“If I hadn’t met you…
I would remain the same.
A never-ending cycle.
But you know what?
I’m glad I did.
You changed my boring life…
Into something so much more.”


His pencil stopped on the paper as he sat there, the desk light eliminated the white paper before him. He heaved a sigh; the pencil’s eraser was suddenly in his mouth. His black eyes looked down at it with boredom and annoyance, he glared at it as if it was the paper’s fault he couldn’t write.

He heaved another sigh, chestnut hair was pinned up in a ponytail on the back of his head, on his face, there was a faded old scar that stretched from one far eye corner, over his nose, and to the other far eye corner.

He twitched his mouth, watching the pencil dance slowly up and down. He sighed, even at night, in secret, when he wrote. His talent was vanishing before his very eyes. He sighed once more and reached up a hand to take out the pencil from his mouth. He balanced it on his hand and stared at it.

A soft snore cast his bored eyes back towards the door behind him. A door shrouded in shadows. The man’s lips curled into a gentle and secret smile. He looked down at his hands, at the pencil they held and smiled once more.

He smiled as he thought of his secret lover, but why was he chosen? Him, the boring teacher, almost the only thing exciting about him was the fact that he had a scare on his face, long hair, and that he ate ramen.

Iruka sighed once more; he seemed to do that so often. But it was like he couldn’t stop sighing, either with pleasure or with sorrow and hopelessness.

He could still remember the looks people gave him. Those blank stares.

Despite the heat of the room, the teacher shivered with revulsion and dread. He closed his eyes, remembering the passed he’d hoped had been forgotten. He closed his eyes tightly, recalling events far passed and long forgotten.

-Flash back begins-


The small child, most likely at the age of ten or so, sat there, in the corner of his empty home. He couldn’t remember those who’d slaved to buy this home. The ones who had raised him so gently. Tears threatened at the corner of his eyes as he fell back into that well of hopeless despair. He sobbed softly, face suddenly buried in his arms, knees drawn tight up against his chest.

“Why?” He sobbed softly, it didn’t matter if he screamed, this house was a dead-zone. No one would care. No one ever cared. Everyone thought he was a pitiful boy who’d lost his parents. Big deal.

Well, to him, it was a big deal. He cried quietly, but soon stood up and wiped the tears away on the back of his hand, he tottered towards the room he remembered so well, if not the occupants who had once lived in the room.

He collapsed on the bed in a state of fright, sorrow, agony, grief… rage. No one cared for him, he was all alone. He remember the feeling when the other student’s got picked up by their parents. But Iruka was always alone.

ALONE! He agonized silently, I DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE! He screamed at himself in the safety of his own mind. He’d curled himself up on the large bed, hands clasped over his ears as if to drive out phantom sounds that might plague him.

His eyes snapped open. What if he killed himself? No one would care, he was just a burden on Konoha anyway. He was better off dead than alive. No one cared about him, no one, no one cared for poor little Iruka.

No one cared for ‘dolphin-chan.’

Iruka’s heart ignited with rage at the sound of his tormentors. The other students who enjoyed picking on him when the Teacher’s back was turned. He closed his eyes, but the words flowed through him.

‘You’re a nobody!’

‘No one cares about you!’

‘Go home Dolphin-chan, you’re not welcome here!’

He buried his face in the sheets of his dead parent’s bed, crying with loneliness. With defeat. He sat up on his bed, he sneezed softly and lowered his head into his small hands, that’s what I’ll do, He decided, I’ll throw myself off the wall… no one will care. It’ll be fast. No one’ll stop me either.

So, Iruka sat at his desk and wrote his death-letter. Not that anyone would care. He wrote it more for his parent’s sake. He explained why he was doing this, why he was a burden. How he loved them more than anything else.

When he was done with the letter, he sighed it with his name. He felt strangely calm, his eyes closed and he fell asleep on his desk, peace, at long last, stole over him in the form of sleep.

The next morning, Iruka awoke to a thin beam of light stealing over his face. He smiled sadly, today was the day that he died. The day that he killed himself. He didn’t have any friends, why would anyone care if he was gone? They wouldn’t.

Who knows, even those other kids might throw a party.

A celebration of his death.

The day seemed brighter to him, he was going to skip class, clean up the house, eat so lunch, and then…

He was going to die.

He had it all planned out; where he was going to jump from, what he was going to where, what time of day it was going to be at.

He had it all planned.

The clock struck ten o’clock, only three more hours until he would cease to exist. He smiled as he went around the house, cleaning it up calmly and delicately, he sighed and went to put more things away.

Then the clock struck an hour before his last wish would be fulfilled. He nodded his head and fixed breakfast for him; no one had come yet, they hadn’t expected anything like this to happen.

It would be the last prank that the class-clone played in his life.

Half an hour to go now, he gathered his clothes and slipped them on. With a last, farewell look around his home, he locked the door and set out. He smiled, the day was bright, he decided that he wanted to run, he grinned, giggled; and acted like a kid who had no troubles.

People waved at him, he smiled and waved back at them. He knew they were just being polite, they really didn’t like him, he knew it. He was also just being polite to him. As he neared the wall, he almost seemed to fly. Soon his life would be over. Soon. He knew he had a big grin on his face. As if he was greeting a parent who was on duty.

The ANBU and other jounin on watch let him by, assuming that he had something he needed to do. Which was true, Iruka did have something he needed to do. He needed to kill himself. The ten year old raced up the steps to the very tallest part of the wall. He smiled and fingered the scar acrossed the bridge of his nose. He laughed with abandoned pride and felt his heart race with the joy he knew he’d find.

When he finally cleared the last step and came out onto the tallest part of the wall. He spread his arms wide and laughed happily. He leaped in a flash up onto the wall of the gate and looked down. The green trees, the smell of the wood below him. He sighed with joy. It was all so perfect. The only thing that was perfect on his day.

He spread his arms like a gliding eagle and closed his black eyes. He tilted himself forwards…

… and fell off the wall.

He could feel the wind rush in his ears. He’d known it was a long fall, but this was longer than he’d thought it should have been. He wanted to die. That was true. He smiled, but didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t have mattered; no one cared about him anyway.

He knew he was almost to the ground, he could feel it. When something grabbed him out of the air. With a startled yelp, he was jerked aside and felt the wind rush out of his chest. “Oof!” He could recall saying, he felt the arm around his waist.

It was all so confusing! Why was this hand there? Who’d had saved him? He didn’t want to be saved! He didn’t! No one was supposed to care about him! No one! He almost screamed when he realized that he didn’t have the breath to do so. He didn’t open his eyes until the wind had stopped shifting passed his face.

He was placed down, his face tilted forwards, chin to his chest as he stood there. Where was he? On a tree, he could tell, but the soft wood feel under his hands. He didn’t dare to look up at the one who’d saved him.

“What do you think you were doing?”

A voice demanded, it sounded slightly muffled as if something covered his mouth. Iruka felt a tear leak out of his eye, “I –I wanted to kill myself.” He confessed softly, his voice tiny as he felt. He’d been caught.

He looked up at the one who’d saved him. He met that single black eye, and gasped. The gray hair that flopped over on the side of his head. Iruka swallowed a groan. The headband that should have been worn on his forehead, was worn covering one eye. On the boy’s face there was a mask.

Iruka flinched when the boy a crossed from him, only three or four years his elder, lifted up a hand. But, instead of a strike like Iruka expected, the hand rested on his head, he looked up.

“Why would you do something like that?”

He asked. The boy -Hatake Kakashi- had crouched in front of him and was smiling with that single eye. Iruka gulped, his eyes watered with tears at the kindness of the boy in front of him.

Without knowing why, Iruka threw himself forwards and tackled Kakashi, clinging to his midsection. Iruka, who had never once felt loved, or wanted, suddenly did. Kakashi, sensing the boy’s need to be held and spoken softly to, wrapped his arms around the child and held him close.

Kakashi, or course, had never done this before. But his body had acted for him when he saw the small almost limp bundle of clothing fall off the wall. His body had moved without his asking. Perhaps this was another trait that Obito had given him before he’d died. Kakashi lifted on hand and gently placed it over his special eye. He closed the other one in silent remembrance and looked down at Iruka.

The boy was shivering in his arms. Kakashi noticed that he was merely a stick of bones. Kakashi looked sadly at the small child, Iruka was sobbing now, only a few words were audible to the jounin as he listened to the kid.

“I-I wanted to die!” Sobbing, “I was just a burden on e-e-everyone!” More sobbing, Kakashi held the kid and let him pour out all of his pent-up emotions into his ears and into his vest. “No body c-cared about me… I-I ju-just thought it would be be-be-better if I just killed myself!” Iruka sobbed.

Kakashi was stunned, this poor kid? Thought he was unloved! That no one cared about him, Kakashi lowered his warm hand into the shivering bundle of clothes and lifted up Iruka’s chin. He found himself gazing into the heart-broken and lonely eyes of Iruka. Kakashi himself this time, had to swallow back a sigh.

“Why would you be a burden? How would Konoha profit from yet another death?” He asked softly, his voice a low purr to the small child, Kakashi went on, “You’re needed, maybe not yet, Iruka-kun, but you will be needed someday. I’m sure you’ll do the best you can do.” Kakashi told him.

“Everyone is needed.” He said softly into Iruka’s ear. The ten-year old looked at the fourteen-year old and swallowed another wash of tears. He nodded his head and cast his eyes at the ground.

Kakashi pulled the kid back into his arms, Iruka went there like a limp noodle. Kakashi bent his face close to Iruka’s ear and whispered some words into the boy’s ear.

-Flash back ends-


“--Everyone must look forwards, if we do not look forwards, but instead dwell on the past. Then there is no future; keep your eyes forward Iruka-kun, I’ll always be there for you.”

Iruka, now thirty-three, sat back in the chair. He’d been pulled back but a warm hand around his neck and shoulders. He froze, but with joy, once again, Kakashi had dragged him out of the black darkness of his past.

Iruka glanced up and shifted his black eyes to meet the single black eye that met his own. Kakashi smiled, his face wasn’t covered by a mask, it was the handsomest thing Iruka had ever seen. The chuunin looked at his jounin partner and smiled sadly.

“Still dwelling in the past, Iruka-kun?”

Kakashi asked him, Iruka nodded his head slightly with hesitation. Kakashi gave him a small smile, Iruka turned around and stood up, he was just a few inches shorter than Kakashi was, but they still saw eye-to-eye.

Kakashi chuckled softly and leaned forward on Iruka’s body, his arms wrapped around Iruka’s neck and pulled the man in close. Kakashi tickled Iruka’s ear with his lips as he whispered into the other’s ear,

“Keep your eyes forward Iruka-kun,”

Kakashi started, it was something he told Iruka enough times, the chuunin smiled and finished it, breathing into Kakashi’s ear,

“I’ll always be there for you.”

Iruka finished, he could feel Kakashi smile,

“And so I shall.”


---


{..{ Please, tell me what you think of it. It's a different sort of thing that most of you are used to I bet. Emo Iruka. :3 }..}