Red (Kakashi Hatake x Might Guy)

Chapter Nine

Kakashi Hatake sighed as he walked through The Hokage's building, tense. She'd called him for an A-rank mission, apparently on a team from what the letter that the carrier pigeon had dropped by his house had read.

The day before, he'd ditched his soulmate at the cafe, and he still felt a bit bad for it. Then again, he hadn't wanted his secret to risk being revealed, and Guy had been pushing it, so he'd felt like his only solution was to escape the situation before it was too late.

Unfortunately, that escape wasn't going to last too long, as when he entered the hall that led to Tsunade's office, he was faced by no other than Guy himself, who was leaning against one of the walls.

"Oh, did Lady Tsunade call you here as well?" Kakashi questioned, trying to act casual as Guy stood up all the way and crossed his arms. The silver-haired man continued to walk through the hall, and unsurprisingly, Guy walked by his side.

Despite having been tense just moments before, Kakashi now felt oddly at peace. He crossed his arms as well and looked over at his soulmate.

"She did! How are you, rival?"

"I'm well, and you?"

"I'm good!" There was a moment of silence, and Guy suddenly stopped walking, so Kakashi did as well, turning to face him with a confused expression that was covered by his mask. "Can I see your face?"

"No," He answered, frowning. He'd been hoping that Guy would drop the subject after what had happened the day prior, but he supposed that was far too good to be true.

"Please?" The ravenette cupped his hands together, looking up at Kakashi with pleading eyes. Normally, in any other context, Kakashi would've found the humorous expression- well, humorous- but since he was actually extremely guilty over the whole situation, that expression just made him feel horrible. He knew Guy deserved to see his face, deserved to see him talk and know the truth, but Guy also deserved to have someone so much better than him as a soulmate. So, Kakashi was going to keep up the charade for as long as he could- hopefully until he dropped dead- and that charade included never letting Guy see the face he had become so ashamed of over the years, included him hiding behind the mask.

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"No," A look of determination crossed Guy's face, and he reached for Kakashi's mask, though the silver-haired man quickly moved out of the way and shot his best friend a disapproving glare. "Guy, what on earth are you doing?"

"Trying to take your mask off, rival!" Guy continued to try to reach for his mask. Kakashi was glad that it was early enough in the morning for no one to be in the halls, otherwise they'd walk in on Might Guy trying to touch his face and Kakashi Hatake looking quite ridiculous as he quickly dodged it. "We're best friends and I've never even seen your face. Plus, with what Lee said-"

"I'm not ready to talk about this," With perfect timing, Kakashi caught Guy's wrists in his hands, both of them freezing and glancing away. Why was he so embarrassed all of a sudden? He had stopped Guy's ridiculous antics like this a million times... Yet here he was, blushing because he'd caught Guy's wrists and had a good grip on them. He's warm. "And I'm not ready to take my mask off either."

"Kakashi," Guy whined, pulling his wrists out of Kakashi's grip. The silver-haired man crossed his arms and took a step back, ready to go on the defense if Guy dared to try again.

"Guy, I swear to fuck, if you try to make me take my mask off in front of you one more time, I'm going to-" Guy gave him the puppy-dog eyes again, and of course, he couldn't help but feel absolutely terrible. "Oh, c'mon, don't look like that. You know I'm sensitive about it."

"Why do you wear your mask, anyway?"

"It was a thing my father started when I was younger. I looked just like him and he was in constant danger, so he made me wear the mask to try to protect me, I guess..." He explained, now feeling a bit awkward as he ran a hand through his hair and thought back on it. Sakumo Hatake was a war hero, and then an outcast, so he had always been afraid that Kakashi had the risk of being attacked by people in other villages who wanted revenge or even attacked by people in their own village that were angry over the mission Sakumo had failed. On top of that, his mother had been an Inuzuka, but he hadn't had her or any of the other clan members around to teach him how to control his senses, so the mask helped keep his sense of smell from being overstimulated. "That and my mom was an Inuzuka, so I inherited the sense of smell and it was a bit too much to have when I was little. It's just a thing I've always done, and I'm not comfortable without it now. That's it."

"And that's why your soulmate doesn't know who you are?"

"Guy," Kakashi spoke, tone vaguely threatening, and Guy finally acquiesced, sighing and crossing his arms again.

"Okay, okay! Sorry. I didn't mean to bring up something so sensitive, I-"

"It's not that big of a deal," Kakashi cut him off, just wanting the conversation about the matter to end. "I just... It's complicated."

With that, they continued their walk in silence until they made it to Lady Tsunade's office and walked in, Guy being the first to speak.

"Lady Tsunade! What do you need?"

"I have a mission for you and your teams. It's an A-rank, and you'll be leaving tomorrow if that's possible for both of you," Tsunade exclaimed, pushing two scrolls forward- one for each of them to take for her desk. The two men did just that, opening the scrolls and reading them, and from Kakashi's understanding of what he'd read, they would be in charge of walking the Kazekage back to The Sand Village.

"So it's just an escort mission?"

"It's an important escort mission for The new Kazekage. He can defend himself, but it's preferable to have you guys with him in case anything happens since he's such high-profile now and The Sand Village has a ninja shortage right now," The blonde woman explained, and it made sense. Gaara had been promoted to Kazekage rather recently after his father's untimely murder since his older brother, Kankuro, hadn't wanted to do it. The redhead had been visiting other villages a lot, mostly in attempts to negotiate and settle past feuds to bring peace to his own village. "I want you and your teams to meet with him at the village gates at sunrise. Understand?"

They both nodded, and with that, they left the office, walking out with mission scrolls in hands.

"So... Both of our teams, huh?" Kakashi questioned, looking up at the older man as they quickly made their way out of the building and onto the streets of Konoha. "Then it'll be us, Lee, Neji, Tenten, Sakura... And Gaara- or, the Kazekage."

"Right! I'm looking forward to it, my eternal rival!" Guy grinned, giving Kakashi that cute thumbs up of his that the silver-haired man may or may not have been willing to die for. "We should go rest!"

"Yes, that's not a bad idea. See you later."