"Really, Naruto, I'd hoped my own instincts would trump how heavy a sleeper you are," Kakashi said as he shook his head in mock disappointment. “Though I can’t say that I’m surprised.”

He grabbed ahold of the blankets and pulled them away from the still sleeping body of the Hokage with a smirk. Then, as he heard his own voice grumble in annoyance, he went over to the wardrobe to pull out his uniform. 

“Wake up!” he called out and tossed the clothes at Naruto with one hand and caught the pillow thrown at his face with the other. There was a groan as Naruto curled up on his side, hugging himself. Kakashi threw the pillow back at the sad sight and it bounced off grey hair before Naruto grabbed it to hide under. Kakashi tutted and sat down against the headboard, legs crossed in front of him. 

“It’s too early,” his own muffled voice crept up from under the downy barrier. “Give me another hour.”

“The day’s already started, Naruto,” he said, unrepentant and nudged his foot against his companion. “We have things to do today.”

Naruto turned around and squinted at him with bleary eyes. They were barely visible under the shaggy mess that was Kakashi’s hair in the morning. “Can’t you order someone to do it instead? I got no sleep last night.”

Kakashi tilted his head and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Maa, that would be on your head, Hokage-sama. Because you’re the only one out of the two of us with something to do today if I'm honest. And you’re the one that will disappoint Iruka and he’ll have to nag at you." 

"Iruka-sensei isn't that scary," Naruto said bravely. It wasn't very convincing since he also got out of bed with a final stretch and started to get dressed. "Why would he nag at me?"

"We're meant to discuss some changes to the Academy curriculum before lunch," Kakashi said and got up as well with some slight regret. His bed was more comfortable than Naruto's. "And I have another meeting scheduled in the afternoon. It’s with a wealthy lord about property rights. You can’t miss it.”

That made Naruto look at him in alarm, halfway through one of Kakashi's long-sleeved shirts. "A meeting? Is it important?"

"Relatively," he replied as Naruto popped out of the collar again and looked at him with rapt attention. "Don't worry, we'll use the henge for it. A civilian won't spot the difference. I'll be me and you'll be there as my bodyguard. They might even view it as an honour to have you there for the proceedings."

Naruto grinned and padded barefoot out of the bedroom. "I should be able to keep you safe from some civilians."

“How reassuring,” Kakashi drawled and followed after. Then he continued in a much softer voice. “It’s not my life I’m worried about.”

“What was that, sensei?” Naruto called from the hallway below. “I’ll be the best guard!”

Kakashi said nothing and smiled as he heard a string of muttered complaints about stupid perverts who didn’t trust their precious people. Naruto would learn about the negotiations soon enough.

On his way down the stairs, Kakashi faltered in his step as his clones dispelled at once and three sets of memories converged and sorted themselves at once. He saw his kitchen from three angles and his dogs all over the place. Three versions of Pakkun muttered about how of course Boss wouldn’t just ask Naruto to show up more often . Kakashi frowned and tacked on another week to his treat embargo. That’s what they get for butting their far too curious noses into Kakashi’s business. 

One of Kakashi’s clones had already put food in front of one chair and a peeled orange and some tea by the other. Naruto sat down in front of his breakfast and dug in with a murmured thanks for the food. 

The pack was happily munching on their prime cuts. Kakashi knew better than to think they weren’t listening to their every word. And people say that curiosity killed the cat. Whoever came up with that obviously didn’t know dogs.

“Have you already had breakfast, sensei?” Naruto asked after gulping down some juice. 

Kakashi nodded as he sat down and grabbed a slice of the carefully peeled orange. “Yeah, I woke up early and had time to do some shopping.”

“Oh?”

Kakashi nodded and chewed on the juicy treat. “Matsuda Yua has taken over her mother’s store.”

“Which one?”

“Right by the silversmith. Suzuki Himari’s old one,” he replied and sipped on his tea. “The one with the excellent seafood.”

“I know the store, sensei,” Naruto said and smiled a familiar smile. Kakashi had often seen it in the mirror during his Anbu days. “Wouldn’t know anything about the quality of the fish though.”

Kakashi took in how Naruto kept his gaze down as pale fingers restlessly tapped against the table and said nothing. His former student was, like most shinobi, not one to open up about his emotional problems. It was fortunate, in a way, because Kakashi was not the best at offering support. Decades alone and honed to be a perfect tool for his village did not make for a lot of emotional honesty. He’d never been good at knowing what to say.

In the past, he had told the blond what was true and what he had deemed to be necessary. The harshness of being a shinobi, the burden of emotions, the importance of teamwork and the price he'd pay for the rest of his life for refusing to let his comrades die without a fight. 

He'd been there to offer a willing ear and a friendly touch. Words of comfort were harder. 

You can tell me anything. Surely Naruto already knew that. 

Lean on me. Naruto already did. 

Instead, he drank his tea and waited with a patience born of countless surveillance missions. After a while, he gave an encouraging hum and noted how the fingers stilled and curled around Naruto’s cup instead. 

Dark eyes finally looked at him and Naruto sighed. “The old lady lost two sons during the Kyūbi attack. She used to hate me and whenever I got close to the store she’d glare and mutter about keeping that dirty thing out of her store .”

The last thing was said in a mean, high-pitched voice in a good approximation of how Himari would complain about pests bothering her sometimes. It gave a different meaning to what Kakashi had assumed was a complaint about rats.

Naruto shrugged, yet his smile was still as empty. “It didn’t change before I left with Ero-sennin so I was used to simply avoiding her store by then. There was still something cold in her eyes before Pain attacked. Plenty of civilians took longer to… accept me than the shinobi so I don’t blame her, y’know? And I know she lost people. I just didn’t know what I’d feel if I showed up in her store these days and she welcomed me with a smile.” 

The telltale brush of sleek fox tails licked against his mind before he heard Kurama’s rumbling laughter. It was not amused. “Two-faced humans. You should ask him about the training with Gyūki’s brat at some point, Kakashi. ”

What are you talking about, Kurama?

There was a growl from jaws that could snap trees like toothpicks. It vibrated in his bones. Red-hot fury and ice-cold hate. A mocking grin on a whiskered face. Red and black eyes over a snarling mouth. Sharp teeth, not fangs. “The Waterfalls of Truth revealed many things. How he survived chief among them.”

One soul, two hearts. One mind. One broken self. Hate and love, twisted and curled around and around, desperate, and- 

Kurama huffed and curled around himself again, going silent once more. 

Things shifted around in his mind. Naruto’s stiff shoulders as people cheered his name and his visible confusion as the older generations walked up to him for an autograph for their children. Shopkeepers who had chased him out of their stores. Children they had once told to never play with the strange and lonely boy.

It was not only humility that had stayed Naruto’s hand.

“I don’t hate her, I don’t,” Naruto continued. “But I had places that accepted me, even before I left the village for that trip. So I went there instead. I was tired of not knowing if I’d already proven myself, y’know?”

Kakashi nodded. Neither of them said anything for a while. 

Then he drank the last of his tea and put the cup down in front of him. The sound seemed loud in the silence. 

“I can’t understand entirely,” he said in a slow, measured way while feeling frustrated at how it wasn’t enough. He’d never been good at doing enough.

He sighed and ran his hand over his face. “But I know the weight of” -his father’s bowed head in the evening and his empty stare, the muttered words of disdain as they walked around the village- “expectations.”

“Maybe that’s why, sensei,” Naruto said in a voice soft with understanding.

When Kakashi looked at him again the other man was smiling. A real one this time. Finally. Kakashi had to smile back. “Why what?”

“Why I never had to prove myself to you,” Naruto replied and rubbed the back of his neck, looking bashful and Kakashi’s heart skipped a beat. It seemed like in this one thing, he had not failed. He’d even gotten it right. “You always treated me like Naruto and not the fox. Almost no one did that. You just thought I was an idiot, not a monster.”

Kakashi blinked at the fond look and wanted to reach out to grasp the hand resting on the table. Wished for the ability to show him how important he was, how he was loved because Naruto had always learnt better by experiencing it.

He opened his mouth to speak words that would feel too small in comparison. Words trying to convey that it would be impossible for him to ever see Naruto as anything but a loud, shining light stubbornly dragging them all towards something better despite them not deserving him. That he was the best of them, the force that made them all strive to be worthy.

Then, on a more personal note, the promise to be there should he ever fall was right there, caught behind his teeth. It felt like revealing too much, too soon. Surely Naruto would be able to see through the barely-there layer to the truth emblazoned across his heart if he said that much?

His throat felt clogged up and he coughed to clear it. He still had to say something.

“I still think you’re an idiot sometimes,” he said, feeling stupid at how the words fell short. “But you’re Naruto.”

It was a poor substitute for what he wanted to say, but maybe the tone conveyed more than he wanted. Because pale cheeks blushed a bright pink and Naruto chuckled, embarrassed but pleased.

“Thank you, sensei.”

Behind Naruto’s back, his ninken looked at him and grinned or nodded in approval.

Kakashi smiled and, with his chest feeling lighter than normal, thought that he might give them all some treats after breakfast. Even if they kept butting their noses into matters that didn’t concern them.

Chapter Text

The morning walk to his office was the most pleasant he's had since reluctantly taking the hat from a smirking Tsunade. 

The village was as loud as ever. The streets were filled with the ringing and clamouring of screaming babies, arguing Genin teams returning from boring missions under their Sensei's watchful eye and the usual too-loud clamouring of a place rebuilding, growing, thriving. 

Next to him, Naruto was walking with his masked nose buried in Icha Icha Tactics. His steps faltered a bit, unused to reading and walking simultaneously, so Kakashi angled himself a bit closer to let Naruto sense him along his left side. They walked in companionable silence, close enough that their arms sometimes brushed. 

Yesterday, they had been too focused on learning their temporary bodies to appreciate the beautiful day. The familiar village had seemed almost but not quite alien and, in Kakashi's case, navigating it without constant olfactory information had been disconcerting. As for Naruto, something had been strained about his face and posture. Kakashi had said nothing as his companion had given in and rubbed the peppermint oil under his nose. By mutual agreement, they'd leapt from rooftop to rooftop rather than taking their time and enjoying the morning.

Today, this strange world was starting to make sense.

Warm smiles and jaunty waves accompanied their walk, but no one called out. It was another reason why this morning was so pleasant; it'd been long enough since his inauguration that he could take a leisurely stroll and be left alone. In Kakashi's first week as Hokage, people had rushed forward to congratulate him. After the paperwork, excessive attention was his most dreaded part of the job. 

It seemed like Naruto would take to that bit with far more aplomb once Kakashi named him his successor. At least based on how Naruto smiled back as civilians bowed their heads and wished Naruto a good morning. The first Hokage-sama had coloured Naruto's cheeks a pale pink above the mask. Kakashi hid a smile as Naruto waved back to a group of small children. 

While the weather was lovely, and the lack of enforced small talk made Kakashi relax, it was still strange to walk past familiar stores and not be able to identify their wares. Meanwhile, he could see his own nose twitch behind the mask as Naruto took in countless smells.

"I don't understand how this doesn't drive you mad," Naruto whispered without looking up from the page. A surreptitious glance told Kakashi he was on Page 79. The brave hero's heartfelt confession to the beautiful Hikari.

He placed a trembling hand on her ivory cheek and did his best not to get lost in her bright eyes. "I've never met anyone that makes me feel like you do."

Red-painted lips twitched into a smile and Botan wanted to taste them.

"How do I make you feel?" She asked with a hint of a rambunctious laugh in her twitching lips as she stroked the necklace he'd given her years before. It drew his gaze to the play of the light through the crystal and against her cleavage, framed beautifully by her silk vest.

He looked into her eyes and was irreversibly lost in the dark blue whirlpool. He found that he didn't mind.

"It's as if I was caught in a storm and I didn't know how dark it was until I saw your light,"  “You're the star guiding me home."

Kakashi shrugged and felt his cheeks heat up. It was fortunate Naruto hadn't read further.

"The lines aren't that bad," he replied, equally softly. It would be awkward if anyone overheard what they were talking about. Or rather how they were talking. They might believe that the infamous Hatake Kakashi had finally snapped now that his mind had time to rest.

Naruto gave him an unimpressed look.

"You forgot that I read it all back when I travelled with Ero-sennin?” he asked with a furrow between pale eyebrows. “I remember the wet white shirts and the heaving breasts, sensei. And the over-the-top confessions. Sakura-chan had a lot to say about those." 

That caught his attention. "Sakura has read Icha Icha?"

"Only the first one. She didn't like how Ero-sennin portrayed the love interest in it."

 Kakashi was a man of few principles. You didn't survive for long as a shinobi if you had many moral scruples. But this slight against Icha Icha could not stand. Slightly one-dimensional female characters in Jiraiya's debut work notwithstanding. 

"You have a lot of practice giving suave confessions then, Naruto?" he murmured and was for once happy that his mask didn't hide everything as he caught his own cheeks heating up. 

Dark eyes glared at him. Kakashi ignored it with practised ease. 

Instead, he leaned closer and nudged Naruto's side with his elbow, much like how Naruto was prone to do to him when he wanted to be fed. 

These days they were almost, but not quite, of height. The last centimetre was one that Naruto bemoaned, but it didn't stop Kakashi from slinging his prosthetic arm around his shoulder. "Or would you prefer to be the one on the receiving end? A passionate one from a vivacious and bombastic beauty?"

"Like Haruki in Tactics?" Naruto said and proved that he knew exactly what part of the book Kakashi was quoting.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow suggestively. "Is that a yes?"

Naruto rolled his eyes at him and tried to shove him away. The attempt was half-hearted at best. 

It would have been easy to grab that gloved wrist in one hand and move even closer. Instead, Kakashi breathed in the air around Naruto’s covered neck. Despite being this close he could just barely catch his scent. 

A pale imitation of it, stripped of hundreds of layers of complexity. He caught pine from his body wash, fur from his pack and then, underneath, something indecipherable that must be how Naruto perceived his natural musk. Hardly there and nothing memorable. Was that weapon oil? Laundry detergent? 

Was it a nice one altogether? Did he smell good? 

He'd never categorised any one scent as good before since they all melted together in his nose. And it wasn’t like him to wonder about his scent, past if it had hints of illness clinging to it during flu season. 

Kakashi huffed, feeling bereft and annoyed at himself. He shouldn't feel this unbalanced by this temporary inability to trust his nose. It's not like it was his fault.

Naruto frowned at the sound and glanced up from the page. "What's wrong, Kakashi-sensei?" 

With decades of experience in avoiding awkward social interaction, because there was no way he'd ask Naruto if he thought that Kakashi smelled good, Kakashi became a hypocrite yet again. "Hmm? Dodging my question, are you? That’s not like you, Naruto. Would you like one of those confessions or not?"

Dark eyes narrowed in annoyance. "I wasn't even! Not that it's- I mean. I-"

The currently older man broke off his indignant sputtering and crossed his arms with a slight pout barely discernible through the mask. Kakashi couldn't help but smile, eyes crinkling shut out of habit, at the familiar sight. So obviously Naruto even if everything else was wrong. 

Something wistful bloomed in his chest, echoed on his own face next to him, before Naruto pulled away to walk ahead of him. Kakashi said nothing and lengthened his strides until he was right by Naruto's side again. Then he kept his silence, knowing that Naruto would fill the silence soon enough.

After a few seconds of waiting, he looked around the rooftops and frowned as he saw the telltale glint of sunlight on white porcelain. What had caused his ANBU to grow this sloppy? 

He was in the middle of planning a new training regime - involving Ibuki for the terror and Tenzō for his not-quite-hidden sadistic streak and masterful stealth capabilities- when Naruto glanced over at him.

"I wasn't talking about the book," he said, ignoring Kakashi's question about the confession once more. How unlike Naruto to not charge straight ahead, leaving chaos and ruined expectations in his wake. "It's boring-" he broke off to roll his eyes as Kakashi clutched his heart with a wounded noise "- oh, stop it, but it's not that bad."

Kakashi sighed deeply and shook his head in deep sorrow. "I failed as your sensei. To imagine that one of my own students cannot appreciate the brilliance of Jiraiya-sama’s books.”

“It’s not like anyone taught me how to read,” Naruto said in a tone so genuinely casual it cut deep, made all the worse for how he continued as if it didn’t matter. “Whoever was meant to do it failed to get me interested in books as a kid. Long before you or Iruka-sensei."

Naruto grinned and shrugged his shoulders, uncaring and oblivious to the guilt that sank its claws into Kakashi's heart. Kakashi was used to having regrets. This particular one was always twisted together with the knowledge that many things would be different had Kakashi had the strength to go against the council and claim the orphaned boy as his kin all those years ago. 

One day, he'd figure out a way to tell Naruto about it all. The dark nothingness that had sunk jagged teeth into Kakashi and dragged him down, down, down until only ANBU would have him. The reason why he'd stayed away when Naruto had deserved so much more. He thought Naruto might forgive him as long as he never found out about how the distance had allowed far from familial feelings to emerge.

He caught Naruto turning to look at him and he schooled his face. Neither of them particularly enjoyed emotional conversations. And never in public. 

"Iruka-sensei and Ero-sennin picked up the slack though," Naruto murmured as they walked past another group of civilians who bowed in their direction. "And you with all those mission reports that you forced us to write for you."

 The last bit was said with a hint of reproach and Kakashi took the opportunity.

"Maa, it was evidently educational!" 

As Naruto rolled his eyes, Kakashi stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked away from a group of women who were glancing their way with smiles almost hidden behind their cupped hands as they whispered among themselves. 

“Very well, what were you talking about?"

Naruto tapped his masked nose with eyes narrowed in annoyance. "There are too many smells everywhere."

"You didn't use the oil today?"

"I wanted to try without it. It was fine yesterday when it was just the two of us, so I hoped it'd be fine," Naruto said, scratching his nose idly. His mask shifted down slightly with the motion and Kakashi's hand twitched with the need to adjust it. 

Instead, he paused at that, remembering the spar. The sheer joy of sensing the earth's heartbeat, so slow next to his thundering one.

Would Naruto have smelled Kakashi’s arousal? Would he recognise it? Or just register the extra heat, the salt and the pheromones?

"Just focus on one smell and do your best to ignore the others," he replied, putting that particular thought behind lock and key. "Whatever sticks out the most."

“That’s you,” Naruto blurted out and spluttered once he registered Kakashi’s absolute silence. “I mean, me? My scent, I mean! It’s not like I’ve been sniffing you, me, I don’t know! Maybe it’s because I know my own scent? Even if it’s all weirdly strong, it’s kinda familiar.”

Kakashi thought about how he'd memorised the scents of his closest comrades years ago and wondered if it was his brain or Naruto's consciousness that would seek out the comforting smell. Would his body instinctively remember certain things thanks to how the brain was still Kakashi's? Where was the line between electrochemical reactions and the soul? 

"That's probably it," he said and did his best not to linger at how Naruto's scent was always the one he noticed first. "Well, feel free to sniff me whenever."

A hint of pink dusted the skin above the mask and Kakashi let the offer linger in the air for a while. Then he huffed and looked down at his wrapped hand. "It's your body after all."

Tense shoulders relaxed into laughter before Naruto composed himself. 

"Man, that still sounds weird!" Naruto said and rubbed his nose. "It's just today and tomorrow, right?"

Kakashi nodded. "Yes, based on the seal."

Dark eyes crinkled into a smile and Kakashi raised his hand to ruffle Naruto’s hair and remembered himself in time to rub at his neck instead.   

"It's really cool how much you know about fūinjutsu on top of everything else, sensei," Naruto said, nudging his side with a pointy elbow. "Think you can teach me more about it?"

"It's only right," he replied with a nod. "Your parents taught me most of what I know. It's my duty to pass it on to you."

The smile behind the familiar mask was wobbly before Naruto glanced away with a murmured thanks. Kakashi said nothing and reached out to clasp Naruto's shoulder.

The rest of their walk to his office was one of companionable silence. As they arrived, Kakashi caught ANBU Monkey in the corner of his eye. He was close to signalling leave post and break as the man lingered rather than leaving, which most relatively sane ANBU would do to avoid staring into nothing as Kakashi dealt with the neverending paperwork. Guarding the Hokage might be an honoured position, but it was a dreadfully boring one. 

Kakashi glanced up at the man in confusion. It wasn't until Naruto looked up as well that the man bowed before signalling Good, Time . Kakashi looked after him in confusion. Surely he hadn't been that late to work?

"What was that about, sensei?"

"No idea."

_____

Once at the office, safely away from giggling women and odd bodyguards, they had time to go over the B-ranks that Kakashi had sorted through the other day. They were all typical missions; escorts to other countries, protection details of visiting civilians and some straightforward espionage. 

Naruto was sitting in Kakashi's chair while Kakashi perched on his desk, his leg almost brushing against Naruto's. And it was easy to imagine those future lunches. Naruto chattering away next to him and stuffing himself with food that he'd cooked for them both , and brightening his day. 

A knock on the door interrupted his wandering mind and he blinked down at a report about bandit activity at the border. The last few paragraphs glared up at him accusingly. He didn't remember reading them at all. 

There was another knock and Iruka's muffled voice calling his title. He twisted around to look over his shoulder, the words come in on his tongue before he caught himself and gave a light kick to Naruto's shin.

The Hokage startled and dropped the document he was currently reading. "Wha- oh, come in!"

"Good morning, Hokage-sama," Iruka said and bowed his head as he entered the office. The respectful tone he used whenever Kakashi hadn't annoyed him lately changed into something warmer as he glanced his way. "And hello, Naruto! How are your studies going under Kakashi-sama?"

The Chūnin held a thick folder in his hands and there was a small, undignified part of Kakashi that felt relief at knowing he'd not need to pay much attention to this conversation. Some parts of being the Hokage weren't as glamorous as Naruto had probably dreamed up as a kid.

Kakashi waved and, once Iruka was close enough to reach out for a one-armed hug, leaned into the touch with a smile. "They're going fine, Iruka-sensei! Kakashi-sensei's been teaching me about mission assignments and boring stuff like that"

The academy teacher glanced over at his superior with a raised brow, a thousand words hidden in the frown. It seemed as if Naruto was familiar with it because the Hokage's eyes closed in a bashful grin when Iruka's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

"I would never question our Hokage's wisdom in having you assist with the paperwork. Surely it will teach you all you need to know about world history in time for our test in two weeks." 

Kakashi hid a smirk at the dry tone and Naruto gave him a betrayed look. He cheerfully ignored it and did his best to imitate that cocky grin that Naruto tended to turn on anything foolish enough to get in his way.

"Don't worry, sensei! I have plenty of time to study once I'm done helping in the office."

Brown eyes widened slightly as Iruka hummed in thought. Then they narrowed.

Decades of training and the harrowing fact that the entire village would mock him mercilessly made it easy to keep the grin on his face, even if it felt more like a grimace. 

Kakashi wasn't close with Iruka. As a Jōnin he had led the other man on a few missions before Iruka had decided to pursue the teaching role. He'd been a fine, dependable teammate who hadn't distinguished himself as anything special in Kakashi's mind. That hadn't changed until he became Naruto's sensei and an angry academy instructor had challenged his authority in public. It had meant that Iruka had cared for Naruto at a time when no one else did, something that brought Kakashi both peace and agony.

After that, they'd talked a few times over the years. Mostly one on one, by happenstance. Strangely enough, Naruto had rarely been there for how close he was to the both of them. 

It meant that he did not know how Naruto was with Iruka, the man who had known Naruto for over a decade and who was considered precious and family . Another name was promptly added to his short list of people that would, most likely, figure it out if he or Naruto spent any prolonged time with them. 

He glanced over at Naruto and thought regretfully about the time his student had pestered him about teaching him those super cool secrets ANBU signals after he'd seen Kakashi and Tenzō use them. Kakashi had said no, not for security reasons since they'd been updated lately and he could have taught Naruto an older version, but because he knew that the knucklehead would take some time learning them and they'd needed to focus on nature manipulation at the time. If only he'd remembered afterwards. Maybe when Naruto had been recuperating in the hospital after the war? 

On the whole, it was a minor regret. Distractions and improvisation worked fine enough when a recon job had yielded too little intel. So he closed his eyes in a wide grin and pointed at the folder. "Oh, what's that, sensei?"

Iruka glanced down and patted the folder with a fond smile. "It's my suggestion for academy reform. I've been working on it for a while. And Sakura had things to say about medical ninjutsu as well. I hope it'll improve the curriculum."

Kakashi caught Naruto's shift from the corner of his eye and turned back around to give a, hopefully, meaningful look. "I'm sure it'll be awesome, sensei. You put so much work into it. Kakashi-sensei should just agree to all of it!"

He already knew that Iruka-sensei was a competent educator who cared deeply for the future generation of Konoha Shinobi. Enough that he'd sent a draft of his proposal about the curriculum a week earlier and Kakashi had read through it and made a few suggestions. 

It was a good plan. Konoha's future might still be uncertain, but they would prepare their future generation as well as they could. No more sending children into war out of their depths and into their graves. 

Grey hair bobbed in a nod, and he really should get a haircut once this was over, as a pale, scarred hand reached out for the folder. "I'm sure it'll be, Naruto. Thank you, Iruka-sensei."

Iruka's thoughtful look softened into a bashful smile. "I don't know about that, but I hope some of it will be useful. Shall we begin, Hokage-sama?"

Kakashi smiled and picked up a book on military history he knew by heart. The lull of conversation moved to the back of his mind as he moved to a chair in the corner. 

_____

The barely there thuds of footfalls on the roof above him as the guard shift changed told him it was an hour before lunch. As he looked up from the faded pages, the topic of conversation was a better system for teaching orphans without support at home. Reading about the Second War and the mission that Sakumo had failed was not how he wanted to spend his morning. Not when there was something far more interesting he could do.

With that in mind, he turned inwards and thought of glinting fangs and a voice like thunder.  

A growl rumbled through the imaginary chamber and rattled his not-there bones. "Why are you waking me now, Kakashi?" 

Kakashi looked up, up, up at the snarling face and did not know what to do with the fact that his mind jumped to his pack rather than the destruction of decades past. 

"I'm sorry for waking you, Kurama," he said and walked closer when a great furry ear flicked forward in interest. "But you shared something with me yesterday."

Kurama huffed and sat down, turning his head so that one large eye peered at Kakashi. "I did, didn't I?"

Cold glaring eyes and blood-hot tears. Claws into nails and snarling teeth into a wide, wide grin. Bury it down, freakish little thing. Deep, deep, deep. No one will ever care.

"There was an impression of… white blank rage. It burned. It didn't seem..."

The fox snorted and flicked his ears. "Human?"

There was nothing he could say to that. He was intimately familiar with how far his kind could go. 

"No, it was human alright. But it didn't feel like Naruto."

Nine tails stilled and curled down in front of the fox, making him appear like a statue in front of a giant temple. "Didn't it?"

Kakashi said nothing as those great and terrible teeth flashed in a curling smirk. 

Slitted eyes looked far away before they focused back on Kakashi. "Do you know that each Bijū grants their Jinchūriki abilities beyond just extra chakra?"

Kakashi nodded and kneeled on the ground in front of a glistening claw. "I've read the dossiers, but these were closely guarded secrets."

 "That stupid tanuki's could create magnetic forces and manipulate sand. Matatabi's could summon blue flames. Isobu's would be about coral, that pompous ape gets lava and so on. Steam, acid and ink."

"And as for your Jinchūriki… They can regenerate quickly."

"Indeed, that is one of my abilities," Kurama replied with a dismissive flick of his ears. "And it's a useful one. It's only fitting that the vessel for the greatest of the beast should get the most powerful benefit!" 

"Of course," Kakashi replied and hid a smile at a boast that almost sounded similar. Maybe some of that pride had leaked through the seal along with the chakra. "And it's proven useful in the past."

He rubbed his chest as he remembered a familiar hole in a bright orange jacket dyed brown with rain and burnt blood. 

Heat rushed over his face as Kurama huffed out a laugh. "The idiot is reckless."

"He's Naruto," Kakashi replied and did his best to keep his tone neutral. It was harder to put up masks in this mindscape where the bond between human and beast thrummed with life.

Something told him the fox didn't buy it. Rather than saying anything, a muscular arm flexed and, faster than Kakashi could react, ivory claws created gleaming bars around where he sat. 

There was room to move out and Kurama had taken care to curl his palm to not crush Kakashi like the bug he suddenly felt like. A butterfly, pinned to the wall. 

It went against his instincts to let himself remain vulnerable like this, but he took a deep breath and let his decades of training calm his heart.

Kurama's tails drew lazy figures in the air around them as the fox tilted his head in a rolling way that looked decidedly not human. No neck could twist like that. 

"As for the second one," he said as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. "I can sense negative emotions. Even behind the dreadful bars I suffered for years, I could sense them. The distrust, the hatred and the murderous rage! So monstrous, so very human."

The fox laid down and a great eye met Kakashi's. It narrowed when Kakashi didn't say anything.

"At the beginning, I only wanted out. I couldn't escape, but I could wait for the seal to weaken. Taking him over would have been easy. Anger clouds one's judgement after all. An offer of power, of revenge, would be welcomed. I knew I only needed to bide my time."

"But Naruto isn't angry," Kakashi said, thinking about a lonely boy who always smiled so widely his eyes crinkled shut. Like a content cat. "He never was. He's always been loud and cheerful."

There was a tremendous and terrifying sound, like distant thunder rumbling closer. Laughter, he realised, but not a happy one.

It faded into a smirking mouth and Kurama pulled back his claw. "Such a bright light. You humans flock to it like moths. The sort of flame that can burn down the world if it wanted to."

"But Naruto never wanted to."

Teeth flashed in the muted light and there was something sinister and ancient in the great eye that stared him down. 

"Didn't he?"

"I-" 

"You should have a chat with him, Kakashi. Once this is over."

"About what?"

"Wounds that leave no scars."

A voice slithered across the air, dripping blood and dust. Eyes that passed over him, looking away-away-away. Focusing on dead and gone things. Monsters and corpses. Your fault. Don't look at that thing, sweetheart.

Twitching one large ear back, Kurama scoffed and the sound brought Kakashi back. The old, old look on his, no never his , companion cleared. 

"Time for you to get back, brat."

And with a final mocking smile, Kurama turned away and went to sleep, leaving him to get up on shaking legs. 

Kakashi took a step back. Another. Then he closed his eyes and finally breathed.

______

The lights of his office almost blinded him after the muted reds of Kurama's realm. 

"- take it into consideration," his own voice was distorted, as if underwater. Kakashi blinked and rubbed his eyes, pretending as if he’d just woken up from a nap in case Iruka would look over.

Once he got his bearing, it was obvious that it hadn’t been needed. The other two had moved on to discussing the final wording of the proposal. Meaning, Iruka was gently suggesting something and Naruto did his best to not make it seem like he accepted everything without any hesitation. The trust between them was staggering: the favourite student-brother-son and the Academy teacher who'd done what no one else had been capable of: loving a monster. 

Kakashi turned back to his book, skipping a few chapters ahead and was just about to read about the Hyuga Incident when his stomach rumbled. 

"I think that's a great time to break, Hokage-sama," Iruka said with a fond look in Kakashi's direction. "I'll take our bottomless pit to Ichiraku as a reward for all his hard work."

“Well-,” Naruto started, with wide eyes staring into Kakashi’s. 

Kakashi jumped up from the sofa with a wide grin, hoping it looked less like a grimace than it felt. “Sure, sensei! I’m always up for ramen.”

He waved at Naruto as he ran out the door, throwing the thick book over his shoulders. It landed, closed and with the cover-up, on the sofa where he'd sat. “I'll bring you your lunch. Don't worry Kakashi-sensei!"

The escape was about as elegant as the one yesterday, but this time he didn't have to dodge a kunai. There were other differences besides that. And far starker at that.

The sun's warmth tickled his skin in a pale imitation of the intimate connection he'd felt yesterday. It was a bit like the loss he still felt in a world without smells. Kakashi looked around, considering, and saw people he could only see and not sense. A young boy tugged at his mothers' sleeves to point at him, wonder on his chubby face.

"Look mummy, it's him!" 

"Yes, I see, dear. Why don't you go and say hello?" 

Kakashi smiled at the boy when he blushed and hid his face in his mother's skirt. It wasn't unusual that civilian children hesitated before approaching ninja. Their eccentric nature, supernatural abilities and completely silent movements made them good boogeymen in scary stories told by other kids.

If you're naughty the white demons will take you! 

A five-year-old wouldn't know the village politics that kept ANBU from interfering in silly pranks, after all. 

He crouched down and waved at the boy when he peeked out from behind the sun-bleached skirts of his mother. 

"Hello there! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, what's your name?"

The mother gently pulled on her son's shoulder to make him step out fully. Once he stood next to her, it seemed any fear had vanished and the boy skipped up to Kakashi. "I'm Tanaka Lee! I'm five. This is my mum!"

"Hello, Uzumaki-san, it's an honour. My name is Tanaka Hizuki."

"Nice to meet you, Lee-kun," Kakashi said and tilted his head. The boy widened his eyes and sketched a clumsy bow as his mother hid a smile. Kakashi smiled back at her and vowed as well as he could from his crouched position. "And you as well, Tanaka-san."

Once such boring things as common courtesy were over and done with, the boy reached out to point at Kakashi's prosthetic arm. "Mummy told me you lost your arm when you saved us all, is that true?"

At that, Kakashi froze, wracking his mind for what to say. He knew what he wanted to tell the boy, but they were not the words Naruto himself would use. The knucklehead was great at speaking warmly about his precious people, but never about himself.

 "It was all of us, y'know," he managed at last, doing his best to smile that wide, endearing grin. "The entire shinobi alliance."

"Is that when you got those, too?"

"What?"

"The marks on your face!"

Kakashi laughed as Hizuki winced and smacked her son lightly over the head. "Don't be rude!"

Lee glowered up at his mother. "What's rude about asking?"

"Don't ask strangers about their appearance, it's inappropriate," she whispered in a futile attempt to hide her words from shinobi hearing. "Especially if they look a bit unconventional. It's a very private thing."

Then she looked up and bowed to Kakashi.  "I am so sorry, Naruto-san."

"Don't worry about it! And regarding my marks, I was born with them. Cool, aren't they?"

"They make you look like a cat!"

"Two-tails would never let me live this down," a voice like mountains hissed. "A cat!"

Kakashi hid a grin at Kurama's grumbling at the back of his mind. "Or a fox."

Lee tilted his head with a frown before shaking his head. "They don't have whiskers, silly!"

"What's with this abysmal education, Hokage-brat? No whiskers?"

Hizuki paled and her widened eyes revealed her mortification as she tugged her son away. "Come now, we obviously need to discuss tact. I am so sorry, Naruto-sama. Have a nice day!"

"Bye, Naruto! I like your whiskers!"

Kakashi waved back, biting back his laughter.

"Times sure have changed, haven't they?" Iruka said as he landed next to Kakashi. The chunin clasped Kakashi's right shoulder with a movement that was clearly broadcasted. Still, it almost felt abrupt to Kakashi. Maybe that was why he tensed and started walking towards Ichiraku. Based on the slight frown on Iruka's face, it hadn't gone entirely ignored. "It used to be hard for you to be noticed. Now everyone knows your name. Which isn't perhaps the best thing for a ninja, but you never did things by halves, did you?"

"Well…" Kakashi said and rubbed the back of his neck. He let himself blush at the fond smile his subordinate sent him. 

"I remember this student who'd shout at the top of his lungs about how great he was," Iruka continued with a fond smile his embarrassment. "And since the empty vessel makes the loudest sound, it was quite loud-”

Kakashi hid a grin at the fond tone and did his best to fake indignation. “Hey!”

“-but then you went away, came back and proved it. Like you said you would. And a lot of things changed in the village while you were away. Things were too quiet."

Kakashi wanted to agree as he thought back to shopping carts filled with extra vegetables and dinners at Ichiraku with an empty space. He and Iruka hadn't talked much during that time. Guilt and failure had made it hard to approach the man who might understand the sense of loss, if not the guilt. It hadn't been Iruka's fault that a team had broken apart. He'd not been the captain with eyes filled with too many ghosts to notice that his team was burning and tearing at the edges. 

On the anniversary of Naruto leaving Konoha, Kakashi had spotted the Chūnin at Ichiraku with a bottle of sake. He'd sat down and they'd shared the bottle in silence. It had seemed appropriate. Or maybe he hadn't known what to say, much like when Ayame asked if her favourite customer was coming back soon.

"Three years is a long time," he said once he realised he'd been quiet for too long. 

"Plenty of time for things to change. You've grown a lot," Iruka replied and put a hand on his shoulder. Kakashi smiled and made himself lean into the touch. "And you've changed. Grown more serious lately."

Kakashi frowned at that. Was he that bad of an actor?

"Have I?" He replied and let his discomfort colour his voice. "I don't…"

A knowing smile grew wider as Kakashi trailed off. It made him think of the photograph of his mother he'd once found in his father's study. Once upon a time, Sakumo had smiled like that too.

"You seem to have something on your mind," Iruka said and tapped his temple with a calloused but unscarred hand. It slipped down and grasped his shoulder in a gentle grip. "It's not like you to get this distracted, Naruto. Is something going on?"

Did he suspect something or was he just worried? Naruto would have said something by now.

"Eh, no, I'm fine," he said and grinned widely, cursing himself for not having observed Iruka and Naruto together in the past.

He barely noticed the pat on his shoulder as Iruka withdrew a bit. "Don't worry about it, Naruto. You know you can always come to your old teacher, right? If you need to talk."

“Of course, Iruka-sensei!” Kakashi said and felt both guilty and pleased as he let his own gratitude to the man shine through. This kindness was not meant for him, but it warmed him anyway. And a borrowed gift should be handled with great care. 

_____

Even Naruto's nose was enough to pick up the salty and rich aroma of Ichiraku before they turned the corner. Or maybe his new olfactory receptors were finely tuned to salty miso broth and fried pork. His stomach rumbled, an incessant reminder about the bottomless pit that was a hungry Uzumaki. 

It wasn't difficult to imitate Naruto's happy greeting as he ducked inside and waved to Ayame and Teuchi behind the counter. 

"My favourite customers! How are you, Iruka-san? Want your regular?"

"I'm fine, Teuchi-san, how are you?," Iruka replied as he sat down. "And yes, please.”

Ayame glanced up from where she was preparing the broth. "Same as yesterday, Naruto-kun?"

"Yes, please," Kakashi said and sat down next to Iruka. 

Teuchi shared a look with his daughter before turning to Kakashi and smiling widely. "It's great to see you look after our Hokage like this."

"Is it going to be a regular thing, Naruto-kun?" Ayame asked.

"I hope so," he said, before he realised that the words were his own. He chuckled and rubbed at his neck. "Kakashi-sensei promised to teach me more about Hokage stuff as long as I brought him lunch each time. Saves him from cooking, he said."

Two paper bags was placed in front of him by a widely grinning Teuchi. "Well, I’m sure he’ll enjoy the company. And the extra vegetables I added in your bowl, Naruto."

Kakashi did his best to hide his smile as he glared at the man. "And here I thought the customer is always right."

"Not when the customer is you, Naruto," Ayame said with a smirk. "Now be off and feed our hardworking Hokage."

"I can see when I'm not wanted," he replied with a huff as he got up from the stool and grabbed the bags. "See you tomorrow!"

"Bye Naruto!" 

"Send Hokage-sama our regards!"

He lifted his free hand in the air in acknowledgement and to lift the flapping signs. It wasn't long before his casual stroll back to his office was interrupted by Sai and Sakura. 

There was something about them both that made Kakashi pause between two steps, before taking a deep breath and adjusting his balance, ready for anything.

"There you are, Naruto!" Sakura called out and wrapped his arm in a steel grip, lips curled in a smile that made Kakashi decidedly nervous. "We've been looking for you."

Seeing the wisdom in a strategic surrender, Kakashi let himself relax rather than shunshin away.  

"I've been at Kakashi-sensei's office this morning," he replied. A whisper of danger slithered down his spine at the look two of his favourite subordinates exchanged . "What's up, guys?"

"Oh, nothing," Sakura said in a tone that meant that it definitely was something. Something like juicy gossip involving Naruto by the way her nails dug into his arm in a chakra-enhanced grip. "Just like nothing is going on in your love life, right?"

Kakashi felt himself go still. Naruto had told him there was no one, but maybe that wasn't something he was comfortable sharing with him.

"Eh, I-, no, not that I-", he managed to stutter out, feeling naked without his mask.

"Come now, did you think you could hide it in Konoha?" Sakura said, wrapping her other arm around his in a grip so strong he'd need to chop off Naruto's remaining arm to escape. It was almost tempting. Especially given how both of them looked at him, smirking like Tsunade when he'd finally taken the hat. 

"A shinobi trades in information, Naruto," Sai said in a tone that was part lecturing, part chiding. 

If it wasn't for how it was used against him, Kakashi would be impressed by how he'd improved his emotional expression lately. 

As it was, Kakashi was not glad to see it. Give him emotionless subordinates who didn't gossip and he'd consider showing up on time more than once a month.

"You must have known we'd hear about this thing between you and Kakashi-sensei, right?" Sakura continued as if what she said was completely normal rather than a scandal. "Nothing stays secret in Konoha long."

This nothing was even more of a something.

Kakashi froze.

Pink lips curled into a knowing smirk.

Between you and Kakashi-sensei.

Sai stepped forward and clapped him on the back. "Congratulations on your new relationship, Dickless."

New relationship.

Kakashi and Naruto.

Together.

"Wha-, I mean, what?" 

The hand on his arm moved up and around his shoulder until he was caught in a bone-crushing hug. "Why didn't you tell us, moron?"

"Tell you what? Nothing is going on between me and Na-"

One of the arms around him left his side to elbow him in his ribs. "Don't you dare lie to us now after you kept this secret!"

"But there's nothing to tell!"

A perfectly sculpted eyebrow lifted in an otherwise stoic face as Sai's hand landed on his shoulder once more.

"The ANBU Corps gossip, Naruto," he said as Kakashi's mind flashed to the approving hand signals of his bodyguards earlier in the day. "Agents have seen the two of you leave the Hokage mansion in the morning."

"And you're in Kakashi's office all day and even for lunch. Sounds cosy ," Sakura said, all casual and layered with so much underneath that it'd take decades to look underneath. It was clear that her lifelong friendship with the Yamanaka heir had paid off. "Intimate, even."

I-," Kakashi broke off, dumbfounded by the smiles on their faces. 

This was not the reaction he'd expected. 

Sakura was still smiling, looking excited. And Sai was staring at him with that abstract focus suggesting he was composing a painting in his head.

"What's sex with Kakashi like?" Sai asked, fingers twitching towards his scrolls. 

Kakashi, in the middle of panicking about erotic artworks of himself and Naruto showing up in his office as a gift, blinked. "What?"

"Given how many times he's read Icha Icha he must have a great imagination in the bedroom," the ANBU continued blithely. "While those books are strictly heterosexual, reading stimulates your creativity and I am sure it applies to intercourse as well."

"Shut up, Sai," Sakura said with a wince and pretended to gag. "I don't want to think about them having sex. That's almost as bad as walking in on my parents. "

"You're a medic-nin and should be entirely familiar with naked bodies even if you do not participate in intercourse yourself," Sai said with his usual sense of grace before turning back to Kakashi. "Does he have a large penis?"

A small, undignified part of him wanted to confirm it. Instead, he tried to wriggle free from Sakura while frenetically shaking his head. "It's not like that!" 

"Oh, taking it slow with him?"

"I'm not taking anything anywhere with Naruto!"

Sharp teeth flashed in a satisfied grin as Sakura patted his arm. "We know, sensei."

Pride and humiliation warred in his chest as he realised he'd been played. "You know about the seal."

Kakashi wondered if he'd dishonour his position if he sent them both on dreadfully boring escort missions. Then he remembered the many horrible decisions of his predecessors and figured he wouldn't be that out of line. 

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I told you I'd figure it out once I was less tired. How long have we been on the same team?"

"We're no longer teammates since Kakashi's promotion to Hokage," Sai interjected.

"Once a team, always a team," Sakura replied and Kakashi grudgingly changed the punishment to sorting the entire library when Sai smiled softly at that. 

He looked at his tormentors and laughed ruefully. "I taught you well, Sakura."

"In more ways than one, sensei," she replied. "I almost expected you to be immune to your own style of messing with people."

"Combining it with ANBU praxis was most effective," Sai said with a perfectly polite smile. "Analyse the target and make them lose their composure. You will extract true information easier once they don't have time to think of a lie."

Kakashi sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, thinking longingly of the days when his subordinates would never dare to disobey or disrespect him. No one ever warned him that your cute little genin would grow up and become disillusioned by you and lose all the fear and respect.

"So the thing about the rumours around the village was all wrong then?" He asked and started walking towards his office. 

"Not at all," Sai said and blithely carried on as Kakashi stopped in his tracks. "Most of the village is talking about it. We only pretended to believe them to get you to admit the truth, Kakashi-sensei."

He heard a whisper of cloth before Sakura touched his arm gently. 

"Maybe you should think about why everyone was so quick to believe it, sensei."

And with those devastating words, they left him standing in the middle of the street, clutching the frail paper bags like a lifeline.