Prequel to Day 8 of Winter Spirits, before the secondary prequel "A House Is Not A Home"

Series :: Christmas Spirits – Side Stories
Title :: Chestnuts Roasting Over An Open Fire or Where There's Smoke
Rating :: G [kid!everyone]
Summary :: AU. The kids decide to roast some chestnuts. Adult supervision optional. (They're 6 and 7 years old)

Izumo clutched the sack to his chest and panted hard, leaning against the rail jutting from the wall. The fire escape was a hard way to travel when you had short legs but he wanted to run into as few people as possible. He was only on the third floor and winded already.

A sudden clatter behind him made him freeze an he turned slowly, careful not to fall down the steps. Several steps behind, Iruka was crouching to pick up a few chestnuts that had fallen from his bag. At the other end, just under his elbow, a chestnut shot free of a hole and bounced off the wall with a small thwack.

"Hurry up!" Izumo hissed, taking a step down.

"Wait, I'm coming," Iruka protested, bending down to grab another chestnut, four more tipping out the top of his sack.

"Iruka-kun," Izumo whined, hopping the last few steps to the lower platform. "Gai-kun is way ahead of us already!"

An access door several floors up opened and there was a soft pattering of feet before a quiet voice commented, "Who said Gai?"

Iruka craned his neck to see up the breeze shaft between the flights of stairs and grinned when he saw a familiar head of gray. He waved and immediately lost a few more chestnuts. Izumo groaned.

A door midway between them flung itself open, slamming against the wall with a bang that made them cringe and there was a stomping of feet before Gai peeked over the railing and shouted down: "Guys! I think I'm lost! Where are we going?"

"All the way up, duh," Iruka yelled back, stuffing chestnuts in his pockets.

"Up?" Kakashi made the mistake of asking.

Gai looked up with a grin and did an odd all-over wiggle that Kakashi supposed was supposed to be a type of wave.

"Kakashi-kun," he shouted, pulling his bright orange shirt forward so Kakashi could see its bulging cargo: Chestnuts. Lots and lots of chestnuts.

"Are you going to Asuma's house?" Kakashi asked, tilting his head. He climbed on the railing, poking his sneakered toes over the edge and dangling his arms over the uppermost rail.

"He has a new hibachi," Iruka shouted, trudging up the stairs. "He said we can come see it!"

"My mom brought home chestnuts," Izumo chimed in. He added with a grin, "she won't even notice we took some!"

Kakashi raised a brow but said nothing. Though Asuma's father was the director for Konoha University Hospital, living in the penthouse atop the company building still didn't mean you could own non-issue open-flame cooking implements. Asuma must have gotten it from one of the Uchiha youths and that normally meant trouble for everyone, especially since they were known for their love of modifying anything flame throwing or containing.

"Kakashi!" Gai shouted, drawing Kakashi's attention as he started to charge the stairs.

"Race you to the top!"

Kakashi couldn't resist a challenge, especially not one from Gai. His eyes narrowed and he threw a brief look up the breezeway at the remaining floors and grinned before taking off at a sprint. Asuma only lived thirty storeys up. How hard could it be?

As it turned out, running up sixty flights of stairs was fairly difficult, even unburdened. Kakashi collapsed on the last step, gasping, face bright red from exertion. An uneven thundering signaled Gai's determined progress and farther behind, Iruka and Izumo bringing up the rear.

Kakashi gulped huge lungfuls of air, willing his heart to slow, and managed to look calm and unaffected by the time Gai rounded the corner, shirt stretched beyond salvation by his burden.

Gai gaped in disbelief and almost let go his shirt tails when a sleepy voice snapped him out of it.

"You didn't really drag all those up here only to throw them back down again, did you," Asuma asked, leaning into the stairwell from the access door.

Kakashi disguised his flinch at the unexpected intrusion by getting to his feet and affecting a slouch before shrugging his shoulder towards the other boy as a greeting. Asuma snorted and shook his head.

"Where's Iruka and Izumo," a girl piped up, a head of black curls appearing at Asuma's shoulder.

"Ew, Kurenai?" Kakashi looked annoyed. "No girls allowed."

"What do you mean!" Kurenai yelled a kiyai and launched a kick at Kakashi's knee.

"Girls are too violent," Kakashi mumbled, dodging out of her way, leaving her to kick Gai right in the chestnuts.

He flew across the landing, clutching his shirt tightly. Some of the chestnuts still managed to escape when he landed.

"Oh no! Gai-kun! I'm so sorry!" Kurenai blubbered, immediately patting the downed boy and trying to help him up. Iruka and Izumo finally made their appearance and stepped on the chaos– Iruka did the actual stepping; right on Gai's shirt. Izumo tripped over Iruka and fell on Kurenai.

Kakashi slid a glance towards Asuma and snickered at the look on his face. It was a cross between annoyance and disbelief.

"You guys, shut up already," Asuma shouted. "We're supposed to be sneaky!"

"Like ninjas," he added as an afterthought. "Plus my dad and brothers will be home in a few hours so we have to hurry up."

It turned out Asuma had indeed procured a shiny new hibachi from an enterprising young Uchiha who had gotten yet another Uchiha cousin to solder together a self-starting inflammatory device to go with it. Said inflammatory device was turned on high and applied to a tall mound of coals the boys piled in the charcoal tin.

Things were a bit muddled but Kakashi figured out that Izumo's mother had purchased a large sack of chestnuts from a local farmer so she could make kurigohan for winter meals and Izumo had told Iruka who immediately revealed his undying love for roasted chestnuts and they were both overheard by Asuma who had managed to get an Uchiha toddler of all things to give him a hibachi in a trade for some amigurumi his mother had knit. What Itachi was doing with a modified flame thrower-hibachi combination and why he wanted to trade for a zoo collection of amigurumi, nobody asked.

Since Iruka and Izumo couldn't carry very many chestnuts, they'd asked Gai for help. And Kurenai? She lived on the floor below the Sarutobi family and often barged in to play with Asuma's toys and eat his snacks. She was just there.

In any case, all this convoluted secrecy ended with them camped out in Director Sarutobi's office, chairs shoved against the door, lighting a fire so they could roast themselves a cache of stolen chestnuts.

It was too bad they didn't know about the smoke-activated sprinkler system.

Or the fact that it was wired throughout the entire building.

Hospital Director Sarutobi was horrified and stunned when he arrived at the housing complex with Neurology Director Hatake to see fire trucks jamming the streets and the residents milling about the car park, a huddle of soaking wet and miserable children crouched in the bushes, only their feet visible below the leaves.

"Well, we were already planning to move out of housing anyhow," Sakumo muttered.

NOTES
kurigohan – chestnut rice (SUPER DELICIOUS)
amigurumi – Japanese knitted miniature toys, normally animals or anthropomorphisized items (sometimes made in the form of anime characters or plants)