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Hound was kneeling in front of the desk, a hand curled into a fist at his heart and the other behind his back, his head bowed in deference. A pen scritched softly against paper, whispering in his ears until it was set down with a sound clack.
“Unmask,” said the Hokage.
Hound stalled, every cell in his body at war. On one hand, he was on duty and ANBU protocol forbade him from taking off his mask unless it was absolutely necessary. On the other, his Hokage had just given him an order.
“Hound,” the Yondaime said, an unmistakable tone of command underlying his voice.
Immediately, Hound yanked back the thread of chakra in the seal on his mask, and it fell away from his cloth-masked face easily. Rising to his feet, he pushed it to the side of his head to reveal his baleful stare.
“Hokage-sama,” Kakashi said, aware he sounded like a harried retail worker. From the corner of the ceiling, Hawk's chakra fluttered with silent laughter. Kakashi flicked a glare at her before settling his gaze back onto his sensei's impenetrably beaming face, feeling distinctly harassed. “This is flagrant disregard of protocol.”
“Yes,” Minato-sensei said peaceably, and nothing more. The smile on his face didn't budge an inch. A silence filled with expectation swelled between them.
“What are you doing?” Kakashi asked finally, hands placed on his hips disapprovingly.
“Abusing my authority as your supreme commander,” Minato-sensei replied smilingly.
Kakashi cracked. “Sensei,” he said, faintly horrified to discover his voice came out in a whine better suited to the child he hadn't been since he was six years old and watching blood pool in the grooves of the tatami flooring in his father’s study.
Minato's smile finally widened, his dimples deepening. He grabbed a scroll from his desk—not drawn from the small mountain of missives precariously stacked in the corner—and unsealed a box with a pulse of chakra. It was, Kakashi realized as he stepped closer, a bento box. He could smell its contents. Stirfried eggplant, pickled vegetables, tamagoyaki, rice, umeboshi, broiled saury, and strawberries.
“Sensei,” he sighed, “this really isn’t necessary.”
“When was your last meal, Kakashi?” Minato-sensei asked, undeterred.
The answer to that question, of course, was sixteen hours ago. But he wasn’t about to say that.
“Ration bar, four hours ago,” Kakashi lied unflinchingly.
Minato-sensei, who could probably smell fear, tilted his head in that way he did when he caught an enemy-nin’s tell during interrogation. Kakashi, who had undergone the mandatory two-week long intel extraction resistance training a year ago to join the ranks of ANBU and had wound up one of the select few who hadn’t broken, felt sweat begin to bead at his forehead.
Minato-sensei arched an eyebrow.
“I have sentry duty in thirteen minutes,” Kakashi deflected impatiently, unwilling to incriminate himself.
“Rescheduled to 1200 tomorrow,” his sensei said cheerily. He nudged the bento closer to Kakashi, insistent. It was one of those expensive, tiered boxes, made of a black, lacquered wood. Who racked up several thousand ryo by way of a high-profile, well-decorated shinobi career on the front lines and ascended to the office of Hokage and the pay raise therein, only to use all that money only on living expenses, books, ‘endearingly’ misshapen toad paperweights, and fancy lunch boxes? A weirdo, evidently.
Knowing he was fighting a losing battle, Kakashi plopped moodily into a chair in front of the desk and dragged it closer to the bento. As if to play the contrarian to Kakashi’s rare desire to be as petty as he wished in a capacity contained by protocol and compliance to propriety, the chair's legs just barely whispered against the hardwood floors. He scowled harder, just to make certain that his sensei knew he was not happy about this.
Already, he was thinking of the fallout Hawk spreading word of the Hokage’s bias for his former student would bring—because there would be fallout. If there was something he'd learnt in his months in ANBU, it was that the tendency for gossiping in the regular forces was amplified in the black ops division to a nearly comical degree.
With the end of the Third Shinobi War so recent, the Yondaime's current popularity was at an all-time high; it was unlikely his reputation would suffer for it. On the other hand, Kakashi, whose reputation was composed primarily of rumors about prodigious combat capabilities and comrade-killing and bloodline theft, predicted much resentment from his peers in the foreseeable future.
Not that it was much different from how things already were. Kakashi had made waves with his appointment to ANBU at his youthful age; that much was evident with the intent he could feel prickling up his spine whenever he entered a room in headquarters. They'd thought then, too, that it was favoritism that had brought him so far. Some other less savory rumors had been peppered in as well—that he'd whored himself out, that he was a psychotic killing machine the Hokage had deemed too volatile for the standard corps—the works. It was fortunate that the opinions of most people meant less than air to Kakashi, or it might have actually troubled him a little.
As it was, the gossip had died without even a whimper when he'd adjusted to the demanding environment and learnt enough to give a captain a concussion and a kunai to the throat during a training session. With Minato-sensei going out of his way to relieve Kakashi from his post for a homemade meal, though, the rumors might pick up traction again.
“I understand this is a tall ask,” Minato-sensei said, sounding amused, “but please stop thinking so hard, Kakashi-kun. Eat.”
In emphasis, he removed the lid of the bento himself. The scent of food wafted over to Kakashi's sensitive nose, enticing his near empty stomach.
He could protest. He should protest. But he'd woken up this morning shaking and haunted by the sense-memory of blood coating his arm to the elbow like a grisly glove, as he had every day for the past two weeks, and the eggplant stir-fry smelled mouth-watering. He was too tired to bother playing at further resistance.
“I don't understand how it is that you've managed to fool all of Konoha, Sensei,” Kakashi said, unloading the first tier of the bento from the second with quick, easy movements. He slid the thin box sitting next to his gifted lunch open, revealing a pair of wooden chopsticks inside. “No one I've met other than Kushina-san understands what I mean when I call you a scoundrel at heart.”
Minato-sensei blinked guilelessly, his long, pale eyelashes fluttering. “I haven't the slightest understanding as to what you may mean, Kakashi-kun.” His lips were curved into a conciliatory curve, a perfect parabola to convey honest incomprehension and earnest desire to dissolve any misunderstandings.
It was at times like this that Kakashi was reminded vividly of how excellent a politician his sensei was. He'd once watched him talk to a woman and walk away with a trade agreement that only disadvantaged her while she stared after his back with mooning eyes. It was truly fortunate that Namikaze Minato hadn't been born in another village; it was nearly 90% to his credit that peace talks with Iwa took half the time it should have.
That said, Kakashi rolled his eyes, murmuring a quiet “ittadakimasu” as he picked up a piece of tamagoyaki with his right hand. With his left, he flashed a colloquial ANBU hand sign at the ceiling, which loosely translated to, Take a fucking hike, man. He tacked on, Ten minutes. Addendum: will ensure target's continued safety. Self acceptable collateral for completion of mission.
Only when he felt the chakra signatures of the Hokage’s Guard leave the immediate vicinity did he drag down his face mask to place a piece of tamagoyaki in his mouth. Soft and fluffy, light and savory—flawless consistency and seasoned to perfection. Immediately, he picked up a large slice of sauteed eggplant and nearly swallowed it whole.
When he looked up to glance at his sensei’s face, his chopsticks faltered in picking out fishbones. Minato’s eyes were flat, and his chin was resting against his fist. “I really do wish you would stop saying that,” he said with an odd somberness. The corners of his eyes were pinched with displeasure—one of the very few tells Kakashi knew to look for, which only appeared when Minato-sensei felt safe enough to lower his iron-clad mask a little.
Kakashi set down his chopsticks across the bento box. “I apologize,” he replied without delay, though he didn’t really know what he was apologizing for. “No offense was meant, Yondaime-sama.”
Minato’s brow raised a tick.
“Minato-sensei,” Kakashi amended quickly.
The eyebrow lowered, but that tension didn’t leave. Kakashi bore his scrutiny the best he could, enduring the uneasiness that began to brew in his chest the longer the moment stretched on.
After a few seconds, his sensei sighed, and he closed his eyes. Rubbing his temples, he murmured, “You don’t even know what I mean, do you? That’s how ingrained in your mind it is.”
Kakashi stalled; for all his lauded genius, Minato-sensei’s words evaded his understanding. “I don’t, sensei,” he admitted. He hated not knowing things that seemed perfectly obvious to other people. It made him feel foolish.
“Konoha wasn’t built in a day. There’s still time,” Minato-sensei seemed to say to himself, knuckles knocking against his forehead gently. He turned his gaze back onto Kakashi; his searing eyes seemed to bypass his every defense and wall, to reach the writhing pit of uncertainty at the center of him. They softened. “I’m sorry, Kakashi. Ignore me. It’s been a long day. Here.” He nudged his lunch closer to him. “Eat.”
Kakashi kept his hands in his lap, eyes lowered to Minato’s desk. He wanted to apologize again, for whatever he’d said, for not understanding—but he knew his sensei wouldn’t accept it. He didn’t know what course of action to take. His turmoil roiled in his stomach like an unexpelled poison.
“Hound,” the Yondaime Hokage said, a firm thread of command in his voice. Months of conditioning made ANBU operative Hound snap to attention, his mind alert and focused on the orders that would fall from his kage’s lips. “At ease.”
The tension in Hound’s shoulders fell away, and Kakashi picked his chopsticks back up again to continue pecking away at his broiled saury. When he chanced a glance up at Minato-sensei through his eyelashes, he found him watching him, a strange, unreadable expression on his face. All these years, and his sensei still remained largely indecipherable to him. It almost looked like resignation, but Kakashi was certain that couldn't be right. What was there to be resigned to?
“The fish is good,” Kakashi offered, after a prolonged moment of silence, hoping to draw his sensei’s attention from whatever thoughts that occupied him.
“Thank you,” Minato-sensei said, sounding distracted. “It was a bit of a trial. In the middle of cooking it, Kushina came in and vomited on the kitchen floor; cleaning up the mess almost resulted in them coming out burnt. Her nose doesn’t agree with the smell of cooking fish anymore, you see.”
“Oh,” Kakashi said, after shoving rice in his mouth to combat the umeboshi’s salty tartness. “Kushina-san must be upset.”
Uzushio was an island nation; its people’s diets were said to have been nearly entirely composed of marine products. Kushina’s second favorite food, just under miso ramen, was practically anything that could be classified as a fish. She’d told him once that preparing seafood with Uzumaki-style cooking techniques and spices made her feel more like she was at home.
“Mm,” Minato-sensei said, watching Kakashi eat with a mildly fond expression, but that’s how he looked at Kakashi all the time—even during wartime when he’d disemboweled a man for trying to land a hit on Obito’s turned back—so that wasn’t a good enough indication that he’d stopped thinking about whatever it was that bothered him.
“Sensei.” Kakashi frowned. “Are you paying attention?”
“Did I add too much salt to the eggplant? I know you don’t like pepper very much. I tried to adjust the fish's recipe, but I’m not sure that I didn’t overcompensate. Is it bland?”
Kakashi squinted at his sensei. “Is this…” How had Mikoto-san put it when she’d visited Kushina during one of Kakashi’s guard rotations? “Baby fever?”
A laugh startled its way out of Minato’s throat. “What?” he said, sounding faintly incredulous.
“You don’t need to treat me like a baby, sensei,” Kakashi said, frowning. “I’m ANBU. The commander’s planning on promoting me to captain soon. And you already have that front covered. Stop fussing.”
“I— No, hold on, how did you know that?” Minato-sensei asked. “That’s supposed to be classified.”
“He left his file cabinet unlocked.” Everyone knew that was practically an open invitation. “I think he’s monitoring me to see if the information is going to affect my behavior in any way. Even though we both know it won’t.”
“Kakashi-kun, don’t take this the wrong way,” Minato-sensei said, expression light, “but your relationship with my ANBU commander is exceedingly strange.”
“I don’t think it’s that weird,” Kakashi mused. Sometimes, in his downtime, Bear tracked Kakashi down to socially coerce him into trying his very best to kill him. When Bear’s indomitable taijutsu defense finally whittled his stamina to nothing and had him hacking for breath on the floor, the commander finally let up to crouch down next to his prone form and poke at him like he was a bug on its back. Kakashi usually let him do what he wanted until he got bored, patted his sweat-dampened hair, and body flickered away. Really, he thought that Commander Bear was the weird one in this equation.
“Did you know that when he reports to me, he refers to you as ‘puppy’?” his sensei asked. Kakashi had indeed known this. Bear often called him so to his face. “It most certainly is that weird.”
Kakashi shrugged, starting in on his dessert. Damn, these strawberries were sweet. He’d hoped they’d be tarter. “He’s not a threat against Konoha. Or me, for that matter. It’s not as if it’s true, anyway. I haven’t been a puppy since I was five.”
Hatake children come of age once they’ve had their first hunt. His father had taken him out to the clan forests when he’d received his hitai-ate, and Kakashi had returned to the compound dragging a bear three times his size behind him by its hind paw. They’d eaten well for several months afterwards.
It used to be that the Hatake didn’t discriminate in the prey they hunted, whether they be animal or otherwise. But after the clan had joined Konoha, they’d had to compromise down to just forest animals because as the village had yet to enter any wars or gain any enemies, the only feasible alternative prey would be foreign-nin (liable to start an international conflict) or Konoha citizens (against the contract they signed in their assimilation into the village).
“Hm,” Minato-sensei hummed over his steepled fingers. He was making that careful non-expression he pasted on whenever he was thinking about something he didn’t like and didn’t want to show it, like the idea of yet another stack of paperwork being piled onto his desk, Councilman Shimura’s latest policy proposal, and (most confoundingly) Kakashi’s father. Kakashi was really bad at distracting people when it didn’t come down to acting as a decoy in combat, wasn’t he?
His sensei leaned forward, his fingers entwining on his desk. His expression had shifted into one almost painfully earnest.
“I’m busy as Hokage,” he said, which was like saying the sky was blue. Most days, he spent over twenty hours a day in his office. “Which means I don’t have much time to do the things I used to do before receiving the hat. Like taking care of you, Kakashi. As Hokage, I can’t enter the field to make sure you’re okay because of the potential political ramifications; I can only read your mission reports and fret like a worried mother.” He chuckled self-deprecatingly. “So I made this bento—to make certain you’re well-fed for at least a day.”
Kakashi stared, struck mute, a little uncomfortable with the notion that Kakashi was taking up what little free time his sensei had, which could have been spent with Kushina or friends his own age who weren’t precocious fourteen-year-olds.
“Would you mind coming to visit, every so often? When you have the downtime or will to spend it with your old sensei? We can have lunches, dinners—it doesn’t matter; I just want to see you’ve eaten. It helps calm my mind,” Minato-sensei wheedled, utilizing some of the most obvious psychological manipulation Kakashi’d seen in his shinobi career yet. He resented that it was working. His sensei’s smile widened at the give he could see in Kakashi’s body language; and oh Sage, there were the dimples.
“...Okay,” he said, reluctantly, quietly pleased. He’d sort of missed his sensei, the past year. He was used to seeing him every day, and having his presence in his life dwindle from a daily occasion to a visit every week or so solely for work reasons had itched at the instincts in his mind that railed at the idea of not being at his pack’s side at every hour of every day.
Minato clapped, a brilliant smile illuminating his face. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed, so obviously delighted that it was apparent that this was his aim from the very beginning. Kakashi squinted his eyes against the sudden sun glare. “What about the 16th? Does that work with you? I think my schedule’s clear that day. And it’d be treason for my secretary to kill me for clearing it myself, so I’m sure I can take care of it if it isn’t.”
“Thank you for the meal, sensei,” Kakashi said, a quirk of a smile fighting its way to his face. Minato-sensei’s grin, impossibly, widened. “And yes, the 16th works for me.”
They never got to have that dinner. Namikaze Minato fell in the line of duty, heroically sacrificing himself in the name of the village. The Yondaime defeated the Kyuubi no Kitsune for his Konohagakure, just six days before their appointment. He was survived by his last remaining student and his infant son, whom hundreds of Konoha citizens would spit on out of fear, out of ignorance.
He would go down in history as one of the most beloved kages in the Elemental Nations, despite his short reign. Konoha mourned him, loved him, but didn’t know him as Kakashi did—mentor, kage, and the only person to have promised to stay and have him believe it—so they’d move on. Rebuild, reshore their defenses, lick their wounds. Prove to the world that for all the loss they’d faced on that day, Konoha was as strong as it ever was.
And Hatake Kakashi? He picked up his snarling, porcelain mask, placed it over his face, tanto in hand, and sharpened his edge, metamorphizing into the exemplary killer everyone knew he was capable of becoming.
The common denominator in the deaths of everyone he'd loved, he realized, was that he'd loved them. He closed his heart, became an outstanding asset to the village everyone he’d ever cared about died for, and wouldn’t open it until he discovered the futility of resistance in the face of the unfortunately endearing genin team placed under his protection.