02. One Gender

Kakashi had to wonder if other people saw things the way he did…when it came to the mundane, at least. That everyday presented its own sort of challenge; whether it was a difficult one, an easy one, a tricky one, a challenge was a challenge…but recently, he had more challenges to face on a daily basis than normal. He sighed heavily as soon as he was far away enough from another person, allowing his eye to drift away from the text of his book and off into space.

It happened more and more often of late. When he was younger, he realised that he could appreciate the activeness of a person irrespective of their gender – he could look at a handsome man and acknowledge the allure in them, just as he could a beautiful woman…that was pretty normal though, wasn't it? Just because he could see it, didn't necessarily mean that he was attracted to them, though, did it? Of course not.

So for a long time, years, he didn't question it, or see anything weird in the fact he never drew a boundary (in terms of attractiveness) between men and women, it just never occurred to him to do so… Sure, he picked up on the fact that almost everyone else around him pointed out the attractiveness of the opposite gender to them (and only one or two instances of the same gender), but he pinned that to just being an ego thing – it made you look cool to comment on that woman's gorgeous legs…or that guy's firm ass. When it was to definitely one gender or the other. Only.

It wasn't until Kakashi was in his mid-twenties, and out of the village, when he realised that his ability to recognise when beyond the passiveness of simple observation. He'd just finished his mission and stopped back at one of the port cities on the eastern edge of Fire for an over-night rest; he was slightly ahead of schedule and he needed a place to stop, re-bandaged his wounds and eat a hot meal.

While there, he'd stopped for a small bottle of saké (the S-class he'd just completed had taken its toll), as he'd allowed his eye to drift over the bar, he could see plenty of dressed up (and quite attractive) women around, close to the men – but the obvious fact their apparent attentions were something paid for, turned him off a little. His eye continued its cursory scan, but stopped short at it connected with the gaze of another man's; the jolt had caught him by surprise and it was the first occasion that he'd ever felt the acknowledgement of a person's-man's attractiveness to hit him so directly…normally, it felt so distant from him somehow, so 'far away' so to speak…but this…well, directly led to his first sexual encounter with another man.

It had unsteadied him, slightly – it had been an extremely pleasurable night in a wonderful and very different way to whenever he'd spent the night with a woman, to be sure, but it had taken him a few days to realise that he felt no less of an attraction to some women, but rather, more of an attraction to some men. From then on, whenever he chose to do so (and was out of the village), he'd go to a bar, but make no prior conscious choice to find a woman or a man…the choice would be made at the last minute; although admittedly, he was a little more picky about men he might choose to take to bed, the issue was never to do with gender.

Well, his issue had nothing to do with gender, but for most people, issues began and ended with gender and he was highly aware that a lot of people might find a problem with the fact he made no differentiation, so he went with the most plausible and conventional choice he could, and carefully hid away the fact he felt any attraction whatsoever to men. The less reason people had to take a second look (aside from his fame as a skilled shinobi), the better…all he asked for, was to be left to his own devices when possible.

Everything was fine, for a good number of years – it really was, he allowed the village and anyone who met him to believe he was straight (should they have cause to think about it at all), and he would be free to indulge his attraction to either – on the rare occasion he felt so inclined – whenever he was safely out of the village and any familiar faces and well away from any trouble. Unfortunately for him, an instance of crappy timing had him going his separate way from his (male) partner – in front of Genma and Raidou a few months previously in a tiny village on the northern border of Fire.

Kakashi wanted to slap his hand over his eyes when he realised what had happened and what the implications were…if the situation hadn't been so disastrous, then he might even have laughed at the ridiculous expressions on both of their faces.

Some years ago, Genma had, irritatingly, let himself into Kakashi's apartment in the middle of the night and come across himself asleep next to the woman who'd been one his extremely rare one-night-stands, let alone whilst in the village; although this episode ranked highly among Kakashi's more embarrassing memories, it had served a useful purpose in assuring his friend (and many other people the loud-mouthed tokabetsu Jounin chose to blab too) that he was in fact, straight.

He was aware of many silent questions due to the fact he never engaged in harmless flirting at the pubs in Konoha (or showed any obvious interest in perusing women in the same way). But, damn it, after that Genma had opened his big mouth and told everyone he possibly could about how Kakashi had spent a saucy night with another man! But, but, before, he'd been with women!

It calmed down fairly quickly, and most of his friends and fellow Jounin were…surprisingly okay with it. Or at least, they pretended to be – some, like Genma, liked to rib him about it and ask him if he might be considered attractive? Or what about that guy over there? They tended to get more and more crude, but there was a playful edge to the tokabetsu jounin's voice and Kakashi could take it with the necessary pinch of salt – even though it bothered him, he knew better than to let on how much it got to him. It wasn't so much what Genma and a few others said, it was more the fact that they felt no shame in bringing it up whenever and however, like it was free topic at any time. That bothered Kakashi, it was personal and he hated feeling so exposed by it being talked about so easily and often.

The flip side of this, of course, were those who were obviously not comfortable with it at all (including some of his friends) – probably those who couldn't get their head around his perspective – and as much as they tried to pretend that he was just the same old Kakashi that they always knew, he could see it. There was just this edge, a slight shadow on anything and everything which Kakashi feel more ostracised than if they'd straight up and banished him from the village; but, of course, everyone was just so diplomatic and polite that all of this fumbling around the, cough, issue, was avoided at all costs and there was only the pretence that they'd never found out.

Kakashi hated it all – he was an extremely private individual after all – and feeling as though he'd been turned inside-out for all the world to see-

"Oof!" Someone suddenly slammed right into his chest and went sent careening backwards right to the floor; the impact had surprised him more than anything else as he looked down to see a young woman cringing as she rubbed the back of her head.

"Um…" At the sound of his voice, her eyes shot open and looked up to his,

"Oh! I'm so sorry, Kakashi-sampai! It was really clumsy of me, I-I wasn't looking where I was going, I'm so sorry!" Her expression brimmed with apology and slight embarrassment, as Kakashi leant down and offered his hand,

"It's…it's alight," He tugged her back to her feet easily, "There was no harm done," He offered a light smile of politeness and waited for the inevitable, realisation to kick in and for her to shy away – as most people did.

"Ahaha, thank you," She bowed her head slightly, "I am very sorry for troubling you, goodbye Kakashi-sampai," She offered a light grin before walking briskly away.

It was so…normal.

So unbelievably normal it was, frankly weird.

…

.

A/n - I got the very random inspiration for this after I read a bit of Dōseiaisha by Cardboard Bike - a KakaIru fic about Konoha ostracising Kakashi after they found out he was gay, I don't really go in for yaoi, or any Kaka paring besides some OCs or Sakura, but I was curious about the plot and how it would progress. Ultimately, it made me think about how people might react to Kakashi having sexual tastes outside of basically only being sexually attracted to women and the above short was the result.

Thoughts?