The Same Sad Songs

by Pickled Death

Kakashi x Iruka; the great unrelationship unraveled and time wastes away in ramen houses, because Iruka nurtures everyone's demons but his own.

Title: The Same Sad Songs
Author: Pickled Death
Genre: General/Romance
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Kakashi x Iruka; the great unrelationship unraveled and time wastes away in ramen houses, because Iruka nurtures everyone's demons but his own.

---

Part 1 · restrain my tongue

Iruka enjoyed ramen, though he would never openly admit it, specifically in front of Naruto. No reason to give the boy even more incentive to drag him to Ichiraku.

Besides, he actually acknowledged the fact that eating ramen every day was more or less…insubstantial. He'd been a bony kid growing up, and if anything was constant in a childhood in which you lacked any active role models or parental figures, it was Ichiraku. Familiarity was once the weightless and welcome burden of chopsticks in your hand and noodles in your bowl.

Now, familiarity was…

The door to the ramen bar opened with the tinkling of bells latched to the entryway.

Familiarity, he found, had remained the same.

He sat at the counter, gently setting aside the folder he'd carried beneath his arm, and cheerfully signaled for a bowl, feeling as though he were crawling out of a rut he never quite acknowledged he was in.

Konohagakure autumns, he reflected, were warm. Not hot, but warm, prompting him to shed his chuunin vest (he'd never liked that shade of green), roll up the sleeves of his black turtleneck, and allow his forehead protector to dangle loosely from around his neck (the metal plate absorbed temperatures from extreme to non, and the veil of cloth formed a lousy barrier against accumulated heat).

He liked autumn. So he was only mildly surprised when after sparing but a casual glance out the window, he had quite inadvertently told the children they had the day off, that this week's quiz on half-hand seals was postponed until further notice.

Now he had to reschedule it. Would probably have to cancel or cut short either genjutsu lessons or exploratory activities on Friday just so the kids could take that quiz. He sighed for the sake of sighing as a bowl of simmering ramen was placed in front of him with a soft thunk, but a smile curved his lips nonetheless. From the folder on the counter, he tugged out a handful of papers—last week's essay on spying jutsus and examples of situations in which they could be used—and he absently alternated between eating and reading, more the latter than the former.

The bell on the door tinkled again, and Iruka ignored it.

He grumbled something obscure to himself as he searched his pockets for a pen.

A jounin sat two seats away in an effort to ignore him, both conscious and subconscious.

Iruka didn't really care.

So he sighed and briefly contemplated writing down Hyuuga Hanabi's grade in blood or something.

The girl could write, could analyze and visualize. Iruka made a mental note to write down a recommendation, an assessment form of sorts, and maybe ask her if she'd like the opportunity to graduate early. The other children were beginning to get unnerved in the midst of a tight-lipped genius like Hanabi, but aside from superficial reasons like that, the kid had potential that she simply would be unable to fully tap into under his tutelage—

"Your soup's getting cold."

A voce, low-pitched and dispassionate, barely heard over the slight din Ichiraku was famous for, and Iruka ignored it, leaning his vaguely toned forearms on the counter and having unconsciously set aside his chopsticks.

"'Ruka-sensei."

He ignored that, too!

A fact that Kakashi, with his unending well of patience, would simply not stand for.

So he scooted two seats down quite casually, again feeling a slight swell of annoyance as Iruka's eyes grazed an essay, and Kakashi quite subtly took the paper.

Well, it would have been subtle had Iruka been looking in another direction, or had he been eating instead, or had he been three and a half kilometers away in a bathroom somewhere.

Iruka looked up, an obnoxiously polite "excuse me" on his lips and alarm and irritation flashing in his brown eyes, and then his gaze landed upon a jounin hunched over a bowl of ramen and a sheet of paper two seats away. A sheet of paper, I might add, that belonged to Iruka. Rather, instead of getting incensed or even more irritated, he heaved a quiet, resigned sigh and removed another paper from the folder. He didn't even want to think about worst-case scenarios at this point.

And then that was gone, too.

Iruka's hands hovered over an empty spot on the counter beside his rapidly cooling bowl of soup.

…The nerve!

He couldn't help an indignant glare, swiveling around on the stool to look at Kakashi, now hunched over a bowl of ramen and two sheets of paper.

"Hello, Kakashi-sensei," he managed with admirable patience, teeth gritted.

The jounin raised two fingers in a lazy wave. Didn't even glance upward. Seemed completely enraptured in an essay written by incoherent nine-year-olds.

Iruka felt the sudden, inane urge to smash his head against the counter.

Maybe Kakashi had that effect on people.

He bit his lip and sighed quietly again, choosing to shift his attention back to his soup; upon successfully discerning it was cool and very nearly untouched, he heaved another sigh, more audible this time, and watched the broth stir itself, somehow feeling less annoyed and simply more morose. He really didn't want a repeat of their last altercation…and simultaneously he found it kind of pathetic how he'd rather let Kakashi steal his papers rather than actually talk to the guy.

He propped his elbows on the table, the right one nudging aside his ramen bowl (essentially leaving it for dead) and a palm stifling his unbidden laughter, one he might attribute to one of the girls in his Monday and Wednesday classes of consisting entirely of seven and eight-year-olds. Iruka, you are so pathetic.

A pair of papers was slapped in front of him, and he hastily repositioned his arm, resting his chin on his fist in a half-assed effort to look nonchalant and biting the inside of his cheek to suppress a smile that really did not belong there. And, quite fearlessly, his gaze shifted to the probing cobalt eye of Hatake Kakashi.

Damn. Of all times for his fearlessness to be involuntary.

His other hand idly set the papers back in the folder and he allowed his jaw to slacken, if only a little. "Thank you," he said, though he knew he really should have been swearing and rampaging at the jounin. Still, he reckoned Kakashi didn't deserve it. And it's not like he was that angry—

—and quite inadvertently he was made aware of the fact that his frequent mood switches were comparable to that of a hormonal teenage girl.

A hiss of laughter escaped his slightly parted lips, and subtly he clamped his teeth down on his index finger.

A silver brow quirked in reply, and Kakashi's fingers languidly slid off of the essays.

"You know, 'Ruka-sensei," Kakashi said slowly, voice thick with hesitant distaste, "it's rude to put your elbows on the table."

What?

Oh.

"So it is," Iruka said at length, shooting a theatrically surprised glance at his elbow on the counter.

He bit his twitching lip as he allowed another silence to announce itself. Kakashi's eyebrow rose a little more with every handful of seconds that passed.

Then he dragged his elbow off the table with agonizing slowness—and then slapped a fistful of money onto the table beside the cold, full bowl of soup before taking his folder under his arm and striding out the door, willing himself not to turn back, giddily reminding himself he'd just wasted a good amount of money, and partly surprised he'd left that encounter unscathed.

When his strange giddiness almost subsided, he halfheartedly berated himself for succumbing to impulses unbecoming of a stern schoolteacher such as himself.

Walking about aimlessly and arriving at the edges of the village, safe beneath a net of forest and brittle autumn leaves, he breathed a sigh of relief as he slumped against a piece of soggy, darkened tree bark, clutching his folder to his chest. When he'd found his voice, he exhaled again and just as loudly, waiting until his smile fell.

"Well," he said to himself, sinking haphazardly to the ground and opening the folder in his lap, "that went well."

He squeaked (and found that, too, unbecoming of a stern schoolteacher such as himself) as a voice echoed from somewhere above.

"Really? I don't think it did."

And then Kakashi was there and half-glaring and…dangling upside-down from a tree.

God. I never get a break.

Iruka bit his lip again, a flush emphasizing the pale scar on his face.

Really, all he'd wanted was to get some grading done within the hour.

Poor soul.

"Uh…do you need anything, Kakashi-sensei?"

It really was hard being a decent person.

And Kakashi's hairdo was annoying him—a stray breeze prompted the gravitationally challenged shrubbery on the jounin's head to sway in the other direction, and Iruka was certain that defied several laws of physics somewhere; when Kakashi wordlessly in vanished in a lazy poof of smoke and touching the air with the scent of sulfur, Iruka, to be honest, had no complaints. He carefully opened the folder of essays, shot a wary chocolate glance around, before smiling quietly (and needlessly) to himself and picking up the first paper on the small stack.

Really, he did like autumn. The air beckoned him out of the stuffy confines of the office, away from filing cabinets and paperwork, and away from the classroom, the details of which were burnt unto the backs of his eyelids—yeah, he spent way too much time working. He shifted a little, tucked one leg beneath him and rolled his sleeves up further, and reached a hand up to the back of his head to pull out the shoelace that tightly bound his hair—

—and felt an eye fixed on him, and looked up to see Kakashi seated a good few meters away, leaning lethargically against a tree.

Iruka lowered his hand quickly, as though it'd been burnt, and said nothing of it, eyes lingering on the jounin for a minute or two as he shuffled a few papers and rested the folder on the grass. The soil was cold. Winter would be coming earlier than he'd originally thought. So. Autumn would end early. He was kind of disappointed.

Still, Naruto loved snowball fights.

And he still didn't have a pen.

He sighed and bonked his head on the tree behind him softly. Damn. Today was just not his day.

That had him wondering just when he'd ever had a "his day".

When Kakashi spoke, he really had no choice but to listen.

"Missing something?"

A dewdrop splattered onto the essay, and Iruka sighed, setting the paper aside and repositioning his legs. "No," he said, carefully, carefully looking away and trying not to look self-conscious (and probably failing miserably). The jounin already thought he was insane; no need to add fuel to the fire. "I, ah, just…" He shook his head, idly noticing his hair was coming undone. "If you don't mind me asking—what're you doing here?" Aside from bothering me.

"What're you doing here?" Kakashi shot back.

He cast his eyes lazily upon the file. "Aah…" Then he smiled and was miraculously able to make it seem genuine. "Enjoying the weather. I couldn't concentrate, so I sort of…took the day off." He laughed sheepishly, quietly cursing the flush that rose easily to his cheeks. "And you?"

Kakashi studied him for a second—probably searching his voice and words for reasons to argue with him. "Enjoying the weather," he drawled, apparently having found none.

Enjoy it somewhere else.

He sighed and hurriedly suppressed that train of thought.

He watched the clouds move, a dusty shade of gray but by no means a clear indication of rain, trying to ignore the studious gaze from some meters away, trying to ignore the way a particularly splintered piece of damp wood burrowed into the small of his back, but first and foremost trying to ignore his wayward musings as he found it impeccably difficult to concentrate only on the weather. The air tasted fresh and his head turned, slowly, to face Kakashi, meet the jounin's analytical stare with one of his own.

Silence. Utter, utter, silence. Interlocked branches bristling in the face of a particularly strong breeze.

The jounin was the first to break the trance, if you could call it that, as he gradually tore his eyes free to spare the sun a paltry glance. Then Kakashi stood, gradually, somehow looking and absorbing everything but Iruka, and stretched.

"Well. I think my students have waited long enough, ne?"

Iruka raised an eyebrow. And here he was, thinking the jounin had taken the day off.

Start judging books by their covers, Iruka.

"Ja," Kakashi said, spinning on his heel, "'Ruka-sensei."

"Hm," Iruka said, and nothing more as Kakashi vanished.

An autumn leaf, brittle brown with flecks of gold, leapt alive in the jounin's wake and nestled itself precariously upon Iruka's scarred nose, and he quirked a brow as he lifted it, hesitantly, by the bedraggled stem. A pause—and then Iruka huffed, almost resignedly, as he slumped against the tree and ground and propped the leaf against his face, distracting himself with the lackluster sunlight that prodded at the corners of his eyes. When the sunlight vanished, completely, behind a nest of darkening clouds, and when he felt rainfall at last, he did not move from that spot until sunset, when the essays he was prepared to grade had been obliterated by rainwater.

Oh well. The children certainly wouldn't mind, and he certainly didn't. Beneath the cover of nightfall, he gathered the soggy papers and discarded them upon making his way back into the village, and when a blond, orange-clad weight latched onto his leg screaming incoherently about Sasuke's latest "misdemeanor," he forgot entirely about what had occurred.

Kakashi didn't.

Oh well.

·

·

·

·

The next day, he ordered miso.

No real reason. Naruto liked it with fried pork. Iruka didn't like pork and lightly chastised Naruto for ordering it every so often—high fat content, and the fact that it was fried didn't make it much better.

The groceries were aging, he mused quietly to himself, chewing on a wad of noodles. He'd done his shopping two days before yesterday and hadn't really cooked anything since.

Whatever.

He sighed and slumped beneath the dim lanterns dangling a ways above his head, a wry smile crossing his lips. Iruka, you really are getting lazy. The kids had reacted quite well to the fact that he'd "lost" their essays, though a certain few looked decidedly cross upon realizing their hard work had gone to naught. And when he'd only survived a couple of classes before calling it a day, he saw the dry looks Kurenai-sensei was giving him and covered with a hapless shrug.

You'll lose your job at this rate.

He chuckled to himself. "Not likely," he muttered, not so much a self-assurance as an offhanded statement of fact.

Glancing around, he allowed himself to think something was missing. He rarely indulged in things such as emotions he didn't wholly understand, set them aside in favor of more important things, like his occupation and politics and literature. The less he thought, the less he cared and the less he cared the less he recalled—but something might have been missing. Might have. Maybe. Not really. Nothing was disturbed, nothing was a disturbance, everything was fine and he was kind of confused, now.

Lightning flashed outside, and then instantaneously he was aware of a cobalt eye, probing and alone amongst a small sea of faceless faces.

He raised a brow, flushed, and lastly directed his attention back to the soup.

Ah.

Quite suddenly, Kakashi was dully aware of a shadow.

So he scooted over to accommodate it.

Iruka was light, kind of. Lighter than Kakashi, kind of. (A good kilogram, maybe.)

"Hey," he said, conversationally, testing the waters.

"Yo," Kakashi said, conversationally, regarding the other for a hint of threat and almost disappointed and almost uncomfortable upon finding none.

Iruka ate and Kakashi drank water through his mask.

The silence was relatively comfortable. Fragile. Better than an argument, at least. Better than letting the chuunin make a fool out of himself. Again. In a public place.

There was a very suspicious tinge of pink on Iruka's face. But that, too, went away after a moment's time.

The chuunin was strange. Kakashi rarely indulged in things such as mysteries he didn't wholly understand, set them aside in favor of more important things, like his occupation and the progress of his students and Icha Icha Paradise. The less he recalled, the less he cared and the less he cared the less he thought. Of course, that may have been a dangerous system considering his rank and mythical ability, but…hey. Whatever.

Left foot swinging back and forth aimlessly in tune with a soundless song, Iruka ate quickly. Not out of any real hurry, as Kakashi knew (being painfully perceptive and all that), but rather routinely; Umino Iruka was plainly a creature of habit, eating vigorously like he'd been starved all his life. Naruto ate like that, inhaled his food as though it'd be snatched away from him in an instant by cruel hands, and for a brief second (or two or thirty) Kakashi watched, partly amazed and partly nonchalant and drawing parallels with startling ease.

The chopsticks hovered over an empty bowl until Iruka set them down, and smiled amiably at Kakashi upon rising.

"Well," he said, and that very suspicious tinge returned, "ja." A two-fingered salute.

Kakashi paused. "Ja."

Kakashi watched Iruka leave.

·

·

·

·

Autumn found Iruka in the same spot as the day before yesterday, without papers but with a pen tucked behind an ear. How extraordinarily ironic, Hatake Kakashi thought, that the chuunin always be lacking in one or the other. And yet, somehow, he remained not amused and did not approach for a good while, though he did manage to net the faintest fragrance in the air, and Iruka's ponytail thing was oddly loose today, a few disobedient strands jutting out in various directions, giving the chuunin a windswept look.

Or maybe he just looked disheveled.

Strange indeed.

Then Iruka said, fist clenched and mashed against his mouth in thought, teeth grazing the tips of his knuckles, "You're blocking my sun." So offhandedly, without the obnoxious forced politeness, that Kakashi wasted a precious few seconds before slipping out of the tree cover and beside the tree, respectfully maintaining his distance.

Iruka's vest lay discarded some two meters away, forgotten and lightly dampened by the dew on the grass and the lingering rainwater that plopped cleanly off the leaves overhead, and from here Kakashi could spot the sturdy genjutsu that coated the chuunin vest, that which shielded a bulge of scrolls and a notably small amount of weaponry from prying eyes.

Whatever.

"What sun?" Kakashi asked with an unnoticeable effort to maintain a level tone.

Iruka hesitated, and Kakashi waited, lips grim beneath his mask—and then the clouds parted if only slightly, weak sunlight streaming through the foliage and briefly wreathing the woodlands (and, sequentially, Iruka) in feeble gold-orange, and then the light was gone in an instant leaving Kakashi mildly dumbfounded. And then Iruka looked at him with a strange smile, forehead protector dangling from his neck in a knot so damn loose that Kakashi had to resist the impulse to drag his finger through the knot, undo it.

In response, Kakashi raised a thin eyebrow, lidded eyes betraying nothing of his bewilderment, and then he scooted further back, flattening himself against the bark as though Iruka would leap up with a knife and start trying to disembowel him.

His Sharingan was a useless orb beneath an eyelid and a patch of cloth, here, a glimpse into the blackness that shielded it.

He adjusted his forehead protector.

"Aah," Iruka said, dryly, and that damnable flush returned and Kakashi's lip twitched (whether or not that was a good or bad omen, he could not properly discern). "Will you need anything?"

He considered those words for a long while, distinctly recalling the past tense he'd use but two days before.

"Perhaps," he said.

Iruka smiled at him—strange guy—and then ignored him completely—strange guy.

What the hell is…?

Uneasy in the security that existed where it should not have been, his hackles rose, here in the early autumn (where winter could arrive early). When Iruka lifted his fingers, outstretched his left arm ever slightly—perhaps, to catch a butterfly that Kakashi in all his mythical ability could not see, or to part the clouds again with some will that preceded rank, but then Iruka's fingers played along the thinning air that separated fingertips from the scar beneath Kakashi's forehead protector.

S…

Iruka stood and bid him a final smile, sheepish, almost apologetic, and then abandoned him at the forest's edge.

Minutes passed, an eternity perhaps, and Kakashi chuckled, hoarsely and falsely to himself, and remained, distinctly listening to Naruto's outraged screams from halfway across Konohagakure.

…strange guy.

---

Author's Notes: Um, wow. The style changed completely towards the end. Eheheh… Let's attribute that to the Kakashi viewpoint, shall we? Can you tell this one's gonna go a tad slowly?

KAKASHI: Enough. Where is the—

Shut up. It's PG-13, twat.

KAKASHI: (hangs head)