A/N: Hi everyone! Sorry about taking time, I thought it'd be smarter to start a regular posting rhythm from the beginning of the month and not the middle so I waited for a little. Also, another thing which is forcing me to go back on my words about a chapter per month is the upcoming JLPT I'm currently studying for.

To make it up to you, I've written some extras that I'm going to start posting here along the main story line, as soon as I can find myself another beta reader. I don't wish to overwork the one who's already doing such a great job with the main story so yeah, I just hope someone bothered to mail me back, why is finding a beta reader so damn difficult every time? (=w=)''


7th chapter

You don't know who I am

oOo

Three days had passed since the day at the hospital's old wing and Iruka was getting restless. He was running out of patience, the Hokage had said it would only take a couple of days and it had already been three!

'Calm down' he thought to himself, surely she hadn't forgotten. There was something going on with Kakashi, something that prevented them from transferring him.

Okay, now he was even more concerned.

'I'll go crazy if this goes on' the dolphin cursed in his mind and tried to focus on the mission report he had been handed a while ago. It was neatly written with a nice handwriting, unlike the ones Kakashi always used to hand him.

The older man's reports were always dirty with god only knew what on them, burnt, half eaten and filled with the most horrible scrawling he had ever had to read. Even his cute little first graders didn't write so poorly, but the jounin had refused to change his bad habit, no matter how much Iruka had threatened or bribed him.

The brunette's shift at the mission assignment desk was almost over, thank god for that since his restlessness made it very difficult to concentrate on anything, much less on paperwork. He had been fidgeting nervously, staring at the walls doing nothing useful for about an hour when the clock on the wall finally showed four, meaning it was time to head home.

Iruka sighed; he'd probably have to wait one more day for news. He started packing his things up, but a female voice interrupted him just as he was about to say goodbye to his unfortunate colleagues who still had a couple of hours left.

"Iruka-sensei, if you'd please come to Tsunade-sama's office." Shizune said and smiled to the chunin, whose face lit up since he knew what that meant.

"Right away!" Iruka answered and managed to keep walking and not start running, for it would have been rude to barge into the Hokages office like that, even though people seemed to do it all the time.

"Tsunade-sama" he said and the Hokage turned around. She had been looking at something from her windows, probably the liquor shop or the gambling hall, but Iruka didn't really care.

"I promised to let you know first when he would get transferred didn't I?" she asked and smiled "Well, he has. You can go see him. I've arranged for Shizune to pick Rin up from kindergarten so you don't have to worry about her. She's been talking about what a lovely little girl your daughter is ever since that last time, so you don't have to worry about her being bothered by this."

Iruka couldn't believe his ears. Although he was sure he wanted Rin to see the scarecrow, he knew better than to shove a child in Kakashi's face right after he'd woken up. Apparently Tsunade had also thought the same, and for that he was grateful.

"Thank you Hokage-sama!" Iruka said with his smile reaching from one ear to the other.

"Don't thank me. And I've told you to call me Tsunade, Hokage makes me sound so old." She said laughing and watched as the chunin hurried out of the room.

oOo

The dolphin was, of course, the first one to enter Kakashi's hospital room. He almost chuckled for the room was cold white and crude, everything the scarecrow hated about hospitals in one. He walked right next to the bed and leaned to brush a stray lock of silver hair off Kakashi's face. The older man still looked weak and haggard, but at least he was a little better now.

Not too long after Iruka, there were some jounin entering the room as well. All of Kakashi's fellow jounin sensei's and Naruto and Sakura of course, had come to see their colleague who had been dead to the world for over three years. None of them could believe it, but everyone sounded pretty happy about it.

"Iruka! I'm so glad for you." Kurenai patted Iruka's back and hugged him from behind. She was the one who had originally set the two teachers up and eventually made them a couple, with the help of Sakura, Naruto and Tsunade of course. Naruto was there as well, grinning at Iruka from over Kurenai's shoulder.

"Happy, aren't we?" he said, and the chunin gave him a well-chosen smile.

Iruka was a little worried though with the room packed with people and most important of all, jounin, he wondered if they were going to wake Kakashi up. That seemed to be why some of them had come, and sure enough it didn't take long for Genma to open his loud mouth.

"So when's he going to wake up? I hope sometime soon, it's not very funny to just stare at him" he said, but was silenced by Asuma's sarcastic remark.

"Well if you keep shouting like that, I don't suppose it's going to take long".

As to prove his words true, Kakashi frowned and opened up his eye taking a look at the crowd, which fell silent.

oOo

Kakashi woke up to people hassling around him. He recognized the voices of Genma and Raidou, as well as Gai, Asuma, Kurenai and naturally Naruto and Sakura. From the disgusting antiseptic smell, and the way everyone's voices echoed in the room he could easily tell he was in a hospital, which made him frown.

'God I hate hospitals' he thought and noticed he had a headache. What a wonderful way to wake up.

After a few minutes he felt like he had gathered enough strength to face the world, so he cracked his indigo blue eye open, after which the blessed silence fell. He let himself get used to the harsh light before trying to speak, since he wanted to see who he was talking to. After his eye was comfortable with the whiteness and light, he turned his head to his side to see the group of people staring at him.

"Hell right Asuma, not even the dead could rest in peace with you people making so much noise" he said, his voice was hoarse from the lack of use and sounded way off even to his own ears, not to mention that it also hurt a bit. Still, it was still his voice all right.

For a split second everyone stayed quiet and stared, after which they started to laugh and chatter again.

"Welcome back Kakashi!"

"You look like shit man!"

"Where have you been for the past years Kakashi?"

"My Youthful Rival, good to see your Manly Face again!"

They were all talking at the same time, questions and all sorts of random phrases attacked the silver haired jounins' mind as he tried to make sense of them and figure out who had said what, but it was an impossible task. Couldn't they just shut up? He was a patient for god's sake and if that was not enough, he had just woken up too.

'I'm not-' He thought, but someone else finished his thoughts for him.

"Calm down everyone, Kakashi's not much of a morning person." A man's voice said and Kakashi blessed the owner of that voice, whoever it was.

"But it's not morning." Genma protested, bright as ever.

"You know that's not what I meant, he just woke up so he's a bit off." the man's voice helped him again. Who was it?

Normally people didn't notice the fact that the Copy Nin was not in fact a morning person since they never got the chance to see him that early. One of his reasons on never being on time for meetings in the mornings was precisely that he needed his time before he could start thinking and working properly. On missions however, he woke up earlier than others, took the last shift or just sucked it up somehow.

So how had this person noticed?

He had to turn his head again to see who the speaker was, and to his surprise it was Naruto's old academy teacher. What was the man's name again? Oh yes, Umino Iruka, that was it. Still, it didn't explain how he knew that Kakashi wasn't a morning person, he barely even knew the said teacher. Suddenly the scarecrow felt his head throbbing again and he stopped thinking about Iruka.

Who cared if he had noticed Kakashi didn't like mornings? It wasn't like he was trying to hide it or anything and now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure Asuma probably knew it too. 'But still, why is he even here, I don't remember ever having talked to him much after that incident at the chunin exam…'

"Well I must say that it's good that at least someone knows what he's like, since he's a real mystery to the rest of us." Naruto laughed and the others agreed, also laughing.

"That's right, I took care of him once after he had been injured during a mission, and oh boy it was hell. I never want to go through something like that again!" Asuma's bear like laughter made the others laugh even harder, and eventually Genma and Raidou joined the fun.

"It's like he thinks he's invincible, no rest, no rehab and he's back on the field again. When you're sick you should be in bed and rest so you can get better." Genma said and glanced at his lover, who knew what he was aiming for.

"Yeah, well I bet our little dolphin here has no trouble keeping Kakashi in bed." Raidou answered, purposely emphasizing the last word. Iruka's ears were already burning as the senbon sucking man opened his mouth

"Well I do believe that but didn't I also say he'd need to rest?"

Everyone burst in laughter once again, but Kakashi didn't laugh.

"Why the hell would he have any better luck in restraining me than Asuma did?" he asked, still sounding like some kind of over-sized crow "He's a chunin for crying out loud, I'd beat him in no time without a single drop of sweat" he continued, wondering why everyone was suddenly looking at him like he had grown another head or something. It annoyed the Copy Nin, who frowned angrily at them for behaving so weirdly.

"Oh My Youthful Rival!" Gai started, but fortunately someone was quick and intelligent enough to silence him as soon as Kakashi's facial expression changed from being annoyed to wanting to murder someone. Instead of him it was Naruto who spoke first, for it was about his beloved big brother that they were talking about after all.

"Uh, but you wouldn't treat him the same way as you treated Asuma-sensei, that was the point" he explained, maybe Kakashi was still a bit cloudy from his coma or something to understand their humor. To everyone's surprise, the wounded jounin showed no signs of getting the joke, he only stared back angrily.

"I don't get it, why should I treat him differently, it's not like I know him that well anyway" he finally said when no one seemed to want to offer a more clarifying explanation, but what he said seemed to confuse his colleagues and students even more.

'Really, what the hell is up with these people today? And why are they even here, I don't remember having woken up like this before either so why now?' he thought and shut his eye, trying to silence the annoying little noise in his head which worsened his headache.

"You don't know who I am." Iruka said, it wasn't a question, it was a statement.

Kakashi opened his eye again and looked at the academy sensei. The man looked like he had been hit very hard with something; he was definitely very close to bursting into tears. Somehow the sight made the Copy Nin's heart ache painfully; he regretted his earlier behavior and unconsciously hurting the younger man.

Immediately after realizing that, the anger washed over him. Why did he have to feel bad about pointing out the obvious? And why was it that his headache only worsened when he thought about the chunin? It was definitely not his day, why couldn't everyone just go to hell and leave him alone?

"I do, didn't I say so earlier? You're Naruto's old academy teacher, the one who didn't want team seven to be handed to me in the first place. Your rank is chunin, besides teaching at the academy you also work at the mission assignment desk" Kakashi listed what he knew about the chunin, but somehow everyone seemed to expect more from him.

"That's it" he said as he could still feel that the others were waiting if he'd say something else as well.

Why was it so hard to get he had finished his sentence? Should he have said 'period' at the end or something?

"Now that you know who you are, if you'd please be so kind and get the hell out of here, I'm tired and my head hurts" he barked, and decided to continue since he wasn't so sure about the others getting his message either "and the same thing goes for everyone, I don't recall inviting you lot over for a party".

Naruto was the first one to react; he charged at the wounded Copy Nin with his hand fisted, anger burning in his clear blue eyes.

"Why you-!" he shouted, but Iruka was faster and managed to stop him by stepping between Kakashi and the enraged boy, using his own body as a shield to block the enraged kid who still tried to get past him when he grabbed a hold of the boy's orange jacket

"We're in a hospital Naruto, he's a patient!" the chunin said strictly as he held his former student so he couldn't do whatever he had been about to.

"Do I look like I give a shit if Bakashi sensei's a patient? What I do care about is you and that bastard son of a bitch just-!" he tried to reason, but Iruka just shook his head to the boy.

"No Naruto. Please. I'll go, and so should the rest of you" he said, his voice was trembling a little but he stayed firm and didn't let go until the blonde had calmed down so much that he couldn't be considered a threat anymore.

After letting Naruto go, Iruka looked like he was about to turn around and say something to the scarecrow, but instead he rushed out of the room, leaving the others behind.

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto shouted and went after him after having made a rude hand sign at the silver haired jounin.

The others seemed to be frozen for a minute, but then they also left, eyeing Kakashi as they went out. The Copy Nin could tell some were angry at him, some disappointed and some just plain confused, but he didn't know the reason.

When they were gone, the scarecrow relaxed and closed his eyes, enjoying his peace and silence. He had just experienced the weirdest waking up at a hospital he could recall and it bothered him to some extent. His colleagues had never grouped up to see him like that before, usually it was just the ones he'd been on the mission with, or then he just woke up alone.

And then of course, there was the academy teacher, Iruka Umino.

Why had he been present and why the hell had everyone been joking like that? Kakashi tried to come up with possible reasons but found none; instead he got a pounding headache which made him nauseous.

'Whatever, who even cares about him, I'll just stop thinking about difficult things for now' he decided, but for some reason the sad face of the brunette chunin just didn't go away, following him all the way to his dreams.

oOo


A/N: Please, please review! It's very important to me to know what you're thinking about the story! And thank you for reading :))

- littlerose94