DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the Naruto universe but I do have an imagination of my own.


Thinking (+ flashbacks, etc.)

Biju, etc. speaking

Biju, etc. thinking

Emphasis


The last words Naru heard as she closed her eyes tightly, so she couldn't see what was in front of her, were similar to the ones she had been hearing a lot of lately. "Come to me - and stop being such a fraidy cat! That's not the Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto I know…"


Naru yawned widely. Opening her eyes, she saw Kakashi's hand holding up his favorite orange book. His other arm was wrapped around her shoulder, holding her soothingly.

"How are you feeling, koi?"

"Rested, I guess?" Kakashi hummed at her with that rumbling sound she so loved. The one that made her feel - nrrrgh! She tried to spring out of his bed, but he had tightened his hold.

Kakashi held onto his girl, knowing all too well that she take off in a frantic tear away from him if she was in her "scaredy-cat mode." Otherwise, she's a little tease... He looked down at her to see what mood she was in at the moment and saw her bright frightened eyes. He groaned and pulled her more snuggly into his shoulder. It took her a moment to relax, and when she did, she asked him to read to her. Kakashi actually enjoyed doing so - the raunchy scene in his book made her laugh - but it also made her clench her legs around his own leg closest to her. Figuring that for now, it was a win, he continued. At the end of the chapter, which led two side characters in the book to achieve "glorious satisfaction," he wished he could say the same. He snapped the book closed and looked at his blonde goddess. "I've got work to check on Naru-chan. Want to come with me? If not we can stay here." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at her and she just giggled, turning to get out of bed.

Tease, indeed.

"Are you suuuuure?" he asked as she walked ahead of him toward his office. "Are you pos-i-tive?" He continued harassing her like that as she giggled, until she came to a halt, finally looking at him with a pensive expression. He put his arms around her waist and pulled her close so that he could whisper to her. "What's wrong, hime? You know you can tell me anything; I only want to help." She gave him a fake smile and only walked into his office. He sighed and followed her in, dispelling his clone, and was bombarded with memories of all the paperwork his clone, and its clone - they weren't supposed to do that - had completed. Thankfully nothing major had come up: it was all just paperwork.

All. The. Time.

He began to ask her if she'd like tea but she spoke first. Staring out the window she asked, "Hey Kakashi: check this out! What is that?" There were two circular lights in the sky, being cast from somewhere down in the village.

"Maa, those are just lights to catch people's attention. It's a somewhat new thing around here for businesses to use at night - I've only seen it a few times." Getting up, he stood close to Naru and looked down on the village from the Tower's huge windows. His breath caught - once again those lights were coming from Shinobi Dansushiti - just like they had a couple of years ago - back when Naruto first asked everyone to go to the then-new club for his 20th birthday. Kakashi remembered it so well…

"Pleeeeease! Come on, puh-uh-leeeeze? It'll be fun!" Seeing a rowdy bunch of shinobi denying him, Naruto pouted at them, which looked both adorable and pathetic. "Bastards… It's my birthday: c'mon! I'm the hero of the shinobi fucking world," he hollered at them with his hands raised in the air in triumph. "You can't deny me!"

He was thoroughly laughed at and booed by his comrades. Obviously, Naruto had been drinking. Even though he never got drunk, he would get ballsy as hell and say things that he'd deny and be completely embarrassed about later.

Two days later he was blindfolded by their team: "Sharing-Gone Kakashi", "Woodman", "Inky Bastard", and "Pink Fists of Fury," as Naruto affectionately called each of them, (plus Naruto, the self-described "Future Orange Hokage, current Orange Flashy-flash.")

Kakashi let out a snort of laughter just thinking about it. That was before I got my third eye replacement... Why they ever accepted those ridiculous names or allowed him to call them as such out loud was part of Naruto's charm, Kakashi supposed. Of course, Naruto wasn't particularly bothered with Sai calling him "Dickless" for years… The copy-nin's shoulders nearly shook with a couple of chuckles as he thought about his old team.

Kami-sama, it's better than what Sai-kun calls us now! He'd gotten off easy after becoming Hokage from the well-named Inky-Bastard, but before that: yikes. And poor Tenzo-kun… Of course, that was the best reason for partnering Sai with Tenzo. For some reason, he just enjoyed the hell out of seeing the first kohai to be put under his command as a real newbie - outside of his years in ROOT - flummoxed and disturbed. He always had enjoyed it: that's why as captain, he'd given him his ANBU Cat mask. He used to call Tenzo Kitty-Cat. Dogs were so far superior to kitties, after all.

Naru wondered what Kakashi was thinking, laughing and smiling like that. She didn't ask, though - she just observed. Considering she had some big weirdo or second personality talking in her head, who was she to say that he was odd?

We got him good, Kakashi smiled thinking back about that day. They managed to trick Naruto's senses and make him promise not to actively try to figure out where he was going. Naruto had been so excited by going out for his birthday "into the unknown," he readily agreed. He did tell them that Kurama was pissed off because he was being a "dumbass." Of course, his teammates immediately let him know that they agreed with Kurama: "Dickless you are a dumbass," Sai had explained in that creepy way of his, while Sakura agreed wholeheartedly.

When the blindfold came off and he saw he had been taken to Shinobi Dansushiti just like he wanted he began bouncing around excitedly yelling all sorts of happy nonsense. Naruto received a huge round of cheers and applause as everyone screamed "Happy Birthday!" at him. Kakashi clearly remembered watching Naruto tear up from the bar he immediately sat down at. Unfortunately, everyone started chanting for him to give a speech, and he did. Kakashi shook his head at the memory: it had to be the strangest, dumbest series of sentences - RAMBLING - that he'd ever heard. Groans, moans, and boos were uttered or yelled by the already-drunk shinobi and civilians, but Naruto just continued - occasionally scratching behind his head in embarrassment as he did so. Eventually, there were so many jutsus thrown at him, he had to finally use Kurama's full cloak in order to survive.

Kakashi could remember most of it clear as day…

"That was some speech," Kakashi yelled as Naruto stood beside the "birthday boy" at the bar. Naruto was offered a seat by a civilian that got up to dance to the extremely loud music. The blonde pulled out a pair of fuuinjutsu-covered earplugs and handed them to him. "I thought it was your birthday, Naruto?"

"Not for a few more hours, really." Naruto had looked sheepish and put a matching pair in his own ears and gestured for him to do the same. Kakashi now remembered being shocked at how much the noise and loud music seemed to go down in volume, but he could still hear people's voices perfectly. "Pervy Sage's invention. Well, maybe... The old fart would use any excuse to call who-knows-what his own idea," Naruto said wistfully. Looking up into Kakashi's eyes he continued. "You know I'm joking about that, right sensei?" Kakashi was caught in the expression his former student made, and those incredible blue of his eyes.

Kakashi distinctly remembered being afraid of his own feelings - just like he always used to be. He can remember waving them off with difficulty as he continued to chat with his trying-to-get-drunk-and-failing-miserably blonde teammate. He also remembered beginning to feel jealous over all the girls and a few guys - civilian and shinobi alike - trying to get Naruto to dance, or at least get his attention in very obvious ways. He'd gotten up to leave his side, both to get away from those newly realized feelings and to give Naruto an Old-Man-Sensei break so that he could have some fun. "Go dance or something!"

Coming out of the men's loo after repeatedly throwing water on his face, he had stopped dead at the sight in front of him. Kakashi internally winced at the memory. Naruto was on the dance floor with Hinata doing what he could only guess was supposed to be dancing.

Naruto returned to sit next to him at the bar. "Good way to keep them off me, ne sensei? You'd know about that!" Naruto grinned up at him, while Kakashi immediately responded with a snarky remark about why Naruto thought he, himself, kept the girls off him at all.

Naruto had looked a little shocked, which - back then - he supposed was only natural since he kept those activities pretty under wraps. Not that he was a man-ho: no. He just had needs like any man, plus he kept a woman less than a night once he was with her. He knew he was a dick about it, but he didn't care about any of them, certainly not anywhere near enough to let them try to wiggle their way into his heart, or into his bed for another night. He thought there were no women who deserved someone like him back then. Plus he seemed to attract women who were either looking to be the next "Lady Hatake," who might give him a disease or several of them or were just fangirls.

Even now he shivered at the thought.

What had he said that made Naruto try to leave? He couldn't really remember, but something either following or in that conversation visibly upset the younger man. He did remember trying to find out what was wrong, only to be thoroughly shut out - and then midnight hit. Naruto had looked more excited than anyone, as he waited for something: Kakashi never found out what it was. Finally, the blonde came back to the bar, but sat quite a ways down from him, looking utterly crushed. Naruto began sucking down shot after shot. When Kakashi approached him about telling him what was going on, the blonde wouldn't even look at him for a long while. They'd sat in silence while the party went on. When Naruto said he had to leave, Kakashi had stopped him.

He remembered the pain on Naruto's face as he mumbled, "A lot happened on the day I was born, sensei. It's no good…" Naruto shook his blonde head, looking worse than he'd ever seen him. He looked up at Kakashi with unshed tears in his eyes, shocking the Jonin. "I'll never…" and he was gone in an orange flash.

That was the night he realized he had feelings for the blonde: feelings other than as a sensei, friend, or colleague. He drank himself stupid repeatedly for so many nights afterward.

The entire team had gone out looking for him. After Kakashi had told them what happened and what their teammate said, they wanted to talk some sense into him, too - or just make him feel better. They didn't see him for days, and Tsunade was about to come unglued. Finally, Naruto showed up in the mission room, alongside Shikamaru - that little shit - grinning like always and greeting his team as if none of it had ever happened. Naruto spent a lot of time held out with Tsunade after that. Kakashi observed him coming to the Tower looking absolutely miserable as he jumped into her window - but he always looked better when he jumped back out, sometimes hours later.

Something very similar had happened on Naruto's following birthday - but by then Kakashi knew he was in love with his blonde former student, and a little obsessed with him, too.

The night before he turned 21, they'd taken him back to the club at his request, and he'd danced like something out of a horror movie again, mainly with civilian girls. He had been incredibly excited, and Kakashi distinctly remembered the way the blonde held onto his arm and had looked up into his eyes throughout the night. He remembered so clearly how he nearly kissed Naruto - in front of everyone - and how Naruto looked at him with a yearning he'd never seen before. He didn't know what the younger man wanted, even now. Then midnight hit, and once again the blonde looked eager, then anxious, then let out a wail, shaking, and disappeared in a flash of orange into the night.

It ended up that Tsunade knew where he was that time, but she wouldn't tell anyone. She was upset and extremely angry - anyone going near the Tower knew it. Shizune couldn't get her boss to stop drinking most of that day and night. She finally seemed better the day after he'd seen a very distinctive light - or glow - coming from Naruto's apartment. Naruto didn't let him in, but every night for at least a week and a half, villagers would see the apartment windows lit up by Kurama's cloak. He had a feeling the fox was comforting his host.

Months before his 23rd birthday, the team, minus Naruto, planned the next party, which they all agreed would happen somewhere entirely different. Then Naruto fell to Sasuke… Kakashi gripped the windowsill with one hand and covered his mouth with the other, feeling the deepest grief he'd felt since that horrible day. As it seemed to coat his very cells, he felt a warm hand on his arm.

"You alright?" Naru asked in a quiet voice. He nodded his head and pretended to smile, but she saw right through it. "Let's go to bed, Kashi." Kakashi stood in silence. Could he really commit to this relationship? He had loved Naruto - and Naru is Naruto - and he deeply loved her, too. He was frozen in place for who knows how long, even when Naru turned away from him.

Vaguely he was aware that she had been looking out the window, holding her index fingers into her ears, but he was just so caught up in the memories and old feelings... He tried to shake them off. Kakashi only wondered for a moment what noise she was trying to avoid, but the thought of those earplugs Naruto gave him and… He still had his own set, of course, but they didn't seem to work as they used to after Naruto's death. He had tried to use them several times since then and it was a no-go. He never did learn where Naruto's earplugs went.

Kakashi eventually took Naru's hand in his and led her to her room. Naru asked him to stay for a minute and changed into a nightgown in her en-suite. He got off the bed to allow her to get in. He planned to tuck her in and say goodnight, but she took his hand and led him to his own room. She climbed into the bed and held her arms out, and he collapsed into them.