A/N - Woo! Early bird! Compared to yesterday anyway -_- Welcome to chapter 11! Song of this chapter is Time Of Your Life - Greenday (you'll read why later). I'd highly recommend you listening to it during this chapter, cause it kind of ties in with everything =) Actually, I think it's also called 'Good Riddance'... just type it into Youtube haha. Argh, my ear piercing is infected -_- Ooohhh, good thing I'm alright with blood pouring from a hole in my cartilage ;D Well, enjoy the chapter, and I'll see you on the other side! (the end of this chapter)

Disclaimer - I do not own any form of Naruto or the pairing Kakashi x Iruka (however, the person who did invent it is a bloody genius!)

This is A/N

This is rather exaggerated words and dreams/thoughts etc

This is normal story.

Be warned, I'm English, we like to swear and drink tea (there will be a lot of references to coffee in this fan fiction) -_-

...

It's not a question but a lesson learned in time -

Kakashi came back to work on the last day of term to deliver his secret Santa. It had been almost a week since anyone had seen even a wisp of his spiky silver hair. But that was normal for anyone. If someone close to you dies, you have a week off, sometimes more. In fact, I remembered when one of our English teacher's boyfriend died, she took 3 weeks off school and claimed a further 2 weeks off because she had become 'ill'. Yeah right, everyone could see through your very fake scheme Miss. Saunders.

Maybe Kakashi had done the same. After all, he saved all his tears for the funeral, right? Maybe he'd bunked a couple of days off. Although I highly doubted it, since I'd heard him cry once I'd left a couple of days ago.

"Morning Iruka sensei!" He patted me on the back in warm welcome, attracting rather unwelcome attention from the rest of the staff room.

Tsunade winked at me, which I ignored. She obsessed far too much over gay couples. N-Not that me and Kakashi were a couple or anything!

"Right". Jiraiya stood, his morning coffee in hand. "I hope you all remembered your presents, because today is Secret Santa!"

I really wanted to clap for no apparent reason, but wasn't about to start a trend if nobody else would join me.

Guy was watching me with a keen eye. He even watched the amount of sips I took from my drink, as though he was counting calories from my lips.

"Do not hand your presents out right now".

Anko put hers back in a small carrier bag.

"Give them to your chosen member of staff during lunch or something... Because some presents might be a little, personal".

Oh, what was it with people winking at me today?

"Dismissed".

The staff dispersed, some to form a queue outside the toilets and others to join their forms for assembly.

...

I hated assembly. There was no doubt about it. Who wanted to listen to Jiraiya rant on about his new books - apart from Kakashi -, religion and 'believing in yourself'. Come on, no student actually believed in themselves. They only cared what their classmates thought of them. To a teenager, popularity was key. So no Jiraiya, shut up, because nobody in this hall cares about you wasting the next 15 minutes of our lives that we could spend chatting and drinking coffee.

"But to start our assembly off today, a song from Mr. Hatake of the Science department".

I let my eyes dart around the room, trying to find a mush of silver hair. A shirt with braces, a tie, the peculiar surgical mask he was wearing today... Anything that meant Kakashi was not going to sing. Nobody in this school could sing. The girls who tried all cracked under the pressure and had to stop halfway through - because apparently that's what you have to do to get to stardom.

"Urm, hey guys", Kakashi leaned into the microphone, adjusting it to his height. I noticed now that he had an acoustic guitar strapped to his chest. "This is the song Time Of your Life by Greenday... And it's the song I'll be performing at my wife's funeral..."

Somebody coughed accidentally, but it set the awkward atmosphere perfectly. The song Kakashi was going to sing at Faith's funeral? Why sing it now, in front of the kids? Why don't you save it for the funeral Kakashi? Like your supposed to be saving your tears...

"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road. Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go".

My attention returned to the man strumming his guitar and singing into the mic. Normally, there would be a horrible high pitched squeak coming from it, terrorised by the dreadful singing of another 15 year old. But this morning, Kakashi's voice harmonised with the electric, producing a sound that was very obviously live but also beautiful.

"It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right, I hope you had the time of your life..."

At the end of that verse, the curtains pulled back to reveal our school orchestra, playing deeply with string instruments.

"So take the photographs and still frames in your mind, hang it on a shelf in good health and good time".

Kakashi squinted, closing his eyes, trying to hold back the tears that everybody could hear slowly choking his voice. Hang on to those tears Kakashi, hang on to them.

"For what it's worth, it was worth all the while... It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right, I hope you had the time of your life..."

Through the instrumental, I watched Kakashi as closely as I could without glasses. His face was pale, and the fingers strumming his guitar were shaking ever so slightly. The man must have been nervous, singing a song that meant so much to him in front of a bunch of children who cared nothing of it. In front of me -considering I was standing at the back - I noticed Faith - the student who had spoken to me before - look down at her fingers. She was probably the only person in this room who gave a shit.

"It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right... I hope you had the time of your life..."

Despite this song meaning that Kakashi had lost someone and he hoped they'd had 'the time of their life', I couldn't help but notice the sincerity in the lyrics. They were almost written with despise in mind. They had a kind of 'good riddance, thank god your gone' tone to them.

But Kakashi couldn't have meant it like that, right?

As the final instrumental finished, people clapped. A couple of the more popular students stood, slapping their hands together stupidly and whistling behind the tears.

Well, it seemed everyone and Faith had given a shit about that song... And Kakashi's personal life.

...

"Iruka?"

I looked up from my work, peeling my hand away from my cheek and staring at the present in his hand.

"This is for you, Secret Santa, remember?" Kakashi set the present down on my desk, sitting on the edge of it to peer at what I was doing.

"Pretty deep song you sung in assembly today", I remarked, scribbling another target for another student on another essay.

"Yeah... They needed someone to sing, so I thought I might as well chip in". Chip in? "You'd wanted to sing that song?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" He pushed the present closer, much to my anger. I'd open it at home. Where he wouldn't see my reaction. I was never good at reacting to presents, no matter how great.

"It's just the fact that it was the song you were going to sing at your wife's funeral... Students don't need to know about what happens in your personal life".

"My students do". He smiled, meeting my gaze, his cheek to the surface of my paperwork pile.

"You should have told them in class. The whole school doesn't deserve to know".

"Are you angry, Iruka?"

I stared hard into my work. Was I angry? Yes I was.

Kakashi sighed, getting off my desk. "Enjoy the present".

He left, leaving the room feeling a lot colder then it had done a couple of seconds ago.

Space was what I needed. Space. No students, no teachers, no socialisation. Nothing, just silence.

"Dolphin?"

Oh, for goodness sake!

A/N - Iruka's gone all moody again (because he's more descriptive when he's in a mood), but I found this quite a touching chapter to write. Merely because the song is beautiful, right? (You'll only be able to answer that question if you listened to the song like I asked -_-) Haha! Well, time for me to get back to my old school antics of watching Youtube videos, performing horrendous make up transformations on myself and then taking photos of them ;D Chao for now and reviews are very much appreciated! 3 xxx (arigatou!)