Kakashi's Secret Addiction
"Kakashi-sensei?" Iruka knocked on the doorframe as he peeked into the room. "Are you here?"
He felt a slight tingle on the edge of his chakra he recognised an instant before he heard a distinctive "Yo" from behind him. A vein in his forehead twitched and he turned to find himself face-to-masked-face with an upside down jounin. His hitai-ate was off and his hair wilder than ever, both eyes exposed and curved happily.
"Kakashi-sensei, I am not a mere genin whom you can scare with such silly tricks." Iruka frowned in mild censure.
"Maa, but one can still try, mm?" He eye-smiled, or eye-frowned seeing as he was upside down. Then looking a little furtive, "Have you got the goods?"
Iruka sighed a little dramatically. "We have got to stop meeting like this," he muttered, fishing around in his satchel.
Kakashi, still crouching on the ceiling, rubbed his hands together gleefully before holding them out to receive his gift. Iruka looked up holding out a little paper bag, vein twitching again.
"Get down from there or nothing for you," he snapped.
Kakashi's face fell a little, or at least his eyes drooped towards the ceiling as he detached himself and fell gracefully to land on his feet. His shoulders slumped a little, hair falling to cover his left eye and he held out his hands pleadingly, widening his right eye just so and desperately willing it to water a little.
"Now?"
The vein twitched again and Iruka grumbled under his breath while glaring a little darkly at Kakashi before dropping the bag into his outstretched hands.
"We have REALLY got to stop meeting like this," he said turning his head aside as if he didn't care to see Kakashi at that moment. It didn't take a jounin to see him watching Kakashi's reaction out of the corner of his eyes or the genuine amusement and affection that lit up his features.
Kakashi crooned embarrassingly to the bag saying he would love and marry it and bear its children or create a jutsu that would help it to self-replicate as he cuddled it to his cheek. And were there tears of joy in that eye?
Iruka turned to face him fully again before barking, "Just open the damn bag already! What if I didn't buy what you think I bought!"
Kakashi's eye widened dramatically as he held the bag at arms length before gasping, "NO WAY!"
He raced past Iruka to the kotatsu and knelt before the bag, hands shaking as he reached to open it as if it was some kind of holy shrine, or a brand new Icha Icha, autographed and complete with Icha Icha pinups and popup postcards.
Iruka leaned against the door frame and watched with faint amusement. He does this every time, he thought. Every single time.
In a blur of hands, the wretched anonymous brown bag was no more and Kakashi squealed girlishly with delight before clutching his prize and lifting it towards the heavens, or at least the ceiling, as if in benediction before racing to Iruka, gasping out a Naruto-esque breathless barrage of thank you's as he hugged him joyfully.
Iruka chuckled awkwardly as he tried to detach himself, flushing slightly at the attention. The warm squiggles doing a war dance in his stomach were just the ramen noodles from lunch gaining sentience he firmly told himself. SENTIENCE, dammit!
"What would the other shinobi say if they knew the great Sharingan no Kakashi had such a weakness?"
"Nothing. They would say nothing, as you would say nothing, because no one would believe you, because—"
"—because you are a super elite jounin and I am a mere chuunin. I know," Iruka finished without malice, eyeing the suddenly possessive looking jounin as he clutched his prize to his chest looking betrayed.
Kakashi sniffed, "Of course."
"But you shouldn't insult me, you know," Iruka continued. "Otherwise I might stop helping you out and then who would supply you next? Though I could always ask Gai-sensei because I know he'd just love to help his Eternal Rival in—"
This time it was Kakashi who cut him off with a rather loud and scandalized "NO!" that looked like it had surprised even him. A faint pink peeked over the edge of his mask.
Iruka willed his fingers away from his kunai and ordered his heart to stop with the taiko as he tried to look like he hadn't just lost 10 years of his predictive lifespan from that outburst.
"I don't know why you can't just do it yourself. You're rather shameless as it is and no one would really believe I'm buying that for myself. Obviously I have no use for it. At this rate everyone will think I have a secret relationship."
Kakashi eyed him speculatively with an all too smug and superior look. "Well, don't you?"
The squiggles spontaneously multiplied and began a rather vigorous Mexican hat dance moshpit party. No ramen should be this sentient or vindicative towards its consumer, Iruka decided. No ramen ever again. Sorry, Naruto, he thought mournfully. It's for the best.
Meanwhile Kakashi had started ticking off a mental list using his fingers as bullet points, prize still clutched close to his chest. Iruka was starting to think he'd never let go of it. Still it was a change from the normal end-of-the-week ritual they had begun over a year ago. The squiggles died a sudden and violent death and the vein tic made a dramatic return.
"—you cook for me and make me bento every day—"
"Because you'd starve to death because you're too lazy to turn on the stove and the Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu is NOT a cooking tool!"
"And you clean my house—"
"Because using a Suiton Daibakufu no Jutsu is NOT how you clean the bathroom! You had to stay at my place for 4 months because you flooded your building! And don't even get me started on the Mugen Sajin Daitoppa you copied off Gaara and were using to scrub the floors—"
"—and wash my clothes—" Kakashi went on as if Iruka wasn't slowly working on developing a Kakashi-biting demon head jutsu within arm's reach.
"Breaking into my house and throwing your laundry in with mine ISN'T how you do laundry!"
"—and keep Ukki-san company when I'm on missions."
Iruka faltered a little.
"Uh... That's because I hate seeing plants suffer. And who knows how you normally treat him." He mentally cringed at how Kakashi had gotten him to talk about the plant as if it was a person lately. Was jounin madness contagious? And dammit! When had the sentient ramen revived? Was it zombie ramen? Anything but that!
"—and keep a light on when I'm away for missions so I know how to get home and that you're waiting."
"I just bought too many emergency candles and didn't want them to go bad!" Oh great now his heart was starting to join in the ramen party.
"—and you take care of me when I over-use my chakra."
"Because you're dumb and keep fighting Gai-sensei when he tries to help!"
Kakashi twitched a little at the mention of Gai. Memories of the Magnificent Green Beast of Konoha in a frilly pink apron trying to emulate his mother still haunted him to this day.
"—and I worry over you every day you have weapons practice with those ankle-biters you call students."
"About that, stop sitting in the tree reading Icha Icha at them!" Iruka was fighting a losing battle with his blush. Why was it suddenly so hot?
Kakashi leaned close enough that Iruka could see the pupil of his eye dilate.
"How else would I be able to make sure my chuunin was safe from nuke-nin?"
"B-Baka! There's no rogue ninja at the Academy!" Were those ramen in cahoots and slowly taking over his body? First his heart and now his tongue?
"—or that he didn't skip lunch or have to kill the Witless Wonder Twins, Spikey-Bandage-Face and Bandana-Head, for drawing all over his blackboard and rigging his classroom with chocolate flavored syrup bombs?"
"I-I..."
Iruka couldn't breathe deeply enough. Where had all the air gone? The sentient ramen was putting on a rave complete with glow lights now.
"—or proud of the love and care he gives to all every brat that crosses his path, even the loud orange ramen destroyer, or green chibi Gai one, or the broody duckbutt, or the bipolar pink one, or the furry lazy ones masquerading as my ninken."
"Hey! They're not brats!" Iruka wasn't even sure what he was objecting to now.
"—and the way he can bring jounin from anywhere to their knees with the sheer volume of his voice and cleverness of his pranks and strength of his heart." Iruka bit back a retort at the comment on his decibel levels when he heard the second part of the sentence.
"—Who's stronger than he lets on." He just KNEW that accursed blush was making a center stage comeback.
"Who fights off the housewives and kunoichi every Saturday of the weekend sale to buy me the hair products and styling gel from Waterfall he knows I just absolutely cannot do without?"
Kakashi hooked a finger in his mask and Iruka felt everything stop. Even the ramen squiggles were holding their breaths. The mask came down in a flash and Iruka drank in the sight of that perfectly formed face exposed for the first time, watching a slow and wicked smile stretch those pale lips and he saw rather than heard what Kakashi said next.
"I think that's love."
Iruka felt the ramen squiggles melting away into some kind of warm goo he didn't really want to think about.
"And to think, everyone thinks that look is natural," he muttered half-heartedly rubbing at the scar on his face, blush glowing proudly.
Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu - Grand Fireball Technique
Mugen Sajin Daitoppa - Great Infinite Sandblast Breakthrough
Suiton Daibakufu no Jutsu - Water Explosion Technique