Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, it belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I only own the plot.
Independent Man
Why her?
Why not her? Another voice inside him challenged.
Iruka frowned.
Hm…that's a hard one…Let's see…she's psychotic? The first voice, which Iruka now dubbed as his rational voice, said sarcastically.
Iruka, couldn't help but to agree with his logical side. In fact, he even nodded to emphasize how much he supported the idea.
But, she is only psychotic when she was facing her enemies…or those who got on to her bad side. A voice, which Iruka dubbed as clinically insane and needed to be wiped out from his mind permanently, whined. Which (thankfully) was not the case for us…
We? Us? Iruka frowned, cutting off his inner battle completely. Did I just refer myself as a 'we'?
Oh my God…Does this count as having a MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder)?
You were the one who started it, the insane one, ignoring Iruka's question, pointed out. This conversation would never have taken place you didn't go and wrap your arms around her.
Iruka couldn't say anything to rebuke that.
It had happened two weeks ago. Naruto, being as reckless as usual, ran head first into the Sound enemy line. Out-numbered and out-gunned, he was extremely lucky to have a group of Jounin rushing to his rescue. Anko had been the one who had hauled him back to Konoha.
When Iruka had gotten news of Naruto's dire state, he went to the hopital immediately.
However, he couldn't find Naruto at the operation room area.
Anko was there at the hallway; however, waiting to give her briefing to Tsunade once Hokage-sama finished dealing with the patents' injuries in the emergency operation rooms.
For a reason Iruka couldn't fathom, Anko was the one who updated him with the status of his blond ex-student— that no, he wasn't going to get back to his feet any time soon but yes, he will live.
So exuberant of the news, Iruka pulled Anko into an enthusiastic hug and took off in the direction of Naruto's room—
And froze in horror when the realization of what he had just done came smacking him in the face...
From then on, Iruka was plagued with the need of touching the texture of her soft, smooth skin, and the want of feeling of her warm feminine curves pressed against his.
...I mean, life is boring and stressful as an Academy teacher, the voice continued. I couldn't remember the last time we'd had any fun—
Hey! Iruka narrowed his eyes, feeling offended. It wasn't that bad!
Okay…so maybe it was bad. But it didn't mean the deranged part of him have the right to say something like that to him! What a boost to his ego that comment was…It wasn't as if he was boring. He just never got the time to...With the schedule that he had, he was usually too tired to do anything once he went home.
Besides, why did his definition of fun have to include Anko?
That woman hadd threatened some guy that she'll cut off 'the anatomy that distinguishes him from a female', some time last week (or so the rumour had said). He didn't want to be next!
She had a strong reputation in Konoha.
That was why most intelligent people, stayed as far away from Anko as possible. Anko was a vixen. She knew she was good looking, that she had a sex appeal which can cause every man (who didn't not know about her personality) to turn their heads every time she was in public. What was worse was that she was not afraid to use it as a means to an end. Even those who knew about her couldn't help but to feel attracted to her, to the point where they were willing to dig their own graves and to jump in happily…metaphorically so to speak.
That were basically all the ingredient one needed to create La Femme Fatale.
Iruka considered himself smart, thank you very much. That was why he never wanted to associate with Anko anymore than needed. To have a relationship with her was to sign his death warrant.
Wait…Why was he arguing or basically reasoning with himself?
That was as much as he could take in a day. Therefore, he handled it the same fashion as he handle other issues such as: the urge to read Icha Icha Paradise (damn Kakashi for waving it in his face and giggling like a school girl, making him curious as to know what was so damn 'funny'); the want to strangulate Konohamaru and his sidekicks (for burning the essays which he'd wasted so much energy in marking. They couldn't do it before, nnnnooo, they have to do it after he finished correcting them. God, if Konohamaru wasn't the Third's grandson he would've…)--
Fundamentally, Iruka's 'thought disposal method' only has three simple stages which took about approximately 2.07 seconds to execute:
He (mentally) chucked his 'clinically insane' part of his mind into a big black box. Locking it with big ass double enforce steel locks, he then kicked the box down a black hole which he called the Iruka Abyss—aka crap-he-doesn't-want-to-deal-with-in-the-near-future-so-he-pretend-it-was-not-there.
"Iru…"
Beautiful wasn't it? Iruka asked himself, feeling proud. Under any other circumstances he would've give himself a 10 out of 10…
"Iruka-sensei!"
The said man blinked, finally able to register that he had been zoning out and that people were looking at him…
Correction. His students, which he was supposed to teach geometry to, were staring at him.
Suddenly feeling uncomfortable under scrutiny (how could you think something like that in front of your students Iruka! His mind yelled at himself as his gave himself a mental throttle.
Iruka cleared his throat, wanting to continue his lecture when the bell rang, signalling the end of the school day. It took his student's mind off of him immediately. They packed up and rushed out of the classroom door as fast as possible, some talking about what they were going to do during the weekend. Others talked about how they were going to use a kunai to…okay…he would just pretend he didn't hear that last part.
In his eyes, anything the academic kids use that are remotely sharper than a plastic spoon were, essentially, weapon of mass destruction.
Normally, he would've stopped the kids and reprimanded them about the danger of using weapons of any sort before they became qualified.
But there were days when he just don't give a damn, and today happened to be that day.
Sighing, Iruka flipped the stapled pile of papers in his hands, which he used as guideline for notes, back to the first page. He pulled several other stacks of notes out from the yellow plastic folder on his large wooden teacher desk before sliding all the documents back into it so nothing would be sticking out of the folder.
He turned around and picked up a blackboard eraser and started wiping away the chalk marks. From what he saw, he calculated that he'd only slightly (about five minutes) behind his usual schedule.
Nothing he wouldn't be able to catch up immediately in the next class.
Picking up the folder and the geometry textbook, Iruka surveyed the classroom once more. He turned off the lights and exited the room when he found nothing was out of order.
Locking the door behind him, he headed out of the building.
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Later that day, he pretended the conversation between 'himself' had never happened.
After all, Iruka considered himself as an independent man. He didn't need a woman, especially Anko, in his life.