At the age of four years old, Hatake Kakashi was a typically active, inquisitive and impulsive child. It would be a whole year before he could enter the ninja academy, but the young, white-haired soon-to-be prodigy was already training and preparing for the ninja life. He had heard from the villagers and other ninjas about the tales of his father's missions, the legendary white fang and he was determined to equal if not surpass his father one day. Already he was attempting to learn the summoning jutsu.
It was fate maybe, or possibly just the sky being in a bad mood, that Hatake Kakashi met the sensei of his soon-to-be sensei on the first day of July.
Sakumo, Kakashi's father, let the man in with a small smile. Young Kakashi stopped in the hallway and simply stared for a moment, at the large, scary man with the spiky white hair and plain weird grin. Why the hell was the word 'oil' written on his headband?
"Ah, so you must be Kakashi," Jiraiya had grinned when the older man had spotted him, walking up to the young boy and then proceeding to ruffle his hair. He looked at Sakumo. "He's cute."
In that moment, Kakashi decided once and for all that he did not like this man.
He growled and swatted the hand away from his head with surprising menace for a four year old. "You're Jiraiya, right?" he asked, "One of the three legendary Sannin?"
The toad sage nodded smugly, obviously proud of this title.
Kakashi simply deadpanned. "I thought only girls have pony tails, old man," he said simply.
After that, Jiraiya stopped coming to visit. When Kakashi stared up at his father with large, innocent, grey eyes and asked why, Sakumo just sighed in despair and promised himself that this would be the last time he had house guests.
The next time Kakashi met Jiraiya, he found the old hermit peeking through a hole in the fences that surrounded the women baths. He walked up to the strange man and stared at him for a moment, wondering what on earth he could be doing, before poking him roughly in the side. It caused him some satisfaction when the man yelped and jumped slightly, before turning to glare down at him.
"What are you doing?" The young boy asked, staring up shrewdly and raising an eyebrow.
The sage looked slightly abashed, before simply smirking, "Just some…research."
"Research? You mean for a new jutsu?"
"Not exactly…"
"For what, then?"
"A book."
Kakashi's eyebrow raised higher. "A book? What sort of book?"
For a moment, Jiraiya pondered and then he grinned. He whipped out something from his pocket and Kakashi caught a glance of the cover. "My new book…Icha Icha paridise. Well known in all five of the countries. I'm a celebrity you could say," the old sage grinned and posed smugly.
Kakashi did not look impressed, simply taking the book from the man's hand and handling it gently, eyeing the front cover with disdain. Jiraiya couldn't help the small smirk that grew on his face. One of his many future fans, he reasoned.
Later that day, when Kakashi returned home with his small nose immersed in the book Jiraiya had given him, Sakumo was surprised to say the least. He was a strong ninja, calm in all situations, always had something to say. And yet, when his son walked up to him calmly, showed him the large and erotic drawing that filled a two-page spread in the book and asked in a deceptively innocent voice 'what those people were doing,' Hatake Sakumo, for the first time in his life, could think of nothing to say.
Instead, he blushed.