A/N: Naruto characters belong to Mr Masashi Kishimoto. Just felt like writing something with these characters.

A/N: While I did edit, this has not been beta'd, so there may be mistakes.

Kakashi Likes

Kiayla

Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin.

He liked Anko, even though she was abrasive and loud. They had met up and had tea from time to time, and were friendly when they ran into each other. They'd just gotten back from a mission together. Because at one point they'd had to split up during the mission, he'd asked her to look over his mission report to make sure nothing was missing.

Her handwriting wasn't bad, Kakashi told his lover later. Her characters were sometimes a little indistinct from one another, with too little spacing between them, but it was far from the worst handwriting he'd seen, and it was usually legible (even if he had to squint sometimes to read some words). He'd read over her notes on the report while she waited, loudly conversing - was "conversing" even the right word for the volume at which they were cheerfully shouting at each other? - with Tsume Inuzuka. Kiba's mother, if Kakashi recalled correctly, and he always did. He didn't even mind that they were being loud, even though he vastly preferred the quiet.

It was just one word; he'd just asked her what one character was, because, as he was reading it, the sentence made no sense whatsoever. Anko had turned to him, read it aloud to him, and loudly proclaimed with a broad smile, "I have bad handwriting? You're one to talk!" It was supposed to be a joke, Kakashi supposed later, but at the time, it had hurt more than he could have expected. He had Sharingan; his calligraphy, even when he wasn't using it, was excellent. But it had bothered him especially because his mother had taught him to write, and her handwriting had been beautiful, and his handwriting was one of his only ways of remembering her. He felt suddenly cold, or maybe too hot, in the tea house where they'd met. But he just smiled, barely remembering to try to keep his tone of voice jesting too when he blurted, "What? I do calligraphy." She barely seemed to notice, snickering out a, "Riiiight," before she turned and began to laugh with Tsume about some improbable mission story again.

It had hurt to hear that, because his handwriting was a little bit of his mother; so he had reacted emotionally rather than logically. In hindsight, of course, he'd kicked himself for that; he knew what he should have done was to soothe her ruffled feathers by telling her that her handwriting wasn't bad (even if it kind of was, just a little bit), and that he just sometimes had trouble reading it, maybe because of his dyslexia.

But then, in the summer, late in the evening - he'd been out late on a mission with Team Seven - he'd been on his way home. He had some paperwork to drop off at the mission office before he was free for the day. And he'd seen her slumped on the floor outside the mission office, holding a scroll in one hand and a half-eaten dango stick in the other. He'd approached her, and they chatted for awhile before the conversation became a little stilted and awkward; they just hadn't been as close since the handwriting thing. She'd just gotten a new mission, just a B-rank delivery mission, to Sound country. He knew about her connection to Orochimaru, and about the curse mark, but he suspected she thought he didn't know. He let her believe that; it hardly mattered right now. She was more nervous than she let on, with her empty smiles and subconscious sighs. She tried to hide it, but it wouldn't have taken a genius to figure out that she was truly nervous. And the hallway was empty, so finally, he asked her if she was alright.

"Yeah," she said, but she didn't sound alright.

Kakashi hesitated for what felt like an eternity. "Do you want a hug?" Kakashi asked finally, feeling foolish. Of course she would turn him down; other than Naruto, very few people hugged others even to console them. But he wasn't really sure what else to do, since she was clearly too vulnerable to successfully pretend to be okay. Well, he could just pretend that she was fine and go about his day, but when he'd done that with Sasuke... So he offered her a hug. Even though he knew she would turn him down. But to his shock, she nodded, put her scroll on the floor, and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back just as tightly in the best bear hug he could muster. She went to let go quickly, but he hung on, knowing that she would only ask for the bare minimum that she thought she needed to go on. And hell, they were hugging already; it wouldn't hurt him to give her a proper hug that would last her through the mission. Or at least through the front gate of Konohagakure on her way out.

"Thank you. You're a good person," she mumbled into his shoulder. He wasn't sure he agreed, so he said nothing, but that was fine.

Finally, when he deemed she was able to properly hold up her own weight again, he let go, reassuring her that it would be fine and she'd be done with the mission before she knew it. She'd given him a watery smile and left to pack.

Because Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin.

He liked Genma, even though he sometimes wondered if Genma only liked him because of his looks. They'd been friendly acquaintances for a few years when Kakashi went on that A-rank mission. It had been a recon mission that someone else probably would have been better-suited to, but Kakashi could be shockingly suave when he put his mind to it. Besides, the mission was too dangerous for most other people, so it had gone to him. He'd spent six months abroad in Getsugakure, trying to get close to a young, vivacious, buxom woman - the sort Jiraiya would have loved getting to observe; and she had wanted to get close to him, too, after a few months. Too close. He couldn't fight her off or he would have given himself and his mission away; ultimately, he'd had to let her have her way with him. Her personality turned out to be ugly, and her needy hands forceful; he felt used and disgusting every time he saw her. Upon his return home, he hadn't told anyone but the Hokage what had happened; he'd insisted on delivering the mission report directly to Sandaime and Kakashi had refused to speak or even look directly at Sandaime when the older man had paused for a very long time, then quietly told him only, "Excellent work. Thank you for your commitment to the village." The complete report was filed under "Classified," and that was that.

But when he started having unexpected flashbacks, and waking up in the middle of the night frozen, sweating and hyperventilating, he knew he had to deal with this beast. It was different from mental and emotional battle scars; everyone in Konoha understood those. And honestly, he had come to terms with the horrors of battle, and of death, a long time ago. But this... this was something different. Something that he couldn't run away from.

So he had needed to talk to someone, someone who would understand, or at least someone who wouldn't ridicule him or, worse, congratulate him.

He'd been on a number of missions with Genma, and the man was straightforward one-on-one but discreet when others were around, which was exactly what Kakashi needed. And hell, Genma was an attractive man! So they had gone on a long, friendly walk in the middle of the night by a lake, and he'd told Genma the general gist of what had happened. And the more he spoke, the more Genma was understanding without pitying him. And when they had circled the lake, more terrified that Kakashi could ever admit, he had quietly asked Genma if he could kiss the man.

Genma had understood. Had understood that Kakashi needed to feel in control, to be able to say, "No," if he wished, and to have that wish respected. And Genma had slowly nodded.

"Spit out that damn senbon," Kakashi ordered, his nerves secretly humming with just as much adrenaline as in any battle. Genma laughed and complied, and Kakashi pulled down his mask, and they had kissed under the stars by the side of the lake.

It wasn't quite right to call them friends with benefits; it was more like they were friends, and Genma was also a kind of sex therapist for Kakashi. They never actually performed coitus; Kakashi found that he couldn't without flashbacks, panic, and that mental shutdown he'd forced upon himself to get through the last three months with the Getsugakure kunoichi. And Genma never forced him to do anything he didn't want to do. He even had Kakashi practice saying no to things just for the sake of practice. And eventually, Kakashi was assigned Team Seven, and he and Genma grew apart, still friendly but no longer with the physical sexuality in their friendship. And gradually, they grew apart, as Genma pursued his other hobbies and work and Kakashi trained his team.

Now, when they talked alone, Genma still always wanted to talk about sex, and to talk about how he still desired Kakashi. Kakashi obliged and conversed with Genma about their past together freely, but Kakashi, mostly healed, now had reverted back to his mostly asexual ways. Oh, he adored his Icha Icha books, but they were a safe way to fantasize about a sexual relationship without the work or the weird emotional baggage Kakashi had long since decided was pretty much inherent to sex. He liked to read about the escapades of the characters; he didn't want to have them.

He was flattered that Genma would remark lazily, his eyes half-lidded, on how beautiful Kakashi was. But at the same time, Kakashi wore the mask not because he was insecure about his looks but because they didn't reflect who he was. His ANBU mask, or his taijutsu or ninjutsu, or even his work with Team Seven - those were who he was. Not the face that had been his father's. And when Genma would lay back on the roof after one of those now rare, shared sake bottles, fingers laced behind his head and senbon glinting in the moonlight, and talk about all the things he still wished he and Kakashi had done, Kakashi let him talk. But Kakashi was glad they hadn't done more, because then he wouldn't have been the one choosing, and he wouldn't have healed. And Genma would talk until the wee hours of the morning, half his conversation on missions and half on sex and always somewhere between joking and dead serious. Kakashi secretly wished that Genma would talk more about missions, or about his hobbies, or about Team Seven, or anything, really, because sometimes Kakashi felt reduced to the way he looked and his prowess in the bedroom (he was, after all, a genius; a genius with both Sharingan and a fixation on the Icha Icha books, specifically).

And Kakashi would listen without committing to anything, saying, "Hnnn," whenever asked about what he wanted now, because the truth was, he just wasn't interested in the "pleasures of the flesh," as Genma called it. Kakashi liked to read his smutty books and not apply those things to the real world. Wasn't that the whole point of fantasy? But he listened and let Genma talk.

Because Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin.

Kakashi had been friends with Asuma when they were younger, in the Academy. Kakashi had been popular with his peers, but hadn't stayed close to many of them; but somehow, off and on, he and Asuma had maintained contact. After Kakashi had forgiven Asuma and the others for having his ANBU status revoked (which, admittedly, would have been sooner if he hadn't been saddled with Naruto), he and Asuma had begun to spend some time together again. But somehow Kurenai was always around. Not that Kakashi minded; she was pleasant and friendly and was quite a good drinking buddy.

But when there were others - and when they went and had a drink, or dinner, or tea, there were almost always others - Asuma and Kurenai would smile ever more widely and greet the others like they were the best of friends. Kakashi wasn't jealous; he understood that while Asuma had been away, and while Kakashi had been in ANBU, Asuma had made friends he was much closer to than Kakashi. Kakashi and Asuma hadn't been best-friends-close since, well, ever, actually, but they'd been almost that close during their time at school together, if Kakashi's sense of their friendship was anything to go by.

So Kakashi would smile, greet the others with a friendly, "Yo!", and go back to his book or drink or whatever was conveniently in front of him, really; he wasn't picky. It really wasn't that he didn't want to interact with the others; just that it was so much work to overcome people's first impressions of him that he usually didn't find it worth the trouble anymore. But he would stay, even when the others were all laughing and drinking without exactly involving him - they all just had too much history together, too many in-jokes and that intuitive understanding of each other that comes with time - because, of course, Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin. But it became so much easier when he was able to invite his lover - not that anyone knew they were together - because at least they could be on the periphery of the parties together. And then Kakashi got into the habit of never saying no to Asuma and Kurenai's invitations on outings; and he even had a good time, most of the time.

Because Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin.

He liked Kotetsu, even though Kotetsu was painfully cheerful at times, and would argue things to the point of exhaustion, even when Kakashi had been reduced to mostly, "Hnn," as answers to Kotetsu's thoughts and questions. Like the time they'd somehow gotten into an argument about the source of the sound in finger snapping - Kotetsu had said it came from the sound of the skin of the thumb and middle finger snapping back into place, which made no sense to Kakashi; Kakashi had always thought the sound had come from the middle finger striking the fleshy part of the palm. Using Kotetsu's clearance, they'd raided Tsunade's notes; Kakashi had been ready to quit looking before they'd even made it to the tower. It ended up taking several hours of reading before they finally found the answer. (Kotetsu had misread the notes and thought he was correct until Kakashi pointed out that, according to Tsunade's notes, most of the sound from a finger snap comes from the middle finger breaking the sound barrier and causing a small vacuum, and the surrounding air rushing in is what caused the snapping sound - but a large portion of the sound also came, as Kakashi had thought, from the impact of the middle finger on the palm.)

They'd known each other now for over ten years, though, and they got along. And when Kotetsu started bringing along Izumo to their get-togethers, Kakashi raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Later, he and Kotetsu were having a drink without Izumo, and Kotetsu admitted that he liked Izumo. Kakashi asked if they were dating. Kotetsu said it was complicated, which Kakashi took to mean, "Yes." He mostly ignored their relationship after that, but made sure that if he invited Kotetsu to get a drink after work or what have you, to also extend the invitation to Izumo.

Because Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin.

He liked Shikamaru, even though Shikamaru reminded him of himself. There really wasn't much more to say about that.

Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin.

Kakashi liked Tsunade. She might have impossibly high expectations, speak a little too bluntly for most people, have a sense of humor that was a little off-color, and give out harder missions, with fewer people, than the other nin in the village would have liked, but she was fair to a fault (maybe that's why she was a lousy gambler) and always made time to talk if someone legitimately needed it. She was never too busy to be a healer, and she wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty and practice what she taught.

He'd had some serious reservations about Tsunade the first time he'd met her. Afraid of her, even (though he would never have admitted it), because she'd gone over a list of stringent rules and expectations she had of him the first time she assigned him a mission, and she'd spoken with flashing steel eyes. And she'd made him go on the A-rank mission with other people, with an amount of background information standard for S-rank missions (that is to say, virtually none). It was no wonder that first mission hadn't gone well. They'd all survived, and they'd completed the mission, but it hadn't been an easy thing. And when he'd come back from the mission, she'd been bluntly, brutally honest about his mistakes and failings - the choices he made that had endangered his teammates, the things she wanted him to do differently in the future. And he'd had to force himself to smile brightly at her while she spoke before he went and spent twice as long at the Memorial Stone as usual, and was tardier than normal to meetings for two weeks.

He'd avoided her for a long time after that; he managed to "coincidentally" find himself in the mission office right after Shizune had foisted a pile of paperwork on her mistress. And if that didn't work, he made sure some relatively expensive sake found its way to her shortly before he needed to go. Or he used Naruto as a diversion. The point was, he arranged for things to be such that he didn't have to face her, himself.

But then he'd gotten injured on a mission. Badly. And he found himself blearily staring up at a hospital ceiling flashing by while his lover clutched his hand and the medic nin ran his gurney down the hall to the operating room. And Tsunade herself had swept in, and the last thing he remembered was her demanding in that imperious tone, "You're not going to quit on me, right?" And he'd abruptly realised that she was worried about him. And everything went dark.

She only checked in on him once while he was recovering, but he found out that she had hovered around him until she was dead certain that he was going to make it. She didn't pressure him into taking missions again, even though they were short on jounin; she waited patiently. And when he was ready, he went back to her for his next mission.

He hadn't realised she could look so happy.

She was still as hard on him as ever, of course, but it was okay now.

Because Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin.

And he liked Guy, even though Guy couldn't communicate like a normal human being, and even though Guy was constantly adding new and unusual things into his regimen of staying in shape and busy. Actually, Kakashi would never say it, but he strongly admired Guy for being able to do that. It seemed like Guy had boundless, even inhuman, energy, and his work ethic and commitment matched that energy. Kakashi made time for things like reading Icha Icha and talking to the ghosts of the dead at the Memorial Stone; Guy made time for things like training his team (and being on time to do so) and volunteering with the Konohagakure Fire Department (a necessity in any hidden village).

They had met in childhood, when Guy had been placed on his genin team to replace Obito. They had been on-again, off-again friends; Kakashi had found him aggravating, sometimes, as a youth. But Guy had been a formidable opponent, and Kakashi found himself admiring Guy.

They had argued, one winter; it had been a shocking thing to Kakashi, since Guy was so kind and unfailingly positive. It had been a stupid argument, too, about one of Guy's ridiculous challenges; Kakashi had won a goldfish before Guy at the festival. But he didn't want the fish, so he gave it to Guy. Guy had forgotten the fish with Lee; and when Kakashi pointed out that Guy should probably put it in a tank before it died, Guy had become belligerent and insulting to Kakashi personally. To this day, Kakashi wasn't sure what had happened to Guy to make him so fiercely upset on the day of a festival, so he'd forced himself to smooth out his facial expression while they finished waiting in line at the yakitori stand, but he buried his nose in his Icha Icha book. Kakashi had eaten with his typical speed and tossed the sticks at a garbage bin; before they'd even hit the bin, he'd already teleported home.

His lover had reprimanded him for that; told him that he didn't know what Guy was going through, and that maybe Kakashi had misunderstood Guy's intent. But his lover didn't know Guy; Kakashi did, and he'd heard the barely-disguised malice in Guy's voice.

He hadn't spoken to Guy for several months after that. Even when Guy did want to talk again, Guy hadn't apologised, and Kakashi found himself avoiding Guy and his challenges. It was a long time before he was willing to engage with Guy's challenges again. Even if Guy had been tired, or hungry, or whatever, Kakashi still deserved to be treated like a human being. Kakashi himself, after all, was so careful about his treatment of others that he was nicer to most people when he was hungry or tired than when he wasn't. But eventually, he had responded to Guy again, carefully. Brick by brick, he was letting himself take down the wall he'd put up between them.

Because Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin.

But then there was Iruka-sensei. Iruka was hard for Kakashi to predict and to understand; one moment, Iruka was warm and expansive, and the next moment, he was cool and standoffish - like the time he had spoken to Sandaime before the chunin test about Kakashi's pupils.

When Kakashi had first met Iruka, he was, for lack of a better word, perky. Professional, but perky. It was a little disorienting, but Kakashi had seen much stranger in his days, so he let it pass by without comment.

They'd ended up talking quite a bit; Kakashi found that because Iruka was a teacher, he could speak intelligently about a wide variety of things. He might give Kakashi a hard time for reading Icha Icha in public, but when it was just the two of them sitting on Hokage Mountain, looking down on the village, Iruka would talk openly with Kakashi about Kakashi's love of the books. Iruka seemed to find it mostly interesting that Kakashi voraciously read smut and yet had what he considered an abnormally low sex drive, not a bad thing. It seemed to Kakashi that Iruka withheld judgement most of the time; he seemed more interested in learning and helping others than in simply shutting something down as being "bad" or "uncivilised," and that was nice.

But even when they talked, if the topic of a student or the Academy came up, Iruka's eyes lit up, and it seemed like he would forget that Kakashi was there. In those moments, Kakashi's only options were to pull out his book or to try to listen to whatever Iruka was getting excited about. That could be hard, because although Kakashi liked children as much as the next ninja, Iruka would talk as though Kakashi was both fascinated and highly educated on the intricacies of childhood development, neither of which were true. Kakashi found himself giving lamer and lamer excuses to escape from those conversations.

And sometimes Kakashi came home from missions and wanted someone to talk to. Iruka was busy, but his evenings were inevitably free and he was always in the village, so he was the obvious choice - especially since Kakashi couldn't exactly talk to Guy or Tsunade or Shikamaru (whose only comment would me, "How troublesome" if he tried) or the other jounin and chunin. Kakashi liked them, but they weren't exactly people he could go to with his troubles. So he tried talking to Iruka. But although Iruka listened carefully, and always seemed interested in what he had to say, if something was truly troubling Kakashi, Iruka would inevitably have grading to do or an exam to prepare. And that made Kakashi feel ignored.

And yet...

Iruka had left on a mission, and every day when Kakashi let himself into their shared apartment alone, his, "I'm home!" would echo in the empty apartment. And when he left, with all the lights out, the apartment seemed cold and empty and dead, like a burned-out cave; and his, "I'm leaving now!" was attended to only by their two dogs. (Normal dogs, not nin-ken.)

And when Iruka finally - finally - came home two long months later, Kakashi went out to the gates to meet him. They walked home together in companionable conversation and stopped at Ichiraku Ramen for dinner. To any outside observer, they were two friends having a friendly meal together. But when they got home, Kakashi pulled down his mask and gathered Iruka up into his arms and kissed Iruka fervently, then held Iruka tightly, his head on Iruka's shoulders, and they stood there in the entryway like a pair of fools.

And that night, Iruka didn't make any lewd, suggestive, or sexually needy comments even though of course he, with a more normal libido, must have been feeling the pressure after two months apart. Kakashi made a small noise in the back of his throat and snuggled in closer to the chunin's warm body; he'd forgotten how warm Iruka was. And Iruka didn't demand it or even ask it of Kakashi, but if Kakashi reached down to run his hands over Iruka's body, Iruka had no complaints. And at the invitation, Iruka took gentle care of Kakashi, running his hands over Kakashi's pale body tenderly, feeling him, kissing and tasting his lips and the shell of his ears and his throat below his jaw. Kakashi let himself feel these things, let a moan and a soft, breathy laugh that no one else got to hear fall from his lips, and he knew.

And the next day, when they chatted amicably and cooked together and read together while cuddling on the moss green couch, there wasn't a word of sex, because Iruka saw more of Kakashi than sex. He saw more of Kakashi than the adept ninja, the pain from missions and ghosts of the past, or the handsome figure and face. Iruka saw more of him than a drinking buddy or someone to argue with or someone to challenge.

Yes, Kakashi liked the other jounin and chunin.

But he loved Iruka.