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AGES; Iruka 47. Kakashi 47. Takes place about four months into Kakashi's retirement on a late Friday night.

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Chapter 13; That Hatake Boy

Kakashi had been an active shinobi since he was four years old.

He'd been training since he was old enough to say his own name without switching the 'T' and the 'K' in Hatake. So, it shouldn't have been any surprise that he didn't understand how children acted or their motives for acting such a way.

He'd never had time as a child to learn to appreciate the subtle joys of music, or Saturday morning cartoons like Iruka had. He'd never been to a festival just to enjoy the sights, smells and sounds.

Kakashi and Naruto were terribly similar when it came to this.

Neither of them had ever been allowed to just be kids.

That innocent, muddy, scabby knees time of their lives had been stolen by their station, and responsibilities thrust upon them before birth.

They had been born into a world of Ninjas… There was no time to play.

The first time Kakashi had been to see a movie was when he was eleven. Minato-sensei had taken him and his team to a theatre in a Wave village for a Triple-Feature as a reward for completing their first A-class mission and Kakashi had been on the edge of his seat the whole time staring in awe and horror as Star Ships and Base Stars exploded and zoomed across the screen and a seven-foot hairy creature bellowed and growled like Sensei had when he'd accidentally kicked him in the crotch during training one afternoon. He was utterly entranced for the whole day, even when Rin had fallen asleep and slumped against Obito's shoulder and the other boy had gone rigid in his seat, staring at her for the entirety of the third movie.

The only one who'd been as enthralled as Kakashi had been was Minato-sensei, and when it came to such things, he was a bit of an eccentric.

Kakashi had been even more excited when Iruka had popped that cassette into his VCR and those running gold letters had popped onto the screen. He'd found himself talking in a high whisper, his hand tightly gripping Iruka's arm, spilling forgotten secrets he'd never told anyone. Telling him how this had been the first movie he'd ever seen, and afterward he'd imagine himself as the main characters during training, and had been trying to make a Lightsaber when he'd created his Lightning Edge jutsu.

Iruka stared at him for a long time with a contemplative look on his face. A strange cross between that little loving grin and the sad expression he got in his eyes sometimes when he thought too much about how close he'd come to loosing Kakashi.

As the film played, Iruka watched him, feeling a strange stirring of emotion in his chest every time Kakashi flinched or bobbed his head as if dodging laser beams. Smiling a little more when Kakashi's fingers sank into his knees, or near the final act when he'd drawn his feet onto the couch, toes curling into the upholstery.

It was like watching a little kid, all wide round eyes and tangible glee. It was like falling in love all over again.

Kakashi didn't have many happy memories of his childhood, and those he did have were tainted by sorrow.

"Sensei liked things like this." Kakashi said from the corner of his mouth, dodging another laser beam. "He was always trying to get me to play around with Obito, or some other kid, making up stupid games disguised as training… I don't think he understood that it wasn't that I didn't want to, it was that I couldn't interact with them like I should have been able to because I didn't know how. It all seemed strange and stupid to me." He paused, his mind focused on the movie, not what he was saying. "I was always younger than the others in my class, so nobody wanted to play with me because of that, and the kids my age didn't like me because I was smarter than they were, and I didn't like how simple their games were, there was no challenge… They'd call me names or throw rocks and dirt at me." His fingers tightened on his knees, eyes becoming slightly unfocused. "I may have been smarter, but I was still a kid— It still hurt." Something blew up on screen, stealing his attention and effectively changing the subject. "I was six when I graduated, and I don't care what they say, they shouldn't have let me…"

Iruka's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"They shoved me right into training and completely overlooked my civilian schooling…" He chuckled when two of the enemy fighter ships collided and blew up, "They all assumed that since I was a 'genius' that I just knew stuff… Boy they were wrong."

Iruka shifted, straightening his legs out, feet propped on the couch, toes prodding Kakashi's hip. "What do you mean?"

Glancing at him, Kakashi smiled sadly, those thin lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes crinkling; "My civilian education stopped after the second grade." He turned back to the movie. "By the time Sensei found out, I was twelve… I couldn't read anything more than a report form, I couldn't do anything but adding and subtracting, all I knew was battle tactics and training strategies, and I didn't see the need to know anything else." He paused, biting back a squawk of victory as the Death Star blew up, and began chattering quickly without really hearing what he was saying, or registering it; "I was a weapon, not a person. And part of me thinks that's exactly what they wanted."

Iruka just gazed at him mournfully and chose to say nothing.

"You want to know why I read Icha-Icha?" Kakashi turned, staring right into Iruka's eyes with his own, the Sharingan dull and spinning slowly, lazily, as close to deactivated as it ever got.

Iruka was silent.

Kakashi looked away, picking at imagined fuzz between his toes. His shoulders slouched, head turned slightly to the side in an innocent, but wary manner. "I was entering puberty by the time Sensei found out I couldn't read… So, to get me interested in it, to get me to actually WANT to read, he threw 'Tactics' at me." He smiled sadly, tilting his head in the other direction.

It was silent for a few minutes save the whirr of the VCR rewinding the tape.

"He was really unconventional Minato-sensei… But… I think that's what I needed, some eccentric, Sci-fi loving dork with yellow hair and more energy than should be legal." He didn't look up, just chuckled in a nostalgic way and rested his chin on his knees. "Everyone talks about how ahead of his time he was, how great and innovative… Sometimes I wonder if who they remember and who he was aren't two different people." He paused and rubbed his chin on his knee before he continued. "When we first met he was very energetic, loud and almost pompous. Sandaime-sama put us together hoping that I would calm him down, mellow him out, I think… But he ended up changing me instead—

"After that mission in Wave… He changed. I think he realized the world wasn't a happy-rainbows-and-jelly-doughnuts kind of place like he'd thought it was. Minato-sensei was quiet most of the time after that. He taught me a lot about what life COULD be if we worked hard enough. Taught me that nobody is going to give me anything but trouble, and if I want something for myself, I have to get over myself and go for it. I have to work for it. I have to be willing to protect it with everything I have, and trust those around me to do the same."

"Trust is a big issue with you."

Kakashi nodded and Iruka could see weight on his shoulders, could see ethereal hooks in his soul, slowly tearing through.

"Kashi?"

"Hmm?"

"I think he'd be proud of you."

Kakashi was silent for a long moment, teeth catching a wrinkle in his pants and gnawing silently at it, before with a sigh, he flopped over, settling himself on his side between Iruka's legs, wrapping his arm around his thigh and nuzzling it while Iruka chuckled and combed fingers through his hair.

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(This chapter is just kind of musings on Minato-sensei, and the relationship I think he and Kakashi had.)

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