A.N.: I was bored today and somehow this was in my head. High school AU (they're awful...) that won't be continued (apart from in my head, that is - where it's already novel length and generally terrible).
"He was kissing another boy."
Thinking he'd misheard, Sakumo pressed the telephone receiver harder against his ear. "He—what?" The plastic felt uncomfortably hot on his skin. His other hand was creasing the letter he'd found in the mail this morning, marring the familiar stationary of his son's high school.
From the other end of the line came a sigh. Sakumo heard a rustle, the shifting of paper. He pictured Hiruzen's solemn face and felt a faint nausea creeping up on him.
"The last thing I want is to blow this… issue out of proportion, but the other students saw them and they've been… talking. I'm afraid your son might be facing… " There was static on the line, then breathing, "you know how it can be."
Sakumo's heart beat a frantic taiko rhythm against his ribcage. His thoughts were trickling through his mind like raindrops finding their way through ancient rock.
"Kissing?" he asked, unable to process anything beyond that first point. He was clutching the form letter informing him of an appointment with the principal on account of an "incident" involving his son.
"Yes. And we're not talking about a peck on the cheek either, Sakumo."
The thing was, he couldn't imagine it. Kakashi kissing anyone. It didn't compute. His pale son, face always hidden behind a surgical mask. That distant shadow of a boy, perched at the top of his class on astronomically high test scores. No friends coming to their house, no phone calls, no club activities to speak of. Always reading – not even studying – or out in the garden with the dogs, the only living creatures he ever spoke to in something more than monosyllabic drawls filtered through sterile fabric.
Kakashi kissing a boy.
No. It wasn't possible.
"…" He looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in his fist. A mistake, that was what this was.
Calmly, Hiruzen went on, his voice drifting through the haze of Sakumo's mind, "That's why I asked you to come in for a talk. I've sent a note to the other boy's parent as well. They will join us on Monday."
"…" He would have to talk to Kakashi, Sakumo realized. Clear this up.
Except that Kakashi hadn't really spoken to him. Not since then, and certainly not about anything that went deeper than can I have my allowance early or I'm not going to be home for dinner tonight because of school.
That had happened a lot recently… and because of school? What kind of explanation was that? How had he just accepted that?
Sakumo felt his knees go weak. He should have sat down before calling the principal's office. He should have eaten breakfast, he should have—
Been a better father.
Or just any kind of father, really.
"Sakumo, I understand that you're… shocked by this, but please consider what Kakashi has been through; it should be only natural that he would act out."
Yes, of course.
He closed his eyes, recounting in his mind the list of things Kakashi had endured in stoic silence.
His mother's death.
His father's failure to save the family business.
His father's attempted suicide.
The accident.
Hiruzen's voice was faintly beseeching now. "This is not about punishment. I won't let this affect Kakashi's grades or his record in any way. All I want is to make sure the boys understand that they're not to engage in such activities on school grounds, and to talk to them about bullying."
In his mental exertions, Sakumo had come full circle. He'd let the past uncoil in his memory like a snake and now, poisoned, he came back to the present, to the situation at hand, and it occurred to him that he was missing a vital piece of the puzzle.
"Who?" he asked.
"Excuse me?"
"Who is the other boy? The one who was kissing my son?" He didn't know why he wanted to know, just that he needed to know.
There was a pause, the distant creak of a chair, Hiruzen's black leather office chair, Sakumo presumed, then the old man's reluctant reply, "… It was Gai-kun. Maito Gai."
"Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention, Hiruzen-sensei." The dull click of the call disconnecting perfectly reflected how Sakumo felt.
He sat at the dinner table. Lying in wait. He'd smoothed out the letter as best as possible, had placed it in front of him, its bent corners floating millimeters above the wood.
Kakashi was late; he always was these last few weeks, staying out till nightfall. Sakumo had never asked why; he'd been somewhat happy, thinking his boy had found friends, was finally acting like a normal teenager.
Now he couldn't help but wonder whether Kakashi was with that boy, what they might be doing.
He's acting out. He's doing this because he's angry at me, he's been angry at me for years, he just never had a way to express it. Now he's found one.
Maito Gai. Sakumo knew that name, vaguely knew the boy. The kid was half Chinese, his grades were laughably poor, and his father was – as far as Sakumo knew – some undereducated high school dropout who worked part-time, if he worked at all.
Of all the kids in his class…
But isn't it fitting? a malicious voice in his head whispered, that he should be attracted to a failure when he has spent all this time with his failure of a father?
No. Sakumo wouldn't allow this, whatever this was. He'd nip this in the bud. Despite his painful past, despite his father's shortcomings, Kakashi had a future. He was an elite student and he would go to an elite university and he would get married to a beautiful, intelligent woman and he'd have children and he would be normal. He would not be an outsider, forced to live on the edge of society. He would not be mocked and despised and made to suffer.
Not as long as Sakumo was there to protect him.