"Kakashi! My Eternal Rival! I Challenge you to steal my beloved students' former sensei's hair tie!"
The blindingly orange book was lowered and a single eye fell on the green-clad jounin in front of him... Surely he couldn't be serious? Steal a chuunin's hair tie?
"Maa, feeling old today are we Gai? Stealing a chuunin's hair tie will be easy."
"If that is the case then you shall prove your youthfulness and take it without anyone seeing!"
The orange book went away and the slouching figure lept off into the trees.
Gai chuckled to himself as he turned to meet his students. If Kakashi successfully stole the tie, he would run 30 times from Konoha to Suna and back, backwards, upside down on his thumbs.
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Iruka sighed, he could feel the jounin following him all the way from the academy to the mission's office, and now it seemed, he was going to follow him home. He rubbed his thumb across the scar on his face, he was really not in the mood to be followed around by a jounin.
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Kakashi looked up from his reading just to avoid walking slap into a tree. Iruka had walked up the steps of an apartment building across the street and was trying to open the door with his arms full of papers. He stifled a laugh as he watched the chuunin struggle, enjoying the other's annoyance he could feel coming off him in waves as the door refused to budge. Eventually, however, it seemed Iruka had won the battle and the door surrendered with a creak.
The silver-haired man waited for a minute or two before making his way casually across the road to the back of the building where he promptly walked straight up the back of the rectangular construction, peeking into windows as he passed to see which apartment was Iruka's. He eventually found it, six stories up.
A small cozy bedroom greeted him as he peered in through the window, the bed made with black sheets and the walls a deep shade of blue. On the mahogany side table there was a picture of Naruto and beside it, a picture of a very young-looking Iruka with his parents. He was slightly surprised to see Iruka wearing white of all colours in the picture, having never seen him in anything other than his dark blue and green uniform.
He ducked out of sight as the door swung open and Iruka walked in looking tired and annoyed. He took off the jacket and threw it onto the bed before making his way through a second door which Kakashi supposed must lead to the bathroom. Sure enough, he heard the sound of rushing water and deemed it safe to enter. He pushed up the window. It didn't budge. He began to wonder if it was a habit of all doors and windows in this place to get stuck. He tried again. It moved an inch and let out the most horrible screeching sound as it ground against the sides.
The water stopped.
He lept away from the window and pulled it shut again, wincing at the second screech it emitted and fled into the trees. So much for that plan.
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Iruka walked into his bedroom with a towel around his waist, hair dripping down his back. He examined the window carefully. It had been opened recently, the hair he had put there was gone, and in it's place was a shorter, silver one. Iruka glared out of the closed window into the night, as if expecting to see the copy-nin if he stared hard enough.
Eventually he gave up and fell back onto the bed, kicking his green jacket off the end as he did so, curling up and falling fast asleep, the water from his hair soaking slowly into the pillow.
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Kakashi returned to the window a few minutes after he saw Iruka's face leave the glass. He perched on the sill and looked at the sleeping chuunin. "Damn," he whispered, realizing the teacher had left his hair tie in the bathroom. He was not going to search through another man's bathroom, that was just.. He shuddered, not wanting to know what he might find in this particular man's bathroom. After all, if Icha Icha had taught him anything, it was always the quiet ones...