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Every day, Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sama meet at Ramen Ichiraku. Not at the same time, not in adjacent seats, but feeling the imprint of each other's presence at opposite ends of the counter. Kakashi has never had a particular taste for ramen, but the month leading up to Naruto's wedding has been stressful in ways that two wars and counterintelligence ANBU missions never were. Seeing Naruto's generation pairing off in what promises to be a deluge of weddings has left his chest aching with unfamiliar beats. He's reminded of the end of the Third War – where the background music to his Sharingan-new memories were full of wedding songs and laughing babies, the foregrounded by haze-flavored days waking to the same carousel of nightmares. Back then, it was Minato-sensei's generation flush with post-war love. He hopes this is the last time the children of one war become the generals of the next.
Same-sex relationships were not permitted in Kakashi's day – teenage boys could enjoy their misspent youth fooling around with each other, but it was expected that the phase would end and they would move on to the real relationships to start real families. The same went for girls. There were always one or two exceptions, couples who remained together well into their twenties, but they were considered immature, clinging to childish habits, not real shinobi. Staying in a same-sex relationship was a surefire way to sabotage your career: No one was promoted to jounin. If someone had been, it was the best kept secret in Konoha.
Iruka and Kakashi's affair had lasted all of three years – Iruka fifteen, Kakashi seventeen, Iruka newly failed the chuunin exam while most of his cohort had been promoted. It lasted until they were caught, Iruka harshly reprimanded and nearly sidelined in his career. They didn't do anything to Kakashi – ANBU's official policy was to look the other way, attributing any same-sex relationships to the demands of the job, but it was understood that ANBU only had same-sex relationships with other ANBU. Iruka's demerit was redacted from his file because allowing it to remain meant there was a partner. Even if that partner wasn't named, shinobi were too nosy not to seek out the answer – ANBU didn't want one of their best operatives outed because an ambitious mission desk worker put two and two together.
From then on, Iruka and Kakashi pretended not to know each other. It wasn't difficult on Iruka's part – he only knew Kakashi as ANBU Hound. Kakashi had kept his masks on. Iruka didn't know how to get in contact with him aside from their dead drops, which Hound changed anyway depending on the length of his or Iruka's next mission. Every so often Kakashi would find something on an empty bench, one of their old dead drops: a smooth pebble, red maple leaf, a snowball. Once Iruka had been particularly reckless and left a tiny sea shell. Every so often, Kakashi would leave something in return: half a dog biscuit, some Iwa gravel he found in his foot wrappings, the lint in his pocket. No letters, nothing identifying.
The one mission he'd led with Iruka on the team had been disastrous – in his effort to maintain distance, he lost sight and Iruka had paid for his negligence. There was no question that it had been a test. Sandaime all but confirmed it when he didn't dismiss Kakashi when Iruka asked to be taken off the mission roster. Kakashi had been selfishly relieved to know Iruka was going to become an Academy teacher. By then, Iruka must have known: the infraction might have been redacted, but he was never going to make jounin.
Command froze Kakashi and Iruka in place, trapped them in Konoha's amber. Command wouldn't sanction their relationship and made it clear that Iruka would dishonorably discharged if they started up again. But command also had to acknowledge that Iruka was an important influence on Kakashi in a way few others were. If Rin and Obito hadn't died. If Yondaime hadn't died. If Kakashi hadn't been so damn good at what he did, or if he didn't have the Sharingan, or if he wasn't so painfully obvious about his disinterest in and/or inability to form any other relationships. If, if, if, all of it amounting to nothing. If Kakashi showed any indication that he would move on, the powers that be would not have made this decision.
He did not move on. He didn't try to initiate contact with Iruka again, but he also began actively pushing his other friends away. Mood changes and isolation were the first signs of a shinobi on the road to breakdown. The daimyo's stable assigned a companion goat to high-strung stallions to keep the horse from going crazy – Iruka's existence was enough to act as a goat. So long as Kakashi remained on active duty, Konoha would not risk their only Sharingan operative by allowing his last (and only known) romantic attachment outside the village walls. Kakashi could focus on his missions, secure in the knowledge that Iruka was safe.
Without question, the decision was unfair to Iruka. He couldn't have known at fifteen that his career path would be completely derailed for having caught the interest of ANBU Hound. Command wasn't concerned with fairness, however, because everyone in Konoha made sacrifices for the village. From their perspective, this was no different from civilian spouses being separated from their shinobi partners due to missions which could lead to death. Or a jounin team leader ordered to break it off with their chuunin subordinate due to the chain of command. Iruka and Kakashi were not the only shinobi couple separated by duty, they wouldn't be the last. The reason for their separation just happened to be the ban on same-sex relationships.
Compared to the Icha Icha series, Iruka and Kakashi's three-year affair had been tame. There were no dinners or holding hands walking by the river. They had to be careful and creative on the places they met. Iruka still lived in the orphanage dormitories and Kakashi was billeted in the jounin barracks. Konoha's forests crawled with patrols, traps, and enemy-nin; training fields were always booked or being used by couples sneaking around. They found ways to make time – it was as scarce as safe space. The first year they were together, Kakashi had regular missions and Iruka was either training for his chuunin exams or taking as many missions as he could get to count towards his chuunin exam qualification. Once he passed, Iruka had more free time, but it was Kakashi who was caught in a web of political machinations. Their last year was when Kakashi seriously contemplated showing Iruka his unmasked face, only to have that choice taken from him when they called Kakashi in to watch T&I through the one-way mirror.
Iruka refused to give up anything substantive during the interrogation and Kakashi didn't let it go as far as torture. Neither of them resented Konoha for separating them – they knew they were flouting the rules – but Kakashi disliked the way the command went about it. There was no need to put on a performance. It was this, more than any deep love for Iruka, that had Kakashi dig his heels in. Konoha owned every single part of him and he had always been loyal. He had lost so many closest to him; he had served longer than most. They didn't have to yank the chain when he would have heeled, if asked.
They shouldn't have put Iruka in a choke chain and muzzle. Iruka may not have been Kakashi's comrade in the field, but he was a devoted shinobi whose will of fire burned bright as his smile. Iruka's only wish was to serve Konoha, lay down his life for its protection just as his mother and father had before him. He had done nothing to deserve this kind of treatment. Kakashi felt a visceral responsibility he hadn't felt since Obito and Rin – he would protect Iruka, he would keep at least one person alive.
Love – romantic love – was something Kakashi couldn't quite understand. If the time he'd spent with Iruka was love, then Kakashi thought it must be something close to freedom. When Kakashi was with Iruka, he acted a little goofy, a little stupid, a lot ridiculous, a lot laughter. Something unloosed in his chest that made him smile more often, play more tricks, tell more jokes, reach out to touch. Winding Iruka up was fun; watching Iruka let himself be wound up was thrilling. Kakashi felt the same adrenaline rush through his veins every time they kissed, but without the killing intent. At first, the forbidden nature of the affair was part of the draw.
He couldn't even remember where or when he'd first seen Iruka, possibly because there was no one encounter which made him go, "yes, that is Iruka, I know his face." Kakashi was around, Iruka was around. Shinobi were always around. They might not know each other or ever work together, but they were bound to run into each other. He knows they first spoke to each other standing in front of the memorial stone. Kakashi had to go on a mission, Iruka had been hogging The Spot. Iruka had also been crying – Kakashi wracked his brain for a full five minutes thinking of how to get Iruka to leave without disrespecting his grief.
He gave up, appeared out of nowhere startling Iruka, who assumed the worst and assumed it was one of his friends who'd bought a mask at a costume shop. Kakashi was subjected to Iruka's irate yelling that he wasn't sad, he wasn't sad at all, he was happy, he was proud of his parents' sacrifice. Kakashi awkwardly patted Iruka's shoulder, unsure what to do, until Iruka caught on that Kakashi was actual ANBU with an actual mask, and actual katana with an actual uniform. He turned bright red and Kakashi decided he was cute – embarrassed and belligerent and trying to hide it.
A few stolen moments over three years, then stolen moments watching Iruka from afar, and decades getting by with a few conversations, only one of them knowing what the other meant to him. It felt like so little – it was so very little compared to the lifetime that Naruto had ahead of him with Hinata. Kakashi found himself in the strange position of empathizing with Sakura: uncertain, separated by more than distance.
Kakashi didn't know why he hadn't told Iruka he was ANBU Hound after all these years. Every so often his mannerisms slipped, accidentally grabbing Iruka's shoulders, smiling stupidly widely under his mask, acting a little dumb, a little silly, a little strange just to see Iruka react. Sometimes he was certain Iruka knew, other times he wondered if Iruka remembered Hound at all, or those memories were overwritten by the passage of time. Since the time they were discovered, Iruka had been in very, very few relationships. It seemed he exclusively preferred men, but as an active duty shinobi, the prohibition on same-sex relationships still applied. Doubly so because he was a teacher – there was a strong stigma associated. It was one of the reasons why he wasn't allowed to adopt Naruto.
They had been adults, but looking back they had been so young when the prohibition had been planted so deep, it defined all the relationships they attempted when they were older. Perhaps he hadn't told Iruka because he was so used to living with this secret and unveiling it now would only bring a tidal wave of regrets for so many years lost, potential cut before it had a chance to grow. Kakashi carried many secrets; his entire life was made of S-class missions and things he's never told. This secret isn't the worst, nor is it the heaviest, yet he finds himself hesitant to reveal it. The memories are a little worn now, without the Sharingan to keep it picture perfect. They're comfortable like the worn pages of his first Icha Icha volume.
Kakashi isn't much for what ifs, could have beens. He doesn't hang onto regrets; he takes things as they come. It's deeply uncharacteristic of him to hesitate like this, waffle and hedge and go back and forth. Perhaps it's not so surprising – if he were good at romance, he wouldn't read Icha Icha.
The only thing he can decide is that he doesn't want to eat ramen forever. The taste will go stale.
He can convince Iruka to take the exam for vice principal. He can convince the board to make Iruka vice principal. He can announce he's repealing the ban on same-sex relationships. He can retire as Rokudaime and pass the torch to Naruto. He can ask Iruka out on a date as Hatake Kakashi.
He can take things one at a time, as it happens. The right day will come, to tell Iruka what he already knows. He thinks Iruka will forgive him for being a few decades late.