Candy Hearts (Kakashi Hatake x Iruka Umino) (Valentine's Day 2019)

2/13

Kakashi smiled, stretched out against a sturdy tree branch, legs crossed and back leaning against the trunk as he read one of his favorite books in the Makeout series. Of course, the silver-haired man enjoyed his books- especially on a nice, quiet night like this- but when no other than Iruka Umino walked by and sat on the bench that was only a couple feet below the tree he was sitting in, his interest was piqued.

"Reading again, Kakashi?" Iruka leaned back, looking up and into the tree. Though Kakashi was mostly hidden by leaves and branches, he knew that Iruka could sense his presence- after all, the brunette had always been rather talented at picking up on other people's chakra, and Kakashi hadn't made any effort to hide from the younger man.

"Hey, Iruka," Kakashi greeted, pushing his book into the back pocket of his pants before hopping out of the tree and landing smoothly on the ground. Then, he walked to the bench and sat next to the brunette, who looked like he was much more relaxed than he had been the day before. "What ended up happening with Konohamaru yesterday?"

"You want the honest answer to that?" Iruka laughed, looking off to the side as he ran a hand through his ponytail.

Kakashi thought back to the past few days; going to Iruka's for dinner, staying the night at his house, and even kissing him- regardless of the fact that it was an accident. He was almost embarrassed, and he desperately wanted to make a move, though he wasn't sure how. At this point, he felt like it wasn't just a friend thing with Iruka, but he also didn't know how to take the next step forward.

"Obviously."

"Well... I think he was just acting up because of everything going on in his life right now. After the passing of Lord Third, he's changed a bit, and he's living with Asuma. I know Asuma's a good guy, and he tries to be there, but he's busy like Konohamaru's parents were, and he can be like a brick wall sometimes." That much was true. As nice as Asuma was, and as caring as he was, he often had trouble expressing it to the people closest to him- The Third when he'd been alive, Kurenai, and Konohamaru. Asuma was great, but he wasn't really the person you wanted to talk to about your feelings. "He did actually help me catch Konohamaru, but I didn't administer any sort of punishment."

"Not even detention?" Kakashi questioned, shocked. Sure, he knew Iruka was a little too lenient despite the strict face he tried to put on for his students, but with how utterly frustrated the brunette had looked yesterday, Kakashi figured that there would've been some sort of consequence for Konohamaru's actions. "You seemed pretty flustered when you were chasing him yesterday. What'd he even do in the first place?"

"...Him and his friends were making jokes about you and I kissing in a tree all throughout the schoolday even after I told them to stop, so I gave them detention and they all ran off in different directions throughout the village as soon as the school bell rang. All the other academy teachers were busy, so I had to catch all of five by myself, excluding Konohamaru, who was much harder to attain. Obviously, I couldn't use any capture jutsus that would physically harm them, so it made things harder."

"I would've," Kakashi chuckled, recalling a few incidents where he'd trapped Naruto and Sasuke in rope or something of the sort for trying to kill each other- an occurrence that happened more often than he would've liked to admit when the two were still under his wing.

"Your students are genin, though. Mine are basically babies."

"Fair point," Kakashi shrugged, shooting a glance in Iruka's direction when he noticed that their shoulders were brushing. Had he really been that close when he'd initially sat down, or had he subconsciously started moving in Iruka's direction? Maybe it'd been the other way around? He wasn't quite sure, but either way, he didn't mind it. "I think you're too nice to them sometimes. You seriously just let him go home after that?"

"Well, not necessarily... I was going to give him and his friends detention, but he talked about how he was going to go to the graveyard to visit his grandfather, and... It'd been a while since I'd visited," Iruka rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward and clasping his hands together as he looked at the ground. Suddenly, Kakashi really wanted to hold those hands, to give Iruka a hug, but physical contact hadn't been his forte and just reaching out to hold the brunette's hand the day before yesterday had been more than enough for him. "So, we went back to the academy and made up some lie about me having this grievous, scary punishment for Konohamaru, and then after they left, him and I went to Lord Third's gravestone and paid our respects for an hour or two, talked things out. Then, I walked him back to Asuma's and went home... I hope he's feeling better."

"You're a good teacher." Regardless of his earlier hesitation, Kakashi reached over and placed a reassuring hand on his crush's shoulder, smiling under his mask when Iruka looked at him again. "Soft, but good. I hope you know that."

"I'm not soft!" Iruka pouted like a child, sitting up straight and crossing his arms. Though he looked in the opposite direction, he didn't move away from Kakashi's touch. "Just... Understanding."

"Right. Maybe you should learn to understand your surroundings a little better, because yesterday when you accidentally kissed me-"

"Kakashi! Um, about that-" Iruka started to talk, but Kakashi, suddenly feeling panicked and cornered, stood up. He hadn't been prepared for this at all. Maybe, if he could escape for a small amount of time, he could just confess the next day. After all, tomorrow was Valentine's day.

"Meet me up here tomorrow night at eight, okay?" Kakashi questioned, looking down at Iruka, who appeared to be terribly confused.

"U-Uh, okay! See you then! But don't you wanna talk about-?"

"See you then."

And with that, he was off, wondering exactly how he was going to word things when he met the brunette the next day to confess his feelings.