The ocean was not a friendly term in Kakashi's mind. He was hoping, no, praying, that a mission would come up or some act of god kept him busy this year when Genma informed him that they would be going to the ocean side near the border for summer vacation in the group. It was mostly for the jounins, but a couple Chuunin like Iruka couldn't resist tagging along. After all, Iruka was always going on about how much he enjoyed oceans to Kakashi.
"When I jump into the ocean, it's alien and cold, it burns my eyes and makes my skin crawl all over. It's really one of the most exhilarating things for the first five minutes of standing there, being pummeled again and again by something no man, no shinobi, and no beast could possibly ever hope to truly tame. But the thing is, I'm laughing at the pain because after the five minutes are up, it doesn't hurt anymore, and I'm not laughing. I can't really explain much more than that. You just have to see it to get a good grasp of it. It's like the manifestation of everyone's troubles, of everyone's lives, in a giant mass of crashing and calming salt water. And nothing can ever stop it."
That was what he'd always ramble about whenever it came up and as Kakashi would mention that he never really stayed on a beach or gone in the ocean before without being on a mission. He didn't understand himself why it just attracted Iruka the way everyone else was attracted to it. Sure, the copy ninja wouldn't mind to sit there and watch it for a while, but he'd get bored and hot. Probably, reasoning, because he wouldn't take off his sweaty mask. If he recalled correctly, the sand and aroma of the ocean turned him off whenever he was near it. Too foreign, and, with his nose sensitive to smell, he couldn't get the imprint out of his mind for at least a day, typically interfering with his current mission.
But no missions came in, and they ended up dragging Kakashi along with them to the beach.
Being unable to pry himself away from them, he decided in the end he might as well attempt to enjoy himself when there was no use fighting it.
Iruka couldn't have been more excited.
Yeah... I wrote this a while ago in dedication to KakashiIdiot's fics... I kept it in my folder this long from this last summer in hopes I could make it a more decent one shot, but re-reading over it yesterday, I thought I might as well post it. I wrote it on the same time I really started getting Shiver going... so yeah.
Um, irony of Iruka the dolphin loving oceans? I actually don't think I realized it when I originally wrote it. So I'm stupid, sue me.
Inspired from, gasp, actually being in the ocean. w00t.