Rules of Matchmaking #1 – Be realistic
Shikamaru woke up glared at his alarm clock for the fifth time. He blew air out of the side of his cheek and some of his hair blow off his face. He did not want to get up. He had chosen to be a teacher for a lot of reasons. One, summers off. Two, afternoons off. Three, usually no missions. Four, he didn't have to both with troublesome jounin exams. Sure, he could've been a jounin, but he didn't want to. He could still remember his father and mothers disappointment that he'd chosen a different path. Lazy, they called him. They used it like a dirty word. Everyone called him lazy. Everyone used it, but with a different inflection.
He heard his Mother walk past his room and knock on his door. "Get up you lazy oaf!" she yelled. See, she loved him but she saw him as a worthless, good for nothing. She truly saw his chuunin school-teacher status as an underachievement. The heir to the Nara family shouldn't be a mere chuunin. Oh, he was already giving himself a headache. It didn't matter that typically planned most of the city's defenses or attacks; no, his Mother was all about titles. He was the heir and she just looked at the fact that he was a chuunin. Ridiculous, right?
He sat up and ran a hand through his hair, then glanced at the clock. Damn, it was later than he realized. He raced through a shower, quickly dressed and ran downstairs. No time for breakfast, unfortunately. He almost had to jog off to work; thankfully he didn't live far from the Academy, walking into the classroom right as the bell sounded.
After work he was walking home, thinking about walking to the park to watch the clouds when he heard a voice called out to him. He stopped and turned around.
"Oi! Shikamaru!" Iruka-sensei said to him waving.
Shikamaru waited for the older teacher to catch up and smiled at him briefly. He was very happy for his former sensei. It was obvious that he was happy; the man was visibly glowing more than usual.
"Good afternoon, Iruka-sensei." Shikamaru said.
Iruka huffed a little out of breath as he caught up, a large bag of papers over his shoulder and a satchel of work in his hands.
"Ohayou gozaimasu!" Iruka nodded quickly, "Did you want to come over tonight for some shogi?"
Shikamaru was going to argue that he had some clouds to watch or a something to do but his momentary pause while he tried to come up with some sort of rational explanation of something better to do seemed to give Iruka all the motivation necessary in order to steer him in the direction of his own apartment.
"Good! It's settled. Kakashi is actually making dinner." Iruka stated as if that was something that one typically heard.
"Kakashi-san cooks?" Shikamaru heard himself ask with a laugh.
"Yes, it was terrible at first." Iruka laughed as they started walking towards Iruka and Kakashi's apartment. "He tried to make pancakes but he put twice as much salt in them instead of sugar. They tasted awful but I ate them. Naruto fed them to Pakkun."
"But don't worry, he's much better now. He's making some teriyaki chicken and he's gotten the recipe down very good."
They walked on in silence for a few minutes.
"I'm happy for you, Iruka-sensei." Shikamaru said finally. And he was. Although he couldn't help but be a little jealous as well. His last relationship with Temari had been a total disaster. He really didn't want to think about that right now. Sure, things had been okay with Temari at the beginning, he supposed, but, in the end all they had ever done was fight. And he couldn't even remember the last time he'd been happy to see her, spend any time with her, or even look forward to seeing her. When he had ended their relationship last year, all he remembered feeling was an enormous sense of relief.
"Thank-you. I'm happy, too." Iruka laughed and pulled him into his apartment.
Shikamaru was a little surprised when he entered Iruka's apartment. It had always been cozy, but it was different now that Kakashi lived there. More photos, of them, some of Kakashi's things. Lots of weaponry, which he supposed must belong to the copy-nin since he'd never been to his apartment. Some paintings, obviously painted by Sai hung on the wall. Eight different sized, but matching dog beds lined the far side of the wall although only one was currently occupied, by a snoring pug. Shikamaru toed his sandals off and entered the apartment. He heard a muffled curse from the kitchen and he peered around to spy a very annoyed look Kakashi wearing a frilly apron.
"Yo!" Kakashi said, his eye crinkling up.
Shikamaru laughed. "Nice apron."
Kakashi sighed dramatically. "Iruka made me wear it. Part of my punishment."
"Punishment?" Shikamaru said with a curious look on his face, turning to look at Iruka.
Iruka huffed and set down all of his papers on a desk, then came into the kitchen. The teacher blushed and scratched his scar on his nervously.
"Um…" Iruka paused. "Would you like something to drink before dinner, Shikamaru?"
"Actually, I get the feeling you have something you want to tell me Iruka-sensei." Shikamaru crossed his arms.
Iruka blushed redder. "Well, then I need a drink."
There was defiantly something up in this whole conversation. Why was Iruka being so awkward? Why was he blushing? Why was he offering him a drink? Shikamaru liked the two men, but not in that way. Wait…
"This isn't some creepy threesomething thing isn't it?" Shikamaru said with half a laugh. He looked at the horrified look on Iruka's face and the triumphant look and Kakashi's face and realized this idea was completely off base.
"Oh, god no." Iruka shuddered.
"I told you he would think that, Iruka." Kakashi said smugly waving a spatula triumphantly and taking off the offensive apron. "I won that bet."
"Damnit." Iruka put his hand to his head. "This is your entire damn fault. You and your big mouth."
"Why can't you just let things be?" Kakashi said.
"No! I you mucked it up in the first place genius, I'm going to fix it." Iruka took the spatula from Kakashi and set it down, then turned to Shikamaru. "Why don't you sit down at the kitchen table? Kakashi has something he wants to tell you about a mission he went on recently."
Shikamaru frowned and stared at the kitchen table.
Iruka smiled softly at the younger chuunin. "I know you don't drink, Shikamaru, but you know what? I'm going to set a cup of sake here just in case you decide you want a sip. And you can stay the night in Naruto's room if you want."
Shikamaru had a vague sense of foreboding here that he was not going to like what Kakashi was going to say. He had a very strong sense that he would much rather leave the apartment, leave the place and not hear what was about to transpire. He saw, almost rather than felt himself sitting down. He watched himself take a small sip of sake. He felt the burn of it down his throat. The shadow-nin saw his shadow lengthen across the room.
Kakashi stared at him silently for a moment.
"Well, you know Iruka has been encouraging me to open up more around people, so really this is all his fault." Kakashi started.
Iruka picked up the recently discarded spatula and slapped Kakashi upside the head with it.
"What is his fault?" Shikamaru said, feeling a little better now. So this is why people drank, he thought to himself.
"Well…we were talking about our favorite places to have sex and I happened to mention I liked doing it in Iruka's classroom-"
Shikamaru coughed and felt the second sip of sake going down the wrong way. "What! Where?" He stared at the two teachers in a whole new, disturbing light. "Ahh, oh, man. I can never go in that room again. Geez! Why are you telling me this? What does this have to do with me?"
Iruka hit Kakashi upside the head again. "You're getting ahead of the story, Kashi."
"We want to help you, Shikamaru." Iruka sat across from Shikamaru and looked at him kindly.
"Help me?" Shikamaru looked at the two teachers, very confused. "Help me, how? This is starting to seem creepy again…"
"No…nothing like that. With Kiba, of course!" Kakashi gestured, as if this was completely obvious.
Shikamaru stood up quickly, knocking his chair over in the process. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Iruka sighed.
"What game are you two playing?" Shikamaru said angrily.
"No game." Iruka said sincerely. "We just wanted to help."
"Actually, I'm being forced to play matchmaker as punishment for opening my mouth." Kakashi added as he placed a plate of surprisingly good looking teriyaki chicken on the kitchen table. "Now are you going to eat and listen to what I said to Kiba so at least you know what I said or are you going to run off and be blindsided by it at some point in the unknowable future? Doesn't matter to me really." Kakashi sat down and started preparing himself up a plate.
Iruka pouted and continued to stare at Shikamaru who was still standing in the middle of the living room now, hovering between wanting to leave and wanting to stay.
Shikamaru finally sighed and picked up the chair and sat. His stomach was rumbling and he was hungry after all. And he was curious what the man had said. He really should hear what he had said to Kiba. Information was valuable. And if he didn't eat here, he would have to just go home and make something himself as he had already missed dinner. And he was nothing, if not lazy. Dinner here was already cooked. And it did smell good.
He glared at the two older shenobi as he picked up a plate. "Troublesome."