Title: Last Ship out of Snow Country
Claimer/Author: This story is written by and belongs to Emmy Kay.
Pairing: Iruka, Kakashi
Summary: Romance/Drama/Dash of Humor. Iruka is on a mission in Snow Country. As a new chuunin, Iruka is called upon to service a superior officer, but finds he has serious reservations. Kakashi/Iruka.
Disclaimer: Naruto and all affiliated characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi. This story is written without permission and for personal/fan/nonprofit entertainment purposes only.
Note: fill for a prompt on the kakairu kink meme.
PROMPT: I'd love to see a continuation of Kawana Mario's short doujin story as seen in Katakoi Hen ver. 2 (the scanlation is up in the kakairu LJ community)
Several ANBU (including Kakashi) and a handful of Chuunin (including newly promoted Iruka) are sent on a ship to the Snow Country. A mysterious ANBU appears before the Chuunin and asks each for their age, and selects Iruka who's the youngest at 16 to accompany him. Iruka finds that he was chosen by Kakashi (who's 17) simply because he wanted to experience sex with someone younger than himself.
As the doujin story goes, Iruka freaks at the suddenness and proclaims that he had never even been kissed, let alone had sex. This all turns Kakashi off, and eventually sends Iruka away.
That evening, Iruka returned to the ship's galley with the tray and remainder of ANBU Hound's meal. His comrades had finished eating and were talking among themselves. When they saw him, they quieted down. Sato and Dai left hastily to attend to other duties, avoiding his eyes. Could they have known what might have happened between him and Hound? Suddenly uncomfortable, he didn't want to look at them either.
Akio, the eldest of the chuunin, very kindly directed him to where they had put aside his meal. While Iruka silently ate, Akio sat next to him and talked cheerful nonsense, mostly lighthearted slander about Snow Country's cuisine – the blandness, the lack of spices other than salt, and the potatoes, gods, the endless potatoes.
As Akio stood, Iruka said, softly, "Thank you."
Akio smiled, his blandly pleasant face creasing warmly. "It's nothing." Then, hesitantly, awkwardly, he said, "Try to get some rest, okay? It might be a long mission."
That night Iruka went out on deck, unable to sleep in his hammock among the others. The guards nodded at his presence, used to his appearances by now. He liked it here – it was his escape from the closed-in walls of the ship. On deck, he could look at the stars and feel the open air, like he would when he was back home. Unlike home, his view was unimpeded by the gentle frame of spreading branches. (This trip marked the longest period he would be gone from Konoha.)
Was Akio warning him? Would Hound come back for him, to retrieve his "everything" even after Iruka's behavior this night? He saw the eyes of Hound behind his own lids – the single dark right eye that looked at him with humor, puzzlement, honesty, thoughtfulness, and the other eye in its scarred bed, with its violently red iris, opening with anger, the black tomoe slowly circling, threatening.
Maybe he could avoid Hound. If he did that, perhaps he could avoid a "next time."
Iruka was back in his usual position, peeling potatoes, grinning.
"—if I eat any more potatoes, I'll turn into a spud myself!" Dai quipped.
Iruka's laugh dried on his lips when he saw Hound enter the galley.
"You," he said, looking down at Iruka, "bring me my dinner tonight."
After Hound had departed, Akio cleared his throat nervously. "Well," he said, "what do you guys miss most about home?"
Sato began speaking very quickly about his love of chirashizushi, covering up the uneasiness engendered by any ANBU appearance.
Iruka knocked on the door.
"Come in."
"I will, thank you."
He entered, tray in hand, trying to be calm, encountering a frisson of déjà vu as he heard Hound's voice say, "Leave the tray on that table there."
Iruka looked up, and nothing was like last night.
This time, he was privy to Hound's undressing. Hound stripped with the nonchalance of someone long used to communal nudity. (Iruka was not.) Hound had a body like no other 17-year-old Iruka knew. Most of Iruka's cohort looked raw and unfinished, with knobby knees and painfully sharp elbows, skin stretching awkwardly over still growing bones. Some, like himself, continued to be burdened with the indignity of a baby face. Hound had a man's body – while thin, it was tautly muscular and sinewy, broad-shouldered and well-proportioned. As for his face…
Iruka wanted to look away, but he couldn't. It seemed rude, but he just couldn't. Iruka had thought he was mostly attracted to women – but there was something so pure, so beautiful about Hound's face and body that he just couldn't look away.
Hound turned the water on, tested it and stepped into the shower when it reached the desired temperature. "Wash my back."
Some stubborn part of Iruka's brain refused to allow him to undress, however wet he might get. Instead, Iruka removed his shoes, rolled up his sleeves and stepped into the shower, loofah in hand. He applied it to the pale skin in short strokes.
"Harder!" The skin pinkened.
"Harder!" The skin turned a dark red.
Then Hound spun and stared at him, dark eye half open. He smiled in such a way that Iruka slid backward involuntarily. The look of an entertained predator. Was Hound amused that Iruka was still fully dressed? Iruka knew that Hound should be the intimidated one – out of any encounter between a clothed person and a naked person, the naked one was always supposed to be in a weaker position. Hound seemed like he could never be intimidated.
Slowly, Hound advanced and Iruka retreated, until Iruka found himself backed up against the shower wall.
All of Iruka's sensitivity training came into play – something in the back of his head recorded all the details – noting the sound of the shower running, humidity of the air, the smell of aroused male, the sight of droplets of water snaking down Hound's gleaming skin. Iruka's skin felt too tight to contain his body. (It seemed really hot in here.)
Hound pressed forward, leaning against his forearms, Iruka's soaked clothing the only barrier between them. Iruka felt the full length of Hound's body against his, especially below the flak jacket. It was most peculiar – how very much alike they were in height, and yet Iruka felt completely surrounded by Hound's body. (How was it that Iruka could feel so breathless while doing absolutely nothing?)
Hound's head dipped slightly to the side, silvery soaking-wet hair brushing against Iruka's flushed cheek. Somehow, it was not cooling or soothing. Iruka heard the wet sound of Hound's mouth opening, and felt Hound's heated breath against his hyper-sensitized skin. Iruka flinched, his head twitching off to the other side. It didn't help. Hound's body seemed to signal amusement, and he huffed a laugh. Which should have tickled, but instead, caused a tremor that extended down below Iruka's stomach.
Then something firm and warm and damp entered Iruka's ear.
Iruka let out a surprised squeal and turned his head away from Hound's tongue so abruptly, he smashed against the wall behind him. There was an audible thunk as his temple met the hard tile. He shrieked in surprise and pain, clutching his head.
After a moment of sheer incredulity, Hound's face broke into an uncontrolled guffaw. He laughed so hard, he had to back up to lean against the opposite wall, holding onto his stomach. "Gods - you - !" It was this moment that he seemed most like a 17-year-old boy, pointing and howling with laughter at some stupid peer's antics.
Head throbbing where he lost the fight against porcelain, Iruka left the shower stall. He limped off with his crushed ego to the other side of the room, where he felt the chill of his damp, clinging clothes. He approached the door, thinking a quick withdrawal was in order. "Just leave the tray in the hall, I'll pick it up later."
"No - wait. Wait." After Hound had finally peeled himself off the tile, chuckling in that way that Iruka was learning to find singularly ego-crushing, he said, "I have never had anyone do that before. You are going to be an endless source of amusement and interest, I think." He dropped onto the bed, grinning. "Do you want something for your head before we do this?"
Grimly, Iruka said, "No."
"Okay – if that's what you're into, that's fine."
Iruka clarified. "No, we're not doing this. I don't want to do this."
"Is it because I'm a man?" Hound asked intently.
"No –" he said urgently, trying to correct the impression. Realizing what he had said and how he said it, Iruka could have bitten off his own tongue at the lost opportunity. It sounded like that would have given him a way out of this situation. But he had lost it, he raged at himself, because of his own honesty.
"Then why?"
(How could Iruka tell this person that he believed in love? That he wanted to like the person with whom he was to have his first sexual experience, regardless of powerful and attractive they might be. At the very, very least, he wanted to know their name. A name. Not an ANBU animal species.)
"Because – because – I don't know your name. I need a name – even if it's not a real name – not just an ANBU code. It's important to me."
Iruka felt pinned by Hound's steady gaze. "You're a romantic. Why hasn't this life beaten that out of you yet?" Hound sighed, disappointed. "Such a pity. I should have been able to tell, that face of yours forecasts every thought in your head."
Iruka shrugged.
"I can't tell you my name. I really would have to kill you if I told you." Measuringly, Hound said, "I could force you."
A hard nervous lump in Iruka's stomach made itself known. With a confidence he wasn't certain he felt, Iruka replied, "You won't."
Both of Hound's dissimilar eyes, with the same coldness in each, stared at Iruka, as if memorizing him. Abruptly, like cutting a taut string, he told the younger man to "Get out."
Iruka felt relief, he swore he did, the night a week after when Hound came into the ship's galley. Hound looked over each of the chuunin as they tried to pretend they weren't aware of his perusal.
He asked Akio to deliver the meal that evening.
Akio did not return to the galley until much after everyone had eaten.
Then Hound disappeared for the better part of a month. Iruka told himself he was relieved. Certainly, Akio seemed to be.
One evening, they were preparing yet another meal of potatoes. Sure Snow Country had potatoes a-plenty and cheap too, but at this point, Iruka was sick of the sight and smell and taste of them.
Iruka joked, "Once we return to Konoha, I'm going to do nothing but eat ramen. Does Snow Country grow nothing but potatoes?"
Akio smiled, but something seemed to be troubling him. Quietly, so the other chuunin wouldn't hear, he asked Iruka, "Did Hound do anything to you? When he asked you to bring him his food?"
Flushing awkwardly, Iruka said, with a mostly clear conscience, "No."
"Oh. Okay."
"Why? Did he do anything to you?" Iruka queried. (Did he reply back too quickly?)
It was Akio's turn to flush. "No. He asked me if I had any previous partners. I said yes. He asked me to tell him about it. Then he told me to leave. Maybe he was looking for something different?"
They continued to peel potatoes, as if that single task was the only thing that guaranteed their continued presence on this plane of existence.
Finally, Iruka cracked. "Is it true, Akio, that it's a junior's job to, uh, satisfy, uh, physically, their superior officer?"
Akio coughed uncomfortably. "In theory, when a superior officer asks, there is nothing a junior can reject. But in practice, something like that, it can't be asked very often. I don't think it could be good for morale, I think. Without mutual agreement."
"I agree," Iruka said. (Did he concur too heartily?)
Softly, Akio added, "But there's no shame in it. It happens. Mutually." He turned a considering eye upon Iruka. "Why didn't he try anything with you?"
Iruka couldn't answer, only looked at the floor.
"Perhaps you are too young," Akio sighed. "Excuse me for asking, but Iruka, have you ever - ?"
"No –" the younger chuunin gave a quick gasp of pain. He had nicked his own finger with the paring knife. Blood bloomed against the pale flesh of the vegetable. Iruka dropped the potato and stuck the finger in his own mouth.
"Ahh," breathed Akio.
Iruka abruptly stood up and left the room, afraid of what he might see in Akio's face.
Iruka sat on the deck, staring upward at the night sky, entranced. The Northern Lights of Snow Country were beyond anything he had ever imagined. The lights shimmered and flowed through the night in a ghostly green, like illuminated ribbons hanging from the sky. The sailors aboard the ship peered out from time to time, but they were natives and could not be overly bothered with such a mediocre display.
"Beautiful, aren't they?"
"Yes," Iruka turned and smiled, directly into a familiar mask. His smile disappeared. The ANBU Hound had returned.
"People here believe the lights herald a big change in circumstances," Hound noted, off-hand. He shoved his mask up so it sat on his hair, and then leaned back to stare up at the sky.
"One of the sailors told me that when Princess Koyuki Kazahana was born, the Northern Lights were so bright you could read by them, and there were all sorts of colors besides the green. Like a rainbow at night. Not having seen that – I think this is still pretty impressive," Iruka commented.
He heard the sigh whoosh tiredly out of Hound's body. "It won't take a very big display for the whole political situation to come undone and be called prophecy. You any good with kids?"
Iruka nodded. Then, thinking Hound hadn't been able to see him, he answered, "I like kids. Grew up in the orphanage and helped out as I got older."
"Good. We'll probably be leaving shortly."
Iruka mused, "You ever think that the things you do, the missions we take, all these things that we spend all our lives doing – what will it turn out to be? A line, a footnote, or not noticed at all in the course of the history we are changing?"
"We are just tools," Hound said. "It can never be known what will happen at the time we are contracted – and on whose side we will be perceived to be on – that of history or of failure. Besides, most of our jobs won't do anything to change anything. Larger forces than us are at work."
Iruka smiled. "But aren't we also human? Don't we have hearts? Don't we all deserve recognition for our actions, our selves, however small they might be? We all have friends, teachers, comrades – and I just want the people precious to me to know how important they are to me. I would like to think that we create our own history, however insignificant to others – it is significant to me."
Hound sat up and looked at him, thoughtful. "It does no good to be sentimental in our positions. What's your name?"
"Iruka Umino."
In the cold air, Hound's breath became visible, if trying out the name.
"What's yours?"
Iruka could almost sense the smile as the mask was slid back into position.
"Nice try."
Iruka didn't have to look to see that Hound had gone.
The next night, Hound appeared at the dock, wearing nothing but his armor. He was seated behind a dog sled, the sole content was the small, shaken figure of a young girl wrapped in a standard Konoha winter cloak.
Hound virtually threw the girl at Iruka, hollering orders at him and the sailors on board. "Raise anchor and set sail – and hurry! Protect the princess! The castle is burning - the coup has been successful! Do not wait for me! That is an order! GO!"
At Hound's signal, the dogs, winded and wild-eyed, disappeared.
Hound then ran off across the water of the bay to hold off the incoming snow ninja, hands moving incredibly quickly to form seals.
The sailors and ninjas went into action. Some jounin and chuunin cast protective jutsu over the ship, while others raised the wind to fill the sails. As Iruka escorted the girl below deck, he felt a surge nearly throw him off his feet. He looked out a porthole and saw a tremendous wave rise from the water between the boat and the snow ninjas. The wave grew larger and larger, roaring, and then deluged the motorized vehicles the snow ninjas were riding, swamping them, flinging them helplessly into the freezing water. As the ship pulled away, Iruka lost sight of Hound.
Snow Country had fallen. The only remnant of its loss was a ten-year-old girl crying for her father in a private room on a ship sailing for Fire Country.
Once safely out at sea, Iruka wondered aloud what happened to the ANBU.
Yashiro shrugged. "Hound probably went back to get Koi. If those snow ninjas got a hold of a Konoha ANBU – dead or alive – there'll be hell to pay."
As the months went by, the Princess Koyuki Kazahana was renamed Yukie Fujikaze. She had been fostered by a kindly couple, retired shinobi whose latter careers were in foreign service.
Iruka visited her from time to time, trying to help her transition into a different role than the one she would have expected. He could tell that she was beginning to adjust. When first he had met her, she had alternated between jags of tears and frozen disbelief. Now, she went longer and long periods before her grief overwhelmed her. The wife of the couple was hopeful. She had told Iruka that Yukie was starting to become interested in going to school and might even audition for the school play.
After his visits, Iruka would make the journey to the hero's cenotaph, noting changes as they happened. Additions were made fairly quickly after death was confirmed – and yet he couldn't bring himself to believe any of the new names were the ANBU Hound. There was a special spot on the monument that listed only dates, for shinobi whose identities could not be revealed due to the clandestine nature of their missions. Iruka's eyes always lingered there. Nothing had been added since he had returned from Snow Country.
Maybe it was just stubbornness on his part, an inability to accept the death of this one particular person. Even though Iruka had only known Hound for a very short period of time, he felt their brief, human contact was important. For even though Hound had not been in actual fact Iruka's first lover, the mark had already been made.
Iruka knew the firm pressure of the ANBU's calloused hands on his naked hips, the cavalier way Hound seemed to regard Iruka as a vessel for his own pleasure. Iruka also remembered the way the ANBU's chest heaved with laughter (at him!), the gentle, almost hesitant way the Hound had kissed him – lips soft and dry, done and gone almost before the impression was made. (His first kiss.) The way Hound nuzzled him. (His first seduction.) And at night, when Iruka could no longer summon anger or shame or jealousy, he could still see the elegant lines of Hound's body and the beauty of the face beneath the mask. And those eyes – the dangerous left red swirling eye, and then the right eye, that could turn from black ice to molten silver. (He could not forget those eyes.)
It seemed so strange to Iruka that he could know these things and still not even have a name that could claim these thoughts.
And then, one morning at the memorial, Iruka found someone else there. A silver-haired person in standard issue shinobi clothing, staring hard at the location of Iruka's parents' names.
As if sensing his presence, the person turned.
Iruka noted the eye covered by the hitae-ate, the mask covering the lower half of the face. But that wasn't what made him start to shake. It was the single eye staring back at him, the eye that he had dreamed about, the eye he had thought was eternally missing, lightening at the sight of him, like a flare thrown upon pewter, or the dawn breaking over sea ice.
"Iruka Umino?"
Iruka nodded, his breathing suddenly erratic.
"Kakashi Hatake."
"Kakashi? How – how nice to see you," Iruka managed, and then reached forward to grasp Kakashi's hand with both of his.
A/N –
Much gratitude toward the scanlators of "Hatakoi Ken" - arigotoma, yaburetayume, awickedmemory, sekomako, don_amoeba.
Story based off the doujinshi and the movie Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow. Leaning towards the doujinshi in cases of conflict.
While I love the doujinshi, I am annoyed that Kawana Mario did not give anyone a name in this – which is fine in art, but it is frickin' hard to do with text only! So I made that problem of mine into a theme (names and identity).
Thought about "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" while writing this, even though I haven't read it in a million years. Also, "To His Coy Mistress" – especially the line "vaster than empires, and more slow" and the phrase "vegetable love" which I have always found odd.