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In front of the Hatake’s family compound, grew a persimmon tree.
The tree rarely bears fruit, if ever. Kakashi himself didn’t quite remember when was the last time he ate persimmon from his own ground. There is a fleeting memory of fruit so orange with dusty yellowish leaves and soft insides, of a woman’s voice soothingly embracing him, of his own father's laughter intermingling with the quietness of autumn. But he never quite trusted his memory of the early days, it is fuzzy at best and completely made-up at worst. Children tend to do that, they like to paint pictures of happiness and ember skies rather than the reality of pouring rain—and his father’s dead eyes staring into his own, his white hair dyed black, that’s when he found out that blood does look jet-black in the night. Thus, the tree stood, perhaps strangely resilient in the face of the continued disintegration of the Hatake’s compound.
Kakashi never paid any attention to his family compound. He was a practical man through and through. A spartan room in the jounin barrack is more than enough. As he rose in rank, his accommodation did not alter. Even in the moment of ascension into the most important role Konoha has to offer, he maintained the practicality.
One might even observe that the lack of interest for comfort extends not only to the matter of the physical, but also to every other aspect of his life. Kakashi was not the Uchihas, who often time acted in a disproportionate manner toward any slights, perceived or otherwise. His anger, rage, and grieve, is the winter type. While the Uchihas’ are all blazing aflame, well-fitted to their signature element, his is cold and black water underneath hard ice.
To Kakashi, attachments mean danger. It means losing your eyes, losing your heart, losing your life to your comrade’s hands. It means faces from the past who visit him in his dream, collecting debts of blood and flesh he could not return.
Accordingly, the compound deteriorated. It was once an architectural feat of the shoin-zukuri style, situated near a striking river with natural stones and a lush garden. Trees grew alongside the riverbank, fenced by flowers and bushes almost three feet high. The house itself was spacious without being excessive. The roof was brown reddish color with a slanted end, all the posts were square-shaped and sturdy, and the floor was covered with good quality tatami. It was a warrior’s house, but it was also a home. The living areas were generously lit by sunlight, the shojis were more often than not being opened all day long in sweet summer afternoons. There were wooden desks, ornated sliding doors and pillars, coffered ceilings, and all kinds of paintings of peacocks and white tigers. But today it was a skeleton of its past. The main structure stood the test of time, a tea house overlooking the overgrown and haphazard garden was intact and even slightly maintained in quality, but the rest of the house, and also of the smell of grilled fishes and slices of muskmelon left open to cool, have disappeared completely, leaving behind the ghost of a compound. The hedges and bushes took over and grew in height until it almost covered the façade of the house. More than once, Tsunade tried to persuade him to do some kind of renovation. But why would he renovate something he would never use? Kakashi always asks the same question.
But then again, Tsunade was not Iruka. Because Iruka can ask him to move mountains and he would do it twice if he so wishes.
Theirs is a peculiar relationship. But Kakashi was always a peculiar man. It was never ‘official’ in any shape or form. It was filled with long silent nights, careful touches, and biting teeth. Kakashi never stayed and Iruka never asked. In fact, Iruka never asked him for anything, period.
The only time Kakashi addressed the relationship was when he was about to take office.
He said, “We should stop from now on. I couldn’t compromise the line of duty.”
It was a laughable excuse of a parting word, but Iruka only blinked. He acted in the dignity of someone who stood in the warzone, uniform intact and kunai at hands, not as someone naked on his bed with his arms partly outstretched.
“I would never dream of it, Rokudaime-sama,” he said, slurring his words.
His body languid, eyes fluttering and tanned skin blushes red.
Kakashi was just a man.
He returned to the bed and he visited again the next day, and the next.
Years went by, the world changed as it recovered from its close brush with total destruction. But Kakashi didn’t change.
If Naruto were to know the truth between his two teachers, Kakashi may not be able to hold office for much longer. But Naruto didn’t know, and even if he did suspect anything, he respected them both too much to intervene.
Theirs is a secretive relationship, if even it could be called one. The opinion of the public vastly differs from one another. Some painted Kakashi as the villain, a hardened cold-blooded despot with no-good intention, and Iruka his eternal victim. Some painted Iruka as the seducer, a serpent in the garden who enjoys the taste of power through the tongue of others, and Kakashi is the weak and unfortunate pilgrim, fallen victim to his own need for love and affection. The truth may never be clear, perhaps even to the both of them.
On a summer day, just after he relinquished his title, Iruka asked him for the compound. And because he never asked for anything, Kakashi agreed.
The renovation was short and relatively minimal. There were no major works done to the main structure, only cleanups, some repairment and upgrading, and the thorough and laborious process of cleaning the hedges and bushes. Kakashi didn’t have any interest in participating. More often than not he was not at the compound, going rounds to the academy, the training ground, and most importantly the memorial stone.
Iruka was the one involved with the project. The workers even started to refer to him as ‘the boss’, and the boss doesn’t mind doing a little work himself, in fact he doesn’t mind at all. He was weeding grasses, tending the garden, moving stones and slabs with both his muscle and through his clever use of ninjutsu. By the early autumn, the compound was already habitable. It was not pristine per se, but it didn’t look like the jungle it was back on its worst day.
The sliding doors were kept open and there was a new tatami, the good quality one. The Uzumakis were invited, so were the Uchihas. Their children played in the open ground, enjoying the fresh air and the sparkling river, the chill temperature keeps them from going for a swim. But they fished and threw pebbles while the adult busied themselves with tea and rice cakes.
Iruka was the center of the newly renovated house. There was his touch everywhere. From the abundance of food stocked in the pantry to the pattern of the shoji and the grandness of the new hanging lamp, which became some sort of attraction for the visitor. They felt like it is their responsibility to compliment the lamp every time they entered the genkan from the wooden terrace.
Iruka smiled proudly.
“This certainly looks better than our Hyuuga compound,” said Hinata.
“Yeah, because that one is far too big. I always lose the children in the back garden.” Naruto shrugged.
“The Hyuuga’s compound is modeled as a shinden-zukuri,” said Iruka, “what we have here is shoin-zukuri. More military-oriented. So it is much smaller and practical.”
“How about the Umino’s compound?” asked Naruto. He was relaxing, eating oranges.
Iruka looked at him and couldn’t quite make up whether it was a clone or not. Naruto is the acting Hokage after all, it couldn’t really be expected of him to fulfill a housewarming party in person. But he ate the oranges with such gusto that Iruka didn’t believe it was a clone.
“We never had any.”
“Me too, I never have one,” said Naruto.
“Are you forgetting the Uzumaki’s compound? And the oh-so-humble Namikaze’s one?” Sakura half-shouted from across the room. Both Hinata and Naruto laughed.
“Said the one with a literal small village.”
“We are a very small and humble family originating from outside of Konoha,” Iruka said after a pause to let his guests exchange banter. “There never was anything special about our family. The third Hokage housed us in a little complex just near the border. We lived in a comfortable house albeit small. It was destroyed in the war.”
“You don’t have any plan to rebuild it?” Naruto asked, turning rather serious.
“Not at all.”
Sasuke rose from his seat near the window. He never said much, as per his usual habit, but he was listening. “Why should he?”
Iruka looked at him and with fondness realized that the children he used to teach never really change at all. He nodded and said that Sasuke is right before Naruto can argue.
The guests left after lunch. Half of the children were asleep, stuffed to the brim with fish and vegetables and fresh fruits hand-picked from the back garden. Iruka had employed some five staff in a rolling basis to keep the ground and to help him around the house. They also helped in preparing the meal.
Kakashi didn’t come and Iruka made excuses for him, even though he himself doesn’t know his whereabouts.
Before leaving, Naruto touched Iruka’s shoulder and said. “So, this means you and Kakashi-sensei are…?”
Iruka laughed lightly and brushed aside the question.
Sakura, overhearing this, delivered a rather long lecture to Naruto about privacy and how to stop being daft even after you are elected the leader of the village.
Kakashi, though, didn’t visit the compound until much later. It was at the end of autumn that he actually came. He sneaked his way from the river bank, entering through one of the open shoji instead of the genkan. Iruka was cleaning and arranging the tokonoma, brushing with care its wooden surface when he felt the familiar chakra entering and going to the kitchen. The whole compound was protected by a barrier, and so he never felt really unsafe, but being alert as a ninja is always the way to go.
Kakashi went to the kitchen first because he smelt the sweet grilled ayu fish and blue mackerel. He also found a basket of pears waiting to be opened. A bowl of yuzu was chilling on the counter.
The kitchen was strangely domestic and airy, the tiles washed anew, colored blue. In the center was a table full of fresh produce.
It was the same spot where he found Sakumo. Dead, bloodied, cold.
Someone brushed into his fingertips and if it was not for the warmth and the familiarity, Kakashi was ready to jump and attack. But Iruka just smiled at him, all welcoming and sweet. He wore his hair uncharacteristically high, his skin tanner than usual. It was like looking at a freshly ripe fruit.
“Do I startle you?”
“No,” answered Kakashi.
“I thought you would never come back. This is your home, you know. Everyone thought it strange I acted like I own this place, but they’re too polite to say it.”
“Do you want to?”
“What?” Iruka followed Kakashi into the main hall. “Do I want to what?”
“Own this?”
“Not really. I might have a certain ambition and fascination with family compounds, knowing that I never had the chance to own one. But I don’t like to get greedy.”
“You don’t,” said Kakashi matter-of-factly.
He was ready to run away again. Because this feels too close, much closer than the countless night they spent together, when they seek comfort and refuge in each other’s skin. But Iruka wouldn’t let him go for this one. He grasped Kakashi’s hand and hold into it.
“You deserve this,” he said.
“What?”
“Being alive.”
It was the closest someone had ever been and Kakashi shuddered, thinking of Rin, of Obito, of the dead and gone and how they are just waiting at the door. But Iruka didn’t let him go and he’s so warm, almost hot to the touch.
“It’s about time you let yourself live. You’ve done your duty, even going so far as to become the Rokudaime. Let your tongue tastes the sweetness of the oranges. Look there, the sky is as blue as ever. And here, let your hand rests here, so that you know that I am alive, this is life, and we’re not going anywhere, at least for this moment.”
Kakashi’s hand rested on Iruka’s chest and he could feel every beat, going rather fast at first then turning slower until it becomes just as natural as the sound of the river outside.
He breathed then pulled down his mask. He crouched a bit and kissed Iruka on the lips.
It was a contrast to the usual, the rendezvous in the darkness, the whispering. Today the sky was very clear and the autumn sunlight was warm and yellowish, almost golden. They were enveloped by the stream of sunlight.
“Fifteen years, and never a single word,” said Kakashi.
“Never a single word,” Iruka repeated.
He disentangled himself from Kakashi and looked out of the open shoji.
“The persimmon is in full bloom since we moved. I think the fruit is ready to be picked, but I need to ask Towa-san for sure. Do you want one, danna? It would be nice to eat in the open.”
Kakashi blinked and then nodded.