UNMASKED BEFORE WITNESSES

Three months had passed since Satoshi Hatake had been born, and Aoi and Kakashi were still getting used to being new parents, but were doing well with their first child.

Today many of Aoi and Kakashi's friends were visiting the Hatake home since their schedules had all given them some time off from missions, so they had all decided to visit the family.

"I still can't believe how much Satoshi has grown sometimes…" Anko said, playing with the baby on the floor as the little Hatake laid on the floor surrounded by his toys, babbling incoherent sounds.

"It's hard to believe for us too…" Kakashi said, as he sat next to where his little boy was playing, a soft smile on his face. "It seems like only yesterday he was born…" Satoshi's little head turned in recognition of Kakashi's voice, kicking his legs as he tried to push himself towards his father until he was picked up by his mother as she sat on the couch next to Kurenai.

"That may be true, but you weren't the one giving birth…" Aoi said, chuckling when Satoshi was making grabbing motions at his father. "Ohhh… do you want your Daddy?" Aoi asked, handing Satoshi into his father's waiting arms, and the baby immediately started to play with his father's mask, headband, and gravity-defying hair. Strangely enough, the baby's hair was beginning to act much the same way as his father's…

"Careful Kakashi… if you're not careful, Satoshi-chan is gonna unmask you…" Asuma chuckled, only laughing harder when Kakashi's expression said that he couldn't care less about his mask for once.

"Oh, don't worry Asuma; Satoshi's already done that once today when Kakashi went to change him this morning… it was the funniest thing I've ever seen!" Aoi said, laughing at the two men in her life as Satoshi continued to play with Kakashi's hair. "And Kashi didn't even care, he just smiled like a doofus!"

"Yeah, I don't really care if Satoshi pulls down my mask," Kakashi said, playfully nuzzling his son's hair, "He's my son, and that means he can pull my mask down as much as he wants for all I care…" And just at that moment… a tiny hand found the edge of his mask.

Satoshi gurgled happily when he pulled the mask down, happy to see at least most of his father's face, even as the others just gaped in shock. Kakashi just smiled as his son patted his hands on his cheeks and mouth, letting him explore the part of his face that the child only saw about half of the time.

Finally, after about a minute of silence, Anko broke down in maniacal laughter as the others still were silent, having finally seen Kakashi's face that he had kept hidden even when they were in the academy. It didn't help their state of shock when Satoshi clumsily pushed his father's headband away from his left eye and promptly curled up under his chin and let out a huge yawn.

"Looks like someone is ready for their nap…" Kakashi said quietly, looking down fondly at his sleeping son as he gently readjusted how the infant was laying in his arms. Looking over at Aoi, he said, "I'll take him to his crib… Little guy's exhausted…" Then, glaring at the still-laughing Anko, he said, "You, shut up. Don't wake the baby."

The purple-haired kunoichi thankfully got the idea quickly, waving goodbye as she and the others left. Then, when they were outside, she realized something, and stopped in her tracks.

"Anko, what's wrong?" Asuma asked, and she turned to look at them all.

"... We just saw Kakashi's face… and nobody had a camera."

0o0o0( THREE MONTHS LATER )0o0o0

The group was hanging out in Kakashi and Aoi's home again, when Satoshi was six months old, and it seemed that nothing could lure the child away from his father. He was sitting in Kakashi's lap on the floor playing with his father's Jounin vest, while Aoi and the other women (plus Might Guy) were getting ready to prepare a meal.

"So, Satoshi likes his Daddy, doesn't he?" Asuma asked smiling as he watched the silver-haired man play with his son.

"Seems like it…" Kakashi said, smiling as he son once again managed to pull his mask down. "He really likes doing that… at least he doesn't do it whenever we're outside of the house… Wait, why do you have that video camera?" His gaze was pointed at Anko as he said this, glaring slightly at the woman who had pulled out the recording device for the exact purpose of catching Kakashi without his mask on.

"For proof." she said, grinning, "My other friends didn't believe me when I told them about that first time…"

"Da…"

Everyone froze.

"Did he just...?"

"Da…." Satoshi was looking up at his father with a look of intense concentration that was so similar to Kakashi's that it would have caused the others to laugh if it weren't for the fact that the child seemed to be trying to talk. "Da…"

"Satoshi?" Kakashi asked, looking down at his son in astonishment, and the infant smiled.

"Da… da… Dada!" the little boy had a happy and triumphant look on his face as he finally managed to say what he had been trying to, and giggled loudly as he batted his hands against Kakashi's chest. "Dada!"

"Then who's that, Satoshi?" Kakashi asked, lifting his son so he could see Aoi's hopeful eyes as they waited to hear him talk.

The infant took on that same look of concentration again, as he started to say, "M… Ma… Ma…. Mama! Mama, Mama!"

"YOSH! Satoshi-kun is as quick a learner as his father!" Guy said, going his 'nice-guy' pose as he laughed loudly, earning a blank look from the whole room.

"...Cwazy" Guy was immediately depressed, having heard Satoshi's small voice call him crazy. He wasn't crazy; he was an advocate for youth in young people and encouraged them to go beyond their limits to be an excellent shinobi…

"Anyways… we actually called you here for a very specific reason.." Aoi said, clearing her voice as she looked over at Kakashi, causing him to go serious as well. The effect was ruined by the six-month-old chanting "Mama! Dada!" at the top of his lungs that was clinging to Kakashi's shoulders and vest until Aoi took Satoshi from him.

"Uh, yeah… well, me and Aoi have been trying to decide who's going to be Satoshi's godparents, so… yeah." Kakashi said, pulling his mask back up. "I know you all probably want to do this… but I'm going to ask anyway… Do I have any volunteers?"

"ME! ME! ME! ME!" Guy wasted no time in volunteering, waving his raised hand like a kid in grade school.

"Guy. No. Aoi and I agreed beforehand that it won't be you…" Guy's happy demeanor once again deflated, sitting in the corner of the room as a dark cloud hovered over him. "So, Asuma, I take it you want to be Godfather?"

"Sure." Asuma didn't mind the idea of being around kids. In fact, he even helped out at the orphanage every now and then where he had grown up whenever he had any spare time.

The two women were actually arguing back and forth on who would be Godmother, and it seemed like a total cat-fight would break out right then and there until Kurenai put Anko under a sleeping Genjutsu, thus winning the argument.

Then, scaring the daylights out of Guy, the doorbell rang, causing Aoi to go see who it was, handing Satoshi back to Kakashi in the process. The child immediately went back to playing with his father's mask and headband, trying to figure out once again how to remove them from his father's face.

"Oh! Lord Hokage! Glad to see you made it; we already went around to see who'd be Satoshi's Godparents…"

"Ah, that's ok, Aoi… and I'm sorry that I'm late…. Paperwork is the bane of my existence." The older Hokage said, stretching his back with one hand as he sat down on an offered chair. "Thank you… and I don't mind… the little one can always call me grandpa!"

"Ga'pa?" Satoshi said curiously, turning his head while his right hand was still gripping the bottom edge of his father's headband.

"That's right, Satoshi! Just like Grandpa Oto!" Kakashi said happily, even as his son returned to trying to completely pull the headband off of him.

"Oh my, I see young Satoshi is already starting his training by unmasking Kakashi…" The old Hokage said, laughing merrily as he remembered when his son used to do much of the same thing when he was younger.

"He's been doing it since he was three months old," Aoi said in amusement, watching as Satoshi giggled happily as he finally pulled the headband off, holding it in his left hand and starting to pull the mask down from where it was already half-down from his earlier efforts. "And the thing is, Satoshi follows him around like a lost puppy when Kakashi is home, so anytime he sits down is an opportunity to see his father's face."

"Yeah, I dare say he's pretty much obsessed with my face…" Kakashi said, smiling as Satoshi finally managed to remove his mask and started to pat his cheeks and nose with a happy look on his face that matched his father's. "The only problem is that when he removes my headband, it reveals my Sharingan, and I don't want to scare him."

"Okami… your Sharingan doesn't even faze him, let alone scare him," Aoi giggled, seeing Satoshi smiling at his father's mismatched eyes, "In fact, I think he likes it a lot."

"Dada!" Satoshi cheered, patting a tiny hand on the scar that went from above his father's Sharingan to about an inch from his mouth, a smile on his cute little face as he brought Kakashi's headband close to his head. "'Toshi Dada!"

"Oh, you are?" The Hokage asked, smiling at the sheer amount of cuteness emanating from the baby, "My my, then where is Satoshi?" The old Hokage asked, glancing around the room like he hadn't seen Satoshi, earning a bright squeal from the young child as he let the headband fall off his head. "There you are, Satoshi!" The man couldn't quite lift the boy above his head like he had with his son at this size, but lifted him high enough to earn a happy laughter from Satoshi as Aoi took him from the Hokage. Then, once again after everyone said their goodbyes and left the family alone once more, Satoshi reached for his father, wanting to play with his hair some more.

"What is it with this kid and my head?" Kakashi asked, laughing softly as he accepted the child back into his arms, the infant immediately starting to play with his gravity-defying hair. "It's either my hair or my face-"

"Or both." Aoi said, cutting Kakashi off as Satoshi's eyes drifted shut, his thumb in his mouth as Father Sleep lured him to his dreams. "Either way, he's gonna be the only one who will be able to boast how he unmasked his father when so many before him had tried…"

"Except for you," Kakashi said, looking over at his wife as he pulled his mask back up, "You were able to unmask me many more times, remember?"

"Yeah, well as your wife it's no surprise to me what you hide under there…." Aoi said teasingly, threatening to unmask him as well as one finger went along the edge of his mask as the two got ready for bed.