AN: Nothing about this chapter turned out how I thought it would, or anywhere near how I'd planned it. It's not the longest, and far from the best or easiest the write, but I fought and got it done, and I'm proud about that.
After my last AN and the input you gave me, I also went and set up a Tumblr account, with the same username as here. I'm a bit confused about how it works, but I'll (probably) get there. Either way that means I'm now available for messaging if someone's up for it. Also, on my Tumblr you can see the awesome work of QueenLouise (aka Queengrasshopper), who made this story a gif! How cool is that?
I was blown away by the support after the last chapter, and I want you all to know I love you 3 Please stay as safe and healthy as possible in these crazy times. If we've gotten this far we can make it!
Kakashi watches the blade following the shape of his cheek, leaving a strip of clean skin behind. Sleeping with his mask means shaving twice a day, which is unfortunate for his skin but completely worth it. Having the mask catch against stubble sucks.
After no more than three rather easy months back home, Kakashi already needs rest. Was in fact ordered away from the office for three weeks. It's… well, he doesn't know what it is. Not good, at the very least. He should be able to do more than this. He needs to be able to do more than this, but he's tired, and apparently brain damaged, and he's trying to come to terms with that.
It hasn't been made easier by the fact he feels like he can breathe again. That he feels sort of okay when there are no demands. Surely, if he can spend a few hours every day with Hermione, out exploring Konoha, or laugh at her face as he demolishes a training ground, or spar with Naruto, then he can work? He feels nauseous even thinking about spending a day at the office, answering questions and doing paperwork and making decisions; but that's probably his imagination. Some newly acquired laziness. After all, who wouldn't choose hanging out at home instead of going to work?
Finished with his face, Kakashi tilts his head back to reach the soft spot under his chin. Rinses the razor, tilts his head slightly to the other side. With time off, Kakashi is doing better than he deserves.
Hermione told him that of course he thinks he should be at work, but that he's wrong. Kakashi's not convinced. She did however also make it perfectly clear it wasn't his decision. That he couldn't be trusted with it. The relief he felt as he couldn't convince her otherwise is probably another testament he's lazy. If he wanted to work, he should be angry.
Of the three weeks set aside, two has passed. When they end, he's not supposed to accomplish more, only sit at his desk for a few hours every day. He needs to, or Hermione can't go to work. Officially, she'll be getting a free reign on giving an outsider's view on things. Starting with the academy, she'll work her way around to her actual goal. She has misgivings about her qualifications, and have mentioned the word nepotism more than once, but despite that she seems eager to get going. Kakashi himself oscillates between panic and impatience. While he wants change, and sees no point in delaying it, this has the potential to go south fast. More so with him not living up to the responsibilities of his position.
The sharp blade passes over Kakashi's jugular. He shouldn't be thinking much about that; but is always aware of it none the less. He's unsure if it's an occupational hazard or a testament to how messed up he is. Maybe it's both.
Over the last two weeks, Hermione and Kakashi have 'accidently' bumped into practically everyone Kakashi knows. Given their profession, you'd think elite shinobi would either show more subtility, or have the guts to admit their curiosity. Neither is the case. It has, however, been made clear that Kakashi and Hermione's presence is demanded at this week's izakaya Thursday. Pretending to be dating Hermione is still a bit strange, and while they've mostly gotten away with not refuting rumours, it won't get them through a whole dinner. It makes Kakashi think. Brings back the conversations they were in the middle of, before the Death Eaters attacked and threw everything off course.
Rinsing his face off, Kakashi thinks he should just bring it up with Hermione. Not the shaving, obviously, but the relationship stuff. Bring up the questions that's been rattling around in his head. It'd probably be good for their charade to clear some of these things up. Only he can't forget Hermione's face that night, watching him with her head on the table, makeup smeared, and the way his heart felt like it was resting in his throat. Can't get past his complete inadequacy and lack of words in the face of the greatest trust he's ever been given.
Asking Hermione if she's sure she's okay with this has been easy enough; talking about it for real won't be.
Having dried his face and applied aftershave, Kakashi rests his hands on the sides of the sink. It's not sturdy enough that he dares lean against it properly, but he allows himself to deflate slightly. He's never managed to meet his own eyes in the mirror for more than a few seconds without thinking of his father. Without wondering if their resemblance is as strong as people suggest. What he'd think if he was still around. Kakashi has an uncomfortable feeling his dad might not approve of the unstable, work-shy coward that'd be staring back at him at the moment. Not when he was the one meant to salvage both their clan's reputation and future.
Kakashi fails to bring up the issue of romantic relationships with Hermione that evening. Throws himself on the empty couch in the living room instead, despite wanting to share the one Hermione's on. She's knitting, and he'd be in her way. When he's been staring at the ceiling for a while, waiting for his hair to dry, she asks what's on his mind.
He tells her about his dad.
The knitting needles comes to a stop in Hermione's hands, a frown settling over her face. "Well," she says, "he's hardly in a position to judge, is he?" She does have a point, of course. Although, the reminder that Sakumo handled his own problems with neither grace nor courage still lodges uncomfortably in Kakashi's chest.
Kakashi's already a step ahead in that regard simply be being alive, Hermione tells him. Another step because he's actively working on it. "If your dad, with his own history, can't see the strength in you because of this," she says, indicating to the whole situation with her needles, the knitting swinging below, "then he's an idiot. And a hypocrite."
A lot of words have been used to describe Hatake Sakumo over the years, but Kakashi can't remember neither idiot nor hypocrite being among them. Hermione smiles as he tells her this, and Kakashi's not prepared to smile back, but it does ease the tightness in his throat.
"Weakness and strength aren't dichotomies," Hermione narrows her eyes, locking them on his. Kakashi finds he can't look away. Nor does he want to. "In this, you are strong because you allow yourself weakness. I guess it's the same way that you can't be courageous without being scared."
Kakashi closes his eyes for an inhalation. Wets his lips. Swallows. "Or desperate," he says, meeting Hermione's eyes again, an eyebrow raised. She shrugs and gives him a wry smile.
"That too. But seriously; your dad sacrificed a lot to protect his comrades, at a huge personal price. It made ripples though, didn't it?" Kakashi can't do anything but nod at that, because yes, it did. Maybe not enough, and maybe too late, and maybe not because of his father at all, but things have changed. In every team Kakashi has led since Obito first died, it's been a given that no one is left behind on a mission. That no one is sacrificed.
"Now you're making ripples too," Hermione continues, "with Naruto and Sakura, but also by intending to change the system. I don't know a lot about your dad, but I bet he'd be proud of you for that. For following in his footsteps when it comes to doing what's right, and for not following him in other ways."
Turning back towards the ceiling, Kakashi tries to let that sink in. That his dad might be proud of him. The same way Kakashi's learnt to be proud of his father's actions despite the price their family had to pay. It's a foreign feeling, that someone would extent him the same courtesy.
When he crawls to bed later, lays on his back with Hermione's arm across his chest and her sleep slow breaths ghosting against his ear; he still thinks about it.
The Hatake name might have come with tell-tale hair and inescapable faulty brain chemistry, and it might die with Kakashi, but that doesn't mean he can't leave a legacy behind. He can set it up so that the new generations of shinobi have better chances, just like his father did for him.
.oOo.
It ends up being Hermione who brings it up. Of course. She was always better at that kind of stuff. It's right after breakfast the next day, Kakashi coming back from brushing his teeth and finding her doing the dishes. Or rather, drying the dishes and putting them away after they've finished doing themselves. He's unsure why she even does that much by hand.
"I've been wondering;" she says, turning to Kakashi, "are there any crazy exes I need to watch out for? You know; who might casually tell me I can never know you like they do since we haven't been to war together? Or who will threaten to incarcerate me and then take my reluctance to the idea as a threat against themselves?" The smile she sends him is sharp. "I mean it sounds insane, but I've heard those things can happen."
Kakashi could pick up on the joking tone, throw something about Ron's entertainment value back at her, but he could also not. It's an opening after all, one he's been trying and failing to make himself. The starting point is not one he's planned for, but it does put them a distance away from Hermione's side of things, if nothing else.
Leaning against the doorpost, Kakashi crosses his ankles. "Considering I was, like, twenty – and that the last time I saw her she had a whole family in tow – I don't think you need to worry." He sends a smile Hermione's way, allows his eyebrow to twitch upward.
"Twenty huh?" she says. "That's a long time ago. Was it serious?"
Kakashi allows himself a breath. He's the one who lead them this way, and while he could easily change tracks now, he doesn't. "Not really." He shrugs. Finds himself unable to meet Hermione's eyes. "Maybe it could have been, I think she wanted it to be, but…"
"But?" Hermione prods as the silence has stretched to its breaking point.
The wooden corner of the doorpost digs into Kakashi's scalp as he tilts his head back. He sighs. Tries to figure out what to say. "I couldn't do it," he tells her in the end. "She started wanting to hang out all the time, sleeping at my place whenever I wasn't working, and I realised I couldn't. I've never figured out how other people do it, so I haven't tried again." Putting it into words feels weird. Heavy on his tongue while lightheaded.
"I'm not sure I know how you mean." Hermione has leaned back against the countertop when Kakashi glances her way, dishtowel still in hand where it rests against the dark laminate. The way she focuses on him makes his hands itch.
Explaining these things are difficult. It's a long time ago, and he's never sorted them out properly, not even in his own mind. "If she'd moved in," he says, "I would have had to be fine all the time. To live up to being a boyfriend." Kakashi pauses, searches for words, a direction to go. "You," he settles on, "your parents, your friends; you all seem to have a type of relationships I didn't think existed a year ago. It wasn't something I missed, because it I didn't imagine it happening to real people."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"What about now then?" Looking over shows Hermione worrying her lip, head cocked to the side in question. "I mean, have you changed your mind?"
"About romance?" Kakashi ask, half because he's genuinely unsure of the question, half to stall for time. "I don't know," he says in response to Hermione's nod.
"Why not?" He should have known she'd ask this question. Can't fathom, at the moment, why he'd led the conversation down this track.
"I haven't really thought about it," Kakashi tells her. It's not a blatant lie, but it's not the truth either. Because thinking about it would mean thinking about not having this. Because there's no way to have both. And he can't lose Hermione. (He will, in a couple of months, but he can't think about that either.) So, the topic's been rattling around in the back of his brain, but he's done his best to leave it there.
In the silence following his words, Kakashi digs his fingers into his leg through the fabric of his pocket. He needs to ask the questions that matter. Steer this in the direction of current issues. If only it was easier. "There was something you said," he glances at Hermione, wets his lips, "when we talked about…" The words elude him, and he makes an awkward wave with the unpocketed hand. For all that they need to this, and no matter how much he wants to stop thinking about what'll come after Hermione, he wants to talk about things that might hurt her even less.
"About my status as crazy cat lady in the making?" Hermione smiles with the question, but Kakashi can't tell if it's a simple way to lighten the mode or a way to try and escape the topic.
"Not how I'd put it." The door post is beginning to bite into Kakashi's back, and he moves to lean against the wall instead. He could take the step over to the table, pull a chair out and sit down. He doesn't.
"You can ask," Hermione tells him. "If I don't want to talk about whatever I'll tell you."
"I just…" Kakashi hesitates. He just what? What did he mean to ask, exactly? Sighing, he rubs his forehead. "I'm not sure I know what it's meant to be like," he ends up saying. "Being together with someone. And we're meant to be pretending to be a couple."
Hermione shrugs. "For the record, you and I've got the same number of exes. I guess it could be a lot of different things."
Which does absolutely nothing to help Kakashi figure out what he's meant to be pretending. He's trained for undercover, for deep infiltration but not among his own friends. Not like this. He knows how to fly under the radar, how to be unassuming and give nothing away. When need be, he can take on a made-up role and make it his. None of that helps him figure out how to walk this line between the truth and the lies. Neither does any of it make this game less terrifying. Not when it feels like his relationship with Hermione could be on the line if he messes this up badly enough.
Closing his eyes, Kakashi sighs. The air around him feel heavy and thick, pressing against him. Usually when Kakashi messes things up, they go very wrong very fast. It's a bad combination with the tired, numb fog that hasn't fully cleared from his brain in a long time.
"I think," Hermione says, taking pity on him, "we don't have to pretend much at all." She rubs her ears. "I mean…" her fingers follow her jaw; digs into her cheek bones. As she drags them outwards her eyes deform, turning into long narrow slits. "I don't mean…" With her fingers now resting against her temples Hermione huffs. Hangs her head. Takes a breath before lowering her hands and looking up again. "What I'm trying to say is we're already on the line, aren't we? And I don't want to imply we should do anything differently, that's not what I'm saying, I'm just…"
The silence that falls is short but deep. Kakashi hears his own heartbeat in it; feels his eyelashes cling together for a split second as he blinks. He's already gotten an answer to these questions, he realizes. Back in the Grangers' kitchen, the night of the wedding. Maybe that's what he meant to ask about earlier. Maybe his brain only needed this small nudge for the pieces to fall into place.
"Maybe we are," he says. They might be far from the kind of relationship he had with Makiko, but they are straddling the fence for the kind of romance Hermione once described. "So, we'll be us, possibly allude to some activities we're not actually doing, and that's it." The same thing that bothered him minutes ago feels clear and easy now. Obvious.
"That was my plan all along, yes." Hermione smiles at Kakashi, before the expression falls from her face. "Unless of course you don't want to. I mean, you might want some actual romance and then I'll be in the way and it's just for a few months, but you never know, and –" Kakashi cuts her off with a wave of his hands, watching a blush spread over Hermione's cheeks. "Rambling," she says, "sorry."
"It's not an issue," Kakashi answers. She looks sceptical, a small frown settling on her brow, and maybe he should tell her he doesn't want to swap this out. It might sound presumptuous though, or like he was expecting it to turn into something else. "Don't worry about it," he says instead.
Something loosens in Hermione, her smile turning sharper, eyes narrowing and chin tilting up. "Have you met me?" she says, "of course I'll worry. And I'll bother you with the same overanxious question about twenty times a day. If you don't regret agreeing to this now you soon will."
"Maa," Kakashi shrugs, "I'm resilient like that."
"Yeah?" Hermione challenges. "Are you sure about that, because I can be pretty insistent."
Staring into space, Kakashi bides his time for a few seconds before twitching an eyebrow and glancing at Hermione. "Sorry?" he says, "did you say something?"
Hermione laughs.