Memoirs Of A

[permetaform]

Memoirs Of A

.o0o.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and am not making money off this.

AN: I'd wanted to post an older!NaruKaka, but this was taking up Doc Manager space and the Epic would not stop growing. ::wry::

Warning: KakaNaru, semi-underage, non-explicit.

.o0o.

"Ah Kakashi-san!" She bowed. "Good evening."

He tilted his head at the mistress of the house. He would normally not revisit a place, especially not one where he's apparently recognized, but.

A few months ago he'd caught sight of a girl, sixteen or seventeen from the way that she moved (that her chest moved) and she laughed and spoke with the madame with such a familiarity that the woman became warm in a way which was rare in her profession. The girl was not particularly well trained, nor elegant, but something in the color of her eyes, and her hair, and the arch of her neck said to Kakashi, she would be a good distraction. Something in the comfortable placid ease about her and the way that she spoke (like she had all the time in the world) said, she would be a good way to forget. She was both similar to and entirely different from.

From.

Someone Kakashi should not be thinking about.

"Are you looking for someone specific?"

"Aa. Last time, the blond—" He cuts himself off at the recognition in her face. And he does not want to admit that he did not actually remember the geisha's name.

The madame hums.

"My apologies, she is away. May I arrange for another?" There is a look in her eyes; she is not saying all that she knows.

"Mmm," he murmured, keeping his tone light, "when do you think she will be back?" He— he misses, and he doesn't want to think of whom. He wants to watch joy rip across a face half-familiar and pretend the look in those blue eyes comes from another, wants to lick at her and to breathe her in and try to imagine what she would smell like male.

He wants to allow himself to touch.

Her eyes sharpen, and she looks at him, careful and intent.

"Such interest!" She says, an edge in her tone, and he is suddenly on guard because for some reason the conversation has turned into a battle, and he doesn't know the battleground, nor even what's at stake. But, he is jounin and ex-ANBU; this isn't an unfamiliar feeling.

He looks back steadily, and waits.

"She's with a long term engagement," she says eventually, and sips at her tea, "though not a patronage." She puts just the slightest emphasis on the last word and gives the impression of not particularly caring for his response.

They both know she is lying.

"Maa, I have no interest in being her patron!" He grins. It is very fake. What's she playing at? He was willing to shell out for the girl's virginity (which had been— her responses were— he'd be willing to pay again, he'd already known when he first sank into her, legs pulling at his waist as her hands cupped his face, her eyes half-lidded and full of welcome), but being a patron was something more than most people's bank accounts could handle, his included.

"Oh?"

"A night perhaps," he tries to say easily, "sometime soon." But as the last words leave his mouth he already knows he's given himself away. And the madame smiles her victory; asking for a night indicates wanting the girl, which reveals nothing that hadn't already been revealed, but asking for 'soon' gives away desperation.

"Such words!" She laughs. "Yet you do not wish to keep her." She smiles thoughtfully.

Saying 'I do not want her' would not only be laughable, and already disproven by his previous statements, but he's not entirely sure at this point that he could prevent himself from saying 'I do not want her', with an unfortunate emphasis. He knows that the madame is fond of the girl, and knows to try to not step into that explosive trap.

"Then, for forgetfulness' sake?" It's not entirely a question. She's implying that he is attempting to forget someone. She's somehow reading him entirely too well.

Fuck.

She sets her cup and her eyes down and makes a show of fussing with the tea things. She does not need to look at him to know she's struck a hit.

"You assume much." Dammit, he showed too much anger just then.

"Only what you yourself reveal."

Dammit.

"Is the forgetting worth it, or is the one to be forgotten worth more?" She asks this softly, as gentle as Ibiki could be, with two inches of steel so fine that it takes awhile before the bleeding starts.

He already knows he's giving something away right now, but he has no idea what she's reading off him. He wonders what she knows, what she's playing at, what she wants, but the only way to find out is to stay. But he's losing too much ground. He's preparing to retreat when some sort of decision happens behind her eyes and—

"She was such a precocious student," she murmurs and he gives up all thoughts of moving (what does she know?), "but hard to teach. I'm sure you can sympathize, having had students of your own."

He feels pinned down. What is she—

"She came to me so eager, so wanting," this said almost near lecherously, "to learn. A natural talent, but not a classical talent, nor a traditional talent." She gives a frustrated sigh; it's perhaps the most unaffected and genuine thing she's done since he entered the room. "She's in no way a genius but was inclined to improve, even though she didn't have the sort of mind that can be taught by the usual methods. However, she'd not the sort of will behind that mind to be easily discouraged by being 'unteachable'."

He unwillingly thinks of Naruto, and Kakashi's mind races. There's no reason why she would have known the boy, or how she could've, but something in her sudden smile is unnerving.

"Ah well, look at me, wool gathering! If you truly wish to wait, she'll be back in about two years." She looks at him intently. "She left on a training trip."

What. His mind is frozen.

"I would, perhaps, find it interesting that you never asked for her name. Well. His name, as he never named his jutsu form." Her look is sharp and unerring. Her teeth look much the same.

Right, I never asked for her na— his. He. Kakashi stares at her, his eye wide.

"But, you already know his name, don't you?"

He feels gutted.

Her eyes are hard, "Naruto came to me, wanting to learn. He saw one of my girls subdue a shinobi who'd come in cold and angry, and who'd left less hard. And he understood what he saw, more than most people."

She plays with her teacup, fingers gentle on the ceramic. Kakashi cannot look away.

"When you asked for him, he told me not to refuse. He said you didn't recognize him and he said he wanted to know what it would be like, if you didn't. If you would be—" she cuts herself off. Continues as if she'd never stopped, "He responds so well to kindness, did you know?"

He had thought she'd been at least sixteen. He had let himself run his hands across her and pull gasps from her and while she didn't much let him touch her face that was normal for geisha who were so heavily made up. She was completely different from what he'd thought Naruto would've been like; something about her seeming settled and at peace and moving like she wanted to stretch out the moments longer, instead of hurrying in any way. He remembered letting himself smile at her, running fingers through her hair, and she had arched under his hands like she was starved for touch.

Naruto, he realized, had arched under his touch, like he was starved.

"Were you kind to him, Kakashi-san?" she asked gently, like poison on a jeweled hairpin.

He shushins away.

There's fire in his gut, in his eye, in his guilt and his loss. He wants to scream at everything he'd broken, good intentions and promises and childhood and Naruto, but there's not enough air in his lungs to let it come out and no place in Konoha where its safe. He doesn't understand how it is that he can fuck up so consistently whenever its important. Its a stabbing ache, all over, and it feels like he's bleeding, only nothing has struck him.

And then he realizes that he actually is bleeding. He looks at the red stains on his fingers from when he reached up to wipe at his cheek (had been so incredibly angry that it was wet, because he has no right to cry).

He goes numbly to a bathroom, and lifts up his hitai-ate, and looks in the mirror.

The usual three tomoe do not look back.

Kakashi stares at what must be the Mangekyou Sharingan, then controls himself and forcibly pulls his chakra away from the eye.

Well.

He thinks about the Uchiha bloodline and about their power and their frightening genius, which leaves him and his own supposed genius feeling horribly underpowered and outclassed. He remembers Itachi's competence in ANBU and Sasuke leaving the Academy already at chunin fighting strength. They will only get stronger, he thinks. They will, in one form or another, be after Naruto, this he knows. The Akatsuki gives Jiraiya cause for concern and Orochimaru can match the Toad Sage; and Jiraiya is strong enough to be a Kage.

I will have to train the Mangekyou, Kakashi thinks. It is something he can do instead of- well actually, he does not know what he should be doing in regards to Naruto. He does not know what to do to not fuck up the situation more. But he can- he can train Naruto when he comes back, he can try to look at him instead of avoiding the blond's gaze, and Kakashi promises himself that he will help him do anything he sets his mind to.

Kakashi will help keep Naruto alive, and for that the Copy Nin would have to get stronger. He will have to stop avoiding getting strong enough to get stuck in a tower, beneath a robe and a hat and far too much paperwork and responsibility; he would, essentially, have to stop being weak.

He refuses to contemplate his similarity to Sakura.

(It is thus neither here nor there that he avoids her for the next two years.)

.o0o.

end.

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AN: heee! XD While there's manga confirmation that Kakashi's aware of Naruto's Sexy no Jutsu form post-timeskip, there's no indication of it pre-skip. SO. Thus this fic, sorta.

Again, if you have a request for a KakaNaru (or NaruKaka!) one-shot either in this universe or in another, give me a prompt/idea and I'll see what I can do with it. This actually helps me write! And while it may take some time before the idea fully percolates, they do get written! I'll credit the idea to the person who gives it to me in the Author's Notes.