Chapter Text
There was no light in the room; in truth, Iruka was avoiding it. Any flash of clarity felt too invasive, too heavy... simply unbearable. It was a cruel reminder that the outside world continued on its course, indifferent to the fact that his own world had stopped. He was mourning the loss of the dog who had been by his side for over fifteen years; an entire life condensed into memories so beautiful that they made his chest ache with every heartbeat. But the silence now was absolute. His great companion with the grey fur, that animal with a gentle gaze and a left eye blinded by time, would never again rest his head on Iruka's knees. That's how annoying existence is: it drags you forward, forcing you to keep walking even though the void you leave behind is unbearable.
The constant buzzing of the intercom forced him to react: his order was downstairs. He got up slowly, ignoring the shrill singing of the cicadas and that suffocating summer heat that made the room unbearable. But the weather outside didn't matter to him; he inhabited his own winter. He stood contemplating the photograph of his dog. A bitter smile formed on his face, his eyes stinging and tears overflowing uncontrollably. The pain was such a sharp stab in his chest that it burned his throat.
"Why did you have to leave me, Ramen?" he whispered, in a grey voice, devoid of life. "There will never be anyone like you. So noble, so peaceful... Why did you leave? At the very least, you should have sent someone to replace me."
With a sigh laden with frustration, he gathered the strength to get dressed. He put on an old sweatshirt and shuffled down towards the concierge's office, not remembering—nor caring—what the hell he had ordered.
The craft paper bag was much lighter than he expected. Iruka cradled it against his chest, protecting it with both arms as if guarding a fragile treasure, while starting the slow climb up the stairs. The building's elevator had been out of service for three days, and by that point in the summer, he had already lost any hope that management would send someone to fix it.
He climbed mechanically, his gaze fixed on the cracks in the cement and the worn soles of his sneakers. He wasn't thinking about anything. He had discovered that this was the best trick to survive the day: empty his mind completely, dilute the memories until only the white noise of his own lungs moving the thick July air inhabited his head. One step. Another step. The echo of the cicadas filtered in through the open windows of the apartment block.
Turning onto the fourth-floor landing, however, the trick broke. A tall, solid silhouette materializing from the dimness of the hallway took him by surprise.
The impact was a dry, messy thud.
Iruka felt his arms empty as the bag slipped from his hands. He stumbled over his own feet, losing his center of gravity, and nearly fell backwards down the stairs. It didn't happen only because long fingers closed around his forearm with an unexpected firmness, anchoring him to the ground with a quiet, assured strength.
Around him, domestic chaos unfolded in slow motion. Two cups of instant noodles rolled like heavy cylinders down the steps, and a can of tuna began a noisy descent, clinking against the metal railing with a metallic, rhythmic, ridiculous sound that seemed to break the solemnity of his mourning.
"What the...!" Iruka looked up abruptly, his heart racing from the fright and a scathing reprimand ready on the tip of his tongue.
The words got stuck in his throat. He met a pair of dark eyes, laden with a peaceful, almost melancholy drowsiness. The left one was covered by a medical patch, and strands of silver hair that defied gravity fell across his forehead.
It was the neighbor from the fifth floor. He had run into him a couple of times at the entrance, a man who always seemed to be halfway between the ground and the clouds. The stranger blinked, assimilating the situation with a slowness that, on any other day, Iruka would have found exasperating.
"Sorry," the man articulated. His voice was a deep register, a bit raspy, with the rough texture of someone who has spent many hours lost in their own silence. "I was distracted."
The other's hand was still holding his forearm. It transmitted a comforting warmth through the fabric of Iruka's old sweatshirt, a strangely pleasant temperature that forced him to blink to return to reality. He gently pulled free, clearing his throat.
"Well, get rid of that distraction, because two kilos of rice don't pay for themselves," Iruka snorted, dropping to his knees on the granite floor to start salvaging the remnants of his shopping.
Actually, he didn't care about the money, or the rice, or the tuna that continued its journey one floor below. But he needed to cling to that little spark of everyday annoyance. Light anger was a much more comfortable shield than the icy void that had been devouring his chest since morning.
The neighbor neither complained nor left. With a slow, almost lazy fluidity, he imitated his gesture and also crouched down. It was then that Iruka noticed the details: the man was dressed entirely in black, with baggy pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt that seemed a direct insult to the hell outside. A genuinely peculiar guy.
With pale fingers and unhurried movements, the neighbor reached out to pick up a small packet of soy sauce that had gotten trapped in the corner of the step. There was something strangely hypnotic about his deliberation; he moved with the same lack of urgency with which a large dog stretches its legs in the sun.
"Are you okay?" he asked suddenly. He didn't raise his voice, maintaining a soft tone that muffled the echo of the hallway.
Iruka stopped his hands on the wrinkled paper bag and frowned, feeling the persistent sting at the corner of his eyes.
"I'm fine," he replied, trying to sound firm, self-sufficient.
However, his own body decided to betray him. His stomach, completely oblivious to the emotional drama and social etiquette, chose that precise moment of sepulchral silence to let out a long, deep, and highly resonant roar that echoed between the walls of the floor.
The silence that buried the hallway after such a roar was absolute.
Iruka felt the summer heat rush straight to his ears, turning them a burning red. First came shame, pure and simple; then, a wave of frustration directed at himself. Because sure, when was the last time he had actually sat down to eat? Yesterday? Two days ago? Grief has a way of diluting the hours until you lose track of the most basic needs.
The neighbor observed him from his height. One second. Two. Iruka held his breath, expecting the typical awkward joke, but all he saw was the corner of the man's visible eye crinkle just a millimeter. It wasn't mockery; it was something much softer, almost complicit.
"Did that embarrass you?" he asked. There was a trace of genuine amusement in his tone, but a gentle amusement, the kind that doesn't intend to hurt.
"Not at all," Iruka lied, looking away clumsily as he finished putting the last things into his crumpled bag.
The man stood up with a deliberation reminiscent of a cat stretching in the sun. Iruka had to crane his neck to keep up; he was definitely quite a bit taller than he remembered from the brief elevator rides.
"What a relief. Because I happen to have way too much ramen at home for one person," the neighbor commented, with the same lightness one uses to talk about the weather forecast. "I was going to have dinner with a friend, but he canceled at the last minute. Again." He paused briefly. His eyes narrowed a little, weighing the space between them, before letting out a thread of a mature voice: "Do you want to come up?"
Iruka blinked, bewildered.
"Sorry?"
"To eat. I live on the fifth, unit B. Your stomach roars louder than my old alarm clock, neighbor, and believe me, that's quite an achievement."
"I don't even know you," Iruka replied immediately. His arms crossed over his chest almost unconsciously. It was his automatic defense mechanism; the real world had taught him not to trust kindness that came without labels. "Why would you invite a stranger into your home just like that?"
The man didn't seem offended in the least. His long fingers drummed softly on the package he was carrying, and that single grey eye, deep and strangely peaceful, settled on Iruka with a fixedness that, rather than intimidating, transmitted a strange stillness.
"It seems like you could use some company."
He said it bluntly. Without that chewed-up pity people usually use when they know you're going through a hard time. It was a simple observation, as real as saying the air was heavy or the elevator was still broken. And precisely because it was so direct, the hit went straight to the heart.
Iruka's pride, however, still put up a bit of resistance.
"I don't need your pity," he murmured, although the sharpness deflated halfway through the sentence, revealing how tired he really was.
The neighbor blinked slowly. And then, for the first time, the man's entire lazy posture seemed to soften. Any trace of distance disappeared, leaving room for something much quieter. Something that felt like the mutual recognition of two people who know what it's like to come home to an empty house.
"It's not pity," he clarified softly, weighing his words. "It's July. The building is deserted, and we're both alone. Sometimes eating with someone isn't charity... it's just a way to make the day feel a little less long." He shrugged with contagious naturalness. "If you're worried about my cooking, don't be. I'm no chef, but I can follow the instructions on a packet."
"It's not instant ramen," Iruka corrected in a murmur, looking at the bag they shared, not quite understanding why clarifying that detail seemed important to him.
The man widened the crinkle by his eye, the closest thing to a frank smile Iruka had seen from him so far.
"Even better. Then we'll have to put a little effort into it together."
He handed him the craft paper bag. When Iruka took it, their fingers brushed for an instant that seemed to freeze the hot air of the hallway. The neighbor's skin felt cool, a delicious contrast against the building's suffocating heat. Or maybe it was Iruka who was burning inside.
They held the grasp a second longer than strictly necessary. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence; it was more of a silent truce, a pause where both accepted that the rules of the game had changed on that stairwell landing.
Iruka looked at him carefully. He remembered the few times they had crossed paths downstairs, the cordial but distant greetings. They had never exchanged names. But floating in his memory was the recollection of a spring afternoon when he had seen this same man at the entrance, holding a bouquet of slightly wilted flowers and with such an incredibly lost and melancholy look that Iruka, out of pure respect for a pain he recognized as his own, had had to look away.
Now, that same man was offering him a plate of food and a moment of shared silence.
Iruka let out a long sigh, releasing the last bit of tension remaining in his shoulders.
"Okay," he heard his own voice say, and he was surprised to find it sounded much smaller and more vulnerable than he intended. "But if you poison me, I swear I'll return from the grave just to collect the favor."
His neighbor's response was not immediate. The corner of his hidden lips seemed to move, and a soft crease formed at the edge of his visible eye; it was a slow, silent smile, reminiscent of the first light of dawn breaking through after too long a night. It wasn't a loud or big gesture. It was barely a flash, but it reached his eyes completely.
"My name is Kakashi," he said, and extended his hand with a slow formality that was strangely endearing, coming from a guy wearing a medical patch and dressed in strict black in the middle of a heatwave. "And don't worry, I don't plan on poisoning you. Honestly, that seems like too much work for a Tuesday."
Iruka let out a short laugh, the kind that is born in the chest and escapes without permission. It sounded a bit rough, cracked from the crying of the past few hours, as if his throat had temporarily forgotten the mechanism for making that sound. But it felt good. It left a residual warmth in his chest that managed to warm the void.
"Iruka," he replied, sliding his fingers over that strangely cool hand. Kakashi's grip was firm but gentle, a momentary support amidst his chaos. "And I demand my own chopsticks."
"I promise to return them intact, Iruka-san."
Kakashi turned on his heels with a lazy fluidity and began to climb the remaining flight of stairs to the fifth floor. He didn't look back or check if he was being followed; he simply walked with that meek confidence of someone who takes it for granted that the other won't be left behind.
And he wasn't. Iruka followed him. He took the first step, and then the next, cradling the shopping bag against his chest like a shield. As he climbed the steps behind Kakashi's broad back, he noticed that the knot tightening his throat was still there, but, for the first time in three endless days, it was no longer made solely of sadness.
There was a new thread of anticipation, a subtle warmth that promised, for at least a couple of hours, to keep the sadness at bay. Especially when that man named Kakashi always seemed attentive to Iruka's needs, cooking, being there for him.