Summary: Ibiki's headache-inducing day doing paperwork down in the darkness of ANBU HQ is... brightened... by someone reminding him it's Valentine's Day.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, neither the characters nor the Naruto-verse, nor the franchise. Neither do I own the poem at the end. I don't make any money from this.
Happy Valentine
Ibiki rubbed his temples, trying to massage away the oncoming headache. His desk was covered in tons of paperwork; intelligence reports, requests, bills, office memos, just about anything and everything under the sun. He supposed it was partly his fault – if he didn't seem so intimidating and unapproachable, people might be more inclined to give him an oral report instead of leaving yet another message on his already overly cluttered desk.
Then again, he very much disliked idle chatter, so maybe it was better this way. Still, he could do without the headache.
Two hours and twenty-four minutes later, he had made a sizable dent into his paperwork, and his headache was still bearable. He counted that as a success. Then, however, he heard the door to this floor deep inside ANBU HQ slam open, intensifying his headache nearly instantly. Not because of the noise, but because there was only one person who announced their arrival like this: Anko Mitarashi. He nearly groaned. What did she want now?
He mentally tracked her very unstealthy footsteps, more like foot-stomps, and still hoped that she was going to target someone – anyone – else on this floor. But when she... opened the door to his office in the same overly exuberant manner she had used with the one to this hallway, he knew it had been too much to hope.
Ibiki deliberately didn't look up from yet another request for more stationery from one of the idiots at the front desk. He knew that ignoring her was one of the worst things he could do if he wanted to get rid of her within a timely fashion, but he felt a bit petulant.
However, his tactic was less than efficient when she didn't even wait until the door bounced back from where it had slammed into the wall – yet another bit of plaster raining down onto his puke-green carpet – before thrusting her hand at him and yelling: "Happy Valentine's Day!"
Ibiki's headache definitely took offense to that. Ibiki, following the example of his headache, was quite inclined to do the same.
He capped his pen, set it aside meticulously, and then leaned forward in his chair, bracing both his elbows on his desk. Only then did he look up to her manic grin. "What do you want, Anko?"
"Happy Valentine's Day!" she repeated and waved the hand she had thrust out at him in front of his face. She was holding a... well, a bouquet would perhaps be the best expression, even if it was quite the unconventional one.
He stared at it – brown bulbs with earthy roots sticking into the air, flopping around limply and held together upside-down by the greens clenched in her hand – and then stared at her. "You are giving me onions," he commented deceptively nonchalantly.
"Nope," she grinned, an insane light gleaming in her eyes. "It is a moon wrapped in brown paper; its fierce kiss will stay on your lips! Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring, if you like, and its scent clings to your fingers, clings to your knife!"
Ibiki didn't even blink. "Is this your idea of valentine poetry?"
Anko pouted, the hand with the bouquet of onions lowering slightly. "Why, you don't like it?"
"It is... unconventional."
Once again she grinned brightly. "Well, so are you!"
Ibiki still didn't blink. "What do you want, Anko?" he repeated his initial question.
She only smirked and set down the onion bouquet on top of one of Ibiki's remaining piles of paperwork. The onions flopped around limply, and if their greens hadn't been tied together, they probably would have rolled off his desk in different directions. Dry earth that had formerly been caught between the roots, now crumbled onto his files in a fine dusting of dirt.
There was no way that his expression didn't convey his displeasure, but Anko ignored it happily as she turned around and marched out of his office with a sloppy wave over her shoulder. "I'll be expecting something good for White Day! Ta ta!"
Then she was gone as quickly as she had come, once again slamming the door of the hallway behind her. A bit more plaster rained down onto Ibiki's puke-green carpeting, a bit more earth rained down onto Ibiki's paperwork. Ibiki's headache spiked.
He massaged his temples. Well, at least he now had the makings for some onion soup for dinner.
A/N: Spawned by yet another writing meme. The prompt was this poem by Carol Ann Duffy:
Valentine Onion
Valentine
Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.