-1Iruka was very nearly Iruko because his mother would be damned before she had another boy who died. It was an old tradition in many a culture to raise a son as a daughter until the child was old enough for the gods to pay it no mind. It was a silly superstition, but if it made his wife happy Itamine was willing to allow it. "But his name is Iruka not Iruko got it?" Of course she said yes because she was already pushing it as it was - however what Itamine didn't know wouldn't hurt her and Iruko-chan right?
Iruko-chan is precious all the more so because he is the only boy child to survive the Umino curse in this generation as his father did before him. For the life of her Tsuande can not understand why he isn't another carefully planted bundle of skin and bone and all too many broken dreams. Iruko-chan does not care for her maybe because of the needle maybe because of the everlasting cloud of gloom and doom trailing her every waking step trying to dream him in her sleep. Shizune can charm the little one can get the chubby little arms to wrap ever so sweetly round her own slender little girl neck. Not for the first time she wonders if she will be a good mother or if she will be like that Haruko clingier then a Nara's shadow.
Shizune watches her almost auntie gingerly falling apart… again. She watches the trembles in normally confident hands searching her memory for a corresponding report from Uncle Dan. Poor dead Uncle Dan, all that was keeping poor hollow auntie in one solid, pretty piece. "Auntie?" She waits to be ignored, instead she is scooped up like a shinny little toddler and held 'til she's nearly crushed, but Auntie's not that far gone yet. Mednic-nin take care of people especially when they can't take care of themselves. Shizune wants to be a medicnin like auntie Tsuande.
Iruko-chan waved good-bye to infanthood and cloudless skies. "He's four years old that's exactly three too many1" His grubby little hands clench in his pretty little frocks all cowbells and weeping willows. His cheeks are streaked with tears of distress - why are they yelling? "He's still a baby and you've told him he's a boy more often then not." He misses Shizune-chan already a year gone with the pretty, tall lady. He knows this like he knows something isn't right. His parents continue to yell high above him like thunder buried in mile high clouds. This time it's because his mother still takes him into the women's bath towel less and unashamed his little penis bobbing softly in the water. Yesterday it was because he likes ribbons more then shuriken. Tomorrow it'll be because he sits when he pees.
Shizune patiently sits letting Tsuande bury her face in her hair breathing deeply. "Kaa-san…" It's moments like this when she must call auntie mom because otherwise she will lose her completely even as she is folded yet tighter into the crushing embrace. She's fifteen years old and soon she will cut this hair off tired of waiting patiently in darken rooms, sunlit rooms, dusty rooms while this forever young woman plays and weeps in her hair imaging black-haired babies she'll never have named Danielle called Danilion. She'd patient though like when she has to pick up her 'mother' from the bar - struggling under the lopsided weight while adults look on in pity - "come on Tsuande-sama come on". "Kaa-san!" Shh she is told as the clever medicnin fingers learn their way through her hair relaxing her against her will so that she leans back into her auntie.
He can't understand what's going on all of eight years old and alone… and skirtless. His legs feels strange in short pants his self unrestrained in the new boxers he wears. He is an eight-year-old boy all the way now. Before he was a boy-girl at school and a girl-boy at home. That's all that saves him from the draft picks genin in trees waiting to die easy pickings for wily enemy nin. He runs his hand through his hair- short, short pain hair - and works on boy things like pranking. He is a little boy and his name is Iruka. Iruka the only Umino and the last Umino boy.
She misses her smaller Shizune all limbs and joints sprayed wildly across her lap. Her little girl, daughter, sister, niece, and more is a big girl old enough to cut her hair and sleep with men and badger her. There is a smudge of icing at the corner of her ever quirking mouth - her fingers twitch to wipe it away. The napkin is so close, surely her little cone, her apprentice the heir of all her knowledge won't begrudge something meant to be. Surely, but out of the corner of her eye is a cake with twenty-one candle when surely just yesterday they were sixteen. Her fingers twitch and she reaches for her glass instead. Over the rim she can see Shizune lick off the offending icing.
He is only an assistant for now, but even so he does well enough if not for his slight obsession. No, not obsession, but perhaps infatuation? Ask, no that sounds even worse. It's just he can't get the feeling out of his head that - that Kiba is a little girl too. Except it doesn't make sense at first sight, just a feeling, a perception something in the hips in the movement of the lips the exact tilt of the head. He's the only one who sees it he thinks exiting the dingy staff room while old heads wag - "boys will be boys".
He doesn't understand at first which is well enough as he would have hated the idea. Ever since he's been old enough to remember he's been told the story of how they thought he'd be another little girl had even had a name ready - Kiva wild and holy. A single letter exchange is all that stand between him and that life something he never forgets taking care to be the most obviously masculine of them all. So he would not want to be considered a little girl his oh, so huge six-year-old dignity would not allow it. Still he thinks it strange at first to wear shirts large enough to be dresses, but they are soft and vibrant and sensei's smiles are precious even more the scent of happiness which he catches so seldom from his kind, young sensei.
His sisters watch him warily noses twitching and their thought revolve around pedophiles so good and kind and who would have thought. SO much so that none think of a little Inuzuke girl playing alone, but for sensei backlit against the sunset and meanwhile Iruka gains the reputation of kindness. Still he isn't small forever and eventually it penetrates his mind that this isn't right still Kiva is as real as Kiba and moreso because she existed first but for an accident. Kiva is always a little girl just like Iruko likes, but little girls want little boys - little boys with little puppy kisses.
So he follows Hinata with her page cut and her soulful eyes with the ever convenient coat that hides everything away curves and breast and lack of masculinity, but she doesn't see him. She doesn't see him with Naruto there who is prettier then him and yet more boyish with Hinata's eyes following him like lambs and Iruka's smiles to grow under. Jealousy grows in their heart - hearts Kiva and Kiba so that finally they tear apart the shirts they always knew ere dresses and burn the ribbons and one afternoon Kiba comes in and Kiva steal her first and maybe only kiss from Iruko who can only cry and reach for a child already out the door.
And no one needs to know, since what they don't know can't hurt them.