Naruto
He took a deep breath, sat down in the couch outside Tsunades office, put his head in his hands. It felt like a dozen eels were wrecking havoc with his stomach, he was so nervous. He was glad he was alone in the room.
The door clicked open, Tsunade appeared. She had been guiding him through all this, knowing the mind-numbing responsibilities. She took him to a different room and there he got to put on the hokage coat, the same kind he'd seen on her back, flashing before him in battles. He put it on with respect, his motions were soft, as not to wrinkle the snow white fibers, but also with a sense of carelessness since he knew he'd be doing it every day. The coat was his to do with as he pleased and yet he revered it, the sturdy fabric and the carefully made signs that ran down the back. Rokudaime Hokage. Tsunade handed him the hat, their gazes met. He took it from her, out of her outstretched hands. It was surprisingly light. He fumbled with it for a second and then turned to her.
Do I look alright?
She nodded, crossed her arms, looked at him intently. Did he look like his father? Who did he remind her of? Maybe she was thinking of Jiraiya. Or Dan. They had lost so many it was impossible to decide whose eyes she longed for.
"You ready?"
He nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be."
It was windy outside, though not uncomfortably so. The breeze played amongst the decorations, making them dance. The formal introduction didn't last that long, Tsunade said a couple of words about who he was and for a second he wondered why she bothered, as if there was someone there who didn't know him. Once again with the formalities and he subjected himself to it, and then he got to step forward, look out across the lines of people that had gathered. He hadn't even known there was this many people in the village!
He recognized a lot of them, team ten, team eight, over there was Iruka who was looking teary eyed and then he had to look away because he feared he'd might start crying too. Sakura too, though there was no sign of Sasuke which wasn't surprising, and there was Kakashi and Gai, Genma, Kurenai... He couldn't believe that all these people had gathered there for his sake. Every damn day, he vowed. I will do my best, every day. His first appearance didn't take much longer than that, it was just a public announcement of sorts.
Then he got to meet the people that would be working with him and his new office got crowded.
"Naruto already knows what I look like, why do I have to-" a familiar voice drawled and his head snapped up. Shikamaru! Sure enough, there he was. "What a drag."
He was very pleased with their choices so far. It was Tsunade that had gotten the lengthy job of introducing his staff. Once again he wondered if he was meant to remember all these names. He felt flustered, sitting behind his desk, greeting all the people with a sheepish grin on his face. It took a while but eventually the queue ran out of visitors and Tsunade closed the door.
"You should introduce yourself too," she said and made a come hither movement aimed towards the corner. An ANBU guard stepped forward and for a second Naruto wondered how long he'd been there. He pulled the mask up, bowed deeply.
"My name is Uma. I'm very honored to meet you." They exchanged greetings.
First Owl, then Hound and now Horse. What did they do when they ran out of animals?
"Uma is only here as a replacement until one of his colleagues gets back. He will accompany you to all your meetings and such." Naruto nodded. He wasn't sure of whether or not he actually had a say in these things or if they were just decided for him. For now he decided to trust their judgment. Uma put his mask back on, like smoothing out the wrinkles in a tablecloth, becoming expressionless. Now he was nothing more than his actions.
Tsunade then proceeded to show him the more practical sides of the job, mostly paperwork. Every time he blinked all that he could see was blank fields waiting to be filled out. When he finally got to leave it was already evening. In the outskirts of his consciousness he could feel the ANBU guards spreading out like a fan behind him. They were good, he could just barely sense them but as soon as his attention went elsewhere he lost them. A lot of people stopped him on his way back home to congratulate him and exchange a couple of words. A few people just stared and a boy dropped his ice cream when Naruto waved at him.
He rushed up the stairs to his apartment, a sense of elation coursing through him, winding him up. Before he went inside he took a second to look around, to view the town he'd grown up in. How small it seemed now, what had used to be his world. When he got inside he hung his coat up with care and then went to the kitchen. He didn't know if he was meant to be out and celebrating. A part of him wanted to, but it also felt like it would sully the occasion. Better to go about his business as usual. He made instant ramen, and sitting by his kitchen table with the murmurs of the people on the street as an ever present background noise, he couldn't help but to feel incredibly pleased. When he'd finished his food he was still feeling energetic; he wanted to be outdoors. He decided to go see the memorial, trace his fingertips along the outlines of his parents names. He didn't put on the coat, wanted to be as anonymous as possible, and he left wearing his usual clothes. It was in the middle of summer and all around him people were busy enjoying it, basking in the remaining warmth with a lazy obsession. He stayed off the busy streets, enjoyed being inconspicuous, to be on the outside looking in.
He trudged up the stairs and then stopped dead in his tracks for a moment. There was already someone there. A someone with silver hair sticking out in unruly ways. Naruto wasn't surprised and kept on walking.
"I was just telling your dad how good you looked in that hat of yours." Kakashi said and turned around. "Though you seem to have left it at home."
He closed in, nodded. "Yeah, I did."
Now he stood beside him, both facing the smooth gray surface and the names it held. He tried to explain his behavior, most of all to himself. "I think... I didn't want to come here as the Hokage. I wanted to come here as me."
Kakashi nodded. Naruto looked back at the polished list, searched for the two names he thought of. They were a little ways down, to the left, beside each other.
"Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing," he admitted. The words came from some dark part of him, that despite his many friends and fulfilled dreams was convinced he was never enough, neither as a shinobi or a person. There was a part that always told him he could have, and should have, done more... "I was always dead last in the academy, and now I'm supposed to lead a village? What if I screw it up?"
"Naruto," he interrupted him, and in his pondering state he wondered if he had ever heard anyone utter his name that way. "I trust you."
He did?
"I trust you," he repeated. "So don't worry. Whatever happens, I know you'll work it out."
He blinked. He wasn't sure of how to deal with his words.
"Uh," he said, trying to think of something that was comprehensible. No dice. His head was as empty as a breakfast bowl.
"Thank you," he said eventually. Because that was how he felt.
Kakashi
The village adjusted itself quickly, and soon stories could be heard about the new Hokage doing this and that. As far as he could tell, people were pleased. That time by the memorial he'd wanted to say something about his parents and how proud they would have been. But he didn't, he surely must have heard it a dozen times by then.
He'd been the Hokage for a week now. He wondered how he was doing. On a whim, at lunchtime on a Monday, he decided to go see him. He went in through the open window, making the ANBU in the corner shift uncomfortably. From a security point of view it was a stupid idea to let people in from places that was not the door. Narutos looked up.
"Kakashi-sensei!" he croaked, like nothing had changed. Maybe it hadn't.
"Yo," he answered.
Where he sat behind his desk he looked so much like his father that it made him wistful. They had the same spiky blond hair, and eyes as blue as the sky he'd left just outside. Minato had had a golden necklace and Naruto had a blue one. But there was something different in the way they moved. His father had, ever since a young age, been called a prodigy while Naruto could, at best, be called an eyesore in the view of the public. The change in upbringing had definitely made its mark upon something that otherwise would have been perfectly alike.
In some regards, Naruto was more like Sarutobi; asked instead of demanded. Kakashis sensei had been a brilliant Hokage, clever and patient, but because of his inherent abilities and carefully honed skills, everyone always seemed to let him down a bit. He couldn't understand why people didn't just do the things he did, because not being able to was a concept unknown to him.
Narutos stomach growled, and a sigh followed.
Kakashi looked at him. He practically poured himself across the desk in his attempt to look like a puppy, which Kakashi was saddened to admit that he did not. Instead he looked more like a pouting, bothered and begging version of Naruto. Not that that wasn't an interesting image, but probably not the one he'd been going for.
"Kakashi-sensei..." he whined.
"What?"
Naruto groaned, put his head on the desk. "Can you..."
He tried not to smile and wondered what favor he would ask for. "Yes?"
"Please bring me food."
Kakashi snorted. "Why don't you just go and buy some yourself?"
Naruto eyed the door and then the corner. "Do you really think I could sneak out even if I wanted to?"
Kakashi thought about his guards, the ever-present ANBU, all the procedures that had to be watched and monitored and reported on. He wondered for a second if he'd traded this life for his freedom. A bleak thought. But it could be worse. At least he knew the people around him, and he could hardly have asked for a better advisor than Shikamaru. He was glad for Narutos sake, that he had such reliable people close to him, but it did make Kakashi feel a little... superfluous. He was not needed.
He sighed, put his hands in his pockets. "Alright."
"Thank you!"
When he came back fifteen minutes later Naruto practically bounced in his chair.
"Here you go," he said and put the bag on the table.
The blond whipped it opened, frowned, looked up at him. "What's this?"
Kakashi smiled. "Sushi."
Naruto kept staring at him, blinked disbelievingly, wondered if this was some evil joke his sensei had decided to play on him. "But..."
"It's good for you."
"I said food, sensei. Food means ramen."
Kakashi arched his eyebrow.
He yielded, knowing he was in the wrong. "I guess it'll do..." he said and grabbed one of the boxes.
Kakashi felt stupid, having given in to the temptation of buying a box for himself. No point denying it, when he'd been at the shop he'd wanted to eat lunch with him, and thus bought two. There wasn't even anywhere to sit except the couch by the wall, in other words pretty far away. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"I guess you can always sit on the desk." Naruto said helpfully, having reached the same conclusion.
Kakashi snorted. And there it was again, a leer in Narutos smile and an unruly glimmer in his eyes, and he knew that whatever came next would be mischievous.
"You're allowed to, I promise."
With a sigh he did as he'd been told but compromised, and sat down very lightly, perhaps leaning more than sitting, with his back against the ANBU guard. He balanced his tray on his right leg, without it wobbling.
"Do you want my unagi?" He'd never been too fond of eel, of its earthy flavor.
Naruto nodded, "Sure, what do you want instead?"
He eyed his plate and then saw the two pink pieces he'd pushed away. "Salmon?" They traded, both pleased.
He started to spend a little more time in his office. After all, a good body guard knows his clients every habit, right?
He was just doing his job...
Naruto
He'd slowly come to terms with the job, on waking up every day and still being the Hokage. That it wasn't just some dream. Things cleared up, people returned to their normal ways after being on their best behavior for too long, and that was not always a pleasant experience. He was glad that Tsunade had agreed to work as his advisor for as long as needed but, as she never failed to remind him, she could think of more interesting things to do.
The paperwork was an outright hassle. A very disciplined man (or woman) would probably have it under control. He'd never claimed to be perfect, and despite that he did finish most of it, a lot of the time, it inevitably piled up again as soon as he wasn't looking. What he liked best was assigning personnel to the high-ranking missions, with Shikamarus help. And whenever Kakashi dropped by, seemingly without another cause than to check up on him.
He sort of suspected that he had some ulterior motive because he'd never been one to simply hang around. He couldn't understand why he'd suddenly become so interested and yet there he was, lying on the uncomfortable sofa, reading his Icha Icha without a care in the world. He was even too tall for the thing and so his long legs always stuck out a bit. After some hard thinking, which rendered him nothing, he concluded that his sensei was a strange man and left it at that.
They did some training too, the few days when he wasn't dead tired after work. It felt nice, in some ways, to have something to return to, to have someone who didn't ask for bigger funding or pushing for unions with other countries or looked at him like he'd grown an extra head. Either he didn't care or he simply took great care not to show it. Whatever the reason, he was grateful. Even some of his friends had put some distance between them, not because of anything malicious but simply because they were unsure of how to deal with the new development, that he was all of their boss, to some extent or another.
After a particularly trying, rainy day he was with Kakashi on the training ground. He was mad, insanely frustrated and had a ferocious amount of energy waiting to be spilled and spent and absolved. He lashed out, hoping that Kakashi would dodge and sort of- kind of wondered if it had been okay to use that much force and then he found himself on the ground. Kakashi stood behind, having sensed his hesitation and pushed him, used his stern voice,
"Never fight half-heartedly, Naruto."
He rushed up, mad at Kakashi for catching him unaware, but mostly at himself for letting it happen. They both became serious after that, going as far out as they could without actually demolishing the landscape, burning all their energy on pointed, lethal attacks. He got increasingly pissed because Kakashi always seemed to see his attacks before they happened and he realized he was up against the Sharingan, and his teacher was a formidable fighter and that pissed him off even more. He wanted to pound someone into the dust and he'd be damned if a stupid eye would stop that from happening. He took off again, even more determined.
Half an hour later the rain was pouring down, and despite his sincere intentions of outwitting the other man he grudgingly had to accept that this was neither the time nor the place.
"Truce?" he asked Kakashi, that stood under a tree to escape the worst of the downpour.
"I should be the one asking that. You angry today?"
Naruto looked down, ashamed for practically taking his anger out on him. "I'm sorry," he said, without knowing what he was sorry for just that he was. "The council gets a hundred times worse when there's a new kage, and the land of Earth elected a new kage yesterday. They all seem to think that we should implement everything they have implemented, and they don't care if it's too expensive or inappropriate or downright impossible." He realized he was moping and forced himself to get his shit together, fake a smile. "But it comes with the job, I guess. Let's go back."
The rain made the gray sky even darker, made the cold even stronger and made his shoulders even heavier. What the hell am I doing? He wasn't used to feeling this defeated. He needed a distraction to get his mind off of things, and he searched the streets for something of that kind. Most of the shops were closed, in this kind of rain the reasonable people stayed indoors.
They were still in the outskirts of town, and through the deafening rain he could see a familiar building. It was the town's bath house. It would be kind of nice to get off the streets. He was soaking wet, his clothes were sticking to him in an uncanny way. After some gesticulating he got his point across and they went inside, discreetly trying not to drip too much on the floor.
As soon as he was in the hot water he realized how cold he'd been, and that along with his wild spar in the forest made him never want to leave. When Kakashi approached he leaned back against the wall, looking away, didn't want him to think that he was ogling. Because there was a lot. To look at. No fair, he muttered to himself. He looked so good and yet he didn't seem to care. It wasn't until he'd sat down farther away that Naruto dared glancing in his direction. They never seemed to talk a lot and he wondered why that was. Maybe Kakashi didn't like talking to him. He sighed, decided not to think about it more.
He sloshed a little water in Kakashis direction. No response. He knew he was being childish but if he was forced to be cool and correct for another second he just might die. He splashed some more, made a wave that washed up on his arm, a pale one with an ANBU tattoo.
Wow, he had a tattoo...
He felt a pair of questioning eyes upon him, wordlessly asking him what he was doing. He looked back, pushed some more water his way and he could practically feel the tide rising in the other man. He had the same sensation as when he'd been playing with stray cats when he was younger, one wrong move and he'd get a pair of razor sharp teeth in his hand but he did it anyway, couldn't wait to find out who was the faster one. It was the same urge that drove him to climb atop the Hokage monument in windy weather, or trying to talk to Kiba when he was building a house of cards, just to see if he could, if it would end in misery or not. It was a strangle feeling of elation, a rush. Kakashi was growing frustrated, not yet ready to return the favor because someone had to be the responsible one, even if the Hokage had clocked out. Naruto could see that he was irked, the two mismatched eyes looking roguish, the rest of his face hidden by a white mask, kind of like the one the doctors wore.
Why did he wear a mask when there was no one there but them?
Stupid sensei, he thought, as was met with a splash. Oh, you've done it now. He retaliated.
A dry quiet cough was heard, probably Kakashi but when he looked up he saw him looking back, but if it wasn't him then who...
A no-nonsense man in his forties stared at them, a couple of metres away.
"It's nine pm." They both looked back at him. "We're closing," he explained.
They got up and got dressed, and by then the rain had ended.
"I'll see you tomorrow then," Kakashi said.
He didn't follow. "How so?"
"First day back at work," he clarified.
"Aha." He realized he'd be the one sending him on missions now. Scary. "See you."
The next morning both Tsunade and Kakashi was there. Maybe he had something to do with why Tsunade was there. She smiled.
"You look well."
He smiled back. "Yeah, everybody's been really good to me."
They hadn't seen each other for a while, she carefully moved away from him, she was sick of politics, longed for the opportunity to go wherever she pleased, maybe a place where the earth met the sky and those that were lost seemed a little closer than before. But before she could do that she needed to make sure that her once little gaki wasn't left to his own means.
"As you know Uma was only a temporary solution, he normally works in another branch, but he's one of the best and we were fortunate enough to get to borrow him. But there's someone at least as skillful as him, someone you know very well," her voice trailed off.
He looked expectantly at her. And where was this person?
She smiled again, nodded at the person standing next to her. Kakashi.
No..."I don't, uh-"
Kakashi stepped forward, tried explaining. "It's a good idea. I've been spending time with you so I can better discern threats and-"
It felt like a slap in the face. He'd suspected there was some reason behind his sudden visits, but to have it thrown in his face like this... It's not like I did it because I felt like it... He looked up, trying to stay in the present when all he wanted was to go home and lie down, preferably forever. But he didn't, he listened to Kakashis beckoning voice. "-from a security point of view, we'd have a clear advantage compared to someone who doesn't know you so well."
He didn't care about advantages, about who knew him the best, about strategies or stuff like that. All he knew was that he didn't want Kakash throwing himself in from of a knife for his sake, he shuddered at the thought. He refused to let it happen, to be the catalyst for that to happen, because it surely would. Because he was the hokage, and eventually someone would come along to try and take his life, and then Kakashi would die.
"I won't allow it," he said, probably looking agitated and he tried to calm down, to be reasonable about this. He looked at Tsunade. "Get me someone else. Anyone."
He refused to look in Kakashis direction.
