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Chapter Text

   Gai, Kakashi used to think, was perhaps the only person to actually understand him.  He had been wrong.

❦

   When he was the age of five years old, his father had misunderstood Kakashi's pain at the merciless hands of Konoha.  He had thought that Kakashi suffered a loss of honour.  He thought that Kakashi's snotty nose and damp eyes at the end of Academy class days were because of the way the other students had taunted him, jeered at him, thrown rocks at him.

   That wasn't it at all.

   If Hatake Sakumo had gathered his son up in his arms and said, We can never return to Konoha again, and we'll likely die hunted like dogs within the week, Kakashi would have accepted without a second thought.

   Kakashi's pain was because he saw his beloved father's pain.  He saw the way that jibes and cruelness and petty words broke his father, the best person in the world, down to nothing.

   He heard his father weeping softly at night, when his father thought he slept, and there was nothing Kakashi wanted more than to burn Konoha to the ground.

   Sakumo hadn't understood Kakashi at all.

❦

   When he was 12, Uchiha Obito misunderstood Kakashi's bitter, cold words.  He thought Kakashi abided by the Shinobi Code and killed his own emotions because he was weak.  He thought that Kakashi wanted to abandon Rin because it was what Shinobi Ought to Do.

   He was utterly wrong.

   All his life, people had told him that Sakumo, his father, the brightest light in his life, had killed himself and left a bloodless body for Kakashi to find because he had refused to abandon his teammates.

   What they did not see?

   That he had abandoned Kakashi.

   And so it must be right to abandon the ones he cared most for, because it was precisely what his father had done to him.  His father, who could do no wrong.  His father, who could not see that Kakashi needed not honour but a father.

   And a little twelve-year-old boy had said to him in anger, Those who break the rules are garbage.  But those who abandon their teammates are worse than garbage.

   Kakashi hated – hated – that Obito had inadvertently called his father garbage.

   ...But maybe.  Maybe he didn't have to make the same choices his father had.  Maybe his father had made the wrong choice.  Maybe his father had been wrong.

   That didn't change the fact that Obito hadn't understood Kakashi at all.

❦

   When he was 12 years old, Rin misunderstood him in the most horrific way possible.  She had been convinced by the adults pursuing them that they had to return to Konoha.  That there was no solution to the incomplete seal painted on her skin than death.

   He fought for her.  He would have died for her.  Gladly, just so that she could have a slimmest chance to escape.  Because if she could escape, she might just be able to find a seals master.  And if she could find a seals master, she could go from being a ticking time bomb to being one of Konoha's greatest assets.  All while healing those around her as she went.

   That was worth Kakashi's blood.  That was worth Obito's eye.  That was worth everything.

   So he fought, tirelessly, defending that tiny chance.

   And she said, But my feelings–

   She couldn't understand that her feelings – that even his feelings, which he did not find worth acknowledging – were worth infinitely less than her chance.

   So she stepped in front of his lightning, condemning him to a lifetime of nightmares and an eternity of damnation.

   Rin didn't understand him at all.

❦

   Minato.  Minato-sensei.  The man who tried the hardest and understood the least.

   When Kakashi was 14 years old, he had finally decided in his heart of hearts that his father was wrong.  That abandoning those you love most in the world is Wrong.

   He thought Kakashi's nightmares, that his breakdowns, that his falling apart at the seams were things to be cured.  He thought that Kakashi needed a distraction.

   So he gave Kakashi the porcelain mask and sent him to kill, when what Kakashi had really needed, more than anything else, was to watch a father choose to not abandon his son.

   And then Minato-sensei, who was a sun to Konoha, who had treated Kakashi with nothing but kindness, who had tried so hard to talk to Kakashi when Kakashi was furious and aching and hurt, gave Kakashi an impossibly beautiful gift.  He changed Kakashi's assignment to guard his fiery wife and that little, unborn baby boy.

   And Kakashi would have given anything – anything – for that little boy to grow up with a father who did not abandon his most loved ones.

   Only to be held back by an impenetrable barrier as Minato did precisely that.

   Because Minato did not understand him at all.

❦

   Tenzō tried, bless him.  When Kakashi was 18, he rescued the boy who refused to abandon him, and for a moment, he dared to hope.  He dared to hope that Tenzō might be the one to understand him.

   Because Tenzō knew how ferociously Kakashi's loyalty and hope blasted inside of him, like lightning striking inside of him over and over.  Tenzō knew what it was, to be abandoned.  And he knew what it was to shut out his emotions until he forgot about them and they exploded in his face again.

   Tenzō knew what it meant to not abandon because he had grown up abandoned, too.

   But so soon after they met, Tenzō began calling him senpai instead of Kakashi.  And Kakashi realised that the starry-eyed boy who had grown up abandoned just like him didn't see him.  Tenzō saw an ideal.  A promise of a Konoha that did not abandon.

   But Tenzō – Tenzō did not see the way Kakashi allowed himself to be consumed not just by loyalty and by hope but also by loss.  By agony.  By the reactive hatred that over and over, Kakashi had been prevented from doing the only thing that mattered.  He refused to see that for every Tenzō that Kakashi saved, there were a dozen others who had died because of his failure.

   Tenzō could never see the self-loathing that made Kakashi stare at his tantō late into the night, sometimes, wondering what that clean, cold blade would feel like as it bit into his stomach and up into his heart.

   Tenzō saw a perfection that did not, and could not, exist.  Tenzō saw someone cold on the battlefield and warm in the locker room because that was the person Kakashi presented on the outside.

   Kakashi tried to explain, once.  Tenzō had stared at him and said, How could you even think such a thing about yourself, senpai? in utter bafflement.  You're a good person, senpai.

   But that hadn't been the point, had it?  The point had been that he felt like a failure.  He felt like he was only worth abandoning by people, one after another.

   Tenzō didn't understand that his apartment was empty because Kakashi didn't want connections – didn't want there to be people for him to abandon the way he had been abandoned.

   Still, he never abandoned Kakashi, and Kakashi never willingly abandoned him.  Until Kakashi was dismissed from ANBU, that was, and then all Tenzō would say was, Please don't call me by my name while I'm in the mask, senpai.

   Tenzō understood him a little.  But Tenzō didn't understand him.

❦

   Gai.  Now, there was someone Kakashi thought might actually understand him, odd as Gai was.  But Gai understood that Kakashi's disparaging comments weren't personal, only assessing, and he didn't take them personally.  Gai understood that when Kakashi gave him a blank stare, that meant he was interested.  Gai called him My greatest rival! and Kakashi thought that must mean, My closest friend.

   Gai understood that ANBU was devouring what little remained of Kakashi's soul.  Even when Kakashi gave him the petty silent treatment, Gai fought to have Kakashi retired from ANBU and reinstated as a jōnin of Konoha.

   Gai understood that when Kakashi wandered home, ignoring one of those outrageous challenges constantly falling from Gai's lips, that meant Gai could follow him (usually on his hands) to his meagre little apartment to share a beer or two.

   Gai understood that sometimes, Kakashi needed a taijutsu dance to exhaust his mind until he could just be.  And Gai was endlessly creative in coming up with new ways for Kakashi to work his body until he actually slept at night.

   Gai did not ask Kakashi to train with him; he understood that Kakashi would have declined.  He understood that Kakashi would accept challenges.

   Gai also understood what it meant to lose a father.

   For many, many years, Kakashi thought that perhaps, Gai was the one who most truly understood him.

   And then he accepted a genin team.  He found a boy, a hopeless case, and nurtured his spirit until Rock Lee became indomitable.  It was truly remarkable.

   He didn't cease challenging Kakashi.  He encouraged Kakashi, often and loudly, to accept a genin team of his own, but he did not suggest that a genin team would somehow change Kakashi's life.  (He would have been right, but he had understood that Kakashi wouldn't listen.)

   And then....

   And then, on That Day, Kakashi recommended his genin team for the Chūnin Exams.

   And on that day, it became clear to Kakashi that Gai did not really understand him at all.  He did not understand that Kakashi was recommending his team not because he believed they would pass – maybe not even that they would live – but because they needed it.  Because they needed him to believe in them, because no one ever truly had before.

   More than anything, his three genin, teased and taunted and unseen by those around them for who they really were – they needed his faith the way an acorn needs soil and water and sunlight.  Without his belief in them, they would wither away.  They had been so close before he recommended them – Sakura, only 12 years old and already dieting because she thought her value bloomed exclusively from her looks; Sasuke, only 12 years old and already obsessed with nothing but revenge because he thought his value bloomed from honour (and just look where that had gotten Sakumo and, by extension, Kakashi); and most of all, Naruto, who could become Hokage but whose belief had already boiled down to validation by another little boy – the three of them had almost withered into crippling self-doubt, nurturing seeds of self-loathing that Kakashi knew from experience spread like a weed in one's heart.

   Gai should have understood that Kakashi had to plant those acorns in soil before they rotted; that his recommendations for the Chūnin Exam were a sign of his deep and unshakeable faith in the three children who had already grown so unbelievably much in the few months he had known them.

   Gai understood the most, but he did not understand.

❦

   But on that same day, something interesting happened.

   Umino Iruka had not questioned Kakashi's judgement, not directly.  He had questioned the students' readiness, but why wouldn't he?  He didn't know Kakashi.  He had no way of understanding that Kakashi would support his genin to his last breath.

   That was unremarkable.

   His words – that Naruto is different than you! – were understandable, too.  Kakashi had meant that anyone, under the right circumstances, with the right push and the right faith, could succeed at any age.  Umino had taken his words to mean that Kakashi was comparing Naruto to himself – except that he dropped that line of thought almost immediately.  He didn't repeat that Naruto is different than you!; he only expressed his worry for the genin's safety.

   Curious, Kakashi suggested Umino be the one to test the rookies who had been recommended.

   And Hiruzen had agreed, not because he understood Kakashi but because he trusted him.

   And then–

   And then–

Chapter Text

   Kakashi stayed on the rooftop all day, gazing over Konoha.  He did not read.  He simply allowed his mind to wander.

   It was alright that no one understood him.  Yes, the loneliness prickled at his skin and dragged a needle through his heart, but when had that ever not been true?  Certainly not since the age of five years old.

   In fact, it was kind of nice to acknowledge that no one understood his intentions.

   A lot of people thought that Kakashi was a little bit heartless.  Cool.  Aloof.  (Isn't that what Gai had said so many times?  Perhaps he had been mistaken in thinking Gai had understood him at all, really.)

   He wasn't, actually.  In fact, he was hyperaware of the rises and falls in the emotions of those around him.  He knew that forthrightness, though valuable in its own right sometimes, could more often turn someone the wrong direction.  Be misinterpreted.  Be misunderstood.

   Honest words more often backfired than they didn't, and there was a time and a place for them.  Simply telling his genin that he believed in them would have been worth little; recommending them for the Chūnin Exam meant much.  Simply telling Gai that he wanted to be friends meant little; accepting inane challenges meant far more.  Simply telling Asuma that his father loved him, really and truly, would have done nothing; Asuma needed to learn that for himself by accepting more responsibility and experiencing how that changed him (and, in fact, Kakashi may or may not have been the first to mention, in passing and in the middle of a conversation about a merchant arriving from the capital, about the Guardians seeking a new member, knowing that the experience would give Asuma space and wisdom).  And so forth.

   Almost no one – or maybe no one – actually understood that, though.  They couldn't, or wouldn't, understand that he played a game seven or ten moves ahead, looking underneath the underneath of the underneath.  Perhaps it was a byproduct of his genius.  Perhaps he was a special brand of idiot.

   Perhaps he was simply destined for loneliness.

   He thought about his genin team and smiled beneath his mask, his eye crinkling beneath his hitai-ate as he remembered with real fondness the way that Naruto complained incessantly about eating his vegetables, how Sasuke crossed his arms and grumbled when Kakashi tousled his hair, and how Sakura squealed with pride when he complimented her for mastering a technique before either of the boys did.  He hoped they would accept the recommendation by going to the first stage of the exam.  (He already knew with certainty that they would pass whatever preliminaries might be thrown at them.)

   They might not understand him, but, truth be told, he didn't want them to understand him.  He wanted them to have childhoods, not the kind of gory, (infected,) still-weeping scars that crisscrossed his own heart.

   He wondered how he would irritate them tomorrow.  It would be a good day for it, and some of that emptiness in his heart would be filled as they bickered and shouted at him for being late.

   As evening fell, he wondered how the preliminaries were going.  He wondered what Iruka was thinking.  He wondered why he even cared.

   Hope, he acknowledged wryly to himself.

   Even now, at far closer to 30 years old than he'd ever thought he'd be, part of him never stopped yearning to be understood.  To be seen.  Sometime, he hoped with another wry smile, before I get killed on the field, would be nice.

   It did not seem very likely that Iruka would be the one to understand.

   The moon hung in the velvet sky above him when he felt the faint burn of chakra in the air behind him.  At the same moment, he saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye.

   An Ame nin stood there, out in the open and without a care in the world.

   No Ame nin, then.

   And the only reason someone would need to wear the face of an Ame nin would be if they were trying to go unrecognised.  By genin, for example.

   He turned away, unconcerned that the ninja behind him might attack him.  He already knew that Iruka would reveal himself when he was ready to do so.

   "How was it?" he asked mildly, looking out over the golden streetlights.  Far down below, families laughed together as they went to and from restaurants, couples held hands (one particularly notable civilian couple giggled and canoodled in an alleyway, unaware of their accidental audience), and children played in the summer heat.

   "We went to the trouble of having a special preliminary exam," a gruff voice said.  Interesting; Iruka had gone so far as to change his voice.  Well, Kakashi supposed he had to, else the genin would surely recognise their old sensei's voice.  "But all nine rookies passed."

   Kakashi heard the distinctive puff as a transformation was released into the hot summer air.

   "As you say," came Iruka's mellow voice, perhaps somewhat ashamed, "it appears their skills have indeed improved."

   It was an apology, wrapped up in acknowledgement that Kakashi had been right.

   "Well, the actual Chūnin Exams won't be this easy, but..." Kakashi answered in an apology of his own.  He knew that they would be difficult.  He knew that he could lose his precious students, who were nearly his family – but he had no choice but to let them grow.  He would only hinder them by overprotecting them.

   "Thank you," Iruka whispered.  "I... didn't realise."

   Kakashi tossed a look over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised.

   "Didn't realise?" he asked, wondering what Iruka had parsed from his apology.

   "How worried you are about them," Iruka said with a tenuous smile.  "You... are, aren't you?"

   Kakashi blinked, because he wasn't quite sure what else to do.  He wondered how Iruka could see how much he cared, and how much the recommendation meant to him, from a few simple words in an apology that lay underneath the underneath of the underneath, far more layers down than most people ever saw.

   "What makes you say that?" he asked lazily.  The laziness was, as it typically was, an act: part of his means of accumulating greater information from those around him.  But he watched Iruka closely with a half-lidded gaze.  Because what he was really asking was, How much of me can you see?

   Iruka, too, blinked, his head cocking slightly.

   "Ah," he said softly, as if in understanding, as if something had been explained to him.  And bizarrely, Kakashi had a feeling that they were having three conversations at once: one about the children, one about Kakashi, and one about Iruka.

   "You'll have to forgive me," Iruka said with a sudden, small, yet dazzling smile.  "I'm not nearly as subtle as you are.  The pre-genin would never understand what I was saying if I were, you know?"

   Kakashi cocked his head slightly, looking at Iruka more discerningly now.  There it was: an open acknowledgement that Iruka had seen.

   All the wariness had vanished from Iruka's dark eyes, replaced only by warmth.

   "Please explain," Kakashi said with the most bored tone he could muster.  He wanted proof.  No– he needed proof, because hope beat broken wings against his ribs as it suddenly surged to life again.

   "Hmm," Iruka said, his words measured and his brow furrowed.  "What are you hoping I'll say, Kakashi-sensei?"

   Kakashi stilled, because... well... it sounded like an honest question.  It sounded like Iruka truly wanted to know what Kakashi was hoping he would say, and nothing more.

   He tried to remember the last time someone had asked him a fully honest question, with nothing behind it to pick apart and understand.

   "I'm... not sure," he finally confessed, freely giving honesty for honesty.  "What are you hoping I'll say?"

   Iruka looked at him for a long time.  Then the corners of his lips twitched into a half-concealed smile.

   "You know it won't always be like this, right?" Iruka asked, his dark eyes piercing in the night.

   Kakashi half-smiled.  This could mean so many different things.  Easy.  Natural.  Open.  Honest.  Understood.

   "It rarely is," he countered.  "So?  What are you hoping I'll say?"

   "'Yes'," Iruka said confidently.

   Kakashi blinked, legitimately bewildered this time.

   "'Yes'?" he repeated blankly.

   Iruka's soft mouth untwisted, and a smile spread across his lips.

   His scar crinkled a little at his nose when he smiled, Kakashi noticed.

   "Oh, good!  I'll see you tomorrow evening at 7, then," he said cheerfully, his knees dipping as if he were about to leap away into the darkness.  "In front of the Hokage Tower.  Don't be late."

   "Wait, what?" Kakashi spluttered.  "Tomorrow evening?  What does that have to do with anything?"

   Iruka's smile turned into a little smirk.

   "You said yes," he said smugly.  It was a rather nice look on him, smugness, a far cry from the uncertain and insecure young man Kakashi had once advised on a park bench so many years ago.

   Kakashi smiled despite himself.  The childlike playfulness combined with cleverness was, if nothing else, entertaining.  And Iruka's eyes, dancing with laughter, made the night seem a little brighter; his smile, dazzling and free, made the world seem a little softer and more kind.

   He knew that other people would see that smile and say, Ah, you've never had your heart broken before.  I can see it.  And Kakashi also knew that those people would be desperately wrong – that Iruka had loved, and lost, and had his heart crushed and shattered more deeply than most people could ever hope to know.

   It was nice, to see a smile like that: so full of life that most people could never even dream of recognising what it held.

   "And what did I say yes to?" he asked, amused.  It had been a while since someone had jerked the proverbial rug out from under his feet like that.

   "Oh, didn't you notice me ask you to join me for dinner?" Iruka asked, all innocence.

   Kakashi laughed, a lightness suddenly opening up in his chest.

   "At 7," he agreed, and then Iruka was gone.