For the first time in years, Kakashi made calculated choices about his appearance. Naruto liked his arms and shoulders? Then he'd be wearing tank tops during the day and going shirtless at night, simple as that. Her double-take when she came through the door ladened down with groceries was very satisfying, even as guilt clenched his guts that she really was as easy to manipulate as he'd always worried/hoped. She smiled and called out a greeting as he rose to help her with the bags in her hands, and yup, she was looking at his bared arms, with the slightest hint of a blush on her pretty face.
"Did you have fun?" he asked her as they moved together into the kitchen, looking down at her and her big blue eyes and her exposed collarbones and her beautiful loose, wavy hair, thinking I read your diary, and I'm sorry but I'm not reallysorry.
Naruto nodded enthusiastically with a big smile on her face as she sorted groceries into their proper locations in the pantry, cabinets, and refrigerator. "Yeah! It was fun. We ran into Iruka-sensei, and I think he was on a date. We didn't talk about it but the guy was pretty cute, and he laughed a lot at all of Iruka-sensei's jokes. Anyway, we invited them to join us for lunch, and the date said yes of course, I've been hearing so much about you, Naruto-kun! And that made me feel good, that Iruka-sensei talks about me. We got dumplings, and Iruka-sensei paid for all of us, so I think he was trying to show off."
Huh, Kakashi hadn't known the man was gay. Hopefully that meant his own bisexuality would be unremarkable to Naruto were she to hear about it, though it was very hard to imagine her being upset about anyone's sexual orientation. "Maa, probably. What did you do after that?" He was looking at her hands, noticing that her fingernails had been painted black. It was a bit of an edgy look for such a bubbly girl, though he supposed her entire new ensemble was a little edgier.
"We ran into Ino and Tenten at the park, and they were painting each other's nails, and I'm bad at keeping my mouth shut—" She rolled her eyes at herself. "—so like an idiot, I mentioned, oh, I've never painted my nails before, and before I knew it, they had me on the ground with my shoes and socks off, and Sakura was painting my toenails while Ino did my fingers. They all said stuff about how nice my feet are." Her nose wrinkled up, clearly confused. "I guess being a ninja is supposed to be harder on your feet? I bet it's the fox healing me so fast that makes it different."
That tracked. Kakashi's own feet were rather beaten down, with callouses, scars from cuts and blisters, and a missing nail on his crooked, many-times-broken left pinky toe; the right one was gone completely, a casualty of the war. "Probably," he said noncommittally. "Do you like it?"
She paused, examining her fingers where they were wrapped around the carton of milk, as though she hadn't considered it. "Um. Yeah, I do. It's fun. They gave me the little bottle of paint, but I don't think I can make them look so nice."
"I can do it," he offered immediately, then internally winced at his inability to stop pushing her. She raised her eyebrows at him from where she was putting the remainder of the vegetables away. "If you want," he added, hands in his pocket and gaze averted, trying to suggest he didn't care.
"Another skill you picked up with the sharingan?" she guessed, and he should have lied and said yes, but he was shaking his head before he'd thought it all the way through.
Kakashi hesitated, looking into her expectant eyes, then thought Fuck it, I read her diary, the least I could do is share something a little embarrassing. "No, I… went through a phase, when I was about your age. Teenaged hormones, you know?" he shrugged, trying to pretend it didn't bother him to share that with her, even as she giggled at him.
"Don't worry, sensei, you don't have to look so scared, I'll keep it to myself."
His head whipped around to look at her, but she was ignoring him, moving to the closet off the kitchen that housed his washer and dryer. "I look—?" He cut himself off, feeling exposed. He'd been under the impression he was rather good at hiding his emotions.
She was pulling out some familiar grey sheets, and vaguely he thought, So that's where they went, she really is doing my laundry. "I think you don't realize how much more expressive the lower half of your face is. I guess since it's always covered, you haven't practiced as much to keep your mouth as impassive as your eyes."
Kakashi had failed to even realize he wasn't wearing his mask, and chose to attribute that to his lingering hangover. "I see. I'll work on remedying that."
Naruto looked over her shoulder from where she was throwing wet clothes into the dryer, a little pout on her lips. "Why? It's just us." She said it like she was harmless, like she had no power over him, and all he could be was grateful that she hadn't yet realized that he was at her beck and call.
He changed the subject, watching her start the dryer and load a set of white sheets into the washer. "So you're saying you don't go and tell everyone all my secrets?"
Her shoulders stiffened and his heart sank a little, but her voice rang with apology and sincerity as she explained, "Just that you're nicer than I thought, and that you're very handsome under your mask. But if you'd like, I can leak rumors to make up for it." She shot him a little awkward smile. "Want me to tell everyone your teeth are sharp like a shark's? Or that you sleep standing up with a kunai in your hand?"
He laughed, and her shoulders visibly unknotted. "I like that second one, but do me a favor and tell them I don't sleep at all. There was a rumor back in the day that I was vampire, I would love for that one to come back." She giggled, and he tried to fight the goofy smile he could feel turning up the corners of his lips. "Tell them I've got long canines. That one isn't even a lie, just tell them about it, maybe exaggerate a little. What else did you do today?"
Something changed between them, Naruto's laughter dying on her lips and her body language growing tense as she resolutely busied herself with the laundry. "Went grocery shopping," she answered with false flippancy. "Thus the groceries."
Naruto was an awful liar, and Kakashi felt concern twist behind his navel. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong."
"Something is clearly—"
"Sensei, please. They're going to tell you tomorrow anyway. Do we have to—"
Blinking rapidly, he interrupted her, anxious and upset. "If 'they' are going to tell me tomorrow, why can't you tell me now?"
She crossed her arms over her chest and turned to face him, but didn't make eye contact from where she was leaning against the washer. She sighed, resigned, and explained, "Someone pinched my—pinched me inappropriately. A chūnin who didn't recognize me and thought I was older, apparently. I might have—I might have, um—" She squeezed her eyes shut and Kakashi was already seeing red. "Might have lost my mind a little and beaten him to a bloody pulp? Might have broken his nose and two of his fingers? And now I'm in trouble for, um, 'having an outsized reaction.'"
Kakashi was already on his feet, snatching up his hitai-ate and a mask from hooks by the door and sliding his shoes on. "Like hell you are," he growled, muffled as he jerked his mask into place.
"Sensei, you should put on a shirt!" Naruto called when he was halfway out the door, and he paused, turning to see her looking concerned as she dug through the basket at her feet. She found one of his usual long sleeve shirts and tossed it to him, even as she said, "It's okay, you don't have to do anything," in a tone that told him she knew there was nothing she could say to change his mind.
"I'll be back," was all he said, and that through clenched teeth as he pulled the shirt on over his tank top. "Stay here, and don't worry about anything."
He slammed the door on her plaintive, "I'm obviously going to worry," and was off, trying to control his breathing so he wouldn't be immediately detained for posing a potential threat to the Sandaime when he broke into the man's office to have it out with him.
…
Sensei was gone for an hour, and Naruto spent every second of it worried and pacing and mindlessly cleaning. By the time she'd vacuumed, made the his bed back up, and was starting on dinner, she'd concluded that this was obviously all her own fault, with a pinch of Sakura's fault for making her wear the new clothes. If she hadn't panicked and overreacted, everything would have been fine. She might have even gotten away with the initial broken fingers, seeing as they were a result of an involuntary reflex to having her body touched so suddenly and unexpectedly. She didn't even remember most of it, having come to crying when Sakura dragged her backwards off the cowering, bleeding chūnin she'd straddled and was beating the snot out of right there at the entrance to the market district.
Everything was kind of flashes after that, she'd still been disassociating a bit. Sitting with her back against an alley wall with her head between her knees, and Sakura's arm around her. Listening to her teammate explain the situation to the law enforcement official who had responded. The same official crouching in front of her to tell her that her superior officer would be informed and that her punishment would be communicated to him, adding with a note of sympathy, "Probably just a reprimand, possibly a mark on your record, and a few hours of community service, given the circumstances."
It really wasn't that big a deal. Being pinched, and the punishment both; they just weren't that big a deal. Why had sensei reacted like she'd told him she was being tried for witchcraft under punishment of death?
It's not that Naruto didn't like it, necessarily. She wasn't so divorced from her femininity that she couldn't understand the appeal of a knight in shining armor. She just hated that she'd managed to make her sensei feel so responsible for her. She was just herself, and there was no need for so much fuss. But lately Kakashi had been behaving like the body guards that had been ubiquitous around Hinata when she was younger, which had made sense, because Hinata was special. Naruto was not, and therefore a great man like Kakashi-sensei shouldn't be so worked up over her. He was only upset because he'd ended up drawing the proverbial short straw when it came to rehoming her, and he had to be.
Ha, rehoming her, like an unwanted puppy. That was it exactly. And if Naruto didn't straighten up and stop causing so damned much trouble, overreacting about people touching her or seeing her, she was going to be more trouble than she was worth, and find herself back out on her ass. That thought really spurred her into action, and a moment later, there were three more of her bustling around the house as well, set respectively to dusting and straightening up, scrubbing the bathroom, and cleaning the windows while she prepared rice and stir-fried vegetables to accompany her shogayaki. Her thoughts spiraled as she cooked, and by the time she'd started slicing up the daikon she'd acquired earlier that day, there were tears dripping down her face. She barely noticed them, too preoccupied with imagining how guilty her sensei would look when he finally realized he had to kick her out, and—
"There's three of you?"
Naruto startled badly, barely avoiding cutting herself with the kitchen knife as she wiped at her eyes frantically and kept her back turned to her sensei. In the best 'I'm fine' voice she could muster, she corrected, "Four, actually. The other one is in the bathroom." She ended the jutsu, and roundly ignored the flood of memories about cleaning, shutting her eyes against them as she sniffled as quietly as she could and resumed her prep.
"You… cleaned the whole apartment?" he asked hesitantly, an unspoken why blaring loud in the intonation of his words.
Naruto blinked and dislodged more tears, rubbing at them with her sleeve. She started to try to speak, but didn't think she'd manage it, so instead she nodded. She must not have been convincing, though, because she heard his footsteps coming closer, and couldn't make herself keep slicing, staring down at the half-completed task blearily through her tears. A gentle hand closed around her bicep, and she dropped the knife on a shuddery sob, allowing herself to be drawn back against her sensei's chest as she buried her face in her hands.
"Hey, no," her sensei coaxed, in that awkward, panicked way of his that suggested he'd seen comforting happen in front of him more than he'd done it himself or received it. "Don't cry, it's okay… please, Naruto, don't cry."
The older man rocked her, his long arms wrapped around her, supporting her weight where she leaned back against him, and she felt so damn safe. It was awful, because she didn't deserve his kindness, had done nothing to earn it, and yet here he was, holding her while she cried for the umpteenth time. "I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I—I know you don't like it when I cry, I can go to my room, I'm—I'm so sorry, sensei, I didn't mean to."
"Didn't mean to cry?" he clarified, and at her miserable nod, he tightened his grip on her. "I keep telling you it's okay to cry. My personal inability to deal appropriately with the emotions of others isn't your problem." There was an awkward pause filled only by her sniffling, then a deeply hesitant, "What's… wrong?"
In spite of everything, it made her laugh through her tears, to hear the man who held her struggling to figure out how to comfort her. It was sweet, and disarming, and it made her feel even guiltier for being such a chore. "Just—it's just that—…" She was struggling to figure out how to articulate herself the right way, but that really wasn't her strong suit, so she just opened the floodgates and hoped something coherent would spill out. "It's just that I'm always in the way, and messing things up, and creating problems, and I didn't want to be a burden on you, you've been so—so kind, and you didn't have to be, and I just, I keep waiting for you to realize I don't belong here and kick me out, and—" A sob jerked her shoulders, and she tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I just want to be good, but I went and caused trouble, and overreacted, and then you had to go clean up my mess, and, and…" She gave up, beginning to cry in earnest, making ugly, wretched sounds into her palms.
The man holding her turned her around bodily, and supported himself with hands wrapped around her upper arms as he sank onto his knees in front of her, trying to catch her eye. Naruto wouldn't let him, hiding in her hands until his grip slid to her wrists and pulled them down. She looked, then, she had to, and there was her sensei, so handsome even with three quarters of his face covered. His single eye was so sad and gentle and intent, like a dog trying to comfort its owner, and she found that she couldn't look away as he spoke, squeezing her wrists for emphasis. "You are not a burden," he insisted, quiet, and she let out an awful, embarrassing whining sound as she tried not to sob out loud. "I'm not going to kick you out. I like having you here, and that isn't dependent on your good behavior, or your cleaning and cooking. You didn't cause trouble. It's bullshit to punish someone who's been violated the way you have for reacting with force against further violation." Violate was such an ugly word, it made her flinch, but he wasn't done. "I left to yell at the Sandaime because that's what I wanted to do. I care about you, and I care that you receive justice. Do you understand?"
She felt stupid, and ridiculous, with tears still streaking down her face even as his words calmed her, smoothed away the worst of her anxiety, evaporated her catastrophizing thoughts like mist under sunshine. All could think to say was a hushed little, "You… yelled at the Sandaime?"
Her sensei's eye widened fractionally, and he cleared his throat, dropping her wrists and letting his hands fall to his lap. "We… had an animated discussion," he elaborated diplomatically. Then, with that little scrunch in the corner of his eye that said he was smiling, "I may have threatened to retire if you received any formal punishment."
Naruto's jaw dropped. "You—you— … Why?"
Clearly having reached his limit on feelings-sharing, the silver-haired shinobi rose fluidly to his feet, stuffing his hands in his pockets and pretending to study the pot of rice as he said plainly, "Don't want to work for him if he's going to punish teenaged girls for hitting creeps that touch them."
"And he just…" Naruto waved the hand she wasn't using to wipe at her face vaguely. "Said okay?"
Her sensei was turning further away, which wasn't a good sign. "Basically."
"Meaning…?"
He coughed, and scrubbed at the back of his neck, visibly uncomfortable. "Well, you are no longer being punished."
"But you are," she guessed, stomach sinking to her feet as her eyes burned. "I'm so sorry—"
"Don't. I'm in trouble for losing my temper, not for defending you. That isn't your fault. And it's not so bad. I lost the leave from missions we were granted after the incident in Wave country, but that was going to be up next week, anyway. And I have last pick for missions for the next two weeks, which means we're going to be doing some babysitting and cat wrangling, but really, it's not a big deal. I'm… sorry, that we're going to be doing grunt work for a while. The Sandaime didn't agree with me about whether that constituted a punishment for you."
There was absolutely no thought put into her actions before she was in the middle of them, closing the distance between herself and her sensei to wrap her arms around his waist and press her forehead between his shoulder blades, an echo of how he'd been holding her a few moments before. He froze up, then slowly settled his hands over hers, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles, and when she said Thank you, sensei, all he said (with put-upon exasperation) was, "For the last time, Naruto, just call me Kakashi."
"Thank you, Kakashi," she corrected herself obediently, her lips curving into a smile against the fabric of his shirt, and he made a noncommittal noise, pat-patting her hand in a clear dismissal. She let him go, and let him stay facing away from her, returning to slicing the daikon. "Give me twenty minutes on dinner, okay?"
"Take your time." There was a long silence filled only by Naruto's chopping, and she waited patiently, knowing the fact that he was still standing there meant he had something to say. "I… really am glad that you're here. I enjoy your company."
She didn't look up for his sake, as she knew he was being more vulnerable than he was okay with, knew he was doing it for her benefit. "I'm glad I'm here, too."