The moment that Kakashi had wrapped his arms around Naruto's slender waist, her delicate arms around his neck, and she'd looked up at him, her eyes wide and blue and glistening, haunted him as he tried to sleep. They'd been too close, he'd let her way too close, and it had been delicious. She was so slight, so dainty and sweet in his embrace, so beautiful with tears in her eyes, and all he'd been able to think about was kissing her, imagining how far he'd have to lean down to reach her, and that should have horrified him. But it didn't. The idea made his stomach twist with arousal, and every time he shut his eye, he saw the beautiful curve of her breast, imagined it in his palm, imagined those big blue eyes hazed with lust and heavy-lidded, looking up at him as he rolled her cute little nipple between his fingers.

The gods ought to have struck him down just for thinking it. He was horrible. He was horrible, and she was wonderful.

She'd regained her happy-go-lucky attitude almost instantly, bouncing around like a puppy as she unpacked her meager belongings into her new room, chattering at him all the while about how much she liked it, and how she'd use the space. It was sweet, watching her stack her notebooks and her journal neatly on her desk next to her framed photo of team seven, and place her little stuffed dog on her bed—His name is Pochi, sensei, I've had him forever, he's kind of gross-looking these days, but he was cute at first. She hadn't questioned him lingering to watch her unpack at all, seemingly taking his presence in her room as a given.

And yeah, Kakashi wanted Naruto to feel safe in her room, and like it's her own space, but he also liked that she accepted him in it.

She won't want to try to teach me all the things my mom was supposed to have. Those words had ripped his breath from his lungs, as the image of Kushina standing behind her daughter with a hairbrush in her hand, both of them laughing as she helped Naruto get ready for an outing, sprang fully-formed into his mind. She would have been a wonderful mother. The pain that stabbed through his chest was familiar, but felt fresher than it had in years, as he mourned her death on Naruto's behalf, mourned that Naruto had needed a mother and hadn't gotten one.

Kushina had been beautiful. Kakashi wanted to tell the girl that, tell her everything he knew about her mother. Tell her she was pretty, and kind, and hard-headed, and funny. Tell her she was a good cook and a bad baker, and that he'd let her press kisses to his injuries over his bandages almost until he made jōnin when he was twelve. That he'd always rolled his eyes when she did it, and that he'd secretly loved to receive her attention and affection. That she used to find him in the kitchen in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep, and they'd make hot cocoa and talk before she sent him back to bed, in a room a lot like Naruto's.

Kakashi could teach her some of the things her mother would have. It was the least he could do, he thought grimly, to do a good job of caring for her while insisting on being everything to her, working to become her whole world, to become hers.

"You're such an intense little boy," Kushina had told him once, a lifetime ago when he was six, just before he became a chūnin. "You always look like you're trying to read my mind." It was because he was. He'd wanted to know everything about her, and protect her, and be near her, and that was why she was the only one who could get away with calling him a little boy. He'd thought she was perfect. She'd have to be, to be Minato's.

Naruto had made him dinner, and noted out loud that she needed an apron, so he'd made plans to procure one for her. It was simple, fish and vegetables and rice, but she'd topped it with a sauce that was simply incredible given that he'd seen her whip it together in less than three minutes. She'd stared at him while he ate again, and asked him why he wasn't wearing his vest, to which he'd said Well, I'm home, aren't I? and she'd nodded very seriously.

He'd sent her to change into pajamas and brush her teeth before bed while he washed their dishes, and then they'd run into each other in the hallway. Naruto had been standing in the entry of her new bedroom, looking inside with a complicated and unreadable expression on her face. Kakashi had nudged her, given her the glass of water he'd poured for her, and said Good night, Naruto.

And she'd smiled at him like he'd hung the stars in the sky and named them all for her, and said Good night, sensei.

Gods, he wanted her to say his name so badly.

That was hours ago now, and Kakashi couldn't stop thinking about her. He almost regretted putting her room together so quickly—he could have checked on her if she was still on the futon. He'd given up permission to watch her sleep too soon. He missed it, missed knowing she was gone away in her dreams and safe.

There wasn't a lock on her door. Kakashi could just ease it open, take a peek, make sure Naruto was sleeping okay, then come back to bed. That was—a normal guardian thing to do. Yes, appropriate, understandable. Maybe he'd just listen, he bargained as he stood up, dimly aware he was engaging in mental gymnastics to excuse his behavior. Just listen, see if it sounded like she was asleep.

In the end, though, he found light flooding out from under her door in the hallway, and he was drawn to it like a moth, his fist raised to rap his knuckles against the door before he even considered how he was dressed—shirtless, maskless with his scar exposed, the only thing covering his body the thin fabric of his sleep pants and his socks. He froze, realizing he couldn't possibly interact with her unless he got dressed—

The door opened, and he was blinking his good eye down at Naruto, whose eyes widened comically as she came face to face with his bare chest. She stumbled back, cursing, "Oh my fuck, you scared the shit out of me. How long have you been standing there?"

"Just got here," he answered, brain still playing catch up with this turn of events. "Was thinking I ought to put on a shirt before I knock."

"Well, that ship has sailed, hasn't it, sensei?" Naruto asked him rhetorically, hands on her hips as she looked him up and down, assessing. A fetching blush was spreading across her cheeks, and Kakashi tried desperately not to think too much about that, knowing his interest could become visible to her if he wasn't careful. "Did you need something?"

Kakashi averted his eyes from her flushed face and the barest hint of her nipples tenting her loose shirt, seeing that the bed was unmade, the desk lamp was the source of the light, and her journal was open on her desk, a pencil resting on top of the open pages. "Just saw the light. Are you alright?"

He looked over at her, and that was a mistake because he caught her really looking at him, still red around the cheeks with her arms now crossed protectively over her chest. Her eyes darted up to his, and they were so blue he could barely think. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just—well, it's stupid." She laughed self deprecatingly, turning half away from him to look at the window. "I kept almost falling asleep, and then getting nervous that the window wasn't really locked. And I'd get up to check, and after that I would almost start to drift off, only to start worrying again. Really annoying. So I gave up." She shrugged, like that was an appropriate response to the situation.

"We have training in the morning," Kakashi reminded her. "You need to sleep." He pushed past her, checking her window himself; sure enough, it was locked, and he turned back around to find that she'd been watching him again, with that cute, concentrated look on her face. "It's locked. Lay down."

Naruto huffed, but obeyed him, slipping under the sheets and curling up on her side, hugging a pillow to her stomach. Kakashi was aware of her eyes on him as he shut her journal—the awful knowledge that he wasn't going to be able to stop himself from reading it settling heavy in his abdomen as he did so—and then turned off the lamp, throwing the room into relative darkness, though the light of the moon was enough to make the girl's eyes shine in the dark. He didn't even need his sharingan to read how curious and vulnerable her expression was, in this moment that she thought he couldn't see her.

He kept a close eye on her face as he approached her, looking for fear, but there was none, not even as he bent over her, his bare arms and torso hovering over her as he carefully tucked her quilt closer to her body and the pillow she held, acutely aware of their proximity in the split-second that his fingers brushed her back, her waist, her thighs. He straightened back up, feeling almost winded, and breathed, "Better?"

"Better. Sensei, could—" She cut herself off abruptly, and turned her head to bury her face in her pillow.

"I can stay." The words left Kakashi's lips without his permission. "Until you fall asleep."

There was a moment of silence, and then a minute nod. "Thanks," she whispered, so quiet he nearly didn't hear her.

He merely hummed, settling into her desk chair as he marveled at how easy it was to push through where Naruto's boundaries should have been. How easily what he wanted came to him. He bet she wouldn't have even blinked if he'd sat on her bed instead of her chair. Her trust was dizzying and addictive and misplaced and he hated himself for that.

…

Kakashi continued to simply act like he belonged in Naruto's space, doing the things he wanted to do for her, and just as he predicted, the girl was seemingly not at all perturbed by him coming into her room without knocking to wake her up, nor by him rustling through her dresser to pull out her clothes for the day. She merely sat up, yawning and stretching, and told him, "G'morning, sensei."

"Good morning. Are you showering before training?"

The girl lifted her shirt to her nose, inhaled, and nodded, causing him to have to hide an amused grin. "Probably should."

"I'll get it running for you," he answered, and left with her clothes in his hands to do as he'd said.

It almost felt like they'd done it a hundred times before. Kakashi greeted her in the kitchen with a bowl of cereal in one hand and a hairbrush in the other, and she sat on the couch eating breakfast as he plaited her wet hair down her back in a single, thick braid, swatting away an errant intrusive thought about wrapping it around his fist. He'd set their packs next to each other by the door, and he had his own on his back and hers in his hands waiting to help her into it as she finished up washing the dishes. They were out the door on time, because he couldn't exactly show up late if his commute was identical to his genin's, and Naruto practically skipped along as they walked together through the cool spring morning.

As they left the residential area Kakashi lived in, and passed the more populated commercial district, Naruto began to attract whispers and stares and pitying looks, and although it took her a moment, she noticed. She shrank under the attention, her skipping slowing to a subdued walk, and instead of circling Kakashi or running a few feet ahead and waiting for him, she fell into step beside him.

He wanted to fix it, but his first instinct was to threaten or pour off enough killing intent to make any civilian in a ten meter radius piss themselves, and that probably wouldn't make her feel better. It would just call more attention to the fact people were staring. So instead, he said, "You know, I was thinking the dogs could help us with our training today," as he slipped his thumb under his mask and cut into its pad with his sharp canine. Akino, Shiba, Uhei, Bull, Guruko, Irushi, and Bisuke—Pakkun was still on his assignment—appearing out of nowhere definitely drew attention off of Naruto, with the added bonus of producing the cutest squeal of delight from the little blonde.

Normally, Kakashi studiously avoided summoning his ninken in her presence. Animals loved her, which was a little strange considering she was loud and filled with menacing chakra up to her eyebrows. His dogs were no exception, he lamented as he watched his strongest, fiercest summon, Bull, roll over onto his back for belly scritches. She spoiled them rotten, as shown by the way she carefully lavished equal attention on each of them, talking a mile a minute about how they were all such good boys, yes you are, you're a good boy, aren't you?

They hadn't even said hi to him, their master, instead circling the girl in a whirlpool of sniffing noses and headbutts against her hand as they walked, occasionally snapping at each other to claim better access to her. Guruko caught his eye, froze for a second as conflict entered his expression, then guiltily pretended not to see him as he turned to nose at Naruto's arm.

He'd known, but Kakashi was still a little stunned by how flagrantly they were being disobedient. One would think they were all lapdogs, not highly trained ninken. But it was worth it for Naruto's beaming smile, her sweet peals of laughter, and a little bit, it was also worth it for Sasuke's irritation and Sakura's amusement when they reached the training grounds.

Kakashi put his foot down then, calling for them all to heel and wait at the edge of the grounds; reluctantly, they obeyed, but not without some whining. "Collect yourselves," he hissed at them as he passed, and Uhei and Guruko flinched, looking guilty.

Naruto had stopped walking towards her teammates by the time he looked back up. Her comfortable body language was collapsing in on itself as he watched, moving to hold herself as she faced her teammates for the first time since they'd learned about what had happened to her. It was difficult not to jog to catch up and keep a better eye on the situation, and he missed the first exchange of words due to forcing himself to maintain his standard lackadaisical pace.

His students surprised him constantly, something he understood from the other jōnin sensei to be a universal phenomenon. Sasuke stepped forward and hugged Naruto, the movement awkward and uncomfortable, and the blonde froze for a second before returning the embrace with equal awkwardness. They parted, and Sasuke gave a self-important satisfied nod with a faint blush on his face, and said, "I hope next time, you'll just let me kill whoever is bothering you."

Naruto laughed, but the sound was a little flimsy and watery, and he was unsurprised to see her shoulders jerk when Sakura wrapped the shorter girl up in her arms, wordless as she hugged her tightly. When at length, Naruto's shoulders stilled and they parted, Sakura remained holding onto her arms, and told her quietly, "I love you, and I've been treating you like an annoying little sister, and that's not fair, because you've been such a good friend to me and I've been a shitty one back. I want to spend more time with you."

Laughing self-deprecatingly as she wiped at her eyes, the little blonde shook her head as she said, "I love you too, Sakura-chan, but you don't have to pretend—"

"I'm not pretending," she insisted, shaking the girl just a little. "I—I'm realizing that I never moved on from how we treated you at the academy, and that we treated you that way because you were a jinchūriki and our parents and the other adults were afraid of you and treated you like a pariah. I mean—Kiba is way louder and more irritating, Ino is a complete bitch with no filter, Shino is weird as shit, Shikamaru couldn't be paid to listen when people talk, Sasuke is an asshole—" There was an irritated little hn at that. "—and Lee is probably the loudest and most irritating of all. Even Neji has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide. All you've been is nice, and enthusiastic, and loyal, and funny, and I've kept treating you terribly, and not interrogating why."

That was some impressive self-reflection for a girl only halfway through puberty. He'd have to remember to praise her for it later. For now, he watched her offer her pinky to Naruto, who accepted it with tears in her eyes and a big smile on her face as the pink-haired kunoichi concluded, "So let's be friends for real, okay? You've never had girlfriends, have you?" Naruto was clearly confused by this terminology, but too nervous about accidentally breaking the spell to inquire. "It's important for a girl our age to have close female friends. Ino, Tenten, Hinata, and I have been excluding you—well, that's not fair, Hinata says all the time that we should invite you to things. But you get my point, don't you, Naruto-chan?"

"I think so," the blonde answered with a catch to her voice. "Thank you, Sakura-chan. That makes me… really happy."

"Are those happy tears again, then?" Kakashi asked in a flat tone, sensing it was time for him to take control of the situation and start the day. Naruto correctly read him as teasing her, shooting him a big watery smile and a nod. "Better than the alternative. Alright, if we're done sharing our feelings?"

"You didn't share your feelings, Kaka-sensei," Sakura pointed out, something knowing in her eyes that made him regret enlisting her.

Kakashi made a show of looking thoughtful, rolling his eye up to the sky to consider the question. "I feel…" He dragged the syllable out, enjoying the way all three of his students leaned forward in their anticipation of his moment of vulnerability. "Congested," he finished, and they all groaned, causing him to need to hide a laugh with a put-upon cough. "Pollen season, you know. Alright, then, group therapy is over. I'm sure you've noticed my ninken are in attendance. Your goal today is to hide so that they can't find you. First few rounds, I'd like you to work individually. You'll get a fifteen minute head start." He pushed his sleeve up to reveal bare skin, and tilted it like he was reading a watch. "Your time starts now."

Kakashi set up shop under a tree after his students booked it into the woods, gathering up his dogs to explain the activity to them and promise biscuits for anyone who brought back a student. As well as briefly admonish them for how they acted around Naruto, but at his mention of the girl, tails began to wag and tongues began to loll, so he quickly gave up on stressing the importance of their composure around her.

Sakura was the first to be returned to the grounds, an effect of how by-the-book she tended to be; she often struggled in areas that required creativity in a vacuum, though she was excellent at responding creatively to the actions and words of others. Kakashi took the opportunity to talk with her as he rewarded Shiba with a biscuit.

"Your mission has been amended," he told her with all the professionalism of any superior officer. She straightened up from petting the dog at his words, looking at him expectantly, and he made a show of avoiding eye contact and rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. "It's come to my attention that Naruto lacks a certain object that is… let's say necessary. I'd like for you to assist her in obtaining this object."

The little kunoichi put her hands on her hips, giving him an unimpressed look. "Naruto can buy her own tampons, sensei, and a man your age should be able to talk about them without—"

He cleared his throat, looking at his feet. "She needs a bra, Sakura."

She blinked. "Oh," she said, and then she began to laugh at him, so hard that tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh, no, sensei, really, she doesn't have one? And you had to be the one to notice? You didn't sign up for that at all, did you?"

He hesitated, then shook his head. He did feel out of his element, even if he hadn't minded his revelation concerning Naruto's wardrobe as much as he should have. "I would appreciate your assistance on this matter," he deflected stiffly. "Can I count on your cooperation?"

She waved him off. "Sure. I'll take her and the other girls after joint lessons on Saturday. Give her an allowance, won't you? Didn't her stipend account transfer over to you when you took her in?" Kakashi was surprised she knew how the orphaned genin-jōnin housing system worked, but she did read extensively. It wasn't far-fetched to think she'd come across that info, maybe even sought it out recently out of concern for her teammate. He nodded in answer to her question, and she hummed. "Bras are expensive. Especially… is she big? Sorry, you don't have to answer that. Give her a good chunk of cash, though. She'll need a couple. She doesn't own sports bras?" He shook his head, and she frowned. "That can't be comfortable, but maybe she's just flat-chested."

Without thinking, Kakashi shook his head again, then felt himself flush under his mask when his student raised her pink eyebrows at him. "Oh, poor sensei," she teased. "Don't worry, I'll fix it. Set us to spar each other sometime this week, I'll 'notice' then."

…

The rest of the activity proceeded as expected, though Kakashi had been a little frustrated when over half of his pack escorted Naruto back the first time she was found. The intervals of time that his students were able to hide increased with each repetition of the exercise, and when he let them all work together, it took his dogs nearly an hour to track them down.

It was mid-afternoon by the time they reconvened on the training grounds to debrief and discuss what had and had not worked, interrupted only by Kakashi dismissing his ninken when they proved to be too much of a distraction for Naruto. After their discussion had concluded, he dismissed his students, and listened with interest as their interactions turned social, though outwardly he pretended to be jotting down notes on their progress.

Sakura ran her hand down Naruto's braid, making the girl blush a little, and said, "Wow, Naruto-chan, your braid looks really nice. Don't you think so, Sasuke?"

The apathetic young man rolled his eyes, hands in his pockets, but lingered where he would normally have already been gone. "Better than usual. Finally buy a hairbrush, did you?"

"Ignore him, you look really nice. Will you show me how you did it?" Kakashi winced.

Naruto sounded uncharacteristically shy as she answered her. "Oh, thank you, but I didn't do it."

There was an awkward pause, as the blonde's teammates waited for an explanation, and then realized it wasn't coming. Sasuke put it together first, looking up at Kakashi with the faintest expression of amusement scrunching the corners of his eyes. "I didn't know you could braid, sensei."

Flustered but refusing to show it, he simply pretended he didn't feel vulnerable about having people know he possessed such a domestic and traditionally feminine skill. "I'm a man of many talents," he echoed Iruka, and Naruto's lips twitched as she tried to fight off her amusement.

"It's still very pretty," Sakura insisted, picking Naruto's braid up and examining it. "You have so many split ends, though. My mom was a hairdresser for a while when she was just out of school, you should let her trim it up."

Naruto offered her a big, sincere smile. "I've never had a haircut," she said, and Kakashi saw the same flicker of sadness he felt in Sakura's eyes.

Sakura scoffed, and looped her arm through Naruto's, locking their elbows together. "Then for sure we should go ask her! You aren't busy, are you?"

Kakashi was surprised when big blue eyes met his, questioning. She wants my permission. It made him feel good and powerful in a way that was so deeply fucked up that he refused to examine it. He nodded minutely, and the girl's smile was blinding as she agreed to go. To his further surprise, Sasuke took it upon himself to escort them, though he said nothing as he fell into step beside his teammates. Briefly, he marveled that something so awful could finally achieve what months of concerted effort couldn't: a unified team seven, exhibiting mutual concern for each other's physical and emotional well-being, seeking out each other's company.

He could only hope it would last.