"Should have gone to Gaho's," Iruka teased, warm brown eyes smiling as he took his seat in the little private room in the restaurant.
Kakashi pulled his mask down, watching the waiter walk away even as Iruka entered the room. He laughed, lightly. "Should have, I guess, for the 'is this a date' talk. Thought the privacy here would be nice though. Just ordered what you used to get here, is that okay?"
He felt as if he were rambling, covered his confusion with a sip of his tea. He had known this wouldn't be easy, really, had spent far too much time thinking about it, postponed this dinner once already to give himself time to work out what he wanted. Even now, he wasn't entirely sure he was ready, but he'd seen the hope in Iruka's expression when they'd talked last, and not been able to say 'no'. Perhaps that told him everything, in the end.
His smile widening, Iruka gave a little nod. "That's fine. You know what I like." He eyed Kakashi from across the table, noting the way he still looked a little thinner than he had when they were together, a little more tired. "I hope I wasn't too pushy, I just… I've been nervous about this too, since Genma told me about the conversation you had, and… wanted it out of the way, so either way we know…"
The two sat silently for a moment, the tension between them palpable in the room, and suddenly Kakashi was reminded that they'd been here the night after Iruka had gone home with Genma, when they'd both thought Iruka was coming home to Kakashi in the end. Maybe this wasn't the best place, after all. He doubted himself, wished he didn't, wanted to be sure.
With a little sigh, the jounin decided it was better just to get everything out there, and started talking. "You know, when you and I first started talking, and Genma warned you he'd talked to me, I thought he was being a horrible friend. When you and I were together, and he was still... whatever you want to call what you two were doing then… I thought he was being a horrible friend to me then too."
Iruka cocked his head, trying to think, figure out where this was going. "Genma and I were together a long time, Kakashi. I know you were friends before that, but…"
A pale hand reached across the table, touched Iruka's arm. "Now I know that. And it makes me realize something." He drew his hand back, leaned back on his hands, mostly to resist the urge to pull his mask back up. "I didn't know. I was his friend then, and I didn't really know. You were 'sweet boy' and I remembered seeing you, mostly at games, sometimes at parties, and on those nights I came by Genma's after missions… but it never registered you were the same guy, year after year, his lover. I was the horrible friend to him then." Kakashi leaned back even further, pillowed his head on a cushion, as if they weren't in the restaurant, in the special private room in the back, past the glass hallways, but at home instead. i Only there is no home for us, no common home anyway. /i
The sensei sat at the table, drinking his tea, looking at his ex-lover, his hopefully lover-to-be. "I've thought about it," he admitted, quietly. "I didn't really know you then, either, you were just one of those guys that came over sometimes. I knew Hayate better, and I registered you as the guy who sat on the couch next to Hayate, reading a book. I knew the legend that you were, of course."
He shrugged, lightly, then reached his hand up to run over the scar on his nose. "I don't know if it bothered Genma that you didn't notice. He never said anything about it. When you and I were together, we only talked about you in terms of then, in terms of me with you, really. We didn't talk about those nights all those years ago when he'd hold your hand after a mission, and I'd go lay in his bed, my bed, by myself."
Kakashi's eye went a little wide. "Is that what it felt like, for you? Being left alone that way? Like when you…"
"No, Kakashi. It's not the same. I never thought you were in love with him." Iruka shrugged. "I don't mean it that way, only that I felt like when he gave to you, I was giving to you as well, and yet, you're right, we didn't know each other."
The jounin reached a pale hand up to touch the back of his head, slipping it between the silver hair and the cushion beneath it. He remembered Genma's hand on the same spot, protecting his head from a wall, protecting Kakashi from himself. "No. I wasn't in love with him."
There was a moment of stillness. One man sat at the table, politely, a cup of tea in his hand. The other lay on the floor, sprawled, careless.
There was nothing between them but their own history, their own confusing mass of emotions, for a moment.
"You want to be his lover," Iruka said, very softly, into the stillness of the room.
Both eyes closed, one beneath a black satin eye patch, the other covered only by a white lid. "Yes. He doesn't see anyone else. Maybe Kotetsu, in a way, sometimes, but Kotetsu and Izumo…"
"Are Kotetsu and Izumo, and you can't have only one of them, so he can't really have Kotetsu." Iruka finished for him. "And you…?"
The Copy Ninja swallowed, hard, feeling as if he were choking for a moment, and then licked his lips and spoke. "I am yours. Have been yours. Will be yours. But I want to be his, too."
Iruka thought for a long moment, trying to reorder his picture of the world, put the puzzle together in a new way. Images of Kakashi sitting on Genma's couch, taking comfort in silence, flashed in his mind. Images of himself and Genma, what had always been between them. Images of Kakashi and himself, those three years of laughter and smiles and mutual support and hope dragged from darkness. Finally, he spoke.
"If he wants that, so do I. If he doesn't…"
Kakashi curled his lips up into a smile. "I am yours, have been yours, will be yours."
The repeated words sent a shiver up Iruka's spine, and he gave a nod. "Thank you." He wasn't sure if he could say the words in return or not, wasn't sure if it would seem like only a lie, because there were so many things that had said, in all the time he'd known Kakashi, that he couldn't really be his. He settled for "I want to be yours too."