Chapter 4: Camouflage

Sometimes Kakashi would think about disappearing far away from Konoha, to some nameless town with Iruka by his side; away from the foreboding war. Away from the increasing death toll. Away from the entire shinobi life, and live happily ever after, like in fairy tales. Sometimes he would even think of death, asking for it to come and take him away where he could rest forever but Kakashi knows wishing is silly, because it would never happen the way he wanted it to. And even if it did, it would mean 2 less shinobi to protect the very village he grew up in, and more deaths to the people Iruka cared for.

With a deep sigh, Kakashi resigned to thinking that what ever he was doing was probably for the best. By keeping away from Iruka, he would be able to defend the village, and if anything happened to him, it'll be one less person to shed tears for.

Iruka sighed when he added yet another empty lunch box to his growing pile. There was no helping it. Each time he got to work, he would find a packed lunch box waiting for him on his desk. Whoever had been anonymously feeding must have had a lot of time and money to carefully prepare his meals. It was flattering and sweet of the person to do so, and to think that his meals had been monitored daily made Iruka want to smile fondly.... or pull his hair out of frustration. For the love of mother nature, he was an able man, fully capable of taking care of himself!

"Iruka-sensei~!" Naruto waved from a distance, immediately closing it with his little jump-hug. It was cute when he was younger, but now that the boy was almost as tall as him, Iruka was happy to still be standing upright in the aftermath.

"Oi, oi! You've grown bigger haven't you?" Iruka held his ex-student at an arm's length and studied the boy.

"Of course I have! That perverted old man kept starving me though, all in the name of that stupid book of his!" Naruto pretended to gag but was interrupted when a familiar silver haired man dropped from the branches.

"Only you would not understand a classic, that is, the Icha-Icha series."

Naruto beamed widely, seeing both his old teachers . "Kakashi-sensei, are you still into that stuff?"

Kakashi's eye curved up happily, yet not quite answering the question. Instead, he turned to acknowledge the academy sensei. "Iruka."

Iruka put on a smile and nodded back in greeting. Their little awkward greeting slipped by Naruto's attention as he pulled out a new book from Jiraiya.

"Here you go, Kakashi-sensei. A gift from Jiraiya-sensei himself for being such a loyal fan of his Icha-icha series."

Kakashi took the book graciously from the boy and flipped open the front page. Once again with a hint of a smile through the only exposed part of his face, Kakashi shut it close and thanked the son of his teacher, now under his own tutelage.

In a flash, traces of the silver hair disappeared.

Iruka watched in silence before his ex-student snapped him out of his daze.

"Iruka-sensei, are you alright? You seem a little out of it." Naruto's looked at his old academy school teacher in concern.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Shall we head over for some lunch? I'm starving!" It took little to steer the boy's attention, which Iruka did with food. It was best that Naruto was left in the dark about their little problem. He was not even aware that they were ever together to begin with, let alone facing a turbulence despite having end their relationship a year prior. In the eyes of the little nine-tail carrier, they each had nothing to do with the other except through him.

In the privacy of an abandoned rooftop, Kakashi flipped open the book once again. In it was a short message from Jiraiya himself. At a glance, it seemed like a normal message that an author would have written to a fan, but as one of Kakashi's key principles in life was to read beneath the underneath. His mind had quickly rearranged the words to form the true message the Sennin had sent him, making full use of Kakashi's principles on him. They are on the move, the words finally formed. Immediately, the silver haired jounin rushed over to the hokage tower to warn Tsunade.

Iruka found himself that night standing outside Kakashi's door... again. This time, he has with the piles of lunch boxes he had growing in his kitchen. On top of the neat pile, were two not-so-empty boxes, both filled with Kakashi's favourites, egg-plant miso, rice and natto.

He fidgeted a little. His mind kept telling him to leave the boxes outside the unopened door and return home, but his heart compelled him to stay. Finally after 10 minutes of fidgeting, Iruka gathered his courage and knocked on the door.

"What are you doing here?"

Iruka yelped out as the sudden voice had him startled.

"Will you stop doing that?" Iruka automatically reprimanded the pale haired man, whose door he had just knocked, only to have him appear unnoticed from behind, instead of the front where he should have been.

Kakashi chuckled at loud reaction, one which never he cease to receive from the academy teacher each time he pulled such a stunt.

"Didn't anyone tell you that it's rude to answer a question with a question?" an eye curved upwards amusedly.

Iruka pouted instinctively at that. "Well, aren't you doing it too?"

"So why are you still keeping it up?"

"Weren't you the one who started this?" Iruka fumed and got even more frustrated at himself when he realized that he had, in fact, unknowingly fell into the older man's trap.

"But isn't this fun?" Kakashi chuckled quietly to himself as the other turned redder by the moment.

"I'm here to return these boxes to you." Iruka finally replied firmly, breaking himself away from the mindless argument he was involving himself into.

"Aww. You broke the chain." Kakashi spoke without a hint of regret in his voice. Instead he shrugged of the entire matter as if it hadn't mattered to him in the least bit, and walked past the tanned chuunin to get to his door.

"Kakashi, I'm not here to play games with you. Here, take your bento boxes. And also, I figured since you're back this late, that you haven't had your dinner. So I took it upon myself to make you some." Iruka brought up his bag of piled food containers, carefully balancing the two filled boxes at the top, a frown pulled at his lips.

Kakashi looked down at the offerings before reverting his eyes up to the chocolate brown ones.

"You do realize I can't finish those on my own, right? Since you took such efforts to make it, why don't you just come in and eat with me?" Kakashi unlocked the door and held it open for the brunette.

Iruka stood dumbfounded at the door.

"It's not like I prepared a feast for you. It's just miso and rice." he finally mumbled. "And I probably shouldn't."

Kakashi let out a tired sigh and dropped all facades he had been holding up the entire time.

"Look, it's just for dinner alright. It's not like I'm asking you for anything else."

Iruka watched the tired gray eyes looking back into his own brown ones. He finally let out the breath he had unknowingly held and gingerly stepped into the house, once upon a time he could walk in without feeling the little ache in his heart.

He placed the bento boxes on the counter top and watched the man fall heavily into the couch before bending down, not without a wince, to unwind the bandages on his calves.

Leaving the bento boxes abandoned on the counter top for a few moments, Iruka headed over to the jounin and took it upon himself and held the hands still.

"Stop. Let me do it before you bust open that wound of yours again." Unsmilingly, the tanned man unwound the bandages with practiced ease.

"Let me check the one on your back too, since I'm here."

Kakashi smiled tiredly and muttered a word of thanks as he let the younger man take charge of things, his body was just too tired from the lack of sleep the past few days. He could suddenly feel his age catching up with him.

The entire exchange was quiet. No one spoke much, and as awkward as it was, it was all surprisingly peaceful. In fact it was so peaceful that they were both painfully aware just how easy it was for them to fall back into the routine the had stopped over a year ago.

After the quiet supper, Iruka headed back home, leaving Kakashi alone with his thoughts. Somehow, now that the brunette had left, loneliness crept in.

"Hey boss, that kid was just here wasn't he? I can smell his scent all over the kitchen and the couch."

Kakashi shrugged uninterestedly at the comment the little pug made.

Seeing the lack of response from his current master, Pakkun gave an audible sigh. "Why do you humans like to complicate the simple things in life? You mate, have pups, bring them up and move on."

Kakashi frowned, frustration growing worse by the minute. He ignored the fact that it was impossible for himself and Iruka to have children, even if they tried.

"It's not that simple. I have issues with myself too big for myself to deal with. It'll only wear him down in the end."

Pakkun rolled his eyes, reading his current pack leader's words were just absurd.

"It's all in your head kid, it's all in your head. Deal your problems together, I don't see you having problems doing just that with the rest of the pack."

Kakashi gave no reply as he continued his preparations for the mission he had in the next few hours. It was an important mission he had to carry out, one which could make or break their village. He was entrusted by the old lady and Jiraiya to scout out for the dangers and settle them at a far away from the village. All he had with him were a handful of ANBU members. War was fast approaching the village, and he'd be damned if they could not at least hold it out for a little longer. Facing it would be the inevitable, but Kakashi held on to his hope. There were far too many innocent civilians and children still wondering about the streets, oblivious to the current situation., but his mind centered about a tanned face of the academy teacher.

After final checks of his equipments, Kakashi pulled up his mask and headed out to face danger in the eye.