Chapter Text
Iruka's used to the dullness of the colours of the world around him. He accepted that it's his lot in life a long time ago; being together and happy with a soulmate just wasn't in his fate, not when his soulmate was in ANBU and actively ignoring his existence. Hell, he's surprised he can even still see tints of green and blue and that vibrant red in his vision, and he's certainly already resigned himself to one day losing it all together.
Especially after learning everything there is to know about Hatake Kakashi. Death was his company to keep it seemed, it dragged after him when he didn't want it and one day it'd drag him away, it was inevitable.
But. It still hurts. A lot. A real fucking lot. To have his vision suddenly change back to greys only a few minutes after the man directed him to safety, saving him from having to fight the leader of a terrorist group on his own. Dying.
To have that man risk his life like that in order to protect him— yeah, okay, it wasn't just him being protected, it was Konoha as a whole. But… he didn't have to do it by jumping in and taking the attack meant for him. That just made him think he had been loved, that Kakashi thought of him as someone to protect, something precious.
Fuck, he has so much anger for his soulmate boiling under his skin.
When he first saw it, that first nauseating and world changing burst of colour, it hadn't even been the first time he'd met the ANBU Hound. No, the first time he met Hound was in Hiruzen's office, during his third visit for afternoon tea and a game of shogi.
They were joking around as they played, Iruka's laughter ringing throughout the room, Hiruzen smiling stupidly fond and terribly amused as Iruka grinned triumphantly, having finally captured a piece, when Hound had materialised out of thin air.
He didn't look much older than Iruka himself; the ANBU agent was scrawny with awkward gangly teenager limbs. Iruka had openly gaped at the sight, no sense of shame, but instead a sense of awe as his eyes studied the figure. His ma had been in ANBU, he recalls her wearing the same uniform, only difference being how she would cover her arms, claiming it was colder in Konoha than Uzushio, she could never warm up properly. He wonders if this agent had met her, if he would be willing to tell him any stories about her. His mind comes to a halt when he sees the wound on his side, a deep inky black liquid inching down, pooling onto the floor. The ANBU didn't even seem to know it was there, despite how heavy the metallic scent of blood was in the air. He remembers his mom had been like that too.
Hiruzen heaved a great and heavy sigh, begrudgingly getting up from his seat to see to Hound’s business and send him off to the hospital.
He returns to Iruka after the ANBU poofs out of sight, somewhat forlornly looking at their game, holding his pipe to his mouth, deep in thought.
“Sandamine?”
“Mhmm, yes Iruka?” he spoke, not looking at him, not quite giving him his full attention, still lost in thought.
“Will the ANBU be alright?”
“Oh, Iruka,” the man says softly, “there's no need to worry about Hound. He's a tough one.”
Iruka hums in acknowledgment, “ma was tough too, but me n’ pa still worried when she got back from a mission,” he says, “sometimes she bled all over the place, not aware she even had a wound until pa went to fix it.” He nervously looks back to their game board and lets the quiet settle around them. He hopes the ANBU had someone like how his ma had his pa to help her when she was hurt.
“Iruka,” Hiruzen says after a while.
“Yeah, Sandamine?” He expectantly looks up at Hiruzen's face, offering him a hopeful smile.
The elder smiles, albeit a bit sadly, “if you see Hound again, please give him a warm smile, as you do for me.”
Iruka finds that to be a bizarre request, but agrees to it. What kind of idiot would dismiss the Hokage’s orders?
That idiot would be Iruka, a couple years later.
Not the Hound request, no, he had given the young man a bright big smile the moment the ANBU flickered into sight.
The problem was that Iruka had been told, explicitly, by Hiruzen himself time and time again, not to practise his more dangerous seals without supervision. And then he had instead turned around and a set off a rather large explosion in the process of disobeying the Hokage.
So Hound of course had found him shortly after the blast, as seemed to be his prerogative in life as of late. He had spent ten minutes reprimanding him about all the ways Iruka was a poor excuse for a shinobi, all the ways he could get other people hurt with his mistakes, all the ways he would never reach chunin because he could never listen to simple instructions.
All the while Iruka smiled back at him.
Which only made him more irate at the situation, “are you truly that stupid? Stop smiling.”
Iruka shook his head, smiling still.
“You're always smiling, you must not have a single brain cell in that head of yours, do you want to get yourself killed, die as a fourteen year old genin, because this is how you do it—”
Which, ouch, Iruka wasn't suicidal. His parents died to keep him alive, he didn't want to make their efforts in vain. And sure he might not have been promoted to chunin yet, but he was studying fuuinjutsu. It was a complicated and delicate skill to learn, thus, the making of a crater in training field four that would have been much bigger had he not thrown barrier tags around it.
And why did Hiruzen want him to be nice to this guy for anyway? He was always berating him and belittling him. He was never nice back! Even if he thought of Hound as a friend, shitty as he is with all their arguments, their near daily interactions have grown on him the way an invasive species takes over an ecosystem. Maybe not as extreme as the mint in his ma's old garden, but close enough, with how he knows nothing about Hound besides his codename, voice, the shape of his silhouette and the few body language cues he's picked up on. Compare it to how it seemed like Hound knew everything about him… He doesn't know who Hound is.
Whatever adrenaline was pumping through him from the excitement seeps away and is replaced with frustration, with failing his objective with his training, with Hound's constant barrage of insults. He feels his cheeks warm up hotly, tears prickling in his eyes as he fights to keep the smile on his face.
“I don't see what the Sandaime sees in you. You should give up on being a shinobi, you're clearly not cut out for it.”
Iruka averts his gaze to the tree line behind Hound.
Hound grabs Iruka's jaws, the sharp claws lightly pinching his skin as he pulls Iruka's attention towards him, “Iruka look at me when I'm talking to you,” the young man hisses, Iruka startles, eyes darting to him at the sound of Hound's genuine frustration. He's suddenly very aware of how out of his depth he is for pissing off an ANBU as a genin, and finds himself looking directly into the ANBU’s eyes up close, one inky dark and the other… vibrant.
Was that… colour? Colour! He was seeing colour!
But as quick as that moment is, Hound pushes him back, jumping away startled, as if Iruka had burned him, scorched him through his gloves. As if he was a danger to avoid.
He sees the vibrant eye, against the paleness of the mask, the same vibrant colour decorating the porcelain. Everything else about the young man remains as dull or deep as before, nothing compared to the wonderful colours of the trees and the sky behind him.
Hound remains shock still. A frown tugs at Iruka's lips, that pesky feeling of— rejection, or abandonment— ah, loneliness comes on like a riptide, constricts in his throat as he watches the ANBU’s complete lack of regard to what has occurred. What this means for them. Iruka could learn to forgive Hound’s insults, sage knows he's learned to forgive Mizuki.
He bites his lips, waiting for some reaction — Hound is older. He's the more experienced one between them, Iruka’s only a genin as they've established, and well, Hound is the ANBU the Hokage trusts the most! He surely would know how what to do now, since Iruka's pretty sure this violates some sort of ANBU code of conduct, and hell if he knows anything else about soulmates besides the story books—
The longer Hound stands there, the tighter his throat becomes, the sense of loneliness choking him. The tears welling in his eyes are now coming from years of ignoring how utterly alone he feels, how now his supposed soulmate, the one person in the world who was supposed to understand him, doesn't even seem to want him. He tightly closes his eyes, forcing himself to blink back the tears, and when he opens them again, Hound is gone.
Iruka blinks again in surprise, the complete shock from his vanishing soulmate stopping his crying completely. Utterly perplexed, he stares at where Hound had stood, and finds himself… awed by the colour of the sky and the trees and all the other little colours around him. With this distraction, the whereabouts of Hound, the one who gave him this precious sight, was no longer all that important. He knows he'll be back, he always comes back after they fight. Iruka decides they'll figure it out when he does.
By the next time he meets Hound's eyes, he's accomplished a lot. He's learned his colours, figured out his seals, and incidentally mastered the basics while he was at it. Finally got the promotion to chunin, somehow became a prominent figure in keeping the hokage tower running smoothly, got a job teaching and instilling the will of fire into the minds of the next generation of shinobi. Mostly because he doesn't like the idea of children needlessly dying, so he wants to make sure they're ready for the merciless world they're going into. He learned that fact about himself in one of the worst ways imaginable, nearly killing himself and others with his weakness.
He's even come to have a favourite student, even if he resolutely told himself he wouldn't when he started teaching. But, there's something about Uzumaki Naruto that draws his attention and makes him, against his better judgement, focus on him. He had been apprehensive initially, after all the monster that killed his parents was locked away inside the boy. But after a few classes, it was relatively easy to see he was just a child. A child that kinda reminded him of himself at that age, causing a rukous, trying to get laughter to fill the void of loneliness. But unlike him, Naruto had a defined goal he was working towards: always seemed determined, unwilling to give up even after repeated, constant failure.
Hiruzen hadn't been too impressed when he added Positivity to his classroom’s report cards. Especially after seeing that the only A under the subject had been given to Naruto. But, Hiruzen’s blank stare had been worth it to see Naruto's cheeky grin lighting up the Ichiraku stall.
Protecting children from harm was actually part of his job description now, he even needed a verbal and a chakra signed agreement that he would do everything in his power to protect them from danger. This typically meant stray practice kunais and such. He didn't expect it to include jumping in head first into the trajectory of a fuma-shuriken directed towards a scared little boy— towards Naruto. He hadn't really given it a second thought. One second Mizuki, one of his closest friends, had been winding up to throw, and the next, the weapon was lodged in his back, and he's sobbing and bleeding all over Naruto's shocked face, feeling relieved and gutted that this had been the way the night had gone.
So a lot has happened since Hound disappeared, it's been quite literally years since they last interacted— eight or nine, he wasn't really counting after the first one. He still had his colours, so he knew he wasn't dead: he just clearly didn't want Iruka as his soulmate. Especially with the colours having faded to a dull, vague suggestion colour once existed, with the lack of eye contact or feelings or something being the cause, he's sure. He doesn't have the time or energy to worry about the technicalities, and dig through the archives and library to read up on it.
Some days he wished he never even had a soulmate. Some days, he manages to convince himself he's always seen the world in faded colours. It works until he remembers his parents, and his memories of them remain in black and white.
It's after saving Naruto, after hearing Hiruzen chide him for being so self sacrificing, when he's lying on his stomach in his hospital room, with a very low dosage of drugs in his system, medical nin being too amazing at their work so that his back injury is only tender. Too tender to do much besides lie there and think. He thinks about how blind he'd been to Mizuki’s true colours, now in hindsight, it was all glaringly obvious. He thinks about Naruto and how funny his teary and snotty face looked after the medi-nin showed up alarmed by the extent of Iruka's injuries. How over the moon the kid had been after Iruka tied his own hitaiate around the boy’s forehead. He thinks of the morbid irony that he, a village bound chunin teacher, had nearly died before his ANBU soulmate did.
He hears the crack of the window opening, feels the cold night air rush against his skin, and then all too suddenly Hound’s mask is back in his face, as close as he had been the moment they discovered their connection.
Iruka blinks in astonishment, seeing that vibrant red eye once more, surprised that it's not a faded pink like most reds appeared these days.
“What are you doing here Iruka?”
Iruka balks at the man, thoroughly baffled to see him, let alone hear him, “what are you doing here Hound?” He can't be a figment of his imagination, he’s getting goosebumps from the chill drifting in through the window.
Hound flinches back a bit, once again scorched by Iruka without even properly touching him. But this time the man remains, feet firmly in place.
“The colours dimmed considerably. I thought you were dying.”
Iruka continues to stare at the man, brows furrowing, trying to understand why Hound was even here now if he was so worried about fading colours. “I took a fuma shuriken to my back,” he tries to gesture to the room they're in, the position he's in, but all he manages is quirking his head to the side a bit.
The vibrant red eye disappears for a second, as if Iruka's words break some sort of jutsu. Then the mask vanishes from view, and then the man's entire body.
If he listens hard enough, he can hear the ever careful shuffle of paper, so he suspects Hound went to read his charts on the clipboard at the end of his bed. He wonders if that's one of his talents, to understand the terms and decode doctor scrawls.
But it remains quiet for some time after that. He's sure Hound hadn't vanished again, figuring the man would have at least closed the window after himself. But he can't be sure the man didn't just poof away either.
“Iruka look—” Hound’s voice breaks the silence, rounding back to stand in front of him.
“If you lecture me now, I'm just going to fall asleep.”
“I—”
“You were,” Iruka can't help smiling now, this whole thing is so silly, he might be dreaming this up with the help of the drugs, “I can hear it in your voice.”
Hound scoffs. Or laughs. Hard to tell the difference without seeing him, catching the visual body language cues he picked up on when they used to be in regular contact with another. Which had been extremely difficult, with Hound’s work ethic. Other ANBU let themselves loosen up a little, but Hound remained silent and still until Iruka would provoke him. He wonders if this meeting was sorta like that; he's disobeying some rule, one that Hound only knew of, so that Hound had to come and reprimand him for it like old times.
Hound’s mask comes into view again and the man remains silent. The vibrant red eye is gone, hidden behind his eyelid, in the shadows cast by the mask. But the other one, the inky black one, it’s staring intently at him.
Without the vibrant eye to distract him, Iruka notices how dishevelled the man looks. He has that post mission air about him, clothes dirty and torn, some dried blood stains the fabric, the skin on his arms gleaming with sweat; if Iruka focuses, he can catch a whiff of body odour ripe from over exertion. Had he just arrived back to the village? Passed through the gate, heard Kotetsu and Izumo gossiping about Iruka and rushed here? Had Hiruzen mentioned what had happened after Hound gave his report?
He notices it's been a minute, and that Hound hasn't stopped staring. Which, is very unnerving, to be aware he's the sole focus of an ANBU. His soulmate at that, so… intimately like this, he's more used to there being at least several feet between them. His face begins to warm, and he's sure it's gone a bit red from the embarrassment of the heavy attention. His eyes furrow, feeling a bit indignant from it, his lips curl into a frown, what are you gonna do Hound, just stare at me all night?
A tiny flicker of killing intent pulsates through the room.
He blinks, startled by how unexpected it is, and finds Hound gone when he opens his eyes. The window clacks shut seconds after, before he can even open his mouth to ask Hound why he was suddenly overcome with the urge to kill.
Somehow the whole thing brings to mind the times when he accepted Hatake Kakashi's mission reports. The times they aren't sloppy and he's not yelling at the man that his nine year old students could do better. But when the man awkwardly stands around until Iruka brings his attention to him, only for the jounin to immediately jump out the window behind Iruka's seat. Same sort of manners and wildly confusing behaviour. Their eyes never meet in any interaction between them, making the jounin seem uncharacteristically shy.
He chuckles softly, if Hatake Kakashi was Hound, he'd give every one of his ramen dinners to Naruto. It'd be just his luck to be matched with such a lazy man with too many horrible rumours about him. And all those monikers! Friend-killer not used so much anymore, more of a whisper from childhood memories. But Cold Blooded Kakashi, Copy Cat Nin were still used, with most preferring to use Kakashi of the Sharingan, for his supposedly stolen Uchiha eye.
Iruka has seen it in action once. Saw how the vibrant red of the eye contrasted the man's dark one, and the chirping blue electricity dancing erractitaly in his hand. He remembers the man's flick of killing intent and his stone cold gaze. Iruka had stepped away, knowing he was in danger.
Ah.
Hatake Kakashi was Hound. His soulmate.
It's so obvious, he's ashamed to have not noticed it before. But. He supposes he's never had to string thoughts together about the ANBU captain and the lazy jounin, two wildly different personas of man.
Well, at least he can actually document the discovery now and carry on with his life, never get put on a mission with the man again. Protocol said to do it as soon as you discovered it, but the secrecy of ANBU had made that difficult. Remembering the mission they had been on together, Iruka wonders if Hound had made note of it, he must have, he was all about rules and regulations. Hatake Kakashi must have had a separate file, where the information, that crucial little detail never got transferred to.
He scowls, it would have probably saved them a lot of trouble. Maybe.
When he's discharged from the hospital, he's not too surprised to find the colours have faded significantly, not that he saw many beyond the deep red of the sharingan, and how brightly Naruto sits against the backdrop of the utterly drab hospital room. But he's still mildly disappointed that a few minutes of eye contact wasn't enough to keep the world around him full. Not that he particularly wants to see his soulmate again, he's more than sure any chance of a civil relationship was beyond repair at this point. Not that he's disappointed, he's well used to it by now; knowing shouldn't change anything.
But, it isn't all bad, Asuma meets up with him and walks with him through the doors, accompanying him on his way to the tower. They have casual conversation, catching up, until they pass by the academy, quiet with all the graduates on break until they meet their jounin sensei. Asuma shamelessly inquires about his own students, wanting a cheat sheet for his new genin team.
Iruka indulges the man, telling him the basics as they climb through the Hokage tower to Hiruzen's office. He's laughing as he regales Asuma about what Shikamaru and Choji would get up to together as they pass through the office doors, stopping abruptly when his eyes find Hatake Kakashi standing in the room. Twice in one week, after nine years of not seeing each other, was this some sort of cruel joke?
“Oh, I didn't think you were busy—” the ANBU guards had let them walk on in. The secretary even said he was free.
Hiruzen shakes the ash from his pipe, “I'm not,” ignoring the figure standing next to his desk, that's sticking out like a sore thumb.
“Well, I've deposited Iruka as requested, job well done I’d say, seeya later,” Asuma waves and he's gone through the doors once more, leaving Iruka in the middle of this strange scene. Both of the men staring at him expectantly, like he might do something interesting.
Which. Had been half his intention on getting here. The other being a final review of the genin teams, approving the match ups as ordered, when he was lying in a hospital bed.
“Ah, before we start,” he says, stepping up to the desk, adamantly ignoring the other man in the room as much as Hiruzen had been, “I'd like to add Hatake Kakashi as my next of kin and be listed as my soulmate.” If the man in question wouldn't do anything about their bond, the least they could do was follow protocol and document it. At the very most, they wouldn't ever get put on a mission together again and have a repeat of the last one.
The reaction to his request is stupidly quiet. Like any sudden movements might startle the man to his right into a frenzy, jump out the window and become a missing nin. Hiruzen's tired gaze suggests as much.
His face feels warm, getting embarrassed by his thoughtless choice to bring this up immediately, and steadily gets warmer the longer the silence drags on, as their eyes continue to bore holes into him. His eyebrows furrow as he struggles to keep a level head and polite smile under their shocked expressions, irritation starting to settle in his blood.
Hiruzen seems to collect himself first; Iruka won't dare to look at his soulmate, he's not sure it'd be a nice expression, even if all he could see was one third of the man's face.
“Why next of kin?”
“He snuck into my hospital room the other night, concerned for my health. This way, he'll be among the first to know if anything happens.” Never mind the fact Hound was probably out on a mission when Mizuki had stirred up trouble. If he had been in the village, he might have found Iruka first, as he had done in the past, and saved everyone some grief.
The elder hums, “anything else before we start?” he asks unphased.
“If agreeable, add me to his next of kin as well, I know he's been in the hospital since we first discovered we were soulmates.”
Hiruzen nods, his lips turning up at the corner in a coy grin, “typically only spouses get that privilege when ANBU agents are hospitalised, even when they're no longer in the corps. Too much threat potential. Though, I think I can make an exception for this particular case.” He takes a drag from his pipe, “is that all?”
Iruka nods. Mildly confused by the implication that apparently Hound, Hatake Kakashi was no longer in ANBU. He'd just seen him all geared up, dirty from returning from a mission just the other night.
“To business then,” Hiruzen pulls out a folder, opens it up, “you've agreed on everything we've set up for the genin teams so far. Nothing you want to change.”
Iruka nods again, Asuma would love the dynamic of the next ino-shika-cho trio, the three of them would keep him on his toes with their intellect. Kurenai was new to him, but she seemed patient enough for Shino, Hinata and Kiba, and expected the three of them to rub off on another under her leadership. The other students and jounin were fitted together well, but they didn't inspire as much excitement for the results.
“As for Team Seven, with Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto, I've decided on Hatake Kakashi to be their jounin leader, and will not require your input on this decision.”
Iruka pauses. Then why tell him about it? Why make this meeting necessary in the first place? He stares at Hiruzen, feeling as if he's been doused with cold water. He senses the jounin on his right tensing up.
“I understand,” he forces out, “is there anything else you wish to discuss?”
“No. Do you have any further questions?” Hiruzen subtly nods his hat towards the man that they've both been ignoring.
Iruka turns to face him head on, and admirably doesn't react to how much brighter everything gets upon making eye contact — is Hatake blushing? The man's cheeks were so red and his visible eye looked so big. Was he nervous? The absurdity of that concept takes him off kilter so aggressively, he's rendered speechless.
“How did you know it was me?” the man asks, the typical lazy drawl of his voice lost in a sense of urgency.
Iruka scowls a little, openly glowering, insulted— the man's question all but out right confirming he's been avoiding him, hiding from him all this time, “you must think me to be pretty dull. It's not hard to piece together information when it's blatant,” he gestures to the man.
Kakashi opens his mouth to speak, the fabric of his mask stretching to imply as much, but Iruka cuts him off, “you have one red eye, Hound had one red eye when we discovered we were soulmates. And just now, and back at the hospital, the colours brightened when our eyes met,” Iruka lists, his temper flaring with each word, “and have you ever looked at your hair, do you even comb it.”
Hiruzen laughs, hiding it behind a cough when Iruka whips his head towards him.
“Mah, sensei, no need to get so riled up,” his eye crinkles up in a smile, waving his hands to placate him, “it was only an innocent question.”
The response makes him feel a bit embarrassed for his hostile reaction. His quick temper does him no good when he feels insulted while in civil company, standing in front of the Hokage and one of Konoha’s most notable shinobi. Seeing the latter's face, he can't really help himself, with all those terrible mission reports he's tried to hand in. That's what he'll say if Hiruzen asks later. No need to confess he's pissed off about missing nine years getting to know his soulmate and suddenly he has the information to properly document the discovery, gets to see him twice, more than he has in a decade , and will probably never ever connect with him in any meaningful way. He should be okay with this!
“Forgive me Hatake-san,” Iruka amends, “I've been under a lot of stress, I hope you can understand,” and bows at his hip, eyes facing the floor.
“No need for that,” Kakashi says, “please stand. And please, call me Kakashi.”
He lifts his head and finds the man's expression looking rather nervous. A look he strangely finds endearing, with only the one eye visible on his whole face.
“Kakashi-sensei then,” Iruka says, remembering how this man will be teaching Naruto. And Sakura and Sasuke.
“Mah, I wouldn't say that quite yet, Team Seven hasn't passed my graduation test.”
Iruka glances over to Hiruzen, who's decided the plant in the corner of the room is much more interesting. There was a reason for Kakashi to be their jounin instructor if Iruka wasn't allowed to find fault in it. And he's willing to bet that same reason will allow Team Seven to pass the test.
“They might surprise you.”
“Maybe,” this time, the smile he receives feels rather genuine in nature.
The room grows quiet after that, an awkward silence threatening to choke him out. He's not sure what to say or how to leave the room without it looking like he's rushing to escape. Fleeing from a battlefield like a deserter. Like all his training has been erased just from having a single conversation.
“Well,” he begins turning to Hiruzen to say goodbye.
“I'm off then, seeya around.”
When he looks back towards Kakashi, he's found the man has vanished, briefly catching the sight of a foot leaping off the windowsill in his peripheral. A thought comes to mind to catch hold of it and drag him back in to give him a piece of his mind. But that's just his ire still swirling around in his head, he pushes it down.
“Don't mind him,” Hiruzen says, “he's just awkward. Never had many friends.”
Iruka stares out the window, he had thought Hound to have been a friend before. Even though he wasn't very nice all the time. Most of the time.
The irritation under his skin comes to a boil, and he wonders if Hatake Kakashi would hear him if he yelled out the window.
“That's not a good excuse for being so rude.”