You had made it your personal goal to make sure that Kakashi Hatake never saw you blush. Well, at least, to make sure that he never figured out that the reason you were blushing was because of him.
It had started some years ago, when he had said something that you didn't even remember. You just knew that he looked attractive while saying it.
Well, he looked attractive all the time, but he looked particularly appealing when he had said... whatever he said. It wasn't important.
But your face betrayed what was left of your conscious, and suddenly you were snapped back into reality when Kakashi spoke to you.
"Are you blushing, (Y/N)?" He asked, a smirk on his face.
But lucky you, you weren't the only one there. Iruka was there as well, the pair were originally discussing, among with you, the new genin that year. They had all passed the exam, none with particularly amazing scores, all about average.
"Iruka looks cute today, don't you think?" You asked Kakashi, who only answered with a chuckle, and the man in question turned a bright scarlet. You then giggled, stating that it was true.
Which then meant you were in deep trouble.
For the next little while, you pretended to have a crush on Iruka. It worked fairly well, because Kakashi hadn't questioned you once since it started. This changed, however, when Iruka approached you one day.
"Hey, um, (Y/N), can we talk?" He asked, scratching the back of his head.
You nodded. "Sure, what's up?"
He then sighed. "Look, I, uh- I think it's very sweet that you like me, but I don't, um- feel... the- the same way."
Your eyes widened, and then you laughed. "Oh, Iruka. You've got it all wrong! I don't like you."
"Then who do you like, (Y/N)?" Kakashi, who had seemed to pop out of thin air, asked you, absentmindedly placing his novel in his coat pocket.
You smiled, noticing your next target at the perfect time. "That's an easy answer. Gai."
That one was relatively easy to pull off. Everytime Gai and Kakashi were doing 'rival things', as they called them, you were blushing at just how attractive Kakashi looked. Whenever you were confronted after you were noticed sporting a blush, you would wave it off and say that Gai just looked really good today.
After all, lying was better than having Kakashi actually figure out you like him, right?
That was what you thought.
You had liked him since you were a child. You had thought it was a simple admiration at first, but when you started thinking about him at night, you knew it was a lot more than just an admiration.
However, you were so terrified of him ever finding out that you liked him, you had begun to list off excuses. And when those excuses stopped working, you resorted to saying you found other people attractive.
Your fake infatuation with Gai had lasted a lot longer than you would have liked, so when he got his own genin team, you had said you didn't like him anymore and that you had moved on... to Genma.
That one lasted for longer than your Iruka phase had, but not as long as the one with Gai. No one had ever questioned it; people move on.
You just wished you could move on for real, to someone who might show an interest in you.
It had been a few weeks since you had 'begun' to have a crush on Genma. Everyone seemed to buy it, except for one person.
Kakashi never noticed you staring at Genma. At first, he just dismissed it as him being unobservant, but when he realized that Genma had full on winked at you and you didn't respond with even as much as a small blush, he knew something was up.
It was a few days after he had noticed, and you were walking home one night after a mission. You had assumed you were alone- until Kakashi pinned you against the wall.
Your eyes widened, and of course he had to pin you in a spot that was lit up by the moon. You felt your face heat up, but only for a split second, due to you somehow being able to calm down.
"You're blushing," he said with a smirk, "and Genma isn't around. Care to explain?"
You paused for a minute.
"No," you finally said, "I don't care to explain. You'd blush too if someone pinned you to a wall."
He sighed, grabbing you by the bank of your shirt and dragging you back towards him. "Sorry, I should've made it clear. You're explaining whether you want to or not."
You rolled your eyes. "You can't physically make me explain, but since I don't want to spend the rest of my life in this conveniently placed alleyway, I'll say this and this only. I blushed because of you."
"When? When did you blush because of me?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"...Yes."
He chuckled, and god was that chuckle going to be the death of you. "You know, you could have just said that you liked me."
You frowned. "No, no, I couldn't have. Why would I willingly admit my feelings to someone who's literally never shown romantic interest in me during the entire time I've known him? I'm not an idiot. I can tell when someone doesn't like me."
"Clearly, you can't," Kakashi said with a smirk, "because I return your feelings. Perhaps we both ought to just say how we feel from now on, yeah?"
You nodded. "Okay. Okay, I'll do that. I- I've liked you since we were children."
"Ah, you loved me first. I fell shortly after I left ANBU."
"It was unrequited for that long!?"
"'fraid so. But does it matter? Here I am, returning your feelings."
You then smiled. "Thank you. For, um, returning my feelings, I guess...? And I'm sorry for lying to you. I guess I just didn't know what to do if I were to get rejected."
"That may have been one of the reasons I was putting off on just asking you out. I thought you actually might like one of those guys."
"Kakashi, for heaven's sake, I have standards."
