Generic disclaimer applies.
An Eye for an Iris - 1
By Airyo
"Kashi-kun," his father said. "Let's meet the daughter of an old student of mine."
Kakashi scratched at his bare face in thought. He wondered if Sakumo was joking, because Teuchi was a ramen-chef and his calluses pointed to ramen-related things like ladeling broth and pulling dough. The idea of Old Man Ichiraku with a kunai was laughable.
But he still smiled politely, and hoped his father wouldn't linger in the warm glow of the ramen stand too long this time. It was a strange friendship, but Sakumo was the kind of person who could befriend an enemy nin and sit him down for tea if he wanted to.
Then Teuchi gave his trademark laugh - a warm sound from deep from his stomach - and shook his head in embarrassment. "Sakumo-san, that's far too long ago. Are you still sore about it?"
As if it were true.
Kakashi studied the ramen-chef.
Even though everyone called him Old Man Ichiraku, he couldn't have been more than twenty-five. He had a kind, open face and curved eyes that looked like he was perpetually thinking of something happy. If comfort food had a face, it would look like Old Man Ichiraku's. Teuchi was leaning over the stall on his forearms, his little white hat askew and apron stained with ramen ingredients. He was the picture of honesty.
Kakashi looked back to Sakumo.
His father was barely thirty, so the shock of white Hatake hair that threatened to escape his ponytail always perplexed everyone. Even more so when young Kakashi stood next to him with the same trait. Dark intelligent eyes warm with affection regarded him. Sakumo smiled gently at him, and the boy unconsciously straightened. After that disastrous mission two years back, everyone else looked down on the White Fang, but to Kakashi, Hatake Sakumo was still the kindest and strongest dad in the world.
And such a man wouldn't lie to his son.
"Confused yet, Kashi-kun?" Sakumo ruffled his hair. Kakashi scowled at him but tolerated the gesture because his father was laughing. Even if Old Man Ichiraku had a nice laugh, Kakashi liked his father's most - it was a low sound that settled deep in Kakashi's bones, warm like cuddling under the covers on a wintry night. It was a rare sound nowadays.
"I am not confused," Kakashi clarified. "Intrigued." He was already eight, and two years strong into his chuunin career. He was an adult in the eyes of the Hokage and the village. The older men forgot that sometimes. "Teuchi-san is a ramen chef, while Father is a shinobi. Does Teuchi-san need to learn how to fight in order to protect his secret recipe? "
It was a viable hypothesis because Ichiraku ramen was delicious. Yet the older men found it funny. Kakashi decided that he did not like this kind of laughter as much.
"Sorry, Kashi-kun," Sakumo said. "We are not laughing at you." That was a load of bull, but Kakashi was feeling generous after Minato-sensei had praised him earlier today, so he pretended to believe him. "We are laughing because Teuchi couldn't win a fight against a bowl of noodles if he wanted to."
An utter lack of ability to fight was a foreign concept to the young genius. It was easy - a flick of hand seals, a toss of a kunai, and all his opponents fell on the ground like broken dolls. Child's play. So when confronted with the claim that someone could be so inept was...
"I don't understand the purpose of your hyperbole, father," he admitted.
"That's because its not a hyperbole, " Teuchi admitted. "I was dead last in my academy class - graduated late, actually - and for that, ended up on the same genin team as Uchiha Fugaku and Hyuuga Hiashi. I quit to become a ramen chef very soon after that."
There were quite a few stories tucked in between the lines, underneath the underneath. Kakashi was mildly curious, but he was more interested in keeping the conversation going because his father was smiling over fond memories instead of trying to drown himself in the bad ones.
"Why would Hyuuga and Uchiha inspire you to cook? They have very few ties with the Akimichi..."
"If only it were that simple," Teuchi bemoaned. "I was older, but those two were...a class of their own."
"You were the only diplomatic one, and you went and left me to the mercy of those two hellions." Sakumo accused. He turned to Kakashi to explain. "Fugaku and Hiashi fought constantly. The only reason both are alive was because I begged for Aburame Shibi to replace the vacuum of sanity left by that guy." The target of Sakumo's baleful glare shrugged unapologetically.
Kakashi had enough information to understand. The Aburame kikachu were capable of eating away chakra, rendering the victim(s) incapable of further combat. Sakumo had requested a referee, not another student.
Kakashi sympathized with Shibi, because he understood what it was like to be the youngest, yet the most mature. Rin wasn't so bad, though he was mildly discomfited by the girl's obvious admiration for him. But Obito was two years old than him, and Kakashi couldn't figure out how he'd managed to graduate the Academy - likely with help from his esteemed clan.
This Aburame Shibi must have been truly great, because Kakashi found it painful enough to have one idiot on his team. Maybe he should look into developing a chakra depletion technique...Kakashi discarded that idea with a snort. That would only make Obito more late.
Teuchi have a wistful sigh. "I just couldn't keep up with those guys, but I so wanted to be a ninja chef for my comrades."
"What would food have to do with supporting your comrades?" Kakashi could understand poisoning an enemy, but ramen noodles weren't lethal unless one choked on them.
"It is what fuels your body, isn't it?" Teuchi asked.
It was then Kakashi understood why Sakumo kept in touch with the ramen-chef. Not only was Teuchi one of the few people who still regarded the disgraced shinobi warmly, but he also followed the same ideals. Even though Teuchi no longer supported his comrades on the battlefield, he supported them by providing warm food for their empty bellies and a warm smile for their empty hearts.
"So are we going to meet little Ayame-chan?" Sakumo pressed. Teuchi waved his eagerness away as he turned to turn off his stove.
"Just let me close up the front."
Teuchi's apartment was accessible through the back, a cozy place that also smelled of ramen. A pleasant looking old woman stepped out of the bedroom with a tiny pink bundle in her arms.
"Thank you for watching her, Ma," Teuchi said as he accepted his daughter. "Please go get some rest." She exited with a tired wave, leaving the three men with the baby girl. There was a moment of hesitation before they shifted themselves around.
Kakashi ended up on the couch with his father as Sakumo held Ayame. Teuchi made them tea before rejoining them.
"Do you want to hold her?"
Kakashi tried to protest, but Teuchi was already transferring Ayame to him. Carefully, albeit reluctantly, the boy cradled the newborn so she wouldn't roll off his lap. He look down at her wrinkled face. She peered up at him with dark sleepy eyes.
Kakashi's first thought as he held baby Ayame was: "It's a human raisin."
His second was not fit for replication, as she took offense and promptly vomited all over him.
Kakashi could have dodged, but he was also intelligent enough to realize that tossing a newborn across the room like a hot kunai would be frowned upon. So he continued to hold her as he directed an expression of long suffering at his father.
This is the kind of nonsense I put up with, his downturned mouth seemed to say.
Kakashi's mood improved after he'd showered and borrowed a clean shirt. Teuchi apologized by giving him another bowl of ramen with extra fish cakes, homemade from his personal kitchen. Homemade always tasted better, even more so when eaten with your precious people sitting next to you.
The ramen had a soporific effect, and Kakashi drifted off on the couch with plans to harness the powers of Teuchi's cooking to subjugate enemy nin.
Later that night, Kakashi woke with a start. His senses unfurled and within moments, he categorized his surroundings.
His bed was small and hard, and the threadbare blankets were probably older than he was. He could smell rich flavor of broth - in the blankets, in the large shirt he was wearing. He heard the soft sigh from the crib on the other side of the room.
So they were still at Teuchi's. Sakumo must have carried him into the bedroom, as only his father and Minato-sensei could move him while he slept. Therefore, the infant in the crib was Ayame.
Kakashi efficiently made the bed with the neat, tucked edges of a practiced soldier and walked to the side of the crib. To his consternation, he was still too short to peer over the edge. He rolled his eyes (but made a mental note to drink more milk) and instead, leaped up to perch on crib railing.
He tilted his head and scratched his head. How did something so little and cute manage to spew that disproportionate amount of formula on to his shirt? By volume, she was at least seventy-five percent stomach.
Faint murmurs from the living room drew his attention and Kakashi forgot the conundrum in baby-bowel ratios. He jumped back to the ground and crept to the door, where he could hear the quiet conversation.
"How are you holding up?" Sakuma was asking. Teuchi gave a long sigh.
"I see her everywhere," he said, voice hoarse. "Does it ever stop hurting, Sakumo-sensei?"
Kakashi realized why Sakumo had insisted on visiting Teuchi as soon as he had returned from a mission. It was why he'd bought two cards at the store - "Congratulations, It's a Girl!" and "Sorry for Your Loss" - for the same person.
"No. But you will become better at remembering the happy times. Little Ayame-chan will ask, and it will be your job to keep her mother's memory beautiful and bright."
Kakashi held his breath and suppressed his chakra until it burned, a sharp bright point in his chest. Despite his father's words, Sakumo rarely talked about Kakashi's late mother. There were photographs, yes, and the mission reports of the failed mission, the vague infant memories of gentle hands with rough skin and a soft offkey voice. These were all pieces of who his mother was, but Kakashi could not claim that he remembered her. Not when she was gone before he was two, and he understood from a young age that asking about her would be the surest way to cause agony to well in his father's eyes.
So Kakashi learned to stop asking.
But he never quite got the hang of stopping his curiosity.
There was no doubt that Sakumo was aware of his eavesdropper, but he continued to speak.
"I try to live by the ideals of my wife," Sakumo said. "So my son Kakashi can grow to protect this precious village with the Will of Fire. She loved this village, loved what it stood for. She gave her life on that mission because she believed it was important. It helps me to remember to trust in her decision." Kakashi's vision was blurry, with a yearning was a hard lumped in his throat. "In the same way, Teuchi, you need to remember that your wife gave her life to protect something precious to both of you - your child."
Kakashi puffed up, because he understood the parallels Sakumo implied. The boy promised to himself again that he will grow up to be just like his father. His name will strike fear into the hearts of his enemies.
He revisited his mental list of potential epithets he would like to called when he made it into the bingo books. Obviously, he couldn't be called the Other, Better White Fang, but Kakashi knew he wanted a moniker that referred to canines. It made sense since he intended to sign the Ninken summoning contract when he developed better chakra stores. Maybe the Silver Fang, or the White Flash.
(He'd already scratched out the Wicked Wolf and the Growling Awesome Fang, because he made them up when he was six and they were far too childish now.)
Teuchi sounded more relaxed as he sighed again. "You're right, Sakumo-sensei. I need to be strong for the next generation. Our children are our hope for future, after all."
Sakumo hummed in agreement.
I'll help, though Kakashi with a fierce expression. I'll be strong so they won't look down on Father anymore.
AN:
-In canon, math suggests that Sakumo died when Kakashi five-ish, which is also when Kakashi was first shown wearing that mask. With the addition of better friends in this AU, Sakumo was able to deal with his depression and stick around a little longer.
-This multichapter fic will focus on Kakashi and Ayame, though it's actually a prologue/sidestory to my other story Dreamcatcher. You don't have to slog through all those chapters (though I certainly won't protest if you do ;D ) as everything you need to know will be provided in the story. Which is why I was super-ultra-sneaky and didn't tell you this until the end of the chapter. ;)
-Ayame's name means 'Iris' the flower or 'pattern', but I'm also using a pun on sight, in reference to the iris of the eye. Because coughSharinganKakashicough. Funnily enough, her name can also mean 'to murder' or 'to wound'. Hmmmmm.
-Don't judge me on my names. At least I didn't go with something like "The Tale of the Crimson Murder Iris".
-I've always found it amusing that Kakashi is often described as lupine and has nin dogs. Yet he's called the Copy Cat.
-Finally, for those of you waiting for updates on my other fics...er...oops? Will you take the excuse that my fingers slipped?