Disclaimer: No legal claim to Naruto, not making profit through this.
Basics: G/K, General/Angst, Canon, 4/100
Warnings: None
Word count: 575
Theme: penny for your thoughts (616)

Author's note: 1000!theme challenge from Mint Pizza Queen. Organized into 10 fics, 100 ch each. They're loosely related, held together by an umbrella theme of love and life.

x. penny for your thoughts

The sky beyond the windowpane was black and the room's occupants numbered two.

"Is everything all right?" Iruka quietly asked, the nuances of genuine concern in his voice gently pulling Kakashi out of the self-tying entanglements- the ever-present dark thoughts. Inwardly, the jounin blanched at having been caught brooding like a teenage boy with an identity crisis.

Instead, Kakashi immediately curved his one visible eye into a cheerful arc, his facemask effectively hiding everything else. "Oh Umino-san, didn't know you cared." Kakashi remarked teasingly.

"Hatake-san…" Iruka began carefully, contemplative look on his kind face.

Kakashi shook his head at no one upon hearing his surname fall from the chunin's lips. "Kakashi." He corrected softly but insistently.

"K… Kakashi-san." The younger man amended. "Naruto… he holds you in very high regard."

Kakashi felt his lips under the mask twitch upwards, despite himself.

The chunin continued, "… as do I." These words were accompanied by a hint of red on Iruka's cheeks. Iruka looked up in time to see the startled look that the jounin's eye suddenly gained- which startled Iruka himself. Had he surprised Kakashi, the famous Sharingan user, genius, ex-ANBU?

"So… is everything all right?"

'I suppose that with no one else in the room…' Kakashi mused. "I forgot you were here." Kakashi said, finishing his thought aloud.

Iruka stared thoughtfully at the jounin leaning his killing-machine body against the office wall. The silver-haired man had walked in scratched and with a uniform reduced to shredded cloth hanging off his frame, had apologized politely- and somewhat amusedly, Iruka thought- for handing in his mission report late.

"I won't lie to you, Umino-san," Kakashi started.

"Iruka." The chunin interrupted, smiling strangely.

Kakashi laughed. "Iruka-san, Naruto holds you in very high regard," said Kakashi, echoing Iruka's previous words. "As do I."

The dark haired younger man blushed at his words thrown back at him.

"And that's why I won't lie to you." Kakashi sighed. "You'd understand, I think." The thirty-something man paused, still hesitant to divulge, but he did anyway. A gloved hand made a vague gesture as Kakashi said, somewhat wistfully, "Kids. They grow up…"

A comfortable silence hung between them, as Iruka felt a pang somewhere close to his heart. "… and then you're alone again." Iruka finished for the jounin. Yes, Iruka understood all too well.

It was funny, he thought vaguely, that he didn't feel awkward at all sharing that with a man he barely knew. Kakashi Hatake, an enigma of a man with the genius reputation and astonishing accomplishments, the eccentric, the odd one.

But he knew Kakashi in a quietly close way, through an oh-so-precious boy who grew up while both of them watched.

"Naruto's off chasing him," Kakashi said by way of explanation. The jounin neglected to name him. But he didn't need to.

"Oh." Was all Iruka could think of saying.

Kakashi frowned slightly under his mask. He had indulged in more sentimentality that he usually cared for, tonight. Then the frown tilted into a small smile playing on unseen lips.

"Have dinner with me, Iruka-san." Kakashi said abruptly.

"What?"

"You heard me." Kakashi said patiently, looking around at the empty room pointedly. "We're the last ones here. And I know you haven't had dinner yet."

"You must be tired, Hatake-san," Iruka pointed out, noting the other man's current condition.

"Kakashi." The jounin said again. He half-shrugged and ignored Iruka's comment. "Let's go, Iruka-san."