So it was thus established that they were going to pretend otherwise. Kakashi happened to be really efficient at doing so: pretending he wasn't late, pretending he didn't hear Tsunade ask him to pick up her dry-cleaning, pretending he didn't care when Gai occasionally beat him in rock-paper-scissors. So yes, he happened to be good at pretending. He discovered, however, that he was not any good at pretending to ignore the only thing that Sasuke wanted him to.
Which he normally wouldn't care all that much about, but what Kakashi was unreasonably miffed by (as much as he was capable of being miffed), was that Sasuke was actually quite good at pretending otherwise. In fact, he was so good at it that Kakashi started to wonder if their previous discussions had been a nightmarish figment of his imagination.
The ease in which Sasuke returned to acting like himself was, in short, unsettling. If anything, he was slightly more hostile when he wasn't slightly more indifferent - which wasn't anything out of the ordinary, so Naruto and Sakura hadn't raised any concerns. Rather, they seemed inordinately relieved that Sasuke was back to…whatever he was (the words that came to mind were along the lines of being a jackass).
So, through whatever spectacular ability Sasuke had of repression, they had resumed their routine - sparring practices, occasional C or B-rank missions, and whatever else Tsunade needed help with. He was still their teacher out of a technicality more than anything: only technically, Naruto and Sasuke weren't really chūnins, so he was to be saddled with the responsibility for them for the foreseeable future.
And for the foreseeable future, Kakashi had to play the pretending game. However good Sasuke was at ignoring it - the unspeakable it, that is - Kakashi was just as good as noticing it.
It would go overlooked, naturally, to anyone who didn't have an eye out for it. To Kakashi's dismay, being aware of its existence was enough to make Sasuke's feelings as legible as being written on his forehead.
For that reason, it was all heinously obvious - whenever he would take a swing at Naruto or call him any one of the colorful insults in his arsenal, Kakashi would just have to pretend like he didn't notice the tips of his ears turning red. He wouldn't comment on the tremor in his voice. He would blithely ignore the fact that, no matter how many times Sasuke threw a punch towards Naruto, he didn't actually seem willing to connect it - like touching him would cause some sort of incurable disease (though perhaps that was not entirely irrational. Kakashi was not assured in Naruto's ability to wash his hands).
From a strictly objective standpoint, it was actually rather peaceful. Kakashi no longer had to keep an eye out for the very real possibility of Sasuke attempting murder on Naruto in close quarters, and most of the time, he was relatively subdued in situations when he would normally try inflicting severe bodily harm. He'd been frequently unstable in his temperament since the exams, and hadn't exactly been a joy when teaching chidori, either. His sudden apprehension around Naruto had made him more aggressive, but significantly averse to actually touching him. In that sense, Sasuke's crush happened to be an unintentional blessing bestowed upon Kakashi's ability to teach.
What was not a blessing, however, was what Sasuke was bestowing upon his ability to get a good night's sleep. The first time it happened was only a couple of weeks after their conversation (about the unspeakable it, obviously) - when Kakashi was forcibly awoken to the sound of his window rattling open in what was quite literally the middle of the night. He'd sat up in his bed to watch blearily as Sasuke crouched in the window, clutching the frame and staring back at him like he'd just seen a ghost.
And he knew what happened, because he wasn't an idiot. "Nightmare?"
That was putting it delicately, in the only way Kakashi knew how - because it was clearly what Sasuke felt was a nightmare. There was no actual nightmare that would cause him to come to Kakashi's house in the middle of the night, so the matter in question could only be something of the more sensitive nature (also putting it delicately). In any case, Kakashi could sympathize - because he was quite certain that if he dreamed Naruto was taking off his pants, he might have also woken up screaming.
The boy just nodded slowly, apparently unwilling to step inside, but (from the way he was holding on to the window-frame) also unwilling to leave. "I didn't know where else to go," he croaked.
Where else was he supposed to go, anyway? The Uchiha compound was far too big and empty for a thirteen-year-old to have a nightmare. Kakashi rolled out of bed with a yawn, yet again berating the bleeding heart he was afflicted with. "Come here."
Sasuke climbed into the bedroom like a cat - deliberately careful, watching him cautiously like if Kakashi made any sudden movements he would flee. Kakashi merely gestured to the bed, which was rumpled and still warm from his previously undisturbed sleep. "Go ahead. I'll be in the next room. Wake me up if you want to-" his sentence was punctured with another yawn, "-talk, or something."
Maybe because it was the middle of the night, or a temporary emergence of insanity, but Sasuke did not object. He sat on Kakashi's bed, looking small and timid as a thirteen-year-old might typically appear. "Is it-" he began hesitantly, as the jōnin turned to leave. "Is it going to stop?"
Whatever gave Sasuke the impression that Kakashi knew, he wasn't sure. He was, fundamentally, a definitive example of the wrong person to ask. He never had a suggestive dream of that kind - or, more specifically, one about someone else. At most, he had a dream of one of his not-girlfriends making a move on him; and even in the dream it was spectacularly uninteresting. He had dreams about miso soup that were more provocative.
"I don't know," he said. It was one of those moments in which it might have been more appropriate to lie - but some momentary comfort wasn't what Sasuke needed. He had never been one for momentary comforts. "Probably not."
Sasuke didn't visibly react. He gazed blankly at Kakashi for a moment, before turning his back to curl into the bed and pull the covers over himself.
He looked deceptively vulnerable. Kakashi left him alone.
Moments such as those were few and far in between, afterwards. As late August dwindled into early September, Sasuke became much less quiet and much more pissed off. He'd always been unreasonably angry since the fight between him and Naruto on the hospital rooftop, when Naruto had returned from his mission to retrieve Tsunade. Kakashi had intervened just in time to prevent them from literally killing each other, but the effect it had on Sasuke appeared to be re-emerging with a vengeance.
It made Kakashi yearn for the grace period in which Sasuke was afraid of touching Naruto - now, Sasuke appeared much more inclined to touch him; in the sense that he was making violent and earnest attempts on his life.
It wasn't like he hadn't noticed Naruto's improvement becoming increasingly daunting to Sasuke, and the times he would win in their practice fights were even more so. Sasuke had to grapple with the recognition that Naruto was quite close to surpassing him (if he hadn't already), and that Sasuke had intense unreciprocated feelings for him (which was quite possibly more terrifying).
The frightened thirteen-year-old boy perched in Kakashi's window seemed like a distant memory, when compared to what was now a convincing impression of the embodiment of uncontrollable rage.
What do you know? he had screamed at Kakashi, when he pulled Sasuke aside (that is to say, when he restrained Sasuke against his will) to remind him that chidori was not meant to be used on his allies. What the hell do you know about me?
Kakashi was nothing but familiar to what it was like to suffer - he'd lost people time and time again, in the same vicious cycle of death that seemed to only spare him in order to torture him. Most of his life was spent grieving, in that way; grieving for the ones he lost, and the ones he would inevitably lose.
Whenever he looked at Sasuke, he felt grief.
There wasn't anything Kakashi could say that would reach him. He tried, nonetheless - because Sasuke's endless tragedy had crystallized, like he had been encased in ice or frozen in amber. Because, in the moments Naruto would give him a friendly (though slightly more forceful than what was normally considered friendly) shove, Kakashi could see the ice thaw or the amber crack. It was like a secret he wasn't ever supposed to know of - but, was it, really? It felt familiar. It felt like his own.
So he tried. He desperately, hopelessly tried.
Tsunade had given him a mission shortly thereafter, so he hadn't been made aware of Sasuke's departure from Konoha until his return. In truth, he hadn't really been all that surprised when Tsunade had summoned him to the Hokage office as soon as he got back - he had known what happened from before he could even meet her gaze.
Knowing didn't make it less painful, somehow. The entire time he spent walking to her office; down the street, up the stairs, right in front of her door, he'd been steeling himself. He knew, instinctively and without question, that Sasuke had gone.
Repeating it like a mantra happened to be meaningless. The moment they looked at each other, Kakashi could feel a distinctive stab of something in his chest that must have been grief. It happened to feel familiar and unfamiliar simultaneously; no matter how many times it would come, the pain would be as if he was experiencing it for the first time.
"Amend," she said quietly, holding her head in her hands. "Kakashi, I told you to amend."
"He's gone," Kakashi replied. It wasn't as much of a question as it was a statement.
The Hokage looked up at him. It was a startling realization that he had never seen her expression quite so bitter with regret. "I've sent Shikamaru to retrieve him," she informed him, attempting to force her voice into one of authority. "He has a team of genins."
"Naruto?"
"Yes."
Kakashi wanted to bash his head against the wall, to curse every single one of his students' stupid decisions, to tell Tsunade that Sasuke would much rather kill Naruto than come back with him.
Because it wasn't like she had known. Sasuke's feelings for Naruto weren't something as simple as a crush - they were an oppressive and all-encompassing gravity. They were a recognition of himself in the other, an endless proposal of competition to be superior; both a lifeline and an impossibly heavy burden. It was a resentment towards him that endured from a profound, immeasurable, incomprehensible devotion. Everything that Sasuke felt about Naruto was locked in the orbit of love for him.
Kakashi, from a previously unknown ability of self-restraint, managed to refrain from telling Tsunade so. "I'm going after them."
She just nodded meekly. "Go."
It had started to rain just before he reached the Valley of the End, and the statues of Hashirama and Madara appeared to weep in the downpour. The surrounding jagged cliffs were riddled with craters - the marks of Sasuke's chidori and Naruto's rasengan in tandem with one another. He could only regret the kind of hopeless animosity Naruto and Sasuke had; because it really was hopeless. How could someone convince his own reflection to stop looking back at him? How was Kakashi supposed to tell him that it never could?
The sound of the rain and Pakkun's words were nearly drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears, when they found Naruto's drenched and unconscious body at the foot of Hashirama's statue. Pakkun nudged the forehead protector discarded by Naruto's head, which had received a single purposeful slash that cleaved the symbol of the Leaf in two.
"It's Sasuke's," said Pakkun.
And Kakashi grieved, because most of his life was spent grieving; if not for the ones he'd lost, then for the ones he would inevitably lose.
Is it going to stop? Sasuke had asked him.
Kakashi, like the spectacularly senseless idiot he was, had decided that Sasuke was not one for momentary comforts. Probably not.
He held Naruto in his arms and felt that familiar-yet-unfamiliar ache of loss - one that had been a long time coming, yet managed to feel like a knife to the heart regardless. Uniquely agonizing, every time.
Kakashi knew the kind of person that Naruto was, without needing to find him beaten unconscious in the Valley of the End. If Sasuke became a missing-nin in every single alternate reality in which he existed, Naruto would go find him every time. Because that was just the kind of person he was.
"I'm sorry," Kakashi told him, barely audible to himself over the sound of the rain. He wasn't quite sure what he was referring to at that moment, because he was sorry for all of it - for not getting there in time, for Naruto's wretched devotion, for his desperation to retrieve Sasuke without ever being able to understand why the other boy left in the first place.
Kakashi was sorry about the unbearable agony of being irrepressibly loved and irredeemably hated by Uchiha Sasuke.
Naruto blamed himself, with that ridiculous altruism of his. In the days afterward, he would cry a lot from his bed in the hospital wing (in what he thought was private, and would have been, if Kakashi concerned himself with being morally righteous). He would pull himself together whenever Sakura would visit, in any case - and whenever Kakashi would officially visit, instead of doing reconnaissance (Tsunade helpfully reminded him that it was spying).
Most of the time, when he wasn't straining a smile or forcing a laugh, Naruto would merely stare out the window as if in a trance. In those moments, he wouldn't respond when spoken to, sleep when instructed to - he'd just be somewhere else, beyond that hospital window. Kakashi didn't really need to think about it in depth. He already knew exactly where Naruto was.
When they had first become his students, he'd assumed children were not particularly complex creatures. Sure, there were outliers like Naruto and Sasuke who happened to be orphans (and it was just his luck that two thirds of his students were outliers), but they tended to be relatively straightforward - even in being outliers. In that way, it was not complicated to understand them for the most part. It probably helped that Kakashi also happened to be an orphan, but it was anyone's guess.
"He reminds me of myself," said Jiraiya.
They were sitting on the roof of the hospital, staring at the water tanks that Naruto and Sasuke had previously damaged in their excessively pointless fight. Naruto's rasengan had ripped an actually quite impressive hole through the back of one of them - not that Kakashi would ever admit it. He could think of three people off the top of his head that would be very annoying upon hearing this opinion (one of them happened to be Naruto). "What?"
The sannin frowned at the water tanks, long since emptied. Tsunade had already bemoaned the property damages of Kakashi's students to him, and when he hadn't been sympathetic enough, she sent him the bill for the hospital roof reparations. It remained unpaid on his kitchen table since it arrived in the mail (she really had too much faith in him), and the water tanks remained unrepaired accordingly. "Naruto," Jiraiya told him, as if it were obvious.
"Surely that doesn't mean Sasuke reminds you of Orochimaru," Kakashi replied absently.
"Huh? Why shouldn't it?"
He glanced over at Jiraiya, who looked like he should be sweltering underneath his mane of hair in the unreasonably hot September afternoon. Kakashi contemplated if he should tell the sannin that he was (almost?) certain Orochimaru didn't have an intense and dangerous crush on him, unlike Naruto's counterpart in question - just to see the look on Jiraiya's face. Even if he ran his mouth, it wasn't like Sasuke would care, anyway.
Wouldn't he? Kakashi backtracked to think about it. Wasn't it a very real possibility that Sasuke would actually care a great deal? It wasn't like he'd left his feelings back in the Valley of the End - no matter how bruised and beaten Naruto had been, he was unmistakably and purposefully alive.
Because Sasuke wanted him that way, or because Sasuke couldn't have him any other way. Kakashi didn't dwell on which one it was.
So, it was quite possible that Sasuke would care. Potentially enough to personally let Kakashi know exactly how much he cared. Or, just as likely, let all of Konoha know how much he cared - in his roundabout way. Also personally.
"Dunno," he said, instead. He was quite the philanthropist when he put his mind to it.
Jiraiya looked satisfied with that answer (somehow). Him and Tsunade happened to be remarkable in that way - they were truly not in the slightest reliant on his contribution to what was apparently just internal monologue turned external. "Naruto's going to go after him," the sannin continued. "That boy doesn't understand what he's getting himself into."
Kakashi would argue that Naruto, if anyone, understood exactly what he was getting himself into; in the most fundamentally uncomplicated sense. Just because he wasn't burdened with the gravity of Sasuke's emotions was he capable of being so certain in what he had to do. It was actually quite simple, because Naruto maintained a single concept with a thorough and undisputed confidence: that he would go after Sasuke because they were friends. "You can't convince him not to."
"I can try," Jiraiya muttered, mostly to himself. "I can - I can prepare him."
There was an inevitability in the way people spoke of Sasuke; he could hear it in everybody's voice, see it in everybody's eyes. The boy was already dead - merely a traitor on borrowed time. Nobody would say it to his face, but they didn't need to. Every person that dared to mention Uchiha Sasuke looked as if they had already seen his funeral. "Prepare," Kakashi repeated.
"It'll be another three years before Orochimaru takes his new body," the sannin continued, his voice grave. "I'll take him as my apprentice. Naruto will be strong enough to-"
"Convince him," Kakashi said quietly.
Jiraiya just glanced at him, a little helplessly. The momentary pause turned into a lengthy silence, in which neither of them seemed willing to break. "Convince him," he conceded, eventually.
Kakashi didn't need to return his gaze to know the kind of expression he had. He'd seen it enough times already.
Naruto, in what could be considered an impressive accomplishment, was not much different at sixteen-years-old than he was almost three years prior. To clarify, he was not much different in personality than when he was thirteen. He was quite significantly physically different, which Naruto appeared to not be as aware of as he should have been, from the way he launched himself into Kakashi's arms upon seeing him for the first time.
He'd been sitting outside the window of Tsunade's office, mostly because she had told him to come to the office and he'd never been particularly keen on being inside of it. For whatever reason, she seemed to be in enough of a good mood to let him remain outside her window for the time being - so that was exactly what he did, until Naruto opened the window to stick his head outside and peer at him.
The way his face lit up was almost enough to make Kakashi feel self-conscious. He didn't have enough time to think about it, because Naruto made serious haste in climbing onto the roof and (as previously established) launching himself into Kakashi's arms.
Kakashi felt several shooting pains in his back as he staggered under Naruto's weight, and briefly (though very solemnly) considered the possibility that he was getting old. "Sensei!" Naruto shouted in his ear, in what felt like an attempt to shatter both of his eardrums.
Though he was already irritable from his impending headache, he couldn't help but feel fond when setting Naruto back on the roof and getting a good look at him. He was much taller and slightly more mature in the face, but still as cheerfully stupid-looking as ever - which made Kakashi feel more affectionate, somehow.
Maybe he really was getting old. Naruto just beamed at him. "You haven't changed one bit!"
That was probably true. Kakashi glanced surreptitiously at the Icha Icha book in his hand.
"Oh, yeah, listen, listen! I've got a present for you." Naruto turned to reach into his pouch, still grinning. He pulled out a small book, which he then offered to Kakashi. "This is the first new Icha Icha title in three years! I think it's totally boring, but you like this kind of stuff, so-"
He probably said something else, but Kakashi couldn't hear anything over the indescribable and thunderous joy that rushed over him upon laying eyes on the fourth book of the Icha Icha series. He gingerly took it in his hands, moved to tears and overwhelmed by the sudden sense of favoritism towards Naruto. It had honestly been a shame that he'd spent so much time on Sasuke - that boy would have never even breathed the same air as a copy of Icha Icha Tactics.
(He didn't really mean that. Unfortunately.)
"All right," Tsunade said pointedly, leaning out the window. "That's enough fun for now, Kakashi."
She'd told him that it was his duty to assess Naruto and Sakura's capabilities when Naruto returned after his training with Jiraiya. Why it was his duty, he didn't know. He wished he didn't have to assess them all the time - they were cool to hang out with, but having the responsibility of being their teacher felt like an unnecessary burden.
"No way!" Naruto looked delighted at his misfortune. "Are you gonna be my opponent, Kakashi-sensei?"
"Kinda," he said, irrepressibly aware of the book in his hand that was practically calling his name. Naruto climbed back into the office through the window, so Kakashi just sat on the ledge to look inside. He was reminded distantly, and with a faint twinge, of Sasuke. "I'll be yours and Sakura's."
There was more of an audience than he expected. Shikamaru and Temari stood by the door, while Sakura blinked in greeting at him from beside Tsunade's desk. Jiraiya just nodded in acknowledgement. In any case, they were all giving him their utmost attention, while he was perched like an idiot in the window. Kakashi was suddenly suspicious of Tsunade's lenience when it came to him sitting on her roof that day.
If she was amused, hiding it was an incredible success. "I want to see what you can do against Kakashi," she said, now seated in her chair. "I'll be determining your status based on the results. Sounds good?"
The Hokage shot him a reproachful look as soon as she finished, as if she knew he was going to object (which he was indeed). "Then, shall we get right to it?" he said, instead of giving her the satisfaction.
Naruto and Sakura were equally taken aback by his sudden proactivity, from the way they gaped at him. Kakashi hated to disappoint them so soon. "Is what I'd like to say, but Naruto just got back. He must be tired."
"I'm okay," Naruto said.
"I'll give him a short rest."
"I'm not tired," Naruto tried again.
"Let's meet up at the Third Training Ground later. Sounds good?"
Tsunade glared at him - if it was because he used her expression or because he was very clearly blowing off his job, he didn't stick around to find out.
It didn't take long for Jiraiya to find him afterwards. He'd dragged Kakashi along for a stroll, and was apparently unbothered by the jōnin having his nose buried in Icha Icha Tactics the entire time. The walk had really just been a pretense to tell him about Akatsuki, which only made him ineluctably think of Sasuke. It was quite remarkable the way so many things would, time and time again, remind him of his student.
Was he still his student, anyway? Kakashi could only know for certain that he would never stop thinking of Sasuke in that way. He was forever touched by the memory of him, thirteen-years-old and hovering in Kakashi's window, because he had a nightmare. Because out of everyone to go to, Sasuke came to him. His teacher.
He'd been lost in thought for long after he parted ways with Jiraiya. It didn't do him any good, but for whatever reason he found himself succumbing to contemplation more often than not - Kakashi had spent so much time thinking after Sasuke left, which resulted in nothing but bitterness and regret. He could lie in his bed and wonder hopelessly if Sasuke's childhood crush had really been just that: a simple, innocent (though maybe not all that innocent) outlet for the feelings of boyhood. An antagonistic and competitive outlet, sure, but an outlet nonetheless. Maybe, optimistically, it was possible that whatever feelings Sasuke had for Naruto had dissipated in the last two-and-a-half years.
It was such a pointless speculation, Kakashi felt ashamed at himself for entertaining it. No matter how optimistic he pretended to be, there was no plausible reality in which Sasuke would just stop having feelings for Naruto - definitely not for something as insignificant as being apart for almost three years.
He'd find it actually quite romantic if he read it in an Icha Icha novel, or if it was one of those passionate mutual loves that felt straight out of an Icha Icha novel - kind of like Asuma and Kurenai. They got together when they were still in the Academy, which had been the subject of substantial gossip at the time (gossip that Kakashi had never found it within himself to care about).
Though not personally interested, he had to admit Asuma and Kurenai were incredibly romantic - and their relationship remained constant ever since the Academy, because they were quite obviously and stupidly in love.
It was that simple, because they weren't faced with certain obstacles such as (and he was just spitballing here) being sworn rivals, or being both men. They really didn't know how lucky they were - but Kakashi decided against telling them so. He didn't think Kurenai would be receptive if he told her how bad it would suck if she were a man.
In that way, it did not feel like that good heartache he would get when looking at Asuma and Kurenai, or when reading Icha Icha Fantasy. Thinking about Naruto and Sasuke made his heart feel so painful he was tempted to rip it out of his chest every once in a while.
Being lost in thought happened to be a really efficient way of losing track of time, because by the time he got to the Third Training Ground, the kids (was it still okay to call them kids?) were furious with him. "Sorry about that," he said, balanced precariously on the chain-link fence above their heads. "As it happens, I ran into an old woman in trouble on the way here, so…"
They jumped to their feet simultaneously, glaring up at him in a way that reminded him of every other time he'd been obnoxiously late to a lesson. "That's such a bad lie!" Sakura complained, crossing her arms.
Which it was. When he hopped onto the ground on the other side of the fence, they seemed more than willing to follow him inside the training ground regardless.
Once approaching the three wooden posts (of which Kakashi had used to threaten them when they first became his students), Naruto piped up, "this place kind of takes me back."
Kakashi glanced back at him. Naruto nudged the base of one of the posts with his foot, and there it was: that distance in his blue eyes, like staring into an endless expanse of summer sky - reminiscent of when he would sit in the hospital bed and stare out the window; physically present, but in reality, very far away.
It wasn't that he was sad, or not sad. There wasn't any regret in Naruto's expression when he thought of Sasuke. It was, rather, a constant ache of loss; like being perpetually aware of a missing limb. Not painful anymore, just not where it was supposed to be.
"Oh, right." Kakashi played dumb. "This used to be your first training ground, huh? Though, we had Sasuke with us, back then-"
He'd only acted purposefully obtuse just to see how they would react, but from their dejected expressions, it hadn't really given him any new observations - except that the gloominess settling over the two of them was actually rather remarkable in its immediacy. Sasuke's name must have been off-limits for quite some time; Jiraiya and Tsunade were likely not willing to force the topic, so it remained unspoken. Kakashi, in any case, was quite willing to force the topic.
Kakashi reached into his pocket to pull out a pair of small silver bells, holding them by their strings. "I hope you two have gotten a little better over the years," he said, pulling up his forehead protector to uncover his other eye. "Otherwise this is going to be really embarrassing for you guys."
He wished he hadn't said that, because it turned out to be even more embarrassing when they managed to capture the bells. It wasn't even really his fault that Naruto was a scheming little bastard. He supposed it was to be expected, when he was trained by an even bigger scheming bastard for almost three years.
Kakashi, when compelled to weigh the priority of assessing his students against the ending of Icha Icha Tactics, found the latter to take much more precedence. Unfortunately, his failure (that is, his students' success) was witnessed by the very people he wished to embellish recounting the fight to.
For that reason, Tsunade managed to embarrass him further by roaring with laughter in such a way that everyone within the radius of the Third Training Ground could hear it. Every time her laughter subsided she would raise her head and wipe away her tears, which would apparently be cause for another uncontrollable fit of laughter. Kakashi stood patiently in front of them, trying not to make eye contact with Jiraiya. The other sannin, to his credit, was at least trying to pretend he didn't find it funny. Shizune was also trying, but managed to fail rather spectacularly.
"They passed," Kakashi said irritably, as Tsunade's laughter died down into giggles. "Is that all?"
She heaved for breath, waving her hand dismissively. "Y'know, Kakashi, I can only wonder if there's ever going to be a day that you love something more than those ridiculous books of yours-"
"Hey," Jiraiya interjected, offended.
"I'm putting them on your team," she continued, still smiling. "I know you've missed them - don't give me that look, you have. You'll be equals this time around, but there's still a lot they can learn from you."
Kakashi was not so sure. He had been endlessly reminded of his failure to teach the one thing that mattered the most to Sasuke.
He'd taken Naruto and Sakura back to the village under their insistence that he'd treat them to lunch. Obviously, Naruto demanded Ichiraku's, of which Kakashi was forced to oblige. He kept his nose in Icha Icha Tactics while they walked, Naruto boasting and Sakura chiding him (though slightly too mercifully). "I just might've surpassed you, Kakashi-sensei!"
"Your head is too big for your shoulders," Sakura said affectionately.
"I'm still young," Kakashi replied reproachfully, paging through his book. In truth, the pain in his back from earlier told him otherwise. "I just came up with a new jutsu the other day…"
Naruto took off once he caught sight of Ichiraku's, apparently uninterested in Kakashi's new jutsu. In all honesty, it wasn't all that interesting (or effective) - but he couldn't help but feel miffed when Sakura followed him. They used to be so cute and would hang onto his every word when they were younger. Though, more often than not, his every word hasn't been worth hanging on to much.
That was how he ended up watching the stack of emptied ramen bowls next to Naruto grow at an alarming rate. He really couldn't understand how much food could fit in his body, and Naruto apparently couldn't understand how much damage he was doing to Kakashi's wallet.
Sakura bid them goodnight and left after a (respectable) single bowl of ramen. Kakashi leaned on his elbow and watched Naruto, trying to pay less attention to the suddenly critical danger towards his ability to pay rent that month. "Naruto," he said, eventually. "About Sasuke."
The boy put down his bowl of ramen. His smile slipped only momentarily, before returning with a well-practiced recovery. "What about him?"
Kakashi studied him, realizing belatedly that he didn't really know what it was about Sasuke. It was the mystery of whatever Naruto felt about him.
It was only simple in theory, since Naruto had never been eloquent when it came to explaining quite literally anything - and the only reason Naruto would give was because they were friends.
Could it really have been that simple? It wasn't as if Naruto was, comprehensively, complex. He was the kind of person who loved endlessly and unconditionally, wasn't he? He extended forgiveness like it was an unlimited resource of his, because wasn't it?
What did love even mean, to Uzumaki Naruto?
"What do you feel about him?" Kakashi asked. There had been nothing more he could have asked - because the answer to do you miss him? or do you still think about him? would always be of course. Though it was not likely he'd phrase it in that way.
Naruto just gave him a funny look, like it had been the most ambiguous question in the world. In retrospect, it might have been.
"He's my friend," he said, uncertain.
"I know." Kakashi didn't know where he was going with the inquiry, or why he even bothered. "But why?"
Because whatever was between Naruto and Sasuke certainly looked nothing like friendship. Competition, most definitely. The insatiable need to prove something to the other, because…because. Kakashi had never been able to wrap his head around that because.
It was something that had never even occurred to Naruto, because he never had any need to think about it; he just blinked, at a loss for words.
"I dunno," Naruto replied, finally. "'Cause I know him, and…he knows me, too."
It was entirely possible that Kakashi was never capable of understanding - though he loved Obito and Rin like they had been family, they remained unknowable to him in that way; altogether because they were beings independent of himself, people he would never have the ability to know in their entirety.
That had been the magnitude of his understanding about the way people loved: a profound devotion to something unknowable, incomprehensible. To not ever be capable of knowing or understanding it, and still, loving unequivocally. Loving in such a way that made grief newly agonizing, like he was experiencing it for the first time.
Naruto and Sasuke were extensions of themselves; reflections, as if in a mirror. Their devotion was not in the slightest unknowable - rather, intimately familiar. Devoted to someone that was, in every sense, a part of himself.
Naruto stared into his empty bowl, when Kakashi didn't respond. "He can be a total bastard sometimes, but - I mean, whenever I see him hurting, I kinda…hurt, too."
Kakashi swallowed. "Is that all?"
Naruto looked confused. "Does there have to be anything else?"
There was a pause.
"No," Kakashi said, through the painful lump in his throat. "No, there…doesn't have to be anything else."
