Chapter Text
In the beginning, it was easy.
He doesn't really know what happened. Or rather, he knew, he understood in theory, he just didn't realize the depth of it.
The infinite Tsukuyomi ended, he stumbled out of his cocoon, fought alongside his comrades, aided the injured and helped to collect the dead.
The adrenaline and shinobi training kicked in and he didn't even think about what that meant for him. It was hard to distinguish between his real life and the genjutsu, but as he looked at the shinobi in the camp, his gaze met confused, pain-riddled eyes that completely mirrored his own feelings.
They had lost more than an ideal world. Their long-lost loved ones had spoken to them only a few hours ago and they had been tricked into thinking their troubles had finally paid off. They used to come home to a house full of life. Now they had to lose them a second time or find out that their loved ones had fought in the war but didn't survive.
Iruka was busy helping set up camp and redirecting shinobi to their assigned places as protocol for an SS type disaster was issued by the Godaime, and he tried his best to ignore the ice in his stomach. Soon he was surrounded by his late students, who had already graduated but were still too young to start a family and weren't involved in the Konoha clans.
By sunset, he was calm enough to begin dreading his own thoughts.
They were given rations, simple food that was filling but bland.
Iruka opened his vest and fished out the small packet of spices his father said to keep at hand. He told him spicy food was a luxury often associated with the village. When brought to the field, it could lift the spirit of the crushed soul and remind them of what awaited them at home.
Even in the Tsukuyomi, his father had always pocketed some before leaving on a mission.
Iruka stared into the fire after distributing the spices among his students. They cooked their meat on long sticks, in complete silence.
Not surprisingly, no one was in a chatty mood.
He had lived for years... no, he was led to believe that he lived for years in a perfect world.
He didn't have to attend funerals of students for long. He looked at the somber faces of his comrades, some of them even crying silently.
That was clearly no longer the case.
A nudge on his thigh made him jump and let out a surprised croak.
"...Bloody hell!"
He stared down at the dog while some of his students laughed quietly.
The dog sat in front of him, watching him eagerly. His tail began to wag now that he finally had Iruka's attention.
Iruka blinked down at him in confusion.
"What's up?"
The dog nudged him with his muzzle and whined. Iruka raised an eyebrow. The dog had to be a nindog, perhaps from the Inuzuka clan. He was a little smaller than average, but Iruka shrugged absent-mindedly. Not every Inuzuka liked their dogs as big as a battle mane. He even had a blue vest.
The dog huffed, and looked at the meat over the fire. His big blue eyes begged him for a bite.
Iruka smiled slowly despite the pressure in his chest. He reached out and stroked the dark gray fur on the dog's head. The fur between his ears looked like he had a mohawk.
The dog pressed his head into Iruka's palm and stood up to sit closer to him. His warm, soft fur warmed Iruka's shins as the dog settled down.
He was cute.
Iruka petted the gray coat.
"Aren't you the sweetest beggar?"
The dog lifted his head to lean more against him so Iruka could reach under his jaw for scratches.
Iruka smiled down at him, but the next moment he whipped up his head.
Not far from them, people were milling about. They were jounin who accompanied...
Hatake Kakashi.
Iruka's hand froze in the dog's fur.
The air caught in his lungs, like he got a punch in the stomack.
He watched him slouching, walking somewhere, his gaze roaming over them...
It slid past Iruka without stopping, as if he hadn't spent the last five years wooing, bedding and then marrying Iruka.
Kakashi left as quickly as he came.
Iruka felt tiny pinpricks on his face. He knew there was nothing there, it was just the shock, just like the buzzing in his ears. He turned his head back to the fire, his neck too tense to do it smoothly, but...
Anyway...
He blinked and tried to swallow.
The meat over the fire dripped as it cooked and the dog snuggled up to him to ask for more petting. Iruka's hand began stroking him on autopilot.
In the Tsukuyomi, he was always surrounded by his people.
His parents lived three street away from their apartment. His husband moaned enough about his mother-in-law can visit them in slippers, playfully insisting to move further away. His late teammates dragged Iruka to pub crawling, while in fact they had never reached drinking age. His neighbors didn't die in a poisoning accident so he couldn't find them a week later. His students grew into strong and happy adults.
He married the love of his life.
They were about to start a family.
Iruka blinked again. His eyes burned with dryness. Spots danced in his field of vision to the rhythm of his heart. He clutched the last of his dignity and prayed he wouldn't faint or crumble.
Yesterday, Naruto and Iruka had just planned how Naruto was going to propose to his first and only love. Iruka invited him to have dinner at Teuchi, where they exchanged a few ideas and he gave a motivational speech. After midnight, he slipped into their bed, drunk and in high spirits. Kakashi, the blanket hogger grumbled about his cold feet.
Now he was sitting here, with the unaffiliated shinobi, not out of any sense of duty; he was alone, too.
No one will come looking for him to make sure he survived.
His husband didnt knew him. Not in real life. He died with the Tsukuyomi.
He was in love with a mirage.
His Kakashi was only a replica, an over-romanticized, dorky shell who played on Iruka's every wish. He even dreamed up Kakashi, the most handsome man in Konoha.
How pathetic.
Iruka would mock himself if it wasn't so paralyzing.
The nindog put his paw on his thigh. Iruka looked down at him. His eyes were incredibly large and he folded back his ears.
Iruka blinked again.
Apparently he had lost some time thinking, and the food had finished in the meantime.
He grabbed the stick and lifted the meat to look at it up close.
He glanced at the dog, who was looking at him excited.
"Want some?" his voice cracked, but he cleared his throat.
The dog trembled and licked its mouth, as if it could already taste the food.
Iruka tore off a slice and folded it between a slice of bread.
"Here," he offered it to the nindog, having to pull his hand back so it wouldn't be eaten too. He gave a short, watery laugh.
"Easy."
Iruka decided to give the dog the rest of his share, too, for his stomach was too upset to tolerate food.
The dog sniffed the ground for crumbs and for Iruka's surprise, he didn't run to his owner, but sat back on his haunches and kept him company.
Iruka was grateful.
He put his hand on the back of the dog, who then leaned against him, like a true companion.
Iruka looked up at the sky and scolded himself for being a sentimental fool who was about to cry over a genjutsu.
***
It took two more days for Iruka to reach home.
He squinted up at the gray building and noticed that the crack creeping up on its side was getting wider.
He was tired and hungry.
The Infinite Tsukuyomi not only weakened the shinobi physically, its effect on the mind forced some of them to turn on themselves in desperation.
Iruka felt sightless led the blind when he tried to stop some of his comrades from committing suicide.
He, too, doesn't know what kept him from just ending it.
He thought of going on with his life, doing chores, cooking, going to work, yelling at children to learn so they could die later, yelling in the administration tower so the shinobi could get their own pittance for risking their lives, so their paycheck wouldn't circulate in the system due to some technicality.
It felt unbearable to do this.
Every.
Fucking.
Day.
For years. For decades.
When he thought about death, he felt resigned. He doesn't seek it, but if it come to that, he wouldn't step out of the way of a kunai. He wouldn't actively save his own life.
Not for years.
The only exception was spent with Kakashi.
This 3 day… and his previous life felt like he is just loitering around, annoying people into line. He isn't really alive, but doesn't really dead either.
It was apathy.
A body temperature bog, that suffocated him without him realizing.
And now his chest is bleeding from a gash, deep enough to kill, and he has no one to talk to. To turn for a good word.
The dog barked at his side and nuzzled his tight.
"Oh." Iruka looked down at the ground. Right. "I promised you dinner."
The dog barked and wagged his tail.
It kept Iruka company after the war. When Iruka thought he was finally leaving or returning to his clan, he always ran back to him, barking happily, begging for scraps and affection.
Iruka was honored. Really.
It almost felt like real company.
He jumped onto his balcony and froze.
Kakashi was notoriously using this path and it kind of grew on Iruka. After their first few dates, Iruka had changed his security seals so they could use the balcony and windows as entrances. Iruka stood there trying to suppress the pain in his chest. It felt like an open wound.
The guards were the same before Kakashi wrecked his place into his side. Of course they'd be.
His wards were active and there was only one entrance, the main door.
The nindog jumped beside him and ran in circles on the balcony, sniffing at anything he found interesting.
"Ah, Dog-san, I'm sorry, but we have to take the stairs," Iruka said and jumped down, ignoring the awkwardness and heartbreak.
He tried to prepare himself for the emptiness of his house, dreading to enter it.
But his wards relented, his door opened and they stood in his living room.
Iruka looked at things as if seeing them for the first time in his life.
He still had his brown lamp, which he didn't throw at Kakashi and Kakashi didn't let it break out of pettiness. His carpet was spotless, no bloodstains from untreated wounds. The door frames didn't serve as targets for bored jounin recovering from injuries. The curtains were the old ones that didn't burst into flames when Kakashi was involved in a contest between Sasuke and Naruto. His lamp wasn't kicked off the ceiling when Iruka criticized Icha Icha for unrealistic ceiling sex and Kakashi bet him two weeks of dinner duty and tried to reenact the scene with him to prove his point.
Iruka laughed at the memory, but it came out more like a sob.
The dog pressed his snout into his palm and nudged him.
Iruka looked down at him through his tears.
"Come to think of it, he was pretty noxious when it came to his habitat."
The dog turned his head, listening but not understanding.
"My husband."
The dog tilted his head to the other side.
This could be confusing. To speak of a husband. His bachelor status was common knowledge.
Iruka put his hand on his head and went to the kitchen. He felt the worst migraine approaching.
The war was over so quickly that his food didn't even gone bad. He took a deep breath and exhaled with a shudder.
The dog watched as he took out the pans and began cooking dinner.
"Do you have a family, Dog-san?"
Iruka doesn't know how much the dog understood, but the Inuzuka treated him like another human beings, so he thought he was intelligent. Not like a summon, but close enough.
The dog shook its head and watched him attentively.
"Me neither."
They were silent for a few minutes, then Iruka turned his back to the meat and crossed his arms in front of him. It felt like a hug, but it couldn't ground him.
"Did you get caught in the Tsukiyomi?"
The dog shook his head and sat down, then let his front paws slide out and laid down.
"We lived in the genjutsu for years. Our best life. It felt real," Iruka had to take a big gulp. His throat ached. "That's why so many people went and..." he gestured in the air, indicating what had happened in the forest. The dog exhaled and rested his head on his paws looking up at him, showing the whites of his eyes. "...ended it all. I had a husband, he was a slob. He was always late. Drew me up on the wall with that." Iruka turned back to the pan and adjusted the slices of meat. They sizzled and smelled wonderfully. "He used to sit on the Academy trees and read that bodice-ripper..." Iruka looked up at the ceiling, fighting back tears. He didn't see the dog raise his head alerted, ears sharp.
"He always said he won't read that trash anymore if I act out the scenes with him and he could record it with the Sharingan..." the first tears rolled down his temple into his hair. The dog sat up and tilted his head to the right, "That pervert." He laughed wetly at the memory and looked at the dog. His falling tears were absorbed by his vest.
The gash in his chest hurt so, so much.
"The first time he asked me out, he was so high on morphine he accused me of being an angel. When I said I was far from it, he replied he was kind of hoping I was a slut." His voice broke and he sobbed into his palm. "I love him and in reality he doesn't even know that I exist. That no good Scarecrow..."
The dog jumped up and exclaimed:
"Oh my God! Are you talking about Boss?!"