Confessions, Blessings And Threats

There was an ominous silence in the room, suffocating Iruka. Naruto's face was, for the first time since he'd had known the boy (nearly a full-grown man), unreadable and stone-faced. Even his normally shining blue eyes were unreadable, like two frozen oceans, and Iruka could only make up little traces of emotions and feelings beneath, but couldn't determine which ones those were exactly.

Kakashi was kneeling next to him, head down and not looking Naruto in the eye. Iruka could see Kakashi's right little finger twitch twice almost imperceptibly, a sing of high discomfort and restlessness that Kakashi hadn't been able to overcome even throughout his years as an ANBU. Usually, Iruka would have lightly teased him about it, but his throat was dry and now was not the time.

"Iruka-sensei," Naruto suddenly said, looking at him and making Iruka nearly jump from his seat. The only thing still keeping him seated were his years of being a ninja. But even with all that experience, Iruka still couldn't read his expression. "When were you thinking of telling me this?"

Iruka flinched, then swallowed heavily. When had Naruto become so good at being unreadable? "Originally, I wanted to tell you straight when you came back."

"But you didn't," Naruto stated calmly, stating the facts (but Iruka swore he could hear an underlying current of accusation) and watching Iruka squirm.

"No, I didn't," Iruka conceded, gulping again.

"Why?" Naruto asked.

"You were busy with Sasuke and the Akatsuki," Iruka said. "I didn't want to distract you."

Naruto's eyes showed some kind of emotion or feeling, probably deep-rooted sadness and regret. It was what Naruto's eyes always shone with whenever somebody brought up the word 'Sasuke', especially now when the last Uchiha's death was still so tightly ingrained into his ex-student's mind.

However, after a split-second, his eyes were icy again, cool. Iruka didn't like how half-dead they seemed. "That's already weeks ago."

Iruka bit his lip. "I—We didn't know how to tell you."

Naruto's head tilted to the side, his eyes scrutinizing Iruka with his emotionless eyes. "Why are you asking me in the first place? You could have just gotten together right away and told the whole village that you were a couple. My blessing doesn't matter if you two want to truly be together, Iruka-sensei."

Iruka clamped down on the urge to tell Naruto that, technically, he wasn't his teacher anymore. "Because I told Kakashi that if he wanted to truly go out with me and be a couple, he would have to have your blessing."

"Why?"

"Because," Iruka said, his throat tightening. "You are one of my most precious people, and your blessing matters to me. It matters to Kakashi, too, because you're also one of his most precious people. Your opinion, your blessing to our relationship would mean a lot to me, to us."

For a moment, Naruto's eyes flashed so brightly again that they nearly seemed like two spheres blue lightning, but Iruka couldn't tell what Naruto was feeling, because as soon as he saw it, they were frozen over again.

Naruto looked at him for a long moment before straightening his spine. "Does Kakashi-sensei make you happy, Iruka-sensei?"

"Yes," Iruka-sensei said quietly. "Very happy."

Naruto looked at Kakashi almost coldly. "Kakashi-sensei, do you love Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka spluttered in embarrassment, but Kakashi only lifted his head, looking Naruto in the eye. "Yes. Please allow us to be together."

And suddenly, the tension was broken when Naruto sighed. "I'm going to be honest here: I don't really know how to react to the statement that two of my teachers are together in a relationship and that you guys haven't told me. However, if you two love each other, who am I to stop that?"

"So you're giving your blessing? You're alright with it?" Iruka said excitedly.

Naruto frowned. "I never said that I will give my blessing, or that I'm alright with it."

Iruka felt the world break around him for a moment before Naruto lifted up his forefinger to non-verbally tell him to wait. "But I will recognize that you two love each other-" Iruka blushed, embarrassed. "And if you make each other happy, then I won't mind it."

"So you approve?" Iruka asked timidly.

"Yes," Naruto said, sighing. "But only as long as you are in love with each other and make each other happy. That reminds me..."

Iruka could hear Kakashi gulp loudly.

Naruto looked at Kakashi, his blue eyes flashing in a silent warning. "If you ever make Iruka-sensei cry, or hurt him in any way, because of something you did, I will kill you. Actually, no, scratch that—I will torture you. I will burn every single perverted, dirty little book that you have right in front of your face and then cut off your balls and dick. Slowly. Then I will skin you alive, set your muscles on fire and then rub in the ashes of your little beloved books."

Naruto smiled happily. "You get the general picture, don't you, Ka-Ka-Shi-Sen-Sei?" Naruto said in a sing-song voice, sounding cheerful. "Are we clear?"

Iruka had visibly paled throughout the whole time Naruto talked, but Kakashi resembled a sheet of freshly made paper compared to him. "Crystal clear."

"Then you have my approval," Naruto said boringly, waving a hand to the general direction of the door. "Come on. I want some ramen, what about you guys?"

Naruto didn't even wait for an answer before he walked out of the tent (even with the help of Yamato and his Mokuton jutsus, the village was only slowly regenerating), assuming that Kakashi and Iruka would automatically follow. Iruka was alrady starting to stand up when he noticed that Kakashi wasn't.

"Kakashi?" Iruka asked worriedly. "Are you alright?"

"No, Iruka," Kakashi said shakily. "Didn't you hear what he would do to my books?!"

Naruto smirked widely as he heard Kakashi-sensei scream before he saw his silver-haired Jōnin teacher run past him, dodging well-aimed kunai and shuriken from his old Chūnin teacher.

He smiled widely as he turned back to Shikamaru. "You were saying?"

"...You knew they were together from the start, didn't you?" Shikamaru muttered, eying Kakashi as the poor man screamed apologies and confessions of love behind his shoulder, barely missing three kunai aimed at his head.

"Yep!" Naruto exclaimed happily.

"You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"

"Yep!"

"...Remind me to never piss you off."

"Nope!" Naruto said happily, smiling. "Where would be the fun in that?"

"...Has anyone ever told you that you can be incredibly cruel?"

"Only to those who deserve it."

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "...And Kakashi deserves that?"

"Yep, he does," Naruto frowned for a moment before smiling again. "I traveled around the nations with a guy who was one of the best spies in Konoha's history; Kakashi should know better than to underestimate that."

Shikamaru frowned. "Your logic makes no sense, Naruto."

"Perhaps," Naruto conceded, shrugging as he turned to watch Kakashi barely dodge a Fire Release technique of Iruka. "But my logic certainly makes good entertainment, don't you think?"

Shikamaru decided to let the matter drop after Kakashi was hit in the balls with a Earth Release technique, making a note to really not underestimate Naruto ever again in his life (not that he thought of doing that in the first place after everything that happened, but just in case).

What was it they always say? Oh yeah, look 'underneath the underneath'.

–.-.-.-.-

Author Note:

The new year didn't like me very much -.- Seriously, my computer lost all of my Word Documents in January, and lost all new Word Documents that I had started again last month. Ugh.

Anyway, I tried to bring in a little bit of humor at the end. I don't know if that came out alright. I'm not really made to write humorous things unless it's sarcasm, and even then I can't do it on purpose. Argh! Tell me what you think and if it made you laugh/smile/smirk please!

Also, if I haven't explained this well enough I'll say it here more clearly: basically, Iruka and Kakashi got together while Naruto was away. However, because Iruka sees Naruto as family (a little brother/son), he told Kakashi that if he wanted to seriously date and 'court' him, he would have to have Naruto's blessing because it meant much to Iruka. And Kakashi, seeing that Naruto was also some kind of family to him, agreed. So the story begins shortly after Iruka confesses his romantic relationship with Kakashi. And being Naruto, fiercely loyal and protective of his precious people, isn't too happy about it because he's seen what love can do to a person (Sakura, himself, Utakata, to name a few), and that's why he isn't too keen on approving of their relationship, because he doesn't want either to be hurt.

I'm thinking about writing a second chapter to this, but I'll leave it as 'complete' for the moment, so that if I'm not actually doing it I can leave it as it is. However, it really depends on what you guys think of it and if I should do one more chapter, possibly even more. Any ideas or requests? I can consider them :)

Thanks for reading, please review because they make me happy :)