Verbatim (Kakashi Hatake x Iruka Umino)

Chapter Fourteen

Iruka Umino sighed as he paced around the living room of his best friend, Anko Mitarashi. Instead of heading to Anko's like he'd been planning to after having Kakashi discover that it was him who had been writing Verbatim, he'd gone home to wallow in his own embarrassment and shame. He'd let a couple of days pass before actually going to Anko's so she could read the final draft of the fourth book, and he was glad that he hadn't seen Kakashi again in that short span of time.

He hadn't told anyone about what had happened, and it seemed like Kakashi hadn't either, considering that he hadn't heard anything about it. Of course, that made sense. Kakashi wasn't one to commit such malfeasance against him.

Anko was laying on her plush, comfortable couch, feet propped up on one of the arms as she read. Without much warning, she closed the book, a small snap from the collision of hardcover and paper resonating through the room. She looked up at Iruka, who had quickly stopped pacing at the noise. He stood there for a moment. He was silent, staring at her curiously until she pointed at him and spoke.

"So, what's wrong? You're pacing again!"

Ah. The pacing had always been a nervous habit of his- something he did when he was upset or confused about something, which he definitely was when it came to this entire situation.

"I think I'm dead inside," He muttered, walking over to the couch. Anko lifted her legs for him to sit, immediately placing them on his lap when he sunk into the soft cushion and leaned against the back.

"What'd you do to embarrass yourself in front of him this time?" She seemed to already know that this was about Kakashi (yet again), causing him to shake his head and laugh in both amusement and shame. "Y'all hook up again?"

"I was walking past him with a copy of the new book to take to you the other day and I dropped it like an idiot. He picked it up for me, and everything seemed like it clicked at once- like, he called me out for having the unpublished book, then connected the penname to me..." He explained the situation as Anko set the book down in her lap, shaking her head as well.

"You could've tried to lie your way out of that!" She scolded, giving him a playfully chastising expression. "How on earth are you a ninja if you can't even lie correctly? You could've easily said something like 'oh, my friend's the author and I'm just a beta reader, and I gave them the penname,', no?"

While it was true that she had a point, Iruka had been so panicked at the time that he hadn't even been able to come up with a good lie to tell. On top of that, as easy as the thought of lying to Kakashi was to conjure, using that kind of subterfuge against the person he was in love with wasn't exactly easy. Through the course of his books being published, he'd tried to avoid the subject because lying to Kakashi was hard. Of course, he'd ended up failing in keeping his anonymity up around the older man in the end, but still...

"I can't lie to Kakashi like that," He started, debating on spilling just how guilty it would make him feel before opting to talk about how perceptive Kakashi was instead. "He isn't stupid- he'd pick up on it instantly."

"Fair point." Anko moved her legs off of his lap and sat up.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do, Anko."

"Talk to him and be honest about it?" She suggested in a sarcastic tone, as if it were easy. "That's a good idea."

"That's hard, though!" Iruka exclaimed, looking off to the side and running a hand through his ponytail as a frustrated off escaped from in between his lips. "He's totally gonna think I'm weird. Then again, he is reading it."

"See? I don't know why you don't just tell him about your feelings."

"Because he probably doesn't return them." Iruka frowned, not even thinking about it as he stood and began to pace around the room again.