Normal Life,
A story of how Kakashi's life would have been if the Yondaime had survived the Kyuubi.
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It had hurt, hurt a whole lot. The blood had splattered everywhere, soaking his clothes and the ground. Bones had grated against each other. And then, in addition, he had been pushed off the cliff. The fall had been horrifying. When the impact had finally come he had thought of it as a blessing.
Kakashi had considered then and there, after checking if he wasn't too seriously wounded, to go back up the cliff and kick the Mist-nin's ass just because the bastard had sent him sailing off a cliff. A very high cliff. Kakashi hated heights. He tended to push the fact to the back of his mind when on missions and running trough high trees but a goddamn cliff was another matter.
So when he had finally limped back home he had first ranted about the mist-nin for a whole hour, his teacher listening and being visibly amused.
"You should do something against your fear of heights," Kazuma Arashi said, a happy grin plastered on his face as he seemed totally unfazed by the world in general. Kakashi glared at him from under his silver bangs, bandaging up a minor cut. The deep chest-wound had been already tended to by Arashi earlier when Kakashi had still been ranting about stupid cliffs and even more annoying enemy shinobis, the talking helping him to ignore the pain.
Somewhere across the house a bell rang and Arashi lifted his head to sniff the air.
"Time for dinner!" he cheered and bolted off into the direction of the kitchen. When Kakashi finally made an appearance there, he looked more disgruntled than ever. He sat down at the kitchen table nonetheless, waiting for the pizza to be served and watching impassively as Arashi burned a finger and howled in pain.
"When will Naruto be back?" he finally asked after his former sensei had stopped making a fuss over his finger.
"Oh, he will be back from school soon.", the blond said, twirling a knife expertly between his fingers and cutting the pizza into small pieces with smooth movements. Kakashi was pretty sure he just did it to show off. "He has made a strange friend, you probably know him. Uchiha Sasuke."
Kakashi snagged a piece of pizza and chewed at it thoughtfully. "Yeah, maybe. Little scrawny kid with big eyes and spiky black hair?"
"Yeah, that must be him!"
Kakashi stopped chewing for a moment and glowered at the table-top. "He is Itachi's little brother."
"Oh?" Arashi raised a questioning eyebrow while he devoured one piece of pizza after another.
"He took my position as an ANBU squad team leader when I left," Kakashi explained, glowering harder at the innocent wood the table was made of.
"Itachi? The Itachi? All-favored Uchiha, Sharingan-wielder at the age of nine and only topped by you when it comes to achieving Chuunin and Jounin rank?" Arashi asked, just to be sure.
"Yeah. I met him once when I resigned from the ANBU. He will have no problems posing as a woman if he needs to on an undercover mission."
Arashi blinked, actually stopping in the task of munching down another piece of pizza. "Now, if that should have been an insult we have a lot of work ahead of us."
Kakashi leveled his glare at him. "Shut up."
They were silent for the rest of the dinner, Kakashi fighting with Arashi over the last pieces of pizza when it became apparent that the blond wouldn't be satisfied with his half. When it was over with pieces of tomato stuck in Kakashi's hair and onion rings smeared over Arashi's shirt, they stood up to put away the dishes and to ready another pizza in the oven for Naruto.
"Will there be another A-rank mission for you soon?" Arashi asked quietly while he stood at the sink and let the hot water wash the plates and glasses clean. Kakashi stood beside him, drying off the dishes as soon as Arashi set them aside.
"Sandaime said there were only low-level missions. The new Genin-teams will have a lot to do in the next months," Kakashi answered as quietly, not missing the tone of concern in Arashi's voice.
A wet hand slid through his hair, plucking the bits and pieces of tomato from the silver strands and coming to rest at the back of his head.
"Good," Arashi breathed, just before he kissed Kakashi through the mask. Kakashi didn't like these kisses much, missed the feeling of the blond's lips against his own but was satisfied for the moment with the warmth and the pressure Arashi put on his mouth.
Then a polite cough made them aware of a small blond standing in the doorway leading from the hallway into the kitchen. Kakashi and Arashi were at different sides of the room too fast for the eye to see.
"Naruto…" Kakashi squeaked, than coughed discretely to get his more manly voice back.
"How was school?" Arashi asked, striding over to the little blond and being a lot less embarrassed than Kakashi.
"Cool! They taught us how to use kunais!" Naruto said that with so much awe that Kakashi had to wonder if that really was such a special thing. Arashi lifted Naruto up from the ground, a gentle smile on his face, and settled him on his arms while he walked back into the hallway to get Naruto out of his out-doors clothes. Kakashi could hear Naruto continue talking happily about what they had learned today at school and silently listened while doing the washing-up Arashi had left. He dried his hands and wandered out of the kitchen after the two blonds hadn't come back after a whole fifteen minutes. Naruto's things were neatly set aside beside the door but there wasn't a trace of Arashi or Naruto.
"He fell asleep while telling me about how he had fired a kunai at the Nara-boy and how the normally lazy boy had chased him around the training-ground for it," Arashi said while he stepped out of Naruto's bed-room. Kakashi stared for a moment at the sliding door of Naruto's room.
He had been gone for a month. In this time Kakashi had turned twenty and Naruto had entered the Ninja Academy. Normally the little blond would at least greet him but today he hadn't even so much as looked at him. It hurt Kakashi. It hurt him a lot more than the deadly spear the mist-nin had swung at him.
Arashi watched Kakashi as the Jounin wandered into the living-room and settled down in front of the open veranda door leading into the garden.
"Has anything changed between him and me?" Kakashi asked, sitting cross-legged and not looking at Arashi as he settled behind him.
"Uh, well, he was quite miffed that you havn't been there since he entered the academy.", Arashi said, rubbing his chin in a thoughtful way. "Before that you were his only friend and it hurt him very much."
Kakashi sighed and closed his eyes. "He will understand when he is older. Did any other remarkable thing happen when I wasn't around?"
"You turned twenty?" Arashi suggested.
Kakashi glared at him over his shoulder. "I know that."
"That's good," Arashi said, a sly smile stealing its way on his face. "Because there are some surprises…"
"Surprises-?" Kakashi was tackled before he could finish the sentence.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Naruto screamed right into Kakashi's ear and the silver-haired Jounin was sure his eardrums would implode any moment now.
"Here, these are for you!" the little blond said, setting three parcels in front of Kakashi once he had let him go. A happy grin was on his face.
"Uh…" Kakashi picked unsurely at one of the badly wrapped presents, then tore the paper off quickly. A book fell into his waiting hand.
"A picture book!" Naruto squealed before Kakashi had the chance to open it. "You can put pictures of us into it!"
"Uh, I think that is called an album." Arashi piped up.
"Whatever! Open the other ones!" Naruto said eagerly.
The next parcel contained a doll. Kakashi wasn't sure if he should be just mortified or run away screaming, afraid of what the last present contained. One look into Naruto's beaming face made him stay and open the last gift. It was a picture-frame with both blonds laughing out of a picture taken in the park.
"You're holding it wrong! Here, like this," Naruto advised, taking the frame out of Kakashi's hands and flipping it over. Now it showed Naruto squashed between Kakashi and Arashi, the three of them barely fitting into the picture-frame but grinning for all it was worth. Kakashi couldn't remember when this picture had been taken.
"These are…" Kakashi paused as Naruto stared at him, blue eyes wide and happiness shining in them. "…the nicest presents I ever got. Thank you."
Naruto's grin brightened even more and he tried to hug Kakashi. His arms were just barely too short to reach around his chest. "It's good you are back or I would have to go to Sasuke's birthday party nearly all alone."
Kakashi sent Arashi a horrified look over Naruto's mop of blond hair.
"Birthday party?", he breathed, the urge to scream and run back, stronger than before. "How old is Sasuke?"
"Oh, he turns six next week," Naruto answered, totally oblivious to the turmoil going on inside Kakashi.
Six was just the right age for kids to start training with sharp, pointy objects but too young to actually be able to not hurt anybody around them if they decided to 'train', as they put it. Kakashi simply called it showing off.
"But Arashi comes, too?" he asked.
"Yeah! And Sasuke's brother will appear, too! Sasuke told me these uber-cool stories about him and he is probably nearly as cool as you and Arashi!" Naruto went on with his rant about 'uber-cool' big brothers but Kakashi wasn't listening anymore. He was more concerned with trying to keep his panic-level from rising too high. All the while he glared at Arashi who grinned back at him in the foxy way Naruto would soon adopt.
After Naruto had tired himself out enough to fall asleep again(this time in Kakashi's lap), the Jounin had put him into his bed and then returned back to the living-room where Arashi was waiting, foxy smile still on his face.
"I don't want to go to this birthday party," Kakashi sulked, coming to a stop in front of Arashi and crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't even know the kid that well!"
"I don't either but I am still going," Arashi said and pulled Kakashi down until the silver-haired Jounin sat on his lap, legs on either side of his.
"Yeah, but you have been Hokage one time and have to care about the entire village blah, blah. I don't want to go!"
"Stop whining. If I have to go, you are going too, even if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming."
"Oh, shut up!" Kakashi grunted. He pulled down his face-mask and kissed Arashi. It was a sloppy kiss, slow and open-mouthed with lots of wiggling around in the lower areas and hands tugging at clothes and hair.
"Does it hurt?" Arashi asked quietly once they had broken apart and he had flattened a hand against Kakashi's shirt, right at the place where the deep wound was.
"No, I am sure the pain-killers will keep it at bay for at least two hours," Kakashi explained and stared down at Arashi expectantly. The blond only blinked back at him in an innocent way.
"Oh, kiss me, God dammit!" Kakashi finally said, frustration lacing his words. Arashi happily complied.
"You are still going with me to that party."
Kakashi punched him. Arashi thought it was so worth the many funny faces Kakashi pulled at Sasuke's birthday-party once it became evident that the many screaming kids wouldn't let him get away, no matter what he tried.
But it became really funny once Itachi arrived and seemed to love seeing Kakashi getting tortured by a pack of six-year olds. Arashi got tons of blackmail material that day. And he was sure to make good use of it. Once Kakashi had stopped spending the nights in a tree outside the house, sulking and moping like a girl. And once Naruto had stopped telling him how wonderful Sasuke was and wasn't he just the loveliest creature have ever walked on this earth? Arashi wasn't sure, but were six-year olds supposed to already have crushes on other six-year olds?
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This story is actually beta-d and I hope you like it. Again many thanks to my Beta-reader Odyssion! Love you! In the future all my fanfictions will be beta-d. (At leastI hope they will be...)