In retrospect, he should have seen it coming.
Most people who knew him (and, truthfully, most people who didn't know him) could say with complete confidence that Hatake Kakashi was an expert on romance. That was one of the nicer ways they put it - others might say, a little more snidely, that he always had his nose buried in those sleazy pornographic novels. Some just called him a loser, but that wasn't really relevant. In any case, he was nothing if not somewhat knowledgeable about romance.
Which he had been inclined to believe. That, however, appeared not to be the case.
Kakashi had never been particularly interested in the personal lives of his students. They were kind of like dogs in that way - cool to hang out with, but not really complex when it came to things like thoughts and feelings. He had gotten the gist of it, in the same way he could get the gist about a dog's personality: summed up in approximately two words. Sasuke was gloomy and oftentimes violent, Sakura was agreeable when she wasn't overly agreeable. Naruto was just annoying, which was only one word, but it wasn't like he was really all that complex.
So, he hadn't really devoted too much time to thinking about their boring little interpersonal relationships. He was aware of the more important things, obviously - Naruto and Sasuke's mediocre pissing contest, Sakura's crush on Sasuke, and Naruto's crush on Sakura. It caused him enough of a headache, when he could be bothered to think about it for more than a couple of seconds.
It had been an afternoon in late July, not too long after the chūnin exams. He had taken to letting the kids practice on the Third Training Ground, primarily because it didn't involve a lot of walking and sweating on his part. Kakashi would usually tell them to engage in friendly sparring matches, where he would pay rapt attention from behind the pages of Icha Icha Fantasy and under the shade of the trees. Every once in a while he'd have to intervene when things got out of hand - but his definition of out of hand happened to get more and more lenient as time went by.
That afternoon was Naruto and Sasuke's turn to spar. It started off peaceably enough (as peaceable as they could get, in any case), and developed into a fight that was well within their usual levels of violence. So no, he hadn't gotten involved. Sakura was sitting beside him, hugging her knees and watching them a little wistfully. She would occasionally shoot him hopeful glances, which he effortlessly ignored.
Altogether, that day hadn't been particularly out of the ordinary. The sparring matches turned out to be a good way for the kids to blow off some steam - for the most part, a good way for Sasuke to blow off some steam. He'd gotten increasingly prone to anger since the exams, and allowing him to beat up Naruto seemed to work quite well. Although, there was a significant downside of the days that Naruto would beat him up instead.
This happened to be one of those days.
They had been sparring as per usual; overly dramatic and emotionally-driven, but it seemed to keep them occupied, so Kakashi didn't interrupt. He had gotten adept at tuning out their shouting, which (more often than not) consisted of boasting and insults and suchlike - but would keep an ear out for any of Sasuke's inclinations towards chidori, or a scream that might indicate receiving a mortal wound. That afternoon, after around half an hour of ignoring the typical boast/insult exchanges, a mortal wound scream made him look up.
They were both sitting on the field, both red in the face and breathing heavily from exertion. Naruto was sitting on his ass a few feet away from Sasuke, apparently confused by the other boy's sudden scream like he'd been electrocuted.
For a moment, neither of them spoke - Sasuke was clutching the sides of his arms, his eyes wide and panicked like that of prey. He scrambled to his feet, backing away from Naruto and shooting an alarmed glance at his surroundings. "Huh?" Naruto complained, loudly. "I didn't even hurt you. Scared that you lost?"
Sasuke said nothing, still flushed and holding his arms defensively - opening his mouth to speak, but with no sound coming out. "Sasuke?" Kakashi called out to him cautiously, well aware of his tendency towards intentionally-fatal violence.
At the sound of his name, he jerked abruptly and looked towards Kakashi. The look in his eyes was one that he'd never quite seen before; overwhelmingly flustered, like -
Like.
Hadn't he been inclined to believe that he was at least somewhat knowledgeable about romance? Apparently, he wasn't. Kakashi was, most definitely, completely and utterly blind to romance - until it was written in a book or staring him in the face. And it was, regrettably, staring him in the face at that very moment.
Kakashi wasn't sure what kind of expression to make that wouldn't raise alarm bells to the three children that were watching him like hawks. Charitably, Sasuke spared him from deciding. Uncharitably, he did so by hightailing it into the forest on the opposite side of the training ground.
Naruto had turned to watch him disappear into the trees. Even the back of his head looked flabbergasted.
Kakashi looked down at Sakura, still peeking through her fingers like she had been expecting Sasuke to start blowing things up. Which he couldn't really blame her for (he had also been expecting Sasuke to start blowing things up). "Remind me, how old are you guys?"
Her eyes flickered up to him, confused. "Thirteen."
"Oh." Kakashi sighed, dog-earing his book and tucking it into the pocket of his jacket. "Starting early, are we?"
Or perhaps late. He wouldn't know. Sakura did not appear to understand, in any case. Naruto remained in the position that knocked him on his ass, apparently dumbfounded by the turn of events. Naruto's neutral expression happened to be dumbfounded most of the time. "Sensei!" he shouted over to them. "Does this mean I won?"
Kakashi, Tsunade's voice distantly chided him. You're a mentor now.
Or perhaps it was Gai's voice. It was always one of their irritating reproaches that seemed to make up his conscience. In fact, the only time Kakashi could hear his own voice in his head was when telling his conscience to quit nagging.
"Will you go after him?" Sakura asked meekly. She probably wanted to do it herself - and he was more than willing to let her, if he wasn't relatively certain that Sasuke might make an attempt on her life if she did so. Kakashi heaved a sigh that could move mountains, pushing himself off the ground. "Stay with Naruto," he told her.
She nodded vigorously, jumping to her feet as well (albeit with much more enthusiasm) and heading onto the beaten dirt of the training field where Naruto was (still) knocked on his ass.
Kakashi ran through his mental repertoire of things a good teacher might say to his student. None of them seemed particularly appropriate for the situation - vaguely he remembered something about birds and bees, but it didn't really seem applicable if there were no birds. He didn't think Sasuke would appreciate an analogy anyway, especially not one about bees and bees.
It didn't take long to find him, which Kakashi felt sorry about, because he didn't quite find enough time to decide on what he was going to say. To be fair, Sasuke didn't make it hard to find him. The burnt foliage and scorch marks on the tree trunks weren't exactly subtle.
Sasuke was on his knees in the middle of a shallow stream, soaking wet and pushing his head into the water. Kakashi assumed that kind of thing only happened in those forbidden-love novellas - but again, what did he know? He approached the banks of the stream and sat there, wondering if it would be inappropriate to take out Icha Icha Fantasy. The Tsunade in his head said yes.
When Sasuke (his head, rather) re-emerged, he shot Kakashi with a withering glare that would have probably incinerated Sakura. "What?" he snarled.
Everything he had thought of to say immediately fled him. "How's it going?"
Sasuke stared at him silently, water dripping from his hair and streaming down his face. Despite being undoubtedly freezing, there was still a flush on his cheeks. "What?" he repeated icily.
Kakashi, in his infinite wisdom, said exactly what he shouldn't have said.
"You like Naruto, huh?"
Considering Sasuke was a chūnin, and additionally thirteen-years-old, it was remarkably difficult to dodge the kunai that he hurled towards Kakashi's face the very moment he finished his question. It flew past his head only inches above his ear, and lodged itself into a tree trunk a couple of feet behind him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
There was something about having students that nobody prepared him for: their complete and utter malleability. A thirteen-year-old could be as impressionable as wet clay - and Kakashi wasn't quite sure he was a good impression. There had been a conversation in passing with a woman he had known in his teenage years; a not-quite girlfriend, who asked him if he ever wanted kids. Kakashi couldn't quite remember what he'd said, but it was probably something along the lines of what for?
He was pretty sure she did not take that kindly. In any case, he would probably be a good father - he liked hanging out with the kids, when he could watch them beat each other up from a distance and occasionally smack them around for fun while calling it a training exercise.
He would probably not be a very good father.
The way Sasuke was staring at him distantly reminded him of a frightened deer. He didn't seem willing to speak, which was a shame, because Kakashi wasn't quite sure how to proceed with the conversation without putting his foot in his mouth (again).
He scratched his head and seriously contemplated the birds and the bees thing again. It wasn't like he could use anything from his own experience, because as far as Kakashi knew, there wasn't anything - a couple of not-girlfriends who would lean in for a kiss as soon as he'd raise his hand for a high-five. He'd never been any good at reading those kinds of situations.
"Y'know," he began, without a single certainty about what he was going to say. "When a man and a woma - ahem. Another man - love each other very much…"
He didn't get far before the necessity to dodge another kunai arose. Sasuke's precision was quite impressive - it lodged itself in the tree trunk only inches away from the previous one. He decided that it was not something he should praise at that moment, considering the kunais were intended to be lodged only inches apart in his face instead. "Words, not weapons," Kakashi said, turning back around to face Sasuke. "Please?"
The flush on Sasuke's cheeks had gone. Instead, he was as deathly pale as a ghost. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied hoarsely - almost deceptively calm, like a receding tide before a flood.
Kakashi would think that his extensive collection of Icha Icha Fantasy could prepare him for this kind of conversation, but he couldn't recall a single novel that included any thirteen-year-old boys that developed feelings for any other thirteen-year-old boy (that may or may not have been a significant rival).
Of course, he was the least qualified person to talk to Sasuke at that very moment. Why wouldn't he be?
"What happened?" Kakashi asked. Naturally, he already knew what happened. He may have been inexperienced, but he wasn't blind (or stupid, for that matter. Although certain people might have argued otherwise).
It was quiet, except for the gentle rushing of the stream and the faint notes of birdsong. Sasuke's hair was steadily dripping water.
"We were fighting," he said.
There was a brief pause in which Kakashi assumed he would continue, which Sasuke graciously did not. He violently suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Okay. And?"
"I-" the boy swallowed, hard. "It felt weird."
In any other scenario, Kakashi might've said something snarky like because he was winning? He allowed himself some private congratulations for keeping it unsaid. "Why?"
"I don't know," Sasuke snarled, suddenly regaining his anger. "It was - I don't know. Okay?"
Thirteen-year-olds were eloquent with their words that way. Truthfully, there had been moments when he'd asked similar questions and gotten the same frustratingly vague answers. Nobody could explain it, to Kakashi's utter disappointment - not Obito, not Gai or Yamato, not even Tsunade. Which was, for the most part, concerning. She, if anyone, should have been able to explain that sort of thing.
Obito had even accused him of having the very feelings he couldn't understand towards Rin - and then mistook his confusion for denial. That might have been funny if the thought of them didn't make him so miserable. "Was it because of Naruto?"
Sasuke stared back down into the stream, no doubt face-to-face with his own uncertain expression. "He was pissing me off."
"Was he?" Kakashi tried not to let his voice sound disinterested. They were always playing that tune. It was not uncommon for Naruto and Sasuke to piss each other off.
"Yeah." Sasuke curled his lip at his reflection in the water. "I was getting mad, and it was making me really hot, and - and when he pinned me down he smelled gross."
"I'll bet."
Something about Kakashi's unhelpfulness was, ironically, making Sasuke more talkative. "I really…" the chūnin trailed off, staring into the stream like he was trying to vaporize it through sheer willpower alone. "Hate him."
Kakashi glanced up at the sky. "Well, why didn't you beat him up, or something?"
Perhaps he shouldn't be giving Sasuke such ideas. The boy's head whipped up to meet Kakashi's gaze, apparently at a loss for words.
"I felt weird," he repeated uncertainly.
"Yeah, but he pisses you off all the time. What's different now?"
Sasuke opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Kakashi made another benevolent gesture to not point out how funny he looked. "It's not like you couldn't," he remarked, instead.
They were veering into dangerous territory now - one wrong suggestion and Sasuke's kunai could hit the mark. Kakashi was struck by the compelling urge to go find Gai, or Tsunade, or quite literally anybody else that could mediate the situation. Someone more qualified to explain romantic and/or sexual feelings to a thirteen-year-old boy. Additionally, a twenty-six-year-old man.
Sasuke was doing a remarkable impression of a fish, opening and closing his mouth wordlessly. "I was-" he forced out, "I was really pissed off."
The flush on his cheeks had returned with full force. Kakashi entertained the idea of telling him he had heatstroke and being done with it.
Don't do that, his conscience reminded him. It sounded like Gai this time, which he felt less bad about telling to shut up. He contemplated Sasuke for a moment, who stared back like a drowned dog in the middle of the stream. That somehow made him feel more sympathetic.
"I got really hot," Sasuke muttered. "And - he pushed me down."
"Sasuke," Kakashi said.
"It was different, 'cause he - and he smelled really gross, 'cause he was all sweaty and hot, and-"
He, wisely, decided not to interrupt - even though the flush on Sasuke's cheeks had spread to his entire face and was creeping down his neck. Maybe he really did get heatstroke and was delirious. Wouldn't that be convenient?
"-and he was sitting on me, which really - really pissed me off, but I couldn't move or - or think, 'cause it was so hot and he smelled so gross-"
There were only so many times he could mention how gross the other boy smelled, before Kakashi had a suspicion that Sasuke didn't think Naruto smelled very gross at all. He wondered vaguely if he should be writing this down. "How about getting out of the stream, Sasuke?"
"No," he snapped. "I still have his - his stink on me."
"Okay." Kakashi yet again valiantly fought the urge to roll his eyes. It was really all so unnecessarily confusing. From any other perspective, he might have found it actually exceptionally hilarious; Sasuke was telling him something that, by all rights, he should be telling Sasuke about (as his alleged mentor). "Y'know, I don't really think you were pissed off."
"I was." He hurled the words at Kakashi like they were kunais. He happened to be better at throwing kunais, which Kakashi didn't point out. He was being rather chivalrous that day. "I am. It's Naruto. It's - he's -"
"Your friend," Kakashi said. "Your comrade, your rival, etcetera. Right?"
"My rival," Sasuke spit out.
"Whatever." He waved it away. "You felt weird because you didn't hate him, or it. You were just…" he trailed off, which was kind of embarrassing, because he'd been on a roll. What was probably more embarrassing was being embarrassed by what a thirteen-year-old might think of him. "Okay? Okay with it?"
Sasuke just stared at him like he'd just sprouted another head, rather than give him an (admittedly not great) explanation. "It's Naruto," he repeated.
Kakashi was by no means delicate - it had never been in his nature. He really wished Sasuke was older and perhaps less prone to violence, so he would feel more inclined to grab him by the shoulder and say something along the lines of yeah man, it is Naruto, and you like him. You like it when he smells gross, and fights you, and pushes you down, and gets his stink on you. It was weird 'cause you felt good about it. How's that?
But Kakashi was by no means delicate. So that's what he said.
Shockingly, there were no kunais to dodge. Sasuke was dead silent for long enough to make Kakashi wonder whether or not he even heard him. They remained suspended in that awkward pause, broken only by the gentle rustling of the breeze and faint sounds of birdsong.
Sasuke pushed himself to his feet and stepped out of the stream on the opposite bank. Kakashi waited for it with commendable patience: the shouting, katon, a flurry of weapons or assault, but none of it came. Sasuke merely walked away.
Kakashi watched him go, and the Tsunade in his head said nice job, genius.
He lay down on his back and dug Icha Icha Fantasy from his pocket. There was only so much a guy could do.
The remarkable shame about Tsunade was that she was a great deal more exasperating in-person, which happened to be rather impressive, because the moments in which she'd make up his conscience were exceptionally annoying.
Kakashi had (after an admittedly long while) found Naruto and Sakura to tell them they were dismissed for the day. They apparently couldn't take the hint, following and bombarding him with questions all the way into town - playing extraordinarily dumb didn't seem to deter them either. There were only so many times he could be vague before he started saying things like who's Sasuke?
Naruto and Sakura failed to see the humor in that. In any case, he was able to escape into the nearest bar. They tried to follow him in, which gave Kakashi a joyous opportunity to reprimand them about 18+ establishments and suchlike. It occurred to him that it was probably the most successful lesson of the day, as he watched them reluctantly walk away (though not peaceably. They shot him dirty looks until they rounded the corner).
His escape didn't even do him any good - it happened to be an out of the frying pan, into the fire situation - since the moment Kakashi grabbed a seat, he was accosted by the very same voice that had been accosting him all day.
"Kakashi!" Tsunade greeted him cheerfully, sliding into the seat beside him before he could give any indication that she was welcome to. "Eating dog food again?"
"That never happened," he said, and she slapped him on the back so hard he felt his lungs crumple momentarily. Her friendly gestures were often mortally wounding in that way.
"What's gotten into you this time? Hey, how about a drink?"
"It's the middle of the day," Kakashi told her.
She leaned into the aisle and hollered for two beers before collapsing back into her seat, like not-doing-her-job and day-drinking were heavy burdens she was forced to bear. "I've got an hour before Shizune realizes I'm not at the office."
He considered his options: he could pretend he wasn't suddenly privy to some significantly compelling gossip, or, he could just tell her. Neither of them sounded like good ideas. "Tsunade," he relented, finally. "What do you do when you have a crush?"
The Fifth Hokage's mouth dropped open in (unnecessarily exaggerated) surprise, like he had slapped her across the face rather than ask her a hypothetical. "Surely not-?"
"Not me," he amended hastily. "Someone - um, of the younger variety."
She mouthed oh, and after a moment, a mischievous smile crept over her face. Kakashi couldn't say he found it very charming. It was the smile she'd use after calling him to the Hokage office for a matter of "urgent state affairs," which usually happened to be picking up her dry-cleaning. "Which one of the boys likes Sakura, then?"
Kakashi felt like holding his head in his hands. This was really outside of his pay grade.
"She really is such a sweet girl. It's not Sasuke, is it? Well - she'd be over the moon, but-"
"Imagine," he interrupted, "theoretically, when a thirteen-year-old boy has a crush - he, uh, might start feeling a certain way about his certain someone-"
Tsunade started giggling before he could finish - or maybe what she thought was giggling, but was much more similar to howling with laughter accompanied by the repetitive slamming of her fist on the table. Almost instantly, a waitress appeared clutching two beers with a petrified expression. "I'm so sorry, Hokage-sama, I-"
"What? Oh, don't worry." She wiped a tear from her eye and beckoned her closer. "Thank you, my dear."
The waiter, apparently immensely relieved, left the beers on the table before bowing her head and whisking away. Tsunade turned back to him and, to her credit, pretended like she wasn't just howling over his misfortune a few seconds ago. "What did you tell him? Oh my - surely not the birds and the bees? Please tell me it was the-"
Kakashi winced. "Not exactly. You know I'm not - I'm not really any good with that sort of thing."
She was, in truth, one of the few people who actually did know. It was largely because of the moment he came to her in his later teenage years, convinced he was sick. Naturally, he had heard of all the late-bloomer nonsense before - until it began to get really late, and the girls started asking concerned questions about whether or not he was impotent. Which he wasn't, because his dick worked just fine, except when it actually mattered.
So he had come to Tsunade, and relayed the uncomfortable truth that nobody could get his dick hard. She'd asked him all the appropriate medical questions - and when he answered them to her satisfaction, she merely ended the interrogation with, well, do you really want it to?
Kakashi had thought about it. He'd never really realized that he didn't care up until that point, apart from the concern that there may have been something physically wrong with him. Not particularly, he told her.
Tsunade leaned back in her chair and said matter-of-factly, you're not sick, Kakashi, you're just not attracted to women.
That was pretty much the end of it. She'd also asked him a few pointed questions about men, and when he responded in a similar way, she just shrugged. Some people just don't have those feelings, y'know. Hey, if you're heading out, could you pick up my dry-cleaning?
He hadn't been forced into a revelation of any kind - apart from when picking up her dry-cleaning, and realizing that it was going to become a habit. He did, however, start reading steamy romantic novels. It wasn't even in a I-wish-that-was-me way; more like detached curiosity, which turned into genuine immersion into cheesy plotlines and dialogues. The steamy parts even made him blush a lot of the time - until he imagined himself in those very same situations, which suddenly made it much less appealing.
Kakashi could see the charm in romantic and sexual attraction - when he wasn't a part of it. For that reason, being witness to Sasuke's inner (and outer. It wasn't like he was any good at hiding it) turmoil was much more uncomfortably real than reading it in a book. Which Tsunade seemed to understand, from the way she was fighting valiantly to force down a smile. "In any case," she said, trying and failing to keep a straight face. "He just needs to know it's natural. It's just puberty, and having a - ahem, a crush on a girl is nothing to be alarmed about."
Sure, he might've said, if it even were a girl - or at least, not his rival, who he happens to not get along very well with.
It was quite a shame that she couldn't be more helpful, because Kakashi wasn't particularly willing to divulge some of the more sensitive information. It wasn't even out of the goodness of his heart or anything. More like he was cautious of Sasuke's potentially murderous capabilities.
Tsunade knocked back her beer like it was a dehydrated man's water. "Why the long face?" she said blithely, slapping him on the back again. He really should tell her one of these days that every one of her friendly slaps shortened his lifespan by a few years. "You have to be upfront. If you want, I can tell him all about the penis and vagina stuff."
"Please lower your voice."
"I suppose I'll need to talk to Sakura, too. You know, you really had me going for a moment there - I have a bet with Jiraiya that you'll never get a girlfriend. It's unfair, obviously, but that man's faith in you is really incredible, it would be a shame not to profit-"
"It's not Sakura." Kakashi actually buried his face in his hands this time, suddenly too exhausted to keep the guessing-game up for any longer. "It's a boy."
Her mouth dropped open in (what was no longer an unnecessarily exaggerated) surprise, momentarily struck dumb. He momentarily had the urge to down the beer sitting in front of him in a similar fashion to the way she did. You and your big mouth, his conscience snarked. It sounded like Gai this time.
"I…" Tsunade trailed off, still apparently at a loss for words. "Not - I mean, is it..? It can't be Naruto and - is it Naruto and Sasuke?"
She, fortunately, had the good sense to lower her voice into a hushed whisper. Kakashi could only laugh weakly. "What do I do?"
There was a lengthy pause before she reached over to the beer sitting in front of him and drained it. He decided not to complain. "Which one..?" she began uncertainly, before stopping abruptly and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Oh, wow. This is really - wow."
"I didn't just tell you some really personal information about one of my students," he said. "Okay?"
"I - yeah. Damn. What are you going to do?"
He turned his head to stare at her. "I thought you were going to tell me that."
She looked back at him blankly. He privately reminded himself never to confide in Tsunade about things he actually needed good advice for. "Oh. Well, um - aren't they always at each other's throats? Why on Earth..?"
Kakashi gave her the most scathing stare he was capable of. She scratched her head, evidentially still torn about the objective hilarity of the situation, and the subjective shitshow of the reality that was the situation. "What did you tell him?"
"Just the truth." He eyed the empty glass of beer, wondering if he could ask her for a replacement. "Probably a little too truthfully."
Tsunade sighed, pushing herself out of her seat. "Amend this," she told him, which was somehow the most unhelpful advice he could have possibly been given. "I won't give your team any assignments for now, but I'm understaffed in the reconstruction effort. I can't have any more things being blown up if your boys don't take it well."
The problem was that Sasuke apparently took it very well. At least, well enough that he hadn't been made aware of anything being blown up yet. "Uh-huh."
"Amend," she reminded him pointedly, as if he was particularly keen on seeing how badly it could escalate. Which he might have been, a little.
That was what Tsunade left him with: a poignant reminder to stop coming to her for advice.
The rest of the day he spent with that irritable headache; the one that came with thinking about his students for too long. Kakashi tried to retrace his steps - to pinpoint where, exactly, Sasuke had come across any subconscious developments about a certain annoying rival of his (under the vaguest assumption that the information would be useful, for whatever reason).
He ostensibly came up with nothing, apart from becoming even more aware that they really were always at each other's throats. Kakashi knew that there had always been something more than rivalry, because he wasn't an idiot (allegedly). Underneath the withering remarks there was invariably a tentative acknowledgement of one another, an awareness like that of staring into a mirror. Through the insults they hurled at each other he could see a very real something else - competitiveness borne from fundamentally different personalities but interchangeable recognition of the other.
Kakashi gave up. He didn't have the faintest idea what that even meant.
Things had been, ironically, much more simple when he was younger - even when Obito was accusing him of returning Rin's feelings. It might have appeared more simple because he didn't know what the hell Obito was talking about, and he hadn't been bothered to figure it out. A crush was something he had only ever understood in theory, and in theory, it was something along the lines of boy-likes-girl, boy-asks-her-to-be-his-girlfriend, she-says-yes, and the-end.
That seemed to almost always be how things worked out in real life, anyway. This prompted Kakashi to imagine Sasuke confessing very uncharacteristically to Naruto, and asking him very uncharacteristically to be his boyfriend. It was equally as hilarious as it was disturbing.
He deliberated for quite some time about showing up to class the following morning, but the way Tsunade had said amend had sounded more threatening than usual, so he decided not to risk it. Kakashi had been offensively late this time, however - attributed to the rather undignified spying on his students from a tree for an hour. Reconnaissance, he told himself.
Snooping, his conscience reminded him.
Sakura arrived early - or, rather, right at the appointed time. It was really too bad that she was so punctual, considering he was so unwilling to be. She waited with impressive patience, and as Kakashi stared down at her little pink head he felt a semblance of guilt about his lateness. About twenty minutes later Naruto joined her, still bleary-eyed from sleep and out of breath. When struck (albeit belatedly) by the realization of Kakashi's absence, he complained loudly and irritably for enough time that Kakashi felt another distant impression of guilt. Though distant enough to not care all that much.
Kakashi had really only taken to spying - reconnaissance - because he wasn't sure Sasuke was even going to come. He had actually been mostly certain that he wasn't, until Sasuke made his clearly-unwilling appearance almost fifty minutes late. Kakashi peered through the leaves to watch him approach, slightly dragging his feet but otherwise completely impassive in a way that was disappointingly uninteresting.
Naruto and Sakura halted their conversation abruptly as they took notice of him, exchanging furtive glances until he reached the shade of the tree they were under. To nobody's surprise, he said nothing as he sat down a couple of feet away - not far enough to be obviously avoiding them, but not really inviting conversation, either.
Naruto happened to not be particularly gifted in reading such signals. "Hey, Sasuke," he began. He sounded playfully jeering, scooting over to sit closer to him. Kakashi rolled his eyes. "You're not mad that you lost, are you?"
"No," the other boy replied flatly. Kakashi was genuinely taken aback that he didn't argue about not losing, even though he totally did lose. Apparently, Naruto was equally taken aback, and whatever retort he had prepared deflated immediately.
They sat in an awkward silence, long enough for Kakashi to regret that he had gotten there so early.
Naruto had worked up the courage to reach his hand towards Sasuke's shoulder - no doubt to give him a good-natured shove, in an attempt to rekindle a petty argument. Sasuke jerked away before he could make contact. "Don't-" he snarled, that familiar panic creeping into his voice, "touch me."
If there was an awkward silence before, this one was suffocating. Naruto pulled back his hand, and Kakashi couldn't see his face, but it was indubitably that dumbfounded expression he was so good at. He wondered absently if there was any appeal of that frequent denseness to Sasuke. Admittedly, Kakashi found it occasionally endearing. Naruto was, if anything, susceptible to being occasionally endearing.
In any case, Sasuke could probably appreciate Naruto's denseness in moments such as these - because he almost certainly hadn't noticed the tips of Sasuke's ears turning red.
He decided, benevolently, not to torture them for any longer. He startled the three of them when he dropped out of the tree; they leapt to their feet in simultaneous alarm, relaxing only marginally when they realized it was him. The looks on their faces were pretty funny: Sakura incredulous, Naruto open-mouthed as if astounded by his audacity. Sasuke, however - well.
Man, if looks could kill. Sasuke would be more than capable of genocide.
"How's it going?" Kakashi said.
"I've been waiting for an hour!" Sakura cried.
"Have you been up there this whole time?" Naruto demanded, evidently more distressed about the fact that he didn't notice.
"Have you?" Sasuke repeated, his voice level but practically dripping with barely-concealed venom.
"Oh, you know." He waved his hand absentmindedly. "Got lost in thought."
Which wasn't totally a lie, but from the way they were staring at him accusingly, it may as well have been. Kakashi happened to be really good at being late - additionally, really good at ignoring complaints about it. "There aren't any assignments for you guys today," he continued cheerfully, despite Naruto's groan of protest. "So I thought we could continue as usual. How about Naruto and Sakura today?"
"You just want to read your stupid book," Naruto muttered, as Sakura obediently grabbed him by the collar and dragged him onto the training ground.
Sasuke hadn't said anything until they were out of earshot. He'd balled up his fists, watching as Kakashi sat down and made himself comfortable. "I'm leaving," he said.
"No, you aren't. Sit down, Sasuke."
He didn't. "This is a waste of my time. I won't-"
"Sit."
He sat.
Sasuke didn't look very happy about it (rather, he looked really pissed off about it), but it wasn't like Kakashi was dying to have this conversation, either. There was something rewarding about being a teacher when his students weren't orphans - bestowing upon him the excruciating duty of having uncomfortable conversations. It wasn't even like Kakashi couldn't break awkward news, if he wasn't faced with the very serious possibility that Sasuke would attempt to break his spine in return. What a delight that boy was.
"It's not like that," Sasuke mumbled mutinously, after a long pause.
"No?" Kakashi decided to play along. "What's it like, then?"
"I really…" he watched Naruto and Sakura fight (significantly less aggressively), furrowing his brow and scowling like they were causing him personal offense. "Hate him."
"Well, they're not contradictory." He leaned back against the tree, yet again tempted to take out Icha Icha Fantasy. The book happened to be considerably more interesting. "The opposite of lo-" perhaps that word was not something Sasuke was capable of hearing at that moment. "Ahem. The opposite of like isn't hate, y'know."
Sasuke wasn't really giving him much to work with, it occurred to him, when he said absolutely nothing. There were brick walls that happened to be more agreeable to talk to. He couldn't help but regret the fact that Sasuke bore spectacular similarities to himself when he was younger - because if he hadn't, maybe Kakashi would feel less inclined to try helping him. What a bleeding heart he was cursed with.
Kakashi tried again, after about sixty seconds of Sasuke being unhelpfully silent. "Do you think Naruto hates you?"
"I don't - I don't care what he thinks," he muttered, glaring at the patch of grass in between his knees like the anthill beside his foot was to blame for his feelings. "He's just an idiot."
Kakashi couldn't help but agree with him, strictly speaking, about Naruto being an idiot. It was, however, abundantly clear that Sasuke actually really cared about what that idiot thought. "Let's say, hypothetically, you do care what he thinks-"
"I don't."
"I said hypothetically. Have an imagination."
From the look Sasuke gave him, he didn't appear to be willing to go along with Kakashi's hypothetical. He continued anyway, primarily because he didn't care what Sasuke thought (and that was the truth). "So, hypothetically, if you did care what Naruto thought, you'd want him to hate you. 'Cause hating you is way better than not caring about you."
"I don't. Care. What. Naruto. Thinks," Sasuke forced out through gritted teeth.
"Yeah man, I'm sure." Kakashi rolled his eyes (he found that he had gotten the urge more often lately). It wasn't like he was entirely unfounded in his theory - he'd thought about it long enough when considering the pointless competitions he had with Gai every once in a while. They'd struck him as annoying and arbitrary most of the time - until he realized how significantly distressed he would be if Gai no longer cared to challenge him to one. Of course, like Sasuke, he would never dare to admit such a thing. Unlike Sasuke, he was perfectly capable of admitting it to himself.
Naruto, due to his transparent unwillingness to hit a girl to the best of his ability, lost the practice match against Sakura. She didn't seem pleased about her victory, in any case, berating him loudly as he picked himself off the ground sheepishly.
"Go again," Kakashi called out to them, a little sharply. "Sakura, if he's still playing around, I give you permission to hospitalize him."
She found that a lot more agreeable. Naruto also seemed to become more motivated once faced with the threat of hospitalization - and they resumed their spar with much more vigor. He glanced back down at Sasuke, who apparently needed more time to process Kakashi's hypothetical. He was clearly not very sharp when it came to things such as emotions, which was unfortunately another quality he shared with Kakashi's younger self (and, potentially, his current self).
He was faced with a sudden and violent stab of sympathy. This had never been, and could never become, a boy-likes-girl state of affairs. It couldn't be wrapped up with a romantic confession and a the-end. Sasuke could only repress it to the best of his ability, pray that it was just a fleeting attraction of youth, and maybe it would go away. Because, as far as Kakashi knew, Naruto wasn't-
Naruto wasn't.
That was the bitter understanding that Kakashi was forced to come to, sitting on the grass beside Sasuke; who desperately wanted to deny something that had, no doubt, already come to the same realization Kakashi just had.
And his heart ached for him, despite it all. Sasuke kept his gaze fixed unwaveringly on a single spot on the ground, like if he broke contact with it, that realization would become…well. Real.
Kakashi glanced up, just in time to watch Naruto trip and get a mouthful of dirt and grass (though not because of Sakura - it looked like he just tripped). "It has to be him, huh?"
He already knew the answer, unfortunately. Of course, it had to be him. There had never been anybody else.
"No," Sasuke said in a small voice. His words had started to sound fragile, tinged with what seemed like desperation. "No, no, it's not him, it's not-"
Kakashi merely looked at him, and the tentative moment splintered like glass. Sasuke abruptly got to his feet, clenching his fists and letting his face fall into a familiar scowl - returning to something guardedly, impassively, frustratingly like himself.
"I'm leaving," he said.
"Okay," Kakashi replied. Because what else was there to say?