The extra room in Kakashi's apartment was small, but large enough; it was designed for this exact purpose, after all, and many standard issue jōnin apartments had the same set up. A matching wooden desk, bedside table, twin-sized bed, and small dresser had come with the room, and it had been an option to fill out a request form and have it removed, but with no purpose in mind for the space, he hadn't bothered. He kept some of his winter gear in the top drawer of the dresser, and there was a box of books he'd meant to donate on the desk, both of which were easy to clear out.

For a moment, he surveyed the room, hands in his pockets, mentally creating a list of what they'd need. The walls were an unfriendly white, and spotted liberally with tiny holes from push-pins, the legacy of previous genin tenants. So, paint. She'd need curtains for the window, since it was visible from the small park area below. Sheets and pillows and a quilt for the bed, maybe a lamp for the desk. He tested the mattress by pressing his hand against it, producing a cloud of dust and a creaking noise, and added a replacement to his mental shopping list.

It was all doable. And worth it if it made Naruto smile. So Kakashi set off to acquire groceries and painting supplies. It wasn't how he usually spent his day off, but honestly, it made him happier than reading by the memorial stone.

…

Naruto arrived home—home, wasn't that strange, to have a real home?—late, Iruka having made dinner for them both in his apartment. Her old teacher had escorted her to the sidewalk below her new apartment, but declined to come to the door with her, although she noticed that he didn't seem like he was going to move until she'd gotten inside. She hesitated at the door, unsure if she should knock. She hadn't been given a key. She tried the knob, and it was unlocked, so she pushed the door open. However, mindful that her new roommate was a deadly shinobi and an assassin, announced her presence immediately, calling out, "I'm home, sensei!"

"Over here!" the man called back, and Naruto followed his voice to the hall, the smell of paint hitting her as she realized that the door to the only room she hadn't seen—hers, presumably—was wide open. Her smile froze on her face as she stepped into the doorway, unsure how to process what she was seeing.

The thing was, that yes, somewhere in her brain, she'd probably known that she'd be seeing her sensei in less formal states of dress. But aside from when he had presumably been in some kind of sleepwear when she'd intruded blindly on his bed, he'd been fully dressed in his shinobi uniform every time they'd been in the same room. And she'd never seen him in anything else. So she was a little shocked to see him dressed casually, in paint-splattered sweatpants and a black tank top, his arms exposed and his hitai-ate missing, although his sharingan eye remained closed.

His arms were nice, Naruto recognized with a little bit of heat rising in her ears. Her sensei looked strong, and handsome, and she had no idea what to do with the errant butterfly flapping around in her abdomen, so she forced herself to take stock of the rest of what she was seeing: a small room with three pale blue walls and one white except for a few inches above the trim, what appeared to be furniture under a tarp, an open window letting in a brisk evening breeze, and her sensei holding a paint roller with blue paint splattered over his skin, hair, clothes, and face. "What do you think?" he asked indifferently, oblivious to her internal dialogue concerning his appearance. His grey eye slid over to hers, and there was something intent in it as he studied her. "Do you like the color?"

"It's really pretty," she complimented, and she meant it. She liked the peaceful, pale sky blue very much. Something about her sensei seemed pleased by her response, though she couldn't pinpoint exactly what as he impassively turned his attention away from her. Something obvious occurred to her then. "Are you… is this for me?"

Her sensei nodded. "Yes. Didn't want your room to look like a psych ward. I almost painted it orange… but I think I'd lose my deposit if I did. Have you eaten?" He hummed in acknowledgment at her nod. "Do you want to try?"

"Try… painting the wall?" she wondered, and he nodded. A grin tipped up the corners of her mouth, and she bounced on her toes, excited at the prospect. "Yes! I mean, yes, please, and thank you, sensei."

Naruto caught it this time, caught the way his eyes crinkled with his smile as he turned his head away to hide it from her. His words didn't betray an ounce of his happiness. "Okay. I set clothes you can get dirty on the bathroom counter. Get changed, and I'll show you how to do it."

...

She always felt a little silly wearing the man's clothes, like a child playing dress-up, and she wasn't the biggest fan of how the collar gaped away from her neck, falling down her shoulder or showing her collar bones, but she didn't mind too much. She was more excited about being given permission to paint something. She'd always wanted to paint or hang things in her apartment, but… well, she wasn't looking for a conversation about it with her landlord, to say the very least.

"You just make the same W shape over and over," her sensei was explaining patiently, demonstrating, having already shown her how to add paint to the brush in her hand. "Let it overlap so it comes out looking even and smooth. If it drips, just roll the brush over the streak until it's blended in. You won't be able to reach very high, so don't worry, I'll work behind you and fill in the gap."

"You can reach the ceiling?" she wondered vaguely, trying to decide where to begin. "Sensei is so tall."

He laughed, a rare sound that distracted her and caused her to turn her head, watching as he demonstrated that he could roll the brush all the way to the ceiling. "Have you considered that maybe you're just short?" he teased.

Naruto huffed, making a show of being offended, then bit her lip, focusing again on the blank expanse of the wall. "You're sure that I can..?"

"Go for it. You really can't mess up that badly."

…

Kakashi watched fondly as Naruto finally worked up the courage to roll her brush over the wall, leaving behind a streak of sky blue. Unexpectedly, she broke into giggling, dancing back and forth from one foot to the other. "That's so fun!" she exclaimed, and then she was off, tackling the task with all the enthusiasm and energy she tackled everything with. And maybe he shouldn't have been staring at her, but she was just so cute like that, happy and having fun, delighting in making her world more colorful. It felt rather innocent until she turned and bent over to refresh her paint, forcing him to realize that oh, yeah, there had been no bras among her clothing when they'd packed up her apartment.

His eyes widened, and the split second before he turned away was unfortunately burned into his brain by the accidental opening of his sharingan. And he hated it, hated that he'd seen her without her permission, but there was something so lovely about the delicate swell of her breasts and the outline of her little nipples, hardened against the cool air flowing in through the window. When she straightened up and he looked back, he realized he could see them poking at the fabric that hung loosely from her body, and he was briefly preoccupied with confusion that nobody had noticed that she'd developed far past the point of needing a training bra, that nobody had corrected the issue for her. Sure, they weren't huge, but they were rather big for a girl her age, and he couldn't imagine it was comfortable to train with them unrestrained. He distinctly remembered from his days as a genin that girls Naruto's age could be briefly incapacitated by a blow to their (apparently) very sensitive and sore developing breast tissue.

No one had noticed because she was always in the jumpsuit, he realized, the garment too bulky to reveal anything at all about the body underneath it. Which meant Kakashi was the only one that knew. There was no way he could remedy the situation personally, he thought as he resumed painting, filling in the area above the section his student had finished. That would set off red flags even for someone as trusting as Naruto. There was probably an appropriate way to enlist Sakura. He could assign his knowledge of her lack of appropriate underthings to having packed up her apartment with Iruka… Yes, that would work, Iruka's presence would shield him from any suspicion that he'd been inappropriate in noticing. But maybe he could sidestep the question of how he knew altogether by adequately playing the part of deeply uncomfortable male guardian doing his best to handle the unique challenges girlhood presented. Maybe he could pawn the whole thing off on Iruka… or Kurenai. He'd have to think more about it.

"Good job," he praised the girl when she was finished, stepping around her to swipe at the last bit of unpainted wall beyond her reach. Naruto glowed at the praise—she always did—and flushed a fetching color of pink. "Do you want first shower, or second?"

"Second," she answered, kneeling to return the lid to the can of paint. "I'll take longer, I don't want to use all the hot water."

Kakashi shrugged, I don't mind on the tip of his tongue. Instead he just agreed. "Alright. Try not to make a mess while I'm gone," he encouraged her, eyeing the dried paint that lined her right forearm and the splotch on her shirt from when she's accidentally brushed the roller against it.

She laughed, her hands going up to her braids and starting to undo them absentmindedly, and Kakashi had been about to leave, but found himself transfixed by the beautiful wavy texture being revealed. He wanted badly to touch it, and put his hands in his pockets instead. "No promises," she teased, looking at him over her shoulder with one braid undone. "Maybe I'll use the rest of the paint on the Hokage monument?"

"Well," he mused, trying not to smile. "Don't get caught, hm? Would reflect badly on me."

…

Ten minutes later, Kakashi was in the shower, mechanically scrubbing at the paint stuck to his skin, eyes unseeing. His ears were full of the sound of Naruto's laughter, and every time he blinked, he saw her smiling, looking up at him with those big blue eyes, bending over and letting his shirt hang from her body and expose herself to him—

Not letting, he desperately tried to correct himself, steadfastly ignoring his erection. She'd clearly had no idea. He couldn't let himself become convinced she was trying to attract his attention. It would be dangerous, and unfair to her. Working shampoo into his hair, he lamented that he wished there was no part of his feelings for her that was sexual. She was too young, he knew that, and it wasn't like she looked older than she was. She looked thirteen, even if she was particularly pretty in his own estimation, and Kakashi wasn't interested in thirteen year olds.

But Kakashi was interested in her. Wanted to be everything to her, her protector and her guardian and her confidant and her lover, her partner, her man. And that was fucked up, that he wanted to play the part of father and boyfriend in the same breath. He tried to reason that his feelings began with love, that his sexual desire for her was born more from wanting intimacy than genuine sexual attraction, and that was true, but he knew it didn't really matter. He didn't want to groom her, not really, but knew there was no going back now, knew he'd keep trying to be everything he could be to her until she either ran screaming, set a boundary, or let him be hers, completely and irrevocably—

He cut that thought off. It wasn't what he should want for her, even if he wanted it desperately for himself. He'd just wait. Keep leaving doors open for her to wander through if she wanted, but he would refuse to escalate. It wasn't much to promise, but it was all Kakashi thought he could manage. And if he initiated braiding Naruto's hair again after her shower, tucked her in on the futon and stayed until she fell asleep, well, that wasn't an escalation. They'd done it before.